Raising Monarchs

In May look for milkweed plants. On the underneath side of a leaf you may find a tiny, yellow-green oval. That's a Monarch egg. Clip that stalk. Put the stalk in a water-filled vase and watch for the egg to hatch a few days later. Keep feeding your caterpillar milkweed leaves by changing out the milkweed stalks for new ones. When the caterpillar is almost 2 inches long, it's time for it to form its chrysalis. Try placing the vase under a small table. The milkweed leaves need to brush the bottom of the table. The caterpillar will crawl onto the bottom of the table and form its chrysalis. Once the chrysalis turns black (after 1-2 weeks), you'll know your butterfly will emerge in the next 24 hours. Once it emerges and its wings have dried (don't touch it during this phase!), you can coax it onto your hand with sugar water. Then it's time to take it outside and release it!!

If you'd like more instructions you can visit: Rearing Monarchs

Happy Spring!!

Healthy Guacamole

At this point you're may be getting the impression that I'm starting a food blog. No worries, every post won't be about food. However, food is an important part of life and we all like to see what other people are eating and enjoying with their families. Well, if you're anything like me you do. I, myself, get in a rut from time to time and get weary of eating the same dishes over and over again. It's then that I go searching the net for new ideas.

I'm not a real avocado lover, but I know they're good for me. So, the way I go about getting those added nutrients in my diet is by making a healthy Guacamole Dip. Unfortunately, sometimes what you find in the store and even in some homemade recipes, are dips loaded with additives and bad fats from oils or sour cream. Tasty though it may be, good for the heart and waistline they're not!

This particular recipe comes from my Country Life Vegetarian Cookbook. I've taken the liberty of adding a couple of extra ingredients. For me, their recipe just lacked that extra punch of flavor that I needed. Feel free to experiment with the ingredients to suite your own taste, but try to avoid ingredients that are high in bad fats.

One of my favorite methods for enjoying this dip is by simply spreading it over toasted whole wheat bread. Mmm, mmmm! Other ideas (besides the usual tortilla chips) are using it as a spread on a sandwich or in a burrito wrap.

GUACAMOLE

2 c. mashed avocado (approx. 2 medium avocados)
1 t. garlic powder
1 1/2 t. onion powder
1 t. salt
1 - 1 1/2 T. lemon juice
3/4 c. finely chopped tomatoes
*1/8 t. cumin
*pinch or more of cayenne pepper

Scoop out avocados into bowl, mash well. Add remaining ingredients and mix together. Chill.

YIELD: 2 3/4 cups
Ingredients marked with an asterisk are my own special touch.

Picture borrowed from: CountryLiving

Southwestern Beans & Rice

I thought I'd share this recipe that I'm taking to Potluck tomorrow for church. The recipe comes from my Light and Tasty cookbook from Taste of Home. I've made it before and one gentleman in particular, always compliments me on it. I usually add some soy cheddar shreds and I'm even considering throwing in some multi grain Penne Pasta today. I may find that it'll need some added water if I go ahead with the pasta.

Southwestern Beans and Rice

1 medium green pepper, diced
1 medium onion, chopped
2 garlic cloves, minced
1 T. olive oil
2 1/2c. water
1 c. uncooked long grain rice
1/2 t. ground cumin
1/8 t. ground turmeric
1 can (15 ounces) black beans, rinsed and drained
1 can (10 ounces) diced tomatoes and green chilies, undrained
1 package (10 ounces) frozen corn, thawed

In a large nonstick skillet, saute the green pepper, onion and garlic in oil for 3 minutes. Stir in the broth, rice, cumin and turmeric; bring to a boil. Reduce heat; cover and simmer for 15 minutes or until rice is tender. Add beans, tomatoes and corn; heat through.

YIELD: 8 servings

Nutritional Analysis: One serving (3/4 cup) equals 198 calories, 3 g fat (1 g saturated fat), 1 mg cholesterol, 339 mg sodium, 37 g carbohydrate, 5 g fiber, 7 g protein.


Photo borrowed from: Knorr

Gardening Techniques and Tools

Well, it's bitter cold here in Northwest Indiana, but regardless, our minds are turned toward our vegetable garden. We've chosen all the various foods we will be growing and are waiting for the seeds to arrive. No doubt, I'll be cutting things a bit close this year due the fact that I haven't even begun my indoor seed starting yet. However, since the seeds haven't arrived I have little choice, but to wait.

