Auto Repair and Sloopy Joe's

Well, my Jeep and I have been having some issues. The issue being that my charging systems was getting kinda wacky. Once the Jeep was started, the check engine light would come on and my volt meter would hit rock bottom. After referring to my repair manual I came to the conclusion that my alternator was bad. Two hours later I finally was able to get it off, pretty tough job on my Jeep. By that time all the auto parts stores has closed so I had to wait until this morning to go to town and try to locate one. First stop, Auto Zone. I took the alternator inside and ask if they had one in stock that would replace mine. The guy at the counter said he could check it first if I wanted. Hey, you bet man, check it out. Tested 100% Positive, my alternator was in perfect shape after only 212,000 miles. Great news, a new one was gonna set me back $105.00. The gentlemen then advised me to check all my connections at the battery and the alternator to make sure they were clean and tight. Well, I know they were tight but I'm not too sure about how clean the are. After getting back home (with my $105.00 still resting in my wallet) I began to clean all the connections, all of then. Needing it or not, they all got a good cleaning with a piece of sand paper. Now they are all nice and shinny. After I put everything back together I crossed my fingers and gave it a try. It started right up and the charging system was fixed with zero dollars out of pocket. All thanks to the good guys at Auto Zone in London Kentucky, thanks guys.

Well, after that was all over I had to have something to eat. I skipped breakfast to get an early start on the Jeep project. Nothing in the fridge seemed to catch my eye. It was then that I remembered I had bought some Sloppy Joe Sauce for my food storage. This seemed like a great time to try it out, anything sounded pretty good at this point. 1lb of ground beef, OK, maybe 2 lbs, and 1 can of sauce and I was in business. The smell made my mouth water, my eyes too. We had bought a loaf of Italian bread on sale yesterday and it seemed like a good combo, so I toasted the bread. After a long day under the hood all I can say is.......MMMMMMmmmmmmmmmm!!!

Bread Success

I mentioned in the last post about making sandwich bread. It turned out really well. I got it a little too moist which made the crust harder than I would have liked, but still good. I used probably a 1/2 cup on warm water which was too much but it just didn't seem to look right me. The instructions said to make it really dry to have a light crust but I didn't listen. Next time I will. Maybe I'll try again tonight, I have all the ingredients so why not. It will be eaten for sure. I sliced it pretty thick too, thinner next time. If anyone has tried this recipe please let me know how yours turned out. Maybe you have some tips to offer.

Now that I think about it, it looks just the right thickness for Texas Toast. mmmmmmmm.

Ducks, Cakes and The Ice Age

We have 6 ducks now on the farm, lost a few to predators. These are the funniest little things, they are always hungry. They are free range and we feed them plenty too. They are always eating bugs in the yard and the garden along with whatever they find in the pond. But it seems that the food they like best is cracked corn. They could and would eat a 50 lb. bag if given the freedom to do so. Every time they see me they come running as if they hadn't eaten in weeks, pecking at my legs and boots like I'm a giant bug. LOL I get so tickled at them and I always get them some more corn. It seems that I have spoiled everything around here. hehe!! The ducks gather around me like I'm their mother.

There was an old farmer with a big green shoe,

When the ducks see him coming they don't know what to do,


So they peck and they peck 'til the farmer gives in,

And gives them a big scoop of corn once again.




As some of you my know, Olivia has a bakery business that she runs out of our home. The name is "KOST KREATIONS", KOST is the first letter in each of the girls names, Katherine, Olivia, Savannah and Traci, so it only seemed fitting to spell creations with a K also. Here is a picture of one of the many wedding cakes that she has made. She stays very busy. You can take a look at more of her work here.

Me and Katie have been watching the movie Ice Age, the first one I think. She likes to watch them until she is sure that Daddy knows every line in the movie until we move onto the next. I don't mind too much though, I like the kids movies anyhow. This one is pretty funny too. My favorite part is when the mammoth is trying to find something to eat for the baby that he has rescued and finds a melon. The Dodo birds inform him that he can't have one because they are saving them for the coming Ice Age that they say will last for millions of years. The Dodo birds are there guarding their three melons they have stored up for the event. The mammoth then says " So ya got three melons?" hahahaha!!!!! Now that's food storage Dodo bird style. Man I hope I have better food storage than a Dodo bird!!

Canning "Survival Chili"

Well I made a big batch of my World Famous Chili today and I canned what was left over. We love chili and was wondering if we could can it at home, Hormel does it so, I thought we should be able to also. After a little research over at Jackie Clay's Blog I found out how to can my own at home. We ate all the chili that we wanted and still had 5 qts. left to can. This will provide easy meals that you just heat and eat, that's my kind of cooking. I much rather can foods than freeze them because ya just never when the electric my be off and you loose all the stuff in the freezer that you can't eat up pretty quick. Plus this is good Survival food. Throw a quart in your 72 hour bag as you head out the door and you have a good meal that's easy to prepare. I guess I may have to start calling it "Survival Chili". In an power outage one can heat it up on your woodstove, you do have one don't you? If not think about it getting one soon, the grid is and will be even more unpredictable in the future (Near Future)

Here's the question that one of Jackie's readers ask:

Canning chili with beans

I was wondering if I am able to pressure cook can chili with beans. I am only able to find recipes without beans.

