Weekend Milk Projects in 10 Steps.

1. Separate cream and set out on counter overnight.
2. Wake up and shake shake shake to make butter, then salt and cream it.
3. Buttermilk saved to use in homemade/baked mac & cheese with garden broccoli.
4. Set out a quart of milk out to separate into whey and cream cheese (destined to be paired with lox and homemade bagels)
6. Thaw out some previously saved whey, pick some dill and chives and start a batch of Gravlox (marinated salmon) that will hang out in the fridge under a weight for about 5 days.
7. Chop up a ton of veggies and pound the bejesus out of them to make Kim Chee.
8. Pick and juice a lemon, harvest 2 eggs and whip together some homemade mayo.
9. Have the novel idea to use the egg white and lemon juice leftover from making the mayonnaise and whip up some meringue cookies.

10. Admire all the projects out on the counter and in the fridge. Feel accomplished and satisfied. Edit photos and prepare to blog the recipes i used today.

Stay tuned - tonight or tomorrow - for some rockin recipes!
I love productive weekends!

New Receptacles, New Kitchen Layout!

 

Tidy! Organized! Clean! Uncluttered! Recycled! Attractive!

Hot dog, it's been a good week. The husband has been coming home early (unlike today when he may or may not come home at all) and we've been stopping by various thrift stores around town. We have several really good ones within 5 miles of our house.
I am a sucker for the "housewares" section of a thrift store, and have lately actually needed to look for things there.
I'm gearing up for our future market booth by finding as many used receptacles to house my bathsalts and other cosmetic items. I've also been needing more jars to ferment and store things in here at home, so it's been a fun adventure of cheap, recycled, salvaged glassware.

My mom always told me i could never work with a cluttered space. It is SO true. Nothing thrills, and calms, me more than a clean counter and organized workspace.  I've had a spinny spice rack for years, and disliked it for years. My new find doesn't hold any MORE spices, but allows me to reuse various jars, and to see all the spices in one take. I'd love to find a matching rack to go on the other side of my oven someday. I also reorganized my draws so that all my spices are in the same region of the kitchen, the area i'm usually standing while mixing (versus across the kitchen like it was before, folly) so that everything flows seamlessly and pleasantly.

My cupboards have also been filled with less packaged foods and more whole grains and other bulk items. This is great, i'm making more and more things from scratch. But a drawer full of baggies is a pain. My new mason jars allow me to get those bulk grains and pastas out of the baggies and into visually pleasing clear jars. I can see them, they look good, and they'll stay fresh while freeing up space in the cupboards (that will soon be filling with home canned goods). 
You (and my mom) may say that adding so many jars to my kitchen is really just filling up counter space. But really - these jars are now blocking my view of the back of the tv, make the kitchen look pretty from the living room, and are just occupying otherwise empty space in a mostly unused secondary counter. I can't wait to see the bubbling activity of new, larger batches of Kim Chee.

 

I'm loving it!

It was also really nice to have some of my lady friends stop by and notice my new set up. I like having my house look nice, go figure!

The only qualm i have: old used jars often come with nasty falling apart rubber seals. I'm sure those are replaceable. It's so much fun to find a cute matching set of jars, especially when you've pieced the set together from different stores and towns.

Do you have a source for new rubber gaskets? What is your favorite storage receptacle? Do you prefer to show off your pretty bulk foods, or hide them in the dark of your cupboard.

Guadalupe River State Park

My photograph was chosen!

Check out this guide to the San Antonio area. One of my photos was chosen to be featured as the Guadalupe River State Park image.

Kinda neat.

Sewing Machine Cunundrom

I have kind of a crappy sewing machine. I bought it used at a yard sale about 10 years ago when i was in high school. Despite its genericness, it has always worked well for me.

Until now.

My Euro-Pro 375 is not a fancy machine. It reverses, it has zig zags and other things i rarely use. But it seems to lack tension adjustments where I'm used to them being, it jams all the time, and it is full of dust and broken threads that i can't for the life of me reach to clean out.  But it's always WORKED. To SOME extent.

And then i dropped it. Woops.
I've been storing this thing in its original cardboard box for the last ten years and it finally broke open the other day, leaving the machine, and many of its accessories, to tumble out the bottom of the box. 
It hasn't quite shaken the trauma of that little incident.
Since then it just doesn't draw the thread in properly, the tension is all off, and the bobbin thread breaks continuously.

