Around the Kisner Homestead

Dehydrating Pineapple and Zucchini

The last few days, when I needed a distraction, I decided to get the dehydrator ready for garden season. I look forward to planning what we’ll be canning, freezing and dehydrating. I also had fun with a new canning tool.

It all started with an ad for a tool, called a masongenie, that would suck out the air in a canning jar to seal it…as a way to preserve dry goods, like cereal, rice, beans or dried fruit. It looked pretty simple and could be used to re-seal the jar after using some of the contents. (NOTE: This is not a substitute for regular canning processes of raw, uncooked produce.)

I thought it might substitute for my usual way of taking the air out of a jar with little packets of “oxygen absorbers.”

They worked, but if I opened the jar to use some of the contents, they had trouble sealing the jar again.

The masongenie works with regular-mouth and wide-mouth jars. It can be charged with a USB connection and can seal most jars in 60 seconds.

I started with a partial bag of rice just to give it a try. In 60 seconds, the lid sealed and I could put the jar on the shelf. Looked much better than the wrinkled bag of rice and should keep the rice fresher. Now, when I use some, I can easily reseal the jar.

Of course now I looked around to see what else I could seal! I got distracted with the package of dried bananas we had been snacking on. When we read the packet, it said, “Made in China!” Yikes! Certainly, we could do better than that. I started thinking about other snacks I could make in the dehydrator.

I understand these bananas were freeze-dried…which is something I can’t do with my dehydrator. However, I can do regular dehydrated bananas. I didn’t want to go to the store to buy them right then, but I did have cans of pineapple that could be cut up and dried. They might make a good snack until I could buy bananas!

With the can of chunk pineapple, I cut each chunk in half to make it thinner and laid them out on my dehydrator tray. I had several cans of pineapple slices so I cut them into quarters and laid them on trays. Frankly, the slices worked best!

I filled three trays and started the dehydrator…135 degrees for about 16 hours!

The dehydrator ran all night until noon the next day! Delicious!

The pineapple is the first of several fruits I’ll experiment with…this batch is going into the fridge…the pieces were too big to bother putting in a jar!

Dehydrating Zucchini

Now that I had the dehydrator ready to go, I decided to work with the 4 medium zucchini I had on the counter. I use zucchini in a sausage/tortellini soup recipe, but I never seem to have zucchini at the time I want to make the soup. So…time to chop zucchini. Thinking ahead…that I wanted to dry the zucchini and store it in mason jars…I peeled the zucchini and cut it into small cubes. I filled up 4 trays with zucchini cubes.

When dried, the chunks were pretty tiny, but all four zucchini made about 1 cup of dehydrated chunks! Next time, I won’t cut them so small.

I put a lid on the jar, set the masongenie on top and in 60 seconds the jar was sealed! I added the jar to my shelf!

I’ll let you know when more produce and dry goods make it to my shelf! Garden season 2025 is coming soon!

Recipe Bonanza

I seem to be a collector of recipes. By now, almost every other post I read on Facebook is a picture of some delicious-looking dish or baked good. Since I open these posts to read the ingredients, Facebook offers me more recipes! Of course.

I have found recipes in cookbooks written by various community and church groups as fundraisers. Recipes are in every newspaper and magazine I read. Sometimes the recipes are easy to follow; others have complicated steps or ingredients. Some cookbooks focus on a specific topic, like low-fat or vegan ingredients. I seem to gravitate to recipes that use basic ingredients…flour, eggs, sugar, etc. Other cookbooks focus on a kitchen appliance, like recipes for crockpots, air fryers and instant pots. I have those appliances but they are stored in cupboards. It has to be a recipe I really want to try to pull the appliance out to the kitchen counter.

I just found a link to a huge list of recipes compiled by two women for their church…The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints…the Mormans.

https://safelygatheredin2.blogspot.com

https://safelygatheredin2.blogspot.com/2008/11/alphabetical-recipe-list.html

It is similar to many other cookbooks offered by church groups with breakfast, main dishes and desserts, but the focus is on recipes that use the ingredients that can be found in long-term storage, like flour, sugar and rice. The church guides their members to store basic ingredients for 3-months, 6-months and beyond.

