Making The Greenhouse Grow

(+ one-skillet supper)

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Hello my friends,

I can’t pretend like this is a perfectly happy project to share with you. Truth be told, many words were screamed during the course of getting the greenhouse to this point. (Some holier than others).

We saved for our Planta greenhouse for a year, waited anxiously for its arrival, and were quickly forced to submit to the months and months it took us to put it together. Projects for homesteaders who run a business and homeschool four kids tend to take time - and the 80,000 pieces (yes, I’m exaggerating slightly) that this greenhouse arrived in meant this project took us a long, long time to finally execute.

It took renting a trencher and studying a lot of electrical basics to finally get power run from the shop to the greenhouse, but have mercy, we finally did it! We made this greenhouse grow in winter.

Words cannot express how unsexy some of these projects are behind the scenes.

Technically the greenhouse hasn’t actually grown anything yet, but now that it’s averaging 75 degrees and staying 30 degrees above the coldest outside temperatures, we may finally be in business.

Also, in case you’re in need of a one-skillet dinner (because, let’s just say, you’re busy pulling wire through conduit in a frozen tundra, here’s a straight-forward way to put supper on the table:

Skillet Meat and Potatoes with Feta

1 pound grass-fed ground beef (or pork… or whatever)

2.5 pounds potatoes, washed and cut into small pieces

4 tablespoons olive oil, butter, or tallow

Seasonings of choice, to taste (I love Bona Furtuna’s blends the very best)

3 cups greens, washed and roughly chopped (beet greens, collards, kale, chard, etc.)

1 cup fresh parsley

1 cup feta

1. Preheat the oven to 400 degrees.

2. Brown the ground beef in a cast iron skillet. Add in potatoes and stir to combine. Drizzle the olive oil over the meat and potatoes and sprinkle generously with seasoning salt. Put a lid over the mixture and transfer to the preheated oven until the potatoes are fork tender.

3. Remove the lid and broil, if desired, to crisp up the top layer.

4. Add in the chopped greens, parsley, and feta. Season to taste.

Stay warm out there!

Cheers,

Shaye