Food Storage Friday

Posted on January 20, 2012 by Just another day on the farm

Well its been a interesting two weeks since I arrived back home from my trip, I have only added in 5 things from the store to date, everything else is coming from the farm, the pantry or the freezer, I took a good hard look at what I have this week available to me fresh still and think I can make the week without needing to add a trip to the store at all, however Dh has informed me that we are going to be heading to town as he needs a few things from the hardware store for his latest project and wants to hit the feed store for a few things, so while I don’t NEED anything, I will double up and most likely pick up my up to five fresh things limit, I have already gone though the flyers, and if you want a amazing deal on new bedding, towels now would be a good time to buy, but unless its instore, there was nothing much that meant my requirements for the pantry when it came to sales. Lots of crap on sale, nothing much in regards to real food available and even less! on what is winter storage foods from Ontario.

I have noticed something this week that was interesting for every one small meat package taken from the freezer, I am using two to four pint jars of things to create the meal, this means that my home grown and processed stores are going down much faster then my freezers are being emptied, I will have to make more of a effort to include at least one more frozen veggie, greens in per day, to try and level this use out, I am also finding myself reaching for the frozen greens, onions, leeks and garlic much more then I do for the dried, habit to a point but also because the frozen has a much shorter life span then the dried does.

Its lovely to have fresh milk available again and as I had a loss in the barns with a ewe having lost her twins, I now have a full time milker on my hands, as well as up to two half time milkers available to me, on the other hand, my layers are being quite lazy this year, good thing I have a new group up and coming and due to start by March, I am able to have fresh meat by means of the smaller critters on the farm and its being put to good use, you certianly do get tired of only having frozen or canned or preserved meat or at least I do.

I have had a peek in my cold house at my twice covered over winter crops, and I am looking forward to feb when they will start growing again and to having lots of fresh greens for in March this year, while its only Jan, I have to admit that this is the first year that I have really felt that we were good on the homegrown pantry in regards to carrying us though very successfully though to the summer main cropping time.

The highlight of the week was fresh yogurt with strawberry/rhubarb fruit on top.. What was yours? Did you open a new jar of maple syrup? Did you use some of your elderberries for a cold? Did you thrill at the ability to have a homemade “fast food” meal of throw a jar of this meat with that sauce and Voili 15 min later dinner is done? Did you find that you love a new pickle or relish recipe or that you in fact dont! and its going on the never make again list, and you are plotting how to give it away to friends or wondering if just how guilty you will feel about composting it?

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Dark Day’s -Mini Challange-One pot meals

Posted on January 20, 2012 by Just another day on the farm

The Dark Day Girls have decided to offer a few new litle mini challanges, the first one is one pot meals, now this is alot of my meals already. I wanted clean and simple but was craving greens..

Dark Day One Pot Lamb Soup in Broth

1 tsp duck fat (can use whatever oil or fat you want to start your dish)
One Large Onion
6 Large Mushrooms-Diced
2 cups of chopped greens (a mix of spinach, kale, horseradish and Beet Greens, frozen for winter use)
1 tsp of minced garlic
1 tbsp of green onions and leeks (white and green parts), I used a cube of each frozen in water
2 Large Carrots-Peeled and sliced
3 Med Potato’s -Peeled and diced
1 pds of small diced lamb stew meat*
Salt, pepper, Keens Mustard, Turmic, Basil and Ginger to taste
1 quart lamb bone stock, with 1 quart water (this was a very light broth, if you want darker/heavier use a second quart of lamb stock or veggie stock to go with)

I cooked the onions, mushrooms and lamb till onion clear, and meat browned, then I added in the rest and simmered for around 40 to 50 min at a low-med heat, till the veggies were tender and done. Simple, easy and all done in one pot, a good hearty but very healthy winter soup.. * This was young tender spring grass-fed lamb, Its worth noting that this meat was from when I butchered out lamb legs, and that I had made sure to remove all silver skin from the peices(which can make them tough, and is often left on by butchers) as well as cutting off all extra fat bits, which I used to render into tallow, and I cut the peices into about 1/3 of the size typically seen in a store if you are buying beef stew meat.. this means that the meat peices were right around equal to the size of the carrot and potato peices. If you are using older mutton or yearly lamb, or from the butcher lamb stew meat, I would recommend simmering for about another hour or so, till the meat is tender.

Posted in Life moves on daily | 3 Comments

Weigh in 1/19/2012

Posted on January 19, 2012 by Just another day on the farm

Well I typically journel and track my food but this week I was even more careful then ever and while I certianly didn’t feel deprived in any way, I eat three meals a day and most often two snacks, I did try and up my fruits, veggies and whole grains, while reducing my carbs to a point, I did get a number of Wii workouts along with farm chores, I also got strength training done with Jason which was alot more fun then I thought it would be, its nice to not always be alone while working out.

