Homemade Pizza

I made homemade pizza on Friday using our freshly ground Hard Red Winter wheat berries and it was incredible! Things I'll do differently next time, divide the dough in half so I don't end up with the thick crust, I'll make cinnamon rolls with that instead, and bake the crust an additional five minutes before loading it with the goodies. Oh and we are also making and canning our own pizza sauce because the stuff from the store was well - GROSS! John has a recipe he makes up and it is light and it is wonderful.

Wheat Grinding Attachement

Champion Juicer with Grain Mill attachment, side view, it comes with a bag that snaps onto the grinding attachment but we quickly found it annoying and place a low flat bowl beneath the grain mill.

The juiciing attachement for my Champion Juicer, ours has the commercial grade motor so should be able to grind a lot of wheat for us if need be.

I have a Champion Juicer there are the two attachments that came with my machine, I have a juicing attachement and a grain grinding attachment. I have heard that if you have a Kitchen-Aid mixer of 500 watts or more you can use their grain mill attachment but not to try it on the smaller mixer, which is what I have!

You could probably use a regular coffee grinder to grind wheat berries I'm just not sure how long it'll last. I have an antique coffee hand grinder and it grinds wheat quite nicely.

Hard White Spring Wheat Berries

White wheat berries make better cakes and breads, if you like the really soft stuff. It has more gluten than the Red wheat berries therefore allowing your dough to rise more.

Hard Red Spring Wheat Berries

Gamma Seals

What is a Gamma Seal? It is a screw on lid that one puts onto a plastic food grade bucket for long term food storage. NOTE: Make sure you really want the lid on your bucket because once you hammer the ring onto the bucket, use a rubber mallet, it's there for good! You'll have to destroy the bucket to get the ring off.

WalMart has these in stock in various stores around the US for $4.38 each. If your WalMart isn't carrying them tell them you want them and here is the sku #076939714027

Jerusalem Artichokes

They are growing like crazy with all of this rain, I'm sure they'll make it to 12 feet in height this year.

Soggy Garden

My garden which is in sore need of weeding but it's to muddy to get in there right now. Unfortunately we have more rain in the forecast.

Potato Bin

John planted some potatoes in this bin with straw, this is a new experiment for us, will let you know how it turns out.

The idea behind this potato growing method is as the starter potatoes send up shoots you put more straw, and another round of wood (or tires) and you keep doing this until you are ready to harvest. This is supposed to encourage more potatoes and less vines.

Purple Cabbages

My purple cabbages are coming along nicely. To protect them from slugs etc., I'll put a roof shingle at the base of each plant, apparently slugs don't like crawling across roof shingles!

Gardening

Hardware cloth tent, it's a strip of hardware cloth 1/4" holes, bent in half to create a barrier against birds, etc., this strip is over my mustard greens. To make it chipmunk proof I'd need to put caps on the ends to keep them out.

Coffee cans surround my young pepper plants protecting them from crows, grackles, and the wind.

Compost Bin Update

Now finished we've been using the compost and have since added about a half ton of rotted horse manure to the mix. We haven't ever had problems with critters in our compost pile, unless you count two legged critters!

Garden Fencing

I was asked how I deal with critters in my garden and whether or not I put fencing materials over the top of my garden. Rabbits are a major issue here, second only to ground squirrels, crows, and grackles. Here are some ideas on what I do that I found works:

I don't put fencing materials over the top of the garden - yet anyway. The fencing keeps the rabbits out, and not the young ones or the chipmunks. To keep the small rabbits out I have, in the past, put a layer of hardware cloth around the bottom of the chickenwire fence. I have a friend that uses old screen windows to do this.

What I found that works really well for young tender plants is to use coffee cans, juice cans, milk jugs, and 2 gallon plastic buckets, all with the bottoms cut out as a barrier to critters. I put them around the plants until they are big enough that they are critter proof. Rabbits will eat a young squash or cucumber plant but when it's about 12 inches they don't bother them anymore. I then remove the coffee can from the plant. Mind you these plants are STILL inside of a fenced in garden space but a rabbit will jump a 30 inch fence, John and I have watched them do this, to get to young tender plants.

The cans etc., also protect young plants from wind damage and make them easy to cover in the event of a hard frost or freeze.

