Where Our Food Comes From

I was asked a question today that I've been asked before and it's usually a long answer, and because it's one busy mom asking another busy mom, I don't usually get to give the longer, detailed answer.  So, I decided that I'd write about it here because I'm geekish that way.

Where do we shop for our groceries?  There have been times that my weekly "grocery" trip netted so few items in the cart that I got to use the express lane.  My only local grocery option is Basha's, and the 3 things we used to buy the most of there were bananas, bread and bottled club soda.  The 3 B's at B's.  Some of our friends work there, so we try to support them as much as possible, but this town isn't "organic" friendly, so there aren't too many things there we like.

My Local Grocery Store:

• Some produce.  We use the Dirty Dozen/Clean 15 app.  If it's in the top 20-25 cleanest, we'll risk non organic, but the rest of the list we buy organic.  My town is not into organic, clean, real food, so the options at this store are limited, but thankfully growing.  I can get organic celery and greens when I need them now, rather than having to plan ahead.
• Club soda.  I need the bubbles.
• Sometimes a loaf of sourdough bread, but I started baking our own recently and it's so much better and about one third of the cost.
• Wild caught fish and seafood.
• Organic milk when our goats are "dry".  Organic sour cream.
• Cereal and coffee for my husband.
• Some canned goods (salsa, tuna, green chilies)
• Blue Bunny vanilla ice cream.

Trader Joe's:

• Uncured hot dogs
• Bacon ends and pieces
• Organic whole chickens
• Some produce
• Some dairy-butter, heavy cream, yogurt and specialty cheeses-all organic
• Fun food.  Their commitment to not using artificial flavors, dyes or other chemicals, and no GMO's makes it easier on me to have crackers and similar snacks available.  I used to make them from scratch.

Azure Standard:

• Frozen berries and vegetables
• Pasta
• Canned salmon
• Bulk grains
• Herbs and spices
• In season produce
• Non -GMO cheddar, mozzarella and Parmesan cheeses.
• Orange dark chocolate
• Tomato products
• Nuts, coconut, and other "super food" type things
• Grade B, organic maple syrup
• Evaporated cane juice and other baking essentials

DIY:

• Beef
• Pork
• Lamb
• Milk
• Yogurt
• Goat cheese
• Chicken eggs
• Duck eggs
• Some produce-we haven't been too successful with our gardens.  :-(
• Sourdough bread

Miscellaneous:

• I recently tried Bountiful Baskets produce delivery again.  I have mixed feelings about it.
• CSA (community supported agriculture), I didn't like the reality of it as much as the idea behind it.
• Trades and barter, freebies whenever they arise.

That's the big stuff.  We used to rarely eat out after we changed our diet over to real food, but with our two new additions to the family, sometimes the need to end chaos outweighs the commitment to avoiding all the processed junk out there.  Thanks to several of you for asking the question and giving me a reason to really think about it again!

Produce

Wow-my last post was in March!  Yes, I've been busy trying to settle in to our new home.  I had planned to do before and after pictures to share, but I couldn't find the camera.  When I did, it needed batteries, and well...they were at the old house still.  There's still a lot to be done, so maybe I'll still have a chance for some of the projects, but for now I wanted to share the bounty in our kitchen right now.

We got our first CSA share last Wednesday.  There's turnips, beets, spring onions, chard, two kinds of kale, lettuce, cilantro and basil.  Reading it, that doesn't sound like much, but it filled more than half of a large sized ice chest.  I had to rearrange the contents of the fridge to get it to fit!

We already had peaches, apricots, Brussels sprouts, beets, carrots, purple cabbage and a variety of greens from a U-pick farm we visited a few weeks ago.  My son has been eating the apricots now that they're in the fruit drawer instead of the paper bag they came in, on a higher shelf in the fridge.  He'll also eat the peaches if I'll keep some in the house (we have a 2nd fridge outside to hold milk and eggs).

In addition to all of that we're members of a produce rescue program that provides up to 60 pounds of produce weekly.  There's tomatoes, yellow squash, zucchini, cucumbers, grapefruit, peppers (hot and sweet), and melons.

