Yogurt
Makes 2 quarts
(be sure to read note at end before beginning)
Combine in large bowl:
3c. powdered milk
6 c. warm water
Stir well. Add:
1 can evaporated milk OR 1 2/3 c. scalded whole milk (Again, I use powdered milk, just with extra powder)
Combine separately:
1/4-1/2 c. yogurt starter, which may be plain yogurt purchased or it may be dry yogurt cultures that are purchased dry such as what I am showing in this photo.
1 c. milk from the bowl
Blend until smooth and return to remaining milk. Mix well. Pour into clean jars. Place in crock pot surrounded by warm water or an insulated picnic cooler. If you have a newer crock pot, made since roughly 2004, do not turn the crock pot on, as it will be too hot and burn the yogurt. Incubate at 110-120° until set. Refrigerate
Another variation I have found good is sprinkling some nonflavored gelatin onto the scalding milk and stirring in. This helps thicken it. Other ways to thicken is to incubate longer or add more powdered milk to the mixture before incubating.
The kids love adding a little sweetener and vanilla into it. You could also use it for sour cream.
Sweet Corn Muffins
4 1/2 cups Flour
2 cups Sugar
1 1/2 cup Cornmeal
3 TBSP Baking Powder
1 1/2 TSP Salt
3 3/4 cups Milk
6 Eggs, lightly beaten
1 cup Veggie Oil
9 TBSP Butter or Margarine melted
Preheat oven to 350º F. (375º F.) Grease or paper-line 3-4 muffin pans.
Combine flour, sugar, cornmeal, baking powder, and salt in a large bowl. Add milk, eggs, oil, and butter. Stir until just blended.
Pour into prepared muffin cups 2/3 full.
Bake for 18-20 minutes or until wooden pick comes out clean.
Enjoy!
Bread (in a bread machine)
12 oz. (1 1/2 cups) Water
2 T. Oil or margarine
4 C. Flour
2 t. Salt
2 T. Sugar
3 t. Yeast
Put the bread maker to basic, 1 1/2 pound, and medium color crust.
Ranch Dressing
2 C Mayonnaise
2 C Sour cream (Or plain Yogurt)
2 t Ground Pepper
2 t Garlic powder
2 t Dill Weed
1/2 Milk*
In a medium sized bowl that can fit a lid, mix everything together with a wire whisk, otherwise there will be lumps.
*Optional
Bisquick
10 C flour
1/4 C sugar
1/3 Baking Powder
3 t Salt
2 C Crisco
Mix Flour, Sugar, Baking powder, and salt together. Add Crisco, and cut it with the pastry cutter.
You could also make biscuits with this recipe. Preheat the oven for 350. When you are done mixing everything, you just add some water until it looks like enough, or is not dry.
My Favorite Hunting Photo
Can you hear the waltz music?
Cookies!!!
Just click on the name of the cookie and BAM! the recipe is there. Good to keep handy!
When The Big Ones Are Away, The Littles Will Play
Those in our family, who are old enough to hunt (that’s 8 people), are gone this week. The “littles”, as I call the younger set of 5, and I are having a fun time of cleaning and playing in the snow. Well, for them, it’s been play. For mama, it’s been shoveling. We have about 6 inches so far and today it is snowing again.
The snow is just beautiful as it sits heavy on the pine trees. The tall, dry grasses in our field stand tall with snow intertwined. The garden, looking sad and abandoned has taken on a new look of beauty. As I write this, three deer are in the garden. The kids are watching out the back, surmising that they are a mama, daddy, and baby deer. They are watching them dig for grass, coming up with their faces covered in snow. They have had several occasions to watch them jump over fences. How beautiful!
As I shoveled snow yesterday, Jayden (4) asked what would happen if he spit in the snow. Is this a boy thing, or what? Tess crafted a cute little snowman, hoping it would remain until the hunters returned home to see it.
We have a list of things “to do” a mile long. Well, that might be exaggerating, but just cleaning the pantry has taken several days, alone!!! The first task we tackled was the refrigerator. Rase stood inside it and wiped it down really well while I washed the shelves and Tessila (8) wiped them dry.
Rase (6) has been my little man, going around the kitchen with a screw driver, checking all the cupboard doors and tightening the ones that need tightening. We discovered one that was complete broken. He removed it for me and we took it to a shop to get replacement parts. He reinstalled the hardware for me!
It’s been interesting cooking for such a small crowd! I use small pots and pans.
The hunters called last night from Red Lodge. They had come down from the mountains to get propane, a meal, and check on parts for the heater, which stopped working in one of the trailers. I was so glad they called! We sure miss them! They said they had received about three feet of snow!!
I wish I had a digital camera so I could take before and after photos of the refrigerator and pantry! That’s all for now. Have a blessed Thanksgiving!
Traditions!
Does your family have traditions? I am becoming more keenly aware that we have traditions that my husband I didn’t even know we had! Last summer, as we were headed to a local lake (more like a pond) to swim, and after everyone was packed in the van, the dialog went something like this:
“Oh! Where’s the ‘Second Chapter of Acts’ tape? We have to listen to it when we go to Lake Elmo!” My response? “We do???” Everyone piped in, “Yes! Don’t your remember? We always listen to it when we go to Lake Elmo.”
Another instance: While butchering our deer this year, our son ran to the computer to put on “Dad’s music play list on his Real Player….because, apparently, it is tradition. We also learned that when we cut up deer, pizza has been the normal fare, so pizza it was. We are making memories as we do these things together.
We have never been a family with a lot of tradition. Oh, we bake cookies and enjoy certain foods on particular days, but the kids have clung to things that we had not considered. Honestly, it really does make things special.
Years ago, my husband laid down the “rule” that there was not to be any Christmas music listened to, played, or sung until December 1st. The idea behind this was to keep Thanksgiving and Christmas special, respectively. Consequently, the kids now have created the tradition that whoever can stay awake long enough, turns on Christmas music at the strike of midnight. This year was rather humorous: At the strike of 12, I awoke to alarms of music going off all over the house playing different Yule greetings. When I got up at 5:30, I heard the softest, most welcoming Celtic Christmas music. It was so sweet and it reminded me of how these little things mean so much.
As I think about what the kids grow up remembering most about this holiday season, their father’s and my prayer is that they remember foremost why we even celebrate. What is this all about? Just to make warm memories that will fade away? We celebrate not an infant and His birth, but rather, we celebrate with thanksgiving and praise that our awesome God loved us lowly sinners so much that He made Himself into a man to be the ultimate sacrifice for us! Where would we be without His love for us? What joy we should all have for this glorious thing! We should celebrate Resurrection Sunday with such vigor!
May this season, however you celebrate it, leave you and your children with fond memories of a great Savior and His unfathomable love and sacrifice for us.