A Recipe - Snack Time

I had gotten the children to bed and was feeling a twinge of hunger in my stomach, and I knew I needed a snack!

Bedtime snacks are one of my favorite things. I know it isn't the healthiest of times to be eating a snack, but I can't help it sometimes.

Anyway, I just wanted something tasty, and quick.

Organic quick rolled instant oats.

Perfect.

So I warmed some milk on the stove and added some red raspberries. Then once boiling I added the oats and the sugar (to taste). I let it cook all together.

The result:

Delicious fruity oatmeal before bed! Perfect treat. Quick and easy, and if you don't count the sugar, really healthy!

What's For Supper Tonight?

Here at TnT Homestead we love when we are gifted with donations, of almost any sort! From fertilizer and food, to clothing and house wares; we are gracious and accepting of it all!

Yesterday we were gifted a box full of baked things from a local (an from what I understand) popular bakery, Panera Bread. 

I am involved with a charity organization that gets and gives bread/pastry/bagel donations. We happened to be a family that got to receive that gift!!

Praise be to God!

So in choosing what to make for supper tonight, I thought about what I had in the "bread box". Something I had a lot of were bread bowls.  I had also recently purchased 10 lbs of potatoes. 

Potato soup in bread bowls it is!!

Nothing fancy, as I didn't bake the bread, but here are the bowls after I made them..well, bowls!

I thought they looked so nice, and the sides held up so nicely with that thick, crusty outer layer. 

**As a side note, I am using the insides and the top parts I cut off and out to make homemade stuffing, per the request of my Husband. I have the "remains" drying on the counter tonight.**

Then I went on to simply make potato soup. I was going to do loaded potato soup, with bacon and all the trimmings; but I realized the star of this show needed to be the fabulous bread bowls!

I opted for a plain cheese potato soup. I added some herbs and spices, along with onions and garlic. Milk, butter and a couple of "secret" ingredients, and viola! 

Delicious potato soup topped with cheese! 

I have to say I was very impressed with these bread bowls. The sides were marvelous, yet when you ate the inside, the soft inner bread came right off into the spoon to add some extra yum to each bite! 

I cannot deny, this was an amazing supper. I refilled my bread bowl three times! Although the last time was mainly with soup broth. 

We here at TnT Homestead highly recommend the bread bowls from Panera Breads. They sure know what they are doing making them the way they do. 

You can enjoy a variety of soups in bread bowls too!! Don't limit yourselves, challenge yourselves with more different recipes and ideas. Appreciate the fun of filling your bowl with something new each time. I know as the house cook, I surely will!!

Good eats and blessed treats!!

A Recipe - Apple Crumble Cups

Here in my kitchen sit some apples.

I know that I want to bake with some of these apples. Make something sweet and warming, on this chilly Spring day.

I decide I want apple crisp. Then I decided, no, I don't want a big dish of everything all thrown in. The oats become to "oat-meally" for me. 

So, I made my crusty, homemade pie crust, and put it into muffin tins.

I used the ingredients in the "crumble" part of this recipe:

Baking Soda, Organic Quick Rolled Oats, Chinese 5-Spice, Sugar mixed with 5-spice, Brown Sugar, Baking Powder.

My son and I cut up apples and mixed in the sugar/5-spice mixture. 

Then we added that to the little crust cups.

I melted butter and added it to this dry mixture (of mentioned above ingredients for "crumble"). 

This is what I ended up with.

Make sure to really mix everything in, and that everything is moistened.

Because this isn't really any real recipe, and I sort of was flying by the seat of my pants on this one, I changed things up a bit. 

I was originally going to sprinkle the crumble over the top of the apples, but decided against that last minute, seeing that I had A LOT of crumble to use up!

What I did instead was pack the crumble down and form "domes" on the top, almost like a cupcake.

I then baked them for 30 minutes, at 350 degrees in a pre-heated oven. 

What did I end up with?? Apple Crumble Cups. 

The house smelled so delicious as these cooked!!

When I used the fork to lift them out of the cups, they came out like muffins. Smooth and wonderful. I was so happy with how they looked!

