Blaze Orange and Camo Time

It's that time of year again!  Guess what we've been doing?  

This is Jake's second year of hunting.  He got his button buck last year and he killed a doe Tuesday evening.  He's let several bucks walk right on by.  He says he's waiting for "THE BIG ONE!"
He's so serious about his hunting.

Most of the time anyway!  You have to have a little fun while you're out there waiting!!

 

HAPPY HUNTING to all you fellow hunters!

My Lil' Smokie Sauce

I am the Lil' Smokie Queen!  Ay least my family thinks so.  I'm always expected to bring the Lil' Smokies to any and all family get-togethers.  There's an awful fuss if I don't!   There's a quite a bit of mixing for the sauce so I decided to can some tonight.  I always make 4 pounds (actually it's not quite 4 pounds now since the packages are 13 ounces instead of 16 ounces like they used to be!

Anyway, a quart of sauce makes 4 pounds packages of Lil' Smokies.

I prefer the Hillshire Farm Beef Lil' Smokies, but any of them will work.  I always make the recipe x 4 for my crock-pot of Smokies.

This is the basic recipe for 1 package of Smokies.

Sauce
1 cup ketchup
1/4 cup brown sugar
2 tsp soy sauce
2 tsp Dijon mustard
2 tbsp white vinegar
1/8 tsp garlic powder
1 package Lil' Smokies  Mix ingredients, add Smokies and cook in Crock-pot until Lil' Smokies are plump and tender.

For canning, I did the recipe x 16 just because that's how much ketchup I had stored in the pantry. I use Heinz, I'm picky about my ketchup!  Mine made 5 quarts of sauce.

Sauce for Canning (makes 5 quarts)
16 cups ketchup
4 cups brown sugar
32 tsp soy sauce (2/3 cup)
32 tsp Dijon mustard (2/3 cup)
16 tbsp white vinegar (1 cup)
2 tsp garlic powder

Slowly bring to a slow bubbling boil, stirring occasionally.  Once boiling, have hot jar, lids and bands waiting.  Pour sauce into hot jars, adjust lids and bands and process in boiling water bath (canner) for 20 minutes.  Remove jars of sauce from canner and let cool.  Check seals on top of lids after cooling.  Just add this sauce to your Smokies in the Crock-Pot when you're ready to cook them and turn it on!  All the work is done for you.  This sauce can be used for lots of different recipes or as a barbeque sauce for grilling, etc.  Hope you enjoy it!

Just Peachy

My boys love their jam! I'm milking a goat again so that means homemade yogurt which means using my homemade jam as the "fruit-on-the-bottom"! Peach is one of their favorites. I have a new iPad and have downloaded the bloggin' apps that should simplify this bloggers life for posting more often. We shall see how that goes! Here's my first iPad bloggin' photo!    To can peach jam, you need:   Jars, lids and bands  Peaches  5 1/2 cups sugar  1 pkg Sure-Jell 1 Tbs. butter  2 Tbsp. lemon juice  Peel and finely chop peaches to equal 4 cups. Add peaches, Sure-Jell, lemon juice and butter to a large pot. Bring to a rapid rolling boil. Add sugar. Have hot jars and bands/lids ready and waiting. Bring mixture to a rapid rolling boil that cannot be stirred down. Allow to boil for 1 minute while stirring. Remove from heat. Pour into hot jars, wipe rims of jars, adjust lids and bands. Process in hot water bath for 10 minutes. Remove jars from hot water bath to a towel on the counter and let cool for 24 hours before moving.   ENJOY!

Camping with the Boys

Luke wanted to have a sleep-over camp out for his 6th birthday so that's what we did.   I set up the tent and filled up the fire pit!  We roasted hot dogs and made Smore's. I had four very excited little boys!  They were all so brave.....even when we heard howling, bumping and screeching during the night! We got up the next day and went fishing!

Doesn't get any better than that! Well, unless you count watching a dog eat a fish!
Boys think things like that are cool!

Camping at the Lake

He's found something,


Wonder what it could possibly be?


He's bringing it to me!


He looks quite proud of whatever he's found!


Awwww, it's a little green caterpillar!



We had a great weekend camping at Land Between the Lakes! Now back to the "real" world!