Mock Pork Marbella

This is a modification of a recipe from a couple of different places. The following is my variation of it and my family nearly lick their plates clean.


The key component for this is the pork loin. We use our own pork loin from pigs that were raised by a friend which we then butcher and process ourselves. So, I KNOW the quality of meat it top of the line and healthy.

Spray the bottom of a roasting pan.You can use a cast iron Dutch Oven if you have one- just do the whole process right in the Dutch Oven. If I am doing two loins, or two half-loins, I use my roaster so that I don't use up all the space in my oven.  Rinse and trim (if needed/necessary) the pork loin. I usually leave some of the fat on as that's where the flavor is! 

Sear all the sides of the loin in a frying pan that has been oiled with either bacon grease or coconut oil.  Remove loin to your roasting pan. Pour in 1 cup of balsamic salad dressing- off brand works fine- and bring to a simmer. Scrape all those delicious brown bits of flavor from the bottom of the pan. Pour the liquid back into your measuring cup and add a hefty splash of straight balsamic vinegar and 1/4 cup brown sugar. Stir well so the sugar dissolves. Add in 1 clove of garlic, minced, 1 T dried basil, 1/2 T dried oregano, and a pinch of salt.

Still following along? Don't quit on me now!

Now, add into your liquid 1/4 cup halved green olives and about 1/2 cup of prunes that have been roughly chopped.

Put the loin in the roasting pan and pour the liquid mix over top. Cover. Bake at 325 deg. until done. I did it one time for 4 hours and it was so moist and buttery, you almost needed to eat it with a spoon!

When it's done, take it out of the pan and set it aside, covered with a foil tent for 10 minutes to let it rest. Meanwhile, make a roux of butter and flour in a sauce pan. I use 2 T butter (no substitutes) and about 3 T flour. Skim off the fat from the drippings and discard. Strain out the olives and the some of the prunes. Set aside. Make a gravy with the liquid and roux. Add back in some of the prunes to the gravy.

To serve: either slice and place on platter with the olives and prunes scattered over top, or leave whole on platter and scatter the olives and prunes over top for presentation.

I serve this with a mashed potatoes and either carrots or broccoli. Round this meal out with some home baked bread, and you've got a winner!

This is equally good with boneless, skinless chicken or turkey breasts, or bone-in chicken thighs. We use the broilers that we raise ourselves or the turkeys our son raises for 4H. I think it makes all the difference in the final product when you use ingredients about which you can feel confident. Don't you?

Image courtesy of rakratchada torsap / FreeDigitalPhotos.net

Enjoy!

Mock Pork Marbella

1 pork loin, approx 3-4 lbs, trimmed as desired
1 cup any brand balsamic salad dressing
1/4 cup (hefty splash) of balsamic vinegar
1/4 cup brown sugar
1 T basil
1/2 T oregano
1 clove garlic, minced

Sear meat in bacon grease or coconut oil on all sides. Place into greased roasting pan. Pour in 1 cup balsamic salad dressing into browning pan and bring to a simmer. Scrape up all the little delicious bits of browned meat. Add rest of ingredients and pour over meat. Cover and cook at 325* until tender- 4 hours or so.

Remove. Tent. Make gravy. Serve. Inhale. Enjoy. Collect praises of awesomeness for mad kitchen skillz.

Oh, and clean up. 

Homemade Bread

The recipe book refers to this as Very Good Bread. My family and I have to agree.

Once you start making bread, be careful. It's hard to go back to store bought bread once you've made this one. The natives get restless without homemade bread and will stage a coup if batches are produced too far apart. 

6 cups of bread flour* (AP works, but not as well)
2 1/4 cups of whole wheat flour
2 cups of hot water
1 cup of cool water
3/4 cup of oil
2 T fast acting yeast
2 t salt
1/3 cup brown sugar

Put the two flours, salt, yeast, and brown sugar in big bowl. Mix well. Add in the water and oil. Knead until very soft and pliable- about 10-15 minutes.

