Home-made Yogurt Link

Sorry I forgot to include this in the last post. In case maybe you want to try making this yogurt...here is the link.

Homemade Yogurt - It really is super easy!

Ashley

Home-made Yogurt

On the weekend at one of our Thanksgiving gathering some of us girls got talking about home-made yogurt. They knew of several people who make their own yogurt. This intrigued me. So I looked on Pinterest and of course I found several recipes. I found a couple crockpot recipes and one smaller quart jar sized recipe. So I decided to try the quart jar one first. The reason I want home-made yogurt is because I have a bran muffin recipe and it calls for 2 cups of sour cream. We love these muffins in my house and I could be making 1-2 times a week sometimes. Well that starts racking up my grocery bill with all this sour cream. You can substitute the sour cream with yogurt. So I tried it yesterday. And I did it all wrong. I added the powdered milk at the wrong time, then I let it cool down too much before I added my yogurt cultures, and I also did not have a proper warm place to let it incubate. So by the time I was done I felt like I had wasted my time and milk!!! To incubate it I turned my oven on and set the jar on an element on my stove wrapped in a tea towel. This element always get warm when my stove is on. It has to incubate for several hours. Supper time came around and I turned my stove on to make my grilled cheese. (It was a low key, I don't know what to make kinda night) Well it turns out I turned the wrong element on...I turned the one on that my jar of 'yogurt' was sitting on. So I burned the bottom part of the jar plus my tea towel lit on fire!!!!!! (Thank goodness for the rain day ;) ha ha) I threw it outside. SO needless to say I had wrote of the jar of yogurt and left it on the counter and did not even look at it last night. I opened it this morning to dump it out and guess what? I have yogurt!!! It's just plain white yogurt but it worked! So I now have a substitute for my sour cream. Plus it is VERY easy to make and I can't wait to try the crockpot recipe.

 It looks runny in this picture but it's actually the same consistency of the stuff you buy in the store.

Also Corey, his boss and another guy he works with worked on the basement for couple of hours in the pouring rain! Crazy guys. But I guess it's that much more accomplished! They put the window frames in and one and a half more rows of blocks.

Anyways I am off to the city to the west to get a tool that's on sale for my Hubby. I'm really not in a great mood today so I guess I will go console myself with a Timmies.

Cheers
Ash

Monday

 I absolutely have the cutest little girl on the planet.

 Can you believe she is going to be 4 months old on Saturday????

 My babies.

 He loves to hold her.

She has such big pretty blue eyes.

I was pretty ambitious in the kitchen today. I made buns, granola bars and butter tarts. Although I have not have luck with pastry the last couple of times I tried. Too crumbly. I am thinking I either have too much flour or work it too much? Any thoughts? Still tasted delish though.

So the chances are pretty good that my uncle and cousin are going to be here sometime in the next week to start helping put the house up and getting it covered in. That's pretty exciting! My in-laws made the window frames for the basement this afternoon. It was one of those days where bc I had been baking all day that I had NO idea what to make for supper nor had I even thought in that direction. Bc by the time supper rolls around on a day like today I don't want to be in my kitchen anymore!! BUT I felt guilty bc they were working away in the backyard and it was cold out, I just could not send them home to make their own supper. So I BBQ'ed some chicken breasts, and made rice. Again. I feel like we are going to turn into rice, I have made it a lot lately. 

I always have all these to-do lists for when the kids go to bed bc I feel guilty about doing some things when they are awake and should be spending time with them. And I feel sooo ambitious about this list when I mentally make it...and now here I sit, trying to scrape up some ambition to complete it. It always so much better to wake up the next morning to no dishes to do and toys not strewn everywhere...or that is what I'm trying to tell myself now. Does anyone else have the same problem?? ha ha.

Anyways, I am hoping I will have new house pictures to show you tomorrow.

Cheers

Ash

And the house is now going up!

 This is what it looked like when we started today.

 My father-in-law still learning how to drive the bobcat. It almost bucked him out several times. I think he needed some TP in there.

 My Dad and Uncle Chuck.

 Two rows up.

 My Dad and Mother-in-law passing blocks down into the basement.

 Father-in-law coming in with another bucket of rock.

 Coffee time!

 Late afternoon.

 Our neighbors even came down and helped awhile.

 Little helper ha ha.

And this is what was accomplished by the end of the day! Does not take long to put the blocks once you have a crew together. They go together like legos. We ended the day with a very delicious supper made by myself ;) Sweet and sour meatballs, rice, and salad. Oh and throw in a few wobbly pops he he.

Good night!
Ash

Thank God for Dirty Dishes

 I love this little poem. It it very suiting for my home. (Many homes I'm sure)

Thank God for Dirty Dishes
~author unknown

Thank God for Dirty Dishes,
They have a tale to tell.
While others are going hungry,
We're eating very well.

With home and health and happiness,
I shouldn't want to fuss.
For by this stack of evidence,
God's very good to us.

Puzzle Pieces

For what was supposed to be such a low key day for me turned out being busy. but that's OK, it was a good kind of busy! I took the kids to Kit & Kaboodle in the morning and it was the windup so we also got lunch too. It is such a fantastic program for kids! They do a craft, sing, dance, read books and get a snack and a new book every week for free! I think it is so great. Meanwhile the guys started preg checking our cows at 11am. I had wanted to take the kids out so Tanner could watch but it rained all day so I just let him watch from the van. Since my mother-in-law was home I was supposed to be off the hook for cooking but she ended up being roped into writing numbers down. She left hamburger and buns in my kitchen. So I whipped up a tossed salad to go with the burgers and slapped some pork and beans on the table and called it good! LOL. Sandra had sent chocolate cake for dessert. Perfect :) By the time they came in to eat it was 3:30pm. Stupid time I know but our Vet always want to start at stupid times! You would think when you have 200+ cows to get through you would start at like 8 or 9 in the morning. Sheesh. Not to mention we were pulling calves off their mamas and trucking them as well. So the guys get a snack before they start and then lunch turns into an early supper. And while we were busy with that the styrofoam blocks for our basement walls show up in a big semi truck. Yee-haw! We would like to start stacking blocks on Saturday but there is lots to do yet before. It's still raining as I type and is supposed to all day tomorrow. BUT I will NOT complain about this rain. It is very much needed.

Apparently they go together just like puzzle pieces. I can hardly wait to see them go up!! Anyways, that's all my babbling for now folks.

Ash

Footing is poured!!!

Finally we were ready to have the footing poured. It really is hard when Corey only has a couple hours after work! I finished tying the rebar together for him this afternoon. I tried to do it with the kids outside this morning...that was a no go. Ali was crying, Tanner was getting stuck in the fence north of our yard...and on and on. So I got my mother-in-law to come down to stay with the kids inside while I finished. The the inspector could look at it and we could have permission to pour! Next part of the project is stacking styrofoam blocks for the basement walls. I think when that happens it will feel more real!

 Pumper truck.

 Lifting the rebar as the cement is poured so it sits up off the ground and in the center of footing.

 It is amazing how far that thing can reach!

 This is the pad that out telepost has to sit on in basement.

 Tanner playing in the weeping tile.

Finished with the rebar sticking out ready for the basement walls to go up around it.

Have a great night! I'm going to bed and it's only 9:30 pm. Wowzer.

Ash