As you first start using whole wheat flour, you will find that it doesn’t quite “behave” like the flour you buy in the store. You may find the bread doesn’t rise as much as your white bread and you are left with a denser, heavier loaf of bread. What’s the problem and what can you…

There’s not much that you really need to get started canning. A canner with rack and some canning jars with 2-piece lids will get you started. And maybe a jar lifter, magnetic lid wand, funnel and timer. Altogether all of this can cost you as little as $10 if you buy it at rummage sales…

Sometimes it’s hard to get enough vegetables into your family’s diet. You think picky toddlers are difficult? Try stubborn teenagers. One of my favorite ways to hide veggies is using veggie powder. You can put it into soups, casseroles and (my favorite) meat loaf or meat balls. I use it in the place of crackers…

Safety note: Whenever handling hot peppers, always wear disposable plastic gloves. Always. And wash hands thoroughly with soap and hot water after taking the gloves off.  This last week I finished making our family’s favorite: Sriracha. All the men in our family love this spicy condiment and chances are yours do too. It’s on our…

Let’s make canning less of a chore Canning can be a pretty overwhelming task, especially if you want to put up enough food to last your family all year. But if you have the right tools for the job, you can make the job a lot easier, saving your hours of work and headache. Let’s…

At the height of summer it can seem like there are more herbs coming from your garden than you could ever use in a hundred years. But you don’t want to waste a single bit of herb goodness coming out of your garden this year. So what can you do to make sure you get…

Remember back in November when turkeys were on sale for a ridiculously low price? You bought a a couple extras, didn’t you? A 28-lb turkey will yield about 7 qt jars of meat plus 7 pts of broth. That’s a lot of ready-to-heat meals from one turkey. But what if you didn’t buy any extra…

This week I dug up about 1/3 of my Jerusalem artichokes. The yield was 15 pounds  of tubers. Pretty good for a crop that you plant just once, huh? What’s Jerusalem artichoke? Well, for starters, it’s not at all like an artichoke. It bears no resemblance to the artichoke and is only a distant cousin. The…

November sales There are lots of great sales in November. I hope you are taking advantage of them. There’s turkey (of course), spices, flour, sugar, evaporated milk. And…celery. Well, I’m going to get eight bunches of celery. Because this is the perfect time to make celery powder. And nothing could be easier. Just rinse the…

I hope you’ll try this Last year I told you about how I preserved 5 lbs of lemons in salt. This was a new experiment for me and I wasn’t sure how it would turn out. Well, I’m happy to say, it was all I hoped for. Today, one year after putting the lemons in…

Every year I plant way too much Swiss chard. In my defense, it’s such an easy vegetable to grows and I forget how much just a couple rows will produce. Then I work all fall chopping, blanching and freezing dozens of bags of Swiss chard, only to have the family complain about it. Then I…

One of the best things to come out of the garden each year is asparagus. It’s a perennial vegetable that, once established, will give you years of vegetable deliciousness with very little work. In fact, after planting your vegetable garden, I highly recommend you make establishing an asparagus bed your next priority. Small investment, big…

We live in a disposable society. Just about everything that comes into our house is easily (and readily) replaced with something better, newer, cheaper or brighter. But our grandparents (who lived through some hard times) were just the opposite–they found a use and reuse for just about everything that came into the house. They were…

So, last October Ross’ co-worker gave him two kohlrabi—two GIANT kohlrabi. Normally kohlrabi is about the size of an apple or orange, weighing about  6-10 ounces each. But these were HUGE, each one weighing twenty pounds! I would have expected them to be woody and not very tasty. But I was wrong. These mega-veggies were tasty,…

If you don’t already routinely use whole wheat in your cooking, now is a good time to start. You’re probably already going to do a lot of holiday baking this month. So build on your cooking skills and use whole wheat from your food storage for your holiday treats. If you are already adept at…

A creative Wonderbox My sister, Cynthihah, had some red fabric that came to her free. So she used it to make a Wonderbox. But she thought this red was just a little too…RED. So, since she lives in Washington, she did the only logical thing: she turned it into an apple! How creative is that?…