Homemade Coffee Creamer

Honey Vanilla Coffee Creamer

Makes about 2 1/4 cups

Whisk together cream, milk and honey in a medium saucepan over medium heat. When the mixture begins to steam, remove from the heat. Whisk in vanilla. Pour into a glass bottle and store in the refrigerator.

Hubby likes cream in his coffee. I usually buy this from the store. Today in my laziness, (I did not want to drive into town) I decided to see if I could find a recipe to make our own. I went to my favorite place, Google, came across this recipe and many, many more. I chose this one because I had all the ingredients. (Remember I do not want to drive into town). I’ll test it out tomorrow morning and see if he likes it. Anyway, I was very excited about finding this and couldn’t wait to share it with you ladies. I”ll let you know if he likes it. Enjoy your day and God bless.

P.S. I apologize to http://www.deliciouslyorganic.net. I did not mention that this is where I got this recipe. I have been asked to remove the recipe but if anyone is interested in getting it you can go to the above mentioned site.

July 9, 2011 3

Wineberries

Wineberries are starting to get ripe here in our area. They grow wild however we are hoping to get a start of them this fall.

I think they look a lot like red raspberries (maybe they are but folks here call them wineberries). They have a tart taste.

Grace and I picking berries.

Julie picking. We all wore our rubber boots in case we came across any unwanted critters. Next time we will wear long pants as well. We took some down to Sam when we went and he dearly loved them. Daniel would not even try them. As I have mentioned before, he is not a fruit eater. Hubby is gone today with his brother down to Grundy. His Mom has a couple of apple trees that need to be cut. She was afraid they were going to fall on the power line.

I plan on working on a few aprons today and maybe going back to pick a few wineberries. I did make the pickles the other day but I didn’t add the squash. I had enough cucmbers to do one batch so I just made them using all cucumbers. I got 8 pts though instead of 6 as the recipe said. They seem very similar to bread and butter pickles. I think they will be very good.

Enjoy your day and God bless.

July 9, 2011 6

Campfire

While the kids were up this weekend, we had a campfire Friday night. We love doing campfires, smores, wieners-sometimes potatoes. Sometimes we just sit and watch the fire. So relaxing. Grace took this picture for me and I thought you all might like a little campfire too.

Hubby and I have been busy today working on building a shelving unit for the new room. All my stuff is just piled up on the floor in there. Such a mess. Hopefully, by tomorrow, it will look much neater.

I gathered quite a few cucumbers this morning and I am planning on making some pickles this afternoon. I have to check my pantry and see if I have all the ingredients. I got a new recipe from a friend of mine that I want to try out. The recipe is:

Crispy Pickle Slices- 4 qts cuc. sliced, 1/3 cup salt, 6 med onions sliced, 4 cups sugar, 1 1/2 tsp. turmeric, 2 tsp. celery salt, 2 tsp. mustard seed, 4 cups vinegar. Sprinkle sliced cuc. with salt. Stir with hands until salt is dissolved. Cover with crushed ice. Let stand 3 hr. Drain. Add onion. Mix remaining ingredients with vinegar. Pour over drained cuc. & onions. Bring to a boil. Reduce heat and gently cook for 5 min. Makes 6 pts.

So now that you all have heard the recipe, I have a question. Have any of you ever mixed squash and cucumbers together to make pickles? I was thinking of doing that and just wondered if anyone else had tried it.

Well, I better get busy. Enjoy your day and God bless.

July 7, 2011 5

Making Butter

When I was living in Grundy, we would buy our milk, butter and buttermilk from a friend of ours who had cows. She made absolutely the best butter I’ve ever tasted. When we moved up here to Floyd, the butter they made tasted completely different. They call it “sweet cream butter” here. Well, don’t get me wrong, it’s really good. But just not the taste I’ve been hankering for. So the other day I called Margie, our friend in Grundy that made the butter. The cows here on the farm are Holsteins and don’t produce much cream so it takes a long time to save up. We wanted to make butter for the weekend for Jessica, so I cheated and bought heavy whipping cream from the store. Here is the recipe she gave me.

1. Put equal amounts of cream and buttermilk in a jar. I used 1 pt cream and 1 pint buttermilk.

2. Let jar sit out on counter overnight or until it becomes very thick-I mean really, really thick.

3. Her instructions were then to churn it. As we do not have a churn, I poured the thickened cream into my mixer with the whisk attachment on-You know my beautiful mixer my wonderful hubby surprised me with at Christmas.

4. Llet this mix about 5 min. (I’m not really sure of the time, it could have been less or more.) This is what it will look like when the butter is ready.

6. Then you do what Margie called “gather” the butter. I put it into a container, added a little salt, took a spoon and worked it around and all the excess buttermilk came out. Drain off the buttermilk as you gather the butter.

The finished product. Chill and enjoy!! Of course, I had to sample it before this. I wanted to make sure it was good before serving it to my family. (lol) It tastes just like Margie’s. Yeah!!!! I am so happy. I am making fresh rolls today for the weekend. Won’t they be good with butter spread on them.

Enjoy your day and God bless.

July 1, 2011 6

Ducks and Geese

The ducks and the geese were in the yard together this morning. Look how much they have grown. The mama duck has 5 babies that have survived. One goose is missing. We are hoping it is not mama or papa. From what I can understand they mate for life. If something has happened to one of them it would mean no more babies, which would be very sad.

