Apple Pie Filling

I wanted to share this recipe for making apple pie filling. I have made pie filling before and canned it and was not super pleased with the results. It seems my recipe was a little too runny and the pie didn’t set up well. This recipe is new to me but it is definitely a keeper. I got the recipe from the Mennonite Country Style Recipes and Kitchen-Secrets. This is one of my all time favorite cookbooks and if you ever have to opportunity to buy it, I highly recommend it. Anyway, here is the recipe!

9 1/2 cups water, 4 1/2 cups sugar, 1 1/2 cups cornstarch, 1 tsp. salt, 2 tsp. ground cinnamon, 1/4 tsp. ground nutmeg, 1/4 tsp. ground allspice. Combine in large saucepan. Cook until thickened, stirring constantly. Remove from heat. Add 3 tbsp. lemon juice. Slice apples directly into jar adding layers of syrup as you fill (otherwise there will be too many air pockets). Leave at least 1 in. headspace. If jars are filled too full, syrup will spew out during processing. Tighten lids and process in boiling water bath for 25 min. Yields approx. 7 qts.

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

September 26, 2013 6

Rainbow

Hello everyone! I thought I would share a few pictures of a beautiful rainbow God gave us the other evening.

It was very pretty. Today we went to Pastor Tom’s to pick apples. We ended up picking about 11 bushels. I think you all can guess what we will be doing for a while. I also wanted to share with you all a great post I found this morning on making coffee creamer. This sounds delicious and I can’t wait to try them out. You can check out all the flavors here http://www.mrshappyhomemaker.com/2013/03/homemade-coffee-creamer-over-20-flavor-varieties.

Well, I better get off here. I hope you all have a great evening and God bless.

September 23, 2013 4

Table and Chairs

I wanted to show you all the table and chairs we have been working on. Hubby made us the table years ago. We just painted it to match the new chairs. I think they look very nice!

This chair used to sit on my mom’s porch.

Then just a few flower pictures Grace took the other day.

Enjoy your day and God bless.

September 20, 2013 3

A Little Decorating

As our morning low was 37 degrees, the girls and I decided it was time for a little fall decoration. Now at this time in my life I am not a lot on seasonal decorating. I have no idea why. I love to look at other people decorating and I think it makes the home look so good. I guess I’ve just gotten lazy about it.

On our enclosed front porch, we have two tables. They are now ready for fall.

Inside we did the mantle. That’s it-that is the extent of our fall decorating. Not too much. Easy to take down but enough to make it look a little different.

Hubby is working on the other two chairs today. Hopefully, they will soon be finished and we can get it all painted. I hope you all have a great day and God bless.

September 17, 2013 5

Update on Chairs

Yes, I know this makes me two posts in one day but I couldn’t wait to show you all the chairs. Hubby got another one made and we decided to paint those two today. I really like them.

I will show you more pictures when we get the other two made and the table painted to match. Enjoy your day and God bless.

September 11, 2013 6

A New Chair

I thought I would show you all a new chair design Hubby is working on. I have requested 4 of these to use with an outside table we have. After years of use, the bench chairs we used with this table finally gave out. I think these will look very nice.

Just a few flower pictures. It won’t be long until these will be all gone. I have a fall flag hanging under the goldenrod but the wind was blowing it too much for me to get a good picture of it. You can see Shadow sitting at the stoop in the background.

As you can tell, this little arrangement is in the green swing area.

I almost pulled these up earlier in the summer because they are right in the doorway. Every time I would go out the kitchen door, I had to walk around them. Now I am so glad I didn’t. I think they are very pretty and they have decided to behave and fall over in the other direction.

We went over to a friend of ours yesterday to collect some wood pieces he had that he didn’t want. Some of it will be for burning, some will be for making toys. Hubby usually finds all kinds of things to do with scrap wood.

That’s about it. Not a lot going on here. I hope you have a great day and God bless.

September 11, 2013 3

Tweetsie Trip

Hello everyone! I am sorry that it has been a while since I made a post. Seems like we have been super busy here. Last Tuesday, the girls and I went to Sam’s Club. Wednesday, we went to the Pastor’s. They gave us 2 bushels of grapes and I have no idea how much corn-enough to make 31 qts in the freezer. So, I guess you know what we did Thursday. Friday we finished up the grapes and corn, cleaned the church and started revival. Saturday, we decided it was time to play. We met Dave, Jess and kids at Tweetsie for a fun day. We left about 9:00 A.M. and got back home about 9:00 P.M. It was a long day but SO much fun. Sunday finished up our revival. Today we are making peach and grape jelly.

