Keeping Perspective | A Homemaker's Vlog | Country Cooking

Hey there, it's Lauren from Rustic Honey. Welcome back to my channel today. We are going to be doing a few things in the kitchen. It's been kind of an off week with sick kids, but I thought I would take the opportunity to make a positive spin on the week and talk about how perspective changes everything. Let's jump right into a few chores this morning before hopefully it's going to rain later today. The clouds are already moving in and we are saying some extra prayers this morning that we will get some rain. And believe it or not, these chicks that we got three weeks ago already look this big. I cannot believe how quickly they grow. They more than triple in size in three weeks. We also are thinking about moving our asparagus patch, but it's been here for years and it still produces. So we took down the fence that was around it, but so far we've just been enjoying a little batch here or there and it amazes me. I have no idea how many years it's been here, but it was here before the previous owners that we bought the house from. So it's a long-standing asparagus patch that we've enjoyed every single spring. I thought I'd bring in a few this morning, because if you let asparagus go it seems like you're like, oh I'll pick that tomorrow and then it feels like two days from then it'll be way too big and out of control. So I thought I would go ahead and pick it and get it ready for dinner tonight. So stay tuned and we will add that to our dinner. Although I didn't get a very big batch, it's perfect and a nice little treat to go along with what we're having. I thought I would go ahead and make some quick breakfast. Reese is down for the count today. She's not feeling well, so I'm kind of just doing my own thing for breakfast, which means I'm trying to keep it as simple as possible. I have had two of my three be sick this week and last week one of mine was a little bit under the weather too. So I think they've had different bugs, but I'm so, I don't know, this year has seemed like it has been endless with the school illnesses. I don't understand. But I am still praying that I also don't end up sick. So far so good, knock on wood, but I don't know how I've dodged the bullet so many times. So I feel like I'm probably due for it and if I end up sick I'm probably going to end up in the hospital and in labor. We'll see, but anyway back to my parfait. So I do just a little yogurt, you saw me add some protein powder, and then I do a protein granola on top with strawberries and local honey. So it's like the perfect treat right now. I feel like for some reason I haven't really been craving anything and this breakfast hits the spot. Rough draft of blueberry muffins that I've been working on for months now probably. And by working on for months I mean like I've only made them twice probably. So we're going to work on those again today because I'm in the mood for blueberry muffins and this recipe isn't going to perfect itself so we might as well keep going trial and error and eating muffins while we're pregnant, right? Let's make a cup of coffee. I actually have to empty my camera card because it's full and then I'm going to take you along for the recipe. Oh and don't look now but it's raining outside. You just say all sorts of prayers of gratitude when it's raining and just hoping that it continues as much as possible. After such a drought last year we're already really dry this spring so we're here in Missouri we're just praying for lots of it. I'm pulling my nasty looking sourdough starter out of the fridge. It has been living in there for probably at least a few weeks now. I feel like I've just either not been in the mood to bake or too busy to bake. I've had to really pause a lot of my things in the home because I'm prepping my business to somewhat let me have a maternity leave after this baby comes. So I've really been trying to like work on some bigger projects in my office and get ahead so that the girls on my team can kind of take the reins on my retail business during my maternity leave. So all that being said I just poured off the hooch off the top of my sourdough starter and added a cup into this recipe that I'm working on for the blueberry muffins. I decided this time to add a little bit of sour cream which I only had greek yogurt at the time which is pretty interchangeable if you ask me. I've been keeping notes on top of notes on the same card for a while just really trying to perfect the recipe. The recipe turns out delicious every time it's just not quite perfect like how I want the blueberry muffin of my dreams to be. So last time I made it I think I had put one video up already where I tried to make these and they just they it felt like they just like the batter was too wet last time so I've definitely fixed that um but I know I'm looking for that moist factor. Sorry if you hate that word I know some people don't like that but it's true in cakes like in muffins you need that right so um I've seen a lot of recipes that use oil instead of butter and I know like I wanted to use butter but part of me thinks that maybe if I used an oil instead I would get that texture that I'm going for. These turned out delicious so I'm still working on it and the last time I did this we also talked about here on this channel the streusel topping but I think I got that part perfected so stay tuned because we're gonna add the most delicious topping. If I could eat a whole muffin with just that on top like the muffin's a winner. I don't know about you but sometimes slowing down and just getting in the kitchen to bake something is just therapeutic in a way for me. I feel like it's been a rough couple of weeks with just I don't know the busyness of having