Potato Flour

With potatoes looking like the wrinkly knees of an elephant, I had to try something. Potato flour was the decision to try. 

I washed them, cut them into chunks, boiled them and slipped off the skins as best I could afterwards.

Crumbling the results onto a dehydrator rack I set it to high and let it dry. 

Dried...

 I then put them into the blender and came out with hard little shard like pieces. Not sure whether to put them into a wheat grinder or not. I may, they are dry. Wheat grinders hating oily seeds.

Mulitplier Onion or Potato Onion

 I'm perusing the garden seed catalogs on line and in paper form. I'm looking for a few things in particular, one being onions. I've been experimenting with onions for the past three or four years. First it was how to grow them since at one time I couldn't produce a decent sized onion to save my soul. I've moved on to producing seed. That requires either wintering over full grown onions in the garden or placing stored onions back in the garden the next spring.

Though sometimes when you buy bulbs from the store or catalog, weather conditions will prompt them to bolt straight to producing seed instead of a nice large onion. I had that happen with some of my red onion bulbs I bought super cheap at the grocery store last year.

My problem comes in when I try to start my onions from seed in the house. Three times I've produced spindly worthless transplants. 

 Last year I placed the seed directly in the garden and came up with some nice salad worthy shoots. I then took the greens and small bulbs, dried them, and produced a powder. Onion powder being a nice addition to cooking but it can't replace a hardy onion for frying with mushrooms on a home-grown T-bone steak.

So off I've gone to browsing through the catalogs and Internet for ideas how to solve my seed to onion problem and low and behold I made Columbus like discovery. No, won't change the entire world but it might just greatly alter ours. I found potato onions or multiplier onions as some call them. They bypass the seed to onion stage and go straight from onion to onions....  That I've got to try.  The concept from one onion to producing multiple onions in one plant blows me away. They promise that one small onion will create several larger onions and a larger size onion will produce numerous small onions. Something like what potatoes do, hence, the name.

The mature bulbs are small from a half inch in size to three inches but reportedly easy to peel the skins off. They keep extremely well, something that is becoming a big priority with me.

They are suppose to be planted in the fall but you can put them in in spring which will be what I'm going to do. I will then put a few in in fall to see if they can winter over in our area. Most I've seen are for zones 5 - 8. A bit above our temperature zone. I did see one variety listed in my favorite seed catalog and it was not under onions but under leeks. That is why I've missed it before and it doesn't have a whole lot to say about them. On the Internet not many sites tell about them either but those that do praise them greatly. 

Multiplier onions / potato onions are an old old breed once popular in home gardens. Then commercial production came along and they aren't what the mass production formula is looking for. That's okay, I'm not mass producing, I'm looking for self-sustaining and this onion looks like it will be right up my alley. I can see where those doing square foot gardening  and patio pot gardening could really use this space saving type of onion.  

This is a little of what one site had to say about potato onion or multiplier onions.

planting zone 5.
"Sources differ about planting depth, some saying shallow planting is appropriate and others calling for deeper planting. This onion does tend to grow very close to the surface and a planting hole perhaps an inch deeper than the diameter of the bulb seems to work well. The onions vary in size from half an inch to three inches in diameter (1 - 8cm).
Zones 5-8
Each bulb cluster of potato onions may contain many bulbs, averaging 2 to 2-1/2″ in diameter. When a small bulb (3/4″) is planted, it will usually produce one or two larger bulbs. When a large bulb (3 to 4″) is planted, it will produce approximately 10 to 12 bulbs per cluster.

Individual bulbs can be grown in flower pots to produce a steady supply of green onions during the winter."

I might just have to try the flower pot method too. And since I've traveled so far with fair success in growing onions, I'm going to venture off into trying garlic once more. It has hated me too but I'm going to figure out what I'm doing to offend it and make amends so I can finally get a successful crop. Yup, onions and garlic are one of my targeted projects for this summer's garden.

Making Potato Flour

Thought I had forgotten you. Well, hardly but I've a side kick that has decided that, "I'm living here forever and ever." or at least ten days she says. The last time she said such a thing I asked if she wouldn't miss her mommy she replied, while holding up three fingers, "At least three days." By George if she didn't stay three days, She's waning on the ten day thing though and has decided that seven might due.  That is until her mom came to pick her up and really all she wanted was a visit from mom and she was good to stay longer.

Though I've enjoyed her immensely, I do have a pile of work that needs doing and can't be done with her here, like livestock chores. It has been bitter cold here. Not the weather to take a tyke out in that's immune system has a tendency to be weak. She is so tiny for her age.

I've got the oldest grand daughters off to school today, there mom dropped them off early this morning, but the youngest, who's nine months old, and my side kick are here for part of the day. 

 I have been sewing up a storm since that I can do at the kitchen table while she plays around me. The sewing is for The Calico Bush. I'm building quite a stock pile of things to sell but still struggling mightily on the photographing. Once again the photographs turned out bad yesterday so I'll have to try again today after the kids leave. 

I've also been doing a great deal of research. The new Soviet like agricultural legislation that will be voted on in the next month or so has me really upset. The reporter's descriptive words not mine though I agree with the description of Soviet. That has set my mind a racing. If we had to produce even more than we presently are of what we consume, what would we do about flours for bread? 

Kirk can't survive without his bread or so he thinks and I'm not as knowledgeable about bread as I'd like. Being skilled at one bread just isn't going to do. I need to be able to use what is available for flour.  

