Dandelion Jelly

View of our clover patch!! Nice and green it is! :)

The shed is coming along nicely.
Tony's scedule the past couple days has been
work. dinner. build. school.

sprinkled with just a little bit of sleep.
Lord willing he'll be able to catch up on some much
needed sleep over the forcasted rainy weekend.


And pretty dandelions enjoying the sunshine.

I've been reading through a book titled "Good Old Days in the Kitchen"
I found it at Ollies for $2.99! Reading the back cover brought a smile
to my face so in the cart it went. Back in the Good Old Days life revolved
around the kitchen table - not the television. There we brought the fresh
vegetables from the garden for cleaning and canning. There we folded hands
and gave thanks for the good things the Lord had provided. There we shared
bread and time with one another. This look back into the kitchens of yesteryear
is sure to warm you just like the old wood cookstove. I have very much liked
reading about the "kitchens of yesteryear" and find myself wanting my kitchen
to resemble theirs in certain ways. There is much to learn from generations past.


"She never let one green tomato go to waste... she appeared to find her task [of feeding
her family frugally] challenging and satisfying... our mother was a willing baker and a very accomplished maker of pies and cake ... big golden oak table... a demanding monster
of a garden in which we all labored according to our ages and capabilities... "

There are recipes scattered throughout these stories - green tomato pie, pecan sandies,
grandma's ketchup, prepared horseradish, five-egg sponge cake, and even dandelion
jelly. Yep. Those little yellow flowers that are blooming right now and usually sprayed
with some sort of weed killer were used for food in kitchens past.

*Dandelion Jelly*

Pick one quart of fresh dandelion blossoms. Quickly rinse blossoms with cool water to remove any insects. Snip off green collars. Combine cleaned blossoms in a saucepan with 2 quarts cold water. Bring to a boil and boil for 3 minutes. Set aside to cool. Strain liquid, pressing petals with fingers to extract juice. Measure 3 cups dandelion liquid into a saucepan; add 2 tablespoons lemon juice and 1 package Sure Jell. Bring to a boil. Add 5.5 cups sugar, stirring well. Boil for 2.5 minutes, stirring well. Put in jars and seal.

Excited about dirt and other things

Our bradford pear trees are blooming beautifully and I am l.o.v.i.n.g. this spring-like weather we've had the past few days. I do not think it is here to stay yet, but it has been nice. Saturday morning we made our way to Goldsboro to return plywood to Lowes and pick up some starter pots for our seeds. We were also very excited to get a truckload of nice rich soil! Never thought we'd be so excited about dirt. Ha! Tony & his dad started on the shed, while I shoveled the dirt into our garden box and started our sweet pepper seeds. The guys were able to complete the floor of the shed early afternoon. Most of the day was spent outdoors in the wonderful sunshine ... thence Tony & I both received some pink highlights on our white skin. ;) After a nice big salad we made our way back to Lowes to pick up more wood. It took a looong time to weed through all the warped pieces of wood, but we were finally able to get what we needed. Praise God! Then homeward bound we were after a quick stop at the grocery store to get ingredients for homemade pimento cheese with Irish soda bread - dinner. It was a late night, but it felt sooo very good to lay in bed!! Oh yes, and spring our clocks up an hour.

After a few hours of sleep our alarm started going off, noting it was time to get up and get ready for church. :) It takes us a good hour to get to church from our house - plenty of time to talk and sing with my sweet husband and/or listen to a sermon. Sweet moments of togetherness. A song that continually came to mind while listening to this weeks sermon was "Behold the Lamb of God" by Andrew Peterson - if you turn your volume up you can hear it playing in the background.

Behold the Lamb of God who takes away our sin.
Behold the Lamb of God the life and light of man.
Behold the Lamb of God who died and rose again.
Behold the Lamb of God who comes to take away our sin.

I was able to get a good start on a girly baby blanket; there it is pictured below and you can see the tote bag I sewed with Tony's mom. It makes for a great traveling bag. Oh how I like being crafty!!

