Hilarious and Brilliant!

Berry Abundant

How would you like to be able to pick a big bowl full of berries every day for a few weeks of the year, for free, just by taking a walk around your yard?
Or go to a local farm and pick berries from your berry CSA, enough to come home and freeze up some for winter, after you have stuffed yourself on their juicy goodness?

And how would you like to be able to make this for dinner after the first strawberry picking of the season (this appears to be becoming a tradition)?

I would! And I am so blessed to be able to do so.

Feeling abundant and wanting to share, I am going to give you my recipe, just developed this week, for black raspberry ice cream. It is actually a bit sherbet-like, with more fruit than cream, so if you like the tart-sweet of berries, you are going to love this!

Black Raspberry Ice Cream

1 cup black raspberry puree (you will need over two cups of berries to get this amount of puree- just press them through a strainer and compost/feed to the chickens or pigs/discard the seeds)

1 cup sugar

1 egg

1 cup cream

1 cup milk

1/8 tsp citric acid

Mix all ingredients together and freeze in an ice cream maker, straining the mixture as you pour it into the machine. I do this to get those few seeds that find their way through the strainer and any lumpy bits of egg out. Makes a generous quart of ice cream.

You could substitute red raspberries, or even frozen berries for fresh if you have to. The citric acid is key to a good tart-sweet effect, but you could probably substitute lemon juice, if you can't find any citric acid. Maybe a couple teaspoons of juice. Taste as you add it to see if you like it, before freezing. Remember that sweet is tempered by cold, so it will taste sweeter in custard form than it does in ice cream form.

Let me know if you try it and what you think!

Oh, I forgot to say that instead of composting the seeds, after you strain the puree, make raspberry lemonade. Just add a quart or so of water to them and stir until all the juice is off the seeds and in the water. Strain out the seeds and add some sugar and lemon juice to taste. Plop in a few ice cubes and enjoy!

Eggs-actly

Am I crazy for knowing which chicken laid which egg? Have I gone too far into crazy chicken lady land?

Don't answer those questions, 'kay?

I don't really want to know.

Seeds of Change?

I'm getting geared up to start planning my garden for next year and the issue of what seeds to buy keeps coming up. I'm hearing a lot about big Agribusiness and GMOs and global takeover of the seed supply. It is very scary stuff. Anyway, for anyone who eats, here are some articles you should read about this:

http://scienceblogs.com/casaubonsbook/2009/12/evillest_corporation_ever_give.php

http://www.i-sis.org.uk/MonsantovsFarmers.php

And don't hold out for help from the government on this one:

http://civileats.com/2009/12/08/obamas-broken-promises-disappointing-and-dangerous-for-farmers-and-eaters/

I think I will only be ordering non GMO seeds for my garden. Can't handle the thought that I would be contributing to the destruction of the stability of our food supply otherwise.

Great Bread

There a couple areas of my life that I realized I have never really shared with you here on the blog. One of them is my passion for cooking. I love to cook, bake, and feed people. And I love to share recipes. I don't usually make up my own, so I will of course share the source.

Today I want to share a cookbook that has changed my life. No really! I love this book. It is called Artisan Bread in Five Minutes a Day and the bread you can make from it is awesome. That link will take you to their blog where they actually share some recipes so you can try it yourself. I do recommend buying the book, though, as it is chock full of info and recipes and great stuff.

Anyway, a while ago I was thinking that I needed to get back to making our bread again, as I had gotten out of the habit with the move and all. But with all the other stuff going on around here, I kept missing out on good times to devote to bread baking. The fact that you have to be "on" for three or more hours at a time to make a loaf of bread kept getting in my way. Enter this book and the no knead method of bread baking. Problem solved! All I do now is take five minutes to mix up a batch of dough, let it rise and then stick it in the fridge. Another few minutes to shape it, let it rest while the oven heats, bake and bread is hot out of the oven for any meal of the day, even breakfast if I want. Really, the longest thing about this method is grinding my own flour!

I love that there are recipes for all kinds of breads, even sweet breads and pizza! And their new book does the same thing, but with whole grains. OK, enough gushing. I'm going to go into the kitchen now and make some bread. I'll take pictures along the way and share them with you later to show you how great this is!

Beets!

On Monday, the girls and I went out to the ol' homestead (aka my Dad's) for a little canning session. I had been saving up the beets we got from our CSA and my stepmom had a bunch of beets they had grown ready to go. So we made pickled beets. There were the regular old red beets and there were golden beets and striped beets, too.

A had little interest in getting her hands dirty, but she hung out in the kitchen with us and watched the whole process.

The first batch out of the canner! While the second batch was being processed, we walked up to the pond:

I love reflections. They almost seem more real than the real trees.

E had fun with cattails.

Blowing in the wind. It was a lovely day, not very November-ish. Can't wait to taste those beets!