MerryHeartCrafts.comMountain Momma… Country Living

The girls and I made molasses cookies today.  They are one of my favorites.  I thought I would share the recipe I use:

1 cup butter- softened, 1 1/4 cup sugar, 1/2 cup molasses, 2 eggs-slightly beaten, 1/4 tsp salt, 2 1/4 tsp. baking soda, 2 1/4 tsp. ground ginger, 1 1/4 tsp. ground cloves, 4 cups flour (I use 3 cups whole wheat and 1 cup unbleached all purpose)  Combine all ingredients and drop by spoon onto cookie sheet.  Bake at 350 degrees for 10 min.  Sprinkle tops with sugar.

These cookies always make me think of fall, however it has been pretty warm here today, upper 80′s.  The night temperature though has been cooling down nicely.  It was mid 50′s this morning, nice sleeping weather. 

Enjoy your day and God bless.

Our blackberries are doing much better than I thought they would.  Today makes 3 gal. I’ve picked. YUM!

Yesterday we finished the pears.  Later, we went up to the garden and SURPRISE!  Lots of beans were ready.  We canned 15 quarts and had enough for dinner and lunch today.  

Tomorrow we will be going down to Jessica’s.  Sam has a doctors appointment so the girls and I will be playing with Daniel.  Jess is going to make supper for us before we come back home.  Last night’s menu was fried chicken, green beans, and rice.  We had cantalope and watermelon for dessert.  It certainly has been hot here for the last few days.  Hotter than usual I think.  Oh well, fall will be here soon and everyone knows what follows fall.  I think we better enjoy these hot, summer days.  Cold winter days will be here before we know it.

I think the girls and I will make pizza sauce to can today from the tomatoes we picked yesterday.  The recipe I use is:

1/2 cup oil, 4 med. onions chopped, 4 cloves garlic, 1/4 cup dried parsley, 1 gal. tomato juice, 2-12 oz cans tomato paste, 1/2 cup sugar, 2 tsp. oregano, salt, and basil, 2 bay leaves, 3/4 tsp. black pepper.  mix all ingredients, simmer about 2 hours.  Process pints 30 min on 10 lb pressure.  Yields about 12 pts.  I will be adding banana peppers and some hot peppers to mine today as I have quite a few of these in the garden.

I guess I better get busy with these projects.  Enjoy your day and God bless.

Our spaghetti sauce turned out really good.  We got 12 qts from a half  bushel of tomatoes.  Today we will do the other half bushel.  The recipe we used:

Scald and peel half a bushel of tomatoes (we used our food strainer instead), 6 cups chopped onions, 4 chopped green peppers, 1 clove of garlic.  Cook for 1 and a half hours, stirring frequently.  Add 1 pt crisco oil, 1 cup sugar, 1/2 cup salt, 1 tbsp oregano, 1 tbsp crushed basil leaves, 1 tbsp italian seasoning, 1 tbsp parsley, 5-12 oz cans tomato paste, 4 jalopeno peppers.  Cook another 45 min stirring frequently.  Put in jars.  Heat lids and seals to boiling.  Put lids and seals on jars.  Cover jars with towel and let sit overnight.  

This recipe does not call for processing as the liquid is so hot when you put it into the jars.  However, if you are uncomfortable with this method you can process in a hot water bath canner or freeze the sauce.  

We better get busy.  Lots to do today.  We need to get busy on the other spaghetti sauce and on cleaning house.  The ladies will come tomorrow for bible study.  Take care and God bless.

I decided yesterday to pick some more gooseberries and make a gooseberry cobbler.  I had never made this before.  It turned out very good.  Tasted a lot like cherry cobbler.  The recipe I used is:

1/2 cup butter, 1 cup sugar, 1/4 cup flour, 1 tsp almond extract, 1/2 cup water, 4 cups gooseberries.  Melt butter in 9X13 baking dish.  Combine sugar and flour.  Mix almond extract and water and add to sugar mixture; add berries.  Pour into pan.  TOPPING:  1 cup sugar, 1 cup flour, 1 tbsp oil, 1 egg-mix ingredients until crumbly.  Put on top of berry mixture and bake at 375 degrees for 40 min.  I think this would work with just about any fruit.

  Somehow during my picking I managed to get too close to a wasp.   Not good!   I also made my own tortillas yesterday for supper.  Another first.  They were really good and not too hard to make.   I think I would try them again. 

We got a little rain last night.  Lots and lots of thunder and lightning.  I could have done without the thunder and lightning but we really need rain.  Hopefully we will get more this weekend.   The garden and yard really need a drink.  Jess and family will be coming up tomorrow for a little visit.  I can hardly wait to see them.  I know Sam has grown so much already and Daniel seems to grow up more each time I see him.  Family is such a blessing from God.

Bible study today so I need to start getting ready.  Take care and God bless.

I thought I would post a few pictures of things that are growing in our garden. 

Green beans starting to set on the vine.  I will soon be able to pick some of these and enjoy them.

