Camping Foods - make ahead meals to take with you on the road.

So, I started this post about 4 months ago...

Not my fault though, because I finished it and it was glorious and then the internet ate it and did not give it back. I will try again, because it was just that good and you deserve this in your life. Plus, I haven't done a food post in a while.

A few months back I polled fb for my friends favorite camping meals.
Okay back up a few steps, a several months more back we decided to buy a travel trailer. We shopped around and started looking at used pop-up campers >>> which turned into new pop-ups>>>which turned into used travel trailers 30 feet or less and used 5th wheels>>>which turned into new travel trailers>>>which turned into a 37 foot bunkhouse with three sinks, two refrigerators, and air conditioning. FOR TWO OF US! When we do things we go big and ridiculous. 

Say hello to Winona...she is glorious and ridiculous, but mostly glorious.

Okay, back to food. One meal I decided on was zucchini enchiladas. Yep. No/low carb enchiladas and I swear you won't even miss the tortilla.

Directions included. If you miss something scroll down.

Now that we live in the Chicagoland area and are close to the countries third largest city, we have access to amazing food both made for us and for us to make ourselves. A few miles from the house we have a tienda that has not only the most amazing tiny restaurant, but you can buy the product and bring it home and make it yourself. Since I am a veg, I will have to take Mark's word for it that the al pastor and the marinated skirt steak are out of this world.

For my enchiladas I cut up a few portobello mushrooms and seasoned those just like I did the meat.

If you have ever seen me cook I am not really a measurer. I make a semi effort, but I generally am a taster and adjuster because of being a taster.

Preheat oven to 350 (unless you are making these to freeze and cook later).

Start by dicing up your onion & garlic and sauteing those little tasty bastards until they get to know each other really well.

Now add in the cumin & chili powder...ummm smells divine! 

Look how happy they all get to be together!

Prep filling. In a separate pan cook filling (if needed - since I was doing one veg and two non they all got there own pans).

 

While all of the goods are cooking prep your zucchini. I sliced mine on a mandolin, but you could use a good veggie slicer too...just don't mandolin your hands!!!! 

Mix filling with spices, onions, & garlic.

 

Now you can add cilantro here if you want....uuuummmmm cilantro. Add in half of your red or green enchilada sauce to the filling and simmer while you lay out about three zucchini slices parallel to each other. Next fill with a spoonful of you filling and don't worry about them being perfect, they will soon be covered in more sauce and cheese and no one will ever know.

 

Roll up and place into a baking dish. Repeat until you run out of everything. I had a little left over filling so I just dumped it on the top and then covered it with the cheese and additional enchilada sauce. 

 

Put these beauties into the oven and let them cook for about 20-25 minutes until the cheese is all melted and bubbly and yummy.
Serve & garnish with sour cream & cilantro or whatever makes your heart sing at that moment. 

These are seriously amazing and you are going to love them whether you eat the right away or freeze and take for later.

SSSOOOOOOO GOOOOOODDDD now I want enchiladas....

Black soap for a better clean? You betcha!

Activated charcoal & bentonite clay soap - a natural way to get the grime out.

Charcoal has been used for centuries from the ancient Egyptians that used it as a wound poultice to water filtration by the Hindus. It seems contrary that using charcoal and clay can help get you clean, but both have amazing properties that you can take advantage of daily.

These amazing benefits are exactly why we use this combo in our clay ninja soap. All of our castile soaps have the exact same base...olive oil, coconut oil, canola oil, distilled water, lye, & stearic acid.  That's it. After that we may add in herbs or in this case clay & charcoal, essential oils, or fragrance oils. Done.

These soaps are amazing. They moisturize, they clean, they rinse clean with no residue, they make your skin happy, and don't do nasty things to the environment. 

Making soap is so cool...

If you have never tried a charcoal soap, maybe it is time that you did. You can find our clay ninja in our castile soap collection on our website here!

Why castile soap?

Going back to the beginnings again.

Lately I have been talking about the evolution of our company and how we came to be. Yep it all started with the laundry detergent, it then evolved into not wanting to pay high store prices for natural soaps. 

So soaping commenced (am I the only one that thinks the word commenced should mean end instead of begin? Like prohibit. Pro=for, so why does prohibit mean no?).

We started small since it was just for us. We used bread pans for molds or whatever we could find and we lost sooooooo much essential oil by burning it off because we had no idea oils have flash points and when you exceed these you basically cook off the oils. :( 

Years later we still follow the basic recipe we started with. Why? Because it is awesome and it does everything you want a soap to do - it lathers, smells good (or not if you like unscented), it rinses clean, it moisturizes, and it makes you happy (well, hopefully it makes you happy).

