Country Kitchen                

The smell of bread baking that fills my home, is one of my FAVORITE things. There is something special about it that encourages the heart. My kitchen smells of home made bread, roast lamb, tomato sauce or fresh herbs - not a chemical air freshener.   It is an honest smell that says, "Welcome, everything is going to be all right!"

Strawberry Jam is bubbling away in the canner, and the dish washer is washing more canning jars.   My hands are strained with Strawberry juice, and the jelly jars are lining up on the kitchen table.  After the strawberry jam is finished, I will be making Current jelly. We have to pick them before the birds find them.  Next winter, when it is below zero, the snow is deep, and the wind howling, we will enjoy our jam and jelly on top of hot biscuits! 

The kitchen is the very center of all the activities that happen here at Milk and Honey Farm. Just about everything here is "home grown and homemade". Since we grow so much of our food, the kitchen becomes the processing center of the garden. Certain times of the year, the kitchen is filled with baskets of fresh vegetables, bushels of apples, and armloads of fresh cut flowers and herbs. At other times, it is busy with dehydrators, canning jars, and large stockpots filled with sauce and soup.

The front of the refrigerator is crowned with family pictures (mostly of the Grandchildren) puppy pictures, recipes, lists, cards, and various paraphernalia. I never have enough magnets to hold everything. The refrig has become the "message center".

We have an old oak harvest table, five chairs, and house plants by the south window, and bunches of dried herbs and flowers hanging from the ceiling. There is a big play pen for my poodle puppy, "Pilgrim". It is full of his toys and keeps him out of trouble when I am too busy to watch him.

I try, but the kitchen is never really tidy. There are just too many things all going on at the same time. Bob calls this "MULTI- TASKING!" My kitchen would never win an award for the most modern or most attractive. It needs a serious make-over, but it is home and "works for me". Maybe, sometime, I will enter a contest and win a new kitchen. Meanwhile, it smells good in here today.

Good bread starts with good ingredients. Here are organic wheat berries that are grown a few miles from the Farm. I put these in a Nutrimill grain mill to grind them into flour. I know that the flour contains every nutritious part of the wheat berry and no bleach or "enriched" synthetic vitamins. The Whisper Mill is a durable kitchen tool that pays for itself in a season or two.

I was a spoiled brat as a child and was not required to do any household chores or help in the kitchen. As a young mom, I thought a three-course meal included potato chips and fruit cocktail to go with the hot dogs. I literally ate myself sick and had to change my ways or die. I didn't want to leave my two boys without a mother, so I had strong incentive to change. I had to learn to do things in a new way and get my family to buy into it. It wasn't easy, but my health improved. The Biblical Health & Nutrition Manual is a guide book to help you develop good eating habits, too.