A GALLON of Cranberry Sauce for Thanksgiving Dinner?????

My husband and I have several children and they like to eat.....a LOT!  Well, I found a gallon can of cranberry sauce on sale, so I bought it, thinking I could use it for cranberry bread.  It really is a good deal, so I was glad to get it. I paid $3.00 for a gallon can at the Dutch Mennonite store.

Wow! That is a lot of cranberry sauce!

 Well, my kids had an idea..............instead of using that little can of cranberry sauce.........they wanted to use the BIG can, for Thanksgiving Dinner. After laughing with them about it, I agreed. :)

This is a 9" x 13" pan that I am slicing it in. They really wanted it to be sliced, just like we would slice it when it was a smaller can.

The slicing went well at first, although I had to use a large knife.

After slicing about half of it, I ran into a problem as it was filling the pan too fast.............

I moved it over and finished slicing and this is what it looked like..........they LOVED it. :)

They wanted to have a picture of the cranberry sauce WITH the turkey, so here it is..............by the way, that is a 21 1/2 pound turkey!!! As you can see, there is a LOT of cranberry sauce.

I found out that the boys also wanted to have a WHOLE slice, so we allowed it and they loved it.

This is what we had for Thanksgiving Dinner......

This was my plate and I only had 1/4 of a slice of cranberry sauce....I should have taken a picture of a plate with the big slice.





It was a wonderful Thanksgiving Dinner and it will go down in our family history as the year we had the huge slices of cranberry sauce. It really is fun to do things like this sometimes.........they mean so much to the kids and they build such fun memories. :)

I also made Cranberry Bread using the rest of the cranberry sauce. I did limit the guys on how much they had - only 1 big slice that day and another the next day...... and we had almost 1/2 gallon left. A day or so later, I combined that with a couple of bags of whole fresh cranberries and made lots of cranberry bread - I think it was 7 little loaves and 7 big loaves. I'm sorry there are no pictures of the bread.....but it was really good. My husband thought it was cherry bread and he LOVES cherries, so it was a hit.

One of our favorite ways to eat cranberry bread is to put cream cheese between 2 slices and have it for breakfast or snack. Yum.


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Faith Filled Friday
The Weekend Potluck

Faith and Trust.................

I have been thinking about faith and trust lately..............and realizing that many times my faith is weak.  I am studying a very good book called Calm My Anxious Heart by Linda Dillow. I have studied it before, but what a blessing to study it again with a new friend. We all go through hard times and sometimes the way looks very dark.

 
The thing is.....WHAT or WHO do we have faith in? If I have faith in myself or in my own abilities, then I will fail. If I have faith in my possessions, I will fail. If I have faith in another person, even if they are a "good person", at some point they will fail me. The only One worthy of my faith is ............ God.  He who knows the end from the beginning.....He who created me..........who has a perfect plan for my life.....He is the One I need to trust.

I have faced some hard times when fear of the future overwhelmed me and then God's peace comforted and carried me. There have been times when I have asked God to PLEASE change the circumstances and don't allow me to suffer so. He gently assures me that He is still in control and that I can trust Him - even if the way is hard.

It is easy to trust Him when things go well......or when I can see some great purpose, but what about the times when life is really hard and it hurts.........dreadfully? Will I trust Him then? Hard questions, but Jesus is the same yesterday and today and forever...............He can be trusted in the good times......and in the bad times.

My kids and I are memorizing Isaiah 26:3,4 and these verses really apply to this.............

I find that when my thoughts go to my circumstances, to my pain, to my fears, then I can become unsettled and worry takes over. I am not trusting the One I should trust. One of the best ways I have found to change my focus, is to recite scripture. God helps my focus to change from my earthly circumstances and allows me to focus on Him and He gives peace.....in the midst of problems.  It doesn't take away the problems or the pain, but the assurance that He is still in control brings comfort....and trust.

There is a song that I have appreciated for a long time, and one phrase, especially sticks out to me and challenges me. It says, When you can't see His hand, trust His heart.  That has helped me many times.

Growing in Christ is an on-going process and I want to honor God in my life. We can do that one day at a time.....or even one hour at a time....or a minute at a time. If you are struggling with a painful situation, I hope you will turn to the One who loves you and gave His life for you.....and rose again, defeating death and sin.

