Category: Homemaking

Posted in Homemaking, Inspiring, Photos

Use Your Freezer, part 3

Posted on by Katharine
Español: Cocinando carne para hamburguesa al g...
 

So, what else can we do with a deep freeze? Plenty.

My favorite trick with it is freezing hamburger meat.

Cooked.

That’s right, I cook ground beef and then freeze it.

Whenever it is on sale, I buy however much I can afford, stir and fry until crumbly, huge pans of it with onion, salt, and pepper. Drain it well, box it, and freeze. One pint fried is about one pound raw.

This serves a couple of wonderful purposes.

First it is a money saver, in that it allows me to cash in on sales.

Second, it is a time saver if I want to make spaghetti or chili in a hurry. While the liquids are heating, I put in a box of frozen, cooked ground beef and once all is hot, the meat is thawed. Or pour a dab of water into a small pan and add a pint of this meat to warm on low until thawed, while you do other things. Then stir in your favorite sloppy-jo ingredients and serve. Fast and easy.

Actually the deep freeze is great for saving money, stocking up on many sale items such as meat, bread, flour, and garden seed. It saves money on ice if you make your own ahead and store it there. It saves money on bulk foods, because you do have room for it all.

We have a diabetic friend who must eat wild meat, so he hunts. When he bags a deer, he hires the meat all ground. His wife then makes it all into patties which he spends a whole day grilling to “near done”. They freeze these and have instant grilled burgers all year. They say to warm them takes only a few minutes and the taste is like it was just off the grill.

Probably everyone has heard of cooking casseroles on a monthly basis to save cooking time, but if you even make one extra or double entre whenever you cook, you can reduce your kitchen time nearly 50%.

The freezer certainly saves much frustration by allowing you to prepare ahead the food for guests and have it ready to pop into the oven so you can enjoy visiting in a relaxed manner.

I have cooked ahead when I knew I’d have no help after childbirth. It was so easy for my family to dip into the freezer while I was resting.

I’ve cooked ahead when my best friend’s mother was coming for dinner – an exquisite dish that takes hours to prepare. It was no hassle, because I prepared it a couple of days earlier, when I had the time to spare.

I have cooked ahead when my husband invited his best friend for supper the same night I had to be gone. My teenagers baked that big dish with a teenage flair that brought delight to the guest and joy and pride to Dad.

However.

Did you know your freezer needs a little tender loving care? More tomorrow.

Posted in Good ol' days, Health, Homemaking, Photos

Use Your Freezer, part 2

Posted on by Katharine

 

How to Put Up One-Quarter Mile of Corn

Before Fourth of July Fireworks

Good corn!
Good corn!

As I said, yesterday, you do not put that much corn in jars in the canner. That would take roughly 15 hours just in the jiggling, plus heat up and cool down times, and the other processing of shucks,silks, etc.

Nah. Not that.

We freeze it. Frozen corn tastes better, anyway, and for us, frozen off the cob is best, most like fresh from the garden.

Here’s how we did it.

My husband went to the garden with a wheelbarrow, picked the corn, shucked it right there, and placed it into the wheelbarrow. When one was full, he started on the other one. If it filled, too, he took out laundry baskets and buckets until all was picked and shucked. Later he would till in all the debris.

Meanwhile, I sharpened knives, heated water, and covered countertops with towels.

Once the first wheelbarrow came to the house, I began trimming, de-silking, and washing all that corn, over a sieve to catch the garbage for the chickens.

Whenever a found a totally perfect ear, I set it aside for the Pastor. That was one very important aspect of teaching children how to harvest that we never wanted to omit.

After the washing, the blanching could begin. I put seven ears for 4 minutes into a 16-quart pot of boiling water. Then I transferred them to a cold water rinse to stop the blanching action. While I blanched, all older family members carefully sliced the top 2/3 off the blanched and cooled kernels and then scraped the pulp from the remaining one-third, all over big wash pans or large bowls.

