It may have taken some effort to survive

Ok so after a week of reading learning and prepping and canning etc etc ... I realize the people who settled this country had some major balls. I think the women must have been amazing the children of today have no idea and I thought I had an idea .. I did not. I am humbled

SOUR KRAUT TA DAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA

Ha I DID IT .. wow half red have white .. and it tastes GREAT .. GOOD DAY . now off to the ICE House for some fish

Cabbage Rolls

Dont know how to make em . dont know whats in em .. but if you eat three .. you are full ........ouch

Light Oat Bread

Cooking Directions:
-------- ------------ --------------------------------
1 1/4 cups water
2 tablespoons margarine
1 teaspoon salt
3 cups all-purpose flour
1/2 cup rolled oats
2 tablespoons brown sugar
1 1/2 teaspoons yeast

Add ingredients to bread machine pan in order recommended by your
machine's manufacturer. Use regular light setting.

This recipe yields a 1 1/2 pound loaf.

Happy Birthday To Me

Big day here at The Acre Today Im 44. and just in time since I have just begun a new lifestyle. Last night I made my first batch of granola. The recipies I saw were way to complicated- I thought anyway - so I winged it. I used 6 Cups of rolled oats and 12 ounces of honey and a half cup of slivered almonds. I put in 3/4 cup of oil and baked at 250 for an hour. let it cool in the oven and BAM fab granola I added a couple handfulls of raisons and Ill jar it up today ..

My local store had pork shoulder on sale  heheeh ouch that means I have about 30 pounds of meat to cut up today for the grinder. Today while the yogurt is cooking I'll cube the meat and freeze it for a couple weeks. Freezing is a great way to kill trichinosis. The meat will get bagged into 5 pound packs. 5 pounds is a good amount to work with and be able to keep everything very cold while I make the sausage. Ill make breakfast sausages --Maple in sheep casing -- and then Ill make Hot Italian for brats and sauces. I have some beef to so I may make a sumer sausage and smoke that up-its pretty cold out though today so I might wait so the smoker is easier to keep at heat.

Today I also willl make a gallon of yougurt. Man that stuff will help take the pounds off !

The kraut is on day 6 now there has been no bloom and I think thats odd .. I will taste it today I think and see how its going.

I'm pretty disapointed in the pickled mushrooms .. The book I used didn't suggest I simmer the mushrooms prior to canning .. so my full packed jars are only half full today thankfully I only made two jars.  So if your a noob like me simmer the mushrooms prior to the jar .... grrrrrrrrr

Cheese?

Well in my Wild Fermentation book it’s listed as farmer’s cheese. It certainly looked like cheese when this morning. It cut like cheese and so I cut it up and put it on pepper slices. I enjoyed it.

I used one half gallon of milk which I brought to s a slow boil. Once the milk started boiling I turned off the heat and slowly added 1/4 cup of white vinegar. As I added the vinegar the mile curdled really quickly. I poured the hot mixture directly into a colander covered with a double layer of cheese cloth. The resulting ball of curdled milk from the half gallon was about the size of my fist. Before I gathered it all up I added a1/2 TBL of sea salt and some chipotle seasoning. I didn’t weight it but I’m guessing it was about a pound.

Leaving the cheese in the cloth I squeezed out a lot of the water and let it hang from the microwave door and drip for about 10 minutes. At that point I took the ball and leaving it in the cheese cloth I placed it on a cutting board and put a plate and a 12 pack of Pepsi on top of it.

Two hours later I came back and poof I had a small flat brick of cheese. I put it in a bag and put it in the fridge. We had it for breakfast. It was pretty tasty. I was no Brie but it was light and a pretty flavorful.

I think I would make crackers next time and have it as a snack at TV time.

So Many Choices

Wow .. so the data is streaming in. I can sun dry foods, dehydrate foods, pickle foods, freeze foods or heck just eat them. I guess the trick is to try them all and choose what you like best or chose the method based on what you are trying to accomplish preservation wise ?
Three books came today Wild Ferment, Preserving Food without Freezing or Canning and Making Sauerkraut and pickled vegetables at home. There is a lot to learn. I think I have convinced Julie that tonight I can make farmers cheese without a mess.
We shall see

Store Bought

Today while at work breakfast was served. They had wonderfull looking plump well cooked sausage. They tasted horrible fatty fillers and bland ... I think I have hit the point of no return

Overall Feeling

I love the yogurt. Packaging it with the granola makes it the consistency of pudding and it bleaches the cherry taste into the yogurt so I don’t have to flavor it at all. I’ve noticed that the 6 I packed on Sunday are down to 2. I’m not sure who also loves them but it seems to be a hit. I guess I’ll make a gallon at a time going forward. I noticed my coat fit differently this morning I think I’ve all ready begun to lose weight.

