Octodogs and Sea Weed - For Lunch!

Give it a chance....it sounds awful....BUT......your kids will love it!  I used to fix this a lot for my boys, then they got older and they never ask for it anymore so I thought I'd surprise them with an after church lunch from the past!   Octo-dogs (hot dogs) and sea weed (Ramen noodles with a few drops of green food coloring)    
It always puts a smile on their faces!  Sometimes we mix it up and make blue or purple noodles.

Whatever color you want your sea weed to be, I bet they eat it all!

Just split the hotdog up the middle (like an X almost to the end and leave the octopus' head intact.  I even poke the knife in to make little eyes and a smiley face :).   Boil the hotdogs in a separate pan while making the noodles and their little legs will curl up just like an octopus.  Technically, mine are QUAD dogs but the legs get a little thin and tend to break off if you try for 8!  Hey if you can have green eggs and ham.......just saying! Have fun!  You may even want to eat some yourself!

Vanilla...YUM!

Make your own extract and bottle it up in cute little bottles. I picked up a big bottle of vodka a few months ago, ordered some Madagascar vanilla beans through eBay (Grade B vanilla beans make the best extract) and now I have wonderful homemade vanilla extract!

All you need is:
1 large bottle of vodka
10 - 12 vanilla beans

Cut your vanilla beans long ways down the middle. Scrape the beans loose from the pods and add the scrapings to your bottle of vodka. Higher quality vodka makes a better extract. You may have to remove a bit of the vodka to accommodate for the beans and pods. Chop up the pods into 1 to 2-inch pieces and add them to the vodka as well. Place your bottle in a dark pantry or cabinet. Shake the bottle once a day for about a week then every few days just to keep it all mixed up. After awhile I just shake mine when I notice it in the cabinet. You can use it after a month but the longer it sits the stronger (and better) your extract will be.

I use a paper towel or very thin cloth and a small funnel to strain my extract into the smaller bottles.

I have been using from my bottle to bake and make the little gift bottles above. When you have used 1/3 or so of the bottle, refill it with vodka to keep your extract going. If your beans start to lose their vanilla smell, scrape, chop and add more. This bottle can be refilled occasionally and last for years to use in your own baking or make a few big bottles to divide and give as gifts around the holidays!

These little bottles are even cuter with a recipe card tied to them!

Pear Honey

This is the time of year when some really lucky people have access to fresh pears! We have planted a pear tree but it still has a few years to go before we get any fruit. I usually manage to get a bucket of pears from an elderly lady down the road from us but someone came along and picked all her pears from her roadside tree this year before anyone else had time to pick them! They could have at least left me a few!

I wanted to share this recipe with those of you who have pears to put up this year. This recipe was my great-grandmothers and my mom somehow tracked her recipe down through relatives and made this last year. It is delicious! I love to eat it on homemade sourdough bread (which I have a starter for fermenting on my kitchen cabinet). My kids like it poured over vanilla ice cream.

Pear Honey
6 - 8 cups finely chopped pears
1 (20 oz.) can crushed pineapple
6 c. sugar
1 T. lemon juice
1/3 c. water
1 (14 oz.) bag shredded coconut (optional)

Peel pears and remove seeds. Chop pears in a food processor until very fine. Mix with lemon juice and 1/3 c. water. Cook in heavy saucepan until pears are very tender. Add coconut if desired, pineapple and sugar. Stir often, will stick easily. Cook until pear honey is thick. Pour into hot, sterilized jars. Adjust lids and bands. Process in hot water bath for 10 minutes.

Birdseed Cookies

Elle asked about a birdseed cookie recipe so I just had to look it up and try it! Luke and I decided to bake some and here are the results of this recipe...


Birdseed Cookies
2 cups flour
1/4 cup sugar
1/2 tsp baking soda
1/2 cup bacon grease or lard (melted)
2 eggs
1/2 cup birdseed
water

Mix flour, sugar and baking soda in a large bowl. Add melted grease or lard and mix. Blend two whole eggs (shell and all) in blender and add to mix. Add 1/2 cup birdseed and mix well. My mix was a little dry so I added 1/4 to 1/2 cup water.


Cover this with a wet towel and refrigerate until chilled. When chilled, roll dough out to 1/4 inch thick and cut with cookie cutters and use a drinking straw to poke a hole in each cookie for hanging.


Place on an ungreased baking sheet and bake at 325 degrees for about 15 minutes.


Let cool and hang from twine or in our case...ribbon...I couldn't find my twine and we used our Christmas cutters. Here's our gingerbread men.


The titmice are in love with these and we even had a Carolina wren munching on some that we laid out on the deck banner.

