Is it possible to have too many apples? It’s been a bumper year for apples on our Ohio homestead. We’ve made enough applesauce for ourselves and our extended family, shared some apples, and they still keep coming. Fortunately, there are lots of other great ways to preserve this versatile fruit and enjoy eating it all winter. Here are a few delicious solutions to try. Continue reading
Here in Ohio, we’ve entered that in-between season of not quite summer, not quite fall (my husband’s favorite frugal time – we don’t need the air conditioner or the furnace). It is the perfect time for outdoor activities: the heat and mosquitoes have largely abated, but there’s no need for heavy coats and snow pants yet. We’re simply enjoying gorgeous, eye-popping blue skies, the gradually brightening colors of the leaves and a curious, hurried feeling in the air, probably because we all know what’s coming. In our family we take every opportunity to savor the last days of summer while welcoming fall as it arrives. Here are some simple ways you can, too: Continue reading
Late summer means it’s time for one of my favorite traditions: Applesauce Day. For years, the kids and I have spent a day or two each summer making a year’s worth of applesauce with my mother. It’s a family tradition that grows sweeter every year.
This year, the day was extra-special because for the first time, we did not have to buy any apples. Our young trees produced a bumper crop of chemical-free, mostly worm-free apples. We did a batch of Transparent apples and a second batch of Summer Rambos. Continue reading
Our favorite gardener and in-store instructor, Karen Geiser, has shared this recipe during her frequent seminars at Lehman’s in Kidron, Ohio. For those of you unable to make it to the store, here’s her easy method for flavorful, oh-so-healthy fermented sauerkraut. Continue reading
Growing my own garden of lettuce, tomatoes, peppers and carrots has been such a rewarding and fun experience, and one of the best things that has come from it so far has to be the delicious fresh salsa I made. Continue reading
Well folks, we have come to the middle of August, when the children are bored but not ready for school yet, and our taste buds are tired of s’mores and potato salad. (Yes, this is possible.) Continue reading
Here at Lehman’s, we’ve always had a serious penchant for the unique. The hard-to-find. The off-the-beaten-path. The antique-ish. Continue reading
Like so many couples, one of our wedding gifts was a glass 9″x13″ baking pan. Just like the old standby ones our mothers had as we were growing up. Back then, it seemed huge for just my husband and me (although we do love leftovers). Continue reading
Dave’s stack of sorghum stalks, ready to be crushed.
(Editor’s Note: Last year, Dave Ross tried his hand at growing sorghum, then pressing and cooking the juice into the delicious old-time syrup many people remember. Here are his adventures in sorghum farming!)
Sorghum. At last the project has reached completion. From mail-ordered seeds that arrived in May, to sorghum syrup in my jars on the counter, to molasses crinkle cookies. It was a fun, educational experience, but honestly, I probably won’t raise it again. Sorghum syrup can be purchased from a local Amishman for a good price per quart. Lehman’s also carries it year-round, and that makes the effort of raising, stripping, taking the stalks somewhere to get them squeezed, and cooking down the sweet juice into finished syrup, more costly than buying it locally. Still, there was value and fun in the experience, and I’m glad I did it. Continue reading
After our family does something strenuous together here on the farm, we’re all hot, hungry and need to cool down. My sweet and generous husband wants to go out for great big strawberry ice cream cones or pull a carton of store-bought out of the freezer. It didn’t take long, though, before we all realized this frequent habit wasn’t helping us at all (dairy allergies, bumping up sinus issues, more colds). Continue reading