Our VBS has been a lot of fun so far. 2 more nights to go. Thursday night is family night. We went with Hubby yesterday. He had a little repair job at this house on Claytor Lake. We worked on school while he did the job. Then we went down to the lake for a picnic. It was a nice day. I, of course, forgot the camera so no beautiful lake pictures.

Today is a beautiful day here in Floyd. Temperature is in the lower 70’s as of now. The sun is shining and we have a slight breeze. Very nice. We are hoping for nice temperatures this weekend as Dave, Jess, and the boys are coming up. We hope to go into town on Saturday night and watch the fireworks.

I have clothes ready for the line so I better get busy. Enjoy your day and God bless.

June 29, 2011 4

Raspberries

Our raspberries are getting ripe! YUMMY!!!! Black raspberries are one of my favorite fruits. We have a few vines we have been working on getting established and it looks like this year we might get enough to make a cobbler at least. (if we can keep the birds out of them)

Yesterday was a nice day. We came back from church and cooked steak on the grill in honor of Dad’s day. Steak on the grill is Hubby’s favorite meal. We had fries with it, rolls and ice cream for dessert. Our pastor’s sermon was very good. It was of course directed mostly to the men in the church. He preached on Ezekiel 22:30. The verse says “I looked for someone who might rebuild the wall of righteousness that guards the land. I searched for someone to stand in the gap in the wall so I wouldn’t have to destroy the land but I found none.” He challenged our men to be the one that could stand in the gap. It was a very powerful message.

Temperature here this morning is wonderful. Low 60’s with a pretty strong wind. Great for drying clothes. I have one load ready to hang out and several more to go. The girls and I have many errands to run today plus piano lessons. I guess I better get busy. Enjoy your day and God bless.

June 20, 2011 5

Sunset

Monday evening Julie and I were outside letting the chicks run free for a while and this is what we saw. God is so good to show us glimpses of His glory.

Sorry I did not make a post yesterday. As you know we went down to Jessica’s on Monday for her ultrasound appointment. Well, this baby did not cooperate. He or she decided no one was going to look that day. All kinds of movement but legs crossed. They told her they would do one more a little later on. I guess this is a shy one or stubborn-not sure which.

Yesterday the girls and I went with Hubby to help him work. He is doing the sheetrock on a remodeling job. He can do it all by himself except hang ceilings. That is just too hard to do alone. The house is in a beautiful location. If we go back with him another day, I’ll try to remember to take the camera so you all can see some pictures of it.

Today we’ll work on catching up here at home. How can a house get so dirty when no one is home? This morning was very chilly here-42 degrees when we got up this morning. Yesterday was really nice. Hubby’s van tells the outside temperature and it was 70 degrees when we left the job site yesterday around 3:00.

Enjoy your day and God bless.

June 15, 2011 3

Baby Ducks

We finally managed to get some pictures of the baby ducks. They have grown so much. When she first brought them off the nest, they were so tiny. We could hardly see them in the grass.

She is getting very brave with them now. In these pictures, she is in the edge of the yard. Maybe not too smart with all the cats we have running around here.

Today has been rather hot here. Hubby worked some on putting the vinyl siding on the new room we built last fall. He almost got it all finished. We washed clothes and hung them out. They dried pretty quick. Todays “lupper” was wilted lettuce and onions with crumbled bacon, pinto beans and corn on the cob. I also baked some corn bread and made some flitters, watermelon for dessert.

Enjoy your day and God bless.

June 7, 2011 5

A Pretty View

This is the view from my favorite sitting place.

This, of course, is my favorite sitting place. Hubby and I spend each morning here in this swing drinking our coffee together. Notice the rose bush running up in the tree. It took me a long time to train it to go up there.

I think God is ever so wonderful to allow me to have this beautiful place to live. Thank you, Lord!

Enjoy your day and God bless.

June 3, 2011 6

Cherries

Look at these beautiful cherries. David’s mother has 2 of these cherries trees in her yard. She graciously gave them to us. Thank you, Donna. We went down Friday morning as Hubby was having difficulties with his computer too. While Dave and Hubby worked on the computer, Jess and I with the kids went to pick cherries. We picked 3 gal. and didn’t even hardly take a step.

Look at how the limbs are just bowed down to the ground. You could just stand and pick. No tree or ladder climbing. I really liked that.

We ended up staying Friday night and most of the day Saturday getting Hubby’s computer up and going. When we came home I put the cherries in our steamer juicer. We got 5 1/2 qts of juice.

Sunday morning just before we left to go to church, Jess calls and says Dave needs Hubby’s help. Their shower drain has come loose and flooded under the house and the heat pump was not working. This of course means no air conditioner and for a pregnant woman that was bad. It is really hot where they live with lots of humidity. Well, we changed clothes and headed down to help Dave. While the men went to Lowes, the girls and I went to pick more cherries. We got 2 1/2 gal. I have one batch in the steamer juicer now. I think I will make jelly from some of the juice and then just can the rest. It is very good. We had fresh cherry juice with our breakfast this morning. The Lord is so good to provide us with treats like that.

Well, I have clothes to go on the line and much to do today. Enjoy your day and God bless.

May 30, 2011 4