I realized today that a 'quiet' life will never be reality for me.   No matter if I haven't worked in 2 weeks, I still will find myself buried in projects that need started/completed.

For the past 3 days I've been working on making myself a corded petticoat for my Civil War reenacting outfit.  It's slow work and my shoulder is killing me, but I'm very pleased with how it's turning out. I'm only 1/2 way done putting the cords in though as I've been working on it in my spare time.

Do you every begin planning a project and suddenly it looms completely out of hand?  Those are a common occurence in my life, but one in particular this past week was a really doozy.  You see, I've become addicted to the Cinnamon Roll recipie by Pioneer Woman and I make it whenever I get the excuse.
So, I began by offering to make a batch for my old Sunday School teacher who is recovering from cancer.
A few days later I was chatting with an old family friend who said I needed to stop by and visit her soon so I said I'd bring along some cinna buns.
Next was my brother. My clutch had gone out on me at my work and he very kindly drove my car home for me and I offered to pay him in cinna buns.
My sister and brother were going to an overnighter at church with their youth group and were supposed to bring something. I figured, hey, what's one more batch?
I started feeling guilty that I never called our mechanic before my brother dropped my car off in his lot....

Get the picture? I ended up making over 13 dozen cinnamon rolls in one afternoon.  Can I just say, I will NEVER be repeating that experience? At least not for a few months!

Tomorrow is another busy day. I need to sew up a skirt for myself, draft a Civil War trouser pattern for my brother, clean around the house, weed and plant in the garden, and loads of other things not worth mentioning.

Garlic Green Beans

My family just loves these green beans. Even my eight year old nephew enjoys them and asks for seconds. That's gotta count for something, right? :P

In advance, these are gonna taste worlds different than your typical green bean dish, so try to keep an open mind and don't tweak it till you've tried it my way!



You will need: Frozen green beans, (Yes, the frozen is important, I'll explain later.) Extra Virgin Olive Oil, and garlic. You'll also need sea salt, but I forgot it for this picture!
If you have access to Schwan's green beans, get 'em as they are the far and above better than any other brand we've ever tried.




Generously coat the bottom of your cast iron skillet will EVOO. If you don't have cast iron you can use stainless steel, but your finished product will lack a touch of the 'zing' which makes this dish requested rather than scorned by the kids.

Now, turn the heat on high and let it get really, really, piping hot. You want to have it spit and sputter furiously if you sprits a drop of water in it.



Throw in your frozen green beans.

Now why are they prefered frozen? With them frozen, we can cook the skin and outer bit of the bean nicely while keeping the inside firm. Nothing is worse than a limp, colorless green bean, in my estimation.
Besides, if you've ever been to a high-fluetin' restaurant and ordered green beans, you'll find that they usually come out cooked like this, al-dente.

Leave the heat on high and let them cook for 7-8 minutes. Stir them enough to keep them from burning but don't stir them too much or they won't cook properly.



While they're cooking, mince your garlic.

If you feel like getting smelly hands and dealing with lots of frustration, use a knife or traditional garlic press to crush your garlic. I used three cloves.

I happen to strongly dislike trying to mince garlic with a knife, and I've never managed to make a traditional garlic press work.  I use the Garlic Twist. This will forever change your use of garlic in the kitchen!

How does it work? Slice the root end off your garlic cloves and peel 'em. Pop them in the bowl of the twist. Close it up and twist 10 or so times. In less than 30 seconds from start to finish you'll have this...



...perfectly minced, delicious smelling garlic, with hands that are free of garlic smell!

If you use garlic on a regular basis I strongly recomend you getting your hands on one. Lehmans carries them and if you're lucky, a local chefs store might.
 



Go back to the beans and check on them. Add your salt. I like a lot but here you really can play around as much as you want. Start with 1/4 teaspoon and go from there.



These are just about perfect. Notice that the skin is starting to shrivel up but they're still nice and bright green? You DO NOT want them to turn dull colored. The high heat helps them cook quickly but without over cooking.  Sometimes if my skillet is extra hot they'll get a little fried brown... that's fine, it only adds to the flavor!

So, as I said, these are just about perfect. Turn off the heat.



Add your garlic and mix. I prefer adding my garlic after the beans are completely cooked rather than while they're cooking. It only takes 60 seconds for the garlic to burn in oil this hot. Plus, cooked garlic looses all it's health benefits!



Serve them up and enjoy! I like to serve them right in the cast iron skillet unless its a double-fancy-shmancy dinner in which case I'll put them in a nice serving dish.

Making Yogurt!

