Just another Day on the Farm

As they say roll with it, I had a post almost finished for Yeast, and Basic Bread making, but for pictures and last min add-on’s.

Instead we are now doing Pastry and Pasties. So be it.

I put a pot of 4 peeled cubed Potato’s on to cook, in a frying pan I cut up into dices half a pd of our homemade bacon, with rind off, then Finely diced one very large onion, 2 garlic cloves and the whole middle with green of a celery bunch, cook till onion is clear then add your spices, I added in salt, pepper, more garlic power, lots of basil, nettle, and a bit of chili flakes. By then the potato’s where just tender, so drained and add in, mix together well, you want all the potato’s to be well seasoned.. taste a little, it should be quite strongly flavored at this point but the mix itself is fairly dry, no sauce is what I mean by that. Set aside.

Basic Pastry Dough

• One pd Lard
• 5 an half cups of All-purpose Flour
• Pinch of salt
• 2 tbsp of Vinager
• 1 Fresh egg
• Cold Water to finish off the cup.

Put your pd of lard, flour, and salt together in bowl, then get your wet together in its own bowl, add your vinegar, beaten egg and water, set aside. Go wash your hands, you can use a pastry cutter but I “need” to feel my dough to know when I have it right.

Here is when you are breaking up those big peices of fat, you can see that I am breaking it into four peices, three out the side and one out the top, this will create long flattish ribbons of fat to work with next

Now we are at all the flat ribbons, and you pick up your mix and rub it though your hand, the mix is in your hand, and your roller is your thumb over your fingers, its like a reverse milking motion. This will bring your fat down into crumble size.

Here is the finished look, very crumbed fat mixed thoughout your pastry.. but how to know if you got it right.. do the press test.. Pick up a handful and give it a gentle quick 2 second press, when you let go it should look in general like the mound below.

One poke and it will all fall back apart into the crumbles, now you know you have it.. Make a Well in the center and pour in your 1 cup liquid.. Give it its first stir and it should look like below..

Don’t look like much yet does it, but keep kneeding it just like you would bread, in that push and pull motion..

Now its starting to come together, keep mixing it till its a smooth ball and then let it have at least a ten min rest, if its summer, and my dough is soft, I will chill longer but in winter its not a issue.

Now after its rested, you are going to get your rolling setup, its very simple, you want a rolling pin, a bit of extra flour and your clean hands with a knife on the side for cutting.. Pull off a peice of dough (and cover the rest with a clean teatowel if you are going to take a good amount of time in between. Lightly flour dust your area, and start working your dough in a circle, sprinkle the dough with a touch of flour, and start rolling out, always move your dough so that you only do it one direction at a time with the rolling pin, otherwise its hard to keep the dough a circle. Roll out to your desired thinness.

Now you take some of your filling and place it in the middle of the dough, you can make a number of different shapes with it, squares or pop-over shapes or rounds.. I made a few different to show you. The one below was made into a standard Calzone type shape.

But this is the shape that I think takes it from being a pasties to being something special to serve someone and it takes the same amount of time to make, the flower on the top will always be a bit different depending on how the dough rolled out, making each one special per plate. Make sure your make your flowers thin enough that they can cook the whole way though.

At this point, you can egg wash them if you want them a dark golden brown like at the store, I am not going to, it will mean a lighter done color but that is fine with me. Bake in oven at 350 till golden brown on the bottom and lightly brown on the top, about 20-25 min, cool on a wire rack, can be served hot from the oven, eaten cold in hand or rewarmed.

Ideally served with a nice green salad the side.. What do you think.. Aren’t they pretty, would you like to come for dinner and be served up one these?

Need a Dessert of course..

Old Fashion Raison Pie

• 2 cups raison
• 2 cups water
• 1/2 cup packed brown sugar
• Pinch of salt
• 1 tsp of cinnanom
• 2 Tb of corn starch with a bit of cold water to mix
• 1 tb of lemon or lime juice
• 1 tb of butter.

