Fast no flour pb cookies

Here is a quick and yummy no flour pb cookie recipe. Me or my kids whip these up when we have a potluck or get-to-gether to go to

1 Cup sugar
1 Cup peanutbutter
1 Egg
1 Cup chocolate chips (optional)

mix all ingredients. roll into about 1 inch ball. press down slightly. bake for 10-11 minutes at 350.  Let cool for about 15 minutes
this recipe makes about 18 cookies. I usually triple the recipe

ENJOY!

Blogging on a government employee budget

I haven't blogged for a little while. I have been evaluating and re-evaluating my blog. I follow So many blogs. I follow homestead and farming blogs, DIY blogs, food blogs, real foodie blogs, whole food blogs, organic food blogs, how to buy organic food blogs, how to save money blogs, blah, blah, blah, etc, etc, etc!
Lately I have just wondered, Why do I follow so many blogs? What do I want out of these blogs? What do I want from my own blog?
So I took a break, looked over the mass of blogs and finally had an epiphany. Yes, an epiphany! Whole food, real food and organic food blogs give me anxiety. It's true. I have, according to my doctor, anxiety disorder. She told me to try and eliminate things in my life that cause me anxiety and I laughed at her. But I did notice, those particular kind of blogs cause me anxiety. Now, don't get me wrong, I think those kinds of foods are great, they are. And I try and feed my family as many of them as I can because I totally get it, we should put healthy into our body, I want my body oozing with healthy, I want my gut flora to be the perfect example of what  gut flora should look like. But here is the problem, at least for me. I try and do all of it and the reality is, I can't. It is just not in my budget or my sanity. I have 6 kids ages 11-19. Plus a husband, PLUS my mother. We all live in the same home. That is NINE people folks! I am a stay at home mom and my husband is a government employee. Even before the shut down I would have to have one heck of a budget to pull the whole food, real food, organic food diet off. Not to mention my kids will only put up with so much healthy before they revolt and I have a major rebellion on my hands, my husband their leader. My goal is 80% healthy 20% whatever. Are we close to that? Meh, maybe 65/35. I do what I can.

 This is what I want out of a blog. I want to leave the blog feeling good! I want to say "why yes, I can make that delicious looking parmesan chicken!" and then when I add a few extra veggies probably pureed and hidden telling my kids it is extra marinara when in fact it is spinach, sweet potatoes and kale,I will feel like the queen of healthy! And that is a good feeling.

I want to read a realistic blog. Look, these are hard times. We don't have $1000 a month grocery budget. We don't even have half of that. I am a frugal mama. I am one of those women who make as much as I possibly can from scratch. I spend hours in the kitchen. Not because I love it but because I have to. That also means I am not buying organic unless it is bruised, has been stepped on, kicked around a bit and is now on clearance. Organic meat is crazy ridiculous. I can buy 1 local whole organic 1 1/2 lb chicken or 3 unknown origin whole conventional 2-3 lbs each chickens. I think that is an easy one when you remember the size of my family. I need good and healthy but realistic and cheap suggestions, not feelings of guilt because I may have just fed my family a conventional and possibly arsenic laced depending on where it came from chicken.
Lastly, I want to feel that my blog is helpful. Even if it just makes someone laugh.

Christmas trail mix recipe, it's not just for Christmas

With 6 kids it is hard to come up with a healthy snack they all like. If I buy apples, they have to be a certain kind or 1 kid won't eat them. Even then, only 5 kids like apples. 4 kids like bananas, 3 kids like certain dried fruit, 6 kids like cheese and 5 like Greek yogurt but 1 kid is lactose intolerant. 1 of my kids hates EVERY vegetable that exists. I have to sneak them in the food for her to eat them.

This being the case I have to get creative. I saw a recipe for a trail mix that has raw nuts and seeds, raw coconut, and dried fruit. 

I made it and only 1 kid liked all of it. 1 liked the nuts so would pick them out. The rest of the kids stuck their picky little noses in the air and didn't touch it

Well, mama doesn't give up

So here is what I came up with. All the kids love it

The recipe is easy

ChristmasTrail mix

2 cups raw Almonds

1 cup raw sunflower seeds
1/2 cup raw coconut

1 cup dried apples

1 cup dried dates

1/3 cup of raw honey

1 Tbs pumpkin spice

2 tsp real vanilla extract

1/4-1/3 cup dark chocolate chips or chunks

Mix everything except the chocolate. Bake for 15- 20 min. at 350 degrees.