Their advice to have a stockpile of food and supplies is now a common suggestion for non-church members who just want to be prepared. Even the government suggests a 72-hour store in case of an emergency. It sounds unnecessary, unless you remember all the shortages we just went through with the Covid lockdowns!

The website also has links to how to store the ingredients, how to store enough water for emergencies and a list of tutorials that show How to Pressure Can, Make Whole Wheat Bread and Plan Your Garden, among other topics.

It appears the whole website was written in 2008 and 2009, but because the recipes are timeless…meaning they use basic ingredients and simple cooking appliances…they won’t go out of style when a new appliance is developed.

I searched the internet for the guidelines for food storage and I think the label “prepping” must have been first attributed to the Mormans as they suggest food storage. Now we can learn from their advice.

I think I’ll start experimenting with the recipes in the list. I’ll cite the website so you’ll know the recipe came from that blog. Enjoy!

The Quiet Before Spring

Winter is holding on tight here in central Pennsylvania. We’ve had a day or two each week that pushes above freezing and then we might get a cold rain or a few snow flurries. You can tell that Spring is holding its breath waiting for enough sunshine a few days in a row. I walked around the yard to see if anything was trying to sprout.

The grass is pretty brown. the dogwood trees out front are still holding on tight.

The Red Bud trees are not waking up yet.

Bert has used over half of the wood pile but it has kept us toasty warm all winter.

The Butternut trees on the hill are resting.

In the garden, the lavender did very well over the winter. The plants are a silvery green and look just as they did last fall!

The Echinacea is slumbering just fine.

Now…the most exciting thing is the forsythia! The buds are looking yellow and should be the first flowers to pop! I’m so looking forward to the color around the property.

The most fun while we wait for spring is checking Bert’s trail camera to see the animals around our bird feeder at night. We knew we had 4 to 5 deer visiting every night but we also saw an unusual skunk around the Red Bud trees and the bird feeder.

We now have pictures of the all white skunk with a huge fluffy tail as big as its body!

We also have a regular skunk visiting.

Amazing to watch the deer and skunks around the tree at the same time. They aren’t bothered by each other.

We’ll consider these pictures of “nothing happening” as the baseline as we get into gardening season, 2025. These are the pictures BEFORE we plant! Haha! We will pay attention for the skunks at night…wouldn’t want to interrupt their dinner hour!

Making Cinnamon Apple Cake

I seem to be on the lookout for Apple Cake recipes. I’m interested in recipes that use apples without having to roll out pie crust for apple pie or cut butter into tiny pieces like apple crisp topping. So far I’ve written about French Apple Cake (https://marykisner.com/making-french-apple-cake/) and German Apple Cake (https://marykisner.com/making-german-apple-cake/).

This recipe for Cinnamon Apple Cake looked easy but the recipe was not in my preferred format. The ingredients were not even listed in order of use so I ended up having to search the list of ingredients at every step to confirm amounts. When I was done mixing and put the pan in the oven…I realized I didn’t measure out the brown sugar correctly! No problem. The cake was delicious with less brown sugar so I corrected my recipe.

Here is my version of this recipe:

Here are the steps to make this delicious cake.

In a medium bowl, whisk 2 eggs and 1 cup of oil.

2. Measure out the cinnamon, white and brown sugars and vanilla extract. Add them to the bowl. (Original recipe called for 1 cup of brown sugar. I used 1/2 cup.)

3. Measure out the flour, salt, baking soda and baking powder and add to the bowl.

4. Chop 1 large apple (I had two small ones) and 1/2 cup of walnuts. Fold into the batter. This made a VERY stiff batter. Using a spatula, press the mixture into a round 9″ pan (sprayed with PAM).

5. After baking for 45 minutes, here is the cake! It obviously didn’t rise very much but it sure smelled up the house with cinnamon!

The directions said, wait 15 minutes to cut…but I will tell you…wait a little longer! The first piece sort of fell into crumbs when cut while warm:

When the cake was cool, it was much easier to cut!

This is when I knew I didn’t need that extra half-cup of brown sugar…it was sweet enough! I think this recipe for Cinnamon Apple Cake is a winner! Enjoy!

Born in the Middle of the Story-Repost

This is a repost of a story I wrote at the very beginning of my blogging days (2021). I’ve had requests from some family members who would like to see these photos again. Quite a journey for all of us!

