food

A Year In Review

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It is hard to believe that this blustery day in February marks the one year anniversary of Making of a Home.  Thank you so much to all of you who have been following my musings over the course of the last year!  I am deeply grateful for each of you.

Today I would like to share with you some of my favorite (and your favorite) posts from this past year.  Thank you again, and be on the look out for some new and exciting changes and additions to Making of a Home over the course of the next year.

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Chocolate Anyone?

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Inspiration

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Laundry Day

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Upstream

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Let Them Read

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Rhubarb Goodness

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Spring Soup

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It’s In My Blood

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Pastaless Lasagna 

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Fuasa—Italian Easter Bread

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Generational Wealth

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Farm Fresh

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Ode to the Strawberry

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Retreat

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Grandma Dit’s Carrot Cake

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Canning Day

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New Chapter

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Suburban Homestead

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Walk with Us

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Thanksgiving 2012

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Musings

Homemade Granola Bars

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As I mentioned on Monday, we are prepping for a winter hiking trip, so I’ve been trying to come up with some homemade snacks to bring along.  I wouldn’t want the troops to get hungry on our fun, little adventure.

While the girls busied themselves in the playroom yesterday, crafting all kinds of Valentine goodness, I messed up the kitchen a bit and came up with this granola bar recipe.  We all sampled the granola bars last night for dinner and agreed the test was a success.  Enjoy!

In a large bowl, mix together the following ingredients:

3 cups rolled oats

1 cup whole wheat flour

1 cup unsweetened shredded coconut

1 teaspoon baking soda

3 tablespoons seeds of your choice (I used Garden of Life’s Super Seed, but you could use flax seed, chia seed, etc.)

1/3 cup brown sugar

3/4 cup unsweetened dried bing cherries

3/4 cup unsweetened dried cranberries

Then, in a saucepan over medium heat,  mix together:

2/3 cup honey

1/3 apple sauce

Once the honey and applesauce mixture is combined, remove from the burner and mix in 1 teaspoon vanilla.

Pour the honey/applesauce/vanilla mixture over the dry ingredients and mix until well incorporated.  Line a 13X9 baking dish with parchment paper.  Pour the mixture into the pan and pat down firmly.  Bake at 325 degrees for 20 minutes.  Allow to cool for at least 20 minutes before removing from the pan.  Cut into bars.  Enjoy!

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*A note about all my recipes:  I use all organic ingredients, local when available.  I use non-homogenized milk, and all of the dairy we use is from animals raised on pasture. I also use oils that are non-GMO verified.  All our meat is raised locally on organic feed, and our beef is grass-fed, grass-finished.  All our spices and cane sugar are fair-trade certified and purchased through a cooperative.

At This Moment

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At this moment I am…

~glancing out my kitchen window, as the snow blows sideways across our yard.

~snacking on a bit of left over pumpkin tiramisu.  The recipe for this fabulous dessert can be found in A Year of Pies.  Yum!

~organizing volunteers for our church’s Friday Lenten Fish Fry.  Join us if you are able…It is always such fun!

~enjoying warm coffee roasted by JavaMania Gourmet Coffee Roastery…one of my favorite local coffee roasters.

~supervising another burlap project, repurposing coffee bags from the lovely people at JavaMania.  More on this activity in a few days.

~crafting a few new woolens to bring along on a winter hiking trip we plan to take in the very near future.

~beginning a new book, The Nature Principle by Richard Louv.  I have already enjoyed another of his works, The Last Child In The Woods, and hope to be enthralled with this read as well.

~wishing you a wonderful week!

What I’m Into This Week

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Whew.  It has been one of those weeks.  I know you all understand what I’m talking about…One of those weeks where all of a sudden you look at the calendar and realize multiple days have gone by without your noticing.  Yes.  That has been my week.

I think one reason for the craziness is I seem to have had my hand in a bit of everything this week.  So, with that said, here is what I’m into this week…

  • My girls had a few friends over and they made some Valentine’s Day ornaments using the “Salt Dough” recipe from Paula Deen’s My First Cookbook.
  • I just finished reading Radical Homemakers by Shannon Hayes, and let me tell you, it is a fabulous book!  It gave me a whole new perspective on homemaking as a means of ushering in social change.  Amazing.
  • I also just picked up another book by Shannon Hayes, Long Way On A Little.  It contains great insight into the world of eating closer to the source, and also has a ton of great recipes and project ideas.  Hopefully you will see some of this in action in upcoming posts.
  • It’s not only non-fiction on my reading list this week, I also just started reading Gone Girl for my next book club gathering.  It is a bit on the creepy side, but it is definitely a page-turner.
  • A dear friend of mine just passed along this link to a great homemade fruit snack recipe.  My youngest and I made four batches already this week and they are being gobbled up as fast as we can make them.
  • I started a crocheting project with wool from this farm.  It is working up nicely, and  rest assured there will be a picture of the finished project coming soon.
  • I’ve been perusing this thrift store and this one, and this antique mall lately for some new dishes.  I’ve come home with a lot of cute sweaters…and not so many dishes…ha.
  • My oldest daughter and I are looking forward to making quite a bit of cheese today with our kit from New England Cheesemaking Supply Company.
  • I want to redecorate our main bathroom, and I’ve been looking to make this project as the focal point of the room.
  • And last but certainly not least, I plan to try out two more pie recipes from A Year of Pies, my new favorite cookbook.IMG_0610

Valentine Number Two

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My youngest daughter’s Valentine idea yesterday led me to another idea I could use for my oldest daughter’s Valentines.  I used a similar play on words, changed sew to sow, and voila…2013 Valentines are done.  Here’s how to do it…

Step 1:  Cut a length of ribbon that will fit around your chosen seed pack.  (I gave myself an extra inch.)

