Big Snow on the Homestead

Well ,the much anticipated Snow from Winter Storm Jonas,  arrived! I kind of lost count after awhile, but am guessing we were blessed with about 15" of the white stuff.
For those of you who follow our blog, you know that we are within a National forest. We have a 12 mile gravel ( now snow ) commute. The roads are not maintained by the state or county. although The National Forest does hire someone to plow( sometimes). Last time we had snow like this, it was 6 days before our roads were cleared...and a week before our Mail arrived.
They did come through with a plow yesterday when the snow started,but that has since been covered with about 10 more inches of snow.
Hey, it makes for a good hiking trail, when ya cant drive on it!

We have really been enjoying our time snowed in; baking, hiking, sledding , reading. eating and hanging around the wood cookstove staying warm.

Now spring can officially arrive.. *wink

Thankful

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Chicken, Green beans, Mashed Potatoes, sweet potatoes, Delicata squash, pickled peppers, stuffing with homemade breadcrumbs and our canned chicken stock, carrots, pickles, pumpkin for pie , apples for apple pie, and greens from the garden.. All from our homestead ..

 Setting the table. and dreaming of Pumpkin Pie...

 Time at the creek

Norah managed to snap a photo of me at the woodstove




Blessed and Thankful BEYOND measure. Spent the day preparing a Homegrown meal over the woodstove. Boy , that was a bit of a challenge as it was 60 out, but I managed to keep it fairly comfortable in the house.
What an indescribable feeling of pride , security, and gratefulness to be able to provide a Dinner from everything we grew, with wood we harvested, split and stacked. To be able to sit down as a family and enjoy and Reflect on all we have ( so so much!!).. especially our Health, which allows us to live this life,, made this day even that much more special.

We followed the meal with a beautiful hike outside and some time at the creek.


If a day were ever perfect, this was the day..


Hope everyone had a beautiful Thanksgiving!

Blessings
The Cool Family

A mild( and busy) November

Well, its been a bit since I have posted, I do apologize! I promised myself I would post often, and well to be honest time just kinda slipped by!
as usual we have been very busy around the homestead.
While bee and garden season have come to and end, there is still a lot of wood to be split and stacked, and bees to feed..
Despite the warm days, ive still found time to hide in my favorite nook, my sewing room, and start another quilt!

 

We have also been working on some small projects around the house! Sometimes a little paint and a new bookshelf can really brighten up a room, and so that's just what we did! The living room received a new coat of paint in a gorgeous "azure winter". The color was really hard to photograph, so between that at your monitor it might look blue.. But its more of a very pale bluegreen very subtle and really brightened up the room. We added a delightful bookshelf to our new little nook ( 10 desk painted by moi, and all) which is made out of barnwood and some black pipe. Of course some birds nest adorn it as well, I just love bringing things from outside, in to the home. Snail shell collection and all;)

I also just finished a Headboard for my daughters New room ( if you read the previous posts, we did a small remodel on her room,, added a closet, painted etc)
It is made out of pallets! The idea of course was from Pinterest, and I am very pleased with how it came out! I don't usually paint, so was a bit nervous about messing up the dandelions, but surprised myself ;)

And of course, with the chilly night upon us ( even though the days have been quite mild) we have been firing up the woodstove! ohhh how I missed baking! we do not have a regular oven, so all baking is either done in our solar oven, or the cookstove.

Yesterday; after a full day of splitting and stacking wood as a family , we made homemade pizzas, one of our favorites ( especially miss Norah!) I have posted the recipe for the dough below..This recipe will make 2 pretty big pizza crusts.
We decorated ours with Kale,Shiitake mushrooms and peppers from the garden ..
A blessed day here! I love the days we spend working together as a family.


Pizza Dough

2 1/4 tsp Dry active yeas
1 1/2 very warm water
4 Cups Flour
1 1/2 tsp salt
2 Tbsp Olive oil

put yeast in warm water and stir, let sit until it starts to froth and bubble
add oil to yeast mixture
Make a well in the middle of the flour and pour in yeast mixture. mix with spoon and then put onto floured surface and need until smooth . Put in oiled bowl and cover, let sit for 20 minutes,,,
Roll out dough and place in pizza pans ( I use a cookie sheet)
Bake crust for about 15 minutes at 350... pull crust out of oven and then add sauce toppings and cheese
Baking for another (approx.) 20-25 minutes, or until cheese is browned and bubbly :)
enjoy!

A Very Sweet Saturday ( and Sunday)

Better late than never.... a look back at last weekend, took me a bit to get this post done.. ;)

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Spent a wonderful  day with my little. The morning was occupied with baking homemade cinnamon rolls. The afternoon brought a hike to the creek behind our home., Exploring, Climbing and playing...

a sweet Saturday indeed..................
and( since last typing this post) another Hike On Sunday in our big back yard..

