English muffins (thanks to the Rusty Plow homestead)

(can be gluten and dairy free, see below for subsitutions)

Ingredients

• 1 cup of milk
• 3 TBSP butter
• 3 TBSP of honey
• 1 cup of warm water (105-110 degrees)
• 1/4 oz of yeast
• 2 TBSP cornmeal
• 5 cups + extra for sprinkling all purpose flour
• 1 tsp salt

(To make gluten free, use a mix of rice flour instead of the ap flour, and use soy milk in place of the milk)

Directions
Sprinkle the yeast over the warm water, mix lightly and set aside for ten minutes to foam lightly.

In a small saucepan, heat the milk, butter and honey until the butter is melted. Let cool lightly.
Combine the yeast mixture and milk mixtures gently.

In a large bowl, sift 3 cups of flour. Stir in the milk and yeast. Sift the remaining flour and salt. Stir until cohesive.

Flour and marble slab well and knead the dough for 3 minutes or til lightly elastic. Let rest for 5 minutes.

Meanwhile, cover two cookie sheet with parchment and lightly sprinkle with cornmeal.
Flour the marble slab lightly and roll the dough out until it's a 1/2 inch thick. Air on the side of too thick okay.

Cut out circles (don't twirl your cutter, just cut). Gently place on the cookie sheets, sprinkle the tops with cornmeal

 and cover with a dry, light cloth. Let sit in a warm place for 45 minutes or til nearly doubled in size. It's more like 2/3. 45 minutes will definitely do though.

Heat a heavy bottomed skillet on medium low, don't grease it.
Gently place a muffin in your hand and shake lightly to remove some of the corn meal.
Gentleness is key in all of the handling. Place into the pan and repeat til the pan is full.
 Don't let them touch each other. Keep the heat on low. Cook for 8 minutes per side or until browned well,
 flip and cook again. Let cool lightly on a wire rack. Split and top with butter and honey, or with egg and sausage whichever your choosing.

Up to date's

A few new things going on around the homestead now that the temperatures have dropped. The garden is not really growing a whole lot. I have a bed of rhubarb planted along with some carrots, cabbage, kale, turnips, mustard greens and peas. We recently got a few shipments of plants in from a few different companies. We now have two cherry bushes planted where we pulled up some azaleas and planted three heritage raspberries in a bed by our chicken run.
The chickens are now in lock down, since Mr Houdini our escape artist of a rooster kept jumping over the fence some how, really I think he was climbing the pear tree. We are now up to 6 possibly seven blueberry bushes, the possibly seven is thanks to my six year old son who decided to play with a push lawnmower trying to push it around pretending he was mowing and ran over one of my bushes and broke the majority of a side of the plant off. I took the broken side and put rooting compound on it and put it into a pot on our deck and it seems to have taken. I don't think we will be getting a huge surplus of berries this spring but the thought is nice. In a few years though I am expecting a fruit bowl of sorts.

The pig is getting BIG, she is sucking up everything we give her. At first she would not eat whole corn, we think it might have hurt her teeth. We tried all kinds of things to try to get her to eat it and the only way we could get her to eat the whole corn was to cover it in molasses. But now she will eat it fine without anything added to it which is great because right now we can get corn for 7.50 for 50lbs at a time. She loves milk too and anything else. I think so far our decision to get a pig was the most economical of all decisions we have made for our homestead.

With all the cold we are barely getting any eggs surprisingly my silky chickens are still laying eggs. Well, two of the three hens are which is not bad since they are meant to be my little brooders. One of our Dominic mix hens just started laying after a long few months of now laying any eggs. If you don't know what it is like to have a egg in the nest box after waiting that long for an egg, well lets just say I did a little happy dance in the yard. 
Since it has been ridiculously cold here I have been staying inside a lot, baking and cooking and trying to get our house uncluttered. We have also been trying to think of what to use our old refrigerator for since we had to replace it :(. We don't want to do a smoker or a root cellar because of its size, really it is just too big. So send me your ideas tell me what you think would be a good idea to use it for?