I've been wanting to post this for a while but everytime I made yogurt it just didn't work out well for me to take pictures of it as well!

Now, be sure you have a pencil ready as the ingredients are extensive. Milk and yogurt. 
What you see here is whole, raw milk and the left over yogurt from my last batch.

If your making your first batch of yogurt, or you ate all of your last one this is my favorite brand to use. I've tried multiple other brands and none of them work near as well.  I usually use plain, but it doesn't matter if it's flavored if you're using Seven Stars brand.

Pour your milk into a stainless steel pot....

And heat. I don't know if it's supposed to be heated at a low heat, but I always heat on high, stirring frequently to keep it heating evenly.

Heat till just before boiling point.

If you wear glasses like me, this is means it's ready....

For a more precise measure, it should be 180 degrees Fahrenheit.

Remove from heat. Go over to your sink at make sure it's clean cause you're gonna give this baby a bath....

... in ice water! Throw a few pitchers of ice cubes in, and fill with cold water. You want enough that it's level with the milk when you set the pot in the sink.

Like so. Stir and swish the water around till it cools to around 100. I never check this temp with the thermometer, I use the 'baby bottle' test. Dribble some on the inside of your wrist and if it burns it's too hot, it should feel just barely above lukewarm.

While it's cooling...

Measure out your starter yogurt. I have about 2 cups here. I use anywhere from 1-3 cups, but I like 2... it's a nice round, even number!

Once your milk in the pot has cooled, and NOT BEFORE, add your yogurt and mix thoroughly.

Now, up to this point I've only improvised a wee bit. In this next step, the incubation period, I go a bit crazy!

Get yourself a box or cooler, plenty of towels and a heating pad. If you don't have a heating pad, throw your towels in the dryer on high to get them nice and hot and be sure to use a cooler.

While your yogurt and milk are meeting eachother and making their peace with one another, place a towel in the bottom of your container, add the heating pad and turn it onto high.

I actually put the heating pad under neath the towel in this case because it's a thermo picnic cooler and I don't need to worry about the heat escaping.

Get your containers ready for the yogurt.

Fill 'em up!

Place them in your homemade incubator and add towels all around and on top.

Now comes the most important part of all. Leave them be for at least 4 hours. And under threat of death warn everyone to NOT JIGGLE the incubating yogurt.  If it gets jiggled one to many times (and it's really tempermental about how often is too many times) it will seperate and you'll have lumps of yogurt swimming in yellow whey... it looks disgusting!

After 4 hours, gently open on container and check the set... use a spoon to push down on the edge. I like my yogurt really thick so I usually let it sit 6-8 hours.

When it's done incubating, pop it in the fridge and enjoy!

Spring!

Spring is finally here in action as well as on the calendar! I just got my sweet pepper plants started today, eek! They'll be late for harvest.

This year I've decided to try growing potatoes in straw instead of by trenching.  So today I bought some two foot tall chicken wire,  drove six stakes in and wrapped the chicken wire around 'em. The next step is to plop the potatoes right onto the surface of the ground!!! Then fill the pen up with straw, water, and wait.  We'll see how it turns out!

I found instructions on-line for removing old seasoning on cast iron. It seems that the easiest way is to throw whatever piece needs reseasoned into the oven and set it on self-cleaning.  I tell you, it worked like a charm! And boy was it nice to get the nasty 'pre-seasoned' seasoning off... I hate that stuff.   Once it was off, I spent thirty minutes scrubbing the rust off... apparently a layer of rust had formed under that nasty stuff. :(  I reaseasoned it with lard for 20 min. at 475 degrees. I have another pot which needs that done as well, and my griddle.

We've been getting our butter from a localish farm for the past couple months, and it's delicious butter. The problem is, it stays hard even at room temp. :/  We found that mixing it with Honey makes a delicious, spreadable breakfast butter, but we needed something that wasn't sweet for our dinner breads wich abound in garlic and herbs!  I tried mixing it with EVOO but it was terrible... all the green stuff sank to the bottom after discoloring the entire batch, an it tasted terrible.  But I believe I've finally hit on the winner.... I went and found the cheapest Olive Oil... the stuff that's yellow and has no nutrients left. It works beautifuly to soften the butter and doesn't alter the flavor one little bit!  It even past the taste test of my siblings. :)

I'm dying to figure out how to flip an omlet in the pan. Any tips?

Well, it wasn't my intention that this blog be entirely taken up with 'foody' subjects, but so it seems to have been! I have to go now to check my yogurt which should be done incubating about now and I still need to slice my seed potatoes for planting tomorrow evening.

Cherrio~