Ground Beef Stroganoff

 Ground Beef Stroganoff

I tweaked my recipe tonight and really liked how it ended up! So as not to forget what I did...

Ingredients:

• 1 lb ground beef

• 3 cups dry noodles (spiral or similar size)

• 1 large onion, diced

• 1.5 c. sour cream

• 1-2 c. broth

• 3 Tbsp butter, divided

• Salt, pepper, onion powder

• 1 Tbsp stone ground mustard

Directions:

Boil noodles for 10 minutes, then strain and set aside.  While these are boiling, add 1Tbsp butter to the skillet and cook diced onion until translucent.  Remove and set aside.  Add a little more butter to the skillet if needed and then brown beef seasoned with salt pepper and onion powder.  When fully browned, add remaining butter and cooked onions.  Once melted whisk in 2 Tbsp of flour, and continue to mix while cooking for 1 minute.  To this pour in broth and mustard slowly while whisking.  Once fully combined and starting to thicken, add in sour cream, then noodles.  Season with more pepper to taste.

New Year. New (Fluffy) Adventures

Happy 2017 everyone!  How was your Christmas and New Years?  We had a lovely trip up to Washington to visit family, but unfortunately my camera's cable was left behind, so that story will have to wait for now!

This past week we've been getting everything in place for our latest adventure, though: RABBITS!!!  This project has been in the works for quite some time after I finally worked up the guts to ask our landlord for permission to keep more critters (I had been feeling like just the moose of a dog and two cats were really pushing it) but he was totally fine with the idea!  Rabbits are such quiet, easy keepers that take up minimal space and make minimal mess, I think they're going to be a great addition here.

Setting up the new homes

After permission came a LOT of learning.  I'd never really considered rabbits in the past, but we've been looking to raise more of our own food as we can and rabbit it great for this.  I know some will have a hard time with the idea of this, and honestly I do, too.  But I think that's okay and even good.  It's good to understand where our food comes from, to not take it for granted, appreciate the work that goes into caring for meat animals and know that our creatures were raised and harvested without suffering.  This breed (Satin) is ideal for both meat and furs while still being rather docile.  These particular rabbits have been raised among kids, dogs, cats, chickens and even horses so they seem to be very calm overall!

Curiously contemplating his new cute critters!

So, what do rabbits actually NEED?  It is possible to go really crazy, and there are many differing opinions out there. Obviously, I'm no expert now that I'm officially one day in to rabbitry, but I found some of these articles to be helpful and hope this condensed version of my research might assist others getting started.

Handling/communication:
An Uplifting Experience
Rabbit Talk

Grooming: 
Grooming a Rabbit
Rabbit Grooming Basics

Feeding/treating:
Your Rabbit's Diet
Rabbit Approved Plant Guide
Raising Rabbits on the Homestead

Housing:
Raising Rabbits (good overall care info)
Rabbit Hutch/Cage Size Guide
Raising Animals as Gardening Allies
Homestead Rabbits
Rabbit Tractor in Action


Also of great help was the lady we bought these from.  Angela at White Ranch and her kids show these Satin breed rabbits in 4-H and two of the four we bought have won various awards.  She taught us desirable qualities that generally are associated with better health (large back feet, symmetry, healthy teeth, soft over and undercoat) as well as how to hold them (they have STRONG back legs and sharp claws), what to feed them, how to house them, grooming, etc.  They suggest picking up but the scruff only if necessary and only briefly, then support the body and keep the rabbit close to your body.  Despite being so strong, rabbits are fairly fragile and can actually break their spine struggling against being held the wrong way or falling down.

They set up their camping chairs and just sat quietly "letting the rabbits get used to them" at 25 degrees and snow!

I also learned a lot about rabbit housing from her.  I started out buying a little tractor (like a little hutch on wheels that can be used like a rabbit lawn mower).  Now that I have a better concept of how much space a rabbit needs, I really couldn't put more than two rabbits in there.  And since we're not having these rabbits fixed so they can breed later on, that means only male or female at a time.  But then I found out that, while rabbits enjoy seeing other rabbits around them, they can actually be quite vicious when sharing space.  To the point that they will fight and cause open wounds.  So it's really best to keep them together, but separated.  Enter this craigslist score of cages on pallet stands made by my wonderful husband and father!  So we'll still use the tractor as a place for each rabbit to get out and stretch and explore, but it won't work well as a sole housing environment.  

