For so many years, I have done a no buy feb, but we faithfully did a no buy Nov and i am honestly not in the mood for it this Feb. We have a few things planned for the month to try and bring a little travel and adventure into our world while the gardens are sleeping and before the spring arrival of new babies and so on.

What i will continue to do is turn to the freezers, Pantry and Canning Cellar for items to use and find ways to stretch them. Above was a small end package of beef ribs from the 2023. It was a small row of six only, not really enough for a “feed” of ribs but enough to make a perfect two person supper with other fixings.

I oven baked it with lots of seasoning and did a long slow cook at 300, pulled the meat and left the bones, adding in a good amount of water, and put it onto the wood stove, then carefully made sure all the browning bits were scarped into my beef ” bone broth”.

This was the base for both a soup and a cup was added to a pot of rice for extra boost of flavour, yum! It even had a bit of left over rice after the main meal which i turned into a fast lunch by adding a little grated cheese blend and diced up Cured Beef Tongue

One of the things I started doing a few years ago was turning more of my fruit into sauce and then pressure canning it so i could make it self stable without the same amount of sugar needed to do so in waterbath canning. I had high hopes at the time that it would work well for us in our homemade yogurt but members of the household find the homemade yogurt not sweet enough as is, never mind adding in unsweetened fruit.

Muffins to the Rescue! I am almost at the point of being willing to write up this new recipes, just a bit more trying with other fruits, dried greens and spices and different baking trays/sizes for timings and it will be ready to come out here on the blog.

This was a Carrot Pineapple Oatmeal Loaf Muffin, so far i have tried it with apple sauce, peach sauce, Apricot sauce, fresh ginger, ground ginger, with just dried nettle greens, with mixed dried ground spring green blend. I am working to make each muffin either have or be very close to having a fruit and veggie serving, along with the oatmeal and bran bonus.

Some sprouts, some growing fresh and fast greens, radishes and so on, along with frozen, canned and dried goods means that we should be able to help keep the monthly shopping costs down. We will find out Feb 1st if there is in fact if 25% tariffs come into effect and the ripple effect that will have.

Storm update: the wind did some minor roof damage on the croft barn, branches down and so on, otherwise we got some drifts and need walk the pasture fence lines to make sure the hot line is good and in effect for the horses, otherwise, we never lost power and stayed warm and well fed here on the farm and i was truly grateful that hubby was able to make it a work from home day, he got his hours in and switched his in office day to a much safer day to drive in.