Homemaking on the Homestead

  Friday in the Kitchen is about sharing some of the food I've been cooking in my kitchen recently. IP Thoughts When you make food in the Instant Pot you will end up with a lot of liquid leftover from cooking. A pressure cooker needs liquid in the recipe to come up to pressure. Recently I cooked up some butternut squash, white beans, and chicken (all separately) in my IP. Here is the liquid I was left with... I use this liquid to cook with! You can use the liquid as broth in any recipe calling for chicken or beef broth. I ended up using what you see above in making my soup. I also use some of the cooking liquid when I cook rice. There is no need to dump the liquid. I've even frozen it for later use. Amazing French Bread I was serving soup one night and was planning on having french bread on the side. But I wanted to jazz it up a bit. And oh my goodness this was wonderful! I started by slicing the bread down the middle (long way), then I sli...

Wednesday Snap Shot is a quick peek into my week. If you'd like to join in on my Wednesday Snap Shot.. copy and paste my post, add your answers (you can also copy the pic).. link your post to my blog and then come back and let me know you shared your week. I'll come and visit you and read about your homemaking week!! :) So Far This Week What a great week I had! Hubby and I drove down to California to visit my daughter Emily and hubby and my precious little grandboy! He has grown so much since November. It is a 12/13 hour drive for us so on the way there we decided to go at a little slower pace. We spent the night after driving about halfway. The next morning I had the joy of stopping to see a friend of mine and her husband. We had coffee and a wonderful visit for a couple hours. We hopped back on the road and made it to my daughters by dinner time. First thing I did when I got there was to pick up my grandbaby.. Emily captured this great pic.. Her...

We are home from our vacation and it was wonderful. I need to shop and get life back together. I'll share more about our trip on Wednesday.  My menu is just a few basic meals that are simple. Spaghetti & Meatballs Pre-made meatballs from Costco, spaghetti sauce in a jar, made in my Instant Pot. French bread and a salad round out the meal. Pulled Pork Sandwiches I'll make this in my IP, it can also be made in a crockpot. I'll serve this with coleslaw and chips and maybe some type of soup. Veggie Enchiladas & Baked Chicken This was a hit the last time I made it and wanted to make it again. You can find my recipe for the enchiladas HERE . I'll serve this with tortilla chips & salsa and a salad. Pizza This may be something as simple as french bread pizza or I may make it. We'll see what I'm up for. Or who knows, it may be a Costco all ready made pizza on the day I shop! LOL.. but I'm in the mood for pizza for sure. A b...

Friday in the Kitchen is about sharing some of the food I've been cooking in my kitchen recently. Even though I'm taking a break I still have a few things I prepared ahead of time to share with you. :) White Bean Chicken Chili THIS recipe was so good! I'm still on my veggie quest. Trying to find ways to add them to our diet. I'm looking for recipes that use them in a different way then just cooking and serving as a side dish. That is good too, but I want to get a bit more of all the amazing veggies there are out there in our diet. So making this White Bean Chicken Chili was a great way to use butternut squash. My family loved this soup (and me too! :). It went great with tortillas and salsa. I served a big green salad on the side. I cooked my butternut squash in my Instant Pot. I used the same method I used to cook acorn squash. You can see my video on how I do this HERE . The only difference was time. I cut my squash in half so it would fit...

Wednesday Snap Shot is a quick peek into my week. If you'd like to join in on my Wednesday Snap Shot.. copy and paste my post, add your answers (you can also copy the pic).. link your post to my blog and then come back and let me know you shared your week. I'll come and visit you and read about your homemaking week!! :) I'm taking a break this week and hubby and I are off on an adventure (otherwise known as a little vacation)   :)    Wednesday Snap Shot will be back next week. And... Friday in the Kitchen will be posted as well.. I have it done ahead of time.     I'll be back soon!

This week it is possible that my hubby and I will be out of town for a few days. Still working on details. But, I'm planning only a few meals in case. If we don't go then I'll have something in the pantry to round out the week. White Bean Chicken Chili I actually made this recipe yesterday and made a large batch so we could eat it tonight as well. I had purchased a butternut squash and wanted a different way to use it besides the typical bake and serve with butter, salt and pepper. I came across THI S recipe. I've used cooked squash many times in soups so I decided to try it out. It is very good! This will be our dinner once again tonight. Tortilla chips, salsa and a salad will be on the side. Lasagna It's an easy but filling meal. French bread, roasted fresh asparagus, and a salad will be served with it. Tacos Tacos, or maybe burritos, or maybe both, not sure yet. Burritos are easier for my kids to take to work with them the next day. They...

Friday in the Kitchen is about sharing some of the food I've been cooking in my kitchen recently. Cream of Asparagus Soup I made this soup recently and it was delicious! I've been looking at ways to add more veggies into our diet, in creative ways, and this one was a hit. This was served with tuna melts made on english muffins. It was a very nice meal.  You can find the recipe HERE . I followed it pretty much as written. However I did not have chicken stock and so I used water and added a little extra salt. Veggies in the Diet Here was something else I did recently. I was not sure what I was going to do with my veggies, but, I cut up an onion, some mushrooms, mini peppers, and celery. I sautéed them up in a little coconut oil until they were soft. I used them over the next couple of days.  One way I used them was on a sandwich. I had fried up some bacon one morning and made a little extra. For lunch I took a sub sandwich roll and toasted...

