Simple Homemade Ranch Dressing or Veggie Dip

It's sad that it took me so long, but I've finally conquered making another household staple from scratch! I scoured the internet looking for decent ranch dressing recipes, and after a couple of memorable failures, I stumbled upon this one. I like it, the kids like it, and it's easy to make. Definitely a winner I'll be making again and again (especially as the fresh veggies start coming in!)

Ranch Dressing or Veggie Dip

¼ cup milk or buttermilk

1 cup mayonnaise

½ cup sour cream

¼ tsp chopped fresh dill (or 1 tsp dry dill)

1 Tbsp chopped fresh parsley (or 1 tsp dry)

1 teaspoon chopped fresh chives (or 1 tsp onion powder)

1 clove garlic, minced (or 1 teaspoon garlic powder)

Mix together well.  If it’s too thick for salad dressing, add a little milk.  If it’s too thin for a ranch veggie dip, add a little sour cream (and more herbs/spices as needed.)

New Book: The Good Food Revolution

The Good Food Revolution: Growing Healthy Food, People, and Communities by Will Allen with Charles Wilson

I was so excited when a friend let me borrow this book, I read it from cover to cover in three days! I've been a fan of Will Allen ever since I first heard about his Growing Power project in Milwaukee (which just happens to be where my Mom was born and raised, and where I went to college - so I can picture just where he's writing about).

This book is meant to be a biography of Allen and his project, primarily explaining why they're doing what they're doing, and to inspire others to follow his example. His main goal is to find new ways to bring good food to people who may not be able to get it (specifically African Americans and other minorities in poor inner city neighborhoods).

So, much of the book wasn't exactly aimed at a white woman living in very rural northern Wisconsin, but I am excited about some of his practical ideas for raising food in a small amount of space. I'm very intrigued, for example, by his aquaculture set-up (he raises talapia in a long, thin tank down the center of one of his greenhouses, then filters the water the fish have (*ahem*) fertilized through a bed of tomato plants, after which the cleaned water is cycled back to the fish in a completely closed system (I'm sure I didn't get that exactly right, but you can look at the Growing Power website for more information).

Another idea I found interesting was his use of hoophouses, specifically his success raising chickens and winter spinach in the same hoophouse (the chickens keep the air warm enough so that the greens don't freeze; if you make sure there is enough carbon material (Joel Salatin's "Carbonacious Diaper") to balance the "clucker muck" (that's my term for chicken poop), the ammonia won't build up enough to damage the plants.) I would really love to try this idea this winter! I'm thinking of a setup where half of the hoophouse would be chicken coop, and the other side cold frames filled with vegetables (as detailed in Eliot Coleman's Winter Harvest Handbook). The second year, I would simply reverse what goes where, so that the vegetables would benefit from the well-rotted chicken fertilizer, and the chickens can clean up the old garden beds. When the chickens move out onto their summer pasture, I can raise tomato transplants in the sheltered hoophouse.

Allen is also a big proponent of vermicomposting - using worms to break down food waste and turn it into valuable fertilizer. I would like to combine his ideas with those in Harvey Ussery's book The Small-Scale Poultry Flock and have a combination fertilizer/chicken feed bin incorporated into the floor of my winter hoophouse.

There are so many interesting ideas in this book (although I should caution that it's not a how-to book; there are no specific plans for his hoophouses or aquaculture systems). I found it so inspirational - I can't wait to start growing more food for our family (and hopefully someday for others as well).

Note: I was not payed to review this book, I just really love it! But if you click on the link above and buy the book at amazon.com, I will receive a small commission from the sale. Thank you for your support!

Wild Winter Chicken Feed

I almost forgot - there's one more unlikely wild food we've been harvesting lately: Dandelion seeds!

I have about a dozen family-size spaghetti sauce jars full of them. The kids think this is great fun!

So why, you ask, am I harvesting dandelion seeds?

I have this crazy plan to save all of this free seed, store it until snow falls, and then sprout it and feed it to my chickens as winter greens. For the last two winters, I've been sprouting purchased wheat berries for my hens; I realized finally that I could save that seed money and simply save what grows free as a nuisance in my yard!

