When I was taking census in New Hampshire in 1990, I went to a place where a goose was setting a rock. She was fiercely protective of that rock and it made for a bit of adventure that day. The owners told me that as she had aged past the egg-laying years, she adopted the rock. Funny --- except when you are being chased by a protective goose.
There are some really excellent producers of oganic and whole foods in the USA. Research them, tap into them, demand them from your supermarkets, and don't settle for less. Collectively those who want it have HUGE spending power if you get together and use it. This is how and why our supermarkets now do a LOT more local produce. Time was when I could only buy French or South Africal apples in Tesco. Now I can buy apples grown within 10 miles of here, and strawberries likewise. Some chains even do local milks and yoghurts. If the punters demand it, the big chains will lose out to the people who DO provide. My next cmpaign is for general supermarkets to carry gluten free bread and baked goods that are not so high in fats and salt and sugar that they are inedible, or rendered revolting by quinoa and potato flour. I'm getting bolshi in me old age! :D
We're actually a lot less watched and censored than you'd think, if you watch the press. How else would those storries get out there for people to make news out of?
EEK! I see why low fat stuff isn't necessary for you. I wouldn't know what to do with a tiddler that size.
My 13 YO is 5'10" and looks like this:
Hehehehe... One of my favourite breakfast foods is the Yeo Valley Organic natural or vanilla yoghurt with strawberries and a handful of Lizi's Granola. I have a hard time keeping enough for me as James will also eat this treat when allowed to!
Were I breeding animals, I would obey both the correction and the error: Don't breed 'em with long-legged animals *and* don't breed 'em with short legged animals.
Unless the animal has some other trait that makes it worth your while to breed lots of animals hoping to separate the desirable trait from the crippling defect.
Joy Beeson
Olwyn Mary in New Orleans
** Posted from
That's so true. Hens can't lay eggs to order, it happens whether there's a wooden/china or real egg in the place they choose.
Hens aren't as daft as some of their owners :-)
Mary
Everyone has a favourite recipe, I like mine because it's so simple to remember: one egg, one lemon, 1 oz butter and 3 oz sugar. The same ratio of ingredients is used for any amount. I grate the lemon peel and squeeze out the juice, dissolve the sugar in the juice and melt the butter in the container. Then I stir in the mixed egg yolks and whites and continue stirring until it's thick.
I've never heard of freezing lemon curd but wonder why it's necessary. My curd, in jars, is kept for months in the refrigerator, until a jar is opened then it's on a kitchen shelf. Never had anything go wrong with it.
Mary
You see, for me the bother of canning and the results make it not worthwhile :-)
We're all different.
That's a very fair point. I do far more food preparation than sewing, it's a matter of what you prefer I suppose. With only two of us now there's not much sewing needed.
I'm really surprised at that.
Oh I have - and used them to start my own. I just wasn't any good at it :-)
I can't speak for all of them because I stick to one (organic) brand - it's excellent!
I like it just as it is, spooned from the carton. Or with fresh fruit.
When we were very poor with five small children and we had doorstep deliveries of whole, non-homogenised - milk I would put the day's ration into the liquidiser and whizz it fast. The butter globules were collected, washed and salted and gave us a day's supply of butter.
Ah, happy days :-)
Mary
Thank you so much for taking the time to answer my many questions. I really do appreciate it. I am hoping to convince my husband to let me have a few chickens.
Phae
I prefer to dwell on the similarities. :) Other than freezing, there really isn't any other safe way to do fruit jams, conserves, chutneys and preserves, though years ago, I did use the paraffin method for jam. My husband plants a lot of tomatoes so I like to take advantage of that by at least canning sauce, whole plum tomatoes, and peach/tomato salsa.
I do far more food prep as well but that is also because I am not very fast. I envy people who can work fast.
Most people are.
You are fortunate to have a more temperate growing season.
Yum.
You can get Greek or Middle Eastern yogurt (lebneh) at ethnic groceries; and Whole Foods carries several brands as well. I was shocked to learn that Americans are consuming an average of like 60 pounds or so of high fructose corn syrup a year despite the fact that it's one of the most serious food-related threats to health.
Phae
If her Stoneyfield Farms yogurt is any indication, she clearly is already well aware of organic brands. There's some things you likely don't know about organic and natural foods in the US. Our USDA and FDA recently changed the definition of "organic" and some other related terms to make them far more inclusive with a far greater likelihood that most things now labeled "organic" are not really grown organically in the accurate sense. Free-range, for instance, can mean as little as opening the barn door, regardless whether the chickens can get out or not.
These changes occurred as the result of pressure from the big industrial operations who are feeling their bottom line threatened by, despite astounding odds, the growing market of healthier, safer food. The industrial food lobby (ADM, Phillip Morris/Kraft, Nestle, etc) has *far* more influence on our legislators than we do because they receive huge amounts of election campaign funding from these companies. Everything in the US is all bass-ackwards right now.
