Two Bits of Advice on Cooking Making

#1: Whistle while you work

 

#2: Try not to eat all the stupid cookies!

Way to Dough

Why is it that the moment I determine to be low-carb,

it suddenly becomes very important to learn how to do All.The.Things with carbs.  

New biscuit strategies that don't require a recipe.

How to make homemade tortillas.

Starting up the 'old sourdough.

Experimenting with some new bread recipes.

And all of a sudden-like, needing to know how phyllo is traditionally handmade, why French baguettes have honeycomb, and how traditional Foccacia is made in Genoa.  

I guess, instead of saying 'Way to Dough', I should be saying "Way to GROW". 

har har.

Speaking of growing- look who is big enough now to climb up the kitchen stool and get himself to working...

Fat Barns Full

Oh!  Here he goes!

He got it!  The little tomato snatcher!

I have always enjoyed reading the accounts of people living during the Great Depression.  It is fascinating to hear their stories; their tenacity in times of trouble is inspiring.  One thing always puzzled me though...  I have always wondered why, when so many people were hungry and needy, farmers dumped milk and ruined crops.  How could they DO that when the nation went hungry?  It baffled and shocked me.  I NEVER thought I would live to see the day that it would happen again.

But here we are in 2020 with Farmers dumping milk in fields and manure lagoons.  Perfectly good vegetables being plowed under or buried.  Eggs destroyed. Pigs, cows and chickens slaughtered instead of sold.  

And plenty of people are hungry.

I really can't fathom the tragedy of these losses.  Even more so, the tragedy of the losses to come because of these losses.

The supply chain will certainly be smaller and if these items are in short supply they either won't be accessible for people to buy at all OR they will be too expensive to buy (at least for us).  It's simple supply/demand.  I feel certain that these things cannot happen without dire consequences.  

I feel certain that many of the things happening today cannot happen without dire consequences.

The Lord provides, it's true.  One of the things He provides is the wisdom and strength to prepare and load up those barns.  

I was inspired recently by this sermon:  

Go to the ant, O sluggard;
consider her ways, and be wise.
Without having any chief,
officer, or ruler,
she prepares her bread in summer
and gathers her food in harvest.
How long will you lie there, O sluggard?
When will you arise from your sleep?
A little sleep, a little slumber,
a little folding of the hands to rest,
and poverty will come upon you like a robber,
and want like an armed man.

B. Merkle speaks about how the common interpretation of that verse is to 'be a hard worker like the ant' but in fact... the wise thing that we ought to consider about her ways is not necessarily her 'hard work' but what comes after that verse: Without having anyone tell her what to do, she prepares and gathers and sets about with the work set before her.  

I don't know.  That struck me as quite profound.  

And so, like Joseph, I am looking at how best to utilize these fat months for the inevitable lean times to come.  And how to insulate us as best as possible for the possibility of hard times ahead.

And all the while, I look at these overwhelming bowls and buckets that have been lining my porch all summer and am just overcome by the goodness of these gifts.  I am ever so grateful for such a productive garden this year- and the strength to tend it.

The 2017 Put 'Em Up List

I noticed recently that my "Putting Up List" on the sidebar was from way back in 2017.  Get with the program, Rebecca!

It isn't that I haven't been canning or preserving since then, only that I never kept up the lists for proof.  Too bad too- it is a bit self-gratifying to see the sweaty afternoons preserving all tidily organized on a proverbial shelf for me to look back on.  Why yes- many days of sweat DO add up to edibles.  ;-)

Here's some photos of making apple chips in March with the last of the winter apples... (they were BEAUTS...even after being stored for months)

Here's my helper... who ate all the scraps.  

And here is the 2017 Put 'Em Up List--- in order to wipe the slate clean and make room for 2020.  Lord willing, it will be a doozy.  

2017 Put 'Em Up List

~Canned~

~zucchini relish (35 pints)

~bread and butter pickles (14 qts and 13 pints)

~Experimental Recipe Pickles (7 qts)

~Hamburger Dill Pickles (7 qts)

~ Green Beans (7 qts)

~ Beef chunks (7 qts)

~ Beef Stew (14 qts)

~ zucchini relish ~ to sell (22 pints)

~ Three Bean Salad (9 qts)

~ Vanilla Peach Bourbon Jam (8 jars)

~ Blueberry Peach Jam (8 jars)

~ Peaches (4 qts)

~ Plum Jam (12 jars)

~ Peach Bellini Jam (8 jars)

~ Apple Cider (4 half gallon jars)

~Frozen~

~ Blueberries (11 gallons)

~ Peaches (3 gallons)

~ Apple Cider (2 gallons)

~Dehydrated~

~Misc.~

Goodbye February.

While the forts and playscapes get more and more awesome the older they get- once they are made- no one ever wants to take them down!  I wind up having billions of little pieces laying on the floor all day waiting for 1) the toddler to scatter them to the four winds throughout the day and 2) for me to step on the hardest, pointiest ones when I least expect it.  How many more months before the children can be sent OUTSIDE to make their messes?  

While I do the responsible thing, using up the older milk and making mozzerella...

THEY make homemade marshmallows.  

(Similar technique, very different outcome.)

Little girls in Mama's heels.  Enough said.

Papa works really hard during the week and then on the weekend has a million things he needs to get done too...most of which happen outside.  The children have discovered that if buried under children, he stays put for a while.

