A Quiet Sunday

"The grass withers and the flowers fade,

but the word of our God stands forever."

Isaiah 40:8

Having Fun with AJ

    Go look at the post from January 16, 2011

Here's the same little boy

eight months later!

AJ is honestly, one of the most happy

babies I've had the privilege of loving!

How can anyone resist baby feet!?!

They have yet to walk in the grass, run along a beach,

jump in mud puddles, crunch the fall leaves as he walks,

 or make snow angels in the snow!

He is one happy little boy!

I wonder what wonderful things are

in store for him as he grows up?

A Crockpot Kinda Day

It's a rainy day....   a day with appointments to keep

and time to save! A perfect day to try one tried and true

and a brand new (to me) recipe....Have you ever made

Crockpot Lasagna?

No, well me either until today.

Ingredient list:

Spagetti sauce  (I used one can Hunt's, one jar of

home made and 1 can of paste)

Sweet sausage & grond beef

Package of frozen cheese ravioli

Fresh baby spinach  (optional)

Shredded cheese 

Crock Pot

(size depending on quantity you want to make!)

Directions:

Cook the sweet sausage and ground beef then

add the sauce to make a nice thick spagetti sauce. 

(I also added about 2 TBsp of my frozen pesto for added flavor)

I sprayed the inside of the crockpot with an

olive oil spray to keep things from sticking...

this is totally optional.

Put a little bit of sauce on the bottom then start layering:

frozen ravioli  (enough to cover the sauce)

a little fresh spinach

a little shredded cheese

top with sauce

Repeat until you've used up your ingredients... top with cheese!

Turn the crock pot on low for 6-7 hours or on high for 4.

Serve hot with garlic bread... DELICIOUS!

Now for desert, how about a little  APPLE CRISP

with vanilla ice cream.... yummy!! 

 I can hardly wait to come home and smell this all cooking!

Peel and cut up 6-8 good sized apples 

(enough for 6-8 cups) put into a large bowl add

3/4 Cup brown sugar

1/2 Cup flour

2TBsp water

1 Cup oats

1 tsp. cinnamon

2 TBsp butter   (cut up)

Mix all of this together and put into a 4 quart crock pot

(Previously sprayed with olive oil so it won't stick).

Cook on low for a few hours!! 

Seriously, most crock pot recipes are very forgiving... 

 if you cook it a LITTLE bit longer or

shorter length of time it will be ok.

You can also USUALLY cook on high for

almost half of the time.

Corn

My hands are tired from all the picking,

husking & cutting of corn! BUT... thinking

about the rewards of eating yummy fresh-tasting

corn during the cold winter months

make it all worth it!

I picked three rows of corn and blanched the ears about

8 at a time (roughly 6-8 minutes in boiling water,

followed by immersing the ears in ICE COLD

water to end the cooking). The ears fit into a

medium sized laundry basket and the cut

off kernels fit into two large bowls

 and a 9X13 baking pan!

I packaged the corn in quart and gallon sized

freezer bags... the larger bags will be perfect for

corn chowder or shepard's pie and

 other yummy recipes!

 Roughly, 58 cups of corn all neatly packaged

and ready for the freezer!

Corn stalks cut down and ready to go

feed the pigs!

This has been shared on Healthy 2Day Wednesdays
and Simple Lives Thursday!

Recipes

I have one of my grandmother's cookbooks. It isn't too old...  a copyright of 1946, but there are some 'interesting' foods you can learn to cook such as roasted 'squirrel or opposum'!

I can't say I've tried these recipes, but I have read some of them! Old cookbooks are a lot like history books. You can learn about the culture through the foods they ate (or that was common for that generation). I've read about rendering fat... that still comes in handy when butchering pigs!

Honestly, I cannot picture my grandmother preparing some of these things, but you just never know. She did what needed to be done to feed her family of six.

I did come across a couple of notes that my grandfather had written tucked in the cookbook! One was a score card for a game they had played and on another he was figuring the cost of gas! Can you remember when gas was 14.9 cents per gallon! These are treasures!

I wish I had more of her hand written recipes... but I do have this book, one hand written recipe and a fews recipes of hers written by my mom, so that's ok! One of her recipe follows....

Put N' Put  

One of my childhood favorites!

The recipe name was given

because you put and put and put

ingredients repetitively

in to the pot, right up to the top!

The idea is to layer the contents: 

bottom layer:

cut up stew beef or chicken

or meat of your choice (not cooked)

then a layer of cut up:

potatoes

carrots

onions

a layer of  'dumplings'

then sprinkle with salt & pepper

(Basically the dumplings are a 1 1/2C flour,  3/4 tsp salt,
3 TBsp shortnening, 3/4C water or milk. Mix dough then

rolled out and cut into strips or rectangles.)

Then start layering again:

meat, potatoes, carrots, onions,

dumpling, then salt & pepper. 

Finish layering the ingredients in your

soup pot and then fill it with water.

Cook this on low till the veggies are

soft and the meat is tender.

The dumplings will thicken and the water will

become a yummy broth!

Ahhh, the kitchen will smell delicious (and more

so if you've made bread or dinner rolls to go with it!)

These are things childhood memories are made of!

Applesauce

I LOVE THIS TIME OF YEAR!

I love the smells, the cooler night air,

the beauty and bounty of the garden in full growth,

the leaves just starting to turn, ahhhh... 

don't you just LOVE IT TOO!

My husband brought in a 4 1/2 gallon pail of field apples!

(My definition: apples picked from a tree that was not

sprayed or cared for like those in an orchard!)

It's applesauce time!

Applesauce is SOOOO EASY to make and store!

Simply cut up the apples.

No need to peel or seed them.

 Add a little bit of water to the pot and start

cooking over low to medium heat. The apples

will soften enough to mash with a potato masher

and stir around with a big spoon.

 Next, I use my FAVORITE TOOL...  the Foley Food Mill

to take out the seeds, stems & peels and into the bowl

goes smooth and delicious sauce! (It is wonderful to use

when making spaghetti sauce too!)

Back into the pot and add a little sugar (personal taste here)

add some cinnamon if you want to (I don't) and heat it back

up to boiling. Put into pints or quarts and water bath

the jars for 20 minutes!!

Aren't these beautiful!!

4 1/2 gallon bucket = 15 pints of sauce!

I love the way the skins make the

sauce pretty in pink!
(Applesauce is also EASY to freeze!
If you don't want to can it, simle put the finished
sauce into freezer bags or containers after it
has cooled down, seal and freeze!)

IT IS YUMMY EITHER WAY!

PS. If you want to make apple jelly too, you can

peel the apples before cooking. THEN after the

sauce is made, boil down the peelings and hang

them up in cheese cloth or in a NEW white pillowcase.

Use the juices to make jelly!

The jelly has an awesome flavor too!

This post was shared on Healthy 2Day Wednesdays
and Simple Lives Thursday !

Sunny Sunflower