Love is a Funny Thing

Love is a funny thing. We spend our whole lives chasing it, showing it, wishing for it, giving it, sharing it, and if we are truly lucky, finding it. It takes all shapes and sizes. But at our cores, each of us wants and needs the love of those around us. I was lucky enough to meet and marry my true love, who is also my best friend, but imagine my surprise when it hit me this week that the reason Dave’s change over the carnivore diet through me for a loop so hard.

Not sure what I was reading, heck it may even have been a video or television program, but I figured it out this week. “Love language” has been tossed around for at least the last decade and it varies from person to person, but it was never a concept that resonated with me. That changed this week, turns out I do have a love language and it is cooking and baking for those I love. Simple right?

Turns out that it’s not so simple when suddenly you aren’t cooking or baking. Meals in the last three months have been meat and eggs, throw in some cheese on occasionally. Nothing exciting, not challenging, no new recipes to fiddle with, nothing. I was slowly going completely off-kilter, despite knowing I was loved.

Dave has gotten healthier on the carnivore diet, as have I even if I “cheat” on it constantly. He has seen remarkable improvements in dealing with his auto-immune issues and the unintentional side effect has been that he has dropped in excess of forty pounds. He has more energy. He is flourishing and is younger than he has been in the last decade plus. I have watched in irritated amazement as he has transformed himself into a slimmer, active, and happier person.

“Irritated amazement” doesn’t sound like a happy wife, does it? But truth is, I am happy but now I have to navigate unfamiliar waters and rediscover how to say “I love you” without verbalizing it. How do I even do that when meals are out, or he doesn’t eat the produce I grow? Truth is, I haven’t a clue. It is a scary road that lies before me.

Did Dave intentionally set out to throw me off kilter? Of course not. Am I off kilter? Absolutely. Do I mean to stay off kilter? Nope, but it will take some time to redefine my primary love language. So much of how I defined myself as a wife has been tied up in the delicious food that emerges from my kitchen. My creativity and heart have been wrapped up in what I make for those I love. It will take time to shift that love language from being so food centric that it impedes my ability to create and flourish in the myriad of other ways Dave expresses his love for me and our life.

Now at this point you are probably wondering what the purpose of this post is, I realized that I cannot be the only one who has ever found herself in this situation. It is an uncomfortable position to find yourself in to be honest. Starting to redefine love is a path I never anticipated walking down but now that I am on that path, I have to navigate the obstacles or forever be in a funk. Quite frankly, being in a funk is it opposite of my personality so I am not anticipating stumbling along this path for long. However, I also need to remember to give myself grace and patience, and to remember to extend those to Dave whenever I get frustrated that he is more than satisfied and content with yet another “boring” meal of steak and eggs.

The journey will be interesting, especially since my garden in flourishing. I am eagerly awaiting the first produce of the year, currently it is a race between the tomatillos and zucchini. Even if he doesn’t eat a single thing that comes from our garden, I certainly shall. Join me for the summer vegetables and the awkward stumble down the new love language path.

Crispy Cheese

Eating on the carnivore diet is boring, no seriously BORING. Especially if you are strict about eating only meat and fat. No diary, no flavoring, no vegetables, nothing but salt, fat, and meat.

Luckily, Dave isn’t being that strict or I would have gone insane by now. He snacks on the cheese crisps from the store, but to be honest, they are pricey and filled with preservatives to make them shelf stable. Some of them are far more delicious than others, Serious Pig Crunchy Snacking Cheese Carmelized Onion is mind blowing but then again it has the dreaded onion contained within.

A little research and it turns out these are incredibly, stupidly simple to make at home. They aren’t expensive, they aren’t complicated but they do need to some time investment.

Pile some cheese on a lined cookie sheet, I used my pastry silpat but next batch I will be using my darker silpat intended for bread. You need a lined cookie sheet to easily be able to lift the delicate and gooey cheese from the oven. Pile clumps of cheese on the tray, slide into a 350 degree oven until they begin to turn golden brown. Watch these, they will go from done to burnt in the blink of an eye. Mine took about seven minutes.

Immediately transfer the molten cheese to a cooling rack and allow to cool for several hours. This cooling period is the “effort” required to make these. They crisp up as they cool. There were several that weren’t as “done” as the others. For these stragglers, I slipped them into a skillet one at a time and quickly, but very carefully, browned them.

These were delicious. I used a quesadilla cheese blend which was probably a little “moist” but it was tasty. Next batch I am making cheddar cheese crisps and I am going to be experimenting with different types and styles of cheese. I am also going to try and make these into “taco” shells.

They may not be strictly carnivore but on this homestead, they will continue to be eaten and consumed regularly.

May you have a fabulous week on your homestead, be it large or small!! May your blessings outweigh your burdens.

EGGS

Friday evening was book club and so off I went to enjoy some wine and hang out with my girlfriends. Imagine my utter delight when I received a text from Dave with the above picture attached! Our very first eggs from our very own chickens!! I realize it is a common place occurrence that will soon lose the “newness” and excitement factor, but right now we are both over the moon.

Now the fun part starts, figuring out which hen is laying and how to use our eggs in recipes. The eggs are at least half the size of a large commercial egg and maybe a third the size or less of the largest commercially available egg in the grocery store. I am looking forward to the experimentation, even with a limited diet of baked good consumption.

I cooked the eggs for a breakfast snack for Dave this morning, of course I forgot to take pictures. The shells are thick and not weak, no splintering or multiple crack lines like the eggs we have been getting from the grocery store. The yolks were a lovely dark yellow.

Life is very good when the ordinary is extraordinary. Today, this homestead is thankful for beautifully green eggs and healthy chickens.

May you have a fabulous week on your homestead, be it large or small!! May your blessings outweigh your burdens.

So, its been a hot minute…

Kahlua’s sweet face says it all, grumbling at Mom for neglecting this site while life has been happening. It wasn’t an intentional decision, so much as one born from, well life happening.

Dave made a health/lifestyle decision which threw me for a loop and changed the rhythm of the household. He decided to go on the carnivore diet, out of nowhere from my perspective, and without telling me first. He started intermittent fasting first and then quickly transitioned to carnivore.

I love to cook and bake. I love experiencing new flavor combinations, revisiting old favorites, and sharing the results with family and friends. When our household of two suddenly shifts to eating nothing but protein, all of that joy and connection to the past is just gone. I realize that sounds overly dramatic and emotional but it is a very accurate description. I deeply miss the joy of cooking and baking.

There have been very positive benefits from switching to carnivore, for both of us. Dave has been much better about sticking to the diet without cheating. I have never fully committed to it because frankly, a Tammy without access to chocolate and the occasional tortilla and refried beans would be scary for the population at large. For Dave the benefits have been tremendous. He suffers from auto-immune disease and it has cleared up all of his outward symptoms. The itching and pain have also vanished for him. He has also lost weight, which is a nice side benefit.

We have both experience a dramatic difference in how our joints feel. Being in our 50’s, the aches and pains were beginning to make themselves felt and heard. The inflammation has disappeared for both of us and we both have more energy and move better. I can honestly say it is due to the diet since that is the only change we have made. We have experimented with adding some foods back in and are starting to learn what triggers reactions in each of us. For instance, he is much more reactive to sugars and carbs than I am, but I react poorly to an over indulgence in carbs in one day.

Unfortunately, that change has impacted life on the homestead. How do you grow vegetables when they aren’t on your diet? It has taken me months to come to terms with the idea that this year we will be growing very little produce. However, I am still growing some because honestly, a summer without fresh tomatoes or peppers is unimaginable to me. Dave may not ever indulge in the goodness from the garden but I certainly shall.

The garden looked particularly lovely this morning and it was the first time this year I have been remotely enthused about gardening. It felt good to be honest. It gave me a sense of peace and energy that I have been missing the last couple of months.

Changes are flourishing and they are not expected. The new chickens are thriving, the house is getting much needed improvements, and we are happier than we have been in a long time. However, all this change and new endeavors have dramatically altered my time and attention to this passion. It has been a challenge to be energized and eager to create content when I no longer cook a wide variety of foods and the garden has been dramatically downsized from what I imagined.

So, if you’ve stuck around this long you are probably wondering what the plans are for the future. Honestly, I am still attempting to figure that out but there are beginning to be glimmers and sparks of inspiration. I have gotten comfortable with being on camera, thanks to my other passion in life reading, and so I might find a way to incorporate those skills for this site. I am still kicking around that idea however, so time will tell on that idea. I think trying to chronicle our experience on carnivore/modified carnivore is another. Social media is full of adherents and detractors but I haven’t found any who are older and were/are gardeners.

It will be an interesting experiment to see what I can create and fall in love with to put out content consistently. It will be a challenge I won’t lie. There are already so many amazing homestead content creators and therein lies the true challenge. It is a challenge I am looking forward to, even as it scares me senseless at the same moment. Must mean I am on the right track because that is precisely how I felt before I joined BookTube. I admit I am far from a social media influencer, but truthfully I am fine not having that level of notoriety.

All I can promise is my best effort going forward. I haven’t decided on a schedule for posting yet. As soon as I know, you will know. I wanted to get this post out while the creativity and passion were still fresh. I miss chatting, posting, and sharing our homesteading journey.

If you are still here and have read this far, I hope you will continue to stick around as I find new footing and content which is homesteading related but not necessarily the content I had planned for this year. Life is all about being open to change, something I am notoriously bad at, but the truly nice thing about aging is you realize peaks and valleys sooner which means you can adapt faster. We would be honored if you joined us on this new and ever evolving journey.

Review: Wondermill Jr. Deluxe

The Wondermill Jr. Deluxe is a manual operated mill capable of grinding both dry and “wet” grains, beans, corn, etc. It is not a flaker and is incapable of flaking groats into oatmeal flakes. It is also not inexpensive, it is an investment but one which will be utilized for the rest of our lives.

Assembly isn’t difficult, it all goes together pretty intuitively thankfully because the assembly instructions are lackluster at best, and honestly some of the worst I have ever run across. I managed to do it and I am probably the least engineering minded person I know, which means anyone can figure it out. There are too augers, clearly labeled for dry or wet mill, same with the grinding plates. I assembled ours for grinding wheat berries, which is what we will use it for most often.

It was initially attached to our stainless steel prep table, the clamps held it securely in place. However, despite the table being loaded with heavy kitchen equipment, grinding action caused the table to shake noticeably. This isn’t problem but it was unexpected.

Soft wheat berries were the first thing we tried. The mill performed as expected and was easy to operate. The grinding is a decent upper arm workout, which is not a bad thing for an over fifty woman who needs an upper arm workout routine and there is no better motivator than freshly ground flour to make things with as a reward.

The flour and bran are both byproducts of the milling process and you must sift the bran from the flour prior to use. The flour is wheat in coloration and retains all of it’s vital nutrients when milled. Milled flour is good for about a week, so I only ever mill enough we can use in that time frame. Once sifted the bran can be consumed by both humans and livestock, just depends on how many bran products you like to eat. Also, just as a warning, there will be far, far more bran than flour. Easily, from the four pounds of wheat berries I milled, we got back 4 pounds of bran at least and approximately five cups of flour.

Not going to pull punches here, it is a lot of effort for flour. It is much easier to grab flour from the grocery store and utilize that instead. There are health benefits associated with milling your own flour however. A quick search will bring up a plethora of articles discussing the health benefits associated with milling your own grains. It ends up being a highly personal choice in the end.

You can see the flour and the bran in the picture above. I used this flour to make a the pierogis in the last Cooking the Books post, found here. Both were delicious and there was no adjustments needed to any of the recipes. What we ended up with was delicious food that was far more nutrient complete and dense. For us, there is no question that the majority of our flour will be milled at home. I won’t lie, there will always be store purchased flour in the house for those times when it is needed in a hurry.

Overall, the Wondermill Jr. Deluxe does perform as intended. It is expensive and the company needs to do a serious overhaul of their instructions and manuals, including their website which isn’t helpful at all. But those minor gripes aside, it is an investment and purchase that will pay for itself easily.

This Week on the Homestead 29 January 2023

This Week on the Homestead 29 January 2023

Cooking the Books: Pierogi Love by Casey Barber

Pierogi Love by Casey Barber is this month’s installment in the Cooking the Books series. Pierogi’s are that easy side dish that Americans mostly grab in the frozen food section and consume without a second thought. They can be oh so much more than a processed, bland side dish!

Cooking the Book

Well, stop buying those processed pierogis and do yourself a favor and make your own. They are easy to make, can be filled with a variety of ingredients, can be savory or sweet, and freeze easily. Pierogis can easily be tailored to fit your taste preferences and can be a great way to get children to try new foods, because lets face it who doesn’t like food you can hold in your hand that is covered with dough?

The dough is super forgiving and comes together quickly. It contains no yeast and requires no odd ingredients we don’t all have on hand usually. Longest part of the process is rolling the dough out and then assembling the individual pierogis. But even that longest part, is relatively quick and painless.

Fillings are a breeze too. I pulled leftovers to fill mine and I highly recommend using leftovers but the book does have very specific recipes for fillings if you are uncomfortable with venturing out on your own. I made mashed potato and cheddar pierogis and pulled pork pierogis. The recipe for the savory dough makes 24 standard size pierogis, so I doubled the batch for the two types I was making. The recipe doubles easily and is no more trouble than making a single batch.

I did not make any sweet pierogis for this posting, solely because there are currently enough sweets in the house that I did not need to add to the freezer yet more. However, I have made them in the past and can high recommend the Peanut Butter and Jelly variety and the Strawberry Cheesecake variety. The sweet dough is no more complicated than the savory and to be honest I cannot tell you have these freeze because they never last long enough to make it to the freezer.

Yes, I know it is traditional to boil pierogis but we vastly prefer them to be cooked in butter until crispy and golden brown. There is just something off putting about boiled dough sliding down my throat, which is why I didn’t like them growing up I’m pretty sure. Either way, they are delicious. We had a very filling dinner of pierogis, mashed and pork, the night I made them. We had more than sufficient to fill the freezer for future use.

I lay my out on a cookie sheet and freeze them individually before dumping the lot of them into a freezer bag. Doing this prevents them from freezing together and becoming impossible to separate when you need a quick side dish for dinner. As you can see, they look homemade and I obviously did not use a pierogi mold. Molds are available which would make things a wee bit faster. I just used my largest biscuit cutter which worked perfectly and then used a fork to seal the edges.

Conclusion

I would rate this as an essential cookbook. It teaches the basics of using dough which is something that comes in handy throughout the year. It is also a great resources to utilize leftovers and turn them into a completely different dish. Leftovers can become boring and repetitive, which leads to freezer burn and ultimately wasted food. Why not have a cookbook that inspires you to be bold and creative?

May you have a fabulous week on your homestead, be it large or small!! May your blessings outweigh your burdens.

This Week on the Homestead 22 January 2023

This Week on the Homestead 22 January 2023

It’s that time of year … Seed Catalogs!

Technically, all of my seed catalogs arrived at the end of 2022 but I haven’t had a chance to go through them. Let’s be honest, seed catalogs are dangerous! So many delicious and beautiful things to grow jump off the page and demand to be purchased. Temptation is a constant companion when flipping through seed catalogs.

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The above catalogs I haven’t ordered from but I was more than a wee bit tempted by the flower selection. Flowers are often overlooked when planning the garden but they are vital to repel insects and attract pollinators.

Baker Creek publishes the largest seed catalog and their photograph is top notch. I planted some Baker Creek seeds in 2022 with mixed success. It was my first year growing in Texas and was filled with many challenges. I am looking forward to seeing how these seeds perform in 2023.

Sow True Seeds have some of the most beautiful seed packets I have ever seen. Not every packet has distinctive artwork on it but when they do, those seed packets are miniature works of art. More than once I have been tempted to make a collage of seed packets from Sow True and Botanical Interests. The seeds I planted from Sow True in 2022 performed well and we are currently enjoying winter lettuce and spinach from Sow True.

Botanical Interests is hands down my favorite seed company, catalog, and seed packet. The seed packets are gorgeous and by far the most detailed information I have ever seen on a seed packet. The entire packet, inside and out, is filled with information about the plant you are about to plant. I cannot say enough about the helpfulness and confidence those seed packets provide. All the varieties of seeds I planted from Botanical Interests, with the exception of one and that is one me, sprouted and produced food, herbs, and flowers for us.

These are my favorite seed catalogs. What are yours?

May you have a fabulous week on your homestead, be it large or small. May your blessings outweigh you burdens.

Treats from the Homestead 17 January 2023

The last two weeks have been rather humdrum and predictable in my kitchen. The meals have been tasty but nothing spectacular. As I type this, honestly I am at a loss as to what we actually ate. Cedar fever, what we Texans call the influx of cedar pollen which makes life miserable for those of us afflicted, has made the days a blur.

I did make another batch of breakfast sandwiches, which have come in very handy the last week plus as Dave has been in the office every day. The long hours and Cedar Fever made for an even longer week, continuing this week, and being able to grab a hearty breakfast sandwich has kept him sane. They aren’t difficult or time consuming to make which is a blessing when you make them in batches of twenty-four.

Saturday I did a big batch of freezer meals, well for us it was a big batch. But even then it wasn’t anything super unique to share. I put up 54 meatballs, a couple of pounds of taco meat, two large pans of enchiladas, a chicken with wild rice and mixed vegetable casserole, and a cheesy chicken with wild rice and broccoli casserole. I also cooked up a couple of pounds of sausage which I froze so it is ready to grab and add to a pizza, quiche or spaghetti.

Before Saturday I was completely out of freezer meals and I definitely missed the convenience the last two weeks. Nothing beats being able to go to the freezer, grab a pre-made dinner, and slide it into the oven and know that in an hour or two your hard work will pay-off with a delicious, nutritious dinner. I will admit that spending the whole day cooking is exhausting, the results are worth it however. There will be leftovers from each of the those meals which will provide us with lunches and dinners. A little effort goes far, plus I managed to use food, chicken, from the freezer that was in danger of becoming freezer burned.

I need to remind myself that it is easier and take less time to prepare two dinner at once than it does to devote an entire day to making a batch of freezer meals. Maybe I need to make it a priority at couple of times a month?

I did bake some fabulous Lemon Blueberry Muffins on Sunday. Couldn’t provide the recipe if you held my feet to a fire though. I made them from scratch rather than doctoring up a mix, although that would be easy to do. I know I added lemon zest and vanilla to the muffins which provided that extra zing that elevated them over the standard muffin. There was also an insane amount of blueberries in the muffins, bordering on too many for the batter. They were perfection.

Today I am making turkey soup. It sounds good and I can toss it in the slower cooker and forget about it for the day.

May you have a fabulous week on your homestead, be it large or small. May your blessings outweigh you burdens.