Kitchen Happenings

I’ve been doing lots of experimenting in the kitchen this past week.

We finally got enough milk for me to try my hand at making chevre , which is soft goat cheese. I used the following recipe, using apple cider vinegar instead of lemon juice. 

Simple Soft Cheese:

This is an easy recipe that only requires 1/2 gallon raw goat milk, the strained juice of 2 medium lemons, a thermometer capable of the 180-200°F range, some “cheesecloth” (or a clean, cut up pillowcase), and some coarse salt (kosher or sea salt).

• Heat milk on medium heat (in a stainless steel pot) to 185°F 
• Remove from heat and stir in the lemon juice (or 1/8 c. vinegar)
• Stir for several minutes until milk has curdled 
• Add 1/2 tablespoon of coarse salt (optional)
• Pour milk through cheesecloth 

• Wrap curds in cheesecloth and hang (using a rubber band works well) in the refrigerator to drain 

  

• Drain for 4-8 hours, depending on how dry you want the curds
• Scrape curds off cloth into bowl and stir

Experiment using herbs. You can add them at the end when you stir the cheese.

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I tried adding garlic powder and dill to the finished cheese and let it sit overnight for the flavors to blend. This soft, spreadable cheese has a consistency that is a cross between cream cheese and ricotta and a delicious flavor! All of us love it spread on homemade crackers. Jonathan can’t even wait until I take the picture to grab some.

Other uses for the soft cheese include a filling for crepes (blintzes), lasagna, stuffed shells and recipes that use cream cheese, such as cheesecake.

I also have tried my hand at making buttermilk. Read a little bit about buttermilk HERE.  Buttermilk has so many health benefits and it adds a wonderfully delicious taste and texture to things like pancakes and biscuits.  We’ve also been enjoying making our fruit smoothies with buttermilk. Crystal tells you how to start out from scratch to make your own buttermilk HERE. You don’t even need to use raw milk like I did. I was thankful to have some buttermilk starter from my mom that I could use. Here’s what I did to make my own buttermilk:

1. Place 1/4 c. buttermilk starter (from my last batch) into a clean quart jar.

2. Fill the remainder of the jar with room temperature raw milk and shake.

3. Cover and place at room temperature for 24 hours.

4. Shake again. That’s it! It turns into creamy buttermilk by itself in that amount of time.

Finally, I tried my hand at making homemade mayonnaise. I used a recipe that I found in Sally Fallon’s Nourishing Traditions book. It calls for raw eggs (that I’m not afraid to use now that we grow our own) and also whey, which I now have as a by-product of the cheese-making. Here’s the recipe if you’re interested in trying it: NT Mayonnaise Recipe.

Somehow, things didn’t go quite as well as they did with the cheese-making.

Don’t ask.

Actually, the mayo that I did salvage from this mess was tasty, and I think I’ll try again. Maybe I’ll just beat it by hand next time. Here’s another mayonnaise recipe that I want to try, too!

Things haven’t gone perfectly in my kitchen this week, but the girls and I have been having fun learning!

Pop! Pop!

Dan and I have discovered something “new” – stovetop popcorn!

When we were first married, we ate quite a bit of microwave popcorn. As I learned more about nutrition, we decided that it wasn’t the healthiest thing we could be snacking on. So, we bought an air popper, which is supposedly the healthiest way to eat popcorn, not to mention that it’s pretty fast!

However, the other day when we were popping corn over the open bonfire, we discovered a yummy taste that we’ve been missing out on! Since then, we’ve been popping our popcorn on the stovetop and surprisingly, it doesn’t take that long. I’m not sure why we never tried it before, but it sure is way more tasty! (Our air popper may be finding its way to Freecycle.)

If you’ve never tried making popcorn on the stove top before and you’d like to try, here’s a short little video that will show you how to do it. (P.S. We use butter instead of oil.) Enjoy!

My kitchen library

When you’re trying to cook healthy meals, sometimes it’s hard to rely on today’s top-selling cookbooks. Although my Better Homes and Gardens cookbook that I bought when I was first married is beginning to look “well-loved”, I have acquired a few other cookbooks, nutrition books and websites that have also become essentials in my kitchen. If you’re into gardening, nutrition or just good cooking, you may want to check these out! (You can click on each book to read more about the books on Amazon.)

By the way, none of these could be considered “gourmet” cooking-type books. When I was first married, I was more into cooking fancy, gourmet meals. These days, I focus more on nutrition, cost, what ingredients I can grow/make myself and of course, good taste factors in to the equation as well.

Books:

Nourishing Traditions by Sally Fallon

This has been the newest “chapter” in my kitchen education. It is both a recipe book and a nutrition guide. I’ve learned so much from this book and have made many good changes in our diet because of it.

