Taco Seasoning Blend

We make tacos a lot around here.  Eleanor loves them and since it's hard to get her to eat protein most of the time, I will gladly make them once a week just for the pleasure in seeing her inhale ground beef and beans and cheese.

Up until recently, I used store bought taco seasoning.  You know the ones, Old El Paso or Lawrys or McCormick brand, in the packets.  Usually pretty cheap, around $0.50.  It never crossed my mind to look at the ingredients.

We had stopped having tacos once I had to go dairy free, since I couldn't fathom the idea of not having cheese and sour cream.  Still, I started to have a craving and figured I could dress the tacos up in other ways besides smothered in dairy.  I'm turning into an avid ingredient list reader, though, and was surprised/horrified when I read the back of a packet of taco seasoning.  One brand contains MSG.  Another brand contains milk (of all things).  There's also your usual assortment of preservatives and anti-caking agents.  Personally, I just wanted a spice mix.

So, I did some research and played around with various spice mixtures and think I hit on a pretty tasty taco seasoning blend.

You will need:

• 2 teaspoons chili powder (regular or hot, depending on your preference)
• 1-1/2 teaspoons paprika
• 1 teaspoon onion powder
• 1/2 teaspoon sea salt (more or less, depending on your taste)
• 1/2 teaspoon garlic powder
• 1/2 teaspoon cumin  
• 1/2 teaspoon oregano
• Pinch of cayenne pepper (optional)
• Pinch of red pepper flakes (optional)

Measure all the wonderfully smelly goodness into a bowl and mix it together.  If you're making tacos right away, add this to your 1-2 pounds of browned meat (beef, chicken, turkey, whatever) along with 1/2 cup of water.  Stir well and bring to a boil.  Reduce to a simmer and let cook for 5-10 minutes, stirring frequently, until liquid is reduced.  Serve however you would normally serve tacos.

You can also make this in bulk and store it in an airtight container with the rest of your spices.  I use a baby food jar.  If you do make it in bulk, you'll need to measure out about 2 tablespoons of the mixture per 1-2 pounds of meat when you go to use it.

Handy Kitchen Tip #1: Easy-To-Peel Hard Boiled Eggs

I eat a lot of hard boiled eggs, at least one a day.  As you know, I'm currently dairy-free and I struggle to find easy ways to get my protein in and eggs fill that requirement nicely.  Plus, they're yummy.

However, peeling hard boiled eggs can be a pain in the ass, especially if you're peeling a lot of them to make Deviled Eggs (I make a mean Deviled Egg; recipe coming at some point).  I actually sliced my finger open on an egg shell a while back, which I didn't even know was possible.

Then I stumbled across a suggestion (on Pinterest, go figure) that suggested putting baking soda in the water while boiling eggs and it would make them easier the peel.  So, I set out to test this out.

Dump that shit in!

Yup, it works.  The peels practically slide right off of the eggs.  However, I don't know how this would affect the shell if you were dying or painting the eggs.  I'm kind of curious, though, to see what would happen if you put a baking soda boiled egg into a vinegar-based dye.  Would the egg explode?  (For those who don't know what I'm talking about, go put some baking soda in a bowl and dump in some vinegar.  See what happens.  It's fun, and makes an excellent cleaner.  Go on, we'll wait.)

Unpeeled boiled egg.  Boring, huh?

Look how pretty that came out!

So, yeah, dump some baking soda into the water while you're boiling eggs.  You don't need much, just a tablespoon or so for a small pot of eggs (like what I did above) should do the trick.  Obviously, if you are make a shit ton of eggs, you'll want to add much more baking soda.  Makes peeling them SO much easier!

Go eat some eggs!

DIY Self-Watering Seed Starters and My Garden Ramblings

In what is sure to be a completely overly ambitious attempt at being more self-sufficient, I have decided to garden this year.  I tried to do some container gardening last year and it failed miserably.  In my defense, though, I got a late start, it was a very hot summer for So Cal, and I was heavily pregnant for the entire summer (and I get super grouchy in the heat).  I think I was doomed before I even started, to be honest.

This year, however, things shall be different!  I've already ordered some strawberry plants and blackberry bushes, along with some seeds.  And I've got some seeds leftover from last year, so I'm going to give those a whirl to save money.