So we finally brought home our four Satins as two breeding pairs, meaning we will keep them for their lifespan and they will be the ones that will likely become more like pets.  I'm pretty sure we're settled on names.  So without further ado, allow me to introduce...

Geode: proven male

Gem: proven female

Bobbin: young male

Calico: young female

Better photos to come, but I just couldn't wait to share with you our latest endeavor!  Have you ever cared for rabbits before?  Any advice you'd like to pass on?  I'd appreciate every word right now! =)

Waste Not Fruit Leather

 Are you guys getting this crazy heat!?  88 degrees in April just seems surreal!  I used to LOVE the sun, and it couldn't get too hot for me, but now I'm afraid Alaska has ruined me.  I feel like I'm melting as soon as the mercury hits 80 and I'm more than a little concerned about this upcoming summer!  But, oh!  The blooms!  The variety of plants that are thriving in this climate never ceases to astound me.  My neighbor threw some lilac boughs on the burn pile yesterday because she had to thin her tree out a little, but I couldn't bear it!  I had to rescue them and brought them all in the house! =)

We've had a lovely week of exploring gardens, wading in creeks, and shooting with friends.  Not to mention catching tad poles and filling up the kiddie pool!  Our little lady has decided that while we're out and about, her snack of choice is an apple.  Not slices, no, the whole thing.  And that's all well and good except, she gets it to where it is just beginning to look polka-dotted with her tiny little bite marks and then she decides she's done.  Even on her best day, she'll eat off all the skin but doesn't want to eat the flesh.  But I'm pretty okay with it because of my latest technique for using what we have. 

Last summer we made a lot of smoothies with unfinished bits of fruit, but this spring I've been taking it a different direction.  Like I've said before, good fresh fruit was difficult to come by in Fairbanks, so it pains me to see it go to waste!  So lately, I've taken the leftover bits and pieces and throwing them into the blender, then in my dehydrator to make fruit leather.  This is so easy!  I only have one tray right now, so my blender half filled with puree will then fill my dehydrator tray just about perfectly.  As. Kadee mentions in her post Oh So Delicioso, the right consistency comes from patience and spreading it so it's just thicker than transparent.  In the dehydrator set to 135, this will take about 6 hours to fully dry. But keep checking on it as you get close because different combinations are going to take different lengths.  It should feel fairly dry to the touch. 

And flavor combinations are endless!   Right now, mine usually involve some apple and banana, but I've been adding in melon, orange, and blackberries.  I did a couple adding a spoonful of honey or sweetened jam, but it certainly wasn't necessary.  I even did one that was about half Greek yogurt!  It was really tasty!  This is another place to sneak in some well paired vegetables as well, like cucumber, spinach and carrots.  I've snuck them all in! =) 

So far this spring, I haven't had a batch last more than a day.  The young 'uns eat it like candy, it's easy to make and easy to grab on the go!  My next batch is going to be blackberry watermelon.  What other concoctions could we come up with?

Note: our family shares our own germs, but if you're making this to share outside of immediate family, I recommend using non-nibbled fruit! =)

The Procrastinator's Picnic: 3 Things You Really Need

Oh, there are some lovely picnics out there!  If you get on pintrest you know what a magical thing a perfectly planned picnic can be!  Would you just look at this woodland set up on Kha Do's page or basically Janice Johnston’s whole board!  Granted, most of these were well planned and positioned for proposals or photo shoots, but how romantic! 

