Planning Pumpkins and Projects

It's that time of year again. It's time to start planning your garden!

Have you made plans yet on how you can include your kids in your garden? Or if you don't have children at home, how about grandchildren, neighbors, or friends.

After all, growing a crop is wonderful, but what a blessing gardens can be to help grow relationships.

One of my favorite family crops: pumpkins!

If you don't have a lot of space, mini pumpkins are a ton of fun to grow and then decorate with.

 If space isn't an issue, be sure to grow the big ones too!

What a blast the kids will have scooping out a pumpkin they planted themselves . . .

to carve it into a favorite face! 

The kids helped me carve out this cat for our cat lover on his 6th birthday.

A Jack 'O Lantern isn't the only way to carve a pumpkin though. 

Once scooped clean, it can be baked . . .

 

 to be cubed and canned or pureed and frozen.

Seeds can be baked for fun snacks (don't forget to dry and save some for planting next year!), and the pumpkin can be pulled out for delicious baked goods.

Our dog lover was thrilled to get a doggie pumpkin pie to share at Thanksgiving for her 10th birthday.

Not only that, but the kids can learn to bake as well. From our 4 year old up, our kids work together to measure and mix up their pumpkin bread for snack time.

 Our 10 year old has also learned how to mix up and roll out a pie crust from her great grandma's pie recipe.

She carefully forms the crust in the pan to fill with the pumpkin mix she also prepared . . . 

to make pumpkin pies for her dad, his favorite!

And from her trial piece of chocolate chip pumpkin pie, I think she might be on to something!

When you plan your garden this year, be sure to plan for crops to enjoy throughout the growing season and maybe even crops to feed your family for the year.  I encourage you, however, to also use your garden to nurture year round the relationships that you have been blessed with.

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Tools of My Trade

A couple years ago I received a set of pastry rolling pin covers and a pastry cloth from my mom.  She picked them up for me at the Amish near where I grew up and told me about how her aunt use to use them.  Reluctantly, I gave them a try, and now I LOVE using them.  They are wonderful to prevent doughs from sticking and reduce the amount of flour needed when rolling out doughs, which in turn benefits your dough. Not only that, they are great to use with beginning bakers as they making the rolling out process so much easier.

A digital food scale, such as this one, is a very handy kitchen tool.  I will use mine when pre-measuring out my purees for freezing. By filling a baggie set in a container, I can quickly see when I have measured the amount needed without making a mess of spatulas and measuring cups - and my counter!

Hobbies and Birthday Cakes

Over Christmas, when talking with relatives about hobbies, Ethan told me that I should get a hobby.

My sister-in-law was the one to notice "the look" I gave back, as she knows that my hobbies have taken a shelf in the upper cabinet (or have been heaved up in the attic) as we have gotten our farm going with now 5 children whom are being home schooled.

When I think about it though, I still do have some things I would consider hobbies.  They aren't really activities I do regularly for leisure, but little extra things I do to enjoy occasions.  Things that wouldn't need to be done apart from the fact that I find enjoyment in them or want to bring others enjoyment through them.

One of these "hobbies" is making a special birthday cake for our kids' birthdays. I started this when our oldest, who is now ten, turned one. For the weeks leading up to their birthdays, I think about what has stood out in their previous year.  I then dig through my pans and bake ware to find just the right shapes to construct a cake to signify this - a cake not necessarily professional looking but one that is always greeted with excitement each birthday morning from kids who have been eagerly anticipating just what their cake will be.

As I have baked cakes and decorated them in preparation for birthdays, so many wonderful memories come back from the year before.  And although I have had some major frustrations while trying to prepare their cakes as I have envisioned them, I thoroughly enjoy the time of reflecting on how each of our children have blessed us with just being themselves from the year prior.

For this, I am happy to leave my hobbies in the attic. 

Our Jonathan turned 4 today. All year he has tagged along beside us with his level helping to farm and doing "what farmers do." No matter if it was a building project or working with livestock, everything got checked for level - so why not his cake too?

After he put on his safety glasses, he got to take off the level to check it himself. He also was able to measure it,

 pound in the nails,

and screw in the screws.

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Don't Waste that Turkey!

This past Sunday we had our Thanksgiving meal at church.  Ethan volunteered to cook a turkey, and I got ready to can up some turkey and broth.

Although we have yet to raise our own turkeys, I have been canning turkey for at least 7 years according to this blog post.  It almost pains me to see a cooked turkey disposed of without continuing to cook it down to get off the extra meat and to make broth.  There are often so many meals left on a turkey - meat for casseroles and sandwiches and broth for flavoring rice and noodles or for making soup.

