Pioneer Woman at Heart

  I am still getting a few stalks of asparagus, and now a few dandelions each day.  I picked one stalk of asparagus on June 8th, and so far that was the last.  Best year for it yet.  I continue to collect dandelion flowers. The heat is here now.  It was in the upper 90's yesterday and we finally got a good downpour to give the gardens a good dose of Mother Nature.   The heat will heat up even more over the next two days, so I am praying all the new plants and flowers/seeds will be handling it well.  Not sure it will happen, but the forecast is to be in the lower 100's over the next two days. Soon to be back on the crochet hook . . . I have had another request for these hand crocheted baby washcloths.  I was actually ready to retire the yarn, finish the current crochet project request, but will keep the yarn. It will be a nice all-summer project, that is light weight to work on, during hot days.  The yarn is cotton, 2 ply, and a discontin...

  The photo is my husband's breakfast packed up the day prior.  I have to say, it would be absolutely fantastic with eggs over easy made fresh, but I do have to send breakfast on-the-go for him during the work week days. Oh my goodness, it was delicious!  Time consuming to make, but healthy and very good.  It's a keeper recipe, with some tips to make it easier. First, remember I ground up some of our dehydrated sage a while back?  I put it in a spice jar for easy use for making homemade chicken or turkey sausage?  Well, I'm not doing that anymore. I discovered that the delicious sage flavor goes stale after weeks of sitting in a spice jar.  It's just not the same as crushing the full leaves dehydrated.  I'll just have to take the time to crush them for really good flavor.   Tips:  Most butternut squash is about 3 pounds or so.  Unless I grow it myself, and have a dry year, I have never seen a "small" or 1 1/2 pound butternut sq...

  I believe last year (how we did it) was the first year to do this with the woody ends from our spring asparagus.  I think I will try adding them to vegetable dips this year, or to meat and/or vegetable sauces.  It all depends on the amount of dehydrated ends we have this spring. We are still getting asparagus thankfully.  We got more rain, and it looks like we may get a few days break from it now. A lot is happening around here, and some work is still on hold, such as preparing the actual vegetable garden (much too wet). Dehydrated (and ground) Asparagus Ends ©  May 2026 by Kristina at Pioneer Woman at Heart

  Happy first day of May!  May is a very fun-packed month for us. If you were wondering, yes another day of rain here.  There is more coming, and our day started at 37°F this morning.  Brr. Our area grocery store gave me a coupon for a free 16 oz. container of cottage cheese, so I whipped a cup of it in my small food processor.  I had pesto on hand, so I mixed in some of that, and more garlic.  Instant dip for veggies.  Yum. I'm, ever so slowly, getting some book blanket granny squares crocheted.  I'm still behind, and this one needs ends sewn in. I figured out why I am getting behind, as I'm getting way more books finished than I thought I would.  One, I am only crocheting while watching TV, and that time is limited lately.   I've oddly become a book critic with all these books too.  In one book, the author failed to do proper research for, like boiling freshly laid eggs from chickens.  Anyone with chickens knows, you hav...

  As promised, I am back with an update on the seasoning. We tried the seasoning on a sheet pan dinner, with chicken sausages, potatoes and carrots.  I normally use a blend of "Italian" seasonings for this dinner, but we tried the homemade Montreal Steak Seasoning recently.  It is good, but has a much more "pepper" flavor than with using the Italian for this dish. Next up? We grilled sirloin burgers, as that is what my husband loves to use the original seasoning on.  The results?  Delicious!  He prefers only to use the seasoning on ground beef burgers, but it was very good on the sirloin burgers.   Homemade for the win!  Healthier and less expensive.  I hope you enjoyed this update.  Original post on the homemade seasoning is HERE . Taste Testing the Homemade Montreal Steak Seasoning © June 2024 by  Kristina  at  Pioneer Woman at Heart

We had a frost warning for last night, and woke up to a wind chill of 35°F.  It's still April.  We typically can't plant anything until after the last frost, which in our area, is about or after Mother's Day in May (mid May or later).  One year, however, we had a frost in late May, after we planted the entire garden and lost everything that year.  Every year it's different, so we just wait it out. Not only is it cold right now, but the rain is moving back in.  A lot of it.  I'm not looking forward to a flooded chicken run again.   My new laundry basket.  It is the least expensive one we could find ($16.99  Big Lots) to at least make my life easier during then next 2-3 weeks (or longer).  My husband had to drive about 22 miles to get it, but I have never been this excited about a laundry basket.  I know this one won't last very long, as it's all completely plastic, including the wheels, but like I said, laundry will keep getting done...

