What I did yesterday

8 batches of Pear jam. Grape, Apricot, Elderberry & Blackberry/raspberry to do yet, I WANT peaches! Hope I can still find some.
Too bad this was to late for our "all in a row" photo challenge posting!

Happy 14th Birthday Meshayla!!

Happy birthday to you,
Happy birthday to you!
Happy birthday dear Meshayla,
Happy birthday to you!!





I didn't get Meshayla's pictures up today...I picked grapes & Pears instead.
However it was her wish that I take her to lunch at a little place here in town that we don't get to very often "The French Cafe". We had a delightful time & delicious lunch, and did a little shopping too before we headed off to do the picking.
Hopefully tomorrow I can get her pictures scanned & up.


We actually got two more boxes of pears after this from another spot!

This morning is....

WITH A 100% CHANCE OF TOMATOES

Homemade bread & fruit/yogurt smoothies

Since I decided to work on feeding our family a little more healthy, I've been experimenting with some recipe's. Here's today's results, and something a little more colorful than the drab pictures of winter!



Homemade Granola with a drizzle of honey topping the smoothies made a yummy light lunch for me!

YUMMY!

The last time I made these I made a couple of the pans with cream cheese and fruit instead of the cinnamon. Soften your cream cheese, spread on your layer, add a fruit filling (I used a strawberry spread that I had, and an apricot on another)
and do them the same way. They are a little "messier", but WOW GOOD!!
Frost these using a powdered sugar glaze.
I love making cinnamon rolls, and have tried several recipes over the years, but I think these are my top favorite (for now at least!)

TWIST CINNAMON ROLLS WITH CARAMEL ICING

2 c. scalded milk
2 c. warm water
4 pkg. yeast
1/2 lb margarine/butter
4 eggs beaten
12-13 c. flour
1 c. sugar
1/2 t. salt
1 t. nutmeg
Place yeast in bowl, add 2 c. warm water and sprinkle 2 t. sugar over top. Stir slightly. Scald milk with approx. 1/3 c. of the sugar. Place margarine in bowl and pour hot milk over it to melt. Stir. Cool slightly, add salt, beaten eggs and 2/3 c. sugar mixed with nutmeg. Also add yeast mixture. Stir in approx 12-13 c. flour. Knead. Keep dough quite sticky. Leg rise till double. Grease 4 pizza pans and set aside. Divide dough into 12 equal parts. Roll out one part to fit in a pizza pan--spread dough with butter/margarine and sprinkle with cinnamon and brown sugar. Do this two more times. You will have 3 layers of dough on each pan. Place a glass in the middle of the pan as a guideline, and cut 1 1/2 inch pie wedges to the rim of the glass. Pick up a pie wedge and give it a couple of twists then lay down again. Do this all around the pan. Let rise and bake at 325* for 20-25 min. Turn rolls out of pans and turn right side up to cool. While hot, ice with caramel icing.

CARAMEL ICING
1/2 lb margarine/butter
1 c. brown sugar
1/2 c. milk or cream
Boil until smooth. Add 3 1/2 c. powdered sugar while warm and beat well.

Are you hungry?

*On a side note here, Matt & Amanda have their site updated! There's new baby pictures to look at!

Since I can't add any new pictures right now--Waiting to be able to purchase a new camera, AND more of your suggestions.... hint hint!
I thought maybe I'd share two of my favorite recipes. Hope you'll enjoy them as much as we do.

Good ole' but not your ordinary Roast Beef!

3 T vegetable oil
1 boneless rump roast (3 lb)
3 cups hot water
4 t. beef bouillon granules
1 T dried oregano
1-2 garlic cloves, minced
1/2 t salt
1/2 t pepper
In a dutch oven, heat the oil over med-high heat. Brown roast on all sides; drain. Combine the water, bouillon, oregano, garlic, salt & pepper; pour over roast. Cover and bake at 350* for 3 hrs. or until meat is tender. Remove roast to a warm serving platter, let stand 10 min. before slicing.

This will make awesome gravy!
I've made roast for my family all these years, but I just found this recipe, and made it for company. It got rave reviews, and many requests for the recipe. When I was making roast the other night, the kids said "make it the new way!"

And our dessert tonight--because I have a freezer full of peaches, and lots of cream cheese left from X-mas baking. (I was overzealous)
PEACHES & CREAM:
1-4 oz box of cook n serve vanilla pudding mix
1/2 c flour
1 t baking powder
3 T melted butter
1 egg
1/2 c milk
1 pkg cream cheese 8 oz
1 can cling peaches-- (I used my qt. bag of frozen peaches, thawed)
1/2 c sugar
Cinnamon-sugar

Combine dry pudding mix, flour and baking powder in one bowl. Mix together butter, milk and egg in another, then add to dry mixture. Mix well. Pour in the bottom of greased 8x8 pan. Drain peaches, reserving liquid. Spread peaches on top of batter. Mix together 1/3 cup of reserved liquid, sugar and cream cheese. Pour over peaches. Sprinkle cinnamon-sugar on top.
Bake at 350* for 45 min.

Thanksgiving day at our house. As usual with any large family gathering the kids out-number the adults. This time 19-14. We had a wonderful day. Too much food as usual, we stuffed ourselves, but wonderful company all day long. Darla and Laverna stopped by for a while in the afternoon to visit. Andy showed up in the afternoon, he was coming to visit his folks for the weekend, and missed our main meal, but as usual we have plenty of left-overs & more pie! We had food, games, food, entertainment, food, poems, food, good conversation, food, lots of kid commotion, and more food.

It's a quiet house!

Jeanne took Meshayla, Morgen, Kara & Kaela to Bird City convention on Wed. afternoon, as those kids didn't have school on Thurs & Friday. Relyssa left with Ryan for convention Fri. eve for the weekend, so Leon & I have had the house to ourselves. I spent most of the day Thurs & Fri playing catch up on the cleaning that I don't seem to accomplish when the kids are here, then we had a really fun dinner party here Fri. eve for my sister's birthday! Just 6 of us, & NO KIDS! What a novelty to happen at this house!
I talked to Dalayna today, and she said Jessi just started to crawl last week. I'm really getting anxious to see her again, they change so fast at that age. Sounds like I MAY have a chance to go up there next month. We're looking forward to seeing Kyrie & Trey again soon too. Kyrie's planning a visit to Grammie & Grampa's in Oct, so I'll try and post some new pictures!

I just finished what will probably be the last canning this year. 18 jars of grape jelly! This is my 2nd time doing grape, and last year I didn't have very good luck with it, so I'm hoping I did better this time! We didn't get much fruit this year. I bought peaches & froze & canned those, skipped on the jam as I still had some from last year. Our 2 cherry trees and 2 pear trees were loaded, but the birds & squirrels got every last one. Not even one left on the ground. We had a few apples on our "baby" trees, and more peaches on our tree than we've had for several years, but the same thing happened to those trees too. Others in this area have said the same thing happened to them this year. Evidently because of the horrendous ice storms that we had here, the food supplies for the squirrels were depleted. We always have a lot of birds, rabbits & squirrels in our yard, but never had this happen before. Not only that, but the mulberry tree was raided too, not that I cared quite so much about that... just saved from lots of stained faces, hands & shirts, not to mention the feet!
This spring we planted blueberry bushes, grapes & raspberry bushes. The raspberries & blueberries actually had a few berries. I have to try to keep them picked before the kids nab them tho. I love making jelly & jam but I need to learn a little more about growing the fruit, as I hate to have to go buy it.