Busy Hands Homestead

At our house, this has been the summer of marinated salads.   The ingredients sourced from our garden: Sweet and Sour Cabbage Salad, Cucumber Salad, Green Bean Salad. Vegetables chopped and dressed and tucked into the empty spaces in the fridge to be eaten hours or sometimes a day or two later.   Now it is the beet's turn.   Bright and cheery, this salad is going to be tomorrow's lunch.   3 or 4 large beets, roasted, peeled and chilled 1 small onion, very thinly sliced 3 Tablespoons Olive Oil 1 Tablespoon White Vinegar basil, parsley (fresh, roughly chopped) and tarragon (I used dried) salt and pepper (to taste) Cut the beets in half and then the halves into wedges put into bowl and add the thinly sliced onion.   In a small bowl combine the olive oil, white vinegar, basil, parsley and tarragon.  Whisk to combine the olive oil and vinegar.  Pour over the beets.  Stir, or if your container seals, give it a good shake. Chill for...

A dark ring is left behind in the tub. The bathroom sink is spattered with mud. The kitchen counter is lined with 10 quart jars of peaches, 6 pint jars of cucumber chips, 4 half pint jars of peach jam of fresh out of the oven bread.  Seven jars of dilly beans and 5 pint jars of honeyed bread and butter pickles have already been stashed away on the shelf.  Trays of dehydrated kale and basil are still in the dehydrator needing to be packed away. This isn't exactly how I imagined our Labor Day Weekend. I was hoping for lazing by a river or walking in the woods, but instead I spent most of three days in the kitchen while Adam crawled around in the space below my feet. "You want some coffee?" I shout down at him. "No.  I will just have to come up and pee." A little while later I hear from below me: "Sure, I will take some coffee. I shift a few pots around and put the kettle on. The water is back on after Adam had rerouted all the plumbing to...

Cherry season is short and sweet. The majority of the seventy pounds of  cherries we picked are now stored in jars as brandied cherries, two kinds of cherry jam, frozen pie filling or simply pitted, bagged and frozen.  There are still plenty of cherries for Sylvan and Ivory to open the fridge door and pull out dark red cherries by the handful.   "Next week will be the last for cherries," the woman tells me at the farmers market info booth. Short and Sweet. I thank her and peruse the market booths. I am here for cucumbers - dark green and crisp cucumbers. Cucumbers that will be paired with cherries.  Savory and Sweet.   Sweet and Savory.   Straight from the garden mint, thyme, onions, peppers, lettuce...   and cherries.   Cherry and Cucumber Crostini  1 cup pitted and halved cherries 1/2 large cucumber, peeled, seeded and diced 1 small onion, finely chopped 1 handful of mint leaves, fine...

The kids and I walked through our garden this morning an snipped flowers for our first summer bouquet:  some roses, a sprig of lemon balm, parsley blossoms, bolting radishes and flowers off of what I am fairly certain are pretty, but invasive, weeds.   It sits in front of me as I trail shapes onto the cups that I threw during yesterday's nap time.  While the children sleep an apple tree moves through the seasons; carrots, beets and cabbages grow  in rows; and hens peck at scratch. Today's nap time creations. 

Last night's dinner was a surprising success.  I did not expect to watch the kids spoon the soup into their mouths - without a single complaint.  I even received complements.  That is rare out of the mouths of my children when dealing with anything spinach that I thought I would share the recipe.  (Sorry, no picture...) Spinach Soup  4 slices bacon fry bacon, remove from pan and set aside 1/2 large yellow onion, chopped saute onion and then add 1 teaspoon salt  6 medium potatoes, chopped  3 boullion cubes 3 cups water 2 Tablespoons butter simmer until the potatoes are soft take half of the soup, blend it, and return it back to the pot 3 Tablespoons flour 3 cups water  whisk the flour into the water and add to the soup, then bring to a boil 3 ounces cream cheese 2 cups chopped, frozen spinach dash of nutmeg and pepper stir in cream cheese and spinach, add nutmeg and ginger when the cream ...

