Treasure is in the Eye of The Beholder

The great yellow detector of  riches.

Last year my husband and I stumbled upon a new hobby. Metal Detecting... It all started because he had a old cheap detector that we wanted to play with, but it didn't want to be played with. SOOOO my super awesome husband found a nice new one, and the treasure hunting began!




We live in a turn of the century farmhouse, so we set out to find a coffee can full of money in the back yard. Hours were spent wandering around our property, and many many holes were dug. We haven't found a coffee can yet, but we found other treasures!

Before we get to the moral of this post, let me tell you about the first time we took our new toy to the beach. We combed that beach with gusto. We dug up a bottle cap, an old pop can tab, an old looking nail that I swore had to have been from an old shipwreck, a piece of wire, among other things. Along the way we acquired a group of children who were watching us on our treasure hunting adventure. With our audience of children we got a good signal and starting digging. After all the time we had spent detecting and the zillions of holes we had dug, we finally pulled something of monetary value out of that hole... A PENNY! We jumped around celebrating like crazy people. Our audience wondered why these crazy people were so happy about a penny. See where this is going?

Our bounty from that day.
We found a dime on the way back to the car!

Most times you see a penny on the ground, you pick it up (or you don't) and its just a penny, no big deal, but we put a lot of time and energy into this particular penny. The penny itself wasn't what was valuable.  The time and energy we spent together finding it is what made it treasure. The memory of that moment is treasure.

All the coins we have found treasure hunting so far.

Hubby's detector and the hand held detector he got from his father. 

When Life Hands You Lemons... Make Chili Seasoning.

Things don’t  always go as you plan them; it's an ongoing theme here at Eden Hallow. We've stumbled across many issues when turning this place into our dream home, but its helped us to learn how to do the best with what we have.

Hubby wanted chili for dinner. I usually always have the ingredients to make certain things on hand, and chili is one of them. Its easy to throw together in a bind, and what is better on a cold day when you just can't seem to get the chill out than putting some chili in? So I grabbed a can of tomatoes and a can of chili beans out of the pantry, but when i went for the chili seasoning I was horrified to discover I didn't have any. How could I not have chili seasoning?? So, it was time to do what I could with what I have, something I'm not half bad at in the kitchen if I do say so myself.

This is the stuff I found in my cupboard that I thought I could use:

Into my $2 mortar and pestle that I scored at a rummage sale and my husband laughed at me for getting, I started with about a quarter tsp of garlic powder and red pepper flakes and a half tsp of onion powder:

Then I added about a full Tbsp of chili powder:

Followed by about a quarter tsp of black pepper, and a full tsp of smoked salt:

Before we grind it all up, the FUNNEST part about using the mortar and pestle, lets talk about the smoked salt for a minute. My step-son brought it for us from North Dakota when he came to visit one summer. Were not sure where he got it, but we LOVE it! We love using our smoker because that smokey flavor is amazing.Using this salt adds that little bit of smoke to my dishes when firing up the smoker isn't plausible. Yummy!

After adding it to my chili and letting it simmer for a little bit we thought it needed a bit more heat, but it was better than store bought chili seasoning. 

I ended up mixing up a big batch of this (with less chili powder) and we use it in place of taco seasoning as well, just adding more chili powder to the pot when making chili. It taste better, and it has less sodium so its better for you. No more store bought taco or chili seasoning packets at Eden Hallow!

Big batch recipe. I used 97 cent Great Value Chili season jars. I also had rock salt that I ground up myself, so you may need less salt.