No more weeks of winter for the turkeys

upside down birthday cake

Today my baby is 20 years old! Where oh where did the time go?

She requested a pineapple upside down cake, so that's what she got. It is, after all, her big day.
I got this recipe from Martha Dixon's Copper Kettle Cookbook

In 1954, Martha started hosting a local cooking show "Martha Dixon's Copper Kettle", WJIM Channel 6 (now WLNS), which led to her cookbook in 1963.

Martha Dixon's Pineapple Upside-Down Cake

Topping:

1/4 cup butter

3/4 cup packed brown sugar
9 slices pineapple

9 maraschino cherries

Heat oven to 350°F. In 9-inch square pan, melt butter in oven. Sprinkle brown sugar evenly over melted butter. Arrange pineapple slices over brown sugar. Place cherry in center of each pineapple slice.

Cake:
1/2 cup butter

1 cup sugar

2 eggs, beaten until light

2 cups cake flour
3 teaspoons baking powder
1/4 teaspoon salt
2/3 cup milk

1 teaspoon vanilla

Cream butter and sugar until light & fluffy. Add eggs and beat well. Add sifted dry ingredients alternately with milk and mix well. Add vanilla. Pour cake batter over fruit. Bake in moderate oven (350 F) 30 to 35 minutes. Turn onto large plate and cut cake so there is a whole slice of pineapple for each serving. Garnish with whipped cream and a cherry.

I modified her recipe just a bit. My 9" square pan was full of fudge, so I used a round cake pan. It took a bit longer to bake & only held 7 slices of pineapple. I had no maraschino cherries, so I used frozen Michigan tart cherries. I don't have cake flour, so I used all-purpose flour. Aside from all that, the cake was wonderful. As a bonus, it prevents scurvy.

thrifty chick-n-soup

I usually cook two chickens on the weekend & use the meat to make soup, enchiladas, sanwiches, etc. throughout the week. Same goes for vegetables. Buy what you need for the whole week & chop them up on Sunday. The great thing about cooking the whole bird is, once you get it started, you can pretty much leave it unattended for a couple of hours. This leaves you plenty of time to read a good book, clean the house or watch the Nate Berkus Show.

Todays recipe - boil your whole chicken:

Take the bird out of the bag. Rinse him inside & out under cold water & put him in a huge pot. (A lot of recipes call for vegetables to be cooked with the chicken & discarded when done. I suppose it gives the broth more flavor, but I don't want to throw out my hard-earned veggies. So, for me, it's just a lonely chicken in the pot. He'll get visitors later.) Fill the pot with enough water to cover the bird & bring to a boil. As soon as the water starts to boil, turn down the heat & let him simmer in the hot tub for about 1 1/2 - 2 hours. You will know the meat is done when you pull on a leg bone & the meat falls right off. Turn off the heat & let the pot cool. When it has cooled some, you can ladle the broth into jars for future use. Pick the meat from the bones, pack in a bowl & refrigerate.

Weekday chicken Soup Recipe:

For this recipe, I chopped-up any cooked chicken that wasn't pretty enough for a chicken sandwich. About 2 cups?

plus...

8 oz. dry noodles

3 quarts chicken broth

A couple carrots & stalks of celery, chopped

A handful of chopped onion

salt, pepper, dried dill

In a soup pot, bring the broth to a boil. Add the carrots, celery and onions. Cook until the carrots start to soften up. About 10 minutes. Add noodles. Cook for another 5-6 minutes. Add the chicken and seasonings. Cook until the chicken is warm & noodles are cooked.

Farmhouse Organization

I need to get organized before I get lost in heaps of laundry & papers & the Hoarders tv crew can't even find me for an interview. Ok, I may not be that bad. I just have the spring-cleaning bug. Yes, it's only January. But the weather here has been strange, at best, & it sure feels like spring. With four kids, one job, one farm & a house, I have a lot to organize! I've spent a lot of time on my pinterest page looking for organizing tips I can use. I think I've found a few good ones. My main problem is that I don't have a lot of money to buy the fancy organizers & I don't want a bunch of plastic boxes floating around my house. They're ugly. My first & best idea came from Martha Stewart with her office in a trunk. I already had this box filled with out of season decorations. I put the decorations in the basement (where they should have been all along) & now I have a mini office for all my housewife papers, kid's school papers, receipts, seed catalogs...

