Holiday Season, winter life

Finally finished putting together a recipe collection for my daughters that is a combination of two old area church cookbooks featuring some of our relatives contributions. This will be part of their Christmas present. Will also give to my mother, sisters, aunts. The cookbooks are so old that they are falling apart and I wanted to at least save some of the recipes. There is a bit of family history in the collection also. I think I have made all but a few things for Christmas and kept the bill down below $200.00. My philosophy is that the Holidays should not create a hardship or it is pointless. New person will be at the table for our annual Game Day (the day of or day after Christmas). Middle daughter's boyfriend will be there to see how seriously we take our Trival Pursuit. Butternut squash and potatoes stored away in the brooder house which is our makeshift rootcellar this year. We lined it with bales of straw and we will see how long it keeps root crops. We've had some very cold days in the past 2 weeks and so far the vegies are doing well. Already have had to begin the thawing the chicken and dog waterers every night and morning. Took a free kitten from the grain elevator the other day when we went to pick up a ton of chicken feed. Granddaughter hasn't heard about it yet, so will be pleasantly surprised tomorrow when she is with us while her Mom finishes shopping. The chickens are not laying well right now, but that is to be expected. They use all their energy to keep warm and to help new feathers grown in. Will be some old hens to butcher this spring and put in the freezer for stock. 5 deer meandered between garden B and C on Tuesday evening. The dogs bark, but the deer are so used to them that they simply ignore the barking! All the grain is out of the fields surrounding us and we are getting used to being about to see the road to the south of us again through the kitchen window. Mike hasn't shot a deer yet this season and there is only 1 weekend of muzzle-loading shotgun season left. I never look forward to the butchering because it takes an entire day, but I certainly appreciate the meat since we would rather eat that than beef. Taking work home, but I won't be at work for the next 2 weeks. Nice break. Lots to do.

Deer hunting, Thanksgiving, family

It's almost 9:00 on this Saturday morning in November. Weekly wash is on the clothesline and the noodle dough is done that I will make into noodles tomorrow. A lot of things will be done today that I normally spread across the 2 day weekend because it is deer hunting season and if Mike shoots a deer today, tomorrow we will butcher and that will take both of us all day (minus the time I need to make the noodles--have an upcoming order for them). My middle daughter got her deer last week on the first day of season--she has only missed one year getting her first deer of the season on the first day of season in all the 15 years she has hunted. She brought summer sausage and jerky to me Thursday evening. We will have our granddaughter for the night tonight. Christmas presents to make and she would like to do something special for her mom. I hid the evidence of the striped stocking cap that I am making for her and while she is here I will work on a knitted purse for her mother. So many things to do. This year, I am giving everyone a copy of the cookbook I am putting together from 2 old church cookbooks from this area. My grandmother and other neighbors and relatives now long gone contributed to those and I want my children to have the recipes. Have some clip art and more recipes to add before I am done, but it will make nice family gifts. Next week for Thanksgiving, there will just be 6 of us at the table. #2 and #3 daughters are going to Iowa for Thanksgiving with their father. My sisters have their families for dinner. So # 1 daughter, granddaughter and Mom and Dad will be here. Even though #1 daughter has been without work for a year and just recently got a 2 day per week job, we have a lot to be thankful for. All of us are healthy and we are certainly grateful for that. Dad had 2 hip replacements this past year and he is ready to run a marathon to hear him talk. Mom has had a few problems with a hernia that they are still working with, but she will probably be just fine. Mike and I have our jobs. #2 daughter still has her job although it is uncertain if her company will lay her off at the end of the year. #3 daughter is finishing her Ph.D. So, I would say, while it hasn't been very economically profitable and disaster still looms on the horizon, we will get through it. Very difficult to tolerate those who keep telling us that the economy is looking up, but that's my other blog.

