We Like Making Our Own Stuff

Ask me to finely dice an onion, and I'll do it.  Tell me I have to strip the leaves off a huge bunch of thyme, and fine, it's done.  Command me to peel five pounds of potatoes, and your wish is granted!  But ask me to roll out a pie crust, and you can kiss my apples. For some reason, rolling out dough is probably my least favorite kitchen task.  I don't make cut out cookies, perfectly round biscuits (only drop biscuits), or fancy pie crust.  Rolling out dough generally turns into a sticky mess for me, so I avoid it. But you know, sometimes, I miss pie. My good friend pie.  So now, I make a press-in-the-pan pie crust so that pie and I can spend time together.  It's very simple--I haven't screwed one up yet--and tastes just as good as a rolled out crust.

A quick and easy way to freshen your home is to deodorize and then vacuum your carpets.  There are many types of commercial carpet powders available for this purpose, by why spend the money when you can easily make your own for pennies? Carpet Powder Ingredients: 1 cup baking soda 1 cup borax 5-10 drops of a deodorizing essential oil (such as lavender or tea tree)      or 1 tablespoon powdered, dry herb (cinnamon and rosemary work well) 1.  Whisk baking soda and borax together to combine. 2.  Add essential oil or powdered herb.  Mix well. 3.  Pour mixture into a shaker (an old Parmesan cheese or spice container works well). 4.  Sprinkle the mixture over carpets and allow to sit for 20 minutes, keeping children and pets off carpet.   5.  Vacuum carpet thoroughly.

This is a Brussels sprout. I think they are a beautiful, tasty vegetable, but apparently, it has a bad reputation (especially with children). I hope you'll give up your preconceived notions regarding Brussels sprouts and just give the poor, little guys a try.  These oven roasted beauties are actually very tasty (especially served with venison steaks). Roasted Parmesan Crusted Brussels Sprouts with Fingerling Potatoes 1 1/2 pounds fingerling potatoes 1 pound Brussels sprouts 2 Tablespoons melted butter or olive oil salt and pepper to taste 2 Tablespoons Parmesan cheese 1.  Bring a large pot of water to a boil; preheat oven to 400 degrees Fahrenheit. 2.  Wash potatoes and Brussels sprouts well.  Trim brown ends off of Brussels sprouts and remove any yellowed outer leaves. 3.  Line a baking sheet with parchment paper. 4.  Once the water has begun to boil, add the potatoes.  Return to a boil, and boil for one minute.  ...

Thinking about making your own baby wipes?  Then do it! It is easy, cheap, and wonderful for baby's behind. Besides, if you are using cloth diapers, it just makes sense.  You can sew your own wipes, or just cut up some old t-shirts into squares--any natural fabric, like cotton or muslin will work well.  If you prefer, you can also use paper towels with this solution, but I find they don't do as good of a job cleaning up poopies as cloth does.

We had a big let down in June... Yeah, that's a really bad photo edit of a "dead chicken."  Seriously, I have to have a sense of humor about the whole thing, because otherwise, I'd probably cry:  all of our meat birds were killed .  About a week before we had planned to butcher. It sucks. Needless to say, the blog post I had promised about sharing the butchering is not happening.  Something managed to get into the coop and killed them all (we had around 30 chickens).  We're thinking it was probably a weasel.  Now we are stuck with a loss; all the money we spent on feed, the time my husband put into building new feeders and setting up a watering system--poof!--gone. I guess that is the nature of farming, whether it be chickens killed by weasels, rain washing away your seeds, or frost killing off all your apple blossoms.  Mother nature doesn't play favorites.  But, as Babe Ruth said, "Every strike brings me closer to the next home ru...

                      Woah, get a load of that belly!   That’s me at eight months pregnant with twins. Before I got pregnant, I was becoming somewhat of an exercise freak, with yoga and Pilates being my favorite.  Heck, I even jumped right into P90X and started getting some real pipes!  But then, our two little peanuts began to grow inside me, and all thoughts of exercise went out the window.  First, there was morning sickness, and by the time my morning sickness had passed, I was starting to get so uncomfortable from carrying the weight of two babies, that most exercising just wasn’t in the cards for me. I love our babies so very much, but once they were born, I must admit, it felt great to have my body back to myself!  And one of the first things on my mind was getting back into exercising again.

Nice weather has finally arrived, and we are all busier than bees around here!  But we always have time to fire up the grill! These two recipes are so simple and fast to make, that grilling can even become doable on a weeknight.  However, if you don't feel like firing up the grill, they can also be modified for the oven and stove.