Bees - first check

This morning I checked on the two hives of bees I bought and installed 10 days ago. I checked my top bar hive (Hive 1) first. Everything looked great! The bees were drawing comb off of the bars, there was still plenty of honey left in the jar, the queen had been released, and everything was humming along nicely. I moved back the follower board to give them more room, took out the queen cage, closed them back up, and that was that. The bees stayed calm (it helped that it was only 60 degrees out and they were cold).

The Warre hive (Hive 2), however, was another story. When I removed the top box, I found comb hanging everywhere but where it was supposed to be. The jar of honey I'd left for them was completely empty, but they'd built comb on top of it, rising up in a ring, continuing the shape of the jar. I'd taken out three frames to make room for the jar, and the bees had built comb off the bottom of the frames above, down into the opening next to the jar. So basically I had to remove all of the comb they'd built over the course of the week. I also found that the queen was still in her cage, so I carefully removed her and dropped her in the hive. Thankfully, that means there wasn't any brood in any of the combs (and no honey that I could see, either).

So basically this means that Hive 2 is starting over from scratch. I'll give them more honey (using the feeder this time) so hopefully they can bounce back after this early setback.

This means that right off the bat the top bar hive is showing a lead on the Warre - but that may just be because the queen wasn't released and I didn't use the feeder like I should have. We'll see how each progresses over the course of the summer (and winter - I'm very nervous to see if either of them make it through!)

Some of the drawn comb I had to remove from Hive 2

Fudgy Maple Syrup Brownies

This has become my go-to dessert recipe; my husband asks for it all the time (and my brother- and sister-in-law always request it when we visit them on Friday nights (with homemade ice cream on the side, of course!)
And of course I always oblige, because they're so easy to make!
 

Fudgy Maple Syrup Brownies

1/2 cup butter

1/3 cup cocoa

2 eggs

1 cup maple syrup

1/2 tsp vanilla

3/4 cups flour

1/2 cup nuts (optional)

Mix all together, pour into 8x8 pan. Bake at 350 degrees for 30 minutes.

Chocolate Whipped Cream

I made this as the frosting on my husband's birthday cake today - yum! And so easy!

Chocolate Whipped Cream
1 cup heavy cream
2 Tbsp unsweetened cocoa powder
1/4 cup maple syrup
Mix cream and cocoa powder well, then whip until soft peaks form. Slowly drizzle in the maple syrup and continue to whip until stiff.

Upcycled dish scrubbie

I'm kind of ashamed that I didn't think of this sooner - instead of buying those plastic dish scrubbies, you can get the same effect by cutting a piece off of an empty orange bag. We've been using the one in the picture below for about a month now, and I'm amazed at how well it works (and how long it lasts!)

Rye/Wheat vs. Rye/White Bread Bake-off

After learning how much more phytase (which of course neutralizes the mineral-binding phytate) rye flour has than wheat, and reading how the healthy remote Swiss studied by Weston Price lived on mainly rye bread and dairy products, I've been trying to use more rye flour in my bread making. Unfortunately, using 100% rye flour makes for a very dense loaf (especially with my sourdough recipe), so I've been mixing rye flour and white all-purpose flour in my bread lately, thinking whole wheat would still be too heavy. On a whim, I decided to try a side-by-side comparison of a half whole wheat/half rye loaf of pumpkin sourdough bread, and another using the same recipe, but with half white flour and half rye. Here were the results:

The loaf on the left is the one with white flour, and as you can see it did rise a little bit more (which caused it to crack around the bottom). I had flattened it a bit more when I put it on the pan, so it's a bit wider, but pretty much as tall, as the whole wheat loaf on the right. All in all, though, the difference is too small to convince me the loss of nutrition is worth it, so I think I'll be using the whole wheat rather than the white flour.

Super Sauerkraut

It's finally done! Isn't it pretty?

I've made sauerkraut once before, using the "Three days on the counter in a mason jar" method, and it was good, but then I read the Sauerkraut Survivor series and realized I might not be getting as much probiotic bacteria as I thought.

So I started looking around for a better system, even going so far as to order a Pickle-Pro lid on Amazon (which I never did use, but I'm thinking it will be great for when I make apple cider vinegar this fall). But before my pickle-pro arrived in the mail, I found these clamp-top jars at my local Farm & Fleet store (which were what I really wanted in the first place), so I grabbed two, ran over to the food co-op and bought a head of organic red cabbage, and giddily drove home to make some kraut!

The actual recipe is so simple - just slice up your kraut, let the salt bring out the juices, and let it sit in the cupboard for a month (that's the hard part!)

