So, you are thinking of Burying Food in your Garden?

When I read the title, I thought it was about garden trenching compost rows in the garden, alas not.. read on, read on and get those seeds in the pots

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My son called from the Central Valley in California last night and said over 10,000 acres of farm land in the Central Valley are under water. They have been underwater for too long.

And they have not had the worst of the flooding over there in California.

Cropping land, vegetable growers and orchards. A-wash for too long now. Flooded.

Even the local farmers markets are facing fresh food shortages.

Head shot. Black cow looking directly at screen. Brown cow in profile. Mossy fence post.

Another major interruption to the food supply chain.

And still it rains in California. (The drought is broken though!).

But soon it will be too hot to replant.

And the Central Valley supplies the US with 25% of its fresh food. And still it rains.

This year would be a good year to start a garden if you don’t have one in already.

Another friend of mine said her neighbour told her she is starting to bury canned food in her…

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How to use the Baggy Method to Start Seeds

Just another Day on the Farm

The Baggy Seed Starting Method is very easy to do and its very worth it!

All home harvested seeds and older seeds should be given a germination test using this method NOW! in seed ordering season.

I can not stress this enough, its worth taking a little time and figuring your seed germination rates. If you look on bought seed packages, it will give a germination rate on it, normally it will show over 80 or 90 percent. Smaller seed houses often do not list this and I find that can be because germination rates “can” be lower or just because they do not want the extra print costs for changing this per type of seed.

None the less, we are the gardeners and there is NOTHING worse than saving seed and planting out whole rows of seed that barely comes up. In years past, I have had this happen…

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Ready, Set, Go Plant those Pepper Seeds (zone 5)

Just another Day on the Farm

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This year I am growing West Coast Seeds King of the North Sweet Pepper.

68 days green, 90 days red. Large beautiful fruits that are bell shaped. Great producers in our short growing season. I ordered the seeds in 2020 garden season and much to my surprise they are not carrying them this year.. all the more reason to plant this crop together and seed save these for future use and local offerings.

I did see with a quick google search that other smaller suppliers still have them but ouch on the price.. 20 seeds for 4.95.. I will keep you posted on them.. and will be doing a end of year round up on the different plants and yields.

Do you grow the King of the North, sweet pepper? Tell me all about it! What I am really interested in is, height and spread of the plant?

If you…

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Happy Valentines Day 2023

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                                                    Flowers to brighten your day

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Wood Ash Chicken Dust Bath

Got Chickens?

Got a wood stove? or access to someone that is burning clean wood?

Make sure this is clean wood ash, no burning garbage or plastics or anything else in the fires. (and yes I do know people that will toss and burn things in their stoves)

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While the ducks love to snow bath all winter long, the chickens do not really like snow and while its not a issue in terms of their health, winter time in the coop tends to be the worst time of the year for lice or mites and a free access ash dust bath can go a long way to reducing this possible issue.

Just get a box shape, whatever suits you, I used cardboard and fill it half full, don’t worry about sorting out any bits of charcoal, the birds will break it down and anything left when you go to dump the of it in the garden or compost pile, its just active bio char at that point..

In keeping with that, any ash they get out into the bedding is just going to sweeten and help your coming spring compost pile when you clean that coop floor.

Let the chickens do the rest of the wood, they will dust at will, shaking off any excess and as clean wood ash is edible for them as well, they will not hurt themselves in any way as they finish their pruning with beak etc.

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Braised Duck in a Rich Peanut Sauce Recipe

This base of this recipe comes from “Asian” Cookbook Page 209.

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Having said that I did make changes to it. I didn’t use beef, I used two Muscovy skinless duck breasts that had been well aged in the fridge (I did a full 3 day aging on them in my coldest part of the fridge)

I also did not have the annatto seeds nor the fish sauce and I used peanut butter, as I didn’t want to mess around with the peanuts/rice mixture. Given that was to help with giving that thicker sauce, I did that with around a tsp of corn starch/water blended to give that thicker sauce.

