What's For Supper Tonight?

It has been a lazy, yet productive day here at TnT Homestead today.

While I may not have ever made it out of my PJ's, I have been baking and cooking up a storm today!

Because of this though, I wanted a quick, simple supper tonight, made from all storage items. I have found, making anything from storage items is always quicker, because most things are already made.

So upon checking the deep freezer I found a lot of smoked, cased sausage. So I decided to take some of that and fry it up in a soup pot. 

Then I dumped 2 quarts of already made and canned French Onion Soup. I heated it up, stirring occasionally. 

Once heated, I served it over white rice that I had made a huge batch of earlier. Topped with shredded mozzarella cheese.

And VOILA! There you have it, easy, comfort food, from storage.

Happy Homemaking!!

 

Helpful Homemaker Hint

(photo courtesy of Google, not my sock basket)

The topic of helpful hints today is.....

SOCKS!

Now, I know I ONLY have two children, and we are ONLY a four person household...the fact remains we all still wear socks.

Now, I am going to address a thing or two with this post.

First, in my family we use a sock basket. I toss a bunch of socks in there as they come out of the dryer. When it gets full, the children and I sit down and match socks together for 15 minutes to empty it out again and fill our sock drawers. This works well for us, as we are only a 4 person family. 

What I have noticed however, with large families is....the socks are out of control, and even using a sock basket can get tricky.

My Helpful Homemaker Hint is this: Boys wear black socks, girls wear white socks. OR, boys wear white socks, girls wear solid colored socks. 

This way you don't have to worry so much about what sock matches what sock. Because they are all the same kind, style and brand. That way, a black sock goes with a black sock. Period :)

If you like the sock basket idea, and have a large family. I recommend one basket for boys socks, and one basket for girls socks. This way it helps them be somewhat organized.

Happy Homemaking!!

Helpful Homemaker Hint

Hi all!!

YES, it has been some time since I have done a homemaking blog, but alas, harvest season, life, children, school lessons and re-doing the house to put on the market, has without question taken up a lot of my time.

Without further adieu, I am going to start a snippet mini-series about helpful tips, with every day things in the home. Things I have learned from others over the years. Or, things that I have learned via trial and error! 

So here it is folks, Helpful Homemaking Hint numero uno!

When boiling potatoes, beans, or even grains...you will notice a foam (like pictured above) that comes to the top as the water boils.

SKIM THIS OFF. 

This foam is actually all of the dirt and "impurities" that are in the pot, or on the potatoes, grains etc. As the water heats, it separates the impurities from the water, and brings it to the surface. Allowing us to skim off what seems to simply be foam :)*Funny story. I was telling my mom about this, and she said, "When I cooked all the time I just figured it was nutrients so I stirred it right back in!" ahahah

*************************************************************************

There you have it folks! Skim the impurities from your meals. 

As a side note: You can always use this "skim" time to skim off the impurities from your spiritual lives as well. Use this time to talk with God, and then be still and listen as He replies. 

Use your daily tasks as time to spend with your Father in Heaven.

Happy Homemaking!!!

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!

Snoring & Home Remedies For It

Hello again. 

I wanted my first actual post to be something a bit more domestic than what this one is about. Didn't want to "open" on something that contains a lot of information. So I am going to discuss this in a minimal way, while still giving useful information regarding....none other than..... *drum roll pleeeeaaassse*...

SNORING!! 

There are several reasons that snoring, and remedies to help snoring, are a hot topic of conversation for me. 

No, I am not obsessed with the nasal passages, or the throat hole. I am not that interested honestly, but over the last couple of years, I have had to learn a thing or two. 

My dear Husband, T, suffers from snoring. On what I would consider a 'normal' night, his snoring isn't very bad, and I am mainly able to just sleep through it. (Although a nice little kick or elbow could help..no, no! ahahaha) 

My dear Husband, T, has also recently taken on the journey of quitting smoking. YAY! This is a BIG praise! To T, and to answered prayers from God. 

