Next Step - Drink! Our New Corker

I forgot to show you dudes and chicks the sweet new setup we have for our wine making.  An integral part to the aging process is a proper seal.  That's why you should not mess around with corking your bottles.

It pays to spend a little extra the first time.  Zirn works with a guy who is buddies with the owner of Winfield Winery and he said to never waste your time or energy on a handheld corker, go with the tabletop style - so we did.

It's so simple and smooth.  I wish beer bottlers were this nice, then I could avoid that oxidation taste I seem to get in my beers.

The bottom support is spring loaded so the height of the bottle does not matter, and the head will hold any of the common sized corks.  Here it is bottling a batch of Dandelion Wine.

A few more shots of how well it works and how nice it looks:

Keep it corked yinz.

Recipe: Homemade Pancakes

Here's a recipe for homemade pancakes that has been 5 years in the making.  Our hand written recipe book includes no less than 10 pancakes recipes (this seems to happen to most when trying to replicate IHOP).  We have finally developed a recipe that is fast, easy, and tastes great.

Tim and Jul's Homemade Pancakes

 Ingredient List:

1 1/4 Cup Flour

1 Egg

1 1/4 Cup Butter Milk (or regular milk with a dash of cider vinegar added).

1/8 Cup Sugar

1 heaping teaspoon of baking powder.

1/2 teaspoon of baking soda.

2 tablespoons melted butter (hey, I didn't say it was fat free)

1 tablespoon of vegetable oil.

Pinch of Salt.

Sift the flour, baking soda, and baking powder into a bowl with the sugar and salt.  

Mix the milk with the egg (beaten).  Add the cooking oil and the cooled melted butter.  BE SURE THE BUTTER IS COOLED.  If not it will clump and affect your outcome.

Once you have all of your wet and dry ingredients combined separately, mix them together but only mix lightly.  Mix only enough to combine the wet and the dry and then STOP.  Do not beat it like you're beating an egg.  Very lightly is the key.

Put your whisk down and walk away for at least 15 minutes.  

In the mean time pre-heat your griddle or griddle pan to 375 degrees, or medium high.

When the pancake mixture has formed bubbles on the surface, it is ready to go.  At this point if you are in the mood for thicker or thinner pancakes add a little water or flour to change your consistency but be careful.  The entire dish can be ruined as easily as it was made.

You know how to do the rest.  Watch for air pockets forming and then exhaling.  Once the top of your pancake is full of vacant air bubbles it's time to flip.

Flip it, cook until done, then serve with melted butter on top and real maple syrup.

Keep it griddle.   

The Day My Fall Garden Died

The Chevy was at the barn, not the levee.

Thursday, Friday, Saturday, and Sunday night of the previous week and weekend we spent chasing two 2000 pound heifers around the farm.  Somewhere they were (and are still) escaping the pasture.  Yeah! What are you doing this weekend!?  I'm fixing a fence!

Anyway, the purpose of this post is to eulogize my first ever fall planted garden.  I had grand hopes and dreams of carrots from the garden well into the winter, Detroit Red Beets the size of softballs, and beautiful white headed cauliflower.  The spinach and Swiss Chard were growing great and we had been enjoying their green super food-awesomeness. 

Little did I know until yesterday while on a pepper picking extravaganza that cows eat spinach TOO!!!  AND CHARD, AND CARROTS, AND BEETS, AND PEAS, AND EVEN SOME TYPES OF PEPPERS!!!! 

Jerks.  Oh well, a lesson for next year - butcher annoying cows before they're smart enough to escape fences and eat all of your hard work.  Other than the sudden and bitter end to the garden season coming sooner than I had anticipated, I did have a great pepper harvest!

This second photo is not showing the almost full bushel of banana peppers that I ended up canning which you can see in the first one.

Lots of chilies.  I roasted and canned some earlier this season and they turned out great.  I'll most likely do that with these as well as freezing them.

Almost time for Habenero Hot Sauce!  These are a different variety this year.  Mustard Habeneros.  They're a bit larger and thinner walled.  They taste great.



I tried a new recipe for canned banana peppers from a friend.  They're packed in a sweeter than normal brine with the addition of mustard and celery seeds.  They're awesome, I'll post it in a few days. 

We still have a lot of peppers that will need picked prior to the frost and luckily cows don't seem to like the chilies.  If they change their minds - anyone want some beef???

Keep it spicy yo. 

Canning Whole Tomatoes

This time of year prohibits those of us who are gardener-food preserving-football loving-Sunday school teaching-hunting-father of two-husbands from doing much of anything besides those things that are mentioned, but I do want to be sure to continue to list recipes.

This blog WAS initially intended to merely be a place where I could list all of the recipes I have accumulated over the years instead of them being in a small notebook that I have to leaf through every time I need to find something - and it still is.  Hopefully those that care know to check back here if ever there is something they would like to re-visit.

In the coming days I will be posting a few of the more popular recipes in my notebook, Habenero Hot Sauce and my Homemade Pancake recipe (yes Cole, you will be able to return anytime you want to make them).

In the mean time I wanted to update on a few things that have been happening since the last post.  I canned whole tomatoes the other day, and plan on doing more tomorrow.  This is a great way to preserve the tomato harvest that requires little time and effort, and the opportunities are endless as to how you use them throughout the winter.  Soups, chili, sauces, tomato juice, etc.  The list goes on and on.

Start by removing the upper cores and any bad spots on the tomatoes.  I do this to all of the tomatoes before moving on to the next step.  Do whatever works best for you.

While you're cleaning the tomatoes up, have a pot of water coming to a boil on the stove.  You are going to blanch the tomatoes for 20-40 seconds in the boiling water and then immediately remove them from the boiling water and place them in a cold water bath.  This will allow the skins to slip off with just a pinch.

There are two ways to proceed from here.  You can can the whole tomatoes in water, or you can can the tomatoes in their own juice.  I always can them in their own juice.  The jars do not look nearly as nice, and it's a tad messier, but the flavor cannot be beat.

If you plan on canning the tomatoes in water bring a clean pot of water to a boil and tightly pack the skinned tomatoes into jars.  Pack them tightly but not so tight that you're changing the shape of the tomatoes, that will ruin your eye pleasing look.  Once the tomatoes are packed nicely, pour the boiling water over them leaving 1/2 inch head space.

If you plan on canning the tomatoes in their own juice simply fill your jars with the tomatoes and smash them together until you have enough juice to have only 1/2 inch head space.  Be sure to use a small spatula to remove any air bubbles when doing either technique.

Place both quarts and pints into a boiling water canner and process for 1 hour and 25 minutes.  Remove, cool, check seals, enjoy.

Keep it whole dudes.