Granny Miller Challenge--Food and Water

Food

We ate well during the weekend. I think, the main reason we did, was that we menu-planned to the nth degree--kind of like we would have if we were taking a trip. It helped us to stay focused and organized to already have the decisions made. I wonder how that would work in any sort of a long term situation, because I know that I am often hit or miss on meal planning on a day to day kind of a basis. (Note to us: work on being more consistent with menu planning, so the habit is there when the need is.)

For dinner Friday evening, we had planned Vegetable Beef (venison) Stew. Plan A was to cook it in wood-fire coals, but Owen worked with a neighbor off the farm and it rained, so we cooked inside on the propane cooktop instead. We all became fans of the long butane lighters over the weekend and laughed at ourselves for turning off burners and trying to light them by the knobs, without any flame.

Saturday morning, we had planned coconut flour pancakes and homemade, homegrown pork sausage with eggs. We thought it would be handy to use an old-fashioned hand-powered hand mixer to mix the pancakes, but it turned out the whisk was much more effective with a batter. The sausage was easier to make than I thought it would be (I used this family favorite recipe from Alton Brown, and used 2 and a half pounds of already-ground pork.) I used an old cookbook holder from the farmers' market box and really learned to appreciate how much easier it is to read from a cookbook or recipe binder that is propped up in a holder and lit with a lamp on the counter. We cooked the pancakes and sausage over the coals outside. Owen and Becca set up the awning to protect us from rain and Owen's Boy Scout fire-making experience kept us in plenty of hot coals. It was hard work to bend and cook over fire just a foot off the ground. The cook cooks just as much as the food does! We decided to leave off the eggs. The pancakes were egg-y enough and plenty filling with the sausage.

We wondered aloud if homemakers of bygone days wore a towel over their shoulder with 'designated spots' for different 'messes'. Perhaps they wet one end and used one corner to wipe their hot, cooked face, and the other wet corner to wipe off dirty hands. Maybe they saved the dry end for wiping only what was clean, like washed hands. We decided that cooking over the fire is almost too difficult and time consuming for everyday meal preparation. We will be improving our dutch oven cooking skills, learning and trying pit-roasting, looking into making and using a solar oven. In the long run, we'd like to build an outdoor stove and wood-fired oven that will allow us to cook in a more upright position without our faces directly over the fire.

Saturday lunch was more of a snack... rice cakes on hand with hummus or egg salad or pb. It made for a nice break in the day and we visited at the table as no one was distracted.

Saturday supper Hannah and Owen worked together over the fire again. We had pork ribs--they had already par-cooked so they warmed over the fire mopped with sauce, foil-wrapped potatoes cooked in the coals, we had sauerkraut that had fermented in our crock (as a side note, the kraut we have made with homegrown cabbage has been much more flavorful to us than that which was made with boughten cabbage), and broccoli steamed on the stove inside. Dessert was dutch oven-baked applesauce hung over the fire.

Sunday breakfast was home-made yogurt, apples or bananas. The yogurt had already been made using a heating pad for incubating. We talked about options for making homemade yogurt without power. One idea would be to place the yogurt in jars in a cooler and adding some jars of warm water to keep the cooler warm. Perhaps this could be done in an oven as well.

Sunday 'lunch', after church was eggs, bacon, refried beans, corn tortillas, salsa, avocado, lettuce. We cooked inside on the propane cooktop (and wondered how many butane lighters or boxes of matches we should keep on hand).

Sunday supper was our celebration meal. We hand-churned coconut milk ice cream, and popped popcorn on the stove. We agreed we had survived the weekend very well, indeed.

The next post will be about Water. I think it will take longer than I originally thought...

Yummy Chocolate Cake!!!

 

Who says one can't have chocolate cake or cupcakes on a gluten, dairy,  and processed sugar free diet. We think these taste just like their gluten containing counterparts! :*)

Sunday Treats: Blooming Onions

When I suggested we stop buying potato chips a while back, I got the 'hairy eyeball' look. It's not like we even bought them very often, but nobody wanted to give up the option. Especially for birthdays.

Potato chips have absolutely no nutritional bang for the buck (unless you are horribly underweight and desperate for all the extra calories you can get--even then, the oil and salt used in most brands are bad for us).

So, I had to come up with some good substitutes, enjoyed often enough, to sway the crowd. First I had to find some recipes. Then I needed time to try them. Our weeks are already full, so I thought I would try Sundays. We had been having popcorn in the evening, but not as regularly as we did in winter.

