10-mile meal to become a 100-foot meal

Blackberry topped goat's milk yogurt

For the past couple of days, I've been having a breakfast that is currently about a 10-mile meal. I'm having home-made yogurt made with our raw goat's milk (and then strained to make it a little thicker), topped with blackberries that we picked last summer and froze, and then drizzled with honey that comes from a farm up the road in the next town. I bought the honey because it was 'local' but I didn't know how local it actually was until we passed the farm when out biking a couple of weekends ago. I figure that if we drove directly there, it would be about 10 miles from us. This meal is not only a wonderfully filling and refreshing breakfast, but it brings back sunny memories from last summer. And if I have this same breakfast next spring - I'll be using our own honey and will be calling it a 100 foot meal!

This past weekend, we did a bunch of planting. I put in seeds for some more kohlrabi (the previous seeds were pretty churned up by baby goat hooves...so I doubt they'll sprout if they are even still in the same location!), some different lettuces, turnips, beets, parsnips and carrots. Because carrot seeds are so small, it's hard to not just dump them in the soil and then keep them thinned. But I suck at thinning because I just hate to terminate the life of those little potential pieces of food! I got this idea from a forum I belong to for planting carrot seeds. They were using newspaper, but since I didn't have any readily available, I used TP. I gently spread out the carrot seeds on a dry strip of TP. Then I folded it over the seeds into thirds and lightly misted it with water. Then I layed them on a piece of tinfoil to carry them out to the garden. It worked really well! Now lets see how well they sprout. :-)

Carrot seeds in TP strips prior to planting in the ground.

We stopped by ACE to use up the last of a gift card we had to buy another rain barrel. While we were there, I decided to see if they had canning jars yet. They didn't, but they were so helpful in letting me order some that I decided it was time to start stocking up again. I selected 3 wide mouth pint cases and 5 wide mouth quart cases for now. We'll need more later on, but I can wait for local sales for futher purchases. ACE called me two days later to say that my jars were in, so we picked them up last night. I always feel better with more jars available to me. I'll feel even better once these are full of home grown produce and safely tucked away in the pantry!

The canning jar 'tower' awaiting a trip to the basement.

Apple pie filling

Canned apple pie filling - absolutely yummy!

On Friday, a girlfriend of mine came over and we did some canning together. Even putting up the 'same old stuff' is more fun when you have company!

We started the day by picking apples. We hit up the first tree of tiny apples. Then we noticed that the other two small trees at the back of the property had two different types of apples on them. After a quick taste - we determined that these would be good 'pie' apples as well. We picked everything that was usable (mostly with scab) and they filled about half a bucket. Then we headed over to the two massive red delicious trees and picked a few of these as well.

We started with applesauce and made 7 quarts using a mixture of apples. I washed and prepped the apples, my friend cored/sliced them. After we'd put them through the food mill, we discovered that the sauce tasted very bland. We added spices and sugar and doctored it up enough. Then we canned it.

While this was going on, we also were making apple butter in the crock pot which smelled just amazing (as usual!).

The next project was apple pie filling. While I was hunting down a good recipe, I discovered a little bit of helpful info about red delicious apples. They are eating apples only. They apparently have no taste when cooked - guess that's why our apple sauce was so bland - too many red delicious in the mix! Live and learn! Though, I would like to mention that while they may not be good for cooking, they dry just beautifully! We dried half a dehydrator of them and they are very tasty. So for from now on, our red delicious apples will be eaten or dried. In fact, I spoke to our neighbor about taking a clipping off her tree of yummy apples. I'm going to graft it onto one of our trees, so I think I'll do it on the red delicious trees since we have way, way more than we will ever eat!