For the crows what I've used in the past are cds on strings etc. and strips of mylar from mylar balloons. I live in Iowa so wind is a constant here, most critters don't like the movement and tend to keep their distance. The crows seem to be enamored with snapping off my young tomato, pepper and squash plants. So the cans, I use the smaller coffee or juice cans, prevent them from getting close enough to do this. They also like digging up my onion sets! Hardware cloth tent prevents this from happening - but isn't chipmunk (ground squirrel) proof.

Daring squirrels - I have dogs so the squirrels are not as daring as they'd like to be, and they know I've no problems with taking them out, squirrel tastes really good with mashed potatoes and gravy btw! Fry it up like chicken. Critters seem to pick up on human attitudes ;-)

As for possums, they don't seem to navigate the fencing well, and I don't have skunks here - praise the Lord for that one! That could be a real nightmare with the weimeraner that loves to chase everything - she's not all that bright.

I'll go take pics of my garden and post them in a bit.

Starter Pantry Inventory List

This list is by no means meant to be comprehensive but it is a start for a well stocked pantry providing a large enough variety of foods for any and all occassions. -well I'll post it as soon as I can figure out how to put the link here!

Potato Leek Soup

Going camping this summer, looking for a food gift that doesn't require much in the way of cooking or can be used later or do you simply want to put some food up for a rainy day (or a blizzard) - that actually tastes good then try this recipe on for size:

I found this recipe online and changed it to make it "taste" better.

INGREDIENTS:
1 3/4 cups instant mashed potato flakes
1 1/2 cups dry milk powder (I used dry whole milk as it's richer)
4 T. chicken bouillon granules (originally called for 2 T. we like ours richer)
2 T. dried minced onion
1 teaspoon dried parsley
1/4 teaspoon ground pepper (originally called for white pepper)
1/4 teaspoon dried chives (make sure you use onion chives and NOT garlic chives!!!)
1 1/2 teaspoons salt (originally called for seasoned salt)
1/8 cup dehydrated leeks
2T. dehydrated carrot chunks (adds color)
1/4 cup dehydrated potato chunks (these can be whirled in a food processor but I didn't bother)

DIRECTIONS:

1.Combine potato flakes, dry milk, bouillon granules, onion,parsley, pepper and salt in a plastic bag and shake to mix (original recipe said to use a bowl to mix but I have lots of recycled sandwich bags and chose to use one of them instead). Pour into a 1 quart jar.

2. Attach the following instructions to jar (use waterproof ink on label glued to jar or card attached with a ribbon): To serve, place 1/2 cup soup mix in bowl. Stir in 1 cup boiling water until smooth.

If you want to use this in long term food storage or for camping, then put into mylar or food saver bags and vacuum seal shut. Assuming you used fresh ingredients this will keep for quite some time in a cool dark place.

Peonie Bouquet

Garden's In!

Well after spending all day yesterday scrubbing the laundry room from top to bottom (it flooded this past along with everything else) I was finally able to get the remainder of the south and east gardens in tonight, before it begins raining again. A good portion of my cucumbers didn't come up so I planted watermelons a small fruit variety type that matures in 73 days or less. So come August I should have some ripe melons hopefully.

So the only thing that is left to tackle is the north garden, but the junk pile needs to be removed. First we need to find a source of clean fill dirt and then haul the remaining horse manure to the site and get it "composting".

Flood Pictures

Dh was driving over the bridge, that's the river almost to the top of the bridge!

More Flood Pictures

There have been a lot of on lookers, shocked most probably, it's amazing how fast the water came up.

Target and Walmart under water. We were promised by our city officials that this wouldn't happen if Target and Walmart were allowed to build in the flood plain - the theory was they dug a hole somewhere to offset the water issues. I argued the whole way that this was a load of horse apples it would flood again and would be worse, and I was right we have water in our basement which we DIDN"T have in 1993!!! That's how much the flood plain is now screwed up.

This is our local Target, and what used to be the parking lot.

Well it's amost 6 pm here and the water is still rising! Yesterday this was a corn field. To the left where the tree line is is the river, about 500 yards away.

Flood Waters

There used to be soccer fields here - Iowa State University property. The river is about 500 yards, or more, from the road in this shot. The news is now stating that this IS as bad as the flood of 1993 now.