sick kids and the house feels like it's falling apart because I've been working on bigger projects at work. Like we're just not in the normal routine and I think that's often when I'll lose perspective and I get really frustrated with little things or I feel like I'm constantly interrupted and I'm never getting to the bigger projects like I'm never getting anything actually complete and that's when I think I have to zoom out sometimes and just focus on the bigger picture and see the little issues for what they actually are. I think we're all guilty of thinking like or getting frustrated in these small little moments that really make no difference at all. I don't know if you've ever heard that quote about if this would not matter in five years then don't waste you know any energy worrying about it right now. So or however that I'm probably butchering that phrase but you get the concept. If it would not matter in five years then I need to just let it go. Stop worrying about it. I think zooming out really puts those little everyday frustrations like in their place. All right so moving back on with the muffins that was a little bit of my tangent on perspectives today. I only had enough blueberries on hand to make half of my recipe so I went ahead and just plopped those on top. Normally I would like whip them into the batter but I just put the blueberries on top with a little flour and they're gonna sink in just right it'll be just fine and then I'm doing the other ones with just regular cinnamon. So they'll be kind of a cinnamon swirl streusel muffin which turned out delicious too. Okay speaking of streusel my favorite part of the recipe coming at you right now. So last time I used cold butter and I grated it in but what I have found that works better is to melt the butter and then add in flour and sugar and I did equal parts it's like a one to one to one ratio between flour butter and sugar but I split my sugar between brown sugar and white sugar only because I think it looks a little bit better with the brown sugar otherwise if I just used all white sugar I felt like it looked kind of weird on top like almost like mold or something awkward you don't want to bite into a muffin that's not equally um as delicious looking as it is tasty so that part was important to me it kind of turns out like a thick wet sand so it makes it really easy to just crumble on top and it will somewhat melt into the muffin a little bit but it still leaves you with that nice little bit of crisp that you get from the streusel on top I think this part of the recipe is a done deal it's so good um thank you to anyone who's been with me this whole time and we kind of trouble we did a little troubleshooting in the last recipe that I had done on this so thank you for those of you that chimed in on what you thought I should do for the streusel because it really did help me in my research to get that part right all right with all the love we've been giving these muffins it is time to get them in the oven so that I can clean up the kitchen and start thinking about what we're gonna have for dinner tonight because that is a never-ending job as a mom isn't it all right we need to begin our hunt for some ingredients for dinner my husband requested a recipe called a hungry jack casserole it's something that his mom always made him and it is very yummy um it's kind of a very cowboy country style casserole I feel like it's got biscuits on top ground beef and beans and I was on the hunt for beans and I am ashamed to say I had zero beans of any kind in my house all of a sudden I feel like everything again like I said like I've lost track of all ingredients I just we've just been winging it lately I also don't know if it's been taking care of sick kids or just the point of pregnancy that I'm at but nothing sounds good to me either like I have zero cravings anymore I mean I still want to eat I have an appetite but it's just like you could put anything in front of me and I'm like sure that sounds great I'll eat it I just well so that doesn't make it very fun to cook I guess but on this very morning muffins did sound very good and Reese thought she felt a little bit better and wanted to take a couple bites of a muffin when she woke up here is the next edition of the blueberry muffin and they did turn out pretty good I thought they actually turned out pretty too I think if anything my temperature was a little off on my baking time and everything so I'm going to try to adjust that a little bit next time and then I'm still the debate is out on whether I should use butter or oil so please chime in in the comments below if you have a go-to recipe for muffins and you're like favoring one or the other I would love to know that in the comments and thank you again for helping me with the streusel topping it's absolutely my favorite part all right we were blessed to get just a little bit of rain today I was so thankful to see that I love a good rainy day at home and we were lucky enough that tonight we are all going to be at home my husband has been on a work trip so he is on his way back and after dealing with sick kids I am also glad that he's going to be here to help me tonight so I'm looking forward to having the family around the table tonight now I wanted to make that hungry jack casserole but again I came up short with having any beans on hand which is a main part of this dish and Dan was going to stop by the store on his way home to grab some but I told him you know what it's okay it's just been one of those days just come home Reese wants to see you and that was that was just fine so we're basically gonna have like sloppy joes over with the biscuits and everything so it's a very just like boring meal almost but it's gonna hit the spot you