Suet Cakes

Where does the time go? I am so sorry that I haven't blogged in the last few days. Between my oldest being on Fall break, a goat getting mastitis and having to bottle feed one of the kids, work, 200 miles of yards sales Friday (which my sister and I just had to partake in of course) and the tech guy spending one of the days trying to finish getting my computer set up, it's been awhile!

The weather has changed very quickly here and we are heading straight into Fall with cool night and the leaves starting to change. I wanted to share this suet recipe with everyone. I love feeding my birds and try to keep a variety of things out for them especially during the colder months when food is so hard to find.

This recipe is nice because it can be used year-round. I have kept it out on the hottest days of the summer and it only softens up a bit, has never melted into a mess and never sours. I tried a fruit one a while back (not thinking about the warmer temps) and had a stinky mess by the next morning so I will be saving that one for winter!

This recipe is under the This and That section of my cookbook and I have received several compliments on it. I don't remember if I got this from a magazine or if it's one I mixed and threw together. I won't take credit for inventing it but I will take credit for sharing it!

The nuthatches and titmice LOVE this as well as the woodpeckers and chickadees.
Suet Cakes
1 c. lard
1 1/2 c. crunchy peanut butter
1/3 c. sugar
2 c. quick cook oats
2 c. cornmeal
1 c. flour
1 c. mixed birdseed
1 c. cracked corn

Melt lard and peanut butter. Add sugar to the melted mix and stir well. Add oats, cornmeal, flour, birdseed and cracked corn. Mix well and pour into large cardboard orange juice cartons with the top cut off. Chill or freeze. Slice into blocks to fit into suet feeders. You can also stuff toilet paper rolls or paper towel rolls for easy slicing to fit into the suet feeders with round 1-inch holes.

Making Pizza Sauce

This post probably comes a little late for most of you since the tomato crop has come and gone (at least around here) but I thought I would share it anyway. It will be in the archives for next years canning season or if you canned tomatoes this year, you can use some of those to make it now.

I canned several jars of pizza sauce this year and the boys are loving the homemade pizza! I have been using Suzanne McMinn's pizza crust recipe. It's quick, easy and makes an awesome crust.

The sauce? Well, I cheated a little bit, but hey, if we love the taste and it's easy then I don't see a problem with it.

This made 12 pint jars of sauce.

I used:
1 bag of Mrs. Wages Pizza Sauce mix
Home grown tomatoes, blanched, peeled and liquefied in the blender
A handful of basil leaves, finely chopped
A handful of oregano leaves, finely chopped
Self-rising flour

Work up your tomatoes and then add the sauce mix in a large saucepan. Add your extra basil and oregano. I find this sauce is thinner than I like for our pizzas so I slowly add a tablespoon or two of flour at a time, stir and continue doing this until it reached the thickness we like. Follow the directions on the pizza sauce package for how many tomatoes and the time for cooking. I would tell you but I used all my packages! Pour into clean, hot jars, adjust lids and bands and process in hot water bath for the time recommended by Mrs. Wages also makes an awesome salsa mix that I add a few things to (green peppers, jalapenos, spices, brown sugar, etc.) I have people come to my house just to take jars of my (and Mrs. Wages) salsa home with them.

So, if your in the mood to try your own pizza sauce...go for it. This is an easy one to start with. Maybe I'll branch out and try to invent my own some day....Kentucky Farm Girls Pizza Sauce hmmmmm, maybe I'll just stick with Mrs. Wages!

So make Suzanne's crust, slather on some of this sauce, lots of fresh veggies and pepperoni or whatever you like, mozzarella cheese (or better yet, goat cheese which we have been making, will post about that later.) We made pineapple and Canadian bacon pizzas a few nights ago and they were so good.

I look forward to having pizza this winter without having to drive 12 miles to get to the nearest pizza place!

Pie Crust

I am posting the pie crust that I use for all of my pies. I also use this one to make those fried apple pies I mentioned a few posts back. I will be posting my Apple Pie recipe later with pics because I have promised my boys I would make them one and when it comes to food, they never let me back down on a promise.

This is really easy to make, plus it tastes much better than those thin store bought ones!

Pie Crust

2 cups all purpose flour

1 tsp. salt

1 T. sugar

6 T. butter

6 T. shortening

6 to 8 T ice water

Set butter out on counter to get nice and soft. I usually set it on top of my stove while the oven is preheating just long enough to make it soft but not melted. Mix 2 cups all-purpose flour, salt and sugar in a large bowl. Cut in 6 tablespoons of butter, 6 tablespoons of shortening and 6 to 8 tablespoons of water with a dough blender. Form a ball with your dough and wrap in plastic wrap. Place in refrigerator for at least 30 minutes to chill. Cut ball of dough in half and roll out crusts.