Mid project i decided to stop cursing and torturing myself (and anyone within ear shot) and just give it a rest. A service call would cost me about $79. And i'd be left with the same simple, crappy machine that may or may not need further repair. Or i could do a lot of craigslist/goodwill searching and try and find a nicer used one. My mama has a great singer i could have - but it is in Oregon and I am in Texas.

I continue the search! Wish me luck in finding a decent machine that will serve me better, and soon. The husband and i have some neat shared ventures (his website will be up soon, hopefully) that require a functional machine.

Do you have a favorite brand or feature in a sewing machine? (do you have one you want to give me? haha just kidding.... but really.....do you?) What is it you look for when shopping for a sewing machine - brand, features, age, or price, or all 4, or something else?

Help me choose some Homesteading products

Hello, lovely readers and friends.
It is January, which is 'time to spend my Christmas money." I have a few different things I have been wanting for a while:
pressure canner
bread maker
food dehydrator
new clothes dryer to replace our 'harvest gold' edition from Kenmore

among other things.....  I think the coolest of those would be a pressure canner. I think that if i had a pressure canner i could can stock and other low acid things, freeing up a lot of space in my fridge and freezer. I have no idea how easy to use these things are, if you can just can a few cans at a time, etc etc.
They're also pretty expensive even with my christmas money.
BUT i've seen some in my 'thank you' network (thank you points earned on my credit card) that i can almost afford!

Please let me know if you have experience A. with a bread maker: is it worth it? or is the oven and a pan just as easy? B. with pressure canners: easy to use? a brand in specific that's good?
  the "All American" brand canners seem the nicest (aka most expensive) but come in a variety of sizes from 21 to 41 quarts. My other options are a few made by Presto and one by Fagor ranging from 10 - 23 quarts.

Please lend me your advice!

"Bison Balls"

Yes, this post title was aptly named by my husband. But hey, that's what they are!
I happened  to find some relatively inexpensive bison meat at the market the other day and planned to use the second to last baggy of stored homegrown tomatoes to make some spicy bison meatballs. We've been having a bit too much pasta lately, so i'm not sure what i'll serve them over, but i'm sure it will be delicious and hopefully have some leftover for sandwiches during the week.

• 1 pound bison meat
• 1/4 cup breadcrumbs with some ground up oatmeal mixed in
  
• 1/2 cup (or more) finely diced onion 
• 3 cloves finely diced garlic
• one egg scrambled
• hot chillies to taste (add lots!)
  
• salt and pepper
• mixed dried herbs: rosemary, basil, oregano, allspice
  
• drizzle truffle oil
• 2 splashes Worcestershire sauce
  

Mix up all ingredients but the meat and egg, add the meat and mix well with your hands. Make a little reservoir and scramble up the egg (this saves dirtying another bowl) then mix the egg into the meat mixture. Form into 1 1/2 inch balls and place on a pan with space between each.

Heat oven to 400 and bake about 15 minutes, turning once until browned. I found the balls to be quite soft, so take care while turning.

Meanwhile cook down yummy tomato sauce with plenty of hot peppers and garlic added. My frozen tomatoes already had onions and basil added, I added about 1/4 cup of mixed tomato paste from last night's pita pizzas, a good splash of red wine, some garlic, and lots more salt and pepper. If i do this again, I will be adding a lot more spice to both the balls and the sauce.  The tomato was cooked down with the skins still on, so after bringing to a simmer i blended the sauce up with the immersion blender to create a nice, thick, rich sauce - watch out for splatters!.
I still don't understand why people feel the need to add olive oil to tomato sauce.

When finished, add the meatballs to the sauce and allow to simmer for about 10 minutes or until your pasta or whatever else is ready. You could serve this on bread, on pasta, or as i ate it on potato. I would have preferred to serve it over a bed of sauteed kale, but my kale is lame this year. I served topped with some homemade mozzarella.