This all started because I had aged duck breast in the fridge and I have half a swede aka winter turnip that I wanted to use.  The delightful dish above is the result lol.  I didn’t have celeriac root, so I used a cup of regular celery instead. Last but not least, I added in 1 tsp of ginger.. 

I know, I know that is a number of changes but that is the joy of good recipe, you can make those kinds of changes or not and it will still be great.  Bottom line, I would recommend this dish, yes it has a few steps but its smoothly done.  I would like to try it again in the future with beef.

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Chocolate Mashed Potato Truffles – Ration Book Recipe No. 208

very interesting dessert/treat to say the least. while its carbs in regards to the potato, its quite low sugar for a dessert/treat.

i want to give it a try with fresh new baby potato just out of the garden later this year.

The 1940's Experiment

I feel like I’m rapidly morphing into some bizarre Cropleyesque ration book aficionado. My compulsions to experience strange wartime combinations in my kitchen seem stronger than ever and I often spend my evenings flicking through old wartime cookery books to get my next fix of weird.

This wartime recipe for Chocolate Truffles made with mashed potato was really quite up there with some of the stranger recipes created during the war. Don’t expect a chocolate truffle texture, the truffles were squidgy and much like a Japanese dish called “Mochi”. However, I really enjoyed gobbling all seven of them down in one sitting. So, actually, they tasted alright. For anyone who missed chocolate during the war, this would have filled that gap I feel!

Ingredients

  • 4 tablespoons of mashed potato
  • 2 tablespoons cocoa powder
  • 2 tablespoons caster sugar
  • A few drops of vanilla or almond essence
  • Cocoa powder for dusting

Method

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Fried Banana Peel Recipe

Fully admit it, I say a clip on Facebook on this one and went.. huh?? They called it mock bacon, and its not mock bacon to me at all.  Pick your Banana, with the reading I did on this on the internet, it says that the full pure clean yellow peel is more starchy/with little to no sweetness, where the more ripe the banana, the more sweetness the skin will have.

As you can see below, I choose a med-ripe banana peel, lots of small brown spots, no black yet, I trimmed both ends off and I went with two large sides, lots of folks would have split these into two and made four “stripes” with this same amount of peel.  I put a scant 1tsp of oil in the pan at med heat (number 6 on my stove) fried banana peel

The ways its like bacon, its crispy and crunchy, with a great chew on it, just like bacon does. its got a nice fat mouth feel to it, and it can be picked up and eaten like a bacon slice can be.

Its important! to take a spoon and remove the white pith from the inside of the peel to get a nice flat smooth peel, I missed a tiny spot that I didn’t get clean and I didn’t like it at all..

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Its also does not (at least to me) taste banana either, its a blank canvas, I did one mine with West Coast Lemon Salt. and one with Maple Bacon seasoning salt. I like the Lemon Salt one better personally.

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Cook 3 to 4 minute’s each side till crisp brown as above, drain on paper towel and let cool for 30 seconds to a min to set up that crunch.  You want that bottom ones look, I didn’t quite get the top one cleaned enough and it effected its overall crisp/crunch plus I like the plain salted better.

These can be eaten directly on your plate or I expect they could be cut up into stripes and used in salads or anywhere else you wanted a crunch added it.

The bonus on this is that if you eat banana at breakfast, this is a amazing way to get a low cost (very low cost price wise) of mock “bacon”.  I mean lets face it, I had never heard of eating the Banana Skin till two days ago, where my reading says that lots of vegans already know this and have a host of recipes using it for mock bacon or in stews and so on.

Now the hmmm/warning for me is this. Banana’s are sprayed alot! So I would eat regular Banana Peels as a treat once an awhile, and if possable use Organic banana peel, its not like (or most of us) in my neck of the woods can grow them fresh and no spray.

