I have been given EGGS! Lots of them. We are "chicken/turkey-less" due to the unknown future which is a good thing for My Bud Chris-from the 1 Acre Homestead. He is getting over a dozen eggs a day from his ladies, which have been ever so appreciated in coming our way. But...I woke up realizing I have 4 dozen eggs in the fridge with Chris saying "While your here for coffee, I have more eggs for you"....
So knowing I am venturing out for our biweekly coffee clutch, I had to make room. ( I so love having a coffee clutch with him. We drink his awesome percolator coffee and what seems like minutes is actually hours of Homestead and self Sufficiency chatter.)
Today, we made up 2 batches of noodles with my hand crank pasta machine. Despite the recipe we had on hand, we used 4 eggs and 2 pinches of the sea salt to 2 1/4 cups flour.
1 batch is for drying and the other for Chicken soup from scratch. I posted on my Luna Gardens blog a great tutorial I found which had pictures. I include information on how to DRY your pasta for later use. You can pump out enough pasta to feed up to 6 people with just 1 batch of that recipe. Half of the dough amount was plenty for our soup without over doing the ratio of noodles to broth.
It looks to be even more snow for the next week, if not longer. I have not covered up the cold frame due to being unwell as of late. So I went out today checking how bad the single digits may have hurt.
Not bad! Not good...but not bad either. The snow has accumalated around the sides, almost like insulation to the heat inside. I have a small section which air gets in and will need fixed for more temp. control soon. The brussell sprouts are chugging along. I am on the contemplation of uprooting some to grow in the cool basement with grow lights. The well room stays around 45-65 F degrees during the cold months. I may have to experiement with that.
The Solar pit? This was as far as I could get before the cold hit hard. (I was able to get The Captain to do the mass of cement block work but as to the above ground work...I am on my own.) Anything below 50F and my fingers ACHE even with gloves. I am a such a woos...
The Magic tree has such charm in all seasons. Hopefully we will find a Magic tree where ever it is we land next.
I am working out a plan to do a cascading, long trough type container system for growing Carrots. I am stuck on a few extras with it's appearance. I am also planning out what I can
do with an 8 ft long by 2 feet deep metal (galvanized maybe?) trough looking container. I have not a clue as to what it was used for. A neighbor gave it to me when she discovered it by her old chicken coop. Drilling holes for drainage would be needed yet I hate to do that and ruin it for any future purpose. Silly I know... Maybe I will just lay thick plastic to cover the inside and put 4 inches of rock/gravel before I put in fertile soil. I was picturing it for growing Carrots (Red Atomic along with some short tonda's). Place it by the front yard walkway lettuce/greens area.
OH! before I run off. Guess what I have coming in soon? *~>insert girly squeal of delight*<~
A Meat Grinder which has an attachment for a tomato press! I do love my hand crank tomato press but it can be a bit of a pain when doing a bushel of tomatoes. I am giving the hand crank tomato press to my beloved neighbor Jeannie. She borrowed it last Tomato harvest and fell in love. I did smack her with the garden bug so making the harvest a bit easier should help with a few symptoms. I am on the look out for a pasta machine like mine for her. She shows such great promise for self sufficiency. She canned more from her garden to use during the winter that has me hanging my head in shame. Her canned goods cabinet is picture perfect. I even joked with her I was coming up with my camera just so I could share with all of you her hard work and well done pantry.
There is bound to be a hand crank pasta machine at a thrift store around here. I just hope I can get it when I do spot it.
If you are a thrift store "visitor", have you noticed the pricing on some things are just laughably high? Makes me wonder who they have in the back deciding on those things...I mean come on. Really People. really?
I best be off. Seems I am bouncing off the walls with my rambling & subject switching this evening...
Sweet Dreams,
~Tammie
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