I stepped on the scale this morning with no real idea of what it would show, it showed that I had a good week.. down 6.2 pds this week compared to last week for a total of 15.5 out of my 50 pd goal for the year. This week has all been about winter foods from the pantry, rich flavoured soups and stews, I need to remember to keep my portions in control. So if you are working towards trying to lose, how was your week? This coming week is all about eating out of the pantry, freezers and using up what we have that is fresh before bringing anything else into the house.

** 10.2 pds down on the Family Spring Weight Loss Challange

Goals for this week are a repeat from the goals of last week, the only extra I am going to add is if the weather stays so bad, that I consider adding in one more weight training session.

Goals for this past week.
Journey food, and Water intake-At least 8 cups of water a day!- 6 out of 7, one day, only 7 cups
Redo my eating plans based on the new resting calorie numbers-Done
Workouts at least 3 to 4 times per week, my choice on what kind, but expect most of them to be wii ones, but mix it up on the type, plus at least two strength workouts with DH this week.-Done
Do at least one craft project for time to settle and reach that Zen moment-Zen yes, craft no, more quiet time
Spend a little extra time out in the woods with the hounds, they do so love winter time on the trails.-Only once, the storms kepts us on the farm.

Posted in Goals | 3 Comments

How do you tell that the barn is warm compared to the outside?

Posted on January 18, 2012 by Just another day on the farm

Posted in Life moves on daily | 3 Comments

Interesting read-Just as we track the store sales, the stores track us!

Posted on January 17, 2012 by Just another day on the farm

http://www.igd.com/index.asp?id=1&fid=1&sid=8&tid=16&cid=2269

Blogger after Blogger talk about how to save money on your food bill, how to reduce, how to build a pantry, how to use flyers and coupons, how to write a list or plan your meals, all good solid ways to help you reduce your food bill, of course farmgal highly recommends trying to grow some of your food if possable, or creating a good relationship with local farmers.

The link above shows the flip side of all that advice, it shows the trends and tracking that is being done by the stores and how they are trying hard to figure out how to take the advice being given and just “tweek” it to get you to open your wallet just a little wider..

They said that the most impluse unplanned buying instore is promotions, and as soon as I read it, I realized that is ME.. I write my lists and can go in, and come out with everything on my list to the letter, unless I see an amazing sale on something we use, then I have been known to fill carts (like last years when I bought every pinnaple they had on sale) I consider finding those sales a good thing, I watch the flyers for them, and I often will send DH on his way home from work(reducing gas used and a extra off farm trip) to pick up a a case or two of certain things..

How often do I go shopping with a set budget only to find a good sale makes me go over, now to be fair this does work well for creating a long term pantry, and allows you to buy things on sale and not have to buy anything on full price..

Still I am going to need to start watching this even more closely, I had already noticed that the end of row sales were getting to be less and less good sales, that often a better buy can be had going down the row, and looking for sales on the top or bottom rows.

So how about you? Do you find yourself going off-list when amazing sales hit the stores? Any after buying regrets when this happens? or are you more like me.. perhaps being unplanned, but 99.9 percent of the time, a good thing overall on savings.

Posted in Food Storage | 10 Comments

Dark Day’s Meal- Bacon Wrapped Duck Breast with Winter veggies

Posted on January 17, 2012 by Just another day on the farm

This meal was lovely, but it was a good reflect of winter eating, if i want fresh meat, my choices are duck, chicken, turkey or rabbit, my available winter veggies are mainly root or sqaush, I did spurge on this meal, using up some of my very CRAZY in cost locally grown and ground flour (a dollar a cup of whole grains before grinding) because I wanted my bun to be dark days, it was made with sheep cheese whey, Ontario Salt, my wild caught grape started sourdought starter and the flour only, it tastes excellent fresh. The bacon was from my butcher (25 km), and he assured me that my pig that it came from was in fact just down the road from me, giving me the road name and yup, raisied within 7 miles from my own farm.

I certainly made qoute of at least 50% on farm.. What are you being able to find in regards to fresh meat for your winter dark day meals, or are you getting your meat from the freezer or the pantry?

Posted in 100 mile diet, Food Production and Recipes | Tagged , , | 7 Comments

Its a good thing! Flannel for winter, cotton for summer

Posted on January 16, 2012 by Just another day on the farm

So I have a small chuckle when I read over on Canadian Doomers site that she had picked out Flannel and had the most pretty and warm flannel day dress, I wish I could find someone that would in fact make me a colored flannel dress’s or that I had the personal skills to do so.. (something to put on that to do list, but way, way at the bottom).

