Cast Iron Pam

Do you eat Lamb? We sure do at our house. My husband and I eat more Lamb than anything else, then wild caught fish, and eggs are our main proteins. We still eat beef, chicken, and pork, are part of our regular fare as well, just not very often. The eggs are straight fro: our own farm raised chickens. As for the fish we only eat wild caught fish, NEVER farm raised. Yes it’s a little more costly but it is only the two of us and we only eat 4 oz. each. So it really doesn’t cost us more than eating beef, something we used to eat a lot of and it took more to satisfy our appetites. 

To keep the cost down on the lamb I buy boneless leg of lamb at Costco or Smart food service, bring it home and grind it myself. A lot of work ? Yes, but I love doing it and it’s my job to provide the best quality food for my family as inexpensively as possible. Then once it’s ground I make the different items I listed below and put it in the freezer and it’s ready to cook when I need it.

We have found that anything you do with beef, chicken or pork you can do with lamb. For instance we make our own sausage,  roasts, stew meat, Empanadas, tacos , burgers, Pot Roast,egg rolls, and lamb barley soup, wonton soup, and chow menin are several things we eat around here.

 Lamb is a grass fed meat and it's cheaper than grass feed beef.

Anyway I hope you find this info. helpful and that you give Lamb a try.

Eat and Enjoy.

 I don’t know about you but we love having family get togethers. Either at our house or another family members. It doesn’t matter where just doing it is a huge part of our family culture. Wether it’s a birthday party, anniversary party, some holiday celebration it’s all good. There are many really good cooks in our family. Everybody always bring out their best when we get together for a meal. It really is a lot of food, a lot of gourmet foods, a whole lot of eating, visit, relaxing all together. Starting in October and going through February we have several birthday’s and a few anniversaries. So we get together often. Pretty much our family uses any excuse to gather together and eat. Hey, what can I say we all love to eat.

Winter time is a time when the weather isn’t really conducive to doing much outside due to the weather, so having some type of party is wonderful.

Not all of our parties are elaborate. Many are just very simple. Things like a nacho feed, or hotdogs and burgers, or a pancake feed makes for a great time. Simple, easy, and tasty food. What more can a person ask for?

I hope your family gets together often and just enjoy being together, making memories, and  eating together.

Most importantly that whatever you do just do something together.

Eat and Enjoy.

Remember  it’s winter time now, although pretty dry it’s still cold outside.

This is the time of year perfect for some steaming hot brothy soup.

I’m convinced brothy soup is  a natural way to both heal up colds, flues, and winter cruds.

I mean homemade wonton soup, hot sour soup, chicken noodle soup, potato sausage soup (zuppa toscana) just feels good going down, warms you up inside, breaks through the crud in your throat, opens up nasal passages, soothes your belly. What could be better?

Adding a teaspoon  of white or rice vinegar in your bowl of soup will give your soup and extra boost in breaking through the above mentioned ailments.

For me soups like split pea, clam chowder, potato chowder, and stews are great to help warm you up, feel good in the belly, and just tastes incredible. Mmmmm goood!

So look up some recipes and keep making soups all winter long. Your house will smell wonderful and get warmed up from the cooking of them.

Eat and Enjoy!

Well 2020 is gone and now we’re just finishing the first week of 2021.

I won’t get into politics but whew, I’m glad to be bringing the first week to an end.

Let’s all pray that 2021 gets better and is better than 2020. That this Covid thing would get resolved and we can get our lives back to normal (before 2020).

Enough said.

Due to our diet changes my husband and I have been trying new recipes. Some we have found and changed to meet our needs and others we just put together ourselves.

While the diet changes have been difficult to figure out it has been fun at the same time.

I am always willing to try new ways of cooking things, or trying new gadgets to see how they really work.

Our daughter and son-in-law got us an air fryer. I have been skeptical of them. I mean, how good can they be if you’re not using oil, or butter to fry in, right? 

Well so far I have only fried potatoes in it. They turned out fine. I think I had too many in the basket though. Next time I will use a lesser amount of potatoes. Get this. You do use oil in the air fryer, just not as much as you normally would in a frying pan. I’m gonna have to try something else init. Maybe some chicken thighs would be good. We’ll see. I will be sure to let you know what I try and how it turns out.

