Honey Goat Cheese Recipe

Today I made a great honey goat cheese, I used Meyer lemon juiced that I canned this spring and honey from our farm. This cheese was easy to make and will be great on toasted bread with fresh herbs and heirloom tomatoes.


Honey Goat Cheese

1 Quart goat milk
1 third cup Meyer lemon juice
1 Tablespoon Honey

Bring the goats milk to a good boil over low heat, stir in honey, add the lemon juice and let cool on the stove. After it's cool strain through cheese cloth or a handkerchief until most of the whey has drained off, for a softer cheese leave more whey or  for a harder cheese weight the top of the cheese to force more out. Refrigerate after you've reached the desired consistency.

Rainbow Fish

Inspired the beautiful colors of the radishes, beets, and carrots I harvested today I made "Rainbow Fish" for dinner. This recipe is simple and quick, plus it only takes one pan! Enough for 4 people it took about 15 minutes to put together.



Rainbow Fish

1 cup Quinoa rinsed and drained
2 cups water or broth
Variety of radishes, beets, and carrots sliced thinly
3 Tablespoons fresh herbs (I used sage and oregano)
2 Tablespoons butter
4 fillets of fish (I used Tilapia)

Rinse and drain the quinoa, a fine sieve with a handle works the best for this job. I've always had trouble with the quinoa floating away if I rinse it in a bowl. Put quinoa and 2 cups liquid in a baking dish. Chop the veggies and herbs, add to the the baking pan with quinoa. Put fish fillets on top of the vegetables and quinoa, top each fillet with a half tablespoon of butter (note: I used frozen fish so it didn't over cook in the time it takes for the quinoa to cook, if using fresh fish you may want to bake it for about 10 minutes before adding the fish). Grind fresh pepper and sea salt over the entire pan. Cook for about 20 mins on 400 until the quinoa and fish are fork tender.

Spring has Sprung!

Spring is rushing in to meet me. With so many changes coming fast it's been hard to focus on the farm. It finally hit me smack in the face though when I came home to KIDS!! Holy crap they are the cutest not-out-of-my-hoohaw babies ever!! I of course invited some friends over to meet them and they proved to be the cuddliest most enchanting little goats ever! Here are some great pictures taken by my girl "S".

We named them Apple and Aja, Apple being the girl. Even though they are squish-em-til- they-squeak cute now, I know that with out training they will soon be evil on four legs that cannot be contained by fences. So let the training commence. Aja will be up for sale in a few weeks and Apples fate has yet to be decided. Taffy their super sweet and shy mommy (she was a baby that I traded for last year) has also started training as a milk goat. I must admit, she already has better manners that those two turds Rosey and Posey. Rosey and Posey have a little game they love to play called "stick your nasty foot in the bucket" and they always do it right as I'm finishing up! A few angry times I've even had the entire bucket of milk dumped on me by one of the goaty minxes! You know how in the bible the "goats" are the bad people and the christians are lambs? Well now you know why, goats can be a royal pain in the ass, even gods ass evidently. Anyhow check out these photos and appreciate the peace and quiet at your place.

Well, it's fall here on the farm. The leaves are falling from the oak, things are getting a little greener, the mornings are frequently cold and afternoons hot, but mostly around here fall means babies. You might not think about it but here in on the farm fall means batches of chicks to be raised, winter gardens bountiful and lazy must be planted, and it's breeding season. This is our first year breeding our does since I bought them in milk this spring. Rosey, Posey, and the adorable Taffy will all be bred to Tahoe.

I bought Tahoe this spring when he was only 8 weeks old. He came as an unexpected addition to a Nigerian Dwarf milk doe I bought. I seriously considered wethering him and taking him to the auction but he was so cute and sweet. He frequently escaped and he was so friendly I would pick him up like a baby and carry him all over the farm. After we realized that a Nigerian Dwarf doe wouldn't give enough milk to sustain a family of four we traded his mom for a young La Mancha doe named Taffy. I chose to keep Tahoe for breeding because of his smaller size and friendly personality. I didn't realize that Nigerian Dwarf goats could become fertile as young as 8 weeks old, and this lack of oversight means that Posey may be giving us fall kids instead of spring kids, whoops! This will be Taffy's first freshening and I'm excited to see how she milks, he mother and sister are 2 gallon a day milkers! Rosey also seems to have gone into heat so I'm keeping my fingers crossed that in five months we'll have a bunch of sweet kids playing king of the mountain in our pasture.

