Cookin' like grandma!

Hi There! I know its been a while, so here is a good post I promise!

For all of my life I have heard my dad talk about Mom Cox's fried apple pies. She was my great grandma, and as dad says, made fabulous apple pies from the tree in their yard. The pies were made with dehydrated apples, re hydrated, ... cooked in sugar, rolled in flaky dough and deep fried. Sounds good huh? Well I had never had them, and we didn't have her recipe. But they sounded really good, and I wanted to try them.

So I went on a mission to find a recipe that sounded similar to the description I was given, and try to duplicate it. I tried the first recipe I found...... WOW, they were great. That recipe is going in my collection for sure! It isn't the same as Mom Cox's but they are still very tasty.... mmm
In fact, I like the recipe so much I think I might share it with you guys :)

Here are all of the ingredients you need

Lard

2 cups Self Rising Flour

1/2 cup Shortening

1/2 cup milk

For the Filling:

5 oz. dried apples

2 1/2 cups water

Sugar and Cinnamon (to taste)

Cornstarch

The dough is just a basic biscuit dough. Cut the shortening into the flour with a pastry blender, or two forks, until it is crumbly, and resembles a coarse meal. Then mix in the milk just until the dough comes together. Try not to work it too much, the more you mess with it, the tougher it gets. Cover in plastic wrap and put in the fridge for now.

 Now cook the apples in the water until re hydrated and tender. If there is still too much water in the pan, you can drain some off, but SAVE it in a separate bowl. Add cinnamon, sugar, and brown sugar to the apples, until it tastes the way you want it. To thicken the filling take your apple liquid you have set aside, and mix some corn starch in with the liquid. Then add that liquid back to the apples a little at a time ( a teaspoon or 2) Heat the apples back up to make the filling thick.

Now get your dough back out, and roll it out very thin. Take a small saucer and cut out rounds. Place a spoonful of apples into the middle of the round. Fold over and seal with a fork, poke the tops of the pies a few times.

 Drop each into hot lard, and cook until brown, flip and brown on the other side! :)

P.S: to tell if the lard is hot enough, throw a little flour in the oil, if it sizzles, it is hot enough.

There you have it, Fried Apple Pie!

Hope you enjoy them as much as we do :)

What to do with 50 Pounds of Peaches... jam anyone?

I Know it seems like a lot, but its worth it to have sweet canned peaches, and peach jam all year long!
Our friend Rick picked us up two 25 pound baskets of peaches from Jungle Jims . (if you haven't been there.. you should go, its awesome!) Each basket was $17.50 which ends up being around 70 cents a pound. Not too shabby at all!

What we did with most of them was canned them sliced in a light sugar syrup, but that's another post. The rest of them we made into yummy peach jam, about 3 batches worth.

The peach jam is pretty much the same as any other jam. Just sugar, fruit, and pectin. The recipe we used called for 4 cups of fruit, 5 1/2 cups of sugar, and one box of pectin. The recipe also called for lemon juice, but we left that out. So first peel, and pit the peaches, then dice them up into small chunks. Put the fruit and the pectin in the stock pot, bring it to a rolling boil. Then pour in the sugar. Bring it back to a rolling boil, and boil for one minute. After that it is ready to put in your jars. It gets processed in the Water bath canner for 10 minutes. We made a quick video showing the steps in more detail below.


We only shot a video for the peach jam this time, next time we can peaches we will put up a video of that too:) Hope you enjoy!

10 Dozen?

Yep that's right, we bought 10 dozen ears of corn from the town farmers market this week. And we plan on buying at least 10 more the next time he has it. We usually get enough corn to last us until the next year, when we can buy more.

The type of corn we get every year is called Serendipity, it is a bi color sweet corn. And it is so sweet, that it tastes like sugar has been added to it. It's fantastic, I love it!

What we do to store our corn for the year is freeze it, One year we tried canning it, but it doesnt have quite the same texture that we like, so in the freezer it goes. First thing we do is shuck it all( I know... Thats a given). We use laundry baskets to hold it all in, because its the easiest thing to carry them in, and all the husks to the garden.

