MAKING LYE SOAP

Today I made lye soap. I just make regular plain old lye soap nothing fancy with different herbs or scents. Lye soap is supposed to be good for removing poison ivy and I also had an elderly lady who used to take in laundry tell me that it was good to rub on men's shirt collars to remove stains! I don't know how true any of these statements are, but it is fun to make.

The recipe I use has tallow, lard and olive oil in it. There are all kinds of recipes using different kinds of fats or oils, but the reason I chose this one was because I had access to tallow and lard. Tallow is the fat from beef. The last time we butchered a cow I had them save me all the fat scraps. This I then had to put through my meat grinder and then cook it down on the stove till it was all melted. Then filter it so that all the meat pieces or grissel and stuff was taken out. Then I put it in foiled lined cake pans and allowed it to cool and set up. Once that was done then I put it in plastic bags and stored it in the freezer. Needless to say one cow makes a lot of tallow! We haven't had cattle for around 16 or 17 years! The lard was a lot easier to come by as we used to have hogs and every time we butchered I had them save me the lard. They will process the lard, so I didn't have to do that! When you use tallow in soap it makes a harder soap which I like in a bar soap.

The next trick is finding the lye. Which I use Red Devil, but there are some other brands, it just has to be 100% lye, and sometimes anymore that is not always easy to find. But once you have your ingredients found you need to pick a time when you can work without any interruptions.

You need to add your water to your lye in pitcher and then let cool down to 100 degrees. Also at the same time you need to melt your fats in a pot on the stove and then cool them down to 100 degrees also. The trick is to get both mixtures to reach 100 degrees at the same time! Once that is done then you slowly mix the two together and then stir and stir and stir and stir.... which can take 30 minutes to 45 to an hour?!! But you stir until when you lift the spoon from the pot and let it drip that you can see a trail or tracings on top of the soap. That is what the first picture is trying to show, it was hard to get a picture fast enough to show up in the light. You can see a little ridge or line right above and to the right of the spoon?!

Then once that has happened you can pour your soap into your molds. This time I had saved these plastic forms from the packages of store bought cookies I buy.(That way I won't eat them, because they're not as good as home made!) Or in the past I've just used a square plastic type storage box and then cut them into bars later. I then set the molds into a bigger storage container and put the lid on and then wrapped them in a blanket to keep it from getting "chilled" and put them to "bed"!

What that essentially means is that you don't want the soap to cool to fast and you put it in a warm place where it can set for 24 to 48 hours undisturbed. Then once that time has passed you can un-mold the soap and set it out to dry and cure! It takes a good 3 to 4 weeks to cure before you can use it as the lye can still be caustic. So that's soap making in a nut shell! If you are interested there are all kinds of books out there with information and recipes. The one I like and use is "The Complete Soapmaker" by Norma Coney.

PREPARING AND LEARNING!!!

Even though it's winter we have been busy. Everyone always wants to know what we're going to do with ourselves once market and growing season is over, like now we're going to have all this free time! I wish!

I've mentioned some of the projects Greg's been working on getting built. He's also been busy ordering supplies and seeds. That's a chore going through all the old seed and determining what needs to be tossed and what can be kept and then what and how much we need to order and from whom! We get around 35-40 different seed catalogs and even though we have our standard ones, we always like to see what's new that different ones might be offering and of course comparing prices! My job is to go through and mark anything that sounds interesting and then he weeds through all the rest! A week ago this past Monday we went to Hummert's in Earth City to get some potting soil, drip tape, perlite and misc. and found some green house bench tops that were slightly damaged and were about 40% off, so picked up 4 of those!

Last week after it had thawed out some we got compost carted into one of the smaller hoop houses and Greg got it tilled in. That worked up real nice and deep! We still have the big hoop house to get cleaned out and worked up!

Last Tuesday & Wednesday I went to a Better Process Control School in Jefferson City put on by the Purdue University Food Science Department School of Agriculture. That was very enlightening and interesting. There were eight chapters we went over and were tested on and we had to pass by 80% to get our certification. The class covered Canned foods; principles of thermal process control, acidification & container closure evaluation! I don't think I've done that much note taking and listening to lectures and test taking since High School! I think the mental work was more tiring and wearing on me than physical gardening work is!!!

Then Friday afternoon I drove down to Cabool, Missouri for the annual Missouri Farmers' Market Association work shop and meeting that was held on Saturday. We had several speakers and heard and learned about Grants and writing grants, about using Face book, Twitter, and other social networks to promote our markets. So I may have to set up a Face book page. I haven't totally decided on that one, I thought I was doing well to be blogging!!! We also had a speaker on insurance and what we needed to know about insuring our market and ourselves as vendors. I have been on the board for about 6 years and was up for re-election and was voted back in.

