Primitives and a Sign

I’m sharing a few of my primitive decor items I’ve made and sold.

If you've read my blog over the past year, you may have noticed where I mentioned primitive decor. Well, I'm not one to sit and craft all day long, six days a week. In fact, there are times when I don't touch any of my crafting. Sadly, that includes my knitting.

These are just some of the items, I made last year and sold on Etsy.

~ Cupid's Arrows~

~Pip Berry Spoon Wall Hanger~

~Sugar Cookie Candles~

My favorite item to make - CANDLES!

I made this pillow last spring after looking at several wool pillows and their prices

and decided to give it a try with felt. It turned out really cute and it is now sitting 

in my Great Grandmother's chair along with my Maw Maw's Bible.

I was a little surprised to come across a primitive section in an Ace Hardware store in a city not too far from here. Honestly, I did not buy anything because everything was made in China. But I did get some ideas for my shop. If I'm going to by primitive/colonial items, I'm going to support a Made in the USA or Canada small business.

Since we've moved and people actually see our front door, I decided it was time to make a year round sign. I'm not one for changing every month, so when I took my Christmas moose off the door, I knew I wanted something to stay until at least spring. Last week, we stopped at the lumber store in Miles City and picked up an 8 foot piece of spruce 1x4.  I already knew how I want the actual wood to look, and knew how I was going to accomplish it. Yes, I'm a planner!

My friend Pamela at Our Pioneer Homestead has a super easy tutorial on making wood look old. You can find it HERE.  Now, I'm one who likes easy, so I searched high and low for a better way to paint my "Welcome Friends" on the wood. I really dislike the idea of cutting out all the letters and keeping up with all the little fillers for some of the letters. So when I found THIS tutorial on how to paint on letters, I was hooked!

Here's the finished product~

Have a great weekend!

Honoring Our Husband: The Forgotten Lunch

Earlier this week, my husband left his lunch at home. I tried calling him before he got too far down the road, but he didn't hear the phone in his pocket under his coat. This was the second time he left his lunch in about 3 weeks. The first time it happened, one of the men he works with was out this way plowing snow and offered to pick it up. He declined the offer because he knew I would probably be a sleep and I was.

Honoring Our Husband: the Forgotten Lunch

When he came home the other night, I had started to joke with him about not making it anymore if he left it home again. Before I could even tell him, he told me about a man at work telling that how he has had to make his own lunch for several years now all because he left it at home. My husband continued telling me how he spoke right up and said," My wife would never do that. In fact, she would tell you, it is part of her job. From the day we got married, she has made my lunch, no questions asked." When I hear about working men having to do something at home because a wife refuses to do it, it breaks my heart. A wife is suppose to be their husband's helper.

When I heard all of that I felt good. Boy, I'm glad I did not have the chance to joke with my husband. Yes, I could have because he is that kind of person, but I did not want to ruin the fuzzy feeling I was experiencing.

 A simple packed lunch can make a happy husband!

Soy Sauce Substitute

Soy is not as healthy as medical advisers claim. I’ll never forget being told to steer clear of a soy based formula for my son by his pediatrician. She “off the record” told me about the link to sterilization and other problems soy can cause. Soy sauce has MSG in it, so I don’t cook with it any longer. This substitute is much healthier and I know what is in it.

I am really excited about this recipe and I'm super excited about sharing it with the two of you who read my blog. :)

For the past year, I have been on the look out for better ways of saving money in the kitchen and keeping it healthy. I personally love the method of making your own whatever because you know what's in it. And of course, you can create it to suit your tastes and needs.

My family LOVES Chinese food and we like to use soy sauce but  it contains MSG and it is full of sodium. bad!  Also, I have to confess,  I was a soy sauce packet hoarder when we ate Chinese take out,  I did it so I wouldn't have to buy a bottle for later one. Not any more!

Earlier this week I made a dish that needed soy sauce and since I did not have any, I began looking for a substitute that I could use in a pinch. Well, I'm glad I did some research, because now I'll not be hoarding or buying soy sauce any longer.

