Dutch Potato Soup (Good Food for Winter Weather)

This is an awesome (yet time consuming) soup to make. It has a lot of prep time that goes with it.

I like it too because it uses a lot of household staples. No fancy ingredients just wholesome goodness.

 

 You will need the following:

 

1 large onion-chopped finely

1 lb. bacon- cooked/crumbled

2 tablespoons of saved bacon grease

1/2 cup flour

Enough cut and diced potatoes to make 8 cups full

1 tablespoon thyme

2 cups milk

6 cups water (will need exact amount)

Salt & Pepper to taste

 

 

Cook down the onions in the bacon grease.

 

 

 

This is what they will look like. Brown and tender.

 

 

Bacon fried and grease saved.

 

 

8 cups taters diced

 

 

Place the water, thyme, and taters into a large soup pot. Boil until tender when inserted with a fork.

 

 

Drain taters.

 

 

Save the water.

 

 

Reserve half of the cooked taters and mash.

 

 

Mashed taters.

 

 

Add the flour. Mix well with the taters.

 

 

Pour the reserved water into the taters/flour mixture and mix well.

 

 

 

Add onions.

 

 

Add bacon.

 

 

Add the other half of the taters.

 

 

Pour in the 2 cups milk and stir.

 

 

Bring to a slow boil. It will thicken slowly.

 

 

All done!

 

This soup is not super thick. Enough though to be able to dip corn bread into and sup up!

 

Add cheddar cheese on top before serving. YUMMY!

 

 

 

Blessings!

Amanda

Matthew 6:33

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Keeping Potatoes Without Canning Them #2

 

We have experimented again this year with keeping potatoes without canning them. We usually keep them under the house. That has worked well but they seem to get softer than I like which is normal. So this year instead of digging for them in July when they are ready to be dug, we left them in the ground.

 

 

We just dug for the taters as we needed them. They are still in the ground to this date. I went out and dug some the other day and found beautiful little taters just ready to be eaten. There were a few that were mushy but 98% were firm.

 

We are able to do this here in southeaster NC because our temps. are mild during the winter,Average high of 50* and average low of  32*. The potatoes are deep enough down that the cold nights haven't seemed to bother them.

 

Now some of them started to seed again in August and that bought on a new batch with the old ones. Not sure when I did dig down, which one's I am getting. They are good though.

 

 

Here is the bag I dug for the other day. Going to use them for some Dutch Potato Soup later this week.

 

You can go here - http://aheartforhomesteadingtoo.blogspot.com/2012/12/keeping-potatoes-without-canning-them.html

 

to see the post # 1 on keeping potatoes without canning them. I think I like this way even better!

 

Blessings,

Amanda

Matthew 6:33

 

 



Home Grown Food From the Homestead (Literally!)

 

Here is the final product from butchering the roosters yesterday.They were totally homegrown and raised from day one. We had a hen go broody (for the 2nd) year in a row this past summer. We ended up with 9 new chickens. One was killed at night by an unknown predator and then we ended up with 3 roosters and 5 hens. What you see above are the roosters. We didn't need anymore roosters so off to be butchered they went.

 

 

Here they are all bagged up and heading to the freezer. That's 3 extra chickens I won't have to buy for the next month! Happy Dance!!!!!!! They are not very big but I look forward to getting enough broth from them for soup and dumplings.

 

My daughter ended up with 3 also but hers were so much bigger. Had I planned on butchering them before hand (a last minute decision) I would have fattened them up some. I am pleased with the results though and can't wait to try them.

 

At least I have someone who is willing to help butcher our birds now (Hubby will not even think about it.) I may even try a larger batch this spring. We'll see!

 

Blessings,

Amanda

Matthew 6:33

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Which Egg Came From the Homestead?

 

Can you tell which egg came from the homestead?

It's the one on the left. The other one is  a store bought egg. Our chickens aren't laying much this winter ,which is normal due to a lack of sunlight. But since the days are getting longer, LORD willin', we will start getting more of these golden goodies.

 

We feed our chickens corn and some laying mash. Most of what they get comes from what they find while out and about. They are free range and all over our 5 little acre homestead.

Yep, I miss those golden beauties.

 

Amanda

Matthew 6:33

Homestead Chore #14 Butchering Chickens (Graphic Yet Real Pictures)

 

 

Well, we finally butchered some chickens on the homestead. I had only previous helped one time before with a friend who was more than willing to show me the process. So taking the little knowledge I obtained and having an AWESOME son-in-law who needed to do his birds too, we commenced to butchering.

 

 

Justin with one of his birds. Getting ready to string it up to get its head off. He tried slicing it first to drain the blood but found it easier to just cut its head off. So I held onto the chicken (with a string on its legs) while he cut off the head.

