Southern Pork Barbecue....{and more new recipes}

I mentioned the other day that I was going to lay off the new recipes.  For one, I end up buying spices that I don't normally have on hand, and spices are expensive.  The second reason for giving up new recipes is that sometimes they are terrible, which is money down the drain - something I can't afford at this point in life.  We're getting close to having 4 teenagers in the house - 1 needs packable lunch food, 1 is a bodybuilder, 1 makes Greek yogurt, chia seed, fruit, etc. smoothies every morning, and 1 is growing like a weed (age 12, wears size 13 shoe).

Logically, I should be whipping up tacos, spaghetti, meatloaf, and soups all with a side of rice, potatoes, or bread.  But, I just can't restrain myself.  I love looking up recipes on Pinterest.  I love reading cookbooks and marking all the recipes that sound good with Post-it Notes.  I love trying new recipes.

Last month a friend gave me a cookbook that she somehow had two of.  Jackpot!!

I read through it many times and marked 11 recipes.  The first one I tried was Southern Pork Barbecue.  It is delicious!!!

That's the original recipe above.  Basically you slow cook a pork roast in water, shred the meat, add a delicious BBQ sauce, load up your buns, and top it with cole slaw.  It might sound weird, but cole slaw on burgers and such is pretty common fare in the south.

Here it is all cooked and shredded with the sauce.

Southern Pork Barbecue (with my changes and notes)
3-lb. boneless prok loin roast, trimmed mine was 4.5 pounds with a bone
1 c. water
18-oz. bottle barbecue sauce I used Sweet Baby Ray's original
2 T. Worcestershire sauce
1 to 2 T. hot pepper sauce I used 1T. Taco Bell Fire sauce
1/4 c. brown sugar, packed next time I will omit this completely
1 tsp. salt go light
1 tsp. pepper
16 to 20 mini hamburger buns any buns will work fine

Place roast in a slow cooker; add water.  Cover and cook on high setting for 7 hours.  Shred met; return to slow cooker.  Stir in remaining ingredients; cover and cook on low setting for one hour.  Serve on buns, topped with coleslaw.  Makes 8 to 10 servings, 2 buns each.  Next time I will take out some of the liquid before adding the BBQ sauce ingredients, so it's not so drippy.

Coleslaw
1 head cabbage, shredded I used 1 bag coleslaw mix
3 carrots, peeled and shredded
1 c. mayonnaise
1/3 c. sugar I used 1/4 cup
1/4 c. cider vinegar

Mix all together and serve on Pork Barbecue.

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I also made Frank's Chicken for supper last night.  I'll share that one later this week.

And if you like Sunbelt Granola bars, then you will like this recipe for Double Crunch Bars.

I also made Philly Cheesesteaks, a recipe I found on Pinterest, which were yummy.

3-Ingredient Hawaiian Chicken, not so great.

Happy Spring.  I hope your week is off to a great start.  I woke up to the awful sound of a child throwing up.  It's not the sound that's so awful, but the thought of it traveling through the entire family.  St. Joseph, pray for us.

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Weekly Wrap-Up.....{two weeks worth}

Weeks go by so quick so these weekly wrap-ups are turning into more of a two or three week wrap-up.  I have a variety of miscellaneous pictures from March, which I'll use to recap the month so far.

At first glance it appears to be Joseph's birthday, but of course, his is in August.  March brings us Warren's birthday.  The little kids really wanted Dad's birthday to be a party.  The best place I know of to get party supplies is Dollar Tree (where everything's a dollar, except some candy bars, which are only 69 cents).  $4.00 later we had all the makings of a party - 1 balloon, 1 centerpiece, 18 birthday plates, and a 60 pack of candles.  We didn't use all the candles, but it was nice to actually have enough.

Once the balloon was tied to Dad's chair, Joe sat down and literally didn't move all day.  He kept saying, "It's mine, it's mine."  I see lots of helium balloons in my future - because let me tell you, knowing exactly where to look for him was pure joy and I need more of that in my life.  Keeping track of his wanderings is a full time job.  Often I need a few LTE's to help out, too.