I'm trying to not overdo it this year, although I have a list a mile long of things I want to grow.  I know my limitations, so I'm keeping it small:

• Pickling cucumbers.  I love pickles and I love canning.
• Roma tomatoes
• Super sauce tomatoes (to can my own tomato sauce without all the nasty chemicals and preservatives that are in the store bought crap)
• Jalapeños
• Strawberries.  My kid is a berry fanatic.  I go broke trying to keep her in berries during the summer.
• Blackberries.  Did I mention my kid likes berries?
• Carrots.  We already have these growing in a container.
• Various herbs, like dill, cilantro, sage, mint, oregano, basil, etc.

We're going to be building some raised garden beds in the backyard.  And by "we", I mean my husband.  He loves me, though, so it's okay.  I opted for raised beds versus just digging into the backyard for a few reasons.

1.  We have gophers.  Lots of gophers.  They're cute and I don't want to kill them, but they are fucking up our yard something fierce.  It would all out war if they got into my garden.  With raised beds, I can line the bottoms with landscape fabric to prevent the gophers from coming up.  It'll also prevent weeds from coming up from the bottom.

2.  The soil in our backyard is crappy.  I would blame the gophers, but really, we just have shitty, sandy dirt.  With raised beds, I can fill them with good quality soil and compost.

3.  Raised beds will keep everything more contained and easier to work with.  I hope.

Right now, I'm planning on two 4 ft x 6 ft beds.  One of the beds will be strictly for the strawberries, as strawberry plants need about a square foot each and I'll ultimately have 26 plants (only sold in lots of 25 and I had one actually survive from last year, tough little dude).  The other bed will have my cucumber plants and tomato plants.  I'm probably just aiming for a maximum of 2 of each kind of tomato plant, so 2 Romas and 2 sauce.  The jalapeños, I have been told, should be grown in a separate pot or bed by themselves, so I'll probably just do 1 or 2 plants in a container.  The blackberry bushes are going directly in the yard in a row by the fence.  I had 1 survive from last year and ordered another 5 this year.  The different herbs will be in pots; so far, I have sage, cilantro, and spearmint which I thought was dead but appears to be coming back.  Oh, and Eleanor wanted to plant carrots, so we started those in a container a few weeks ago.

It's now mid-February, and in Southern California, that means it's time to start getting your seeds going.  Like I said, I have some seeds left over from last year:  Roma tomatoes, pickling cucumbers, and jalapeños.  Now, I just needed to figure out how to get them started without spending a lot of money.  You can buy fancy-shmancy seed starting thingies, but why?  There's got to be a way to do it on your own.

Pinterest came to my rescue once again, and I found several pages describing how you can make self-watering seed starters out of 2-liter soda bottles.  I was intrigued and immediately got to work a few weeks later.

My first challenge was obtaining 2-liter bottles.  While I freely admit to being a soda addict (I'm also a soda snob, preferring ice cold Pepsi in a can), we don't drink 2-liters very often.  They go flat too quickly for my liking.  I found one random 2-liter in the back of the fridge from when I was craving root beer; I have absolutely no recollection of buying it.  I figured I was going to need 5 or 6 2-liters, so I put a shout out on Facebook to see if any friends could help me out.  My friend Debbie was able to drop off 4 bottles to me the very next day!  Woo hoo!  Thank you so much, Debbie!

Here's how this works:

You will need the following:

• 2-liter soda bottles, very well rinsed and with labels removed.  Don't use soap, though, I don't know what those chemical would do to plants.  If the inside of your bottles are still very sticky, you could probably rinse them with vinegar and then again with water.  And don't throw the caps away, you need those, too.
• A Phillips-head screwdriver.
• Hammer.
• Cord or yard, about 12-18 inches long.  Mine were around 12 inches.  I used the drawstring from an old pair of yoga pants that don't fit anymore (I've recently lost 50 pounds, thank you very much) and an old random shoe string I had lying around.
• Scissors or box cutter or other cutting apparatus.
• Seed starting soil.
• Seeds.

Disclaimer:  The plastic of the bottles is highly reflective and the light in my kitchen sucks, so it was difficult to take decent pictures.  Sorry!

What you need to do is......

1.  Use your hammer and screwdriver to put a hole through the center of one of the bottle caps.  It's hard to do this and take a picture, so you'll have to use your imagination.  Obviously, be very careful while doing this and be sure you're working on a surface that can handle getting a screwdriver pounded into it.  I sat on the floor of the garage to do it; concrete is pretty forgiving of these things.

I actually went back later and made the hole slightly bigger  since I had a difficult time getting the cord through.

2.  Thread one of your cords through the hole in the cap and tie a knot on the inside of the cap.  You don't want to cord to be able to pull out.

