That’s what I’m talkin’ about!

Real fresh food.  It was such a joy to eat our dinner last night. Ribs with BBQ sauce made from our tomatoes.   Home grown potatoes, with freshly picked green peppers, smothered in butter.   Fried green tomatoes, using tomatoes picked just a couple of hours before, freshly ground flour and cornmeal to bread them, and [...]

Fun Fourth

We decided to have a little fun and be unique on the Fourth.  No hot dogs or burgers for us!  Pizza on the grill, corn on the grill, and cheese cake from a pressure cooker!  Plus, yummy sides like fruit salad, lemon bars, and home grown vegetables. Of course, no Fourth would be complete without [...]

Pressure and Preserve

The pressure canners have been boiling full throttle around here lately-46 quarts of green beans so far, with more beans, tomatoes and field peas on the horizon.  I’ve come to the conclusion that if you are going to bother with 7 quarts,  it takes just a little more time and energy to can 14 quarts [...]

Family, Friends and Food

The past month has been filled with family, friends and food.  We’ve celebrated birthdays, hosted barbeques and fish fries for friends, attended a family reunion, and enjoyed our house guests–mother, brother, niece, daughter with grandchildren have all stayed a few nights this month.  And we visited our daughter in Lafayette and my friends Susan and [...]

Alvin’s Birthday

Alvin celebrated his 47th birthday yesterday with homemade lasagna-and when I say homemade, I mean homemade! The lasagna noodles were made from semolina and  freshly ground white whole wheat pastry flour, eggs and olive oil, which was passed through the pasta machine: I forgot to buy ricotta cheese, so I made some out of a [...]

Kitchen Gadget Wish List

I always have a kitchen gadget wish list that seems to grow everytime I purchase my latest gadget.  For example, a dehydrator seemed like a great idea for this year, with the large garden we have planned.  So I did my research and selected the L’Equip 528 which should be here next week.  The problem [...]

The Life of Bread Making

I’ve been diligently trying to find the perfect homemade bread recipe for my family.  The taste and health benefits of whole wheat appeal to me, but not to my husband.  With this in mind, I searched for the bread we would both love. My earliest success was with Suzanne McMinn’s  Grandmother’s bread which tastes great,  [...]

Apron Day!

Did you wear your apron today?  I did-at least most of the day. This is my latest apron made by my friend Susan just a couple of months ago.  She did a fantastic job choosing the pattern and style.  I love it. I had never thought of myself as an apron person before, but when [...]

Where to start…

There has been so much activity here the past few days, I don’t know where to start… We live near Mena and much of the downtown area was destroyed by a tornado Thursday.  Alvin took his tractor to town to help remove trees and limbs from the roads.  He was gone all day.  The storm [...]

Making and Baking

It’s been a great week of making and baking.  In addition to making a couple of batches of soap,  I baked some banana oatmeal cookies: And Milk and Honey bread.  Baked one loaf and froze one for later. Today, we experimented with Bakerella’s Hello Kitty cake pops: They look just like Bakerella’s, right?  I’m glad [...]