Lots of little seedlings

I spent a good while yesterday transplanting some of the seedlings that had come up and were outgrowing what they were in, so I put them in styrofoam cups and then started a few new seeds.  We now have 6 herbs starts and over 180 seeds started.  Here is a picture of them getting some sun on the porch today (it's been beautiful out the last 3 days!).

And the dogs are enjoying the sun today as well!

Homemade bread & garbage soup

Last night my sister Kassie and I tried our hands at making homemade bread. The first time we have ever made bread, but it turned out pretty well I must say!  We made two loaves and went through an entire loaf with dinner (which was garbage soup, we'll get to that soon ;)  We took the other loaf to my Grandfather and Uncle who ended up eating half the loaf before we left the house!  We have two more loaves in the oven today.  It's a really easy recipe with only 7 ingredients, here is how we made it.  Add 3/4 cup of warm water to a bowl.  Slowly mix in one pack of active dry yeast until it is dissolved.  Add 1 tsp of salt, 1 1/2 tbsp of sugar, 1 tbsp of vegetable shortening and 1/2 cup of milk to the mixture.  Mix in two cups of all-purpose flour, after that is mixed in, keep adding flour by the tablespoon until the dough is chasing the spoon around the bowl.  Turn dough out onto floured counter/board and knead, adding small amounts of flour until the dough is soft and smooth, not sticky to the touch.  Put dough in buttered bowl, turn it over so the top is greased, cover and let rise for 1 hour in a warm spot.  Punch down the dough, turn out onto floured counter/board and knead again.  Form dough into loaf and put into buttered bread pan, cover and let rise again for 30 minutes in a warm spot.  Score the top of the dough with a knife and put in preheated oven at 375 degrees F.  Bake about 45 minutes or until golden brown.  Take it out and turn out onto a dishcloth or cooling rack.  VERY easy, I think we'll try our hand at some rye bread soon!

Waiting on it to rise

Fresh out of the oven

Warm slices of bread for dinner

Now on to the garbage soup I was talking about, it's never the same soup twice.  Basically you throw anything into the pot that you have in your fridge and/or pantry.  This one was really good, I probably can't remember everything that was in it (my father made it and he probably doesn't even know as Kassie was throwing a few things in as well ;)  Started with a box of beef broth and a can of chicken broth as that is what we had.  We had two left over sausage patties from breakfast so he broke those up into little pieces and threw them in, we threw in a big jar of Italian stewed tomatoes we canned last year and mom had some left over Chinese food in the fridge - General Tso's chicken and some fried rice - that went in as well (chicken was chopped up in little pieces), and we tossed in some chicken left over from our Chicken & Rice dinner the other night (also chopped up little), might have tossed in some of the rice as well, we had 2 heads of cabbage in the fridge so dad chopped up half a head of cabbage and threw it in.  We had a couple of fresh mushrooms left in the fridge so we chopped those up and threw them in too.  We had leftover sauteed peppers and onions from the other night when we had fajitas - threw that in too.  I'm sure there was more stuff in there but can't remember it right now, all I know is it was tasty ;)  The rule is just to throw stuff in there until you have a full pot.  We took our fresh bread and dipped it in the soup and had a wonderful meal. Here is a picture of garbage soup below, might not look all that appetizing but it tastes a lot better than it looks!

Table made from wooden crates

I LOVE this and I have decided, one day, I will do this. I love stuff like this.  Mom mentioned something about maybe putting glass over the top, I think I might like just the wooden surface, but glass would probably be easier to clean if anything was spilled on it :)

The chickens today

The chickens are growing quickly.  We have 30 right now, 10 Cornish Rocks (meat birds), 7 Plymouth Rocks, 6 Reds (could be several different kinds - most likely Rhode Island Reds, we'll see when they are older), 2 Leghorns and 5 Bantams. The Bantmas are just ornamental birds, not to great for eggs or meat, but mom likes Bantams and wanted a few :)  the Reds, Leghorns and Plymouth Rocks will be egg birds but could be used for meat as well.  The Cornish Rocks will go into our freezer when they are big enough which usually does not take to long - usually when they are around 14 weeks old they will be read.  They are growing really fast, looking kind of rough right now since they have a lot of feathers coming in.  Here are a few pics from today...

Just bopping around their box

Posing for the camera

Plymouth Rocks

One of the little Bantams, I like this little fella

One of the Bantams, he's a Cochin (he has fuzzy feet!)