Yes, you may home can chili with beans. I do it nearly every year, which gives us convenient, instant meals without the chemicals included in store-bought chili. Besides, mine tastes like chili, not some flavorless goopy paste.
Make up a big batch of your favorite chili, then ladle the hot chili into quart jars to within an inch of the top of the jar. Remove any air bubbles with a wooden spoon or spatula.
Process the chili in a pressure canner only, at 10 pounds pressure for 90 minutes. If you live at an altitude above 1,000 feet, consult your canning manual for instructions on increasing the pressure to correspond with your altitude. — Jackie

2 qts. filled and ready for the canner. We canned 5 qts. in all.

Guess what I've been doing ?? haha!!

Just can't seem to quit making apple butter.

Getting jars filled and ready. 6 soldiers ready for battle.

I guess I better get to cracking those Walnuts and Hickory nuts.

Making Apple Butter

As you may recall, I was lucky enough to be given a lot of apples. Well, we love apple butter and have been making up a bunch for ourselfs and to give as gifts. All my family back in West Virginia have let me know that they expect some apple butter when we come back for Thanksgiving, so I have been busy.

First you need apples (Free ones will always taste better) We for some reason or another we don't have a food mill. I can hardly belive it myself, but we don't, so I had to peel all those apples. Like nearly all of my reciepes this one came from here. Lucky we found this really cool apple peeler at a yardsale this summer for 25 cents. Best Quarter I ever spent.

Place apple on top.

Start turning the hand crank.

And you have a neatly peeled apple. These are much faster than peeling by hand but the best part is that it wastes none of the apple. All you get is a very thin peel.

The most important part of making apple butter is having a good helper. Katie is testing the apples to make sure we use only the finest in our apple butter.

Me, happily at work.

Cut the apples into slices and cook until soft.

It's gonna look something like this. Cook in a crokpot over night. It gets darker as it cooks.

Punkins, Punkins Everywhere !!!

First let me say that I am very sorry it's been so long since the last post. This simple life that I am trying to live is getting more complicated by the day. Long story and I'm not going to bore you with my problems.

We harvested some punkins and gourds from the garden the other day. Got some nice looking gourds and some yummy punkins.
This is not what I had in mind as food storage but, atleast it's a start. haha!!My girls cleaning out 2 punkins and getting ready to carve them.Katie getting a hand full of punkin flesh.We ofcourse roasted the seeds and they were great.Made 2 loafs of pumpkin bread with this recipe from pick your own. I have already eaten half of one of them. Sooooo Gooooood.Pureed some of the pumpkin to freeze. Seems it's not really recommended to can pumpkin.
Savannah's pumpkin. Katie's Thomas the Train pumpkin.

The Ol' Boy Can Even Bake Bread

As most who have planted zucchini we have them running out our ears. We have been fixing them alot of different ways just to try to eat them fresh rather than freeze them all. We had zucchini baked with tomato (from the garden)and cheese for dinner today and it was great. Well they just keep on coming so why not zucchini bread. I have always wanted to learn how to bake bread and I'm not afraid to try new things so I found a recipe at cooks.com and proceded to follow instructions. The wonderful smell on cinnamon filled the house as I waited patiently to see how my first baked bread turned out. What a hit!! We ate half a loaf within 10 mins. Nuts are optional and I would have liked to have them but we were out and I wasn't gonna let that stop me. If the other loaf makes it through the nite we may freeze it and enjoy it later on in the fall. I'm not wearing a bakers hat just yet but the project was a success. Just goes to show that even a guy can bake bread if you just set your mind to it. I'm glad to have another skill to add to my ever growing list. I love to learn new things, it gets me excited and in this case everyone in the house was too. lol

HELP !!!! I'm Canning and I Can't Stop

Well guys i've been at it again, this time tomatoes. Call me crazy but I was at the Farmers Market the other day and I came across a guy selling tomatoes for $12.00 a 25 lb box. The first thought that crossed my mind was buy, buy, buy. That's 48 cents a pound, China-mart is selling them for $2.28 per lb. and Kroger had them for $2.89 per lb. so this had to be a good deal. Sure I have maters growing in the garden but they aren't ripe yet and who knows I could have a hail storm or anything and then not have any maters. Maybe I'm thinking this thing to death but, a bird in the hand, well, you know the rest. I calmed myself down and bought only 1 box, 25lbs and came straight home and fired up the canner. We saved some to eat and gave a few away ofcourse and I canned the rest, man these things are great. Ended up with 7 beautiful qts of tomatoes to be used in soup and so on. I have come to love this food preservation thing. The sound of lids popping as the jars are cooling are music to my ears. Here is a picture of one of the cans. Liv made some really nice labels using address labels, we got the date wrong but it's close enough.

Rind Pickles are finally done !!!

