Homemaking on the Homestead

December is just about here! I spent time this last weekend working on my December menu. I have linked many of the meals listed on my site. One note to make.. I have French bread linked to my pizza crust recipe. I use this recipe to make French bread.. the 3 crust recipe will make 2 loaves of French bread. If you need a menu calendar to write your monthly menu on you can find mine here: http://www.thefamilyhomestead.com/menuplanningcalendars.htm   I post a new menu calendar each month. They are a handy way to write out your menu and keep it on your fridge for easy reference. December Menu 1st – tuna patties , garlic roasted potatoes, coleslaw 2nd – spaghetti , French bread , salad 3rd – baked chicken legs , mashed potatoes, salad 4th – potato sausage chowder , biscuits , salad 5th – beef stew , bread sticks , salad 6th – Chinese rice (with chicken and shrimp), egg rolls 7th – fish tacos, Spanish rice , salad 8th – crockpot lasagna , French bread , s...

I hope you all had a blessed Thanksgiving day! We enjoyed ours so much. I had 8 people here (13 total), and it was a lot of fun. Here are a few pics from our day…   My granddaughter Elizabeth :) Today I am cleaning up and getting ready to pull out the Christmas decorations and think about the upcoming holiday. I have already done quite a bit of my shopping.. online! I love the UPS man this time of year! LOL.. ;) I am not a fan of Christmas shopping, at least not any more than I have to go out and do. I prefer online shopping as much as possible!!   Right now my first agenda is to get a box packed up for my daughter Emily.  Emily is a coffee lover and knows all the local coffee shops and which ones make the best coffee. Sadly in Denmark coffee is not as big of a thing as it is here in our part of the world. So she is suffering a bit for lack of a real cup of coffee.. The first thing that is going into the Christmas box is a Melitt...

Well it has been a while since I updated .. life has been sooo busy! I was helping my daughter Emily prepare and pack for her trip to Denmark. She will be an au pair for a super nice family for the next year. She left yesterday morning. We headed out about 6:am and stopped at Starbucks for a final cup of coffee together. Sierra was with us too.. we got to the airport at 7:30 and stayed until she had gotten through security. She headed to Chicago and then from there flew on Scandinavian Airlines to Denmark. She had an 8 hour wait in Chicago and a very long flight after that. She called this morning to let us know she had arrived safe and sound with her new family. It was pretty emotional for me as her and I are very close and the thought of not seeing for a year was hard to handle.. but, I know this will be an awesome experience for her and am so excited for what she will encounter. Before she left she took the last test of her last class for her degree.. so my sweet and...

Are you hosting Thanksgiving dinner at your home this year?  I made a Thanksgiving planner a few years ago to help with the process...    3 weeks ahead of time  Figure out how many people will you be serving and how big of a turkey you will need.  To calculate this, you need to figure about 1 ½ lbs of turkey per person.  So if you are feeding 8 people you would need a turkey that was about 12 pounds.  I usually buy them bigger so I will have leftovers.    Write out guest list   Plan out menu   Gather recipes   Write out grocery list   2 weeks ahead Buy turkey (if buying frozen ones)   Make dinner rolls and freeze.  I like to freeze them before baking.  I shape them into rolls; lay them out on a tray and flash freeze them.  On Thanksgiving Day I bring them out in the morning to defrost and rise.    If your guests are contributing to the meal let them know what...

Want a fun way for you and your family to display all that you are thankful for?? Make a Thankful Tree!! You will need: 1 brown paper bag Construction Paper: red, yellow and orange Cut open the brown paper bag by cutting down one of the creases and then cutting the bottom off. Lay the paper out on the table and use about half to ¾ of the length of the bag to draw a tree trunk. Staple this to the back of a door or a bulletin board. Using the remaining pieces of the bag make branches. Staple those coming form the tree trunk. Now make leaves out of construction paper. Make lots of them!   Put them in a basket and leave a pen nearby. Have the members of your family begin to write down on the leaves what they are thankful for. Begin to attach these leaves to the tree.   Once you start this project.. the tree can fill up quickly!! How nice to have a heart full of thanks to the Lord for all His blessings when you sit down to your Thanksgiving dinner!

I realize the month is well under way but I thought I would post my November menu. Sometimes it can be helpful for coming up with new meal ideas. Sometimes when I get in a menu planning slump I like to look at other menu plans and see if it sparks some creativity! Plus it just seems that this time of year gets very busy and having my meals all planned out takes a lot of stress out of my day.  Those meals marked with (CP) mean they are crockpot meals. The highlighted meals are links to the recipes on my site. Currently I have my menu written out on my Nov. menu planning calendar and hanging on the fridge..  it makes it easy to see what's for dinner each day and what kind of preps I need to do for tomorrows dinner..  I post a new menu planning calendar on my website at the beginning of each month (I actually try and get it up a few days ahead of time).  You can find the menu planning calendars here: http://www.thefamilyhomestead.com/menuplanningcalendars.htm   ...

Well.. it looks like it has been a while since I posted a blog.. I started having little computer issues and they escalated to big computer issues. I got my resident IT man (my son Jacob) working on them. He managed to transfer all my files to my laptop and then I had to get my laptop set up so I could do my thing from it.. I still need to work on my main PC but for now I am up and running and that is a good thing! All the while I have been busy at home, taking care of life and keeping up on the kids schooling and taking care of details. One of those details was canning the last of my pumpkin. I did not take pics of the process but will lay out the details…. Canning Pumpkin I started by cutting the last three pumpkins I had left in half and cleaning them out. I pre cooked the pumpkins for about 15 minutes in the same way I had done it for pumpkin puree (see previous blog post). It was enough cooking time to soften up the skin so it was easy to peel. Then I cubed it into 1 inch pi...