Must Pickle – Anything

Since I am not canning up a storm, it still doesn’t mean that I don’t have the canning itch. Without the produce, what is a farming wife to do? 

Can everything else! 

Have you ever pickled eggs? They are so tasty, and even the kids like to nibble on one with their dinner. I believe in eating local, but let’s face it, imagination is needed in order to keep your local diet interesting. That’s part of the reason I like to try pickling things. Eggs are really fun. They are different and pretty weird looking in the jar. Those are two things that make them a sure hit on our farm. Here is a post about pickling eggs from a year ago. I wrote it in the spring, so there is a mention of egg abundance. I certainly don’t have that issue lately. This recipe is for 1 dozen, so buy a farm fresh carton from your local farmers market and get started! : 

I love to  pickle things. Admittedly, my actual cucumber pickles are not so great, but I can make a mean pickled zucchini slice. The thing about pickles, is that they are just a food soaked in brine and spices. That is it.
As far as the pantry goes, pickling is the magic that takes a few simple foods, and adds a completely new component of flavor. Pickles fill in the salty/savory/spicy gap, that many of our meals seem to be missing. If you are budgeting and still trying to keep everything as homemade and healthy as possible, pickling is for you.

Today was Pickled Egg Tasting Day. My recipe can theoretically be eaten after 3 days, and I wanted to take a picture and blog about it. Tasting was just a part of the job.

The results? They were still too salty. It is the same as trying a pickled asparagus spear too soon. The salt has not moved into the food, and is still prevalent in the brine and on the outside of the food only. They were not bad tasting, just too salty. Back into the fridge they go, for another few days.

Pickling eggs also uses up some of the spring flush that my girls get into this time of year. I seems we go with 3 or 4 eggs a week to 30 or more a week, without warning! Suddenly, I am making a lot of omelets, French toast and Frittata. My kids cry fowl (sorry couldn’t resist), and the creativity kicks in. This recipe uses 12 eggs, so I can make three or 4 jars and clean out my overabundance pretty quickly.

For this recipe, place 12 eggs into enough cold water to just cover. Bring to a boil and then turn off heat. Let cook for 12 minutes. Strain and cool in cold water so you can peel them easily.

Peel eggs and place them in a quart canning jar. In a saucepan, combine the following:

2 c. vinegar
1 c. water
11/2  tsp. salt
1 Tbsp pickling spices (I made my own using cloves,mustard seed, dillseed, cinnamon sticks, celery seed and bay leaves)
Sliced onion 

Bring to a boil and then pour over the eggs. 

Cap and let cool on counter top. Then refrigerate for 3 days at least, before trying.

Yum!! 

Grocery Day!

Obligatory kid photo 

No one else ever seems as excited about grocery day as I am. It has always been a day to look forward to, but maybe it is because I go about it in a different manner than most. I wouldn’t dream of going to the store without these three things:

1. A Plan – Where am I going and in what order. I do not run willy-nilly around town.

2. A List – What am I shopping for? Food, clothing, bits and pieces of some project, things the family members requested. Some items get checked off of a big list, others stay on until I find just the right item.

3. A Calculator – Shopping ends when the calculator says so. I do not use credit cards, payment plans, rob Peter to pay Paul, or any of that business. The top of my list has the total amount that I can spend for the day. When that is gone, I go home.

Does this sound overwhelming? Really, it’s not. Instead of being bothersome, shopping with some sort of guidelines, gives me a sense of security. I can then focus on buying what I need and not worrying if there is enough to cover it in the bank.

Today, I am going to be buying 7 breakfast/lunch/dinner meals, some pantry items, a few herb plants and perennials that are on sale locally, and looking for a recliner and/or couch for the livingroom. We have two thrift stores on my route, that take a mere 5 minutes to blow through. It’s pretty simple when looking for furniture. Clothing needs much more concentration.

So, enough chit chat. This is cutting into my shopping day! Have a joyful and fun filled Sunday, everyone.

I Made A Pledge: How About You?

Homegrown Across America, is fast becoming my obsession. Within my own town, I share the info at every opportunity, and practically plead with members of my community to take a look. 

Today, I made a pledge to become a financial backer on Kickstarter.com. If you have been reading long, you know that I budget every bit of our money, right down to the penny, so this decision was not taken lightly. I felt that if I was going to get out there and bug, harass, share with my social media stream about this upcoming program, then I would have to put my money where my mouth is, err-open up the canning jar and take out my own pennies. 

Homegrown Across America will bring the small farmer some much needed press. Imagine millions of people watching every week, as people just like themselves go to work full time and then come home to take care of business on the farm? Of course, Yours Truly will be there a few times, taking some of the mystery out of the art of Canning and Preserving, Eating Wild Food, Herbs, and other Farming Wife topics. 

Please, if you haven’t taken a peek, check out the link on Kickstarter, and share with your social media stream. This could change the lives of hundreds of small farmers across the country. 

