Cooking for your freezer...

 Have you made any New Years Resolutions?  Is yours to be more prepared/organized in the kitchen? To eat  healthier?  

Gnocchi is a great go-with-anything freezer staple. It is a potato pasta that is fluffy like a dumpling. Gnocchi can be made with any potato; I can remember a couple of years ago my CSA basket was full of sweet potatoes and led to a lot of gnocchi. You can add cheese or veggies to the dough as well. It's super versatile that can be treated as a pasta with a simple sauce or often-enough at my house as a dumpling. 

Roast your potatoes in the oven until cooked through. Remove skins when cool to the touch. 

Get out your trusty potato masher or a fork and mash away. But not too much. The potatoes will be chunky. The less you do with this dough, the better it is. It is truly rustic. Add an egg and mash into the potatoes until combined. Next you pick your flour such as potato here...

Combine flour a little at a time until the dough starts to hold together. Cover it up and let it rest for about 20-30 minutes. It's tired. 😉

Tear off bits of dough and roll into logs. Use a light hand. It shapes really easily. 

Cut into bite-size pieces. You may want to toss a hand full of your flour onto pasta to prevent sticking. 

Place gnocchi into boiling salted water or as I do into boiling stock for lots of flavor. It cooks very quickly and floats to the top when done. 

Do as you wish with these fluffy beauties! Toss into a skillet with garlic and olive oil for a tasty side dish or make as a yummy main course. The best thing?  Toss these into a freezer bag, label, and save for those busy nights that a quick meal is in order. This weekend I used a batch as dumplings in my Rabbit & Dumplings...

Happy New Year Friends!!! 

How the Hill Family Does It.....

I know it has been a while since my last post; my apologies.  Unfortunately, things have been a bit busy around here.  I know I should be used to it, but I still feel overwhelmed at times.  A lot of people ask how we do things around here, so I thought I would share.  We are a busy, one income household family of four; therefore things are often scheduled (especially the food).  I make a lot of freezer meals for during the week.  I usually plan one day during the week to make the bases for our meals.  I start with the ever favorite chicken; If I don't use one from our farm I buy only the organic, free range whole chickens (they come in a two-pack).  I rough chop two medium onions, two celery stalks, two carrots, add chicken, and cover with water in a crock pot and let it go.  At the end of the day I pull out the chickens to cool and strain stock.  I freeze the stock in ice cube trays and the rest in freezer containers.  The ice cube trays make easy seasoning for potatoes, vegetables, or whatever.  The freezer containers are great for soups, casseroles; you get the idea.  I do it this way because many store-bought stocks contain allergens and everything just tastes better when it's homemade.  The chickens (2)- I pull the meat off and shred; this is enough for four casseroles.  If you're not going to go ahead and make the casseroles; go ahead and separate anyway and freeze for later use.  While my chickens are in the crock pot I'm usually going ahead and preparing the pasta, rice, and/or biscuit batter for my casseroles.  I buy the aluminum pans with the tops for the casseroles to be stored in and place them in any one of our freezers.  I usually go with a Poppyseed Chicken Casserole over rice, A Mexican Style over rice, an Easy Baked Pasta Version or two, and it's always a hit with Chicken Pot Pie.  Keep in mind that our family loves our Farm-style Sustainable Lifestyle.  Therefore, I'm usually setting out deer meat to be ground up for Chili, and I make a lot of meatballs to be used in Baked Pastas for the freezer or I freeze the meatballs to be used for sandwiches or spaghetti.  We also have the pigs processed in the winter and the pork sausage can be used in practically anything.  My son's favorite is when I cook crumbled sausage till done and combine with waffle batter along with shredded cheese; I always make a country gravy to spoon over waffles in lieu of syrup.  Make these waffles in two batches and you've got a great quick breakfast during the school week.  Needless to say; I cook as much as I can when I can and store in the freezers.  It makes the busy school days so much easier and allows us the time to spend as a family instead of rushing around.  Don't get me wrong; we eat healthy.  Everything we eat is as fresh as possible and I include a ton of veggies with everything I can and even when I shouldn't (love the food processor).  It's great making a homemade spaghetti sauce or chili and adding pureed steamed veggies for that boost of flavor and health benefits; I've even added pureed spinach to brownie batter (it doesn't change the taste).  Puree your extra veggies before they have a chance to go bad and freeze in ice cube trays and then place them in a freezer bag for later use.  Yep, I'm full of all kinds of tricks.  I actually find it hard to eat out at chain restaurants now; my food is just better and all of that processing tends to upset my tummy nowadays.  Anyway, now you have a small taste of our daily life in the kitchen!   I've included some pics of our backyard buddies!

