Pioneer Woman at Heart

(right out of the oven) In the midst of waiting for my pear liqueur to finish, I decided to tackle the 5 large bowls of pears that awaited me. Okay, so I tackled two whole pears (of the 5 large bowls). Ha ha! I decided to make a Puffed Pear Pancake (Real Simple Recipes).  It's baked right in a cast iron pan.  Simple right? Not only simple, but delicious. I took the advice of other reviews, and added a second pear, and extra spices.  It was a nice after school snack for the kids.  The batter bakes into a crust that has a somewhat "egg" flavor.  It was really good topped with maple syrup too.

It was the most beautiful morning.  Crisp air, and absolutely not one vehicle (or noise) on the highway.

When I had a difficult time locating pear liqueur in our area, I decided to make it myself .  With all the pears from our trees this year, I was excited to experiment with new recipes.  I'm not even sure what type of pear we have.  These trees were here prior to moving here. I searched books and the internet and found this one: Pear Liqueur I filled my quart jar with pears, cardamom and a lemon peel.  I could not find cardamom pods, so I used ground (I know the flavor would be much better with the pods).  I gently shook my jar, and placed it in a dark, cool closet for a week. My plan is to use it to make a pear liqueur frosting to go over homemade Pear Berry bread.  I will have that recipe to share soon as well, if it indeed rates high with the family. Other than using the liqueur for baking, you can also simply drink it.  There are many mixer recipes it could be used with, including a pear martini. Pears have so many possibilities. . . ch...

Have you heard of the "ALICE" program yet?  If you have kids in public school, chances are, you may have. A.L.I.C.E. is an acronym for,  Alert, Lockdown, Inform, Counter, and Escape - Active Shooter Response Team. For weeks now, two of our girls have been chatting about it, day after day.  It's beginning to become ingrained in our brains here at Rooster's Crow Farm.  It's a program that teaches "young people" to fight back and not sit and "take it" if a shooter would come into the school.  They have been, as a class (and most of the school from what I am listening too), discussing what they could use as weapons, or do to fight back.  Quite honestly,  I can't wonder if this was created to keep school's from putting guns in our teachers hands.  Anyway.... You know it has been ingrained into your brain, when you go to bed in your camper, and prior to that, you look around and say to yourself "what can I use for a weapon if...

A few months ago, Hubby and I were gifted with a few bags of homegrown, local, English Walnuts.  We cracked them all, and froze them.  I decided to make a butter spread with them. Although I still have a bit of congestion and cough, I got up early and made the family French Toast for breakfast.  The butter is now "kid" tested, and approved.  I'm looking for more ways to sneak the nutrition of walnuts into our diet.   A few years ago, I gifted my family Cinnamon Honey Butter , and it won over well.  This butter is another healthy, homemade gift idea. Here is the recipe:

What you see in this basket is not from our hens.  They are from the pullets we bought this past spring.  They are shooting out eggs like there is no tomorrow, however our 1 year-old, and 2 year-old hens are not laying. They stopped laying about 2 months ago, when I saw that they were molting.  I did some research and read that chickens will stop laying while they molt, and need the energy to produce new feathers.  And from what I read, it takes the hens about 2 months to start laying again.

I'm excited to say, that we got another fall camping trip in this year.  Hubby and I decided to camp the first night by ourselves.  Woot!  Oh, we needed the time alone.  It was a relaxing, romantic, camping date night.  And surprisingly, I did not take my camera this time. The second night we picked up a few stragglers - 2 kiddos.  Although it had rained a bit, we relaxed in the camper, reading, knitting, drawing, one kiddo doing school homework, and chatting.  After the rain stopped we started up the fire, and had more fun with s'mores and such.