Just another Day on the Farm

Big Pot of Chili.. for when company is coming..

Posted on October 27, 2016 by Just another day on the farm

The weekend was so busy as I was my birthday weekend, stretching into Monday and it was filled with company, good times and much running after wee ones.

But I needed to feed a pile of folks.. fresh buns and chili to the rescue..

Three pound of beef, 4 diced onions, six cloves of garlic, six big stalks of celery, one box of diced mushrooms

Cook together till meat is done and browned, then add 1 quart (or largest can) tomato juice or v8, 4 peppers of different colors, 1 quart of diced tomatoes, 1 quart tomato sauce, one can tomato paste, 2 large cans mixed beans and two cans of baked beans, 1 cup to two of chill powdered, and 2 large tablespoons fancy molasses, stir, simmer on low till flavours meld..

This was the pull for my friend that is allergic to mustard stage, then I added the baked beans, and 1 tsp of keens to crank the heat a bit, good that day, good reheated, good cold lol, serve with sour cream, chopped green onions or chives, and if wanted grated cheese..

This is make a big pot of chili for company.. what is your favorite meal to make for bigger crowds?

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Old Chicken- Tough Free range birds

Posted on October 26, 2016 by Just another day on the farm

So folks love to talk about how full of flavour free range chicken is, and if you butcher young birds in tractors that are moved daily, you get full flavour young tender well treated chicken..

But what do you do with the three to six year old birds.. you can roast-simmer and crock pot them forever, good broth shoe tough meat..

There is one way to save the meat… butcher, age in very lightly salted water in the fridge 3 days and then pressure can it.. bone in or bone out.

depending on what the part is..

I never! cook the chicken ahead.. when it comes to taking old chicken and turning it into nicely pressure canned meat.. IMHO it must be done cold pack..

skinless, nothing but chicken.. an if you want a pinch of salt and then follow your pressure canner rules for your area, sea level and what size of jar you are using.

The end result.. outstanding.. the bone in thighs and legs are perfect to pull the meat and use in stir-fry or for mixed in rice or chopped and used for on salads and more.

The white meat is perfect for soups, stews and anything else you can think of.. This is my most proven way to take old laying hens, and or old roosters and turning them into very safe, shelf-stable tender meat to be used in future meals.

As you can see that I only did pints because we are after all only a two adult person household.. hope that this saves you some time in the future when you have someone tell you that either a) wow, this meat is so tough.. and or b) it made good broth but the meat is pretty much unusable.

Purrpot Pride of 2016

Posted on October 21, 2016 by Just another day on the farm

Its going to be a two post kinda of day.. but this morning.. it’s all about the pretty, pretty kittens.. they are growing so much now.. they are pre-teens.. so different in looks and temperaments.. Blue kitten is now altered, so now all the boys are done..

We have two short hair, two long hair, we have total in your face (blue) totally Laid back and going to be huge! (Patrick), Fluffy and Sweet, I am so pretty (Faith) and little tiny I am so a CAT, pet me, four on the floor (marble)

Posted in Life moves on daily | Tagged altering your farm cats, Barn kittens growing up, farm cats, fix your farm kittens, Young farm cats | 1 Comment

Wordless Thursday- Photos

Posted on October 20, 2016 by Just another day on the farm

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My Newest Tattoo Design

Posted on October 18, 2016 by Just another day on the farm

Thanks to the help of a great friend.. Miss N here is my newest Tattoo Design, its a memory piece for my beloved Hounds and Purrpots that have crossed over, gone but Never! forgotten.

There are so many little details to this that all have meaning to me.. the pawprints in kitty, small hound and big old Lily paws, the connection to the north (Raven Feather) to the Bell’s for my beloved Bell To the Celtic tie in, to the never ending circle of life (something that I will now have in three tattoo’s) to the Goddess Freyja’s Symbol to the tree of life, to the tear, water, always moving, always flowing.. to the antlers that represent the Stag, the male energy..

How my friend was able to take the jumble and collection of this and that I pulled and wanted and turn it into this beautiful to my eye and heart piece , I will never know but I lift my glass to you. It will be a honor to have it grace my shoulder for hopefully many years to come.

It’s been a rough two years with the loss of many of my elder pets, I know that they all lived a long time and that it was well within normal old age or even well beyond the average but their loss is felt daily

Posted in Life moves on daily | 1 Comment

Bulls Blood Beets

Posted on October 17, 2016 by Just another day on the farm

We were cleaning out the Bean Teepee on the weekend and there they were.. stunning amazing Bull’s Blood Beets, that pop of color.. outstanding.. So sorry, I didn’t have the camera and it was all done before I could say.. wait..

Here is a bit more info for you on this amazing beet.. photo from the web, it’s from West Coast Seeds amazing site!

