First New Fridge Ever!!!

I'm sure this is going to sound weird to a lot of people but ever since I was little I loved to go to the store and look at refrigerators.  My father and I would always check them all out and pick which one we liked best even though we didn't need a new fridge.

I have passed this onto my daughter.  Ever since Hailey could talk she would always ask to go see the fridges if we went to any store that had them.  Of course I would happily oblige because I still love looking at all the new fridges.

Well, finally for the first time in my life I got to pick one out and buy it.  When we bought our first house we asked for the existing fridge, which we got.  This fridge has given us 9 years of service and I'm not sure how many to the previous owners.  It always did its "job" but it was never my favorite.

Old Fridge

Inside of old Fridge and freezer, almost empty for the new one.

Well one day last week, the fridge light went out. No it wasn't the bulb, checked that.  Then is felt as if the freezer and fridge wasn't as cool as it should be.   So we decided it was time for a new fridge.  We all went down to Lowe's and check all the fridge's out.  We decided on one but ended up coming back to change it because of measurements.

Well our new fridge was delivered on Thursday and so far we all love it. 

Our new Fridge!!!!

Yes, we picked stainless steel and are hoping in the future to replace all our other appliances to match.  One of the best things we love is having the water and ice dispenser.  We've never had one of those before.  It's so nice not to remember to make ice and it gives crushed ice too.

Inside of the new Fridge

We have lots of room, especially for all our produce which we eat a lot of in our family.

This is the new Freezer

The Freezer is one of the pull out drawer types.  I've never really like them until now.  I love that you can section off the area you want to the size you want.  We also have a 2nd ice maker that deposits ice into a large container.  I really like it because as you can see I have a separate area for my frozen goat's milk.  In our old freezer they were all over the place and always falling over.

I always make a weekly dinner menu, yes I am OCD but it works for us.  Plus I don't spend more at the grocery store trying to guess what to buy.  Anyway, I went ahead and checked our large freezer chest for available stuff and made my menu and then moved all my frozen foods from the big freezer to this one for the our weekly meals.  It's working great.  This way I don't have to go into the big freezer but once a week to do the weekly menu and I always know what I have.  Not some lost something or other in the bottom of the big freezer.

The old fridge seems to be working still. So we are going to keep it.  If we decide to actually put anything in it we will just keep a close eye on it to make sure it doesn't completely break down.

The Fridge is a Samsung and it's doing great so far.  Even though we have our new fridge I'm sure Hailey and I will still look at them, probably not a closely as the stoves and dishwashers though now.

Peaches

One of the reasons why we bought this house was because of the existing orchard. 
Our property has 5 peach trees on it.  I was really excited to find this out because my mother in law Viola has always had peach trees and canned her peaches.  I can remember when Jamie and I were dating, we would have dinner at his parents house and have canned peaches with vanilla ice cream for dessert.  I don't think I had ever tasted anything so yummy.  Once I learned how to preserve, over the next few years Viola would bring me some of her fresh peaches and I would can them for my family.

Our peach trees started out wonderfully,  lots of peaches on each tree.  I was actually getting a little worried that I would be spending weeks canning peaches with all we had on the 5 trees.  Unfortunately the Cicadas came this year, they come once every 7 years.  They ruined our peach crop.  Within weeks of the Cicadas leaving our peach tree leaves started turning yellow and withering.  The peaches started to rot.  Needless to say I was NOT happy.  Of course there was nothing I could do about it.

When the remaining peaches where finally reading to pick, which was last weekend.  I went and picked what was still good.
This is all I got. Approximately 30 peaches.

Peaches from our orchard.

I was a little disappointed about the peaches when I cut into them because they are not yellow cling peaches, which is the kind my mother in law had.  I hadn't had any other type of peaches before.  I believe the kind we have are white peaches, since they are white inside.  I tasted them and thankfully they were delicious. Drew even had a bowl of them.

As little as it was, I really wanted to process these but once I peeled them and cut them off the pit I didn't have much at all.  I couldn't justify the time spent to can that little amount.
The picture below is all I got from peeling and cutting them up.

Peeled and sliced peaches from our orchard

In checking my Blue Ball Canning Recipe book for canning peaches I found a recipe called Four Fruit Juice.  This recipe calls for 4 cups of peach puree.  So I pureed the peaches up and froze them. 

Pureed Peaches

 I will be getting the other ingredients for the juice when I go shopping tomorrow and will be making and canning the juice over the weekend.  I'm very interested in seeing how the juice will come out and taste since I've never made my own juice before.

I'll let you know how it tastes.

Cooking Like a Mad Woman

This past week as been really busy with cooking.  Over the weekend we sent 10 more chickens to freezer camp. We are running out of freezer room so we had to make our chicken stock right away instead of freezing the bones.  So we went ahead and made 11 quarts of chicken stock.  It will be used for chicken noodle soup and I think I may start cooking our white rice in it also to add extra flavor.  We eat alot of white rice in the house.  

Saturday afternoon I took a real good look through of the garden and found LOTS of veggies.  I used up most of the pickling cucumbers to make another 12 pints of really dill pickles for Jamie.  We are also starting to get our tomatoes so I think I may make tomatoe sauce later on today and can it for future use.

I also thawed out some of my goats milk and made a batch of Chevre.  I think I may try flavoring it this time will garlic and see how that tastes.  I am going to share this batch with my neighbors.

We also tried a new recipe of stuffed zucchini, its wasn't bad but a little bland.  I think I may make it with sausage next time instead of ground beef.

I really love having the garden but its lots of work trying to preserve everything.  I know that when the winter rolls around I will be happy to have it all in the pantry.

