Green Bean Casserole

First off, I'd like to say, Happy Thanksgiving to all of my readers. From what I understand I do have readers from many different countries, and I find that to be really awesome!!! If any of you, my readers have your own blogs, please, feel free to add me to your reading list, and I'll add you back. I go through and read blogs almost daily. Its always fun to see what people are doing on their farms, or with their hobbies, and what they are cooking!!!

I'm fairly certain most of you are already done with the majority of their cooking. My family isn't celebrating Thanksgiving until this Saturday when everybody can be together due to work, or other family get togethers. As we know that happens once everybody gets married, has children, and so on.

Today I'm sharing with you a traditional Holiday Casserole. Green Beans are a very common dish at every get together, but sometimes, its fun to spice it up, and do something a bit different.

This recipe makes 4-6 servings, but is easily doubled, but if your family is like mine, 4-6 servings might be more than enough because there's going to be so much food there already that everybody is only going to take a little bit of everything.

1 & 1/2 lbs. sausage
1 quart green beans, fresh or frozen
10 & 3/4 oz. can mushroom soup
5 large potatoes, cooked until tender and sliced
3 Tbsp. oil
salt to taste
pepper to taste

1. Crumble or slice sausage into large skillet and cook until browned, stirring frequently.

2. In saucepan, cook green beans until crisp tender.

3. Alternately layer sausage, green beans and mushroom soup into greased casserole dish.

4.  Pour oil into skillet where sausage browned and add sliced potatoes. Cook over high heat, stirring  them up from the bottom frequently, until all are browned and crispy, but not burned.

5. Layer over top of casserole and sprinkle with salt and pepper.

6. Bake at 350 degrees for 30 minutes, or until heated through.

Hope everybody has a happy and safe Thanksgiving.  Remember, Be thankful for what you have, and worry not about the things that you don't have, and that friends are just as important as family.

Cold evening

Brrrr, it's cold outside!!! We've had snow, wind, ice, and rain. It made for some very unhappy chickens, but they were out of the cold and wet inside of their nice warm house.

I did have some sadness today, a one of our chicks passed away. He hatched last night with help. The poor baby couldn't walk right, and was blind. I think that's the hardest thing I've been through with the whole chicken adventure. But we do have 5 funny healthy chicks, that are eating and drinking and chirping, and playing.

Now that my day has come to a close, I'm having a hot cup of coffee, watching Gone With The Wind, and working in crochet orders. To me that's the best way to spend a cold evening.

Baby Baby Goodbye

We had a massive chick hatching here that took place over a two day period, and is still happening right now.  I'm thinking a couple of the eggs might not hatch.

Today we are going to be delivering 20 of those chicks to their new home. Plus we now have a new home for those 11 free rooster chicks!!! Hoorah!!! I'll be a little sad to see those 11 go, but not too sad the way they eat. I believe I've been a bit overwhelmed by this massive amount of chicks we've had. Partly because it's just not something I'm used to.

I am however keeping 4 of the chicks that hatched out, 3 of them are grey, and one is yellow with black spots. If I'm lucky they will be female, and I'll be able to add them to my egg layers for the summer. If not, then well, it's soup.

Yesterday I got a happy surprise! One of my Black Copper Marans laid an egg for me. That was quite welcome since they haven't laid for about 2 maybe 3 months.

Cranberry Relish

This is a side that I've been eating at thanksgiving since I joined my husbands family. It has become such a tradition for me that I've come to love and enjoy, and have even started taking my turn in making it that I thought I should share this wonderful recipe with you all. This recipe comes from our church cookbook.  It really only takes a few minutes to prepare, you  just fix it the day before and forget about it.  This year, I'll be preparing it, and will be so happily doing it that it brings that warm feeling of love and warm family memories.

Here we are Cranberry Relish

1 small can pineapple (don't drain)
1 (3 oz) box raspberry Jell-O (small)
1 (15 oz) can whole cranberry sauce
1/2 c. chopped pecans
1/4 c. chopped celery

Dissolve Jell-O with 1 cup hot water; don't add cold water. Mix in other ingredients. Chill.

That's it, that's all there is to it!!! Simple right???? The only work that really goes into it is opening stuff, and chopping the celery, and that's got to be one of the easiest things to chop up!!! 

