Stinging Nettle Fettucini

I've owned lots of juicer over the past 4 decades. In the 80's I had a monster size Champion juicer that worked great but weighed a ton, was a bear to move around and had seemingly hundred of parts to disassemble, clean and reassemble every time I used it. The weight and clean up alone discouraged me from making as much fresh juice as I'd be prone to. I moved on to a couple of different small centrifugal juicers in the 90's. Light weight, easy to store when not being used, only a couple of things to take apart and clean after being used. While the cleanup of the machine was much easier and less time consuming than the Champion juicer, it was still a bit of a chore and I found myself not making juice because I didn't feel like cleaning up afterwards. Also, centrifugal juicers heated up a lot which limits the shelf life of the juice. I'm a fairly lazy food processor, which surprises most people to hear me say. After all, people who know me know I'll spend hours deboning whole animals, I'll spend a couple of days making charcuterie items from my home grown meats, I dry and powder many pounds of garlic every year to have a 12 month supply on hand in my pantry... you get the idea. The reality is I do those things infrequently in large batches. I want the final product so I dedicate X amount of hours to the task and do a LOT all at once and store the excess in the pantry, freezer or refrigerator. I'm not someone who does a little bit all the time when it comes to processing foods, or even cooking. When the fresh produce is really coming on in the fields we cook, can, freeze and dry in amounts we know we'll last us for 2 years. It's our management style of preserving foods. We don't HAVE to preserve every produce item every year, we only need to preserve it every other year. That way, each year we only have to focus on a couple of things to process for the long term and the rest is used fresh with any excess or waste going to the livestock as part of their diet. When I'm making juice from whatever is in the garden that I'm know we won't be preserving like greens, roots and fruit, I want to make a large pitcher full that I can put in the fridge and enjoy for many days. The idea of making juice and cleaning up after isn't at all appealing, having the juice is appealing... so it's not going to happen more than once a week in my life. In doing research of juicer I found one that I thought would serve me well. Happily it has for many years now. It's small, light weight, easy to use and has a slow moving auger that masticates and squeezes the juice from whatever you're feeding into it. The juice holds for a long time in the fridge as the machines slow moving auger doesn't heat up the produce as it runs through the machine. At the time I bought my Omega juicer, it was unique in a market full of centrifuge juicer, now there are a number of brands offering the same design. I love my juicer and use it a lot in the summer and fall when the produce is in abundance and there is plenty to spare for juicing. Happily 'juicing season' in my life coincides with the months we're raising a couple of pigs for butchering in the early fall months, and 100% of the pulp from juicing goes to the pigs who use their super powers to convert that pulp into pork. Once a week I juice whole flats of wheatgrass with the Omega juicer which yields 24 ounces of wheatgrass juice that we drink as wanted from the fridge, mixing it in part with whatever other juice that was made the same week. On our homestead, when we're not preserving the bulk of any of these foods for long term storage, they end up as a regular fruit/vegetable juice supply when they're ready for harvest. Apples Pears Asian Pears Thompson Seedless Grapes Red Wine Grapes Concord Grapes Beets Carrots Ginger Purslane Lemons Limes Pomegranites Rose Hips Fresh Culinary Herbs Peppers, Hot and Sweet These foods are in regular supply seasonally and we tend to only eat them seasonally, without doing much to preserve them. When there's a lot of something, more than we're eating at any rate, we'll juice it. Kale Collards Chickweed Beet Greens Broccoli Greens Cauliflower Greens Kohlrabi Cannabis Leaves Garlic and Wheatgrass we have year around in great abundance and use liberally for juicing!

When I'm pulling fat from the top of a pot of animal broth that I'm making after butchering day, I occasionally ladle off 3/4 - 1 pint full of broth from the top, put it in a pint jar with a lid, turn it upside down in the fridge and leave it over night. The fat, rising to the top, will be have become firm in the cold refrigerator and be on the bottom of the jar when I flip it over the next day. The broth, which has also firmed into a solid state due to the gelatin released from bones and feet, will come out of the jar in a single disc. I put the disc of fat in one jar and the disc of gelled broth in another, label them and put them back in the fridge. The fat will be used when I'm frying and the flavorful broth will be added to soups, stews or used as the liquid for cooking grains and legumes.

Spatchcock is an odd word. I've tried to find the origins of it but there's only speculations, no one is really certain of how the word came into being. Spatchcock means 'to split a bird open' so it can be laid flat on the grill, or in a frying pan, or a roasting pan.. you get the idea. Spatchcocking whole quails is one of our favorite ways to prepare them for cooking. We generally spatchcock 4 of them at a time. If we're on it and get to the job early enough in the day, we season the spatchcocked birds and leave them in the fridge until we're ready to cook them for dinner. Using household scissors, cut the spine on both sides to fully remove it from the body. I save the spines in the refrigerator or freezer, depending on how soon I'll use them. They can be added to a stock pot of other bones, or simply simmered in water with herbs to make a quick and flavorful broth for a soup, stew or to cook grains and legumes in. The spine fully removed. Using both hands, open up the body from the back, cracking the breast bone. Once the breast bone has cracked the body will lay open and flat, in one piece. Fully spatchcocked quail, ready for seasoning and cooking.