Bean Me Up Alaska Style! These are NOT your Boston Beans!

If you have been reading my posts on the regular, you know we are some bean eaters here!  We love them because they store easily, are versatile for many cooking situations, and they are filling for any group of fishermen or hockey players who come along!  I gave  you a recipe earlier for our "Cowboy Beans" (click there for that recipe) and here is another that will trip your trigger nicely as well!  As we move into the more chilly season, it's a great one for warming up the crowd or taking along as a hot dish for potluck or hospitality room.

A few years ago I had a situation where I needed to make a hot dish for a memorial service - yes - we've had a lot of them lately.  The catch was that there were some food allergies that had to be avoided for this group, so my usual Pea and Cheese Salad would not fly.  I also LOVE Baked Beans!  Most of my family however, does not like what they call "sweet beans"!  So long ago I came up with a recipe that ended up solving both of my problems and are delicious!  Its a savory baked bean!  This also works in a crock pot so another level of WIN!



This recipe makes a ton of beans so you will have some to share and can, or to feed a crowd of hungry hunters!

Alaska Baked Beans

1 Quart dried navy beans (about 2 pounds)  I have also used red beans and even pinto beans for this recipe as well or a mix of red and black.  Soak them overnight in water enough to cover them.  If you don't have time for the soak overnight, give them a simmer for a few hours on the stove top until the skins crack.  You can also use canned beans if you would like - when I do that I use red, navy, pinto, or a mix of the three.  Rinse them a bit before using and drain.

2 large onions diced                                                                     

3 large sprigs of sage chopped fine

1 can of tomato sauce

1 tsp liquid smoke (optional)

1 Tbsp Cumin

3 gloves minced garlic - or more - we like lots of garlic

1 Tbsp dry mustard

1/4 C mustard

1/4 C Ketchup

1/4 C Molasses

2 C Chicken broth or Beef broth (I use low salt or home made broth) click on broth to see recipe.

2 tsp salt and pepper

1 package of stew meat - brown the meat in a skillet

       you can also use canned or shredded meat of your choice. Pork, beef or moose.

You might notice that this recipe does not include bacon - I have a family member who cannot eat bacon, sadly, so we use just the browned moose meat and the smoke to make up for it.

I use a crock pot to cook the whole shebang - Use your big boy crock pot on low for about 9 hours.  Check your beans for doneness and serve em up!

To bake them in the oven bake for 4 hours at 350 degrees in a deep dutch oven.

If you are planning to can them only cook in the crock for about 4 hours and the oven for 2 or they will be over done in the canner.  For quart jars, process in pressure cooker at 10 pounds for 60 minutes,  pint jars for 45 minutes.  Let set for 24 hours and make sure "button" has been sucked down.  Store as you would any canned product.  Cool and dry.

Enjoy and blessed be!

Dragonfly DragonRye

It is said that Dragonflies are messengers from heaven, bringing us messages from our loved ones who have run ahead.  Bringing us comfort with their gentle touch, the zing of their wings, and the amazing ability they have to stay on a shoulder, hand, elbow or even eyebrow with a seemingly effortless ease.  Being there for us.  Just being there.  It is very rare in the spring and summer when I am thinking of Rye that a Dragonfly does not come by to land on me and bring me a hello from him, or to comfort me with a little visit.

My cousin Joy Lynn is an artist!  I have lots of family who are artists, in all varieties of medium, but Joy Lynn is an artist with paint and easel and water color and oils.  The way Van Gogh and Starry Night was artistry - only better even!

Joy Lynn painted this beautiful work and I don't remember what she called it, but I call it my"Girl in the Wind" and I have it hanging in my office at work.  It reminds me to gather my blessings around me and look at whats going on around me as well for blessings.  I know I can keep F'ing going when I look at this beautiful print.  I know I can take a deep breath and get through the day, no matter what is swirling around me.....and hopefully be a nice lady too!

When I went to pick up the print of "Girl in the Wind" she also gifted me with the Dragonfly blessing that you see.  An incredible original watercolor piece she calls "DragonRye".  The pictures do not do either of these pieces justice, but know that they are incredible and vibrant.  I was so moved and blessed by this gift and the story she told me about how it came to be.  Rye woke her in the middle of the night - of course!

Here are Joy Lynn's words about how this DragonRye came to be.... such a precious gift for me with a message from my son it seems.

Here is something I painted in between currently working on commissioned pieces; as a gift for my cousin Lisa. It was a piece painted in love as a celebration of her son Rye’s life. I finished it a couple of days before the anniversary of his passing, which was three years ago. God moved me with compassion and I finally was completely unstuck creatively, except for a tiny drawing or painting here or there, but creativity didn’t flow easily it was hard work. But as God’s love flowed through me for my cousin I was finally able to paint this Dragonfly. I have been super stuck creatively for almost three years and this labor of love is the first time I have been moved so deeply with God’s compassion that I could paint and had to paint again. It was painted with love and sheer joy in between laughing and crying. So many wonderful emotions were felt during this painting’s journey.
😇🙌🎨😘❤️🎉

Blessings,
Joy Lynn

9”x12”
#Watercolor
#JoyfulAspirations
#PropheticHealingPaintings
#LabourOfLove
#LaborOfLove
#Dragonfly
#DragonRye

She said that some of what look like water spots on the painting are actually her tears mixing with the colors and the paper to become part of the masterpiece.

