Thankgiving the day after....

     So by now Thanksgiving is over, but did you use your turkey wisely?  I am writing to give you a few pointers on next years bird or maybe even your Christmas turkey if you do one.  First of all you need to cook and make that lovely bird for your family.  When all the family is passed out on the couch, grab that carcass and throw it in the crock pot.  Fill it with water, spices, 1/4 cup apple cider vinegar, and a whole bunch of veggie scraps.  Oh you don't have scraps you say?..where did you get those??

Side Note:  
Well if you haven't been already you need to be saving these sort of things.  As you cut up celery, carrots, onions you always you will have those end pieces that you don't eat.  Don't throw them away! Scrub them up the best you can and throw them in a freezer bag.  They keep for a long time in there.  Then when you need to make a broth you have those veggie scraps to use.

     Ok back on topic.  So now that you have the carcass, veggies, and all the spices including salt, then you let that cook overnight in your crock pot on low.  The vinegar will help leach out the calcium from the bones.  You end up the next day with an awesome broth!  
     So now you have this broth....so now what...well you definitely don't feel like doing a bunch of cooking and you have this extra turkey sitting around everywhere...so you make this delicious soup.

A few years ago a friend of mine Kathy (hi Kathy) gave me this recipe. It is a very light fall soup and is wonderful with a slice of homemade bread. The title is a little misleading on the veggy part. I used frozen cabbage from my garden and waited on the black pepper until after I added it to my broth. I also after the sauté placed everything in the crock pot to "simmer".

Chicken (or Turkey) Vegetable Soup 

2 tsp olive oil
2 C. cooked, chopped chicken (turkey)
2 C. chopped cabbage (frozen is fine)
2 C. sliced mushrooms
1 diced onion (again frozen is fine)
1 tsp chopped garlic
1 tsp basil
1 tsp black pepper
8 C chicken broth

In a pan sauté cabbage, onion, garlic, mushrooms, and chicken in olive oil until cabbage is soft. Add basil and pepper, cook 2-3 minutes. Add Chicken broth and simmer.

Hope you all enjoy!

Kefir Icecream

I dont think I've posted this so if I have oh well you get to see it again!  This recipe was originally for Vanilla Ice cream but vanilla is too plain so I am doing cherry.  If you want vanilla you will just leave out the cherries and juice and will have to play with the sugar amounts. 
Ok here we go..Cherry Kefir Icecream!

1. Gather all your ingredients.  You will need an empty ice cream container, about 5 cups of milk kefir, a jar of Maraschino Cherries, 1 cup of sugar, one 16 fl oz container of Heavy Whipping cream, and Vanilla extract (which I forgot to when I took the picture)

2. Pour your kefir into the empty ice cream container.

3. Pour your Whipping Cream in next. And add 2 tsps of vanilla extract.

4.  Pour the juice of the cherries in and then add 1 cup of sugar.

5. Chop the Cherries into small pieces

6. Add them to your mixture and mix with a wooden spoon until the sugar seems dissolved. 

7. Taste the mixture to be sure you've added enough sugar. It should be a little on the sweet side but not too sweet.  Place in the freezer and stir throughout the day.  This will be a hard icecream.  If you have an icecream maker that would be better but I"m cheap and that is a frivolous buy in my household.  I usually let mine sit on the table for about 15 minutes before we eat it and it will break apart with a spoon.

Kefir icecream has a bite to it.  Some like it (all of us in our house) and some do not.  It is a great probiotic to add to your diet.  Hope you enjoy it!



My Canning Guide

Here is a copy of my canning guide.  All amounts won't be totally accurate. What I do is print out one of these sheets at the beginning of the canning season and as I can stuff I write it in, but sometimes food is given to my parents or friends without amounts taken away.  There are also times when someone gives me extra things out of their garden and I can those..forget to write it down.  But for the most part it is accurate.  I use this so I can see what we eat, what we do not, what I need to increase because we are out of it early, etc.  You should really make one.  I used an excel sheet but because I cannot upload the actual copy if you ever need one you can post a comment and I will send you it via email. Sorry the top columns are a little off. There are also other things I grow in my garden but they are eaten fresh or dehydrated. 

