MerryHeartCrafts.comMountain Momma… Country Living

Today, I made hot pepper jelly.  This is a favorite of ours.  We serve it with cream cheese and Ritz crackers.  When I take it to church on Sunday night, it goes super fast.  I did not have enough hot peppers to make it but the pastor’s wife gave me enough.  I have been so blessed this year.  Even though our garden did not do as well as I would have liked, others have given us so much.  Anyway, the recipe I use is on the sure-jell  recipe instruction pamphlet.  I guess the only different thing I do is that I put the pepper mixture into the blender and pulse  instead of trying to chop them up finely.  I’m lazy that way.  I always put the hot pepper jelly in half pint jars.  I did not have enough empty ones so I bought a dozen yesterday at Wal-Mart.  I think they are soooo cute, don’t you?  The lids came with them. 

Saturday, we did go with the Horn’s to Paint Bank.  However, I forgot the camera.   For those of you who have been reading my blog for awhile, this probably does not come as a surprise.  What might surprise you though, is that Vicki forgot their camera too.  We did take a few pictures with the phone but I am not sure how to get them off.  Well, anyway, we went to the fish hatchery, to the general store, ate lunch at the Swinging Bridge Restaurant (which was way over priced in our opinion), saw the buffalo, and walked around some at the campground.    It was such a fun day.

Yesterday, we went to Sam’s.  It rained off and on all day and then in the evening the heavy rains came.  We have probably gotten over 5 inches.  Our power was off for about 5 hours.  We lit some candles and went out to the glassed in front porch.  Hubby played guitar for us and we told the girls stories of when we were young.  It was fun.   We are still getting heavy rain in spurts.  We really needed rain-just not the whole years worth in one day. 

I also wanted to share this soup recipe with you all.  Our local supermarket sells a 15 bean soup mixture.   They have it with the dried beans. The brand they carry is  http://www.hurstbeans.com/.  I follow the instructions on the back of the bag (kinda).  Well, I did cook the beans like it said.  I added kielbasa sausage to it and a can of my homemade salsa.  I used a qt of our fresh canned tomatoes.  I then added some potatoes, corn, peas, and spinach to it.  It is a really good hearty soup and fairly inexpensive.    It is really good without adding the veggies.  Either way you like it.  I have made it with hamburger, ground turkey, whatever I have on hand.  It is also good without any meat but Hubby is a meat eater.   We serve it with hot cornbread. YUM!  Oh, I almost forgot to tell you, I do not use the ham powder base that comes inside the bag of beans.  Just my personal preference.

I hope you all have a great evening and God bless.

So I finally got around to making the blackberry syrup this morning.  I used about 3/4 gal. of blackberries and got three pts of syrup.  Pretty good.  I’m not sure how it will turn out but it tasted really good when I sampled it.  I put the blackberries in the steam juicer.  This is what it looks like.

This is a very handy piece of equipment.   We bought ours at our local Farmers Supply.  I’m not sure if they sell them at Wal-Mart or not but I know you can order them online.  You might even find them on Ebay.  The name brand of ours is “Back to Basics”.

This is the bottom of the juicer.  You put 3 qts of water in this.

This fits directly on the water container.  This catches the juice as it comes out of the fruit.

You put the fruit or veggies in this basket.  It fits directly on top of the other container.  Then put the lid on.  You see in the first picture the tubing.  This is how you drain your juice into jars.  Put it on your stove and when it starts to steam, you start timing.  Different things need to steam for different times.  Blackberries steam for 60 min.  You can then use the juice for whatever you want to make.  The pulp that remains in the basket from your fruit or veggies is still usable too.  I will show you all another time what I do with the leftover pulp.

Here is the recipe I used for making the blackberry syrup.  I got it from the internet and it is very simple.  I hope it will be good.

4 cups blackberry juice, 4 cups sugar, 1 tsp. lemon peel.  Combine all ingredients and bring to a boil.  Boil for 2 min.  Fill jars. (I used a strainer here as I did not want the lemon peel in the syrup)  Process 10 min. in water bath canner.

Enjoy your day and God bless.

I thought I would show you all a few pictures of around our house.  This picture is one of the old walnut trees that is in the yard.  The faithful horse you see has survived Julie and Grace and is now being enjoyed by grandchildren.

This picture is looking out my dining room window.

As you come down our driveway, this is one of the first things you see.  Hubby built the bench a few years ago.  The swing was one purchased from Wal-Mart.  When the cloth seats gave out, Hubby made a wood swing to hang on the frame.  Can you tell we love to sit outside here?

