Day 14 cookies from scratch

High five!!!!!!!! So Savannah and myself made Butterscotch Oatmeal cookies from scratch. She said it wasn't hard to do, and actually enjoyed it. As well as they were better tasting than a processed cookie and she knew every single ingredient in them. Oh and was able to pronounce all of them too.

Hopefully I've got a convert on my side now (patting myself on the back).

Ingredients;

3/4 cup butter, softened 3/4 cup white sugar 3/4 cup packed brown sugar 2 eggs 1 teaspoon vanilla extract 1 1/4 cups all-purpose flour

1 teaspoon baking soda 1/2 teaspoon ground cinnamon 1/2 teaspoon salt 3 cups rolled oats 1 2/3 cups butterscotch chips

DIRECTIONS:

1.	Preheat oven to 375 degrees F (190 degrees C).
2.	In a large bowl beat the butter or margarine, white sugar and brown sugar together. Add the eggs and vanilla, beating well.
3.	Stir together the flour, baking soda, cinnamon and salt. Gradually add the flour mixture to the butter mixture and stir until blended. Stir in the oats and the butterscotch chips. Drop by teaspoonfuls onto an ungreased cookie sheet.
4.	Bake for 8 to 10 minutes in the preheated oven, until the edges begin to brown.

Day 13

I DON"T BELIEVE IT!!!!!!!! First our food, and now us!! You don't mess with mother nature. Other than that things on the home-front are normal. Need to get firewood up to the house, or should I say get the kids to stack firewood.

Day 12 Supper

 For tonight's Supper. I made Chip Beef Gravy over mashed Potatoes. To be honest I had seen this on Facebook someplace, but as usual I made it my way (it might be the same who knows).        Serves 6

Mashed Potatoes

15 medium potatoes

1 stick of butter

3 pinches of kosher salt

1/2 cup or more of milk or heavy cream

Peel potatoes

Cut into 1/4 inch slices and add to deep pot.

Cover with salted water and boil on high till potatoes are soft

Strain and put in large bowl or stand mixer. 

Mix by pulsing till begins to mash

Add butter and salt and milk

Increase speed until desired consistency

Chipped Beef

3 Packages Dried Beef

4 Tb spoons butter

5 Tb spoons AP flour

1/2 gal milk

pepper to taste

Melt the butter in a large skillet. Meanwhile cut up dried beef to desired size. Add dried beef to skillet on med/high. Cook till edges just start to burn. Add flour tbl spoon at a time and mix until it has absorbed all the butter. Add pepper and milk and turn heat down to med/low. Stir occasionaly till milk thickens. Serve over mashed potatoes.

Another child hit the nail right on the head!

Post by Home Farm Ideas.

I'm a slacker

Yeppers,

     Took a couple days off. A Freemason event, hanging with friends and some Scouting stuff. So it wasn't all pleasure. Peeps should be here. Contacted a farm on the hogs,,,,,,,, hopefully it will all come together soon. I did make an excellent supper tonight. However I keep forgetting to take pictures so I can post them along with my recipes. We did have taco's, I didn't make anything from scratch per-say, I did make my own taco seasoning though.
      I need to get disciplined to remember to note and photo everything.

Day 7

You've got to watch this! The young girl towards the end, you go girl.

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Day 6

Not much to say tonight. Going tomorrow night to get a lesson on butchering hogs, or the very least making sausage. We'll see how that goes. Meanwhile http://www.huffingtonpost.com/steven-kurlander/hold-the-mayo-azodicarbon_b_4767706.html

Last thought of the day; I'm still waiting for my peeps to show up and I need to decide what breed of swine to raise. Red wattles were my first choice. However closest I can find is a 2 hour drive. I may just go another route.

Day 5

This is exactly what I'm talking about! http://sustainablepulse.com/2014/02/19/roundup-linked-global-boom-celiac-disease-gluten-intolerance/#.UwVMZfldXnj let's keep messing with nature and see how it fights back.

Last thought of the day; Why do we have to live in a McDonald's world? Does everything have to be now, can't anyone wait anymore?

