Garden Prep

Last week was a beautiful week weather wise.  It made me think about our garden even more.  We are expanding it this year (We had pigs beside it last year conditioning the soil for expansion), and hopefully we will get it out of the new garden stage and into a more established bed.  We weren't able to get it tilled up in the fall because of a number of reasons, but we have a friend's tiller being tuned up right now to hopefully put to use soon.

Right now I also have my sweet potatoes growing at the kitchen sink's window, a spot in the laundry room ready to go for starting plants with a grow light (although I still need to buy my garden seeds), and I recently brought home sand and mixed my peat/sand mix today for doing cuttings. (I have decided to do greenwood cutting with the blueberries, raspberries, edlerberries, etc,  but I'm planning on trying some hardwood boxwood cuttings this week yet, and maybe some other plants if I find a parent plant - I'll try to get pictures.)

I'd love to hear what you have going on for this season's garden.  If you are still looking to get started this year, you can always start saving milk jugs, making homemade planting pots, or even give a try to starting sweet potatoes if you bring some home soon.

5 Signs of Spring

Robins have been back for a little bit now, but yesterday really got me thinking spring.  Here are 5 things I was able to enjoy yesterday.

1. The temperature hit the 70's
2. I took the winter cover feed sacks off of my orchard trees, reusing them as mulch
3. The hive of honeybees was very active
4. Spring peepers have begun singing
5. There is a hint of green in the grass

   

   Part of our chicken flock searching for those first green blades of grass

Winter cover feed sack turned to mulch

Sunny Days Ahead :)

Wow, I guess it's been awhile again since I last posted!  I was heading up a project fair with our home school group which took quite a bit of my time - planning for the event and helping the kids with their projects.  After it was over I had quite a bit of catching up in the house to do with things that got put on hold for the fair.  I still have quite the line up of things that need to get done and things I want to get done with spring coming, but I thought I would take a moment and throw up some pictures just to not have such a big break on my blog.  Plus, it's been awhile since I've put up any farm pictures.

With the warmer weather, our egg production has been increasing, and it might be increasing more than I can tell.  Not only are our hens starting to lay more eggs, but they are starting to get a bit of spring fever themselves and are stealing nests all around the farm.  When I go to collect eggs now, not only do I go to the nest boxes, but I look inside tubs, reach through fences, and even crawl inside hog huts.  This little gal even went broody already.  She had WAY too many eggs though, and they were all cold.  I tried to move her (she was in the stock trailer with a nest, and we needed to pick up some feeder pigs) and give her some new eggs, but she didn't take them.  It is a bit early so I was okay with it.  Plus, she can really only sit on 3 regular sized eggs, she is so small!! (She is only about the size of a quart jar. Those are her little eggs in front of her so the picture is deceiving.)


When I go out to collect eggs in the afternoon, I walk through the other animals too to see what they are up.  Here is a picture I took of our pigs enjoying some soft bedding and the sunny day. 

It's nice to see the animals enjoying themselves with the nicer weather.  It makes me anxious to see them out of the winter lots and around the farm on green pastures and in lush wooded areas!

1 Month of No Groceries!

Today is the last day of February, and the last day I had planned to cook entirely from my cupboards.  I am happy to say that the only things that I bought this month were 4 gallons of milk and 1 box of butter (of which I used 2 sticks). I am also happy to say that I think I could continue cooking from my cupboards for another week if I wanted to - although they would be extremely bare at the end of the week!

Since I had to go into town today for a project with the kids' school, I did go grocery shopping just in case I didn't have enough for the week. (Don't worry - I am not using any of my new groceries until tomorrow.) I just didn't want to have to make another errand run into town at the end of the week if I was already there.

I was pleasantly surprised over the month of how meals went from cooking just from my cupboard.  I thought about sharing all of the meals I made, but realized that my cupboards are different than others.  If anyone else wants to try this, I didn't want to taint their creativity by listing what I did -  or didn't think of doing.  I will tell you some things that I took out of this month of cupboard cooking though.