Put your raison’s and water on to cook, bring to boil and simmer for 5 min, then add sugar, salt, and premixed corn starch, stir often to prevent lumping, cook till thick and clear, remove from heat, put in lime juice and butter, stir till butter is fully melted and mix though. I have included a photo what the filling will look like. Pour into a 8 inch pie pan with crust on bottom, top with second crust, and don’t forget your steam holes on the top, flute your edges and into the oven to bake.. This pie should not be served hot, Slice and serve cold, with or without a dollop of whip cream.

Pie Pastry for a top and bottom. Bake at 350 till golden brown and filling bubbling.

Breakfast:Leftover Pancakes

Lunch-DH’ Leftover Pasta, with canned Pears, and trail mix, FG- Fresh Pastie from the oven.

Supper: Bacon, potato Pasties with a cabbage side salad with cranberries and pumpkin seed.

So do you ever make Pasties? or you buy them? what is your favorite filling? Do you ever make Raison Pie?

Black Rice, Red Rice, Brown Rice and Wild Rice, this has to be my favorite mix ever. If I am eating just one kind, it tends to be grown in the USA Red Rice.

Don’t you just love a food that you can take in its dry state and with cooking create something 3x the volume. Whole Rice is a very healthy food, if you don’t like brown rice, I would highly recommend trying some of the different kinds available, I love! wild rice, but I don’t like the price tag that goes with it.. Red Rice is as close as I can find to getting that firm rice with a nutty flavor that wild rice has but with a much lower price tag, I have never found red rice as cheaply as I can find plain white rice but I can find it cheaper or equal in price to good quality Uncle Bens Long Grain Rice.

I don’t consider Minute Rice to even be food, its like eating wonder bread and thinking that that its a healthy food.. Good quality whole grain rice is like the difference between a good whole grain bread vs cheap white bread. They are a world apart.

I don’t own a rice cooker but I do have what I call my rice pot, its a hand me down, I got it from my momma when was 19 and its a small brown bean pot, It makes a perfect pot of rice if done correctly, at its max it will hold 2 cups of raw rice, or 6 cups of cooked rice

2 cups of rice, 6 cups of water, a pat of butter, a bit of salt, and typically some dried garlic and herbs. Always remember to wash your rice first and to do so until the water runs clear before putting it in the dish. I always start with cold water, and then into a oven at 350 for 2 to 3 hours depending on the kind of rice being cooked.

FG Basic Rice Dish

• One Pot of Cooked Rice- Listed Above
• One small onion- Peeled, Finely diced
• One Clove of Garlic-Peeled, Finely diced
• One stock of Celery-Washed, sliced in half and finely Diced
• Then I just start looking in the fridge for possable extra’s like
• Mushrooms
• Peppers
• Cabbage
• Green Onions
• carrot
• Raddish
• Fresh Chopped Greens

Once I have what I am going to use as my veggies, I put a little oil in my cast iron and cook up the onion and garlic, then add the rest till just softened, and then typically add a pat of butter, and then mix that with my rice and serve.

Breakfast-Homemade Bacon, Herbed Oven Fries, Eggs with Nettle and Pinnapple Smoothie

Lunch-(which was the heavy meal of the day) was Herbed Oven Fries, Lamb Hamburger, mushrooms and onion, with the leftover gravy from the chicken dinner.

Supper-Pancakes

Drinks-Water, Tea, Hot Chocolate.

So what is your favorite kind of Rice? Have you tried Red Rice? What’s your favorite way of serving it? Do you make old fashioned Rice pudding?

Our Fancy Sunday Breakfast, 3 slices of homemade bacon with sweet Mustard Glaze, Herbed Oven Baked Homefries, Scrambled eggs with Dried Nettle, and that glass of stunning sunshine color is homemade pinapple with juice, blended together into a fruit smoothie.

So its week two, and time for our overview..

DH-It was fine, far less tempation this week, would have been useful to have premade meals in the freezer, for when we don’t feel like cooking and would typically go to town for a meal out but can’t.

FG- Well, lets see, I can’t say that we are missing anything in the house in terms of me being able to cook meals or make the different things that DH takes to work etc. Depending on the day, I am falling into. dang I want a meal off, off cooking, off the farm, just Not of my hands.. thankfully those moments are few and far between.

Most of the time, I have been feeling the need to hit the cookbooks and read for idea’s, I know I want to use this an this, and the cookbooks help in finding interesting ways to do so.

