Recently in Do It Yourself Category

I love sour dough bread. I love rustic grilled sandwiches made with thinly sliced meats and melty cheese. Nowhere in the world will you find better sour dough than in San Francisco but you can make awesome sour dough bread in your own kitchen from naturally occuring yeasts in the air. You just have to catch them!

1 cup bread flour, 1 cup sugar, 1 cup milk

Combine until smooth - I use a wire wisk.

Pour into a container that can sit on your countertop.

Loosely cover with cheese cloth or a dish cloth. The mix needs to breath. Wild yeast bacteria naturally occuring in the air we breath should make a home here and do all the work.

Look! I caught a wild yeast. Woot!!! It bubbles and rises. It is a living food culture.

See that line of liquid that is rising to the top? That is the 'hooch'. It is the fermented sugars we used to feed the yeast cultures. The mix does smell like rich beer. No worries! When you bake with it the alcohols cook away.

Every day the mix needs to be stirred. Every 5 days it needs to be fed. I feed it the same simple recipe - 1 cup bread flour, 1 cup sugar, 1 cup milk. After the first 10 days you can begin to bake with it. Lovely breads and sweets. Anything you can do with a yeast recipe you can do with this starter. You can search google and turn up tons of awesome easy recipes for your dough starter.

If you have trouble catching a yeast you can still make your own with some starter help. In your original recipe add 1 package of dry yeast dissolved in 1/4 cup warm water allowed to sit to for 10 minutes to activate. Then continue feeding the mixture the simple recipe above (1 cup bread flour, 1 cup sugar, 1 cup milk) every 5 days. On day 10 you begin cooking with it.

You much tend your starter. You must feed it. Without your TLC it will die. If you find yourself in a position where you have too much starter or you don't have time to use it you can freeze it. After having been frozen you will need to let it thaw and come up to room temerpature. Then you want to watch for it to be to activate again. You want to feed it and help it to grow. If you don't want to freeze it you can give it away by the cup full to your friends and neighbors.

Think about it. It is the perfect sharing food. You feed it and it feeds you and your family and your friends and their families.

Now go get busy. It will take you 2 minutes to make the mix. The rest of the work is done by nature.

Chop. Chop. Get to moving. I haven't asked you to do anything in a long time. ;)

After dealing with sick children for a week I found myself flat on my back so very sick I just wanted to cry.

Steve took a day off to help me with Steven.

This is so not funny I want to cry again.

He slept all day, either by the fire or in the bed and didn't help me at all.

People he wasn't sick. Sick and tired of the BS he was having at work but physically battling that virus he was not.

Thinking about it now makes me angry because in his mind he did everything friday. How laughable, he didn't fix his own lunch or dinner and to ask him to do something drew filthy looks and smartass remarks. He even went back to bed at 8pm. Yet he tellspeople he was at home taking care of me and Steven.

Now we all have headcolds. The nasty clogged sinus, you can't breath, but you have to blow every 5 minutes, geesh my head hurts and my body aches kind of head cold. He is even more grouchy and mean. He lays in the floor by the fire acting like he is providing sole care for Steven meanwhile I am picking up behind them all, cooking supper, doing laundry. If I sit down at my laptop to check email or to look at the farm forum I belong to he throws it back at me that it is all I do. WTH?

I am on a short rope this week. Someone might get hung with it, too.

Over the last two weekends, Steve and I have processed the chickens we raised for meat. At 12 weeks of age they weighed in at 10 - 13 pounds each. They tended to look like small turkeys as we processed them instead of chickens. HUGE!

I do not take lightly the process of ending one life, even that of a seemingly lowly creature. The Bible teaches God made all things great and small. Meaning he made me and that chicken and the life he gave is one to be respected. Therefore I have tried to use every part of the chicken and not waste it.

I harvest the livers and gizzards. I cooked the hearts for added protein for the dogs. My freezer is filled with bags of whole chickens and cut up chickens. As freezer space is at a premium I cooked down alot of the leg quarters and have put the meat in the freezer for quick meals. Also I have gallons of broth that I canned.

When I began raising the chickens I fed them lots of good food. In the last two weeks I cut back on the broiler feed and fed them alot of cracked corn. Not only did the corn help keep them warm on freezing nights by ramping up their body temp it also helped to put on a nice thick layer of fat.

You don't often see too many fat chickens at the grocery store. Sure that have some fat if you buy a whole one which is a small bit attached to the skin at the open cavity between the legs. My chickens had a huge fist size pad of fat at the lower cavity. The gizzard was incased in pure yellow fat. The liver was laced with bits of fat as it was connected to other organs. In my effort to not waste anything that could be used I also harvest the fat.

I put the fat in my crockpot and let it cook down over night until all of the oils were rendered from it.

This richly rendered chicken fat will be used for savory pies and other pastry crusts.

Just for the record this rendered fat is called schmaltz. It can be purchased in jars from most any jewish market or butcher shop. Talk about making things crazy good! Schmaltz is the key!

Before you go crazy about how bad fat is for your body take a look at the nutrtional information of rendered chicken fat.

To make a savory pastry dough only two to four tablespoons is needed. For a two crust chicken (meat) pie that serves 8 - 10

 

you really aren't getting an unhealthy dose. Plus look at the saturated fat content. Chicken fat night almost be considered healthy. I dare anyone to tell me that homemade chicken soup isn't perfect when you're sick. It has to be because of the schmaltz! LOL

I am adding the pastry recipe to the recipe box today.

There are rules for cooking kosher foods. There are rules for cooking with a pie crust if meat is involved - no dairy in the crust!

