Strawberry Jam

Today we had the opportunity to pick strawberries at Kansas Mom's farm and thanks to her tip about where to get pectin at a great price we were able to make some jam. Now, technically you're not supposed to remove the coupons from the box before purchase but hey. Pectin was on sale buy 1 get 1 free @ $2.55 and there is a .50 coupon inside that Dillons doubles, so we got the last 6 boxes for .28 per box :) A 4lb bag of sugar on sale for $1.88. Since I don't own all the canning apparatus we opted for the freezer Jam recipe in the box and made a double batch. I opted to use the blender instead of potato masher, and was advised to use more pectin to compensate. We got 11 1/2 jars (half pint) and the kids enjoyed the 1/2 jar thoroughly and are eagerly awaiting the other 11 jars to set :)

Living within our means

This weekend I did a lot of baking to keep us stocked with bread a real staple at this point. Tonight for diner I wanted to do something different as I was a bit tired of the bread, beans and cheese routine. Dh told me that I could make whatever I like as long as I only need what we already have. The menu consisted of sweet potatoes w/brown sugar, Home-made Scalloped potatoes and baked fish. I was out of butter but I had skimmed cream yesterday. I used most of the cream for the butter and kept some for the half and half. Dh loves it in his coffee. :) Life with 2 toasters ovens is a challenge but totally doable. i also discovered that my crock pot can cook fresh meat in 2 hours or less as long as I don't get too fancy with it. It's been interesting, so what have you guys been up to?

Small set back :(

The oven is on the fritz for some reason :( All I know is that it wont come on and the light at the bottom is off :( Will get back to you soon on that, you know how few handy men we have in this town :(

Get ready

I woke up this morning and all I could smell in my kitchen was Macaroni Pie (think baked mac and cheese but way better). I will finally get around to posting my recipe for this small piece of heaven on earth :) I have a few variations of the recipe and we may explore all of them, or maybe I'll explore them all and have a tasting at the house and the winner will be declared. So many options, so little time. :)

Calf Update:
Judd and Treva have taken wonderfully to each other. After reading several articles on the dangers of raising dairy bulls on the bottle, we heeded the suggestion to allow Treva and the herd to raise him. He is not yet given full access to the herd, he has a nice room in the smaller part of the barn where the pigs used to live. He is close enough for them to see but far enough that they can't quite touch.

Treva had no issue letting the little guy nurse and he has all the nursing instincts working in full force. She was not keen on the headbutting of her udder however and has since taught him not to do that or at least how to anticipate her leg when she has had enough of the bumping. We started them off slowly by putting him on her while she was in the stanchion but by the second day, when he was around meeting the others, she had no problem standing around and letting him nurse in the open. Quinn is the most interested, I think he feels the kinship of being an orphan calf. Of course he didn't have a Treva to mother him :( While I've heard wonderful things about Dexter's and their ability to adopt calves, I would say hands down that a Jersey is better.

The weather has warmed up nicely today, Judd will get more time out to play in the first corral and Treva will go in with him when it is time to nurse. She is getting fairly big now that she is 6 months pregnant, though Christmas doesn't look quite so big being 9 months pregnant - it must be a perspective thing. Well once again we are on calf watch and will let you know when the blessed day occurs.

Now, if you've never heard of Macaroni pie, I'd suggest you read up a bit more, forget what you thought you knew; mine is better :) Oh and the image above is not a pic of one of mine but it was the closest one I could find to give you an idea :)


photo courtesy: lilandra's flickr account

A new twist

We have been having the egg in a hole for the last few weeks and while they are wonderfully delightful, I have grown accustomed to my scrambled eggs, as has my oldest. To day I decided to try something new that I like to call fried egg in a hole :) Here are the pics :) (WARNING: Not taken by professional nor with professional equipment, lol) :P










<




NOTE: only 1/2 of 1 beaten egg will work with regular bread, to use the whole egg per slice Texas toast would probably work better.

P.S. I don't own any professional cookware, but you're welcome to send me some should you feel so inclined :) lol.

Mama's Surprise

Tonight I needed to get dinner ready in a hurry, I'm sure you're thinking how is this different but I was exhausted from work and my paper and didn't want to stand around cooking for an hour. Anyway, I had been toying with a recipe in my head for a while so I decided to give it a try. The kids have named it "Mama's Surprise", lol.

***Mama's Surprise***

Ingredients:
1 bell pepper
1lb lean ground meat
1 package of onion soup mix
1 28oz can of whole tomatoes in tomato juice
2 cloves of garlic
1lb extra wide egg noodles
seasoning to taste

Directions:
Saute chopped garlic in a little bit of oil. Season and brown the meat. Add bell pepper and stir. Add onion soup mix, tomatoes and tomato juice and 2 cups of water (may need to add salt to taste). Stir crushing tomatoes and add noodles. Cover and let simmer for 10 minutes.

I used the following seasonings:
crushed red pepper flakes
taco seasoning
Garlic Pepper w/ red bell & black pepper.

I was out of the kitchen in less than 30 minutes and the kids (and Sammy) loved it :) Let me know how you like it. :) Did you add anything to make it more special? I wanna hear from you :) Bon Appétit!

Living for the moment

As an adult I see how much my father influenced my life. Take something as simple as an egg breakfast. My father has ALWAYS without fail, had his eggs either scrambled dry or boiled with salt and black pepper. Those were the only 2 options and as such that is all I ever knew. It's not that my mother didn't enjoy her eggs any other way it is just that his was the deciding vote in most all things food. Even after they split my food destiny seemed pretty well formed and I seemed doomed to never experience the wonders of food. That is until today when I decided to not repeat the cycle and allow my dh to take the lead and expand our children's food experiences. I found a great recipe on PW and I decided to make it for dh and allowed his experience to be the one that shaped the children's perception.

The experiment seems to be a success, even my most picky eaters are raving about egg-in-a-hole. I have always been fascinated by eggs over easy and/or medium and decided to give it a try (you only live once right), not to mention I have always been curious about the rich yellow stuff's flavor. I'm not sure what the big deal is but it wasn't bad. So today I lived if only but for that moment :)