Bees - first check

This morning I checked on the two hives of bees I bought and installed 10 days ago. I checked my top bar hive (Hive 1) first. Everything looked great! The bees were drawing comb off of the bars, there was still plenty of honey left in the jar, the queen had been released, and everything was humming along nicely. I moved back the follower board to give them more room, took out the queen cage, closed them back up, and that was that. The bees stayed calm (it helped that it was only 60 degrees out and they were cold).

The Warre hive (Hive 2), however, was another story. When I removed the top box, I found comb hanging everywhere but where it was supposed to be. The jar of honey I'd left for them was completely empty, but they'd built comb on top of it, rising up in a ring, continuing the shape of the jar. I'd taken out three frames to make room for the jar, and the bees had built comb off the bottom of the frames above, down into the opening next to the jar. So basically I had to remove all of the comb they'd built over the course of the week. I also found that the queen was still in her cage, so I carefully removed her and dropped her in the hive. Thankfully, that means there wasn't any brood in any of the combs (and no honey that I could see, either).

So basically this means that Hive 2 is starting over from scratch. I'll give them more honey (using the feeder this time) so hopefully they can bounce back after this early setback.

This means that right off the bat the top bar hive is showing a lead on the Warre - but that may just be because the queen wasn't released and I didn't use the feeder like I should have. We'll see how each progresses over the course of the summer (and winter - I'm very nervous to see if either of them make it through!)

Some of the drawn comb I had to remove from Hive 2

Fudgy Maple Syrup Brownies

This has become my go-to dessert recipe; my husband asks for it all the time (and my brother- and sister-in-law always request it when we visit them on Friday nights (with homemade ice cream on the side, of course!)
And of course I always oblige, because they're so easy to make!
 

Fudgy Maple Syrup Brownies

1/2 cup butter

1/3 cup cocoa

2 eggs

1 cup maple syrup

1/2 tsp vanilla

3/4 cups flour

1/2 cup nuts (optional)

Mix all together, pour into 8x8 pan. Bake at 350 degrees for 30 minutes.

Chocolate Whipped Cream

I made this as the frosting on my husband's birthday cake today - yum! And so easy!

Chocolate Whipped Cream
1 cup heavy cream
2 Tbsp unsweetened cocoa powder
1/4 cup maple syrup
Mix cream and cocoa powder well, then whip until soft peaks form. Slowly drizzle in the maple syrup and continue to whip until stiff.

Upcycled dish scrubbie

I'm kind of ashamed that I didn't think of this sooner - instead of buying those plastic dish scrubbies, you can get the same effect by cutting a piece off of an empty orange bag. We've been using the one in the picture below for about a month now, and I'm amazed at how well it works (and how long it lasts!)

Rye/Wheat vs. Rye/White Bread Bake-off

After learning how much more phytase (which of course neutralizes the mineral-binding phytate) rye flour has than wheat, and reading how the healthy remote Swiss studied by Weston Price lived on mainly rye bread and dairy products, I've been trying to use more rye flour in my bread making. Unfortunately, using 100% rye flour makes for a very dense loaf (especially with my sourdough recipe), so I've been mixing rye flour and white all-purpose flour in my bread lately, thinking whole wheat would still be too heavy. On a whim, I decided to try a side-by-side comparison of a half whole wheat/half rye loaf of pumpkin sourdough bread, and another using the same recipe, but with half white flour and half rye. Here were the results:

The loaf on the left is the one with white flour, and as you can see it did rise a little bit more (which caused it to crack around the bottom). I had flattened it a bit more when I put it on the pan, so it's a bit wider, but pretty much as tall, as the whole wheat loaf on the right. All in all, though, the difference is too small to convince me the loss of nutrition is worth it, so I think I'll be using the whole wheat rather than the white flour.

Super Sauerkraut

It's finally done! Isn't it pretty?

I've made sauerkraut once before, using the "Three days on the counter in a mason jar" method, and it was good, but then I read the Sauerkraut Survivor series and realized I might not be getting as much probiotic bacteria as I thought.

So I started looking around for a better system, even going so far as to order a Pickle-Pro lid on Amazon (which I never did use, but I'm thinking it will be great for when I make apple cider vinegar this fall). But before my pickle-pro arrived in the mail, I found these clamp-top jars at my local Farm & Fleet store (which were what I really wanted in the first place), so I grabbed two, ran over to the food co-op and bought a head of organic red cabbage, and giddily drove home to make some kraut!

The actual recipe is so simple - just slice up your kraut, let the salt bring out the juices, and let it sit in the cupboard for a month (that's the hard part!)

