Homemaking on the Homestead

Yesterday I had huge plans.. I was going to plant my whole garden..   ~smile~   But, as life goes.. I got a late start and had other priorities for the day..   BUT..   I did get a few rows lined up and then got my 52 tomato plants in the ground.   It took me 3 hours..   However it got done!!   Today it rained so I was not able to get back into the garden to finish planting my seeds.     Hopefully in the next couple of days the sun will be back out and I will get the garden in completely.   But for now, I am happy to have my tomato plants at this point. Here they were ready to be planted… And after they were planted…

What a fun day we all had yesterday. There were lots of pictures taken but one I really enjoyed was of all of my children. We got out one of my favorite pictures that was taken back in 2002…. Then we put the kids in the same positions yesterday, about 10 years later…. Aww.. yes, they do grow up!!! Here are a couple other favorites.. they were family shots. The only one missing was my daughter-in-law Lolot. She had to work and we were really sorry that she was not with us….   I never take it for granted that I will have the opportunity to have all my kids gathered together in one place at the same time. I’ve spent years when my children were literally spread all over the world and the chance for us to be together was simply not possible. So these moments are truly a blessing and something I thank the Lord for. Here were a few more pics from our day…        

  Monday Family BBQ – Hamburgers, hot dogs, potato salad, green salad, deviled eggs, watermelon, strawberry shortcake   Tuesday Leftovers   Wednesday Beef & Rice Chile Relleno Casserole , salad   Thursday White bean chicken chili , dinner rolls, salad   Friday Spaghetti, French bread, salad   Saturday Salmon patties, baked potatoes, salad   Sunday Nacho’s for a crowd , tortilla chips, salad    

I’m back at it a couple days earlier than expected! I’ve been busy getting my home up and running again. Hubby and I took a little vacation to enjoy some sun and heat and my adult children kept the home fires burning. Now I’m waiting for the sun and heat to hit my part of the world. I hope to get my garden planted this coming week. In the meantime I am busy this weekend planning a big family Memorial Day barbeque. It may be in the rain, but no matter it will be fun to have all the kids and spouses and grandkids gathered together! A pic of me and hubby by the pool on our vacation…. And a recipe to post… On my bbq menu we are serving strawberry shortcake for dessert. My daughter Sierra will be making these tomorrow. This is a very yummy and easy to make shortcake that has been made many, many times for my family… Super Easy Strawberry Shortcake 2 cups whole wheat pastry flour 6 T cane juice crystals, divided 1 T baking powder ½ t salt 1 cup whippin...

    I will be taking a little internet vacation break and will be gone for 2 weeks. I will be back to posting about the 28th of May.     If you order anything from my country store, other than ebooks, your order will be mailed out on the 28th of May.  All ebooks are automatic downloads.  After your purchase (through Paypal) you will receive an email with a download link.   Crystal :)    

  I’m posting the upcoming week’s menu a little early..   Monday Hamburgers w/ all the trimmings   Tuesday Chicken soup (from my own home canned soup) and ham sandwiches, fruit   Wednesday Crockpot chili , chips & salsa, salad   Thursday Leftovers   Friday Homemade pizza (I’ve linked my pizza crust recipe), salad   Saturday Crockpot bbq meatballs   (I’m using meatballs made from this recipe: http://www.thefamilyhomestead.com/beefveggiemeatloaf.htm ) , mashed potatoes, salad   Sunday Baked chicken legs , brown rice pilaf (from freezer ), salad  

A few weeks ago I was blessed with several dozen farm fresh eggs. I decided it would be the perfect time to put some breakfast foods in the freezer. I made Mcmom’s Breakfast Sandwiches and Breakfast Burritos. I used 2 dozen eggs, 3lbs sausage, cheddar cheese slices and 2 dozen English muffins for the sandwiches. You can find my tutorial on making these here: http://www.thefamilyhomestead.com/mcmombreakfastsandwiches.htm I made a little over 4 dozen breakfast burritos. I used 4 dozen eggs, 3lbs sausage and about 2 lbs of grated cheddar cheese. I scrambled the eggs, cooked the sausage and my tortillas and purchased the cheese already grated. … A note on my tortillas… I purchase fresh tortillas that you cook up before using from Costco. The brand I use is Tortilla Land… I did a bit of research on these and found that they are not available at all Costco locations. Mostly they are on the West Coast and a few other states. I like these tortillas because the in...

