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I’ve had several things to do in the kitchen the past couple of days. I found myself with excess milk that needed to be taken care of. Apparently milk hasn’t been appealing to my family as their beverage of choice lately. It is amazing how some weeks we drink all 3 1/2 gallons (from our cowshares) and other weeks we barely drink any. And this week a friend was out of town and asked me if I would like to pick up her shares also.
We were out of town for Friday night and got home late Saturday so early Sunday morning I went to work on the milk. I made a gallon of yogurt, put a gallon to clabber and turned a gallon into a quick cottage cheese. I’d never made the cottage cheese before and while the flavor is fine the process itself didn’t impress me. It was super easy to do and only took an hour but the amount of cheese produced was a lot less than I expected. When I make cheese I usually get one pound of cheese per gallon of milk. With this method I don’t think I even ended up with 1/2 pound of cheese. Glad I have lots of milk! I also make a couple of pans of custard (we have a good amount of eggs too) so we had warm custard for breakfast Sunday morning and cold custard for dessert Sunday night. I still have four gallons of milk left! Today I’ll make Queso Fresco with two of the gallons and ricotta cheese with the resulting whey. We can drink the remaining two gallons.
Another thing I needed to do was make a batch of lard. I had been given some organic pork fat by a friend and have several packages in the freezer. I moved on to the fridge a couple of days before. I diced it into small pieces and put it in the crock pot. Several hours later I started removing the fat that melted. It takes some time in the crock pot but allows me to not have to ‘babysit’ it all day like I do when I render on the stove top.
I’m working on emptying out our freezer. We’re pretty much out of wild game but I do have some stew bones with meat on them. I’ll use one this week for stew. We do have several chickens left from last year and a good amount of hamburger. I also have lots of nuts that I want to use up so I plan to make some Lara style bars this week to start using those up.
Wondering what we eat for breakfast? Check out this Breakfast List for examples of our breakfasts. Lunch is usually leftovers or something that goes together quick. All sides not listed are to be determined. I have some dried veggies I’ll use in the stew but my fresh veggies are running out. I need to shop!
Menu Plan
Sunday- Hamburger patties topped with sauteed onions and sauerkraut
Monday- Chicken Cacciatori over ‘polenta’
Tuesday- Antelope Stew
Wednesday- Fasooli
Thursday- leftovers
Friday – Baked Beans, brown bread
Saturday- Tuna and White Bean Salad (something like this)
What’s on your menu this week?
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Shared at Menu Plan Monday