Posted on March 12, 2023 by claytonhill
Spring Fever …
Oh, I’ve got it … HUGE! Which makes me bored, which means I’m scouring the internet and discovering cool stuff!
Like Lions Mane mushrooms – what? They’re supposed to taste like crab meat or lobster when cooked, so that’s just what we did: On the plate pictured on the left, we have one uncooked freeze dried Lions Mane, followed by some pan fried slices and finally a Lions Mane Cake (kind of like crab cakes) … They’re pretty good! I’ve also purchased a couple of DIY kits (no photo yet) for growing white button mushrooms and some of my own Lions Mane… Neat!
And the freeze dried mushrooms made me curious about all things freeze dried, so I made another purchase – to see how we liked the products. We do …
This started a huge back and forth with DH. I wanted to buy a freeze dryer to preserve foods, without taking up freezer space (as we have 4 freezers and they are full) … Yes, it’s pricey but for creating long term storage while preventing food wastage … We bought a Harvest Right! Happy Valentines to me!
Our first load was frozen sliced fruit, with great success. Then we tried oranges, sliced lemons and apples. Turns out we are not a fan of the oranges (tart and the skin turns weird).
But we love the watermelon and avocado (no more losing avocados!)! The avocados reconstitute for pudding quite nicely! We also ran a load with root vegetable slices, mushrooms and shredded cheese. Again, preventing food waste! I love it!!!
Oh, and then the candy … Yum! Salt water taffy, Charleston Chews and Skittles, oh my goodness! Before and after freeze drying …
We also added mason jar storage in the laundry/FD room – cute, eh? I can see I will need more jars!
Which brings us to this week, we’re adding to our chicken flock. Meet Misty and Gemma (our Mystique Maran and Sapphire Gem). We will also be adding an Olive Egger, Easter Egger and another Isa Brown, as we lost our Buffy in early February. AND … Kunekune pigs! Meet Nay Nay and Kronk, our 5 month old pigs! How FUN!!! In 10 days time, we will be picking up turkeys, 4 of them to grow in our corn crib, or ‘Aviary’, as we call it. Look at my little farm grow!!!
I’ll be prepping garden starts in my big window in the studio soon. And, somewhere through it all, I figured cellulitis round 5 would be a fun idea?!? We’re beating it back with antibiotics, but geeze, it slows me down for a while and I don’t like that!
Come on Spring! Be safe y’all …