Notes:
This was delicious, don't get me wrong. I can't eat red meat, yet this was great and i did not get sick: god bless lean, antibiotic free bison! The sauce was delicious, it would have been better over pasta, but i'm trying to avoid pasta when i can (for dinner at least). The bison balls themselves were delicious, moist, firm, flavorful - i didn't notice the truffle flavor much, and they weren't nearly as spicy as i thought they'd be. Next time i will load up with a lot more spice. I also majorly missed having a green ingredient in my dinner. Not used to eating mostly meat and sauce. Tonight I will be eating nothing but green to make up for it, good thing i have lots of lettuce and spinach in the garden for the taking.

Just a bit of Sillyness

What better way to spruce up a front lawn than decorating a chicken tractor with some ridiculous folk art, and of course 4 lovely chickens.

I can have a difficult time just making sillyness with my artistic skills. I'm a bit of a perfectionist, and after all this is what i do for a living, but it is fun to just dig out your old acrylic paints and slop them onto a primed board.

Doesn't hurt to have some fabulous models to work from.  I think i'd like to add some eggs down at the bottom.
I wonder what Belina will think about my interpretation of her.

Planting Spring Onions

It sure feels like spring today, 69 degrees, bright and sunny, light breeze= a perfect day to plant just about anything. It really is still too early to plant most Spring things, but a good time to plant the very last of the cool season veggies and to get an early start on onions.  I may be messing things up as i really shouldn't plant the onions until mid February, but this winter is totally baffling me and i feel i might as well pretend it is going to stay warm, cuz it just might. And if it doesn't, these onion sets only cost 2 dollars so it won't be a huge loss. My rain barrel is full, so the water doesn't cost me anything, and i'd be cultivating these new planters anyway. I say it's a win win.

I also planted some mustard seed today and some kale seeds. My winter crop of kale is completely depressing, but i will not be defeated! Try Try Again!

As always, i picked out the variety of onion i wanted, then immediately forgot which i picked. I THINK that i got a Texas variety of white bermuda that matures in about 90-100 days and stores up to 3 months after being cured in the sun for a week or so. I wanted an onion that stored pretty well for this early batch, I plan a second batch in about a month of either a sweet or red onion. My plan is to grow the onions in my new planters out front, harvest green onions as they grow allowing some to bulb quite large, then follow with my Summer planting of basil. This new location has a lot of sun so i think the basil will like that spot and the time the onions take to mature should put their harvest at just the right time to plant the basil.

I almost feel silly planting more onions. I have a patch of perennial 'walking onions' that are doing great - but i wanted the regular old bulbing onions as well to eat raw in salsas and things.

I chose to plant some lettuce seeds, a good companion to onions amongst them. I planted the onions a bit close together: about 2-3 inches apart. Onions are happiest at about 4 inches apart, but by planting them closer i maximize my space and can harvest smaller scallion type onions while thinning them out as they get bigger, leaving about half to grow to their full size.

I prepared my beds with Texas Greensand, soft rock phosphate, lots of compost and some molasses. I set each onion start into a finger hole of soil, about 2 inches deep. I then sift the soil around it, press down with my fingers and lift the little onion up to be about 1/2 inch deep. This helps the roots to be dangling down deeper in the soil instead of all flumuxed in a tangle around the tip of the onion.

The large bulbs left to get big should mature in about 2-3 months, depending on the weather, etc.  Harvest when the greens start to droop back and the bulb has swollen. Pinch off any flower stalks that come up. Onions like a lot of fertilizer to get good and big. I will side dress with a nitrogen rich fertilizer several times during the season, starting when they've reached about 8 inches tall and repeating every 3 weeks or so (if i remember!)

Onions are a must in every garden. They can be planted in the Spring or Fall. They're a good companion to carrots, lettuce, dill, brassicas, strawberries,  peppers and tomatoes. Keep away from peas. Last year i planted them here and there in my garden and they did well, as did their neighbors. I found it difficult to keep track of them, however and chose to dedicate planters to them alone this year.

Plant onions for their attractiveness, their helpfulness in the garden, and their healthfulness. Onions and garlic should find their way into at least a meal a day. I use them to aid in my healthy saute technique: the moisture within onions is released under a lid and allows me to cook things that would otherwise need oil with simply a moist, steamyness. They are delicious, versatile, and chock full of vitamin C, antibacterial and antifungal properties. Onions may help to reduce cholesterol and lower blood pressure.  Whenever i hear a friend say they're getting sick my answer is always this: "Drink some white tea, and eat a bunch of garlic and onions."

