Pioneer Woman at Heart

On the pro side of no rain, what I had weeded is stayed weed free.  On the con side of it, I had to water one day and weed another day.  It was like concrete. Oye.  This is one corner of the potatoes.  It's a total mess. On July 18th, I started weeding them.  Sadly, all the tops had browned and the potatoes I checked were about 1 inch round.  I continued to weed, not giving up, and hoping the next rain would revive them. A few plants still have green on them, so I continued to weed.  you know I'm not one to give up unless it's obviously just not going to yield us food.   Yeah, as the days passed by, and the weeds came back (after that photo), I started digging. Here's what we got. Dinky is this summer's word.    A complete fail.  We planted 15# and harvested 15.43#.  The heat waves, despite watering, caused the plants to die off way too early.  Such a waste of money and time. I will be buyi...

Pre- Thanksgiving (while still s ick) , I used King Flour's recipe for soft white dinner rolls, I substituted home grown potatoes for the instant potato flakes (thanks to some advice from an avid bread baker). I let the mashed potatoes cool, while the butter came down to room temperature, and took to filing away my last "file" pile. Using the directions on King Flour's blogpost, I divided them into 16 rolls, and froze them.   How did they turn out? Well, I forgot to take a photo, but they did n ot ri se enough.  I'm wonde ring if I should have t ha wed them in t he fri dge the night before vs. the same day we ba ked them.  Anyone have t ips on this.  I used my dehydrator to help them rise too. 

I'm late in posting today, but for a good reason. I got no sleep last night.  No big news, right? I tried to sleep in, but that did not happen.  Youngest missed the bus and next oldest is sick.   Anyway.... I was on the phone with Oldest Daughter. The good news?  She did not have the flu last week.  The bad news?

I am afraid to dig into more boxes, as I have found another dishcloth I need to finish crocheting.  I must have taken it camping, along with other "go-to" projects. Here is the latest development ~  Before

Although I  took Saturday off, yesterday I was busy with preserving (again).  The tomatoes are once again back in the kitchen.  As soon as I free up table space, I fill it back up. Yesterday, Hubby and two girls went out to pick tomatoes, while I worked on another batch of canned tomato sauce. Once I had that reducing, I went outside, but did not have intentions of sweating through my clothes again.   I did.  I ended up helping Hubby dig up one entire row (long rows this year) of potatoes.  I think we ended up with maybe 30 pounds.  Less than expected (should have gotten 3 x that amount), but still a good amount.

I would have a ph ot o of our finished dish, but it was de voured.  L iter ally.

(before baking) Yesterday we tried two new recipes that used honey.  They were both delicious.  We are keeping both recipes, but cutting the bacon drippings in the potato salad down to a minimum.  They were both very good. 

  I'm dehydrating potatoes this year. I have a 4 tray Excalibur dehydrator.  I filled those trays up in no time, and will have more to dehydrate during the next few days.