Food I make at home - instead of buying at the store

[RCW]

I have a BS degree in Forestry, and worked my way through high school and college as a cook in restaurants and for a good caterer doing clambakes.

30 years later, I'm still a good cook. There's some things I like to make myself, instead of buying somewhere else.

I started making maple syrup from trees around the house several years ago. Not much - 3-7 gallons a year; enough to feed the crew, and give away or trade for other stuff. The photo is my simple propane camp stove with steamtable pans that I use. Not efficient, but works for my purpose.

Always wanted to try different cheeses and sausages.

If I had the turf, I'd be growing some beef or pork! All I can manage is a pretty cool herb and garlic garden, but its damn good!

Do you have a food you can make better at home than you can get in the store??

You guys are a self-sufficient bunch; I'd bet you make or grow some real cool stuff!

 

[Daren Todd]

Neighbors over load us with tomatoes every year, so I make it into sauce and freeze it. Used to have a garden, but with the soil we have (old cotton field) we had to do raised beds. By the time we bought and hauled in compost and built the beds. And figure in the 120$ water bill each month. We can go buy at the local farmers market for 1/4 of the cost to grow it our selves

We do homemade bread occasionally. And of course the fruit trees Figs, apples, peaches, plumbs, and nectorines. They make for good pies and cobblers Gonna be a few more years before we get the peaches and plumbs. Thought I was gonna get some bananas, but the sugar ants got the stalk with out me realizing it was infested.

 

[sheepfarmer]

Grilled lamb chops! And most of the vegetables needed for the year...although the potatoes and onions are are starting to sprout already. A lot of work, and probably not cost effective, but worth it. And wool hats and mittens as a side benefit.

 

[skeets]

We had at one time 4 green houses. the OL grew herbs some of which her and two other white kids ever heard of,, I grew the garden 50x100 and fed the critters,,, now down to 3 raised beds maters peppers and taters, Going have to start replanting trees in the orchard this spring, the 2 plums have died off along with a sour cherry tree and one golden delicious apple. Meat wise, jerky,, and smoked stuff deer turkey beef pork pretty much everything,, and yeah you cannot beat anything from the home kitchen.
Back when I was a kid in the late summer you came home from school on Friday and there would be a couple bushels of maters, or cumbers for pickles, or grapes, peaches and of course apples. You didn't even think about what you wanted to do over the week end because you knew it was going to be spent helping Mom canning,,, was nothing better when it was done!!!

 

[pendoreille]

For sheep farmer... Mutton
The last drive over grand coulee dam

 

[OldeEnglish]

We are big into growing blueberries, blackberries, rasberries, and black rasberries along with a few smaller veggie gardens. Having a good selection of berries keeps a constant harvest untill the frost hits. My father inlaw grows potatos and turnip up on the mountains. Too short of a growing season to get veggies without a hot house up there.

Nothing beats farm fresh meat, I get mine from a local butcher that sources from local farms. I cant eat pork from a supermarket anymore with the salty sodium nitrate taste. The grain fed beef is to die for too It's a little more pricey, but well worth it. Even vac seals everything so the meat will keep longer in the freezer.

 

[5thhorseman]

We just moved to the countryside 5 years ago and started our family. Naturally we now want to have food that we know doesn't come from a factory and is full of god knows what, especially meat products. So we have our own chickens, ducks, pigs, and goats. Beef we can buy from a local farmer and wild salmon is plentiful around here.

Also do some beekeeping but that's tough these days to keep them alive over winter and get a good harvest. Got a 32ft hoophouse but looking to split that into two mobile greenhouses this summer so I can grow set up my winter garden and have fresh veg in January. Also getting into vegetable fermenting a lot: sauerkraut, kimchi, beet kvass, what have you. Have an orchard too, but all the fruit comes at once, so I need to start learning the other kind of fermenting.

 

[sheepfarmer]

For sheep farmer... Mutton
The last drive over grand coulee dam

Thanks for sharing the photo! Brings back memories, we went to see the Grand Coulee dam when I was a little kid...really something.

 

[pendoreille]

someone ate my hearts

2014 garden

weekly bread

canning 2014

 

[RCW]

I have better luck freezing maple syrup over canning it. Never molds in the freezer!

