New Year Wishes and Resolutions

Happy New Year!
Here are a few quotes and sayings I like for the New Year.

Photo from Pinterest

HAVE  hope
TRY new things
BE active
SEE the good
SAY I love you more
CHALLENGE yourself
CHOOSE to be happy
EAT better
ENJOY today
FORGIVE more readily
READ more often
BECOME your best you

"The greatest need of this nation is strong, healthy, intact families. 
The greatest thing you can do as a mother is to strengthen your own family. 
Build your family life. 
Don't get involved in too many things outside your home. 

You will become flustered, frazzled, and the family will become fragmented. 
Instead, think of ideas to gather the family together. 
Think of things to do that will strengthen your family.  
Daily gather around your family meal table for your meals. 
As you strengthen and build up your family, also seek to 
encourage and bless other families around you. "

Hearty Beer Bread

A rich thick hearty easy bread to make, this is I think the best beer bread I have made so far.  

There is no kneading or rising needed so it’s super easy to make. 

Beer adds its own unique flavor and because it's a product of fermentation, it also adds its own leavening agent.

The bread will take on what ever character or flavor of beer you use, so the bread can and will taste a little different each time you make it.

I like using Imports, stouts or stronger flavors of beer.  

But a domestic beer will work just fine too.

And in case putting beer in bread is of concern for you, a great percentage of the alcohol evaporates during the baking process.

There are many debates as to whether beer or bread came first in early civilization. But one thing is certain; both have been in the human diet for thousands of years.

Beach Vacation Ornament

Beach or Vacation Ornament

Here's a cute idea for a last minute ornament or one to commemorate a vacation.

Recently we took a trip to Orlando and St. Augustine, Florida and spent a few days on the beach.

While shopping around St. Augustine's historical downtown I saw similar ornaments like these going for $10.00 to $15.00 a piece!

Mine cost approximately $1.00 a piece for the clear bulb. The sand and shells are free to collect on the beach.

Beach Ornament

What You'll Need:

• Clean sand from the beach
• Small shells or other interesting beach items
• Ribbon or twine
• Funnel
• Wire

Coconut Macaroons

Here's another of our favorite Christmas cookies: Coconut Macaroons.

These are easy cookies to make, have just a few ingredients, but pack a big punch of flavor.

Adding a little almond extract gives the cookie just enough extra flavor, but not enough to over shadow the coconut.  
If almond is the flavor you wish to dominate add a little more extract.

These store well in a sealed air tight container.

These can be made Gluten Free, just use GF flour.

Lemon Bars

I usually bake cookies to give out as gifts during the Holidays.  Some years I have made as many as 50 to 60 dozen cookies!
Each year I get the most requests for this cookie recipe.  And I have to say it is one of my favorite cookies too.

Many Lemon Bar or Lemon Cookie recipes call for lemon zest or grated lemon rind added to the cookie.  I have found that the zest or rind added makes the cookie slightly tarter.  Without it, the cookie is a perfect delicate lemon flavor with a delicious crust.

These cookies are best kept in the refrigerator but after tasting them they may not last long enough to worry about it.  If giving as gifts, I suggest you wrap each individual cookie bar in Sarah Wrap so they store better, do not stick together and do not absorb the odor or flavors from other cookies.

Vintage Paper Ornaments

Vintage Christmas Ornaments

I have been making homemade Christmas ornaments and decorations for years, going back to my childhood.  My sisters and I would make paper chains to hang on our family Christmas tree and I still have wooden Charlie Brown ornaments I painted when in my early teens, and a beaded boot ornament from my late teens.

Many years I made ornaments for each of my children, and then as they got older, married and had families, I sometimes made an ornament for each of the grand-kids.

Recently a few of my sisters, my daughters and a couple friends and I have been doing ornament exchanges.

Fall Leaf Place Cards

Fall or Thanksgiving Place Cards made with leaves.

I use the few days leading up to Thanksgiving to pre-bake desserts, dry the bread crumbs for stuffing, set the table and multiple other tasks to cut down on the work load on Thanksgiving Day.  

One of the things I made ahead is place cards.  I started using place cards a few years ago more for fun than actual assigned seating.

Along with these leaf place cards another of my favorites for fall is my Scrapbooking Place Cards.

These leaf place cards take only a few supplies are easy-peay to make and look beautiful on the table.

Supplies Needed:

Family Stories

My parents,
Aprox late 1930's

Remembering stories told by my father, Arthur Seymour

Growing up my father Arthur (Art for short) used to tell us stories of the adventures in got himself into as a kid growing up in the country.

I remember asking and begging for him to retell the stories to us. I also remember waiting up for my father to come home from work.  He worked a full time job but also was always working in his spare time.  He had a quarter acre garden every year, built the house we lived in and all the outbuildings, hunted and had a firewood selling business on the side. Many nights he would come home late.  One of my fond memories is him chasing us littlest kids around the house, catching us and rubbing his chin whiskers on our face.

