Far Beyond Pearls

I was pretty stressed about the amount of milk we’ve got here this weekend.  But you already knew that.  I took Sunday off from dealing with it and I’m feeling  a lot better today.  The fact of the matter is, we eat cheese, and lots of it, and I need to learn how to make cheese, and lots of it.  I love Colby over Cheddar, and Colby is easier to make, so we’ll need three or four pounds a week of that.  Two pounds of mozzarella will take care of our pizza habit.  A couple of pounds a month of Parmesan or Romano will season our spaghetti suppers.  Swiss looks easy enough, too, and though it’s not a favorite cheese around here, it has a role to play.  Two gallons of milk makes about two pounds of cheese, so this shouldn’t be too challenging, once I get into the swing of the process.  I’m also going to need a labeling system, so that I know how often to turn them and when each cheese is ready to eat, and I’m going to need a second refrigerator to simulate cave-like temperatures and humidities.  Sounds like a lot, but I’m feeling like the cheese/milk crisis has crested and I’m going to be okay.   Maybe it’s because the Romano I made on Saturday came out so beautifully.  I can’t wait to taste it…in three months.

Thank you for the ideas for using up the milk and cheese. I’ll be using them for sure!  And thank you for keeping me sane.

Oh, and Thomas took his first steps last night. 

I set Rosie to work cleaning around the edges of the kitchen with a little hand held vacuum while I started mopping.  Glowing in the warm light of the winter sun streaming through a nearby window, she declared, “This is fun!”

I stopped to smile back into her happy face.  “It is, isn’t it?” I said.  “I like cleaning.”

“Yes,” she replied, “especially when you’re cleaning with your whole family.”

Shared work is happy work.  No matter how old you are.

Ah! The snow is falling. I was hoping we were going to miss this storm. You see, Thomas, as of yesterday, is on the down hill side of chicken pox, and it has been a very long time since we have gotten to go out, what with us being contagious or in great pain for the last month or so. I was looking forward to making a trip for certain provisions down to Elizabethtown. I want cotton stuffing, and I need butter and chicken bouillon, and we all need some new gloves. David says we’re going anyway, but it rained all day yesterday and that snow might be sitting on a nice layer of ice and the roads here are winding, hilly, and narrow. I don’t need cotton stuffing, butter, and gloves so badly that I’m willing to risk lives for them. Oh, well. At least we have lunch.

Next week is the annual agriculture show in Louisville. We went last year, but we weren’t actually doing any agricultural work yet and David had hurt HIS back two weeks before and Thomas was a newborn and, well, it wasn’t as much fun as we’d hoped! Come lunch time, too, there was very little to choose from among the vendors, and whatever was available was swamped with hundreds of other hungry show-goers. With seven kids in tow, it was a recipe for disaster. So we’re planning ahead this year. I had this idea for sandwich bread. You know, bread with the sandwich already in it. Just slice and eat. I made three loaves last night and I’m thinking it’s going to be a success. Today was to be the trial run. After lunch today, I’ll tell you how I made it and what I’ll be tweaking next week.

Where ever you are, I hope the snow is not too deep and the power is on and your home is warm and your family and friends are all safe and snug. Because I love you.

Months ago, Penny had a persistent diaper rash.  The doctor said it was yeast and prescribed some ointment, but it did NOT help her rash go away.  Nothing did, except potty training and getting her out of the diapers.  Thomas hasn’t had any problems except for a bad newborn rash that I traced to (corrected) washing problems with the low-water washing machine.  Until this week.  Suddenly, he’s got a rash that looks an awful lot like the one Penny had earlier this year.  He just started wearing her old covers last week.  I do not like this particular coincidence and I don’t know what to do about it.  I’ve got the covers in with the diapers on a super heavy wash cycle with bleach.   Hopefully that will kill whatever is infecting our little bums.  Otherwise, I’m at a loss.  If you’ve got any experience or advice, I’d appreciate the help.