One of the things I treasure from my parent’s generation was their foresight to save many written stories of their lives. Sometimes it was an envelope of letters from a loved one overseas; or stories they wrote for historical societies documenting life “back in the day” like my grandfather did.

Sometimes, they specifically wrote “autobiographies” with photographs, assembled in their later years. My mother had even saved a handwritten autobiography she wrote in high school (around 1925) that shared her life up to age 12 or so. (You can read about her life in another set of 3 posts: https://marykisner.com/ruth-lowry-bixby-biography-part-1/); https://marykisner.com/ruth-lowry-bixby-biography-part-2/); and https://marykisner.com/ruth-lowry-bixby-biography-part-3/).

As I get older, I feel like I’ve let the next generation down. Somehow, I was never able to document my life adventures as it happened with daily journals. I did discover I had saved about 12 years of Christmas letters I had written over the years. What a treasure! And this week, while sorting through photographs and computer files, I found my first attempt at my own autobiography. In 2013 I had written several letters to my grandchildren which summarized my early life. I needed the focus of who was going to read the letters and since my grandchildren were just learning to read, I thought about them as I wrote.

I started with an assortment of photographs, hoping to show how as the youngest, I was joining a “family” that already had had many experiences. For a long time that was confusing to me. My sister would say, “Don’t you remember when…?” and it turned out it was before I was born!

I’d like to share that first letter I wrote to my grandchildren.

________________________

April 17, 2013

Dear Aislinn, Annika, Ben and Anna,

My life story started when I was born in 1946 in New Jersey. Since I don’t remember those early years, thank goodness I have a few pictures of me when I was very small. I was born into a family that had been around for quite a few years already. My parents had been married for 11 years and already had two children. They had already lived in Minnesota and New Jersey and apparently had a cat!

Before I was a year old, we moved to State College, Pennsylvania. I don’t remember anything my family did before I was born. I had seen pictures of my sister and brother with grandparents and uncles and aunts that I had never met.

Here is a picture of my sister and brother with our Grandma Cora Bixby. She was my Father’s Mother. This Grandmother died before I was born.

All this is to remind you that your family (your parents, their parents, and their brothers and sisters) had adventures long before you were born. Have them tell you stories about some of those adventures! It took me a long time to realize that I had joined the family somewhere in the middle of the story. I have some pictures of me as a baby but I don’t remember much of anything before I was 3 years old. I think I remember the tricycle I got for my third birthday.

Here are some other pictures that show my sister feeding me and my brother playing with me on my new tricycle. Even today…both of us over 70 years old…my sister sometimes calls me her “baby sister.” That used to make me so mad because I’m all grown up now. She remembers me as a tiny baby and thought I was cute. So, I guess that’s OK.

Mark, Jean and baby Mary

Mary, about 1 year old

Mary, at 3 years old

Mark and Mary

Paul Bixby family around 1950

So…do you remember any early events in your life? Sometimes you can remember a feeling but sometimes you only remember seeing the picture. Don’t feel bad if you don’t remember things like your parents do. Ask them what they remember from being a baby. And then ask your Grandma or Grandpa to tell you a story from when your parents were a baby and see if your Mom or Dad remembers that story. Sometimes all they remember is seeing the picture and hearing the story! Your parents were born in the middle of a story too!

Here is a picture of Ted and Kathy playing with a laundry basket. Kathy was 1 year old and Ted was 2 ½. Ask them if they remember doing this, or if they just remember seeing the picture.

Never forget your life story started when you were born. You might not remember the first few years, but pictures can reassure you that you were part of the family from the beginning!

Love,

Grandma K.

_________________

So, don’t worry if you haven’t kept a daily journal. You can begin documenting your life story. Start with some pictures and create a story around them. Your children and grandchildren will treasure them forever.

How to Make Gravy Like My Mother

My mother was the queen of depression-era cooking. Her meals weren’t fancy but they were frugal. She was married in 1935 and raised two kids during lean times while my dad was in college and finances were very tight. By the time I was born in 1946 our family was preparing to leave dad’s teaching job in New Jersey and move to State College and Penn State.

