dehydrating herbs

The  solar dehydrating  season is in full swing.  The herbs are growing like crazy this  year so I am having to give many of them hair cuts early in the season. Today I  took an entire five gallon  pail of   trimmings off of two  small clumps of  parsley.  After washing and taking the stems out I was able to fill all three trays with  the herbs.

Up until this year all of our dehydrating has been  solar. Recently, a high school class mate offered me an electric one that she no longer uses. I could not resist as it will come in handy for when it gets too humid to use this one or on those days when we get our regular afternoon showers.  I will start the process in the solar  then transfer  it to the  electric reducing waste.   Here is  a previous post  on the dehydrator  as well as  some links to plans.

dehydrating sour dough starter

Sour dough breads and baked goods have been the norm around here for the past few years. While I love using it, I hate that I have a half gallon jar of starter hogging up space in the refrigerator. It does not seem like much space but it is and, I have vowed that once this fridge dies, I will no longer have one. Learning to make do without one is a goal that we have for ourselves over the next couple of years. Getting the sour dough starter out of there is a good start.

I remembered reading about dehydrating sour dough starter back when I first began using it regularly again. I had since forgotten where the information was on it so a few weeks ago I asked some net friends about it. After following instructions given to me, I have since dehydrated all of my starter and now use powdered starter for all my needs. It is much less mess, and for me much easier to remember to make into the sponge for baking needs. I can mix up the powder, let it sit and not think of it again until I am ready to create something. I do not have to worry about bringing the starter to room temp, mixing the sponge and then adding to the starter. I also know that I have approximately 60 recipes that can be made from one jar. It will be easy to know when I need to dehydrate more and that it too can be made from the powdered starter. The powder makes it much easier to store long term or to mail to friends or even take on camping trips to use while there.

When I dehydrated my starter, I made it very thick first so that I could spread it like a thick paste onto my drying sheets. I simply used large cookie sheets with plastic wrap covering them and then smeared the starter on the cookie sheer to about a 1/4 inch thick. I also tried wax paper but, again, that stuck to the end product and was not fun to peel off. I slid my trays under the wood stove and allowed them to dry slowly over the next couple days. Once dry, I put the pieces in to the food processor, ground them into flakes and put in to airtight containers for storage.

To use them, put one tablespoon of flakes with one tablespoon warm water to dissolve.Then stir in 1 cup room temp water and 1 and 1/4 cups flour and mix well. The end result should be like pancake batter. Cover lightly (not air-tight) and leave out on counter. Allow to sit for 24-48 hours. You should see the normal bubbles covering the surface and the volume will have increased slightly as well. This is your working, fed sponge so use it as you would in any sour dough recipe.

around the homestead-apples

Today is apple day on the ol homestead  and don't tell the manthing, but I am  doing them all inside on the wood stove. It only made sense for me to do so since we had another very chilly night, it is only going to 60 with 20 mph winds today, and is supposed to go right back into the 30's tonight. Why waste all the wood just for cooking outside when it  could be used inside to warm the shack up and do my cooking too. 57 is just a little bit too cool to be comfortable in without being all bundled up in so many clothes that it makes it hard to wiggle and when I am cold, I am in pain . Tomorrow I will fire up the stove outside and water bath everything. Actual canning on the wood stove  in the shack is very difficult except in the dead of winter when it is frigid out and we have it raging hot.

 Once I got morning chores finished and got my fire going, I set about to peeling one bushel of the apples. This year, I am making applesauce, apple peel jelly/jam and going to try some vinegar  for a change.  If I should forget before next year, please remind me to purchase a new peeler/ corer thingmajig round about April, peeling with a granny knife sucks.

For the  apple sauce I use no recipe and no special equipment to make it. I find it easier in the long run  and much easier to clean up by keeping it simple and doing it the old fashioned way. I just peel, core, and cut the apples in to large chunks and throw them all in a large kettle.  I add a little bit of water in and throw a top on it and let them slow cook down using a potato masher to squish them up as they cook down. When they are to the consistency I want the sauce to be I taste it, add a touch of sugar if necessary, bottle it up and  process in a hot water bath  for 20 minutes.

 Last year, I made some apple brandy out of the  peels and cores. This year, I am going to make peel jam/jelly and when I  use the rest of the apples will make vinegar  from those peelings.  I absolutely love fruits and veggies where I can use every last bit of them for something and nothing goes to waste.