 

 

 Homemade Cinnamon Rolls

 

 2 Packages Active Dry yeast
 1 Tbsp Sugar

 1/2 cup Butter

 1 tbsp. salt

7 Cups Flour

1 cup warm water

1 cup scalded Milk

 1/2 cup sugar

 4 eggs well beaten

 

 Dissolve Yeast in water and 1 tbsp. of Sugar. Scald Milk and then Add 1/2 cup of sugar, salt an butter. Cool  to Lukewarm. Add 2 cups Flour and mix well. Then add the Yeas mixture and eggs, stir well. Add enough flour to knead and make a stiff dough ( I ended up adding about 8 cups, not 7 before it wasn't sticky, so just add flour slowly) Knead on floured surface until no longer sticky. Place in well greased bowl. turn to grease top, cover and let rise until double.

divide dough into 2 and roll out into oblong pieces ( like you would for a jelly roll),, brush with melted butter, and "sprinkle "( or pile on haha) brown sugar and cinnamon.. Roll up and cut into 1" slices. place on well greased cookie sheet and let rise until double.. Bake at 375 for about 20-25 minutes..
Drizzle with powered sugar frosting............
This recipe made 25 Rolls, which I thought was maybe too many.. I was wrong! Hubby and Norah gobbled them up!


Blessings
The Cools

Pressure Canning On your Wood Cookstove

So Ive been Pressure canning ( and water bath canning) our garden harvest for near 7 years now, about the same amount of time I have been cooking and baking with our wood cookstove. So you think I would be totally comfortable Pressure canning on my wood cookstove, right?? wrong.

Any body who has or is learning about pressure canning knows that it can be extremely dangerous. I mean you are essentially building up steam in a large pot, letting little bits come out at a time.. to much pressure and *BOOM ( not sure that's the sound it what make, haha but you get my drift) you could have an exploding canner.

In the winter I do all of my baking ( its actually our only way to bake) and stove top cooking on the woodcookstove. But if I have something to pressure can I use my propane top stove.
Well awhile back our propane stove top ran out of propane and we just haven't gotten around to filling it back up. which why the hurry, we don't use it much anyway..
Until yesterday, when I realized I had boiled down some bones from a chicken and had stock to can.

I have often thought about what if.. what if something happened and their was a gas shortage? would I be able to preserve our  food without propane or gas?

That question was answered today and the answer is YES! Successful pressure canning session on the wood cookstove... and I am going to share with ya'll just how I did it

PLEASE NOTE: if you are not familiar with pressure canning or wood stove cooking, I suggest you try these things separately for awhile before attempting this. This IS or atleast CAN BE dangerous and you should have some experience under your belt first.....


KNOW YOUR STOVE

so Basically, when you get your stove or if you already have one and know your stove, you know that there are Hot spots and cool spots on your stove top. Obviously the hot spot would be right above where the fire is blazing.
My stove has a fire box on one side and then an oven on the other,, anything I have ever needed to boil goes over the fire and then if I need it to simmer just slide it over as needed, the further you push it over/away from the fire the cooler it usually is.

If I am trying to bring something to a boil ( in this case the water in the canner) I usually open up the firebox door and take a quick look to see where the fire is biggest.. then move the canner accordingly, placing it directly over the first.

                canner before I added the weight, you can see its almost directly over the eye and firebox




HOW I PRESSURE CANNED ON MY STOVE

So basically, I placed the water directly over the fire.. I had a good fire roaring ... one mistake I did make,, or one thing I could have done differently, was take the eye ( the metal circle you see on the stove top is removable so you can set your pot directly on the fire) off, my water probably would have boiled a lot faster.
I let the canner exhaust steam for 10 minutes
I then ( this is where it gets tricky) Placed the weight on the canner .( I have a weighted gauge canner)
Once the weight started rocking,, I moved it over about half way,between the firebox and the stove..it was still rocking pretty fast,,(you want a slow and steady rocking motion) so I moved it so I was about 3/4 of the way over ( near the oven)...

So here you see I have it about in the middle,, I ended up moving it over to the right about another 2 inches and that seemed to be the perfect spot for a gentle rocking motion.. if I felt it was slowing down , I would slowwwly move it back over an inch,, etc..

REMEMBER if the weight stops rocking,, that's ok, you just have to start you "time" over, but you DO NOT want it rocking like crazy,, that makes me nervous and should make you nervous too,,lol
once I had a steady rocking motion I only had to move the canner a couple times, and only like 2" to the left or 2" to the right depending....
I choked the fire off to keep a steady burn..


and that's it,, that's how I did it !
again, I am not sure this helps,, but for anyone that is familiar with cooking with wood, I can tell you  if you are confident in your woodstove cooking abilities this will be a BREEZE!

For those of you who haven't cooked on wood,, and want to can with it,, start with less explosive things like soups etc,, haha
LEARN your stove ( as they are all different) , then maybe pressure can on a regular stove for awhile
Then once you feel comfortable with both, maybe you are ready to give it a try!


Any questions?? you can ask them here and I will be glad to help!!


Blessings
Jaime