I know...I skipped a day...

Well, the marmalade venture was a success.  I got four half-pints of orange marmalade and nine half-pints of grapefruit marmalade.  They even jelled well!  Now I just have to figure out what to do with it all.  We do use jelly, especially with peanut butter, but I have to be careful not to make too much.  I was thinking that I could heat up the grapefruit marmalade and thin it a little and use it as a dressing on fruit salad.  I still, though, can't get past the weird taste of grapefruit.  I love the initial sour taste, but the bitter aftertaste gets me.  My husband really likes it, though, so I guess he'll eat his own fair share of it.  

The only real complication I had with the marmalade was getting it to boil down.  I boiled and stirred those pots forever...the grapefruit I stirred for almost 40 minutes.  I found that I can do the gel test better with a metal spoon than a plastic one, but even with a metal spoon, I was just getting drops, not really gel falling off the spoon in sheets.  It is solid at room temperature, though, so I guess I did it right.

I didn't do any homesteader activities today. :(  I didn't even go out to feed the rabbits and the chickens.  My husband had to do it when he got home from work.  Wednesday night is bible study night and on a whim I decided yesterday to prepare a lesson.  I guess I made the lesson up from scratch, so is that considered a homestead activity?  Probably not one any of my blog readers are particularly interested in.  I also spent the day frantically cleaning the house.  I thought about mixing up a homemade cleaner, but that just wasn't in the cards for today.  Maybe another day.  My lesson turned out okay.  I didn't like it much, but they decided to do the second part next week, so either they liked it, they were just being nice, or they are lazy and don't want to come up with their own thing.  I guess it doesn't really matter, we were studying the bible and talking about God and that is all that counts.

Finally! I started the marmalade!

I finally found time to start on the marmalade.  I'm making a half batch of orange marmalade and a double batch of grapefruit marmalade.  I searched high and low for an orange marmalade recipe after a friend gave us several oranges and two grapefruits.  Only a few of the oranges got eaten and no one touched the grapefruits.  I finally found recipes for both marmalades in the trusty old Ball Blue Book.  

You have to remove the peel and slice it thinly and then chop up the pulp, add water and boil it and then let that mixture sit for 12-18 hours.  Right now, both batches are sitting on the counter.  It is supposed to be an icy day tomorrow, so I'll stay home and can marmalade.

I also posted to my mom's group website that I was thinking about selling our surplus eggs and starting an egg route.  I already have two people interested!  I'm pretty excited and if I get enough customers, it will justify buying more baby chicks in the spring.  Right now our 20 chickens lay about 6-7 eggs a day.  I wouldn't be able to have a ton of people on my egg route, but I could start a waiting list if more people are interested.  Here in a few months, we'll be getting even more eggs.  I wonder if I can sell other stuff like that too, like soap.

The First Post...a day late

Hello! 

This is my first post in what I hope to be the blog record of my 2009 new years resolution...to attempt one homesteader activity every day of the year (my husband thinks the goal should be two things a week).  Unfortunately, as things go when busy on the homestead, I didn't get to setting up the blog yesterday (maybe my husband is right).  Today will have to suffice!

Jan 1st (yesterday)

My homesteading activity yesterday was more a cooking venture than anything else, but I made my first homemade cheesecake.  Okay, not the most homesteader like thing I could have done, but I had a tub of sour cream in the fridge that was already 2 days out of date and a bunch of stockpiled cream cheese in the cheese drawer.  It turned out okay.  Not the best cheese cake ever, but it is pretty tasty.  Unfortunately, I am short on time (I rushed to get this post in so as to not get DAYS behind) so I will not go into details here...perhaps tomorrow.

Jan 2nd (today)

Slow day today, too.  I tried to get the kiddos ready to go to the store so I could buy ingredients to can soup...that didn't happen.  I will do the first part of a marmalde recipe that I will can tomorrow, so I can give you all the details in tomorrows post.

Well, I didn't set the bar too high for a first post, did I?  I promise the information will get better as I go!

Smiles!