1. It was extremely helpful to have a nice supply of dried goods on hand that I buy extra of when on sale. 
2. What I have canned and preserved turned out to be a major part of keeping my cooking from my cupboard going - fruit, dried beans, meats, vegetables.  It really has got me excited for this upcoming canning season and broadening and expanding on the foods that I preserve.
3. I became much better with substitutions when cooking.  I don't deviate from recipes that much out of fear of ruining a meal, but I was pleasantly surprised with how things turned out when I had to substitute - again, I won't share in this post what I did out of necessity as to not hamper your creativity!
4. Taking some extra time to think about what is on hand before planning a meal greatly helps keep grocery purchases down.  I usually plan meals around what I want to eat/cook and then purchase ingredients instead of planning meals around what I have on hand.  
5. I am very thankful to have a wheat grinder and a large supply of wheat berries for making bread. Fresh whole wheat bread can provide for many yummy and nutritious sandwiches.
6. Having chickens is wonderful!  Eggs are used in so many recipes.
7. Having a milk cow (or milking the cows you have) would be just as wonderful - milk and butter are used in so many recipes. (We had some meals without the butter needed - edible, but just not the same.)
8. I would say I'm pretty good at being frugal, but I was amazed again by what you can survive on when you need to do so or just make yourself do so. 

I'm sure there is more I could list if I thought about it, but I have kids getting up soon and need to keep moving.  Maybe I'll add them if I think of any - so check back to this post if you decide to give it a try!  I'd love to hear your thoughts and maybe next time I won't put a deadline of a month on and see just how long I can go. :)

Crooked Gap Maple and Brown Sugar Oatmeal - Copy Cat Recipe

Sorry about the teaser yesterday.  I really did plan on posting the recipe but just ran out of time.  So here are the 2 different recipes and instructions to follow.  They still might need a bit of tweaking, according to your tastes, but hopefully they are a good starting point.  

Mixture when not using fruit sauce:
- Mix well and store in jar
2 c brn sugar
1 T salt
1 1/2 tsp cinnamon
1/4 tsp nutmeg
1/4 tsp ginger
1/4 tsp cloves

*Add 1/4 c mixture to 2 1/4 cups water.  Bring to a boil.  Add 2 c oats, turn down heat, stir for 1 minute.  Remove from heat.  Add 1/4 c milk and 2 T maple syrup.  Cover and let set around 15 minutes before serving.  (If you like to eat right away in the morning, you might want to start your oatmeal right before your shower.)

To make variations to the recipe, try adding more or less of the mixture or syrup to adjust flavor and more or less milk or water to adjust creaminess.  If you really like to play around, you can also adjust amounts of seasoning in the mixture.  You can also add in flax seed, bananas (my favorite!), raisins, top with cinnamon, etc.



Mixture when using fruit sauce:
- Mix well and store in jar
2 c brn sugar
2 T salt
1 T cinnamon
1/2 tsp nutmeg
1/2 tsp ginger
1/2 tsp cloves

*Add 2 T mixture to 2 cups water and 1/2 cup fruit sauce (I use pear and apple sauce).  Bring to a boil.  Add 2 c oats, turn down heat, stir for 1 minute.  Remove from heat.  Add 1/4 c milk and 2 T maple syrup.  Cover and let set around 15 minutes before serving.  (If you like to eat right away in the morning, you might want to start your oatmeal right before your shower.)

To make variations to the recipe, try adding more or less of the mixture or syrup to adjust flavor and more or less milk or water to adjust creaminess.  If you really like to play around, you can also adjust amounts of seasoning in the mixture.  You can also add in flax seed, bananas (my favorite!), raisins, top with cinnamon, etc.

Crooked Gap Maple and Brown Sugar Oatmeal

So there you have it.  I'd love to hear if you make any changes or variations that you like or even if you have a completely different way to make oatmeal!


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Oatmeal Copy Cat Recipe

I grew up eating Cheerios - the real Cheerios.  Every morning I would have a big bowlful. If I wanted a snack midday, they would be one of my first choices.

When we got married, or maybe even when I was in college, I realized that there were generic versions of Cheerios.  I also realized that there was a significant price difference.  So I started buying the generic brand.  Let me tell you.  They are NOT like the real Cheerios.  But they were cheaper.  So I kept buying them.

