Still no bees

The locust trees in the yard are blooming and once again I didn't get my bee hive together.  If I'd stayed focused on this project, there would bees out there filling up on locust flower nector and making locust flower honey - which my naturalist friend and bee keeper Patty says is one of the best flowers for making honey.

Another name for locust tree is acacia tree so you sometimes see gourmet shops carrying acasia honey.
Also known as Black Locust, Acacia Blossom is a premium and distinctive honey with a high fructose and low acid content causing it to stay liquid longer than other honeys



locust flowers

I sold the last 25 pound box of beef last night.  I still have plenty of ground beef, chuck roasts and round steak, but all the NY strips, fillet and rib eye steaks are gone.  That's OK, though.  I really like pot roast made from the chuck and there's always plenty of ways to use ground beef. 

I've been using a calorie counter website to track my calories and nutrition each day trying to eat more healthy and loose a little weight.  The calorie counter really hates when I eat eggs and butter. Too much fat .But its perfectly happy when I eat lean beef.

The calorie counter gives you a grade at the end of the day after you've tracked all you've eaten and I try really hard to get an A. Most of the time I get an A minus,  once or twice I've gotten a B.  Only once did I get an A.

My biggest problem is potassium.  A woman my age should eat 4700 mg of potassium a day - all from food.  Give it a try sometime.  If you think that banana you eat everyday is getting the job done, check it out? Ha! not even close.  The best food I can find for potassium is Swiss chard - over 900 mg a cooked cup -which is a lot of Swiss chard!  Next is sweet potato for a little over 600 mg.  White potatoes are around 500 mg and three ounces of beef is about 290 mg, but try as I might I've never been able to stay in my calorie limit and still eat 4700 mg of potassium. Let me know if you have any other good food sources of potassium.

Flea Market

A wide variety of items were for sale.

I've been busy the last few days with the museum's quarterly flea market.  For the first time I was a vendor also a vendor.  There were ten vendors plus some items from flea market donations to the museum. We made some money for the museum and all the vendors were happy enough with their results to rebook their spots for the next museum flea market on July 27th and 28th.  For me, I made enough to buy a new weed whacker!

Venus in the Western Sky

The waxing crescent moon swings close to Jupiter and Venus, starting the fourth week of April. If you have an absolutely unobstructed horizon and crystal-clear sky, you might catch the last pairing of the waxing crescent moon and Jupiter in the 2012 evening sky on April 22. But you should have no trouble seeing the waxing crescent moon close to Venus as evening twilight falls on April 23, 24 and 25.

The western sky has been wonderful to watch any clear evening from the beginning of March right through April. Tonight was especially pretty with Venus very bright above a crescent moon.  I didn't notice Jupiter, the trees must have been in the way. 

More about Pressed Chicken

Pressed chicken is a great way to use all the meat on a chicken and have a flavorful, cold chicken slice for sandwiches or whatever.

I noticed that no one seemed too interested in the pressed chicken recipe. So here's some pictures.

It's not the prettiest dish but so easy to make and it tastse good!  Some recipes have you add pickles, hard boiled eggs, etc, but I like to make the dish just chicken and add the extras on the side as I feel like it.

The key to good pressed chicken, in my opinion, is cooking it in a flavorful broth.  I stewed my roasting chicken with carrots, celery, fresh flat leaf parsley, chives and sage from my garden, and an onion. I also put in a few black pepper corns, an allspice berry and a clove, plus a teaspoon of salt.  You use the gelatin rich broth as the molding agent for the meat and it ads so much to the flavor.  This is always way more tasty than just sliced chicken for a sandwich. 

Again, not the prettiest presentation but it does make a nice cold lunch with bread and butter pickles on the side or as a sandwich.  The broth was so flavorful.  I roasted the last of the butternut squash and made butternut squash and apple soup with the broth. It was outstanding if you don't mind my saying.  The allspice berry and single clove along with all those vegetables makes a very flavorful broth.

Roast Green Beans!

I always enjoy watching Tyler's Ultimate on the Food Network on Saturday mornings. He's on at 7:00 am and that fits my schedule very well. This morning he was preparing sole almondine, lemon smashed potatoes and roasted green beans. 

