Snowy Homestead Pt. 2

This time I want to show you what we see in the front of our home. Yesterday I heard that we are probably going to have a cold and snowy March, so I will have to wait for spring a bit longer. In a lot of ways I am very okay with that. The getting the garden ready to start can just hold off a bit longer so I can knit by the fire. The Lord seems to have me in a long reflecting and thinking period right now. I tend to withdraw while I get in these thinking periods, to explain a bit of my absence. Evaluating what I should and should not do and where my focus needs to be this year. Some figure out their goals on new years day but I tend to just start figuring out my goals at that time. Then I start to move towards my goals when the snow melts. I have really enjoyed playing with my camera recently. I still have to sit down and read the manual and I have a couple of books to read too. I think I am going to go slow and try to enjoy this process of learning. No pressuring myself and just enjoy the learning curve. I am going to be sharing as I can on what the Lord has me pondering. One step at a time.

Our Snowy Homestead Pt. 1

Winter thought we were fooled and spring was on it's way... but I knew better. For all the years we have been here in the Kootenay's I have learned that there is a annual warm up in February and then it snaps cold again. We woke up today to a winter wonderland again. I will show more hopefully in the next day or two. Here is a taste of what we see out my backyard windows.

A Time to Heal

This has been a learning curve with my frozen shoulder. Learning how to take better care of myself by stretching and pacing myself. I am happy to say that each week I am getting little bit better and less pain in my shoulder. ( still a slow process) During this I have noticed I have needed more sleep. This happened to me when I was battling my adrenal gland fatigue. I tend to wake up very early to get my hubby off to work. But when my body tells me I need more sleep I have been listening by going back to bed for a bit longer. The only down fall is the mornings is my time of day that it is totally quiet in the house and that is perfect for quiet times with the Lord. Also it is "my" time on the computer. We have one computer in the house that four of us share. So... if I want to blog, research, write emails, edit pictures , get on to Pinterest [o= ... it is mainly in the morning but everything in its time. I will rest in this season that I am going through and trust in the Lord.

(Knitting Luke's second sock and starting of a Shalom Cardigan II.)

My knitting is slow during this season too. I have come to really appreciated more of the use of my arms and hands in this experience. Appreciating how amazing our fingers, hands, arms, and shoulders work together in such intricate ways. I'm amazed at our nervous system. I have been having some semi-numbness in my fingers in my right hand which makes knitting with sock yarn a challenge because it is very thin. When I touch something warm it soothes all the way up my arm. So, I enjoy holding a warm cup'a tea or apple cider vinegar tonic in my hand or having my hands in warm water. ( a good motivator to wash dishes, lol) is such a blessing. I guess knitting the guys their socks will take a bit longer but I will get there eventually.

My Soaked Grain Bread Recipe

Ask and You Shall Receive...that is what happened to me.

God answered my prayers about my health...more than I could have dreamed. I have over the last year and half been on a journey of healing. I have learned that for years my body was highly stressed and toxic. The stress was out of my control and the Lord helped me through it. The toxic part was my doing but I didn't know I was inflicting myself. You might be asking what in the world? Well, I see there is a common issue in many people trying to get healthy again and starting to eat whole grains but they don't understand one very important thing. That is... we need to soak our grains before baking or cooking them. When I cried out to the Lord the second time for more healing he showed me the book " The Maker's Diet" by Jordan Rubin. He introduced to me the some of why and how to soak grains for food. Here is one video that shows how to sprout grains also.

This one cooking skill among others things ( which I will share over the next little while) has changed my state of health dramatically. I have seen my son's and my allergies diminish, my adrenal gland fatigue gone away, clearing up of my skin, no more hypoglycemic reactions. I use to almost faithfully fall asleep reading out loud to the boys after lunch. I couldn't understand why but little did I know I was having a hypoglycemic reaction. I would have to take a 15 minute power nap everyday to be able to function. This always made me nervous if I had to drive somewhere at that time. Now I don't have to worry about that, praise the Lord. I have one friend who is diabetic and was thinking she had to give up grains and I encouraged her to start soaking grains the amazing thing is she had no reaction when eating them. That was HUGE. My mother in law who has avoided grains for years because of the hypoglycemic sugar spike issue. She has come over and ate our soaked grain pancakes and had no reaction. I am dumbfounded at all these personal testimonies. Soaking grains about 100 years or more ago was common but became a almost lost skill. There has been a re-birth of this and one book I cannot recommend enough is Sally Fallon's book Nourishing Traditions... The Cookbook that Challenges Politically Correct Nutrition and Diet Dictocrats. Or you can get a lot of the same recipes and know how's HERE. I will be sharing other sites and recipes that we have found we love over time too, I promise.

But right now I would like to share my favorite bread recipe that I have tweeked and developed from another recipe. It has been a BIG winner where ever I serve it.

Homemade Whole Soaked Grain Bread Recipe

*Makes 4 loaves

*soak together for 8-24 hours, I highly recommend if possible closer to the 24 hours because it gets light and fluffier.

• 12 cups of ground whole wheat flour
• 1 cup of acid base....for example kefir, cultured buttermilk, whey, or 1/4 cup apple cider vinegar plus 3/4 ths cup water.
• 3 cups of warm filtered water
• 2 cups old fashioned or rolled oats
• 1 cup of honey ( what I do because my son is highly allergic to honey I fill my measuring cup halfway with sugar and fill the rest with boiled water stir and cool and then add to ingredients)
• 3/4 ths cup of soft butter ( you can also use melted coconut oil)
• 1/2 cup flax seeds, optional
• 2 Tablespoons of poppy seeds, optional

then add ....

