Weekend Update August 24-25

The 80's crowd will get it...

Another busy week here at The Acre, and it's beginning to look a lot like fall

 

But still have plenty of summer left too

 As promised earlier, we have had our eye on a big ol batch of wild (Fox) grapes. This weekend was the time to get busy picking. We picked a little over a bushel, these are the last two baskets from yesterday

Old timers talk about two uses for wild grapes. Jelly and wine. We got busy doing both this weekend. First the jelly. We heated about a half bushel in water until the water just started to boil, then removed the grapes and mashed them, then strained the juice.

We got about two gallons of juice from this pot, then it was off to the jelly factory.

We got our years worth of jelly out of this batch, all happy in the basement now

First thing Sunday morning we broke open a jar and tried it on buttermilk biscuits, as is our Sunday morning family tradition.

Cupcake and I have decided after tasting what the old folks talked about all this time, we will drive to the Smucker's factory and throw rocks at the building. There is no comparison to the stuff you buy in stores. We could eat this three meals a day.
After we got the jelly squared away, we used the remaining grapes and the pulp from the jelly to start up a batch of fox grape wine. A neighbor lady gave me a recipe from a local church group (I know, right?) and we followed the instructions to the letter. It's a 20 day cycle, so we are three weekend updates away from a taste test and pictures of bottles. But here is the start.

After all this, Pop's came through with another shopping bag full of tomatoes, so that means another canning of tomato sauce. We mixed things up this week, and slow cooked it in the crock pot. We are not afraid to try new things here at The Acre.

 Six more quarts of sketti sauce ready for a long winter downstairs on the shelf. And as always, we leave you for "Chicken wing Sunday"

Have a great day, and a better tomorrow :)
K&K

Junk Deere

It's hard for a person like me to admit he's an idiot, but today when the idiot's get together, they will call me "Boss". I fell victim to media hype and bought a John (Junk) Deere mower/tractor/green and yellow turd.
2008, I was just retired with a career ending wound, building a log home, and had plenty of free time on my hands and just retired pension money burning a hole in my pocket. Since I had so much free time I told my Pop I would help care-take our family cemetery. To do so meant I needed a mower, so off to S.G. Wimmer and Sons I went. I picked out one of the new fangled all wheel steering X300 models, so new the man who sold it to me had to look it up to order it. June 21st it arrived and I brought it home, full of wonder and expectations.

About one week into my wonder, I noticed the rear tires were dry rotted. The man who sold it to me is a neighbor and fishing buddy of my fathers, so I showed the brand new used once mower to him, and he agreed, yes in deed, the tires were dry rotted. Promised to make good on the tires, until I went to get the new tires, then it was an issue with the tire people, not S.G. Wimmer. Being they were so new, I had to order two off the internet from Wisconsin or some damn place far off, because nobody in the state had any in stock.

To add to my glee, the mower wouldnt start one morning. It had a total of 7 hours on it, so I couldnt imagine what was wrong, so back to S.G.'s I go with it. About a week later they call, said there is a switch that went bad, been replaced, come get it. That switch would go out six more times in two years, along with a dry rotted drive belt, a blade spindle and to top it all off, if you use the choke to start the green and yellow turd, the choke sticks, burning about 3X the gas at 1/2 the power.

Today I'm mowing my lawn with the Junk Deere, when it displayed another famous trait of the mower. It spins on a spot of chicken snot. If one rear tire hits anything wet, slick or the slightest incline, you can bet it's going to sit and spin. The other tire will be on solid dry dirt, but only the one on the wet spot will pull, guaranteed. So today I'm sitting and spinning, back up a smidge then try again, still spin, back up a little more, still spin. Then it got the notion to just slide down hill into my electric fence while I'm steady trying to pull forward. If you've ever touched an electric fence, you know you let go ASAP, but imagine hitting it right at kidney level, unable to jump off without tearing down the entire section of fence. So there I sat, getting a jolt of juice every couple of seconds until I could set the parking brake and climb over the hood to get off. Today was an all new episode in bladder and bowel control.


