A First for Everything

Another first. I dried some zucchini with my dehydrator. I would like to try experiment with a few other vegetables such as green peppers, onions, and tomatoes. Anyone have any advice, do you or have you dried vegetables. What was your process and how did you utilize your goods. As you hear lots about sun dried tomatoes I'd have to say that is where most of my interest is.
First year growing garlic. We have about 3 times the above and it is amazing. How do you all store it? And the trick to braiding it? I read up on it a bit but still didn't quite get it.

Farm stand update: We made $61 our first week. Doesn't sound like much but it is a start. What we've observed so far. Best sellers, corn, tomatoes, eggs, and cukes. Zucchini, garlic, and yellow squash we've sold very little of.

I will end this post with a recipe for some kick a@! cake I made John for his birthday. He requested chocolate cake with PB frosting and that is what he got. Homemade at that, in previous years it would have come straight from the box with a jar of frosting. You do what you see. I do not ever remember my Mom making cake from scratch so why would I?
We started eating this at 5:30 am and it was gone by 8 that night. We celebrate John's b-day early before I headed to work. I usually do not over eat but I did with this cake. A must make for anyones upcoming b-day!

The Perfect Present Buttermilk Chocolate Cake Recipe
www.The-Perfect-Present.com

Ingredients	Preparation
2 Cups Flour	Preheat Oven to 300° F (This is not a typo! This is a slow bake chocolate cake recipe.) Use Crisco Shortening to lightly grease and flour the 9 x 13 in. Baking Dish. (It's a one layer chocolate cake!) Place all the ingredients on the left into a mixing bowl. Mix at medium or medium high speed until all ingredients are blended and smooth. Pour into greased and floured baking dish Bake for 1 hr. Test by sticking with knife. If it comes out clean, it's done! Allow to cool. Scroll down this page for the simple Recommended White Vanilla Icing...
2 Cups Sugar
¾ Cup Hershey's Cocoa
2 Teaspoons Baking Soda
2 Eggs (I use large eggs)
1 Teaspoon Salt
1 Cup Buttermilk Remember that you can freeze buttermilk so you have to make another buttermilk chocolate cake recipe.
1 Cup Mazola Oil
1 ½ Teaspoons Vanilla Extract
1 Cup Boiling Water

borrowed from:
http://www.bestmoistchocolatecakerecipe.com/


(I cooked it for 50minutes and it came out perfect, my stove seems to over cook a bit)

Ingredients

• 1 cup butter (softened to room temperature)
• 1 cup creamy peanut butter
• 4 cups powdered sugar
• 1/4 cup milk
• 2 teaspoons vanilla

Directions

1. Cream butter and peanut butter together.
2. Add half the powdered sugar and blend.
3. Blend in milk and vanilla.
4. Add remaining powdered sugar.
5. Stir until smooth and well blended.

frosting recipe borrowed from
http://www.recipezaar.com/111131

Spring Fishing

What is a dad to do when he is home alone with his boy on a warm spring day? Updates

• Animals: Returned "Romeo" a boar we borrowed. He arrived on April 1st and returned home this past Sunday. We think he did his job, he at least gets an "A" for effort. We are hoping our two sows will be having piglets in July/August. Not ideal timing. Next time around we will plan for spring piglets rather then fall.
• We hope to get our electric fencing up within the next couple weeks and get some cattle out in the pasture.
• Broilers are really close to freezer camp. Maine Man has almost completed the plucker. He just needs to attach motor. Pictures and post to follow.
• We have babies! One of our does had a litter. Not sure how many? I'd say at least 4 by the picture. I did not want to disrupt them so I just put my camera in the hole of the box and snapped away until I caught a glimpse of them.
  

• Garden is coming along. We have lots more planting to be had over the next few weeks. The greenhouse is another project that needs to be done. Not sure when we will have the time. One of MM's buddies gave him plastic for it. Only problem is that it is 3 feet too short in width. Not sure what we are going to do with that. Too bad it wasn't too short in length instead. That would have been an easy fix.

• Food: I have been doing a little experimenting (imagine that!) with raw milk. This week I made butter for a first. Skimmed 1 gallon, end result about 2 tablespoons. It was very tasty. Note to self: don't bother unless you have a milking cow in your backyard an an abundance of cream. I also attempted to make yogurt. Bought the culture at the natural food store and incubated it using a crock pot with water. Did not come out very well. Consistency was good but it seemed a bit tart. Not sure what I did wrong. I never buy plain yogurt, just flavored so it could have been that? Will experiment again sometime!
• With some of that milk I had to use up I also made this grape nut pudding recipe. It is at the bottom of that post. MM ate it up in no time. If you are looking for a really good chocolate cake recipe with peanut butter frosting this is what I made for Leah's birthday. I made it for the first time last year for MM's birthday, it is now a family favorite!
• Leah has been cooking up a storm. She nearly killed me school vacation week. I think I gained 10lbs and had a bad case of dish pan hands. Damn I need a dish washer! It is the top of my I NEED list! This past weekend she made some really yummy peanut butter balls and she plans to post the recipe sometime soon on her blog.

• Community Treasure Chest aka the "tote" from here on out. That adventure has REALLY taken off. I started with one tote in circulation but others wanted to join along so I started a second. It has been SUCH A SUCCESS! My buddy Miki is starting a third except she is putting a little twist on it making it a couples tote. I have received great feedback from the members. Everyone so far has been happy with the goodies they have scored. SO VERY excited at the responses! I think I may have even inspired a women I work to put one together with some of her friends. If you haven't considered getting one of these started in your neck of the woods I suggest you get on it.