Mung Bean Sprouts

Mung beans are one of my favorite seeds to sprouts. They have great flavor, fantastic crunch factor and are extremely versatile. We eat a lot of Asian and Asian inspired food during the winter months, since some of the most cold tolerant veggies are Asian greens like bok choy and tatsoi, scallions (green onions) and carrots we leave in the ground and dig up during the winter months. These all lend themselves well to Asian cooking.  I almost always have a jar of mung beans in some stage of sprouting on the go these days. I do other sprouts but probably use the mung bean the most. 

Mung beans aren't just delicious, they're really good for you too!

Mung bean sprouts are a very good source of fiber, vitamins C & K, Riboflavin, Copper, Folate, manganese and also a good source of Thiamin, Niacin, Vitamin B6, Iron, Magnesium, Phosphorus, Potassium and Protein.   

Remember to start your sprouts in the dark cupboard and then dose with sunlight prior to consuming to increase their chlorophyll content and, ultimately, their nutrition. 

It Finally Happened...

I killed my sourdough starter. Sourdough starters can take a lot of abuse and neglect, trust me,  although I finally pushed it too far. I hadn't fed my starter in awhile, like close to 3 weeks, which I have done before. No problem I thought as I poured off the liquid that had accumulated and removed half of the starter before feeding it with new flour. I fed it, left it out on the counter for the day, threw it in the fridge and left it until the next day. When I took the starter out to let it sit on the counter before making bread with it, I opened it up to see how it was doing. It was not doing well at all. A layer of actual mold had grown on top of the starter and the starter itself was a light more white than grey color. Not good! It smelled really bad too. 

Admitting my defeat, I tossed it and started again with a new starter (pictured above) which is finally ready to use today after living on the counter for two weeks. 

Feeding the hens a portion of the starter every day while it was growing. They love the stuff! 

New loaf, first one baked with the new starter.

I'm Going to Go There...

I bought this book based on it's glowing reviews.  The back cover states "If a guy can't tan a hide with this he should stay out of the woods!" - Ted Fry, Raptor Archery. 

My boyfriend's hides from the deer he harvests don't exactly go to waste. We put them far back in the woods somewhere where they get eaten. Yes, eaten. Usually little birds and rodents pick away at them and then at some point a larger animal, quite possibly a coyote will take a large portion of the hide if not the entire thing. It's simply amazing how many animals will feed off of other animal's remains. If it were warmer at the time, many little bugs would get in on the action too.  That being said, I'd still like to do more with the hides.

I've wanted to tan a hide for awhile now, I just wasn't exactly sure where to start. This book provides you with step-by-step instructions on how to tan using either brains, soap or eggs. I'm hoping to use brain, since I might as well use them for something.  I'm not going to lie, it will be a lot of work! My boyfriend will help me, especially in areas like brain retrieval. There's a lot of steps involved and it will be fairly time consuming. The first time will probably be a rough trial and a bit of an educational process. Hopefully, it will still result in a usable, tanned hide. I'm not exactly looking to make a buckskin coat with fringe, more so interested in making maybe slippers, a hunting pouch and maybe some change purses/wallets. 

I truly believe you dishonor the animal when you waste parts that could be used. We don't waste any meat and eat organ meats and other 'scrap' meat portions. When you put time and effort into either raising or harvesting your meat, you appreciate it so much more and wouldn't dream of wasting any of it. Same as growing veggies. Being disconnected from where our food comes from is a problem.  I look at tanning as another way to honor the animal, and a way of making quality goods for myself, my boyfriend and gifts.   

Full Freezer

I love this sight. We have a 14 cu ft freezer and it is currently completely full, as well as my upstairs freezer that I use mostly for frozen fruit and veg. Not one package of meat in my freezer came from the grocery store and I could not be happier. We currently have two deer, a fair amount the of the 27 chickens we raised, several turkeys, some odd fish (trout and haddock) as well as some grass fed beef from Linden Leas and even one pork roast from Westernwind Farm .