  

Apple peel jelly

Place apple peels and cores, lightly packed, into large pot with 5 cups of water. If you have loads of peels like me, double this recipe. Bring to a boil, reduce heat and boil for 15 minutes, stirring occasionally. Remove from heat, put the lid on the pot, and allow to stand overnight. Strain liquid and measure 5 cups. If you want bits of fruit so that it is more like a jam use a larger holes strainer, be advised the jam will be cloudier in color when finished. Compost the peelings and cores then return  the liquid to the pot. Gradually dissolve 1 box of pectin into the liquid and bring to a full rolling boil, over high heat. Add 7 cups of sugar and stir to dissolve. Return to boiling and boil hard for 1 minute. Remove from heat, skim foam if necessary, and pour into hot 1/2 pint jelly jars. Process in a hot water bath for 10 minutes Or 20  minutes for  pints.

The recipe I am going to use for making the vinegar is from  here. Since I have never made vinegar from scratch , I cannot  say if it is a good recipe or not but in a few months  we shall see how  it worked, or not !

sun dried tomatoes

I am still getting a ton of what are supposed to be cherry  and grape tomatoes,  but since it has been so dry here they are more like currant sized fruit, rather than  grapes or cherries. While this makes them easy to use in salads or to just pop in your mouth, finding any other use for them has been difficult.

A few weeks  back, I decided to see how well they would  dehydrate in the solar dehydrator so that I could then use them in soups and stews or grind them into a powder to make quick tomato paste. They seem to dry quite well  although they do take a bit of time, well quite a bit of time. Since I have a dash of hippie in me, I try to make or take short cuts when ever I can to save myself a bit of work. This means I leave them whole to dry rather than trying to cut those teeny tiny buggers in half. Besides, I might could chop my finger off attempting to do such a thing. On nice, dry sunny days, it is taking about 3 days to dehydrate them to proper dryness. If I cut them in half, it easily takes a day off the drying time but I am in no rush, and  why rush a good thing.

While I use both our solar oven and our solar dryer, you do not have to have anything but a screen to set them on, the sun, low humidity, and time.  At night I just cover them up with a tarp or bring the screens  they are sitting on  in the shack  to keep the dew off.

To make quick tomato paste, I simply grind the tomatoes in to a powder and add a bit of water to make a quick paste of them. It works great for recipes where you do not need an entire can of paste and when you are cooking for just two people, that is the majority of the time. I also like to grind the dried tomatoes up somewhat small and add them to salad dressings , they really add some great flavor and zing to anything you put them in.

preserving the harvest-N GA roasters

Today I started to preserve a few of the N GA roaster squash. While the majority of them will go in the root cellar and be stored, I wanted to get an idea of how far each squash will go and make sure that we had some froze, just in case.

 I chose to freeze just three of the squash for now. All I did was peel them, wash them off, and cut how I wanted them.  I label the package and put a date on it and toss them in to the freezer. These fellers peel quite easy, simply run a  veggie peeler down the squash. I  cut some into cubes, some into slices and made others in to fries. I ended up with  nine very full quarts  and enough left for dinner tonight.

 I, of course, saved all my seeds for future planting, but then realized that just three squash gave way more  seed than I or any of my friends could ever use.And to think, I have approximately 50 more squash yet to deal with.  Rather than throwing them out, I am going to roast  many of them and dehydrate some others for critter snacks.

 Pumpkin  and sunflower seeds are not  the only seed that can be roasted and eaten. Some squash varieties are much tastier than pumpkin seed are and many are  much meatier. They  are also very healthy to eat as they are full of potassium, magnesium, phosphorus, zinc, iron, copper and vitamin K. They are also a great source for fiber in  the diet.To roast the seeds of any winter squash; Wash, allow to dry overnight on a cookie sheet,  toss with a tablespoon or so of olive oil and a bit of sea salt and roast at 275 for about twenty minutes. Allow them to cool and store in an airtight container.

All the remaining guts and peels can be fed to  the critters for a snack ,so no part of the squash  is going to waste. All pumpkin and winter squash seeds are natural worming agents. They
contain a deworming compound called cocurbitacin. Now  this compound does not work on all parasites but along with natural doses of vitamin A and a healthy diet, one can almost eliminate worm  issues with livestock. To use as a wormer, just grind the seeds up  and mix into feed rations.

peach "honey"

I found myself with another half milk crate full of peaches off the tree  yesterday. So, today I decided to try a recipe I ran across the other day while browsing the internet and looking for things to make from all these peaches I have found my self with. We are butchering 20 chickens tomorrow and I have finals this week and I have tons more peaches on the tree so I had to use my free time today to preserve some of them so they do not go to waste. I thought peach "honey" would be something that would be not only tasty   but something that we would actually use over the course of the year. I also liked the fact that I could  use just the peels in order to make the recipe and that in doing so there would be no part of the fruit wasted.

