Making a Citrus Vinegar

It's the tail end of citrus season, make use of those peels and save yourself a few bucks on cleaning products!

Make an easy citrus vinegar!

Citrus Vinegar

Grab these...

•Quart jar
•Citrus peels - orange, mandarin, grapefruit, lemon
•White distilled vinegar

Cram peels in a jar and top off with the vinegar. 

Steep at least two weeks, two months is more recommended, but no more than three months. Strain concentrate into a clean jar.

For cleaning, dilute 1:1 with water and use on vinegar-safe surfaces (not granite, etc.). 

For carpets, spray and blot (do a test patch first). 

Use 1/2-1 C concentrate to 1 gallon of water for floors.

Citrus contains d-limonene, which is a natural solvent, making it great for cleaning.

Putting Up Potatoes

Let’s talk taters!

The ease of growing, harvesting, storing and cooking potatoes makes them such a great crop! I love the adventure of digging potatoes, discovering what has grown.

In our garden I plant an early variety for fresh eating, a mid-season for short term storage and late season for winter storage. Late season and storage varieties will store best, after proper curing.

Potatoes are stored in our basement/pantry in mesh bags (about 10lbs each), with two or three thrown in a wooden box with ventilation or a bushel basket (pictured) - I line it with a burlap bag, then throw another over top to keep them in the dark. Then start to process them once they get sprouting. Ideal conditions are 36-40 degrees and 90% humidity - just do the best you can!

Potatoes can be processed a variety of ways for keeping. Usually I take the easy route and make mashed potatoes to freeze for easy meals! Twice bakers can also be prepped for freezing, as can shredded potatoes for hashbrowns.

Dehydrating potatoes is another great option. Slice up and dry; rehydrate in water to use as desired, or toss straight into soups. I would also like to try dehydrating mashed potatoes (without any dairy) to crumble up and have on hand for instant mashers!

Potatoes can also be canned! This is a project I’d like to try with the last of our alien sprouting potatoes. This fall I canned beef stew, which turned out amazing and it’s a nice idea if you have a few to use up.

I’d love to hear any other ideas you may have! Pop ideas and any questions in the comments below!

My fav place for buying seed potatoes is The Maine Potato Lady! This year we are growing Nicola, Natascha and Canela Russet. Mountain Rose is my FAV early variety. Green Mountain is my fav storage variety.

Storing & Preserving Onions

It's February and the pantry continues to provide. On a good year our onions will last us until fresh onions come in during the summer. Then we'll enjoy fresh, uncured onions to last us til cured, storage onions come back in season.

Uncured onions need refrigeration. Cured storage onion varieties keep in the pantry. You want to make sure when stocking the pantry to choose good storage varieties, which will be noted in seed catalogs, or by your farmer. In our garden we grown Red Wing and Cortland (yellow) types. After harvest, onions are laid out on screens to let their neck dry down and skins cure, to seal off routes for moisture and pathogens that may negatively affect storage.

Sourcing Our Onions

For our local food plan our onions come from our personal garden, in our Cedar Crate Farm CSA boxes and the farmers market. Since we use a lot in regular cooking, and like 20-30lbs in the pantry I usually end up seeing 5lb bags at the end of the market season I need to snatch up extra of...never enough really!

Onions are one of those things you could truly source 100% locally, with a little effort.

Alliums in the lazy susan - garlic & onions.

Stocking the Pantry

We keep onions in mesh bags and/or in baskets in the pantry (pictured, as with garlic). We restock our small basket in the lazy susan from the pantry. Keep your onions in a cool, dark location. If you have a spot that is 40-50° that's great, we just keep them in the coolest spot in the basement (probably 60-65°). Warm temps and extra humidity can cause sprouting.

Give potatoes some space, as onions can cause them to sprout faster!

When they do start to sprout, or aren't keeping how you like...or you have too many...preserve them to reduce loss.

Onions in the dehydrator. Works great for fresh or 
cured onions, red or yellow.

Dehydrate those onions! This is my preferred way to take care of sprouting onions. Dehydrated onions are so easy to use - sometimes it's just lovely to not have to chop onions! We make plenty of soups and stock, so they get used up. Dehydrated onions can also be powdered. Dehydrated onions keep for years in well sealed containers.

In the Freezer

Stick onions in the freezer for quick prep, or as a method of preservation. Dice your onions, lay out on a cookie sheet, once frozen transfer to your container of choice. A quart container in the kitchen freezer, for easy prep. Vacuum seal bags for the chest freezer Kept like this you'll probably want to use them up in 6-12 months.

