MerryHeartCrafts.comMountain Momma… Country Living

You all know what a big fan I am of flavored coffee creamers.  Well, I also love flavored coffees.  They are expensive though.  My lovely daughter (Jess) bought me a subscription to Kraft Foods Food & Family magazine.  I love it!   Here are two flavored coffee recipes I got from the magazine.  I made this one yesterday.

Maple Cinnamon Coffee

6 tbsp. ground coffee, 1/2 tsp ground cinnamon, 1/2 cup pancake syrup, 4 1/2 cups cold water, 6 tbsp thawed cool whip.   Place coffee in filter in brew basket of coffee maker, sprinkle with cinnamon.  Pour pancake syrup into empty coffee pot.  Add water to  coffee maker, brew.  When brewing is complete , stir until well blended.  Top with cool whip.   I did not follow their recipe exact.  I just made us 6 cups of coffee, using the amount of ground coffee I always do.  Adjust it to your taste.  I did not top mine with cool whip.  I did however use coffee creamer.  This is good with  gingerbread creamer but you could use whatever you like.  There are lots of new flavors available right now.

I made this recipe today.  Spiced Orange Coffee.  Into the brew basket I added the ground coffee, enough to make 6 cups.  Add to the coffee grounds, 1 tbsp orange zest, 1/2 tsp ground cinnamon.  Put 1/3 cup packed brown sugar into empty coffee pot.  Brew.  Stir until sugar is well blended.   Both these coffees were very good.   I know many of you don’t like coffee but maybe you could use these recipes with tea or even hot chocolate. 

We have gotten tons of rain yesterday and today.  They are forecasted us to get snow flurries tonight.  We’ll see.  Right now, it is just gloomy and soggy wet.  Temperature is mid 40′s though so that is nice.  School is finished for the day so I guess I better get busy doing other things.  Supper tonight is fried chicken, biscuits, gravy, corn and  homemade jam for dessert.  I hope you all have a great evening and God bless.

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I have so many pictures to share.  Here are a few more from our day at the Festival.

Here the horses are grinding the cane into juice for making molasses.

The man in charge of making the molasses was very nice.  He took the girls through the entire process step by step.  He even let them have a turn skimming off the foam. 

Spinning wool. 

An old baby cradle. 

Today we have been busy with school.  I did a batch of apples in the steam juicer.  Washed several loads of laundry.  I have a roast in crockpot for supper.  We will be having potato gravy,  green beans and homemade rolls with it.   Enjoy your day and God bless.

I thought I would show you all a quilt the girls made for Katie.  They did everything including heming it on the machine.  I thought they did a really good job.  I just finished crocheting an afgan for her but we forgot to take a picture of it.  I’ll try to get one next time we go down.

Today has been rainy and overcast here.  The air has become chillier as the day progressed.  Not much else going on here.  We did school and then Hubby and I went in to town to get some chicken feed.  They have been doing really well with their laying.  I had sold enough eggs to pay for the feed except for $2.00.   I thought that was pretty good. 

Supper tonight is deer tenderloin, gravy, corn, biscuits and plum jelly.  YUM!    Here are a few fall shots we took the other day.

This one is the field behind our house.

Enjoy your day and God bless.

Our gooseberry bush promises to have lots of fruit on it this year.  We’ve glad as we really like them.  We spent today making a swing for our neighbor.  She is in her upper 70′s and loves to swing in her yard swing after working in the garden.  We first intended to  repair her old swing but it was just too far gone.  Hubby made her a new one exactly like her old one.  We took it down and hung it up for her.  She was very happy.  We so enjoy doing things that make others happy. 

Today has been a nice day here in Floyd.  A slight breeze with warm temperatures.  You all will not believe how much our plants have grown in the greenhouse.  I will try to take a picture of them soon to let you see them.  Well, it is late and we are all hungry.  I’m frying chicken for supper with gravy, corn and biscuits.  Enjoy your day and God bless.

Good morning!  No picture today.  I just couldn’t find anything I thought  was interesting.  We had a really nice weekend.  We went down to Jessica’s on Saturday, planning on coming home that evening.  Things happened and we ended up staying the night and coming home on Sunday.  It was a nice visit.  I got to play some games with Daniel and got plenty of beautiful smiles from Sam.  I just wish I had taken my camera then I would have some pictures to post today.  

Temperatures are chilly here-about 14 degrees with a little snow falling.  Lots of cloud coverage.  I have a deer roast simmering on the wood stove.  It smells so good!  I think we will have mashed potatoes, gravy and green beans with it and, of course, fresh baked rolls.  I have two new aprons cut out and hopefully I will get to work on them today.  It is matching mother/daughter waist aprons.

Enjoy your day and God bless.

I finally finished the apron using one of the new patterns.  What do you all think?  I think my other apron pattern was a lot easier and faster but I know it is time to step it up a notch.  My thanks to Grace for modeling for me.  I used some material I already had to practice on.  I’m not sure I like the rick rack, though.  I have another pattern to try and then I will decide which one I want to use for the matching mother, daughter, doll aprons. 

No church today due to bad weather conditions.  Dave, Jess, and boys did get to come yesterday however the wind came also.  It was just too cold for Daniel to play in the snow.  Wind chills below zero.  We had a good visit though.  I made fried chicken, mashed potatoes, gravy, green beans, and homemade rolls for “lupper”.   For those of you confused by this term, this is when it is too late for lunch and too early for supper.  We also had cushaw pie for dessert with whipped creme. 

