Friends and Fellowship

Just when we're feeling weary from the work at hand and the work ahead of us, and the heat grows more intense... God sends angels to give us new energy just when we need it!

In this case, He sent us these dear friends who, each year, ask to visit the farm and then insist on working.  The Noel family of 10, are set such a good example for us on what it means to have a servants heart.  An army of boys took over the mulching and the girls organized it and controlled weeds in the garden.

What a blessing they were to us.  Here are some pictures of the work completed:

 

Girls surveying the garden...



Pulling weeds and hauling mulch.

 

Natural paper and mulch to control more weeds.

 

Boys at the mulch pile - we lost count of how many loads of mulch they moved over to the garden.

Farm cat... who did absolutely nothing this day.  Too hot for mouse catching.  :-)

Another load of mulch dumped at the garden.

Here is a "before" photo of one section of the garden - weeds taking over.

 

And "after" the crew was done with it!

 

The whole gang visiting and helping with the chickens.

 

Two big brothers - "fixing" their sister's hair.  That's what big brothers are for, right?!

The whole hard-working gang.  We are so thankful for these sweet friends and the Godly, hard-working example they set!

 

Homemade Sour Cream

I never liked sour cream.... until I made some myself.  It's delicious.  We use it in recipes like you would use any store-bought sour cream.  we also use it in our Fruit and Cream Popsicles.  Recipe for those here:  Fruit-and-Cream-Popsicles

Basic instructions:

Choosing a Cream

Different creams will produce sour cream with different thicknesses. Choose the one that works best for you.

• Pasteurized heavy cream or whipping cream will yield the thickest sour cream.
• Half-and-half can be used, but the sour cream will have a thinner consistency. Dry milk powder can be added to improve the consistency, if desired.
• Raw cream can be used but will yield a thinner consistency than if pasteurized whipping cream is used. Learn more about using raw cream to make sour cream here!
• Avoid ultra-pasteurized (UP) or ultra-high temperature (UHT) cream, as it yields inconsistent results when used for culturing sour cream.

We use either raw cream which we skim from the top of our raw milk.  If we don't have enough raw milk/cream on hand - we love to use the batch-pasteurized Kalona Cream brand.  It.is.delicious!

As our "starter" ingredient we use Kalona brand yogurt.  You can use any yogurt that has NO sweetners or additives in it.  Organic is important as well.

Sour Cream Ingredients

• 1/4 cup yogurt of choice
• 1 quart size jar of cream

Instructions for Making Sour Cream

1. If the cream is store-bought and pasturized, you must first heat it before making your cream.  With raw cream, heating is not necessary but warming it up can help get the process going.
3. Heat cream to 185°F and then quickly cool it.
4. Cool cream to 85F.  I use a bowl with water and ice and I put the cooking pan right into it to get the cream to cool to at least 85F.
5. Add starter culture (yogurt) and stir gently.
6. Transfer to a glass jar; I use a quart size mason jar.  Cover with a coffee filter or tight-weave cloth or loosely secured lid.
7. Place the jar in a deydrator at 95 degree F for 20-24 hours.  You can also use your oven for this purpose if the oven light will heat the oven to 90 degrees or so.
8. Once the sour cream has set, place a tight lid on the jar and store in the refrigerator.
9. Sour cream will keep in the refrigerator for 2-3 weeks.

Fruit and Cream Popsicles!

Want a healthy way to cool off and still avoid all the sugary frozen treats at the grocery store?

 

Here's one of our favorites - Popsicles made with fruit and homemade sour cream.  Sour cream gives it that "creamsicle" sort of taste and texture.  Yum.

 

We use our excess strawberries from the strawberry patch, or sometimes blueberries.  Another favorite is orange juice squeezed right from cara cara oranges (found at our local grocery store.)

 

 

Here are the basics:

You'll need:

• About 1 cup of berries of your choice
• About 1 cup of homemade sour cream (recipe to follow - it's easy to make and NOTHING like store-bought.  (I don't think this recipe would be the same with store bought sour cream)
• About 1/2 cup of juice.  We use an antioxidant juice that is blueberry and pomegranate - but you can use any of your choice.
• A small amount of stevia
• A splash of vanilla

Add all ingredients to a blender and blend until smooth.  I always taste it with a spoon before freezing, just to be sure I like the blend.  Then I can add more sour cream or more of the fruit as needed.

Pour into popsicle molds and freeze for several hours.  Enjoy!  These don't last long around here!

Alternate recipe which is Kailyn's favorite:

• 1/2 cup of sour cream
• 1 cup of fresh squeezed-from-oranges juice
• pinch of stevia

Tastes like an orange creamsicle - minus the bad stuff!

Happy Summer!