Water main construction starts on my street today

• Pictures
• (Community)
• May
• 2014

The big machinery the city contractors had placed on our street over the last week have animated this morning.  Construction has begun to replace some aging water delivery lines, and they have kept our water service going by connecting a temporary delivery line to our outside tap.

I already miss my chlorine filter...

Grass-fed Beef Short-ribs are delicious

• Healthy Living
• Pictures
• Paleo
• May
• 2014

For our first attempt cooking these ribs, we kept it simple by letting our slow cooker have its way with them. Going forward, we do plan to find some nice Paleo-friendly sauce options to go with them to bring back the missing finger-licking fun!

Grass-fed Pork Andouille Sausage

• Healthy Living
• Pictures
• Paleo
• May
• 2014

These sausages are delicious, but boy are they hot!  Spicy enough that i don't think I would ever eat more than one or two at any meal since the heat really builds up the more you eat them; at least for me anyway.

I do enjoy variety when planning my meals, so having a great spicy option is a welcome addition.

Four week sauerkraut is incredibly good

• Healthy Living
• Pictures
• Paleo
• May
• 2014

Trusting that our new fermenting crock was designed to keep its contents protected, the only task I gave myself over the past four weeks was to ensure that the water level in the trough stayed up to keep its air seal intact.

I knew as soon as I opened the lid that I was in for a treat!  The aroma of the soured cabbage was wonderful; and was never achieved with the previous one to to week batches.  The crock certainly lived up to my expectations!  Previously, I had thought that the directions only wanted me to fill the crock 80 percent to allow the weights to be added in easily.  I know realize that the sauerkraut expands quite a bit during the fermenting process; so much so that the weights almost reached the bottom of the trough!

Originally I was thinking of using the 4L pickle jars to store the sauerkraut in my fridge, but my assumption that my plastic wide-mouth lids would fit them turned out to be incorrect; and I recalled that using the metal lids is pretty much a no-no where fermenting is involved. So, I jammed fifteen 1L jars (with plastic lids) full of sauerkraut, and placed the remainder (with all the excess juice) in a 4L jar that I lined the lid with Siran Wrap.

Final verdict... I will never again eat my sauerkraut earlier than four weeks.  The taste is night and day.  Sour, tangy, delicious, and I imagine just teeming with the beneficial flora I need!

First look at grass-fed pork chops

• Healthy Living
• Pictures
• Paleo
• May
• 2014

After the nitrate-free bacon success, I was eager to pull out another cut of grass-fed pork... and pork chops just seemed like the next natural place to go.  I wasn't expecting one inch piggie-steaks, but boy did they look good... and taste good!  If only I had stopped to take a picture of them cooked before devouring them...

DIY Dishwasher Detergent and Rinse

• Healthy Living
• Pictures
• Paleo
• Hobby
• May
• 2014

Our Paleo path has naturally inspired and influenced many choices over the last few months. The most recent bringing some pretty simple replacements for dishwasher detergent and rinse.

Following a recipe for household cleaners at the David Suzuki site, we really only needed two ingredients for the detergent, and vinegar for the rinse.  We had picked up some Borax previously, but didn't have any Washing Soda.  A quick online search revealed it was pretty easy to make at home; thanks to a post @ Nature's Nurture Blog.

The detergent recipe was pretty simple; equal portions of Borax and Washing Soda that we mixed in a old plastic container.  And Washing Soda was nothing more than Baking Soda that had been baked @ 400F for 30 minutes in one of our Pyrex dishes.

That was easy!

What colour is your bacon?

• Healthy Living
• Pictures
• Paleo
• May
• 2014

Received our latest grass-fed meat order yesterday from McDonald Farm, and was excited by a few things:

1. Their nitrate free bacon is absolutely fantastic!  I wasn't expecting its non-red colour, which really reinforced the naturalness of it.  I also suspect (after tasting it) that it has been lightly smoked; truly pleasing flavour.
   • Frying eggs in these bacon drippings was awesome!  I've tried doing that before with typical store bought bacon, but found it tasted way too greasy. Not the case with bacon made from pigs raised to forage for their food.
   • I recall reading a recipe to make bacon-aisse (DIY mayo with bacon grease in it) and thinking how horribly greasy tasting that would be... but now I may have to rethink my position on that recipe, having the right bacon in hand!
2. I had previously asked Wayne about the availability of beef tallow (for soap making) and was surprised to find some fat included in my order!  I'll have to search for the steps to render the fat down into tallow, but am eager to compare the soap results between beef and pork tallow.
3. I always include beef liver each order, and have had the good fortune of receiving other organ meat samples.  Previously, I've received beef tongue and kidney, but today I found some packages of ox tail and heart!  Being a lover of various bird hearts over the years, I'm really looking forward to seeing what a massive beef heart tastes like!

The many uses of Thieves Oil

I finally picked up a dropper yesterday so I could make a small batch of a Thieves Oil blend that I found online at Natural Aromatherapy Benefits.  I had previously used up my wife's spray version of Thieves I was using as a foot deodorizer, and was looking forward to making two spray versions that I had read about on the site:

1. The "All Purpose" Thieves spray (one drop per oz of water), initially to use as a surface disinfectant, room deodorizer, and mouthwash.
2. The "Topical" Thieves spray (one drop per four drops of carrier oil; like sweet almond oil), initially to use as a foot deodorizer and try out as a body spray and/or deodorant.

I adjusted Recipe #1 down to the least number of drops by diving each ingredient by 5:

This gave a nice starter amount of the Thieves Oil blend that fit into the tiny dropper bottles we had around the house, and I only needed 4 drops to make the "All Purpose" spray in our four ounce spray bottles... but was a fraction of what I'd need to mate the "Topical" version.

So i decided to divide each "drops" number by eight, called it "teaspoons", and then calculated how much carrier oil I'd need:

This fit easily into my 4 oz spray bottles, and it was much quicker to measure by spoon than by drops for larger quantities.

The "Topical" has a fairly strong smell, but the "All Purpose" spray is so gentle and pleasing (almost like a pop or candy smell) that we are seriously thinking of using it in one of our next soap batches.

Assembled another 40K Necron Unit

• Pictures
• Hobby
• May
• 2014

Decided to assemble another Necron Immortal unit with different weaponry. Delays in priming/painting continue.

Natural deodorant with only ONE ingredient

• Healthy Living
• Paleo
• Apr
• 2014

In my previous article on DIY Antiperspirant, I linked to a video/blog on the heyfranhey site that had inspired the new antiperspirant recipe I've been enjoying.  However, her final words in the video talked about how her grandmother simply used a fresh lemon wedge. Deciding that this "too good to be true" statement was worth exploring, I had to give it a try.  And to my amazement, I found that it actually works!  Simple, effective, and as easy to make as slicing a lemon!