(DF) FOOD FROM HOME: Homegrown and wild harvested

With grocery prices (and prices of everything else) soaring, it is sometimes hard to decide what to cut back on to stay within budget.  However, on the farm, it is possible to avoid having to cut so many corners on food. 

As an example, last night I had a tasty, nutritious and satisfying meal, with very little outlay of cash.  By very little, I mean almost none.  All of the main ingredients were either from the garden or wild harvested on the property.  The only exceptions were a little butter, a couple of teaspoons of natural sugar, a dash of salt and a very small amount of flour.

The green beans were fresh picked from the garden, as was the garlic which was cooked with them, while they were spiced with stone mint harvested in the woods (I use it like oregano).  The mushrooms (chanterelles) were also harvested in the woods on the property.  The eggs and milk used in the batter were from my own chickens and goat.  The blackberries were picked in the pasture, and the milk they were served with was, once again, from my goat.

A little salt in the mushroom batter and beans, some flour in the mushroom batter, the butter the mushrooms were sauteed in and a bit of sugar for the berries, were the only ingredients that did not originate here on the farm.  Potentially, in the future, even those ingredients will be produced here (or a substitute for them) with the exception of salt.  Yet another goal in the journey toward self-sufficiency.

For now, this is pretty close to being a completely homegrown meal.  Did I also mention that it was delicious?  It was absolutely delightful, and made much sweeter by the fact that it was grown here on the farm.  The only thing missing was meat.  We haven't gotten to the point of major meat production yet, but it is cool and rainy today and the local wildlife better watch out.

As a caution, I must warn you to be careful when picking any wild edible.  While there are many plants and mushrooms that are edible and tasty, there are, of course, some that can be quite deadly.  Be sure you know what you are picking, and if there is even the slightest doubt, don't eat it.  There are no known antidote for the toxins in some of the bad ones, so be extremely careful.

(DF) SPRINGTIME BABIES.....JUST BARELY

Yes, it is springtime, though the weather calls the calendar a liar.  Fact is, whatever the weather is doing, the vernal equinox has passed making it officially springtime.  As circumstances would have it, the first day of spring was fairly nice here, with sunshine and a gentle breeze.  Be that as it may, we haven't had a nice day since.

With that in mind, it was really good timing.  My milk goat took advantage of the nice weather to have her babies, and with them being born on the vernal equinox, you can probably guess the name of the little billy..  This is the only milk goat I have ever owned or knew of who would not wait for cold or stormy weather.  So far she has always picked a nice afternoon to give birth, a trend that I hope continues and is passed on to the offspring.  This time, as usual, she had twins, one male and one female.  They are large and healthy, thriving well on all the milk they can drink (at least until they are penned up part of the time so I can have a share).

It is always encouraging to me to see springtime babies.  As with all the other beginnings of spring, it serves to re-affirm for me the natural cycles of life.  Simply put, it reminds me that the good things of life always come back around.  Soon wild foods and fruit blossoms will be popping up everywhere and the garden will be all fresh and new.  I can hardly wait.

(DF) FIRST ATTEMPT AT MAKING CHEESE WITHOUT ANIMAL RENNET

I began making cheese several years ago.  At the time, I was living off-grid and had a couple of good milk goats who were giving an abundance of milk, so I really needed a way to preserve the milk without refrigeration.  My sister had tried her hand at cheese making and bought a fairly large supply of rennet, which she passed on to me.  Yes, much to the dismay of a few vegetarian friends, it was animal rennet.

Over the years, I made some good cheese and learned a great deal about cheese making, mostly through trial and error.  Experience is, after all, the best teacher.  I always intended to try making cheese using local wild plants to set the curd, thistle being my first consideration.

Several sources insisted it was a difficult process and only certain species of thistle could be used, while other sources implied that almost any thistle could be used.  The main point of agreement was the part of the plant used, a decoction of the dried bloom.

During this past summer, with the supply of rennet running low, I decided to experiment with thistle.  I know it would be easier and maybe better to just find a good recipe, but it is my nature to experiment.  So off I went to find thistle blooms.  By late summer, the particular plant was quite obvious.  A fine specimen of tall thistle, Cirsium altissimum was growing and putting on blooms in my somewhat overgrown front yard.  This is likely the most abundant species of thistle native to the area, and having often gathered the young leaves as a part of the wild greens mix that I pick in the spring, I knew it wasn't toxic.  Just before the blooms opened, I harvested several and dried them for future use.

