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Hidden Leftovers: Arancini
Last night, as we do on most Tuesday nights, we had a largish group over for dinner and prayer. Each of us brings a dish to share, and since I had some portobello mushrooms I wanted to use up and some fresh rosemary looking a bit limp, not to mention that last bit of a block of asiago cheese, and I’d just made some good bone broth and had a bit of that left in the fridge. In short, it was leftovers to begin with. Yes. My kind of food. Now, to make arancini, you have to have leftover risotto, and in order to have leftover risotto, you have to…
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Expanding the Kitchen Garden to Include Grains and Animal Feed
November 1st. That’s the starting date to enjoy the (canned) fruits of our labor. The date plugged into all of my calculations of exactly how much I had to can from our Kitchen garden to feed us all this Winter. Six months. November to April. That’s (approximately) twenty-four weeks. So, if we’re having spaghetti once a week, we’d needed twenty-four quarts of sauce. The same goes for chili (actually, those twenty-four quarts can be turned into chili, Spanish rice, or goulash–you know, in case no one actually wants to eat chili each and every week), and etc. and so on and so-forth. And while God was very good to us…
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Rendering Tallow, Bone Stock, and Roasting Pumpkins
Time to Thanksgiving is ticking away. And any unsold turkeys will end up finding their home in my freezers, so I’m starting to thin them out now. And that means rendering the block of beef fat that’s been in there since July. And it also means making some stock. But first, let’s start with that fat. (Normally) The fat gets chopped into one inch cubes and placed in a large cast iron skillet where it melts the day away. Today, however, I looked at that fat. It looked back at me. And I threw the whole mess in the pan. One giant glob of fat, still partially frozen. What’s the…
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A Cost/Benefit Analysis of a Greenhouse
The Farm is no longer productive. The berries have all but stopped, the herbs have been gathered and are hanging from the rafters as they give up and dry already. The last of the apple peelings are drying in the greenhouse. Oh. Yes. Well, I guess that part is still productive. In the greenhouse there is row after row and shelf after shelf of our winter greens. Or they will be. Right now it is just dirt. Dirt I have to keep moist and warm. This will be the first year for the greenhouse for us. We’ve had cold frames in the past with some success, but this is new.…
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Getting the Winter Greens in, Putting a Garden to Bed, and a Good BLT
Today the sun is shining brightly down, taking the sting off the chill. The greenhouse soaks up all that sun and makes it feel like July. Which is good, since that’s where I spent most of the day, planting the Winter greens. There will be spinach and arugula, beet greens and kale, wheatgrass and the lettuces. Some will be for the animals (they like a nice green treat in Winter, too), but most will be for us. The culinary/medicinal herb garden was officially put to bed today, with the last row being tucked in with leaves, then coated with mulch (that helps to keep all those leaves from blowing right…
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Honey Wheat Bread
There are a few raspberries still clinging to life, and because I am who I am, I have to go out each and every morning and gather what I can. Today’s gleanings measured in at just under one cup–just enough to nibble on with my breakfast. For lunch there’s a bit more gnocchi in the freezer–leftover from last Friday’s exploits. Maybe I’ll have them, tossed in a pan with some brown butter and sage. These are all fringe things, of course, to what is really going on, and what is really going on is that I’m making a loaf (or two, we’ll so how this dough comes out) of honey…
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Raspberry Breakfast Bars and Rendering Lard
There are fourteen pint jars of raspberry jam staring at me in the basement. Fourteen jars. That’s a lot of jam (and that’s not even mentioning the peach jam, the grape jam, the plum jam, and the rosehip jam). It looks at me, wondering what it will be. And I tell them most will slathered on toast or biscuits over the next several months. Some will be Christmas gifts. But some will be used today. In a very simple, very delicious breakfast bar. And this is how it is to be done: One half cup good butter (or lard, or coconut oil) is set in a sauce pan to melt…
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Beans, Moles, and Bayberries
In the plot of earth that circles the fence that circles the garden, there is planted a double row of corn and a single row of beans. Now. Our garden is rather large, which left a rather large amount of beans to gather, eat, and can. And when we could gather, eat, and can no more, I made an executive decision to let the beans go to seed and use that seed for next-years-beans and to help feed the chickens and pigs this Winter. Well. Those beans did not give up, let me tell you. Finally, I went out this morning and we did battle. I pulled and picked and…
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Roasted Rhubarb and Raspberry Jam
The frost predicted a little over a week ago came last night, taking with it the raspberries. I was up before the sun getting the last of them. The Rhubarb, also, saw its last. These I gathered and trimmed and placed in a roaster, squeezing an orange over all and coating them with more than a little sugar. This was placed in the top oven rack, with the daily pumpkins just beneath. That rhubarb will make a nice crumble sometime this Winter. Or a crisp. I guess I will decide when the times comes. For now, it is safely roasting and bubbling away. The raspberries I’ve gathered all late Summer/early…
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Pickled Beets and Sourdough Bread
October has begun and with it, the cleaning out of the garden. The last of the Summer beets were dug up, their tops and stems set in the dehydrator for Winter chicken feed, but the bulbs, the heart of the beet, was trimmed of all but it’s roots and an inch or so of it’s top, washed, and set in a pot of boiling water for twenty minutes or so. Once they were knife tender, they were strained and left to cool and there they sit, waiting for me to do something with them. But I decided to write instead. Who wants to peel a hot beet? No. They can…
