Just another Day on the Farm

Ham and Cabbage Soup Recipe- Flash Back Friday

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

Half a Head of Cabbage -Diced
One med size Onion-Diced
One clove Garlic
1/2 cup Barley
12 cups lamb bone broth
1/2 cup of left over chopped cooked ham
1/4th cup of dried Stinging Nettle
Spices -A pinch of Basil, parsley, salt and pepper.

Put a tablespoon of olive oil in the large steel soup pot, and add the onion/garlic, cook till clear, then add the chopped cabbage, and cook till you are getting brown bits on the cabbage, then add broth, barley and spices, cook for about 40 min or until Barley is done.

This recipe made me 3 one liter jars of soup. The is a very frugal meal, About 50 cents worth of cabbage, I got the ham on sale and it worked out to about 33 cents worth, the onion 10 cents, the garlic 10 cents, about 20 cents worth of barley and the broth was homemade, most of the spices were homegrown.. salt/pepper another 10 cents.. for a total of 1.33 for the pot of soup, it made six servings of two cups per serving, so .22 cents per meal.. its does not get much better then that.. and its very healthy to boot..

Posted in Food Production and Recipes, frugal | Tagged cup Barley, Food Production and Recipes, Frugal, Ham an Cabbage Soup, salt and pepper | Leave a comment

Thank you!

Posted on January 22, 2015 by Just another day on the farm

Look what came in the mail.. a wonderful leather cover for journels.. It was handmade by a very old and dear friend from my collage days.. I do not get to see you guys near enough, but I love having little keepsakes in the house and heart.

Posted in Life moves on daily | 2 Comments

Mimi

Posted on January 21, 2015 by Just another day on the farm

Introducing Mimi, our newest purrpot, a very sweet seal lynx bicolor pointed kitty, her coloring will continue to darken and fill in with age, but her bright blue eyes will stay.. very hard to get her to hold still enough to get a couple good photos

Posted in Life moves on daily | Tagged Introducing Mimi, Mimi, purrpot | 4 Comments

Vertical Gardening

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

hmmm, nothing wrong with the rustic look 🙂 Easy to make and functional..

A little more structure, steel and wire..

Some of our other creative ways over the years, this was a free grown plant that had self-seeded and it was growing like crazy, but needed to get off the ground, it was a old fenced door and hubby just nailed onlegs, so it was a four foot lift and grower.

But 2015 is going to be a build them year.. Right now I am gathering info.. these are the main three I am looking at adding.

one – cattle Panel grow over.. but I would plant shade loving plants under instead of the pathway.

two- these are the same thing but one is rustic and local sources and the other is store bought and made.. both are great ideas, very sturdy, I most likely will be going rustic

Still researching in regards to my planned big wire cages for tomato or peppers or xx..

I am so tired of investing in cages that can not hold up to the weight and the tomato getting wasted because they droop to much.

Posted in gardens | Tagged Rustic Garden trellus, Vertial Gardening | 5 Comments

Canning up farm fruits in Winter

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

Doing up the odds and ends in the freezer these days.. now I surely would have caught these lovelies much earlier on a normal year but 3 bag held enough fruit to do a single jam or jelly recipe.. two however where just leftover bits.

The new and interesting combo was the jam that ended up 2-3rd Ground Cherry and 1-3rd Rasberry

Turns out this is a awesome blend of flavours.. its so good it will be repeated, I followed the basic Rasberry Jam recipe leaving in the seeds from the Certo Package

Posted in food, frugal | Tagged Green gooseberry, ground cherry, rasberry, Red Currents, red gooseberry | 1 Comment

Laundry in Winter!

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

We all have that image, a warm sunny summer day, pretty bright sheets flapping in the wind, You in your pretty summer flock, with a sturdy laundry basket on your hip. O the smell when you breath it in, and later that night when you slip into bed.. not just new sheet night but outside line dried new sheet night..

Now lets flip that to winter shall we..

Tromp, Tromp there another new six inches of snow.. opps hit a drift, make that a foot of snow..

Frozen pins on the line.. Heavy wet already freezing cloths in the basket that you have perched on your winter jacket, under which you have three layers, you will learn fast that glove wearing and hanging of laundry do not mix well..

O sure, where them hauling the basket and getting the prep work done and for sure, get your hands back into as fast as possible when you are done.. but plan on cold wet freezing hands..

The sheets now are heavy already freezing clumps that do not want to shake out.. the bitter winter winds are pushing at your back and making it even harder to get that sheet up and spread on the line..

Cold noses, if you are doing a full line on a rock solid winter day and you can expect numb fingers at the end and forget that pretty flapping look.. those puppies can freeze on the line into stiff lumps faster then you can say… WHY am I doing this! LOL

Back to the house.. Stomp, Stromp.. brrrrrr…

Repeat hours later, and then shake them hard in the house, and if you are me, into the dryer for that last five to ten min fluff and hair removal..

All that to save 45 min of dry time per load.. well and that fresh line winter dried scent.. It can not be snow scented but it is something that only comes in winter whatever it is..

