Master Baking Mix

Good Morning!
Following in the Real Food Challenge theme, today at Homemakers Who Work, I have a post about creating a store of Master Baking Mix. A nice Sunday project to make your week go a little smoother!

Kris

Crockpot Yogurt at HWW

Posted yesterday at HWW about making yogurt in the crockpot. I love it, the kids smile and roll their eyes at me. But it was fun growing stuff in my own kitchen. Oh, my poor OCD germ phobic mother! First the 'home-captures' sourdough starter now this!

Sandwich Bags and Yogurt

Hero Glad.
Originally uploaded by hfabulous

I have been working on improving the lunches I send with my girls to school. We used to use hot lunch only, but I got fed up with the low quality of the food, all those preservatives, lots of salt, fat and HFCS. Now they make their own sandwiches with homemade whole wheat, local cheese and deli meat (or PB&J). I round out their lunches with different things: apple slices, string cheese, trail mix, or raisins for variety. We also use alot of yogurt in lunches (kids AND parents!). We started with Yoplait-in the little containers, more dessert than anything else. I have been sneakily switching to the fruit on the bottom stuff-trying to get all of our tastebuds accustomed to something closer to real yogurt. (As an aside the other cool thing about the yogurt is we freeze them and they double as an ice pack for the lunch!). In conjunction with the Real Food Challenge, today I am going to make homemade yogurt in the crock pot. Then add a bit of frozen strawberries (or strawberry freezer jam), and put the yogurt into individual glass jars (4oz Ball canning jars) for our lunches. Bye, bye HFCS and plastic container. Now I just hope the yogurt turns out and that everyone finds it tastey!

Oh yeah, the funny story...instead of ziplock sandwich bags, I bought the fold-top kind. Apparently these are dinosaurs from another age (like me ;D ). My kids were mystified. 'Where is the closey thing? How will the sandwich stay in? Mom, how do these work?' I had to give them a lesson on How To Use A Fold-Top Sandwich Bag. First the typewriter, then the walkman, now sandwich bags...

Real Food Safety

(Just a random-real food picture. I've got summer on the brain)


We watched Food, Inc this weekend. I have to say I was not that impressed. For someone who has read a couple of Salatin's books and Micheal Pollin's work-it was all old hat. Intersting that it was rated R. My Dad and sister were concerned that I was allowing my 11 and 7 year old to watch-but the old R stuff was what happens inside the meat processing plants. I don't consider that R rated-just real life.

A more moving video was Life According to Monsanto. It literally blew me away. If Monsanto is half as evil as this producer make them out to be...first it made me want to cry and then made me so mad-mad at multinationals who place profit above humanity, mad at our government who is supposed to be there for US but is instead placing the fox in charge of the hen-house. 90% of our soybeans are now GMO 'round-up ready' and 70% of the processed food in your grocery store contains GMO food ingrediants-with no labeling and no real safety testing. I am seeing red just thinking about it.

In other fun news, we helped my DH's gandfather celebrate his 100th birthday today. His kids threw him a big party. He is amazing; still living in his own home, cooking for himself, doing his own laundry, no walker or wheelchair. Happy birthday grandpa Carl!

Join the Food Revolution

Another post today at Homemakers Who Work about food! Reject the commercial slop passed off as food, you deserve so much more.
Kris

Stocking Up

With this wonderful long weekend today felt like a 'freebie' kind of day. We used the time to do a little prep work. We had 15 bantie chicken carcasses in the freezer which were looking a little freezer burned, Tom and I worked hard on those guys (see this post) and were not about to allow them to go to waste. Time for stock! These little birds could not have weighed more than 3#, feathers and all. Being a couple years old, pretty stringy, not for roasting but the flavor is incomparable for soup stock, hands down the best I have ever tasted.


Banties in the orchard -with the big beautiful rooster (unknown breed!)



We cooked the 12 chickens in 2 batches with just onion, garlic, salt and whole peppercorns, using the canner as a soup pot.




After allowing them to cool a little - stripped the breast meat and some of the bigger pieces of leg/thigh. Good enough for chicken salad or in casserole but not great as a stand alone ingredient!



The liquid was poured off through a colander to cool and
allow some of the fat to be skimmed off.



Two cups of stock to a freezer bag (one ladle = 1/2 cup for me) and out to my walk in freezer :) ** Total for the day: approx 20 two cup portions.

Thank you little chickens.

Something Simmering in the Kitchen...

