The Best Steak and Gravy EVER!

This is the best cubed steak and gravy that you will ever put in your mouth. I am not kidding! 

I had bought two packs of cubed steak but only used one for this dish. If I had been feeding more people then I would use both. Cut the cubed steak into smaller pieces. This makes them cook faster and easier to handle. 

I mix flour, salt and pepper in a bowl and cover thoroughly both sides. I always fry mine before putting it in the crock pot. 

 You could just eat it like this because it looks and smells great at this point. After it is cooked through transfer the cooked pieces to the crock pot.

A nice blurry picture but this is the key ingredient. Campbell's Golden Mushroom Soup!! This stuff is AMAZING and goes great with any beef dish but especially cubed steak. I also added a packet of brown gravy mix going by the directions on the packet. You could use another can of this Golden Mushroom but I did not have but one can. The brown gravy did great of making it the right consistency. 

Mix everything together and throw it in the crock pot. If I had used the other pack of cubed steak and doubled the ingredients then I would have used the big crock pot but the small one was just right. 

Cubed steak with gravy and mashed potatoes!! This is one of my favorite weaknesses. I could eat it all day!! I hope you try this because its super easy and has the most amazing taste. 

The Perfect Sandwich!

Now is time to fill you all in on the perfect sandwich. Home grown Brandywine tomato and bacon sandwich. You can add lettuce if you like but it gets in the way of the flavor of the bacon and tomato. 

The picture above is the way real bacon should come. Straight from the butcher and into the kitchen. I get mine from The Mount Airy Meat Center in Mount Airy N.C. (AKA Mayberry). 

Ummmmmm Real bacon. I say real because I don't consider what you get in the meat section of your local grocer to be "real". That's just me though. Its still good mind you but this is better. 

Sorry for the blurry picture, I don't have a micro lens. Garden fresh Brandywine tomato on the bottom, topped with fresh cooked bacon. Oh my Lord!! This is the best sandwich EVER!!

I always and I mean always use Duke's mayo. No substitutions accepted. I know everyone likes their own brand and you are entitled to your opinion but true mayo is Duke's...lol. I also think its best on white bread. I buy Foodlion brand bread because its usually more thin than others. I dont want the bread to over power the tomato and bacon. I hope you fix you a nice big tomato and bacon sandwich!!

Fermented Grape Leaf Pickles

I have great memories as a kid sticking my hand down in a big ole crock and pulling out a grape leaf pickle. Oh how times have changed, well somethings but the grape leaf pickle has not! One of the most easy pickles to make and they are delicious. A little salty but thats right up my alley.

 The first thing you need is a crock. I have this 2 gallon that is a perfect size for me. According to my wonderful parents, put water in the crock and enough salt to float and egg. Thats a lot of salt but it is well worth it to get great pickles. 

We have grapes on the farm and they are easily accessed. You can also add a few green grapes if you want. 

Add cucumbers, grape leaves and cover with the salt water brine. I just so happened to add a sprig or two of dill just for a kick!!

I put a plate down on the cucumbers to make sure they were totally submersed in the brine and weighted it down with a gallon jug of water. You want them to stay under the brine.

Cover with a towel and place in a dark cool place for around 2 to 3 weeks. Each day unwrap the crock and skim off the fermentation that builds up on top of the brine. After they are well fermented, take them out of the brine and rinse. They are ready to eat. I usually strain the brine and put the pickles along with the brine into a gallon jar in the fridge. Oh how good they are!! 

Dill Pickles

Dill pickles are one of my favorite things to make out of the garden. They are great in the winter with a sandwich or on the side of any meal. 

Garlic is a key ingredient to making great dill pickles. One clove per quart. 

Fresh dill is easily grown and provides way better flavor than dill seed or dried dill. A couple of heads and stems per quart. 

Cucumbers washed and prepped. I cut the bloom end off. The saying is it will make them soft. You can slice, spear or use whole. Whatever will fit in your jars.

Canning salt. Mix 1/4th cup canning salt with 1 cup vinegar and 3 cups of water to make the brine. Heat to boil and make sure the salt has dissolved.  

Put your cucumbers, dill and garlic in the jars packed pretty tight and add the brine. I sometimes add some hot pepper but that is optional. I have heard that if the cucumbers are bitter the hot pepper will take the bitter out but I am not sure how true that is. I have also used 1/8 th of a teaspoon of *Ball Pickle Crisp but its whatever mood I'm in. If you don't use that its okay. No chemicals in the pickles!!

