Strawberry Season

Strawberry season is almost over here in the Piedmont of North Carolina. Last weekend I bought 7 gallons of strawberries (for $10/gallon) from the farmers market. These strawberries, along with many other local strawberries that were for sale, are pesticide free. That's fantastic since conventional strawberries are listed as one of the "dirty dozen" (fruits and vegetables most highly contaminated with pesticides).

I'm stocking the freezer so that we'll have strawberries to enjoy the rest of the year. We don't buy strawberries in December. December strawberries come from far away places and because of that, they're picked when they're pink in order to make the journey. A pink, hard strawberry is not a strawberry as far as I'm concerned. Nothing compares to the flavor of strawberries picked at the peak of the season.

I froze 5 1/2 gallons of whole strawberries. I froze them whole this year so I can use them in smoothies, baked goods, or puree them to make freezer jam later in the year.

Come January, it may be winter outside, but it will always be summer in our freezer.

The Switch To Local Milk and Garden Update

We recently started buying local milk. We are lucky enough to have a local farm that produces milk from cows who are raised humanely, fed on pasture and grains grown on the same farm, and never receive additional hormones. Homeland Creamery is in Julian, NC and I'm hoping to be able to take a trip out to the farm in the next few months. Cows who are grass-fed are healthier animals and their milk is healthier. Homeland Creamery does use some grain but I am happy that they're on pasture much of the time.



The milk is pasteurized (raw milk is illegal in NC) in such a way as to retain the creaminess of the milk. Since I can't drink milk (due to IBS), I had Jon do a taste test. I had him taste the 2% milk from the store and then the 2% from Homeland Creamery. He knew instantly which was the "new" milk because he said it tasted much creamier. He said the store bought 2% tasted like water in comparison.

There's a small store on the way to preschool that carries Homeland Creamery's milk. It is more expensive then the milk I used to buy at Walmart but only by $1.50 a gallon. That may sound like a lot but when I did the math and realized that our 10 gallons a month would only cost us an extra $15, we decided it was worth it. That's less then it would cost for us to go out to eat. I'm happy to support a local farm that raises their animals humanely, the milk tastes better, and the milk is better for my family.

They also sell homemade butter. We don't go through much butter since Jon and kids mostly just use it on toast so this pound of butter should last a long while.

The last thing I bought was a half gallon of heavy cream. The ice cream recipe I use calls for 1 cup of cream (along with 3 cups of whole milk) so I divided the rest up into freezer containers and now I have 7 cups of cream in the freezer ready for the next batch of ice cream.

I made Jon and the kids some strawberry ice cream over the weekend. Jon said it should be a crime to eat something that good. I used my go-to ice cream recipe and added about 1/2 cup of strawberry jam from last year's strawberries. It's not very often that I get sad about not being able to eat dairy, but I have to admit that I really wanted some of this ice cream.

Now for the garden update...

The seeds I planted a few weeks ago weren't as successful as I had hoped. I had less then 1/2 of my seeds germinate. I spent a few mornings this week getting the garden ready for the second round of seeding.

This lettuce is coming up pretty well. There are bare spots but I'm wondering if maybe I'll try to transplant some of my thinnings in a week or two to help fill in the bare spots.

The sugar snap peas are really starting to grow. I transplanted some of the plants from the other end of the bed to make a more dense patch of peas. The transplants are doing well.

My swiss chard plant that survived the winter is doing really well. I'm going to be harvesting some to add to soup later this week.

So, after I weeded the teeny, tiny weeds that had sprouted everywhere, I put up the garden fence. We have quite a few wild rabbits in the woods behind our house and one groundhog who I assume will be making an appearance again soon. I don't want to risk having my little plants eaten.

I replanted the beds that didn't have much success the first time around. I interplanted some beds. My broccoli beds now have musclun greens and spinach planted with it. My carrot bed has now been seeded with mustard greens (I've never tried them before... that's some of the fun of a garden). I planted spinach around the edge of the kohlrabi bed. I put in lettuce seeds just about anywhere I thought they'd fit. Hopefully these seeds will germinate better and we'll have a full salad bowl in a month or so.

I'm hoping this picture will look much different next month.

This weekend I'm hoping to get back garden ready for planting. I'm going to be buying my tomato plants and putting in seeds for summer veggies soon. Now, as long as Mother Nature cooperates, we'll be eating well this summer.

I've linked this post up with Simple Lives Thursday.

