March Challange 2012-Overview

Posted on April 1, 2012 by Just another day on the farm

Well, a year has come and gone between march challange 2011 and march challange 2012 and I have to admit that while I did better at keeping to the challange in 2011 (never cheating once) were as is in 2012, out of 93 meals and 62 snacks, we had five opps in terms of eating something at a meal that should not have been eaten.. I know… I know.. BAD farmgal!

Now that I have the owning up done, lets get to the meat of the challange, and that was that I was very succesful at filling in any and all blanks in the food storage and pantry that was found in 2011, the simple truth of the matter was there was no found gaps in 2012 in regards to anything that could be there..

I wanted some fresh things, like crunchy sweet-sour apples, but the truth was I had dried apples, chunky apple sauce and a ton of apple sauce in the house.  It was like this in over an over again, would like fresh peppers, but have jars of dried peppers or bags of frozen peppers in the house, or jars of salsa.

Meat was pretty much the same, canned, dried, or frozen, or fresh if you were willing to butcher to get it.. and there was done of things to make many, many different dishes.. When it came to dried goods, rice, barley, oats, coucous and flours of different kinds all made their way to the cooking..

Having the farm to including the fresh things both from the barns and the yard with our unnatural mild weather, meant I was able to start bringing in new fresh greens, sprouting was also used for add crunch and flavour, and then throw in the dozens and dozen of eggs coming into the house and in no way! were we lacking.

The biggest thing I found in this challange was not that my pantry or my farm didn’t cover the basic’s it was that I got tired of never having a break from it..  I need to make more things that can be done up as “quick” meals, make and freeze a batch of buns just so there are there when needed, break out more pickles an or salsa for crunch in dishes, make and freeze some meat filled dumplings, make some pizza’s and get them in the freezer ready to go etc

While in the cold of winter, I love being able to reach for soups or stews in the spring or summer, I want different foods and sometimes I don’t want to make them always myself.. that was what I learned this march challange..

I love to cook, I think anyone that has read the blog for a while know’s I love to cook but sometimes everyone needs a  break.. and that is what I learned, I need to plan and make ahead break meals and I need to be just a touch more willing to call it a “you are on your own meal” now and again..

Posted in March Challange | 3 Comments

A little Farmgal Family History- The first of my family to come to canada on my mothers-mothers side..

Posted on March 30, 2012 by Just another day on the farm

We first hear of Lt. William Graves (1) in the Township of Granville, Annapolis Valley, Nova Scotia, Canada.  In a Confirmation of Land Grants, 1764, William Graves was given lot number 11 in Granville Township.  This land grant was awarded to William as a result of his military service in the French and Indian Wars which ended in 1763.

It is believed that the parents of William may have been Thomas Graves and Ann Stone.

Massachusetts Officers in the French and Indian Wars, edited by Nancy S. Voye, shows William Graves having two tours of duty.  His rank is Lt.; residence in Massachusetts is Weston.  From Nov. 2, 1759 until July 1, 1760 (43 weeks, 5 days) he was in Annapolis, Nova Scotia, in Capt. Daniel Fletcher’s Company, under Colonel Frye.  He signed on for another tour of duty, remaining in Nova Scotia, stationed in Annapolis Royal in Capt. Jabez Snow’s Company from July 2, 1760 until Dec. 16, 1760 (33 weeks).

It is not known whether William returned to Massachusetts at the end of his duty.  He married Elizabeth Williams in 1760 in Granville.  No exact date of marriage has been found.  Their first child, William, Jr., was born Sept. 1761 in Nova Scotia.  This would seem to indicate that William never returned to the Colonies (at least not for any length of time) after being stationed in Annapolis during the Wars.

A Nova Scotia 1770 census for Granville, Annapolis Valley, lists “Lt. William Graves and family of 1 woman, 2 boys, and 1 girl: 5 Protestants from America”.  Nova Scotia land records state that William applied for land “on the river of Annapolis Royal” sometime before 1777.  In 1783 William and his eldest son, William, Jr., crossed the Bay of Fundy (the body of water separating Nova Scotia from New Brunswick) and joined the Loyalist settlers in New Brunswick.  They arrived in Saint John, New Brunswick, and received a grant of 2,000 acres bordering on Kennebecasis Bay on the outskirts of the loyalist city of Saint John.