In the meantime I've been scanning the Internet for various garden sites to glean as much information as possible in order to have the most productive garden. We've been gardening for several years, but we still feel somewhat like novices. There is so much to learn about gardening. So much so, that I think we'll be learning about it as long as we're alive.

As every gardener knows, having a vegetable garden is hard work and can be taxing on the body. Not that that's necessarily a bad thing, but if I'm experiencing a lot of pain while gardening, it does little to motivate me to get out there and work it.

With the exception of one summer, we have always planted bush beans. The year I tried pole beans I wasn't very successful because the method I chose to support the beans was not great. As a result, I gave up and went back to what worked-- bush beans. With each passing year, we have been growing more produce to be stored up for the winter months. This means, more work and more bending. More bending means more pain in my lower back. Ouch!

Near the end of December I jumped on-line to search for a better way to support pole beans as I wanted to try and grow them again for this summer. That's when I found Donald. To use the phrase spoken often by The Pioneer Woman, "lawsee mercy!" Donald has posted lots of instructional gardening videos. For me, his site is a gold mine. I've learned so much by watching his videos and I'm definitely going to try his technique for growing pole beans this summer. Check out these:

Be sure and watch how he supports his tomatoes too. In my opinion, it's brilliant. Just where was he when we were first starting out, anyway? :)

Today I visited the Growing Wisdom website. While there I saw this wonderful tool called the Hatfield Transplanter. Heard of it? It would certainly come in handy and save my back to boot. When I showed it to my husband he got pretty excited about it. He told me to find out how much it costs so we could get one. Well, as wonderful as it is, it's not in our budget right now so I'm putting it on our wish list for future purchases. I thought I share the video on how it's used. Prepare to be amazed.

Cranberry Goodness

It's that time of year. The time when Cranberries are plentiful. I wanted to share with you two of my favorite holiday recipes that are loaded with this deliciously, tart fruit.

CRANBERRY APPLE PIE

4 c. thinly sliced peeled baking apples
1 c. fresh or frozen cranberries
1 c. sugar
2 T. cornstarch
1 t. lemon juice
1 t. ground cinnamon
Pastry for double-crust pie (9 inches)
1 T. butter or margarine

METHOD:
In mixing bowl, combine apples, cranberries, sugar, cornstarch, lemon juice and cinnamon. Line a 9-inch pie pan with half of pastry. Spoon filling into crust; dot with butter. Top with a lattice crust. Bake at 400 for 40-50 minutes or until bubbly and golden brown. Yield: 8 servings


This next dessert is a cranberry crumb cake. It's light and easy to prepare. The flavor of cranberry comes through in every sweet-tart bite, and the streusel topping looks so pretty. Simply divine!!

CRANBERRY CRUMB CAKE
Yield: 9 servings

1 c. all-purpose flour
1/2 c. plus 1/3 c. sugar, divided
2 t. baking powder
1/2 t salt
1 egg, lightly beaten
1/2 c. fat-free milk (or soy)
1 T. orange juice (or 1 t. orange extract)
1 T. oil
1/4 t. almond extract
2 c. fresh or frozen cranberries, chopped

TOPPING:
1/4 c. all-purpose flour
3 T. sugar
2 T. cold butter

METHOD:
In a bowl, combine the flour, 1/2 cup sugar, baking powder and salt. Combine the egg, milk, orange juice, oil and extract; stir into dry ingredients, Spoon into an 8-inch square baking dish coated with nonstick cooking spray. Combine cranberries and remaining sugar; spoon over batter.
For topping, combine flour and sugar in a small bowl; cut in the butter until crumbly. Sprinkle over cranberries. Bake at 375 for 35-45 minutes or until edges begin to pull away from sides of pan. Refrigerate leftovers.


These are both great country desserts and perfect to serve at Christmastime. I know this is Christmas eve and you have probably already baked all that you're going to, but do try these while cranberries are still easy to get. I don't think you'll be the least bit be disappointed.