 

The Green Thumb Cookbook by Ann Moyer (editor)

I believe that this book is a “must” for gardeners. It basically divides the chapters up by vegetable. If you grow a vegetable and have no idea what to do with it, just flip to the correct chapter and you’ll find everything from side dishes and appetizers to soups, breads and desserts that you can make with that particular vegetable. It’s great for those not-so-common veggies if you have no idea how to use them!

 

Stocking Up by Rodale Press

This was a book that my Mom passed on to me and it has become my kitchen “Bible”. This thick book teaches you everything you need to know about preserving any kind of food you can grow/raise/gather yourself. It covers many topics including how to store, can, freeze, or use up things from your garden, such as making jams, pickles, salsas and sauces. It covers storing and making breads, dairy products/cheese, meat, wild berries, everything!

This is basically a how-to for those of us who have never learned those basic food skills that everyone knew long ago.

 

Out of the Sugar Rut by Joannie Huggins

As the title suggests, this book is composed of all kinds of recipes made without sugar. (Many of the recipes use honey as a substitute sweetener.) In addition to all of the dessert, cookie and cake recipes, there are plenty of recipes for family-friendly main dishes, breads, soups and many other foods. Many of our favorite meals come from this book.

 

The Rodale Cookbook by Nancy Albright

This book is on the most health-conscious end of the spectrum. The bread recipes are especially good in this book.

 

The Encyclopedia of Country Living: An Old Fashioned Recipe Book  by Carla Emery 

Like Stocking Up, this book is another wealth of information about food growing, preparation and preservation. Writing in a narrative, folksy style, the author manages to convey an enormous amount of information in a very non-boring manner.

 

Here are two “virtual cookbooks” that I keep returning to for wonderful tasting, healthy recipes:

The Family Homestead: The Homestead Kitchen page

Tammy’s Recipes

If you have any favorite cookbooks, nutrition books or websites that you think I’d be interested in, please let me know in the comments section below! I’d love to check them out!

Winter days on the farm

Remember in my last post how I was trying to think positive thoughts about being outside in the cold weather? Well, this week with the highs forecasted to hover around 10 degrees, I may just change my mind about that.

Having a little farm isn’t quite so romantic and quaint around mid-January. (You know what I’m talking about, Karen!)

Somehow, Dan and I thought that once winter set in, we would be (for the most part) cozied up in the house and reading all those farm/garden magazines we’d stacked up all summer.

Ha.

Although there are many fewer projects than in the spring/summer season, we’re finding out that the work is really never done on a farm, even a small one. In addition to all the daily chores of feeding, watering and cleaning stalls of the animals, we’ve been busy:

• learning how to butcher, pluck and clean chickens because the roosters have been going through too much food! If I’m going to be honest, I have to admit that I’m really grossed out by this part of having a farm, but I’m trying to be brave and think of all of the women who for thousands of years have cleaned and cooked their own meat.

 

• building nest boxes and roosts for an additional 10 laying hens (that are already laying – yay!) that we hadn’t anticipated getting so soon

 

• taking care of a sick goat (do you realize what we have to do to take the temperature of a goat?!?!)

 

• loading up a certain “little miss goat” in the minivan and taking her back to the buck again…and again…and again…because she can’t seem to get it right! The last time Dan took her down to the breeder, (which happened to be during a huge snowstorm) he had to stop at a gas station for a fill-up. He said that the goat was carrying on so loudly that the person filling up opposite him noticed and said “I think it’s hungry!”

 

• planning our garden for next year – plotting it out and deciding which seeds to order. We are planning to expand our vegetable garden by about 30% next year as well as trying to grow some wheat and corn (for animal feed). I’ll also finally be able to have a little kitchen garden next to my house for herbs and lettuces this year. I’m excited about that.

Chicken barn in the snow

I’m not complaining – really, I’m not. I’m just surprised at the work involved. One thing that is nice about mid-January on a farm is the quality of food that we are able to partake of even with all the snow on the ground.

We’ve been enjoying Dan’s yummy dill pickles, homemade salsa with chips, peach jam, hot zucchini chowder (that I make with my cubed and frozen zucchini), butternut squash soup and delicious tasting green beans. And of course, plenty of desserts: our own blueberry or peach applesauce, blackberry and blueberry pies and cobblers,  and pumpkin everything – pumpkin pie, cake, custard, muffins, and pancakes – even pumpkin soup!