His method for roasting the green beans was exactly the same as the method I use to roast asparagus - olive oil, a little salt and pepper and Parmesan cheese into the oven at 400 degrees.

Tyler had whole French filet green beans and he just snapped the blossom end off and kept them whole. They looked very good. He mentioned that he uses the same method for broccoli.  I plan to grown French filet green beans this summer so I'll definitely try his method.

Mama Angus cow and heifer calf, the one born April 4. Look at those big ears!

The Angus heifer calf born April 4, 2012. Isn't she pretty!

Asparagus is back

These tasty spears will turn into eight foot tall ferns if I don't cut them and eat them!

I had a first flush of asparagus during that ultra warm weather we had in March and then the frost came and it hid from the cold.  The last couple of days have been warm and the rain last weekend helped a lot. Last night I cut a full two pounds. Tonight just a pound, but it will keep coming now until the end of May when I let it go to fern.

My friends who wish they had asparagus growing in their backyards,  can't believe you have to wait three years from planting to first harvest, but you do. That's just the way it is.  So I encourage them to plant now - which is no small job since you have to dig a 18 inch deep trench about a foot wide.  You plant one asparagus crown about every to two feet and they are sold in packages of 25. So do the math. The crowns are about a foot across so that is 75 feet of trench - best to do it in two rows at a minimum.  We have the perfect soil for asparagus and once its established it will go on for twenty years of more.

Anyway, while you are waiting three years for your very own nectar of the gods,  fresh cut sweet wonderful asparagus, you can go foraging for wild asparagus along the country roads. We foraged for years before we finally broke down and planted an asparagus bed.

Wild asparagus is exactly like tame asparagus, so there is no reason not to go foraging.   You will have to look out for poison ivy and you will have to shower ticks off you as soon as you get home (and throw your clothes in the washer right away) but other than that, you can come home with several pounds of asparagus in just an hour or two of foraging. Just ride your bike or walk along the road looking for last year's tall brown dead fern leaves (asparagus is really a big fern like plant when you let it grow).  Rummage around in the grass and weeds along fence rows and you will find asparagus growing wild.  You might still be able to find a copy of Euell Gibbons book "Stalking the Wild Asparagus".  This little book is a handy guide for all kinds of food foraging. Talk about eating local, you can't get much more local than that.

Pressed Chicken

"Big Chicky" giving the" all clear" on the side porch. I wish he'd find some place else to crow!

I love listening to my chickens talk to each other.  Actually, "Big Chicky" does most of the talking. He's the head rooster and he takes his job very seriously.  As Big Chicky escorts his hens around my yard and pastures he keeps up a constant chatter, scratching in the grass and dirt and showing the hens all sorts of choice goodies. I'd love to record his "talk" some time and try to figure out just what he's saying. He has definate phrases, or at least it seems that way to me.   He's also the flocks main security guard, letting out a screeching call when danger approaches.  His crow, besides greeting the morning, is also his "all clear" call.

When I was a kid my mother and grandmother made something they called "Pressed Chicken".  My dad came home for lunch every day and my mom always had a good meal waiting for him. Pressed
Chicken makes a great cold summer lunch.

 I expect Pressed Chcken was created as a way to use an old stewing hens but any chicken parts will do.  It's basically stewed chicken molded into a glass bread pan, then sliced for sandwiches or just eating with pickles on the side.  To make it you stew a chicken in water with salt and pepper until the meat falls off the bones. Strain off the resulting broth and refrigerate the broth and the meat. When the meat is cool chop it fine. Add salt and pepper to taste, pack the meat into the loaf pan pressing down until it is packed in tight.  Spoon a cup or more of the firm gelatinous broth into a pan and heat until it is liquid again. Pour the broth over the chicken in the loaf pan until it is almost to the top of the chicken. Put a piece of waxed paper over the chicken and weight it with another loaf pan filled with a pound bag of beans (you can leave the beans in the bag).  Chill over night.  Next day, unmold the pressed chicken and slice.

You will have a lot of leftover good rich gelatin broth, so be sure to save every bit of it, packed in pint freezer containers and stored in your freezer. It's the perfect base for a nutritious soup.