Brunch Egg Casserole

What do you do with all those eggs???? I get asked this question a lot!!! Well we do give some away, right now, since its Really cold out, I'm only getting a couple of eggs a day. I guess I can't blame the poor girls, I don't care for all the cold either!!! Brrrrr

We eat a lot of eggs, fried eggs, eggs in batter, scrambled, and in casseroles.  To me there is nothing better than an egg casserole. I mean, yeah, I have to crack all of those eggs into a bowl, and since I'm a little weird, I crack them in one bowl, and pour them over into another. Mostly it has to do with my fear of there being a chick in there. It hasn't happened to me yet, maybe because for the most part we eat and give them away rather quickly.

I'm going to share with you all one of my favorite Egg Casserole recipe's.  Its called Brunch Egg Casserole, but well, the way our schedule works around here, its good for any time.

this makes 8 - 10 servings

8 slices bread, toasted and cubed
1 lb sausage, browned
8-12 oz. shredded cheddar cheese
8 eggs beaten
4 cups milk
1 tsp. salt
1 tsp prepared mustard
1/4 tsp onion powder
1/8 tsp pepper

1. Spread toasted bread cubes in greased 9 x 13 baking dish. Layer on meat, and cheese

2. Mix together eggs, milk, salt, mustard, onion powder, and pepper. pour over mixture in baking dish


3. Refrigerate overnight, or bake immediately at 325 for 45 - 50 min (bake up to 1 hour if casserole has been refrigerated)

Hope everybody enjoys!!!!

Crockpot Macaroni And Cheese

Its hard to believe that Thanksgiving is just around the corner, even though its later this year than I've ever known it to be. We spend Thanksgiving with my husbands family, so the menu is divided up between 4 of us, which means the load is lighter. I have about 4 or 5 things on my list. One of the things is Apple pie, and I'll be using the apple pie filling I made last month.

Another one of the things I'm making is crockpot macaroni and cheese. I generally make baked macaroni, but decided to change it up this year. I've tried this recipe before and its really yummy. I thought I would share it with you all, just in case your looking for something easy to make that will also sort of save some time!!!

This only makes 6 servings, but is really easy to double or triple.

8 oz. dry elbow macaroni, cooked
3-4 cups shredded sharp cheddar cheese, divided
13. oz can evaporated milk
1 and 1/2 cup milk
2 eggs
1 tsp salt
1/4 tsp black pepper
chopped onion to taste

1. Combine all ingredients, except 1 cup cheese, in greased slow cooker. Sprinkle reserved cup of cheese over top.

2. Cover. Cook on low 3-4 hours. Do not remove the lid or stir until the mixture has finished cooking

That's it! Simple as that, and chances are you wont have any left overs!!!

I'll be posting more recipes this week!!!
Enjoy!!!

Chicks, Chicks, and more chicks

Its so hard to believe we've only been raising Chickens since June, we've really grown with this. We put up a house for them, built a giant roost, got an incubator, heater, hatched out our first chicks, ordered chicks, and are about to hatch out some more chicks.

This Sunday, our incubator goes into lock down, which means that those eggs will be hatching out on Tuesday or Wednesday.  If everything goes right, all 32 of those eggs are going to hatch out. No, we don't plan on keeping all of those chicks, I'm only planning to keep about 3 maybe 4 of them at the most. It looks like we have a buyer for the others. 

The first 7 chicks that we hatched out will be 5 weeks old tomorrow, and are still growing quickly. They are doing great out there in the Coop in the chicken house. They seem to be happy. The little black Star chicks are taking after their daddy it looks like, and are starting to turn brown around the neck and chest. Its kind of hard to get pictures of them right now, but as soon as I can, I will.  The big chickens don't seem to mind them at all. They look in there, and talk to them some. Our big Rooster seems to be a bit more protective of the Chickens right now, but he's not being aggressive to us.

So far, we seem to have some kind of magical luck with our chickens. We haven't had any of those many issues that people talk about with the health of chickens. Our rooster is a good guy, he's not aggressive, he's actually kind of funny, and has good control over the gals.  Our Chicks have all been healthy, we haven't had problems with splay leg, or sticky bottoms, and they have all survived. (this is where I knock on wood)

What do Farmers/homesteaders do in the winter????