Of course, before I saved jars and jars of the stuff I tested a little bit to see if it would sprout indoors  - it worked wonderfully!

Of course this wouldn't work on a large chicken operation; there's no mechanical way I know of to harvest dandelion fluff. And that's probably why it isn't recommended in all of the chicken farming books. But for our small-scale, pancake-powered child labor force, it's perfect!

This post is part of the Homestead Barn Hop

UPDATE:
Well, it sounded good anyway. When I went to sprout the seeds in the winter, I couldn't get them to germinate. Add to that the fact that half of the jars had gotten slightly moldy, and this experiment was a bust! Back to the drawing board . . .

Feeling a Little Wild

I haven't been harvesting much other than spinach and rhubarb from my garden yet, but I've been gathering quite a bit of wild plants already.

Our lettuce (which sowed itself last fall) isn't quite big enough for picking yet, so for our early spring tacos, we've been harvesting plantain out of the yard (which hasn't been sprayed with anything in the 6 years we've been here, so I'm fairly sure it's safe).

We also discovered two small patches of nettles, so I harvested those and dehydrated them (wearing gloves and long sleeves, of course!) I was a little worried that dehydrating without blanching wouldn't deactivate the stingers, but I tried it anyway, and unloaded the dehydrator bare handed without any trouble. Apparently, you can use them just like spinach, and I plan to add them to our spaghetti and pizza sauce this winter, for a nice vitamin boost.

Earlier this week, my oldest daughter seemed to have an eye infection (the lids were swollen, and the eyeball itself was a little red). After a quick check in The Handbook of Vintage Remedies, I found that raspberry or blackberry leaf tea was an effective remedy, so we ran out and picked some leaves from the blackberries that grow wild on the edge of our property. By the next day, her eye was back to normal, so I decided to pick more leaves and dehydrate those for wintertime teas.

Needless to say, I am so grateful for my Excalibur dehydrator! I'm certainly getting a lot of use out of it this spring!

Next up: wild strawberries! Our yard is full of these tiny little beauties every summer. Right now they're in bloom, promising a great harvest in a month or so!

Making Bentwood Garden Structures

About a year ago, I discovered the book Making Bentwood Trellises, Arbors, Gates & Fences by Jim Long. I loved the idea, but didn't have enough wood (or time!) to implement any of his plans.

But the idea stuck with me, and when I saw the brush pile my husband made after pruning the apple and maple trees (and clearing out a ton of brush out back), I knew I could finally bring some of those ideas to fruition. 

Raw Materials!

I was a little nervous that I was biting off more than I could chew, but once I actually got going, the projects turned out to be really easy! Here's what I made first:

Not bad for a first try, I think! My front garden is very "blah", but I think this accents it nicely. I plan to grow scarlet runner beans up it this summer (a variety I'd never even heard of until I read Edible Landscaping by Rosalind Creasy - another book I highly recommend!) This fence is held together with galvanized deck screws, and supported from behind with steel fence posts (the three main uprights are held to the fence posts with deck screws). I also set the three main uprights on top of concrete pavers, which hopefully will make the fence last a little longer than if I had simply sunk them into the ground). This project took less than three hours to put together.

Excited by this first success, I decided to try another bentwood project (here's what it should look like this summer - this is the picture that gave me the idea, from Green Renaissance)

Here's what my version looks like (and remember, it's only April, so there's nothing growing on it yet. I'm planning to grow more scarlet runner beans on this, so imagine lots of green foliage and pretty little red flowers):

For this project, I don't plan on it lasting more than a year, so I just sunk the poles around 8 inches into the ground and tied them together on top with twine. My husband put a ridgepole along the top (it was a little too high for me to do comfortably), and I'm planning to put two more support poles along the sides, to give it a little more stability and to give the beans something to twine around.

Meanwhile, there's still a lot of wood in that brush pile out back, and I could use some tepees for the peas, and tomato supports, and an arbor would look really good, I think . . .

This post is part of the Farmgirl Friday bloghop.

