Fern's Farmhouse Special

This is one of those meals that needed a name, so we just made it up. Most people would think 'Food' was a strange title to a blog article, so Frank named this dish for us.

There is really not much special about this dish, it's just something I came up with since we have limited our carbohydrate intake. It's healthy, tasty and I make plenty of it. It's not particularly attractive, as in a pretty dish, but we don't care. What's neat about it is that almost all of the ingredients came from our farm or homestead. We know how the meat was raised, the milk produced, the cheese made, the vegetables grown and how all of it was processed. This is what makes this meal a 'Special'. We've almost come to take our homegrown food for granted, but not quite. Anytime the food on our table constitutes a homegrown meal in it's entirety, we take note, and enjoy every bite that much more.

Okay, on with the meal. The first ingredient is ground goat meat or chevon. About half the time I think I spell it wrong and put chevron, so if you run across that somewhere in this blog, sorry about that. I season the meat with sea salt and fresh ground peppercorns, then brown it with about half of a large onion (store bought) and any sweet peppers we have on hand. I just picked these peppers from the plant I transplanted into the greenhouse.

When the onions and peppers are starting to brown, I add two heaping spoonfuls of our canned garlic and a pint jar of our canned

yellow squash and let it heat up and blend in with the other flavors. By the way, I strain the liquid off of the squash into the pig bucket. I do this with any liquid we aren't planning on using in cooking. I even rinse out milk and kefir jars and put this milky water in the pig bucket. I really like using these liquids to increase our meat supply instead of pouring it down the drain like I used to.

While the squash is heating, I grated a little cheddar cheese and got out the salsa and fermented jalapenos. I haven't told you about the jalapenos yet. I fermented two quarts of jalapenos in the same kind of crock we use for sauerkraut. I inoculated the peppers with kraut juice when I started them, then left them in the crock for about three weeks. They taste great, still very tangy and stayed crunchy. Thanks to the reader that recommended we try them. I have four pint jars of peppers stored in the refrigerator now along with the usual four quarts of sauerkraut.

Now that the meat and vegetables are ready I dish them up, add some salsa, peppers and cheese. 

This type of meal has the possibility of endless variations, the only limitation is your imagination. So go create your own 'House Special' with whatever ingredients your family enjoys. After you do, see how many of those ingredients you can produce or store for the long term. The uncertain, difficult days ahead of us, will require good, healthy, home cooked meals for comfort and much needed nutrition. Practice now while you can.

Until next time - Fern