The Man brought home a couple pieces of javalina gifted to him by an acquaintance. I had read that the meat smells bad and tastes worse, but fresh on my success with elk sauerbraten (same hunter gave us a roast and declared the sauerbraten quite tasty and tender) I decided to tackle this challenge.

I trimmed off a small piece and sauteed in oil just to get a sense of the taste. It didn't taste or smell bad but had a distinct indescribable aftertaste. I decided that it didn't need soaking to remove gamey taste but the extreme toughness would benefit from a low, slow recipe.

The recipe was adapted from a braised turkey recipe I love. One onion, several sliced carrots, 1/2 cup red wine, the juice of three oranges and the zest of one, about 1/2 tsp thyme and  a good dose of pepper and things were left to simmer at 200 degrees F.

The smell wasn't unpleasant but it definitely didn't smell familiar. The meat had a rather metallic flavor that lingered into an after taste; again, not unbearable but definitely like nothing I've ever had. The meat was still tough, so I left it on for another several hours, until I was able to flake the meat off the bones. I gave The Man a taste and he said it was missing something. I dug through my spice rack and decided that rosemary smelled good with the dish thus far, so I added about 1/2 tsp.

I took a bit to my mother and she declared it tasty but still missing something, maybe vinegar. I decided to add the juice of 1/2 a lemon and lo and behold, that did the trick!

Between the tenth hour and finishing time, the metallic taste disappeared, replaced by a rather sweet and succulent flavor. The dish turned out so well that I will definitely cook it again given the javelina and the opportunity!

Wow, blogs can be like time machines. I looked through the archives and found an entry I wrote in December 2007 about a litter of baby rabbits that had just been born. It's not been a good few years for rabbits here on the ol' urban homestead. We had 5 litters born here last year, two by one doe that had them outside of her nestbox and all died.  The surviving litters were all born in February and March 2010, which means that it's been almost a year since a live litter has been born here.

I bred several does over the last few months, but no babies have been born. So, today I decided to give them one last try, and bred the does to the bucks. We still have Roger, who was the father of the litter I wrote about in 12/07. He's not as spry as he was in his younger days, and he hasn't successfully sired a litter since May 2009 but the ol' guy is a permanent retiree here so he gets a doe now and then. Today he had a tryst with a lovely castor doe and I really, really hope that Roger isn't permanently sterile from the heat because it would be an awesome genetic combination. If any of the does actually conceive, we should have babies a few days over a year since the last live litter was born here.

However... I told The Man if I don't get any live litters by summer (when it gets too hot to breed rabbits) then I am going to get out of them completely, save for Roger who will become a house bunny.  The rabbit manure has been awesome for the garden though, so I might relent and keep a couple.

My last batch of kefir was.... well.... AWESOME! The Man doesn't care for ginger ale but was game enough to try it. He pronounced it tastes "just like ginger ale". Heck, even Mom the Gadget Queen tried it and said it tasted good (but flat). And, the grains started expanding. By the time I was ready to start another batch, they had gone from the 2 oz mark on the jar to the 4 oz. I was a bit brave this time and added the grains to about a gallon of sugar water (no ginger this time, going to try a fruit drink next.)

After letting the drained kefir settle, I noticed teeny-tiny grains on the bottom of the glass. I've read one can start a kombucha SCOBY using unpasteurized kombucha tea, so I decided it is time for a kitchen science experiment. I poured the dregs into a jar and added sugar water to see if the grains might grow.

Oh, and just to show that the addiction has taken foot, I just bought some ginger beer plant from a member of the yahoo group of the same name. I want to see how it compares to water kefir.

I tried the maple syrup kefir yesterday. It tasted OK, but the texture.. let's just say I don't expect something called water to HAVE texture!

For this next batch, I switched back to the Zulka sugar, which is unbleached cane sugar, and also added some peeled ginger root slices. I wrapped in a towel and put in the unheated oven with the light on, just like I did the maple syrup stuff. After about 18 hours I didn't have any bubbles so I added about 1/2 tsp. molasses. That seemed to do the trick, as several hours later I started seeing bubbles. Since I'm roasting pumpkins (to freeze for pie filling) the kefir had to go back in the cabinet, but at least NOW I know it's working.

But BLECH... that texture! I emailed a fellow kefir forum member and asked if her water kefir gets thick and she assured me not at all. At this point, I'm going to assume it was the maple syrup. If this next batch does the same thing, I'll rinse the grains and refrigerate for a couple days then try again with sugar and molasses, or maybe the hunk of jaggery (an unprocessed sugar) I have in the fridge.

I don't know if it was the maple syrup or the 80 degree F in the oven, but my kefir grains are working! Last night I wrapped the jar in a towel and placed in the oven with the light on (no heat of course) and a thermometer.  This morning the formerly clear amber water was cloudy. I removed the coffee filter topper and stirred things up a bit. A few hours later I took a peak and I had BUBBLES and even a few floating little grains! I took a little taste and it's still really sweet, but there is definitely another flavor there (not unpleasant I might add.)  The fellow I got the grains from said not to let the grains sit more than 48 hours in the same liquid, so I'm not switching them over tonight. Tomorrow I'll put them back in unbleached sugar water and try a secondary fermentation with this, maybe toss in some ginger just to see what happens.

Now I'm starting to get a bit excited  and was going to snap a picture, but the water is so cloudy it's really hard to see anything.

The Man had a busy weekend. He planted my mother's three trees from the Permaculture Guild sale AND the two cherry trees we got from the same sale this weekend. And then, he potted up a peach tree we got from Costco just because he was tired of digging all those holes (he didn't say that but I think that's the reason!)