Last week, with my daughter being too busy to spend much time at my house (my daughter usually drinks up most of the milk), the milk supply built up enough that some cheese simply had to be made.  After bringing a pint of water with a large bloom in it to a strong boil then letting it simmer for a little while, I turned off the fire, put on the lid and let the decoction steep overnight so it would hopefully be plenty strong before straining it into a clean jar next morning.  The yield was about 1 1/2 cups.

By mid morning, I heated a gallon of the milk and added about a half cup of the decoction, stirred it in and went about my business, fully expecting to come back in a couple of hours to very nice, firm curds.  I found no such thing.  In disappointment, I reheated the milk and added another half cup, stirred it in and went about my business.  A couple of hours later, the results were the same.  Now you must understand that I am not always quick to take the hint.  A third time, I heated the milk and added the rest of the thistle decotion, and once again, went about my business.  Once again, no curds.  By bedtime, still no curds, so I left it sitting out with full intentions of giving the chickens a treat of bread and milk in the morning.

Chicken feeding time came around and what do you suppose I found in the cheese making pot?  I had a pot full of curd/  This was not the nice firm curd I had hoped for but a very light fluffy curd.  Considering that soft curd is better than no curd, I strained off the whey and squeezed a bit.  .

Yes, it was cheese and a pretty decent yield, though not the nice firm cheese you can press, certainly not the beginnings of cheddar, colby or even mozzarella.  Instead, it strongly resembled a pretty decent ricotta in appearance, texture and flavor.  Ricotta is not my favorite but it does certainly have a place and I can hardly wait to see how well it works in lasagna (Anna will have to make it though as lasagna is not my best dish).  There is also the excitement of being independent of the rennet supplier. 

Now, with my first cheese without animal rennet turning out to be something resembling cheese, I can hardly wait to improve on it.  Some nice, firm pressing cheese would be nice.  Any information or advice is certainly welcome.

TIGHTWAD TUESDAY - Free Groceries!

Gosh, where to begin.... No matter what country you are reading this from, I am sure that your groceries are growing more and more frustratingly expensive by the day, literally! We sort through the ads, clip coupons, make up our lists, total and tally, chop things off of our lists, groan and grumble, re-figure, head for the store, then grumble some more as we see that many items are even more expensive than they were the last trip, then even more, from our already skimpy list, must be cut. Are you relating yet?

Fresh produce seems to be one of the hardest (next to meat). The prices go up higher and higher with each and every trip to the store, yet the quality seems to be drastically dropping. (example: those grapefruits seem to be the size the oranges once were, and the oranges are now the size I once remembered lemons). And often, we find the produce limp and brownish. Yet they are asking for more money than ever for the stuff we once threw in the trash.

But often times, as we walk across the yard to our car, we often neglect to notice the wealth of produce all around us, right in our own yard, right under our feet, as we are leaving to go spend money purchasing the over-priced,. less than adequate *a-hem* produce at the market.

A couple of summers ago,  I learned that the Lamb's Quarters (wild spinach) growing abundantly in my yard was edible. Not only edible, but contained far more nutrients than grocery store spinach, so I decided to try it. It was delicious!!! Gosh, have I ever been missing out all these years!! It is now a staple food in my diet and I freeze and dry some to use all winter. I can't imagine not having it in my kitchen stock, now. And it is FREE! 

I have enjoyed the Lamb's Quarters so much, that I decided to research, investigate, and learn as much as I could about other wild edibles that might be growing in my yard. I was amazed at the nutrition levels in many of them! I have really been missing out on some excellent, nutritious foods. Plus, many of them have such a wealth of medicinal properties, that, not only would they save me lots of money on medications, but heal many ills without the side effects of chemical drugs.

So over the past couple of weeks, I have spent some time wandering about my yard to see what all "free veggies" and "free meds" I have right at my feet. I can't believe what I have been overlooking! Worst of all, I can't believe that years ago, I was spraying them with weed killer to try and get the grass to grow! What a waste!! I am definitely going to try some more of these free edibles this season to see what else I have been missing out on and how much money they can save me off of my grocery bill. Dave and I each have different knowledge of different plants, so between the two of us, I am sure we can come up with a multitude of healthy, money saving uses.

Here is just a small sampling of the many wonderful wild edibles I have found in my yard.

Wild Jerusalem Artichokes

Yellow Dock

Wild Lettuce-Prickly lettuce

Wild Onions (and Henbit)-my mom's yard- trying to get the onions started in mine.

Chickweed (left) & Henbit (right)

We have been told this is Wild Lettuce-would love to know more if you know about this one.

Polk Greens (tall stuff in back)

Clevers

Wild Grapes and Honeysuckle

Lamb's Quarters

Much more Lambs Quarters

Mullein

HAPPY WILD SHOPPING!!!