This photograph represents six months of procrastinating, followed by two days of tiling and measuring and pipe fitting, working long into the night under threat of rainclouds and possible snow, with holes in the floors big enough for toddlers to fall through, and holes in the roof which are too big at any size.  But it was all worth it, friends!  At long last, our woodburning cook stove is cooking away in our big country kitchen.  Upstairs, where the chimney runs through a corner of a children’s bedroom, we’ve installed a heat reclaimer which will, hopefully, pump the heat that would normally be lost through the roof into the upstairs, which gets dreadfully cold on these sunless winter days.   Tomorrow, I might even try cooking something on it.  Providentially, I’ve got a pretty good cache of cast iron cookware.

Our Thanksgiving pie came out just about perfect, but, alas, there was not enough of it.  That’s probably because there are so many of us.  So, I made another.  Alas, this one, while beautiful, did not come out as well.  We ate it all up anyway.  I’ll have to keep trying till I get it right.  Practice makes perfect, you know.  And possibly overweight.

The local chemical factory is a pretty big employer around here, relatively speaking, so it was pretty big news when they got a new contract that would allow them to hire ten more workers.

“What do they make?” I asked my girlfriends.  A couple of them have husbands who work there.

“Well,” said one, “they’re actually going to be making an ingredient for salad dressing soon.”

Chemically manufactured salad dressing.  And great quantities of soybean oil and high fructose corn syrup to boot.  Tragically, we think we’re doing such a good thing, eating all that salad, but we top it liberally with something that falls firmly into the category of  NOT FOOD.  Not good!

Happily, salad dressing is easy to make at home in endless variety.  Many, like Ginger Honey dressing, are as easy as pouring the ingredients into a jar, shaking it up, and setting it on the table.  Others, like French, require the use of  a simple hand mixer.  A few, like Ranch or Italian, need a little time to mellow and blend before you use them.   No matter which kind you prefer, though, the homemade version is better tasting and better for you.

A few tips:

Homemade salad dressing separates very quickly.  You can buy xanthan gum, an emulsifier, at the bakery of your local grocery if you like.  I borrowed a bit from a friend and it works great, but we don’t mind shaking our dressing, so we skip it. If you prefer it, 1/4 teaspoon is all you need.

Experiment with different vinegars.  Plain white vinegar can be kind of  harsh on the palate.  Try apple cider vinegar, or balsamic, or – my favorite – rice vinegar.  Rice vinegar is very smooth and excellent in stir fries, too.

Salad oil – I use olive – solidifies in the cool temperatures of the refrigerator.  If you store it in the fridge, make sure you remember to take it out a half hour before your meal so it has time to thaw.  There’s usually no reason to refrigerate dressing, though.  If none of the ingredients were kept in there individually, there’s no reason to refrigerate them in combination.

Would you like a couple of recipes to get you started?  We tried this first one last night and it was very good.  It was even better with the bread sticks we had than with the salad, so consider it as a sandwich topping, too.

Ginger Honey Dressing

1/4 cup mild flavored olive oil
1/4 cup lemon or lime juice
1/4 cup honey
1/2 tsp salt
1/2 tsp ground ginger

Combine all ingredients in a jar with a tight fitting lid and shake until well combined.

Oriental Ginger Dressing

1/3 cup mild flavored olive oil
1/4 cup white wine vinegar
1 tbsp sugar
2 tsp soy sauce
1/2 tsp salt
1/2 tsp pepper
1/2 tsp ground ginger

Combine all ingredients in a jar with a tight fitting lid and shake until well combined. This one benefits from making ahead. Let it set for two hours for the flavors to mingle. For a complete meal, serve it on a salad of greens, cooked chicken, shredded carrot, sliced green onion and a sprinkling of toasted sesame seeds, along with some fresh bread.