Anyway, I found what sounded like a good apple pie filling recipe and we set to work. The water, sugar and spices went into a pot to boil. The cornstarch and lemon juice and a little more water waited on the counter. Then we peeled, cored and sliced what we thought were enough apples. All the while, the jars were in the dishwasher keeping warm. When the apples were ready, we dumped the cornstarch water into the pot and mixed it. It thickened almost immediately. Then we set about filling jars. We filled 5 quart jars with apples and topped them with the sauce. We had just enough sauce left over to fill an additional pint jar, so we sliced another couple of apples for that and set them all into the canner to process. Twenty minutes later, we had what you see in the photo above!

Then we canned the apple butter before shutting down the stove for the evening. What a day!

On Saturday, I threw the apple pie apples from the pint jar into a pan. While it was heating, I made pancakes. When the pancakes were ready, so were the apples, so I piled them on. HEAVEN!! Seriously, it was so incredibly good!! In fact, it was so good that on Saturday evening after a day of painting (different post!), I spent a couple of hours making another 7 quarts of the filling! I altered the recipe a bit to make it slightly spicier and to make enough to fill 7 quarts with each recipe. And, you can bet that I'll be doing a few more batches in the coming week. I think this is my favorite canning item so far!


The recipe:

5 1/2 cups white sugar
1 cup cornstarch
4 teaspoons ground cinnamon
1/2 teaspoon ground nutmeg
2 teaspoons salt
14 cups water
3 tablespoons lemon juice
~8 pounds apples

DIRECTIONS
1. In a large pot, mix sugar, cinnamon, nutmeg, salt and 12 cups of water. In another bowl, mix cornstarch, lemon juice and 2 cups of water. Bring first pot to a boil and when apples are ready, add cornstarch. Cook until thick and bubbly. Keep simmering until all jars are filled.
2. Sterilize canning jars, lids and rings and keep jars warm.
3. Peel, core, and slice apples. Pack the sliced apples into hot canning jars, leaving a 1 inch headspace.
4. Fill jars with hot syrup, and gently remove air bubbles with a knife. Leave a 1/2 inch headspace.
5. Put lids on and process in a water bath canner for 20 minutes.

Makes 7 quarts.

We sold the Prius!

Yay! Last night, I met with a guy from another part of our state who saw my Prius on Craigslist. He said it was the exact car that he'd been looking for, and he agreed to buy it sight-unseen. We met at a local bank where he got the funds to pay for it and I said good-bye to the little hybrid. Unlike when I traded in my MINI, I did not cry. ;-)

We have paid off the balance of the loan on it (of course) and are now trying to decide how to best prioritize our next purchases. We think a new fridge is pretty high on the list as the one we have now is doing a terrible job of keeping things in the freezer, frozen. We figure that if we get a new fridge with a bigger and better freezer, that we can get away with only buying a much smaller chest freezer for long term storage items. We have already purchsed a nice, tabletop water filter. In an emergency, shelter and clean water are the most important items (followed by food), so with this filter in our possession, we are pretty well off. In the winter, we can easily collect rainwater and filter it. By summer time, we hope to get a hand pump installed on our well, so that we'll be able to extract water in the event of power outage. Then we can filter that water if we plan to drink or cook with it.

We had another cord of wood delivered on Monday. That sets us up pretty well for the winter - even if it's a harsher one than usual. Aparently, our inability to get wood wasn't unique to us (or related to our belated inquiries). The guy who delivered it said that the shortage is mostly due to the downturn of the housing market, if you can believe it! When there are less new homes being built, there is less need for lumber. Most of the firewood in our area is basically from the cast-offs of making lumber. Less building means less trees are being cut down (which is good) but it also means that there is less firewood to be had and that which is available is therefore more expensive. Next year, we'll be buying our wood in July!

