Life has been wacky for a while now, so I'm going to focus on nothing but the positives today. I've got a heck of a lot to be thankful for!
*I just found out that we've been accepted as doggy foster parents! We get our first foster pup next weekend.
*I got SO HOOKED UP with garden goodies by my sweet and generous friend, Lisa, that my kitchen runneth over with garlic and beans.
*Three of my four apple trees are loaded with fruit, as is my one and only pear tree. Pies & cider... nom.
*It's been 3 months since my accident, and I'd say I'm, 80% back to normal. My broken arm has healed, my scalp wound has finally closed, and my cognitive issues seem to be dogging me less. :)
*The girls go back to school in two weeks and three days. But who's counting?
*Fritzen & Oreo, two Lamancha does that we sold to a friend earlier this year, are here for a romantic getaway with our guy, Buckley. I get extra goat nuzzles this week!
*The vet got back to us re: Anabelle. It seems that she had something like cancer, which sucks, but the good news is that the rest of our flock is not at risk. Trying to see this as a good thing, even though I know her last days were hard.
*The heat wave seems to have passed, temporarily at least. The difference between 75 degrees and 95 degrees is too beautiful to describe.
*I have an awesome giveaway in the works! Stay tuned. :)
Sunday, August 19, 2012
Saturday, August 18, 2012
Meat Chickens?
We've never raised chickens with the sole purpose of eating them. Sure, we've harvested a spare, uppity rooster now and then, but we've never bought chicks with the express intent to butcher them.
I think we're ready.
Being that I'm a total noob in terms of meat chickens, I really don't know much of anything about what breed to try. Help a sister out - what breed(s) have you raised for meat? Would you choose that breed again? How was the flavor? Was the time, trouble and cost of DIY chicken rearing worth it?
I think we're ready.
Being that I'm a total noob in terms of meat chickens, I really don't know much of anything about what breed to try. Help a sister out - what breed(s) have you raised for meat? Would you choose that breed again? How was the flavor? Was the time, trouble and cost of DIY chicken rearing worth it?
Sunday, August 12, 2012
Bread & Butter Pickles
Scarlet and I made these yesterday, per the recipe I found on Brown Eyed Baker. They were so easy! No canning involved, just pack the prepared cukes and sliced onion into a jar, then pour the vinegar/sugar/spice concoction over the top of everything, and forget about it for a while. :)
Tossing the freshly rinsed cucumber slices with the sliced onion, just before jarring it up.
After one day of steeping. Still cucumber-y tasting, but starting to absorb a little of the sweet/sour pickling liquid flavors.
I am disproportionately excited about these simple little pickles. Bread and butter pickles were a mainstay of my youth, and the smell of the vinegar, sugar and spices simmering alone nearly killed me. I want these babies to be ready yesterday.
Thursday, August 9, 2012
Use it or Lose it - Ham, Berries & One (formerly) Grumpy Rooster
We're doing our traditional end-of-Summer freezer clean out. Right about this time, when all of the garden goodies, berries, and -when we're lucky- fish and shellfish, are rolling in, I try to make room by using up the dregs of last year's bounty.
In addition to the Summer boom of veggies and fish, we're getting half a pig from husband's Aunt & Uncle. This is the second time we've bought their home raised pork and it is AMAZING. However, that means that I need to make even more room in the freezer. So, this is a no-holds-barred round of UioLi. Here we go!
What I need to use-
*5 pounds ham (from last year's pig)
*1 - 6 pound rooster
*Untold amounts of frozen berries - blueberries, blackberries, huckleberries, Oregon Grapes, Salal, etc.
Magically transformed into-
*Sliced ham for lunchmeat
*Ham bone broth
*Roast chicken - I learned the hard way that a cranky old rooster makes for incredibly tough meat, no matter how hard you try to cook him up right. :(
*Chicken Stock
*Blueberry and Marionberry Buttermilk Waffles
*Goat Cookies (uses berries)
*Fruit Leather
The ham has been baked and sliced, and the remaining odd bits - the bone, skin, fat, etc., have been set to simmer with celery, carrots, onions & fresh thyme. I also added a dash of homemade apple cider vinegar to help de-mineralize the bones, releasing the nutrients into the broth. I'm then freezing the broth in silicone freezer trays, then bagging up the broth blocks for use later in soups and sauces.
The leftover roasted rooster bits are also simmering with a shallot and some celery, and turning into a nice, rich broth. If I can scare up the ingredients, I might have to make some pho soup with this guy. :)
In addition to the Summer boom of veggies and fish, we're getting half a pig from husband's Aunt & Uncle. This is the second time we've bought their home raised pork and it is AMAZING. However, that means that I need to make even more room in the freezer. So, this is a no-holds-barred round of UioLi. Here we go!
