Mooey Christmas!

We have had lots of Christmas shenanigans happening and I promise I'll fill you in via blog post soon!!!!! I just love love love our cheesy Christmas card.

Ashley

Homemade Vegetable Soup & other shenanigans

There are many times I feel like blogging by the end of the day all I want is my bed. What's been going on here? Well we are in full swing with chores with all the cows home and winter has hit. We have all had some form of sickness. Fever, sore throat, sore all over, runny noses - Thank goodness NO puking as of yet. Hoping the bugs leave us soon. My farmer has been sick for five days now and his taste buds have pretty much disappeared. Yesterday he commented that some of my homemade vegetable soup would hit the spot. (Unfortunately being Celiac he can't even has chicken noodle soup when he is sick!!) So I started making soup. He is not a big soup fan and so when he requests it - I make it! This is one of my favorite soups.

You will need:

-A large stock pot
-Water
-Soup bone, beef or pork
-Carrots, diced
-Potatoes, diced
-Celery, chopped
-Peas
-Tomato Soup
-Bay leaves
-Parsley
-Salt & pepper
-rice, macaroni or barley (optional)

Put your soup bones in the pot and fill with water. Bring to a boil and let them simmer for at least an hour. Probably more like 1.5 hours. DO NOT add water to the pot when you see it boiling down. When that's done take out the soup bones and discard. Strain the broth to get rid of miscellaneous from the bones.

You will notice that I did not add amounts of stuff on the ingredient list. I do not measure, especially with soup. The wonderful thing about soup is that if you feel you did not add enough, you just add more!!

Now add your bay leaves, parsley, salt and pepper and tomato soup. Now for the tomato soup, I added 2 quarts of my own homemade. You can use canned from the store as well. (it has gluten in it so I can't do that) You could also add canned tomatoes instead and I think it would be good too.

While the broth simmers with the greens chop up your veggies. For my large stock pot I probably did 8 cups carrots, 8-10 cups potatoes, 1-2 cups celery and 2 cups peas.

Add veggies and simmer till they are cooked through.

When the kids and I eat it we add whipping cream to the soup, my farmer does not. All depend son your taste buds and what you like. You could also add onions to this soup and it would be good. I can't cook with onions so I leave them out.

Then because it makes so much extra, I fill quart sealers and put the extra soup in the fridge. It will stay sealed in the fridge for a long time and is soooo handy for days when you don't feel like making lunch.

I am trying to get into the Christmas spirit but I'm having a hard time getting into it. Not sure why. Maybe I'll feel it when we get our big tree up. I'm making myself finish Christmas shopping because we're still not done. And the kids have been asking to make snowman cookies.....so I will have to start Christmas baking sooner than later!!

We had a great 50th Birthday Party for my Dad last weekend. Most of the Friesen family and a few friends made for a full house!! It as faspa and cake and coffee. My Auntie Trudy and family made this awesome semi cake for my Dad. It was a great evening.

Anyways, have a great night!

Ashley

Throwback Thursday

Hold onto your shorts people - - - - - - This picture was taken two years ago on November 17!! I'm not ready for snow. Look at all that snow and how cold it looks. Brrrrr. Like I said, so not ready. but when are we ever ready for snow?!

Ashley

My late Halloween post

 Every year they get more and more involved. So much fun!

Our Bear, Princess and Tiger! The older two chose what they wanted to be this year.

Ashley

Moments like these...

...are why I love this life.

Ashley

More girls home

Today more of our girls came home. Some from up north from a PFRA pasture and some from a pasture just south of home. 

Just look at my babies cheeks.... So squish able!! 

Ashley

A New Addition

I say this is a new addition but he really is almost a month old already!!!!!! Crazy how time flies. Our new nephew arrived on September 22nd (I think) weighing 9 lbs! Deklin Colt Friesen is his name! Tanner says, "Mom, I'm sure Whitley was never this small!" Ha ha!!

Ashley

Another beautiful fall day

 Can't believe she is 9 months old already!? Sigh.

 We found a broken wasp nest.

