DIY Elderberry Syrup – it’s SO easy!

I’ve mentioned a few times recently on the Homstead Emporium facebook page that we’ve been making, and taking, Elderberry Syrup and many have asked how to make it, so I thought I’d share on the blog, just how simple it is!

DIY Elderberry Syrup Kit

 I first tried elderberry in lozenge form after reading about how it can aid in boosting the immunity, and overall health. I found some onsale at well.ca and thought I’d give it a try. I REALLY wanted to buy elderberry syrup, but the price was just way too high for our family of seven. With the small size of the bottles, we’d be going through one every day or two!

Then I met Delia, from Delia’s Pantry! She’s local, also moved to our area recently just like us, and also attends our church. She let me know that she had Elderberries in her new shop, Delia’s Pantry, and I could get them at a good price through her. As it turned out, she’s due any day with her second child and needed a postpartum stash, so we actually were able to work out a trade! What a blessing for us both!

My first batch, I simply used what I had on hand. Dried elderberries from Delia, cinnamon & ground cloves in my pantry. I didn’t have ginger, so I omitted it from my first batch.

Since then, Delia has brought in organic cloves, organic ginger, and quality cinnamon, so my next batch was MUCH nicer!

To make my syrup, I used the recipe found at wellnessmama.com

It’s as easy as putting all your ingredients, minus the honey into a pot. Bring it to a boil, simmer for a while, strain…

Add in your honey.

And you have GLORIOUS Elderberry Syrup!

It really is, that simple! And, the cost of making it myself is SO small that now, we can have Elderberry Syrup every day! When my youngest was sick with stomach flu last week, I added just a little to some ginger-ale (with real ginger in it) so that I knew she was at least getting SOME vitamins and energy!

Now I add it to ginger-ale as a refreshing treat for myself too.
A friend mentioned it’s great on pancakes too! At over 20$ for a tiny bottle, there’s no way we could do that. Now that I make it myself, we’ve got LOTS, so we’re going to try it! It sounds too delicious not to!

Delia’s Pantry and I have joined forces to offer simply DIY Elderberry Syrup making kits at Homestead Emporium! The kit comes with everything you need, except for the water and honey! A recipe is also included in the kit!

You can purchase the kit direct through Delia’s Pantry facebook page, or if you’re already familiar with shopping Homestead Emporium, you can purchase through us. Either way is fine with both of us! Delia’s got some other awesome things available as well, so it’s worth checking out Delia’s Pantry facebook page. Since she’s just recently opened shop, she’s still working on an actual online ‘storefront’ and with her second child due any day (her due date was a few days ago!) she may be just a little while getting that completed. If there’s anything you’re wanting from her, you can contact me as well and I can always ship for her, to you and combine the orders into one package! We see each other at least once a week, so that’s not a problem to combine from both our shops! It will be our pleasure to serve you the best we can!

Tea & health.

Like many others, I enjoy learning about healthy options. One of my latest learning adventures has brought me to herbs & berries etc. that I never thought of before.

First, I learned about Elderberries, and Elderberry Syrup. I had bought elderberry lozenges when I found them on sale and put them to the test over Christmas. Everyone around me had gotten the flu, but I didn’t. I can’t say for certain it was the lozenges, but I figured it was worth the effort to learn more. Through a friend, Delia of Delia’s Pantry, I learned how to make my own elderberry syrup and we now take it often! It’s so easy! I’ll share how on a blog post very soon.

Then Delia brought in Stinging Nettle Leaf, and I wondered why? Then I learned one of its benefits is helping pms. No need to research any further, I was sold and asked Delia to add it to my next order! I also liked what I read about dandelion, and decided to order a little to try also.

I’m not one to remember taking a lot of different things, but I’ve found one way to easily take all these new things I love.

Every morning I make myself a pot of tea!

I made up a personal blend. I start with my favorite loose leaf tea, cranberry fresh from TeaDesire.com
Then I add in some stinging nettle leaf, some dried dandelion root, and dried elderberries.

My teapot is one of my favorite thrift store scores! I had been looking for a heavy duty glass teapot for years!

I steep my tea for quite some time, then add in honey & elderberry syrup, stir well and allow it to cool. Once cooled, I pour it into a very large drink bottle and sip cool healthy tea all day!

