Kombucha, Kimchi and Frugal Accomplishments

I hope everyone had an enjoyable Valentines Day.  My man got me organic red roses, so I could use the petals in my soaps.  He is so thoughtful, and I'm sure they weren't very frugal.  Once again, I'm joining in with The Prudent Homemaker's Frugal Accomplishments.  Last week, I made yogurt & kefir.  At our Ladies Homestead Gathering, we made kimchi & were given kombucha starter.  I'm a little dubious about the kimchi, and have not yet mustered the courage to try it.  I find the aroma a bit challenging, and welcome any suggestions to get over that hurdle, and how to best use it.  Years ago, I made kombucha for a time, but it seems there are lots of additions people use now... herbs, fruit juices, spices, and I look forward to trying some of these.

I made suet for the birds, and kept a pot of water on the woodstove to add to the chicken waterer and the birdbath.  It's turned quite cold for North Carolina, with some single digit lows, and a forecast of wintry precipitation expected on Monday through Tuesday morning.  We'll be fine, whatever comes our way.  We both feel blessed being self-employed, which means we can stay right here, unlike the years we were expected to travel in less than safe conditions for our employers.  Besides not having to venture out onto the roads, we are happy to be able to keep an eye on all the animals and keep the woodstove fed.  The upcoming forecast calls for snow, sleet and freezing rain at the moment.  Our most common winter precipitation is some sort of ice, rather than snow, which is difficult to drive on, and our rural roads are rarely salted.  Warm up water was used in the teapot (for humidity) on the woodstove, and to water plants.

Several batches of soap were wrapped.  My soap shelf is full again, and I delivered some to one of the local shopkeepers.  I've been mulling over a new soap to create.  I shopped at the discount grocery & purchased 8 Annie's organic mac & cheese @ .40 ea., organic black beans .40/can, and organic Pomegranate juice $2.  I made Brandy's black bean burgers, and used homegrown sweet potatoes and collards, as well as homemade vegetable broth.

garlic patch, next to greens

The leeks and garlic are coming along nicely, and one of the rhubarb plants has poked up.  I hope I have enough to experiment on some recipes this year.  This week, I need to decide which plants I'll be starting first, and make that happen soon.  

Grilled Peaches, Patty Pans and Pumpkin Chai Soap

Hello, friends!  There have been a lot of gardening related activities going on around the homestead.  Sweet potatoes have been dug, and are drying.  We got several football-sized ones in this year's batch.  The ants had found some of them, so it's good we dug them when we did.  I cooked up some that had gotten cut up during harvesting, and the dogs enjoyed them last night.  It takes a month or so for the sugars to change, and make them nice and sweet, so we'll wait a bit to enjoy them.

The sunflowers on my table were a birthday surprise.  Sunflowers are one of the most cheerful flowers, don't you think?  J harvested sunflowers in our garden, and the heads are drying for winter use for us and the birds.  Some of the heads that had fallen over and were being eaten by the wildlife went to the chickens.  They didn't seem terribly interested, until I began removing the seeds from the heads, then you can bet they were pretty excited.

I tried something new with the okra this year. We're growing both red and green varieties.  The green okra grows so tall that I can no longer reach it.  For the past 2 or 3 weeks, I was bending over the stalks to get to the okra, but they were getting too tall for even this, plus it was really making my neck sore, straining upward for many minutes each day.  I decided I'd try pruning them this weekend.  Quite a few plants had side shoots with buds already, so I'm sure they'll be fine.  We'll see how the others fare.  We are getting some much needed rain today, which ought to encourage them to grow.

A neighbor gifted us with a large amount of patty pan squashes.  Unfortunately, many were wormy, and many were picked too large, having big, tough seeds.  Not being one to waste food, I did manage to cut nice rounds out of the top portions, which have no seeds, for freezing.  The sides were cut away and put in the vegetable broth bag I keep in my freezer, adding to it until there's enough to make a nice batch of broth.  The middle pieces with all the big seeds went to the chickens, and other bits went to the compost.

 
Try as I might, I could not get a clear photo of the Pumpkin Chai soap this morning.  I'm going to chalk it up to very dim light, rather than stinky photographic skills :o).  Once I finish this post, I'll be moving the Pumpkin Chai soap to the drying rack, and starting a batch of Kitchen Thyme soap.

We tried the second grilled peach recipe I had been wanting to try this weekend.  I bought big, beautiful, organic peaches, but unfortunately they didn't have much taste.  I'd like to try the recipe again with some really good peaches, and see what that's like.  We thought they were decent, but not wonderful.  Here's what I did:

Grilled Peaches with Honey, Balsamic and Cambozola

Cut peaches in halves, remove the pit, and place on foil cut side up

Add several bits of Cambozola cheese in the indentation where the pit was

Drizzle with honey, then balsamic vinegar

Grill until soft (5-10 minutes or so)

The original recipe is on Pinterest.  If you'll click on my Pinterest link in the sidebar, and go to my Yummy Eats board, you'll find it there.  The two things I did differently were using Cambozola rather than Gorgonzola, because it needed to be used.  And, the recipe called for grilling the peaches cut side down, then turning over and filling with cheese and drizzling while on the grill.  J felt this was pretty much guaranteed to be an ugly mess, and I had to agree, so our peaches stayed upright the entire time, were put on foil, and I added all the ingredients before grilling.

Fair Game Beverage Grand Opening

This cabin was our home away from home last weekend.  We were in Asheville, while I was taking an aromatherapy class.  The cabin was sweet, and nicer than I expected.  Though our pups were in great hands at home with a pet sitter, these cabins are dog friendly.  One of the cabins here was used in the shooting of the movie Thunder Road in the early 50's.

We ate very well while in Asheville. When we arrived, we had lunch here on the patio.  Our dinners were at Vinnie's and The Glass Onion.  Vinnie's was a high energy and noisy spot, not usually what I want when I'm eating out, but the food was very good, and I enjoyed the evening despite the din.  Enjoying an excellent bottle of wine didn't hurt.  The Glass Onion was all around amazing.  Go there if you have the chance.  Lovely atmosphere, wonderful food, fantastic staff.

The night before last, Fair Game Beverage Company held the grand opening of their new distillery.  They had a circus theme for the event. There were jugglers, women on stilts, and lots of fun costumes.  That's Chris above, the manager and distiller.

Here's a peek of the bar Joseph made for their tasting room. It's 8 ft. long, and I couldn't manage a photo of the entire bar using the phone.  There is also an 8 ft. shelf on the wall behind, which echoes the rebar design on the bar.  You can see the vintage typewriter sitting on it.  They really liked the look of a table he had made using a live edge slab of local red oak, so these pieces were made using the last he had of this oak. Opening night was great fun.

My soap shelf is almost bare, so soapmaking is high on my to-do list.  Cedar-Lemongrass was the first one made on Friday.  Either Lavender or Wake Up will be next.  Last week, we began harvesting cucumbers. I shared the majority of those picked, but if they keep up at the same pace, I will begin my canning season this week, getting some of them pickled for later use.  Some of the tomatoes are huge!  We keep waiting for that first blush of color, which will let us know tomato sandwiches and caprese salad won't be far behind.  Have a great week, friends!