Pioneer Woman at Heart

I've been spending more time in the garden and with outdoor chores.  The garlic is weeded, the asparagus is weeded, and the sticks are getting picked up. I loaded up a cart of firewood and stocked the hearth. Barns are getting a good spring cleaning, debris picked up that blew in over winter, and so forth.  The temperatures are typical too.  High's in the 60's in the middle of the week and down to lows of 27 over the weekend.   I got all the fruit trees pruned (apple, pear, plum, peach and elderberry).  I am tickled pink to see the p lum tre e ma de it .  Yay!  I just have to buy and rep lant the red raspberry and black berry.

I've been playing around with new breakfast recipes.  This one I printed from the internet, and is a diabetic friendly dish.  I like their recipes (Diabetic Living recipes online), because they are very healthy recipes.  This one won over.  Everyone liked it.  Some grocery stores sell non-gmo/organic hash browns in the organic freezer section, or you could make them from organic potatoes too.  If you google it, it's called "Sweet Pepper Hash Brown Baked Eggs."  It was sort of fun to make this too.

I placed an order for the Teccino herbal coffee sampler reently.  I wanted to give it a taste test before introducing it to my Mom.  She really can't drink regular coffee, and decaf can (from what I read) contain traces of caffeine.   This coffee was rated organic, and made with various nuts, fruits, and herbs.  These are completely caffeine free.  I'll let you all know how they taste.  They are all non-gmo as well.

My little ladies are not that little any longer.  They are growing quickly. I'm starting to teach them the call to come for a treat.  I need to get some meal worms next. 

There is a lot going on this weekend.  One surprise I can't tell you about until tomorrow. The mail surprise was a blessing. My cousin messaged me that he had his Mom's knitting needles and crochet hooks and wanted to know if I'd like to have them. I said yes of course.  My Aunt is the Aunt I hand wrote letters to so often, along with "happy boxes."

I've been flipping trough the new recipes and picking out ones I have ingredients on hand for.  The next to try was a side dish - Zippy Carrots. I you freeze carrots and green bell peppers, grow garlic, can ketchup, make your own butter, you'll like this "from storage" side dish.  I'll admit, plain carrots are boring anyway. I used all org anic ingredients.

I had the most amazing day on Tuesday.  I was able to spend several minutes on the front porch.   The weather was awesome.  I cleaned almost everything on Monday, so I felt much less guilty partaking in the porch on Tuesday. I took out several books and decided on one that I purchased on a recent getaway by James Patterson. I am also reading (or skimming) through library books.  Currently, I am skimming through one titled "Tonics"  but actually has meal recipes in it.  I can't say yet that I would buy it, but I'm finding a few I may want to try (ha!  Here I go again!).  I ordered this book from the library because I thought it would have tea recipes.

There are some days I have the hankering for a coffee in the middle of the day.  I don't buy decaffeinated coffee.  Although , I noticed our grocer just started carrying a n organic decaffeinated coffee. I've known for a long time that chickweed root can be ground for a coffee flavored, healthy drink, but haven't grown it here (yet).  We've see a few around, but not enou gh to dig up.

The daffodils and hyacinths are up and about to bloom.  No signs of tulips, except at my little garden alongside a log.  I hope to start bringing in fresh flowers soon. Once again the weather p eople wer e wrong.  The high 7 0's th at were forec asted for early this week?  Not happening.  If we ar e lucky , we'll get up to maybe 60°F today , then drop to the 40's and 50' s for a few weeks (or so they say).

Remember all those English Walnuts we bartered for?  I was still cracking them this month.  Apparently , the kids have lost their mojo with helping me. The shells are always saved from these walnuts.  My older brother and his wife gift me their cardboard egg cartons.   Four dozen campfire starters are in the making today, and I have more shells.

I really liked this new recipe we tried recently - Pasta with Spinach and Ricotta. You boil 8 oz. of rotini pasta and drain.  They suggested the tri-color veggie noodles, but I can only find organic regular noodles. While the noodles are boiling, drain and squeeze a frozen and thawed box of  chopped spinach (or use equivalent of homegrown).  Place in a 12 inch skillet, add 1 minced clove and heat 5 minutes.  Add 1 cup ricotta cheese, 1/2 cup water and 1 1/2 Tbsp (I didn't measure) of Parmesan cheese.  Ad d salt and pep per.  When heated, add drained rotini and serve.   I doubled it for our family, and had to buy the spinach, but I can typically find organic ricotta at our one grocer.  It was very good.  I had practically no leftovers.