...and it's not the soup! It was ME. This weekend I realized I was getting resentful about spending so much time in the kitchen; making bread, cooking healthy food, doing dishes by hand, packing kids lunches and wrapping up the food storage. I was getting pissy about my self imposed kitchen duty. So I'm done-kinda, sorta. The garden is done, the girls can make their own sandwiches and put in the freezer Sunday afternoon, next pay period I will get the broken dishwasher replaced, and I will stop trying to be Martha Stewart in the kitchen (until I think it is fun again). It started out as a lot of fun but I began putting more and more pressure on myself, somewhere alot the way it became not fun and just something I should do-those damn shoulds get me every time. I remembered that the purpose for slowing down my work schedule is to ENJOY the things I have- not add more to my plate. (take the power, Kris)
Once the weather co-operates and stops raining I will get my garden put to bed, lay that project aside and turn inward to the home, my relationships, and ART. I have neglected my creativity for a long time and I can hear it calling to me (with a little outside help-thank you).

This is what I want to get back to:








Property update: we are trying to purchase the fixer-upper for a price that WILL allow us to fix it up and not necessitate two full-time working parents! The fellow who offered us the low, low price is apparently not the final decision maker and he is now waffling. I nicely and politely (we will be neighbors either way) to knock it off and give us a purchase price by this weekend or we will buy the open field! (I really don't want that, but I won't let him know !!)

Apple Pie!

My 11 yr old daughter has discovered how to bake. I don't buy sweets (because I will eat them ALL) but she has discovered a defect in my sugar avoidance defenses. If she bakes it-more than likely she will get to eat some (if she eats her vegetables!). Sunday she decided to make an apple pie. She pulled out the Good Housekeepers Complete Cookbook and just made it-no help except for the peeling/slicing of apples. It was delicious! We ate is still warm with a scoop of vanilla ice cream...heaven. Now if I could only convince her to have the same enthusiasm for veggies. THANK YOU ERIN!

Ugly Bread

No this is not a post about some fun new gourmet artisan bread. It is truly ugly bread dough.


NO LAUGHING OKAY...







What am I doing wrong?? Too dry? Not enough kneading is my guess. The dough doesn't stretch, but rather breaks. This is supposed to be simple french bread. Ha. It looks like brains. Really!
I have been making all our bread form the breadmaker but thought it was time to branch out. Please comment if you can tell just at a glance what is wrong with my bread!
(this is 1cup whole wheat, 2 cups bread flour, 1 tsp salt, 1 cup water with 4tsp yeast)


okay you can laugh if you want--I sure am :D
Kris

160 lbs of Potatoes

I have more closet make-over pictures today! This spring I planted 10# of seed potato. We had no blight problems, good seed or dry conditions, I'm not sure which. Garden novice that I am, I wasn't sure what to expect. We harvested the past two weekends and stored more than 160lbs of potatoes (not including the ones we had eaten already)! I am overwhelmed with spuds. Another closet to the rescue! This is in our basement- a strange little alcove approx 10 ft x 4 ft concrete brick all the way around, finished in drywall. There must have been a reason for it in the 50's when our ranch was built-but it made a great tornado shelter and it will now become my root cellar!

I also harvested 2 huge cabbages-I fried 1/4 head and will make soup with another 1/2, but i am at a loss for what else to do with it. Homemade kraut?? I just put the head in the 'root closet' for now-it is the coolest place in the house aside from the fridge. Even without the tomatoes (still green), I was unprepared for the bounty of this garden. It's a good problem to have, I just need to learn how to cook with REAL food.


BEFORE CLOSET PICTURES:


























AFTER CLOSET PICTURES:




















IN BETWEEN PICTURES:





























Ruralrose said...
giggles - we all long for success and then don't know what to do with it - you have done such an awesome job this year, pride should be smiling on your shoulder, peace

September 9, 2009 10:31 AM
fullfreezer said...
Whoa!!! That's a boat-load of potatoes! Good luck. Just be sure you let them cure out before you pack them in that closet. I found one of ours going stinkily bad yesterday.
Judy

September 9, 2009 8:38 PM
hickchick said...
Judy --this is the part I worry about... I have read all the things I did wrong!! Even though the vines had died back-the skins peeled easily. They were not mature enough. I have limited space and conditions for storage.
I will be purchasing a temp/humidity device. I will also start dehydrating potatoes! I really don't think they will last very long. Next year I will harvest on their schedule NOT MINE! :)

September 9, 2009 9:21 PM

Beans in the Camper

Lots of beans in a small enclosed space...sounds like a really bad idea, right? This weekend that was exactly what happened.
My garden is crazy with green (and yellow and purple) beans. Call it first timers enthusiasm I guess. I have frozen quite alot already, bringing them home Sunday evenings and cleaning, blanching and freezing the following morning. This weekend was different. I had a wonderful, talented, and oh yah beautiful, knockout sister helping me (did i forget anything Tracy??). With her and her husbands help we picked a whole cooler of beans, and turned them into 11 quarts of frozen beans!
I am very sad to have lost all my pictures: piles and piles of beans, the little camper stove and all the filled bags in the freezer.
I may pick a few more for a batch of Dilly Beans, but the rest I will allow to mature and keep as dry beans for consumption and seeds for next year. It feels good to have 'finished' something.
K

Mmmm, Rabbit Stew

We returned from the farm this weekend with turnips and a couple onions and decided this would be the perfect opportunity for rabbit stew. Very gratifying to create a meal from our own hands. Just the beginning for us I think.

