Mondays with Marcia Lowry-How Much Food Do You Eat in a Year?

HOW MUCH FOOD DO YOU EAT IN A YEAR?

We try to live a sustainable lifestyle, relying on renewable energy, home-grown food and being gentle to Mother Earth. One thing, among many, that has amazed us in this journey is the amount of food it takes to get us through a year. I have tried to keep accurate records in the past and have finally arrived at what we need to feed us from season to season. Here is an approximate tally:

Half a beef – locally grown and traded in part for pork and lamb, 1 pig – home-grown and fed mostly garden produce and milk, 1 -2 lambs – home-grown, grassfed, 12-15 meat chickens – home-grown, free-range, 50 dozen eggs – from home-grown free-range chickens, 300 gallons of milk from pasture-fed Molly cow –some going to the pigs and chickens and barn cats , 25 gallons of cream-to be made into butter, sour cream, cream cheese, and for cooking, 50 lbs. of various kinds of cheese, 30 quarts of green beans, 15 quarts of peas, 15 quarts of broccoli, 15 quarts of cauliflower, 50 quarts of corn, 20 quarts of tomatoes, 5 quarts of tomato sauce, 10 quarts of peppers, 10 pints of salsa, 16 quarts of peaches, 10-15 pints of various relishes and jams, 10 quarts of dill pickles, 300 lbs. of potatoes, 150 lbs. of onions, 25 acorn squash, 100 + pounds of carrots. 50 lbs. of parsnips, 25 lbs. of red beets, 25 lbs. of cabbage, 6 quarts applesauce, 3 gallons sliced apples, 150 pumpkins – most go to pigs and chickens, 350 lbs. of mangles (fodder beets) for cows, pigs, sheep and chickens.

In spring and summer gardens we grow various veggies such as asparagus, lettuce, radishes, summer squash, etc. In the passive solar greenhouse we have lettuce, kale, chard, beets, tomatoes and peppers all winter. We are fortunate to get several shipments of citrus fruit from Rob’s folks when they winter in Arizona. We try to keep food items we have to buy at a minimum as we only go to “town” every 2 or 3 weeks – flour, olive oil, coffee, tea, condiments, seasonings, spices and alcohol. We try to eat seasonally….by March we are really tired of carrots and are craving asparagus

There have been lots of lessons learned here - the most important being just how much product, time, energy and planning it takes to feed us…and we are just two humans! How much food do you eat in a year?

Mondays with Marcia Lowry-Breakfast on the Ranch

Remember Molly the Cow? Time for calf to eat!
And the sheep head out to pasture. Time for breakfast. (wish I was there)

Monday with Marcia Lowry-on Saturday this time!

Wouldn't you love to be the person getting such gifts? Fresh garden produce, eggs from our free-range chickens, cream from our cow, Molly.
My mouser cat is taking a break!

Monday with Marcia Lowry-Cooking with the Sun

it's HOT here in the high desert country of Wyoming - up to 90 degrees recently. On these sweltering days it's too much to heat up the kitchen to cook so we BBQ just about everything. Lately we've had a hankerin' for beef roast with root veggies, so I've relied on my other source for roasting - the Sun Oven. It's basically just a black plastic box with a tilting tray inside, an adjustable leg for the up and down angle, a glass door, and reflective metal wings that fold in when not in use. I use (as you can tell from the picture) an old dark colored roaster that fits on the tray, placing a locally grown, seasoned beef pot roast in first, adding no liquid. I started this morning about 10 am and just kept moving the oven clockwise with the sun every couple of hours or so. It stays at a pretty consistent 250 to 300 degrees. At about 2:30 pm I added veggies fresh from this morning's garden picking - new potatoes, turnips and baby carrots. The finished product, at about 6:30 pm was wonderful - juicy and tender... and NO hot kitchen!

Mondays with Marcia Lowry-on Thursday!

Having an abundant crop of Chinese cabbage this year, along with my consistent failure at making sauerkraut, I decide to try this recipe for canned coleslaw. It was very simple and the little bit that wouldn't fit into another quart jar tasted great.

Canned coleslaw

2 heads Chinese cabbage
2 large carrots
1 small onion
3-4 teaspoons salt

Syrup
3 cups vinegar

1/2 cup water
1 cup sugar
3 teaspoons celery seeds

3 teaspoons mustard seeds

Shred/chop vegetables. Add the salt. Let stand 1 hour.

Boil syrup ingredients together for 1 minute. Cool. Add to veggies.

Pack into quart jars.

Process in boiling hot water bath for 15 minutes.


[ I do not know why the photos are small...I had trouble re-posting this one. I give up though. Thank you Marcia for your contribution. I love canning! Hopefully people will be able to click on the photos to enlarge them. mel]

Monday with Marcia Lowry-Gardens and Molly Update

Kitchen garden 2010 - lettuce, peas, spinach, cabbage families, cucumbers, beets, turnips
Animal garden 2010 - pumpkins, mangles (fodder beets), carrots, parships
Out garden 2010 - garlic, potatoes, onions, kale, chard, green beans, summer and winter squash and corn

Molly milk cow has about 10-14 days until her calf is due. She seems quite a bit bigger to me than when she was this far along with last year's baby Andi - and is visibly uncomfortable....loves to be brushed and scratched in all the places she can't reach :))

Molly and Andi come into the corral from the pasture for part of the day to get away from the flies and, if they wish, the sun. Andi has really grown in almost a year!