We actually started out with potato chips and then tested a simple onion ring recipe. Then we resurrected this recipe, and adapted it to some of the diet changes we've been making. They really aren't hard, just a little time consuming. Don't worry if it isn't perfect. That's part of the charm!

I should have taken a picture of cutting the onion, but I ran out of hands! This time, I used unbleached white flour. Next time, I will try it with fresh ground spelt.

So, first melt and heat your good, healthy fat in a deep pan (I used coconut oil in a 3-quart pot) Then, you cut the onion. Dip it in an egg and milk wash (I used 2 small eggs and one cup of milk for two blooming onions.)

Then roll and gently toss it in the flour mixture (1 cup flour, 1-1/2 teaspoons sea salt, 1/2 teaspoon cayenne pepper--1/3 of what the original recipe recommends, 1/2 teaspoon ground black pepper, 1/2 teaspoon dried oregano--I was out, so used Italian seasoning), 1/2 teaspoon dried thyme, 1/4 teaspoon cumin).

Dip in milk/egg mixture again and cover a second time with flour mixture to coat fully.

Test the oil temperature by putting a very small piece of onion in the fat. If it bubbles nicely, it's ready for the onion. Gently lower the onion into the fat with a slotted spoon. Fry for about 10 minutes.

Serve with dipping sauce on the side. I doubled the sauce recipe since we were doing two onions for 8 of us. (1/2 cup mayonnaise, 1 Tablespoon tomato sauce, 2-3 Tablespoons taratoor sauce from this recipe, because I didn't have horseradish sauce on hand, 1/4 teaspoon paprika, 1/4 teaspoon sea salt, 1/8 teaspoon dried oregano (or Italian seasoning), dash ground black pepper, dash cayenne.)

Mmmmm.

What kinds of special foods do you like to make to replace old favorite snack foods?

Quick, Cheap, Nutritious Salmon Patties

Hands down, Salmon Patties are my favorite 'save' meal when I don't have a plan and need something nutritious, relatively quick for a scratch meal and inexpensive. Everyone in the family likes them... most love them!

Since we are feeding eight hungry people in our house, we multiply the recipe. In the summer, we can get by with a double batch (which makes 12-1/3 cup patties). We serve it with potatoes or brown rice and LOTS of garden veggies with butter! In the winter, when fewer veggies are available, we triple the recipe (which make 19 - 1/3 cup patties).

Don't panic! The above photo shows all the ingredients for a triple batch! (Except for the frying oil.)

First we'll figure out the cost:

3 cans wild caught salmon, undrained (I buy 4 packs from Sam's for $7.48; $1.87 for one can)
3 eggs from hens on pasture (We raise our own hens for eggs, but figuring $4/dozen, one egg is 33 cents)
3 rye crisp-type crackers (I buy packs of 32 Wasa light rye crackers from Big Lots for $1.80, one cracker is 5.6 cents)
3 handfuls of parsley, rinsed and drained (This is a great time of year for parsley in Georgia. I bought 3 plants for $9 last Spring and have harvested at least 30 handfuls, so one handful costs me 30 cents or less)
1 cup, approximately, coconut oil (organic virgin), for frying (I buy my coconut oil in bulk at an international market in Atlanta. My cost is $2.26 per pound, 1/3 cup costs me 38 cents)

Ingredients for my triple batch cost me $8.81....divided by 8 servings is just about $1.10 per serving.

Making the salmon patties is the easy part:

Dump the salmon into a bowl, add eggs, crumble in crackers and mix.

Pick the parsley apart into small pieces. Stir in.

Measure 1/3 cup servings....

And fry in coconut oil.

When I am in a hurry (and thinking), I will use my electric skillet instead of a frying pan.

This post is a part of Kimi Harris' Pennywise Platter. Click over to Kimi's blog, The Nourshing Gourmet, to find more low cost, nutritious and yummy ideas for your family!

Glorious eggs!

Eggs have been in really short supply around here. In the fall, as the daylight time gets shorter, the hens slow down their egg production. We didn't even talk about supplementing them with light this year. We completely forgot about it.

In addition to shorter daylight, the hens go into a moult--they shed their feathers and grow new ones. Feathers are made of protein, so when the hens are growing more feathers, there isn't enough protein to make many eggs on top of new feathers.

This year egg production dropped a lot more than I was anticipating and we have only been getting one or two eggs a day! For a while, a dozen eggs was costing about $7 in feed!!! Recently, egg-laying got better (we think they are finished growing out their new feathers) and we are getting three to four eggs a day. We were able to save up enough eggs to have them for dinner. What a wonderful treat!

