MerryHeartCrafts.comMountain Momma… Country Living

Tired of buying this out of the store?  Well, today Jess and I came across a recipe to make our own.  We found it in our Mennonite cookbook.   I needed to make sausage balls for our thanksgiving meal and of course my store bought bisquick mix was out of date.   I will  be making this mix today but I felt confident enough in Mrs. Shank’s recipe to post it without trying it first.  I very seldom do that but every recipe I have tried from this cookbook has been excellent.  I feel confident this one will be also.   The recipe is:

8 cups all purpose flour, 1/3 cup baking powder, 2 tsp. cream of tartar, 3 tbsp sugar, 1 tbsp salt, 1 1/2 cups dry milk powder.  Mix together thoroughly.  2 cups vegetable shortening.  Cut in until mixture is fine uniform crumbs.  Store in airtight container in cool dry place.  Yield  13 cups mix which makes 45-50 biscuits.  To make biscuits, blend together 3 1/2 cups mix and 2/3 cup water.  Stir just until liquid is mixed into the dough.  Form into a ball and knead slightly.  Pat or roll out to 1/2″ thickness.  Cut with biscuit cutter.  Place on greased baking sheet and bake at 375 degrees for 12-15 min.  Makes 12 large biscuits.

Temperatures are nice here today but the clouds are moving in.  I have clothes on the line, hoping they will dry.  Yesterday was a beautiful day with lots of sunshine.  I certainly am enjoying these warm temperatures.  I was looking on our calendar.  Last year on Dec. 5th we had our first snow and it snowed all winter.   It was a beautiful but hard winter.  I wonder what the Lord has in mind for this winter.

Time for school.  Enjoy your day and God bless.

I started first with fresh picked apples.  I sliced them, and put them into the microwave for about 10 min. or until tender.

Next, I put the apples through my Roma sauce maker.  A food mill will work too.  Then I put the applesauce into a pan and put them in the oven.  Sorry I forgot to get a picture of this step.  You can put them on the stove to cook or cook them overnight in a crockpot.  I use the oven method, but am thinking of trying the crockpot.  Here is my recipe that I use.  I got it from the Mennonite cookbook.

Apple Butter

1 gal. applesauce, 6 3/4 cup brown sugar (this can be adjusted to taste), 1 cup apple cider or vinegar, 1 tsp. ground cinnamon, 1/4 tsp. allspice, 1/4 tsp. ground cloves.  Mix ingredients together.   If using oven, put into an oven safe pot, bake at 350 degrees for 3 hrs.  stirring frequently.  I stir mine about every 30 min.  If using top of stove, cook on low for 1 1/2 hrs.  stirring much more frequently as the stove top method is more likely to stick to the kettle.  If using the crockpot method, put in the crockpot and cook overnight.  Stirring only occasionally. 

The result.  Beautiful applebutter.  I like this recipe much better than any other I have tried.  I have used a recipe that called for cinnamon red hots.  It makes the applebutter a red color.  We prefer the dark brown color.   This recipe is very friendly.  You can purchase store bought applesauce, use the crockpot method and it requires very little effort to have delicious applebutter.  You also can freeze this instead of canning it. 

Temperature here this morning is rather chilly.  Mid 40′s with clouds and rain.  No fog yet.  I guess I’ll be drying clothes inside today.  Take care and God bless.

We were extremely impressed with the food strainer.  It was super fast compared to the old food mill and had very little waste.  We processed a bushel of apples in about 4 1/2 hours.  We used both big canners.  We got 12 qts and 24 pints.  YUM!  I have always used the hot water bath canner to process applesauce.  However, I read in my Mennonite cookbook, they could be processed in the pressure canner.  We tried that yesterday and it went very fast.  15 min. on 5 lb. pressure.  Much faster than using a bath canner.  Vicki and I had a great time and of course the kids had fun.  It is so much more pleasant sharing canning with a friend.  I am so thankful the Lord placed our families together.  Good friends are sometimes hard to find and I consider Vicki one of the best.

  The girls and I are planning a “girl day” out today.  We are going into C-burg to run some errands.  This will include Wal-Mart and Goodwill.  Temperatures have been very warm here in Floyd.  On the farm though, it isn’t near as bad as it is in town.  We are usually a few degrees cooler.  In the summer this is a plus, in the winter not so good.  Thankfully, we have quite a few shade trees in the yard and that really helps. 

Time for us to get ready to leave.  Enjoy your day and God bless.

My rose bush is full of these little buds.  I can’t wait to see them in bloom!  Of course, I will take a picture so you all can see them too.  Today we begin our new study today on I Corinthians.  Pray for us, as the ladies seem to think this will be a hard study.  To me, hard means digging deeper.  Hopefully, digging deeper means understanding deeper.  We’ll see.  Yesterday was a beautiful day here in Floyd.  Sunshine, not too warm, just right.  I washed clothes again and hung them out on the line to dry.  I thought I should take advantage of the sunshine.  They are calling for rain this evening through Monday.  Every year, our church does a youth Trout Fest day.  It is scheduled for tomorrow.  The pond is already stocked and ready to go.  It is a big day. The kids fish from 9:30 to 12:00.  Then we have a picnic lunch.  Hotdogs with all the fixin’s.  Lots of desserts.  The kids and the adults have a LOT of fun.  Hopefully, it will not get rained out.  We went over to a friend’s house last night.  I made homemade cinnamon rolls and took them to share.  Good coffee, good food, good fellowship.  Life is good and God is great!  I took Jessica’s advice and made the rolls a little different this time.  I put chopped pecans in the middle along with the brown sugar and cinnamon.  Then for the icing I made a quick caramel frosting from my Mennonite cookbook.  The recipe is:

1/2 cup butter and 1 cup brown sugar.  Melt together on low heat and boil 2 min. stirring constantly.  Add 1/4 cup milk and heat just until boiling again.  Remove from heat and cool slightly.  Stir in 2 cups sifted powdered sugar.

This was very good on the cinnamon rolls.  I know it would be excellent on cakes as well.  Time for my day to get busy.  Take care and God bless.