As my way of saying Thank You, If you pledge $50 or more, I will send you a signed copy of my book: 

Canning and Preserving For Dummies

 The book covers everything you need to know about food preservation and even has recipes that include the preserved foods. Fill your pantry and actually use it! What a novel approach. 🙂

To get your copy, please send me your name and address privately, once you have made your pledge.

Thank you for any love you can give to this exciting project! I look forward to sharing this new facet of The Farming Wife’s journey with you. 

Harvesting Wild Nettles

How to harvest wild nettles. This harvest ended up as a saute of bacon, garlic and nettles, dressed with a bit of olive oil at the end. Delish!

Don’t Be Afraid Of Jello!

Yes, yes. I know the whole story about eating whole foods, local produce and buying from small farms. Heck, of course I do ( Its my life!) However, like any good intention, I do think we get a little too nutso about it.

Although we eat food that I mostly raise and process or butcher, my kids are not denied foods because of it. I do have to say that I don’t give them junk food or (gasp) fast food, until they were old enough to ask for it(more than once). I still can get away with buying them that sort of stuff once in a blue moon. I truly think its because they never developed a taste for it when they were young. May be I am off base, but that’s my story and I am sticking to it.

Anyways, there are foods that you can use to fill out a meal and make it feel fun, for mere pennies. I am talking about foods that might get the poo poo from families, based on the local or pureist stance that they take with food. I find most of the extremists are people without families, those that can afford to eat a Freegan lentil soup for 7 days and still live to blog about it. 🙂 But what of the people feeding children?

I feed our family of 7 and my husband’s mother for less than 500 a month. Its not always pretty, but I get it done. Now, eating food on this sort of budget leaves very little room for junkfood. I don’t do boxed or prepared foods anyways, so that is not an issue, but sometimes, a kid just wants something fun to eat. Even if they have never tasted the fast food version of it. Case in point, here are 5 things I buy, that make a meal fun. Not one of them is purchased from a local farmer:

1. Koolaid – I do buy the invisible one.. Make it with ¾ cup of cane sugar and serve.

2. Jello – c’mon…its J..e..l..l..o! No seriously, from ice pops to whipped jello, this is a cheap, yummy treat. Add fruit, use it to make jelly, make it and offer a sick child as a drink when dehydrated. Just make it and serve  with whipped cream. Its pretty versatile. Yes I know its made from cow hooves…I am ok with that. Better than throwing them out.

Chocolate chips – I cant ever believe I am defending these, but CC are perfect for making any cookie dough more spectacular. I double or triple the dough amount and keep the CC to the single batch size..works every time, no one even misses the extra chips. OR mix with raisins and make cookies that way. They visually look loaded with chips. Just saying..

Sugar – Yes, I eat sugar. It isn’t something we pound into our foods every day. I don’t get all sweaty about it. We just eat a dessert that has sugar in it. I made it, I know whats in it. I do buy cane sugar though. NO matter what anyone in any office says, sugar is NOT sugar. Cane sugar is Cane sugar.

We also love Agave, honey, molasses, maple syrup and stevia drops. They don’t scare me either. We use them, not live on them.

I guess my point today is not to sound  high and mighty. It is just to illustrate that a grocery store shouldn’t appear to be frightening or dangerous for healthy eating. In all honesty, we should have the option to buy foods as we can afford them. If you are frugal, you can still eat treats and fun things..just make them yourself, and keep them a treat. That means once in a while and enjoy every bite.

Photo: Flickr user Ricketyus

There’s Something About Muffins

Orange Cranberry Muffins

There was a bakery back in Ogunquit Maine, that sold the most delicous muffins. They were photo perfect, and the size of 1/2 loaf of bread (ok may be not THAT big). You could easily share one with a friend and both feel satisfied. 

I loved those muffins. Ever since those days, during my home cooking adventures on the farm, those muffins were the catalyst for experimenting with flavors and textures. My muffins are never as pretty, they are sort of misshapen and squishy looking; but the flavors have been a big hit over the years. 

Today’s recipe is Cranberry Orange Muffins. These started from a simple muffin recipe in the Betty Crocker Cookbook, and I jazzed them up with a few extra flavors. 

Start with your favorite muffin recipe. Mine are based on the plain muffin recipe from Betty Crocker recipes. 

I have to double, since there are 7 of us. I added a hint of nutmeg, the zest from one medium orange and 2 cups of cranberries that I had in the freezer, and then chopped right before adding.

I changed the crumble on top from white sugar to brown and voila! 

Wild Food: Walking Onions

Photo Flickr user kusine

A few years ago, friends of ours gave me a handful of Walking Onion bulbs. She had casually broken them off as we stood talking by my car. I threw them into the bucket of other goodies we had been gathering from her old farm. 

