No news is good news, right?

Well..... not much new happening here. We're still canning, carrots( into pickled sticks)and grating them to freeze for future breads and desserts. Today was fore casted to be into the mid 50's with sunshine. Nope, so far it's again a dreary, grey sky. On days like this, my get up and go seems to have gotten up and left. I function better when there is sunshine. On our list of "to do's"( which doesn't mean we'll get them all accomplished) is to finish up 4 loads of laundry and hang outside to dry, clean up in the garden, collect seed and get our garlic planted and mulched for winter. If we have any spare time there are still more carrots awaiting grating and pickling, 6 heads of cabbage waiting to be made into freezer slaw and 3-1/2 bushel of apples in need of some form of canning, dehydrating or freezing. We may very well have all of this wrapped up by Thanksgiving and then we have all the beautiful berries in the freezer, some of which we need to make into jam and jelly. One thing is for certain, we do not suffer from idle hands around here. There is ALWAYS something to do. It would be pretty boring if that weren't true, so for this we are thankful. Okay off to get something checked off that list. Bless you and your day, may it be constructive as well as productive.

A realistic view of our kitchen today... and a recipe for enchilada sauce

Okay, here is how our kitchen looks on cold wintry days, laundry drying by the stove. We can get two loads on the racks, then it takes a day to dry them thoroughly.


This is the homemade enchilada sauce we made today. We really like it and will make the remainder of the tomato sauce, cooked down yesterday, in to enchilada sauce and can it for later use. Here is the recipe;
Red Enchilada Sauce
1/4 c. olive oil
1 med. onion chopped fine
1 tsp. cumin
1c. beef or chicken broth
2 cloves garlic, minced
2c. tomato sauce or 2 can tomato paste
1Tbsp. red wine vinegar
2-4 oz. ground chile's( substituted red pepper, 1/8 tsp.
1 tsp. chili powder)
sea salt

Saute' onion in oil, add cumin and let simmer, stirring often until, well amalgamated. Add stock and peppers, bring to a boil. Reduce heat and add tomato sauce, vinegar, salt and garlic and simmer for 45 minutes.

We like our sauce mild, you can adjust the peppers to your tastes. I did add 1Tsp. of raw sugar, because our tomatoes are fairly acidic and needed to be sweetened a bit.

Whole wheat tortillas( this recipe can be found under our recipe tags)
1tsp olive oil, heat pan until hot, reduce heat( or in our case slide to a cooler part of the stove top) Let cook until lightly browned , turn over and do the same.
This is venison burger, onions and mashed pinto beans( some are still whole) and approx. 2c. enchilada sauce.
Place a health portion of the meat and bean mixture on the tortilla.
Add cheese, roll up and place in pan( you can see the pan in the background.) Once pan is filled, pour enchilada sauce over the top of the meat and bean tortillas, top with extra cheese and bake in a warm oven( 275-300F) for 20-25 minutes

Enjoy!

I don't like the signs I'm beginning to see!

