Making granola...

We are a big oats family over here. We love oatmeal, oatmeal cookies, granola, granola bars, etc. Today we are making granola. J and S love to help with the granola. They usually take turns putting in the ingredients and dumping them on the floor, too. And they always beg for spoonfuls of the local, raw honey, too. Below is my basic recipe. Today was a flax, cranberry, cashew day.

Robin's granola recipe
* 4 cups rolled oats
* 1 cups wheat germ or milled flax seed
* 1/2 cup chopped sunflower seeds
* 1/2 cup chopped almonds/ground cashews
* 1 cup rasins/dried cherries/dried cranberries/etc.
* 1/3 cup vegetable oil
* scant 1 cup honey
* about 1 1/2 teaspoons vanilla extract
* about 1 teaspoon ground cinnamon
* couple of dashes of nutmeg

Whisk together the oil, honey, vanilla and spices separate from dry ingredients. Then mix together. Pat down in a cookie sheet lined with a reusable SILPAT or parchment paper. Bake on 300'F for 30 minutes. Stir once after 20 minutes if you want clusters, stir more often if you don't. If you want clusters, let cool in the pan without stiring for at least 30 minutes. If you don't like clusters, stir frequently and turn out into a bowl while cooling.

Enjoy!

Tomatoes, tomatoes, cherry tomatoes...

I love cherry tomatoes. Of course, not just any cherry tomatoes, my dad's cherry tomatoes. Every year, my dad grows his tomato plants from seed. And by far, the best variety is the Gardener's Delight cherry tomatoes. They are perfect devoured fresh from the vine, amazing in salads, and divine dried! With all the extra tomatoes I have right now, I have been drying all my oven will hold. The trick to drying the cherry tomatoes is cutting them in half and placing them on a rack cut side up. Then set your oven for 170'F (or lower if you have a drying setting in your oven as I do), and let them dry over night. It usually takes about 8 hours on 170'F, 10-12 hours on 140'F. Once they are dry, they are like candy. They don't last very long in my house, so I tend to keep them in a jar in the fridge. If you dry them crisp, you can vacuum seal them in a glass jar and keep them longer on the shelf. They are amazing thrown in sauces and soups through out the winter!

Our grapes...

Our property has about 50 foot of mature concord grape vines. The vines haven't been truely cared for in at least 15 years and p the past 5 years became completely over grown. In the fall of 2009, D did an amazing job tearing out all the weed trees and brush that was over taking our grapes and we can actually see the vines now. This winter we hope to get around to trimming the vines back properly, but I was hoping to still make grape jelly this year. On September 3rd, the grapes were starting to ripen, but weren't quite ready. On Sept. 9th, they were looking good, but we were going out of town on a rare family vacation and didn't get a chance to pick them, and by Sept. 17th, they were mostly on the ground. Of course, I didn't know there weren't enough when I told J we could make grape jelly, so when we went out to pick and discovered a lack of grapes, we quickly loaded up on our bike and went to the market where we had seen black grapes on sale the day before. After buying our grapes and loading up our bike, we trekked home to make and can our jelly.

First, we got out the trusty juicer from the basement. Upon reading most jelly recipes, they usually call for straining the fresh juice before making jelly. I thought this was crazy, considering all the good fiber and nutrients you are probably straining out to take the lovely, thick fresh grape juice and turn it into something comparable to Welch's. So we simply boiled down our grape juice, to help sweeten the jelly a little, added some lemon juice and pectin, packed it hot in our jars and processed them in a water bath for 10 minutes. The results are a very scrumptious grape jelly!

Battling Vine Weevils and Japanese Beetles...

This past year we had lots of damage to our newly planted fruit trees. The two culprates seemed to be black vine weevils and Japanese beetles. I am determined to save our trees, as well as the various other plants that sustained damage through out our property. I think beneficial nematodes are the answer. It seems the "Heterorhabditis Bacteriophora Nematodes" are the kind we need for our pests. It seems like we might want to apply the nematodes both in the fall and spring. I am just putting in an order for some and I am anxious to get them in the ground.

