Britesea - Living the good life in rural Oregon

[snapshot]

Good morning!

I also use stock for adding extra flavor to the dog food I make- she loves it, and since I've been giving her homemade dog food her coat has gotten so soft and shiny! She is part lab, and they often have dry skin problems, but not this gal!

Do you just give her a mix of meat (and stock), veggies and rice or do you have a recipe? I've not made food for these two but with their sensitive systems, it wouldn't hurt to learn how. Right now they get a dogfood that costs $37 for 35#s and is hard to find. An alternative might be good!

 

[Britesea]

Wow, I don't know how I overlooked your question Snapshot. Sorry about taking so long to reply.

I have a basic recipe I use:
5-6 lbs ground meat - whatever is cheap. When turkeys go on sale I plan on buying a lot of them for dog food
3 lbs brown rice
3 lbs vegetables- I use all sorts, but I think their favorites (judging by how fast it disappears) are peas, carrots and winter squash
1 gallon (+ maybe a cup more) of water, whey, stock, or a mix of any of them

When I dish this up, I also open up a capsule of coral calcium and sprinkle it over the food since they aren't getting any bones or blood (the two main sources of calcium for dogs)

I try to vary the meats and veggies so they get a greater variety of nutrients. Sometimes I'll add a scrambled egg, shell and all, or some cheese if I have a little left over.

Still haven't found any chicken feet the only asian market in the area went under

I spent a couple days dehydrating carrots, so now I have about a year's supply of them packed up- yay! Next I have some potatoes to process- I'm thinking of drying them both shredded for hash browns, and cubed for stews and soups.

I also was given a 9lb cabbage that I want to kraut. I don't have a crock, but I was wondering if one of the food grade buckets I got from the bakery would work if I could find a cover and weight to fit?
I have one bucket that held garlic butter, and even though I've cleaned it and soaked it with bleach, it still smells like garlic- would that one be a problem?

 

[TanksHill]

Are chicken feet good for dogs?? I gave my Rottie a couple during processing but gave the rest away to a Hispanic family member.

I probably should have kept them huh?

g

 

[rathbone]

Sounds like your dogs are eating good!

 

[Britesea]

Are chicken feet good for dogs?? I gave my Rottie a couple during processing but gave the rest away to a Hispanic family member.

I probably should have kept them huh?

g

I want to make chicken stock and the feet are the best for a gelatin rich stock. That's probably what your Hispanic family member did with them. I tried checking out the latino carniceria in town, but they didn't have any feet, and the asian market has gone away. I've called all the supermarkets and a few of the better butchers, but no one carries them anymore. I guess my only recourse now is to try to find someone that raises meaties and see if they will give or sell me some feet, or just keep making stock out of my chicken carcasses and not get as much gelatin. I did find a source for beef feet to make good gelatin rich beef stock.

 

[Britesea]

Last two days, I've been sort of directionless, but today got a little better.

I sent a 'care package' off to DS2 who is attending Job Corps in Astoria. He misses Mom's cooking apparently, so I send him a few goodies every month.

The valve stem on our kitchen faucet broke, so right now I have no water in the kitchen. Filling up a dishpan in the bathtub and carrying it in is the pits, lol. I went to the local plumber supply, but couldn't find a match, so I'm afraid we may have to either order the part or get a new faucet

My Azure standard order came in, I'm running out of room. Next payday I need to buy mylar bags and other supplies so I can take all the bulk items and store them in buckets in the crawl space under the house. I wish we had an actual cellar but... *shrug*

Made my first batch of milk kefir, and we each had a glass this morning. I added a titch of honey to mine, but DH had his straight. It tasted really good- had a light fizzyness to it that I don't remember from the samples I tried though; did I culture it for too long or something? Our house is pretty cold, so I put it in the dehydrator on the lowest setting for a while to get it started.

Got my dog food put into the freezer. Don't have to do this again for 8 days, yay!