I’m not sure if it’s the novelty of it all at this point but it’s very addicting and empowering. I think a dehydrator is in order

Kraut Day 4

Yesterday I ordered a Harsch Crock. So Im pretty excited about that. I checked and stirred the brew last night. It was a beautiful color it was still crunchy and i could really taste the caraway seed. I had a white bubbly foam the I skimmed off and I closed it all up again. Im dreaming now of sausage and kraut !!

Sour Brisket ??

So if I made sour cabbage heads and groud a brisket into sausage could i make stuffed cabbage rolls our of brisket and not pork .. hmmm drool

Kraut

Day three the kraut is in process. There is a tremendous amount of juice covering the kraut. I can only assume this is really good news based on what I have read. It smells funky. I am curious. I have read about cabbage juice being so good for you I wonder if you put it in a cruet and used it as a spice like a salad dressing maybe on eggs... maybe someone will read this and tell me what they think In the meantime Ill store it as an idea until my first batch is done... I’ll let you know...



Found this
One of the strangest remedies we have ever heard of involves sauerkraut juice against canker sores. Take a tablespoon of sauerkraut juice in your mouth and swish it around morning and night, then swallow it. Do this twice a day and the canker sores should go away. We first heard about using sauerkraut juice to treat canker sores from D.W. in Garland, Texas. His mother had been a dental assistant in the 1930s. Since then we have heard from many people that it can provide rapid relief. One physician who benefited personally arranged for analytical testing of sauerkraut juice and discovered a number of active compounds that may be responsible for its healing properties.

Yogurt

Ok... so I made the yogurt. I made it because it seemed simple and I like it. After all aim small miss small right? I watched several videos and did some research on temp and starters and to be honest it really was easy and worked great.

I used whole milk one half gallon and Old Home plain yogurt with active cultures for the starter. I heated the milk to 185 degrees and once it cooled to 115 I added the Old Home. I covered it with towels and my winter jacket and let it sit, but only for 6 hours. I poured the set up into a colander covered in Cheese Cloth and strained out more whey.

What I found... Let it sit for more than 6 hours I think it will firm up more. COVER it right away I stirred and hosed around with it and by the time I got it covered it had dropped 9 degrees. It is tart and plain this is not the desert you find from store bought for sure. It makes your mouth and inside come alive my brain was very happy. It was very satisfying. I added vanilla to a couple samples... it seemed to break it down a bit and took the tart edge off. I added bananas etc to see if I spice it up. I settled on packing on top of a couple ounces of organic cherry granola. It did exactly what I had hoped. The yogurt breaks down the granola and rehydrates the cherries. I was a very nice syrupy slew on the bottom I could mix into the yogurt and it tasted great.

January 24th To Date

Ive managed to learn to make sasauge. that is to say I understand pork shoulder is really cheap and you can use it to make tons of stuff. I now own a grinder stuffer and smoker. Sausage has been a huge success. Next I will learn to smoke the meat. Smoking will be more important if the power goes out. In the meantime Im gonna save a ton of money on breakfast and sausage wow.

Today after alot of research I made my first round of sauerkraut. I was worried about the juice but dang that turned out not to be an issue I used a combination of red and green cabbage and it is now in the crock fermenting.

I have made yogurt. It was amazing fresh and so alive Ive never been so satiffied eating something I created. When I say created I didnt make a hamburger here I applied science and through a specific process created what many others can only get from a store.

I feel as though I am creating a sense of control over my world. Amazing

Why now

I was in my local grocery store watching people navigate 12 packs of soda that were on sale. Whats wrong with water I thought. In my job I have a unique perspective on the fragility of what holds us all together. When I say fragile understand that I mean a week without phone lines and electrical and the entire country crashes. Understand after 911 the planes did not go back in the air because travelers were stuck in Tampa Bay.

So with that in mind if I was cold how would I start a fire. If I were hungry how would I eat. I don't wanna be a survivalist with 9 months of MRE's but at the same time I dont want to me as helpless as I am today.

So here I sit power on, connected to this information kiosk. I'm on this blog because I don't think I am alone. I think people feel it coming. I think ... "Stupid is as stupid does".