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!

Continue reading →

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?

Continue reading →

by Texas Homesteader ~

We’ve all probably done it – rinsing out remaining fat and letting it go down the drain. A quick flip of the garbage-disposal switch and the greasy problem is gone. Right?

I’ve written before about how I’ve discovered how the problem Is NOT Gone when we flush things through our kitchen sink pipes. I’m not casting stones here. I spent plenty of my younger years flushing things down the sink, from plate scrapings to burnt-on food. And yes, the fat too. I figured if I used hot water it would simply flush that fat away safely.  But I’ve learned a lot since then.  I now know you should never flush grease or fat down the sink. But how do you dispose of it? Don’t worry, it’s easy – check out this Homestead Hack.

Continue reading →