Making Liquid Soap from Bar Soap

I love my homemade bar soap, but I've discovered that my 4 year old boy thinks of it more as a toy than as a cleaning agent - he loves to get it wet and play with it when I'm not looking. This means we go through soap a lot faster than absolutely necessary, which kind of defeats the purpose of saving money by making my own soap!

So yesterday I finally went online and looked for ways to make liquid soap, thinking that if anything it will at least take him longer to go through it! I found a few different ideas, and took what I liked out of each and put them together into my own simple method. Here's what I did:

First, shred a bar of soap (I used my tallow soap, which I honestly wasn't impressed with; even after it was fully saponified, it still smelled like beef! My dog really liked me, but my husband wasn't as impressed . . .)

(Thankfully my boy liked being part of the solution as much as he enjoyed being the problem!)

Then take one cup of this shredded soap (packed down a little bit so you get a full cup) and add it to 10 cups of hot water (I boil the water, then turn off the heat just before I add the soap, so it's very hot but not actually boiling anymore). Stir it well, so that the soap is fully dissolved. It will be really runny at this point, but don't worry! Cover loosely and let it sit overnight, or until it's completely cooled. When you come back in the morning, stir it up well one more time. At this point, it should be thick, like purchased liquid hand soap, and you can now put it into your empty hand soap pump and use it.

If it's not thick, you can try mixing 3 tablespoons of salt into 8 oz of water, and then stirring this into your runny soap - a little bit at a time! - until it thickens to the consistency you like. I haven't tried this myself, since my batch worked just fine without it, but apparently it works really quickly so you can see if it's working right away.

An added bonus to making liquid soap is that you can add scents or oils very easily - just stir them in just before you pour your soap into your pump. I added tea tree oil to mine, thinking it would cover the beefy smell, and it seemed to work just fine.