Perhaps one of the many lovely Jewish friends would fill us in on the details and perhaps add some recipe ideas for using up all of my golden yellow schmaltz. Please? And Thank You!

 

I was out at the barn yesterday morning and I had my phone in my pocket. I was milking my goat. Only I couldn't show you how I really milk because I couldn't use both hands. I had to hold the phone and milk with one hand. It is a bit grainy but it is video from a cell phone.

And when I finished I had 4 quarts of fresh milk.

It takes about 15 minutes to milk her out. Quick and easy.

I made another incubator.

I found this potato box at a thrift shop for $8.

We cut out a place in the lid and routed a channel so that a pane of glass can be inserted for observation. The glass is out now because the glare from my kitchen lights made it impossible to see inside.

The light is wired in the bottom part of the box where the little drawer is.

The thermostat is wired in the compartment where the eggs will rest.

A water wiggler, thermometer/hydrometer and the set up is complete and ready to regulate the heat.

For those who are still unsure about the wiring I made a photo of how the wiring is completed.

I cannot explain any better than I have in the other two incubator posts so maybe looking at this photo will help take away the rest of the mystery.

For those who have questioned the water wiggler. This is a digital thermometer/hydrometer with a probe and a water wiggler.

The probe on the thermometer is threaded into the water wiggler and placed along side the eggs. The temperature on the inside mimics the temperature of the inside of the eggs. The ideal hatching temperature inside the egg is 99.5 degrees F.

Use this setting of 99.5F to regulate your thermostat to turn on and off the light bulb to maintain the correct heat.

I am very pleased so far with this bator. The temps are steady and holding. The probe temp is holding at 99.9 and the humidity is around 40% and holding.

I have 11 true blue/black Americauna eggs set in the potato box 'bator. We are currently on day 8. I have candled the eggs and see veins and the embryos. The chicks are growing! I have had a real heck of a time with all of the sudden changes in the weather. The humidity went crazy when the rains came (not complaining!). The temperatures began to swing with the rain and the box had to be moved to the study where the servers are keeping that room a constant 77 degrees. As if that wasn't enough the other day the buld blew and the temps fell to 80 before I knew it.

Wish me luck on a good hatch.

I wish you could see the real color of these eggs. They are such a lovely shade of blue.

Other links: my styrofoam cooler incubator and my bread box incubator.

Good luck to all of you who are inspired to build your own incubator.

I have been wanting to set up a smaller incubator than the one I made back in the summer. The original incubator is huge and can set a flat of eggs (2.5 dozen) at one time. I don't want to have to regulate and run that big box just to hatch a few eggs at a time.

I was trying to think outside of the box and away from the the styrofoam coolers. I asked myself what can a chicken loving housewife use to make a small incubator out of inexpensively? How can she do it safely and without worrying about the electrical and know she did it right?

So, I built a new one.

I used an old breadbox with a plexiglass window insert that I found at the goodwill for $7. You probably have one or know someone with an old one they don't use any more. If I was back home in Georgia I know my sister has 2 I could have gotten!

I picked up one of the $11 thermometer/Hygrometer with probe combos by acurite (I have one but I wanted a second one incase I decided to use both bators at one time), a water wiggler $0.88, $5 a bottle lamp kit, and an $8 single pole hot water heater thermostat. I already had some little wood screws, electrical tape and a surge protector.

First I secured my thermostat to the upper top corner of the breadbox. I did so because I want the thermostat as far away from the heat source as possible. I want to be sure the eggs on that side don't get too cool.

Next I drilled a hole for the lamp kit making sure the lamp neck was placed so that when the lid closes the light bulb is not touching or extended out too far.

Using the bottle lamp kit I threaded the hollow metal tube through the hole and then threaded the electrical wire through the tube and screwed down both ends to make it tight.

Following the lamp instructions I wired the ribbed wire to the brass screw (see #1). I then cut a piece of the wiring and ran that from the silver screw through the side hole to the thermostat (see #3). I took the other wire coming into the box and threaded it through the side hole and wired it to the other screw on the thermostat (see #2).

It wasn't hard. You can do it. Take your time. If you wire it wrong when you plug it in your breaker will trip. You'll know then what to do. LOL

I then cut a piece of shelf liner and laid it in the bottom so the eggs would be coushioned and not roll.

The light works, the thermostat works.

I did caulk around the little window so that warm air wouldn't easily escape and cause the light to run more than it needed.

I did not drill any vent holes in mine for 2 reasons. The humidity in my house is at 52% and has beed holding that for the past week. The lid has a lillte gap along one side that I think will let the bator breath properly. If I need more venting it won't take 1 min to drill out a hole. We'll see.

If you build one you might need to drill holes and plug them with a cork as needed.

I also went back and added some of the weather stripping you put around dorrs and windows to stop drafts around the inside where the lid closes down. I was loosing alot of heat that way.

Now it is sitting and warming up. It will run from now until the Blue Orpington eggs I am getting have their 21+ days in the incubator.

I am not one to count my chicks before they hatch so wish me luck. Eggs went in the mail yesterday to be shipped to me. I am on pins and needles hoping they make it to me intact. The post office damaged the last batch I got.

This little bator can sit on my kitchen counter and not be in the way. The big bator I had was always in the way no matter where we had it while testing it. We ended up keeping that one on the dining room buffet with the last batch of eggs.

This one is pretty and won't look out of place on the countertop.

Nothing is wrong with functional and decorative! :D

P.S. Those of you who teach school (Mary!) this is a great idea for spring time. Set eggs in late March and 21 days or so later they would hatch in April.