So, Here's to your health!

What is your favorite variety of onion?

Lovely Afternoon, Preparing Beds and Weeding Around the Wildflowers

What a beautiful day! Normally I might not be so thrilled for a 70 degree, slightly humid, breezy almost stormy but sunny day in January - but heck, even if it's SUPPOSED to feel like Winter, that kind of day is perfect! Now if only we got more of those days in the middle of Summer when i'm hiding in my studio under 7 fans and misters.

The husband brought home a dolly yesterday and we moved some old planters to the front yard - i think they make a nice fence like border along the sidewalk, though i wish we had one more to make a nice odd number. Although it is a little early to plant most things, and theoretically too early to prune (i don't buy it: my rosemary has already put on 3 inches of spring growth and the pecan tree is budding) i took the beautiful afternoon off to get my hands dirty.

 

I weeded. Every last square inch. I weeded around the broccolis, lettuces, and herbs in the veggie garden, i weeded around all the little sprouting wildflowers in the 'strip', and i weeded any other weeds that i saw and fed them to delighted chickens left behind in the back yard. Belina and Soot laid this morning so they had the privilege of joining me in the front yard to snack on Elbon Rye. Lots of clearing as well as weeding helped to open up areas around the xeric bed and big herbs - the compost doubled in size!

 

I prepared the planters to receive onion sets: tilled, pulled the fava beans to compost, mixed in molasses and rock phosphate and a few handfuls of more compost. The raised bed that usually houses basil will be used for mustard this year: i am excited to make pickled mustard leaves and let the plants flower to make mustard from my very own mustard seeds.

It was a bit tricky weeding around the wildflowers, as they are essentially weeds themselves. But i was careful, and i was delighted to see little flowers here and there already blooming! I reckon This year is going to be a great wildflower year for me.

 

During my weeding and thinning i harvested a few radishes, overgrown but still perfect for soup, some kale and some sorrel and dill. I've never added dill to chicken soup before, and i don't think i will again - it added another dimension to the soup, but i'm not sure i'm a big fan of that dimension. The sorrel and radishes, on the other hand, were delicious and cooked to a perfect firm but not crunchy in about 1 hour in the soup stock. We enjoyed our soup while watching The Natural History of the Chicken, which is a completely ridiculous movie - especially enjoyable to those of us with chickens. Hilarious, and insightful. We caught part of this film when the chickens were wee chicks in a box beside us, and it was very neat to watch it now with older chickens and recognize in our hens the traits those in the film also recognized - they are such interesting critters!

 

Next on my list is a trip to the nursery to buy mustard seed, onion sets, borage seed, corn seed, and cucumber seed. My step mama is bringing me some green beans - not sure if they'll translate from Eugene OR to Austin TX, but i'm happy to receive. I would order my seeds from the many catalogues i receive, but my limited space requires limited seeds and my local organic nursery has a pretty nice selection of plants that do well in this specific area.

All in all, a wonderful 2-3 hours spent with my girls and my garden: some of my very favorite things!

Have you gotten your hands dirty yet this Spring?

Managing my flock.

Chickens are so easy!

Well, yes and no. Chickens can be farm animals, ignored for the most part and do just fine with proper maintenance. My girls are treated as pets. There are just four of them, they all have names and very clear personalities. Friends of mine are often shocked to learn how unique each chicken is: i can tell their eggs apart, their voices, and they definitely each behave differently.They are all about 7 months old and have been laying about a month and a half or so.

BB is a Chantecler, a very rare breed from Canada. Since the beginning she's been furtive and darty (hence the name BB - faster than a speeding BeeBee, plus she's copper colored) She's also the most aggressive and the most intensely obsessed with treats. She will literally come running across the back yard if she so much as THINKS you're holding a peanut. Despite being our smallest hen, BB was the first to lay and lays almost daily. What a trooper!

Soot is a Black Australorp, a breed fro Australia known for excellent egg laying. She isn't quite as adept at laying as little BB, but her eggs are big, richly dark brown with dark dark yolks. She is my favorite, yes, i said it. Since she was small you could just pick her up, one handed, and she'd dociley dangle there until you'd set her down. She frequently hops up on our bench or lap (much to the chagrin of the husband's dropped toast) and is just the sweetest thing. She makes darling coo sounds and will allow me to hug her for minutes on end.

