Canadian Acres
Farming in the North
Sundays at the Farm: Brown Butter Banana Bread
Sundays have always been one of my favorite days of the week. It’s the wind down before the busy week ahead and I love to take the day to get organized, cook a big meal and bake if I get the chance. It’s also a day for a long walk, hike, ski, or snowshoe with the dogs to explore our new surroundings. This week I did my baking early so all I had to do this Sunday was take a hike around the property with the dogs, enjoy the sunshine, relax, have a cup of tea and enjoy my book while devouring my newest baked good love, brown butter banana bread from the blog Joy the Baker. I mean, brown butter… you had me at butter.
The recipe is fairly straight forward, and the smells are divine. I didn’t have any buttermilk, but used the old trick of stirring some fresh lemon juice into the milk I did have, and voila’! I love substitutions like that… I never seem to have buttermilk when I need it. I also used brown sugar as I prefer it over white sugar in baking these types of breads. And I threw in some walnuts for good luck. This is definitely not as healthy as my whole wheat and honey recipe, but my oh my, I don’t think any one cares. Serve it up with a nice cup of rooibos chai tea and a chunk of manchego cheese and I’ll be yours forever. Aren’t Sundays grand?
Brown Butter Banana Bread (adapted from Joy the Baker)
makes 1 9×5-inch loaf
6 ounces unsalted butter (3/4 cup), melted and browned to just over 1/2 cup of butter
2 cups all-purpose flour
3/4 cup brown sugar
1 teaspoon baking soda
1/2 teaspoon salt
3/4 teaspoon ground cinnamon
1/2 teaspoon freshly grated nutmeg
1/4 teaspoon ground cloves
2 large eggs
1 teaspoon pure vanilla extract
1/4 cup buttermilk
1 1/4 cup mashed banana (from about 3 medium bananas)
2 teaspoons molasses
1/2 cup chopped walnuts
Place a rack in the center of the oven and preheat to 350 degrees F. Grease and flour a 9×5-inch loaf pan and set aside.
Place butter in a saucepan and melt over low to medium heat. Butter will foam and crackle as it melts. When it no longer crackles, the butter will begin to brown. This is a delicate moment as you don’t want to burn the butter and that can happen quickly. Swirl the pan around as it browns, and as soon as it smells nutty, transfer to a heatproof bowl and place in freezer or fridge to cool.
In a large bowl, whisk together flour, brown sugar, baking soda, salt, cinnamon, cloves and nutmeg.
In a medium bowl, whisk together eggs, vanilla extract, and buttermilk. Whisk in the mashed bananas and molasses. When butter has cooled, whisk in the browned butter.
Fold the wet ingredients, all at once to the dry ingredients and add the walnuts. Do not over work the batter.
Pour batter into prepared pan. Bake for 50 minutes to 1 hour, or until a toothpick or a skewer inserted into the center of the loaf comes out clean. Remove from the oven and allow to rest in the pan for 15 minutes, before removing bread from pan and cooling it completely on a wire rack.
Enjoy!
~Katy
Homestead Goals 2014
As the snow starts to melt and “break-up” is looming, I start to realize how much freaking work we have in the months ahead. It’s always easier to see the hard work when the beautiful winter wonderland turns into mud soup. Break-up is what us Northerners like to call spring. It’s when the earth begins to weep and we subsequently get to wear muck boots 24/7 and never wash our cars. Where the world smells perpetually like dog poop and you forget why you even wished for summer for a couple of very long and drawn out weeks. But usually, once May hits, it becomes worth it. Although the swearing and the mud wearing that break-up commands may make one lose total faith in, well, everything. So for now, I will post this very lush, green photo of what is to come so I can find the strength to go on…
Ah…. that’s better… Now where was I…
This, ahem, “spring” has us looking forward to a trip to the Caribbean with my family and a sh*t.ton.of.work. In January we sat down and started a list of our goals for this year on the homestead. I say “started” a list because we seem to be adding things to it daily and it continues to grow. We honestly tried to keep it short, but easier said than done. The Caribbean will be a wonderful break, but comes at an awkward time as we will be getting a shipment of chicks in the week after. It’s kind of hard to find someone to babysit 25 chicks when there are no eggs to trade. So we’ll be a little late in starting that game, but for the Caribbean after a long northern winter, I’ll do just about anything.
Our main goal is to begin our 50 year plan on a series of maps we’re having drawn up. This will be our mother plan and help get all of our hopes, wants, wishes and dreams onto one or two large pieces of paper. This will allow us to mindfully plan out where things will go so that we create a working piece of land for our children and our children’s children to enjoy. And hopefully cut down on having to move anything when we decide it is a better fit somewhere else. Also, it makes us seem like we really have our sh*t together, eh? (practicing my Canadian accent, coming along nicely I believe.)
This is where we will include our future house build site, alternative energy sources, greenhouses, other livestock areas, future gardens, a Christmas tree farm, etc…. just to name a few things we’ve thrown out there. Below is a photo of my inspiration plan from a book called The Back to Basics Handbook by Abigail R. Gehring. We have A LOT of books on all of this stuff, because y’know, that will somehow make it easier in real life practice… either that or give me a totally false sense of security… I’ll report back.
