Homemade Mustard

July 22, 2015October 25, 2017 / Winnie / Leave a comment

I am on a ‘homemake as much stuff as I can’ kick. I ran out of Dijon mustard and decided to make more instead of buying a bottle.

1 cup cold water
3/4 cup yellow dry mustard
3/4 teaspoon salt
1/8 teaspoon garlic powder
1/8 teaspoon paprika
1/2 cup white vinegar – Next time I am going to try white wine vinegar
1 tablespoon canola or vegetable oil
Honey to taste

Add all to a sauce pan and simmer until thick. (it took me about 25 minutes)

Dry ingredients:

Wet ingredients:

Simmer (and I did a quick taste test and added more honey):

Cool and put in a container for your fridge:

I am quite picky when it comes to mustard. I do not enjoy regular yellow mustard, so this take on Dijon is just the thing for me.

Yummy

Check out more at this Party:

To Grandmas House We Go!

Strawberry Freezer Jam

March 25, 2015November 1, 2016 / Winnie / Leave a comment

During our busy weekend at the first of the month, we made some freezer jam. Through Bountiful Baskets, I ended up with 8 pounds of strawberries. YUM

My 8 lbs of strawberries ended up being roughly 16 cups of chopped strawberries:

Let boil for 15 minutes.
Then use a potato masher or an immersion blender to break up the chunks.
Add sugar to taste. My family does not like traditional sweet jam/jelly, so I sweeten conservatively….maybe 1 1/2 cups went in.
Regular fruit pectin. I followed the directions based on the amount of strawberries and used 7/8 cup~ Along with about 2 cups water. Boil for a minute and then add to the strawberries.

Stir, stir, stir.
Ladle into your freezer safe containers.

Then you are done. Enjoy! So yummy. This is my second go around with this recipe and the whole family loves it.

Busy Week

March 4, 2015November 1, 2016 / Winnie / Leave a comment

This past week was pretty busy, but very rewarding.

Top of the list:

I got to have my friends 1 1/2 year old little girl, Charlotte, stay with me….cause my friends were at the hospital having twins! Mama, Daddy and twins are doing well. I loved having little Charlotte stay with me…Jules and Jane doted, fought and loved on Charlotte. So cute.

Here she is in all her little cuteness.

Charlotte did so well in a new place, away from her Mama and Daddy. Miss her little face already.

While Charlotte was with us, I took on a couple of canning projects.

Recipes to come – but we did dilly beans, strawberry jam and crushed tomatoes.

And then this happened…..

We introduced a new kitty into our family. Our last kitty, Lillian, died about a year ago and the girls have been pretty persistent in their requests. We picked this kitty up from the Yellowstone Animal Shelter, where she was being held as a stray. I do not know much about her history, only that she is 3 and was living under a front deck for about a month before Animal Control was called to pick her up.

We named her Harriet the Cat, or HarryCat. She has come when called a few times….but it seems to be more of a coincidence. We are working on it. HarryCat is so docile and sweet. She has been very accepting of the kids and dogs.

Crap! I almost forgot. Dave and I had our Birthdays as well. Obviously, there was not a lot of time for birthday exploits….but we will celebrate at a later date. 😉

Homemade Fruit Leather

February 18, 2015November 1, 2016 / Winnie / Leave a comment

Last week, I found myself with 60 apples. I was pretty positive that we couldn’t eat them all before they went bad, so I decided to make some apple fruit leather.

I started by prepping the apples – washing, peeling, coring and slicing.

I did about 30 of the apples to start with. The sliced apples were put in the largest pot I own and I added just a bit of water to assist with the cooking process. I brought the water and apples to a boil and then let it cook for about 15 minutes. This made mashing up the apples easier.

I then put the cooked apple mash into my blender in batches to get a good puree. I then put the heat on the pot again and started taste testing. I did not want to add much sugar so I ended up with less than 1/3 cup. I would add a bit in, stir and taste test until I was happy.

I lined my lipped pans with microwave safe plastic wrap and then put the apple puree filled pans into the oven at 170 F overnight (12 hours). You know its done when it is not sticky anymore but is not crunchy.

I let the leather cool in the pans and then pulled them. To store I rolled them up and put them in the fridge. With the 30 apples I ended up with 4 9×13 pans and 2 9×6 pans.