When it comes to not wasting our turkey, a bit has changed over the years: We have switched from cooking our turkey in the oven to cooking it in a roaster, from cooking the broth in a pot to just continuing to cook it in that same roaster (You can find my photo tutorial on cooking broth on our CGF recipe blog.), and even my turkey soup recipe has changed from my original recipe.

A few things still remain the same though.  I still get excited when I have stocked my pantry with canned turkey and turkey broth, and Ethan continues to declare his turkey feelings every year.

If you are cooking a turkey this Thanksgiving, I encourage you to not throw out the carcus but instead try making your own turkey broth.  If you don't pressure can (or aren't ready to try out my series of posts on Beginning Pressure Canning), you can always freeze your broth and leftover turkey meat or just go ahead and make a big pot of soup to enjoy. 


CGF Turkey and Vegetable Soup

• 1 qt turkey broth
• 1 pt turkey
• 1/4 cup + 2 T dehydrated carrots (1 1/2 cup fresh or frozen)
• 1/4 cup +2 T dehydrated green beans (1 1/2 cup fresh or fozen) or 1 pt green beans with juice
• 1/2 cup frozen or fresh chopped onion
• 2 cup frozen sweet corn
• 1 qt canned diced potatoes or 4 cups raw
• 2 stalks celery chopped
• 1/4 cup lentils
• 1/4 cup wild rice
• 1/2 cup barley
• 2 tsp salt
• 1/3 tsp pepper
• 1/2 tsp garlic
• 1 bay leaf (remove before serving)

** This recipe is based on the different ways I have preserved my produce.  Ingredients can be substituted, omitted, or additional ingredients added depending on availability and tastes.

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Tools of My Trade

Although a roaster might be hard to find at a garage sale or from an individual no longer needing one, you might be able to snatch one at an estate auction. I placed a 22 qt roaster (vs the 18 quart) on my Christmas list. I use it for multiple projects, and not just ones where I need to heat with it. I can't remember how I functioned with out it! Here is the link to the roaster I own, and I am very happy with it..

Much of what I preserve is pressure canned due to the foods' low acidity in order to kill all bacteria that would cause dangerous food born illnesses. Foods can be safely canned by using the recommended times and pressures given for your altitude. I have a couple older Mirro pressure canners given to me that work wonderfully, and my mom has a newer one that she loves as well. If you do some asking around, you might find someone who has given up canning and has one available, or you can look for one like the one pictured below. It should hold around 9 pint jars or 7 quart jars. This link will take you to my series of posts on Beginning Pressure Canning.

County Fair 2014

Early this month was our county fair.

I usually don't get super excited about county or state fair.  I was in 4-H growing up, and I would go to fair just long enough to take my projects, participate in the pet show, and take part in the pie baking contest. One year I did the broiler project - having to raise and process 50 broilers.  One year was enough for that.

I rarely walked through any parts of the fair besides where I needed to go.  I really prefer to stay away from big crowds (unless it's a gathering of people I know or will get to know), and if I have to dodge piles of manure and smell animals, I would rather do that on a farm.

Even so, over the last number of years we have taken a handful of trips to the county fair and almost yearly trips to the state fair. State fair was something Ethan grew up doing with his dad each year, and he dreamed of being a fair kid hanging out with his livestock in the livestock barn.  They made a full day of their trip, checking out all the fair had to offer - minus the food stands as they would retreat for an afternoon lunch at the car. Once we started our family, Ethan became excited about taking our kids. And although I really was not that interested in the fair experience, I did really like spending a day Ethan and the kids.

Now that our oldest has finished 4th grade, however, fair has taken on a new twist since he is also in 4-H.  If you've listened to Ethan's podcast that includes Caleb as a guest, you might have caught that we spent more or less an entire week at the county fair mid July as Caleb took took in his projects and showed sheep, chickens, and rabbits, adding in the daily chores at the fair too. Even though we have made sure that what Caleb takes and shows reflects his work, Ethan can now be a "fair dad" in those barns even though he didn't get to be a "fair kid".

I do have to say, that fair is much more enjoyable when you have someone you know showing things there - especially when it is your kid. And I will admit that I really didn't mind hanging out at fair so much this year, and I did spend quite a bit of time in the livestock barns too.

And to also add a bit more draw for me, I discovered that there is a building previously hidden from me on the fair grounds for open class entries - a place where you can take various homemaking items to be judged for awards. I found out about this last minute, but I was able to dig through my closets and pantry to grab a few things to enter that I had worked on over the year, many of which received placings.

