I tried this last week, and it worked wonderfully!

Crockpot baked potatoes. Genius.

It’s super easy. Just prepare your potatoes as you normally would- poke holes in them with a fork, and cover each with foil.

Then you place them into your crockpot and set it on high for about 4-8 hours, depending on how big your potatoes are.

You DO NOT add water. Just stick them right in there and let ‘em cook.

This is a great “set it and forget it” way to have baked potatoes by lunch or dinner time. ‘Cause I, for one, always forget the potatoes till the last minute!

I’m the worst at overestimating how much spaghetti to make. We’ve been eating spaghetti for like three days now, and I still have leftovers! Not wanting to toss it (or eat it for another day!), I slipped it into a ziploc bag today and tossed it into the freezer.

Okay fine. I didn’t really toss it. I actually very meticulously laid it on it’s side so that it would freeze flat to make it easier to stack. Same difference.

When I’m ready for it, I’ll just let it thaw overnight in the fridge, and reheat it in the toaster oven. It’ll make a nice, quick meal one day next week when I don’t feel like cooking!

What are your favorite leftovers to freeze?

Onward we go to the point of this post:

There is something quite humbling about writing a blog.

Even though I can pretend like I know what I’m doing, if I’m bein’ honest with you readers, half the time I don’t have a clue.

Since I began blogging, almost a year ago, I have already changed the way I do multiple things.  For example, I have an entirely new soaked whole wheat bread recipe that I use.  Not to mention, I now grind my own flour.  Looking back on past posts, I suppose, is a good way to remember my journey.  However, it can also be quite humiliating at moments.

Like when I got you all excited about using sourdough starters to cook bread, pancakes, and cookies…

And then I forgot to feed my starter and it died faster than a pet gerbil.

Yikes.  I never told you that little fact, did I?

Today, I know I am venturing into one of these humbling moments.  And because I document our food/life/family journey every day, you all get to bear witness to it.

Lucky you!

Anyway, I do have a point.  Today, I want to talk about lacto-fermented vegetables as a method of preservation.  Because Sally Fallon can word this much better than I ever could, please read the following:

“It may seem strange to use that, in earlier times, people knew how to preserve vegetables for long periods without the use of freezers or canning machines.  This was done through the process of lacto-fermentation. Lactic acid is a natural preservative that inhibits putrefying bacteria.  Starches and sugars in vegetables and fruits are converted into lactic acid by the many species of lactic-acid-producing bacteria.  These lactobacilli are ubiquitous, present on the surface of all living things and especially numerous on leaves and roots of plants growing in or near the ground.  Man needs only to learn the techniques for controlling and encouraging their proliferation to put them to his own use, just has he has learned to put certain yeasts to use in converting the sugars in grape juice to alcohol in wine.”

So here’s the run down: Lacto-fermentation uses the natural production of lactic acid to preserve vegetables and fruits (instead of the conventional methods of vinegar or sugar).  The bonus is this:  lacto-fermenation actually increases the nutritional quality of the vegetables and fruits!  Ya, baby!

When I began in lacto-fermentation, I started with the “easiest” transition vegetable – gingered carrots.  And the technique was pretty simple:  Shred the carrots and ginger, add a generous pinch of salt, squish with a meat mallet (or in my case, wooden pummel) to release the juices in the carrots.  Then, stuff into a mason jar, allowing the released carrot juices to cover them.  Leave it out on the counter for three days before moving to cold storage.

“The ancients understood the fact that important chemical changes took place during this type of fermentation.  Their name for this change was ‘alchemy’.  Like the fermentation of dairy products, preservation of vegetables and fruits by the lacto-fermentation has numerous advantages beyond those of simple preservation.  The proliferation of lactobacilli in fermented vegetables enhances their digestibility and increases vitamin levels.  These beneficial organisms produce numerous helpful enzymes as well as antibiotic and anticarcinogenic substances.  Their main by-product, lactic acid, not only keeps vegetables and fruits in a state of perfect preservation, but also promotes the growth of healthy flora throughout the intestine.  Other alchemical by-products include hydrogen peroxide and small amounts of benzoic acid.”

