 Welcome back to my channel and welcome back to another video. So today has been a crazy busy day already I'm actually kind of starting this part of the video in the middle of the day and I've already been up to a lot of Projects this morning, which we'll get to that in a little bit as you can see I've got stuff going on here behind me But I wanted to stop and kind of explain what I'm up to today And why I'm going about it in the order. I'm going about it I was working on doing wrapping up some preservation projects preservation projects from this week this morning because we are getting ready to go to a lake house for the weekend with my Family and so I had some tomatoes and a couple other things So I just needed to get those things wrapped up so that now I can focus on meal prepping some things for this weekend So we are it's going to be kind of a quick weekend. So we're not taking a lot of food with us We are going to a lake up in New York. We live in central Pennsylvania if you guys didn't know We are planning to eat out since we're not going to be there that long anyways however, we are going to eat breakfasts is breakfast is together and Just have snacks and stuff like that There's a lot of little kiddos and in my family and so it's a lot of little mouths to feed I am taking some bacon because I have a lot of bacon in the freezer and as you saw in my last video I am also taking bread because I keep that on hand a lot So we can do toast with that But I am going to do some other baking and some other prepping of like finger foods and things like that So it's gonna be a good mismatch of a video. I'm gonna go ahead and sip on my afternoon cup of Coffee it is decaf, but I'm just gonna pretend that it's giving me a little boost And we're gonna go ahead and get rolling on these recipes had quite a few things to bake this day I decided to go ahead and start out by getting something in the oven that way I wasn't wasting my oven heat and I could try to keep something in the oven the whole time I was prepping so like I said, we were going to a lake house with my family and There are a couple of recipes that are definitely family recipes This being one of them and this is my mom's Favorite cake or we call it our family's favorite chocolate cake And it has a secret ingredient that intensifies the chocolate and makes it so so moist So so delicious. The other ingredients are very simple and as usual the recipes will be in the description box below So I'm just adding in the salt and the cocoa powder the baking soda baking powder sugar eggs those sorts of things and milk of course out of my milk bucket because we do get our milk locally and I'm just adding all of those things together. There's not any particular order with this It's usually just in whatever order. I grab the things and mix it all together So here I'm just making sure that everything is combined before I add in the flour So one of my goals was to really use everything out of my refrigerator before we went out of town And I'm gonna be honest with you all. I did not grocery shop for this prep This is purely out of the things I have in my kitchen So here I am adding the secret ingredient in and it is coffee and if you don't like coffee Don't worry. You cannot taste the coffee in this cake There are a lot of non coffee lovers in our family that love this cake And it just intensifies the chocolate and just gives it a more rich flavor All right, so like I said, I am going through my refrigerator I'm pulling things out. I'm coming up with ideas for how to use up the stuff in my refrigerator So I had grabbed this container of spinach the other day this past week Thinking I would make some spinach salads this week and we didn't get them made so obviously something needs to be done with this before we go out of town and So I found a spinach and artichoke dip recipe and I also had recently I'm all lined up back there gotten a whole case of Cream cheese at one of my bulk food stores for a super good price and it's obviously all right It's gonna be fine in my extra refrigerator, but I do want to find ways to use it up So this is one way you're gonna see me use the cream cheese in a couple different ways today And I had some canned artichoke that it's actually been in my cellar. This is from Costco I think I'm getting close to a year. It's totally in date But I just haven't found any uses for it and I thought maybe I'd make more spinach dip than I have so here is a great opportunity and Obviously to use some shredded cheeses now what I'm gonna do is prepare this in a dish and I'm gonna put the Shredded cheese on top and then I'm going to wrap it and we'll take it in a cooler And then whenever we have some snacks in the evening I'll pop it in the oven and we can eat it with some tortilla chips or maybe even a little bit of toasted bread for this prep I needed a couple different kinds of shredded cheese and I decided to just pull out my food processor I recently got this food processor and really love it. I could not recommend it more. I will leave it linked below It's just does such a great job and on the slicing setting You can select how thick you want your slices, which is really great for me, especially with my freeze-dryer It's a way for me to choose what size slices. I want up tomatoes or really anything All right, so here I am pulling together this spinach dip and I'm just putting