How to Make Strawberry Jam

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A couple of weeks ago I had the chance to buy some organic strawberries that were brought in from California. I knew exactly what I was going to do with them. Strawberry jam of course.

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Ingredients:

4 cups strawberry purée

4 Tbsp lemon juice

6 Tbsp pectin

5 1/2 cups sugar

Directions:

1. Stir lemon juice into strawberry purée

2. Whisk in pectin

3. Bring to a boil

4. Add sugar

5. Bring back to a hard boil and boil for 1 minute stirring constantly.

6. Pour into to clean jars, wipe jar rims, place lids and rings on.

7. Process in either a boiling water bath or steam canner for 10 minutes. I am a huge advocate for the steam canner. It is so much more efficient than lugging a big pot of water around the kitchen or waiting for a giant pot to boil.

*If you live at a higher altitude you will need to adjust processing time accordingly

• . This recipe makes 4 pints.

Some of you might not want to use that much sugar. For us, we keep most processed sugar products out of our house, so I don't feel bad using a good amount organic sugar in our homemade jams.

Pectin jars come with instructions on them. If you want to use less sugar, get a low/no sugar pectin and follow the recipe that comes with the pectin.

EASY DIY FODDER SYSTEM

When we moved out here to the farm they were the thing I was most excited to start raising. I like to feed my chickens wheat fodder, but I didn't want to make a huge extravagant thing to grow it in so here is what I did.

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First I bought these stacking baskets from Amazon. After they arrived I drilled holes in the bottom of each basket about an inch apart. You can be really strategic about this, but I just eyeballed it.

Once you have your holes drilled you can plant your wheat! Soak about 2 cups of hard wheat berries in a bowl of water for 12-24 hours. You can get sprouting grains from Scratch and Peck Feeds (Code mywholehomestead15 for a discount) azurestandard.com is also a good place to get good grains. I soak mine for 12 hours, I seem to have better luck in the growing process if I don't soak them as long.

Place your berries in your basket. I plant 1 basket each day for 6 days and water it 2 times a day. Because the baskets stack on top of each other and you have holes drilled in each basket you can water the top one and it will trickle down and water them all! After you feed the top one, just rotate it to the bottom and you will have one basket a day to feed your chickens, or goats, or whatever you want to feed it to!

I have mine growing in the garage next to the window. When I first started doing this I was growing it in my house, I don't suggest doing this. It gets really stinky. Like SUPER gross smelling and you don't want that in your house I promise!

Here is the wheat as it grows in different stages. You can see the progression and it is really neat to see how fast it grows!

Day 2

Day 3

Day 4

Day 6

How to Make Milk & Lard Soap

Equipment:

To make handmade soap you need a few tools and supplies.

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• Food Scale (All of the measurements are in WEIGHT…this is extremely important because your measurements need to be exact)

• Immersion Blender

• Large Stainless Steel Pot

• Soap Mold (I own and love this kit)

Recipe:

12 oz coconut oil

15 oz olive oil

13 oz lard

6 oz lye

12 oz goat milk (frozen)

1 oz essential oil of choice for fragrance (optional)

1. In a small pot melt the lard and coconut oil over low heat. Once the lard is melted add the olive oil, remove from the heat and set it aside.

2. Mix your milk and lye. A good thing to remember is that “snow falls on water” so you slowly add the lye to the milk NOT milk to lye. Mixing this up the wrong way can be dangerous so just do it right, k? You can wear rubber gloves and safety goggles in case something happens if you want. I don't want you to be scared, but I do want you to be smart!

3. Carefully stir the lye into the milk until the milk is melted.

4. Transfer your melted oils to the large stainless steel pot and set the pot in the sink.

5. Slowly add the milk/lye to the tallow

6. Take your immersion blender and carefully blend until the soap comes to trace.

*Trace is when the soap thickens to a point that you can "draw" in it and the design stays*

7. If you are using an essential oil for fragrance now is the time to add this. Then blend it again until it comes back to trace.

8. Pour soap into the mold.

A few things to consider:

• If you don't have access to goat milk, you can use water instead. The measurements are the same. You don't need to freeze the water.

• You want to keep the things cool. That is why you use frozen milk, so that you don't scorch it with the lye. I also like to make sure the tallow is around 120-130 degrees F before I add the milk/lye mixture to it.

• Keep some vinegar nearby, it neutralizes lye. Just in case you get some on you.

Cold Process Soap Needs Time to Cure

I leave my soap in the mold for a couple of days. Then I take it out and let it cure for 6 weeks. After 6 weeks I cut it into bars and do what is called a "zap" test. It sounds silly, but you put your tongue on the soap. If it zaps you, its not ready. If nothing happens, its ready to use.