3.  Cut your 2-liter bottle in half.  I first thought a box cutter would be easiest, but it turns out a scissors works better.  Be sure to trim off any jagged edges; I don't want you to hurt yourself.

4.  Put the cap, with its cord, back on the bottle.

5.  Place the top of the bottle (with the cap and cord) upside down inside the bottom half.  Half of your cord will now be hanging inside the bottom half of the bottle and into the water.  That will act as a wick to draw moisture up into your soil.

6.  Fill the top half of the bottle with potting soil or other seed starting medium.  I used Miracle Grow Seed Starting Mixture and filled it about 2/3 full.  Make sure the soil fills the "neck" of the bottle.

Make sure the wick goes up through the middle of the soil.

Damned reflective plastic

7.  Fill the bottom half of the bottle about 1/3 of the way with water.  Doesn't have to be exact.

8.  Plant your seeds.  Remember, you'll most likely have to thin the seedlings out at some point, but you still don't want to overcrowd them.

9.  Water the seeds and soil from on top as well.  You'll want to get them pretty well soaked to help "activate" the moisture wick.

10.  Place the seed starter in a sunny location and wait for your seeds to sprout.  When you notice the water in the bottom half of the bottle running low, just remove the top of the bottle and refill the bottom.  Don't forget to label the bottles so you remember what you planted and when.

I'm planning on lots of cucumbers, so I have 2 starters for those.

 These were super easy to make; I had the first 3 done within about 20 minutes.  I did the fourth one yesterday in about 5 minutes while I was waiting for my chocolate sauce to cool, but I already had the hole punched in the cap, so was able to move quickly on that one.  I did 2 starters for cucumbers, 1 for Roma tomatoes, and 1 for jalapeños.  When the seeds for my sauce tomatoes get here, I'll do one for those as well.

I just planted my seeds 2 days ago, so I don't have any results to show you (yet) but I will keep you posted!

Crash Potatoes

Okay, folks, here's the final installment of the "Stuff I Made For Dinner on Wednesday" saga.  So far we've covered the flatbread and the Balsamic Marinated Chicken.  Have you tried that chicken yet?  No?  Shame on you!

Today, we'll finish out the meal with our Crash Potatoes.  I found these courtesy the Pioneer Woman's blog.  I heart her recipes.  I'm always looking for new ways to make potatoes, so this recipe really appealed to me.

All you'll need is:

• Small, round potatoes.  New potatoes or the little yellow ones or whatever.
• Olive oil.
• Salt & Pepper.
• Fresh herbs of your choice (optional)

Simple so far, right?  It gets even better.  (And, sorry, I forgot a picture of the ingredients.)

1.  Boil the potatoes until they're fork tender.  What's that, you ask?  The picture looks like those spuds came out of the oven?  Yeah, stay with me here.  It'll be okay, I promise.

2.  Heat your oven to 450° (See?  I told you it'd be okay.)

3.  Drizzle olive oil on your baking sheet.  You don't want them taters to stick.

My baking sheets are old and nasty, so I always line them with foil.

4.  Place the boiled potatoes on the baking sheet.  Give 'em some space.

5.  Use a potato masher to squish the potatoes.  You don't want them totally flattened, but nicely textured.  Kind of like a cookie.

Smashing the potatoes would be a great way for a kid to help out!

6.  Baste the smashed potatoes with olive oil and then top with salt, pepper, and herbs if you want.

7.  Bake at 450° until golden brown, about 25 mins.

Super good and super easy!  Also, just think you could top these with bacon and cheese!  Oh, yes, bacon and cheese indeed!

Enjoy!

Balsamic Vinegar Marinated Chicken

Oh. My. Chicken.  This was SO good!  You simply have to try it!

Balsamic marinated chicken, served with crash potatoes and broccoli.  And flatbread on the side.

In my quest for dairy-free menu ideas (see the Flatbread post for that whole saga), I came across this recipe on a Paleo Diet page.  Now, obviously I don't eat Paleo-style, but I can see some of the logic behind it and if you feel better eating like a cave person, then go for it.  You will get no judgement from me, especially after trying this recipe.

This is probably one of the easiest recipes.  Ever.  All you need is:

• 1/4 cup Balsamic vinegar
• 1/4 cup olive oil
• Minced garlic
• Salt & pepper
• Basil, fresh if you have it or can use dried
• Chicken breasts.  Recipe called for 4, I used 2 and wish I had made more.  Yeah, it's that good.
• A big Ziploc baggie.

That's it.