Ethan and I are approaching our 10 year anniversary, and over the years he has teased me about there not being a taste difference in them.  I continued to hold my ground that there was a taste difference, and not only a taste difference, but also a hierarchy within the generic Cheerios world.  Between Walmart, Hy-Vee, and Fareway - Fareway wins by a landslide. (Although they still fall quite a bit behind the real thing!) Like I said, Ethan has teased me over the years about this, but just this year he started to agree with me.  Especially after I got on his case about using the Fareway O's in his chex mix before the Hy-Vee O's that he brought home to make chex mix. (I wasn't really upset, just teasing, but he made sure to leave the Fareway O's alone for his second batch - after he had a bowlful of Hy-vee O's himself.)

As I have been buying Fareway O's over the years, I have watched their price raise from under $1 to over $2.  Somewhere in the middle, I started making oatmeal from a box, not a premix, for the kids instead of giving them O's.  I flavored it and seasoned it as best as I could.  They all enjoy it, but I have never been able to choke it down.  I have even tried multiple times, especially as the price of Tasty O's has continued to go up.  I just figured I didn't care for it because I grew up eating dry cereal.

When Jonathan was born, however, my good friend gave me a bunch of groceries that could make quick meals.  Among these groceries were little packets of pre-seasoned oatmeal. I cooked some up for the kids and decided to taste a bit only to find out that it was good!!

Since buying little packets of oatmeal would probably not save me any money over buying generic O's, I began my quest to find a copy cat recipe for oatmeal.  After a couple attempts and adjustments, I came up with one that I actually enjoy eating.  I ran out of O's a few weeks ago and have been eating this oatmeal.  I surprised myself this week that I was actually disappointed when I ran out of oatmeal!  (Since I'm trying to go the rest of the month with buying as few groceries as possible, I'm on to the next breakfast idea.)

I have 2 different versions of my copy cat recipe.  The first one is for those of you who don't have a fruit sauce.  The second one is for when you do. (I have quite a bit of pear sauce canned up that I am using.)

Since my little ones are about to get up, however, I will have to save my recipes for the next post (hopefully tomorrow!)  Don't forget to check back!

Grandpa Kies's Mulligan Stew

If you missed my post about cooking through my cupboards, you can check it out here.  So far, I have just bought 2 gallons of milk and a box of butter. (Too bad we aren't milking our Dexter cows or I wouldn't have had to even buy those!)

It really hasn't been any trouble figuring out what to make yet.  Although I am really noticing the cupboards and fridge empty out, I still have a decent selection left of things I can cook with.  I just might be able to make it through the month without needing to go grocery shopping - except for milk. . . . unless Ethan wants to try milking one of our Dexters. ;)

One of the meals I recently made was my Grandpa Kies's Mulligan Stew, one of my favorite soups.  I didn't follow the recipe exactly, and I made some substitutes with the broth and tomato base that I was a bit unsure about working or not - but I think it actually turned out quite good.

Since there is still a bit of cold weather left this year, I thought I would share the recipe.  (Any leftovers freeze well too, by the way.)

Here's what I did:
              * the ?? are for where I didn't measure
1 pint home canned ground beef with broth
1 quart home canned diced tomatoes
3-4 potatoes (diced)
?? carrots (chopped)
?? stalk celery (chopped)
1 small onion (chopped)
?? frozen corn
1 pint home canned green beans with juice
1 pint home canned pinto/black beans
?? lentils
1/2 tsp garlic
1/2 tsp basil
1/4 tsp dry mustard
1/2 tsp oregano
1/2 tsp thyme
1 tsp salt
1 tsp pepper
2 bay leaves (remove before serving)
         :: cooked on low on the stove for 8+ hours

And here's the original recipe:

1 lb ground beef or cut up roast
2 c beef broth (canned or bullion cubes)
8 oz tomato sauce
3-4 potatoes (diced)
3-4 carrots (chopped)
1 stalk celery (chopped)
1 small onion (chopped)
1-2 cups cabbage (chopped)
1 can corn with juice
1 can green beans with juice
1/2 tsp garlic
1/2 tsp basil
1/4 tsp dry mustard
1/2 tsp oregano
1/2 tsp thyme
1 tsp salt
1 tsp pepper
2 bay leaves (remove before serving)
        :: cook in crockpot or on low heat as long as possible for best flavor