I used the recipe for the peach honey from peels, although, because I have an abundance of peaches, I  used the entire fruit and followed the directions (mostly) from  here.  My only deviation from the recipe was that I did not strain  the mixture through a jam bag after boiling the fruit(peels) as  I like the little bits of fruit in the honey. The recipe is very easy to follow as it is only 2 ingredients, the link has a good picture tutorial to go with the recipe and as far as food preservation goes it doe not take that long to whip out a batch.  I love the color it turned out to be and can't wait to try some on a stack of sourdough pancakes.

peaches

The peach tree here is on a slow suicide mission. The poor thing is so laden with peaches that her branches are just snapping off. This also happened the last time she had loads of fruit but  most years she only puts on a handful of peaches and they get eaten by bugs. This year however is different and while the poor tree gets uglier and uglier each day from breakage the fruit on it is astounding.

The other day  two  small branches completely snapped off  so I decided to harvest the fruit from them because I could not let the small but beautiful and tasty things go to waste. I pulled about 8 gallons of peaches off and left the other branches hanging on the ground in hopes that they could finish ripening on the tree. After this evenings rain though I am fairly sure that I know what I will be doing tomorrow. If I had to  make a guess, I would say there is probably another 25-30 gallons on the tree yet.

Today  I canned up about a third of the peaches from the other day and got 7 quarts of sweet Georgia  peaches. I saved the peals so  after I get done with  the actual peaches I can make jelly or "honey"from them. The peaches, while tiny, will sure be nice to have  this winter. Fruit is something that we really could use more of in our daily diet and something we never ever have enough of, so having an abundance  of it is splendtabulous.  Of course after I am through with the harvest this year I might tell you something completely different .

And... since the manthing has been singing this song for approximately three days now, I give you  PEACHES!

garden 2010- update-onion harvest

The time came this morning to harvest the onions. They had bolted  so were done growing and were laying over with a good bit of rain forecast in the next few days. Rather than risk losing them we decided to go ahead and get them out of the ground. We pulled the  beds and laid them all  out in  the sun for a couple of hours  and then  laid them in racks under the carport so that they could finish curing under there.

All total we harvested somewhere between 60 and 70 pounds of onions which should be enough to get us through the year or very near to it. A couple dollar purchase of seed, a few hours of  time and  it will now save us  about 50-75 dollars  in the next year so we do not need to purchase them. We had quite a few that stayed very small  and while that is a bit disappointing it gives me a fair bit to dehydrate, freeze and use immediately. I see french onion soup in my future. Most of the onions were a bit smaller than we had wished for but for  a first year attempt at growing bulbing onions it was a pretty good yield. We will plant some more this fall to try and over winter  them and will also have another crop of green onions this fall. Of the three varieties we planted the yellow ones out did the  white and red by far. I think next year we will stay with the yellow variety and see how they do. Once these guys are cured I am going to try braiding some as well as a couple other methods of storage. When that time comes I will do another update on  storage.

canning potatoes

One of our potato beds was looking a bit rough the other day and dying off quicker than I like to see. Rather than lose the crop  or wonder and worry about what was wrong with  it we decided to harvest that bed. After  curing them for a couple days it was evident that these potatoes were not going to store well long term, so today we canned them up.We got 15 quarts canned, enough cooked for a week or so of  meals and have another 20 or so pounds to use over the next months or two. The rest of the beds will be dug around the fourth of July,  hopefully they will look a bit  better than this crop did.

I normally can  just the smallest potatoes and can them whole but this year I used various sized spuds. I do not peel them  when I can them. The peels slough off in the canning process and they are easy to pick  out if you do not like them in what ever recipe you are using the potatoes in. This peeling nonsense take a lot of time and wastes good  nutrients. I rarely do just one canner full of anything so time becomes a  big issue for me. I do not dice my potatoes either. I leave them in larger pieces, pretty little cubes all of uniform size is just too weird for me. Once I got my taters the size I wanted , I washed until clean.

Jars, rings and lids were all sterilized, Next, I just chuck my taters in, add a teaspoon of salt fill with  hot water, make sure air bubbles are out, cap and process in the pressure canner for 45-50 minutes at 11 pounds of pressure. I add 5-10 extra minutes of time  what is usually recommended   because  I also skip the blanching  process. I find by skipping the blanching my potatoes do not turn  in to mush during the processing, that is another reason I do not make too small of pieces. Mushy watery potatoes are not my thing.

