It's Milking Time!

Well, we got a Jersey cow for our little homestead and have been milking her since mid June. This has been quite the adventure and it only gets better.

 We are getting about three (3) gallons a day on average. What am I doing with all this milk? Well, this is where the Internet is handy. While we have no TV, we do have Internet access, so I went to Pinterest and found many pins for things to make with fresh raw milk. I have made mozzarella, ricotta, feta, and yogurt, butter, coffee creamer and ice cream so far. But the possibilities are endless!

(Creamer, ricotta and mozzarella in the making.)

(Ricotta can be made from the whey after making mozzarella or made with milk, cream and vinegar.)

Some of the cheeses are just close enough to the real thing to be called ricotta or feta. The butter and ice cream are churned by hand. I also made some fresh buttermilk biscuits for a strawberry rhubarb shortcake...topped with vanilla ice cream. I baked a cake using milk and I have even frozen buttermilk for use later. 

Adding things like fresh herbs or garlic scapes to the butter is fun. I can't wait to try adding these things to my cheeses!

With an abundance of milk there is no end to what I can and am willing to make. Pinterest is a great resource and many ideas have been used, tweaked and such for the cheeses seen in these photos. Food52.com is also a wonderful place to find recipes and tips for making cheese and this is where I found my yogurt recipe.

This is my milk cake with my vanilla bean yogurt...see the black specks of vanilla?

Even our pigs benefit from the milk...see, bacon does come from milk. This is the leftover whey from all my cheese making. I have used some to boil pasta too and will do so again in the future. But for today the pigs are getting a special treat with their veggie scraps. 

So...this is how I am spending my summer. Getting this making-it-with-milk thing down, so when school starts I can keep up with all this yummy goodness

Oh, and I must not forget..."milk, it does a [human] body good!" Cheers!

Pizza...pizza...and more pizza! Never the same slice twice.

Pizza is something that I love to make, grilled or done in Grace. Making a crust from scratch is so much fun and tastes 100% better than anything from a box, a pouch or even the freezer and it really doesn't take that much time. I have found many recipes for fresh dough in Pinterest. All doughs in this post can be found on my board under "tried it and loved it" and I use many.

The best part about making a pizza is that you really can top it with anything. Some of my favorite toppings are spinach, oven dried tomatoes (similar to sun dried but done in my own kitchen and packed in oil), goat cheese or feta cheese, artichoke hearts, onions and other fresh veggies. I have even made chicken wing pizza and Hawaiian pizza.

I have also found that grilling pizza works best if you lightly toast both sides of the dough first without toppings. Once you add the toppings the pizza slides off the peel better. Grilling with indirect heat once it's been toasted with direct flame is what I have found to be the best method of grilling pizza on a gas flame. Grilling on charcoal is just a s great but you want to be sure your coals are hot enough to cook the pizza but not too hot to scorch it. This will take some practice.

Baking pizza in Grace on my stoneware has been fun. I enjoy learning how to do new things with this stove. My family and friends love trying my experiments. I am finding that the pizza top is getting done and brown before the bottom crust is crisp and crunchy. To solve this minor issue I have taken to finishing my pizza on the top of the stove once the top is done. This has worked nicely. 

So, before you spend the money to buy a pizza, get on Pinterest and find a dough recipe you can make, tweak it by adding herbs or spices and give homemade pizza a try. Yes, grill it when the weather clears. No need to save pizza for winter nights and no worries if you don't have a Grace to make your pizza...the standard gas or electric oven will work just fine.

Comfort food...and the joy it brings!

"Today was quite the day!" That said, having a few dishes that bring comfort are always great to turn to when the last thing you want to do is cook. Tonight's supper was one of those classic confort food dishes after having one of those days. Chicken gravy and biscuits never lets me down. I always think of my mom when I make this dish, though I do it differently than what she did. (I think she would like my version.) And this time around Grace was my go to gal. For those of you new to my blog, Grace is my kitchen wood stove. And she is teaching me a few things as we get to know one another. She was purchased around four years ago and this past October she was vented and ready to go to work.