The Agritourism - Small Fruit & Vegetable Conference is coming up February 15, 16 & 17 at the Lake of the Ozarks. I usually go to this one by myself as the Small Fruit & Vegetable part has always been held down in Springfield, Missouri. This year they are combining with the Agritourism and moved it. I will be going and Greg is thinking about it since it is closer we would come home at night. Always a problem for both of us to be gone at the same time and get chores done! This conference has a bus tour the first day and then on the second and third day will be topics like Growing & promoting Missouri grown blueberries; business planning basics; Agritourism; High tunnel strawberry production; planning events on the farm; Developing a Web presence; blackberry pruning; identifying potential hazards on your farm; growing primocane blackberries; vegetables; and marketing food on the farm!

So even though we may not be growing and selling produce, we are preparing and learning to be better growers and marketers!

EGGS, EGGS & MORE EGGS!

Just to let you all know, the chickens are still laying eggs, and even though they have cut way back with the cold and all, I'm still getting 6 dozen eggs a day. So if you need any eggs give me a call!

GUIDE TO HERB & VEGETABLE & MEAT COMBINATIONS

Carrots: marjoram, rosemary, sage
Corn: Parsley
Green Beans: dill, marjoram, oregano, tarragon, thyme
Peas: marjoram, parsley, sage
Potatoes: dill, garlic, parsley, sage
Summer squash: marjoram, rosemary, sage
Tamatoes: basil, dill, marjoram, oregano, parsley
Beef: marjoram, sage, thyme
Lamb: garlic, rosemary, mint
Pork: garlic, sage, oregano
Chicken: marjoram, oregano, rosemary, sage, tarragon, thyme
Fish: dill, marjoram

COOKING WITH FRESH HERBS
Adding fresh herbs to foods is a quick way to transform ordinary meals into extraordinary meals. Here's how:

A general guideline is to use three times as much fresh herbs as you would use of a dried herb in a recipe. You'll often be more successful substituting fresh herbs for dried herbs, rather than the other way around.

Purchase fresh herbs close to the time you plan to use them.

Store fresh herbs in an open or perforated plastic bag in a refrigerator crisper drawer for a few days.

Wash herbs when you're ready to use them. Wash smaller amounts of herbs thoroughly under running water. Shake off moisture or spin dry in a salad spinner. Pat off any remaining moisture with a clean paper towel.

When washing a larger amount of herbs, treat them as you would salad greens. Place in a clean sink or deep bowl filled with cold water & swish around. Lift from the water & transfer to another bowl so dirt & grit remain in the water. Pour out the water; repeat the washing process in clean water until dirt & grit are gone and the water is clear.

Unless otherwise directed, mince herbs into tiny pieces. Chop with a chef's knife on a cutting board or snip with kitchen scissors.

Unlike dried herbs, fresh herbs are usually added toward the end in cooked dishes to preserve their flavor. Add the more delicate herbs - basil, chives, cilantro, dill leaves, parsley, marjoram & mint - a minute or two before the end of cooking or sprinkle them on the food before it's served. The less delicate herbs, such as dill seeds, oregano, rosemary, tarragon & thyme, can be added about the last 20 minutes of cooking.

The above information is from Alice Henneman, MS, RD University of Nebraska-Lincoln Extension in Lancaster County.

Well we survived the holidays! Our son is still home from collage for another week, but otherwise we are settling into the cold winter season! Our thermometer said -1 degree this morning! YUCK!! The chicken waterers were frozen up and the 5 outdoor cats have moved into the house much to the one indoor cats disgust!

Greg has gone back to work today after two weeks of vacation, but he has been working on making some cool gadgets to make my life easier when it comes time to start planting in the greenhouse! He's also started on his seed inventory list and going through the seed catalogs that have been arriving since before Thanksgiving!

I have not been doing much of anything on the other hand! I've been doing a lot of reading! That is my down fall. Once I start reading I don't quit until the book is done, so therefore not much else gets done! I still need to take the tree down, but I find that that gets later and later each year since we have gone to an artificial tree and I don't have to worry about it drying out and all the needles falling off!

We will be going to the Midwest Fruit & Vegetable Growers Conference the end of the week in St. Joesph and look forward to that, plus several other workshops and meetings this month that I will be going to, so it will be a busy January!