 Now this is just my way of doing things. I have never made any of us sick using the methods I do  but I have been canning since I was a small child. I know what I can get away with and can't. For those that are just beginning to can  your own  vegetables I recommend following UGA's  canning guide. They also have a wonderful  home food preservation website that I highly recommend to anyone starting to preserve their own foods.

mason jar sauerkraut

We have been harvesting cabbage for the last couple weeks and the other day we finally had enough so that we could make some kraut .The recipe I use is near fail proof and I have never lost a batch, I can not say that about using a crock and making it that way.

The basic process is to chop or shred your cabbage, chuck some salt on it, mix it up and let it sit overnight. After 24 hours put the cabbage into sterilized jars and cover with the brine. Cap and let sit 6 weeks or more, then process. It really is nearly that easy. The last time I made our kraut this way the 6 weeks was not quite a long enough fermentation period,this time we will let it go 8 weeks and sample. I jarred up 4 quarts today and hopefully we will get another batch or two with the spring cabbage and then some come fall.

For a more in depth recipe at making easy kraut go here.

pea pickin

Some would call the process of pea pickin frustrating.  Searching out all the just developing thin green pods from the plants themselves is much like trying to solve one of those "what is different" pictures or at least for me it is. I look at the plants as they all blend into huge piles of pea  greenery mess because those dang tendrils never grasp on to the trellis you provide for  them, instead they grasp the neighboring plant (now that I think about it, it is much like the hair dreading process). The flowers do stick out   amongst the greenery unfortunately where the flowers are is not where the ripe harvest is as the flowers drop off just before they are ready. Needless to say pea picking means scanning the vines, plucking the ones that stick out ( and then repetitive scanning and very gently moving the plants around to look down in the mess. Of course this itself is a chore not only because of those dang tendrils but pea plants are incredibly wimpy and fragile and  will snap off with the slightest bit of movement in the wrong direction. It doesn't matter how long  we sit n stare into the green we always miss a few to come back the next day to a fully developed behemoth size pod that we look at  and wonder how we happened to miss THAT.

Over the years rather than be frustrated with  combing the pea vines I have learned there is something  magical about it. I suppose I could insert the word zenful  but we live in a zen free zone here on the homestead (don't ask why),so it is simply magical. The key to it is relaxing and concentrating fully on the task at hand. I liken it to a meditation of sorts where I completely lose myself into the task at hand enjoying the scents and sounds coming from with in the mass of plants. It is relaxing, stress relieving  and comforting to me and has become my excuse to go play in the garden at any given moment in the early summer months.

We have just begun harvesting peas in large enough amounts that I can begin dehydrating them along with having some to throw in our meals.  I don't tend to weigh things since we don't   have a scale and I find it easier to measure things by the meal rather than weight. I find that it gives me a better idea on things when I know I have 64 meals preserved in some fashion as opposed to 27 pounds of something preserved. Three pounds of greens is much different than three pounds of  carrots. Most of the peas that we are not eating fresh this season will be dehydrated. Although  I prefer frozen peas over dehydrated, we are trying our best to eliminate the freezer (again) this year. It was a goal we failed miserably at last season  and are really trying to accomplish this one.

garden 2010-stir fry greens

Yesterday I decided to harvest the remainder of the stir fry greens as they were all beginning to go to seed and doing so in a hurry. I had harvested a couple grocery size bags full the prior day and was hoping to be able to let the rest grow a while longer and continue using them fresh rather than freezing because  frozen greens  are not one of our favorite dishes. Unfortunately I can't force the plants into anything and harvesting them became necessary.

I froze 8 gallons of the greens and kept a couple meals out for the week.  All total from the hot tub full of greens we got about 30 meals or significant portions of meals.Not too shabby for a 4x4 plot or there about.  After pulling the greens I worked the soil  and direct seeded some "tiny tom" tomatoes that were gifted to me and carrots in it.

The greens were nice but not  something I would want an entire hot tub full again any time soon. I am not a huge green eater to begin with and one of the greens in the mix was stringy when  stir fried. I actually preferred them in a salad mix or as a wilted green dish rather than in a stir fry or on their own   The mix also had too many mustard greens in it. We grow them on their own  and not exactly something I would think of in an Asian  stir fry mix.  I should have planted  a month or so earlier than I did  and then cover on the coldest nights. These were planted mid march and were going to seed already, I think  if I planted earlier we would have probably doubled the production from the plot of them. I  do think they would make a good GH crop for over wintering so will  probably try a  small plot of them in there this fall.

around the homestead-making sausage

Yesterday  we butchered bunnies so today  we made us some sausage. Since rabbit is a very lean meat I added some pig fat to  the meat when we ground it. When I browsed sausage making recipes and seasoning mixes to refresh my memory since I have not made fresh sausage in about 18 years, most of the recipes had a 1 to 1 ratio of either bacon or bacon fat to rabbit meat. That seemed like too much fat to me so we went with a 3  or so parts meat to one part  fat back ratio. I cut that into  bite size chunks and ran it through our tiny grinder.  Next we cut the meat bit into  manageable chunks and ran that through the grinder.

