Since we started buying spices in bulk at open harvest, we have looked for good spice containers. We have bought jars and other things but none seem to work out as good as we hoped. Alton Brown uses metal canisters which he attaches them with velcro. We saw similar ones at BB&B and decided to go for it. Did an uber clean on the pantry and picked out our 10 favorite spices for the jars. I hope they are air tight enough.

Your basic bean dip. Theresa thinks pinto’s are gross, but loves garbonzo mush. We had a jar of garlic in a jar of liquid and I used a ton of it in this hummus. It was too weak, Added some fresh and it became garlic napalm. Toasted some sesame seeds, lightly toasted the garbonzo beans, added a bit of olive oil.

Had a potluck over at a friends Friday night. There was corned beef with new potatoes, flank steak for burritos, and the kids made these awesome cupcakes. Lemon skittles make up the corn kernels and the butter is a melted lemon starburst. Too cute.

Then how do you feed 50 people at a cabin on the lake? 3 rocking charcoal grills. Those are bacon wrapped deer fillets. They were delicious. Tons of dogs and burgers left everybody stuffed.

The wind kept the smoke away most of the time, but every now and then we got smoked out big time.

These showed up in the mail today. What an amazing deal. 1/2 pound or around 60 Grade A Gourmet Tahitian Vanilla Beans for $16.49 including shipping. From vanilla products USA through their ebay store

The jar next to the beans contained 2 beans and was $9.00

I went with Tahitian just cuz they sounded cooler. What is the difference you ask?

Planifolia beans, commonly known as Madagascar Bourbon, is the taste most people are familiar with. Vanilla Extract that you would normally buy at the supermarket is usually made with Madagascar beans.Tahitian beans also contain heliotropin, an organic compound that imparts a sweet, floral, fruity flavor.

Gonna make some extract, uber ice cream, and some sugar.

My brother had us over for fathers day and he made some cheesy bake taters with our meal and they were really good. I inquired about the recipe and this is what I got.

Boiled the taters until just done, I think it is ok to have them just a bit raw since you will be baking them again.

Melt butter and olive oil in a small pan with a good amount of garlic (chopped). You should be on low heat to just cook the garlic not brown it. You are just releasing the essential oils out of the garlic.

Add some milk or half and half to taters and mash. Add butter/oil/garlic mixture and mix.

Salt, pepper, and what ever other seasoning to taste.

then added Parmesan from a can and some cheddar cheese and mix well. Taste and re-season if needed. Put into a baking dish and cover top with more parmesan cheese from the can and bake for 30-45 minutes at 350.

He makes some really good stuff and we picked up a pork loin to go along with the taters. The pork loin I got was actually two that were the same as a PSMO and I carved them up into 4 hunks, 3 for later meals.

I really do not exact amounts of ingredients since I was pretty much winging it.
While the tato bits were a boiling I mixed a bit of butter, olive oil, and chopped garlic in a pan on low.

Drained the tatos and dumped them in the mixer with the paddle attachment. Salt, the garlic stuff, pepper, some shredded parm and colby cheese.

added a bit of table cream and milk to thin it a bit

smooshed it into a bowl

Added some cheese on top, put some foil on top, baked, and got the pork going.

Let the pork loin chunk sit in a bag with some garlic, basil, parsley, salt, pepper, olive oil, and a bit of wine for about 30 minutes. When on the grill I did not monitor the temp too much. Just got a good crust on it. When we cut it was a perfect pink and juicy as heck.

I was a bit worried about the taters cuz I got them a bit overdone when boiling. While mixing it thickened up good. Next time I will thin it a bit more with extra milk and add even more garlic. They were fantastic though.

Really strange I found this clone of my main site template. I plan on working to customize it here soon. The green banner will be replaced. I want this site to shine like Giada’s teeth

I could not take the dark background anymore. And the template made it hard to edit. many other issues as well.

Thanks for visiting.

Theresa has been making treats for a long time. one two. As with the animal soup they are only an addition to regular food. Sure the stuff we make is full of nutrients, but bought food has nutrients worked in that might not be met by the ingredients from the homemade stuff.

If you plan to feed your animal only food you make you need to pick up supplements and mix them into your food. Also the formula Theresa follows is pretty specific. Animals differ in their nutritional needs. One book that goes into great detail has three weight classes and 4 recipes each. You are not supposed to try and size up a recipe cuz it throws off the nutritional balance. Food we make is 1/4 of their intake.

With the treats, a usual ingredient is the dry food to bulk them up. We mix in dry when they get soup in their bowls. I would think you could mix in dry stuff earlier to make it more palatable for finicky eaters.

Veg is cheap, meat and some of the ingredients used make it will be more expensive than what you would get out of dry food, but not too much. Bulk bins for grains and beans, cheap meat, left overs appropriate for the pets, it is not too much more of an expense when compared to the well being and actually happiness of our pets. Plus Theresa loves to cook for them. If all her baking was for just us we would be in trouble