Have a wonderful Christmas tomorrow, and may the New Year bring you more blessings than you can possibly dream of.

A Must See Video

In our home, we do not observe Halloween and I realize that the holiday has passed, but this video is still relevant and you really should see it. It's important that you read labels carefully before you make a food purchase. As for me, I plan to avoid any foods that come from China-- period!

This, That, And The Other Thing

My youngest nephew came over, spent the night on Saturday and got to spend the entire day with us on Sunday. It was nice to have him here. He didn't cause a bit of trouble and really did a good job at lending a hand to my #2 teenage son, who spent several hours spreading stone in our lane. It's been so unusually rainy this winter and due to the large amounts we've received, our property is totally saturated. Some areas of our property look like ponds. We've even have geese fly down and spend the night here.

Since moving into this old farmhouse about six years ago, we haven't been able to lay a proper drive. Oh, we've had good intentions to do so, but one thing or another kept getting in the way. However, it's gotten to the point where we just couldn't ignore it any longer. Thanks be to God that we had enough in tax returns to cover at least part of the stone purchase. We weren't able to get all the stone that is needed to finish it completely, but it's enough to get us by, at least for a little while.

While the boys were out working and later, bike riding, I was busy inside trying to get my grocery list and meal plans for this week prepared. I was also able to get four loads of laundry done and managed to make two batches of wheat gluten steaks. I sent some home with my sister. She's never had them before and I'm hoping that her family will all like them.

During our dinner yesterday, my nephew wanted to watch "Honey I Blew Up the Kid". (He borrowed it from my MIL who happens to live next door to us). I didn't have any plans to sit and watch the entire movie as I had already seen it many years ago and didn't recall it to be very good. However, the longer I sat, the more I got sucked in... it was much funnier than I remembered. It was fun cause we sat there together just engrossed and then all of a sudden, something funny would happen and we would all burst out laughing at the same time.

It's the little things that we'll remember the longest!

Herbs For Your Health

Well, Spring is inching ever closer and with that comes planting season. I have already ordered my vegetable seeds and thanks to my generous neighbor, I have two flats of heirloom tomato plants sitting on my dining room table that have started. I will soon be ordering some fruit plants too. Thanks to Amy, I have learned about this family home industry, and am planning to get a few fruit plants from them. After that, I am seriously going to take a look at purchasing some herb seeds. Not only will this be an asset to my meal preparations, but what I'm mostly interested in, is using them to create healing medicines for my family. My husband and I have been talking about how important we feel it is to be as self-sufficient as possible. Particularly as we see the world becoming more and more unstable all the time.

In our family, we try avoid pharmaceutical drugs as far as possible, as we believe that God gave us every herb bearing seed, not only for our food, but for our healing as well. My thoughts are: Why use synthetic drugs that can cause life-threatening side effects when God has provided plants that are perfectly healthful and natural? ... drugs are extremely costly and they don't work for the cure, but rather to mask symptoms instead.

So that said, this year we are on a quest to learn all that we can about herbs and their medicinal properties. I found a small Herb course on-line, offered by Cheri at Sweet Hollow Farm. Part of Cheri's testimony is that they were a homeschooling, Christian family, dwelling in the City. One day the Lord spoke to her heart and showed her that they were too reliant on others for everything in their life. She saw that she needed to rely more on God for their sustenance and so, they left the city behind for country life and have been there for nine years now. Through her journey, she has learned much and is now offering to pass on that knowledge to others. I plan on taking advantage of it. :)

I would love to hear from any of you who have made this a way of life. I would really like to learn how to make tinctures, salves, balms and any other type of natural healing methods, using herbs.

I found a website some time back that sells herbs in bulk. Many of you may know it. It's called: Bulk Herb Store It's owned and operated by Shoshanna Pearl, the daughter of Michael & Debi Pearl. While at the Bulk Herb Store, I saw several books that can be purchased to help us on our quest for Herbal knowledge. I was particularly interested in the book: "The How-to Herb Book". I didn't really want to pay what the Bulk Herb Store was asking, so hunted around the web for a lower price. I found one. It's at: More Than Alive. I often will purchase books used, from Amazon, but even there, the price was higher.

Please let me know if you have this book. I'm interested to know how you like it and if it's been useful in your home.