Handmade Greenhouse

I know I have not been blogging as much, but with this warmer weather we have been having, I am beckoned to be outside digging in the dirt!  Plus, my wonderful, very handy husband just built me a greenhouse!  A few weeks ago, he install new windows on a older home.  Being the thrifty recycler he is, instead of throwing away perfectly good windows, he brought the old windows home.  They are the really cool looking old-fashioned white wooden window-pane kind.  Anyway, he thought they would make a perfect greenhouse, and so over the course of the weekend, he built me a greenhouse using the recycled "old" windows.  He sure knows how to make his wife happy.  I love it- it is like my own little retreat, complete with a planting shelf, planting beds, and sliding sides for ventilation.  He constructed it right next to the house, and the bottom portion of our house is brick.  So, during the day, the bricks soak up the sun's heat and at night the heat is slowly released into the greenhouse- passive solar heating at its best!  I have already started my seeds in there, and the boys love coming in there and planting with me, or of course, just digging in the dirt.  Give me a place to plant, good dirt, and some seeds, and I am a very happy lady.  Some women want fancy clothes and jewelry; no thanks, just some good crumbly black dirt and some heirloom seeds for me!  Instead of drooling over clothes magazines, I daydream over seed catalogs!  Takes all kinds to make the world go round, right?  Also, lately I have been cooking even more with pumpkin.  Pumpkin pancakes, pumpkin bread, pumpkin muffins.  This are wonderful for snacks and/or breakfast.  They also make great treats to share with neighbors, friends, teachers, etc.  All you do is take your pumpkin cut off top part, slice it in half, clean out seeds and save for roasting (great snack for kids as well), then place two halves skin side up in a large roasting pan with 1/4 inch of water in it (this keeps pumpkin for drying out), then you bake it in oven at 450 for 45-60 min. until you can easily pierce skin.  Then let it cool and peel skin off, then put pumpkin in a big bowl and puree using a masher or a hand blender.  Now you have fresh pumpkin to cook with.  Just scoop out desired amount for recipes or freeze into batches for use later in soups and/or recipes.  Update on cheese making:  supplies have been ordered from cheese queen and we have raw milk on hand.  Should be making fresh mozzarella this weekend- check back for update.  Also, going to try making butter again using raw milk- will keep you posted on success.  Until then, happy digging- and remember before you toss something into the garbage can, pause a second and think if it can be used another way or recycled.  You just might surprise yourself and get creative!

Yogurt making update!

The homemade yogurt is a huge hit!!  My boys love it!  They had it for breakfast and wanted 2nds and 3rds.  The yogurt is made plain without sweeteners.  So, I added a little honey and frozen blueberries from last years blueberry picking.  It makes a perfect breakfast- very easy and quick.  The yogurt was very easy to make, just boil the milk, let it cool to room temperature, then mix in the live culture or plain yogurt starter, then pour into jars in the machine and plug it in.  It takes between 6-8 hours to finish in the machine depending on whether you use whole or skim milk- skim takes longer.  Then you refrigerate it for at least 3 hours before serving.  So, make it the day before and refrigerate overnight for breakfast and/or school lunch.  Serve with a piece of homemade bread toasted with homemade butter- does not get much better than that!  Plus, it is so good for you.  The live cultures/bacteria are excellent for your digestive system which needs to be performing at top notch to ward off illnesses. 

