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Thursday, October 29, 2009

I am such an awful mom!

Tris came down the sidewalk crying (we were all out shoveling) & he said he laid the shovel down & then stepped on it & the handle came up & whacked him in the face. And all I could do was belly laugh...




A nice big puffy black & blue lip & a scrape across his cheek. :(

I think I redeemed myself though. An ice pack & a cuppa hot cocoa.

YummyEarth lollipops.....

Apparently kids AND kitties like them!



Wednesday, October 28, 2009

I know I need to clean out my freezer.....

But this is ridiculous!



I hope Darth left some organic coffee & pumpkin puree for me.....

Tuesday, October 27, 2009

Coconut Carob Pudding

1/3 cup raw sugar
4 t arrowroot powder
1/8 t real salt
3 T carob powder
2 pastured eggs, slightly beaten
1 can whole coconut milk, with enough filtered water to make 2 cups
2 T coconut oil
2 teaspoons vanilla extract

Combine sugar, arrowroot & salt in a 2-quart saucepan. Add eggs & milk mixture while whisking to combine. Cook over medium heat, stirring constantly. As mixture thickens & comes to a boil, continue to whisk for 1 minute. Remove from heat. Stir in coconut oil & vanilla. Cool slightly & pour into small serving bowls. Chill. Top with carob chips, whipped cream, nuts, etc.

Makes 4-6 servings.

Tequila Lime Grilled Chicken

Tequila Lime Grilled Chicken



2 teaspoons grated lime peel
1/4 cup lime juice
1/4 cup olive oil
2 tablespoons chopped fresh cilantro
1/2 teaspoon sugar
1/2 teaspoon salt
1-2 small jalapeƱo chiles, seeded, finely chopped
1-2 cloves garlic, finely chopped
4 boneless skinless chicken breasts (1 1/4 lb)

1. To make marinade, in shallow glass or plastic dish, or resealable food-storage plastic bag, mix all ingredients except chicken.
2. Between pieces of plastic wrap or waxed paper, place each chicken breast smooth side down; gently pound with flat side of meat mallet or rolling pin until about 1/4 inch thick. Add chicken to marinade; turn to coat. Cover dish or seal bag; refrigerate at least 30 minutes but no longer than 24 hours.
3. Heat coals or gas grill for direct heat. Remove chicken from marinade; discard marinade. Cover and grill chicken over medium heat 8 to 10 minutes, turning once, until juice of chicken is clear when center of thickest part is cut (170°F).

We serve this up sliced, with refried beans, spanish rice, tortillas, sour cream, salsa and lime wedges, for squeezing over it all. This is the hubby's absolute favourite dish I make, & my parents liked it when I made it for them. The kids even like it! EXCELLENT and VERY recommended!

Herb Baked Salmon

Herb Baked Salmon

  • 3/4 pound salmon fillet
  • 1 tablespoon Dijon mustard
  • 1/4 cup parsley, fresh, chopped
  • 1 teaspoon dried oregano
  • 1/2 teaspoon dried thyme
  • 1/2 cup sourdough bread crumbs
  • salt and pepper to taste
  • 1 egg white
Preheat oven to 350°. Grease baking tray. Wash salmon, pat dry, and spread mustard over the top. Mix parsley, oregano, thyme and bread crumbs together. Season with salt and pepper. Blend in egg white to bind mixture together. Spread over mustard. Bake in oven for 20 to 25 minutes, depending on thickness of fillets. Remove from oven and serve on individual plates with rice and a vegetable. Serves 2.

Dinner Rolls

This is a project I'm still working on making truly TF. As of right now, the ingredients are ok, but I'm working on making it a soaked recipe.




Dinner Rolls


1 (1/4-ounce) package dry active yeast or 2 1/2 teaspoons bulk yeast
1 cup filtered warm water, about 110 degrees F
1/2 cup raw sugar
1 pastured egg, beaten
2 teaspoons real salt

1 cup raw or organic milk, scalded but cooled to warm
4 ounces melted butter or coconut oil, plus 2 ounces
5 cups unbleached flour or whole wheat flour, plus more, as needed


In a standing mixing bowl with dough hook, dissolve yeast in warm water. Let sit until lightly foamy, then stir in sugar and add egg, salt, warm milk, and 4 ounces of butter. Slowly add 5 cups flour, adding more as needed to make an elastic dough. Mix well,
then roll out to floured surface and knead dough for about 5 minutes.

Place dough in buttered bowl, cover with towel, and set in a warm place to rise until double in bulk, about 1 hour.