Now for the easy part.  Note:  You will want to marinate the chicken for at least 2 hours.  I let mine soak in the yummy for 24 hours.  Plan ahead for this one!

1)  Because I have issues with whole chicken boobs, I sliced mine into smaller pieces.  You can leave yours whole if you are so inclined.

2)  In your Ziploc baggie, mix all of the ingredients together.  Smoosh it all together so the chicken is well coated.  Toss it in the fridge.  Whenever you go to the fridge, give the baggie some lovin' and smoosh everything around a bit.

Side note:  I love using baggies for marinating.  It's so much easier to keep everything well-coated in the marinade when it's in a baggie than constantly have to worry about turning stuff over in a bowl.  Plus, in a baggie, you can massage everything together and really work the marinade into your meat.  Oh, myyyyy!

I love using baggies for marinating.  So easy!

3)  When you're ready to cook, heat the oven to 400°.  Place chicken in a glass pan.

4) Cook for 20-25 minutes or until chicken is done.

I lined the pan with foil to help with clean up.  Didn't help that much.

After cooking.  Gorgeous!  

That's it.  Super easy, super tasty.  You HAVE to try it.  Like right now.  Go.  Go cook.  Come back and tell me how fabulous it was.

Flatbread

Seriously, I cannot come up with a better title.  Or name for the flatbread, for that matter.  I think my creativity is suffering from lack of sleep.  I have a 5-month-old and a very active almost 3-year-old.  Something's gotta suffer, right?

How gorgeous is that?

Oh, well, moving on.

Anyway, tonight was a busy night for cooking in my little crazy world.  In addition to the flatbread, I made 2 new dishes (a chicken dish and a potato side dish).  To avoid blog overload and because I simply don't have the energy tonight, I'll be honoring each part of the meal with its own post.  Tonight, I'll start with the flatbread.

The back story:  The Boy is showing signs of being milk-protein intolerant which causes him to have some gastric issues.  Since he's breastfed, this means I need to eliminate all dairy from my diet.  And they put dairy in EVERYTHING!  Seriously, this doesn't just mean giving up milk, cheese, and sour cream.  Le sigh.  How I miss sour cream.  You also have to eliminate all foods containing whey, whey protein, milk protein, and casein.  That shit is in everything.  Canned chicken noodle soup has whey in it.  Certain brands of canned tomato sauce and canned beans "may contain traces of milk".  Certain brands of ketchup have milk in them.  All butter and margarine is gone.  To make thing so much better (sarcasm), milk intolerance is often accompanied by SOY intolerance, so if you eliminate soy as well, you can't eat anything processed or packaged.  Well, almost anything.  It's a bleak, sad world out there, folks.

Anyway, that's where I'm at, trying to plan menus that don't contain dairy and the limit the amount of soy (I'm not being as strict on that one).  The good thing is is that it is forcing me to read labels.  The bad thing is that I am horrified by what I'm seeing there.  It's not just the inclusion of dairy and/or soy in strange places.  It's all the additives, preservatives, and general what-the-fuck-is-that shit that's added into our food.

Now, my go-to lunch is chicken salad on toast.  However, I can't have commercial bread (contains dairy), and I have yet to find a good dairy-free bread recipe that comes out the way I want it to.  So, I decided to try pita pockets or flat bread from the grocery store.  This is what I found:

The ingredient list for one brand of flat bread:

Enriched flour (wheat flour, niacin, reduced iron, thiamine mononitrate (vitamin B1), riboflavin (vitamin B2), folic acid, malted barley flour), water, soybean oil, yeast, contains 2% or less of nonfat dry milk, salt, wheat gluten, sugar, dough conditioner (acacia gum, guar gum, ascorbic acid, L- cysteine, enzymes), calcium propionate, baking powder (sodium acid pyrophosphate, sodium bicarbonate, corn starch, monocalcium phosphate), and sodium stearoyl lactylate.

Yeah, I don't know half of what that shit is.  And the store I went to didn't carry pita pockets, but I'm assuming the ingredients would be similar.  So me being me, I decided that, damn it, I'll just make my own flatbread.  After some searching, I came across this recipe.  This is a yeast-based flat bread, but there are other version that use baking powder instead of yeast.  I'm a big fan of yeast, so I went with this one.

I made my first batch last week and it yielded about 8 pieces that time.  I rolled the pieces fairly thick, aiming more for bendy, chewy bread rather than crispy.  My husband, however, wanted me to try it crispier this time, so I rolled the pieces much thinner and got a total of 14 pieces this time.  After having it both ways, I prefer it slightly thicker and chewier, so next time I make it, I'll aim for the middle ground and 11 or 12 pieces or so.

