Cooking for Easter

These are a few of our favorite things we'll be serving on Easter Sunday.  Mashed potatoes...

 Blue cheese stuffed mushrooms......

Asparagus wrapped with prosciutto, cream cheese and flaky philo crusts......

And the Easter Cake! Our son is smoking the ham and the Easter baskets are being prepared for the children. This is a glorious Good Friday in Kansas, going to be 70 degrees here today.  Grateful Friday.

Easter cake...yes please

I have been searching for a new and different Easter cake to bake this year.  A tradition started by my Mothers grandmother, baking and decorating a cake for Easter.  My Mom always made one for my boys and I in turn always made one for my grandchildren.  Looking over pinterest. there are a million and one choices to be made.  Took this recipe for a test run yesterday and it is a winner!  Cream cheese pound cake...oh my it is so moist and delicious.  Mr. Outdoors and I are enjoying it so much, no need for icing or even the cherries, a delight by itself for sure.  The one I make for Easter will be decorated properly with frosting, bunnies, coconut dyed green for grass and choco eggs.  

Working Wednesday at The farm

Mr. Outdoors has been clearing trees from between a hay field and farm ground with lots of help from our 4 legged friend Champ, who is always up for a dip in the ponds.

Monday's musings

The snow didn't last long, I think it melted and left us as quick as it appeared.  Canning potatoes today.  We got a buy on 20lbs. of potatoes for $2.00 which gave us 32 pints.  Yummy!  A pitcher of fresh lemonade to quench the thirst...my favorite, always reminds me of the lemonade my Grandmother made for me as a girl.  Our cold weather should be out of here after today and boy are we ready for it!  We are keeping close watch on our baby tomato and pepper plants we have in the south windows and it hopefully won't be long till we can get them in the ground.

Welcome Spring??!!

Beautiful snow overnight.  Thankful for the moisture and the trees are soooo pretty!  Snowy Sunday!

Button flowers

Lovely button flowers.  Put onto florists wire and twisted.  Possibilities are endless...so cute!

Wordless Wednesday..... hint...chocolate covered bacon!

St. Patricks Day

Happy St. Pat's Day!  May your pockets be heavy and you heart be light!  

Canning and a quilt or two!

Still at the canning and want to do some chilli and I will be done for awhile.  My shelves are full and this will tide us over for quite a bit....blackeyed peas with jalapenos, kidney beans, garbanzo beans, pinto beans and stew.  Love my new pressure canner and it is so much more sophisticated than the ones of old.  This sweet little quilt block my Grandmother made many years ago and I am playing around with making a quilt from this pattern, Colonial girl.  Lots of appliqué and embroidery and will do it in vintage fabrics.

Beautiful gallery quilt

This is such a lovely quilt from Tokyo quilt show.  The trees are embroidered in feather stitch.....ombre thread.  How's that for some inspiration?  This could be a very small quilt or a large one, one for every season.  Spring, summer, fall and like this one winter...oh the possibilities!  Magical Monday!

Stew canning

Canning stew today...... roast, carrots, potatoes, celery and onions.  Half the jars I put beef broth in and the rest just water.  We will see which we prefer the most, always room for changing here.  Gravies don't can well so the thickening part will come when being heated to serve.  Canned @ 10 lbs. pressure for 90 minutes.  Figured the cost per quart ......right at $2.72 .  Sunny Saturday!

New canner in the house.

It has been well over 50 years since I helped my Grandmother pressure can.  I have been wanting one of my own since I can't remember when.  Mr. Outdoors and I found just what we wanted on our Colorado journey at a price we couldn't resist.  My first trial was pinto beans and they turned out just as I hoped...yea! A great money saver too...34 cents a pint! My next canning will be beef stew.....rump roast cut into 1" chunks, along with potatoes, carrots, onions and celery. I am impressed with all the pressure canning recipes available on the internet and I so appreciate people taking the time to post their recipes and pictures detailing their process.  Our whopper snow is about all melted and we have sunny skies and warmer weather in store for us in the next week....we are so ready for springtime and warmer weather.