Do You Know Who Your Ancestors Are?

This is a topic that is very close to my heart. However, I have neglected writing about it for quite some time now! Certainly long enough to tell you that there have been many, many exciting updates made to the FamilySearch.org website! All of these updates were made to make it easier for you to find your ancestors!

Imagine that your ancestors came here from another country (that includes about all of us here in the US). How would you get to see birth certificates or marriage certificates from the 1700's? Well in the past, unless you traveled to that country, or hired someone to travel there for you, you would never know who these people are!

While Ancestry.com, and other websites like it, have been around for a few years now, they are expensive. FamilySearch has them all beat because it is FREE! The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints wants everyone to know who their ancestors are. It really is true that you can't know where you are going if you don't know where you came from. Church members volunteer their time to enter this data by Indexing records. They are then available for everyone in the world to see. I know you can find information about your ancestors too! As an example, here is the marriage certificate for one of my great-great-great-great grandparents.

It is important to remember that you can access this website from anywhere in the world, no matter where you live. Let me give you some information on the new features that were recently added:

• You can add photos and memorable stories to each ancestor you add to your family tree. The best part about this is these stories are available in Google search results so others can see what you wrote. What a wonderful way to connect with other people who share an ancestor with you!
• Just in the past 6 months, 200 million new records have been added from the following countries (listed in no particular order):
• Italy
• Canada
• Russia
• England
• Wales
• Argentina
• Denmark
• Germany
• Brazil
• Columbia
• Spain
• Mexico
• Switzerland
• Czech Republic
• Hungary
• Poland
• United States
• plus many more!
• If you need help, there is now live support to help you! These people volunteer their time to answer your questions over the phone or via chat. How cool is that! 

I strongly encourage you to spend some time looking for your ancestors. I can't think of a better gift to give your family this holiday season. All it takes is a few moments of your time!

It is quite rewarding to find the people who made you who you are. I can honestly tell you that I feel so blessed because I know who my ancestors are. I think about them every day! And, I look forward to meeting them someday!

Happy Veteran's Day!

Here in the US, it is Veteran's Day. Today is the day we honor all members of the armed forces for their service to our country. Please say a special prayer for those service members who didn't survive to see their family members again!

From this veteran to all the others, THANK YOU FOR YOUR SERVICE!

Garden Update

I have been busy this fall, so I just had to let the garden tend to itself. Some veggies are doing very well, some are not. Before I start on how the garden is doing, I want to show you my newest plant purchase.

This is a vanilla plant. When it is about 3 or 4 feet tall, it should flower. As you can see, this lives in my bathroom. I am trying to take advantage of all the moisture there. In the summer, it will go outside. I have needed a new plant for a while because when Molly was younger she destroyed my last one. One of the side benefits of having a puppy! I tried to regrow it from some of the leftover pieces but none of them really took off and they never flowered (the plant was quite old anyway.) My husband and I went to Miami a few weeks ago to visit relatives and bought it.  While this should help on my journey to self-sufficiency, I don't expect that I can completely eliminate my need to purchase vanilla beans. I just won't have to buy as many as I do now. (I go heavy on the vanilla when I cook.) In addition to being used in the production of vanilla flavoring, on occasion they will be used to make vanilla bean ice cream.

The peas are doing very well. I planted two varieties, one bush and one pole. Both are English peas.

My apologies about the picture! I took it very early this morning and I didn't realize that it had shadows until I posted it.

The onions are doing great too although you can barely see them in the picture. What you can see very well are the weeds!

I have a lot of weed issues in the onions! Going to have to fix that soon! The weeds will steal all the nutrients out of the soil. I have mixed results from the garlic so far. Some that I purchase locally, sprouted quickly. The ones that were saved from my crop last June, are sporadic. Here is a picture of some of the local ones.

Oops! Another bad picture. All you can see is one garlic plant! You can also see that I am still the proud owner of a rock. I really don't know what to do with it! It seems quite happy sitting in the yard, but I am getting tired of looking at it! 

Strawberries are producing well.

What I really like about everbearing strawberries is you get two crops of very large strawberries in the spring and fall and then smaller ones during the hot summer months. They truly produce from spring until very late in fall!

Broccoli is up and growing too!

