Canning

August 13, 2008 · Filed under in the kitchen · Tagged , ,

Last Friday I spent the entire day (8am-6pm) at my grandmother’s house…..what could I have been doing all day at her house? Well, we were canning! Canning applesauce. We put away about 16 quarts and 19 pints. Why so much? I have no idea. But I do know that I’ve got a dozen pints and two quarts in my pantry right now. Not to mention the one my husband has already started eating! So, we’re set on applesauce for quite some time.

The whole process of canning fascinates me! Just the use of heat to seal the jars, keeping the food in those jars fresh for months and months to come! Wow! I’m still learning how…apparently its a very precise process. But I am learning…reading all I can get my hands on and helping out when I can. Its been lots of fun! My gra’ma’s husband says that I’m turning into a farmer’s wife. I wouldn’t mind that one bit….as long as Aaron wanted to be a farmer!

Leave a comment »

gunky stuff on the iron

August 6, 2008 · Filed under laundry · Tagged , , , ,

Well, I went to my grandmother’s house today. You must know that my grandmother is legally blind. She has a condition called macular degeneration, in which case, basically, she has lost her central vision completely and only sees through her peripheral (and even the peripheral is very poor). Although she will tell you within the first 3 minutes that she meets you that she is indeed blind, you almost wouldn’t know it. For example, last year for Christmas, she made quilts out of old blue jeans for all of the grandchildren. Now, two or three grandchildren would be impressive right? I mean, this woman is legally blind! No, she gave a grand total of 9 quilts between September and December! And only one of them had she started before August! (She just finished up one she had started and set down a long time ago for me….a king size!) Anyways, that is just a little bit of background on my grandmother, just to let you know a little bit of who we are dealing with! I love her to death, so you will hear much more about her as time goes by.

Anyhow, one day I was over at her house, and we were working on these quilts for Christmas (by the way, I only made one in the time that she made these nine!). So, we’re cutting and sewing, and we get to the ironing part of the process, where you press the hems to make your work look all nice and neat. Well, her iron was probably the gunkiest iron I’ve seen in quite some time, and it smelled up the whole house! When I asked her about it, she just said Oh yeah, that this is a little rough.

Oh my!

The very next day, much to my surprise, on the Today show (which I love by the way…so many interesting stories on that show! Al Roker always makes me laugh!) they did a segment on cost efficient ways to clean your appliances and make them last longer. And what do you think was one of the items they highlighted? The iron, of course! I was so thrilled, I called gra’ma and told her that we could clean her iron with some baking soda and water! Yay!

Here’s those instructions:

Mix equal parts baking soda and water into a paste-like substance. Smear it over the face of the iron, let stand for a minute, and then wipe it off. Fill the water chamber 1/3 full with distilled water, and turn the iron to steam. On an old towel, iron until all of the water in the chamber has steamed out. If there is any remaining gunk, repeat the last step.

I’ll let you know how it turns out when we try it later! Any of you have ideas or suggestions?

Comments (1) »

finally making a family

July 23, 2008 · Filed under baby · Tagged ,

There is soon to be some growth in our family. Today I am 15 weeks pregnant with our first child! We are so thrilled. God has truly blessed us! Up until now, it has been hard for me to think about bringing a child into the world and all of the responsibilities that come with a new life. But I know that this time before the baby arrives is the time that God allows for us to prepare ourselves (as much as we can anyways).

I got the idea from some old friends of mine to blog to the new baby. They would blog prayers, tell some cute stories about the pregnancy, keep all the family updated, and now that their precious baby boy has arrived, they can put up pictures of him and tell stories. I thought it was a great idea…mostly because after reading their blog this morning, I realized that I should be praying for and realizing the gravity of the situation that my husband and I find ourselves in…..bringing a new life into this world for God’s glory.

Please pray with us as we enter this new and exciting time in life. Pray that our new baby would grow to know God in a personal way. Pray that we will be godly parents and examples.

You can check out the baby’s blog at http://www.littlefarley.wordpress.com.