I make a chicken wing sauce that's REAL good! Make it gallon at a time and freeze it too.

Might try home-made mozzarella cheese.

 

[pendoreille]

We freeze lots of tomato sauce, veggie broth, veggies, soups etc. I really like the "vacuum packer". I put the stuff in square tupperware, freeze it, pop the squares out and vacuum seal. They stack nice in the freezer. Wish I could do maple syrup, wrong maples here.

 

[sheepfarmer]

RCW, I have maple trees around, several types, how expensive are the taps etc if I just wanted to make a couple of pints of syrup? A lot of locally made syrup available but might be fun to make my own.

 

[Daren Todd]

RCW, I have maple trees around, several types, how expensive are the taps etc if I just wanted to make a couple of pints of syrup? A lot of locally made syrup available but might be fun to make my own.

Here's a link with directions on how to do it. Just make sure to tap the hard maples, and not soft or ornamentals shop around for your supplies, plus you may have someone locally that sells the stuff as well.

http://www.tapmytrees.com/?gclid=CLmXmZPWqsMCFQoFaQodT3sASw

 

[skeets]

Heres another link,, lots of time lots of work and lots of juice,,,lol

https://www.youtube.com/watch?featu...z2o&x-yt-ts=1421914688&x-yt-cl=84503534#t=348

 

[Daren Todd]

You know, when we made syrup in vermont. I was boiling one night and had a guy stop by from down the road who had just moved up from south carolina.
He was facinated so I walked him through the process. Next year he got the stuff to do it. Happened to run into him at the post office and asked him how it was going? He said it wasn't going very well and asked if we could stopped by and check out his set up. He tapped birch and beach trees Had to walk around his property and flag all the hard maples for him

 

[Profnohair]

You know, when we made syrup in vermont. I was boiling one night and had a guy stop by from down the road who had just moved up from south carolina.
He was facinated so I walked him through the process. Next year he got the stuff to do it. Happened to run into him at the post office and asked him how it was going? He said it wasn't going very well and asked if we could stopped by and check out his set up. He tapped birch and beach trees Had to walk around his property and flag all the hard maples for him

Had to LOL. That would be me. Good thing my son is a Biologist with a concentration in Ecology. He knows his trees.

 

[RCW]

About any maple will make syrup, just the hard (or sugar) maple normally have higher content. Box elders are maples, and I 've of guys tapping them.

In parts of the country, most of the maples tapped are reds.

There are folks making birch syrup, too, but I never heard of beech syrup!!

I hung a sap bucket on a butternut tree for a couple years straight, just as a conversation piece. Funny, several guys wanted to express their vast outdoor knowledge by telling me I shouldn't have buckets hung in August, and that tell me you can't tap ash, oak, box elder, etc.....anything but butternut. One of the bunch did pick it out as butternut.

I hear birch syrup (from "sweet" or black birch??) is a kinda funky flavor, but people do make it, and it tends to run right after the normal maple season.

 

[Daren Todd]

Had to LOL. That would be me. Good thing my son is a Biologist with a concentration in Ecology. He knows his trees.

Took dad a solid twenty minutes to quit laughing before he got out of the truck when he saw the bucket hanging off the birch. Then every time he would look back at the tree he would start giggling like a school girl. Guy had a really good sense of humour about it. Left the bucket on the birch and used it for a planter he used to drop off home made maple candy every year after that

 

[sheepfarmer]

I am laughing too...It did kind of drift through my brain that it would be a lot easier to id my maples when they had leaves. The arborist that comes for the tree service has pointed out a couple different kinds, but of course I have forgotten which were where. I have lots of "wild" trees, and regrettably a lot of dead ash trees that have to come down before they fall on something, so I see a lot of him. I had a huge maple up by the road, so beautiful, that split in a storm and I had to have it cut down before it fell on the house across the street. But it left many small maple children underneath, so maybe one of those will be big enough to tap.

Thanks for the links!

 

[Tooljunkie]

I read black birck sap has some nutritional value.a friend taps a few maples around here. My maple trees are all dying off, was only 3 or 4 but its a sad thing to lose a tree in my yard. Old age methinks.