Here is this year’s menu (partially for my own reference):

Roasted Turkey from Smockity Frocks

This is similar to the Alton Brown version I usually make except you cook it at 500 degrees the whole time but put water in the pan underneath. I put an onion, apple and fresh herbs (sage, thyme, & rosemary) in the cavity. We roasted a 23 pound bird in 1 1/2 hours & it was so yummy! Crispy skin on the outside & juicy but cooked on the inside!

Cranberry Apple Sausage Dressing from Allrecipes.com

Everyone enjoyed this but it was a little dry. I think next time I will double the broth.

Mashed Potatoes (10lbs)

Sweet Potatoes with Roasted Marshmallows

I cook the sweet potatoes then mash them with butter, a little orange juice and pumpkin pie spices. We then put the mixture in a 9×13 pan and top with mini marshmallows. Bake for 30 minutes at 350.

Green Bean Casserole

1potato made this recipe this year. We made our own white sauce instead of using cream soup and added some sour cream to thicken it up. Then we mixed in greens beans that we boiled for 5 minutes and some fried onions. Baked for 30 minutes at 350.

Butterhorn Rolls from Balancing Bedlam and Beauty

These are a family favorite. We baked 4 dozen rolls and saved the rest to make cinnamon rolls  later.

Grandma brought the applesauce and cranberry sauce.

Pumpkin Pie

We roasted a pumpkin we grew this year but it didn’t taste very pumpkiny.

Apple Pie

I’ll have to post this recipe separately sometime. It is a wonderful recipe that uses 4 pounds of apples in 1 pie. It’s a little extra effort but so worth it!

Apple Cider from my uncle’s apples and my cousin’s apple cider press. YUM!

We had a wonderful day as a family and enjoying the fruits of our labor. We were able to incorporate many things that we grew ourselves and made ourselves!

Thank you Lord for the abundance you have provided for us and the time we had to spend as a family working and enjoying the day together!

Ingredients

6 lbs ground beef (or a mixture I like to use 1 part beef, 1 part pork & 1 part venison)
2 cups bread crumbs
1 cup finely diced onions
1 tablespoon salt
1 tablespoon garlic powder
2 cups tomato sauce
6 eggs

Mix the ingredients together. Using a small scoop make meatballs and place them on a cookie sheet. (It is really important not to handle the meatballs very much as it makes the fat melt on your hands & thus dries out the meat.) Bake for 15 minutes at 400 degrees until cooked through. Remove to another clean pan and after cooling place in the freezer to flash freeze. (This takes an hour or so but it can wait on you.) After they are individually frozen put meatballs into bag.

These work great by themselves, served with BBQ Sauce, Sweet & Sour Sauce, in Stroganoff or with Spaghetti.

Makes approximately 120 meatballs

I got together with another friend whose family is similar sized to ours for a cooking day. A successful cooking day is made possible by spending a couple of days getting ready for the cooking day. We planned out our menu, made the grocery lists, went grocery shopping, did prep work and then finally spent 6 hours together assembling and cooking the meals on the actual cooking day.

Here is a list of what we made:

120 Meatballs
4 9×13 Chicken Stuffing Casseroles
4 9×13 Poor Man’s Casseroles
6 9×13 Sloppy Joe Casseroles
4 Gallons Black Bean Chowder
50 Beef, Bean & Cheese Burritos
40 Calzones

Chicken Tenders—were on the list but we decided to make them up separately since I forgot to thaw out the chicken ahead of time

Spent $332.33 for 56 meals which comes out to $5.93/meal or $0.74/person. (We both have 8 people in our families.) These meals are main dish only in most cases and will require additional sides such as bread, salad, etc…

Prior to cooking day we split up the following list of items to prep:
Cook ground beef
Cook chicken
Make chicken broth
Make bread crumbs
Chop onions
Chop celery
Chop carrots
Cook black beans

On cooking day we tried to be as efficient as possible. Here’s how we worked through the recipes.

1) Started the Calzone Dough
2) Made the mashed potatoes for the Poor Man’s Casserole
3) Made the white sauce to use in the Chicken Stuffing Casserole
4) Boiled the pasta for the Sloppy Joe Casserole
5) Assembled the Sloppy Joe Casseroles
6) Cut up the cooked chicken
7) Prepared the stuffing (from mixes)
8 ) Assembled the Chicken Stuffing Casseroles
9) Assembled the Poor Man’s Casseroles

10) Made the meatballs
11) Flash froze the meatballs
12) Took a break—yeah! look at all we accomplished so far!
13) Made the Black Bean Chowder
14) Assembled the burritos (the whole crew helped with these which resulted in some crazy looking burritos but boy were we done fast with 8 kids helping!)

