Homesteading in the armpit of the Cape

This Memorial Day weekend we put perfectly good food underground....and cooked it to yumminess.  We made Bean-Hole Beans and mesquite smoked corn, chicken, hot dogs, venzin sausage, and linquica. 


 Beans soaked overnight and parboiled.

 Beans ready for cooking.

 Bottom of the pit lined with block and rocks.
 Ready to be lit.

 Roaring fire making a good bed of coals.
 Beans ready to go in.
 Coals pushed around the dutch oven.

 Ready to cook some beans.

 Tucked in for the night.
 Smoking away.

 Taking a peek.

 Corn, chicken, venzin sausages, hot dogs, and linguica.
 Digging out the pot.


Digging out the pot.
Pulling the pot out of the ground.
Here is the bean pot out of the ground.  Method of cooking: A (not perfect due to amount of work required).  Recipe:B- (needs to be ramped up in flavor a bit imho)

ogurt is so good for you. There is so much healthy bacteria in yogurt, but not all yogurt is created equal. Sure that fruit not on the top tastes good, but have you read the label? Sugar. Lots of it. Do you know how easy it is to make your own yogurt? Easy peasey lemon squeezy. Here we go.


You need a thermos, 1 tablespoon of yogurt and as much milk as you can fit in the thermos or lesser if you want less yogurt. Fill the thermos up with milk and dump that into a pan.










Bring the milk to a boil. You can use a double boiler or the pan on the burner but as this is milk, watch for boilover. Just get it to a boil then take it off the burner.






Pour the milk into the thermos and wait until it is lukewarm ~112F. Plop in a tablespoon of yogurt and close the lid. It should be ready in 12 hours or so. Just open the top and shake it a little to see if it has solidified.

This has no sugar so you probably want to sweeten it yourself. Mix some grapenuts or granola and honey in or use it in a smoothie. I keep ice cubes made from frozen fruits from the summer in the freezer. A couple of these and some yogurt in a blender make a great morning drink.

abbage was on sale for $0.25 a pound so Sarah picked up four large heads to make into sauerkraut. AND as luck would have it, someone offered up a ton of canning jars for free on freecycle! Time for sauerkraut!





Here is the 17 pounds (shredded weight) of cabbage ready to start the process of becoming yummy sauerkraut.









A little cabbage and a little salt get mixed up by my sanitized hands.










Here is the salted cabbage pressed into the crock tightly.











Fill the Bag up with water to create a nice seal and way down the cabbage in the brine.

asil is a favorite herb to grow. We dry it. We freeze it whole leaf. And we love to make pesto with it. Toss some basil, olive oil, garlic, pine nuts, and Parmesan cheese into a blender and blend until a smooth paste. Judge the olive oil quantity on the consistency of the mix. We like to freeze the paste in ice cube trays. After they are frozen, we store the cubes in a bag in the freezer.


Easy uses:

• Toss a cube on a chicken breast on the grill.
• Toss a chunked up cube on a piece of fish and broil.
• Mix cubes into a sauce or soup.
• Toss a few cubes into hot pasta.

House smells of wonderful vegetable stock. 112oz here for the freezer in 16oz containers. Each frozen block will then make 32oz of vegetable stock. Most likely we will use it for soups this winter. We always have a bag in the freezer for vegetable scraps. It doesn't take too long to fill it up and then follow this recipe:

http://www.recipezaar.com/Rich-Vegetable-Stock-217620