Just another Day on the Farm

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 100 mile food challange, Ducks, Food Production and Recipes | 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 100 mile food challange, Ducks, Food Production and Recipes, Health, Soups and Stews | 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

1/2 tsp of rendered lard-I used tallow
One small finely diced onion
One large clove of finely diced Garlic
One tablespoon of finely diced green onions or leeks (I used predone frozen diced leeks)
One large Portabella mushroom (white will work in a pinch)
2 oz of finely chopped scrap meat from the back of the bird
2 cups of duck bone broth or beef bone broth
1 tbsp of honey
2 tbsp of Red Wine Vinager
Salt, Pepper, a pinch of Keens hot mustard.
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.
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!

Posted in Food Production and Recipes | Tagged 100 mile food challange, Ducks, Food Production and Recipes, Frugal, Health, Soups and Stews | 3 Comments

Lights and Lungs-Sour Lung Soup Recipe and thoughts..Part 1

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

Mom got me the book “odd bits” by fellow Canadian and Ontarian Jennifer Mclagan, auther of Fat and Bones.. some the things in this book made me truly shake my head, I am still not sure that I will ever be comfortable eating certain parts of a animal but I am a huge! believer that if I am going to raise and then eat one of the critters raised on my farm, that I will not waste, Typically that means that the “odd bits” go the hounds or purrpots, or depending something even to the chickens or the pig..

Still I am adult enough to realize that alot of my thoughts on these things have to do with the country I was raised in and just how much even I have fallen at times into butchering out the critters so that Dh is more comfortable with eating the different parts.

A Perfect example of this would be rabbit, he does not like me to leave the meat on the bone as he can tell it’s a bunny vs a chicken per the bones, so I make tenderloins and then tend to cook the rest and pull the meat for dishes.. If I expect him to reach out of his comfort zone and try seafood, fish, and a host of other things that he grew up not eating.. then I also need to be more open to trying dish’s that stretch me and my own set ways of eating, which brings me these..

Yup, that is a pair of fresh butcher lungs that combined with the heart will be going to make Sour Lung Soup, and we will see if its nearly as good as I have read or not.. The recipe says that you can use tongue if you can’t find lung.. the book says that lung is not available for sale in the US but a quick google search seems to show that lots of folks are find them and or have had them in the states. I read a couple folks talking about finding lung available in toronto at different markets.

This not a hard recipe to make, and to be fair to the auther, I am not going to give you a direct recipe, “IF” I ever make this enough to develop a farmgal version, I will for sure share it, but I will give the basic’s, she want’s you to make a basic veggie broth started with the same animals bone stock and simmer the heart and lungs till done.. strain and then make a sweet rue (sugar and flour), then use the simmered skimmed and strained broth back into the rue, then add back the trimmed and tiny diced peices of heart and lung, along with fresh lemon, zest, and a heaping tablespoon of dijon mustard..

Part two, will show some of the cooking process and the final result along with taste test results..

Posted in Food Production and Recipes | 5 Comments

Food Storage Friday-How much Sugar did we use in 2011?

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

What a amazing supper tonight, a pd of grass fed lamb, a quart of tomato’s, onions, and peppers mix, a pint of corn, a pint of pinto beans, half a cup of diced dried mushrooms, and for that only thing not raised, grown or processed on the farm, a cup of coucous..(Shameful I know, I could have used potato’s but didn’t) A delightful goulash to which both me and Dh helped ourselves to seconds, and cleaned the bowl up.. thankfully, I have enough made for a simple reheat lunch tomorrow. Dessert is fresh sheep milk greek style yogurt with canned strawberries, heavenly!

As I dipped into a small dish of yugurt and strawberries as a afternoon snack, I made a note in the farm book, see if I can reduce the sugar in the canned strawberries for half of them, I can with a much heavier sugar base then many of the “new light” canning books say you can as I want my canning to be able to be just as good at the two year mark as at the three month mark.. but still I think I will try a very small batch of four and see if I can bring it down just a tad without loss of texture and taste.. The reason for wanting at least two years, is you just never know what the next garden season will bring.

The remark on sugar made me realize that I could now measure out what was left in my big bucket and finish the numbers on what we used for the year here on the farm.. Now according to Dr. Oz “The average person consumes 150 pounds of sugar per year”

Now its worth noting, that I use and tracked three kinds of sugars on the farm.. White Sugar, Molassies and Raw Local Honey. Do I even need to say that there is NO corn syrup on the farm (well to be honest there is a bottle but its been there since the move down from the artic, I used to use it make puff wheat sqaures), I do have some leftover icing sugar from my last sealift order 9 years ago, that is also in storage, if I want brown sugar, I make my own.

So I buy one ten pd bucket of raw local honey once a year, my local bee hive owner down the way has offered to put in another hive this year so that I can buy a bit more, and I am still looking at considering getting my own, for a number of reason’s.

I was surprised to see that I in fact used just over 9 pds of molassies for use in the house..

Now comes the white sugar.. I bought and used 122 pds for the year of 2011, now I can’t say that we consumed 122 pds because approx 88 pds of that went into canning use, and I still have over a thousand of my jars in the cellar, so I canned just around 1300 jars or so.. of them about 70 percent went into either syrup or brine or sauce, all of which used sugar. Which is right around 900 jars, we have used 300 jars already in this past year, plus I figure another 200 jars from last year, for a total of 500 jars.. so if my math is right, around 48 pds of sugar in those 500 eaten jars for the year 2011.

So waiting in the cellar is at least another 78 pds of sugar and food products for this coming year to be use.. that means we used for baking, cooking and in the canned goods for the year a total of 62pds of white sugar.