Canning Guide	2009	2010	left over 2010	Canned 2011	ON hand as of 1/2012
Greens	10 pt	12 Jj	10jj	dehydrated instead	10jj
Carrots	9 Pt	17 Pt	2pt	25pt	18pt
Peas	8 Pt		1pt	12pt,1jj + 4pt,1jj to mom	7 pt
Green Beans	23 Qt	25 qt & 1 pt	4qt	32qt,23pt + 6pt to mom	27qt,16pt
Corn		12 qt & 8 pt	1qt, 2pt	7qt	6qt
Turnips	2 Qt & 4 P	0	2qt, 2pt	5pt to dad	2qt,2pt
Tomatoes	?	11 pt	2qt,12pt	12qt, 23 pt	9qt,24pt
Pears	6 pt	0	7pt	26 pt	25pt
Cabbage in tomato soup	0	8 qt	2qt	7qt,1pt	5qt
Tomato Juice		3 qt	3qt	0	3qt
Other Stuff
Pickles- Sweet	4 Qt	5 qt	6qt	0	5qt
-Dill	9 Qt	2 pj& 2 hg	dumped	0	0
-Bread and Butter	6 Qt	4 qts 1 pt	7qt,1pt	0	7qt,1pt
Relish-Sweet	6 Jj	0	0	0	0
Relish- Zucchini		12 jj	11jj	0	9jj
Grape Juice	3 Qt	0	0	0	0
Spagetti Sauce	8 qt	9 qt	13qt,1pt	0	5qt,1pt
Blackberry Jelly	6 Pt & 1 Jj	21 pt	11pt	0	8pt
Strawberry Jelly	2 Pt	4 pt	0	10pt	7pt
Rhubarb	0	4 jj	0	3pt,4jj	3pt,3jj
Rhubarb w/ Strawberry jello	0	3 pt	0	9jj,1pt	0
Rhubarb w/ Raspberry jello	0	4 pt	2pt	0	2pt
Rhubarb Strawberry jam(real)	0	6 Jj	0	4pt	3pt
orange marmalade				10jj	5jj
pear sauce				4pt	4pt
Mock Pinapple	6 Pt	0	0	0
Broth- Chicken	5 Qt	6 qt	6 qt	0	4qt
Chicken	12 pt	12 qt	1qt	0	0
Deer Broth	?	0	2qt	0	2qt
Deer	?	0	1qt	0	1qt
Turkey Broth	?	0	2 qt	0	2qt
Turkey	?	0	0	0
pt=pint    qt=quart  jj=jelly jar
pj= pickle jar    hg= half gallon jar

My pantry

Well today I moved my food.  Those of you who know, we have been redoing our breezeway so that it is a utility, laundry, canning kitchen, and pantry.  Well we've expanded more than planned and I am very impatient.  I asked my husband to buy some shelves. I just need all my food together. I can't stand not knowing how much I have! 

We went to Menards and bought $24 shelving units.  My husband will get them for the garage after I get my pantry built.  Let's hope that is in the near future...I have a feeling it is in the distant future lol.  Oh well eventually i will have it.  Right now all my food is in one location ..mostly. 

Here is the shelving unit and all my canned food.

Top shelf has Jams, broth, and corn.  Middle shelf has peas, carrots, and green beans.  Third shelf has cabbage in tomato soup, some store bought canned tomatoes, spagetti sauce, and then just plain tomatoes.  The bottom shelf has bread and butter pickles, sweet pickles, turnips, greens, and pears.

My pantry will be the span of about three of these shelving units wide..a tad bigger.  I am so excited that I will be able to store more things.  This would typically be full at the start of winter for our family of 4. It will last most of the winter and carry over will be added to the next years canning.  There is not much left by April when I start canning my greens again.

Mushroom Update!

Ok so after waiting like a week and a half I dug up the seeds because I saw nothing happening.  They all rotted.  So plan #2!