So do you hang cloths out to dry in winter.. do you do it till truly dried stiff or do you mostly dry out there and then finish in the dryer for fluffing and or lines etc

Posted in frugal | Tagged Drying your sheets on the line in winter, Freeze drying of cloths, Winter line drying for cloths | 7 Comments

One Pint equals one pound of Meat..

Posted on January 18, 2015 by Just another day on the farm

, so

We are getting going on processing out a goodly amount (several hundred pounds over the next while) of beef, pork and rabbit into jars, not to happy to have to do it hot pack method but just do not have room or time to thaw the meat to cold pack it.. So we are cooking it off and hot packing it.. I am willing to do that with burger and beef as there is a number of dishes that it will work with but will not be doing that with the rabbit or the stew meats. Raw pack gives a different outcome over hot pack and I prefer it.

Here is one pressure canner full from yesterday all washed and boxed up ready to head down to the cellar.. Which when its fully loaded looks a lot like this..

but right now.. its about half empty.. to be fair it is the middle of winter and hubby froze a lot of stuff I normally can but to be honest, its looking a little bare down there..

We need to focus on our gardens this year and get things put away!

What are you doing this fine sunday in the hard cold part of winter!

Posted in food | Tagged Canning Beef.., hot pack | 14 Comments

Chili and Cheese Calzone

Posted on January 17, 2015 by Just another day on the farm

We have seen them in the different pizza places but lets face it, Calzones can be as easy or as tricky as you want..

If you want, you can oil them up and herb the outside, you can make the inside pretty fancy, I have done a lovely steak, pepper, mushroom with a cream garlic sauce that is a hit for everyone that had had it..

or you can sometimes just make them because its a perfect way to put together a fast but tasty meal..

I made a huge batch of buns for a birthday party that I will be going to, along with a big! batch of my chili and I had enough leftover bread for two big buns, I made it into flattened dough, slapped it into a cast iron pan on med-higher head, strained out some meat, mushrooms and onions from the chili pot, grated some cheese and as fast as you can say yum.. If I was going to do it again, I might have added in some fresh crispy bites of a pepper if I had one to add to it.

We were sitting down to fresh Cast iron Calzones.. so good..

Posted in food | Tagged Calzones, Chili and cheese Calzone, Quick lunchs | 6 Comments

Roast with winter Veggies.

Posted on January 17, 2015 by Just another day on the farm

I mean really is there anything easier then a lovely roast with winter veggies and some spices, the broth makes a o my goodness mouth watering gravy.

In this case it was a gifted Deer roast but Beef or lamb or Pork or even a whole chicken would do..

Thaw your meat out, you want it cold but not frozen at all..

Peel and then sliced your onions into thick rounds for the meat to sit on, same with a few garlic cloves, I covered the meat with montreal steak spice, and then I filled in the area around with purple cabbage, celery and carrots.. added in some water to the bottom and into a slow oven at 325 for around four hours..

After the veggies were fork tender, I took out the meat and veggies, and made a corn starch mix with a bit of water and thickened up the juices into a fine meat juice and veggie gravy..

If you wanted you could have served it with fluffy mashed potatos on the side.. but we just enjoyed the veggies as is..

Posted in Life moves on daily | Tagged Pot Roast with winter veggies | 8 Comments

Got my Pork weights back..

Posted on January 16, 2015 by Just another day on the farm

I am still waiting for the ham to come back so the pickup will not happen for another week or so

But I wanted to have a idea of the amount of meat, in pounds coming back and the cost that I needed to get together.. O my goodness..

I have 776 pounds of pork, coming back, burger, strew, chops, Bacon and ham coming home.. Almost eight hundred pounds of trimmed, boned cut wrapped and in some cases cured and smoked pork..

WOW.. just wow.. I really thought I would get less then that, I was expecting five to six hundred by the time, I did not ask for certain things that I normally do, I did not ask for the heads back , I could not stand the idea of seeing them.. I did not ask for the tail or the hocks, again because I would have known who was who. I even deboned different parts that I rarely do, to help me with my.. wigs.. I know I know.. I will get over it, but these things help with the fact that I am still having a hard time.

What this means in layman terms is that I will need to can at least a couple hundred pounds of burger and stew meat in pretty rapid order..

Given that I already needed to can around 200 or so jar of beef, adding in 200 to 300 jars of pork is going to be a goodly amount of work indeed.

I have two pressure canners, that can do 18 pints per, so 36 pints on double loads at a time.. I will be pushing it, I rarely have 500 or more jars open in the pantry, I have around 1100 to 1200 jars in the house.

On top of that, I am planning on butchering Rabbits this weekend and as I have NO room what so ever in my freezers, I will need to can them, it takes one quart jar per rabbit and so that will use another twenty plus quarts out of my stash.

So let me ask you.. do you have a extra 500 empty just waiting to be filled jars in your pantry if you need to suddenly can a whole deer, moose, beef or xxx

I am hopeful that I will have enough lids as well, but need to do a count on them..