Eating from the Garden...growing on an Iowa acreage.

Spring Break

2011-04-05T16:38:00.006-05:00

My Spring Break has been only from the blog! Many things have been happening in the past three weeks, not the least of which was my grandmother's 101st birthday party!

It was heartwarming to watch her and my father chatting together.

She had a wonderful visit with all of her guests, and in typical fashion she gave a little speech after she had opened her gifts and cards. She is priceless, and a gentle, lovely soul.

When my dad was here for my grandmother's birthday, he brought along a few family heirlooms for me. One of them was his Bible that was given to him in his church when he entered the Army. It has joined my husband's father's Bible in a place of honor in our home.

Spring has continued to bless us with wonderful sights and sounds. The peepers at our pond are in high pitch, and the bullfrogs are answering back in deep tones that vibrate all the way across the yard. Geese are landing on the pond daily and we have hopes that they will nest permanently. Redwing Blackbirds are back reserving their nesting spots on the reeds, Bluebirds are visiting the nesting boxes on our fence, and the Cardinals and other bright birds are constant at our feeders. These things make lovely excuses for staring out the window for long stretches!

Our neighbor's horses have been boarded elsewhere all winter, and it's a delight to have them in the field behind us again! There are two extra this year. They are beautiful to watch, and the way they interact with the herds of deer that wander through each night is very entertaining!

With Easter coming around, I've broken out the decorations and have the house filled with bunnies and chicks.

These bunny Peeps made an appearance at a recent missions bake sale. When I get into the zone, I can't stop myself!

And speaking of being in the zone, this guy made a dive into this huge garden project. We decided to place landscape fabric and pea gravel in some areas of the garden to make it less "weedy", and give an overall neat appearance. My DH worked a little TOO hard for his first time at bat this spring, but he's making a fast recovery! He has a lot of big projects up his sleeve, and no doubt will be in fine form in no time at all!

Spring in our Step!

2011-03-15T13:10:00.000-05:00

So many lovely signs of what's just around the corner! We think these are daffodils, or maybe jonquils? No matter what they are, they will be very welcome.

Thanks to Costco, we have instant spring blooms in the house. These two begonia plants came in a very nice basket, and eventually I'll set them out on the porch for the summer. The price was really reasonable and I've learned from experience to get these kinds of plants when I see them, and not wait until I think I'm ready for them!

Another nice spring bonus are fresh farm eggs from chickens who have just started laying. One of the women I work with has been so generous to bring in these eggs to share! I love all the colors, especially this greenish egg. What a lovely surprise to see the pale blue interior when I cracked it open!

Maybe the thing that put the spring in our step the most this week, was the gratifying site of these seedlings, which have sprung to life in no time at all. Since my last posting, we've seen very encouraging growth in many of our seeds. Maybe the most encouraging being the sprouting of the seeds that my husband saved from ripe fruits two years ago. He was given some very nice heirloom tomato seeds in the past, and now he's had the experience of planting, growing, harvesting, saving seeds, and planting again. What a beautiful thing!

Here We Go!

2011-03-08T20:58:00.000-06:00

The signs of Spring are pouring in now - rain vs. snow, Girl Scout cookies for sale, our flock of red-wing blackbirds returning to the pond, decent strawberries showing up in the produce aisle.

And...we have begun putting in our garden, by planting seeds indoors, which we haven't done since two growing seasons ago, and it feels great to be back at this practice! The first step was using a very diluted bleach solution to wash down these tray systems (bottom trays and dome lids), as we don't want to pass on any disease that may be hanging on from the previous season.

Here you see some of the lovely seeds we ordered from Seed Savers, in Decorah, IA. You also see in this picture, that we are using an abundant number of plant markers this year. If you've followed us for a while you will know that we have had our challenges with identifying seedlings at times!

At Seed Savers, they are committed to preserving and promoting heirloom variety seeds, which are those that have not been genetically modified, or in other words are like the ones that Grandma and Grandpa used. You can save these seeds from ripened plants, and use them in future growing seasons, unlike many seeds you buy commercially, which are called "hybrid". If you saved seeds from hybrid plants, they would either not germintate at all if planted, or they would germinate but produce something quite different from the original plant. A wonderful treat at Seed Savers are the seeds offered that are just like the ones used in illustrious gardening places like Thomas Jefferson's Monticello. How pleasant to us to be planting the same thing that once grew there, a place we have visited and loved. Jefferson was quite a pioneer in the horticulture field and made the most of his travels oversees to bring back plant varieties that had yet to be introduced to the USA, including the tomato. Now where would an Iowa gardener be without the tomato!!

This seedling process starts with a good growing medium. This year my husband chose to go with a soilless mix, that is for the most part, a combination of peat moss and vermiculite. There are many choices and you should check out your local garden center for a ready-made mix, or the ingredients to make your own.

He filled up all the little cells with this light mix and then they go into these trays, which are now ready for seeds.

Next the seeds will be gently pushed down into the soil, the marker put in place and then down to our basement where our "nursery" is set up. So far, we've planted eggplant, onion, tomato, and pepper seeds. These are some of the plants that need a particularly early start. Some gardeners would contend that we are lagging behind already!

Here you can see the grow lights, at this point sitting very low on the growing trays, and under that is the special plant heating pad, that helps encourage the seeds to get going! One note of safety is to avoid trying to use a standard heating pad for this purpose - not good! These systems are not inexpensive, but they are specially designed for this purpose, and if you go this direction, it is certainly wise to invest in proper equipment.

This last photo shows the screen shot of my husband's planting chart, which he intends to tweak and share on the blog in the near future. This year we're planting along with the cycles of the moon - should be interesting!

Hope you're in a growing frame of mind already! A shout out to one of my nieces who's in the process of starting her own little salsa garden to grow on her patio-AWESOME!!

Inspiration

2011-02-22T15:10:00.002-06:00

I've spent that last little while chatting with my DD on gmail chat - what a nice privilege! What a nice daughter! It gave me the inspiration to write a little today, which has been lacking. I know as soon as the garden gets rolling I'll be writing too much!

Speaking of inspiration - I've been watching Mad Hungry lately. Lucinda Scalla Quinn is the cook on this show and I just love her style. She's passionate about food, but even more passionate about her family. Good balance! Recently we tried out her corn fritters as a side dish with fish, and they were delicious. Watching her videos is helpful since there are recipe details she gives on the show that don't end up in her written recipes online. Might have something to do with the Martha Stewart Corporation filter that she has to go through - just postulating!

She has also inspired us - or I should say specifically my DH - to put our cast iron into use. He even grabbed one of our camping skillets and used her instructions to bring in back to life. The other cast iron grill pan is a recent gift and it came pre-seasoned. Now that he's learned the proper care, this should be easier to use than ever. Tonight we're making steaks, which will sear in the cast iron, and then go into the oven to finish cooking. Great stuff!

Hunger, plus increasing prices at the grocery store, inspire me to make bread each week! I've shared the video of making this perfect whole wheat bread in another post. In that post, you can click on the link for the food storage site that offers two great videos for the method they use with the bread.
The latest thing I've been doing is making homemade croutons from the crusts of the bread. I just chop them into medium sized pieces, let them dry out, and store them in a baggie. To make croutons, I toast them in a skillet with a little olive oil and whatever seasoning sounds good that day. After you toast them in the oil, it works well to let them sit on a paper towel and crisp up a little as they cool off.

The same goal of saving money led to my experiment in freezing sun-dried tomatoes. I like to save money by getting the huge jar at Costco, but how can two people ever get this thing used up before it goes wrong?!! I love these freezer jars and made sure to leave a little "head room" at the top. They're now solidly frozen and no bulges or cracks, so - success!

All the way back in November, we had the wonderful experience of a photo shoot with our friend Bonnie in Maine. At this lovely New England studio she took some truly amazing photos of our girl. We finally got our order in this week and now we're inspired to begin working on a family photo wall, between our living room and kitchen. Upon opening a couple of storage bins, this layout on the table attested to the fact that this project is long overdue!

Another project that is finally becoming a reality, is painting the outside of our house!
DH is going through the lovely process of getting bids, and we've both been looking online at color combinations, and getting inspired to do something brave - like a pumpkin colored door?? This faded yellow abode will hopefully be brightened up in the near future!

And finally, the February thaw has inspired us to get serious about seeds and starting seedlings -THIS WEEK! We got our leftover seeds and empty packets organized into this storage box first. Then we made notes about which ones we liked and which were a bust, plus which were empty and needed re-ordering. Oh, these seed catalogs are so captivating!

"And God said, "Let the earth sprout vegetation, plants yielding seed, and fruit trees bearing fruit in which is their seed, each according to its kind, on the earth." And it was so." Genesis 1:11

Everlasting inspiration...

Happy Valentine's Day!

2011-02-14T04:30:00.002-06:00

Chocolate Brownie Espresso Cookies dipped in chocolate. Woohoo! Happy Valentine's Day to me..I mean of course, Happy Valentine's Day to you!! Hope you're having a sweet day.

Our Bundle of Joy!

2011-02-13T04:05:00.005-06:00

And a joy she was, and still is! Today she is 21, and she is everything that makes for a lovely young woman. As I look at her contented little baby face in this picture, it's hard to believe she's nearly finished with college, is student teaching, and searching for a job. It's so trite to say that time flies, but there are few other expressions that can capture the way the years flash past. And they have been wonderful years, and God has been so gracious to us all. May He continue to be your Wonderful Counselor as you journey on. Happy Birthday our Dear, Dear Daughter!

"For I know the plans I have for you, declares the LORD,
plans for welfare and not for evil,
to give you a future and a hope."
Jeremiah 29:11

A February Frenzied

2011-02-11T16:37:00.004-06:00

The month of love, the month of cabin fever and the winter blahs, the month before spring officially starts, and in our house, the month of birthdays! Between our family and close friends, we have no less than 8 birthdays in February! My time and attention has been split between getting my sea legs in my new job, a quick weekend trip to Omaha, trying to do some special things for our daughter's 21st birthday, giving a little thought to Valentine's Day, starting the planning for our daughter's college graduation, plus truly fun hospitality responsibilities at church. There you have the mildly frenzied part of my February, or the first 11 days anyway! I took these dark chocolate/buttercream cupcakes to our last potluck at church - they have a very calming effect on the frenzies!

While in Omaha, we visited a remarkable restaurant called V. Mertz. I was anything but frenzied when we dined here! It was quite an experience and one we probably wouldn't repeat, but wouldn't have missed either. At times we felt as though we were on one of the snotty cooking shows where the server is telling you in excruciating detail what is on your plate. Apparently that helps you appreciate what your eating? It was a little hard to stifle a giggle at times, but the server took his job so seriously and was so earnest that you wouldn't dare! The bottom line was that the food and service were both pretty amazing and it did indeed feel like a special birthday celebration for both my DH and my daughter. The setting was wonderful too, as it was in the Old Market section of Omaha, and we'll want to visit this charming area again.

This bag holds my "little bit of thought" for Valentine's Day, referenced above. I wanted to make a care package for my daughter and her lovely roommates. This will be one of the last times I can do this for them - oh dear! Inside was some Play-Doh in Valentine colors, a bag of Hershey's Valentine Hugs candy, Valentine cereal bowls for each (so cute and only $1.79 at Target), and a big bag of homemade cranberry-almond granola. It's so much fun to put packages together, and I'm not sure how I'm going to get my care package fix after DD graduates!

Is it a stretch to combine these two items in this photo?! First is the recommendation for these little containers, and I do love a new container! Yes indeed, I freeze bacon fat and left over jalapenos in these tiny containers, among other things! The lids actually snap onto the bottom of the container, so you can stack them in the freezer - love it. The little smiley girl in the pictures behind the containers is the same one about to be 21 - and this thought does have me a little frenzied! I'll be more than a little emotional on Sunday when this becomes a reality - more in the next post about this life passage. The photo series of "I Love You" was a Father's Day gift a number of years ago, and would make a great Valentine's Day gift too.

And speaking of bacon fat, our little piggy did go to the market and we now have a freezer full of lovely, pastured, hormone-free porky products. It's been tender and sweet and we're really pleased with it! Last night we had a couple of the Iowa chops, which had a pocket cut into them for filling with stuffing. I made the stuffing from the crusts of our whole wheat bread. Just delicious. I have no picture unfortunately, since I'm never really happy with food pictures that use artificial light, and of course this time of year, dinner is usually after dark! But days are getting longer, we have so much to celebrate in our family this month, groups of bright red cardinals are busy at our feeders, and this weekend we're picking out garden seeds - yippee!

"It was you who set all the boundaries of the earth;

you made both summer and winter." Psalm 74:17

Snow Day!

2011-02-02T20:08:00.000-06:00

Well, I've been whining about needing sunshine, and today we got some - never mind that it came after a blizzard! It was a doozy, but we have nothing to complain about since we didn't lose power and neither of us had to go to work. DH worked from home, and the dentist I work for had lots of cancellations and didn't want her employees out on the drifted roads. She's a good egg that way. There's a lot to appreciate about a snow day. It really is beautiful when the sun comes out and plays off the marshmallow landscape.

And on snow days I certainly appreciate having this cute man around, who is always willing to clear the driveway and sidewalk! Don't you love this furry hat that our DD picked out for him for Christmas?!

That same man also came up with this thoughtful idea to warm up my snow boots that had been left in my car. Can you see the heat register under the cupboard there? It certainly did the trick!

And of course on snow days it's a bonus to make a pot of warm soup. This is Roasted Tomato Tortilla Soup , and you can find the recipe on my recipe page by clicking on the link. I just revised and revamped the recipe, and I think it's better than ever!

To our friends and family in Colorado, Illinois, and Maine where the weather is still frightful, or where our storm is on the way - we're praying for you, and warmer days ahead! And for our family in Alaska, well...spring is coming soon!

In Need of a Little Sunshine

2011-01-30T20:38:00.000-06:00

We've had so much flat, white light this winter, and I'm craving a little sunshine! We have family that have evacuated their own winter scenes for AZ, FL, and Caribbean cruises, and maybe that's what has us craving the same! In all fairness, we have have had some open invitations for warmer climes, but it's just not in the cards this year.

Two years ago we took a trip to Hawaii, and that was quite a cure for the winter blahs! However, that's hardly in the realm of possibilities on a yearly basis, so as a band-aid I'll sometimes reach for this cookbook that we brought back from Hawaii, and cook up a little island cuisine!

This was my most recent choice, though clearly I wasn't able to purchase any Opakapaka in Iowa! I could buy Alaskan, wild-caught cod fillets from Trader Joe's, and that was a fine substitute.

The only change I made to the recipe was adding two teaspoons of natural cane sweetener to the marinade. I actually made the marinade in the morning and popped it into the fridge so that it was ready for the final prep.

I added a colorful salad to the fish and rice and had a nice, sunny meal. The salad has orange segments in it, as well as long shreds of carrot, and red onion sliced on a mandoline slicer, which helps keep the flavor nice and mild. I had a poppy seed dressing on hand, which worked nicely.

