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Art's of Virtue~How to make Pumpkin Puree Learning to do things ourselves, to make them healthier and more inexpensively. Remembering how our Grandmothers did things, with love and determination to stretch every penny. That's what my Arts of Virtue series is all about. Today we will make our own Pumpkin Puree. Let's begin...  Lop off the top and cut it in half. Scoop out all the fleshy inside and the seeds and put them into a bowl to be used later. Cut your pumpkin into wedges and place on a large sheet pan.I have heard you can place them fleshy side up or down. I chose up.  Roast them in your oven at 350* for 45 minutes or until the flesh is very fork-tender. Peel the skin off the flesh and cut into chunks and toss into your food processor. Puree until smooth Measure into zip-lock baggies and freeze until needed.I put 1 cup per bag.  When you're ready to make a pie, muffins, pancakes you have your own pumpkin puree waiting for you in the freezer!And don't throw out those seeds, we will talk about those later! :) My Cup Runneth Over... Chas 07:43 - Thursday, November 12, 2009 - comments {3} - post comment
Arts of Virtue~ Crochet a Granny SquareHello my friends!!!I haven't forgotten my series... I have just been having a rough couple of weeks. I am glad to be back with you and today I will be sharing a tutorial I made a long while back about crocheting a Granny Square. The pictures are not the best... but maybe you will get the idea. :) If you are a Newbie to Crochet HERE is a site to help you with basic stitches, you will see me refer to several in this tutorial... Chain, Slip Stitch, Double Crochet. Step 1: Chain 5  Cool, you got that! Alrighty we are on our way!  Step 2: You want to turn that chain into a round so you will go to the first chain and slip stitch...  Now we have our center, we will build on from there! Woohoo!  Step 3: Chain 3  Here we are building out from the center and we will begin making a larger circle to build on from hereStep 4: Two(2) Double Crochets and chain 1  Alright, here we are in process of making our circle, so what we are going to do is we are going to double crochet 2 times and then chain 1. The chain will make the space we need to help us along in future steps...Step 5: 3 Double Crochets and chain 1 (3 more times) slip stitch to complete the circle  Now we have a circle!! Yippee... but wait I told you we were making Granny Squares right? Ok, bear with me we will get to the square in a minute.So to make sure we are cool to this point, counting the first 3 chains as one DC (double crochet) you will have 4 sets of 3 double crochets with one chain in between.... clear as mud?? Step 6: Chain 3 and then double crochet 2, chain 1, double crochet 3 and chain 1 in the same hole  If you will look at your round you will see 3 double crochets and then a hole/space in between each set of 3. This space is where you will go into to make your next layer or sets of 3. Does this make sense... I am trying!  What you are doing now is building your edges... we can't make this granny square stay a circle any longer, we are going to put some corners on it! Step 7: Look for next hole, double crochet 3 and chain 1~ 2 times in each hole. (You will do this in each hole till you meet back up with your first set. This will form your first square. Slip Stitch to complete the square and now you are ready to build on.  Step 8: Chain 3, double crochet 2, chain 1  You will notice that there is now a hole between each of the four edges, you are going to do almost the same thing in each hole... meaning you don't want an edge you just want a set of 3 dc's to fill the hole.So dc three times and chain one and move to your edge. Step 9: Double Crochet 3 times, chain 1, Double Crochet 3 times, chain 1 in corner hole.  Again, you are making corners for this square, you should be catching on to a pattern if I have successfully portrayed this to you. So in each of the corners you are making 3 dc's, chain 1, 3 dc's, chain 1. Simple!Step 10: Slip stitch to join the square together  Step 11: Finish out your next layer of the square the same way as in Steps 8 and 9, the only difference is you will find 2 holes in the in between each edge this time... no big deal just dc 3 times and chain one in each. ***REMEMBER, your first chain of 3 counts as your first dc in your first set.***  Step 12: All the way baby... go all around just as I told you, come together again, slip stitch and tie off your end.  The lady who taught me only does 4 layers, but of course you can do more if you like. Now you want a bunch of these... so get to it!  I don't have nearly as many as I would like to have had done by now, but remember I am teaching myself to hold the crochet needle/hook in the proper way, so I am SLOW JOE right now.  Once you get several made you can do all kinds of things with them... Make them into an afghan by stitching them together, make potholders out of them by putting several layers together on top of each other and stitching, use them as coasters, make a pillow cover, make your dd a doll blanket out of a few... whatever you like. I hope you enjoyed and understood my attempt of spreading the knowledge that I received. If you see a mistake, feel free to email me or message me and I will change it, and now go get your yarn and your hook and go for it! If I can do it YOU can do it! In other news... My friend Lisa at Homestead Originals is holding a contest for three DVD set from The West Ladies. I LOVE their videos! Truly. I would LOVE to win! 08:24 - Thursday, September 10, 2009 - comments {4} - post comment