A Brand Spankin' New Year

Isn't it amazing how the beginning of a new calendar can make everything seem possible? A whole year stretching ahead with nothing but possibilities. We've started off our New Year by clearing out the clutter and junk from our house. We've bagged it, boxed it, and either thrown it out or boxed it for charity. We're not done with all of the rooms but we're 75% there. It feels good to get rid of stuff that is no longer needed or wanted.

Last year I watched a movie ("Food Inc.") and read two books ("Omnivores Dilemma" and "In Defense of Food") that changed the way I think about food and changed the way my family eats (well, 95% of the time, that is). I'd like to look back at this past year and revisit the resolutions I made a year ago today.

2010 Res.#1- Buy fewer processed foods - Last year I jumped right in and tried to make everything possible from scratch. I made hamburger rolls, pretzels, crackers, ... you name it. Some things were wonderful and some things were flops. I spent a lot of time in the kitchen. Don't get me wrong, I love cooking and baking but I would like to continue to love it. By burning myself out (pun intended) by trying to make everything, I ruin the fun and love of food. Food shouldn't be a chore.

Evan learning to roll out pizza dough

Last year I started to slowly transition from making everything under the stars to making some things and buying the rest. I've found a good balance that I'm happy with. The foods I do buy are as close to whole foods as I can manage while still saving me time in the kitchen. I look at labels and find foods with fewest ingredients and ingredients I recognize as food. I make all our cookies, muffins, and treats. The snack foods I buy are crackers, pretzels, and the occasional bag of chips. I tried making those from scratch but I've been met with only mediocre success. So now I buy them and bake them when I want to... and when it makes me happy.

I've finally been successful in ridding our house of foods containing High-Fructose Corn Syrup or Partially Hydrogenated oils. I've been able to find foods from Walmart that are free of those ingredients which makes it easier to stick to our grocery budget. It was tricky finding some things that didn't contain those ingredients (Worcestershire sauce and beans... who know?) but it makes grocery shopping more fun. Okay, fun might be pushing it a bit. Still, playing "read the ingredients" can be enlightening.

2010 Res.#2- Buy local whenever possible -

I've added lots of local products to our diet this past year.... beef, pork, honey, eggs, and all kinds of fruits and veggies. I've added as many things as I can manage without stress and without breaking the bank. My sister raised chickens for me this past year so now my freezer is full of free-range chicken. My mom has a wonderful flock of backyard chickens and is VERY generous with sharing the eggs they lay.

Some things have proved too expensive (local pastured poultry and local dairy) so I do what I can and I don't stress about the rest. I still buy bacon from the store. Until I can find a good local source with bacon I can afford, I'll switch. Until then, I buy bacon and don't stress. Again, it's all about balance for me.

Homemade cinnamon rolls with local scrambled eggs and homemade applesauce from local apples

2010 Res. #3 - Get the most from my garden - Well, last year's garden started off great but soon went downhill starting with temperatures in the 90's in April! We had a hot, hot summer with either no rain or way too much. We traveled 4 of 8 weeks last summer so it made keeping up with weeds and harvests challenging to say the least. I could have spent every moment that I was home between vacations weeding, watering, and trying to save anything that would survive our unusual summer but instead I decided to let it go. Letting it go was hard because of all the planning and work that went into making last year's garden. I was sad to look out and see my meadow of weeds but it was a lost cause.

So, last year's third resolution was a flop. The good news is that there is no garden police. Thank goodness or else I would have been thrown in the slammer for neglect. I'm hoping that this year our weather will be a bit closer to average. I'm going to plan a garden around our summer traveling. I will grow a garden that provides me with enjoyment as well as food. And if all else fails, I'll be at the Farmer's Market, basket in hand.

Last year's resolutions led to the way that we eat now. I am so happy with the food that we eat. I'm happy with the balance I've found. I don't want to be fearful of food and I don't want to lose the joy of eating it.

So, this year? What do I want to resolve to do this year? Well, I'm not quite sure. I'm very happy with life at this moment. I guess if I had to pick one thing to do differently this year, I would pick.... drum roll, please..

2011 New Year's Resolution ... Eat More Vegetables

Yep, that's it. Nothing dramatic. I want to "keep on, keepin' on" the way I am right now... only with a few more veggies in my diet.

So, here's wishing you a Happy New Year full of possibilities!