Something I've learned baking with coconut flour - it requires a lot more eggs than Einkorn or organic all purpose flour.  Eggs of which are not getting laid by the chickens right now.  Hmpf.  I guess they are all on strike again. I printed this helpful chart and pinned it on the cork that I glued inside a kitchen cupboard.  Sharing in case it could help others. Do you follow MRH (Mountain Rose Herbs) blog?  They have a syrup recipe for the "blues" and it can be put on pancakes/waffles.  Hubby can't have honey, but we can.  If I can find hawthorn berries, I'll try it. No, we didn't get wood cut last night.  I was dressed and ready to go out as Hubby walked in the door.  He said, "it's raining out."  Yeah, no wood was cut. One of my simple pleasures. . . Holding and reading a book.  I forgot how pleasant this feels.  I just put if off due to other "busyness."  I'll continue to work harder and keeping up with cl...

The forecast is expecting 6 weeks of rain in two days here (starting today).  It seems like this happened the year we had a bountiful garden, so I'm praying the Weather Gods are good to us and we get through this upcoming flood. Photo from 2016.  Just came across it and found it cute! Hubby has been taking overtime lately.  He's been leaving the house at 6:30am and not returning until after midnight. (not my photo) I don't sleep well when he works so much either.  I know we could use the extra cash (new coop, new barn roof, and on and on), but it does mess with my sleep. Making meals from the freezer and pantry has been a success.  I whipped up a zucchini and swiss chard frittata for a breakfast. By the way, freezing organic ricotta, cottage cheese, cream cheese and sour cream has been very handy for baked meals.  The texture changes when thawed, but works great for baked recipes.  I will do that again, since I have no access to ...

I don't have photos to share, as the scar tissue remains the same, although sensitive to the touch. I infused skullcap oil (instructions on how to infuse an oil can be found on Mountain Rose Herbs blog online) to maintain care of the scar tissue and heal it the best I can.  Although there are other herbs/weeds to infuse, I chose skullcap.  In my research it aids in healing acne scars, so I went with that to care for my spider bite scar. I know it will be sensitive to sunlight this summer, not that my leg sees much sun (I wear pants in the garden). Just a quick update and another way to treat scars.  If you have another way, please share. After 2 days of dark days, we finally had beautiful sunshine. Thursday was what I call a full blown "dish day."  I literally washed a mountain of dirty dishes, dried them and put them away, and almost immediately found myself getting more than half of them back out to cook/bake.  Oh look!  There are ro...

Friday we woke up to the chilling 40's again, and rain.  Yes that is a morning moon photo.  Weeding was ruled out upon onset of the day.  That's okay, I had floors to sweep and mop, vacuum etc.  Bills to pay, one errand to run, and so on. I managed to snatch up a small amount of organic yellow squash.  It's now in the freezer. My 19 year old daughter called.  She needed to vent.  She's now the manager of a video store, and often has employee issues.  I just put my phone on speaker and let her talk.  It was nice to hear from her. Late evening our oldest daughter called.  Had a flat and could not get her tire off.  Hubby gave her advice, as it was too late to drive all the way there, and we were no help Saturday morning, other than giving her a ride. Saturday it heated up to the mid 80's.  Muggy and more rain. Air conditioners off, air conditioners on... conversations started early out on the porch, and the garlic ...

It's a very short post today folks.  So much to do, so little time.  I am so far behind on our vegetable/fruit garden it's not even funny. Although nothing homesteady (is that even a word?) in this post, here goes. . . The sunrise was just beautiful this morning.  Although both Hubby and are sleep deprived, we sipped hot coffee on the porch.  We've see deer, and today (oh joy) a fox.  We've also had a visit more than once from our hummingbird and a few woodpeckers.

The weekend weather was wacky.  Friday I got very little done outside.  I started weeding the herb garden, got a corner done, and it started to rain.  It rained until noon, and it was cold, dark and windy. Saturday it was raining again, and pretty cold. Sunday morning we had more rain and thunderstorms.  I had to build a tent in the kitchen for old man Jesse.  I put an afghan over the backs of kitchen chairs to keep him calm.  We can't find his thunder jacket. I'm joining Sandra over at Diary of a Stay at Home Mom today. On the breakfast plate . . .