Dark Day’s Challange Week Two-Fried Cabbage Dinner.

Posted on December 11, 2011 by Just another day on the farm

My Dark Day’s meal this week was fast and easy to make but tasty enough that we both had seconds and enjoyed the leftover’s the next day at lunch..

I took eight peices of bacon, diced them and put them in the cast iron frying pan to which went nexts a small onion diced and a whole box of button mushrooms sliced, I allowed the bacon to crisp a bit, the onions and mushrooms to soften, and then added a whole heaping pile of sliced green cabbage to fry up.. a little pepper added in..

The bacon was from my butcher shop that I get my own lamb done and I made sure to request local pig, which was no issue, he was able to tell me where the pig had come from and its a farm about 20 min away from mine.. The onions was farm grown, the mushrooms and cabbage were both locally grown,  All within 50 miles of me..

While this meal was wonderful, and fully meet the Sole for the challange, it was a fail for my personal challange of 50% being directly from the farm, in this meal, only 25% of the meal was from the farm itself.. Next time I will work to do better!

 

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Mini-Challange-Kicked Day 5-Cherry Almond Cake Recipe

Posted on December 10, 2011 by Just another day on the farm

Day 5 came and went..I got a canner full of white navy beans put up and also a batch of white potato’s with onion for a cream of pototo base for soup, just need to pour, heat, simmer and mash and add extra’s to it..

We got the hole opened up in the old basement part of the house in the cement for the new sump pump, and now its a matter of digging it out, and putting the metal sides in, and it will be good to go, then once it dry’s out, I will touch up the edges to make them smooth again and fill in the outside ragged edges.

Spent the day doing the week’s laundry for both human and then critter, so keeping up on the laundry goal is being meet, the canning goal is being meet within reason, and now I just need to get to that butchering..

Made a wonderful throw it together/use it up cake yesterday.. Measurements are iffy but it turned out so good, that I am going to share.. so I had about 1/2 cup of yugurt, about 3/4 cup of apple sauce,  an egg yolk, and about 1/2 cup of cherry sauce that all needed to be used up..

Cherry Almond Cake to the rescue..

  • 1/2 cup yugurt-Plain-Thick Greek Style
  • 3/4 cup of sweetened apple sauce
  • 1/2 cup of cherries in sauce
  • 1 whole egg, one egg yolk
  • 1/2 cup of water
  • 2 cups of flour
  • 1 tbsp of baking powder
  • 1/2 tsp of salt
  • 1 tsp of all spice
  • 1 tsp of cinnamon
  • 1/2 cup of almond slices

Mix your yugurt/apple sauce/egg and cherry’s in sauce (My cherries and apple sauce are sweetened, if yours are not, consider 1/2 cup of sugar or some kind of sweetner), mixed together, then add your dry and almonds, mix together and I baked in a round cake pan at 375, till golden and knife came out clean..  This is a very moist cake, but o so flavourful and yummy!

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Food Storage Friday- Orange Cottage Cheese Salad Recipe

Posted on December 9, 2011 by Just another day on the farm

Where are my christmas baking supply sales!! No where to be found yet, O they are pimping the products left, right and center but the price’s tell the truth, even on sale they are higher then there were last year.. packages smaller, prices higher and many things just not being put on sale in my local area, the big ones I have been watching for.. sugar, icing sugar, and dried fruits/candied fruits/chocolate-coco or chips versions/as well as baking chocolate.. I have been checking each of the local flyers as both walmart and my local will honor the sale prices in the other store flyers.. but its not helping me get any deals..

The biggest and best deal to be had this week for food storage was in cases of corned beef, onsale for a dirt cheap price, and the same with cases of canned ham.. Otherwise the main things added to the house this week was more local cabbages. I know where to get a good deal on coucous in the city and so made the stop at farmboy store to buy them out again, its a over 70 percent savings buying them in their big bags vs buying them in the little box’s at our local stores, and I do like my coucous, in truth I like it more then I do rice for many dishes. While at the Farm Boy, I hit their apple sections and picked out three new kinds they carry, the garden catalogs are offering them for sale this year but I want to try out the apples before I invest in a tree, make sure we like them.. I could not help but think of C.D. post about the food wax.. boy suddenly that perfect shine on bind after bind of apples made me sigh and go.. ya right!

Other then the above, we have been eating out of storage as is per the norm for us, lots of good heathy meals coming from our cellar, pantry, freezers and fresh from the farm critters.. I have to admit that I am looking at my dwingling supply of fresh greens, and wishing that I had a much bigger cold house to put over a hoop house to stretch those greens longer into the year.. Don’t think that the dried ones can pack quite the same punch as the fresh do..