Up To My Eyeballs In Apples

Ever since we went apple picking, 2 weeks ago, I've been steadily trying to turn 3 of the 6 bushels into applesauce. It takes me about an hour to peel and chop enough apples to fill my 4 quart crock pot. I have about a bushel left.

I usually freeze my applesauce in quart containers (yogurt containers) but this year my chest freezer is full of chicken (a good problem to have). I decided to can my applesauce this year. This is the first canning I've done on my own. I can vaguely remember canning with my mom as a teenager and I helped my sister can venison during my last visit. So, with my sister's advice and a wealth of online information on how to can, I got started. It's actually very easy to water-bath can. Once I had everything laid out and ready to go, it only takes a few minutes to get everything in the jars and into the canner. My kitchen has looked like this many times in the past two weeks.

I love looking at the processed jars. I've made many types of applesauce and I love looking at the different colors.

So far I've made strawberry, blueberry, cinnamon, "apple pie" (extra cinnamon, nutmeg, and a bit of sugar), and peach and cherry are in the canner right now.

Look how deep purple the blueberry applesauce is. I don't really have recipes for the fruit applesauce... it's more of a method.

When fruit was in season this spring/summer, I would buy in bulk, puree it, and freeze it in 2 cup bags. When my apples are almost done cooking in the crock pot, I put in one of the frozen chunks of fruit. Most of the time 2 cups of fruit per 3 or 4 quarts of applesauce is enough but sometimes I had more. I also add a bit of water, pinch of salt, and other spices depending on the flavor I'm making. I've added about 1/2 cup of sugar to some of my big batches of applesauce because my apples are a bit more tart this year then in years past. I don't like a very sweet applesauce though so 1/2 cup has been plenty for a 4 quart batch.

I can't wait to show you all of my jars lined up when I'm done processing them all. Now, we don't really have to open them, do we? All this work peeling, chopping, stirring, canning... just to pop open a jar and eat it so quickly... Oh well, this applesauce tastes so good that it's definitely worth it!

Just A Few Apples.....

Saturday morning, we drove up to Ararat, VA to visit Windy Hill Orchards. It was an almost chilly 70* at 9am and a perfectly clear day. It was a beautiful orchard in the hills. I picked Windy Hill because they use a low-spray approach and integrated pest management. This means fewer pesticides are used and therefore the apples are healthier for us to eat. The You-Pick apples are only $10 a bushel so it's quite a deal. We had the orchard to ourselves most of the time. I guess not many people think to go apple picking at 9am on a Saturday morning.
Apple picking makes Charlotte go a little nuts.....

Maybe it was the fresh air and sunshine....

The kids thought the long-handled picker was a lot of fun.

Jon took this amazing picture. I love when he thinks out of the box and takes such imaginative pictures.

After he took a few photos, Jon put on the apple bag and got to work. He's quite a fast apple picker.

Evan got bored with picking and decided to make his own game with the bushel boxes.

Windy Hill had so many apple varieties. It was hard to keep them all straight.

Look at this gorgeous Red Delicious apple! I shined it up on my shirt.

Most of the trees were loaded with fruit.

This was the biggest apple I had ever seen. I'm not sure if you can tell but this apple is bigger then a softball.

Whew.... after almost 2 hours, we had 6 bushels of apples to take home with us plus a gallon of apple cider for the freezer. We got 2 bushels of Stayman, 2 bushels of Granny Smith, and 2 bushels of Red Delicious. With the price of $10 a bushel, I figured the more apples, the better!

Now comes the work. I'm storing the 2 bushels of Granny Smiths and 1 bushel of Stayman in the back of my mom's garage where it stays nice and cool. I'll bake with those apples throughout the fall and winter. The other 3 bushels will be made into applesauce and apple butter.

It was a beautiful, fun morning!

