Loads of Goodness!! Kombucha Bread... Back to Eden Wood Chip Gardening... Polyface Farm! Homemade Pitch Forks? What more could you ask for?!

 A lot's been happening around God's Little Acre Farms since our last update!! Praise God!! We visited Joel Salatin's Polyface Farm in August... I really need to get on the ball and write up a blog about that trip! Whew!! As the summer is winding down we will have more time for posts and videos!

This year was a year of booms and busts! A super bust with the tomatoes... so most of our salsas are more of a pepper and cucumber base but still fantastic! Celery!! Who knew?? Thanks to mom for getting these little ones going!! This particular variety didn't need mounding up, was planted in a shady and moist area and grew fantastic!

We cut the leaves off and dried in the oven...
Method for drying celery leaves:
Line cookie sheets with paper towels
turn oven on lowest setting for 20 mins
Turn off oven
place leaves (or other herbs) in oven and turn oven on once or twice for a bit until dry

They passed the taste test with blue cheese peanut butter!

This was the season for peppers!! Pepper relish, pepper salsa, dried peppers, pickled peppers.... you name it we peppered it!!! 

Thanks to our AMAZING neighbor and tree pro, we now have a source of wood chips to begin our Back to Eden venture!

Check out the video here on how to start your own Back to Eden wood chip garden!

https://vimeo.com/28055108

going to be a FANTASTIC VINEYARD NEXT YEAR!

 Filling in the greenhouse with layers of manure, leaves, and wood chips to heat it through the winter!

Had to say goodbye to the little driveway garden to make room for an expanded driveway... Uncle Jac is excited to transform the 52's using Marilyn and Skippy's old truck so we needed more parking... out comes the little flower bed which will allow for some much needed parking room in our turn around driveway!

KOMBUCHA BREAD!!

We've been indroduced to an amazing healthy drink called kombucha thanks to our good friend and raw milk farmer Cathy and our trip to the Food Freedom Fest put on by the Farm to Consumer Legal Defense Fund!

It's a natural probiotic drink made with tea, sugar, and a weird looking culture called a scoby
I wanted to see if I could use the yeasty part of the kombucha to make bread...and...

I did it!! Sooo excited!! Kombucha bread!!! I read that one person took a scoby and put it in the food processor. I didn't do this. Because the yeasty part is the brown stuff on the bottom that falls to the bottom, I poured off most of the kombucha and took about 2 cups of kombucha including the yeast on the bottom of 2 of my jars. I've done this 2x now. The first time I added a pinch of yeast, this last time NONE!!! Woo hoo... just komucha and flour, let sit for 12 hrs, then I added some salt and honey and voila! perfect bread which rose just as much if not more than my regular yeast bread! The bread tastes better as well smile emoticon

Whole Wheat Kombucha Bread

(about) 11 cups flour
(I grind mine fresh)

Mix with 2-3 cups of komucha, pouring from the bottom of your container(s) to make sure you are getting all that yeasty goodness that sinks to the bottom
I also scraped the brown yeast off of one of my scobys and put in in there

½ cup of honey

Mix and knead a bit to work a pliable dough, add flour or water as needed

let sit 12-24 hrs

At this point your dough should have risen, punch down

add 2 Tbl of salt

knead for 5-10 mins
adding some oil at this point makes for easier kneading

olive oil or lard

let rise until doubled

form dough in desired shapes

bake in oven 375 for 35 min for standard loaf pan

ENJOY! Finally...
Sooo, here is an AMAZING invention by our very own Justin!! He found this pitch fork head at an antique store and made a handle for it... I've got to tell you, I've been struggling with breaking those $35 pitch forks from Lowe's or Tractor Supply... This is an answer to many prayers!! Thank you Justin!