I have the best friends!

July 17, 2018July 17, 2018 / Re-Farmer / Leave a comment

I had a surprise in the mail today!

A care package from my dear friend, from the city we lived in before our move. There is a particular grocery store that doesn’t exist here, and I’ve yet to find some of the things they carry, so she sent some of it to me! All sorts of treats in here!!!

20180717.care.package

White truffle honey? Wow!

And the adorable, itty bitty Nutella.

Also, how did I miss that those bouillon cubes we were running out of were a completely different brand than what I thought they were? No wonder I couldn’t find them online when I looked. Funny how, if you use the right brand name, things become much easier to find online… *facepalm*

Oh, and those candies? Milky Cream Fudge. They are a Polish candy. They have this awesome texture and creamy flavour unlike any other kind of fudge. If you have a chance to try them, I highly recommend them!

So many wonderful things!

I have the best friends. <3

The Re-Farmer

First Fruits

July 11, 2018July 11, 2018 / Re-Farmer / Leave a comment

While doing a check around the yard for downed branches, I went past the remains of the raspberry patch along the big garden. There I found the first ripe raspberries of the year!

There are so few surviving raspberries left that I don’t expect much more, but now that they have started to ripen, it will be good to check them every day until the season for them is done.

Next year, I hope we will be able to start up a new raspberry patch in a better location, and with other varieties as well. :-)

The Re-Farmer

Corn on the cob, cookout

July 3, 2018July 3, 2018 / Re-Farmer / Leave a comment

It’s been some time since we’ve done a cookout. It’s either been way too hot to sit around a fire, or raining!

Not a complaint, really.

Today, we cooked supper outside, but brought it inside to eat because… flies. They like our faces. And hair. And ears.

So the idea of eating outside wasn’t very attractive. :-D

I recently picked up a campfire grill, and today I picked up some fresh corn on the cob.

A perfect way to break in the grill!

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Before starting the fire, I removed the outer leaves on the husks, as much of the cornsilk as I could, then left them to soak in cold water. We turned them a few times, flipped them and changed their positions, because the coals were not evenly heating.

Once they’re cooked and cool enough for eating, the husks can be pulled back and used as a holder for the corn, or broken off completely.

We cooked the cheese hoagies in batches.

A lovely summer treat!

The Re-Farmer

Flame Roasted Potatoes

June 5, 2018 / Re-Farmer / 2 Comments

I roasted potatoes in yesterday’s cookout, and I thought I’d share. :-D

To make these, you will need;

Large potatoes (1 per person)
Butter and seasonings
heavy duty aluminum foil, pieces sized to wrap each potato in a double layer
fire

Start by thoroughly scrubbing the unpeeled potatoes, then stabbing them all over with a fork.

For the butter and seasoning, you can use plain butter, then add coarse salt (how we usually do it), or you can make a flavored butter using whatever seasonings you like. This time, I added paprika, fresh ground pink Himalayan salt and fresh ground pepper, dill and garlic powder.

Generously cover the potatoes with the butter and seasonings. Tightly wrap each potato in a double thickness of heavy duty aluminum foil.

Don’t skimp on the foil. ;-)

Time to go outside!

Prep a small fire and let it burn down. When you have a layer of coals, place the foil wrapped potatoes directly on top of the hot coals.

Build the fire up again on top of the potatoes.

Enjoy your fire for about an hour, letting it burn down to coals. Gently move the foil wrapped potatoes out of the coals and remove to a container that can handle high temperatures.

The time is completely a judgement call. A lot depends on the size of the potatoes and how hot the fire gets. You might want to try for 45 minutes the first time you do it, and adjust for the next cookout.

Because there will be another cookout! :-D

Carefully unwrap the foil (I used two forks) and cut a potato in half.

As you can see, this potato was VERY well done! Which I’m okay with, as the skin serves as a bowl.

While the potato is cooling, roast some wieners over the fire.

Add flavorings to taste. I had some of the flavored butter used on the outside of the potatoes left, so I put some of that on one half, and sour cream on the other. Then I used a fork to mix in the flavorings, in the skin “bowl”.