Now that I've rambled on for so long, I know you're dying to get started, right?  Right.

You will need:

You can't get much simpler than this.

• 3 cups flour (all-purpose or bread.  I used bread flour) * - please read the note below about flour before proceeding.  It's important, yo.
• 1 teaspoon active dry yeast
• 1 cup warm (about 110°) water
• 1 teaspoon sugar
• 3 tablespoons olive oil, plus extra for bowl and for basting
• Coarse salt, about 2 teaspoons, or more if you want a saltier bread
• Sea salt, pepper, fresh herbs of your choice

* IMPORTANT NOTE ON THE FLOUR:  One of the mistakes I made when I started baking bread was how I was measuring my flour.  I was using my measuring cup to scoop the flour out of the bag and then leveling with a knife.  Because this was packing the flour tightly into the measuring cup, I was inadvertently adding much more flour than I needed and it was causing me to have very heavy, dense breads.  Don't make this mistake!  Instead, you want to spoon the flour lightly into the measuring cup, don't pack it in, and gently level it with a knife.

Lightly spoon your flour, don't pack it in.

Gently level the flour; again, don't pack it in.

Also, with this recipe, I think 3 cups of flour is too much.  I always have flour that refuses to come into the dough.  So, start with 2 cups and add flour as you need to.  You may need all 3 cups, but my guess is that somewhere in the neighborhood of 2-1/2 cups will probably work fine.  Also, if you're using a whole wheat flour, please remember that whole grains absorb water much more than white flour, so you'll either need to use less flour or more liquid.

Now the fun part:

1.  In the measuring cup where you have your warm water, sprinkle the yeast on top.  Wait for it to foam (5-10 mins).

Yeasty goodness.

2.  While waiting for your yeast to proof, in a medium bowl mix together the flour *, salt, sugar, and olive oil.  Add in the yeast/water mixture, and mix until a dough forms. 

Flour, sugar, salt

With the olive oil added

3.  Turn the dough out onto a lightly floured surface and knead lightly for about 2 minutes.

4.  Grease a clean bowl with olive oil.

5.  Place dough in the piled bowl, turning to coat thoroughly.  Cover with plastic wrap and set in a warm, draft free place until dough doubles in size (about an hour or so).  Helpful hint - If you house is always cold like ours is, it will take forever for your dough to double.  So, here's what you do:  Turn your oven on for 30 seconds.  That's it, just 30 seconds.  Turn oven off.  Place bowl with dough in oven, close door and do not disturb for an hour.  It'll work, trust me.

Starting point

The dough has doubled

6.  Once your dough has doubled, turn it back out onto your lightly floured surface and cut it into however many piece of bread that you want.  If you want a thicker, chewier bread, cut less pieces.  If you want a thinner, crispier, cracker-like bread, cut more pieces.  The recipe was originally intended for 16 pieces, so I wouldn't try to do more than that.

See my nifty dough scraper?  It's very handy for cutting dough and for scraping your work surface clean.  You know you want one.

7.  Heat your oven to 350° with your baking sheet inside it.  You want your baking sheet to be hot as it will make for a crispier bottom crust.

8.  Using a lightly floured rolling pin, roll out a piece of dough.  Again, use your discretion depending on how thick or thin you want your bread.  Place rolled bread onto a piece of parchment paper.  Repeat until you have enough pieces to fit on your baking sheet.  I am able to fit 3 to 4 pieces on my sheet at once.  Keep the extra dough in the oiled bowl and covered with plastic wrap.  It will continue to rise slightly.

The pieces don't have to be perfect.  Rustic is the word of the day, boys and girls.

9.  Here's where the original recipe and I part ways.  The original recipe called for an egg wash on the dough.  I opted instead to baste the dough with olive oil.  You choose which route you want to go.  Once you've basted the dough, sprinkle on sea salt, pepper if you want it, and any fresh herbs you would like.  I generally just do salt and pepper, but once my herb garden is up and running, I may give something like rosemary a try.

So much prettier than an egg wash.

All dressed up and ready to par-tay!

10.  Once your baking sheet and oven are hot, carefully (CAREFULLY, people), transfer the parchment paper with the bread onto the hot baking sheet.  Bake until golden brown, about 22-25 minutes.  start checking them at 20 minutes, though, especially if they're on the thinner side.

