Making Tzatziki

We like to eat different dishes that come from other cultures and lands and then if we like them, we'll incorporate them into our menu.  The other day Tricia had to run an errand or two in Lake Charles and we met at a local Greek/Lebanese restaurant that we had never tried.  I rarely eat out and normally bring good leftovers from home, so it was exciting to go eat some good food with some good company.

 

They had a sampler lunch plate on special and we had kibbeh, hummus, chicken shawarma, tabbouleh, and tzatziki along with a glass of Lebanese iced tea.  We enjoyed it all, but the tzatziki was incredible and we wanted to try to make it at home since we've got most of the ingredients on hand.  Tzatziki is a Greek appetizer or dip that is served cold.  Let's make some.  Here are all the ingredients ready to go:


Fresh ingredients for making tzatziki

What you need:

• 1 cup drained yogurt (In our post about new wine we mentioned that in making kefir yogurt we separated the whey to use for new wine and would use the kefir for something else.  This is it!)
• 1/2 cucumber shredded
• 1 clove garlic
• 1/2 Tablespoon lemon juice
• 1 Tablespoon olive oil
• 1 Tablespoon mint, chopped
• Salt & Pepper 

 We add the lemon juice, olive oil and garlic to a bowl. 



Pressing some fresh cured garlic

 We chop up some mint real fine.

Chopping some mint (that's taking over the patio area!)

We add the rest of the ingredients to the bowl, including the strained kefir, mint, salt & pepper and shredded cucumber.  The cucumber takes a little prep work, though.  Before adding, you want to shred it, sprinkling 1/2 teaspoon of salt on top, toss, and let sit in a sieve for 30 minutes.  Below all the ingredients are added to the bowl, including the salted, strained and shredded cucumber.

Into the bowl for mixing

 Getting ready to stir all the ingredients up.

 

 

Once it is all mixed up, it is ready to enjoy.  Easy dish, huh?  We dip some baked pita chips into the tzatziki and the entire bowl quickly disappeared.



This eats good on some baked pita chips

It is a cool and refreshing appetizer, tangy, salty and delicious.  We'll definitely add this to our menu rotation.



Last view prior to being consumed



Separating the pasture into paddocks

Ah summertime.  The grass grows fast and rushes to go to seed.  This makes yours truly really get a workout each day as I push the chicken tractors through the tall grass.  Which reminds me, I used to work with a guy at our family grocery store who would go in the back room and listen to Cajun French music while he ate his lunch.  One day I walked back there and he was laughing while listening to the music.  I said, "Johnny, what is he singing about (I can't understand much French) and why are you laughing?"  To which he replied, "Well, Kyle, it's kind of hard to translate into English, but he's singing about a large woman and he's saying that dancing with her is like pulling a sled through some tall grass."  I about lost my mind laughing.  Quite a vivid illustration.

Back to our story.  The grass grows so quickly and goes to seed in the heat and long days so that the plant sends all of its energy toward growing the seed head and not much toward growing the grass itself.  The cows need the nutrition in the leaves of the grass.


Chicken tractors in the tall grass

The photo below illustrates the seeds.  You can tell that it wouldn't be very appetizing to eat the long seed heads.  Instead, the cows will spend a lot of time roaming around looking for select, tasty, nutritious grass.  Joel Salatin likens that to what people do at a salad bar.  They circle it and select only things that look tasty.  The cows will do this and eat the tender grass down to the ground, while the rest gets tough and overgrown.

Grass going to seed

 A big problem with the animals eating the grass down to ground level is parasites.  They'll pick up parasites (people refer to them generically as 'worms') and they'll get sick.  You don't want them to eat that close to the ground and get wormy, so you have to manage their grazing.

Here's how we do it.  I've been researching it and have been learning about it.  There's probably a better way, but we're going with this until I find a better system.  We use a poly rope electric fence.  If you look closely in the picture below, you can spot that wires are woven into the rope.  Those wires conduct electricity when attached to our charger.


Poly rope electric fence

I have some reels that are ratcheted that allow me to attach the poly rope on one end and stretch it to the other fence, creating multiple paddocks.   

Having a REEL good time...

I have some temporary step-in posts that I use to support the poly rope at intervals.  You can see that the bottom has a sharpened iron stake and you put your boot on the flat portion above it, push it in the ground and then run the wire into one of the brackets.  Quick to install.  Quick to move.


A step-in post

Below I've run one strand and have separated the pasture into a couple of paddocks.  I'll graze them on only the paddock on the left and then move them after a few days to the paddock on the right and keep moving them.  In all I have 5 separate paddocks and I rotate the cows to a fresh paddock after a few days. 

Separate paddocks for the animals

 I have a permanent hot wire that runs along the south and west sides of my pasture and it is powered by a solar fence charger.  You can see the poly rope attached to the fence with an insulator and then I use a 'jump wire' to transfer the electricity from the permanent wire to the poly rope, which conducts electricity due to the wires woven in it.  The cows respect it!  So do we.  It hurts to get 'popped.' 


Jump Wire

Here is a 'parasite-level' view.  You don't want you animals eating lower than this.  

Beware, Maggie Mae

Nellie and Annie, being smaller animals, can shimmy underneath the wire.  If push comes to shove, I can run two poly ropes to keep them out.
 

The grass is always greener...

On one side the poly rope is attached to the fence with an insulator.  On the other end, I made a bracket that the reel fits right into.  When I'm ready to move it, I simply take it off the bracket and begin reeling in the poly rope after unhooking the other side from the fence and jump wires.  Again, quick work.
 

The other end of the fence

As I rotate them into a new paddock, I mow the seed heads off the grass in the paddock that they were just grazing in to encourage the grass to grow fresh growth.  In a week when the cows are moved back to the original paddock, the grass will be green and lush and a nutritious salad bar for Daisy, Rosie, and Maggie.  Rain will help that scenario.  I don't know if you can tell, but the grass to the left has been mowed as they are now eating in the paddock to the right and blocked off from the one on the left until next week. 

Rotating the cows through the paddocks

This requires a lot of management as the grass grows differently depending upon the season and the rain.  The size of your paddock is also dependent on the total weight of the number of animals grazing on it.  There is a formula that tells you the square footage of pasture per pound of grazing animal per day that is optimal.  I'll get to that next.  Right now I'm just trying to get the system set up.  This management system should help me control the parasite load and give our animals the best grass to graze on. 

Hot Dogs with a new "twist"

During the summer Tricia normally goes to Corpus Christi for a week to visit her Mom.  Tricia grew up in the city and if you had asked her back in high school, she would have never in a million years thought that she'd be living on a working farm, milking cows & goats, butchering chickens and growing her own food.  Never.  But never say never.  Tricia's dad had a ranch and some cows and although he is deceased, Tricia often remarks that she knows he'd be proud of her. 

While she's gone, Russ and I are handling the chores.  This weekend after doing the daily chores, the bachelors (that's Russ & I) decided to fire up the grill.  Just a simple guy's meal - Hot Dogs with maybe some grilled okra on the side.  So I used the "BBQ Chimney Starter" to start the real wood charcoal.  What an invention!  It's one of those things that makes you say, "Why didn't I think of that?"  All you do is fill it with charcoal, crumple a sheet of newspaper in the little chamber underneath it, and light it.  You walk away and in a few minutes, your charcoal is glowing and can be poured into the pit as the chimney starter has a handle.  No more lighter fluid.  No more waiting for the doggone charcoal to light.  So I lit the 'chimney' and walked inside to prep the dogs.


Oh yeah!

Prep the dogs, you say?  Yeah, we're gonna do hot dogs with a different twist today.  I'm always looking for new ideas and ran across this one on a food website that I peruse and was looking for an opportunity to try it.  Sunday afternoon was the perfect opportunity.  Here's how you do it:

Get a wooden skewer (we're going to re-use these for the okra later) and skewer the wiener right down the middle.  Then take a knife and cut until you hit the skewer, spinning it so that you spirally cut down the length of the dog.  This takes a little practice.  On the first one I cut, I didn't cut close enough.  After doing enough of them, I got better at it.

Spiral cuts

Hold the dog in place and pull the skewer out and repeat on another wiener.
 

Wow!

What does this remind you of?  Sort of reminds me of 'Slinky Dog' from Toy Story. 

Photo Credit

Well anyway, here are a few completed spirally-cut dogs ready for the grill. 

Ready to grill

Then Russ skewered the okra.  We have both Clemson Spineless Okra and a few Burgundy Okra for variety.  We learned early on in grilling okra (one of our favorite ways to eat it), to put two skewers through the okra so that you can flip them, otherwise they turn.  We drizzle olive oil on the okra as well as a sprinkling of kosher salt.  One thing I might mention is that the spiral dogs require a little extra care in that you have to be careful in turning them - two tongs work better than one.  You lift and spin, otherwise they get stuck in the grates of the grill and you risk breaking them and having them fall into the fire.

Grilled okra and Slinky Dogs

So why waste time cutting them like this?  There are a few reasons I can think of right off.  First, they look odd.  I like things that are different.  Secondly, cutting them like this make the smoky flavor permeate the casing and they make the dogs a little more crispy and flavorful.

Who's ready to eat?

Finally, the spirals allow for more square footage of meat to come into contact with condiments and other assorted flavor enhancements that you might add to your hot dog.  You've increased the M-m-m-m factor exponentially.  It's simple math.  Who would've ever thought there was math involved in hot dog grilling.


Extra repositories for condiments

I added mustard, ketchup and some homegrown pickled jalapenos to the dog on the left and for variety, I added mustard, ketchup, and some homemade sauerkraut made from our cabbage to the one on the right.  Russ and I inhaled these hot dogs and went back for seconds.

We almost forgot the side dish!  We went back out and pulled them off the grill, put them on a plate in the middle of us and devoured them as well.


Grilled okra

We'll have to do this again when Benjamin is home.  I bet he'll dig the spiral dogs!

Success

Last week I got home from work and Russ asked if anyone had checked the mail, but no one had.  So Russ said he'd walk down to the mailbox and check.  A minute later, I saw Russ running back down the driveway.  He had a large, white envelope in his hands and was already opening it when he walked in the back door.

We asked what he had gotten and he said, "The Fritz Lang Foundation Scholarship!"  Russ won the Fritz Lang Scholarship!  Since it had been two months since he graduated from high school, we just figured that there were no more scholarships coming.  Were we ever wrong!

We're very proud of Russ, but this isn't really a post to brag about him.  It is really a post to define success.  Have you ever wondered what success looks like?  Stick with me until the end.  You're about to find out.

I want to share with you the story of Mr. Fritz Lang.  Now I'm going to be honest, I did not know one thing about Mr. Lang.  All I knew was that Russ was told that a gentleman from Lake Arthur, Louisiana had set up a foundation to award scholarships to graduates wishing to study Agriculture in college and that Russ was encouraged to apply.  That's all I knew.  After Russ won it, I researched it on the Internet and Mr. Lang's story touched me.  You can read about it here:  The Fritz Lang Foundation

The Mission: To improve the quality of life for Louisiana’s Vermilion and Jefferson Davis Parish farm families through extending educational opportunities.

I want to give you a glimpse into the life of the gentleman who set up the foundation that awarded Russ the scholarship.  I didn't write the following verbiage.  It is cut and pasted from the website that I linked above, but I'll give some editorial comments at the end.  To me, the whole biography of the man tells a rich story and I encourage you to read it all.  I've highlighted in red text portions of his story that to me, give a little insight into 'success.'

Fritz Lang, 1903 - 1998

Born in 1903 in Durbach, a small town in the German Black Forest along the French border, Fritz Lang’s native country was in a state of financial collapse when he left home for America at the age of 19.  On money borrowed from a relative, young Lang traveled by passenger ship from Hamburg to New York in March 1923.  He found his first job in a restaurant in Pennsylvania.  He worked 14 to 16 hours a day, seven days a week, with one-half day off every two weeks.  For this, he was given room and board and $4.00 per week.  Starting a lifetime pattern, he was persistent and patient during the years it took to repay his ship passage to America.  Then he continued his adventures and education by signing up on a Sinclair Oil Company tanker bound for Texas, trying to learn from each experience.

Once in Texas, Mr. Lang joined the booming search for oil, working for North American Exploration Company.  A year later, he was employed by Shell Oil, a company he remained with for 32 years. Mr. Lang started as a rodman on a seismic crew with Shell and in two years worked his way up to seismic party manager, then on to party supervisor.  During those years of seismic work, the strapping young man traveled over every parish in Louisiana, and saw most of Texas, Oklahoma, Mississippi, Arkansas and Kansas.

Many of his dealings were with cattlemen and farmers, and he developed a personal interest in these businesses and love for the land that supported them.  He was also an avid sportsman, fostering a passion for all that South Louisiana had to offer in the way of wildlife and culture.

After seeing so much of the world, Mr. Lang decided to return to Lake Arthur, drawn by the beauty and bounty of the countryside and a young lady named Margaret Riette.  Fritz and Margaret married in 1930 and he proudly became a U.S. citizen the following year.

In 1943 the Langs bought a 300 acre farm on the South shores of Lake Arthur and completed their home there in 1952.  Mr. Lang took an early retirement from Shell in 1956 to pursue rice, soybean and cattle farming.  He served as a member on several boards including the Jeff Davis Electric Co-op and International Brangus Breeders Association.

Even after coming so far, life was not always fair.  Mr. Lang lost his only son at age 6 in a tragic accident.  His beloved Margaret passed away in 1978, and he fought several heroic battles to overcome debilitating personal health problems.  However, each time Mr. Lang found strength, solace and support surrounded by his large “adopted” family under the moss draped oaks on Lake Arthur.  Here he stayed until his death in August 1998 at the age of 95.

Mr. Lang’s zeal for knowledge, perseverance and prudent business sense resulted in financial prosperity.  He enjoyed sharing this by actively participating in civic projects, making many generous donations to his community including the renovation of Our Lady of the Lake Catholic Church, the Pavilion at the end of Main Street in Lake Arthur and the Klondike Fire Department.

In 1989 he created the Fritz Lang Foundation promoting agriculture to benefit the education of local youth. The scholarship program was founded in 1991 and has issued grants of several hundred thousand dollars for assistance to college students.  Other donations for advancement of agriculture education interests benefit  schools in Vermilion, Jefferson Davis and Acadia Parishes, and the Agricultural Departments at McNeese State University, University of Louisiana at Lafayette and Louisiana State University at Eunice.

Mr. Lang is remembered by those who had the privilege of knowing him as a quiet, kind, Southern gentleman with bright eyes, a big smile and a bigger heart.  Most importantly, he was a living example that anyone can overcome poverty, servitude, hardship, and personal loss to live a full and prosperous life and leave a positive impact on their community and the future.

This is me again. If you took the time to read about Mr. Lang, I think you'll agree with me that Mr. Lang was a success. I can't say it any more eloquently than the biography did. The last paragraph that I italicized sums it up nicely and serves as an encouragement (and model) to us all that we can overcome hardships to be successful and more importantly, be a conduit to pass that success on to others.

Furthermore, I praise God for this blessing.  It just seems like an appropriate place for the Doxology, an old hymn we used to sing at church growing up:

Praise God, from whom all blessings flow;

Praise him, all creatures here below;

Praise him above, ye heavenly host;

Praise Father, Son, and Holy Ghost. Amen.

Starting Fall Crop Seedlings

I always use the Louisiana Vegetable Planting Guide that LSU AgCenter puts out to help me time my planting.  It has cultural recommendations that tell you when to plant each crop for Spring and Fall, how many seeds per 100 foot of row, the depth to plant, inches between plants and how many days until harvest. 

A goldmine of information:  LSU AgCenter Vegetable Planting Guide

I really am not even close to having everything figured out.  I try to learn by my mistakes and I'm not averse to trying something new.  Here's an example:  For the past 5 years, I've planted my broccoli, cauliflower, cabbage, and brussels sprouts at the tail end of the planting dates for Fall.  The recommended dates are 7/15 - 9/1.  This year I'm going to plant on the early end and see if I like the results.  I've done fine with those crops planting on the late side, but planting earlier might give me some yield/size advantages being that the days are longer.  One problem I can foresee planting earlier is the pest problems may be more intense due to the heat.  We'll experiment and see how it goes.

First I assemble my little planting pots in trays and put them on my workbench.  As you can see there's barely room on my cluttered workbench to plant my seeds.  I'll put cleaning/organizing my workbench on the rainy day to-do list.

Starting Fall seeds

I got some good seed starting mix from the nursery in town where Russ works and I use a cup to carefully fill each pot with soil.

Adding seed starting potting mix

I got my broccoli, cauliflower, brussel sprouts, cabbage, and bok choy seeds out of the freezer and poured them into my hand.  I use my fingers to drop a couple (or three or four) into each pot.  I'll thin out later.  I want to put a little extra as insurance as this seed is all about 5 years old and I'm not sure how the germination is going to be.


Good Seed

Once I get all the seed planted, you can see that I take some freezer tape and a Sharpie and label the flats.  All of the seed is in the same family and the seeds and the seedlings look remarkably similar for a while.  It is important to label them.  Then I stack them and bring them to the back patio where they'll hopefully sprout. 

Cauliflower, Broccoli, and Cabbage seed planted on July 15th

I have a water bottle that I spray the soil down so that it is moist.  This will cause the seed to swell and germinate.

Moistening the soil

Then it is just a waiting game.  Each morning and afternoon I keep close tabs on the flats and make sure that the soil stays moist.  This is crucial for germination.

Tick tock, tick tock...

In just a few days, what have we here?


The broccoli is sprouting!

I've always enjoyed watching things grow.  No matter how many times I see it, it still amazes me how so much life is contained in a little seed that appears to be dead.  Soil + Water + Sunlight = The miracle of the seed.  It looks like the germination is still really good on the seed!  

The miracle of the seed

We'll update you on the progress of our experiment with planting these on the early side.  It is hard to even think about the Fall right now with us being in the middle of Summer.  Always gotta plan ahead, though.

Making New Wine

Our next door neighbor (God Bless Good Neighbors!) called us up on Sunday afternoon and told us that they had picked all the grapes they wanted and we were welcome to go out and pick the rest if we wanted them.  In three shakes of a puppy dog's tail, we were under their grape arbor picking grapes!  We grabbed the biggest bowl we have which happens to be the cover of a Tupperware cake container and started picking grapes.


The Grape Harvest Begins Cue the song, "I heard it through the Grape Vine!"

I like the way this picture turned out with the sunlight shining through the grape leaves.  Speaking of grape leaves, usually during the Spring, we'll come over and pick grape leaves to make Grape leaf rolls, a delicious Lebanese dish that we enjoy.

Clusters of grapes

In no time at all the grape harvest was done and Tricia carried the all the bounty home in an over-flowing 'bucket'.  It really wasn't 'all' the grapes, though.  We ate them right off the vine.  They were juicy, warm and bursting with flavor.  Grapes at the store have nothing on these.


Grape Girl

We immediately started sorting out the grapes.


The Grapes of Wrath?

We separated out the good grapes...

Good Grapes

from those that weren't so good...

This is a sticky job as some of the grapes are over-ripe and have burst.  Some are past that stage and are in raisin form. 

When our job was done we had two colanders full of fresh grapes. 



The yield of the grape harvest

First, we wash them up.  They are full of spider webs, spiders and other little critters that we don't want to consume. 

Washing the grapes

What we're going to make is New Wine.  The recipe came from The Maker's Diet, a book by Jordan Rubin.  New wine is very refreshing and has all the nutrients of grapes found in wine as well as all the enzymes, but doesn't have alcohol.  The first thing we do is put all of the grapes (in batches) into our food processor to puree the grapes.  These grapes have seeds so they'll be in the 'slurry' as well.  No worries, we'll get them out later.
 

Processing the grapes

Once they are all processed, we run them through a sieve and push all of the juice through with a large spoon. 

Grape Juice, skins and seeds

The remainder after we filter is put into a bucket and composted into the garden.  In a little while we'll have a lot of little grape vines sprouting.

Seeds & Skin

There are not many additives to make new wine.  We add a tablespoon of kosher salt...

And a half of a cup of kefir whey that was a by-product of Daisy's milk when making kefir.  In a day or two I'll show you what we did with the curds from the kefir.

 We stirred it all up and then we put it in jars and set it out at room temperature for 3 days.


New wine before fermentation

Sitting out at room temperature for 3 days

Then we put it in the refrigerator.  It is really effervescent and tastes GREAT!  The longer you leave it in the fridge, the better it tastes.  We find it is best after 4 weeks in the fridge.  It doesn't look like it would be good as there is a lot of sediment, but don't judge a book by its cover.  We make sure we shake it up real good before drinking it.  This is delicious stuff and it is good for you.

New Wine aging in the fridge

"There might be a little dust on the bottle.  It's one of those things that get sweeter with time."