Orange Rolls

Overview: This is an addition to my flavorful cinnamon rolls which you can find here. Follow the instructions there until you get to where the dough is rolled out and ready for the cinnamon.

Once the dough is rolled out, spread a 1/2 cup of melted butter over the dough. You don't need to use it all but make sure there is butter over all the dough.

Above you will see that I did half cinnamon and half orange. You can do the same thing or do all of it with cinnamon or orange. For cinnamon, click on the link above. For orange rolls, get two oranges and grate the outside of the oranges into a bowl. I only used 1 orange for the picture above because it was half.

With a spoon, spread the orange zest over the dough.

Roll the dough up and then use dental floss to cut the dough into rolls and place into grease pyrex pan.

Cook for 20-30 minutes at 350 degrees.

Spicy Pumpkin Pie

Overview: This is a special recipe from my Mom who got it from her Mom which has been passed down from the beginning of time that is pretty much to die for.

Start out by turning on your oven to 450 degrees.

Mix and blend the following into a bowl:
2 Tablespoons Vegetable Oil
1-1/2 Cups Pumpkin Pie Filling (1 can worth)
1 teaspoon Ginger
1 teaspoon Cinnamon
1/4 teaspoon Mace
1/4 teaspoon Cloves (ground)
2 Eggs
2 Tablespoons Flour
1/2 Cup Brown Sugar
1/2 Cup Granulated Sugar
1/2 teaspoon Salt
1 Cup Milk

Pour contents on bowl into a ready made pie crust. If you are using one purchased from the store, continue reading below. If you are needing to make a delicious and easy one from scratch click here for instructions.

Place the pie in the oven set at 450 degrees for 15 minutes. Then turn the temperature down to 375 degrees and bake for 45 minutes.

If your crust starts to darken too much, cover the crust with aluminum foil like this picture.

It is a tradition in my family with pumpkin pie to use the extra dough and carve out a pumpkin like the one that is pictured above.

Please disregard the knife wounds. These were from testing to see if the pie was ready. When you test your pie to see if it is done (putting a knife or other skinny object in the pie to see if it comes out clean) don't worry if it doesn't come out clean. Usually pumpkin pies set fully once they start cooling out of the oven. Try your knife test twice if you are worried (not 4 times like me) and then pull it out of the oven.

Enjoy.

Click below for other pie recipes:

Cherry Pie

Apple Pie

Apple Pie

Overview: If you are using a store bought pie crust continue reading below. If you want to make an easy and delicious crust from scratch click here.

Turn your oven on to 450 degrees.

Start out with your pie crust recently placed in your pie pan. Place 1 - 2 cans of apple filling into your pie pan. I prefer not to skimp at all when it comes to a pie filling. I figure that if I am going to spend the time making the dough from scratch so that the pie will taste better, I need to spend some extra money to buy cans of the better quality apples so that the pie will be superb.

Then roll out the extra dough left over from the pie dough that I cut off from the crust to make the top lattice of the apple pie.Once rolled out to the thickness of between 1/16" - 1/8", use a pizza cutter to cut strips.

I used the picture of a cherry pie because I did not have one of the apple pie at this stage. Start by placing all needed strips of dough in one direction only. Then pull pack every other strip and place another strip going perpendicular at the end of the pie pan. Once placed, replace all previously moved strips to their original position. Continue by pulling back all of the strips that were not pulled back the first time. Place another strip perpendicular to the those that you pulled back and continue in this pattern creating a weaved effect. This may take a few tries to master but the end result is well worth the effort. The mouths of those about to eat your masterpiece will start to drool simply by looking at your pie because it is so beautiful.

Once you have created the latticed top, roll up the edges to form a crust on the lip of the pan. Use your fingers to create a decorative crust as pictured above or here.

Place pie in the oven for 15 minutes at 450 degrees. Then turn down the heat of the oven to 350 degrees and cook for another 30 minutes.

Make sure to place a pan or aluminum foil underneath of the apple pie because they are famous for boiling over.

