February projects in and out of the kitchen

Our thermometer has bottomed out at twenty below. Forty below is the low for the night. Until this weekend our temperatures have been relatively mild and we've all been spending more time outside. Our property is finally receiving a couple hours of midday sun. Here are some pictures from the last week. I've been enjoying spending time in the kitchen.  I've also been doing various research, trying to make some decisions for the year on what eggs to hatch, what breeds of poultry to raise etc. On the table are all of our feed receipts for the past year. I'm going to attempt to figure out our yearly feed and hay costs. Above is the doe's daily grain ration, a picture appropriate for my last couple posts on feeding grain to goats.

 The last of our own Copra onions. They are beginning to grow, as we don't quite have the right temperature/humidity area to store them. I used up the last of our garlic today. So I just bought the first bag of onions and garlic since last spring. We have enough potatoes for a couple months.

 Homemade hot chocolate after playing outside.

I made a batch of beef jerky for the first time this winter. It turned out good, if a little plain for my taste. I like my jerky to have a full garlicky peppery soy sweet flavor. I should have marinated it more than just overnight- but I was jerkey hungry. I did do a nice job of slicing it thinly while still partially frozen.

 I've finally gotten into a rhythm with Chana's dog food. I've been making chicken/duck or other turkey stock every other week. I take all the meat off the bones, smoosh up the soft stock vegetables and add rice. She gets a couple cups once a day. Daily scraps usually make up her second meal.

Our weekly 100% organic hard red winter wheat bread. I grind the flour every couple weeks, store it outside (in our natural freezer) I start it a day ahead before baking, by soaking a biga and starter with yogurt and raw goat milk overnight to help break down the gluten and make it more digestible. The bread is mild and soft. It is great fresh or frozen and keeps at least a week on the counter.

I've pulled in a bag of Copper River Red Salmon to brine and smoke - I'm counting on the temperature outside warming up. I also pulled in a large turkey breast to smoke for lunch meat. I'm hoping to pull out the grinder and turn some various bags of pork lard and pork scraps into rendered lard and sausage. Tonight we are having roast, mashed potatoes and salad. Tomorrow we are having stew with turnips and biscuits. I've also had meat pies on the mind, empanadas, Asian style BBQ pork buns. I guess it is just that time of year.

I'm gearing up for a soap making spree next weekend. This is the first time I've looked up other soap making blogs for inspiration, and lets just say, I have been blown away by some handmade soaps folks are making out there. I've been inspired to try some layering and and marbling this time around, so I'll be sticking with some simple recipes and focus on colors, scents and decorative techniques.

OK, lets here it, what yummy things are you cooking? What winter projects are you enjoying?

Odds and ends and goat breeding

Winter is here! A few inches of light snow blankets the ground. The trees have filled out, with snow building up in all their hollow places and along every branch. Every footstep is marked, stamped into the snow, including that of a neighbor fox who has been circling the duck pen and chicken coop nightly. I'm intending on sharing some more informative and posts here now that things are slowing down. I'll be reviewing our gardening successes and failures. I promised to share our essential oil bug spray recipes earlier in the summer and my failure to do so at the appropriate time of year has been nagging at me. I also wrote of making homemade dog food recipes last spring which I never delved back into. These are just a few topics I've been intending to get back to. I'm looking forward to having more leisure time at the computer, and not always feeling as there is something more pressing I should be at. This morning I'm a little scatter brained, so here are some odds and ends of what we've been up to and what has been on my mind.

Yesterday I bred the first goat of the season. Many dairy breeds, including ours, are seasonal breeders. Their breeding season begins in September and stretches into December/January. The gestation period is about five months. I would prefer to breed in October and November to kid in March and April. We have six does to breed this year, three junior does and three does who have been in milk and kidded a few seasons already. I'd like to wait to breed does in milk till last so that we can keep milking them. It is fairly common to keep milking a doe until half way through her gestation, but I'd caution that this is a doe by doe case which depends on the doe's health. We have yet to milk a doe through consecutive seasons without re-breeding. We have been eager to increase our herd size and see how the kids turn out from different bucks. We may milk one doe through this winter, we'll see.

Yesterday I bred Zinnia, out of Lew and Rose. She is a year and a half old black and white doe. Her dam produces the most milk of our three senior does, and has the largest, widest, nicest shaped udder. We have been walking the junior does up the hill and putting them in a pen by the bucks for a few hours daily, so that we can observe everyone's behavior and catch any doe in heat. Yesterday I went up to check on them and notices Zinnia standing with her backside to the boys wagging her tail. Wasting no time I brought Xavier over and let the other does out. Zinnia would have nothing to do with Xavier, rather she kept running back to Zanzibar, who was on the other side of the fence. I thought maybe she'd warm up to Xavier after a while, but no such luck. So I put Xavier back and brought Zanzibar over, and lets just say she was much more receptive. If all goes well, Zinnia will be our first doe kidding in early March.

