Eggnog

In November our chickens began to molt, during this time they did not lay any eggs.  They just began again, just in time to make Christmas treats.  I'm starting with eggnog, based upon the Laura Ingles Wilder Cookbook. 

In Laura's day people did not worry about eating raw eggs.  This was for a few reasons, first the assessment of risk on the frontier was different than it is now.  When life is that risky people just cannot worry about as many dangers.  The other is that eggs are actually more dangerous than they were.  Chickens raised with space and freedom are less likely to be ill and less likely to pass salmonella on through the eggs.  Factory farming actually makes eggs more dangerous and it is likely with our fresh eggs there would be no danger, however I still modified the recipe to cook the eggs.  (Please note that that putting rum into your eggnog is not enough to kill salmonella). 

We start by separating 3 eggs, set the whites aside.  Beat the yokes with 1/4 cup sugar.

Heat 2 cups milk and 1 cup heavy cream.  Heat until it is warm but not boiling. 

Poor the milk into the eggs while mixing, then put back into the pot and heat until the mixture coats the back of a spoon.

Cool the milk and yokes while you beat the whites until stiff peaks form.  Fold whites into mixture and put a dash of nutmeg into it.  Put into picture to serve and add rum as you wish. 

Corned Beef and Pastrami

Work has been crazily busy.  Between that and pulling up the garden I haven't had time to post, but with winter things calm down.  Winter is the best time for doing cooking that does not require fresh veggies and preferably will last into the summer.  Today we are making corned beef. 

Start with a 4 lb brisket. 

In a Bowl mix 8 oz salt, 3 tablespoons Prague Powder (you can find this on the internet), 1 cup brown sugar, 5 tablespoons pickling spices, and 4 cloves garlic.

Add 1/4 gallon very hot water and mix to dissolve salts.

then add 3/4 gallon very cold water.  Add the meat to the brine (if you will be eating the corn beef as a finished project remove excess fat, if you will be turning it into pastrami leave it).  Be sure the meat is covered by the brine. 

Let cure in the fridge for 7-14 days.  It is then great cooked with cabbage, in hash, or turned into pastrami.

When you are ready to make the pastrami mix together 1/4 cup coriander, 2 T ground black pepper and 2 T smoked paprika.  Rub these on your corn beef and let it sit for up to 2 hours. 

Preheat your oven to 300 and place the meat in a roasting pan on a rack.  Cover with aluminum foil.  Bake 1 hour per lb or meat.  Cool and slice onto you sandwich.

  

Pickling veggies

When we run out of room in the freezer we started pickling our veggies.  We also can some.  It is important to note that you should plan what you are going to do with your veggies in the winter and plan accordingly.  Frozen and canned and pickled all have different uses. 

To pickle start by washing the veggies you are going to use and then soak them for an hour in an ice bath.

Then fill sterilized jars with the vegies and any spices you wish to include in your pickles.  (Sterilize jars by boiling them for 10 minutes or put it through your dishwasher in the sterilize setting).  Make sure to fill your jars completely, as they pickle the vegies will get smaller. 

 Make pickling brine by bringing 2 cups white vinegar, 2 cups water and 3 tablespoons of pickling salt to a boil while stirring constantly.  Fill the jars up to the part where the ring will attach, this will leave some space on the top.  Put the tops on and tighten the rings completely.  Seal the jars by placing them submerged and upright in a pot of boiling water and let them sit in the rolling boil for ten minutes.  Take them out carefully and let them cool.  As they do so you will hear a popping sound when the lid compresses.  If the top does not compress (when you push it in it will pop back out) you cannot store these as pickles and should refrigerate them and eat them within a week.  If the jars do seal set aside for at least 6 weeks and up to several years. 

Please note that the rolling boil method of sealing cans cannot be used for any type of canning other than pickling, if you wish to can and not pickle you must use a pressure canner. 

Creative Uses for Zucchini

Our garden is largely disappointing this year, however we have got a lot of zucchini. 

As our  freezer is getting overly full we needed to find another use for them, so we made zucchini chips.  Start this by cutting the squash into quarter inch wide slices and place them on the drying racks. 