I have a VERY hard time getting enough liquids into me, I don’t get thirsty for water, I don’t feel store bought juice is healthy, and I’m too busy to get in much hot tea, so this method works perfectly for me!

How about you? What are some Ways you’ve learned to add healthy herbs etc. into your life?

Honey garlic meatballs

I promised a photo and recipe for honey garlic meatballs.

I believe this came out of a magazine years and years ago and I can not remember which one. I feel bad not being able to give credit where credit is due…

I have made this recipe so many times that I don’t really follow it, I use no measuring utensils, and just throw it all together as I go, tasting along the way.

It always turns out the same…DELICIOUS!

On the homestead today.

I don’t like to use iphone photos all that often for blog posts, but it seems lately I just don’t get to the pc all that often and when I do, it’s for work! So it’s either share iphone photos, or none at all, and then I miss blogging.

So here you go, a blog post about today with just iphone photos. *gasp*
I think I may live through this, hopefully you will too.

I always see a lot of “I hate Monday’s” on my fb feed, but personally, I like Monday’s. It’s like a mini-me of a new year, only it’s a new week! Every Monday we have a chance to do even more, and be even better, then the week before. Yay! A new beginning, every 7 days. In reality, every day is a new beginning, even more reason to celebrate Mondays!

I was in the mood to be productive while we did school today. Since the girls are older, once we get our innitial read-alouds done and recap what we’re learning, a lot of their schooling is simply me guiding them, and them working on their lessons without much assistance from me. This is the main reason why no matter how big a house we live in, I always end up right back at the dinning table doing school! That way I can get things done in the kitchen, while still being nearby if they need my help.

I started out by putting ingredients in the breadmaker for French Bread. I’ve never made it before and a good friend shared her recipe with me last week.

This is the view out our dinning-room window while we school.

Next I put a pot on the stove to make some Elderberry Syrup!
Over Christmas just about everyone around here got sick, however, I had been taking an elderberry lozenge every day and I never came down with anything. Anything elderberry is EXPENSIVE though, so I was thrilled when a local good friend of mine brought in dried elderberries for her new online shop! Delia’s Pantry!

The syrup turned out real nice! I used the recipe linked above.
I finally have use for my old milk bottles. One day… I’ll have fresh milk in these things!

While that was simmering on the stove, I got dinner ready. Bean Slop.
What a horrible name right?
However, it’s a recipe I’ve been making for years since my eldest were just little and everyone loves it. We even took it to a potluck at church once and everyone said they loved our ‘chilli’. It’s not actually chilli, but we weren’t going to tell them it’s actually “Bean Slop”. lol

Basically it’s a pound of bacon, two pounds of ground beef (ours is grass fed beef, nothing like it, hopefully this year the bacon will be home grown again too), 3 large cans of beans, some brown sugar, and some ketchup. Once the bacon and ground beef are cooked, I just throw it all together in the crock pot and let it simmer all day. I thought the French Bread would be great for dipping. It was!

While I cooked, Julia helped Elsa when needed. This youngest girl of mine has the patience of a saint.

Shaylah & Julia have been learning sign language, so they wanted me to snap a couple of photos of them talking to one another. A video would have been better.

They love that they can talk to one another during school time, without speaking a word.

The last thing I made today was some more lemon honey. I can’t seem to find the original link I shared the first time I made this, and I don’t really follow a ‘recipe’ anymore. I just cut up lemons, and throw them in a glass jar with honey. I love this stuff. We finished off the last batch within a few months. I think I had made 4 jars. It’s so good just with hot water, forget the tea! Here’s a link similar to the one I originally used: http://thecuttingedgeofordinary.blogspot.ca/2009/10/lemon-honey-tea-base.html

Once school was finished and my hubby was up (he’s working 6pm to 6am this week) it was time to get ready for an early dinner before he had to go to work again. Then it was time to head back down to the sewing studio for some ‘real’ work!

Oh, and to really top it off, right now my son is over at Delia’s place helping her husband with a buffalo they were given by a local farmer. It’s being used for their dogs, and they are sharing it with us. Just last Friday, I was grinding deer meat given to us by another, again for the dogs. These are all meats that would normally be ‘wasted’, yet we’re able to feed our dogs a top quality raw diet this way, virtually for free, even if it can be a lot of extra work at times. It’s so worth it.