15) Assembled & baked the calzones (again with all the kids helping)
16) bagged up the meatballs, burritos and calzones
17) bagged up the extra ground beef all cooked & ready to go
18) divided up the food and dishes

19) Cleaned up the mess (well, partly anyways)
20) Rested! Shew! That was a long day but so worth it!

This house as been such a blessing as far as space to store food. There was a small empty room next to the kitchen that my wonderful father-in-law converted into a pantry for me for Christmas last year. There is a long skinny room behind the garage that already had multiple shelves just the right size for home canned foods. Plus I have a chest freezer (we got from a garage sale), an upright freezer and a refrigerator in the garage. And of course a 27 cu ft fridge in the kitchen we go off of  Craigslist.

I buy grains, sugar, honey and beans in bulk and keep them in 6 gallon food grade buckets with gamma lids. I also shop at Costco and keep stocked up on pastas, tuna, oils, vinegars, etc… I canned as many jams, sauces, and pickles as I could over the summer. The freezers are filled with beef from a whole cow, half a pig, chickens, lots of corn, zucchini, peaches and apples I put up this summer.

Check out how other moms store their food:

Produce

Grow as much as you can yourself. Plant a fruit tree. Plant a garden. (I love Square Foot Gardening for gardening with less space.) Start with a salad garden which is so easy to grow. You don’t have to worry if its been contaminated or if you can’t get to the store.

Preserve as much as you can from your garden, gleaning from others and by purchasing produce by the case. I’ve been canning or freezing a lot more this year!

We also love Bountiful Baskets! It has now has locations in Arizona, Utah, Idaho, Montana, Wyoming, Colorado, Oregon, Washington, Texas, South Carolina, South Dakota, Kansas, Oklahoma and New Mexico. They are adding new locations all the time. For $15 you get 2 laundry baskets of fruits and vegetables or for $25 you can get Organic. They also have lots of add-ons available such as cases of apples or peaches. Whatever is in season!

Meat

We are raising our own chickens. Although this hasn’t been very cost saving this year. We hope next year will be much better!

We purchased half of a hog. We paid approximately $2.05/lb for 180 pounds of meat plus fat that I rendered into 2 gallons of lard. That includes cured ham slices & bacon, ground pork, breakfast sausage, pork chops, ribs, a couple roasts, a couple steaks, and a tenderloin. I’m pretty sure I could not have gotten that meat from the store any where close to that price! (We haven’t been big pork eaters in the past mostly just bacon and a ham for Christmas but we were able to find this good source of meat before our stock of beef ran out.)

Last year we were gifted with venison from a friend who likes to hunt but not eat the meat. For $150 we have been able to enjoy delicious jerky, Italian sausages and ground venison for nearly a year.

We purchased a whole cow nearly a year ago. Although it was a big expenditure. We have been able to enjoy a variety of delicious cuts for about the same amount we would pay for just ground beef from Costco. Plus it was pasture raised beef which is healthier by far than conventional beef. Although my supply is dwindling I believe with the additions of the other meats we will be able to hold out until spring before we need to purchase another cow. Eventually we are hoping to raise our own beef cow.

We have about 50 layers. We have been getting 9-18 eggs a day. What a wonderful source of protein we are able to get from them! As a bonus we are able to sell our extras which helps pay for their feed.

Dairy

We have chosen to pay more for our milk by getting fresh milk from a farmer. To compensate for the extra expense I do my best to make as many of our own dairy products as I can although I frequently wish I had more time to do more. Currently we make our own yogurt and occasionally mozzarella cheese. I also turn some of the yogurt into yogurt cheese which has the consistency of cream cheese and then use the whey for fermenting and soaking grains, vegetables and other things that I am learning from GNOWFLINS.

We buy cheese in bulk from Costco. When we bring it home we shred the block with my salad shooter and freeze it in quart size baggies. We also by a blend we call “pizza cheese.” It has mozzarella, provolone & cheddar. We divide it into baggies as well and then freeze it. This does two things: 1) it preserves it for longer and 2) it gives us some portion control since we all like cheese so much!

