Why Things Should Be Labeled....

I thought I was thawing out a bag of precooked hamburger and onions to throw into the Cow Poke Chili I was making for dinner. I was cooking up the Italian sausage for that recipe and when I added the "hamburger and onions" I found it was actually precooked breakfast sausage and onions! Week before last I had made a crock pot dish that consists of cooked breakfast sausage and onions over quartered potatoes. Yummmmmmy. I like to at least double meat cooking and throw one recipe's worth in the freezer. Of course I didn't label it because I was sure I'd remember what it was. Apparently not! However, the Cow Poke Chili turned out just fine made with Italian AND breakfast sausage...and without the V8 juice because I forgot that too. :) I also don't make it with rustic croutons...I just buy the Texas Toast brand garlic and cheese croutons. But I have been saving bread butts and left over rolls in the freezer to make those rustic croutons someday!

One other idea from this week...We made Chicken Ranch roll ups yesterday. Instead of slicing up the chicken and pan cooking it with the fajita seasoning, I put the chicken in the crock pot and mixed the fajita seasoning with a little water and poured it on. Cooked on low for about 4 hours and then shredded the chicken with two forks and put the crock pot on keep warm until we were ready. Some tortillas, shredded cheese, lettuce, bacon bits, and ranch dressing and dinner was ready!

I am happy to report that we are doing well on our weekly budgeting and grocery shopping. I did check out a once a month cook book at the library today. I am not motivated at this point to try it, but maybe the inspiration will strike.

It has been a snowy cold week with Thursday and Friday off of school due to the weather. I have got a lot of spring cleaning done! My sewing/craft/seed starting room is now cleaned so I am organized to start seeds. My kitchen cabinets are all cleaned out too. So is my file cabinet...so I am ready to do the taxes when the time comes soon. And I got 6 dishcloths done for us to use. Hubby commented today how soft they are. I just love using them. We are on our last roll of paper towels, so I'll be reporting about a paper towel-less life soon!

Another Successful Recipe! Easy Chicken...

This time with chicken breasts. It is a modified version of a recipe I came across online. Put your chicken breasts in the crock pot (I had a pack of 3). Mix a packet of dry Italian dressing mix in a little bit of water and pour it over the chicken. Cook on low for a few hours. I then took out the chicken and shredded it. Then mix together a package of cream cheese, a can of cream of chicken soup, and a can of water in the crock pot. Add the shredded chicken back in and cook for another hour or two on low. Serve over pasta, we did bow ties, the Barilla brand (I think that is what it is called!) with the omega 3's and what not in it. I was a little leery, something about the cream cheese in this recipe sounded weired, but it turned out delicious! Like an Alfredo type sauce. We had it with a salad and homemade rolls. Yummy!

It is stinkin cold here and supposed to get even colder! Below zero temps, snow on the ground, and more to come. Winter has made itself known! Pretty sad when you wish it was 25 degrees! That would be a welcome relief! I have been knitting a set of dish cloths to go along with the table cloth dish towels. Oddly enough, these are the first dishcloths I have knitted for us! I haven't been doing anything fancy...cast on 36 stitches and knit each row til it is an even square and bind off. I can get 3 of them out of one ball of yarn! :)

Are you staying warm?

Pork Steak Recipe Success!

I bought already tenderized (pounded on) pork steak. They had that and regular. I bought a pack that had 6 in it. Browned them in my cast iron skillet, then placed them in a 9x13 baking dish and sliced up an onion over them (and cried because it burned my eyes!). I mixed together 2 cans of cream of chicken soup, a couple of soup cans of water, a packet of dry onion soup mix, some pepper, garlic powder and onion powder, and poured that over them and covered it with foil. Baked it for about an hour and a half (actually probably for a little longer). Served it with mashed potatoes, and green beans cooked with onions and a piece of bacon, and it was a huge hit with the hubby and kids! Definitely not low fat/calorie/sodium, but tasted good! And the meat was super tender, melt in your mouth. It made A LOT of gravy so I do think next time I will cut the soup to one can and the water to one can.

How Do You Cook Pork Steak?

