6 more weeks of winter...

Wait! What Winter? Today it is 60 degrees, sun is shining and it is beautiful outside!  We could use some rain, it is already the 2nd month of the year and we are already 1/2" behind for the year.  Hopefully we aren't dry like last year, I am planning a HUGE garden!  Ordering my seeds today!!!  Need to get some of them babies started! YAY! Some pics to show that everything thinks it is SPRING!

I have been bit by the canning bug once again.  Aldi's  last week had baby carrots on sale for $0.49 a pound...so silly me goes and buys 21 bags.  They also had pineapple for $0.99 each.  I bought 3.  I canned carrots Saturday and Tuesday.  Today I am canning pineapple with grapefruit! 3 pineapple and 2 grapefruit made 7 pints! whoo baby!

Also I have a recipe to share with you all.  Tuesday night I made what I call Stuffed Noodles, it is a recipe I made up a few months ago and my hubby and I really like it!

Ingredients:
2 packages cream cheese, room temp
1 box frozen chopped spinach
bacon grease and 2 pieces bacon
A little bit of heavy cream
salt, garlic powder, onion powder
noodles either JUMBO SHELLS or MANICOTTI, cooked and cooled
mushrooms are optional

Fry your bacon (I usually just fry a whole package to get the grease) after your bacon is done add the spinach to your grease, cook it until heated through, crumble 2 pieces of bacon in it. Meanwhile in a mixing bowl add 2 packages of cream cheese and a bit of cream (I really don't measure this I just pour a bit in here and there) add your spinach, mushrooms and mix it all up. Add seasonings to taste.

After cream cheese mixture is well blended add mixture to a gallon sized ziplock baggie, cut off the corner and squeeze mixture into noodles (think pastry bag). Lay noodle in a casserole dish, pour a jar of Spaghetti sauce over the top. Sprinkle cheese (any kind of shredded cheese really - I use Mozzerella mostly though)

Bake at 350 for 10 minutes or until cheese is all melted and bubbly. Serve.

This is a great way to get the kids to eat spinach!

Bethel

Pictures of Bethel Methodist Church - not sure when they quit having regular services... I do know they never went "modern" like most methodist churches are these days.  

Burrrr Its Cold Outside

Today we are having our first winter weather of the season.  Yesterday it was a sunny 60 degrees, but by evening the wind changed and temps started falling fast.  By 11pm it was 30 degrees and blowing snow.  Yes snow.  you know you live in Missouri when you have to use AC and Heat all in the same day! lol

Woke up this morning to a breezy chill, snow blowing still and a temperature of 19 and a wind chill of 2. BURR. Not only was it cold outside, hubby was running late this morning and didn't put any wood in the fire. Not a coal was smoldering when I got up at 7:30...not only was the fire OUT, but hubby also didn't pull the backdoor all the way shut, so the wind blew it open... I have a thermometer in my room - it said the indoor temp was 42. sheesh.

Finally got the fire burning good around 8:30 or so- the wind blew the tarp off the woodpile so all of our wood was wet and frozen. Yay! not...  Started a pot of ham and beans this morning, the house has that cozy smell - love that cozy smell.

Now if only I could get it warm enough in here that my feet were warm. But even if I had the stove full my feet would probably still be cold.  One thing I hate about old houses- they built them right on the ground.  Literally our living room is only about 10 inches off the ground. Makes the floor awfully cold in the winter- kinda wish we would have went with carpet instead of laminate flooring.  Didn't do carpet because the options were limited- our room is 15 1/2 feet wide... carpet normally comes in 12 foot rolls, there are some 15s but not many.  Especially not many at places like Lowes or discount carpet places.  Some day I am going to have heated floors...in my new house...when I win the lottery bwahahaha!

I am still sick.  I have had a sore throat now for 9 days, and my head hurts non-stop.  I have completed a z-pack (today being the final day) and I now have a very pink eye - put drops in it, sure hope I am not getting pink eye again! argh.

Well it is 2012!

Not much exciting going on around here.  I got my hair cut uber short and am still very much getting used to it.  I think I love it.  I feel it makes me look... vintage.  I have a bit of curl around the edges and I think it looks awesome with a bandanna.  Wish I had an awesome apron to go with it, but I just can't shell out that kind of cash right now.  I was surprised to find that a full length apron is anywhere from $20 to $40...- at least for a cute one that is.  I can't wait until I get a sewing machine to try and make my own.  I know for a fact you can get pretty material for $1.97 a yard so I can't see why they have to charge so much!

Over the past few days me, Sophia, and now Cooper have been sick.  Yucky colds/flu sick.  Ear infections, pink eye, snotty noses. yuck. but luckily we are all feeling a bit better.

oh how I wish the cleaning fairy would come pay me a visit.

