Pioneer Woman at Heart

  Happy New Year!   I'm excited about a new crochet project, and it is a sort of a motivation tool for something else.  I'll be posting later about it.  Overall, it will reduce my time wasting internet scrolling, pointless social media scrolling (looking for recipes, patterns, exercises are all good scrolling minutes, he he!), procrastination station, and endless him-hawing.  Not to change the subject, but I mean some scrolling is needed to avoid endless days of shopping in stores looking for something my husband suggested we buy. I found one close to what he feels we need at Harbor Freight, but it's wall mounted, and runs on batteries. Does it even exist?  I'll be searching for it, but we may have to buy battery charged or a rechargeable light.  He wants a solar chargeable, motion sensor, small table light (sort of the brightness of a nightlight) for the bathrooms.  We lack outlets by the toilet, and do not want to put in a floor strip light...

  Angel Christmas Cookies.  Recipe is online , but I found this recipe in a book I read years ago - Aunt Dimity's Christmas, by Nancy Atherton.  We use the recipe for our traditional cut-out cookies at Christmas, but Christmas has passed, so I made them "winter" themed this year - snowflake cookies. I'm glad I went searching for the book on my blog, because the link does not work anymore, and the recipe has been changed over the years.   In the book, the recipe is called "Angel Cookies" because she makes them all angels.  I make all sorts of cut out shapes with the dough.  Very easy to make and you can make it the day before to chill the dough. The recipe states that if the dough is sticky to chill it, but every year we've made these cookies, we chill the dough.  I take half the dough out, cut the cookies, and take out more chilled dough as we bake them.  You can also chill this dough overnight. Did you know that if your dough is cold when yo...

  Sharing one of our favorite Christmas morning breakfast dishes (again).  However, I have made it for other occasions. The recipe is on my blog HERE .  I have made this with homemade bread, and it still turned out delicious.  Homemade sage sausage is good with this too. The best part of this breakfast recipe, is it is made the night before, covered and baked the next morning.  You could also use leftover ham, or bacon, but we've always made it with sausage. The recipe was given to me by a co-worker, many, many years ago. The weather here is still rain. It's also causing a muddy mess outside.  It's definitely been a warmer December this year. Egg Souffle © Dec 2023 by  Kristina  at  Pioneer Woman at Heart

  Not much to talk about right now.  Going into the Christmas holiday, and winter time seems idle at the moment.  We've now had more rain, and the weather is said to be rain all weekend.  Not what we wanted to hear, with the coop work in progress. I'm still not listening to Christmas music, nor decorating anything else.  Maybe I'll get there, and maybe I won't.  I tried to listen to Christmas music at the beginning of the week, and I just couldn't do it.  Not yet. I'm missing my Mom this Christmas. Last year, this exact time, we were ripping out our entire living room floor and replacing the joists and flooring.  I think we were so busy working, that we didn't have time to "feel" during the holidays. I did dig through some Christmas totes (was not easy to get to), for one daughter's Christmas stocking.  She came home from the hospital Christmas Eve in this handmade stocking (donated by a local resident).   I can't believe all the or...

  (note:  you could use ham or bacon or any mix of meats really, but we've always used breakfast sausage) The original recipe was given to me by a co-worker many, many years ago.  She had brought the dish in for a potluck, and it was amazing.  We've been baking this for Christmas morning every year since then, because you can make it the night before and bake it in the morning. Brown one pound of organic (or homemade) breakfast sausage.  Drain. Set aside. Recipe calls for "8 slices of white bread" I use homemade white bread, and use about 6 slices, because my loaf is much larger than one from the store. Spray a 9 x 13 inch baking dish with non-stick spray.  I've also used a thin layer of organic olive oil. Dice the bread with kitchen sheers or a knife. Layer the cubed bread into the prepared baking dish. Sprinkle the cooked breakfast sausage evenly over the cubed bread. Grate 1 cup of organic sharp cheddar cheese. Sprinkle the grated cheese evenly over...

We have had many fun and memorable Christmas traditions in our home.  First, I loved (loved!) being classroom Mom for the class Christmas parties.  I would literally try to sign up for them when school started.  I loved it!  I always made some sort of treat bag/treat container that was filled with fun.  By fun I mean a handmade ornament for each student, candy, and fun activities or toys.  Here are a few treat bags I made for Christmas.  Also, most years I hand wrapped each handmade ornament so the kids had something to unwrap. Classroom treats were also made.  One year I dipped large marshmallows into melted butterscotch chips on a stick. Link to this on my S.C.R.A.P. Blogspot I had so much fun coming up with creative treat holders.  The one above was made from a toilet paper roll (bottom piece), and the top was an ornament that sat into the top. Link to this on my S.C.R.A.P. Blogspot Long time blog followers already know that I have a passi...

