2nd garden harvest...Salad! (how to prepare lettuce)

So while all my friend put in their gardens this weekend, I laughed.  Then today I went and made a salad.  In my garden I have Romaine lettuce, Leaf lettuce, Kale, Swiss Chard, Ruby Red Chard, and Spinach.  Most of this is ready to pick.  I dont wait for mine to get big and bushy like the store, instead I snip the larger ones and pick the outer leaves of those and let them continue to grow.  With all the rain we've had my greens are really growing.  Harvesting lettuce is a little different than the store because you have dirt to contend with.  So first go out and if need be spray your greens with the hose lightly to help "wash" some of the dirt away.  Then grab your larger leaves and I personally cut them with scissors.

If you are harvesting some chard or kale..snip only the leaves and leave the stems on the plant. My family doesnt like them and I hate cutting it twice.  If you really want to recut then go ahead. 
Next you want to get a large bowl and place your lettuce in it and fill it with cold water.  Once the lettuce is covered, give a couple swishes and let it sit for a minute.  This lets the dirt settle to the bottom of the bowl.  Then gently pull the leaves out and tear them into tiny pieces and place into another container that you can fill up with water.  I usually use this pan.

When the pieces are small it will help get the rest of the dirt off the leaves.  Again fill up the pan/bowl over the lettuce and swish it a few times and let the dirt settle. Pull out the leaves gently and then place in a collandar to drain the rest of the water off the lettuce. You can toss it a few times if you like.  I let this sit while I chop the rest of my veggies.
This salad had romaine, leaf, kale, and swiss chard as greens.  I also put some radishes in because there were a few more done.  I had some celery and carrots in the fridge from the store. I added them in too.  It was a very delicious salad.  I'm so excited to be eating fresh greens while everyone else is just planting.

How I make Rhubarb Jam

Lets face it, there are a lot of recipes out there on how to make Rhubarb jam.  This is the wing it method I developed two years ago.  First go pick you some Rhubarb, dont worry about how much you are doing or how many cups it will cut into, just pick as much as you can.  The problem with recipes is that I would go pick mine at a friends get home and not have enough.  Or just too much and didnt know what to do with.  So just go pick a good big batch.  Once you get it home cut it into sections kinda like you would celery.  Well make sure you have cut leaves and root/stem bottoms off..then cut into sections.  (sorry I dont have the pretty red rhubarb like my friend..I have green)

 Put them in a food processor and chop them into tiny pieces.  Many take the time to cut them into little pieces but hello I have stuff to do..just chop them up.

Once they are chopped place them in a bowl and kinda determine how much you got.  My hands if I grab a large chunk are about 2 cups.  So here is 3-2cup piles approximately.

So you are going to need sugar. How much depends on how much rhubarb you have and how sweet you like your jam.  My method is start with almost the amount of sugar equal to the rhubarb. In my case I have about 6 cups of rhubarb..so I measure out 4 cups and pour it on top the rhubarb in my bowl.  Then I measure out another 2 cups and set it up on my stove. Let the rhubarb set with your sugar mixed it for a while.  Just leave it on the table or counter and start your hot water bath.  I have found with jam/jelly/preserve whatever you want to call it, its best to hot water bath just to make sure.  I've had to throw out containers that looked like they sealed then grew a lovely toxic mold.  So I use my pressure canner for my hot water bath.  I have another electric stove in my breezeway that I can on because I have a ceramic cooktop and it doesnt fair well with canning.  Fill it up so that your jars will fit under the water..mine is about halfway because I am going to do pints.  You can always add water later if needed and wait for it to boil again.

I also place my lid on without the rubber ring..just kinda sitting on top.  Helps keep the heat in.  So now your rhubarb is sitting in sugar, your hot water bath is going, and now you need to wash your jars.  Once you get canning more you can kinda tell how many jars you need.  I always wash 3 or 4 more than I think I need lol.  I seem to always under-judge how many.  Once your jars are washed fill them with hot hot water and then set them in the sink and fill that up.

