Freemotion's food journal: Expanding the gardens, pics p 53
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freemotion
Food Guru
Busy day....I got one five gallon pail of sea water strained and boiled, and will try to get another one done tonight. I will store this until the woodstove is going full tilt, then I will boil it down to get the salt. I think it will store better strained and sanitized with a quick boil.
I strained both my plum liqueur and my melon liqueur and got two swing-top beer bottles from each, which were labeled and returned to storage in a dark closet until they are ready to try sometime in January or so.
I strained and bottled 6 quarts of kombucha and started two more gallons.
I cleaned a few things out of the fridge, including some of last winter's fermented hot peppers that looked slimy...they were storebought ones that I fermented after we ran out of homemade ones. Probably why they went slimy. On a good note, I found some bacon grease I didn't know I had....woohoo! I also tossed the pound of black cherries I'd picked and never got around to making liqueur from, not having any vodka when I picked them. Then they got shoved towards the back of the fridge and "lost." Oh, well. There is another tree with ripening berries that I can reach, and I have vodka now, so I may take another run at it.
I started a batch of raspberry liqueur from frozen raspberries to see how it would come out. One day I will have my own....I still have two live raspberry canes from the bunch I planted in this drought year. If I get cherry and peach done, I will have five kinds to try out this winter and see if I like them.
Did I mention how much I love my new gas stove??? I can't wait to can on it, and I can't wait to do more cast iron cooking, especially with my beloved and treasured and gigantic Dutch oven.
DH and I went to Chipotles today. It was mentioned in Food, Inc and we've wanted to try it ever since. Finally, one was opened in West Hartford, and we went today. It was quite good! It would've been perfect if they would just leave the fresh cilantro out!
But I got to try the...um...is it carnitas? In preparation for December, our target month to be pig-free!
I strained both my plum liqueur and my melon liqueur and got two swing-top beer bottles from each, which were labeled and returned to storage in a dark closet until they are ready to try sometime in January or so.
I strained and bottled 6 quarts of kombucha and started two more gallons.
I cleaned a few things out of the fridge, including some of last winter's fermented hot peppers that looked slimy...they were storebought ones that I fermented after we ran out of homemade ones. Probably why they went slimy. On a good note, I found some bacon grease I didn't know I had....woohoo! I also tossed the pound of black cherries I'd picked and never got around to making liqueur from, not having any vodka when I picked them. Then they got shoved towards the back of the fridge and "lost." Oh, well. There is another tree with ripening berries that I can reach, and I have vodka now, so I may take another run at it.
I started a batch of raspberry liqueur from frozen raspberries to see how it would come out. One day I will have my own....I still have two live raspberry canes from the bunch I planted in this drought year. If I get cherry and peach done, I will have five kinds to try out this winter and see if I like them.
Did I mention how much I love my new gas stove??? I can't wait to can on it, and I can't wait to do more cast iron cooking, especially with my beloved and treasured and gigantic Dutch oven.
DH and I went to Chipotles today. It was mentioned in Food, Inc and we've wanted to try it ever since. Finally, one was opened in West Hartford, and we went today. It was quite good! It would've been perfect if they would just leave the fresh cilantro out!
But I got to try the...um...is it carnitas? In preparation for December, our target month to be pig-free!
kcsunshine
Almost Self-Reliant
Yuk, I don't care for fresh cilantro at all. Sorry 
all you cilantro lovers.
all you cilantro lovers.
Henrietta23
Yard Farmer
Sounds like an excellent place to meet for lunch!!freemotion said:Busy day....I got one five gallon pail of sea water strained and boiled, and will try to get another one done tonight. I will store this until the woodstove is going full tilt, then I will boil it down to get the salt. I think it will store better strained and sanitized with a quick boil.
I strained both my plum liqueur and my melon liqueur and got two swing-top beer bottles from each, which were labeled and returned to storage in a dark closet until they are ready to try sometime in January or so.
I strained and bottled 6 quarts of kombucha and started two more gallons.
I cleaned a few things out of the fridge, including some of last winter's fermented hot peppers that looked slimy...they were storebought ones that I fermented after we ran out of homemade ones. Probably why they went slimy. On a good note, I found some bacon grease I didn't know I had....woohoo! I also tossed the pound of black cherries I'd picked and never got around to making liqueur from, not having any vodka when I picked them. Then they got shoved towards the back of the fridge and "lost." Oh, well. There is another tree with ripening berries that I can reach, and I have vodka now, so I may take another run at it.
I started a batch of raspberry liqueur from frozen raspberries to see how it would come out. One day I will have my own....I still have two live raspberry canes from the bunch I planted in this drought year. If I get cherry and peach done, I will have five kinds to try out this winter and see if I like them.
Did I mention how much I love my new gas stove??? I can't wait to can on it, and I can't wait to do more cast iron cooking, especially with my beloved and treasured and gigantic Dutch oven.
DH and I went to Chipotles today. It was mentioned in Food, Inc and we've wanted to try it ever since. Finally, one was opened in West Hartford, and we went today. It was quite good! It would've been perfect if they would just leave the fresh cilantro out!
