Freezing Fresh Asparagus

We recently decided to make a trip around the corner (Not literally, but darn near...) to our local U-pick-it farm, Day Farms in West Layton, UT to pick ourselves a few pounds of fresh asparagus to put up for this year.

Of course we always eat some of it fresh in the spring as well, but asparagus is one of those very short season crops that we really enjoy having at other times of the year. We can either pay the price, both in dollars and in "food miles", to get it all year long, or we can take a little bit of time when that crop is in season here to not only enjoy it fresh but put some up for later. So that's what that afternoon was about.

After the trip to the farm, where we picked six pounds of asparagus - which cost us a mere $9.00 by the way - we brought it home and immediately soaked it in cool water to let any dirt fall from it and to make sure the spears stayed fully hydrated and crisp while we prepped for freezing them.

The first thing we did was to prep a few pound at a time by trimming off the ends of the shoots. After that we needed to blanch the asparagus in a boiling water bath.

NOTE: If your processing quite a few pounds of asparagus, or any other food for that matter, it can be tempting to try to use a big pot and do a lot at one time. Don't. You'll cool the water off too much and won't get a good blanch. Also, it's easier to work with smaller batches, a pound or two max, at a time.

Blanch your spears of asparagus for between two and four minutes depending on the thickness; ours were all a medium size so we went for two minutes.

After the blanch, you'll need to immediately place them into a cold ice bath to shock them and stop the cooking immediately. Leave them in here for a few minutes until they are completely cool. Usually the time between batches is perfect.

This next step isn't necessarily "in the book" but it's one we took anyway. We laid the spears out on a wire rack to let then drop dry a little. Isn't the color Amazing?! The reason we took this step was because we will be freezing them and excess water will only add ice and too much ice can cause damage to the end product.

After they've dried a bit, we laid them out on a parchment lined cookie sheet in one layer and placed them in the freezer. We've found that it's better to freeze our vegetables this way rather than to bag them first and then freeze because it sort of coats the product in an individual ice shield and allows you to remove what you need later one at a time rather than having one big lump of whatever it is.

After the spears are just frozen through, we separated them out into individual spears and vac-packed them in our new kitchen tool for this year. (We allow ourselves one handy time saver or food prep item per year generally.) We packed them in to groups of 30/pk to allow for five so per family member per meal and a possibility of a couple of left overs for lunch for me the next day.

We packed up 8 or 9 bags of these and will probably try for some more this weekend. Of course, there's other things to do with asparagus too... like pickles and soup...
Stay tuned!

P~

A new Food Dehydrator...FREE for you!!

Last week I mentioned what happens when opportunity knocks.

Today I'd like to help it knock on your door.

Part of what I told the representative from CSN stores was that I was not willing to endorse a company to the people that trust me enough to take the time to invest in what I have to say, without having any experience with their company. Well, I did. I ordered the Dehydrator you see on the right from their housewares store and have actually been amazed with the service. After the order was placed, I received quick confirmation. Then, shortly after, I was informed of the shipping schedule; order would ship in 3-5 days... I figured I'd have it this week some time. What surprised me was the notification that I got the next day that my order had been bumped up (free of charge) and was on it's way. The next day it was on my doorstep! I would never have thought it would come so fast.

So then, the next part of what I arranged to do was to pass on the giving to you! If was happy with the service, then I was willing to share that with you in the form of another FREE food dehydrator. It's my first give away, and I can't think of a better item. With the upcoming season upon us I just know there has to be someone out there that could use one of these babies. After all, it may only come with 4 trays but it's expandable to 12!

So here's what I'm asking for from you. Don't just leave a comment on the post, share a little something with me please. If you've been a reader for some time, let me know what you enjoy about my blog. If you're a new reader, I'd love to know what led you here or what you're looking for. Help me be a better blogger and get a chance at a FREE FOOD DEHYDRATOR!

I'm Looking forward to it. Share with your friends or link to this post if you like, but either way one entry per person please. I'll announce a winner in one week, so that's March 11th.
Good luck!
Paul~

For the love of "Scratch"

I've been meaning to put this post up for a week but just haven't had the time to crop photos and make the post. I just can't let my wife go un-heralded though. She starting working this year, and has been recognized for all the talents that I knew she had which has led to more demand for her at work. The best part is that she's working with me (in a way) so I get to hear all about how great she is to which I look at people and say " Um, yeah?!! I know!".