The Story of Sussex (New Brunswick) and Vicinity by Grace Aiton states “the two Williams (father and son) made their way up the Kennebecasis in Indian canoes and camped on the site now occupied by the Penobsquis United Baptist Church before settling at Springdale.  From there they spread up the Portage Valley and were the first to make use of the upper reaches of the river for the operating of mills.  William, the son, was the noted strong man of his day, and he thought nothing to harness himself to a sled loaded with farm produce and haul it over the frozen river’s surface to Saint John.”

“love that qoute, even 9 generations ago the men where built like bulls LOL”

Since William’s wife, Elizabeth, did not accompany him and their son to New Brunswick, it is assumed she was deceased.  Family stories say she died in Nova Scotia and was buried there in Annapolis Valley.  No death record or marked grave exists to verify this.

A book written on the history of Granville in Annapolis Valley states that William and Elizabeth’s other son and daughter remained in Nova Scotia.  They both married, had children, and a few of their descendants remained in Nova Scotia at the time this book was written (in 1888).  An Elias Graves, born 1766, was granted land in Aylesford Township in 1810.  There he married Miriam Parker in 1792 and raised their children.  Since it is recorded he moved to Aylesford from Annapolis, it would seem very likely this Elias was the other son of William and Elizabeth listed in the 1770 census.  There is also a record of Sarah Graves, born about 1768, who married Joshua Fowler on 26 Feb. 1792.  She may have been the daughter of William and Elizabeth.  There are no birth or baptism records to verify these assumptions.

It is not recorded when or where Lt. William Graves, Sr., died, but it is assumed to be in New Brunswick, probably in Kings County where he had settled with his son, William Jr.

Then cross over to the armstrong side of the family.. as well as over the sea and you can track it back to the 11th century..

The origins of this powerful Border family are said to go back to a “Siward Digry” (sword strong arm) who was the last Anglo-Danish Earl of Northumberland and a nephew of King Canute, who reigned in the 11th century. The name became widespread in the north of England and the Scottish Borders but their main power base became Liddesdale in the Borders. Gilbert Armstrong was a steward of King David IIand in 1363 acted as an ambassador to the English court of King Edward III

The family grew in strength and could muster 3,000 horsemen and virtually controlled the whole Border region at one stage. This meant that they were in a more or less constant state of conflict with the English lords and earls on the other side of the border with England.

The power of the Armstrongs became a perceived threat to the monarch of Scotland and King James V (who reigned from 1513 to 1542) tricked John Armstrong of Kilnockie into meeting him at Hawick – and promptly hanged him. A few years later, however, the Armstrongs refused to support King James V’s invasion of England. It is possible that this made a difference at the Battle of Solway in 1542, which cost King James his life.

The Union of the Crowns in 1603 brought an official end to the cross-border conflicts but old habits died hard. In 1610 the Armstrong laird was hanged for a reiving (cattle rustling) raid on Penrith. The Armstrongs were scattered at that time and there has been no chief of the clan since then. Many Armstrongs moved to Northern Ireland and also around the world.

The most travelled Armstrong has to be Neil Armstrong who was the first man to walk on the moon.

The Armstrong motto is “Invictus maneo” which means “I remain unvanquished”.

Posted in Family | 8 Comments

Food Storage Friday-03-30-2012

Posted on March 30, 2012 by Just another day on the farm

Welcome to another round of food storage friday.. the problem is, nothing is new!! No really, its quiet around here, sort of.. I have been playing with recipes, and tripe, bone marrow and quail this week.. its been fun but not very food storage related..

I’m not adding anything to the storage because the few things coming are being eaten fresh, and I’m buying things.. so.. lets say all well in food storage and take ourselves to future of what will provide food to stored 🙂

Lets talk about using stones to create mini heat sinks in spring to help get a head start on just one or two plants of different things for the purpose not of the main harvest but for kitchen use..