On to the kitchen. I hate wasting food. No matter how I try, we still throw a lot of food to the chickens. So I hung this by the refrigerator to remind us all to eat those leftovers! It's just an old picture frame. I painted a piece of plywood with flat-black paint & had my husband attach it to the frame. Then I tacked on a ribbon & hung it on the wall.

On to the laundry room. I found this fruit box in the barn (along with many other boxes & scraps of barn wood). It looks a little rough because it had been out there a long time. But, it was sturdy & serves its purpose.

Tomorrow, I'll start washing all the animal's feed bowls & buckets. Fun, fun.

Michigan Badass Stew

Our go-to winter recipe is "put some veggies & a slab of meat in the crock-pot & cook 'til done." Today's recipe uses all Made in Michigan ingredients. Why? Because they are the best. I'm not making that up. It's a fact. Texas has their beef. Iowa has corn. California has tofu. Michiganders have venison. So, let's start with the venison. My husband butchers all his own deer. He starts with roasts & steaks & all that good stuff. The leftover pieces are labeled "stew meat" or "burger". Don't let the name keep you from thinking outside the box. Stew meat is also great for pot pies & pasties. This badass stew requires 3-4 lbs of stew meat (depending on the size of your pot). Next up, are the veggies. I grew potatoes in the garden this year. What I got was a bowl full of baby potatoes. These are great, because they require no chopping. Just scrub 'em up & drop 'em into the crock-pot. (No need to peel potatoes if you grew your own, thus avoiding pesticides & poisons.) I did peel my tiny onions & cut the ends off. (Apparently, onions do not have enough time to reach their full potential in Michigan.) Carrots & rutabagas grow well here. I peeled & scrubbed a rutabaga & some carrots, cut them into big chunks & threw them in with the other root vegetables. Stir up the meat & veggies. Pour in 2 cups well water & 1 bottle of Badass beer. It tastes amazing & of course, it's made in the Great Lakes state! Plus, you have 5 left to enjoy while supper cooks itself. Cook it low & slow. When hubby gets home from working in the cold, he'll appreciate a warm meal. Serve with salt & pepper. Save the carrot peels for your chickens!

nanny cam

I don't understand why old people are obsessed with the weather. I probably never will. What I do know is, I am officially "old". The first thing I do in the morning is check the weather channel. I have eyes, I can see if it's raining. I have skin, I can tell when I need a coat. For whatever reason, the exact number is now important to me. With that, I can tell you it is 50 degrees & sunny today. A perfect day for the broilers to head outside to "chickie daycare". All of our chicken pens are full. So we rounded up a scrap of fencing & a tarp, patched it together & put the chicks out to pasture. This is the last batch of broilers I am raising until spring. With any luck, the broilers, turkeys & old hens (plus any venison we bring home) will last us through winter. Eat up little chickies!

Chickie, it's hot out there!

90 degrees in September? In Michigan? If your chicken walks around like this, she's probably not hurt (like I first thought). She's just coolin' her pits. On hot days like these, make sure all your animals have plenty of fresh water! We (by that, I mean my kids) check on them about 3 times per day. Our free-range chickens have shade whenever they need it. They like to dig holes under the trees & hide in them. For the rabbits, we freeze water bottles & they lay down next to the bottle to keep cool. And yes, sometimes I steal an ice bottle for myself.

coop tour

The baby chicks & turkeys have moved outside. So, I thought I'd show you how the little red hen house "grows" with the birds. We first used this little house when we had just 3 hens. It has a roost bar & 2 nest boxes inside. The hens ran around the yard during the day & we locked them in at night. The door latches with a slide-bolt. The roof lifts off (with the strength of 2 people. Pretty sure it can hold-up in a tornado, though I hope not to test that theory). But, that way we can clean the inside & replace the roof with a wire top for baby chicks (see post April 26). When we got too many hens for this house, we made a stall for them in the barn. Then, my husband built the chicken wire"run" & it's now used for starting chicks outside, or seperating bald hens, etc. (Don't worry, it's not that crowded. Most of the chickens in the pic are outside the fence.)

Door number 2: This is a bigger chicken tractor we built to seperate breeding flocks. This is an upgrade, in that it has WHEELS! I just had to post this picture of the roof so you can see, anything goes. Yes, those are old, plastic, "for sale" signs. I have no idea where they came from, but with a little duct tape, they are waterproof, so we used them. All of our chicken runs have houses for night time with locks on the doors. We have too many hairy, nocturnal, chicken thieves in the country!