After that, we take them all to the kitchen, rinse them off, and start cutting the corn off the cob. We also like the pulp stuff left on the cob after cutting the kernals off, so we scrape that stuff into the bowl too. Then 3 cups of corn go into each quart baggie, and we throw them in the freezer, thats it!

Seems like alot less than there should be doesnt it?

And then of course we have to tie up the cobs in multiple trash bags, and boxes or else HE will eat them all! He looks so innocent right? Not :)

First Blackberry Jam of the Year

Boy our blackberries are huge this year. We have gathered 12 or 13 pounds so far, and a few cuts and scrapes from the thorns. The berries are well worth it though. With the first few pounds we made 2 batches of jam. Its something sweet and easy, and you can enjoy the summer harvest, all the way through the winter and until you can make some more next year.

What you need to make the jam is,
1 box of Pectin
5 cups of blackberries
7 cups of sugar

First you need to crush the berries, we sieve about half of the seeds out, you can have more or less seeds depending on your preference. Put
the 5 cups of berries into a stock pot along with the box of pectin, and bring it to a full rolling boil, once it has reached that point, pour in the sugar, and bring it back up to a rolling boil, and boil for 1 minute. That's it for the jam! See, so easy! Now you just ladle it into your sterilized jars, and process the jam for 10 minutes in a water bath canner.

Here is the video we made showing the whole process from start to finish. Sorry for the long video, I just didn't want to edit any important information out of it, that you all might need. Anyway enjoy our video, hope it is helpful!


We're not sure what we will do with the rest of the blackberries we pick, make some more jam probably, then eat the rest :) yum

Peanut Brittle.... in July?

Boy is it hot this week! So I decided to pretend it was cooler weather, and post about making candy.

This video was taken a few years back of our family friend Ernie. He makes the worlds best Peanut Brittle. It is fantastic let me tell you, I have ate enough to know :) His recipe and method are really easy so you should try it this winter... or ...you can put on some Christmas music and pretend, like me :0D (I'm dreaming of a white Christmas, Just like the ones I used to know....)

Well I'll just let him tell you the rest! Enjoy!

Canned Chicken is so useful! I Love it!

So at our local grocery store we found chicken for 1.99 a pound. Around here that is pretty cheap, so we decided to buy some and jump in to the adventures of canning meat. Canning meat isn't nearly as hard as everyone thinks it is, and trust me it is well worth your trouble. You can use it in so many things, and it isn't taking up valuable freezer space.

You can use the Hot pack method, but we decided to go easy and use the Raw Pack. First you cut up the chicken into squares, about kabob size as mom would put it.  Then pack it into your sterilized jars, in this method, there is no need to pour broth or water in the jars, the chicken makes its own broth as it cooks. Make sure there aren't air bubbles, and the rims are wiped off, the whole nine yards, then set the jars in about 2 inches of water in the pressure canner. Lock the lid and let the steam vent for 10 minutes then close the vent and process at 10 pounds of pressure for 1 hour 15 minutes for pints, and 1 hour and a half for quarts. Oh yeah, and if you are worried about the hard water stains on the canner and the jars, put some vinegar in the water, that should do the trick.

The best part about having the canned chicken around the house is all the things you can use it for. We make chicken salad, chicken fettuccine Alfredo, chicken and ramen, just about anything! It is so versatile. To use it for baked things, just use in the recipe, but if you are eating it cold, like chicken salad, cook it ten minutes first, then cool it down. Cooking it first is just an extra precaution to make sure all the potential bacteria and things are killed. Just to be sure.

Anyway we made a video, and tried to describe the important things as best we could, to keep everything safe for eating. Hope it is as informative as we meant it to be :) Enjoy!

Robbers and Babies

 

I was pretty worried about my bees sunday, there were tons of bees on the front of the hive, and it looked like they might be fighting, so we thought they were being robbed! An experienced bee keeper told us to creep down there at night and put a screen over the enterance, then check in the morning, and if there were bees trying to get in, then those were robber bees. Well thats what we did, and no robber bees in the morning, so I dont know what was going on that day! So we took the screen off, and then had a quick look inside... TONS of bees! The new babys are here!! All of the brood is hatching for the first time, and the hive is quickly filling with baby bees :) So just to be safe, we put on the second deep super (dont want them swarming when we are gone!)

