Tomatoes and Peppers sowed today

I have a dream to one day be a very good vegetable gardener (Smile).  I am learning something every year, I suppose.  Doing better about keeping some notes.  I'm slowly getting some permanent beds established.  One day I will have enough permanent garden space to have room for everything I want to grow and also to be able to rotate the crops properly.

The big step this year was finally getting that hoophouse covered.  I wish I had had it done last fall, so that I could have overwintered some things, but better late than never!  We have it in now, and have even managed to start some things early to be transplanted later.

I don't pretend to have it all figured out, but this is what I managed to get seeded so far:  Back on April 21st, I seeded some Okra, six different kinds of melon, five different cucumbers, and some old sage seeds.

Today, two and half weeks later, I have finally seeded about thirteen or fourteen different kinds of tomatoes.  Mostly heirloom, but a few hybrids.  Ten different varieties of peppers; some hot and some sweet...again mostly heirloom, a couple of hybrid varieties.

I have saved these all in an Excel file.  (Trying to do better with keeping notes)! 

Garlic Planted Today

A couple of weeks ago I ordered two kinds of garlic from Seed Savers Exchange. As I was planning on using the sweet potato bed for the garlic, I have been waiting to get those harvested...and those have been waiting on parts for my pressure canner--which are still not here. I do not have the means to cure the sweet potatoes to keep them over as fresh root crops.

Since we are expecting five days of rain starting this afternoon, I had to hurry up and get the garlic in. If I did not get it done today, chances are it would not be done at all. We have been fortunate to have such lovely weather this late into the fall.

Time to 'Do' Geese

We still have not finished off most of the geese. We still have twelve, maybe thirteen to do. Last month DH butchered three and since we don't really eat organ meat, we skinned the birds and saved the filleted breast meat and the entire legs with the bone in. The organ meat went to waste. Did not feel too good about that. We have asked several people that we know if they were interested, but with no takers. I had a few more people I'd thought to ask--one a caterer and the other a restauranteer... but now I am thinking that since I have decided to try my hand at making goose stock with the carcasses, then surely I can come up with something for the organ meat. Here are some recipes that sound like they have potential... and more recipes--this time using goose fat.

And a recipe for goose stock that is the base for a Borscht.

Eggs, Eggs and more Eggs

I spent all day today cooking with eggs. The girls are doing very well---producing an abundance of eggs, eggs, eggs! I am sure that we had at least 11 or 12 dozen eggs in the fridge, as I have not been working too very hard at keeping up with them. I have already made mucho noodles. We have eggs for breakfast, use them in baking, feed them to the cats (raw or scrambled)... if I drop one while collecting them, the hens automatically get those.

While perusing my cookbooks this morning, looking for recipes, I decided to make Rosy Pickled Eggs, Golden Chiffon Cake and Deviled Eggs. I have made and enjoyed the Rosy Pickled Eggs before-- they are pickled in a solution that includes beet juice and are quite pretty to look at when finished...tasty, too! These will sit in the fridge for a few days before they are ready to eat.

I boiled over three dozen eggs for the Deviled Eggs, which I will take to Mom and Dad's tomorrow. That left me extra to make egg salad for lunch.

Amazingly, I was not hungry for dinner! DH had the pork chops all to himself and then we had the Golden Chiffon Cake for dessert with homemade raspberry preserves warmed and drizzled on top.

As the day is winding down, and I am cleaning up after dessert, I open the fridge and see nothing but Eggs, Eggs, and more EGGS!

Illinois Farm Direct

I found the Illinois Farm Direct website today and I want to be sure and keep this handy. There are places very nearby that I would be patronizing if only I remembered them. The most interesting thing I saw today is a farm within 15 miles where I can go to buy organic goat's milk. And another sells raw honey.

Homemade Noodles

My girls are hard at work-- each faithfully popping out a smooth, pastel egg almost every day. I had decided not to sell eggs this year. Even at the $3.00 a dozen that we ended up selling them for in the past, I figured that it was still a not-for-profit venture. These jewels are way too good to sell at a loss when we can find ways to put them to good use right here. I would rather feed them back to our chickens and the cats also love them. Most of them, we will eat in various ways ourselves, and then there is the occasional dozen given away to visiting family and friends.

Today, I pulled out my trusty KitchenAid mixer along with the pasta attachments and made three batches of noodles and hung them to dry in the pantry. I LOVE my pasta machine! I honestly would not make noodles if I did not have this...rarely...probably almost never. But with this I can whip out beautiful homemade noodles in no time at all.

The three batches used up a good 15 or 16 eggs and I used Hodgson Mill unbleached white flour. I have some Bob's Red Mill organic semolina flour which I will use the next time and then I can cook a batch of each up and do a little taste test. I did not realize that semolina flour is higher in gluten than all purpose flour. This is supposed to make for better pasta, but the noodles made from the Hodgson Mill all purpose flour seem to be pretty darn good.
We do not have any known intolerances to gluten, but since many people do, I will still be looking for tasty noodle recipes that are gluten free. I may try to make a small batch from Bob's Red Mill gluten free flour (made with garbanzo beans, fava beans, potatoes, sorghum and tapioca).

It took me two and a half hours to finish up the three batches. By the time that was done, I whipped up a quick dinner: NOODLES (!) with leftover chicken breast, some chicken stock thickened with arrowroot, sliced organic carrots, some of Mom's vidalia onions that I had sauteed and keep handy in the freezer, green peas and all seasoned with sage, parsley, sea salt and black pepper and a little lemon juice for a tasty twang. Yummy homegrown comfort food!

Baking Powder

Since any baking powder that I have found in the grocery stores contain cornstarch, I was pleased to find not only a recipe to make my own without using cornstarch, but also discovered this Wikipedia article explaining the science of baking powder and how it works.

Baking Soda and Cream of Tartar are the active ingredients. I will use arrowroot as the starch in my homemade baking powder. This will be a single acting baking powder, not double acting as the timing will not be a problem for me, so a heat reactive acid salt is not critical. (Read the article).

Here's the recipe:

ABC 1:2:1

1 part Arrowroot powder
2 parts Baking Soda
1 part Cream of Tartar

That's it! I still have half of a can of Clabber Girl baking powder to use up so I can reuse the handy-dandy can with the straight edge made for leveling off the measuring spoon.
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Update 2/13/10:  The homemade blend has worked just fine for pancakes.  That is all I have tried it for so far.  I did find a corn starch free commercial baking powder at our local health food store.  The brand is Hain and the ingredients are monocalcium phosphate, potato starch, and potassium bicarbonate.  It is sodium free (thus the potassium bicarbonate instead of sodium bicarbonate) and also gluten free.