Canned goods total 2011

Spicy pickled green beans with cauliflower

Chicken (turkey) stock

Zucchini pickles

Half gallon jars of CircleFive marinara sauce

We did a lot of canning this year but I hope to can even more next year.

Marinara- 185 pints
Pomegranate sauce- 1 half pint and eight 4 oz jars
Demi glace- twenty two 4 oz jars
Bloodymary mix- 6 and a half pints
Zucchini pickles- 8 pints
Spicy pickled green beans with cauliflower- 7 quarts
Chicken and turkey stock- 50 pints ish...I didn't keep a log in the beginning of the year.

Stay tuned for our next years goals...
and have a Happy New Year!

Favorite things...winter

I am a cold weather person. I have always loved it way more than the heat. I love getting all bundled up.

Watching Rudolf the Red nosed Reindeer
The holidays...Christmas, New Years, Valentines Day and my birthday
Knitting by a warm toasty fire
Getting a Christmas tree and decorating the house
Spending time with family
Making homemade Christmas presents

The other day the doctor and I where bored and couldn't figure out what we used to do with all our time...then we realized that we used to be in the garden all the time. Fall/winter gardening is so much less work. :)

Happy Holiday's from Team Dean. :)

Halloween used to be my favortie holiday...

and I won't lie...it kind of still is. I really cannot choose between Halloween, Thanksgiving and Christmas. My reasons for loving Halloween have changed a lot. I used to love it because I would create awesome costumes, most of the time I would plan months in advance! Then I would spend the night, well the Saturday surrounding Halloween, out with my honey!

Times have changed and I must admit I love it just as much. I still get to create awesome costumes...one for the little guy and one for me. My honey (the doctor) now plays his music every year on the Saturday surrounding Halloween (some year I will make it to see him). Plus we get the fun of being parents and seeing the little guy in his silly costume(s) all excited to go trick or treating.

As silly as this sounds the real reason I started to write this post is because I found the candy corn! For some reason I love this stuff but only at Halloween. Any other time I get sick even thinking about it. What a silly thing to get me writing...right? It reminds me of quick writes in high school. :)

favorite things...fall

I love fall and I decided to wait to post this until fall actually arrived...instead of the first day of fall. I feel like it is finally here...I have been leaving our windows cracked everyday, all day long! I love fall and...

being able to enjoy a hot cup of tea on the back porch
the first fire that is almost to warm
wearing my hair down instead of always in a ponytail
wearing my Sseko's with pants
planting our first fall/winter garden
wearing warm ViolaStitchStudio hats
thanksgiving
fall leaves...colors...everything

my favorite season for sure

picture from I <3 Chico on facebook

Neighbors...

What happen to the neighborhood? I was walking to the grocery store everyday awhile ago because the starter went out in our car (now fixed, thanks to the best neighbors anyone could ever ask for...I'm not joking...the BEST). It seems that most people don't think I should be walking...I have almost been run over a few times. Oh and then there are the wonderful "neighbors" who hear your son (two and in the stroller) yelling, "HI...HI...HI!" waving crazily and you saying, "Good morning" and they decide the best they can do is turn their head and start walking faster. What happen to "it takes a village(community) to raise a child"? What happened to common decency? I don't expect you to be my best friend...but you can say Hi! Sorry for the rant...and keep reading.

We are actually very lucky in our neighborhood (those people are not my close neighbors). This is the third house we have lived in on this street because we fell in love with it! We know at least 11 of our neighbors and I would say 4 of them well. I really don't know what we will do if we have to leave this neighborhood, I don't even want to think or talk about it. We also keep meeting more and more wonderful neighbors, this is the best neighborhood!

In our current house we kept our previous neighbor by moving to the house on the other side of him. I would say he is the night-watch-man of the neighborhood. Most people think he is a grump because of this but he is really just a sweet guy. He watches out for everyone, not to snoop but because he cares about the neighborhood and everyone in it. He loves our son dearly.

Our awesome neighbors to the other side of us simply amazing me with how giving they are. I honestly cannot even explain how shocked and amazed I am by them. They are constantly sharing; food, advice, things, and the best of all; their time. I feel that the little guy is getting a taste of "it takes a village to raise a child" because of them and a few other people in our lives. One the latest gift completely astonished me...the woman of the house (I don't want to post their names) had a close friend of hers paint a picture of the little guy and the Doctor...she used a picture I took and the artist captured it in 9 different mediums, perfectly. I was left completely speechless when she left after bringing it over to us...they simply amaze me ever day with their kindness and generosity.

