Making our own bacon…here’s a video about how we cure and smoke our own bacon. The taste is far superior to “store-bought”. Watch for our classes starting in Spring 2021: “Simply Self-Sufficiency: Raising & Growing Your Own Food.”
Happy homesteading,
T.
Homemade wine. Made from our own grown, fresh, organic fruit. No sulfites. We have made a lot of loquat wine, so recently thought we would try blueberries.
It takes about 3 weeks for the sugar to get gobbled up by the yeast. We were shooting for a very dry but full-bodied wine. Cabernet. So far so good. It’s 3 weeks old, and we’ll let it age another 6 weeks…maybe.
Jeremiah was a bullfrog,
was a good friend of mine.
I never understood a single word he said,
but I helped him drink his wine.
(And he always had some mighty fine wine.)
Lyrics from “Joy to the World” by Hoyt Axton; performed by Three Dog Night”; released February 1971
Happy Homesteading,
T.
Holiday Almond Sticks are yummy. The filling is almond paste, we got ours online, but you could try the baking section of your favorite grocer. It comes in 7oz size tubes…small enough quantity that you need to buy more than one for a single recipe! Deceptive marketing, but who’s keeping track. The paste tubes are about $4 each.
The recipe below makes eight sticks. There is twice as much filling as you need, so we suggest cutting the filling quantities in half. At that rate, you’ll only need 1 1/2 tubes. Cutting the filling recipe in half, here’s 3/4 cup of the villian sugar…but if you only make these once a year, you’ll be fine.
Filling:
2 c. (21 oz) almond paste
2 lg. eggs
1 1/2 c sugar
1/2 tsp lemon juice
Crust:
3 sticks (1 1/2 c) butter, (divided: 2 sticks cold, 1 stick softened)
3 c all-purpose flour
1 c cold water
Beat almond paste, eggs, sugar, and lemon juice well. Refrigerate.
Mix 2 sticks (1 c.) butter and flour with pastry blender.
Add water and mix with fork.
Divide into 8 sections. Wrap in waxed paper and refrigerate.
Remove one section of dough from refrigerator at a time.
Roll out to a small rectangle, spread with 1 Tbsp soft butter. Fold in, by folding over the two sides and two ends to make a smaller rectangle.
Roll out to a rectangle approximately 12 x 8.
Put 1/8 of the filling on the top edge of the rectangle.
Roll up, seal ends, and place on cookie sheet.
Repeat for all sticks.
Before baking, brush with egg whites and sprinkle with cinnamon sugar.
Bake at 375 degrees for 30 minutes.
This filling makes twice as much as needed for the amount of pastry. Make the sticks larger, double the pastry recipe (lots of work to roll all those out…are you doing this with a friend?) or cut the filling recipe in half!
Happy Homesteading,
T.