Once we got all the meat and fat ground through  once I mixed with my hands a bit and then  added our spice mix. I didn't use a recipe when it came to adding the seasonings, I just threw spices and seasonings until it seemed about right. I added maybe a touch too much of salt but other than  that my eyeball served me well. I tossed in some sage, cumin,sea salt, pepper,a touch of cinnamon, nutmeg  and some grated garlic and ginger. Manthing doesn't care for much sage flavoring while I don't care for spicy sausage. If I had some apples I would haved diced them up in there too. Here is a site with  several sausage recipes and here is one with  hundreds.

Once the spices were mixed in by hand  we ran it through the grinder again to mix it in  better.  Since we were having some of it for supper this evening I made them in to patties. The remainder I put in  saran wrap and rolled into logs  and once it is frozen  I will slice it into serving sized portions.

Tonight we had  our patties  with some  rice and okra

dehydrating today

Yesterday we pulled the  dehydration station out, got her cleaned up and ready to go. Today we are dehydrating for the first time this year. I have some green onions and onion tops in the bottom two trays and a  mix of kale, spinach  and other  greens and a  mess of lemon balm in the top level.

 For those that have never seen our dehydrator the original post on it is  here.  The only difference in it now is that we have three trays to dehydrate with instead of just the one.

I am so cheap-crystallized ginger

We have  been making our own lacto fermented soda here for a little while now and one thing I have noticed is that we have a lot of ginger bits that seem to be perfectly good yet  getting  thrown away.  We make our starter here using ginger  but after a few batches of soda, the ginger " feeder bits" need to be strained. I had been throwing them away   but after tasting a bite of a piece realized that the ginger was not only still crunchy  but had a lot of flavor in it yet. The only  apparent difference to me   was a slightly alcohol flavor to the pieces of ginger. 

As I fished through the fridge for my fresh ginger root to refresh my  starter culture I had to move a jar of mango and ginger marmalade a friend has sent me from Australia. It was then that it hit me what I needed to do with the ginger, crystallize it. There was absolutely no reason why I couldn't take the strained bit and make our very own crystallized ginger at a fraction of the cost of what it is to buy it, know what was in it, be recycling  in the process and making another of our own natural  healing agents in the process.

Ginger is a wonderful herb for many different ailments. Some of gingers' therapeutic actions  are anti-nausea, stimulant, circulatory stimulant, vasodilator (opens up blood vessels to improve blood flow), anti-spasmodic, anti-inflammatory, rubefacient (warms tissue externally) and diaphoretic (stimulates perspiration to increase elimination through the skin and can help reduce fevers).  It can also help to lower cholesterol levels and reduces the risk of heart disease and stroke.  It can assist to lower blood pressure & helps stop coughing.  For many of these therapies  ginger is drank in a tea form or by eating crystallized ginger pieces. Instead of using ginger for our  teas, I instead use the ginger pieces as a sweetener and simply throw a few pieces into  whatever flavor tea I am drinking as it steeps. The ginger pieces can also be used in various cooking dishes as well as desserts and other confections. It goes very well in many marmalades and is a wonderful accompaniment in some chutneys and served with meat. 

Making your own crystallized ginger is very easy. Cube or slice your fresh ginger root (Already done if you are being cheap like me and recycling it). Place ginger in sauce pan, cover  with water and 1 cup sugar. Bring to a boil and simmer for 30 minutes, reduce heat and continue boiling until water is nearly evaporated. Measure  the amount of cooked down ginger and add equal amount of sugar and 1/4 cup water. Bring back to boil and stir constantly. Lower heat and continue to stir until water is  evaporated and  ginger is near dry. Cool and coat in sugar. Store in airtight container  for up to 3 months, longer if it is  stored in fridge.

eggs

Finally the girls have started laying  eggs for us again!  There is always some sort of eggsitement  to each late winter or early spring when  the ladies begin to lay their first eggs of the season no matter how long you have had chickens. It's the same feeling you get when you  harvest your first veggies out of the garden or at least it is for me.

 With just the two of us here we don't use all that many eggs in an average week but it probably averages out to about 18 eggs per week. This leaves us with a spare dozen or so eggs a week to  put back or preserve for the  few months where the ladies either don't lay at all or lay sporadically. This year we have accomplished our goal of not having to buy any eggs what so ever in the winter months. In fact, I think I have a couple spare dozen put back in the freezer yet.

