Chocolate! I don’t think I’ve ever met someone who doesn’t like chocolate in it’s many wondrous forms! We love chocolate in our house and you can read more about our chocolate preferences in my post 40 Pounds of Organic Fair Trade Chocolate! I like it plain, in cookies, sprinkled over ice cream,…
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Possum in the Hen House
Possums are Predators Every chicken enthusiast dreads the potential predator attack. Hawks and owls can pick off a chicken before you know it. Foxes, coyotes, neighborhood dogs, racoons, skunks, and even cats can be a threat to your poultry. I also knew that possums would steal eggs and eat young…
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How to Make Cottage Cheese From Sour Milk
Making Cottage Cheese from Sour Milk Making cottage cheese from sour milk is a great way to reduce waste, save money, and get some extra protein in your diet. Are you tired of dumping sour milk down the drain? My Mom always used sour milk in baked goods for light…
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Sour Milk – Don’t Toss it Out!
When Good Milk Goes Bad I buy 2 or 3 gallons of raw milk each week from a local farmer. It’s no problem at all for our family of 3 to use 2 gallons of milk a week. I make at least one batch of yogurt a week, plus I…
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Boston Brown Bread
Old Fashioned Brown Bread I found a recipe for brown bread online that calls for more sour milk than my usual recipe, the one my Gram always made. I had a lot of sour milk to use up and decided to give this old-fashioned recipe a whirl. I’ll give you…
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Homemade Ricotta Cheese
See also Sour Milk – Don’t Toss it Out! and Cottage Cheese Made from Sour Milk Ricotta Cheese I’ve seen a couple of posts about making ricotta cheese recently and it prompted me to try making my own! I love ricotta cheese in lasagna and I buy the organic kind when…
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Chocolate Chip Muffins
I get a lot of use out of the Whole Grain Muffin Mix recipe my friend Audrey shared with me last year. This time I used it to make a double batch of Dark Chocolate Chip Muffins. For a double batch of muffins, I actually used 6 cups of…
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Dried Beans in a Jar
Perhaps this post would more aptly be named ‘My Dad is full of Beans.’ Keep reading to find out why! Look at this gorgeous jar of beans my parents brought when they came to visit for Thanksgiving! Don’t you just love the colors?! There is a little bit of a…
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How to Butcher a Chicken on the Cheap
How to Butcher a Chicken Do you want to know how to butcher a chicken? I butcher my home-raised chickens so that my family has access to clean meat that was raised and slaughtered humanely. I’ve been doing this for years because my family is opposed to the inhumane treatment…
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40 Pounds of Organic Fair Trade Chocolate
Buying Chocolate in Bulk My family made the commitment to stop buying conventionally produced chocolate because, if it isn’t fair trade, it is most likely grown and harvested with slave labor. Many of those slaves are children. And we don’t feel right about supporting the unethical treatment of our fellow…
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Vegetable Beef Soup
See also How to Cook with a Wood Stove and Locally Raised Beef Stretch that Roast! I love making multiple meals from one cut of meat. Recently I slow cooked a roast in the crockpot all day with a little bit of water and some seasonings. I added carrots about…
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Culling Old Hens from the Flock
Culling the Flock and Butchering Old Hens Monday morning I butchered some of my old hens. The oldest hen in my flock was one of the unlucky ones. She was an Ameraucana from my very first flock of 10 purchased the summer we moved here (2010). She was about 3…
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How to Make the Best Queso Fresco
Queso fresco is one of the easiest cheeses to make at home! Only 3 ingredients!
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Cranberry Pineapple Muffins
Everyone in our house likes muffins. I keep a big container of Easy Whole Grain Muffin Mix in the cupboard for making quick batches of healthy muffins. One batch uses 2 cups of muffin mix and makes 12 muffins. However, they are quite small and I like to bake larger…
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Making Raw Yogurt
Raw Yogurt Recently I’ve made several batches of raw yogurt, which is very different from what most folks are making. I’ve had varying results. The first batches seem to come out very good. But using that yogurt to make a second batch doesn’t seem to work as well. The texture…
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Wanna Go Homesteady? Part 2
Making the Most of What You Have Moving Won’t Work for Everyone Last week, in part 1 of “Wanna Go Homesteady?”, I talked about how we moved from a suburban lot to our 1 acre property in the country. We are so happy that we moved here and I know…