Archive for the ‘In the Kitchen’ Category
May 2nd, 2010 | 
Author: I thought I would take some time to ask of my subscribers how things are in there area. Looking forward to seeing how things are going.
Spring has come to the homestead and with it the first harvest crop. Maple syrup!! We only have 2 maple trees on our property, but that yummy sap isn’t going to waste.
If you’ve been following our video homestead series, you’ll know that making maple syrup was our first video.
When the temperatures started to rise we headed out to tap the trees. After the first day we had collected about 2 gallons of sap. It was strained and set in a large pot on medium heat to evaporate. When it was almost finished dh transferred it to a small pot. This is were the “trouble” started. We got busy and forgot it was cooking… The sap came to a boil, when I spotted this I turned it off, when it cooled it was rock hard in the pot. Hmmm…
Maple Sugar Harvest 2010
Well I thought why not heat it up and pour it out on wax paper. We’ll have maple candy! I turned the temp on low and started to soften it. I stirred it up making sure it wouldn’t burn. But something unexpected happened. As the sap was heating up it started turning to powder in front of my eyes. It was amazing to see! What we were left with was maple sugar! And it is soooo delicious!
I wish all kitchen mistakes could be that good. LOL!
Posted in Homesteading, In the Kitchen | 
Tags: Homesteading, Maple, Maple taffy, MapleSyrup, Sweeteners, Tree | 
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I LOVE finding good deals so when I found out about swag bucks I joined. Swag Bucks is one of the easiest point systems I’ve used. You don’t have to do anything special to win. I simply use their search bar when I’m looking online. As you search you win swag bucks that you can redeem for prizes in their store. My favorite is Amazon gift cards! We love books in our house and as homeschoolers use a lot! Also keep your eyes open for swag buck codes to earn extra points!
There has been lots of dehydrating in my kitchen lately! Since I received my Excalibur Dehydrator
These are peppers and mixed vegetables before and after dehydrating.
Today I’m featured on the Real Food Face Off along with Virginia at Living the Local Life. The Real Food Face Off is a gathering of “real food bloggers” and is hosted by Kitchen Stewardship. Twice a week 2 bloggers are featured together to share their thoughts on what real food is and share tips and tricks. Check out Kitchen Stewardship to visit with many great food bloggers!
Some questions and answers that didn’t go live:
1. If you only had energy for ONE make-from-scratch food, what would it be? Is your preference for taste or health? One thing that I prefer to buy is Chinese chicken balls! I have yet to find a good recipe for them so this is an occasional treat.
2. What’s your favorite real/traditional food? I have two favorites. My husbands pizza with garlic bread and salad. Second is chicken and dumplings.
3. If you had only $20 to spend in a week on real food, what would you buy and what would you make? If I only had $20 I would buy wheat berries (or flour), rice, beans, lard, butter, sugar, bananas, apples, celery, carrots and yeast. With these ingredients you could make many different breads and stir fry’s. Fruits would be saved for snacks.
Recently a dear friend asked me if I would like a dehydrator she was no longer using. I was just so excited! I’ve been 
canning for over 15 years and I would never give that up. However dehydrating has many benefits. It saves a LOT of space and properly stored many items can last up to 30 years. Standard guidelines on canned goods are 1 year, although myself and many canners have used them well past that and they were just fine.
My main interest in dehydrating is time savings, space savings and long term storage.
This is the dehydrator I have except that mine has 4 trays. I love it, enough that I will be getting a larger Excalibur
one ASAP.
Below is what I’ve been dehydrating in the past week. The bag of corn was a 1kg (2.2 lb) frozen bag, it now fits in just 1 medium zip lock bag! Each bag of peppers had taken up 4 medium zip lock bags before dehydrating. We bought lots on a case sale last summer, diced and froze them. The bottom right are blueberries. Last week a local store had 600 g tubs of frozen wild organic blueberry’s on sale. Now these will be easy to add to yogurt or baked goodies! On the bottom left are banana chips, or what is left at them. lol The kids just love them!
I decided to join Crystal at Money Saving Mom and FishMomma at Life as Mom in the freezer cooking day. Although in my case I’m spreading it out over a few days. I find with many young little ones it’s much easier to spread the work out this way.
I actually started a few days ago and a little differently from many people. I’m partly emptying my freezers! Yes I’m working at taking many of the vegetables and fruits out and dehydrating them. This will save us a lot of freezer space and keep them in good condition longer then freezing.
Below is my plan although it may change depending on the sales this week.
My OAMC list for the next few days:
- Smooth Marmalade x 2
- Grapefruit Marmalade
- dehydrate blueberries
- dehydrate zucchini from freezer
- Whole wheat bread x8
- Blueberry muffins x 2 batches
- Waffles
- BBQ marinated chicken
One of my hubby’s favorite suppers is Sheppard’s pie. I’ve experimented with different variations over the years. So far this is our favorite. I made this for supper yesterday, all the ingredients except the beef were from our gardens last summer. The beef is from a local farmer. I love having home canned foods on hand to make cooking go quicker!
A note on the recipe below. The spice measurements are approximate, by “eyeball”. I rarely measure spices when I’m cooking. Before serving simply adjust the spices to suit your family’s taste.
Sheppard’s Pie
- 1 lb ground beef
- 1 medium onion
- 1 quart crushed tomatoes
- 1 pint (2 cups) peas
- 1 tps salt
- 1 heaping TBS parsley
- 1 heaping TBS basil
- 1 heaping TBS garlic powder
- 1/2 TBS pepper
- mashed potatoes
Fry ground beef until browned. Add onions and cook until meat is done and onions start to soften.
Add tomato sauce, spices and peas. Bring to a boil and cook 10 minutes.
Spread meat mixture into a baking pan and top with mashed potatoes. If desired sprinkle with shredded cheddar cheese and parsley. Bake at 350F for 30 minutes or until the top starts to crisp.
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.
A good friend of mine needed to go gluten free. I understand just how challenging that can be! When my now 4 year old dd was a toddler she reacted badly to gluten and milk. Thankfully it only lasted just over a year. Dear friend decided to sell her grain mill since it had been used with gluten flours. It’s now a much loved addition to my kitchen. Now I already own the family grain mill with a hand base and I do like it. However I find it to hard to grind large amounts of grain with it daily.
Today I gave it a try and ground enough wheat to make my normal bread recipe. What can I say I LOVE fresh whole wheat bread! I made four loaves and two are gone already! One was devoured before it finished cooling. The other was turned into garlic bread. That went great with our pizza supper. Now if I could just find a local source for taller bread pans! All our area sells are 8 x 4 inch.
