My favorite cookie, actually molasses ginger cookies are my favorite but these are maybe tied
https://www.hersheyland.ca/en_ca/recipes/chocolate-chip-oatmeal-cookies-recipe.html
These always turn out when I substitute regular flour for gluten-free flour. Yummy.
This winter has been very snowy. Our chimney had a small fire at the beginning of Dec. The house is fine but we have to replace the Woodstove and put in a chimney liner. We have a guy arranged to do it but it hasn't happened yet so we are using oil to heat the house. Its going to be expensive but it is working well to heat the house. The kids had exams this past week but they only went to school 2 days. Now they have exams moved to this coming week. The weather network predicts a big snow storm Sunday into Monday. I expect there will be a snowday on Monday.
Everyone on media is getting prepared for being snowed in. I am always prepared to be snowed in. I am a bit of a doomsday prepper. If I was to get advice to anyone getting ready for a week of being snowed in.
For groceries I would stock up and always have on hand. Dried beans, oats, flour, yeast, sugar, canned foods thst you can eat without heat like tuna, fruit. Also I would buy tomato sauce. You can get powdered milk or cans of evaporated milk. Dried soup mix. Its handy to have small portable stove with propane canisters for back up just in case the power goes out.
I like to buy a whole chicken or turkey. Cooking the chicken the first day while you still have power. Chicken can be eaten cold with sandwiches. Remember you can cook up the bones for chicken broth which makes soup with dried beans and chopped chicken. You can get alot of meals out of a whole chicken. If the power goes out, Remember you can keep your chicken in a cooler outside.
Another great food staple is that you may already have the ingredients on hand for is vegetarian chili. I always have salsa, tomato sauce, spices and beans.
I canned a lot of food thst is ready to eat. Mostly all vegetables. I froze a lot of sliced apples from our apple tree. We like apple crisp and I always have the ingredients on hand. We also like to make cinnamon buns or regular buns since I have flour and yeast. Also pizza crust for another meal.
Today I made homemade granola with oats and shredded coconut craisins, Chia seeds, maple syrup.
Well the kids are back to school. I am working on bringing in and preserving the garden harvest. Its apple season now. I totalled up the canning jars in the cupboard. Here is the breakdown.
3 jars of crushed tomatoes I did in the pressure canner
12 jars of bread and butter pickles
9 1-quart size jars of dill pickles
8 strawberry jam
4 applesauce
22 salsa
6 pickled Beets
3 jars of dilly beans
5 Rhubarb sauce
1 jars of zucchini relish
In the freezer I did
6 medium ziplock bag of Houghs corn
Frozen Rhubarb
Frozen zucchini
Frozen tomatoes
Frozen pizza sauce
Many bags of Frozen peeled and sliced apples
What a satisfying feeling
We are in a drought. I have to water the garden almost twice a day. Its very hot and we have been running the air conditioner in our bedrooms and the dining room. The water that comes off the air-conditioning goes on the garden.
I made salsa from frozen tomatoes Jen had. I used my own ingredients but Lori's garlic. I also canned spicy dill green beans with mine and Jen's yellow, green beans.
I have tons of canning items for the winter. Today i canned 5 jars of pickled Beets.
https://dishnthekitchen.com/homemade-garlic-dill-pickles/
I made dill pickles. It was cucumbers I bought. It was a lot of work. I hope they are good. They need to sit for 4 weeks now. 8 big jars and 2 -500ml jars.
I also made green and yellow beans into dilly beans with a kick. I added dried jalapeƱos to the brine .
Now they have to rest 4 weeks.
6 large potatoes peeled and cut
Boil potatoes until pierce with a fork, drain add to a salad bowl with 3 tbsp of white vinegar .
Cook 3 strips of bacon until crispy. Chop up and add to potatoes. Stir, Put in fridge to cool. I often chop up potatoes smaller if needed when cool.
Boil 5 eggs, hard boiled, peel and loosely chopped.
Add eggs, 1/2 cup of mayo. 1 tbsp of ranch dressing, 1tbsp of mustard. Fresh dill chopped, fresh chives chopped, lots of pepper and salt
Chopped red or green pepper, chopped celery, diced 1/2 and onion or green onions
Mix and cool. Let it sit for 2 hours. Yum
2 stalks of celery
1 small onion
1 large carrot
Dice these ingredients and put in a soup pot
2 chicken breast chopped
Saute these ingredients with 1 tbsp of oil. Once vegetables are tender, add 1 tbsp of butter melt in pot. Add two tablespoons of flour stir to incorporate flour.
