New Hens and First Big Planting

Say hello to the newest additions of our farm family....  Red 1, 2 and 3-

Post of what happened to our previous hens HERE.

Three young Rhode Island Reds given to us by a friend.  No names yet because they look so similar.

Somewhat sociable, as much as our last hens I guess.

I did love our heirloom hens that laid colored eggs, but they were not the best layers.  These ladies are very hardy and should lay everyday throughout most of the year.  Not as glamourous but very efficient.
Happy to have fresh eggs in the frig again.

You know what soft eggs and/or over easy eggs go well with.....  Asparagus!
We add some cream sauce too (sometimes with a bit of dijon mustard).  Plenty recipes on the web and I encourage you to give it a try if you have not.

Photo courtesy of Poorgirleatswell.com

Please share your favorite asparagus recipes.  This is another new vegetable for me to use regularly.  I made chicken, asparagus and bell pepper stir fry just tonight.  Kids ate it up.

We are getting lots of strong shoots.  I have made about 3 side dishes worth.

Along with our asparagus shooting up daily (though we are reframing from picking too many since they are young plants building strength) we worked up a section of our garden this past weekend.  We had the garden covered with a clear plastic sheet/tarp (from Lowes) for about a month to help heat the soil and keep it dry.  It worked.  Soil under the plastic was ready to work unlike the soil that was not covered.  Also, our cover crop of winter rye was thicker and taller on the side that was covered, because the soil was warmer (yes, it grew just fine under the plastic laying directly on top of it).  Why a cover crop post HERE.

As you probably know, DO NOT TURN OVER WET SOIL.  Reason why HERE.
Ideally you should turn it over, let it set about a week to allow weeds to rot, add organic matter/fertilizer, then turn it over again before you plant.  We planted immediately after turning it over which will result in us having to pull more weeds in the near future.

The strong man behind the tiller said the soil was much looser and easier to turn over than previous years.

This is what we got planted (still just cool weather plants):

• More leaf lettuce
• Radishes (not a fan but giving home grown ones a chance)
• Carrots

• Red potatoes
• Sugar snap peas
• Beets
• Garlic (yeah, behind again this year by missing out on planting them in the fall.  hopefully it will still work)

Planting sugar snap peas.  He planted an entire 20' row himself with the help of a 'spacing stick'.

Hope to see some plants popping up anytime now.

Don't Be An Eggplant Hater

Don't be a hater, they are pretty nice, versatile little vegetables.
Yes I put googly eyes on vegetables....

Who needs Mr. Potato Head...

The above eggplant is obviously a mutant, eggplants are quite lovely looking vegetables-

Though they are a part of the shady nightshade vegetable family (but so are tomatoes and potatoes),  their health benefits are abundant, most notably the antioxidant content in the skin and dietary fiber content.

I admit, I did not eat eggplant myself before I was married.  My husband influenced me to cook with it because he loved eggplant parmesan.  His love for this dish led to us growing it ourselves and then I had no choice but learn to do other things with it.  True and gripping story, I know.

This year has been a good year for eggplant to say the least.  So far we have harvested around 63 eggplants.  I have kept up with the poundage as well so we can compare what that would equal if we would have bought that amount.  (Spoiler alert: I have kept the poundage amounts of everything we have harvested to see how much money growing your own food can save you, blog post about that sometime this fall).

Here is what I have done with the eggplants-

• Roasted with pasta
• Sliced thin, rolled and stuffed with ricotta (good substitution for pasta)
• Grilled with herbs, as a side dish
• Baba ghanoush (roasted eggplant dip, froze many small containers for wraps and such)
• Moussaka (like a greek lasagna, I was surprised that I liked this.  everyone else did as well)
• Eggplant Parmesan
• Roasted with other veggies in balsamic vinegar for wraps (good with hummus)
• Stacks (including tomato, portobello mushroom caps, mozzarella cheese and herb oil)
• Vegetable Lasagna (like regular lasagna with some extra veggies layered in.  my friend Stephanie generously made us one using our eggplant, it was REALLY good)
• Ratatouille (not just a movie, an amazingly delicious French Provencal vegetable stew)

Still planning to try (because there are a ton left in the garden):

• Other varieties of Vegetable Lasagna (freezes well)
• Chop and freeze (as a filler for vegetable soups, stews and chilli.  heard this works well)
• Eggplant pizza

Any other suggestions?