I washed 6 and then one jelly jar. Its a good idea to wash a smaller size jar because your batch wont always come out even.  You can either hot water this if its a full jar or place it in the fridge to eat.  Wash your rings and seals too and set them aside.  Then take a wet wash rag. I use one of my older ones and then place it next to your pan that you will be cooking rhubarb in.  This is so when your filling your jars you dont get sticky rhubarb jelly on the stove and it dry. That stuff never comes off!  Gather your ladle, your funnel, and grab a bowl and put some hot water in the bottom.  My jars are kinda far in the sink from my stove..so I place 3 or 4 jars in the bowl and pour out the hot water into the bowl before I fill the jar.  You need your jars hot when you fill them or they will break.

Now your rhubarb should be fairly soupy.
(at this point I usually puree mine in the blender into a liquid)

Pour it into your stock pan and start it boiling.   Make sure you stir it because it will boil fairly quickly.  Once it boils turn the heat down to a nice slow boil because as this thickens it will spit at you and it hurts!  Continue to stir and boil until it is a globby gross soft mess.  Once it is this nasty mess you can do one of two things.  You can add gelatin, pectin or any other thickening agent and hope its enough ( if it doesnt thicken in the end you have ice cream topping!) or you can do what I do and use corn starch.  No one uses corn starch and I dont know why, but I havent died yet.  I do want to say that we use our jelly within a years time, so I dont know the shelf life beyond that.  I mix 2 or 3 TBS(I dont really measure that either) of corn starch with just enough COLD water to make a nice slightly runny paste.  Then I pour it in SLOWLY into the stock pot while stirring. 

I ended up using 3 of these spoons.  Make sure you only add enough water so you can stir it, otherwise it wont thicken as well in the pan.  Once you get this in and you probably will have to turn down the heat a little so you dont get spattered.  As this boils it will thicken. Because we arent using measurements its hard for me to use pectin or anything because I dont know how much I actually have.  Once it is thickened you want it to look like a very thick applesauce.  The jelly will thicken a little..and I stress just a little when its cold in the fridge..so you want the jelly to be pretty thick.
Here is a picture of mine.  You dont want to know how many pictures it took to get this one.  The corn starch lightens the color a little.  The stuff really is still green, this camera phone is odd making it look yellow but its not. Its just a lighter green.

Once everything looks good to go TASTE your jelly.  Now because we are using corn starch it might have a slight starchy taste, this goes away for me..or at least I personally dont taste it later.  This is where you can add more sugar to make it sweet.  Rhubarb sours as it cans so make it sweet.  Not so sweet you puke or anything but make it to where you say..man that has just a bit too much sugar.  Continue tasting it to make sure its slightly sweet then pour it into your jars.  I actually didnt need any more sugar so I was thankful for that.   When you fill your jar, leave the space where the ring screws on.

Wipe the tops of the jars, place your lids on, and hot water bath for 20 minutes.  When 20 min is done you want to take them out of the water bath and place them on a towel in a non draft area and then cover them with a towel and let them sit to cool.  For clean up of your stock pan you can use the hot water from the sink, left over jars, or your bowl on the stove.  I place everything sticky into my pan and use the hot water I have sitting around.  If you use cold that stuff is like glue.

            The batch I made this time did 3 pint jars and 1 jelly jar exactly.  Had I used jelly jars it probably would have made 6 or 7.  We just eat a lot of jelly so jelly jars are pointless really for us.

Time from start to finish for me was 1 hour.   Other recipes you boil for hours and hours.  Who has that kind of time?? I can handle 1 hour!

Rain barrels

Here is what I have done for rain water barrels.  These come in handy for the garden and chickens and saves water.  I also use rain water for my fish tanks because its already soft and the amount of iron is next to nothing.  My water is horrible.

Planting my green beans

Here are videos on marking and planting green beans.

How I plant my corn

This is the method I use to plant my corn. I try not to get all technical so many might argue my methods but oh well it works for me.

How I keep weeds out of my garden

This is my plan that I started doing last year and it works really well. Best of all its free!

My chicken setup

Chickens are a great way to be self sufficient.  If you can free range they take very little food. They give you chicken and eggs.  You can feed them leftovers and peelings from the garden.  You still want to buy chicken feed to make sure their nutrition is complete but you dont have to have very many and they can live in about anything as a coop.  Here is what I have.  We used an old shed that was once a shed, dog kennel, and now is a chicken coop.