**If you have a Kitchen Aid mixer, the directions go like this: Put flours, salt, sugar, and yeast into mixing bowl. Turn on mixer with bread hook. SLOWLY pour in the water and oil. Keep mixer on low speed for about 5-7 minutes.

Turn out into a large, greased bowl and spray with oil. Cover and let rise until double in size. Punch down, separate into 4 equal piles. Form into loaf shape and put into greased bread pans. Poke holes in top with fork. Let rise again until double in size.

Bake in heated 400* oven 18-22 minutes or until golden brown and hollow when thumped.

My Amish friend takes her butter wrappers and wipes them over her loaves of bread when they come out of the oven but that is purely optional. 

Immediately turn out onto wire racks to cool.


*Bread flour is a high-gluten flour that produces the most tender bread ever. If you can't get your hands on it, don't worry, your bread will still be better than anything from the store!


If you ever have stale, leftover bread, try this recipe for homemade bread crumbs. 

Vanilla-Glazed Apple Cookies...Hello, Autumn!

Finally! An autumn recipe that contains not one iota of pumpkin!

This recipe comes from a 1965 Good Housekeeping Cookbook. I have another one that I use frequently from the same era (that I stole from my mom) that starts out by saying, "The way to a man's heart" is by cooking a great meal. I'll let you ponder that while I eat these Vanilla-Glazed Fresh Apple Cookies 

Start with 1/2 cup shortening (remember, kids, the book is from 1965). 

Add in 1 1/3 cups brown sugar and 1 egg. 

Cream those together.

In a separate bowl, sift 2 cups flour, 1 t baking soda, 1/2 salt, 1 t cinnamon,
1/4 t fresh nutmeg, and 1 t ginger (original recipe calls for cloves instead of ginger, but I intensely dislike cloves, so ginger it is).

With mixer running on low, pour in half the flour mixture, 1 cup finely chopped apples (peelings left on, if desired. I leave it on- it's easier that way), 1/4 milk or apple juice, then remaining flour mixture. It should resemble something similar to this:

Drop them by scooper-fulls onto a greased baking sheet 

and bake at 375* for 11-14 minutes, or until done. 

 Remove to wire rack to cool. 

I put mine on the rack with a cookie sheet under them

to catch the crumbs and the overflow of the glaze.

Mix up a quick vanilla glaze of 1 1/2 cups powdered sugar, 1 T soft butter, 1/4 t vanilla, 

and 2 1/2 T light cream.

These are actually just as good the next day, if they make it that long, as they are the first day. They store really well as long as you layer them on wax paper.

The kids love these and I have been able to tweak the recipe enough to make them gluten-free (I just use my own gluten-free flour mixture). They can even be dairy free, just use apple juice in the dough and again in the glaze recipe. 

I hope you are able to make up a batch of these soon. You won't be disappointed!

They are so delicious you won't even miss the pumpkin~

Mother Earth News Fair

A few months ago I was scrolling through my Facebook news feed and this post came up for the Mother Earth News Fair. I had heard of Mother Earth News and had read their magazines while sitting in the library waiting for the kids' summer reading program to end. And I loved them.

I discovered that Mother Earth News puts on a fair in different parts of the country during the year. The closest one to me was going to be in Pennsylvania in the middle of September. I talked with a friend and we decided to attend. Our daughters decided that we couldn't go by ourselves and have all the fun, so they came with us (as a mama, that made the trip even better).  

First of all, the entrance fee is so reasonable it's crazy- if you place your ticket order early, you can get a 3 day ticket for $25. And kids under 18 are FREE. So, yeah, crazy prices.

I looked around and found a B&B for us to stay in for the weekend- again, crazy reasonable pricing. Plus, breakfast was included. The room was clean, the breakfast was hearty, and the other guests were a riot. We all had a great time together.

We left for our destination early Friday morning and arrived at our B&B around noon. After checking in and depositing our bags, we headed to Seven Springs Resort for the fair.