Dry in dehydrator at 115 degrees for 24-48 hours until they are as dry as you want them to be.  Serve with home made humus and enjoy.

 

Harvesting Summer Honey

Honey should be harvested in the first week of September.  At this point most of the honey will be ready, but it is before the bees start eating the honey themselves.

The first thing to do is remove the honey from the hive.  First you must get the bees out of the part of the hive you will be removing (the honey super).  This is done by using a smoker to make most of the bees tired and eliminate their need to defend the hive and then placing a bad smelling top on the hive so that the remaining bees will move to the bottom portions.  Then remove the supers. After removing the suppers cut the caps off of the honey. 

Put the de-capped comb in the centrifuge and spin the honey so that the force will push the honey out of the comb. 

Put the caps and drippings into the capping station and put a heat lamp over it.  Wait for the honey to drip out and down so that it can be poured into the filter. 

 

Poor honey into the filter, first from the centrifuge then from the capping station.

 

  While doing this place the equipment outside for the bees to clean.  Do not go out near them while this is happening.  This is the most likely time to be stung as the bees are threatened by your taking the honey right before winter.  The bees will be aggressive and out in force. 

 

From the filter poor the honey out and into jars or food grade plastic. 



Making Tomato Sauce

Our tomatoes have been disappointing this year.  We are only now really starting to see them come in.  We froze some, eat some and more are being put into sauce.  I believe that the best foods are simple but made with good ingredients, such as our tomato sauce.  This sauce comes almost entirely from our garden and we can or freeze it to eat all year (next week we will discuss pressure canning). 
We start with our garlic.  Instead of cutting it we crush the garlic.

Sauté it in garlic oil until it is golden brown.  This will also cause it to fall apart somewhat. 

 

 

Put the garlic and oil into a crook pot and set aside.  Then take your tomatoes, here are ours, fresh from the garden.



 

Put the tomatoes in boiling water for 60 seconds.  Then put the tomatoes into ice water.

This will cause the tomatoes to split.  This will allow you to pull the skins off the tomatoes, and crush the tomatoes into the crock pot (we feed the skins to the chickens, who love them).  Then add any dried herbs you wish to use.  Fresh herbs should be added when there are only 5 minutes left to cook.  Cook down the sauce until it is as think as you want (we like it relatively thick) and serve, freeze or can.

 

Late Summer Mushroom Hunt

It should come as no surprise that our late summer mushroom hunt in the Uinta's produced far more edible mushrooms.  We actually found so many that we left large numbers behind (we weren't sure we would like them, so only took some of each).  

 
We found many chanterelle mushrooms (yes, this is the same name as the girl in Buffy who named herself after a mushroom).  These are somewhat hard to find as they grow up under the duff of the forest, making them hard to spot. 

 We harvested 1 lb 4 oz of these mushrooms.  These mushrooms are very orange with a distinct shape.  They peal apart much like string cheese. 

To cook them (well a few, we are trying them before deciding how to eat them) we pealed them apart and dry sautéed them until they were letting out some (but not much) liquid. 

They taste similar to button mushrooms but smother and lighter. 

We also found a few Hawks Wing mushrooms (3.88 oz).

These have very distinctive "teeth" inside the caps.

 These mushrooms can be used to create a blue die.  They are the only plant native to North America which can die cloth blue.  These mushrooms can be bitter if not cooked enough, generally people recommend cooking it for at least 20 min.  I found these overcooked but the overall impression is good, if a bit salty.

We also found 2 types of Boletes.  Both Bolete's appear round and grow in openish spaces of the forest floor.

 Our  first one is the Aspen Bolete (3.35 oz).

 When cooked this mushroom is not as firm and has a very strong flavor.  It is our least favorite of them.  Although the color contrast for the inside of its cap is beautiful. 

 We also gathered these Bolete Eddis also known as Porcini

These are widely considered on of the best mushrooms to eat.  We found it firmer and very good.

We also found a large number of Suillus mushrooms (we only took home some, they were very common). 