Pork Steak is often on sale. And I just got this week's ads to begin planning my menu and lo and behold...Pork Steak...$1.49 per pound. So what do you do with Pork Steak? How do you cook it? I'd love to hear your recipes and ideas!

Oh, one more thing...in my fabric stash I had a nice thick cotton sage and white gingham table cloth that I haven't used for years, but kept because I thought I might want the fabric someday for something. Guess what I did to it? It is now DISH TOWELS to replace the paper towels! That thing made a whopping 16 towels!! I just cut it up, double folded and ironed down the edges (didn't even pin them!) and stitched away. Hooray!! :)

You Simply Must Check It Out!!

My friend, Breanna, has three wonderful blogs going and I'd love to share them with you!

This one, her original, has a lot of neat stuff. Delicious yarn photos (she spins and dyes and knits!), pictures of neat places she has visited, her beautiful children and family, pugs, some neat crafty ideas, and more. Go on, have a look-see!

This one is one of her new blogs and it is about FREEZER COOKING!! :) I really want to get into doing this. She has some great recipes up. Check it out!

And last but not least, she is a preschool teacher. She was my youngest daughter's preschool teacher last year and I give her an A+! She's a wonderful teacher. She has recently started a blog about Montessori activities . It's new, but one you'll definitely want to follow especially if you have little ones!

So there you have it. If you are getting hit with this winter storm as we are, go grab a cup of cocoa (Or coffee for you in particular Coop Keeper Jayme! Or decaf tea in my case because I mixed a packet on cocoa in coffee just a bit ago and I am on caffeine overload!), snuggle in your warm robe, and go check out Breanna's blogs!

What's in Your Crockpot?

This week my crockpots are my absolute most bestest wonderful friends! I have a deadline to meet which means I am spending a lot of time working toward that goal. However, life must go on, and my family must eat! :)

I discovered this wonderful blog not too long ago, A Year of Crockpotting , so in preparation for this week I researched recipes and made sure the ingredients were bought and ready. It has made life a whole lot easier this week for me, and the hubby and kids are loving the new recipes!

I don't have time right now to tell you the ones I have tried, deadline and all, but I wanted to do a quick check in and tell you that if you are in need of some time saving yummy recipes to use in that magical kitchen tool the crockpot, check out that blog!

And have a great day! :)

Got Skunk? We Got Skunk!!

Isn't that the saddest little face? The dogs went with the Captain to cut fire wood like they always do. The dogs stirred up a skunk. Andy got SKUNKED! This must be our year for farm firsts. The mice...and now this. :) LOL

So my husband is going "Do we have any tomato juice?" No. So he says "Do you think pizza sauce will work?" One of the reasons I love him so much...he always makes me smile! :) Uhhh...no honey, I think that would only add the problem, because it would be a mixture between bad skunk smell and good pizza smell which cannot be a good combination AND the white dog would be stained red.

So we looked online and found a recipe that worked really well and didn't leave us with a permamant negative imprint of skunk smell + food smell. 1 quart peroxide, 1/4 cup baking soda, 1 teaspoon dish soap. Sponge it over doggy immediately after mixing, let sit for 5 minutes, rinse well. I only had a pint of peroxide, but we figured it would work since Andy is a small dog. And it did!

He is recouperating today after the trauma of getting skunked (which I have read is very irritating to their eyes...as IF the smell alone wasn't already bad enough!) and then dragging that smell around farm (he was tail-between-the-legs depressed & embarssed about it), and then the dreaded bath. Poor puppy dog. I do hope he has learned his lesson!

A Cheap Eats Recipe to Pass Along...

So much to blog, so little time! I am due for a long "catch up" post. This won't be it, however. But I do want to share this! I found a great recipe on Heather's Blog, Beauty That Moves a while back and we loved it! I am making it for dinner right now. It is cheap, healthy, tastes good, and it is easy. What more could you ask for?

Brown Rice Patties

3 cups leftover brown rice

1 cup grated carrot grated

1 medium onion grated

2 cloves minced garlic

1 t salt

½ t pepper

2 eggs

½ cup whole wheat pastry flour

Vegetable oil of your liking for frying

If you do not have a food processor you can use a box grater instead. Just make sure any onion juice makes it into the bowl, lots of flavor there!