Let me tell you something: I was blown away. Seriously. The venue, the weather, the scenery. Oh, and let's not forget the actual fair itself! The vendors. The workshops. The education. The people. And I usually am not a real big fan of people. But these 15,000 people were just like me! They were seeking knowledge about living life. About being alive. About doing stuff that matters, not just today, but into the future. About realizing that the status quo isn't all it's cracked up to be. About finding a new way to do an old task. About making a difference. About not settling for something that works just because it appears convenient.

You are probably expecting me to describe these people as older, hippie-ish, tree-hugging, no animal product, women in long, flowing skirts, birkenstocks, and long hair everywhere. Ah, no. Not at all. There were so many families. So many people in my generation. I couldn't believe how many people under the age of 45 were there. It was amazing. And so encouraging!

I took workshops on crop rotation, herbalism, goat cheese making, hops growing...can you say 'diversity?' There were over 200 workshops to choose from! I learned so much over the weekend that I felt as though my brain had turned to mush and was leaking out of my ears.

A few words of advice:

• Take good notes. Even if you don't think it matters at the time, take them anyway. You won't regret it- you will regret thinking that you can remember everything you heard in the workshop
• Good walking shoes. Obviously. 
• More money than you think you'll need. Although, most of the vendors are set up to take credit/debit cards now on their smart phones, cash is king
• Go with a friend or friends. You can a) divide and conquer and make it to twice as many workshops if you split up and b) have someone to process information with.
• At least one bag- preferably a backpack- for you to haul stuff in. 
• Don't feel like you have to have basic knowledge in any given area in order to attend a particular workshop. I found that most of the presenters went from basic to advanced teaching within one hour. It was fascinating. 
• GO

If this has piqued your interest at all, wonderful. If not, sorry 'bout your luck.

Simple Pizza Tater Tot Bake

I could come up with no better name for this dish than that.

Creativity isn't my strong suit, okay?

Couldn't be easier:

Brown a 1 1/2lbs of either ground beef or pork (I used our seasoned pork mixture)
Drain and put back in pan.
Add in 1/2 large can of crushed tomatoes, a splash of Worcheshire sauce, 1/2 palmful of dried basil, 1/4 palmful of dried oregano, S&P.
Mix together.
Throw in a few handfuls of frozen spinach and stir.

Pour into greased 9x13 baking pan.
Add banana pepper slices, pepperoni, mushrooms, chopped bacon, green peppers, jalapenos- whatever else you would put on a pizza.
Cover with a layer of tater tots and a generous portion of mozzarella cheese.
Bake in a preheated 400* oven for 35-45 minutes or until tots are crispy.

There ya have it. Simple. Pizza Tater Tot Bake.

My family polished off all but one small square of this for dinner last night and no one came into the kitchen at 8.30 looking for a snack before bed. Win!

Easiest.Crisp.Ever.

This recipe will totally make your life easier. I promise.

Picture it, Sicily, 1942- you are on the meal train at your church and need to add a dessert recipe to your dinner offering. Or a new neighbor moves in and you'd like to welcome them to the area. Or a last-minute potluck lunch comes up with your homeschooling group at the park.

I'm not even kidding when I say this crisp recipe has the potential to change your life.

Ready? Set. Go.

Preheat oven to 375* or 350* if using glass baking dish.

Spray your baking dish. I use either a 9x9 or a 9x13

Put a thick layer of any type of fruit in said baking dish. The most recent two times I made this, I used frozen apples. Ahhhmazing.

In a medium size bowl, combine equal parts brown sugar and rolled oats (I use Wheat Montana's 7 Grain Cereal which I have a certain affinity for, as discussed in this post) and half of that amount of whole wheat flour. With your fingers, blend in that same amount that you used for either brown sugar or oats of real butter. (Spelled out: example- 1/2 cup of brown sugar, oats, 1/4 cup of flour, 1/2 cup of butter) Add a healthy sprinkle of cinnamon, ginger, and a 1/4 tsp of baking power, and a pinch of salt.

Sprinkle on top of fruit. Spray top with baking spray if you like it super crispy, like I do.

Bake until fruit is tender and topping is browned.

Viola.

