Growing

Minnesota in the winter  gets to be a pretty bland place. Usually it's just white snow

this year however its just brown, brown, brown. hardly any snow

 It's times like this  that I'm especially thankful for the growing that's going on in my home.
African Violets~ this is the very first African violet that I've been able to keep alive let alone have it bloom for me and its done so several times   I picked this one up at Wal Mart 2 years ago and it's bloomed 5 or 6 times and it just keeps getting bigger and bigger.

 While Christmas shopping this year I picked up some paper whites,  they have been well  worth the 4.99 that I paid for them.  I put the bulbs in a tall vase with rocks at the bottom and just watered them making sure that the water did not get above the rock line.

 The first week of January I got these guys going, They are Hyacinthia's I picked them up at the grocery store clearance rack. they were 1.00 for a box of 10 bulbs so I picked up 2 boxes.  I looked around the house and found some old candle jars (that I can not bring myself to ever throw out )   and there you have it.  Every single bulb is blooming!

I didn't even put them in dirt I just used the sawdust stuff that they were packaged in to keep them in place and then watered the sawdust stuff .   yeah! now I have color and life in the "dead" of winter.
how about you do you need a little extra color and life in the winter months?

Making

Making these things in the kitchen right now!  winter in Minnesota means cold and dry.  This homemade lip balm is the perfect cure.  I found the tutorial and recipe here you'll need to scroll to the bottom of her post if you want to give it a try.  I found the containers at JoAnn fabrics in the beading section                                                 

 I've been having fun in the kitchen with this culinary adventure, It thrills me every time I make it and it turns out... Homemade yogurt! I love the taste of this stuff! only wish I were making it with raw milk. I found the recipe here

 and finally this stuff that my family and their friends can't seem to get enough of,  Granola.  I'm still tweaking the recipe and trying to make it a bit healthier  but as of now here is the recipe

Granola
6 cups rolled oats ( not the instant )
4 cups nuts~ what ever kind you like or have on hand I use almonds pecans walnut most often
1 1/2 cups shredded coconut~ I use the unsweetened kind that you can find in the health food section.
1/2 cup brown sugar
4 Tbls Ground flax seeds ~ note, you must grind your flax seeds to make them nutritionally beneficial to you other wise they just slip threw your system unused.
MIX THESE INGREDIENTS IN A LARGE BOWL
In a small sauce pan gently heat 
1/2 cup + 2 Tbls of honey
1/2 cup coconut oil
1 1/2 Tsp sea salt
when heated and oil is melted then pour over oat mixture and mix
dump out onto two large cookie sheets
and bake at 250* for about one and a half hours  mixing often
when mixture is finished baking mix in 2 cups dried fruit  ( what ever you like )
Store in an air tight container  and enjoy!!
 

Knitting for Christmas

 Getting a few things done for Christmas  here are a couple of fun project for some of the ones I love. This hat  and some fun leaf shaped dish cloths- great stocking stuffers

working on getting some other projects done so that each one of my family have something hand made by me for this Christmas. Which I try and do every year.
how about you do you have a hand made Christmas rule?

Gifts

A gift for my sweet Aunt Janet.  I really wish I would have taken a better picture, anyhow this is a fun knitting bag that I made for my Mom to give to her Sister as an early Christmas gift.
Love the fabric and I had a set of great stitch markers that my daughter made that went perfectly with the set.
Are you thinking about Christmas yet?

The Door

A few weeks ago I saw a picture of a kitchen door painted with chalk board paint   since then I have run across several other kitchen spaces painted with chalk board paint  so I thought I'd give it a go.

 At first I wasn't sure about the whole Idea I kinda like things abit more tidy and the door was looking a little messy at times  but  I have to say that I love seeing what my family has to say.  This is after a weekend of having the kids stop in both while we were at home and away.  oh yeah and the door is metal so the chalk holder that I think was an old Match holder is just hung on the door with magnates

Autumn and JT after a full day of canning goodness!

now for the fish taco's

( and yes I'm looking at new wall color options for this winter )

Canning Tomatoes

what to do with all those cherry tomatoes

there is no way that we can eat all the cherry tomatoes that we have in the garden .

then I remembered a recipe that I have for roasted tomato and basil soup .. perfect no blanching and pealing of the tomatoes  just stick them on a cookie sheet with onion and garlic salt pepper and olive oil and roast at 450 for 30-40 mins.

 then transfer  the whole wonderful smelling lot into 3 quarts of chicken stock that is simmering on the stove top  add fresh picked basil and blend with and immersion blender...   yum-O 

 now for the tricky bit I wanted to cann it so that I could have the soup this winter, so I treated it like salsa and canned according to my salsa recipe since it has alot of the same ingredient in it.  All the jars sealed perfectly.  These last for jars of soup have an addition of grated zucchini as I was grating some zucchini for freezing while I waited for the first batch of soup to process.  A good  addition to the soup, it tasted great and thickened up the soup too.  Yeah another way to use up all that zucchini.

Why I love Sundays

This is why I love Sundays

Especially Birthday Sundays

A typical Sunday is spent getting ready to have this kids over for Sunday dinner  but this day I had the whole day to  just sit and enjoying spending time and knitting and visiting.

this is to me is a gift greater than anything that I can think of,  spending a day " My day"with my Family and look we had a little knit along as my oldest learns to crochet and is now working on a blanket for JT. Yup it was a good day

my family all under one roof just spending time together.

I didn't get a picture of Son Shayne he spent his day sitting on the computer putting tons of pictures on a memory stick for a digital frame that I got as a gift from my Daughter Autumn.

 Hubby was manning the grill making a great birthday dinner ( Steak a Shrimp )

yeah it just doesn't get any better than this

Sun Pickles

Have you ever made these?

They are sun pickles we were given the recipe last year and were so excited to make them again this year, they are super simple to make and so good. I like to use the bigger pickles that are too big for my regular canned dills.

The Recipe

6 1/2 Cups water

3 1/4 cups vinegar

1/4 cup canning salt

1 tsp. alum

a couple heads of dill

a few cloves garlic

Stir all ingredients together until salt is dissolved and pour over gallon jar of pickles.

Set in sun for 3 days and your done.

Store in refrigerator and enjoy.



In the Garden

 We have been busy in the garden.  since we live about 10 miles away from our garden its been a bit of a challenge getting there as often as we would like
 
 so things get away from us very quickly.   when we are there we have a great time chatting with chickens that provide us with eggs and

 harvesting all that we can get into the truck so that we can get it put up.
I've done quite abit of canning this year already and I haven't even started with the
Cucumbers and tomatoes

 these pictures were actually taken about a month ago.  The garden is quite a different place now.
I'm  always amazed at how quickly everything grows!

Looking forward to getting back there in a day or two.
How is your garden growing?

Summer!

A Busy summer finds us in the garden often weeding and havesting with help from littles JT loves to pull weeds with Grandpa!

we have lettice that is comming up great for us

I found a new canning book/magizene that I'm having a great time with. It has so many great and different recipes in it along with some great gift giving and packaging idea's

and a simple summer knit that I work on inbetween all the rest of the summer fun.

Have a great week!