Then my wonderful husband brought home baskets of strawberries and blackberries from a produce market in the Big City.  He's going to make pies for a gathering we're going to this week.  Don't forget the mulberry tree that's going crazy with fruit.  Or the food co-op where I buy frozen berries once a month, along with a supply of onions and potatoes, celery and oranges when the price is good.  I even bought a coconut last month.  Hubby has also made friends with the clerk at Circle K who gives him bags of overripe bananas every week.

If you have ideas for using it up, please share!  I've got a pot of this simmering in the slow cooker right now.


I also made kale chips, a turnip green frittata, marinated tomato salad and have a perpetual garden salad bowl in the fridge.

Stephanie at Keeper of the Home is hosting an Eat From the Pantry challenge.  I think I need to join!

Books About Preserving Meat

The two that we're excited about right now and planning to purchase are Charcuterie and Pig:  King of the Southern Table.  Having recently butchered our first steer and knowing the pig's turn is soon, we've been looking at all the wonderful things we can do with the meat. 

I came across Pig a while back while exploring titles thru my Nook Color.  I downloaded the sample and just the first chapter piqued my interest.  I now have it from the library and am convinced we need to own it.  The only question is eBook or hardback.  The size of it says eBook, but there's just something about a physical book that I can't quite overcome.  Since the majority of the book is a how to and recipe book, we'll likely get it on the Nook.  The Nook works well in the kitchen-I open a cabinet and secure it behind the cabinet's center support, keeping it at eye level and away from spills.  This book will show us how to use just about every part of the pig available.  There are some things I can't wait to try (making our own bacon) and others that I'm sure I'd never miss (blood sausage).  According to the book, Southerner's make use of just about every part of the pig-the ears, jowls, hooves, feet, brains.  I think the eyes were the only part I haven't seen a use for!

This one is going to teach us a lot!  Everything from hot dogs to red wine salami to confit to pate (which I formally believed to simply be pureed liver) and everything in between.  Tony and I are both excited to work through these recipes and processes.  The challenge is going to be our small kitchen and lack of curing space.  However, Tony's already talking about building a smoke house!  I wonder if it could have a cheese cave basement below it?

This post is shared at the Homestead Barn Hop.

Our First Steer

WARNING!  If you're sensitive to what happens to animals raised for dinner, you probably shouldn't read this.





Jasper was born January 24th, 2010 to the first heifer we've ever owned.

Wasn't he cute?  And look at that gorgeous rusty coat! 

Here he is at about 6 months.

This one is middle of summer 2011.  I think this is the last picture I have of him.  He's the one on the left.  His coat isn't as rusty as when he was born, but more so than what this picture shows.  He's been rapidly growing on a mix of grasses on our pasture, free to roam and do as he pleases.  We thought he'd get to about 1050 pounds and were surprised yesterday at butcher time when the 1300 pound rated wench could barely lift him.  Our guesstimate is he was about 1275.

My husband is gallant enough to do the hard work and not require my presence.  Goober Gus and I arrived in time to see this:

We're very grateful to these friends from church for helping out!  None of us have ever done this and I'm happy to report that despite it taking longer than they thought, no one got hurt and things went quite well.  I was there to gather parts that won't be aged and start prepping the hide.

As much as I felt I had researched and learned what to do when this day came, I was still woefully unprepared.  I knew which organs I wanted for human consumption and the parts I wanted for the pig and chickens.  I thought we had enough buckets.  If you've never done this-take more than you think you need!  Take plenty of everything.  I saved the tongue, liver and heart for us.  I kept the brain because one of the tanning methods I read about uses the brain.  We needed a bucket for the scraps of meat that were being trimmed during hide removal and quartering.  I was going to take my rubber gloves and don't know why I chose not to at the last moment.  I wanted to keep the kidneys, but to our untrained eyes, we couldn't find them.  There was a bucket for the fat that I plan to render into tallow.

I had it in my brain that there wasn't much for me to do on butcher day, that all the work I'd be doing would be on processing day after the meat ages.  Wrong.  All those decisions to make about what to keep and how to package/store it were up to me. 

