Pho. Delicious and comforting!

I decided to make a Beef Pho soupe for my Quilting Club ladies (which doesn't involve quilting in any way!!!). We're just a bunch of friends meeting once a month to eat, talk, drink wine and have a good time away from the men!!!

I found the recipe in the St Lawrence News and I linked the recipe here: https://www.ontario.ca/foodland/recipes/saigon-beef-pho

Ok, this one was calling for a beef broth that I didn't have and, to stay in line with my "using everything I have home" I used a duck broth that I made the week before and that was sitting in the freezer. Except for some veggies, I had everything on hands. So I didn't made the beef broth but starting from the duck broth, I fallowed the recipe.

It was a big success! Everyone liked it and I'm glad I did it because I always thought it was hard and long to do but it wasn't, like, at all!!!

Here's the "before adding the broth" part of the soup, I made sure the beef was going to be covered by the broth by putting it on the side and by also "tucking" it down the bowl so that it'll have enough time to "cook" by the time I serve the food to everyone. Then, once the broth was in the bowl, I added the rice vermicelli (that's why you don't see it in this picture).

One is added the broth and the rice vermicelli, I served everyone and the meat was cooked perfectly (still pretty raw on this picture but trust me, it was cooked by the time we started to eat).

I really recommend that you try this recipe if you feel like having a great "meal soup" that smells fantastic and taste delicious! Bon apetit!

A walk in the woods

We went for a walk in our wood at the back of our land yesterday. Weather was fantastic, only -3° and sunny. Here are some pictures I took. Hope you'll enjoy them as much as we enjoyed taking them :)

Here is a panoramic view of the back of our land. Skating rink in the winter, swamp in the summer (great for duck and goose hunting!!!).

Another view of the back of our land.

Justin and his "banana" which is basically a piece of ice he carried (and ate!!!) the whole time we were walking!!!

My 3 men ❤️

Theo being all intense and focus on something... Probably nothing, he was so excited to go for his 1st walk in our wood.

He also found something that smelled SO good he had to roll in it but forgot that ice + side of the hill = slippery so he slipped & fell while doing it!!!

A picture of Tim pulling Justin on our way back home.

It was a great afternoon and I wanted to share it with you! You're welcome ;)

Laundry soap

Being at home gives me the time to do more homemade stuff. It has been a while since I've done this recipe for laundry soap so I decided to make some yesterday. Super easy to make and cheap.

Here's what you need:

- 1 bar of laundry soap ($1.19/290g)

- 3 cups Baking soda ($3.97/2kg)

- 3 cups Borax ($5.58/2kg)

First of all, you need to transform your regular baking soda into washing soda. Easy peasy! Just take the amount of baking soda you need, spread it on a cookie sheet and put it in the oven at 400° for 30-35 minutes stirring occasionally. When the time is up, you'll see the texture of your baking soda will be more "soft" and more "powdery". A good hint, you will probably sneeze from just going through it with a spoon!!!

Then grate your soap in a big bowl. I use the tiny grating side of my regular cheese grater. You want it to be as small as possible to help it dissolve in the water. Then add your washing soda, Borax, stir and voila! You now have homemade laundry detergent! I put my detergent in an air tight container like a Mason jar.

Also, I use regular white vinegar as a laundry softener. Sometimes, I add about 8-10 drops of essential oil to it just to give a hint of smell to my clothes as the detergent and the vinegar won't leave any kind of perfume on your clothes. During summer time I use citronella essential oil to help repelling the mosquitos and the rest of the year I use lavender only because I love the smell of lavender!

On the down side, because of the grated soap, this detergent works better in warm or hot water (at least for us during winter time) as our water comes from an underground source and is SO cold.

The break down. Keep in mind that I'm not good with math so the amount may not be exact but it came down to something like $3.30 for 1.3kg of detergent. Considering the fact that you only use 1 or 2 tablespoons of detergent per loads, I think it's pretty cheap.

So here you go, try it and see for yourself, it's cheap, efficient, it works well and soft enough for babies clothes.

Food stuff from scratch

So I decided to empty my freezer & pantry before buying anything else from the store (except for veggies & fruits and special items like milk, yogurt, etc). I mean, no meat as we are raising chicken, turkey and pork. We have lots of chicken breast, turkey meat, porck chops, ground pork, pork roast, sausages, bacon, etc. If beef is needed I might buy some but I'm trying very hard to use what I have here.

