Joy in the Kitchen!

There is nothing better on a slice of toast than strawberry or raspberry freezer jam. This is not open to debate. LOL! I love the ease of freezer jam and especially I LOVE the fresh from the garden look and taste. I prefer to use MCP Pectin. I've tried others & MCP is just what I'm most comfortable with. I've used it so much I could almost make jam in my sleep. I just follow the insert in the box of pectin, but in case you need to know amounts before you run to the store, I'll post those here. You need: 3 1/4 C. of crushed berries (I just take the tops off, rinse, and then mash them with a potato masher if they're from the garden - if I bought berries from the store, I use my pastry blender to cut them up) 1/4 C. fresh lemon juice (I don't always put this in - but the jam sets up firmer if you do) 4 1/2 C. sugar 1 C. light corn syrup 1 pkg MCP pectin The directions are easy... mix your berries & lemon juice in a LARGE bowl. Add your...

We have been busy playing this month, but it's time to stay home now as the garden is on! The past 2 days the kids have help me freeze 12 cups of peas, 4 quart bags of snow peas, can 6 quarts of green beans, and 7 quarts of dill pickles. We've been busy! :) Our Dill Pickles are a recipe from my Mom. They are an old recipe and as such, use less vinegar than is suggested now for canning. My whole family has made these for years without problems. The directions.... wash freshly picked pickling cucumbers. Slice, cut into spears or leave whole and place in clean canning jars. Put a pinch of powdered alum into each jar and then a good sized head of fresh dill. (I add more sliced cucumbers on top of the dill to squish it down in there good. In 3 quart pan, bring to boil, 3 C. of water, 1 C. vinegar and 1/4 C. salt. Boil 2 minutes and then pour into jars up to the fill line. Clean top of jar to be sure no salt remains, add lids & rings, process in a boiling water ...

Several months ago, my friend AnnaRuth from church, brought over a couple of beautiful loaves of french bread she had made. They were wonderful! My family kept reminding me I needed to get her recipe and try making it myself. I finally did it! This bread was so easy to mix up. I used my KitchenAid mixer, but it could easily be done by hand. I have a 6 quart bowl & heavy duty mixer so I doubled the batch so I'd have a few loaves to share and it turned out perfect. If you have the smaller model KitchenAid, a single batch will work fine in it. Your total flour on a single batch will be around 6-7 cups. AnnaRuth tells me she got this recipe from Marilyn Dye, who got it from her mother. I'd consider that a time tested recipe. Mother’s French Bread Mix: 2 ½ C. hot tap water 2 T. sugar 2 tsp. salt Then put in 2 T. yeast (I used instant yeast & just decreased it by ½ tsp.) and ¼ C. of oil and mix again. Add 5 C. flour and mix on low speed 5 minutes or s...

Wow! I have so many recipes I want to share I'm not sure where to start! Years ago I found a couple of recipes for granola that were good, and I combined those to make a granola that my family loves. We'll start there. If you don't need 20 cups of granola at a time, this recipe is easy to cut in half.  It does store really well though so I love making a large batch and messing up the kitchen less often.  Don't let making granola intimidate you. It's as easy as mixing up a batch of cookies. For a full recipe you'll want a nice large mixing bowl (that'll hold at least 20 cups), a sturdy wooden spoon, a 3 quart saucepan, and 2 large cookie sheets with sides. Crunchy Granola 10 C. quick oats 1 C. whole wheat flour 1 C. wheat germ or oat bran 1 C. coconut (optional) 1 C. sliced almonds 1 C. chopped walnuts 1 C. roasted sunflower seeds 1 C. raisins or other dried fruit (add after baking) Mix together in large bowl. Then, in large pan h...

I love to cook! There's so much satisfaction found in pulling hot bread out of the oven, or mixing up a batch of cookies to greet the kids after school. I'm not a fancy cook, at least not very often. I do however, tend to cook and bake from scratch and love finding inexpensive ways to feed my family. I'll warn you right now, I ramble as much when I write as I do when I talk... and I plan on writing just as though you are right here with me. :-) May you find a few recipes or tips that will become useful in your own kitchen and I hope you'll enjoy visiting and drop by often!