Now I must tell the story of why we had fried chicken for lupper.  Earlier in the week, Jess had mentioned she would like to have fried chicken.  As I knew they would not get to stay long, I thought something a little faster would be better.  I decided on hot roast beef sandwiches with green beans.  They called when they were on the way here and she jokingly said David would have liked fried chicken too.  This conversation was on speaker phone.  Hubby overhearing about the fried chicken, which happens to be his favorite meal, said “Oh, I didn’t know fried chicken was an option”.  By this time I am feeling a little out numbered so I decided to give in and make the chicken.  It was a wise choice.  Everyone enjoyed the meal and that makes this mama’s heart happy. 

Enjoy your day and God bless.

I thought I would share a picture of my rolls.  Always before I have put them on a cookie sheet to bake.  When I do this, I get 13-15 rolls.  Over the weekend, I tried something different and put them into 3 round cake pans.  I get 21-24 rolls using these pans and I think they look and taste better.  Yesterdays supper was fried chicken, home canned corn, and gravy.  With of course, these rolls. 

We worked on the apples some more yesterday.  I canned this juice instead of freezing it.  Freezing it is much easier but, Praise the Lord, my freezers are getting full.  I have to save some space my the deer my Hubby will be getting.  Notice my positive thinking!  Anyway, we got 5 qts of juice and 2 qts of applesauce.  Hopefully, we will be doing more today. 

I am trying out a new recipe for apple muffins for breakfast.  Thanks Cheryl for sharing.  They have just came out of the oven.  I think I will go enjoy them.  Take care and God bless.

Well, we came back home yesterday evening and I did remember to bring the camera.  The problem is the camera card is in Jessica’s pocket book.  So still no pictures.  Anyway, we have got a lot done.  All the walls and ceiling is finished.  Dave and Jess are painting it this weekend while we are home.  She decided to paint the room a light blue, the official name is icy blue.  It sounds really pretty.  We are staying here until Monday morning then going back down to work some more.  We will be coming back home Tuesday evening as Hubby has some work coming up this week.  He still has to lay the tile on the floor and do some more to the electrical.  We will be starting our revival at church tomorrow.  I am really looking forward to hearing the preacher who is bringing the message.  I have never heard him before but others that have say he does a really good job. The youth from his church will be doing the music.  We will be having a fellowship meal tomorrow following the service (of course), you know we gotta eat.  I think I will take potato soup and salisbury steak with gravy.  I’m not sure if I’ll have time to make a dessert or not but there usually is an abundance of desserts.

Temperatures here are cool-mid 50′s.  It has been raining most of the day.  It is also pretty foggy.  I think it will be a nice sleeping night.  I just made some blueberry muffins and they are ready to eat.  I think I’ll see if they are good.  Enjoy your day and God bless.

Another indicator of spring.  This flower is one of the early ones.  I’m not sure what it is but it comes up early every year.  Does anyone know it’s name?  Anyway it is always such an uplifting sight to see it coming out of the ground.  Today has been a little cool here, overcast, kinda dreary.  Yesterday was georgeous.  Windy but lots of sunshine.  Today has been school as usual.  We are all looking forward to finishing the year (hopefully) a little early.  Our expectations are to be finished around the first of May.  I guess that is if we don’t miss too many days between now and then.  Spring is the hardest for us.  We want to take too many days off and enjoy the sun.  I’ve still been working on Grace’s quilt.  I’m about 2/3 of the way finished.  I really want to get it done soon so I can put the quilting frame away for summer.  It always seems to me, spring is the time for new projects and it is hard to get old ones finished when so many new ones are calling.  I MUST REMAIN FOCUSED!  Tonight’s menu for supper is venison strips, mashed potatoes, corn, gravy and homemade biscuits.  Dessert will probably be honey and butter swirled together and put on hot biscuits.  YUM!  Tomorrow is  Ladies Bible Study day.  It is going really well.  A very good study.  I highly recommend it.  Well it is time for us to get some house cleaning done and then start on supper.  Take care and God Bless.

I’ve probably posted this picture before, but I thought we might all need a little color today.  The Butterfly bush and the Rose of Sharon are always full of brillant color.  The rocks came from over the hill on the farm.  I got Marvin to bring them over on the tractor.  He said this was a first for him, usually people want to get the rocks out of their yard not put them in.  I think however it adds to the charm.  Today temperatures will probably be in the upper 20′s.  They say a chance of wintry mix for Friday.  February is almost here though.  Somehow in my mind, in February, my thoughts turn to spring, gardening, flowers, sunshine.   Winter,however, does allow more time for things like sewing, quilting, crocheting.  I am almost finished with Julie’s quilted wall hanging.  I will post a picture of it when I’m finished.  I attempted to make homemade hamburger buns yesterday.  I do not own a hamburger bun pan so I thought I might could put them in my cast iron biscuit pan.  Not a good idea.  The tasted good, however, they looked like jumbo muffins.  We ate them last night covered with cooked deer and gravy and mashed potatoes.  No one seemed to mind how they looked.  I don’t like to give up though so I will try another approach next time.  Well, better get started on school.  God Bless.