We would have loved to get more pork, although unfortunately we ran out of freezer room and are yet to have enough space for anything else. I keep my frozen berries, veggies and other non-meat items in the freezer upstairs to try and be somewhat organized. There's nothing worse than having something you need buried in a pile of frozen meat. 

Genius!

I have always roasted my butternut squash at 350 degrees, not wanting to cook things to the point of browning. The other day I was roasting a squash at the same time I had the oven at 400 degrees for something else. I threw the squash in, got busy and forgot to check it, as I normally would, and flip it. When I did check it, it was too late and completely done. I took the squash out and let it cool for about 5 minutes before trying to peel the skin off. When I went to peel the skin off, both skins came off perfectly in one large piece. I tried the exact same method again a couple nights later and voila there it is! I'm not sure if other people know this method, I'm certain they do, but I'm yet to have come across it specifically in any squash roasting recipe.  I would think that not flipping the squash is important to getting the skin off in the one piece. As the squash is cooling it almost creates steam between the skin and the flesh and maybe that's what allows the skin to slip off. Same idea as putting a roasted pepper into a paper bag I guess! I mentioned initially I usually roast things at 350 to avoid browning, that's because it's thought that browned or burning/burnt foods could potentially be carcinogenic (like burnt BBQ), but I will still probably use this method. The squash was quicker to roast but I was able to catch it well before any parts of the squash browned like the juices did in the bottom of the pan. It's just too easy to pass up! 

Kale Harvest.

I did end up having enough kale for a small harvest. It was a good thing I took advantage of it while I could, as both cold frames are completely covered with snow again already. 

In the Cold Frame.

I actually got into the cold frame yesterday after all our snow took a major beating and is pretty much licked at this point. It's been since early, early December that I've been in there. At that time we were still eating lots of kale, bok choy, green onions. radishes and lettuces. It's been hopelessly covered in several feet of snow since early December and due to the freezing temperatures we were having, I kept it completely covered for insulating purposes. 

Left to right, kale (planted to start growing again in the spring months rather than for eating before the winter months set in), tatsoi, scallions, random lettuces and radishes, kale and bok choy for eating before the winter months set in.  

Tatsoi loves the cold weather!

The scallions are looking ratty after we harvested most of them before the winter months, leaving the remainder of the plant in the ground to grow again. Green onions do this so well, they're one of my top cut and come again crops. 

Looks like I have enough for a feed of kale! 

The girls decided to go for a tour with the milder weather we have been having. 

Butternut squash mash with....

Paprika pan fried deer chops and topped with....

a big ol handful of alfalfa sprouts. This is a picture I took this morning, we had way more than this...until we ate them. I can never have enough sprouts on the go. I love eating a big pile of them as a side dish either plain or tossed with a quick dressing, although mostly just plain. I find they have a really nice, crisp flavor on their own and always use plain sprouts or microgreens to top meat. 

Grape Vines.

When we picked all the grapes we made our wine with, the owner of the vines informed us that he was going to do some major pruning on the plants and pretty much hack them down. The vines were never trellised our pruned and it was one of the most amazing things I have ever seen. Still kicking myself for not taking the camera, I'll never forget what we saw. The grape vines had completely taken over a corner of his property. They had climbed the trees, as they would naturally do, and completely covered them with vines that were just loaded down with grapes. When they had bought the property there were some grape vines there that had to be removed in order to build his home. The grape vines he had this fall were not planted by him, they were assuming they may have been spread by birds. We easily picked two five gallon buckets of grapes in an hour, after they had picked bucket upon bucket themselves and made lots of juice and jelly. His plan to hack the plants down is an attempt to tame the vines and get them to a more manageable place and size. 

Normally one would take grape clippings in the early spring months when pruning is normally done, for propagating. Since these vines may not have been still there in the spring months we took woody cuttings in the fall, about the thickness of a pencil, cut them appropriately and rolled the end in some rooting hormone before placing in this sunny window above the nice, warm heating vent.  Recently two of them have shot out leaves, probably not the most desirable since they are supposed to be dormant right now, but also probably a good sign they have rooted and are growing. I'll harden them off outdoors in the spring before planting with our other grapes. Or....we're toying with letting them swing from the trees.