Sorry it has been so long since I have made any posts. Life got hectic and now I have a little break.

Soon we start harvest and then it gets really busy about one week later. Anyway I have several things to post about now. Be sure to check in and see what’s new.

I’ve got figs on my tree. Figs on my stove. Figs in my canner. Figs in my pantry (in jars, I canned). Definitely, I have figs in my tummy. About the only place I don’t have figs is in my coffee. I draw the line when it comes to my coffee. That’s one thing you don’t mess with, my coffee hot or iced.

Our fig tree has put out so many figs this year it’s unbelievable.

What did I do it’s all those figs? Well I made barbecue sauce, purée, both of which I canned. I ate probably a bushel of them right off the tree, made cobblers, and fig bars. I am going to freeze them.

A friend of mine said that she peels them and freezes them, then when she wants them she takes them out, and let them thaw a bit then eats them. Sounds delicious to me, so I’m going to try it.

What do you think? Would you try it? 

Our daughter April is getting married soon. Instead of a wedding cake she decided on getting donut

(By the way donuts are much cheaper than wedding cake is by far. We are getting 18 dozen for the price of 15 dozen. Right there we save $36.00. In all the donuts are costing less than $200.00. Now where can you get a wedding cake for 200 people for less than that at any bakery?)

Not only that but she wants them on a paper towel holder.

Our son is making holders. Instead of a large dowel on it, he’s going to use a dowel he is going to use one that is 3/8” thick.

It seems a small though more and more people are doing donuts instead of cake.

I have heard of hanging them on a peg board, using initials to hang them on, and I’m sure other things as well.

Anyway we will see how this all works out very soon. It sounds like fun at least.

Chickens are a lot of work but they are also fun.

They variety we got are called Red Stars. They are much like Rhode Island Reds. The eggs are supposed to be large brown eggs.

It gives me great pleasure to see how these chickens have grown. We got them when they were 4 days old (it took them 3 days to get here)., That was May 3, 2019.

When they got here you could hold 2 in your hand with no problem.

They are so fun to watch. 

Whenever I go out the door they come running thinking I have some food for them.

When I call out here chicks chicks they come running up as well.

Once they were big enough I would have to go out  and round them up to put them to bed. Now I go out just as it is getting dark and all I have to do is close the door, much easier.

Today, July 20, 2019, they are full grown. One of my roosters (I have 2) is at least 14” tall. The hens are about 10-12” tall. They are 11 1/2 weeks old.

They are supposed to start laying eggs by  22 weeks, so we are 1/2 way there. I can’t wait to get the first egg. Then they will start paying for themselves.

Our plan is to sell the extra eggs. With 21 hens I should get at least 18-21 eggs a day once they are in full swing.

Supposedly they lay eggs year round, cold weather is not a hinderance to them. So we will see. If all of that is true we should get 13 dozen or so a week. I will definitely have enough to sell.

I will let you know when we do start selling eggs and how much they will be.

NOTE: If you want to raise chickens for eggs or meat don’t expect it to be cheaper than you can buy in the store. Generally speaking it’s not. It is a better product though and you know how they were cared for and what they ate. The eggs and meat is much better just not much cheaper if at all.

There  are a lot of oils that we have been told for years that we’re good for you. Then I come to find out that many of them really aren’t good for you. Being on the Keto diet I found out that Canola, Vegetable, Corn oils are some of those that are not good for you. This makes finding salad dressings that you can have on the diet very difficult. You can have Olive Oil , Avacado Oil, and Butter, especially ghee.

At first we bought some salad dressing that are Keto friendly but they tasted awful, and were  extremely expensive ($8.00 per 12 oz. bottle).

So we finally started melting butter, or ghee.letting it cool off before pouring it on our salad s. Buddy let me tell you, it is incredible. It only takes 1 or 2 Tablespoons depending on the size of your salad. Mix it in and the flavors blend together, especially if you have avacado, or cheese on it. I’m telling you even if you’re not on Keto give it a try. Butter makes everything Better. Just ask the French. They will tell you there are 3 things that make French food taste soooo goood. They are Butter, Butter, and more Butter (that’s including cream too, after all it’s what Butter is made from).

Seriously try it. I think you’ll like it.