Our hot peppers.  They will taste so good in our homemade salsa.

Sweet banana peppers.  YUM!  Hubby and I have had to start watering our garden.  It is so dry here.  Forecast is calling for a chance of rain over the weekend.  We really need it.  Seems like no matter how much you water, it never does the garden as much good as rain from God does.  I think I forgot to tell everyone what a nice weekend we had here-very cool temperatures.  Two mornings when we got up the temperature was 43 degrees- then up to the lower 50′s, upper 50′s and today mid 60′s.  Daytime temperatures over the weekend were great-low to mid 70′s.  Starting Monday though its been back up to HOT-not near as hot as some places but hot for us.  96 degrees yesterday when Hubby came through Christiansburg.  Upper 80′s here on the farm. 

Last nights supper was grilled chicken, green beans, pasta salad and rolls.  I fixed everything on the grill so as not to heat the house up any more than it already was.  We ate outside at the picnic table.  It was really nice.  A little breeze was blowing which helped a lot .  Yesterday I got a recipe from my friend Vicki-applesauce pie.  I made it and thought it was really good.  I wanted to share it with you all.

2 eggs, 1 cup sugar, 2 tbsp flour, 1 tsp.ground nutmeg, 1 stick melted butter, 1 cup applesauce, 1 tsp vanilla.  Combine sugar, flour, and nutmeg.(You can use cinnamon instead or a little of both).  Beat eggs, add eggs to dry ingredients.    Gently combine butter applesauce and vanilla until mixed.  Pour into pie shell.  Bake at 350 for 45 min or until golden brown.   (I would recommend if your applesauce is sweet to cut down some on the sugar, I didn’t but Hubby thought it was a little too sweet.  I thought it was just fine.)

Enjoy your day and God bless.

Today has been kinda a resting day.  So much has been going on here lately, I thought the girls and I needed a day to rest.  Of course, as all you know there is no such thing as a completely resting day.  Especially during the week.  Anyway, I decided as I was resting to make a cherry pie.  I used the cherries we picked over the weekend.  I put about 3 cups of pitted cherries and about 1/2 cup sugar.  I brought this to a boil and let it boil down some.  Then I thickened it with 2 tbsp. cornstarch mixed with 2 tbsp. water.

Then I made my pie crust.  The recipe I use is:  1/4 tsp. salt, 1/3 cup milk, 1/2 cup oil.  Mix all this together, then add 2 1/3 cups sifted all purpose flour.

Then I divide the dough into 2 parts for the bottom crust and the top.   I must warn you though this next picture is not too pretty.  I have never been good at rolling out pie crust.  I want to be, so I keep trying.  Maybe someday.

The finished product.  I know it doesn’t look too good but I believe it will taste great.  Especially with that homemade vanilla ice cream I’m making.  We are also having pork tenderloin, pinto beans and mashed potatoes. I think I will have  cornbread with this.  Today for lunch I had my first batch of wilted lettuce and green onions, so I had to bake cornbread to go with it.  Now, where I from they would have said a “mess” of lettuce and onions but I didn’t want to confuse those of you who do not understand mountain talk.  For you all who don’t know what this is, I’ll explain. First pick the lettuce and onion, fry some bacon.  Then you wilt down the lettuce and onion with the hot bacon grease.  Add a little salt and enjoy with cornbread.  Hubby likes pinto beans with his. Anyway you fix it, it is good!  My ice cream maker is finished, so I must go.  Take care and God bless.

My accomplishment for the day.  This cake goes by several different names.  Some call it a stack cake.  Some call it a lassie (molasses) cake.  No matter what name you call it, it is just plain GOOD.  When I was growing up in the mountains of southwest va, this cake was very popular among my mom’s family.  You very seldom had any type of family get together that someone didn’t make this cake.  Of course, as a young girl I took this for granted.  Ate the cake and never thought about learning to make it myself.  Then we moved away from family and of course I wanted me some stack cake.  I called my aunt and got the recipe.  It has taken much trial and error but I think I’ve just about got it right.  This is a recipe I want to pass down to my girls.  Old mountain recipes will be lost if we don’t teach the next generation how to make them (even if they don’t want to learn).  If anyone is interested in the recipe, here it is:  1/2 cup oil, 1 cup sugar, 2 eggs,   1 1/2 tsp. ginger, 1/2 cup hot water, 1/2 cup molasses, 3 cups self-rising flour.  Mix all ingredients together.  Turn mixture onto floured surface.  Knead until slightly stiff.  Divide into 6 parts.  Put wax paper into round cake pans. ( I do three at a time)  Take each section of dough, spread out thinly in cake pans.  Bake at 350 degrees for 10-12 minutes. Romove from oven.  Place on cooling rack.  Repeat process for the other 3 sections.  Spread apple butter between the sections.  Let set overnight to allow the apple butter to moisten the cake layers.  Then serve.  Many enjoy this cake with buttermilk.  Any questions, just leave a comment or e-mail me.  Enjoy and God Bless.