Farmer's Market Pick-Me-Up

This past Saturday morning, I was trying to answer emails while listening to the children bounce between fussing with each other and joining forces to make as much happy noise as possible. Jon was trying to catch up on some sleep in the bedroom since he's working such long hours now due to marching band.
I couldn't help but laugh at myself for thinking Saturday mornings were supposed to be relaxing. No one told my children that Saturdays were for lounging around. So, I decided we could use a change of scenery.
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Charlotte decided to stay home with Jon because she was convinced that we wouldn't get back in time for her to go to a birthday party hours later. Evan and I loaded up into the van and off we went to the Farmer's Market.
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The thing I love best at going to the market early on a Saturday morning is that you don't have to spend much money to get some really great things. It's also nice to say hi to the vendors that I've come to know a bit.
I brought home a small jar of local honey. It's a light tasting honey perfect for topping english muffins. I finally bought a small bowl to replace my Mother's Day bowl. Lastly I bought some goat's milk lotion and a bag of soap scraps. I put the scraps in a twist-tied onion bag and use it just like regular bar soap.
Evan also bought a little bag of sesame seed cookies but they were eaten too fast to snap a picture of them.
Here's the pretty little bowl with salt in it. I'm keeping this one far away from the soy sauce bottle.

I was in such a better mood when I got home. Getting out of the house for a bit and bringing home little treasures was just what I needed.

Processing Broiler Chickens

*** Warning*** This post shows chickens during processing but does not show any blood***

My sister was generous enough to raise 25 broiler chickens for our family. She blogged about their progress several times. The chickens were Cornish Cross chickens. Some people don't think this breed of chicken, bred for fast, large growth, can free range. You should have seen these almost 11 week old chickens running across the yard when it was feeding time. They were very mobile and would wander around the yard, through the woods, and follow you everywhere.


While the kids and I were visiting a few weeks ago, we processed the broilers. This was the first time I've seen a chicken killed and participated in getting a live animal ready to be eaten. I was a bit nervous but I felt like it was important to help... not only because I didn't want my sister to have to do the work by herself but also because I thought it was important to learn what really went into getting an animal ready to go on the table.

We got a few things ready the night before. Katie took some scrap lumber and quickly made a stand that the killing cones would be mounted on.

It was really sturdy.
Then David helped to make the killing cones from thin metal flashing. He used rivets to fasten the cones. We put duct tape around the edges of the flashing to protect ourselves from the sharp edges. This was the first part of our set up. We had the killing station and the plucking station.

Here are the cones being used. The chicken goes head first into the cone so the head and neck is accessible. The bungee keeps the chickens from flipping themselves out of the cone when their muscles contract.
I killed one chicken but I was very relieved that Katie did the rest. It was unnerving to do the actual killing. Once the chickens didn't have head anymore, it didn't bother me at all. They suddenly became meat once their heads were gone. I stuck mostly to the plucking station.



Before we could start plucking we swirled the chickens around in hot water for about 30 seconds to loosen the feathers.

Then we took them to the power drill plucker. (Not sure why it looks like I have a hump in this picture) David and Katie built a plucker with pvc fittings, rubber straps, and a power drill. As the rubber straps would spin, they would take a lot of the feathers off.

Katie was really good at the power plucker. You can't tell by the picture but there were feather flying everywhere. We tried to catch most of them in the blue tote and the board behind it caught a lot of the others which made clean up a bit easier.

After we had all of the chickens plucked (they went straight into a barrel full of cold water), it was onto the gutting station. We had been working for about 4 hours at this point and it was nice to be able to stand up straight and work away from the hot pot of water.

Katie showed me how to gut the chickens and I gutted one by myself. Then we worked out a system where I would start one chicken (cut off it's feet, and other wise prep it for gutting) and hand it off to Katie while I started another one.

Katie was a good teacher and made this stuff look so easy. I felt clumsy sometimes but got the hang of it after a while.

After about 7 hours of work, we had this to show for it...

I don't know when I've been more tired but I was so happy with the work we had just done. I was glad that I not only "got through it" but got comfortable with most parts of the process. I think the chickens had an average weight of 4.5-5 pounds but Katie's scale was acting up.

We tried to add up the expense of raising them and it averaged about $6.50-$7 a bird. That's a great price for free range chicken. I'm so grateful to Katie for the hard work she put into raising them.

Stocking The Freezer With Blueberries

A few weeks ago I went to the farmer's market with the only goal of buying lots and lots of blueberries. I think I succeeded. My favorite blueberry guy at the farmer's market said that early August would be the best time to stock the freezer because they'll be lowest in price. I bought 2 flats of blueberries for $36. That's 24 pints (3 gallons).
Evan thought he had died and gone to heaven.

I bagged 1 flat of berries and froze them whole. We'll have plenty of berries for blueberry muffins and pancakes all winter long.

I pureed the other flat and bagged in 2 cup amounts to be used to make jam and blueberry applesauce in the coming months.

Wordless Wednesday - Farmer's Market Fruit Salad