Almost a new year :)

Hope everyone had a decent Christmas this year.  I can't believe that yet another year is almost over.  It has seemed to fly by like crazy.  I had a good Christmas got 2 new cookbooks and Carla Emery's Encyclopedia to Country Living. In addition to those I also got the Ball Complete Book of Home Preserving (over 400 recipes!!) I could not be happier. :)

My mom gave me some bread that had went stale (she was thinking for the chickens and the ducks..) I have a Lazy Day Peach cobbler in the oven as I type.  I love to make them and eat them but hate to "waste" 5 slices of bread in them lol I am thinking of vacuum packing the rest and freezing it.

There are many variations to Lazy Day Peach cobbler but some really aren't that easy- well not as easy as:

1 quart jar of canned peaches, drained reserve 2-3 tablespoons juice
5 slices stale white bread, crusts trimmed
1 1/2 c sugar
2 T flour
a pinch or two cinnamon
1/2 cup butter, melted
1 egg

Preheat oven to 350 degrees F

In a 8 inch buttered dish places drained peaches.  In a medium mixing bowl combine sugar, butter, flour, egg, and 2-3 T juice.  Mix well.  Cut the bread in 1inch slices, place on top of peaches.  Pour sugar mixture on top.

Place in oven and bake for 40-45 minutes.

If you don't have home canned peaches a LARGE can (29 oz) of store bought peaches will do, but they aren't nearly as good. :)  This recipe also works great with Apple and Pears. :)

Another funny from facebook

GARDEN SNAKES CAN BE DANGEROUS...
Snakes also known as Garter Snakes (Thamnophissirtalis) can be dangerous. Yes, grass snakes, not rattlesnakes. Here's why.
A couple in Kilgore, Texas had a lot of potted plants. During a recent cold spell, the wife was bringing a lot of them indoors to protect them from a possible freeze.
It turned out that a little green garden grass snake was hidden in one of the plants. When it had warmed up, it slithered out and the wife saw it go under the sofa.
She let out a very loud scream.
The husband (who was taking a shower) ran out into the living room naked to see what the problem was. She told him there was a snake under the sofa.
He got down on the floor on his hands and knees to look for it. About that time the family dog came and cold-nosed him on the behind. He thought the snake had bitten him, so he screamed and fell over on the floor.
His wife thought he had had a heart attack, so she covered him up, told him to lie still and called an ambulance.
The attendants rushed in, would not listen to his protests, loaded him on the stretcher, and started carrying him out.
About that time, the snake came out from under the sofa and the Emergency Medical Technician saw it and dropped his end of the stretcher. That's when the man broke his leg and why he is still in the hospital.
The wife still had the problem of the snake in the house, so she called on a neighbor who volunteered to capture the snake. He armed himself with a rolled-up newspaper and began poking under the couch.. Soon he decided it was gone and told the woman, who sat down on the sofa in relief.
But while relaxing, her hand dangled in between the cushions, where she felt the snake wriggling around. She screamed and fainted, the snake rushed back under the sofa.
The neighbor man, seeing her lying there passed out, tried to use CPR to revive her.
The neighbor's wife, who had just returned from shopping at the grocery store, saw her husband's mouth on the woman's mouth and slammed her husband in the back of the head with a bag of canned goods, knocking him out and cutting his scalp to a point where it needed stitches.
The noise woke the woman from her dead faint and she saw her neighbor lying on the floor with his wife bending over him, so she assumed that the snake had bitten him. She went to the kitchen and got a small bottle of whiskey, and began pouring it down the man's throat.
By now, the police had arrived.
Breathe here...
They saw the unconscious man, smelled the whiskey, and assumed that a drunken fight had occurred.. They were about to arrest them all, when the women tried to explain how it all happened over a little garden snake!
The police called an ambulance, which took away the neighbor and his sobbing wife.
Now, the little snake again crawled out from under the sofa and one of the policemen drew his gun and fired at it. He missed the snake and hit the leg of the end table. The table fell over, the lamp on it shattered and, as the bulb broke, it started a fire in the drapes.
The other policeman tried to beat out the flames, and fell through the window into the yard on top of the family dog who, startled, jumped out and raced into the street, where an oncoming car swerved to avoid it and smashed into the parked police car.
Meanwhile, neighbors saw the burning drapes and called in the fire department. The firemen had started raising the fire ladder when they were halfway down the street. The rising ladder tore out the overhead wires, put out the power, and disconnected the telephones in a ten-square city block area (but they did get the house fire out).
Time passed! Both men were discharged from the hospital, the house was repaired, the dog came home, the police acquired a new car and all was right with their world.
A while later they were watching TV and the weatherman announced a cold snap for that night. The wife asked her husband if he thought they should bring in their plants for the night.
And that's when he shot her.

a couple pics I took the other day