And one more bit of sunshine we brought home - good Hawaiian coffee, also from Trader Joe's. Just about transports me there - just about! Hope you have a sunny day, or at least a sunny outlook!

For the Birds

2011-01-19T20:00:00.011-06:00

Since we had a live tree this year, I repeated what we did two years ago, and decorated it for the birds. We had a lovely Concolor fir this year and it went out to our deck after Christmas, where it was tied to the railings by my DH. Then I started making birdy treats!

I used some suet packets we normally use with our metal cage style suet feeders. I cut them into smaller squares to get started on the first ornaments.

Then I pilfered the netting from some red onions and clementines. This too was cut into smaller pieces.

The final product was secured with twist ties and is ready to go.

The next ingredients were some slightly around-the-bend oranges, that had also suffered a freeze in our second fridge, which lives in the garage. In the most brutal winter temps, it's not wise to store produce out there!

Once I sliced them, they looked much fresher than I imagined they would. I used twist ties on these as well and they were done in a flash.

The classic popcorn and cranberry string was a very appealing choice, since the 8-year-old who devoured every Little House on the Prairie book is still living inside me! I used the end of a spool of carpet thread, and that made a very sturdy garland.

I liked the effect very much and hope the birds find it and enjoy!

It's nice to look out on the deck in these dreary days and see something so cheerful. Once the birds start making regular visits, it will be even more pleasing. The new picture of the bluebird in the header of the blog is from our 2009 tree, and it was one of many birds that visited that year.

My husband took this picture and he really liked the view of the bird tree with the deer in the snowy background. I, on the other hand, saw this and thought about whether or not those greedy critters would have enough nerve to come up on the deck and eat the decorations right off of it, and then finish off the tree too!! I need to get a more positive outlook for sure!

Ingredients for a Happy Day

2011-01-14T13:22:00.009-06:00

Start with a surprise package from a far away friend. Pictured here is a bar of "felted" soap. She made this - she is a very clever crafter on top of all her other talents! The wool is your scrubber in the shower and it shrinks down with the soap bar. In the package were also jars of lovely jellies made from things they grow in their garden. The grape jelly smells like the freshest grape juice you'd ever imagine, and I'm happy they didn't tear out their grape vines!

Continue the day with phone calls, emails, facebook wishes, e-cards (the kind from your kiddo that make you cry happy tears!), and even some real cards in the mail! Three of the phone calls included singing, and the most infamous has to be from my baby sister, who called the wrong number and sang to a stranger. That wouldn't have been too bad except that she used my goofy nickname in the song - jillypoo - and she didn't believe the woman when she was told she had dialed the wrong number! We have a rather sarcastic family sense of humor and she thought it was me being a wise acre, by telling her she had the wrong number! At least we know that she made some woman named Peggy, roll on the floor laughing!!!

Continue the day admiring the pretty flowers that your very thoughtful hubby brought you.

Admire too your newly repaired favorite bracelet that DH retrieved from the jeweler. It came from my MIL and it only took us 15 years to get it fixed!

Then, look forward to using other thoughtful gifts, like this replacement for one of my favorite Le Creuset pans that recently sprung a chip in the enamel. We purchased three at an outlet store in Maine a number of years ago, and though we saved in price by getting "imperfects", we took a gamble on whether or not they'd last as long as the regulars. Now there are lots of other companies competing with that well established brand and we'll see if they're as good.

Toward the end of the day, enjoy your favorite cake - mine being this pineapple upside down cake - so, so delicious. For many years, I've used an old recipe for "Dinette Batter Cake" from the Betty Crocker Cookbook whenever we wanted this treat. My new spin this year was using coconut oil in place of shortening. The nutritional contest between these two is not even close, and the flavor in this cake was outstanding.

The last ingredient for a happy day is a beautiful sunset, leading to an overflowing heart. Thanks to all of you who added ingredients to the day!

Where's the Beef?

2011-01-12T13:17:00.002-06:00

Ours is just around the corner from us on this farm!

This retired doc is now raising cattle as a hobby and part of his herd is grass-fed. That's what we ordered from him and had processed right here in town. You can't get much more "local" than this! And one of the best parts of buying local is getting to know the people who grow your food. People in our part of the world are very chatty too!

And the cows are pretty friendly too - probably because they don't know why we're there!

This is a butcher right in town. You can see they've been around a while. We've gotten our bulk meat purchases from several different lockers, and each one seems to have their own style of cutting the meat as well as packaging it. In all cases the butcher calls and asks how you'd like your meat to be cut - do you want more hamburger or stew meat?, how many people in your family?( so they know the number of steaks to package together), and the special question - do you want the tongue?!! Uhh, no thanks - maybe next time! I have nothing against eating tongue meat, but the idea of preparing it is beyond my comfort zone!

This locker labels their meat very clearly and has a double wrap of plastic under the paper - much nicer when it comes to thawing it out!

And this label has me particularly excited! Our previous half-of-half-a-cow purchases didn't include the brisket. This was once a very cheap piece of meat to buy, but thanks to the way it's been popularized by TV chefs, it's value has increased. So arbitrary, isn't it? Here's a recipe link from Ellie Krieger for sweet and sour brisket that may just be the one we use for this nice piece of beef.

Next to market will be a little piggy with our name on it. Mmmmm....

End of the Year Re-cap

2011-01-05T21:42:00.001-06:00

My blogger voice has been suffering from laryngitis lately. Sometimes it just goes that way. But, I have a few pictures and thoughts to share today about our Christmas and the New Year.

We enjoyed our Christmas Eve lunch with my grandmother. She was charming as usual and happy for the change in routine. Thankfully the ice storm was cooperative and didn't really bother the roads. Boy it was quiet in that nursing home. So many thoughts here...

Our Christmas Day celebration at home included this lovely duck from La Ventosa Ranch in Iowa. My husband made a perfect duck a l'orange using Julia Child's classic cookbook. It was a large, white, Pekin duck, raised free-range on a crazy farm that often has two kinds of "kids" in the house since they raise goats, as well as ducks, chickens, and pigs!

My DH is apparently hoping I'll keep cooking this year, since he gave me this wonderful new toy!

One of the funny gifts under our tree was this t-shirt. Are you a Big Bang Theory fan? Can you figure it out?!!!

And speaking of funny...
...this was Christmas at my brother's house! Poor old Nellie never saw this puppy coming - why Santa why?!! The French bulldog puppy is Grace, and she's a charmer.

We rang in the New Year sharing great conversation and good munchies with friends. My new favorite, and very easy hors d'oeuvre, is this little pickled piquant pepper stuffed with fresh mozzarella. I love the sweet and spicy flavor of these peppers on lots of things, but this combination was really good.

We also started 2011 with a trip to Pella, IA to hear our daughter's choir perform. My dear aunt came along with us. She has such an outgoing personality and it was charming to see her make a point of stopping various choir members after the concert to tell them how much she enjoyed them- so thoughtful! The choir was wonderful as usual and this was the last time we'll hear DD perform on tour, and probably the last full performance we'll hear too. Lord willing, the next time we hear them will be at graduation. What a joy, what a privilege for our family these last four years.

And last but not least, I'm starting this year off with a new job! It's part-time, local, and feels like a perfect fit. Best of all the job found me, and I believe it's an answer to prayer. I'll be praying for more and more desire to bring all things to God in prayer for 2011.

"Do not be anxious about anything, but in every situation, by prayer and petition, with thanksgiving, present your requests to God. And the peace of God, which transcends all understanding, will guard your hearts and your minds in Christ Jesus." Phillipians 4:6-7

Christmas Countdown 2010 - #6

2010-12-21T11:14:00.006-06:00

On this first day of winter, the anticipation of Christmas is high! I can hear the wind kicking up and we have snow in the forecast. As much as we love a white Christmas, we're praying that harsh weather won't spoil our plans in the coming days, as it has been doing all over the world according to the morning news. Hope they all get home for Christmas!

Cookie baking is done and this may well be a new favorite this year - cranberry orange shortbread. Here's the link to the recipe. One caveat for this link - when I tried to change the quantity for these to make a half recipe, only the first few ingredients were halved by the adjustment tool. The flour, and ingredients listed after flour, were still displayed in the original amounts. Luckily it was very obvious that the dough was way too dry and I found the error when I looked at the adjusted recipe more closely. I just added more butter, etc. and the dough was rescued. These are so tasty that it's not too much of a burden to have ended up with a whole recipe instead of half! The slice and bake feature is great since you can make the dough when you have all the ingredients out for other cookies, then pop them in the fridge until you're ready for them.

Another new cookie this year are these peppermint snowballs. These were NOT easy to make, but I have to admit after grumbling during the process, that they might be worth the trouble! I did make one change, which was using peppermint extract in place of the vanilla extract. The bottom picture shows them mid-process, when the cream cheese/powdered sugar/crushed candy cane filling has been plopped into them. The next step involves covering the filling with another little piece of dough, then rolling them in more powdered sugar and crushed candy - tedious...but these are so tender and buttery and minty, ahhh.

Two tips for cookie making that will make a big difference - use quality ingredients, including butter when it calls for butter, and don't over-bake them! Be brave and take them out just before you think they're done. They will continue setting up after they come out of the oven and you will have moist, tender cookies!

And while we're talking about food, here is what we got in the mail this week - this cute little Santa gift box, filled with my mother's peanut brittle! She said she wasn't going to send any since we had the treat of my uncle's peanut brittle, but in the end she couldn't resist sending some to us since I think my husband may be the most adamant fan of her brittle that has ever lived!! Many times she has sent him his own private stash for his birthday too!

Another gift that went under our tree this week is this wonderful book! Twelve Days of Christmas in Iowa, by Susan Cornelison. I saw this at my aunt's house and immediately badgered her to tell me where I could get one, to which she replied that she had purchased all of them that the store had, and one of them was intended as our Christmas present - ha! I may have spoiled her plan to wrap it and present it, but is was a great surprise nevertheless and she obviously knows she made a good choice in gifts! Thank you so much! In case you don't live in Iowa, here's a link for more of these Twelve Days of Christmas state books.

This will end my Christmas countdown posts as we are headed into some wonderful days together, and laptops need to be stashed for a while! We will enjoy a Mannheim Steamroller concert tonight, Christmas Eve lunch with my grandmother, an evening Lessons and Carols service with our church family (followed by a cookie feast!), time spent at home cooking Duck a l'Orange and opening gifts, and joyfully praising God for the greatest gift of all! Merry Christmas!

"O Star of wonder, star of night
Star with royal beauty bright
Westward leading, still proceeding
Guide us to Thy perfect light."
Hopkins, 1857

Christmas Countdown 2010 - #5

2010-12-17T22:31:00.002-06:00

Christmas brings out the creative side in many people. I always wonder why I didn't start making things sooner, since I never fail to have more ideas than time in the end. I think I'll start using my Outlook calendar to tweak my crafty bones around September or so. That's not too over the top is it?!
This gift was put together for the inevitable office gift exchange in my DH's department. We came up with a homemade loaf of bread, wrapped in a vintage kitchen towel, and a jar of cherry preserves from Trader Joe's. The saying goes that you should give something you'd like to receive, so hopefully the "giftee" likes what we do!

A much more skilled crafter than I made this ornament and gave it to us at our recent "Dinner for 10" gathering. This is the art of Scherenschnitte, a German paper cutting craft. Our friend made one for each family and this one was chosen for us because of our gardening habit! You can see the tulip and bird features - very thoughtful and beautifully done. Thank you again!

Here's a box full of bookmarks that I made for the residents at my Grandmother's nursing home. I recycled Christmas cards from years past to make these. Simply cut them down to size and back them with card stock if the paper is too flimsy. Then punch a hole, tie the ribbon at the top, and glue on a sequin for a little holiday bling. It was a lot of fun to make these and I had 35 of them done in about three hours.

We took the bookmarks down to the nursing home when we attended the residents' Christmas party, and we had a really delightful afternoon. The entertainment was a group of women and men from the area who sang with gusto and were thoroughly charming! The little lady standing in front of the choir is a poet, who's had seven poetry books published. They incorporated one of her Christmas poems into the program and after she recited each stanza, they sang a song linked to it - very clever touch! The staff graciously served homemade cookies, candy, and punch, and a jolly Santa made the rounds. Best of all, we had a great visit with a very special aunt and uncle and of course a very special visit with Grandma, who was smiling more than usual!

"Joy to the world, the Savior reigns!
Let men their songs employ..."
Isaac Watts

Christmas Countdown 2010 - #4

2010-12-13T21:29:00.005-06:00

Before our weekend blizzard was totally over the top, my aunt and I went on the annual Holiday Homes Tour in our town. I should say that once more she treated me to the tour - thank you again! We managed to visit 5 of the 7 stops before my DH called and politely asked me to get my tookus home as the storm was really ramping up!!! We saw everything from new homes, to several Victorian homes...

...to this refurbished historical newspaper building, that has now become an art studio and home to some industrious folks.

The homeowners go all out to decorate for the tour, and this little vignette at the top of a stairway is one example of the way they pull out all the stops for this fundraiser. Nice job!

The storm was also a good reason to keep going on the cookie baking. I've been baking cookies for about 40 years now - and yes, I did start when I was a kid! It's one of my favorite Christmas activities. So far I've accomplished chocolate-butterscotch peanut clusters, lemon sugar cookies, and strawberry thumbprints. A few more to go.

I've been collecting tins for a number of years and some are used each Christmas for storing and freezing Christmas cookies. You can see the one from 1996, which is a testament to how well these things hold up! When I was still living at home, I would super-wrap each tin of cookies to make sure no one got into them before Christmas Eve - such a cookie dictator!

Other people are making holiday treats around us too. Our local cupcake shop made this peppermint cupcake and my DH felt compelled to bring it home - yum!

And last but not least - where did all the new holiday beers come from? There's either a recent explosion of interest or I've been in the dark for a while, which is entirely possible. The increase in microbreweries could be an explanation as well. Whatever the reason, we're on board! The one on the left is my favorite so far and is one of several raspberry beers we found for sale.

There is no good segue from holiday beers to the fact that this is the third week in Advent - at least none that comes to mind at 9:00 at night!! But in fact, we are preparing our hearts as well as our home and larder.

"People, look east. The time is near
Of the crowning of the year.
Make your house fair as you are able,
Trim the hearth and set the table.
People, look east and sing today:
Love, the Guest is on the way."
Farjeon 1928

Christmas Countdown 2010 - #3

2010-12-11T09:27:00.002-06:00

More Christmas tasks were accomplished this week.
The cards are mailed. It seems like an archaic practice, but there is still something nice about receiving hand written notes, and even Christmas letters and pictures from people we don't see often. Each year when I go through my list and address book, I'm amazed at how much people's lives change in a year.

Our post office is full of beautiful vintage mail boxes. Look on E-bay if you want to know how collectible these are - good grief it's amazing what people purchase!

Packages are mailed too. Some years it seems like the right thing to do to order everything online and have it mailed, but for some reason this year it felt better to pick things out and mail them off. I have great childhood memories of receiving packages from our relatives with mystery gifts inside. Those boxes held everything from hand-crocheted Christmas wreaths to Batman horns for bikes!