As my daughter says, "easy peasy, lemon squeasy"

Trust me: you cannot screw this up.


Some fruit combinations that are a big hit around my house:

You can use frozen, fresh, or canned-
Apple- add nutmeg into topping
Apple and cranberries-
Pear
Pear and raspberry
Black raspberry, blackberry, and blueberry
Peach- add nutmeg into topping
Peach and raspberry
Peach and pear
Rhubarb and peach

You can totally make this with gluten-free flour and certified gluten-free oats.

Enjoy!

It's All Good

We have kids!

The four-legged kind!

The cute as a button, jump like popcorn kernels, lanky, leggy kind.

Check out the video of their first time seeing grass. As my Amish friends say, "Joomba!"  It means "jump."

And do you know what that means? It means that we have to redo the inside of our barn. Oh joy.

These next few weeks will be filled with pounding posts, building stalls, putting up tin, and generally making our barn more of a safe haven for our little animals from the big, bad, wiley coyotes that live very close by.

While we're at it, we're building a bigger and better chicken run for our hens, too. For as much as I love having them forage through the property for their daily intake of bugs, worms, grubs, and so much more, I don't love them digging up the garden once it's planted or laying their eggs under the raspberry bushes. So, we have to corral them for a few months while we grow and harvest the food I'll can and preserve for our family. They'll be let back out to roam once the last of the potatoes have been dug early this fall.

I was talking with someone a few weeks ago and they had mentioned how as their kids had gotten older (mid-teen years) their farm  had gotten smaller. I thought: how nice. The older our kids get, the bigger our farmingness (<--is that a word? It is now) gets. The older they get, the more things they get interested in. Rare breed pigeons. Meat goats. Milk goats. Turkeys. Chickens. One current steer with another one coming to our farm soon. A rescue horse. Two dogs. Two children. One cat. All kinds of love I tell ya. All kinds. 



Life.is.so.good.

Simple Granola

I'm getting ready to take a trip and am putting together my list of "car snacks."

It's funny how the snacks I think of for traveling aren't even close to the snacks I think of when staying home. On my list: Money Munch, granola, apples, vanilla wafers, gummi anythings...

Three of those five items haven't been purchased by me since the last trip I went on! But for some reason, they show up on the list during the planning stage.

Weird. 

I love making granola. But it never turns out the same way twice. If you stick around this blog long enough,  you'll discover that I tend to think of recipes as guidelines rather than rules. This granola recipe fits into that mindset perfectly.

It's basically a ratio mixture:

5 cups of oats or bulk (rice crisp cereal, rolled spelt or rye...)
1/4 cup of oil (coconut, sunflower...whatever you have on hand)
1/4 cup of sweetener (honey, pure maple syrup, brown sugar, sucanat, agave, mixture of any or all)
pinch of sea salt
1 t seasonings (cinnamon, pumpkin pie spice, apple pie spice...)
handful of nuts (sliced almonds, pumpkin seeds, hemp, chia...)
handful of dried fruit- if desired (dried cranberries, dried apple slices, dates, apricots...)

As you can tell, there is a very good reason why my granola never tastes the same twice. TOO.MANY.OPTIONS.

This time, I used Wheat Montana's 7 Grain Cereal as the biggest part of my oats/bulk mixture with the minority being plain rolled oats.  I used organic, lightly filtered coconut oil, sucanat, and pumpkin pie spice. Instead of nuts, I used hemp seeds and no dried fruit.

I absolutely LOVE Wheat Montana's products. I will go out of my way to purchase their products if I need grain and I will make special purchases if I come across their products outside of my regular routine. I purchased their whole wheat berries to grind in my own grinder and it made the absolute best bread ever. *This might sound like a sponsored post, but I assure you-they have no clue who I am* 

If you get adventuresome and are into essential oils (like I am), you can add in a couple of drops of doTerra's OnGuard, cinnamon, wild orange, or ginger into the wet mixture. It adds a wonderful kick to the flavor!

I mix the oil, sweetener, salt, and seasonings together and pour over the oats/bulk.