Leave a comment »

from fear to hatred…

May 27, 2008 · Filed under gardening · Tagged

About two months ago, I found a black widow spider making herself at home in my garage. I said to myself, Oh no, we will not have this. So I purposed to tell my husband about the little squatter (because I am terrified of spiders). When I brought it up to him, he seemed quite nonchalant about the fact that there was a very poisonous creature setting up shop in our humble abode. After a couple days of avoiding the beast, my seven year old cousin convincingly persuaded me that I needed to rid our garage of the spider (but that is another story entirely for another day).

Well, I grabbed the most potent spray I could find, which just happened to be ant and roach killer, and set out into the garage to kill me a widow. I’m a big fan of the sprays…the farther away I can be from whatever I am trying to get rid of, the better! That’s my opinion. However, I have read that it is best not to use a spray to kill black widows; apparently it is better to squash them. I’m not sure why…and there was no way I was getting close enough to attempt a squash. I’m too scared that I will miss and make it angry.

So, I killed the one in the garage. Then, the next day, I found one making home in the opposite corner of the garage. Furious, I got the same spray, and sprayed the little monster to death. Now, from time to time I still check to make sure there are no more in those areas.

Well, that was then, but last week, I noticed one in my back yard, sitting in a web right under our door! I ran back inside and determined that whatever I needed to do to rid my home of these spiders, I was going to do that day. I did not want them around my house, not even outside! My fear had turned to a cruel hatred of the creepy little guys! So I got on the internet, and googled “how to kill black widows”. Which, as clever as that sounds, was probably a mistake!

Some people say squish them, some don’t squish them, some say spray them, some say don’t spray them, some say get a long stick and bust their egg sacs, some say pour alcohol on them. I mean, there were so many options (many of which, contradicted the suggestion before it). So, I gave that up, and just went back to spraying them with the Raid. Since that day, I have yet to discover any more black widows. But rest assured I check everyday in those same spaces….and a few others as well. I won’t have those around this house!

Leave a comment »

fresh fish!

May 1, 2008 · Filed under in the kitchen · Tagged , , , , , ,

Have I got a story for you!

Saturday, my husband and I went our separate ways for the afternoon – he went fishing with the boys, and I stayed home painting pots with my sister. Well, Sis and I are in the garage with the door up painting our flower pots, when all of a sudden, the bottom falls out – I mean some serious rain! We, of course were fine because we were still inside, but my thoughts immediately went to my husband! Out there fishing in the rain!

I gave him a call to see how things were going. He said that they were soaking wet, but the fish were biting like crazy! He was so excited (he doesn’t really get to go fishing a lot, and typically when he does, he finds it rather dull…so this was a good thing for him).

Well, a couple hours later, he comes dripping in the door with a smelly Target bag of fish – he’d kept 4 of them! And brought them into my house! I was like “What are you doing?!”

“Do you know how to clean these?”

Like I’m supposed to know how! So he makes a few phone calls to some of his other fishing buddies to find out what he needs to do with them. And the whole time I’m thinking, where did you get these fish? Where is this lake? Are you sure we can just up and eat these things? Well, he finally decides that he is going to freeze them until he has time to clean and fillet them. So, he throws the whole Target bag into my freezer!! And for the next few days I’m trying to dodge this bag of WHOLE FISH that is sitting front and center in the freezer!

Well, he finally got around to cleaning those little guys and we fried them up last night! He was so proud that he was able to go out and catch dinner with his bare hands. Providing for his family in the truest since of the term! And I was proud of him (although I will admit that I was a little disgusted at first, but once he handed me the fillets, they looked just like the ones that I bought at the store just the other day…so I was fine).

I sautéed them with this fabulous recipe that I found on the website I was telling you about the other day. Cilantro Lime Sea Bass! It was delicious! Although I did alter the recipe a tad. I first salt and peppered the fillets. And despite the title of the recipe, it did not call for lime. ??? I really liked the idea of lime, so I just squeezed some over the top of the fish right before they were finished cooking. Also, when I was done there were a lot of brown bits still left in the pan, so before I look the tomatoes out, I deglazed the pan with some chicken stock to make a sauce. Then we just poured that down over the fish. I served it with some brown rice (seasoned with oregano, crushed red pepper flakes, garlic salt, fresh ground black pepper, one bay leaf, and some roasted bell peppers) and steamed broccoli. It was delicious, and it looked beautiful! If you’ve never tried this deglazing technique, I would highly recommend it! Click on the link for instructions.

