Harvest

We've been eating strawberries here and there for over a week now, but tonight was the first time that we've picked them and brought them inside.  (The kids love to sit outside and eat them, so getting this many at once was unusual.)

Along with the strawberries, we got 4 eggs from our 4 chickens.  I can't wait to see what we get to harvest next!

June Updates

The week that school got out we planted a large crop of beans and corn and various melons at my parents' house, then we spent several days frantically trying to get the watering systems working so we could safely go on vacation.

We left around 10am in the morning for a long drive across Nevada and California, to reach our family cabin in the woods, a mile or so off the coast.  


Our first item of business once we arrived (after sleeping that is), was haircuts.  The boys had really gotten shaggy.  I love this picture of A.  He was constantly brushing hair out of his eyes.  We decided that summer buzz cuts would be great (although it was tempting to leave A's as shown in the picture).  :)


Once they were all buzzed and showered, they enjoyed some hot tub time with dad.   

One day of vacation we hiked to a waterfall.  Here we are by the "smiley face tree"

We ate lunch by the water fall.

We got up early one morning to go see the tide pools.  We also took our usual trip into the town for fresh seafood lunch, and shopping at the toy store and book store.  The boys spent a huge majority of the vacation working with grandpa building their tree house.  

We were very happy to see everything alive and growing well when we got home.  Here are the green beans.

The corn in the three sister's bed is three or four inches tall now, and we planted the vining beans as well as the squash, so hopefully those things come up soon.  This picture is a good one of our new watering system that my Mister worked so hard to get operational before our vacation.  He used a length of hose to connect the tap to the pvc pipe.  He drilled holes in the pipe to correspond with the locations of the plants.  Nothing is glued together, so we can take it apart for winter storage and use it again next summer.

This section of the garden was also going to have the pvc pipe system, but we ran out of pvc pipe.  Rather than go buy more, we made due with what we had, which was a length of old hose (the one we had been cutting up to attach the pvc pipe system to the faucets in the other raised beds).  He again, drilled holes in the hose to correspond with each plant.  It will be interesting to see how it holds up compared to the pvc pipe.

After planting the beans in the three sisters bed, we realized that our experiment wasn't going to yield us very many beans, so my Mister constructed this lovely trellis for more beans to grow up.  We had a small section of raised bed with nothing growing in it, so it worked out well.

One morning I decided to break down and do some pruning.  I have a hard time cutting healthy growth off of plants, but driving through all the vineyards in northern CA, I convinced myself that it needed to be done.  I thinned out the grape vines so that there is one or two vines going to the lower wire, and one or two that we will continue to let grow so it can reach the top wire.  It looks much better now.

The strawberries that I transplanted several weeks ago have perked up, and have started to send out new runners.  By next year there ought to be another nicely established strawberry patch here.  This picture also shows one of the other irrigation types we have.  This one uses funny pipe and sprayers that direct the water exactly where you want them.  A little more pricy than our other types, but really nice to use.

We've been researching flowers to plant to attract beneficial insects and deter harmful insects.  We'd also like to attract hummingbirds.  We planted alyssum, marigolds, salvia, nasturtiums, and a couple others I can't remember now.   Most are spaced around the yard, but the extras were all planted under the hummingbird feeder.  I haven't seen any yet, but I have seen a couple of big fat bumble bees.  Usually we just see wasps, so I was excited to see more useful things.

At the nursery, while we were looking for flowers, I saw the basil, and instantly though of one of my late summer meals where we're trying to use up the prolific zucchini.  It's zucchini, tomatoes and onions sauteed in olive oil with garlic and oregano.  Fresh basil will be a really nice addition.  

We've also been trying to maintain an organized schedule this summer.  The kids have a list of jobs and homework that they have to do every day before they can play.  J's homework mostly involves practicing his multiplication tables, and A's is anything from the 1st grade section of the ABCya website.  The fourth and fifth grade sections have some fun games that J has been playing around with.  Hopefully they help him with his typing skills a little too.