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Step 2:  Put a dot of hot glue on one end of the ribbon and attach it to the seed pack.  Then use another dot of hot glue to attach the other end of the ribbon to itself.  (This way the seed pack won’t slip out of the ribbon.)

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Step 3:  Print your text I’m “SOW” happy you are my Valentine! onto these labels.

Step 5:  Place one label on the seed pack, over the seam of the ribbon.

And that’s it!

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Happy crafting!

At This Moment

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At this moment I am…

~looking out my kitchen window at our puddle-ladden yard from all of our rain last night.

~glad I made the decision to attend daily Mass this morning.  This is something I need to start doing more often.  It was such an uplifting way to start out my day.

~reveling in the fact that we were recipients of one of the Annie’s Homegrown Grants for Gardens.

~amazed and very thankful for the outpouring of support we have received in regard to our school garden project.

~preparing to make some more homemade granola.

~scouring the internet for cute Valentine ideas.  If any of you crafting people out there have come upon any great ideas, please share them in the comment section.

~scanning the mess that has accumulated in each and every room of my house, and wondering whether or not I want to pick it up, or snuggle in and read a story with my youngest baby.  I’m thinking the later sounds so much better 🙂

~wishing you all a fabulous Monday!

For the Love of Pie

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I am in love.  I am in love with a book…all about pie.  From as far back as I can remember, pies have donned the table of every family gathering.  Whether it was Thanksgiving or Christmas, Easter or Mother’s Day, or even The Fourth of July, pie seemed to take the lead as the star of the dessert show.

My husband has long known of my self-admitted pie obsession, and gave me a fabulous birthday present this year:  A Year of Pies: A Seasonal Tour of Home Baked Pies by one of my fav do-it-yourselfers Ashley English.  After just one flip of the page I knew I was in love.  Oh my.  Each pie looks better than the last, and my girls and I found ourselves nestled on our couch, thumbing through the crisp pages, vowing to make each and every pie in the book by the end of 2013.

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Inspired by the contents of this book, we decided to host an afternoon of pie tasting.  Yes, you heard that correctly.  We spent Monday afternoon, crowded in our warm kitchen with family and friends, eating nothing but pie and drinking mead and coffee.  (I mean, you can’t very well eat a honey pie without honey mead to go with it now can you?)  I think it was the tastiest afternoon I have enjoyed in some time.  Yum.

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Hearty Oatmeal Chocolate Chunk Cookies

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I am constantly testing out recipes in my kitchen, attempting to incorporate local organic ingredients to amp up the healthiness of the goodies we love to eat, while also keeping them super yummy.  I still had some locally-grown rolled oats in my fridge from this farmer and whole wheat flour from this farming family, so I created this recipe to highlight those hearty grains and their lovely earthy, nutty flavors.  Enjoy!

Ingredients:

1/2 cup butter

1/2 cup coconut oil

1 cup brown sugar (packed)

1/2 cup granulated cane sugar

2 eggs

1 teaspoon vanilla

1/2 baking soda

1 cup whole wheat flour

1 cup all-purpose flour

1 1/2 cups rolled oats (not quick oats)

4-6 oz. high quality milk chocolate chopped into chunks (I love using Green & Black’s Organic Chocolate in all my baking.)

Cream the butter, coconut oil, and both sugars using a hand blender or stand mixer.  Then blend in the eggs and the vanilla.  After all of these ingredients have been well incorporated, add the baking soda, followed by both flours.  Now, mixing by hand, add the oats and chocolate.

Scoop the dough out (about 2 tablespoon-size) and bake at 375 degrees for 7-9 minutes, depending on whether you like chewy oatmeal cookies or crunchy ones.

*A note about all my recipes:  I use all organic ingredients, local when available.  I use non-homogenized milk, and all of the dairy we use is from animals raised on pasture. I also use oils that are non-GMO verified.  All our meat is raised locally on organic feed, and our beef is grass-fed, grass-finished.  All our spices and cane sugar are fair-trade certified and purchased through a cooperative.

Venison Chorizo

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My hubby has been out there in the wee hours of the morning, waiting patiently for a deer to meander his way for a long time now.  Eight years if we are counting.  But who is really?  Well, after all this time, it finally happened.  We have fresh venison!  And I must say it is a festival of all things venison around here these days….venison stew, venison burgers, venison meatloaf…and as of yesterday, venison chorizo.  Yum.

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The whole family got involved yesterday afternoon, as the temperature around here plummeted into the single digits and we were forced indoors.  We used our absolutely favorite chorizo recipe from Rick Bayless’ Mexico One Plate at a Time, substituting the pork shoulder the recipe calls for, with venison.

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We purchased this meat grinder yesterday, to assist with the process, and once we got going and figured out how the machine actually worked, we were well on our way to a delicious dinner.

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And to my absolute astonishment, after we finished making the chorizo, each gal gobbled up a bunch of mini chorizo burgers they had hand-crafted themselves!