Someone’s gotta stay home with the kids if we homeschool. Right?
Right.
We may quibble about which parent must stay, but no doubt one simply must.
Lots of people think keeping a parent at home precludes being a two income family, but it does not. The act of staying home saves so much, we sometimes wonder how those who work outside make any money at all.
Let’s look at how it adds up:
Clothing. Stay-home clothes bought on sale cost far less than suits or uniforms bought under duress. The same is true for shoes, bags, coats, etc.
Transportation. If only one parent is going out to work, only one car is necessary. Same for gas.
Work. Someone has to do it. Either you clean the house or someone else gets about $1000 per year to do it. You can do your own laundry, yard work, repairs, etc., and save the prices of hiring them done. Or the price of a counselor trying to fix your brain after you try to do it all yourself . . .
Cooking. A rib-eye steak costs about $5 on sale at the grocery, about $18 at a restaurant. Spaghetti dinner for 6 costs the same at home as for 1 at a restaurant. Maybe less. A homemade birthday cake costs about $7, compared to $20 from the store, and you know which tastes better! Hearty, homemade bread costs half or less of insipid store-bought. However, if you make these yummy foods to sell, you get the store price!
Shopping. What? Isn’t shopping how we lose money? No, that’s random spending. Shopping is comparing prices, waiting for sales, and squeezing all the value you can from every penny. It is sticking to your list, buying in bulk, and always being ready for the surprise bargain for someone’s gift for the future. It is what you don’t have time for if you’re on your way home from the office.
Sewing. While it is true, fabric prices have gone up, it is also true you can make new, lovely curtains with hardly any sewing instructions, covering that window in sale fabric for about $25 instead of $125. With only a bit more knowledge, you could make yourself a skirt or cape. Learn a tiny bit more and make simple dresses for your girls. All with the same savings rate. But if you sell, it . . .
Gardening. A pint of home-canned green beans costs about ten cents for the lid and bit more for energy to run the stove. There is an initial investment, but you can re-coup the cost once you’ve canned for a year or two. And store-bought vegetables are nearly $1 per can.
Crafts. A bit of yarn, a drop of glue, how surprising the fun and savings in making gifts! And the savings is phenomenal. You could develop a reputation for a certain type of gift and become known as “the afghan lady” or the “soap lady”, turning it into a business. Astronomical savings in greeting cards, alone!
Last, but not least, Child Care. It’s about $18 per day per child. That does not factor in the cost of medical care for all the diseases they will pick up.
This list could go on forever, but you get the idea. If, when you are at home, you actually WORK, you are a working mom, and your rewards are good.
These children are trying to dig out insects from tree bark.
Sneaky changes you WON’T know about!
You will hardly realize your mind is clearing and new direction is sneaking into your lives, but others will notice.
Homemaking
As you welcome the idea of being a maker of a real home for your family, you will realize that washing dishes is not such a horrible chore, after all. You may remind yourself of a powdered cleanser commercial as you clean the bathtub, but you will like it.
Gentler rewards.
The exercise will give a glow to your cheeks, too. In fact, with new work going on, you may actually begin needing small breaks. What’s more, you will find quiet for enjoying your reading during these breaks, and in your favorite comfy chair instead of a sterile “break room”.
Simplicity
As you discover the truer beauty of new, simpler recreations, you will realize it is a good thing, because your costs will shrink, too. You will become quite satisfied with less.
The children
The best change, though, will come over your children. Your heart will sing as your see competitiveness and the resulting nervousness falling off your children.
As you discover their true personalities, you will delight in re-making their acquaintances. As they discover the real you, in return, they will cooperate with you more. You will hardly believe your eyes as you watch your children simply being a family, together. No amount of running around would give this joy, and as there is less running around, there will be much more time for family.
More time
As this newfound time applies to all of life, the educational level and possibilities for your children will greatly increase. It will not be all book learning, either, as you give life to their understanding of the joys of industry and simplicity.
Last, you will find yourself face to face with a new self. It will be great. Old priorities will go out the window and new ones will jump in the front door just as fast. Your amazement at yourself will know no bounds, at first. Things you once shrugged off will take on great proportions and things that once bothered you greatly will seem insignificant.
For instance, instead of fixating on finding the best school supplies for your child, you may discover packing school supplies for Somalian orphans seems somehow more important.
You may acquire a new hobby of crochet or gardening or baking. You could sell your product or teach classes. You could bring joy to those around you.
Most importantly, though, you will never again wonder if you should home school your children. You will finally know. The knowing will bring such peace in knowing you are finally giving your children the best you can, finally doing what you were made to do.
