Quick and Easy Rice Milk

Hi Everyone!

Thought I might share with you how I make very quick, easy, and inexpensive rice milk.  I LOVE this rice milk, primarily because it IS quick, easy, and inexpensive!  Of course, then there is the added benefit of knowing I am not feeding my family unhealthy additives.  And my recipe is SO easy to remember, since it only has two items.  #1. Brown Rice, #2. Water.  There--I told you it was easy! 

First you need to cook your rice. I usually make a double batch when I make this up, since we use it every single day on our cereal for breakfast.  But for a regular batch, you will bring 1 cup water to boil, then add 1/3 cup brown rice.  Turn down to a simmer, and let cook for 40 minutes.  If you want to end up with a larger amount of milk, just double the amounts.

When your rice is cooked, place it in your blender.  You will now need 4 cups of warm water.  I just stick mine in the microwave for a couple minutes.  Make SURE your rice and water are both warm when you are making this.  If you cannot make it up while the rice is still warm from cooking, warm your rice up before you do blend it when you come back to it later.

Anyway, place your rice in your blender, and add half of your 4 cups of warm water.  Blend on high for three minutes.  Then add in the remaining 2 cups of water, and blend briefly just to mix it in.

 Next you need to strain your milk.  I have a mesh strainer that fits in the top of my pitcher.  Works great--I just start slowly pouring the milk through the strainer.  After a while I do need to start stirring so it will all strain through.

 You will be left with just a tiny smidgen of chopped up brown rice that is too large to go through the strainer.  When all gathered up, it fits on my stirring spoon, so I throw this into my compost bag without guilt.  If you want to use it up in a casserole or something you are making, go ahead.  This picture above shows from a single batch of rice milk.  Basically, it makes four cups plus a little over.

This picture shows what I have from a double batch of the recipe.  At this point, you are almost done but not quite.  Let the milk sit for 30 minutes.  During this time, heavier rice particles will pool on the bottom of your pitcher.  After it sits for 30 minutes, I simply pour off the top milk slowly into another pitcher, leaving around the bottom inch which is thick and sludgy and I throw it away.  No, I don't feel guilty.  If I am needing rice milk for a recipe I am making, I will use it.  But if I only want milk at that time for cereal, it's too thick for cereal use.  If you want to sweeten your milk with something--sugar, honey, maple syrup, agave nectar--now is the time.  I have tried this, and honestly, my family pretty much cannot tell the difference if I have sweetened the milk or not.  So why bother?  You can also add vanilla flavor if you want to.  Again, I tried it, but my kids use the milk and never even notice if it has vanilla flavor in it or not.

So that's it--just chill in the fridge and use.  I will say, in my opinion this milk is best for cooking or using over cereals.  I do not personally just drink it straight as a drink. If I want that, I will make up a batch of home made soy milk which is much richer tasting (soy beans have quite a high natural amount of fat in them).  But for our every day use, this rice milk is my favorite.  Hope you like it too!

~Susan

Happy Sabbath!

Happy Sabbath Everyone!

I know I have been quiet this past week.  Just too busy--as always!  But couldn't let the coming of Sabbath arrive without wishing all of you a wonderful and blessed "Happy Sabbath!"

Ran across this picture of our college campus today--I love this picture.  Love how it shows the school surrounded by the hills.  God's school.  God's hills.

Can't help but remind me of these verses:

I will lift up mine eyes unto the hills, from whence cometh my help.  My help cometh from the Lord, which made heaven and earth.  Palm 121:1,2

So often, our eyes are on what is before us.  What is in our hand.  The road at our foot.  And that is good--most of the time.  We do need to pay attention to the task at hand.  But every now and then, it does us good to lift up our eyes, and remember where our help comes.  Our help comes from the Lord--Maker of Heaven and Earth!

~Susan

The Frugal Home Schooler--Free All About the Presidents study!

Hi Everyone!

I am assuming you all caught this freebie already, as it was listed on the same page/link that I featured Friday, but just in case you didn't--there are TWO free president type unit studies on this page.  The one I talked about Friday was a general study, where your child can choose any president that they want to and use the study to help research and learn about that particular president.  Today, I am pointing out at the same link, a free unit study on the presidents--more specifically, what the office of the president is like.  There are TONS of information here, and I know you will never get through it all--but just thought I would point it out so you could use whatever you wanted to out of it.

Happy gleaning--and remember to share with me any of YOUR favorite freebies!  Free is for me--right size, right color, always fits!  :)

~Susan

http://www.thehomeschoolmom.com/newsletter/president-unit-study.php#sthash.R8KICNKP.TR8UnjSD.dpbs

The Frugal Home Schooler--Free President Report!

Hi Everyone!

I hope you have enjoyed the couple of free Valentine's Day items I was able to share with you! :)  You know how it is--when it rains, it pours!  That is how I feel about the freebie I am going to share with you today.  No sooner does Valentine's Day end, when President's Day is sneaking up on us!  

This is not my own work, so I cannot include it here on my blog.  But I CAN send you over to the site where it appears! :)  So--if you are interested in a FREE (always my price!) president report, one that your child can use to assist them in researching ANY president of their choice, follow the link below to find it! 

And if you have a free home schooling resource that you have enjoyed, please share it with me in the comments below.  I LOVE free!

~Susan

http://www.thehomeschoolmom.com/schoolroom/unit_studies/presidents-unit-study.php#sthash.EqiVeRZy.dpbs

Happy Valentine's Day!

This is one of the best Valentine's cards I have ever seen.  It goes around Facebook land each year, but I think is worth sharing.  Our value does not come from candy or flowers or even having a special sweetheart.  Our value comes from God, who created us in the first place, and then redeemed us from sin.  We are His--twice.  And He loved us so much, He spread out His arms and died taking our place.

