Around the Homestead

Archive for the ‘Homemaking’ Category

Monday: Baked chicken breast, mashed potatoes, gravy, veggies.

Tuesday: Sheppards Pie, mashed potatoes, garden salad.

Wednesday: Hamburgers and fry’s.

Thursday: Stir fry, rice.

Friday: Baked tomato pasta, garlic bread, ceasar salad.

Saturday: Pizza, garlic strips, salad

Sunday: Roast, scalloped potatoes, carrots.

We are starting our summer canning with strawberry jam.
Normally I use low/no sugar pectin and only add a cup or two of sugar in my recipe. However I’m out of that so I’m using up some regular pectin. This uses more sugar then I like, but considering how small of a serving you use it’s not to bad.

Basic Strawberry Jam Recipe
2 quarts strawberries
2 TBS lemon juice
7 cups sugar
1 packet powdered pectin

Mash berries and add lemon juice and pectin.
Bring to a boil and add sugar.
Boil for 1 minute.
Remove from heat, stir and skim for 5 min.
Ladle into jars and can for 10 min.

Sharing some tips and ideas that have worked well for us.

I started making my own laundry soap 6 years ago. We love it and I hope this video helps you.

This is how we make sausage for our pizzas. We make it a little stronger then normal to stand out on pizza.
If you wanted to make sausage patties then reduce the salt and pepper to taste.

A short video on how we make maple syrup here on our little homestead.

Perfect for Saving Money & Getting the Family Together – AND Healthier!

You know, when finances seem to be getting tough all over, there are some benefits to be seen. By being more frugal and careful with our money – great things can actually happen. And in this case – we’re talking about getting the family healthier and closer together.

Who could complain about that?

It all begins with simple meal-planning. In other words, knowing EXACTLY what your family is going to eat each day, having the ingredient on hand and quickly putting together delicious meals. Seriously – it IS possible and not as complicated as you might think.

All you need to do is set aside a little time each week to make your plan. To make it easier, grab your free dinner planning & grocery shopping sheets at:

Click HERE

Imagine…the family around the table together, eating healthy meals and reconnecting. Now THAT’S priceless.

The night before our Thanksgiving in early October our oven died.  The dial that sets the temperature broke.  It would turn on but you couldn’t tell what setting it was at.  Eventually we figured out were to set it for most baking.  But then a few weeks before Christmas it started surging temps.  cold one min to hot the next.  We have already had the thermostat, 2 oven elements and many burners replaced on this thing…We decided not to try and have it fixed again.  There must be something wrong with it that causes the burners and thermostat to keep burning out.  We searched every were looking for used stoves.  We finally found one place.  They must be in high demand right now!  Dh looked and they had this very old yellow stove.  The store thinks it’s from the 60’s. But I tell you it cooks better then any stove I’ve ever had!!  They sure made things to last back then.  It also has an extra broiler oven on top.  I LOVE it!!

This pic is just after dh brought it in the house.

First batch of cookies as a “test”.  Bakes great!  My other stove was alway burning everything or under cooking.

Well we have had a big change in the weather.  It’s the low 20’s today and the next few days look to be in the high teens.  It’s a big change from our heat wave we’ve been having.  It is much nicer for sleeping and canning though!  We are suppose to get some rain in the next few days and hopefully that will help the garden to.

This morning we watched some of the opening ceremonies for the Olympic games.   I missed the first bit  I just couldn’t get up early enough after all the lack of sleep this week!  Last night we had no storms, well one did come by but was far enough away not to be loud.  Baby girl slept all night to whoo hoo!! LOL

Anyway the girls loved watching all the different dancers and fireworks.  We’ll be doing a study on the Olympics and I’ll post links to some great sites latter on tonight.

I’m just taking a little rest before starting supper.  We are having an early supper tonight so we can go shopping right after.  We’ve tried to shop quickly and come home for supper but that never works lol.   We always get to hungry when shopping takes longer and that leads to eating out.   So it’s much better to eat first!  I’m making creamy egg noodles with chicken and veggies and blueberry coffee cake for desert.

Well I’m up to my neck in meat LOL!!  Yesterday afternoon we discovered the freezer had been unplugged since last Sat.  All of our fruit and veggies are goners.    We thought all the meat was to but after a closer look I was able to save most of it.    So last night was spent doing a LOT of cooking.  I cooked up a large pork roast, 35 pounds of ground beef and a roaster full of chicken parts.  The ground beef and chicken have all been bagged and refrozen.  The pork is in the fridge for a stir fry latter and some casseroles this week.

I also have a turkey cooking right now and a few racks of ribs and 15 pounds of ground beef left to do.

It sure smells good around here LOL!!

This is one of the reasons we like canning so much better then freezing!  We are working at canning ALL of our meat and using only the small freezer on top of the fridge, instead of our two large ones.