A wonderful trip!

I returned last night from a trip to visit family.  Our youngest son and his wife were sealed for time and all eternity in the Idaho Falls Temple.  I was so happy to be there with them.  Our oldest daughter attended as well.  I also got to visit for a couple of days with our middle son.  It was great to see family, and I am also very happy to Be Home. "There's no place like home!"

Middle son and his wife and family:

Me and son and his family at the base of the Christus statue in the visitor center at Temple Square in Salt Lake City:

Me, our youngest son, and his wife outside the Idaho Falls Temple before their marriage sealing:

Me, our oldest daughter, youngest son, his wife and her parents after the sealing.  This was a glorious occasion for our families.

The evening I arrived, they took me to Outback Steak House for supper.  Nice.

Salsa Anniversary :)

13 years ago, August 9, 2000 I invented my own salsa recipe for canning.  I've tweaked it various ways through the years.  I call it ~

Millennial Salsa

That jar may look enormous, but actually it is only a pint jar.

Here is a picture of all of the ingredients after I mixed them together.

That is a two-gallon soup pot, and that amount filled 13 pint jars.  13 years, 13 pints jars.  I was quite surprised when I looked at the date on the recipe card and saw I had written it exactly 13 years ago.  Boring to the rest of the world, but it made me feel happy.  Here is the recipe, as I made it this year.

Millennial Salsa

About 1/3 bushel tomatoes - I had a mixture of large tomatoes and some paste - type tomatoes.

4 jalapeno peppers

4 onions

1 Tablespoon sea salt

2 cups vinegar ( I use white, distilled )

4 small cans tomato paste

4 large garlic cloves or two teaspoons garlic powder 

Wash, blanch, peel, and core the tomatoes.  Cut them into pieces and use your thumb to take out the seedy/juicy part of each one.  When they are all prepared, chop them briefly in a food processor.  Alternately, you can do it with a knife. Prepare enough to fill your pan a little over half full.

Cut the stem end off of the jalapeno peppers  and dice them finely in the food processor (including the seeds.)

Peel the onions, cut in chunks and chop them up in the processor also.

Put all the ingredients together in a heavy bottomed and stir thoroughly.  Stirring often to prevent scorching, heat to boiling.  Turn off heat.  Ladle into jars.  Clean rims.  Apply hot caps and rings.  Process in boiling water or in a steam canner for 45 minutes.

This is a "medium heat" salsa.  Do NOT eliminate the tomato paste.  Two things will happen.  One is, the salsa will be too runny.  The other thing is, it won't have enough acid to make this salsa safe to can with boiling water.

Guess what?

Our little chickens have grown up and started laying eggs just over a week ago!  So far, we've had 29 eggs.  New layers make smallish eggs, but last night we got a big one!  Check out the color that the yolks make for our scrambled eggs! That is because they are in a chicken tractor and my husband moves it to fresh grass each morning.  We've also been giving them some of the extras from the garden and they love watermelon rinds, too!   I am SO happy!

My husband started building the chicken house today.  He is a very clever man.

A good productive day!

You know how it is... some days the whole day goes by and it seems as if I didn't accomplish one thing!  Today was NOT like that.  Today was a good day.

 I braided the onions

Picked 5 dozen ears of bi-color sweet corn and canned it.

Picked a peck of tomatoes and made them into juice and canned it.

Hung the garlic up to dry.

I love days like this.

Update on the saltine crackers...

In the last post, I gave you my recipe for homemade healthy saltines.  They really are delicious, but within a few hours seemed sort of "soggy."  My husband suggested I dehydrate them.  So, I put them in the dehydrator on 145 F for maybe 3 or 4 hours, then back into the jar and sealed it.  They are keeping very well now and are crisp.  :)  I imagine you could also spread them on cookie sheets and put them on very low temperature in your oven and do the same thing. 

Crackers - of the saltine variety

Not long ago, I blogged about how I was making "crackers."  That is fine, but we still wanted real crackers.  You know, our beloved saltines that we both grew up with.  I looked in my old copy of Whole Foods for the Whole Family that was published by La Leche League in 1981.  It's one of my favorite cook books.  There is a recipe in there for crackers that uses whole wheat flour.  So, I just changed it up to sprouted whole wheat flour.  Here you can see half of them cooling on a cotton dish towel and the other half in the jar I am going to store them in.  I ate one.  Very very nice!  It remains to be seen how well or long these will keep.  I know from experience that freezing homemade crackers is a mistake.  They get soggy.  So, we'll see.. but anyway, today they are perfect! (recipe below)

Saltine Crackers

2 cups sprouted wheat flour
1 teaspoon salt
1/2 teaspoon baking soda
1/4 cup butter
1/2 cup buttermilk (I used 1/4 cup milk kefir and 1/4 cup fresh milk.  You can also us 1/2 cup fresh milk with 2 teaspoons lemon juice mixed in, then let it sit for 5 minutes.)
1 large egg
more salt (for topping)

Combine flour, salt and soda.  Cut in the butter until mixture has texture like oatmeal.  Add milk and egg; blend to make a stiff dough.  Knead thoroughly.  Roll 1/8 inch thick on a floured board (I used unbleached flour for this part.)  Cut into squares and place on lightly greased cookie sheet.  Prick with fork, sprinkle with salt.  Bake at 400 F until lightly browned, about 10 minutes.  Remove from oven and transfer to a towel to cool.  Store in airtight container.  By the way, the wavy edges of my crackers came from using one of these.  Thanks, April.

Here is an update on these crackers:    They really are delicious, but within a few hours seemed sort of "soggy."  My husband suggested I dehydrate them.  So, I put them in the dehydrator on 145 F for maybe 3 or 4 hours, then back into the jar and sealed it.  They are keeping very well now and are crisp.  :)  I imagine you could also spread them on cookie sheets and put them on very low temperature in your oven and do the same thing.