Corned Beef Tongue -Waste Not, Want Not

Posted on January 23, 2025 by Just another day on the farm

While i used to raise my own beef, I was lucky enough to find someone who raises the most amazing grass fed beef just down the road for me, i gave my calf’s the best life i could but i was always aware that i was using bagged milk to get them started.

So when i was able to find a family farm that i could see the momma’s and the babies in the fields that grow all their own hay/bedding that sold by the whole or Half, it was a perfect choice and switch for me.

I believe this year was the 6th year of buying my bulk beef from them and i always ask for everything i can get, including the odd bits that most do not ask for. I have shanks, tail, heart and liver as well as the whole tongue.

Tongue for me is a odd bit of the beef, it can be tough and its chewy, i am not fond of it as is.. for me, it must be cured into Corned Beef. It needs a long slow cure time, no rushing this one, a solid few weeks in the cold part of the fridge in the brine will get the job done.

Then the slowest (just a simmer) cook time for hours in a fresh spiced broth, and finally peeled, sliced, *you could also smoke it if you wanted and ready to go.

My favorite way to use it is to dice it up into bits and make a Corned Beef Hash to be served for breakfast or dinner for breakfast with fresh dippy eggs!

Served in these bits, honestly, its like a version of beef bacon, its got a lovely beef flavor to it, but that bit of crisp bit with a touch of chew is very bacon bit like. These can be cooked ahead and used just like you would bacon bits.

In todays higher prices of protein, a lot of folks will be looking to buy direct from the ranchers and farmers and buy a quarter or a whole animals, if you have always gotten your meat from the store, it can be a challenge to figure out how to use some the bits and bobs of unfamiliar cuts, this one is a bit more extreme then trying to figure out how to use a flank steak but its a good two pounds of finished meat and that is a good amount of meals when used correctly.

I will be sharing one more recipe using this meat in the near future. While you do need a bit of space in the fridge or cold cellar to do the cure time, its a amazing way to get the family on board when it comes to eating a different cut.

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Peach Babies and more

Posted on January 21, 2025 by Just another day on the farm

Trays and rows of peach babies are all popping up, remember to plant the tail side down when potting them up, i have held them as long as i could and i have them on a 10 on and 14 hours off as i am working hard to limit their growth due to how early in the year it is, once they all get potted up into their own pots, they are going to be taking up a huge amount of room and right now i am just using the air movement from the furnace but will add in a fan soon enough. 

I am thrilled that last year more then a two dozen plus hard fruit trees came into production in the combined food forests, while everything will not be in full force until another three to five years, there will be peaches!  Local fall fresh peaches indeed! 

Our Little Miss Fancy turned one year old 

Its crazy how fast time is moving the Big Boys are coming five and they are very much who they will be for the rest of their lives.  Fancy is turning out to be a excellent small farm dog and the cold does not seem to be a issue with her at all, she is very determined that she must come out and do chores. 

We are in the middle of a cold snap in our neck of the woods, it a deep wide spread cold and i know that a lot of folks are current hunkered down? How is your temps at the moment, be it winter or summer in your neck of the woods?

I am dreaming and craving fresh veggies from the garden, that joy of heading out with bowls to pick things to be brought in and used moments later

Seed Displays are arriving in the local big greenhouses and seed catalogs have all arrived to the house, a few things to get yet but mostly we are good, having ordered in most of my seeds before the new year even came. 

If you are looking to buy locally, Seedy Saturdays will be coming over the next few months all over the place, but at least locally here, all the Seed Displays are from Canadian Seed Houses.  

I expect that we will see a lot of folks growing more or adding in a few extra food plants or garden box this year, a very good choice indeed.  

 

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Chick Order Time 2025

Posted on January 20, 2025 by Just another day on the farm

The last couple years i have been ordering in six ready to lay hens and keeping my bird flock very small indeed. It was strange because for the other 17 years on the farm, i always have a mixed flock with breeding hens and roos.

The overall health issues of the past few years has made it better to just buy the ready to lay, and the breed i have chosen lays light blue eggs, its a crossbred and its small and barely eats anything all things considered. Called the Azure Blue by Frey’s, they have been proven to be just delightful to keep.

However with all the issues currently happening in terms of Bird Flu in general and that the farm is naturally on a spring and fall flight path and i fully expect we will have related issues. It was time to switch back to a lovely breed i have owned and loved before.