The parent who hopes or plans on home schooling probably wonders about it, what it must be like to be a homeschooler.
There are as many answers to this question as there are folks asking it, but the answer we all want, at first, is universal.
Entering the world of homeschooling is entering a whole new world.
It is a new world because immediately, the family realizes new freedom. Since the home school is YOUR school, the sense of liberty is immediate. You realize that you can do whatever you want, and you really like it.
You may choose to do everything just like a little school, but it will be your choice, not something forced upon you.
New Liberty
This new liberty will include the choice of curriculum and subjects. You will have freedom to choose a God-honoring curriculum. You will find yourself free to believe the entire Bible, if you choose, which will be a wonderful new freedom for you.
Along with the freedom to believe and study as you choose will come all sorts of other new possibilities. You could find yourself teaching your children all they need to become a missionaries, Creation scientists, midwives, herbalists, or any other of the fields that are off limits in the public arena.
New society.
As your new world makes these radical changes, your gladness will grow as you discover you also dwell within a new society. You will have new friends who will be happy to help you. You may need help, but it will be ever ready with these new friends.
As you learn to enjoy them, you will join them in their activities, new activities to you. Where you once had to chase ball games, you may find that you have more time to chase Frisbees or butterflies. Instead of hanging out at the school parking lot, you will find yourself hanging out at the observatory or park. You will like these new activities, and as you spend more and more time with these friends, your loving concern for them will grow.
Your concern will grow so much, in fact, that you may find yourself in a car full of folks riding to your State Capital to express those concerns. You may also find yourself enchanted at having the time for expressing such concerns.
You will enjoy these new friends because you will realize that they are a different sort of people. They smile a lot and their smiles are genuine. They reach out to you and you catch yourself looking forward to the next time you see them. You ask them questions because you like the differences you see in their families.
What you will not realize is that the same differences will be gradually appearing in your own family.
We have all sorts of electronic substitutes these days. We push a button and things happen, things appear. We can bank on-line. We can borrow a book through the Kindle service. We can send an e-mail.
But it’s not real money, not a real book, and not a real letter. We’ve trained ourselves to accept the electronic substitute and taught ourselves to believe it costs us less, although usually it does not. Not if we think about all the real costs.
Anyway, I’ve been picking figs, lately, and the only, ONLY, ONLY way to get a fig that is still warm from hanging in the sunshine is to get up out of a chair, go outdoors, walk over to the tree, reach up, grab ahold, and pull a fig off the branch.
And it is worth all that incredible effort. A warm, ripe fig is a soft and squishy confection, what some might call “deliciously juicy”. Softer than a banana, sweeter than a strawberry, not sticky like caramel, yet reminiscent of all three, a fig can only truly be compared to another fig.
Oh yes — worth it.
And the people who like a fig enough to plant the tree, or to get off that chair and go on out there, or to cut the stems off the fruit and get out some canning jars, or to stir some canned fig into a cake batter — they’re worth it, too.
These are the kitchen people. The real butter people. The whole wheat flour, olive oil, honey, and home-grown eggs people. If offered store-bought, um, we really don’t mind fasting that much.
Got figs? Get these recipes!
MYO Fig Bars
2 c. chopped figs, stems removed
3/4 c. water
1/4 c. honey
2 tbsp. whole wheat flour
Boil until clear. Cool.
Dough:
1/2 c. butter
2 small eggs
1 tsp. vanilla
1/2 c. honey
1/2 tsp. soda
2 1/2 c. whole wheat flour
Cream butter and honey. Add eggs and vanilla. Beat until fluffy. Add flour and soda (sifted together).
Press half of dough into 9×13 pan. Spread fig filling evenly over dough. Roll remaining dough on wax paper and flip onto top of filling. Press gently. Mark bars by cutting through top, slightly. Bake at 375 degrees until lightly browned. Cool. Cut bars. Better than you-know-what.
Fig Bread
3 eggs
2 1/2 c. sugar
2 c. mashed, ripe figs
3/4 c. very fine olive oil
3 c. flour
2 tsp. baking soda
1 tsp. salt
1/2 tsp cinnamon
1/2 c. buttermilk
1 c. chopped pecans
Beat sugar into eggs. Add figs and oil. Sift together dry ingredients. Add to figs, alternately, with buttermilk. Beat well. Fold in pecans. Bake at 350 degrees for 1 hour in greased and floured loaf pans. Yields 3 loaves.
A friend and I were discussing blanching before freezing when she asked, “Do you have to?”