Well it's taken a while but here they are. Got the recipe from here. Mine did not turn out red like the ones on the link but they sure smell good. That much sugar and cinnamon sticks it has to be pretty good. I didn't get the 4 to 5 pints that they said so, I just put half into 2 different qt jars, giving one to Liv's mother. I'll wait a few weeks to try them, let them sit and work awhile. I still think they look alot like apples. They have a very nice amber color to them. But anyway, I gave it a shot. Never had them before but wanted to try to use the rind that most just throw away. When I try them I'll post the results. If anyone else tries this, please let me know how yours turn out.

Even More Pickles !!!!!!!!!

What do you do when a neighbor brings you 25 cucumbers?? Make more pickles ofcourse! Not that we really needed any more pickles but you just can't seem to eat cukes fast enough to use them up before they start to go bad. We had the mix, sugar and viniger , so why not can them.

Liv's mother , Gracie, cutting up the cukes to fit into the jars.

Finished product, 9 qts. and 2 pints.

And we still had this many left over.

Got to go and start on the pickled watermelon rind, it's gonna take a while. I'll keep you all posted.

Canning Green Beans

As you all know I got my canner in the other day and I am very excited. After reading the instruction book from cover to cover I decided that I was ready to give it a try. I went to the garden today and picked green beans, I had enough for 5 qts.. The canner can handle 7 qts. but I thought this would be a good time to hone my skills with the canning process. All went very well, the only difference was that instead of a boiling water bath the jars went into the canner instead. My booklet said to co0k at 11 lbs pressure for 25 minutes. The hardest part was maintaining the pressure at 11 lbs. It took a little time and effort to keep the canner at this pressure ( very easy to get the pressure to high ) but I guess with practice things will get a little easier. Anyhoo, I canned 5 qts. of fresh green beans and they look great to me. As with most things I do, time will tell. I am very happy with the ease of use of this canner and the great instructions that can with it. If you're interested in this canner check out the amazon add at the left of this blog for more information. I think if you purchase one through my blog I get like a buck or something. haha!! Either way I just hope you all find the canner / cooker that's right for you. I sure did.



Canner holding steady at 11 lbs. pressure.


5 qts. canned and ready for the pantry.

Freezing Zucchini

Got more free veggies today. Liv's mother gave us 3 medium size zucchini and we decided to try freezing them as per instructions from Pick you own. We love this website because it is loaded with easy to understand instructions for preserving just about anything you can imagine. When I say easy to understand, I mean even I can do it. hehe! We are trying different ways to preserve food and seeing what works the best for us, this is a learning process. We are lucky enough to have a FoodSaver and it is a great addition to any home and has been and will be very useful to us. Here are some picture of our process to freeze zucchini. ( I think free ones always taste better, hehe!! )



Our beloved FoodSaver that both vacums and seals the bags.

Adventures in Pickling

Todays adventure here on the farm was pickling cucumbers. Olivia's uncle Ed raised more than he knew what to do with and lacking the time to pickle any he brought Liv's mother a bunch, and I mean a bunch! She knew that I would be more than willing to pickle some so we went in partners on them so to speak. Mine are a few days away from being ready to pick and these were free and needed to be preserved so this was great for us both. She had some canning jars and so did I, I had the sugar, viniger and pickling mix that I had picked up a few weeks ago in preparation for my cucumbers. We had all the supplies and were ready to go get pickled. hehe!! Found a great site that has all kinds of canning information. pickyourown.org
all kinds of supplies and a list by state of farms where you can pick your own stuff. Check them out and I know that you will be glad you did. Anyhow, thats where we got our pickling receipe. A few things we learned along the way are.

1. Keep plenty of clean dish towels close by.

2. Get a jar lifter or grabber, oven mitt just don't cut it.

3.Give your self plenty of room to work.

4. Pack your jars tight with cucumbers, otherwise you waste space.

5. Keep your jars in the oven to keep them good and hot. 200 degrees works great.

6. Remember that the jars are HOT and don't grab one until they cool.

Below are the ingredients that we used. Sugar, Vineger and Bread and Butter Pickle Mix.

And ofcourse you have to have cucumbers.Pour hot mix into jars of cucumbers with a laddle. Becareful, both jars and mix are very hot. Observe my steady hand. hahahahahahhah!!!!!!!!!!!!!!Place lids and rings on the jars and then put them into a large pot with the water just above the top of the jars and boil for 10 mins.These jars are packed correctly.These are not. We thought we had a lot of cucumbers in these jars but they needed to be packed in there. They will still be fine but that's a lot of wasted space.By the time we went through all the cucumbers we had a grand total of 17 qts. Not too bad for veggies that someone gave us. We will be enjoying these for some time. I will be taking Ed a few jars for sure. Wonder how his peppers are doing ????? (Grin )

Homemade Bagels

My wife made homemade bagels tonight and boy were they great. She loves baking bread and I love her for it.

Ingredients:
1 cup warm water

1 1/2 teaspoons salt

2 tablespoons Organic white sugar

2 3/4 cups flour

1/4 cup wheat germ

1 tablespoon flexseed

3 quarts boiling water

3 tablespoons white sugar

1 tablespoon cornmeal

1 egg white