know it's cozy and there's just something about being at home and cooking dinner even if it's something really simple it's not gonna like win me any awards but hey my kids are happy they liked it and it filled our bellies and again with no one in my house actually knows what hunger true hunger feels like I told that to my kids all the time like we are so well fed and dinner may not always be exciting I may not always be excited to cook it but thank god we have as much as we do right so I had Dan go out to our reserve deep freeze and grab some things I had had in there for my last Walmart pickup which is the easiest frozen biscuits I absolutely love these things and when in doubt always bake more especially if you have little growing boys like I do we will be able to have leftover biscuits for tomorrow morning if I do a few extra tonight now this casserole you could put the biscuits right on top and I was thinking this would be an easy freezer meal if I do another round of those but for tonight I'm just gonna bake them on a sheet because I really like how they get a little bit crisp on the bottom and I don't really get that from a casserole as much I mean they get browned on the top but it's just not quite the same now in my skillet I was just kind of working there in the kitchen and chatting with Dan since he'd been gone for a couple days and um again we're like just using up what we have I barely had any mustard and I barely had any barbecue sauce so I added in a little Worcestershire or Worcestershire I forget how many of you commented on how you say that I added some of that stuff that magic stuff I also put in a little liquid smoke and a tiny bit of soy sauce too which sounds weird but it doesn't it doesn't taste like soy sauce in there it just gives it a little bit of an extra something something and then I added in a little bit of garlic and onion powder along with the salt and pepper that I originally had in there just to kind of season things up oh and a little bit of brown sugar too just to give it a little bit of that extra sweetness now this is basically what we call sloppy joes so I could have just put this on a bun and had sloppy joes for the night but since my husband was winning hungry jack casserole I thought put a little cheese on it and then we'll throw our biscuits on top normally again this would have the beans in it too so maybe I'll do another freezer meal video at some point and share that recipe with you and making multiple dinners for my kids is not something that I subscribe to very often but when they're sick and Reese the only thing she wanted was an egg sandwich my mama heart couldn't take it and I didn't really know that she would want to eat what we're eating tonight anyway so I thought an egg sandwich might be a little bit easier on her tummy with just a little bit of bread so she did eat some of that and has been doing much better since our incident in the car now back to the fresh asparagus that I cut this morning again there's not a whole lot this could be like one serving for someone but we are just going to enjoy what we have as we have it and I'm just going to throw it in a little bit of oil and a little garlic salt sometimes I will use my all-purpose seasoning and I'll try to link that below because it's really good on it especially on the grill but I love asparagus roasted either in the oven like this or on the grill it's the best now I'm laughing because this is if this doesn't explain Missouri weather we have stocking caps and sunscreen on the table at the same time I feel like the weather here has just been so up and down and that's probably why we've also another reason we've been sick but I'm trying to just put away a few things while dinner is baking a friend of mine had had given me a baby gift with some diapers and that awesome daily grace co devotional she knows I love those and this one's about motherhood so I'm really excited to check that out I think I might pack it in my hospital bag because I'm currently finishing up another one anyway and that'll be a nice read while I'm in the hospital all right so dinner is done and again it's nothing fancy but it sure did make my family happy the boys really like this one so if you need a super easy weeknight meal and want to throw something like this together it's a winner so maybe the next time you find yourself out of ingredients like me you'll stop to think how fortunate we are that we never truly know hunger or that you're bored with food but what a privilege that must be to be bored with food and when you're doing the laundry and cleaning up the car seat maybe hosing it out in the driveway nine months pregnant which is not glamorous let me say you can still zoom out and think man I'm so glad that I'm here to take care of these kids and that they're not truly ill my kids are happy and healthy and this little flu bug will only last a few days this too shall pass along with everything else and I can continue to be frustrated with all of the many projects we have here at our home and on our farm but and maybe be frustrated that nothing is ever picture perfect and done but all of the projects are just a never-ending list and what a blessing that is to have a list to have new adventures and things to get excited about and have hopes for tomorrow so keeping the right perspective about all of these little things and having gratitude for it all really changes everything I'm so looking forward to more summer adventures with you and adding a new baby to our family I hope you'll subscribe to our channel I love to share things about our farm life more country cooking and of course farmhouse decor so I hope you'll stick around if you're new here please subscribe we'd love to hang out with you again very soon