Never Buy it Again- Chicken Broth

My Own Broth

So I wrote I posted this is MY broth because I have never thought of using my own broth. Yes, I know I'm a duh head. So I would make my favorite chicken and dumpling recipe, boil my whole chicken, de-bone it, and.....yes, throw the bones and fat and goo away.

I'm so embarrassed.

Why in the world am I paying for broth that is processed and has all sort of stuff in it?! Not anymore. So simple and basically its free!(ok, I had to buy the chicken and veggies and water....but I was going to use that anyway to make the chicken and dumplings....in my book that's LOADS of savings!!!)

So here is the super simple recipe of my entire meal:

Chicken and Dumpings- feeds 6-8

Ingredients:
1 whole roasting chicken
3 cups flour
1 t salt
very cold water
veggies(optional)

Put chicken in large pot, cover with water(at this point you want to add any veggies- carrots, celery, etc. We do veggies on the side). Boil until no longer pink inside, this will depend on the size of your chicken.
Drain chicken, set liquid back on the stove. Let the chicken sit until cool so you don't burn your fingers :-). De-bone- all fat, bones, yucky goo- put all that gross stuff into your biggest crockpot. All the yummy meat goes back into the liquid, put it to boil.
Mix flour, salt and water with a spoon. You can use other recipes.  I keep mine simple bc the broth will add lots of flavor to the dumplings. People can add salt to their taste.
Dump spoonfuls of dumpling dough onto the top of the simmering water. Let it simmer uncovered for ten minutes. Cover, let it simmer for another ten.
Feed to children :-). You can do any veggies with this if you did not add veggies to the broth.

Now onto our broth! Yay!

Chicken Broth:
You added your chicken pieces to your crockpot. Now fill the crockpot up to about an inch from the top with water. Add your veggies. You can add carrots, celery, onions....those are the norms. Then add a basil leaf, salt, pepper and chopped garlic.
Let it sit forever....or overnight :-).
Carefully ladle it into jars(yay! We get to use jars!!!) and put it in the fridge for all sorts of recipes. This should last a week or less, but you can also freeze it and it will last for a long time.
Enjoy!

Simple food- Coffee Creamer

Make your own Creamer- Cut out the Chemicals!!!!

My favorite thing ever....putting everything I make into mason jars. I love it. If I can give everyone a gift in a mason jar I am thrilled. I think they are so fun.

But I digress.

If you happen to use creamer and don't know what is in it I will go ahead and share the news: there is nothing in it. Nothing that you would recognize. The two major brands on the market, and you know what they are, have little to no milk and no intelligible ingredients, their main ingredient is water....what? I encourage you to check it out. Its scary!!! I have kidney stones and the cheaper of the two have soy, an ingredient I was told not to ingest. So I went to switch over to the other brand(which is more expensive but....have you ever had kidney stones? You would do what you could to not feel that again....ever) and found out that there is no soy in it....but its still full of chemicals. I was shocked. Since then Baileys has come out with a creamer that does have milk in it, its the second ingredient. But their first ingredient is still water.

Also, I know you have heard the rumor that castoreum, a flavor found in the anus of a beaver, is a flavor that they put in many products. After much research and disbelief I tried to prove the rumor wrong, emailed McCormick and asked specifically if they use castoreum. This is the email I got back, copy and pasted:

Dear Ms. H:

Thank you for taking the time to contact us. We appreciate your interest in our Clear Imitation Vanilla Extract and welcome the opportunity to be of assistance to you.

Due to proprietary reasons, we are unable to disclose all the ingredients in our products. However, if there is a specific ingredient you need to know about, we can verify if it is or isn't in the product.

There is castoreum in our products.

If we can be of further assistance, please call us at 1-800-632-5847. If you wish to respond to this note by e-mail, please include your name and e-mail address.
We hope to have the continued pleasure of serving you.

