Cabin Crafted

Category: Cooking

  • Our daily bread

    The self isolation has prompted a return to bread baking and consumption of homemade bread. When we knew that we would be staying at home and began our supply stocking, some sandwich type rolls and a loaf of sourdough bread were purchased and frozen. A month into the isolation, those supplies are long gone which prompted a resurrection of the sourdough. While the sourdough was being fed and restored, a couple of loaves of no knead artisan bread were made, then the starter was ready and several loaves have been baked, giving one to the neighbor that helped with the mower. This morning, I realized that there were no sandwich rolls left, so the starter discard was put to use to mix up a batch of dough for them. There are two recipes that I use for rolls, one with sourdough and one without. The sourdough ones take longer to make but use up the daily discard. The ones below are the yeast raised ones.

    The yeast raised ones are done, the sourdough have 4 more hours plus baking time. Think I will stick to yeast raised for sandwich buns.

    The bread making helps pass the time and since we aren’t going anywhere, there is plenty of that. Because flour is a rare commodity, I can’t go out to get it, I’m using so much of it, I ordered fresh stone milled organic flour. It comes from a mill where a blogger friend works and it arrived today. I just sprayed the outer box with 1% bleach spray and will open it with gloves on once it is dry and bring my 4 three pound bags in. Can’t wait to try it, but with one each of the roll recipes rising on the counter that will make 12 buns, and about a half a loaf of sourdough remaining from yesterday’s baking, it will have to wait a day or two and will probably be a loaf of sandwich bread.

    This morning, the mower repair people came and picked up the riding mower to take in to fix and when I stepped out to yell up to the guy to see if we paid for the pick up now or when it was returned, I saw our neighborly mower had again jumped her fence and come to visit.

    If she is going to come mow, I wish she would at least come down to an area that I have to mow, not an area that is saved for hay. Of course it had just started raining when I called her owner to let her know where “Bad” Penny was. She is due to calf in May so maybe she will stay home and not leave her little one then.

    The time at home has my garden in a better place than it has ever been this early in the spring, but we have two days of rain followed by a chilly day and near freezing night ahead, so it will sit idle. The asparagus look like they will provide enough for a meal soon, then they will overwhelm and I only like them fresh, so freezing or otherwise preserving is not going to happen. I know daughter and granddaughter love them and I’m sure she will be glad to come out to pick up a bag full and a dozen eggs. I need to get out between rain showers and string some trellis for the peas.

  • Rain and chill

    The porch thermometer showed 47 f (8.33 c) when I got up this morning. In the damp, it felt colder. It is down to 40 f (4.44 c) by late afternoon. It was 85 f (29.44) on Sunday, quite a difference. And it rained all day long. As I was putting the finishing touches on dinner, there were snowflakes mixed in with the rain. It isn’t supposed to freeze tonight so I am not bringing in any plants.

    When I was a kid, on cold, usually snowy days, Mom would make vegetable beef soup. I remember lots of cans being opened, but it was comfort food on a cold day. This morning called for hot soup tonight. As I have become the master of extending a small amount of meat to multiple meals, I pulled about a half pound of stew beef from the freezer, thawed and seared it in hot oil, threw in a handful of chopped onion, celery that I had chopped and frozen, some fresh parsley that I had frozen, a pint of homemade broth, water, and a boullion cube and set it to simmer around noon. At the same time, I mixed up the dough for another artisan loaf, this one full of rosemary and left it to rise. As the afternoon when on, checks on the simmering stock and beef and how the bread was rising were made. Mid afternoon, a couple handfuls of Pequino beans (a small red heritage bean) were tossed in to cook and finally chopped potatoes, carrots, some frozen corn, peas, and green beans added and allowed to simmer for another hour. During that hour, the pizza stone was preheated as the oven heated to 550 f and the bread folded a few times and allowed a second rise and bake. The aromas in the house were delightful.

    A hearty, belly warming meal with half a loaf of bread and 2 quarts of soup left for lunches in the coming days. It looks like we are going to go through slightly more than two loaves a week plus some buns while we stay at home. I hope the flour holds out.

