Monthly Archives: November 2008

Another baked oatmeal recipe!

recipes

I meant to post at least a couple of the recipes from last week’s menu plan, but didn’t get around to it then.  But better late than never – here’s the version of baked oatmeal that we had both this week and last.  When my 2.5 year old saw us bring it to the breakfast table, he cheered, “Yummy, cake!”  Not quite cake, but very tasty.

  • 1 c. butter
  • 1 c. honey (I substituted sucanat and cut the sweetener to 3/4 c.)
  • 4 eggs
  • 6 c. oats
  • 2 1/2 teaspoons baking powder
  • 1/2 tablespoon salt
  • 2 c. milk

I try to soak the oats in yogurt or kefir the night before, and then reduce the milk by the amount of kefir used.

Cream the butter and sweetener, mix in eggs.  Then add oats and remaining ingredients.  Bake at 350 degrees for 45 minutes.  I think this makes about a 9 x 13 pan, but since I doubled or tripled the recipe, I can’t say for sure.  Serve warm; I double the recipe and either stick one in the fridge for breakfast a couple of days later, or pop it into the freezer for another week.  Doesn’t need to be warmed before serving, but I think it’s nicer served warm.

Avivah

First step in cheesemaking – done

cheesemaking, food preservation

I’m feeling very, very busy with all the projects I want to do right away.  Today the kosher rennet I ordered for cheesemaking arrived, and the book on cheesemaking that I reserved also got to the library today.  I made a trip to the library with the kids this afternoon so I could pick it up immediately (I don’t go often – my husband picks up the books I order online on Sunday if I have something waiting – it’s efficient as far as gas and time). 

Once I got home, it was already dinner time, but I was thinking I’d be able to get a batch of cheese started before going to bed.  That was wildly wishful and unrealistic thinking, because besides the time involved in doing this for the first time, there’s the additional fact that it seems that I need either mesophilic or thermophilic starters for almost all of the cheese recipes.  That’s what’s nice about reading the book; you actually learn what you need to do! 

I don’t know if it will be easy to find or not – I know where to buy it within five minutes if it didn’t have to be kosher, but now I’ll have to spend some time on the phone making calls about it, finding out if this kind of thing needs to be certified kosher or not, and if so, where to get it.  It helps that dh is in the field of kosher supervision, because he has someone readily available to ask the questions he’s not sure about to. 🙂  But it still takes time.

I didn’t do the canning today that I said I was planning to do – I was too busy with lots of other things, beginning with standing on line for an hour waiting to vote.  (Not that I’m complaining – as I was standing there, I was thinking about how many people have fought for the privilege of voting in accordance with their beliefs.)  So that means I’ll have to can the soup that I planned to do today, tomorrow (though we ended up getting less than we expected, which means less canning for me!).

So the first steps have been taken towards cheesemaking – researched kosher rennet, called the manufacturers, called the supply company, ordered it, got the book, and bought 15 gallons of raw milk on Thursday to use – now I have to quickly get the starter I need so that I can use my milk while it’s fresh!  I guess worse comes to worst, we’ll drink the milk, and wait to make cheese for the next time I pick up raw milk, or try to make a batch with store milk (hormone free at least, though that’s far from ideal). 

I also ordered a bunch of small glass bottles with dropperlids, for others who may want to get some of the kosher rennet in a small amount from me.  I think I’ll have enough to split into 14 – 16 two ounce bottles, which seems to be the size generally sold for individual cheesemakers.  Unfortunately, there’s no source with kosher certification of regular sized containers, and the container size I bought (the smallest available) is intended for small cheesemaking companies – it’s enough for over one thousand gallons of milk!   Of course, letting people know it’s available and making those arrangements is another thing to take care of….but I never complain about being bored!

Avivah

An amazingly good apple – Honey Crisps

homemaking

A few days ago I did a big shopping trip and bought four varieties of apples.  There were about eight kinds at the store, and I hadn’t seen most of them.  So I decided to buy several kinds and see what the difference in taste between thered was.

But two of the kinds resembled one another and got put into the same box once we were home, so I have no way to know what those are like compared to one another.  The least expensive, and least attractive, apple, was called Honey Crisps.  I bought a bushel of those, and now that we’ve had them, I’m sorry I didn’t buy more!  These apples are incredibly good – they’re sweet, crunchy, and taste really good dehydrated as well.  The other varieties that I remember the names of that I bought are Empire and Jonathan, both of which are good but nowhere near as good as these. 