In an emergency, many foods you ordinarily would first prepare, you may freeze raw and untreated. Don’t expect them, though, to last over three months because blanching destroys the enzymes that induce ripening. Some vegetables, when not blanched, will continue maturing, though frozen. Unblanched okra, for instance, will become woody over time, in the freezer. So use these foods quickly. The foods must be perfect and unwashed. Freeze soft things before wrapping for protection from freezer flavors.
One friend only shells (does not wash) her surplus field peas and freezes them in one huge plastic bag. They separate easily. She measures, washes, and cooks as usual. She says they taste exactly the same but she does use the unblanched ones first.
I have found that you may treat the following produce this way if it has not been washed: whole tomatoes, whole apples, whole plums, whole carrots, whole peppers, edible pod peas, shelled field peas, and whole okra. All are for cooking only, except plums make good frozen treats. Be sure you remember you haven’t washed them before you use them.
The reasoning behind not washing vegetable before freezing is that they have a natural protective coating that helps ward off drying and if you freeze them wet, they will be impossible to separate for individual use. In the case of beans, this is not a factor, if you will immerse the entire package in warm water to rinse, later. Just think. If it is waxy, don’t wash it. If you want to freeze individually and bag later, it’s okay. Do not freeze anything with bad spots. How will you remove them once frozen? Just think. More info, starting here.
Two foods that you should always blanch and freeze are corn and greens. These two also taste pretty bad when canned, and take a lot of time and heat. One food that even the freezer books say we should not freeze is potatoes. I do not know why, because I have never tried it. I know, frozen potatoes are available in stores, but do they taste good? I’ve never tried them, either! Potatoes are best stored raw or canned.
To clean your kitchen after canning, just roll up the towels you used for covering surfaces, throw them into the washer and wipe the counter tops. You’re done! Then when canned foods are completely cool, remove bands and run the filled jars through the rinse cycle of your dishwasher. This removes the sticky film, from juices leaked in pressure cooking, which molds in the cabinets. These molds can enter the jar when you open it. They also make bad odors in your food storage area and attract bugs.
Now, DRUMROLL PLEASE, the real reason you read this far — The Recipes!
The following recipes come from several requests for instructions for making various sauces to use up excess tomatoes, etc. Also there are a few recipes for foods mentioned this week. Hope you enjoy making, storing, serving, and eating them as much as we do!
Homemade Mustard
1 3/4 c. white vinegar
2 onions chopped fine
1/2 c. mustard seeds
1/4 t. white pepper
2 t. soy sauce
2 T. white sugar
1 t. turmeric
Puree all ingredients in blender. Bring to a boil over low heat in a heavy pan, stirring continuously with a wire whip. Stir and simmer for 5 minutes. Seal in hot jars with hot lids. Place in boiling water bath for 5 minutes. Keeps very well. Yield: about one pint.
Homemade Catsup (not store bought!)
10 lb. ripe tomatoes
3 onions
2 bell peppers, red or green
1 clove garlic
3/4 c. brown sugar or honey
2” stick cinnamon
1 t. peppercorns
1 t. whole cloves
1 t. allspice berries
1 t. celery seed
1 c. cider vinegar
1 T. salt (opt.)
2 t. paprika
1/4 t. cayenne
Puree vegetables in blender, OR: chop, cook, and sieve them. Bring to a simmer. Put whole spices into a bag and add all other ingredients. Cook very slowly until very thick. Remove the bag. Seal in hot jars with hot lids. Hot water bath for 15 minutes. Yield: 2 – 3 pints. This is a good recipe for the crock pot, if you keep adding the juice until all is cooked down. It is too big for a crock pot at first, but becomes of manageable size eventually. The actual cooking takes all day on the stove top.
Tomatilla Salsa (A great use for small green tomatoes from dying vines)
5 1/2 c. chopped tomatillas OR green tomatoes
1 c. chopped onion
1 c. chopped jalapenos
(wear gloves and use ventilation!)
4 cloves garlic, minced
2 T. minced cilantro (opt.)
2 t. cumin
1/2 t. salt
1/2 t. cayenne
1/4 c. lime juice OR 1 g vitamin C tablet
Bring all to a boil in a large pot. Simmer 10 minutes. Seal in hot jars with hot lids. Place in boiling water bath for 15 minutes. Yield: about 2 pints. I cannot over-emphasize the importance of being careful with fresh hot peppers! I have made this using a food grinder, too, and it is much easier on the hands and lungs. You can grind the whole cayennes if you like, and have interesting red flecks in this lovely green condiment. The flavor when raw is sublime, but HOT. After cooking, the natural burning flavors of onion and garlic will have sweetened, though, so do not be alarmed at the raw flavor — just enjoy.