Here are the more technical directions:

Super Sauerkraut

Quarter, core, and shred cabbage, discarding outer leaves. Put in a large bowl and sprinkle with 1 Tbsp sea salt (or ½ Tbsp sea salt plus ¼ cup leftover kraut juice from previous batch). Cover bowl with a tea towel and set aside. After about a half hour, stir, then recover and set aside for another half hour. Stir again; at this point it should be getting juicy (no pounding required - let the salt do the work for you!) Transfer cabbage to a sterilized fermenting jar. Press down firmly to remove any air gaps and pack cabbage tightly, leaving 1” head space (actually, according to this, you don't have to have the brine covering the cabbage if you use the clamp-top gasket jar). Attach cover according to jar directions and keep in a dark place at room temperature for four weeks. Best eaten 4-8 weeks after initial shredding. Refrigerate after opening.

Of course, you can do this with green cabbage to make a "normal" looking kraut, but I like using the red cabbage because it makes such a bright presentation.

Here's to homemade probiotics!

Homemade Press-less Raw Cheddar Cheese

When a friend of mine told me she made shreddable, meltable cheddar-style cheese in her kitchen at home - without a cheese press - AND that she would be willing to show me how, you can imagine how thrilled I was! When she added that the milk is only heated up to 100 degrees - so technically it can be a raw cheese (if you have a source of raw milk that you trust) - I could barely contain myself. We've finished off the last of our store-bought cheese and are now eating exclusively home made - no more colorings and questionable milk! (If your kids are put off by the fact that it isn't orange, you can buy coloring, or experiment with home-made colorings.)

Press-less Farmhouse Cheddar
(This recipe makes about 3 pounds of cheese. You can certainly make a smaller batch if you prefer, simply divide the recipe accordingly.)
3 gallons milk
3/4 tsp mesophilic culture
1/2 tablet rennet
2-3 Tbsp cheese salt (when I made this with sea salt, it didn't turn out right - I'm not sure if it was the salt, or if I did something wrong. Please leave a comment if you know about this.)

I make this recipe in a big 21 quart canning kettle, which will hold all 3 gallons of milk. Actually, I use two, one for the main cooking kettle and one nested under it for a water bath. You'll need to heat the milk slowly, so a water bath is very helpful.

Heat your milk to 88 degrees F, then add the culture powder and mix it in thoroughly. Cover and let stand for about 40 minutes.

Break a rennet tablet in half and place one piece in 1/4 cup cold water. Dissolve the tablet completely, then pour it into the cultured milk, stirring it in gently. Cover again and let sit for 40 more minutes, until the curd separates out (it will look like very thick yogurt, and if you pull it away from the side, watery yellowish whey will fill in the gap). Cut the curd into half-inch cubes (using a long knife, cut one way, all the way to the bottom of the pan, making slits a half inch apart, then do the same in the opposite direction to make half-inch squares. Then as best you can, cut diagonally to get as close to cubes as possible.)

Heat the water in the lower kettle until the curds reach 100 degrees, making sure to go slowly - the curds should only gain 2 degrees every 5 minutes. The whole heating time should be around 30 minutes. Stir the curds gently up from the bottom every so often to keep the curds from matting. You will notice that there is a LOT more whey.

Once you're up to 100 degrees, cover your kettle and let the curds sit for 10-15 minutes. Then drain as much whey as you can without losing any curd (save the whey! You can use it to make ricotta, save it for boosting your sauerkraut or other ferments, feed it to your chickens (whey is high in protein, so it makes a good supplement to their feed. Better yet, soak their feed in it for a day or two for a fermented wet mash!), or even sprinkle it on your garden). Then flop the curds out into a colander with a bowl under it to catch the remaining whey. Mix in the salt (I do this with my hands, crumbling the curds and mixing them until the salt is completely incorporated), cover, and let stand in a warm place overnight (since my house is pretty cold this time of year, I put the bowl and colander inside the bottom canning kettle (that I was using as a double boiler - it still has warm water in it), cover it, and then put a towel over the top to keep it warm.) If you want to, you can put a plate on top of the curds with a jar of water on top to weight it down, as a minimal imitation of a cheese press. I've done it with and without, and haven't noticed too much difference.

In the morning, flop the finished cheese out of your colander and store in a covered container in your fridge. This won't keep as long as a pressed cheese, but it can be used in any of the ways you normally would use cheddar (I've never had any go bad - but then again, it's never lasted more than a week in my house!)

As I said, this cheese is very versatile - it shreds nicely, melts well, and slices just like you'd expect - it's not soft at all.

And it goes very well on scrambled eggs, as my children will attest!

If you aren't sure where to get rennet, cultures, and cheese salt, they're all available online. Here are the links to where to find them on Amazon:



This post is part of the Homestead Barn Hop,  Sunday School, and The Creative HomeAcre Hop.