Cinnamon Rolls worth its weight in dough

This recipe is supposedly originated at a certain mouse dominated corporation that will remain nameless. Regardless of it's origin it is a new favorite of mine for sure. The recipe caught my eye when I seen that it had something not generally associated with cinnamon rolls, vanilla pudding mix. I thought how weird? But tried it and it is the softest tastiest homemade cinnamon rolls I have come across, and they will definitely make you rethink purchasing those cans of pre-made rolls in the cold section. So start preheating that oven this time of the year is the perfect time to get baking for the family.

Cinnamon Rolls

• 1/2 cup warm water
• 2 packets yeast
• 2 tbsp. sugar
• 1 box (small box) instant vanilla pudding
• 2 cups milk
• 1 stick unsalted butter
• 2 large eggs beaten
• 1 teaspoon salt
• 8 cups (all purpose) flour

Mix yeast, water and sugar together and let sit for a few minutes or until it starts to bubble. While it is sitting mix together your milk and butter in a saucepan and warm just until all the butter is melted then turn off heat and slowly stir in the two eggs. Mix yeast mixture and milk mixture together with the box of vanilla pudding and then add salt and flour all at once.  once it is thoroughly mixed cover with seran wrap and a towel and let sit until doubled in volume and then punch down dough. Let rise again, and then punch down dough and roll out on floured surface. This recipe makes 16 giant cinnamon rolls so when you roll the dough out it will be huge. Here is a picture of how mine looked when it was rolled out.

 

 

Filling:

• 2 sticks of unsalted butter (melted)
• 2 cups brown sugar
• 2 tbsp. cinnamon

Mix together sugar and cinnamon in a bowl. After butter is melted brush onto dough  and then sprinkle the sugar mixture onto the dough like in the picture above (you don't have to use all the butter I do not and it turns out great, I use some of the melted butter to brush the pans with so that the dough does not stick.)

 

After you are done putting the sugar over your dough, you simple start on the long side and start rolling the dough into a giant log. Make sure that you brush the flour off as you go along so that your dough will stick together. When you are done rolling and you have you super sized cinna-log, you can start cutting it into rolls. A serrated knife works best for cutting these 2 inch thick rolls. 

 

Now it is time for them to rise again but this time in the pan, when they are doubled put them into your oven at 350 for about twenty minutes or until golden on top. While the rolls are in the oven you can work on your frosting.

 

Before rising (roughly half sheet size pan)

After rising

 

 

Frosting:

 

• 8 oz cream cheese (room temperature)
• 1 stick unsalted butter (room temperature)
• 1 teaspoon vanilla
• 3 cups powdered sugar

 

Simply mix all the ingredients together with a whisk attachment , the longer you beat the mixture the whiter and fluffier the frosting. If you find your frosting a little on the thick side you can add a tablespoon or so of milk but I like the frosting thick so it does not soak into the rolls too much. Make sure to apply the frosting liberally because it makes plenty. This recipe does not freezes fine but I will say that in my experience with it the yeast flavor in the dough is enhanced by freezing somehow so take this into consideration if you do decide to make these as a freezer meal. You can also freeze the frosting rather well in ziplocs or in vacuum bags like I did.  Happy HOMEsteading.

 



Behaviors of a homesteader

There are many behaviors and habits that are the normal for homesteader but elude the minds of the average person. They can be considered odd or strange to other people that just don’t understand. So I have decided go into detail to explain some of these things. Kind of a you might be a homesteader if you do or believe these things.

 

1.       We hoard things. Milk jugs, folders cans, egg cartons, and 5 gallons buckets to name a few.  Now we wouldn’t hold onto something unless it was a use full commodity.  Those folders cans make really great feed scoops and I just used some of my five gallon buckets to cover those blueberry bushes I planted last month so the frost doesn’t hurt them.

2.       We leave said buckets lying around in random places to collect rainwater. If you have ever grown a garden you know that you can water all day long and your plants will not grow half as much as they will if you water them with rain water.

3.       We save poop. I have yet to find a better way to increase nitrogen in soil. We have three pear trees here around our house and one is in our chicken run and since that tree gets lots of chicken manure the pears get big and by big I mean the size of a soft ball.

4.       We dry our laundry on the line.  I think of it like this, every time I dry a set of sheets or a blanket in the dryer I am essentially just giving my money to the electric company when I could have just as easily kept it for something more useful.