Well..... as you know and I've said it before we've had the Summer without Summer and now yesterday I see the cottonwoods are already changing in color. Cortney and I have so much catch up work on weeding and with all the harvesting, canning, freezing and add now working on getting our hoop house in place over the tomatoes. The maters look wonderful but are GREEN as can be! We need to get some heat on them, otherwise we'll need to find lots of recipes for green mater and right now green mater spaghetti sauce, chili sauce or tomato sauce doesn't sound to good! Let's see I have to think in reverse now to see what we've been up to since the last blog, Hmmmm. Watering the garden has kept up busy, especially since you have to douse yourself in DEEP WOODS OFF to kind of fend off the skeeters. Let me tell you it's miserable trying to weed or pick produce and they are dive bombing you, literally trying to suck you dry!!! Friday morning and early afternoon was spent prepping for Farmer's Market. Dad and Mom joined in, and helped Cortney pick pole beans, while I picked cucumbers and bush beans. When this portion of the harvest was done we have 10 gallon sized bags of Kentucky Wonder pole beans and 2 gallon bags of Boccochia bush beans and approx. 25 slicing sized cukes. Next we harvested carrots, beets, spinach and I cut two Flat Dutch cabbage and two Red Rock cabbage. Actually we were packed and ready to go 30 minutes before we needed to leave, so took a breather. Once we arrived people started coming over, even before we were set up. We sold out of carrots ( 6 bunches, approx. 1lb each), sold 6 bags of beans, of the 5 bags of spinach, we returned with two. and sold out of cukes. The beets weren't as good a seller this time and we found out onions don't sell at all. I thought fresh garlic would sell too but it has had very little activity. It was a pleasant afternoon at the market and we had several repeat customers. We didn't take baked goods for lack of time, but the lady next to us had several items and another vendor had pies and they all sold out. One thing that struck me funny is that several of the people buying from us, weren't even sure how to cook the veggies, let alone have any idea of recipes. If I can get organized enough maybe it would be a good selling point to have sheets of recipes for the veggies we sell, to hand out! I guess because we eat and cook from scratch it NEVER dawned on me that not everyone does that, in fact one lady said," I'll be able to fix a meal, so we can eat at home for once." We'll be able to sell for sure at this coming Friday's market, but the following Fri(Sept. 4th) we'll be busy preparing for Cortney's small BBQ gathering for her graduation on the 5th. Speaking of the BBQ for Cortney's graduation, we NEED to get the garden/yard and house into shape, as well as fix , coleslaw, baked beans and a fruit salad of sorts. It's been a long haul doing home schooling, but it's worth it and we get to have a party to celebrate. The only other kind of a party that would be as much fun, will be our mortgage burning party and we're praying that will be soon! Since the firewood lean to was completed, Mike has hauled home a load of wood and the splitter, to split what is already here. On Friday morning my Dad started splitting wood and ran into problems with the splitter, so had to stop. Mike brought home the needed parts with the intention of getting it up and going early Sat. morning, but alas late Fri. evening a friend called and asked if we wanted to bale some straw for our own use. Well..... we need the straw for winter bedding for the cows and it is almost FREE( we'll insist they take something for the straw) so.... Mike gets the tractor and baler hooked up and heads off to the field to bale. He returns about an hour later and says the three windrows netted us 106 bales of straw, WaHOOO!!! You see last year Mike didn't have time to do this when the friend offered, so we ended up buying large round bales from the same friend, but they are a pain in the backside to get straw off of. Small bales just work so... much better for Cortney and myself. Mike and I went to load the straw last Sat. afternoon. My one concern was the place we had to enter the field was muddy and we had to drive through a small ditch. Anyway we loaded the straw on the truck and trailer and headed for the way out. Mike's truck is only a two wheel drive, so tried to stay on the drier side of the entrance. Okay truck made it through but...... the dual axle trailer was stuck and the truck just spun it's wheels. So Mike calls on cell and tells Cortney to bring the three wheeler over and pick him up. I wait in the truck, fighting off skeeters, soon enough I see Mike and his tractor coming. He hooked onto the truck with a chain and I was to drive the truck slowly as he pulled with the tractor. Ya, you bet, I'm nervous, I hate trucks and I don't want to be yelled at. So I have to do this, let the clutch out slowly, give it a little gas, wait a minute Mike is yelling to get off the gas" CUT IT!" is the sign I'm getting. It seems and I admit that in all the excitement I was giving it a bit much gas, but we're out so all is good, right? Did I say I hate trucks, so I took the tractor home, while Mike drove the truck and trailer. I get along with the tractor fine*wink* Yesterday Mike was up and gone by 6 am. on a wild land fire just East of us. It was ignited the evening before by lightening and evidently there were some missed hot spots that reignited. He returned home around 11:30 am and asked Cortney and I if we were ready to go. We asked where and he said someplace, anyplace, we all just NEED to get away for the afternoon. Some chore needed to be finished and clothes changed and we were off to the city. We decided a movie might be just the ticket. The last time we'd been to a theater was when, "The Passion" came out. We decided we'd try the BRAND new theater, it has 14 screens! We didn't even know what was playing until we got there. We decided between G.I. Joe and District 9, our choice District 9, because I wasn't feeling up for war games. Wrong choice, District 9 was really weird, I think G.I.Joe would have been the better choice*sigh* The matinee cost was $6.50, it used to be $4, that is part of why it's so long between this sort of treat, way to spendy for our budget and then the movie is weird to boot! Back home in time for Mike to work on fixing the wood splitter and splits some wood. In the meantime Cortney and I snapped approx. 5 gallons of beans and we still have 4 more to go. Today we're doing laundry( although it's grey and ugly outside, again!) canning beans and hopefully weeding in the garden, if we can stand the skeeters for long enough. There is a slight breeze so better get a move on it in the weeding dept. Well that's the excitement from here! Blessings for your week from, The new tractor driver, move over Jon you lost your place!

The last of our potatoes from the root cellar. They are just starting
to sprout. We do have some smaller potatoes, and the plan is to
either can them or slice and dehydrate them.