We buy wheat but I have no idea how to grow it let alone enough space to do so. In that area we are definitely not self-sufficient. Grains are a basic staple for us and our livestock and are something we need to look into more. I'm thinking it would be smart to create a small patch of wheat in the garden this summer as an experiment, like I did buckwheat for a couple summers. I've still got that buckwheat to dehull and use as soon as I figure out where I put it. OOPS! The lesson therefore is not complete but I did learn a great deal about growing buckwheat. The biggest lesson being that it takes a lot of plants to get just a little grain.

Hands on learning is always better than book learning as anyone who has read about something and then done it can attest.  
I can 't grow an acre of wheat but some knowledge is always better than none. But what if?.... Can't you hear the gerbil cages whirling in my brain? What if we did some substituting with things we grow and could potentially grow? I've been throwing in my breads some dried corn ground into flour. We have dried sweet corn or dent corn as they call it and Painted Mountain flour corn.  Plus I've even thrown in a little dried beans ground into flour. Got that idea from one of my favorite kinds of chips.  

Potatoes are great in bread, what about potato flour said my brain one day? Sure enough, there are recipes for potato flour in breads, even sweet potatoe flour. Now that sounds good and we have some potatoes that are getting rather wrinkled or trying to sprout. Oh how I'd love a cellar. Best of all potato flour could stretch our wheat supplies if need be in the future.

 Wouldn't potato flour be great added to home-made pasta or tortillas shells too? Why not? The powdered beets, spinach, zucchini, and carrots that were puny in the garden and then dried and ground are great in pasta and I bet would be good in bread too. They would up the nutrition and add a complexity to the flavor. There isn't any gluten in those vegetables but none the less they could be added in smaller proportions to bread and in greater amounts in pasta and some tortillas where gluten isn't such a big factor.

This would help solve my waste not want not problem since I just don't like canned potatoes. I will bottle them when needed in the future but I have a tendency to waste them right now if bottled since they aren't a favorite. So the experimenting has begun.

I baked some sweet potatoes in the oven yesterday even though the recipes called for boiling them. 

 I'm such a rebel but it made more sense to me. Then I saved the skins for the chickens and mashed the potatoes on the drying trays. 

 I used the fruit roll up trays. It is drying now. It's taking a while. I think I'll spread them out thinner next time. I know I need to get them really dry, brittle in fact in order to turn to powder. I've then got to try the blender, the rolled oats grinder, and the small meat grinder to see what works best to turn them into flour.

Today I planned on boiling some small white potatoes from the garden but then I checked the sweet potatoes in the dehydrator and they aren't done. If I add white potatoes, the moisture from them will moisten up the sweet potatoes again. I'm going to have to boil the potatoes I have because they are too little to bake.  Sigh, baking is so much easier.  I am going to leave the skins on to boil and take them off afterwards. No sense trying to peel small potatoes.

Have any of you made potato flour and cooked with it?

Chap Stick

 

Chap stick, lip balm what do you call this stuff? If it comes in a tin or small jar is it called balm? I've a hunch that chap stick is probably a brand name that became a name know for all lip salves in a stick.

 

 

 I don't know the answer but does it really matter as long as it works great and this chapstick formula does.Though this salve, chapstick, balm or whatever works wonderful, I am going to try a few slight variations. I can't shut my brain down with what if I did this or that so this experiment isn't finished by any means. It has been put on hold though because I need to use up what I've made so far. I'm speeding up the process since I'm sharing it with family and in doing so, I'm asking that they give me imput. So far though, I'm pretty happy with the results. 

 

One thing I do know for sure is that the tins are going bye bye. I'm not using chapstick tubes either. Not that there is anything wrong with them but this cutey pie thinks 'yip sticks' or chapstick tubes are a great art form. Yup, she draws all over the television set, furniture, and windows with them like a big waxy, greasy, crayola.  That's why I ordered tins. To try and out smart her but the tins outsmarted me. The lid is hard to get off. Next time I'm going for the tiny jars with screw tops.

 Another great lesson I learned was that a fine Microplane grater might make great tiny whisps of bee's wax curls that melt really quickly but they also stick to the container you are grating them into really well.

Larger curls done by a bigger Microplane (That's a brand name but any grater will do. I just love how little space these graters take up and the versitile design despite loosing skin frequently to the thing because it is so.... sharp.) box  may melt slower but they don't make such a mess and the time difference isn't that great from small curls to large curls.

This lip salve was just as easy to make as the first lotion. In fact, it is very similar except you put in more wax. Simply put everything in a pint size canning jar set in a pot of two inches of water, heat on low, and stir occasionally. Then when it begins to cool, you pour into your containers. For chap sticks you use an eye dropper to add salve to your tubes.

Recipe:
1 Tablespoon beeswax
2 Tablespoons cocoa butter
Heat  in a pint jar set in a pot with two inches of water.

When melted and well stirred then turn off the heat under the pot and add:
2 Tablespoons coconut oil
20 drops of peppermint oil

Stir until well blended and your done. 

The peppermint oil is simply for taste. It doesn't have any important qualities so if you want to add cherry oil or orange oil or whatever other flavor you like, do it instead. 
 
This lip salve is a bit oilier than what you might be use to because it doesn't have as much wax in it but believe me, your lips will love you. It might just warrant a few extra kisses from that special someone just so he can feel those tender lips once more.