5.       Our pets have a purpose. If you think of a farm in terms of a company structure where every person in the company has a purpose and a job to do it the same idea. I can’t justify having an animal that will cost me piles of money if he/she is only going to be “cute.”

6.       Contemplate other uses for thing people would normally throw out.  We just had a refrigerator go out last month and we have talked about turning it into a smoker or root cellar.  Why not it’s already here.

7.       Break shovels and hoes. (Oh wait that’s just me.)

8.       Cringe when you see someone bagging leaves. Leaves are a great addition to a compost pile, even though it takes two years for them to fully compost it takes even longer for that plastic bag to break down. Refer to number nine.

9.       Dirt is a prized possession. We build compost heaps and save grass clippings, leaves, banana peels, coffee and anything else that turns into great dirt. Have you ever tried growing a good tomato in bad dirt?

10.   Mason jars are the house china. We have a lot of them, did you really expect us not to use them?

 

So. Are you a homesteader?? Can you relate?? Maybe its time you join us like minds in the forums on modern homesteaders. http://www.modernhomesteaders.net/membership-account/membership-levels/?ap_id=dirtyfeetmaggoo  Make sure you sign up to receive all the current post and recipes that I am sharing over at Modern homesteaders.  There are a lot of great writers working together on this site making it a great information resource.

Facebook

Well I finally decide to join facebook. Ill be sharing pictures and interesting articles and recipes. If you would like to learn more or follow or friend me on facebook you can find me at www.facebook.com/dirtyfeet.maggoo look forward to chatting and sharing with you all.

Whats that smell??

We have recently adopted a new dog. She resembles a miniature lassie and, my daughter had decide to name her ginger. She was a stray that showed up on someones porch on the other side of town. So seeing the collie resemblance in her, we decided to adopt her in hopes of having a good herd dog that would help keep our yard free of cats (I'm allergic :( ) and other critters that might disturb our livestock.

So very quickly she became accustom to us and is running the fence outside, when me and the husband decide to take some eggs that our black bantam Cochin hen has been trying to hatch unsuccessfully and throw them in the wood. We know they are gonna be bad, possibly rotten. So my husband starts tossing eggs and one hits the grass and breaks and standing over twenty feet away we can smell the stink. If you have never smelled a rotten egg, be VERY thankful it is as my husband would say a smell that would "gag a maggot." My dog for some unknown reason decides to run over, roll over and roll back and forth on top of said rotten egg.....seriously... rolling back and forth as if she was getting some sort of thrill out of this nasty, stinky, rotten egg.

Right about this point I am thinking how am I gonna wash the dog without getting that smell on me. I don't even want that smell near me let alone on me. So I think back to the time that we caught a skunk in our live trap. There was no way of getting around shooting the skunk so our yard smelled so bad you couldn't even walk out the door without gagging. After the skunk sprayed about three times in the backyard there was a sheen on the grass and we sprayed it with vinegar and almost immediately the smell dissipated. Its like a magic trick. Vinegar of all things gets rid of skunk stench. So I sprayed my dog with some vinegar in hopes that I wouldn't actually have to get the smell on me and it worked. I still went ahead and bathed her after the vinegar had dried. But point being if you ever get a stinky egg or dog like me you don't have to let them "wear it off" as I have seen a lot of people do when their dogs get sprayed by skunks. You can use vinegar to bathe them. I just use the cheap white vinegar and it is only a few dollars for a gallon so it is not an expensive thing to keep on hand. We keep some on hand anyways for canning and cooking and baking.

I have heard of some people making apple cider vinegar from apple scraps at home but I have yet to venture into that endeavor. Maybe one day but for now I think my apple scraps are better spent as pig feed. She loves apple scraps, just remember to remove the seeds before feeding to livestock since they contain arsenic. You can also use the apple cider vinegar to help lower parasites in your livestock. There are many reasons to keep vinegar on hand even if its just one of those things you store under the sink. Which is where we keep ours all three gallons of it. Hopefully you never have to use your for a rotten egg but you never know. One thing is for sure we are all a little happier that the smell is gone on our little HOMEstead!