So a total of White Sugar 62 pds, Honey 10 pds, and molassies 9 pds, but there are two of us in the house.. so we each used 31pds of sugar, 5 pds of honey and 4.5 pds of Molassies each..

So for in house use, we used 119 pds less then the average person in N.A. -Not bad, Not bad at all.. but then comes the bad part.. how do we figure out how much sugar is eaten on the eating out meals, we don’t eat out often but we both do eat out on trips off the farm, and we do have date nights etc.. so we are going to go with a pd of sugar per month, because this is something we didn’t track, and I can’t even begin to try and figure out..

So that brings up to 43 pds of sugar per year.. now a 107 pds less then average person in N.A. What do you think? Not bad, or still way! to much.. I don’t know, we can certainly cut down our odd meals out, make better choices, track it closer for the coming year to figure out a more closer account..

I can’t and won’t stop using the required amount of sugar for proper preserving, so that stays, I already use fruit or veggie butters for alot of baking, cooking, and use natural dried fruits for adding sweetness to things..

So how much sugar are you using per person per year in your neck of the woods? Got any tips to share to help me reduce the amount?

This is going to be my Emergency Preparedness Post for the Homestead Preparedness Challange for the month of Jan, Knowing how much sugar is required for a typical year in regards to use for this family, this homestead is very important, it will allow me to tailor the amount needed to meet my two year storage pantry, basic lists on the internet are great for a general info but its well worth the time to find out what is required for your! needs.

Posted in Canning, Food Production and Recipes, Food Storage | Tagged Canning, Food Production and Recipes, Health, Weight Loss | 18 Comments

What is this rolling pin for?

Posted on January 13, 2012 by Just another day on the farm

Hi Gang.. Question for you.. among my pile of amazing rolling pins is this one.. it must be meant for something, and I can see using it to make a pattern or to make really crispy crackers or cookies if you rolled thin and then uses this to create thin lines. Having said that, I expect that it is meant to makes a certain something? I just don’t know what?

Posted in Life moves on daily | 4 Comments

Liebster Award- Passing it on..

Posted on January 13, 2012 by Just another day on the farm

Lynn at Wood Ridge Homestead gave me this award yesterday, so first, Thank you Lynn for giving me this award, and I have to say that I followed the links she put up on her other five and found some new homesteading blogs that I had not seen before, well worth checking them out, I even sighed up for a few of them to be delivered by mail.

Had a bit of a struggle to figure out my five to highlight, some of my favorites have over 200 followers and still my list was to long, so for my regular readers, know that it was not easy to pick this down to five! So here goes..

Backyard Farm– Callie posts about homesteading/frugal-City style
Canadian Doomer CD- Peek Oil, Doomer, Frugal, Apartment Homesteading
Chicky-bit Run -Andrea’s journey of her family adventures in homesteading
Rural Dreams-JJ-A new farm in Sask and her journey to make it their own
Stone House Road-Daisy-Life in general, gardening, canning

I am the first to admit that I am missing out on some of the blogs I read daily but I went with my hubbies comment on, do you feel you know them or do you just read because enjoy their posts/information, as this award means “favorite or dearest” he felts that it should be blogs that not only do I enjoy reading but that I interact with back and forth between each other with comments.. So girls, here is me lifting a glass to you!

The origins of the award are somewhat unclear but the general consensus is that it originated in Germany, Liebster meaning favorite or dearest, to showcase bloggers with fewer than 200 followers. Upon accepting the award the recipient must then pass it on to five more blogs of note.

Here are the rules:

1- Choose FIVE up and coming blogs to award the Liebster to. Blogs must have less than 200 followers.
2- Show your thanks to the blogger who gave you the award by linking back to them.
3- Post the award on your blog. List the bloggers you gave the award to with links to their sites.

Posted in Life moves on daily | Tagged Family | 9 Comments

First storm of the season= New lambs!

Posted on January 13, 2012 by Just another day on the farm

It never fails, I said it in a earlier post today, big storm.. momma’s decide if they need to stay in might as well have a lamb or two.. so far a new set of twins and a new single but the momma does not look done yet, all tucked into their jugs, the twin’s mom responded very well to the floating lamb trick* she has lots of milk, and I have seen them each nurse at least once, she has a excellent milking teat size and placement, and responded very well to me starting her, I think I will consider her training her as a milking sheep for later use. Not quite as bonded as I would like to see at this time, but she is really interested in the fresh hay put in the jug so once she settles, hopefully she will stand a little better for them, for sure need a ten oclock check and make sure they nurse. As you can see one is still quite wet yet. A big new fresh pile of bedding is in the corner for them, but of course the photo was taken by the hay feeder..

The single’s mom is very attached, and very sure that this is her little one, had her in a little corner and well nursed, a nice big strong babe, but she does not look done to me, put I checked both teats and we have nice flow on both, she however does not have good milking placement or size for me, but it clearly does not slow down her little one..

Here’s hoping we can make the rest of the night without another ewe deciding now is the time..

* Floating lamb trick, momma sheep had her baby somewhere other then the jug? want to move her and the lamb in the most relaxed possable way?, pick up the baby and gentle lift it about an inch or two off the floor and then slowed “walk” float the baby a few steps away, momma will follow, let her reach and an sniff or talk her baby, or baby to her, continue to walk another couple steps, repeat slow but steady until baby is in jug, step aside and momma will follow in, a little time, but no stress.. mom’s will loose track and stress if you pick the baby up to your chest, and you get alot more of your smell on them, but the float solves that.

Update: Dh wants me to research if the drop in Pressure that comes with a storm triggers the ewe’s that are close to lamb out.. because it certainly seems like a trend per our records.. big storm, drop in pressure that comes with, and lambs are born.. Not in any of my sheep books, but perhaps other sheep owners will have noted the same thing?