Pioneer Woman at Heart

A big thank you to those leaving me comments.  They brighten my day.  Thank you to all who even visit my blog as well. Wednesday was a strange day for me.  It was our daughter's (youngest) first day to school.  We were all up at 5:30am, and sitting on the porch awaiting the school bus.  The bus picks her up at 6:17am.  It felt very weird to be home alone.  Too quiet for me, so the music came on. Before cleaning the kitchen, I had the washing machine going, and multi-tasked. A handful of hot peppers were sliced and frozen, while I baked up a large breakfast egg/sausage/potato/sweet potato/hot pepper scramble.  It'll last the next few days, so we won't have to cook at 5:30am. We needed tortillas for that scramble (needed more eggs, but I have slackers right now and needed two more eggs), so I whipped up some einkorn homemade tortillas.  I shared this a while back, but now the recipe is also online:  Einkorn Tortillas....

First, if you are new to dehydrating, a book or booklet typically comes with one.  It has directions, times, temperatures, maybe recipes (depending on brand you buy), to guide you as well.  I apologize to all of you who already know how to do this. Here is the one that came with mine.  ( This one is loaded with recipes on what to make with all your dehydrated goodies) I also have these two books on my homesteading bookshelf as well, but plan to add more. How to make garlic powder: I chose a larger variety of garlic (Russian Giant) for this project.  Peel and slice the garlic thin and lay on the dehydrator trays.  I use gloves to do the slicing.  I follow the directions that came with my dehydrator, and dry until crisp. Cool a bit after the dehydrator is turned off. I use a small coffee grinder, place the dried garlic into it and grind it up to a powder.  Simply store in an airtight container with your other spices (ou...

The garden clean up has begun.   Garlic bed is mostly cleaned out, ready to till when we can, to prep it for replanting.  More mowing. Weeds are being mowed down when they can, otherwise hand pulled, radish plants will be pulled next, along with the weeds in the turnips.  We'll soon unveil whether we have any. My washing machine is now cleaned and sanitized.  My washer actually has a cycle for that. The top and sides of the fridge were washed and cleaned too, fridge pulled out, floor mopped, water jug stand cleaned, floor under it mopped and sanitized too.  Basket liners washed, dried and put back, and another list of other "to-do's" was started. I got 6 lbs. of organic broccoli blanched and in the freezer, about 3 lbs. of green/wax beans, and 2 batches of Cowboy Candy canned.  All those veggies were purchased.  It's a bit sad I had to buy them, but glad I have it stocked up, but really need more green beans. Those e...

I woke up disappointed it had not rained like they had said it would.  I have spent so many indoor days cleaning, that I was actually looking forward to the next extreme clean job.  I had very little motivation to walk to the garden. After him-hawing, eating my bacon/egg scramble with an English muffin toasted and slathered in butter, and making 2 pots of coffee, I finally put on my garden attire and headed out. I am so far behind at digging up the remaining garlic, and had waited for the rain to soften up the ground, so I started there.  We only got 40 of the 56 Russian Giant that we planted.  We planted 70 of the Moroccan Creole, and I bet we'll get 15 if we are lucky.  Not sure yet on the original variety we were gifted years ago yet.  Although the rain has barreled down, it's so dry out there that I bent my digger. Note:  speaking of garlic, I'll have a post soon on dehydrating it.  Well, some of it, ha ha! While others are swimmi...

I haven't been around due to not much going on.  As a self-sufficient gardener, I should be acclimated to a bad harvest year and just get over my pity party.  I'll admit. It stinks, and it stinks worse to not have like minded neighbors.  We rely on garlic and hot peppers for health over winter, and it's gonna cost us, having to buy it this year. A dozen dinky jalapenos made there way to the freezer.   A very small amount of zucchini was blanched and went into the freezer. Tomato harvest has not been good.  The late planting, and bad weather, the paste heirlooms are not much bigger than the cherry or grape.   Here's what I did with some of those paste tomatoes - homemade Einkorn pizza crust, with home canned sauce, some gifted pulled pork with caramelized onions, garden tomatoes and green onion.  It was delicious.  The second pizza was topped with my dinky (but very spicy) hot banana peppers, some green peppers, ...

The rain took a day off, so that meant the spectacular event called laundry.  The lines were loaded.  Followed by lots of dish washing, vacuuming and other various house cleaning. Bedding washed, rugs washed, floors swept and mopped.  Sinks cleaned, toilets scrubbed....all so I could return home Sunday to a clean house.  Which by the way, didn't completely happen. Those beautiful jars I recently canned were all labeled and put away too.  Most of them anyway. Medicinal teas were brewed, essential oil steams were done, salt water "snorted".....all three of us caught the "creepy crud" and we were really wanting to feel 100% by Friday. The best event? Camping.  I wrote out a grocery list, with a meal plan, checked and rechecked the camping supplies, and we hit the road.  It happened to be the motivation Hubby had to get the new hitch put on the truck too.  It was a wedding reception/camp out. (during our set up, we had a bit of a roug...

I hit it hard Monday morning with canning.  Well sort of.  I ran out of sugar so it continued into Tuesday too.  There has been no weeding, as the rain keeps coming, but just enough to keep me indoors.   Last night it poured and we are due for more today. I brought in one 5 oz dinky serving of green beans, and two dinky hot banana peppers.  No yellow squash yet.   Our harvesting days are pretty pathetic lately. Peach jam got canned., along with sweet pickle relish, cinnamon-blueberry jam and corn relish.  Whew! A few zucchini's made it sliced, blanched and into the freezer, but the blackberries are still red.  Also, so far of what we've tasted, the blackberries are sour this year.  I'm not sure what I will do with them if they are all sour More blueberries made it to the freezer. We have run into a small sna-foo with the camper.  Once we hooked it up, only the turn signals work.  Br...