I think, the next time we do this, I’ll roast 2 potatoes per person instead of one! It was SO good!

These can also be left to cool and eaten later. Just unwrap and reheat in the microwave, or chop into cubes to use to make hash browns, or to make a potato salad.

Enjoy! And please remember to exercise fire safety precautions, at all times.

The Re-Farmer

First Wiener Roast of the year!

June 4, 2018June 6, 2018 / Re-Farmer / 5 Comments

Last night, we decided to take advantage of the lovely evening, and have our first wiener roast of the year! :-D

When I was a kid, we used to have these quite often. I would go into the bush with a machete-type knife (we even found it while packing away my parents’ stuff!) and cut dogwood branches for roasting sticks. They were perfect for it, naturally growing long, straight and supple. Sometimes, I could get ones with a perfect Y shape. The bark came off easily, and I would strip off the top several inches, then sharpen them to points.

At the end of the day, we’d get a fire going, roast wieners and stuff our faces with hot dogs, then finish off with marshmallows. When we were done eating, it would be quite dark, and we would start burning our roasting sticks until the tips were glowing, then wave them around in the dark, using the red tips to create shapes of light in the air.

Sometimes, my parents hosted parties, and their friends from the city would come out with their kids, and there would be dozens of people all over. Most of the time, though, it was just us kids. We had a blast!

Thanks to the burning my daughter and I did earlier, when I cleared the yard to mow the lawn, I had a nice pile of sticks ready to set up for a fire. We brought the hose (of course) and chairs. We were thinking of moving the picnic table over, but it’s in serious need of cleaning, so the girls brought out one of our small folding tables, instead.

We’re going to have to invest in metal roasting forks soon. I picked up a package of wooden roasting sticks along with the S’mores kit, and they are a bit too flammable and bouncy! :-D

I had hoped my husband could join us, even if just to sit on his walker while we roasted wieners for him, but he had to lie down for the night, before we even started. :-(

It got to watch a beautiful sunset while we set up and got the fire going.

I’m going to have to get out there with the weed trimmer. *L*

The outside cats were all over the place, checking out what we were doing! Rolando Moon staked out a spot on the log pile to watch us. The hose sprays water at where two hoses join, and at the nozzle, and the cats played with the spray!

At one point, while I was sitting and eating, Rolando Moon actually jumped up onto my knee! That’s a first. Even the friendliest ones are still quite stand offish, so this is a big step in at least Rolando Moon’s comfort levels with us.

Ah… perfect for toasting those wieners!

We made some S’mores – that’s something we never did when I was a kid. I didn’t even hear of them until after I had my own kids.

I find I really enjoy toasting marshmallows, and getting that perfect state of golden brown on the outside, and all melty on the inside.

Problem with that is, I don’t actually enjoy eating them. Too sweet!

None of us are all that big on sweets, so while the hot dogs disappeared quickly, there’s still lots of S’more making supplies! :-D

Best part was, the entire night, we only saw one mosquito!

There is at least that one benefit to the dry spring we had!

After a while, we just hung out to watch the fire die down.

I hope we will be able to do this often. Even if we don’t have wiener roasts, to at least get a fire going and enjoy the evening. We have a lot of wood we need to use up, and will be adding more as the clean up continues, so why not? :-D

It was a fantastic evening!

The Re-Farmer

Black Olive and Chickpea Salad

May 7, 2018May 7, 2018 / Re-Farmer / Leave a comment

This is one of my favourites; a hearty salad that I will sometimes have as a meal.

Today, it was made extra special, thanks to a care package a dear friend sent me – who knows me oh, so well! It has been AGES since I’ve had truffle salt or truffle oil! Not that I couldn’t find them; they’re just normally incredibly expensive.

Every now and then, though, they show up at Winners at affordable prices and, apparently, they had quite a variety of truffle products available!

And yes. It’s always time for tea.

I have the best friends!

