Sunday:
Meatloaf from grass fed beef, homemade ketchup. Roasted potatoes, carrots and grilled eggplant from garden.
Monday:
Chili with grass fed beef and roasted hatch green chilies.
Tuesday:
Thai stir fry with pheasant (that Jeanette caught), eggplant from garden, cauliflower and brussels sprouts from farmers' market. Coconut milk from mom when she moved. With rice.
Berry smoothie with raspberries, blueberries and blackberries and homemade lemon lime soda.
Wednesday:
Beef fajitas with grass fed beef, peppers from the farmers' markets and onions from the garden
Mexican rice with tomato sauce and onions from garden
Refried beans (can we got from my mom when she moved)
Homemade flour tortillas
Thursday:
Chicken with alfredo sauce and pasta
Friday:
Jalapeno Poppers with Squash puree. Yum!
Pumpkin pie.
Saturday:
Another party where we just basically picked at whatever was there - mainly shrimp.
Reflections:
This post marks the end of our first month. I'm starting to miss restaurants. Not sushi as much as I was expecting, but I am really missing Thai, Chinese and Mexican food. I'm also missing just going and eating something when I'm craving something and when we're out just going and grabbing a bite to eat. But it just will have to wait. I'm thinking those things will taste so much better after a year though.
Sunday, October 31, 2010
Thursday, October 28, 2010
In a Tough Spot
It looks like we're not getting our co-op order again this month due to lack of orders this time. Last month our order was forgotten and never placed. This really puts us in a bind as I have not been able to source some of the items that I need to order elsewhere. I refuse to go another month without chicken broth. I haven't been able to source chicken yet, so it looks like I'm going to have to find that somewhere so I can make broth.
***UPDATE***
Thanks to the Murphy's Law Gods, right after posting this I got notified that enough orders have been placed. Phew!
***UPDATE***
Thanks to the Murphy's Law Gods, right after posting this I got notified that enough orders have been placed. Phew!
Wednesday, October 27, 2010
Figures...
Remember the cheese emergency? I needed a cheese kit for a party we were having, ordered it in plenty of time and ended up not getting it in time? I'm convinced it was because I needed it by a certain day. Even if you plan ahead there is a bigger chance you won't get what you need in time. This time around I ordered hard cheese making kit from the same company and guess what? It showed up within just a couple of days. All because I didn't need it for anything in particular.
Monday, October 25, 2010
Vinegar FAIL!
A couple of months ago I started a batch of vinegar. The sugar water had fermented. I had racked it into a bucket and added the starter (I used Bragg's apple cider vinegar). It was moving along perfectly. It made the water tower smell like vinegar - not the greatest smell in the world, but it meant it was working. The mother created a nice film on the top and everything looked good. And then the towel that was covering it fell into the vinegar. That was just the beginning of a series of mishaps that finally resulted in the vinegar gnats getting into it, laying eggs and leaving their lifeless corpses floating in the liquid. The vinegar smell started to dissapate. Yesterday I finally dumped it.
I will try it again. This time I'll find a better way to keep the gnats out.
I will try it again. This time I'll find a better way to keep the gnats out.
Sunday, October 24, 2010
Week 3 Menu Download
Saturday:
We had a Harvest Potluck with some of our homesteading friends. Everyone brought amazing homemade food! The meal and who made it are as follow:
Italian herb stewed rooster (slaughtered the day before) and goat cheese stuffed figs wrapped in prosciutto from Alethea and Tim
Homemade pita and dip from Shelby and Greg
Whey lemonade and homemade goat cheese with tomato jam and baguette from Heidi and Ute
Calzones from Esperanza
Gazpacho from Nicole
Pumpkin Bundt Cake with walnuts and caramel sauce from Clare and Jon
Squash Lasagna, no knead bread, and marinated grilled eggplant by us. The squash was from our garden; the pasta was handmade using our chickens' eggs; cheese was handmade
Sunday:
Leftover lasagna
Leftover cake with sauce (honestly it's lucky it made it that long because it was soooo good)
Monday:
Handmade raviolis filled with homemade ricotta and sage.
Meat sauce with grass fed beef, oven roasted tomato sauce and lots of veggies from our garden and the farmers' market.
Tuesday:
Rice Noodles with leftover sauce from Monday
Homemade Strawberry Rhubarb Pie - homemade lattice crust, strawberries and rhubarb from our garden.
