Ball Blue Book of Preserving....GIVEAWAY!

In honor of Memorial Day, and also because I find myself blessed with two copies, I am giving away the Ball Blue Book of Preserving. It is a great resource for, well, preserving.
Speaking of preserving, I watched a fun DVD the other night: The Art of Canning with the West Ladies 
Please leave a lovely comment here and I will enter you to win the canning book.
XOXO
Joce

In a hurry bread

Hey.
Bread is a staple of our meals around here. We don't really eat pasta or potatoes very often- we like to eat bread. Sometimes, I forget to start a dough in time for dinner.
Here's the deal:
Italian Bread
from Joel Smith via Kara Riedl
5-6 C bread
2 T yeast
1 T salt
2 T sugar
2 C hot tap
 Combine 4 C flour with dry ingredients. Add hot tap water, combine. Add 1-2 more C flour while kneading 8 minutes. Shape into 2 round loaves, brush with water, cut an 'X' in the top and bake at 400 F from a cold oven for 40 minutes. Place a bowl of water on lower rack in oven for crusty crust.

Yum yummy yum yum.

Now, I am going to go eat it.
XOXO
Joce

Don't forget.

Thank a Veteran. Walk over to the guy who stands up in church on Sunday and shake his hand.

Visit a cemetary and say thanks. Show your kids the little flags, tell them what they stand for.

Happy Memorial Day.

XOXO
Joce

Mulberry Cream Muffins

From http://allrecipes.com/Recipe/Blueberry-Cream-Muffins/Detail.aspx, with my personal tweaks in italics.

Ingredients
4 eggs
1 cup brown sugar
1 cup raw sugar
1 cup vegetable oil
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
2 cups all-purpose flour
1cup oat flour
1 cup oats
1 teaspoon salt
1 teaspoon baking soda
2 cups yogurt
2 cups mulberries
Directions
1.Preheat oven to 400 degrees F (200 degrees C). Grease 24 muffin cups or line with paper muffin liners.
2.In large bowl beat eggs, gradually add sugar while beating. Continue beating while slowly pouring in oil. Stir in vanilla and yogurt. Sift together flour, salt and baking soda.
3.Stir dry ingredients into egg mixture. Gently fold in blueberries. Scoop batter into prepared muffin cups.
4. Mix 1/2 C sugar, 1/3 C flour, 1/4 C butter, 1 t cinnamon until it looks like crumbs. Sprinkle appr. 1/2 T onto each muffin.
5.Bake in preheated oven for 20 minutes.

Yummy.

XOXO
Joce

Some of you may know that I do not watch TV. Zero, zip, zilch, nada, none, not any, none at all.
I have not had time to post about all the reasons I do not watch TV (one of which is that I do not have time, LOL). However, this rhyming lady sums up one of the reasons I do not watch the BOOB TUBE.

So cute

Please head on over to Just simply Live and check out the pics of Brilyn and Kylie. Holy cute.
XOXOX
Joce

Love Language: Gifts

So, I read a blog post that I liked. And I wrote a huge long comment. I was like, man, my posts aren't even this long usually. So.
Here's the link to the post.
And here's my comment (with a few alterations to make it more post-y):

I agree that it IS SO HARD to understand your spouse's gift style. It makes you want to change how that person gives and RECEIVES gifts. But. It doesn't work that way. It shows more love on your part to give how the other person enjoys receiving.


I like a gift that says you know me...so ice cream, chocolate, books, and warm fuzzy things (like socks, mittens, etc.) make me feel so happy. Expensive gifts don't mean much to me unless they are something I really need.

Like Towels. I could use a new set of towels for my bathroom. LOL.

Maybe my husband will read that? HAHAHAHA.

Every thoughtful gift (the ones I didn't eat that is) I have ever received is placed carefully in my home so that I see them frequently. Because when I see them, I feel loved.

Anyway, my husband doesn't like gifts at all. He thinks they are shallow. Buy what you need at a good price when it becomes available. He thinks things are just that. Things.

However, a clean house or a job marked off his to-do list without him having to do it makes him feel so loved. This thought is as hard to cram into my brain as my liking presents is for his brain. Honestly, I just don't like to do dishes and I don't understand how that is a present to him. But It Is.

So, slowly, we have tried to get this down. And, when he doesn't get me a gift, (Like for Mother's Day and our anniversary yesterday- not kidding-) I remember that he really does love me and he shows me in a different way. Like, he let me sleep in yesterday. He did all the outdoor chores, milked the cow, and gave the kids a snack, a movie, and directions not to wake the mommy. All before he left for work. So, I knew I was loved. And, he did the grocery shopping while I was at choir practice. I knew enough to put "ice cream for Jocelyn" on the list, and he knew enough to get chocolate with peanut butter swirl. :)

Learn to give and receive gifts according to your spouse's style. It's cool like being bilingual. You can speak it AND understand it.

XOXO

Joce

The One-Third Rule

My rule for book reading is, that if after the first 1/3 of the book I am not thrilled, I do not keep reading. Life is too short to read mediocre books.
Well.
I have now been married one-third of my life. And, since I have enjoyed the story so far at least as much as any book I have read (well, maybe with the exception of Harry Potter, and The Hobbit, and ...no, no, never mind, just those two. LOL) I think I will keep reading to see where this story heads next. To tell the truth I think I will enjoy what is to come even more!

10 years today! Whoa.

XOXO
Joce

Raw milk discussion

Read the article if you want.

Make sure you laugh appropriately at this:

“Geographically speaking, the area where the manure is isn’t that far from the utters where the milk comes from,” Sarah Klein, an attorney for the Washington, D.C.-based food and nutrition think tank

I can't let that one go. Rarely do I find such an amazing example of stupid.
1. Geographically. Perhaps she was using a map.
2. Manure. FYI- wiki says: "Manure is organic matter used as organic fertilizer in agriculture. In the past the term "manure" included inorganic fertilizers, but this usage is now very rare."  Maybe she means they park the spreader near the milk house?
3.  Utters. Holy cow. I am not even sure how to make fun of that. A talking cow joke? A comment about how many 'utters' does she think a cow has? Goodness gracious. People are taking her seriously, QUOTING HER IN A NEWSPAPER.  Utters. LOL.
4. And, I just can't help but bash her for her dangling preposition. Please Ms. Klein, at least have the self respect to spew your drivel using proper English. "...utters where the milk comes from." Heaven help me.

Anyway. The article was okay...that quote was just irresistable to me. LOL.

For a good article on raw milk..go here.

An excerpt:


For the past century, however, we’ve done our best to wall ourselves off from microbes. In 1989, David Strachan put forward the “hygiene hypothesis,” which posed that this separation could be causing the increased incidence of immune disorders. As the years have passed, many studies have helped refine his proposal. Scientists found that hygiene itself wasn’t a problem. People who never used antibacterial soap were just as likely to have asthma as those who scrubbed obsessively. In a 2006 study of thousands of children living on farms in Shropshire, England, Strachan and another scientist, Michael Perkin, found that raw-milk drinkers were unlikely to have eczema or to react to allergens in skin-prick tests. “The protective effect of unpasteurized milk consumption was remarkably robust,” Strachan and Perkin wrote. Then, in May of 2007, a group of scientists published a paper after surveying almost 15,000 children around Europe. They found that children who drank raw milk were less likely to have any among a wide range of allergies. Either there’s something about industrial milk that’s harmful, Perkin wrote in a commentary that accompanied the paper, or there’s something in raw milk that’s beneficial.

Or visit Real Milk for more info.
XOXO
Joce