We live in a small town. My son plays hockey every year with a group of kids the same age as him. In the summer about half of the team play softball together.

Three years ago I was talking to their goalie before a game and he mentioned the he would like to score a goal. I told him that goalies do score goals and that if he scored a goal I would bake him a cake. He said, "Really?" and I said, "Yes, but don't take chances. If you're up by a couple and they've pulled their goalie and there's 30 seconds left and you have possession with time to take the shot, go for it, but if you flub it and get in trouble don't mention my name."

That summer they played softball for the first time. We were talking and the goalie said something about hitting the fence. I told him that if he hit the fence I would bake him a cake. The whole team found out and we talked about it on and off. When it became obvious that no one was going to hit the fence that year I added a home run to the list of things that would get them a cake. They made it through the entire year without getting a cake. In the year end tournament the girl who was my son's defense partner in hockey, hit a home run and good to my word I baked a couple of cakes (a blue one for our team and a red one for the other local team that we played the final game against.)

This year, at the start of the softball season, the kids who know me and I talked about some cake rules but we hadn't really settled on any. The discussions were ongoing. While I was sitting watching the practice a couple of parents walked up and said, "Hi, Mapleengineer." I said, "Hi." Then he asked, "Have you set the cake rules yet?" I said, "You want cake?" She said, "It's really good cake."

So, one of the players hit a grand slam two games ago and I baked cakes and took them to the next game, this past Monday. While the parents were sitting watching the game and eating cake he hit another. So...I owe them cake today, too.

I love watching the kids play and I love making cake so it's a win-win.

My wife is away for the weeks. I made this for dinner tonight.

Our property is covered with wild raspberry, will black raspberry, and wild blackberry cane. I picked these this morning. I got about 500 ml (2 c) of berries. I've tinned them and will freeze them until I can pick more over the next few days. Then...I'll make black raspberry jam!

Maybe.

I don't know.

My wife normally makes jam but she's away for the weeks. Maybe I'll give it a go.

This is a community for people who are trying to disconnect, either a little bit or a lot, from the agrifood oligopolies that feed us unethical and unhealthy garbage.

If you're dreaming about a homestead, have just started the journey, or are settled and working at building your future come on in and join us. Crofters, homesteaders, hobby, family, and small farmers are welcome.

We will include discussions of everything to do with homesteading including land, gardening, equipment, and keeping, hunting, and harvesting animals.

Come and show off your flora and fauna. Tell us what you're working on. Ask question. Let's support each other.

Homestead

Do you have a back yard? Are there chickens in it? Then this community is for you!

I made the mistake of buying my wife "just four chickens" for mother's day a few years ago. That became 8. Then 20. Then 300. DON'T DO IT! IT'S A TRAP!

If you've already fallen into that trap and have questions, come on over. If you've been keeping chickens for years, come on over. If someone else's chickens are in your back yard and you don't know what to do, COME ON OVER!

We'll talk about chickens, we'll talk about eggs, we won't talk about which came first, we'll talk about feed, and care, and everything that goes along with keeping chickens. There will be pictures. There will be recipes. There will be...well...that probably just about covers it.

Anyway...

Backyard Chickens

!backyardchickens@lemmy.ca

Backyard Chickens

You may also be interested in !homestead

EDIT

There have been a couple of questions, "What about my ducks?" and "What about my parrots?"

The Fediverse is small. There probably aren't enough people interested in each type of bird to start their own communities. For now, everyone is welcome. Turkeys, geese, quail, Guineas, fucking Emus. Come on in. Pet birds, too. We'll take everyone. The community will be focused on chickens but everyone is welcome. As the sub-communities grow they will naturally migrate (heh) to their own communities but we will have given them care and comfort while that happened.

My daughter bakes these quite often. I love them.

They are a Betty Crocker recipe.

Hi.

I have tried Jerboa and Connect. I installed Liftoff yesterday and it immediately became my favorite client.

Thank you for all your hard work. It looks great.

I have a couple of suggestions/feature requests. (I'm sorry if you already have these on your list.)

I would like to be able to differentiate between read posts and unread posts. Other readers do this with bold headline for unread and normal for read. (This may already be there but I haven't been able to find it.)

Another thing that I would like is to be able to turn off and on the top section of the compact display. I would prefer to see just the headline and the buttons along the bottom. I like an even more compact display than the current compact. I'm not suggesting removing it for everyone, just giving us the option to hide if if we don't want to see it.