I’m beginning to feel like a ‘real’ homesteader lately.
Maybe I should sew us up some bonnets for all us girls before spring! Some gingham dresses too, and maybe some petticoats…

How to turn 1 chicken into 3 meals for your large family, plus 2 lunches for your hubby.

This is a quick and ‘dirty’ post!
I say quick & ‘dirty’ because I’m posting it from my phone, and using phone photos. Probably a big ‘no-no’ among real food bloggers but I’m not a ‘real’ food blogger!

Too often I don’t share tips, tricks, or daily goings on at the homestead because I just don’t always have time to snap great photos, edit, upload, and write a big long post! So I’m going to start doing more ‘quick & dirty’ posts from now on!

Every Tuesday my four girls have Taekwondo. It’s right around our usual dinner time! I like them to eat a little dinner before they go, but not a full meal or they will get cramps. Then by the time they get home at 7:20, they need a real meal so… I decided that Tuesdays would be Homemade Soup Tuesdays. This way they can have half a bowl before they go, and a full meal of soup with some bread, biscuits, or buns when they get home! Works great!

Right now we have an abundance of whole chickens in our freezer, often I’ll start with one of those. Today I realized that, like me when I first began making soups, maybe others don’t know what to do with a whole chicken! So I snapped some photos along the way because this way, is SUPER easy! And super frugal!

However, you do need to be ok with handling cooked chicken. With your bare hands.

First I start out in the am by simply putting a whole frozen chicken into a BIG pot of water, enough water to cover the chicken. Some might put spices in now but I give the scraps to our dogs & cats, so I hold off on adding anything. Nothing goes to waste this way!

I bring it to a boil and cook it hard for a while, about 30 mins or so. Then turn it down to medium heat for about another 1.5 hours or so, leaving the lid on. I’m aiming for a real good broth out of the chicken.
(You can also transfer it to the crockpot if you don’t want to leave it on the stove top.)

Once the chicken is well cooked and I’ve got a flavorful water left, I pull the whole chicken out of the pot of water, being careful not to let it break into a million bone-y bits!

I set the chicken aside on a platter to cool down.

Then I start to turn my water/soup base that’s left in the pot, into a real soup.

Today I added a large can of diced tomatoes, some baby carrots, left over peas from last nights dinner, chopped celery, onion, and spices such as poultry spices and anything else that sounds good. I also added a cup of barley. Last week I added noodles. Next time I’ll add wild rice.

If I feel there’s not enough flavor, I also add a little chicken soup stock. Since I make such a huge pot of soup, the flavor from one chicken doesn’t always seem to be enough otherwise.

This is my soup before adding the chicken meat.

I turn my pot on medium-medium high and bring it back to a boil. Let it boil for about 5 minutes and then I turn it down to low.

It’s time to get my hands dirty and tear apart the whole chicken! Yes, I use my hands. It’s the fastest and best way to get the job done well.

First I remove all the skin and set it aside for our dogs & cats. Boiled chicken skin is slimy and gross. You get get over it after a few times.

Then I remove obvious bones.

Next, I pull off the nice white meat, the chicken breasts ect. and set them on one dish for another meal.

Then I separate the garbage meat, from the meat suitable for my soup. Anything slimy, an unappetizing color, or just not pleasant looking goes onto the scrap dish.

Yuck to me, but a special treat for the pets!

This next plate full is what will go into the soup.

Some of the dark meat on top is close to being for the pets, but it just made the grade.

All I have left now is the empty carcass!

My two helpers get to clean up the juices and bits left on the plate!
(Never the chicken bones though, raw chicken bones yes, cooked chicken bones NO.)

And the good stuff goes into the pot for two meals worth of soup for the whole family, and one lunch for hubby to take to work. Sometimes some of the kids will have it for their lunch too.

The white meat I set had aside earlier is then divided up, some for another meal, and some for two chicken sandwiches for hubby’s lunch!

For the full family meal, one of us will either make chicken quesidilla, chicken wraps, chicken sandwiches, or any other chicken dish we can come up with! One of the kids will usually make the next meal from the left overs, since it’s so easy now that the meat for that meal has already been cooked!

And that’s how I turn one small whole chicken into 3 full family meals and at least a couple of lunches for this family of seven!

I know this post isn’t pretty, but hopefully it’s practical for anyone just learning how to make the most out of a chicken!