Here are the more technical directions:

Super Sauerkraut

Quarter, core, and shred cabbage, discarding outer leaves. Put in a large bowl and sprinkle with 1 Tbsp sea salt (or ½ Tbsp sea salt plus ¼ cup leftover kraut juice from previous batch). Cover bowl with a tea towel and set aside. After about a half hour, stir, then recover and set aside for another half hour. Stir again; at this point it should be getting juicy (no pounding required - let the salt do the work for you!) Transfer cabbage to a sterilized fermenting jar. Press down firmly to remove any air gaps and pack cabbage tightly, leaving 1” head space (actually, according to this, you don't have to have the brine covering the cabbage if you use the clamp-top gasket jar). Attach cover according to jar directions and keep in a dark place at room temperature for four weeks. Best eaten 4-8 weeks after initial shredding. Refrigerate after opening.

Of course, you can do this with green cabbage to make a "normal" looking kraut, but I like using the red cabbage because it makes such a bright presentation.

Here's to homemade probiotics!

Homemade Press-less Raw Cheddar Cheese

When a friend of mine told me she made shreddable, meltable cheddar-style cheese in her kitchen at home - without a cheese press - AND that she would be willing to show me how, you can imagine how thrilled I was! When she added that the milk is only heated up to 100 degrees - so technically it can be a raw cheese (if you have a source of raw milk that you trust) - I could barely contain myself. We've finished off the last of our store-bought cheese and are now eating exclusively home made - no more colorings and questionable milk! (If your kids are put off by the fact that it isn't orange, you can buy coloring, or experiment with home-made colorings.)

Press-less Farmhouse Cheddar
(This recipe makes about 3 pounds of cheese. You can certainly make a smaller batch if you prefer, simply divide the recipe accordingly.)
3 gallons milk
3/4 tsp mesophilic culture
1/2 tablet rennet
2-3 Tbsp cheese salt (I usually use canning/pickling salt. You need a non-iodized salt, so table salt and sea salt usually don't work.)

I make this recipe in a big 21 quart canning kettle, which will hold all 3 gallons of milk. Actually, I use two, one for the main cooking kettle and one nested under it for a water bath. You'll need to heat the milk slowly, so a water bath is very helpful.

Heat your milk to 88 degrees F, then add the culture powder and mix it in thoroughly. Cover and let stand for about 40 minutes.

Break a rennet tablet in half and place one piece in 1/4 cup cold water. Dissolve the tablet completely, then pour it into the cultured milk, stirring it in gently. Cover again and let sit for 40 more minutes, until the curd separates out (it will look like very thick yogurt, and if you pull it away from the side, watery yellowish whey will fill in the gap). Cut the curd into half-inch cubes (using a long knife, cut one way, all the way to the bottom of the pan, making slits a half inch apart, then do the same in the opposite direction to make half-inch squares. Then as best you can, cut diagonally to get as close to cubes as possible.)

Heat the water in the lower kettle until the curds reach 100 degrees, making sure to go slowly - the curds should only gain 2 degrees every 5 minutes. The whole heating time should be around 30 minutes. Stir the curds gently up from the bottom every so often to keep the curds from matting. You will notice that there is a LOT more whey.

Once you're up to 100 degrees, cover your kettle and let the curds sit for 10-15 minutes. Then drain as much whey as you can without losing any curd (save the whey! You can use it to make ricotta (click here for my ricotta recipe), save it for boosting your sauerkraut or other ferments, feed it to your chickens (whey is high in protein, so it makes a good supplement to their feed. Better yet, soak their feed in it for a day or two for a fermented wet mash!), or even sprinkle it on your garden). Then flop the curds out into a colander with a bowl under it to catch the remaining whey. Mix in the salt (I do this with my hands, crumbling the curds and mixing them until the salt is completely incorporated), cover, and let stand in a warm place overnight (since my house is pretty cold this time of year, I put the bowl and colander inside the bottom canning kettle (that I was using as a double boiler - it still has warm water in it), cover it, and then put a towel over the top to keep it warm.) If you want to, you can put a plate on top of the curds with a jar of water on top to weight it down, as a minimal imitation of a cheese press. I've done it with and without, and haven't noticed too much difference.

In the morning, flop the finished cheese out of your colander and store in a covered container in your fridge. This won't keep as long as a pressed cheese, but it can be used in any of the ways you normally would use cheddar (I've never had any go bad - but then again, it's never lasted more than a week in my house!)

As I said, this cheese is very versatile - it shreds nicely, melts well, and slices just like you'd expect.

And it goes very well on scrambled eggs, as my children will attest!

