Corn bread

   Corn bread....we eat it with most suppers. My husband thinks he's the best corn bread maker ever. And I have to say that he does makes some good corn bread. We like to cook it in a cast iron skillet. Cast iron cooks nice and even and puts on a nice crust. I thought I'd share my husband's corn bread recipe with you. Give it a try. You won't be disappointed.

1 cup all-purpose flour (we use freshly ground flour)
1 cup yellow cornmeal
1/4 cup sugar
4 1/2 tsp baking powder
3/4 tsp salt
2 eggs
1 cup milk
1/4 olive oil
coconut oil for skillet

Mix together dry ingredients. Mix wet ingredients together in a separate bowl then mix all ingredients together well. Heavily coat your cast iron skillet with coconut oil. Set the skillet on the stove top burner and heat. Pour batter into hot skillet and let it cook undisturbed for a few minutes. You'll know it's ready when the edge of the batter starts to separate somewhat from the side of the skillet and rise up a bit. When this happens place into a 425 degree preheated oven and bake for approx. 20 minutes or until golden brown. When it's finished slice it and cover it with butter. It's also great drizzled with honey. Enjoy!

Children

   Sugar and spice and everything nice, that's what little girls are made of. Snips, snails and puppy dog tails, that's what little boys are made of. Well, yes and no. Mine are made of a little of this, that and a few other things. hehe... But I can say that my children are what my world is made of. I thought I would post a picture of my little country bumpkins. I love my family. I am one blessed woman.

 

"Behold, children are a gift of the Lord, The fruit of the womb is a reward. Like arrows in the hand of a warrior, So are the children of one’s youth. How blessed is the man whose quiver is full of them..."     Psalm 127:3-5 NASB

 

 

 

Click here to listen to "That's Important To Me." Great song, great message.

 

 

 

Green Beans

 

   I can remember loving to eat "Green beans from Grandpa's garden." Actually, those were the only green beans I would eat. Or so I thought. Later I found out that when green beans from Grandpa's garden were no longer available my mother would open a can of store bought green beans and tell me they were Grandpa's so I would eat them. Oh the trickery....can you believe that!

 

Unfortunately, we had no green beans from our garden this spring. We planted 200 beans which grew to be beautiful plants....with almost no beans. What few we had were not very good. Kentucky Wonder proved to be less than wonderful this go-round. 

 

Thankfully, we had someone from church share their bounty with us which was such a blessing. My daughter, Heaven,  and I spent the day snapping and canning green beans. We put up 15 quarts which will happily hold us over while our next batch of green beans grow.  I pray these will produce well for us so we'll have more than enough green beans in the garden this fall to put up for the year.
 

 

 

The wise store up choice food and olive oil,

but fools gulp theirs down. 

 Proverbs 21:20 NIV

 



 

Click this link to hear one of our girls' favorite songs....
Green beans in the Garden.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WQ3CPlD9YD8

 

 

 

Herbs

    I have always wanted a little herb garden. For the last few years  I have tried to grow herbs and have failed miserably. This year my herbs are doing great! I started my seeds in the greenhouse and transplanted them into a raised bed near my kitchen. I'm growing mint, dill, basil, caraway, sage, oregano, thyme, pineapple sage, rosemary, stevia, parsley, catnip, and cilantro. I so enjoy drinking fresh herb water throughout the day or drinking a cup of mint tea in the evenings. And you can't beat cooking with fresh herbs! I plan to grow more herb varieties such as medicinal herbs in the future.
 

We have started drying some of our herbs to put up for future use when fresh herbs aren't available. I've been hanging them to dry from our doorframe in our dining area.

My daughter and I put some dried herbs in 1/2 pint jars and labeled them for future cooking and tea.


 

Homemade Dishwashing Powder

   In our family we try out a lot of do-it-yourself recipes and projects. Some work, some flop. Recently, my husband bought me a new dishwasher. We haven't had one for a few years so this has been a real treat! I found a recipe online for homemade dishwashing detergent. I tweaked it a bit and am very pleased with the results. My dishes are sparkling clean and the dishwashing powder only cost me pennies. Can't beat that!

