Edamame Dip and Homemade Laundry Soap

The last few nights have been busy at our house - homework, getting rooms ready for new carpet, and then just the normal every day life stuff.  I have been on a cooking roll lately (get it??? roll...sorry, bad joke). I made stromboli 2 nights ago, and last night I made edamame dip and also a roast w/ veggies in the crock pot and used one of those crock pot liners.  Have you tried a crock pot liner yet?  If you haven't tried one yet, you should - they make clean up a breeze and who doesn't like an easy clean up?  And, have you tried edamame?  It's really soy beans with a fancy name :)   This recipe is another one shared by the girls from work and I'm not sure where they found this version, but it's so so so so so so so good!  Rochella had it with veggies and Carl and I had it with crackers.  Either way it was delicious, not to mention healthy.

Edamame Dip

1 14 ounce bag frozen shelled edamame, unthawed
1/2 ripe avocado (I used the entire thing since I really like avocados)
1 shallot, peeled and sliced into quarters
1 clove of garlic, peeled
2 tsps olive oil or more if needed to create a smoother dip
2 tsps fresh lemon juice or more to taste
1 large handful of basil or more to taste (I used a little bit of dried basil)
sea salt to taste
*I also put cilantro in my dip*

Instructions:
1.  Cook edamame in large saucepan of boiling salted water until tender, 3-4 minutes.  Drain reserving 1/2 cup cooking liquid.
2.  Place all other ingredients and 1/4 cup reserved cooking liquid in food processor.  Season with sea salt.  Blend in more cooking liquid or a little more olive oil if too chunky or thick.
3.  Transfer to a bowl and serve with anything from raw veggies to rice crackers to pita chips.

Now for the homemade laundry soap.....We have a HE washer and if you have one, and even if you don't, I'm sure you've noticed how expensive the laundry soap is.  Well, in one of our recipe sharing conversations, Janna shared how she was going to make laundry soap and she also has an HE washer.  She uses the Duggar family recipe and loves it.  I think Janna made it in January or February and told us yesterday that she finally needs to make more!  So I bought everything needed to make the soap and followed the recipe, plus I added approximately 1 cup of all color bleach to the mix.

It was super simple to make and my house smelled so good and clean.  Here is the finished product. 

I'm using up the last of my store bought detergent and then I'll start using the homemade stuff.  All of the reviews have been good and nobody has reported any problems using this soap in their HE washers.  Total cost for this is around $10 - and I still have stuff left to make more.

Well peeps, I'm off to tackle another project.  Hopefully I'll be back tomorrow with more groovy cool stuff to share.

Pam