Onions can also be pickled and fermented, if that's your jam!

. . . . .

Our onions are holding up well this year and we may just end up going through all of them before I need to preserve any! I don't mind less work on that end either. Since we did so much more preserving last year we ended up with less in the pantry. Planting many more this year!!

Holler if you have any great onion tips, have any questions on how you can keep more local onions, or need to find sources!!

Leeks, frozen like onions.

Farm Store Stocked Up!

It's a great week to shop at the farm store!!

Egg numbers are finally going up! They are well stocked this week. (On CSA weeks they still may be a little more limited.

Salad greens bonanza this week!

Second to last winter market this Saturday, 10-12 at Drummers Garden Center, Mankato.

Recap No Grocery Shopping January

My take always from our no grocery shopping January…

To review, the last minute decision goal was to avoid grocery shopping during the month of January, with the exception of picking up milk/dairy locally.

With this last minute decision. I was a little sad that we only had two graham crackers left and no maple syrup, but we made do just fine.

I actually feel that we maybe were not challenged as much as we’d expected, or liked. Perhaps the better way to look at it is that we have made ourselves very well resourced. Hard work pays off.

The canning and freezing done last year (and years before), along side fresh/refrigerated produce and meat in the freezer provide. The pantry staples - oats, flour and more - are important to to keep.

We had enough chocolate, coffee and cheese to get by, or we maybe would have had more exceptions.

The major benefits we felt were feeling healthier, reaping the reward of our hard work, menu planning successes and creativity. This is the first time we have actually meal planned four weeks in a row, so really instilling a habit (which is great to establish at our less busy time of year).

We’ve decided to go again for February! With a once a month grocery shopping. We stocked some pantry staples, snacks and a couple produce items. Dried fruit, bananas, frozen blueberries and, yes, local maple syrup.

So, that’s the NEW goal that emerged - once a month grocery shopping! Love this. Of course during farmers market season - and when we grab our @cedarcratefarm CSA - we’ll be getting fresh produce weekly.

So that’s the take aways. This will definitely be annual and we’re excited to see how it evolves!!

I did post more ramblings and our monthly azure order to stories, so maybe you caught that too. I’ve got a couple canning projects to do this month to compliment. Thanks for following this adventure! Holler if you have questions, or share your challenges with the community! Cheers.

Storage Apples & Apple Fritters

When storing local, organic apples is part of your preservation plan it makes you one happy camper in January!! Time for some apple fritters!

Quality late season storage apples keep for months in the coldest spot (without freezing) in your pantry/house or in an extra fridge. We store ours at 36°. A closed container helps retain moisture.

The Fireside and Stark we are eating are still crisp! Remember, the apples in the store now are also from fall, some are coated with wax to lengthen storage.

We have customers each year who buy bushels for storage in late fall, and I’ve been getting many reports lately of Apple Share members using their last (or still continuing to enjoy the last) of their ARF apples. These things being us such joy!

These were our first apple fritters and they certainly won’t be our last - delicious!!

Apple Fritters

2 C flour

2 t baking powder

1/2 C brown sugar

1 t salt

1 t cinnamon

2 eggs

3/4 C water

1 t vanilla

2-3 apples, thin chopped (or spiralized & chopped)

Mix batter & apples. Fry in coconut oil. Sprinkle with powdered sugar & enjoy!

Recipe from Three Rivers Homestead (on Instagram & you tube).

Garlic Processing Tips

Garlic processed!

Usually I don’t get to this, or need to, til February, but with how dry the fall was I noticed my garlic (specifically one variety) wasn’t holding up as well.

When my garlic starts to dry down, or sprout, I finish processing it for the season three ways:

1 - cloves that are still nice and solid get left to use fresh (no need for extra work).

2 - freeze the rest of the peeled cloves on cookie trays, then transfer to jars in the freezer. I want a minimum of 2 quarts jars for our use.

3 - throw garlic in a food processor, add olive oil until it’s a nice consistency to stick together. Throw tablespoon sized plops onto a cookie sheet lined with parchment paper and freeze. Transfer frozen plops to a jar. I will use these mostly for salad dressings.

Garlic is an easy Minnesota Grown item you can get away with eating all year long - never buying CA garlic from the store. MN garlic keeps longer and tastes better. Plus, you can get nerdy and try different varieties. Garlic is easy to find locally, it is also easy to grow and store.

This doesn’t feel like enough for me to have on hand, but John thinks we go through about 1.5 quart jars. We shall see!

Glad I planted more than I planned last fall. In June we can harvest green garlic and full garlic harvest happens mid-late July.