Finally, at church yesterday, one of the nursery leaders came and got me out of relief society and said that CP needed help going to the bathroom.  I was confused and said, "you mean he needs his diaper changed?"  She restated, that no, he needs help getting his pants off.  I said, "do you mean A needs help?"  She must have been getting frustrated with me, because she said, "no, CP, the one with the red hair."  I was really confused, because CP isn't potty trained.  

I got to the nursery and took CP into the mini bathroom (the nursery room has it's own bathroom with a tiny sized sink and toilet.  CP wanted to use the little toilet.  I took his diaper off, which was only a little wet, and sat him on the toilet.  He went!  Then we put his slightly wet diaper back on him (the diaper bag was with dad) and washed his hands.  I'm guessing he saw the little potty, and saw other kids going into the bathroom and decided he wanted to also.  So, figuring that this week is better than any other weeks this summer, we're potty training.  He's had two minor accidents, and lots of good trips to the toilet.  I just wish we had a mini potty at home.  He's loving his big boy underpants though!

Also, as long as I'm giving updates, today CP said to me, "mom, when you do your email, it makes me irritated".  hehehe...

Garden Update

Corn is up in the corn bed.

Corn is up in the Three Sisters bed.  Every other hill has corn in it, and will also have beans (we'll plant them in a week or so when the corn is a little taller) and the other hills will have squash.

Some of the squash plants in the side garden are up.

Strawberries are starting to turn red.

And they have gotten really thick.  We covered them with a bird netting to keep the birds from eating all the berries.

The raspberries have been staked to keep them from flopping over onto the grass.

And the raised bed around the trees is finished and mulched (this happened awhile ago, but I never got around to posting a new picture).

Good for you AND me!

I'm on the computer kind of a lot.  Probably too much (It's an ongoing battle, but I'm trying to make sure that I get everything done that I need to do before I play around too much (though sometimes you just need a break from the "MOM, MOM, MOM!!!"  The internets are good for that)).

Also, if I can find a good deal with free shipping, I much prefer shopping online to shopping in stores (I think that's a sign of middle-age- I used to love going shopping).  I've found a couple of websites that help me earn a little money back for online searches or online shopping.  If anyone is interested in signing up, you can start earning money back too, plus I get a referral bonus.  See?  It's a win-win.

I thought posting on my blog would be less obnoxious than sending all of you an email, this way, if you're interested, sign up, and if not, you're only out the time you spent reading this post.

Shop at Home is a website with partnerships at many of the online stores we regularly buy from.  If you register at shop at home, you earn a $5 sign up bonus (and if you sign up and buy something within 60 days through my link above, I get one too).  When you're ready to buy something online, you log into your shop at home account, search for the store, and if it's there, you go to the store through the link and earn whatever percentage cash back that store offers.  When you've earned $20, shop at home sends you a check.  Some stores have extra coupons posted, in addition to the cash back.  If I'm buying stuff online anyway, I might as well get a little something back for it!

The other site, Swag Bucks is a search engine where you earn "swag bucks" for searching online (there are a few other ways to earn swag bucks, but searching is the main one), and then you can trade in your swag bucks for prizes.  I trade mine in for $5 Amazon gift cards.  It takes me a month or two of normal searching, generally to earn enough swag bucks for a $5 gift card, then when I have $25 worth, I buy something I've been wanting on Amazon, and get the free shipping.  Right now I'm saving up for some new bread pans.  I've downloaded the swag bucks toolbar, which puts a search box at the top of any window I have open, so I don't have to go to their website to search.

Unusual Baking Techniques for Desserts

Yesterday as we were cooking dinner, (wild rice, chicken on the grill, and broccoli) we started thinking that we'd like something for dessert.  I suggested a cake with coolwhip topping since we have kind of a lot of coolwhip right now.  The only problem was that turning on the oven didn't sound like fun.  I started looking around online and came across this website that had instructions for baking cakes in your bbq grill.  We actually made apple-strawberry crisp.  The picture is a little blurry, but it was delicious.

