Bone Broth Recipe

ballfamilyfarmstead

Ball Family Bone Broth Recipe
Ingredients

One used pastured chicken carcass

Chicken feet and or neck

Onion, halved with peel

Garlic 4-5 cloves with peel 

2 celery

2 carrots

Tablespoon whole peppercorns

Tablespoon pink Himalayan salt

Tablespoon of apple cider vinegar "with the mother"

Bay leaf

Put all the ingredients in a crock pot and fill with water until just covered. Set on high and cook 18-24 hours. It will have reduced quite a bit and turned a rich caramel color. 

Strain everything out with a fine mesh strainer, you can add more salt to taste. 

Put into jars. 

Refrigerate or freeze (after cooled completely) in freezer safe containers. 

You know you have a good broth when it gels up when completely chilled. 

If you can, use organic produce and pastured bones. It highly increases the quality and nourishment of your broth! 

Check out our friends at Sew the Land. They have a great youTube video on How To Make Bone Broth. I believe our recipes are very similar :) And the beauty of bone broth is you can easily adapt it to your own tastes or preferences. 

So apparently I've abandoned my blog. Luckily with a blog you can do that, not so much with your husband or children! Which is the main reason I haven't found the time to get in touch. But with all things in life you have to make it a priority, right? So for a brief catch up, here's what's been going on since hunting season started.

It literally took me a month to rid of all the bird feathers around the house from Josh's hunting excursions. I still have some left over breasts, wings and whole birds in the freezer. Josh "needs" them to train Gunner, our new pup (more on him soon!) with the dead, frozen birdies. Bleh. I only cooked the dove once, in a rice casserole type dish. It wasn't so bad at all, but still hard for me to bear being pregnant. I have no desire to cook up any more game for the time being. Here's a few pictures from hunting season:

Mason's First Field Trip

Mason had his first class field trip to Riley's Apple Farm in Oak Glen. I was able to go as a parent chaperone =) I was in charge of a group of 5 fun kindergartners, and we had a blast. I think the kids were most excited to ride the school bus though! At my age, I'm sorry to say the big yellow bus has lost it's novelty. We went on a hay ride and talked about different trees, berry bushes and vines. The kids got to help make their own apple cider in an old cider press, take a tour in an old log cabin and visit with some goats and turkeys.

Please won't you be my neighbor? 
We got a few new neighbors in September. Two families who we love! Our good friends the Gunns, we can literally see in their family room if their windows are open! Don't worry, we are NOT peeping toms, er balls. We don't want to scare away our friends! The other family happens to be the parents of another neighbor family, the Hackbarth's. Mark Hackbarth married Josh and I seven years ago, and we truly love their whole family like our own. I don't think any of us could have dreamed up having so many wonderful friends be neighbors! Sometimes I wonder what God's plan is for this little area we call home =)

Miramar Air Show

                                                                      

In the beginning of October we went to San Diego to visit Uncle B & Auntie Amber, and to see the Miramar Air Show. It was a fun little weekend of family, watching baseball and yummy food. Josh and I first went to that air show 5 years ago with a 2 month old baby Mason! We decided to see the 

Twilight Show, it starts at dusk and they show off 

the after burners of the jets. There was a huge robotic dinosaur that breathed fire, and a jet engine truck that blew out ginormous flames. Perfect entertainment for our pyro boys! They loved it and can't wait to go back to the "airport show". We finished off the weekend with a stop at Yogurt Mill- a must do on our San Diego visits if we have time!

We had three Super Mario Brothers for the Harvest Festival at church. 

Mason & Micah love playing the game on the Wii, 

Mitchell could care less so he didn't really have a say ;) 

All in all their outfits turned out good, they can wear them again 

and their mustaches were so fun on their little faces!

PUMPKINS!

I decided I wanted to try making my own pumpkin puree this year. I used three small pumpkins and one large pumpkin. It was a lot of work but it made a ton of puree. One small pumpkin made enough puree to make about one and a half pumpkin pies, just to give you an idea! Overall it was fun to do, and now I can say I've made my own pumpkin puree but nothing beats the conveniency of having canned pumpkin on hand. =)

Here are the recipes I used with the pumpkin puree:

Pumpkin Pie  .  Pumpkin Muffins  .  Pumpkin Butter

My sweet middle child (for now), Micah, just celebrated his 4th birthday! Can you believe it??

He has been counting down his birthday for the past month. Finally the day drew near and we took the whole family to Knott's Berry Farm to celebrate with Snoopy. He loved it. Grammy, Gramps and all three aunties joined in on the fun as well as cousin Braiden. There were no lines at all so the boys ran threw all their favorite rides over and over and over! They slept pretty good that night =) We had my parents over for pizza and cupcakes on his actual birthday. He opened all the toys he picked out at Toys R Us with my mom the day before, haha. It's sort of the birthday tradition with Nani for each boy's birthday, they love it!