Dustin is getting some time off work. Today he is blowing insulation into the ceiling of our addition. Yesterday he went to buy a new wood-stove for the addition. The one we want won't be here for four weeks, we should have known better than to wait this late.

I rendered pork fat into lard this past weekend. I can't wait to make pie crust with it. I'll let you know how it goes.

We still have four Turkeys and several male ducks to harvest. We have two chest freezers and two refrigerators with pullout freezer bins, and all of our freezers are packed to the top. One of our Turkeys we are giving to our friends who raised the pig for us. They are also breeding four does to our bucks, free of charge, and that is the price of our pig- an exchange we are all ecstatic about. So we'll eat one of the Turkeys fresh, grind one up and save one for Thanksgiving, leaving us just one whole bird and some ground meat to make room for in the freezer. Fortunately we should be able to rely on the outdoors as a temporary freezer for some things soon.

In terms of food security, this is a bountiful season. Our freezers are full of Copper River Red Salmon, our own chickens, a pig, berries, goat cheese, vegetables, chicken stock and soups. The pantry is loaded with applesauce, jams, smoked salmon and more chicken stock. We have beets, carrots, potatoes and turnips in cold storage. The onions and garlic are still hanging. We keep enough sugar, flour, beans, grains and dry goods around to last a good year or more. With  having our own eggs, meat, milk and vegetables, there isn't much to buy at the store except extras. I've been feeling guilty in regards to the contents of my shopping cart lately, which tends to consist solely of processed foods, cold cereal, chips and crackers. I'm hoping to amend that now that I have more time in the kitchen. I've been debating lately if I'm up for a processed foods strike. Most of our processed foods are organic and include mostly whole grains. While I try to avoid ingredients like preservatives, "natural flavorings", corn syrup and canola oil, I am bringing some of these into our home, and I'd like to remedy that by making more of our own snack foods. I guess there is no time like winter for some food experiments in the kitchen.

Warm weather and odds and ends

Our heat wave continues here in the interior. The days have been in the twenties and thirties. Because of the unseasonably warm weather we have had to move all of our frozen goods into our back up freezer (and plug it in). Usually we get away with leaving frozen food outside our door for most the winter. We leave the freezers unplugged until it starts warming up, usually March-ish. 

As comfortable as the warm weather is, it is also dangerous. The roads are slippery and the snow on the roof is sliding. The animals are climatizing. The pussy willows are budding - proof below. When the temperatures return to normal, it is gonna feel cold. We still have a couple more months of winter here. This freak warm spell is just a tease. 

In other news, we received our first Azure Standard bulk order yesterday. It felt like Christmas with the kids helping unpack all the goods. Some of the stuff we can get locally but for the most part it seems even with shipping, it is still cheaper to order rather than buy at the store. The shipping was about thirty five cents a pound. We bought fifty pound bags of wheat berries for eighteen dollars a bag and with the shipping we added seventeen dollars, making each bag cost thirty six dollars, saving us twenty dollars a bag compared to what we've been paying here in town - and they are organic. The bulk of our order consisted of organic bulk whole grains, beans and dried peas. Now I just need to order a grain mill so I can use the grains. We did get a few odds and ends including some wonderful dried cherries and dates. With the next order we are going to buy some frozen goods and bulk produce. Today when we stop by the store I'll be checking prices more than usual so that I can come home and compare them to those of Azure Standard. I am excited about being able to get organic produce and ingredients for less money than the non organic equivalent here in town. I'll certainly continue buying as much meat and produce as I can from local farmers, but this time of year there is not much available in the way of local produce.

We just set up our seed starting rack in the hallway. Until I need all the shelves I'll be keeping my dehydrator and sprouter on the rack for easy use. I was given this sprouter years ago and have never used it. I was thinking of what I could do for the chickens to improve on their diet. I've been sprouting in jars and trays for them but never seem to have a constant supply. I think this beast of a sprouter will help. In the next few days I'll be digging out some trays for starting the first seeds of the season.

 

I took the goats out for a walk yesterday. They've been expecting me to get them out since the weather has been nice. We walked up, around and down the driveway. The does were quite spunky, running and bumping into each other, halting now and then to reach and nibble on dried fireweed leaves that dangled above the snow. I picked rosehips that hung limp on dormant branches and fed them to the does by the handful. A few of the girls caught on and started searching them out on their own. Everyone is enjoying the break from the cold. We are trying to make the most of it as we know it won't last.