Merry Christmas!

To all of my Gentle Readers and Friends, you make my life richer and I wish you the best at this sacred time of year.  God bless you all!

Homemade rag rugs for our new house!

I've never made rugs before.  Our trailer house is going to have all vinyl flooring (my choice - I hate taking care of carpets) so I knew I'd want some throw rugs.  Nice ones are hard to find, I found.  :)  I have a small rigid heddle loom and although those are not designed to weave rugs, I knew I could do it if I would just beat in the weft carefully by hand.  So, with my husband's help, I warped the loom with the kind of cotton string that is used for rugs, bought some sheets at the thrift store and started to work.  Here they are.  After they were completed, I ran them through the washer and then hung them to dry, so you are only looking at half of each one.

Here are the three rugs.

They are a bit rough looking (I am a beginner) but I do like them and I think they will be very nice in our humble home. 

Yummy Cranberry Relish !

My sister made this wonderful cranberry relish.  I am going to be roasting a turkey that I bought at a very low price recently, so I made some of this relish today.  She uses 3/4 cup of sugar, and that seems like a lot, although it was awfully good, so I decided to play around with the amount.  Now, if you make this, add your sugar gradually and taste the relish, because some oranges are sweeter than others, and of course, your preference may be much different than mine.

Cranberry Relish

1 whole orange, including skin, but not the seeds, cut into 12 pieces.
1 bag of fresh cranberries

Process all of this in a food processor.
Begin adding sugar and stirring well, tasting as you go.

I ended up using 1/2 cup of sugar.

This is really good on it's own, and also nice in a jello salad.

Low Sugar Apple Pie :)

See that?  It's actually a Healthy Homemade Apple pie and quite delicious.  You will be pleasantly surprised!  I had several apples past their prime and wanted to use them, so I made one of these yesterday.  We really like it.

Low Sugar Apple Pie Filling

7 cups of apples, washed, cored, and sliced thinly (I leave the peelings on, but you don't have to.)
1 Tablespoon quick tapioca OR 3 Tablespoons corn starch
1/4 cup honey
1 teaspoon pure vanilla extract
1 large egg + 1 egg yolk

Instructions

1. Stir all of the above ingredients together thoroughly.
2.  Pour into a pie plate lined with a pie crust (refer to recipe in my last post, only this time, I used 1 cup whole wheat flour and 1 cup unbleached.)
3. Cut 3 vents in the top crust and put it on top of the pie and flute the edges.  Protect edges of pie crust with strips of foil.
4.  Bake in pre-heated 350 F oven for 1 hour.  Then, insert a small sharp knife into one of the vent holes and check to see if the apples are done.  They need to be Very Tender.  It could take up to 90 minutes altogether.
5.  Cool before serving.

Salmon Pot Pie !

INGREDIENTS

2 unbaked pie crusts (recipe below)
2/3 cup brown rice
1/2 teaspoon salt
1 1/3 cups water
1 large onion, sliced thinly
1 small can mushrooms, drained
1 Tablespoon butter
1.5 cups homemade stock or broth
3 Tablespoons corn starch
14.5 ounce canned Salmon, drained
1 cup shredded cheese

DIRECTIONS

1. Bring water to boil in small saucepan.  Add rice and salt.  Cover, simmer for 45 minutes.  Be sure to watch water level.  Don't let it run completely dry.

2. Preheat oven to 450 F.

3. Put one of the crusts in a 9 inch pie pan.

4. Sautee sliced onions in butter until soft, and then add the drained mushrooms and cook a little longer.

5. Mix corn starch into broth or stock, stirring, bring to a boil and simmer until thick.  Add 1/2 teaspoon salt.  Taste and see if it needs more salt.

6. Mix the thickened broth with the rice and put half of it in the bottom crust.

7.  Drain and mash the canned salmon.  Spread that in the pie now.

8. Spread the onions and mushrooms next.

9.  Pour in the rest of the rice mixture and spread that around.

10.  Sprinkle on the cheese.

11.  Add the top crust.  Trim.  Flute the edges.  Protect edges with foil or one of THESE.

12.  Bake for 10 minutes.  Reduce temperature to 350 F. and bake for 30 more minutes. Remove from oven.

13.  Allow to cool for 15 minutes, slice and serve!

This is very very good.  :)

How I made the crust -

In the bowl of a food processor, with the metal blade, put:

2 cups unbleached flour
1 teaspoon salt
2/3 cup cold butter, cut in chuncks

Process that until the butter is cut in little pieces, then -

Turn on the processor and begin slowly adding COLD milk, a little at a time, until the dough is soft, but not sticky.

That's it!