The carrots are not. I planted two varieties, one from my saved seeds that I gathered this summer and the other I purchased. Both are nantes varieties. I think next year I am going to move away from the nantes family. I know they are popular and a lot of different varieties are sold, but I have a hard time getting them to germinate. Right now, I need the carrots to come up because we are out of carrots! I don't store many cans of dehydrated carrots because we always have fresh ones to eat from the garden. We will just have to do without until I can get a crop to grow!

My pepper plants just won't die! They are still making peppers and I am still dehydrating them. I am up to 300 now, and I have about 30 more waiting to be chopped up and dried. This is the only crop from the summer I have left.

Parsley is doing very well too. Time to harvest some more!

Tomorrow I am making some Christmas soap so the weeds & parsley will have to wait until next week!

Cooking with Food Storage: Maple Drop Cookies

These cookies are light & airy with a wonderful maple flavor! I found the original recipe in my King Arthur Flour catalog, but you can see it online here. I used food storage ingredients for my version. 

Here is the original recipe with my noted changes:
Maple Drop Cookies
2 large egg whites (I used meringue powder.)
1/4 cup maple sugar (I ordered mine off of the Internet, from here. King Arthur Flour sells it as well. Do a Google search and I bet you can find it locally too.)
1/4 cup pure maple syrup
1/8 tsp salt
4 TBS unsalted butter, melted (I made my own butter. You can see how to do that here. I also made a second batch with powdered butter.)
1/2 tsp vanilla extract (I used one teaspoon. I made my own vanilla extract. You can see how to do that here.)
1/8 tsp maple flavoring, optional (I made one batch with maple flavoring and one without. The cookies taste better with the maple flavoring.)
2/3 cup all-purpose flour (I used whole wheat flour.)

Whisk together the egg whites, sugar and salt. Here are my ingredients before I added the water.

Whisk until the ingredients are foamy. It didn't take long.

Whisk in the maple syrup, butter and flavors until incorporated. When I used butter powder, I reconstituted it with water before adding. I used a bit more water to make it smooth.

Add the flour and whisk until smooth. This is what mine looked like. 

As you can see in the picture above, I used a very large bowl. However, the batter doesn't make much so you don't need a large bowl. A small to medium bowl will work well.

Drop by teaspoon full on parchment paper. The original instructions state that the less batter you use the crisper the cookie. I was looking for crispy cookies. I tried different amounts to see if I could get it 'just right'. What I liked was a heaping 1/2 tsp full, spread thinly. The thinner, the better.  If you spread them thin, you will get about 50 cookies. If you want them a little thicker, you will get about 35.  Bake at 350 degrees for 7 to 9 minutes. 

I didn't bake mine in my kitchen oven. It was a beautiful sunny day, so I used the sun oven. Although it was quite sunny, I couldn't get the sun oven to 350 degrees (I had wispy clouds floating by). I had to settle for 325. I baked mine about 25 minutes. (Don't use parchment paper in the sun oven. I didn't have any problem getting the cookies off of the cookie sheet.)

They are quite good! Very crispy, and full of maple flavor. If you can't find or don't want to buy maple sugar, try using regular sugar with 1/4 tsp of maple flavoring. I bet they will be just as good!

Plan Early for a Frugal Christmas!

You may be thinking that it is still too early to think about Christmas. Not for me! I start putting up the decorations on November 1st. I just love to look at them! I wish I could leave them up all year long!

Another reason I like to think about Christmas this early is to plan and set a budget for our festivities. I do this to help me keep the spending down to a minimum. My husband and I try to live a very frugal life. It is our goal every year to try to live on less than we did the year before. Without careful planning, that goal can go right out the window at Christmas time! It is really easy to get caught up in the rush when at the mall (or any store) and find that impulse purchases have just blown your budget! Christmas should be about celebrating the birth of our Savior, cherishing time with each other, and not about spending money.

So to try to help keep your Christmas budget under control this year, I have listed some websites below that have quite a few tips to help you do just that!

3 Ways to Have a Frugal Christmas
Free and Low-Cost Christmas Gifts
Frugal Christmas Checklist
Frugal Living Christmas Ideas
Frugal Christmas Foods
Frugal Christmas Gifts Ideas
5 Frugal Tips for a Christmas to Remember

Plan ahead and think about what you are going to spend on your festivities now! When the bills come in January, you will be glad you did!