However, because of his 'quitting', he is clearing out about 17 years worth of smoking from his lungs. Yes, SEVENTEEN years. Wow. Which means he is coughing, hacking, sometimes waking himself up; and of course....snoring.

I can sleep through the coughing. Or I will get him some water, help him if he needs something. Sleeping through coughing just isn't hard for me. As it isn't consistent the way snoring is. Seriously though, with each and every breath, snoring takes away my sleep.

So, in light of my Husband's even louder snoring (because of the whole throat adjusting to non-smoker life, and lungs clearing out ick) I have decided that there has to be something more we/I can do. 

First, I would like to direct you to a video by the main herbalist, Susun Weed, I like to learn from. I have not been able to attend any of her real-life teachings or classes (as she is all the way on the East coast), but I have been able to learn quite a bit from her videos. I am able to take what she says, and do more research to make my decisions and gain my knowledge. Here is a video of hers (an older one) that I was happy to see again!

After seeing this, I decided that getting some Red Clover and making an infusion (which is something I personally love to do with herbs) for my Husband, T, to drink, it may aide in his heal time. Even if it isn't a cure, or instant fix all, it will be able to give some relief, and hopefully less snoring. 

Next, I would like to direct you to another video by Susun Weed, that talks about Mullein leaf. It is really a powerfully medicinal plant and the healing properties are fabulous. This is also something I will be retaining for my Husband's lung health. Unfortunately I do not grow Red Clover, nor Mullein plants...so I have to get mine from an herb store.

Both are great herbs to have on hand for lung health.

One of the non-herbal things that we do is have T sleep on his side. Snoring is reduced to a lower tone, and less frequently when on the side. This way your throat doesn't relax back onto the adenoids and restrict the air way. I also always put his arms down if I catch them up over his head. This way there isn't added tension onto the lungs and chest area. 

We also use the Breathe Right Extra Strength nose strips.

While these do not stop or eliminate snoring, they do help. Quite a bit. I attribute many good nights of sleep to these here strips! We always buy the extra strength. T says that he can feel a difference in his breathing when he is wearing one of those strips. I notice that his breathing seems deeper, and his breaths more 'fulfilling' for lack of better word. 

We definitely keep this little modern day convenience around the house! 

One of the last things that we do is make sure that T has only one pillow. Not a huge puffy pillow, but not a flat and thing pillow either. Just a regular "sort of used" pillow. This way it keeps his neck much more even with the rest of his spine/body.

So that is about it for now on the snoring. I am not giving any medical advice, this is simply what we are doing to help, without have to go through surgeries, or take prescriptions with ill side effects. 

Here is to happy sleeping, and happy snore-free breathing!

Hello, & Welcome!

Well, hello there! 

I am Irene. 

God's child. Wife. Mama. Homemaker. Home educator. 

I would like to welcome you to my blog!

The basics of what I will be covering in this blog are the things that directly relate to my blog title: Homemaking, Homesteading and Home Educating. 

I have been a homemaker for over 9 years. My amazing Husband T, supports a home-based lifestyle; so me being home while he works is never an issue.  There was a phrase I heard once that has stuck with me, that a man said about he and his wife, "I make the living, and she makes the living worth while."

First and foremost I want to cover a bit about what I will be rambling about in this blog. My thoughts and opinions, obviously, life experiences and what we go through in each of these categories.

One ~ We are Christ-followers. 

Everything in our lives revolve around the Lord, our Savior, who died on a cross for our sins. We are biblical to the best of our human ability. We learn daily, change daily and work hard daily, to be who the Lord has made us to be. I speak about God a lot in my writing, because He is such a huge part of our lives. As I said, we are centered around Christ, His Grace and unfailing love.

Two ~ I am a wife.