Wednesday Snap Shot is a quick peek into my week. If you'd like to join in on my Wednesday Snap Shot.. copy and paste my post, add your answers (you can also copy the pic).. link your post to my blog and then come back and let me know you shared your week. I'll come and visit you and read about your homemaking week!! :) So Far This Week What a busy week it has been. My daughter and her fiance spent 5 days with us. It was wonderful. We got to meet him and get to know him. Local family came and visited. They went and visited family as well. It was a lot fun.  They left and my quiet house returned and life has gone back to its normal routines. And I do like that. I love my kids and time spent with them, but more and more I'm enjoying a quieter household. When the quiet returns, it is also a blessing to me. On Sunday we celebrated my youngest child's birthday.. Isaac turned 19. It is always a sobering day for me. I have shared in past blog post...

It's been a busy time around my home but this week we are back to business as usual and I'm feeling like trying out a couple new recipes. Today I need to go run some errands so I'm picking a simple meal, meatloaf and potatoes. I'll make a salad on the side. The rest of the week looks like this... Easy Garlic Chicken This recipe looked easy and yummy. I'm going to make pasta alfredo and roasted veggies with this. Asian Sesame Pork I plan using THIS recipe and substituting pork for the chicken. This is an Instant Pot recipe. I'll serve rice and a veggie of some sort on the side. Chicken Bacon Chowder I've made this recipe a few times. It is yummy. I'll make a salad and biscuits on the side. That should do it for the week! :)

Wednesday Snap Shot is a quick peek into my week. If you'd like to join in on my Wednesday Snap Shot.. copy and paste my post, add your answers (you can also copy the pic).. link your post to my blog and then come back and let me know you shared your week. I'll come and visit you and read about your homemaking week!! :) So Far This Week I'm very happy to say my daughter who has been living in S. Korea for the last 2 years, teaching, is now home. :) She finished out her last contract and decided she wanted time with family and to be home for a while. She arrived last week, with her new fiancé, in Los Angeles to visit his family. Very early this morning they arrived here. We were already in bed and now as I write this I am waiting for them to wake up and to give my girl a big mama hug. She is not quite sure what her next plan is but for the next few months she will be going to California to help her sister (my daughter Emily) with her new baby. S...

How is your menu plan coming along this week? It took me a little bit of thought this week to come up with a meal plan. Not sure why, some weeks are just like this. But I have a menu planned and a grocery list made so we will be set for the week. Tonight is spaghetti . It's easy and quick in the Instant Pot. I'll serve a nice green salad, green beans and french bread with this. The rest of the week should be pretty easy. My hubby will be out of town for a couple days for work and my first thought was, salad for dinner! :) My youngest daughter was happy with this meal plan.  And maybe tryout a new recipe for fun. In any case, here is what I have planned.... Hawiian BBQ Chicken This is a recipe my daughter shared with me that she tried. She said it was very good. It is in Instant Pot recipe. It was a slow cooker recipe that the lady on this blog converted to and IP recipe. So if you don't have an IP you could try in the crockpot. I'll serve r...

  Happy Friday!!   Friday in the Kitchen is about sharing some of the food I've been cooking in my kitchen this week..    Veggie Enchiladas I mentioned on Monday that I was going to be trying out a new recipe creation for Veggie Enchiladas.  And I did..  and they were so good! My family really enjoyed them. I served them with chicken because the men in my family are not fans of meatless meals. :) But it could easily be served as a meatless main dish.        Veggie Enchiladas 2 small sweet potatoes 3 small carrots, peeled 1 small onion, chopped ½ cup celery slices 4 baby portabella mushrooms (this is what I had, any type of mushroom will work) 1 4oz can green chilies 1 T sliced jalapenos (I used jalapenos from the jar) 1t salt 1t chili powder 1t cumin 1 can green enchilada sauce 9 corn tortillas Cheese to sprinkle on top, optional Cook the sweet potatoes and carrots. You ...

Wednesday Snap Shot is a quick peek into my week. If you'd like to join in on my Wednesday Snap Shot.. copy and paste my post, add your answers (you can also copy the pic).. link your post to my blog and then come back and let me know you shared your week. I'll come and visit you and read about your homemaking week!! :) So Far This Week Happy March 1st! Spring is coming soon! My week has been busy at home catching up on housework and much needed chores were accomplished. Overall it has been quiet and nice for simply working through my to do lists. On My To-Do List Today I need to do a few things.. ~Laundry ~Cooking ~Vacuum living room Then I plan to take a walk and crochet. Projects I'm Working On I've been able to make some progress on my baby blanket. I'm hoping to get it finished by this weekend. A project I hope to get started this week is doing some cleaning and organizing of my kitchen cupboards. They are in need of a little ...