 Spread onto a foil lined cookie sheet and cook in a 300* oven for about 20 minutes. 

 Stir it every 8-10 minutes. (If you want clumps of granola, DO NOT stir it)

 

Cool and store. 

I use these gallon size glass jars with metal lids for all my bulk foods.

Even with the Wheat Montana grain, this still only cost about $3 to make 6 cups of granola. I don't think that's bad at all. Especially when you take into consideration the fact that you know each and every ingredient you put in there and can pronounce it. Expect for sucanat. I'm still working on that one rolling off my tongue. 

I don't think I need to tell you how to eat this stuff. It's good on yogurt, as a cold cereal, over fruit...the options are endless. Personally, my favorite way is over fruit with a drizzle of our own raw, unfiltered honey.

A side note- I have become addicted to a teaspoon of coconut oil in my coffee. I can't seem to get enough of it. It's heavenly.

Chewy Granola Bars

Homemade, Chewy Granola Bars

 
Here is a recipe for the most popular granola bars in my house. It originally came from a dear friend of mine, but we've tweaked it to our tastes. It, hands down, beats anything you can get from a box...chocolate covered or not!

In a LARGE bowl, beat together:

1 cup brown sugar

¼ cup white sugar

½ cup butter (no substitutes)

Add:

½ t vanilla

1 egg

Blend in:

1 cup flour (I use whole wheat)

1 t cinnamon

½ t baking soda

¼ t salt

Mix in:

2 cups rolled oats

1 cup flaked coconut

1 cup chopped nuts (Our favorite is pecans)

1 cup chocolate chips (House favorite is half milk chocolate and half white chocolate)

½ cup wheat germ

1 large handful of dried cranberries (dried cherries or dried blueberries taste great, too!)

I also added a sprinkle of wheat bran and ground flax seeds, but you could add ground chia seeds if you want

Feel free to mix up your add-ins- just keep your totals close to what the recipe calls for. If not, the bars get dry. You could add in golden raisins, dried apricots, apples, or peaches, almonds, walnuts, pumpkin seeds…the possibilities are endless! As a family, we rarely ever finish a box of cereal before it starts to get stale. I keep it and add it into the mix. However much I add of cereal, I decrease the oats by that same amount.

Press into greased 9x13 pan. Bake 20-25 minutes at 350 deg until golden and set. They'll be chewy on the inside and set on the outside. 

Cool, then cut. Store 'em if they last longer than 2 hours. 

On a side note, last week I had announced via this post that I have started making and selling soap. Last night as I was making my daily batch so I can get a good inventory going, my 14 year old son came up to me and said, "Mom, can I make a batch of soap with you?" My heart melted a little bit and we spent the next hour making soap, talking about life lessons, and generally enjoying each others company. If I never, ever sell one bar of soap, I will still have that memory to tuck into the corner of my heart.  

This photo has absolutely nothing to do with this post,
but it's one of my favorite photos I've ever taken.

Live.Simple.

Rerunning an oldie but a goodie from earlier this year. But with Christmas season coming up, I thought it might be a good idea to refresh everyone's memories!

 Live.Simple.

My new motto. My new viewpoint. My new everything.

It's also the name of a new adventure I'm taking: homemade soap making. The idea behind it is quite, ahem, simple. Simple ingredients. Simple scents. Simple clean. Simple to use. Simple to love.

My friend, Char of LiveLifeLoveOils, and I went to The Prairie Peddler last year to walk around in the bright October sun and take in the sights, sounds, and smells of autumn. While there, we  discovered that we shared the same desire to learn to make soap. REAL soap. LYE soap. Saponified soap. SOAP soap. Your grandmother's soap. HER grandmother's soap. The soap of generations and generations before us. I think you get the idea. 

For those of you who have never been to The Prairie Peddler, it is a festival held in a grouping of permanent, rustic structures built into the woods of the area near Mohican State Park in Ohio. The atmosphere with the brilliance of autumn's color plus the smell of woodsmoke from the vendors cooking fruit cobblers in Dutch ovens over campfires plus the dirt paths and stick built wooden cabins is truly absorbing. It almost feels as though you are walking through an 1800's village. Almost.