A few dashes of truffle oil and a sprinkle of truffle salt to my salad brought it to a whole new level! It’s still delicious with just olive oil and regular salt, though. :-)

Black Olive and Chickpea Salad with Feta

Ingredients

1 can chickpeas, drained, rinsed
1 can black olives, whole or sliced
about 1/2 cup feta, cubed or crumbled
about 1/4 tsp dried dillweed or 1/2 tsp fresh
extra virgin olive oil
salt and pepper

After draining and rinsing the chickpeas, shake off as much water as possible, or let them sit to drain more moisture out for a while.
Combine chickpeas, black olives and feta into bowl medium bowl.
Add dillweed, salt and pepper to taste, and enough olive oil to moisten.
Stir or toss to combine thoroughly and serve.

Optional: use different types of salt (smoked salt is great!) or flavoured oil.

This can be made ahead and chilled in the refrigerator before serving. I have no idea how long it’ll last in the fridge, because it disappears so quickly!

Garlic Soup

April 19, 2018 / Re-Farmer / Leave a comment

Well, I’ve gone from having an irritating cough to a full blown spring cold.

Ugh.

As I was sitting with my lemon tea, feeling awful, it occurred to me that I had all the ingredients to make garlic soup.

This is a recipe that my late mother-in-law shared with me, many years ago. She told me that it was an old pioneer recipe that was especially made in the late winter/early spring, when everyone was getting low on energy. This was a time of year when people’s stores of preserved food was probably starting to get low, too, so between the long winters, lack of sunlight, lack of vitamins, and nary a fresh vegetable to be seen, people were getting worn down. This soup would be made and apparently resulted in a big boost of health and energy.

Oh, how blessed we are to be able to get fresh fruits and vegetables, any time of year!

I don’t know about it being a boost to energy, but garlic has long been known to help fight off colds and boost the immune system.

Plus, it’s easy and tasty. What more can you ask?

Quantities are pretty loosey-goosey, so this is more general instructions than a recipe. You will need:

garlic cloves; about 5 per person (I used a whole head, just for myself)
butter (enough to brown the garlic)
milk (about a cup or two per person; I used 2 cups this time)
bread (1 slice per person – I used a thick slice of sourdough bread)
shredded cheese (cheddar or whatever kind you like; about 1/2 – 3/4 cup per person)
seasoning to taste (this time around, I used onion salt, pepper and a dash of paprika)

Peel and prep the garlic. It can be whole, crushed, chopped, minced or whatever you wish. I like to pass it through a garlic press. Then scrap all the bits stuck to the press into the pot, too. Big pieces are not a problem, here! :-D
Melt the butter on the bottom of a saucepan on medium heat. Add the garlic and cook gently until transparent.
Add the milk and heat until scalding. Do not boil!
Season as desired.
Place a slice of bread on the bottom of a bowl. Top with shredded cheese.
Pour the hot soup over the bread and cheese.
Eat while as hot as you can handle it.

You can also give the bread time to soak up some soup, then break it apart and add more shredded cheese to the top. I had to do that, just to be able to fit all the soup into the bowl. :-D

Now that I’ve had my bowl of soup, I think I’m going to go back to bed.

The Re-Farmer

Overnight Sourdough Rye Bread

April 6, 2018 / Re-Farmer / Leave a comment

Fresh out of the oven!

This is a bread that needs a LOT of time! The finished result, with its tangy sourdough flavour, is well worth it.

Begin by preparing the starter the evening before. We used our rye starter, The Rye of SourOn, but a regular starter can be used as well.

Overnight Sourdough Rye Bread

Overnight starter:
1 cup sourdough starter
2 cups warm water
2 1/2 cups rye flour

Mix the ingredients in a large bowl. Cover and let stand overnight in a warm place, such as the oven with the light on.