Pumpkin butter...

Once I cooked up the pumpkin pie, the other 9 pumpkins were staring at me from the garden. Every time I entered the yard, I could see those big orange orbs gleaming in the sun. I decided at least two of them should be turned into pumpkin butter.

I searched around and came up with this recipe:

Pumpkin Butter

4 quarts of pureed pumpkin (about 2 large pumpkins)

4 cups of maple syrup

1 cup lemon juice

2 Tbsp cinnamon

2 tsp nutmeg

1 tsp ginger

Bake pumpkin at 350 for 45 minutes or until soft. Scrape flesh from shell and puree in food processor. Add pumpkin to slow cooker with maple syrup, cinamon, nutmeg, and ginger. Cook on Low for 8-12 hours overnight. Check on it often after 8 hours and turn it off when you like the taste and texture. Mine took close to 12 hours.

New Fruit Trees...

This past spring, we finally planted the fruit trees we wanted to. The property already had two apple trees, about 50 feet of mature grape vines, and a large area of wild black raspberries and wild blackberries. We added 11 new trees, too. They are 2 apple trees, 2 peach trees, 2 pear trees, 3 cherry trees (two sweet and one tart), and two paw-paw trees. The trees were all bare-root saplings, so it's going to be a number of years before we get any fruit from the new ones, which is why we were so anxious to get them in the ground. In addition to the fruit trees, we also planted three other trees, an oak, a catalpa and a dogwood in the front yard. Planting 14 new trees is pretty good all in a 6 month period.

Pumpkin pie...

This is our second year gardening on our homestead. We are still starting out small, getting the property, and the kids, under control, but we grew about 10 pumpkins and 20 squash this year, along with countless tomatoes. The pumpkins very in size from small pie pumpkins to large jack-o-lantern sized, most being the latter of the two. Although we are saving two pumpkins for carving in October, we need to preserve the rest.

For the first pumpkin ready, I decided to make it into pie. After all, J was begging me for a pumpkin pie. So I figured I'd try it out. I baked a rather large pumpkin for 45 minutes on 350'F. Then scraped out the flesh and pureed it in my mini-food processor with J and S's help. I ended up with 11 cups of puree, just to give you an idea of the size of the pumpkin.

Then I searched for a recipe that allowed for all of our dietary restrictions... J- no refined sugars, S- no cow's milk... and found a recipe for a Vermont Pumpkin Pie. I, of course, substituted goat's milk for the cow's milk and made my own pie crust (recipe to come later). The results were superb. Even D's grandmother loved it! The best pumpkin pie she's ever had, I believe she said. I did find that the pie needed to be cooked longer than the recipe called for. I think I left it in for about 1 hour 15 minutes before it looked 'set' enough for my liking.

A little about our homestead...

We live in a large suburban city of about 80,000 people. When we purchased our current homestead, we had looked all over in the area. We wanted something with enough land to start a small homestead, but still close enough to places of convenience like stores, parks, and the places we work, as well as cultural centers, like museums, and not too far from either of our extended families. We found our one acre lot with a relatively small (1350 sq. ft) 3 bedroom house in the center of a large suburb not far from D's work, my work, and about 45 minutes from each of our parents. Perfect! But then, within 3 months of moving in we had a new baby, S. And with her along with J, our then almost 3 year old, it hasn't always been easy finding the time or energy to homestead. So we are starting out small and working our way up to homesteading as much as possible on our one acre parcel.

Just starting...

Welcome to my new blog. I wanted to have a place to reflect, share, and write about homesteading and all that we do in our home. Everything from recipes, canning, gardening, sewing, woodworking, home repairs, parenting, remedies, and much more I am sure. So feel free to join us on our homesteading adventures.