Make sure to watch over your pie once you turn the temperature down to 350 degrees because the crust may start to burn. If the crust is browning to fast, cover the crust with pieces of aluminum foil for the remaining cooking time.

Now you have a gorgeous apple pie that is waiting to be eaten.

Make sure that you let it cool down for at least 10-15 minutes before you eat it.

Click below for other pie recipes:

Cherry Pie

Spicy Pumpkin Pie

Cherry Pie

Overview: If you are using a store bought pie crust continue reading below. If you want to make an easy and delicious crust from scratch click here.

Turn your oven on to 450 degrees.

Start out with your pie crust recently placed in your pie pan. Place 1 - 2 cans of cherries into your pie pan. I prefer not to skimp at all when it comes to a pie filling. I figure that if I am going to spend the time making the dough from scratch so that the pie will taste better, I need to spend some extra money to buy cans of the better quality cherries so that the pie will be superb.

Then roll out the extra dough left over from the pie dough that I cut off from the crust to make the top lattice of the cherry pie. Once rolled out to the thickness of between 1/16" - 1/8", use a pizza cutter to cut strips.

Start by placing all needed strips of dough in one direction only. Then pull pack every other strip and place another strip going perpendicular at the end of the pie pan. Once placed, replace all previously moved strips to their original position. Continue by pulling back all of the strips that were not pulled back the first time. Place another strip perpendicular to the those that you pulled back and continue in this pattern creating a weaved effect. This may take a few tries to master but the end result is well worth the effort. The mouths of those about to eat your masterpiece will start to drool simply by looking at your pie because it is so beautiful.

Once you have created the latticed top, roll up the edges to form a crust on the lip of the pan. Use your fingers to create a decorative crust as pictured above or here.

Place pie in the oven for 15 minutes at 450 degrees. Then turn down the heat of the oven to 350 degrees and cook for another 30 minutes.

Make sure to place a pan or aluminum foil underneath of the cherry pie because they are famous for boiling over.

Make sure to watch over your pie once you turn the temperature down to 350 degrees because the crust may start to burn. If the crust is browning to fast, cover the crust with pieces of aluminum foil for the remaining cooking time.

Now you have a gorgeous cherry pie that is waiting to be eaten.

Make sure that you let it cool down for at least 10-15 minutes before you eat it.

Click below for other pie recipes:

Apple Pie

Spicy Pumpkin Pie

Easy Pie Crust

Overview: During our Thanksgiving Break from school, my wife and I decided to take a trip down to visit her family for a week. I thought that I would try my hand at making pies. I felt that I had the pie making potential in my blood because my Mom always made pies from scratch and so did her Mom. I am not sure how far back pie making goes but I will venture a guess at .....maybe....since the beginning of time. I guess this means that I have the potential to be pretty good. Lucky me. :)

Start out by combining and mixing well:

1 Tablespoon Vinegar

1 Egg

1/2 Cup Water

Next combine in a separate bowl:
4 Cups Flour
1 3/4 Cup Vegetable Shortening
1 Tablespoon Sugar
2 Teaspoons Salt

Mix together the ingredients of both bowls and form into two balls.

Place the bowl with the two balls in the refrigerator for at least 15 minutes or up to 3 days! You can also freeze it to use whenever you want which makes this recipe very versatile.

Take the dough balls out of the fridge and place on your rolling surface with flour underneath them. Depending on what type of shortening you use, it can be very sticky if you don't use flour.

Roll out one dough ball to where it is in a circular shape and between 1/16" and 1/8" thick.

There are two ways to place the the rolled out dough into your pie dish. You can either fold it in half as is pictured above or you can start at one end, place your rolling pin on the dough and roll your dough onto your pin. Once all your dough is on the pin, then move over your pie pan and unroll your dough.

Time Saving Tip: Make sure that you have a sufficient amount of flour underneath your dough so that it will come off of the counter top easily.