Ingredients:

Overnight starter
1 cup milk
3 Tbsp butter
3 Tbsp sugar
2 tsp salt
1 Tbsp active dry yeast
1/4 cup warm water
3 cups rye flour, or 2 1/2 cups rye flour, 1/2 cup flax meal
3 – 5 cups all purpose flour
1/8 cup crushed sunflower seeds, to coat top of loaves (optional)
(place roasted, salted sunflower seeds into a slide lock freezer bag and crush with a rolling pin)

The night before: prepare overnight starter

The next morning:

Pour the milk into a saucepan and scald. Add the butter to melt, then stir in salt and sugar. Set aside to cool for about 10 minutes.
Sprinkle yeast over warm water and let stand for about 5 minutes.
Stir yeast and cooled milk mixture into the overnight starter. Stir well.
Mix in optional flax meal and rye flour. Beat thoroughly until batter is smooth.
Cover lightly and set in a warm, draft free place to rise until almost doubled in size; about 30-40 minutes.
Shaped loaves after rising.
Stir down dough. Add all purpose flour, a little at a time, until a medium stiff dough begins to form. Turn onto a floured surface and knead in more flour, as needed. Continue kneading for another 8-10 minutes, or until soft and elastic.
Divide dough in half, cover lightly and let rest for 10 minutes.
Prepare baking sheet or loaf pans.
Shape the dough into loaves. Place crushed sunflower seeds onto kneading surface and press tops of the loaves into the seeds before placing on the baking sheet/into loaf pans.
Cover lightly and let rise for about 1 hour in a warm, draft free place.
Preheat oven to 375F. Bake for about 45 minutes. Note: if the bread is a golden brown at 30 minutes, tend with foil to prevent further browning.
Place baked loaves on cooling racks.

Happy Easter!

April 1, 2018 / Re-Farmer / 3 Comments

Wishing you a joyous and blessed Easter!

Our Easter brunch, made up entirely of the contents of our traditional basket.

Blessing of the Baskets

March 31, 2018March 31, 2018 / Re-Farmer / 3 Comments

My younger daughter and I took our basket into town for blessing. After a bit of shifting things around, this is what our basket looked like.

The prosciutto roses were added at the very end, because they dry out so quickly – though they did double duty in holding some of the eggs in place! I ended up fitting 8 of each type of egg into the basket, so there were some of the tea dyed and onion skin dyed eggs left over.

The embroidered table cloth is one of a couple of antique embroidered linens I’ve managed to acquire many, many years ago. It has 8 little matching napkins.

Normally, I would have ironed it first, but neither of our two irons made it with the movers.

Which reminds me. I have come to realize something.

We are now completely finished unpacking!

I had unpacked a box of books in the office some time ago. I still have a number of bins, but aside from one that’s still got stuff in it because I have to find the right spot of them, they don’t need to be unpacked. The stuff in them belongs in the bins.

On the one hand, Yay! We’re unpacked!

On the other… there is now no possibility of finding the missing stuff jammed into an unpacked box somewhere. That stuff is lost.

Including my two irons.

*sigh*

But I digress!

I snagged a quick photo in the church…

Another half dozen or so baskets were added after this photo was taken.

I’m taken aback by the lit candles inside people’s baskets. I’m reading “fire hazard” all over the place! :-D My daughter remembers the last time we brought our baskets here for blessing, several Easters ago. We had come out for a visit and stayed with my father, in the very house we live in now. We had included a candle in our basket. Someone lit it for us!

A couple of the baskets that came after this photo was taken were just huge! You can kind of tell whose baskets are for larger families. :-D There was one that had the most interesting wire holder for the eggs, that kept them well above the rest of the food. I love all the different styles of baskets and how they are decorated, too.

If you look towards the back of the photo, on the riser above the baskets at the foot of the alter, is a small basket that doesn’t have any food in it. That’s a donation basket for the priest, for doing the blessing. I remember helping my mother bring baskets for blessing, and she would set up the little donation basket, and a second one, where she added some food items from our own baskets. Other people followed her lead and added more, so that by the end of it, the priest also had a basket full of food!

For the blessing ceremony, a prayer and blessing was said, then the priest sprinkled all the baskets with holy water. Then he went down the aisle and sprinkled us, too. We finished with a rousing hymn of blessing, with the priest grinning from ear to ear as he sang, his arms waving to the rhythm. Clearly, this is a ceremony much enjoyed by the priest, as well!

Then, after we retrieved our basket, I saw him standing there with his iPhone out, taking video of us all, getting our baskets, still with that huge, joyful smile on his face.

It was awesome.

The Re-Farmer

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Overnight Sourdough Rye Bread

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