Look at all that capped brood, now, those baby bees are all hatching out and joining the hive! Ill have to get some updated pictures up soon!

If you look closely, you can even see some capped honey (or sugar syrup probably still) in the top corners on both sides.







And this is some of Dads comb. His bees are hatching out too! And he has 9 frames with comb on them now.

Bee Update

This time, its just a quick update about the bees :)

About 6 frames are fully drawn out in my hive, so its almost time to put on another super. We saw my queen when inspecting, she looks good... and busy, there were tons of bee eggs! On Dads top bar hive, there are about 7 frames with comb on them and an 8th one started. We havent seen his queen, but there are eggs, so she is in there somewhere, (hopefully!)

And another thing, I really thought it would take getting used to, to not be afraid of them, but I am pretty calm with them flying around me already. I don't know about anyone else, but I was afraid they would always just be trying to sting me, you know "My Girl" style, when I got anywhere near the hive. They are suprisingly docile, they just land on you, and chill out, or ignore you for the most part and just walk around. I love them already! I just hope they do well, and live through this first year!!

Busy little bees

Due to all of our electronics being tempermental(everything always has to go wrong at once right?), I am just now able to share these pictures with you guys. They are from the Saturday after we installed them, and this is what they did after 3 days! It truely amazes me what these girls can do in such a short ammount of time.

You cant really tell due to all the bees covering it, but there are 3 little ovals of comb under there, and the bees are filling them with the sugar syrup. :)



And this is from my Langstroth hive, dont worry its comb that was covering the queen cage so we had to cut it out. The yellow stuff is pollen! And I cant even believe how perfect each little cell is, bees are amazing creatures!

After these pictures were taken, we have had a cold rainy spell, and when we checked on the bees next, they were all huddled up together. We didn't stay in the hive too long, because of the cold though. They are still getting their 1 to 1 sugar syrup, so I hope they dont die off, not being established yet and all. I guess all we can do is wait and see, and we will be checking again on their progress this week hopefully. Wish us all the best of luck with this crazy weather.

Russians and Italians..... new bees that is!

The new bees are here, the new bees are here!! We are now official Apiarists!

Wednesday we finally went up to pick up our bees up at Parsons Gold Apiaries. They have so many hives, just sitting around the place, and bees flying in and out of the garage, so we knew that was where to go. You would not believe the sound the bees made in there, it legitimitely sounded like all the fans were on, but it was just thousands of buzzing bees. And there were bees flying free just around your head and landing on you, it was all I could do not to freak out at first :) Anyway we had ordered two 3 pound packages of bees, one with a Italian queen for me, and one with a Russian queen for Dad. The family there really helped us out, and gave us a dry run of installing the bees, just to give us an idea, which turned out to be really helpful by the way, and we asked every question we could possibly think of, and hoped we were ready!

The Italian queen went in a Langstroth hive, and the Russians in Dads top bar hive. My hive came as a kit from Walter T Kelley, but Dad's hive was built by himself and Rick, a good friend of his. The installation went without a hitch... and no one got stung! We just hope and pray that they do well and produce a bountiful harvest :) I am just so excited I cant contain myself :0D

So here are our 2 videos, we hope you like them!

Using the Dehydrator Again

WOW! Sorry for the lack of posts in April. It has been a hectic month for sure! Anyway on to the good stuff!
      This last week we dehydrated frozen hashbrowns. We love to keep them around the house for just frying up, or casseroles, but they take up a lot of freezer space. So with dehydrating them, you can keep them anywhere really. And you can keep alot more of them for the space.
     These are one of the easiest things you can dehydrate, because all you have to do is open the bag and pour them on the trays. About 1 bag fits on 2 trays. Don't worry about them touching though, with hashbrowns, it really doesn't matter. Leave them in the dehydrator for six hours or so, or overnight (much easier). And one frozen bag, dehydrated, fits in a quart mason jar.