There are a few different methods  used in egg preservation  but first and foremost I would like to clear a few misconceptions about eggs up.  Fresh  eggs  from the farm need no refrigeration and have a decent shelf life  without it. Fresh,they  can sit on a counter in a cool  area for 2-3 weeks. Eggs kept in the fridge can  last 2-3 months with no problem.  The reason for this is that your eggs  purchased from a store "fresh" are in all actuality  over a month old before they are even shipped to a grocer.Unfortunately  keeping enough  fresh  eggs in the fridge to get us through the 2-3 months that the hens dont lay  would  use entirely too much space  so  other methods of preservation are  used to get us through.

The easiest and probably the best method of preservation is do nothing.  Simply collect the eggs. Do not  wash them. There is a coating on eggs that will keep them fresh. Then keep them in a basement or a dark, cool ,dry, well ventilated cellar. Do not let the eggs freeze. The eggs need to be turned once a week. Just keep them in an old egg carton and turn them over once a week. Mother Earth News did a test years ago and I believe they kept eggs for 6 months in a cellar just that way.

Another simple method of saving your eggs through the winter is by larding them. Simply take clean  lard and rub the egg filling all the pores so  as to exclude all the air.  Then store in a cool, dry area. Some other variations of larding include  adding salt to the lard or larding and then rolling in salt. I have never tried adding salt to the mix as I have read that it tends to make the eggs rubbery when opened.

Freezing  is another simple way to preserve your excess eggs. Simply take them out of the shell,  whip together  and throw them in  in the freezer in a container. I usually put them in  containers of a dozen  so that I can use them all   with in a few days once I take them out and put them in the fridge. Unfortunately using this method  dishes  that can be made from the eggs is limited. They work  great for scrambles or in baking etc but  there will be no sunny side up  or deviled eggs and of course it  only works if we have electricity. Unfortunately with  the economy  as it is  electricity is now considered a luxury in our home and it is not  a guarantee that we will have it forever more so   we  use other means to  preserve them as well.

 Yet another method of preserving eggs is through  dehydration. This is  a very good way  to preserve them for long term storage. For this only clean, uncracked, unbroken eggs are used. They are broken into a bowl, whipped, and put on a sheet.  Though most say 115 degrees is the right temp., I use 140 degrees because salmonella can't grow if 140 degrees is maintained for 3 1/2 minutes. (that means the product being 140, not the oven) but, I figure as long as it takes them to dehydrate, it's bound to be 140 for that long. And if you're still concerned, you could put the final product in the oven at 160 degrees. That should kill most any bacteria.
The eggs will crust over on the top when being dehydrated and moist underneath. Just break it up and turn it over. I dry mine til they will crumble. Then I put them in a blender and they turn into powder. You want to make sure they are totally dry with no moisture or they will  mold.Store in an airtight container Use  as you would any  powdered egg.  Using this method your eggs will keep  near indefinitely.

 There are several other methods of preserving eggs out there. Some involving the use of lime, some pickling  the eggs  and some using charcoal to preserve. There is even an old french  method that dips the eggs in to boiling water for a minute  in order to preserve. I have not  discussed any of them  here simply because I have never used any of those  methods. The ones I have covered I use and  well, they haven't killed any of us off yet  so feel safe in passing them on.

For safety sake please only use these preservation methods on farm fresh eggs.

The one neat thing about eggs is that it is a very simple procedure  that can be done to tell if  an egg is still good or not. The simple water  drop. Place an egg in  water, if it stays on the bottom or near the bottom it is good. To better describe the method  here is a poem I found on  the subject.

Can you eat that egg? 

If not sure you ought-ter,
then place it in water.
If it lies on its side,
then it's fresh; eat with pride.

After three or four days,
at an angle it lays.
But, it still is a treat,
so go on and eat.

Ten days, stands on end,
in your baking 'twill blend.
'Cause it's definitely edible,
in your baking, incredible.

But, if it floats on the surface,
that egg serves no purpose.
'Cause a floater's a stinker!
Out the back door best fling 'er

by Scott Matthews

rabbit butchering

I realize there are many many ways to go about the killing, skinning and gutting process but this is how we have decided is easiest for us.When it comes to butchering, as with many things it is more about what works for you than the actual process itself. After a few sessions of butchering one can decide what works best in their situation.

When one researches the www on the subject of killing rabbits, more often than not you will see people saying to shoot it. Next you will see people recommending bopping it on the head with a block of wood then cutting its throat and hanging it by the back legs to bleed out. There is another method using a board and pulling the rabbits back legs and breaking its neck but finding information on it seems to be difficult. We have found what seems to us to be the most humane dispatch of the bunnies we can find. We call it the frugal stretch as we learned it from one of Frugal's (or John's) videos on the subject.