French Dressing

3 tbsp vinegar
2 tbsp sugar
2 tsp paprika
1 tsp Worcestershire sauce (optional)
1/4 tsp salt
1/4 tsp dry mustard
Dash cayenne pepper
1 clove garlic, minced
3/4 cup salad oil

Put all ingredients EXCEPT oil into a small mixing bowl. With your electric mixer running, slowly, over the course of about two minutes, pour the oil in a thin steady stream into the bowl. Continue mixing until the dressing is the desired consistency.

I’ve found this one benefits the most from xanthan gum if you have it, but for all I know, that’s what they’re making at the chemical factory. Like I said, we don’t use it. My pickiest store-bought-to-homemade eater doesn’t seem to mind and French is his favorite dressing. Of course, it’s entirely possible that he’s just given up protesting the dinner-time shinanegans of his oddball wife.

If you’d like to know, I spent $42 at Kroger and $197 at the commissary for 18 days worth of food.  I’ll need to resupply on milk and produce, figuring for another $50 between now and payday, so I did NO T come in on target.  However, I’ll still gain $100 towards a new automatic milk machine.  I rolled our change for another $101, there is $160 in the chicken jar, and I have $180 in the bank, for a total of $541.  Not bad, eh?  Milky cows go for $650, though. I need to sell more eggs.

In other news, we figured out that 200 hens could pay our mortgage.  You should know stuff like that.

I have not been planning my menus for something like three months now.  It’s awful.  I’m spending way too much on food, and going to the store way too often, and I don’t even know what we’re having for dinner.  One of my goals is to drastically cut down on shopping trips.  As in, I want to get down to going no more than once a month.  That takes planning!  And a well stocked pantry.  We’re not getting enough milk from our cow now, as we dry her off in anticipation of her calving around New Year’s, and I can’t keep more than a week’s worth of milk in our little fridge, but I can stop by the local store on Friday morning’s on our way home from our church meeting pretty conveniently.

Which brings me to my second goal of saving up enough cash to get another cow.  Did I mention that we’re drying off our cow in anticipation of her calving around New Year’s?  We had to drink store bought milk for the first time since August this week and the natives are protesting.  I was looking forward to the milking break, but now I’m just looking forward to finding another pretty Jersey girl to be Maybelle’s friend – and to keep us in delicious dairy products!  There won’t be any extra money in the household budget for the next few months, so David can’t help.  Of course, by the time I save enough from the grocery budget to pay for a cow, Maybelle will be milking again, but it doesn’t matter.  I still want the cow.  Cows are really good investments.  (So are chickens.  Our hens laid a full three dozen eggs for the first time yesterday!)

I need to stock up on toilet paper this trip, and I need to buy our Thanksgiving fixin’s (which is contrary to the spirit of Thanksgiving, methinks, now that we’re living on the farm) but I’m aiming to keep the tab down to $250 for the food we need for the rest of the month.  Think I can do it?

Or: Keeping Young Children Gainfully Employed and Out of Trouble While You Do Something Important

Because we all agree that pie is important. Right?

I recently picked up a food processor. I’d never used one before, thinking they probably weren’t worth the counter space they’d take up, but two hours of three people chopping vegetables for salsa on two different occasions convinced me it was worth a try, at least. I purchased an inexpensive one at the PX. Now? I’m hooked. I love the way it chops huge quantities of onions, garlic and peppers, of course, but it also mixes up pie crust and biscuits in no time flat, too. It’s so easy, actually, that we’ve been eating a lot of pie. We might be eating more than we should. Is that even possible?

Today, we’re having quiche, a very versatile dish that uses the milk and eggs we have in abundance to good advantage. I mixed up a pie crust and rolled it out, put it in my pan and trimmed the edges. My little troublemakers were right there to scoop up the trimmings and squash them into new little balls. They love to roll out their own little pies, or cut the flattened dough into shapes with a butter knife. When they’re done, I just sprinkle them with cinnamon sugar and pop them into the oven with my pie. Voila! Instant cookies!

Of course the little crust cookies are done baking in only a few minutes, while the pie takes much longer. Still. The children are happy and proud and the mama is calm and content. It’s a good deal all around, if you ask me.