 

Homemade Dishwashing Powder Recipe

1 cup Super Washing Soda
1 cup Borax
1/2 cup Kosher Salt (or any other course grained salt)
2 small packets of sugar-free lemonade kool-aid
1/2 bar of my soap, grated

I'm storing the detergent in a quart sized mason jar. 1 Tbsp is used per load. This will wash approx. 24 loads of dishes. I'm using white vinegar as a rinse aid...another penny saver. Happy home keeping!



“She looks well to the ways of her household..."

                                                                   Proverbs 31:27

 

 

Canning Dill Pickles

   Our family loves pickles. My children can put a jar away in a day. With all the rain we've had lately our cucumber plants are looking great and they are producing really well. Today I decided to put up our first few jars of dill pickles of the season.

This year we're growing National Pickling cucumbers like always but we are also growing a new variety, Marketmore cucumbers. These are a nice dark green cucumber that are long and slender with lots of "meat" and tiny seeds. I'll be using these and some of our larger National Pickling cucumbers for sliced pickles. I'm also growing my own dill and garlic which I used today in my pickles. My garlic could use a little more growing time but I just couldn't wait. I picked just enough to use for today's canning.

The dill pickle recipe I use is very simple and very good. Sometimes I add a hot pepper in with the cucumbers to add some "bite" to the pickles which I love. The great thing about pickling is you can add whatever you want....peppers, onions, carrots.... the possibilities are endless.

Ingredients:
White vinegar
Water
Canning Salt
Alum
Fresh dill (dried can be used)
Washed cucumbers
Fresh garlic

First I sterilize my jars and lids. I then get my water and vinegar started in a separate pot on the stove. I use one part vinegar to two parts water and bring them to a boil. While waiting on the jars and vinegar mixture I wash my cucumbers and slice them if I'm making sliced hamburger dills. I always cut the blossom ends off of the cucumbers so they won't be bitter. When the jars are ready I start putting my ingredients into the jar. For a pint size jar I'll add 1 teaspoon of salt, a knife end of alum, a nice sized sprig of dill and 1 toe of garlic. (Since my garlic was a little small I used a few.) You can add more or less of any of these ingredients depending on your taste. This is when you would also add a pepper, onions or whatever else you might like in your pickles. Today I kept it simple. If I'm making whole pickles I like to make them in quarts because pint jars just don't hold enough. If using quarts I double the ingredients except for the alum.

After all the jars are ready I start packing in the cucumbers tightly. Then I'll carefully pour the vinegar mixture over the cucumbers until they are covered. I tap the jars on the counter to get trapped air bubbles to come up then put the lids and rings on. I carefully place the jars into the pot of boiling water that was used to sterilize the jars making sure they are covered with water. They boil for 10 minutes then are carefully taken out and set out to cool before removing the rings.

There you have it....pickles! You can simply put up your own pickles very cheaply and provide your children (and yourself) with healthy homemade snacks all year long.



"...He has shown kindness by giving you rain from heaven and crops in their seasons; he provides you with plenty of food and fills your hearts with joy."      Acts 14:17

School Day Interruptions

   As a homeschool family we have had interruptions during school time on more than one occasion. Ringing telephones, busted water lines, broken fences and run away goats. Life happens. This morning we had an interruption of the pleasant nature. One of our Nubian does decided that today was the day for her to kid. I noticed this morning at chore time that her udder was nice and full and her ligaments were soft so it wasn't a surprise when our daughter ran in from the barn to tell me that she was starting to kid. With little assistance Luminaire (Lulu) brought into the world 5N Farm's Obadiah. Better known as Obie. He's such a cutie although I do wish he was a she.

 

 

   So, this morning the three Rs were put on hold and we moved "school" out to the barn. I'm very grateful that our children get to experience "life on the farm" and learn all of the wonderful life lessons that are learned here at home. Some things can't be taught in a classroom or learned by reading a book. We're blessed to have the opportunity to teach our children at home and offer them a well rounded education.

 

Now...the excitement is over and it's back to the three Rs!