Homemaking on the Homestead

  I tossed and turned a lot last night. I do attribute my restless night to the two cups of black tea I drank in the evening… I love a cup of tea in the evenings and black tea is my favorite.. but I pay for it. I will have to be a good girl next time and drink some herb tea instead. Despite the lack of good sleep I was up at 5:30 this morning. I had a cup of coffee, checked my email and enjoyed some quiet time.     Emily was up a little after 6 and she had her coffee and Bible time. I packaged orders and then it was time to get her to work. She has not gotten her drivers license yet.. that will hopefully happen at the end of the week. She has scheduled a drive test for Saturday morning and we are praying she passes. Then she will do the 5 minute drive to work herself!  But I have not minded.. she drives down the hill and after saying good bye to her I drive back up the hill.    By the time ...

  I had a busy day today in my kitchen and took some pictures to share what I have been up to.    I made a delicious new crockpot bean dish for dinner.  I called it Hamburger Pineapple Bean Bake. The family enjoyed it a lot.  I served it with homemade coleslaw and tortilla chips. Here is a picture of it in the crockpot:     I started cooking my beans first thing this morning. While they were cooking I ground up some soft white wheat and used it to make Blueberry Muffins. I purchased some more organic blueberries in my last Azure Standard order and wanted to use them.      After they were done cooking I cleaned things up did a little house work and then my beans were done. I assembled my bean dish. Then I made a dessert for after dinner and I know after you read the title you will think I have gone a little nutty with my beans.. but I have to tell you it was soooo good!!   I made Pinto Bean Cak...

  After more than a month of working on the project we are thrilled to be able to say the wood is in for the winter!   Tobin and the boys worked tirelessly to cut down trees, limb trees, and clean up trees that had broken during the winter’s ice storm. All in all it is approx. 6 cords of wood. Our place looks great and the wood is in. What a great feeling.   Tobin and I were both quite proud of the youngest three kids as they worked to help with this task. Jacob especially has really done a lot of maturing in the last year. He is a hard worker and knows how to put in a man’s days work, not a bad thing for a 14 year old to know. He is even sought after by the neighbor to do work for him. This year Jacob has learned to use a chainsaw (it is a smaller electric one).. he used it to cut up all the small pieces of wood that were brought in (and there was a LOT of them). He made a stand to hold the tree limbs in so he could ea...

  Pinto Bean Tacos   Ingredients Needed: WW Tortillas Pinto beans Hamburger Lettuce or spinach or any type of greens Salsa Cheese   I made these for dinner last week and they were so yummy! I cooked up 3 cups of pinto beans and then made refried beans from them. Then cooked my pound of hamburger and seasoned it with taco seasonings and mixed it with the refried beans. This made a LOT of taco filling. Fed my crew for dinner and for lunch the next day and still had a little left that was finished up the next day for lunch. This could also be frozen in meal sized portions for smaller families or the recipe can easily be cut down in size to fit your family’s needs.   I used ww organic tortillas and had a salad leftover from the night before for the greens, a small amount of cheese, a dollop of organic sour cream and some yummy fire roasted salsa. It was a delicious meal and no one minded eating the leftovers!    Here is a p...

Kefir is a cultured milk product similar to yogurt only thinner and much easier to make and reculture. If you would like to know more specific information on kefir I have an article written by a friend of mine on my site to give you more info. You can read that HERE . It has all the wonderful qualities of yogurt with the good probiotics your body needs to stay healthy. Kefir can be made in two ways. One is to purchase kefir grains (you can read more about this in the above mentioned article). You soak milk in the grains, strain the grains and put the grains back into a clean jar and fill with milk, let it sit on your counter overnight and the next morning it is ready. I have made kefir with grains in the past. There were a few things I did not care for. One was it was a lot of maintenance. Unless you stop making kefir you have to strain it out daily and that adds up to a lot of kefir to use every day. Also the longer I made it the stronger the taste became and my family was not too thr...

  This week has been another busy week. Tobin and the boys have been working on firewood and we have over 2/3rd’s of our wood in now and hope to have it all in by the end of the month.   The beautiful and warm summer weather means we all have spent a good deal of our afternoons cooling off in the pond and enjoying the sun.    I have been keeping up on the house and laundry and doing a bit of packaging and labeling of my products and filling orders. I try and get my dinner all done or in the crockpot in the morning which has left my afternoons free and that has been so nice.    Today looks like another warm day so the same program will continue.. housework, meal preps (I really need to do some baking but don’t want to heat up the house to much.. the weekend may be a bit cooler according to the weather man and I can catch up), help with the wood stacking if needed and time at the pond with kids and hubby.    Tomorrow Emily and ...

  After my last blog post on pineapple I shared a smoothie recipe and was asked by Kat if I had any other smoothie recipes.    Yes I do!    You can find my page of smoothie recipes here:  http://www.thefamilyhomestead.com/smoothies.htm

Why to eat, How to choose, How to cut ‘em up and eat ‘em! By Crystal Miller We love to buy fresh pineapples. The taste is so delicious especially when compared to canned pineapple. But I serve my family fresh pineapple for more reasons than just the fresh sweet taste. They are incredibly nutritious! One of the best health benefits you will get from eating fresh pineapple is the enzyme bromelain. This is a power packed enzyme. If you are dealing with digestive issues then you may find adding fresh pineapple to your diet helps with this. Bromelain works by breaking down the amino acid bonds found in protein making them easier to digest. Just remember that your pineapple must be fresh in order to get this benefit. Bromelain is almost entirely destroyed during the canning process. Bromelain also helps to reduce swelling and inflammation. If you have a bruise or a sprain you may want to increase the amount of fresh pineapple you eat to help ease the swelling. Pineapples are a...

  Yesterday was Tobin’s birthday.  He turned 47 this year! When we met I was 16 and he was almost 19.. Where have all those years gone!    It was a beautiful sunny and warm day and we celebrated his birthday in the late afternoon. We had pizza and salad.. a little time at the pond.. and a nice visit with Tobin’s dad who had come to help us celebrate.    -     Emily made her version of an ice cream cake or maybe it was a mud pie. But whatever it was it was delicious and had been Tobin’s request instead of a birthday cake.  Emily had made one for him on Father’s Day and he liked it so much he wanted it again.  - It is made of layers of chocolate ice cream, peanut butter cookies, fudge sauce, vanilla ice cream, crushed graham crackers all put in a large bowl. You let each layer freeze before adding the next. When it is all frozen you flip it onto a large serving plate and spread pea...