Homemade Instant Oatmeal

I love making my own food.. the convenience is nice when you buy them in the stores but did you know that it's just as easy to make it yourself at home? It isn't time consuming and YOU control the ingredients.. no mystery ingredients that you can't pronounce or even know what they even are!!

Here is my recipe for homemade instant cinnamon and brown sugar oatmeal!

Ingredients:
5 cups quick oats
1 cup instant dry non fat milk
1/2 cup brown sugar
1 1/2 tsp cinnamon
1/4 tsp nutmeg
1/4 tsp allspice

Combine all ingredients in a large bowl, I used a gloved hand to break it all down and combine thoroughly.

This recipe will fit into 2 quart sized mason jars or you can break it down into sandwich sized ziploc bags, 1/4 cup of oatmeal mix into each bag. Combine with 2/3 boiling water and serve.

Homemade Granola

Use this delicious recipe to add crunch to your yogurt or just pour a little almond milk over this alone and enjoy.

A healthy flavorful alternative to those breakfast cereals and bars that are FULL of sugar!!


Granola:
4 cups quick oats
1 1/2 cups sliced almonds
1/2 cup light brown sugar
1 tsp cinnamon
1/4 tsp salt
1/2 tsp pure vanilla extract
1/2 tsp hazelnut extract
1/2 cup coconut oil
1/2 cup honey
add in your choice of dried fruits. Blueberries, cranberries, raisins.. etc..

Preheat your oven to 300


Combine oats, almonds, brown sugar, cinnamon and salt.

In a small pot on low warm your honey and oil and stir in the extracts

Add liquid to the oats mixture and combine with a wooden spoon. Use gloved hand to fully distribute.

Place on baking sheet and bake for 20-30 min stirring ever 10 minutes.








Allow to cool to room temperature and add in your choice of dried fruits and place in an air tight container

Enjoy to your liking!!! Thanks for visiting y'all!!!

Seedlings!!!

It is that time of year again!! Spring is upon us and we have the fever!!! I myself have gotten all 3 of my garden beds prepped and filled with dirt and manure. I have started a few of my colder weather seedlings (cabbage, broccoli, cauliflower and a variety of peas) and some of my indoor container plants as well like my jalapenos!!!

So in honor of spring I wanted to give some alternative/repurposing tips to save you money on seedling starters!!!

Grow your seedlings in eggshells. Yes I said eggshells, crack open your egg when making breakfast and save the shell halves. Fill with dirt then plant seedlings in them! When replanting you don't even have to remove them from the shell. Just break a the shell on the bottom to allow the roots to grow!

Eggshell Cartons. Fill with dirt then plant your seedlings!

Take an old paper towel roll and cut into thirds...

 I make 4 cuts in the bottom as shown

 and fold them over tape it shut.

 When it's time to transplant just remove tape, unfold and place in the ground :)


I hope that these have given you some ideas on how to get your seedlings going without paying the price for those expensive seedling pods :)

Trash to Treasure. Benefits of Coffee Grounds

For those of you who don't know. I am from the great state of Washington. What do you think of when you think of Seattle? Coffee?? Uh huh! hahaha.. well yes I do drink lots and lots and LOTS of coffee. So, why put those coffee grounds into the trash when they are so beneficial to your garden bed?  Don't drink coffee? No problem, just visit your local/favorite coffee shop and I bet you they are more then willing to share those rich grounds with you as well!!

Benefits of coffee grounds:

• Worms LOVE to feed on coffee grounds and we all know that worms aerate the soil for us, bring on the worms :)
• Cheap and easy to come by
• Coffee is a great source for Nitrogen, Calcium and Magnesium, which are extremely beneficial to your vegetable garden. 
• More tolerable to deal with then manure 
• Coffee is also a natural slug and snail killer... just spritz the ground with some day old coffee and keep them nasty buggers out of the garden!  

So before you throw out those old coffee grounds STOP no no no.. not in the name of love, and it's not hammer time either! Don't toss em, save em. I place mine in an old butter tub, It doesn't take but about a week for mine to fill.. I also crush up my eggshells and mix them together for a wonderful fertilizer! 

Canned Carrots

Canning Carrots


Ingredients:

• Carrots
• Boiling Water
• Salt

Directions:

• Peel and wash carrots. 
• 
  
• Slice to desired length.
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• Boil a pot of of water to fill your jars with
• 
  
• Pack jars with carrots leaving 1 inch headspace
• 
  
• Ladle boiling water over carrots.
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• Remove air bubbles with a non metallic spatula
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• Wipe rims and adjust rings and lids. 

For pint jars you can add 1/2 tsp of salt per jar or for quarts add 1 tsp per jar.

Process jars in a pressure canner at 10# of pressure for 25 minutes for pints and 30 minutes for quarts.



Recipe from the Ball Blue Book Guide to Preserving

Honey Dew Melon Jelly

Sweet, Simple... Love!


Honey Dew Melon Jelly



Ingredients:

• 1 Honey Dew Melon "gutted"
• 6 cups sugar
• a drop of vanilla
• 1 box sure-jell pectin

Directions:

• Heat melon meat over the stove until it has become liquefied and all the chunks are gone.
• 
  
• Add Pectin and stir to dissolve
• 
  
• Add 6 cups sugar stir and return to boil.
• 
  
• Test your jelly by taking a spoon and dip it into the jelly, and let watch the drips of jelly as they fall back into the pot, if they are thicker and drip together like a sheet your jam is ready. If they fall off quick like rain on a window then your need it to simmer some more.
• 
  
• 
  
• Fill hot jars with your jelly
• 
  
• Wipe off your rims and adjust your rings and lids.
• 
  
• Flip your jars over for 5 min
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• Flip right side up and let set.
• 
  
• My jelly didn't take long to set up, let cool and store!!

Cantaloupe Jelly

Afternoon y'all!!!! I went to our local farmers market yesterday to pick up a few items and picked up some fruit. I decided to play around and make up some cantaloupe jelly. It is so delicious!!!! My followers on facebook asked for the recipe in high demand.

Ingredients:
1 cantaloupe scooped out of the shell.
6 cups sugar
1 box pectin

Directions:
Heat cantaloupe meat and reduce to a liquid form.

Add box of pectin, heat till it is dissolved.

Add 6 cups of sugar stir and bring back to a boil.

Use sheeting test, to test your jelly.

Fill hot sterilized jars and adjust rings and lids.

Flip upside side down for 5 minutes then flip right side up and allow to cool!

Enjoy!!!