Search results

What alternative uses are there for canned oranges? Last year I canned about 40 lb of velencia oranges. Most of them were devined, which was a lot of work. No one wants to eat them, which is a bummer. Even I am not crazy about them. I was thinking about blending them and doing a...

So just pour hot water into the container? What if you didn't use enough for the water to melt the fat? I usually use 1 C or less and I don't know if that's enough hot water to partially melt the remaining lard. Anyway, back to the original question, I'm fairly certain that the lard is fine...

We picked the apples off the oldest tree today. Only 2 shopping bags worth. I'll have to do some pruning and get that tree whipped into shape. Turned it into 17 pt applesauce. The kids got into one and ate the whole jar just for a snack. I remember the days when a single jar would last for...

Heard an interview on the radio the other day. Some guy looked into the history of busting ass in the USA and wrote a book about it. Apparently we were super hard working 100 years ago and before. Sure, we still work more than France, but is that something to brag about? And besides, what...

Welcome to the club!

50 pt tomatoes and 35 pt green beans. Sadly, the deer got DW's tomatoes before I put up a fence, so I had to buy the tomatoes from someone else. Charged me about 1 $/lb. Not exactly a steal, but he delivered them which was very convenient. Green beans were from the garden.

I've thought about doing some days at the market, too. My main anxiety is being able to produce enough product for each given week. I think that the market is better than a CAS for a n00b like me because there's less pressure. More risk, too. You don't know if you'll sell enough to cover the...

I'm in MN and we get some unofficial word on the Dakotas now and then. Basically, it's a gold rush. Housing and supplies are expensive. I heard an interview with a young woman who was single. She is constantly harassed. She carries pepper spray and a gun. The last person I spoke with...

For a vaccine factory, I'm sure they were getting eggs from an egg factory. I'm guessing they need thousands per day while in production. So it doesn't address the assumed advantages of home-grown chickens and their eggs. But it does tell me something about the prevalence of bacterial...

Great story. Disturbing and entertaining at the same time :)

Is the issue that most eggs are contaminated with some bacteria or that even an occasional infected egg was a problem?

Adding sugar gives the possibility of higher ABV but it's not gaurantee. Not all yeasts can survive in high alcohol so you might end up with a sweet alcoholic beverage. I mean, the yeast may not be able to make all of the sugar into alcohol before they die. Most yeasts I've worked with are...

Apparently that's a traditional way of making hard cider harder. And I understand that it's illegal in the USA. Silly, but true. I suspect that it would be difficult and costly to enforce laws like that. If you never sell it, don't make large amounts, and keep it quiet, I doubt that it'd be...

If you have space, just let them sprawl. Makes clean-up easier.

Bottled juice is usually treated with a sorbate or other antifungal. It's a rookie mistake. I know because I did that 2 years ago! If you keep everything clean, you can make good wine for not too much. And it's legal. Concentrating it with a pressure cooker and misc copper plumbing is...

That sounds like fun. Wishing I could get a cow, too. But I'm not sure I have the time right now....

Found an interesting (but biased) article about salmonella within eggs. Apparently there's a 1-in-20,000 chance that a chicken will carry the bacteria in its reproductive system. The eggs end up getting infected with just a few bacteria before the shell forms...

Why use curdled milk? Do you have excess milk? If you're paying retail prices for milk, I can't imagine you'll be getting ahead. Or maybe I'm just revealing the low price of the dog food I buy. Dogs and cats have certain requirements that differ from humans. I hear a lot about calcium for...

The whole bacteria-is-on-the-shell argument is just confusing to me. On the cooking shows they're always saying that we should crack the egg on a flat surface to avoid contaminating the egg with whatever is on the shell. It's a cliche, at this point. I don't get it. I've used sterile...

Recently I've been using a lot of eggs. Egg safety seems to come up frequently. DW was particularly worried about the mayonnaise I made last night. I know most people here are less worried about this sort of thing than the general population but I wonder if there's reason to worry at all. Is...