    The day between food prep was spent spinning on three of the Turkish spindles. A different fiber on each.

    When I went to the fiber retreat in late February, I got two skeins of lovely yarn from the hostess. It is a blend of her goats’ mohair and wool. Last night I started a curved asymmetrical shawl and though I went up a needle size from the recommended, it still feels like too dense a fabric for my taste. I am debating continuing or ripping it out and finding a different pattern for the yarn.

    It is very soft, so I may just keep going. Tomorrow is a repeat of today as far as weather, then it starts another warm up and a few dry days so maybe more of the garden will get prepped for planting in a month of so.

    Daughter brought over the belt for the broken riding mower and some chicken and household supplies she had picked up for us. We stood across the garage and talked for a little while and it was so hard not to go give her a huge hug. She is working from home and her kids are at home due to closed schools, but their Dad is still going on site to work and comes to see the kids, so being around them is not possible for now. Tomorrow, I will put on gloves, sanitize what needs to come inside, put the chicken feed in lidded buckets and go through the strip and wash routine again so that neither of us get sick. Nothing she brought is perishable.

  • What is that bright orb?

    Oh my, the sun actually came out. I had forgotten what it was like.

    This morning I sliced the loaf of bread that was made last night and it is delicious.

    The hens are overwhelming me with eggs. I didn’t realize really how many eggs the produced in a week until I was trying to use them all myself. Not being able to go out and share them is eye opening. One of the gals seems to be having egg laying issues. Her eggs have been oddly elongated with a distinct “waist” and off center yolk. This started when she resumed laying from winter.

    Her egg is upper left.

    With the sun, I decided to try to get the lawn mowed before it rains again. I got a couple of smaller areas mowed and the riding mower broke the belt that drives the blades in the deck. Power Zone has ordered me a new belt, daughter will pick it up when it comes in and then the fun begins.

    Today’s walk took me back out our rural road and up the hill above our house.

    Blue sky finally.
    You lookin’ at me? Leave me alone and let me eat. Go on now.
    Blacksburg is right through that gap, can’t you see it?
    Six spring calves hanging together while Mom’s are off somewhere.

    It was a beautiful day even if the mower broke. Our daily outing was to take the overflowing garbage and recycling bins down to the “convenience center” and home for a thorough hand washing.

    Staying busy in this trying time and making the best of my time and resources. Stay safe everyone and wash your hands.

  • Another rainy day

    But at least it isn’t snow. My two year memory for today on Facebook was a good amount of snow and the dogs playing in it.

    The grass needs to be mowed, it is emerald green now and growing so fast you can almost watch it change, but it is too wet, way too wet.

    The chicken pen was slick as a sloped ice rink when I went over to lock them up at dark last night. I grabbed a few hands full of the moldy spoiled hay from the big bale near their run and laid down a path to the pop door. This morning in the rain, sheets of the bale were put in the pen to keep it from being so muddy and to make going in to let the hens out a bit safer to my old bones. They get free range time for part of each day, but unlike prior flocks, this group has a few that won’t follow me back to the safely of their pen when I shake a cup of scratch, thus making them a target for our Mastiff to try and chase. He couldn’t catch one even when he was young, and running hurts his hips so he become even more lethargic in the house. Usually the hens are released when the dogs are fed in the afternoon and they stay out until dusk when they wander back to the pen and eventually coop up for the night.

    As soon as they are let out, they peck around the hay bale for a while then run straight for the gravel under the cars. Eventually out to the front yard and under the cedar trees across the driveway from the forsythia. When the forsythia and lilacs are fully leafed out, they prefer to shelter there and are really difficult to get out of that place.

    The half barrel planted with lettuce, radishes, and Chinese cabbage is showing signs of sprouting. When the sprouts are a little larger, the second one will be planted with lettuce, radishes, and Pak Choy. The third one will get some edible flower seed, dill, and basil, but it must get a bit warmer before that one can be planted. The 4th one is undecided, it has a returning perennial of some sort coming up in it. I want to try to sprout some parsley seed. If successful, it may be planted with more herbs for summer cooking to dry or freeze for next winter.