After listing all that food, I’m not only hungry, but I realize how thankful I really am that we are able to live on this farm. Even if it can be a pain to get out and do the work this time of year…

My backdrop for real living

We’ve been busy canning and freezing food this past week. My kitchen enjoys brief periods of orderliness before being inundated again with seeds, juices and other random pieces of fruits and veggies that have been strewn about it. The steam of the pressure canner, the heat, the sweat, the mess, the tired legs all seem worth it when those jars are lined up nicely on a cooling rack at the end of the day. I love canning. I love working together with the girls, I love the yummy smells and I love having healthy food to grab in the dead of winter when most produce at the store is a strange color and an even stranger taste.

I don’t, however, think that canning is superior to other forms of feeding a family. Before I learned how to can, I always thought it sounded so ‘romantic’ – canning my own food for my family! How rustic! How primitive! How yummy! I thought that maybe, somehow, it was a better way to do things.

I’ve come to realize that in fact, canning or not canning doesn’t really matter. Canning, sewing my own clothes, baking my own bread or any other pursuit that I may enjoy is not what’s important. The things that we choose to do with our time (some might call them hobbies ) are really just the backdrop – the scene on which we play our real lives.

What’s really important?

Who we love.

How we love.

Why we love.

“You shall love the LORD your God with all your heart, with all your soul, and with all your strength.” Deuteronomy 6:5

Loving and knowing God can take place wherever we are or whatever we’re doing. We can meditate on His Word while we’re canning or while we’re driving along running errands.

“…that they admonish the young women to love their husbands, to love their children…” Titus 2:4

Each day we have a backdrop on which to love other people. If we are married, we must find ways to put our husbands in the forefront of our days. To find ways to serve him the way he best needs to be served. Sometimes I get so wrapped up with to-do lists and the children’s lives that I put Dan’s needs on the back burner. (He doesn’t tend to cry and fuss when his needs don’t get met unlike some other family members.)

If we have young children, whether we spend our time canning or grocery shopping at the supermarket, we can use that time to love them. We can interact with them, teaching them about life as we go along. Smiling and speaking kindly can show a wonderful example of joyful living.

“But I say to you, love your enemies, bless those who curse you, do good to those who hate you, and pray for those who spitefully use you and persecute you…” Matthes 5:44

Whatever the backdrop of our daily life is, we have the opportunity to be forgiving and loving to those who might mistreat us (even in the most minor way).

“Be kindly affectionate to one another with brotherly love, in honor giving preference to one another…” Romans 12:10

“Finally, all of you be of one mind, having compassion for one another; love as brothers, be tenderhearted, be courteous…” I Peter 3:8

How we love those around us is more important than what activity we are involved in at any particular time.

“Beloved, if God so loved us, we also ought to love one another.” I John 4:11

It’s hard sometimes to have a good attitude and love others as we go about our tasks. I need to remind myself often of why it’s important that I love and forgive others.

As I go about my day today, I pray that I might remain focused on what really matters in life – the relationships that I have with God and with others. The rest is just the backdrop!

 Photo: Learning how to prepare food for canning and learning how to love each other: Abigail teaches Ilaina how to work the crank on the Squeezo strainer.

A super good deal!

Crystal is having a super sale today over at Biblical Womanhood! You can get all of the e-books, downloadables and audio files that she sells for only $5.97! The total for all of these ebooks is usually over $100. So if you are really trying to learn ways to help with your family’s budget, go over there now and get this package!

The package includes ebooks such as:

Simple Tips for Successful Home Management

In Good Season: Autumn

Make Your Own

Simply Centsible Breakfasts

Thriving on One Income

Menu Planning Made Easy

Simply Centsible Suppers

The Bread by Hand eBook

Momma’s Guide to Growing Your Groceries

The package also includes her entire Supermarket Savings 101 e-course that she taught last year. The course includes a handbook and 6 audio lessons.

The sale is only for one day – July 30, 2008! (Tomorrow – July 31- the sale continues at the price of $8.97)

Click HERE to see more information.

Lemon-Blueberry Cake

It’s ‘that time of year’ again here on my blog - time for recipes to use up the things that we are growing. This week it’s blueberries!! Yum! I thought it would be fun if we could do a recipe swap type thing. Would you please share a favorite blueberry recipe with me? Just leave me a link to the recipe or even the entire recipe in the comments box!

This is a cake that I made during the winter with some of our blueberries that we had in the freezer. I didn’t have the white chocolate that was called for (boo-hoo) so I just did a lemon cream cheese frosting. It was still really good! Now that we have fresh blueberries again, I’m going to make this again soon (with the white chocolate!) NOTE: I generally go for the healthy recipes most of the time – but once in a while I make a “fancy” recipe, especially for company!

This cake has a pound cake texture without as much butter. It’s delicious and rich.

