Home Life

It’s live!  Finally!  I’ve gotten around to creating a resource website on the things my family and I do to ‘work with the land’ and save money.  It’s no where near done - I have a ton of articles I am still working on but felt I had enough content to put the site up.

http://www.motherhoodnaturally.com/homestead/home.htm is the link.  Bookmark it and check back often.  As I go through my day I keep getting reminded of things that might be helpful to add to there, so I add it to my list and when I have a few minutes to write it up, I will!

Let me know what you think!

The kids and I made bagels today.  My oldest, Alexis (she’s almost 4!) did a great job of forming the balls and poking holes in them, and my middle kiddo, Andrew, did a great job of watching my mixer to let me know when the dough was all done (and stopped our kitchen timer when it went off!).  My mom got me a KitchenAid for Christmas so we’ve been having fun using it for nearly everything (I’m not a big fan of tons of appliances for my kitchen - I like my food processor, my kitchenaid and my crockpot and pressure canner… Those are about the only ones I have and use)

So bagels were todays project.  It’s a simple recipe and a simple doing:

Mix 3 cups warm water, 2 packets of yeast (or 4.5 tsp.) and 3 teaspoons of honey or sugar.  Let this proof until foamy.

Add in 1 tsp. salt, 4c unbleached bread flour and 4c whole wheat flour.  Knead until smooth.  Grease a bowl, flop your dough around in it to coat all sides and cover with a towel or plastic. Let rise until double, about 1 hour, in a warm place.

Punch down and break into 18 equal peices.  Get a big pot of water with 2 tablespoons of sugar boiling.  Form your dough bits into round balls, flatten and poke a hole in the middle.  Once water is boiling, add your flattened rounds a couple at a time and boil 1 minute on one side, flip, and boil another minute.

With a slotted spoon, remove your bagels and set on a greased cookie sheet.  Once they’re all done boiling, cook at 400 degrees for 20 minutes.

Thanks to Candy and her blog I found a super easy yogurt recipe using a crockpot.  I tried it last night and had creamy yogurt this morning. 

I’ve tried to make yogurt three times already and failed each time.  I wanted an organic, healthy milk in my yogurt but the brand I kept picking was ultra-pasturized.  A big no no for yogurt making (I didn’t even realise this until last night when I took a good look at the milk container… My husband was already out so I asked him to pick me up a non-ultra-pasturized whole milk)

You’ll need 8 cups of milk and 1/4c whole milk, plain quality yogurt (I visited Maureen at Health Matters for my yogurt).  Once you have your first batch of homemade yogurt, you can use 1/2c of your own starter for your next batch.

Pour 8 cups of milk into your slow cooker.  Cook on low 2.5 hrs.  Turn the crockpot off and let it sit, covered, for 3 hours.

Mix in your yogurt starter, cover the crockpot, insulate with some heavy towels on top and let sit overnight.  By morning you’ll have yogurt!

You can make your own mixins with fruit, granola and anything else you like in your yogurt.  Yum!

I heard a pretty neat idea this evening - when breaking your eggs for meals, break the shell in half and use the little halves as little starter pods.  When you go to transplant your starter outdoors, gently crush the shell and insert the whole thing.

I do wonder, would you still need to poke holds for drainage?