Independence Days

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It's been forever since I posted an Independence Days post so this will cover the time from the last one until now.

Plant Something:  We managed to get several crops planted a couple weeks back.  We have the lettuce, arugula, cabbage, spinach, and carrots planted in raised beds.  We have the cauliflower, tomatoes, broccolit, and peppers planted in our plastic tote box "greenhouses".

Harvest Something: Nothing yet.  I could probably cut some rhubarb, but I'd end up freezing it as I'm currently completing the Whole 30 and am off grains, dairy, and sugar for another 27 days.

Preserve Something:  I bought some mushrooms from the supermarket because they were on sale at 79 cents for 8 oz.  I ended up dehydrating a quart full in the end.  I also bought a big bag of sweet peppers and sliced those and froze them.

Waste Not:  We're getting much better about getting veggie and fruit scraps out to the compost pile.  The girls are even wanting to help!

Want Not:  We're working on switching out hydrogenated fats in our food storage (yes, they're bad and we know but needed something shelf stable) with coconut oil.

Eat the Food:  Since I've been eating a Paleo/Primal diet these past 4 weeks I've really been clearing out the freezers.  We tried tongue for the first time and the girls LOVED it! (we just called it beef to avoid any lengthy discussions)  We have chickens arriving in late May/early June so it's a good thing we're making some space.

Build community food systems:  Some friends of ours have a milk cow and they generously gave us a gallon of raw milk.  I have plans to make it into queso blanco (cheese).  If it turns out - or maybe even if it doesn't - I'll have a post about it for you folks.

Skill up:  I've been cooking more with the cast iron pans and successfully broiled some sirloin steaks this week.  In the past I've let the Hubster cook when he wanted something prepared in the cast iron.  I'm about to embark on learning some basic cheesemaking skills and have been doing a fair amount of reading on the subject to prepare.

This post is part of Sharon Astyk's Independence Days Challenge.