We thought this one tasted largely like a normal mushroom.

All of these can be dried for later use. 

Making Mustard

Now that we have harvested our mustard its time to make it into mustard.  We start by grinding 1/4 cup of our black mustard seeds, and 1/4 cup of our yellow mustard seeds until all are opened, you must be sure it is properly smashed or your mustard will be watery.  The below is before it is smashed.

In small bowl combine the mustard with 1/2 cup of white vinegar and 1/4 cup water.  Let sit for 24 hours.

Mix the mustard water and vinegar in a food processer with 1/4 cup honey and 1/2 teaspoon salt. 

Put into a glass jar and store in the fridge as you would mustard you purchase at the store.

Freezing Vegetables

This weekend we harvested 7 pounds of vegetables. 

There are many options for freezing zucchini, beans, eggplant, broccoli, carrots, peas and other squashes.  They can also be canned, however as I prefer eating most of them when frozen (the exception is squash) we freeze them.  Before putting them in the vacuum sealed bag you cut the vegies into the size you are likely to use. 

You can either boil the vegies for a minuet, or you can lightly steam them or freeze them directly (vacuum sealing the bags helps avoid freezer burn). 

When using them in the rest of the year they will be best eaten in a cooked dish, and not fresh or in a salad.  Our goal is to have enough for the rest of the year before summer ends.

Harvesting Mustard

Our mustard grew very well.  We like it particularly because we can eat the leaves as they grow and then when its time we can harvest the seeds to make mustard. It is now time to  harvest the seeds.  You know its time to harvest the seeds when the pods are dry, but before they open (and you lose the seeds).

Because it is difficult and time consuming to open each pod separately the best way to gather seeds is to tie the plant upside-down in a brown paper bag for a few days.  

The pods will open as each one dries out more.  This allows you to gather the seeds. 

 

These can be used in barbeque, pickles, or to make mustard for sandwiches and deviled eggs.  Next week we will try making mustard.  

Popcorn

I haven't posted for a while, mostly because work has been busy and the garden has mostly been growing, with no additional harvests.  On Saturday when we have time we like to go to the local farmers markets (there is one in Salt Lake and one in South Jordan).  This let's is find locally grown food we don't grow ourselves.  This week we found locally grown popcorn on the cob.

We were told to put it in a paper bag and microwave it until it sounds done.  We tried this and discovered one thing, the bag can't be simply left open.

Shortly after taking this photo we twisted the bag closed (having removed the part that had popped) and tried again.  It promptly caught fire.  This lead us to do the proper research and realize that to properly pop popcorn on the cob you need to place the fist bag upside-down in a second paper bag so that the popcorn is contained, but there is air flow and things will not catch fire.  This lets you have a good amount of locally grown popcorn.

Mid Summer Harvist and Replanting

At this point in the summer its time to start harvesting our veggie.  We have been getting some, however now we are ready to pull up the carrots and beets.

Garlic is not harvested based on time.  Instead you harvest when the stalks turn brown and fall over. 

To harvest you simply pull them out.  Garlic comes in two kinds, soft necked and hard necked.  Most of what you get in the store is soft neck, however ours is hard necked.  Both are stored in dry cool areas after having been cleaned, however soft necked lasts up to a year, while hard neck lasts up to 6 months.

Our harvest for these was a bit disappointing, further our cucumbers didn't come up and our beans have not yet produced.  After pulling the carrots and beets its a good idea to replant, additionally at the time its time to plant more corn, cucumbers, beans, beets and broccoli (which will be harvested in November). 

To do this we chose to turn the area between the flower bed and the walkway into another vegetable bed (as well as the area next to the chicken coop). 

To do this we tilled up the soil and added compost.  We then placed a boarder around it to separate it from the grass. 

We have planted cucumber bushes (which do not need to grow up the fence), beans, okra, corn, carrots and beets.  We have also planted additional broccoli in the area the carrots were trying to grow (it was next to the old broccoli which worked, while the carrots did not grow well).  I still hope that we will end up with enough vegetables to store some for the winter.