Yesterday afternoon we went to Tony's parents house to celebrate Wes' 21st birthday. Theres a picture of two of our cute neices and a nephew below. :)

We came home and sat on our porch enjoying the nice Sunday afternoon breeze. Tony read. I crocheted. Then my parents stopped by for a visit. They brought us two yummy bagels that dad had made the day before. Very tasty!! Then we just sat and chatted about various things. :)

Wonderful weekend!!
Praise God from Whom all blessings flow!!

Because Biblical religion is a total faith,

and our God a total and sovereign Lord,

we must claim every area of life and thought for Christ,

and the area of education is a central one,

and, next to the family, most basic to the life of man.

--RJ Rushdoony

Thai for Dinner

A couple weeks ago a friend treated me to lunch at a local Thai restaurant. I ordered a dish that consisted of rice with pineapple, cashews, tomatoes, onions, celery, raisins, scrambled egg, and other veggies. It was really tasty! So today I decided to recreate it here at the house. Yum!!

Gnocchi's for the Neighborhood

While flipping through an old Martha Stewart magazine I came across a recipe for Baked Gnocchi with Cheese. It sounded so yummy and I had been talking about making it for a couple weeks. For anyone that does not know, a Gnocchi is a small dumpling type noodle (like pictured to the right) with a base of potato or ricotta cheese. My Mimi (grandma) made the 'mistake' of making gnocchis one year - she served it with sauce and italian sausage. It was so good!! And every time we visited her we would ask her to make gnocchis ... she said they took a long time to make and instead would make her yummy lasagna for us. Ha! Us girls have made gnocchi's a few times since, the last time being October of 2007 -> there we are rolling out each individual dumpling. So when I saw this yummy version of it I knew it had to be tried. I recruited my sister on her day off work {yesterday} to come over and help make lots of gnochhi - that way there would be plenty for my family and Tony's parents. We like to share. :) Everything was going smoothly and we were making pretty good timing. We peeled, boiled, and mashed 5 lbs of potatoes and added to that six eggs, six cups of flour, and six tablespoons of salt. We started mixing it all together by hand to be sure everything was well incorporated. Then I tasted the dough. I tasted it again. I told Brittany to taste the dough and asked if she thought it tasted salty. Her face said it all. I reread the recipe and realized that I was only supposed to add about 8 teaspoons of salt - not 6 Tablespoons. GASP! First we tried adding a little more flour. That didn't work. Maybe adding a little milk. But we didn't want to mess up the dough. We called mom to tell her of our mishap and ask for any ideas. She laughed (in a nice way of course). The dough was very very salty. And we figured that the only way to fix it is to double the recipe again and add no more salt. So as soon as my sweet husband got off work I sent him on a mission to buy us another 5 lbs of potatoes. He got home. We peeled. We boiled. We prayed! We added the flour and eggs. No more salt. We mixed. mixed. mixed. And mixed some more. It was a massive pile of dough! The pictures do not do justice. I think enough to feed our neighborhood - hence the title of this post. We hesitantly tasted the dough again. {insert big sigh of relief!} It was no longer salty. Praise the Lord! Brittany sliced and shaped the gnocchi's while I boiled them and prepared the mozzerella cheese sauce. We took turns straining them out of the water as they rose to the top. Mom joined us a little while later to help finish and clean the counter. We made a fairly large mess. I think I swept the floor at least five times during the process. And washed my large pot four times. But after 10 lbs of potatoes, a dozen eggs, 16 cups of flour, 6 tablespoons of salt and some yummy cheese sauce we ended up reaching our goal - baked gnocchi with cheese. Which admist all the cooking we did not get a picture of the final product. Oh well. It was good. Very good actually. We didn't use nearly half the dough. So I have divided the rest up into four ziploc bags and they have made themselves at home in our freezer. The next time we have a craving for gnocchi's at least it won't take no where near as long. :)

Recipe for Basic Potato Gnocchi
Baked Gnocchi with Cheese