Menu Monday on Tuesday - Again! and my Snickerdoodle Recipe

Life is almost normal again!  So excited to get back into my routine and enjoy the slow, easy, countrified life I love.  All of our visiting family has left.  It was a wonderful visit with them but I just do not do well without my routine.

Here's what I am planning on feeding my family this week.  It is a bit different for us because my mother in law requested we clean out her fridge and use up what she left behind.  

Breakfast: SMOOTHIES (a must -- the beets  need to be pulled out of the garden), eggs and toast or omelets

Our hens are still laying plenty of eggs!

Lunch and Dinner:  BBQ Beef sandwiches with roasted veggies, Pizza and Beans on Toast

Snacks/Desserts:  Pumpkin Bread and Snickerdoodles

Snickerdoodle Cookies

 Snickerdoodles have a special place in my heart.  They were my dad's favorite cookie and the first cookie I ever made as a child.  Here is the recipe that I have been making for over 40 years.

1 1/2 cup sugar

1/2 cup butter

1/2 cup shortening (but I typically use all butter)

2 eggs

2 3/4 cup flour

2 tsp cream of tartar

1 tsp baking soda

1/4 tsp salt

3 TBSP sugar

1 TBSP cinnamon (mix these two ingredients in a separate bowl)

Combine sugar, butter, shortening and eggs.  Mix well.  Add flour, cream of tartar, baking soda and salt and mix again.  Form dough into one inch balls.

Roll dough balls in the sugar/cinnamon mixture and bake 8-10 minutes in a pre-heated oven at 375 degrees.

Enjoy!

Menu Monday on Tuesday and Applesauce Cake Recipe

It's Tuesday and I totally missed Monday's post.  We had chicken drama yesterday and I spent the whole day ourside being a referee.  Yeesh...

This week is a bit different.  My mother in law is visiting and she has supplied us with her extra food and the mechanic will be gone a bit later in the week taking her to the city and catching her flight home.

But we still gotta eat so here's the plan:

Breakfast - Eggs (on toast and burritos), overnight oats and homemade granola

Lunch and Dinner - Smothered burritos, beans on toast, and pizza bites

Snacks and Dessert - Applesauce cake and snickerdoodles

All of it sounds so yummy!  While I have all the ingredients out I will make some quick mixes with the applesauce cake, snickerdoodles and pizza bites.

Here is my favorite recipe for Applesauce Cake.  It's wonderful with cream cheese frosting and I change it up by using cannned pumpkin.  I also use pumpkin pie or apple pie spice instead of measuring out all the spices each time.

Applesauce Cake

2 1/2 c flour
2 c sugar 
1 1/2 tsp baking soda and baking powder
3/4 tsp cinnamon
1/2 tsp cloves
1/2 tsp allspice
1/2 cup oil
1/2 cup water
1 1/2 cups applesauce
2 eggs

Combine all ingredients in a bowl.  Grease a 9x13 dish and bake 60 minutes at 350 degrees.  Easy and Delicious!

Homestead Happenings September 14

Every Wednesday I will  post what kept me busy during the week and share my pictures.  I admit, technically we do not live on a homestead but we have the mindset of one.  We endeavor to use our land and animals to sustain us and growing each year in faith, knowledge and developing a deeper, self-sustaining lifestyle.

It has finally been a relaxing week and I feel good (I knew that I would now)!  This past week I completely slowed down and enjoyed hanging out with Stormy and homeschooling and becoming a new chick owner.  So far we have four tiny, fuzzy butts in our hen house.

Horrible lighting and a fighting mama hen makes for a bad photo.

We started to clean up our yard and I dumped some leave in with the chickens.  They loved scratching through the pile.  I also started gathering up my flower pots to see if I can  harvest any seeds for next year.

With life so easy it was simple to keep up on fermenting the chicken feed and baking egg shells to feed back to them.

Free source of calcium.

Fermented feed saves money and is healthier for the chickens.

The past two days I have been taking inventory on our eBay store and started listing Christmas music.  So while I should be working on this...

I keep getting distracted by this, which is what I see whenever I look up from my computer...

Hen house and I know there are new chicks in there...

 So I made a big cup of this to keep me focused.  Mmmmm, english toffee cappuccino...

And I got to indulge in my love of Christmas music in September.  I just do not believe that wonderful songs like Jesu Joy of Man's Desiring should be limited to a season or anything by Trans-Siberian Orchestra should ever be limited.

Christmas music 

A very good week.

Menu Monday - Quinoa Lentil Chili Recipe

It's Menu Monday or the day in which I contemplate what my family will eat this week.  We have most of the leftovers eaten from the freezer so it's back to the pantry.  I may do a bit of restocking in the pantry this month.  The freeze on our funds is over, the eBay case that went into dispute was found in our favor so I no longer need to sit on all our extra funds.  