To rehydrate them, just pour boiling water over them, just to cover. Let them stand about 5 minutes or so. then just treat them like regular hash browns. In fact we just made my Grandma(Nan's) signature recipe, Cheesy Potatoes, with the rehydrated hash browns and they turned out really good, not like her's, but nothing tastes as good as grandmas :) Enjoy the video guys

Garden Beginnings

Prizehead Lettuce, Banana Peppers, Danish Ballhead Cabbage, Mary Washington Asparagus, Yellow

Sweet Spanish Onion, Bunching Onion, Golden Bantam Corn, Straightneck Squash, Pickling Cucumber,

Burpless cucumber, Long Green cucumber, Small Sugar pumpkin, and Sugar ann Snap Peas

We ordered 12 Packets of seeds this year. Yes I can count, I know there are 13 here :) The company sent us an extra packet as a thank you gift, Burpless Cucumbers. They are so nice, we even got a little thank you sticker on the receipt.

The seeds came from Sustainableseedco.com, and they are all heirloom varieties. This is our first year growing heirlooms, so I guess we will all see how that turns out.

Oh and I almost forgot we had some tomato seeds kept back from our Amish friends, Strawberry Tomatoes, and Low Acid Tomatoes and we ordered some Tobacco Worm, and Half Runner Beans too! From a different company though :) 

Thats all for now, More on the planting later :)

Dehydrated Strawberries, My Favorite

This is our new video on dehydrating strawberries! We probably dehydrate these the most beacause they are just so tasty. But be careful about 2 1/2 pints of dried strawberries fit in a quart jar, you could easily eat a whole pint, trust me I've done it before.We bought 9 pints to dehydrate this time. There was a great sale at 1.50 a peice, when they are usually about 3.45 each.

We have a 9 Tray Excalibur dehydrator at our house. This one is nice because the fan is in the back and it blows across the food, not from top to bottom, but any dehydrator will work.

Strawberries are really easy to dry because there's no blanching, or spraying with lemon juice, just washing and slicing. Just rinse them off with cold water and slice off the green tops, and cut out the bad spots. The bigger strawberries you can get about seven slices out of, and you can slice them either lengh wise or width wise, it does'nt really matter. We just slice length wise because it's easier to hold on to that way. Lay your slices out in a single layer on the trays and stick in the dehydrator at about 125 or so. Leave them in overnight and just take them out in the morning and put them in jars with a oxygen absorber. Store the jars in a cool dark place, and thats all there is to it!

My favorite way to eat these is crushed up on top of Strawberry Banana yogurt. Mmmmmm In fact I think I'm going to go get some of that now:) Enjoy the new video!!

Our First Real Post! Canning Clementines

Here goes! Bear with us this is our first video, we're no Steven Spielberg but it gets the point across. Hopefully they will get better for your sake!

So you all know the little cans of Mandarin oranges you get at the grocery, well not only do you get a lot more bang for your buck, but these taste a lot better too.

Just like all the other fruits, for oranges we use a water bath canner. We used a light syrup for our clementines, but by all means you can use a heavy syrup or anything in between, to make it as sweet as you want. That's part of the beauty of canning yourself, you control all the ingredients.

Here is the chart for the sugar to water ratio in the different syrups.
                                 Sugar                     Water
Extra Light                 1 1/4 c.                   5 1/2 c.
Light                          2 1/4 c.                   5 1/4 c.
Medium                     3 1/4 c.                   5 c.
Heavy                        4 1/4 c.                   4 1/4 c.

Canning these is so simple, you sterilize everything, cold pack the clementines in the jars, then pour in the hot syrup. Pour it up until you have a half inch head space left. Screw on the lids and set in the canner. Then you let them boil for ten minutes. Thats it! We got about 6 pints out of our 6 pounds of clementines with a few extra pieces. And don't fret if one of your jars doesn't seal, it happens to everyone, in fact it happened to us this time, but we just put them in the fridge for eating first :0)

Hopefully that wasn't too long and boring for you, I tried not to be! Anyway, here is the video I promised.

Welcome!

Hey Everybody!
       First off, we hope you enjoy the blog, and the posts to come. Now I guess we should tell you what the blog is going to be about so here goes.....We are Mother and Daughter bloggers, Lori and Sasha, and we started a blog to share what we know about the old time skills that have been long lost and forgotten. We'll be talking about a wide variety of things so if you have something you want us to post about feel free to drop us a line. We hope this is as enjoyable for you all as it has been and will be for us. So thanks for dropping by and we hope to see you again when we have some real posts up :0D