You can also add lots of good things to the cook pot to make an even more flavorful pressed chicken and chicken broth.  Add a couple of ribs of celery, a peeled carrot, an onion, a couple of cloves of garlic, herbs such as thyme, parsley, rosemary, sage, whatever srtikes your fancy.  Regardless, don't forget to put at least a teaspoon of salt and lots of black pepper in the pot when you stew the chicken.

Voles

When we moved in to our old farm house in 1955 it was over run with mice. The barns were over run with rats. We had a cat who sat on the dresser in my bedroom at night and caught mice all night long. Mice were always in the house somewhere even though we always had cats.

Jasper with a fresh kill. He is one of seven cats that live both inside and outside my house.



My ex husband and I  built our house thirteen years ago about 1/4 of a mile off the road in a wooded site that used to be the site of a former house and barn.  Our house is actually on the barn site and the ruined foundations of the old 1820's house still exist just west of the house.  I was amazed when we moved in at the number of mice in the yard - it was heavily wooded and mice were everywhere - but not in the house itself. The house is all brick and sits high on its foundation. I've never,ever had a mouse in this house.

Vole up near the porch ceiling hanging on to the brick. He is about five inches long, much bigger than a mouse but smaller than a rat.



Last night as I was putting cats out for the evening, I noticed they were trying to crawl up the side of the porch - without success, I might add.  I looked up to see what was catching their interest and there was a vole - not a mouse - a vole desperately running across the brick at the ceiling line.  I'd never seen such a thing.  But it was evident that the heavily textured brick gave the vole great foot holds.  I snapped the picture above, turned out the porch light and went to bed.

The above picture is a mouse. It's small and we have lots of them in the yard.  I never really thought about their being both mice and voles until the cats starting catching voles.  I looked voles up on the Internet and found that they burrow in the ground and eat plant roots.  They sound worse than chipmunks, which we don't seem to have.  Anyway, I wondered why my perennial flowering plants seem to die out each winter.  Now I know why.  The voles eat the roots all winter as they live cosily under the back porch in underground burrows.  That is probably why the cats bring me at least one dead vole - and sometimes a mouse - every day.  Hooray for cats and their killing instincts!!!!

Lemon Squares

It's my turn to make dessert for the Monday night family get together and I've had a hankering for lemon squares.   I looked through all my cookbooks and checked the Internet and finally, I think I have the perfect recipe.  This one is basically from the "Better Homes and Gardens New Cookbook", 11th edition with a little addition or two.   I like this cookbook because the recipes are contemporary, homey, simple, and give you nutrition information (calories).  It's interesting to page through old cookbooks and compare their recipes to the newer ones. For example, I have an old Better Crocker cookbook with a lemon squares recipes that used way more butter and less lemon juice. 

All the recipes start with a shortbread like bottom crust. This one is 1/3 cup room temperature butter, 1/4 cup granulated sugar, and a cup of all purpose flour. I mixed the three ingredients all together in my mixer until it looked like crumbly meal, then patted it in to this 8 x 8 Pyrex baking dish.  I used the bottom of my one cup measure to do the patting. It works great. Bake this for 18 minutes at 350 degrees.

In the same mixing bowl (did not wash)  I put 2 whole eggs, 3/4 cup granulated sugar, 2 tablespoons all purpose flour, finely shredded peel of one lemon (wash the lemon first really well), 3 tablespoons fresh lemon juice, a pinch of salt and 1/4 teaspoon baking powder. Mix on medium speed for two minutes until well blended.

Remove the cookie crust from the oven and while still hot pour the egg mixture over the cookie crust. Bake in a 350 degree oven for another 20 to 22 minutes, remove and let cool on a wire rack. Dust with powdered sugar and cut into 20 bars, 1 inch by 2 inch rectangles.  Calories approximately 97.

Kroger has a sale on fresh blackberries and strawberries, so I will serve these lemon squares with a nice side of fresh fruit. A sunny, springtime dessert. Blue chicken approves.

