Prairie Scraps

Do you have an overload of zucchini right now?  I have to say, I don't.  For whatever reason, my plants just didn't produce anything this year.  Of course, I really love baked goods with zucchini in them, so I picked up some at a local farm for $.25 each this week, to be sure that I have plenty for the winter.     I shred all of my zucchini, yellow and green with my Kitchen Aid  and my shredder attachment  into my big bowl.   I especially like to shred up those huge, overgrown zucchini's!  Those big seeds get mixed right in.  If the seeds are too big, I'll just take them out and use the flesh only. Then I measure out the shredded zucchini into freezer bags two cups at a time.  I like make all my freezer bags flat for my freezer, so I can stack them neatly and in less room.   I've found that most of my favorite recipes use two cups of shredded zucchini, so I...

It's so easy to feel disappointed when a dream you have doesn't happen.  Whether you are working your own business, trying to lose weight, or really anything in life that you are trying to do!  I found this quote this morning, and thought it fit into what I've been working on myself: a Dream Journal. This last week, I've started a Dream Journal.  I'm trying to be more positive and focused on achieving my dreams.  I've just opened a Word Document on my computer, where I spend most of my time while I'm working, and titled it Dreams and Goals.  Then I put bullets into a list form, and started to add.  Some dreams are very specific, like "Earn $_____ a month."  Others are more vague, but I know I would love to do them, like "Give sports teams food when I want to."  This one came from sitting all day at my daughter's tournament and I enjoyed giving the girls granola bars between matches.  I would just love to be able to do that whenev...

So if you remember, I shared a posting schedule here  that I found, and on Tuesdays it recommends to "Ask a question, share a photo contest or quiz, or post a fill-in-a-blank sentence."  I started trying to come up with a question to post in my groups and couldn't make up my mind!  Then I had a brilliant idea: look it up on the internet!  So cliché, isn't it?  I used bing.com to type in "Ask fun questions."  Low and behold, hundreds of lists of fun questions to ask came up!  Try it!  It works! Take your pick, and you now have a list of interesting and fun questions to ask to captivate your audience on your Facebook groups and Business pages! Here are some of the ideas I came up with to try out on your blog or Facebook page to gain interaction from your audience: What is the last text you wrote in your phone? What is the last picture you took on your phone? What have you always wanted? Did you get it? What is your greatest strength ...

I love nothing better than being able to use leftovers in a new way or even make breakfast from the fruit of our labors.  In this case, I provided a Taco Soup and Corn muffins for the Youth Group at church this week, so had way too many corn muffins left over to eat.  My family doesn't eat "old" breads, since I bake fresh so much, so I knew these corn muffins would go to waste if I couldn't figure out how to use them.  My grandmother used to make bread pudding when she had leftover or old bread.  I've even found a recipe for making bread pudding from leftover donuts that tastes pretty close to my grandmother's bread pudding.  I was thinking about what I could do with my corn muffins and decided to make it into a bread pudding for breakfast!  The best part was, that not only did I have leftover muffins, but a neighbor gave us free milk from her cow, I used huckleberries we picked in the forest, and I was able to use eggs from our own hens!  That ...

I got this posting schedule in a networking group I'm in on Facebook.  I always try to credit my sources, but in this case, it's all over and I can't find the person that created it.  I apologize to whomever made this great schedule, but I want to share it with you. If you have a Facebook group, business, or a blog, I think it's a really great idea to have a schedule or plan for what you post. Along with this post, the first place I saw it, the lady that shared it stated that when you post on Facebook, it should be only 10% promoting your business and the rest personal interactions and developing a relationship.  That really resonated with me, because although I know that many businesses and direct sales people use Facebook and blogs to promote their businesses.   There's nothing worse than only hearing promotion after promotion!  (And I'll be honest - I'm very guilty of this myself.)   I've been trying to use it as a guide ...

As the fall harvest begins, I was finding several different bags of fruit in the freezer from last year that we hadn't used yet.  On top of that, we had an obnoxious amount of rhubarb this spring already!  What started to be a batch of Huckleberry jam, turned into an afternoon of making jam and sauces!    The jams I used from last year's berries were huckleberry, raspberry, strawberry rhubarb and cherry. My favorite recipe book is The Ball Complete Book of Canning, which if you don't have, you should get!  It has every recipe that you could possibly use and more. Only one recipe have we not likde and that was the Cherry Jam, where the optional ingredients we didn't like.  We leave them out and we love it!    I still had over 30 bags of rhubarb in my freezer (what can I say we love rhubarb coffee cake all winter long, but this was a little much!) so was checking out the recipes in my canning book.  I've made...