...and this is us! =)

I don’t know about you, but our kids love the idea of a picnic as well.  Truthfully, they were not deterred at all by basically having picnics every night for a couple months until our table arrived.  And now that it’s here I’ve been asked countless times if we can go to the neighboring arboretum for a picnic.  I kept putting it off because I needed to plan and prepare, get a perfect basket and containers, and figure out a way to haul a tiny vase of flowers into the middle of nowhere with two younglings and a moose of a dog in tow.  It didn’t take me too long to realize that might not be realistic for us at this stage in our lives!  But my brain is always trying to find a way to make things work, to get creative with the situation, and I started to whittle down these perfect picnics into something more practical for us right now.  I started to ask myself what we’d really need.

1.       Something edible: chances are, you’re going to be eating anyway, and, at least for us, lunches are often cold.  Sandwiches are great, but we were slightly pressed for time, so I just started throwing in what we had.  This is what I ended up with: a cucumber, sliced cheese, salami, crackers, guacamole, and an apple.  The only prep I did once we got there and that was just to cut the fruit and veggie with my pocket knife

2.       Somewhere to sit: we have an awesome place to visit down the road, and I’m super grateful for that.  But it’s really not necessary.  When we first moved down here, we would go out in our yard or even in our living room.  We once even had a snow picnic in Alaska!  A blanket to sit on is great but, again, not absolutely necessary.

3.       Someone to break bread (or whatever you have) with: Okay, technically you could have a picnic by yourself, but I feel the fun thing about picnics is being able to share them (and ideally the outdoors) with others. 

Finding Tiny Wonders Together

After a stressful morning of running all around town, this was such a perfect way to refocus and connect!  We looked for nature treasures on the way and tucked them in our bag.  We found a cozy place down by the river and settled in for our meal.  My little son said, “Mama, look!  It’s so nice to just sit here and look at how pretty the river is going down hill!”  Yes!  I love it when he gets it like that!

Views from our hike out

Their highlight was finding these two great dirt hills and sliding (or scooting, rather) all the way down!

 

All this to say that it was wonderful, refreshing, and imperfectly perfect. But we grew together which is much more important than my tiny vase of flowers! =)  I hope this might encourage you to take a picnic with the ones you love and just enjoy it without letting it be a huge inconvenience.  Hope you have a great week!  Oh, on that note, we may not have internet this week, but I shall return!

Rendered Useful: Adventures in Making Lard

As promised!  LARD!  Ugh, that isn’t even a fun word to say.  Not unlike BLOG, actually.  I really don’t like that word and my kids and I laugh every time we say it.  In fact, we’ve been trying to think of another name for it.  Blog is a mix of, what, basic log?  Back log?  So if I were Jean Luc I would call it a clog (captain’s log)?  I think I’d replace log with journal or even record.  Maybe combine with web?  Wernal?  Wecord? Hm…I’ll have to work on that a bit.

When Josh came out of our neighbor’s cooler with a packet of pig fat, my first thought was, “Gross, why?”  But he was all excited, “Look!  You can make lard!”  Okay, I was sure there were instructions out there in the interwebs somewhere, but I had never used lard before.  Even if I did figure out how to make it, I had no idea what to use it in!

So there it sat in our freezer for about a month and I didn’t want to see it go to waste, so I rummaged up some instructions from Faulk Farmstead to render lard in my crock pot.  Pretty simple, really.  You just cut the fat into smallish cubes (mine were a little bigger than dice size), discarding the large portions of muscle, ligaments, and blood vessels.  But don’t get too particular, the remnants just get used  for cracklins.  In the pot add a cup of water so it doesn’t burn before it melts, set it to medium and let it melt!

I feel like now would be a much better time to try this, at least if you are rendering indoors, because it was pushing 100 degrees the day I did this and the added heat (though not a lot) was noticeable unpleasant.  And though I didn’t notice a strong smell, it was detectable at close proximity.  I wish I would have done it outside!  It took the better part of a day, maybe 6 hours?  But I had my pot packed full, too!  As the lard melted set a strainer atop a mason jar and poured out the liquid until all the fat had liquefied. 

I saved the remnants for cracklins, later frying them up until they “crackle”.  This was the first time I had ever had cracklins, but they reminded me of bacon bits.  We had them with our scrambled eggs in the morning, but the Food and Wine page cooks it into a tasty-sounding pasta, though I have yet to try it, and I’ve seen many recipes out there for crackling chicken.  I’m really curious what else you have used them for? 