It's Flooding Here

The water was really close to the road, the river is back a ways in this shot, about 100 yards

The guy driving the bus is my husband John! I can't believe people were driving through the water, what you don't see here is the river is about 175 yards to the right and down about 15 feet, well normally it is anyway!

The water is rising fast and it's really high! It's about where it was in 1993. In the half hour that Brenda and I were gone for lunch the water came up and covered most of the road we had been previously driving on.

Today's Word

Colossians 4:2 - 6

Star of Bethlehem

Photographed this beauty at a friends house this afternoon.

Leaf Pile

Ok I went and took a picture of the leaf pile because it just looks so cool! John is outside making gates for my compost bins as I write.

Rhubarb

So yesterday dh weeded my rhubarb and we decided that we'd make some rhubarb jam this morning. Well that didn't pan out as someone had made off with about half of my rhubarb plants, I'm still pissed off about this. There have been a LOT of things disappearing out of our lawn of late, pots, flowers, grapevines and now my rhubarb.

Leaf Pile

I'm too tired to walk out and photograph the leaf pile now, it's been a LONGGGGG day shoveling etc., but here's what it looks like to scale of the truck. Tomorrow, if it's dry enough, we will shred it and incorporate it into the compost pile. Rumor has it it's going to rain here again. John and I moved the pile from the back yard to the drive way and spred it out to dry up some.

Finished - Compost Bins

And they are about half full, full of horse apples that is! We picked up a truck full, just over a half ton, and with the help of our neighbor Carol, got it mixed in with some shredded leaves etc., it should be ready for this fall's garden applications.

Blackberry Leaf

There are thorns going up the stem of the blackberry leaves!

Transplants

I transplanted mullien and milkweed from the neighbors lawn they are doing quite well.

Shade Garden Plants

I'm not sure what this plant is but it lives in my shade garden and spreads via little runners.

New Compost Bins

John is making new compost bins for me, three of them so I can sort if I want. Due to severe weather it will have to look like this until tomorrow!

One lone blossom

I found one lone blossom had opened on my clematis vine out front the color of the blossoms is different every year and I'm not sure why.

Cool Weather

I still have to go out and plant rhutabegas and beets this afternoon and there are a lot of weeds to be pulled already, imagine that!!! I'll have to post a pic of my least favorites later this evening, but this one in particular Virginia Water Leaf is the bane of my existance, garden wise, it's a native but it's taking over everything.

Dh has the next four days off, it's going to be a major push to get the other garden spot uncovered and planted, it currently has a lot of construction stuff planted there.

Something New - Ads

I'm trying out Googles AdSense on this site and if it works out well then I will expand to my other blogs. Right now I'd just love to know how to make content specific Google Ads, I'm thinking I'm not to "brilliant" when it comes to reading the help sections. Oh well, onward as they say.

Today

I didn't get the freezer addressed but that's ok John has Friday off from work, a four day weekend together he plans to take the new photos of the iceberg to the dealer to see about getting it fixed properly. It's still under warranty so why fight the thing, and I suspect because he's a guy that he'll be able to get the job done right this time.

I spent most of the day updating blogs and have applied for AdSense with Google, could be interesting. The rest of the evening was spent cleaning the kitchen, pulling out the fridge and vacuuming behind it, something that should be done at least once a decade right???

We did decide on putting hte maple flooring in the kitchen, will have to take a picture of the bare plywood, and I'll paint it whence it's in. I've plans to paint the floor in a black and white pattern. the walls will be painted Medici White ~ Sherwin Williams Paint, and the cabinets lettuce green, an nice soft green color ~ Dutch Boy Paint, and the ceiling Friendly Yellow ~ Sherwin Williams.

And since I didn't spend any time in the garden today here's a picture of last years marigolds, which turned out quite pretty.

Garden Day 2

Dh whose rather bothered by my need to snap his photo, he was stretching chicken wire onto little posts to, hopefully, keep the rabbits and stray dogs out of my garden.

Bell Peppers in front of the cattle panels, there will be pole beans growing on the panels and hopefully soon! The area right in front of the peppers I plan to fill with rhutabegas (sp?), beets, and turnips.

Some tomatoes, I've put coffee cans around them to protect them from the high winds we get during the spring and from birds, which love snapping off the young plants. To the left of the tomato cages are cattle panels on end I've planted pole beans, Kentucky Wonder and Blue Lake, around the perimeter of the garden.