some fresh pressed garlic in it I'm putting the spinach in raw since I'm going to be baking this while we are away And I put in some mozzarella cheese and some parm and I'm going to also add some sour cream into it along with the artichokes and then some salt and pepper to taste And I don't know that I had a specific recipe. I was following with this I just really was kind of dumping and going with it Spinach dip is one of those things that you can kind of do that with You can just Guestimate I guess as you go along and believe me this turned out so so delicious Here is the chocolate cake and it did sink on me a tiny bit in the middle I'm not sure totally why but we're going to be making some peanut butter frosting for this here in just a bit So I recently thrifted this round dish I think I mentioned in a video or two go how I like to get dishes with lids and This is one that has a lid so all I had to do was put the dip Inside top it with cheese and then throw the lid on it and we could put it in a cooler in the car And we were able to bake it right when we wanted it over the weekend all right, so of course I have three brothers and They all have wives and everybody was bringing things So I was kind of trying to think of some things that I could take with that Maybe someone else wouldn't be bringing because we were just kind of all bringing whatever we wanted to so I decided to go ahead And whip up some pumpkin bread. It's not really fall yet It's mid-summer and I thought probably no one else will bring anything to pumpkin-y along So I'm going to be using my home canned pumpkin to make this And I think I have a video on this I will link it below and then this fall I'll be showing you again how to do this But I wanted to show you how I open these lids to salvage them like I was talking about in my last video So I just take a butter knife I take the flat side not the rounded side not the part that has a sharp edge But just the flat side I just put it right under the lip and sometimes you have to just turn it to find where the lip sticks out the most and Then I am putting my thumbs kind of or my palms on here and I'm pulling up with the butter knife just like that and It leaves your seal Undamaged as long as the rest of the lid is still good. So we have two one-year-olds in the family right now and we have two more babies on the way and The part that kind of made me chuckle a little bit is the babies are the ones that actually enjoyed This pumpkin bread the most I pictured it being eaten with coffee in the morning But the babies just really really loved this and it was so soft and moist and I think it was just easy for them to Eat and of course it had that cinnamon and clove and nutmeg in there It's a very very simple recipe I will definitely leave it below and this is one that's going to be a staple this fall for me It just came out so perfectly and so delicious and I actually only took one loaf with me to the lake house and the other loaf I gave away to a neighbor and I just can't say enough good things about this definitely keep this recipe for this fall if you're not going to make it right now The next recipe starts out on the stove and you know that something's going to be amazing When it starts out with butter and brown sugar So here I am combining these two because I'm going to be making a blondie cookie bar And I didn't realize this until a couple of years ago But I guess that cookie bars are not something Extremely common among all circles of people But amongst the Mennonite Realm of people which it would be my background Cookie bars is something that you often see at get-togethers or at potlucks and things like that Because they're so fast and easy to make and here I am dipping in To my homemade vanilla for the first time it is so delicious And I'm going to be bottling this up really soon. It smells absolutely incredible But like I said, it's not a common thing amongst all circles of people So let me know in the comments. Do you make cookie bars a lot? Is that something that is made in your family? And if so what kinds do you like to make? It's just faster and easier than scooping up every individual cookie And so that's why I decided to make them this day here. I am putting some bacon in the air fryer It is one of my favorite ways to make bacon It just contains all the splatters and the mess And the sunshine was streaming in through my skylights this day So I kept catching glimpses of it as I was working So while the bacon is in the air fryer for a different recipe I went ahead and took that brown sugar and melted brown butter And dumped it into the mixer with some eggs just to get the base of those cookie bars started Then I added in the other ingredients. This recipe is actually extremely simple It's a very warm. I don't know very vanilla Recipe tastes so so good. And I'm definitely going to be trying them again Here I am adding in some chocolate chips and I didn't realize this but Because that butter is warm. It's going to kind of melt the chocolate chips and swirl them into the batter So here I just put some avocado oil into the bottom of a cookie sheet And I'm spreading this cookie bar batter All around the bottom of it before I pop it into the oven Here are those pumpkin loaves. Can't you just see these in a bakery window? They look so perfect They were just delicious and had the most perfect Loaf type