Take out of oven to cool and harden but while the trail mix is hot sprinkle the chocolate chips over it and stir it around.

My oldest daughter says it tastes like Christmas. 

The kids are getting a mostly healthy snack, which makes me happy and they are happy because they count it as a treat. It's a good compromise Which I have learned as a parent happens ALOT

Homestead dream

Last year we took our lovely landscaped yard and tore it up to put in a garden.

it was alot of work. Our yard is terraced/tiered and the ground was/is terrible to dig up. 2-4 inches down is gravel and rock. I'm assuming that is due to living in the hills, I don't know. We decided to throw tarps over it through the winter. We ordered 3 yards of dirt and brought in 800+ lbs of horse manure.

We removed the tarps and lay down a layer of newspaper, dirt and manure. Kind of like making lasagna. I also turned my narrow tier into a smaller garden

 We tore out the landscaping fabric and put in dirt and manure here as well. All this happened in February. 
Then we took a rest.

We planted seeds and a few small tomato plants and they flourished! This is what my first real garden looked like last September.
Oh, but a homestead isn't a homestead without chickens and check out that yolk!

My garden this year wasn't as big, we are once again in the process of moving. We didn't want to travel so far with the chickens, putting undo stress on them or us. They are locals so here they will stay.We found a wonderful home for my sweet girls (the chickens) who are now completely free range and loving it.

We are looking for land! This little adventure/hobby has turned into a way of life that I love and makes me happy. I love serving my family meals knowing that 2/3 of it was grown in my own backyard. It is comforting to know what we are and aren't eating and of course knowing that our little chickens are happy and healthy and giving us yummy, healthy eggs. 

I want that comfort all the time. It is my homesteading dream and what is a dream if you can't make it come true

Homemade greek yogurt, so sophisticated

Yesterday afternoon I decided to make some homemade yogurt. I have a yogurt maker, but I had seen a mason jar method that looked easy so I wanted to experiment. After the whole heating the milk and cooling the milk process and adding my yogurt start, my mason jars were ready to stick in the oven to cultivate or whatever they do. I set my phone alarm for midnight in case I fell asleep and forgot about my precious yogurt.
Midnight came and I pulled out my beautiful still warm, mason jars full of perfectly set yogurt. I popped them in the refrigerator and with pictures of serving yummy parfaits for breakfast I set off for bed. My 18 year old daughter clearly had other plans because before I could even get to the living room she asked what I just put in the fridge. I told her yogurt and she could have some for breakfast. She said "but I only like Greek yogurt." I actually knew this but I am always hoping she will think homemade yogurt is so wonderful she would forget about Greek yogurt. But, I am a loving mother and so I dutifully went to my laptop to look up the process of Greek yogurt. "Meh" I said to my daughter, "it's easy but you can help".
 So we set off to gather the few items we would need to turn my yogurt into Greek yogurt.

1: cheese cloth or a clean tee shirt. My daughter had this lovely clean, old, purple tee shirt that she has vowed to never wear again because we put yogurt in it.
2: Rubber band. I have four daughters so we have an abundance of hair ties but no rubber bands so we improvised.

3: Something (like a bowl or in our case a pitcher) that we can hang the tee shirt full of yogurt over to drain the whey.

Okay, this was the trickiest part because once that tee shirt is full of yogurt it is heavy and hangs really low. But we aren't quitters and if my child wants Greek yogurt gosh darn it, she is going to get her Greek yogurt.

We finally got the yogurt filled shirt high enough to attach it to the pitcher handle with the hair tie.

It looked like this 

Then, I put the whole thing in the  refridgerator and we went to bed.