Lightly oil the muffin pan. Punch down dough and form dough into 1-inch balls. Place 3 balls in each muffin tin. Fill muffin pan, cover with towel, and allow to rise an additional 1/2 hour.


Preheat oven to 425 degrees F.

Brush with remaining melted butter. Bake in preheated oven for 10 to 15 minutes, until golden brown.


Monday, October 26, 2009

One Blessed Mama does a giveaway

Her name is JODI (I'm not awake yet, so if you saw the last post, disregard.....).

Anyhoo, she is having a giveaway. Go see her. And for the love of blog, leave a comment & spread some bloggy love. She's great!

I mean seriously, how can you not love a woman that decorates her dining room with canned goods, and MAKES IT LOOK GOOD!?!?!

Kitchens Gone Wild Carnival 10-26-2009

Here are the rules....

Post about what's gone wild in your kitchen this past week on your blog.

Come back here & leave the title of your post/subject of your post & the link to your post in the cool little linky gadget below.

Leave a comment.

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Kitchens Gone Wild





Kitchens Gone Wild Carnival 10-26-2009

Been a slow week this week. I made 6 loaves of sourdough, 1 batch of sourdough pancakes (which I forgot to get a picture of) & 1 batch of sourdough crackers, which everyone loved & took all of 3 days to devour! Guess what I'm doing this week? Yeah. Making crackers again. Probably a double batch this time, LOL.




I also tried my hand at drying my starter. I've shipped some off to a faraway land (actually only Pennsylvania), so she can try her hand at a sourdough starter.




My kombucha tea is taking longer as it keeps getting colder & colder here. I'm going to check it today, and with any luck it will be ready! My Amish friendship bread starter is doing well, and I've shared 2 shares with others. It will be ready for baking in just 2 days- YAY!! I'll do a batch or 2 of bread, but I think I want to try some other recipes as well. I'm also about to start trying to soak the flour before I bake it for a much more nourishing & digestible bread. I have 2 ways to do this in mind, so hopefully I can report back next week on how it goes & which turns out better! I made biscuits with it a couple weeks ago, but they left a lot to be desired. Too sweet for a biscuit. They were good, don't get me wrong, but just not something to go alongside a savoury meal.

I'm hoping this next week is more productive. I've been so busy with sick kids, daycare, our chickens laying eggs (finally, YAY!), moving the rabbits into the shed, butchering chickens, etc.

What have you got growing wild in your kitchen?!?

Tuesday, October 20, 2009

Tuesday Twister 10/20/09

Head over to GNOWFGLINS for more Tuesday Twisters!

Here, I've made tortilla de patata. It is so yummy. This was the first time I'd tried it & it was DELICIOUS!!



This was our big local/natural meal of the week. Breakfast for dinner included organic homecanned cinnamon apples.......


Natural, nitite/ate-free bacon, local sausage.....

Zucchini bread made with Amish Friendship Bread Starter, pastured eggs, organic wheat, homegrown zucchini, etc.......



And a big pan of local eggs......


For more in my kitchen, visit my Kitchens Gone Wild post!


SQUEEE!!!!

And that's all I have to say about that!


Monday, October 19, 2009

Kitchens Gone Wild Carnival 10-19-2009

Here are the rules....

Post about what's gone wild in your kitchen this past week on your blog.

Come back here & leave the title of your post/subject of your post & the link to your post in the cool little linky gadget below.

Leave a comment.

Grab the code and add it to your blog.

Kitchens Gone Wild





Kitchens Gone Wild 10-19-2009

Photobucket

I took this pic from my kitchen mini-redo post, just because it looks so cool. Those are my sourdough starters in the back, so I thought they'd go nice in this post!



These are the ingredients from the Nourishing Traditions cookbook for Haymaker's Oat Water. I made it, but haven't tried it yet. It got shoved to the back of the fridge & I've just been too busy, tired & preoccupied to retrieve it.


Here it is, ready to be covered for the night.


And here, I just added milk to 2 tablespoons of buttermilk to make a quart. This stuff is so wonderful & simple to make. Simply put your 2T in a quart jug, jar or bottle & fill with milk to make one quart. Let it sit at room temperature 24-48 hours. Even in the cold Wyoming weather here, it's ready in about 24 hours, but you can give it up to 48. After it has cultured, in the fridge it goes for baking & drinking (one of my kids loves it & one of my daycare girls loves it as well).


Since the kids were sick most of last week, I didn't try too many new things. My kombucha will be checked today to see if it's done. Yoghurt is on the agenda again this week as well, since the last batch is just about gone.

So, last but not least- zucchini bread made with Amish Friendship Bread Starter. Absolutely delicious. I made the basic recipe & dumped in about a cup of shredded zucchini. HUGE hit!