On the bookshelf

I have been thinking a lot about the things that have helped me along the way to figure things out and learn new trades when it comes to homesteading. I learn a lot by doing, but I also learn a lot from books. So I thought I would take a few minutes to share some of the books that I own and have read and found helpful as it pertains to the homestead.  The first book I think is a must have might gross a few out because of the pictures inside the book. But, I think that this book is a necessary one for people who have never hunted or cleaned their own meat. I found it very helpful in building my confidence into helping me butcher our chickens for the first time. It is called A Hunter's Cookbook: A Practical Step-By-Step Guide To Dressing, Preparing And Cooking Game, In The Field And At Home, With Over 75 Delicious Recipes And Over 1000 Photographs


The next is a book that I have never fully finished reading because it is so big and so much information in it that I get distracted and tend to flip through and read random pages in it. It has everything that you would need for being self sufficient on your homestead. It has information on building chicken coops, making cheese, soap making, bread making, tons of information on herbs and tonics. Really there is far too much to list of what this book has, if you can only afford to get one book I would say this one is definitely the one that I would pick. Country Wisdom & Know-How: A Practical Guide to Living off the Land


Another book that I find myself looking at all through the growing season is one that most homesteaders already have on their bookshelf. It is the book I refer to any time that I pull out my canner and can anything. I find that I can take almost any of my recipes and can them using this book just by canning the longest time for whichever ingredients are in it. If you are canning potatoes and meat for example, the meat is supposed to be pressure canned longer than potatoes so you would go by the time it takes to can the meat in the recipe.  It is a great idea for canning leftover soups so that you don't have to make a huge pot to bring the sick neighbor some chicken soup. ® Blue Book Guide to Preserving (by Jarden Home Brands)


There is also another blue canning book that I purchased while at the 2012 NRA conference in Houston, that takes the recipes to a whole new level. There are tons of recipes in this book that are not in the blue book. A lot of them are things I never would have even thought of it I hadn't seen them in this book. Ball Complete Book of Home Preserving I can promise you will not be able to make ever recipe in this book because there are a lot of them in there.

These are just a few of the books on my bookshelf I have tons more and I will try to cover more of them as the year progresses. If I have one good word of advice for purchasing books, it would be not to get them from the big box store, amazon is a great website and will save you tons on books. Take the Ball complete book for example, it is usually around 15$ on amazon I paid 20$ at the NRA conference for it. Every one of these books are worth every penny, but it helps to save that homestead cash for that roll of fence or new milking pail that you need. You can check out these books on amazon at http://astore.amazon.com/alitbitofhom-20

New things

Well! Where to start?  I have been given an amazing opportunity to work with some wonderful minds on a website called Modern Homesteaders. This website is the go to place for self sufficiency and self reliance. Subsequently also a go to for preppers since these ideals seem to cross into each other on many instances.  If you looking for a group of people to help your homestead thrive, this is the place you will find them. I am excited to be a part of this group and will continue to post here on my blog also.

I have also been gifted an amazing gift of books. Books that will broaden my horizon and help me to help others. I was gifted books that are for emergency medical services and pre-hospital trauma life support.  I hope to eventually relay this information onto my followers in hopes that the lessons I learn may one day help others. 

Also we have started on a new path with our garden here at the HOMEstead. When our local powerline company came through to trim the trees around the lines, I talked them into dumping three loads of mulch into my back yard.  They don't charge for this service but you have to ask for them to do it, otherwise it ends up at the landfill.  I have already started covering our garden in mulch, manure, banana peels and eggshells.  I am looking forward to a spring with no tilling and little weeding. We also planted rhubarb which I have never tried to grow or even tasted for that matter. I am looking forward to learning more about this method of gardening by diving straight in.  Fingers crossed. Hope you guys follow me over to modern homesteaders too, it a wonderful sight.  Check it out, and make sure you subscribe so you can see all my post as well. http://www.modernhomesteaders.net/membership-account/membership-levels/?ap_id=dirtyfeetmaggoo

Pumpkin Harvest Muffins

Let me start off by telling you I will try anything pumpkin flavored any time of year.  I am that weirdo that goes into the coffee shop in July asking if I can get a pumpkin latte and hoarding cans of pumpkin puree when they finally start stocking them in the fall so I can have pumpkin pie in march.  I am also a mother too though, which means I have two little mouths to feed and it better taste good or it is not going to get eaten. So I have been working on a recipe for muffins for a while trying to get it just right. 