I didn't take a ton of things since I didn't know if my jars would be opened (and unable to be consumed after fair), and I didn't want to spend the money on ingredients for baked goods that we wouldn't get to eat either. Now I know though that jars aren't opened, that garden produce does not have to be fully ripe, and that you also get to take home 3/4 of each baked good once they have been judged. (And that pies go in 2 days after canned goods . . . something good to know so your crust stays nice!)

So here I am, just weeks after the fair, and I'm thinking about what all I can set aside to take to fair next year.  Part of it is because it adds a little excitement to the mundane tasks of my day/year (I would have taken so many more canned goods if I knew they would have remained sealed.), and some of it is that it is fun to get a little bit of premium money which I have picked a purpose for (although there are lots of ways to save money at home, it's a bit harder to generate money.).

Still, I think the best part of county fair is the time spent with my family, and now also seeing our kids enjoy taking part in fair with their interests.

Caleb's Livestock Awards for Sheep, Poultry, and Rabbits

Caleb's Projects and Awards

Hannah's 4-H Clover Kids (K-3rd grade) Projects and Recognitions

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Introducing: My Conversion Robot

As I was teaching my 4th grader his math this past week, I was reminded of a little robot that I drew up when I was teaching a 4th - 6th grade combined class at the boarding school we once worked at.
To help Caleb remember equivalent volumes of liquid measure, I drew my robot for him as well.  I also showed him a little checker board chart that I made to help with measurements within one cup.

I often end up changing the quantity of original recipes when I am cooking recipes from scratch, putting together jars of spice mixes, and canning with pints and quarts. I refer to these little illustrations, which are now in my head, quite a bit.

Although I am slightly embarrassed by my lack of artistic skills, I thought I would share them with you too. 

You can click on him for a zoomed in view, and if you really like him, feel free to print him out and stick him in your cupboard or recipe box. 

Here's how my robot works if you were wondering. (I would be if I were you!)

• The robots body equates one gallon.
• The robots belt divides the robots body into half gallons.
• A robot needs arms and legs, of course. There are 4 quarts in one gallon. (I'm sure you can figure out the half gallon.)
• In order for the robot to do its work, it needs some way to pick things up.  It has 2 pivoting triangles on each appendage that make grapples. Each quart has two pints.
• This robot is quite a klutz in the kitchen like I am, so it needs some suction cups on its grapples. Two suction cups per triangle will help quite a bit. Each pint has 2 cups.
• And just in case 2 suction cups weren't enough, each of these suction cups is comprised of 8 mini suction cups.  Each cup has 8 oz. 

And on a smaller scale of measurement (and a smaller scale of creativity), is this checkerboard conversion chart that I drew up.

• The checkerboard as a whole equals 1 cup and is divided into 4ths, four 1/4 cups.
• Each 1/4 cup contains four squares marked with a T for 4 Tablespoons per 1/4 cup.
• Each T has 3 dots attached to it, showing there are 3 teaspoons per Tablespoon.

With all of the Christmas cooking and baking that will be going on in the next couple of weeks, I'm sure there will be many recipes being adjusted and changed.  I know in this house there has been, and that silly little robot and checkerboard gets visualized often!

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Hand Tossing a From-Scratch Pizza Crust

When I was growing up, we always had Friday night as pizza night.  My mom had a homemade crust recipe that she would use, which was eventually replaced with a premix crust recipe, which soon turned into a pizza ordered from our local pizza place in our town of 2000.  Still, Joe's Pizza is my absolute favorite pizza.

If it were up to me, I would have Joe's pizza on our Friday night pizza nights, however, you do pay for what you get with this wonderful pizza, and we live 3 hours away.

So I have worked my way backwards in my Friday night pizza traditions.  When there was no longer Joe's, I opted for the premix pizza crust.  I soon realized in my increasing frugality, that it would be much cheaper to make the crust from scratch, so I pulled out my mom's old pizza crust recipe.

It was a good recipe, and it made a nice pizza dough.  There was one problem though.  I had in mind that I wanted a pizza crust I could toss, and this recipe was not tossable.

Thus began my hunt for the perfect pizza crust recipe. 

I think about the time Ethan and I got married, I had collected a few pizza crusts recipes that I could toss.  Still, I was not content with them.  Some were too bready, some too thin. Some just didn't have the right taste to them.

It seems like I played around with crust recipes for at least 7 or 8 years, mixing recipes, adding ingredients, taking out ingredients, etc.

