The BEST dill pickles

With all those summer gardens coming I thought you could use a good recipe for dill ( I put garlic cloves to make kosher!) pickles******

Boil and keep warm -

12 cups water

6 cups white vinegar

3/4 cups table salt

1/4 tsp alum (available in the spice aisle)

If you have extra liquid just save and reheat later

Need-

About 1 lug pickling cukes

1 package dill weed (stalks & stems)

Quart or pint canning jars (wide mouth are easiest)

It might sound weird but put the cukes in the washing machine on rinse & spin. This cleans them extremely well!

Fill cleaned hot jars with as many cukes as will fit, add dill weed and stems (as much as you want) and garlic cloves if wanted. Top with hot water mixture leaving 1 inch head space- clean off jar top from anything on it and top with hot canning lid and screw top (tightened).

Turn bottles upside down on towels on the counter until cool then right side up. Put any that didn't seal in the fridge and the rest in cupboard for 3-4 months to process.

These are delicious, not soggy fantastic pickles! ENJOY!! :)

Hint & Tips

1- Frozen grapes are very refreshing on a hot summer day
2- If you put bread in the bottom of the pan before you put your meatloaf mixture in (on top of the bread) it will soak up all the grease and pull right off the meat when done, leaving your meatloaf not greasy tasting and no grease to get rid of- feed it to your dogs, they'll love it!
3- Mini marshmellos placed in the bottom of the cone before making an ice cream cone stops the drips out the end
4- You can make a casserole out of anything as long as you have canned soup and frozen hash brown potatoes. Try ground beef & cream of mushroom- Ham and fiesta cheese- pork & cream of asperagus etc. Mix any of these or your own creation with the has browns top with bread crumbs or crumbled crackers Bake 350 until hot...delicious!
5- Baking soda and vinegar make a natural drain cleaner. run hot water down the drain, 1/4 cup baking soda/2 cups white vinegar, let set 2 hours & rinse
6- salt sprinkled around the wheels of your camp trailer/motorhome/tent will keep out the ants and other bugs
7- A bounce dryer sheet keeps mosquitos away- place on your belt etc & watch it work
Happy Summer!! (If it ever comes :)

more tid bits

If you want to make smores and don't have chololate but do have chocolate chips try making a hole in the marshmello and fill with 3-4 chips, seal the marshmello back together with your fingers and roast. The chocolate will melt and it's less messy! Or use the chocolate covered graham crackers for even less mess.

Bananas are great on the grill too- pull one piece of the peel down and carefully slice the banana open, fill with chocolate chips and mimi marshmellos, pull the peel back up and cover with aluminum foil. Grill until hot and melted...delicious!

tid bits

Baggy Ice Cream- this is great for camping or for making with kids!

1 quart size zip top baggy
1 gallon size zip top baggy

1/2 cup 1/2 & 1/2
1 tsp sugar
1/2 tsp vanilla
put this mixture into the quart baggy and remove as much air as you can, seal well

drop this bag into the gallon bag along with ice (2-3 cups) and about 2 tbs rock salt
remove as much air as you can and seal well

shake, roll, squeeze until the ice cream is hard and set (for little kids use oven mits, towels etc. because this will get very cold)

remove the inner bag and bite off one corner, push out the ice cream and enjoy!
Good on cobblers or by its self.
Can add chocolate chips, fruit etc to make flavors

Blueberry Lemon Streusel in a Jiff

When Carrielynn and her boyfriend Jacob were stopping at our house on their way to California my mom made a streusel cocoction for breakfast. It's somewhere in between a sweet coffee cake and a dessert. It's really good! Even my dad liked it-which is really saying something. There's really no recipe because she made it up, but here's the basic idea.

Jiffy Blueberry Lemon Coffee Cake with Streusel

Directions for Cake:
Make cakes according to package directions, but combine both mixes together. Place mix in greased 8x8 pan.


Directions for Streusel:
3 packages instant cinnamon oatmeal
1 tbs butter
3 tbs brown sugar

Mix ingredients well and smooth over top of cake. Bake cake according to package directions and watch for done-ness. This cake took longer than the Jiffy directions - about 50 minutes, but watch yours because altitude changes will make a difference.

Parlez vous blog post?

Okay I'm going to try and get a post out once a week (mostly because my dad doesn't think it will happen). It's going to be difficult because this week I'm working 40 hours and I have an online class. We'll see how well it goes.

I'm glad to see we have 5 followers! Let me know what you'd like to see on the blog and I'll try to get it on. Oh, and invite other people! I know there's not much yet, but I'm hoping pretty soon we'll have some more recipes posted. I'll try and get something else out later this week.

For some reason a whole bunch of the changes I made to the blog didn't save. It's kind of frustrating because it took a long time to do. I'll try and update the look of the blog when I make the next post.

Grandma's Chicken Dumplings

For the first actual recipe post I suppose I should post something that is a fond family recipe. This is the family dumpling recipe that came from my Grandma Schwarz. Originally it was her mother's recipe and although we have made some slight changes (it used to have celery in it and we never do that) the tradition remains the same. Remember to double the recipe because you'll want leftovers and my mom says it freezes well.

Schwarz Family Chicken Dumplings

For the dough:
2 C all purpose flour,
1/2 tsp salt,
1 beaten egg,
1 tbs oil,
3 tsps - don't convert this to tablespoons even if you double the recipe! It wont work!
1/2 C milk (more or less to make a soft dough) mix & let rest while you make soup

For the soup:
2 cans cream of chicken soup with 1 1/2 cans water (I usually use more water or broth to have lots of soup). Heat in a large pan with a tight fitting lid as this will go in the oven (sometimes I use my turkey roasting pan).
While soup heats: roll dough out like cinnamon rolls to 1/2 inch think, spread softened butter (it has to be real butter, not margarine) on dough & lightly sprinkle with poultry seasoning (you can also top with celery leaves if you like the flavor - that's what Grandma used to do). Roll up long ways and cut 1/2-3/4 inch slices (sometimes I do larger). They should look like cinnamon rolls. Drop into bubbling hot soup and put into preheated oven at 450 degrees for 20 minutes or so. The dumplings should be fluffy like bread not doughy or stiff. I usually add either rotisserie, canned or left over chicken to the soup.

If you double the recipe and don't use a very big pan make sure to check them after 20 minutes. They will usually crowd the pan and need a longer baking time. Enjoy!

- Danielle

Here we go . . .

So I think my mom came up with the idea of us having a blog as a joke. I took it seriously so here it is. We'll see how it goes. This whole thing makes me want to watch Julie and Julia.

I think the idea is that we can share recipes and special life moments with friends and other family members. Sounds like a good idea to me, since I've been away at college for three years and have been officially cooking for myself for a while. Hopefully, this will be fun and interesting!