Canned Potatoes

Evening everyone, I am really trying to get caught up on my blog posts tonight, I have taken way too much time off from this, I must start getting on this on a daily basis!!

We are coming upon grocery day and I almost always buy the big 20lb bag of potatoes, but this month we just didn't go through them like we usually do, so I decided I would can them! 

I used about 10lbs of potatoes here and ended up with 12
Canned Potatoes Recipe

Peel and quarter potatoes.
Boil for 10 min
Pack hot jars with potatoes and cover with boiling water (I used the water that I boiled my taters in)
1/2 tsp of salt per jar
Process for 40 min at 10# pressure for quarts and 35 min for pints

Let sit for 12 hours and make sure all jars have sealed. tada!!

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Superbowl Lineup!!!

Who is loves football?? *raising my hands and jumping up and down* Yes, you got that right this house LOVES football!!

The kids father is a 49ers fan so that means BIG superbowl party this year. I thought that I would share my superbowl food lineup with you guys so that you can enjoy these recipes as well!!

Main Course:

Chili and cornbread.. now for my chili I am going cheap this year, I am using Bear Creek Chili Mix aka "Darn Good Chili". This stuff is really good and I just put it in my crockpot and let it simmer all day, EASY, done and done!!

Snacks/Side:

I am doing the Usual Veggie Tray, and dips Ranch Dip, Onion Dip and Chips and homemade canned salsa

Onion Dip Recipe:

1/2 cup dehydrated onion

1tbs powdered garlic

1 1/2 cup sour cream

1 cup mayo

1 tsp Worcestershire sauce

Combine all ingredients and chill at least 1 hour

serve with potato chips or with fresh veggies.

I am also going to be doing some bacon/jalapeno poppers.. link is here bacon/jalapeno

and some extremely yummy chicken wings courtesy of Food Republic

Click this link for Sriracha-Honey wing recipe! Wings! 

Prepper Nicki's Beer Battered Onion Rings

So it was Pro Bowl night.. and what do we do around football season? (eat a lot of really unhealthy food) hahahaha this one isn't as bad, but it is still fried!

Prepper Nicki's Beer Battered Onion Rings!!!

 

 

 

 

 Things you will need:
2 med onions sliced 3/4 inch thick
Oil
1 Batter Recipe

Breadcrumbs/Panko
 

 

 Batter:
3/4 flour
2 tbs cornstarch
tsp salt
2 tbs cajun seasoning
1 cup beer

Slice your onions 3/4inch thick

Batter up your sliced onions and roll em in the breadcrumbs and fry em up in your oil till golden brown. They are best if not over done, cook them till just golden brown.
 

 

 Serve with your favorite dipping sauce

My fav is my own creation...
1/2 cup mayo
3 tbs of ketchup
1tbs horseradish
drop of vinegar

Happy cookin y'all!!!

 

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My Secret Garden

Hey y'all I really have been slacking on my blog posts. I apologize, things have been extremely busy around here, prepping for my spring garden,work and the kids in school things just seem to pile up now don't they?

I thought I would take this evening to catch up and post a few articles tonight, first I will show you what I have been up to in my yard.

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First is my raised garden beds..

This is two of three of my small raised beds... small cute and my son is showing them off.. I will fill the cinder block holes to plant in as well :)

Then we have the dreaded hill, the hill that children threw toys, shoes, food I mean really anything you can think of... I never wanted to venture it, but I was turning my compost which is right behind where I am standing taking this picture and it got me thinking... why not clear it out and turn this into more garden space! duh!!!

So we did!!! It is now all leveled off and the soil is so perfect!!! All those leaves gave me some wonderful composted soil underneatch!!! :)

 

 

 

To give me better access to the bottom, I repurposed some old pieces of concrete blocks that were laying around and wooden boards that were shoved behind the shed and made myself some stairs, that way I didn't topple down the hill when I wanted to get down there and work in it!!

So this was last weekend's project, and it was a total success, all the kids got involved, well ok, my middle one didn't so much, she's my princess and doesn't like to get dirty but the other two, well how about I just show ya? :)

Happy faces of happy kids for sure!!!

Garlic Parmesan Biscuits

Evening y'all! So this past weekend I spent a good amount of time with my new pressure canner.
20lbs of tomatoes later I have a cupboard filled with turkey meat sauce, ground beef meat sauce and chili (a few less chili cause my daddy took some with him when he came to visit last night.)