Butter tarts.

Yesterday, Julia and I decided to have a ‘bake off’ and make butter tarts! We’ve never made them before, and I wanted to double the recipe but I know sometimes some recipes don’t double very well, so I asked if she’d like to do one batch as I do the other! The baking was ON! Julia may be just 12, but she can bake like the best if them!

We had company coming, another family of 7, with 4 girls & 1 boy, just like ours, so one batch of butter tarts just wasn’t going to be enough. Plus, dh LOVES home baked goodies in his lunch, so leftovers are always a good thing!

We didn’t have time to fuss around with finicky pie crusts so we decided to try a new one I found recently, the Wham Bam Pie Crust: Wham Bam Pie Crust

Instead of vegetable oil, I opted to try olive oil, with much hesitation BUT the taste of the crust was excellent!

I’m not sure this was the right crust for tarts, it tasted great but it took Julia and I forever, and a day, to shape that dough into each muffin tin ‘hole’. I will be using the recipe again for pie though, as I love the taste and shaping it into one pie pan would be much easier!

The Butter Tart recipe itself came from a kids cooking book we have:

The tarts turned out very tasty so this recipe will be our go-to from now on. I’m going to try the crust recipe from the book next time.

Parents, if you haven’t begun to allow your kids into the kitchen to bake & cook with you, start now! No matter what age your kids are, and how much of a pain their messes may be. All our kids can cook & bake and some LOVE to do it very regularly, all on their own now! There’s not much better as a parent then eating the rewards of teaching your children in the kitchen! They’ll make you proud (even if they are messy!!) & it gives them great confidence, life skills, and lots learned along the way! It also gives them a way of blessing others. Julia often bakes for friends and get togethers!

Christmas is coming, no better time to start!

Quick & tasty Strawberry Banana ice cream!

The other day I came across this REAL quick and easy ice cream. A ONE ingredient ice cream. Frozen banana’s, that’s it.

You can find that recipe here:
http://www.thekitchn.com/how-to-make-creamy-ice-cream-w-93414
And if you google banana ice cream, you’ll find MANY more posts about it all over the net. Yum!

It sounds VERY tasty, and definitely easy, however, I was after something just a little bit ‘more’.

Years ago, I had made a very simple banana ice cream that was TO DIE FOR. However, I made it that one time, and then some how lost the recipe. We’re talking like 14 years ago. Since that time I have been on the hunt for this same banana ice cream recipe!

Why?
Because it was made without an ice cream maker! I often get tempted by the thought of purchasing an ice cream maker, especially since some will also make yogurt, but I have so many kitchen gadgets that I feel are necessities that really, how on earth does one make space in a kitchen for even MORE appliances?!

So I’ve held off on buying an ice cream maker and continued my search for this banana ice cream recipe I once made.

To no avail. I’ve never found it again. I asked dh if he remembered it, and he’s sure it was from a foreign recipe book. At one time I would cook foreign dinners every Friday night, from a different country each week, as part of our homeschooling. He’s sure it was during one of those foreign weeks that I found that recipe. Now I REALLY have no idea if I’ll ever find that recipe again!

Then this week I found the easy banana recipe and I got to thinking…

The other recipe called for banana’s, but I’m sure it was pretty simple beyond that. Maybe if I began with frozen banana’s, I could figure out the rest pretty easily??

So today I decided to give it a try! And went a step further, to
Strawberry Banana Ice Cream.

Here’s what I used, approximately. I basically just threw things together, so this is an ‘approximate’ recipe. You’ll have to use your own judgement where needed, I’ll share what I know and you can go from there.

6 large frozen bananas
5 large frozen strawberries
1/2 cup whipping cream (the cream kind, not the fake kind!)
1/4 cup sugar
1-2 tsp vanilla

And this is the end result!

And here’s how I made it:

-I cut up the 6 frozen bananas.

-put them into the food processor with my regular blade, and put it on medium until the banana’s wouldn’t really ‘blend’ anymore.

-added the cream, a bit at a time, until I felt I had the consistency I wanted.

-added the sugar next, and the vanilla.

-blended some more until it was just like ice cream!

Then we all tasted it! It was YUMMY! I asked the kids if we should go even further, and add in some frozen strawberries, and they all agreed that strawberry banana ice cream sounded even better! So that’s what we did!