11.  Carefully remove the bread from the baking sheet to a wire rack or heat-proof plate or cutting board.  I don't have a wire rack, so I move my hot bread to a wooden cutting board that I use exclusively for breads.

Fabulousness!

12.  Repeat steps 8 through 11 until you've used up all your dough.  While one batch is cooking, I will get the next batch prepped to go into the oven.  If you can fit more than one baking sheet in the oven at a time then you just want to make sure everything bakes evenly.  I only do one sheet at a time so it can sit in the middle of the oven and I don't have to worry about some pieces baking more than the others.

It doesn't get much better than this!

13.  Enjoy the yummy goodness that is this very simple flatbread!  Extra pieces can be stored in a ziploc baggie for a few days, but we eat them so quickly I don't have to worry about them going bad or stale

So, there it is!  Very easy, very tasty, and free of scary additives and preservatives.

Homemade "Oxiclean"

DISCLAIMER:  This post contains pictures of baby poop stains.  If you can't handle that, I suggest you skip this post.  You have been warned.  Moving on now.....

I got sucked into the never ending world that is Pinterest a few months ago.  It's currently where I find most of my inspiration for recipes, household and crafty stuff.  As time goes on, I am finding myself increasingly more interested in trying to make things myself rather than buy them in a store.  This includes cleaning products as well as food items.  I'm not trying to go all hippy-granola or anything (not that there's anything wrong with that), but I just do not like all the chemicals that are in everything these days.

Our 4-month-old son is apparently milk-protein intolerant and, as such, has been having some gastric issues while I get my diet sorted out.  Quite frankly, he has nasty poops that escape the confines of his diapers on a daily basis.  I do a lot of laundry.

Recently, I treated one of the poop stains with my standard stain-treatment gel, which contains Oxiclean.  I use it almost everything, so I didn't think too much of it.  That is, until the laundry was done and I put a sleeper and bib out of the wash onto the Boy.  These items were just in the same load; didn't have the stain treatment directly on them.  Anyway, I got the Boy dressed, and he immediately stuffed the bib into his mouth and started gnawing on it.  Then he got this "what the hell" look on his face, pushed the bib away from his face, and started crying.  I never noticed until that moment that the stain treatment had a fragrance to it.  A very strong fragrance.  The entire load reeked of it and obviously the smell was bothering the baby.  Feeling like a shitty mommy, I rewashed everything right away; it took three washes to get the smell out.

So, I went in search of fragrance-free stain treatments, preferably as chemical free as possible.  And, as it so often does these days, Pinterest came to my rescue.

This homemade "Oxiclean" is super easy to make, super cheap, and it works.

You will need:

• 1 part Hydrogen Peroxide
• 1 part Baking Soda
• 2 parts Water
• A bottle to put it in.  I use one of the squeeze bottles they gave me in the hospital.  You want something squeezable with a cap on it so you can shake it.

Seriously, you can't get much cheaper than this!

For my first attempt, I used 1/4 cup Hydrogen Peroxide, 1/4 cup Baking Soda, and 1/2 cup water.  Put everything in your bottle and shake like hell.  See how easy it is?  

I knew I was keeping this bottle for a reason!

The Boy was kind enough to provide me with a chance to use this the same day I made it.  

Yup, that's baby poop.

Shake the bottle really well to make sure all the ingredients are mixed.  If you let it sit too long, the baking soda will separate out.  Squirt your Oxiclean all over the stain.

I know what you're thinking.  Stop.  Just stop.

You'll see the liquid soak in, but the baking powder will sit on the fabric.

Let this sit for a while, at least 30 minutes.  The baking powder will start to dry out and get crusty.

Starting to wonder if this is going to work or not.

Wash as normal.  I used my normal baby detergent (Tide Free and Gentle) and also sprinkled in some Borax.  I love Borax.  

Once it's washed, I STRONGLY suggest you let the clothing air dry.  Never put a stained item through the dryer until you know the stain is completely gone.

Looking good!

After the sleeper air dried and I confirmed the stain was gone, I rewashed it again and ran it through the dryer.  This was the result: 

No more stain!  

Since then, I use this stuff all the time on baby poop stains.  I haven't yet had the opportunity to try it on other stains, but I'm sure one will present itself very soon.  I would also think you could use this as a clean for upholstery or carpet, but be sure to test for color fastness first.  And, if it all goes horribly awry, you can't sue me, okay?

Special note:  For those that care, hydrogen peroxide breaks down proteins, which is why it's a great stain remover, especially for blood.  

Happy laundering!