I don't know how put in words how thankful I am for them...

Root Simple: Quick and Easy Fire Starters

We made these last week with things we had around the house.

Root Simple: Quick and Easy Fire Starters: "I came across these fire starters this week while sorting out our camping gear, and thought I should blog about them..."

I suck at starting fires...the doctor is always in charge of the fire but using fire starters makes it pretty easy to start a fire. So when I found these on one of the blogs we follow, we figured we might as well try them. Wow, they work really well! He decided we needed to used 6 to start a fire. Of course you really only need one or two.

You really only need a paper egg carton, dryer lint, and an old candle. So much cheaper than buying fire starters at the store. I also feel like they are probably better for the environment. They were so easy to make and use. These would be great for campers and fires at home.

Thank you to root simple for the info!

How to make handmade lotion: Updated

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See bottom for update.

Yesterday we made handmade lotion using the recipe from A Sonoma garden! It was so easy and quick. We choose to infuse the olive oil with herbs in the crock pot for a day and strain it instead of adding the extract. We used 4 cups of olive oil, 1/2 cup of dried lavender, and 4 dried white/culinary sage leaves. We put it in the crock pot for a day on the warm setting and then strained out the herbs.

In a Pyrex measuring glass combine the olive oil and emulsifying wax and microwave for 1-1.5 minutes or until it is all melted. The temperature on this reads about 155 degrees.  Then microwave the water for .5-1 minute or until about 120 degrees. Then pour the hot water into the wax/olive oil mixture, gently stirring and watch it turn milky white. Then pour the hot lotion into wide mouth pint size jar(s), and place in an ice bath, basically ice and water surrounding it, remove and let cool overnight.

Some people commented on the recipe saying it separated or was watery at the bottom, which happened with our first batch. So we changed the recipe a bit by reducing the water to 1 cup and we also put the hot lotion immediately into an ice bath, it also separated. So for the third batch we tried 1/2 cup water, 1/4 cup infused olive oil and 1/4 cup + 1 tablespoon emulsifying wax. It was almost perfect...but since we are perfectionists...we tried again. It only really had about 2mm of water at the bottom. For our fourth and final batch we used 1/4 cup olive oil, 1/4 cup + 2 tablespoons emulsifying wax, ten drops peppermint extract and just under a 1/2 cup water, and then put it into the ice bath. It ended up pretty thick, so we will use it as foot cream for a gardener feet!

I would say that the third batch was the most perfect and all you need to do to fix the small bit of water at the bottom is stir it up once, it then becomes the perfect consistency. So the perfect recipe is:

1/2 cup water
1/4 cup infused or regular olive oil
1/4 cup + 1 tablespoon emulsifying wax

Since they do not sell emulsifying wax where we live, we also got our emulsifying wax from mountain rose herbs, and since you have to order $10 worth of stuff we also got Garam Masala. I was bummed not to be able to get it from a more local source (especially since the shipping cost was almost as much as the order), but now we know that we like it so I can order a lot more at a time and/or next time I head up to Oregon to visit family I can get just pick some up.

I am loving the fact that I now have hand-made lotion infused with herbs from our garden! I think the thing I love the most about it is that fact that it is not greasy, I'm kind of a weirdo about lotions and it's nice to find one I can make and use! I cannot wait to try some of the other recipes from A Sonoma Garden!

After making and using the recipe for several months I have realized that it molds within about a month. My recommendation to combat this problem is to store it in the fridge and make only half of a batch. Here is the half batch recipe:

1/4 cup water
1/8 cup infused or regular olive oil
2 1/2  tablespoon emulsifying wax

I have also read that sometimes added Vitamin E oil will help slow the molding. I recommend about a 1/2 tablespoon of vitamin E oil and then add the olive oil to make up the rest of the 1/8 cup oil. See my eczema cream recipe for help with this.

Reflection of the spring/summer garden and pictures as of late

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Our second crop of Missouri Bill's Pole beans (a dry/shelling bean)

the start of some Mache

our first melon, with basil in the background

The start of some purple snap peas

our first pumpkin

We were so excited when we moved in November to have the space to actually be able to have a real (not in bins) garden. If you are a gardener you must be able to admit your mistakes and learn from them...

