Just another Day on the Farm

Goose Breast Stirfry served with a bed of creamy mashed spuds

Posted on February 3, 2014 by Just another day on the farm

Goose Beast Stirfry Recipe

Skinned, aged, cubed Goose Breast
one large onion- diced
One Red Pepper, half yellow pepper, half orange pepper
cup of mushrooms, whatever kind you like
one large carrot, thinly sliced
Salt, Pepper, if you had it, a half cup fresh chopped greens, garlic
Pot of creamy mashed potatoes

Take your onions and meat, with a bit of oil, heated to a med-heat, then cook your onion, and then added the meat, once started, the add the rest of the prepared veggie, cook just till tender.

12 Months- 12 Give-A-Ways- Lotion Bars

Posted on February 2, 2014 by Just another day on the farm

Hello Folks

Let’s put a little smile into this Feb 2nd for me, I have been busy, cooking, canning, lotion making, might even do a that baby soap with photo for a post later, must talk about feeling better after just two days of sleeping on my new feather tick undermat (more on that later) On with the show as they say?!

I am giving away two homemade heart shaped (unscented) Lotion bars.

They are made out of raw but filtered beeswax, Coconut Oil and Sweet Almond Oil.

As this basic recipe uses the 1/3rd of each, I made six hearts, so each bar is right around 2 oz in size. Its a nice hand held size. (I am not sure that I think you need quite as much beeswax, but I always try and follow the rules when I start and work my way to what I like best)

What is a lotion bar?

A lotion bar is a solid moisturizer. It bears resemblance to a soap bar, but it functions as a lotion. Usually made out of natural ingredients, lotion bars stay solid as long as they are kept at room temperature or lower. They’re activated by body heat and can be used anywhere on the body.

How to use it..

Using a lotion bar is easy; those who want to moisturize their bodies simply can take the lotion bar into their hands and warm it with them. The heat emanating from their hands will melt a small portion of the bar. From there, users can rub the lotion onto the body part that needs moisturizing. Remember it is to be used on dry skin, not wet skin from the shower, it can be used for your hands or any other dry skin spot, once its warmed up and working, in the summer heat, you will find that it will need to be kept cool, but will be fine at room temp.

Anything different I should know?

Yes, it will feel a bit greasy compared to lotion, but it will sink in a min or two and then you will get a very light sealing effect from the beeswax that will help keep your skin feeling very soft indeed.

I made these uncolored, unscented in order to “hopefully” keep the gift giving to the biggest group possible.

This Gift-Giving is open to anyone, anywhere.

The rules are going to be dead simple, if you want in on the draw, comment! If you comment on the Give-A-Way post, you are entered, but! if you comment on other posts though out the month, you will get one extra ticket in the draw.

This is a way to say give a little extra thank you to my regular readers that interact with me, you make my day, sometimes a little comment or question is just the most perfect thing for me to get, so I want to give a little bit back on that.

PS, all things given will be made or grown or harvested or bought by me, all things given will be shipped at the most reasonable costs possible.

However, you only get one extra for the month, not one extra for each comment

No one can win more then three times during the year, and you can’t win more often then once every three months, so as an example, if queen wins month one, even if she comments on month two or three, she won’t be able to win until the next quarter.

Now if you enter and win, be aware you have to be willing to give me your name and mailing address to get it to you

Posted in Life moves on daily | Tagged 12 months 12 give a ways, Hard Lotion Bar | 25 Comments

Garden plans for 2014

Posted on February 2, 2014 by Just another day on the farm

I’m going lean this year.. I want to produce a lot of food, I need to restock the larder and pantry.. This is only counting thing that need to be replanted yearly in the gardens.

Tomato’s- 50 plants of sauce tomato’s, 5 of cherry tomato’s, and 5 of fresh eating tomato’s

Pepper Plants- 24 plants- Basic Green, that turn to red, medium size peppers

Hot Peppers- 4 plants- for making ground dried hot pepper spice

* Added in two more Hot pepper kinds and plan for another six to eight plants for Christmas presents.

