Recent Posts

Pink Dragon & Grapefruit Mocktail

Pink Dragon & Grapefruit Mocktail

I’m coming on 2 years of no alcohol and so I wanted to share a fun pink Mocktail with you all using plant based dye, fruit and alcohol free bubbles. I added 1/4 teaspoon to my bubbles & mixed with a spoon, squeeze in your 

Orange Creamsicle ~3 ingredients

Orange Creamsicle ~3 ingredients

We love these orange creamsicles because they are easy to make, full of nutrients and without any yucky additives or preservatives. Why Ecozoi? They state on their website this: “So we searched all over the world to get you the best quality food grade stainless 

Ring Pop Ice Pops

Ring Pop Ice Pops

Ring pops are very nostalgic for me. Growing up my dad would take us to get ring pops after helping him organize items to bring to the dump and recycling.

Finding this mold has been such a fun find! Since we avoid artificial dyes Izzy and I can make ring pop candies and ice pops at home and she has been LOVING them!

I linked this Ring Pop Mold and some other summer items we have been loving here.

We poured our favorite juice into the mold for a fun and nutritious sweet treat.

If you love making fun treats at home for your kids this is a great addition! We are loving making ice pops with it and will be trying out candies soon. We will definitely be sharing our candy recipe once we give it a try and have success. 🙂

XO Eryka

My Garden Favs

My Garden Favs

Gardening is fun because you can always learn more and there are so many types of things to grow. Here are some products I’ve found to make gardening easier for me. Raised Beds Vego Garden has been my go to for raised beds. I have 

Matcha Sourdough Sugar Cookies

Matcha Sourdough Sugar Cookies

In honor of Earth Month I thought it was only fitting to make some Earth cookies. Izzy has been pretty obsessed with our sourdough sugar cookies so I was excited to try Matcha ones. I have used Matcha before, to create green dough when making 

Making Foam Soap at Home

Making Foam Soap at Home

Making soap at home has been so easy with my Branch Basics kit! Save with code BUSYLITTLEIZZY

All I do is add water & the concentrate which are already measured out for you on the bottle.

The soap dispenser we use are linked here. They come in 6 color options. When I make the soap it fills about 2 1/2 of the soap dispensers. I have this dispenser in my kitchen and each bathroom.

Check out our Insta reel to see how easy it is!

If you haven’t tried foam soap in the home, do it! I find it way easier for washing hands, especially with kids. We love our Branch Basics! It was one of our first changes when we started looking into a low toxin living life. Reducing our toxic load has been a big journey. Cleaning products and hand soaps are a great place to start on your journey.

XO Eryka

Rainbow Sourdough Discard Sugar Cookies

Rainbow Sourdough Discard Sugar Cookies

These Rainbow Sourdough Discard Sugar Cookies are a new favorite in this house! Ingredients: 8 tablespoons unsalted butter (room temp) ¾ cups granulated raw cane sugar 1 large egg (room temp) 1 teaspoon vanilla extract ¼ cup sourdough discard (room temp) 2 ½ cups organic 

Hub City Farmacy – Greenville, SC

Hub City Farmacy – Greenville, SC

I share a lot of fun recipes and talk often about eating cleaner meals to optimize your health. I know for many this is tough, especially with busy work schedules. I started seeing Hub City Market on Facebook and quickly realized the value in their 

Easy Sourdough for beginners

Easy Sourdough for beginners

Sourdough, it’s something I’ve been thinking about diving into for well over a year now. Every time I looked into it or watched someone making sourdough I noticed they always had some massive container which freaked me out and all of these different tools.

Well I’m here to say, I dove in and decided to try this my way. An easy way, a stress free, we’ll see what happens and go with it, kind of way… and it worked.

So to start you need to find someone in your local community that can give you some starter or you need to look up how to make a starter. I highly suggest asking for starter! I had a friend that knew a friend that was able to get some starter. But I’m in a FB group with a ton of local women that I probably could have also met up with and gotten some. I asked for organic starter because I bake with organic flour.

Once you have your starter this is what you need to know.