The lean times were finally in the past but my mother never let go of her efficient recipes and could make a meal out of a few leftovers. To this day, my favorite dish was her casserole that had some meat chunks, leftover vegetables and gravy topped with biscuits.

The Paul Bixby family around 1950

Somehow, I never watched how she made the gravy and I spent many years of my married life trying to duplicate those casseroles. I usually ended up with vegetable soup but could never seem to figure out how to make the broth into gravy. I often gave up and opened a jar of pre-made gravy or used a dry packet to make a cup of gravy.

A few years ago, I finally looked up on the internet how to make gravy and I’ve enjoyed being able to produce a nice gravy with juice left from cooking a roast in the crock pot or roasting chicken in the oven. Last week, I made a delicious chicken vegetable soup and wanted to convert it to my mother’s familiar casserole. I’d like to share the simple recipe with you.

How to Make Gravy

Ingredients:

2 tablespoons butter (or coconut oil, vegetable oil, olive oil, margarine or bacon fat)

1/4 cup all-purpose flour (or 2 tablespoons cornstarch)

2 cups chicken, beef, turkey or vegetable broth (or pan drippings…strained to remove gristle or fat)

Instructions:

In a medium-size saucepan, melt butter (or other fat) over medium high heat.
Whisk in flour (or cornstarch) until well combined and no white specks remain. Cook 2 minutes.
Slowly pour in broth and whisk well.
Bring to a simmer and heat until thickened to desired consistency, about 2 minutes, whisking constantly.

Making Gravy Out of Soup Broth

I started with a big bowl of my homemade chicken vegetable soup.

I pulled out my strainer and dumped the soup in to strain out the vegetables.

The recipe above is based on 2 cups of broth. You can see I had 3 cups of soup broth. So, I just increased the measurements of the fat and flour to make sure it would thicken properly.

I like to use coconut oil and all-purpose flour to make this gravy.

I measured out 3 tablespoons of coconut oil and melted it in the pan.

Then I added about 2/3 cup of all-purpose flour and stirred them together until all the flour was absorbed by the coconut oil.

Then, I added the soup broth to the oil/flour mixture and whisked until it was all combined. On medium heat, I stirred until it came to a boil, turned the heat down and stirred until it thickened…about a minute or two.

Finally, I added the gravy back to the vegetable soup and had the base for a chicken vegetable casserole!

Now for the biscuits! Of course, I had to try Bisquick like my mother used. She reminded me back then that in her high school Home Economics class she had memorized the ingredients to make biscuits from scratch and had usually done so. By the time I was born, she was thrilled to use Bisquick…such a time saver!

Luckily, I could use coconut milk (or almond milk) to make the biscuits. Of course, with the arthritis in my right hand, I had Bert mix up the biscuits. I just formed them into biscuit shapes and put them on a cookie sheet.

My mother would have spooned the raw biscuits on top of the gravy and vegetables and baked the casserole in the oven. I broke up a biscuit and spooned the hot gravy and vegetables on top of the biscuit. Worked for me!

Save this recipe and make your own gravy anytime! Enjoy!

Discovering Air Plants

It was time! Time to repot some plants, rearrange some other plants and put away the grow lights. It’s also too soon to even think about outside planting. First, I had to dismantle the grow lights that I used for the microgreens. They will be stored until I need them again.

Bert started by repotting the aloe vera. It was in a tiny 4″ pot and had two baby plants trying to hang on in the crowded space. That gave the mother plant room to grow and the babies their own pot.

The spider plant is determined to send out long shoots that will make new plants. Bert keeps cutting them off (he really doesn’t like the spider plant…too unorganized…it’s the engineer in him!) We did let one baby grow and it’s now in its own pot. I’m sure the main plant feels stymied but we’ll keep it a while longer.

I saw an article in a magazine about “air plants” and wondered if they would give us the feel of the small spider plant but grow differently. The article confirmed that they grow slowly and have interesting blooms. Air plants, otherwise known as Tillandsia, are native plants to the southern United States, Mexico, Central and South America, and have the ability to thrive in the warm temperatures, despite neglect. (That last statement is very important!)