In a couple of those boxes that we mailed were some cookies called Ginger Thins.
This is what the dough block looks like before it goes into the freezer for a little while. After freezing it gets cut into very thin slices, sprinkled with sugar, and baked.

There are certain people in our family who are slightly addicted to these, and you know who you are. You'll have to let us know if they arrived in nice little stacks or stacks of crumbs!

Something that WE received in the mail was an early Christmas present from my mom. New pans! Look at these lovelies.
They are hard anodized pans, which have enough weight to keep the food from scorching and the non-stick is excellent. I know we could have waited to open the pans, but then we'd have missed out on the enjoyment of using them for all the holiday meals - that's my justification!

With all of this said, it's important to note that our spirit of giving reaches beyond the "toys" purchased for one another at Christmas time. This season heightens our awareness of the need all around us, and that's a good effect. Whether you choose local ministries, our brave soldiers and their families, or a world-wide project, I pray that your heart will be blessed and the Lord will be glorified by your gifts!

"Go, tell it on the mountain,
Over the hills and everywhere
Go, tell it on the mountain,
That Jesus Christ is born."
John W. Work 1865

Christmas Countdown 2010 - #2

2010-12-09T15:12:00.001-06:00

Of course holiday food has been happening around here. We've had a couple of gatherings that called for festive eats and a few more to come. There are some favorite things that I can only make when we're going to a large gathering and cheesecake is one of those things - baking a cheesecake for two is a little much! This cheesecake started with gingerbread flavored grahams (hope you have them in your store since they are yummy!) and some fresh cranberries.

What is it about that graham cracker crust pressed into a pan that is so comforting?! I bought a really nice set of nesting, spring form pans from WalMart. Wilton makes them and it's an 8, 9, and 10 inch set. Nice and sturdy too.

This is a Cranberry Swirl Cheesecake and you make a fresh cranberry jelly to be swirled into the cheese mixture. The recipe is from the Joy of Baking site and the only ingredient change I made was using the gingerbread flavored grahams.

I also cooked it a little longer than the recipe suggested, but then again it could have been because a certain hungry husband was opening and closing the oven to cook sweet potato fries - ha! This is a softer set cheesecake so it was a little tricky to tell when to take it out, but it worked out just fine. I totally blew taking a final product picture, and it was wiped out at the luncheon, so no chance to photograph leftovers either! That's a good thing though, and now that I know I have a cheesecake audience, I think I'll make a habit of baking these desserts!

On to more decadence - the infamous ham ball! This recipe came from Taste of Home, and these went to the luncheon as well.
If you're not from Iowa, you may not have the courage to look at this recipe. If you're from pork country and ever had the privilege of sitting down to these at Grandma's table, then go for it and count it as a once-in-a-while treat! By the way, I made half of this recipe and got 35 ham balls - whew, that's a lot of porky goodness!

Sometimes it's good to keep it simple too. We had my dear aunt and uncle over for soup last Sunday evening, on the spur of the moment.
For dessert, I served peppermint Oreos, ice cream, and homemade chocolate sauce. The recipe is from Real Simple Magazine - 2/09. It absolutely could not be easier, but what a nice treat to serve!
1/4 C sugar
3 Tbs. cocoa powder
1/4 C water
Combine all ingredients in a small sauce pan and bring to a boil.
Reduce heat, simmer and stir until slightly thickened (2-3 min.).
Let cool slightly before serving.

I miss my far-away family today. I wish I was cooking for all of you too! You're all in our prayers and I thank God for you every day.

"Now to the Lord sing praises, All you within this place,
And with true love and brotherhood Each other now embrace..."

Christmas Countdown 2010 - #1

2010-12-07T13:24:00.002-06:00

It's already the second week in Advent and just a little snow has been flying around our frozen pond. Last year I did a countdown in December, blogging about what I was doing for Christmas preparation each week, and it kept me motivated to get tasks accomplished and excited about all the aspects I love about the season. So once again...here goes!

As you can read from the sign above, we visited a nearby tree farm. We kind of alternate between a live tree and a fake one. Today I heard some new trivia about the ritual of cutting down a tree for Christmas. Cutting it down and then raising it back up is symbolic of the resurrection?? Anyone else ever heard that?

Above the rack of saws, they had a nice sign to help you identify the different kinds of trees.

With the rather dull saw and a tree cart, we set out in the wind and cold, and I mean wind chill of 18 kind of cold. Never fails for us when we go tree hunting! We trekked out down the hill, up a ridge, back down, back up the other side and of course, the one we finally decided on was about 25 feet from the car!
Here's the part of the tree harvesting experience that involves the man getting to lay down on the frozen ground and crawl under the tree in order to wrench his back while hacking through the trunk - fun stuff! This is a Concolor fir, with slightly blue tinge to the needles, and it smells like pine and an orange grove combined. Just lovely!

We hauled it back to the barn where it went through the netting machine, kind of a violent process!

Then it goes on the measuring block - this one 61/2 feet tall.

Then onto the car and home, blanket flapping all the way and cars in rush hour behind us with little patience for those people driving too slowly - Ho, Ho, Ho!

Here it is inside, decorating in progress. It is truly one of our favorite trees in many years.

Hope your home is looking merry and bright! "Come, Thou long expected Jesus
Born to set Thy people free..." Wesley 1745

Maine Time

2010-12-02T01:04:00.030-06:00

It's already Dec. 2nd and time to turn on the Christmas! I need to change the look of the blog for the season, but not until I post the pics from our Thanksgiving trip to Maine. It was wonderful in every way - well the TSA experience for my husband was a little too friendly, but other than that, all was very good!

Here's what we did...
Thanksgiving Day we started with brunch, and these kids thought it was high time to get started!

Then at mid-afternoon, we had just a little more food to sustain us.

Mmmm...this was Brie baked with almonds and cranberries - just so we wouldn't fade away before the main meal.

In between feeds, some of the little and big boys played a game of Koob. It's described on the link as a traditional Viking game. It involves throwing batons in order to try and knock over your opponents koobs, and then knock over the king piece in the middle. It reminded me a little of chess. My DH plans to make our own set as it was really enjoyable.

Now, back to the eating.

The turkey came from Trader Joe's, pre-brined and delicious. I still like putting sage under the skin and more went inside, along with apple and onion. So tasty!

This guy carved, as usual. He borrowed an apron from our friends' youngest son, and it's embellished with a declaration that this is a "MANLY MAN'S" apron - ha!

And then there was the rest of the food, just your everyday fare like sour cream mashed potatoes, orange-zested green beans, stuffing with apples and sausage, and an amazingly innovative cranberry sauce made with raspberry beer - OH so good! I forgot to photograph the pies, which is a shame since my friend J is a wonderful pie baker. Two of the pies were made from pumpkins they grew, and another was an Iowa favorite of her husband, which was a sour cream raisin pie with meringue topping - don't judge yet, just try it sometime, because it was awesome!

We spent time with old friends and made new friends. The littlest beautiful blond in this photo is a new friend, and she thoroughly charmed us! At one point I gave her my camera and she went to town. Not bad for a toddler!

oops!

You can tell that this little one's picture-taking escapades delighted everyone! We had another photographer take pictures of our DD while in Maine. She's Bonnie Harrison, and looking through her photos on her website is a treat. She's an amazing professional photographer, with a very humble spirit, and she's a friend who has taken photos for us before, and was kind enough to fit us in while we were visiting. More on this later!

We were so blessed by wonderful music and singing that day as well! Our friend J is a concert violist and I had been longing to hear her play again. These two ladies were fantastic!

The day came to a close with a flurry of men in the kitchen, cleaning up the aftermath - a beautiful thing..

and final conversations and good-byes. A day for gratitude in every sense.

And now, how do you think we started the next day???
Eating of course! Thanksgiving leftovers qualify as proper breakfast when you put them on a cranberry bagel - right?!

This picture reminds me of a certain style of joke - How many men does it take to figure out how to use a milk frother?!!!

Later in the day we made this clam chowder pizza, which you can see being made in this Hulu video of a "Chef's Kitchen" episode, that just happened to be one of the episodes that highlighted the amazing oil paintings of our friend Jonathan Eiten!

We ended our time with these dear people at a restaurant of course! Here, their oldest son is power-eating his waffles, but he was eating those only to balance out his bacon consumption - oink, oink!
We had a last chance to cuddle and play games.

And capture one last photo of this dear couple and their goofy, wonderful boys! You can see the three of us looking at them in the reflection in the window. This came just before the tearful goodbye - they filled up our hearts and made us glad!

Before our plane departed for home, we had the chance to visit the Old Port in downtown Portland. It's gotten even more charming since we left and the shopping is just as nice as the scenery!
The stores held some delightful things like these "stained glass" earrings.

And yes, we did eat more! Lobster was an essential and my DH thought he'd better play it safe and get two!

Our DD had a good visit with one of her best friends. The lighthouse in these shots is unofficially known as "Plug Light" because of it's resemblance to a spark plug. It's actually Spring Point Ledge Light Station and the "windows" in this wall nearby the light are part of the structure of Fort Prebble.

Goodbye until next time Maine. We thank you Lord for all the ways you changed and blessed our family while living there, and again with our Thanksgiving visit.

"I have come into the world as a light, so that no one who believes in me should stay in darkness." John 12:46

Long Winter's Nap

2010-11-23T14:42:00.002-06:00

We are finished with outdoor work for the year! Good and bad. We'll miss the pleasure of watching everything grow and change, and we'll certainly miss harvesting vegetables and flowers. These pansies were living in pots on the porch with our other fall decorations, and now they're planted in our front beds where the marigolds once stood. Our understanding is that they will winter over and come back in the spring.

With the mulch and hay applied to some of the more tender plants in the front, we're officially leaving behind the watering, weeding, pruning, transplanting, and deer repelling for the season...nice to take a little break. However, the deer repelling might have to continue. They tend to sleep in our yard in the winter and occasionally wander up to have snack of Euonymous bush. But I won't rant on the deer issue around here while I'm enjoying watching the 6 point buck strolling through the back yard.

I took this photo from a much greater distance than what my camera could handle, and then when I applied the "saturation" effect to the picture, it ended up looking more like a water color. This happened last summer as well with a blue heron on our pond. I like it!

While out pruning and raking this weekend, we came across dozens of these little wonders. They're curled up and trying to nap under any dark, damp area for the winter. These are Wooly Bear caterpillars and they turn into Isabella Tiger moths in the spring. Wouldn't it be fun to be the one who names these critters?! These are the caterpillars that folklore hails as the predictors of the coming winter weather. Here's a fun video link that talks about the history of this tradition.

As we approach Thanksgiving, I can't help but think about the celebrations that have come before our time. Below is the first portion of George Washington's Thanksgiving Proclamation. This link is a place to read Abraham Lincoln's Thanksgiving Proclamation. Our wonderful country is in a sticky place right now, and looking to the wisdom of our forefathers is a natural path to take. May God truly bless you and your family in the coming year, and may He bless our nation with the courage to stand for what we once held more dear.

"Whereas it is the duty of all Nations to acknowledge the providence of Almighty God, to obey his will, to be grateful for his benefits, and humbly to implore his protection and favor--and whereas both Houses of Congress have by their joint Committee requested me `to recommend to the People of the United States a day of public thanksgiving and prayer to be observed by acknowledging with grateful hearts the many signal favors of Almighty God especially by affording them an opportunity peaceably to establish a form of government for their safety and happiness."

Thanksgiving 2005

2010-11-16T12:40:00.018-06:00

This is a picture of a dear friend, her mother, and one of her brothers on Thanksgiving morning 2005. That was the last time we spent the holiday with them, since we moved to Iowa 9 months later. We're so blessed to be going back there this year to have another wonderful time of fellowship and celebration with them! In 2005, I took pictures that I then processed through a photo program that turned the photos into cartoon-type pictures. Here is the above photo in cartoon form...
I just love this affect and honestly I'm not sure which program I used back then, but I plan on picking my hubby's brain later on today, and if you want to know, just contact me. These pictures remind me of something you'd see in a child's book about a New England Thanksgiving.

A celebration full of food...

family and friends...

true fellowship...

fun and childhood memories.

Dear friends, Lord willing, we'll be there soon. Making more memories!

Berry Patch Dreams

2010-11-12T10:39:00.009-06:00

Look what came in the mail this week! In these spindly looking plants lie dreams of raspberries and blackberries pouring out of our garden next year - maybe? They arrived from a very pleasant grower in Indiana named Keith. His business is called Backyard Berry Plants and he specializes in organic berry plants. It's a very old fashioned business without online ordering or credit card options. You print out your own order form, calculate your own shipping charges, and send your check. And the lack of modern purchasing practices is more than balanced by very personal and efficient customer service.

This is the fall bearing raspberry plant called Himbo Top. The fall bearing aspect might be obvious since it arrived with these beautiful berries attached! I never realized until this year that there were fall bearing raspberries, but through our food co-op we had some that were out of this world.

We purchased two Royalty Purple Raspberry plants and they will ripen in early summer. These are said to be quite prolific and quite large berries, a cross between a red raspberry and a blackberry. I love the fall foliage colors in these plants! You'll notice my hardworking hubbie in the background there, digging holes to plant these beauties while I'm snapping photos of them! Let's see now, I'll justify this by saying that I'll be the one freezing and processing the berries when they appear - yep that's a good balance I think!

The last plant we bought is a blackberry called Triple Crown. It's a prolific producer and thorn-free - ahh! It typically is ready to harvest from July to August. If we've chosen well and providence is on our side, we could have a nice long berry season.

This tangle is part of our developing asparagus bed. We cut it all back this week and really hope that it will produce next year. An asparagus bed takes a few years to get it's act together, but oh my the payoff. It would be so lovely to have fresh asparagus that didn't cost 5.99 a pound!

The garden is put to bed now. The last of the lettuce and greens were harvested - aren't you relieved that I won't post about those anymore!! And as my DH said on the way into the house just before sunset, "It's almost time to start ordering seeds for next year." For now I'll enjoy the beautiful season upon us."The exuberance of spring is over, and the rich ripeness of summer is gone. The extravagant beauty of October fades into the sober hue of November, and once more the trees will lift intricate patterns of dark branches against a soft pale sky."

Gladys Taber - Country Chronicle, 1974

Let us Give Thanks for Lettuce!

2010-11-08T13:10:00.012-06:00

I know I'm being a total dork for being so excited about the fact that we still have lettuce growing in November, but I can't help myself! If you've had the disappointment of bringing home a plastic tub of organic lettuce that didn't stay fresh more than two days after you laid out too much money for it - then maybe you get excited about this idea too!

To go out and peel back the translucent plastic, that has been protecting it from 24 degree nights and CONSTANT cold winds, and harvest it for dinner, is just a thrill. Not the thrill up the leg that certain reporters who are now under investigation get - not that kind. But instead a deep satisfaction at the way a garden works and the amazing ways that God provides for our needs.

