Recipe - Day 8

RECIPES!!!!! I love recipes! I don't even know how many cookbooks, homemade and printed I have. I think I snapshot at least two to three a day with my phone.

 

The first one is a new recipe I tried yesterday. I haven't tried these yet but I am pretty sure they will be a hit.

 

 



 

 

 

 

PICKLED SWEET GREEN TOMATOES

 

16 cups sliced green tomatoes

2 cups sliced onions

1/4 cup pickling salt

3 cup brown sugar

1 cup white sugar

4 cups white vinegar

1 cup water

1 Tablespoon mustard seeds

1 Tablespoon whole allspice

1 Tablespoon celery seeds

1 Tablespoon whole cloves

 

Wash and slice tomatoes and onions. Sprinkle with pickling salt and let stand 3 hours. Drain and rinse. Heat the sugar and vinegar and put the spices in a cheese cloth and add them to the vinegar mixture. Heat until sugar is dissolved. Add the sliced tomatoes and onions and cook 30 minutes, until the tomatoes are translucent. Put in hot jars and process in a boiling-water canner, pints 15 minutes and quarts 20 minutes.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

I also have a wonderful recipe using blueberries of course! Hope you enjoy!

 

 

 

 

BLUEBERRY POUND CAKE

 

 

 

1 cup of butter, softened

2cups sugar

4 eggs

1 teaspoon pure vanilla extract

1/2 cup vanilla or plain yogurt, (not in original recipe)

3 cups of flour, divided

1/2 teaspoon salt

1 teaspoon baking powder

1 pint fresh blueberries or 2 cups canned blueberries,

drained and rinsed

 

Cream butter and sugar. Add eggs one at a time and beat until light and fluffy. Add yogurt and vanilla. Sift two cups of flour, salt and baking powder together and add it to the creamed mixture. Dredge blueberries in remaining flour and gently fold into batter. Pour batter into a buttered bundt pan coated with sugar and bake for about 1 hour and 15 minutes. Enjoy!

 

 

God Bless!



In My Bag - Day 7

What's in my bag? Well, lots and lots of blueberries! This year we have been extremely blessed with blueberries. Gallons and gallons have been put in the freezer this year for us to enjoy smoothies, blueberry cream cheese pound cake, blueberry pancakes, blueberry chess pie, I could go on and on but I will stop.

 

 

 

 

 

I have also been blessed with about 20 gallons of cucumbers out of the garden this year. I am still processing pickles and sweet pickle relish. I can see the light at the end of the tunnel though.

 

 

 

I just brought these in from the garden today. My vines are yellow and dying so I think this is the last of the cucumbers this year.

What's in your bag?


God Bless!

When chickens give you eggs....,

Our chickens have been blessing us for weeks with lots of eggs. So I decided to pickle some. I have pickled eggs before but used a different recipe. I came across this recipe and decided to try something different.

 

 

First boil a dozen eggs, I am using smaller eggs that our sweet little Silkies are laying.

 

 

While your eggs are boiling, mix together your vinegar, salt, sugar and pickling spice.

 

When this pickling liquid comes to a boil, add 1 large onion, sliced. Let your liquid and onions sit for 5 minutes.

 

Once your eggs are boiled, peel and stuff them into your jars. Ladle your hot pickling liquid and onions into your jars. I used pints.

 

Boil your jarred eggs in a boiling water canner for 5 minutes.

 

 

 

Pickled Eggs

 

12 boiled and peeled eggs

4 cups vinegar

1 teaspoon salt

1 large onion, sliced

1/3 cup sugar

1 tablespoon pickling spice

 

Boil your eggs and while they are boiling combine your vinegar, salt, sugar and pickling spice and bring it to boil. Turn you liquid off and add your sliced onion. Once you have peeled your eggs, pack them into your jars. Ladle the hot liquid and onions over your eggs. Boil in your boiling water canner for 5 minutes.

Processing and working together.......

 

 

As you can see, our Macy bug killed her first deer last Friday, December 26th. Here are a few pictures of all the bugs and their dad processing it.

We ended up with 12 pounds of ground meat and 8 pounds of breakfast sausage.

 

 

Happy Happy Bugs!!!!!

getting ready for a little vacation

Well, everyone is counting down. We leave for a little vacation Monday! Everyone is very excited. We will be attending our homeschool convention also in the same week. We have been doing lots of things around here getting ready for it.


For one, I had about seven gallons of fresh, raw cream to make into butter. So far, half of it has been done, so, today, I will finish it. We decided to make 1/2 cup balls this time. Sometimes we make logs and sometimes we put it into cake pans and cut it into sticks.

Remember, I am not a photographer, so these pictures are not the best!


Another thing we have been doing around here is raising meat birds. Eight weeks ago we were given, by my in-laws, 30 Cornish X meat chickens. We had talked alot about trying to raise our own meat source for a while. We figured we would start with chickens. We have, since last Friday, have been feeding them  for eight weeks. They are a fast growing breed so at this age are reading for slaughtering. Friday afternoon we slaughtered half of them and Saturday morning, the other half. It was quite the experience. 


A while back I purchased a DVD entitled "Homesteading for Beginners". It has everything from raising chickens, milking a cow, using the raw milk and cream, to butchering chickens. We learned everything we needed to know about cleaning and processing the chickens. It was very informative. I would highly recommend it. You can purchase it from here or here. 


I have put half in the freezer, whole, and today, cutting the breast out of the other half, freezing the leg quarters and make a stock with the carcass. I am not sure if I will grind the breasts and have it for chicken burgers or freeze them whole for homemade chicken nuggets. Remember, I am not a photographer!!! Here is a picture I took of the chickens the first day after processing them.

The picture really doesn't give them justice. Most of them were in the 4 - 5 lb.  weight range. Some were smaller and a few were bigger. We are very happy with the outcome.


We are learning lots about homesteading and enjoying living it each and every day. One of our big reasons for living the way we do is to teach our children how to live off the land and survive and love and give thanks to the Lord while doing it.


     


     Whatever you do, work heartily, as for the Lord and not for men, knowing that from the Lord you will receive the inheritance as your reward. You are serving the Lord Christ.
~~Colossians 3:23-24

Large Family Food Storage Solutions

Our current method of food storage is lots of glass, mason jars and gallon-size glass jars.

 We buy dill pickles at Sam's and eat the pickles and keep the jars for storage. We store most of our herbs in these jars above the cabinets in the kitchen. It keeps them fresh. We buy herbs, grains and beans in bulk. I try to keep our rice and beans in the freezer when there is enough room. I will take some of them out of the freezer and store them in quart size mason jars to free up some of the freezer space.

 We also use 5 gallon buckets to store our rolled oats, sugar and other things in. In the near future, I plan on investing in Gamma Lids. I found these http://www.walmart.com/ip/Anchor-Hocking-Cracker-Jar-with-Lid/16520333 at Walmart. They are really pretty and come in a few different sizes. I use these to store herbs. These are just a few ways to store food in bulk. Leave me a comment with your food storage solutions.

Dana