I ask you, what more could you want from your soap?

When soap is almost soap.

Ugly soap?
We refer to our soap as ugly soap. We make a hot process soap which is freaking amazing in so many ways, but it is less easy to make those gorgeous soaps you see in shops and markets (these are almost always cold process soap - we can discuss later). 
We are actually in the process of changing our soap molds to ones that will allow of to make bars faster and this will change the look slightly, but not too much. 

Soaps in our current 3.5oz molds.

I always equate our soap to a gorgeous plated fancy meal...the presentation is amazing, but you are still gonna chew it up. Our soap is the same...it may not be the most handsome man on the block, but it still does what soap is supposed to do.

One day when I am feeling ambitious I will post more about making the soap, but for today I will keep it short and sweet. If you want to know more about our soaps (or other products) send us a message. If you would like to shop our soap and other goodies you can click here to get to our website.

For now I will leave you with images of a few of our soaps...

1969 is sweet orange, clove, lavender, & patchouli.

Groves & cloves is sweet orange & clove.

Right on has oats, brown sugar and is scented with oak barrel cider & pumpkin. 

Orange crush is sweet orange & lemon and filled with crushed walnut shells for lots of exfoliation (lots of exfoliation - do NOT over exfoliate!!!).

Brief musings on laundry detergent & why commercial detergents suck.

Now we get to talk about laundry detergent.

Say what? What's wrong with my laundry detergent?

In short, everything is wrong with your commercial laundry detergent.
Going back to why we started our company it was laundry detergent. Skin is our largest organ. It absorbs stuff into your bloodstream and frequently people don't even consider that the detergent and/or fabric softener is full of all sorts of crap that your skin sucks in. The other factor we often don't even consider is what happens to the water that gets washed down the drain? That water is full of all the stuff in the detergent, the softener, and all of the stuff you are washing out of your clothes. Have you ever thought about what all of that does to the environment? 

We didn't either until...well, until we did. And then the questions began. Then research. Then the actual making.  That was at least six (6) years ago and we have never looked back.

So, have you ever looked at the ingredients on your laundry soap, wait you can't. They aren't printed on the packaging. You actually have to go search it out on the company website and look through the MSDS (material safety data sheets) sheets. 
What? STOP ALL THIS INSANITY! 
As I was doing some additional research for this post I pulled up ingredient lists to the most popular laundry detergent, as well as, several 'natural' brands and that one detergent all new parents use (SLS really). I thought about linking to them, but you know what I don't want to give them any extra traffic.

What the hell are those words. What do they do. Why do you need them? Ugh. I could go on. You know what? They are filled with so much junk. Junk you don't need. Junk fishies and froggies don't need either. 

Here are just a few of the ingredients listed and what they say they do:
      Ingredient:                                      What they say it does:

• ethanol                                         process aid
• alcohol sulfate                              surfractant
• linear alkylbenzene sulfonate       surfractant
• sodium laureth sulfate                  surfractant
• silicone                                         suds supressant
• polyethylene glycol 4000              process aid

And sooooo many more.
WHY???
Earlier I mentioned this is pretty much why we started this journey. While over the years we have dabbled with several versions of laundry detergent, but in the most simple, the most pure, our detergent has just three (3) ingredients:

1. sodium carbonate
2. sodium borate
3. castile soap (our unscented plain jane soap)

And guess what? It works! Join the revolution and free yourself from all that extra stuff you just don't need!!!

You can find it here.

We are always happy to customize size and do much larger orders. Our product is all natural and safe for HE washers and people and fur babies too...


If you have questions, please feel free to reach out to us.
 

What are you doing to your hair? Stop with the shampoo!

A facebook post got me thinking...

The post was about how frequently people wash their hair, something most people don't give much thought to right?

You should. You really should. 
This post will be about shampoo, but I will also talk about all the other crap in future posts.

Washing you hair is something we just do...right? But why? For millennium there was no shampoo and people seemed to do just fine. Yes I know there were funny wigs and powdered hair, but most people simply just didn't wash their hair with any regularity if ever. When did it change? Most likely around the turn of the century when basic hygiene was made a priority by people trying to sell you stuff lol. It wasn't until about the 1960s that what we know as shampoo came to market and really into the 70s before people really went bananas over the idea of washing their hair all the damn time.
 
Before we started using shampoos that strip all of the natural oils from our hair and scalp there was no need to wash frequently. Our bodies are amazing and they really do give us what we need and this includes our hair and scalp. Have you ever considered that your hair feels greasy because you strip away all of the good stuff our bodies make naturally and your sebaceous glands got into hyper drive to replace what is lost?