I'm sharing yet another new recipe.  I had already written this recipe down on a recipe card, so once again, I have no idea where I obtained it.  I'm sure I've had it in my recipe pile for over 6 years or so. I'm sharing because there are days when I am hankering for pancakes for waffles and have no syrup on hand. You make this by using pomegranate juice and honey:

I am happy to say my herb garden is springing to life again.  I chopped my first chives of this year.  Boy was it a good feeling.  My kids thought I was nuts when they saw me smelling them while walking in the house. They went into the butter I made for the steaks yesterday, and I chopped more for eggs.  It really is a good feeling.  I also added a tab div ider in my recipe bo x.  I reads "butters." Guess what I brought home? 

These few pieces of furniture made there way out to the porch over a week ago (tee hee).  Although there was a teensy chill, I opened windows (again).   I tried another "new" recipe from the pile last night - overnight french toast casserole.  I didn't really follow it completely, and used a topping recipe from another recipe.  It was good, and easy to make.  Just very sweet, so a vegetable hash side would have been nice.

I had two jobs on the list for rainy days.  One - a good overall cleaning of the master bathroom.  Two -  my bedroom closet.  The closet won. I never did finish the closet last fall, so I chose to dig into that job first.   That is w hat I was doing wh en I got a text message from Hubby to pack my bags and that we were leaving for the weekend (last weekend).   I had tos sed all my clothes out of the closet and onto the flo or.  Hubby thought I had lost my mind.  I went through each p iece, purging anything I had not wor n and re-organizing .  It's Hubby's turn to pur ge next.

I'll be honest.  Losing an hour of time is no fun.  I'm downing coffee like it's water this morning.  Maybe I should just go to bed for an hour and start over?   Oh wait.  I can't. I have another kid sick this morning.  She was fine last night, and them boom, she's sick today.  She can't even swallow. Back to who "did it again."

I have a feeling that these "dishcloths of the month" will be put into a box for when the first kid gets their first house.  A set of them would make a nice house warming gift.

The weather has turned a gorgeous warm spring week.  I know rain is on the way though. I stole a few minutes of morning porch time after washing three days of dirty dishes.  Yeah, you heard me right.  With the kids working, one in school, and one sick, it was not on the urgent list.

Our youngest daughter is back from her D.C. class trip.  However, she came home sick.  Sunday morning her temperature rose to 102.7.   I quickly heated a cup of herbal te a with herb infused honey (which has been a li fesaver for her throat and keeping her hydrated). In a short time she was sleeping and her fever reduced.  While she slept, I whipped up some homemade ginger-ale syrup, and sent the Hubster to town for club soda.

I found this recipe in my "try it" stash pile.  I must have printed it way back in 2010.  You'll probably laugh, but I ev en found a crochet pattern in my "recipe stash ." Youngest was still in elementary school, and I had been recycling school papers for printer paper.

Sharing another recipe we've been making here for a few years now.  We love this version and have gifted it many times.  I use organic/non gmo ingredients.

I opened the fridge, only to find some grated zucchini I had thawed.  Not letting it go to waste, I made us some zucchini muffins. These come in handy for a healthy after school, or take to work, snack.  Do you think I can count is as a vegetable? Ha ha! My stove was already heated up, so I turned down the heat and picked out another recipe in the pile.  Don't worry, I won't share every new recipe.

I had a stash of chocolate left from last Christmas.  I had cashews that I had not yet made Curried Cashews with, and I had some organic dried cranberries for salads. ....and I had 10 m inutes before my washing machine was done. I made Cranberry Nut Clusters.  Easy, quick and delicious.  Another new , and amaz ing ly quick, recipe.

I finished going through the remaining older recipes, and all have been purged, copied or double copied.  Extras went to the girls, and heirloom recipes passed down.  I t was har d to de cide on so many of them too.  Many of my grandmother's recipes for dessert re quired instant pudding and jello mixes.  A few called for pop like 7-Up or Teem. The only r ecipes left, are ones that I have not yet tried.  I'll be honest, I pu rged t hat pile already, and have re duced it .  There are still some that may yet go from "stas h to trash."

Our 14 year-old daughter is on the way to D.C. with her 8th grade class today.  They return Saturday.  She's the last one in the family to go.   Although big snow flakes are falling , the weather is pretty nice for them today, so they should have a fun time.   Praying for a safe trip. It has been, and will continue to be a busy week of running kids here and there.

Recipes seem to lurk all around my kitchen.  Even though I am on the road to completely being organized ( a bunch of larky) , I realized I had a recipe box in one cupboard that I haven't opened for years. Ac t u ally, we only opened it to access cookie/candy recipes at Christ mas. I decided to empty that cupboard, purge, wipe it out and start tossing recipes from the box.  One recipe book went to one of the girl's hope chest for when she moves out.  One recipe book will go to the library as a donation. I found fun recipes in the process.  Like one from Jr. High School Home Economics class, ha ha! And one of my mother's family favorite, hand-me-down, recipes - Barf Cookies.