(By the way, you don't have to have any special separate equipment like you did for making the original soap - after all, you're working with finished soap. Your pots and spoons won't be touching any dangerous chemicals, just good, clean soap!)

~~~~~

In case you were wondering, here's the cost breakdown for this soap:

1 bar of my tallow soap cost 64 cents, and I used half of it - so 32 cents for the whole batch;

the whole batch filled up four 7.5oz soap pumps, plus a 48oz spaghetti sauce jar, for a total of 78 ounces, or enough for more than 10 soap pumps.

Dividing the batch cost - 32 cents - by the number of pumps you can fill - 10 - you get a total of a whopping 3.2 cents per container, or .4 cents per oz (that's four tenths of a cent).

A quick check on amazon found that the big soap refill bottles cost anywhere from 5 to 40 cents per ounce, so you can see that this idea could save quite a bit of money!

This post is part of the Homestead Barn Hop.

Simple, Light Chicken Tractor DIY Plans

I have to admit, I've been reluctant to post directions for my chicken tractors (sorry, Lori!) because, honestly, I'm kind of embarrassed by how simple - and, frankly, redneck! - they are. Blue plastic tarps and zip ties aren't generally featured in Better Homes and Gardens! But, on the other hand, they do make it possible for a wimpy, carpentry-challenged girl like me to achieve my pastured poultry dreams.

So, excuse their homely appearance and simple construction - they really are useful (and cheap!)



This tarp is two years old, and obviously needs replacing.
. I haven't gotten around to refurbishing this pen for the current year yet.

 Materials:
10 2x2 furring strips
1 1x2 furring strip for door frame
8 corner braces
25 feet of hardware cloth
cable ties ("zip ties") and galvanized deck screws
6 foot by 8 foot tarp
2 carbiner clips or double-ended snap hooks
All of these should be available from your local home improvement store (Lowe's, Home Depot, Menards, etc.) I included the links in case you weren't sure what each item was.

You will also need some kind of saw to cut your lumber to size (I used my brother-in-law's compound miter saw, which was a lot more tool than necessary - but it worked pretty slick!), and a drill for driving the screws.

First, you need to cut your furring strips to size. You'll need 4 in their original 8' length, cut four others in half for seven 4' pieces, and cut the extra 4' piece and the two remaining 8' strips into 2' pieces (nine total) for the 4 corner posts, 4 roost supports, and one for the door frame. Also cut the thinner strip into four 2' pieces.

Once you have them cut to size, you just need to screw them together. Use the metal corner braces and 1" deck screws to make two big rectangles, then join these to the 2' uprights with 3" deck screws. It can be pretty tricky balancing everything, so if you can get someone to hold them for you that will be a big help.

Once you have the basic frame put together, add the roost supports, and then the roosts (you don't have to be too picky about the height of the roosts; I usually go for about 1/3 of the way up the supports).

Now it's time to add the wire - simply wrap the wire around the perimiter of the pen (leaving an opening for the door, of course), connect it to the wood with zip ties (or whatever other fastener you prefer), and trim it to size. There should be enough left over to cover the door. You can also add wire over the top of the pen (which I would recommend, but I didn't add that wire to the cost/materials list), leaving room of course to open the pen from above to add water and food (and a nest box, if you have laying hens). Add the tarp (also connected to the wood with zip ties) to the back of the pen, being sure to cover the back and sides.

Next put your door together - simply screw the 2' strips of 1x2 into a square, with the hardware cloth sandwiched between. Connect the door to the frame (I usually have to use two zip ties per "hinge" to make them long enough to go around both strips of wood, with a little play so the door can swing).

Once the door is finished, swing it to the "open" position and add your water support bar just behind where the door rests, so that you can swing the door freely without hitting the water bar (I have learned to add this step from frustrated experience). (See picture at top of post to see the water bar if that description doesn't make sense to you.)


To keep the door closed, I like to use either carbiner clips (pictured) or double-ended snap hooks. I can usually get a tighter close with snap hooks, although I haven't had any problems with either predators or escaping chickens with either one.

Obviously, this design is not going to win me any awards for beauty, but they are functional. Of all of the different styles of pen I've tried, these are the only ones light enough for me to move without straining my back.

And believe it or not, in the three summers I've been using these pens, I haven't lost any of my chickens to predators (while the chickens are in the pen, anyway - if they are out of the pen at dark, they rarely see the light of day again. There are plenty of coyotes, owls, hawks, skunks, raccoons, and other varmints around who love a free chicken dinner.)

So, even though they're pretty redneck, they're also pretty useful. I'd love to hear any ideas for improvement you might have (that preferably don't add any weight - I am still just one wimpy woman!)

This post is part of the Homestead Barn Hop and Morristribe's Homesteader Blog Carnival.

My Every Day Easter Basket

I am a firm believer that Christ's resurrection is something that shouldn't be celebrated just once a year, but every day - and my chickens help me remember to celebrate by filling my "Easter basket" every day!