This weekend we enjoyed a Thanksgiving fellowship meal at our church and I took a lettuce salad that was harvest themed. I didn't snap a photo of it because that seemed a little over the top in the church kitchen - though I already know that my church family would not have minded in the least! The salad consisted of a layer of lettuce...

topped with sliced, fresh pearssectioned, fresh orange slicessliced almonds

and this cranberry salad dressing...

This was a really nice dressing, which starts like a fresh cranberry-orange sauce, and gets pushed through a sieve. I added walnut oil too. The recipe is here.

One more thing to be thankful for - TRADER JOE'S OPENED IN WEST DES MOINES - yeah, yeah, yeah! We went there this weekend and it was a mob scene, but an orderly one I must admit. Shelves were literally bare in some parts of the store. You think maybe people here were ready for this store to open??!!

Two Fine Sundays

2010-11-02T21:41:00.002-05:00

This little peanut was part of a fine Sunday about a week and a half ago. She is the precious newborn daughter of some sweet friends of ours. Isn't she perfect? Isn't it amazing what God does?! We enjoyed our lunch with the family and I had the thrill of holding this lovely baby for several hours. Bliss!

The next fine Sunday included a party at our house to celebrate Reformation Day with our church. About 50 people came to enjoy some wonderful fellowship!

Reformation Day fell on Halloween this year, but in Iowa, the trick-or-treating usually happens on the night of the 30th, so no children were denied candy!

Set up started the day before when some hearty souls came down with a load of wood and built this classic bonfire structure. I must confess I did have a moment of fear when I saw this monster, but these guys were experienced bonfire builders, and we knew the garden hose and a fire extinguisher were going to be nearby!

The first annual soup/chili cook-off took place at this gathering. And yep, we did indeed blow a circuit a couple of times due to the line up of crock-pots and the coffee and hot water urns! We eventually got it figured out and no one ate cold soup!

This soup ladle was awarded to the first prize winner who made a delicious Bacon-Cheese Potato Soup. We had a great variety of fantastic soups, including Pumpkin Soup, Black Bean Chili, and Chicken Posole with lime wedges on the side. Good cooks!

Also on the menu were hot dogs and hamburgers, expertly cooked by my DH. Even with the pesky wind playing with the grill, he did a valiant job!

And of course every good gathering needs a few desserts!
This is a flat apple pie - yummy! - and here's the link to the recipe from The Splendid Table. Add to this a little chocolate and a little cupcake and you have a happy mix.

At the end...4 brownies left, and nothing else. Perfect for me since I love to bake these goodies and don't want to have them left in the house - ha!

It was really interesting to stand out in the yard and take pictures back toward the house. I have to admit that in the 4 years we've been here, we haven't utilized our home for this kind of gathering as much as we would have liked. My DH has done lots of sprucing up in our outdoor spaces and it was very satisfying to be able to enjoy it so much.

And now back to the bonfire - it was the main attraction after all!

It was a chilly day and the warmth from the fire was even a comfort all the way up on the deck!

It kept our pastor warm as he led us in a few minutes of devotion and song.

And kept the listeners warm too.

"Therefore let us be grateful for receiving a kingdom that cannot be shaken, and thus let us offer to God acceptable worship, with reverence and awe, for our God is a consuming fire."
Hebrews 12:28-29

Amen!

Cornucopia

2010-10-27T14:11:00.000-05:00

We've been thoroughly enjoying cooking with all of our fall harvest. Here's the soup I mentioned in the last post. I used some beautiful kale in this soup, along with newly harvested potatoes, organic Italian sausage, and organic no-nitrate bacon - all from our food coop, all from local sources and Iowa producers. The recipe is at this link.

This little surprise came from our compost bin! We picked it thinking it was not quite ripe, but also thinking that the frost would get it soon. It stayed in the kitchen for about a week, since neither of us was quite brave enough to cut it open and look inside! When we finally did, as you can see, it was perfectly ripe and a vibrant orange. I think a little seed saving is in order here!

We've harvested more beautiful tatsoi...

...and this time I very simply sauteed it with elephant garlic and chopped tomatoes in a little leftover bacon fat. If your hair stood on end when I said that I cooked this in bacon fat, read this article from Food and Wine. You'll learn a little truth about lard, and it also has a good explanation of the evils that lurk within hydrogenated fats. We've really been sold a bill of goods in the past several decades.

And finally, meet our newest neighbors!
Aren't they lovely? The four of them just appeared in our neighbor's pasture on Sunday morning, and they have been so nice to watch.

We're getting ready for a fall party here this coming Sunday, Lord willing and the weather holding. Be back to posting after that!

Still Harvesting!

2010-10-23T12:43:00.010-05:00

These gorgeous fall vegetables have come to us this week from our food coop! We've had a very warm and fairly dry autumn in Iowa, and the growing season has been nicely prolonged. In case you don't recognize that leafy green in the picture, it's kale. Specifically "Winterbore" kale from The Homestead farm, which is an amazing place that combines farming and caring for those with autism. It's an inspiring read, so I encourage you to click on the link. I plan to make an Italian soup with the kale, and I'll post that recipe in a couple of days.

Another harvest source, recently discovered, is this self-serve vegetable cart which is just a few miles from us. We passed it on the way home from our visit to our daughter, and even though I was on the phone with my mother at the time, I still caught the "fresh eggs" sign and asked my DH to turn around and go back! We've now visited them twice and they're on our radar for sure.

These gorgeous fall tomatoes were on the cart along with some lovely green peppers and pumpkins. The eggs we purchased were small, probably from new layers, but so fresh and good. This cart is operated on the honor system. You pick what you want, add up what you owe, and slide your money into the slot in a collection box. Gotta love it.

Our favorite source for harvest, as always, is our own garden. We still have the most beautiful lettuce and tatsoi greens growing. These two bags in the picture are ready to give to friends tomorrow. DH has also taken a number of bags of greens into his office for giveaway. Nice side benefit!

Some of those tatsoi greens went into a quiche recently. We realized that the flavor of these greens is a nice cross between a spinach and a collard green flavor. I have an asparagus quiche recipe over on the recipe page. I just substituted the greens for the asparagus, and added some chopped sun-dried tomatoes and sliced red onion. This recipe, as with most of the ones I post, is adaptable to just about any combination you can imagine.

Cool weather, comfort food, it's time!

The Rest of The Story

2010-10-19T13:04:00.012-05:00

We took another trip up to our DD's college this past weekend. Our last Parents Weekend - that happened fast! It was truly the best one ever. Mostly we go to see this choir sing. They're great. Our girl is the one in the upper center of the top pic. Yes, I cut off her mouth in the photo, but there is only so much you can do in a packed performance hall - that's my excuse. We got to see some dear friends from Maine who were on campus for the week and as always that was precious time. We also had the privilege of spending time with our daughter's roomies - fantastic girls who have loads of personality and laugh easily - such a good combination! We also took in a movie and a hockey game while we were there - they were playing against my alma mater - strange coincidence!

Now for the rest of the story of our PA trip. We were only an hour from the town where my husband's mother grew up. Much of her childhood history is unknown to us because she and her siblings were orphaned at a young age. But we do know that she was from Lititz, PA, which is a very charming, beautifully preserved, historic town. On the afternoon of our last day in PA, we took a quick trip over and we were so glad we did.
This town of Lititz was settled by Moravian people, and you can see it in the beautiful architecture all over town. This was home to a very industrious group of folks, manufacturing all sorts of things, and even John Sutter of gold rush fame hailed from Lititz. We had dinner at the historic General Sutter Inn, and our meal included an incredible macaroni and cheese with lobster - ohhhhh!

We took two tours in Lititz, and came home with these lovely goodies!

The Julius Sturgis Pretzel Bakery is one of the well known businesses in Lititz. It's now on the National Historic Registry. The current Sturgis in charge is Tom, which explains why his name is now on the pretzel bag. This has been a strictly family business.
They were the first ones to bake crunchy pretzels as well as soft pretzels, and the crunchy ones were sent in barrels to the soldiers in the Civil War.

We took the factory tour and made pretzels the way they did in the earlier days of the company, and of course we were awarded a goofy certificate for our efforts!

We also got a close up look at the old ovens that were once used - really beautiful. Our guide told us that it took at least two days to get the pretzels crunchy and even longer when it was humid. In an effort to control the quality of their pretzels and to avoid preservatives, they have maintained their original decision to keep their distribution local, so unfortunately we can only order them online. They really are unique in flavor, and worth taking the trouble to order.

Another company well known in these parts is the Wilbur Chocolate Company, which had the wisdom to flood their chocolate scent outside into the streets surrounding them, therefore making it impossible to pass them by! They were celebrating 125 years in business.

There was also a museum in this building and this room was full of chocolate molds and candy making equipment. Notice the HUGE chocolate Santa mold hanging on the wall! One of the things we purchased here was a book written about the history of Lititz, and one of the fudge makers at Wilbur was the author. Our cashier told us to head back there and get her to sign the book, so my husband did that and was able to chat with her a little about the orphanage as well. Nice benefit!

These little candies are called Wilbur Buds, and they have been well known in this part of the country for many years, and yes they are in competition with Hershey's Kisses! There is some dispute about who came up with the shape first. You can see here that there is a charming swirled design on the bottom, which spells out the name Wilbur. Regardless of who invented this shape first, my opinion is that these are a world apart from Hershey's Kisses - these are very rich and have the flavor of the best hot chocolate you've ever had. These pictured here are their dark chocolate, and they get my vote hands down! These too are available to order from them, or several other old fashioned catalogs as well. I'll be hoping for them in my Christmas stocking - hint, hint!

As with most trips, we always try to visit at least one of Guy Fieris Diners, Drive-Ins, and Dives. On our way home, we hit pay dirt in Cleveland when we had lunch at Lucky's Cafe!
This is a lovely hippie joint that serves local and organic foods whenever possible, plus they make nearly everything from scratch!

They also have an outdoor area for eating, which is among their own raised-bed vegetable garden used for their menu. It was a gorgeous day and we thoroughly enjoyed everything from our honey sweetened lattes, to our totally homemade Reuben sandwich. Can you imagine? - homemade rye bread, home cured corned beef, homemade sauerkraut, homemade dressing - I could just about drool thinking of it! We saw the episode on TV some time ago and what a treat to get to go there!

So, the rest of the story is that even though the PA trip was a long and challenging one, as always, we were blessed by many things along the way - not the least of which was the smile on the face and the tear in the eye of a 95-year-old man as we bid him goodbye. We left him happy, by God's grace, and will always be grateful for all of these experiences.

Uncle John's Story

2010-10-14T19:11:00.004-05:00

We took a somewhat urgent trip to PA last week. My husband has recently been court appointed as personal and legal guardian of his 95-year-old uncle. John was diagnosed as a paranoid schizophrenic back in the early 1950's. He lived in PA at the time, then John's family had him committed to an institution in CA, and basically never looked back. We found papers in his files that revealed that he had attempted to sue the FBI for his "unlawful kidnapping from PA". It doesn't take much imagination to picture what that whole scene must have been like. My husband was a senior in high school before he ever knew that John existed. There were a few relatives in touch with him over the years, but for the most part, John was a ghost. In August of this year, John was found in his PA public housing apartment, suffering from heat exhaustion. He had no air conditioning, and apparently no one who was looking in on him.

John told authorities that he had no family - who can blame him for that. He was about to be declared mentally incapacitated and become the ward of a stranger, who is literally in the business of becoming guardian to people who have no one else. By God's grace, the lawyer presenting the case to the court, found the name of John's sister and contacted her children. Emails were then passed on to other family members until it reached us. No one else before us was either able or willing to take on guardianship. Maybe our sadness over what happened to John and the fact that we had neglected to be in touch with him for a number of years made us decide that we wanted to do this for him. The legal actions already in motion came to a halt, and those in charge were all very pleased that a family member was coming forward to oversee John's needs. They surely must also have wondered what kind of jerks we all were to have let things come to this point.

We decided to drive out and get things taken care of in person - meet with the business manager of the nursing home where he now resides to get mountains of paperwork started, meet with his social worker and nurse to get and give some information, meet with the housing authorities to try and get a handle on the status of his apartment and belongings, go to the SS office to get his checks forwarded to the account we set up for him, forward his mail, and finally we intended to clean out his apartment and deal with his belongings, including taking some personal items and clothing to him.

Now the story takes another uglier turn. We should have guessed that a surprise was in store for us when the housing agent showed us to the door and then made a beeline back to her office, turning and saying over her shoulder - "Good luck". Hmm? My husband had to shove the door open because in the 3x3 entryway, was a mountain of mail that had been pushed through the mail slot. The first thought was simply that it had accumulated while he'd been hospitalized, but then the rest of the apartment comes into view, and you see the shocking truth that John had become a hoarder. It would not be an exaggeration to say that all the mail he has received since moving in there 6 years ago, is all still there. Piles, upon piles, upon piles of mail fill his first floor. There are other collections as well, like plastic bags, but mostly it's mail...and a complete infestation of roaches - big ones, little ones, living and dead. It's hard to imagine the last time there was any cleaning done. Miraculously there was no smell - and I think I really do mean miraculously, or in other words by the grace of God, or we would not have been able to go in at all. After taking it all in, it appears that when John was moved into this two-story apartment at age 89, his belongings were moved in for him and placed mostly in the front room - boxes of books, empty shelves, six large file cabinets, three metal lockers, and a large stack of his own oil paintings, which were still packaged up and leaning against a wall. Apparently John either couldn't or wouldn't unpack and settle in to this new place. John had lived in his previous apartment since 1973, and that is where we last visited him. Our daughter was 3 at the time and she even has memory of his cozy little set-up there. He was a fine host and had gone to his local health food store for nuts and fruits and other healthy snacks for our visit. We may never understand the reasons for moving an 89-year-old man from that apartment to a two-story home, with his bathroom and bedroom on the second floor. Had any of us been in touch with him, maybe we could have read between the lines of his incoherent rambling letters, and figured out what was going on?? But then the next question is would we have done something about it? I'm not trying to drive home that his family are horrible people - not at all. I am trying to drive home that we are all guilty of living in our own self-absorbed little worlds and easily casting off responsibility for one another. Not really my problem - right?

Donning gloves and masks, we went back to the apartment the next day to retrieve banking records and any other papers that could help us comply with court orders and the requirements of the nursing home. We were able to retrieve a few personal belongings, and sort through enough mail to be satisfied that we had the most current information. My husband discovered in one of the file cabinets, that John had saved all of our correspondence with him in a folder with our name. Included were Valentines that our daughter had made for him in her elementary years - the red construction paper and purple crayon type of Valentine, the kind that make you shed a tear no matter where you uncover them, but particularly when you find them carefully filed away in the possessions of a lonely, isolated, 95-year-old uncle.