    The area inside the wall that gets so overgrown I think will receive a generous handful of mixed sunflower seed and allowed to grow and bloom until it can be cleared of rocks, weed mat or cardboard put down and covered with leaf mulch to plant as the herb, flower, and dye garden. Today’s exercise was moving more rocks and extending the path from the deck to the stone step that was where the old deck ended. That required heavy lifting and some serious weeding. On the step you can see a pigweed root that somehow I managed to lift from the earth whole, it must be 18″ long.

    The grill is always in the way when I mow. Eventually it will have a stone pad inside the wall on which to sit. Today, I just moved rocks, weeded a spot and wrestled it to the inside of the wall. It is not a permanent place and I wouldn’t cook on it at that angle, but it is out of the way. The new part of the path starts at the stone step and comes toward the deck. Those six boulders aren’t the only ones I had to move to do that much.

    The mower got gassed up and the tire pumped up and it started. It is running a little rough, hopefully once it is out of the garage and can move some, it will be in better shape. The rain stopped in the afternoon, but it is too wet still.

    The little potted rose my love gave me for Valentine’s Day was transplanted to a 10″ pot today now that it finished blooming. It is sitting in a sunny spot by the French doors until it is warm enough to put it on the deck. For some foolish reason, I decided last fall to overwinter,indoors, the begonias that were in the front of the house. One begonia and another pot were in the utility room window, two begonias on the floor by the French doors. I decided today that they were going to have to tough it out outdoors and put them out on the deck and front porch. If a frost is threatened, I will cover them, if they give up, I will plant some seeds in those pots.

    Right after lunch, I got some bread started. The last loaf in the freezer is almost gone and since we are eating in 100% of the time, more will soon be needed.

    Tomorrow is warmer and drier, maybe I can get the lawn part of the farm mowed. Next piece of equipment to fight with is the weed wacker, my least favorite, but necessary to get around the stone wall and the west side of the house. Maybe I can get it started too.

  • Where is Winter? – 1/15/2020

    So far this is proving to be a mild winter, gray and drizzly. It suggests that stink bugs, ticks, and fleas will be prevalent this summer. It is so mild, that the weeds that are usually beat back in the vegetable garden in winter are not only growing, but thriving. Last summer, the garden was a lot of work and I tried to stay on top of the weeding, but was losing the battle with some of them. I never beat the mint bed and the Creeping Charlie is taking over and choking out everything. The garden is also too big for me to keep it all in rotation. I have looked at options for reducing the size, making some of the boxes 4 boards high instead of 2, but the perennials are at the two ends with a 4 X 8 bed of blueberry bushes that finally produced last summer, the 3 barrels that are old and fragile of red raspberries and I fear they would disintegrate if I try to move them and they finally have the raspberries contained at one end. The other end has the asparagus bed that is now 6 or 7 years old and produces more asparagus than daughter, a friend, and I can eat in a season. Those two perennial ends do control the garden size to some extent.

    One side of the garden is a pathway away from the chicken pen for about half of the garden length, beyond the chicken pen is one of the worst patches of Creeping Charlie. I have considered pulling down all of the fencing and starting over. If the fencing was hard up against the boxes on the side that the chickens can reach, the length of the garden and if I keep the plantings far enough away from the fence to prevent long necks from reaching through to eat my veggies, perhaps their scratching would keep the weeds down on that side of the garden. The chickens won’t touch the Creeping Charlie to eat, but maybe their scratching for seeds and goodies tossed down there would reduce it. The sides of the garden nearer the house and south of the berries could be reduced and the boards from those boxes used to make the rear boxes taller so they are easier for me to work. The issue there is the post that has the solar charger on it is on that edge, though the charger is dead. Maybe it could be moved with the fence or just be removed entirely. If moved, I could hang a gate on it.

    In April, the university has a service day that you can sign up for help. Maybe some help getting the fencing in order for the garden and chicken pen would be incentive to keep at it.

    Today’s forecast looks like maybe the thunderstorms from a few days ago are going to be followed as the adage says with some snow to start the weekend. More likely it will be a sloppy mix of snow, freezing rain, and rain with little or no accumulation.