I think this is something that is not talk enough about in regular garden books, they talk about planting whole rows and then processing amount of x for day and then done, I’m game for that, we need it for our canning/pantry filling gardens but we also need to kitchen garden, and that is slightly different.. This plant should not even seeded out yet in regular garden, but here it sits in a hot manure box greenhouse with a rock heat sink, almost six weeks early and the joy of it is, by the time it does need the help or the protection and it will overrun and outgrow its planting area, the weather will be perfect, and I will have summer eating squash by may for my kitchen use!

Do you use rocks to create micro-heat sinks in your garden? Do you use rocks in your garden to create water holding spots in your garden? Do you move your rocks around during the season for different uses? Do you watch ditches or walks to find the right size and shape of rocks to be used in different ways in your gardens?

 

Posted in Life moves on daily | 2 Comments

Fire Grilled Quail Recipe with instuctions on how to spatchcock it first..

Posted on March 29, 2012 by Just another day on the farm

I think I will start with the finished dish and the recipe first then show how to do the spatchcock afterwards.. I know that this picture does not do this justice but I promise you this got a five out five from DH and it was lick your fingers good!

Spatchcock the quail (see below, its super easy) and then make the marinade..

Marinade Recipe

  • 3 tbsp or so of olive oil,
  • 2 crush garlic cloves
  • 1 tsp of red wine vinegar
  • 1/4 cup of good quality soy sauce of any kind you like.
  • 1 tsp of raw honey
  • Salt, fresh cracked black pepper or just use Montreal steak spice if you like it.

Mix it together, cover the quail and allow to sit together for at least 40 min but I did mine an hour..

Then as its cold, damp and windy, I didn’t make the fire, I did it in the oven in cast iron but it still turned out fab but the recipe calls for it on the BBQ. So I pre-heated my oven to 400 and put a little good bone marrow fat in the cast iron to get hot, then I put the quail in it, I basted once and added the last of the sauce in the pan and deglazed the pan with it and it was so good, we drizzled it on everything on the plate. Grill or bake for about 10 to 15 min.

Now all spatchcocking the quail mean is that you are going to take poultry shears or a very sharp knife in my case and cut along either side of the backbone and then remove it. Place your quail breast up on the cutting boards and open up the ribcage pushing down firmly to flatten the bird for even cooking..

 

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Roasted Bone Marrow-With recipes..

Posted on March 29, 2012 by Just another day on the farm

This is a nod to my beloved Grandpa, who I remember as a child encourging me to try that lovely roasted bone marrow on my pork chops,while he smacked his lips over his.. This one is for you!

I have a couple different recipes, Grass-fed bone marrow is going to be alot more healthy for you, then feedlot bone marrow will be, but that is the case for all kinds of meat. See if you can find a local farmer that is butchering whole, and the odds are good you can wrangle some “soup” bones out of him and voila.. bone marrow included!

This is one of those things that is eaten world wide and by almost every single culture, it is even featured in some of counties national dishes, it was so popular in England and Europe that at one time, they had their own marrow spoon’s made..

Typically roasted bone marrow is served with on toast, with a sprinkle of course sea salt.. but there are so many other things to do with bone marrow.. I decided to show two uses in the same dish..

So you have lovely oven roasted bone with marrow in, served with freshly done bone marrow baking powder biscuits, or you can make these into dumplings if you perfer.

Ideally you want bones that have a hole on both ends so you can push, but as its going to be used in the biscuits, you can dig it out if you need to.. let them sit at room temp for at least 20 or 30 min till they are softened a bit, then you can either push the whole peice out or you can dig it out.. once the fat is out, chop into small cubes, and use as the fat in your typical baking powder biscuits.. However if you are roasting your bones to scoop, pick the ones that are open only at one end 🙂 this photo is of a whole peice pushed out, and then sliced into rounds for me to make planned coming dish, breaded and fried melt in your mouth bone marrow croutons!

  • 1 4 inch beef bone marrow cubed.
  • 1/2 tsp of salt
  • 1 tbsp of baking powder
  • 1 tbsp of sugar
  • 2 cups of flour
  • 1 cup of milk

Just gently mix though, its a soft drop style biscuits, bake at 350 till golden brown..

When you roast your bones, put a wooden stick down the middle it should go in with no push back and it will get brown and puffy on the top..