This coming weekend will be a busy one (is there any other kind?). I have plans to meet with a friend to do some canning on Friday. I'm trying to secure enough canning jars (there is a shortage this time of year), but once I do, we'll do a number of things - applesauce, apple pie apples, grape juice, grape jam, etc... Then, since Saturday and Sunday are forecasted to be sunny - we'll finally start painting!! I can't wait!! I'll be sure to post pictures when we are done. :-)

A date for Sasafras

We did it! We found an Alpine buck to breed Sass with...locally. Very local, in fact. They live about 4 miles from us! We decided that we wanted to stick with an Alpine for the buck. That way, if we end up selling any of her offspring, they'll be purebloods and easier to sell. We are expecting that she'll have twins and we are hoping to have girls. Sass has at least a couple more years of kidding in her, so if we don't get girls, we'll try again. We are both excited (and a bit scared) about this whole process. We are tracking her estrus (heat) and when she shows signs again, we'll call the buck's owner and set up a date. If we do this in the next couple of weeks (which we hope to) that means she'll be kidding in March. How fun and terrifying all at once! We figure that even if we have no idea what we are doing, at least Sass does. She's an old hand at this and will hopefully be patient with us.

I checked on our little injured Seven last night. She appears to be healing well and seems no worse for the wear. She's going to remain in the 'hospital' crate in the garage until she's healed up. We are keeping her clean, fed and comfortable, so hopefully she'll heal quickly. While I'm sure she's happy to not be abused, I think she's lonely.

The siding is almost done! When I got home yesterday, I drove up to a house that pretty much looks complete. I'll try to take a few photos tonight. It looks good! The shingles look really nice with the boards and the area over the garage is way nicer than it was before. They also managed to extend the siding a little further down the foundation in the front, so it looks much more finished off. And the front porch area? It looks GREAT. These guys really did a nice job. We are both very impressed. I think we still have a final walk-through...and there are a few little things left to re-attach...but for the most part, it's complete. I think we may get to start painting this weekend!

So, for this weekend we have a few plans:

1) start painting
2) can more pears and make pearbutter

3) buy supplies to make large chicken run

4) buy chest freezer

5) season mild feta and make more

6) try making grape juice

We received notification from the apartment complex that we should see a check for our deposit soon. That's money that we had not budgeted on, so we are going to use it to buy the chest freezer. I also found some drawings/plans to make fence panels that hook together to create a mobile chicken run. I'm going to attempt getting the supplies (and maybe making a few) this weekend. I want to be able to give the chickens more room before we reintroduce Seven to the group.

Canning, canning and then more canning!

Pears are ready - we have three trees all of which are ripening at the same time. Pear overload! It's a mad dash to get them all preserved in one form or another before they go bad!

When Saturday dawned grey and chilly, I was secretly delighted. Perfect weather for spending the weekend in the kitchen without feeling like I was missing out on something better. ;-) Our first order of business (after the chores) was to pick up our share of grass-fed beef and pork from the local CSA. We met the couple who owns the ranch and their six (SIX!) sons! They couldn't have been much older than us but they had six sons ranging in age from about 17 to about 2. AND they run a ranch? Yeah, remind me of that the next time I'm complaining about not having enough time on my hands! They were a cool couple and we are glad to be supporting them. We offered to bring them fallen apples and pears for their pigs - so we hope to do that this coming weekend. Anyway, after we stopped at the local discount store to pick up some more wide-mouth canning jars, we headed home.

While my H was keeping himself busy fixing a plethora of items around the homestead, this weekend was all about food preservation for me. First off, I started with making cajeta. This is a mexican caramel candy made from milk. It basically makes a creamy caramel sauce that can be used over ice cream, with apple slices, eaten by itself to squash a sweet craving...etc. I liked that it used up 3 quarts of milk! The directions sounded deceptively simple and we've long ago learned that when it sounds too good to be true - it is. Anyway, I started with a big pot of milk, sugar and cornstarch.



I boiled it until it started forming a caramel-type mixture.


What the directions failed to point out was that this process would take HOURS. Ugh. Anyway, once it was the right consistancy, I pour it into pint jars and processed it in my waterbath canner. I now have two jars in the pantry and one in the fridge for immediate consumption. I've only tried tasting it (creamy, milky, caramel flavor) and have yet to use it on sliced apples (maybe tonight?). It's good!