 

 

Strung up. Head coming off to drain the blood. He was not going down easy. HE was a strong chicken!

 

 

Head gone and ready to b dipped into boiling water to get the feathers off.

 

 

 

Heads up! Or should I say down?

 

 

Dipping the chicken in the boiling water for about 30 seconds.

 

 

Plucking begins.

 

 

 

More fine detail on the plucking.

 

 

 

Time to *gut* the chicken.

 

 

Ever wonder what the insides of a chicken looks like? Here ya go!

 

Notice the corn? Must have had his craw filled! EWW!

 

 

Angel (daughter) *singeing* the fine hairs off the chicken.

 

 

Washing it out and putting it into the cooler full of ice water.

 

 

We did it! one down and 5 more to go.

 

 

Justin and I were splattered with blood. Truth here! Butchering chickens as any other farm animal is a messy business! Smelly too!!!!!

 

 

Yes, I wore flip flops to butcher. Feather and chicken blood.Made me realize that I need a good pedicure!

 

 

All done! Awesome feeling knowing that one can raise and process one's own food.It's a dirty and smelly job but the rewards are amazing!

 

What's on your table tonight?

 

Amanda

Matthew 6:33

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 



Spring Time on Our Little Homestead

Wow! 3 posts in 2 days! I'm on a roll! Here are some pictures of the homestead. Everything is bloomed out and absolutely gorgeous! It's stormy here today but still a lovely day on the homestead. I know my garden is appreciating the rain ;-)

This is Luke. He is the only rooster we kept from the August batch. He is such a sweety! His favorite place to hang out is up front of the house. I thought he looked real fine in front of our azalea bush that bloomed this year. He's not at all hateful as the other roosters we have had. What a blessin'!

Hangin' out under the azalea bush.

With spring time comes the predators. This little varmint ate 2 of my hens in a single night. What a mess! So Noah set out the trap, for we knew he would be back for another meal the following evening.

He got his mouth hung up in the trap, hence the bloody mouth. Richard relocated him in the evening. 

Can't blame a critter for being hungry. That's the ONLY reason he wasn't shot on site!

Found this awesome old washstub at my favorite antique store. When an elderly lady saw me purchasing it, she set to reminiscing. 

She told me she remembered the days of washing bodies and clothes in those old tubs. She said she remembered the day that the electric washing machine was invented and what a blessin' it was to get it. I guess it just ought to make me appreciate the conveniences we have today even more!

Now its being used as a plant holder ;-)

Can't post a homestead picture without AnnaBelle. Here she is chillin' and makin' milk.

I've also been busy potting plants to go on my front porch. These purple wave petunias LOVE the heat as long as they stay watered. Now to keep the chickens away from them.

What's happening on your homestead?

Ain't GOD good?

Amanda <><

Song of Solomon 2:11-12

King James Version (KJV)

11 For, lo, the winter is past, the rain is over and gone;
12 The flowers appear on the earth; the time of the singing of birds is come, and the voice of the turtle is heard in our land;

A Stubborn & Determined Pig

We added another pig to our little homestead this spring. This will be the 4th pig we have raised for meat. We butchered the last one this past November and we now have a freezer full of southern style BBQ (YUMMY!!)

This new pig has WAY too much personality. She likes to run around and do *jumps* in the air with an occasional *bark* to boot. Yeah, pigs can make a sound that sounds between a bark and a grunt. Done fast, it sounds like a dog bark.

Anyway, this pig does not like to drink out of her water fountain. All the other pigs figured it out, this one prefers the traditional bowl. The problem is she is getting bigger and likes to *play* with it now. That means pulling it out of the holder and dumping it. ARRG!!!

Here's what she did today when Noah and I tried to get her to use the fountain after having dumped the water over again for the umpteenth time.

This is where the bowl should be.

Here's where she put it.

This is the fountain she should be using. Hubby said to put some peanut butter on it and she would lick it off and realize that the water was there.

Didn't work. She ended up eating it off the ground and then rubbed her body all over the fountain getting the peanut butter all over her. It sprayed some water but she never did get it into her mouth as was the plan.

\\

Here she is rubbing against the water fountain.

We knew we needed a way to keep her from dumping out the bowl, again. So Noah put 2 bricks inside the bowl. Here she is trying to figure out what new toy she has to play with.

She then commences to doing her best to get those bricks out of the water so she can dump the bowl out again.

She kept her head under that water a good time trying to get those bricks out. She would get them just so far and they would slip off her snout and back into the water. HA! We have you now pig!

After about 5 minutes or more of this she finally gives up.

VICTORY! Off she goes for a nap. It's been about 3 hours since this happened. I best go check the bowl again. She is one stubborn and determined pig! Isn't GOD's creation amazing?

Amanda

Matthew 6:33