We all have been really enjoying these and have only a handful of them left – that means a bushel of Honey Crisps have been eaten in four days, and they haven’t even been our only fruits!  The kids have been having plums and bananas, but these are definitely the favorite for now.  If you can pick some up at your local stores, I really recommend trying them!

Avivah

Canning butter

canning, food preservation

Today we got two more thermal quilts made – we (dd 12 and 13 and I) sewed the two temporary ones that were hanging for the last few days in the boys’ bedroom.  I think that I’ll do them bit by bit, one or two a day, and we’ll get them done in a timely way without stressing about having a big project hanging over our heads.

I did something for the first time today – I canned butter!  I bought lots of little (half pint) canning jars a while back because I got an amazing buy, but it’s really not a size that’s very useful for our family size.  They’re great for gifts, but honestly, as happy as I am to share what I make with others, I really don’t want to give away all my jars!  So they’ve been sitting on the shelf, taking up room.  And while I don’t mind storing things that I use, I don’t enjoy seeing things take up space that aren’t serving a purpose!

I was thinking about what would be a good use of these jars for my family, and it occurred to me that butter would be perfect.  I wouldn’t want to pack butter into anything bigger than a pint in any case, and it is nice to know that we have a decent quality fat on the shelf if we need it.  On Thursday I did my huge monthly shopping, and discovered when I got home and wanted to unpack that I really overestimated my freezer capacity! That meant that I needed to make room by moving some of the food out, either eating it or preserving it.  Since I bought a case of butter last month, I still had about fifteen pounds in the fridge, so I thought it was a good opportunity to see what canning butter would be like. 

I didn’t can all of it – I think I did about eight pounds, which filled sixteen small jars.  It was very simple to do; the hardest part for me was that since it was dairy, I couldn’t use my regular canner, which I use it for meat.  That technically wasn’t a problem, since butter is canned in a boiling water bath, and I didn’t need to use my pressure canner (though it’s so big that I could have done double the amount at one time that I actually did).  I used my big soup pot instead of the canner and improvised a rack for the bottom with a cloth diaper (to keep the jars off the bottom of the pot).  The biggest problem was that the tools I use are all set aside for meat preparation (tools such as a funnel to pour the food neatly into the jar, and a jar lifter), and it made it a little messier to can everything without those.  I’m going to have to buy another set of canning tools (fortunately a set is inexpensive) so that I’ll have one for dairy and one for meat.  And now I need to figure out how to organize and mark the jars so it will be very obvious which are for which – until now, they’ve all been deemed meat. 

I got the directions for canning butter from Jackie Clay, who I think is the most amazing and knowledgeable canner around!  She writes a column for Backwoods Home magazine, which I encountered online when I was doing a search for canning instructions for something specific.  She understands the reason for each step of the canning process, bacteria formation, etc, and answers canning queries that you won’t find answers to anywhere else.   She’s amazingly knowledgeable about lots of other homesteading related things, too – it seems like she knows how to do everything! 

Tomorrow I’m going to look for more things in the freezer to can to make more room – I know I have some chili in there – because I’ll be getting meat on Wednesday and will need a place for it.  And Tuesday I’m blessed to be receiving a huge amount of freshly made vegetable soup (and when I say huge amount, I really mean huge – 10 gallons) that I’ve estimated will take me 2 1/2 days of nonstop canning to process.  It’s not for the happiest reason that it’s suddenly available for us – someone dh knows opened a restaurant a year ago that they’ve suddenly decided to close because it’s not doing well in the current economy.  But because he and his wife really like our family, they offered us the food supplies (the soup and meat) that they aren’t going to transfer to their other restaurant.  I jokingly told my husband that it pays to have good kids, because this couple was so taken with them that I think that’s the real reason we made a big enough impression on them for them to think of us at this busy time.

So I’ll be busy canning this week, and yes, it is definitely work to do all of this.  I can’t say canning is effortless, though most of the time is spent waiting, not in actual hands on work.  It’s kind of like making bread- when the main effort is to mix the dough and stick it in a pan, but you spend most of the time waiting for it to rise and then bake.  But it’s worth it to me to spend the time canning – it’s already helped to make our food dollars go further and put us in a position to benefit from food we otherwise couldn’t have used for lack of storage space, like all that fruit we picked for free, or like when we were given eight fresh bakery challahs that I only had room for in my freezer because it wasn’t full of all the stuff I used to keep in it.   And a number of times having canned food on the shelf has simplified dinner at the end of a busy day because all I’ve had to do is bring out a couple jars of something and heat it, and voila! – within ten minutes, a hot and nutritious dinner was ready.  My own tasty and nutritious fast food.  🙂

Avivah

Grain grinder out of commission now :(

homemaking

Remember a week ago that my son burnt out my mixer?  Well, less than a week later, on Thursday night my daughter turned on our grain grinder, and it made an unpleasant sound and started smoking.  Have you ever noticed that things seem to happen in sets?  My food processor recently stopped working, too! 

