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I noticed Irish Soda bread recipes use Baking Soda instead of baking powder which keeps indefinitely and is useful for many things including cleaning, deodorizing and even for brushing your teeth. It needs an acid to react to rise quick breads. Traditional recipes use Buttermilk, but you can substitute milk with vinegar or thin enough yogourt for the recipe. If I had none of those I'd use warm water and vinegar. For milk 1 Tbsp vinegar to 1 cup milk is recommended. I used white vinegar which is another very... Read more →

One afternoon this Summer I decided to peel some potatoes for supper. Realizing that I had too many I pushed one to the back of my kitchen counter, thinking I would use it later. Instead I forgot about it. A couple of weeks later I remembered the potato and noticed that it had grown 4 long sprouts. I thought what a neat idea to plant this and see what happens. I placed it whole in a little garden just outside of my seed room door. Carefully adding compost and watering... Read more →

Our entire garden is planted and I have been harvesting, lettuce, spinach, dill, broccoli, and beet greens. So far all of our vegetables are doing well. Every day I do a careful inspection checking all plants to be sure there is no insect damage. If there is damage I need to find it right away and correct the problem. If possible I remove the insects by hand but if that is not possible I spray with an organic pesticide. In this manner invading insects can be easily controlled. The perimeter... Read more →

Life is full of surprises! With this pandemic my family and I are staying home. Thank goodness we are well stocked and we are thankful that delivery people are hard at work. There are many first time gardeners this year. We had some nice warm weather mid March and were able to till some of our garden and I sowed lettuce, spinach, beets, dill and peas. It looks like almost every seed germinated. Then the weather turned very chilly and we had snow, sleet and even some hail. I am... Read more →

Everyone does not have a large family at home. When cooking for just a few, it is hard to find smaller equipment to cook with. There are two major ways to save time and energy. One is Slow Cookers also called Crock Pots and the other is Pressure Cookers to cook very quickly indeed. It is hard to find smaller models of both. I have relied on my 1 quart Rival Crock-ette for years but they stopped making new ones a long time ago. I went looking for a new... Read more →

In my part of the country Thomas brand English muffins have long been popular at grocery stores. I always liked them at breakfast or for a snack. I usually toasted them whole and then sliced them just before adding butter, jelly or peanut butter and let the topping melt in. They are not sweet tasting, but a type of bread with a wonderful crust and lots of air bubbles inside. In stores English muffins are also available with raisins or made from whole wheat. Fast food restaurants offering breakfast usually... Read more →

We have been blessed with a fantastic harvest this year! Every year, of course, is a little different. The weather, bugs, critters all influence our crops. Well, the fence kept all critters away, the weather was accommodating and the bugs were quite manageable. About a month ago I sowed a third crop of beets, spinach and lettuce. The beets will probably not mature before frost but the green tops will be delicious. The spinach is ready and the lettuce was a bit of a challenge. The first planting never germinated,... Read more →

Oh my goodness! Our garden has been extremely productive this year. I have been freezing and canning vegetables and fruit almost every day since mid July.There are so many variables in gardening. There is the weather,bugs and critters to deal with. Our entire garden is fenced with a 10 foot fence.To keep deer out. This year we also added new fencing near the bottom to keep rabbit and woodchucks from burrowing under. The weather has been favorable with frequent rain and sunny bright days in between. The insects have not... Read more →

Some of my website articles are 12 years old now. I want to update my latest Baked Bean and Corn Bread cooking recipes. Being from New England, my favorite way to season and prepare dry beans is in the traditional Boston style with molasses. My favorite way to make Corn Bread is the simple hot water and freshly ground meal recipe. When using our Flint corn, be sure to allow the hot water to soak in for an hour or more to soften the corn meal if you plan to... Read more →

For Christmas in 2018 I received a cast iron pan for making corn bread. The bottom is shaped like 5 little ears of corn which come out of the pan like bread sticks. There are other styles of corn bread pans to make various shapes and you can just use a hot oven safe frying pan. During the Winter while our wood cooking stove is going is a perfect time to bake corn biscuits and now I can make corn bread sticks too. A hot oven around 400 degrees is... Read more →