Yet even with that, and a shoulder that is still giving her pains from our car accident a few months back, she continues to bless us with such good food... and so often from scratch!

Like these cheese rolls:
They're a big time family favorite. How could you not love homemade bread wrapped around a tasty cheesy middle? And if you glaze the top with salted butter it leaves the golden brown color with a just a hint of saltiness. MMMmmm MMMmmm good!

They're great with a bowl of homemade chili too.And I can't say enough how nice it is to make chili that just screams from flavor because its made with canned tomatoes and tomato sauce from your own homegrown tomatoes, fresh onions from the cold storage and green chili's that we picked from a local farm and canned ourselves. If you haven't had the pleasure of fresh food from ripe ingredients you have not lived!

For dessert we feasted on a brand new recipe for scratch made yellow cake made bright yellow of course with the dark golden yolks of our back yard chickens eggs.A~ found a new way to make the chocolate frosting that is the creamiest and tastiest that we've had.

It's one thing to talk about eating from the storage cabinet and survival food has it's place, but honestly, the best gift gained from building the habit of growing and putting up your own food and learning the ways of preparing it on a regular basis is really just in the enjoying of your labors and the flavors that they bring.

Hmm, I think I'm getting hungry again just talking about it. Life is good. Some days better than others, but days like this are among the best!
Best to you all.
P~

June 21st - 30th (update I)

Well, The weeks been a busy one. I was home from work the entire week of the 22-26th sick. I had flu and pneumonia symptoms and so didn't get too much done. At least on my own. I managed to help A~ get some stuff done, but I have to give it up to her for holding down the farm and keeping things going.

The thing is, regardless of the fact that our home and garden isn't truly "A Farm", because of the level of activities that we have going on here, there are times when things just need to be done. Sick or not. I did what I could, helped her out and did some chores during the days, but mostly I have to give her credit for a lot of this weeks updates. There will be three of them so settle in. This post is dedicated to the garden harvests from this last week.Peas came on really hard the last couple of weeks and this week we managed to put up the first stores of the year into the cold storage. This is a picture of our first case of peas. Total we put up two cases of them. We've had fresh peas too of course, but this should give us enough to have a can every two weeks until next year. That's an odd way to think of it but it's kind of the way that we're starting to look at stuff more and more.Strawberries are hot this week too. This strainer weighed in at 8 lbs and I picked another a couple days later that was just sightly larger. (This was about as long as I could stand to be upright during the day. I measured my vertical moments in harvest quantities...yeah, I'm a gardener.)The early red potatoes that we planted on St. Patrick's day have grown nicely but, I think, because of our very wet spring and the fact that these potatoes are at the down hill side of our patch, these potatoes have been beginning to die and showing signs of blight.We decided, since these were planted to have an early harvest young potatoes, we would go ahead and curtail the spread of blight by harvesting them. We harvested just shy of 19 lbs. ( to give an idea, it filled a five gallon bucket 3/4 full.)Tonight also brought us our first tomato. It's an Early Girl tomato that I bought as a large start specifically for this purpose. Early tomatoes. There's a bunch not too far behind. In the next couple of weeks I should start seeing them regularly.The Kohlrabi has done very well too. We brought in a good second harvest last week as well.Things to come will include this Casaba melon that's starting to set fruits. I think I've only had one once, but I'm really looking forward to them! June has proven to be a great month for us. This time last year, we totalled just over 30 lbs of food harvested. So far for 2009 we're at 168 lbs as of tonight! Over 5 times as much!! Whoo hoo.

More to come...
P~

A vegetarian alternative

This weekend we decided to try a little something new.

