MyKidLuvsGreenEgz .. .. COLORADO IS BURNING

[MyKidLuvsGreenEgz]

Good luck, DD. Thankfully our snow lasted only the one day. Melting already with degrees just in the 40's. Glad it's gonna be nicer this weekend. We can make adjustments for a few spots I caught when checking things out this morning ... where snow leaked in, water froze (woke up to 12 degrees this a.m.).

Quite a while ago, I came across info on zeer pots, a way to cool food without electricity, wiring of any kind, etc. It's basically a huge ceramic pot inside another huge ceramic pot, with wet sand in between. The food goes in the inside (smaller) pot. Works because ceramic holds the moisture from the water, thus cooling the inside. Top (wet cloth?) goes on both (if I remember correctly). For more info: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pot-in-pot_refrigerator and a vid: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vcuSlaecvIw

I can see lining my kitchen counters with these IF it becomes necessary ... keeping supplies to make them in the garage.

Anybody here do this?

 

[moolie]

I've done something similar when out camping with Girl Guides (same as US Girl Scouts) and it worked well

IF you have the ability and live in the right climate, many foods can be kept in the cold storage of a root cellar, making "refrigeration" necessary for only a very few fresh foods.

 

[Britesea]

Hehe- I just posted about zeer pots about the same time as you did! I'm planning on getting the materials for these for when I run out of room in my tiny refigerator in the the summer

 

[MyKidLuvsGreenEgz]

I saw that after I posted mine. How funny. I've added that to my shopping list for December. Should be able to get "gardening supplies" on sale then.

Right now we have eggs coming out of our ears so having additional space to keep them fresh would be great.

 

[Denim Deb]

Don't know that it would work here, I think our humidity is too high.

 

[moolie]

I saw that after I posted mine. How funny. I've added that to my shopping list for December. Should be able to get "gardening supplies" on sale then.

Right now we have eggs coming out of our ears so having additional space to keep them fresh would be great.

Fresh eggs that have never been refrigerated actually keep quite well for some time outside of a refrigerator. We used buy our eggs right from a farmer's shed when we lived on Vancouver Island--they would collect them and pop them into cartons (we returned ours each time we would go buy more) and just leave them out on a shelf. We would pop the money into a locked box with a slot on the top (honour system) and take our eggs. They told us that the eggs would keep at least 2 weeks out of the fridge, but that once refrigerated they need to be kept refrigerated. Never had any problems with those eggs, so I just googled it to see if it is common knowledge--opinions seem to be mixed but it also seems that eggs are not refrigerated in Europe/UK and South/Centra America.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/notesandqueries/query/0,5753,-26086,00.html

http://msgboard.snopes.com/cgi-bin/ultimatebb.cgi?ubb=get_topic;f=108;t=000770;p=0

 

[Britesea]

This is true. In fact, if you want to hard boil your eggs, you need slightly old eggs where air has started to enter the shell. The fresh ones will stick to the shell too much.

 

[MyKidLuvsGreenEgz]

I have about 6 dozen on my counter, some more than 3 weeks old. I think I'll boil the old ones ... yum ... tuna salad, deviled eggs... yum!

Thanks for the input.

Cooked my very first home-grown chicken yesterday. Crockpot, garlic, seasoned salt. Delicious! For some reason, our girls had more dark meat than white ... actually looked like all dark meat. Is that usual? There was almost no fat (yeah for how I feed them and how much time they get to freerange). Told the processors to put the kidneys and hearts in one bag and the livers in another. Should have told them to cut off the neck and put those in a separate bag too. Hubby likes kidneys and hearts, and I plan to cook the livers and necks for the dog.

 

[pinkfox]

well dark meat is typically "worked" meat so having a higher amount of dark meat seems to make sense for chickens that are moving around free raning and actually using those breast muscles more...

i much prefer Dark meat

 

[MyKidLuvsGreenEgz]

Been soooo busy, as we all probably are. First, my kid turned 15 last weekend. Couldn't believe it. He's growing so tall and is finally leveling out (mood-wise). Combo between his meds for epilepsy plus the service puppy ... still hasn't had a huge meltdown (except for the small one he just had about schoolwork!). Puppy is doing well. His adult canines came in and the baby ones didn't fall out so he has surgery next Tuesday. Same day as my kid's hearing test.

We are taking 3 more roosters to be processed on SAturday: the biggest is for our Thursday holiday meal.

Goat babies are due next week. How exciting.

I'm so tired. Trying to stay off my leg but it's nearly impossible. Planning our home improvements once we get hubby's inheritance PLUS keeping back enough for emergencies. May not come through now for months ... his family is still being, well, not nice.

Back to the kitchen!