We’ve since become semi-acquire to the acidic ting of lacto-fermented vegetables, and while I have yet to venture into other vegetables, I am slowing and happily learning the proper methods for preparing such treats.  I have a recipe for a fermented beet and apple chutney that I cannot wait to try!

Lactic-acid fermented vegetables and fruit chutneys are not meant to be eaten in large quantities but as condiments.  They go beautifully with meats and fish of all sorts, as well as with pulses and grains.  They are easy to prepare, and they confer health benefits that cannot be underestimated.”

Might I encourage you to venture into the unknown realm of lactic acid?

Might I encourage you to preserve some of your summer bounty in this wonderful, ancient way?

Might I have you over for dinner so that you can taste test my wonderful gingered carrots alongside a grilled steak?

Okay.  Scratch that last one.  Something tells me hubby would be very saddened if I used up all his currently-deep-frozen steaks.

But do give lacto-fermentation a try! You never know what delicious treasures you’ll find in the form of lactic acid!

Guest Post written by Shaye Elliott. “Maybe I’m a nerd, but I get a sweet satisfaction out of washing dishes, cooking from scratch, and brewing kombucha.  I know.  That means I’m a nerd.  But, none-the-less, I blog to revive the homesteading spirit inherent in all of us!  Be it nerdy or not.  I often look to the past for my inspiration – traditional & effective methods of food preparation and preservation, cloth diapering, homemade cleaners and beauty products, gardening & gleaning, home brewing, fermenting foods – you name it!  Rediscovering traditional ways of living can be very rewarding for geeks like me!  Each of us has our own unique way of building a homestead (wherever and whatever that may be) and I hope to encourage, learn from, and laugh with folks along the way.  From learning to cook a whole chicken to mixin’ up homemade deodorant and everything in between – there is such fun to be had in the home!  With husband, Stuart, and baby daughter, Georgia, I hope to further grow our homestead to a place that is overfilled with joy, fellowship, and homegrown food!”  Shaye can be found cooking and blogging over on her homestead at http://www.theelliotthomestead.blogspot.com!

I’m sure some of you have been wondering how we pop popcorn around here since we got rid of our microwave.

You were wondering, weren’t you?

Well, let me tell ya, we do it the old fashioned way friends! On the stove top.

My Nana really lucked out when she found this Whirley-Pop at a local Goodwill for five bucks. It didn’t even look like it had ever been used. She called me up (knowing my taste for the slow life) and asked me if I’d be interested in her picking it up for me.

Um. Yeah!

I could hardly wait to use it. As soon as I got my hands on it I crowded the kids around to watch our newest gadget in action.

We happened to have a bag of popcorn kernels already, so all I had to do was add a little oil to the pan and start stirring. (We had been using the microwave up until then, but were popping kernels in paper bags instead of the store-bought kind.)

It worked SO well! I couldn’t believe how quickly it filled with fluffy popcorn. I don’t think a single kernel was wasted, and not a piece was burned!

We put the hot snack into a container with some butter and salt, popped the lid on and gave it a good shake.

Yummm. The kids were even eating it without flavoring added. I think the fun of watching it all happen made the snack even more tasty to them.

If you happen to come across one of these Whirly-Pop stovetop popcorn popper doojiggies… pick it up. It’s pretty cool.

We bought a quarter of a cow today from the farmer up the road. It ended up being a lot less meat than we’d expected though; about 97 lbs.

If you’re like us, that just doesn’t sound right does it? A cow weighs like 800 lbs or something, how could a quarter of it only be 97 lbs?

Well, it’s because of something called hanging weight vs. cut weight. Which we didn’t really understand before we made our purchase, and so we ended up paying more than we’d expected per pound.

Let me explain.