Discard is starter that you put in another container and put in your fridge to use for recipes within a week.

We discard starter because the more you feed the starter the bigger it gets and you will run out of space for it in your container.

You can discard you starter in a container and have two staters if you want to bake a lot. Or you can just get a really big container.

When you have starter on the counter it needs to be fed daily at minimum. I feed mine daily.

If you are going out of town or want a break from feeding it, just put it in your fridge. It can hang out there for a week before needing a feeding.

If you put it in the fridge, give it a couple ours to warm up before feeding it.

I keep my discard in the fridge in a jar because I’m not feeding it.

Okay so you have your starter, how do you feed it?

About every video I watched and recipe I read – and I watched and read a lot- said you have to weigh everything.

I was for one not going to buy a scale and 2 ewww that just sounds like work I don’t want to do. Listen, I’m not lazy, I’m just realistic about my time. I like to keep things simple and use things around the house or things I’m familiar with. This was already a brand new adventure for me and I didn’t want to overwhelm myself.

I reached out to a couple friends that basically said I can’t mess it up. So I was like, okay that’s what I needed to hear. It felt like all these other “sourdough people” act like it’s such a science, weighing and timing feeds etc. And yes, baking is a science and if you want a bakery and want to have consistent products you probably should invest in a scale… but I’m just a mom trying to feed my family some clean and delicious food! Plus, I’ve worked so hard and still am working so hard to not be so uptight (from trauma) that honeslty I felt that sourdough way of life just wouldn’t work for me. I’m proud I’m at a point I can tell what would not be beneficial to my mental health, that’s a win. So anyway, I started looking up conversions for weight of items to measurements.

Here is a conversion chart you can look at. You can follow any feeding schedule you want. Many different people feed in many different ways.

Here is the conversion chart I like.

So for me I keep 1-2 tablespoons of starter in my jar, then add 4 tablespoons filtered water (stir until evenly mixed) then add 1/2 cup flour and stir until evenly mixed. Keep the cover on lose not tight.

Why does the water need to be filtered? Because their is chlorine in our drinking water and it will kill your sourdough pet. Ha, I say pet because that is what my husband and now daughter call it. “Feeding your pet mom?” Yes, Izzy I’m feeding my pet. 🙂

When you have leftover stater, that will go in your discard jar in the fridge and you can make so many things with this. Bagels, pancakes, cookies… SO MANY THINGS! You can also pass on the love and give some of your discarded starter to a neighbor or friend so they can start their sourdough journey.

I feed my pet, I mean starter in the evening right before or after dinner. You can change when you feed it or feed it twice in a day if needed based on baking sourdough bread.

This recipe by The Prairie Homestead is the first and only recipe I have followed so far for sourdough bread because it does require kneeling and folding, another thing I wasn’t ready to learn right away. I love that she has a video in there to watch if needed. This recipe came out soooo good! It would be delicious for sandwiches, eggs on toast, dipping in soup or even just having with some butter. It was honestly so good by itself without any butter. Joe and Izzy gave it 2 thumbs up! The flavor and texture was on point and we all felt like we were eating bread I got at fancy bakery. This bread has come out so soft and chewy and just so delicious.

Just some details to note: For the first rise I covered it with my towel folded in half because it’s thin and I wanted to thicken it up for the long 8-12 hour rise. The second rise I only cover with half of the towel because it was sitting in the bowl on the other.

Things in my kitchen I used for this recipe: A large bowl, a silicone spatula, a towel, a fork, a dutch oven & parchment paper

I used a towel similar to this because they aren’t linty :

I hope this was helpful and if you have any questions please ask way here or send me a dm on Instagram: @busylittleizzy & I’ll be happy to help. Please comment on a post letting me know you sent a direct message or I may not see it because I swear IG hides messages and I miss so many. If I know you sent one, I can look for it!

Happy Baking! YOU GOT THIS!

XO Eryka

Organic Cotton Bedding

Organic Cotton Bedding

We have been loving the switch to organic cotton. Even Izzy says it just feels different! We recently had family come in town and so I decided to share a fun reel of myself and Luna (she’s honestly no help) making my office into a