Bread in the Dishwasher?

This blog allows the best AND worst of me to come out :) It was very cathartic to have a forum to shout out how I feel and I appreciate the supportive comments. I will be content with what I have, I will develop new skills. While I do not believe in GOD, I do have faith that things happen for a reason and I have the grace to accept.

Speaking of new skills...I made bread in the dishwasher yesterday! The 5 minute-no-knead that has been going around the blogs lately. Our house was to cold, it wasn't rising so put the entire bowl in the dishwasher and allowed it to start a drying cycle-made sure it wasn't getting cooked and it rose beautifully!

The compact is still going well, I did buy two pyrex 9x13 casseroles-after looking for them first at the resale shop. We have been cooking ahead on weekends but I didn't have anything to put a double batch of lasagna in. I am going to need some new work clothes, I will have to scout out a local nice as new store-Goodwill is fine for jeans but they didn't have slacks there. So the pyrex and a gift purchased for E10's birthday are the only NEW things I have purchased since christmas. it really is not a big stretch for me-I'm pretty cheap ;)

The weathermen were calling for 6-10 inches of snow last night-it looks like we received about 4, what a relief. The chicks will be very disappointed-they Had high hopes for a snow day! I have to psych myself up for another 4-6 weeks of winter. I haven't ordered any seeds yet. I will be working on a new garden plan this weekend.
Kris

Learning Curve

We received our 1/2 grass fed beef the other day...wow the hamburger and steak we have had are out of this world. It's like a different species!! That along with reading Joe Salatin's Pastured Poulty book have me unwilling to eat industrial meat again. This goes hand-in-hand with my desire to eat a clean diet and not rely on processed foods. I do have a problem though...I really have no idea how to cook this way-how to stretch a pot roast or a chicken without rice-a-roni. Oh yeah and get supper on the table in 30 minutes or less, oh yeah and something the kids will eat. HELP! Well the chicks will have to adjust! They are so used to chicken nuggets and mac 'n cheese-heaven help them if they have to chew something! School lunches do not help this either-ugh I feel a rant coming on....ok better now. So many opportunities for improvement, I am truely fortunate :) Today we are going snowshoeing at my dad's farm about 30 minutes away and then we will stop at the Amish bulk foods store near his place. That is my baby step for today.

Other news--a whole week of buying nothing new - the compacts first week. I ran out of toothpaste and started using plain baking soda--of course the girls had to try it too, I laughed so hard-you should have seen their faces-they thought it was awful! They have no idea of the future torture in store for them (evil laugh). Kris

I had logged off when an evil plan formed in my mind...I would like to get the chicks off school hot lunch, but planning and packing sack lunches along with the complaints I am sure I would receive is just not on my agenda for this month...the evil part...child labor... at 10 and 6 they are perfectly able to make their own! I will start them with store bought bread and fruit snacks and gradually shift them the homemade bread and dried apples. (sorry just a little slap happy this am)

Bread not Weapons

I DID IT!
Finally, my bread turned out. Okay so
I am using a bread maker but I was
turning out these incredibly dense 2 lb blocks of bread and I couldn't figure it out-checked water temp, added vital gluten. My children were eating it and pretending they liked it. My dear and horribly funny husband remarked that it was bread like this that won wars because it provided sustanance in addition to being used as a weapon! It was the yeast-dead, dead, dead. Another small victory!

Sorry squirrels, sorry worm bin -no more bread for you!

Homecooked

As I am typing I can smell the chicken roasting in the oven. It is a whole chicken with the body cavity stuffed with a cut-up lemon, garlic cloves and fresh rosemary. The skin overlying the breast was loosened and a mix of rosemary, salt and olive oil rubbed on the breast meat. The smell is AMAZING. It is even more amazing that this is a chicken who was raised by a family member (dad) not more than 30 miles from here. The meat birds are a commercial Cornish cross. I am increasingly having a hard time with grocery shopping and feeding my family. A summer of eating fresh stuff and reading the Omnivores Dilema has left me disgusted with our current food supply but not in a place to do alot about it. Now wait-- that's not true! I may not be able to grow our family's own food but there are still alot of things I can change. We will further reduce our fast food stops. I will continue to bake our bread. I will shop at local bulk foods and 'natural foods' stores. I will order that grass finished beef that I have been procrastinating about. Meals can be planned to use all leftovers and frozen veggies from the summer. (I have not learned to can yet) There are many small steps to take in this journey. K

The longest journey begins with a single step.