It would be so easy to believe that Fall/winter/early spring would be down time for those of us who homestead, or Farm, but that's not true. There really is a lot to be done. There is quilting, cleaning, organizing, we still have to tend the animals, maybe even a little extra to make sure they are warm, and nothing is frozen. Plus, if you raise chickens for laying eggs, or meat, you are still caring for Chicks. You will be raising your chicks for Egg laying now so that they will be ready to lay in the spring.

For me, right now, I'm going through and doing a lot of cleaning. I'm getting rid of a lot of things. I work off of a list.  Since my hubby is on daylight hours this week, I've made myself a list of the bigger things I want to get done. I also always have something to crochet as I try to get a couple of orders on a regular basis. There aren't always orders to be made, but it doesn't hurt to keep up the skill.

Winter eggs and baby chicks

Every chicken keeper knows that when it comes to winter time there are a few downfalls to having chickens. Those things are going out in the cold, keeping the flock warm, keeping the winter predators out, freezing water, and what I think is the worst part..less of those glorious eggs.  Yup, with less light, means less eggs. But take heart, there is a solution!!! As long as you have electricity in your chicken house you can hook up lights, and where as it might not put you back up to full production, it will help!!!

We installed some lights, and put them on a timer. They come on about 3 AM, and go off around 11 AM.  That helps to insure that they are getting at least 14 hours of light 

Our next step, is to install the heater that just came via FedEx. I wasn't expecting that until Monday...so unfortunately, I had the dogs out running and playing, and the package was left in the middle of the driveway....he could have at least honked the gotten or something. That might be something we will go ahead and install this evening to make sure it works.

We ordered 10 baby chicks from this company in Texas called Ideal. My babies arrived this morning. They are all happy and healthy, and adorable. Well, the company sent us an additional 11 chicks for warmth during shipping. They were free so I'm not about to complain. They are all black star rooster chicks.  The down side is I'm already attached!!! Ah well...what will be.

The 7 we hatched out are growing swiftly!!! They are now gangly teenagers, and will be going outside probably Sunday morning once we know for sure that the heater is working properly. I'll be sad that they won't be in here with me, but those 21 new baby chicks will be needing that space within a few days time. They really do grow so fast.

And lastly, I've been making hot breakfast for my flock that's already outside. I take their feed, some honey and got water and mix it together. They love it!!!

For the love of Sibes

It's been a while since I've posted anything about Sam and Jasper. So I figured I would share a couple of pics so you know all is well and goos with my loves!!!

Eggs and chickens

Yes...I know, you can't have one without the other...:)

We have a batch of eggs in the incubator. I started out with 34, and now have 32. Today was day 7. One of them wasn't fertile, and one had a blood ring, so those two were removed. I an proud to say though, that those two weren't from my chickens, they were from the batch we bought to hatch out. I put about 4 or 5 in from my girls, and three are looking good. I'm really happy though that the olive green eggs are developing nicely. Now let's just hope they are girls, because I want them to be so bad!!!! Of course because I want them to be pullets and not cockerels, I'll end up with all cockerels 

My chickens are giving me 4 eggs a day right now!!! I'm pretty thrilled with that!!! Hooray...I have 3 that are laying daily, and then 3 that seem to be taking turns. I'm hoping my black copper marans take off again soon. One just finished multing, and her feathers are growing back now. I'm hoping that means I'll get something soon from her.

Hot chocolate

Baby it's cold outside!!! Multiple trips outside to the chicken house, and a trip to Tractor Supply meant that I earned a cup of hot cocoa!!! Yay!!! Unfortunately though, I didn't have any packets of hot cocoa, but fortunately I had cocoa powder and a recipe....and it's an easy recipe that let's you use the microwave...
Here's the recipe

Microwave single serve hot cocoa
2 tbsp sugar
2 tbsp cocoa powder
Dash of salt
1 cup of milk
1/4 tsp vanilla extract

1) mix sugar, cocoa powder and salt in a large mug
2) heat milk in microwave on high for 1 & 1/2 min or until hot
3) gradually add milk to cocoa mixture, stir well, and then add vanilla.
4) ENJOY!!!!

Pictures!!!!

Here are those pictures I promised you all!!! More to come, Frank built a mini perch for the chicks this evening  so as soon as they are used to it, I'll get some pics taken of that.

Love my chickens

This is going to be one of my posts where I just talk about my chickens. Why??? Well mostly because. I have a few updates, and a funny story.

