Pie and Ice

This past week we had winter weather. It is January, so we expect some bad weather. We are still missing some heavy snow days, but we have plenty of winter left yet. This week, ice. It started as snow, but quickly changed to freezing rain. The ice hung around until Sunday afternoon, and didn't really stick to the roads, so it was more pretty than routine changing.

Cupcake snapped this one. She has an eye for ice

First order of business this week was blue cheese. We found a fresh pack of blue cheese at a local market, and Cupcake snatched it up for her lunch during the week. You may notice someone wrote "All Mine" across the top? Big Man respected her wishes.

All hers

And when it's icy outside, you want to bake. We do anyway. Pending the ice event, we made a batch of vegetable beef soup with leftovers from a beef roast we put in the crock pot earlier in the week. And what's better with soup, than scratch made rye bread? We don't know either. We baked the bread on roast night, and used the leftover bread on soup night, with melted butter and cheese. We don't waste food around The Acre.
Big Man found rye flour at a local market, and used our home made buttermilk to make a batch of rye bread.

Let the baking begin

Five minutes with the dough hook

Two hours to rest and raise

Fresh homemade butter, now that's tasty

Beef veggie soup. We got three quarts canned for later off this batch

And dessert, you have to have dessert.
Our five regular readers may remember, at the end of the summer/fall, we picked the last batch of rhubarb. Not wanting it to go to waste, we baked two strawberry/rhubarb pies, and froze them for the holidays. Well, holidays were dedicated to all things cake, so the pies had to wait until this week. We thawed one out, and placed it in the oven to warm it up on low heat. It was like eating a slice of summer. Fresh, pie crust wasn't soggy at all. We will so be doing this in the coming months.

Strawberry Rhubarb pie

Then on the fresh side of dessert, Cupcake found a recipe for a crock pot dish, kind of like cobbler. We used a jar of our blackberries from last spring, and it turned out great.

And, while we were clearing out frozen foods, we used a pack of Jake's deer backstrap for Sunday morning breakfast. Deer gravy, and deer eggs. That's how we roll in winter.

We still managed our weekly trip to Dude's Drive In, and this week, the car hop who takes the orders remembered our "usual" order. We are officially regulars.
We ended the week like we always do. Chicken wings.
K&K

And So it Begins

Our gardening obsession kicked off this weekend. We stopped in Tractor Supply this week, and found they have their garden seeds on display. The little girl who was working the register gave us a "really, it's January" look, but she rang us up anyway.
On a Tractor Supply related note, one of the neighbor chirruns got hired on with the outfit, we ran in to him while we were there. We have insider information now for all things chicken, when the chicks are due in, which are the healthiest and whatnot. And we will exploit this connection to the fullest. Promise.
Now, on to the pictures.

Seed prep

36 tomato plants. Not counting the ones we will buy from greenhouses. 

 Every year, Big Man has started the tomato seeds on the day of the Daytona 500. He has raised tomatoes since he lived in the People's Republic of Maryland, so it's been at least twenty years. This year we decided to start them mid January, so the plants will be a bit bigger, hopefully heartier, when time comes to put them out.
The row where we plan on putting our tomatoes this coming year has been getting a steady dose of organics. Each time we clean the poop out of the hen house, it goes in the future row. Plus all veggie scraps, banana peels, coffee grounds and whatnot also end up in that row.
Cupcake also saved several dozen bulbs of our marigolds, and we did an entire rack of marigold seeds. We plan on having them all around the house and garden, because they are pretty, and they deter pests. 
Our lemon trees are still doing well, and we have a few new apple trees starting in one of our pots. We will be moving them to their own pots in about a month. The last picture is our lemon balm that sprouted recently.

Lemon trees

Apple trees

Lemon balm

Big Man had free time on his hands this past week. A perk of being a shack bitch. So he made Cupcake three more pints of orange marmalade. Cupcake loves marmalade.
This batch was all hand squeeze juice, and it made a difference in the flavor. Big Man found oranges on sale at Wade's this week, so there will be another batch made in the coming week.

Boil the skins, remove the white "pith"

Filet the pith, chop the skin

Cook it up till it gels, in cast iron, of course

And we had two bananas get brown on us, leftovers from banana/walnut pancakes. So rather than waste them, Big Man made a batch of banana nut bread.

Cast Iron makes banana bread better

Fresh made butter won't hurt the taste either

Warm banana nut bread, with fresh made butter and a cup of Deathwish Coffee, now that's dessert for any night of the week right there.
We had a sleet event one day this week, Cupcake worked from home and the chirruns were out of school, so we celebrated togetherness by making a home made pizza.

We sure don't mind being snowed in these days.
Chicken wing Sunday, then we move on to next week.
K&K

Who You Calling Turkey, Pig?