In the early spring (really winter) we started our seeds inside and barely got anything. We were so discouraged and worried that we bought more seeds from Redwood Organic Farm (thank goodness we found them) and started over. I kept reminding myself that no matter what happened we would at least learn something. Let me just say you can trust that anything you get from redwood will come up, we ended up with so much that we were trying to get rid of plants!

Boy did we learn this year! We followed a book to space our 90ish tomato plants and now we know that they need a lot more space than the book said! It is like a jungle in our tomato area and I think that next year less (spaced and supported better) will be more. Luckily we never really had a problem keeping up with the harvest and the girls(chickens) could not have been happier to take care of the hornworms.

We planted 4 summer squash plants and 3 of them really produced. Really what were we thinking...4!? No one in northern California needs more that one summer squash plant...they go crazy! We did find a way to use all of it up though, whether it was in smoothies, bread, zucchini pickles (blog post to come), of course steaming it or just cutting it in half and giving it to the girls.
This was our first try at growing dry/shelling beans, soybeans and garbanzo beans; let me just say...OMG! I wish we could grow only legumes! As soon as the first crop was done we started a second and although so far we didn't get as much as we wanted, it was so rewarding and great for the soil...a blog post to come.

I don't ever want to grow corn again (unless we have goats), we have a great local source that sells perfect yummy corn...really, why bother with it. Our corn this year was kind of sad. So far we have only had one ear that we could eat and the rest was taken over by bugs before it really became anything...so the lucky lil' girls have had many feasts of corn!

We are on our 4th planting of potatoes. So far the first (an early spring planting), is the only one to talk about...wonderful, large, yummy potatoes...the second and third were small but yummy. I hope the fourth is awesome because we want to use them for thanksgiving dinner!

Our peppers...hmmmm...where to start. The first seeds(I won't name the company because it could have just been a fluke) we bought never came up, then we planted a second set using a seed mat...nothing. Then we finally gave in a got some starts from the market. They are producing a lot of yummy peppers but they are so short and small that I think maybe we put them out to early and stunted them. We also wanted jalapenos and another spicy variety. We picked up a few at the market and the first two never made it. Then we grabbed another jalapeno but the peppers that we are harvesting (off the 3 inch tall plant, crazy short) are in no way, shape or form jalapenos.

Our first planting of carrots was wonderful...amazing, yummy, perfect. Our second never came up, our third...we ended up with 3! Lesson learned....you have to water seeds a lot throughout the day if you live where it is hot!

Onions and garlic; we were so excited to try that we did not do any research! Big mistake, although we made the most of it. First, we did not plant nearly enough considering we wanted to use then to make marinara sauce. Second, we didn't research to find out which types store well, although it didn't matter to much because it was all used up before they could really go bad. Third, we learned a new way to store garlic! Dehydrate it for garlic powder, blog post to come!

All of the herbs were wonderful, the only thing we will change is where we plant the herb garden. They ended up in a place that could have been used much better. We are planning on digging them up and placing them in pots so we can pull them in close to the house for winter and/or inside at night. Then re-plant them next spring in a better spot.

I gained a new love this year in my picky palate...Swiss chard! I never used to like it but for some reason I am now in love with it and Kale. Our Swiss chard was great this year until we accidentally took it out with the hula-hoe...oops! We also got a Kale plant from the market this year and although the bugs love it and we didn't really have room for it so it was not planted in the best spot...it is still going strong. Our lettuce was wonderful until the heat hit...then the caterpillars got it so we are trying different varieties in our fall/winter garden this year. I hope next summer to find a good variety for our hot weather.

The West African millet was amazing! Since the Doctor spent four years in Africa we wanted to try his hand at growing it here and making it into beer. We will be writing a blog post about the beer making.

We purchased melon seeds this year but they never came up...bummer. Later in the summer we buried a couple seeds from a melon we ate and we now have two melons growing...crazy!

Our watering system actually works out quite well, we did end up adding a second one. Once the tomatoes and Peppers had fruit on them we had to be more careful but they were all pretty well supported so it didn't matter to much. It was really nice to be able to walk out and turn on the timer, then the hose and walk back in the house knowing that half the garden was being watered all at once! Of course we still have to spot water some things that it does not reach but all in all it really helped us out timing wise and helped the plants really develop a strong root structure.

All in all we learned a lot...that is what we are most thankful for. We know that it is going to take us years to fully understand everything but since we love it so much we are excited to keep at it. What an awesome hobby to have...you enjoy what you do and feed yourself at the same time.