With over 650 types of Tillandsia, these unique-looking plants survive without soil or water. Air plants use their specialized leaves to obtain from the air the water and nutrients they need to survive. The roots of the air plant are simply used for attaching themselves to rocks, trees, shrubs and the ground. They are easy to maintain but need a humid environment. So, I can either soak them in water once a week and/or mist them daily. (Not sure that can be called neglect…)

Bert thought they sounded interesting so he went on Amazon and ordered three plants. We saw pictures of pink ones and blue ones and learned that the color is applied and slowly fades away. They really didn’t look REAL.

This is what we ordered:

He also ordered a spray bottle of fertilizer and tiny hanging holders for the plants.

I followed the instructions that came with the plants that said to soak the plants first in room temperature for 20 minutes.

I laid them out on a paper towel while I got the holders ready.

I can see I might need to rearrange the plants on the shelves at some point, but at least now I can mist the air plants. We’ll see if I can remember to mist them every day!

Carrots for 9 Months

Those of you that follow this blog may remember last fall when we had harvested most of the produce in the garden. We had a few tomatoes left to pick (in the last section) and the carrots were still in the ground (middle section). We had begun trimming the lavender in the first section.

By September, the only plants left were the carrots. We planned to leave them in the ground as long as possible.

In late October, we dug up all the carrots. They were beautiful!

The extra little carrots with tops were rinsed off and given to a friend’s pet rabbits.

When the carrots were dry, we put them into gallon zip bags without closing them and put them in a large insulated bag. This sat in the garage for months and when we wanted carrots, I could just grab a few for dinner or salads.

During the cold freeze a few weeks ago, the garage got below freezing for several days so I set the bag of carrots in the kitchen. When it warmed up, I moved the bag back to the garage…sort of a traveling “root cellar.”

Yesterday, we wanted cooked carrots for dinner. I grabbed a bag of carrots out of the insulated bag. Too funny…they were starting to grow!!

So, I’ll begin by trimming up all the carrots. They should keep another month or so in the refrigerator. They’ll be ready for salads and dinners.

After 4 months in the garage, they are still tasty, crunchy and very orange!

It’s very nice to be reminded how much we enjoy the garden produce all year long! Our canned 4-bean salad, pizza sauce and pickle relish are frequent treats all winter!

Adding Color to My Wardrobe

This new year is the END of my drab wardrobe! Famous last words! For a long time, I’ve managed to coast along, work from home and live in sweats and t-shirts! My goodness, I’m 78 years old! I can risk trying some new colors! I have lived in black and navy blue with an occasional purple for years. Why!

For a while, as my hair turned gray, it felt like the dark colors looked best. Then I discovered I managed to spill or drip something right on the front of most of my shirts. Sometimes my cooking projects enhanced any design on any shirt I had! That didn’t show as much on dark colors! Plus…I’m home most of the time, so who cares if I’m in t-shirts. I seldom spend much time staring at myself in the mirror!

My closet is pretty dark and boring with all my dark shirts!

I occasionally wear a red raincoat…but only when it’s raining! Most of the time I’m in black jackets.

Anticipating Christmas gatherings, I managed to buy a green sweater and a red one. I really fit into our Christmas pictures…instead of all black with a red scarf!

I needed a new mid-weight coat this year. Lands End was having a sale! Yea! I ended up with a navy coat (of course) that was great for those days when I was running around town. I wore this coat to Kathy’s house on Christmas Eve.

While we’re driving I noticed in the car mirror that the lining was a lovely cobalt blue.

Thinking to myself, “What a great color! Why don’t I have more of that in my closet?” So, while Bert was driving past Ebensburg I pulled up Amazon on my phone and in a few minutes I found a sweater, a scarf, a t-shirt and a plaid flannel shirt in this lovely color! Merry Christmas to me!

So that’s the story of adding color to my wardrobe! I’m going to do better from now on!

Whispering Hope: A Song for Christmas?