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Garden “monday” and Monthly “How does your Garden Grow”

Posted on March 29, 2012 by Just another day on the farm

Ok, I need an extra 6 hours in each of my days at the moment LOL, Spring came early and I have hit the ground running but I feel like we are going!, going! but never quite getting there if I know what I mean.. O well, it will all come together over the next month or so I hope!

Plant something: Tomato, Peppers, Green onions, leeks, ground cherry’s, greens, spinach, assorted herbs, pea’s, beans, sqaush, pumpkin, some mixed different flowers.

Harvest something: Everything counts – Wild greens, Daylily bulbs, horseradish, Pea Shoots, Mixed greens, Spinach, Eggs, Milk, Duck, Chicken. Successfully transplanted 5 new grape vines that was started last year.

Preserve something: Yogurt, Soft Yogurt Cheese, Cured a leg of lamb

Waste not: Regular farm closed loop composting.

Want Not: 6 spend day out of 29, all quiet on this front!

Eat the Food: Food storage Friday and Opps!

Build community food systems: Working on hosting a free plant swap, we will see what comes of it.

Skill up: Pruning, Hugelculture working and building, Grooming, and foot care on critters, Worked the draft cow. Started new grape vines.

Running total for 2012- FarmGal-How does your garden grow.

Total output : Seeds- 146 dollars, One order for Fruits, Fruit Bushes 55 dollars and a second order of native fruiting bushes 166 dollars, Supplements for the garden and soil building etc 143 dollars

Impute’s : Sprouts $18  Greens $26 Pea Shoots-$8 Wild Greens-$12 Maple Syrup-$40, Green Onions-$2

Output : $510

Impute : $106

In  the hole by $404

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Herbed Quail on a Bed of Root Veggies

Posted on March 28, 2012 by Just another day on the farm

As quail are such tiny little birds, I would recommend one for each person in your dish, keep in mind that each will give you right around the perfect meat portion, but you will need to bring the rest of the plate together around it to make it a filling meal.

You can certainly play around with this in terms of your portions of root veggies but for this dish, i did a mix of fresh and a mix of dried that was soaked before using.. for most folks first try’s, stick with the fresh, unless you know how things come back or if drying changes your texture or cooking times..

For a two person Serving..

  • 1/2 head of small green cabbage, sliced into 1/2 stripes, core and top leaves removed.
  • 1 large onion, peeled and sliced into thick stripes
  • 2 cloves of garlic- Peeled and sliced
  • 1 large carrot -Peeled and sliced into stripes or thick cubes
  • 2 apples -peeled or not, sliced into thick slices
  • 1/4th of a med turnip- peeled and cut into stripes or thick cubes
  • A good drizzle of your best olive oil, salt, fresh cracked black pepper, some dried greens, some dried basil, and a little pinch of hot peppers.
  • Place all the above done in a bowl, and toss it with your oil and spices, pour it into a shallow baking tray, you want it double layered in size.
  • Take your quail and put a pat of butter and cube of turnip inside them, season them well and give them a rub with your olive oil, then if you have it or want to give them a bacon wrapping and place them one layer down,so they are resting on a bed of the mixed root veggies, with the second layer of veggies around them. Now when you are playing around with your veggies, don’t take out the cabbage as you need it to help provide the extra moisture to the dish.. unless you replace it with sqaush cubes or sweet potato cubes, that might work?
  • Roast for in a 350 oven with the dish covered, until the veggies are just done, you can check your quail as well but I find that by the time the veggies are done, so are they, if you want a crispy skin, take off the cover for the last ten or so min.
  • When done, I like to pull the legs, and thighs off as a whole peice, remove the back, place the peices as seen above, you can choose to serve it whole if you wish to do so.
Posted in Food Production and Recipes | Tagged , , , | 3 Comments

Savoury Hidden Tripe Stew Recipe

Posted on March 27, 2012 by Just another day on the farm

This rich and filling recipe is perfect for somone who has never had tripe before, it was inspired by a recipe from the odd bits cookbook but modified to match what I had in my own pantry..