If you aren't sure where to get rennet and cheese cultures, they're pretty easy to find online. Here are the links to where to find them on Amazon:

This post is part of the Homestead Barn Hop,  Sunday School, and The Creative HomeAcre Hop. 

Update: I have since learned that this isn't really a true Cheddar cheese, but more like a base from which you can make many different kinds of cheese depending on your aging process. Depending on how you continue, this basic fresh cheese can be made into Cheddar, Camembert, Mozzarella (string cheese!), blue cheese, or even Limburger! And according to David Asher, author of the book The Art of Natural Cheesemaking (which I highly recommend - this link will take you to the book on Amazon), you can even make this using kefir or whey from a previous batch as the cheese culture.

Book Review: Nourishing Traditions

Nourishing Traditions: The Cookbook that Challenges Politically Correct Nutrition and the Diet Dictocrats
By Sally Fallon with Mary G. Enig, Ph.D

You may have noticed that many of the recipes on this blog that I label "Healthy" don't exactly fit the typical low-fat, low-cholesterol mold. This book is why.

It all started when I joined a now-defunct yahoo group called New Harvest Homestead, all about, well, what this blog is about - raising food for your family on your own "homestead" - be that a few acres in the country, a city lot, or an apartment with a membership to a CSA or community garden. I found that many of the women in the group kept referring to Nourishing Traditions. Intrigued, I went to my library's website to place a hold and found I would be in place 130 waiting for 3 copies! Not sure of what other option I might have (I'm too cheap thrifty to buy a book before I read it and know it's worth it) I placed the hold and went on with life.

That summer, my brother-in-law and his family lived with us while they looked for a house in the area. As fall approached and they prepared to move into their new house, I was helping my sister-in-law pack when I found, to my astonishment, that she had a copy of Nourishing Traditions. Here it had been, sitting on a shelf in my very own house for three months, while I waited impatiently for the library copy to become available!

Of course I asked if I could borrow it, and she readily agreed, and so I sat down and started reading the first chance I had. I was hooked (I never did give her book back - when I'd finally read it through, I figured it would be easier to buy her a new copy so I wouldn't have to move all of my bookmarks!)

Although technically a cookbook, this book is more a treatise on how healthy people the world over have eaten since the dawn of time, how we've abandoned their healthy eating habits in the last few hundred years, and the dramatic decline in our health because of it. It's incredibly dense with research - the recipes don't start until page 82, and even these are heavily sidebarred with scientific studies, quotes, and other relevant information. It took me a year to get through it cover to cover, and I'm an avid reader!

The book is based on the research of Weston A. Price, a dentist who travelled the world in the 1930s seeking out isolated groups of people who still ate the way their ancestors had eaten for thousands of years, and specifically looking at how their diet influenced their teeth and dental structure. He published his findings in the book Nutrition and Physical Degeneration, which became a seminal work in the Traditional Foods movement. He found that not only were the people who ate their ancestral diets more healthy, with fewer cavities and degenerative diseases, but that when people began to eat more "modern" foods (most specifically white flour and refined sugars) that their health declined dramatically.

Nourishing Traditions, then, is based on Price's research, but also draws heavily from research done in the many decades since then. Time and again, science points to the fact that a healthy body is fed by foods rich in nutrients, and that "empty calories" not only don't satisfy our hunger, they actively harm our long-term health.

But it's not just another "fad" diet - in fact, it's the anti-fad diet. There aren't any new, expensive products to buy to pad the author's pocket; instead the book calls for a return to the healthy, nourishing foods our ancestors ate - grass-fed meats, fermented foods (think sourdough bread, sauerkraut and yogurt), soups based on rich bone broth, and as-fresh-from-the-farm-as-you-can-get-it clean dairy products.

For me, it just made a lot of sense. If you want to know how to be healthy, look to people who are healthy, and who have maintained that level of health for generations. Then figure out how you can do likewise - for your own sake, and your children's. It can be a big change - for the most part, it means cooking from scratch - it's hard to find restaurants who use traditional foods rather than pre-packaged ingredients, and those that do are often out of a normal family's price range. But the way I see it, time and money invested on nourishing your body will pay off both now and in the future - if you could avoid many of the degenerative illnesses of our time and remain healthy and productive throughout your life, wouldn't that be worth it?

I've been slowly implementing more and more of this philosophy into our diets over the last 5 years (it's definitely not something you can do all at once!), and I can already see improvement in my own health, as well as in my husband and children. One baby step at a time, we're eating better every day, and getting healthier every day.

And it all started when I read this book.