Some people do the cutting indoors, but that is messy to clean up. Others do their cutting outside, but that is buggy. A screened porch solves both problems if you can hose it off later.

I know people object to blanching because it is a warm job, but I’ve learned it’s easier if we aren’t overly dependent upon air conditioning. We do perspire some, but it is summer, after all, and I have found it doesn’t hurt a thing to do so. What makes it so warm is that the water will not boil with a fan blowing on it, so only exhaust fans will work.

Once the corn is cut, I pack it into the trusty ol’ boxes, label, and freeze.

What happiness to notice the boxes piling up on the countertop! What awe to watch your daughter learn to count while she sits beside that ever-growing stack of boxes! What fun to take the Pastor three dozen absolutely perfect ears of (you know it’s the best) corn! And what excitement each time you eat it, all the long winter, as wonderful as the day it was picked!

So the freezer has kept our harvest for us for years. Can it do anything else? Yes!

And we’ll talk about that tomorrow!

_____________________

photo credit: amcdj

Posted in Good ol' days, Homemaking, Inspiring

Use Your Freezer

Posted on by Katharine

When our firstborn was about two years old, we bought a brand new deep freeze, on sale, for about $100.00. That was a large sum for us, just starting out, but through 40 years of service it has never caused us one moment of grief and has quietly kept literally tons of food rock-hard, safe to eat, and almost-like-fresh.

That’s at $2.50 per year.

It has had a place of honor in most of our homes, either in the kitchen or in the baby’s room. (It did double duty as a wonderful changing table.) I also bought several sets of rigid plastic freezer cartons, to save the waste of plastic bags. They were also on sale but nine dozen or so cost me around $50.00. Most of those dear little boxes are also still chugging along just fine.

That’s around $1.10 per year.

Every year I froze 75 quarts of blanched corn-off-the-cob, 75 quarts blanched spinach and/or beet greens, and all the fresh blackberries I could get my hands on.

We also tried freezing applesauce, whole carrots, whole peppers, whole apples, whole tomatoes, halves of beef and pork, bread, cookies, cakes, flour, dried beans, corn meal, excess fruit juice, chocolate chips, dog biscuits, dampened laundry, and more.

Oh, I forgot chickens, turkeys, fish, and the last snowball of each winter.

Oh, yes, there was leftover garden seed, too.

And ice cream.

Are you getting the picture?

(We won’t discuss the pheasant skin.)

I am not the type to throw everything into the freezer just because it’s too much work to pressure can it. Yet the freezer is always packed.

Our garden has varied from a tiny, pitiful mustard patch, to a beautiful 50’ x 75’ plot of perfectly fertile sandy loam. In the big one, we planted 17 rows of corn each year. By the Fourth of July, those 17 long rows were ripe and ready. We’d hurry to get it all put up before nightfall and the huge fireworks display in the park.

Now. To get ¼ mile of corn put up in a hurry, you do not pressure can it for an hour per each ten pints! No! The only expedient way, given the necessary elements, is to blanch it briefly, slice it off the cob, and store it in boxes in the freezer.

More tomorrow.

Posted in Blessings of Habit, Home School, Homemaking, Inspiring, Who's the mom here?, Wisdom, Womanhood

Professional Women . . .

Posted on by Katharine

I found a quote that glorifies motherhood and debated whether it is self-glorifying. I decided it praises the office of motherhood, not any particular person, and is beneficial to consider, I think, so here it is.

I’ll be speaking at a home schooling convention this weekend and must finish my PowerPoint slides, iron, and who knows what else, these next three days, so you’ll excuse me if I’m absent, I know. I’ll likely have time to reply, but not to post. If you get too bored, do not forget to slip over to the new site: TheConqueringMom.com, and leave a comment or suggestion! Thanks!