My own biggest challange was the bird sale, I had DH’s permission to consider it work related, as it was directly tied to the farm, and therefor he said I could eat there if I wanted, but that I could not bring anything home within reason.

I was so excited at the thought of it.. I was planning a large double, double, drooled at the idea of a box of timbits, and could not decide what I would have for lunch.. but when I got there and looked at the available things.. guilt got me.. I didn’t need to eat something here, I had a good filling breakfast, I was not overnighting it, it was work related but I could be home in time for a very late lunch..

In the end when I was there, I walked way from that freedom, and stuck to the plan.. I can’t decide if I was just stubborn or just stupid ;P

Would you have eaten out, or would you have waited it out?

Today was a run day from the moment I staggered out of bed just after 5 am listening to the lamb, bananing me.. I needed to be out and on the road by 6:30, which gave me only an hour and half to get ready, have breakfast and get my share of chores done. As I did morning critter chores, I also set my porridge to cooking, Half for me, half for my old girl Lily, she gets her’s with yogurt, I get my typically with a bit of sheep milk, and somedays a touch of sweet. The out the door and to the Bird Sale. Home early afternoon to find DH coming up from the barns where he was working, and I was hungry enough to chew on wood just for the taste, typically I would have eaten at the sale but I am on no food outside the pantry and I forgot and left the packed snack bag, thank god I remembered the water.

So ask if he had made lunch, nope, nor had he eaten since breakfast.. so into the house and in the same time it took to make the porridge (about five to eight min) bowls of hot steaming soup where hitting the table, and yes seconds were  had.

Back out to the barns where work began again, finally we called it and came back in the house four plus hours later, tired, sweaty and hungry again, whipped together pasta an sauce, the meat was cooked and in the fridge, in the time it took to cook the pasta, everything else came together, again under ten min and plates of hot comfort carb filled food was filling tummies.

Do I think that todays meals where as well rounded as I would like,  Heck no, what  who am I Kidding.. my Hubby eat cake for breakfast LOL and where the heck was the fruit or veggies??

However even when living out of your pantry, there are days where life gets busy, and that means you want fast food at least in the sense of getting something filling on the table and in you.

Breakfast FG-Red River Porridge, done fancy, brown sugar with sheep milk. DH’s Watermelon Cake, two big Pieces.

Lunch, Chicken Noodle Veggie Soup

Supper, Pasta with Corn Beef, Mushrooms and cream sauce, spices.

Drinks: Water, Tea and Hot chocolate

Extra’s Popcorn and Chocolate Cranberry Loaf.

What about you? What is your homemade real food quick meal? What do you cook or make if you have want to eat now but don’t have extra’s in the fridge or leftovers to reheat? Give me your thoughts on all three meals of the day? On hard working days, are you ok with cold meals or do you like hot meals like we do?

