Meatloaf Spice Mix - McCormick's Clone

I've got an earlier post on meatloaf but I wanted to very quickly stop in and post the spice mix I now make and use exclusively. It takes just like McCormick's, only fresher.

Ingredients

     2 tsp ground mustard
     2 tsp paprika
     1 1/2 tsp sea salt
     1 1/2 tsp thyme
     1 1/2 tsp basil
     1 tsp ground black pepper
     1 tsp garlic powder
     1 tsp onion powder

If you use 1lb pork sausage plus 1lb elk burger (or beef), you'll add 1 Tbsp of this mix to your meatloaf ingredients.

     ...8 crackers, 1/2 C milk, 2 eggs.  375 in loaf pan for 1 hour

If you use 2lbs of elk burger (or beef), you'll add the entire mix.

If using beef and trying to recreate the rest of my recipe, add 3 more crackers as beef contains more fat than elk.

If you have a last packet of McCormick's to use up and want to try it with pork sausage like I do, you'll use 1/3 of the packet.

If all of this is confusing, raise your hand.

How do you make your meatloaf?

Potato Pen

This year I'm going to try making a giant box of potatoes. It'll be about 288 square feet of potatoes and straw once it's filled. A very good friend of ours gave us about 20 sheets of metal roofing a few years ago and I turned 4 sheets of it into a box last year to keep the Chicken Mafia, Rabbit Gang, Westside Ducks, Street Cats, and Barnyard Dogs out of the veggies. This year I've got 12 blueberry bushes (I got 10 just this year when I traded 2 male geese for them), 80+ raspberry bushes, 3 rhubarb plants from the pioneer days (they came over on a covered wagon!), 5 upcycled tires filled with pickling cucumbers, and I'll be planting more veggies in the weeks to come. 

With all the plants needing protection I've decided to just fence in the backyard/garden area but still build the box, this time to house the potatoes. I chose to use a box so that the straw won't spread with the wind. I can't chance uncovering potatoes too early, they'll turn green and the green part of a potato is actually toxic. Also, at $6.99 pre-tax per bale it isn't cheap. The layer you see in the photo took 1 whole bale and is maybe 3" deep. The panels are about  12' long and 3' tall and I'll be filling it to about the 2' mark. I estimate that'll take at least $60 so these babies better produce at least 30lbs to make it cost effective!

The Layout

My Dear Husband borrowed a tractor and tilled the garden for me last weekend and with no rain I was able to get the straw on before the soil compacted again. 

Tip: if you don't have plastic or straw and your yard isn't as windy as mine, you can lay cardboard over the soil so that rain doesn't compact it before you get a chance to plant. That will also work as a compostable weed barrier!

I regretfully did not get a photo of the soaker hose layout before I added the straw because I was in a hurry. It had been threatening to rain, the DH had just gotten home and I had yet to build a macaroni salad to go with the Ling Cod DH had caught and was planning to cook for dinner. Also, the Chicken Mafia had not noticed the garden construction yet and I failed to submit my application of protection ahead of time. Do you know what a Chicken Mafia will do to anything you're building outside if you don't secure protection from them?? They will inspect it top to bottom and then most likely tear it down and spread the remains like ashes from their fiery temper. It's true.

Anyway, I used 50 feet of 1/2" soaker hose ($20 at my local MalWart) in an 'S' pattern, staking down the rounded bends with 'U' shaped stakes, leaving the hose connection end outside of the box for easy hookup to the main hose. I then covered it with 1 bale of straw.

The Potatoes

Red Norland

I cut some Red Norland seed potatoes into sets today. A set is about an inch of potato with at least 2 eyes on it. You'll want to cut them a few days before you plant them so that the cutside has a chance to dry up. This will give it a better shot at not rotting when you place it in the ground. I'm also going to be planting our favorite type of potato, the Yellow Finn. They taste like buttah! Thin skins, yellowy flesh, great for frying, deep frying, mashing... we use them for everything. They seem to have the most flavor of all the types I've tried but I admit, I haven't tried a whole lot. I sort of stopped when we discovered these!

