Homemaking on the Homestead

Good morning! When I woke up this morning the house was cold. Then I thought of those in the Midwest and knew my version of cold is nothing in comparison. I'm praying for family, friends and all who are dealing with those frigid temperatures. Hubby built a fire while I made the coffee and we enjoyed the warmth and crackle of the wood stove while we chatted and drank our hot cups of coffee. Now he's moved on to doing his things and I'm doing mine. I had a very nice and quiet weekend. I was blessed with phone calls from all of my out of state daughters. I figured I spent about 7 hours on the phone over the course of the weekend. We all do know how to talk and catch up on life! :) On Monday my local daughter came for a visit with the grandchildren. I always love that so much. We had a great day. Despite the windy cold weather we got out and went for a little hike. It was not to far from our house and previously I thought the area was...

I had a request for how I make fried chicken in the air fryer and was finally able to have the time to take pictures the last time I made it. I love how simple it is to have fried chicken without the mess of a deep fryer. I've actually loved my air fryer for so many things. I purchased my air fryer at Costco last year. The brand is Gourmia and it is a 5 quart fryer.     I would not recommend a smaller size. I've been very happy with my Gourmia. Costco is no longer selling this brand and is selling a Phillips brand air fryer. My son has that one and has been happy with it.  Now on to the fried chicken.. The first thing I did was to mix up the flour that I coat the chicken with. Here are my proportions.. 1 cup flour 1t salt 1t seasoning salt, such as Lawrys 1t pepper 1T garlic powder or in my case I used granulated garlic 1t Mrs. Dash Italian Seasoning Blend Combine a...

I'm finding it hard to believe this is the last week of January! To me, January is typically the longest month of the year.  For some reason it has flown by quickly this year.   In any case, here is the last menu for January! :) Monday: Chicken soup, french bread, salad. I made chicken soup yesterday using up the leftovers in my fridge along with chicken stock and chicken meat that I had in the freezer. We had it last night and will finish it tonight. Tuesday: BBQ pork sandwiches , coleslaw and french fries. I'm using a pork roast I have in the freezer for these sandwiches and will cook it in my Instant Pot. This could easily be done in the crockpot as well. I'll cook the fries in my air fryer. Should be a simple meal. Wednesday: Leftover bbq pork sandwiches. My roast is a 3# pork shoulder roast so I'm planning on enough meat for a few meals. Thursday: Enchiladas, tortilla chips, salsa and salad. I plan on using the lef...

This week I needed to do some restocking of items.  There are things such as coffee ;) I do not want to run out of! :)   I shopped at both Winco and Costco. The first stop was Winco.. There was the regular fruits and veggies. We ate up all the oranges and needed to buy more plus apples and bananas. This was an 8# bag of oranges for $4.98. I picked up spinach, green cabbage, grape tomatoes, celery, onions and mushrooms. Along with milk, half and half, and (store brand) tater tots.    I was down to just a few cans of beans on my pantry shelves so I picked up chili beans, black beans, kidney beans and red beans.    We really enjoyed the pork steak I picked up a few weeks ago and they were on sale for a great price, $2.28 a pound, so I bought 2 packages. Each package was slightly over 2 lbs. That will be enough to feed us for at least 4 meals. In total, for the meat, I spent $5.50. Makin...

Good morning friends! I hope your week is going well. I am happy to have a Wednesday that I am home and able to get this post out early in the day. As I write this I'm waiting for it to be lighter outside to take my 'view from the deck' picture. My weekend was quiet and I was able to make progress on a few needed things. On Sunday I had a 2 hour phone visit with my oldest daughter. It was so nice to talk. We text often, but there is nothing like a phone call :). On Monday we were finally able to take my son out for his birthday dinner. We had a great time. His girlfriend came too... And we invited his brothers. Pizza was my son's choice and we went to a restaurant that I had never been to and it was some of the best pizza I've had in a while.. It was a fun evening for the 6 of us..    Yesterday was a long day in town. Hubby and I had an appointment downtown in the city and it always takes so long to get...

Good morning! It's time for another week of menus. I hope your week is off to a great start.    Monday: Out to dinner. Due to some issues last week we had to cancel my sons birthday dinner. So we are doing that tonight. Tuesday: Chili, cornbread & salad – I didn't get to Costco last week to buy my sausage for my planned sausage & peppers dinner so I made a big batch of chili instead. We are having the leftovers tonight. I made the chili in my Instant Pot and have my recipe for that HERE . Wednesday: Black bean, sweet potato, chicken soup. I have a couple sweet potatoes that are in desperate need of being used up. My favorite combo of flavors is black beans and sweet potatoes with chili powder and cumin. I'm going to turn all this into a soup for dinner. I don't have a recipe for this, so I'll post my end results as a new recipe if it all turns out. I'll serve french bread or biscuits and a salad with this. ...

  Happy Friday friends! This week's haul will be a quick one. I only needed to go to Winco. I still had a good supply of food in the house. I was lacking in fresh fruit and veggies and a little dairy. Here's what I purchased from Winco: The fruit and veggies. We're finishing up the box of oranges I got a few weeks ago so I only picked up apples and bananas. I had cabbage, peppers, carrots and a few mushrooms still in the fridge so I picked up a bag of lettuce mix and tomatoes for salads.  I also picked up some sunflower seeds (not sure why the call them nuts?), and craisins. I wanted these for salad add ins. I put them into canning jars to store in my pantry. After posting my Make Your Salad Kit earlier this week I wanted to start adding in more simple things to our salads.  I needed milk and eggs. The half & half was still on sale with a date at the beginning of March so I picked up another one of those. Oli...

Good afternoon! This morning my hubby had to run some errands in town so I went with him and we did the grocery shopping as well. He's having some issues with our van and needed to stop by our daughter's house to pick up a special tool that our son in law had set out for him. Always nice to have 2 mechanics in the family :). My week has been busy around the home. I've gotten caught up with cleaning and laundry (not that one ever actually gets caught up with laundry! ha, ha) and started doing a little decluttering. Not nearly what I wanted to accomplish, but it's a start. Yesterday my daughter and her children came for a visit. I had a great day with her and the grandkids. We were going to go out to dinner with our middle son to celebrate his birthday today but due to the van issues hubby felt he needed to fix, we decided to do the celebrating next week. Goals The rest of this afternoon is looking pretty easy going. My goal...

I wanted to share my salad mix with you because I've been loving so much about it. I've been making my salad mix for a few months now. As you may know I'm a big salad person. I (I should say 'we' as both hubby and I are big salad people :) have a salad almost every day. I think fresh veggies are so important in a diet. They're full of vitamins, minerals and fiber; all needed things in a healthy diet. But salads can be a pain to have to make every single day. It's always easier to open a can of veggies or microwave frozen veggies, or skip them altogether. On occasions I have bought those salad kits that come with add ins and dressing to simplify my day. They are super simple! One of the things I took notice of was the fact that many of them contain mostly cabbage. I can see why, cabbage stays fresh much longer than other types of greens do. In the end I began to feel I was paying a premium for cabbage (and a little convenience)....