When you buy meat from a farmer, they usually require you to purchase at least a quarter of a cow at a time. (You can split it with friends or family to share the expense.) And they will charge you per pound of “hanging weight”.

Hanging weight refers to the slab of meat before it is cut up and processed. After it has cured for a couple of weeks, the butcher will trim the meat of fat and bones and stuff, and package it up for you. The end result is “cut meat”, which due to the trimming, is a much smaller piece of meat than you started with.

This means that when you calculate the end result with the price per pound that you paid, it will end up being much more per pound.

In our case, the farmer charged us $2/lb hanging weight, which ended up totaling $382 (thank goodness for a tax refund!). But when we calculated how many pounds of meat we actually brought home it ended up being about $3.90/lb.

It was definitely a good deal for locally raised, grass fed beef. But still much more than we’d expected to pay. We had actually planned on splitting the meat (and the cost) with some friends. But what we have isn’t enough to share.

Honestly, I can’t complain though. I’ve looked around, and the average price I’ve found for grass fed beef ranges from $3-$4/lb hanging weight, so you’d end up paying almost double that for the cut meat.

Plus, this includes pot roast, round roast, london broil, chuck roast, sirloin steaks, sirloin tip roast, ribeye steaks, t-bone steaks, and short ribs. Not to mention tons of ground beef, and some soup bones.

So, we are still pleased with our investment. But it’s good to know what to expect next time we plan on buying beef in bulk like this. And hopefully this lesson has been helpful to some of you as well.

Do you buy beef by the quarter or half a cow? I’d be interested in knowing what you pay per pound hanging weight!

Hey guys!! I’m so glad you could join me, Jill, Amy, and Megan for another fun-filled Homestead Barn Hop! It has been so inspiring visiting everyone’s homesteads and seeing what you’ve all been up to! Keep the great ideas coming!

I harvested the first of our broccoli this past week! And let me tell you, it was SO flavorful. I don’t know why I was so surprised to find it so tasty, but I was. Something else that was surprising to me… the worms I found!

It wasn’t that I didn’t expect to find any worms on my broccoli. I shared with you last week that we’ve had some trouble with an infestation. But I didn’t realize how many worms there were in my broccoli florets, and I didn’t expect them to be so hard to spot!

Have you ever seen a broccoli worm? The green ones? If you have, you know they are exactly the same color as the broccoli they are on. And some of them are practically microscopic! I tried to show my husband how ridiculously hard it was to find the worms on our florets. But when I held up to his face a piece with a good sized critter on it, it took him forever to finally spot it! I laughed as he responded, “Yeah, I totally would have eaten that.“

And then my problem was that my family was afraid to eat our broccoli. Even I was a bit hesitant. After picking over the broccoli several times, each time being positive I’d gotten all of the worms only to find another one hiding within the little buds, I was afraid I’d never get them all out.

I know some of you would have no trouble eating a little worm if you didn’t know it was there. But the very idea makes me gag.

Jerry ran to Home Depot to look for some BT to sprinkle on our broccoli and cabbage to try to help control the bugs. Unfortunately, they were out. But, there was a very helpful lady in the garden center who he spoke with. She raises her own organic garden at home, and recommended to him that I soak the broccoli in salt water before cooking it. She assured him that this would kill the worms, and they would fall off of the broccoli.

When he called me with this tip, I immediately filled a large bowl with cold water and sprinkled several teaspoons of salt into it. After soaking the broccoli florets for about 5 minutes or so, I pulled them out of the water and rinsed them off. And what do you know, there in the water were a few more teeny tiny worms floating in the bottom of the bowl! It worked!!

I was free to enjoy my broccoli!!

I steamed my first helping from our garden. It was delicious. Though, I couldn’t help examining each piece before putting it into my mouth. You know, just in case.

I’m so glad to have found a helpful tip for getting the worms out of my broccoli though!! This will save me a ton of time next go around.

Do you have a special way of getting worms out of your broccoli? How do you control the insects from devouring your broccoli harvest?

Link up below and share what’s new on your homestead!