Sustainability

Homemade Cranberry Sauce

~ modernbygone ~ 2 Comments

Our family Thanksgiving dinner is small by comparison to some.  We usually have less than ten people total.  I still love all the cooking and togetherness that comes during this time of year.  Because most of the people that attend live in our house, I am always the host.  That means most of the cooking falls to me.

One secret to a successful holiday meal, big or small, is proper planning.  A couple of weeks ahead of time I sit down and plan the menu, grocery lists, and cleaning that need to happen.

This year our menu will consist of:

  • Turkey
  • Stuffing
  • Candied Yams
  • Mashed Potatoes With Gravy
  • Cheesecake
  • Pumpkin Pie
  • Ginger Cookies

Given our busy schedule this year, we chose to purchase our pumpkin pie and cheesecake at Costco while grocery shopping the weekend before the holiday.  The turkey is lounging in the refrigerator to thaw since early Monday morning.  The yams, stuffing and potatoes will be cooked on Thursday.  The cranberry sauce will be made Tuesday while I cook dinner.  The ginger cookies will be made on Wednesday while we clean the house.

Today I would love to share my super easy recipe for Homemade Cranberry Sauce with you.

cranberrysauce Title

Are you ready?

Here it is….

Homemade Cranberry Sauce:

Ingredients:
‎1 Cup water
1 Cup sugar
4 Cups Fresh Cranberries.

cranberry sauce ingredients

Directions:Put in a pot and bring to a boil. Turn down and simmer for approximately 10 minutes, stirring often. Remove from heat and let cool. It will thicken as it cools.

cranberry sauce cooking

Yep.  It really is that easy.  Just three ingredients and ten minutes gives you beautiful, delicious, fresh cranberry sauce.  Once you try this, you will never want to eat the factory canned stuff again!  You can make it a couple days ahead of time and store in the refrigerator.  Another option is to home can it.  You can water bath can this sauce just like a jam or jelly.  Ten minutes of processing in the water bath canner makes it shelf stable.

What is your favorite recipe to cook for the holidays?  Comment below and let’s start a conversation!

Don’t forget to follow me over on Instagram, Facebook, Twitter, Tumblr, and Pinterest for more pictures, stories, and ideas!

Butter Biscuits Recipe

~ modernbygone ~ 2 Comments

My family really enjoys warm buttery biscuits. They are delicious with roast and vegetables, or you can drown them in hot sausage gravy. Or you can go the traditional route, and just top it with some lovely homemade jelly.
This is my favorite recipe for biscuits. One batch makes nine good sized biscuits. I usually do a double batch, just because we all love them so much. What makes these biscuits different than most is how they are baked!  Not only is there butter in the dough, but a good helping of butter in the pan for them to soak up as they bake.  So tasty!

First you need to preheat the oven to 350*f and get the pan ready. If you are doing a single batch, you will need an 8×8 pan. (If you are doing a double batch, you will need a 9×13 pan.  The 9×13 pan makes 24 biscuits.) Put a half a stick of butter in your baking dish and slide it in the oven to melt while you make the dough. (A whole stick if doing a double batch.)
Ingredients for the dough:
2 cups Flour
4 teaspoons baking powder
1/2 teaspoon salt
1/2 teaspoon cream of tartar
1/2 cup butter
3/4 cup milk (approximately)

Time to get your hands dirty!
Put all the dry ingredients in a large bowl.  Start to work your butter in.  Just squish the butter in with your hands.  Work the butter in until it is all crumbly and you don’t see any large chunks of butter.

Butter Biscuits Dry Ingredients

Now it’s time to mix in the milk.  You want just enough that the dough holds together, but isn’t sticky.  Just add a bit of milk at a time.  Mix and knead.  If you still have dry bits, add a bit more milk.
Once you have made your dough, it’s time to make the biscuits. Take your hot pan out of the oven. Your butter should be melted, but not burnt.

Butter Biscuits Butter
Grab chunks of dough slightly larger than a golf ball. Roll it into a ball in your hand, and then give it a bit of a squish. You want it to be about half an inch thick. Put the biscuit in the butter, then roll it over and place where you want it. Each side of the biscuit should have melted butter on it. Don’t leave space in between the biscuits. You want them to push against each other as they bake.

Butter Biscuits in pan
Bake at 350*f for 15 to 20 minutes or until a nice golden brown. Remove from pan as soon as they come out of the oven. You should be able to just dump the whole pan out onto your cutting board.

Butter Biscuits Done
Then it’s time to enjoy the buttery goodness that is a butter biscuit.

Butter Biscuit Recipe

Finish or Frog In 2017

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unfinished projects title

How many unfinished projects do you have hiding around your home?  While cleaning my craft area, I decided to gather all my unfinished projects together.

In no particular order, I have:

  • purple / Teal headband and fingerless glove set
  • alpaca shawl
  • blue nutmeg sweater
  • purple bamboo cabled gloves
  • shell stitch baby blanket
  • flower hexagon blanket
  • granny square blanket
  • grocery bag holder
  • bamboo sweater
  • crochet blue / brown basket
  • pop tart phone cozy
  • rainbow novelty scarf
  • suede bottom slippers
  • black / white cotton fingerless mitts
  • alpaca cowl
  • striped sock yarn bag
  • purple / mint cable headband
  • silk slippers
  • pink i-chord
  • blue cowl (hat?)
  • purple cable cup cozy
  • outline wrap
  • sundance beach bag
  • 2 color hot pad set
  • dark green hot pad set
  • pencil scarf (pillow?)
  • radiant circle throw
  • traveling cable handwarmers
  • lazy weekend socks
  • grey / green hat
  • family mittens sparkly blue / mint

I’m setting a goal for myself to Finish or Frog (rrrriiiiiipppp-it apart) at least 17 of my unfinished non-blanket or shawl projects in 2017. I am not including the blankets or shawls because I know I can’t finish that much in just three months. Plus, the granny square blanket is my scrap project, it will take years to get it finished.

I would love to have you join me in my challenge!  Head over to Instagram, post pictures of your unfinished projects, and use the hashtag #finishorfrogit2017 ! Check in on our Facebook page with pictures of your progress!  I’m even on Twitter to share and celebrate finishing our neglected projects. Let’s see how many projects we can get finished together!