Grains

I purchase my grains, beans and several other bulk products from Azure Standard and Wheat Montana through our local co-op. I buy them in 50 pound bags and keep them in food grade buckets with Gamma lids.

I make almost all of our bread from scratch as well as other baked goods. I make 6 loaves at a time for a cost of less than $5 for the batch.

By purchasing in bulk it keeps us out of the store which always saves money, it makes it easier to pull together meals when everything you need is already at home and it is cheaper in the long run.

Joining 4 Moms, 35 Kids: http://www.smockityfrocks.com/2011/10/tips-on-keeping-the-food-budget.html

Here are some of my final entries:

957. A beautiful harvest yesterday: tomatoes of all kinds, cucumbers, yellow squash, zucchini, & lemon cucumbers

964. Apples ripening on the tree

967. Waking from a nap to a cool breeze blowing in the window

977. Great Grandma celebrating birthdays with us

988. Van is paid off!

991. Homemade Apple Cider

994. Circle Time Restored

999. Sharing Ann Voskamp’s book One Thousand Gifts with the ladies at church

1000. Made it to 1000!

I am only beginning. I already have a new journal for my next 1000 gifts.

I will praise you, O LORD, with all my heart; I will tell of all your wonders.
Psalm 9:1

Although I have been trying to keep careful records of our efforts this summer I have not kept up with writing posts like I had hoped to. It has definitely been a year of learning for us. The challenges of taking care of a large garden,animals, cooking, cleaning, doing laundry and taking care of a family of 8 has kept me crazy busy! I’m looking forward to the winter and a time to reflect and plan how to do things better.

Here are some quick stats on our homestead so far:

Chickens: We now have 53 chickens which I find remarkable considering that’s how many we started with. We have added 23 to our flock from donations, lost 15 to deaths and butchered 8.

We are getting anywhere from 14-20 eggs a day.

Garden:

The potato bins did not work out as we had hoped but we learned some things to improve next year.  We got 5 pounds, 12 ounces total.

The zucchini is still in full force and we get 1-3 zucchinis a day. I have 24 (3 cup) bags of shredded zucchini stored in the freezer and we’ve been eating lots.

The peas did pretty well. I was able to harvest over 34 days. We got 5.4 pounds (including pods). We ate lots and shelled enough for 2 quarts for the freezer.

The green beans were doing very nicely until the grasshoppers decided to devour them. We harvested about 4 1/2 pounds and put 3 lbs 5 oz in the freezer.

The tomatoes are coming along. We had our first red tomato on 8/20.  We have been getting a handful or two of cherry and pear tomatoes and 2 bigger tomatoes every day. There are still lots waiting to ripen.

The grasshoppers devoured our cabbage patch.

Although there are lots of them my onions are all rather small.

The cucumbers are somewhat slow put I really like the A-frame. We have been getting 4-5 pickling cucumbers and 1-2 slicing cucumbers every day.

The apples and plums are starting to turn and I am looking forward to seeing how they taste!

Our biggest challenges this summer have been getting the water where we need it, time and grasshoppers!

Considering that this year is our first on this big a scale I think it went quite well. The pumpkins and acorn squash are coming along. We’ve also had a few raspberries & strawberries to munch although I didn’t expect anything from those plants until next year.

We ordered 50 chicks from McMurray Hatchery: 25 White Plymouth Rocks (for meat) and 25 “Rainbow Layers” which was a mix of several different breeds so we can find out what kinds we like best. Our chicks arrived on February 28th when the mail lady brought a small box of baby chicks to our house first thing in the morning.

We placed the chicks in a horse trough for a brooder in our laundry room in the basement as it was freezing cold outside.

We actually received 53 chicks—2 extras plus an rare exotic one for free. The chicks did really well. We fed them water with some apple cider vinegar, blackstrap molasses and minced garlic for the first week plus chick feed with no antibiotics from the feed store. We lost 2 chicks in the brooder after 2 weeks. They were getting too crowded. We moved them to the barn in a new brooder box with heat lamps.

The chicks stayed in the barn for the next 2 weeks while we worked on building the chicken tractors.

We finished the first chicken tractor and moved the White Plymouth Rocks  into it April 2nd. We kept a heat lamp on them and covered them with a tarp at night and during cold weather.

They love being in the grass. We move them every night to a new location. We fed them chicken feed plus a mixture of chicken wheat, whole oats, barley, peas, and kelp.