Prepare Your Barbeque and Cake

1. Light the BBQ and allow it to preheat.
2. Prepare the cake batter from a mix or follow your favorite recipe.
3. Grease and flour the cake pans.
4. Pour the cake batter into the pans.

To BBQ Cake with Indirect Heat

If you have three elements on your BBQ, you can use indirect heat.

1. Turn the two outside elements to low and turn the center element off.
2. Place the cake pans on the center grill above the element that is turned off.
3. Close the BBQ lid and allow the cake to cook for 20-25 minutes. Avoid opening the lid to check the cakes during this time so the heat stays inside and creates an oven effect.
4. Check the cakes. They are done when they feel springy to the touch and a toothpick inserted into the center comes out clean. If they are not done after the initial time has passed, close the lid and continue cooking for 5 more minutes and check again.
5. When they are cooked, remove the cakes from the BBQ and place on a cooling rack.

To BBQ Cake with Direct Heat

If you have two or fewer elements, you can use direct heat.Turn all the elements to low.

1. Place an empty pan upside down on the grill above the element
2. Put the batter-filled pan on top of it. The extra pan adds a little more distance from the heat and helps to keep the cake bottom from burning.
3. Close the BBQ lid and allow the cake to cook for 20-25 minutes. Avoid opening the lid to check the cakes during this time so the heat stays inside and creates an oven effect.Note: When cooking on direct heat, the cake cooks a little faster.
4. Check the cakes. They are done when they feel springy to the touch and a toothpick inserted into the center comes out clean. If they are not done after the initial time has passed, close the lid and continue cooking for 5 more minutes and check again.
5. When they are cooked, remove the cakes from the BBQ and place on a cooling rack.

When the cakes are cool enough to touch, remove them from the pans, If desired, cool cake completely and spread with icing or serve them warm with ice cream. Enjoy!

Weekend Yardwork

We woke up this morning to gray skies and didn't think we'd get much done outside.  My Mister hurried out to mow the lawn before it rained, and I got back to work on the annuals in the front flowerbed, I bought them yesterday and got several planted (I also cleaned out the dead tulips), but had to stop because of the weather.  This morning, I got them all planted, and only got rained on a little.  Normally, I don't buy annuals, I like flowers that keep coming back every year, but there wasn't a lot in bloom right now, and I needed a little color.   I think the flowerbed could really use a for more perennials, but hopefully the annuals fill out and suffice for this year.  I pulled a couple of plants that I wasn't sure about- they could have been weeds or they could have been perennials.  My neighbor thought they were weeds, so out they went.  There's one other plant that is either a weed or a really big perennial.  I'm leaving it because it doesn't look bad and hasn't gone to seed yet.  It has a stake by it that says butterfly weed, so that's either what it is, or it's a weed that took over that perennial's spot.

I thought that would be the end of my work outside today, but after some minor hailing, the sky cleared up again.  I headed back out and started pulling weeds from around the fruit trees (if the trees look close together, it's because they are- it's called planting multiple trees in one hole).  I should have taken a before picture.  The weeds filled in the whole area around the fruit trees, and were nearly as tall.  We nearly filled our huge garbage can, just with weeds from this one area.  I had to use the shovel for some of the bigger weeds.  It was crazy. We also pulled out the dead apricot tree, which wasn't very hard because it had no roots on it.  All that's left to do here now is plant another apricot tree, build the second box, fill in around the edges to bring all the soil up to the proper level, and then mulch well to avoid the kind of weeds we pulled today.

I thought I'd take a break and watch my Mister work for awhile.  He was loosening the soil in two of the raised beds.  The far right one was full of wheat grass.  The chickens used to be in that bed, and all winter, we've been feeding them scoops of wheat that had weevils in it, well this spring, all the wheat that they hadn't eaten, grew like crazy, with all that good fertilizer the chickens had left behind. My Mister weed whacked it, pulled out the big stuff, and worked the rest back into the soil.  Hopefully it will be ready for some tomatoes and peppers on monday!  The other bed will get filled with corn.  The tiny space next to the chickens will be some kind of squash most likely, as will all the raised bed area around the perimeter of the yard that doesn't have something else planted already.  (You can see all the weeding that still needs to be done, we really let things get out of control this year!)