Add 8 cups of chicken broth, I have used homemade turkey broth also
Add 1/2 tsp garlic salt, 1/2 tsp of dried oregano, 1 tsp basil, and pepper
Stir and scrape bottom of pot to lift flour. Bring to a boil , lower to simmer. Let cook 15 mins
Add 1 can of coconut milk 400ml
Add gnocchi to pot 500grams
I use 2 frozen balls of spinach, but you could use baby spinach or chopped frozen kale.
Cook 10 minutes with spinach and let sit for another 10 minutes. The gnocchi keeps cooking and it will help thicken the stew. Adjust seasoning if needed.
We had a surprise birthday party for Gary last Wed. I over bought food. Costco sandwiches, 3 veggies trays. Lori brought cupcakes, Jane did a cheese and crackers tray. Debbie Batchilder did a fruit tray and a veggies tray. The party was huge success.
With leftover veggies I made cheese broccoli soup and tomato vegetables soup for my neighbors with rhubarb crisp.
Today I made 2 Sheppard pie for my neighbors and greek pasta salad for both of us. A lasagna for us and a rhubarb crisp for supper. I'm going to try a chicken tortellini broccoli Alfredo bake later this week.
Today is Tuesday April 1st. My girls LOVE a joke. I didn't want to let them down so even though it was 10:30pm I googled easy pranks and made red jello in cups and left them to set in the fridge overnight.
I asked my kids what they were going to do today. I'm proud to say that they understand that a day at home is a day to create. Emily wanted to start with
Cinnamon buns. But her recipe was a baking powder instead of yeast so she agreed to turn them into tea biscuits. Then she made amazing chocolate chip oatmeal cookies.
Ashley has alot of homework to do this weekend. But also she made me the yellow spoon rest in the photo. I'm very proud of the people my girls are. I made crockpot tomatoes sauce yesterday. Today I pureed it and made spaghetti sauce for supper.
Great day inside. Emily is now sewing pockets into her female pants thst have no pockets. Why do female pants have no pockets? There is nothing these girls can't do.
I don't know where I first got this apple crisp recipe. I learned from my mom how to make apple crisp this way. It's delicious and everyone loves it. Often my kids eat apple crisp for breakfast. In my mind it's just apples and granola. When apples are in season I peel, slice and freeze apples in freezer bags so I can make apple crisp all winter.
Apple Crisp
topping
Happy middle of winter. It's minus 15 today. We returned from Mexico on Saturday night. It was a great trip with the girls. Since we got home I've been craving homemade meals. Especially soup. I did a big grocery order on Sunday. I had a few recipes in mind. I bought frozen spinach in balls for the first time. I made a new recipe sausage, potatoes white kidney beans and spinach soup. It was so good. The sausage was a bit spicy so the soup had a kick. I made a pot for the Hough's and a pot for us.
https://thecozyapron.com/sausage-soup/#recipe-bookmark
Gary had a bad cold so I also made him chicken noodles soup with my famous Mr Noodles.
Tuesday I made spaghetti sauce and a lasagna for the freezer. I pulled some homemade applesauce muffins out of the freezer and made applesauce muffins for the kids. They loved them. I also made chocolate chip cookies and ate them all. Just kidding, I froze half.
Today my sweet friend Karolina offered me, tomatoes from her garden. She has a Beautiful garden. She said she has canned all the salsa and tomato sauce she wants for this year.
This month of August has been busy. I have surgery Aug 8th. Then Aug 11 we left on a trip to the east coast. Gary did all the driving. Our first night we stayed at Edmunston for the night. Our next night we drove to Hillsborough NB. It was a beautiful cabin. We stayed there 2 nights.
potatoes in a pot. We also have 40 potato plants in the ground 
snow peas
tomatoes and peppers, Cantaloupe, Beets, Thai basil, also yellow beans.
onions from seed
Zucchini I their own patch. Only 4 seeds
dill and future cucumbers Another garden season has started. The winter was very mild. We had days in February at 15 degrees. I enjoyed being able to take my fogs for walks in every month of the winter and not being snowed in.
For Christmas I received an aero garden ftom my bestie Jen. It's a water garden to start seeds inside. It's fantastic! I have grown all the garden seeds for Jen and I, tons of herbs and tomatoes and peppers.
I love this