consistency And then here are those blondies. They cracked around the edges a lot of times brownies do this as well So I thought it was a perfect blondie looks just like a brownie, but just a blonde version All right, so the next thing I decided to make was some ranch pretzels And actually this might be the only thing I did purchase for this weekend specifically Was these pretzels To be able to make ranch pretzels my children love them And basically you just take some butter and some ranch powder. I didn't really even measure it I just kind of dumped it in and a little bit of here we go Worcestershire sauce. Did I say it right this time guys? I always had a struggle with that one But dumped all of that together and again, I didn't measure it I just kind of tossed it in and then I shook some more ranch powder over the pretzels and tossed them around And then I put a piece of parchment paper on my cookie sheet just to make cleanup easier because I was doing so much This day as you're going to see a little bit later in this video I was also doing some long-term food prepping and wrapping that stuff up So I really had a lot on my plate this day But I was able to get it all done and I've got a little hand Sneaking in for a taste of those pretzels before they're completely baked And I'm just spreading them around on the tray before I pop them in the oven And they're just that easy you can season them with whatever you want Along with the butter some people do season salt and other things like that So I mentioned that peanut butter frosting and that is what we're diving into here I'm starting out with some cream cheese. I didn't follow a recipe this night I just kind of dumped and went and it ended up being really really rich peanut butter So next time I'm definitely gonna go back to my peanut butter recipe and follow that a bit better But I just added some cream cheese some creamy peanut butter and some powdered sugar And whipped that all together and then I topped the cake with it Here I am pulling the ranch pretzels out of the oven and just stirring them around To put back in for a bit longer. All right, so you might be wondering what that bacon was for here I am pulling it out of the air fryer and I'm chopping it up And I'm actually going to be making some pinwheels The one thing I was most excited about with these pinwheels is I was finding a way to use Some of the frozen bell peppers that I had sitting in my freezer You all might remember me packaging these some of them I packaged months and months and months ago and then the other colors I think I packaged Oh, it wasn't quite as long ago and I actually Decided to get them out and to kind of pat them dry With some paper towels and then chop them up Basically like dicing them to go into these pinwheels if you've never made pinwheels before they're such an easy Food if you're having guests over or if you're gonna go somewhere you have you're gonna take along an appetizer or something like that These are really really simple. So you just make your filling with a base of cream cheese So I did cream cheese bacon chopped up cheddar And then I also added these bell peppers chopped up to it as well Oh, this was so so yummy. You can add any spice you want to it You can kind of just get creative I think that this is a great recipe to use different veggies you have on hand Even if you had broccoli or purple onion or anything like that You could put that in this as well and then to thin out the cream cheese part. I did put a little bit of sour cream I use the buttery steakhouse seasoning that I use all the time And oh this was just so good. My children were so excited I let them have tastes of it and my husband too And they couldn't wait to eat these pinwheels over the weekend So I do not use Tupperware very often However, I do like these big containers for cookies and snacks and things like this They're great to take along when you're going away places And you just have a big batch of something to go with you other than that. I use mostly glass containers, but This is one exception All right, so now to make these pinwheels these I actually made with some very very large wraps And so they were a tomato basil wrap So I actually put two pieces of the press and seal down And then I spread that filling out very thinly over the wrap And then you start along the edge and you want to wrap it up really really tightly And pinwheels are really nice because you can actually make them like the day before You're really wanting to serve them roll them up put them in the refrigerator The flavors and everything combine really well And then you just pull them out and then you slice them at about an inch So you just want to go across the roll and cut them at every inch or so And then you can put them on a plate and they look really nice They look just like a little pinwheel. Another thing I like to serve these with is some hot salsa They're really good to dip in a little bit of salsa. You can kind of do more of a Chicken fajita type flavor and then have it dipped in salsa You can really go any direction you want to with them So here i'm showing you that earlier in the day I was working on these preservation projects to get things wrapped up for us to get going for the weekend One of the things I needed to do is I had some tomatoes I needed to take care of and I decided to go ahead and make them into a tomato