First of all, we have a shipment of chicks coming in on Friday. We ordered them through a company called ideal. There will be 5 Rhode Island Reds, and 5 white leghorns.  We Sid the math and they should start laying in late May, or early June. We wanted those breeds because they are great layers, AND because the leghorn mixed with the RIR will make what's known as a sex link, and those are super awesome layers. We have a sex link, and since she started laying, she has only missed one day.  Right now, she's my prized hen.

The chicks that we hatched out, have grown so fast!!! They're still small, but they are only a couple of weeks old. They have started getting their feathers in, and have started changing colors. Well the black ones are still black.

The girls outside have seriously slowed down on their egg laying production. Frank and I installed a light on a timer, and today for the first time in weeks I got 4 eggs. I had been just getting 2, and then this past weekend 3. I'll be happy when I get back up to about 5 - 6 a day. We have some people who we share them with for helping us with a few random things.

So, now...onto my funny story. So as you all know, I've not been around roosters until Sinatra came to live with us.  Well, one day I was our there checking food and water, and egg hunting, and I herd him making noises like a dog barking. I thought oh that's funny, I didn't know roosters made that nose. A couple days later Frank comes in and asks me if I've herd the rooster barking like a dog, I confirmed that I had  and didn't know they made that nose...turns out they don't. He had herd Sam and Jasper barking in the yard, and was imitating them. That really was funny when I realized that. Well yesterday, I was walking up to check stuff up there l. He had run the girls into the house and was standing in the middle of the run barking up at the trees. He was.barking at a hawk!!! I told Frank about that, and apparently he had watched the dogs barking at a turkey, and saw the turkey run away. I suppose he thought if stiff ran off when they barked at it, then it would work for him too. I love that rooster!!!

Sorry I have no pictures for you all right now, but I will have some in the next day or two.

Just in general

This has been sort of a domestic sort of day. I dusted the ceiling fan on the bedroom, washed and put away laundry, changed the bed stuff..etc etc...it's amazing how much housework there always is work only two people living here.

The sun has finally come out today, which is an awesome thing. It rained most of the day, so my furry friend were stuck in the house with me. Right now however they are outside being happy boys.

I've been quite the busy girl here lately. I've been getting ready for a craft show, keeping up with the housework, keeping up with chickens, and getting ready for some chicks that are due to be delivered on the 15th. We have 10 baby chicks coming. All girls. 5 white leghorn, and 5 Rhode Island Red. Yes, it would appear that with the 29 eggs we just put in the incubator, the 7 we have hatched, the 10 on their way, and the 9 chickens already I'm the back yard, that we potentially are going to be over run with chickens. Well, we will be culling a couple of the older ones out, and as soon as they ate big enough, the young roosters will be culled out.  We are expanding our run, so we will have room for all of the remaining chickens. Also there is no guarantee that all of the eggs we set will hatch. Plus we plan on selling some of those chicks when they hatch.

Anyways, time to get off of here and get back to work!!!

November

Its hard to believe its already time to take down the Halloween decorations, and start digging out what few Thanksgiving decorations I have. This year has basically flown by in what seems to be the blink of an eye...who knows maybe the weeping angels got me and I just don't remember it.

The baby chicks are 8 days old already. They have doubled in size, and are getting tiny little feathers on the tips of their wings. They truly are adorable. We are constantly changing out the bedding though because of the amount they poo...which is a lot!!!

We ordered some baby chicks. I need to go to the post office and find out how the delivery is going to work out on that. Depending on who is delivering the mail that day, they might not make it to our house until after 3. That's crazy, its this one lady who is incredibly slow, and if you have a package too big for your mail box, she will either try to make it fit, or sit at the bottom of the driveway and honk...we can't hear that!!! Always, I'm hoping that they are going to tell me I'll have to come in and get them, because I'll be there when the does open. We ordered 10 chicks. 5 white leg horns, and 5 Rhode Island Reds, and they are all girls. I'm fairly excited. We plan on doing a cull before too much longer. We are going to try to wait as long as we can, but with these 7, and them 10 more should they all survive, and then whatever hatches we will need to. Don't want to over crowed anybody.  Just want everybody to be healthy and happy. And yes, we are extending the run to make sure everybody has lots of space to run and play and do chicken stuff.

Well, I'm going to say good night. The hour is late. So I'll leave you with these pictures and wish you all a happy November....thought I would ad in some grown up pictures too, so you know we still love our girls.