My New Home

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I am happy to finally have my new blog up and running.  I will be honest, getting use to word press has been a challenge and I could not have done it without Dadzoo, he sure takes care of me.  (He designed the header for me!)

I have several posts in the works, my blog might have been silent over the last few days, but I have been far from idle.  Nesting has hit me full force (and considerably earlier than previous pregnancies).  We have been moving things, painting, adding furniture and decorating up a storm, and I am not close to done yet.

flowers from my garden

I would love for everyone to leave comments with suggestions on what you would like to see me write about and how I can improve my schmancy fancy new blog!

(p.s. I imported all my old posts, and hopefully organised them better so you can find recipes and such with less effort)

 

 

Real Wild Sourdough Bread

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(I originally posted this November 2009, I have since lost my sourdough start, but I am planning on starting another really soon)
“But how do you make the sourdough?” Mrs. Boast asked.
“You start it,” said Ma, “by putting some flour and warm water in a jar and letting it stand until it sours.”
“Then when you use it, always leave a little,” said Laura, “and put in the scraps of biscuit dough, like this, and more warm water,” Laura put in the warm water, “and cover it,” she put the clean cloth and the plate on the jar, ” and just set it in a warm place,” she set it in its place on the shelf by the stove. “And it’s always ready to use, whenever you want it.”
 Laura Ingalls Wilder By the Shore of SilverLake
For Christmas I got the book Nourishing Traditions and it quickly became a favorite of mine. I learned about making real sourdough bread from wild, local yeasts. I had been wanting to try it for a while, and finally got around to doing it.

The simplicity of it all amazed me, I had made sourdough starts before with sugars and yeasts and such. This sourdough consists of flour and water. Yes, only flour and water, no sugars and no commercial yeasts.

I started with 2 cups of freshly ground rye flour and two cups warm water. I stirred it all together and placed it in a gallon jar and cover the top with a light cloth. The cloth is very important, it allows the natural yeasts in the air to collect and feed on the flour while keeping bugs and flies out.

Each day after that I added a cup of rye flour and a cup of water.


I also put the start into a clean jar each day.


After only a few days it started to bubble and smelled like sweet yeast.
After a week the start is ready
To make the bread I added a quart of starter, a little salt some wheat flour and water.
Approximately
2 cups white flour
5 cups whole wheat flour
1 1/4 tsp salt
3/4 cups water
to a
quart of sourdough start
Once it formed a soft dough I kneeded it until it was smooth and elastic.
I formed it into two loaves and cut slits in the top, covered and let them raise overnight or about 12 hours. Wild yeast bread takes longer to raise than commercial yeasts.
In the morning I baked the bread for an hour at 350 degrees
It made a nice crusty loaf of sourdough, the inside was chewy and made a wonderful accompaniment to hot soup that night.

Bowtie Pasta Medley

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(I originally posted this recipe April 2009, it is by far my favorite salad recipe I make it all the time!)

The first salad in my series is a wonderful, filling pasta salad. I got this recipe from my Mom who got it from a friend of hers. I tasted it in February at a farewell party for my little brother, and I knew that I just had to get this recipe.

I has all sorts of random ingredients that come together into a most wonderful salad that is even good the next day.

Here are our cast of characters:

One box bow tie pasta
1 cup mayo
1 bottle Hidden Valley Coleslaw dressing
Salad Supreme
1 cup crasins
3 stalks celery
1 can Mandarin Oranges
1 can Pineapple Tidbits
two chicken breasts, cooked
and
I cup Cashews (yummy!)
Cashews are so wonderful I thought they deserved their own picture, they really make this salad special!


To your warm cooked pasta, add the bottle (yes the whole thing) and a cup of mayo.

Sprinkle a liberal amount of Salad Supreme seasoning on the dressings, put as much or as little as you like.


Mix it all up
(try not to eat it all at this point, but a bow tie or two won’t hurt….)

Put it in the refrigerator for several hours, the dressing will soak up into the past and cool everything down. This salad is meant to be eaten cold.

About an hour before serving, drain the pineapple and oranges. Put them in a colander and let them sit there for a little bit so all the juice will drain off.

While draining the fruit chop the chicken and celery.

Right before serving add all ingredients and toss.



Sprinkle a little Salad Supreme on top and enjoy!
This recipe makes a big huge bowl. The family ate it for dinner and later with lunches, it is even better the second (or third) day.
Yummy!