The recipe we started with was for wheat gluten, but we've also eaten it under the name Seitan. It's a solid vegetarian alternative to meat, easy to make and inexpensive to boot. What we started with was a dough like mixture of fresh ground (not store bought) wheat flour (10 cups) and water (5 cups).That's it, just mix it in a large bowl and let it sit at least overnight. Ours sat nearly 30 hrs; no problem with that.
After letting it sit, we turned it out into a bowl that was filled with 20 cups of warm water. I personally can't see why it had to be 20 cups, but I think it has to do with the potential uses for the water later.At this point what we needed to do was to knead the dough like it was a regular bread dough, but do it under water. The reason we're doing this is to "wash" the starches from it. You can see the milky color of the water. Those are the starches separating from the gluten in the dough mixture.After rinsing the mixture for about 3-5 minutes, we put it into a colander to further rinse under warm water until the water ran clear. What we were left with was a strangely elastic and web like mass that was made up of the pure wheat gluten.After letting it sit for a few minutes, we pressed it out (not rolled, but pressed) onto a cutting board where it strangely did not stick at all. To do this we had to press it out slowly and give it a minute or two to settle and then press it out further.Next we cut the wheat gluten into strips. And here is where we differed from the recipe that we had.We decided to follow the process of seitan rather than the purely wheat gluten recipe. What we did was to boil the seitan in a mixture of water, broth, soy sauce and seasonings. Note: start with cold liquid and bring to a low heat and cook partially covered for at least 1 hr.This is the finished seitan. Cooked, seasoned and ready to use in any kind of dish where you might use something like beef chunks or chicken strips.I was dying to give it a try so I decided to give it a shot sauteed with some onions and egg for a nice omelet. The texture was really nice. Not chewy at all, and not too soft either. I would like to have had the seitan have a bit more flavor to begin with as it was still just a bit "wheaty" but I think if it is marinaded in some Worcestershire or soy before a slow saute, it would be even better.

We hope to make this a regular addition to our menu in the future as we try to become more self sufficient and to eat a healthier diet. I'm going to state the obvious here, but if you or any one in your family has a gluten intolerance, this is DEFINITELY not the food for them as it it pure wheat gluten.

I hope you'll give it a try.
Bon appetite~
P~

A real treat!

I thought I'd share what a great Mom I have. Not only does she read my blog, she takes some of my cues by hanging her clothes out and starting a compost pile, and now she's hooked her "little" boy up with some winter goodness! Check these out...Huh? Was I lying? My mom sent these to me nearly two months ago (actually could be longer, I can't remember the date.) out of the blue. When I was 15 and we moved into the house they live in now there was what I remember thinking was probably the ugliest, scraggliest little tree in the corner of the parking area to the side of the house. I later learned that it was a pomegranate tree and that I liked pomegranates! I didn't live there for too long after high school and really didn't pay attention to it the last time I was back there, but that sucker is now taller than the garage!

According to Mom, they got 140 pom's from the tree this year! She sent me a few along with a note that I could store them for a couple of months very easily. I, of course, figured that that was worth a try and they've sat in the back of the fridge since I got them. Today I decided the time was "ripe" and dug one out for a taste test. It was perfect just like she said.

I also thought I'd pass on the tip that she included. Cut them open with a knife, but peal and separate the seed pods gently under some running water to keep from staining your fingers. Miracle of miracles, I can go to work tomorrow after having handled pomegranates without looking like I killed someone the night before!

Thanks for sharing Mom! Now I just need to establish some good lemon tree root stock so I can cut a grafting from your lemon tree. The lemons you brought me last year are still the best ones I've ever had!

Love ya Ma!
See the rest of you tomorrow...
P~

It's like Christmas!!..... In November?

Or at least it seems that way. A~'s Dad got to our house today, all the way out from West (by God) Virgina for Thanksgiving. He drove all the way out and had planned the trip for months, but how he managed to time it perfectly for the lowest gas prices in years I'll never know. Either way, he's here now and we're glad to have him.