Fall also brings rain and mud. The pond is back and the stream is half full. The stream bed is going to have to be dug out, it's running slowly. It's been raining for a couple days and the mud at the pasture gate is two inches deep already. Of course I was busy playing this summer and still need to gravel the pens, thank Grilled Cheesus for 4WD. I've also been thinking a lot about kidding season and am looking forward to the cooler weather allowing us to build some new pens. The ground's much easier to work now that it's soft too.

One of my favorite things about fall is not having to water the as garden often. I've started putting in the fall and winter crops. Lots of root vegetables, chard, and some herbs. I let the lettuce reseed itself and our soybeans are starting to produce. The pineapple sage I've been cooking with all summer has beautiful delicate scarlet flowers. Tiny radish and carrot seedlings were brutally thinned by the chickens a few days ago so I'm going to have to reinforce the garden fence. Chickens are devious about sneaking in and snacking on the sprouting seedlings. Stay tuned for pictures of the newest residents of the farm...Snowflake is the proud nanny of a new batch of chicks and the babies Mama hen has been raising in the garden have fancy feathered feet.

Watermelon Pickles

I have been wanting to try canning but have been nervous about screwing it up and wasting food or worse making us all sick. So I decided to try making watermelon pickles. You make the pickles with the watermelon rind, I figured at least if I totally screw up it's something I would have thrown to the chickens anyways. I did end up screwing up but it wasn't a big deal (I overcooked them but they still taste okay) better safe than sorry right? I didn't buy any special equipment other than jars. I used my big camping kettle with a veggie steamer rack in the bottom and some tongs to fish out the super hot jars. This worked fine for doing just a few pints, but I don't think the steamer rack would hold up to pint jars or that my pot will be big enough for that matter. I used the rind from one watermelon it yielded 3 pints of finished product and we sampled the last few pieces that didn't fit in the jar, mmm. Watermelon pickles it turns out are sweet and have a hint of clove. I don't usually care for sweet cucumber pickles but these actually taste pretty good! They look pretty in the jar so I think a jar or two will go towards what I want to give away for the holidays. Here's a pic of the finished product and the recipe as found in the Third Edition of Putting Food By by Hertzberg, Vaughn, and Greene.



Recipe: Watermelon Pickles

8 cups prepared watermelon rind
1/2 cup pickling salt
4 cups cold water
4 teaspoons whole cloves
4 cups sugar
2 cups white vinegar
2 cups water

Step 1) Prep the rind: Trim all green and pick off rind and cut into 1 inch cubes, thick rind is best.

Step 2) Dissolve salt in cold water pour over rind cubes (add more water to cover if needed). Let stand 5-6 hours

Step 3) Drain and rinse well. Cover with fresh water and cook until barely tender no more than 10 minutes (err on the side of crispness), drain

Step 4) Combine sugar, vinegar, and water, add cloves tied into a small cloth bag (I used cheese cloth), and bring to boiling, simmer for 5 minutes, pour over rind cubes and let stand overnight.

Step 5) Bring all to boiling and cook until rind is translucent but not at all mushy, about 10 minutes.

Step 6) Remove spice bag and pack rind cubes in hot sterilized pint jars, add boiling syrup leaving 1/2 inch of head room (tip- divide the syrup evenly among the jars then top pff with water if needed).

Step 7) Process in a Boiling Water Bath for 10 minutes Remember to Adjust for Altitude!! Remove jars and complete seals if necessary. Makes about 4 pints (mine only came out 3)

Pass the Cheese Please!