Harvest Monday 9/6-9/12 2011

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pretty little heart shaped tomato

green beans from our second crop (I left them outside for awhile by accident so I think these will become spicy pickled green beans)

Oregano, thai basil, savory or marjoram, tomatoes, and a green bell pepper

More tomatoes

zucchini

more tomatoes, and millet

more green beans

more zucchini, tomatoes, and millet

Our tomatoes have finally started to slow down a little. Next weekend we are going to take out about 5-6 plants that have pretty much stopped producing along with the one zucchini plant we have left. We were still able to make a big batch of marinara this weekend and should be able to make another few over the next few weeks. I think this is the first time that I am kind of sad that fall is coming. Just because I will miss making sauce once or twice a week and eating perfect tomatoes from the garden. I really am looking forward to fall...I miss the fall recipes that I usually make and I'm excited about our first fall/winter garden.

We are linking up with daphne's dandelions for harvest monday...go check out what others have harvested this week! Happy Monday!

Harvest Monday 8/30-9/5 2011

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Tomatoes, Yukon gold potatoes, green bell peppers, zucchini, basil, artichoke (for seeds), millet(for beer), parsley, bay, thyme, savory, and little hot red peppers (we were told that the plant was a jalapeno...obviously not).

More tomatoes

More zucchini, the big one went to the girls(chickens).

More tomatoes...we put a table into the garage so we would have more room for tomatoes. I did not even put all the pictures of tomatoes because they are boring after a few pictures.

Today is our anniversary and we are spending it mostly in the garden. We both really enjoy it and since our babysitter is away for the weekend we are not able to go out and celebrate. Most of the time we are disappointed by dinner out in our small town anyway...so dinner at home will be perfect.

Yesterday we made sauce as usual but we also tried our hand at making bloodymary mix and it came out really good. That will be the next thing we perfect since we already have the spicy beans recipe perfect. We also spent a lot of time weeding and making room for the fall/winter garden.

We ended up planting a fourth planting of yukon gold potatoes and filled the one raised bed we have with a little bit of deertounge lettuce, red romaine, red kale, red chard, claytonia, mache, and spinach. We planted some purple snap peas next to our second crop of Missouri bill's pole beans and found the first bean! Today we want to get more things started for the fall/winter garden and then relax in the pool.

Enjoy your labor day everyone!

We are linking up with Daphne's dandelions for Harvest mondays...check out other awesome harvests.

Harvest Monday 8/23-8/29 2011

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Tomatoes...of course.

more tomatoes...I'm getting a bit sick of taking photos of them since we harvest at least a basket a day.

Our first ear of corn and first really red bell pepper and of course many more tomatoes.

Green bell peppers

Yukon Gold potatoes

We picked up some Celosia last weekend at the market and I noticed the other day that it was dropping its seeds...so I quickly grabbed a cookie sheet to save all the seeds for next years garden.

We wanted to start by saying sorry to all the other Harvest Monday blogger's. We are trying to get the comment problem fixed. We are not able to comment on some of your blogs due to some blogger issue.

This week was full of tomatoes, making sauce and working on planting for our fall/winter garden. We ended up with so many cherry tomatoes that we decided to dehydrate them. We didn't plant any cherry tomatoes this year but we ended up with 6 or 7 volunteers. I was worried that with the 75+ tomatoes plants we would not be able to keep up and would end up throwing a lot out but I'm happy because so far we have not really had a problem. After canning last weekend double batch of sauce we are now at 87 pints! We just found a place in town that sells half gallon canning jars and picked some up so we could can some sauce as Christmas gifts for our family.

I spotted the first pumkin yesterday...I hope we have enough for the little guy to crave a couple for Halloween. We are linking up with Daphnes dandelions for Harvest monday! Happy Monday!

a new vintage cookbook

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Copyrighted, 1915-By Larkin Co.~Received (by previous owner) Nov. 27th 1917~Price, 25 cents.

To the woman who takes pride in serving tasty and attractive dishes, who delights in placing on her table "Good Things to Eat," who wishes to have the means of "variety" ever at her command, this Cook Book will be a valuable and constant adviser.-It is interesting to note that is contains recipes from North, South, East, and West; the favorite recipes of practical and experienced housewives. No recipes were accepted from professional cooks but all from the homes of our many customers. We believe that this book will prove unique on account of the immense variety given.-Here will be found an answer to the question that is ever perplexing the housewife-what to serve for the coming meal. Here she will find the most valuable suggestions that will enable her to prepare, in a great variety and in a practical and economical way, delicious and appetizing dishes that will be a source of real satisfaction and extreme delight to those in her home who truly appreciate "Good Things to Eat."

speechless...