Since he drove out, he was able to bring out a few things from WV that he otherwise wouldn't have been able to. A~'s Mom, at our request, had gone out to a couple of second hand stores in their area to look for stone crocks for us. From what I understand they searched for somewhere in the neighborhood of an hour and picked these two up for us. They're in really good shape too! The one on the left is a beautiful six gallon crock and the other is a two gallon one. We've looked here for crocks, and have only found them in one shop. That six gal one would have probably set us back close to $150.00. Hence, the reason we have been thus far crockless. Ilex, a blog-friend has a beautiful collection of crocks that I've been so envious of, and she made a great point the other day in a reply to me, as a matter of fact, that was pretty spot on I think. Crocks are one of those things in American culinary history that really don't exist in the west. I mean I'm sure they were used to a point, but were never as big as they were in areas east of the Mississippi. We have some now though, so fermented pickles are on the radar for next season, and oh the sauerkraut I can make in that six gallon baby!! We had some tonight as a matter of fact, after we unloaded the crocks and got to talking about them and the things we'll make, which naturally lead to talking about kraut, which made us all hungry. Fortunately for us, my latest batch of kraut has just gotten edible and we had kielbasa and brats in the fridge so that was a no-brainer.

So here's what I need to know, what kind of crock-made goodies have any of you made? Do you have recipies to share, or books that you recommend I add to the winter reading list? I'm really excited about exploring this ancient method of preserving foods. Thanks so much T~, I really appreciate the time and thought that you put into finding these for us, they'll be put to good use!

Oh yeah, and guess what else? That's not it, we got two other great surprises from Mom, but you'll have to wait until tomorrow for those. (Ain't I a tease??)
P~

I've got Leather Britches!

Yeah, and their green and kinda slowly getting wrinkly and...oh wait, you didn't think I meant like actual "leather britches" did you? No no no no no... that's just not something that anyone would want to see!

What I'm talking about is green bean leather britches. Strings of green snap beans that are dried to preserve them for later use. It's one of the oldest ways of preserving food, and one I'm excited to see how it works out. Here's what they look like in my cold storage downstairs.
When A~ was out in West Virginia she spent some time talking with her mom about the kind of things we are doing out here; growing, harvesting and preserving food for instance. As they talked, T~ (that's her mom...) reminded her of stringing leather britches when she was little. A~ said it was like a little door to her past opened up and she could totally remember it and couldn't believe she had never remembered it on her own. I was intrigued, having never heard of it, so of course with the glut of beans we've had this year I had to at least give it a try.

Here's a detail of how the beans have been strung up to dry. I started one with a darning needle and a strong but thin string (I used crochet string.) through a thick bean, tied the string around it and then proceeded to string the beans through the center onto the string.
It's a lot like stringing cranberries or popcorn for garland. After stringing about three feet of beans, I doubled the strings over and tied them together. These I hung over the old curtain rod downstairs to dry.

After I did a little research, I found out that this kind of preservation of beans is a very common and very traditional method of preserving the harvest in Appalachia. If you have a few minutes, this is a very interesting read about some of the ways leather britches are cooked and some of the history of the Appalachian cooking and methods. These are the kind of gems of knowledge that are out there in the world around us, but are hidden in plain sight for the most part. But, if we take the time to ask questions and share about the things that we're working on, and then actually listen to their answers, I think we'd be surprised how much useful and traditional information is out there for us.

I'm so thankful for the great Appalachian heritage that A~ brings to our home. We'll certainly think of it fondly while we're warmed by a hot bowl of vegetable soup with leather britches on a cold night this winter. Just one more way to preserve, extend and make the most of the harvest.

Till tomorrow.
P~

100 Ft Diet and Harvest Keepers - Sauerkraut

At the beginning of September I wrote that I had decided to try my hand at making some homemade, very simple recipe, traditional Sauerkraut. That's it below, when I had just put it into the jar and crock. I only made a batch that called for 5 lbs of shredded cabbage and used some cabbage from our garden. Cabbage that was specifically planted with this idea in mind. Now I've never really been a huge sauerkraut eater; it's not something that we ate a lot of as I grew up, but I decided a few years back that it was something I wanted to "try again" and you know, I liked it. It wasn't something that I would get cravings for or anything but it was alright. So why make a concerted effort to grow cabbage, and make the stuff from scratch right? The answer is pretty simple actually. Because this is one of those foods that is easy to make, is very healthy, can be used as a condiment or as a main course dish and most importantly is a food that can be stored for long periods with simple methods making it a very good staple food to know how to make.
And now, a month and a week later, I have this. I jar with some slowly lacto-fermented cabbage, that when smelled is absolutely amazing! I now get why this stuff got to be so darned popular in the first place. The brine that developed around the cabbage is a slightly salty, almost kosher pickle tasting flavor and the cabbage itself still retains a lot of it's original texture, while being soft enough for us to know it's done. Here's a closeup.
I was worried about the liquid getting funky or moldy while it sat in the cold storage, but brine filled plastic bag that sealed the top off worked perfectly. That is absolutely the way to go by the way.