In the end, because of the horrible condition of his apartment and everything in it, we needed to buy him an entirely new wardrobe, from socks to winter coat. He had nothing with him at the nursing home outside of a belt, and he was wearing a hospital gown. We were able to take two of his paintings to him to be hung in his room, and we gave him a bright blanket for his bed and a bulletin board to hang pictures and cards that WILL be coming to him from here on out. Now that we're back home, my husband has been diligently filing paperwork, faxing forms, and basically jumping through countless hoops so that we can properly look after John's affairs. It does not feel like a burden in any way though, it is a privilege to help him. We've already gotten one phone call from the nursing home to let us know that he scraped up his knee in an attempt to move himself around in his room. It is strangely comforting to know that John now has my husband to take these phone calls, and will now be less invisible in the world.

Uncle John's story as told here is what we know from our trip, what we've been told in the past, and what we've experienced in our contact with him. There are likely other versions and other facts that we don't know. Over the years, John has certainly had family that cared about him even though it may have been from a distance, but mostly we entrusted John's care to "the system", which failed him. Even in "the system" there are people who care about John, but as we can see all over this country, "the system" is not capable of replacing the care and love we are commanded to have for one another.

"Teacher, which is the greatest commandment in the Law?" Jesus replied: " 'Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind.' This is the first and greatest commandment. And the second is like it:
Love your neighbor as yourself.'

Applesauce to Apple Butter

2010-10-03T18:53:00.009-05:00

My DH truly loves apple butter, so how can I say no to his request that we make this seasonal favorite?! I can make it less tedious though, by using the crock-pot and if you haven't tried it, I hope you will. If you have one of those cookbooks that comes with a crock-pot, you will likely find a recipe in your book. If not, here is a link to a site that gives some good basic instructions.

I started with 2 quarts of applesauce that I made the day before and added some apple cider, since my crock-pot recipe indicated a wetter applesauce as a base. The proportions suggested were these:

for each pint of applesauce, add 1 C of sugar, 1 tsp. cinnamon,
1/2 tsp. allspice, and 1/2 tsp. ground cloves

I was a little reluctant to add so much sugar and added only 3/4 of what was called for. After letting it cook for a while, I tasted it and realized that it did need the rest of the sugar. I also used part brown sugar and part white sugar. There's a lot of variation in the seasoning too, so you'll have to decide what you like. After a long cooking process - 8 hours on high - the spices for us were just right.

One of the tips I picked up was to place a splatter shield over the crock-pot once you reach the point of leaving the lid off in order to concentrate the apple butter. Saved a lot of sticky clean-up!

And here's the final reward of all the cooking and stirring! In addition to these 7 half-pints, we also had another small bowl of apple butter that we "tested" with dinner that night! Instead of processing the apple butter in the water bath canner, I decided to use my new favorite freezer jars. Much easier, but we'll have to see how the consistency compares once we thaw one out. And I have to admit that I do love the traditional look of those cute glass jars... My mother always told me I was born in the wrong century!

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Apple Butter

Windfall

2010-09-29T12:22:00.013-05:00

Our house has smelled like an apple orchard for the last two days - applesauce and apple butter - wonderful! Apples are just part of what's been rolling in lately.

Last week, in one day, this mass of produce and plants came into the house. We are so incredibly blessed to have the outlets, resources, and opportunities to get these wonderful things. Pictured here are apples for eating and apples for applesauce; gourds, squash, Indian corn, pumpkins, and mums for decorating the house inside and out; and in the little yellow bag are 5 root starts for the peony called "Shirley Temple White". About half of this windfall came from our food co-op, and the other from my favorite grocery store.

Another windfall, these two blueberry plants. We'd been searching at every nursery we came across, hoping to find another couple of blueberry bushes to plant this fall and maybe, maybe have a few blueberries next season. Who would have guessed that WalMart would have just what we wanted, and more amazingly that they would be marked down to $5 each!!!! It just seems like every plant on our wish list has practically jumped into our cart this fall - it's been a kick!

This basil plant was waiting there for us too. If you've read this blog for a while, you'll know that this purchase is evidence that I'm an incurable optimist! With a double loss this summer in our attempts to grow basil, we'll try it inside this winter and see what happens. We use it in so many things and it's ridiculously expensive to buy it in the grocery store. It's worth a go.

This is one of two beautiful yellow squash that came from LaVentosa Ranch in Clemons, IA. Usually we get amazing free-range chicken from this farm, but she's offered some great veggies lately too. I made some fantastic squash fritters with this one, and put the recipe on the recipe page.
These were fabulously good. We had them with our steaks and then the next morning they were great with over-easy eggs!

We also got another seedless watermelon from our last food co-op run. Like most of the ones we've tried this season, they were o.k., but not great. The general consensus is that the rainy summer has rendered the melons rather mild or even tasteless. If you get a mild melon or any number of other fruits, here's a cure for it - a lime and honey dressing. Just mix two parts honey to one part lime juice and you have a whole new ballgame! I have found that two tablespoons of honey to one tablespoon of lime juice is enough for a large bowl of fruit.

We've enjoyed this windfall in every way, including making the porch look festive. It will be even more colorful as the mums bloom. Hope you're enjoying this season as much as we do!

Backing into a Strawberry Bed

2010-09-23T18:46:00.002-05:00

Or, maybe I should call this post - "An unconventional (wrong) way to start a strawberry bed!" 1st - gracefully accept the huge box of free strawberry plants dug from a co-workers garden, which you did say you wanted, but weren't prepared to plant when they arrived at the office without warning -whoops.

2nd - bring them home and leave them in the garage until it's almost too late, then finally plop the mostly dead looking bunch of plants in a large planter because your wife has bugged you relentlessly to plant them and just see what happens.

3rd - be pleasantly surprised to see new growth in the spring, and let them sit on your porch in the same planter all summer long, and watch the poor neglected plant as it valiantly produces four juicy, perfect strawberries!

4th - in the fall when your peppers have stopped producing, pick all of the beautiful peppers, and pull up the plants to make room for your new strawberry bed.

5th - take the long suffering planter and plants out to a square-foot plot and plant. There are now enough runners from the original plants to literally fill up the whole bed - cause that was the plan all along OF COURSE.

6th - stand back and admire your handiwork, and dream of berries next summer - and pray that the currently falling, torrential autumn rain doesn't foil your hard work on this perfectly engineered strawberry bed.

I'm an optimist and my plan is to start looking for cute jars and lids for all that homemade strawberry rhubarb jam coming our way next season, hopefully with our own berries this time!

Cozying Up to Fall

2010-09-19T17:51:00.006-05:00

What a perfectly cozy weekend it's been here. Cool, rainy, foggy, misting. Makes us even more grateful for a warm, comfortable home. We both love this time of year when we can be outdoors without so much heat, and we have much more energy too! The garden out front is just overflowing with color. There is so much to appreciate and so many plants thriving that have been given to us as gifts. It's quite a memory maker out there!

Out back, our compost bin is overflowing too! Every year that we've used this bin (thanks to my Uncle J), we've had volunteers growing forth. This year the last bin is stuffed with tomato plants, watermelon vines, and a large pumpkin vine is out and over the bin.

And look at the beautiful gift hiding underneath all that vine! We had a lot of rain this weekend (nearly two inches here), and there is a beautiful pool of it on top of this pumpkin. I adore this pumpkin. It's called a Cinderella Pumpkin because it resembles the pumpkin that turned into Cinderella's coach - my favorite childhood movie! Not the Disney version mind you - the 1965, Lesley Ann Warren as Cinderella version, which was a Rodgers and Hammerstein musical made for T.V. We own it on VHS cassette and it's the only movie that I had to forbid my daughter from loaning out!

Here's another tangle out back in the garden. What are the odds that this will become a proper asparagus bed by next spring?? We have some research to do on this matter. There seem to be many opinions about how to handle a newly forming bed. We love asparagus and hope to make this work!

What better thing than a warm meal to end a fall weekend. These Delicious apples, which originated in our county, pair up incredibly well with a couple of good Iowa chops! These chops came from a farm in Ankeny, IA called Griffieon Family Farm - antibiotic-free, no-hormones-added pork. The apples actually came from our local "gas and go"! Our next order of apples won't be in until Thursday, and our local grocery store is closed on Sundays, so on the off chance that they would have some sliced snacking apples, my DH popped into the store and there were two beautiful, fresh apples! I posted a while back about the surprising retail finds I've discovered in a town where we've lived for four years with our eyes closed apparently!

I used a good pair of kitchen shears to help make a nice pocket in these chops and then filled them up with the stuffing.

They were truly delicious. You can find the recipe here, on the recipe page.

Yep, my old spark is returning, and I'm back to seasonal "mantlescapes". I lost my enthusiasm for several reasons this past year, but I'm happy to be back to the fun of it. Now the only thing missing from this cozy home scene - our DD. Miss you honey. xoxoxoxo

Autumn Hodgepodge

2010-09-14T16:57:00.006-05:00

The tiny fawns we've watched around our house this summer are getting bigger all the time. Wonder if their moms told them about the winter that's coming? Wonder how many of them will burrow down in our side yard and make snow beds after we've gone to sleep on cold nights? This little one is eating the wildflowers that grow around one of the many pieces of vent/septic/unknown-to-me equipment that sit alongside the house. Funny how cute the deer seem when they're not munching landscape and garden plants.

Rain is picking up again and we recently installed a gauge. I can see from inside that we had a half inch from the storm that day. We've been here for 4 years and have never really known our rain totals - which is kind of lame for people who have a big garden. Just another little tweak we've done since deciding to stay.

This is the farm field that connects to the back of our property. Each year we've been here, this farmer has grown either corn or soy. It's always interesting to watch his harvest and for the first time since we've been here, this field was done in hay. In this first shot, he's working up the cut hay into long piles along the length of the field - and there is probably a more suitable 'farmy' word for these piles - anyone? **This just in from my Dad and former farm boy - the rows of hay are called windrows!
Next the John Deere hay baler comes along and pulls the hay up into the machine, and when it's full...

... it plops a big round bale out the back. Reminds me a little of a digestive system! This was a great show to watch from our deck. This is the same farm that occasionally has a llama running around up there and where the runaway duck lives - he's the one who ended up in our backyard after he ran away over the hill during an ice storm and couldn't figure out how to get back home. We tracked down the phone number for this farm, and after several days, they came down with their duck-wrangling terriers and took ducky home - good entertainment from these folks!

It's also apple time here -yeah! These are Lurared Apples, from Berry Patch Farm, which we purchased through our food coop. I had never heard of this variety, or some of the others offered like Red Free and Chieftan.

As we normally do in the fall, we made some applesauce with these beautiful apples. I did a longish post about this process a couple of years ago, and you can see the step-by-step here.

I put my applesauce in freezer containers rather than processing it. As I've mentioned, I have a thing for new containers, and these were a great size for two or three servings of applesauce. I was happy to see that the label said these were "non-BPA" plastic containers. Anyone else mightily confused over these plastic issues? Should I lay awake at night and wonder what these evil plastic containers might be leeching into this homemade applesauce? I think I'd rather not, and instead I'm going to choose to drift off to sleep knowing that we've been blessed by another apple harvest.

"Celebrate the Feast of Harvest with the firstfruits of the crops you sow in your field. Celebrate the Feast of Ingathering at the end of the year, when you gather in your crops from the field." Exodus 23:16

What's Growing on an Iowa Acreage?

2010-09-10T16:23:00.009-05:00

I mentioned in my last post that we had decided not to move from our acreage, and that DH had put in some fall crops for the sheer pleasure of it. Pictured below is a nice crop of heirloom lettuce, and if you click on the picture to enlarge it, you'll just be able to see that a second crop is coming up too. We finally made a point of doing some succession planting!

In this shot, the succession planting is easier to see. This is tatsoi, a leafy green that grew beautifully for us last year and has done so again!

Here's the first picking/thinning of tatsoi that came into the kitchen. I think it's just a beautiful vegetable as well as tasting great and being so good for you. Like most leafy greens, these are high in beta-carotene, plus vitamins A, C, and K. Throw in a good concentration of calcium, phosphorous, iron, and potassium and you have a winner.

My first use of this nice leafy green was to simply wilt it into a pork stir-fry. It's not really worth posting the recipe since I did cheat and use a bottle of Kung Pao sauce! I browned some pork, onion, and our wonderful elephant garlic from food coop. Then I added shiitake mushrooms, frozen garden green beans, some peanuts, and the sauce. Wilting the greens on top at the last minute is as simple as placing them on top and covering your pan for a couple of minutes, then stir them in and serve right away. Obviously this could be done with any sort of stir-fry. Last year we made some great Chinese soup with tatsoi greens - this will be on this weekend's menu too!

Some other kinds of growing are going on around here too. We recently hit three fall clearance sales at different local nurseries, and added some fantastic plants to our landscape. Most of them are in place, but I'll wait to take photos when it's all in. This is a wonderful time of year to put in new plants and you just can't beat the deals. The only down side is that you may be forgoing a warranty if it's on clearance, but you have to weigh the pros and cons and consider your skill in planting - as in "What are the odds that this plant will live after I'm done wrestling it into the ground?" Pictured here are a couple of beautiful varieties of daylilies and a flat of pansies. We have one daylily plopped out front already, and it will be moved to form a trio with these two. The pansies will last throughout the fall and I'll pair those up with some mums, pumpkins, and hay bales on the porch.

We wanted three new foundation plants (the ones that get planted near the foundation of your home so that it ties into your lawn), and we had some lively discussions about what could go in there, since I'm not a fan of many of the evergreen varieties and how they would look as a backdrop to my perennials. Our daydream was that it could be holly bushes, but we never imagined we could find them. Lo and behold, there were three lovely, large bushes just waiting for us at the second nursery we visited, and they were half price - fantastic!

This next lovely bush is called a beautyberry - Early Amethyst variety. I saw one of these a couple of years ago and just fell in love with it. These purple berries just knock me out and they appear in the fall. Again, imagine my surprise to spot some of these on sale!! We placed it out front in a grouping with a smaller variegated bush and a stand of lavender from my aunt and uncle's home. The lavender was established in another location out front, and is one of many, many plants that DH has been moving around. Now that we're staying here, we are a little more picky about the overall scheme out there!

And last, but certainly not least - my hyacinth bean vine is growing!! I didn't plant it this year because DH had just re-painted the porch railings and we didn't want the plant to mess it up, plus of course - we thought we were moving. But this is a determined plant and it came up on it's own and is thriving as always. It's only been up for about 6 weeks now, but looks like it's had all summer to flourish. We'll see if it sets on any beans - may be too late for that, but I'm enjoying it anyway.

Growing on this Iowa acreage is a blessing and a joy. We are content.

Summer Goodies Continued

2010-09-05T21:10:00.002-05:00

Another nice vegetable from our food coop was this Japanese eggplant. In past years we've grown this very successfully and enjoyed using it in Eggplant Parmesan especially. I made some wonderful eggplant curry with this batch and unfortunately forgot to take a photo! But I will recommend this book - "Indian Recipes for a Healthy Heart". I've never been a bit disappointed in any recipe I've tried from this book.

These are eggplant roll-ups, for which there are a number of recipes on the internet. I decided to simply saute my seasoned eggplant slices in olive oil, drain them on paper towel, then spread on some lemon-basil goat cheese from Northern Prairie Chevre in Woodward, IA. I popped them in a 350 degree oven to warm them through just a little more. I loved them, husband not so much, but I'm the eggplant fan in the house!