I have only a few memories from the year my family spent in the Philippines in 1955-56. I was 9 years old and I’m sure my memories were influenced by my mother, who I spent most of my time with…compared to my older brother (15) and sister (18), who enjoyed the freedom to explore a new country without too much supervision. I have shared a few of my memories in this blog. You can read them here:

https://marykisner.com/this-monkey-was-not-my-friend/

https://marykisner.com/trying-to-sneak-into-air-conditioning/

https://marykisner.com/a-christmas-surprise-in-1955/

https://marykisner.com/camel-ride-in-egypt-in-1956/

For some reason, today I was reminded of the experience of carolers coming to our door in the week before Christmas…1955 in the Philippines. I probably watched too many Hallmark movies this week where groups of folks were wandering the streets and neighborhoods in their fictional towns singing Christmas carols. If the snow was drifting down in the movie, the songs were about Dreaming of a White Christmas, and sleigh bells ringing.

I thought back to the songs I heard outside our door in the Philippines. You can be sure there were no drifting snow flakes or sleigh bells on horses on our street! The weather was warm and sultry…not cold and snowy! We heard traditional religious carols, like O Little Town of Bethlehem and Away in a Manger. The most common song…in my 9 year old memory…was Whispering Hope! I don’t recall ever hearing that song before or since…especially at Christmas. I barely remembered the tune.

Time to do a little research! First, I looked up the history of the song. It was written in 1868 by Septimus Winner (1827-1902). This article, by Pam Griffin, summarizes his life as follows:

STORY BEHIND THE SONG: From folk tunes to jail to ‘Whispering Hope’

“What could the comforting hymn “Whispering Hope” have to do with well-known little ditties such as “Listen to the Mockingbird,” “Where, Oh Where Has My Little Dog Gone?” and “Ten Little Indians?” They were all written by Alice Hawthorne, one of the pseudonyms used by the 19th century songwriter Septimus Winner. The famous poet, composer and violinist, born in 1827 in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, was the seventh child of Joseph Eastburn Winner and Mary Ann Hawthorne, a relative of Nathanial Hawthorne.

Winner, a self-taught musician, did study violin briefly around 1853 with Leopold Meignen, a former bandmaster in Napoleon’s army and a composer and conductor. Winner could play a variety of instruments, including the guitar and banjo, and became proficient in the violin by the age of 20. After graduating Philadelphia’s Central High School, he opened a music shop and gave lessons on a number of instruments and performed locally with the Cecillian Music Society and the Philadelphia Brass Band.

From 1845 to 1854, Winner and his brother, Joseph, formed a music publishing business, Winner & Shuster, which Winner continued with various partners and names until 1902. During this time, he wrote or edited 200 volumes of music for more than 20 instruments and produced more than 2,000 arrangements for violin and piano plus more than 1,500 easy arrangements for a number of instruments.

Winner, who died in Philadelphia from a heart attack in 1902 at the age of 75, was a frequent contributor to Graham’s Magazine, then edited by Edgar Allen Poe, and was the founder of Philadelphia’s Musical Fund Society. He was inducted into the Songwriters Hall of Fame in 1970.” By Pam Griffin (pgriffin@thedestinlog.com)

So, how about that! Next, I looked up the lyrics of the song. That helped me understand how it could fit into the Christmas spirit and the recent end of World War II. In 1955, we weren’t too far away from the end of that conflict. I found two versions of the lyrics…the original and a second version that was published as a hymn.

Original lyrics:

Lyrics published as a hymn:

Sheet Music

Finally, I went to musicnotes.com to find the easy piano version of sheet music for Whispering Hope, thinking maybe I could take it with me to our Christmas gathering at our daughter’s house. My grandson might be able to play the tune on the piano. It cost only $5 to print a copy from that website.

So, that’s the story of the song, Whispering Hope, from my memory in 1955. I found a recording of the song by Anne Murray on her album, Amazing Grace: Inspirational Favorites and Classic Hymns. I purchased the album on iTunes and will enjoy the song this season! I’ll add this song to my Christmas playlist.

Follow up

My grandson, Ben, tried to plink out the melody but he had no reference…he had never heard the song. He tried to quickly find the song on his phone so he could hear it. Not much luck! I also had trouble trying to fit the lyrics into the notes on the sheet music. He eventually lost interest in trying to help me…Christmas activities won the day! I’ll have to tackle this myself at my own keyboard.

That’s OK. He tried to help!

This weekend I’ll spend some time with my brother and Lita (his wife is from the Philippines). She should remember that Christmas long ago. Hopefully, she will remember that song too!

Merry Christmas from Mary and Bert!