12 Easy Mexican Fideo Recipes (fideo de sopa)

fideo with ground beef and broccoli spears on white plate

Fideo is a traditional Mexican dish that is rarely found in Mexican restaurants. Fideo is something that most Mexican families make and, honestly, have their own variations of it. It’s something that is passed down from generation to generation. There’s no one “right way” to make Mexican fideo recipes. With that in mind, I’ve collected …

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Are Automatic Chicken Doors Worth It?

white rooster coming out of a hen house through an automatic chicken door

We’ve been keeping chickens for about 15 years and over the years I’ve thought about getting an automatic chicken coop door. But, honestly, it didn’t need like the right thing for us until recently. If you’re a backyard chicken keeper, you know that caring for your feathered friends can be both rewarding and time-consuming. One …

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Over 50 of the Best Venison Recipes

red dutch oven with venison stew in it

Venison is such versatile and healthy meat. It’s much leaner than beef and is a great alternative for red meat in any recipe. I’ve gathered 50 of the best venison recipes to inspire you to use this delicious meat.  Historically, “venison” meant any wild game meats, today it’s used mainly to mean the meat from …

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How to Freeze Fresh Figs

An open freezer bag with frozen figs spilling out

Can you freeze figs? Absolutely! In fact, freezing figs is a great way to preserve figs during their harvest season for using all year long.  Learn how to freeze figs three different ways to get the most out of your fig harvest. Because figs have a short season and a short shelf life, it’s hard …

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Easy Homemade Pickling Spice Recipe

Ingredients to make homemade pickling spice. Yellow mustard seed, coriander seed, and whole peppercorns in white bowls and dill weed in small mason jar. Full dill seed heads are laying on the wooden table.

Pickling is a great way to preserve the summer harvest, and not just cucumbers. If you’re a fan of homemade pickles, relishes, or chutneys, then you know that a good pickling spice blend is the secret ingredient that takes your preserves to the next level. Of course, you can buy little packets of pickling spice, …

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Crunchy Dill Pickle Recipe for Canning

jars of homemade canned dill pickles

This recipe for classic canned dill pickles is full of the flavor and crunchiness you want from a dill pickle. It comes together quickly and is one of the best ways to put up a big cucumber harvest before it gets away from you. This recipe was reviewed for accuracy and food safety by Angi …

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Homemade Sweet and Spicy Pickles – a canning recipe

several jars of home canned sweet and spicy pickles. One is open and has a fork in it.

These sweet and spicy pickles are a family favorite as they have a perfect balance of tang, sweet, and spice. This is a canning recipe, although you can make them and store them in the refrigerator instead of canning them. We make several different pickles each year to be sure we have some of everyone’s …

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Refrigerator Dill Pickles – A Quick and Easy Recipe

Two mason jars of cucumber spears with spices to make refrigerator dill pickles.

These easy refrigerator dill pickles (aka icebox pickle or quick pickles) are so delicious and are a great way to quickly put up small batches of cucumbers from your garden or the grocery store. This recipe is for refrigerator dill pickles but you can make all kinds of refrigerator pickles using this recipe as a …

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What is Canning Salt? And is it Really Needed?

various salts in containers, canning salt, iodized salt, table salt, redmond's real salt.

If you’ve spent any time with canning recipes, you’ve probably noticed that most of them call for canning salt — and maybe wondered whether it’s really necessary, or whether the table salt in your pantry will do. The short answer: canning salt is the best choice, but it’s not always strictly required, and there are …

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How to fill a raised garden bed (and save money)

vegetables growing in metal raised bed

Raised garden beds are so very convenient and can be a great way to grow food on practically any land. But raised beds can be expensive to fill with soil, especially if they’re really tall. The good news is that you can use a variety of materials to cheaply fill raised beds and save money …

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Can you freeze eggs? {how to freeze eggs}

whisked eggs in a white bowl on a wooden table surrounded by egg shells, colander with farm fresh eggs, fork, mason jar lined with ziplock bag and a ziplock bag with whisked eggs for freezing

Whenever I’m asked what I do with the extra eggs we get from our hens, I always say that we first freeze enough to make it through the winter. The other person usually looks confused and then says, “Can you freeze eggs?” Yes, you can freeze eggs. In fact there are several ways of freezing …

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Cucumber Lime Sorbet

cucumber lime sorbet in white ramakin dish

I know what you’re thinking….”Cucumber Lime sorbet???”….Yes, and it’s really, really good. Sorbet is traditionally served as a palate cleanser but we eat it as a dessert or as a treat on a hot summer afternoon. This sorbet recipe combines the refreshing flavor of cucumbers with the tang of lime to create a sorbet that …

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Canning Carrots – easy raw pack or hot pack method

sliced carrots and canning jars

Canning carrots is an easy and versatile way to preserve the harvest at the end of the season and stock your pantry. Canned carrots are a little soft, but the flavor is fantastic – pressure canning carrots seems to intensify the carrot’s flavor. This recipe was reviewed for accuracy and food safety by Angi Schneider in …

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Crispy Baked Kale Chips Recipe

crispy baked kale chips on wood

There are several tricks for making kale chips that are crispy and not soggy or scorched. Let’s explore those tricks so you can make all kinds of tasty kale chip variations. How to make crispy kale chips 1. Start with clean, fresh kale. For kale chips, it’s best to use kale that is fresh and …

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The Easiest and Best Way to Freeze Fresh Basil

fresh basil in ziplock bag for freezing

What is the best way to freeze fresh basil to retain the flavor and color? We put all the the popular and not-so-popular methods to the test and came up the easiest and best way of freezing basil. Personally, my very favorite way to freeze basil is in the form of basil pesto. We go …

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How to Dry Fresh Basil

A close-up of fresh green basil leaves, clustered together and hanging against a white background, highlighting the vibrant contrast to dried basil.

At the end of the summer when the garden is overflowing with basil, it’s the perfect time to start drying basil to stock your pantry. Fortunately, you don’t need any special equipment to dry basil. Let’s chat about the different methods of drying basil – air dry, dehydrator, oven method, microwave and air fryer – …

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Having Food Security in Our Modern World

baskets of fresh garden harvest of cucumbers, squash, and herbs

I’ve been thinking a lot about food security lately and what that truly means in our modern world. Up until very recently, people HAD to think ahead and make a plan for eating year round regardless of their climate. Now we can just pop into the grocery store and buy anything we want, in or …

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