We will be bringing back to the farm the dual purpose Ivory chicken breed, i am bringing in a set amount of female/male chicks as this breed is able to be feather sexed as day olds

While nothing beats the White Rocks on terms of feed to meat and age rates, as a dual purpose the Ivory is a fine choice, with the hens laying on average light brown large eggs in the 275 range per year of heavy production and the males coming in at a lovely little 4 pound fryer at 12 weeks.

I have gotten them from Frey’s Hatchery before and that is where i am ordering them from again this time.  The hens have lovely small combs for our brutal winters an while the males do have larger, its not bad overall compared to other breeds. In keeping with lighting, they are mostly white or light body’s which helps in our deep winter.  Darker feathered birds need more light in winter compared to white or light colored. 

It is possible that i might also cross out a few of my best producing Azure Blue with a select Ivory roo for a lighter body weight laying hen, we will see

I feel the need to go back to having a dual purpose small flock so that i can if needed do a “closed flock” here on the farm for a couple years with the ability to raise my own meat chicks and replace layers.  

One of the perks of the Ivory is that on their second year of life, many of them will go broody and sit a fine clutch of chicks to raise, averaging here on the farm around 12 to 14 per clutch in the past. 

This year we also added in a small group of white rock meat birds to raise and 10 mini classic turkeys for a mix of fryer, rooster and canning and more.  

Have you ordered in your chicks yet? Are you looking to adjust things with the current state of the bird flu? Are you ordering in more layers as sales will be up for small farmers who do end of driveway sales?

 

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Rice Weevil

Posted on January 2, 2025 by Just another day on the farm

I was almost at the end of my one tupperware storage tubs of rice, but its all good, because i had picked up a big bag of white rice at a store, plus i have my US grown red rice, my wild black rice and my mixed blended rice etc.

I like to switch move from the big storage tubs in the laundry cooler pantry, to a smaller working tub in the kitchen pantry, so i asked hubby to grab it and then went, well Bleep.. it was crawling with little black bugs, what a Rice Weevil infestation!

Out they went to freeze in the sub-zero outdoor for 24 hours to wait for garbage day, where they were dumped out and now i just to clean the heck out of my tubs. The good news is only the tubs that got that one bag of rice appear to be effected, so that means my lid seals were on tight indeed.

Still that was many meals of rice that got tossed, and yes i know that in great time of need, it would make sense to freeze and clean and use, but i am not there. I can afford at this time to just remove it and in part its my own fault, my freezers have been full and i have did not freeze the grains before storage.

I will continue to check other grains but so far it appears that i got off lucky and it was contained, its been many many years since i have had a issue and with rising food prices, remembering to freeze your incoming grains could be a meal and money saver.

While i have heard that eggs can be frozen and hatch out afterwards, i have never had that happen, I tend to freeze for 7 days, they say it can be as short at 4 days, if you have the space, why not just make a habit of being a week, the big thing to remember is that after freezing, you need to lay that grain out to dry, you do not want any moisture going back into tub its going to be held in.

This can be harder in larger amounts but the oven turned to its lowest setting to warm it, then turn off and use the oven light does the job well for me

What is your favorite way to help keep this pantry pest out of your house. Do you have good luck keeping tight fitting lidded tubs in your pantry that means if you get a infestation in, that its contained?

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Happy New Year

Posted on January 1, 2025 by Just another day on the farm

Welcoming in the new year with 97 wee peach sprouted pits! What a delightful way to head into 2025

This fall, i put my top 102 select peach pits out of hundreds of choices from five different Sib C that i started from gifted to me pits 6 winters ago.

Five were duds, 97 went though the cold stratification process and cracked their shells, today was the day they moved into the next stage of being potted up..

Over the next six to eight weeks, they will continue to grow, put out first leaves, then true leaves, in keeping with last time, between the duds and baby plant loss, i should or could lose upward of 20 percent before the next big pot up into their own one liter tall pots

Rainy finished her first leather projects from her very first self-processed doe hide, a handmade book and a tool leather roll carrying case, I am very sure both of these will be treasured by those gifted to them for many years to come!

Now that she has done her first hide into leather and learned a number of different things along the way, i am excited to see how her next leather hides go but for right now she is working on a good size buck hide, its about double the size of the doe hide and its prime winter coat.

We have had a warm weather snap, with a bit of rain and the ground water is moving, sump pump is a running and all the cleared pathways are down to green ago but the non-shoveled or plowed are still snow covered so far. Snow and cold are back on the menu this weekend. 