Cornish Rock on the far right, a Red next to it, 2 little Bantams & a Leghorn on the far left

SCENTSY

I love Scentsy products, especially with having a house full of dogs sometimes it's nice to have a little fragrance, and Scentsy certainly does the job!  So I decided to become an Independent Scentsy Consultant. Scentsy is pet and child safe as the wax never heats hot enough to burn and there is no flame as it's a wickless candle.  And with over 80 scents, there is a fragrance for just about anyone.  Not to mention their line of Layers products (lotions, shower gels, bath tablets, and much more!).   Check out my website at www.krystyl.scentsy.us and if you have any questions at all, email me at sdwhippets@aim.com  It is a wonderful product with so many scents that will just brighten up your entire day!

New recipes

With mom having such a bad time with her back lately, but not being a person that likes to sit there and do nothing, she's taken up cooking a lot more and trying new recipes, dehydrating things and canning up whatever she possibly can :)  Today we are trying two new recipes, Collard Green, Olive Oil & Parmesan Soup.  Very, very easy recipe that mom and I had done in just a few minutes and in the crock pot to sit for a few hours before dinner time.  Heat 2 tablespoons of olive oil in large skillet over medium-high heat, add 1 small Spanish onion, sliced and 3 cloves of minced garlic with some salt and pepper.  Cook and stir 4 to 5 minutes, until the onion begins to soften.  Wash and chop 2 pounds of collard greens (or kale, we substituted kale for the collard greens ourselves) and add, cook and stir a few minutes until it becomes bright green and tender.  Add 8 cups of chicken broth to a crock-pot and add the collard green, garlic and onion mixture in the broth.  Cover, cook on low for 3 hours.  Then you just spoon the soup into bowls, sprinkle with Parmesan cheese and a drizzle of extra virgin olive oil and voila!  Here are some pics...

After the collard greens had been added to the onions and garlic

Into the chicken broth to sit until dinner time - yum!

And for the next recipe for the evening, Chicken & Rice.  We have made chicken and rice before, but this was a bit different.  You combine flour, salt and pepper into a ziploc bag, add chicken thighs (about 10 of them), get them nice and coated.  In a large skillet, over medium heat, brown chicken in oil (just a bit of oil, not doing a full pan or deep fry, just getting them brown).  In an ungreased baking dish, place 1 cup of uncooked long grain rice, sprinkle with 1/4 chopped onion, and 2 cloves of mined garlic. Top with mushrooms (we used 3 or 4 large, fresh mushrooms), add 2 cups of chicken broth (we actually tripled this recipe with the rice since we have a lot of mouths to feed, so we used 3 cups of rice and so on).  Place the chicken on top, cover and bake at 350 degrees for 1 hour or until the chicken is cooked and rice is tender.  Sprinkle with parsley if you like.  Here are a few pics...

The chicken being browned

The rice, chicken broth, onion, garlic and mushrooms, waiting for the chicken

In the oven and cooking now!

And for a little something else, we got a ton of garlic the other day at a good price so mom chopped it all up and it's in the dehydrator.  Hoping to get a mortar and pestle soon and I can make our own garlic powder ;) 

Our homesteading beginnings

In case you would like to follow our adventures into homesteading, this blog is for you ;)  We started with a garden and learning to can last year.  We had a small garden before but last year we decided to go much bigger (and this year will be even bigger than last year!).  We had all sorts of veggies and canned a lot of stuff - we had a lot of tomato plants which made for a lot of whole tomatoes, stewed tomatoes and homemade spaghetti sauce that we canned.  We had lots of peas and beans but ate most of those fresh or froze them since we did not get a pressure canner until later in the year.  We had a ton of peppers, bell, cayenne, banana, jalapeno and so on.  Cabbage, okra, broccoli, cauliflower and several different kinds of herbs along with more squash and zucchini than we knew what to do with, but we were able to can up a TON of zucchini bread and butter pickles which turned out to be quite popular.  Here is our garden from last year.

This was a typical everyday harvest when things were really producing...

We also visited the farmer's market several different times last year and got fruits and what not, here are a few pictures of some of the things we canned last year...

As of right now, we have seedlings started, the garden is burnt off and waiting to be tilled.  I'll post some pictures as we work on the garden, right now it's not much to look at.  We plan on expanding our garden this year, so it will be a ton of work but there are enough people here to take care of it :)  I have joked with mom that we need our own little family compound between her and dad, myself and my boyfriend TJ, my sister Kassie and her boyfriend Todd and two brothers - Stuart and Sterling, Stuart still lives here, so currently 7 people are living here.  

This years new adventure... chickens!!!!  We currently have 30 chicks, several different types - a couple meat birds, a few layers and a few that are good for both, as well as a few cute little Bantams.  Updates on them as they mature, we will be starting construction on the chicken coop in the next few days and I will take pictures as everything progresses.  In the meantime, here are a few pictures of cute little chicks!