Category: Recipes

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Rose Petal Jelly

No, no–I’d never heard of such a thing either. But the idea intrigued me.

A sweet, delicate jelly with the essence of…roses. It sounded so like something the ladies would eat on teeny, tiny toast corners in Pride and Prejudice that, well, I couldn’t help myself. Absolutely had to try it.

Here’s how it works:

Ingredients

4 cups rose petals

1/4 cup lemon juice

1 pkg. pectin

4 cups white sugar

Stroll right out to the yard and carefully pluck about 4 cups of rose petals from the poor, unsuspecting bushes. Trust me, they’ll get over it.

Rinse them off, you know, just to make sure that petals are the only thing in the basket–if you get my drift.

Boil the petals in 4 cups of hot water—your house will smell incredible! Strain out the petals reserving all the liquid. Isn’t it amazing how ugly and colorless the sad little petals are now?

Add enough water to make four cups of juice again. It’s an interesting cider color…but just wait.

Next add 1/4 cup lemon just and watch what happens. The juice turns a lovely shade of pink–much prettier than it looks here.  Amazing!

Stir in 1 package of pectin till perfectly blended.

Now then, cook over medium heat until it does that rolling boil thing. Now add 4 cups of white sugar stirring till dissolved and bring it all back to a rolling boil again. Watch it carefully because it needs to boil for about 15 minutes to reach it’s setting point–but it can bubble over real easily. We know this, so if you don’t want to spend the afternoon scrubbing jelly out from under the stove burner—stay near by.

With a small strainer, remove the foam from the top.

Pour into tiny, little hot, clean jars and seal.

Scurry off now, and make some crumpets. Elizabeth Bennet will be stopping by.

{ hee hee }

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Rose Petal Jelly
 
Print
Ingredients
  • 4 cups rose petals
  • ¼ cup lemon juice
  • 1 pkg. pectin
  • 4 cups white sugar
Instructions
  1. Pick about 4 cups of rose petals from the bushes. Rinse them.
  2. Boil the petals in 4 cups of hot water.
  3. Strain out the petals reserving all the liquid.
  4. Add enough water to make four cups of juice again.
  5. Next add ¼ cup lemon juice.
  6. Stir in 1 package of pectin till perfectly blended.
  7. Cook over medium heat to a rolling boil.
  8. Add 4 cups of white sugar stirring till dissolved and bring it all back to a rolling boil again.
  9. Watch it carefully because it needs to boil for about 15 minutes to reach it’s setting point.
  10. With a small strainer, remove the foam from the top.
  11. Pour into tiny little hot, clean jars and seal.

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Sweet Acorns

All right now…tell me if you can…have you ever seen anything so cute in all your life?!! Sweet little baby acorns.

I first saw these in an issue of Disney’s Family Time magazine and could not resist. They were so easy that it’s quite likely you don’t really need the instructions–but humor me.

Start with glazed donut holes…

and chocolate frosting, peanut butter or nutella. To me, the choice was obvious–but you do what you want.

You’ll also need crushed toffee bits and/or

those little chocolate sprinkly things.

Now, then–to impress upon your mind exactly how easy these little do-dads were to whip up, this is exactly when we started the process.

I should have been cool and poured the Nutella in a bowl, but having been raised by wolves, as I was–I just dipped it right out of the container. Don’t tell my family.

Now dip those little suckers in whichever topping you prefer–toffee bits or the sprinkly things.

Oh, I forgot to tell you that you’ll also need a small bag of stick pretzels. Snap about a third off and eat it. Don’t bite it off because that’s just tacky. Stick the pretzel piece in the top of your acorn.

Start to finish, INCLUDING clean-up. No lie and no Photoshop. Now that’s fast.

Be on the lookout for squirrels…or large teen-age boys pretending to be squirrels.

Eww…that would be creepy.

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Root Beer Float Ice Cream

Couldn’t help but to have one last smidgen of ice cream before we trade all that cold yummy goodness for Autumn. Besides, if I’m suppose to act like fall is here–then it really shouldn’t be 82 degrees outside at 7 o’clock at night. Sheesh.