    The hens must think it is spring. This week I have had a day with 3 eggs, one with 4, and yesterday I got 5. There probably won’t be any today, but that is okay. This is the first winter I have gotten any from my hens.

    The warm weather has had me reluctant to use one of my Christmas gifts, a cast iron bread pan, but this bread is an easy loaf that can be made in just a couple of hours with no kneading, so we had a hot loaf of Herb and Onion bread for dinner one evening.

    The drizzle outside, the doctor’s appointments, and now a pair of head colds between us have keep me indoors and instead of warping the loom, I finished spinning 4 ounces of Romeldale CVM that I got from my friend Gail (Sunrise Valley Farm) and got a generous 289.5 yards of light fingering yarn from it. It is now washed and awaiting the arrival of a purchase of mill spun alpaca, silk, wool blend yarn from another friend. The mill spun will be the warp for a scarf or wrap and the CVM the weft. I also spun 3 ounces of Coopworth from another friend, Debbie (Hearts of the Meadow Farm) and got 112.5 yards of worsted weight from it. I have ordered another 8 ounces of Coopworth that may be from the same lot, or will at least coordinate with it and it will become another scarf or wrap. I am going to try to spin some of it tight enough and fine enough to be the warp.

    Today after a frustrating attempt to order a rigid heddle book online using a gift card, we went to Barnes and Noble and ordered it there. I hope to learn some new techniques and patterns to work into my weaving. With the 8 ounces of Coopworth to match the maroon above, I ordered another 8 ounces of this

    It doesn’t really have a plan, but I have a 4.8 oz braid of BFL and Tussah Silk that might go well with it. I’ll have to wait to see how they spin before I decide.

  • Weekend Things – Nov. 16, 2019

    November is birthday month in our family (we sneak into early December too). In a month’s time, we celebrate 2 grandchildren, 1 nephew, 1 daughter, 1 daughter-in-law, my stepmom’s and my birthdays. It is mostly card exchange as except for the two grandchildren, all are adults. Grandkids get gifts of some sort depending on age and interest.

    If you have followed this blog for a while, you know that I am a spinner, knitter, sometimes crocheter, weaver. Because of this, I am a definite yarn snob. But, sometimes it is necessary to use yarn that I don’t spin for a project. Granddaughter local is one of the birthdays. She is turning 8 and has grown many inches and many pounds since last winter, she needed a new winter coat. Her Mom found a real bargain, a very neutral gray coat that granddaughter loved. To go with her new coat, and because she seems to love her handmade gifts (last year a string backpack for her music lesson items with a colorful binder to hold the music), I decided to make her a knit hat, scarf, and mittens to go with her new coat. Because they will get hard use and need to be washed, I bought a giant Caron Cake of acrylic yarn in shades of purple to make them.

    I had finished the mittens, hat, and most of the scarf a week or so ago, but didn’t want to add fringe to the scarf and it didn’t look finished as is, so this afternoon, I crocheted a triangle on each end and added a small tassel, maybe less appealing to their 3 cats if it is left out. A year or so ago, I found the little wooden buttons that say Handmade with love by _____, so I added her pet name for me and sewed one on one end. Her birthday is next Sunday, so after we go to the farm where our turkey has been raised to pick it up, we will have a family celebration for her birthday.

    Last night, I finished knitting a pair of fingerless mitts from some Romeldale CVM wool that I spun for the Shave ‘Em to Save ‘Em challenge. They were given a soak and blocking last night and are currently drying. Here they are before their bath.

    They will go in my shop and be taken to the various Holiday markets until they sell. I am toying with sewing a row of small deer antler buttons to the backs of the hands.

    Saturday mornings, when I am not at an event, are breakfast out followed by the weekly Farmers Market. Today I was seeking yams for Thanksgiving as I didn’t grow any this year. Also seeking some ground beef to make dinner for daughter and her family tomorrow night, and other than that, I just browse and make decisions on what is available. I was able to get nice turnips, fresh spinach, Daikon radishes, potatoes, breakfast sausage, and Mozarella in addition to the yams and ground beef. As I finished the last of my fermented dilly beans last night, the Daikon radishes were purchased to make kimchi. Once home, they were peeled and diced, sprinkled with salt, sugar, and crushed red pepper and set to weep while I put everything else away and finished the scarf for granddaughter. It is now packed in a jar with a fermenting lid to sit for a few days.