May our faith continue to grow.

"Almost" Homemade Shampoo and Hair Rinse

This is how I make an "almost" homemade shampoo and hair rinse.  I want to use more natural things and I love using herbs. First, I gather my ingredients........................

The above picture shows most of the ingredients-
Here I am showing closer pictures of them....

The basil, mint, lavender and rosemary are from my own harvested herbs.........

These ingredients are from herb stores or Amish stores - or even the grocery store.......

 I reuse regular shampoo and creme rinse bottles.........the first step is to remove the lids.......I use a regular butter knife and pry it under the lid, then twist, and the top pops right off.

 I experiment quite a bit and have made different varieties of shampoo and rinse. I have seen recipes and tried some and tweaked and added and subtracted and for right now, this is what I am using:

Shampoo

Basil, rosemary, oatstraw, horsetail/shavegrass, lavender, peppermint, Vitamin E oil, essential oils, about 1" of regular shampoo that doesn't smell very strong.

Hair Rinse

Apple Cider vinegar, Rosemary, black tea, cloves, comfrey, fenugreek, flaxseed, lavender, nettle, Vitamin E oil, essential oils.

 If you do not have some of the ingredients....just leave them out and there is no need to use as many as I do.........even just a few would be fine. The different ingredients do different things.....and you can experiment to see what works best for you.

 I mixed the herbs together in a bowl - one bowl for the shampoo and one for the rinse......


Then put some of the shampoo herbs in a teaball or strainer cup(what I use) and pour boiling water over. Let steep for 5-10 min......Do the same with the hair rinse herbs, but keep them separate.

For the shampoo, I start with about 1" of regular shampoo in the bottom of each bottle.....I choose a shampoo that has very little scent to it as I want to smell the herbs, not the perfume.

Next, make an infusion (a strong tea) using the shampoo herbs and let it steep for a few minutes........The measuring cup shows the shampoo herbs that have steeped and are ready to use.

Fill the shampoo bottle with the infusion.....see how the regular shampoo stays separated at the bottom? Tipping the bottles upside down and shaking takes care of that..................At first the infusion tea is very warm, so the bottles are warm.............Add essential oils - I use about 20 drops of rosemary, 15 drops of lavender and maybe some mint drops to each bottle.  Smells so good. :)  All ready to use.



 Next, the Hair Rinse...............  Fill the bottle about 1/4 of the way full with Apple Cider Vinegar.....

Steep the herbs for the hair rinse........
then add to the bottles with the vinegar. Add some vitamin e oil and essential oils........again, I like to use about 20 drops of rosemary oil, 10 of lavender, maybe some mint, cloves or other.....

Put the lid on - it just pops back on - and shake.

All ready to use...........

The shampoo does not lather as much, but it cleans the hair very nicely. The hair rinse can be rinsed off the hair or left on........I usually rinse lightly with water after keeping it on for about 3-5 minutes.

Since I have gotten tired of getting out all of the herbs and spices each time to make this, I mixed up extra this time and bagged them, so that it will be much easier to make the tea/infusion.






The nice thing about this shampoo and hair rinse is that it smells WONDERFUL.  Even the vinegar smell is gone after the hair dries, but the herbal scents linger nicely.  In our family, we have people with dry hair, oily hair, thin hair, thick hair, normal hair.............and these seem to work for everyone who has tried it. My husband says he LOVES how it makes his hair feel.

I need to keep experimenting to make the hair rinse more of a detangler for long hair. Overall, these work very well and we are happy with them, but I will most likely keep adding and subtracting and tweaking more and more.

Once you build a supply of herbs, it is amazing what all can be done with them.........and they go a long way.


Other sites you may enjoy..........

Modest Monday
Whatever Goes Wednesday
 

Herb Harvest............

Since we have had all of the bitterly cold temperatures and since we have been cooped up- both because of the weather and because we went through a bout of sickness, I have felt a bit of "cabin fever" and my thoughts have turned to warmer weather and plants and planting. Even though my garden is buried under winter snow, I find myself thankful for the harvests we have had........