I am the kind of person that hates to say "No" so last week when someone asked if I would sell them some of my homemade cheese I agreed. Now in the process of agreeing to this I made three mistakes: 1) I said yes 2) I agreed to have it ready too soon, and 3) I agreed to not nearly enough money (at my own suggestion) for way to much work! So now I had to make two pounds of cheese in two days plus six big cassaroles for my freezer club meeting, uh oh! I busted my cassaroles out and comenced making the cheese. The first batch I tried using a different method that said to heat the milk to a lower temperature than usual which was a disaster! The curds were so small that they went through the cheese cloth. Finally after about 2 hours of me trying to save the cheese and making a HUGE mess, I strained it through a tightly woven hand kerchief and managed to get it into a very soft consistency perfect for goat cheese. After adding some fresh herbs the cheese was so tasty that the thought of selling it nearly brought tears to my eyes! Since a fair amount of cheese was lost down the drain I needed more to complete the order. For the second batch I stuck to a better recipe. I wanted a simple cheese that anyone would like so went with a more solid form and just a little garlic for flavor. It was tasty but I was still obsessing over the creamy herb one and trying not to freak out about having to share. The second batch filled the order but only left me with less than 8 oz of cheese for our family, not nearly enough! The only way I was going to be able to hand over all my hard work was if I made some that I could keep so I put another pot of milk on. This batch was the hardest to decide how to flavor. There was a lone jalapeno on the stove that kept mocking me "you're too scared to make me into cheese" it taunted, so I diced it up and added it to the milk! I put it in th pot to steep in the milk hoping that it would temper the spiciness. I was a little worried that it would be spicy hot and bitter from the jalapeno so I added a touch of smoke chili powder just before straining the cheese to give it a smokey hot flavor. With my fingers crossed I tasted a few of the piping hot curds, spicy but delicious! My first order went out and I kept the whole third batch for myself, though I did share with friends that came over for a play date. I learned that making cheese is hard work and I am going to have to charge more to make it worth my time, I felt like I was giving away something precious.

Tale of the Squash Blossoms

While perusing a small farmers market with a friend I ran across squash blossoms. I have tons of squash blossoms in my garden but what exactly do you do with them? I asked the seller and was told they could be stuffed, used in salad, or battered and fried, hmmm this gave me ideas! First I sliced some up and put them in salad, they were nice not strongly flavored at all. I had my five year old guessing what I put in the salad and the blossoms really stumped him! Then I got creative, stuffing them with some ground beef and my homemade goat cheese. I sauteed some tomatoes, zucchini, red and yellow bell pepper, red onion, and garlic until nearly tender and threw the blossoms on top to steam. They came out fantastic and there was nothing left over, a miracle with my kids.

Chickens are like chips you can't have just one...

After moving in I realized that the spiders and bugs were every where and I needed hep to control them but pesticides are a no go for me. What to do? Chickens!! There was an old beat up chick brooder on the property that I could re-purpose into a coop for the time being. So I check craigslist and head down tho the feed store to find some chicks. Of course you can't find any chicks in October, but we find some half grown chicks, a meat chick, and a mostly grown hen at the feed store. The guy at the feed store tries to sell me a bunch of crap that I don't need, but me being stingy I leave with my chick(en)s, feeders, and a bag of food. I get home, set the new chickens up in there home, and wait. And wait, and wait. Finally in December we get our first egg! Yay!! What do you do with one farm fresh egg? A whole lotta nothin' that's what! With in a few days we had more eggs and our first lemons too. This led to a delicious from scratch Lemon Merengue Pie that I refused to enter in the Christmas Cook Off and ended up losing (again!). Next year will be different and I vow to "bring the heat" to this cook off! And really? I got beat by an apple crisp, what kind of BS is that? Next year I am NOT responding when Eric's boss (one of the judges) asks what I brought, I think I got set up. Anyways, before long the chickens start getting picked off by the hawk (buh bye Monster Jack O' Lantern and Meatbird) so we get some more chicks. Enter Catchatorie, Terriyaki, and Whitey. The neighbors dog promptly comes over and kills Catchatorie and Whitey, leaving us with three chickens again. Finally after weeks of searching I find a FREE flock on CL that I drive very far to pick up, netting (haha) me 7 more hens, some of which are older. Spring rolls around and I start buying chicks like crazy (Orloffs, Austrlorps, Americaunas, Andalusian Blues, whatever I can find that's exciting), figuring that I can always grow and sell them to feed the horses. Then my friend and I decide that we should grow our own Thanks Giving turkeys. After a very wet spring there were ticks everywhere so I grabbed some Guinea Keets to clear those up. The icing on the cake? Last week I purchased a flock of nine laying hens! Anyhow, it's now June and we have 27 chickens, 3 Guinea Fowl, 2 ducks, and 6 Turkeys, and lots of eggs.