The guys told me the wench pulling him up is rated for 1300 pounds and it struggled to get him off the ground.  When the hide was removed, it took 2 of them to carry it outside for me to clean.  When they gutted it, again they were amazed at the weight of all the internal organs.  Once the quartering was done it was a little easier to estimate weight.  Even the smaller sections were at least 150 pounds.  Tony can usually lift that alone, but it took 2 to get each hindquarter to the truck to transport to the meat locker.  The front sections required a 2 wheeled cart.  When there was just one left hanging on the hook, Timothy (the one in the red shirt) tried to counter balance it by hanging on the other arm.  He couldn't do it-he was raised off the ground!  Even the guy that owns the meat locker said the pieces looked big.  Our conservative estimate is 800 pounds dressed.  Using national averages, we'll get 500 pounds of meat.  Since we plan to use the bones for stock and the fat for tallow, our total yield will probably be greater.  So you really can raise a hefty steer on nothing but grass!

My goal yesterday was to get the hide skinned and salted.  That part didn't even start until about 530PM!  Tony worked with me and at 8 there was still about half the hide needing to be skinned.  5 hours of manpower and we were only halfway done!  We stopped at that point (Goober Gus was getting hungry and we still needed to get parts for the hot water handle in the shower that broke the night before-good timing huh?) and decided to go ahead and salt it down and see what happens.  We're hoping the salt will dry the remaining fat well enough to make it easier to remove.  My hands were so cramped from gripping slippery fat in one and trying to trim it with the other!  My back was stiff and for some reason so was the rest of me.  Prior to the skinning tasks, it doesn't seem that I did that much, so being so sore afterwards was confusing.  I understand now why professional tanners get $500 per hide!

The irony of the whole day was eating at McDonald's at 9PM on the day we'd been working toward for 2 years-the processing of our own homegrown, grass fed steer, so that we didn't have to eat industrially raised beef anymore.  Another reason to be better prepared with a meal plan!  I think the plan from now on will include yummy, healthy beef several times a week-at a fraction of the cost!  My best estimate (if we yield 500 pounds) is about $1.70/pound.  The inexpensive cuts from the local ranchers are over $4 per pound.  The savings are worth the crazy day we had yesterday.  Even if I am still sore and tired!

A Crazy Mixed-Up Day

It started off sanely enough.  No plans outside of the ordinary daily tasks.  Kinda felt a bit of freedom as a result.  Did I say it started off sanely?  Shows how crazy it's been-Tony slept in and I got up to let the chickens out.  I noticed that Sugar was out of the goat pen with Spice.  Spice gets out all the time, but it was odd to see Sugar out too.  Then I saw the rest of the goats were out and the gate was open.  That explains the noises that sounded similar to Goober Gus getting out of bed and stomping around in his room.  The hay bales are outside our bedroom, so we could hear them stealing food.  I grabbed Annie and Molly by the collar and Peaches tagged along and went back voluntarily.  Sugar and Spice did too.  That just left Cream and she eventually jumped in on her own.

Last night was the first time we took all the baby goats out-they're old enough to be weaned now, so they're in their own pen full time.  At milking time I got 158 ounces total from Annie and Molly.  That's a gallon and bit over a pint.  I left 2 quarts out for a new batch of yogurt that I'd decided I'd culture for 4 hours instead of 8 and see how that came out.  Some time during all this I decided I could bake crackers-oh, but we're trying to do all those things with sourdough and it should ferment overnight.  I figured I'd go ahead and start it and bake them after several hours instead of overnight.

Then I remembered that a friend of ours has a neighbor with overloaded peach trees and neither the friend nor the neighbor do any food preserving, so the trees were made available to us for picking.  Goober Gus and I got about 5 pounds the other day and I told the owner we'd be back when more ripened.  All 3 of us went today and returned with roughly 80 pounds, and you can hardly tell we took any!  Both days we picked up the bug eaten ones to bring to the chickens, so they're getting a treat too.  This is one branch and there are several trees, all loaded like this.

Sorry about the sideways shot...
On the way home we stopped at a farm stand to get more cherry tomatoes.  I bought half a pound the other day and GG ate them all before I could tell him to save some for dad.  We also got giant green bell peppers for .75¢ and this farmer doesn't use chemical herbicides or pesticides.  Organic peppers sell for $6 EACH at the grocery store.  These are so flavorful that you can smell them a yard away.  We also bought some very spicy salsa to snack on for lunch.  So spicy that I had to add tomatoes, green chilies and onions to thin it out some.  We made 2 trays of nachos and polished off another bag of our new favorite tortilla chips.

