Freezing Broccoli

I have been away from The Country Belle blog for some time, and let me tell you, I was the laziest person over the holidays. Once I slipped into non-work mode, all bets were off. I managed to vacuum the dog hair from the floor and that, ladies and gentlemen, was the extent of my Christmas cleaning.

I did manage to slide myself off the couch and out of my "Storage Wars" TV-induced coma to make a little trip around the corner to a local farmer's produce stand. I've never had much luck with growing broccoli, but this man produces some outstanding broccoli every winter - nice and tender. I've never found anything like it in the grocery store.

So I bought him out one day - I think it was 13 bags of broccoli. I washed it all and let it dry thoroughly. Drying well is important to minimize ice crystals on the broccoli when you freeze it.

Then I cut each head into florets and packaged them in freezer bags. My chickens love the leftover stumps!

Now my family can enjoy the taste for many months to come. It's one vegetable everyone in my house seems to enjoy.

Using the freezer to keep a supply of locally grown produce ensures you are still eating well (and in this case, organically) when the vegetable (or fruit) is out of season. I similarly freeze strawberries in May and blueberries in June to enjoy all year long in pancakes and smoothies.

Happy New Year and happy homesteading!

Love,
TCB

Related Posts:
Why does my freezer look like this?

Merry Christmas, Y'all

Hope you have a peaceful holiday. Spend time with your family. I'll see you back here the first week of January.

Peace,
TCB

Lurkers at Midnight

What were you doing at midnight last night? Normally, I would be snoozing, but there was some ruckus in the hen house. Let me back up a little.

At 11:30 pm, I was stepping out of a long, hot bath. You know, the kind that makes you want to crawl right into bed? I noticed some chickens cackling.....what? For those of you who have no experience with the critters, chickens go into the hen house on a perch each night to roost. They get very sleepy and stay that way until the sun comes up the next morning.

I decided something must really be amiss for all the chickens to be making such noise. After I went downstairs and got the trusty flashlight with like 2 zillion lumens, I peered out the back door and shone the light into the coop. The chickens were out of the hen house and running around in the chicken yard, trying to escape.

Then from the right corner of the pen, my light picked up two shining eyes....an intruder! I mentally tried to decide if this was an intruder I could take. It didn't lunge toward me (of course I was probably blinding it), so I decided to go take a closer look.

Remember I just stepped out of the bath? I now had on my thin bathrobe and mud boots. Let me tell you, I was some kind of attractive. But I digress.

Turns out, when I got a little closer I saw the two eyes belonged to an opossum. Then I saw two more eyes. No, it was not an opossum wearing glasses, silly. It was TWO of those scoundrely rascals. Dang it! How did they get in again? I thought Mr. Country Belle solved this problem a few months ago (see the past post below under Related Stories).

Speaking of Mr. Country Belle, I needed to wake him up. Now that sounds simple enough, but that is a feat just slightly ranked below me turning a back flip in mid-air in a bathrobe and mud boots. So I trudged in the house and back upstairs (carefully removing my "chicken" boots first) and finally succeeded in rousing him, explaining I had no way to hold the 2 zillion lumen flashlight, keep the chickens from escaping when I opened the door, and herd two opossums out of the coop.

Ever tried to herd an opossum? They are too dumb to walk in a straight line. It was going to take a little more thought than just shuffling them out of the pen.

After some unsuccessful wrangling between myself, Mr. Country Belle, and two opossums, (Me: Get that thing away from me!) (Mr. TCB: Get the door open!) we fashioned a tool like a dog catcher uses. Only ours was made at midnight from scraps found in the garage (a PVC pipe, screw, and length of rope) and in about 3 minutes.

But it worked. Now I only have to figure out how those scoundrels got in in the first place.

I can't complain - mission accomplished, no chickens died of a heart attack, and we still live in the country. It's all a part of it.

Love,
TCB

Related Stories
Strangers in the Night

If a Tree Falls in the Forest...

....does anyone hear it?

If someone decorates on a rural road, does anyone see it?

Well, do it anyway.

Hear ye, hear ye!

Here comes Santa!

We are enjoying the Christmas season. Please enjoy it, too, whether anyone is looking or not.

Merry Christmas!
Love,
TCB

Healthy in a Hurry - Tilapia for Supper

School is in session, sports practice is back on, work is in full swing, and yet moms *still* have to pull together supper (maybe you call it dinner, if you're not Southern like me). I find that sometimes hard to do when I spend almost every afternoon at the pool where my son practices on a competitive swim team.

I have a few tried and true recipes that I know the entire family loves and that can be pulled together in a snap for days such as these.

Here's the one I want to share with you today:

Baked Tilapia in Butter Sauce

4 tilapia fillets
1/3-1/2 cup melted butter
1/4 c. diced onion
2 T. lemon juice
1 1/2 tsp. Worcestershire sauce
1/4 t. salt
1/4 t. dried parsley

Preheat oven to 350 degrees.

Lightly grease a casserole dish and place the fish fillets side by side in it. Mix all the other ingredients together in a glass bowl and pour over the fish. That's it!

Put in oven (uncovered) for 30 minutes.

Great served with brown rice (the leftover "au jus" from the fish dish tastes great mixed into the rice) and broccoli (and rolls if you're naughty).

Have a happy, busy week!

TCB

A Crazy Shopping List

It's the season for shopping. I often don't shop at Walmart because I like to support my neighbors' shops whenever I can. I haven't blacklisted Walmart, of course. It's just too darn crowded in there and the register lines are so slow, I'd prefer to skip it when I can.

The other day, Walmart was the most convenient place to stop on my way through the country from one destination to another. Yes, you heard right. Walmart is smack in the middle of the country, too.

It didn't hit me until I got home and began entering receipts into my Quickbooks software how ridiculous I must have looked walking through the store with my two items - a sock monkey and cream of chicken soup. Where else can you buy a crazy assortment like this?

My son was happy for the soup. I used it to make his absolute favorite chicken casserole.

And the puppy was happy for Sock Monkey. She has a special affinity for squeaky sock monkeys, which she carries around in her mouth most of the day when she's inside the house.

Precious!

Hope you have a happy day!
TCB

Homeschool Holdout

Just as in everyday life, my child often wants to try and wield his tiny amount of power to see if he has what it takes to usurp my throne. If he only knew what my crown would mean for him - to be the queen around my house is an endless parade of dirty dishes, dirty laundry, dirty floors, and dirty hand prints on the walls. But I digress.

During the homeschool day, he has decided to show his "authority" by refusing to get a new pencil for math class. Never mind we have a bucket of new and freshly sharpened pencils of every imaginable design and color, enough pencils to last him seven more years through high school graduation.

This pencil nub is what is somehow getting him through 20 math problems every day. It is now so short, the pencil grip is longer than the actual pencil and has to be removed when he occasionally attempts to sharpen it.

I have asked, cajoled, begged, and excitedly showed him all the pencils available. A rainbow one? A Halloween one? A Christmas one?

"No," he says. "This is my lucky pencil."

I pointed out that a lucky pencil would enable him to make a "100/A" on all his daily math worksheets and tests. And that is just not the case.

So I had to call in the big guns for this assignment. I asked Mr. Country Belle to "gift" my son with a snazzy mechanical pencil like the one he uses in his "real engineering job."

I pretended not to care.

The little booger accepted the pencil and started using it in math class the very next day.

I was not allowed to touch it.

I so did not care. I promised never to touch it.

(I won).

Speaking of the crazy things to go on during the homeschool day, I'll leave you with one more.

I don't have one thing to say about this.

Have a happy holiday week!

Love,

TCB