Door number 3: Is bigger still. This is the "turkey tractor" (currently housing a lame turkey & 2 bald hens). Also with wheels, nest box & roost bar. It has a sliding door to access the nest box, a trap door to drop in feed & water, plus a sliding door to the house, that we can open & shut without crawling into the pen (VERY handy when you consider how much chickens poop!) The ducks live in a dog pen, with a dog house & an old sled full of water that they try to swim in. That's recycling :-)

The Peeps have landed

I didn't exactly plan to buy more chickens, but there they were, looking all cute & fluffy... Being totally unprepared, I had to put them in a box, with a jar of hot water to keep them warm, until I could set-up their little house. They loved that jar so much, they were pushing against it with all their strength. We have a little chicken house, that we use indoors to start chicks & move it outside when the babies are ready. My husband built it with a removable roof. So, when it's indoors, we put a chicken- wire frame on the top & add the roof later.

Once the peeps were moved into their now home, I opened the door & our border collie sat right down to keep watch over his new flock. Once I got the wire top on, the cat took his turn babysitting.

Recycler's Garden

I'm cheap. I admit it. So, when I was ready to get this garden started, I started in the recycling bin. I rescued sour cream cups, cut the bottoms off milk jugs & put them to good use. I had been saving the eggshells all winter. Once I collected my loot, I punched holes in the bottom of all the eggs & plastic containers (be sure to put a tray underneath). I filled everything with dirt, some water & planted the itty-bitty seeds. I covered everything with plastic & set it near a window to warm the soil Once the seeds have popped-up, you can remove the plastic. Just be sure to keep the soil damp. I planted about a thousand tomato, pepper, cabbage, cauliflower, broccoli, melon & pumpkin seeds. I know, I know "don't start melons". But, last year my melons grew about as big as grapes before frost hit. I had no choice. As long as you start them in something that you can easily "slip" them out of, they'll be ok. You just don't want to disrupt the roots. If they all die, you can say "I told ya so". Don't start the melons in eggshells, they're too small. You want at least a 4-cup container. But (so far) the eggshells are working great for tomatoes & peppers. Once it's time to put them in the garden, I'll just smoosh the shell a bit & plant the whole thing!

garden surprise

So, the weather is warming up around here & I was feeling the magnetic pull of my garden. I just wanted to peek & plan out where everything would be planted, so I went for a walk today. I was expecting to see kale, because it's the last thing we harvested in December. There was some kale, but it was yellow & mangy & something had feasted on it all winter. I also found some tiny leaves of red lettuce that I let go to seed last summer. What I wasn't expecting, was an entire row of rutabagas! They survived the winter burried under the snow. They're perfect & beautiful. (well, this one was beautiful before I ripped the leafy green tops off & threw them in the compost pile) Stupid me, I got so excited, I pulled up the biggest one for supper. I should have let it grow for seed. Oh well, there's about 50 more where that came from. p.s. It seems chickens don't care for raw rutabags. But, they will eat them cooked. Spoiled chickens!

Cabin Fever

We have one foot of snow on the ground & more expected tonight. The people in this house & the critters in the barn have a bad case of cabin fever. My chickens want worms. The kids want to play tennis. I want to plant my garden! I've ordered my seeds, started the onions & now I wait. Starting a garden for the first year can seem intimidating. There is so much information, that it's easy to get overwhelmed. My 1st bit of advice for people who want to grow their own food (but are afraid of all the "rules") is to relax. Relax & have fun. It really is easier than it may seem. Yes, there could be 1,000 tomato diseases, but chances are, you will see none of them. Just look at a dandelion & you'll see how easy it is to grow healthy food. (Heck yeah, you can eat a dandelion!) Sit down with a mug of hot chocolate & thumb through the seed catalogs. My favorites are Baker Creek Heirloom Seeds, Botanical Interests & High Mowing Organic Seeds. Why? I like their pictures. Last year, I planted a huge garden. Did it look like the ones in magazines? No way. I grew more weeds than food. Did I have fun? Yes. Did my kids eat more vegetables than the year before? Yes. They planted & weeded & harvested & feasted like kings. Did every plant grow well? No. I had beautiful carrots, but the broccoli was pitiful. Will I try again? Heck yeah! Hint number 2 - Start with 1-2 varieties of the foods you actually like. If you hate eggplant, don't bother. If you don't have a yard, you can still grow food on the porch or windowsill. My daughter lives in an apartment & is growing her garden in Rubbermaid buckets. Tip number 3 - Find someone you trust & ask questions. Gardeners love to help each other, just like fishermen love to swap stories. We'll do anything to get people to join the team. We bought fruit trees for the first time, last year. We found a local nursery & asked questions. Lots of questions. She was super friendly & she knows her stuff! I've also been taking classes at our county extension office. For more helpful tips, visit Red White & Grew. She's working on an awesome "DIY notebook for new gardeners". I think you'll like it. I sure did!