Repotting Tomato Seedlings

I haven't had a Saturday off in a month and since its frosty outside this morning I took the time to repot my tomato and other seedlings.  I started most of them the first of March and the process has been a bit haphazard.  I tried to keep them under lights in the basement, but my basement is too cold, so I've alternating between keeping them outside on the front stoop and indoors on my kitchen island.  They haven't done particularly well with this method but the roots are coming out of the bottom of their baby pots so its time repot. Hopefully they will be looking good by May 5 when my garden club has its annual plant sale. Some of these will go to that sale.

Ready to transplant. I have washed the plastic pots, recycled from some long ago plant purchase and lined them with unbleached coffee filters.  I use a plain old potting soil, nothing too fancy.

I planted the tomato seeds in little wrapped cubes. They were kind of expensive and I don't think I'd use them again, but they do keep the plants together in a little package that goes right into the transplant pots.

Seedling in its sprouting cube and ready to be covered in potting soil.

Gently pour potting soil around the seedling, filling the pot really full. The soil is dry and fluffy and will sink in the pot, plus tomatoes like to be planted deep. Water well, let set, water again until the soil is evenly moist.

It's a Girl!

Here's two of last springs heifers, plus one hiding behind the one on the right.  It's my Bramble on the left and Mr. Burns Shorthorn-Limousin cross heifer on the right. They will both make great mama cows next year.

Calf number two still has not arrived, but we got a chance to get a good look at the new calf from yesterday and its a heifer! That's a good thing in this time of dwindling cattle herds.  We need to keep every heifer we can. 



Walking back from checking on the new calf, and the cow that has yet to calve, I passed these two deer.  My parents house is in the background. Looks like they finally got their awnings out of storage. I took this with my cell phone.

Calf Came Right on Time

Brand new baby born about an hour ago, still wet and hasn't nursed yet. Mom is very protective so I didn't hang around. The rest of the herd is lying up in the high pasture behind these woods.

One of the many advantages of AI (artificial insemination) is the calves come pretty close to an established due date.  Two of the Angus girls who were AI'ed were due to calve April 4.  I just came back from tramping the woods and fields looking for them and we have one calf on the ground and another very near.  The weather is suppose to clear tonight, so these babies should get a good start.

Talk about blooming where you are planted!,
This little violet was blooming all alone on a muddy cow pocked hill side.

Asparagus

The asparagus has returned.  I picked a dozen spears about two weeks ago and then the nights turned cold and the asparagus decided to stay in bed a little longer. This evening, after several nice days with night temperatures in the low 40's the green spears have returned. 

The mild winter was good for grass and the asparagus bed is almost completely taken over with it, so I had mowed the bed very close after I picked last week.  That made it easy to find the spears this time as they stand half again as tall as the grass - this week. Next week will be a different story I'm sure as the grass will keep growing and I can't mow it again without sacrificing the asparagus. Mulch is on the way!

Here' my favorite way to cook asparagus. It's from Nicole at The One hair salon and its the best!




Lay the asparagus spears out in a single row and bath them in a little olive oil.
I like to put down some parchment paper. On the grill use foil or just lay them out carefully so they don't fall through the rack.

Roast in a 450 degree oven for five to seven minutes, or on a barbecue grill, sprinkle with Parmesan cheese, salt and pepper and grill another seven or eight minutes. I moved them a little closer together to help the cheese stay in place.



       





Ready to enjoy. I use the large flakesof cheese that I by in a box at the Kroger. It's their Private Selection brand. I use it on salads all the time.  Some of the flakes fall off the asparagus and on to the parchment paper. They cook into delicious little Parmesan chips!  So good!!

Hunting for Cows

Two of the Angus are due to calve April 4, so I went looking for them.  I found the older one just fine and she is definitely going to calve in the next couple of days. I could not find the heifer. She and the old crippled cow were not with the herd.

Thor and Bobbie watch me head out, hoping that I will throw a bucket of grain in their feed bunk.

The herd, or most of it anyway, nooning.

I texted the Angus' owner to let him know I was checking on his girls. He texted back that he and his wife were timing her labor pains and they were now 5 minutes apart!  Good thing I never told him I couldn't find the heifer - but I did find her finally.

Tom Tom and his mother BTAP Violet.  This week I plan to register him as BTAP ZZ Tom.
 

Tom Tom having lunch.