Got another pressure canner to add to my ever growing collection of all things needed to put up food, this will allow me to do alot more jars at the same time, as you do need to be in the house and watching the pressure canners, and on the farm, there are times that you want to be able to break things up a bit more, while I found that when I was doing all day canning, that it would have been wonderful to have two pressure canners going instead of one pressure canner and one large waterbath canner. We will see if the idea works as well in real life as it dream land.

I loved Deb’s comment that Christmas comes but once a year, and I do hope she will take me up on the idea of a guest post on that amazing chocolate cake she was talking about making! Here is one that I love, its not health, its not sole, but its been a favorite of mine since I was child and I have to make it at least once for christmas, its lick the bowl good!

Orange salad-dessert, your choice.

  • One package of orange regular jello
  • One tub of cool whip (or equal amount of real whipped cream)
  • One large can of mandion orange sections
  • One tub of cottage cheese

In a bowl, put your tub of cottage cheese, sprinkle over your orange jello(regular, not diet) and give a light stir, then add in your can of drained orange peices (don’t go cheap on these, or they won’t hold together) and then your whole thing of cool whip, fold in together with careful and gentle movements, then pour it into a fancy serving bowl, cover and chill for at least a couple hours.. its like orange dream fluffy candy.. If you have this, you know what I mean, and if you have not, and can let yourself and your high food standards go for just a little bit, this is one to try!

 

Posted in Canning, Food Storage | Tagged , , | 4 Comments

Mini-Challange-Kicked Day 4

Posted on December 9, 2011 by Just another day on the farm

I’m not sure if I kicked today or if Day 4 Kicked back LOL Our old sump pump decided it was time to give up the ghost, and so we went to the city to get a new one, only issue is that they all needed a bigger/deeper sump pump hole then what we have, so we left with some truly stunning mable 12 by 12 tiles (more on that later), a new sump pump.

After regular chores today, we have been spending the day making a new larger sump pump area, its amazing what a eight pd sledgehammer can do with time and effort on a cement floor, we have almost all the new space around, and its not a matter of digging into the gravel pad under, then relaying a new gravel bed for it to sit on..

Canning.. None.. didn’t get any done today..

So want to make a very pretty under five dollar christmas gift, I saw this idea on the homestead blog hop, and thought I have to see if I can do it as well.. At the big home Depo, I looked at the different marble tiles they had, they had the standard grey with black, that you commonly see in the stores with their matching marble rolling pin. I also found this stunning brown on brown with white marbling though it..

Ok, this photo just does not do it justise, this is a very pretty marble. I was able to find a package of small backing enough to do eight of these small marble cutting board, the tile was onsale and so was got for 4.50 and the total cost of the backings was two dollars so 25 cents, and so this awesome little gift came in under 5 dollars in cost..  The regular grey marble were not onsale and were 5.50 in cost..

Now as it happens over the past couple years when I have been looking for and buying at farm sales for my old hand carved wooded rolling pins, I have had to buy them in groups or in a box deal and that means that I happen to have a couple of those matching grey marble rolling pins that I have in my storage.  So I can make matching sets as a gifts.

That’s it, that’s all she wrote folks.. I’m done, stick a fork in me.. the bed is calling my name…

 

 

 

Posted in Life moves on daily | 6 Comments

Weigh in 8/12/11

Posted on December 8, 2011 by Just another day on the farm

Weigh in day already, huh.. Well I got on the scale expecting anything, good, bad or ugly.. and went Ok.. So I did nothing this week, how fitting on a week that I have needed a kicked challange LOL.. I am the very same weight this week, the auto scale showed 0.0 after it did its magic.. So still a total of 9.3 pds of my 50 pd goal.

Last weeks goals were..

Apple Cider Vinager daily -Yes

Daily Green Drink starting with the basic version-Went to the green drink berry version

Upper body weights-3x this week- Yes

Crunches-3x this week till the burn makes me stop- No, only did it twice.. the other times I stopped when sore..

Leg lifts-3x this week-Yes

No eating after 8pm-Bad on this one, only 4 out of 7 times.

Goals for this coming week

  • Green Berry drink Daily
  • Apple Cider Vinager Daily
  • Journal Daily on what I am eating
  • Add in more roasted winter veggies-Make a huge pot and have it ready in the fridge as a side dish.
  • Make and keep a big pot of veggie/tomato/barley broth based soup available when I want something hot and filling.
  • Have a good feed of protein, I have been cutting back on my meat protein portions and I am honestly craving meat, so I am going to allow myself a little more at least three times this week.

Hope you all have a great week, how’s it going in your world?? Are you already feeling the christmas push towards more goodies?