Now, the directions I read said to leave it in the refrigerator for 2-4 hours. Weeeell, let's just say, I didn't want to get up in 2-4 hours. instead I got up at 6:30 and pulled it out of the refrigerator. I was a little worried. I dumped my hopefully Greek yogurt into a bowl. It was REALLY thick. More like yogurt cheese which, I had been meaning to make but hadn't gotten around to it. I stared at it for a few seconds thinking and then the bells went off in my head. If draining out the whey makes it thick, adding some back in will thin it out a little. I know, not rocket science but I AM NOT a morning person and my brain is a little fuzzy from any time early(6:30am) to around 10:30am. 

So, I added some whey as I had a whole quart to spare 

The result being a fabulously thick Greek yogurt that my spoon could stand up in but didn't feel like I was eating cream cheese. 

I added some local honey for a sweetener and even though I am lactose intolerant I took a bite of my Yogurt.

 It was heaven to my dairy deprived taste buds!!

I love homemade things, especially food, my techniques are far from sophisticated but I get the job done.

End of summer

I love this time of year! The leaves are beginning to fall and the scent of autumn is in the air. The warmth of summer is still smiling down on us and it's color scheme is all around

We have been as busy as squirrels harvesting our garden and putting away food for the winter. 

 Today we harvested 6 lbs of tomatoes making a total of 12 lbs so far. We still have a long way to go

 We didn't plant as many onions this year, only 3 lbs

 11 lbs of carrots

 Even the carrots are putting on their winter pants

We have also gotten a good 20+ lbs of zucchini, most of them this size and larger

 Dehydrated bananas, nectarines, apples and pears.

We have also froze corn, blackberries, peaches, nectarines, blueberries and watermelon. Homemade salsa and pico.

And of course we needed some pie after all that work                                                                                      

Canned gold, at least in my house

I have never canned peaches before. I recently bought a 20lb box of peaches with that exact goal in mind. I got my peaches, they were so lovely and perfect. I was surprised to see that 20lbs wasn't that many. But, I had a goal, can the peaches and put them in my ever growing food storage. Then came some small challenges. The first one being, my husband LOVES peaches. He ate three of them within hours. My second challenge was, I have a glass top stove and the 2 pans I have to can in don't come to and hold a boil on it. The pans are just too big and my glass top was meant to look pretty (my theory). This was not stopping me though. I wanted to learn how to can peaches and darn it, I was going to do it, even with my husband eating all the peaches and not having a proper stove to can them on.
I truly love my church family, they are all amazing. If you need any kind of help, they will be there. So, I called a lady that I knew was a canning peaches kind of woman. She was more then happy to help me. So with my now 16 lbs of peaches and my case of quart jars in arm, my oldest daughter and I went over to a wonderful lady's house where we spent the afternoon canning ours and her peaches. We had a great time and it was so easy. Even my daughter who is 18 and hates everything domestic, liked canning.

We took our peaches home, 1 DOZEN sized quart jars FULL of delicious peaches. I had to fight the children off. They too love peaches and they wanted to open one of the still hot jars.
Later that night, we had a few people come visit us from our church and I couldn't let them leave empty handed so I sent 2 of our beautiful jars with them.We still have 10, but after breakfast this morning we will still have 8. What can I say, they call us, lure us with their golden deliciousness

Oh yes, canned peaches are a beautiful thing

Do you meddle with stinging nettle?

While my family and I were picking blackberries this evening, my arm brushed  against some stinging nettle and Ouch! It wasn't a large area but enough for me to call it quits so I could take care of my stinging arm. Now, I have never encountered stinging nettle. I had only ever seen pictures and not since I was a child but, I knew what it was that had caused my arm to sting. At home, I gently washed it and put some camphor on it. That didn't work very well so I looked stinging nettle up on the internet. Wonder of wonders one of the things it said I could treat it with was baking soda. Baking soda is an amazing thing and I could go on forever about it, but, I will save that for another post. I applied a fancy little baking soda paste on my arm and not only did the pain stop almost immediately, the baking soda also eliminated most of the swelling and redness within a 1/2 hour!

While I was looking around for remedies for my stinging arm, I also came across useful things you can do with stinging nettle. There are So many. For starters, did you know you can eat stinging nettle? You probably did, but I had no idea. soaking it or cooking it will remove the stinging chemical and it tastes similar to spinach and cucumber(I'm starting to like stinging nettle). There are many medical uses for stinging nettle as well. Stinging nettle can be helpful for hay fever, dandruff, water retention and arthritis to name a few.