To combat this fake labeling problem, organic producers are starting to use other kinds of labels now like "pastured" or "antibiotic-free" and are more often including legitimate organic certifications on the labels. This is also being increasingly compromised by food lobby sponsored legislation that *forbids* the labeling of certain things like non-GMO dairy products. IOW, Americans are not allowed to know if our food has been genetically modified or not.
So there are two huge problems for American consumers who want to buy better food: (1) They have to be very educated about the brands and spend a good deal of time at it; and, (2) There are not enough producers. Half the time when I go to buy milk or eggs, for instance, they are out of the real organic brands. Production is being increased as more people become more savvy about such matters but, these smaller operations are penalized via various mechanisms including huge government subsidies to industrial food and corn ethanol operations.
And under anti-consumer administrations such as the one we have now, our federal agencies have bent over backwards to put the small, healthier operations out of business. The USDA war on the Faillace family and the unwarranted killing of their entire sheep herd is just one of hundreds of examples of US government tyranny being exacted on small, artisan and organic farmers.
[...]Phae
There we'll have to disagree. :-)
Well made jam, conserves and chutneys are perfectly safe. But most Brits haven't even herd of botulism :-))))))
I don't think anyone uses that these days, I never did.,
I bottled some tomatoes last year and the pantry shelf looked lovely, it was a shame to open the jars. But I shan't do it again, I'll freeze toms for use in cooking.
Mary
It's not a matter of opinion or disagreement. We were talking about
*preserving*, putting things by--- not just keeping them in the fridge for a few months. Of course you can refrigerate well made jams, chutneys, preserves and conserves. Believe it or not, we do have refrigerators in the US too. ;) But there isn't any other safe way to preserve these items other than by canning or freezing, whether you live in the US or the UK.Botulism isn't usually the problem, by the way, with the items in question. Mold is more likely the issue.
Phae
Phaedrine Stonebridge wrote in news: snipped-for-privacy@sn-indi.vsrv-sjc.supernews.net :
chickens are addictive! if you want a couple good-natured hens (chickens are social, you should have at least 2), look fot buff orpingtons or barred rocks. both those breeds should be easy to find & both are usually very calm, friendly birds. avoid leghorns, as they are flightly (literally a well as figuratively) & can be aggressive. you don't need a rooster & while i love my Speckled Sussex roo, he's more decorative than useful & roosters are noisy... all day. lee
Phaedrine Stonebridge wrote in news: snipped-for-privacy@sn-indi.vsrv-sjc.supernews.net :
the closest Whole Foods is 40 miles as the crow flies, but about 2 hours by car (you cahn't get theya from heya). i can get Greek yogurt in Portsmouth at Philbricks, but again that's about an hour (ok, so the nearest grocery that i'll shop at is
20 minutes away & my 'usual' store is half-an-hour away. *nothing* is particularly close by)
we've pretty much eliminated HFCS from our diets, but it means a *lot* of label reading & more making from scratch. if we look really hard we can find hamburger buns without HFCS, bur all the hot dog buns contain it. i now have burger & hot dog bun pans. the really nice thing is now we're not stuck with boring white bread buns... i probably have the only 7 year old that reads food labels & rejects products because they contain HFCS (or red & yellow food colorings because that makes him 'feel yucky'). he's a little messy, but he's a pretty good cook already :) lee
Don't tell me -- he still plays with Legos, right? If I leave any out when my boys come home to visit, at least one of them will put them together to make something. Most likely the 36-year-old one.
If a preserve develops mould it's not been made properly. It only once happened to me, when I hadn't rduced the liquid content of a jam sufficiently.
My fridges are full of fresh foods (dairy and salad vegetables), there's no room for all those jars of jam, marmalade and chutneys. Fresh fruit is kept in the sitting room. The freezers are full of meat (because we buy whole or half animals) including game, and fish and bread. I make a lot of bread at a time to save time and energy. The pantry is full of all the foodstuffs which don't need freezing or refrigerating. That includes dried food - I have a dehydrator which means that I can take advantage of gluts of some fruits, fungi and vegetables.
Incidentally, we're still eating marmalade I made in 1998 - long story :-) Vintage, we call it.
Which reminds me that the 'cellar' is full of liquids which were first put in bottles up to thirty years ago ...
I reckon we could live quite well through a siege :-)
Mary
Mary
I was going to warn against that :-)
Or perhaps consider bantams.
Mary
There's canning, freezing, drying, and pickling, IIRC. I've done all but the drying, back in the day. Now, it hardly seems worthwhile with just the two of us. I do like pickled peaches, and they don't show up in the stores, but I'm the only one that eats them so I don't do them. I can't match Clausen's pickles, either, and it's much easier to buy the occasional jar. It's not like we eat a lot of them.
Pogonip wrote in news:485f3f72$ snipped-for-privacy@news.bnb-lp.com:
don't *you* still play with Legos? my MIL is sad if at least one of us (7 kids & spouses, plus step-child & spouse) doesn't get her some type of Legos for Christmas. lee
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