dirty hands, dirty feet

you guys, i spent all day working in the yard and my entire. body. hurts.

in fact sitting in this chair hurts.

in fact, i'm leaving little dirt clods on the keyboard as i type this and i just spent 5 minutes washing my hands.

i need to get in the shower, but i wanted to order a pizza (see first sentence).

and now i'm blogging.

against better judgment i planted my tomato transplants. better judgment being the ground is really, really saturated with the crazy amount of rain we've had and i should let it dry out. whatever. it's never going to stop raining i've decided so i'm just going to take it while i can.

the beginning of the veggies

 and half of the strawberry roots and a fair amount of onions and a flat of annuals- i never buy annuals, but i just wanted some color this year, and some elephant ears - so excited, i hope these work for us, and umm then i trellised the peas, mulched- though not enough. put some grass patch stuff down. swept the sidewalks after john mowed.

really, out of all of that the pain inducing thing was the strawberries. we'd let the patch go last year and i didn't do my favorite lazy person's garden prep over the winter and so i had to cut a decent amount of soddy crabgrass. i can't decide if it was easier because it the ground is so wet or if it was just heavier.

 
this last picture is of Laithe's peas. He checks them most days. It's pretty cute.


the most thrilling part of the day had to be when john trimmed our juniper trees. you know those projects that you put off for years, literally, and then when you do them it takes like 10 minutes and you're sheepish that it took you so long? yeah. it was one of those. i'll be curious to see how much sunlight filters through now.

i just had a 10 minute conversation with the pizza guy about the weather and his kids and the soccer games they played this weekend. and our yards and how both of us had discovered some frost damage. i heart Iowa that way.

think i should shower before i eat? i won't be able to sit on any of the furniture while i eat if i don't.

hmm. it smells awfully good though.

happy weekend to you!

the day before

I love the day before Thanksgiving. Almost as much as I love Thanksgiving. I'd so much rather have Wednesday than Friday off - and I almost always do, so, yay!

I've spent most of the day puttering in the kitchen and such. Have a lot of baking and stuff to do tonight, but much of the prep work is done.
Our menu? Here you go:

Turkey
Stuffing
Mashed Potatoes & Gravy
Scalloped Potatoes
Sweet Potato Spoon Bread
Corn Casserole
Green Bean Casserole
Roasted Brussels Sprouts
Jello Salad
Cranberry Stuff
Rolls

We'll have some awesome leftovers. I heart leftovers only after a major holiday. The rest of the year I do not heart them one bit.

And for dessert - pumpkin pie with whipped cream for sure and then I think a molasses pecan pie. Sounded interesting so I think I'm going to just go for it.


Wishing you a wonderful holiday filled with laughter and love and awesome leftovers!

Happy Thanksgiving!!

food and such

I pay $3.50 for a dozen eggs.

Sometimes more.

Generally, you can get conventional eggs for less than half that here.

Generally, I don't share with people how much we pay for eggs because they kind of freak out.

A few years ago I made the decision to slowly start getting as much of our food from people, not grocery stores, as possible. I know, I'm trendy, but hear me out. I kind of hate the term locavore, I think the 100 mile rule can't always apply to rural, and femivore, omg, barf. Except those are the values that I find compelling. Those are the priorities I find center me on a daily basis.

I also find that I need to be careful when I talk about it because I'm white, I'm upper middle class, I'm educated, my kid goes to private school. While I truly believe this journey is one that would have happened regardless of our financial status, I mean I did read Animal, Vegetable, Miracle the year Guthrie started eating solid food, the year I don't think we capped $15,000 in income and John was in grad school. I took full advantage of my farmer's market WIC coupons that summer. But I think it can sound so embarrassingly privileged and arrogant to talk about this stuff if you're not careful.

A couple of weeks ago I missed putting in our CSA order for the week. Oops - and we were out of eggs. So, I contacted another egg seller and she was able to deliver eggs to me at work. Does it get any better than that? I was in the middle of an audit and so asked a co-worker to take care of things if the delivery should come while I was unavailable. Which was awesome. Except then everyone found out how much I pay for eggs. And I was open about it, I'm not ashamed by it at all, just careful. Once everyone got over the sticker shock it opened a dialogue about buying local, about sustainable growing, about salmonella and having actually seen the living conditions of the animals who feed us. One woman asked if they were special occasion eggs and I laughed and said, once you've had local eggs you always want it to be a special occasion.

