A Smoothie Experiment

We still have lots of peaches, and lots of cans of peaches left from last year.
My tummy wanted a snack. And I had empty Popsicle molds calling my name.

I decided to make a banana-peach smoothie....and made extras for some smoothie Popsicles too.

I used 2 containers of yobaby banana yogurt.

I use flavored yogurt for all my smoothies. No matter what I try I just cannot get used to the taste of plain yogurt.

About 2 peaches. I did not chop mine up. Since they were so moist from canning, they did pretty well in the blender. But if this were a fresh peach, some chopping would definitely be suggested.

About a cup of milk & half a cup of ice cubes.

After blending I poured myself a glass. (We're getting ready for football season around here, can you tell?)

Like I said this was an experiment. Next time I experiment I'll use less milk, and more ice. Probably less yogurt too, but not much. It wasn't too over-powering.

The rest went into the Popsicle molds.

Though the banana yogurt didn't overpower the smoothie too much, the Popsicles were definitely banana. Very little peach. So I guess I should definitely use less banana yogurt next time.

G enjoyed it and ate almost all of it.

(What she didn't eat was because she discovered it was fun to "paint" her legs with a Popsicle.)

Pondering life, love and the proper peach to banana ratio.

Homemade Butter

I've been pretty curious to try my hand at making butter for awhile.
(Go ahead and picture me wearing my best bonnet & working away at churning butter.)

Except it's SOOOO much easier.

There are 2 ways to do it.
The first is an awesome upper arm work out. Put some room-temp heavy cream in a resealable container (plastic container, glass jar, etc) and shake.
Shake.
Shake some more.
Continuously shake your container for awhile. (I've heard it can take as little as 3-5 minutes, when I did it it took me 15-20 mins. But I also was impatient and didn't allow my cream to reach room-temp.)

You will know it's butter time when you can hear stuff sloshing around in there. (Yes, this is a technical recipe.)

I'm sorry I didn't take any pictures of my first attempt, cause, well, my hands were busy. Everyone else in the room was too busy doubting me.

The 2nd time, I got smart:

I know, I know it's not organic cream. The store I was at didn't have organic cream! I figured since this was purely an experiment it would be ok. Shh. Don't tell the organic police.

Pour in your organic cream. Because only people who take the time to actually make their own butter would use organic. And flip that puppy on. (I used the 2nd slowest speed, honestly going up any higher scared the beejizums out of me. Cream trying to escape the bowl.)

It'll start to get frothy.

And this is the point that I walked away because I get bored & distracted easily and only ran back to the mixer when I heard the distinctive sloshing sound.

And I had this...

BUTTER!!!

I would say this took a little less than 10 minutes. But again, I was too impatient to let the cream get up to room temp.

And do you see that liquid stuff in the bowl? That's buttermilk. (The stuff they sell at the stores in cultured buttermilk, this is the real deal!) I already have lists of things to make with buttermilk.

Pour the contents of your bowl or container through a mesh strainer. Remove your butter solids from the strainer and work it with a fork in a bowl. More buttermilk will come out. This is where methods vary, but I worked the butter with the fork, dumped it back into the strainer, then took it back out & worked it again. Probably 2 or 3 times.

Store your butter and buttermilk in the fridge.

The butter is good!! It could just be the simple extra taste of satisfaction, but I like the taste of satisfaction.

If you want salted butter, or want to get creative with flavored butter, add it to the cream before you start mixing or shaking. There's really no tried & true "recipe" that I could find. I think this is a more 'go for your own taste' thing.



New Identity

I changed my name.
Well, actually, I changed the name of the blog.
And only in the banner.
But it makes me happy, so that's all that matters, right??

Acutally, I guess it has also changed in my state of mind.
Since becoming a 'mom' I have started obsessing over having a homestead for our family. I desperately want a homestead. And judging by the fact that G, completely unprovoked, carried her pail around the entire backyard "harvesting" black walnut seeds, I am guessing that she shares the same visions.

The one thing I'm learning as I grow with God is to make the most of what I have in front of me. Not to dwell on what I think I'm missing, or what I am waiting on.

Hence, the title change.

Just because simple things stand in my way, like not owning a land or even knowing where I'll be living in 3-5 months time, I should not allow myself to feel like life is on hold. Because it certainly is not.

So I'm starting a new chapter of life. Not waiting & dwelling, but DOING. There are things I can do now to make wherever we lay our heads, our homestead. With the way the next couple years could turn out, I may be really well rehearsed in these aspects of life, so when it finally comes time to LIVE on a homestead, I'll be ready to take on the chickens & the garden.

New name. New outlook. What'dya think??

2nd Strike...

Okay, I *tried* to make bread again today.

I messed it up again. I don’t know what I’m doing wrong!!! It didn’t rise. I just don’t know if it wasn’t warm enough, or what? I am so frustrated because I love love love the smell of freshly baked bread and I would much rather have homemade bread in the house instead of having to go buy loaves at the store. I’m beginning to wonder if a bread machine would be worth it for me? I’ve heard that cost wise…it doesn’t really save you that much. But if I keep wasting flour, sugar & yeast (not to mention wasting my time)…maybe a machine would be worth it.

I had all sorts of questions yesterday…did I mix the water & yeast to vigerously. Did I knead it too much? Or too little? Was it just too dang cold in the house, even after we set it next to the space heater?

So many questions. No answers. Anybody have any answers for me??

7 Things You Should Make......Not Buy

When it comes to living a simpler life it just makes sense to make things more often than buying them. With this thought of mind I am definitely of the mindset to go big, or go home.
So more often than not, I go home.

Actually…I never really LEAVE home…to get the things I would need to make. It’s that initial investment of time & money that hangs me up. (Of course once I’ve done it once, it’s easy peasy & just becomes routine.)

I actually have an entire documented list of all the simple/natural/green things I’d like to accomplish or methods I’d like to adopt. The list keeps growing; I’ve yet to cross something off.

Then I came across this article on one of my favorite websites.

Many of the things listed in this article are ones that I have already jotted down on my own list.

So that’s it, I’m going for it. I’m going to start making something of my own. This weekend.

I just can’t decide which will be first, cleaning supplies, hair gel or bread. Seeing as I just recently replenished my supply of ALL of these (minus the cleaning supplies we’re still currently using in an effort to deplete what we have, and then replenish with a homemade version, or purchase a more earth/baby friendly version).

Making some homemade bread sounds yummy, and Tyson keeps dropping hints that he likes homemade bread. So maybe I’ll go for that. (And if I mess it up, there are two recently purchased store-bought loaves in the chest freezer.) The last loaf I tried to make I royally messed up, but I am willing to try again!

On a different subject, yet not quite that different, I would like to report that I’ve been successfully reducing trash and composting for the past few weeks. I still don’t have my nifty counter top compost pail, but I don’t HAVE to have the coolest gadgets to reduce my waste. (I’ll just make Tyson walk out to the compost pile, in the snow, every other day in the mean time!) But really, we’ve seen an immediate change in how much trash we AREN’T tossing, and that makes me feel good.