Quick & Easy - that's how we roll

My son requested chicken tortilla soup for supper. After making (& cleaning up the mess from) 3 loaves of bread today, I was not in the mood to make tortillas. Oh, we also had no chicken. All I had was some leftover rabbit meat & tortilla chips. So as usual, we improvised. In a large pot, heat-up some chicken broth. I figure 1 cup per person. For us, that's 5 cups. In goes the shredded (cooked) rabbit meat & 1 jar of Meijer corn & black bean salsa. Cook just util the meat is nice and hot. Spoon into soup bowls & crush a handful of tortilla chips on top. (My husband used tortilla chips & about 200 saltine crackers. To each his own.) Sprinkle with shredded cheese. How easy was that?! I haven't added any pictures. It's not much to look at, but it was just what we needed for such a cold February evening.

Snow day did ya say?

Yes, like most of the midwest, we're snowed in today. So, I decided to bake some bread. Throw in some cheese & sausage & we've got a meal! Just shred 4 oz of cheddar cheese into a mixing bowl. (My sister told me they put stuff in shredded cheese to keep it from sticking together. So, I use block cheese & shred it myself.) Then you need some sausage. I use Meijer brand, because it has no MSG. Check the labels! Most "national" brands have MSG. Dump 1/2 package of breakfast sausage into the bowl with your cheese. (save the rest of the sausage for biscuits& gravy). Now smoosh the meat & cheese together with your fingers. Spread it on 8 slices of bread. Bake at 350 until the cheese bubbles. (15-20 minutes). It may not look beautiful, but it tastes soooo YUM!!!

Happy National Pie Day!

What better way to interrupt cabin fever than with pie? It makes the house smell great & warms the kitchen. It's also a tasty way to get my kids to eat more fruits & veggies! Oh yeah, pie counts as a fruit. So, we celebrated National Pie day with two pies. I found the recipe for "Humble Pie" on the King Arthur website. I used frozen peaches & blackberries, because it's what I had. Instead of dried buttermilk powder, I used plain powdered milk. It still tastes great to me.

I used my grandma's recipe for the sweet potato pie. Yes, the recipe that calls for lard in the crust. I've tried "vegetable shortening" before. Besides being totally processed & unhealthy, it makes a crappy crust. Trust me, lard in the only way to make a perfect pie crust.

What a Farmbelle Wants

Granny Cantrell tomato seeds. I grew these last year & they were the best tasting tomato I've ever met. I saved all my seeds in a dixie cup in the cupboard. My sweet dughter climbed onto the counter & spilled all my seeds into her bowl of chili & all over the floor. I cried. Then, I scooped up what seeds I could - about 10 total & went searching for more seeds. I plan to fill my garden with Granny Cantrells. Note to self; always save seeds in jars with lids!

One can never have enough books. Today, I want The Encyclopedia of Historic and Endangered Livestock and Poultry Breeds . Whew, I hope the book is as informative as the title. The cover looks great, so I'm sure the rest of the book is as well.

Since homemade bread does not pop out of the pan already sliced, I need a cutting board, like this. It needs no explaination. It's simple, clean & beautiful.

what shall I have for supper?

More Books in the FarmBelles library

Have you ever found something "strange" at the Farmer's Market, like kale or cauliflower & had no idea what to do with it? Keep in mind, these foods aren't strange at all. They are normal, flavorful foods our grandmothers would have eaten regularly. The stuff they try to sell at the fast food "restaurants" is strange. Eating Local - Sur La Table has recipes for everything you'd buy from your local farmer & then some. It even has a recipe for eggplant that looks edible! So go ahead, try something new (like carrots that have never been wrapped in plastic, gasp!) Your tastebuds will thank you.

Ok, not ready to get adventurous with your food? I hear ya. Let's start with the basics. The Art of Simple Food - Alice Waters explains how to select fresh food & cook it up in simple recipes. Seriously, it has a recipe for scrambled eggs. It doesn't get more basic than that. Just don't confuse "simple"with "boring". With fresh ingredients & simple recipes, you can actually taste the food.