Stinging nettle is an invasive plant like mint, so if you are thinking of growing it, keep a close eye on it so you don't have a stinging nettle takeover. Oh, and don't forget the long sleeves, long pants and gloves.

Food dehydrating for food storage

I have a glass top stove that actually prevents me from canning. I plan on remedying this but for now one of my favorite ways to preserve food is my food dehydrator. I have an 8 tray American Harvest that I got from the thrift store for $25! It is amazing. I have dried tomatoes, green beans, blueberries, apples, pears and I am getting ready to dry peaches. I use the dried tomatoes in salads, we snack on the green beans and dried fruit makes a healthy and tasty snack for kids. Dehydrated food also stores well so it is a great addition to my family's food storage.

The farm dog

I used to think of a farm dog being a sweet collie or maybe an Anatolian shepherd. When I was young I had a friend whose farm dog was a mix of different breeds, but he was a medium to large size dog.
 My farm dog is none of these. His name is Julio (aka Hoolie) and he is a chihuahua. He couldn't fight off a wolf (he would make a tasty snack for the wolf though). But, I call him the farm dog because where I go he goes.When I am working in the garden or in the yard he is right there. Chickens are bigger then my little guy but he keeps them in line. We are temporarily chickenless at the moment because we are moving but one of Hoolie's favorite things to do is to help collect eggs. His job is to keep watch.
He is a little man with a big heart and to the other animals at my house, he's the boss. He takes his job very seriously.

Homemade almond butter and green bean crisps

I always have a very long list of things I plan on making, even animals I plan on raising. I am a bit slow about getting to them.When I decided to raise chickens, I spent 3 years researching. I didn't want to get myself into something I wasn't going to be comfortable with. When I finally got my adorable little 2 day old girls I was well informed that in a matter of weeks they would look like homely little creatures. Chickens are hilarious and watching them in the mornings is a great way to start off your day.
When I decided to make my own chapstick (I know the complete opposite of raising chickens), I spent several months collecting the ingredients and altering the recipe I planned on using. Now I have a chapstick designed just for me and my family and we love it.

 So what's on the list this week? Almond Butter and dried green bean crisps!

Let's start with the green beans. I actually decided last week to make these, probably my fastest homemade decision EVER! I have been wanting something we could snack on that wasn't a chip(I always want chips for some reason but rarely give in to the cravings) but would ease the chip cravings. These crunchy little beans do just that. I just put 2 lbs of fresh green beans in my awesome food dehydrator(it is one of my favorite things), and after about 8 hours they were done. I mixed them with about a teaspoon of olive oil and sprinkled them with salt. They are a little funny looking but really yummy.

Almond butter is so expensive at the store but cheaper and so simple to make at home. I have been contemplating making it for about 6 months. I know, who takes that long to make almond butter??

Just add a cup or two of almonds to your food processor and turn it on. I had to scrape down the sides several times but that was my only job. the food processor did everything else. It took about 15 minutes.
I made an Almond butter and banana sandwich after it was done. Best Sandwich Ever!!

Do you menu

I see a lot of menu makers from other blogs. I go back and forth on this one. My problem is not making the menu itself but shopping based on a menu. I buy my groceries first. I have also in detail figured out the cost of making my menu first and then shopping or shopping my usual grocery list and then making my menu and guess what? It cost the exact same. I even had different things for my menu. So I like to stick with my basic list. How about you, do you grocery shop before or after you make your menu?

Dog soup

Okay, maybe this is a weird first post but it was just part of my morning. If you have animals, you know they don't like to wait for their breakfast. The animals in my house own my mornings. I have to open the coop and let the chickens out, feed them and give them fresh water. One of my dogs trails me while I do this because he knows it's his turn next. Then back to the house to feed the dogs. In our house this is not just dog food in a bowl. This is dog soup which I make mixed with dog food. Our dog soup is good enough for us humans to eat. It is a mix of brown rice, veggies(like potatoes, carrots and cabbage)meat(ham,chicken or beef) and sometimes a little milk. when it is cooked I blend it and pour it over their regular dog food. They love it