SATISFYING Sustainable Living (Full Meal Harvested from Our Garden & Land)

Welcome back to a brand new video over here on the homestead. Today we are gonna head back into the garden. Surprise, surprise! Fish is going crazy. Jimmy buggies! Do something cool! Today Andy and I are about to head back out to the garden, do a couple chores, and show you guys what is going on in there. We've got some stuff going on with the tomato plants. Our sunflowers are absolutely exploding, so we're gonna harvest a ton of those. They're so beautiful, but our main goal today is to try to create a farm-to-table dinner. Everything that we're gonna put on our plate is something that we have harvested from the garden or the farm, so stay tuned. Let's go see what we can cook up. Really excited to harvest one of our first full farm-to-table meals, so let's go see what we can get. Every single week the garden is changing so much. It's insane. There's probably, I don't know, a hundred sunflowers or more. Andy is about to run over. There's a bee. Babe, that's a carpenter bee. Yes, it is. Yes, it is. It's a baby carpenter bee. I promise. Yes, that's not a honeybee. They all get pollen. Anyways, we've been having some issues with our tomato plants. With all the weight of these tomatoes, our stems have started to just lay flat down on the ground and most of our tomatoes are right on the ground, which is not good. The camera doesn't do it justice with how many there are. I'm gonna start with this here, and Andy's gonna go get some straw and start putting this down underneath our tomatoes, and I'm gonna give you guys a little sneak peek of what is going to be part of our dinner tonight. Bruce is working hard today. There's my farm boy. I was so bad last year. I'm pretty sure I used hay in the garden instead of straw, so don't do that. You will spread so many seeds in your garden, so just make sure you use straw. These stems right here, they're just going completely sideways. They wouldn't be this bad if we had kept up with the Florida weave method a little more. I'm not a huge fan of it. This is our first year trying it, but I think you really have to stay on top of it. I would definitely agree with that. You gotta keep up with it or it gets out of control. It's like a little bird nest for the tomato. That's perfect. Here's a little sneak peek of what we're gonna be having for part of our dinner tonight. I made a mistake last night when I was trying to prune some of these tomato plants, and I cut off this whole stem. Some gorgeous, gorgeous green tomatoes and these absolute giants here, but I guess there's a silver lining because we're obviously not gonna let them go to waste. We're gonna cook something up tonight. I should not be allowed to carry glass. So now on to my favorite part, harvesting some sunflowers. We've done this in the last few garden videos, but this is about to be the biggest haul yet. We've got a bunch of different varieties. It's a little overwhelming. These are like a deep dark burgundy color, and they've got still some yellow petals on them. So pretty. Is that a honeybee? Mm-hmm. They love the sunflowers. Another thing that loves these sunflowers is the lanternflies. Arch nemesis over here is the lanternfly. They are killing all of our black walnut trees, which is really scary and concerning. Comment below if you guys have noticed them killing any trees in your area, but it seems like they're targeting our black walnuts, and the leaves on the trees are actually starting to turn yellow. The lanternflies on the walnut trees here, they just coat. Y'all can see them on the branch there. They just coat the whole tree, and they excrete this stuff out of them, which kills a lot of the foliage beneath them. The leaves now up underneath them are all turning yellow and dying off from whatever that liquid is that they shoot out. Y'all drop a comment down below if y'all know a way to help eradicate these lanternflies, because we didn't have them at all last year, and this year they've taken over the farm. All right babe, how's it going? I always say the more you cut, the more they grow. So the more that we keep cutting all of these flowers and anything else in the garden, it's just going to keep producing and producing and producing. We're praying that all of these sunflowers keep blooming through the fall. And I also told Heidi that we're probably going to have an everlasting sunflower problem in this garden now with all the seeds dropping. I wouldn't be mad. I'm gonna try to crawl through this corn patch over here to get some of these gorgeous yellow sunflowers that we just noticed the other day. They're crazy looking. Look how fluffy and pretty. It like doesn't have a normal center. Whoa. All right you guys, this is our sunflower haul of the day. This is definitely the most that we've gotten yet. They smell so good. So we're gonna just place these around the farm. Nothing better than some fresh farmhouse flowers, baby. They are pretty, yes. Cute! We're gonna go visit Andy's grandparents tomorrow and I'm gonna give these to Miss Joyce. I know you're so entertained, babe. Yes, and loved. How much do you love flowers? They're pretty. If you guys have any tips for putting sunflowers in vases, kind of like arranging them, please let me know because I've had a really hard time getting them to like stand up straight or just look cute in there. On our whiskey barrel here. Right by the front door. What says welcome to the farmhouse more than that? All right guys, we're gonna head into the kitchen now and get started on our farm-to-table meal. The time is finally here. This is a really fulfilling part of homesteading is being able to say, you supplied everything that's going on your plate. So we hope y'all enjoy what we're about to make. We were using these, oops, green tomatoes and we're gonna be making some delicious crispy fried green tomatoes. These are gonna make some amazing crispy rounds there and we've got from last year's deer harvest, we've got a beautiful venison backstrap, a tenderloin. Backstrap, tenderloin. And y'all saw on our last video, I think it was our last video, we harvested all of our Yukon gold potatoes, baby. So we're gonna be doing some mashed potatoes. You're gonna get the flame ignited. Yeah, but see our our little button deal here is no longer working. So we have to do the old school, turn it on, light the match, throw it in there and hope for the best. We're off to a good start. So we'll let, we're gonna let that heat up for 15 or 20 minutes before we bring our tenderloin out here, or no, before we bring our