We took advantage of the weather and spent time outside and opened all the windows and aired out the house, which i tend to do daily anyway in winter, it might not be good for the heating bill but it helps me breath better and i have made a point all week to sit out in the fresh air for at least half a hour. 

This week, we gave out apples to the herd of two as we had Mr. Bojangles 8th Gotcha Day happen, we all continue to enjoy the horses, the soft nickers, the warm necks, the velvet muzzle that just has to get kisses.

I am sad that our mini holiday is over and it just flew by, Hubby is back to work tomorrow and so the new year indeed begins. Wishing you all the best! Happy New Year!

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Happy Holidays!

Posted on December 28, 2024 by Just another day on the farm

Its been a white Christmas for our farm and household, quiet and lowkey, all the company plans we had for over the ten day holiday window cancelled due to illness but one who came a bit early! It was such a blessing to have D come and stay for a couple days!

So Hubby, Rainy and I have played card games, board games, D&D games, Done a few Photography sessions, Baked goodies, and cooked much more simple meals then i had planned when more folks were coming over.

So today I am going to share, my take on the viral pets and wrapping paper photography for the holiday season. Most folks taped the paper across doorways and then allowed to the dogs to rip it “breaking though” and there are some cute photos/video’s with some very confused pets lol

I went a little more planned, our wrapping paper was tapped over a cardboard box frame, and i set up a lovely Christmas Tree backdrop behind the low table they worked on, with cover for good footing for all the pets, then we added in some lovely fun props!

I hope you will enjoy them and all dogs and kitty got loads of treats as a reward during the training and during the session itself!

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Advent Calendars

Posted on December 1, 2024 by Just another day on the farm

If you go on amazon or shop in any store, you will find a dizzy amount of Advent calendars available, Advent calendars available. As a child/teen we had the simple window ones with the easter type waxy chocolate figures, tiny bites of chocolate leading up.

The tradition began simply enough when families in Germany the 1900 hundreds started counting the days until Christmas by tallying chalk marks on a door or wall. Some families began making homemade Advent calendars to accompany their countdown, and by the early 1900s, a few publishing companies and newspapers had produced simple printed calendars.

The popularity of Advent calendars spread with the help of a German printer named Gerhard Lang. Having grown up with a homemade calendar, Lang began designing cardboard Advent calendars around the turn of the century and, later in the 1920s, came up with the idea of cutting out little doors that could be opened each day. Behind each door, a devotional picture or Bible verse was hidden. With this innovation, Lang is considered the father of the modern Advent calendar.

My own advent calendar is made up of teas from Vahdam India company, (my favorite company to buy my Chia Tea from) each day i will open it up, find the tea listed for the day and make myself a small pot of tea, pick out one of my Tea Cups or Mugs suited in my mind to the type of tea and reflect on life while i take the time to slow down and sip my tea, write in my journal and so forth.

Today’s tea was a lovely spiced turmeric, light with hints of ginger, delightful indeed.

Teapot score solid 4 out of 5 Would buy this to have in my house, perfect for warm both from coming inside but also if you were not feeling well.

Did you put out the advent calendars in your house last night? Do you have a full sized one that gets refilled season to season and year to year, maybe even passed down though the family? Or do you have memories of the cardboard with the tiny chocolates.

Do you still get one as a adult? and if so, what is yours this year? I might do a weekly round up of teas and teapots or teacups with a little review of my favorite teas.

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No Buy November 2024 Final Week

Posted on November 30, 2024 by Just another day on the farm

Nov 25th – Dental but lets face it while we might not like dental, it is a required item.. thankfully a good portion of it will come back with our coverage.

Nov 26th – No spend

Nov 27th – No Spend

Nov 28th – Winter tire switch and oil change spending on the car, again required and routine, winter is here!

Black Friday! – A few more small on sale Christmas gifts (all under 20 dollars) but then came the bigger spends, a new food processer and a new stand alone mixer. My oldest thrifted food processer lasted me years as a workhorse and then died, and i have been limping along with a tiny one but it has finally worn out, it was time to get a new one with a heavy commercial and big capacity again.