Canning Potatoes

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(I originally posted this March of 2009, it is still my most popular post, getting at least 5 hits a day and for a while was at the top  of the google search for “canning potatoes”)

Last Fall I bought 150 pounds of potatoes at a really good price. I have been trying to feed them to my family and while we are potato people we just haven’t been able to eat them all. The nice thing about potatoes is that they store really well. We have a little room that says nice and cold in the winter, sort of like a little root cellar. There are a couple of flaws in our little root cellar, number one is that is doesn’t stay consistently cool as the weather warms up and number two it that there is a window in the room that lets the light in.


As the temperatures have been getting warmer and the days a little longer my stored potatoes have decided that it is time to sprout. That in itself isn’t a bad thing, you can still eat a sprouted potato for a while, it is an indication that their storage days are limited. I knew we couldn’t eat 75 pounds of potatoes before they grew leaves and went bad.


So I decided to can them. I have never canned potatoes before and up until a year ago I had never even heard about canning potatoes. I figured it was worth a try if it meant that I wouldn’t lose all that food.

I scrubbed my potatoes really well and washed them twice. I didn’t want to go to the effort of peeling them, usually we just eat potatoes with the skins on anyway, so I wanted to make sure they were really clean.

I then cut them into cubes and put them into a salt water brine, it helped keep them from turning brown while I was cutting up the rest of the potatoes.

Once I had enough potatoes to fill my two pressure canners, I loosely packed the potatoes into quart sized jars. I added a teaspoon of salt to each jar then filled them with warm water leaving about a half inch head space.

I put on the lids and processed them for 40 minutes at 12 pounds pressure. I added two pounds pressure because of my altitude, when using a pressure cooker you adjust the pressure for altitude, as opposed to the time as you would for cold water bath.


They were all boiling when I took the out and they sealed really quickly, the first batch was still boiling when I went to bed 2 hours later, and the last batch was still warm when I got up in the morning.

Here they are the next morning, cool and ready to store or eat! For breakfast I fried the potatoes with bacon, YUM! I processed 25 pounds of potatoes, it came out to 28 quarts…..I have 50 pounds to go!

****If you decide to can potatoes you have to use a pressure cooker, any other method is unsafe!****

(Up-date…..after the potatoes have sat for a bit the water will go cloudy, it is the starch from the potatoes coming out into the water, the potatoes are still good to eat, this will not affect the flavor or texture at all)

Having a grateful heart

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(this was originally posted March 2008)

My Dad told me a story the other day about his father, my grandpa. The day before he died my Dad was talking to him about some chickens he had just bought and my grandpa related this story: When he was a little boy a neighbor gave his family an old rooster to eat. His Mother didn’t really know how to cook it, so the neighbor told them to kill it and pluck it and they would help her cook it. So they did just that, and my grandpa on his death bed remembered how good that old, tough, stringy rooster tasted. His family was that hungry.

It is amazing to me that someone could be that hungry. I know it happens, my brain knows that people starve to death all the time, but it is so far removed from my little world that I give it no more than a passing thought. For some reason this story really stuck me.


A few days later my two oldest were complaining ”this is the worse day of my life!” The reason it was the worse day? They had to do dishes. I know! Poor abused kids! The story of my hungry grandpa jumped into my head, and I couldn’t help but look at my kids and realize what pampered little turkeys they were. Seriously! It was Monday and I let them all stay home from school (which never happens at my house, usually they have to be coughing up blood to stay home) we did a few house keeping things then we went on a picnic, a girly picnic, with a pretty table cloth and a whole bunch of dainty little treats! Then they got to play outside in the warm sunshine for the rest of the day. They had a good hearty meal, which they didn’t have to kill or gather in order to eat; they didn’t even have a part in the preparation! Then when it comes time to do dishes, there is crying and whining “it is the worse day of my life!”

I was mad
Oh so very mad
I told them the story of their great-grandpa and pointed out that they have never been hungry a day in their pretty pampered little lives. How dare they complain about their lives being so hard when they have food, clothing and shelter; a mom and dad who are here and take care of them; they are not beaten, neglected, or emotionally battered! They don’t have to work for their food; they get to go to school, there are places in this world where it is illegal for girls to learn how to read! They are pampered, petted, princesses and they should be ashamed for acting like selfish little girls!
One of my girls stared crying and the other silently started to do her dishes.

How do we teach our children in this world of instant everything to be grateful, to value the things we have? In a place where if we are hungry it is just a short drive to the grocery store, and if we are feeling particularly lazy, food can be brought to our door! Instead of it taking a season of work to produce a meal, it takes a plastic credit card and all sorts of good things are at our finger tips. How do we teach them in a world where our homes a built for us, our clothes made for us, heat comes not from chopping wood, but flipping a switch on the wall. Even our entertainment is easy, just turn on a TV or computer, no effort, no thinking, no sacrifice.