Manure Barrel

Here is my video for making a manure barrel.  This is what I use on my garden every year.

My First Garden Harvest

So its not technically my first harvest because I have already gotten Rhubarb but this is my first harvest of what I've planted this year.  Many people give me grief about planting early.  Well when you can your food you definitly dont want everything in your garden getting done at the same time!  I have mine planned so that you can continually obtain produce and do something with it wether it be dehydrating, canning, freezing, or eating.  I start my garden on St. Patricks day or that weekend, depending on weather.  Then two weeks later I plant more, and two weeks later plant again, and continue that pattern.  Weather greatly affects when I plant.  This year we've had boatload of rain.  I am so glad I was out very early planting lettuce and greens.  Now that it's been raining almost everyday my plants are growing really well.  Most of my friends dont even have their gardens in yet and its almost the end of May.  I am getting ready to harvest already!  So here is my first harvest.  Its radishes.

This is only a partial row.  With radishes, carrots, turnips, and beets what I usually do is grab the larger ones instead of thinning my rows early.  This allows the others to continue to grow and I get more bang for my buck.  I am actually growing radishes mostly for my parents.  They only grow tomatoes and green peppers really anymore. This year I asked them what vegetables they wanted, how they wanted them done, and how much they wanted.  Then I kept it in a notebook.  These radishes my dad wanted chopped really small so he could chew them easier and put them on salads or whatever.  They wanted a pint bag so right now I have two snack bags for them.  I just used my food processor.

 We are not really fond of radishes, sometimes we will eat a few in a salad but my kids think they are too spicy/hot.   Visiting my garden today and looking at what was going, it looks like lettuce (leaf and romaine) plus my kale and chard will be ready next.  I am going to dehydrate all the greens this year.  I still have jelly jars canned with greens from last year.  I will also feed the chickens some to supplement their diet.  I always grow extra for that reason.  Also strawberries are doing really well this year, getting plenty of rain so that will be a good harvest too.

My chickens

Two years ago I got chickens.  We had chickens growing up and I thought the idea of eggs whenever we needed them was a great idea.  It has been an adventure to say the least.  Here is a picture of my chicken set up outside.  I have two openings to my gardens and I also have a way to open the two runs together to make one.

When we first started with chickens we bought 10. Two of many different ones to see what we liked the best.  We got Black Australorps, Buff Orpingtons, Easter Eggers, Isa Browns, and Silver Laced Wyandottes.  Unfortunatly we have irresponsible dog owners and coons out here and we lost both our Isa Browns, which are by far my favorite breed.  Last year we bought 10 broilers. They stank horrid and ate me out of house and home. I didnt have a good way to keep them or kill them.  I vowed I would never get them again, but now that I am wiser I"m thinking about it again but they definitly will be well away from the house.  We also got 5 Rhode Island Reds and unfortunately we only have 2 left.  One made it till this spring but when we put in our newest chicks she was too much of a bully and she ended up as dinner.
     This year we bought 6 Golden comets, 3 more Easter Eggers, 3 Golden Laced Wyandottes, and one silkie.  We also got a rescue hen (black australorp) because my friends dog brought one home.  Currently we have 24. 11 of which lay eggs.  The extra eggs we give to little ol ladies who are now living in senior centers and they all used to live on farms.  We use the shavings to line the paths in our gardens, as mulch in flower beds, and compost most over winter.  We use shredded newspaper and bills for the nesting boxes and then that gets composted eventually also.  I try to let my girls free range as much as possible but with the dogs running around here whenever they feel like it, I have to make sure I am home and outside all day.   This winter I already know I will have to cull at least 5 for canning.  My coop is too small to hold them all inside for winter.  I plan on placing my webcam out there and keeping track of who's laying eggs on a daily basis here.  The ones who are not...well...

Garden Layout

One of the best ways to be self sufficient and have sustainablity on your property is to plant a garden.  This can be as simple as some patio plants or as major as a super huge yard garden.  Everyone has the ability to plant a garden no matter how small.  We live on an acre of land.  My garden is 40x60 feet.  It is divided in half.  The back half of the garden is 20x40.  Here is what it looks like.  I swap the corn and beans each year.