Here is the video we used to learn how to do the frugal stretch. http://buildanark.net/index.php?videos/Dispatching%20Rabbits.html

Now this looks easier than it really is. It takes a good bit of strength to be able to accomplish. Now keep in mind once you hear the neck snap the rabbit is still going to wiggle n jiggle n wobble about. Once the neck is severed from the spinal column he no longer feels pain and is going to die.(this has been a bit of an issue for manthing to get through his head). To combat any wiggling wobbling it is going to do once popping its neck He has started to simply hold bunny in the position of the stretch for a minute or so while it stops. Remember rabbit is most likely going to pee as the muscles all relax(a couple minutes after death).

We also used Frugal's video for skinning and cutting up your bunny.http://buildanark.net/index.php?videos/Skinning%20and%20Cutting%20Up%20Your%20Bunny.html.

I basically follow his tutorial as it is the simplest way I know of to finish the butchering process.

When I start skinning, I make a tiny incision in the belly area of bunny. I then work my way down to the back legs and free them and work up to the front legs and head. I do it this way as I am hoping to keep the hides for preservation purposes, so want it in one piece.

Once I have the hide off the bunny up to his neck area I carefully make an incision down the belly to the butt and all the way up to the neck. The chest bones are wimpy little things, much like their poor front legs so it very easy to do. I lay bunny on its side and take the knife careful down behind the innards loosening them from the belly. This is very easy to do. A knife isnt really necessary but makes it less icky.Be careful not to cut into the guts. As I work my way down the inside i just roll the guts out as i go. When near the rectal area, take care to not cut the pee sac. Its about marble size n has pee in it, you will notice it if its there. If they release urine at death it is often not visible.When you get to the end use care and remove the entrails.

Next snip off the four feet and release the head . I generally completely rinse bunny at this point, clean up my hands and work area before moving on to cutting the meat. I have to generally ask DH to come and do the bone snipping for me. I don't have the strength in my hands to squeeze the sheers .

Cutting up bunny is easy. You end up with two front legs, two back legs, the rib cage,neck n tail(stock meat), the back strap and a bit of sausage meat from each bunny.If you are into organ meats you will also have them

The only hard part for me in the process is removing the back legs. Even following Frugal's tutelage, I have issues of where to cut once you pop the joints. The front legs are kind of weird as they are literally attached by nothing. The contours of the meat are very easy to follow. At the end of the rib cage where it meets the back strap, you just run the knife down the contour of the meat and body and then snap the back at the "seam" to get it into two pieces.

All total from start to finish it takes us currently 25 minutes per animal. Keep in mind, the only thing manthing does is kill it and snip feet off. I do the rest. I have only butchered bunnies a couple times so I am certainly no pro. I also pretty much do everything at a snails pace and playing with big, very sharp knives slows my pace a bit more. With this method of killing and butchering, there is next to no mess. I would rather butcher 50 rabbits to one chicken.

One bunny gives the two of us an average of 4 meals. Since we butcher in quantities. I dont package per bunny. I usually package in two meal packages of what we eat. Bunny can be used in anything that calls for chicken. It tastes much like chicken but a bit drier.

I did take a few pictures of the process. We have another batch of butchering to do over then next few days and I will have  manthing take a few more pics of the process for me to  give a better idea of how it all goes.

http://www.flickr.com/photos/36752117@N06/sets/72157623251712468/

building the meat smoker

In our endeavors for being able to go off grid if the need be at some point in the future, we needed to come up with a way to preserve meats without the use of electricity. Since folks have been smoking meats for thousands of years we figured that for us it would be the best way to go. Salt curing is an option as is jerking and canning but we like to have a variety of options, so we came up with this.

what we did
We had an old fridge sitting around and an old fireplace insert and we turned them into a smoker. We have it set up so that we can cool smoke or warm smoke whichever we choose.

All we did is take all the guts out of an old fridge (old chest freezers can also be used) and embed it into the side of the hill.

Open up the bottom so that smoke can enter into the fridge section. we then ran a pipe under ground a bit at an angle and made a fire box about 5 foot in front of the fridge.The firebox is the old fire place insert with doors on the front that we buried in the ground up to the level of the doors. Our fire box is the firebox of the insert itself. The box does not have to be an insert, one can simply build a box of whatever they choose or simply use a hole in the ground that can be covered when the smoker is in use.

