Weekend Cooking, Baking and Firewood

Since the days have been cooler, I've been wanting to make some comfort food.  I started with soup.  No name actually.  I looked in the freezer for meat and found some hamburger patties and pulled them out, next I went to the fridge and found some leftover pork roast, pulled it out, with carrots and celery.  Soup needs onions so I went to the garage and cut off an onion from the braid we have hanging in there.  I went to my pantry and got some canned corn and green beans from last year.  So pretty much the soup was all homemade except the meat.

I added a finely chopped jalenpeno, potatoes, garlic, some tomato sauce, beef broth and let it simmer all day.  I didn't want to go to the store for bread so I made bread next.  DB has been talking about wanting some "stretch necks" so instead of making two loaves of bread, I used one for the stretch necks.  I call them "fry bread."  I love making bread, it's so easy and rewarding.  I love the smell of the yeast and the baking.

I didn't get a snap of the bread, this is from last weekend.

And because I was on a roll, I also made Overnight Cinnamon Rolls for Saturday morning.  I started these in the evening.  They only took a couple of minutes to mix together and an hour for the first raising.  I rolled them out and filled them with cinnamon, melted butter, a little nutmeg and some walnuts we harvested roadside last year.  I covered them with plastic wrap and put them in the fridge.  The next morning I took them out while the oven was preheating.  Thirty minutes later we had fresh, hot out of the oven cinnamon rolls.

Firewood:  DBs nephew brought us out a couple cords of wood.  Saturday morning we hauled it all to the back of the house and stacked it.  We'll probably have to get a couple cord more because we don't plan on using our oil heat too much this winter.

DBs in the living room right now, I hear the snap and pop of a fire getting started.  Ahhhh.

This post is also published on Homestead Revival.

Overnight Cinnamon Rolls

were made yesterday and baked this morning.  I got this recipe off of Chickens in the Road blog and have made them a couple of times.  Making them ahead is great because once you take them out of the fridge, preheat your oven, you can pop them in and in 25 minutes they are ready.

These are not from a can in the refrigerator section of your local supermarket.  These are 100% homemade and delicious.  Check out Chickens in the Road to get the recipe.

Making Bread

We got up at 5 this morning ready to get started with our day.  I decided to make bread because I didn't get to it yesterday.  Here is it raising just before baking.

I chopped onions that we had drying, vacuum sealed them in 1 cup portions for cooking with later on.  I chopped red and green peppers and sealed them also for later use.  I so glad I got that done.  I just couldn't waste them.

We did some winterizing on the chicken coop.  Installed a light on a timer and a coop door.  They had been using the large sliding doors but the temps are suppose to be a lot cooler the next couple of nights.  I gave the girls a pan of yogurt and some boiled eggs, they ate every bit up.  Cleaned out their water and added some apple cider vinegar.  I think they are happy.  They have been able to free range during the weekends and they love it.  When I get home from work, I will let them out until dark.  

The bread turned out lovely.  We had a pork roast with carrots and onions and a side of french cut beans (homemade) with bacon bits.  For desert we had an apple crisp with ice cream.

LJ is our rooster.

Look at those fluffy butts.

Chicken Treats

Today was a beautiful day.  We let the chickens out of their yard to forage.  They love their scratch and have gotten used to having it when they are out of their yard.

We have to get some light in the shed for them.  There are two starting to molt and their egg production has tapered down.  We're getting there.  I would love to see your set up for winter if you would post.  I need and would like to get some ideas.

MQX West Portland 2011

I had a real treat this last week.  I attended the first MQX West (Maching Quilters Exposition) in Portland.  I took a couple of hands-on classes from Linda V. Taylor and a lecture demo with Kim Brunner.  The first class with Linda V. Taylor was Stargazing.  She gave us ideas on how to quilt stars.

Then we got to practice.  We were using a Gammil longarm quilting machine.  These were wonderful to quilt with.  Maybe one of these days, I'll be able to get one.  But I like mine and am getting use to quilting with it.  These aren't my stars...I wish.  No they were Linda's demos for her class.  

The class I took with Kim Brunner was on Edge to Edge Quilting.  She thought this subject was needed because not everyone does custom work.  She had some great handout for us to practice with.  I can't wait to get started.