I wouldn't say that I have the perfect pizza crust recipe, but a couple years ago I finally worked one out that has ended my search and remaking of recipes. 

Because I value the importance of building tradition in families, I have decided to share with you my recipe and how I prepare my pizza crust in case a Friday night pizza night is a tradition you might like to add as well.

So turn your Pandora Italian station on, or better yet, save Pandora until your pizza is ready and make up a silly pizza tossing song to the tune of Giuseppe Verdi's La donna e mobile to make your kids giggle and cheer as you toss your pizza, and enjoy. :)

 

Ingredients needed: (first three jars from left to right) yeast, wheat berries (or flour), home rendered lard (or olive or vegetable oil), salt, water

Optional ingredients: (back right two jars) gluten (to help whole wheat crusts not crumble), dough enhancer (to maintain freshness - I rarely use since our leftovers don't last more than 24 hours.)

  

 

I like to freshly grind my wheat berries, using a soft white winter wheat.  If I use a harder red winter wheat, I will usually add in a little white flour.  This recipe is also wonderful just using a store bought white flour, but I like to add in the extra nutrients since I have the equipment and wheat berries.

The Recipe (makes 3 pizzas)

• Dissolve 3 tablespoons yeast in 3 cups hot water (not too hot to touch or you will kill the yeast.) 
• Slowly mix in 5 cups flour, 2 tsp salt, 1/4 cup softened lard, as well as 2 tablespoons gluten and 1 tablespoon dough enhancer if desired. 
• Knead in approximately 2 cups flour.  I use my kitchen aid to do this, but you can also knead it in by hand.  You will want to add flour in until you can press your down into your dough ball without getting dough stuck on your finger.  In order to get a good tossable pizza, you will need to learn the art of getting just the right amount of flour in.   

After the dough is mixed together, you will need to divide up your dough into your 3 crusts.  I use a small amount of lard on a pizza pan to prevent sticking and then place my dough on the pan. 

From here I will form a flattened rectangle out of my pizza dough.

This rectangle gets divided into thirds using a spatula.  The thirds don't have to be perfect.  Just close.

You will then need to shape each section of dough into a ball.  Since this is hard to explain through pictures, you can check out this helpful Youtube video.

Now it is time to let the bread dough rise. The dough will need to be covered in order to keep the dough from drying out, which will form a crust and prevent the dough from rising properly.  I like to use (and reuse) cereal bags that I have saved and washed. (Yeah, I save cereal bags.  As you will later see, I save my ziplocks too.  Waste not, want not, right???)

You will also want to preheat your oven to 400 degrees at this time.

Unlike when I make bread, I really don't monitor the rising time of my pizza dough that closely.  20 minutes seems to be about right though. 

Once your dough has risen, it's time to prepare it for tossing.  I probably don't prepare and toss my dough like the pros.  If I did, I might need a totally different recipe!  So I just stick to the way I started.

First, I press down on my dough with open hands to flatten it a bit.  After that, I go around the outside with my fingers and really flatten the outer edge. Now it's time to toss!

Like I mentioned, I don't toss pizza like a pro.  But I can toss it now without dropping it.

Not dropping pizza wasn't always the case.  My kids like to remind me of the story I told them from the first year Ethan and I were married.  I came back home one day to a very distinct smell of beer in the house.  Since I knew we didn't have any beer when I left, I asked Ethan if he had for some reason brought some beer home to drink during the day.  He claimed he hadn't. For about the next half an hour, I wandered the house repeating that the house just smelled like beer.  And then it hit me.  My pizza dough.  I had dropped a pizza I was trying to toss 3 days earlier and just threw the dough into the garbage can . . . and the dough was starting to ferment.

Anyway, back to tossing dough. I make somewhat of a fist with both hands, and with a spinning-tossing motion, send the dough into the air.

I will say that it greatly helps to now have 10 foot ceilings. I don't think I have ever dropped a pizza dough in this house.  

These high ceilings even give me a little time to do a spin while I sing my silly pizza tossing song, hence the cheers from my children . . . and the giggles when I almost lose the crust, which I will probably do sometime - but it will be well worth it in place of the fun I have with the kids.  (It also helps that this recipe is for 3 pizzas!) 

I will then repeat my pizza tossing until the crust is the size that I want, or until I overtoss and break a hole in it. These holes can easily be mended with a little stretching back to shape, and small crusts can be stretched as well to fit your pizza pan.