After placing them in the backyard we realized that we really needed to have them out in the pasture so we had a fun evening of chicken corralling so we could move their pen out to the barnyard and eventually into the pasture.

It took us a little longer to get the layer’s chicken tractor made. We moved them to the pasture April 24 (Easter morning).

The chickens have been very happy living out in the tall grass in the pasture. We’ve had 2 incidents involving pecking. We removed the first chicken in time and he was able to heal and then placed with the layers. Unfortunately, we didn’t find the second bird in time and they pecked him to death. But out of 53 chicks we still have 50 of them and that is pretty good from what I’ve heard.

We expect to have eggs in another month and its almost time to start butchering the meat birds. I can’t believe how quickly time has passed. We are so excited that we will soon have food we raised ourselves!

We moved to Montana last January with plans to homestead. After much work and many false starts we settled on a nice piece of property just outside of town with no restrictions. We have 1.33 acres. The property came with several trees including 6 large cottonwoods, 1 pine tree, 4 plum trees, 2 apple trees and 1 unknown tree . We have a pasture with 3 irrigation ditches running through it. There is a small barn of sorts as well. We also have a well.

Our goal is to have a sustainable homestead that will provide food enough to feed our family with exception to a few things we can’t grow (i.e. wheat, coffee, some fruits, oils, etc…) and have enough to sell to support our family. We intend to use as many permaculture ideas as we can and to use intensive grazing using multiple animals. So far we have 50 chickens (half for meat & half for eggs), 3 rabbits (for breeding, possible eating & for fertilizer), a dog for herding, watching & playing and 2 kittens for mousers. We plan on adding sheep, a cow for meat, dairy cow and maybe a goat.

While in Arizona we planted several raised bed gardens and last year we used Grandma’s 20×40 ft row garden. This year we have greatly expanded our gardening. Several things are experiments and we had to break lots of new ground so we will be fighting grass all summer.

Here is a list of what we’ve planted:

Potatoes: Yukon Gold, Red, & Russets in potato bins

6 crowns of rhubarb

25 raspberry canes (thanks to a friend who gave us her thinings)

2 blackberry canes

2 blueberry canes

75 strawberry plants (again thanks to a friend) planted in mound planters

8 crowns of asparagus

Herb Mound: Chives, Lavender, Basil, Thyme (English, German, Orange & Lemon), Parsley, Mint, Echinecea, Yarrow, Chamomille, Rosemary

Onions: (some for storage & some for green onions) white, yellow, red and Walla Walla

In our backyard beds we have:

Lettuce (multiple kinds)

Beets

Broccoli

Peas

Kale

Swiss Chard

More Onions

Acorn Squash

Carrots

Spinach

Lemon Cucumbers

Zucchini

Sweet Peppers

We also have tomatoes planted in Topsy Turvey Planters & some in the garden

Out the other garden plot we have:

A 3 Sisters Plot with Corn, Pole Beans and Butternut Squash

A Pumpkin patch

Zucchini

Yellow Summer Squash

Watermelon

Cantaloupe

Rows of Carrots, Peas, Green Beans & Yellow Wax Beans

We also have planted a patch of Sunflowers in front of the fence.

I hope to keep this blog updated regularly this summer as things grow and we take dominion over this plot of land that the Lord has given us dominion over.

Link here to see more gardening posts:

I went a bit overboard since I was so excited this week but here’s what I ordered.

• 2 organic baskets


• case of organic Roma tomatoes (which I shared with a friend)


• herb pack (which I also shared with a friend)


• Mexican pack


• Tortilla Pack


• case of blackberries

I got all of this for about $100!

Each organic basket included:

• a head of broccoli


• a pineapple


• 2 giant mangoes


• fennel


• 4 golden beets


• 6 oranges


• 3 green peppers


• bunch of green onions


• 3 romaine hearts


• small honey dew melon


• pound of baby carrots


• 2 lb bag of Fuji apples


• 4 Roma tomatoes

Mexican Pack

• bunch of cilantro


• 9 tomatillos


• 10 limes


• 4 jalapenos


• 6 green chilis


• 4 avocados


• 2 onions


• head of garlic

Herb Pack (1 baggie of each)

• basil


• chives


• rosemary


• tarragon


• sage


• mint


• marjoram


• parsley


• head of garlic

I see homemade salsa in our future as well as pickled golden beets and maybe some blackberry jam if I hurry!