Concord Grape Jelly

It’s almost Concord Grape season in our area.  I had one quart and one pint of homemade grape juice that we canned in 2015 left in the cellar.  Last night was the perfect night to process it into some beautiful, sweet grape jelly.

You can see how we process our jelly on an older post here:  Concord Grape Jelly

Homemade Lipstick

I needed some summer colored lipstick so the Teen Queen whipped me up a batch of a color crayon I picked out.  She was babysitting and the purple is the color the little girl picked out to make for her mom 🙂

You can see how we make our lipstick on my facebook page here:  ChasenChanceRanch Lipstick

Hyacinth Oil

Hyacinths are a special Easter flower and smell very similar to a lilac. They also are grown from a bulb which can be replanted in your garden as a perennial.

Our local grocery store had them on clearance after Easter for $1.00 so of course I bought 10. The bulbs were planted today and now I am making some hyacinth oil to use in our homemade body scrubs (which I will use mainly for my hands and feet).

Place the cut flowers into a bowl with 1 cup of water and 1/8 cup of sunflower oil (or you can use olive oil) and let soak for a day or two.

Store the oil in a jar and use it to scent your body scrub!!

**Body Scrubs can be made many ways.  I will use this with organic cane sugar and a touch of glycerin**

Hot Chocolate Cones

With Valentines day coming our way, these are a perfect treat for anyone!  Who doesn’t like to receive any simple homemade gift?

These have been around for a few years and we really enjoy sharing them.  You can see step by step how to make them on my Facebook page  here:  Hot Chocolate Cones

Grandma’s Applecrisp

This is such a delicious comfort food/dessert.  It makes your house smell wonderful while it bakes and it’s such a sweet, buttery and moist dessert your family will love it!

I know I say it often but this is truly very easy!

Prepare your apples

Add some brown sugar, white sugar, cinnamon and melted butter and stir it around

Set it aside and make your buttery mouthwatering crumbly topping

Once it’s incorporated and crumbly, pour the apple mixture into a lightly greased cake pan and cover evenly with the crumbles

Bake at 375 for approximately 32 – 35 minutes or until it’s golden brown in color

Grab some vanilla ice cream, whipped cream or eat it plain while it’s still warm!!  YUM

And then hide it where you can’t see it and slice a little piece every hour on the hour so you can enjoy it for more than 3 hours 🙂

Recipe

6 large apples peeled, cored and sliced

2 Tbsp brown sugar

2 Tbsp white sugar

1 ½ tsp. cinnamon

4 Tbsp melted butter

Combine all in a bowl and set aside to marinate together

Make the sweet buttery topping

½ cup quick cook oats

½ cup brown sugar

½ cup white sugar

¾ cups heaping all purpose flour

1 ½ sticks of room temperature butter

Combine oats, sugars, and flour and mix until well incorporated. Add in the room temperature butter and use a fork or a pastry cutter to form crumbles

Place the apple mixture in a lightly greased 13×9 cake pan. Sprinkle the crumble top evenly over the whole top.

Bake at 375 degrees for approximately 32 – 35 minutes (or until evenly browned)

Hand and Heel Scrub

This scrub is perfect for buffing your heels and keeping your hands moisturized for the winter months.

You can make this in about 5 minutes total.  Very economical and a little goes a LONG way.

I posted how we make ours on my Facebook page and see my step by step pictures of the Teen making a batch last night here:  Hand and Heel Scrub

It’s literally 3 ingredients:

1 Tbsp. Brown Sugar

1 Tbsp. Coconut Oil

Honey (until your desired consistency)

Mix all together, store in an air tight container.  Use in the shower by scrubbing on heels and hands and rinse.  Apply a daily moisturizing lotion and you can keep the dryness at bay!

Sunflowers turned to seed

We have bird feeders we use throughout the winter and fill them with sunflower seeds for the birds.  This year we planted a sunflower garden to grow our own seeds.

The first picture is the patch 2 weeks ago in full bloom.  The other 2 pictures are when we planted the garden in June and 3 weeks after the first planting.

We shared this patch with our pumpkins.

As you can see this worked very well.  The pumpkin picture is just one row and we have 8 rows with pumpkins.

The beautiful sunflowers are now turning to seed so tonight we took the time to cut all of the heads off to use to feed the birds throughout the winter.  Some of the heads are loaded with seeds while others have already been worked on by the birds.

In the end we have 2 very large bags filled with flower heads and seeds.

We will hang these from trees throughout the winter for the birds to pick at.  They will also be used as a treat for the chickens.

You can see how they enjoy picking at it once it’s hung in their run!

Making Maple Syrup

We tapped 2 maple trees in our yard this year to collect sap.  This is a super fun project for the kids.  They get off the bus and run to the buckets to see what has dripped in during the day.  This Syrup is the best you will ever have!!