My new Christmas bed quilt.  I have never done this for the holidays, so when my husband sees it, he's going to shake his head, ha ha!  Not a great day for drying outside, but better than hiking up the electric bill.  It's not handmade sadly.  Quilting is not something I have yet to teach myself.   Things have just gone a bit wonky this week.  One day I put my shirt on backwards, one daughter went to work and forgot her purse, every time we try to make plans to cut wood Mother Nature stops us, one daughter's package is delayed in the mail, ....can't wait until next week.  I think we are all a bit stressed with the virus, lockdown, car repair expenses, election etc. going on this year. We had another entire day of rain.  Like boat loads.  I need to wash several rugs, but the weather is just crazy for October.  I'm thrilled it's filling up the well though. I emailed the home goods store (sells handmade items).  No answer back....

I'm no longer a fan of homemade shampoo.  It was drying our hair out.  I found a chemical free/organic store brand at my grocery store (of all places) with argan oil in it and we love it.  It even comes with a seal on it. I had purchased extra cookie ingredients for this Christmas, but now I won't be using them.  I may donate them to the kids.  There will be no buckeyes, sorghum candy, homemade toffee, cut outs, etc.  It's gonna be way less stress, but odd.  I will at least bake einkorn peanut butter cookies.  We are all about to weigh a lot less.   Speaking of Christmas, I got all the trees up.  I do need more lights.  Five up  - 6 if you include my bathroom Christmas tree night night.   I also got some garland with lights up, and some decor. I put up a battery operated "camper" string of lights on my Christmas quilt rack.  I just love it. It's not very long, but long enough for the quilt rac...

Wednesday the weather was just about the same - high of about 44°F.  I woke up super exhausted, so I took my time early on (again).   Here's why. The night prior, Hubby and I drove to the other "Big City" to pick up some last minute baking supplies for the holiday baking.  However, there were zero half-pint canning jars anywhere.  Sigh.  Literally.  Even sugar in the smaller bags, and toothpicks were sold out.  Frustrated and beyond tired, we returned home to crash.  Someone please, please (I beg you) remind me to buy my holiday supplies in September.  I even stopped at the dollar store for parchment paper - zero in stock and lines so long I would've walked out anyway perhaps.  At the craft store, the lines were long, and one cashier.  I almost fell asleep in line.  Nope,  not doing it next year.  I'll order online if I have to.  It's crazy out in the people-y world. The only reason you all get to read...

I woke up Wednesday dragging my feet.  I was full force on Tuesday, and so happy with my progress.  Slowly, I got things rolling.  With a 3rd pot of coffee.  And some rock n' roll.  There is one radio station that plays all Christmas, but it's slow stuff.  I had to hook my phone up to the radio and get some rock n' roll going on.   Baking resumed. More brittle was made too.  I called out to the kids and got reinforcements to finish the baking. I literally gave the cashew brittle to my daughter and told her to hide it.  Otherwise Hubby would have it gone before the festivities started, ha ha!  Good news.  Jesse ate his breakfast.  However, Daughter (his Mom) called me last night.  We are going back to all homemade food for him now.  He doesn't have many years left, and we will be spoiling him.

Canning took up most of my morning yesterday. We've been out of Candy Apple Jelly for over a year, so some of this is going in the pantry. I had to whip up a batch of homemade ginger-ale syrup.  Youngest texted me that she was feeling pretty sickly.  Thankfully, I have club soda on hand, but now I'm out of honey. Made my first batch of organic cashew brittle .  I hope to make one or two batches more yet. Dinner was easy yesterday.  I used leftover mushroom gravy, combined with homemade condensed mushroom soup, and cooked pork chops it in the crock pot.

Tree #1 up.  Blue lights this year.  And yes, it's in one of the bathrooms. Tree #2 up.   Tree #3 up. Tree #4  up.  Here are a few of the hundreds of handmade ornaments I made that will be going on it.  I'm reviewing them all to see what I'll be making and selling next year too. Instructions on how to make this one is :  Here Tree #5 is being debated.  I need a place to put it, ha ha! In the midst of taking inventory, I realized we sold out of the dish scrubbies last weekend  I spent the day restocking, but colors are limited due to lack of netting.  I restocked the headbands, and added more color options too. Needless to say, the house is a mess due to lack of cleaning, ha ha!