Homemade fried chicken, mashed potatoes, gravy and coleslaw.

Welcome to the favorite homemade meals photo day! This is a new part of the blog that will appear on the homepage, experimentalhomesteader.com, under featured posts. It allows you, the reader, to post photos you have taken of your favorite homemade meals and will re-occur on the 18th day of every month.

Please post photos that you have taken – not ones you have come across on the internet.

The program that we will use for this is Mister Linky.

So – let’s see all those photos! Go ahead and show off your culinary expertise! I’m looking forward to it. Let me get the ball rolling with a photo of one of my favorite meals.

Pineapple Pecan Maraschino Cherry Upside Down Cake – click here for the recipe.

Homemade lime sherbet ready to go into the freezer where it will harden.

Learn how easy it is to make homemade lime sherbet.

Homemade fried chicken, mashed potatoes, gravy and coleslaw.

Welcome to the favorite homemade meals photo day! This is a new part of the blog that will appear on the homepage, experimentalhomesteader.com, under featured posts. It allows you, the reader, to post photos you have taken of your favorite homemade meals and will re-occur on the 18th day of every month.

Please post photos that you have taken – not ones you have come across on the internet.

The program that we will use for this is Mister Linky.

So – let’s see all those photos! Go ahead and show off your culinary expertise! I’m looking forward to it. Let me get the ball rolling with a photo of one of my favorite meals.

Pineapple Pecan Maraschino Cherry Upside Down Cake – click here for the recipe.

Whitney Baker enjoying a Halloween style limeaid!

Check out this awesome video that shows how to make a Halloween party drink with limes, drink food coloring, basil and ginger ale! Use items from your own garden to make the drink! Add a touch of Halloween decor to your homemade drinks using Martha Stewart labels and party bags!

Lindera benzoin bush ready for fall planting.

Spicebush, botanically known as Lindera benzoin, is a deciduous shrub that is native to many parts of the United States and is a wonderful spice to add to ice cream recipes. It is often grown in home gardens for the aromatic yellow-green flowers that bloom in early spring or the berries that are attractive to birds. The Spicebush Swallowtail Butterfly feeds on the aromatic leaves of this shrub.

The dried berries are often substituted for allspice. In order to get berries, you will need both a male and female plant. Once you get berries, you may wonder, other than using them as an allspice substitute, what you can do with them. Here is a recipe for ice cream.

2 cups heavy cream

1/2 cup honey

1/4 tsp. salt

2 cups milk

1 teaspoon ground spicebush berries

2 teaspoons vanilla extract

In a stainless steel saucepan, over medium-low heat, bring one cup of cream, honey and salt to a simmer. Stir constantly until the honey and salt melt. Remove the pan from the heat and pour the mixture into a bowl.

Whisk in the remaining ingredients. Pour the mixture into a covered bowl. Refrigerate overnight or up to 24 hours.

When you are ready to proceed, pour the mixture into an ice cream maker and follow manufacturer’s instructions. Be sure to store your finished ice cream in a covered dish in the freezer.

Fresh butter spread on the top of the bread when it first comes out of the oven keeps the crust from getting too crunchy.

Lavender Bread Recipe

Makes 1 loaf

1 teaspoon dry yeast

2 ½ cups flour

2 tablespoons sugar

1 tablespoon dry milk

1 teaspoon salt

1 tablespoon butter

1 cup warm water

3 tablespoons dried lavender flowers

Grease your bread pan or as an alternative, coat the bottom of the pan with whole flax seeds.

Combine the yeast, warm water and sugar in a large bowl or you can put it into a bread machine. If you are using a bowl, stir well and then let the mixture stand about five minutes so the yeast can begin working.

Combine the dry milk, salt, lavender and butter in a large bowl and mix well. Begin adding the yeast mixture alternating it with flour until it becomes a soft dough.

Turn dough onto floured surface and knead for about 8 minutes until the dough is elastic and feels somewhat like a baby’s bottom. Place dough in greased bowl making sure to turn the dough to coat all sides with the grease. Cover with paper towel or a clean dish towel and let rise in a warm place for an hour.

If you are using a bread machine, simply combine all of the ingredients and turn the machine on. You can bake the bread in the bread machine or remove it and bake it in a pan.

When the dough is ready, fill the greased pan about half way with the dough. Allow the dough to rise for about an hour.  Bake the bread in a preheated oven for 30 minutes at 350 degrees F or until it is done. If you are having problems getting your bread to rise, set the pan on a heating pad turned on low heat or you can turn off the oven, add a pan of water to the bottom rack of the oven and set your bread on the top rack.

Rustic Herbal Crackers. The recipe for this particular cracker came from Jim Long's book "Easy Homemade Crackers Using Herbs."

Making your own crackers is an enjoyable task for the entire family. Nothing beats fresh baked crackers and best of all, you know what is in them. You can make artisan crackers or a plain saltine cracker. The recipe presented here will be for a plain saltine cracker. Experiment with this recipe by adding a variety of herbs or spices and see what unique crackers you can come up with.

To make the cracker dough mix four cups flour, one teaspoon baking powder together in a bowl. Cut in three-quarters cup of lard. When mixture looks like tiny peas, add in one and one-thirds cup milk. Blend well.

Form the ball into a dough and cut into four equal size pieces. Rough the dough out until it is thin. You can do this on a cookie sheet if you like. Cut the crackers with a knife, pizza cutter, etc. into normal cracker sized pieces. Prick each cracker four times with the tines of a fork. Add salt, herbs or other items to the top of the crackers.

Bake the crackers at 375 degrees for eight to ten minutes. They should be golden brown when done and look similar to store bought saltine crackers.

This recipe, depending on how you thin you roll the dough and how you cut the crackers, should yield about the same amount of crackers as a store bought box of crackers.

Click here to view a video that shows another cracker recipe that uses a wide variety of herbs and spices.

Learn how to make crackers in your own kitchen by watching this video. This is a great way to make artisan crackers – or if you prefer, plain old saltines.

This video shows you that making cheese at home is super simple using ingredients you may already have on hand. All you need is salt, milk and plain white vinegar. Add your favorite herbs or spices to give the cheese a unique taste once you are finished making it!