Homemaking on the Homestead

This is another favorite from The Family Homestead that I wanted to share with you. Although fall is a ways off, it's not to early to be thinking of quick warm breakfast foods. Homemade Instant Oatmeal is easy to make and frugal as well. I made this quite often over the years for my family and it is great to have on hand.  This recipe makes a lot but would be easy to cut in half as well. It will fill a one gallon container. Below the recipe are pictures to show you how to make it.   Instant Oatmeal Mix Crystal Miller 20 cups quick cooking oats 2 cup powdered milk 2 tablespoons cinnamon 1 tablespoon salt Take about half of the oats and run them through a blender or food processor to make them smaller… you don’t want flour though! Then mix with the rest of the ingredients. I put this in gallon size jar for storage. This is much easier to use with a big family than little packets. Little packets of things just do not work at my house! For serv...

If your garden is overflowing with tomatoes you might like to can a batch of spaghetti sauce! ************************ You'll need 20#'s of tomatoes for this recipe.  My favorite type of tomatoes are Roma Tomatoes. They are not as juicy as other varieties and are great for all types of tomato based sauces.  I also do not peel my tomatoes. I cut them up and puree them in my food processor. I've never had a problem doing it this way. It saves a LOT of time!  After pureeing the tomatoes I put everything in a large 14 quart pot along with more of the ingredients and let this simmer away for a couple hours..   Add the tomato paste and it's ready to can up! Due to the vinegar and lemon juice in this recipe it can be canned in a boiling water bath.  Remember to use safe, basic canning procedures. If you're not familiar with water bath canning you can find information HERE .    ******************************...

   Good Morning Friends!   I am busy this week getting ready to head to California soon for the birth of our grandson. I'm not sure yet just what date we are leaving as babies have a way of coming when they are ready :).  But, my daughter is a few days past her due date so I know it won't be long. I figured the best choice for me was to set up blog posts for the next week or so.  Right now I need to focus on packing, having family stay at the house while we are gone, keeping the animals fed and so forth.  I decided I'd share some of the old favorite recipes from my website. I have plans soon to shut the website down and it will be nice to be able to find the favorites here on my blog.  I made this recipe for my family hundreds of times (or so it seemed :) when they were all home. It was a big family favorite. Whole Wheat Oat Dinner Rolls  ~makes 24 rolls Crystal Miller 2 1/3 cups water 1 cup oa...

Good Morning!! This week I made trips to both Winco and Costco.  My first stop was Winco:  I picked up the usual salad veggies and fruit. The whole grain angel hair pasta was on sale for .97 cents for a 16oz box so I picked up 2 of them. I also bought a jar of alfredo sauce. I had used up all the ones on my pantry shelf.   I picked up a package of shrimp on skewers (which were so good on the grill brushed with garlic butter :), pepperoni, half & half and some frozen items. I was out of peas and carrots in the freezer and I like to have them on hand for pot pie or fried rice. I was out of the cube style hash browns so I bought 3 of them. The name brand tater tots (Ore-Ida) were on sale and actually less expensive than the store brand. It was a 5lb bag, but that will work fine and I won't have to buy them for quite a while!  Total from Winco: $52 The next stop was Costco: This haul was pretty simpl...

Good Morning! I slept in a bit this morning and it felt great. I've been getting up to get outside and walk/run before it gets to hot. Today is not supposed to be as warm so I figured I could sleep in and get out later on.  It's been a relatively easy going week.  I've mostly kept busy with home things. We'll be leaving soon to go down to California to be with our daughter who is due to have a baby. We are hoping to be there for the birth, but don't want to leave to early. First babies seem to run a bit late in our family. I've been doing a little prepping and pre packing to be ready to leave when the time is right.  I also got my kitty, Pila, to the vet's office this last week to be fixed. So no more babies. Hopefully she'll settle down to be a nice house cat now. If she does escape (like she did earlier this year) I don't have to worry about kittens.  We've been enjoying the lovely summer evenings, sitting outside and ...

Good Morning! Here's a look at what I was cooking up last week... We started off the week with burgers. I had some sliced pepper jack cheese I took out of the freezer and used a slice of that and some chopped onion to add to my hamburger. I also added spices (to taste), salt, pepper, garlic, Mrs. Dash Garlic and Herb. I made 3 burgers for us from this..   We also put some corn on the cob on the grill to go with this and had potato chips on the side.  The burgers were so good.  We had leftover corn and had that with bbq'd steak and baked potatoes for the next night. I made the Caesar Salad Kit that I mentioned in my grocery haul to with this meal.. I was in the mood to make soup and the day was cool and cloudy which would have been a perfect soup day, but instead I made some ham alfredo because it seemed quick and easy to put together. A few months ago I had canned up some ham and stock that wa...

Good Morning!! For this weeks haul I went to both Winco and Costco.  My first stop was Winco.. It was a pretty small haul. I picked up the usual fruits and needed veggies. A bigger bag of frozen corn on the cob (the regular packages I've been buying were out), eggs, half & half, sour cream and ice cream was on sale so I got a few of them.  I also picked up some shrimp on skewers that we put on the grill and brushed with garlic butter.. super yummy!   Total from Winco this week: $37 The next stop was Costco..   I picked up bleu cheese dressing for a change from ranch. I also picked up another package of the pepper jack cheese sausages because we enjoyed them so much. I found a different brand of potato chips to try. They are Cape Cod brand kettle chips with less fat and my hubby likes them. I was out of cheese and mayo and picked up bananas.  I also tried the Caesar Salad Kit. It was the ...

Good Morning! How is your week going? Mine has been good. I've been getting up early and getting out to take my walk before the heat sets in for the day. I love the freshness of the morning. I took a couple of pics to share. The lake and mountains were so pretty this morning.. Hubby finally took down the dead tree next to our pond. It was a white alder tree and from what I understand they don't have a huge life span. I'm pretty sure they were planted here well over 30 years ago. There are a couple more that need to come down as well. I'm always sad to see the trees come down..  It will, however, give us a nice bunch of fire wood for the winter!  Goals I'll be sticking around the house today. I'm expecting a phone call and I want to make sure I'm around.  Homemaking Chores for today: ~2 loads of laundry ~sweep & mop kitchen floor ~shake out rugs in the hallway and mop the hallway floor That's ab...

Good Morning! Here's a look at what I was cooking up last week... This last week wasn't all that creative. We grilled a few times. It was easy and a fun way to spend time enjoying the warmth of summer and visiting with my son.  We had burgers twice. Once was last Sunday and I posted that one last week. On Monday we had the same thing, so I didn't bother to get a picture.  Our next meal was steak and corn on the cob. I served salad and potato salad for sides..   I made a quick meal of burritos on another night. I cooked up brown rice in my IP and while that was cooking I fried up 2 pounds of hamburger. When it was done I mixed in about 2 1/2 cups or so of the brown rice and seasoned it with salt, pepper, garlic and taco seasonings.  I put this on tortillas with a little cheese and a sprinkled hot sauce on it and rolled it up burrito style.    I served this with salad and tortilla chips with extra salsa ...