It was no surprise that this cold morning say me throwing on my big old flannel nightgrown (daydress) over top of my long underwear and outer wear to head to the barn, those old time ladies were on to something with their long just floor length dress’s in regards to keeping warm..

My mom ordered this “nightgown” I think four or five years ago and when it arrived, it was far to big for her and in truth I don’t think she would have worn it anyway as its heavy and she can’t stand anything heavy on her these days, the matching light summer wear in the most wonderful cotton day dress made its way to me as well as it has large gaps on the sides (daring to show off a little side boob, shocking I know) While my momma would not wear something that would do this, she figured it would just fine on the farm.

After hundred’s of washings my heavy flannel day gown has needed one button repaired, and a patch job on the dress after I got a rip by barbwire, its still holding up very well its just that the materail is thinning and despite the cost, I think that I might have to break down and get a second gown this winter.. As a added bonus this is a canadian company, and they do offer other choices as well..so if you want a long lasting warm roomy and O so comfy canadian made night or house day wear, give these guys a try, while I have only had one order from them to date, I have been most impressed with the cloths, and I would raither spend a little more and get something that will last for many years to come.

I think I am going to also order both of us the flannel night cap, right now I have the softest wool cap that I often wear to bed till I warm up or pop on first thing in the morning while I get moving to keep the heat from leaving my head.. but it would be nice to having something that works just as well but is easier to wash..

http://www.nightsinwhiteflannel.com/

Posted in farm | 5 Comments

German Based Lung Soup Recipe -Part Two

Posted on January 15, 2012 by Just another day on the farm


Can I ever leave a recipe alone? (the answer is No) DH didn’t care for the sour near as much as I did on the duck blood soup, I really liked it, it was a like a mild version of Sweet and Sour soup that you would find at your local Chinese, so I wanted to mess a little with that for him, the second thing wa the call for sugar in the soup, I can honestly say, I never put sugar in a soup and I was not really in the mood to do the third extra step on the drain, make a rue and then make a cream soup.. I went with the fact that they serve a big fat fluffy dumpling with this soup tradionally and jumped on it..

So here is the soup I did make, I followed the directions on the lungs prep, which include 3 changes of fresh salted water, cutting out the tubeways, peeling the rough skin, and dicing into cubes, it recommend that you do the heart at the same time, simmering them and skimming the top before using in the soup itself, I can see that I don’t think this is that needed for fowl lung but it was still a good learning process for when I butcher out a lamb etc.

Sour Lung Soup Recipe with Dumpling

I found the start of the soup very french in that it called for onion, garlic, carrot, celery and potato, (how can you go wrong on a soup that starts with that!), I made half fresh and half with dried that had been soaked, I also added in pre-cooked and dried butternut sqaush as my added sweetness in replacement of the sugar.. I added Salt, pepper, basil, Horseradish greens, Dried Spinach, and a good pinch of Keens dried mustard, the diced heart and the diced lung all simmered together for about 40 min till the veggies were well done, at that point, I made a very basic dumpling, flour, sheep yogurt, salt, and into the top of the soup it went, and as dumplings will, it made that magic happen, and when they were ready to come off, I had a thicken stew left..

It got a solid 3 baa’s out of 5 from Dh and a full 5 out of 5 from Farmgal, the lung would VERY easily pass for a mushroom in mouth feel, and for firm diced tofu in texture, as Dh said, if you didn’t tell them, they would never know it had lung in it, the dumpling went with it wonderfully..

This is part of the homestead Preparedness Challange

Posted in Food Production and Recipes, Life moves on daily | Tagged , , , , | 2 Comments

The Ontario Table by Lynn Ogryzlo

Posted on January 15, 2012 by Just another day on the farm

So first a note, to those that took me off their regularing reading by email after my lungs and Blood soup recipes came out, clearly I crossed a line for you, sorry about that, to those that are new, I swear I am not always that “out there” and to my dear regular’s I swear it will only make up a small part of the my blogging but I do want to share the learning experence with you..

Now back to our regular programming as they say, one of the gift from my mom this christmas was a big glossy, photo filled at first glance coffee table book called The ontario Table..and it truly is eye candy, tons of high quality glossy photos of all farming related things across this amazingly HUGE province of Ontario. It’s the kind of cookbook that only has one recipe per page with a huge photo of what the food turned out like and its fancy dishes and plating that would make a foodie drool..

But then I started reading the info on regards to the farms that were in fact growing that Ontario food and that is where this book really shines, each area of the province and its small farmers are highlighted, farm gate sales and hours are included, what they make for value added foods talked about, what farmers markets they supply, awards given by Slow Foods. All really good, and I would recommend it for the above alone.