Nothing else gets planted in here because our main staple of veggies year round is corn and green beans.  The next few pictures are my garden from left to right and what is planted there.

                                         

The wooden gate is made to open and let the chicks out into the main part of the garden.  The OSB boxes are my compost area.  It is long term composting and is divided into 2  4x4 sections.

Here is across the front of my garden.

between the strawberries and the newly planted rhubarb is the dirt area. That has potatoes and cabbage. I forgot to label it.  The black barrels are composting and the poop barrel.  And yes I use that little kids picnic table for my ripening tomatoes lol.

So there is my garden.  I have youtube videos that show how I plant my beans and corn, make my rows and many others. Please check them out. One day I'll post them to the blog.  I use garden rotation.  So all the plants in the first section will go into the last part. I always rotate to the left except for the front part because those are all perennial.  I also have asparagus and dill planted too.

Green Steps

So today I'm super tired, seems like I've done a bunch of nothing but am exhausted.  I have been running and I'm not good but today I managed 2 miles! ok this isnt suppose to be about this so I"ll get on track.  So part of sustainable living is making green choices.  I am trying different things that I know my family can do in the long run.  So check out some of what I'm doing and see if you can do just a few to help out mother earth.

1. Harvest rain water- This is as easy as getting a few used 5 gallon buckets and letting the rain fill them up.  My choice was to visit my local recycle center and I purchased 55 gallon black plastic barrels.  They were $5 each and I actually bought 9 of them.  3 are for rainwater catching.  I have linked them together with pvc and put spickets on the bottom.  One I am going to use in my greenhouse.  The other two have a double spicket adapter.  One hose runs to my garden and the other hose is hooked to two float valves that auto water my chickens.  Yes its a bit of an investment for the spickets, barrels, gutter, pvc, and down spouts but think of all the water you will save.  I didnt realize this but they actually pump water to California cities.  That is crazy! They say if the water stopped coming then the towns would disappear.  Well I dont want them moving near me so I'll do my part lol. BTW I use rainwater for my fish tanks too, its naturally soft water.
2. Recycle your grass clippings- We invested in a lawn sweeper.  The past few years we have asked our neighbors when they cut their grass and sweep their lawn to call us.  This makes a great weed barrier for your garden.  I use it between all my rows to stop weeds from coming up in my vegetable garden.  I plant vegetables by season.  I start in March on St. Patricks day and plant my peas and brussel sprouts.  Then two weeks later I plant my cool weather crops and root crops.  So the mowing we do starts the grass being put in these rows.  Then as I plant more crops I fill in my "walk" paths between the rows with this.  During the season it starts to break down and then when we till the garden at the end of the season it is then composting during winter.  Its the best garden weed buster I've found.  Everything else takes forever to break down.
3. Use all natural fertilizer- I have a friend who has cows.  I dont have room for cows.  I took one of my 9 barrels and made a poop barrel.  I can use hot manure or composted manure and it last all season.  All I need is about 1/4th of the barrel of manure then I add water to the top and slosh it around.   I use the water on top along rain water to make a fertilizer for my garden.  If it is hot manure I use half water and half manure water.  When the barrel gets down some I fill it with more rain water.  I put this manure water in between my rows, never on the plants.  Its nice not to have to have a lot of manure on my property.
4. Change your lightbulbs- My electric bill was getting outragious.  I found out that if I had all my lights on it was wasting 500 watts of energy.  I went out and bought energy efficient bulbs and got my watts down to 125!  My family wastes lots of electricity, so I'm trying to get them to help out.
5. Shut off power strips- As mentioned my family wastes lots of electricty.  I have power strips hooked to my tv,x-box, dvd, vcr, and wii.  See my family has a lot of electricity drainers.  The only thing I left plugged into the wall was my dish network box because I still want to be able to record my soap opera while the power strip is off all day.  I also hooked my computer up to one also but not my internet box.  We have wifi and my laptop uses less energy so I can use that without having my desktop on all day.
6. Recycle as much as you can- We are recycling plastic, cardboard, aluminum, and paper.  We take plastic and aluminum to the recycle center. The cardboard we are composting.  The paper we are also recycling but it gets recycled then recycled lol.  We bought a shredder and we shred the paper.  Then we use it in our chicken nesting boxes.  It is soft and fluffy and the chickens love to lay eggs on it.  We also use grass clipping for this but I like the paper better.  Then once it gets kinda gross then we recycle the nesting material to compost.
7. Dont buy things you dont need to-  Its amazing how much we buy when there are alternatives.  Cleaners for instance.  Sometimes I use bleach but most of the time I use vinegar to clean things. If you mix it with water about 1 part vinegar to 3 parts water it smells a little and cleans a lot!  It cleans bird poop excellently.  I use it to clean counters, the bathroom, and most everything I can.  I keep vinegar because I can alot and need it.  I havent switched to the homemade laundry detergent only because I have a high efficiency washer and I"m a little scared.  Its all about small changes.  I"ve also started making my own bread and pasta.  It isnt always cheaper but I always have the ingredients on hand.  By not buying bread I do not have the plastic bag to deal with either.  Pasta, I dont have the box or plastic container depending on which I normally buy.
8. Hang your laundry- We have an energy efficient dryer but why use it when the wind is free!  I have a clothes line just wide and long enough to do one load of laundry.  I only do one load of laundry a day and we are a family of 4.  On the weekends I normally dont do laundry.  Its a chore thing lol. My two children take turns each day folding and putting  away the laundry so by doing one load each day it ensures a chore for the day plus who wants to spend all day doing laundry?  I do one in the morning and move on to other things. 

There are probably more things we are doing but I cant think of any.  Some long term plans of ours are to go partially off-grid.  This means that we will be using either solar or wind power to run part of the things in our house instead of using electricity from the local company.  Our whole house is electric, we dont use gas for anything.  When the power goes out we lose everything.  Build a greenhouse so that I can grow food during winter therefore lowering our grocery bills. We are in the process of this now.  Planting fruit trees is another thing we are going to do this year.  Again lowering the grocery bill.  I would also like to build a solar cooker.  During the summer it gets very hot in my house because most of the summer I am canning vegetables and fruits.  Why add to that with trying to cook dinner?  These are fairly easy to make but I want to  use recycled material.  I would like to install a tankless water heater.  My water heater eats electricty and we only use hot water for the dishwasher and shower.  Tankless would use a lot less energy and electricty. I know I know..dishwasher..yes its one thing I cant give up because it helps me get a lot of other things done.  sorry lol. I said it all had to be something we all could live with.  I will give up pretty much everything else but not my dishwasher.

So there is the list, look online for some great ways you can start to become a little greener and put some of these into use for your family too. Remember do things that you know you can stick with.  If you are not sure try it for a while, dont be afraid to try new things, you might end up liking what your doing!

Peach Cobbler

We haven't had this in a while and I decided to make some.  This would be better with fresh cut peaches but its not peach season :(   First I'm going to give you the recipe.  I have successfuly used this with cherry, apple, and blueberry fillings/pieces also.  The pan I am using is a 9x13 that is about 1-2 inches deep.  Ok so here is the recipe..its is awesome and I thank her for posting it.

 I use fresh peaches if I can but when I cant I use what I have.  I got 2 of these dented cans for way cheaper than what you would find at the normal grocery store.  Originally I was only going to make a half batch but accidently measured out too much of the ingredients.  When I told my husband he said..hm..opps, oh well!  LOL guess he wants a nice heaping spoonful!

 Before you dump the peaches in please BUTTER THE PAN.  It is so much better with butter all over.  I know the recipe says to butter the pan but you would be suprised how many actually dont butter the pan.  No spraying pam is not the same..use butter with a paper towel or whatever.  So here are the peaches in the buttered pan.

 When you make the topping, put the sugar, cinnamon, and flour in together.  You do not have to use salt and I dont.  You also do not have to sift the flour if you put it in with the sugar. The sugar does that for you when you mix it up.  Then soften your butter, not melted...only SOFTEN.  Cut it together with a fork like you do a pie crust.  You will get slightly mushier lumps.  Some will be small and some larger.  Dont over stir or it will all be come soggy large lumps.

 When you have most of the sugar and flour mixure into the clumps, then sprinkle it on top.  You can break up the larger chunks a little but I dont really.  They make nice crunchy pieces.  So here is what it should look like before entering the oven.