I remember staring at my daughter, when she was still tiny, red and wrinkled, thinking about this marvelous miracle of life.  Holding her, it dawned on me that, I was also cradling my grand children in my arms as her infant body already contains fully formed egg cells. While I have always made an effort to eat healthy and exercise, this realization has sent me on the additional mission to try and avoid products that contain potential endocrine disruptors and mutagens. Our house hold isn't completely devoid of plastic, all organic or full of eco-cleaning products.  The lists of complex ingredients on the back of bottles gave me headaches.  Trying to remember what was good, all right and bad while actually examining a product in the store was beyond me.  Many of the products I felt confident purchasing were beyond or financial ability, so I took a different approach.  There is simply a long list of products I don't buy.  I don't buy commercial s...

It is 10:30 at night and this little guy is still going strong. He is helping me with complete enthusiasm.  I, on the other hand, am tired and trying tie up the loose ends on the days projects.  The chilled dough ready for a thick layer of cream cheese filling and the last of the fresh peaches.   Peaches - off of which I have been slipping fuzzy skins, cutting them into wedges, ladling them into hot jars and of which I have been sneaking little bites and passing bigger bites to the kids. Peaches in a light syrup.  Peach cobbler.  Frozen Peaches. Old Fashioned Peach Jam.  Peach infused Apple Spread. I have been leaving the kitchen, but not wandering much farther than the garden. Along the edge of our porch, the seeds Ivory gingerly poked into the ground, now tower as plants above me.   The strawberries are finally turning red.  The Morning Glories I planted much too late are sparse but, well, gl...

The sun is shinning.  It is warm and humid. We woke this morning to birds singing and the ever present humming of the cars driving by just out of sight.  The view of farm fields and little farm houses tucked between the rolling hills visible from the windows of our room belie the proximity to town.  We are all still a little tired after arriving at my father's house in the wee hours of  Wednesday morning. My father proudly gave us a tour of the yard, coffee cups in hand, and we admired his strawberry plants, tomatoes, peppers, squash, onions, fennel, peas and beans. His yard is something to which I hope ours will someday aspire.  While I have been raging war on the sod in our yard, here there all ready are well established garden beds, filled with beautiful perennials, interspersed with plots of edible plants.  There are covered walkways and sitting areas over which thick stemmed grape, hardy kiwi and wisteria spread their bows. ...

I have been trying, like many other mothers out there, to incorporate more fresh fruits and vegetables into our day. The promise of summer and the soon to come gardening season leaves me yearning for fresh produce. My shopping trips have resulted in boxes brimming with kale, beets, carrots, sweet potatoes, celery, potatoes, cauliflower, broccoli, cabbage, spinach, lettuce, avocados, onions, apples, pears, bananas, and strawberries. As I stash them all away in my kitchen, I admit that I feel just a little guilty as I briefly consider just how far some of these item have traveled to find their way into my kitchen. I brush the thought away: “Soon it will be summer and I can buy most things locally.” My husband's shopping trips result in some other items finding their way into our kitchen. He had to return an item to ACE, which happens to be right next door to Albertson's, and I asked him to pick me up a few apples for the cookies I was making. He brought back apples, but ...

     Our household has been pulsing from chaos to mess, chaos to mess, chaos to mess. For the last week we (with the wonderful help of friends) have been shuttling everything we own, including our two dogs, seven chickens and massive piles of wood, across our neighborhood with Sylvan and Ivory in tow. Figuring out where to sleep, where to wash laundry and how to cook dinner on top of the mess. The washer and dryer are finally hooked up, and while many small piles remain everywhere, I am beginning to see our new house become a home.      All through this process I keep thinking of someone I love very much, who is day after day taking care of someone she loves very much, as he is fading away, and wishing I didn't live thousands of miles away. I have no words to offer. I know nothing of death and dying except that it is inevitable, and I often wonder what exactly we talked about in that Death and Dying class I took in college. Why is it o...