backstraps out here. Hold on, he said tenderloin first and then he said backstraps, you guys. This is not happening. Y'all are rubbing off on my husband. Y'all in the comments grilled us last time saying, oh those aren't uh, those aren't tenderloins, those are backstraps. Excuse me, we have always called them tenderloins and the true tenderloin or the sweet meat is what is inside of the deer, but the backstraps are still the tenderloin. I don't know, y'all comment. I will never stop saying tenderloin. You always said tenderloin until they started saying that. We're making venison tenderloin tonight. Yes, that's exactly what we're doing. All right y'all, we're gonna keep it super simple. We're just using our farmhouse kitchen seasoning. If y'all have not had a chance to pick one of these up, you need to get them while you still can. It's absolutely delicious and you can't be cheap with it. Give it a healthy dose. We promise you will fall in love with it. It is our favorite meat seasoning and it's non-gmo, gluten-free, clean ingredients, made in the USA, family-owned. The whole nine yards. Oh boy, give them a peek at that bad boy before we throw it on the grill. Smells so good already. That looks delicious. I've got the grill on pretty much full tilt right now. It's hot. I'm gonna crank it down to medium heat. I'm gonna do four minutes on each side and then take it off. It's a super quick cook. You don't want to overcook your tenderloin. You guys. And this is a quick tip. Just pull your phone out, do four minutes, start your timer. He's always got his timer on. You gotta have your timer on. It's smart. Four minutes on each side and then we take it off and cover it. Okay. Easy peasy. It's easy. I'm gonna start with washing my potatoes. Still got the dirt on there. I have not had homegrown mashed potatoes in my whole life, I don't think, so I'm really excited about this. Especially to all the men out there. Y'all understand the pressure when you're cooking a nice piece of meat or something and you're like, all right, it's definitely done. You gotta be 100% sure that it's done before you take it inside and cut into it because you could completely ruin the meal. So I said four minutes aside and we're gonna do another minute on each side because I can tell that it's not quite done yet. All right. Now, while it's still hot, we're gonna take it inside and cover it for 10 to 15 minutes. That is a secret. Yeah. And y'all mark my words. See how it looks dry? Yeah. Wait till we cover it and then when we take the wrapper off of it, there's gonna be juice everywhere. Smells so good. All right guys, I got my potatoes all washed and in the pot, we're gonna let those boil. Not gonna bore you too much with that, but don't forget to salt your potato water. So first thing I need to do is get these green tomatoes all sliced up so we can start drawing some of the moisture out of there onto paper towels. I don't have the best fried green tomato recipe out there. I don't even remember the last time I had one. It was probably last year if we even did it. So share your best fried green tomato recipes in the comments, please. This beauty. Once we've got them all laid out on our paper towel, we are going to salt them pretty liberally and this is going to draw out a lot of the moisture so that we don't get a soggy, soggy green tomato. We're gonna get a nice crispy, crunchy bite. Next, got a little bowl here and I'm just gonna put some all-purpose flour in here. We're just gonna do a super simple little mix here. Cayenne pepper because we always love a little heat and it helps give us a nice little color. A lot of people use like seasoned flour, but I like to season my own. So we're going in with some fresh cracked black pepper too and of course our opening day seasoning. Go ahead and put a lot of that in there too and just a dash of salt because tomatoes and salt are just a match made in heaven. Oh, the potatoes are done. This is super interesting. I'm gonna try not to burn myself, but every single potato in here split open like this, which I have never seen before when I've made mashed potatoes with store-bought potatoes. I just think that that is a little bit interesting there. So Andy's mashing away and I'm going to add in some milk and y'all this is another thing that's not from the farm yet, but I keep telling Andy we need something to milk. Whether it be a goat or a cow, I really want some goats first to help us clear the land and do all that. I'm gonna mix it up good while it's hot. Consistency we want ladies and gentlemen. Okay guys, so funny story. This homemade mayonnaise that we tried to make did not turn out so great. It's very runny. So tell us what we did wrong. I'm not gonna pretend or fake it for y'all. We're just gonna use dukes for this because I really think that some mayonnaise on these maters before we bread them is gonna be amazing. Dukes it is. Now on a tomato sandwich, if you put a little bit of mayonnaise, salt, and pepper, this is gonna be delicious and it's gonna help our flour stick. So the first round is in the pan. Oh my goodness, they are finally ready. Oh baby. Farm to table dinner wouldn't be complete without eating outside because you guys, this is kind of the best part of the entire day when it finally starts to cool off and we can really enjoy nature and the quietness and the calmness of the farm and just spend some time relaxing. Let me see those juices you were talking about. Oh baby. See the cook. Oh my gosh. Medium juicy rare. So we're gonna get everything plated up and of course we're gonna do a taste test for y'all. I'm sure y'all are dying for a bite. We feel kind of honored to share it with y'all because we worked super super hard on this whole meal but also the time that it took to harvest this and bring it to the table. We've got homegrown potatoes, homegrown tomatoes, and farm harvested venison tenderloin. It's a long process to get here. What are you going for first? I don't know. I'm gonna go for the meat first. Mmm. Best mashed potatoes ever. Yes. Oh yeah. Melty as hell. That's how a mistake turns into a blessing. All right y'all well thank you for watching. I'm sorry for making y'all super hungry but if y'all are interested go check out opening day down below in the description so you can cook up your own delicious juicy meats and share them all with us. We love to see y'all's recipes and what you're cooking. We'll have a lot more garden and chicken content here on the homestead coming soon. Everything is going crazy. It's July. It is a busy season so stay tuned. See y'all in the next one.