Katie made several batches of Mexican Roasted Potatoes (these have become a real family favorite) and we cooked up a big batch of homemade bacon from our homegrown pork. Most of us had poached eggs. Vern prefers his fried and I got this photo of these wonderful looking egg yolks!

We're already talking about what kind of egg meal we'd like to have when we've saved up enough eggs for another one!

Pizza night!

Pizza night has been almost every Friday. This last week, we had pizza on Thursday. This time, almost all of the pizza ingredients were homemade. I made the mozzarella and ricotta earlier that day, the pesto, I made earlier this year and froze and I followed and adapted a pizza dough recipe, so everyone could eat it. And the most important part of all, this time I didn't burn the crust... I think I'm finally learning how NOT to burn the crust!

Before bed snack

Popped amaranth, pears (that we canned this year), and coconut milk. So good!

James got new sippy cups at Target.

Helping get yogurt ready for Monday. We added coconut oil and bee pollen. James loves his 'bees and nuts' yogurt.

Talking to the folks at home. We're cleaning up our mess in the RMH kitchen (It's huge!!!)

Beef Tallow giveaway

You probably never thought when you came to our blog, to see a post about a beef tallow giveaway. I never thought that I would be writing a post about a giveaway like this. But I am. Here's the goods: There is a giveaway over at Kelly the Kitchen Kop's site for a 36lb bucket of beef tallow. Now that you think I'm crazy... this is what one would use beef tallow for... For frying french fries (everyone who trys it says that it is sooo good), instead of butter in your pie crust... AnnMarie says it makes the best crust ever.... And how about frying onion rings and chicken tenders in it. Another plus, it's good for you fat. So hurry over and enter. It ends at 11:59pm tonight.

Hannah

Poor man's mushrooms

We joke around here about what the poor man substitutes for the more expensive things. I've used canned salmon to make Salmon Pesto Pasta (a delicious dish that Nona made for us a couple years ago). Nona uses salmon fillets and we do too, when we have them. But this particular evening, we didn't have a meal planned and Daddy was almost home. So, I cooked the pasta and dumped in salmon and pesto and served it. The only bad thing about it was that the salmon broke up into little pieces.
The other day, Katie was cooking and I taste-tested for her (we do it all the time around here). I was surprised because it tasted like mushrooms and I knew that we had used up the mushrooms in the fridge. Then Katie said that it was a eggplant tart with a potato crust. Now I guess the poor man has eggplant for his mushrooms!

Hannah

A recent dessert

This is what I made for a quick and relatively healthy (wink) treat recently.... Chocolate Pudding, whipped coconut cream and fresh mint leaves on top. Yummy!!!

and the side view.... We had just taken them out of the fridge.

Cultures for Health giveaway

There's a giveaway going on over at Kitchen Stewardship. It ends at 11:59, so if you're interested, you'd better hurry over and enter. It's cultures again. There is sourdough, yogurt, kombucha, buttermilk, milk kefir and water kefir. Someday I'd really like to make water kefir. It's suppose to be a good-for-you substitute for soda.

Hannah

Preserving the Harvest: Okra

The first time I remember eating okra was when we stayed with the Clayton family. Mrs. Julie pan-fried breaded okra and it was really good! On Sunday, Momma and Daddy went to see our neighbors down the road (who have a beautiful garden!). While Momma and Daddy were there, the Dominy's gave them a grocery bag of okra. I wasn't sure at first how I wanted to freeze it. In the end, I just sliced it, blanched it and froze it on a tray in the freezer. I kinda regretted slicing the okra before I blanched it because it was, in the words of a friend, 'mucous-y'! But it broke up okay in the gallon bag. Now we have a gallon of okra to use this winter and I'm looking forward to using the okra in soups and casseroles.

Hannah

Preserving the Harvest: Cucumbers

Hooray for cukes! We have made pickles with our cucumbers in the past, using the usual method of vinegar, et all. This time we thought we'd try lacto-fermented pickles. A blog we read had two recipes and we had the ingredients. So we made them. So far, we've only tried one of the two kinds of pickles. The garlic dill spears. They're actually pretty good. There is a different flavor and I need to get some grape leaves to make the pickles crunchy. But we'll make them again.
We have to wait for 1 1/2 more weeks till we can try the bread and butter pickles. But I think that we'll like those as well.