What I need to use-
*5 pounds ham (from last year's pig)
*1 - 6 pound rooster
*Untold amounts of frozen berries - blueberries, blackberries, huckleberries, Oregon Grapes, Salal, etc.
Magically transformed into-
*Sliced ham for lunchmeat
*Ham bone broth
*Roast chicken - I learned the hard way that a cranky old rooster makes for incredibly tough meat, no matter how hard you try to cook him up right. :(
*Chicken Stock
*Blueberry and Marionberry Buttermilk Waffles
*Goat Cookies (uses berries)
*Fruit Leather
The ham has been baked and sliced, and the remaining odd bits - the bone, skin, fat, etc., have been set to simmer with celery, carrots, onions & fresh thyme. I also added a dash of homemade apple cider vinegar to help de-mineralize the bones, releasing the nutrients into the broth. I'm then freezing the broth in silicone freezer trays, then bagging up the broth blocks for use later in soups and sauces.
The leftover roasted rooster bits are also simmering with a shallot and some celery, and turning into a nice, rich broth. If I can scare up the ingredients, I might have to make some pho soup with this guy. :)
Friday, August 3, 2012
Recipe: Osborne Family Applesauce Birthday Cake
This cake is another of my amazing Great Aunt Ethel's legendary treats. She would make an applesauce cake every year for each one of her siblings on their birthday. Keep in mind that she had twelve siblings. Therefore, she got to practice making this cake a lot!
Unfortunately, this is not Aunt Ethel's exact recipe. That, sadly, has been lost to me, so this is my best effort at making the cake from memory. And, believe me, do I have memories of that cake. When you only get one slice, once per year, you savor every speck of it and commit the experience to memory.
The coup de grace, the icing on the cake, if you will is just that - the icing.
Aunt Ethel always made this cake with a peanut butter frosting. So simple, and so dang good.
So without further
Cake Ingredients-
1/2 cup salted butter, room temperature
1 cup brown sugar
1 cup granulated sugar
2 eggs
1 teaspoon vanilla (can be left out if using boozy homemade
applesauce)
1 1/4 cups cake flour
1 cup all purpose flour
2 teaspoons baking soda
3/4 teaspoon salt
1 teaspoon cinnamon
1/8 teaspoon nutmeg
2 cups applesauce
(Made from sliced apples that were left over from making "Apple Pie in a Jar" liqueur*. But of course, your favorite store bought or traditional homemade applesauce would work just fine.)
1/2 cup golden raisins
Directions-
Preheat oven to 350 degrees F.
In a mixer fitted with a whisk attachment, cream the butter.
Add the sugars and continue mixing. Add the eggs, 1 at a time, and
vanilla, then mix until well blended and fluffy.
In a separate bowl, whisk together the dry ingredients. Add
to the creamed mixture alternately with the applesauce. Fold in the raisins. Pour the batter into a greased and floured loaf pan and bake until
firm to the touch, about 40 to 45 minutes. Let cool in the pan, then turn it
out and allow to cool the rest of the way before frosting.
Frosting Ingredients-
1 stick butter, softened
1 cup creamy peanut butter
2 cups +/- confectioners sugar
3 tbsps +/- milk
Whip butter and peanut butter until well mixed. Add 2 cups confectioners sugar, a little bit at a time until well incorporated and fluffed up. If you're happy with the thickness/consistency of your frosting, stop there. If you'd like a more spreadable consistency (more icing than frosting), then add the milk, 1 tablespoon at a time, beating well between each addition, until you reach the desired consistency.
A really bad photo of a really good cake. This one made with cream cheese frosting, per my youngest monkey's request.
Slice up and serve, as dessert or as a really decadent birthday breakfast, with a big cup of strong coffee. :)
*Apple Pie in a Jar - Cored, thinly sliced apples, steeped in whipped vodka (or bourbon), brown sugar, vanilla bean and a cinnamon stick for 4 weeks. Add "Buttershots" liqueur for that extra buttery, caramelly flavor dimension. AMAZING.
Thursday, August 2, 2012
Use it or Lose it - Buttermilk & Sweet Potatoes
This week's featured "everything must go!" ingredients are-
*Jewel Yams (actually a variety of sweet potato), about 2 pounds
*Goat Buttermilk, 1 quart
*Sour Cherries, 4 pounds
*Goats milk, 2 1/2 gallons
*Rendered Leaf Lard (pork), 1 cup +/-
It almost goes without saying that this time of the year, we'll have more milk than we know what to do with. Things could be worse! :)
This is our second year of having this very fortunate predicament, so we're slowly but surely learning how to use goat milk in things that we'd otherwise have used store bought cows milk in (white sauces, custards, etc.), as well as using it to make some of our own dairy products (cheese, butter) to replace or at the very least, reduce the amount of cow's milk dairy that we buy & consume.
