Tag Archives: Cooking

Instant Pot Makes Homemade Yogurt Even Easier!

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by Texas Homesteader ~
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I’ve made yogurt for years, neigh decades. It was the very first self-sufficient step I ever took. Back then looking at those non-recyclable (in my area) plastic yogurt tubs that I was forced to throw away, I just figured there had to be a better way.

And there WAS.

I started making 1/2 gallon of Stove-Top Homemade Yogurt every week or so since then. I’ve never looked back! But now there’s this Instant Pot craze. So I took the plunge. And there’s a yogurt setting on mine too. Hummmm…

Instant Pot Yogurt - so easy! I'm sharing step-by-step instructions with photos to make your own creamy yogurt. #TexasHomesteader

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Accumulating Okra When You Don’t Have Enough To Fry

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by Texas Homesteader ~

Okra is a powerhouse in the garden. Heat? Drought? Poor soil? It just seems to laugh at it all! My garden struggled this year due to the prolonged cool, wet spring. When the sun finally did come out & the temps warmed, many of the things I’d planted had already given up the ghost. But not the okra.

Now okra will produce you out of house & home if you let it. So I only planted four (count ’em – f-o-u-r) plants! It’s been about right to supply RancherMan & me with okra. But I’ll need to harvest & accumulate enough okra for frying up for us. Thankfully it’s easy!

An easy way to accumulate fresh okra from the garden & prepare it for frying at a later time. A quick mixture of flour, cornmeal & spices. #TexasHomesteader

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Instant Pot Roast Recipe – Comfort Food FAST!

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by Texas Homesteader ~

Electric programmable pressure cookers are all the rage. But I have a stove-top pressure cooker and I love it. I guess it’s been hard for me to justify the cost of buying a different thing when I have something that works for me. But I’ve finally made the plunge!

Recently we invited my parents to dinner and I decided this would be a good time to break in my new Instant Pot. I decided I’d serve the epitome of comfort food – a pot roast.

I use my 6-quart Instant Pot electric programmable pressure cooker to easily make the ultimate comfort food. Moist, tender pot roast. #TexasHomesteader

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Quick Garlic Herb Sauce Using Fresh Herbs

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by Texas Homesteader ~

Herbs grow so easily that I always have plenty. I mean P-L-E-N-T-Y! So I’m constantly either harvesting & using or drying and preserving those herbs for cooking all year long. But I’ve found my new favorite way to use handfuls of these herbs and enjoy a delightfully fresh way to make supper easier and more delicious.

Fresh.
Garlic.
Herb.
Sauce.

Fresh Garlic Herb Sauce for the light taste of summer. Whips up in minutes and is great on chicken, pasta, even as a salad dressing! #TexasHomesteader

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Homestead Hack: Leftover Great Northern Beans

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by Texas Homesteader~

I often make dried beans using my pressure cooker. I’m a ‘Cook-Once, Eat-Twice‘ cook, meaning I like to cook lots of one item and use it either again later in the week, or as a completely different dish as part of my Planned Leftovers meals. So when I’m cooking dried beans, I usually cook the whole bag knowing it’s way more than RancherMan & I can eat in one setting. Then we’ll either consume it over several days or I’ll freeze the remainder for another time.

But recently I cooked some great northern beans and we enjoyed them as a side dish for that evening’s meal. I served them later in the week as a quick side dish also. But then I wondered… Is there a more exciting way to serve these beans that will have RancherMan smacking his lips? Well yes, yes there is! Check out this Homestead Hack!

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How I Make Cheap ‘Oat Flour’ With Whole Oats

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by Texas Homesteader ~
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I’ve experimented with sandwich bread recipes for several years. I prefer whole-wheat bread for the health aspect as well as the heartier feel of it. But I’ve not been pleased with bread made completely with whole wheat flour. It’s just too dry for our tastes. So I started mixing different ratios of all purpose and whole wheat flour for RancherMan’s Sandwich Bread to get the best of both worlds.