Our interest was piqued at a particular cabin. In this cabin, we learned that the owner of the company offered soap making classes. So, we each took a flyer with us. The seed had been planted. The following Tuesday, I called and signed us up. 7 classes. One night a week. 40 miles one way. It.was.awesome.

By the time we finished with our classes, we were certified as Apprentice Soap Makers in the Handcrafted Soapmakers Guild. We each only need a few more hours of training before we are certified as Master Soap Makers! <--that is so cool to me!

We not only learned how to make soap, but how to make soap. The chemistry behind it. The method to the madness shall we say. We were each instructed to create our own recipe. What did we want our soap to do? Oddly enough, it doesn't simply clean. I learned that true soap has characteristics: lather, scent, feel, bubbles, moisture on the skin. Beyond that, there is always the next level of clearing up skin issues such as psoriasis, eczema, acne. We're not at that level yet. But we'll get there.

Once you decide what you want your soap to do and how you want it to act, you create the recipe based on your knowledge of the ingredients. Let me tell you, there was tension that night at class: Would it work? Would it not work? Would we blow the place up? I'm kidding. Our teacher was confident it would work.

We learned that good quality ingredients produce good quality products. We learned that mistakes can be fun. We learned that we wanted to learn more. But what we really learned was that we loved doing it, our skin had never, ever felt better, and that we were extremely happy to share with our family and friends a non-toxic, natural, healthier way to clean the largest organ of your body. 

So, it is my pleasure, honor, and joy to introduce to you Live.Simple.

I've finally created an Etsy Shop from which I can sell it- take a look!

I hope you will learn to love Live.Simple. as much as I do.

Homemade Bread Crumbs

Re-purpose Idea! 

I try make bread every week.  However, it's been a few weeks since the last time I made it so I think my family is overdue for a little lovin'

The recipe I use makes enough for 4 loaf pans. Or 3 loaf pans and a pizza. Or 3 loaf pans and a pan of dinner rolls. Sometimes the last 3/4 of a loaf will get stale before it gets eaten.

 

So, instead of throwing it to the chickens, birds, or compost pile, I slice it up, dry it thoroughly, and give it a whir in my food processor to make homemade breadcrumbs.  

 Sliced bread drying on a rack

   Broken into pieces to fit into my food processor

After a few pulses and before I added the herbs

 If I feel like it, I'll add a couple of shakes of Italian Blend herbs. But most of the time, it's just plain breadcrumbs. They are more coarse like a Panko crumb than the finely processed ones in the store. But my family really likes them a little coarse. It makes a great crunch on anything and everything you chose to put it on!  I have one gallon glass jars with metal lids that I keep my dry foods in.

Gallon jar that I use for breadcrumbs.

Homemade breadcrumbs- Just another way to use what I've got on hand...what do you to to 'repurpose' what you have?

*I'm fairly certain that one can make breadcrumbs out of any stale bread. It doesn't have to be homemade bread... I'm just throwing that out there*

Fading Summer

So, it's be a very long time since I last posted. Spring warmed into summer, which stayed warm. And then got HOT. And dry. But alas, summer is slowly losing it's grip to fall. The mornings are getting cool. The shadows are lengthening. The cicadas are being replaced by crickets as daylight comes later in the morning. The spiders are building their webs in the grass and on the tall weeds.


I am looking forward to the first tinges of gold to touch the leaves of the trees. Next week, we start our homeschooling year. The kids are both dreading it and looking forward to it- all at the same time. There have been some really great deals at the stores for school supplies. Stocking up hasn't broken the bank this year!

In the meantime, here's a recipe that I made up for super-easy biscuits that are great when they are split in half, smeared with butter, and covered with fresh, homemade sausage gravy! But don't take my word for it!



Easy Biscuits- makes 8 or so (easy to double)

1 cup flour (either whole wheat, AP, or combo of both)
2 t baking powder
1/2 t salt
1 1/2 T shortening or lard
3/4 c milk (or a little less if using AP flour)
1 beaten egg in a bowl. 


