The New Monsters

Everyone in my family is allergic to chicken eggs, but we found we can eat duck eggs. They taste just the same, maybe a bit richer in flavor, and are larger in size. A three egg omlette made with duck eggs feeds all three of us for breakfast!

Since we can't buy duck eggs in the grocery store, and we have some room on our property, we ordered some baby ducks from a hatchery. They pushed our order back several times and we worried that they would never arrive. Luckily, the lady who sold us duck eggs, agreed to sell us some of her layer ducks. The good part is they were already laying eggs!

Several weeks later the babies arrived. they are so cute and fuzzy! They are growing very fast and should begin laying eggs at about 6 months of age. The breeds I got were large white Pekin ducks, and a special Hybrid Golden 300, which is supposed to lay up to 300 eggs per year.

Gluten-Free Fry Bread

I was watching a TV show about Native American cooking and it reminded me of visiting the hot springs at Kah-Ne-Tah and friends nearby from the Chinook Nation who make fry bread at Sunday Market. I've been trying to cook with brown rice flour instead of wheat, so I thought I would try it in the fry bread recipe, since it was simple. It comes out crispy and golden on the outside, and soft in the middle. When topped with blackberry jelly, it tastes pretty awesome!



Gluten-Free Fry Bread

3 cups brown rice flour
½ cup sugar
1 tbsp baking powder
½ tsp salt
1 tsp xanthan gum
1 ¼ cup fresh goat milk
¼ cup warm water
olive oil for frying

Mix the dry ingredients together in a large bowl. Add milk and water, then mix first with a spoon, and then with hands until reaching a soft dough consistency.
Separate the dough into 1/4 cup sized pieces. Roll each into a ball, and then flatten to a half inch thick circle, like a thicker tortilla. Fry each round in olive oil over medium high temperature, turning after 1-2 minutes so that the outside is golden and crispy, and the inside is soft, yet cooked through. Makes about 10 of the 4 inch diameter breads.

These are great served warm topped with blackberry jelly, and are even ok the next day topped with tomato sauce and goats milk mozzarella.

Cheese Season and Butter Season

My dairy goats have just changed from butter season to cheese season!


The butterfat in their milk changes seasonally. In the Spring, there is lots of milk to feed hungry baby goats, but the butterfat is low. In the Fall, the amount of milk they give is less, but the butterfat content is higher. This changes what we can do with their milk during the year.

In the Spring and Summer, we make lots of fresh chevre cheese, but once the milk becomes very rich in the Fall, the cheese won't set. This is our signal to make as much goat butter as we can and freeze it for later. Once the goats have babies, we start back in with cheese.

Some of our goats are not pregnant this year. If we continue to milk them regularly, they continue to produce milk. In January or so, they suddenly begin to produce lots more milk and their butterfat content drops, as if they had babies. It's always a bit of a surprise.

While butter cookies and buttercream frosting are awesome, I've really been missing my homemade mac and cheese!

An Upcycled Cold Frame For An Early Start

The weather has been pretty mild so far this winter, but I am thinking a cold frame will help plant seedlings get an early start.


There are lots and lots of plans for cold frames on the internet. They are pretty much a sloped box with a glass or plastic lid. The walls of the box keep out icy winds, and the glass top works like a greenhouse to keep the tender plant starts warm.

I found a free sliding glass door at a window company that was pretty worn out as a sliding door. It is really heavy so my mom helped to move it. The frame is from two 2x12x8 foot pieces and a 2x6x8 foot piece, cut to fit the size of the door. The slope is just the difference between the back 2x12 and the front 2x6. I left the bottom open for drainage.

I'll try some early salad greens, peas, and some nasturtiums. If I replace the glass door with a screen door later, I might just be able to sneak some basil past the wild bunnies!

Visiting a Cranberry Farm

Our county 4H extension arranged a tour of a local cranberry farm. The farm grows cranberries for Ocean Spray, and some of the fields have been growing continuously since 1921. The farm was harvesting the day we visited, and we were invited to dive in and help out.


Cranberries are harvested by flooding the field with water from a nearby creek. The ripe berries float to the surface and are scooped up by a conveyor and piled into a truck. Our job was to round up the floating berries and push them toward the farmer and conveyor. Luckily for us, it was a really warm day and although the water was cold, it wasn't bad. I found berries in my boots after!

The best part was the farmer let us have a small bag of the cranberries to take home. I made them into cranberry sauce for Thanksgiving, and maybe some jelly tarts. I found the cranberry recipe at the Ball canning site.

Up-Cycling: Goat Tote Bags

My five dairy goats eat grain that comes in woven polypropylene bags. The bags are great for getting feed to us from the factory without torn bags or water damage. But, after looking at some articles online, I found out that these woven polypropylene bags are not biodegradable and are not recyclable. I buy two bags of grain per week, which stack up after a while because the material seems too durable to throw away.

I saw some shopping bags made of woven polypropylene, and found directions for how to sew them myself online. Roughly, you cut off the lower quarter of the bag to center the cute label and sew the bottom together with the sewing machine. Cut the leftover piece into strips for handles. The material is difficult to sew, and the thread breaks a lot. I think if I used a fancy commercial sewing machine, I could get through my stack faster!

I made two goat chow tote bags, to test them out. I can fit eight of the half gallon glass canning jars I use to hold goat milk in one bag. This makes taking clean jars out to the barn much easier! I also use them take things to Sunday Market and bring home things I buy there. The material is waterproof, which is nice on rainy days. So far, the bags have lasted with heavy use for six months.

While at Sunday Market, a vendor who buys sugar in woven polypropylene bags saw them and asked me to sew her bags too. She is planning to use them for Christmas gifts. I have the goat chow bags for sale at my Sunday Market space, and am thinking up other items I can make with the bags.

Goat tested and approved!

Lavender Jelly

Every so often at the Market, the vendors are shuffled from their usual spaces. Last week a lavender farm showed up in the place where the Young Entrepreneurs tables usually are. While she had some very nice soap with lavender bits in it, she also had big bunches of fresh cut flowers.

I looked all over the internet for what to do with the flowers. Since they were culinary instead of ornamental, I though I should cook something with them. I found a recipe for jelly that used dry flowers, but since I didn't want to wait for them to dry, I used a bit more of the fresh flowers.

I think it turned out very nice! I doubled this recipe to get 24 of the cute 4 ounce jars.


Lavender Jelly

3 1/2 cups water
2 cups fresh lavender flowers
juice of 1 lemon (1/4 cup)
1 (1 3/4-ounces) box powdered pectin or 1 pouch (3-ounces) liquid pectin
4 cups sugar

Prepare a waterbath canner, and 5 half pint jars and lids, as directed in the pectin instructions.
In a large saucepan over high heat bring water just to a boil. Remove from heat, stir in lavender flowers, and let steep for 20 minutes. Strain mixture through a wire mesh strainer into a deep pot. Discard the flowers. Stir in lemon juice and pectin, and continue stirring until the pectin is dissolved.
On high heat, bring the mixture to a boil, and add sugar. When the mixture returns to a hard rolling boil, continue boiling for 2 minutes.
Remove from heat and transfer the jelly into hot sterilized jars. Filling them to within 1/4 inch of the top, wiping any spills off the top. Put on lids and rings. Process in the waterbath canner for 10-15 minutes.
Makes five 1/2 pints.