Belina is a Buff Orpington and FULL of personality. She was the last to lay, but she's doing alright for herself so far. Her eggs are dark brown but covered in a strange chalky coating, i don't know what's up with that. She is hugely fluffy, thinks she's head of the roost (though i'm thinking BB is actually the lead hen, hard to say), has been treated like 'mama' since they were small and she was slightly bigger (the other girls would try and crawl under her tummy. really guys, she's not THAT much bigger). She always has something to say and a screaming, bawking sort of way. I'm still waiting to hear some proper clucks or buk buks, Belina growls.

And finally, Sweet Olive is a Silver Laced Wyandotte. She is a month older than the rest as she was a replacement pullet when our first Wyandotte turned out to be a rooster. She's a real champ - laying almost daily along with BB. Her eggs are large and creamy light brown. She is a very sweet bird, but still a bit scared of us since she wasn't raised since an egg sized chick. All the other girls still pick on her, but she has become part of the flock more or less.

So, back to flock management. In brief:

• I recently built them a little tractor for the front, and they love it! is helping to supplement their diet and get them some fresh air
• They have developed fowl pox. This is scary, but shouldn't be fatal. Like chicken pox in humans they'll get warty sores that will break open and fall off. They can get infected, so i've added vitamins to their water (antibiotics if they start looking ill, but not until then) and treat each sore with tea tree oil to suck out the puss. So far they're behaving happily and just fine, i just heard Belina squawking in the back, so she should be fine, haha.
• I also noticed little yellow bugs crawling on the big yellow bird the other day: lice. So i purchased some insecticidal dust, held each hen upside down by their legs and dusted them well. The lice seem to be gone.
• I also cleaned the coop out completely with borax and bleach water and then white washed with the insecticidal dust and diatomaceous earth (DE).
  
• As management from now on: i will be sure to clean out the nest materials (hay) more often, and dust the coop with DE weekly. The next time they dust bath in about a week i will redust them with the nasty dust, and from then on add DE to their dust bath spot often.
  

So that's that. They are easy to take care of, but you do have to listen to them and be sure they're limited needs are well met.

Broccoli and Chicken with Pesto Sauce

HOLY cow, this was good. I had a feeling it would be, but man it sure panned out to exceed expectations.
A broccoli floret was ready to harvest and we still have plenty of pesto in the freezer, so i planned to put those two together. On a trip into the market for frozen peas i noticed whole chickens were on sale. I bought one and chopped it apart and skinned it (ew). The breasts were chopped and placed in the fridge, legs, wings, and body de-fatted and skinned and placed separately in the fridge to become chicken soup / craftable bones later. Apologies for the not so artful photo of the final product, i was already sitting down and asked the husband to photo his bowl.

Makes a perfect two portions with a little leftover for lunch, if you can stand not having seconds.

• 2 not huge chicken breasts cut into 1 inchish cubes
• about 1 1/2 cup of spicy pesto/turkey broth plus 1 T whey
• 2 hot chillies, i used habaneros from the garden
• 1 onion, diced
• pinch chopped fresh rosemary
• 4 garlic cloves, coarsely chopped
• 1 broccoli floret with 3 leaves, chopped to even sizes including the stem
• Mirin (rice wine) or sherry or white wine

Saute the onions, peppers and garlic with a splash of water, salt and pepper, over med/high heat and covered until getting soft.

Add the chopped chicken, season with salt and about 2 T of the pesto sauce, (my pesto and turkey stock were stored frozen in the freezer in ice cube shapes in ziplock bags. I simply tossed them into a cup and thawed them in the microwave for about 2 minutes) and a good splash of Mirin. Cover for a few minutes, stir, re-cover, turn heat to medium and simmer until cooked through. Contents of pan should be steamy and simmering.
Heat pasta water to boiling.

When chicken is cooked through, add the broccoli and stir in with chicken and onions, cover and cook over medium heat. Let the broccoli steam. Meanwhile cook your pasta - i used whole wheat with wheat germ spaghetti that cooked in 5 minutes.

Broccoli if fresh will cook in about 5 minutes, older tougher broccoli may take a bit longer.
When all is just about done, pour the pesto sauce evenly over the chicken and broccoli to warm, covered.