    Next weekend begins the holiday markets. There is still one scarf that is about half done that I would like to get finished and blocked, then I will begin a pair of fingerless mitts or glittens for me as I lost one two weekends ago when I did the Harvest Festival at Booker T. Washington National Monument. There is no real hurry on them and I can knit on them while I am vending.

  • Old Dog, New Trick – 10/26/2019

    Depending on the trick, this old dog can be taught a new one. About 2 years ago, ads for the Instant Pot or it’s other brand variations were prevalent. I suggested to hubby that it would be a good birthday or Christmas gift (those events are only a month apart). He didn’t know what one was and I had a coupon for Bed, Bath, and Beyond that was about to expire, so we went looking. They had a different brand that I didn’t like all the features on it, and we had to go over to Target for something else and they did have two sizes of Instant Pot brand on sale. I didn’t get it for my birthday or Christmas, he told me to go on and get it right then as it wasn’t very expensive. It has totally changed the way I cook. To be able to cook dry beans in 40 minutes, stew, or brown rice in about the same amount of time was luxury. I have used it for making yogurt, but that is as easy in a cooler. I cooked a dozen eggs for deviled eggs, but a steamer works just as well. The Instant Pot gets used about 5 times each week. Now that I know it’s features and how long it takes to make a recipe, I have begun to experiment with other recipes.

    One that I used to make for the family is Greek Stew. It takes hours to prepare, but is delicious and even better as left overs. The farmers market had green bell peppers and the last of the season’s eggplants today, both are ingredients necessary for the stew.

    Because I needed the kitchen for one last soap session, but because I wanted to prepare the stew while the ingredients were fresh, I set about altering the recipe for the Instant Pot. The recipe starts by sauteing onion quarters until golden. It has a feature for that. Once the onions are spooned out, stew beef dredged in flour and cinnamon is browned, again the saute feature. The browned beef and onions are added back together with tomato sauce and beef broth and simmered for several hours to tenderize and cook the meat. Instead of hours, 40 minutes on the pressure setting will handle it. Then you add raw rice and cook til the rice is tender, the Instant Pot has a rice setting. Then you add cubed eggplant and cook for 20-30 minutes which can be done on the low saute setting and finally 10 minutes with large chunks of green bell peppers. Instead of more than 4-5 hours, this stew will be ready in just a little over an hour.

    The beautiful pottery bowls are from a local pottery and friend, Dashing Dog Studio, the wooden ladle is from Chester P. Basil’s Wood, purchased at a craft fair at least a dozen years ago.

    Sometimes, I don’t know how I cooked without it, but if necessary, I can still cook on the stove top, the top of the woodstove, or the gas grill when Mother Nature takes out our power.

  • More Wet Stuff

    Our region is under water.  The forecasts have flood warnings, many roads closed, schools today had a 2 hour late start due to the flooding.  The morning dawned beautiful, but the afternoon brought more heavy rain.  You would think that in the mountains that flooding wouldn’t really be a problem, but the rivers and creeks are over their banks, fishing camps and river front yards are under water.

    I turned the chooks out this morning to free range and graze on the new grass and emerging bugs.  When daughter and granddaughter came back from taking grandson to the bus stop, the dogs all slipped out.  Lately they have seemed to leave them alone when dogs and chickens were sharing the yard.  For some reason, I looked out to check on them and found our two chasing the chickens and daughter’s Golden Retriever eating one.  I don’t know who actually caught the bird, but I do know that we now have a problem.  The dogs and the chickens aren’t going to be able to be out at the same time again.  One of the dogs realized that opening through the electric fence that had a rope across it wouldn’t hurt them and barged right through.  This required me to move the fence around to create a new opening, narrower and on a different side of the fence.