Once your dough is placed in the pie dish, push down the dough against all surfaces of the pie dish. BE CAREFUL NOT TO PUNCTURE OR TEAR YOUR DOUGH. If you do and your dough is sticky enough, you can take a piece of your extra down along the sides and cover up/repair the damaged area. Don't worry about how it looks because it will be covered with pie filling.

Cut off the excess dough and roll up the dough to form edges on top of the pie pan lip.


Shaping the crust: This part is easier if you have a Lazy Susan table but if not, don't worry. Start by placing two fingers a little more than a finger width apart on the inside of the crust.

Next place another finger on the outside of the pie crust between the first two fingers.

At the same time, move your two fingers that are on the inside toward the outside of the pie pan while moving your one finger towards the inside of the pie pan. Once you make it around the whole pie pan, you are ready for the filling or you can freeze the crust for later.

Click for Cherry Pie

Click for Apple Pie

Click for Spicy Pumpkin Pie

Warm Apple Crisp

Remember this: It is fall and you are at Grandma's house for a visit. The leaves are changing outside making the mountains full of reds, yellows, and oranges that seem to wrap you up in beauty. The air is crisp and you have been outside playing with your kids and your trusty dog. You decide to come in to warm up just as the sun is setting. You wonder what Grandma and Grandpa have been up to. As soon as you open the door, a sweet delicate aroma touches your senses beckoning you to go straight to the kitchen. All the lights are on along the way with the floor creaking beneath your feet as you walk. As you walk towards the kitchen the aroma only becomes more desiring. You walk in the kitchen and there is Grandma by the oven pulling out what she has been baking. She sees your rosy cheeks from playing in the cold and asks you to sit down at the table. While looking at her with love and endearment, she brings you a bowl of warm apple crisp. As you put the first slice into your mouth, the warmth immediately makes you feel as though she just wrapped you up in a blanket fresh out of the dryer. As you eat, you excitedly tell her how much fun playing outside was and how you felt like a kid again. She gets up to serve your children some and all the noise seems to dissipate into the air as you are caught up reliving the same memories your children are making at that instant. You realize how wonderful life really is and that these precious moments with your family are the ones that last. They are the ones you yearn for and keep you going through the tough times. They are the ones that your children will be telling their children as they are growing up. You are truly happy. Oh how wonderful is Grandma's house!

Now that you are wanting to relive the same experience I had while eating this, lets begin!

Set oven to 400 degrees.

Begin by slicing and coring 4 apples and placing them in a pyrex or casserole dish. You can peel them if you want to as well but it takes more time.

Pour 1/4 Cup Hot water into the dish.

Sprinkle as much Cinnamon onto the apples as you want. The recipe suggests 1/2 tsp Cinnamon but this was not enough for me so I put on more.

Sprinkle 1/2 Cup Sugar onto the apples.

In another bowl, combine:

1 Tbs. Melted Butter
1 Egg
1/2 Cup Sugar
1/2 Cup Flour
1 tsp Baking Soda

Pour this batter on top of the sugar and cinnamon coated apples. Try to spread it evenly but if not, it is no big deal.

Place a few slices of butter on top and place the dish in the oven for 20 minutes or until the apples are golden brown.

One other thing that you can do is to add Granola to your dish. Use a spoon to add it on top before you put it in the oven. I actually didn't have an granola at the time so I use the cereal "Honey Bunches of Oats." It still turned out great!

Welcome back to Grandma's house!

Chicken Palace

Overview: This is my most recent creation and probably one of my favorites! It is the biggest because it has taken me the longest time out of all my other projects and it was the biggest in regards to square footage. I was asked by my friends dad to turn one side (230 sq. ft) of his barn into a place for his 28 chickens. I call it a palace because it is so big. All he had before was a little coop which he used to grow his chicks but soon grew too big for it, plus they were making a mess all around his yard. I did the majority myself while asking for help for a few hours from a great friend.