I love harvesting my herbs and hanging them up in the house..............I put them in several places, but the area that gets the most of them is my kitchen window. We took the valance down when we scraped the ceilings back in the spring of 2013 and never put them back up........so it was a perfect spot for hanging herbs to dry................and I LOVE how it looks. :)

The house smells so very good when I harvest the herbs and hang them.......fresh and wonderfully scented with all the great herb smells - rosemary, oregano, basil, lavender, mint, and more.....

.

This was pretty much our last harvest before frost/freeze last fall - we tried to save everything we could......we did harvest more little cherry tomatoes after this picture...

those green things that look like limes, are actually passionfruit....








The basket of herbs is full of different herbs and
it is hard to tell what is in there from the picture...

We brought in a few baskets of herbs and then separated them......

We felt like getting a little "artsy" with the produce. :)  It sure looked pretty on my counter.

 I use rubber bands to hold the herbs together - I just put a good amount of herbs together without making too large of a bunch, which would interfere with air flow. I want my herbs to dry rather quickly and completely so that they retain their color and flavor....and nutrients.

I used to put a slip of paper with the name of the herb and hook it w/ the rubber band, but rarely do that anymore..........If I have an herb I am not as familiar with, I will do that again..........

There are times that I find I should have done it now. :)  As herbs dry, sometimes they look like other dried herbs, so it is a good idea to label them.........

I use clothes pins to hang them up or sometimes I can just straddle the bunch over the curtain rod and it hangs there quite nicely.

After they dry by hanging upside down for a week or two - until they are totally dry, then I will take them down and put them away.

I watch for containers to use for my herbs - I prefer to use glass - or metal, but I do have some plastic that I use only until I can find replacements.............

You can see that I have rosemary, strawberry leaves, lavender, yarrow, thyme, mint and lots more..........

There are so many uses for herbs and I love being able to harvest my own. I try to grow more herbs each year, but I don't grow as much as I use yet.  I do buy some and I try to store my herbs all together as much as I can, so they are easy to use.

Herbs do best in a dark cool place........most of my jars are clear, as you can see, but I keep them behind closed doors. I would enjoy having my herbs displayed so prettily on open shelving, as I have seen some people do, but the light can reduce the color, nutrients and flavor, so I keep them behind closed doors.

If you do not have any herbs yet, I encourage you to not be afraid of learning to use them........start with one....and maybe you won't even start with one that you grow and that is okay. There are many great herb companies that will sell good quality herbs......you can invest in one kind or a few kinds and experiment with using those until you are comfortable with them.

 Maybe mint....and use it in teas and more.  Maybe it would be just something from the grocery store spice shelf or the fresh herbs in the produce section - rosemary, parsley, basil, oregano, dill, or other items - all have many uses and it is a cheap and easy way to use more herbs. Yes, you can use them in foods and many can also be used in teas or for scenting your home. The internet and herb books can be very helpful to safely learn to use herbs.....I recommend that you double check your sources for any herb recommendations to be extra sure you are being safe.

I use herbs to make teas, infusions, first aid spray, tooth powder, shampoo, hair rinse, tinctures, salves, poultices, and many more things. I seem to add more uses all of the time and enjoy doing so, but I started out with doing one thing and then another..............and you can too. God has made the herbs of the field for us to use and I am so thankful to continue to learn of their many uses.


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Sour Dough Bread - Yum!

I have recently started making sourdough bread again and we are sure enjoying it. I started with a basic sourdough recipe that uses just 5 ingredients - flour, sugar, yeast, salt and water.

It sits on the counter to ferment for a few days and then after that it is easy to replenish it and use as needed. I am storing mine in a container that came with a lid - we drilled a small hole in the lid and it works great.

I am having a bit of a challenge as our house is not warm enough to ferment it as nicely or as quickly as in the summer. Still, it is working out just fine. At times, this container seems too small so I may have to eventually switch to a larger one.

We had Sourdough cranberry pancakes for breakfast one morning - they were really good - I used both a can of cranberry sauce and a bag of fresh cranberries, which are quite tart. We served them with cream cheese and syrup and added some shredded cheddar cheese and real bacon bits to the top and they were greatly enjoyed. I will have to remember to take more pictures. :)

I made the loaves of bread a bit smaller this time because with this batch, I also made a large deep dish pizza which we devoured for supper. Sorry, I forgot to take any pictures. :)

Homemade bread toast - especially sourdough, is great and we enjoyed it this morning with our eggs and peach jam.