Pico de Gallo Sauce
1 chopped onion
2 chopped jalapenos
3 chopped tomatoes
salt to taste
2 branches chopped cilantro (leaves)
Mix. Refrigerate for 2 hours. Serve with chips. OR: Boil for 20 minutes, seal in hot jars with hot lids, and place into boiling water bath for 15 minutes. Yield: about 1 pint.
Pear Preserves
8 c. pears, peeled and chopped
2 c. brown sugar or honey
2 T. butter
Stir pears and sugar over medium heat until greatly reduced and thickened (2 to 4 hours). Add butter and serve over ice cream. OR: Omit butter and seal in hot jars with hot lids. Place in boiling water bath for 15 minutes. Yield: about 2 pints. This is another good one for the crock pot.
Very Quick Blackberry Sauce
1 pint frozen blackberries
1 c. sugar
1 c. water
2 T. cornstarch
Place 1/2 c. of the blackberries with other ingredients into small saucepan. Stir and bring to slow boil, mashing berries to color the sauce. Simmer until very thick. Add rest of frozen berries. Sauce will set very quickly and be cool enough to use immediately, with all berries instantly thawed. Delicious on cheesecake or pound cake. This recipe will only work with berries that have been frozen raw and are fairly easy to separate. Makes about 2 cups. Serves about nine. Also, try using 3 T. cornstarch to make a topping for a pie.
Potato Pancakes
1 qt. canned potatoes
1 egg
1/4 c. corn meal
1/4 c. self-rising flour
1/2 chopped onion (opt.)
salt and pepper to taste
oil
Grate potatoes including skins into bowl. Add rest of ingredients. Stir well. Fry in 1/2” medium-hot oil until well-browned and firm in middle, turning once. Drain on paper towel. Serve hot with honey, if desired. Serves about six.
Never Fail Meringue
1 T. cornstarch
2 T. sugar
1/2 c. water
3 egg whites
6 T. sugar
1/8 t. salt
1/2 t vanilla
This is a little tricky to time perfectly, but worth it to me. Cook cornstarch, 2 T. sugar, and water over medium heat, stirring, until thick and clear. At the same time, beat egg whites until soft peaks form. Add 6 T. sugar, salt, and vanilla, gradually. Beat until stiff. Continue beating while slowly adding hot cornstarch mixture. Beat until stiff. Apply to pie that has hot filling. Bake at 350 degrees for 15 – 20 minutes. I like this one because I don’t feel so much as if I’m eating raw egg.
Ladies, if there is the least, remotest possibility that your potatoes, carrots, beets, etc., were grown in soil fertilized with commercial chicken manure, you really ought to hire the soil tested. The reason is that commercially grown chickens were, in the past, fed arsenic. It is harmless to them, even increases production, passing through the chicken, remaining in the droppings a long time, contaminating the soil.
It is fatally poison to humans. Cows have died from eating grass with arsenic laden soil clinging to it.
“They say” arsenic does not enter the plant, but it is imperative to remove ALL the dirt.
However, root crops will fail in raw storage, if you scrub them all nice and clean. So, do you bring arsenic into your root cellar? Do you scrub and can those veggies? You have to decide. Ask your County Extension Agent for free tests and pamphlets and the latest advice on these matters.
If your soil is O.K., you can do what I love doing—put the perfect potatoes and carrots, unwashed, into root storage and can the strange ones (the two-legged carrots and the potatoes with noses). Then as winter progresses and the cellar storage begins to dysfunction, can the things that are still good enough. You don’t lose as much in root storage, that way, but also don’t waste effort on unnecessary canning.
To can potatoes and carrots, most books tell us to peel them first. I just scrub my own home-grown veggies, because I like to eat the peel and it has many of the vitamins. First use a hose on them outdoors, to get most of the dirt. A patio or sidewalk is good for this. Then use a brush and clean water.
A friend of mine makes a few jars of diced potatoes all ready for quick potato salad or stew. I like mine as whole as possible for grating into potato patties. Canned carrots are best sliced, though I put up a few pints of tiny ones (fingerlings) whole. These I use for gifts or special company.
Wash ALL washable food before using. Think about using a little soap, too. Unscented home-style bar soap cleans apples, celery, potatoes, etc., just fine.
If this idea amazes you, think: who picked, wrapped, boxed, unboxed, unwrapped, and displayed your apple? You don’t know! Did any of these six people have a cold or the flu? Probably! Does the grocery store or produce truck have roaches? Of course!
