Pioneer Woman at Heart

I'm at that point in my life, when we stay home for the New Year celebration - with pets, kids and the coziness of pajamas.  The last thing I ate?  Apple slices and fruit dip.  Yum! I myself, fell asleep at 8:30pm.  Normally that is not the case, but I'm still recovering, so I that's okay.  Hubby however, was still up, sort of scolding the TV.  The Buckeyes played, and well, they played terrible.  It was as if they never played football before.  I woke up later to realize that the team never even scored one point.  I'm pretty sure he'll be in a sour mood this morning, but hopefully, we'll have a grand day today. I was up early.  I got the wood stove going, coffee brewing, and accidentally woke up the dogs.  The cats were meowing for their very early breakfast, and I took care of that too.  Everyone is still in bed, but one kiddo has to get up to go to work today.

In my recent organizing days, I located a recipe that uses leftover mashed potatoes.  Not very often do we have them leftover, but this recipe is a good way to use them to create another healthy dish. Start by peeling and cutting a large rutabaga into 1/2 inch pieces.  Add them to a pan of water and a bit of salt and bring to a boil. Reduce heat and cover until rutabagas are tender (30-40 minutes).  Drain.  Mash them. Combine your

The other day my younger three girls were raving about muffins I made last year.   I had been discussing making pumpkin pancakes or waffles, so the topic of pumpkin was wafting through their busy brains. "They were HUGE!" "They were so good!" "They were really moist and big!"

( mugs that were a gift from my 19 year-old) I hope you all had a wonderful Christmas.  I knew I was in trouble, when I heard the coffee cup hit my nightstand at 6:00am, and the curtains where carelessly tossed open (despite it was pitch dark outside, ha ha!).

(partially dehydrated) Considering I have enough pickles stocked up, I decided to dehydrate the last of the cucumbers.  My cucumber plants are already turning brown.  I have not dehydrated cucumbers before. I tossed the cucumber slices in chili powder, salt and paprika, to dry for chips.  I will also grind some into powder, for soups, stews, sauces, and dips. My super chili peppers are being dehydrated today.  They are the only pepper that produced this season, out of all of our 50-some pepper plants.  I have a few habanero peppers on a few plants, but I'm not sure they will amount to much.  The chili peppers were sliced for drying, and then later I will be ground into chili pepper. 

 A few days ago, two of the girls (my 16 year-old and 11 year-old) made a batch of homemade root beer, while I was canning jam.   Yesterday, we cooled off with delicious homemade root beer floats. I used our goat's milk (and homemade vanilla extract) for the hand churned ice cream too.  Yum!  However, the humidity was so thick I had to take a photo from inside the house (lens was steaming up again).  We ended up bringing our ice cream maker inside, and attaching the electric motor.  At least we had the hand crank, just in case the power went out.  We are still having thunderstorms here.  I just checked today's forecast - no rain!  Yay!  Let's hope it's correct.  Everything needs to dry up, so a good wind would be nice, and I need to get laundry out today.  I am so thankful for a break in the weather.  I just hope the humidity has let up too. Garden goodies are still coming in, despite the weather.  I...

My kids ( and I ) love to drink tea and coffee both.  But lately, they have gott en funky with both.  Mom se nt over some vanilla choc olate tru ffle teabags, and guess what my 16 year-old did? Sh e put that very same teabag into the coffee maker, along with the coffee grounds, and brewed it.  Not bad too. I wonder what else they wil l come up with , now th at m ost of my tea is restocked. Wh at would you call that any way ( brewing coffee with tea )? Coff-tea?  Tea-F ee?  Ha ha ha!  

This Way of Life  Reflections of 800 country women who express a speical philosophy that comes from down-to-earth living. A Countryside L iving Book Complied and Edited by Maude L ong well   One person writes about the school bus being a "monster ."  That one really made me laugh. I was surprised to see my 10 year -old making coffee this m orning.  She not only se t the pot to brew, but poured me a a special cup , in my special cup. The cup was bought at a village , where the school took a fi eld trip.  They have de monstrations for gl ass blowing, basket wea ving etc. She added peppermin t m ocha creamer and topped i t with whipped cream !  Mmmmm!  I just may have to ma ke a second pot of coffee after they are off to school (tee hee!).  Don't worry, we switched to half-caff coffee recently.  S o that means I can have twice the amou nt, right? (ha ha ha!) There were a few reque sts to se e more of my key c hain...