The Plan

To grow 288 square feet of big darn taters! I read a little about fertilizers and bone meal seemed to be the #1 thing to get a great sized tuber. Do you think I could find any?? No! Everyone seemed to be out. Instead I tossed a little Epsom Salt on the straw thinking that the rain would carry it into the soil. It's raining now, I'm guessing that's happening although I could go lick a piece of straw to find out...

I digress. 

When the sets are ready to plant, I'll just clear a little space under the straw and somewhat snug each piece into the earth a little and cover it back up with straw, making sure to plant them about 12-15" apart and in the middle of the rows created by the soaker hose. As the plants get about 8" tall, I'll cover them with more straw, repeating until they're at the 2' mark.

Why Soaker Hose?

You don't have to use soaker hose, I never have before, but by using it I will be able to water the taters with less effort and the straw shouldn't spread away like it could if I were to spray the top with a hose. My hope is to get a timer and just water them for a few minutes every morning at about 7am. 

Last year I tried using barrels but the material stayed too wet and I think the pine shavings I used created too much Nitrogen and I got poor results. 

Have you tried or heard of any other unusual methods? 

Do you have any tips for potato newbs?

Onion Soup Mix, Hold the Onion

I really hate onions. I can smell an onion a mile away and I gag if one slips through my defenses and into my mouth. It's pretty embarrassing in public but that doesn't happen too often anymore. I've learned to just ask if something has onion in it and it's very sad how much that limits what I eat when I eat out.

Over the last 2 years as I've really begun to cook, I've noticed that a lot of recipes for beef (I always substitute with elk or deer as I can't have beef) call for dry onion soup mix. I use it but I have always dry strained the mix over the bowl so that no sliver of evil dehydrated onion worms it's evil way into my food.

Lately I've been on this MMO (make my own) mix kick and today as I was creating a recipe for Extra Hearty Roast Con Gravy, I thought some onion soup mix might be good. Too lazy to look in the cupboard and excited to try my own, I created this Dry Onion Soup Mix Without Onions!

In the photo, you see Knorr Beef Bouillon which I do use, but this particular batch today was made with beef bouillon from the local co-op. It's just a little more spendy than Knorr in the hispanic aisle of my local MalWart. Believe me, I'd go all uppity and refuse to shop there if I could but the simple fact is that I can't afford to, and the bouillon with spanish writing is cheaper than that with only english. Go figure.

Recipe:

• 1/3 C Beef Bouillon
• 4 tsp Onion Powder
• 1/4 tsp Celery Seed
• 1/4 tsp Sugar

To substitute for 1 packet of Lipton Onion Soup Mix, start with 2 Tbsp of this mix and add as you like.

Ugh, iiiiiif you haaaaave to have stupid evil nasty gross evil onion flakes, you can add

• 3/4 C Dehydrated Onions

and start with 4-5 Tbsp of the mix to replace 1 packet.

But I wouldn't *shudder*

On Becoming a Lioness

I've always been a thinker, far more able to live in my own head than the outside world with real people whom I often don't quite understand and whose groups I just haven't ever seemed to fit into. This last year being off work has really given me the time and luxury to further develop my awareness of self and the biggest realization that I've come to, is that I have always felt late.

Late as in, not on time. As in BEHIND. Behind others, to be specific. Who set up this timetable of expectations, anyway? The feeling of having to, the driving need to, accomplish "on schedule" is just plain soul crushing.

At first.

I felt the weight of expectation is just about every pore of my body. From my mother who unfairly equated my B's with my sibling's D's, to my teachers who told me over and over that I had "so much potential". My family just KNEW that I'd be the first to graduate college and become a RAGING SUCCESS STORY!!!!!!!! Nowhere in there was anyone asking what I would like to do, what I thought, what I wanted to accomplish, what my future meant to me. I was saddled and ready to go... with no real tools of my own prepared for the ride.

