Pioneer Woman at Heart

Our weather is warming up soon, or so they say anyway.  We are looking forward to sunny days again. We've obtained asparagus roots, and will expand our existing asparagus patch in the vegetable garden this spring.  We will not be planting anything squash related this year, to give the garden a "clean sweep" from squash bugs.   We are late, but seeds will be started for a few garden goodies, including a few for the herb garden (that are medicinal herbs). The next room to clean out, prior to giving it a planned new coat of paint, is a room where my canning supplies are stored.  I may be reducing the numbers in there.   I still have the supplies to can our favorite "Christmas" jelly, which did not happen.  Not sure if it will yet or not.   The winter has been a long winter, and not much blog content, here are a few fun freebies we snagged. Free bookmarks.  I absolutely love this one.  It was the last one at one of the area librari...

  We went from sub zero straight to a week of up to 64°F, and a sloppy, slushy, muddy mess.  I was very tempted, and almost twice, used the clothesline.     However, with the warmest weather days brought us rain and thunder storms (yes thunder storms in February).  Add that rain to the already mushy mess, and you have slosh yards. The house was refreshed with several days of open windows, and we are very thankful for that. Nothing better than fresh air circulating indoors.   Of course, as it is still our winter season, the weather cooled right back down to the 30's and brought a small but of snow.  We got outside anyway, and did our very first "snow" walking trail. It's been a mish-mash of a February.  Lots of re-organizing, purging, and home repairs.  It seems like the hardware store shopping list is maintaining it's weekly to-do list. We have not cleaned out clothing in more than two years, so it's been this month's focus, and boy...

  We've been making spiced nuts for the last 18 years.  Crazy, how much time has passed while writing this blog.   Christmas time brought us recipes that used mixed nuts, and other ingredients, that never got used up (or used at all).  There was a lot going on this past holiday, so I'm slowly using up the unused ingredients.  I had about a cup of cashews (should have been cashew brittle at Christmas), a bit of walnuts, and I had some mixed nuts (I buy these non-gmo, with zero bad oils, but it contains way too many almonds), we also had some pumpkin seeds, and..... ....we had some of these non-gmo chocolate type candies (healthier option to M & M's in Christmas cookies).  By the way, we bought both to test out for holiday baking.  We did not really like either one, and both are very expensive options. I tossed all of the nuts and pumpkin seeds into a bowl, and roasted our favorite spiced nuts.  Let it cool completely, and then tossed in th...

  Did you can pickled jalapenos last garden season?  Or last year with farmer's market jalapenos?  It was a "new" to us item to add to our pantry, and here is the update regarding the two cornbread recipe trials.  One is actually more like the traditional corn casserole, often served at the winter holidays. The first recipe we tried, we loved!  If you remember my post, it was a more dense cornbread, but with some home canned pickled jalapenos.  A nice spicy cornbread for soups/stews and chilis. I was incorrect on the source for this specific recipe.  It is online free at Bowl of Delicious . We adapted organic ingredients, and if you make the recipe with buttermilk, it's even better.  We really liked this recipe. The next recipe was more of a "corn casserole" type baked dish, very similar to the traditional "corn casserole" one might bake at the holidays for a side dish.  The recipe was from an online source (Farmhouse on the Boone).  I ...

  We are finally out of the deep freeze, and on the way to a warm up.  The last time I brought in 5 eggs, they were all completely frozen (and cracked, sigh....). Home repairs are resuming, and supplies purchased. I've already broke out the spackle and putty knife. We had to purchase a tub wrench to remove the tub drain, but it was not too expensive.  Thank goodness for so many YouTube tutorials on repairs and whatnot. Purging continues with clothing, and other items.  I'm purging the pantry too.  Little by little we are getting organized again, and using up what needs used up.  I found a bag of lemongrass ginger herbal bulk tea, so it's being brewed and enjoyed.   Errands are much more enjoyable with the warmer weather now.   Warm Up   ©  February 2026 by  Kristina  at  Pioneer  Woman at Heart

I have finally sorted the odd assortment of Christmas items from last month's purge, and yes some went into the trash.   If you need permission, ditch the doubt and toss it out!   The rest donated.  Job complete. ✔   What else can one do when it's -15°F (again), and there isn't even "wind" outside.  It's cold here.  More snow is in the forecast.   One new recipe that also went into the trash - a millet bar recipe.  I thought it would be "fun" to buy some organic puffed millet and make a really easy recipe, but it tasted horrible.  The small amount of puffed millet cost me $1.33.  A recipe I will keep!  Oh my goodness it was so good.  By the way, it was a recipe I had, and wanted to try to the last two years.  Literally.  I don't think I have ever roasted acorn squash, because it was always one squash that never grew to size here (have no idea why as we can grow all other squash). My husband kept telling...

Most of our days here have been snow covered, and no sunshine.  We are tickled pink, when we do get some sunshine. Raise your hand if you put on 14 layers of outerwear, then trudged thru mountains and hill-slides of snow and ice to tend your hens, came back inside and removed the layers to realize you forgot to get the mail from the mailbox?  Yep.  My hand is up, ha ha!  I'll chalk it in as exercise. I know you are probably reading this and thinking, "this blog can't get any more entertaining" ha ha!  Well, it can. The hubster strikes again.  He wanted to know if we still had some mini tubes of krazy glue to fix something.  I dug around his "catch all" drawer in the kitchen to take a look-see.   First, the drawer is "his" because he puts anything in there after completing a home repair/job when he is too lazy tired to put it away where it belongs. Second, my hands came back out of a corner of the drawer, all purple and goopy.  He put a s...