I've promised my Facebook followers that I'm one bad episode with this piece of crap away from rolling it into the hole I use to burn trash, cranking off a couple dozen .45 APC rounds into it just to get the petroleum products nice and flowing, then tossing a road flare on top of it and posting the video to You Tube. Today moved me one step closer to going viral.
If you must have a green and yellow turd in your home, this one is the only one I can begin to recommend.

  I would still feel safe in giving odds the thing wont start when you need it, or will put you into an electric fence first chance it gets.
Just K today

Aug 17-18 Update

It was a slow week here at the Acre. Big Man has been recovering from Lyme disease, and a thirty day regimen of anti-biotics. Hardest part was not being able to work outside in the sun. He referred to himself as "Vampire Bill" for a month.
Towards the end of the week we managed to get another picking of cucumbers from the garden, so that means another batch of "them yellow pickles".

Pop came through with another batch of tomatoes, so we made another batch of tomato sauce, once again using fresh basil from Cupcake's herb garden.

We also managed a small picking of October beans from the garden. These last two rows were heirloom seeds from a neighbor lady, said the seed had been in her family for 80+ years, so we will be cutting out a bag of them to keep the tradition alive. While we were in the garden, Kattie Grace and J.B. found the camera.....

And snapped a few photo's of our sunflowers too...

The last pic of the post is "Fraidy Mutt" helping us hull October beans. She will steal and eat green beans, but these she would actually break open and knock the beans out of the hull without eating them. Crazy dog.

That's our week so far. It's chicken wing Sunday, so all is right with the world.
K&K

Weekend Update Aug 10-11

This weekend was typical with one exception. Usually our Saturday involves driving the kids to their dad's for a visit. This weekend J.B. used his new wheels to do the honors, and K&K got a nap in :)

We had a crock full of cucumbers, so we made another batch of pickles. This batch was all cucumbers, no onion or peppers. We like to mix it up here at The Acre.

After our canning session, we decided to pick a few of the pumpkins we have turning, we love Fall and this is really getting us excited!!

Sunday after the customary chip beef gravy and buttermilk biscuit breakfast, we had free time on our hands, so we tried two different things to can. Cupcake found a recipe for tomato sauce, and we just happened to have two shopping bag full of tomatoes from Pop's garden on hand. We pureed tomatoes, an onion, several banana peppers, and one jalapeno pepper for zing.

We also added some fresh herbs from Cupcake's herb garden on the pack porch, fresh green basil and fresh purple basil, and oregano really gave it a great flavor.

After getting it happy, it simmered for two hours, then into the jars for canning.

Our second project was also new, squash relish. We grated the squash

 then chopped up an onion and mixed it all together with salt then refrigerated it for 24 hours.

After the salt worked it's magic, we made a sauce of water, sugar, vinegar, secret spices, brought to a boil, then added the squash/onion to it.

After five minutes, removed from heat and packed in jars for canning.

Just another weekend of filling up the basement shelves. This post is getting cut short, because Kattie Grace just rolled in with two friends in tow for a sleepover. Three lil girls, I'm sure we will be busy in a bit, plus it's "Chicken wing Sunday"  Hope every one had as great a weekend as we did.
K&K

 

Beef Brisket, Smoked

We bought a smoker two years ago. I thought "how hard could this be, I grew up with a wood stove, I got this". Yeah, apples and oranges as we came to learn. This is our beast today

Back in the day, you loaded the fire box up, closed the dampers, and had a steady heat all night. So naturally I did the same thing with the first few pieces of meat we tried to smoke. To quote my father "it was burnt". You hear all about smoked brisket so that was our first couple attempts. Both ended up getting tossed into the woods in a fit of anger and pizza was the meal of the night.
I later learned through asking friends who smoked meat, and a LOT of help from Smoking Meat we figured out a small fire with all the vents and dampers wide open was the way to go. This is what the smoke stack looks like when you have it right

One of the tricks learned from the web was to place your next few sticks of wood on top of the fire box, heating it up prior to placing it in the fire. This cuts down on the creosote in the smoke chamber and wont ruin the meat.

