We Like Making Our Own Stuff

Being pregnant on Halloween can somewhat limit your costume options...or it can open up new doors: This costume was so much fun to make!  There are two sets of baby arms (we're pregnant with twins) breaking out of my belly to go trick-or-treating.  I got a lot of smiles with this costume (and some puzzled expressions from children who didn't quite know what to make of it). The costume was pretty simple to make.  I got a couple dolls at the thrift store and removed their arms.  I know that dolls aren't real babies, but I still felt creepy doing it.  I also picked up a cheap dress at the thrift store; I was hoping to find a white one so the blood would stand out better, but the black one was the only one that worked for me. I poked four holes into the dress and pushed the arms through.  To keep the arms from sagging, I attached each set of arms to a strip of cardboard on the inside as reinforcing.  Then, I made a couple origami bags for the...

This is a fun dinner that the kids will love:  soup in a pumpkin!  I used beef wild rice soup to fill our pumpkin.  Other soups to try might include chicken and rice, navy bean, beef vegetable, or, of course, pumpkin soup. However, you don't have to limit yourself to soup.  I'm thinking casseroles, stews, or chili would cook up just fine in a pumpkin as well.  Any casserole that you would bake in a covered casserole dish should work fine in a pumpkin, though you will probably need to cook it longer than usual.  You also need a pumpkin large enough to hold your recipe--preferably a pie pumpkin (sugar pumpkin), but a regular pumpkin will work just fine too. Dinner in a Pumpkin Ingredients: 1 batch of your favorite soup, stew, or casserole, mixed and ready to be baked 1 large pumpkin 1.  Preheat over to 375 degrees F.  2.  Cut the top few inches of the pumpkin off.  Scoop out the pulp and seeds, being careful to leave the sh...

There is no need to test the safety of DNA introduced into GM crops.  - Monsanto I just wanted to put out a quick post today to spread the word about this movie: Genetic Roulette -- The Gamble of Our Lives is available for free viewing through October 17, 2012.  Time's almost up to catch it for free, but I hope you'll have a chance to watch! You can find more information on the Genetic Roulette website as well. The movie discusses genetically modified organisms and their effect on the health of those consuming them--which, unfortunately, is most of the American population.  GMOs are one of the reasons our family decided to grow and make as much of our own food as possible. What are GMOs? GMOs (genetically modified organisms) are any living system (plant, animal, fungus,etc...) who's DNA has been altered by either inserting or removing different genes.  In order to change the organism's DNA, new DNA from a different species is inserted.  Some ...

Potato and Cheese Crusted Perch served with wild rice and acorn squash. If you are a regular reader of my blog, you will recall a post I put out in May 2012 titled, Dehydrating Potatoes .  In this post, I explained how I dehydrate potato slices and granules, and also alluded to future posts featuring recipes using the dehydrated potatoes.  Well, it has been about five months since that post, so maybe I should actually post a recipe for you, right!?  Sorry I'm such a slacker. This recipe for perch features the dehydrated potato granules.  If you haven't actually dehydrated any, you can either give it a go by following the instructions on Dehydrating Potatoes , or you can buy some granules at the grocery store.  Dehydrated foods are an excellent addition to the pantry and store well. I used perch as my fish of choice in the following recipe, but other freshwater game fish will work just as well, such as walleye or crappie.  I bet even your run of th...

October is here, how did that happen?  Time seems to have flown, summer is gone, and now we have chilly air and blaze-orange trees--a perfect time of the year to make some fall-flavored treats! We had an abundance of kabocha squash in our garden this year.  Kabocha is similar to butternut squash in taste and texture, but looks kinda like a green pumpkin in appearance: This squash seemed perfect for making fruit leather (or fruit roll-ups as some call them).  Fruit leather is simply pureed and dehydrated fruit (or vegetables in the case of squash).  Once it is dehydrated, it can be cut into strips and rolled up, making for a portable and excellent tasting snack.  The sugar becomes concentrated once the fruit is dehydrated, making it sweet, but without the high fructose corn syrup like the ones you buy at the store. You could actually puree your squash and dehydrate it plain--it would be tasty--but, being in the Autumn-y mood I was, I decided to t...