Photo compliments from The Phoenix

Back to Ratatouille.... we watched it one night as a family.  Such a cute movie-

My hope was it would make the kids more excited to try and eat this new dish (it was everyone's first time eating it).  And it worked!  They liked it!  We all loved it!

Notice the empty bowl-

It was a lovely looking dish when assembling.  I used The Harvest Eating cookbook's recipe-

So thats my current mommy rant.  As Daniel Tiger sings to a catchy jingle, "you should try new foods 'cause they might taste go-od."  Sigh, I might need to get out more.

Making Homemade Pickles, Is It Worth It?

Sound the match bell.  Homemade pickles vs. store bought pickles are going to battle.... sort of.
Though this is an unfair matchup in regards to flavor I still wanted to give it a looksie.

VS

So like the other homemade vs. store bought battles, the criteria only looks at cost.  Does it save money?  Is it a good way to preserve some homegrown vegetables throughout the winter?

One disadvantage might be that my particular recipe uses more ingredients than some other homemade pickling recipes.  We personally love this one though so this is the one I use.  Recipe was given to me by Mr. Wood in upstate, NY.

Here is the breakdown of cost to make Mr. Wood's Garlicky Dill Pickle recipe (yes, I troubled myself with this math for curiosity sake):

Homegrown Pickling Cucumbers (estimate per cost of cuc from packet of seeds that cost $1.59)- $0.003 

Cider Vinegar- $0.177

Sugar- $0.23
Sea Salt- $0.23
Pickling Spice- $0.03
Fresh Dill- $0.56 (or easily grow your own) 
Garlic- $0.25 (or easily grow your own)
Seeded Rye Bread (yes this gets put in there)- $0.08

TOTAL- $1.56 / homemade quart of Garlicky Dills

compared to

TOTAL- $2.00 / pint (or $4.00 / quart) of standard store bought dill pickles

So $2.44 savings per jar of pickles!

From a quick search, here are the ingredients in one of the most common store brand dill pickles-

• Cucumbers, Water, Distilled Vinegar, Salt, Calcium Chloride, Sodium Benzoate, Polysorbate 80, Natural Flavors, and Yellow #5.

Time should also be a consideration.  NOT counting cooling time of the brine, it takes me less than 30 minutes to make multiple batch of pickles.  They are easy, it basically just stuffing the jar with ingredients and pouring the brine over top.  Granted I don't technically can/seal the pickles, but with all the natural preservatives (such as salt and vinegar) I don't worry with refrigerating them constantly or worry about bacterial getting in my gasket lid mason jars.

So are homemade pickles worth it?  You can decide for yourself.  As for us, YES.   Pickles make for an easy snack we ALL enjoy and quick finger food for entertaining guests.

Beside, in our house cucumbers are more safe inside jars.... otherwise baby girl will find them and bite their heads off-

So consider me doing you a favor cucumbers-

A lovely story about pickles here- Tale of the Traveling Pickles

Straight From Farm to Mouth (Skip the Table)

It's finally strawberry season here in New England and, boy oh boy, the fruit is lovely this year.  I forced my husband, I mean, I requested we take a break from our crazy Saturday work schedule to go and pick strawberries as a family.  Little man had been asking to go pick berries and we don't get to do alot of fun activities with daddy (hard working guy these days) so we had to work it in.

To the berry patch-

First, baby girl had a quick lesson on how to NOT destroy the plants while trying to pick berries.

Then off she went-

After realizing the 'fruits of the labor', she didn't stop-

This might sound silly but we recently read, Blueberries For Sal, by Roberty McCloskey.  From that story little man understood the concept of picking and saving food for the winter.  He did a good job picking and saving instead of eating them all.  He does like having a job, makes him feel 'big'.-

I like having jobs like this myself  :)

In the meantime, still chowing down-

Look at that tummy-

We managed to get enough picked-

And turned it into good things for the future-
(Every time I pick berries and make jam I think of home.  When I used to pick up strawberries at Scott's roadside stand on the bypass during my lunch break for me and my co-workers at Numark.  It meant summer was really here.)

Though little man did pretty good holding out on eating the berries while picking, strangely enough he doesn't have the same will power towards the sugar snap peas in the garden.  Only a few have actually made it out of the garden to the dinner table.  Baby girl loves them too.