That's a lot of fire.

Sadly, Nick had to work so he missed out on the fun, but we saved him some fish and cake.

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 Sam, Joseph, Peter, and Maria have been following along with Holy Heroes' Lenten Adventure.

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Peter's been sneaking off with my camera lately.  He fills the card with pictures like these. ↙

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Counting down, remembering to pray for the daily intention, placing coins in the Rice Bowl - Lent is well under way.  You can find directions and a free printable for making your own calendar here.

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Always playing communion.  This little activity keeps her busy for a long time, and she has no problem distributing them to the entire family.

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One day the ground is clear, the next it's covered in snow again.  I just want the sun - cold March temps are bearable if it's sunny.  Amber's already working with Rhythm getting ready for fair.

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Now that Sam has turned intermediate, he's advanced to clip shoes.  He just bought them in size 13.  And he's still growing!

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Amber is dog sitting; there's 3 of them.  Family? recognize these dogs?  Bella, Daisy, and Teddy(not shown)

Amber and Bella

Joe and Bella

These little dogs live a pretty posh life.  They wear sweaters and ski jackets.  They eat salmon and bible bread.  They have their own stroller and rolling luggage.  We get to keep them for another 10 days.

That sums up our March so far.  

On the homeschooling front, we're in week 25, which means we should wrap up the year on May 27, just in time to get the garden in.

I hope to be back soon with a number of recipe reviews and a recap of what we're using for math this year and how it's working.

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Learning About the Saints::St. Frances of Rome

 

St. Frances of Rome video at Catholic.org

March 9 was the feast day for St. Frances of Rome.  I happened upon her story in Book of Saints on March 8, and since we hadn't celebrated a saint day in a while, I did a quick Google search for a few coloring pages and made plans to read her story the next day.  

My coloring page search didn't turn up anything for St. Frances, so I improvised quite a bit.  The St. Frances story in Book of Saints starts out having kids try to understand how they see things differently as they get older.  The older they get the more details they see.  As they see more details they begin to see more deeply what God has in mind for them.  That's how it was for St. Frances, anyway.  St. Frances also obeyed her parents and married a noble prince.

With that my Google search turned up a couple anatomy of the eye coloring pages as well as a girl wearing glasses and a married couple.  

Coloring is a great way to keep their attention during longer, pictureless saint stories.

Are my kids the only ones who think there's only one St. Francis and he's wearing a brown robe, calling in birds?  We had a little discussion about how one letter sometimes changes the gender of a name.  I pulled out Bread and Jam for Frances and let them figure out if Frances is a girl or boy.  They were stunned to learn that Frances is a girl.

I also ran across this lovely little saint book in the room where Sam takes Suzuki violin lessons.  Interestingly enough, it too, had the story of St. Frances of Rome - more detailed than the one in Book of Saints.  If you've never read her story and you're a mother and you have a hard time prioritizing (children, God, housekeeping, husband) you might enjoy it.

Sometimes she must leave God at the altar, and find him in her housekeeping  -St. Frances of Rome

Saints Budding Everywhere is the copy I'm referring to.

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In other news, I told my family (and myself), "NO new recipes for a while."  Whenever I try new recipes the grocery budget takes a hard hit from the extra spices and other ingredients needed.  And sometimes they're complete flops which is money wasted.  Argh!

As usual I didn't stand by my plan.  So far I've made:

-Hawaiian Chicken

-Southern BBQ Pork and Slaw sandwiches

-Double Crunch bars

-Crockpot Philly Cheesesteaks

-Southern Fried Fish with Cornmeal

I'll try and share those recipes along with my reviews soon.  The Southern BBQ Pork and Slaw sandwiches were a TOTAL HIT!!!  It came from this cookbook.

We're having a beautiful sunny day here in Central Wisconsin, which is a real treat even if it's below average cold.

Ramen and Dumplings

Remember my ham and cheese recipe?  The one that's not really a recipe at all, but a simple way to jazz up a regular ham and cheese sandwich into something extra special for lunch.

