Nuts!

This year I've been focusing more on finding places to forage food than I have in the past, and, being in Oregon, I've been finding tons of hazelnuts. 

The ones pictured above I found in a local park, and I filled a shopping bag with them. Now I'm focused on getting them ready to eat.

Both my mom and Nonna have an allergy to the raw nuts. After looking into it more, my mom found out that hazelnuts contain phytic acid, just like many other seeds (including wheat), which prevents them from being digested, as well as irritating and causing inflammation in the digestive tract, and can impair the absorption of minerals such as iron and zinc. To combat this, I am soaking all of the unshelled nuts in a salted water solution overnight, and then we will roast them tomorrow and hope for the best. 

While shelling nuts earlier, I noticed that there was a noticeable size difference between the bits I'd collected in the park, and a handful of nuts I'd collected down the street. After researching it, I discovered that the smaller ones I'd collected down the street were most likely from American hazelnut trees, and that the larger ones I'd collected in the park were either European or a hybrid American x European hazelnut. I wasn't aware that there were different varieties of hazelnut trees, although it makes sense. I guess you learn something new every day. 

Fingers crossed that this experiment will work out. 

Hannah ❤️

Homesteading and Historical Agriculture

I have been absolutely terrible about updating this blog. It has been almost a year since I last posted something, and I need to get back into the habit of posting things on here (on a regular basis).

So...Updates... Like usual...

First off, it's almost Autumn, my favorite time of the year (yay!!!), which means soon we will be going apple picking and on trips to the pumpkin patch, and larges amounts of tea, cider, and hot cocoa will be consumed.

Second, I have been working in a bakery for the past 4 months, making yummy croissants and pastries, and I really have been enjoying it.

Third, my schedule was so busy this last spring and summer, and I'm living in an apartment, so I really wasn't able to grow anything. Next year though. Next year it is on!

Also, I just updated the pages on my blog, and now have a new page titled, "Historical Agriculture and Homesteading Skills", which is a list of, you guessed it, historically used homesteading and agricultural skills that I plan on increasing my knowledge of, and putting into practice. I'm sure that I will be adding more in the near future, but I think I have enough items by now to keep me pretty busy. I'm thinking of taking one or two items at a time and really focusing on them before moving on to the next items.

Lastly, here is a picture of pumpkins for your enjoyment:

~ Hannah ♥

October!

 

 

 

October is finally here!!!!

 

My favorite month, in my favorite season.

I have had a great start to the month, and I hope that you have too!

I haven't had much time this year to work on any new farming skills, and I wasn't able to garden this year, but I have big plans for next year, and I still planning on widening my knowledge and being as self-sufficient as possible this Fall and Winter, starting with the harvest.

So as a start to my October, the twins and I went apple picking.

 

 

We ended up picking 105 lbs of apples, although 30 of those went to the restaurant, and 10 or so I gave to my mom, so I have about 60 lbs left to use for sauces, and rings, and pie filling.

Now I just have to figure out how to make room for all of the canned goods I will be making.

 

I also was able to spend some time on my boss' farm, learning to drive a tractor, and playing with chickens, and I finally was able to break in my boots.

 

Me holding "Freaky Eye"

 

Be on the lookout for more posts on this blog, and if you are in the mood for a good cup of cocoa, check out my French Style Hot Chocolate recipe on my Bel Sogno blog.

 



Applesauce

I can proudly say I tried my hand at canning, and it was (mostly) a success. I have meaning to use my canner for the better part of two years, and I finally decided to buy some apples and try it out. I wasn't sure how many to use, and I figured that I should make a huge batch my first time, so I ended up buying around 20 apples to start off with.

 

After barely fitting the apple slices into two large pans, it definitely seemed like I was going to end up with more applesauce then I did, but I guess I didn't realize how much they would boil down.

 

 

I did have to adlib a little here and there. For example, I didn't have a foodmill, so I ended up using a sausage grinder/stuffer attachment on a mixer for this, and it did work surprisingly well. I also completely forgot about my canning funnel, and couldn't find it in time, so I did get a couple burnt fingers when I dropped boiling applesauce on them as I was trying to ladle it into the jars.

 

 

Luckily though, I didn't make any major mistakes and I ended up with for jars of delicious (if I do say so myself), homemade applesauce. I will just have to remember to be a little better prepared next time, in order to save my fingers.

Farm Stand Apple

This is why I love buying from farm stands

Kiwi Picking

 

 So I haven't posted in a while... I had been recovering after getting out of a toxic relationship, becoming better acquainted with myself again, and as a result, my schedule became busier and I always seemed to think of a topic to write for a blog post when I was out and about, away from a computer. Anyways, after half a year, everything finally seems to be falling back into place, and I am so much happier, and just more content with myself and my life, than I have been in a long time.

 

 

 So back to homesteading/homemaking/things-I-created-this-blog-to-write-about.....

 

My friend, Ellen, and I decided to spend a morning a couple weeks ago picking kiwis at a local u-pick kiwi farm. They grow two different types of kiwi there, Hayward (the fuzzy ones) and kiwi berries, or hardy kiwis. I had never eaten hardy kiwis before, but they are just delicious as the bigger ones, about the size of a large grape, and fuzz-less, so you can pop them in your mouth whole. I read somewhere that hardy kiwis are not techniquely kiwis, but I am unsure of the details there.

 

 

Hardy kiwis

Hayward kiwis



After picking a couple buckets worth of kiwis, we headed to a farm stand for some more local fruit (and honey), and then spent a couple of hours making our way through an antique mall.

 

Needless to say, we enjoyed ourselves.

 

 




 

Hardy kiwi freezer jam

 I was sure that I had overcommitted kiwi-wise, but after Ellen removed her share of them and I started mashing the hardy kiwis up for freezer jam, I realized that I probably could have gotten a few more, because three jars of jam isn't going to last very

 long...

 

Kiwis ready for ripening

 

 The Hayward kiwis were hard as rocks when we picked them... and two weeks later they still were. Luckily, on the back of the farm's business card there were directions on how to ripen them, so they are now sitting in a brown paper bag with an apple for a few days.