• 1/2 cup water
• 3 Tablespoons active dry yeast
• 2 Tablespoons sea salt
• dough enhancer... a good pinch of powdered ginger, 3 Tablespoons of apple cider vinegar, 8 Tablespoons of vital wheat gluten.

• Knead the dough for 10 minutes
• butter very well a big bowl, a bit extra on the bottom because you will flip dough over to coat dough all around.
• cover ( personally I use my canner lid ) and let it rise for 1 to 1 1/2 hours in warm place.
• tip... I turn on the over at 350 for 2-3 minutes while I am mixing bread and turn off and turn on oven light.
• If you have time punch down and let it rise for 45 minutes for a second rising. If not go to the next step.
• Shape, place dough in buttered bread pans, make 3 slits with a serrated knife 1/4 inch deep, and let dough rise again for 30-45 minutes. I usually re-heat the oven at 150-170*F degrees for a couple of minutes and then turn off before I place the loaves in for the final rising.

• Leave loaves in and turn on the oven to 350*F and bake for 30-45 minutes. Bread is done when you can insert a cooking thermometer in the bottom of the bread loaf and it reaches 200*F .

• Remove from bread pans and cool.

From my kitchen to yours...

A Day Early Valentine's Day Celebration

Yesterday there was a lot of business going on in the kitchen. I got up and made bread before Handsome, Luke( 2ds) and I had to go to town. And soaking dough for Handsome to make noodles for our day early Valentine's dinner. He and Luke have curling tonight so we decided to celebrate on Monday night. I love it when my man cooks! That is one way he won my heart 22 years ago. He was the only guy who made me dinner and ohhh what good food he can cook too.

He made fettuccine Alfredo with smoked salmon and peas. For desert he made Cherry-o- Cheese pie. What more can a girl ask for??? Ohh and the tulips you see were from him too. Oh, I am so smitten with him still.

A Sample of My Days

This is a perfect example of how I think. I have so much going on in my head and days. A simple life does not equate sitting and ease. It just means less worrying about what the world thinks and getting back to being hands on in my life. I experience more of what makes my day a day. I cut past the middle person and make things myself and the joy of it all. Now, I am not against a little help. I have my maidservants... the clothes washer , dryer, Kitchen Aide, and food processor. All this has made it so I can stay home and embrace my calling to be a full time wife, mother, homeschool teacher, and fiber artist and for this I am very thankful.

I always am on the hunt to learn learn how to do things myself and cheese making seems to be a fascination right now. I have leaned how to make my own cream cheese, butter milk, Kefir. I am hoping to try to make cottage cheese, mozzarella cheese, ricotta cheese, and cheddar cheese this year. I have found some neat tutorials and will be trying them out real soon. As I learn I am happy to share with you soon what I learned.

I have FINALLY found a recipe ( and will share SOON) for black turtle bean soup with no tomatoes that tastes very good. typing is a bit much still so I will share over the next few weeks as I can. But I had to share the pictures I have taken while in my kitchen.

Just recently I went through a big doubting period with my bread making. All of a sudden my bread was not fluffy and nice and couldn't get to act right. I doubted myself so much that I started on the hunt for another recipe to get nice round topped bread again. I tried several recipes and I wasn't getting anything better. I went back to my favorite recipe and looked at each ingredient and evaluated it all. The issue of yeast stuck out at me and so I pulled out a new bag of yeast and started over the way I use to make my bread. And you know what? Everything worked out the way it was suppose to. It wasn't me...it was the yeast. What a relief to be able to go back to my favorite recipe that I tweaked and made my own recipe. I will be sharing that recipe first in a few days.

But I did learn something new this time around. It is better to just let it soak for 24 hours instead of 8-12. That soaking time makes is soooooooo nice and fluffy.

Another good thing that came from my bread searching time was dabbling once again in making sourdough bread. I am going through another learning curve and developing my hand at making this amazing bread. All in good time to master the art of sourdough.

( homemade sourdough starter from rye flour )

I don't know if you see this picture of cream cheese ( and whey) making on it's side our right side up. Photobucket is not cooperating with me today. ((sigh)) I hope you see it right side up. [o=

There really is lots of passive cooking going on in my kitchen lately. All these things that are soaked, fermented, or sprouted. As my hubby says there are a lot of science experiments going on in there. [o;

One last thing to share with you all. This is the view that is to the northeast and we get to see from our living room window. I love watching the sunrises over these mountains. God's creation is so amazing.

I lift my eyes up to the mountains and I know where my strength comes from.

Samples from the (Very Awaited) New Camera

Last week on Wednesday after one of my chiropractor appointments hubby and I popped over to a sale on the camera I have been eyeing for about a year now. It went on a good enough sale that my craft money was able to cover it. I was such a happy girl. It not only was on sale but I got the last one in the store, talk about close! Too close for comfort. I really haven't had much of a chance to play with it because of my frozen shoulder but I try here and there. These are some pics of my first day playing around. Hopefully it will get better with time. Also now after reading the booklets they sent in the box I am going to save up my craft money for a extra flash and zoom lens, all in time.

Going down a main strip of town.

Here is the BIG lake that makes me not miss the ocean soooo much, it is quite
BIG.

The barn on our neighbors land that we see from our driveway. I just love this old barn. The land use to be owned by one family but had been subdivided so the barn is on the other property now.

Here is our new kitty Aslan. We adopted him a couple of months ago and he is one of the sweetest kitties. I have never seen a cat need more affection than him and we all are okay with that.

Here is the mountain range to the south of us. I don't know how many know but we are surrounded by mountains on every side and I will work at showing them more this year. I am mesmerized how beautiful they are. I can never grow tired at their beauty.

I am healing very slowly and I am so very thankful that my shoulder is still moving and not totally frozen. For some reason it is easier to knead bread than it is for me to be on the computer. I will pop in when I can and will have to really pace myself.