TOPPING
1/4 C. Butter (softened)
1 tsp. pumpkin spice
1/4 tsp. ground ginger
1/2 c. brown sugar

Mix all of this together just until it resembles a crumble. and set aside, this will go on top of the muffins just before putting in the oven.( You could also opt not to do this part, and just sprinkle a little powdered sugar on top of the muffins, after they have cooled, which is pretty tasty too)


MUFFIN
1/4 c. butter (softened)
3/4 c honey
1 egg
1 c. Pumpkin puree

mix all of this together first and then assemble your dry ingredients

1 1/2 c. flour (all purpose)
1 1/2 tsp. baking powder
1 tsp. baking soda
1/4 tsp. salt
1 1/2 tsp. ground cinnamon
1/2 tsp. ground ginger
1/4 tsp. ground nutmeg

You will get the best result if you sift these ingredients into a bowl and mix before adding to your wet ingredients. If you like you can also add 1 cup of walnuts if you like nuts in your bread or muffins. We opt not to since I am sending these to school where there are children with nut allergies.  Spoon the crumble on top of the muffins before putting them in a 350 degree oven for 20-30 minutes if you are making regular size muffins. Or until the edges start to brown just a tad.  We make them in the snack size since they fit perfectly in our little snack Tupperware for school lunches. They don't last long here either.

New pig

Well like most houses, we have a picky eater and a drive by eater. My daughter is the picky eater and my son the drive by eater. And if you don't know what a drive by eater is, it is a child that eats only when they want to by snacking all day. It leaves us with a lot of boxes of crackers and cookies left open and gone stale and inedible. I felt like we were throwing a lot of food away and the chickens can't always keep up with all the scraps that we toss to them and we end up with crows and stray cats sneaking their way over and under the fence to munch on the leftovers.  So we thought of an idea that would help us utilize all this food that kept going to waste, and it came upon us when we were at a friends house shelling peas.  This friend told us that they feed the purple hull pea shells, which are inedible to humans or somewhat unappetizing anyways, and mashed peas to their pigs.

The thought, how awesome it was that these animals were eating something that would just get thrown in the compost. Not that I am against compost, it is a much needed thing, but I love bacon and to think for a mere 50$ I could have my very own too. And in six to seven months have a years worth of pork.....where do I sign up??

It took a little while, but we eventually found an 8 week old female Berkshire piglet.  And boy is she loud. I just thought my chickens were noisy but when she wants to be heard you can here her a quarter mile away. Of course most of the time she is settled down and not making all that noise but she will let you know she does not like being picked up, but loves to be scratched.

Her admiration towards being scratched behind the ears is what got both of us in to trouble the first time I put her in her pin, which is made of cattle panels. She could fit her head through the larger holes on the panels and was nosing up to me while I was trying to feed her some kale, trying to get me to give her a good scratching.  Well she got what she was looking for a good scratching behind the ears and didn't want me to quit. She decided she would try to reach me and reach a little further discovering she could fit through the fence...well crap...now she was loose and didn't want to go back into that pin when it was so much fun to run in the yard.

She ended up going under the neighbors house trying to explore and no doubt making me worry thinking she would damage the neighbors plumping or worse the gas lines. We had to lure her out with a bucket of feed and a handful of pears. Thankfully she is a sucker for pears which we have a full tree of.  She squealed her little head off all the way back to her newly adopted pin, which we call chicken tractors that we keep our young chickens in to raise them up either for meat or laying hens.  its a 4 foot by 8 foot pin that is movable. She does fine in there for now. We quickly discovered why some people opt to put there pigs in electric fence though as this wouldn't have happened if we had also.

So she is here eating and making bacon for us. I must say she has eaten everything we have given her even a half eaten corn cob which seemed to be one of her favorites. I no longer feel like we are wasting food. And looking forward to having a years worth of pork for what little entails of taking care of her in the evenings. I hope for the day when we have enough room to keep a pair and raise piglets. But until then this is a great way to help us be a tad bit more frugal and teach our children that food doesn't just come from a store.  It is such a reassurance to know where our food is coming from with all the recalls you see now days. Definitely the best 50$ I have spent in a while.

Wild berries, Foraging the forest.