However that best is yet to come.. The Ontario Pantry! WOW.. She has included websites on things to find locally grown and produced in ontraio, like a great local sourse for Grape Seed Oil http://www.ouellettefarm.com
I am so going to try the maple syrup vinegar from Mr. Vinegar http://www.mrvinegar.ca or how about our wonderful ontario salts from either Sifto Salt in Goderich or Windsor Salt, Still looking for places for local flour, here are few to try out Arva Flour http://www.arvaflourmills.com or Oak Manor wwwoakmanorfarms.com or Grass Roots Organics http://www.saugreenspecialtygrains.ca

Did you know that we have companies that can 100% Ontario Products, the list is to big to put them all here but I liked the list from Sunshine Farms http://www.picklesplease.ca as well as cottam Gardens tomato and beans.. http://www.cottamgardens.com

How about Verjus, the Ontario answer to lemon juice, they say it can be used in place of the lemon juice in all recipes, to be found at wineries like featherstone, its made and sold by Hughes Vineyard in beamsville..Did you know that Ontario is canada’s largest producer of peanuts, want to know more.. Check out Kernal Peanuts http://www.canadianpeanuts.com in Norfolk County.. We can even get Ontario made Soy Sauce.. http://www.pristinegourment.com, the last one i am going to highlight is Dried Beans, look for the Thompson label for Ontario Dried red and white kidney beans, yellow eye beans and white Navy beans http://www.thompsonslimited.com Want a bit more choice in your beans? Check out Hill Billy Beans.. wwwhillbillybeans.com

Honestly, I would recommend this book for the ontario pantry section alone! Check it out of the local libary, and create a whole new list of local food favorites and where to source close to home.. and for a special meal, check out some of those recipes as well.. 5 baaa out of 5..

Posted in Life moves on daily | 16 Comments

Hungarian Duck Blood Soup Recipe

Posted on January 14, 2012 by Just another day on the farm

So the base of this soup came from a Eastern Cookbook I have and is called Duck Blood Soup, I messed with it a bit, mainly because I didn’t have any heavy cream in the house, and I didn’t want the heavier taste of the duck liver they called for.. I also changed the acid from Regular vinager to Red Wine Vinager.. I also added and removed at least one other thing, so between it all.. I’m pretty sure I can call this

 Farmgal Duck Blood Soup. -Serves two

  1. 1/2 tsp of rendered lard-I used tallow
  2. One small finely diced onion
  3. One large clove of finely diced Garlic
  4. One tablespoon of finely diced green onions or leeks (I used predone frozen diced leeks)
  5. One large Portabella mushroom (white will work in a pinch)
  6. 2 oz of finely chopped scrap meat from the back of the bird
  7. 2 cups of duck bone broth or beef bone broth
  8. 1 tbsp of honey
  9. 2 tbsp of Red Wine Vinager
  10. Salt, Pepper, a pinch of Keens hot mustard.
  11. The fresh cleaned* blood of one duck, mixed with two tbsp of cold water, slowly poured in and whisked to prevent lumps, slow simmer till thicken and cooked.
  12. Serve up with a dollop of greek yogurt or a swirl of heavy cream, with fresh chives on top if you have them in season.

* Collect the blood from your bird, put though a very fine seive, and remove all clots or tiny feathers, chill till ready to use, it will be a very clean bright red color, they say fresh blood will keep 24 hours in the fridge but it also freeze’s very well but will thaw much darker in color.

Put your fat into a small steel cookpot, and then cook your onion, garlic, mushroom and diced scrap duck meat, add broth, honey, and vinager, spices an simmer for five to eight min to allow the flavor’s to blend. Then reduce your heat to a very slow simmer, and add your blood/water mix and stir together, and simmer for another few min till thick, it will turn a deep dark color. If its not as thick as you would like, can use corn starch to make it more thick, I found it find just using the blood.

I tried it plain and it was good but I put the dollop of greek yogurt and it just popped it from good to something this side of YUM! Heavenly.

So I have to admit that I had my worries about making this soup but honestly, its blew my mind a little at just how good this soup tastes, even DH tried it and said its good enough that he will take his full portion and that is saying something..

The best way to explain what I think the blood gave to the soup, is a richness a depth of flavour that you typically only get after you have simmered a bone broth for a day and then made a meat/veggie stew and simmered it on the stove all day long.. 

Now I am going to be honest and say, I don’t think very many folks are going to have the chance to find fresh duck blood in the city and I really have to wonder if the fact that it was really fresh made a difference in just how amazing this soup turned out and tasted! This will get made again!

 

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