Organic cucumbers and Red Sangre potatoes were also part of our last order - yes we got a lot of veggies last round!

I made another version of a cucumber tomato salad with feta cheese and put the recipe on the recipe page.

And we also had a side dish of potato, red onion, green peppers and a little bacon to go with our pork burgers with ground pork from a local farmer - Crooked Gap Farm. You can see a little of our homemade pesto peeking out from under the bun. What a great thing to put on a burger!

Just as I'm feeling the withdrawal from fresh summer veggies coming on, we have a few things coming up in our own garden. We have decided that we aren't going to leave our acreage after all, and in a sort of celebration of that, DH put in a couple of fall crops. Pictures to come!

More Summer Bounty

2010-09-01T20:58:00.001-05:00

Another couple of lovely things we got from our food coop last week were these Mars red onions and Chesnok red garlic. Both come from Sunrise farm in Woodward, IA. I've blogged about the elephant garlic from Sunrise, and these were just as perfect and tasty as the elephant garlic.

I used my mandolin cutter to slice these Mars onions for hamburgers and other recipes. Just beautiful!

One of the recipes using the thin sliced red onions was a simple crock-pot beef dish. I peeled and sliced a couple of pounds of tomatoes (given to us by a generous co-worker of DH), added a whole, sliced red onion, and a half dozen sprigs of fresh oregano to the crock-pot. (I tied the oregano sprigs together for easier retrieval at the end.) I gently stirred in one package of taco seasoning mix, and added a three pound beef chuck roast. I set the crock-pot to low and cooked it for about 9 hours. You can check your own resources to see what the minimum cooking time may be if you don't want to wait 9 hours! I took the meat out and shredded it with two forks and it was ready for soft tacos. I used a hand blender to smooth out the cooked tomatoes and onions for a sauce in which to moisten the meat. Good stuff!

Another beautiful purchase is this wonderfully fresh basil. This too came from the Divine Word Farm. This one is called "Super Sweet Chen". I purposely ordered enough to make pesto. Our efforts to grow it in a pot on the deck were disastrous but I am determined to grow my own basil again next year!

Using this basil and the garlic pictured above, I made pesto with a recipe from "Tasty Kitchen" called, Simple Pesto. I really liked the straightforward recipe and the way the author mentioned several alternatives to make this more flexible. One notable thing is that this does not require the toasting of the nuts before they are ground up. If that's an important flavor component for you, then don't forget to do it! Also pictured here are my new favorite containers - seems like I'm always finding another one! As you can see these are Ball freezer jars. These are nice and sturdy and the plastic lids screw on neatly - great little product.

We're still cooking and having fun - more to come!

Savoring the End of Summer

2010-08-30T17:31:00.002-05:00

The light is changing, the heat and humidity are beginning to subside and we were actually able to sit outdoors on Friday night and enjoy a cool evening with our friends. All signals of a season changing and there is so much to enjoy before summer's gone again! I've been trying to bring in our second bloom of roses and enjoy little bouquets as long as we can. One of our newest landscape plants is a pink and burgundy hibiscus, which has been such a pretty addition to the roses.

So many of the producer's from our food coop have been bringing in beautiful fruits and vegetables in the past couple of order cycles. I brought home a real mother lode this past week and I'll post a little each day about how we're using it all. These raspberries above are from the Berry Patch Farm where we also got our blueberries. I added these two berries to some amazing Colorado peaches and had such a good fruit crisp!

The recipe is posted over on the recipe page. It can be adapted to many different fruits, so I hope you'll try it out!

These beautiful organic, heirloom tomatoes came from Divine Word Farm in Weldon, IA. The darker red is called Black Trifle and the yellow-orange is Orange Perfection. These two in particular were incredibly flavorful.

Don't they look beautiful all sliced and ready to go on our burgers?! We enjoyed them thoroughly with some friends who came for a BBQ over the weekend. I ALMOST... enjoyed them on our burgers as much as I do on BLTs!

More to come soon!

Egg Issues

2010-08-27T13:09:00.003-05:00

Deviled Eggs are part of summer eating right? These luscious eggs in this chicken dish (made by my mom many years ago) would tempt most anyone. Except for the fact that Iowa currently has egg on it's face in regard to the enormous product recall stemming from two large chicken operations. What's your response to this recall? Stopping egg consumption is surely not the only answer since this is a staple in many people's homes and still a very inexpensive source of high quality protein. Remember that recent reports about the cholesterol issues surrounding egg consumption have been debunked, therefore, you have a nearly perfect source of protein in an egg, and it's worth fighting for some that are good quality. Take a look at this article about the positive health benefits attributed to egg consumption.

Once again we are faced with the truth about how we have to be responsible and diligent, doing everything we can to make good, safe food choices for our families. It's much easier to assume that whatever your grocery store sells must be safe, since our government has so many controls in place to ensure that safety - right? As the story unfolds, there are numerous allegations being revealed. News stories report the fact that the FDA rarely inspects these facilities, and we've seen some disturbing images and reports about just how sickening the conditions may be in facilities like this. There also seems to be some confusion about whether or not the USDA has any authority to correct problems they may find. One of the biggest eye openers for me is the number of different labels on eggs coming from the very same source. Our food supply is not nearly as diverse as we would be led to believe when we see varying brand names.

We are very blessed to have a source for eggs from "pastured" hens in our food coop. These eggs come from Novae Vitae Farm in Carlisle, IA. Many of the egg providers for our coop explain, in detail, the conditions of their farming operations and care very much about how their animals are handled. Here's what Novae Vitae says about their hens. "Our laying flock are free-range in the truest sense. They are able to forage throughout the day, weather permitting, doing what chickens were intended to do. We have had numerous customers tell us our eggs just taste better so that must be the secret."

So you don't have a food coop with numerous choices and you have concerns - What to do? Do you have a farm in reasonable distance that you could rely on? Is there a farmer's market near you - and if there is an egg vendor, can you find out how to get their eggs year-round? Is there a choice in your grocer's egg aisle that is trustworthy? Beware of labels and catch phrases however. One thing you commonly see on "high end" eggs is "free range". Mother Earth News has an excellent article about pastured vs. supposed "free-range" hens and eggs. It's really worth the time to read this article and EDUCATE YOURSELF! Here's another source of egg education in this article from "The Daily Green". Scroll about half-way down the page to read about the "free range" label, though the entire article offers some good insight and education - and more credence to the statement that you have to be your own advocate in purchasing safe, healthy food.

One final idea for safe food sources that might be in your area too. Drake University in Des Moines heads up an organization supporting local producers called "Buy Fresh, Buy Local". A simple internet search may reveal that this is in your area too. One wonderful side benefit of getting out there and making contact with people in your area who are running small farms - they are often really wonderful folks and it can be very uplifting to visit with them and learn about what they do and why. Try them - you'll like them!

Garden Goodies

2010-08-22T14:25:00.003-05:00

So many wonderful garden veggies have come our way recently and from a number of different places. These tomatoes and purple cabbage beauties came from my aunt and uncle. I made sweet and sour cabbage with the first of these cabbages. The recipe is at this link on my recipe page.

These lovely peppers came from our garden. As I've said before, this is the one successful crop from our garden this year and we're very grateful for it because...

...if you add this bowl of fresh, peeled, chopped tomatoes...

...you get to enjoy incredible stuffed peppers! This is something we look forward to each summer as peppers and tomatoes ripen in sync. Here's my recipe from the recipe page, and I did make them a little differently this year. Instead of pre-cooking the ground beef, we combined cooked rice with raw ground beef, and added an egg. Once the peppers were stuffed and the sauce was poured on top, I put a small amount of water in the bottom of the baking dish and covered the whole thing with foil. These baked at 375 for 30 minutes covered, then we sprinkled them with grated Parmesan and let them cook another 30 minutes, uncovered. The peppers were a bit softer than they needed to be, but I wanted to be sure the meat was cooked. The taste was still fantastic!

These gorgeous heirloom cherry tomatoes came through our food coop from Foxhollow Farm in Elkhart, IA. There were seven different kinds of cherry tomatoes in this little load. We kept it simple with these tomatoes and enjoyed them in a salad with feta cheese and lemon vinaigrette - wonderful!

Another item from our last coop order were some cucumbers. I had expected 3 salad cucumbers, but got a pickling variety instead. However, that gave me the chance to try making a new kind of pickle - refrigerator bread and butter pickles. This recipe makes enough pickling liquid for a gallon of pickles and I used 1/4 of the recipe to make 2 pints of pickles. They are quite tasty! If you try this method, keep in mind that this is definitely not something that will go on your shelf and last a long while. These will need to be refrigerated and eaten in a short time frame - some sources say a few weeks. You'll need to make your own decision about the shelf life, but we plan on eating them up sooner than later.

Hope you're thoroughly enjoying the good things of summer gardens. The clock is ticking and we're seeing a little leaf color change around here!

What to do with a Bucket of Blueberries

2010-08-18T07:19:00.002-05:00

This summer we've been getting these incredible blueberries by the bucket from a local farm called Berry Patch Farm, a little south of Nevada, IA. We've been purchasing the berries through our food cooperative, IFC. They have been unbelievably good quality and have a very distinct, sweet flavor. Besides eating them right from the bucket, it's been fun to find other ways to use them too.

Next easiest to eating from the bucket was floating them in our Cheerios - what a start to the day...mmmmmm.

We tried an unusual use of blueberries - baking them into cornbread. Here's the recipe from Tasty Kitchen. This was very good, not sweet, and it complimented a BBQ meal so well.

A more traditional way to enjoy the blueberries was this Blueberry Buckle recipe. Also from Tasty Kitchen, but I made some changes - substituting butter for the shortening in the cake (coconut oil would have been a good sub as well since it's more the consistency of shortening), and as usual I used whole wheat pastry flour in place of all the all-purpose flour. This is really just a blueberry coffee cake, but the name Blueberry Buckle is so much more alluring!

And when we can't hold one more berry, we freeze them for another day. We just freeze them in a single layer on cookie sheets, then dump them into freezer bags. It's especially nice to have our own frozen berries this year, since there have been reports lately of commercially frozen blueberries being one of the most likely sources of high pesticide concentration. See this article about possible links in certain pesticide treated fruits to ADHD. The more we support farms that don't use extreme methods to control pests and weeds, the more we'll have these healthier foods readily available. And for now, it's worth the effort to find the better choices.

Tonsillectomy Recovery 101

2010-08-16T08:36:00.001-05:00

Oh my, did we ever have a long week at our house! Our DD had her tonsils taken out on Monday, and while the surgery went very well, and the care she received was stellar, her recovery has been tough because of her sensitivity to both the codeine in her pain medicine, and the antibiotic prescribed for her. After 4 days of nauseating misery, she was taken off both of those, and now is dealing with only the pain in her throat. That of course is hard enough, but at least she's not doubly miserable! Here's how we handled her recovery and tried to make her as comfortable as possible. This is, of course, not medical advise, but just our solutions.

#1 - and always number one, pray - we did a great deal of it this week - and the prayers of our family and friends were a tremendous comfort to us, and we thank you all!

#2 - bring the patient's laptop to the recovery room so that she won't suffer Facebook withdrawal as the anesthesia is wearing off - after all, there are people waiting to hear how the surgery went!

#3 - set up a staging area in your kitchen, or just give the whole thing over at the start since that's what's going to happen anyway. Keep the instructions from the doctor close at hand as you will search them for clues on an hourly basis. The flashlight is essential too, since the patient will be peering into her throat on an hourly basis - and trust me, better her than you. Do yourself a favor and make notes about when you last administered each thing. It can get mixed up easily since you will be required to get up in the night and give pain meds every four hours. It's brutal, but hopefully you'll remember that you already survived middle-of-the-night infant feedings!

#4 - a new toothbrush, toothpaste and antibacterial mouth wash will be on the instruction list. You will be required to convince the patient to brush and swish three times a day, on top of dealing with pain and nausea. Special.

#5 - stock up on plenty of electrolyte drinks and know that there are lots of options other than Gatorade, which we consider to be quite nasty stuff at our house.

#6 - consider investing in this little machine which makes slushies and snow cones. Make them with the flavored electrolyte waters instead of sugar syrup and you get a double hit - icy relief and restored fluid balance.

*this slushie was dragon fruit-flavored, similar to passion fruit - not a flavor offered by Gatorade.

#7 - get out yet another electrical appliance and make smoothies, which are a way to jam a lot of nutrition into a cooling liquid - this one is mango/strawberry yogurt/banana. Swallowing will not be your patient's favorite thing to do, so make it count.

#8 - you can puree fruit and add it to pudding mixes as part of the two cups of milk required. Again, we wanted to boost the nutrition of whatever she ate. These puddings are vanilla, with the puree of a large peach added.

#9 - homemade popsicles make so much sense, and aren't exactly difficult to pull off. These were made with organic mango juice. I also used some of these in smoothies instead of ice or frozen fruit.

#10 - break out the big guns when the patient is once again smiling and laughing - though the laughing will still be considerably painful. When the daddy comes home with gourmet cupcakes, the patient will certainly smile, and will find her appetite! These are orange creamsicle, chocolate sundae, and pink champagne flavors. Our patient chose to mush up and enjoy the fudge sundae cupcake. She's lost 11 pounds this week - I think she can afford this splurge!

That's it. Except pull out all the patience you can muster and surrender to the sleeplessness. Children are a blessing from God and we'll do anything for them - including walking through a tonsillectomy with them!

Omaha Zoo

2010-08-08T20:03:00.007-05:00

We took a field trip this weekend to Omaha. Our DD finished up her summer internship so we hit the road and did some (lots) of shopping for her back to school needs, which really means clothes and shoes for student teaching. We had a fantastic meal at a "hippie" style restaurant called McFoster's Natural Kind Restaurant, plus we had another chance to meet up with my Dad and stepmom for breakfast since they're still camped out in NE, and had a nice visit with them. We also went to the Omaha Zoo. What a great zoo! You can see the giraffes behind my DD and DH - so cute - all of them! It was hotter than blazes and the frozen lemonade helped some, but we enjoyed the indoor exhibits a lot!

These guys and gals were really keeping cool! You can't tell it, but there is a little bit of snow falling on them. No wonder there were so many people camped out in front of this exhibit! And one little complaint here - why do people insist on taking strollers into VERY crowded indoor exhibits??? Why???

Our favorite exhibit was the marine tunnel where "Smiley" here and his friends were living. It was a lot of fun to stand and wait for all the different sharks, stingrays, and other fishies to swim over your head. We enjoyed this in Disney a number of years ago, but this one is lower and you feel much closer.

It was an exhausting, but fun weekend and the beginning of two weeks at home with our girl. Would you please keep her in prayers this week as she is getting her tonsils out tomorrow - ouch!