Finishing My Coffee

and then I am out the door. Today is all about the chickens! I am on my way to pick up the supplies to build an outdoor coop for all my young-ins' (not the boys, the chicks besides the boys already have their own cage!). I have 11 young guineas and 19 young chicks that are about half grown and their little coops are getting way too small. After getting all the corn put up yesterday, I get a chance to play outside today if it doesn't rain! I'll be back with pics this afternoon of my WIP. I might even get it finished if I get up from here and get moving!

While I am here I will leave you with an awesome cucumber salsa recipe that I got from a friend this weekend. If you love fresh cucumbers, you will love this. It can also be made and frozen.

Cucumber Salsa
4 cups cucumbers
1 can Mexicorn
1 can Rotel
1/4 cup white vinegar
Canning salt
Sugar
Onion powder
Garlic powder
Chop cucumber and combine with Mexicorn (mostly drained) and Rotel. Add canning salt, sugar, onion powder and garlic powder all to taste. Don't you hate it when someone says to taste LOL. I just kept sprinkling each of them until it tasted good! You can also add jalapeños if you like a little spiciness. Serve with tortilla chips.


I hope you all have a wonderful Thursday and don't forget to comment on the cookbook giveaway post!

Strawberry Butter

This stuff is awesome with Sister Schubert's Rolls (or any homemade bread).
This takes a while to make but is well worth the effort.

Strawberry Butter
2 sticks butter, room temperature
2 sticks margarine, room temperature
16 oz. strawberries, thawed or fresh
3/4 cup powdered sugar

Whip margarine and butter in a stand mixer until fluffy. Add strawberries. Mix until well-blended. This may take a LONG time (up to an hour) for all the strawberries to blend into a smooth buttery texture so turn it on and let it mix, use a spatula to wipe down the sides from time to time. Once well-blended, add powdered sugar and mix until well-blended again. Cover and store in refrigerator. Use within 2 weeks.

Bread and Butter Pickles

This is another canning recipe. I promise a normal old recipe tomorrow! My cucumber vines are growing very nicely in the garden. I have plans to can bread and butter pickles this year. I canned several pints and quarts year before last and by several I mean 34 quarts and 22 pints. Most of them are gone. Luke and I can eat a whole pint jar when we open one. I have several family members that bride, beg, and just flat out tell me to bring them a jar of my B&B pickles from time to time so they go pretty fast. I also take them to potlucks, fish fries and other foodie get togethers.

There are a lot of recipes for bread and butter pickles floating around out there but this is the recipe I use for canning mine.

15 cups sliced pickling cucumbers
3 onions, thinly sliced
1/4 c. coarse salt
4 c. cracked ice
2 1/2 c. white vinegar
2 1/2 c. sugar
3/4 tsp. turmeric
1/2 tsp. celery seeds
1 T. mustard seeds

Combine cucumbers, onions, salt and ice in a large bowl and mix well. Put weight on and allow to stand for 3 hours. (For weight, I use a plate with a gallon bottle of vinegar or water on top of it.) Drain thoroughly. Combine vinegar, sugar, turmeric, celery seeds and mustard seeds in a large pot. Add drained cucumbers. Place pot on medium-low heat and bring almost to a boil but do not allow to boil. Remove from heat, seal in hot, sterilized jars, adjust lids and bands. Process 10 minutes in hot water bath.

Cherry Jam

What did I do with all those cherries my Dad picked for me while I was gone to Florida? Made jam of course!

The boys love this cherry jam on toast or peanut butter and jelly (technically it's PB & Jam but they don't care). I have a weakness for it on my moms homemade sour dough bread with way too much butter. I ended up with 14 pints before I ran out of Certo. I also froze several quarts for pies, cobblers and homemade ice cream...yummm!
Here's the recipe I use for making this jam (it's not in my cookbook but it will be in the next one!)
Cherry Jam
4 cups of cherries
7 cups sugar
1/2 T. butter or margarine (optional)
2 pouches of Certo

Wash, stem and pit your cherries. Place them in a food processor and liquify/pulse/chop until they are mostly liquid. You will need 4 cups of this. Place in a large saucepan, add sugar, mix well. Add butter (this prevents the white foamy stuff from forming on top of your jam.) Bring to a rolling boil and cook for 1 full minute, stirring constantly. Remove from heat, stir in 2 pouches of Certo. Stir and skim off any floating fruit for 5 minutes. Pour into hot, sterilized jar. Wipe any drips from top edge of jars and top with hot lids and bands. Sit aside to let cool and seal.

If you have access to cherries, go for it!

Cinnamon Roll Icing

Don't you just hate it when you bake cinnamon rolls and there is never enough of that ooey, gooey, delicious icing? I mean if you buy the store bought you get one itty bitty container stuck in the end of the roll! I like enough icing that it drips off my fingers while I'm eating my cinnamon rolls. I know I'm bad but it's so good!

