Tell me this. . .

Please explain to me what type of tutorial you are wanting for the Alfredo sauce. I am sans a camera right now as it was stolen. Are you wanting step by step instruction, or do you want to wait until I have a camera?

VIVA FRUIT BUTTERS!

Yes, that would be a shameless plug for my post today on the group blog. Saturday's are slow.

Sleep deprivbhfffsvbhsdbv

Tooo sleepy. Not coherent. Go read this really long post I made this morning, with corresponding answers from 4 other woman.

See you tomorrow.

Pizza the Hut was found dead earlier today in the back seat of his stretched limo.

This is for 1 pizza. It doubles easily.

2 tablespoons olive oil
1 tablespoon butter
1/2 cup onion, chopped
1/4 cup celery, chopped
1 garlic clove, minced
1 (8 ounce) can tomato sauce
1 (6 ounce) can tomato paste
2 tablespoons grated Parmesan cheese
1 teaspoon dried basil
1 teaspoon dried oregano
1/2 teaspoon salt
1/2 teaspoon sugar
1/4 teaspoon black pepper
1 small bay leaf
1 teaspoon fennel seed

• Using a large skillet, melt the butter with the oil. Add onion, celery and garlic and saute until soft and transparent.
  
• Add tomato sauce and paste, stir until smooth.
  
• Add all the remaining ingredients and bring to a slow simmer.
  
• Simmer for 30 minutes.
  
• Remove the bay leaf and pour into your sterile jars. Process in a food bath for 40 minutes.

For those with simpler tastes

28 oz crushed tomato

2 tbs extra virgin olive oil

2 large garlic gloves, minced

salt and ground black pepper to taste

Mix all together and set aside for a few hours. Pour into a sterile jar and process for 40 minutes in a hot water bath.

These recipes are for 1 pizza. I did it this way because pizza making is not a necessity on a homestead, but having premade sauce on hand sure makes things a lot easier some days. I am assuming that everyone knows how to make paste and plain sauce. If not, yell at me and I will be happy to tell you how to do it.

Stuff

I was informed via email yesterday, that The Happy Homesteader on Mother Earth News has me listed as one of their favorite blogs. If you look at the list, you might recognize a few of them.

I made 5 pints of pizza sauce. I need to make more if I plan on making it an entire year. I already have enough ketchup to make it through.

Potato soup, here I come!

Cows escaped last night. They were grazing in the front and my husband left the gate open after he got home. That was a real joy, hunting down black cows at 11 o'clock at night. We found them 1/2 mile away. So happy they hadn't discovered the corn field across the road. I would have never got them to follow me home. I lectured my husband on gate keeping as I have my 3 boys and their friends.

.

Today on Cribs

Bear with me here.

Yesterday was my husband's day off. There is a few things that need to get done here on the homestead. First was the nasty leak under the kitchen sink. We took the bike to the farm store and found nothing we needed, so off to the local hardware store. Luckily they had everything and we didn't have to ride into the city. We had to replace 1 foot of pipe and some fittings. Now that that has been replace, we have to replace were the floor rotted out.

Second on the list was building a new banny coop. No photo, so here is an artist rendition.

As you can clearly see, it is an old garage shelving unit. Rather stout. We removed the middle shelf, and placed a thin roost down the back side. We made 3 nesting boxes as well. Next was to secure a front to the box. We cut the removed shelf in half and screwed it to the top front. The other half of the shelf was cut so that there is a banny friendly size opening on the lower bottom. This piece was secured with screws and an old cloth tie down. The tie down is used in lieu of hinges, now it can be accessed through this lower panel for cleaning and egg gathering. Next we attached some old 2x4's to act as legs, then re-enforced those by making another skeleton of a box. Had the boys fill in with straw, and then gave them a flashlight to find the roosting bannies.

We spent $0 on it, as all the materials were things that people gave to use. And trust me, it is oh so much better then that quickly box a made a few months back.

I hear going shirtless is all the rage.

The water receded Late on Friday. Just enough that we were able to escape. Unfortunately the water had created gullies across the road. Deep gullies that my car was terrified of.

Friday we had company. I wasn't really going to mention this, but over at Kentucky Hollers, she has a great story up about a lost horse. As I was saying we had company and two of our visitors were little girls, 11 yrs and 4yrs. They were told about all our animals and came out to see them. This family is a friend of a friend. I called my tree boys out to greet the family. Each one of my boys walked out, none wearing shirts. They awkwardly greeted the girls, and some roaming around began. Soon I noticed that my oldest had slipped off, then the middle son, then the youngest. I was getting ready to yell for them, when my oldest emerged from the house with a shirt on, then the middle son, then the youngest. The mom of the visiting family commented on what little gentlemen my boys were. It's small things like that, that remind me that they are not always hellions, but I am actually raising them correctly. You know if it had been boys over to visit, they wouldn't have put shirts on, I have found boys streaking through the fields here before.

Saturday another family with 2 little girls came over. They too had heard about all the animals and wanted to come out. But they came bearing gifts of lumber. The motorcycle shop my husband works for, owner's daughter's family (got that?). They were expected. I brought the cows up for her to see and pet, but Edie made a passionate moo, and scared the 4 year old girl to death. She was now done with cows. All my boys made sure they had shirts on this time, before they arrived. The two 4 year olds found a turtle, while cows ran around them. and the other 3 kids played on the tire swing and climbed the tree. It was a pleasant weekend.

We dug up 27 lbs of potatoes yesterday. So here is your warning about what we will be talking about this week.