Last week I shared how to make hand-rolled beeswax candles. This week I offer recipes for spice rub and cocoa mix in addition to the many jarred recipes at the bottom of this post. The series will conclude next Monday with ideas for perfectly packaging your handmade gifts. Have you ever read the ingredients on a box of commercial hot cocoa mix? Very often they are full of unpronounceable additives and artificial flavors. Cocoa mix [...]

Imagine that you just canoed for two days, sleeping the night on cold rocky ground.  The lake you paddled across is shimmering and surrounded by great green pines.  Your body aches.  Hunger nags constantly, your tongue having touched nothing colder than room temperature for days. Then, chef for the evening canoes out to the middle of the lake and pulls out a black plastic trash bag. Inside, there are two bags of instant chocolate pudding [...]

We are traveling in Canada right now.  I scheduled this blog post and have several scheduled guest bloggers for the time we’re away.  Enjoy! As is often the case when planning an event, the people who care the most about a particular element are the ones who invest in planning that element.  In the case of our Canada trip, I care about food and therefore helped with menu planning, shopping, and packaging of foodstuffs. The [...]

We’re off on our adventure to Canada.  The car is full of food, gear, and toys.  Guest posts are scheduled and ready to keep you entertained for the week. Tune in Sunday for our 19 person paddling meal plan. We ate our ‘last meal’ tonight, a frittata of backyard chicken eggs with homegrown tomatoes, green beans, garlic, shallots, and herbs.  On the side were our very first new potatoes of the year.  (They really shouldn’t [...]

We leave for our Canadian back country vacation in less than two weeks!! This week’s quick meals clear out the pantry and allow time for packing and planning plus lots of socializing. Monday – Dinner with Alex’s parents, bringing marinated kale salad (recipe coming soon) Tuesday – Black bean burritos with homegrown lettuce, fruit Wednesday – Baked macaroni and cheese, green salad Thursday – Dinner with friends Friday – Costco shopping trip to buy Canada [...]

In less than four weeks, Alex, Lil, and I will leave our homestead in the good care of neighbor Jan and drive north through Toronto to Algonquin Provincial Park in Canada.  We will rent canoes and stay the first night at Northern Wilderness Outfitters.  From there, we will canoe two days through North Tea Lake to Biggar Lake where we will camp for two days before taking a return trip. We are traveling with my [...]