Finnish Yogurt, Viili or Filia From Finland

Our neighbor Aunnie Juntinen and her family is from Finland. She is 100% Fin.  She is a wonderful neighbor.  

  She has always had Filia which is a like a yogurt brought from Finland by her friends and relative.   it is also called viili. 

 She gets a fresh start when they come here almost every year. She drinks it everyday and she is an amazing older women who is as sharp as a tack.  Talking with her is like taking a travel back in time.  

OK here is the very hard recipe. (Aunnie told me yesterday In a bowl it is called Filia and if it is in a jar they call it pina )

1 filia start  (1 cup of filia from finland)

When you get down to about a cup left.  Put it in a clean canning jar. Fill it with WHOLE milk. Than put the lid on and shake it up....

 Why this has not caught on in America is beyond me.  It is the easiest thing in the world to make.......and no Yogurt maker needed.

I like this in a smoothie,  LJ likes it in a bowl with fruit.So much better and cheaper than buying yogurt from the store.  









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God is good all the time



Though out our years living in the UP we have  ask her for a start to make this which she so generously shares with us. We got a fresh start last week... This time I am not going to let it spoil.  Or at least try not too.



Filia:It has a very thick velvety texture.  The best thing about this is you just put it in a quart jar and let it set overnight on the counter or the warmest part of your kitchen and in the morning you have fresh Filia.  


put it in clean quart jar...........I use a canning jar
add to the top of jar whole milk.(.Aunnie says it has to be red cap milk..which is whole milk up here.)
Put lid on shake it up and let set warm spot overnight.

They like to fill the older jar with the milk first shake it up and than transfer it to the clean new jar.one cup of start leftNow that was hard right?  :)   
Always keep the last cup. This is your start for the new batch.  


The texture is hard for me to eat..but it is great to drink makes a wonderful smoothie and this is sooooooooooooooooo good for you.

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The finished product.

Thankful for the gift of 
Cows
Milk
Canning Jars...

All the time God is good..............  

Survival Foods

Be it floods,  hurricane, snowed in, or even not gas at the pump.
It is good to be prepared for your family, neighbors, community.

This is going to be a list of poss foods that may be an idea to stock up on when they are on sale.

Food prices are going up..and they will prob continue to rise.

1.Rice
2.Dried Beans
3.Peanut Butter
4 Powdered Milk
5 Canned Milk or Evaporated milk
6. Nuts
7.Oats
8.Raisins
9Brita or some kind of water filter
10. Oil
11. Canned tuna or salmon or both
12. Canned Venison
13. Dried Jerky
14.honey....we buy it a Walgreen's when ever it goes on sale which is a great bargain...
15. My number one survival food would have to be CHOCOLATE..:)

Alma's favorite Meal

Take  Philly cheese and spinach and nut meg (1/4) teaspoon mixed together spread on to flat chicken breast
roll up  and put a toothpick to hold it together then dip in a egg wash then roll in cracker crumbs then place in a baking pan and drizzle butter overtop then back 350  for about 30  min.  the crust will have a golden brown look to them                                                                                                      I have not tried this yet but don't want to lose the recipe.  Kenny makes this for Alma and he is a great cook.  This is Alma's favorite meal. 

Very proud grandpa......

Donna's Dip...............These Texan's love it..

Tonight for movie time I am going to make my DIL ,s  great dip............................. again.

  It has always been a personal favorite of LJ"S.

 Dil spoils him and makes it often when we go to their home.

Everyone really likes it here. 

We have been blessed with great DIL's. 


ok now

 Yummy great dip.

In the bottom of a 9x13 pan spred
1 big block of soft cream cheese.  (8 oz)
1 Can of Hormel Chili
A can of small diced Chili's
top with 2 cups of Mexician Cheese
Put in 300 degree oven till cheese melts.
Serve with Resturant Chips... or chip of choice...