Friday in the Kitchen

2010-08-06T15:05:00.011-05:00

Happy Friday! I had quite a successful trip to the hardware store today, where I was really just looking for potting soil, a new flag, and reflector spikes for the end of the driveway. But I decided to check in the kitchen aisle of our local True Value, and what a bonanza! They will often carry a good number of canning supplies, but today they had a lot of things I've been looking for in other stores - a fine mesh strainer, nylon spoons that are not too "bendy", a smaller Pyrex measuring cup, a muffin pan that is dishwasher safe, and another of my favorite food storage containers - this one the perfect size for a batch of granola. I need to keep a little notebook to remind myself about all the local, sometimes hidden resources we have right around the corner!

Today I froze the hot peppers that came in from our garden. I've blogged before about freezing fruits and some vegetables on a cookie sheet, and then bagging them in freezer bags. For these kinds of peppers I don't do anything more than rinse, cut off the stem end, and lay on the cookie sheet. I don't bother taking out the seeds and ribs until I retrieve them from the freezer for a recipe, and the freezing makes the ribs and seeds come out very easily. Check out a resource like this one for guidelines on how to freeze various veggies and fruits.

And last but not least, this was going on in the kitchen today - Caprese salad with cherry tomatoes I picked this afternoon!! I was invited to pick a few things from my aunt and uncle's garden, and these little beauties will be heavenly with our dinner. Our DD is coming home today and is so looking forward to some fresh tomatoes! What a blessing it is to enjoy this bounty together. Caprese Salad = tomatoes, fresh mozzarella cheese, basil, olive oil, S&P

Also on this Friday, I wish my dear niece a Happy 21st Birthday! Love to you, and happy trails Kels!!

Seeing Green

2010-08-04T11:50:00.009-05:00

This beautiful Luna Moth landed on our window a couple of days ago and just stayed there a while so that I could get a shot of it with the pond in the background - wasn't that considerate of it?! This is a relatively rare moth in Iowa, and it's wingspan is usually about 4 inches - big moth!

And the other green we've seen around is in our peppers - plus a little orange as you can see. It feels so good to be picking SOMETHING from the garden! We have long green peppers, some of which have matured to orange, and we have classic bell peppers. I'll be making fajitas tonight with some of these peppers and soon I'll be making a batch of stuffed peppers - yummy! As I look over the recipe for stuffed peppers that I posted on my blog last year, it's obvious that we had a lot of tomatoes to use up too - I miss my garden!!!

Pure Joy!

2010-08-01T19:40:00.007-05:00

The first BLT of the season! Wonderful tomatoes from my uncle's garden, and applewood-smoked, nitrate free bacon from our food coop - IFC. The sweet scent of the bacon lingered for a while and was better than any perfume! Thanks for the tomatoes Uncle J and Aunt P - and thanks for a wonderful Friday evening together too.

More joy - Caramel Almond Cupcakes!! Homemade caramel frosting that has an aftertaste that can make you swoon just a little! The recipe comes from Betty Crocker, and it's a funny combination of homemade and ready-made, but the end product is sensational and perfect for our church luncheon.

I took a couple of them to my grandmother and her roommate this weekend, and had fun re-purposing side dish containers from a BBQ take-out meal. These held coleslaw originally, and were the perfect size for a cupcake! A little sticker on the top to hide the restaurant name and, Voila!

But pure joy came from looking at this shot from our visit with my grandmother, dad and stepmom. Just look at the smile on this 100-year-old face, and look at the grin on my dad's face as he looks at her! We had such a good visit, ate, and joked around together. It filled my heart and made me so incredibly grateful. My dad and stepmom came up to our place for dinner that evening too and it was great to be together. We're keeping my stepmom in our prayers tonight since her dear aunt passed away this afternoon. She and my dad gave her a lot of joy in their love, support, and care for her, and I know she gave them joy as well. Something to celebrate.

Think Happy Thoughts!

2010-07-28T13:37:00.000-05:00

It's been so hot! Stepping outside feels like you're instantly covered in a steaming, heavy blanket. But, we are blessed with air conditioning and so we stay inside a lot and think happy thoughts! Thoughts of autumn, cool nights, ahhhhh... I love summer for many reasons, but I've been a girl that hides out from the heat since I was very little - I think it's the Irish blood in me!

First happy thought - these cupcakes that we made for Father's Day. I promised a Maine friend that I would post the recipe and I've finally gotten around to figuring out how I combined and altered two recipes to get a new recipe for these. The recipe for these Lovely Lemon-filled Coconut Cupcakes is on the recipe page. Click the link here, or click the tab up-top.

Second happy thought - finding a recipe for cinnamon rolls that taste like the ones you get in the mall! But these are made in the bread machine and are much less complicated because of that. The recipe comes from a site called "Tasty Kitchen" and it's a great recipe source. This photo is obviously the uncooked rolls, and I thought they were so appealing even at this stage! The recipe also includes instructions for doing these by hand if you don't have a bread machine. They have lots of cinnamon in them and the frosting recipe is quite good, and in my DH's words - "better than just a blob of sugar on top".

Third happy thought - we continue to discover more ways to make wonderful burger toppings! These are made with our grass-feed beef and had fresh oregano added (our only thriving herb at this point - bah!), plus some Romano cheese and crushed fennel seed. The pepper and onion topping was particularly good since it involved reducing some balsamic vinegar.

I reduced about a 1/3 C of balsamic vinegar by heating it gently for around 5 minutes. It starts to look glossy on the sides of the pan when it's ready. It will thicken quite a bit once it's cooled. I ended up with about 2 Tbs. of reduced vinegar in the end. This process intensifies the flavor very nicely and also won't add unwanted liquid to the food your cooking. BTW, if the heat is too high, this will easily scorch.

Then I added the reduced balsamic to this wonderful mess of yellow peppers and red onions and heated it through for another couple of minutes. Very happy meal!

Fourth happy thought - there are more ways to eat fresh corn than just off the cob. In fact there are some really wonderful, simple salads like this one, that are fantastic. This has minced red onion, fresh basil, apple cider vinegar, oil, and S&P - that's it and it was great! I'm sure you could make these salads with frozen or canned corn but it wouldn't be the same as the creamy, sweet flavor of fresh corn. Fresh corn is definitely one of those things I DO like about summer!

Fifth and final happy thought - we have plans t to have lunch on Saturday with my grandmother, my dad and my stepmom! Grandma is 100 and spending time with her is pretty amazing, and my dad and stepmom are visiting from Colorado. Our pastor always speaks some very enriching words during his introduction of communion each Sunday. This past week he told us to look around and realize that God had given us to each other as gifts. I certainly feel that way about my family as well, and I cherish these gifts each day. Happy thoughts for sure!

Abundance

2010-07-24T17:23:00.010-05:00

We've been on a mission over the past several years to use organic, local, sustainable food as much as possible. It can be a real challenge to find this kind of food, but it's very worth the effort. Lately it's been amazing how many doors have opened for us in this area. We have about 6 reliable sources as of now and that's very exciting to us! And I have to say it's not just the knowledge that the food comes from a better source, the taste difference and quality is often markedly obvious. Here are some examples of what we've been enjoying lately:

What to do with a zucchini? I'm always surprised by this question since you can go in so many directions with it. Above are two extremes - a dark chocolate zucchini cake made from zucchini purchased at our little local farmer's market, and some grilled zucchini using a golden zucchini purchased from the same market. For grilled zucchini, we simply brush on some olive oil, sprinkle on some balsamic vinegar, season with salt and pepper and grill - love it, love it! You can also use zucchini cut in this way (thin, long planks) in place of lasagna noodles for a low carb version of lasagna. Just bake it until a fork easily pierces through the zucchini "noodles", which might be just a smidge longer than you'd bake lasagna with regular noodles.

These two items came from our food coop, IFC. Both of these are from local Iowa farms and both are fantastic. One is an old fashioned bologna ring - not related in any way to Oscar Mayer! The Griffieon Family Farm that produces this antibiotic-free, hormone-free beef bologna has been farming together since 1868. The other is soft, spreadable goat cheese or chevre, flavored with Herbs de Provence, from a goat farm called Northern Prairie Chevre, where the goats are treated like loved children! Their cheese is so rich and flavorful that you only need a little!

The variety of organic, or nearly organic meats that we can get through our coop is another marvelous thing that's hit our kitchen. We made Mediterranean Burgers with ground lamb from Prairie Hill Farm, and feta cheese, again from Northern Prairie Chevre. You can see a little piece of this incredible cheese in the top of the burger. I made them almost according to the recipe that I linked above. You can see the yogurt sauce under the tomatoes and it was made with a cucumber from our farmer's market. We chose fresh tomatoes instead of sun-dried and these too are locally grown on a hydroponic farm called Graddy's, that is pesticide free. Not a completely perfect sub for homegrown organic heirlooms, but a darn site better than something from Mexico!

And here are the VERY local buns that my DH baked for the lamb burgers. They were fresh and steamy in the bread bags when I took this photo, and they were great!

Our last IFC order included these juicy Iowa Chops, which are thick enough to stuff with plenty of corn bread stuffing. This cut of chop is very popular in this pork-loving state, and the flavor of these was amazing. Maybe it's because the people that raised this hog on Crooked Gap Farm believe that pigs should be allowed to graze, root, and wallow rather than being kept in a stinking hog confinement! It doesn't take much imagination to realize that this would have a big impact on the taste.

Those wonderful chops were served with this wonderful corn! Again this year we're blessed with produce that my aunt and uncle share from their big garden here in our town. This was corn that they warned was nearly overripe and might not be quite as good as it should be - are you kidding me????!!!! It was out of this world.

They also shared these lovely red onions from their garden, and these two ended up on a homemade pizza. The flavor of an onion that you pull from the ground and use in short order, is hard to compare to anything else!

Sunrise producers is part of IFC, and they grow this elephant garlic. The nice packaging is a clue about how good it's going to be! I was volunteering at the pick-up site the day this was brought in and I loved how proud this grower was of his garlic. He truly loves what he does and it shows in the way he operates. Elephant garlic is not a true garlic, but part of the onion family. It has a distinct, mild garlic flavor that is so appealing. The clove pictured here was the size of a walnut before I sliced it in half. It becomes almost sweet when it's roasted or sauteed.

These lemon, rosemary potatoes included some of that elephant garlic as well as some of the onions from my aunt and uncle. I got this dish ready for the grill by placing the sliced garlic and onions on a large piece of parchment paper, then layered on the sliced potatoes. They were seasoned with salt, pepper, lemon zest, fresh rosemary (the bit that survived our storm!), and then a mixture of olive oil and lemon juice was poured over the top. The parchment packet was surrounded with a foil pouch and onto the grill - absolutely delicious!

This last bit of abundance we can do without! No wonder we're losing the deer vs. landscape and garden battle - the critters are being born in threes now!!

We've seen mamas with twins several times, but triplets?! Have MERCY - we don't stand a chance!

Under and Over the Weather

2010-07-22T14:16:00.006-05:00

I've been suffering with a little summer crud for the past couple of days, hence no posts lately. Once I'm caught up in the kitchen - specifically getting some bread made - I'll post some pictures of the wonderful garden eating we've been doing lately and I'll post some recipes on the recipe page.

I think one of the reasons that I came down with the crud is the fact that we have been very sleep deprived lately, thanks to our ridiculous weather pattern! We are over it completely. We've had inches and inches of rain, and no less than three nights over the past week we've been jolted out of our sleep numerous times by our weather radio. We don't dare turn it off however, since we can't be sure of hearing tornado sirens from town. And we've also seen the truth of the statement put out by the National Weather Service - "these strong thunderstorms are capable of producing tornadoes with little or no warning" - so we leave the radio on and try to deal with it. One of those nights we were awakened repeatedly from 12:30AM to 3:30AM, and the end result was a run for the basement! We were told that our town had straight-line winds , but as I read the description at this link, and compared it to what happened on our porch and the huge trees that were again destroyed in town, I really wonder about whether or not we had more of a small tornado - I think the science of making this determination is a little lacking.

We had torrential rain, gusts of wind that made the roof creek, hail, and this mess on our deck. Our large, heavy grill was pulled away from the house, moved to the end of the deck, and spun around to face the opposite direction. The propane tank was tossed across the deck. The chair cushion tote was picked up and dumped, scattering the cushions as well, with one being out on the grass. And most regrettable, the lawn toy container was shot down the length of the deck, where it smashed into our herbs before it hit the railing. Bummer. Fortunately for us, our shelter and protection is greater than what we can achieve in our little old house!

He who dwells in the shelter of the Most High will abide in the shadow of the Almighty. I will say to the LORD, "My refuge and my fortress, my God, in whom I trust."

Psalm 91:1-2

Stir Crazy Day

2010-07-14T16:20:00.007-05:00

90 Degrees at 9:00 AM this morning, and a heat index this afternoon of 108 - yuck! So the blinds have been closed and I feel like I'm in a cave. That's my excuse for making this squirrely post!

The first squirrely thing to share with you are these chicken parts that came with some of our locally produced, organic chicken, that we purchased from the food cooperative that I've been blogging about - IFC. You see here the neck, the back, and another piece that I couldn't identify, so I'll call it the "cluck"! This chicken is so good, and so clean and healthy that even the throw-away pieces are beautiful. I photographed them next to some of my roses to enhance their beauty. Instead of pitching these pieces, I went to the extra little trouble of boiling them down and ended up with a quart of wonderful stock. I pulled the meat off these pieces as well and added that to the stock, though the "cluck" didn't have much to share!

The rest of the chicken pieces were put into a marinade overnight. The marinade recipe came from a cookbook called Taste of Home's Light and Tasty Annual Recipes 2005. (It's no longer available from what I can see on the internet, but the Taste of Home site has some good recipes.) It actually calls for this Sprite as an ingredient, and I thought it was funny to have it on the counter with organic Tamari (notice to my sister - it's gluten free), and organic lemon juice. I kept hearing that Sesame Street song in my head - "Two of these things belong together, two of these things are kinda the same. Can you guess which one of these doesn't belong here?..." I guess being stir crazy makes you have odd thoughts too.

Here's the chicken all tucked up in it's marinade, just waiting to be grilled tomorrow night. I'll be gone most of tomorrow, volunteering at the IFC delivery day. I'll be checking in products as they're delivered from the producers. It will be fun to meet the farmer's and growers that provide all these wonderful things to the members!

These beautiful beets are courtesy of my aunt and uncle's garden. The swirl and the deep colors are delightful aren't they? I'll be roasting them together with some Yukon Gold potatoes tomorrow, to go with the chicken. You're welcome to join us if you can stand a little squirrely behavior on the side!

Hard Working Men

2010-07-09T17:18:00.010-05:00

I love men who work hard, sweat, and get the job done! It shows quality of character. Here is my DH distributing 12 bales of hay over our big garden. Since we planted very little this year, hay was our solution to keeping the garden clean looking and free from the jungle of weeds that had overtaken it. This was some big job and the heat and hay rash on his arms was no picnic!

But just look how nice and neat it looks - and hopefully appealing to potential buyers one of these days. It'll be ready for the next owners to till under and plant!