Lemon-Blueberry Cake with White Chocolate Frosting

Ingredients:

Cake
3 1/3 cups cake flour
1/2 teaspoon salt
1/2 teaspoon baking powder
1/2 teaspoon baking soda
3/4 cup (1 1/2 sticks) unsalted butter, room temperature
2 cups sugar
1/3 cup fresh lemon juice
1 teaspoon (packed) grated lemon peel
4 large eggs
1 cup plus 2 tablespoons buttermilk
2 1/2 cups fresh blueberries

Frosting
11 ounces good-quality white chocolate (such as Lindt or Baker’s), finely chopped
12 ounces cream cheese, room temperature
3/4 cup (1 1/2 sticks) unsalted butter, room temperature
2 tablespoons fresh lemon juice
(as recommended by some reviewers, I added more grated lemon peel to the frosting)

Additional blueberries (optional)
Lemon slices (optional)

Preparation:

For cake: Preheat oven to 350°F. Butter and flour two 9-inch-diameter cake pans with 2-inch-high sides; line bottoms with rounds of parchment paper.

Sift first 4 ingredients into medium bowl. Using electric mixer, beat butter in large bowl until fluffy. Gradually add sugar, beating until blended, scraping down sides of bowl occasionally. Beat in lemon juice and peel, then eggs 1 at a time. Continue to beat until well blended. Beat in dry ingredients in 4 additions alternately with buttermilk in 3 additions. Fold in berries. Transfer batter to pans. Bake cakes until tester inserted into center comes out clean, about 40 minutes. Cool cakes in pans on racks.

For frosting: Stir white chocolate in top of double boiler set over barely simmering water until almost melted. Remove from over water and stir until smooth. Cool to lukewarm. Beat cream cheese and butter in large bowl until blended. Beat in lemon juice, then cooled white chocolate.

Turn cakes out onto work surface. Peel off parchment. Place 1 cake layer, flat side up, on platter. Spread with 1 cup frosting. Top with second cake layer, flat side down. Spread remaining frosting over top and sides of cake. Garnish with additional blueberries and lemon slices, if desired. (Can be made 1 day ahead. Cover with cake dome; refrigerate. Let stand at room temperature 1 hour before serving.)

Makes 10-12 servings.

[I found the recipe here. The recipe was originally from Bon Appetit magazine, July 2000]

In the process of…

• Overhauling my recipe files
  It seems that many of the recipes that I’ve collected since we’ve been married are no longer applicable to the way I cook now. Many of the recipes have ingredients that I no longer like to use (like Cool Whip) or ”exotic” ingredients (like mango nectar) that I rarely purchase.  Don’t get me wrong – I love my fancy and delicious recipes!!! It’s just that I don’t have many recipes for basic cooking – the kind that I could do if I only wanted to use foods that I grew/raised myself. So, I’ve been putting away some recipes for special occassions/company and searching for new recipes.

 

• Going through the children’s clothing
  We have been SO blessed with people giving us their slightly used children’s clothing! We’ve hardly had to purchase any clothing since we had Abigail 5 years ago. It’s amazing, though, how much we have accumulated over those 5 years!! For some sizes, we have more clothes than we could use for triplets! I hate getting rid of clothing that’s in great shape, but at the same time, the boxes of clothes are taking over our storage space. I have entire Rubbermaid storage bins marked 0-3 months (girl), 3-6 months, 6-9 months, etc. The girls didn’t even use some of the clothes before they outgrew them. I’m trying to find the balance between having the wisdom to hang on to what we might need for future children and gluttony. Does anyone else have this problem? (Again, I admit, it’s a great problem to have! Too much!)

 

• Cataloging our books
  Call me a dork, but we’ve accumulated so many children’s books, educational books, biographies, gardening books, etc, etc, etc, that we can’t keep track of them all. I don’t plan on implementing a Dewey Decimal system (at least not yet ), but I’m hoping that an Excel spreadsheet might help me out a bit.

 

• Planning for “real” school this fall
  This past year was full of learning in a very unstructured manner. Abigail has made great strides in reading and handwriting and we have read books, books and more books on a great variety of topics. However, Dan desires that I be more systematic and keep records of what I’m teaching once each child reaches what our state defines as “school age”.  I’d like to have things planned out in advance as much as possible for the next year so I don’t have to spend lots of time each weekend planning for the upcoming week.

 

• Learning about gardening
  Even though we had a vegetable garden last year, it was a very uneducated attempt. This year, Dan is really getting into the scientific aspect of growing things, from testing the pH of our soil, to what types of organic material to add to the soil for nutrient deficiencies, to different mulching techniques – so we’ve been learning alot! I planted some new types of foods this year, too. Nothing teaches you about how to grow a certain type of plant like actually growing one.

 

• Reading…
  John (Bible)
  The Big Book of Home Learning by Mary Pride
  Liberal Fasicm by Jonah Goldberg

What are you in the process of right now?