Bulls Blood’ is an heirloom Garden Beet Group cultivar that was developed around 1840. It grows to 2’ tall in the garden. It is grown not only for enjoyment of its tasty beets but also for its flavorful purplish-red leaves which make excellent additions to salads. Regardless of culinary value, ‘Bull’s Blood’ is also grown today in beds, borders and containers solely for the ornamental value of its attractive dark purplish-red foliage which provides excellent contrast with other garden plants. When cut in cross-section, the flesh of this beet is bright red with showy pink rings. In Sweden, red food coloring may be legally produced only from this cultivar.

This beet got overrun in the area it was planted, so only a few made it to full size, I will need to plant it in a different area next year for sure. I thought about just roasting it but I decided that instead I want to make borscht

1 Onion-Peel and Diced
4 med to larger fall beets- just cooked, skins slipped and diced
2 med potato’s -peeled and diced
1 cup of chucky diced cabbage -red or green your choice
Salt, Pepper and a bay leaf
White or Veggie Stock to cover

I put a tiny bit of lard in the bottom of the pan and added the diced onion, cooked till clear, then added the stock and the rest of the list, cooked with potato’s, cabbage and beets are tender (about 20 to 25 min) and checked and added more salt, removed the bay leaf and can be served with sour cream with green onions on top..

Posted in Life moves on daily | Tagged Bull Blood Beets, Fall harvest, Garden, Harvesting beets | 1 Comment

October Unprocessed Week 3 for Cost Data.

Posted on October 16, 2016 by Just another day on the farm

Oct 9th

omelets loaded veggies and cheese with drinks 6.99X2
Missed lunch as we were working outside and went riding
Pork Stew with veggies 5 x2 Biscuits x 6 at 1 each for 6

Total :29

Farmgal Total 11 dollars (yes I rounded it out for cents)

Savings 18 dollars

Oct 10th-

Apple, Peanut Butter, Tea Apple, Cheese, Coffee 3 dollars
Missed, we got busy working outside and skipped it
Early supper.. Potato, ham, cheese casserole – 10 dollars

Total Cost 13 dollars

Farmgal Total 4.5

Farmgal Savings – 8.5

Oct 11th

Oatmeal, Tea 1 Apple, peanut butter and raisins with Coffee 2
Vension stew X2 8.99 per portion DH and 1 for FG and 1 For company 8.99 X 4
Hubby had Hamburger and Mashed Potato’s 7 dollars and I had tea (I was not wanting to eat supper)

Total: 46

Farmgal Total :11

Farmgal Savings 36

Oct 12th

2 egg omelet and biscuit 8 FG with coffee, 2 biscuit and Peanut butter and tea for hubby 3
DH-Chicken finger-fries-coke, Bag of Chips (Dh was traveling) 8.99 Val, Egg Drop Sweet and sour Soup 5
Meatball stew (dh)* gifted and FG had Tuna casserole with a tiny bit of cheese 2 * 10 dollars for the whole dish, so 2 per portion (one portion)

Total Costs : 27

Farmgal Costs :15.25

Farmgal Savings 11.75

Oct 13th

Toast with peanut butter and marmalade on one DH (Gifted), FG, Apple, Cheese and Biscuit with coffee 2.5
Mix of small sandwiches and square at a gathering (DH) (gifted) and Tuna Casserole FG 2
Meatball Stew (gifted) and Tuna Casserole with coffee 2.50

Total Costs 7 dollars

Farmgal Costs 3 dollars

Farmgal Savings 4 dollars

Oct 14th

Toast with Peanut butter and Marmalade on one DH (gifted) FG- 2 heads of oven roasted broccoli with a touch of butter and salt with coffee 2.99
Burger with cheese DH(4) and Skirret Pastry with Tea for FG 2
Beef-Burger and Mashed DH 5 and I had the last piece of Tuna Casserole for supper 2

Total Costs-16

Farmgal Costs- 6.75

Farmgal Savings 9.25

Oct 15th

Brown Bread with Peanut butter DH 3 and Brown Bread with cheese FG 2 Tea and Coffee
Apple and Tea a Coffee for lunch, it was very light as we were quite busy on the farm and garden and hikes and photo shoot. 3
Huge Green Garden Salad, tea a coffee 6

Total Costs : 14

Farmgal Costs : 8

Farmgal Savings 8

DH aunt passed away and he made the trip up to the Huntsville area for three days this past week.. some of the meals were on the road and clearly did NOT meet the rules for oct unprocessed but I am including them to keep the data true, other thing will be hard to figure out cost wise as they were “gifted” during the trip.

Yes, I know.. I know.. I should not have made the big old tuna casserole but DH does not like Tuna and I did not think about the fact that I would be eating it for many meals to get though it, and we had hubby home for the rest of the week and so we got busy a lot and that meant we also missed some meals.

