Beef and Veggie Hand Pies

Yummy meat hand pies, it's what's for dinner! 

OMG. Hand pies? I realize, it's sounds kinda gross. You could call it a...hot pocket if you wanted to I suppose, but I think that name has been taken and then tradmarked, so I'll stick with hand pies for now. My first experience with them, was quite a while ago. I ate what was called an "irish hand pie". It is the cousin to the original version of what Nebraskans out here call a "Runza" or what is also called bierock. 

So. Basically have you have this pocket (closed of course) of meat and veggies that is baked and then consumed in all it's yumminess. 

Here's our version :) 

Ingredients for the dough.

What you'll need for the dough: 

1 cup of whole wheat flour

1.5 cup of whole white wheat flour

1 cup of warm water

1 tsp of salt

1 tbsp of sugar

1 tbsp of coconut oil

2.25 tsp yeast.

What you'll need for the filling: 

1lb of pastured grass fed beef

2 small onions

1 tbsp (about 2 cloves) of minced garlic

8 large mushrooms chopped

1 medium yellow squash

1 cup of mozzarella cheese

(If you're soaking your whole wheat flours like we're doing, you'll want to soak the water and flour overnight on your counter and then continue with the recipe.). 

Now, I toss all this in my bread machine in this order: water, salt, sugar, oil flour and then yeast. I throw that bad boy on "dough cycle" and get to cooking the meat and veggies.

Sauteed Veggies

We added in squash because we had a bunch,
but you could add in just about anything you could think of! 

Next, take your pan and throw a tbsp of coconut oil it and saute your veggies. I used onions, mushrooms, chopped garlic, and squash which aside from the mushrooms, all came from the garden. I got those nice and yummy and then added in the meat. I gave it a good stir and browned it up while mixing the flavors thoroughly. 

By this time, your dough should be done. It needs to rise, so if it' hasn't yet, let it rise and then punch it down. Cut it into 8 equal parts and then roll each one out into a circle. Add in some of the filling, and top with cheese. Now you could use ricotta cheese mixed with the meat too, we didn't have that, so I used what I had on hand.

Make sure to just keep cutting in halves
until you have the number of pieces you want.
You could always do more or less depending on your needs. 

Make sure to crimp all edges for a nice closed pie
 so it doesn't come open when you bake it. 

Add in any fillings you like, we added
in cheese!

Take a fork, fold over the pocket and crimp the edges closed with the tines of the fork. Sprinkle some cornmeal on a pan and lay your hand pies down on top. The cornmeal keeps the dough from sticking. 

Bake at 375º for about 25 min and then serve up with pizza sauce, or any other sauce you can think of! 

Garden July 15th 2013 UPDATE!

I'm simply amazed every time I walk out my backdoor into our garden and see the vegetation. I'm amazed every time a bloom falls off and there's a tomato behind it two days later. I'm doubly amazed when I check on the squash at night and come back in the morning to find it doubled in size. Your garden is the backbone of a great urban homestead and it really makes me so proud to see how well it can feed our family of six. So
lets get to the garden porn shall we?

Finally got the potatoes topped off. This was the second time we'd hilled them up. We're doing it about once every three weeks. You can see there's no lack of vegetation! 

These were the first set of potatoes we'd planted. As you can see, they're beginning to die off already. Won't be long now! 

Finally have blooms on the pepper plants for our salsa peppers. 

Homegrown stevia. I throw a few leaves in the tea cup when I'm brewing tea and it's makes for a great natural sweetener. Hubby almost killed them when I was visiting family with the kids. I came back and they were bone dry and brown. I cut them down to an inch and have given them plenty of water and they've come back just as strong. 

Italian parsley. We use a LOT of parsley in our house. So I planted a lot. I'm thinking I might need double this amount next year though. Somehow, if you look closely, you can see there are a few green onions that ended up in the left side of the container, apparently I spilled some seeds :)

Black Seeded Simpson lettuce. This is our first year trying this variety and I'm in love. We had three days this week with 100º temps and only three plants bolted (you can see I cut them down, on the right hand side at the bottom). This has to be the most heat resistant variety I've ever seen. The taste is lovely, very crisp and crunchy! This will continue to be a staple in our garden year after year. 

California Bell peppers. It never ceases to amaze me how these plants grow such big fruit. 

Early girl tomatoes. 

Carrots are finally growing like weeds! Which you can see we have plenty of ;) We thinned them two weeks ago and ever since, they've taken off. We have another set of carrots going in along with peas for part of our fall crops. 

Onions in the back. I haven't weeded since the tops fell over, and as you can see, the weeds grow super fast! I need to remember that because just a few days can mean the difference between "under control" and "crazy out of control!". The onions have done so well this year, it was so great watching them go from tiny sets to onions the size of baseballs. We will be pulling them and curing them, then storing them braided and hanging to dry in the root cellar (post will include all the details!). 

Roman Candle Tomatoes. I had to have one tomato plant that was "cool" and chose this one. Check out these super cool tomatoes! I love it.  

 Onions up close. Aren't they just gorgeous? 

Cucumbers have really taken off. Notice all the blooms. Next year to save space I will be trellising them. They're taking up valuable real estate.  

We planted the straight eight variety for salads and eating. You can see one lone cuke back 

there if you look hard. 

Okra! We have two plants this year. We only use Okra for slicing and freezing or canning with our veggie soup and chicken soup mix as none of us are big okra fans. I do love how they grow upside down though.  

Boston Pickling cukes. Can't wait to get a whole crop in so we can make some pickles. My kids will eat a jar of pickles in a sitting if you let them. 

This. This is my pride and joy. I have my blood sweat and tears in this strawberry patch. We started out with 37 plants. We did a double hill system and spaced them a foot apart in all directions. Every single plant now has three runners, and you can see the rows certainly are being filled in. We have been pinching off all the blooms this year so that the root system will take as next year this means we'll likely have a bumper crop :) 

Watermelon patch. Hard to see as it's gotten so large it's encroaching on the grass next to the garden, but we have about 8-10 main vines that are about 8 feet long now. 

Baby watermelon! We planted Sangria and Sugar babies, not sure which

 one this is yet, but I for one, can't wait to eat it. 

Squash and potatoes in the back. We had to tear out one squash plant because it became infested with squash vine borers, but we were able to save the other two plants. We have one zucchini and one yellow straight neck. We also have three smaller plants in the back, that had been in containers which had stunted their growth a bit. So. Lesson learned. Squash in the ground, not in containers. 

Beans! Can you believe all these beans! We've harvested about 5lbs of green beans thusly and the pinto, cranberry, montezuma red and great whites already have plenty of bean pods. The Cherokee Blacks and Lima's went in later, so I expect we'll have some of those soon. We have plans of picking the beans, drying them out, shelling them and then storing them. We might can some of the fresh beans as well. 

We extended the garden a bit to accommodate the watermelon vines as they were trying to get through the fence. So, I decided to dig it up. We're going to put our fall peas and carrots over here. I have 250 carrots going in the ground and around 200 pea plants if they'll all fit. 

Beans beans they're good for your heart! 

Pinto beans. 

Aren't squash flowers beautiful? 

Potatoes. This was the last crop of potatoes that went in. They have been hilled twice and still have blooms. I imagine we will be harvesting them closer to fall. 

So that's our garden news for this week. How is your garden doing? 

Homestead Barn Hop #119

The Miraculous, Solar Powered, Laundry Drying Apparatus!

When I first married my husband, we lived in an apartment. When we moved overseas, still, apartment living. While I have always used a clothes horse for my clothing as an adult, we didn't have a clothes line until we bought this house and installed one. I grew up however, with all of our clothes being dried on a line, and remember the smell of freshly dried sheets. You can see our umbrella line to the left there surrounded by our container potatoes. I am able to dry all of our clothing for a family of six on this. Cost me $30 for the stand and $5 for some concrete mix to sink it into.

As I've gotten older, our country has moved from things like line drying, all in the name of convenience. I mean, you can even get your liquor through a drive thru. Really? So things like line drying are becoming obsolete cause apparently ain't nobody got time for dat. Really though let me tell you what's so awesome about drying your clothing without a dryer. I do realize that not everyone has their own property, but you can even dry on a balcony or patio if you buy a $20 clothing horse or two. We use them in the winter to dry things that I don't want to put in the dryer.

The bennies:

1) Your clothes will last longer. seriously. This isn't just a ploy. They really will. Every time I dry something, I have to clean out the lint trap. Know why? That damned dryer is slowly breaking down my clothes. When your clothing doesn't break down like that, producing lint, it not only lasts longer (which saves you money) but will look better for longer too.

2) Your clothes don't shrink. Cause don't tell me you haven't smalled up your clothes in the dryer. We've all done it. You have that great shirt. Perfect color, perfect fit, you put it in the dryer and suddenly the tunic that hit you perfectly at your hips is now making you look like you're trying to bring the 80's cropped shirts back. And somehow that mother got four inches wider to boot. It defies science for real.

3) No wrinkles. I love when I make my bed and there's no wrinkles. And I'm telling you I am NOT about to iron my damned sheets. I'm just not that OCD. But I love it when I crawl into bed, the sheets are nice and crisp, they have that great sun dried smell and there are NO wrinkles. I sleep so much better! The rest of your clothes won't' need ironing either. And I know what you're thinking. "Yeah, but my towels are all crunchy, and scratchy and who wants to be lacerated by their laundry after a shower?" Well throw them in the dryer with a wet washcloth for 10 minutes and they'll be fine. I promise. :) Still cheaper than using your dryer all the time.

4) Your socks won't stick to the back of your pants making you look like a fool. Ok, so maybe I've not had that happen in real life, at least, I've caught the sock before putting on the pants, but I have had my skirts stick with static to my pantyhose. Thankfully these days, I'm lucky if I put on shoes and socks and not just my hippy sandals, but for real, for those of you that still wear real people clothing and not stay at home mom clothing, this will work much better than smelly ass hairspray. Cause only the cheap stuff works on static cling and it stinks.

5). Free bleach. Dood, your whites will never be whiter. I can bleach our cloth nappies in just one day in the sun. Socks? White as can be. Some things like the washcloths my hubby uses after spending 12 hours climbing around and in those big ass locomotives he fixes at work, yeah, those might take a few times in the sun, but you can even get those white again (or at least a dull gray).

6). Its free. And we all love free right? I mean, if there's a free sample at the store, it doesn't matter if it's something you won't use, people still take them. This is a gift that just keeps on giving. According to science, most of us use about 10% of the electric we use just on our clothes dryer.

7) You're loving on Mother Nature more, and really we need more love on this planet don't we? So cuddle right up to Mother Nature and line dry your clothing.

Raising Healthy Children

Raising Healthy Children

The number one mistake we're making as parents is to let the food industry tell us we're doing a Job Well Done when we feed our kids crap. They tell us it's Whole Grain! or that something is "baked not fried" or my favorite "all natural". Lead is all natural too, but you don't want to eat it do you? Do not let the food industry tell you that you're doing a great job with feeding your children. They are in it to make money! This problem goes so far beyond the "obesity epidemic" we're hearing so much about.

When I turned 26, I had my first child. From that day on, things changed for me. I spent my early 20's like most college students do. Cheap food, fast food, and fattening and unhealthy foods. My concern was simple sustenance and how cheaply I could achieve that. Having children made me realize that what you put into your body is so much more important than simply not starving. For the first time, I was actually caring about what I ate, and what my children ate. So much so, that I lost over 100lbs. But even then, I didn't realize I still wasn't eating healthy enough.

I think one mistake too many parents are making, is that they think there is a difference in "adult food" vs. "children's food". As adults our palates have taken on a more cultured taste, and we expect that children are only going to want chicken nuggets, french fries, soda, and sugary snacks like cakes and cookies. When feeding them a snack we don't reach for apples, but instead reach for something boxed, promising "goodness" within it's cardboard flaps. Features like "whole grain", "all natural" and "good for you!" abound down the center aisles of the grocery store.

I come across daily, so many blogs of "real moms" making claims of "eating healthy on a budget" and "quick and healthy" meals, and yet they contain high sugar, high sodium and high crap. So here's some rules to live by with regards to raising healthy children.

1. Don't reward with food. Likewise don't punish with food. No telling your child to "eat everything and then you'll get a dessert". Also, do not take away your child's food or dessert as punishment. In our house, I serve dinner. Then I serve dessert. The children can eat what they like, or not eat what they don't like. Some nights, my 4yo might only get the dessert. Other nights, he doesn't like the dessert and eats double portions of my famous vegetarian lasagna. I know that both my dinners and the desserts are going to be the best possible food I can make for them, and therefore don't worry about if they finish their plates. Over time, they have shifted to having a more "adult" palate than their peers, so I know this method is working.


2. Feeding each of your children different depending on their ages. Aside from infants and toddlers that need their foods chopped or pureed, there is absolutely no reason your 2 yo and your 8 yo cannot have the same baby carrots for a snack. Do not fall prey to the infant food aisle that's chock full of gmo crap that you wouldn't want to eat yourself, let alone feed to your children. No one needs to eat "snack puffs". Just....no. Walk away from the special foods aisle and back to the produce section. Even cubed cheese or a hardboiled egg (my 2yo and my 4yo love these) is a good snack. Start literally thinking outside the box when you feed your children.

3. Thinking that all sugary goodies are "bad for you". I fix a dessert about two times a week. It might be a cake, or brownies, or strawberry shortcake. The difference is that I know where our food comes from, and we use dairy that is organic/no hormones/no antibiotics and we use non-gmo foods for things like wheat flour etc. Instead of buying a box of cookies at the store which contain ingredients you cannot even pronounce, let alone want to eat, make your own, and source your ingredients! They are more satisfying and it's a great way to get your children involved in their foods.



4. Raise a garden. It doesn't even have to be fancy. Just a small kitchen garden on your backyard patio would be enough to get the children involved in their foods. Children are fascinated by growing food. My 2 yo actually picks off shell peas and eats them by opening the pod with his teeth and then taking out the peas inside. I know what you're thinking. "My children won't eat that.....they just....won't." I promise you, they will. Maybe not right at first. If they're used to boxed foods, they're going to balk, because they don't have the knowledge you and I have with regards to health. They also have little self control. But slowly, and surely, just cut out the crap and add in the goodies, they will eat, they will not starve. I promise.

5. Don't let them drink their food. Most parents, myself included at one time, thought juice was a perfectly healthy solution to soda and other bad for you drinks. However, we're finding out, that juices can raise your blood sugar the same way a Coke can, and they just aren't as good for you as water, or eating the actual fruit. Try to avoid juices altogether, and if your child needs some flavoring, add in some natural lemon, lime or other fruit juices.



Just by  making some changes, a little at a time, we can begin feeding our children what their bodies actually crave, instead of what their minds crave.