Overnight Crockpot Apple Oatmeal

Anyone, like myself, who is not a morning person will love this. Generally I wake up a zombie and my son always wakes up to my alarms, no matter how early I set it. It's just a reality that I'll never get to wake up before he does so I can get myself ready for the crazy!

First thing on his mind is FOOD!!! So I love making this so all I have to do is scoop and serve, then he eats while I get ready for the day.

Ingredients:
2 apples
1/4-1/3 cup brown sugar(depends how sweet you want it)
2 tsp cinnamon
2 cups oats
4 cups water

Cut the apples into chunks and toss them in the crockpot

Next sprinkle the brown sugar on top

Now add the cinnamon

Top it off with the oats

Finally pour in the water but do not stir.

Just put on the lid and cook it on low for 6-8 hours. I used instant oats so I did it for only 6.

When you wake up just stir and serve!

It did not last long!

Love,
   Mother Gumption

Crockpot Pulled Pork

This weeks sale is pork tenderloin at my local store. It came as a two pack for $6! this is enough to make enough pulled pork for at least 6 people!

This is really simple!

Place pork tenderloin in crockpot.

Now add Apple Cider Vinegar. I don't measure I just add to my liking but I would say it was about 1/4 cup.

Here's the best one in my opinion

Next you add whatever spices you like! I use my go to Dry Rub! Find the recipe here.

I sprinkle it liberally to cover the tops of the pork.

Turn it on low and cook for 6-8 hours or 4-5 hours on high. Enough that you can easily rip it with a fork.

Once done, shred it up with forks and add your favourite sauce. You may choose to cook on low for another couple hours or serve it!

I decided to make rice and make it into a pulled pork burrito!  YUM!!

Enjoy and take care.

Love,
   Mother Gumption

Easy way to contain bath toys for dirt cheap that's both functional and eye pleasing!

If you have kids like my son, bath time includes a vast amount of toys! Most of the time they were kept in a box (that kept getting kicked and tripped on in our small bathroom) and it collected water at the bottom that worried me for bacteria in the toys since they didn't dry properly.

During a trip to the dollar store, I found little baskets with holes in it. I thought "hmm this would be awesome to hold bath toys in", It had slotted holes all the way around. I tossed a few in the cart. Then I wondered where to keep it, because I really didn't want to keep it in the tub! My shower time is precious to me and I don't like sharing the space! Ha ha. So I walked up and down the aisles in search of an answer and it came to me! A shower curtain rod.

Genius! I also tossed in some "S" hooks to hold the baskets onto the shower rod! So some budgeting here. One shower rod was $3, a pack of four "S" hooks was $1 and the baskets were $1 each. I got four of them making that $4. Now for some simple math! $8 plus tax! and I put my plan into action at home, hoping it would look decent and work. Well it did!

Now the toys are in the shower, but out of the way and they drain properly allowing the toys to dry!

So simple, cheap, functional and adds character to my bathroom! Enjoy the inspiration!

Love,
   Mother Gumption

BBQ or Oven Ribs

It's summer and we BBQ a lot! This week ribs were on sale so that's what we're having for dinner. No complaints from anyone here! I'll share my favourite method to prepare some fall off the bone, delicious ribs.

First I get out casserole dishes that'll fit the rib and line them with foil. Next I preheat the oven to 200F.

Place the ribs in the foil lined casserole dishes and brush it with olive oil. Now apply some dry rub! You'll find my recipe here.

Don't forget the other side!

These already look delicious!

Cover the rest of the ribs tightly with foil.

Side note: I got these ribs for $8, where I live this is about half price!

Bake them in the oven for 3 hours. A little longer is quite fine!

If you want to continue with BBQ please skip to *, if you want to continue in the oven keep reading.

Carefully remove the tin foil from the top of ribs and broil in the oven on high for 3-5 minutes, carefully flip and do the same for the other side. Now coat both sides in your BBQ sauce and replace tinfoil. put back in the oven at 250F(yes a little higher) for another hour. Longer if not to your liking.

*BBQ Instructions- Being gentle with them, remove the tin foil and place ribs on your grill rack(bone side down) directly above the fire.

With the lid open sear ribs for 3 minutes.

Turn the ribs over and sear the meaty side for 3 minutes.

Move ribs to cooler side of grill & baste with your favourite BBQ sauce. Turn ribs over and baste other side with sauce (meaty side now facing up).

Cover grill & cook for another hour at low temperature (between 200 to 300 degrees)

Check at least once during hour and baste with sauce if needed.
 
Enjoy your ribs and don't forget some side dishes! Baked beans, Caesar salad and corn on the cob are what we like!

Love,
  Mother Gumption

DIY BBQ Dry Rub

This BBQ dry rub is one of my favourites! Currently I have my ribs coated in it as we speak, you can find my fall off the bone ribs recipe here! This rub is fast and easy to make. I'll usually double the recipe and store it in the container shown above. I got this container at dollarama, three of them for $1.25! That's a fantastic price and they're such a great size for many things I make, such as this dry rub.

Ingredients:

• 2 Tsp Onion Powder
• 2 Tbsp Garlic Powder
• 1 1/2 Tbsp Paprika
• 2 Tsp Chili Powder
• 2 Tsp Ground Cumin
• 1/2 Tsp Cayenne
• 1 Tbsp Dried Chives
• 1/2 Tsp Black Pepper
• 1 Tsp Himalayan Salt
• 1 Tbsp Sugar
• 2 Tbsp Brown Sugar

Simply add all ingredients into a bowl and stir.

To use just rub on meat until it's enough for you. I use this quite liberally!

Hope you enjoy this.

Love,
  Mother Gumption

Make a small hallway bigger by removing the closet and turning it into a mini mudroom!

This being my first post I wanted to tell you about a project I did yesterday! Unfortunately I didn't take step by step pictures as I decided to start a blog after I finished. Well here is a photo similar to what it looked like before,

Mine had only one door left with a mini fridge on the open side, a whole bunch of clutter and was pink! I decided that I had it with that eye sore and ripped off the other door! Ha ha, minor impulsiveness here. The other day I got paint from Home Depot because I'll be repainting the main floor so I used from that stock pile for the inside! Sitting in my hallway I had a storage bench from Ikea, it's in the background of this old photo. I don't have any good photos of it other then in my finished product and I don't want to unveil yet!

See that blue thing behind my son? Yeah, that's what I'm talking about. I decided I'll make more room in the hall by placing it in the mini mud room! I had recently redone the floors upstairs, I have some tiles left over. Now I'm going to go mildly off topic here and show you my upstairs floor!

The box of these easy to install, peel and stick tiles cost me $18! I got them from Dollarama, and quite honestly I love it. It holds up quite well and for that price I couldn't go wrong. I used the remaining tiles for the floor in the cupboard as it still had builders grade floors and this house is 20 years old! The next step after removing the door was to clean it out. My knight in shining armor helped carry the mini fridge downstairs and we have it setup in our sons play room with snacks and water. I then painted it with some CIL eggshell paint and only needed two coats, so that was awesome. I ripped up the track on the floor for the sliding door and placed the new floor over top. I went to place the storage bench in and it was slightly too big! I ripped out the quarter rounds at the base boards and it fit snugly!  I was extremely fortunate for this. So this is where it's at now!

I love it! it really opens up the space! and looks so much nicer. I still want to add some coat hooks to the wall and I think I'll add a piece of trim across the front of that wire shelf to make it look nicer. Other then that this was actually a really simple project. It took me maybe 10 hours to complete it, if that! I hope this helps give some inspiration, tell me what you think!

Love,
 Mother Gumption