This summer was my third or fourth in canning and freezing food out of the desire to feed my family rather than something cute to do on a Saturday afternoon. And I love it. Like I said above it seems to ground me firmly in something I don't really have a name for - not one I'll label myself with at least! It feels so good to provide for my family in this manner. I don't know if it's the semi-self sustainability or the working with my hands. Or if it feeds my rebellious spirit to buy raw milk illegally. I'm ok with capitalism when it's responsibly used. When my money goes directly to the people who provide our food. It is just so satisfying for me to be on a first name basis with the people I buy from. I love that they know my kids' names, what I do for a living, our garden's ups and downs.

Winter is always a challenging time of year to eat locally- or it can be - so to keep is in line I signed up for the 5th Annual Dark Days Challenge. The premise is this: Make one meal a week out of entirely local ingredients from November 27 to March 31st. That's it. If all goes as hoped I'll be posting our successes and failures on Sundays. My hope is that we'll get some inspiration from the others who do the challenge - they will also be posting throughout the week.

My additional hope is that it won't be just a load of posts about scrambled eggs and homemade bread and jam- although I'm certain we'll have at least one of those! Our CSA deliveries will end shortly so there will be a lot of eating out of the pantry and heading to the winter farmer's market I think. Which will be challenging - the main market we have here, the one that stays open in winter, has a habit of importing nearly everything. It's a giant pain. You have to really watch their labeling and ask a lot of questions. It's always weird to see a slew of melons out - in February. Am I crazy to think that the farmer's market should be present to serve the actual farmers? That it should serve to build community?

So what have we gotten locally (and organically and sustainably) this year? So far I've found good resources for:
beef
chicken
pork
lamb
apples
apple cider
honey
pears
berries
raw cow's milk
raw goat's milk
eggs
and of course a whole slew of veggies through our CSA and local markets
i'm certain there's more, but i can't remember.

Interested in joining the challenge? Sign up at (not so) Urban Hennery! I look forward to seeing you there!

doin' good

We're settling in for a cozy weekend - I'm so excited. We've only got a couple of things to do and the rest is just resting and being together as I know this will be our last weekend just the three of us. (If only because of John's work schedule, etc. not because I know the date of the Birth Day!)

Kind of weird to think like that -- oh who am I kidding - it's the weirdest thing ever.

I'm feeling good - sore, but good. I'll try to snap a picture in the next day or two because there's a marked change in my body over the past couple of weeks.
And I've got a bunch of projects finished to show you! Yay for nesting!

Until then - breakfast. I'm eating enough to sustain a small army. It's wholly impressive.

the pie was awesome.

Here are the promised pics of our Thanksgiving Celebration!

We had cute owl place cards that Guthrie and I made the night before.


Gus mostly liked eating whipped cream.


And cranberries. Clearly she is her mother's daughter.





We spent a good amount of time cooking side-by-side which was so much fun. Actually yesterday I found her under the dining room table playing Thanksgiving. She had her rolling pin and pots and pans out and when I asked if she was making turkey she said yes and then shared with me! I'm so lucky!





Everyone was appropriately impressed by the turkey :) And it was SO yummy. We will definitely be buying our turkey from Weber Meats from now on!






Gramma Carol and Guthrie sorted the silver while I polished some of it.






The next morning Guthrie found some leftover Strawberry Pretzel Salad. Instant and wholesome breakfast, no?








All in all it was a great day. The kitchen hasn't fully recovered yet, but I've got all the stock made and we still have tons of leftovers, so I figure I've got some time on that whole clean kitchen thing. We discovered that we need to winterize our basement side door/stairway area. We put the turkey out there to brine figuring it wouldn't even get close to hitting the poultry 'danger zone' and we were right! And there was some ice on it too in the morning. Sweet. A trip to Menards is in order I think. I'm utterly devoted to my refrigerator. I wasn't totally sold on it before, but I am now! We would have had to get rid of some of our leftovers in our old place because we couldn't have fit all this into our fridge.
We loved having our first holiday in our house. It was just perfect!

OH... did you want to see a picture of the pie???it tasted as good as it looked. yay!
and totally worth the extra effort.
i think it'll be pies from scratch from here on out.
Aunt Nina was on to something!

ISO...

breakfast.
Yesterday when I got up before everyone else at 6:45 for no good reason I thought to myself, this would be a great day to make some good breakfast. And then I didn't know what to make. I'd already made scones and muffins in the past couple weeks (pumpkin scones* and carrot muffins) so I didn't want to make those. We have frittatas pretty regularly and I didn't have random veggies to throw in that weren't already assigned to Thanksgiving duties so that didn't excite me.
Eventually it was herbed scrambled eggs and toast with fig preserves. The preserves are from John's aunt and they are AMAZING. Until an embarrassingly short amount of time ago - actually right about the time when I found out that Guthrie's umbilical cord was not attached to my own belly button. i know right? who would have thought? Anyways I didn't know that figs were grown in the US and so were thereby resigned to boutique preserves or getting dried ones at the store. Well, they grow them in 'Bama and they are lovely. So, Judy, anytime you want to throw some my way you are welcome to! And it wasn't that breakfast wasn't good. It was. It just didn't satisfy that craving for that baked goodness on a cold morning.
This morning I made Honey Baked French Toast and that was good too. Guthrie's a whiz with the microplaner. We're having lots of fun cooking as she gets better motor skills -- and maybe a little better at following directions.
But as I look through my cookbooks I realize I just need more breakfast recipes in my arsenal. So... I'm in search of some breakfast recipes. For the mornings that yogurt and granola just don't cut it. Help!