So if you read the previous blogs you will know that I have now posted 3 seperate blogs today and intend on doing one more before bed. I am whooped! Work was a breeze, I actually spent most of my time with the chickens and the dog. It was a nice relaxing day, it seemed fitting with how gloomy it was. I'm getting off track, so.. for dinner tonight I wanted something FAST cause I did not want to stand over a hot stove/oven all evening, spaghetti it was, not much too that just pop open a jar of the meat sauce and heat it up and boil your noodles.

The most yummy part of the meal was my garlic/parm biscuits. They really are just so super delicious.

Garlic/Parmesan Biscuits:
2 cups bisquick (homemade)
3/4 milk
1/4 Parmesan cheese
1 Tbs butter melted
2 Tbs garlic powder or 2 cloves finely minced garlic 


Preheat oven to 400
Mix it all together and roll into small balls and put onto a your baking sheet, you can oil your sheet if you want but I never have an issue with these sticking, all depends on your baking sheet I suppose. 

Brush tops of your biscuits with butter and bake for 15-20 min.

Dinner is served!!

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Homemade Better Bisquick Recipe

Ok, so since I did my mini pancake bites in my previous blog post, I figured I should probably give you the recipe for the homemade bisquick I make here and never have to run out of and always have on hand. (without the added stuff inside that you don't know what it is.)

Bisquick is so versatile, you can make numerous things with it... from pancakes, to biscuits to chicken and dumplins to fried chicken. It's expensive! So lets save you some money and make it at home!!!

Ingredients:
6 cups of flour
3 TBS baking powder
1 TBS salt
1 cup vegetable shortening

Take all your dry ingredients and mix together
take your 1 cup of shortening and cut this into your dry ingredients until it looks almost like a cornmeal.

I always make a double batch because I use it constantly with 3 little ones around.

Store in an airtight container in the fridge, and use as you would the regular old bisquick.
( I do not know the original source of this recipe but I know it is floating around all over the interwebs )


WARNING: With this recipe you will never buy bisquick again!!! :)

Mini Pancake Bites

Afternoon y'all!!! 

   Well, we made to our halfway through point in the week, yay! We sure have been busy busy around here with our garden planning and regular house hold activities, kids going back to school after winter break and getting back into the groove of things. 

So today I thought I would show you guys a quick easy breakfast fix for those busy mornings, rushing kids out the door and getting yourself off to work. 

Mini Pancake Bites:

2 cups home made bisquick ( View next blog )

2 eggs

1 cup milk

Topping choices:

chocolate chips

sausage

bacon

really.. the choices are endless 

Preheat your oven to 350

Mix it all together and seperate evenly into a muffin tin. 

Pop on all of your toppings and back about 15 min.

Now, really how easy is that? To make it even easier mix up a big batch of pancake mix and store it in the fridge inside of a recycled ketchup container!! :-D

Next I will show you how to make homemade bisquick! 

Waste not, want not. Getting a second harvest out of store bought celery!

Morning y'all, and Happy New Year, man I've been up since 4am!! Really, I never wake up this early, but good thing I have my coffee in hand to keep me going through the day!

 Been a couple weeks since I've been on but I've been busy between work and my personal prepping at home and my new Facebook page, have a checked it out yet? Prepper Nicki's Nook. The page has really taken off and I love my followers so much on there, I just love the community I have growing on there.

Anyway's today I will be showing you how to re harvest that celery you bought from the store! Don't throw away that butt end! No, stop that right now and get you a glass of water to put it in... like so

Celery in the middle, yea.. that one.. do that!! As a couple days go by you can see those outer layers, those are gonna have to go, but not just yet, you wanna let some new growth begin before you start pulling off those outer layers.

Watch how fast this is growing for me, indoors, on my bakers rack, as we speak!!

 I was very surprised myself at how fast this took off for me, before this it was headed for the compost!!
You can see in the new few images how I have started to remove those outer layers as the new growth begins to come in strong.

On day 5 I put it into some potting soil, water just does not have enough nutrients for the stalks to grow up tall and thick. Make sure you water your new plant I have not had an issue with warmth or light so far and I live in Western Washington, right now we aren't getting much sun and the rain is constant, but like I said, this is an experiment I am doing indoors.

Day 7 and I have removed all of those extra outer layers and look at how beautiful and well this is growing!!

Today is day 8... and look at the significant growth from day to day!! WOW!! I will be doing daily blog updates on this to show you how my progress is going and any adjustments I would advice!!  Till the next update y'all!!!