Anyway, after the mason jar was full, I just sealed, labeled and allowed it to cool.  I try not to do a ton of baking, so I kept it in the fridge, though I know many will just keep it in the cupboard.  The very next day, the little ones wanted us to make cookies together, quite specifically, snickerdoodles!  I realized the recipe I had called for shortening and that this would be a perfect time to substitute the lard.  They turned out amazing!  Slightly crisp on the very outside, but soft and almost chewy. 

The more I read about lard the more I find it’s ideal for baking, especially pie crusts.  I can’t wait to try my own!  And someone mentioned making soap with it, also.  So many possibilities!

I don’t know about you, but for so long we were told that lard is so unhealthy, but now we’re learning that isn’t so true.  Happy meets Healthy has a great article about the benefits of eating lard.  The most notable in my mind was that it has super high vitamin D content (which doesn’t occur naturally in a lot of foods).  This is great news for my Alaskan friends!  Our pediatrician in Fairbanks told us that even in the summer we didn’t get vitamin D because of the extreme angle of the sunbeams.  So all year we had to supplement to avoid the deficiency we all had. 

Well, I’ll sign off with that little tid bit and hope you have some new ideas that you’ll experiment with as well! 

Edible Chocolate and Peanut Butter Play Dough!

Today I’d like to introduce you to the silliest member of our family: meet Clancey!  He joined our family just a few months before our eldest was born.  You  could say I was in baby mode.  I also got six chicks at that time.  Life was a little crazy for a while, to put it lightly!  Anyway, Clancey has had a bit of a rough life with us thus far, having been attacked by moose twice and nearly fatally hit by a truck on the highway.  He loved the Alaskan winters, though, being half Malamute.  In fact, he was born at the beginning of winter, so by the time the spring came (at least six months later) he had such a hard time knowing where to go to the bathroom once all the patches of snow had melted!

I was just going back through photos last night and came across this video, taken exactly one year ago Saturday.  He loved cracking through those first layers of ice to catch the bubbles. And to think this year they’ve already been having snow on the ground for a couple weeks!  This makes me smile every time:

Clancey does the Fox Hop

Sometimes just going into a new season triggers fond memories.  For whatever reason, as the air began to get crisp and breezy, our little one (who’s only experienced four autumns) began to remember making edible play dough.  Although this is probably true to some extent anywhere, a lot of outdoor life is crammed in to the summer in Fairbanks, then we did all our fun indoor activities when the cold weather hit.  So he thought of this recipe and started reminding me about every other hour that we needed to make a batch.  And I’m so glad he did because it’s fun and simple, we can make it together, play with it together, and enjoy eating it together!  So yummy!  Really chocolate and peanut butter are always good together!  I remember this Reese’s commercial from TV Land when I was growing up!

Chocolate Peanut Butter Crash

SO cheesy!  But memorable, I guess.  Digging up the recipe reminded me of how Mom would make it growing up.  In fact, she would get groups of our friends together and make huge batches of it at a time and everyone always loved it.  Except when my buddies of the time decided to eat the evaporated milk by itself.   That didn’t go over too well…

Anyway, I only had a little honey left so I just made a half batch of the recipe below, then split that and added a little cocoa powder to one to have the chocolate along with the peanut butter.  Yum!  It was hard to convince the little hooligans to play with it they were so busy just gobbling it down!  I love how quick this is too!  Super fast, no baking, 3-4 ingredients, and minimal dishes!  A delicious consumable that’s okay to play with.  That’s my kind of activity!

2 cups evaporated milk

2 cups peanut butter

1 cup honey

2 TBSP cocoa powder (optional)

Mix them together.  Enjoy!  Yup, that’s it!  Add more evaporated milk or peanut butter as needed to achieve the perfect consistency.  It will be a little more grainy than regular playdough, you’re just looking for a moldable texture.

 

Hope you’re enjoying this autumn-time and can make some new pleasant memories with your family this season!