Oh and thanks to my impressive mom, who knows me well and picked this up for me at a yard sale...then because she is more awesome than your mom, shipped it to me, along with fun stuff for Gnar, the doctor and me. Be on the look out for new and most likely, interesting recipes from this cookbook!

The list for fall/winter...in the garden & our favorite local seed source.

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This will be our first year planting a fall/winter garden. We plan on making a temporary greenhouse/frost protection to give everything a better chance. We always want to add something new to the garden every season.

I am loving the idea of planting lots of lettuce but sad that the heirloom tomatoes will be gone by the time it is ready. I am learning to be better about eating seasonal...it will take me time to grow accustom to it but I feel it is worth it. The food from the garden is so so much better...how could I resist?

I think the thing I have the hardest time with is tomatoes (which will never really change) and celery (for soups), that is why we have decided to try the celeriac this year. I heard it is easier to keep/store and has a very close favor.

Here is what we have decided to plant in the garden:

Yellow Granex hybrid Onion (purchased by the Doctors mom in Hawaii)

From Annie's heirloom seeds (a company our sister-in-law uses)

Claytonia
Danish Ballhead Cabbage
Giant Musselburgh Leek
Giant of Prague Celeriac
Giant Winter Spinach
Harris Model Parsnip
Kettle River Giant Garlic
Mother of Pearl Garlic
Music Garlic
Siberian Red Garlic
Violet of Sicily Cauliflower
Vit Corn Salad (Mache)
Waltham Broccoli
Annie's Beet Blend (Detroit Dark Red, Burpee's Golden, Chioggia, and Cylindra)

From our favorite local seed source, Redwood organic farm:

Deer Tongue lettuce
Red romaine
Red chard
Red winter kale
Purple dragon carrots
Sugar magnolia snap peas vine
Chesnook Red Garlic
Elephant Garlic

Kalan Redwood, from Redwood Seeds says, "It is great to hear how our seeds do and when I think about how much food we possibly send out into the world it kind of blows my mind." We feel like we are creating a long term relationship with this company and love that they are local and have the same ideals.

We are really excited to try a fall/winter garden this year and learn more about gardening...more blog posts to come on this adventure.

Harvest Monday 8/15-8/22 2011

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We are linking up with daphnes dandelions for Harvest Monday!

Tomatoes and zucchini

More zucchini

more tomatoes



making sauce and showing more tomatoes

making zucchini pickles...recipe to follow in a few weeks

our busy stove top...reducing sauce, making more sauce, and canning the zucchini pickles.

I didn't add all the pictures of tomatoes this week because it seemed a little boring...but there were about 4 more full baskets that we harvested. I also forgot to get a picture of the green bell peppers we harvest...only 4. This weekend we started making sauce and realized that we were going to have to make two batches when the pot was full and we had only cut a little under half of the tomatoes. We are at 63 pints of marinara sauce this year so far and that is not counting the two batches of sauce we made this weekend...I still have not canned them because one is still on the stove. We also had some extra zucchini, like everyone does, so we decided to try a zucchini pickles recipe. I'm also proud to share that for the first time in about two months my entire kitchen counter isn't covered in tomatoes...only 11! yeah!

Harvest Monday 8/7-8/14 2011

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I just found out about this awesomeness from Urban veggie garden and loved the idea. We are linking up with daphnes dandelions for our first Harvest monday! Yes we added one day...next week it will be only one week.

8/7/2011-

One tiny Japanese eggplant and tomatoes (only 7 pictured, we harvested many more)

 8/9/2011-

Soybeans, even more tomatoes, one zucchini

8/10/2011-

west African millet, drying (we harvested more than pictured) it will be made into beer

 8/11/2011-

Sunflowers, kale, more tomatoes

more zucchini and a sunflower

8/12/2011-

Mohawk tobacco

Yukon gold potatoes, bell peppers and a few bay leaves, and more tomatoes, soybeans, and millet

8/13/2011-

more tomatoes, bell peepers and zucchini

8/14/2011-

again...more tomatoes

we had to take out a couple of tomato and zucchini plants so we have some green tomatoes to work with and some large zucchinis to make into bread or treats for the chickens

and again more tomatoes...we do have about 75+ tomato plants left

Happy Monday!