Taco Soup

Taco Soup

I am writing this here so I don't lose it....  :)

but feel free to try it..........NOT YOU ANNA you don't like Beans

TACO SOUP

1   1/2 pds hamburger brown
1 can hominy (yellow )
2 cans of pinto  (1 can Jalapeno, 1 can reg)
1 can Ranch style beans
2 cans of diced tomatoes  (1 of them Rotel tomatoes)
3/4# of Velveeta cheese
little water.


I want to thank you who have written comments I didn't think to respond there after the comment but now I do...:)
so sorry....
Yes Dennis and Carol are next to us...we may be parting ways soon in Feb
We are not sure where we are going  maybe an Army Corp park.  but not sure
We have thought about going down to the Valley to Bibleville
or maybe going and finding a place by my cousins  in San Antonio we are uncertain.  To cold to go home -4 this am.... 

Please say a prayer for George Reimer and his family, his daughter died yesterday.  May she rest in peace.  She loved the Lord and was a great lady.   George and his wife have  lost two daughters now.  Losing a child is one of the hardest painful things one can go through.  We are thinking of you George and here is a virtual hug....  love ya...

Hot Pepper Crackers......and they are really good

One box of good Saltine crackers (not generic)
place on edge in airtight container
mix in a container
1 1/3 cups of Canola oil.. ( has to be canola this can be generic if you so chose)
1 pack of dry ranch dressing  (not dip)
2 Tablespoons of crushed dried red pepper
mix well pour over crackers , cover, turnover every 20 or 30 min.
they are best next day...
mmmmmmmmmmm I forgot to ask him if you have to stay up all night and flip them....(smile)
I think we flipped them when ever anyone thought of it... :) then  ate  almost all of them...




God is good...................all the time

March 14 Prepare your family for hard times

Preparing for hard time is always a good idea even when the economy seemed good. Now days it just makes good sense. Hurricanes, tornadoes, lay offs, job loss. You never know and we can learn a lot form our Mormon friends. They try to keep a year food storage. This is a wonderful idea.
 Hoarding for yourself .. NO absoulutly not. But maybe feeding your neighbor or someone less fortunate.

It never did make since to say when people are in debt to go out and spend more money they don't have. But many have... but no looking back now...only forward

If we ran our household like the govt we would have all been in trouble a long ,long time ago.
Maybe an old fashion genes stuck in me from my fore fathers. You live within you means .
We have always tried to do this but I must admit there have been many times when we failed. But you pick yourself up and dust yourself off and start all over again.

Get to the place that you only buy food that are on sale.
 Buy 8- 12 if you can.. a lot of sales run in cycles. Unless of course its horseradish. Well you may love horseradish and want 12 but you get what I mean. You may have to eat beans for a week till you get this started but soon you can buy steak if you want (when its on sale that is.) Buy four or five dozen eggs when they are on sale. They keep along time in the refrigerator.
I just made a vegetarian fried rice recipe that baker boy loved. Well I put in three eggs and some do not call this strict vegetarian.......but I do... :)

Fried Rice
A bit of olive oil (bought on sale and well worth the price) in a cast iron pan heat till very hot.
put in sliced fresh onion we love onion so we put in a whole med sized one
added fresh cut carrots.( that you bought on sale) or grew in your garden
added two to three cups of precooked rice.
When rice was hot we added three beaten eggs. Stir this around till eggs cook up.
Then we topped it off with some frozen asparagus about a cup or a cup and half.
You could use green beans. (anything green in freezer or garden.)
We topped it off with a bit of lite soy sauce. 50% less sodium than reg soy sauce.
It has to be pretty........ :)

This was so good ......we loved it and baker boy had me make it again a few later

this time we cut up two pork chops (bought on sale) cooked it with the onion and left out the eggs.

Just for fun I poured a little home made red wine over the top and it was wonderful. It was strawberry homemade wine.
This will be added to our menu weekly. Eggs are cheap and so is pork , you could sub any meat I am sure.
Stretch the meat and stretch the budget. We have always had a few veg meals a week. Really sometimes cheaper foods are just as good. Beans, Rice.