Making Yogurt

I purchased my first yogurt making machine this past weekend- found it on craigslist!  Crazy the items you can find on craigslist- love it!  Anyway, today is the day the machine comes out of the box and into my kitchen.  Per the directions, seems pretty easy.  Add milk with a yogurt culture or some plain yogurt from the store.  Then fill up jars with the milk and culture and put into machine and plug in for 8 hours- seems easy enough!!  We shall see- will update here later on progress.  Also, on the agenda today:  pumpkin bread and pumpkin muffins.  I have two very large pumpkins sitting on my kitchen table staring at me that came from the CSA.  My boys said they wanted a break from pumpkin soup, so bread and muffins it is, and of course more baby food!  Just found a very cool local food delivery website.  It is called Kitchen Table Cuisine, and they have everything from milk to veggies to flour to meats.  Also, found out there is a local grain mill on Edisto Island- hoping to get out there Friday and check it out.  There is also a local mill in Awenda (I think) called Anson Mill- he specializes in grits, flour, and cornmeal using ingredients/recipes from plantation times.  Very cool historically!  Update on the garbage output:  so far so good, only one 13 gallon trash bag- actually last week we made it 12 days on one bag.  Recycle, reuse, or compost, or feed to chickens!  Toilet paper rolls make excellent craft projects for kids,  Start a craft box in your house, and add empty containers, tissue rolls, milk cartons, egg cartoons, etc. to it for your kids' art projects or take and donate to art teacher at school.  They always need supplies like these.
Update on female/male chicken.  Yes, he/she still is having gender issues- poor thing.  It really cannot decide what it is suppose to be doing:  it crows, mounts other hens, but still lays an egg- every day!  Go figure!  From what I have read, this sometimes occurs with all hens, but they say he/she will never be able to fertilize the eggs.  So, basically we just have a cross-dressing chicken!!  Fun trying to explain that to four very curious boys.  I am planning to write more on composting later, right now must attend to hungry boys in my kitchen!

Eating local while out of town

Well, I have been meaning to post on here since I got back into town Monday, and guess what, here it is Thursday morning and I am finally sitting down to the computer.  I forgot how time-consuming returning from vacation can be:  all the unpacking, the clothes washing, attending to info pile-up, and getting boys ready for school!  Anyway, I think I am feeling somewhat under control of things (using the term somewhat very loosely)  As I said in my last post, I have been visiting with my sister, her family, and my parents in the charming town of Beaufort.  My sister lives in Montana, so it is always a big deal when she comes home b/c we only see each other twice a year.  She has two boys herself.  We all stayed at my parents house- yes, if you do the math, that is six boys under the age of 10 under one roof!  My parents are very brave and patient people!  As customary in our family, we like to prepare meals and all eat together.  Being my sister lives so far from the ocean now, we like to indulge her with as many meals from the ocean as possible!  Our Friday evening meal was a dish called Frogmore Stew.  For those of you reading this not from around here, no, it does not actually contain frogs.  It is named after the small community it originates from, Frogmore, which happens to be located in Beaufort.  In the stew goes shrimp, sausage, corn, and potatoes.  Fresh local shrimp for the stew- cooked til just pink!  As customary, we lay out newspaper on the table and just dump the stew right on the table for eating.  Eating fresh local shrimp not only taste better, it provides jobs and income for local shrimpers who have been supporting their families for generations by shrimping.  Then, on Saturday, what we all had been so anxiously anticipating, an oyster roast!  The oysters were harvested from the pristine May River which is right in Beaufort County- salty and delicious.  You really cannot beat standing under the majestic oak trees overlooking the river eating oysters that were just freshly harvested and steamed to perfection!  Add that with a toasty outside fire pit going and the company of great family and friends- absolutely wonderful!  As an added bonus, my uncle fried some local fish he had caught- what a feast we had!  We are so lucky and blessed to live in an area that sustains such an amazing diversity of delicious food.  However, we must always keep in mind that in order to sustain this diversity, we must support local harvesters, and above all care for our environment, especially our rivers, lakes, and oceans! 

Cooking with Tat Soi and Turnips!

