Keeping Hot Peppers for Later My Dad sent a nice bag of hot peppers home with us when we visited family in New York recently. He had a new variety called ‘Inferno.’ I asked if they were really all that hot and he said, ‘They have a little bit of…
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How to Store Home Canned Food for Best Results
Store your home-canned foods properly to prevent spoilage!
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Canning a Bushel of Peaches
It’s Peach Canning Season on the Homestead! Between the bushel of peaches I brought back from Amish country in New York and a bag of peaches from my friend Audrey, I had some work cut out for me this week! It seems like a lot of work when I’m…
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The Pickle Crock
Making Dill Pickles in a Crock When we returned from our visit out east there were plenty of cucumbers in the garden. A few had grown to the size of small watermelons and those went to the chickens. They love cucumbers! The rest were just right for filling my crock…
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How to Sow Fall Crops for an Extended Harvest
Increase Your Harvest with Cool Season Crops In northern climates, like mine, you can sow cool seasons crops in mid to late summer for your fall garden. Oftentimes we get so busy preserving the bounty of our summer crops that we miss out on this chance to extend our…
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How to Make Brine Cured Pickles
Making Brine Cured Pickles Curing foods in brine is an old-fashioned way of preserving them without refrigeration. A salt solution is used to cover the food and keep it from spoiling. Brine cured pickles were a staple in many homes. I remember my Grandma M making large crocks full of…
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Fresh Strawberry Pie Easy Recipe
This fresh strawberry pie recipe is easy and delicious! No need to bake, use a graham cracker crust for a scrumtious dessert!
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Pioneer Cooking
Cooking Like a Pioneer I’ve always enjoyed cooking outside over a campfire. I recently started cooking in a Dutch oven over hot coals for a real pioneer experience. I like the fact that it requires me to be outside, enjoying the day, rather than being stuck in the kitchen looking…
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How to Make Rhubarb Cake and Rhubarb Sauce
Make Your Own Rhubarb Cake and Rhubarb Sauce! Every spring my rhubarb patch provides the main ingredient for a wonderful array of delicious treats. I love making rhubarb cake, rhubarb sauce, rhubarb potluck pie, strawberry rhubarb freezer jam, and vanilla rhubarb jam from scratch. This is just the beginning of…
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Foraging for Burdock and Making Carduni
Foraging for Burdock & Making Carduni Burdock (Arctium lappa) grows wild all over much of North America and it’s a fairly easy plant to identify. (Make sure you take a reliable guide with you when foraging for wild plants.) In addition to being quite common, the stems are very tasty…
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What to do With Extra Eggs?
Do You Have Extra Eggs in the Spring? Hens naturally start laying extra eggs in the spring so they can raise a clutch of chicks. Since most hens don’t go broody and hatch their eggs, it’s up to us to collect these extra eggs for our table. Do you have…
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Canning Cupboard
Storing Home Canned Goods For more information, read my post How To Store Your Home Canned Foods It’s important to store your home canned meats, fruits and vegetables properly. Cool temperatures and dark conditions help to retain the color, flavor, and nutrients of your canned goods. You also need to…
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Loose Leaf Tea for Frugal Caffeine Lovers
Loose-Leaf Tea for Caffeine Lovers People love caffeine. They drink coffee, tea, and hot cocoa, or sip other caffeinated beverages such as soda or energy drinks every day…sometimes all day long. I won’t tell you that caffeine is a good thing, but I think that it’s ok for most people…
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Making Broth on Your Woodstove
Homemade Broth on the Wood Stove Our wood stove really makes our house feel like a home. I love having the warmth in winter, plus it’s so nice to fill the tea kettle for hot drinks all day. We also cook on our wood stove quite a bit, reducing our…
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Cranberry-Orange Marmalade
See also How to Make Cranberry Jam and How to Make Jam from Frozen Fruit Cranberry Orange Marmalade Yield: approximately 15 half pints 20 oranges, washed 8 cups sugar 3 packages low sugar pectin 4 cups cranberry juice 3 cups cranberries, sorted and washed Using a medium cheese grater, remove the…
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How to Clean Out the Root Cellar
How to Clean Your Root Cellar In March and April, it’s time to clean out the root cellar and finish up the last of your cold storage veggies. Many root cellar crops have long passed their ‘keeping’ limits by this time of the year. Beets, squash, pumpkins, carrots, cabbages, and…