Veggie retrieval duty. Digging a couple feet down to find....

two beautiful rutabagas. I thought these were toast for sure, we had meant to dig them up and store them before they were covered in snow but we have had several feet of snow completely covering the garden since before Christmas! John dug down under the snow and found these guys were still covered with air trapped all around them under the insulating layers of snow. They were not frozen at all, I can hardly believe it. 

He also grabbed some carrots. 

With some shallots from our garden and a deer roast from the freezer we threw together a pot roast. Perfect for this time of year and the frigid weather we have been having. 

Keeping the cats in supply of constant cat grass this winter. 

Hardwood.

Yesterday's project of planing hardwood for our basement renos. My boyfriend handpicked these logs out of our winter's wood about three years ago, some is rock maple and the lighter wood is ash. He bartered with a friend to have them milled up and then they stayed in our shop until we could use them. This is, maybe, a quarter of the hardwood but probably not even that much. We planed these boards yesterday and then brought them inside. When the moisture level gets to the desirable point, we will be sanding and finishing them. I will post a picture of the finished product when they become the new ledge at our basement entrance. Lots of work although very, very much worth it in the long run. We have all kinds of this hardwood now for building some deck furniture, a new tv stand and new shelving in several rooms. If we went and bought the hardwood, it would have cost us a lot more than any of the labor has.  

Quick note!

In case anyone is wondering, our naturally fermented wine, although not finished, has turned out amazingly well. The batch not spoiling was satisfying enough but when we tried it the other night to see if we thought it was ready to bottle we were floored by the taste. Although much different than commercial wine and a bit of an acquired taste, we liked it immediately.  I did not take a hydrometer reading, although I would guess it's likely around 10% alcohol content. 

Holiday Hiatus.

I'm back! I never intended to be away so long either.  We had a really relaxing, stress-free Christmas holiday, although it was really busy. The weeks leading up to Christmas were busy for us and then Christmas was non-stop with all that good Christmas stuff. We are trying to put our heads down and really tackle our basement renos now as there was no time for that leading up to and surrounding the holidays.  

We are still eating all kinds of good foods we have grown ourselves. Here's the contents of a stir fry I made all from the garden with carrots, bok choy and celery and our own chicken breasts. Sadly, we've come to the end of our own potatoes and garlic and are mourning our loss. 

We ate our last pumpkin and saved the seeds, just scoop out and dry in a single layer. These ones of the plate had already been dried on paper towel and moved to the plate for further drying. 

We bottled all of our cider, pictured to the right of the dog here, and gave lots away as gifts that were gratefully received.

We are still eating lots of squash, like this misshapen butternut, carrots, onions and shallots from storage. As well as scallions, kale, spinach, tatsoi, bok choy and radishes all from the cold frame (when we can get to it, we've had tons of snow!) We were enjoying garlic and potatoes up to last week. I have frozen tomatoes, hot peppers, fiddleheads, tons of wild blueberries, two deer, five turkeys, less than our initial thirty chickens, a couple partridges and grass fed beef, including liver my favorite, from Frank Foster at www.lindenleas.ca. I have a lot of broccoli, cabbage, cauliflower and brussel sprouts under the massive amount of snow in my yard that may just be toast. It's untypical for us to have this amount of snow so early in the season. The brassicas have been covered for the entire month of December, when we would normally be enjoying them. I'll keep you posted when I'm able to dig them out of the snow. Thankfully next year we should have our greenhouse in case this weather becomes a trend. We are supplementing with lots of sprouts these days. Mung beans, alfalfa, red clover and broccoli are always on the go for use in soups, stir-fries, sandwiches and wraps or just served on the side, straight up.

I know I'm a bit behind here, however I just love the promise of a new year. It gives us the opportunity to be better and do better. What better time to rejuvenate my blog!