And so I failed. Well, I felt that I failed. I failed before I could fail so that I didn't end up wasting their time with how badly I was going to disappoint them when the hype turned to dust in front of their eyes. I still have a problem with self-sabotaging but it's getting better.

As I grew up into my late teens and early twenties, I felt like not only had I seriously let all of my cheerleaders down, but that I wasn't equal to my peers. A few had bought homes, had babies, gotten married, moved out of town for longer than six months... and I didn't even have a CAREER yet. Now, it is good to compare yourself with others sometimes. It can be a good source of motivation or affirmation for the way your own life is going, but when you start tearing yourself down... that's when you're doing it wrong.

I did not learn that until a few short years ago. I am 32.

It took me so long to understand that i was not BEHIND. I was not LATE. Do you know why? Because who the hell designed the damn timeline, and there is never a "late" for the brave! There is no keeper of the schedule but you. If you are brave, time is rarely a factor or a limiting agent.

What prompted my amazing realization? My best friend and youngest sister, Samantha. Her little family, farm, and day to day life does not fit a mold, and it's okay. I have always felt that it is okay and defended her hippie ways and then one day, out of nowhere, realized that although I took it as a matter of course that her path was different and okay, I didn't give my own that same respect.

I didn't have to graduate from college. I didn't have to be married before having my daughter. I didn't have to own a house by the time I was 25. I didn't have to be married to the man I lived with. I didn't have to have a fancy career title that my husband, relatives, or friends could boast about when speaking of me. I didn't have to have all of that and a big, new home in order to be a spectacular wife, mother, daughter, sister, or friend.

I didn't have to, because my life is my own. I am where I need to be, I always have been, and that is okay because I said it is.

I wish the burden of other people's expectations, or your own inflated and disproportionate expectations on yourself, to fall from your shoulders too.

It feels good to breathe.

I am a strong person. I am a good person. These, in the eyes of my daughter, husband, family and friends, is what matters to me. Not what I have, what title I hold, or where I am.

It feels good to become a lioness.

Returning to blog... returning to work?

I had quit blogging a year ago due to the fact that I am so rural, I only have internet access via smartphone which is SOOOOoooo not conducive to a well-constructed and beautifully illustrated blog.

I'm finding it ironic that just as google seems to have gotten its blog construction straightened out, I might be returning to work. At least, I really hope I will but we'll see. I'm trying not to get my knickers in a twist waiting for a call. To work or not to work, it's a question best answered when told the salary and benefits package!

**I want knickers**

In the last year, I have slid a little away from crock potting but have really progressed in cooking nearly 100% from scratch. I don't make my own noodles *sob* oh gods, I know.... I fail. I FAIL!!!! Mayhap that failure could be offset by my sweet crafting skills, honed over these last 13 months. I'll be blogging a large paper flower project that I did for my sister Sam's wedding as well as an incredibly easy Teriyaki Chicken Crock dish and maybe even a pretty cool light fixture upgrade!

I know I'm not saying much.... I'm just saying, hang in there. New job or not, this blog shall live on!!

Save Your Plastic!

I've had a harder and harder time throwing away plastic containers because I really don't want to contribute to landfills more than I have to so I've been coming up with creative uses for the bottles I've emptied or that contain products I don't want to use.

I've been reusing vinegar jugs by filling them with the laundry soap I make and sell. I've also used them to make Emergency Funnels and "WHERE-IS-MY-FEED-SCOOP OH-MY-CRAP-THE-ANIMALS-ARE-GOING-TO-STARVE-BECAUSE-I-AM-SUDDENLY-UNABLE-TO-THINK-OF-ANY-OTHER-SCOOP-CURVE-BOWL-TYPE-THING-FOR-FOOD-GETTING" Scoop.

*sigh*

I just love reusing vinegar jugs.

Vinegar IS the only surface cleaner I use so not only do I end up with lots of free jugs, I don't have to pay a big truck to burn diesel into the atmosphere getting another one to an area near me and then burn gasoline to go pick it up..