Combine all ingredients except the oil. If you have the time to make this in advance and let it sit for a bit the garlic and onion flavors will blend even more, but it's not necessary, just nice. If the patties don’t hold together because they are too dry then add another egg. If they are too wet add a little flour.

Heat a frying pan or griddle on med - med/high heat until hot and add oil. Use a ¼ cup measuring cup to scoop out the rice mixture and gently lay them on the frying pan. Use the back side of the measuring cup to flatten out each patty. Cook until golden brown on each side, you might want to keep the oven on 250 with a baking sheet in there to put the finished ones on as you cook the rest. Enjoy!


Even my meat addicted husband liked this one! And it is a great budget stretcher for those of us who need to squeeze George Washington until he SCREAMS!!!!! :) I have also cooked these up early in the day and reheated for dinner and they are good that way too. The kids have taken leftovers in their lunch boxes and enjoyed them that way as well. Don't wait until you have left over brown rice...throw some on the stove to cook when you have time and then stick it in the fridge until you need it.

I hope you have a Happy Monday!

PS - MOM - This is the recipe I keep forgetting to email to you. Hope you enjoy it! Love you! You too Dad!

The F Word..........Flubber!

Sisterly Love!

My youngest's birthday is this weekend. She's a Valentine's Day baby. I keep refering to her as my 5 year old, but she won't technically be 5 until Saturday. She is in that phase of numbers and ages...so she will tell you she is 4 and 11/12 or whatever she is for the moment and she is constantly asking us how old she is and 4 is never the answer she is happy with! 4 almost 5 doesn't count either! :) She wants specifics! Remember those days? Couldn't wait to grow up? Now I am just "30 something". Who cares! Age is just a number! You are only as old as you feel! :) Ahhh...to be 5 again. Or 4 and 11/12. ;)

Anyway, I made goody bags to send to her preschool class. Along with fruit rollups and a deflated balloon in each bag, we made a batch of flubber and put it in individual snack size ziplocks. This stuff is a blast! Our oldest kids as well as my hubby and I love playing with this stuff. I was too tired to take pictures of the process, but I wanted to share the recipe and pictures of the finished product.

FLUBBER

In one bowl mix:

1 1/2 cups warm water

2 cups of Elmer's white glue

Food coloring of choice

In another bowl mix:

1 1/3 cups warm water

2 level tsp Borax

After each bowl is mixed well, pour the first bowl's contents into the second bowl. Stir it around a bit. Then pull the blob of flubber out, there will be liquid left in the bowl, let the excess drip off and knead around on it a bit to work off any excess moisture. Then it is ready to play! Store in an air tight container.

I did put a sticker with the recipe on the bag for parents to know what is in it. I also added DO NOT EAT! on there too.... just in case.

Recent This and Thats.....

Treasures found in the basement...8 storage containers with lids, a large strainer, a thermometer, and a glass cotton ball jar with lid.



We cooked and ate duck for the first time...and we all loved it! The only problem was one duck was barely enough for our family of 5. Turkey or chicken is much more economical.

This is that naughty dense flat wheat bread I spoke of before....

This is the double batch of homemade playdough we made for my daughter's preschool class. It was my month to make it.

Here is the recipe....

2 cups boiling water

2 packets unsweetened Kool-Aid (makes it smell fantastic and the color is so bright)

4 tsp Cream of Tarter (I buy mine in bulk at the Amish store)

1 cup salt

2 TBS oil

2 cups flour

Mix all dry ingredients well while the water is boiling. Add the oil to the boiling water and mix well into the dry ingredients. Let cool and then knead until smooth. The keeps for a long time in a ziplock.

My beautiful oldest daughter all dressed up for the Courtwarming dance at school.....

If you look close, on her ring finger is a silver Chastity Ring (or True Love Waits ring, whichever you call it). In case you are wondering, no, they don't make matching silver Chastity Belts. I asked. ;)

Making fresh juice from juice oranges....putting the peels in the kitchen compost bucket (Check out this blog for a wonderful idea for orange/citrus peels! ) and the finished product.

Today I did our taxes in my jammies. Is there any better way to do them than that? :)