First thing the next morning, I went looking for my invoice and checking to see what the warranty on it was.  We’ve had it less than two years, and I thought the warranty was probably for one year.  It was a very pleasant suprise to discover that it has a lifetime warranty!  When I called the company, they were an absolute pleasure to deal with.  They immediately assured me that they’d take care of the problem, either repairing or replacing the part that is broken.  They have to look at it to see what’s wrong, but the representative I spoke to said that it sounds like the motor burnt out, and if that’s the case, they’ll put a new motor in the current grinder’s casing, which sounds great to me!

I called the online company I bought it from since I was having trouble opening the attachment that they originally sent the invoice as (there was no hard copy included with the order, or I would have saved that separately).  They couldn’t find any record of my purchase, and suggested that I bought it from a different company than them – I was able to forward the original email they had sent with the invoice for their clarification.  And fortunately I was able to open the original invoice and print it out, because without that, the lifetime warranty wouldn’t be worth anything. 

I asked dh and ds to look in the garage for the original box to send it back in, but they both told me it wasn’t there. But later in the day, when dh was reorganizing the garage, he found it.  That will make it easier to pack appropriately to send it in for service.  It’s so nice to have something go wrong and know that it will be taken care of at minimal cost to me!

Avivah

A night out with my hubby

homemaking

My husband and I don’t go out together on an official basis much.  I love the suggestion to have a regular date night, but have found it not too practical for us.  It used to be the pressure to find a babysitter had me feeling so uptight and tense that it would take me an hour of the two hours we were out to unwind. 

Now we have two kids old enough to stay home with the youngers, so babysitting isn’t an issue.  But my husband often works nights, and on the nights he doesn’t and is home for dinner, a night out doesn’t seem to be the most relaxing way to spend time together.  But honestly, he would be willing to go out if I would.  I tend to find it nicer to relax at home together instead of feeling like we have to go out.  (Though I love when we can go away for 1 – 3 days, something we haven’t done for 2 years now, and aren’t likely to do for quite a bit longer, until the baby is older.) 

Tonight, though, we managed to get ourselves out, without any kids in tow!  A local composer whom we got to know several years ago when he was a neighbor was having a world premiere of his trombone concerto tonight, and I was able to get free tickets for the performance.  Wow, was it beautiful.  His wasn’t the only piece being performed; there were several others, like Mozart and Beetoven.  But his was the one that a big deal was made over, and he and his wife really appreciated seeing us there.

For me, it was nice to see that his career has really taken off in the last couple of years.  When we had his family over for dinner several years ago, he expressed what a challenging field it was.  And the experience of listening to a live orchestra perform music composed by someone I knew made it a much richer listening experience.

By the way, in case others have this issue, my husband and I have a different set of priorities when it comes to getting somewhere on time.  I really like to be on time, and he likes to get there at some point in the evening.  And that can create some challenges, like tonight when he said he needed to eat before we went.  I said fine, but suggested that eating and being on time weren’t mutually exclusive, and asked him to eat with an eye on getting there in a timely way.  While he was eating, I changed my outfit, organized baby clothes in the attic for storage, took winter clothes that fit my baby to his dresser, took out the clothes that aren’t weather appropriate for him and the toddler from that dresser, and finally went downstairs, thinking he would be waiting for me.  My husband was still eating.  In a very leisurely way.  And we were supposed to have left a half hour before.  There have been times in the past that I’ve been so bothered by this apparent disregard for getting out on time that I’ve let it get in the way of wherever we’ve gone once we finally got out the door.  But I’m finding it helpful to remind myself to keep the big picture in front of me, so that I don’t react negatively to things that are minor.  The big picture was wanting to go out to spend a nice evening with my husband to build our relationship.  Saying anything about how late it was would only have created unnecessary tension – it certainly wouldn’t have gotten us there on time – so I didn’t say anything.  During the intermission of the concert, he told me he really appreciated that I stayed relaxed even though we got there a half hour late. 

So in spite of the initial challenge, we really enjoyed ourselves, and most importantly, we achieved our goal of spending time together in a way that enhanced our relationship.

Avivah