You want to bake this until its bubbling and the top is brown and crispy.  It will bubble fairly quick so just keep checking the topping to see that it is nice and crispy.  If you pull it out too early you will have doughy centers in your larger chunks.  Here is the finished product. It will take the time posted in the recipe.  Mine didnt brown all that much this time around. oh well still delich!

Pasta making number 2

So after my first attempt at making pasta and drying it, it became very brittle.  I had used a dehydrator at 135 like my dehydrator website had directed. It only took like an hour or so.  I havent tasted it because I put it away the other day.  Tonight I decided we would eat spagetti and I would try another recipe included in the book. One I felt would hold up better.  I decided to make a large batch again and do 4 things with it.  One part I am letting air dry on my cooling rack, another part I put in the dehydrator ( one 105 this time), another part I cooked and then dehydrated (at 105 also).  I tossed it in a little olive oil first to help the sticking but of course I cant make it straight again lol.  Here is a picture of my cooked now dehydrating pasta.

The last and final thing I wanted to do was EAT IT!  I cooked it up..it only took a few minutes. I was heating the water to a boil while I was making the pasta so again, time saver, and I was done cooking before I knew it!  This recipe is absolutely delicious!! The entire family loves it so guess what?! NO MORE BUYING PASTA!  I love this machine and was the best free thing ever.  Here is the finished product.  I went ahead and used store bought sauce because I wasnt sure how it would cook but next time I will use my homemade spaghetti sauce instead.

Making bread

Ok, let me first just say that making bread really is an art, either that or you have the wrong recipe!  I have a breadmaker.  It makes beautiful loaves of bread, but my kids do not like the amount of crust on the loaves.   The breadmaker was given to me free by the secretary of our church and I have been using it for about 2 years now.  It makes short fat loaves.  I love this breadmaker for making bread if I have to leave for the day or if I make raisin bread.  However, because this is all about knowing what goes into my families bodies, I have decided that this is the bread we will eat.  The kids hate it, I dont really care for it all that much, it doesnt make great "sandwich" bread, and if no one likes it how are we going to keep eating it?!  So I went on the search for a nice bread recipe.  I started my search for a long bread pan on amazon and read some reviews.  People were using this particular pan with a recipe from King Arthur Flour company.  I looked them up and made a loaf.  Let me say first that this is the greatest bread ever!!!! Here is the link to the recipe itself.  http://www.kingarthurflour.com/recipes/white-sandwich-bread-recipe There are many other recipes and I know some of you dont eat white bread but they do have a wheat one that I am going to try here soon.  It is worth trying and you can call a hotline if it doesnt turn out and they will help you!  Its guaranteed bread lol.  Follow the recipe to the T and it should turn out fine.  Here is the loaf I am in the process of making.  Here is it rising the second time in the bread pan.

Here is a picture of what it looks like when it is done rising and is getting ready to go into the oven.

Dont let it rise too much over the top because it will puff a little when baking, plus you need to be able to put it in the toaster if you want toast!
It is in the process of baking now.  Here is my first loaf.  OH the other best thing about this recipe is it makes ONE loaf.  How many beginner bread makers do you know with more than one loaf pan?? Yet every recipe is for two loaves? what is up with that?!!  So obviously for this longer pan I doubled the recipe.  But anyway here is my first loaf.

It looked, smelled, and tasted like sandwich bread and my family loved it!  Ok so my loaf is almost done baking. I'm a little nervous because I doubled my batch and let me just say that I have no luck usually with doubling my batches of anything.  It kneaded well though and didnt use as much flour as it called for..but then again its a dry day.  Ok.  Here is what my long loaf looks like now that it is done baking.  I usually take the foil off and turn off the oven and let it sit inside off for another 5 minutes.

Doesnt that look Good!!!  By letting it sit another 5 minutes it browns the top more, then I pull it out, place on a cooling rack and butter the top.  Then let it completely cool and place it in my plastic bread box.  I ordered it on amazon also and it will just fit this long loaf.  If you are intrested in the pan and/or box let me know in a comment and I will give you the link.  Its a very nice and sturdy pan.  Almost feels commercial.  Thanks for reading my blog!