    I had planned on culling a few of the hens later in the summer, but didn’t plan on sharing them with the dogs.  After today’s stress, we only got 4 eggs.  Maybe the one they killed was the one laying weird eggs.  I guess we will see in a day or two.

    Since the weather wasn’t good to be out and about much, I made Mozzarella and lasagna noodles and made a homemade vegetarian lasagna for dinner.  I love being able to make the cheese and noodles at home.  I noticed at the Farmers’ Market on Saturday, that I could get raw cow and goat milk for a donation, perhaps I will try raw milk Mozzarella or yogurt.

  • Soaking Wet

    We had a couple of stellar spring days and took full advantage of it.  One full bed of the garden was cleaned up, peas, Daikon radishes and a few pepper plants (which we may yet have to cover) and Swiss Chard plants we purchased were planted.  We have garlic, onions, kale and turnips up.  There are a few more beds to be cleaned up to plant the tomatoes, beans, cukes and summer squash and once the remaining peppers are large enough, they will also be planted.  The strawberry plants don’t like the rain that we have had.   Sunflowers and winter squash will be planted near the chicken runs.  As the chickens are spending more time free ranging, I am considering reducing their run size and using their well fertilized, run, bare of weeds for more planting.

    The spring’s first mowing was done and some of the house plants relocated to the front deck.

    IMG_0041[1] IMG_0042[1]

    One of the Buffys is having reproductive issues and she is laying very strange eggs.

    IMG_0037[1]

    The egg on the right is a normal egg.  The two on the left are two of her treasures for the past few days.  All of the girls are at least 14 months old and less than 25 months old, so it shouldn’t be age.  None of her odd eggs are double yolked, but the albumen is very watery and the shells all have cracks that have been calcified over.  Her shells are very thin as well.  If I could figure out which Buffy it is laying them, I would double band her as a potential cull.

    The littles are getting braver and are coming out of the tractor more each day, however, today it has rained until I will need a rowboat to get to the coop.  The littles somehow got locked out of their tractor this afternoon and were soaking wet when I went to lock them up.  The Buffys who could get in their coop were also soaked, but they gave us 10 eggs today.

    Instead of being outside, today was a day to make chicken feed and granola.  I also did a bit of garage cleanup, still trying to merge extra bicycles and yard toys into the garage and still have room for Mountaingdad to turn the BBH around in there.

    We are enjoying the change to spring, the trees and spring flowers blooming, the leafing out of the shrubs and trees; the warming days and nights and the lower electricity bills they will bring; the return of the spring Farmers’ Market and the fresh salads that it brings.

    Loving life on our mountain farm.

  • Putting By Commences

    Our strawberry plants are first year and we probably won’t see any berries this year and strawberry jam is grandson and son-in-law’s favorite.  When I was in the grocery yesterday, I saw that 16 oz clam shells of organic strawberries were 2 for $5.00.  Not inexpensive, but a really good price for them.  I haven’t found any you pick strawberry fields within an hour drive of us and even if I did, they probably aren’t organic.  I purchased 6 clam shells of strawberries.  It was interesting that they varied in weight from barely 16 ounces to almost 22 ounces.

    I pulled down my copy of preserving by the pint and set about to make jam.

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    I love the recipe as it has only strawberries and honey with a couple tablespoons of lemon juice.  Since it is pectin free, it requires longer cooking and a broad shallow pan to cook it, so it only makes a couple of half pints per batch.  The rhythm was quickly found, cutting the first batch, adding the honey to sit for 10 minutes and starting cutting the next batch.  While the first batch cooked, the second batch was prepped.  The first batch was cooked and put in clean jars to can.  While it was processing, the second batch was cooking and the third batch was being prepped.  When done, all 12 half pints popped as they sealed, a good sign and now they are sitting to cool on the kitchen counter.

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    There will be a blackberry jam making session this summer.  Blueberries and raspberries canned or frozen for muffins and pancakes or cobblers.

    All of the canning supplies will be put away now as it will be a couple of months before we need them again, but it is nice to put something on the shelves now instead of using up the last of the supplies from summer past.  Perhaps we will stumble on another deal on strawberries and will put away a few more jars.