It was during lunch that I decided we could make lasagna for dinner, so I took out a package of ground pork sausage and tomato sauce from the freezer.  We've got 2 gallons of whey to make ricotta, so it was all set.  I also decided I better learn the process of lacto fermentation and be ready to start preserving these peaches.  Tony spent close to an hour placing them in apple boxes that this same friend had brought us when we thought we'd found a place to move to.  The inserts to separate fruit were still there, so they came in very handy.  We have 3 and a half boxes of peaches!

OK, so now I have cracker dough souring, 80+ pounds of peaches picked, plans for a fairly involved dinner and I'm looking thru my GNOWFGLINS courses for the one on lacto-fermented fruit.  Tony needed to go to the shop and work on a couple of cellos.  GG asked if he could go with because his bike tires are both flat and the air compressor is at the shop.  I reminded Tony that today was the last day of a pretty good sale at OfficeMax and asked if it was worth it for me to drive to Cottonwood to take advantage of it.  He suggested I drop them off at the shop, go to Cottonwood and pick them up on the way back.  I hate dislike it when he makes a logical suggestion that doesn't line up with what I was thinking. 

Alright, so instead of working on peaches and spending some time planning out the upcoming week-GG wants to study volcanoes-I drove to Cottonwood.  Did I mention that driving makes me drowsy?  Yeah, so when we got home a nap was definitely needed.  GG watched Prince of Egypt and we dozed.  Until I remembered I wanted to put the yogurt in the fridge at 130 and it was now after 4.  So much for a nap.

I went out to check all the animals and poor patches had his head stuck in the fence.  Reason enough to dehorn any horned animal, IMO.  We tried cauterizing the horn buds when all the babies were a few days old, but the boys' horns grew anyway.  Now they're banded, but haven't fallen off yet.  It was at this point that I remembered that I needed to check the mamas and see if they needed to be milked again.  We (I) normally only milk once a day, but with this being the first day of weaning, I figured they'd need a second go around.  Got all the feed and supplies ready and came out to find that Spice had jumped out and eaten the milking time treats, so had to start a new batch soaking.  "When am I going to be able to start dinner?"  I thought to myself.  GG and Tony were playing "bollyball" (that'd be volleyball for anyone over the age of 10) and it was a nice late afternoon outside.

The girls gave nearly another 3 quarts of milk, though we only got to keep about half that.  Molly promptly stepped into the bucket today and then kicked it about 15 feet behind her.  I retrieved the bucket and milked her anyway, giving it to the chickens, who probably suggested she kick the bucket in the first place.  I'm not sure what the chickens do to repay the goats for this, though.

OK, on to dinner.  Tony started cooking the sausage-I asked why he was slicing it instead of just crumbling it and he said it was venison.  What?  We don't have any venison.  He told me to look at the wrapper in the trash.  Sure enough, the inside packaging says venison.  I looked more closely at the butcher paper on the outside and the word I couldn't make out this morning was now obviously antelope.  I vaguely recall neighbors giving us this when they gave us some pork sausage to try.  OK, so the lasagna is going to be made with cubed antelope sausage.  I also decided to try a recipe I had seen for lasagna "cupcakes".  In the original recipe won-ton wraps are used to line muffin tins and hold all the filling.  I had 6 lasagna noodles left from the last time we made it and didn't want to buy another box, so we tried this method.  Oh, but first I have to tell you about the ricotta.  For something that's supposed to be easy, I've had more failure than success.

The method is simply bringing the whey to roughly 180° and then pouring it through a butter muslin lined colander.  The one success I can recall, I brought the whey to nearly boiling, so that was my aim tonight.  Didn't work.  No ricotta.  Zero, zilch, nada.  {Hmm, that rhymed, maybe I should write children's silly stories?}  OK, I'm not going to the store for ricotta when I've managed to find a suitable alternative for everything else.  We decided to use chevre and just added Italian seasoning, garlic and salt. 