This allows for the cool smoke to enter the fridge chamber and slow smoke meats. For a warmer smoke we can simply place a small heat source in the bottom area of the fridge( many use a hot plate in the bottom of the fridge)...

The biggest issue we had in building this was getting the slope on the smoke tube at an angle to where it would draw from the fire box into the fridge. We had it where we thought it would work, lit a fire and smoked ourselves out. We then had to uncover the tube and pull the box out and adjust it so that the smoke would go the direction we needed it to go.

A couple years ago Someone wrote in to countryside mag. warning people about using the metal racks from old refrigerators. They said the racks were coated with some substance that when they were heated (as in a smoker, I assume) released something toxic and deadly. To avoid this issue we took the racks out after having read it before we built it. We placed a different rack (from an oven ) in it and have a couple hooks for larger pieces to hang pieces.

It took one afternoon or so to make and works well...
Cost to us =$0
Photos of the building of the smoker

Here are a couple sites that give basic plans for a smoker. Keep in mind nothing in any of these is written in stone. If there is something you dont have on hand to build one , find something else that can work for you. Plans are simply ideas. It is up to us to make them our own unique creation that works for us in our own unique circumstances.

http://www.theingredientstore.com/fo...rig_smoker.htm
http://www.ehow.com/how_2205241_refr...or-smoker.html

a super frugal version...
http://www.answerbag.com/articles/Ho...1-61b8e4ce8c68

a pdf on meat curing

Building the solar dehydrator

A couple years back manthing built us a convection solar dehydrator. We had found some plans for this online and although we didn't want to use the cardboard boxes, decided it was feasible making it out of wood so that it is more permanent.We didn't however have the spare windows at the time to make the chute attachment or the top cover from glass. Instead we used a small section of greenhouse plastic to cover both of those areas. we have used this over two years and the plastic is still doing fine.

The bottom chamber has black plastic on bottom as you can see. there are holes drilled at the bottom and the top of the chamber to allow airflow,as the chamber heats up hot air is forced into the dehydration chamber where it circulates through and goes out the vent in the top cover to the trays.

We currently have 3 sets of trays to stack on one another to dry fruits and veggies. I dont know how much higher we could feasibly go and still have the convection needed to dry properly.The food trays are lined with screen and the lowest is about 6 inches above the bottom of the dehydrating chamber.

this project took about 5 hours, We got the plans from this site,

http://www.i4at.org/surv/soldehyd.htm

The other plan we considered was this one,
http://www.ag.ndsu.nodak.edu/abeng/plans/6244.pdf
we just felt that the one we made will be more efficient.

Photo set showing the building process

A very good bunch of articles on dehydrating

a couple questions I have had asked of me in the past
I'm planning on building a solar food dehydrator this year to make my own food for backpacking and other activities where weight and space are not an option. I have a couple of questions on this topic.

1. I have a pressure canner. How does dehydrating compare to canning, besides weight and space? i.e. does it keep as long ,etc?

2. After I dehydrate it is vacuum sealing a good idea?

3. I was told solar dehydration would not work in humid climates such as Georgia. I live south of Atlanta. My personal opinion is that's not true, if you have air flow.

My replies

1. dehydrating takes lots less space, is a lot less weight and last as long if not longer than canned stuff. For hiking etc dehydrating is ideal. Nothing can really beat it . Making hot, good for you meals from dehydrated veggies is simple and there is a lot you can do with them. It doesnt just have to be soups etc. I make stir fried rices and such quite often with our veggies. Throw them in with noodles or ramen and add a bit of meat. Insta-meal

2. If you are planning for long term storage it is a good idea. If it is just for one season to another of preserving, it isn't necessary unless you want too. I dont vac seal ours, just throw in a ziplock and use a straw to get the air out and things stay good from one harvest until the next.

3. poppycock. It works fine and i am up in north georgia in the katuah bio region. If you know the area , you know what our rainfall amounts are here a year... If not , we are just under rain forest amounts lol.The solar oven is actually a good way to dehydrate. If you have one built already can just make shelves and leave the lid open. If it is an open cooker just throw the stuff on a screen and dry them. Ours works very well. Most stuff drys in one day and on the rare occasion it takes more than one day, just bring whatever it is you are dehydrating in for the night. Pay attention to when rains are coming and you shouldnt have a problem. Just put the dehydrator where the sun is good and on it.. Indians and pioneers n such simply set what they were drying in the sun each day. It worked for them just fine... Tomatoes and bananas seem to be the hardest to dry proper. It just take a bit of trial and error on them. The high water content in the maters makes them a bit harder to dry. Romas and paste tomato are the best option for dehydrating.. Bananas , the sugar content makes them a bit awkward but it does work too...