I also you can add other things such as whole black pepper corns. Process in a hot water bath for 10 minutes. Follow all directions for home canning and all safety precautions. 

Happy Canning!

What came first, the chicken or the egg?

Raising chickens for egg production is not just fun but you get the goodness of fresh eggs. Of course an expense comes with feeding and caring for live animals. However the reward greatly outweighs the hassle and expense. It took five months for my chickens to start laying. 

My chickens arrived on February 10th. Divide these in half and that is my share. The other half went to my sister. We had to order a minimum of 15 chickens so we divided the cost and chicks. Only one went to chicken heaven and they had put an extra one in just for that reason. 

One day old when they arrived so they were very little and they lived in my spare bathtub for about a week. It was February so it was a little too cold for them to go straight outside. I eventually moved them to their coop with a heat lamp. 

The chickens I ordered are called Cherry Eggar. They are a mix of Rhode Island Red and New Hampshire Red. They are very good brown egg layers. 

At this stage they are looking more mature and filling out well. Around 2 1/2 months old. 

At this point they are fully grown and getting ready to start laying. My first egg arrived on July 4th. It was a great independence day!!

If you keep straw or shavings in the egg boxes you will have less poop to clean off the eggs. Mine come out pretty as a picture!

Wonderful fresh brown eggs. They are small to start but will get bigger with time. I have already had a couple of double yoke's! Nothing makes me happier than to be piddling with my animals and reaping the rewards. Have a great day and thanks for reading!!!

Corn Relish!

Corn Relish

Ingredients

·                   3- 32 ounce packages frozen whole kernel Corn (or fresh if you have it)

·                   4 Cups chopped Bell Peppers (can be any color)

·                   2 Cups chopped Vidalia onions (about two large)

·                   4 Cups chopped red tomatoes (can use green if that is what you have)

·                   5 Cups Vinegar

·                   2 Cups Sugar

·                   1/4 Cup Salt

·                   1 Tablespoon Turmeric

·                   1 Tablespoon Celery Seed

·                   1/2 Tablespoon Ground Mustard (not bottled mustard, but dry)

Instructions

1.            Combine all vegetables in a large pot. Add vinegar, sugar, salt, turmeric, celery seed, and mustard. Heat to a boil, stirring often. Reduce heat and simmer for 30 minutes, or until vegetables are tender, stirring every now and then to ensure even cooking.

2.            Seal in hot, sterilized canning jars. Try to get an equal amount of liquid in each jar. You need a good bit of liquid to cover the vegetables but you strain that out when you serve it. Process for 10 minutes in boiling water for pint size, and five for half pints. Yields 12 Pints.

Making Tomato Juice.

This is how I make tomato juice from fresh tomatoes from my garden. I hope you enjoy! Its a little work but way worth it not to have all those additives in your food. 

These are Roma tomatoes cut in half and the core cut out. I put them in a large stock pot on low. Be sure not to scorch the tomatoes or they will have a burnt taste and have little black burnt specks in the juice. I cook mine for several hours on low and then turn them up to medium about halfway through. 

When the tomatoes are cooked really good, I put them in a blender and pulse them to get everything blended good. Be very careful not to get burned. The hot juice will push to the top. As you can tell, this blender has been used for tomatoes more than anything else and needs a good cleaning. Tomato juice is between the buttons. 

After being blended good the juice goes into this contraption. A bowl is placed under the colander to catch all the juice. 

 Another view. The wooden peg is used to push the juice out of the cooked tomatoes and into the bowl below. By far this is my favorite part of canning tomatoes juice. When I was a kid, this was one of my many jobs when canning but my favorite.

Be sure to wash your jars with hot soapy water. Some people put them in boiling water to sterilize them but after they are washed I put them in the oven on low. The heat from the oven sterilizes them and that is one less thing I have on the stove top. When I need the jars, I take them out one by one and add the juice. Clean off the rims of the jars with a damp paper towel or clean cloth. Sterilize the lids and rims in boiling water and tighten down hand tight. Not too much pressure or they will buckle. Process in a hot water bath for 10 minutes. 

After 10 minutes, remove from the water bath and place on a clean towel. Wait for the beautiful sound of jars sealing. Pop, pop, pop!! After one day, I remove the rims from the jars. You can leave them on but after awhile they may become stuck and very hard to remove. 

I also made diced tomatoes this year. Here is a picture of how they turned out. Pealed, cored, diced and placed in pint jars and processed in a hot water bath for around 10 minutes. 

Happy Canning!!