Here's a quick little recipe to whip up just to make sure everyone gets plenty of icing. When we have Christmas breakfast at my mom and dad's I always take a squeeze bottle full of this for the cinnamon rolls.

1 box powdered sugar
1 stick butter, softened, not melted
1 tsp. vanilla flavoring
Milk

Using a blender to cream the sugar, butter and vanilla together, then add milk to the consistence of cinnamon roll icing.

Wanna know why I posted this recipe today?

Here's why! First I made this...
Monkey Bread by Pastor Ryan on Pioneer Woman's Blog

While that was baking, I mixed up some cinnamon roll icing with a little help from the boys. I did cut the powdered sugar contents down a bit because there was already so much sugar in the monkey bread. I figured that way the diabetic coma would only last a week instead of a month!

And the results were this monkey bread

and then this monkey bread with cinnamon roll icing and I added a big cup of coffee....yummmmmmm!

I definitely need about 100 laps at the track now or at the very least a nap!

Hot Pepper Jelly

Do I have any canners out there? I love to can and anything that can be canned, gets canned, around here. Ok, I draw the line at pig's feet but we don't have pigs (yet) so I don't have anything to worry about. This is a little recipe that I got from my cousin. She had some of this stuff mixed with cream cheese and served as a dip at a birthday party I attended. I said, I have to know where you go this stuff. She opened her cabinet, and lo and behold, there were about 30 little jelly jars full of hot pepper jelly, some red and some green! They were beautiful (and very Christmasy!) She said, "I made it! Want the recipe?" Well, heck yes, of course, I want the recipe! So, I now have a bunch of little green jelly jars full of goodness in my pantry. I didn't grow any red peppers last year so I didn't can any red jars, but that will change this year. Anyway, on to the recipe! And don't forget, it makes an awesome dip when mixed with cream cheese and served with Ritz cracker or (my favorite) Frito's!

It would also be so cute to tie a ribbon on a red jar and a green jar, stick them in a little basket and give them as a Christmas present with the recipe attached.

This recipe is not very "hot". You can adjust the jalapenos to your liking.

Hot Pepper Jelly
3/4 c. bell pepper (green or red, your choice)
1/4 c. jalapeno peppers
1 1/2 c. apple cider vinegar
6 c. sugar
1 (4-oz) pkg. Certo
4 drops food coloring (green or red)

Very finely chop peppers (food processor works great for this). Mix peppers, sugar and vinegar in a large saucepan on medium/low heat. Bring to a rolling boil. Remove from heat. I usually very quickly skim some of the pepper peeling pieces from the top at this point. It makes the jelly prettier. Add Certo and food coloring. Stir until jelly starts to thicken. Pour into hot, sterilized jars and seal. Process them in a hot water bath for 10 minutes.

Honey Mustard Sauce

While we're waiting for baby chicks to hatch, I'll post another recipe. This is for my SIL's honey mustard sauce and it is so good! My boys love it with chicken nuggets (the theme seems to be chicken today!) This makes a big batch of mustard!

HONEY MUSTARD SAUCE
1 qt. mayonnaise
1/4 c. spicy mustard
1/4 c. mustard
1/2 c. honey
1 T. vinegar
1 T. lemon juice
1 T. cayenne pepper

Mix all ingredients together. Adjust the cayenne to your liking.

Homemade Peach Ice Cream

HOMEMADE PEACH ICE CREAM

6-8 ripe peaches
3 eggs
1 can Eagle Brand Milk
Sugar
Milk

Peel and pit peaches, chop and liquefy in blender. In a large bowl, beat eggs with a fork and add peaches and Eagle Brand Milk. Pour into 4-quart ice cream freezer and fill almost to the fill line with milk. Add sugar to taste. Freeze per ice cream maker instructions.

French Toast Casserole

Thanks Aunt Ta' (she's actually my SIL named Tammy but the boys call her Aunt Ta'). We have started celebrating Christmas at my mom and dad's house by having breakfast on Christmas Day. It seems to be the only time of the day that everyone can be in the same place at the same time. I always call and make sure Ta' is bringing this!

FRENCH TOAST CASSEROLE
1 (16 oz.) loaf cinnamon swirl bread, cut into cubes
6 eggs
3 c. milk
2 tsp. vanilla
Confectioner's sugar
Pancake syrup

Place bread cubes in greased dish. Mix eggs, milk and vanilla. Pour over bread. Cover and refrigerate 1 hour or overnight. Bake at 350 degrees for 50 minutes. Sprinkle with confectioner's sugar. Serve with pancake syrup.

Mmmmm!