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Mini-Challange Kicked Day 3

Posted on December 8, 2011 by Just another day on the farm

Ok, It needs to stop raining!!! My land is flooded, we needed to lay down boards on one of the gateways because the critters are walking though it and its just a mud trap, and neither they or me want to walk though that kind of mud.. but worst of all, the old cellar is acting like its that special two weeks in spring and flooding, the sump pump is working overtime, the wet vac is working overtime and so is the dehumidifer which is not winning the war..  No signs of a good hard freeze up is in sight yet. Thankfully we plan the use of the cellar for the regular spring issues (everything up off the cement, on blocks etc..

However in the seven years we have been here we have never had a winter floodout, only ever the spring issue, and so I was not expecting it, and that meant I had left a few things on the ground in plastic blue box’s that I often use for really good air flow.. needless to say, part of today was spent, srubbing and processing things for later use so that there was no waste..

As my hubby and I said, don’t just plan for the typical, we must be prepared for the unexpected as well.. so true..

On the other side of things, I got one batch of pressure canning done today, I did six quart jars of the base for a winter squash soup, It has broth, butternut, carrot, potato, onion and celery, and salt/pepper, so I will be able to pour into the pot, blend and just finished it off with milk, and garnish.. got to love having that kind of help in the house.. as I was not about to waste that extra seventh spot, I did a jar of green pea’s for green pea soup.

Only other things that got done extra today was DH, gave those slopping wet outside bird pens a clean out, and we put fresh bedding on the inside deep litter pens as well..

I took the afternoon off and went to my Pie, wine and knit girls outing, the little ones are growing so fast, and the visit was delightful, C had gotten a new pressure canner and we did its first water test so she could see how it was done. Dh was working from home today so he got to babysit the farm while I had a little girls time..

How was your day? Did you get anything on your list done? Did you get something not on your list done but none the less it was a good extra that was just begging you to work on?

Posted in Life moves on daily | 1 Comment

Lamb Stuffed SpareRibs Recipe

Posted on December 7, 2011 by Just another day on the farm

Now I do think this would better with pork ribs as the orginal recipe called for, but I didn’t have any in the freezer, but the lamb ribs are very small, so I went with one year old mutton ribs.

Thaw out your ribs overnight in the fridge, then roll the ribs into a circle, the orginal recipe called for you to tie the ribs with string, instead I used smalll glass baking dishes and did each rib circle in a tight fitting baking dish for each one.. Do whatever works best for you, and your family on how many you need to do.

In a different pot, I cooked a mix of red rice and wild rice together for twenty min till just tender, I drained the rice and to it added 1/4 cup of finely diced onion, 2 finely diced garlic, 1/2 cup of diced mushrooms, button will work but portobello is much better, or a mix of them, half a apple finely chopped, 1 tsp of worcestershire, 1/2 tsp of basil, a pinch of salt/pepper and keens hot mustard..

Mix them all together with the rice, and loosely stuff them into the ribs circle, put a little broth in the bottom, I used veggie because that is what I had at that moment in the fridge but I am sure that others would work, cover and bake at 375 for about an hour and half till the meat is pull apart tender.. I served it with a side green salad.

The above amounts are for a serving for two.. Its a great way to take a fairly boring dish of ribs and making it a quite fancy looking meal when plated up.

Posted in Food Production and Recipes | Tagged , | 1 Comment

Mini-Challange-Kicked Day 2

Posted on December 6, 2011 by Just another day on the farm

Well today was another cold wet and raining day but my apple mint is still green and going on Dec 6th!.  I did get a break in the afternoon just long enough to scoot out and get some of the year old bedding with sheep/goat poo mixed in, it might not looks like much in the photo but that is six full wheelbarrol loads on that space.. giving about a 3 to 4 inch cover of mixed bedding/poo, rhubarb are very heavy feeders! While lots of area’s can stand to have some added for cover, the big one that I really wanted to get done yet was the rhubarb patch and the grape vines.. Done!

Figured if I was getting things done, I got on the phone and double checked our coming dental bookings, I had mixed up who had what date on the calander, so I am glad I made the call. I also called and ordered another flat of Wide Mouth Jar lids (Ouch, 3.99 for 12 count box, I have got to get some tattle lids for my wide mouth jars), another flat of regular lids (better at 1.49 for a 12 count box) what a crazy price difference.

I have striped the beds and done all the sheets and blankets for my day’s laundry and on all my guest beds, I have switched them from cotten sheets and light blankets to heavy flannel and thick winter quilt with a wool blanket under it.

For my daily canning, I went to quarts and so did five quarts of ham/veggie/white bean soup, and two quarts of chickpea’s which will be used to make some yummy humas at some point.

