Holidays

Preparing for Easter, and an easier way to peel eggs!

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One of the bonuses of our move to the farm I grew up on is that we could take part in a childhood tradition; the blessing of our Easter baskets. It was many moves and many years before we were able to find a Polish church that did basket blessings, and be able to take ours in.

That didn’t stop us from doing our traditional baskets. It was one of my favorite traditions, growing up, and even when we stopped going to church for many years (for a variety of reasons), we still did our baskets and simply blessed them ourselves.

Which is what we’ll have to do this year, since none of the churches are holding any sort of services during the lockdown, other than online.

We did start some of our preparations already. For the cheese portion of our basket, we decided to do marinated goat cheese again. I made up two 250ml canning jars for our basket (I’m hoping to get one of them to my mother, along with some fresh horseradish), plus two 500ml ones, just for regular eating.

Tomorrow, I hope to make some fancy bread for the basket. Probably a Braided Egg Bread again, though I haven’t completely decided yet.

Today, I started pink pickled eggs; one of three ways we like to do eggs for our basket. The recipe for pink pickled eggs that I followed before is here. This year we, strangely, had a hard time finding anything other than shredded beets at the grocery store, so I modified the recipe a bit. I found 1 small jar of tiny pickled beets and used the juice from that to colour the liquid, plus sliced some of the beets and included them in with the eggs. With so little beet juice, I figured the addition of the beets themselves would help add colour. The other change I made was to include the fresh herbs I had left over from making the marinated goat cheese; thyme and rosemary.

When preparing eggs for the basket, we always cook way more than we need, so that we can use only the most perfect eggs for the basket.

Which is difficult, when the eggs need to be peeled first. There have been times when we’ve boiled a dozen eggs, and not a single one could be peeled without tearing apart!

So today, I tried a combination of “hacks” to get the job done.

The first is to add baking soda to the cooking water. Yes, it does make a difference.

The next is to cool the cooked eggs down as quickly as possible. Putting the eggs into an ice bath is one way to do it, but our well water gets so cold, we can get away with using tap water.

The final one is something I tried for the first time today, and it worked beautifully!

Shaking them in a jar.

Okay, so it wasn’t quite that simple. :-D

I grabbed a small canning jar, though any jar (with a lid) just a bit bigger than an egg would work. Theoretically, you can use a small glass and cover the top with your fingers, but that would get pretty messy. The first jar I tried was a 500ml (pint) size, and I found it a bit too big and ended up using a 250ml jar instead.

Leaving the eggs in their cold water soak, take one egg and put it in the jar, along with enough water to fill the jar about half full or a bit more. It can be helpful to crack the shell a bit before putting it in the jar.

Then, put on the lid and start shaking. Vigorously, but not too violently!

The shaking does a few things. The most obvious is, it cracks the shell quite thoroughly. This is where you have to find a balance on how much water is in the jar when you shake it. Too much, and the water protects the egg from cracking as much. Too little, and the egg can get bashed apart.

The shaking also separates the membrane from the white of the eggs – which would have already been spurred along by the addition of baking soda to the cooking water, and the quick cool down. And finally, it lets water work its way between the membrane and the egg white, making it much easier to remove the shell.

After a thorough shaking, dump the contents back into the water with the rest of the eggs. While holding the cracked egg under water, start peeling away the shell. If it still sticks, do the shake again. :-)

Out of the package of 18 eggs I cooked, I got 8 that were perfect enough for the basket; two for each of us.

This is what happens when an egg is shaken up too vigorously.

Here are the best eggs, ready for the fridge.

They should have at least 3 days to marinade in the pickling liquid, which is just in time for Easter.

Of the remaining eggs, there was one that broke during cooking, which left another 8 eggs suitable for pickling. I did up another container the same way, minus the beet juice. It still has beet slices with the eggs, so it will have just a hint of pink. That one will be for regular eating.

It is going to be a delicious Easter celebration this Sunday! :-)

The Re-Farmer

This and That

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Of course, things have been busy for the past while, even though we try to keep Christmas and New Year’s very low key. I finally have some time to settle in at the computer, so I’m going to take advantage of that and catch up in things.

I’ll be going backwards in time, for the most part. :-D

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A Year in Review

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A great big Happy New Year to all our wonderful visitors and followers! May 2020 be a year of peace and good health to you and your loved ones.

Out of all the millions of blogs out there, you chose to pop over and visit our little corner of the world, and I just wanted to say how much I appreciate it.