While cleaning my freezer and pantry, I realized how much stuff I have at home and how much stuff I don't need to buy (I found something like 6-7 packs of rice, lots of barley, frozen meals that I made couple of months ago, etc). So clearly, I don't really need to go to the store.

As I've never been good at making something without all the exact ingredients needed in the recipe (which made me buy stuff at the store "just in case there is none at home") it's a big deal for me to come up with something to eat since then but I'm sticking to my idea!

So, with 1lb of ground chicken some spices, bread crumbs, parmesan cheese and eggs, I cooked us some delicious chicken nuggets! I found a recipe on Pinterest that was easy to make and I was able to use what I already have here. Here's the link: http://natashaskitchen.com/2014/11/19/baked-chicken-nuggets-recipe/ and here are my chicken nuggets!!!

There was also 3 small portions of frozen french fries (in 3 different bags) that I bought (clearly more than once!!!) "just in case there is none at home" So, I used them too.

In the end, for 1 meal, I used 4 items that I already had in my freezer + some stuff from the pantry!!! YAY! I'm sticking to my idea!!!

I think I'm doing pretty good so far, the Ministry of Finance (aka hubby) could hopefully tell me if I'm wrong or not by checking the amount of money I didn't spend at the grocery store lately comparing to "before".

2016

2016! YAY! New year, new projects, new ideas and of course, resolutions!!!

As far as this Blog is concerned, I'm going to try to be more present in 2016. Inspired by my friend's Blog (go check it out and subscribe: https://ruralcanuck.wordpress.com) and her good tips on how to blog, I think I can do it, write 1 or 2 articles per week... Let's try that!

As far as eating well is concerned, I'm going to keep you updated on how we're doing, what we're eating, how I'm doing it and what new am I trying.

Farm stuff, hopefully hubby will keep you updated if not, I'll do it... Let's just say having a new laptop would help me a lot (wink!!! wink!!!) but if not, I'll still do it :)

So here are the big idea for 2016. Blog soon :)

Project Twister Shield 1.0 and crippling heat

Well it has finally gotten to the point where Twister, the pygmy goat, gets his photo taken on a daily basis in order for us to post an ad on Kijiji for adoption... but we aren't at the point of actually putting up the ad. He has taken to pulling down any clothing that is on the clothesline and urinating and sleeping on it. And so I set to and built another fence to keep him corralled and to also "encourage" the birds to keep away from the road.

It took my a total of about 7 hours in two shots but I got it done. The post cutting and hauling and post hole digging was sweaty in work in this scorching heat. Pro tip - don't operate a chainsaw without a shirt when you are all sweaty... It tends to make a wood pulp paste all over your body.

Here are some photos that Annie took out of the window while I slaved away ;)

The animals have been content and growing quickly. They certainly spend a lot of time at the watering hole with the heat these days.

There is still time for a little strutting. Timmy Tom is just showing the little one how it's done.

The Bearded Lady has teamed up with the Black Lady since the latter's eggs weren't viable. They like heading down to the garden and hanging out in the cows field with the babies.

At the end of the day, everyone is doing well. There is a real pleasure in watching the birds have a wonderful time wandering about, eating bugs in the grass, hanging out on piles of branches, sunning themselves, having dust baths and generally enjoying themselves.

Hot and cold

There have been hot days, hot nights and hot days, cold nights and everything in between. But the constant has been the hot days thing until today.

Its made for some nice sunsets and sunrises but the animals have had a rough go of it trying to keep cool and guzzling water as fast as i can fill the waterers.

Twister the goat has been true to goat form and done everything that we don't want him to do. He has also figured out how to hook down with his horns to really stab you. I almost lost my cool and posted him on kijiji but after looking at the photo I could not.

The Black Lady as we call her had disappeared and we figured that she was sitting on eggs in the bush, tired of us stealing them every time she lays them in the barn. We couldn't find her until I spotted her the other day and was able to follow her back to her hiding spot.

She looked disheveled but in fact, compared to the beginning of the summer she looks great.

The game here is to find the turkeynin the photo ;)

I found her tail and could here her hissing like crazy. I suspect she will be a good mother. I am kind of hoping she is sitting on some guinea fowl eggs as well :)

The pigs made do in their wallow. They really love the mud in this heat.

Between hanging out in the maternity ward, sticking to the shade to catch bugs and resting on the fence the turkeys do what they can to keep cool. The chickens clearly know the best spots since they are hidden enough to keep away from the camera.

And finally at the end if the day I always catch Bearded Lady taking her little ones for a final lap around the yard to find a couple of tasty insects before bedtime.