After you have your dough to size, it's time to poke some holes in it.  This will let steam escape and keep large bubbles from forming as your crust bakes. All you need is a fork, and trust me, kids will have much more fun poking these holes than you will, especially since you can't really poke too many of them.

It is now time to pre-bake your pizza crust for 7-10 minutes. You will want to pull your crust out of the oven just before the crust starts to golden. You can skip this step if you are really hungry, but you might end up with a floppy crust, yet a still good tasting one. 

 

Once your crust has pre-baked, it's time to top, another fun job for the kids. 

Our favorite toppings are our homemade pizza sauce, which is canned from our heirloom garden tomatoes, mozzarella cheese, our Crooked Gap Farm Italian Sausage or ham, our frozen green peppers, and a sprinkling of cheddar cheese. Once topped, the pizza is baked for 15 or so minutes, until the cheese has melted and is starting to golden.

This crust makes an absolutely amazing pizza, especially when baked on a pizza stone.

Since I only have one pizza stone, the other two of my crusts will be baked on cookie sheets (which will need to be greased), and make a pretty tasty pizza as well. 

Well . . . actually the other 8 of my crusts.

I'll let you in on another of my pizza making secrets.

Farm life is full.  Sometimes there just isn't time enough on a Friday to make hand tossed pizza.

So in order to keep our Friday night pizza nights a tradition, I have came up with a way to have pre-made, homemade hand tossed pizzas.

Since I already have my ingredients out, counters and mixer messy, and oven on, I just go ahead and make 2 more batches of pizza dough.

 

These last pizzas will be tossed just like the first, stretched to fit a rectangular pan, poked, and pre-baked as well.

They then are placed on a cooling rack to fully cool. (As not to prevent sticking when frozen.)

Once cool, they are cut in half, matched up with like sides together, placed in a 2 gallon size zip lock freezer bag (yup, wash and save those too), and placed into the freezer until a Friday night when I don't have time to make a crust.  (As for being cut in half, just match them back up, top them, and you'll hardly notice.)

Pizza crust making day ends up being a pretty full afternoon or evening, but from the fun we have not only preparing the crusts, but also having crusts ready to top and enjoy another Friday night, it is time well spent.

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Tools of My Trade

My Nutrimill will grind grains extra fine to course. It's main use is for grinding wheat berries to make wheat bread. Freshly ground wheat is so much more nutritious than the wheat flour that has sat on the shelves. It is also more economical to grind it yourself, minus the cost of the wheat grinder. (I put my wheat grinder on my Christmas/January birthday list and asked gift givers to go together on it.) In addition to grinding wheat though, it can also grind quite a variety of other grains including beans and corn. You can even make your own cornmeal (they say popcorn works best!). See here for more information about grinding wheat at home.  You might be able to find a nice used one on e-bay, or you can purchase one new as in the link below.

Ethan and I received a pizza stone for our wedding, and shortly after it broke many years later, a friend offered us an extra one she had out of the blue.  Pizzas cook well on regular cookie sheets, but pizza stones just add that extra deliciousness to a pizza crust!  They are wonderful for baking cookies on as well.  Pizza stones, like the one linked, are easy to find in most department stores.

A Wintery Day's Carrot Dig

The Saturday before last we were working on projects outside.  To tell you the truth, I can't even really remember what we were doing.  All I remember is that there was snow on the ground, and the temperatures were expected to drop even further starting that evening.  
I had spent the beginning of November winterizing the garden.  Old plants were pulled.  Mulch was raked up and added to the perennial rhubarb and asparagus. Wire supports were wrapped up and stacked up.  The only things that remained were the broccoli that was still producing and two rows of carrots that needed dug, which had been companion planted with onions under the tomatoes. 

I left these last plants because other things were calling my name, thinking that I just might harvest some more broccoli (which I didn't) and knowing that carrots do quite well being stored in the cool soil. Some people even cover them with a layer of straw for insulation and dig them throughout the winter as needed. 

Not me.

I have a hard enough time finding time to peel them when we would like to eat them, let alone bundling up to go out in the cold, uncover them, and dig them.

Still, I left my carrots, planning to come back to them as soon as I could.

Back to last Saturday . . . As I contemplated the soon to be setting sun, snow covered ground, and my last two rows of carrots in the garden, I decided that they needed dug that evening or I should just forget about them.

After all of the work of preparing the soil, planting the carrots, pulling out weeds, and the fact that I hadn't yet harvested enough to feed our family through the winter, I opted for the former option. 