I've taken on a few craft projects in the past months. Unfortunately I seem to have this problem where I start a project and cannot seem to finish it. It's so sad and depressing. I now have 4 unfinished projects. and they all have to do with decorating! I started with trying to make my own fall topiaries. Crafting is a little more challenging for me, I'm very visual and it takes me a while to get the whole idea together. So I only have one topiary finished, of a set of two..except the boys have knocked it over a few too many times and leaves and moss are everywhere. It's more of a half dead topiary. Plus I'm realizing it's not very puppy friendly either.

I also sewed pillow covers for some throw pillows for my couch. I wanted to make them removable so I can change the pillows for different seasons, but because of my lack of skill/knowledge/motivation they remain unfinished. I started sanding a window paned mirror to re-paint. It remains partially sanded. I bought a plain wreath just waiting to be decorated for fall. Maybe it'll be ready for Christmas. Or next Spring! I'm just awesome at not finishing projects. Someday I'll have pictures to post of my finished projects, but until then...life goes on! 

Our most recent family update is the addition of a new family member. His name is Gunner, he's 8 weeks, and he has the best puppy breath! I'll have a post about him in the near future, promise!

 

Boys Begging for Bars

It was the end of the month and we were out of granola bars. A snack staple in our house. The boys were begging to go to the store to buy more "bars" but that wasn't going to happen..did I mention it was the end of the month? So I had to think fast ;) {Yes I'm being dramatic about it!} I made a little stop at AllRecipes to find one of the highest rated granola bar recipes, because I only want the best for my boys of course! I came across a chewy granola bar recipe but made a few changes per a review I read. They were real easy to make, Micah and Mitchell even helped add the ingredients...and spill oats all over the floor! The boys loved them, especially Josh since his self made lunches aren't so exciting. Here's the recipe with the changes I made. The Rice Krispies gave it a nice little snap, crackle & pop! Enjoy =)

Peanut Butter Granola Bars

     Ingredients

     3 cups rolled oats                                 1/2 cup butter, softened

     1 cup Rice Krispies                               1/2 cup peanut butter

     1 cup all-purpose flour                         1/2 cup honey

     1 tsp baking soda                                 1/3 cup brown sugar

     1 tsp cinnamon                                    1 1/2 cup chocolate chips

     1 tsp vanilla extract

     Directions

     1. Preheat oven to 325 degrees F. Lightly grease a 9x13 inch pan.

     2. In a large mixing bowl combine the oats, Rice Krispies, flour,           baking soda and cinnamon. In a small bowl combine the butter, peanut butter, honey, brown sugar and vanilla. Stir until mixed together. Add the peanut butter mixture to the oat mixture and stir with a large spoon. Stir in the chocolate chips.

     3. Press the mixture into the pan. Bake at 325 degrees F for 18-22 minutes or until golden brown. Let cool for 10 minutes then cut into bars of your size preference. Let the bars cool completely in the pan before removing. Store in an airtight container or ziploc. 

Layered Lemon Pie

I've gone through an issue of Taste of Home a few times and I always seem to stop at the lemon layered pie. Maybe it was a craving...except I wasn't pregnant yet. Or the thought of lemons that just make my mouth water? Or that the recipe called for cream cheese and almost anything with cream cheese is a hit. I never figured my reason but who really needs a reason to make a pie... honestly? Just do it and enjoy it because life is too short to not have pie! So last week I finally made it. Spontaneously, some of our good friends, the Gunn's, joined us that night for a little pie! They agreed, it was edible =) And even better with coffee to balance the tart, sweetness of it! The bottom layer was the most tedious, but no different from the filling for lemon meringue pie. That layer was the tart layer. Then came the lemony cream cheese layer...piece of cake! (er, pie). And next, the creamy whipped topping! I have to admit, I wanted to be thorough and see how it progressed in flavor a day later. And the day after that. You know, for research. And I ate the whole other half of pie, alone! Don't judge me people, I'm growing a human here! And like most of us, it got even better with age. So here you go, try it for your next dinner guests..or just yourself ;) You won't regret it!
 Layered Lemon Pies Recipe | Taste of Home Recipes

{Forgive me, I took this picture at the last second before I hoovered the pie. I promise to improve my food staging skills in the future!}
The only change I made due to lack of lemon extract in my pantry, was adding 2 tbsp. lemon juice in place of the 1/2 tsp. of lemon extract. You could also use 1 tsp. lemon zest. Thank you google ;)
And I halved the recipe to make just one pie, good thing, or I would've eaten the other one too!