• To Fold is the process of mixing a very light substance with a heavier one without losing any lightness. The heavy mixture is lifted from beneath usually with a large metal spoon and folded over the light one, but NEVER stirred in a Circle.
• To Freeze is to chill food below the freezing point of water 32F Freezers for storing food should be kept at 0F.
• Fry Dry-to cook meat over a high heat in fat barely covering the base of a heavy frying pan. Shallow- to cook eggs, fish or breaded meat without burning in 1/4 to 1/2 inch of layer of fat. Deep-to immerse and fry food that is coated with batter, breadcrumbs or flour in fat or oil.
• Glace is a sugar iceing for cakes, candied fruit or cookies. It is made with sugar and can be flavored.
• To glaze means to make shiny with egg, water, sugar, or milk. Jam or fruit glaze is used for coating desserts or cakes. Meat glaze is reduced bone stock that is added to sauces.
• To grate means to scrape into small pieces by rubbing hard food such as cheese or raw vegetables on a metal or plastic grater
• To grease means to coat with a think layer of butter, margarine or shortening.
• To grind means to reduce to tiny pieces by working though a food grinder.
• To infuse means to steep flavorings in warm but not boiling liquid. The flavorings are usually strained out before the liquid is used.
• To knead is the process of pushing dough way with the heel of the hand, then bringing it forward with fingers so all the ingredients become thoughly combined. When making yeast doughs, kneading distributes the yeast and develops the gluten in the flour.
• To Pit means to remove stones or seeds from fruit
• To Poach means to cooke gently in trembling (not boiling) liquid, Fish, Poultry, fruit, Pasta and eggs can all be pouched.
• To pound means to reduce to a powder or smooth paste, pounding is usually done in a mortar or pestle, or to weaken muscle fibers in meat, can use a rolling pin to do so.
• Puree is a mixture of fruit, begetables or meat that is sieved or blended to a thick cream, the ingredients are usually precooked before pureeing.
• To reduce means to boil down a sauce or liquid to concentrate the flavor and sometimes to thicken the consistency.
• To Render means to melt down fat gently into liquid, then strain and boil with a little water and strain when clear.
• Roux is a blending of a fat and flour mixture that is used to thicken many sauces.
• To Scald means to heat a liquid such as milk to just under boiling point.
• To score means to mark with a series of shallow even cuts.
• To Sear means to brown food over fierce heat for a few min to seal in natural juices. This often precedes stewing.
• To Shred means to cut or break into uneven strips
• To Sieve means to work food through a strainer or food mill.
• To Sift is to shake a dry powdered substance through a sifter to remove any lumps which gives lightness.
• To Simmer means to cook in a liquid at about 195, or just below boiling point so that bubbles occasionally break through the surface.
• To Skim means to remove fat or scum from the sruface of sauces, soups or stocks. This is done by bringing the liquid to a boil over slow heat, taking the pan from the heat and skimming it.
• To Steam is to cook food by moist heat on a rack in a closed container, the food must not touch the water.
• To stew means to cook meat, vegs, fish or poultry slowly in liquied in a covered pan.
• Stock is liquid made by simmering meat bones, poultry, vegs or fish for several hours, it is the base for many classic sauces and soups and is used in stews and to make gravy.
• Stuffing is a mixture of savory ingredients used to fill cavities in fish, poultry, meat or game. Stuffings can include ground meat with breadcrumbs, rice, vegs, nuts, spices and often eggs, milk or a sauce to bind. they are often highly seasoned.
• Whisk means to beat fast with a circular motion so that a mixture is made lighter by incorporating air. This can be done with a electric mixer, a rotary beater or balloon whisk.
• Zest is the rind of a lemon or orange that is removed without any of the underlying pith which can be very bitter.

Breakfast- FG-One waffle with a peanut butter at 5:30am/Porridge at 9am and tea

DH 4 eggs, Herb Bread

Lunch- DH-Leftover Soup plus Extras Slice of loaf, two cookies and trail mix for snacks

FG-Cabbage Salad, with Dill crackers on the side.

It looks good even raw and just ready to go in the oven, do you ever brine your meat before cooking it? I will post a after photo.

Supper: Brined Whole Chicken Breast on the bone, with herbs/spices, onion, carrot, celery with oven baked fries.

Drinks-Water, Tea

Extras-Dill Crackers, Chocolate Cranberry loaf, Cookies, and herb bread, biscuits.

Reuben Pie Recipe

• 1 and half cups of sauerfraut either homemade or store bought, drained
• Pastrry for one 10 inch crust for pie
• 8 oz of swiss cheese, thinly sliced
• 8 oz corned beef-diced or strips (or 1 cup)
• 1 onion-Peeled, Halved and sliced thin.

Preheat your oven to 375, layer half the cheese in the bottom pie shell, then half the corn beef, then a layer of  well drained saurkraut, then the onion, then the rest of the meat and finish the layers with the cheese.. Then top with with the pie crust.. don’t forget to put your cuts on the top of the pie to allow for steam.

Bake for 35 to 45 min or until the pie is golden in color.. Let it stand at least ten min, serve hot.