Since I was sitting near a weedy area, and not doing anything, I started pulling weeds.  I weeded around the lone black raspberry plant (which has actually multiplied quite a bit since last year, but is still kind of sad.  Don't ever plant just one cane.), the asparagus, the strawberries (which are doing great this year, and are so thick that there were hardly any weeds), the raspberries, and one section of grapes.  I also used some of the grass clippings to mulch around the asparagus.  I need more to mulch around the raspberries, and the strawberries are thick enough that I'm not mulching around them, though in the fall when we whack them all down, it might be a good time to cover the area with straw.

As I was weeding, I noticed the strawberries have been usurping asparagus and raspberry land, so I dug what at first seemed like just a few plants, but ended up with enough to give a nice start to a new strawberry bed under half of the grape vines.  The soil in that area is really wet, I'm not sure why, but hopefully the strawberries survive.  They're looking a little sad at this point, but they did just get dug up and transplanted, so maybe they'll recover.

The yard looks great, I think it's time for a BBQ (pork chops on the grill anyone?).

Isle of Hope

My Mister and I inherited some tickets to the Celtic Woman concert on Saturday night, it was an evening of beautiful music (although I have to laugh at how people cheered when they started singing "Oh Danny Boy", you would have thought Dave Matthews had just launched in to "Satelite" or something...).

One song, I found particularly touching, in light of our current immigration issues:

Isle of Hope

On the first day on January, 1892,
They opened Ellis Island
And they let the people through
And the first to cross the threshold
Of that isle of hope and tears,
Was Annie Moore from Ireland
Who was all of fifteen years

Isle of hope, isle of tears,
Isle of freedom, isle of fears,
But it's not the isle you left behind
That isle of hunger, isle of pain,
Isle you'll never see again
But the isle of home is always on your mind

In a little bag she carried
All her past and history,
And her dreams for the future
In the land of liberty

And courage is the passport
When your old world disappears
But there's no future in the past
When you're fifteen years

Isle of hope, isle of tears,
Isle of freedom, isle of fears,
But it's not the isle you left behind
That isle of hunger, isle of pain,
Isle you'll never see again
But the isle of home is always on your mind

When they closed down Ellis Island
In nineteen forty-three,
Seventeen million people
Had come there for sanctuary
And in Springtime when I came here
And I stepped onto it's piers,
I thought of how it must have been
When you're fifteen years

The thought of a young teenage girl leaving her home and traveling by boat all the way to the US, to escape the hunger and desperation of a country plagued by the potato famine and religious and political violence, arriving in a country full of opportunity and challenges, makes me think of all the people who face starvation or violence in their home countries today, and who want more for their children.  There are many arguments surrounding immigration, but I think that they're just excuses for the fear we feel over cultures we don't understand.  There is no US culture.  We're made up of people who came here from all over the world, and we should embrace the unique cultures brought by new immigrants.  If there are concerns surrounding immigration, we should address those directly instead of passing laws to make the lives of immigrants more difficult and more dangerous.

Green Church Building

I know I'm a little slow to blog about this, but I thought it was pretty cool. If you watch the virtual tour, the building even has recycling bins along with the giant garbage bin outside. I wonder what it would take to get recycling bins at other chapels. We sure produce a lot of shredded paper with all the reports and rolls that are used each week.

My favorite quote from a business week article was:

"And hopefully, the takeaway message is, maybe I need to reevaluate where I am in my responsibility to the community, responsibility to the environment and responsibility to good stewardship of this finite land and ground that the Lord has blessed us with."

Homemade Butter

I've been wanting to try making my own butter for awhile now, and finally got the nudge I needed. I added a pint of whipping cream to my weekly dairy delivery, Monday morning it arrived, and as soon as the kids were home from school (they wanted to help), we got started.

