Pioneer Woman at Heart

Dehydrating garlic was next on my list of "to-do's," and to make garlic powder from my home grown garlic.  Some of my followers have probably already made homemade garlic powder, so forgive me if it's a boring post.  This is a first time for me. We were gifted garlic two years ago, and planted all of them in the garden in the fall.  I dug them up the next season, and repeated that for one more year, expanding our harvest this year.  

I have been looking through some of the recipes I collected over last summer.  Recipes that I had not yet tried.  I found one that uses sorghum, and I just had to bake it!  I buy locally produced sorghum and honey, so I had the ingredients.  I just adapted it with organic ingredients and our fresh farm eggs. Sorghum is still a form of sugar, so it is not recommended for diabetics.  However, from the articles I have read, most forms of sorghum do not contain gluten.  And like Molasses, it is a good source for iron, potassium, and calcium.  In one article, I read that it contains more antioxidants than blueberries.  I find this interesting.

My garden may have produced small onions, but boy they are potent.  You would have had a good laugh, if you were here to see my 14 year-old and I, cutting them up for the dehydrator.   She had goggles on, and I was trying to fan my eyes, but that failed.  We had tears, and tears and more tears. Sorry for the bad, blurry photographs.  We were laughing so hard at the time.

Each year we purchase 20 pounds of blueberries, and it gets us through winter and spring.  I make blueberry syrup, jam, jelly, freeze some, and bake some.  This year I am doing something new - dehydrating some.  They will be wonderful in baked goods for after school snacks and lunch packings.  I will use them in my homemade granola bars too.

The sunrise was absolutely gorgeous this morning.  The fog was layered out of the east and northeast. As the hour passed, the fog moved inward, dispersing thicker before starting to disappear.  The chill in the air is, what I call, "camping weather."  It's just cold enough to want to curl up in a hoodie or jacket, and sit around a warm campfire enjoying nature.  I love it!

The kids went back to school this week, except for my college daughter.  Unfortunately, she had to withdraw from this semester, even after buying all her books and preparing.  The balance leftover after all her loans and financial aid, could not be paid by her nor us.  The monthly payment for the balance was way too high for her (or us) to pay as well.   Mornings are rather quiet, but exceedingly demanding.  I have been catching up on watering flower beds, dead-heading flowers, weeding, checking the tomatoes, and so forth.  Not to mention putting up the last of the 20 pounds of blueberries.  All of the onions are pulled, except for the red onions. Half were rotten, and what was left, were very small.

Upon leaving the campground last Monday morning, Hubby tells me the front store sells pop-up camper ornaments. Can you hear tires squealing to a halt?  Yup.  I made him turn the truck and camper around, and we bought the last one.  What was he thinking anyway.  Sheesh.  He should have bought it when he saw it. Now, guess who is wanting us to camp at Christmas, so we can put a Christmas tree in the camper? Hubby. Sigh.... Do you think he's gotten bit by the "camping" bug?