While out putting out corn and tending to our food plot I noticed what I thought looked like a litchi tomato, except this plant had yellow fruit. Well this is where I put the internet to my use and started looking it up. I love knowing what I can and cant eat in the woods. Some of the best tasting berries are the ones that grow wild. Blackberries and dewberries are a prime example of this fact.

The plant that I came across was not a litchi tomato, and it was definitely not edible.  Good thing I didn't eat it.  Honestly that was only under the advisement of my husband, because if it were just me in the wood I probably would have had a tiny taste because of its likeness to the litchi tomato. And for good reason too, this plant is actually called the devils tomato, bull nettle, horse nettle, or apple of Sodom. It is part of the nightshade family from which the tomato derives.  Although it looks somewhat like a tomato it is poisonous. It has thorns and the fruit is a yellow, sometimes striped fruit.

Another plant I came across while in the woods caught my eye because of its beautiful and unusual clumps of bright purple berries. Just by looking at it I thought, this has to be poisonous. But when I smashed some of the berries in my hand and smelled them I was delighted at the scent of these tiny purple beauties. It was a sweet smell that reminded me of fruit. So I was most anxious to find out what these berries were. To my surprise these berries were not only not poisonous but used for remedies and cures among Native American tribes. It is called Beauty berries.

 

The Berry itself is used commonly in jelly and is said to taste like a cross between a grape and apple jelly. It is not advised to eat the berries because of their astringent nature. 

 

The leaves are also used in folk remedies as a natural bug repellent.  It is still used to this day for this as it has been patented by the USDA as a mosquito repellent.

Because of its sweet smell and uses for keeping bugs at bay, I harvested about a quart of these berries and leaves to make an essential oil for some of our homemade soap. We will have to see how that turns out, hopefully a hunters soap for women.

 

 

 

And while I am sharing I thought I should mention some common wild plant that I do know a little about from growing up in Oklahoma. The first is Polk salad. It also has purple berries but unlike the beauty berry these berries are not edible but can be used as a dye or paint. Growing up we would use the berries along with Indian paint brushes (a common red wild flower in Oklahoma) to paint on rocks.  The leaves on the other hand are edible if cooked right. It is important to only harvest tender young leaves as the older ones will have a hard string in them that is unappetizing. When cooking them it is said that they need to be boiled and drained three times. I remember eating these greens as a child with some scrambled eggs mixed in with them, but I do not recall actually seeing them cooked.

 

 

Granted I could not get any pictures of ripe berries at the time being but they will turn purple and make fun paint.

 

 

The other plant I noticed is easily recognizable by it unusual flowers that look like no other flower I have come across. It is called passion fruit and is edible but takes a long time to ripen and looks like a dried plum when it is ready. But by the time it is ripe, raccoons have usually found the plants and eaten the fruit.

 

 

I hope to bring more knowledge to anyone who reads this so that maybe if you ever find yourself in the woods lost and hungry you might know what you can and cannot eat. Or maybe you could use this information to bring yourself closer to nature and take a stroll in the woods. Knowledge ways nothing and we always carry it with us even in the woods.

 

Blackberry Cobbler

Well not technically blackberries or so a southern would say they are dew berries. What is the difference? Not much really other than dew berries grow lower to the ground and are larger berries than blackberries. Dewberries are ripe in the spring where as blackberries are ripe in the summer. Dewberries are also sweeter which makes them excellent for eating right off the bush, which is why my husband is not allowed to pick them since he eats two and puts one in his bucket.   A little bit of berries will go a long way for this recipe you only need two cups of berries, you could use more if you like but we like our berries to last through the winter since they freeze very well nothing like hot cobbler when it is cool and the leaves are falling.

Berry cobbler
2 cups berries
1 cup sugar
put sugar over berries in a saucepan, stir and then let them sit until some of the juices start flowing from the berries into the sugar. Then heat berries and sugar to a boil  and then pour into a oven safe dish, I use an 8 x 8 pyrex dish. Now for the topping.

1 stick of butter softened (if you take this out when you start your berries it should be just right)
1 cup of sugar
cream together sugar and butter and then add
1 cup self rising flour
1 cup milk

after mixing thoroughly pour over the top of your berry mixture and stick in a 350 degree oven until the top is solid and turning brown and the edges. you can use a toothpick to check for doneness as long as you don't stick it into the blackberries at the bottom. This is best eaten warm with a big scoop of vanilla ice cream, my favorite way.