I knew I only planted half that package for a reason!  I decided to stir up the soil and just sprinkle the rest of the seeds on top of the soil.  I sprinkled them so they covered the whole soil and then put a little water in the bag, swished and poured that out also.  Do not forget, Mushrooms are spores and not seeds..so all that dust in the bag is actually spores.  After I watered them I again placed the cover on and the blanket.  Now this is a week later.

that is a nice seed going.  They vary between ones like that and ones say up and to the left of that one.  Here is another picture of a bigger area.

As you can see the white area is growing nicely.  These look like tiny spider webs and are what you want. They will spread out really well over the next week.  Then I will try to cover them with damp newspaper and hope I do not kill them.  Right now they are in the dark at 70 degrees and I water them daily to make the top damp.  Apparently I am to move them next week into a cooler area that is still dark but place the newspaper on top and let them sprout buds.  That is suppose to take another two weeks or so.  Here's hoping!!

Shrooooms

Well it's winter time and I'm having gardening withdrawal.  What to do what to do...I know! I'll grow Mushrooms!!  ok so I dont know if I will actually grow them or not but I am going to try!  I looked all over the web.  It is hard to find button mushrooms.  I am not a huge mushroom fan as far as the varieties and stuffing them and all that jazz but we do use a fair amount of button mushrooms.  It must be a top secret thing to do because not only could I not find the spores, but there were no directions online that gave me step by step instructions!

I started out by buying a form of button mushrooms that were on amazon.  They are not actual button mushrooms but are called field mushrooms.  They are suppose to be a close cousin to them and look about the same and have the same taste.  So I bought two packages of "approx 500 seeds coated in spores"  Here is the package.

So I am going to take this opportunity to tell you what I am doing and lets hope this works.  All the info I found online is different but generally the same. So here goes and lets hope for the best.

1. I took composted cow manure from my local garden supply store and placed it in a fairly large tote.  I placed in one bag and spread it on the bottom which gave me about 4-5 inches of "soil."

 2. I made three rows with my hand about 1 inch deep down the tote and took half of one of the packs of seeds and sprinkled them in the rows.  I covered them up and packed it down.

3. I sprinkled warm water across the entire thing so that the soil would be wet but not soaked. It was already pretty wet.

4. I placed a thermometer in there with humidity recorder and placed it in an area that was around 70.  Right now this is on top my pellet furnace but will be moved tonight to in front of it. (I will eventually need to put pellets in..duh)

5. I placed the tote lid on top and am going to keep close eye on the temp.  It is suppose to be 70 for the first few weeks until the spores germinate and make a whitish cobweb looking thing on the soil. 

6. Next I placed a dark blanket on top to help hold in heat and keep light out.  The room I am using has almost no light but I need to turn it on to check the pellet stove and whatnot..so that is why I placed a blanket on top.

Future Steps:

I will mist this soil everyday until I see something happen.

7. Once a whitish film is over my dirt or something simular, then I will add a 1 inch layer or so of organic peat.

8.  I will add a layer of newspaper on top of that.  I will soak this in water and ring it out so that it is damp then lay it on top.  Then I will water that everyday with a spray bottle. I will move the tote to the floor in a colder part of the room. Around 55 degrees.

9. I will check it often and when little buds start forming I will take the newspaper off, keep the lid turned catycorner a bit to let in more oxygen and keep covered until they get big enough to pick. 

If I remember I will add more pictures as I go and what I am doing but in case I dont here is what I am doing.  Hopefully they grow and I remember to at least blog the results!



Adventures in Kefir

(Originally written Nov 22)

What is kefir?
Kefir is a fermented drink.  It has like 8 or so different bacteria and a few kinds of yeast.  There is milk kefir and water kefir.  Milk kefir is fresh milk with kefir grains placed in it and it sits overnight on your counter.  Water kefir is sugar water with water kefir grains put in and it again sits on your counter overnight. Both water and milk grains are strained out and then the liquid left over is kefir.  It is very probiotic and way better than yogurt for you.  It's good for your gut and we all need that now with all the processed foods out there. The kefir grains last forever if you take care of them right and multiply so you can give them to friends.  It is very good for people with diabetes because the grains eat the sugar in the milk and water.  It helps in digestion of sugary foods also.