Today was the second day in a row of beautiful weather. My hubby wasted no time yesterday getting outside and getting the property under control. He drained the pond about half way and the kids cleaned out sticks and leaves and such from around the edges. Sierra pressure washed all the algae off the stairs and the dock (algae, mold and moss are a constant thing to deal with in our part of the world). He did a lot of mowing (to mow all the property takes about 5 hours). Isaac mowed around the garden and raked up broken sticks and made a big pile to be burned. The pond is now filling up again and soon it will be warm enough to swim in.. While hubby and the kids did that I repotted my tomato starts. I ended up with 60+ tomatoes. If the nice weather holds out I will be able to leave some of them outside and they may just make it. I will still put 2 trays (36 plants) under the lights to ensure they make it. If the rest of them make it until the beginning of June then I wi...

  Monday Leftovers – Somehow the last week did not go as planned.  I had kids with various schedules that were not home for dinner and hubby and I had a couple of days in town ..  so tonight is leftovers of a couple meals I made that have not been eaten up along with a salad.    Tuesday Mexican Chicken Casserole (from my recently posted blog), chips & salsa, salad   Wednesday Italian beef & peppers (again from my recent freezer cooking post), w/pasta, French bread, salad   Thursday Peach Chicken (did not make this last week due to the above mentioned reason ), brown rice Florentine from freezer (brown rice pilaf w/spinach recently posted), salad   Friday Crockpot meatloaf , mashed potatoes, salad   Saturday Crockpot chicken & gravy over pasta, salad   Sunday Salmon patties (from freezer – upcoming blog post), garlic roasted potatoes , salad ...

My second freezer cooking session was chicken. I bought 2 large chickens from Costco (total weight 10lbs). I put these chickens in my large 14qt stock pot, added 2 gallons of water and 2T salt. I let this simmer for about 30 hours. When it was done I strained the chicken from the broth. After it cooled I bagged about 8 quarts of stock.. I deboned and cut up the chicken meat and had 12 cups of meat… While my stock and chicken where cooling down I made a double batch of brown rice. You can see my directions for making brown rice here: http://www.thefamilyhomestead.com/cookingwithbrownrice.htm   . .. The first recipe I put together was Mexican Chicken & Rice. This is basically similar to my Mexican Hamburger and Rice recipe: http://www.thefamilyhomestead.com/mexicanhamburgerrice.htm   For this version I used 5 cups cooked rice, 2 cups (1 pint) salsa, 3 cups cooked chicken meat. I mixed it altogether and put it in a gallon zip lock bag.. On coo...

Another month is here and I have another line up of food for the freezer. When shopping this last week I purchased 10bls of beef roast (sirloin roast). The price was about the same as hamburger so I thought it was a good deal. Here is what I did with it… I started by cutting it all up into bite size pieces.. I first took 4lbs of it and divided it between 2 quart size zip lock bags to use for beef stew and soup… With the remaining 6lbs I made 2 meals for the freezer. The first one was bbq beef. I put 3lbs of meat into a gallon size zip lock bag and then added equal parts bbq sauce and jam. I still had some peach/mango/orange jam (from Costco) leftover from making Peach Chicken. So I added that. I had about 1 ½ cups of each the bbq sauce and the jam. I sealed the bag closed and squished it around to mix it up… When I go to serve it I will follow the directions I have posted here: http://thefamilyhomestead.com/crockpotbbqbeefforthefreeze.htm The second mea...

My May newsletter, Homestead Happenings, has been sent out!   If you do not get my monthly newsletter and would like to you can sign up for it here:   http://groups.yahoo.com/group/HomesteadHappenings/ Each month I post a monthly menu calendar to print out and write out your menus for the month.   You can find that here:   http://www.thefamilyhomestead.com/MenuMay2012.pdf