We had a meat kind of week around The Acre. Big Man smoked one of Pop's turkeys, and Cupcake seared a pork loin in our new cast iron pot, then slow cooked it. We eat pretty well around here, and when it's below zero, there's not much else to do.
First off, turkey. Pop and brother Kevin have been going to the shooting matches pretty regular, and Pop has won a couple of turkeys and at least one ham. He gave us one of the turkeys this past week, and Big Man went to work putting some maple smoke all up in it.

It actually turned out better than the turkey Big Man fried for Thanksgiving, so there's that. With the leftover meat, we picked it then made a big batch of turkey salad for Cupcake's work lunch the coming week.

We use a whole jar of them yellow pickles, because we have 113 jars downstairs

Cupcake loves her some blue cheese dressing, so it goes in to the mix for a little kick.
Then we move on to the pig part. Cupcake found a pork loin on sale, and wanted to slow cook it in the new cast iron pot from Christmas, so we did. After we seared the loin, Big Man put in on to slow cook in the oven at 225, and it was ready by the time Cupcake got home from work.

We added carrots, onions, potatoes that we canned. It was good for a couple of meals this week. And what's meat and potatoes without bread?  Big Man found a recipe for the bread that a food franchise serves with it's meals, it must be "down under" bread, but it was pretty simple to make, and it turned out just like the restaurant serves. Cupcake says it's in the rotation full time now.

No fancy store bought mix for us, we do it from scratch

Add a fresh batch of homemade butter, and you're ready to slap ya crazy granny

Big Man still needs to work on shaping the little loafs for a more accurate look, but the taste can't be beat.
Then, there is dessert. We have been stuck on chocolate cake here lately, but a whole cake is not a very good idea, because we hate to waste food, so we try awful hard to eat the whole thing before ti dries out. So, Big Man cut the recipe in half this week, and we made a small cake that was more diet friendly.
The trick is how do you half an egg?  The original recipe calls for three eggs. Lucky for us, we have a backyard full of chickens, and every now and again when our girls get spooked, or they just get a wild shell up their butts, we get a yolk free egg, as you can see.

Aaaaaannnnnd our half egg problem is no more. You just can't beat country living.

No cake mix either, all from scratch

Choco cake

Cupcake also whipped up a batch of peanut butter bars. They are made like preacher cookies, only we used honey and peanut butter, mixed over steel cut oats. They soaked up over night, and were a tasty treat the next morning.

And it appears the blog camera got hacked over the weekend, because we found a "hose yanker" on the roll of pictures when we set down to do the update.

We ended the week with wings.
K&K

Back to our Regularly Scheduled Program

The holidays are over, the tree and decorations have been down all week, and it's time to get back to doing what we do around The Acre.
Cupcake is elbow deep into seed catalogs, planning the new garden. Big Man is whipping up smoked meat and baked goods. The only hitch in our get-a-long this week was Kattie Grace's gall bladder.
She has been sick to her stomach for a while, and it got so she couldn't eat anything without getting sick. Cupcake took her to see Dr. "Puddin," and he said it had to come out. Tuesday, girlfriend went under the knife and came out like a champ. Unlike some of her family, who we won't throw shade on in this blog (crazy granny) who limped around like she'd been gutted like a fish, Kattie Grace was up and around like the doc ordered. Fully recovered by Friday.
Side note: 15 year old girls are a hoot when they are under anesthesia.
To thank "Puddin," Big Man made him a chocolate cake, with his soon to be world famous cream cheese icing, as a thank you.

From scratch, no cake mix around The Acre

Kattie Grace has her last Post-Op Monday, so hopefully she will be back to normal by the start of school.
The first day of the year was this past week, and we stick to tradition with the first meal of the new year, as many do. Smoked brisket, black eye peas with chopped country ham, and collards. Good luck to us in the coming year. We got a new cast iron pot during Christmas, and we put that bad boy to good use with the black eye peas. Cupcake says it's her new favorite cast iron.

Breaking in the new pot

 We made use of leftover smoked chicken one night. Big Man whipped up a cast iron skillet full of chicken pot pie.

Putting our fresh eggs to use, Cupcake made a big batch of egg salad for her lunch this week.

We had a Star Wars connection, with the "Death Star" egg above. You can also see the makings of preacher cookies in the works. We love us some preacher cookies around here.
One of Cupcake's ideas with her herb garden. Drying the herbs was a messy job, especially since the mutt has been inside the house, nosing around in everything.

We found a lot of the herbs in the floor, but Mutt has no idea how they got there, so Cupcake took an old onion bag, and hangs the herbs now, out of nosy dog range.

We ended our week with chicken wings.
Happy New Year all!!
K&K