By the time this decision was made, the light from the warming sun (as warming as you can get in November) was fading fast, and the cold was creeping in.  My 7 and 4 year old headed into the house to warm up, but my 9 and 2 year old were delighted to stay out and help snatch up the carrots being surfaced by my potato fork, fascinated by the worms also unearthed despite the cold, somewhat frozen ground.

I was thankful for their help as well. Good company distracts from cold toes.

In a shorter amount of time than I predicted, our box was filled with beautifully sized carrots and frozen-ish soil stuck around them.

The box of carrots, along with a few worms hiding in stubborn chunks of iced soil, were set in the mud room.  A few days later I worked the last of the soil off, filled a paper grocery sack almost 3/4 full of still chilled carrots, and placed the sack in the storm shelter.

Although I won't dig carrots in the dead of winter, I can periodically muster up courage enough to venture out to the storm shelter in order to bring a assortment of produce into the house to stock the fridge and pantry.

Better yet, however, are the carrots that I can store in our pantry without fear of spoilage AND that are prepared to use.

A couple of years ago I received a free, larger scale food dehydrator in the mail from Cabelas, our favorite store. Okay.  It was once our favorite store.  In a former, non-farming life.  But we still do use our Cabela's card (which we pay off right away each month), and we receive wonderful points that allow me to do things like request a free food dehydrator delivered to my door.

I am still learning all of the things that my food dehydrator can do, but I have found out that one of these things is to dehydrate a good portion of my garden produce which saves freezer space, preserves nutrients, textures and flavors that might be lost in canning, and makes this produce ready to quickly add into my recipes.

While many of my carrots will remain in our storm shelter to be retrieved and eaten fresh, I do dehydrate many of my carrots.  To do this, I take a batch of carrots, peel them, run them through the food processor to thinly and evenly slice them, and then I spread them out onto the trays of my food dehydrator to dehydrate.

What I end up with are jars of carrot slices, 1/4 the volume of pre-dehydrated carrots, that are able to be stored on a shelf in the pantry, free from a blustery winter day's venture to the storm shelter.

Not only that, but I also have pre-sliced carrots that are ready to be used in any recipe of my choosing.

It is what I call Crooked Gap Farm convenience food.

On Saturday, we wanted to set the posts for our hoop house. Ethan needed my help the majority of the day, but 6 hungry mouths still needed to be nourished. My solution, I pull out my convenience food - grabbing jars from the cupboards, baggies from the freezer, and quickly put together meals like this turkey and noodle soup, which can warm on the stove until our meal time.

As I enjoy these warming meal, filled with the produce from our farm, produce that echos my spring, summer, fall, and sometimes wintery days, I am thankful. I am thankful for a husband who lives out his desire to have me stay home with our children, for our children who joyfully join me as I work at home, and for the ability to help support our family through opportunities given to me on the farm.

CGF Turkey and Vegetable Soup

• 1 qt turkey broth
• 1 pt turkey
• 1/4 cup + 2 T dehydrated carrots (1 1/2 cup fresh or frozen)
• 1/4 cup +2 T dehydrated green beans (1 1/2 cup fresh or fozen) or 1 pt green beans with juice
• 1/2 cup frozen or fresh chopped onion
• 2 cup frozen sweet corn
• 1 qt canned diced potatoes or 4 cups raw
• 2 stalks celery chopped
• 1/4 cup lentils
• 1/4 cup wild rice
• 1/2 cup barley
• 2 tsp salt
• 1/3 tsp pepper
• 1/2 tsp garlic
• 1 bay leaf (remove before serving)

** This recipe is based on the different ways I have preserved my produce.  Ingredients can be substituted, omitted, or additional ingredients added depending on availability.

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Tools of My Trade

About the same time the simple round food dehydrator we received for our wedding burned out, a friend told me about her Excalibur food dehydrator.  I did a little research on it, and was very impressed with the reviews of how it evenly dehydrates food, the various temperatures you can set, the amount of food it holds, and even all of the other uses it has besides dehydrating foods - such as raising breads or making yogurt. We had accumulated enough Cabela's Club points for me to order the model linked to free of charge. Although the simpler of the models, I am so glad that I went with this dehydrator instead of another round stacking dehydrator.  It is definitely worth every penny, even if I had paid for it!

This book is a wonderful resource on companion planting in order to grow foods without the use of chemicals. It details good and bad companions, how various plants work together for increased flavor, productivity, and pest control.  It includes information not only for the vegetable garden, but also for companion planting with fruits, nut trees, ornamental plants, and much more. Copies of this book can be found used or you can purchase a new copy from the link provided.