Heavenly Homemakers

I love this blog.  I am linking to her post because she does the same kind of "replacement cooking" that I like to do.  Check it out...

Heavenly Homemakers-How to adapt a recipe to make it healthier. 

Bring on the boredom!

I am sorry.  But I must bore you again this year.  I cannot begin my planting without taking pictures of dirt and sharing them with you.  So hang in there.  The green will be coming soon!

It's dirt.  That is all at this point.  Just dirt.

Okay so maybe it's a special organic seeding dirt made moist by a rooting hormone/vitamin solution and labeled with plastic knives marked with a Sharpie.  Nothing crazy.

This is what I am planting in the pots.  Tomatoes, peppers and eggplant.  These must be started indoors.

These are my remaining seeds that can be direct sown once the soil is consistently warm. 

  I had trouble watering my seedlings last year.  The spray bottle took too long and pouring water from a cup would spill over the edge and displace the dirt.  So I bought these plastic ketchup and mustard bottles for about 99 cents.  They allow enough water out to be practical but not too much to make a mess.  So nice!

I am so proud.  I kept two geraniums alive all winter long in my sun room.  They are starting to green up and flower again!  Two plants I do not have to buy for the porch this spring!

This is an experiment.  I want to grow sweet potatoes.  This is the way you get slips.  Or so I'm told.  I'll let you know how it goes.  No roots yet.

Our chickens are producing well.  4 chickens=4 eggs a day!

I'm not sure what happened here.  I think someone just blew his mind.

Awww.  I love the way things grow around here.

Homemade "Hamburger Helper"

So you take your favorite pasta and undercook it by a minute or two.  This says cooks in 7-8 minutes so I cook it for 5-6. 

You brown a pound of your favorite meat. (I chose turkey to make the dish a bit less beefy.)  Brown meat with a small chopped onion.  Add veggies your family will tolerate.  I added celery, mushrooms and black olives.  I really wanted to add a bell pepper but my daughter can smell them a mile away!  Then you add a cup of chicken stock and a half cup of cream or half and half.  You will want the mixture to be soupy so that it will not dry out in the oven. 

You can add a can of tomatoes to the mixture as well.  I had to take a picture of these apart from the other ingredients.  I just had to.  I am savoring each and every jar until they are gone!

Cook together until veggies are soft.  Then take a handful of your favorite cheese and add to the mixture.  Stir it in and cook a bit longer.  Try to ignore the fact that it looks like vomit with cheese on it.  That is just a coincidence.  It will taste nothing like that.   



Drain the pasta and prepare for greatness!



Okay, so maybe it's mediocreness but you get the idea.  Mix it all together.

I can never put anything in the oven without adding a bit more cheese.  That is what I have done here.  Just top it with cheese.  It won't hurt a soul.

Put the whole shebang into a 375 degree oven and let it cook until it is all mellowed-out and bubbly.

I got fancy with this batch and added bread crumbs before baking.  It is not required.  It will delight the crowd without the crumbs.  Serve this dish with a green salad or some other green veggie.  My kids love it and it is really very easy and a one-pot meal if you have a skillet that can bake in the oven. 

Enjoy a meal with the family my friends!

Fact...

It is feeling like spring here!   

Fact:

It's making Zaddok wear muscle-shirts and flex.

                                                         
                                                                       Fact: 

We have entered the season of cowboy boots. All boys must pass through this phase. It is part of becoming a man.

                                                                           Fact: 

She is growing up way too fast.

                                                                           Fact:

Recorder concerts are the bomb! Hi Jolie and Merik!

                                                                            Fact:

Spring could be teasing us and we could be doing this again next week.

                                                                           Fact:

I love colored glass.  Just thought you might like to know something random about me. (Plus, I really like the color and light in this pic.:) 

                                                                          Fact:

I love this guy and his chubby thighs!



Tea-parties happen

My daughter.  If there is ever a moment of pause, when the world goes quiet and I start to read a book, she comes up with a plan.  She will plan you right out of the room.  Every detail of an event is accounted for, every minute scheduled.  So one pleasant and quiet Sabbath, she came to me with her plan.  It was a tea party for the family.  I agreed, she took off! 

This was the result.  A perfectly perfect party, in her room, surrounded by 1000 of her closest stuffed friends. 

Boys at a tea-parties.  It is a beautiful and unnatural thing. 