Small batch Homeade Shampoo bars

I used to be afraid to make soap....used to. Now that I have done it and see how easy and cost effective it is, I love making soap. I recently tried my hand at making shampoo bars. My goal was to make something akin to the shampoo bars that a popular store called lush makes called "new". It is one of my favorite shampoos because of how different it is, it smells of cinnamon and is perfect for helping with thinning hair that is a common problem for everyone the older we get. The herbs in it are said to stimulate follicle growth, but is the price worth the punch? Yes it is but I can think of so many other things to spend 10$ on than one bar of shampoo....and why have one when I can have eight?  My recipe is not a copycat of the infamous bar shampoos but a mimic, I think it smells somewhat like Christmas....or what it should smell like.

Before you dive into making your own shampoo bars though, you need to take the time to learn the process and be certain of the safety  precautions that come with using lye. I mix my lye outside in my glass measuring cup. You can watch a video on lye safety here.  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=adCWVeCnMb0

I make my bar in a crockpot. It is one of the small crockpots that they usually have at Christmas time for around ten dollars.  This makes for easy cleanup and If you like you could probably let you soap set up in the crock and slice it into triangles. Me, I like cheap and simple so I let mine mold in an old clean pringles can....yeah pringles.  the can is round and long and the perfect size for a small batch of soap.  After the soap has cooled for twenty four hours you simple cut the can and start peeling the wrapper back until you unwrap the lovely log of cinnamon scented goodness.

Here is a great video on the hot process soap making in a crockpot.  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=f87XTLlV_dY   Although you can use just olive oil or just coconut oil, I choose to make mine with beef tallow. It creates a harder bar and lowers the initial investment cost of making soaps since you are already going to be getting fat when you order most larger beef cuts (Most of ours comes from the brisket).  Here is a video on how to render the beef fat into the usable white substance called tallow.  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SlHagpaONbk

The process are super easy and just takes a little patience. Now you don't need fancy equipment like the blending stick used in most of these videos. I use a simple wooden spoon with soap written on the handle in sharpie...we don't want that one stirring our macaroni and cheese.


The recipe is as follows

2 oz olive oil (I had rosemary sprigs soaking in my oil to make it smell better)
6 oz coconut oil
8 oz tallow
2.144 oz lye
6 oz water (I use rainwater to keep my bars as nice as possible)

now you could use just this part of the recipe to make a plain soap with no scent but I like mine to smell, you could also change the amounts of scented oils to change how it smells to suit your own liking.

scent mixture
1 tablespoon ground cinnamon (also used as a natural colorant)
.125 fl oz spearmint oil
3 drops eucalyptus oil
.25 fl oz cinnamon oil

this recipe will yield about 8 bars if you follow in my footsteps and make it in a pringles can. You want to slice the soap within a day of making the soap so that it is easy to slice and let the cure (harden) on a shelf where they can get air all around the bars. The longer you let them cure the more suds the bars will make when you go to use them. Granted they will never make as much suds as a store bought shampoo full of chemical latherers. Remember the more HOMEmade it is the better it is for you and for your wallet.

Doughnuts are for morning people?

So your a morning person? But there is not a donut shop near you,  you have to get up and feed animals and children alike.  The hardest part of doughnuts is that you have to get up early (and find a recipe too).  It takes roughly an hour to make the dough and let the dough "rise". Hello doughnuts glad to see your up :) Ok all puns aside this is a good recipe to start before your chores giving it rising time.

GLAZED DOUGHNUTS

2 cups warm water
3 packages yeast
1/2 cup sugar
2tsp salt
1/2 cup butter
1 egg
1/2 cup dry milk
6 cups all purpose flour