 “A mother…by her planning and industry night and day, by her willfulness of love, by her fidelity, she brings up her children. Do not read to me the campaigns of Caesar and tell me nothing about Napoleon’s wonderful exploits.  For I tell you that, as God and the angels look down upon the silent history of that woman’s administration, and upon those men-building processes which went on in her heart and mind through a score of years;—nothing exterior, no outward development of kingdoms, no empire-building, can compare with what mother has done.  Nothing can compare in beauty, and wonder, and admirableness, and divinity itself, to the silent work in obscure dwellings of faithful women bringing their children to honor and virtue and piety.”  Henry Ward Beecher

Posted in Home School, Homemaking, Husbands, Inspiring, Scripture, Who's the mom here?, Wives, Womanhood

Will she be at home or does she work?

Posted on by Katharine
all women work
Woman working outside the home…

Never.

Ever.

Say this where I can hear it.

Nor type it where I can read it.

Or you will be corrected.

By me.

All women work.

Do not chuckle condescendingly and say, “It’s just a way of speaking.”

Lying is a way of speaking, and we correct it.

It is a way of thinking. No, actually, it is a symptom of not thinking.

Or, may I stay at home and not work?

Heh heh, it’s just a way of speaking. Heh heh.

Oh. Have a little headache?

Between the eyes?

So sorry. In a way of speaking.

Heh heh.

Pass it on!
Posted in Believe it or not!, Blessings of Habit, Good ol' days, Homemaking, Husbands, Inspiring, Photos, Wisdom

It Does, Truly, Only Take a Spark

Posted on by Katharine
only a spark
Only a Spark

It only takes a spark
To get a fire going
And soon all those around
Can warm up in its glowing

So goes a lovely old song from the 60’s, (called to our attention by Debby) when everyone thought of turning to Jesus Christ for help with the draft, drugs, disappointments, discouragement, disillusionment, and all other general “dissed” problems during the VietNam era.

A few were serious about the “Jesus Movement”. A few were appalled that so many who claimed Christ were not wearing shoes. Oh NO! How uncouth! Surely there is a place in the Bible that requires wearing shoes! Oh, you mean it speaks more of taking them off?! Oh NO!

Some were serious, though,  seriously messed up, seriously failing, seriously in need of something beyond shoes, something beyond rules, something beyond platitudes, something beyond this life, something beyond their own understanding, something beyond their own strength or ability.

Not much has changed.

Many refuse to turn to Jesus Christ because they fear appearing weak.

They are weak. All people are weak.

But they want to be among those who project an image of strength, of not being needy. It’s a strained, do-by-self image that almost everyone can see through, but they keep it up for the few they’ve duped.

Although He is the most beautiful, priceless, glorious discovery anyone can discover, they refuse to lay self down, to lose face.

To their loss.

How ironic to fear loss and in the process to lose the most valuable thing, like a monkey with his hand in a monkey trap, unable to run from poachers because there is something that glitters in that empty coconut . . .

__________

Let me tell you about a one-spark fire. (And while we’re at it, you might like to read James 3:1-12)

My husband can build a one-spark fire. He’s an expert. He built one before we left for a four-day trip, so when we arrived back home, it took just one spark to get that fire going . . .  and he hopes to build another tonight, and he probably will, to transfer our fire from the romantic fireplace to the more efficient stove.

This is how he does it:

  1. Clear out lots of the ash so air can circulate under the grill work in the fireplace.
  2. Loosely crumble newspaper over that.
  3. Add “rich pine”, a sort of hyper-torch type wood found at the base of dead pine trees.
  4. Add several pieces of small limbs.
  5. Add some smaller, round logs.
  6. Loosely crumble just a page or two of newspaper for over all that.

This combo, done as only he truly can do it (I know the process, but he owns it) will ignite with only one match. Guaranteed.

Now, think of yourself.

You are supposed to be a one-spark set of fuel for the spark of the Holy Spirit to ignite you and cause you to shine and warm others for God. What is missing from your stack? Has your past stolen parts of you? I know how that can be.

BUT — All “Do-By-Self’ers” BEWARE! — Spontaneous Generation was disproven, centuries ago.