Now getting down to the meat portion of this story. A beef brisket when bought whole has two parts, the thick end, and the tip. I cut the brisket in half, smoking one or the other, today was the thick end. I rubbed the meat down with a dry rub, then placed it in a two gallon freezer bag. The brisket was left in the beer cooler for ten days to get all happy with flavor.

After the fire got going and we had a hot bed of coals, the brisket was placed in the smoke chamber and the thermometer was hooked up to it. For pull apart with your finger tender, your internal meat temp needs to be 200*, and I try to keep the smoke chamber at 250* the entire smoke.

About five hours into the cook, we opened her up to add water to the water tray, and this was what we had

Once the internal temp was right, we took the brisket off and wrapped it in foil, and then wrapped in in two towels to hold the heat, and let the meat 'rest' for about three hours. Then the magic moment when we cut her open to slice

We are pretty sure you could cut this one with a butter knife, it was just falling apart tender. This morning, one slice was sacrificed for breakfast. Sliced thin with a slice or two of onion

As "Melquita" use to say...If it feeds you twice, it's worth the price. This one did. Hope y'all enjoy reading about it as much as we enjoyed eating it.
K&K

Fried Green Tomatoes

If one lives where we live, one should know how to make fried green tomatoes. It just so happens Cupcake loves them, and I do know how, so it works out pretty well around The Acre. First and foremost, you have to have the proper prep items.

This stuff is the fried batter secret of all secrets. If you can find it, buy it by buggy full. We start with  a nice layer of seasoned flour, then add corn starch, plain corn meal (not the self rise stuff) salt, pepper and I always throw in a little "Slap Ya Mamma". The second trick to our fried food is a bread-erer. I don't have any idea what you really call it, but here it is.

You place your flour in the bottom, then add the tomatoes. We cut ours thick and give them a good soak/shake in a half gallon bag with whole buttermilk.

After you get them well coated, drop them into the flour mix, put the white middle part on, then the top and shake well. Turn the container upside down, and the free flour falls through the holes, leaving a well breaded tomato slice.

After you get them breaded, off they go into a cast iron skillet with just enough oil to make them float. I have no set time for frying them, I just flip them when they look ready, then take them off when they look ready.

I would show y'all the finished product, but we got a little excited and polished them off before dinner. But I did manage a picture of the tuna casserole and fresh baked dinner rolls.

Not a bad meal considering it was mow the yard on the "Junk Deere" mower day.  Hope everyone enjoys
K&K

New Weekend, More Canning....

As per usual, the weekend here at The Acre is a busy one. Saturday was a back to school shopping day, plus Jacob's pick-up truck had the finishing touches put on it, and he is now in possession of his first set of wheels. Cupcake is a little on edge, but I fondly remember my first day of driving myself so I'm thrilled for the lad.
After the initial shock of J.B. being a little closer to being a grown-up, we got down to the business at hand.

First order of business was pickles. Our cucumbers are still producing, and we're still picking and canning the goodies. Nine more jars of "those yellow pickles" in the basement.

We're also very excited about a couple of finds in the wild. Well, one really wasn't a find, I've known about them for several years, but this year it's going to pay off (fingers crossed).

Wild grapes, or "Fox Grapes" as they are known here local

Old timers rave about juice, jelly and wine from these wild grapes. Depending on the results this year, we would like to make all three. Jelly for sure, so stay tuned.

Our second find was blueberry bushes.

We made out like a bandit when we stumbled upon them, and picked enough for five more jars of blueberry pie filling.

Plus the blackberry bushes are in full swing, and we had enough for four more jars of blackberry pie filling

Cobbler season is ready to jump off around here. We also picked our first two ears of Silver Queen corn yesterday. Next weekend I'm taking a brisket to the smoker in anticipation of "Rhulenbarb" to visit The Acre. Smoked brisket, roasted fresh potatoes and grilled garden corn update next weekend.
K&K