I Tried It – A Chocolate Parfait and The Right Way to Mop

My usual first post of the week is a recipe, but I’ve been thinking about switching things up a little bit and making this (usually) Monday (yes, I know it’s Tuesday today) post more about things I’ve tried and liked.  It might be a recipe, a new product or a life hack that I’ve unearthed from somewhere in the depths of Pinterest or Stumbleupon or any of my other favorite haunts.  So, without further ado, the debut of “I Tried It”.  Super catchy title.

This week I tried a recipe that I found while browsing through a link party.  The recipe, from Simply Designing with Ashley  is for a simple Chocolate Parfait.  Click on over to her blog for the full recipe details and check out her pics of the final product, which are way cuter than mine.

Simple Chocolate Parfait

My parfait-ing skills are not exactly on point.  I wanted to get that cool layered effect where there’s some chocolate and then some Cool Whip and then some more chocolate.  Apparently, that takes some type of wizardry.  Good news, it doesn’t matter if your Parfait looks perfect, it will still taste awesome.   I did tweak the recipe I found just a smidge and added additional Cool Whip to get to a thicker consistency.

Here’s what I love about this dessert.  It is VERY chocolatey.  It’s that rich, almost mousse like flavor that is super satisfying, but so rich that you can’t eat a ton of it.  It is also gluten free, which is always a big plus for me.  Note to self, (and to all of you reading this), the Mason jar presentation was a bit of overkill.  I mean, I’m not saying I didn’t eat an entire Mason jar of this delicious dessert, but it is definitely better served in a small vessel.

The other thing I tried this week that I am very excited to share with you is a new mopping technique.  What’s that you say, you didn’t know there was a mopping technique?  Ok, neither did I, so when I came upon this pin from The Creek Line House, I was intrigued.  There is a *right* way to mop?  You don’t just push some soapy water around on the floor while watching the mop get progressively dirtier as you go?

You are mopping your floor all wrong. Click through to learn the right way!The correct way to mop your floors is called slop mopping.  There are detailed instructions on The Creek Line House  for her method, but I did change the method to suit my needs and tools pretty significantly, so I’m going to share my to do here in case it works better for you.  PS, I have only tried this on my ceramic tile kitchen and bathroom floors and so I would only recommend for that type of non-porous surface.

Slop Mopping

Tools:

Swiffer Sweeper

Microfiber Towels

Dish Soap

White Vinegar

Baking Soda

  1.  Attach a microfiber towel to your Swiffer Sweeper.
  2.  Fill your sink or a bucket with hot water, a few squirts of dish soap, about a cup of white vinegar and a quarter cup of baking soda. Get it all nice and sudsy.
  3. Dip your microfibered Swiffer into the soapy concoction.  Let it drip once or twice and then slosh it on the floor.  Right down on the floor.  Start with just a small portion, a few tiles at a time.  Lightly mop over it a couple of times and then give it a couple of minutes to work it’s magic.
  4. Grab a new, dry microfiber towel and, either on hands and knees, or (as I did) with your foot, start going over the wet area with the dry towel until the water is mostly absorbed.
  5. Dip your mop back into the sink or bucket and lay the water down on your next set of tiles.  Now, stop!
  6. While the tiles are still wet, take the microfiber towel you just used to absorb the wet tiles, run it under a faucet and then wring it out really well.  I ended up using the bathroom sink for this portion of the business.  Lay this towel down somewhere flat to dry just a bit until you are ready to use it again.
  7. Now, back to the tiles you just wet with the mop.  Grab another dry microfiber towel and start wiping and absorbing the water.  Repeat steps 5&6, alternating between the two microfiber towels you are using to sop up the water on the floors.  I know this sounds convoluted, but I found that the towels needed a little more drying time in between absorbing duties and using two and switching off made the difference.  Make sure each time you rinse the absorbing cloth you wring it out to within an inch of it’s life and then lay it down flat to dry just a bit.
  8. Depending on the size of and amount filth on your floors, you might want to refill the sink or bucket halfway through.  And don’t feel bad, I totally refilled and it’s not because my floors are enormous.
  9. CLEAN YOUR SINK.  When you are totally done with the floors, give your sink a good scrubbing with whatever anti-bacterial method you prefer.  I love swishing my stainless steel sink with some watered down bleach.

Ok, I know what you are thinking.  This is  is a ridiculously crazy process.  I admit, it is not something that I would do every day, or even once a week, but for like a monthly deep cleaning, it is awesome. It took me thirty minutes to do my kitchen floor and my small half bath on the first floor.  Thirty minutes is not a short amount of time, but I was really amazed at how good the floors came out.  Amazed enough that I felt I should write all of this down and share it with the world.   I honestly have always felt that you got beautiful, clean floors for like, 3 months after they were installed and then they were bound to never look the same again.  I was wrong.  My floors look squeaky clean and even some of the gunky grout was de-gunked in the process.  If I were motivated enough, I would imagine that if I did do this method every week, that even the grout would be back to it’s like new newness.

Ok, so that’s what I tried this week.  Now it’s your turn!  What new thing did you try this week??

 

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