Now We're Cooking!

This year has seen some big adventures for all of us but especially for Reed, my now 15 year old son.  He has been broken badly, moved up to high school, been on two hockey teams and is trying to get the hang of being a freshman and get all of his homework done while he builds a go-kart too!  Sometimes I feel like its just too much, but my resilient son never seems to.  He just keeps going forward and growing up - starving for knowledge and, of course, food!

One of the classes he is taking at the school, one that I have mentioned numerous times here in the blog, is culinary arts.  Its a great way for the kids to get an extra lunch and learn how to cook it for themselves too!  He gets extra credit if he cooks at home, or it can count as make up work for the days he misses for hockey.  It's a great deal!

This past weekend he had some of his hockey friends over to ice fish on the lake and he had me help him make this breakfast bake.  He did most of the making, but since the recipe is in my head I had to help with the ingredients!  This is a great way to make a hot and hearty breakfast for a gang of hungry maniacs (or ice fishermen or hockey players).  It freezes well, and travels to the cabin well also, just put it in a tin pan instead of glass.  You can make it in a cast iron skillet over a campfire if you need to or on a wood stove or the grill.  It is yummy and versatile!

Start with a pound of cooked crisp bacon (sausage works too) and a bag of garlic and herb croutons.  Yes I said croutons!  Even the big bags of Thanksgiving day stuffing ones works for this - they are nicely seasoned.  Layer those items in a 9x13 pan or like cooking vessel that will work for you.  Size does not matter here.  Fill it up about 3/4 full.

 Take 8-10 eggs, less if you are using a smaller pan, 2 C shredded cheese, 1 C sour cream, good dash of Franks hot sauce (which we forgot in this batch but it really is good with or without the Franks), 1/2 medium onion diced fine, 1 tsp garlic powder, salt and pepper, and 1 C milk or half and half.  Mix it well with a wire whisk.

 Pour it over your crouton/bacon mix in the dish and cover lightly with tinfoil.  Let sit for about 10 minutes for the bread to soak up the egg mixture.  If it looks like it is too dry add more milk and if you think it needs it eggs.  Whisk em a little and pour it over the top.

Bake it for 45-50 minutes at 350 degrees.  Uncover for the last 10 minutes.  It will puff up and look like a souffle for the last bit of cooking but then it falls and rests evenly as it cools off.  If you are going to freeze it don't cook it all the way, as when you are heating it up it will finish and you don't want it too brown.

This can also be made into grab and go breakfast packs.  Either bake it in the jumbo muffin tins, or after it is cooked cut it into freezer bag sized portions for heat and eat ease!

It's never too late to start cooking with your kids, for your kids, or even if you are the kid - grown ups too.  I find it very therapeutic to cook food that my people want to eat, and that they want to try to cook too!  Enjoy!

A little soap envelope!

Let's talk soap!  You may have noticed that soap is one of the most expensive items on the store shelves lately...or maybe it's just me!  Another thing we don't grow here at Wicked Raven is goats - hence I have to source my goats milk soap from a local goat grower who makes wonderful things with it...including goats milk soap, as well as some other wonderful flavors of soap - they're not all goats milk.  The goat grower and soap maker is Glad Heart Acres - at the farmers markets we all call them the "Glad Heart Girls" and everything they do is wonderful!  They also make a mean caramel Vanilla Grace tea!  It's a favorite and if you get a chance to get some you should at least try it, along with the Friendship Rose tea!  Delightful!  But I digress....

Since I am a big fan of good soap, when I get down to the tiny sliver at the end of the bar I want a way to use it all!  Along comes the little soap envelope!  These are a soap saver , and a great way to get the kids clean too!

  Super easy to make also -of which I am also a fan!

Start with a washcloth or two, square one from the target dollar rack is what you are looking at here!  You will also need a bit of ribbon or rope as well.  This particular piece of ribbon came attached to the top of a gift pack of soaps.  You only need 4-6 inches.

Cut the washcloth in half - did I mention that each washcloth makes two little soap envelopes?  Awesome!

Fold the cut (raw) edge in and iron it a little so it stays there.  Then fold the bottom up about 3/4 of the way to the top of the cloth, keeping the folded cut edge  in.

Fold the top edge down over the bottom edge all the way until they are fully overlapped.  Tuck both raw ends of the ribbon into the envelope opposite the folded in edge.  Sew down both sides of the little soap envelope, catching the ribbon ends in the seam as you sew.  Sometimes its easiest to start with that seam so you know you have it down.

Now just put in your soap slivers and scrub a dub dub!  You can use a whole bar of soap inside if you want and sometimes when you get to a certain point in an oatmeal soap bar its way more pleasant on your armpits and lady bits if you do that!  I have even had three or four flavors of soap slivers in my little soap envelope and it is still awesome!  Hang it up in the shower on one of the hooks, or wherever you regularly hang your washcloth.  Voila'!  No more wasted soap, and they don't fall down and clog the drain either...but that might just be me too!

Clean and blessed be!

52 Pick-up! 5 Gallon Food Storage plan

Here at Wicked Raven Farm, we are always looking to be self sufficient, and one of the best ways to do that is to preserve our own food!  Because we live in Alaska, we aren't always able to grow all of the items that we need to preserve.  So we have a food storage plan that we use so that in case of any emergency or catastrophe we will survive and thrive!