All the recipes that I came across either had Red Wine Vinegar (which I did not have) or fresh/ground ginger (which I did not have either)  ;) So what's a girl to do? She dances around the recipes and comes up with her on. Yeah, I did just that and I could swear ( if I was the swearing kind) that this sauce tasted just like soy sauce.

Other than the two ingredients, I had everything else. For the ginger, I searched for a "ginger substitute" and found that I could use cinnamon. How cool is that to know?!


That baggy there, that's my chicken broth that's been frozen.  Yep, I make my own and it tastes so much better than store bought.

Now for the recipe, because I know I have the two of you just biting your finger nails waiting in suspense for it.

Soy Sauce Substitute

4 teaspoons balsamic vinegar
2 teaspoons  molasses
1/4 teaspoon cinnamon
1 pinch  pepper
1 pinch garlic powder
1 1/2 cups beef broth or chicken broth
salt, to taste (if needed)

In a saucepan over medium heat, stir together all of the ingredients, except salt. Bring to a boil. Continue to boil gently until liquid is reduced to about 1 cup, about 15 minutes.

Store the sauce tightly covered, in the refrigerator for up to a week. Shake before using.

I'm thinking, if you use beef/chicken broth cubes or granules the sauce may last longer ~ BUT I'm not sure.


If you try the recipe, let me how you like it.

Happy New Year

I hope you all have a wonderful and healthy New Year!

              

Heart Stopping Storage - The Grease Can

Don’t clog your kitchen drain or risk a greasy mess in the trash can. Save your nasty grease, freeze it, and toss it when it is full.

Catchy title, huh? I couldn't decide on what to call this post. Everything went through my mind from "the grease pit", "the grease pot", "don't clog the plumbing" and then it hit me; "heart stopping storage". BIG CHEESY GRIN

When I was a little girl, I remember my Maw Maw having a grease canister on her stove for her bacon grease. I really don’t remember my mother having one, but she more than likely had one and kept it somewhere.

Now days when you enter someone’s kitchen you almost never see a canister for grease. The last one I saw was about 4 years ago and it was scary! The owner of the kitchen used a mason jar and poured all of her grease in it and when she filled it up, the jar was tossed in the garbage. Just seeing the mess the jar was in, made me realize I would never eat her green beans because her bacon grease and other cooking grease was mixed up. I keep a mason jar in the refrigerator for all my bacon grease, so when I need some for green beans I have it ready. It stays hidden away in a cold place and is never seen by visitors; unless they are nosy.

There are times when I cook meat for hamburgers or fry okra and I have left over, gag me with a spoon kind of grease that is not meant to be used for anything else. Since it is not healthy for plumbing, you are not suppose to pour it down the drain, so what exactly are you suppose to do with it? Well, you can do like me... You can save it. Yes, you read that correctly.

 When I was trying to come up with a way to store the grease, I remembered the mason jar that was thrown away when it was full. Since I save my mason jars for reuse, I decided I wanted to use something that was already going to be tossed in the garbage when I was finished with it. I thought about the big cans of crushed tomatoes I buy for spaghetti sauce. These are the perfect size, I clean them out and store them just for this purpose.

While I’m cooking, I can pour the unusable grease into one of these large cans and I tuck it away in the freezer until I need to pour more grease in. Easy! The grease will freeze and it stays out of the way until you are ready to add to it. When the can is full all you have to do is throw it out on garbage day. Since we do not have curbside garbage service, I never put a full can in a bag until the day we take our garbage to the compactor. This helps in keeping the grease from thawing, spilling out and leaking into the garbage cans. What a mess that could be!

Makoshika State Park

Montana’s Makoshika State Park is home to badlands. A look at this wonderful state park.

When we drove out here for my husband's job interview in September, we ended up having to spend several hours waiting on our hotel room to be ready. So we decided we would go some place where we could wander around without a lot of people seeing how we looked after being in the truck for 2 days straight.  Yeah, we looked horrible!

