Monday, December 8, 2014

This Week at Ramsey Farms

This Month at Ramsey Farms - November 3 through December 4, 2014

I can’t believe it’s been so long since I’ve updated this blog! We’ve been so busy with work, school, the fall festival, visitors from north Carolina, Thanksgiving, and other activities that have left little time for interneting. (I just created a new word!)

The garden is doing fine. We’re eating a lot of radishes and scallions, the lettuces are growing bigger by the day, the carrots and beets are growing albeit slowly, the green onions are growing bigger and we do enjoy the green scallion stems, and there are a handful of garlic stems showing up through the mulch now! I really miss my old herb garden in North Carolina so that is a project we’ll be preparing for this winter so that we can begin planting as soon as possible in the spring. We’re building our compost pole and sourcing manure to enrich the main garden so that it will be more productive next spring.

We spent a wonderful fun-filled day at our little church’s fall festival where the kids and community enjoyed two large inflatable slides, games, music, food, candy, and a hay ride! The following weekend the church hosted a housewarming party for a family in our little community who lost their home to a fire back in September. They have rebuilt and needed all the basics a home needs such as towels, pantry staples, and kitchen implements.

My mom and my sister visited us the weekend prior to Thanksgiving and we spent the week beforehand preparing for them. I made homemade pasta sauce so my daughter could make her renowned lasagna dish. We made homemade hamburger and hotdog buns and slaw for a cookout the first night they were here. I was so happy to see them and to introduce them to our special piece of land – our home. We ate, drank wine, played board games, danced to music, hiked the trails Chris has cut through our woods, sat in the sun, listened to crickets and coyotes, and talked and talked and talked and simply enjoyed one another’s company. I was delighted to introduce them to all my closest neighbors! I loved having them here but it was just too short of a visit and I look forward to having them come back in the spring and stay a little longer and see this place in full bloom! 


We had an awesome Thanksgiving that began with an evening church service and pot luck dinner at our church. There were more than 70 people there and the food was incredible! You know that anytime you get a bunch of southern women bringing food it’s gonna be downright delicious. That was on Sunday before Thanksgiving (the same day my mom and sister left us) and the same day I started my Thanksgiving cooking extravaganza!

That Sunday early morning, I started the feast cooking with making my homemade totally-from-scratch chicken broth with a nice little 4.5 pound whole chicken, fresh scallions from the garden, dried herbs from my garden, garlic, carrots, onions, and celery. This simmers for several hours and had the house smelling delicious and well, like home! I deboned the chicken to use later on, simmered some more, then cooled the broth in another pot that was surrounded by ice and cold water. While the broth was cooking, I made my homemade cornbread (no mixes or boxes used here!) then started my mom’s “world famous” (well probably just to our family) cornbread dressing. I even made my own homemade cream of chicken and cream of celery soups rather than using the teeming canned stuff.  I did use a bag of Pepperidge Farm stuffing mix (the only prepared food used in this recipe) so next year I’d like to figure out how to replace that with a homemade version – any ideas? I jarred the remaining chicken broth to use in other recipes and refrigerated the unbaked pans of dressing. Then…I took a nap! J

My sweet and talented daughter helped me in the kitchen all throughout the week’s preparation for
Thanksgiving. We had a delicious Thanksgiving Day menu that we spent Wednesday and Thursday preparing. Cranberry salsa, crock pot macaroni and cheese, mashed potatoes, homemade turkey gravy, candied yams, my mom’s dressing recipe, and of course a big beautiful 17-pound turkey!
We didn’t use any ingredients from a can or a jar! The only shortcuts we used were frozen yams, store bought marshmallows for the candied yams, and the Pepperidge farm stuffing mix I used in the dressing recipe!  Farmhand Chris always gets the dirty work – he readied the big bird for the oven by removing the neck and giblets, tying back the wings, stuffing the bird with apple, onion, carrot, celery, and herbs and spreading herbs under the skin. Our dog, Carolina got Thanksgiving the evening before by dining on the turkey neck and giblets poured over her crunchy dog food. Our little boy washed the potatoes for the mashed potatoes and helped clean up and do the little things that he could do (mostly he stayed out of the way, which was a big help)!


We served our hors devours about 4pm on T-Day with a pinot noir and had a selection of chardonnay, pinot noir, and Riesling for the main courses. My dear daughter baked the pumpkin pies – we did use canned pumpkin and frozen pie crusts for that (last year my pie crust was terrible and I was not pleased with the local availability of pumpkins…next year I’m growing my own!). I whipped up fresh real whipped cream and we served champagne with the dessert! Of course the kids don’t drink wine so they enjoyed a nice vintage sweet tea with their meal! It was a beautiful and wonderful meal and we’re so thankful for each other, our farm, our home, and all the wonderful people and blessings in our lives.

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