Just another Day on the Farm

March 21th- The Canadian Wartime Recipe Challenge 2015

Posted on March 23, 2015 by Just another day on the farm

Urge everyone to lesson wheat consumption by at least one third though subsitutions- Food Administration

Yeast Breads

Basic Standard Bread Recipe at the time.

1 cup of water, 1 tbsp. of fat, 1 tsp of salt, 1 tbsp. of either sugar or molasses, one fourth yeast cake (I am not sure what that would be in tsp, but I am guess on 1tsp) 3 cups of flour.

mix liquid, fat, molasses and salt, when its lukewarm add yeast, dissolved in one quarter cup of lukewarm water and lastly the flour. Need well, let rest till double, shape into pan and when double again in bulk bake 50 to 60 min.

Liberty Breads

No 1

1 cup Bran, half a cup of corn meal, 1 cup of rye flour and half a cup of white flour

No 2

1 cup of ground oatmeal, 1 cup whole wheat flour, 1 cup of graham flour and half a cup of raisins

No 3

1 cup graham Flour, 1 cup of rye flour, 1 cup of white flour and half a cup of walnut pieces

No 4

Half a cup cornmeal, half a cup of graham, 2 cups of whole wheat

No 5

1 cup of cream of rye, 1 cup of graham and 1 cup of white flour

All of the above recipes work with the first basic instructions given at the top.

Interesting to me that they did both fruit and nut bread..

I made a basic oatmeal bread, which was used to make a loaf of bread, a pizza and fried bread as a treat..

March Photo Challenge -21st

Posted on March 23, 2015 by Just another day on the farm

Posted in March Challange | Tagged March Photo Challange 2015 | 1 Comment

Chick Update..

Posted on March 20, 2015 by Just another day on the farm

So far my four wee tikes are growing very well, I am watching them feather out and get more of their colorings and patterns in.. the tail feathers are being watched closely as is the wattles..

This is the oldest chick, its a full week older then the other three.

This is the plain black chick with a bit of white on both fronts of the wings so far.. but check out that top wattle growth on it!

This is the next biggest of the three chicks, and the most friendly of them all.. Its nickname is chipmonk for the eye stripe

Last but not least is the one I had hoped would be a blue, but its not.. its a dilute yes but blue, nope.. but its a strong flyer already

Anyone want to take a guess on sexes yet.. LOL.. I think I have three of one sex (maybe) and one of one sex.. but I just do not know this breed well enough yet..

Posted in Chickens | Tagged Farmagal laying hen chicks 2015 | 4 Comments

March Photo Challenge -20th

Posted on March 20, 2015 by Just another day on the farm

Yup, I went to a red head this time..

Posted in March Challange | 3 Comments

March 20th- The Canadian Wartime Recipe Challenge 2015

Posted on March 20, 2015 by Just another day on the farm

Can you believe it, its Friday again.. and that means Fish!

Oyster Pie

40 Oysters, 2 hard cooked eggs, pinch of salt, tsp of parsley, tsp of chopped onion, 2 cups of oyster liquor and water, 3 tsp of flour and 2 tbsp. of oil. Heat the oysters in their canned liquor, strain, arrange them, mix the rest and pour over top, make a Baking Powder biscuit Crust and bake till done..

This one is interesting, I would be willing to try a small version of it to see what it turned out like, but I know hubby would not be eating it.

Crab Souffle

2 tbsp. of fat, 2 tbsp. of milk, 1 cup of crab meat, 2 yolks, 3 tbsp. of flour, pinch of salt, pinch of pepper and 2 egg whites.

Mix the sauce, add fish and eggs, bake 25 min.. boy there for thin on directions.. yikes..

Creamed Fish

2 tbsp. of oil, pinch of salt, 1 cup of flaked canned fish, 2 tbsp. of flour, 1 cup of milk, pepper to taste..

Make your cream sauce, add the fish and bake in oven till top is golden brown.

As you can tell they loved their sauces..

If I was going to make the oyster pie, I think I like the idea I found on the net (not my photo) of a shepards oyster pie.. it looks good to me..

Posted in canadian wartime recipes | Tagged 30 days of wartime recipes, Canadian Wartime Fish recipes, canadian wartime recipes, March challange wartime meals, March challange wartime recipes | 4 Comments

March 19th- The Canadian Wartime Recipe Challenge 2015

Posted on March 20, 2015 by Just another day on the farm

Their Hedge Row Picking would be our foraging and it was allowed with rules in place for those that could get out to their local farmers area but I imagine that the farmers used a fair amount of it themselves. They used them like we would use Spinach today..

Still, I was always very interested to know the many uses they used nettles, I will be giving nettles recipes, but in my book from England on the nettles comes this great story about the fact that in the dark of night, they went out and cut many nettles and dried them for dying purposes for the uniforms.

during World War I, the blockaded German Army of necessity reverted to nettles due to the shortage of cotton; it is reported that fully 85 percent of captured German uniforms were made from nettle. Once the nettle fabric is made, it can be dyed green with nettle, which has almost 5 milligrams of chlorophyll in every gram, one of the highest percentages in nature. During World War II, the British requisitioned 100 tons of nettles to make green dye for camouflage.