5 Ways We Took Preschool Beyond the Books--Our First Week!

 

 

Four years old and incredibly excited to start school.  Well, in his words, he wanted to “go to university” but we explained to him how he had to take first steps first.  It feels like we are always teaching him new things and he’s just a little sponge anyway, so preschooling at home seemed like a great idea to me, too!  So we got tiny backpacks (sister couldn’t be left out), some basic supplies, and a few simple work books.  We added in what we already had at home (crayons, glue, ruler, scissors, “science” books) and his anticipation was tangible!

We weren’t going to start until the local schools did, but I realized his excitement was not going to allow his supplies to wait at this point, so we set a start date for the following Monday.  At last the day arrived and he powered though all his lessons and put his stickers on his chart like a champ!

As I woke him up for our next day of school I told him with enthusiasm, “and we get to do school again today!”  To which he responded, “MOM, do we HAVE to!?”   Really!?  That was all I got!?  ONE day of excitement about school!  Boy, I was going to have to get creative, and quick!  =)  Thankfully, as soon as we started, he was really into it again.  But it definitely got me thinking about how I was going to keep this boy engaged.

So with that, I bring you our second week of preschool:

1.       Stick Letters:  Thankfully he can form his name with mostly straight lines.  Our only trouble was his sister trying to rearrange the letters to suit her own creativity!  I’d like to try this again with other new words as he learns them.

 

2.       Insect Anatomy: As we read about the basics of insects this week, we decided to grab a bag and collect whatever little pieces we thought we might be able to glue down.  We counted antennae, wings and legs of our newly made insects and found symmetry in that the insect would have the same number of parts (legs/wings/antennae) on one side as it did on the other. Then we were able to examine a couple live ants in our driveway!

 

 

3.       Chalk Tracing:  I know not everyone has a place to scrawl on with chalk (this is the first time we ever have!) but could be done just as easily with crayons/markers on paper.  This is all over Pintrest, but the idea is that you write a simple word (I did mine in a pale yellow so he could really see his red or blue chalk over it.  Then we would talk about the sounds each of the letters made and blend them together until he read each word!  This last step took a little determination, but he was so excited when he did finally READ a word!

4.       Rendering Lard: I’ll be writing a post about this later, but this was a fascinating experiment!  For those of you who do not know, lard is pig fat that is rendered through a slow heating process.  It’s used like shortening in baking and is making a comeback for it’s natural, healthful properties (Lauren goes into that in a little more detail on her page).  Anyway, this led to some interesting conversations about what lard was, and then what fat was, why our body needs it, but not too much, and what was left over after the lard was removed (small portions of muscle, blood vessel, and tendon) and then their role in the body.

5.       Baking:  I’m not going to lie, here: baking with these wee ones can be super stressful sometimes.  I’ve come to realize that many recipes are more forgiving than they let on, because there is no way we ended up with the right proportions of the ingredients!  But, we were able to use some of our fresh lard to make snickerdoodles (having cookies as an end product is always great inspiration to be a good helper!)  Although they don’t understand the fractions or even the measurements yet, we talked about them and he was really pointing out which measuring cups were bigger than others and asking about why we needed one teaspoon of salt instead of one cup! 

 

We still did our work books, science reading, and bible verses, but doing the extras and taking it outside sure kept him focused longer.  And with much more enthusiasm!  I hope these ideas have sparked some ideas of your own!  What have you done to keep your little ones engaged?  I would love to hear how you find ways to incorporate real life into your school!

Lovely, Effortless Lemonade (Plus Flavoring Syrups!)

Sitting out at our lemonade stand was such a joy!  Not only did I get to hang out, do preschool, read and sing with my little ones during the down time, we also got to meet many of our neighbors and just hear the stories of passer-bys.  One couple were even missionaries from Africa here on leave!  As they drank their lemonade, they told us about how the believers were faring in their area and the woman commented, “There, now you have refreshed us with lemonade, and we have refreshed you with news of your brothers and sisters in Africa!”  And it was true!  

It was perfect!  This was the page we were doing in his preschool book!