On this farm we have a few chickens that find their way to our freezer and ultimately our table. This chicken was not a meat bird, nor was it a spring chicken. He needed to boil for a while if I wanted him to be tender. My son gladly started this process around noon on our living room wood stove before my husband brought the stock pot out to Grace around 3:30. Around 6:00 I was pulling meat off the bones, quite easily. This old bird was nice and tender.

Once I got all the meat off the bones I added some of the stock.

  (The remaining stock, water from boiling the whole chicken, carrots, onions and celery cooked down and blended a little with my emersion blender,  will be stored for later use.) This is where my recipe differs from my mom's; I don't use canned soup to thicken it. I simply add a cup of milk and then mix some of the hot stock with corn starch to thicken my dish.  It isn't super thick, just thick enough to call it a gravy. 

I also added a bag of frozen peas to this batch and I will do that again.  It was super yummy. I let the chicken gravy simmer on the hot stove while I prepare and bake the biscuits.

I admit that on this night my biscuits were not made from scratch, but from the trusty stand-by box of Bisquick. This is another aspect of what makes this dish comfort food. Growing up my mom tried numerous times to duplicate my grandmother's baking powder biscuits.  She never seemed to get it quite right and thus she used Bisquick.  So, tonight I too pulled out the yellow box and within 5 min had a baking sheet ready for Grace. 

 I just didn't feel like playing with biscuits tonight and there is nothing wrong with that.  (My husband and I did bake a custard pie together later. I used my mom's crust recipe (keep scrolling for it) and he found a custard recipe somewhere...I wasn't paying attention to where he got it sorry.)

So, what can I say about making chicken gravy and biscuits with Grace? I enjoyed the simplicity of cooking a dish of comfort on a simple fire.  Baking the biscuits and then later the pie was also a joy. I just love using this stove. I can only imagine what living that simple life was really like.  I often find myself wishing I were back in that time. With Grace I can get a glimpse of the 1920s in the convenience of 2016. I mostly use cast-iron pans and pots to do my cooking these days.  I also have some stoneware but this dish was started in my heavy bottom stainless stock or pasta pot. I am learning to be versatile but rustic.

So here it is: the recipe, sort of:

Chicken gravy:  Boil a whole chicken until the meat falls away from the bones. Part way through the boiling process, add carrots, onion and celery to the stock pot.  Once the chicken has been pulled off the bones, add some of the stock back to the chicken.  Add one cup of milk and bring to a boil.  Remove to lesser heat and take some stock from the pot and add some corn starch.  Stir completely so there are no lumps and return back to the chicken and stock. Allow to simmer stirring occasionally. Add a bag of frozen peas.  While this continues to simmer make and bake your biscuits according to package directions.  Serve warm.

Mom's Pie Crust:

2 cups sifted flour.
1 tsp salt
1 stick unsalted butte
1/2 cup Crisco
1/4 cup cold water

Sift the flour and salt into a bowl.
cut in the butter and Crisco until it looks like fine sand
add the cold water and bring together forming a ball.

This will make a top and bottom crust for an 8-10" pie.

Roll on a floured surface.

Oh the joy of cooking comfort foods on a kitchen wood stove!

Sloppy joes and squash!

Grace is hooked up and cooking up a storm! I have baked breads, muffins, pies; roasted veggies, turkey, lamb, prime rib and even a goose! Several casseroles and various other dishes later I am writing my first blog post. I am hoping to post more regularly here rather than on my Facebook page. (I am using the phone so for this post to try it out so hang with me while I figure it all out.)

So Tonight we took a frozen package of burger, some onion, peppers, celery and seasonings and within a half hour to 45 min we had  dinner.

Cooking in and on a wood stove has been quite the learning curve for me. I love to cook and this level of cooking and baking has been fun for me to say the least. The squash was roasted in the stove this fall and frozen for use later and tonight I am warming it up to serve with my sloppy joes. 

Canning, freezing and food preservation: Bringing the taste of summer into the dead of winter.

As the fall weather is upon us with the days shortening I have some time to sit back and take a breath.  The canning and freezing season is winding down with the approach of winter.  My cabbage is fermenting waiting to become sauerkraut. Some of my tomatoes have been oven dried and packed in oil, while others were canned and still more frozen as sauces.  The carrots, beets, peppers and beans are nesting with my zucchini in the freezer.  Some jams were made as well.  Pear freezer jam was a first for me as was the carrot cake jam pictured later.