Saturday, October 17, 2009

Kitchen Mini-redo

We bought this house a little over a year ago. It was built in 1921 (I love that!). The kitchen, I love not so much. See, there are cabinets on only ONE side of the kitchen (and even those cabinets circa 1932 are metal- eek!). We plan a reno, but until we can afford it, we make do with what God provides us.

We were at one of the local department stores one day & found "laundry cabinets." I pushed my hip against it, I leaned on it with my hands, and while I knew it was a smidge shorter than a regular kitchen counter, couldn't pass it up at a mere sale price of $29.97 ($60 to have cabinets- YAY!).

We brought 2 of them home, along with a roll of contact paper that was similar in colour to the rest of our kitchen counters, and Hubba & I worked diligently that evening getting them together. I used the squeegee from the bathroom to be sure I laid the contact paper smooth. It was good.


But then over the course of the next year (the past year), the contact paper began to wear down.


Bubbles formed in the particle board, and the contact paper began to peel.



And I planned to get more contact paper, all the while dreaming of a renovated kitchen *le sigh*

BUT.....

This morning, Hubba was watching Fox news, as he usually does, and they had a story on there.

Title: Around the House: 10/17

Published: Sat, 17 Oct 2009

Description: Home Depot tiling tips you can use!


And my wheels started turning.... and I remembered..... Around the same time we bought those now hideous (but useful) cabinets, we also bought some vinyl self-stick vinyl floor tiles. We had planned on doing the mudroom floor with them, but by the time we realised that there weren't enough (which come to think of it, there may have been, but we thought there were less tiles in the box than there actually are), they'd quit selling that particular pattern. *le sigh*


Anyhoo..... I enlisted the help of my small, but hardworking slave force. See I'd planned on laying the tiles all the way across, including the seam of the 2 cabinets (for a smoother finish), but you know how cheap particle board furniture goes- the tiles were just not lining up. So, we had to empty the cabinets & switch them around. They squatted, and they grunted, and they picked up heavy canisters and light canisters and baskets of stuff, & that little force moved those things under the cabinets into the dining room.







Then the switcharoo was finished. The eldest slave boy helped with that. And there were these pieces. Just a few inches across that I didn't want to waste. I stuck them to the kick plate of these now gorgeous-again cabinets.


And again, I enlisted the help of my slave force & we repositioned the kitchen. And it was good. It was even GREAT! It IS great. I love it, I keep looking at it. I stare, I touch, I love.....





I told Hubba it's all his fault. He was watching the news. *grin*

Wednesday, October 14, 2009

Cough Syrup

My poor babies are sick :( In a moment of desperation, I started throwing all the things I had on hand that I could remember as being cold remedies in my sleep-deprived state into a pot. IT WORKED!!!

2 cups filtered water
2 T grated fresh ginger
2 cloves garlic
1/8 t cayenne pepper

Simmer the above 20 minutes together. Strain into a jar or bottle. Cool.

Add:

1/4 cup lemon juice
1/3 honey (more or less to taste)

Mix well. Use a couple tablespoons (or a shot glass full) every few hours.

Monday, October 12, 2009

Kitchens Gone Wild Carnival 10-12-2009

Here are the rules....

Post about what's gone wild in your kitchen this past week on your blog.

Come back here & leave the title of your post/subject of your post & the link to your post in the cool little linky gadget below.

Leave a comment.

Grab the code and add it to your blog.

Kitchens Gone Wild



Kitchens Gone Wild

This week I started using my sourdough starters. I began them on 9/29.

This is the Amish Friendship Bread Starter I have taken a cup from to share with a lady from church. I gave another cup to one of my daycare moms. I also made 2 loaves of bread with it, which are all but devoured. It is such a yummy dessert & breakfast bread!


This is my latest batch of Kombucha tea. It's taking longer to brew now that the weather has cooled, but I'm pleased to report that I got 9 1/2 quarts this go round (the green tea isn't pictured here).


This is my Amish Friendship Bread Starter ready for another 10 days of fermenting. It will be ready for baking & sharing on the 18th.


This was my first batch of sourdough bread, from the first starter I've ever been able to make successfully from airborne yeast. I am so excited with this!


Otherwise, my kraut is almost (finally) done. My water kefir grains are being stored for a bit right now & I have yoghurt on the agenda for this next week. We were brought a yummy elk steak by a friend that he had cooked up. I didn't get a picture of it as Hubba instantly sucked it down. I did get a couple bites, & it was fantastic!

What's gone wild in your kitchen this past week?