Your scalp being part of your skin (which is your largest organ) absorbs stuff into your body. Have you looked at what is in your shampoo? Can you pronounce all the ingredients? What do they do when you suck them into your body? Of course there are some really natural and pure shampoos out there, but most are pricey and not within the average persons budget. Have you ever thought that if you use a decent natural soap (Hey, I know where you can get some amazing soap...because we make amazing soap. You can shop bad hippies here and yes this is a shameless plug.)  you can use that too. Just lather that bar right onto your head. Most shampoo bars sold in specialty stores are basically just soap bars relabeled. 

1969 castile soap is made from olive oil, coconut oil, canola oil, stearic acid, distilled water, lye, & sweet orange, clove, lavender, & patchouli essential oils. This could easily be used as a shampoo bar!

These are just some things to think about. We need to keep asking questions. Researching. Ultimately we need to just be informed. Read labels and think about what those ingredients will do to you, your kids, your fur babies with continued use for days, months, years, even decades.

I promise if you met me in person you would never know it has been years since I 'washed' my hair...

What do you think??? I know ridiculous selfies...but taking pictures of brown hair is hard lol.

Want more info?
Check out this awesome blog from urbanMamas about this exact topic and how they broke free from shampoo as well.

From heathen to hippie...

One of the questions we get on a regular basis...bad hippies? There is no such thing.
While I agree I will explain.
For me I consider myself an 80/20 hippie. Okay, what the hell does that mean? 80% of the time I do my best to be the best steward to myself, those around me, & mother earth. I use our all natural bad hippies products, recycle, reuse (you should see the garage - I may need an intervention), I am a vegetarian and eat mostly vegan. I try to be aware of the products that I use and how they can be processed by my body, but also what happens when you use them or wash them down the drain.

This is basically how we birthed the idea for bad hippies, but more on that in another post.

When I was younger, being a child of the 80s and 90s, everything was excess. Big Macs can in Styrofoam, there was no such thing as bulk sizes, and you would run out of toilet paper in three uses. As I grew and got mildly wiser I started to question some of these practices. Can this planet sustain them...do turtles really enjoy eating plastic bags? The answer is nope, not even a little bit.

So the hippies came to be several years back in the living room on Candela Lane in Clay, NY.

I digress...so what is the 20%?
As many of you know I am the owner of two businesses, bad hippies being one and I am also an independent consultant for Rodan + Fields which is a premium skincare company. I love the product, the company, and all of the amazing people that are part of my team. It is working, but only kind of because when you have passion it isn't hard to sell what you love. So if you are interested in learning more about the product or business give me a shout (<<<<<shameless plug!). So I use quality and effective skincare that is part of my 20%. I also color my hair. And I have zero time to mess with henna. I also am currently using conventional toothpaste...shhhhh. 

The more I look around the more I realize how people choose not to see.
Whatever you choose to do in life or products you choose to use just be informed. Know what is in them, where them come from, how they were treated in life and in death.

These are my thoughts for the day. Short and sweet.
I hope you all have a beautiful day!

Getting crafty with indoor/outdoor carpeting

Many of you know we are creators and own a couple of businesses. With one we do markets and craft shows and since we are new we are always looking for ways to improve our booth and how we present ourselves to our current and potential customers.

Finding ways to differentiate your self from others with similar products can always be a challenge. We know our product is the best, but how do you get people to come in and discover it for themselves.

Normally I am always telling people to look up and see stuff in front and above us, but not today. Today I am encouraging you to look down.

The ground/floors at these shows can be pretty boring and even downright ugly, so what's a crafty person supposed to do? Well of course spray paint! It is my answer to so many questions...even the ones you don't ask.

So after my small display disaster (not really a disaster, more circus clown nightmare than hippie at the start) I used the paints for a spur of the moment craft that I must say turned out pretty cute!

Flashback...
When we first started camping we bought a cheap piece of green grass indoor out carpet and used it outside out tent or pop-up to help from tracking in ALL THE THINGS. Now we have Winona (our big beautiful brown camper) and we found a much nicer outdoor rug on clearance. The old green stuff was just getting lugged around and taking up space and not being used.

Fast Forward...
We have a few events that are hosted in parking lots and bare ground sooooo....let's use the old green stuff, but make it cuter. Old green fake grass carpet meet spray paint. It was love at first spray.

Now for a little create spray paint liberty and we now have a super cute display to catch those shady people that don't want to make eye contact (I blame mall kiosks).

She will probably need a touch up once in a while, but I am pleased how it turned out and I think it is super cute for the shows with bare floors...

Do you have tried and true unusual ways of sprucing up spaces? I would love to hear about them...