IMPORTANT NOTE:  keep in mind it takes about 40 gallons of sap to make 1 gallon of syrup.

In 4 days we collected 6 gallons (after losing a gallon to a bucket falling off the tree because of the wind).

Today I decided to process what we have so we can prepare over the next few days to boil a few more gallons before the season is over.  The best time to collect the sap is when the days are sunny and above freezing temperatures yet the night is below freezing. The season may be short or long.  You will know it’s over when the sap stops dripping from your tree.

We bring the sap in and pour it through a mesh strainer lined double with cheesecloth.  This filters out the impurities.

You are left with clear pure sap.  The best way to store it is to keep it in cold temperatures until you are ready to boil it.  I store it in the refrigerator.

When you have enough to boil, fill the pot and bring it to a rolling boil.  NOTE:  this throws off humidity and will fill the whole house.  I open a few windows and don’t mind the humidity as it feels tropical!

The sap will boil down and each time add more to fill the pot using all the sap you have collected.  I started with 3 gallons in our bucket and boiled 6 gallons over the course of 6 hours.  I also scoop out the foam every once in a while.

The sap will begin to turn a light amber color.  When you get to this point it’s important to continue boiling until the syrup begins to foam.  That is when you know it’s ready.

It’s a darker color and will thicken.

Remove from the heat and strain again through the cheesecloth into your mason jar or container you are using to store it in.

You can cover it tightly after cool and store for up to 6 months in the refrigerator.  You can also can it (I personally have never done that but there are directions all over the internet).

Our 6 gallons yielded 1 pint of syrup but the tween queen had to have a separate container she could eat with a spoon before I could get it all in the jar for a picture!

INSTRUCTIONS:

Collect sap

Strain through cheesecloth and store in the refrigerator

TO MAKE SYRUP:

Fill a large pot with the sap and bring to a boil

When it boils down keep adding the rest of your sap until it’s all in the pot

Continue boiling stirring once in a while and removing the foam when needed

Test to see if it has turned a light amber color after it has boiled down the final time

Continue boiling until the sap is beginning to boil and foam, is darker in color and is slightly thicker

Remove from heat and strain through cheesecloth into the container you are storing it in

Let cool and store in the refrigerator for up to 6 months

Let the season begin

Goodbye relaxing nights and those extra 20 minutes of sleep in the morning.  You are being replaced with garden “engineering” which includes layout, planning, planting, weeding, working, and non-stop love and care!

Today’s project was getting some of our late producing vegetables planted.  We did pumpkins, butternut squash, kale, cabbage, brussel sprouts and peas.  The kids love to help with this and the tween queen planted a container of Morning Glory, Cosmos and Zinnia.

And of course there’s always a jokester in the group!!  I knew something was up when the giggling was getting out of control.

If you saw my garden tip on Facebook, these are the little cups I save throughout the winter to use as planters.  These are lemon ice and yogurt containers.  Poke a few holes in the bottom and they are perfect for starting plants.

You can store these on a tray with sides and fill with water from the bottom so it hits the roots and nourishes the plant and you don’t have to water each one individually or with a sprayer.  This is a HUGE time saver!

And now they are gently covered with the sunlight hitting them to begin their growing process.  Fingers crossed they all produce.

Homemade Body Scrubs

Body scrubs are an excellent way to exfoliate your body in the winter and summer.  They also moisturize and nourish your skin.  Store bought scrubs are expensive and contain all sorts of ingredients and sometimes the scent is overpowering.

We make our own and it’s very inexpensive and making it in small batches allows us to make many different scents.

Tonight I decided to make a quick Eucalyptus scent as both of my children are sick and I felt I needed a breath of fresh air in my scrub.  Eucalyptus reminds me of days spent in Florida years ago when my parents first moved there and I would visit. I would lay in the guest room and take in the wonderful fresh smell from the woods near their home.

Last week the tween queen and her friend made an almond scented scrub.  They used Almond flavored food extract to scent it and it smells fabulous.

We use simple ingredients you can purchase right in your grocery store and they last a long time.  Here is how we make ours.  There is no “exact” measurements because sometimes I will make enough for 2 showers and other times I will make a larger batch as a gift for a friend.  There is no way to mess this up.

Ingredients:

Sunflower oil

Organic Cane Sugar

Extract or essential oil scent of your choice

Jar or plastic container with a lid

To make the scrub put the amount of cane sugar in your jar for a small or larger batch.  Pour in just enough sunflower oil to make it a bit runnier than a paste.  Add a few drops of your scent and mix.  Store in the shower area with the lid on closing after each use.

Scrub it on and feel the softness of your skin when you rinse it off.

It also works wonders on those heels and your hands!!

Sharing on:  Simple Saturdays Blog Hop