Raw Egg Nog

I was so excited to find this recipe - it's so much easier to make than my old recipe (which needed to be cooked carefully and strained to get out any clumps in the cooked eggs - plus I hated to cook my good, raw milk!) This one just needs to be mixed together (use your blender for a regular batch, or a stick blender for a double batch), and it's ready! We had this for breakfast Christmas morning with our cinnamon rolls. YUM!

(If you're not into raw eggs, you can cook this in a saucepan over medium heat until it starts to thicken.)

Raw Egg Nog  

(you can make this with pasteurized milk and cream if you don't have access to quality raw milk)

2 cups raw cream

2 cups raw milk

3 fresh organic pastured eggs (or more, if desired) (only use raw eggs if you're confident of your source!)

1/3 cup raw honey*

1 tsp vanilla extract

rum to taste

Mix all in a blender and enjoy!

*Update: Instead of using raw honey and vanilla, you can make this with maple syrup instead. I like it even better this way!

(Did you know maple syrup naturally has vanillin in it? So you don't need to add extra vanilla extract in recipes that include maple syrup. There's your fun fact of the day!) 😉

Sourdough Cranberry Cinnamon Rolls with Pumpkin Spice Honey Butter Filling and Cream Cheese Honey Frosting

Wow, that's a long title! These are a little putzy to make, but so worth it. We made these for breakfast Christmas morning (with homemade raw eggnog on the side - yum!)

Sourdough Cranberry Cinnamon Rolls
with Pumpkin Spice Honey Butter Filling
and Cream Cheese Honey Frosting 
(makes 12)

Sponge (must rise overnight):

1/2 cup starter, at room temperature

3/4 cup warm water

2 cups freshly ground whole wheat flour

1/2 cup plain mashed potatoes (or pureed pumpkin works great, too!)

Mix these together in a large glass bowl, cover with cheesecloth, and let rise overnight, or until light and bubbly.

In the morning, stir down the sponge and add:

1 tsp salt

1/4 cup oil, lard, melted butter, or coconut oil

2 Tbsp honey

2 cups whole wheat flour

Mix all well (I start with a spoon and finish with my hands as it gets thick), and add more flour as needed to prevent stickiness. Dough should be soft and smooth yet pliable. Place in an oiled bowl, turn to coat, cover and let rise until double in a warm place (about 2 hours). Roll out dough on a lightly floured surface, about 21x16 inches and ¼ inch thick. 

Spread with filling:

1/3 cup butter, melted

½ cup honey

2 Tbsp cinnamon

Working carefully, roll the dough into a long tube (so that it stays 21 inches long). Cut the dough into 12 slices (dental floss works great for this – wrap it around the roll, then pull ends apart, and it will slice right through without squashing the dough). Place in a 9x13 glass pan, loosely covered, and let rise until double. Bake in a preheated 400 degree oven for about 20 minutes or until lightly browned. 

While rolls bake, prepare icing:

8 oz softened cream cheese

1-2 Tbsp honey (more or less to taste)

1 tsp vanilla

Mix well and drizzle over rolls.

Free Tomato Plants

Not only can you propagate herbs from cuttings, you can also do it with tomatoes! Tomatoes are well-known for rooting very easily, so they're actually one of the easiest plants to propagate this way. I currently have two tomato "mamas" growing in front of my kitchen patio door, and can't wait to plant cuttings from them in the spring.

I actually started them sort of by accident - I was tying up my tomato plants in the garden in July, and accidentally broke off two side branches. Instead of just throwing them in the compost pile, I decided to try growing them as cuttings to see if they would take hold. I didn't use any rooting hormone, I simply sunk the stems in well-moistened soil and kept them watered. I had them outdoors in pots until our first frost in September, and before I brought them in they each had tiny tomatoes starting to grow on them (we ate them in October - boy, was it good to have fresh, home-grown tomatoes while the snow was flying outside!)

They haven't flowered since (decreased light? lower temperature? the dog's tail constantly knocking off small branches?), but since I'm not counting on them for fruit over the winter, just vegetation for cuttings in the spring, I don't mind.

I'm very excited about this experiment because it means not only will I have a head start on spring planting (cuttings get going much faster than seeds) but, since each cutting is an exact copy of the parent plant, I don't have to worry about cross-polination. Since I grow more than one type of tomato (I usually have at least one cherry, one brandywine, and a bunch of roma-type for sauce) I usually end up with "mutts" when I save seed. This can be a fun little experiment, but it's a little less amusing when I meant to plant a bunch of meaty romas for the winter's supply of spaghetti sauce and end up with a bunch of cherry tomatoes instead!

