Beef

For the first time in my life I was the one in charge of getting a steer to the butcher to be slaughtered and hung, back home again and in the freezer. I learned some lessons along the way.

(As a girl at home I remember doing our own butchering, from start to finish. We had a cow spread out on the table once when a neighbor lady stopped by. She came in and exclaimed, "Holy cow!" Then, "Oh, it IS a cow!")

We shared our steer with another church family and they came to help butcher. I was amazed to be done cutting, grinding and packaging by around noon. 

Photo credits- Christopher Lapp

We were all pretty much amateurs in this butchering thing. I think every one of us cut one or two of our own fingers or someone else's in the process. We emptied a box of BandAids. (Not a very large box.)

This was the fattiest beef I ever remember working on. The family that was helping us said the deer they did this year were also very fatty. We wondered if it's an indication of what the winter will be like?

Tubs of fat. Looks rather red. It was so intertwined in the meat, it was hard to cut off.

Praise the Lord for a nice amount of meat in the freezer! I know it won't last very long but when it's gone the Lord will provide more! He is faithful.

That's about 11 deep so approximately 66 bags with a lb + of meat in each.
 Plus a number of roasts on the side.

Free Bananas

Being a baker, my mother is on the lookout for ripe bananas which can be used for banana bread. (Try typing "banana". It's fun.) So last week she appeared with two banana boxes full of ripe bananas that were free!

She allowed us to have one box. The boys in this house can eat bananas like nobody's business. They pile on the peanut butter and happily munch away. 

Most of them (bananas, not boys) disappeared in this manner but a few were getting overripe. I peeled them and cut some into chunks for the freezer. 

The ones that were super ripe got turned into a mash and I made a cake. Here's the recipe I used. It's called Banana Bread but I doubled the recipe and made a sheet cake. Baked it a little too long I think.

Raw batter

Baked cake

I used coconut flour from Walmart.

The recipe calls for chocolate chunks but I used this recipe instead to make a chocolate frosting. Exceptions I made- I used dark chocolate and unsweetened baker's chocolate instead of chocolate chips and I used real milk instead of almond milk.

Frosted cake

And here's an embarrassing moment. I made banana muffins for breakfast yesterday morning. When they came out of the oven they looked so stunted. After thinking a bit, I realized I'd forgotten the baking powder. (I don't use a cookbook- the recipe's in my head.)

They weren't too bad, actually.

And here is a picture of the daffodils in the snow. We received a couple squalls that turned the landscape white for a few hours.

Words for today-
Citadel
Hippocampus
Narcolepsy

How to Blanch Green Beans for the Freezer

An older woman taught me this method some years ago. It makes very tasty beans. And it's quick and easy. (Note the stove clock and you will see how long it took me.)

Today I am blanching whole beans; stem end and bug spots removed. You can do this with snapped beans also.

Put washed beans in a large pot. You don't want them very deep in the pan because you will need to stir them almost constantly. This is a 16 quart kettle.

 Add a shallow layer of water in the bottom of the pan. Just enough to cover the bottom.

 Turn the heat on high.

  As the water begins to boil, stir the beans.

Do you see how a few of them have turned bright green? 

And now they are all bright green.

Dump them out into a pan in a shallow layer to cool.

Once cooled, package and freeze. You can add the water that you cooked them in into the package if you wish.

When you need green beans for a meal, open, cook, season and enjoy.

This works for green peas also.

What garden produce are you currently enjoying?

Are green beans a favorite at your house? Canned or frozen?