My Husband T, and I have been married for 7 1/2 years, and together for over 15 years.  Wife is probably one of the most important roles I play every single day.  My marriage is on the absolute top of my priority list, and I speak about how *I* feel I am called to be a biblical wife, to my Husband. Biblical wifehood is very important to me, as I know the Lord created me as my Husband's helpmeet. I am on a constant journey in becoming the best helpmeet I can, to my Husband.

Third ~ I am a mama.

This is a huge part of who I am every second of every day. Our children are young right now, aged 9 and almost 6, so they need me for a lot of things. Although our 9 year old daughter is growing and maturing daily! Our son is a rambunctious young boy. I will have lots of stories, dialogues, and interesting tales in parenting to share. There are some things I have learned good ways to handle situations I'd like to share, and other places I need work just like all parents. I enjoy talking about parenting, as it is a very serious and important role for me. I don't take parenting lightly, but I do enjoy it thoroughly!

Fourth ~ I am a homemaker.

For the last 9 1/2 years, I have been at home, making our home and life. I feel called to be a homemaker. Which of course entails many things such as cooking, cleaning, organizing, bill paying, scheduling, helping my Husband where he needs it, running errands, marketing, menu planning, frugality, budgeting, and basically being there wherever I am needed. Filling in the places that need filled in, being the 'oiler' of the machine that is our family's life. 

Fifth ~ I am a home educator.

We fell into homeschooling our children before we even knew what was happening! It has been quite the journey. We have homeschooled our children from the beginning of their educations. We have been doing it for 4 years now, and I am the main educator (of course, as I am the parent home).  It has become more than just learning, it is a way of life for our family, to explore, learn, research and educate ourselves through every aspect of our lives. The world is our classroom, and I can't wait to take you on some adventures with us. I will speak of curriculum we use, or want to use, projects we do, progress made, or how we handle setbacks, or bumps in our schooling road. 

Sixth ~ I am a homesteader.

We only have a city lot for now, but we utilize it in the best way that we can, to suit our lifestyle. Preparing for "the worst" and praying for "the best" is sort of how we live. We have full Faith in God and His plan, but we also know that we have a family here to feed. Good wholesome foods are important to me. Raw foods. Old fashioned homesteading, building something from nothing. It is a dream....one I can't wait to live. I will speak of our current 'Urban' Homestead, and what we want to do, once we are moved to our rural homestead.

Seventh ~ I am a gardener.

We use our small lot to the best of our ability. Meaning we grow as much as we can, with the space given. I used to grow things as a young girl, but never realized how important gardening would become to me as an adult/mother. We have gardened for about 4 years now, and every year I learn something new, and do something better. The weather tests me and gives me a run for my money (like last year's back to back hail storms). I will speak of how we are planting, what we are planting, update with photos on how the gardens are doing, and of course harvest time. Along with gardening, goes preservation (which also ties in with homesteading and homemaking, and even home education) and caning. I have been caning my own foods, soups, vegetables, stews, meats, potatoes, honey, and whatever else you can think of, for over 2 years now. It is a lost art in my opinion, being able to preserve food, and I can't wait to share with you how I make things work.

Eighth ~ I am a cook.

While technically being a cook is in direct correlation with homemaking (I even mentioned cooking) it is in and of itself its own entity in my mind. I love to cook, and even more so for my family. I love to know I am feeding them well, and that there aren't foreign ingredients entering their bodies by my hand. Teaching good eating habits, through healthful meals is very important to me as well. I will be sharing things I make through photos and words, although there are some recipes that I won't share the ingredients or measurements, just the photos of that meal. Just to preserve some of the simple traditions that I can have to pass through my own family. 

Now that you have a general idea of what I will be sharing with you on the blog, I hope that you enjoy my (more than likely, frequent) posts! I look forward to your comments and thoughts! 

Please remember, this is a Christ-centered blog. I'd appreciate good attitudes, kind hearts, and positive words. Encouragement is key! 

Welcome to my blog, to my life, and to some of my ways, I'm pleased to meet you; and ever so glad to have ya!