The little video I watched showed them putting the peels in 3 tsp of soy sauce, 2 tsp maple syrup, some garlic powder and Paprika powder and then soaking the peels in that for 10 min before frying.   If you want to try it flavoured, do try it this way.

So would you try it? Have you eaten it before? If you try it, come back and tell me what you think?

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No Buy Feb 2023 Week One

Its crazy to me that I am already on my first one week overview already. The first short week of Feb has flown by and then some.

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We have been eating well, really well!  I really liked this duck breast Stir-fry, I took the basics from reading three or four beef and broccoli recipes and used them as the guide for flavor and sauce, I sliced two skinless duck hen breasts in place of the beef.  Normally you can switch our Muscovy duck breast meat for beef with no issues at all.

This way of making it let that fine ducky flavor come out more. You knew you were eating duck, mild and tasty but with a deeper flavour and more chew then normal for beef in this recipe. I also added in some celery and onion which worked for me, as Broccoli is quite costly right now an this allowed me to cut the overall cost of this dish down by doing so.

We have lots of salad greens/reasonable amount of fresh veggies and a ton of oranges and some banana’s at this point. Fresh eggs are coming in daily from the hens, I am taking in right around a gallon a week of raw milk, so not huge amounts but certainly enough for our household needs.  The rest of the meals are rounded out from the freezers, dry and canning pantry’s.

We had company this weekend, I had family who needed a photography session done for their teen and it went very well.  Which is your favorite look/style.

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The Sweet Girl Next Door

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Perhaps the 80’s style

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perhaps the long LONG lean art look

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Otherwise its been a quiet steady week and overall went very well.

No Buy Spending Report Week One

  • Farm Related -$23 Remmi broke his heavy duty break away collar and it had to be replaced.
  • Household Related-0
  • Reno Related-0
  • Fresh fruit/veggies/salad greens- $87

Monthly spend report total to date $110

How has your spending been this past week? Did you find anything to fix? or mend? Did you do anything to bring in a little extra income?  Did you have something break that had to be replaced?

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Steak with Spaghetti Squash Recipe

I have given a lot of thought to how I wanted to share in a casual way on No Buy Feb and March Pantry Challenge. I want to give myself loads of flexibility and yet at the same time have a connecting note .

What I decided on was Recipes using food from the freezer, pantry and or cellars (be that fall stored fresh or canned) Ideally a lot of these will also be using up something left over in the fridge, making it into a different mwal idea or way of serving.

In this case I took two of my local (support local if you can) minute steaks along with onion, our own garlic from the cellar, Green pepper and half a quart jar of homemade pasta sauce from the canning cellar and half a left over Spaghetti Squash that I had roasted the day before and we used one half but not the other.

minute steak

In a cast iron pot place about 1 to 2 tbsp of your choice of fat, add in your onion, garlic, pepper and steaks. Let the steaks cook till you have some crisping, then flip over, stir the rest so it cooks evenly, once you have browned your meat, add your sauce and use it to deglaze the pan, making sure to get all those bits off the brown and into the sauce. This will take 3 to 5 minutes of cook time before you add the sauce at med heat. Adjust to taste for salt and pepper. In my case with my homemade pasta sauce nothing else was needed to be added.

Then cover the pot with the lid to the side to let moisture leave and turn your heat down to 4 and let it simmer for 5 min with the odd stirring on the sides. At the same time, get out your cold cooked in my case oven roasted Spaghetti Squash and scrape out the flesh at the 5 min mark, take your steaks out for just a moment and add your squash, gently stir it though and add your steaks back in. Simmer for 5 more minutes of cooking time to heat though.

steak with squash pasta

Serve with a bit of parmesan cheese on the pasta side and enjoy. This meal used meat from the bulk whole beef gotten from the farmer down the road, fresh items from my local food box as well as from our storage pantry from our own harvests, homemade pasta sauce from the canning pantry and leftover from the fridge. By my guess, my cost per plate was 3.75

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