Chickens, Veggies, and Goat's Milk - Oh My!

Hey there Muffin Readers!

The Muffin-lette's grand debut!

Its been a while hasn't it? I know....I know..... Muffins can be so flighty. 

Well not entirely. As you may have known we had a little muffin-let baking and he was born a few months ago. Its taken some adjusting to a new member of the family but its overall been great. I just can't believe that he's already three months old already!

Anyways, I've missed talking to you guys and figured its time to stop being a lazy muffin.

Veggie Patch!

As you can tell, Spring is in the air! After doing a ton of running around today we decided to check out Homestead Farms in Keller, Texas.

I had heard about a farm that was practically in the middle of the 'burbs but never got a chance to go and check it out. Well, it was such a lovely day outside that we all packed up in the Muffin-mobile (sorry I couldn't resist calling it that) and drove out there.

Hey there Mr. Chicken!

When we got there we parked right in front of their vegetable patch, jumped out and started exploring the various goodies they had currently growing. The patch wasn't particularly large but it definitely wasn't a typical backyard veggie patch. They had all sorts of  wonderful things growing such as watermelons, squash, onions, heirloom tomatoes, garlic and peas. 

After looking around the veggie patch for a bit we wandered into their store where we bought some peaches, a half gallon of fresh goat's milk and a goat meat snack. In case you're wondering, a goat meat snack appears similar to a Slim Jim but much, MUCH better. 


Next, we went out back to check out their rabbits and chicken coops. I got to admit that these chickens were very pretty and healthy looking.


Overall, Homestead Farms was a small operation but I loved that they have a farm in the middle of the suburbs that services the area and that they were super friendly. This place was a nice and relaxing spot that is kid-friendly and easy to find.

If you're in the area I'd strongly recommend checking them out our take a look at their website here: http://homestead-farms.net/ . They are in the middle of an expansion project and can really use your help to raise funds by buying a Homestead Farms t-shirt for $15. I'm definitely planning on getting one myself sometime soon.



Side Note:

Speaking of Goat's Milk.......

A few days after our excursion I decided to make some biscuits to go with dinner one night. I have a go-to recipe I use off of Allrecipes but of course, I have to put a Muffin-y spin on it and swapped out goat's milk instead of buttermilk this time around. After dinner, Mr. Muffin and myself declared them to be my best batch ever so I figured i'd share the recipe with all of you:

Little Sleepy Muffin's Goat's Milk Biscuits (serves 2)

2/3 Cup flour
1 Tbsp butter
1/3 Cup Lard (yes, its bad for you but it makes tasty biscuits)
A Pinch of Salt
1 Tsp Sugar 
 1/3 Cup Goat's Milk (or use Buttermilk for the less adventurous)


Throw it all in your mixer and mix just until combined and it starts to pull away from the side of your bowl. If its still too soft sprinkle in a little flour until it starts to pull away but dont take too long.


Once your dough is set, flour your counter, sprinkle some flour on your dough and fold your dough about 15-20 times - Do not over knead!


When your dough is finally ready, mush your dough into a square sized shape of about 4"x4" (What?? Muffin's are impatient and dont currently like their existing rolling pins!). 

Using your knife cut your biscuits into quarters and shape the rough edges. I discovered a while ago that portioning out biscuits this way instead of using a circle cookie cutter was quicker and a much more enjoyable way of making biscuits. 


Plop those babies in a baking pan and bake at 425 for 10-15 minutes or until golden brown. Serve with some homemade preserves or butter.


Click here to view the original recipe

Until next time!

Love, 

The Sleepy Little Muffin 

An easy autumn DIY project in time for Thanksgiving

Hey there sleepy muffin readers!

I don't know about you, but I have got the serious after lunch sleepies today. Maybe because its a little humid and overcast. Definitely ideal weather for a nice nap :)

Anyways.....I have been going through a holiday home decor flurry this past week in an attempt to try to decorate for other holidays besides Christmas. I'd really like my son to enjoy every holiday as he grows up so all the decorating Ive been doing lately is my baby steps in that direction.

So as a way to celebrate autumn and help you decorate your home for thanksgiving here's a little project I finished recently:

Felt Autumn leaf garland:

 

This project was super, super easy and doesn't take much effort to make. In my opinion its easy enough that with supervision its fairly kid friendly as well. Its also a fairly inexpensive project as well. I think it probably cost me less than $5 to make. It may cost slightly more if you don't have some equipment such as a hot glue and I already had my own yarn but still the overall cost wasn't bad.

 Items you'll need:

• Colored felt sheets - I was able to find these at my local craft store for 29 cents a sheet and one sheet of each color was way more than enough.
• 3 even lengths of yarn - I had originally wanted to use a thin jute rope, but I had some interesting green yarn and decided to use that instead. Another option to use for this project would be ribbon.
• brown puff paint (fabric paint)
• hot glue gun and glue sticks
• scissors and pen

As you can see from my photo, my fireplace mantle was the ideal place to put my garland, so all I did was measure my lengths of yarn by hand. Once I got the length I wanted, I braided them together to make a thicker rope. 

Next, I googled some images of fall leaves and used these as a visual template to draw my leaves onto the felt with a pen (see images below for my results).


I wasn't intending for it to look absolutely perfect, so I got my pen and hand-drew them and cut them out. If you need an actual template to go by I would recommend doing a autumn leaf image search on Google and printing out a few different varieties as your templates.

Once all my leaves were cut out, I flipped them over in case they still had some pen marks (like the maple leaf to the left *blush*) and got my nifty puff paint pen and started drawing veins on the leafs and some detail on my acorn caps. After your pieces are nice and dry grab your glue gun and glue those guys to your yarn rope and its ready to display!

Since my mantle isn't very big, I ended up making only 2 of each type of leaf but what is so great about this project is that you can make as many or as little as you like.

A little side note: I had originally intended on putting a single acorn on the garland but I ran out of space. So instead of tossing out that cute little guy I decided to glue him onto the bottom of the other acorn and give the effect of falling acorns.

So, there's a simple little DIY project that is flexible enough for you to personalize it to your own tastes. I apologize for not getting this post out sooner. I had to throw all my time into preparing for a craft fair I was participating in last weekend so its been a bit hectic and my poor blog has suffered. I promise to be much more consistent from here on out.

I truly hope that you have a wonderful Thanksgiving holiday and that you spend some wonderful time with family and loved ones.

Love,

The Little Sleepy Muffin