Spinach Sweet Potato Muffins

I don't remember how I found this recipe, but it's been on my to-make list for a long time. 

I finally got around to buying sweet potatoes, so I finally made them. 😅 

AND I followed the recipe exactly. No substitutions or changes. Well, except for duck eggs. I used duck eggs instead of chicken eggs. Probably didn't make that much difference. 

They're quite green. 

But they taste great. You might notice in the above picture that they have two different colors. The recipe says it makes 12 muffins, but I was able to make 21. The first batch was in a copper muffin tin and the second pan was a regular muffin tin. The copper definitely cooked faster, and might even be a little overdone. I put them in about 5 minutes apart, and ended up taking them out at the same time! In both, the toothpick came out clean. Sometimes I wonder if my oven runs hot ... 

Since the oven was on, I capitalized on the heat and did an experiment with the buckwheat banana pancakes we've enjoyed in the past. The recipe is so putzy because they are very sticky; you have to grease the frying pan between every single pancake! They taste really good, so I wondered if I could bake them in the oven on a silpat and avoid the annoying cooking process. 

They turned out alright. I don't love the texture - very flat- but they did come off nicer and it was super easy. I wonder if I started with a hot pan if the texture would improve...

To capitalize the hot oven even more, I also made egg muffin bites (to use up more of our old duck eggs too). I guess I overfilled the pan. 😅

Jaron's First Book Signing

Messaging with a friend yesterday afternoon and she mentioned she was going to an author talk in St. Peter later on with some other friends I know. She had read one book by the author a long time ago, but she loves listening to authors, so she's going anyway. I love hearing authors too and said so. Then she invited me along, said there was room in the car for both Jaron and me, and that they'd be leaving in about 45min. The author was Kate DiCamillo. 

To be spontaneous or not to be??

Jaron was napping so I said no. 

He woke up 10min later and I changed my answer. 

It's Kate DiCamillo! You might be familiar with two of her books The Tale of Despereaux or Because of Winn-Dixie. The Bink and Golly series is my favorite of hers. She also writes the Mercy Watson series. 

I grabbed a couple of books by her in case she was doing a book signing afterwards... and then I forgot them at home. But there was a table of her books for sale (at a discount!), so I bought one I knew I didn't have. 

Jaron did great. He quietly ate snacks and looked at books or audience members. I really enjoyed her presentation. And we did get our book signed in the end. 

Cow Pictures

My dad gets magazines about beef cattle in the mail. He started "reading" them with my nieces and they were a hit (looking at the cow pictures mostly). Jaron has also enjoyed them when we've visited my parents. 

He's been an absolute terror when it comes to diaper changes lately. He's a tiger unleashed! I had the idea to pick out some of his favorite cow pictures from these magazines to hang above the diaper station, kind of like dentists have in their offices. Maybe this would keep Jaron calm long enough for me to strap him into a diaper.

Success! 

The last time we visited the farm, my dad tore out pictures Jaron seemed very interested in. I just hung them up this morning and Jaron was immediately interested in what I was doing. He was a little irritated I hung them up; he wanted to look through them! 

He also kept craning his neck to see them after they were hung. The first diaper change worked like a charm! He spent the whole time smiling at the pictures. Afterwards, he kept cranking his neck to look up at them, so I showed him how to lie on his back to see them easier. It wouldn't surprise me to find him on the floor later staring up at them. 😊

Those dentists are really on to something...

Here is a closeup of the pictures Jaron chose: 

Homestead Craft Day

My mom and sisters came up this weekend for a craft day. I had intended on doing some clothing alterations and mending, but instead I framed Christmas cards I've been meaning to turn into decorations since Advent. 😅 So, still a long-time to-do checked off. 

I also framed a picture of Jaron I've been wanting to hang in our bedroom. 

And lastly I framed a paint by numbers canvas I did last summer. It wasn't stretched, so some printed marks showed up when it was in the frame. I used leaves I had pressed from my peach tree years ago to be a border. Turned out pretty good! 

 

Since I still had all the craft stuff out, yesterday I fixed a few broken earrings and necklaces that have been waiting months for a fix. Feels good to get some of those little things done! 
 

Bread

My favorite bread recipe of late does not include detail on what kind of pan to bake the loaf in. I've typically baked it on a cookie sheet, but after sharing the recipe with a friend and she questioned what to bake it in, my brain started to wonder. Is the loaf flat because I am not great at shaping the loaf? Or is it because I haven't been baking it in the correct pan?

I made a double recipe this week and baked one loaf on a cookie sheet like normal, but made sure to tuck the loaf in more firmly than usual. The other I baked in a dutch oven.

Can you tell which is which? q

The one on the left is the Dutch oven bread. The one on the right did get higher than typical, and I think that's because I formed it better than usual.

How will it do in a loaf pan???

Container Plant Check-in

Chai and Senka enjoy sleeping underneath the milking stand in the goat shed. It's their favorite place to be and the first place we look if we can't find them.

I finally planted my carrot tops and cabbage root for growing seeds. The cabbage was growing a lot of roots and kept running out of water, so I knew it was time. There was an empty grow pot in the garage all three would fit in. They are very happy with the change!

Winter is always tough on container plants... My pomegranates look dead, but their branches are bendy so they should revive with warmer weather and sun. 

My thing is very happy with its home in the garage. Lots of new leaves!

The two bay plants haven't gotten much bigger, but still nice and green.

The other pomegranate plant has the same fate as the first (top center). My aloe is growing lots of babies (bottom center). 

My date palm is hanging in there. I had hoped it would stay as nice as it did this fall, but the cold drafts from the garage door opening and closing must have damaged the edges of the leaves.