Savoury Hidden Tripe Stew Recipe

  • 1/2 pds of cleaned and prepared tripe
  • 1 pint jar of diced onions and tomato’s-Spiced
  • 1 pint of my red pepper pasta sauce
  • 1 pint of lamb or beef broth
  • 1 large onion-diced
  • 2 cloves of garlic
  • 1 large carrot diced
  • 1 large stalk of celery diced
  • 1 pint of canned chickpea’s
  • 1 cup of dried pasta
  • Salt, pepper, and Basil flakes to taste..

Simmer your onions, galic then add everything but the pasta and rinsed chickpea’s, bring to boil, then turn down to a steady slow simmer on the stove for about 1 and half to two hours, start checking your tripe every 15 min or so until its reach the desired tenderness, then add your pasta and chickpea’s, cook till done and serve.. the joy of this dish is that the chewy pasta parts are almost identical to the chewy sauce filled peices of cooked tripe.

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Preparing Tripe for use…

Posted on March 26, 2012 by Just another day on the farm

Tripe is the stomach of ruminants that has been been cleaned and blanched, where as green tripe has been cleaned but not blanched or bleached..

There are four kinds of tripe, Blanket, Honeycomb (or Bonnet as its called by the french), book tripe, and the last is reed tripe. The most common available in N.A. tends to be honeycomb tripe.

So the first thing to learn is how to blanch your tripe, for each pd of tripe you need four cups of water/1 tbsp of coarse sea salt, and half a cup of lemon juice, or if you are lucky enough to use a fresh lemon, the juice plus add the lemon halfs. Bring to boil uncovered, then drain the tripe, and rince it well under cool water, then pat dry and set aside.

As the tripe is blanched and slighty precooked, it makes figuring out your cooking times a bit tricky, so check at the half way point and check often, as cooking times are guide only.

Once your tripe is blanched out and cold, you might find that you will need to do a little work to make it all the same thickness so that your cooking is even, as you can see, there can be thick spots where it can be double the thickness, butterfly cut them open to be able to lay them out to the same height as the rest…

Here is my finished tripe, cleaned, blanched, pre-cooked, trimmed and cut into its cooking peices..

 

 

 

Posted in 100 mile diet, Food Production and Recipes | 8 Comments

Skunk on the farm..it must be spring..

Posted on March 26, 2012 by Just another day on the farm

What a morning, why could the blasted skunk not come when it was warm out, O no, its got to show up just as the temps dip and and the wind chill factor will rip right though you this morning, and of course I ran out without proper gear..  Maybe I should back up a bit..

So a little while ago the hounds were going nuts, I had gone to the window three times, thinking someone here, this was not just a lower and slower alarm woof-woof-woof, this had included some straight out 000000000 and back lunging with hair coming up, and when the hounds do that I am up and checking things out.. but I couldn’t see anything out of place, I even stepped out onto the deck both front and back, nothing that I could see or hear..

Then I heard it, Honk the guard goose was going nuts, the chickens were freaking out, and there it was, a young (most likely a year old) skunk trying to find its way into the outdoor chicken pen, with honk on the other side, hissing and pacing for all he was worth..

Now I have been skunked before in my life and I really perfer to move them along without them spraying as much as possable, we have had a few skunks on the farm before, always in spring, typically young and normally they find my outdoor kitty free feeder before they try and find the chickens pens.

So out I go and then stop, huh, what is the plan here, think for half a second and I go to the brown shed, grab the moving critter wooden shield and the rake and I’m off on remove the pretty little very much looks like a girl skunk (I think they are such lovely critters, at one time, I really did alot of research on having a altered/desented one for a pet) and she is not at all certain what to do with this mad women coming at her, thankfully I had put on warm dark colors this morning but she did three waddles in different directions with me slowly and carefully blocking her with the solid board before she finally half turned and gave me a good warning, at which we had stall mate.. just kind of stood there freezing..

She gave me a look overand then slow, very so slowly turned and started waddling the directions I wanted her to, and I slowly followed one step at a time, over and down the driveway, across the road and back into the woods where finally she took off at a run..

The real question is will she be back or will she move on.. please, please move on…

Update: Clearly she went to Farm T’s and had a run in with her loose yard dogs, as I was just letting my own hounds out for a pee and the breeze is carrying skunk on it..

Posted in Critters | 6 Comments