homemade and homegrown

[PortageGirl]

Quote:
My mother's trick for freezing green beans, (and most other veggies too) makes for UN-mushy beans.

Clean and cut to however you like them, blanch for VERY shortest time then plunge into cold water, pat them dry, then spead on cookie sheets in single loose layer, and pat dry again. Freeze them on cookie sheets (criss-cross in a stack if need be) and when they are frozen, or mostly frozen, break them up so they are totally loose, then put them into large plastic bags so you can shake out as many as you need for any meal.

I have heard that blanching isn't even totally necessary but they stay a brighter green if you do it IMO, just do it very quick, a huge pot of water so the temp doesn't drop much, and then not even a whole minute after the water starts to move again.

[edit to add] Agree about water bath canning, not too interested in pressure canning anymore, and prefer frozen veggies.
Also, get with a friend or neighbor and trade labor and learn from each other or learn new things together, it helps to support each other and the work seems lessened with some cheery chatter! If you know of an elderly lady who has these skills, she can benefit from your helping hands, and you can benefit from her experience.

 

[Sequin]

Don't know if anyone has mentioned this yet or not, but Mother Earth News is a Great magazine and has great info on their website. This last issue taught me how to make a simple bread dough and keep it in the fridge - so you can cut hunks off and make bread every day. Only takes a few minutes a day.

We don't really 'homestead' yet either, but plan on growing a huge garden this spring and canning as much as possible. Other thoughts are reducing your electricity usage by implementing other methods such as solar and wind. Also, bicycle powered generaters for some of the small stuff. There are also other methods of heating your home, such as wood stoves etc. Everything I have learned seems to be geared around saving time and energy and being effecient - getting the most for what you do and use. Even the way you build the fire in your wood stove!!!

I have started making more homemade gifts and items, baking and cooking at home etc. Trying to live as cleanly and simply as possible. Best of success to you!!!

 

[Zookeeper9000]

For those that do not know, on the index page at the bottom there is a section for eggs and recipes. In this section there are threads on Breads, canning, other recipes. There is also one on being self sufficent that has great recipes for: homemade laundry soap, fabric softeners and just about everything else.

They had a bread thread that sent ya to a different web site, I book marked it. Here is the link hope it works, this bread is great for sandwiches, even my grown and out of the house kids expect me to make them it LOL. I gave them the recipe LOL.


http://ayearinbread.earthandhearth.com/2007/05/t-his-bread-which-i-call-farmhouse.html


On another note I noticed a lot of you were interested in egg ornaments. In the Hobby section there is a thread on Polyclay egg ornaments with step by step instructions by littlechickenracingteam he did an eggcelent job on these instructions just wonderfull.

Also in the hobby section on the christmas crafter thread there is a lady there who posted a URL to a site that shows you how to make a little girls dress out of a mans shirt. There is tons of stuff on there as well.

Hope this helps someone.

Good luck to all who are on the road to getting off the grid and living a simple healthy life.

 

[Tamidon]

"For canning, I highly recommend "Balls' Blue Book of Canning and Preserving"
http://www.amazon.com/Ball-Blue-Book-of-Preserving/dp/0972753702"


This is the followup Ball book,the Big Ball Book as we call it
http://www.amazon.com/BALL-Complete...=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1228409218&sr=1-1

also,"Canning for Dummies" is pretty good for beginners

 

[greyfields]

Quote:
We raise and sell our own:

beef (4 heifers, 1 cow currently)
pork (raised and slaughtered 9 weaners this year)
lamb (breeding 17 ewes right now, so will get close to 30 lambs next year)
broilers (did 200 this year)
duck (hatched out own, sold around 40 at market)
geese (hatched our own, sold 25 at market)
eggs (reduced our flock this year from 125 layers to about 30)

We breed and milk our own Nubian dairy goats. We drink goats milk and make pound after pound of chevre. We should kid again in February, so we'll be back in teh dairy cycle then.

We grow a vegetable garden for ourselves and market. We have 3 cold frames and a greenhouse. We did about 1/2 acre of potatoes this year for sale.

I grew 4,000 lbs of rye grain this year and harvested it for our pigs and chickens to eat.

I hayed about 30 acres this year for winter forage and sale.

We make our own cider (50 gallons per year roughly) which is merrily fermenting away as we speak. I established a 30 cider apple tree orchard which should be in full production in a couple more years.

I want to do some distillation with my rye grain this winter.

I spend countless hours on my tractor moving piles of things from one place to another. I also mow, till, plow, plant, etc. everything to reseed pasture and grow small grains.

We recently started training our border collie for herding. That's really fun, loving it.

We harvested our wool for the first time this year, and I really need to get it in for processing into yarn, blankets and sockies.

I'm sure I'm missing out a lot. We both have day jobs, too. We don't ge away from the farm very often.

 

[kstaven]

You have to love doing it or you will burn out fast.