I added some cut up frozen strawberries and give it another whirl until it was back to ice cream consistency!

Incredible!

How easy, and fun! I’m sure we’ll do this again and try more variations! I was very surprised that it stayed firm for so long. Then we put it in a sealed glass bowl until after dinner and it stayed nice. I’m not sure how well it would remain for too long, as I know we’ve tried freezing our smoothies before and they have become too ‘icy’, so I’d recommend making this either after dinner, or right before.

Even Bentley wanted to try it.

I loved this shot but was sad that it’s not real sharp so I played with it instead.

Now it reminds me of Normal Rockwell!

Let me know if you try either of the recipes! Feel free to share a photo on the facebook page too!

*If anyone just happens to know of the old recipe I tried years ago for easy banana ice cream, let me know! It was one that called for putting the ice cream into ice cube trays and then freezing it that way. It was SUPER rich. One cube was enough! I’d love to find it again.

Meal Planning

Life is busy! Having just moved, and now moving again by the end of June, (no, we still don’t know WHERE, still praying for a home & a miracle!) makes life even busier!

However, I have 7 mouths to feed every day, ages 12 to adult, including three ‘men’!
There’s no time to be TOO busy to create good, hearty, meals!

I find meal planning helps a LOT when busy. I can ALWAYS make the time to cook, it’s a must,  but to try and decide every day at the last minute, what I should cook? I have NO time for that. So planning is a must!

I just finished this week’s meal plan, after ‘consulting’ what everyone would like to see on their plates, and taking into consideration the requests made from me, and also my need for simplicity on my busiest work days, and this is what we’ll be eating.

*I’ve included links to recipes because I LOVE it when other’s share their recipes with me!

Monday- Tuna Casserole (Elsa’s request): http://southernfood.about.com/od/tunacasserolerecipes/r/r90110b.htm

Tuesday- pork chops & rice bake (a favorite that Alesia used to always make for the family) http://www.food.com/recipe/simply-oven-baked-pork-chops-and-rice-142542  with asparagus & Hollandaise Sauce (recipe given to me by our ‘extra’, Josh’s friend Steven who is living with us): http://www.facebook.com/l.php?u=http%3A%2F%2Fsimplyrecipes.com%2Frecipes%2Fasparagus_with_hollandaise_sauce%2F&h=hAQFNFBnA

Wednesday-Homemade Pea Soup (this will be a crockpot meal, as Wed. are my busiest work days, and there is no extra time for cooking)

Thursday-Beef Macaroni Casserole  http://southernfood.about.com/od/pastabake/r/bl30512v.htm  with spinach salad (recipe given to me by our ‘extra’, Josh’s friend Steven who is living with us)  http://www.tasteofhome.com/Recipes/Raisin-Walnut-Spinach-Salad

Friday, it’s Steven’s birthday so I asked what he’d like to have for dinner that night, he replied with: Buttered chicken, mixed veggies bake consisting of carrots, beets, yams, yellow onions & fennel. I’ve never made either before, but I’m always up for new recipes!

This week’s baking by whoever cares to make it, either myself, the girls, or possibly even Steven:
Blondies: http://simplyrecipes.com/recipes/blondies/

Butterscotch Pudding: http://simplyrecipes.com/recipes/butterscotch_pudding/

How about you? Do you meal plan? If so, what’s on YOUR menu this week?

Dutch pancakes, our favorite.

The below post was originally posted in Aug. 2011 here:
http://homesteademporium.wordpress.com/2011/08/16/crazy-for-pancakes/

I posted on facebook yesterday that my eldest daughter Alesia had made pancakes for dinner.

Dutch pancakes that is, our favorite kind!

We love Dutch pancakes. They are very easy to make too!

We don’t use a recipe. We basically start out with a bowl of milk, add in a couple of eggs, then add some flour until it’s the consistency we want (VERY runny, like a melted milk shake), sometimes we add in a little vanilla and I always add in a bit of sugar.

You don’t have to add sugar though, I do because I like my pancakes to get a little crispy around the edges. However, for a REALLY basic, true recipe, I found one here:

http://www.austinlehman.com/local_bites_individual-pages-127.php?id=10

Those are just how we used to make them.

Until I learned the little trick about the sugar. I really do LOVE crispy edges.