Day 4

Temperature was up a good bit this afternoon. So some of the snow is melting. Soon as it's gone I got to get off my butt and get this place straightened up. I tend to be a pack rat. Some might say a hoarder.  I think collector of things would be the best description. I save things in case I might need them one day. Then when I do decide to throw something out, I end up needing it. Or something is needed and bam I have it problem solved. I can't win either way.  I have a lot of outside work to do and I have been a coach potato too long. Time to get off the coach and get working. So as the snow melts in is now a becoming a mess out there. Chicks should be here soon and I need to be ready for them. We kept them in the house too long the last time I tried this.

Thought of the day; is the rest of the family going to help me achieve the goal I have set? Time will tell. I hope the kids do, they need to know where vegetables come from and how to be self reliant and not dependent on others to provide life sustaining necessities.

Day 3

Not much happening on the homestead today.

      Picked one kid up from the hospital with no diagnosis, and another from school that was throwing up. Waiting on the Chicks to get here. Hopefully the warm weather will get here soon. I need to work on a second chicken tractor and modify the one I have now. Found some really neat idea's for some cool modification to make egg collection easier.

     Last thought of the day...... Need to get a banana tree. Looks like it does the body good :)

Another Day....

     Well another day in life at our homestead. I said to myself I was going to post here everyday for a month to get in the habit on doing daily posts. Life does get in the way at times. Yesterday was the wife's birthday and I spent a good chunk of the day clearing up my mess about the house for her surprise party. Then partook in some libations. The next day was Scout Sunday with the Cub Scouts and the rest of the day spent in the ER with my youngest boy. Never a dull moment.

     I did manage a some point to order some chicks from a chicken hatchery. So with some luck, hopefully all that will be behind me and everything will turn out alright with the little one. Now I can hopefully get working on finding some Heritage Breed hogs within a short driving distance and start working on getting some animals here on the farm.

Our new beginning

     They say when one door closes another one opens. I decided to take matters into my own hands and open another door. Not that I don't like door number one, it's just that I want to try and take my family down another road and see where the path leads us.

     My wife thinks I have become obsessed. Perhaps I have. The more I try and talk to her about what I find, the more she says I am obsessed. She called me a hippie today. A hippie? Hmm. They seem to be a happy group. Sure I'll be a hippie, if it brings me and my family some solitude and well  being. Some self confidence, to the fact that we won't need to rely on other people to provide for us. If it means living a healthier lifestyle. "You better not give up meat, cause that's where I draw the line" she told me. Give up meat,,,, never. I love me a good steak with all the fixins. Some juicy bacon with some eggs (liquid chicken) and home fries. The more I read on what is allowed in our food, the more mad I get at our Government agencies for permitting it. We all hear the stories about "do you know what's in a hot dog?" Or did you know they (USDA) allow a certain parts per millions of mouse droppings in our food supply? Could these stories be actually true? I thought to myself NO WAY! No way would our Government allow us to eat things we really weren't designed to eat. No way would "they" allow poisons to be ingested by the Citizens of this great country we call home. I try to instill values with the kids, I try to teach them to be good people. I try to teach them to be productive. I now I am trying to teach them to be self reliant.

     My quest to provide good wholesome food for my family. Food that won't encourage sickness. Food that will keep their bodies healthy. Keep them out of the doctors office. Keep them healthier than I am myself. To give them the insight that there is more to nourishment than pushing 2 minutes on a microwave. This is my quest.

    It all started for me the day I found out azodicarbonamide was in flour. Here I am cooking things from scratch not only to try and help feed my family healthier food. To eat as little processed food as we could. I must admit I enjoy cooking from scratch. I enjoy taking several items and creating a masterpiece. Call me Alton Brown or Bobby Flay. That's cool I joke and call myself Chef Boy R Dee. I feel like an artist working on a live set. The plate is my backdrop and the ingredients are my palette of colors. Like many things in life as mysterious as it is, when something comes a knocking it pop's up elsewhere. Shortly after I found out about this ingredient the rest of the world did too. Wasn't it bad enough that we are eating cellulose. Wasn't it enough that I have IBS, and needed to be on a high fiber diet. Fiber that I thought was derived from whole wheat or other grains. Not a tree. So my quest went on, and I was forced to dig deeper. Things keep popping up like; Why are we the only country to mandate refrigeration of our eggs? Food is supposed to be natural, healthy and most important, enjoyable. Not a blop of goop like you see served to prisoners in a movie. The ingredients should not be the first two rules of Fight Club. I am Mike's colon and this is his quest.