So, which is the best option for food preservation here on the hill; freeze or can?  I guess it depends on what I want to preserve and how we want to eat it.  I like to can things but freezing is a quick and much simpler method that works just as well. I chose to blanch and freeze my beans, peppers, carrots and roasted beets.  Blanching and then cooling quickly allows for the bright colors and a semi cooked veggie. Those are the veggies that froze very quickly for me when I was running short on time and needed to get them while the getting was good. Roasting the beets and cooling was a slick way to get the skins to slip off easily. The freezer jam above was a success and if you like strawberry or even peach freezer jam then you will probably like the pear.  Same method as the others but with pears.  The Sure Jell pectin has many recipes to follow inside the box. The fresh pear flavor is amazing.  I did a batch with cinnamon too.  I also canned some pear jam with and without hot peppers.

         
The sauce was another story for freezing.  I made three batches of tomato sauce: a marinara sauce with tomatoes, onions, and parsley. I also did a batch of sauce with tomatoes and basil for pasta and one for pizza with tomatoes and oregano. Don't forget the garlic.

Once the sauce was cooked down and cooled I transferred it to plastic freezer containers.  Each batch made about 4-5 quarts. I added a little tomato paste as well to the two sauces.  I have already used one of the marinara quarts and it was yummy.

Canning tomatoes reminds me of canning with my mom.  She always had at least two bushels of tomatoes to put up each year.  Peeling and coring the tomatoes starts with a hot water bath to help with removing the skins.

It doesn't take long at all for the skin to loosen for easy removal.

Once you have them all peeled then you will need to slice and pack into the prepared jars.  My suggestion is to follow the directions from the web or any canning book.  I always have my computer open as a reference.  You really don't want a bad batch of tomatoes.

Following the directions from my research, including how much canning salt is needed the processing begins.  I used the water bath method and below is the end result. Canning really is a beautiful art, and edible.

The cabbage fermenting on Grace right now is another chapter in my fall canning saga.  I had six very large cabbage plants in my garden.  I have shredded and prepped three of them for sauerkraut, I have three left. The fermenting is happening now and the canning will take place in about four more weeks.  The entire process takes about six to eight weeks total.

And yes, I did use the cabbage slicer you see hanging on the wall in the background.  I used a knife while my husband was sharpening the blades on this 'fancy' piece of kitchen equipment. But it did work quite well when he was done.

It all started with cutting these very large heads of cabbage in half and then in quarters so I could easily handle them. This is the canning that I was looking forward to all summer. The first time I made sauerkraut I wasn't sure, but the results were yummy so I tried it again as you see here.

The trick to the fermentation processes is salting the cabbage so it creates its own brine to use in the jars. I let the salted cabbage sit for about an hour or so and then I packed my jars and covered them loosely and stashed them in the large kettles on Grace to finish the fermentation process.  I check the jars occasionally to make sure the cabbage stays covered in brine.  If it needs it I will add a little salt water.  They will be processed for about 45 min in a hot water bath when the time comes.

My other canning adventures this fall included our usual salsa, at least two batches were made,

a salsa verde made from green tomatoes and yep I made two batches of this as well,

 and a carrot cake jam from a recipe found on Pinterest with carrots from my garden.  (Not all of the carrots made it to the freezer.)

I have a basement area full of home canned goods and a freezer full of goodies as well.  Our winter eating will be full of the splendor of summer.

Zucchini, zucchini and more Zucchini: What to do with that bumper crop!

One of the best things about living on the hill is my garden.  And oh what a garden it is.  This year I was able to keep up with the weeding early on and had actual rows I could walk down.  Though toward the end of summer my tomato plants took over and now I need safari gear to find some of my veggies.  I have the usual plants: winter squash, carrots, tomatoes, peppers, beans, peas, cucumbers, zucchini, beats, onions and potatoes, lettuce, spinach and peas.  I have plans for most of the veggies we plant, like salsa with the tomatoes and peppers. The lettuce and spinach we eat pretty quickly and the peas I eat while I am harvesting them. I blanch and freeze the beans and we can store the carrots, potatoes and beets in the basement if we have any left. The beauty of a garden is the ability to share the bounty with family and friends...but what happens when you have more zucchini than anyone wants or could possibly eat? Well that is what this post is all about; an over abundance of zucchini.