But lets go back to a great hedgerow green that is so healthy for those that are eating and drinking it..

I promised that I would also show a cooked, so I took half the plate, ran a knife over them a bit cutting the biggest leaves, put a bit of butter in the bottom of a pan, threw the nettles in and let them cook till dark dark green and well wilted, if you cook mustard greens or big older spinach leaves, you want a full wilt on these greens.. then I added in a cup of lovely pork bone broth, simmered till hot, added a tsp of sour cream and that was a light wonderful tasty soup! If you needed it to be more filling, bread on the side would do the trick as it was I had it for breakfast that day.

Posted in canadian wartime recipes | Tagged 30 days of wartime recipes, Canadian Wartime Garden, March challange wartime recipes, Wartime Nettle Information | 1 Comment

March 18th- The Canadian Wartime Recipe Challenge 2015

Posted on March 19, 2015 by Just another day on the farm

As I had a new litter of wee buns in the hutch, talking about rabbits seems like a great idea.

http://www.1900s.org.uk/1940s50s-livestock.htm

Why keeping rabbits was so worthwhile

Rabbits are very good at reproduction all the year round. so those families that kept rabbits had a never ending supply of rabbit and chips, stewed rabbit and rabbit pie. Rabbits were killed for eating whenever there were more rabbits than cages.

How to prepare a rabbit for cooking

To dispatch a rabbit, you suspended it by its back legs with the left hand with its back towards you. Then with your open right hand you struck it across the back of its neck with a swift chopping motion. The rabbit was then disembowelled and a stick of wood was placed in the cut to keep the cavity wide open. The following day the skin was removed.

The value of a rabbit’s skin in war-time

The skin was worth money from the rag and bone man who sold it on for winter boots and clothing. First, though, it had to be dried. My father stretched it tightly across a board, nailed it to the board and rubbed in salt. When the skin was dry, it was as stiff as the board, but was softened up by rubbing it together and pulling it over your knees.

(Mole skins could be dried in the same way. My first mole trap cost 2/6 [half a crown] from Woolworths but it soon paid for itself as we got 6d per skin. The skin was parcelled up and posted to an address in the Exchange and Mart. Mole skins were needed by plumbers for wiping lead joints, and were used for the purpose ever since Roman times. Moles were bred on an industrial scale wherever the Romans took their civilization. Nowadays pipes are copper and plastic rather than lead.)

Peter Johnson

Ps, I would not recommend the 24 aging in skin but we are talking about England where they loved to hang fowl till it aged and you knew it was ready when the weight of the body could tear off the head, trust me that would take days..

Rabbit Pot Pie..

Filling

2 large rabbit hind legs with thighs, baked and meat pulled and diced, or two rabbits front legs, or the whole front of the rabbit baked off and meat pulled, in England, they tended to bake them bone in, but most folks now would debone

A onion peeled and diced

half a cup of any color root veggies you could get your hands on

one cup of cooked diced potato’s can be added if you want a bit more filling pie..

Salt, pepper, with some chopped greens in it, at the time it would have been parsley, but nettles or any other hedgerow greens would work just as well.

Well, most of us would eat our stews as just that back in the day, it was very often wrapped up into dough, it added filling but it also when made the right way was easy to grab, pack and eat as a closed sandwich.

Posted in canadian wartime recipes | Tagged 30 days of wartime recipes, Canadian Wartime Rabbit pie Recipe, canadian wartime recipes, March challange wartime meals, March challange wartime recipes | 2 Comments

March Photo Challenge 2015- 19th

Posted on March 19, 2015 by Just another day on the farm

White Rum is now one month old and yes, he really is about a 3rd of the size of his mother, its not just his fluffy coat, he is just a huge boy and as a single lamb, he is on a nice milky momma sheep and he gets it all.

Brandy is also enjoying the sun and having a nap..

Waiting, Waiting, in the jug, nothing to do but eat, drink, chew cud, rest and wait.. I say, she is having twins and I think twin woollies.. look at the size of that belly! They are starting to shed their under wool coat in tuffs now.. It always amazes me that they are hair sheep in the heat, grow in a wool undercoat and then shed it naturally each spring, the local birds love it to make nests with.

Posted in March Challange | Tagged March Photo Challange 2015 | 2 Comments

March Photo Challenge -18th

Posted on March 19, 2015 by Just another day on the farm

My Sweet Girl Bubbles, had a lovely set of twins waiting for us this morning in the barn, one wooly and one hair in type both ewes, she says, she got this.. they are doing so well but its very cold

so for the little hair lamb who is about a 3rds smaller then her big boned, tall and all legs Wooly sister got her little wee lamb jacket. She is so pretty, four white socks, a big old white tail tip, white blaze on her face and some white hip coloring..

Both of them are strong, up and active in their nursing.. I will be tracking this wool cross female as closely as I have been the boy, nicknamed White Rum aka Rum.