I hate to anger the people that own giant food empires...but...I'm hating my Best Recipes Cookbook. Hating it. The so-called "science" of cooking where you suck the joy out of putting regular old ingredients together to make good food would be fine if the recipes worked! But I've adjusted nearly every recipe I've ever tried. And that would be fine, but they purport to be "best" and all. Not best, and not scientific.

Sigh. I really hate to complain but when one more recipe fails - it makes you a little bit mad.

Taxes. I have to do the taxes. I try to get them done as soon as we have all the forms from the employers and banks. But it is an odious task. It is the most vile of all tasks. Hate it.

I actually look at it as a great opportunity though. This weekend I did several tasks that were on my list for a month. I was able to do them -- did them gladly -- because they were less unpleasant than doing the taxes.

I can use 'getting out of doing the taxes' as a motivator for doing less odious things. I cleaned the mudroom, cleaned out cupboards, straightened the pantry, cleaned the refrigerators, washed all my wool sweaters, and mended some clothing. I didn't care because I was't doing the taxes.

If we get another thaw, I might just clean out the barn stall and chicken coop -- No wait, I might use those chores as a way to motivate me to do the taxes! Yuk!

It's quiet, and the light is very soft in the house today. The dishwasher, the bathroom fan, and the snoring dog -- all in other rooms, make up the only sounds. This is the time to stop, get off the computer, and take a few seconds to meditate. Maybe to thank God that we're all healthy and happy. The pause before the week of work and carting kids, and basketball games and dinners prepared and cleaned up after, and cows to be fed and eggs collected.

These are the best moments.

my list for the day

- household and farm chores -
laundry, washing wool sweaters
feed and water cows, chickens, collect eggs
stack firewood
- kitchen chores
clean up kitchen
clean out fridge
making ribs and apple crisp for Superbowl party tonight
- other stuff - do taxes, work on quilt, do some sketching, do a walk

I was thinking about food yesterday and what we've been doing for the last several year and thought I'd share -

- we make our own meals almost every night, avoiding fast food and eating from our stored supply of food grown by us, our collective, or local farmers
- we avoid processed foods, and even foods that are pre-made we try to buy locally or from people who make them from simple ingredients -- like local pastas, homemade pierogies
- we eat a lot of fresh fruits and vegetables, ordering with a buying group from a wholesale distributor of organic, local, and very high quality produce.
- we eat certain foods grown organically but even more we eat locally grown foods
- we eat meats, but try not to eat meat every night
- we eat fried foods maybe every other week
- we use white sugar, but rarely - mainly using maple syrup or honey to sweeten oatmeal, breads, and tea
- we use unbleached flour and whole wheat in our breads - 2 cups of unbleached to 1 cup of wheat.
- we use olive oil in cooking, but butter on our toast. Once in awhile I make a pie with a lard and butter crust, and I always try to have half and half for my coffee.
- we go through 4 gallons of milk a week - for 3 guys. I don't drink much milk unless it is from our cows

I'm starting a yoyo quilt this weekend. I'm cutting 6" circles of patterned cottons and plan to sit and sew in the evenings. I'll take photos.

Another sunny day. What is up with that? Woohoo!

Cows are happy. Chickens are happy. Kids are happy. We're all feeling good.

Made pulled pork last night. Cooked our collectively grown pork, a butt roast, in a crock pot all day, then shredded it, and added it to the following sauce. Served up on buns. Yum. Messy as heck though.


Mary's barbecue sauce - or pulled pork sauce -
Saute 1 chopped sweet onion, 3 minced cloves of garlic, 1tsp cumin in 2T olive oil. When translucent add 1 1/2 cups catsup, 1/4 c malt vinegar, 1/4 tsp cayenne, 1T worcestershire, 1/4 c soy sauce, 2 cups of crock pot broth, 1/4 c brown sugar. Stir well and add the shredded pork.

In the past I've added leftover lamb, or chicken, roast beef, or pork tenderloin to this sauce. Over a bun, they love it.

There's a pork butt in the crock pot for pulled pork later. This is the favorite of our exchange student and our son. I just love having dinner almost ready at dinnertime, instead of finishing work and then having to start from scratch.

Last night, I started dinner at 6pm and we didn't eat until 8. I made chicken thighs and barley.

Chicken and Barley Casserole-

Saute in an oven-proof pot with a lid, 12 boneless chicken thighs in 2 T butter and 2T olive oil until brown, but not cooked through. Salt and pepper while cooking. Put the thighs on a plate.

Saute in the same pot, 1 chopped sweet onion, 3 garlic cloves, and 1 chopped roasted red pepper. When onions are translucent, put 1 cup of white wine in the pot and boil for 1-2 minutes. Then add one can of rotel tomatoes, 1 cup of rinsed barley, and 4 cups of chicken broth. Put a lid on the pot and simmer for 20 minutes, stirring occasionally. Remove pot from heat.

Place chicken thighs into barley mixture and pour 3/4 c of whole milk on top. Bake for 30 minutes at 350F, with a lid on it. Then remove lid and cook for 15 minutes longer.

Time and Money.

If you don't have it, farming will be very difficult.

On a daily basis, it doesn't take much time. I just went out to feed the cows - 2 of them - one bale of hay and carried out 2 five gallon buckets of water. I checked the chicken coop and collected 8 eggs and didn't need to refill the automatic waterer or feeders. So the effort took 10 minutes total.

This weekend I'll add more sawdust bedding to the chicken coop, refill all the waterers and feeders, and will add leaf/pine needle bedding to the cow stall. Bob will split wood for a few hours. And stack wood on the front porch to be used for the woodstove for the week.

I'll do an inventory of the freezers, pantry, and root cellar to make sure I'm using up our preserved food evenly. I'll spray and monitor the camemberts in the cheese cave too. Organizing the freezers is important because the beef from our cows is coming on Monday.

So, this weekend we'll spend a few hours, but only a few minutes a day. If we had an extra $3k, we'd put in a hydrant in the barn, so I wouldn't have to lug water. For another $3k, we'd pave the driveway, so we wouldn't have to iceskate to the barn all winter long. Another $6k and we'd have a tractor to pull the stumps out of the orchard, so we'd be able to mow the weeds, instead of hand cutting all summer.

Even after raising the cows ourselves and paying a few thousand dollars a year for hay, water, and vet fees, we still have to pay $.70 a pound for the processing. So all in all, we'll pay plenty for our own meat, not including the time or costs of building the electric fence ($3.5k) five years ago.

I'm not complaining. I'm just done being some kind of doe-eyed silly person about farming. I like doing it, but time and money. You need both.