Ta Da! Drain the pasta, serve into bowls or plates ( i like bowls so that all the juices are contained, kept warm, and it's easy to stir without getting green splatter all over yourself ) and top with the pesto brocc/chx.

This was spicy and delicious! Didn't need cheese at ALL, but cheese is always good so feel free to top with some shredded mozz or parm. I really love the flavor habaneros lend to things, and my pesto had jalapenos in it which adds a different heat in itself.

This was easy to do, room for error or wandering about - just be sure that the pan stays covered and the interior is steamy and simmery - don't let the onions/garlic burn.  This method of cooking chicken keeps it SUPER moist. All that steamy goodness shoves itself into the chicken, imbibing it with flavor and retaining a succulent texture. And who doesn't love steamed broccoli or pesto! My pesto is very low in oil, FYI, so the sauce was very healthy and mixing it with the turkey stock made it go further but added a layer of richness. Stir it all up with your noodles to soak the sauce into them too. So Good!
( I got a high five for this one )

What are some of your favorite pesto recipes?

Spring Garden Preparations

So, it isn't really spring, technically. But the forcast calls for temps in the 70s this week. Really? Sigh. This kind of weather makes me want to start planting and sowing and tilling and scattering and pruning and fertilizing.... you get the picture. But i must wait. Mostly.



Things i CAN get done in the next two weeks:

• Move last year's gourd planters from the back to the front, mix in compost and plant some onion sets and mustard seed
• Set the chicken tractor over the area the planters had been to prepare a new bed for the husband's 2010 gourd plants
  
• Bring the chickens to the front yard to do some mowing of emerging weeds and fertilizing of the lawn
• Occasionally till at the compost pile that is finishing, and keep adding goodies to the active pile
• Clean out the chicken coop with bleach (ick i know but they have lice, even more ick!) and dust all the birds with Sevin dust, repeating every 7-10 days a few times and keep closer tabs on changing out their bedding and sprinkling DE (diatomaceous earth) wherever they dust bathe
• Also with the chickens: i discovered they have pox, which is scary but not usually fatal. So for the next month or so i will monitor their health closely and apply tea tree oil and other healing ointments to their pox
  

and finally: relax a little! this is the time of year to harvest broccoli, enjoy garden fresh salads every night, enjoy the soft and green elbon rye in the front lawn, and get filled with anticipation to prune and take joy in the re emergence of currently sad looking perennials and bare patches of ground.

Spring is a fun time in Austin: the wildflowers will start popping up soon in successive displays of beauty, temperatures will be lovely without as many mosquitoes, and the lurking demon of summer heat will be ignorable - for now.

Thank goodness, we won't have to eat Belina.

Apologies for two egg themed posts in one day, but this was an exciting event that just MUST be documented.

I was beginning to think that our buxom blonde Belina was a "bad egg" or should i say "bad egg layer!"

But today the squawky, bossy, big and fluffy head hen has finally done her duty and laid a very diminutive egg.  Took some convincing to get her off the nest, but i was just happy it finally happened.

Congratulations, Belina.

It's about time!

My First Poached Eggs

Well it's lunch time after 2 classes at the gym, which means i'm starving. I made some hummus the other day and have plenty left, but the girls have been churning out the eggies so i guess i should eat some of them. Already had toast for brekkie, so i'd rather not do an egg sandwich - so i attempt my first poached eggs.

A big like egg drop soup, but the goal here is to keep the eggs holding together.

I brought a small pan of water to a boil with salt, turned down to a less rigorous boil and cracked the eggs carefully into the water. The first one went into simmering water and seperated some, you can see the little extra tail of eggwhite in the first photo. I turned the heat up a bit and added the second egg which turned out perfecto.  What i liked about this technique was A, no oil B, i could lift the eggs up out of the water a bit with a slotted spoon and see through the white to the yolk to tell how done it was. I like a little bit of runny yolk, but don't want any runny white. I find if i fry and egg, to take the time to cook the white through, then flip, the yolk gets too well done.

I'm sold. Sorry for the steamy lens, i like to eat my food while it's hot!

Yum, delicious carnage.

One note - quite a bit of water got onto my plate, despite draining of the the water a bit. I think next time i'll drop the eggs on a towel before placing them on the plate.