Making pasta

Ok so I am really going to try to blog everyday about what I do.  Today I am gonna type a couple entries. One is of course about this awesome pasta maker I just got.  My aunt garage sales and then sells the stuff she finds on ebay to make money.  I was on facebook and happened to mention about my perfect bread loaf I made and I was all excited.  She said she had this pasta maker that she picked up and wanted to know if I wanted it for free. Well yeah! So while my bread was rising i decided to make some pasta.  This pasta maker is  this model.  The video said 1993 so I'm guessing its around then.

The directions are easy to follow and it basicly takes 2 cups of flour(provided measuring cup), 2 eggs, and 1 TBS olive oil and then you fill the rest with a little water in yet another provided measuring cup.  I was worried I would mess it up but did the "large" batch anyway.

Here is the product. I decided to cut my pasta about 6 inches or so because we break them into pieces anyway really.  I am going to dehydrate this batch to see how crumbly and how well it dehydrates.  This is what the one batch I made turned into.

Holy Smokes! it was a bit more than I thought.  I have had them in the dehydrator for about an hour now and I must say you really need to separate them well and they are a bit brittle.  I went in and tried to separate them a little now that they are semi-dry and they are breaking into smaller pieces.  I might try a different recipe next time or try cooking a batch and then dehydrating them.  All in all it only took like 10 minutes really to make all this pasta and can easily be done while my bread is rising.  The dehydrator is nice and warm on top so it makes a great place to let my bread rise.  I hope my family likes this pasta.  We will see in a few days!

Sticky Buns

Wow ok so I was online about a week ago trying to figure out why my bread wasnt turning out, and I came upon this youtube site from I think its connieqcooking1 or something close to that.  She made a bread recipe and also turned some of that into sticky buns.  Saturday I decided for breakfast we would have sticky buns. I couldnt look up her recipe for bread because my computer takes like a hundred years to boot up and I know it takes a while to make the bread recipe and then bake it and let it cool.  So I kinda remembered the recipe and grabbed my betty crocker book and made a refridgerator dough recipe. Then applied her sticky bun principles and cooked with my fingers crossed. 

I dont have a picture because they all disappeared! They turned out awesome and my husband loved them so much he gave some to our neighbors.  He doesnt do that often, just on the really awesome stuff, that way they think I am a great cook lol.  Works for me.  So I am going to share my recipe for the sticky buns.  I really like this dough because  you can keep it in the fridge and  use only a little at a time if you need to.  I've made rolls for thanksgiving out of this recipe and they turned out wonderful.

Basic Roll Dough  ( if you want to keep this in fridge, do not let rise, place immediately in the fridge)

1 package of active dry yeast (2 1/4 tsp)
1/4 c warm water
***
1 c milk scalded
1/4 c sugar
1/4 c shortening or vegetable oil
1 tsp salt
3 1/2 c sifted all-purpose flour ( I dont sift)
1 egg

Soften yeast in warm water (110 degrees). Combine milk, sugar, shortening, and salt; cool to lukewarm.  Add 1 1/2 c of flour; beat well. Beat in  yeast and egg. Gradually add remaining flour to form soft dough, beating well. Placed in greased bowl, turning once to grease surface. Cover and let rise until double (1 1/2-2 hours).
Turn out on lightly floured surface and shape as desired. Cover and let shaped rollls rise until double (30-40 min) Bake on greased baking sheet or in greased muffin pans in hot oven(400 degrees) for 12-15 minutes.

