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!