The Sheer Ecstasy of Being a Lunatic Farmer - Joel Salatin - Well, this one pretty much explains itself. Always questioning the logic in "conventional" farming, some people might call Joel a "lunatic". Don't think it bothers him though. No sir! Being a "lunatic" farmer has brought Joel sheer ecstasy. In this book, he explains how you can become a "lunatic" farmer & actually ENJOY FARMING. Like all of Joel's books, this one is engaging, encouraging & bursting at the margins with useful information. A must read for anyone who produces food, or cares where it comes from.

& a movie
It's a good thing Temple Grandin has a website, because I would need a month of Sundays to list all of her amazing achievements. When she still didn't speak at age 4, Temple's doctor urged her mother to put her in an institution. (this was before autism even had a name, let alone any kind of understanding) Well, of course her mother refused. Given a supportive, encouraging childhood, Temple went on to graduate high school and college. She now holds a PhD in animal science. She has a wonderful understanding of animal behavior, which helps her design facilities that are more humane for livestock. She has even written several books about autism. So, check out her website, read one of her books, watch the movie (my kids watched it over & over & over...). You will not be disappointed, I promise.

It's got to be butter!

Many moons ago (or, it may have been last week. It's hard to remember at this age). Now, where was I? Oh yeah, I was shopping at Meijer (with my sister, but that's another story). Apparently, everyone else in the county had the same idea, because everything I wanted was sold-out! So, by the time I got to the shelf where the butter was not, I was losing my temper. I may have even sworn out loud. Pretty sure I did, since the Meijer dairy-man asked what was wrong. So, I told him "I just wanted the Meijer butter". I NEED butter. It would take a 12-step program to get me through one day without butter. So, Mr. amazing Meijer dairy-man calmly went to the back room, brought back a brand new box of butter, opened it & handed me 2 pounds of beautiful, prefect, Meijer butter. He must have been saving it just for me. I had to stop myself from doing a touchdown dance right there in the aisle. Instead, I politely said "thank you" & went on my way. But seriously, Mr. Meijer dairy-man, if you're reading this, you saved my day & you probably saved the other shoppers from limping through the store with cart marks on their backs.

Meijer product reviews

I love my Meijer store! I buy Meijer brand products whenever I can. I started buying them because they are cheaper than national brands. Now, I buy Meijer brand because the quality is (usually) better than the national brands. If I buy a generic or store brand that doesn't compare well to the national brand, I won't buy it again. I buy Meijer brand products a LOT! Now that Meijer has a "Naturals" food line, with no artificial ingredients or GMOs, I buy that, no matter the cost (which is almost always cheaper than the national brands anyway) Meijer also has an "Organics" food line, which we love. So, here is my 1st list of Meijer "product reviews". No doubt, there will be more lists to follow.

dry pasta - I buy it all, use it all & love it all. It's cheap & tastes great.

"Naturals" corn & black bean salsa. I originally bought it because it promises "no GMOs". I keep buying it, because it tastes great, and it doesn't cost any more than "regular" salsas. When it's on sale, I stock up. Bonus - my kids like to eat these veggies.

flour tortillas - I don't buy them. The list of ingredients is too long & full of things I can't pronouce. I'm not feeding them to my kids. I make my own tortillas with Meijer unbleached flour.

"restaurant style tortilla chips" - ground corn, oil, salt. That's it. No crap. probably GM corn, but I'm doing the best I can here. (we also like the organic tortilla chips. They cost a bit more, but I try to avoid GM corn whenever possible)

"Organics" creamy peanut butter. - peanuts, oil, sugar, salt. Bonus - it tastes EXCELLENT!

"Naturals" creamy peanut butter. I like it, my kids hate it. I think it's because they're too lazy to stir the oil back into the solids, when it settles. They eat it, just won't make their own sandwiches with it.

mandarin oranges - oranges, water, sugar. Sure beats the questionable ingredients in the national brand. Oh yeah, I checked. Bonus - prevents scurvy.

I buy all the meijer brand sugar, powdered sugar, brown sugar & unbleached flour. They work great, cost less. It's a win-win for me.

milk - "...from cows not supplemented with artificial growth hormones" that's why I buy it. I don't care if the FDA thinks rBST is safe. They also told us Vioxx & aspartame were safe.

"Organics" honey and nut toasted oat cereal. Sorry Mr. Meijer, my kids didn't like it. But, my chickens sure did :-)

Well, there's list one. Stay tuned for list two, hopefully sometime before spring!