My water kefir hasn't grown in the past couple days. I tried maple syrup with today's water change, as I watched a Youtube video where the guy used syrup instead of sugar, saying that the kefir grains really grow well with maple syrup. I'm just too impatient I guess! Still, I DID taste the sugar water today after draining the grains, and it definitely did not taste like plain sugar water. It tastes kinda/sorta musty-ish but not nasty or anything.

We'll see what happens. I put the jar in the oven with the light on (gas off though, I don't want to bake the little things!) to see if a slightly warmer environment might be better. I checked the temps in the oven a few days ago, it hovers right around 80 degrees.

I've been blogging a bit on a different blog (just for me to see) I decided to bring it back home to this site. I'm not one to make New Year's resolutions as I'm usually doomed to fail the minute I make one. However, I like having a place to post my favorite recipes, successes (and yes, failures) so I can find them when I need them.  So, if you've happened to stumble across my little vanity press, don't say you haven't been warned!

I was so excited this morning to see how much my water kefir had progressed over night, and was disappointed and concerned when it appeared no different than last night. I emailed the seller, asking how long it would take to see things moving along and he reassured me that it could take several days for the crystals to acclimate and do their little kefir thing. I'm going to change the sugar water every 24 hours, as the seller also suggested I not let it go more than 48 hours in the same solution.

So I got that out of the way. Today was also tree pick up for the Phoenix Permaculture Guild, which was selling fruit trees a few months ago. Since The Man is working today, I went by myself to pick up the bare root trees. Keep in mind, I'm expecting the bare root trees like what one sees in nurseries. You know, the ones with roots packed in wood chips and packed in little plastic bags.

Nope, didn't happen that way. When my order was brought out (two cherry trees and a peach tree for my mother and two cherry trees for us) I was shocked at how BIG they were! The trees were bunched together and the roots wrapped in a burlap bag. The woman who pulled my order asked if I wanted them pruned and I said yes. Even if I hadn't WANTED them pruned (I did by the way) I wouldn't have been able to fit them in the car without them being trimmed. I had parked almost 1/4 mile up the street (there were scores of cars parked on both sides of the street for the pick up, and that was as close as I could get) and quickly realized there was no way I could carry the bulky package to the car. I was told to bring my car right in front of the drive to the pick up point and the people there would help me load the trees. The two folks who loaded the trees for me were able to get them in the front seat, which was great because I had a couple errands to run and was worried that I'd have to go home first to drop off the trees.

Here are the babies. I'm leaving them in the car until we're ready for them tomorrow, as they'll probably be comining out one at a time.


Ah, but my day didn't end there. We have pullets that have been kept in a large cage that could be moved around and into the utility room for protection from the cold. They're growning up so quickly, they've been able to stay outside all night without any problems so I built them a larger pen. I want to build a chicken tractor... one of those long, triangular run type things that can be moved about. We've kept chickens for many years, and I love how well they turn the fallow soil in the garden and clear out weeds in preparation for spring gardening. Up until now we've let chickens have free roam, but lately we've been experiencing a dramatic increase in stray cats in the yard, and I don't really feel comfortable with allowing the ladies to have 24/7 free roaming access any more.

I was looking for a recipe for ginger beer and learned that the "authentic" stuff uses a bacteria/yeast culture called ginger beer plant. Over the past few years I've cultured milk kefir, so the whole process sounded pretty familiar. I had learned about water kefir back in my milk kefir days but never thought to give it a try. I probably should have, since no matter which culture I used, I just couldn't warm up to the yeastiness of the milk kefir that was produced.

After reading several glowing descriptions of water kefir as very soda-like in taste and bubbliness, I decided to give it a go, especially when I found several recipes for ginger beer using kefir. I purchased a packet of dried crystals from eBay and am so excited that they arrived today! The seller kindly added instructions; 3/4 of a quart jar filled with non-chlorinated water (I boiled tap water and let it cool) and 1/3 cup organic sugar (I used Zulka, my favorite supermarket brand of the sweet stuff.) The instructions didn't specify whether or not to stir the mix, so I didn't and just poured the crystals into the water.

Boy, do these little buggers move fast! The photo below was taken right after I added the crystals to the unstirred water and sugar. After snapping the picture, I decided to give the jar a bit of a shake and replace the solid plastic lid I originally used with a coffee filter. About an hour later, the layer of crystals looked like they were covered with a thin cloudy later. Some of the crystals developed what looks like cloudy fleshy appendages. Within several hours, the majority of crystals looked fleshy. I'm just waiting for them to start rising and falling.
It's so exciting! The instructions said the first batch of kefir should be discarded, but from there on out it's drinkable. I can hardly wait!

I often refer to Phoenix as being the Devil's summer vacation spot. Well, it froze over. Literally.

The end of 2010 saw freezing temperatures in our fair Valley of the Sun. Yesterday morning, the lawn was dusted with ice crystals and birdbaths were frozen over. I covered the small citrus trees with sheets (the navel and Valencias are too big to cover) as well as the potted avocados, dragon fruit, passion vines and basil plants. The oranges on the outside of the navel tree were harvested, but I left the Valencia to fend for itself. It's around harvest time for the navels so I figure they'll be good, but it's still a few months for the Valencia and I didn't want to deal with seriously unripe fruit. The navel got hit badly by the October hail storms and had lost a good 50% of the crop, mostly the fruit hanging on the outer edges, so there weren't a lot of oranges needing harvesting. The ones that ended up in the kitchen are good; sweet and a welcome treat as we only eat oranges we grow. This means that it's been a good nine months since our last navel orange. Unfortunately the fruit loss means it will be a sparce winter for oranges, until the Valencias come in. Even then, I don't care for Valencias for out-of-hand eating (they make much better juice in my opinion).