Wednesday:
Pumpkin soup with leftover pork (from our summer BBQ where we roasted a whole pig). Squash and onions from our garden. Mushrooms and carrots from the farmers' market.
Leftover Rhubarb Pie
Thursday:
Leftover soup, Filipino rolls from our neighbors.
Leftover Strawberry Rhubarb Pie
Friday:
Random chicken pasta alfredo dish made from sauce my mom had given us.
Rosemary Garlic Artisan Bread
Saturday:
We were at a party so we just ate what was served.
Reflections:
There wasn't really anything all that significant about this week. We did go to a pumpkin carving party at a friend's house on Saturday, so we got our fill of food we can't normally have <cough> candy corn <cough>. I was excited about that candy corn. I LOVE candy corn and was bummed that I wasn't going to get any this year. But, I have found a recipe for it and will be making some later this week and will post the recipe next week on the DIF blog.
We had a Harvest Potluck with some of our homesteading friends. Everyone brought amazing homemade food! The meal and who made it are as follow:
Italian herb stewed rooster (slaughtered the day before) and goat cheese stuffed figs wrapped in prosciutto from Alethea and Tim
Homemade pita and dip from Shelby and Greg
Whey lemonade and homemade goat cheese with tomato jam and baguette from Heidi and Ute
Calzones from Esperanza
Gazpacho from Nicole
Pumpkin Bundt Cake with walnuts and caramel sauce from Clare and Jon
Squash Lasagna, no knead bread, and marinated grilled eggplant by us. The squash was from our garden; the pasta was handmade using our chickens' eggs; cheese was handmade
Sunday:
Leftover lasagna
Leftover cake with sauce (honestly it's lucky it made it that long because it was soooo good)
Monday:
Handmade raviolis filled with homemade ricotta and sage.
Meat sauce with grass fed beef, oven roasted tomato sauce and lots of veggies from our garden and the farmers' market.
Tuesday:
Rice Noodles with leftover sauce from Monday
Homemade Strawberry Rhubarb Pie - homemade lattice crust, strawberries and rhubarb from our garden.
Wednesday:
Pumpkin soup with leftover pork (from our summer BBQ where we roasted a whole pig). Squash and onions from our garden. Mushrooms and carrots from the farmers' market.
Leftover Rhubarb Pie
Thursday:
Leftover soup, Filipino rolls from our neighbors.
Leftover Strawberry Rhubarb Pie
Friday:
Random chicken pasta alfredo dish made from sauce my mom had given us.
Rosemary Garlic Artisan Bread
Saturday:
We were at a party so we just ate what was served.
Reflections:
There wasn't really anything all that significant about this week. We did go to a pumpkin carving party at a friend's house on Saturday, so we got our fill of food we can't normally have <cough> candy corn <cough>. I was excited about that candy corn. I LOVE candy corn and was bummed that I wasn't going to get any this year. But, I have found a recipe for it and will be making some later this week and will post the recipe next week on the DIF blog.
Friday, October 22, 2010
Lots of Answers
'47 Ranch Dressing (is this Yolanda?) asked me:
Where do you get your beef from?
And since you both work outside the home, how do you manage food preparation time? Do you prepare meals just before eating, or do you do a lot of it in advance? How do you manage your time between farming, maintenance of the property, and enjoying life? Please share your strategies.
We get our beef from some friends that live near Yosemite and own a historical farmstead. We actually buy part of the live steer and then get some of the meat from it. However, there are other ranchers closer to home that do the same. You can go to Eat Wild's website to find local ranchers.There's one ranch in Martinez called Silver Springs Ranch that also sells grass-fed beef. They have comparable prices to what we paid. Of course the more you buy the cheaper it is, with buying a whole steer the cheapest option. If you can get enough people together to go into a whole steer you can take advantage of this discounted price. In a few months we may be interested in getting a group together to get another steer.
As for time management, it does take time, but if you do it right, you can save time and still have plenty of time to go out and enjoy life. The trick is having both of us sharing all the responsibilities. We cooked dinner almost every evening before this so, that hasn't changed. I don't work Fri-Sun. On Fridays I do a lot of baking for the coming week. But if I didn't have Fridays off I just spread out the baking throughout the week. We have a bread machine which is a a life saver. We just add the ingredients before bed and set the timer. We wake up to the smell of fresh bread.