Why, you may ask, would someone know how to do this? What for? Well, I do it because my mother did it!  And her grandmother before her I'm pretty sure! We always had a cold storage room that housed our canned vegetables, meat and potatoes, but also housed an array of buckets and food storage containers.  It was our normal, but I often had friends over who thought it was weird that my mom would ask for products for the kitchen and we would go to the store room and produce a package of what ever it was that she needed.  But one time in about 1976-77 I discovered the reason why I will always be weird this way too!  It snowed, and it snowed, and it snowed.  We got about 4 feet of snow at one time and there was no going anywhere!  We had no power, we were using the wood stove to cook and heat the house, and we were enjoying great meals because of all those 5 gallon buckets full of goodness!  It was more than a week before we could get to the store, and when we did those shelves were bare!  The road crew had to use blasting to carve a snow tunnel on one of the corners and we drove through that until spring came!

I think this is actually a process that the Mormon Church started, this might even be their form.  It is not exactly the one that I use but it is very close and the one I use wont scan well enough to show up on here.

I have added the link below to the form that will help you to make a food storage plan without getting overwhelmed.  Or you can google a 52 week purchasing plan online - there are a whole bunch out there and even some facebook groups dedicated to it.  

http://allaboutfoodstorage.com/wp-content/uploads/2009/02/weeklypurchasingplan.pdf

The website for the pgward.org also has recipes on it for using your stores up as well.  Don't forget to rotate your stock.  When you buy new items put them on the bottom of the buckets.

One of the things we add to this list is popcorn. Its easy to cook on a wood stove and most everyone likes it.  You can flavor it easily and for us it is comfort food.  Normal in the storm so to speak!

I don't do the water part because we have an alternate water system that enables us to not have to store bottled water, but we do almost all of the rest of it.  I also don't do the flavored gelatin - I use tapioca and plain gelatin for those items.  I also always keep Pectin on hand.  If the power is out for a week or more you may have to make some jelly out of your frozen berries!

The above photo shows the 5 gallon bucket system in my office, part of which is being used as a storage area.  Mostly due to both my hubby and I having some leg issues over the past year, it was way easier then going down to the garage to get certain things, and everything in the garage ends up really dusty which drives me crazy!  In the house is much easier!

Most of the buckets I use are from either purchased food safe buckets or ones that I have reused that we ate all of the peanut butter out of!  We eat about 5 gallons of peanut butter every 6-8 months.  Our local Three Bears store has food safe buckets and I'm sure some of the other box stores will have these too.

We don't stock things that my people won't eat.  We tried quinoa, but none of the boys liked that flavor so it is out.  We do stock a lot of beans and pasta, as well as powder milk, and yes, the protein powder jug in the photo above does have protein powder in it.  Reed has been put on a high protein program due to his rapid growth habit over the past 2 years so we have to supplement for that.  I can't cook that much protein in a day!  We also stock extra buckets of sugar and flour so we never run out, and you might be able to read the one that says "bake mix regular".  Stay tuned for the recipe to make that mix and how easy it is to use.  It says regular because we also keep rice flour on hand for out gluten free guys who are here often enough that we have to be able to feed them easily so I make the mix with rice flour as well.

Don't be afraid to plan for the worst and then you will be happy when you are well prepared when a giant snowstorm, or other disaster happens!

Moose tracks

I have talked many times about the trials of living in moose country, and I know I have mentioned that the cow moose sometimes remember us for years and bring their calves back for a feast on something special from the yard (apple trees, cherry trees, all of the celery)!  But this instance of bringing baby home was new to even my mom who has been gardening for way longer than I have! 

Those are moose tracks in the snow ON TOP of the glass in my cold frame!  Granted - this is a tiny moose - most likely born this past spring- but even so they would weigh well over 100 pounds!  This was after a particularly nasty snow and ice storm and we think he may have been thinking that the greenhouse  window might have some salt on it.

This is the cold frame that is right out back of the greenhouse - actually attached to the greenhouse, so the baby moose must have thought it was just a snow drift and was trying to lick the building or the window.  I cant believe the glass didn't break or even crack!  I got so lucky!  In Alaska, when the roads are really icy, the road service puts a mixture of sand and salt on the roads.  That sand and salt mixture ends up on the vehicles and the moose like to lick that off of the vehicles and get a little of that salt in their diet!

 The above photo shows the service truck with the moose licks on the side of it!  They really do lick the vehicles!  Sometimes the paint gets really scratched from the licking - this vehicle isn't in the kind of shape that it's a concern, but if this were a new truck it could be disastrous!

The next week after the moose tracks were seen on the window, everything melted and a week later it got pretty cold.  This is the design in the frost on that same section of glass!

This is the center section of glass.  It reminds me of lace fabric.  Im pretty sure I can design a fabric or quilt based on this frost pattern!  

This week there is no frost, and no snow - we have had what seems like spring rain all week.  Im pretty sure there will be more moose licks on the vehicles tomorrow or the next day, and maybe some new snow on the glass if it cools off.  Im looking forward to getting growing soon and will be doing some planting during this spring break (which started today - yay) and using the cold frame as something other than a moose lure!

Happy almost spring!