Happy Valentine's Day!

Susan

The Frugal Home Schooler--Free Words of Love from the Bible copywork!

Hi Everyone!

Keeping in my Valentine's train of thoughts, I thought I would share with you today one of my FAVORITE freebies for Valentine's Day!  It is a nice collection of free Bible copy work on the topic of Love, from Amanda Bennett.  If you have never heard of Amanda Bennett, it's about time you did if you are a home schooler!  Amanda creates the BEST unit studies in the world.  In my humble opinion, that is!  Back in the dark ages, before everyone was connected by the internet, when I FIRST started home schooling our son, Amanda actually published BOOKS with her unit studies in them.  I know.  Hard to imagine.  Yes, books.  You know, those things with numerous pages in them, all collected together and held in place by a front and back cover.  Books!  ;)  Well, I liked her unit studies back then  (and I STILL have some of them--do you think they will become collector's items???), but I LOVE her unit studies now!  She has switched to unit study downloads, instead of paper books, but the NEAT thing is that the studies are now filled with embedded links.  This morning my daughter was working on one of Amanda's studies on the country of Mexico, and we were watching videos of Mexican dancers, videos of flying over the landscape, etc.  Just really, really neat!  

ANYWAY, so if you are interested, when you are over at the web site check out all of Amanda's unit studies.  But our featured item for today is some free Valentine's Copywork she made up just for us home schoolers.  Because she loves us! :)  There are several really nice Bible verses, arranged for hand writing for both younger students, as well as older kids.  There are also a couple of nice coloring sheets, for those who enjoy coloring.  This link will take you to Amanda's "Specials" page, and if you scroll down near the bottom you will fine the link to click to down load this copywork for free.  Did you catch that?  FREE.  A home schooler's favorite budget amount!

Now, Amanda changes what she features on her "Specials" page all the time, so if you want this, go down load it NOW, even if you do not think you will use it this year.  You can always store it on your computer for use next school year. . . 

And just in case you are wondering, no, I do not work for Amanda Bennett.  I am not even being sponsored with any free product in my recommending her unit studies to you (I wish!).  I just honestly love her things, and wanted to share her Valentine's free copywork with all of you!  

And if you have any free home schooling item that you would like to share with me, tell me about it in the comments.  I LOVE free! :)

~Susan

http://www.unitstudy.com/Specials.html

The Frugal Home Schooler--Free Bible Valentines!

Hi Everyone!

Sorry I haven't written much lately.  It's NOT that I don't have much to say--it's that I am simply too busy to stop long enough and say it! ;)  Hopefully I can change that and become a bit more organized with my posting.  Someday.  Maybe!

ANYWAY, with Valentine's Day coming at us pretty quick here, I thought someone else may enjoy this fun little freebie that I found on pinterest.  This is not original with me--I just ran across it and thought I would share.  I'm sure there is a better way to get a picture that is not fuzzy, but I don't know how and do not have time just now to figure it out.  So hopefully the fuzzy picture above can help you know if these Bible Valentine's are something your child would be interested in.  If so, the link for where you can print them out is here:

http://www.childrens-ministry-deals.com/blogs/news/7304224-free-bible-verse-valentine



Sure hope this works!

There is just the one sheet of designs.  You can print them out the way they are, cut them apart, and your child can write names on the back.  Or, you can cut them apart and use them to decorate larger cards that you make yourself.  Either way, they are fun! :)

Hope you enjoy!

~Susan

The Books of the Old Testament song

Hi Everyone!

Sorry it has taken me a while to get back on this topic, but I did want to share with you some of the resources that we used for my daughter learning the books of the Bible in order.  Since I last posted the video of her singing the Old Testament books, she has learned the New Testament books as well, and I will frequently have her sing them to me at the beginning of our home school Bible class.  For a while I was having her sing them every day, but recently I have just been asking her a couple times a week.  I don't want her to forget them, so I need to remember myself to keep asking her to sing them!

It is amazing how much easier memorizing is when you can put whatever you are working on to music.  Since I am not very musically talented myself, I needed to search out other people who were!  Fortunately, with the help of the internet, that is not so difficult these days!

I spent some time searching for a Books of the Bible song to use, and lots of them had a more rocky beat to the music than I liked.  But I finally found this gal who I loved!  So happy she decided to share her talents on YouTube with the rest of us!  For some reason, I was not able to embed her video here on my blog--but here is a link that will take you to her song on the Old Testament.  Will post the New Testament song soon!

~Susan

http://youtu.be/BF7YPy4-OTY

In My Heart there Rings a Melody

Happy Sabbath!

You know how sometimes you just get this memory of a song from way back, and it just comes bubbling up to the surface?  Well that is what happened to me this past week.  I have no idea what made me start thinking of this song, as I haven't been anywhere where they were singing this song for probably years.  But once it flitted across my mind, it couldn't help but start spilling out.  It was the song "In My Heart there Rings a Melody."  Are you familiar with it?  Just in case you aren't, I have included a link that should take you to a site where you can not only read the words, but it can also play the song to listen to it--AND even print out the sheet music if you are musically gifted and can play music!

Such a simple song, but such a deep message.

"I have a song that Jesus gave me
it was sent from heaven above
There never was a sweeter melody
Tis the melody of love. . . "

It makes me wonder.

All that Jesus has given to me--I have nothing worthy to give back to Him.

But He doesn't want a gift from me.  He wants my heart.

Yet even my heart is ugly with sin.  Who would want a gift like that?

Amazingly, He would.

And He moves right in.

And grabs the broom.

And starts cleaning.

And when He is done-

All you can see is Him.

And it sparkles.

~Susan


http://www.hymnary.org/text/i_have_a_song_that_jesus_gave_me