Good luck!

Leave a comment »

what’s for dinner?

April 28, 2008 · Filed under in the kitchen · Tagged , , , , , , ,

Are you one of those people that plans out their meals for the week? Or do you just wing it every day? My momma always taught me to make a menu for the week and then make your grocery list. And I’ve found that this method has been so wonderful! Plus, I have a good time trying to fit everything together. Its like a puzzle that I have to solve every week!

Not only do I get a little kick out of planning our meals, but it has really been helpful in several ways. My husband is a health nut. He enjoys exercise and most of all eating healthily. Now, I’m a southern girl, so I’ve learned to cook with lots of butter, frying food, and always having plenty of sweets on hand. Even though my husband was brought up on the same type of food, he has since changed his view and desires a more healthy diet. So, here I am trying to adapt – trying to keep that southern taste that I love yet cooking our food in a more healthy way. But that is a topic for another day.

Back to eating healthy… I’ve noticed that planning out our meals for the whole week helps me to really balance our diet and give us a nice variety of foods. Not only does it keep me on a healthy track, but it has also helped to save us some money as well. After I make the menu, I head into the kitchen and make my grocery list. I get everything I need for the whole week’s meals. This way I cut back on impulse buying – I really don’t need those fresh, sweet smelling donuts or that frozen pizza – and my hubby is a lot more happy with the lower grocery bills!

So, now that maybe I’ve convinced you to start thinking about planning your weekly meals, you ask,

Where do I go from here? How do I organize my meals and grocery lists?

Well, you could do like I have done for the past year of our marriage, and get out several pieces of paper – one for breakfast meals, one for lunch meals, one for dinner meals, and one for your grocery list. Then get a hand full of the most helpful of the cookbooks that you have, and search for recipes, trying to keep variety and still pick something that the family will like. Having last week’s plan close by to make sure not to duplicate meals too soon.

Shew! A lot to juggle, right?

Well, yesterday I found a website that has changed my meal planning life! Meals Matter is amazing! After a couple minutes to register a user name and password, you’ve got all the tools you need to plan your family’s meals! This site is so helpful – it covers all the bases! Includes a calendar where you can enter each meal for each day (even snacks, if you choose), shopping list, and recipe search. Sounds pretty basic, huh? So, what’s all the fuss, you ask? The amazing part is how each of these tools work together and compliment each other!

Say you are planning out your week, but you’ve run out of ideas for a fresh and exciting dinner. No problem, you simply search the recipe database – maybe I want to have chicken, I know I won’t have much time to prepare the dinner that night so I need a fast recipe, and I only need to feed myself and my husband. So I enter all of that into the search, and I get a list of recipes that all have these requisites. Now, I can click the link on the left and add that right onto my meal plan calendar!

Not only that, but once I’ve assembled my meals for the week, I can click on one button that adds all of the ingredients for the recipes that I’ve selected onto my shopping list! Then I simply go back through and delete all of the items that I already have in my pantry or fridge. Need to pick up items that aren’t on the list of ingredients? That’s ok, just add them to the list by typing them in yourself.

I’m so excited about this new set of tools that I’ve found in the Meals Matter site! Check it out for yourself, and let me know what you think. I hope you find it as helpful as I did!

Leave a comment »

and so it begins!

April 23, 2008 · Filed under Uncategorized · Tagged

Welcome to my new HomeMaking blog! I’m rather excited about this…you see I am a new homemaker! I’ve only been married for about a year now, and I’m still learning how to manage the chores around here and how to make things generally homey.

So far its been a blast, but I know there is still so much more for me to learn! And I love to learn it! So…I will be posting my experiences with our new home – the new techniques I’m learning, the crazy stories, fun recipes, and whatever else happens upon me around here. I hope that I can be a help to someone who is maybe in my same place, but I also want to be able to learn from anyone out there who might have some suggestions or ideas! So, feel free to comment away! I can hardly wait!

Leave a comment »