Last year, I did a list of this blog’s top 10 most visited posts. I was all set to do it again, only to find it couldn’t quite work out as I intended. It turns out there are too many “tied” posts. A 2 or 3 way tie is one thing, but a 13 way tie? :-D I also noticed that the top visited posts are almost all from last year. I was going to try skipping those and just do posts that were written in 2019, only to find myself back in that tied-a-dozen-times problem.

So here is the list of the top 5 most visited blog posts in the past year.

Five: New Range Hood – part 1 Thanks to my daughter, we finally replaced the original range hood, which was installed in the early to mid 1970’s. Part 2 is when we finally got the new one wired and working!

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Four: Sourdough Cornmeal Pancakes These are still my favorite pancakes. Recipe to make yogurt cheese, as a sour cream substitute, included!

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Three: Chokecherry Vinegar Drink This turned out to be a very refreshing drink.

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Two: Making Chokecherry Vinegar Here is the recipe for the vinegar used in the Chokecherry Vinegar Drink. This year’s chokecherries were frozen, and we plan to use them in mead making. Depending on how many chokecherries we get next year, I hope to make this vinegar again, just so we can make that drink!

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And the Number One most popular post in the past year: Gathering Chokecherries

I’m sensing a theme, here! :-D This post is from 2018, but we got quite a nice haul this past summer, even though we gathered from just 2 out of 3 trees.

I hope you enjoy visiting these most popular posts of 2019 here at The Re-Farmer blog. Thank you, again, for choosing to visit our little corner of the blogosphere!

Happy New Year, from The Re-Farmer household to yours!

The Re-Farmer

All bent out of shape

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We are a bit behind on our Christmas decorating this year.

Usually, we start at least by Nov. 27 (the Feast of St. Catherine). However, this Christmas is a first for 3 felines.

So we set up the tree, but left it alone. We didn’t even fluff out the branches. The idea being, the cats can get used to the tree being there, and we can start training them to stay out of it, using a spray bottle.

The problem with that, however, is someone has to be in the room to catch them in the act, and we don’t exactly hang out in the dining room.

It’s going to take pliers to straighten some of these branches out. :-D

We can, however, start decorating the rest of the house. Tomorrow is the first day of Advent, so I at least want to get our Advent wreath and its candles set up.

I just have to figure out which of the bins it got put into. :-)

The Re-Farmer

The Aftermath

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It’s Thanksgiving weekend here in Canada, and after the blizzard that hit us, we have so much to be thankful for! Parts of the province are described as looking like they were hit by a tornado, and I just learned that my sister was without power for 2 days. Thankfully, they have a wood stove and fireplace for cooking and heat, as well as a generator.

When I drove my daughter to work on the Thursday, things were still looking good. By the time we reached town, it was starting to snow, but it was on the way home that I drove into the beginnings of the storm, locally.

When it was safe to do so, I pulled over to get a picture.

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Getting Ready

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While we are ready and waiting for my husband to come home from the hospital, we are also getting ready for Easter.

This evening, I went hunting for horseradish.

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After scraping away some fallen leaves, I found some new grow peaking through the ground. I used a potato fork (the only fork that didn’t grow legs and walk away over the years) to dig up a few pieces.

This bunch is growing under the power pole in the garden. I knew the area was very rocky, but wow. I had a really hard time getting that fork deep enough to get some roots out. No matter where I moved it, I was hitting rocks, just a couple of inches below the surface.

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I didn’t take out much. A larger piece for our own basket, and a couple of small pieces for my mother. If she wants, she can use one and plant the other, since she has garden space where she lives.

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For now, I’ve scrubbed the dirt off, and they are wrapped in damp paper towels. For our basket, I will peel some of the outer skin off the lower part, and save the top. The tradition is to use horseradish paste, mixed with beetroot, in the basket; the bitter taste of the horseradish symbolizes the pain of crucifixion Christ endured for us, while the sweetness of the beetroot symbolizes the joy of the resurrection. Growing up, though, we always used fresh horseradish root. My mother would sometimes give away pieces with sprouting tops, after the baskets were blessed, to friends to plant if they wanted.

My mother planted the horseradish in strange places. One batch is under a spruce tree, which would be just as difficult to harvest as the ones growing among rocks. I found more growing among some of her flowers outside the living room window, which has better soil conditions, but harvesting it would mean damaging the bulbs of the flowers it’s growing with.

I’m thinking of maybe using some of the raised planters that are still in decent shape, so the horseradish itself will also be contained better, and not spread too much.