There is a good cookbook, called Sourdough Cookery by Rita Davenport that has many recipes for sourdough. I used the basic recipe from this book to start, but used my regular bread recipe that I always use and changed it to sourdough.  The pancakes were the same - no recipe really, just added ingredients until it looked good and made them.

I plan to experiment more with the sourdough and add to other things. Maybe I will even try some of the recipes in the book. :)  If you are interested, the book can be bought through Amazon or it may even be at your local library....or there are probably many sourdough recipes on line. I bought this book at a garage sale and am glad to have it in my library even though I only used it to start the starter.

It is a great time of year to make more bread - so nice to have it baking and making the house smell so lovely.

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Titus 2sday

"Be still and know that I am God." Be STILL? ............Really?..............

I really like doilies, old linens and lace.............they add a layer of beauty that tends to be either missing or in short supply in our culture of fast paced lifestyles and streamlined electronic gadgets.

 Don't get me wrong - electronics do have their place and I am very thankful for the computer and camera that I use to do these posts. I am thankful to be able to communicate quickly with missionary friends on the other side of the world or edit my many pictures on my computer.  I also benefit from other electronic "stuff". I just like to keep them in their place.............In my home, I ask that the cellphones not interfere with our family meals and that an iphone is not used while supposedly carrying on a conversation with another person. I reject the idea that a cellphone should be our very constant companion and I have great concerns that the extreme dependence we have on these items can make us feel less dependent on God. What a shame.

There are apps for so many things which can add ways to use smart phones or iphones. All sorts of games can be added so that you never have to be "bored".  Books can be loaded. Music programmed. Though I do not personally use them, I have observed many who do and I see that cell phones are used to track how far a person ran or where their children are at any given time. Pulse rate can be monitored. There is a directional app that tells how to go from "here to there". There is even an app that will tell you how much sleep you got, what level of sleep it was, how much dreaming you did and more......of course, you have to take it to bed with you for that to work. SO, not only is the cell phone a constant companion all day......it then becomes utterly important at night also. I am not saying that all people who use these are overly dependent on them, but I do wonder how many apps that are totally unnecessary, are used anyway, just because they are there and it is interesting or fun.

How many times do we allow our curiosity to lead us to use time that we didn't think we even had? It is so easy to say, "I just didn't have much time to spend extra time with God today." However, we may want to ask ourselves what we did with that time......did we look up all sorts of interesting, but actually very unimportant information on the computer or iphone? Did we text or message over some
trivial stuff that kept us from interacting with the people right beside us? Did we invest in eternity?....or did we just "entertain" ourselves?

God says "Be still and know that I am God." Be STILL? Hmmm.........Be STILL?  Really?..............That's not a very accepted idea in our restless culture. Do we want to just be distracted and kept busy in our lives............or do we want to "Be still and know that I am God."?

In all of our busyness, we find it difficult, if not impossible, to hear God's "still small voice". We hear news or music or friends or movies or laughter or other noises that keep us from hearing that "still small voice". I know that I, for one, could benefit from slowing down and removing some things from my already overloaded schedule. I don't want to continue to frantically move from one activity to another trying to "do it all" and miss out on the important things - like walking with my Savior every day in an attitude of thankfulness, confidence and peace and being ready to heed the nudging He gives me to minister to those around me.

WHO really is our constant companion? Do we REALLY want to have a cell phone as our "best friend"? We are cheating ourselves even as we neglect that important relationship that we take for granted. May we be focused on the right things and not let idle time steal our lives from us one moment at a time.

Again, I enjoy doilies, old linens and lace.........and china and tea and books and so much more. Maybe I need to slow things down a bit and add more of those things that invite me to slow down and reflect rather than rush. Are these things magic? No......and some people may not even LIKE them....and that is okay also. You may want to ask yourself what things could help you to slow your life down....or get your attention on the eternal things? It would be worth our time and attention to address the subject.

May God direct our thoughts to the more worthy things and help us to say no to the unimportant ones. May we have more attention to give to our families without being as distracted by our other interests. I know it is an ongoing challenge for me to weed out the "good" things to make room for the "best" things.


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