 

We had several people just want to take pictures of our stand (feel free to read up on the instructions for the lashed branch stand) and nearly everyone comment on how pleasantly surprised they were that the lemonade had such wonderful flavor.  I actually had to agree.  That sounds totally conceited, but let me explain.  I really don’t like lemonade.  I know it's horrible, but I’ve just never really had much of a taste for the drink.  So for me to admit I like it is saying something.  I had several people request the recipe on the spot and it was easy to give because the recipe was so simple.  The kids and I tried to restrain ourselves, but we still ended up drinking about a quarter of the lemonade we made.

The thing is, I didn’t feel bad at all because it was SO easy to make!  No squeezing lemons (or having them squirt in unfortunate directions) and only three ingredients IF you're counting the water.  I made another huge batch the next day for our church painting party and another one after that just for us.  I adjusted this lemonade recipe a bit to make a simple lemonade for us to sell and then I made a couple flavoring syrups to allow visitors some options.  But first, let me share with you how I made the lemonade:

You’ll need:

·         3 lemons

·         ¾ cup sugar (or 1 cup honey)*

·         6 cups water

 

·         Blender

·         Strainer

·         Pitcher

Set 1 ½ cups of water to boiling while you quarter the lemons and toss them into the blender.  When the water is hot, stir it into the sugar to dissolve, then pour it into the blender as well.  Add remaining water (if it doesn’t all fit in, you can add the rest to the pitcher.)  Start out on lowest setting and allow blender to agitate the juice from the lemon quarters for a minute or so.  I waited until the water was just becoming opaque. You don't want to grate the rinds.   Then pour through strainer (to catch all the rinds and seeds) into the pitcher.    Cool (or ice) and done! 

*I want to note, this will yield a fairly sweet lemonade, so if you prefer it to be more on the tart side, you may want to adjust this amount.

Just kitty-corner from our house is a farm stand called Me and Moore that sells the most amazing peaches right now!  They’re seriously like candy!  The kids, Clancey dog and I walked over and got a bagful.  They found some pretty little wildflowers on the way and each picked one for the lady who always works at the counter.  She’s such a sweetheart and always has a nice conversation with the kids when we’re there!  Once we got home, I followed this recipe for the syrups:  I didn’t know at the time that the lemonade would be able to stand on its own!  But it’s still fun to add a little flavor, even if just for variety’s sake, from time to time.  In fact, nearly everyone who came by requested flavoring added in.  A spoonful or two was more than enough for the flavor to come through.

Ingredients:

·         3 cups fruit

·         1/2 cup sugar

·         1 cup water

Bring the water to boil in a saucepan.  Dissolve sugar into boiling water, turn down heat to medium, then stir in fruit.  Allow to simmer for 5 minutes or until it has thickened, stirring intermittently.  Pour into jar and refrigerate until use.

I did a batch of strawberry also and they both turned out so tasty!  And they looked so cheery sitting on the stand together!  I understand life is sometimes too crazy even for this, but I picked up another flavoring cheat I wanted to pass on if you need to save some time: jam or preserves!  I had a little bit of my mom’s blackberry jam and just added a splash of water to a spoonful to thin it out a bit.  Stirred into the lemonade it turned out great! 

If you're looking for another syrup recipe, Sweet C Designs makes a very similar version that looks super yummy, too!

Anyway, I’m so glad we decided to tackle this adventure! Have you ever had a lemonade stand?  This endeavor really got me reminiscing.  I grew up near the end of a long dead-end road, so a full-blown lemonade stand wasn’t really an option.  But a few friends and I created the “Berry Berry Bunch Club” when we were barely in grade school.  We diligently picked all sorts of wild berries and made concoctions by smashing them or mixing them into juice we had swiped from the kitchen.  We put the drinks into tiny cups and sold them for a nickel to anyone who would give us the time of day!  Wow, fun times, though…

Alright, then!  Let's reel it back in from the reminiscing rabbit trail!  I hope you're having a great week and I'll leave you with this gem:
"TASTE and SEE that the LORD is good!  How blessed is the one who takes shelter in Him!" Psalms 34:8