Pour cream into mixer, and mix on low/medium (however fast you can get it without splashing over the sides). Once it starts to thicken you can increase the speed a little. Soon, it will start to look like whipped cream. I stopped at this point and scraped the sides of the bowl to make sure everything was getting whipped.

Every time I make whipped cream, I worry about whipping it too long, and wondered what would happen. Now I know. The smooth creaminess starts to break down and form clumps.

Then the buttermilk will begin to separate from fat.

Then the butter will be fully stuck together. Pour off the buttermilk and save it for something else. Add a cup or so of cold water and mix on low. Drain and repeat until the liquid coming off is clear. This ensures the butter is clean and will not go rancid. Once all the liquid is drained off, you can add salt, garlic, herbs, or even honey to make whatever kind of butter you want. Store it in an airtight container in the fridge or in a butter bell on the counter. If you keep it in the fridge, it gets pretty hard, and you'll want to set it out to soften before you try spreading it on bread.

I didn't take any pictures of the rinsing, salting or of the finished product, because I had to run an errand, and my Mister finished the project for me.

One pint of cream gives 1 cup of butter (equal to 1/2 lb or 2 sticks) and 1 cup of buttermilk. I've read that when using pasteurized cream, you should treat the buttermilk more like whole milk in recipes. If you want it to be more like buttermilk you can add a little lemon juice. OR, before you make the butter, you can add a TBSP or so of real buttermilk to the cream.

I'm making bread today, so I'll update on the taste once we have fresh bread to eat it with.

Mom's Lunch

Does this picture need explaining? A and CP aren't huge fans of tuna sandwiches, but they'll eat them without complaining IF I cut them into shapes with a cookie cutter. They like "star sandwiches" quite a bit. I make whole sandwiches, cut out the shapes, and am left with the scraps, which I can't just throw away....

Vegetarian Stir Fry with Noodles

I know I've been posting a lot of recipes lately, everything else in my life right now feels like I'm just keeping up with running the kids to and from school, and keeping the house clean so people can come see it. Hopefully we sell it soon, and then we can have a different kind of crazy with moving.

Tonight for dinner, I made stir fry. Every time I make it it turns out a little different. I like to use teriyaki or peanut sauce, along with a little soy sauce, but in a pinch, just soy sauce will work. When I use peanut sauce, I also like to add cashews.

Start boiling water for noodles.

Cook onion, garlic in olive oil, add carrots, broccoli and any other vegetables that take longer to cook,and a little water and soy sauce or whatever sauce you're using (too much soy sauce makes the flavor too strong).

Add the faster cooking vegetables, I used peas (in the pod), tomatoes, mushrooms, and spinach. Along with a dash or two of curry powder, and if you're only using soy sauce, a TBSP of brown sugar, otherwise a tsp is plenty.

Add cooked and drained spaghetti noodles and mix thoroughly.

Two of my kids ate it just fine, the middle one had a major tantrum about it. I did let them all pick one type of vegetable that they could pick out and not eat. One picked tomatoes (which is weird because he normally loves them), and the other two picked the spinach. I'm sure they would have all picked the mushrooms, but I chopped them up small enough that they didn't realize what they were.

Another Dinner without pictures

I didn't take a picture, because we ate it too fast (actually I just didn't think about taking a picture until just now, and dinner is over). It's unfortunate, because it was a really good dinner, and pictures of really good dinners are always nice.

Oven Fried Halibut:

Cut up halibut filet into two inch strips. Dip in milk, then in breadcrumbs (I use the italian breadcrumbs from costco) mixed with parmesan cheese. Place on foil lined cookie sheet, and bake for 10 minutes at 500 F. (make sure your oven is clean, anything on the bottom of the oven with smoke at that temperature). After 10 minutes, I actually turned my fish over to let the other side crisp up a bit (for 2 minutes)- my fish was a little thicker than what I think the recipe I was using as a baking guide called for. I've done the same thing with tilapia (though maybe cook it for a shorter time since it's not as thick), but halibut sounded good today. I should have sprinkled a little salt over the fish before dipping it in the breadcrumbs, but it was still tasty.