Something to figure out over the next few days!

Meanwhile, I will now go and boil some eggs to make pink pickled eggs. :-)

The Re-Farmer

Marinated Goat Cheese

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Though it is still weeks away, we are already planning our semi-traditional Polish Easter basket.

I say “semi” traditional, because we’ve modified some of the contents over the years.

If you’re unfamiliar with a Polish Easter basket, these are filled with symbolic foods to be blessed on Holy Saturday, and eaten on Easter Sunday. The foods include ham, sausage, bacon, bread, cheese, salt, butter, horseradish and eggs. We also include things like olives, vinegar, and olive oil. It may also contain a bottle of wine and a candle. Oh, and sometimes chocolate or candy. The baskets are decorated and covered with lace or embroidered clothes. As a child, Easter was my favourite holiday, and our traditional basket was a big reason for that!

Some of the contents require more advance preparation, and I was able to start on one of those, yesterday. This is a non-traditional way to include the traditional cheese in the basket.

This year, I found some absolutely delightful mini-jars, and decided to make several small jars of marinated goat cheese, but we’ve also done it by layering medallions of goat cheese in a larger jar. Both ways work fine.

It had been my intention to make two baskets this year, with a large family basket for ourselves, and a smaller one for my mother. She declined my offer, and will be making her own basket.

We’re going to have lots extra out of this batch!

To start with, I scalded the tiny jars I bought special for the basket, plus extra pint size jars. Then I prepared the ingredients. The mini-jars have smaller openings, though, so that changed things a bit.

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Here we have fresh rosemary leaves and fresh thyme leaves – they came in 28gram packages, and I stripped the leaves from the stems. There are peppercorns and about 8 cloves of garlic, sliced. Not pictured is Extra Virgin Olive Oil.

I completely forgot about the bay leaves. There should have been a bay leaf per jar.

As you can see, this is a forgiving recipe.

The goat cheese came in 300 gram logs; I had 2 of them and cut them each into 4 equal pieces. For the ones to go into the mini-jars, I cut pieces off to try and make them into smaller columns, then gently rolled them between my hands to make them smooth and round.

The first one I tried, promptly crumbed apart. Which is why I have rolled balls of cheese. I broke up each trimmed quarter piece into 4 and formed the smaller pieces into smooth balls.

For the pint sized jars, I didn’t have to be pretty, since they’re not intended for the basket

Each jar got some peppercorns, thyme leaves, garlic and rosemary leaves placed on the bottom. If I’d remembered the bay leaves, they would have gone into the bottom, too. Then the goat cheese gets put into the jars.

This is why I make extras…

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I didn’t make one of the small columns of cheese small enough. It got messy. :-D

No worries. It’ll still taste good!

Once the cheese is in, more peppercorns were added, as well as the rest of the thyme, rosemary and garlic slices. Then the olive oil was added.

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After the oil was added, the rims were cleaned, the jars sealed, and into the fridge they went.

Next is the hard part; waiting a week before using them!

From the looks of them, I think the balled cheese will be kept for the basket. I do have one non-messy mini-jar with a bigger piece, so I might use one of each. We shall see. The pint jars don’t have to wait for then, though, and I will post pictures, when they are ready. :-)

After marinating for a week, the oil can be drained through a sieve and reserved (the herbs are discarded). It makes for incredibly flavourful oil to use when cooking. The cheese can be served as a spread on bread or crackers, or used any other way you would use goat cheese.

Alternatively, little jars like this can be served as individual appetizers. The jars can be warmed by placing them in a flat bottomed pan with hot water, and placed in a hot oven until heated through. They can then be used as individual servings, eaten straight from the jar.

I intend to put these in our basket, just as they are, without straining them first since the jars are so small. When we made them before, with layers of cheese in a larger jar, we removed the cheese, then put a few pieces into a smaller container with a liquid tight seal. I then covered the cheese with strained oil and closed it up. It made for a nice presentation in the basket. :-)

The Re-Farmer

Happy Epiphany

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Today marks the last day of our Christmas season.

For those following the orthodox calendars, it’s Christmas Eve, so a joyful Christmas to you!

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When the girls were younger, before bed, they would leave their shoes out by their doors with “hay” in them for the wise men’s camels. In the morning, there would be small gifts waiting for them.

We still give them small gifts, and this year was no exception.

After today, we start taking down the tree and decorations.

That’s going to take a while. :-D

The Re-Farmer