Cream Cheese Chicken Liver Pate with Black Walnuts

This is just too good not to share! I discovered this recipe a few months ago, and I've made it at least twice (one batch makes quite a bit (especially if you're the only one eating it!) I usually freeze three one-cup portions and eat what's left fresh). My favorite way to eat this is spread on sourdough toast. Mmmmm.

Cream Cheese Chicken Liver Pate with Black Walnuts

2-3 large onions

1 pound chicken livers

8 oz cream cheese

¼ tsp sage

salt and pepper to taste

1-2 oz black walnuts

Sautee onions in bacon grease until deep golden brown. Place in food processor. In the same pan, cook the livers until just heated through, in plenty of bacon grease. Add cooked livers, cream cheese, sage, salt, and pepper to the onions in the food processor and puree until smooth. Stir in black walnuts.

Spoon into jars while still warm. Freeze any portion you will not use within a week.

Picking Up Chicks - 2012

We have our new baby chicks!

We drove down to Jennifer's on Monday to pick them up, and I was very happy with what I saw. We ended up getting 50 chicks, a mix of the four breeds I'd been thinking of (New Hampshire Reds, Barred Rock, Speckled Sussex, and Buff Orpington) and also a mix of ages (about four of them are already a week or more old; they look like gawky teenagers next to the other adorable fluffballs).

I've never gotten chicks this early in the year before, but the weather was so warm this spring I thought it would be OK. Of course, the day I picked up my babies, the temperature dropped 20 degrees! But I have the brooder covered with an old wool blanket, and they seem to be warm enough.

(the old porch beams are to hold the chicken wire down so our cat doesn't eat our new babies)

We don't have a thermometer in the brooder; I judge the temperature by how the chicks act. If they are all huddled under the heat lamp, they're most likely cold; if they're in the far corners, I assume they're too warm. Most of the time, I find the chicks napping in a ring around the edges of the heat lamp's main focus, so I think they're pretty cozy.

We did lose one chick this morning (it had been failing since we brought it home), but the rest look healthy and strong. They seem quieter and more laid-back than other chicks we've raised (but still very active, and they definitely have healthy appetites!) I can't wait to see what they're like as hens!

I've been throwing in weeds once or twice a day, with roots and soil attached (as Harvey Ussery recommends in The Small-Scale Poultry Flock), mostly dandelions and sheep sorrel. They seem to really enjoy them, and the weeds are generally gone by the next time I come to check on the chicks.

I'm very pleased with this batch of chicks, and I'm excited to think that, since I brought them home almost two months earlier than I've done with previous batches, they should be laying eggs earlier in the fall - perhaps September rather than late October or November?

I can't wait to see what this year will bring!

This post is part of the Homemaking Link-Up at Raising Homemakers and Simple Lives Thursday.

First Harvest of 2012

It's official! I harvested the first vegetable out of my garden this afternoon - a handful of spinach to add to our spaghetti sauce. The gardening season has officially begun!

(and, as you can see, the weeding season needs to begin as well . . .)

The brown and yellow tips are on the leaves that stayed on the plant over the winter; the plants that had started growing in the fall started up again as soon as the snow was gone. I would never have expected a spinach plant to survive our cold Wisconsin winters, but here's living proof that they do!

DIY Chicken Tractor Pricing

Looking back through my chicken binder this week (where I keep my old feed records, chick purchase receipts, etc.) I found a note where I priced out the three different kinds of chicken tractors I've made. I thought this might be useful for anyone thinking about building their own this year.

The smallest, of course, is the cheapest. My 4x8 tractors cost me $44.50 each - $1.50 each for ten 2x2s ($10.50), 50 cents each for 8 corner braces ($4), 25 feet of 1" wire ($30), and $5 for a tarp.

The 8x8s were $72.50 each - $1.50 each for 11 2x2s, 50 cents each for 8 corner braces, $42 for 32 feet of 1" wire fencing, and $10 for a tarp.

The 10x10 PVC pens cost me $124.50 - 10 pieces of 10-foot PVC at $3.47 each ($34.70), 10 elbows at $1.55 each ($15.50), 2 cross connections at $2.15 each ($4.30), 40 feet of 1"wire fencing ($60), and $10 for a tarp.  

Obviously, prices change, and you can certainly build these with used materials, but hopefully this will give you an idea of how much it might cost to build each of these pens.

Whole Wheat Sourdough Raisin (or Craisin) Bread

For a special treat, I'll serve this with breakfast (to rave reviews from the kiddos). Toasted and spread with some fresh butter, it sets a sweet tone for the rest of the day.

For the record, I always make this with dried cranberries (craisins) instead of raisins; I just like them better!

Whole Wheat Sourdough Raisin (Craisin) Bread
2 cups whole wheat flour (not sprouted! Read why not here)
1 tsp salt
1/4 cup melted butter or lard
1/4 cup honey
2 cups sourdough starter
Mix until dough forms a ball (I use my trusty Kitchen Aid stand mixer). Add about a half cup of raisins and/or dried cranberries and mix until well incorporated. Place in your greased bread pan and let rise until doubled (about 4 hours). Bake at 375 degrees for 45 minutes.

I don't use cinnamon in this recipe because cinnamon is slightly anti-biotic, and inhibits the natural yeasts from making it rise properly.

This post is part of Fight Back Friday and Make Your Own! Monday.