Daddy had to fold himself up cross-legged to join us on the floor.  Crossed legs do not come easy for our poor daddy.  He is smiling through the pain.

A Sabbath tea-party insures that the goodies are simple and delicious.  Leftover challa, cookies from dessert and fruit.



I will keep this photo forever.  Partly because it is cute but specifically because I can use it against them one day when they try to leave me.
 "Mom, we are going to college."
"Oh yea.  How 'bout I show them how you guys really like to party?"
 
Blackmail: when a regular nice mom just won't do.




That's beautiful life folks. 



Snow babies!

We have had incredible winter weather this past month.  I have, in the past, seen it snow a lot more here on the prairie.  I have never seen it colder here.  -30 wind chill!  That is cold.  Pipes freeze, wind blows and heaters can't keep up.  But my kids always find a way to look on the bright side.  I picked up Zaddok from school last week and he gave me his perspective on the weather. 

We were driving home from his school and he said, "Mama, it's a nice day today!" 

It was 4 degrees with negative wind chill because of the 30 mile-an-hour sustained winds.

Being the ever-sensitive mother I said, "What the heck are you talking about!  It's freezing and miserable outside!"

His little, sweet smile spread across his face as he gazed dreamily out the window.  "But the snow is so pretty!"

Then I got to see through his eyes. The snow glittered in the bright afternoon sun and the wind blew dancing currents of powder around our car.  The frost on the glass made an intricate maze of crystals across my field of view. 

I felt like a grump.  I let my own comfort determine what I saw in front of me.  Was it a nice day for playing outside, for gardening or for not wearing a parka?  Nope.  But it was still beautiful.  We had all been healthy, warm and fed.  I had nothing to complain about.

I said, "You know what buddy?  It is a nice day!"

Sometimes it takes a 5-year-old to teach me how to live.

 

I'm a square. So are my biscuits!

I am a self-proclaimed nerd.  I am really okay with it.  It's fun to be interested in things I love.  I don't care if watching the History Channel is dorky or if getting excited about compost makes me a weirdo.

 I would rather read a book than go to a party or have a picture of my food in a cookbook rather than have a picture of me in a magazine.  I am a square, an L-7 wienie.  (Who remembers that movie?)   

So it is no surprise that my biscuits, instead of being nice and round, would be square.  (Nice segue, right?)  If you have ever made homemade biscuits before, you know the process is, well...a process.  Rolling dough, cutting.  Rolling excess dough, cutting. It goes on and on until you have used all of the dough.  Here is my method.

I have a good recipe for a baking powder biscuit.  I have used it for years.  These just happen to be whole wheat. 

After you roll them out, instead of using a round cutter and having to re-roll the trimmings, I just use a pizza cutter or an ulu to cut the dough.  It saves you from having to work the dough over and over which tends to make biscuits tough. 

As you can see, they are not uniform.  The edges are not perfectly square.  Who cares!  We are just going to slather them with butter and jelly. 

These were delicious but a little different.  They did not puff as much as my plain, white flour biscuits do.   I will have to play with the recipe.  But they soft on the inside and crispy on the outside.  Mmmmmm.  They go great with coffee...or gravy.

Making these from scratch is just as easy as making them from a mix but not nearly as easy as pulling them out of the freezer.  (Although, I have had success with making them and freezing them for convenience.) 

The great thing about these is that they have 5 ingredients.  You can know for sure what your family is eating.  The ones you find in the grocery store have way more than 5 ingredients and some of them are not pretty.  (Natural and artificial flavoring?)

 Cutting them in squares makes them that much easier to make so give it a try.!

Baking Powder Biscuits    

2 cups unbleached white flour (you can use 1/2 whole wheat)
3 tsp baking powder (I always use the non-aluminum kind)
1/2 tsp salt
1/3 cup canola oil or butter
3/4 cup milk

Mix dry ingredients.  Make a well (or dent) in the dry ingredients.  Add the milk and fat to the center.  Mix with a fork until dough forms a wet ball.  Turn out onto a flat surface and knead 10 strokes just to make the dough uniform.  Lightly roll out dough to 1 inch thick.  Cut (however you prefer, I won't judge.) and place on a baking sheet. (Make sure you cut straight down into the dough and do not twist.  This can seal the edges of the dough and prevent them from rising when baking)  Bake at 450 degrees for 12 minutes or until slightly browned. 
Makes 8 to 10 biscuits.