This picture looks up into the field from the side yard.  You can see our grapevine and garden.  Well, I have a few more pictures but they will have to wait for another day.  Time for us to leave for church.  Tonight’s menu is meatloaf, mac & cheese, corn, rolls, cole slaw, cooked apples and watermelon.  Enjoy your day and God bless.

Monday we made jerky.  Jerky is one of our favorite things to dehydrate.  As some of you may remember, we were blessed last year to have a beef given to us.  As it was an old bull , we made hamburger out of most of it.  Above is a picture of our dehydrator, our jerky shooter and the type of jerky mix we use.  All this came from Wal-Mart.  There a lots of jerky mixes out there, this is just the one we use. 

This is what it looks like after it has dried.  The rack is not necessary.  I just put it on it to take the picture.  I thought it would show the jerky better.

When finished, it all fits neatly back into this basket and off the the attic it goes to be stored until next time.  We have dehydrated apples and peppers too, a few bananas and grapes.   We used to dry our green beans on a string in the attic when we lived in Grundy.  I wonder how green beans would be dried in a dehydrator.  Anyone out there ever tried this?  I think I will try it this summer and see how it turns out.   We just called them fodder beans but I have heard them referred to as leather britches.  I know they are good no matter what you call them. 

We did get a storm last night but it was only rain.  YEAH!  Temperatures are very nice today.  Mid 40′s already.  Lots of sunshine.  I have clothes outside on the line.  The wind is supposed to pick up after lunch, about 30 mph with gusts in the 50 mph range.  Typical wind for Floyd.  It helps the clothes dry and makes them soft as long as you can keep them on the line. 

Enjoy your day and God bless.

Last night during our fellowship meal, one of the ladies told me she had something for me out in her car.  She had gotten me this beautiful material.  She found it a Wal-Mart.  Our Wal-Mart does not sell material but they had this on clearance, probably from another store.  Each bolt has 5 yards of material on it.   Lots of aprons!   Sometimes God amazes me,  the way He leads us to encourage each other.  I was feeling a little down about messing up the other material and then He surprises me through a generous friend.  God is good.  

Temperatures here have changed drastically from yesterday.  Mid 20′s with lots and lots of cloud coverage.  We are not getting any snow yet but it definitely feels like snow.  

Time for school.  Enjoy your day and God bless.

Today we are getting back into the swing of school.  We had too many errands  yesterday to start.  We also visited some with the Horn’s yesterday.  For Christmas, the Horn girls had received a kit from Wal-Mart to make a little girl apron and a little doll apron.  I took some interfacing over and Vicki and I traced out the pattern.  So I now have a little doll apron pattern to make.  I want to make a mother, daughter, and doll apron to match. 

Temperatures here are much nicer than they have been however yesterday morning was pretty cold.  Temperature yesterday was 14 when we got up but it did warm up nicely with lots of sunshine.  Cloudy today though, of course, because I am home and could hang our clothes on the line today.  Oh well, thats how it goes.  Hubby worked on getting some more wood yesterday while the girls and I ran errands. 

Tonights menu is something I really don’t have a name for.  I brown hamburger meat, add onions, cabbage, and potatoes.  The options are limitless as to what you can add.   I sometimes add fresh peppers, zucchini, squash, mushrooms.  I like fresh baked cornbread with it.   I got some  cushaw from the freezer this morning.  I think I will make a pie for dessert. 

Enjoy your day and God bless.

Well, the snow did come yesterday-about 4″.  So no family coming today.  Hopefully, Dave, Jess and the boys will get to come about the middle of the week.  I’m not sure when Chuck will come.  The girls are excited today.  There is enough snow to make snow cream, which is a favorite around here.  There probably will be some sledding today too.  The winds are supposed to start later today so we’ll just have to see how everything goes.  The cows don’t seem to mind the snow at all.

I took these pictures from our dining room window.  Later today, we will be going down to the barn to get milk.  I will try to take more pictures then.

