annaraven - more random update stuph

[TanksHill]

I stopped printing labels like 5 years ago. They never cam off the jars. Such a pain in my bum. Now I just write on the flat with a sharpie. Item type, if not obvious, and the date.

Orange Marmalade sounds good. Two things that came to mind. Did you use an old fashioned recipe that require no pectin but has you boil it down till thick???

If so, this may be why it took so long. The sugar is what thickens it. No sugar no thick.

For all my fruit jams I use a No Sugar pectin. Sometimes I add maybe 1 or 2 cups per batch. But in peak season you don't need any. Nothing is better that Apricot jam with just fruit.

I am glad yours worked out. Your dh should be really happy.

g

 

[AnnaRaven]

I'm pretty sure PurpleChicken from BYC has eaten silkie meat. He's the one who told me about the color difference.

Got some free silkie crosses a couple weeks ago, maybe a month ago?

I skinned them out and make a fabulous stock from them in the crock pot, and got a fair bit of shredded meat. The skin is black, along with some of the tendon, which also translates into some black on the meat. The majority of the breast meat is white but is black by where it's touching bone.

Marmalade is GOOD! I've not tried the agave - does it taste about the same as regular sugar?

Tastes a little more like honey than sugar, a good clean natural taste, not the icky metallic taste of artificial sweeteners. The marmalade is awesome. I'm gonna have more with breakfast. I think I'm gonna make toast just for the marmalade.

 

[AnnaRaven]

I stopped printing labels like 5 years ago. They never cam off the jars. Such a pain in my bum. Now I just write on the flat with a sharpie. Item type, if not obvious, and the date.

Orange Marmalade sounds good. Two things that came to mind. Did you use an old fashioned recipe that require no pectin but has you boil it down till thick???

If so, this may be why it took so long. The sugar is what thickens it. No sugar no thick.

For all my fruit jams I use a No Sugar pectin. Sometimes I add maybe 1 or 2 cups per batch. But in peak season you don't need any. Nothing is better that Apricot jam with just fruit.

I am glad yours worked out. Your dh should be really happy.

g

Well, the recipe was from a new Ball Blue Book. But it uses the orange pulp as the source of pectin. The next batch, with coconut sugar instead of agave was faster - no extra liquid. Agave is a syrup (like adding honey), so there was more liquid with the agave version, and I think that's what took so long.

I look forward to peach season. I love peaches and peach jam.

ETA: They all sealed. Woohoo!

 

[abifae]

Agave is one of those foods that gets people up in arms on both sides LOL. It's not as all natural as they claim it to be, but it DOES keep blood sugar from spiking.

I will only do all fruit. I figure I get MORE than enough sugar from the oranges themselves without adding sugar to the marmalade LOL. I want to make jams this year.

Need a pressure canner first!!! And then I shall learn to can!!!

Sometimes it gets very frustrating that all sugars are just sugar and I cannot find a magic one that will do all the sugar things without causing me issues LOL.

 

[AnnaRaven]

So how big *is* a pygmy goat?

 

[AL]

they've gotcha hooked LOL

 

[CrimsonRose]

our pygmy was the size of a med sized dog but much fatter... They are beefy but short... very cute!!! She even lived in a dog house for a little while

 

[AnnaRaven]

So, how tall? Are there pics of someone with the dog, I mean goat, next to them so we can see how tall they actually are? DH and I were discussing goats a while back but we figured they'd be way too big, even the pygmy ones. I mean, our dog is 40 pounds. Pygmies weigh in at like 100, don't they?

 

[freemotion]

Depends on the pygmy. I have two pygmy crosses. They tend to by kinda like big goats on short legs (kegs on legs) and aren't much for jumping over fences once they get full grown. Mine are about knee-high. And as wide.

There is a trend to breeding "mini" goats or kinders, crossing Nigerian Dwarf goats with full-size dairy breeds, for mini Nubians, mini La Manchas (OFG has one) and others.

For the smaller goats, think of pygmies as meat goats and ND's as milk goats.

Oh, and by the way....

BWAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA!!!!!! Gotcha!

 

[AnnaRaven]

Depends on the pygmy. I have two pygmy crosses. They tend to by kinda like big goats on short legs (kegs on legs) and aren't much for jumping over fences once they get full grown. Mine are about knee-high. And as wide.

There is a trend to breeding "mini" goats or kinders, crossing Nigerian Dwarf goats with full-size dairy breeds, for mini Nubians, mini La Manchas (OFG has one) and others.

For the smaller goats, think of pygmies as meat goats and ND's as milk goats.

Oh, and by the way....

BWAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA!!!!!! Gotcha!

Well, we wouldn't be interested in a meat goat. Just a milk goat. So how big are the milk goats? And how much space do they need? (I suspect more than we have...)