He also got busy on this planting bed that's off our lower level patio. We've been meaning to plant here for a long time, but as anyone who's ever moved around knows, you end up doing things for a house sale that you should have done for yourself a long time ago - ugh! You can't see the plants very well in this shot, but there are three different varieties of 1 gallon plants in this bed. We got 9 plants since our local grocery store had them on sale - 3 for $10! There's no excuse for not making your house look nice at that price! And, yes, well... we won't dwell on the fact that the deer already ate and ripped up one of the plants - stinkin', stinkin' deer! Had we only remembered the final step to planting anything here - deer repellent spray!

Here's a very young, hard working man! He's our 13-year-old neighbor whom we've hired to mow our lawn this summer. This has saved my DH so much time, and frees him up to do the million and one other projects on his check list. It takes this young neighbor several hours to mow for us, and he is very reliable and thorough. His dad supervised the mowing the first couple of times. It's a beautiful thing to see a father teach his son how to do a quality job, and to be unafraid of hard work!

Summer Salad Suppers

2010-07-06T21:30:00.003-05:00

We've been enjoying some fantastic salads this summer and I thought I'd share the pictures and recipes with my cooking-minded family and friends. One of our favorite natural grocery stores in Colorado served a three-salad plate, and that was a frequent treat for our Saturday lunch. They always had such interesting salad choices, many grain or rice based, and many vegetarian. I decided to get out some of our vegetarian style cookbooks and make those kinds of salads this summer - but I do admit that we will sometimes add some grilled chicken or shrimp to these salads! If they seem complicated at first glance, hang in there because it's worth a couple of extra steps! Under these pictures, I put a link to the recipe on the recipe page for each salad.

This is the Watermelon Salad that we had in Hawaii last year. It's from a well known restaurant, and even though I don't have their recipe, we made a list of the ingredients and got as close as we could. We love this, and even though it takes people by surprise, they have all enjoyed it.

This Pear Salad has been one of our daughter's favorite salads for some time now. We tried it out for the first time a number of years ago on some died-in-the-wool Mainers and they loved it! This photo shows the addition of fresh black raspberries, which we don't always have available, but it's a wonderful compliment if you have them. In the fall, we especially like this salad with ripe red pears - mmmmm...

This a Greek Pasta Salad that follows a basic recipe from Moosewood Restaurant Daily Special cookbook, and I made several changes and additions. Along with The Enchanted Broccoli Forest, these are two of my favorite vegetarian cookbooks. Each one is so inventive and each has excellent "from scratch" recipes. In this Greek salad, I used the olives as garnish on top, but the rich olive taste will permeate the salad more if you mix them in and let it sit for a while. With the pasta and chickpea combination, this is hearty and satisfying on it's own, but would be a good side dish as well. This is made to be served with feta cheese, which I passed separately to suit each person's preference.

Finally is this Fruited Rice and Lentil Salad with chicken. It too was inspired by a recipe in Moosewood Restaurant Daily Special cookbook. Of course, their recipe does not call for chicken! This has a fantastic dressing that pulls together the flavors of the rice and lentils with the fruit and chicken in a great way. Served with some French bread and a glass of Chardonnay, this is a complete meal and would be so easy for a sophisticated picnic!

Hope you're enjoying your summer and all the fresh fruit and veggies available!

Fine Fourth

2010-07-04T21:13:00.001-05:00

We've had our girl home for a 4-day weekend and we've had a good deal of fun, as well as a good deal of relaxation. A neighboring town had a very nice fireworks show on Saturday, and I had fun playing with the fireworks setting on my camera - clearly we need to adjust the settings, but these "arsty" shots were still enjoyable! Click on the collage to see just how "artsy" they are - ha! Must get that instruction book out again!

We took some patriotic treats to share at our church BBQ/potluck after Sunday services.

We saw Toy Story 3 - fantastic movie! Funny and touching, and incredibly entertaining. All ages can have a good belly laugh, or two, or three at this one!

We treated ourselves to some seafood at Joe's Crab Shack, which was really good, but made us miss Maine!

And we played this very clever patriotic version of Monopoly. As you move around this board, it reminds you what a great many blessings and freedoms we enjoy!

Declaration of Independence Re-visited

2010-07-02T11:45:00.008-05:00

We live in a time when our history is being distorted and re-written each and every day. These misrepresentations have been threatening our country and it's citizens for some time now. In order to lift our country from the muck and mire in which we now find ourselves, I believe it is imperative that we all go back to autobiographies, original documents, and the like, and begin relearning what these United States were founded upon. We cannot blindly listen to what we hear in the media or from the mouths of politicians, for they will inevitably bastardize and skew any piece of history that might suit their personal goals. Look, and read carefully for yourselves, and realize that we are a nation founded upon faith, and reliance upon God, and that our government is in place to serve YOU and ME! When you look at the following section from the Declaration of Independence, you begin to remember what our Founding Father's believed, and for what they were willing to fight. May God continue to bless this country and help us all to remember who He is, and who we are.

"We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable rights, that among these are life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness. That to secure these rights, governments are instituted among men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed. That whenever any form of government becomes destructive to these ends, it is the right of the people to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new government, laying its foundation on such principles and organizing its powers in such form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their safety and happiness. Prudence, indeed, will dictate that governments long established should not be changed for light and transient causes; and accordingly all experience hath shown that mankind are more disposed to suffer, while evils are sufferable, than to right themselves by abolishing the forms to which they are accustomed. But when a long train of abuses and usurpations, pursuing invariably the same object evinces a design to reduce them under absolute despotism, it is their right, it is their duty, to throw off such government, and to provide new guards for their future security. --Such has been the patient sufferance of these colonies; and such is now the necessity which constrains them to alter their former systems of government. The history of the present King of Great Britain is a history of repeated injuries and usurpations, all having in direct object the establishment of an absolute tyranny over these states."

***If you want to begin to study who these founders really were, here is the list of signers. Choose your reading sources wisely, and you will be blessed by learning what these men stood for and believed in, and what amazing sacrifices they made.

New Hampshire:
Josiah Bartlett, William Whipple, Matthew Thornton

Massachusetts:
John Hancock, Samuel Adams, John Adams, Robert Treat Paine, Elbridge Gerry

Rhode Island:
Stephen Hopkins, William Ellery

Connecticut:
Roger Sherman, Samuel Huntington, William Williams, Oliver Wolcott

New York:
William Floyd, Philip Livingston, Francis Lewis, Lewis Morris

New Jersey:
Richard Stockton, John Witherspoon, Francis Hopkinson, John Hart, Abraham Clark

Pennsylvania:
Robert Morris, Benjamin Rush, Benjamin Franklin, John Morton, George Clymer, James Smith, George Taylor, James Wilson, George Ross

Delaware:
Caesar Rodney, George Read, Thomas McKean

Maryland:
Samuel Chase, William Paca, Thomas Stone, Charles Carroll of Carrollton

Virginia:
George Wythe, Richard Henry Lee, Thomas Jefferson, Benjamin Harrison, Thomas Nelson, Jr., Francis Lightfoot Lee, Carter Braxton

North Carolina:
William Hooper, Joseph Hewes, John Penn

South Carolina:
Edward Rutledge, Thomas Heyward, Jr., Thomas Lynch, Jr., Arthur Middleton

Georgia:
Button Gwinnett, Lyman Hall, George Walton

Special Food Gifts

2010-06-30T15:01:00.003-05:00

This past Sunday, we made a visit after church to some friends with a brand new baby, and then we had some family over for a Sunday evening supper. In both situations, we ended up receiving wonderful gifts of food!

My aunt and uncle brought us a number of things from their garden. This is kohlrabi, a strange looking, but wonderful tasting little veggie. I'm debating between a slaw, and a scalloped recipe for these little gems. If what I read on the internet is correct, the name of this vegetable comes from two German words - kohl, meaning cabbage, and rabi, meaning turnip. It was wildly popular in Europe for many years before it showed up in the U.S., and I dare say there are still a majority of people here who still have no clue what it is!

They also brought us a nice load of green beans - oh, the pleasure!! Aren't they perfect?

The first thing we did with them was make Szechuan green beans with pork. They were so, so good. Here's a link to a recipe that I used as a base. I added ginger to the list of seasonings and put it all in with the ground pork before cooking it. It made for nice, crispy bits that flavored the green beans in a great way! Pictured with the green beans is the other food gift we got last Sunday. Be ready to be jealous! These are egg rolls that were made by the new baby's grandmother, who is visiting from Hong Kong. She fixed some for us while we were getting to know the new baby, and then sent us home with a batch to cook up here! There is no way to say it eloquently enough, but trust me when I say that this lovely woman can make an egg roll! Half were regular flavor and half were curry flavored - a treat we will not soon forget!

And last, but not least, my aunt and uncle also picked some berries from their garden for us- blueberries, raspberries, and black raspberries. The very essence of summer time. They couldn't have been any sweeter or more delicious!

Our intent this past weekend was to show hospitality, and boy did we get rewarded in kind. Not that it was our goal to be rewarded, but sometimes it just works out that way and how sweet it is!

Fresh Herbs all Around

2010-06-24T19:14:00.001-05:00

I find myself out cutting fresh herbs from the deck nearly every day. So many summer recipes call for fresh herbs and we've been enjoying them! Above is a bundle of oregano and basil, tied with kitchen twine - food safe in other words.

Last Sunday I placed this bundle in a crock-pot full of spaghetti sauce and let the string end fall outside the lid. That way I could retrieve the whole thing easily and avoid slimy, overcooked piceces of herbs swimming in our sauce.

Recently I used fresh oregano and rosemary to flavor this leg of lamb. The lamb came from our new food club, IFC, and it was truly beautiful meat. It was just as tender as it could be and we made Indian lamb kabob out of some of it and sliced it thin for Greek sandwiches as well. We'll definitely order more.

This was a simple use for rosemary - a potato dish called "smooshed potatoes" in which the roasted flavor of the rosemary was excellent. I think it needs to be chopped up in very small bits in order to be palatable. Nobody likes a twig in their food! BTW, I didn't make these exactly like the recipe link above, but it's close and you can make your own changes.

And then there's just the pleasure of having fresh parsley for garnish whenever you need it! These bacon wrapped scallops we made for Father's Day were gorgeous on their own, but the parsley sure was a nice contrast.

I wish I was better at keeping the herbs alive indoors. Anyone have suggestions? I've attempted bringing them into the kitchen in the fall, but the most I've managed was keeping a little bit of sage alive long enough to go under the turkey skin at Thanksgiving! Oh, and one more question for you - what is up with cilantro??? We use it in so many things but it never grows well for me for an extended time - drives me nuts! Share your herb knowledge with me please!

Happy Summer!

2010-06-21T21:35:00.006-05:00

It was a beautiful first day of summer here. Especially once the routine morning thunderstorm was done! This butterfly was not phased in the least as I took it's photo. It carefully delved into each tiny bloom on this butterfly bush stem.

This evening some neighbors came over to try to catch some of our ever growing bass in the pond. The reflection in the pond was so nice to watch. You can see the fishers above the reflection of the tree. What a perfect summer evening activity.

THE END!

Summer Favorites

2010-06-18T14:32:00.003-05:00

Fresh flower bouquets from our garden are a simple little joy for me. We have been blessed in most of our homes over the years to have flowers to cut and bring inside. I grabbed these lovely things in time to avoid their destruction in this morning's storm. No tornado warnings as of yet, but it got dark in a big hurry. I'm hanging out in our basement with the cat - thrilling!

Fruit in season is another summer favorite of ours. We were thrilled to find a big box of organic raspberries at our local Costco, and I made this light dessert called a Clafouti - it's a little like a custard cake, but really more custard than cake, and it's a French dish. The whole thing has only 1/3 C of sugar, so you can really taste the raspberries. It's good warm or cold - and let's be honest, it's good plain, but of course very good with ice cream or whipped cream - depends on your mood and how hard you worked the day you make it!

We love to grill in the summer like most people. This week we enjoyed some no-nitrate, all-beef brats that we purchased from the Iowa Food Cooperative. DH made some of his very good hot dog and hamburger buns. Aren't they lovely?!

Salad suppers are a warm weather favorite of ours too, and having an abundance of garden lettuce has led to making lots of homemade dressings. I have a mini food processor that's perfect for whirring up dressings that have some onion, or shallots, or another solid ingredient. My ancient dressing cruet, (the one everyone used to get for free with a packet of Wishbone dressing), works great for dressings that just need to be shaken together. In this picture there's a Dijon dressing, a wonderful French dressing that has far less sugar and oil than a typical French, and an Asian vinaigrette for a Chinese chicken salad - mmmmm...

And now a clunky transition to some other favorites, who are celebrated in the summer on Father's Day! I thank God for the wonderful fathers that I know, and these guys are at the top of the list!
First is my husband, who grew from this sharp young man into one of the best fathers ever! He seems to have mastered the perfect combination of spoiling our daughter, and instilling strong values and ethics in her. He is a godly father each and every day.

And these two fine looking little boys, my brothers, turned into A+ fathers themselves. They are such good men and I wish we were able to see one another more often.

I have no picture of my brother-in-law as a youngster, but he too is a fine man, and a wonderful stand-up kind of father. He has been a great blessing to my sister and her girls, and I thank him heartily for that!

And finally, this part of my Father's Day ode is impossible to write without choking up a bit this year. This is my dad, holding me on his lap about 50 years ago. (I love his checked tie and argyle socks - and he still has high standards when it comes to the way he dresses!) You would be hard pressed to find any man who was more dedicated to raising his 4 children to be good men and women - and the results are not too darn bad if I don't say so myself! Without going into the details, I can say that this man recently gave us all quite a scare. Many prayers, and many tears later, we are thanking God for his ongoing recovery. I loved you as this happy toddler, and I love you now Dad. Happy Father's Day!

We're Abloom!

2010-06-13T20:55:00.009-05:00

This weekend we worked hard on getting our front landscaping up to snuff. It had gotten out of control with weeds and we've had lots of rain recently, with more on the way. We also got some planters potted up for the porch. The bigger pot is the one that holds the "magic" mum that hibernates in this planter every winter, sitting in our garage with no water, and springs back to life every year! I planted a number of things around it to fill in until the mum blooms later in the summer. I'm going to follow my uncle's advice this year and keep it pinched back all summer to get a less leggy plant and hopefully more blooms.

The table near the front door was full of pansy plants, but they tend to get a little worn out looking, so we replaced them with a number of very pretty begonias like this one. My hope is that they will enjoy the shady spot and keep blooming for the summer.

Some of my favorites are back and thriving like this apricot rose. It's a fragrant rose, and one that the deer didn't snack on. Maybe that's the key????

Our Shasta Daisy is three feet in diameter this year. We planted it two summers ago. Makes you love a perennial garden for sure!

And our hydrangea bush, which has struggled for two years, is back, healthy, and bluer than ever. I find it so amazing the way that your entire frame of mind can be transformed by a little time in a blooming garden.

"Die when I may, I want it said by those who knew me best that I always plucked a thistle and planted a flower where I thought a flower would grow."

Abraham Lincoln