Lemon Pepper Vegetables:

Peel and slice carrots, cut up broccoli into reasonable sized chunks. Add a tablespoon or so of olive oil to the bottom of a fry pan, add carrots and broccoli (carrots and green beans are also good, but then you slice the carrots lengthwise instead of crosswise), and a little water. Sprinkle lemon pepper and garlic salt over the top and cover with lid. Cook until veggies are steamed to whatever level of doneness you like.

Brown Rice Mix:

I love the wild rice mix that costco sells. Unfortunately no one else does (well, maybe the 2-year-old). I decided to mix it with brown rice to see if people liked that better (the kids didn't love it, but they didn't complain as much as they do over the wild rice mix by itself- my Mister didn't like it any better, but ate it anyway, he's good like that- and one day I'll convert him to non-white rice). I put two cups of rice (one cup of brown, one cup of wild rice mix) in the rice cooker with a heaping tablespoon of chicken base. Easy.

For dessert, I decided not to make a cake, we're sugared out with all the easter candy, but we nearly always have a dessert monday nights, so we had cut up strawberries and whipped cream (so we still got plenty of sugar).

Buffalo Burgers

To celebrate spring, we decided to warm up the grill. (Don't say anything to me about it still being winter, I don't care.)

I also got out my new hamburger press. I was impressed with how easy it made patties (really big patties).

The first thing I did was to mix about a pound and a half of ground buffalo burger, 2 eggs, and about 1/2 cup of italian seasoned bread crumbs (from costco). (and this wsn't all the meat, I just didn't take a picture until I had already made several patties)


Next, I scooped a blob of the meat mixture into the patty press.


Then I pressed them, fairly hard. The patties are not as well packed as store-bought so you have to be a little more gentle moving them around, but they're fine once they're cooked.



My Mister grilled them.


And here's dinner. (Note to self, don't buy the cheap buns, they're way too small.)

Hello Spring

Pork Chops

Several months ago I posted about my thoughts after reading Animal Vegetable Miracle, by Barbara Kingsolver, and In Defense of Food, by Michael Pollan, and also watching Food Inc.

Food Inc. especially really got to me, and made me think about what we are eating, and what the real costs of our food are. Rates of diet related illnesses keep going up, which is turn pushes up the cost of health care for everyone. The way the food we eat is grown or raised should really be considered. Is it sustainable? Can we continue to live the way we do and take care of the earth like we have been commanded to?

Back in December I started looking around for local sources for sustainably raised meats. At the time, the only things I could find were beef (which we don't need, because we get our "beef" from hunting), and pork. My family went in on a pig, and we picked it up on saturday.

Sunday for dinner, we cooked some pork chops (sprinkled with garlic salt and lemon pepper), made gravy from the drippings in the pan, ate the last of our indoor-salad-garden, made mashed potatoes, and steamed some carrots and broccoli with a little lemon pepper. It was the best dinner I've eaten in awhile. Here's a couple of the pork chops pre cooking...


And here are some while they're cooking (we experimented with the cast iron pan and the regular pan- the cast iron seemed to brown the outsides nicer than the regular frying pan, but the regular frying pan was better for making gravy out of the drippings)...


The last time we had pork chops was several years ago when they were on sale at costco, I don't remember them being anywhere near as flavorful.

We ordered a whole pig from Christiansen Family Farm, and recently placed an order for some chickens as well. The neatest thing is that they've added a CSA option, where you can pay, and then receive enough meat for your family for the whole year (I think you can break up the deliveries so you don't have to store everything in your freezer). They offer grass fed beef, pork, chicken and turkey. The CSA's come in 3 different sizes depending on how big your family is or how much meat you eat.

They also have a blog, and it's fun to read through about their experiences living on a farm, and including their small children in the farm chores.