Cutting the partially cooked noodles into the right size circles seemed easy enough until we realized the size that fits the top is too big for the bottom, so Tony used scissors and custom cut them.  I topped with tomato sauce, antelope sausage, chevre, more sauce, another noodle and mozzarella.  Did I mention it's about 7PM already?  Or that the sweet elderly man that brings yard and garden trimmings for the goats and books or toys for Goober Gus stopped by just before we started cutting noodles.  As the oven is warming up and we're about done filling muffin cups with lasagna goodness, I start smelling something close to burning.  We just put a new (freecycle find) oven in yesterday, but it was clean inside.  Oh no!!  I put the cracker dough in there to keep flies off it!  Fortunately it was in a large Pyrex bowl, so no breakage, and I don't think the heat was a problem for the fermenting process, but it actually could be now that I think about it.  So we get these things into the oven finally and I start washing dishes so the kitchen won't be a total disaster tomorrow.  Tony and GG clean off the table and empty the dishwasher-oh wait, they did that while we waited for the whey to boil.  I finish the bulk of the dishes and check the lasagna.  Why aren't they cooked more than that already?  In my rush to stop the burning smell, I turned the oven off.  Goodness!  Will the craziness never end today? 

Here's the steps to filling the tins:

I turned it back on and we waited about 10 minutes.  Tony read a chapter from Charlotte's Web to Gus.  We started it last night and it's our aim to read a few chapters each evening.  Dinner was a hit, despite the many obstacles.  The flavor was outstanding!  Tony ate 6, I had 5 and GG had 4!  I thought he'd be too full to eat because he ate all the partially cooked noodle pieces.  Fooled me!

By now it's nearly 830 and we are at least half an hour behind in our evening routine.  We went out to lock up the chickens and check the goats, then got teeth brushed, read one more book, took fish oil and put him to bed!  That was at 9, it's now 10 and all I've done since then is write this very long description of a crazy weird day!  If you've read this far, pat yourself on the back and grab a gold star, you deserve it!!

Preparedness Challenge Week 15

Amy at Homestead Revival has been hosting this challenge and I've been enjoying reading about her efforts, but haven't really posted anything mostly because while in this small house I don't feel like there's much we can do to store extra food and water.  However, since it is small steps that get the job done, I do have a few things to share.

A couple of weeks ago we answered an ad for ripe apricots.  We went to the owner's home and he insisted on picking them for us, so we just stood on the ground pointing to what we wanted and taking them from his hands.  We bought 10 pounds and he gave us another 10 that were a bit overripe and ready for jam making.  Tony made one batch of cooked jam and it turned out nicely, I just don't like cooking the fruit if we don't have to.  Online research showed that the pectin needed for sugar free or lower sugar jams wasn't available in my area, so I ordered a box.  It just came yesterday and I haven't used it yet.  I did however, dehydrate a couple of quarts so far.  We've just been enjoying eating them fresh!

A friend told me her neighbor offered her access to their plum tree.  This friend doesn't do any canning so she asked if I could come get some instead, gotta love friends like that!  We were planning to go this evening, but it looks a bit stormy, so that might change.

Finally, our local grocery store has had roma tomatoes on sale twice at prices low enough to buy in quantity, so I've dehydrated several quarts, made stewed tomatoes and tomato sauce, all of which is in the freezer now-except the dehydrated ones of course!

I kind of fall back on the knowledge that we have goats and chickens, so if something happened we'd at least have eggs and milk.  We live along a creek, so there's access to water that can be boiled on the wood stove.  The stove can also be used for cooking.  If we ran out of feed, there are trees along the creek that the goats love, and the chickens would probably fare alright if they didn't get their daily supplemental rations.  Maybe not the best scenario, but I feel like basics are covered.

Locavore

It's an interesting idea, but not one I'm eager to embrace.  I don't think chocolate grows around here!  Regardless, I do prefer to buy locally when possible and growing our own is the bigger goal.  Last night while eating dinner I realized everything had come from within 50 miles of home.

Pastured chicken from the farmer's market (been in freezer), green beans from a friend's garden, squash from the U-pick farm, and a pomegranate from the farmer's market.  Milk from our goats rounded out the meal.  I didn't take pictures.

Our Sunday

I was going to call this post, Of Apricots and Eggs because we picked a few apricots and gathered eggs this evening, but then I took a picture of the potatos we had for dinner and decided to change the title.

The apricot trees were COVERED with blossoms this spring, and we hung white lights in the trees to protect against late frosts, but the wind can't be stopped, so we've got about 2 dozen fruit between the 2 trees.  This is our average daily egg collection-10.

We bought these at the farmer's market yesterday-I was surprised to see how purple the dark ones turned out!