Amazing treats, all in a small space, easily refrigerated, and not "oat-meally".

We didn't have any whipped topping for this, or whipping cream to make our own, but eating them just like this was heaven anyway! 

Enjoy making this easy snack. Perfect for any cold day, or could be served with ice cream on a hot one!

Spring Yard Work

It is Spring time here in South Eastern Wyoming. Normally we don't see Spring until May sometime, but this year, we received it in March and it has been beautiful. It seems April may bring us some moisture. Seeing as our reservoirs are low, moisture in any form is appreciated and welcomed!

While waiting for the moisture though, we have things to get done. So here are some photos of projects we have been working on. 

Below is a photo of my smallest garden bed. I normally grow pumpkins, corn, sunflowers and green beans in this bed. It needed tilled up and fertilizer added.

Below is a photo of the base of our Cherry Plum tree out front. We tried rocks in there one year and it wasn't a success, yet we never cleared them out. The the grass started to grow over, and honestly we just couldn't take it anymore! 

Below is a photo of the small garden bed all dug up, with local fertilizer tilled in. Looks MUCH nicer and will be ready for seeds in a couple of weeks.

Here we have a photo of our Cherry Plum tree after all the grass and rocks had been cleared out. It took quite a bit of time, as it all had been really grown over.

However, the time and energy spent was well worth it I think! It looks beautiful. I will be planting flowers all around the base of this tree, and you can see the start of what will be a faerie garden, which I am rather excited about.

What we have here is a "before" photo. We had two massive hail storms roll through within a week of each other last summer. So we had our siding redone on our home. We saved this 25' piece of siding to use for more growing space. I had fabulous ideas I couldn't wait to put to use!

This is how our dog helps....oh what a bum!

First my Husband cut them, then closed off the ends. Then my sister and I spray painted the outsides of gutters, hunter green.

Here is a view of our smallest garden bed, after I painted and put up the green bean trellis :) I can't wait to see viney green beans growing up this trellis. We upcycled our daughter's old metal bunk bed pieces!

Here is a view of the gutters! Which are now going to be the "beds" for all our greens, lettuce, salad bowl, spinach..and possibly radishes.

This is just an added photo of my beautiful rhubarb! It has already started coming up and there are well over 10 stalks!! Oh my we will be having a lot of rhubarb pies and treats this year!

So we are well on our way here at TnT Homesteads, getting ready for planting season and all that entails. 

Are you ready to start sprouting?? Have you been working on your yards and gardens? If not, take advantage of the nice weather and get outside and get dirty!

A Recipe - Tuna Pasta Salad

This is a recipe post!! YAY! 

A very large part of my homemaking is cooking. I would think it would be safe to say that this is the same for most homemakers. 

As I was preparing supper the other night (I was making a taco skillet) I asked my Husband, T, if he would prefer egg noodles or elbow noodles. He answered egg noodles. Which is what I normally make this meal with anyways. 

Well, I got into the cleaning and cooking and just grabbed the elbow noodles and dumped them into my boiling water. Approximately 1 minute later I realized what I had done! Grrr...so I decided I needed to figure out something quick to make with elbow noodles, that would be good to store in the fridge, and eat for lunches. 

I decided on a tuna noodle pasta salad. 

I took the elbow noodles, drained them and rinsed with cold water. I put them in a bowl and added some mayo, spices (including but not limited to, garlic powder, onion powder, pepper, salt, organic parsley), and a squirt of mustard. I decided it needed a little more pep to it, and added some of TnT Homesteads home grown and canned zucchini relish. This relish had been marinating for over a  year, so it was SO flavorful and delicious!

Simply adding a can of tuna in water (drained) and mixing in the relish, this turned into an amazing lunch pasta salad that my family (excluding T, who doesn't like tuna) has enjoyed. 

The possibilities are endless with a pasta salad such as this. You can add pickle, more seasonings, subtract things, add onions, carrots, cheeses, anything that your mind and taste buds can conjure up!

Enjoy a simple, and easily stored, meal!