Harvesting grapes

Each year, we watch the deer eat our neighbors grapes.  They never use them, but the deer sure enjoy them!  This year, I thought we should harvest the grapes and use them ourselves.  So, one evening when Mom and Dad were out and it was warm and sunny, I gathered everyone together and we set out on our job.  We had no idea what we were doing, but in the end, we were covered in sticky, sweet, grape, and have 4 five pound bags of grapes.  We froze them and will enjoy them in smoothies!

Thank you Lydia for all your help and for taking the pictures!

And thank you Grant for killing all the spiders! :-)

July 1st

July 1st is a special day....  Noela was born that day!  For her fourth birthday, we invited some of her friends over, and made pretzels. 

The Birthday Girl!

Everyone got to role out and shape some pretzels!

And the finished product was delicious!  We ate them with salt, butter, mustard, olives, and frosting :~)  The little ones especially liked decorating them with the sugary stuff!

Here is the pretzel recipe...Enjoy!

4 teaspoons yeast (2 packets)
1 teaspoon white sugar
1 1/4 cups warm water
5 cups flour (I used white....but am going to try wheat sometime soon.)1/2 cup white sugar
1 1/2 teaspoons salt
1 tablespoon oil (I used olive)
1/2 cup baking soda
5 cups hot water
Salt for topping

In a small bowl, dissolve yeast and 1 teaspoon of sugar in warm water. Let stand for 8-10 min. or until mixture begins to foam.

In a large bowl, mix together flour, 1/2 cup sugar and salt. Make a well in the center and add the yeast mixture and oil. Mix and form into flexible, slightly tacky dough. If it feels too dry, add water by little bits until it feels right. Knead the dough until smooth. Place the ball of dough in a large bowl lightly coated with oil. Turn and coat the dough in the bowl and and cover with plastic wrap. Let it rise in a warm place for about an hour or until doubled in size.

Preheat oven to 450 degrees and line a large baking sheet with parchment paper. In a large saucepan, bring 5 cups of water to a boil and dissolve baking soda (Careful! The soda will want to bubble over!). Keep a lid on saucepan and reduce heat to a simmer.

In the meantime, turn dough out onto a lightly oiled surface and divide into 10-12 equal pieces (or however large you want your pretzels). Roll each piece into a 1/2 inch rope and form into a pretzel shape (or whatever shape you like!). Using a flat spatula, dip each pretzel (one by one) into the boiling water for a couple of seconds and place on the baking sheet. Sprinkle with salt and bake for 8-10 minutes or until golden brown.

If you would like to do this for a party, simply prepare the dough, and start it rising.  Your guests can then roll out and shape their own pretzels, bake them, and eat them right then!  Make sure to have a large variety of toppings...it makes it lots of fun!

Christmas Cookies!

Hello Girls!  How are your Christmas prererations coming?  (Hopefully good!  Christmas is tomorrow!)  At our house, we have been busy.  We recently made cookies.  They were arranged on trays, and we added tracts, tea, and candies.  I hope our neighbors and friends enjoy them as much as we enjoyed making them!

 Rolled cookies with white chocolate and cherries!

My two favorite ingredients--vanilla and butter.  Yum!

*My sweet little helper*

May you have a Merry Christmas celebrating our Saviours birth!  And as you open gifts--remember the greatest gift of all!

Challenge!

Annie is hosting a Sugar-Free challenge!  It has already started, but I was too busy to post before.  I love this idea...  It is great to have accountability for something like this! 

So far (Sunday and some of today), I've done pretty well.  I haven't had any desserts/treats/etc., but I did drink some lemonade yesterday.  Does that count?

~Haley

Simple Berry Cobbler

Here is a recipe for a simple cobbler that we made recently. It is very simple and very tasty. We used mulberries and strawberries, but any berries will work.

Preheat oven to 350 degrees.

First combine in bowl:
1 cup sugar
1 cup flour
1 cup milk
2 teaspoons baking powder
1/2 teaspoon salt

Instead of using milk and baking powder, I used 1 cup of soured milk (you can also use raw yogurt or buttermilk) and 1/2 teaspoon of baking soda.

Pour into 9 x 13 baking pan.