Now, I know that I’ve had a few friends who read my blog tease me about being a real stickler about following all the rules, only the critters sent to the provinal butcher plant can be sold or given away, no milk, no self-butchered meat etc..

http://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/ottawa/story/2011/12/06/ottawa-farmer-slaughter-pigs-charges-dropped.html?cmp=rss

Charges have been withdrawn against an Ottawa man who slaughtered a pig and shared the meat with a friend, more than two years after the Ontario Ministry of Natural Resources first pressed charges.

Mark Tijssen has been up front about the fact his family has spend generations slaughtering their own animals for consumption on their farm just southeast of Ottawa.

But in November 2009, four separate charges were laid against Tijssen under the Ontario Food Safety and Quality Act after a friend left his home in the rural community of Carlsbad Springs with 40 pounds of pork from a pig they had slaughtered.

Tijssen was accused of operating an unlicensed slaughterhouse and failing to have an animal inspected but mounted a defence based on the Charter of Rights and Freedoms.

Charges withdrawn after two years of court time

After two years of pretrials, the ministry chose to withdraw all four charges deciding there is “no reasonable prospect for conviction.”

Under provincial law, people can slaughter an animal and consume the meat for personal use, but it is an offence to share that meat with others without being licensed.

Investigator log books revealed in court detailed how the Ministry launched a five-day stakeout in 2009 as part of their investigation of Tijssen.

That included one investigator who hid in a tree house with night-vision binoculars and a camera. The ministry also raided Tijssen’s farm.”

While I am very happy that the charges have been dropped, I still get the creeps at the idea that they sent a guy to sit in a tree house with a night-vision binoculars that tooks note that included what his children did and what they were wearing.. And while he had the defence that his family had been self-butchering and sharing for generations, most of us don’t have to fall back on..

I have said it before and I will say it again..  Be safe and follow the rules if you want to do farm gate sales or even if you want to give away meat to friends and family. Learn your province’s laws and check up on them often, they chance alot and far to often, and don’t think that because Farmer X down the lane told, o ya sure, you can do that, take the time to read the current legal requirements.

Posted in Life moves on daily | Tagged , , , , | 4 Comments

Berry Smoothies this week..

Posted on December 6, 2011 by Just another day on the farm

I am wanting to “wake” up my body this week, and get more energy, which includes turning on the inside lights (boo!!) Doing short burst of weigh lifting-Kettle Bells to get my body hot an sweaty, while not pushing my foot by walking to much.. and by making sure I have my “green drink” each morning..

Only thing is my green drink this week as been purple!

Here is what I have been making for a single serving..

  • half a cup of fresh greens-I am using baby spinach
  • half a apple
  • A one inch peice of fresh ginger
  • 1 tbsp of lemon and lime Juice
  • 1/2 cup mix of any of these :Blackberries, Blueberries, Rasberries, Cherries
  • 1/4 cup of either Elderberry Juice or Chokeberry Juice

Its quite nice but it is seedy, if that bother’s you, it might not be the best choice.. If you could get this at Booster Juice, it would run you about $5 bucks, I’m not sure how much its costing me, as many of the things are grown on the farm or wild picked.. but under a dollar for sure..

Posted in Food Production and Recipes | Tagged , , , | 3 Comments

Mini-Challange-Kicked Day 1

Posted on December 6, 2011 by Just another day on the farm

I can’t tell you how glad I was to read that I am not the only one that is a winter bla-grey day mode or mood! Sounds like we are all feeling the lack of extra daylight, and our winter urges to slow down..

Well, I have to admit that the day itself was just as grey, just as wet and cold, and in no way helping my winter bla’s, however as my evening is starting to wind down, I can at least say that I got a number of my extra things done..

I am hanging my head in shame at just how bad my laundry room got, but I took the before picture, I figured putting up only the after was kinda cheating..

What a mess, dirty cloths on the floor, clean cloths not folded, and even clean cloths folded but not put away, a full bag of canvas shopping bags that needed to washed and lets not even ask how that big wash up sink got that bad (DH?)

Needless to say, I got the summer wear sorted and put up for the season, I got all the winter cloths out of storage, and washed them up fresh and got the rest put away, the floor washed, the sink cleaned out, and the machines wiped down.. Much Better!

I got seven pints of roma beans in a soup broth done, and seven pints of chicken Veggie Barley soup..

Even in the this drizzling rain, I got six more wheelbarrol loads of compost out in the garden and dumped, will spread it tomorrow.. That’s it for the moment, and tomorrow is a new day! How did everyone else do, did you get started on anything or was it make a list or planning day?

Posted in Life moves on daily | 5 Comments