My father passed away many years ago, way before my youngest children got to know him which saddens me.  He was not perfect, in truth he had many flaws, but the good times were the best!

Homemade Vegetable Soup

This soup can be made with garden or farm market fresh vegetables, vegetables you canned during summer months, leftovers or store purchased.

Making a large pot of soup at one time leaves enough leftovers to heat up on a cold snowy day when you are short on time.  
Canning the soup will be even handier to quickly heat and serve for a quick meal after a day playing in the snow or hiking. 

Tip:
Here’s a great tip a friend gave me.  Anytime you have leftover vegetables from a meal, simply store them in a Ziploc freezer bag.  Keep adding different leftover vegetables until you have enough to make a pot of vegetable soup!

And don’t be afraid to add different types of vegetables like squash, cabbage, peas or lima beans.  Each will add their own distinct flavor to the soup.

Thanksgiving Place Cards

Place Cards Using Scrapbooking Paper

First, for those of you who have never used them before, you may be wondering what exactly is a place card?  

A place card is a card or something similar bearing a person's name and used to mark their place at a dining or meeting table.

It’s really anything you wish to use with a name tag on it, placed on the table for assigned seating. 

The placing of the place cards are usually never set in stone at my house. As guests arrive they like to rearrange where they and others are sitting.  Some guests wish to sit next to other guests (or far away from them), so they just move their place card. 

My kids like to keep their personalized place cards as a keepsake each year and we have fun making them. 

Some years I purchase place cards and just embellish them, but most years I make them myself.

Indian Tacos

Indian Taco (Sioux, Cherokee or Navajo)

My husband and I and our kids have a love for South Dakota and the Black Hills.  We have made several trips out West and always discover something new, beautiful or amazing (sometimes all at once) on each trip.

This last September just my husband Bill and I made the trip.

When planning the trip, we made sure to reserved a couple days to drive the back roads off the beaten tourist routes, through and around the Badlands National Park and into the Pine Ridge Indian Reservation with a stop at the Wounded Knee Massacre Site. 

Fall Decorated Christmas Tree

Decorating a tree for Autumn or Halloween

I got the idea for this tree a few years ago after seeing one in a home I was visiting.  I loved it!

I took the idea home with me, changed it a little and made it my own.

I have a bay window in my kitchen and since purchasing our farm, have had a Christmas tree in that window decorated for Christmas to match my kitchen.

I started out with the 3 foot tree for an autumn themed tree for October and have since purchased a 4 foot tree to hold all the wonderful fall and Halloween decorations I have found.

Halloween Costume Ideas, Part 2

This is the second blog post on Easy Halloween Costume Ideas.
Click here for the first blog post:  Halloween Costume Ideas, Part 1

Army costumes and a football player

Who doesn't love fall and Halloween? Around our house, we get really excited thinking about the coming pumpkin recipes, fall leaves, corn stalks, stews, college football and all things autumn. We even have an annual Fall Party. 

When the kids were little I made all their costumes.  Most years the costumes were made by hand and accessories purchased to go with them.  As they got older I started creating some of the costumes from clothing I found at thrift stores or second hand stores, then made or purchased the remaining items needed. 

Was I especially crafty?  No, not especially, not really.  I taught myself as I went along, learning from a lot of mistakes.  Looking for parts and pieces to use for Halloween costumes made it much easier and saved lots of time and sewing.

Moist Banana Nut Bread

I really adore bananas and use them in many dishes, try to eat 4 to 5 of them a week and even make my own homemade Banana Cream Pie.

There are many banana nut bread recipes out there and many are pretty good. But of all the Banana Nut Bread recipes I have tried, (and there have been many), this one is my absolute favorite.  It turns out moist and delicious every time with lots of banana flavor. 

I also like that it makes enough to eat now and enough to save a loaf for later.  This recipe makes perfect mini loaves for gift giving around the Holidays.

This recipe came from my husband’s cousin’s wife Casey Elder.  She posted on Facebook in 2010 about how wonderful this bread was and something like her whole house smelled divine from baking banana nut bread.  (Maybe that part I envisioned in my own head, lol)

Broccoli Salad

Retro Recipe: Broccoli Salad

This is an oldie but still a favorite with my family and great to serve at parties, potlucks, holidays and barbecues.

I actually do not remember where I first tasted this salad but think it was either in the late 1970's or sometime in the 1980's.  Yea, that long ago!  
Years pasted and one summer after having a nice crop of home grown broccoli I decided to once again look up the recipe.
Broccoli Salad is simple to make, has ingredients you may already have on hand and is delicious. 
And a great way to get kids to eat broccoli!