Here it is in it's silver frame, gracing the wall of my home office right above my desk.   I am hoping that she will have both of these made into fabric that I can use in quilts! Along with a couple of her other art pieces!  I'm not sure I would be able to cut is though the fabric would be so beautiful!

You can see her other art at her Joyful Aspirations Facebook site Here and her website Here. 

including this one....

P.S. I want this one in fabric too!

I hope that you have someone in your life who blesses you with incredible art of some type and who helps to uplift you when you need it the most.  Thank you Joy Lynn ~ Joyful Aspirations  Blessed be.

Oh Good Garlic!!!!

I talked a while ago about trying to grow garlic in Alaska. You can see that post here. I saw some at the Alaska State Fair that was beautiful - I think it was from the Kenai Peninsula and it was called Khabar.  Mom and I wanted to try garlic again and so we planned way ahead and ordered our garlic in the winter of last year (late fall actually) to be recieved in September-ish of this year for planting.

Our garlic came from Filaree Garlic Farms and the bulbs are fat, juicy and happy looking!  It has frozen quite hard here (before we even got the bulbs to plant) and so we both had our garlic bins and areas ready to go before the garlic got here.

That bag says "Purple Glazer" one of the varieties that we ordered for this year.  I had 6 of my Purple Glazer bulbs come back in the spring and harvested a lovely bit of garlic - even though moose came through and ate all the tops off of my onions and my garlic - strangest thing ever - that was a first for me!  So this year I had to dig and find the garlic to harvest it.  What a mess!  But tasty garlic!

So we have Khabar, Purple Glazer and Metechi varieties.  Mostly what are called "hardneck" varieties.

So you take the bulbs apart into plantable cloves- keeping the paper skin on the cloves.  The paper skin you see at left here are the ones from the very outside of the bulb.  Save it to use in your chicken or veggie broth - it adds a lot of flavor to those broths!

I started with this 6'x6' space filled with good compost and garden soil (part of my Wicked Good Dirt Hill).

There are a few different methods recommended to plant garlic but our directions from Filaree said to plant them 6" apart in rows 9" apart and about 2" deep.  I admit I fudged a little and mine are closer than that - Im at about 6" and 6".  I did get them the 2" deep though! Some are now a little deeper since a baby moose came by and trod around in the garlic bed to see what I have planted there!  I wasn't abe to retrieve all of the cloves out of the depth that his little hooves trod them darn it!  My fingers are crossed that they survive!

I put a label on each end of each row in case the curious Wicked Ravens get ahold of the tags - I might be left with one at least at one end?!  I have to still cover the garlic bed with leaf mulch and some screen to keep it from blowing away.  Some folks recommend putting blue board insulation on the garlic bed over the top of the leaf mulch, but I have not found that to work so well for me out here.  I have had better success with just the screen and leaf mulch - a think layer of it - 4"+ - and you let the snow (hopefully) do the rest.

Then you leave it to come up in the spring.  Garlic takes a year to mature - you plant in the fall and harvest in the fall!  That takes a big love of garlic and passion for gardening!

If you are looking for a challenge and you love garlic (which we do at Wicked Raven Farm) give a little garlic a try!  It is worth the work and the wait!

Blessed be as we slide gently into winter shouting Whoo Hoo!  Bring on the snow!

****UPDATE****

I got exactly zero garlic that came up!  Even though there was lots of mulch and snow cover - when I dug down to check on them after every bit of the garlic at my mom's place (Snowfire Gardens) not only came up but was about a foot tall already, there were just frozen rotten cloves.  Darn!

I don't think I'll try garlic again until I have a better (warmer) spot for it.  I might see about putting it over the leach field or septic next year and see if that helps, but for this year I think I'll just take a pass!

I hope that if you have tried garlic you have had great success, and pass on the variety that might grow in Big Lake, Alaska!

Blessed Be!

A gift of Silver

About a month ago we got a package in the mail.  It was in a padded mailing envelope, and said on the outside "Drill Rig Tools" and was from a friend of the Hubby's in Glenallen Alaska.  Glenallen is about 4 hours outside of Big Lake, so about 300 miles.  The friend is also a well driller, mechanic and of all things a tailor - a sewer of all types of materials and he has at least 15 different sewing machines!  He was the source for my Ruby Viking.  Glenallen has sharpened my scissors for me a number of times as well.  He always tells me when I need a new pair - you can only sharpen even your best knife so many times!

The package felt a little funny and I remember thinking that the handle felt very "dainty" for a drilling tool box of any kind, but as the package was addressed to hubby I trundled it home to him.

He was outside at the time I got home and when I gave him the package and asked him what Glenallen was sending for drilling tools and how much we owed him he gave me the standard "You don't need to worry about it"!  

I didn't press because we had other stuff to discuss, and then I went into the greenhouse to check on what was happening there.

When  I came back out from watering and pollinating, pruning and preening, he couldnt wait any longer and handed me the package to open!  

It's an early birthday present he said!  Two months early!

NO!  It is not a torture kit from movie scenes!  It's a wonderful set of scissors and design tools made by Janome!  There are little embroidery and applique scissors, a big set of cutters and some medium sized trim scissors as well as tweezers and a scalpel type tool for design cutting, templates and curves.  It is a beautiful set of silver perfect for any sewer!  A gift of silver!

I hope that you will be gifted with thoughts that count and early birthdays, and maybe a little silver thrown in for a surprise!

Blessed Be!