Pioneer Woman at Heart

Most of our days here have been snow covered, and no sunshine.  We are tickled pink, when we do get some sunshine. Raise your hand if you put on 14 layers of outerwear, then trudged thru mountains and hill-slides of snow and ice to tend your hens, came back inside and removed the layers to realize you forgot to get the mail from the mailbox?  Yep.  My hand is up, ha ha!  I'll chalk it in as exercise. I know you are probably reading this and thinking, "this blog can't get any more entertaining" ha ha!  Well, it can. The hubster strikes again.  He wanted to know if we still had some mini tubes of krazy glue to fix something.  I dug around his "catch all" drawer in the kitchen to take a look-see.   First, the drawer is "his" because he puts anything in there after completing a home repair/job when he is too lazy tired to put it away where it belongs. Second, my hands came back out of a corner of the drawer, all purple and goopy.  He put a s...

  Restocked.  Our grocery stores used to carry this, but with vanilla in it.  All area stores stopped selling it.  I have now prepared for the Christmas season, by re-stocking the organic/non-gmo corn syrup for any holiday treats. If I don't make holiday treats, it will not be a wasted purchase.  I use it to make homemade Teriyaki sauce and also for a sweet treat (maybe once a year, and I typically share) of Whiskey Butterscotch Sauce (that is a true delicious sweet treat worth gifting, but will need refrigerated). Tried a new recipe for baked and flavored pretzels.  I had about a half of a bag that was leftover from another occasion, and I decided to bake garlic-ranch pretzels. First, the recipe stated to put it all in a ziploc bag and shake it.  I found that most of the seasoning stuck to the inside of the bag.  I will coat the pretzels in the bag with oil first next time, then sprinkling the season on the tray and mix right on the tray to retai...

I have tried a few new recipes, but not sweet treats.  I do have one of those sweet treat recipes to try, but I have just not had the mojo, nor the time to make it.  🎄🎅🤶 Here is what I did make to try. . . Crockpot  Scalloped Potatoes {Slow Cooker recipe from Mennonite Girls Can Cook } I am always looking for ways to make sides without the oven, due to space constraints on some holidays (or I used to).  I gave this recipe a whirl, and yes, you can use homemade condensed mushroom soup for a richer flavor (because it's made with shallots and fresh mushrooms with butter). It is a much easier way to take potatoes to a get together, but I also consider if there will be enough outlets to keep the crock pot warm too.   One year I took a sweet potato dish (in a baking dish), and it was left in the oven during the entire meal, so I went home with the entire dish. Anyway, back to the potatoes.... Slice those bad boys up with a mandolin, as well as the onions, and...

  I brushed the tops with milk and sprinkled homemade everything bagel seasoning on the tops.  The original recipe stated to boil them, just like you would yeast bagels, and I did not. I went online and searched for the recipe and found several, but for this one, I had to convert grams to cups to make them.  I was shocked at the results.  First, I doubted the dough.  After kneading it, it turned into a nice dough, although started out crumbs.  Baked at 400°F for 25 they turned out nice, but they do need toasted.  The inside is slightly doughy if they are not toasted, but a nice bagel for a breakfast or whatever, if we need a few in a pinch.  I like the fact, it only makes 4 for the two of us as well.  Yes, it requires white all-purpose flour, but I do use organic/non-gmo.  I used organic greek yogurt, and non-gmo baking powder (original recipe uses self-rising flour). Results?  Pretty good.  They don't stick to the parchment pa...

We finally got one evening of rain here.  I'm not sure how much more we'll get from the cucumbers, but they are almost all dead plants at this point. The jalapenos are rolling in, so I have plans to bake us a jalapeno cheddar frittata for breakfast soon.  I also have plans to try a new hummus recipe (Jalapeno-Avocado). I've been trying new tea infusions, and have included some new ones and excluded some we didn't like.  I found that yerba mate iced in the early part of the day is delicous with nothing else in it. Once again, there are locals stealing, cars getting broke into, and in one small town, a person walked through the woods to break into a house.    I have discovered something new!  I can substitute pie pumpkin puree for mashed bananas in a zucchini muffin recipe.  I have only made the recipe a few times, as we lacked the zucchini (squash bugs). I did not know I could swap the pumpkin for the bananas, and I am blown away how good it tastes in t...

  It's probably a good thing I didn't have anyone around me this holiday weekend.   I'm a depressing, oh' poor me, kind of person.   The garden fence is not up, and I've lost 6 bell pepper plants, and all of my blazing hot peppers.  It's not our fault other than the fact work hours prevent the fence getting up.  I can't do it alone, and everyone else is having backyard barbeques, out on motorcycle rides for Bike Week, or camping.  It's not just me either.  My husband came home and said the same thing.  He's feeling very depressed.  Also depressing is the weather pertaining to the garden.  It's dry.  I watered, but the ground is so dry it's cracking.  I'm glad we didn't plant any annual flowers right now.  I'd literally be watering daily for weeks. I tried to perk myself up with some quiet reading on the front porch.  Nope.  Bees were attacking all over the place, and the bee removal has not come ou...