If you had told me 3 months ago, I would be cooking tat soi and turnips and liking it, and my boys would be liking it, too- I would have probably said, "tat- what?".   This very green leafy veggie is one of the choices we get with our CSA share.  I picked it out on Sat. because I had never heard of it, much less eaten it!  After Monday, there was no more soup in a pumpkin left, but there was plenty of cold, soup eating weather still hanging around.  So, I put on a pot of beans to simmer, then I pulled out all the veggies in the fridge and started chopping.  One of the veggies was tat soi.  I still was unsure what to do with it, but to me it looked and felt similar to a collard, so I decided to chop it up to and add it to my soup.  Into the soup went beans, turnips, sweet potatoes, onions, celery, carrots, and yes, tat soi!  I also browned some fresh chicken sausage given to us by my father-in-law from a local meat man in Lexington- it is delicious!  I added this to the soup as well, and let the soup simmer all afternoon.  The soup filled the house with warm, earthy scents and made it feel very cozy inside while it was still icy and cold outside.  The boys and I also made more homemade bread to dip in the soup.  We had a side salad with fresh greens from Johns Island top with fresh goat cheese.  So far, nobody is complaining about eating locally, and we are still in winter- just imagine the meals when spring and summer roll around!  I can already taste and smell those vine-ripened tomatoes with homemade mozzarella cheese!    Today, we are headed out to pick up our weekly share from the CSA, and make a big batch of egg salad.   Our hens have been laying like crazy, apparently this cold weather does not bother them at all!   Once you taste fresh homemade egg salad, you will never want to eat any other kind again- nothing beats collecting the eggs in the morning and having an egg salad sandwich by lunchtime! 
Update- I will not be blogging for the next five days because my sister is coming home- finally- all the way from Montana!  We are all going to be in Beaufort at my parents house- 6 boys under the age of ten- all under one roof!!  My parents are very brave and/or crazy!  Guess, we will find out what is growing locally right now in Beaufort!  Can't wait to bring home some more fresh lemons and make a lemon pie!  And, of course some more hot toddies!  Happy eating everyone!

Soup in a pumpkin!!

On Saturday, we went to pick up our first CSA share.  It was a really great experience- veggies everywhere- brought in straight from the farm- so fresh!  We brought home:  broccoli, cauliflower, collards, carrots, salad greens, sweet potatoes, turnips, even grapefruit.  Also, they had pumpkins!  Apparently the farm had a bumper crop of pumpkins this year, so they still have them around.  I must confess I have never done anything with a pumpkin, except carve it and roast the seeds.  So, I asked one of the lady's working at the CSA what to do with it, and she suggested to cook a soup in it, and that is what we did.  Sunday, my husband cut the top off and cleaned the seeds out.  Then we filled it with cut-up fresh veggies from the CSA, some ground venison, sage from our backyard, and put the top back on. We put it in the oven for 2 hours on 350 degrees.  The pumpkin seals up like a slow cooker.  It came out delicious!  Every time you ladle the soup out, you would scrap the sides and get some pumpkin, too- very good!  After dinner, we cut-up the rest of the pumpkin and froze it to use later on in soups, breads, and/or pies.  We served the pumpkin with the soup in it on the dinner table, and the boys loved it!!  It made a very nice centerpiece, too!

One Pot Skillet dinner

Well, the hoppin johns and collards finally ran out at our house.  There was just a serving of hoppin johns left, so me not wanting to waste anything, decided to create a meal around that last serving.  Thankfully, it can easily be incorporated into one of my family's favorite meals- the one skillet dinner.  Start with a cast iron frying pan (really should have one of these- in my opinion, they cook the best) drizzle liberally with olive oil, then brown ground venison (from Lexington Co.) with a cut up cayenne pepper, add diced onions and/or celery, sautee briefly.  You want the veggies to still have crunch.  Then, start adding what is in season, or leftover from fridge.  In our case, butter beans, tomatoes (frozen from last season), leftover hoppin johns.  I cooked the butter beans separately with the last piece of turkey, therefore, you can use some of the broth in the skillet, and if you cook extra, you can save it to start a soup over the weekend.  I also cook a separate pot of brown rice (from GA) for the skillet dish to be placed over.  Cook extra so it can be added to your soup over the weekend.  After the meat is browned, you can add some worcestershire, black pepper, sea salt.  Then, sit down with your family and enjoy!  Oh, don't forget the hot chow-chow on top!  I will have to say that my boys were begging for seconds and asking if they could take it for lunch today!  Yeah, for eating local!    And, I must give a yeah to my hens out back- 7 eggs yesterday- go girls!!  Guess they must have gotten the memo, either start laying better or be in the pot!  They certainly stepped up to the plate!