My poor lemon tree looks awful. All the leaves are shriveled up! The branches are still a nice green color, so it too should revive once we can get it outside again. 

How many more weeks of winter do we have? 😅

Goat Hay Feeder

I found a plan for a wall pallet hay feeder for goats that supposedly only takes 30 minutes to build. G brought home a nice pallet from the garden center..

Cut off the back bars to allow the goats easier access to the hay.

And installed it on the wall! 

Hopefully this cuts down on hay waste. 

They are liking it so far! 

The chickens are eyeing it up too... We are already making plans to add a top to the feeder. Some kind of board with a hinge for adding the hay...

We also moved all of alfalfa up in the haymow. Billy enjoys his new throne. 😅

 

Creme Fraiche Homestead Style

I wanted a delicious sauce to go on top of my chocolate mousse cake. The recipe recommended crème fraîche, so I googled how to make it and then had Chat gpt come up with a recipe using goat milk. 

Seemed simple enough! 

I set it in the oven with the light on for 15 hours. 

After that time, the milk was jiggly and seemed like it was going to be a nice, viscous sauce after further chilling in the fridge firmed it up. 

But the next morning, it was still quite liquid. The recipe said to add powdered sugar and vanilla (also supposed to thicken it), but it didn't help this time. 

After further searching and questioning the Internet/Chat gpt, I found out that goat milk does not have a high fat content like cow milk does and it doesn't hold whey like cow milk does, so it is highly unlikely that it would have the consistency I was looking for. 🙄 That would have been helpful to know from the beginning. 🤦‍♀️

The crème fraîche tasted good even though it was runny and it still paired well with the cake! It also paired well with the leftover raspberries. 😉

Chocolate Mousse Cake

Two very dear college friends of mine have birthdays one week apart. We three like to celebrate somewhere in between their birthdays. One of those friends is stuck in the hospital awaiting the birth of her baby, so this year we brought the party to her. I offered to make dessert and mocktails for the group and I chose a chocolate mousse cake for dessert.

Of course I substituted duck for chicken eggs. Six as opposed to eight because of the difference in size. 

I didn't feel like going out to buy bittersweet chocolate and milk chocolate when I have two varieties of really good chocolate at home - 70% dark chocolate chips and semi-sweet chocolate chips. I did check with chat GPT if it thought I could make those substitutions and still have the cake turn out, and chat GPT thought it would be good. 😅

Got to put my double boiler to use ...

Whisked the egg yolks and the sugar. I'm not sure if I did that long enough because a lot of the sugar fell to the bottom and was not completely mixed in.

Fold the chocolate into the egg yolks, then add the whipped egg whites. Fun fact, duck eggs take longer to whip than chicken eggs. 

Everything gently folded together. According to the recipe you could chill this and eat it plain like regular mousse. 🤔

It was very thick and had to be spread in the springform pan instead of poured. It gets cooked in a bain-marie in the oven (basically the pan in a pan of water). I used parchment paper lining the inside to prevent sticking and aluminum foil wrapped around the outside to prevent water leaking in. 

The only thing big enough to hold the springform pan was my roasting pan. A gigantic bain-marie!

Because I was using duck eggs and my pan was slightly bigger than the recipe called for, my cake would be finished baking earlier than the recipe said. You want the cake to have a slight jiggle in the middle so that it gels in the fridge (like lemon bars). The original recipe says to bake for 50 minutes. This one was supposed to be finished around 40 minutes. I checked at 34 minutes, and it looked quite done! I think I actually over baked it somehow. 

 

It had to cool completely before I took it out of the pan, and I kept it in the fridge overnight. Even though it was overcooked, it's still tasted delicious and I would definitely make this recipe again. I kind of want to make another one this week. 😂

Here is the place setting I brought to the hospital for our birthday celebration:

I pulled out a yellow tablecloth and napkins I embroidered with a rose design back in high school (past 4H project), my rose patterned dessert plates and rose handled silverware, pink elephant wine glasses, and a few crystal and glass serving dishes. Very elegant! It was nice to be fancy for an afternoon! 

And I completely forgot to take a picture of the cake once it was completely finished, so you'll have to look really closely at the above picture to see the cake at the far end of the table. 😅

Weather= Glorious, Mud, Not So Much...

We've almost had an entire week of above 30°. It's been wonderful to taste spring in the air even though we know winter will come back soon. 

The only downside to this heat wave is the mud. 

The entrance to the pasture is particularly bad. We still had some mulch left over from this fall, so I filled in some of the muddy spaces.

So much better! 

My little helper enjoyed the weather too...

The next mud we tackled was next to the steps of our deck. Now our feet won't get so muddy when we turn the corner to head next door. G relocated a big, flat rock to be a stepping stone. 

This is another frequently used pathway to go next door, taking the shortcut underneath the deck.

And finally, the muddy pathway to the compost area is no more!

G took advantage of the nice weather to burn some of the greenery the goats aren't eating. They can only eat so much of the coniferous branches and there's no way they'll get to everything G brought home from the garden center.

 

Picking Up Chicks

We decided our chicken eggs aren't colorful enough, so we ordered more chicks. 😅 25 to be exact, but some are for my dad. These breeds will lay a range of green/teal/olive and deep chocolate browns. 

In preparation for their arrival, G set up this gigantic box from the garden center in my in-laws' garage (with permission). Should be nice and cozy for them! 

Great way to hang a heat lamp -

They arrived Thursday morning! Shipped via USPS. 

They got to foraging right away, some even eating their shredded paper bedding. 

Eventually they huddled up for a group nap. 

Jaron loved them. We helped him pet one and he had a huge grin on his face the whole time. 😊

One last egg related thing... Our eggs are on the shelf at the co-op! Havenacre Homestead label and everything. I wonder how quickly they'll sell...