Hubby completely surprised me yesterday morning.  We very seldom get each other gifts at Christmas but this year he got me this wonderful mixer.  He even braved Wal-Mart on Christmas Eve to get it for me.  Complete surprise!  I got up yesterday morning, went to turn the coffee pot on and there it was.  I squealed out loud and he just smiled that beautiful smile of his that always says “I love you”.  He said with all the cooking and baking I do, he thought it would come in handy.  Well, it certainly will.  I made a batch of banana nut muffins in it this morning.  I used a different recipe than I normally use and I think I like it much better.  The recipe is:

1 1/2 cups all purpose flour (I used whole wheat), 2/3 cup sugar, 1 tsp baking powder, 1/2 tsp. baking soda, 1/2 tsp. salt, 1/3 cup applesauce, 2 eggs, 1/4 cup sour cream, 1 tsp. vanilla, 1/2 tsp cinnamon, 1/4 tsp. allspice, 2/3 cup mashed bananas, 1/3 cup chopped walnuts.  Combine all ingredients.   Pour into muffin tin.  Bake at 400 degrees for 20-25 min.  I used my large muffin tin and got 6 muffins.  Very good.

No church today because of the snow.  I sure am glad we got to go Friday night to the candlelight service.  Enjoy your day and God bless.

Yesterday, I decided I just could not fix my machine.  We decided we should not be having all that trouble with a new machine so we took the machine back to Wal-Mart where we had purchased it.  As you all recall, I had not had the machine very long at all and it has always given me trouble.  Anyway, Wal-Mart took it back and we exchanged it for this machine.  As soon as I started sewing on it, it was obvious this is a better machine.  I have never used a Singer before but I definitely pray we will be getting better service from this one than from the Brother.  I finished the sewing project that I had previously started.

This is for my little man, Daniel, who loves, loves, loves to help his mom in the kitchen.  I hope it looks like a little boy apron.  I wanted something with tractors on it but blue jean material was all I had that looked boyish.  Weather permitted they will be coming up Sunday.  Chuck and his family may come also.  This would be a first-all my grandkids in the house at the same time.  WOW!  They are calling for some snow to hit here tomorrow and Sunday so we’ll just have to wait and see.

We will be having our candlelight service at church tonight.  This is such a beautiful service.  We have these little shelves on the walls and on top of the shelves we have oil lamps.  All the oil lamps are lit and the electric lights are turned off.  It is absolutely beautiful.  We have communion and the pastor has a message.  Then we all light our individual candles, gather around in a circle and sing Christmas hymms.  It is such a special time and we all look forward to it.  I pray you will all have a wonderfully blessed Christmas Eve as well. 

Celebrate the birth of our Savior.  May He bless each of you with a special portion of His presence on this wonderful day-Christ’s birthday.   God bless.

I am making a correction to our temperature this morning.  We saw a friend of ours in Wal-mart today.  They live close to us.  He has a machine that tells him all types of weather.  It registers not just temperature but wind chill temps.  He said it was -26 degrees wind chill this morning.   Now I know for sure that is COLD.  Just wanted you all to know.  God bless.

These are just a few pictures I took yesterday on our way into town.  This road runs alongside the Parkway for a while.  Then branches off into other roads.  It is one of the many roads we can take to get to town.  I thought you all might enjoy seeing it.

On the side of this road, fall flowers are already beginning to bloom.  Joe Pie and Goldenrod. 

A field on the same road.

In about another month, corn cutting will begin.  This hill will have lots of activity.  These are just a few things I am blessed to enjoy every day.  Sometimes the beauty of this place I live overwhelms me.  I haven’t lived very many places in my life but I do know this place I live now is very beautiful. 

The girls and I had fun yesterday.  We ran some errands, went to the Salvation Army and Goodwill, Wal-Mart of course.  I found Hubby a nice church outfit at the Salvation Army and a tie to match at Goodwill.  He normally doesn’t wear a tie but now that he is a deacon, they have to wear a tie on the day we do the Lord’s Supper.  We also found Grace a skirt and a top to match and both girls got a swim suit.  They did not have one and they hope to get to swim over the weekend at David’s mom’s pool.  We are going down this evening.  She has some more apples that are ripe and some pears. 

Today is Ladie’s Bible Study.  We are still doing it at Barbara’s house, probably all this month.  However today is starting out nice and cool so we might could have done it here.  Oh well.  We’ll just stick to our original plan.  I have dessert this week and I am taking a peach pie I made.  The girls are going to play at the Horn’s while I am doing bible study.  They are very excited.  It will be a fun day for everyone.  Vicki and I will visit when I come to pick the girls up.  I’m planning on surprising her with a new type of tea for us to share.  I guess though if she reads this before I get there it won’t be a surprise. 

Well, I gotta go.  There’s work to do.  We want to be ready to leave when Hubby comes in this evening.  Gotta go get me some MawMaw time.  Take care and God bless.