I was so excited when the trees had so many blossoms-the larger tree produces the sweetest apricots I've ever tasted, and the jam, well let's just say it is entirely possible to live on sour dough english muffins and apricot jam for  weeks.  The first batch I made from them was upon our return from our honeymoon, almost 4 years ago.  It was so good that when we saw more trees in the neighborhood we asked if we could pick their fruit.  The results were not nearly as delicious as from this tree.  Last year the wind took out blossoms from every fruit tree in this valley, so I was so hopeful that we'd get fruit this year.  We did, just not enough for jam.  Then, the other tree produced fruit for the first time this year-we didn't even know it was an apricot tree.  At first we guessed apple, then Tony noticed the fruit were fuzzy so we guessed peach-but weren't paying attention to the shape of the leaves.  When it finally clicked that it was another apricot tree I was hoping to get enough for jam, but our son likes to eat them straight from the tree (he managed to eat two while picking tonight) so this year there won't be any jam.  Unless of course someone else gets enough fruit to sell.  I'm going to have dreams of apricot jam on hot buttery toasted english muffins!

Some-things Cookin' Part Two

OK, so maybe the blog will be about cooking.  No, just when I think I've done something worth writing about.  I haven't felt like "cooking" for a few days, but don't want to fall into the trap of eating out either.  I get more rundown when that happens.  The ideal solution for me when this happens is crockpot meals, so today I dumped 3 containers of turkey stock into the pot and when they thawed, I added rice.  Voila-dinner is ready!  To make it more delectable, I made another loaf of french bread, which was a great device to soak up the yummy stock.  The stock is from the turkey we raised and butchered for Thanksgiving.  My husband thought it was a great meal, commenting that he really likes the bread, then adding that someday soon he'll also be saying that he likes the butter too.  We have the churn, we just need to try it out.  The added bonus of crockpot meals is that they're ready and waiting when we've finished evening chores.

This evening we helped a friend move her horse trailer.  The place it's being stored is along the Verde river and has been for sale for several years, several hundred thousand dollars out of our price range-still.  But it's GORGEOUS!  I was glad to have a chance to see it more than just from the road.  There was a large branch from a cottonwood tree broken off and I asked if we could haul it away for goat food.  That started a conversation and the homeowners seem interested in saving all of their tree trimmings for us!  They have a lot of trees too!  I gave them my card and I think Tony is going back Saturday to help cut up that branch and bring back a truckload full.  I love free feed for our animals!

I got some preliminary info regarding the selling of our eggs.  Apparently we can sell up 750 dozen (she wasn't sure if that was a lifetime limit or per year) from our home or farmer's market with no permit required.  If we want to sell to a restaurant or other retailer, we have to be inspected.  I have the phone number of the state agency I need to speak with and will call them tomorrow to see how much red tap and money is involved.

Oh, and I found 80 or so canning jars for sale on craigslist, but they are in a town an hour away.  Price is "make offer".  I need to call him back tomorrow too.

One last thing.  I printed the materials for the Fundamentals eCourse at GNOWFGLINS today and will pencil in times that I can take the various classes over the summer.  Did you know she changed the program to open enrollment and Donation Only for payments?  Check it out!  I'm going to start with the water kefir course.  I bought crystals last summer and tried it twice, both times failures.  I really want to learn to do it though because fizzy drinks are my weakness and if I can make one that is good for me then I can indulge freely!

Local and Homemade

Today I baked french bread.  I took a picture of it before we devoured it, but the software is acting up so I can't upload it.  We needed some yummy bread to complete our dinner of butter greens and spinach grown locally.  The ironic part of the greens is that we had to drive about 60 miles to obtain produce that was all grown within 5 miles of where we live!  I was going to take a picture of the salad too, but we were hungry and it was getting late.  The peppers were colorful and regional, but not local.  The tomatoes came from the grocery store-don't think anyone around here has tomoatoes yet.  The carrots are organic.  The dressing was homemade-from buttermilk I made from our goats milk.  I just added a bunch of herbs and spices, but I need a recipe.  It was good, but it needed something else.  Then we had artichokes with hollandaise sauce, made with our fresh eggs-I think it might have been the best sauce yet, and I've been making it for 33 years!

It wasn't all local, it wasn't all organic, and it wasn't all homemade, but it was all D-E-L-I-C-I-O-U-S!  I'll add the bread photo later!

Oh, and here's the view I had while planning my menus for the month: