Feral Little Things

01/24/2025

I ran across a recipe that called for bacon to be cooked and then a line in the recipe made me clutch all my damn pearls….”discard the bacon grease.”

May it never be.

We are a zero waste kitchen. We use everything.

Even bacon grease.

And I’m not in the camp that you save bacon grease to cook with it later. Ew. I just can’t. But I do use lard and it’s close to the same thing. For whatever reason, it grosses me out. Can’t do it.

But! I absolutely do this! I add oatmeal to the bacon grease to soak up all that goodness and then my chickens get to enjoy a treat!

01/21/2025

The 2024 update is up on our blog.

A lot happened in 2024. Not much of what made me proud or happy. But I can say that I learned a lot. It was one of the hardest years of my life and I am grateful that it’s over. I spent weeks in th…

01/20/2025

I don’t have a recipe for my chicken noodle soup. I kinda just throw s**t together that I know gives this soup its signature flavor. And everything tastes better when you know you raised or grew ingredients from the very beginning. If you live in the city, it’s easy to start homesteading right where you’re at. Also, something pretty great that Cheyenne does….encourages us city dwellers to get and keep beehives. Permits are free and Prairie Wind Bee Supply can hook you up with all your beehive, bees and queen needs. I highly recommend giving them a call and get started this spring!!

Check out my blog for a short list for some ideas. https://ferallittlethings.wordpress.com/2023/08/08/how-can-you-get-started-homesteading/

01/18/2025

A few weeks ago a friend of mine and I butchered two of our Nigerian dwarf goats. In our homestead we are a zero waste kitchen. Meaning every single thing gets used. His household is the same way. Head and hides were frozen for my oldest daughter (she’s 18) to brain tan. The bones were roasted and then boiled down for stock. All edible meat was used in canning birria tacos. Inedible meat and some organs were turned into dog food. Leaf lard was rendered for making soaps or cooking. And all other organs were buried in a garden to feed our families the next year.

We butchered rabbits yesterday and the same thing applied. Meat was canned into a stew, hides were frozen for tanning, heads, feet and organs were buried in a garden. Bones were pressure cooked to become stock and then fed to dogs once the bones crumbled when pinched between two fingers. Not a single thing was wasted from any of these animals.

01/01/2025

The last few days have been filled with butchering two of our Nigerian dwarf goats and canning the meat into birria tacos. They were quite delicious! Im finishing up quart birria with pork and 20 quarts of seasoned pinto beans in the canner today! A huge help to our friends helping us get this done!

11/27/2024

I absolutely LOATHE spending all day in the kitchen on holidays so I’ve worked out a system where most of my cooking is done in crock pots, smokers and the oven. So I can relax and watch the Lions (usually lose but this year it looks like they’ll win! Michigander at heart over here!) instead of slaving away. This year I’m making an apple crisp cheesecake and pumpkin pie.

Being a “from scratch” kitchen isn’t alway feasible and while we MAJORLY limit processed foods, crusts for pies aren’t one of those things I buy. But this year, instead of buying graham crackers to make a crust, I made homemade ones instead.

11/23/2024

Skylar taught herself how to make Asian dumplings when I was gone this fall. She wanted to make them again today to add to soup. They’re made with venison and quite delicious. Little hands wanted to help.

11/22/2024

My youngest’s favorite meal is chicken pot pie. Today I had appointments and doctors visits that left us needing to prepare dinner early and then pop it in the oven when we got home. It’s stuffed full of homegrown ingredients and goodness. It’s soul food that’s made better by wholesome quality ingredients. And of course, enough protein to make my nutrition coach husband very happy.

11/21/2024

I love Gather Round Homeschool curriculum. It’s a fantastic unschooling course on a wide range of topics. Right now my kids are finishing up Food and Farming and we’ll hop into this one next week just in time for Thanksgiving. Right now my kids are really into writing stories so we will be diving into a creative writing project in December while we study Vikings!

11/21/2024

It’s been a hard year for our family this year and I’ve been absent from this page and my blog. I’m coming back, I promise.

But I thought I’d pop in here and answer a question I get pretty often. How do I get my chicken stock to be so dark?

Easy. This was made with the chickens we raised and butchered ourselves but store bought chicken will do the same thing. I make three to four whole chickens every time I made chicken. I like leftovers to use in soups for the week so I make extras.

I use my massive pressure canner and add all four carcasses and fill her up to the top with water. I also keep a ziplock in our freezer that I stick vegetable scraps and store them there until I make stock. Then i dump in a handful or two of the scraps and dump two quart bags of frozen carrots from the garden. Add your pressure to the highest and cook for three hours in your pressure canner. Your bones should crumble when pinched between two fingers which means it’s perfect. Strain and can in jars. I feed the carcass and veggies to my two dogs and nothing is wasted.

01/06/2024

Cheating meal prepping by double batching soups we make for lunches and then freezing them into containers. This is a cilantro, lime and chicken soup that smells delicious.

01/06/2024

All our alpacas are pregnant and due in June. The little guy my daughter is hugging is Sprout and he was born last June and is the most amazing little thing with people.

01/06/2024

All my sweet babies born this year with their older brother born last year.