*so these girls- the ones at bread and honey - are my new favorites.
ever.
I've made a few of the recipes and
they've been awesome.
And the photos are great.
I love that they take their food outside!

Fruit Leather

Due to some interest I'm going to post my super secret recipe for fruit leather. My grandma Masil used to make fruit leather when my cousins and I would go up to her house in Idaho for a week in the summer. So, here goes:

• Peel (if desired, I don't because how will Guthrie's hair stay curly if she doesn't eat the skins on her fruit?) and quarter fruit. I've done as little as 3 cups and as much as 9, so use what you have.
• Put in pot.
• Add 1/4 cup of honey or sugar if desired. The rumor is that honey makes it more pliable. I usually only do it if the fruit really needs it.
• Heat to boiling but not burning.
• Cook for 45 minutes to 1 1/2 hours -- until the fruit is mushy and thick.
• Take off heat.
• Blend up either with a hand blender, food mill or blender. Be careful with a blender! You can also let it cool overnight before taking this step.
• Blend to the consistency of yogurt or jam. If you need to you can add some water.*

If you have a dehydrator just pop it on there. Set it to 135 or so and it takes 8 hours give or take an hour or two. See this is all a very exact science. Thickness can vary a little bit, but you want it pretty uniform. I like to put down parchment paper first so then it's got its own wrapper. I'm going to recommend this if you don't have a dehydrator- she seems to have gotten the best results and obviously has the best photo!

Ta-Da! Fruit leather! Not to get all Jessica Seinfeld on you, but don't tell your kids they're fruit rollups. They'll totally be expecting something else and your ego and excitement will be totally shattered when they give you The Look of Disdain.

It generally keeps for a few weeks. If I make a big batch I put a bunch in the freezer. It'll stay good in there for 3 months and is no big deal to defrost a few at a time.


*So, let's talk about pectin and fruit options. Blueberries are crazy thick when cooked and cooled. I would combine them with a watery fruit-- like pears and then sometimes even add water to get the right consistency. Apples and pears are a great base for other fruit flavors because they're so mild. So if you have 4 apples and only 1 mango you're good to go. Berries are great. We don't mind the seeds- they give some flair to the leather. Ha.
We like:
pear blueberry
apple
peach
peach nectarine
and I'm sure loads of others, we just haven't found them yet!

Let me know how it goes and what flavors your family loves! It seems like a lot of work but so much of it is hands off that it's not bad in the end.

Happy Fruit Leathering!

a balanced diet

A Recent Trip to the Park:

Hey thanks for bringing me to the park mom! It's SO pretty here!
Hmmm, what to do, what to do...

Oh cool- some grass. I love grass.
Fun to pull, fun to play with, fun to eat, fun to scatter.
Flora is AWESOME!

Oooh look at my big handful of grass!

What mom? I'm not supposed to eat it?
Whatever!
Dr. Jill says I need more vegetables in my life.
These are perfect. Green grass and brown leaves!
What could be better?!

Do Da Do. Eating my foliage. Good so far!

Oh this is bad. Really, really bad. Mom, why didn't you warn me? These are not the bananas I was looking for! Uck, get it out of my mouth!

I'm going to have to live with this flippin' leaf on my mouth forever aren't I?

Oh, some water.
That is SO much better.
Whew.
Well, that was a learning experience.

dinnertime

Carrots
Blueberries
Cherrios

Dinner of Champions

Food and More Food

As I begin to make the second batch of baby food for Guthrie it occurs to me that this girl has eaten a substantial amount of food in her life. I mean not really when you compare her to, you know, an adult, but still I wondered how much it would be if I listed it out

5 sweet potatoes
6 bananas
2 mangos
2 nectarines
1 apricot
4 avocados
2 carrots
3 pears
1/4 of a squash- that really didn't go over well!
3/4 of a box of rice cereal
3/4 of a box of oatmeal cereal
approximately 100 ounces of soy formula
approximately 5,900 ounces of breastmilk*

seriously- that seems like a lot of food to me. go gus!

*the average infant eats between 24 and 32 ounces of breastmilk/formula perday