We've also started socking a little bit of milk away in the deep freeze, for those dark days when the gals are lactating no-more, and we have a hankering for something creamy.
So, we popped 1/2 gallon of milk into the freezer for later use in cooking and/or soap making. We also pitted and froze the sour cherries for use in my very favorite jam, Summer Solstice preserves.
1 and 1/5th items down!
The buttermilk was homemade, using a quart (1/4 gallon) of whole goat's milk, warmed to 86 degrees, then inoculated with buttermilk culture and left to ripen overnight. What a delicious difference that little culture makes!
I used up the 3/4 of the buttermilk making a triple batch of buttermilk waffles that I also squirreled away in the freezer for a rainy day.
The rest of the buttermilk was used, along with 1 1/2 cups of the pureed yams, and 1/2 cup of the lard (in place of half of the butter), in a double batch of Martha Stewart's Sweet-Potato Biscuits. Heaven. on. earth.
As you can see, I used a small-mouthed mason jar ring in lieu of a proper biscuit cutter. It worked just fine, and that makes one less thing I have to hunt for in my kitchen. ;)
So, having frozen the milk & cherries, baked the biscuits and made the waffles, I'm left with 1 3/4 gallons of milk, 1/2 cups of lard and 1 cup of sweet potato puree. I put the puree into a silicone freezer tray and chucked it into the freezer to set-up. I'll pop out my yam cubes and bag them up, to eventually be used in soup.
As for the milk, I'm going to try and bribe/sweet talk Billy into making a double batch of 30-minute mozzarella to be used on Friday Pizza Night. I'll hang on to the lard, since I'm not exactly under the gun to use it, like I am the more perishable goods on my use or lose hit list.
Whew! That was a lot of baking and dish-dirtying for one day. I'm wiped! Now, excuse me while I go snarf down my third butter and jam smothered Sweet Potato biscuit. Being the chef has its perks. :)
*Jewel Yams (actually a variety of sweet potato), about 2 pounds
*Goat Buttermilk, 1 quart
*Sour Cherries, 4 pounds
*Goats milk, 2 1/2 gallons
*Rendered Leaf Lard (pork), 1 cup +/-
It almost goes without saying that this time of the year, we'll have more milk than we know what to do with. Things could be worse! :)
This is our second year of having this very fortunate predicament, so we're slowly but surely learning how to use goat milk in things that we'd otherwise have used store bought cows milk in (white sauces, custards, etc.), as well as using it to make some of our own dairy products (cheese, butter) to replace or at the very least, reduce the amount of cow's milk dairy that we buy & consume.
We've also started socking a little bit of milk away in the deep freeze, for those dark days when the gals are lactating no-more, and we have a hankering for something creamy.
So, we popped 1/2 gallon of milk into the freezer for later use in cooking and/or soap making. We also pitted and froze the sour cherries for use in my very favorite jam, Summer Solstice preserves.
1 and 1/5th items down!
The buttermilk was homemade, using a quart (1/4 gallon) of whole goat's milk, warmed to 86 degrees, then inoculated with buttermilk culture and left to ripen overnight. What a delicious difference that little culture makes!
I used up the 3/4 of the buttermilk making a triple batch of buttermilk waffles that I also squirreled away in the freezer for a rainy day.
The rest of the buttermilk was used, along with 1 1/2 cups of the pureed yams, and 1/2 cup of the lard (in place of half of the butter), in a double batch of Martha Stewart's Sweet-Potato Biscuits. Heaven. on. earth.
As you can see, I used a small-mouthed mason jar ring in lieu of a proper biscuit cutter. It worked just fine, and that makes one less thing I have to hunt for in my kitchen. ;)
So, having frozen the milk & cherries, baked the biscuits and made the waffles, I'm left with 1 3/4 gallons of milk, 1/2 cups of lard and 1 cup of sweet potato puree. I put the puree into a silicone freezer tray and chucked it into the freezer to set-up. I'll pop out my yam cubes and bag them up, to eventually be used in soup.
As for the milk, I'm going to try and bribe/sweet talk Billy into making a double batch of 30-minute mozzarella to be used on Friday Pizza Night. I'll hang on to the lard, since I'm not exactly under the gun to use it, like I am the more perishable goods on my use or lose hit list.