A Farm-Life Update with a Cheesecake Bites Recipe

It has been a very busy couple of weeks on the farm.  I have really gotten into cooking again; making cheesecake bites, corn dogs, cracker stix.  All wheat, soy, peanut, and tree nut free!  My daughter’s teacher has been on top of things with information regarding classroom treats, allowing me to be on top of it as well.  It has been great!  There’s not any stress when you know what’s expected.  I have found a new pizza crust mix that I am in love with thanks to our local health food store, it’s called Chebe.  I also bought the cinnamon roll mix and am looking forward to trying my hand at maple bacon cinnamon rolls with a little sweet and savory.  Sounds yummy just thinking about it.  My cheesecake bites came out wonderfully, they currently have a home in a giant freezer bag to allow us to keep and enjoy them for as long as possible.  We have had a lot of fun with themed dinners around our house.  The other day we had a diner-themed dinner with homemade corn dogs, cheese fries, and milkshakes.  It definitely wasn’t the healthiest meal in the world, but so what!  We had a blast eating and playing a mean game of go fish!  I have been milking my Nubian, Heidi, for a week now.  There’s nothing better to me than making cheese, yogurt, butter, and ice cream from farm-fresh, sustainable ingredients.  With the additions of my herb garden, orchard, and vegetable garden the flavors are limitless.  Two roosters from our farm are currently being prepared to use as sausage for our family; they are super flavorful with some of our rosemary in my garden.  I know a farm lifestyle can be overwhelming to some.  For us, it’s a lifestyle choice to provide for our family as sustainably and organic as possible.  We have seen dramatic changes in our daughter and her health.  When we initially began as a treatment for her autism, we saw results.  Since expanding our changes to limit her food allergies as well, our family has never been healthier.  I may be “jinxing” this as I say it, but we haven’t dealt with ear infections, strep throat, or the flu like others have.  The only health challenges we have had is sinus and allergy problems as the weather changes from one extreme to the next.  Which, living in Kentucky, happens on a daily basis at times.  Below I have listed our cheesecake bites recipe.

Cheesecake Bites

1 recipe for vanilla bean cheesecake without the crust.

Enjoy Life Chocolate Chips

Prepare cheesecake batter and spoon into mini-muffin tin; filling ¾ way full.  Place muffin tin in water bath and cook at 300 degrees for 20 minutes.  Turn oven off, do not open door.  Allow cakes to reduce heat slowly.  Remove from oven and sit on counter to cool to room temperature.  When room temperature, use butter knife to remove cakes onto platter.  Once all the cheesecakes have been made; place platter in refrigerator to allow to cool.  They will be easier to dip in chocolate if firmer.  Melt Enjoy Life chocolate chips in double boiler on stove top, dip cakes in chocolate and place on wax paper until cooled. 

These make a great treat.  Time consuming to make but worth it.  I fix on a rainy day and place in freezer bag until ready.

Cold Weather on the Farm and in the Kitchen

I have now officially started feeding my goats in the evening.  For the past two days, I have been bombarded by guineas and chickens when I feed them in the morning.  It’s ridiculous, aren’t they supposed to be afraid of me?  Therefore, I am changing it up.  The milk goats will be fed in the evening when the birds go to roost, and I will continue to throw their corn out in the mornings.  Silly, isn’t it?  But that’s part of it.  It’s getting a lot colder here in Kentucky, time for me to put the herbs to bed for the winter.  I’ll rake leaves up and cover the herb beds this week.  We’ve already winterized the well house, or I should say my husband and father-in-law did.  And next month I’ll start a few spring goodies in the greenhouse.  It’s always nice to get a head start.  We’re lucky that since hunting season is still going, we’ve had a lot of fresh meat to put up.  This year I plan to attempt rabbit sausage.  I’m excited about it; I’ve already planned to possibly add sage or rosemary?  Not sure, yet.  With this time of the year also come hearty dinners for the family.  I’m excited to share this shrimp and grits recipe.  Even though we are located in Western Kentucky, I love Cajun-style cuisine.  My dad worked for the union when I was growing up and we moved around a lot.  For a while, we lived in Louisiana; my mother hated it.  She loved the sights, but disliked the unfamiliarity of it with the food and language.  She learned to absolutely love the food and still continues to favor red beans and rice to this day.   I, also, love anything with rice and beans, and anything truly southern; which is exactly what shrimp and grits is to me.  My husband didn’t grow up eating a lot of the food that he now enjoys, my children will definitely be able to say that we went for it with eclectic, ethnic, and traditional foods. 

Shrimp & Grits

1 lb shrimp cleaned, deveined, I cut the tails off

¾ cups grits

1 ½ cups water or stock

1 ½ cups milk or heavy cream plus extra if needed.

2 tbs butter divided

¼ tsp salt

1 small onion chopped

1 green bell pepper chopped

1 small tomato seeded and chopped

2 cups shredded cheese

Cajun seasoning or make your own

1 tbs butter to skillet to cook onions and peppers until a little more than translucent.  Add seasoning to shrimp and coat well, set aside.  Add water or stock to pot and bring to boil, add grits, milk, and butter while continuously stirring.  Reduce heat to medium-low.  Cook 5 minutes or until thickened.  Add shredded cheese and stir until combined and cheese melted. May need to add extra milk or cream to keep desired consistency.  Add shrimp and chopped tomatoes to onions and peppers and cook until shrimp is just done

( pink and starts to curl).  Spoon cheesy grits into bowl and add desired shrimp mixture and enjoy.