Sincerely,
John-Michael
Consumer Affairs Specialist

Ref # 2040500

I have to say, beaver anus was never something I thought a company would have the audacity to use in a product and label it "natural flavorings"(hey, they didn't lie! They just seriously misled and manipulated the American people...no big deal). Since then I have found that many processed foods have castoreum in their products if it is vanilla or berry flavored. My family has been trying to eat simply, no processed foods, and now I have facts that back up our decision. No beaver butt for us!!! 

Lets move on. 

My creamer is simple simple. I don't like to use canned milk because its processed. I like to see where my ingredients come from(the "why" is above). Obviously I can't always do this but I try. So lets start by making some sweetened condensed milk from scratch:

ingredients:

3 cups whole milk(you can use skim I've heard, I've only used raw milk for this recipe)

1 cup sugar(I use organic cane, you can decide what kind, there is no difference except the organic takes 

                    longer to dissolve)

Pour milk into a pan, add sugar. Turn heat on medium and whisk the sugar in. Milk should get hot and steam but should not get to a rolling boil. Watch and stir. Then turn the heat down and keep it steaming and stir to keep it from sticking to the pan or curdling. I let it sit all day and then just stir it when I remember to. It will thicken on low-medium but it takes a LOOOONG time. You can stand by the stove and keep the heat higher but you have to watch it! It will curdle and then you will have to throw it away. 

Keep heating it until it thickens. You can tell the texture because it will have a slightly thinner than pudding consistency. It should be gooey.

Ok, now onto the creamer, which is even more simple:

- All of the yummy sweetened condensed milk you just made

- enough milk to make it the consistency of creamer, add milk SLOWLY. If it is too thin it will taste watery in your coffee.

- any flavor you want to add

Put it all into one of the gorgeous jars you ran out and bought and shake! 

Yay! You are done. Have a cuppa! Perfect for this cold afternoon.

I have an amazing salted caramel topping I'm currently perfecting, it will be up soon! 

May the Lord bless you on this beautiful Saturday!!!!

We are all homeschoolers

Homeschooling is the most amazing blessing. I first began when my daughter was born- yes, born. Homeschooling begins at the beginning. Anyone who says they cant homeschool must realize first that they were/are a homeschooling parent if they ever taught their child the alphabet or read their child a book and asked them to point out the animals. Obviously that is very simplistic, it gets more complicated, but as they grow, you grow, and the things you teach them get more and more complicated and you learn right along. And with help it is possible for every parent.

But I'm running away with my post.

We began homeschooling when my daughter was born 17 years ago. Homeschooling is probably different than what you remember(them un-socialized kids that left school to be homeschooled and no one ever saw them again) or what you are thinking(them bible thumping un-socialized kids that get together in their homeschooling cults and chat about how schooling is the devil....and who has time for it anyway?). Homeschooling is actually exactly what you do when your kids come home from school....but we do it during the day. There are so many resources out there that homeschooling can be defined several different ways. There are religious or secular co-ops(groups of homeschoolers that meet together to do field trips and classes), un-schoolers(very basic definition: the kids choose their schooling and/or their specialty, if they want to be a pianist they spend most of their time doing piano, they choose their own curriculum and set their own hours), strict homeschooling in which they do the exact same thing in school except no other kids, there are homeschoolers that do all their school on the computer or go to a co-op school, some have just one day a week for a session or two throughout the year(they do their own thing for the other 4 days) or an actual school where they go 3-5 days a week and are taught by parents who have degrees or specialties, the parents can stay on campus or even quietly sit in the back of the room....there are so many homeschools out there that I haven't even mentioned- it would take forever to describe them all.