Here you can see what it looked like before. This area was actually used for pigs back in the day which is why there are metal posts which held fences to separate the pigs. As you can see, there are four posts holding up the roof structure. He wanted me to build walls in between them that could be easily removed to clean out the area and durable enough to be moved around and put back into place many times. It was somewhat of a challenge to figure out how to tie them all together but I feel our solution will work out really well and for many years to come!

This is a look from the other direction and here you can see what his old coop looked like. It was definitely not big enough for 28 hens!


He first had me read a few chapters out of this book to get the dimensions right for the roosts, nests, and total square feet. It says that if you are putting your large chickens in a cage, then you need to have 4 sq. ft per chicken at least. If they don't have this much room then it is very easy for them to get sick. Really this book was almost a perfect resource because it had so many useful facts that would've never known had I not read it. Also, if you are looking to raise any other type of farm animal, there is a whole series of them.

This is the final view! I am sorry that the pictures are so dark. I thought I had arrived there in time to get some better lighting but these will do. The wall sections are framed and painted white with chicken wire attached to the back to hold the chickens.

This is from the other side. If you notice on your right is the back of the bests with a shelf on top for storage. To the left of that is the door to enter into the palace.

This was our solution to tying all the walls together with the existing posts. We ended up drilling a 1/2" hole through all 11" of wood and putting a bolt through it with a wing-nut on the end so that all someone has to do to remove the wall is to unscrew four wing-nuts, push the bolts back and off comes that section of wall! Then you can clean out or add to the palace all you want and have room to spare.

Here, I built two "Chicken Doors" so that a person can open them up to let the chickens out instead of having to take a whole wall section off. The other door is further down on a different wall section.


This is the back of the nest area. The owner will soon put fake grass on top of a sloped wire bed so that when the hens lay their eggs, they will roll down behind a piece of plywood so that they won't eat them. The owner will then open this little door to take the eggs.

This is the main door to enter into the chicken palace to start an adventure.

Here we see some hens actually in the nests when they aren't supposed to be. Even though we put put some plywood, they still fit through the cracks to settle in. We took them out and re-covered them so that they don't reside in the nests until they are ready to lay eggs in a few months. You don't want them to stay in the nests until they can lay eggs because they will make the area very dirty.

The owner hung a chicken feeder three inches off the ground from the roof rafter by a chain.

Here is the roosting area. Chicken usually sleep by roosting which means both of their feet are on something skinny like a 2x4 piece of wood that is off of the ground. They do this because they feel more safe off of the ground further away from any predators. You need about ten inches of roost space per chicken so here we have almost 30 feet of roosting space. Where there is no coop or cage to stay in, chickens will usually roost in trees at night. We also built this roost because it is better to have a roost and a nest separate so that the nests stay cleaner.

I sure hope you enjoyed this little adventure! I loved this project and it was great to finally see it finished and inhabited!

Log Bench

Overview: I spent a little time in the mountains with my in-laws and got a lot of inspiration from the cabin that we were staying at. We stayed in a cabin at the Sundance Resort in Utah and it was awesome. The decorator of this cabin did a fantastic job and was extremely detail oriented. I do have to give some credit to my brother-in-law for helping me with this. It was really fun getting to work with him. Also this log bench was FREE because I re-used pieces from the tree that we recently cut down. It is the same tree that I used branches from to make our eco-friendly fence.

First we got three piece of wood and made sure that two of them were the same size that would be used as the legs.

We then cut the long piece lengthwise with a chain saw creating a flat surface to sit on.

We then used a bow saw to cut notches into the two leg pieces for the main piece to lay on.

We then cut two pieces of a branch that were the same size lengthwise and in diameter.

We used a drill bit that was close to the same diameter as the pieces of branch and drilled a few inches down into the legs and into the main bench to add for stability and secureness.

Here is the finished project. We then sanded down the top because there were a lot of little cuts from the chainsaw. We then spread some Tompson's wood sealer on it to make it more water and mold resistant.

I am going to make another one with a thicker diameter log which will be more stable and strong because although great as this one may be, it can still be improved upon. It will be the same concept but with thicker legs and a wider area to sit on.