Below is the parent list of our goals for 2014. In the following posts, I will try and highlight some of the projects and go over our goals for each one, as each project of course has more work to it than meets the eye. I should be getting used to that I think. This blog is a way for us to not only entertain our friends and family, but also to document our first few years on the farm and to keep as a kind of farm journal. Since I have basically no idea what I am doing, I have a feeling the entertainment aspect will grow as time goes on. But hey, onward and upward!
2014 Homestead Goals:
- Install workable gates throughout property fences
- Clear trees & debris in horse pasture, secure fences (40 acres)
- Build horse corrals & tack shed, move in horses, give them treats and scratch their ears
- Build chicken coop, raise 25 chicks & figure out what to do with all the roosters at a later date
- Build compost areas, figure out how to keep Wyatt out of compost areas
- Landscaping: Lawn, perennial flower beds, fire pit area, figure out how to keep Wyatt out of the growing lawn area
- Finish cabin for guests, entertain said guests
- Build garden/orchard fence: 1 acre of 8 foot elk/deer fence
- Plant garden: Include raised beds, permaculture design principles, sheet mulch beds, hugelkultur beds
- Install orchard: Northern hardy varieties of apple, pear, plum, apricot, cherry and variety of fruit and nut bushes
- Plan and install garden watering system
- Continue to improve and upgrade the farm road
- Install clothesline
- Paint and finish power shed
Whew…. good lord, now that’s a lot of work! Not saying we will finish it all, but it’s better to have more goals than none. I must say, it’s a very good thing we don’t have TV 🙂
If you had the chance to own 160 acres of raw land, what would you do the first year?
~Katy
In the beginning…
We started on this homesteading journey the first day Husband and I met. Our conversation led to the ideas of owning critters, growing our own food and we talked and talked about living a more simple life and getting back to the land and to nature. Pretty hot first date, huh? These were things I always thought, but never really envisioned happening, at least not in my next five year plan. I am a goal setter, and each year, I write down my goals and always have a five year plan. I think it’s important to put things out into the universe, otherwise, how will the universe respond? It sounds kind of New Age but seriously, in 2009 before I met Husband, one of my goals was to “Own my own house with a BIG backyard”, written exactly as that. Here I am 5 years later with my own house and the biggest backyard I could have imagined. So think what you will.
On our wedding day, his parents gifted us 160 acres of raw land on the Peace River in British Columbia (YES!). It was, and still is, being farmed by a local farmer, but only in the fields and we were excited to dream up all of the possibilities. Of course, reality butted in and after many nights of list making, dreaming and talks with the bank, we realized what a huge undertaking this was going to be. Not only did we have zero utilities, we barely had a workable road in. We also had to deal with a mess of immigration to get me legal. So we decided to find Husband a job and send him first, in the spring, and then I would follow in the fall regardless of my immigration status. We’d just have to deal with it. Our entire relationship was built on long stints of time apart, so we knew it would be hard, but we could most definitely do it. Husband left Alaska in April of 2013 with a truck full of belongings and my first born dog, Wyatt. Honestly, I think it was harder to say goodbye to Wyatt. We had never been apart. But I sent them down the road and embarked on one of the most epic summers I have ever experienced in Alaska. Husband embarked on one of the hardest working summers he had ever experienced.
Working a full time job and preparing land for a home is no easy task. Good thing Husband is such a “doer”. He loves to be busy and loves to work hard. Did I luck out or what? Our modular home was put on order to build after we secured the construction loan. It is true when they tell you that everything will take longer and be more expensive than you think, but we worked on our patience and our communication skills, a lot… Some of the things we had to contract out, but we tried (with help from family and friends) to do most of it ourselves. Not only for the cost savings, but because we really wanted to learn through this process and be a part of our homestead journey.
Here’s our list of what we accomplished in our first summer, 2013:
- Upgrade farm road and add ditches
- Fence all 160 acres with barb wire fencing
- Clear, add gravel & compact house pad site
- Drive piles for house to sit on
- Dig and install well
- Dig septic tank and have installed
- Install propane tank
- Clear and mulch trees for power line
- Receive house and hook up gas, water & sewer
- Build stairs front/back & large deck
So, after an exhausting couple of months, our house was delivered. We didn’t get power until October (remember, everything takes twice as long as they tell you) and moved in November 2013. Not too shabby of a start to this wild and grand adventure! Now the fun part begins… our homesteading goals for 2014.
~Katy
Our Wild Horses
Husband and I took a trip with his father to feed our wild horse herd. After a 3 hour drive to our grazing lease, we were hoping to easily locate the groups. It was a cold day of -20F (ugh), but beautiful and sunny. The hay was loaded high on the trailer and the bag of oats were waiting as a bribe. Since the horses live without human contact for most of their lives, it’s not always guaranteed we’ll find them, but this day we were lucky. As we drove onto the lease, we found a large group of about 20 horses sunning themselves in a large field. A beautiful sight of fat and sassy well-wintered horses. This group was an especially welcome sight as father in law hadn’t located them in awhile. They were all eager at the sight of the truck and even more excited about the oats. Maybe not so wild after all? It’s amazing to me that this is my life and I sometimes just stand there open mouthed in awe. Which is decidedly awkward for all involved, but hey, I’m getting better okay 🙂 Horses are such gorgeous animals and to see them in a large herd in the wild is kind of a cool thing. Definitely not something I thought I’d get to see let alone deal with on a daily basis. But life is funny like that, and I do like to laugh.
Canadian Acres 