(Smart children.)

And there he is now... with his characteristic ear twiddling. 

Whenever he does it to me, I start to channel a dog getting itched in that particular spot where they can't stop jerking their one leg.   Matt's ear twiddling has that effect on me.  Ineke plays it off all cool though.

Ah, what a lovely moment of two brothers embracing.  What sweet and loving boys and what a wonderful bond brother have...

Oh wait.  

They are just trying to block the wind as they light up their homemade smoke bomb.

Ah, homeschooling bomb-making science projects... nothing better for forming brotherly bonds.

Cream puffs.  Do cream puffs ever need explanation?  

In which Ineke gets a new coat from Grandma:

I plunk her down to take a picture for a thank you note...

and then can't stop

taking pictures of her.

My little Jay Leno baby.

For Valentine's Day I made everyone homemade peanut butter treats in the wee small hours of the morning.

They also got my leg twitching.

And my Valentine turned another year older and I wondered, as I often do, how I managed to snag such a hard-working, kind, intelligent and handsome man.

And how these fifteen years of his being mine has felt like approximately 15 minutes.

And last but not least... 

The moment your two year old comes in the room looking like this and you wonder.... 

Is it poop or is it chocolate?

It can go either way.

Yes!  YES YES YES YES YES YES!!!!!!

Turns out it was chocolate ganache.  

An entire bowl of leftover cream puff ganache- but still... 

just ganache.

phew.

Welcome to My World

Why yes, that is a dirty, wet dishrag on her head!

Corynn turns greasy pizza boxes into art.  

I now have two girls baking in the house:  Lord have mercy.

I had a hunkering for Chinese: Asian Chicken in Plum Sauce and Fried Rice

I wonder if, when I am old and gray, I will look back on my dust piles and miss the legos and hairbands and whole plums that fall from little fingers.  Maybe I will be happy to sweep only dust.  Or maybe I'll actually miss daily sweepings like these.

I had been working hard to avoid all of the inferences to autumn I kept hearing/seeing/sensing.  I refused to acknowledge the school bus passing through at 6:50am and I avoided any mention of switching summer clothes for fall ones.  In my particularly grumpy moods, I would inwardly mutter "Keep your pumpkin spice candles, soups and steaming mugs to yourself!" when friends were embracing the crisp autumny air.   At one point, I may have even cursed the leaves that were littering the road.

And then something happened...all of a sudden the wall of thick, obscuring fog in the morning made me linger by the window.  All the zinnias popped open and every single one seemed to be another gorgeous shade of orange.   And sunflowers, in their yellows and burgundies, are particularly good at easing one in.  A generous neighbor took pity on my mouldy, disease-ridden peaches and dropped off a few buckets of peaches and plums.  Have you ever made jam from plums?  The dark, chalky blue skins turn the jam the most GORGEOUS purple red color in some sort of kitchen magic.  And the blush of skinned peaches- you must be dead inside if it doesn't do something to you.  

I'm in....I'm aaallllllll in.   I'vebeen sufficiently wooed.  I've been roasting vegetables and making comfort foods, I've been looking for opportunities to bake instead of turning on the oven when I absolutely MUST.  I am loving the deeper, jeweled colors everywhere...I've even picked up my long abandoned yarn (do I still remember how to crochet and knit?!).  There may even be some pumpkin spice candles flickering in the background.

A few weeks ago, Matt paid his brother to come over with his fancy sawmill and saw up some lumber from trees Matt has been hauling out of our woods.  One particular tree was ginormous!  (The pictures don't really do it justice.)  It was a gorgeous day for it and we now have a bit over 2300 board feet to do who knows what with.   Matt knows.  We'll find out...

We officially started the homeschool year this week and I think we were all ready to just take that first step.  I've been dreading it... because homeschooling can just be HARD.  It can be hard to get everything done in a day that you simply MUST do both on the academic front and in the ordinary 'rumbling bellies must be fed and the bathroom stinks like a stadium urinal' sort of way.  The flower bouquet on the table has been dead and crispy for over a week.   Yesterday, I swept and vacuumed the living room and I honestly felt as if I had just spring cleaned my entire house!   Adding home learning to the mix seemed to daunting a task.

Two things:

1)  All four children are starting out excited, diligent and hard working.   The older two are much better about getting their work done without me badgering them about it (a major complaint in years' past) and the middles are rearing to go.  Granted, a spankin' new year does that to students, but I am enjoying it immensely for how ever long it does last.

2)  Ineke is insane.

She finds a marker and starts drawing in a book while I am trying to explain a math problem to Judah.  I take it away and set the marker in front of me.  Adele' asks me a question.  Ineke somehow found another crayon, marker (or stealthily retrieved the confiscated one)-usually permanent, or other such writing utensil in the time it took me to answe the question and resumes her carnage.  I get all writing utensils that I can find and put them up high on a shelf.  THERE!  So Ineke climbs up on the chair to crawl up on the table to crawl over to Corynn who is studying her grammar and shoves her little face in Corynn's and grins.  Corynn smiles, puts her down from the table saying "Ineke, you can't be on top of the table" and then Ineke walks around the table and does it again.  And again. She thinks she is so hilarious.  I take her to the living room and to her toys and she finds a crayon under the couch.  And then finds a book.