This was my thrift shop find on Saturday, when I took Cortney

to Youth Group.

Here is an better picture. It's in really nice shape and absolutely usable.

I picked it up for a mere $8, told you it was a good find!

The picture of our supper! Well, the main dish anyway. We did have

pickles, pickled beets and dilly beans for our sides.

This is:

Lentils and Brown Rice Casserole

3/4 c. lentils, uncooked

1/2 c. brown rice, uncooked

3c. chicken stock

3/4c. chopped onion

1/4 tsp. oregano

1/4 tsp.thyme

1/2 tsp. sweet basil

1/4 tsp. garlic powder or one clove crushed and minced

1/2 c. shredded cheese( of your choice), added the last 30 minutes

Blend everything together in the casserole dish and bake @ 300F for 1 hour and 30 minutes.

Bake covered for 1 hour, then uncover, add cheese and bake 15-30 minutes.

I add a loose sausage( cooked before adding) sometimes.

This was Cortney's dessert! It's Pioneer cake( choc.).

It's easy to make and is very moist. It has a secret ingredient....

Vinegar!

Pioneer cake

3c. unbleached flour

2 c. raw sugar( we decrease it to 1-1/4 c.)

2 tsp.baking soda

1/2 tsp salt

6Tbsp. baking cocoa

3/4 c. olive or grape seed oil

3 Tbsp. vinegar

3 Tbsp vanilla

3c. cold water

Sift first 5 ingredients into an ungreased10x14" cake pan. Mix and make 3 wells. In the first well add oil, in the second add vinegar and in the third add vanilla. Pour cold water over all. With a fork mix together. Bake at 375F for 35-40 minutes.

When cool you can dust with a powdered sugar or top with a cream cheese or sour cream frosting( made from scratch, of course!).

So much I'd like to share and so little time. On another blog I enjoy, It's Cheaper Than Therapy, she shared how she reads everyone elses blogs and they do so much and I agree. Yet it seems as if I'm spinning my wheels to have time to set and share a bit of what we've been up to this week. Cortney has been working 3-4 mornings a week helping our friend with lambing. One ewe had triplets and several others have had twins. My favorite, are the black lambs. She's been bottle feeding two of the triplets, as the mother just doesn't produce enough for all three lambs and actually she's outright rejected one of the three. Our friend has asked that Cortney work on her Dad about bringing these two lambs here. The selling point will be that it's ONLY until they are weaned, then we'll return them. Mike has made it clear that he's not particularly interested in sheep or goats. Cortney loves all animals and she is very responsible with their care, so I think it will be a good project for her( Psssst....it helps if Mom is in your corner) So not jumping the gun, so to speak, I've told Cortney she'll need to clean out the brooder coop( it's 8X12 and insulated) and we'll get out a heat lamp for evenings. Attached to the brooder coop is a fenced yard, so it will work well for the lambs. This is Mike's weekend to work, so I'm planning on finishing up cleaning up sucklers trimmed from the fruit trees. I also need to top two of our plum trees, this should be fun as I don't like ladders much, but it's getting to late to wait any longer. I'm also hanging out our last load of laundry today. We have been making our laundry into an all week issue with all this uncertain weather. Drying clothes on wooden drying rack takes time, which slows down the amount of laundry being washed. Mike has promised me this year he'll make me two new clothes line posts holding 5 lines. This way we can hang out all the laundry in one day. The clothes line that is here now has only 3 lines, so at best two loads and it's full. For years now we've been led to live, our walk, closer to God. This means in all aspects of our lives right down to being, as I refer to it, God Sufficient. Self sufficient makes self the center and we want God to be our center, make sense? We are led to lead a sufficient life, which means providing for our means as much as humanly possible with the lest amount of dependence on the WORLD. We raise 98% of our produce and meat. In continuing education of organic foods and supplies, herbals and homeopathics, we are well set in providing for our health needs. We do purchase basic pantry items, with a careful eye as to which products, organic or natural companies we do business with( many of them are compromised by big business) Many people think that eating wholesome foods costs to much, the way we look at it is; "What is your health worth to you?" We, as a nation, pay out billions of dollars to the health care industry yearly( via health insurance premiums, as well as medical treatment). By consuming preservatives, chemical laden foods, hormones, genetically modified organisms( GMO's), MSG, man made chemicals(Aspartame, dyes, flavor enhancers) we have effectively compromised our God given immune function. Thus the gradual increases over years, in new diseases and illnesses and the ability of theses diseases and illnesses to gain in their immunity to medical treatments. We've created our own monster folks! We by no means have the answer. I just know that we were awakened, to this many years ago, when Cortney was diagnosed with a genetic disease( at 2yrs old). This disease is called Neurofibromatisis 1 and it is a genetic disease that follows from generation to generation. Yet neither Mike or myself have it and nor does any family on either side of our family tree. My question was, where did this come from then? The genetic specialist said it spontaneously mutated in her and now begins the generations exposed. Why did it mutate in her? You can make yourself crazy thinking about all of this, but in short we were led by the Lord to change our lifestyle and as many would say, get back to living the way the Lord intended, eating whole foods, living a less stressed life, enjoying one another, etc..... This means eating produce we grow, therefore can be 100% sure it's had no chemical exposure. We can, dehydrate and freeze everything we don't eat fresh. We raise animals in a natural way( no antibiotics, hormones, or immunizations) and then we are sure that our dairy,as well as meat are 100% chemical free as well. Of course we can't possibly control all exposure to chemicals, it's in the air we breath and the water we drink( although we do filter our water through a Big Berkley) I pray that everyone who reads our blog is led to seek a more wholesome lifestyle. As you've read by the above ramblings it's a subject close to my heart. I'd like to ask all that read this start to think about what your put in your body before you do it. Educate yourself about the health dangers of all the chemical laden foods and drinks. Study what is happening to our food and what the reasoning is behind the GMO push( think outside the box). One simple question we ask ourselves," How close is this food, to how God made it?" Well...... this turned into a soapbox moment, I'm stepping down now. Off to get something on the list going! Again I can relate to It's Cheaper Than Therapy's blog today, where does everyone come up with the time to get it all done, they must have more arms and hands than I? Many blessing to each of you and through out this weekend.