Mix flour, baking powder, and salt in a bowl. Cut the shortening into the flour mixture. Stir in milk. Use a light hand. Too much stirring can make tough biscuits.

Turn out onto a lightly floured board. Knead for 15-20 seconds- just to finish bringing it all together.

Pat into rectangle. Either use a mason jar to cut out into circles or slice into eight squares.

Put on ungreased baking sheet. Brush with beaten egg and sprinkle a little kosher salt on top. Bake at 450* for 10-12 minutes, or until golden.




Enjoy!

Pineapple Upside-Down Cake

I always hesitate to use the phrase, "Just like mom used to make" or "Just like Grandma used to make". I don't know about you, but my grandmas just weren't those types of women. They were special alright, but not in the traditional apron-over-the-best-dress kind of way.

I almost would classify this as, "Just like grandma would have made if she had a cast iron pan and wood stove".

I happen to have both. And as I type, the fragrance of warm, buttery, brown sugar-y, goodness fills the air. This recipe is from a 1920's cookbook. There is no known exact date as to when this cake came to be. Some say it originated from a recipe that was then-titled, Pineapple Glace"...but it's hard to say!

Here it is, in all it's glory!

6 T butter
1 C packed brown sugar
7 slices canned pineapple
Maraschino cherries and pecan halves
1/4 C shortening (I use lard...don't hate me. But it's from my own pig, so it's okay.)
1 C sugar
2 eggs
1 1/2 C flour
1 1/2 t baking powder
1/2 t salt
1/2 C milk
1 t vanilla

In a cast iron skillet, melt the butter. Add the brown sugar and simmer until the sugar melts. Remove from heat and add the pineapple slices, arranged. Place cherries and pecans in the center of each slice. Set aside.

Heat oven to 350*. (Or, if you have a wood stove, crank up the heat until you can place your hand in the oven for only 3 seconds before it feels like your skin will burn off.)

Blend shortening (or lard) and granulated sugar until thoroughly mixed. Beat in eggs, one at a time, until fully combined. In a separate bowl, mix flour, baking powder, and salt. Add to shortening mixture, alternating with milk. Begin and end with the flour mixture. Stir in the vanilla.

Pour batter over the pineapple in the skillet and bake for 35-45 minutes. Invert onto a serving plate once it's cooled for 15 minutes or so. Top with whipped cream (homemade, if you can) and serve.

Heaven on a plate!

Making Cheese

We are trying to become more and more self-sufficient. There are a few things that have stood in our way of that goal. The most annoying one is cheese. Cheese just kind of stands there in the grocery store mocking me, taunting me. I can hear it say, "Na, na, na... you can't make me". THEN, it sticks it's tongue out at me. It's not a pretty thing. I stand there, head down, shoulders slumped, and say, "You are right. I can't make you." And then I pick up an over-priced package of cheese and slink off. AND IT GLOATS!

So, I took the bull by the horns, so to speak, and became determined to make cheese. I told myself, "Self, it can't be that tough. People have been doing it for thousands of years without such modern equipment as a thermometer or rennet tablets." By the way, you might not want to know where rennet comes from. Turned my tummy a little, but I pressed on.  I found a mozzarella recipe. I got my milk. I got my stainless steel pot, rennet, citric acid (from a dear friend), thermometer, and I prayed.

I absolutely have to tell you that it was so much fun. Once I realized I was doing it right, I just couldn't stop giggling. Thankfully, I have a wonderful husband who has asbestos hands and he could help me with those 145* curds. My hands were red and swollen at the end of it, but, by golly, we had mozzarella cheese!

I will be purchasing a new digital camera as soon as I can. I know most people do better with a visual aid. However, let me just tell you: It can be done. It was smooth and creamy (a little too salty, but we rinsed it off) and oh, so good!

My advice to you: try something new. It might work, it might not. If it doesn't work, try again. Don't quit or give up just because of one "non-success"!

I'll post the recipe I used as soon as I can find it again...