After we took the kraut out of the jar and started warming it over the stove, the smell of it was making our mouths water. Add a beer boiled brat, some steamed dill potatoes and popovers and you've got yourself a German dinner extraordinaire!
The best part of it all was that we only used a little more that 1/4 of what I made, and better yet, I harvested a 6 lb cabbage tonight that's going to make more of this tasty stuff for the winter.

If you've never tried it, and even if your not traditionally a Kraut lover, I encourage you to give this very simple recipe a try. I have to verify it, but I believe it was just 3 tbsp of salt (pickling preferably) to each five lbs of cabbage. I used the Salt Lake salt that I made a couple of months back. It worked great and helped to make this a totally local food product! You add the salt to the cabbage in a large bowl and mix it with your hands well, then pack in a crock or the largest jar you have (food safe buckets are also supposed to work well in place of large crocks.) and cover the top with either a weighted plate, or better yet, a large brine filled bag. Let it sit in a cool (60-70 deg F) room for a few weeks, cleaning the cover off regularly and voila! Sauerkraut. Or better yet, go to your library and rent "The joy of pickling" and check out the many different recipes that they have in it.
Good luck, and go make some Kraut!
P~

Harvest Savers 8-21-08

This weekend past, and yes I apologize for my neglect this week, I had a deadline at work that needed to be met today and well, let's just say that I had my hours for the week plus a few for next week in the bag by this afternoon so I was a bit preoccupied working to support my gardening habit. But as I was saying; this past weekend, we were able to put up a few more jars of food from the garden. Our boys loved the bread and butter pickles that we put up last year, and begged us to make more so with our first harvest of our pickle cucumbers we made 4 quarts of them. A~ worked hard on Sunday, while I was actually at the office for a few hours. When I returned she surprised me with those two quarts of red goodness. Pickled beets! I can't wait to break into those babies. She also took 6 pounds of our hamson and san marzano tomatoes and made a great smelling spaghetti sauce that we canned. Three pint jars full and one nearly full that we'll be eating soon.
We also did something a little different this time.

We used our fire pit for the hot water bath method that we used to can with. It was all very "Little house on the prairie". The last time we did any major canning, we noted how much it raised the temperature of the house. Since we have been trying to use as many passive cooling methods as possible to keep the inside temps down, we didn't want to heat it up just to can a few quarts. A~ had gotten a good start already on the prep work in the kitchen, and I had gotten the pot set up as seen above and started the fire. Our 10 and 11 year boys were placed in charge of this and that was their contribution to the process. (I have to add here, that keeping a fire and respecting it is something we have worked on with them for some time, and at no time were they unsupervised for very long.) Using the fire worked very well and allowed us to burn off some scrap OSB that we had laying around.

Now that I realized that our fire pit can be used for more than just roasting marshmallows, I have a couple of things that I think I'll try out with it. Stay posted for that. I should have a few good "catch-up" posts that I've been meaning to get around to this weekend.

Thanks for the patience,

P~

Harvest Savers - Apricots

A couple of posts ago, I mentioned getting 9 lbs of apricots from a "good neighbors" yard that I had met just before she moved. Last weekend past we put up most of those for use later on through the year and processed some for our use now. It's something that we're trying to do more of, canning and preserving that is. Last year we did can some pickles and a little of this and that but this year we are making a concerted effort to do all that we can to eat what we can and can what we can't. This applies not only to food that we grow on our own, but as well to foods that we get at good prices from local farmers and you-pick-it farms and even to foods that are basically foraged such as the apricots we had this weekend. Foraging is not something that I'm too proud to do. In years past it was often looked at disdainfully to waste food. That includes food that grew wild, or was left unattended. I see it as a waste of Gods bounty and when I am able to take advantage of it (within the law and the bounds of good ethics of course) I will.