Carrots – Basic regular orange carrots

Parsnip-One row

Beets- Round red beets, Golden beets, and Candy Beets, long beets (for slicing)

*Added in three more kinds of beets in seeds, so more rows of beets will be needed.

Cucumbers- 12 pickling, and four plants fresh eating.

Ground Cherries -12 plants

*plus all the extra babies that grow up and will be moved to rows or food forest etc.

Green Beans- Multiply plantings, many rows of dark green beans

Scarlet runner beans

Three rows of beans for drying and storage- Update later on them

* in total, I have 22 different beans that are going to be grown this year, some fresh, almost all of them are going to be drying beans for future use at some point, all heritage beans, some are good for canning as well. Some are going for planned xmas presents.

Broccoli- Three different plantings of six to a dozen plants each

Brussel Sprout plants- 12

Onions- Green onions and yellow winter keeping onions

Cabbage- Green Hard core- Winter keepers- One row

Turnips- One row- White with purple top and one row Rutabega (yellow flesh)

Raddish- Many sowings and crops

Greens- Extra Greens for freezing for winter use and or drying.. all kinds of the regular greens I grow.

Peanuts- One Row

Cerlic-One row

Kohlarbi-One row- Green and Purple -Mainly fresh eatin but not all.

Melon- Sweet Baby watermelon, Cantalope

Sugar pea’s -Fresh eating and freezing

Pea’s Freshing eat (never have enough to freeze)

Corn-Popcorn only -buy corn to can when ready and fresh.

Squash-

Winter- Butternut -A full row, so 48 plants worth

Summer- zucchini, green- 12 plants

Pumpkin- pie

Potatoes

Red, Yukon, pinks

* Added in six more kinds of spuds, all to give them a try and see how they do..

Sweet potato’s- 25 slips, all short season for our area..

Soft fruit, adding in another 60 early season raspberry canes

Posted in Life moves on daily | Tagged Garden Plans for 2014, Growing for the canning season, Growing to feed you for the coming year, Growing to fill the pantry | 19 Comments

In loving memory of our daughter Maeve

Posted on February 2, 2014 by Just another day on the farm

In loving memory of our daughter Maeve, if you had stayed with us, you would be 14 years old today.. A Maiden now you would be, Gone but never forgotten.

We had you with us for a five days, I loved before you were born, I loved you when you with us and I love you now..

Posted in Life moves on daily | 3 Comments

Baked Goose Breast with Fruit compote side

Posted on February 1, 2014 by Just another day on the farm

Recipe- Goose Breast with Fruit Compote Side. (Part of the Great Goose Challenge)

Two large goose breasts

One large Onion- Peeled and Slice

One large apple – Sliced and Cored

1/4th cup of cranberries

1/4th cup of goose berries

Salt, Pepper, Cracked Lemon Pepper, All-Spice, Nutmeg, and a touch of cinnamon.

Baked till tender at 350, then take out the meat and slice, mash the fruit/onions together and serve with.

Posted in Food Production and Recipes | Tagged Baked Goose Breast with Fruit Compote | 2 Comments

12 Letters in 12 Months -Feb Report

Posted on February 1, 2014 by Just another day on the farm

Well, I have been super proactive on the Jan letters, I not only got my two letters off to the Nieces, I got a letter sent to my mom with photo’s and a letter sent to my dad with photos as well..

Feb’s cards, photos and sticker books had where bright and colorful..

But that was not the only mail packages that were sent, you see we have been sending two to four photos per letter to the girls and so Dh came up with this great idea of sending them each a photo album and that way, they can put their photos in it and by the end of the year, they will have a album filled with photos of what we have been up to, maybe they will even consider putting a photo or two back into their letter back.

I have not got a letter back yet but their mom says they are coming and I am greatly looking forward to it, in truth, I would be happy just with a picture or a drawing in a card 🙂

they are getting a package sent out as well, they are getting their albums, their heart soaps and a little bag of goodies..