Glaze:
4 cups powdered sugar
1/3 cup water
1 tablespoon vanilla extract


So you start off by combining your sifted flour, dry milk and salt into a large bowl and set aside.  Then in your stand mixer (you can do this by hand but the dough will be very hard to stir and sticky), combine the sugar and butter and cream together until the mixture resembles wet sand and no more clumps are visible. Then add the egg to the mixture and mix until thoroughly mixed . Then add your yeast and water to the mixture and once it is thoroughly mixed add the flour mixture slowly until it is all mixed. Then it is proofing time. Proofing is when you put a yeast based food product into a warm spot so that the yeast can breed and feed so to speak which causes the rising action of the dough.  Just make sure to put it in a lightly greased bowl and cover with seran wrap so that the dough does not stick to your favorite kitchen towel that you cover the bowl with to prevent any draft from hitting your dough and interfering with the rise.   Once the dough has doubled you can punch it down and flop it out on a lightly floured surface and roll it out. Now if you do not have a doughnut cutter this is where you will have to turn into MacGyver and figure out a way to cut your doughnuts out. You can use a glass some pvc pipe really anything that is clean and will press out a circle. Of course if your not comfortable with that you can cut them into squares and call them beignets, we wont tell.  Once you've figured out all the little details of cutting out the doughnuts put them on a lightly greased pan to rise once more and then its time for the fryer.  I'm not going to tell you what temperature your grease should be like most people would because I never check the temperature I just throw one in and if the grease is hot enough you know. I will tell you that I do use vegetable shortening to fry mine in and it is best to dip them in the glaze when they are barely dry from the grease. I still haven't figured out a good chocolate recipe, But once I do I will be sure to share because who doesn't love chocolate mmm...

Don't touch my recipe!!

Ok so here is the story, I am super stingy with my own recipes.  I work hard to create them and when I get one right people always want my recipe. I usually decline and say that it is a secret recipe which it is, but I figure hey, if other people can share I can too. Well maybe just one :).  So I decided to share my very coveted creamy chicken enchilada recipe. I remember eating enchiladas as a teenager and I couldn't find a recipe that tasted like the ones that I had so this recipe is the result of lots of testing and tasting over the years.  This recipe makes 30 enchiladas so I usually make one pan full and put the rest in aluminum throw away pans in the freezer for my husband, who will by the way, pitch a ginormous tantrum if I say I am making enchiladas and don't.  So now starts the sharing.......

CREAMY CHICKEN ENCHILADAS
BY DIRTYFEETMAGGOO

6 chicken breast (salt and pepper and bake until cooked though, then shred or chop up)
4 cans diced green chiles
1 can chopped black olives
4 packages cream cheese

combine all of this in a pot and warm up and stir until all the cream cheese is melted and combined, heating all of it together helps bring out the flavor of the peppers and the saltiness of the olives.

Pour enchilada sauce on the bottom of your pans so that you don't get crunchy burnt tortillas.
The scoop your filling into your tortillas and roll and place into pan.
Pour some more enchilada sauce over the top and then top with cheese and cook until the cheese is all melted.
Any leftovers freeze really well so there is no wasting and this recipe is great for potluck too since it feeds 15 people easily.

Chicken fried steak yummmmm

The south is notorious for our fried foods, but if you ask every home chef has their different recipes and techniques. None of them are wrong, but all are tasty.  The hardest part of frying chicken or any other food is the temperature of your oil. Too hot and your meat is not done underneath, too cold and you get soggy breading. So really its not something that is easily taught, its something you have to do over and over until you get it right. The recipe that I use is actually meant for chicken fried steak and wow as far as chicken fried steak goes this recipe hasn't been beat in my books. 

First in a Ziploc bag (or a bowl whichever you choose)combine:
3 cups all purpose flour
1/8 tsp cayenne pepper
5 tsp salt
1tsp pepper

Then in a separate bowl combine:
1tsp baking powder
1/2 tsp baking soda
1 cup buttermilk
1 egg
this mixture will bubble and foam (that's how you know your baking powder and soda is good)

this recipe will make about 6 (5 ounces each) cube steaks
pat the cube steaks dry with a paper towel just like any other meat that you were going to bread.
dip in the flour mixture first, shake off excess flour, and then into the egg mixture letting all excess drip off and then back into the flour.
If you like you can do all of your steaks at once and let them sit on a wire rack, i have found that this setting time makes for crunchier chicken fried steak.

fry at a range between 350-375 until deep golden brown on each side
serve with white gravy and mashed potatoes and enjoy!

I have used this recipe to fry chicken like most people would normally and its a little to dense for fried chicken , I prefer fried wings with some sauce anyways. :)