Author: Julia

I am a retired software solutions architect. I have been married to my husband, Bruce, for over forty years. We went full-time RVing for 3.5 years and saw much of the United States. After deciding to stop RVing, we bought a ranch house halfway up a hill on five acres. After Bruce and I talked about names for our five acres, we settled on Blackberry Homestead as a homage to the wild blackberries on the hill. We are working on creating our homestead. I love cooking and enjoy sharing recipes. I am also an artist, and I’ll share my current projects. Gardening and reading are my favorite hobbies.

New Kettle

June 24, 2020 Every so often, Bruce puts the kettle on to boil to make tea or coffee in the French press and forgets it. He’ll walk back to his office, put his headphones on, turn on some tunes, and get caught up in coding, email, social media, YouTube, or a game. If the kettle […]

Luna and Nox Napping

June 22, 2020 I just felt like sharing some pictures of Luna and Nox napping.

Guacamole

This is my go to guacamole recipe. I don’t recall where I read about grating the onion. Since I don’t care for biting into chucks of onion in my guacamole, I love how grating the onion distributes the onion flavor and I don’t have to worry about a chunk of onion overwhelming the rest of […]

Pesto Salad Dressing

I got the idea of this recipe from Once Upon a Chef https://www.onceuponachef.com/recipes/caesar-salad-dressing.html I always have high quality mayonnaise in the fridge, so this Caesar dressing by Once Upon a Chef is an easy go to and Bruce loves it. I didn’t have any anchovy paste, and I considered using Thai fish sauce, but the pesto I […]

First Time About and Out

June 16, 2020 Saturday was the first time that I have been shopping since the pandemic started. Bruce has been doing the shopping for us. He normally goes shopping while I am working. With restrictions letting up, I wanted to go shopping. We took the truck to the Business Costco, as Bruce really wants to […]

BAK Revolver Tonneau Cover

June 11, 2020 After having a large snow this winter, we discovered driving the truck with a foot of snow in the bed is not ideal. The snow would slid forward and slam into the front of the bed or it would slid back and slam into the tailgate. About that same time, we also […]

Strawberry and Rhubarb Scones

Modified the Milk Street recipe from Tandem Bakery’’s Briana Holt. These scones are not very sweet. Ingredients 455 grams (3½ cups) all-purpose flour, plus more for dusting 67 grams (5 tablespoons) white sugar 4 teaspoons baking powder 1/2 teaspoon baking soda 1 tablespoon ground cinnamon 1 tablespoon ground cardamon 1/2 teaspoons grated nutmeg 2 teaspoons […]

Homemade Cracker Fun

June 1, 2020 Last weekend, I made whole wheat sourdough discard crackers. I had some fun with it and cut out a sailing scene in the rolled out cracker dough.

Cee’s FOTD Post

Rhubarb…Jungle Plant?

Rhubarb always looks so wild and lush, like an amazing jungle plant, with it’s enormous leaves and ruby red stalks. Yet, it is really a very hardy plant that grows well in a large range of climates. I love growing rhubarb and being able to harvest it. It has more uses than just pie, even […]