After transplanting my horseradish root onto my own place, at the bottom of the bucket were these little bulbs. There happened to be a nook where two of our fences met, that were out of the way of the mower (my husband is a champion of mowing down anything I plant), and if they lived, the location was perfect to let them spread around without bothering anything else. 

And grow they did! Now, I look forward to my onion bed, for one of the earliest wild foods on the farm. They come up just about the time that the dandelion greens get big enough to pick. Combine the two, and you have a heavenly side dish! See how that works? 

I wrote an article for Earth Eats, telling more about these little nuggets of onion power. 

Pickling Recipes and Tips for Egyptian Walking Onions

If you ever get the opportunity to plant some walking onions, find an out of the way place, and have at it! 

 

Pantry Gardening

Photo: TheBittenWord.com

By now, the foods that were put up last year have begun to run out. In our house, we are down to the last few bags of tomato sauce, having used all the cases of tomatoes and sauce in the pantry. We do have hot sauce left, but that is only because it is so much more convenient to open a jar, rather than thaw a bag. It is probably time to say goodbye to the foods that we didn’t like. The apricots were a huge hit when dried, but the canned ones were never eaten. I will be blending them with a stick blender, and making apricot bread. No more canned appricots!

Because it is time to think about this year’s garden, taking stock of what you used and what you had too much of, should be written down somewhere. Make a note to grow more/less, and stick to it! Our eyes are always bigger than our pantry, and that can end up being wasteful. Overwhelmed at what to plant? I recommend starting with three major things your family will use.

For us, that means tomatoes, sweet peppers, and greens. All three things are used almost daily. They are canned, dried, and frozen-keeping them in our diet year round.
What three things will you start with?

 

 

No Worries

No worries, dear farming wives. I am simply moving my beloved site over to WordPress..Thanks for your patience and wait until you see what’s in store for 2012.

(edit 2-24-2012) Yea! All my old posts are tucked in to their new home! Have a look at the archives for plenty of yummy recipes and other fun things. Enjoy!

 

Warmly,

Amy J

Why You Need Kitchen Scales

© Littlebluehen 

When you love those old cookbooks, and start digging deeperfor recipes, sometimes you need a little bit of help. I have something that istruly a must have for anyone who wants to play with their food in  a more serious way. A kitchen scale.

The nicest way to see what is actually happening in arecipe, is to weigh it! Not to mention that there are millions of fabulousrecipes that come from countries that don’t use our antiquated measurements,and you will need to know grams, etc. You can sort of wing it, or you can spend $10 bucks and get a digital scale.Yes, this old fashioned mama said digital.

As a food geek, there is nothing more interesting thanseeing how many grams of flour difference it is on a humid day versus a dryday, to make the exact same recipe! Or the difference in actual flours when youweigh them. Or water, or oil..anything!

Because I make a lot of soap, I am pretty comfortable aroundmy kitchen scale, and recently bought my second one in about 15 years. Thefirst one finally stopped becoming refreshed after a new battery, andconsidering I paid 2.00 from a thrift store for it, I guess buying another onewas not much of a hardship. This new one, I did buy retail (I know, right?)Even off the shelf like that, it cost me $10.00, and works like a charm.

If you want to buy a kitchen scale, here are some tips thatare pretty important, imo:

1. Buy a digital one that plugs in or uses a battery thatyou can replace when it needs it.
2. Buy one with a TARE feature. If you are unfamiliar withthis, TARE means that you can place an object on the scale (say, a bowl ormeasuring cup), push the TARE button and the scale zeros out, so you are JUSTweighing the food In the bowl or cup. Brilliant!  This is almost a deal breaker. You can useone without (I certainly did), but it slows you down to have to figure trickymeasurements – your dishes are never an even number so hello decimals…ugh
3.  Buy something that turns off all by itself, but not toosoon. My new one has just one problem, if I don’t use it within a minute, itshuts off…that drives me batty! Especially when I am making soap that needs tobe measured on one side of my kitchen and processed on the other. Not such abig sounding deal, but remember I have 5 kids and 3 large dogs with eveyrone’svarious detritus all over the floor. When I am in the kitchen- they are in thekitchen. I am sure you moms can relate. So if you can get at least a 3 minute window, it sure wouldhelp.
4.  Buy with a nonreactive surface. You have to clean it ofcourse, but the top has to be impervious to moisture, oil, heat and cold. Mynew one has a glass top and that is perfect. My old one had a plastic one thatremoved to be wiped and that meant it stuck to any oily measuring cup that wasset on it. Hello aggravation! If you are not a messy cook – EVER, then disregard.
5. Most of all, buy one that measures in as many differentunits as you can. Ounces, pounds, grams at least. Serious business thiscooking, and you don’t want to measure away in ounces then see it should havebeen grams. Been there done that and it is a pain in the bum.

Hopefully this helps some of you. I know that I wish someonehad clued me in to how nice they were to have in the kitchen, I would haveasked many years before for one.