Zucchini Fritters

It's that time of year, when you are faced with armloads of zucchini not only from your own garden but from those of your friends and family!  Your own family threatens mutiny if you bring one more bowl of the boiled vegetable to the table, they don't even want it fried anymore.  No More Zucchini, they chant!
If this your problem, then I may have a solution for you!  Cue drumroll, please..........

ZUCCHINI FRITTERS

Aren't they loverly? This is a great recipe for those late summer days when zucchini is more than plentiful. 
Ok, here's the recipe, it's not one you really measure, but I tried to put amounts to the ingredients

1 cup Bisquick

2 cups grated zucchini

1 or 2 eggs (I like 2 eggs)

1 cup shredded cheese

salt and pepper to taste

I grate the zucchini then let it sit in a colander while I mix up the rest, then I squeeze the juice from the zucchini so it's not quite so watery.  You can also add diced green chili, yum.

You'll want to melt some butter and oil in a skillet, then drop the fritter dough by spoonfuls into the hot grease. Flatten them down some so they won't take so long to cook.  When they are golden brown on one side, flip them over.

Yummmy......by now the children were begging for it to be dinner time!  Depending on how big I make the fritters this recipe will usually feed all 10 of us.

Last night we had zucchini fritters with bbq'ed sausage and garden tomatoes.  Rohan is more than ready to dig in!!
Do you have any great Zucchini recipes?  I know we all could use some more!!!  Leave them in the comments!!
Have beautiful day,
Misty

I've shared this recipe on the Homemaking Link-up Click here to view the other lovely ideas, recipes and encouragement.

Kitchen Open house

Welcome Those From Kelly's Korner, Enjoy!

Hello, it's Thursday and that means part 2 of the 4 MOMS 35 KIDS Open House.  This week it's kitchens and Dinning Rooms.  Be sure to check out all the other Tours at Life in a Shoe.

Our kitchen is a nice size for our family of 10, it has lots of counter space and cupboards. 

Here Donagan is drying dishes in preparation for kitchen picture taking this morning!

Thanks Donagan, for a job well done.

Ileigh deserve a thank you too as she does most the kitchen clean-up, Thank you Ileigh, your the best!

This is what you see as come in the front door, the light is terrible, with the window letting in all the sun, makes for a bad picture, but a nice sunny kitchen!  What you see is my baking table, it holds all the necessary baking ingredients. 

Flour, wheat berries, brown, white, and powdered sugar, soda, salt, yeast and baking powder.

It also holds my Boch mixer. I love my Bosch, I can make loads of bread and baked items in it!! It gets used just bout everyday. I will really miss it when we go back in time and leave it behind!!

Here is the ice cream parlor chair that has been in my family for at least 70 years.  Next to it is our ice cream freezer, it has been used alot this summer!  There is also some art work and my collection of old spoons and utensils.  Most of my collection came from my Grandma Frankie.  She loved old things and was kind enough to share her collection with me. 

Here is more of my old kitchen junk collectibles!  They hang on an old barn board.  Sorry for the lousy picture the sun was shining again!

Here we have my cast iron, I LOVE cast iron cookware and use it every chance I get!  Later I will do a post showing all my pieces and how to take clean, season and refurbish cast iron.  This cart also holds the snacks, pretzels, dried fruit, and granola bars! YUM! 

These are wooden spoons and the like that I actually use, I abhor plastic and try and use only wood or stainless steel in the kitchen!

A tour of our kitchen wouldn't be complete without a picture of the "Chicken Bucket".  It is where everything, except meat, gets scraped.  All chickeny scraps go in here and are dumped to the birdies once a day.  The chickas love us for it!

Thank You for stopping by our humble kitchen.  All of us love to cook an bake in here and really enjoy our times together.  May your kitchen full of warm memories!

Misty

Laundry Update

I thought you might be interested in how our outside drying is going.  So far so good.......except I am a "dry by the seat of your pants" kinda girl.  Meaning I like to put in a load to wash at 10 o'clock pm and put it in the dryer at almost 11, then get the clothes out in the morning!  When you don't have the option to dry in the dryer that puts a kink in the system.  So I have to do a bit of planning and am getting closer to having "laundry days" where all I do is laundry and then folks have clothes for the week.  We still have too many clothes, but we are getting there.  I threw out all the boys things that were torn and stained, that seemed a good place to start, then I moved on to what was too small for one, but still way too big for the next in line, so those went to goodwill.  It's a slow process, I have so much other stuff to do that it's hard to make sorting clothes a top priority. 

When we put up pur line we bought clothespins at Target.  They were very chintzy, not the type Dane and I remembered from our childhood.  If you snapped those old ones on your finger you certainly felt it!!  These weak and pitiful things kept falling apart when you would pin them on the line.  When we ordered our Aladdin Lamp from Lehmans we also picked out some clothespins.  WOW, is all I can say, they were so much sturdier than the Target ones. 
Here you can see how much bigger they are and how much thicker the wire in the spring is.  These hold up everything, including Danes blue jeans!  I'm so glad we went with these.  They are made in China which is unfortunate, I would love to have some made in the USA, but for now I will be grateful for these. 

So if you do some serious clothes pinning, make sure you have some serious clothespins!!
Have a beautiful day,
Misty

Yard Sale Fun!