Preserving through Canning

The garden is producing is mass quantities now, especially, zucchini, squash, cucumbers and pickling cucumbers.  So I've been doing lots of canning the preserve these delicious veggies.

Fresh veggies from our garden

I've gotten so many pickling cucumbers that I've had to make two batches of dill pickles.  One batch is a little dill which I like and the other batch is extra dill for Jamie and Hailey.

Jars of really dill pickles

So far I have made 4 quarts and 10 pints of light dill pickles and 1 quart and 12 pints of really dill pickles for us to enjoy this winter.

When the Royalty's were here visiting us girls went blueberry picking.  Hailey and I picked extra of course to make some blueberry jam.

Fresh picked blueberries

Blueberry Jam

I only made 6 1/2 pints of blueberry jam.  I'm the only one who really likes this jam.  I love to have this in the winter for breakfast on some toast with a mug of tea.  Yummy!!!

Lastly I made some Ziesty Salsa.  It's not really Ziesty but that is the name of the recipe from the Blue Ball canning book that I followed a little bit.

Pot of Salsa cooking

This salsa is very tasty an not hot and spicy at all.  I make this salsa every year for Hailey as it's one of her favorites.  This year I added zucchini, yellow squash, green onions, white onions all from our garden and then also carrots, celery, 2 types of mild peppers, jalapeno peppers for a little spice, cilantro, garlic and tomatoes.

It's has lots of veggies in it as you can see but tastes great.

Ziesty Salsa

I ended up making 1 1/2 pint and 15 pints.  The 1/2 pint was gone the next day, Hailey actually ate the whole jar in one sitting.

I defiantly will be making more of this I think before the season ends.

Below is a picture of my canning cabinet, It's pretty full already. I do have one more shelf on the very bottom which I usually keep my empty jars on.  Jamie & I have talked about adding some kitchen cabinets in our laundry closet which is in our kitchen.  We should be able to fit at least 2 double door cabinets.  We designated putting the kitchen cabinets in as a winter project but I don't think we can wait that long.  I still haven't even canned any of the pears that our growing in our orchard, any peaches we have too that may have survived the cicadas and I always make applesauce and I wanted to try apple pie filling too this year.  Of course Jamie will be canning some of his venison too once hunting season is here.  So I guess we will be putting in the cabinets as soon as we have some extra time.

Canning cabinet almost full already

Vacation

Sorry I have been missing on my postings but we were on vacation.  My best friend, Jackie, her husband Brian and their kids, Paige & Trent drove all the way from Massachusetts to visit with us for a week.  We had such a great time.  My kids are best friends with her kids Trent & Paige.  Drew & Hailey were so happy to see them and get to hang out with them again.  We hung around alot because of the heat and because it was vacation but we did do some fun things.  One day we rented a boat and went swimming and tubing for the day on Dale Hollow Lake.  We also brought the kids to Fall Creek Falls State Park and they got to go hiking and swimming in natural waterfalls and cascades. We also set off our own fireworks as buying fireworks is legal in TN unlike MA. We went to the local pool for swimming and us girls went blueberry picking and of course we went out to eat a few times all the mean while getting our everyday chores done of taking care of the goats, chickens and dogs. The Royalty family also got to experience the farm life we live here.  Every one of them got up one day or another and helped us with the chores of taking care of the animals. Trent, Paige & Jackie also learned how to milk Priscilla and what to do with the milk.  They also got to help us butcher some of our meat chickens.  Brian was great at plucking and even Jackie tried.  We also had to tend to the garden every day and everyone helped pick veggies as it is producing alot. Below are some pictures of our week together.

Paige & Hailey ready for tubing

Drew & Trent ready for tubing

Brian enjoying the boat ride

Trent, Hailey, Paige & Drew on the boat

Jackie & I swimming in the lake

All of us swimming in the lake

Jamie driving the boat

Kids ready to watch the fireworks

Paige & I

Me & Jackie

Hailey, Paige, Trent & Drew hiking

Hailey, Paige, Drew & Trent at the Cascades

Paige & Hailey at the pool

Drew & Trent at the pool

Hailey, Paige & Jackie blueberry picking

I can't express how grateful I am that the Royalty's drove 16 hours to come see us.  It was a wonderful week but it went by so fast but I know that Jackie & I will always be best friends no matter how far we live away from each other.

Making Chevre

I finally had saved up enough goat milk to make a gallon a milk so I decided to make Chevre.

Culture Packets

Above is a picture of the culture packets I ordered from the Cheese Making Co that you add to your milk to make the cheese.

First I pasteurized my cheese which is recommended since it is a soft cheese.  You just need to heat your milk to a certain temperature for a certain amount of time.  I then let the milk cool to 86 degrees and mixed in the culture packet.  The you just put a lid on the pot and let it sit for 12 hours.

Chevre cheese curds

Above is what your milk looks like after the 12 hours.  Next you gently ladle to curds into a cloth lined colander to get out the whey (liquid). 

Chevre cheese curds in cloth to drain

Next you hang it to drain.  Depending on the creaminess of the cheese you want will depend on how long you hang it for.  I hung mine for about 3 hours

Chevre cheese curds hanging to drain

Once it is at the consistency you want, I separated mine into two dishes.  We flavored one dish with Good Seasons Dry Italian Dressing mix and the other dish with Hidden Valley Ranch dry Farmer's Dill mix.  Both tasted delicious

The cheese tastes exactly like the spreadable flavored pub cheese Aloutte.  I did notice that a few days later the cheese had firmed up a little more so I just added some milk into the cheese to make it creamy again.

Even my best friend Jackie loved it and she had never had goat cheese before.

Jackie enjoying Chevre on crackers.