My youngest daughter (10 years old) has been bitten by the baking bug.  She's been wanting to bake easy cookie recipes all the sudden. Yesterday, I allowed her to bake some, with the assistance of her older sister. As soon as these cookies were cooled, they dissappeared.  I asked her what she did with them. "I'm hiding them so they won't eat them all." Later in the afternoon, I saw her eating one.  Then later, another.   I asked her, "Did you hide those so you could eat them all?" "No." Just about dinner time, she was walking around the house trying to sell them to her sisters for $1.00 a piece.  Her brother was at work.  I got a giggle out of this. Her sister's were not paying for cookies, tackled her, and stole them from her. (giggles) In the end, everyone did get a few cookies.

We've been watching the "Chopped" Foodnetwork show, and the kids love it.  Last night our 12 year-old begged for her own box of food to cook with. We gave her 2 boxes of black wild rice, a jar of pimentos and a bag of mini-marshmallows.  I had no idea what to get, or how creative she could be. She cooked the rice, added the pimentos and added leftover diced chicken we had that she marinated a bit in soy sauce. She made a dessert with the mini-marshmallows and crushed rice chex cereal.  She added raisins also.  It kind of tasted like rice krispie treats, but tougher to chew.  She did pretty good. I think they had so much fun with this that I may purchase items for her and her younger sister for another round. Gus came home late afternoon yesterday.  He's doing good and getting lots of pampering.  He follows my son everywhere now.  The vet told my son that the growth/lump was very deep, black and very nasty looking.  My son agreed to...

My older two girls got fancy with a boxed angel food cake (a cake which we plan to make from scratch from now on).  Instead of adding shaved chocolate to the top, they just tossed on chocolate chips.

Despite temperatures over 90°F in our kitchen, and even higher outside, my kids are still experimenting with cooking.  My 13 year-old got out her old Kid Zone magazines and found a recipe to make (no longer in print).  These magazines contained a section for kids to learn about other countries.  The magazine she read again, contained Austria.  She made this delicious dessert recipe and boy was it good.  Palatschinken - dessert of Austrians

My 16 year old daughter made this delicious quesadilla by using up leftover "refried beans." The day before, I soaked and dried a bag of pinto beans, added onion and seasoning and mashed them. We make lots of recipes with these "refried beans." She diced up green and red peppers and sauted them with onion in olive oil. Then added the leftover beans and placed them in between two whole wheat tortillas. After that was heated completely, she topped it with cheese slices (and these are not Kraft slices), sprinkled it with chili pepper and added a dallop of sour scream. Then she added snipped, home grown, green onion. Man these were good! She needs to come up with a name for her new recipe. She's been having fun in the kitchen, especially when bordem strikes. Of course, they don't tell me they are bored so often any more. If I hear them say it, they are immediately assigned a cleaning job - any job that needs done.

My 13 year-old daughter was actually bored yesterday. She cut up a watermelon, cut hearts, dinosaurs and other shapes using cookie cutters,

Today is the official day in which all of the kids are out of school. With so many ages in the house, it now becomes a challenge to keep computer time and video game time to a minimum, especially for the teenagers (who haven't found a job yet). For the younger ones (9 and 7), our indoor activities are modeling clay, and reading. Outside activities are a 10 foot parachute, putting up a tent to read and play in, and for the evening a movie called "Kids Get Cooking", The Egg (for ages 5-12). The library is full of ideas. Kids Get Cooking: The Egg , Goldhil Learning Series, DVD, Endorsed by the National Education Association.

This is a compiled list to help parents with frugal resources for teaching kids how to cook: APPLES: Printable Nutrition Facts , New York State Apple Country Kids Cooking Activities, Apples Recipes for Kids CHEESE: Printable Cheese Activities How to Make Homemade Goat Cheese EGGS: Kids and Family Section , Kid Friendly Recipes, American Egg Board Eggs 101 How to : Cooking School, American Egg Board Kids Pages , Georgia Eggs POTATOES: Kids Are Cooking Potatoes , Washington State Potato Commission (pdf) The Amazing Washington Potato , 14-page printable activity book (pdf)

I am proud to say that my 15 yo daughter, who has a distaste for cooking and baking, successfully made dinner last night. Not only that, but it was delicious. Spanish class in school required her to take part in a project for a classroom grade. Unfortunately I did not get a photo of it, due to her filming the process, the eating and end of the meal. If it wasn't for her Spanish class project, I don't think she would have discovered she can enjoy cooking. Once again, the recipe was one from the Nintendo DS game, Personal Trainer: Cooking . Not only can the kids get step-by-step instructions out loud, but they can stop it and continue by talking directly into the game. It records the meals that are made, and it's really helping the kids expand their knowledge, confidence, and independence. The meal was a success and I had the chance to finish a book while she cooked with her younger 12 yo sister. Yum!

All the kids helped color eggs for Easter. Happy Easter! They loved using the clear colored crayon to create these unique eggs.