Just saying HI!

Things have been going very well for us here in Fort Worth. I like staying busy and thought I'd give an update on things going on, as well as some ideas for future blogs. I would love to hear your opinions on what you would be interested in reading, or comments about what I've written so far. 

Saturday we went to a hard cheese class and made some Parmesan cheese. It really wasn't hard but the necessary equipment isn't cheap! The press is about $375, special refrigerator (maintaining 55 degrees-much warmer than your normal one), then cheese molds, starters, mats, brine bucket, all stainless steel tools, as you can see it adds up fast. However, once you have the equipment you can continue to use the equipment for years. So for now I will work on the soft cheeses that don't require very many special tools. I'll blog more about Saturday later.

Liama - protects the goats

Matthew 6:11
Give Us our Daily Bread

Sunday I made a bunch of jalapeño jellies. It seems to be my most popular with my friends and neighbors. I wanted to restock my pantry before I began working again. I made a double batch of the plain, and tried some new ideas. The new types sound good to me and seem to be popular at nicer grocery stores like Central Market. I made organic peach jalapeño and organic blueberry jalapeño jellies. Sound good to you? 

Typically jalapeño jelly is served poured on top of cream cheese and eaten with corn chips or crackers. I do think the new varieties will be nice on crackers alone. I did make one mistake, I used powered pectin, and not the liquid...and sad to say they just aren't firm enough! Not sure if you're a canner, but that means I need to un-can, reheat to a boil, add the liquid pectin, re-wash the mason jars, re-sterilize the jars, and water bath them again! Ugg, all that work. Oh well, live and learn. I know there is a way to convert the powered pectin into the liquid...something to figure out as the liquid is twice as expensive!

Our Soap Curing

Today we went to make some goat milk soap. It's the cold press process, and is a lot of manual labor! We spent three hours and made about 75 bars...so that's worth it. Something else to blog about in the future. 

I've been making dog food lately, as store bought food only has to be 12 percent digestible! That is the FDA regulations! No wonder there is so much waste, they can't digest much of what type are eating! So disappointing to learn about...but glad I know so I can feed my pets healthier.