After trying so hard to be complex and organized we have evolved into a very simple homeschool routine. Here is our basic schedule:

-anytime between 5:30 and 7:00 we are up, out of bed and doing our morning chores.
-anytime between 7:00-9:00 we have kissed daddy/hubby and our oldest, who lives at home but goes to college, goodbye and have eaten our breakfast, just the 6 of us.
-anytime between 9:00 and 10:00 we are sitting on the couch with our cats, the younger 2 running around like mad people doing their free play, and my oldest son is coloring. This is our bible time. We pray, read our bible, read our missionary book, and read 2 pages of our Character Sketches.
-for the rest of the morning Christian and I do reading and math and then works on science with Fran and Cosette while Caleb does his preschool/kindergarten on the white board with me. Usually Josiah is either sitting on my lap or playing with his cars or animals. Sometimes I allow him to play in the sink....with lots of towels. Fran and Cosette get their independent 5/6th grade work done together on the computer at this time.
During any lulls in the morning Fran and I are up making bread or dinner or anything else that needs to be made since we make everything from scratch. More on that later.
-Chore, lunch making and eating time is between 11:30 and 1:00. 
-Rest and break time is until around 2:00-3:00. 
-2/3:00 is afternoon school. The afternoon is full of fun subjects: sign language, piano, science or history on netflix, crochet and knitting, independent reading and studying of subjects that interest us, even classic movies or musicals on netflix. We also need to finish any yeast breads and baking.    
****In the summer we do everything(minus netflix and baking) outside, including all our experiments and messy art. So when the weather is warm we are outside doing our afternoon subjects from about 1:30-5:00. But since its winter Ill keep going.**** 
-We have mandatory computer school cut off time at 3:30, "fun" school is cut off at 4:30. No one can do school past this time. This is family time. We spend time together, get any other baking done, make dinner, play games(my kids don't have a lot of toys so most of their games are imaginary, like house, forts, etc), and, in my family, act like crazy people. They love to color and crochet/knit so they will do that but most of the time they just play with each other.

I feel that we are still very strict: I don't allow my children to choose their own subjects or their curriculum. But in every other way I feel we are un-schoolers. We don't have set times, we do subjects that interest us and will put academic subjects on the back burner for a time to learn something new or to take field trips. When my oldest was home, for the last 2 years she was unschooled completely. Most of her time was spent independently studying things that interested her: musicals, different music genres, different countries, their history and their literature, and she danced non-stop. This was the best use of her time because she had decided what she wanted to do in the future and she was going to be an actress/dancer. And she was accepted at a private college at 17 years old with a scholarship doing exactly what she wanted to do. This confirmed for us that un-schooling was the best choice for her. We will pray for guidance for our other children. 

I love homeschooling. I love that if the Lord leads we can read an extra chapter of the Bible or another lesson in our study. I love that at the beginning of the day the kids all sit down together, thank the Lord for our meal and eat a healthy breakfast after getting their chores done, there's no rushing or looking at clocks to make sure we are ready for school. I love that when a child realizes he is sick in the middle of the day and wants his mom I'm right there and can put him under a blanket in the living room.... instead of him lying in a school nurses office waiting for me to come get him. I love that if you come to my house in the morning you will find the babies playing and arguing over trucks on the floor, my oldest boy snuggling with me on the couch, doing his reading out loud while I crochet, and the two "best sisters" sitting at the dining room table doing their school together, the table covered in paper, glue and folders to do yet another lapbook. I love that if you come in the afternoon you will find us doing sign language, history on netflix, on a nature walk(or right now, a walk to see them build houses!) down our road, or, if the weather is warm and dry, in the backyard gardening, playing baseball, running around playing house, or reading. I love that no matter what time of day it is we are always together.

The most important thing about homeschooling, for our family, is that we are doing what God has called us to do. We are raising our children. We are teaching them first about His love and His saving grace. We are teaching family above friends, God above everything. Every mealtime we pray, every morning we read His word, every night before we lay down our heads we are together as a family reading from His book and breathing prayers of thanksgiving for His love.