I don't usually do too many yard sales, I enjoy them, but just don't ever seem to get the chance to go to them.  This Friday the older children and I were out and about so we followed a sign and found a great sale.  It was a yard like I wish all sales were, like they used to be.  Full of old decrepit stuff, not just new plastic stuff people sell to so they'll have money to buy more plastic stuff.  This one had some really unique bottles and old tools.  Kegan bought 2 big bottles and 2 old rusty tools.  Ileigh got an old bottle, and 2 vintage books, if there's books to be found you can count on Ileighto see them!  Quinlan bought a safety razor and an animal call for hunting.  They were quite pleased with their purchases, but I was thrilled with mine!! In addition to a few tiny old bottles I got those 3 big beautiful crocks you see in the back!!!  I got them for $10 a piece.  I suppose I could have bargained for them, but I was so tickled to get them at that price that I forgot all about wheelin'and dealin'!  These type crocks can sell for $30 or more a piece!  These aren't antique, which is even better, I can use them on the farm and not have to worry about them as much. So all in all it was a great little yard sale, hope I find more like it soon!
Have a beautiful day,
Misty

......You Light Up My Life.......

Our non-electric lives are even brighter......Thanks to Aladdin.....Lamp that is, not the boy!  Aladdin Lamps are known the world over for their impressive bright, white light.  As bright as a 60 watt bulb, they are a mantle lamp that burns kerosene or lamp oil.  We have wanted an Aladdin Lamp for some time, one of the drawbacks to an Aladdin is the price,they are not cheap.  We looked around, antique shops, second hand stores, ect. and couldn't locate any.  Then we turned to the Internet, but had similar luck there.  Everyone seemed to know what they had, and priced them accordingly.  So we saved our money for a bit and our lovely lamp came last week! 

Isn't she beautiful?  It doesn't take much to excite us, the whole family was thrilled when it came in the mail!  We purchased from Lehmans, they sell all sorts of non-electric items.  Lehmans sell to the Amish as well as off the grid-ers (is that a word?), missionary's and regular folks.  We love their catalog, you can order one here.

Aladdin Lamps are mantle lamps, they have mantle much like the Colman lanterns.  The mantles are made of a nylon net that is knitted, then coated with rare earth minerals, then it is varnished to help it hold together during shipment.  The mantles are extremely fragile.  One bump or touch and they will dissolve. 

The first thing you do when you recieve your  lamp is burn off the varnish. 

You must do this outside as it burns fast and smokey.....

Once the varnish is gone you can assemble the lamp and fill with kerosene or oil, we use a refined lamp oil we bought from Lehmans, because it's refined there's not much smell at all!  The wick must soak in the fuel for at least an hour then you may light the lamp!!

The burner and gallery must warm up, then you may turn the flame up and your lamp will BEAM!!

Here is a shot of the round wick burning under the mantle. 

Our family has been having practice Non-Electric Evenings and Weekends, we have been using good old-fashioned non mantle oil lamps, here you can see the difference in the amount of light they put out.

We can't wait for our next Non-Electric event, we won't be sitting in the dark anymore!!

We have been doing a lot of research, the best book we could find on the subject of non-electric lighting is

The Book of Non-Electric Lighting by Matson.

This book covers all the lighting types, lamps, lanterns and wood stoves.  It's an easy read with just enough technical information to make it very interesting.  Hope your day is peaceful and your night is bright, ours will be!

A Few Family Photos!

Last week we were part of our 4-H groups entry in the County Fair Parade. The theme for the fair is The Wild West. We had no problem finding outfits for the parade! We had a great time and enjoyed dressing up. Ileigh made her own dress, I was so proud!

The Men of the Family

Dane, Kegan 17, Rohan 8, Quinlan 13, Ferran 4, Donagan 10.

The Ladies of the Family

Misty, Ileigh 15, Elsah 2.

As you can see we are terribly outnumbered!!

Let's not forget the baby of the Family!

Octavian 11months!

Now you know what we look like! Sorry it took so long to put up photos of us all!

We're still working on farm skills and have several posts in the making! Thanks for joining us!

Have beautiful day,

Misty

A Farm Tour with Elsah Doe

4 Moms and 35 Kids are having a month of Open House tours!! I thought this would be the perfect oppourtunity to show you our little farm in the dessert. I also thought it would be nice if Elsah gave the tour as she loves to be outside with all the animals!

Don't forget to check out all the other open houses over at Life in a shoeHello Everyone,

I'm Elsah MayDell, my family calls me Doey. I am 2 and half! Want to come and see my little farm? We live in the High Dessert so we have lots of Juniper Trees and Sage Brush!

First, here we have the bees, this is our first year with bees, they are doing ok, there's not very many of them, but they are busy!

We have a top bar hive, it's little different than the boxy hives you see, but the top bar is much more economical and easier to work with! Now let's go see Daddys garden!

Kegan, my biggest brother and Daddy work really hard on our garden, we call it our "Kinder"garden, because it is so small and will be nothing compared to the garden we will need in Missouri. It's a good practice garden though!
We have carrots, corn, broccoli, radishes, green beans, cabbage, peppers, pumpkins, and lots of tomatoes!! I love tomatoes!!!! Let's go see the goat, John Boy!

John Boy is a wether..........wether or not?? Ummmm.......Mom says it means he can't make baby goats. Anyway let's see if he'll eat my carrot!
Wow he Loves carrots! Mom says " time to gather eggs", my favorite thing!!

We have 12 hens and two roosters, we get white eggs and brown eggs! I LOVE eggs!!!

I do not care to hold the chickens, thank you very much, but I will pet one! Now let's get on with the egg gettin'.




Ahhh...aren't they wonderful? Every good farm girl knows you can carry eggs in your skirt!! Our chickens are nice and don't bite or scratch!

Thank you joining me on our farm tour, I hope you liked it! Have a wonderful day.

Love,

Elsah Doe