The apricots that we were able to get were very near there peak of ripeness and only a few of them were of sufficient firmness to be able to handle traditional canning without turning to mush. Because of this A~ decided to process nearly half of them into Apricot syrup to enjoy with our Saturday sourdough-pancake feasts. It came out incredible!

That's them in front, we got two pints and one half pint. In back you can see the three quarts and one pint of canned apricots. Of course we ate quite a few of them fresh as well. When we were processing for the canned apricots, we ended up with a few pieces of softer sections that wouldn't have canned well, but the rest of the fruit was firm. We cut those pieces off and A~ found a recipe for an apricot basil dressing that sounded tasty so we made up a big batch.

We've used it so far as a marinade for some chicken and it gave it a great flavor (although in the future we would salt the chicken before grilling it.) Have some extra apricots or find a great deal on some at the farmers market? Here's the recipe.

Apricot Basil Dressing
2 apricots
2 Tbsp. white wine vinegar
1 Tbsp. sugar
1tbsp fresh basil (or 1 tsp. dry basil)
1 /4 cup vegetable oil

Combine 2 fresh ripe apricots (pitted), 2 Tbsp. white wine vinegar and 1 Tbsp. sugar in blender, whirl until blended. With blender running, slowly add 1/4 cup vegetable oil until thick and smooth. Stir in 1 Tbsp. chopped fresh basil or 1 tsp dried basil. Makes 1 cup.

More canned stuff to come later. How're things canning up around your 'stead? Any great success? Failures? (They happen to us all... we lost a couple of cans of carrots earlier in the season, but I'll cover those to come.)

Have a great weekend all.

P~

The logo used at the top of this post is for the Harvest Keepers challenge sponsored by Path to Freedom.

Bags-O-Flour and food storage

I posted a while back about Food Storage. It's something that is very important to us. We are not yet to a point where we could go without commercial stores, but we are moving that direction. I'm not talking about being free of them for everyday needs, although we are certainly reducing our dependence on them, I'm talking instead about getting to a point where if there were a catastrophe, or food shortage, or monumental rise in food costs for a prolonged period we would be less impacted than we would if we were like every "normal" family out there. I don't want to scare anyone, and honestly I'm not scared myself, but I am cautiously pessimistic. That is to say I don't have enough faith in the current economy and global stability to not hedge my bets.

One of the primary things that goes hand in hand with having food storage is eating it. If you store a basement full of whole wheat, beans, rice, oats, etc. but you live daily on wonder bread, take-out and Big Gulps, your setting yourself up for failure in my opinion. We eat a lot of the foods that we store on or in our regular diet. Beans and rice are regular dishes around our house and many of the other foods like oats, flour, sugar and the like are of course regular additions to almost everything. We spent a little time with a borrowed wheat grinder this weekend grinding about 40 lbs of whole wheat flour that A~ will be starting to incorporate more into our diet as well. We placed it into 10 one-gallon zip lock bags and are going to store it in the chest freezer for later use. This is not the optimal way to use your flour just for the record. It will have some minor nutritive loss from sitting ground rather that grinding fresh, but it will be minor, and since we don't yet have our own grinder, we are at the mercy of the kindness of our neighbor.

Another component to this food storage formula will be a our 100ft diet. That's right, the garden! What better activity can we all incorporate in our homes than some sort of freedom garden. Grow things that you know your family will eat through the year, and preserve what you can for later. Try a couple of new plants too, but in limited quantities. Biodiversity is a necessity in a healthy garden, but you don't want to take up a lot of your growing space with something that you may not like. Particularly if your on a small suburban lot such as ours. Next year you can expand if you like it enough.

I began this post with a little bit of doom and gloom; a necessity, I thought, to make my point. I hope you get the point that yeah there may be some instability in the world, and yeah there's a good chance it'll get worse before it gets better. But this blog isn't about the bad things that might happen, it's about the possibilities that we CAN make happen. It's about making the possibilities...Realities. They won't happen overnight, but they will come if we decide that they will, and truly believe in them. One thing is certain though. Do nothing, and you will get exactly that in return.