Then, chop up at least 2 cups of berries of your choosing. (You can also use frozen or canned fruit, but fresh is always best.) We used considerably more than 2 cups of fruit. Use your own judgement as to how much you like fruit. Add the fruit to the pan evenly.

As a last minute thing, I added little pieces of kiwi to my cobbler. You could add kiwi or any other complementary fruit to your cobbler.

When it is all together, put in oven and bake 4o minutes or so.

And it is done! Happy eating!

Love~Haley

Jam~and other things

Yesterday, we went over to Grandma and Grandpa's to make Strawberry Jam! We had a great time! My job was to boil the gelatin--the hottest job, but in my opinion, the funnest!

I forgot to take along the camera. :-(

I also have a bit more of Daniel chapter six: "Then this Daniel was preferred above the presidents and princes, because an excellent spirit was in him, and the king thought to set him over the whole realm. Then the presidents and princes sought to find occasion against this Daniel, but they could find none occasion or fault, forasmuch as he was faithful, neither was there any error nor fault found in him. Then these men said, 'we shall not find occasion against him, except we find occasion against him concerning the law of his God."

Notice all the 'thens'? Over half the verses in the chapter-at least from the KJV-start with 'then'!

We have a lot going on that I haven't posted. Grant's baseball team played on Monday--they lost. Over the weekend, we went to our Aunt's house and celebrated Father's day with Grandpa and Dad. On Saturday, our Grandma and Grandpa from Tennessee came for a visit, which brings up a good point. The reason they were here is because our Uncle David has liver cancer. Would you please pray for him? He is not a believer, in fact, he is an atheist. So pray not only for his healing, but that he would come to know the Lord. Our Uncle Kyle also came to visit on Saturday. Pray for him also, because he not a Christian either. Also pray for his upcoming marriage. Three of our cousins are also engaged, most of whom are not Christians. Pray for them also.

Thank You!

Love~Haley

Oh! one other thing: Yesterday, our neighbor, who works at a landscaping business, came over and asked us if we wanted any vegetable plants. We said, "Great!", so she gave us a bunch of plants. Yesterday, we planted around forty cayenne pepper plants, ten banana pepper plants, along with cabbage and leaf lettuce, and now we need to find a place for broccoli, cauliflower, and forty zucchini plants! From a small garden to a large one!

Watermelon

Our family LOVES watermelon. Last year we ate sixty-some. This year, we have more people to eat the melons, so we will probably eat over 60. This watermelon is our 32nd.

Before we cut a watermelon, we all lay hands on it and pray, "Blessed art thou, Lord our God, King of the universe, that brings forth watermelon from the earth!"

"Hallelujah!!!"

It is delicious!

P.S. We all just finished going swimming. :~)

Mulberries!!!!!!

It's mulberry season! We have been having a great time picking the delicious little morsels! We probably won't make them into jam, just eat them plain and over cereal. Here are some pictures:

Grant holding Dad's hat, full of mulberries

The fruit of our labor!

Aren't they pretty?

A few mulberries, just waiting for the sun to smile on them so they can ripen up!

Dad lent us his hat to use for a bucket

Thank you, God, for creating mulberries!!!

Nappa Salad........

This is a salad that I often make to take to parties and reunions, mainly because it is so easy to make, and because people enjoy it so much.

The Ingredients:

1 head Nappa lettuce
1 bunch green onions

Toppings:
2 packages Ramen noodles
1 cup slivered almonds
1/2 cups seseame seeds
1 cup sunflower seeds
enough oil to cook topping in

Dressing:
1 cup olive oil

1 cup honey
1/2 cup vinegar (apple cider vinegar tastes best!)
1 teaspoon salt

First of all, I usually start the toppings, so they can cook while I make the salad.
Break up the ramen noodles, put all the ingredients in a pan.

Then pour oil over it. Turn the pan on and cook the toppings slowly--that way they don't burn.

After that, I cut up the lettuce and onions.

Now for the dressing. Measure out the liquids and put in the salt, then whisk together.

If you are taking the salad to a party, take the dressing, toppings, and lettuce separately and put together there.

Enjoy!
Haley

P.S. People sometimes ask where to get Nappa lettuce. We get ours from the local grocery. Sometimes it is called oriental cabbage. For the topping, we often use other nuts besides or with the ones listed. Here we used pecans.