Busy Times

-

I hope everyone had a wonderful Thanksgiving holiday!! For me, on my homestead, we have not had our Thanksgiving meal yet. Leanne arrives home tomorrow so we will be celebrating on Sunday. I will have all but one of my children here and grandchildren and friends will be joining us as well. 




Leanne arrives home tomorrow evening and our family plans on meeting her at the airport. There is a whole lot of excitement in the air for our family right now. Her welcoming at the airport will be filled with family and friends. Afterwards we are having a little welcome home party at our house. I have goodies to serve and we look forward to just spending the time with her. Then she can get some sleep (it is a very long flight time for her) and enjoy the holiday on Sunday. 


  

For now I’m cooking and cleaning and preparing all I can ahead of time. I even plan on cooking the turkey and making the gravy the day before. I want to enjoy my family time with them, not be busy in the kitchen. 




Today I plan to put up the Christmas tree. I’ll wait to pull out extra decorations until next week. I wanted the house to be festive. We’ll put on some Christmas music and enjoy the preparations today. My French daughter (I mentioned her in a previous blog post. She is a friend of my daughters and has come back to spend time with us. She fits in so well with our family that we now call her our French daughter) is here and has been a big help to me and Sierra in all our planning and preparations.


Due to this busy family time for me I may not be back to blog for a few days. But I’m sure I’ll have pictures to share next time of our reunion with Leanne.




Have a blessed weekend in your home!!

 
 

Comments

  1. MonicaNovember 29, 2013 at 12:24 PM

    I can just feel the excitement in the air! I think I would just go crazy if one of mine went that far away for an entire year. I would be uncontrollable a this point. praying you have a wonderful stress free Thanksgiving celebration. Much to be thankful for!

    ReplyDelete
  2. Jennifer November 30, 2013 at 3:13 AM

    Happy for you that your daughter is coming home. I can only imagine how excited you are. I hope you have a wonderful time with all of your family.

    ReplyDelete

Post a Comment

All messages are moderated. After approval your message will be posted. Thank you for your comments!! Crystal :)

Popular posts from this blog

Canning Chicken Noodle-less Soup

-
Image
Today was one of those busy days that it seemed I was moving from the time my feet hit the floor until this evening.. But, I got so much done and that is a great feeling! :) One of my accomplishments today was canning 14 jars of chicken noodle-less soup. I call it “noodle-less” because you can’t can noodles. They end up falling apart. So I canned the chicken, veggies and broth. When I go to use the soup I will bring it to a boil and then add a handful of noodles (any type of pasta will work) and cook it until the noodles are done. Because I plan to add the pasta after the fact I wanted to make sure there was enough chicken broth to do this. So I only filled my jars about half to two thirds with chicken and veggies and then filled with chicken broth. Here is how I did this…. I started off with 2 chickens that were a total weight of about 10lbs. I put them in my 14 quart stock pot… I then added 2 gallons of water.. And 3 tablespoons salt.. I brought this ...
Read more

Canning Cabbage

-
Image
I had 4 large heads of cabbage that weighted about 25 pounds. We had some really hot days and I figured I better get the last of them picked soon. My daughter Sierra and I ended up processing 3 of them yesterday and I have one left for a meal on my menu this week. I made pickled cabbage and then canned up the last of the cabbage. Here is the recipe for the pickled cabbage (according to how I made it)… 8 pounds cabbage 1 large onion 1 ½ red peppers 1 lb carrots ¾ cup salt 9 cups water 12 cups white vinegar 10 cups sugar 1t mustard seed 1t celery seed Slice cabbage thinly. Slice onion and peppers. Grate carrots. Mix all veggies together in a very large bowl. Sprinkle with salt and mix in well. Let sit for 2 hours to soften veggies. Rinse veggies well.  In a large stock pot (mine was 14 quarts) combine water, vinegar, sugar, spices. Bring to a boil. Add cabbage/veggies. Bring to a boil. Fill hot pint jars with veggies using a slotted spoon. Fill jar with brine...
Read more

Canning Beef Stew

-
Image
In my last blog post I shared that I had bought 10 pounds of beef roast. I cut it all up and used 4 pounds in 2 crockpot freezer meals ( http://homesteadinghomemaker.blogspot.com/2012/02/two-more-crockpot-meals-for-freezer.html ) . I used the other 6 pounds of meat along with potatoes, carrots, onions and celery to can beef stew. Here were the general proportions I used in canning 7 quarts of beef stew.. 6# beef 2# potatoes 2# carrots 1# onions 1# celery After I cut up the meat and got the freezer meals done I moved to the beef stew. I peeled and cut up the potatoes and carrots. I chopped up the onions and sliced the celery. I pulled out 3 quarts of veggie stock from my freezer to use for liquid in the stew. You can use beef or chicken stock or you can use water. I did not add anything to thicken the liquid as usually thickeners don’t hold up in canning. You can thicken the broth after it is opened if you would like. I added 1 teaspoon salt to each of my ...
Read more