Pioneer Woman at Heart

  The pickings are slim right now, but we'll take anything we are blessed with.  I made a salad and cleaned the beans.  The rain will give us more for a meal in a day or so.  The green beans are every so slowly coming on this season. I made a batch of homemade granola, and instead of my homemade vanilla extract, I used my homemade Christmas Spice Extract.  It smelled so good in the oven, and while cooling.   I picked some purslane, and am doing an experiment with it this time.  Update soon.   Chit Chat ©  August 2026 by Kristina at Pioneer Woman at Heart

  I tried a new granola recipe and boy it's good.  First, it's a recipe from Mennonite Girls and Cook, and called "Backpack Snacks" online.  It calls for granola, so I used my homemade granola that we love.  Picture is the dry ingredients. Second, I pressed the final mixture into a 9 x 9, parchment lined baking dish instead of rolling it into balls.  The color of these photos are all different, because of the time of day, and how dark the house was from the thick Canadian smoke that was still outside at the time. These cut very nicely, and were very good, straight from the refrigerator.  It was hard to eat just one of them.  I will be making this again, and switching out the peanuts with walnuts, and switching out the raisins with dates.  Oh my!  The binder is honey and peanut butter. These are perfect for your hiking days, camping, your grandkids, or just for snacks when you want one. The rain arrived thank goodness, and washed the smoke in...

  We finally got rain, after 20 plus days of 90 degree plus weather.  Despite watering the garden, it was looking fried by the heat, humidity and sun.  The zucchini plants are starting to die off with little harvest already.

I think anyone living in our neck of the woods, has lost their marbles by this point in the season.  I think most of us, look out the window and just start laughing hysterically.  This tells it exactly as it is.... Hubby got a laugh out of this too.   What a "wacky" winter we are having. So what's going on here lately?

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 don't subscri be to many magazines, but I do utili ze my local library.   Just be fore the library closed for the holiday s, I picked up a few of my fa vor ites.  I also picked up on e that I typically don't read - Ladie 's Home Journal. In th is particular issue, I found anot her unique recipe, and one wor th trying . Luck ily, the recipes are al so on-line, so I don't have to type it out , and I can direct you to the correct source. Fruit Jam Crumble Bars (Adapted from Ina Garten's Raspberry Crumble Bars ) I used the idea of Ina Garten's recip e, but utilized my home canned pear jam and homemade gran ola.  I initially wanted to use my canned wild b lack raspberry jam , but we ate it all . I did not have sliced almonds and could have used more of the crust mixture, f or the topping, but these were wonderful.  It was al most like eating pie with your fingers. I used an 8 oz. jar of jam also , even though her recipe call s for a 10-12 oz ja...