Pioneer Woman at Heart

The moon early this morning. Breakfast yesterday morning.  First time to eat healthy in about 5-6 days.  Hubby's famous omelets, and this time he put jalapenos in them. When I can remember....I am scanning any good family favorite handwritten recipe when I use it.  I'm printing it on cardstock and will cut to size for a recipe box for my younger two girls.  The recipe boxes I want to buy them are no longer sold.  The general store that sold them closed.  I may see if my husband (hate to even ask him) will build me two wooden recipe boxes. One day when we had lucky leftovers, and I didn't have to cook dinner, I made this!  Honey roasted caramel corn.  It is the best I have ever tasted.  No kidding.  My Mom's taste test approved this as the best too.  It's not my recipe.  I found it online from the Stay at Home Chef.  She has a video on making it.  It uses butter, brown sugar, honey, salt, baking so...

The things I do when I cannot sleep.  Take photos of the moon.  This was, I think, from last Thursday early in the morning. I am being very bad at eating breakfast at all.  I have a light lunch and come dinner, I don't want to eat either.  The stress has been over the moon bad.  Just lots of things going on. The chance for rain on Saturday (60%) went off the radar as fast as it went on.  However, we thankfully got a nice pour down last night.   My 21 year-old and I went on a small day adventure and visited an antique store in the Big City.   I've been wanting one of these for a long time.  First, I thought I might paint it red, but I may leave it yellow.  I kind of like it. We also went to a thrift store, which I sort of thought was not stocked by much (oddly).  I snatched up this green pepper dish for $1.00 and it now holds my vegetable scrubber. Picked up this wine bottle stand for a few bucks as...

Here are my 6 newbies this year, and the last two adult hens who survived raccoons, opossums, and weasels.  They all get along, and they love their new coop.  Hubby and I are going to remove the side roof sections (I have no idea why they didn't do that when they built this), add hinges, so I can simply lift the lid to to nesting boxes.  It would make it much easier than trying to get my tall self inside that thing. The temporary fencing is still not up.  My husband is either "too tired" or he's working overtime.  The coop is too hot for them.  I am putting frozen bottles of water in the watering unit, making them ice treats with corn in them, grinding shaved ice for them......now I'm looking online for a baby gate so I can open the door for air flow.  I have to go online because I still haven't gotten my car fixed since last fall. Unless I get use of a vehicle this weekend (or get fencing up).

Green Pepper Pesto 2 green bell peppers, seeded, coarsely chopped 1. Steam blanch the peppers over boiling water for 3 minutes.  Place in food processor. 1 cup fresh basil 1/2 cup grated organic Parmesan cheese 1/4 cup organic olive oil 4 cloves garlic, minced or chopped 2/3 cup salted/roasted pumpkin seeds, organic Add the above ingredients to the food processor with the bell peppers, and process until smooth. Freeze in portions or use some and freeze some.  Lasts up to 3 months in the freezer. Homemade meatballs.  Here is the link for the recipe I use (uses oats vs. bread crumbs) - Homemade meatballs. The other meatball recipe I make is with ground turkey and zucchini - Turkey Zucchini Meatballs . The sauce in the above picture is a bit different.  It uses hot banana peppers, onion and garlic and other ingredients.  Here is the recipe for that sauce: Hot Banana Pepper Tomato Sauce In a skillet with a Tbsp. of olive oil, heat the f...

First up, I boiled some eggs (that I had to buy, grr!).  I needed something healthy available to eat.   I haven't been eating breakfast at all, and come dinner time, I am so drained I don't feel like eating.  The egg basket has zero after today. I froze some cucumbers for the first time ever vs. canning.  I did this for recipes I would like to make in the winter.  The remaining will be put into canning recipes - pickles, whatever. I froze more zucchini, and this time in smaller chunks for other recipes. Froze more green/wax beans. I put up the last of the corn we had, as the person never came to pick it up.   I also had jalapenos to put in the freezer.  I am thankful for what we have been harvesting, but what a year it's been.  The hot peppers are doing great.  I'm only watering the last squash plants now, the cucumbers and the greens.  We are conserving the well water until we re-fill the ra...

The year has been crappy overall.   I feel like the government is keeping us from family and friends, so we may have a bonfire out here, but it depends on the heat.  It's been dry and hot.  That's not a good mix for burning. I'm seriously concerned for our state.  A few days ago, after midnight (in the big city two of my daughters live in), there was what they called purging.  I can't make this stuff up.  People with cars without plates went around shooting at people randomly.  I read a toddler and an elderly man were shot and killed.  Purging?  The world has really gone to h-e-double hockey sticks. Oh, and I have 2 more dead hens.  This time it was a weasel that came in the top of the fencing (which we recovered with harder wire fencing, and he said it would hold until we get the fencing up on the new coop). Well, he felt awful, so we moved the hens last night.  Temporary fencing goes up tonight.  Then we start remo...

I brought in more green and wax beans, but boy are they not as large as they should be.  Watering has been almost daily with this drought and heat index, it's so frustrating. I put 1 1/2 cups of blackberries in the freezer too.  The green beans need cleaned and put in the freezer today.  Not sure how I'll have time for all my work today. My 21 year-old knew that I have been having a very difficult time lately, so after diligent watering, and prepping dinner for 2 crock pots, she swooped me off to a day of fun.  However, we found several of the local shops closed on a Monday (and Tues).  That sort of put us in a depressed mood, but we located another town with a general store open and drove there for some local shopping.  Then.... We hit Adli's for some much needed adult beverages and picked up some hard root beers to try as well. Returning home, I had to batten down the hatches for a storm rolling in.  First they said 75mph wind, then 60...