Caramel and Soda.

Joe made a goal this week to make dulce de leche and ginger soda.  We enjoy the process of cooking not just the finished product.  However, we're pretty good at the process so the finished product is a nice treat from time to time, (tooting our horn!).

I never knew that you could boil down milk to make caramel.  That's what dulce de leche is with sugar and vanilla added for flavor and dash of soda.

Milk cooking on the stove.

Keep stirring.  The milk reduces by half or more.

Dulce de leche!  

Joe loves ginger beer.  He happens to know how to make it.  This week Joe made ginger beer with mixed berries.  We tasted it last night and of course it was delicious.  Joe really is an amazing cook.

Ginger!

Ginger and Berries cooking on the stove.

Ginger and Berries still cooking on the stove.

After a little yeast and a couple of days of the yeast doing its work,

we have home made soda.

Joe multitasking.

Joe and I are reading and learning about homesteading and small scale farms.  I love the idea of being self sufficient to some degree.  I've been reading a lot about the slow food movement and love the idea of growing our own food and preserving it.  It will be a lot of work but it is going to be an adventure and a great lifestyle for our family.  Don't worry, we still love our Internet and computers.  :)  In fact last night Joe and I took ourselves out to dinner instead of staying in and cooking.  We drove to Provo Utah to participate in an activity Joe's Mason Lodge put together.  It was time to weed and clean up the lodge's grounds.  After our time planting and weeding we treated ourselves to Five Guys Burgers and Fries.  Talk about a lot of food!

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