Whew! That was a lot of baking and dish-dirtying for one day. I'm wiped! Now, excuse me while I go snarf down my third butter and jam smothered Sweet Potato biscuit. Being the chef has its perks. :)
Thursday, July 26, 2012
Totally off Topic
Most of you guys and gals probably have heard a little (or way too much) about my car accident this past May. I haven't written too much about it, because a) I didn't really feel like reliving it, b) This is technically not the right forum for my personal, non-homesteading kvetching, c) I didn't want to bore you all with sad, potentially grody details about my injuries and slow recovery.
All of that being said, I'm going to do it anyway.
Writing, like drinking a few glasses of lambrusco and listening to a Tori Amos cd beginning to end, is cathartic for me. And I need catharsis pretty badly right now. Thus commences my long-winded whine.
Here we go.
The accident happened in the Mojave desert. The prevailing theory is that my front passenger tire may have slipped off the edge of the roadway, onto the hard-packed sand of the high desert. I thus (Theoretically. I remember none of this.), over-corrected in my attempt to straighten out, steering too far to the left, causing the car to 360 several times in the middle of the road, before skidding off of the roadway completely, and commencing to rollover multiple times, eventually coming to rest in a shallow ravine/depression on the north(?) side of the road.
I, having no memory of the accident whatsoever, don't know at what point I was knocked unconscious, but I was. In fact, the only memory that I have (I think it's a memory. Maybe it's a dream?) of the accident end of things was coming to, however marginally, to the sound of someone saying my name over and over, and explaining that I'd been in a car accident, and that they were going to get me out soon. (This might be a good time to mention that this took place while I was hanging upside downish, still belted into the drivers seat, while a firefighter/EMT attempted to verbally comfort me through my now non-existent windshield.) I remember asking about my girls, him assuring me that they were fine, which I didn't know whether or not to believe, then me repeating my city, state and my husband's cell phone number, over and over again.
At this same time, an EMT's were looking my girls over head to toe, and preparing to transport them to the hospital.
Apparently I blacked out again, because the following happened, unbeknownst to me. The Jaws of Life were brought in to pry my car apart. I lost a lot of blood. I really screwed up traffic for the people of Victorville for that afternoon. A life-flight helicopter had to find a safe place to land. I took my first (CRAZY EXPENSIVE) helicopter flight.
The next memory that I have, which I wish to hell I didn't, was the surgical resident/trainee/janitor stapling my tattered scalp closed. There is pain, and then there is having your head harshly, loudly, under-medicated-ly stapled-back-together pain. I literally passed out between staples, only to wake up screaming with each new ta-chunk of the stapler.
Then I mostly slept for 2 or 3 or 4 days.
I woke when I heard Billy's voice. I remember being confused and annoyed by the neck brace, troubled that I couldn't really see much out of my right eye, and really confused about why my left arm wouldn't work. I had to be reminded that I was in a car accident, and that the girls were ok. Billy said that I asked the same question a hundred different times, as though he hadn't just told me that the girls were fine, and being cared for by my sister-in-law. Every time I realized that the girls weren't there, I experienced a fresh bout of panic, and had to be told the whole story over again.
This brain injury and it's after-effects, more than the physical pain, has really been the main thing that sucked (and continues to suck) about this accident and the recovery that follows. My fucking brain is messed up.
Memory loss, confusion, irritability, fatigue - the symptoms of Post-Concussion Syndrome are spot-muther-effing-on.
So on top of a heavily lacerated, shredded scalp, a broken elbow, a really scary looking contusion in the white of my eye, a broken thumb, road rash, and not one, but two, brain bleeds, I get to hang on to this lingering cognitive impairment. Super.
As much as I've healed, my noodle is still not back to rights, and it isn't clear whether it will ever be, and/or how much I'll get back.
Here's the thing - I liked my personality. In fact, this has made me realize just how frigging attached to it I was. And now, it's changed, maybe forever. I'm irritable, impatient, forgetful and flaky, none of which I would have identified with as being fundamental elements of my personality pre-wreck.
I can't remember things worth a diddly, and I have a really hard time finding words some days, especially when I'm tired, which is often, seeing as I'm funneling copious amounts of energy into growing myself a new scalp and all.
I grieve for the time I've lost, the lack of lessons learned from this mess (it all seems pretty damn pointless), the strain on my relationships with friends and family, even the loss of my 12-year-old super-Subaru.