Then I went out and picked the last of the blackberries. While I was out there, I met up with our neighbors (and their dogs) and we got to chatting a bit. They gave us a few of their apples (delicious variety that we don't have) and we offered up all the pears they could eat! They also mentioned that if we needed their help, they'd be happy to watch our animals for us some time. That was good news! That and the fact that they are going to get chickens, too. :-) Anyway, I used up the blackberries by making the jam, freezing two more quarts, and then baking my mom's awesome blueberry muffins but with blackberries.

Our freezer packed with milk (the ivory colored bags - it's white when it's defrosted), grass fed pork and beef (the white paper packages) and frozen berries (blackberries and blueberries).

Blackberry jam - seedless variety. We have now 12 pints of this which should last us through the year, no problem!

Blackberry muffins! Jordan Marsh style!

They turned out tasty, but fell apart when I tried to get them out of the pan. I didn't grease it well enough. Ooops.


Then I moved on to pear sauce. First I picked out enough pears to fill the same pot that made me 7 quarts of applesauce.

Washed pears - awaiting the knife...

Then I sliced them leaving the skins on since my food mill will separate them for me.

Then I boiled them, sauced them, and put it back into the pot to season it. It just didn't go as well as the apple sauce did. The sauce came out kind of watery. I tried to boil off some of the juice, but it's still pretty wet. Eh. I canned it anyway (7 quarts).

I need to make labels - the pearsauce looks deceptively like applesauce!


On Sunday I canned the pear slices, made more applesauce (which turned out way better than the first batch because I used 3 varieties), and started making applebutter in the crock pot. I'll be canning the applebutter this evening after work.

Pears - canned and ready for the pantry!

All in all - it was a weekend of successful pantry stuffing!

Applesauce success!

Today I set about to make applesauce. I'd picked two big fabric bags of apples off the tree that is now basically done with apples a little over a week ago and I needed to use them up. I've got two mesh bags of the most perfect looking ones down in the basement. I've also got a big 'green bag' of good ones in the fridge for eating now. I figured that the rest of them would make good applesauce.

Basically, I followed directions that I found online. First I washed all the apples. I picked over them and set the ones with big bruises to one side. Then I began slicing them. I used one of those slicers that you center over the core and press down. I left the skin on, and it went quicker than I thought it would. I kept a box at my feet for the cores, and I threw all of the slices into a big pot that had about an inch of water in it. I cut off the biggest bruises prior to slicing those, and it kept me from having to throw out too many apples.

Once all the apples were sliced, I boiled them in the water (the ones on top were only steamed) until they started getting pretty soft.

Then I started ladeling them into the food mill. I debated using the screen designed for salsa so that I could get a chunky applesauce, but decided that since this was my first attempt, I'd keep it simple and not screw around with the directions too much. It was really easy. I just kept dumping in the slices, turning the crank, and periodically emptying my bowl into a big pot.


Eventually, I had all the apples sauced. I then moved the pot to the stove to keep the sauce hot for canning. I added cinnamon, nutmeg and a little succant to sweeten it a bit.

As all this was going on, all my jars were in the dishwasher finishing up the 'sani rinse' so that they were nice and clean and hot for the next step.

I pulled one jar at a time out, filled it with applesauce, put the lid on and set it on the waterbath canner rack. I repeated this until I had 7 quarts filled (the max my waterbath canner will hold). It worked out perfectly. If I fill my big stainless pot to the top with apple slices, I get exactly 7 quarts of applesauce! Once they were all filled, I submerged them, added some more boiling water to cover the tops by 1 -2 inces...and then boiled them for 20 minutes.

I set them out to cool and was concerned that they wouldn't all seal (I'd forgotten to wipe the rims of two jars). Turns out, they all sealed beautifully and they are now sitting quietly in my pantry. As soon as I have enough ripe pears (or enough ripe apples of a different type), I'm going to make more. I was impressed with how smoothly the whole process went. Start to finish, I'd guess that it was about 2 hours. I feel so domestic!