Ant-climbing-on-apple-flowers__41042 (Photo credit: Public Domain Photos)
Even if you grew the fruit yourself, never sprayed it, and picked it yourself, you can be pretty sure that your tree has ants, roaches, and at least two types of flies. They can spread disease; it’s a fact.
One favorite way to store many fruits is in jams. Apples and pears go into applesauce and pear sauce, which we use like jam, too. (Make pear sauce just like applesauce.) We can a few peaches and pears. Try pears with a 1/4” piece of ginger root in the jar. Pear preserves are a real treat over vanilla ice cream.
Also, freeze a few bags of slightly sugared, sliced peaches and use them for blender ice cream or shakes, which are easy to make with chilled milk and frozen fruit.
I freeze blackberries whole. Just wash, drain, and package.
When you wash small produce, such as peas or snapped beans, use two sinks. Scour sinks clean and fill with water. Add produce to one sink. Stir gently with your hands and then transfer from that sink to the other. Drain and refill first sink while stirring the other. Continue until used water is clear.
While you are transferring, try this method for estimating the jars you’ll need: pick up as much as you are able in a double handful; count it as about one pint.
Before I forget:
Wash greens in the automatic washing machine.
Use Vitamin C for fruit preserver. (One 500 mg tablet per gallon of water.)
She was holding back tears of frustration. It had failed, again.
Every time she’d tried to duplicate her mother’s lemon pie, all she could produce was lemon soup.
She had asked her mother.
The many possible explanations made her head swim.
Were the eggs too small, too old, or too cold?
Was the cornstarch under-ripe, or were the lemons over-ripe?
Was the water filtered? The sugar sifted?
How many times she’d watched Mother make that pie! She mentally ticked off the ingredients, desperate for a clue . . . .
She forgot one ingredient.
No, she did not omit anything on the recipe card. Actually, she forgot to examine carefully one item that she always, unthinkingly, added to her mother’s formula.
Human saliva.
Yes, in her youthful ignorance of scrupulous hygiene, she always sampled the pie filling with the same spoon, several times. Her family often shared apples, ice cream cones, and drinking glasses, she reasoned. No one would care, or even know.
M-m-m! So delicious! Sure hope it sets up this time…
If you have ever fed a child from a jar of baby food and refrigerated the left-overs for later, you may have had the same experience of soupy consistency. The food isn’t exactly spoiled—just somewhat digested. God created the enzymes in saliva expressly for that purpose and they work very well.
Cleanliness in the kitchen is of crucial importance. The lack of it is considered rudeness. In this country, a guest has a right to decline to eat where food is not protected from contaminants. You wouldn’t expect a person to eat a helping of casserole with a fly on it, right?
That’s because of the germs.
The battle against germs must be fought on all fronts, though. The ice-cube that hits the floor, the meat juice on the cutting board, the dust in the vent hood, the film on the refrigerator handle, and the licked spoon are some of the prime targets in this battle.
And if you think your hands are pretty clean, I challenge you to try this for one day: rinse them a little and then dry on the same white towel each time you begin to work in the kitchen.
The importance of cleanliness skyrockets, though, with the added factor of food storage. I mean, why bother to preserve dirty food? It is especially important to realize the part that germs, enzymes, etc., can play in the failures experienced in dry storage and raw storage. Uncooked food stuff can save your life or kill you, depending on its quality.
Generally, home dried food that is quick-dried and then stored frozen is safe. Some of it is delicious. Peaches are superb. If you dry food out-doors, though, do use netting to protect it from insects and do not choose a day when dust is blowing everywhere. If you use a mechanical dehydrator, clean it between uses. Check it for six-legged occupants. In fact, if you know that your house is not bug-free, you should clean every utensil you need for each meal.
When you prepare foods for storage, clean your kitchen counters and tables first. Use an ammonia based spray, dish water, baking soda, or vinegar. Any of the extreme acid or alkaline substances usually does a good job of killing and removing bacteria, etc. Then spread clean towels over the work surfaces you plan to use. I use towels from garage sales and bleach them often.
Next wash the utensils. The colander is dusty, the tongs are rusty, and the cutting board is musty!
I hope you have a wooden cutting board because they are the most sanitary.
Wash the jars, carefully. Hold them up to a light to check for little bits of last year’s food. Wash the bands and flats. (Especially the flats, because they have direct contact with the food, just like the jars. They can have metal filings, stray bits of rubber, mildew and roach hairs on them. Ick.)
Home's Cool! 