It would be great to be able to fuzz or hide the thumbnails on NSFW posts but not require the second and/or third click to actually see the NSFW content. When I hide the images it hides the thumbnail but then I have to click again to get to the image.

This one may already be there but I haven't noticed it. If a community is NSFW it would be great to fuzz all thumbnails whether the post is marked NSFW or not.

Again, thanks for your efforts. The app looks great and I'm really looking forward to seeing it develop.

Every year we smoke a few ducks for our farm customers. My family love smoked duck so I do a couple for us as well.

When there is leftover duck meat my wife will put it on a pizza or into a soup. On this occasion she made smoked duck gravy with the pan drippings. French fries, squeaky cheese curds, and pulled smoked duck topped with smoked duck gravy. It was pretty tasty.

No recipe for this one, sorry. I followed Mandy's recipe from Souped Up Recipes on YouTube. I just liked this picture.

Are you tired of my posts yet?

I am a non-drinker but I make an exception for a bourbon milkshake. I use homemade vanilla ice cream (1L 10% cream, 500ml 35% cream, 1 T vanilla extract, 1 1/2 c sugar), milk, and an ounce and a half of Eagle Rare Bourbon, or Angel's Envy, or Larceny. Put it in a blender, blend to milkshake consistency, and pour into a mason jar mug (this really is part of the process.)

Share with a friend, or don't. The cat is sure that he wants some but I'm not so sure.

We used to always have Happy Farms Cheese Strings in the house for the kids. We live close to the US border so we could make a trip over and get a couple of packs.

I decided to try to make some homemade deep fried cheese.

I started by opening the cheese sticks.

(Click on the images for higher resolution.)

Next, I cut them into thirds.

I make up three containers. One with flour, salt, pepper, and a pinch of cayenne, one with a couple of eggs, scrambled, and one with panko crumbs.

Each cheese stick gets flour, then egg, then panko before being arranged on a baking pan ready to be deep fried.

Mine kind of exploded. That just means that I get to clean them up for presentation by picking off the exploded cheese and eating it.

When they come out of the oil taste one and salt them if necessary.

You can reduce the explosions by sticking them in the freezer and freezing them then dropping them into the oil frozen to get the outside fried up before the cheese melts enough to ooze out.

Or...just eat the damned cheese.

The sauce can be anything. You can use jarred marinara or you can stick blend jarred spaghetti sauce then boil it down to reduce it. I used homemade spaghetti sauce that my wife froze last summer which I boiled down to the consistence you see in the photo.

In addition to making maple syrup and building maple syrup making machines I also make ice cream in the summer. Two summers ago I started making Aztec Chocolate Ice Cream. It is a cooked custard ice cream that includes cocoa, cinnamon, cayenne powder, and candied ginger. It starts cold, rich, and chocolate then burns your face off.

I love the stuff.

My wife won't go near it.

Here is the recipe as a couple of people have asked for it.

MapleEngineer Aztec Chocolate Ice Cream

See NOTE at the end.

500 ml (2 c) 35% (whipping) cream

1 L (4 c) 10% (table) cream

1 c (85 g) Dutch process cocoa powder

1 1/2 c (180 g) sugar

1 T (15 ml) vanilla (I use really good Madagascar Bourbon Vanilla in bourbon)

1/8 t (6 g) salt

1 1/2 t (2.7 g) ground cayenne

1 1/2 t (4 g) ground cinnamon

1/2 t (1.4 g) ground ginger

I put the 10% cream, sugar, vanilla, and cocoa powder in a pot and heat it slowly to a simmer whisking slowly but constantly until the sugar is dissolved. Then I add the spices and salt and whisk slowly until well incorporated. Once everything is smooth I remove the pot from the heat, whisk in the heavy cream, put it in a container, and stick it in the friged, preferably overnight, to cool thoroughly.

Once it's cool make it into ice cream.

This recipe produces what I think it a very nice, VERY rich (18% MF) chocolate ice cream with a nice burn.

NOTE: As a typical Canadian who grew up during the transition from Imperial to Metric measurements I still cook in Imperial units. Well...sort of. I measure the cream in Liters but everything else in t, T, and c. So, I've put the units that I use first with my best shot at converting them second. Be aware that I may have made a terrible mistake. I recommend measuring as I do. If anyone wants to correct these measurements I will update the recipe here.