Ho Hum Monday

It's now 2:30 pm and I don't feel as if I've even woken up fully. We had planned to get so much crossed off the "To Do" list. We had unexpected company arrive about 9:30 am, so this set us back a bit but we enjoyed our visit. Mondays are most always "Laundry Day". That being said, Cortney headed outdoors to finish up some daily animal chores while I sorted and started a load of jeans. Then came breakfast and yes, supper dishes( shameful I know) left until this morning. First load of wash was ready for a rinse, then a few more minutes aggitation and finally run through the wringer. The day is cloudy but it is above normal temps with a slight breeze blowing, so drying time will be quick. Next is a load of dark clothes and I'm off to help Cortney haul wood to the outside woodbox. When woodbox was filled we headed indoors, Cortney to begin working on school work and I was on a mission to clean the refrigerator. Really the refrigerator wasn't messy, but I did however find some containers clearn in the back, you know the ones, contents look like nothing you served! The frig. all cleaned and rearranged, the seocnd load of wash was awaiting a rinse and aggitation. Cortney had a few questions on Math and in Science, so we spent time looking into these. It was now time to put Mo, our horse, out onto pasture for a few hours grazing. Cortney put Mo out and cleaned his stall and corral and I fixed grilled ham and cheese sandwiches, carrot sticks and canned pears for dinner. Having dinner finished and dishes done again Cortney worked on finishing up school work and I took time to read a few articles in the "Local section" of the newspaper. I've been following a case of animals cruelty and there was an update and information on bills being brought before the House. These bills are designed to help with regulation of puppymills. When cleaning the frig. I also was thinking of ways to use some leftovers from a few nights ago. Supper tonight will need to be ready, as Mike has EMT classes to help with tonight. I found steak, which will be made into a steakrice and served with leftover squash and buttermilk biscuits. Dessert will most likely be a fruit cobbler, apple blueberry or apple rhubarb, as they are easily put together from home canned apple pie filling and rhubarb or frozen blueberries. Cortney's plans tonight is to work on some new jewelry designs( ear rings) and to get an idea of cost for beads and needed items to make more. She has a beading mentor who comes once a week and helps her with new techniques and gives an assignment to be finished by the following week. I plan to work on researching CSA( Community Supported Agriculture) ideas online. I'm not sure CSA will catch on in our local area, so will need to focus on areas where we can advertise close enough that it will work. Area Farmer's Markets are still in our research as well. CSA would make our job easier, as the people would come here to pick up produce and possibly if we had a good following from the city, we could manage a drop point in the city. Time to stoke the wood cookstove and get the brown rice cooking. Many blessing to each of you.

Homemade Laundry Soap

The Lord moved me to search out more frugal and healthful ways several years ago. The amount of chemicals we ingest and absorbed from our environment is alarming! I am seeking to reduce our families exposure to chemicals as much as possible. Also, the savings of homemade over store bought is a definate plus.