As for farming and home maintenance, we spread it out. I think that's the key. Don't do it all at once or you'll burn yourself out. We've also got everything set up so that we don't have to spend too much time. Our crops are on automatic irrigation so we don't have to water. We use wide rows which helps reduce our weeds. I don't plant everything at once so I only need to spend about half an hour a couple of times a week dealing with that. Cleaning is easy because we have a ridiculously small house. Floors just need to get swept and occasionally mopped. We don't have any rugs or carpet to deal with, which really helps when you have dogs and cats in the house all the time. We split the cleaning between us, which makes it go a lot faster.
Caring for the livestock is made easier by automating as much as possible. We use a large feeder for our chickens. Each of our rabbits have their own feeders and waterers that we only need to fill every few days. Our goats have a hay feeder, again, only needing to be filled every couple of days. Our goats and chickens share an automatic waterer that we don't have to fill.
I suppose our main key is sharing the cooking, cleaning, farming and maintenance chores. And automate everything you can. Not having to go the grocery store saves a lot of time too.
Where do you get your beef from?
And since you both work outside the home, how do you manage food preparation time? Do you prepare meals just before eating, or do you do a lot of it in advance? How do you manage your time between farming, maintenance of the property, and enjoying life? Please share your strategies.
We get our beef from some friends that live near Yosemite and own a historical farmstead. We actually buy part of the live steer and then get some of the meat from it. However, there are other ranchers closer to home that do the same. You can go to Eat Wild's website to find local ranchers.There's one ranch in Martinez called Silver Springs Ranch that also sells grass-fed beef. They have comparable prices to what we paid. Of course the more you buy the cheaper it is, with buying a whole steer the cheapest option. If you can get enough people together to go into a whole steer you can take advantage of this discounted price. In a few months we may be interested in getting a group together to get another steer.
As for time management, it does take time, but if you do it right, you can save time and still have plenty of time to go out and enjoy life. The trick is having both of us sharing all the responsibilities. We cooked dinner almost every evening before this so, that hasn't changed. I don't work Fri-Sun. On Fridays I do a lot of baking for the coming week. But if I didn't have Fridays off I just spread out the baking throughout the week. We have a bread machine which is a a life saver. We just add the ingredients before bed and set the timer. We wake up to the smell of fresh bread.
As for farming and home maintenance, we spread it out. I think that's the key. Don't do it all at once or you'll burn yourself out. We've also got everything set up so that we don't have to spend too much time. Our crops are on automatic irrigation so we don't have to water. We use wide rows which helps reduce our weeds. I don't plant everything at once so I only need to spend about half an hour a couple of times a week dealing with that. Cleaning is easy because we have a ridiculously small house. Floors just need to get swept and occasionally mopped. We don't have any rugs or carpet to deal with, which really helps when you have dogs and cats in the house all the time. We split the cleaning between us, which makes it go a lot faster.
Caring for the livestock is made easier by automating as much as possible. We use a large feeder for our chickens. Each of our rabbits have their own feeders and waterers that we only need to fill every few days. Our goats have a hay feeder, again, only needing to be filled every couple of days. Our goats and chickens share an automatic waterer that we don't have to fill.
I suppose our main key is sharing the cooking, cleaning, farming and maintenance chores. And automate everything you can. Not having to go the grocery store saves a lot of time too.
Mexican Hot Chocolate
When my mom moved, one of the many things she gave us was cocoa powder - and a lot of it. It's starting to get cold now and the rains have begun. Last night I was looking for something warm to drink and figured I'd make something with that cocoa powder. I love a little spice with my chocolate so I decided to go with a mexican-style hot chocolate.Now, everyone's tastes are different so it definitely a recipe you can adjust as you see necessary.
Ingredients:
3 Tbs cocoa powder
3 Tbs granulated sugar
1/4 tsp cinnamon
pinch of cayenne
dash of salt
2 cups milk (I like whole milk for this recipe)
Whisk in the dry ingredients into the milk in a small saucepan over medium-low heat. Stir constantly until milk is heated. Serve.
Yep, that's it. It was one of the best cups of hot chocolate I've ever had.
Ingredients:
3 Tbs cocoa powder
3 Tbs granulated sugar
1/4 tsp cinnamon
pinch of cayenne
dash of salt
2 cups milk (I like whole milk for this recipe)
Whisk in the dry ingredients into the milk in a small saucepan over medium-low heat. Stir constantly until milk is heated. Serve.
Yep, that's it. It was one of the best cups of hot chocolate I've ever had.
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