New Year and New Life on the Farm

So many new animals on the farm. The girls got their cavies (guinea pigs) right before Thanksgiving. Two Americans, one is brown and the other a golden agouti. On December 27th, we got our pig, a female Berkshire/red wattle mix. She will be sold at the San Diego East County Junior Fair in Lakeside in April or May.

We had a group of friends over on New Year's Day, and we all got to watch our neighbors' goat gave birth. We knew that she was going to give birth any day and I had asked them to call us when it happened so we could watch. On New Year's Eve, they though the baby was coming and we rushed over, but it was a false alarm.

We weren't really thinking about the goats on New Year's Day, we were busy getting ready for a little get together with some friends. Just as we were just finishing preparing the food and our first guest were pulling up to the driveway, the neighbor called saying that the baby was crowning and it was coming any minute. The guests were welcomed at the door with, "glad you're here. Want to go watch a goat being born?" Luckily, they were as excited as I was, so we headed over. We were too late to see the first one born, but we got to watch it learn to stand and figure out how to nurse. It is pretty amazing that within 20 minutes the baby is able to stand and nurse.

It's pretty typical for goats to have two babies, but we weren't sure if this one would because she only had one last year. But as we were watching the first baby nurse, we saw the second baby start to crown. Poor mom had one baby nursing and one trying to come out. At first, we would just see a little of the second baby's head, but eventually, the whole head came out. It looked rather alien because it was still enclosed in the sac. Poor mom had one baby nursing and another starting to deliver.

The mom kept trying to lie down, but she wouldn't stay down for long. She was very focused on the fist baby. The first baby just wanted to nurse, so the neighbor would hold him for a while trying to let mom focus on delivering the second baby, but soon mama goat would hear her baby bleating and would stand to comfort the baby. 

Finally she laid down long enough to start pushing. We were sure that she was going to finally deliver, but again, she stood up to take care of baby #1 and ended up delivering baby #2 standing up. The neighbor had to catch it!

It was all amazing and a wonderful way to welcome a new year. I am so grateful to our neighbors for letting a large group of strangers come and watch. None of us had ever seen an animal give birth, so it was special to us all. 

Things I Love About Small Town Life #201

Buying our Christmas tree from a cut-your-own tree-farm just down the road from our house.

Cheesecake Flop

I tried making a cheesecake this week. Other than the top being burnt, it was great! I kind of combined the recipes from Ina Garten and Joy of Cooking, but used less cream cheese.

I used Ina's recipe for the crust, expect that I needed more graham crackers (about 13) to get to 1 1/2 cups of graham cracker crumbs. For the filling I used

2 lbs. of cream cheese
1 1/2 cups of sugar
4 whole eggs
2 egg yolks
1/4 cup sour cream
1/4 cup cream
zest from one lemon
1 1/2 tsp. vanilla

Using one of the Joy of Cooking methods, I cooked it at 500 for 15 minutes. That was my mistake. I should have kept an eye on it and just cooked it until it was lightly brown, but instead I set the timer and left the kitchen. By the time the 15 minutes had passed, it was burnt. On the positive side, I had fun playing 6 card golf with my girls. I continued following the directions, turning the heat to 200 for one hour and then turning off the oven and opening the door for 30 minutes and finally taking it out to cool. Other than the burnt top, the flavor was really nice. It had kind of a "cakey" texture, which is fine for me. I will try it again, but will remember to watch it during the 500 degree stage.

Turkey Leftovers

Friday, we made the usual turkey sandwiches with cranberry sauce with the leftover turkey, but Saturday we had turkey and rice soup.

We were very proud of ourselves for actually saving the carcasses and making turkey stock. We talked about it last year, but never actually got around to making it. The hardest part was separating the meat from the bones at the end. We could have just thrown it all away, but the meat was just so tasty it seemed like a waste. Maya ended up with most of that meat. Pretty sure that Thanksgiving is now her favorite holiday.

For Saturday, we added carrots, celery, onion, yellow squash and a little bit of basil. Maybe we'll try some different ingredients on Sunday.

Thanksgiving Menu

I wanted to write down all the things that we made for Thanksgiving dinner so we can remember next year.

The nigh before Thanksgiving, Ron got dough ready for four loaves of bread. He's been using Ken Forkish's book, Flour Water Salt Yeast for his bread. He made two loaves that were 10% whole wheat and two that were 40%. They were both delicious. It was colder than it has been, so they took longer to rise and we didn't get to cook them as early as we wanted, but still in time for a small lunch and of course for dinner.

I was going to make the cranberry sauce the day before, but it got late after all the cleaning, so I just made it early in the morning. I just followed the recipe on the bag, but added some lemon zest. I wanted to add orange zest and some juice instead of just water, but the oranges just aren't quite ripe. Maybe I'll make some for Christmas with oranges.

The stuffing turned out tasty, but dry. We didn't put any in the turkey and I think I just needed more liquid. I found a recipe from Ina Garten. I didn't follow it exactly, I just wanted to get an idea for the ratio of bread to liquid, but either I used too much bread, the bread was too different (I used some of Ron's) or not enough liquid. But the flavor was great and I know that my kids loved it, so that's what really matters, right? I added sausage, granny smith apples, onions and celery. The only herb I used was oregano, but like I said, the flavor was great!  

I also made green beans with garlic and pine nuts. I made them before and that is now my favorite green bean recipe. You just boil the bean until they are barely tender, saute garlic and pine nuts in a olive oil and then add the green beans to the garlic and nuts just to coat them. They are quite tasty! 

We ended up with two turkeys because Costco had small hens. One was 11.8 lbs and the other was 10.5. That meant we needed two ways to cook them, so one was roasted and one was deep fried. We thought the roasted one was going to take at least three hours, but it was done in like an hour and a half. Ron put onions, apples, fresh rosemary and cinnamon in the cavity of the one we roasted which gave it a very nice flavor. Good thing to remember about small turkeys, those hour per pound estimates don't work. 

Now we have a big deep fryer for outside. We will be using it to heat up the water to help with de-feathering the chickens once we get around to butchering them. Maybe we'll try deep frying chickens, though they are getting old now, so they will probably need to be cooked differently.

Homemade Cinnamon Rolls

Thanks once again to Alton Brown, we had homemade cinnamon rolls this weekend.

Since we ran out of butter and had no cream cheese, we made a simple icing with two cups of powdered sugar and about 4 tablespoons of milk - goats milk from the neighbors. They were scrumptious!

A Lot of Cooking Going On

One of the best things about having fresh ingredients at home is all the fun you can have cooking. Here is a list of some of our recent cooking adventures:

1. Key lime pie with meringue topping (from Joy of Cooking)

2. Various hot sauces with our peppers. One of my favorites was made with our Trinidad Perfume peppers. They have a taste similar to habaneros, but are not hot. How amazing is that!

3. I finally found a recipe for pancakes that turn out nice and fluffy - Thanks Alton Brown!

4. Ron made some amazing rustic french bread that is light on the inside with a nice crust.

5. I made a homemade chocolate cake with whipped cream frosting. Note to self: do not use whipped cream frosting between the layers of a layer cake. The top may slide off...