My Lord and my God,
Thank you for my children and thank you that I can lay my head down at night secure in the knowledge that I am doing as You have instructed. I thank you for Your word that I share every day with my children. I thank you for providing for my family, that You give us what we need so I may stay home and raise my children, to make them secure, to make sure they know that they are loved and that You love them above all.
In Your precious name I pray,
Amen

Train up a child in the way he should go: and when he is old, he will not depart from it.
Proverbs 22:6

Therefore shall ye lay up these my words in your heart and in your soul, and bind them for a sign upon your hand, that they may be as frontlets between your eyes. And ye shall teach them your children, speaking of them when thou sittest in thine house, and when thou walkest by the way, when thou liest down, and when thou risest up.
Deuteronomy 11:19

Crochet- thumb-less mittens

I was asked a dear friend of mine to crochet mittens for her grandson. I had advertised on facebook that I love crochet and sell my crochet pieces, asked for orders and got......mittens. Never had I crocheted mittens, never have I had the desire. But I love my friend and could NOT say no. After searching for a pattern, trying it and rejecting it, I decided to make my own pattern. So much easier! I don't think I've used a pattern since I first began crochet so it seriously helped to go without one. And now that I've figgered it out here you go!!!

Make 2(....obviously, haha) in any color you want!:
Chain 5
1st round- 2 sc into the second chain, sc in the next 2 chains, 4 sc in the first chain, sc in the next 2 chains, 2 sc in the last chain, ss into first sc-  for a total of 12 sc in an oval shape.
2nd round- ch 1, 1 sc into first stitch, 2 sc into next, 1 sc into each of the next 2 sc, 2 sc into next sc, 1 sc into next, 1 sc into next, 2 sc into next, 1 sc into each of the next 2 sc, 1 sc into next, 2 sc into next, join with ss for a total of 16 sc.
3rd round- 2 sc into each sc- 32 sc
nows the easy part:
4th round- ?:  sc until you reach the bottom of child thumb(where the thumb meets the hand, the under side).
When you get this far you start to decrease.
next round: dec- 6 sc and then dec around, 28
next round: sc in each, 3 rows
next round: 28 sc but do not attach x as many rows as gets you past the wrist and up the arm a little bit.
finish off.
Now you can add any embellishment you want to close the wrist flap. You can add a cute flower, a truck you embroider, buttons if you watch the child carefully and make sure they can't get it off...whatever you like!....to close up the mitten. I leave it open like this because if her grandchildren are anything like my Josiah than it will be hard for mom to even get mittens on, let alone keep them on.
make a chain, close up both ends tightly, sew the ends together and on one flap, put the button or whatever else you choose on the other side. The chain should neatly wind around the button to keep it closed. You can choose how loose or tight you make it.
You're done!

This post is a little clumsy. Ill be getting the final picture up and tweaking the written pattern(Im not good at writing patterns down!) a bit but that will take time :-).
Until next time!
Bay