Anyway, this is by far the easiest ice cream recipe you’ll ever make–so why not make it while summer weather is still hanging on? I mean really…

Root Beer Float Ice Cream

Ingredients

1- 2 liter bottle of A&W Root Beer

2 regular sized cans of sweetened condensed milk (NOT evaporated milk)

Directions:

Pour root beer and milk into an ice cream freezer–and freeze until it turns into ice cream.

See? I told you it was simple. Now the hard part will be not to eat it all yourself. Yum…

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Perfect Whole Wheat Bread

My pretty little daughter is becoming quite a bread maker.  We’re sharing her luscious recipe with you today. Grab it quick–before she changes her mind…

about sharing, I mean.

Sometimes I just need some good old homemade whole wheat bread.

It soothes a myriad of ailments, and makes my house smell good to boot.

I’ve been working on perfecting mine, as I’ve never been especially good at yeast baking. I think I may have finally gotten to where it at least rises every time. For a while there, I had these solid little lumps of doughy whole wheat. Kind of like a brick. One of those hasn’t shown up in my kitchen for a while now, though, so I think I may be out of the woods on that particular phase.

The next phase of my breadmaking career was the part where I kept making loaves that were too dry. They tasted great, and held together just swimmingly right out of the oven. Then, a few hours later, they were a crumbly mess. Too much flour, I was told.

Then, about a month ago, a lovely woman taught a class at a church activity about bread making. I had the same wheat grinder as her, and the same mixer, so I figured I couldn’t blame the bread problems on my equipment, at least. So I went. She gave me the perfect recipe, and I haven’t had a bread problem since.

So, my lovelies, if you’re a little less than savvy in the bread making department, maybe you should give this little beauty a try. It makes your house small absolutely amazing, and it tastes great too.

Download the recipe here.

Homemade whole wheat bread. Yum.

~ April

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Chocolate Oatmeal Cookies

Marvelous twist on a classic favorite.

And tell the truth–you know that positively everything is genetically enhanced when chocolate is involved. I read it somewhere–therefore, it is of course true. You will also be pleased to know that this sweet little cookie was approved by the State Childcare Program as a good snack choice for daycare children because it has so darn much oatmeal in it. So you can breathe easy while you snarf these down…they’re good for you…heh, heh.

Chocolate Oatmeal Cookies

Ingredients:

2-1/2 cups butter

1-1/2 cups packed brown sugar

1cup sugar

2 eggs

3 tsp. vanilla extract

2-1/2 cups flour

1/2 cup cocoa

2 tsp. baking soda

1 teaspoon salt

6 cups oats

12 oz. chocolate chips (optional…ok, not really)

Heat oven to 375*. In a mixer bowl, beat butter and sugars until fluffy. Beat in eggs and vanilla. Combine the flour, cocoa, baking soda, and salt. Stir in chocolate chips. Drop by tablespoons on ungreased baking sheets. Bake 10 minutes. Cool slightly and remove from pan.

Have them for breakfast with a glass of milk.

Call it oatmeal.

heh.

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Chocolate Oatmeal Cookies
 
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:
Ingredients
  • 2-1/2 cups butter
  • 1-1/2 cups packed brown sugar
  • 1cup sugar
  • 2 eggs
  • 3 tsp. vanilla extract
  • 2-1/2 cups flour
  • ½ cup cocoa
  • 2 tsp. baking soda
  • 1 teaspoon salt
  • 6 cups oats
  • 12 oz. chocolate chips (optional...ok, not really)
Instructions
  1. Heat oven to 375*. In a mixer bowl, beat butter and sugars until fluffy. Beat in eggs and vanilla. Combine the flour, cocoa, baking soda, and salt. Stir in chocolate chips. Drop by tablespoons on ungreased baking sheets. Bake 10 minutes. Cool slightly and remove from pan.