I have another one of those recipes to share with you today.  The ham and cheese sandwiches make a good lunch for most of the days, but what about Fridays.  I'm always on the look out for simple Lenten lunches to serve my meat eating family.  Ramen noodles are loved by everyone in the family no matter their age so I tend to make them often, especially Fridays.

But, we make Ramen and Dumplings.  It's one of those non-recipe recipes.  It's the only way we ever eat Ramen.  So, in case you're in need of another way to jazz up a regular 'ol meal of Ramen, I've got it covered.

The recipe is simple.

You need however many packages of ramen necessary to feed your family, eggs, and flour.

Basically, I bring a pot of water to boil (the amount needed for your ramen noodles).  Then I stir up the dumpling dough, drop by teaspoons full into the boiling water, stir gently.  When they float, they're cooked through.  Then I dump in the noodles and the seasoning packets, turn off the heat and wait for the noodles to soften to our liking.  That's it!

Here's the process of making the dumpling dough.  For our family of 9 I use 3 eggs.

I add at least 1 cup of flour, adding more 2 T. at a time to get a nice stiff dough.

You know it's right, when the dough pulls away from the side into a ball around the spoon.  Heavy on flour and your dumpling will be more dense and chewy.  Light on flour will yield a soft, fluffy, airy dumpling.  I prefer them dense and chewy, but feel free to play with the recipe and make them to your liking.

Adding dumplings to Ramen is a great way to increase their stick to your ribs ability, making the meal a bit more hearty.

 The Final Product

Not quite homemade, but almost.

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Homesteading Mishaps

The reality is I will never be going off the grid by choice.  As much as I love the word homesteading and try my hardest to act like a homesteader, I'm simply not one.

I do love gardening in a soft cotton dress.  I love the taste of pure maple syrup.  I love, love, love canning vegetables, jams, and juices.  I love the flavor of fresh eggs in hues of brown, blue, and green.  I love butchering*, grinding, and wrapping fresh venison in the fall.  I love baking bread in a pan found in my grandparents' basement.  I love blackberry picking along our woods trails.  And I love a well-worn apron.

*For the record, Warren and the kids do the butchering.

Homesteading and getting it right is hard work.  Years ago my canning goal was to put up 52 quarts of whatever I was making.  One quart a week of tomato juice, salsa, pizza sauce, spaghetti sauce, green beans, cranberry sauce, pickles.  As our family grew and appetites increased, so did the number of outside activities, loads of laundry, and time spent cooking.  I really should be putting up double, but finding time for a garden that size is hard.  And some days I'm just not up to the challenge.

A number of us were feeling under the weather this week and a pot of Hug and Kiss Soup is the perfect remedy.  Sadly, though, those two empty jars were the last of my supply of tomato juice.  We still have plenty of soup and chili days ahead of us here in Wisconsin and leave it to me to run out of tomato juice - the starter for both.  #homesteadinghardships #notselfreliantenough

And this beautiful picture has a very sad ending.  Sunday was finally the day to cook down the sap.  At the beginning of the season my goal was to make 2 quarts.  Not much, but about 7 times as much as Sam and I made last year.  Sam and I had the sap boiling away and came in to make supper.  We took turns checking on it every 20-30 minutes.  I checked on it.  It's getting close when it really starts smelling like maple syrup, which it did.  I ran in the house for something, decided to put away the leftover brats so I could take the boiling liquid outside to dump.  That's when I saw it - the fireball inside the kettle.  Before charring the syrup, it looked like we were going to have about 12-14 oz.  Last year our entire production amounted to only 6 oz.  Back to square one, but now the weather isn't conducive for a good sap run.

On a positive note, Nick filled the freezer for our Lenten fish fries.  Add to it the Northern Pike caught up North this winter and we're set for seven weeks of fish.  #homesteadingforLent

Share your best homesteading tips.  I need all the help I can get.

Hold your hat on, it's a blustery day out there.