A few basic and not-so basic  terms you will see written up in recipes or when talking about cooking and what they mean,

• Agar agar -is a setting agent made fom seaweeds and is used in jellies, icecreams and for clarifying the japanese rice wine sake.
• Aspic is a clear jelly ued to coat cold foods. It is made by clarifying stock with egg whites and sometimes egg shells. Gelantin may be used to set it but if at all possable, the stock that sets it should be natural.
• Bake-to cook by Dry heat in a oven
• Bake Blind- is the term used for baking unfilled pastry without the sides falling in or the bottom rising. The pastry is lined with foil then filled with rice or dried beans, or Pie chains, the filling is removed once the pastry is set so that it can become crisp and brown.
• Balm is a herb that is seldom used in cooking but a large handful of fresh or dried balm can be infused in boiling water to make a herb tea.
• Barbecue -is to broil or roast on a rack normally over charcoals or propane.
• To Bard- is to cover lean meat or game with thinly sliced fat before cooking to prevent the flesh from drying out. the fat is usually tied on with string and barding can be done with strips of bacon or with thin even slices of pork fat.
• Basting-is the process of spooning hot fat or liquied over food as it roasts to keep it moist and juicy.
• To beat-is to stir vigorously with a circular motion using a spoon or whisk to give lightness to a mixture.
• To Bind- is to moisten with liquied such as egg to keep a mixture together.
• To Blanch-meats to whiten meats or to remove strong flavors from vegetables by immersing in boiling water, then into cold water and draining before further cooking.
• To Blend- is to stir a mixture until it is completely combined and smooth.
• To Boil-is to immerse food in water or stock when the liquid has reached 212 f and is bubbling vigorously.
• To Braise-ist he process of cooking meat, poultry, game, fish or vegetables in a small amount of liquied in a pot with a tight fitting lid so the food cooks in the steam from the liquid. First the food is browned in fat, then the cooking is continued on a bed of veggies tradionally.
• Brine is a salt and water solution used in perserving food.
• To broil-is to cook meat, fish or poultry by direct heat, unsally under an oven broiler or over a fire.
• Casserole is a stewpan or Dutch oven in which stews of meat, game, fish, poultry and vegetables are cooked very slowly in liquid or sauce. The pot and the food cooked in it are both referred to as casseroles.
• To Chill-Means to cool food in the refriderator or over ice without freezing.
• Chowder usually refers to a soup based on fish but there are also meat and vegetable chowders.
• To Clarify- To remove impurities by melting used fat, such as beef drippings with one third quantity of water, then boiling, straining and cooling the mixture. When set, scrape any sediment from the base of the solidified fat. or  to clarify butter by heating gently until foaming, skimming well then leaving to set to a solid cake, the sediment (milk solids) at the bottom taken off. or to clear cold stock with egg whites by whisking while bringing to a boil then cooling and straining.
• Consistency-is the degree of the thinness or thickness of a mixture, expecially important in batters, cakemaking and pastry.
• To deglaze- means to dissolve congealed juices from the bottom of a pan, first the food is removed, and excess fat saved, then the remaining sediments are heated with stock and wine to make a gravy or sauce.
• To Dice means to cut food into small squares.
• To Dissolve means to melt a solid substance, sometimes over heat, usually by mixing with a liquid.

What do you think, did you know all the above, anything new in it?

Breakfast DH- Waffles, Chocolate Cranberry Loaf and One Cookie FG- 2 biscuits with turkey meat with tea.

Lunch-Took the leftover taco meat with beans and turned it into a pot of Taco Soup served with biscuits, enough for lunch for two, plus Leftover soup for DH’s Lunch for tomorrow.

Supper-Corn Beef* with roasted cabbage, onions with herb bread, Strawberry/pinapple dessert.

*My first small cornbeef is ready and I wanted to give it a try and see how it turned out, so its currently simmering away in a lovely spiced pouching pan for the next few hours. My larger Peices are currently still in their lovely salty brine solution curing till next week.

Drinks -Water, Tea

Extra’s- Bread, Biscuits, Cookies, Chocolate Cranberry Loaf and Watermelon Cake

So what do you typically put in your corn beef pouching water, I went with  Whole Black Pepper, a stick of cinnamon, Bay leaf, Hot Chili Flakes, Whole Cloves, a pinch of Kosher Salt, two whole garlic Cloves and a onion peeled an sliced in half.  The house smells heavenly at the moment. I am finding it very interesting that the meat is pinking up as its cooking to a lovely rose red color by the time its finished.

I have enough being done so that we can have one for fresh use, and one to be slowly smoked and used for making Rubins.. will need to make some fresh sour cabbage to go with.