There is my recipe for the dinner rolls I made.  My changes for sticky buns were that first who has time to sift the flour?? lol.  I just dumped it in.  I did knead my dough and then rolled it out flat into a rectangle about 1/4 to 1/2 inch thick and it turned out to be about 9 x 14 or so.  Then I got about 3/4 stick of butter and cut off a couple of TBS's and smeared it onto the dough to cover the entire thing.  I got a 17 x 11 1/2 x 2 1/4 inch pan. Then I melted the butter in the microwave and placed it in the bottom of the pan.  I then got about 1 1/2 c of brown sugar. I took about a handful and spread it on top of the buttered dough, then placed the rest in the pan with the butter.  Next, I took cinnamon and sprinkled it on top the dough also and rolled the dough long wise.  You sorta have to roll and tuck to keep it tight and the air out.  Once it is rolled up you sorta pinch the ends to it makes one solid roll and doesnt unroll.  The pan now has the brown sugar and butter and then you add enough corn syrup to be able to mix all of it together and have the bottom coated.  I used about a cup or so of syrup and then ran out so I used pancake syrup.  Yu want the stuff on the bottom of the pan to look like sandy goo and make sure it covers the entire bottom.  Then I sprayed the sides with pam.  I cut the dough into pieces and placed them in the pan.  Be sure to leave room so they can double in size. Place in a warm area and cover with a damp towel and let rise for at least 30 min.  When mine were done rising it looked kinda like they didnt rise. There was still room on the sides a little but when I baked them they did spread out and get all buffy and yummy.  I baked mine at 350 degrees for about 35 minutes or until the tops were golden brown.  You need to invert these when you serve them and if you have extras you need to remove them from the pan before they cool completely and flip them over.  The sticky part gets very crystalized when it cools and makes pan removal close to impossible.  You lose your sticky part.  But like I said, didnt really have this problem because they disappeared rather quickly.  I hope they turn out for you and the next time I make them I will post pictures as I do it so you can see what it should look like.   Tomorrow I am making bread again and will post that recipe link.  I also obtained an older pasta maker so I am going to try that out while I'm playing with flour.

Here is the lady making bread, rolls, and sticky buns. Her batch will be too large if you make it all sticky buns but you can see what I'm talking about. The sticky bun video is actually part 3.  http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PGPhlfn-Lww&feature=related

First project this year...greenhouse.

So last year I doubled my garden and bought a dehydrator.  This year our plans are to build a greenhouse.  I am taking the summer to do this little by little.  I am using bought lumber, recycled windows, and bought sheets of this plastic paneling you can get at lowes.  Here is our progress so far.  This greenhouse is 12 feet wide x 20 feet long and has a lean-to type roof that is around 12 feet high and slopes down to like 7.  My plan is to actually plant a garden in it over winter for root crops to make more room for my summer plants in my garden itself.  Or if we have a bad year like this year with mega rain, it will be a more stable environment for the plants.  I also am going to build shelves to store garden supplies and do plant garden starts.

This is the north side, at the moment it only has one window but will have maybe one or two more.

This is my south side.  There are 4 windows and then the big space in the middle is for a pop can heater.  I am building a rather large one to hopefully produce enough heat to keep the greenhouse warm enough in jan and feb to grow root crops.  I am going to use a solar panel to run the fans in the pop can heater.  You can see what I'm talking about on youtube videos.

Arent those windows pretty? I wanted them in the house but my husband said they are not going to keep enough cold out for our house but we can use them for our porch/mud room area and so we kept the two better ones.  This is the west wall.  The east wall is part of our lean-to.

First steps, double garden and purchase a dehydrator.

I started thinking of sustainable living about a few months ago.  I am not sure exactly why.  It started really last year when it seemed God started me making a huge garden.  I actually doubled my garden space and did what I would say was some heavy canning.   My garden is now 40x60 feet.  20x40 grows green beans and corn and the other 20x40 grows the rest of the vegetables. 

I also felt I should buy a dehydrator, a lot of my food was being wasted because I just couldnt figure out how to preserve other than canning.  I ran out of canning jars, bought as many as I could afford but it wasnt enough. There were things that we didnt eat a lot of and so canning it wasnt really practical.  I knew I could hide things like zucchini in soups and no one would notice.  I ended up buying an Excalibur dehydrator.

  This dehydrator is a 9 tray and is I guess one of the best there is out there for home use.  Many people are using it for small commercial use and they really are awesome.  I opted for a refurbished one and wsnt dissapointed.  Turns out my "refurbishment" was a slight crack on the door that had been re-melted back together.  I think I can handle that, plus it has the same guarantee as the other dehydators.  They now make them with timers, but I've found pretty much leaving anything in all day and overnight dries it completely.

This is some of what I have on hand now that I've been using my dehydrator lightly for the last part of summer.

For a great site on dehydrating you should visit http://www.dehydrate2store.com/ She is awesome and everything you would ever want to know, she does!