a crazy bunch

Well, that's us. I guess I should begin my blog by telling about my simple and nutso family. I am the mother of 7 precious arrows, one of whom is already in heaven with the Lord. More about our angel baby later.
My oldest is Mariah and she is 17 and in college. She began college just 3 months after her 17th birthday. Such is life as a homeschooler. She shot through her curriculums faster than anything I've seen, finishing her "senior" year the fall after her 16th birthday. My husbands exasperated solution? "Graduate her!". She, in two months, prepared her audition pieces to attempt to get into the theatre department in the only school on her list, the only school she ever talked about. The result was her getting a scholarship into that school. She is now focusing her efforts on doing her best so she can spend her junior year overseas as a exchange student and her final Goal for her academic years? To get into RADA. You guessed it, her dream is to live in Great Britain. I'm not one of those mothers who want their children to stay near home and focus their efforts in staying near me. My dream is for my children to pursue their dreams, to live a life for God and to do what they love to the best of their abilities. If she is a starving actress in England and that is her dream I will be happy for her. If she was making money at it that would be even better, haha.
My second oldest is Francesca. Francesca is my second first baby as we like to call her. We call her that because she is my husbands first biological child. Fran is basically my clone. We love the same things and she is learning to be as weird as I am. She is entertainment to say the least. Fran's passion is baking. She is 10 years old. Fran has been called, at a very young age, to missions. When Fran was 6 years old we read a book about Gladys Aylward, a missionary in China beginning in 1930. After hearing about the beheading of several students at a university in China, who refused to deny their faith, by the communists, Fran declared, "I would never be a missionary!" and began crying(Mrs. Aylward herself was not killed during this raid). About a week later Fran woke up and came to me to tell me that she had had a dream that she would be a missionary in China....and that was what she was going to do. That was the first time(and not the last) I saw the hand of God touch one of my children. Because of her love of baking her goal is to go to culinary school in Maine, stay with missionary friends of ours, and then begin her mission to China. Gods peace is always abundant. I'm excited for my young daughter to begin her life living for Him.
Cosette is my 3rd child. She is still my baby. She loves everything and everyone and loves to do anything exciting. She loves to learn new things and was reading chapter books right along with Fran at age 3. Since she loves everything she has no clear thoughts of the future except to try everything she can get her hands on. Her favorite things right now are crocheting and baking. She loves to wrestle with her brothers and build legos. I am so excited to see what God has planned for her future. Right now it is all about learning, exploring, experimenting, creating, and having a ball.
Christian, my first son, is 7 years old and also has been called my God, but for him he has been called to a life leading Gods people as a Pastor. I find this very interesting as he has a quiet, goofy, and sweet spirit. We always say that Christians wife, should God choose to give him a wife, will be the luckiest lady on the planet. Christian is gentle and loving, but fun and hilarious too. Christian is my challenge for homeschooling. Again, something I will get to later.
Caleb is my freaked out 3 year old. With a temperament much like Cosette and the face of an angel, he has been somewhat spoiled by his Dad(ok, ok by me, too!). Caleb is funny, loud, rambunctious, and head strong.....but is so loving and empathizes with others who are hurt or sad. He will make an excellent leader one day. I cant wait to see how God works in him!
And lastly is my baby Josiah, who is 1. Josiah is so precious to me it is hard to write it down on paper...but I think that is how it was with all my babies. How can you put into words an angel that God gave you to care for and nurture, who still needs you to hold him close whenever he comes to you with his arms up, to drop your broom and go to the couch for a Thomas book, who needs to be in your bed, snuggling, falling asleep on your face, knowing he is safe, that you will be there when he wakes up? There are no words. Only a precious couple years where their entire being is dependent on you to know what is wrong, to laugh when he laughs, to watch him sleep. So that is where I will leave it today. I'm off to snuggle with my kids and maybe watch some Never Ending Story.

My dearest Lord, my Heavenly Father,
Please let me never again forget about the time it takes to raise children who love you and put you first, that I never again keep a hold of that broom when I could be holding on to something much more precious. Please let me never forget what each of my children were like when they were babies, so when they are grown I can look back on those times with happiness and joy. Please let each of my children grow to love You, to do Your will before anything they have planned for themselves. And, Jesus, I pray that while I teach them in the way they should, that You guide my words and actions so they will learn from both, as your Word tells me.
In Your loving name, Jesus,
Amen


Song for a Fifth Child
by Ruth Hulburt Hamilton

Mother, oh Mother, come shake our your cloth,
Empty the dustpan, poison the moth,
hang out the washing and butter the bread,
Sew on a button and make up a bed.
Where is the mother whose house is so shocking?
She's up in the nursery, blissfully rocking.
Oh I've grown shiftless as Little Boy Blue
(lullaby, rockaby, lullaby loo).
Dishes are waiting and bills are past due
(Pat-a-cake, darling and peek, peekaboo).
The shopping's not done and there's nother for stew
And out in the yard there's a hullabaloo
But I'm playing Kanga and this is my Roo.
Look! Aren't her eyes the most wonderful hue?
(lullaby, rockaby, lullaby loo).
The cleaning and scrubbing will wait till tomorrow,
For children grow up, as I've learned to my sorrow.
So quiet down, cobwebs. Dust go to sleep.
I'm rocking my baby
                and babies don't keep.