We have done this for years this last month we are eating a lot of our stash. I have bought no groceries other than perishables for the last month.

Jan 02 canning Turkey

Well today Baker Boy and I pressure canned a cooked turkey breast. We put it up in 1/2 pints which I have never done before. We pressure cooked it at 10#s for 90 min and now I realize we could have went 75 min. Well it will sure be done..... (smile) Not sure a 1/2 pint is enough for a casserole but thought we would try it. We got it on sale and ended up getting 10 1/2 pints. Broth and turkey pieces for Turkey and homemade noodles. And a great big piece of turkey breast for Bboy a sandwich. So we canned it on the wood cook stove so no electric involved and it sure was nice and warm in here.

We have now had 25 straight days of snow. Every day since thanksgiving. It has broken all records ....and guess what??? Yippeeeeeeeeeeeeee a snow storm is on its way......

Tomorrow night is potluck at church it is Swedish theme this month. We are making Swedish Kringle. Which our son loves.. Dil and son are bringing Swedish meatballs and a Swedish dumplings. It should be a great evening.


God is good..................................all the time.....

Here is the finished product

Road Kill Stew (just kidding about the road kill)

Well today we finished cutting up the last hind quarter of the deer. We cut it into venison steaks. Any piece not good for steaks we put with the front quarter we cut up and put in the refrigerator a few days ago for Our Road Kill Stew.........
This is the recipe:

I used about 4-5 #s of meat but if you are a big meat eater you could put more meat in jars.
7 Quart Jars, and 7 lids and 7 rings......... ( I will take the diamond kind of rings) tee hee (flake is tired)

Venison Stew........ (Road Kill Stew is what we call it..... :)
Layer:
4-5# of cut up venison ( I brown mine in a skillet with a tad of EVOO. (Olive Oil) and no I am not Rachel Ray..................
I do about two carrots a jar
1 clove of Baker Boys garlic
1 cut up onion
1 1/2-2 Potatoes
1 tesp of Onion soup mix
then add boiling water (not clear to the top leave about 1 inch) make sure your jars are very hot or they will crack and you will cry...........I load my pressure canner with clean sterile jars and they get real hot by the time I get to add the hot boiling water stage.. load those baby up and then put on hot lids and rings..........

Follow you basic pressure canning procedures: (75 min 10#s of pressure it what I do) My pressure cooker shakes and it used to drive my kids crazy. They would say they went to bed with it jiggling and wake up and it was still jiggling.
It is jiggling away right now and could drive one a bit crazy. But to keep it that way
I need to go put some more wood on the fire and get it back up to med heat....... (smile)

Canned Venison

Baker Boy starting to cut up the Venison

This is about our fourth or fifth cook stove in the last thirty years. This one is as great as its mama and by far one of the most superior cook stoves out there. It holds logs up to 18 inches. Has a very big fire box holds a fire for 10-12 hours. This is called the Baker's Choice and there is a bigger one called the Pioneer Maid which we had before we moved to this house. It heats our whole house and it is an airtight wood stove. They also burn coal. We got it new. They are made by the Amish in Canada. We have had antique cook stoves and they may have more chrome and be beautiful but they do not hold a fire very long.

Our Canned Venison that really shrank a lot......( that is not really yellow chunks in the jar its the photographer.... :) We usually put up pints but I wanted to try quarts this time. We put two pounds of venison in each jar. A Clove of garlic pinch of salt, and no broth. We let it make its own broth.
You should take all the fat off of venison. and added hint someone one time shared with me.
(If you put two tablespoons of white vinegar in the pressure caner the jars come out sparkling)
Tomorrow going to put up Road Kill Stew.... (Not really road kill) But I like the name... :)

It seems it would be hard to find meat any more organic.....