They have these horses all around Tweetsie. The boys climbed up on them as soon as we got there. They really enjoyed seeing MawMaw climb on one. My mother was such a fun person. She loved doing things out of the box. She always wore a hat. One of her favorites was a bright silver one. As soon as I climbed up on the horse, Jess said all I needed was a silver hat. I think that is how I want my children and grandchildren to remember me. I want to be a person who is fun to be with.

Some of you mentioned that you were interested in knowing how to cook the dried beans. I’m sure there are lots of ways to cook them but the way we always do is just put them in a kettle, cover with water, add some bacon grease, salt and pepper. Mom always added a some navy beans to cook with them. It takes a while for them to cook and you will have to add water as needed. In my opinion, these are best with corn bread, but then most things are.

Well, I better get busy. I have so many blogs to get caught up on reading. Enjoy your day and God bless.

September 9, 2013 4

Dried Beans

When I was growing up, dried beans or as some call them leather britches, was a staple in our home. Every year, we spent many hours stringing them up on strings and carrying them to the attic to hang on nails. I can still remember going up to the attic and seeing rows and rows of green beans drying. I SO wish I had a picture of that to share with you all. However, I searched the internet and found this one at wildwoodforestlogcabin.com.

Yesterday, though, I thought I would try something different. We dehydrated them in our dehydrator following the directions in the book. They were finished in about 10 hrs-not weeks. However, I do think we might do it the old way sometime, just so the girls can have that experience. I hope these taste as good as the ones we used to do. Enjoy your day and God bless.

August 28, 2013 6

Around the House

Today, I thought I would show you all a few pictures from around the house. These are the cosmos flowers we planted at the lower garden. I am amazed at how tall they have grown!

These are marigolds. Vicki gave me the seed. Ain’t they pretty! I love the different colors in them. I have already been collected seeds from both flowers to plant next year.

I wanted you all to see these carrots we pulled the other day from one of the raised beds. I have never had success raising carrots before but I think maybe the raised beds helped.

Here’s a picture of the lower garden. See how tall the cosmos flowers are. Underneath them are tons of marigolds. I definitely know not to plant them together next year.

This is the upper garden and the raised beds. I really didn’t know if I would like using raised beds or not, but I think they are pretty good for certain types of veggies.

Last week we re-purposed this gate. It was a gate we used at another house probably 12 years ago. We took it apart as some of the boards were no good. We built another frame and used the gate boards to make another gate for the chicken lot. Remember how we used the old crib springs for the gate.

Well, we have never really been happy with this gate. For one thing, it is not wide enough for the wheel barrow to fit through and for another thing it keeps falling out of the hook that is supposed to hold it up. So we built another one. Much better and way more convenient. The new gate is really close to the feed building. You see all the corn shucks piled up. We cut those out of the garden yesterday and plan on giving them a little at a time to the chickies for a treat.

We are canning pintos today. We canned 12 qts yesterday and will be finishing up a 10 lb bag today. I smell them cooking so I better check on them. I hope you all have a wonderful day and God bless.

August 27, 2013 4

Science Explorers

Saturday we went to http://www.sciworks.org It was a lot of fun. We have visited several science centers this summer and for me this was the best. So much hands on activities for everyone. I did remember to take my camera, however, I didn’t think about batteries. Therefore no pictures of all the fun stuff inside. You can tell though how excited Daniel was to be there by the picture I did get.

Yesterday we went to the http://www.greensboroscience.org.

We have been there once this summer but not since they put in the aquarium. It was awesome!

So much to see and do!

The highlight of the visit was touching a stingray!

You can’t really see him but Sam is in there too and Katie even got in on the action. First time for us to “pet” one. Another first for me yesterday was touching a snake. Not sure if I want to touch another one or not but it was not near as bad as I imagined.

We are canning rhubarb today so I better get off and get busy. I hope you have a wonderful day and God bless.

August 20, 2013 5