Milk kefir- (if you like buttermilk you will like this)
The first day I got these, I placed them in milk and put it above my microwave..it keeps an even temperature that way.  The next day I had a quart jar of product.  I strained off the kefir grains and came up with a plan to try many things.  I needed to find the best way to use this stuff.  I split half into 3 little containers and the mixed one with fresh pineapple, one with banana, and the other with apple.  Dustin loved pineapple, Kyle loved apple, and they both loved banana.  Let me just say..banana is the bomb!  The other half of it I placed it in a coffee filter and let the whey drain off.  Then split the left over stuff into two piles. One I let sit in a bowl with plastic wrap on the table overnight.  The other I put some powdered ranch flavoring in, mixed, and placed it in the fridge overnight.  Both were disgusting.  The fridge ranch one would have been good if I had used regular ranch dressing I think.  I bought this powdered ranch to use in many recipes and each one I hate..I'm going to throw it away.
Next kefir batch I decided to divide in half again.  One half made us some banana smoothies..yum!  The other half I put a loose lid on and let it sit out again for another 24 hours.  This is suppose to make it less sour..umm..whatever..dont leave it out. Its fluffy, bubbly and tastes really gross.  For some reason milk grains really love whole milk and are growing already..good I have a few friends who want them!  I have increased my kefir jar size to half gallon. Boy that's a lot of milk!  My kids really never drink milk so this is a great way to get them to.  The kefir I had that finished today I tried strawberries in...its ok.  They are store strawberries and well they aren't as sweet as homegrown.

 So results so far:
1. milk kefir only ferments one day..no more or its gross
2. banana is the best by far for fruit in this stuff but strawberry, pineapple, apple are good and will do if I'm out of bananas
3. Kids will try anything if mom asks them nicely lol
4. I need to try other fruits and keep making milk kefir

Water Kefir ( if you cannot process dairy or do not like milk)
The first day I got my water kefir I put it in sugar water.  Websites differ on what amount of sugar per quart jar.. 1/2 or 1/4th..so I decided I'd go with 1/3rd lol.  They ate good the first day.  After it sat for 24 hours I drained the grains and put them in to start a new batch.  With the kefir that was made I took some left over apple cider and attempted to flavor it.  I took two old plastic mountain dew bottles and split the kefir between the two.  Then added apple cider to each until they were 3/4ths the way full.  Capped them and put them in the fridge overnight.  Now technically it is suppose to become carbonated like pop.  In the morning I tasted it..um..it tasted a tad too much like beer for my comfort.  I let the kids sip it and they agreed.  Do not ask how they know what beer tastes like..I plead the 5th.  So we dumped it out and I waited till the next day for the new one to get done.  So on this day I went to Aldi's and found 100% grape juice and lemons.  I again drained the grains off and started a new batch..this time with 1/4th cup sugar and I placed half a lemon in there after squeezing it in there and cutting it in half.  Placed that up on the microwave.  I took the kefir water that was finished and again split it into the mountain dew bottles.  I put grape juice in to fill it 3/4th the way full and placed it on my counter instead of the fridge.  I read it will bubble more on the counter.  The other thing is that I am stuck using white sugar until the weekend cause Aldi's broke me (saving for black friday) and if you use organic unrefined sugar it will bubble more.  I tasted it this morning and it tastes just like faygo grape soda!  I had to let it sit more because it wasn't exactly 24 hours yet and it will be placed in the fridge tonight.  The lemons I added to the other batch turned out really yummy also.  It was a pain to strain out and try to get the lemon pieces out..so a new plan will have to be developed on the lemon front.  I placed it in one mountain dew bottle 3/4ths the way up and capped it.  It is now going to sit on my counter over night.  I drank the rest after having the kids take a taste.  I really like the water kefir lemonade it makes.

Results so far:
1. I love water kefir
2. The flavorings are easier to find then with milk kefir
3. I want to get cranberry juice and also try strawberry purée placed in there.

I am going to make enough of  banana milk kefir and grape water kefir for the whole family to try at thanksgiving.
Who knew bacteria and yeast could taste so good!!