So now I'm washing dishes while waiting for the pork to thaw in the dehydrator so I can make chile verde. I forgot to take it out this morning :/

The apples just aren't turning sweet- so this weekend I'm gonna pick them anyway, and make applesauce and canned apple slices, and maybe spiced apples - I can add more sweetener if I need to.

 

[Britesea]

Hey Ho

DH found the right valve stem and repaired the faucet, although of course it took more expensive parts than I had bought. At least I have a working kitchen faucet again.
I bought my first gallon of raw milk from the new place- along with a pound of liver for dinner tonight YUM. I have some of milk inoculated with the kefir grains, and the rest is in the fridge.

We picked 60 lbs of apples today- there's still more on that tree plus lots more trees, but this is enough for me to process this weekend. I figure this batch is going into applesauce, of which we are very fond. Then we ground enough wheat into flour for tomorrow's baking. This is hard work! It took about 1 1/2 hours of the two of us swapping off as one got tired.

We've started hammering out a design for a summer kitchen. I want a heavy kitchen table that is bolted to the deck and then we can bolt down the grain mill, the oil press, the meat grinder, etc. so they don't get all wockety when we are using them, and it needs to be big enough for butchering and other types of food prep. A sink with french drain, water bath canning station (maybe a rocket stove? need to look into that more) and an earth oven for DH to bake bread. At first I was thinking of shelves for storing food, but I don't think we can keep the temps even enough for effective food storage. Pressure canning will still need to be done inside with the gas stove, as I don't think I'll be able to control the temperatures safely.

In the community greenhouse, I now have 2 dozen stevia plants, 3 tobacco plants, 2 rosemary, 2 parsley, 1 marjoram, 1 dwarf key lime tree and 1 dwarf orange tree, and a miniature rose that I apparently 'inherited'. I also planted carrots and radishes in some wide planters since I kinda waited too long to plant them in the garden. I also want to grow lettuces and other greens that might not survive the winter even with a cold frame.

 

[lorihadams]

Hi Britesea, glad you got the faucet fixed!

We are trying to figure out a design for a processing station in a small part of our garage....I'm thinking that I may use it to do some other food prep type stuff too. We don't have any apples yet so I'm jealous! I am really interested in the community greenhouse you talked about....how does that work and how big is it? Our neighbor is thinking of expanding their garden again next year and so are we so we are thinking of working together....we keep talking about buying/building some type of greenhouse and maybe we could go in together on some shared space. Could you tell us more about it?

 

[snapshot]

Britesea! Thanks for the recipe! I copied it! I haven't been here much the last few days. Thank you again!!!!!!!

 

[Britesea]

you are welcome Snapshot! Glad to see you back

Lorihadams- The people that have the community greenhouse have 3 big greenhouses, about 30x100. She uses one of them to grow things commercially for retail sales, another one is mainly for storage of pots and soil right now, the third one she turned into a community greenhouse. She applied for and received a grant that covers a lot of the costs of maintaining it- they have heat and light. Inside are tables, each one about 6'x6' that anyone in our community can use for free. You are given an entire table for your own use. She provides the pots and soil mix - no outside soil allowed as people might inadvertently bring in disease. She also wants to keep it totally organic. If you can't come in to take care of your plants for a day or two, she will water them for you. I've known her to keep taking care of someone's plants for 6 months before she finally decides they aren't yours anymore- that's how I inherited the miniature rose. She is a master gardener, and will happily help you figure out what your plants need if they are looking peaked or something. She also will pay you in plants for helping in the commercial greenhouse, and this last year she had a program to help people make a little money in the commercial side. For instance, I bought 180 parsley starts for $40 from a seed starter greenhouse and transplanted and raised them to retail size. She sold them for me to retail nurseries and at the farmer's market. After paying for the starts and a portion for her costs, I still made $60 profit. Not huge, but it was a nice bit of change.

In our area, we have such a short growing season - only 90 days, and snow can still happen in during those 90 days- that you pretty much need a greenhouse or cold frames or something if you want to grow anything besides radishes, lol. So this community greenhouse is a godsend for those of us that can't afford one of our own.