I searched the internet for a recipe more like the one I use now, and this one is really very close:

http://www.foodnetwork.ca/recipes/recipe.html?dishid=5978

Then you can do as many variations as you like!

My favorite, was when I made these.

Oh they were delicious! I can almost taste them now.

Filled with cream cheese and topped in homemade strawberry ‘syrup’.

We like other kinds of pancakes too, and we’re always willing to try something new.

Like this past spring, when we made the dandelion pancakes, or fritters as some would call them.

We really do love pancakes!

Do you love pancakes? Or even have a favorite topping? If so, would you care to share  your favorite recipe with the rest of us? Feel free to leave it in the comments below, or email it to me at homesteademporium(AT)gmail.com (use the @ instead of the (AT) when emailing)

In a future post, I’ll share any of the recipes we try, along with photos!

Homemade Split Pea Soup

I found this old post in my drafts, it had never been posted before! I’m guessing I wrote it several years ago. Since we still eat a lot of soup in the cooler months, I thought it was still fitting for this time of the year.

Our main staple in our home during the winter, and spring and fall, is soup. Hearty soups. Full meal soups usually with as many food groups as possible.

I usually make these soups in the crock pot, but I was unorganized this morning and didn’t begin cooking until noon, so today I made my soup on the stove top.

First off, let me confess that I really did try to get a ‘pretty’ photo of the finished soup, but there just wasn’t much hope with bad lighting (it was dark) combined with pea green… You’ll have to forgive me for the unappetizing appearance of the bowl of soup above. I promise you it tasted MUCH better then it looks.

First, the water. I usually fill my pot or crock pot over half full. I don’t really measure this. We have 7 in our family, so I try to make enough for one full meal, seconds if they want it, and possibly enough for lunch the next day. If I’m sure everyone will want more, I’ll fill the pot 3/4′s full, being sure to leave enough room for all the additions to the soup. I put the water on to boil and begin adding everything else. If I’m using a crock pot, I put it on high and add everything else the same way.

Then I add a soup ‘base’. I cheat this way. I really enjoy the taste of the soup base I use and I am sure to check my labels and only buy soup base that I can actually read. You’ll have to use what you feel good about. This is my little cheat and it’s the base of almost all my soups, whether I’m using chicken soup base or beef soup base. I have tried making my own stock, and it turned out pretty well but it’s hard for me to ‘boil’ a whole chicken when we enjoy roasting it so much more. Maybe I’ll research making stock just from the left overs of roasting but I haven’t gotten around to it yet.

To start my soup, I simply add soup base to taste, but the package will usually give you a good guide line to follow depending on how much soup you’re wanting to make.

I stir the water until the soup base disolves.

Then I grab my bag of dried split peas.

Because I knew I would be sharing the recipe, I actually measured out how much I put in this time. I don’t usually measure when making soups!

I poured in about 4 cups of the split peas.

Then I added some cubed ham, about 1.5-2 cups. Every time we eat ham, I make sure I cook up extra, then I cube some of the left overs and put it in the freezer for future pea or bean soups.

Some chopped up some celery, especially the leafy parts are great.

Chopped onion. About 1/3 to 1/2 a large onion.

Threw them both in the pot.

Then I added about a 1/2 teaspoon of celery salt.

Stirred everything up real good, and this is what it looked like so far.

After that, I simply put the lid on and let it boil for a bit. I stir it once in a while to make sure nothing gets stuck to the bottom of the pot. Once I feel it’s boiled long enough, and everything is beginning to soften, I put it on low and let it simmer for the rest of the afternoon.

Be sure to stir it occasionally, especially stirring up the bottom or it can become stuck, or burnt. This is why I love to make my soups in the crock pot because I can simply turn it on, and leave it for the whole day.

Aleisa made up some bread in the bread maker to go along with the soup. We always have bread, or rolls, preferably fresh, with our soup, and always with butter. Sometimes the kids get creative and make the bread dough into braids or other such creations.

One day, I hope to be grinding our own grains to make true fresh homemade bread. I’ve actually had a grain grinder for a few years now, and it’s been packed all this time. Dare I dream of a day I’ll even grow some grain?

*this post is older then I thought, she’s SO YOUNG!

In the meantime, while I got the soup ready, Elsa made lunch.Today for lunch she made herself a grilled cheese sandwich.

What are your favorite soups to make?