Same with the stand alone, i had a very old from the 70’s kitchen aid, loved that machine but finally worn it out and at the time, while i wanted a proper one, ended up finding a very cheap end of sale one at Canadian tire, it was crazy on sale and i said, lets get this one and use it till i burn the motor out, it was a bad choice really as it does a poor job on most things and i i have ended up using my hand held beaters far more due to it but none the less, i was determined to get every single last job out of it before it got replaced. The time has come to replace it, i know its on its very last legs and really its earned its retirement. I was able to pick up a commercial version with a large motor with a 20 year on certain parts at 43% off on a black Friday sale.. I will put it though its paces an do a report on it soon enough.

Special note, a friend found me the most awesome second hand thrifted teapot for my collection, it was a unplanned spend and i love it! I can’t wait to add it to my collection.. something like this can not be gotten after the no spend month, when it comes to thrift store finds, get them now or forever let it go or go for it. I have not got to see it in person yet but i can’t wait to add it to my teapot collection lol

There was a small grocery top up in the week by husband when he went and did our regular feed buying for the critters, if you want the eggs, you must feed the fowl, if you want healthy horses and upkeep your senior old boy, well then he needs his extra ration and feed.

That wraps up our month of No Buy Feb, all the normal stuff was done and bills paid, it did stop any eating out or coffee on the road which i might add was not easy as they finally have the fake baileys back at Timmie’s. It stopped a number of .. oh, that’s cute buys and it stopped me from walking up and down rows and or even going into stores over the past month, while waiting for medical, while waiting for vehicles to be done etc..

I expect it saved my household a couple hundred dollars in impulse buys but overall, the biggest factor was no stopping, no extra stores and very much preplanning to take out lunches and keep on track of making meals and so on.

If you did a no buy with me, how did it go!

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Christmas is coming!

Posted on November 29, 2024 by Just another day on the farm

Miss Fancy is getting ready for her Christmas Modeling debut and the older dogs and kitties all know that lots of little mini sessions are coming! Pet photography is so fun!

I am excited to planning a great deal of Christmas Baking in the month of Dec! I am looking forward to gifting out small boxes of mixed goodies. I will be making some family favorites along with trying some favorites i have grown to love over the years and in the different places i have lived and traveled to.

I am excited to have gotten in 3.3 pounds of dark malt syrup and yes we will be trying our hand at making malt loaf this year. My husband and his family adore dumpsters malt loaf round bread but this year i am going to see about making my own homemade version.

Do you have a favorite Malt bread loaf recipes that you think i should try? or a Favorite way to use Malt syrup that is a must for the holiday season? I am all ears!

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Black Current Bundt Cake Recipe

Posted on November 28, 2024 by Just another day on the farm

Eat what you grow and harvest and in my freezer is so many tubs of Black Currents from the new 8 bush hedgerow i put into the new “Quote” Park Garden and Food Forest.  We planted the two year old Black Current Bushes on the first year of starting the turning of a 3/4 acre of pasture into a food forest/garden.  2024 was their 3rd year in the the ground an they produced heavily for us on year five in age.

The largest Black Currents we have ever grown and they are a delightful flavor with much less bite then normal, perhaps due to all the rain we had? I made a Black Current/Honey jam but the kind most folks in canning would call a fruit butter as it was slow simmered till it was thick enough.. not a syrup but not thick like a proper jam.

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Black Current Cake Recipe

  • 1/4 cup butter
  • 1/4 cup sugar
  • 2 eggs
  • 1 cup black current jam
  • 1 cup of milk
  • 2 tsp of fresh ginger
  • 1/2 tsp of salt
  • 3 cups of flour
  • 2 tbsp of baking powder

Cream the butter and sugar together, add eggs, mix well, add your jam and milk and grated fresh ginger, mix together, then add the dry, flour, salt and then baking powder. Into your greased Bundt pan, This was baked at 375 for 45 minutes and double checked with a clean knife before removal, let it sit to cool before flipping it, i put the cake plate on top and then turned it out.

Can be topped with your choice of glaze or whip cream, i had a tiny bit of cream cheese and hand blended it with some of the black current jam, ( if you want it smooth, stick blender would would great)  Cool the cake then for icing.

The cake is not sweet and it does have a ginger bite to it, the extra topping and whip cream takes it to a new level at serving time.

30 day challenge!!! WOW, can’t you believe it, today is the day! 30 day challenge of blogging every day!  It felt wonderful in some ways, and on other days i struggled to find something to share, other days it flowed for me. Thank you for joining me on this challenge.

I will finish out the no buy November an then Dec will be here in a blink! I have figured out what my focus will be for Dec and i am looking forward to it.

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