Arts of Virtue~How to Knit~Knitting~ Knitting has been one of the arts that I have been afraid of... not quite understanding the many different needles, or using two needles at a time thing  I have been a mediocre crocheter for as long as I can remember so knitting has been uncharted territory. But since it is an art that seems to have been made 'popular' again, I will feature it today. Nope, you will not see a video of me clumsy-ily fingering through casting on and knit 1... but rather I am going to point you to a fine set of videos teaching the art better than I ever could. How to Knit This site has some very basic and easy to follow videos that really do help you begin to get the feel of knitting. I can't tell you that I prefer knitting needles over my handy crochet hook yet, but I can tell you that I love a challenge and so I am eagerly learning. :) Dishcloths are a favorite handmade item of mine... A- because they whip up rather quickly B- because you can use them for SO many things C-can you really ever have enough???  Above is one of my first knitting projects and a bar of handmade soap from a dear, sweet cousin of mine :). If you haven't tried your hand at knitting yet, give it a go. Learn something new... If you are like me and it just hasn't completely become second nature, come along and try with me... Challenge yourself. :) If you don't care to learn, visit me at my etsy and send me a request and I can make you something. :) hee hee, shameless plug, I know, but really... email me! :) Blessings and happy stitching!!! 06:38 - Thursday, August 13, 2009 - comments {2} - post comment
Arts of Virtue~GranolaGranola * 1/2 cup butter (1 stick) * 1 cup brown sugar/sucanat * 1/4 cup water * 1/4 teaspoon salt * 4 cups rolled oats * 1/2 teaspoon cinnamon In a large 4 quart saucepan melt the butter, sugar and water together. Stir it well and let it simmer for a few minutes (2 or 3 minutes should be enough). Add the salt, oatmeal and cinnamon to the big pot. Remove the pot from the stove and stir up the granola. You want to coat the oats with the brown sugar and butter, so keep stirring until everything is moistened. Pour the granola onto a cookie sheet. Bake it at 350° for 10 minutes. Remove from oven and stir slightly. Return to oven and bake another 10 min... by this point, it should be a nice golden brown. Remove the pan from the oven and allow the granola to cool right there in the pan. When it is cool, break it up into small pieces and place in air tight container. Add the nuts, dried fruit, chocolate chips whatever you fancy, when you put it into the canister. Serve with yogurt from prior lesson or eat with milk like cereal! :) Enjoy! ***Special thanks to my Cameo (12 years old) for filming this weeks video :) *** 04:45 - Thursday, August 6, 2009 - comments {8} - post comment
Arts of Virtue~How to Make YogurtA special thank you, to my friend Chautona who was so thoughtful and made me this beautiful banner. xoxoHello Dear Friends, I am so glad you came by for a visit today. As you know today begins my series of 'how to's'. Remembering the Arts of Yesteryear, A fancy way of saying... Learning to do things that our Grandmother's did... This video was made late one evening after the children were snug in bed and Shannon was begged to leave the room. :) I am nervous, there are a LOT of grammatical errors (to which I am aware of, thanks!), I have a Southern drawl, and I mis-speak several times... But hopefully all in all you will see just how simple it is to make your own yogurt. I can't get raw milk around here, so it is straight up store bought vitamin D. I mention in the video to use 'full fat', meaning no lo-fat alternatives here please... it will not set-up properly. And my advice is, if you want flavored yogurt... dip out your serving and then flavor it. It is a shame to have a whole quart jar of vanilla yogurt when you might want some to dollop on your taco. So I hope you enjoy, I hope you try it and I hope you come back next week! :) **** I just now see that the last part of the video has been cut off... SORRY! What you do from the last part is fill the cooler up to the neck of the jar and close it up for the night. That's it!***** Thank you Lindsey for giving me this awesome recipe! Love you! :) Homemade Yogurt This is the recipe from Lindsey 1 quart of whole milk 2 Tbsp. yogurt (plain and full fat!) Bring a quart of milk to 180 degrees gently. Then cool it to 110 degrees. Add a small amount of milk to a wide mouth quart jar. Add 2 Tbsp yogurt to the jar. Swirl the yogurt around in the milk to mix well and then carefully add as much of the rest of the milk as you can fit in the jar. Now put the lid on your jar and put your jar in a little lunchbox size cooler and fill the cooler with the hottest tap water you have up to the neck of the jar. Loosen the lid just a bit and close the lunchbox. Set it somewhere that it won't be bothered or opened. I did mine right before bed and by the morning my yogurt was ready. Tighten your lid back up and put it in the fridge! Remember to scroll down and turn off music before playing video. :) Any ugly or hateful comments will be deleted... just remember the ole saying, if you can't say something nice, don't say anything at all! 12:00 - Thursday, July 30, 2009 - comments {17} - post comment
New Feature: Arts of Virtue Yesterday I alerted (on twitter) that I was excited about a new feature that I was going to begin on the blog. :) After some deliberation, some friends came up with a name for this feature. Arts of Virtue: Rediscovering the Arts of Yesteryear Each week I am going to give a step by step demonstration of some type of skill or a how to lesson. Some ideas are:
Well, this is what I need from you. I need ideas. What you would like to see... a skill that you would like to learn how to do. If I know how to do it (hee hee), I will feature it in one of our Thursday installments. Thursday of course, because Thursday is my favorite day, remember? :) So please, leave your idea, your request in the comments and bookmark me in your favorites and lets look for some fun times ahead. If I can figure out how to do it, I am contemplating making 'how to' videos as well. :) Have a great weekend friends... ours begins today after Shannon gets home. We are beginning our mini-stay-cation (meaning we stay around home but pretend we are on vacation and just do fun stuff! It's cheap and fun! And mini because it is just for four days! But we really need some time to step away from everything and enjoy each other.) Pictures to come next week! 06:11 - Thursday, July 23, 2009 - comments {9} - post comment
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Description Welcome to the Journey of our lives here at our place on this Mountain, our Heritage Acres Homestead. My name is Chas and here you will find my thoughts, my ideas and my accomplishments of my life as a Christian wife to my Sweetheart of many years, and as a Homeschooling Moma to my 4 beautiful blessings. We are making the most out of what God has abundantly blessed us with! Truly, My Cup Runneth Over... I hope you enjoy your visit here and come back soon! 
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