But whole wheat flour is expensive in our area. And I figured oatmeal’s healthy, right?? So I decided to offset a portion of whole wheat flour with whole oats ground into flour when I make my Oatmeal Sandwich Bread. or my Honey/Oat Bread Machine Recipe. We loved it. It still had the hearty feel that whole wheat offers, but cheaper! You’re not gonna believe how easy this is.

I grind whole oats into 'oat flour' and include it as a healthy ingredient in my homemade bread. The same hearty feel as whole wheat. #TexasHomesteader

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2-Lb Oatmeal Bread Recipe For A Bread Machine

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by Texas Homesteader ~
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I’ve had several bread machines over the years. The bread was tasty of course, but I always got rid of them. They were just so big, heavy & bulky. It just wasn’t worth it.

But during a recent visit with my dad, he mentioned that he wanted to get rid of his bread machine to clear the space on his counter top for another appliance. He said if I didn’t take it, he was tossing it in the trash. I couldn’t stand the waste so I figured I’d take it home. If I found I still hated bread machines I’d make sure to get it to someone who could use it.

But bread machines are apparently different now and I find I really love it! I’ve even tweaked my own Oatmeal Sandwich Bread recipe to make a 2-lb bread-maker loaf.

Bread Machine recipe for a delicious 2-lb loaf of homemade oatmeal bread. Use your bread machine to simplify bread-baking day! #TexasHomesteader

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Only 3 Ingredients! Easy Ham, Egg & Cheese Breakfast

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by Texas Homesteader ~

RancherMan & I were getting together with my brother & sister and their spouses for a fun sibling vacation to Broken Bow, OK. We were staying in a gorgeous cabin with a full kitchen, so to keep our expenses down we planned to enjoy some of our vacation meals right there at the cabin. All three families were bringing food to contribute to specific meals. I brought Blueberry Muffins to snack on one day, Chocolate Crazy Cake for dessert after one meal, and promised to bring breakfast for the group one morning too.

I decided to make something easy that would transport well. Something I could make in advance & freeze so I could be on vacation too while we were on vacation!

I’ve made these breakfast muffins for RancherMan before & he loved them. So I decided to whip up a batch for our family gathering.

Easy ham egg & cheese breakfast muffins. Quick to make, easy to transport, and they're delicious! Serve with cream gravy. #TexasHomesteader

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Homestead Hack: Expanding Your Muffin Tin

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by Texas Homesteader ~

I was baking homemade blueberry muffins for a Sibling Vacation recently. I typically make jumbo-sized muffins for RancherMan. But this time I used my smaller muffin-sized tin because there would be several of us in attendance. It’s easier to eat two small muffins than to waste part of a larger one, ya know?

So I whipped up my Blueberry Muffin batter, placed my silicone muffin pan on a cookie sheet & filled the muffin cups. But there was still about 4 muffins worth of batter remaining.

Do I overfill the muffin cups? Do I bake this dozen and then refill 4 of the muffin cups and bake them separately? What a waste! Ugh, what’s a girl to do?

Need more muffin cup spaces? No worries! I used wide-mouth canning rings for those last 4 muffins. Everything baked up at the same time. #TexasHomesteader

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The Home-Gardener’s Sweetener – STEVIA!

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by Texas Homesteader ~

Several years ago our daughter mentioned casually that she was growing Stevia. Wait, Stevia? You mean, the sweetener? You can GROW THAT!!?? I had no idea!

Excitedly I sat out to find a place to purchase the plant. I found it at a local discount warehouse-type store and brought it home. I plunked it into my landscaping bed as part of my edible landscape. It’s a pretty enough plant, so why not?

I’ve had this plant for a couple of years and it always comes back in the spring. But now that I’m growing my own zero-calorie sweetener, what should I do with it?

Stevia is a plant you can grow in your edible landscape. Harvest the leaves to make your very own home-grown sweetener. #TexasHomesteader

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