I have been reading Animal, Vegetable, Miracle a book by Barbara Kingsolver. This book address what happens in the food industry from crop to table and how Kingsolver and her family ate locally for a year; what they were able to grow or get locally. That means eating in season.  I have found that zucchini is one vegetable that I don't eat out of season unless it is in a baked good or has been frozen by yours truly.  We planted 4 zucchini plants in our garden this year and it has been a bumper crop. (The tomatoes are another story.) We have eaten grilled zucchini boats, various zucchini casseroles and quiches, breads, cookies and muffins.

I like to pick them before they get too large because I don't like the big seeds, but this year they have all been pretty good, even the larger ones have had smaller, tender seeds. Before I get to the recipes for my bread and cookies I want to share my freezing technique with you.  As you know, zucchini are pretty much water. The flesh is really moist and makes great breads, cakes and cookies. Even the seeds are no big deal when frozen. I even found a zucchini pancake recipe on Pinterest that was really yummy. The zucchini I froze will be made into a variety of things like this all winter, and I will be eating the best of my garden into February.

So, how do you freeze zucchini? Well I shred it, measure it for recipes and pack into freezer bags.  It really is that simple.  Yes, when you thaw it out later there is quite a bit of water to squeeze off but if you pack your cups like I do, then the amount left in the bag should be sufficient for your recipes.

Start with washed and dried fresh zucchini, ends trimmed.

Using a box grater, grate into a pan. No need to peel the zucchini.

I pack my measuring cups to over-flowing.  One quart size bag nicely holds two cups, enough for a recipe of zucchini bread or a double batch of cookies, recipes to follow.

Pack, label and date your bags for freezing.  I use mine up usually within the year.  I wouldn't keep them for much longer than that, as freezer burn my set in tainting the fresh flavor of the zucchini.

My packages are also double bagged for added freezer protection.

Besides the baked goods, shredded zucchini makes great casseroles, fresh or frozen works just fine. I even took a fresh zucchini and used my Pampered Chef Spiral Slicer for one.  The results speak for themselves.

 Spiral sliced zucchini with some seasoned leftover ground turkey, cheese and Bisquick with milk for this one. I also added a little mayo and some sour cream for added flavor and texture.

Bake until bubbly and golden brown.

Not much left after the boys finished.

So, now for the baked goods.  Cookies, cakes and bread are so moist and delicious and that much healthier when veggies are added.  Not peeling the zucchini adds fiber too. 

Zucchini Bread.  This is a recipe that my mom used and passed down to me.  I am not sure where it came from. The recipe makes 3 small or 2 large loaves.  I make them into muffins too.

3 eggs slightly beaten

1 c oil

2 c grated zucchini

2 tsp vanilla---all added to the eggs

In another bowl mix

3 c flour 

1/2 tsp salt

1 tsp soda

1/4 tsp baking powder

3 tsp cinnamon (I add more because I like it.)

1 c each white and brown sugar---add to egg mixture and blend well. 

add nuts and chocolate chip as desired.

For the bread bake at 325 for one hour in a well greased pan.

For the muffins bake at 350 for 20 min or until a tooth pick inserted in the center comes out clean.

Remove from pans while still warm.  

Zucchini Cookies

Beat together 1 c sugar, 3/4 c butter, 2 eggs

Add 1 c grated zucchini

Sift together and add to the above 

1 1/2 c flour

1/2 tsp salt

2 c oatmeal

1 c raisins or other dried fruits

1/2 tsp soda 

1 tsp cinnamon

1/4 tsp nutmeg

1/2 c chopped nuts optional

Bake at 375 for 11-12 min  I allow my cookies to sit on the baking sheets for a min or two before removing to a cooling rack. (The chocolate 'cake' is a zucchini brownie recipe I found on Pinterest and made to be gluten free.)

So, there you have it...what to do with all that zucchini you find yourself with after friends give you what they can't possibly eat in one summer.  And while I have given many of this versatile veggie away, as well as eaten and frozen many, I still have some growing in the garden. Who wants some?