Here is the recipe we use.
4 Cups hot tap water
1bar Fels Naptha laundry bar( grated)
1 Cup Washing Soda
½ Cup Borax
Grate bar of soap into the pan you will use. Add hot tap water, soda and borax.
Stir continually over medium-low heat until soap dissolves( is melted) and the liquid becomes thicker.
Pour this mixture into a 5 gallon bucket, add 2 qts. hot tap water and stir well. Now fill bucket with cold water.
Stir, cover and let sit overnight to thicken.

I use 1/2 c. per regular sized load.

This laundry soap recipe can be doubled or even tripled.

Here is a cost break down:
Fels Naptha Soap- $1.25
Washing Soda .50
Borax .40
Total 2.05 for 80 cups or 5 gallons or .027 cents per load

Added point; graciously pointed out by a friend that this formula is "low suds" so works well for HE washing machines.



Homemade Bread( whole wheat) is another area to save and provide a more nutritious food.
Here is one of our family favorites;

Whole Wheat Bread

3c. very warm water( I use filtered)

1/3c. oil or melted lard

1/4 c. sugar

3 tsp. salt

1 egg( beaten)

3 c. whole wheat flour

1-1/2 tblsp active dry yeast

4-5 c. unbleached flour

Stir together water, oil, sugar, salt and egg into a large bowl. Mix yeast with 2.c. whole wheat flour and 2c. unbleached flour. Then add to liquid. Stir vigorously for a minute. Add remaining 1 c. whole wheat flour and enough unbleached( 3-4c.), one cup at a time, to make a soft dough. Fold out onto a well floured board or countertop. Knead for 8 minutes( yes the whole entire time if you want good texture) Place kneaded dough into a well greased( large) bowl. Let rise until double in size. Puch down and flip over, now let rise a second hour until double in size. Punch down and form into loaves( this recipe makes 3 large loaves), buns, breadsticks, etc..... Let rise again until double and bake in a moderate 325-350F oven until golden brown and sounds hollow when tapped on. I typically brush with olive oil or butter to soften the top crust. If making into bread sticks brush with oil or butter and add seeds( sesame, sunflower, flax, etc....) and or cheese( cheddar, romano, even feta)before baking. Just be sure to watch items with seeds or cheese as the burn easily.

Enjoy!

I'll add a few more favorite bread recipes, such as sourdough( starter recipe included) and Birdseed Bread( a whole grain recipe)

Birdseed Bread

This recipe may be doubled or tripled if necessary( it would be a lot of dough to work with, so I just do batches)
Oven setting: 375F
Yield: 3 large or 4 medium loaves
4 c. warm water
2Tblsp. Yeast ( or two packages)
½ c. brown sugar or molasses ( I prefer molasses)
½ c. honey
½ cup oil ( canola is what I use)
4 tsp. salt( otherwise bread has a flat taste)
About 12 c. flour ( usually use unbleached white and whole wheat with a 4:1, white/wheat ratio
1/2c. Of any or each of the following wheat, spaelt, oats, sesame seeds, sunflower seeds, barley, course ground corn meal, millet and any other grains you may have.
Boil the hard grains ( do not boil the sesame or sunflower seeds) in more water than needed until they are soft and chewy.
When draining the water from the boiled grains measure the water toward the 4cups needed for the recipe. This contain vitamins, minerals and gluten for the elastic power of the dough.
Cool grains and water before adding the following mixture:
Dissolve yeast in warm water, add molasses, honey, oil and salt. Stir well and add cooled grains and sesame and sunflower seeds. Measure flour into separate bowl. Add flour mixture to wet mixture, holding back about 2cups You’ll have to get in there with your hands and mix it well( messy part). Now flour counter or board heavily and knead dough until smooth and satiny with grains( about 8-10 minutes). Place in a large, well greased bowl. Cover with a damp cloth and let rise in a warm area until double. Punch down and repeat a second rise( this rise is not necessary, but helps give a finer texture to the bread) Punch down again and form into loaves, placing in greased and floured pans. (Dough can be frozen at this stage. When frozen place in pan, cover lightly and let thaw and then rise.) Let rise about 20 minutes. Bake for 10 minutes @375, then reduce heat to 350 for 30 more minutes. Bread will be a beautiful chestnut brown, and will sound hollow when “thumped” on the top. I butter the tops and place on a cooling rack for about an hour (Well, we may sneak some while it’s still hot ) Freeze cooled bread and when thawed it will be as moist and nice as fresh baked bread. ENJOY!!!!!!