Preserving Tomatoes

Today I finished processing a bunch of tomatoes, and although it was a bit of work, it felt very good being able to put my quarts of tomatoes onto my pantry shelf.  My family goes through a lot of tomato products.  We eat pizza, we eat spaghetti, we eat lasagna.  We like tomatoes on our tacos, we like tomatoes on our salads, we like tomatoes in our soup.  My kids would eat ketchup on pretty much anything.  They even dip their carrots into it. With all these tomato based foods, how do you decide how much to make of pizza sauce and spaghetti sauce to last you?  Simple, you don't. 

Pizza Crust recipe

We eat a lot of pizza.  What true American family does not?  But we can easily drop $30 to $40 on a pizza night.  In efforts to keep things simple, cheap, and still be able to eat high quality foods (because Papa Johns is considered high quality, dontchyaknow?) I started just making it like pretty much everything else we eat in this house now.  Oh, and check it out...  I already had all the basic ingredients.  So, shhh- I am about to spill a family secret.

Sweet Cinnamon Walnut Bread recipe

We love, love, love, LOVE sweet bread at our house!  Particularly when they are fresh out of the oven on a cold snowy day.  MM-mmm...  Did I mention how much we love it?  I have been putting up pictures on our Facebook page, and people have asked for the recipe, so here I am to deliver the good news!  I'm giving you the recipe.

Hot Cocoa Mix recipe

What is better in the winter than a hot cup of cocoa on a cold snowy day?  At our house, our kids LOVE hot cocoa.  And the stuff in the box is...  well... eh...  it's missing something.  Try to give it a lift by adding a few simple ingredients to it.

Dark German Rye Bread recipe

Around here we have a lot of people from German descent, my husband's family included. So dark breads, like this next one are pretty up there on the list of YUMMY things to eat.  Just as a word of advice- don't give your kids a spoon of molasses and tell them it is syrup.  They won't appreciate it as much as you will.  

Multigrain Bread recipe with variations

There is just NOTHING better in this world than hot, fresh out of the oven, homemade bread.  Oh, oh, oh---  I make a LOT of bread.  Between trying to keep up with eight mouths to feed, and making a whole lot more than that for the Farmers' Market, I make a ton of bread.  My family's favorite (or should I say one of them, they aren't picky) is Milk and Honey Multigrain bread.  I've made this SO MANY times, that I do not even have to look at the recipe anymore.  I have had quite a few people ask me for the recipe, so here it is!

Planning for Your Pantry

I’ve been asked by several people to write about how I figured out how much to preserve for our family for one year.  Or two years, or however many years you are trying to preserve for.  Personally, our ultimate goat goal here is to grow and preserve enough to last two years.  That way, if we have a bumper crop one year and a dud the next, it won’t be as big of a deal because we worked ahead to make up for a crop failure.