Prairie Oak Homestead

Since I have been to the dentist... I cracked/broke a tooth (a baby molar) a couple weeks ago and now I go in today to get it fixed. Ugh. I did get complimented on how clean my teeth were for not being to a dentist in so long...Hey I only go when I need to lol. I have 4 baby teeth still that never had adult teeth. Never born with them :) They say they usually only last 20 yrs...so 36 and still going is pretty good :) So today I go in and get fixed up. Not really looking forward to it, but who really does? Hunter stayed after school yesterday to help the Biology teacher unpack and set up his room. He enjoyed that and turned out he was the only one who stayed. Tonight he is golfing with the PE teacher and looks like he may be on the golf team there at school. He will enjoy that. I have gotten our meal menu ready for the next month (Sept) so that when school starts for me I will not  have to scramble and try to come up with something to make on top of school and studying. There i...

I made this the other night and it was pretty good. :)  I tweaked it a little, but here is the recipe. It's naturally gluten free.  Enjoy! 3 bell peppers chopped 1/2 c onion 2 tomatoes chopped 1 15oz can tomato sauce 1 can black beans drained 1 T brown sugar 3 t italian seasoning salt and pepper to taste (I added some creole seasoning to mine along with some garlic powder) 2 c water 1 c cooked rice Combine all ingredients except rice to slow cooker and cook 4 hours on high or 8 on low.  When does stir in cooked rice and heat through. :) The picture is a little blurry, but I'm sure you can feast your eyes upon my treat. :)  I absolutely LOVE chocolate, but only if it's good chocolate.  No Palmer's chocolate Easter bunnies for me....yuck!  This tasted wonderful and I love the dark chocolate (my fave).  If you are in need of a treat, I highly suggest you try this.  I love the sea salt that is scattered throughout.  It really b...

I found this cookbook the other day. It's mostly about once-a-month cooking, but I thought I'd try some of the recipes and see if I could do once-a-week cooking instead. Cooking one day a month the whole day would kill me. I cooked one of the recipes today and actually put up two other recipes from the book and put them in the freezer. I LIKE that. :) It will be nice to do this and then the days when I am extremely weak and tired, I can just pull something out that is already done for the most part. Just have to pop it into the oven. I really like this idea. I know it's been around a while, but I just never got into it. It just intimidated me to cook one day for the whole month. But doing it for a week and not a month seems to work out pretty well for me. The recipes in this particular book are "normal". They are not all fancy. I can't stand that in cookbooks. Just give me some good ole fashioned cooking. Just good food that has ingredients that I...

I wanted to give you a little taste of how I do menu planning. First sit down with your family and ask them what their favorite meals are. Now, get out some cookbooks and look at what sounds good. :) Write these down, also. Take both the family's favorite and the others and make a "master menu." Make a chicken category, beef (game) category, pork category, fish category, etc. You can also make a "winter and summer" section. I make a menu for one week at a time. I have deer, chicken, and fish as my proteins. I add sides and a fruit to these. So this week's menu looked like this... Mon-Whole roast chicken with green beans and potatoes and peaches Tues-Talapia with rice and mandarin oranges Wed-Tacos Thurs-Chicken thighs with mixed veggies and strawberries Fri-Tater Tot Casserole with peaches (made with ground deer) Sat-Deer Steak on the grill with corn on the cob and fruit salad Sun-eat out after church I cook 6 days a week. Sometimes I will figure ...