Now to try lacto-fermented baby dills!

Hannah

Preserving the Harvest: Eggplant

Our garden is doing really well and our eggplants have started producing. This is our second batch of eggplant. The first few eggplant we made ratatouille with, it was delicious!
Earlier this week, Momma brought in all the eggplant on the plants. I weighed it, 14 1/2 pounds of eggplant. We decided to make Baba Ghanoush. It was relatively simple. It was a little time-consuming though. We got a total of 9 cups of baba ghanoush and froze it for later.

I used the recipe from the 75th anniversary edition of the Joy of Cooking. Now I need to make soaked whole wheat pitas to eat with the baba ghanoush.

Hannah

Sourdough Bread

A friend gave us some sourdough starter, and I've been using it to make whole wheat sourdough english muffins. The other day, Momma found a recipe for Grandmother's bread with a variation for sourdough bread. This was made with all-purpose flour and was gone the next day.



Love, Hannah

A funny thing

Today we took two pounds of jalapeno peppers we harvested from our garden and made nearly 100 Jalapeno Poppers. We had read several stories about the importance of wearing gloves while seeding jalapeno peppers and so we heeded that advice.

After seeding the peppers, we saved them in a small bowl to rinse them off in the sink before proceeding with the next recipe step. When I rinsed the peppers, I was looking intently to be sure I rinsed away ALL the seeds. Then I felt a vapor come over my face and inside my nose and the back of my throat began to burn.

The really weird thing is that I then got laryngitis. Now my voice is pretty much gone.

Never heard of that one before!

The popper recipe turned out pretty well... We found that one recipe of filling actually stuffs two pounds of jalapenos. It's worth the extra effort for triple dipping, but we thought the peppers were a little too crunchy. To test: 1)will freezing and warming the poppers in the oven sufficiently soften the peppers?; or 2) should we blanch the peppers before filling?

Stay tuned.

Hannah is 15

On the 18th, Hannah, our second born, turned 15. I am not feeling any older than I already was, thank you.

One of our family traditions is food for birthdays. Hannah started out asking for something simple. I think she was trying to make it easy on us, which was very thoughtful of her. But, we wanted to bless her...so after some encouragement and a little arm-twisting, she came up with this menu.



Hor's deurves: stuffed potato skins (home-made from skins in the freezer saved from roast garlic mashed potatoes), fried eggplant, mozzarella cheese sticks (saved the the freezer from last Christmas Eve), marinara sauce, our favorite (and easy) hot artichoke dip with sour dough bread (from the discount bread rack at Wal-mart) and stuffed mushrooms.

To drink: grape juice in wine glasses.

and a tablecloth to wipe the chin.
Another favorite: Nona salad--my mom's recipe. (Leaf and romaine lettuce, tomato, avocado (only California Haas will do), sunflower seeds (roasted and salted are best), olive oil, salad or tarragon vinegar, garlic salt and pepper).

The main course: Shrimp Scampi and Asparagus

The birthday dessert: Chocolate torte

James loves candles and Hannah very sweetly suggested we re-light them so he could have a whole turn himself.

The birthday girl serves up.

Fried eggplant

Our eggplant in the garden have been incredibly productive this year. It's a good thing we like eggplant!

In preparation for Hannah's birthday celebration, we made fried eggplant.




Eggplant in the garden basket. This is a Japanese eggplant. I had wanted to get seeds for the bigger Italian eggplant, but they weren't available when I needed them. In the end, we were glad for the smaller eggplant...it just takes more.




Slice 1/2" thick.





Dip in milk, then in a mixture of flour, salt and pepper.




Dip in egg, then seasoned breadcrumbs. We made ours.




Fry in oil. Drain on paper towel. Salt, if desired. Serve on a platter with Marinara Sauce and pretend you are at the Olive Garden--only it's better and cheaper! :*)


We will freeze some to have on hand for 'special meals' as an appetizer.

Katie's first bread braid

Last week, Katie was looking for something special to make for Sunday morning breakfast. It tasted just as good as it looks! She decided though that the next time, she would do some sort of wash to make it shiny and more golden.

YOYO* lunch

When we plan on a YOYO meal, it means You're On Your Own. Usually YOYOs are for Sunday night. I make popcorn and if anyone is hungrier than that, they either band together and make something or they look for leftovers or something easy.

Last week at lunch time, cooked rice, steamed veggies and shredded cheese were all set up, real purty. James must have decided we weren't serving fast enough, so he did his own version of YOYO!

What a boy!