Be well all. Tomorrow should be a very good post for you chicken lovers out there. Ooooo... the suspense...Till then.

P~

Food Storage guide. - A fairly comprehensive guide to starting a family food storage program.

What the? (That didn't work)

What the heck? Are they alien Spider Legs? Are they mutant man-eating worms? What are these fuzzy pinkish spine covered beasts??

Yeah your right, Their just really funky potatoes.

In case you don't remember, or have just joined me recently, I was testing the storage potential of our basement storage area over this winter and I guess you could say it didn't work out so well. We bought these "storage" potatoes in mid to late October, and wanted to test how they would do over the winter before trying to do this at a larger scale. The things I worried about were two fold; light and temperature. We regularly need to access the cold storage, so the lights are turned on often.

Also, after placing a thermometer in there, I found that the temperature stays at the high end of the 40 to 50 Deg F range. This is a warmer than I have read that potatoes like to stay in.

You may also be able to tell from the picture that these were a type of red potato, not the typical russets that are stored for longer lengths of time, that may also have played into the sprouting.
We're thinking of building ourselves some sort of in-ground storage option for this winter; something for storing potatoes and other root crops, but that's a long way away from now. I've shared a lot of success's with you, I guess I've been overdue for a new challenge. Note: I didn't say failure, that would imply defeat and I'll have none of that.

Finally I thought I'd leave you with this particularly funky tater. What shall we call him, Mr. Potato-Pinhead? Darth Tater? Call em whatever you like, one things for sure... He won't be getting called "dinner".

P~

Food Storage

From the standpoint of food production, storage, handling, and the Lord's counsel, wheat should have high priority. (God, Family, Country, p. 269)

I agree. My wife and I have talked a lot in the last few months about wanting to store up some wheat. We have a good quantity of stored foods such as beans, rice, flour, sugar and water, but wheat is one of the great multi-purpose storage foods that we have not had in it. We don't just want to store it though, it's something that we want to begin to integrate into our regular diet. That brings me to a point I'd like to make about food storage, eating it. There are a lot of people that have begun to put up food of late and the more volatile the circumstances around the world become, more and more people will begin too. How many people eat these types of foods on a regular basis however? So many people don't really know where their foods come from anymore, let alone how to produce it themselves. If we don't take time to learn how to use these foods, we will not have the luxury of learning to use them when the time comes that we need to. Now in our home we are by no means experts, and probably still have more to learn than we have learned so far. There are a lot of things that we can do to take action towards learning though.
Last week my wife and I attended a educational opportunity surrounding the many uses of wheat that our church put on. The family that put on the presentation is one that uses wheat regularly in their diet. We learned about the benefits of sprouted wheat and watched them make a delicious whole wheat bread from freshly ground wheat. This is a bread that we have eaten before, a neighbor and friend regularly bakes it and we've been the lucky recipients of a loaf from time to time. We also got the opportunity to try what they called "wheat meat"; this was an interesting concoction that they made from hydrated wheat, ground and seasoned, then fried like a burger. The flavor was good but the texture could have used a little something; however, it was definitely something I'd like to experiment with. Towards the end of the presentation they showed us a couple of very interesting ways to cook using less fuel, and espoused the benefits of juicing wheat grass. It was a good time and I learned a lot of things that I didn't know.

Another thing to think about with regard to food storage, is the type of storage that we choose to have. Wheat, beans, legumes and other dry goods will last for a very long time in our storage with a minimum of effort. These are things that have been found in the pyramids of egypt still viable and good. A cool, dry place and careful rotation are really the biggest things to be concerned with. Also, these foods with not be effected if there were widespread power outages as frozen foods would, and are much more versatile overall.

Over the upcoming winter months I'll be experimenting with some of the things that I learned and of course passing on my findings. A~ and I hope to be able to become much more skilled at incorporating these foods into our regular diet and using them to move towards a more sustainable and vegi-centric diet.

If you don't have wheat or plentiful dry goods in your storage, I encourage you to look into them and learn about them with me. If these things are an active part of your home storage and even more so your regular diet please share with me your knowledge and any tidbits that may be able to help me as I move forward.