Indian Summer weekend, finishing the harvest

The past weekend was absolutely beautiful. Mike dug and stored 10 bushels of potatoes. Guess we won’t run out and neither will two of my daughters and my parents. Our granddaughter (age 9) helped me to pick up all the winter squashes left over in the Garden B. She worked like a trooper. After all of that, she searched through the old sweet corn stalks in Garden C for cobs with corn left on it to shell it and feed to the chickens. Then she helped Mike with potato digging. Needless to say, she fell asleep at 7:30, barely having enough time to eat supper. She still looks at “work” as fun! We wish that we could keep that feeling all of our lives. To top off a beautiful Saturday afternoon, we looked up and there was a bald eagle soaring towards the river. Our grain farmer friends are busy harvesting as much corn and grain as they can get out before it rains again. As we went to bed last night, I could see the lights from their combines in the field across the road.
Already, we are planning next year’s gardens as we finish the harvest of these. We talk about what not to plant, how much to plant, what did well at the Farmer's Market, how much fertilizer we will need, what spots could use extra compost, how we need to rotate the crops. Broccoli is finally done and we gradually feed the stalks to the chickens until they have all been pulled from the dirt. A large pile of spaghetti squash (don’t ask—an experiment gone haywire) is at the chicken house gate to cut up for the chickens every evening. We try to have at least something fresh to give to them until winter truly sets in.
Liberty and I made pies to take to my daughter’s house for Sunday supper. I roasted butternut squash in the oven the day before and, after they became soft, set them out to cool. By mid-afternoon, I made “pumpkin” pies and an apple pie. I learned a long time ago that butternut squash can be used exactly like pumpkin because it also is a winter squash. Now I make all of my pumpkin recipes with butternut squash--a lot easier to handle than pumpkins. Mike was anxious to get the potatoes in, not just because the cold weather is coming, but because deer hunting starts soon and he wanted to be sure to have all the garden prep done so that he could concentrate on that. We will need another freezer in the barn for that. This year, especially, we want to have enough meat stored. There will be a lot of people trying to keep warm and fed this year and maybe we can help. Of course, some smart guy keeps telling us on the news that the recession (ok, if you want to sugarcoat it, you COULD call it a recession) is winding down. I think that was just about the same time that the U.S. hit 10.2% unemployment—the worst in 28 years! Don’t get me started. I have another blog for that.

August Sunday Roasted Chicken

Rather cool for August. Yesterday's farmers market was really chilly. Lots of customers, though and we had a lot of tomatoes, musk melon, specialty breads, my plain soap (which all of a sudden has quite a few followers) and eggs. Even sold some of my handmade knitted handwarmers/computer mitts, knitted dish cloths/washcloths! One lady wanted the socks I was knitting for my granddaughter, but was finally persuaded to let me make her a duplicate pair in a few months!

Today, I made 6 lbs. of noodles for a lady who wants to stock her freezer, so while I was doing that, I was also roasting a chicken. I do that a lot on Sundays. If you have cooked chicken, you have the beginnings of three meals over the course of one week! Tonight, I will fix jambalaya rice to go with slices of the chicken breast. Then I will pick the chicken meat from the bone after supper and divide into two parts. Put each part in a small plastic bag or refrigerator container. One night you will have chicken and noodles and another night you can have chicken pot pie or shepherd's pie. I buy my chickens whole. Already-cut pieces are bony and they don't give you the pieces that you will need to save to make stock. It is easy to learn to cut up a chicken. A good cookbook will guide you and soon you will be able to cut it up in 2.5 minutes flat (unless you can beat me on that one!). Don't throw your cooked or uncooked chicken pieces away--stock recipe follows.

Also, another use for those ubiquitous plastic shopping bags to save a bunch of mess and bacteria in your kitchen--put the plastic wrapped thawed chicken inside the bag. Reach inside the bag with your scissors and cut the chicken wrapping so that you can pull out the chicken, leaving blood, water, etc. in the bag. Gather up the top of the bag and throw away! No mess. Do not discard the gizzard or the neck--you can use that to put in your stock (keep a bag in the freezer to keep your chicken bones -- cooked and uncooked, celery ends and leaves, pieces of onion and garlic, etc. for stock, recipe follows). The making of stock is easy, economical, adds tons of flavors, but seems to be a lost art. But it is making a comeback as we re-learn how not to waste.

Chicken Stock Put your saved cooked or raw chicken parts in a very large pot (mine is a 20 quart with lid). (Can use a whole chicken and pick the meat off when done and freeze the meat). Add leftover celery (I freeze the ends and leaves for this ), 4 or 5 cloves of garlic (don't have the peel, just cut through the center--all this stuff will be strained out anyway), a couple of onions cut through (do not throw away the skins if they are yellow onions--the skins make a lovely color for the stock), 6 or 7 peppercorns, a few old carrots cut up, few tablespoons of salt. Add water enough to cover all the ingredients. Bring to a boil, then turn the heat down until it barely breaks bubbles on the surface. Simmer, covered, for 4-6 hours and take off the stove. Let cool slightly. Place a large colander over a basin and pour your stock into it to strain. Then take the strained stock and put it into freezer containers for the freezer. I have 1/2 gallon recycled cottage cheese containers that work well since you will need at least that for a batch of soup. Once thawed, stock will not last more than a few days, so use quickly.

More chores waiting.