We knew there was a state park in the area that we wanted to see, so we headed to Makoshika State Park.

The name Makoshika (Ma-ko'-shi-ka) is a variant spelling of a Lakota phrase meaning 'bad land' or 'bad earth'.

Today, as Montana's largest state park, the badlands of Makoshika are set aside for visitors to see and enjoy. In addition to the pine and juniper studded badland formations, the park also houses the fossil remains of such dinosaurs as Tyrannosaurus Rex and Triceratops.

We were quite surprised by all the beauty we found in this park. When we topped the hill and saw the "canyon" (badlands) it was amazing.  

The wind was blowing that day and we were able to walk out to the edge (with no railing). Of course, we didn't walk to the edge edge because of the wind and the ground being soft. Standing above the canyon and the huge clouds blowing over head was... how can I say this... it left me speechless! We couldn't talk, it was so amazing.

While we were hiking up hills and down into areas, we noticed the evidence of horses being around.  We talked about how there were no shoe prints in the dirt.  Sure enough we found the wild horses over near the amphitheater at the top. They were grazing in the field and there were three little fellows with their mommas.

While we were sitting and taking pictures a park ranger came through and began making noise so they would not get too close to vehicles and become easy access to visitors.

We learned the dark stripes in the hills are layers of coal. I can't remember what the other layers are right off the top of my head and I can't find my notebook, where I wrote things down.  But any way, I've been wanting to share our first field trip pictures and now's a good time to do just that.

Elevation Adjustments

The slightest change in elevations can throw off your cooking and baking.

I have had to relearn something since our move; higher elevation cooking. Living most of your life at a lower elevation and learning to cook there can cause a little havoc in the kitchen when you are suddenly found at 2,910 feet. We are still about a thousand feet lower than what we were when we lived in western Montana, but even an 1,800 feet difference can throw off your normal cooking habits.

I know most boxed baked goods give instructions for higher elevation baking, but when you cook and bake from scratch it’s a little trial and error when it comes to the actual cooking and baking part. I have found that my recipes that were in the oven at 350 degrees for 30 minutes are taking about 10 minutes longer now. The first week we were here, I splurged and bought a tube of cookie dough and quickly realized I would have to make a few changes. ~ It took about 5-8 minutes longer for them to not be under cooked but not crunchy. My first batch of brownies was totally missing something, but I couldn't decide on what the problem was. One thing I did know was the baking time, it was almost doubled and they were not good!

After doing an internet research on high elevation cooking, I came across a few websites talking about what can be added or reduced to help with the changes.  You can see them HERE, HERE and HERE. Betty Crocker even has a cool little table that you can print off and add to your homemaking binder if you use one or just tape it to the inside of a cabinet door ~ like me!

After reading, I realized I needed to add more flour to my brownies along with a longer baking time. ~ The second batch was just like when we were in Georgia. Last month, I baked two loaves of pumpkin bread and I added about two tablespoons of flour and baked for an extra 10 minutes. My chocolate cake I make for Christmas every year; two tablespoons of flour. ~ Just as tasty as in the past!


Another thing I noticed, when I cook rice and pasta, I have had to add more water along with more cooking time. Of course, these types of foods are not hard to cook, so the little differences are quickly learned.

Since I am not always the one who may decide to bake a pan of brownies or cookies, I have a sticky note on the inside cabinet with the changes that need to be made. Hopefully, they will remember to read the sticky note!

Merry Christmas

I just wanted to add... We all three are standing! Jamie has shot through the roof over the past couple of months.  He loves being able to look down at me. Actually, I'm glad too; from the time he was a tiny baby I prayed he would be tall.

My husband took this photo last Saturday morning on our way to Miles City to grocery shop. It was a blustery 15 degrees with a slight breeze blowing.  Yep, we were freezing!

I hope you all have a Merry Christmas!