Total for the week 152

Farmgal total for the week. 59.50

Farmgal Savings for the week 92.50 or 61 percent savings.

Overview

Totals Week 1 (remember was only 2 days long)

Total Cost 62.02

Farmgal Total Cost :26.65

Savings for the week- 35.37 or .57% savings

Total for the Week 2 is 211.07 averages out to 5.02 per meal including snack-drinks

Farmgal Total of the Week is 66.79 Averages out to 1.59 per meal including snack-drinks

Total Savings for the week is 144.28 or 68% by being on the farm.

Total for the week 3 – 152 Averages out to 3.62 per meal including snacks and drinks

Farmgal total for the week. 59.50

Farmgal Savings for the week 92.50 or 61% savings

Total to date – 452.09

Farmgal Costs to date-152.94

Total Savings to date- 299.15 with a 66% average savings

So this past week as all over the place, travel, eating out, missed meals and more.. welcome to real life.. 🙂

Still averaging out at 66% savings for farmgal costs.. interesting to see what the back two weeks of the month will bring.. we have company and birthdays

Posted in Life moves on daily | Tagged Cost overview, farm raised food costs, Food costs, October Unprocessed, october unprocessed mini challange | 2 Comments

New Book Jacket Photo for DH

Posted on October 16, 2016 by Just another day on the farm

Just a quick boo.. second post on oct unprocessed coming yet today

So some of you may remember that DH who works full-time off the farm and part-time on the farm (evening and weekends) also is a published author. Here the book that he was last published in for 2016

Superhero Universe Tesseracts 19

He is often asked to provide a photo to go with his bio for the writings and I decided today to head out and do a wee fall photo shoot for a new one to give for promo work

I am very pleased with how it turned out..

Posted in Life moves on daily, photography | 2 Comments

Green Tomato’s Harvest 2016 with Recipes

Posted on October 15, 2016 by Just another day on the farm

we have had three hard frosts now and that means that the last of the tomatoes needed to come in, we did lose some that needed to go to the compost pile but 37 gallons came into the house

of course you can not leave them in the buckets, they need to be put out into the tray single layer, this allows me to keep a close eye on them as they start to ripen

Now most of these will be allowed to ripen and will be made into sauce but some will be used as a green tomato

Fried Green tomato’s.. washed, sliced thick, dipped, breaded an fried till golden.. so easy, so yum!

Farmgal’s Duck Liver with Apple-Green Tomato -As I was the only one going to eat these, it was made as a single serving, feel free to adjust the recipe for two or more.. 1 duck liver per person.

1 Large Duck Liver- I soaked this liver, and then sliced it into 1 inch thick pieces think stir fry stripes salt and pepper sprinkled on them
1 med apple
1 med onion
1 med green tomato
1 tbsp of butter
A pinch of basil
A tiny splash of a good sweet dessert wine
Salt, Pepper to taste

Ok, so in a cast iron fry pan, add your thinly sliced apple, onion and green tomato, along with your butter, med-low heat, you don’t want to burn anything, you want to soften and cook, with min stirring so that it melds but does not mush, then add you pinch of basil, your salt/pepper and your wine, allow to simmer for just a bit till heated and meld together, then mound onto the plate, which you will put the just cooked liver on top of, I served it with a side of baby boiled garden fresh potato’s

My Green Pepper Pasta Sauce

10 pds of Green peppers
3 pds of Green roma tomatos
3 pds of white onions
1 whole garlic or about 8 big cloves
1 or 2 hot peppers, seeded out depending on the heat you like, add more or less.
2 cups of white or apple vinager
3 cups of white or brown sugar
3 tbsp of canning salt and fresh cracked black pepper

Put them though the blender, and then simmer for at least 4o to 60 min till thicken to your tastes, then can, while most books say that peppers need to be pressure canned, between the vinager, sugar, I have always waterbathed canned this sauce.

Here is this sauce in use.. Green-pepper-Green Tomato Sauce over cabbage rows

What is your favorite way to use your green tomato’s?

Posted in gardens | Tagged fried green tomatoes, Green Tomato, Green Tomatoes | 4 Comments

Skirret, Apple, Cheese Tart Recipe

Posted on October 14, 2016 by Just another day on the farm

I only had a little bit of skirret left after we devoured it out of the pan, hot from the oven LOL. I decided to make a Roast Skirret, Apple and Cheese Huge Tart

I made a small batch of a butter pie Pastry and I added chopped up roasted Skirrit but it cooks so quickly that I expect it could go in raw and work just fine that way, diced fall sweet apple and a awesome gouda white cheese.. A tiny bit of salt on top.

and I baked it till golden brown, I served it hot but it was really good cold as well.. It was a great blend of flavours.. I feel like it could use a tiny tiny amount of cooked onion in there but I could be wrong, I wanted to allow that delightful but very light skirret flavour to come though..