More weekend chores.

You may remember a post I had a while back where I talked about food storage and posted a picture of some of ours. The picture that I posted was zoomed in a bit because, frankly, the cold storage room had become a mess. A little bit at a time, one thing after another, things got added, stacked and piled. Well, this weekend no more!

I finally got in there and went through stuff, checked dates, rotated and re stacked. I moved all the edibles in the storage up to the higher shelves, so they are harder to overlook and forget about. I also made space to stack and store the bags of wheat that we recently acquired. I'm much happier about it and with any luck I can stay on top of it and keep it this way. I'll be taking a note from Farm Mom, and trying to set up a system to keep track of our storage.

While I was down in the cold storage, I went threw the storage potatoes that we bought from our local grower at the end of the season approx. a month and a half ago. We haven't eaten any of them yet, and we don't plan to until into January. The reason for this is that we want to get a realistic idea of how long and how well they will store for future years. We don't want to make an investment in growing or buying a large number of potatoes until we know for sure we are able to keep them properly. Anyway, as I was saying, I went threw the mesh bag that they came in and picked out the few that were bad or getting that way. Then I repacked the remainder in a cardboard box with a bit of paper crunched into the bottom and a couple of sheets over the top loosely. A few of the potatoes were beginning to sprout eyes, and I have read that this is caused by too much light, I hope that the covering will keep them in the dark and prolong their dormancy. We'll see huh?

Finally, yogurt. The last thing I did this weekend was the last thing I did last weekend as well. I made a batch of yogurt. Last weekend I tried a new recipe, that I really liked. It was a vanilla yogurt and was the best I think I've ever had. Smooth, rich, almost custardy. This weekend I tweaked it a little for the vanilla batch that I made, adding just a little less dry milk at the end to see if I could lighten the texture a bit. I also tried making some just for the kids. I added a tsp of orange extract, and a 1/4 tsp of vanilla to half the batch to make a "Orange Creamsicle" type. To the other half I added root beer flavoring. I know, Root beer yogurt? I asked them what they thought would be good and that's what I got, so what to do? They said they were both alright, but needed a little bit more flavor. I'm close, next batch perhaps I'll nail it. I have really grown to love this stuff though. The vanilla yogurt topped with a spoonful of our homemade plum jam has become my breakfast of choice. The best method that I have come up with to incubate the jars is to pour the hot water from sterilizing the jars into a cooler with a little cool water, close and leave over night. It's cheap, it's available, and best of all, it works every time so far.



Well, as I said the other day. This weekend was a bit of a homesteading weekend. For those of you wondering if all we did all weekend was work the answer is no. I think we're beginning to feel like a lot of the things we're doing around the house aren't actually work, because the benefits are so good. We get to spend time together, our kids are eating better than most, and hey, I still got in a couple of hours of football to boot! (Even though my wife is clobbering me in our football pool; must be beginners luck. I wonder why I never get any of that?)

Till next time.

P~