More garden news later.  And still no piggies... probably mid to late July now.  And house news.... we scheduled the basement guys to come fix our leaky basement by installing french drains and get a new sump pump.  Pricey unfortunately but important in caring for our foundation.  On the downside.... probably no central AC installation that I was hoping for this year. :(

Experiment 2: Cooking With Pumpkins and Apples....

Please read:  This is my second experiment I've shared.  Its not what I typically use this blog for as I don't want people to think this is a brag blog.  Let me just say this..... Most days I do NOT have it together in terms of housekeeping, parenting, cooking, etc.  Here is the scene at my feet in the kitchen most afternoons-

But as with any job I continue to try and get better at it.  My goal is to save money when I can and these experiments are tailored around that goal.  I enjoy learning from other people so I want to share what I have learned too.
My first experiment was making homemade yogurt in a crock pot which turned out to be a big success, cost efficient and pretty easy.  I am still making yogurt almost every other week.... and believe me, if it wasn't worth it I wouldn't mess with it.

Adding to my experiments (hear me out on this one why its discussion worthy).....  cooking your own PUMPKIN, is it worth it?  The analysis proved yes- if you are using it for meals.  It's easily roasted (don't mess with the peeling thing, instructions linked here), which keeps the sweetness and nutrition.  Which brings me to my first reason WHY, they are  crazy nutritious.   This a huge reason why they're worth it and why I think its worth talking about.  They deserve to make more appearances than just in desserts and hot drinks.  Second, you get a good amount of food from just one.  And don't forget the seeds which are surprisingly super nutritious too.  Jonathan looooves seeds roasted.

Use a good cooking pumpkin (like pie or sugar pie pumpkin) though instead of a jack-o-lantern pumpkins.  You can use any though depending on what it's going into.  Some meal ideas (imagine the list if dessert items were added)-

• mashed pumpkin as a side dish with a little butter and cinnamon
• pumpkin soup
• pumpkin chili
• pumpkin bread
• pumpkin rice pudding
• pumpkin risotto (might have to peal it instead on this one)
• pumpkin pancakes
• pumpkin muffins
• hello!! amazing pumpkin baby food puree

Don't be a hater until you try one of these.... and why wouldn't you if you're ok with pureeing this lovely squash into a pie.

I would love for anyone to share other pumpkin meal ideas and recipes, please do.

Just to quickly note other squash that I have learned to love and stay in season into the winter- Butternut and Acorn (I know there are so many amazing squash hybrids but these two work well for us).  They are cheap and I've been making lots of meals from them lately..... I've also noticed I have lost weight and I believe these meals are the reason... seriously..... tasty meals with little to no fat and are filling.  Just last week I tossed acorn squash slices in a paprika spice blend and roasted them-

 Put them with couscous and Jonathan and I added a parsley yogurt sauce (sounds weird but we liked it when we tried it).  Acorn squash is great with curry spices too because it has a sweetness.  Butternut, if roasted, is tasty enough by itself.

No complaints even from the sometimes picky toddler-

Don't neglect those SQUASHES people!!! :)

Gotta end with apples (good way to get a picking picture in here).

Making your own apple sauce.... is it worth it?  I would say, it depends?  Let me be clear why.... First, homemade applesauce is WAAAAYYYY more delicious.  Honestly, after eating homemade you might not want to eat the watered down store bought stuff again.  Oh my stars is it tasty.  I would assume homemade is healthier too because its less processed keeping those lovely apple nutritious qualities.  The con, homemade is more expensive.... but not too expensive to keep from doing it.   Plus, I would suggest owning a corer and peeler (though I do not and still completed the full task in less than 2 hours, processing time included) and definitely a food mill.

Bottom line, I will continue to make applesauce every year because its a fun thing to do to celebrate apple season... but I will continue to buy store applesauce in the off season because its cheap.
I would give about the exact analysis for making your own crock pot apple butter.  It as well is amazingly tasty..... Smuckers ain't got nothin'.  So again, fun to do to celebrate the season, way tasty but not cost effective.

If anyone found this interesting I am glad.  If not, sorry.  At least I have fun doing the experiments and eating the food.  :)  Feel free to share your apple and squash and/or other seasonal worth it and not worth its please!!!  Thanks!

Oh, and don't worry I will have dining room progress to share eventually.