There is nothing like digging up your dinner an hour before you sit down to eat.The taste and satisfaction of it makes the work involved seem so small. And no worries FDA did not approve this food so there is no fear that the food we eat has been sprayed with toxic chemicals or that a meat was injected with antibiotics and/or steroids. We know for sure the animals we are eating have never been mistreated from farm to slaughter because it all happens right here.
P.S. I finally finished reading "In defense of food". Looking for another good foodie/agricultural book to read...suggestions?
Ha, enough preaching!! We are not all good I assure you. My kids love oodles and noodles and we eat plenty of food that does not follow the above statements. Change comes slow and over the last couple years we have progressed. I am confident that things will continue to evolve here on the farm. We estimate that we are raising approximately 75% the meat we consume and 100% of our own eggs. As far as fruit and vegetables are numbers are much lower. We are working on that by learning ways to extend our season, preserving, and connecting with local resources. We hope to get the greenhouse up soon in anticipation of growing greens this winter. I had big plans for salsa and spaghetti sauce this season but our tomato plants were devastated by blight as many other Maine farmers.
I am planning to make sauerkraut with the above cabbage even though I've never liked it in the past. Homemade is always better, right? A few weeks back I made some fermented dilly beans that Erica from One Busy Momma posted. They were SO easy to make and mighty tasty. All you need is garlic, peppercorns, dill, salt, and beans of course. The whole family enjoyed and it took all of 5 minutes too put together.
12 comments:
Funny, my tomatoes survived and everything else died. What didn't simply rot in the ground was eaten by the Japanese Beetles.
If you've never liked sauerkraut, you might just like the homemade stuff, like you said. I like homemade better because you can eat it when it's still crunchy - the storebought stuff is so mushy.
If you like a little bite (or a lot) to your food, instead of making American sauerkraut, try making the Korean stuff - kimchi. If you like it, next year grow some daikon radishes to put in it.
The best book I've found for this stuff is Wild Fermentation by Sandor Ellis Katz.
I think blight has ravaged a lot of tomato's this year. What a pity. I think it's awesome that you raise almost all your own meat :) We buy ours, obivously, but it is all local and humanly raised, so I am happy with that.
We also have a kick-butt farmers market. Plums, pears, melons, and every vegetable imaginable there so eating local this summer has been super easy for us. It just putting stuff away that is the hard part!
Sorry to hear about the tomatoes. Mine suffered the same. Blight is the problem for a lot of farmers this year. I had to buy my tomatoes so that we could make tomato sauce and salsa. When I called around to the local farmers, a lot of them told me that they had lots all their tomato crops to blight. That's sad.
Have you read "Animal, Vegetable, Miracle" by Barbara Kingsolver?
Don't you just love having a garden Kim?!
~*~Amy~*~
RO, that is a bummer. I was in war with cucumber beetles for sometime.
Sarah, I think your right. I am going to try and make it this weekend.
Erica, I am hearing lots about blight in other area. The prices will be scary this winter I bet.
That is too bad YD. I have considered buying a bunch.
Goat Girl I have and loved it!
Amy, I do. Nothing like it!
I really liked the title of the post. It says it all. Have you ever ate Green Tomato Kraut? It is great. It's really simple to make also. The recipe just calls for green tomatoes, cabbage and some hot peppers. It is kraut with a kick. I have the full recipe if you want it.
Sorry to hear about your tomatoes. We have tomatoes but they are all green. I think if we had a normal summer this year the garden would have done much better. We are getting summer squash and I love them. I understand the satisfaction you receive with producing as much of your food as possible. Just think of the savings to fuel, transport, sell those things. I detest and refuse to buy Idaho potatoes. LOL Do you think there are any of the greenhouses left? That would be an excellent idea to put our garden in. I have looked at new but eek the prices.
AF, I have never tried that before but sure I'd love to have the recipe. Love to try new things!
K or A. I agree! There is more to benefit from just the food alone. We tried to buy additional greenhouses but he would not sell. Maybe in Spring he'd reconsider. Watch craigslist or uncle henry's.
Here's the green tomato kraut recipe.
4 large heads of cabbage
8 large green tomatoes
Hot peppers
Salt
Clean and chop the cabbage, tomatoes and hot peppers to desired size
Mix well and pack very tightly into quart jars. Once the jar is full, leaving 1 inch headspace, add 1 tablespoon pickling salt on top and fill with water. Make sure there are no air bubbles and put on lid and tighten. Then store in a cool,dark place for about six weeks.
THANKS FOR THE RECIPE. I MAY TRY A SMALLER BATCH.
Post a Comment