Hopefully it will be meet with smiles all around..

Added in a side note, a dear friend of mine D has asked to get into the letter writing, so she is being added to the roll call and I will be sending her both a card, letter and a few little gifts as well in the updates.

Posted in Life moves on daily | Tagged 12 months 12 letters, A letter a month, Bring back the old fashioned letter, letter, Letter writing, Sending letters to small children | Leave a comment

12 months with 12 sausage recipes

Posted on January 31, 2014 by Just another day on the farm

Well, as I read a comment on how much a reader loves sausage and as I heard my big brother tease me yet again, that since when does someone put wine in sausage, plus a couple visits live with folks about making rabbit sausage or duck sausage, it got me to thinking that it might be fun to do a 12 month-12 sausage recipe challenge for 2014.

So the idea is to not just provide a recipe per month but to talk about different ways to do it, Jan’s sausage is going to be called “winter sausage” its a lamb/beef blend.

The post goes into detail on making a large sausage rather making small or med size sausages. Its nice to sometimes be able to make a two or three pound sausage in a matter of minutes, instead of taking a full hour or more to make the sausages.

Posted in Food Production and Recipes | Tagged 12 months 12 sausage recipes, Homemade sausage recipe for lamb | 3 Comments

And The Winner is…..Lucky Robin

Posted on January 31, 2014 by Just another day on the farm

Congrats Lucky Robin on winning the Jan prize give a away! please send me your mailing address in the comment ( I will use the info but not approve the post, so no one else will see it 🙂

Stay tuned for feb’s give a way coming up.. Thanks to everyone that entered 🙂

Posted in Life moves on daily | Tagged 12 give-a-ways blog, 12 months 12 give a ways, pay it forward | 3 Comments

Sometimes its just not worth doing small sausage.. go BIG!

Posted on January 30, 2014 by Just another day on the farm

I have talked about and shown photos of us making small and medium size sausages but sometimes it not worth the work in doing the small ones, when its just DH and myself.

Sometimes you want the nicely sliceable rounds, you want the super spicy meat, and you want to be able to use it like a sandwich meat or on pizza like pepperoni (without the aging time) or fried sausage rounds for breakfast etc.

Then consider making your sausage in the big bags, these bags hold two to three pounds of meat and make you one big sausage round.

I made one pound of lamb, one pound of beef, 3 tbsp. of spiced dried crumbs, 3 tbsp. of brown sugar (as this is pretty much for hubbies use), 2 tsp of montreal steak spice, 1 tsp of seasoning salt, mix it all together really well, stuff into your pre-soaked bag, now you could put it into the smoker to smoke and cook if you wanted, or in my case, I put it into the fish cooking pan on a nice slow low heat of 300, with water under the raised part and let it simmer away..

Yes, I could have (should have) packed it better, it should not have air pockets but I was not being fussy, it was going to be eaten at home over the next couple days 🙂

Once its cooled, it will be peeled and sliced into rounds for a number of uses in the house, if I had ran it though the grinder on fine, it would be a much finer texture but its just as good as it is at a medium grind 🙂

Posted in Life moves on daily | 7 Comments

Rabbit- The “other” other white meat.

Posted on January 30, 2014 by Just another day on the farm

I roasted off a whole rabbit, picked the meat, and used the bone broth for stew, I love having pulled meat for different uses. This is a lovely Rabbit meat salad this homemade English style pickles (the ones made with brown sugar and a lovely dark rich vinager), so on flax rye bread, it was so good, filling and tasty.

I know that folks buying rabbit meat would want to make a fancy dish out of it, but for those of us that raise our own, we can afford to use it in more common dishes.

I find the fullness of the flavour of rabbit to be very nice, for the new person, the rabbit is closer to what they think of as “store taste chicken” then free range birds are..

How do you like your leftover rabbit to be used? It does not always need to go into soups or stews, sometimes it really nice to allow its flavours to shine.