$5 A Week Food Storage Update

Sorry for the quality of the photo, does blogger ever deal you a fit loading pictures?

For the last few weeks I've been adding a canned ham and box of rice to my food storage.  I buy these at the Dollar General store.  The ham is $3.15 and the rice is $1.75 for a total of $4.90.

I think it's important for my family to store some meats that do not require refrigeration.  Purchased canned meats is one solution.  I also stock tuna and will be checking into pressure canning some of my own meats this fall.

Have you been adding to your food storage weekly?

What's keeping you busy?

Tomatoes! We are getting lots of tomatoes around here. This weekend will be spent preserving the harvest into tomatoe sauce and salsa sauce. I will be trying some lacto fermented salsa as well.

Be sure to check out this great podcast on Lacto Fermenting your fresh garden vegetables.
It has a lot of great information!

What is keeping you busy this week?

Look what I found on our homestead...

Most people will find a stray dog or a cat occasionally on their homesteads. A few will find a cow, horse or maybe even a goat that has gotten loose.

But not many find this:



A buff orpington hen!

I noticed her at the north side of our property Saturday. I didn't see her all day Sunday and figured she had met her match.

Then yesterday when I got home from work she was there again. Yesterday was very hot and she wasn't walking around foraging like she had been Saturday. I made a couple calls to the closest neighbors to see if they had recently bought chickens and all said "No, we thought you got more chickens".

So I took her some water. Later around 8:00 I found her roosting in one of our evergreen trees.

Not sure what we will do with her yet. But I figure if she is still here in a few more days I better get the smaller chicken coop cleaned out and prepared for her. She looks to be a younger hen.

Ahhhh, the life on acreage in the country. You never know what you will find.

Garden Fresh Kachumber

I made some garden fresh Kachumber yesterday for my hubby for Father's Day. He loves my Pico de Gallo so I was sure he would like this as well.

He had picked 6 cucumbers fresh from the garden and several small tomatoes. I had some onions drying on the table from our garden and ran out and picked two serrano peppers. The cilanatro and limes came from our local grocery store. I used the lime since I had no lemons on hand.

Here is the original recipe from Chef In You that I changed up a little:

1 onion, thinly sliced
1 cucumber, peeled and chopped
1-2 jalapeno chillies (optional, as per taste)
2 medium tomatoes, chopped
1/2-1tsp roasted cumin powder (as per taste)
juice of 1 lemon along with zest, as per taste
some cane sugar for sprinkling
salt to taste
few sprigs of cilantro for garnish

I chopped my onion and lime for the juice and zest. I also chopped up about 2 tablespoons of cilantro and added no sugar.

It was very good and spicy! The cumin and cucumber gave it a little different taste from my regular Pico de Gallo.

Don't be afraid to substitute and change things up on your recipes to use your fresh produce from your garden. Hope everyone's gardens are doing great.

Have you tried any new recipes to use your produce from your gardens?

Aerial view of our homestead

This is an arial view of our homestead. This arial picture was taken about two years ago. It looks a little different now. We have dug a pond and lost a couple trees due to high winds.

When we moved here eight years ago we named it 5 Moore Acres. I'm hoping there will be a new arial picture taken in the near future. It is fun to compare them.