We enjoyed another beautiful fall day today!! Hubby helped a friend move his cabin out to his pasture today. (After fencing and chasing cows all morning!!) So the kids and i wandered out there later in the afternoon and just in case, I packed wiener roasting supplies. And we had a spontaneous wiener roast! It was fun. Forgot wiener sticks and chairs but still fun. And of course Mom always forgets to make Dad take pictures so she can be in them too. We also got to enjoy a nice bonfire last night too!

I really suck at blogging every day for Blogtober...but hey! At least you are getting more reading than last month ;)

Ashley

My favourite granola bar recipe

These granola bars are so delicious I could eat the whole pan myself!! So yummy. And I even make them gluten-free.

I'll add the recipe from the computer tomorrow.

Edited to add recipe:

Peanut Butter Granola Bars 

Ashley

Throwback Thursday

One of my favorite pictures. Where has the time gone? Tear. Sniff. Sniff.

Ashley

Silage and leaves

I have tried to do other posts but my phone won't publish them. So I'll try again. Today we got our silage all cut and I managed to get some pictures of my kids in the leaves!

Ashley

Make way for the girls

Today our first bunch of cows and heifers came home. This means more chores. It means selling calves. It means preg checking. And they weren't home for more than an hour and they pushed a gate open and let themselves in with the Bulls! Typical. 

Ashley

Gluten-free butter tarts

This is the second time I've made gluten-free butter tarts. They are super easy and very yummy.

I will edit this to add the recipe tomorrow.

EDITED to add recipe:

http://www.faithfullyglutenfree.com/2011/01/gluten-free-butter-tarts-and-pie-crust-for-anything.html 

Yummy! Tomorrow I'm going to tackle pies with this pastry recipe. 

Good night!

Ashley

Wordless Wednesday

Good morning! Have a great day!!

Ashley

Baked BBQ Farmer Sausage

Tonight I thought I'd share a favourite recipe of ours. We love farmer sausage here and it's nice to do more than just fry it. 

Ingredients:

1/2 cup ketchup

3/4 cup brown sugar

2 tbsp soya sauce

1 tbsp vinegar

1 tbsp cornstarch

Method:

Broil sausage for about 5 minutes. Keep an eye on it. Mix the first four Ingredients in a bowl. Then put 1 tbsp cornstarch into 1/2 cup of water and shake until smooth. Add cornstarch mixture to the sauce. Pour over sausage and bake until it bubbles. Serves good with rice or potatoes. 

(The recipe actually says to bake till sausage is done and then put sauce on, I prefer to broil them)

I did take some pictures but I'm not great at taking pictures of food. Especially sausage!!!! Lol. 

Try this recipe soon!

Ashley

Mongrel Monday

 What can I say? I love animals. Right now I'm feeding 14 pigs to butcher. We'll butcher 1 for ourselves. And sell the rest ready to butcher. They should be 8 for sure ready in a months time. Our morning routine is heading out to the barn to feed and check on the pigs. They have a large area to themselves in the barn. So far they've managed to escape three or four times. Never outside of the barn. I hope that never happens because I don't know how we'd catch them!! 

Also, did you know October is National Pig Month? So I figured I better do a post them. Lol. 

They are eating a couple pails of chop a day. And they LOVE my scraps from the kitchen. Anywho here's some pictures.

Ashley

Happy Fall!

Checking pastures

So I really suck at posting every day!! I'll do two today to make up for yesterday. Yesterday we went up north to check on a pasture. We had to have our cows moved to another pasture by October 1. We've been feeding them on the side we want them to move to for a few days now. Thankfully when we got there they were all on the right side! 

Here are some fall babies from another pasture. So cute!

On another note, I'm really enjoying the fall colours. I love fall.

Ashley

Blogtober & Favorite Fridays

So apparently this month is Blogtober, which means you post every day in the month of October! I'm going to give it a try. Today I want to share a little something a fellow farmwife shared on Facebook the other day. It really hit home because lately I've found myself frustrated with my messy house, piles of dishes and laundry and grouchy kids. This was a nice little reminder! 

Have a great day!

Ashley