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- #335
freemotion
Food Guru
I have a kombucha mushroom in a jar and kefir grains in my freezer!!! Your name on them! DH and I will be teaching together....well, not together, but at the same time in different rooms....in Newington on Sat mornings starting Sept. 11. We finish around 1-1:30, so let's plan something!
Oh, pictures soon, hopefully! The computer is coming along nicely...slow, but steady!
Oh, pictures soon, hopefully! The computer is coming along nicely...slow, but steady!
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- #336
freemotion
Food Guru
Oh, I almost forgot, I got a grain grinder today from CL!! For $60! It is quite old, but works. It is a....shoot, I forget now, I'll have to tell you later....but it goes for $625 new. It grinds with stones, not blades, so the flour is always cool and this preserves the nutrients better. In the VitaMix, the flour gets quite hot and I have to cool it by throwing the bags in the freezer to cool them down quickly.
I brought some corn from the feed bag with me and some hard red wheat to try in it. I knew it was old, old, old....the guy was cleaning out a duplex and it was left behind in an attic. It was a little dirty but we threw some corn in to clean it and that worked beautifully. I was able to adjust the grind....very coarse made something like chick mash, which I plan on doing with it. Very fine made something like fine cornmeal or corn flour.
Then we put the hard red wheat in, and it made a flour as fine as....maybe a bit finer....than my VitaMix does. Sold!
There are a couple of challenges with it. There is no lid for the hopper and sometimes the grain flies out the top as it goes into the grinding stones and pops up. And the flour/meal comes out of a horizontal pipe mid-way down the side of the unit and we held a ziploc tightly against it, and flour flew everywhere. The little bit I found on the internet about this mill says that it was designed to put a cloth flour sack on the pipe and clamp it in place (no signs of anything to clamp it with). I can see that I will need to use a cloth bag, so my next project is to come up with some flour sacks.
Maybe high thread count pillow cases, cut into smaller flour sacks? I'll start a thread to ask this question....
ETA: It is an "All-Grain Flour Mill."
I brought some corn from the feed bag with me and some hard red wheat to try in it. I knew it was old, old, old....the guy was cleaning out a duplex and it was left behind in an attic. It was a little dirty but we threw some corn in to clean it and that worked beautifully. I was able to adjust the grind....very coarse made something like chick mash, which I plan on doing with it. Very fine made something like fine cornmeal or corn flour.
Then we put the hard red wheat in, and it made a flour as fine as....maybe a bit finer....than my VitaMix does. Sold!
There are a couple of challenges with it. There is no lid for the hopper and sometimes the grain flies out the top as it goes into the grinding stones and pops up. And the flour/meal comes out of a horizontal pipe mid-way down the side of the unit and we held a ziploc tightly against it, and flour flew everywhere. The little bit I found on the internet about this mill says that it was designed to put a cloth flour sack on the pipe and clamp it in place (no signs of anything to clamp it with). I can see that I will need to use a cloth bag, so my next project is to come up with some flour sacks.
Maybe high thread count pillow cases, cut into smaller flour sacks? I'll start a thread to ask this question....
ETA: It is an "All-Grain Flour Mill."
Henrietta23
Yard Farmer
Yay!!! We can definitely make that work.freemotion said:
Mackay
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Freemotion, do you have any recipies for decent salad dressings?
I'm open to anything with quality ingredients.
Once upon a time I use to make a beet salad dressing but I don't remember how these days.
any idea on that one?
I'm open to anything with quality ingredients.
Once upon a time I use to make a beet salad dressing but I don't remember how these days.
any idea on that one?
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- #339
freemotion
Food Guru
I basically make two that we love, and I found this on another thread:
The other is a basic Italian, I'll see if I can find it.
I often used strained kefir or strained yogurt instead of sour cream.
The other is a basic Italian, I'll see if I can find it.
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- #340
freemotion
Food Guru
I spent the entire hot day working on the computer with a friend who offered to help me with marketing. It took all day because she was fascinated with my food preservation and fermenting. I sent her home with a bottle of kombucha, a scoby, a bottle of homemade vanilla, and my famous chai tea mix. Another one over to the dark side! BWAHAHAHAHAHA!!!
Best part of it is that she then had a bazillion new marketing ideas, stuff that I NEVER would've thought of on my own but will really enjoy doing....it involves food! Making up a bunch of one-batch chai tea mixes, attaching a pretty card with instructions and pointing to my website, and getting them out there as small, inexpensive gift ideas for other professionals and just anyone, really. I just might whip up some batches of soap, too, and maybe some salad dressing mixes. Hmmm.....what else?
Best part of it is that she then had a bazillion new marketing ideas, stuff that I NEVER would've thought of on my own but will really enjoy doing....it involves food! Making up a bunch of one-batch chai tea mixes, attaching a pretty card with instructions and pointing to my website, and getting them out there as small, inexpensive gift ideas for other professionals and just anyone, really. I just might whip up some batches of soap, too, and maybe some salad dressing mixes. Hmmm.....what else?