But if I save a couple "mamas" from each type of plant in the fall, I should be able to start as many new cuttings as I'd like in the early spring, sure that they'll turn out to be the kind of plant I want (I'd save more than one plant of each kind, just in case - one of the plants I saved this summer got knocked over by an over-excited dog, and is barely hanging on).

I can't wait to see what other plants I can grow this way (although I may need my husband to build me a sunroom for all of these plants to overwinter in!)

Free Herb Plants for Next Spring

I am so excited about this little experiment of mine - I took cuttings from most of my herb plants in the fall (peppermint, basil, oregano, rosemary, sage, and thyme), rooted them in small pots (adorable little tea tins, actually), and they're growing into strong plants for putting out in the garden next spring (not to mention cuttings for adding to recipes all winter).

It's so simple, I wish I'd tried it years ago (instead of buying new potted herb plants from the local garden center every spring). Here's what I did:

1. Cut off a 2-3 inch piece from the growing tips of your plant.

2. Trim off all but the upper few leaves.

3. (optional) Dip the bare stem in water, then in rooting hormone:

4. Gently sink the stem into your pot of soil and water well.

And that's it! Keep the soil very moist until you see new growth (did you know you can toothpick test soil, like you do to see if a cake is done? If the soil sticks to the toothpick, it's moist; if it comes away clean, your soil is dry) then water as you would your other houseplants. Obviously, a sunny windowsill is the best place for them, but anywhere they will get good light should be fine. You can expect these baby plants to be more tall and spindly than their outdoor-grown parents because of the restricted light conditions (a lamp might help, but isn't strictly necessary if your window is sunny enough), but they should "beef up" just fine once you plant them out in the spring (but be careful to harden them off a little at a time before you set them out permanently).

Book Review: The Weekend Homesteader

The Weekend Homesteader: A Twelve-Month Guide to Self-Sufficiency by Anna Hess

As a fan of Anna and Mark Hess's blog, The Walden Effect, I knew this book would be full of interesting projects and useful information. When she wrote that she was offering free copies to bloggers who would write a review, of course I signed up right away!

I was giddy when the book arrived in the mail in October (happy birthday to me!) The publisher asked that we try to time the review to coincide with the book's release in mid-November, and since the book didn't look too thick (about 400 pages) I figured I'd be done in plenty of time.

Obviously not!

Although October and November were very busy for our family, the real reason I couldn't get through this book as quickly as I'd thought was because I wanted to try all of the projects! The book is set up with a chapter for every weekend through a whole year (for example, the project for the first week of August is "Seed Saving"). Each project lists its goal ("Save seeds from the easiest vegetables in your garden"), cost ("$0 to $10), time ("1 hour to 4 hours"), difficulty ("Easy to medium"), and kid-friendly rating (generally yes, no, or maybe). After a short section on the reasons each project is worth trying, she dives right into the meaty how-to.

This book is great for the raw beginner, eager to get her hands dirty but not sure where to start, as well as for a homesteader who's been working at it for a few years (we all have something to learn!) I know I, for one, get excited reading about ideas in books or online, but balk at actually starting projects because I'm not sure exactly how to get going. This book lays everything out so clearly I feel like I could just jump up and get started as soon as I finish the chapter (although some of my bookmarked projects, like "Growing edible mushrooms" will require a little more waiting - I have to order the spawn plugs, after all . . .)

So, you ask, what were the projects I was so excited about? The first one that really caught my interest (only because the previous three chapters (Find room to homestead, Survey your site, and Plan your summer garden) were projects I had already done) was the chapter entitled "Kill Mulch", which included a section on Hugelkultur - creating raised beds by burying rotting wood and compost (I actually just tried this in my garden this week!)

The book isn't just gardening ideas, either. She includes projects like making your own seasonings, soups, and breads, storing vegetables on the shelf, canning, drying, and other kitchen-related tasks, as well as more abstract assignments like figuring your real hourly wage, budgeting, thinking about voluntary simplicity, and realistic goal setting. There's a chapter on building a chicken coop or tractor and one on staying warm without electricity. Really, they're as varied as a homestead life can often be!

I love that this book is obviously made up of projects the author has personally done, featuring her own experiences and research. She knows these things work because she's done them herself, and she tells you about the problems and pitfalls along the way. It's like standing alongside your neighbor, listening to her tell you what she's tried and seen, and encouraging you to try it for yourself.

Note: I was not payed to review this book (other than the free review copy), 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!



This post is part of Simple Living Wednesday at Our Simple Farm and the Homemaking Link-Up at Raising Homemakers.