Breakfast:  yogurt with oats, nuts and dried fruits, eggs and toast, breakfast burritos

Lunch and Dinners:  Spicy Quinoa Chili, beans on toast,  turkey sandwiches,  beans and rice

Snacks and Desserts:  ice cream, fried bread with honey, rhubarb crisp

I decided to share my recipe for Spicy Quinoa Chili.  We love it and it's healthy and frugal.  Be warned that it makes a large pot!  I like eat it as a dip with tortilla chips but this week we are eating it over fried bread, topped with shredded cheese and raw onions.


Spicy Quinoa Lentil Chili (adapted from gracefulabandon.com)

1/2 TBSP oil - I like coconut oil for high heat
1/4 cup diced onion (or dehydrated from food storage)
1 1/2 cup lentils - rinsed and soaked if you remember
1 cup quinoa - rinsed
28 oz crushed tomatoes
1/2 - 1 TBSP chili powder - but I use more
1 tsp cayenne or to taste - I use more
1/2 TBSP tumeric
1 TBSP smoked paprika
1 tsp pepper
1-3 tsp salt - to taste depends on your the broth you use
1/2 TBSP oregano
8 cups broth or water or a mix.  
1 lb ground meat or 2 cups pre cooked beans

I just dump everything in my crock pot in whatever order I find my ingredients.  Here is the instructions if you want to make it on the stove top.

1.  Heat soup pot with oil, add minced garlic and onion.  Stir until fragrant.
2.  Add in quinoa cook with garlic and onions for 2 minutes.
3.  Stir in crushed tomatoes and add in lentils.
4.  Add in spices and stir.
5.  Add in 8 cups of liquids.
6.  Add in ground meat or beans
7.  Bring to boil and reduce to a simmer for 45 minutes.  This makes a thick chili and if you would like it thinner add more liquids.

Optional toppings:  sour cream or greek yogurt, cheese, onions, parsley, jalapenos

My Frugal Reading List for September

Ahhhh, I love reading books in the Fall season.   Blustery winds and rainy days make it easy to curl up with a book and eat everything pumpkin flavored.

My new read aloud book with Stormy is On the Banks of Plum Creek by Laura Ingalls Wilder.  We just finished Little House on the Prairie and are moving on through the series.

I am still reading Dune by Frank Hebert.  Almost to the halfway mark and still enjoying it very much.  Before bed I am reading Grace in Africa by Kay Marshall Strom.  My book is actually on the Kindle that I downloaded free.  So far I am enjoying it as a guilty pleasure romance read, set in the time of the African slave trade.  I finished Trance-formation of America and have not chosen a new non-fiction book yet.

If I can finish up these two books this month I will be satisfied.  Next month is soon enough to pick out something more educational.

'cuse the language but too cute not to use

My Frugal Reading List for September

Ahhhh, I love reading books in the Fall season.   Blustery winds and rainy days make it easy to curl up with a book and eat everything pumpkin flavored.

My new read aloud book with Stormy is On the Banks of Plum Creek by Laura Ingalls Wilder.  We just finished Little House on the Prairie and are moving on through the series.

I am still reading Dune by Frank Hebert.  Almost to the halfway mark and still enjoying it very much.  Before bed I am reading Grace in Africa by Kay Marshall Strom.  My book is actually on the Kindle that I downloaded free.  So far I am enjoying it as a guilty pleasure romance read set in the time of the African slave trade.  I finished Trance-formation of America and have not chosen a new non-fiction book yet.

If I can finish up these two books this month I will be satisfied.  Next month is soon enough to pick out something more educational.

Frugal Friday and Homestead Happenings!

Wowza, what a busy week we had.  Apparently way to busy to do a Homestead Happenings post on Wednesday so I am combining it with Frugal Friday, which works because it all melds together for this family.

I finished up all my canning projects.  My water bath and pressure canners are all cleaned up and polished waiting for next year.  My goal was to use up every canning jar in the house and this year it was close.  I am left with one case of quart jars and one pint and a half jar.  That's it!  I'm not sad about the quart jars because I will use them for fermenting foods like yogurt and beets when I harvest the last of them from my garden.  

I was able to process all the frozen foods out of our large freezer and unplug that energy sucking machine down.  I dehydrated the frozen veggies I had and vacuum sealed the flours and let's just say then animals are eating very well this week.

Dehydrated veggies from freezer

Expensive flours and nuts vacuumed packed.

It  was our anniversary this month so we did our typical date.  I love a road trip so we always take an exploration drive.  This year we did it in the mechanics "Big Truck" and took a drive on the beach and then around the North Fork which is a beautiful drive up the mountain on dirt roads looking at Fall colors.  We also picked up lunch from our favorite take out but not until the next day.

Stormy learning to drive Big Truck on beach.

Driving all by herself!

Anchor Point Beach on a cloudy day.

North Fork Road.

My mother in law is up visiting for the rest of the month so we are slowing down enough to enjoy spending time with her and this week I am anxiously awaiting the birth of chicks.  Both our broody hens should be hatching their eggs soon but I gotta admit they are terrible broody hens.  Many a night I have to chase them on the right nest after finding cold eggs.  If any chicks are actually born, it will be a miracle.

Lazy Wolf Dog

Not a frugal pet but very good company.