Isn’t this a great day for the United States of America — this is something that my family and I will remember forever. My almost 84 year old mother said she didn’t think she would ever see race put aside and have a black man elected president. She thought it was great. There are mixed feelings of course in the U.S. about this. It will take some people quite some time to get past their racist beliefs. But around the world from comments made on other peoples blogs you get the feeling there has been a sigh of relief around the world and in the United States that maybe now we can get to healing and get back to good terms with other countries who have not felt very kindly to us in recent years. I do wish though that I lived in a “blue” state -I do wish that all people in this state would realize what kind of history has been made and how good this is for our country. The Obama’s are a beautiful family and we wish them the best possible in the future.
I found this very easy recipe for making Apple Butter which I love, and this recipe is too easy to pass up. I made a batch and love it. It is chunky than the processed stuff that you buy in the stores. About half way through the cooking process I noticed that the apples were still in slices so I use a masher (like the old fashion way to do potatoes) and mashed the apples up and that worked really well.
So-Easy Apple Butter
4 pounds cooking apples, peeled, cored & sliced about 12 cups
2 cups sugar
1/3 cup water
2 tablespoon cider vinegar
2 teaspoons cinnamon
1/4 teaspoon ground cloves
1/8 teaspoon allspice
1/8 teaspoon nutmeg
place apple slices in a slow cooker, stir in all other ingredients and cover.
Cook on high heat for 5 to 6 hours (mine went 8 to 10 hours and worked well).
Cool at least 1 hour or overnight and ladle into half-pint strage containers
leaving a 1/2 inch headspace. Seal and label and put in your freezer. Stores 3
weeks in refirgerator or for 1 year in freezer.
2 tablespoons equal: 71 calories, 0g fat, 0mg chol, 1 mg sodium, 18g carbs, 1g
fiber, 1g protein
This recipe was in the Midwest Living Magazine (Sept/October)
by Karen on November 1, 2008
in weather
We are having a great fall so far. We have had very little cold weather and here it is the 1st of November. Down in the valley they had freezing temps last week for 3 nights and frost. Here up on the ridge we have not had a frost. The trees are turning color anyhow and some of the trees have already lost all of their leaves. I took some photo’s a little while ago of the trees – here they are:
This tree is the very last of the trees in our yard to change color and loose it’s leaves – usually the leaves fall of this tree around thanksgiving to the first week of December. I’m not sure what kind it is but it is one of my favorites, a small amount of the leaves are now turning yellow but very little have fallen to the ground:
the corner of property that is by the road, here we have an oak, a maple, dogwood and sweetgum – when we moved here 27 years ago some of these trees where not here and others were twigs in the ground – you can see how quickly trees grow in Arkansas:
Here we planted a stand of Hazelnut trees (filberts?) about 20 years ago. They do have nuts on them, but they don’t taste well, I have tried drying them in the oven after soaking them in water but they still don’t taste like the nuts you buy. Anyone know how to harvest them?:
Here the tree that looks bare is covered with persimmon fruit, this tree is also about 20 years old, we didn’t plant it, it just sprouted up on it’s own. We have about 5 or more of these trees on our property. I have tried in the past to harvest the fruit but haven’t had much luck with it, a lot of the fruit has to be gathered to get enough to use. One time I did get some and finally got about 1 cup of the fruit pulp to use in a bread recipe and it was good, it is just a long process. Maybe I will try again as this year the trees do seem to have more than normal on them:
A photo of the fruit:
