Category Archives: Recipes & Cooking

Favorite simple yet delicious recipes in my Texas Homestead kitchen.

French-Bread Pizza!

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by Texas Homesteader

RancherMan loves bread in all forms and we always have plenty of bread in the house.  But sometimes it’s hard to plan the purchases where the bread will be completely consumed while it’s at its freshest.  Sometimes even with careful planning the bread will get hard & stale.

There are many things I like to do with the bread to make sure it’s all put to good use, but RancherMan’s absolute F-A-V-O-R-I-T-E thing for me to do with it is make French-Bread Pizza.  It’s quick, it’s delicious, and it utilizes bread that would have otherwise been wasted.  What’s not to love??

To keep food waste down I often use stale french bread to make some amazing french-bread pizzas. No need to mix up pizza dough. Pizza Nite is Quick & Easy! #TexasHomesteader
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Solar Cooking: Baked Potatoes

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by Texas Homesteader~ 
*contains affiliate link

I came across a great deal on a huge back of potatoes recently. So I figured  I’d use my solar oven to cook up baked potatoes.

Well folks it’s still hot in Texas. And that’s not exactly the best time to throw on your heat-producing electric oven in your kitchen and bake potatoes.

Aaaaaanyway, here’s how I baked my potatoes.

I'm using my solar oven almost every day for the last few weeks - I LOVE IT! See how I cooked baked potatoes without adding any heat to my Texas kitchen. #TexasHomesteader
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RECIPE: Homemade Jalapeno Cornbread Baked In Cast Iron Skillet

26 Replies

by Texas Homesteader ~ 

This simple, moist and zesty jalapeno cornbread recipe is on tight rotation in my Homestead kitchen. It’s lightly sweet and bakes up fast in a cast-iron skillet. You can leave out the jalapenos if you don’t like spicy food and it’s still delicious. 

Homemade jalapeno cornbread that's tasty, lightly sweet and light textured. Add jalapenos for a nice kick! Baked in a cast iron skillet #TexasHomesteader

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Preserving The Harvest: Dehydrate Jalapenos

35 Replies

by Texas Homesteader
*this post contains an affiliate link

I’ve been using my solar oven pretty heavily this year and I’ve finally dehydrated all my excess garden tomatoes for the summer. 

 (again for those of you asking, I have a *Sun Oven and I love it!) 

I’ll use the dehydrated tomatoes in numerous ways. To make tomato paste for homemade pizza and to thicken my homemade blender salsa, among other ways.

This late into summer is usually so very hot and dry that the garden stops producing and I just try to keep the garden watered enough to struggle it along in hopes of getting some kind of tiny fall garden production. 

This time of year 99% of my garden is out of production. But we do have one last veggie going strong – FIERY-RED JALAPENOS!

I use my solar oven to dehydrate jalapenos from our garden. I grind them into a powder and use them to put some SIZZLE into our food. #TexasHomesteader
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Solar Cooking: Homemade Marinara Sauce

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by Texas Homesteader ~ 
*contains affiliate link

Is there much better than homemade fresh tomato marinara sauce?? It offers that taste that you just can’t get from the store shelves. But it’s true that you have to simmer it a bit to thicken it up and intensify all those delightful flavors.

It’s hot & humid here in NE Texas and simmering a pan on the stove for that length of time just didn’t appeal to me at all. Luckily I didn’t have to, the solar oven did a fantastic job and all the cooking heat was left outside where it belongs!

I love solar cooking, it keeps that cooking heat & humidity out of the kitchen. Today I'm making marinara sauce using NO EXTRA ENERGY! #TexasHomesteader
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Recipe: MYO Flavored Mayonnaise

23 Replies

by Texas Homesteader ~ 

I’ve made our mayonnaise from scratch for years. An egg, some oil, lemon juice and salt is all it takes.

But RancherMan also sometimes asks me to flavor it with garlic for even more flavor. There’s so much flexibility when you’re making it yourself.

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Solar Cooking: Dehydrating Garden Produce

14 Replies

by Texas Homesteader
*Contains an affiliate link

I love my solar oven and I use it often. I love that it takes no purchased energy to run. And most of all I love that it leaves all the cooking heat outside where it belongs. 

Recently I began dehydrating overage veggies from my garden. I freeze them as well from time to time but dehydrating them looks pretty cool in my pantry. It also reduces the volume to store by quite a  bit and it works well for use in wintertime Endless Soups – my favorite application.

I decided to try to use my electric dehydrator trays to dehydrate in my solar oven – BIG MISTAKE! Although I left the solar oven’s lid unlatched so it wouldn’t get too hot inside the oven, it apparently doesn’t take very much heat at all to do this:

Did you know you could use a solar oven to dehydrate produce? Then they take no additional energy to store & take up very little space! #TexasHomesteader
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