AAAAANNNNND

...I'm keeping it out of a landfill...

AAAAANNNNND

...it's already cleaned! With vinegar! All by itself!

Vinegar is my hero.

Back to what sparked the return of my blog writing (I've decided that the photos will land where they feel like it and I know you're polite enough to try and understand or pretend to understand the issues I'm having blogging via mobile and won't mention it if they're wonky) which was using my vinegar cleaner on my bathroom mirrors this morning.

You see, I had been given a body spray and although I liked the smell, I coveted the small bottle & pump far more. Also, I really don't wear "Smelly Stuff" (husband speak) that often.

I live on a farm.

I'm a farmer.

With all of the odors here, trying to combat them or balance them with a more pleasant one is like trying to do something really hard.. like coming up with an analogy when you've barely had 1 cup of coffee and one of your eyes isn't even open yet.

(O_e)

So I had this bottle which was in my bathroom amidst the other Smellies and it hit me... VINEGAR!

It is much more efficient to keep vinegar in the bathroom (and a great visual reminder to pick it up and use it) but not great to have a gallon plopped right out in the open, all awkward like a coworker at your bachelorette party, everyone wondering why its there.

"Hey, why is Deborah from accounting here?"

Nobody knows.

The solution: I poured my vinegar water (50/50) into the rinsed out bottle and now it hides inconspicuously betwixt the Smellies. Its a great way to hide it, to remember to use it, and also to waste less of it.

Speaking of spraying being more effective...

PUT YOUR RUBBING ALCOHOL IN A SPRAY BOTTLE!

And speaking of spraying in general...

SPAY AND NEUTER YOUR PETS!

*Neutering as soon as possible has been proven to prevent 2 out of 3 cats from ever spraying!

*In a study conducted by me over a period of 12 years.

-Chubby, Bobby, and Fion were not harmed in the study-

The Six Hour Omelette

Please bear with me, due to DSL not being available in the very rural area where I live, photos will not be ordered nicely and may look like a 5yo started blogging due to the app I have to use not being proficient enough to withstand my awesomeness. Once upon the other day, I had a thawed packaged of sausage that needed to be cooked. The sad little pork sausage was all alone in the fridge and had never been to the crock before. I decided to take pity on the pork and have a party! ....in my crock pot (rhymes with "that's what SHE said...") We grow our own Yellow Finn potatoes which are VERY thin-skinned... (They take everything personally, speak in funny accents, insult you and then run away. Divas, really.) ...and so do very well in a crock setting. I also have 7 wonderful chickens (Bunny, Freckles, Happy, Mescal, Honey, Hazel, and the blond, Marilyn) who have no idea that most of their brethren (sisteren?) stop laying during the winter. Or, maybe they do know and they're rebels. Or, maybe they don't care because they're just so darn happy! They ALL lay an egg every single day. So on this particular day here I am with 30 eggs, a package of sausage, plenty of potatoes.... and I'm thinking PARTY! An omelette is just a culinary party, isn't it?  I think so! Here's what you'll need:      1 pkg Pork Sausage, crumbled & cooked      10 Sm-Med Potatoes      20 Eggs (2 per potato used) 4oz Cheddar Cheese,           Optional: small can of sliced mushrooms, I used unsalted      Grease your crock Crack in all of your eggs Mix in the sausage Toss in the potatoes Throw in some cheese Do the Crocky Pocky and mix it all around THAT'S WHAT ITS ALL ABOUT!! Shred ya some fromage (that's french for "cheese". I feel fancy today. Plus, I haven't shaved in about 3 days and its probably time to wax my mustache.) Cook on LOW for about 6 hours (you'll see when the eggs are done) Mmmmmmmmm yummmmmyyy! Feel free to toss in any other ingredients you'd normally use in an omelette EXCEPT FOR DAIRY PRODUCTS because it will spoil being cooked on low for such a long period of time.