I am thankful for the fact that my girls weren't hurt worse (beyond the post-traumatic stress, which is definitely no small matter), that there wasn't another vehicle, cyclist or pedestrian involved, that I didn't die, that I/we have such an amazing community of family, friends and co-workers that saved our bacon with home cooked meals, gift cards for take-out, kid-sitting and SO much more, and for this crazy mess reminding me that I am small and the world is big.
I now return you to your regularly scheduled Granola Geek programming.
All of that being said, I'm going to do it anyway.
Writing, like drinking a few glasses of lambrusco and listening to a Tori Amos cd beginning to end, is cathartic for me. And I need catharsis pretty badly right now. Thus commences my long-winded whine.
Here we go.
The accident happened in the Mojave desert. The prevailing theory is that my front passenger tire may have slipped off the edge of the roadway, onto the hard-packed sand of the high desert. I thus (Theoretically. I remember none of this.), over-corrected in my attempt to straighten out, steering too far to the left, causing the car to 360 several times in the middle of the road, before skidding off of the roadway completely, and commencing to rollover multiple times, eventually coming to rest in a shallow ravine/depression on the north(?) side of the road.
I, having no memory of the accident whatsoever, don't know at what point I was knocked unconscious, but I was. In fact, the only memory that I have (I think it's a memory. Maybe it's a dream?) of the accident end of things was coming to, however marginally, to the sound of someone saying my name over and over, and explaining that I'd been in a car accident, and that they were going to get me out soon. (This might be a good time to mention that this took place while I was hanging upside downish, still belted into the drivers seat, while a firefighter/EMT attempted to verbally comfort me through my now non-existent windshield.) I remember asking about my girls, him assuring me that they were fine, which I didn't know whether or not to believe, then me repeating my city, state and my husband's cell phone number, over and over again.
At this same time, an EMT's were looking my girls over head to toe, and preparing to transport them to the hospital.
Apparently I blacked out again, because the following happened, unbeknownst to me. The Jaws of Life were brought in to pry my car apart. I lost a lot of blood. I really screwed up traffic for the people of Victorville for that afternoon. A life-flight helicopter had to find a safe place to land. I took my first (CRAZY EXPENSIVE) helicopter flight.
The next memory that I have, which I wish to hell I didn't, was the surgical resident/trainee/janitor stapling my tattered scalp closed. There is pain, and then there is having your head harshly, loudly, under-medicated-ly stapled-back-together pain. I literally passed out between staples, only to wake up screaming with each new ta-chunk of the stapler.
Then I mostly slept for 2 or 3 or 4 days.
I woke when I heard Billy's voice. I remember being confused and annoyed by the neck brace, troubled that I couldn't really see much out of my right eye, and really confused about why my left arm wouldn't work. I had to be reminded that I was in a car accident, and that the girls were ok. Billy said that I asked the same question a hundred different times, as though he hadn't just told me that the girls were fine, and being cared for by my sister-in-law. Every time I realized that the girls weren't there, I experienced a fresh bout of panic, and had to be told the whole story over again.
This brain injury and it's after-effects, more than the physical pain, has really been the main thing that sucked (and continues to suck) about this accident and the recovery that follows. My fucking brain is messed up.
Memory loss, confusion, irritability, fatigue - the symptoms of Post-Concussion Syndrome are spot-muther-effing-on.
So on top of a heavily lacerated, shredded scalp, a broken elbow, a really scary looking contusion in the white of my eye, a broken thumb, road rash, and not one, but two, brain bleeds, I get to hang on to this lingering cognitive impairment. Super.
As much as I've healed, my noodle is still not back to rights, and it isn't clear whether it will ever be, and/or how much I'll get back.
Here's the thing - I liked my personality. In fact, this has made me realize just how frigging attached to it I was. And now, it's changed, maybe forever. I'm irritable, impatient, forgetful and flaky, none of which I would have identified with as being fundamental elements of my personality pre-wreck.
I can't remember things worth a diddly, and I have a really hard time finding words some days, especially when I'm tired, which is often, seeing as I'm funneling copious amounts of energy into growing myself a new scalp and all.
I grieve for the time I've lost, the lack of lessons learned from this mess (it all seems pretty damn pointless), the strain on my relationships with friends and family, even the loss of my 12-year-old super-Subaru.
I am thankful for the fact that my girls weren't hurt worse (beyond the post-traumatic stress, which is definitely no small matter), that there wasn't another vehicle, cyclist or pedestrian involved, that I didn't die, that I/we have such an amazing community of family, friends and co-workers that saved our bacon with home cooked meals, gift cards for take-out, kid-sitting and SO much more, and for this crazy mess reminding me that I am small and the world is big.
I now return you to your regularly scheduled Granola Geek programming.
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