sauce It's a very simple project to do. It's just very time consuming in the sense that you have to really cook it a long time Which I will get to here in a minute, but to start out I just cored the tomatoes cut them in half and put them into a big stock pot with a little bit of water in the bottom So I went ahead and got that cooking while I was working on my next project So here I'm taking some homemade yogurt and I'm putting it into a I think they would consider these nut bags But basically a cheesecloth bag and I'm hanging it up on a cabinet knob Over a bowl because I'm going to be catching the way that will be dripping from it And basically what will be left inside that bag will be a version of Greek yogurt Just a thicker yogurt and I will be able to use the way to do some fermented pickles I have been wanting to really get into fermenting and understanding how to do that So using way as a starter is one way that you can ferment things So here we are on to the next step with the tomatoes So this is a Victorian strainer or in our house. We call it the cranky thing because you crank it And I have so many memories of doing this with my mom And so after I started doing my own home making I knew that I needed one of these in my house So basically you take the cooked um tomatoes you put them in that top funnel part And then you crank it and out of one end the skin and the seeds of the tomatoes will come out And then out of the chute the white part that you see there Will be the flesh and the juice of the tomatoes So basically all the things that you need to make tomato paste So I ran all of those tomatoes through this Victorian strainer or the cranky thing whatever you want to call it in your house And you may even see some little hands doing this Usually when I get this out there are lots of arguments over who gets to run it first and All of that we have to figure out who gets to go first So you run it all through that Here I am back at the pickles So I am just slicing these up and then I realized I actually had more pickles out of the garden this day than I first anticipated So I went ahead and filled up a half gallon jar and it's just perfect because this recipe You let your pickles sit for three days on the counter and that's how long we were going to be gone So it worked out great to be able to do this And I'm just cutting them all around the same thickness and putting them in the jar All right back to the tomatoes. I was kind of back and forth doing these two projects So once I have all of the tomato juice and flesh ran through the Victorian strainer I would have was storing it in buckets as the batches were coming through I will pour all of that into a stock pot and set it on the stove and you're going to let it cook down And while that was going on I finished up the different ingredients I needed for my pickles So I put some fresh dill from the garden I put some mustard seed in there And there's lots of different recipes for this, but this is the one that is in one of my cookbooks I also put some pink Himalayan salt in there And that's actually one of my biggest motivations for canning is to put a good healthy salt into our food Just because a lot of conventional canned goods have salt that isn't so great for you So there I added the way in and then I filled up the jar with water that I had boiled And let it cool. So I'm not putting boiling water in here I'm just putting in water that has been boiled kind of like distilling it a little bit just making sure that It is a purified water. You can actually use filtered water as well But it just was easiest for me to boil water earlier in the morning in my tea kettle And then I could put it in here It just gives you a lot less of a chance of growing mold and that sort of thing So I topped it off with a fermenting lid with this spring that helps to hold All of the cucumbers underneath of the brine And then there's a little vent on the top that helps to release any extra Gases or anything it would put off and then I put it on the counter where it would sit while we were away all right, so A lot of people are really shocked to find this out and I even was actually when I first started doing all of this myself so tomato sauce Takes a long time to make tomato paste takes even longer But I actually cooked that tomato juice for nine hours on a good I wouldn't say rolling boil. I would say a rolling simmer And here I am putting it in jars with a little bit of lemon juice and some salt and wow This is so delicious But you might be shocked to find out that a lot of tomato sauce in the store has a thickener added to it And it's not pure tomato like this So this is one of my biggest motivations To make my own tomato products is a lot of tomato products in the store has fillers in it And it does take a lot of time But I was doing other things around the house every half hour. I would go stir it And then come back and you can make it to however thin or thick that you want it to be This is just the consistency. I like to have it on the shelf at And it turns out just delicious. I made a sauce with this the other day and it just doesn't you can't beat it It tastes like fresh tomatoes and it is so good. So that's all I have for you all this week Don't forget to subscribe and leave a comment below I hope that this video inspired you or in or motivated you And I will see you all in my next video