Grateful

Oh, my friends. Thank you so, so, so much for your kind words--all of the emails and phone calls and messages and comments. I can't tell you how many times I have reread each one. So grateful for all of you and your support.

I am feeling much better. Still not totally like myself, but I feel like the adjustment is underway. Tomorrow I will take my last dose of Zoloft and I am hopeful that once I am completely over the withdrawal symptoms that I will feel even better! Right now it seems like the mornings are the best but then I start struggling with dizziness, nausea, and anxiety in the afternoon and evening (I take my medication first thing in the morning as prescribed, since it apparently causes severe insomnia and anxiety if you take it too late; it's delayed-release so I imagine that's why my symptoms worsen as the day goes on). Last night I just went and walked around Target for an hour (I had to get out of my house--and the library closed at 9 but I wasn't ready to go home) and I noticed that I was doing all kinds of crazy jittery things with my teeth and hands (fortunately the store was practically empty). Awesome. And yesterday was MUCH better than the day before--one friend stopped by in the morning just as I was thinking, "I can't make it until lunch...how am I going to make it until lunch?!" and another friend had my kids over to play in the afternoon and sent dinner home when Neil picked them up. I was so grateful--the chance to have quiet time alone by myself (I went for a quick run in the woods which was so soul-restoring and then picked up the entire house! oh happiness!!) was exactly what I needed.

And life is going on. Today the kids and I went to a science show at the library (dry ice! liquid nitrogen! exploding chemicals!). We didn't make it all the way through, but we saw most of it, and then checked out some books and whatnot. It felt like we were getting back to normal life. And while the kids ate lunch I made raspberry jam (easiest jam ever since you just smush the raspberries with your hands and presto, they're ready for the pectin). At first I was kind of thinking, self, why are we making jam today? but when I had the jars cooling on the counter I felt so happy, because it was something that "normal me" would do. 

Onward and upward.

applesauce

We spent most of Saturday (eleven hours, all told) turning 300 pounds of apples into 82 jars of applesauce.  Sounds super fun, right?  Actually, canning applesauce is by far my favorite, because it goes so quickly and is so easy compared to something like pears.  (Plus it's really easy for the kids to help, plus they LOVE eating apples like crazy.  And we had this for dinner [minus the peaches] and nothing else.)

If you've never made applesauce before, here are a few pointers:

• Buy "seconds."  This means the apples are slightly imperfect in terms of aesthetics--you can see how the apples in the photo above have blemishes on the skin or are funny shapes.  In all the apples we processed on Saturday, we found only one that was wormy.  The vast majority of seconds are perfectly good eating apples; the farmer just can't sell them as such because they look a little odd.  Seconds are usually way discounted (I paid $15 a bushel this year, but in the past I've paid as little as $6--it just depends on the supply in your area).  Check pickyourown.org or localharvest.org to find a grower near you--go local!  I can't tell you how nice it is to buy food from someone who knows your name.  :-)  Figure on getting between 12-15 jars of sauce per bushel of apples (this time I got 13.66 and the sauce was really thick). 
• Purchase or borrow a food strainer.  (I have this one.)  This will make your applesauce for you!  Here is the process:  quarter your apples (don't core or peel them), toss them in a stockpot with enough water so they don't burn, and cook them until they start to fall apart when you poke them.  Then drain out the water (reserve it until you see if your applesauce is too thick, then use the apple water to thin it out), put the apples through the strainer, and voila, applesauce!  It is seriously that easy.  Pour the sauce into jars, adjust two-piece caps, and process for 20 minutes in a boiling water canner.  (I would not recommend adding sugar, since most applesauce is really sweet already.)

Have fun!  Seriously, give applesauce a try if you've never done it before--it is the cheapest and easiest thing you can preserve at home.  :-) 

summer garden

I've been really pleased with my little garden this year--I doubt it will be its most productive year ever, but considering that it's been sadly neglected in favor of Luke, it's doing quite well!

This has undoubtedly been our best year for lettuce.  I've been keeping a 2-gallon bag in the 'fridge full of washed lettuce; it supplied multiple salads for our 20 visitors a few weeks ago without batting the proverbial eye.  It's just finally starting to bolt; I'm hoping I can get one or two more out, but I don't think our lettuce has ever lasted to July before!  The box here has been growing its lettuces faithfully, but the volunteer lettuces that sprung up all over the garden have been supplying us with the majority of the lettuce.  Think GIANT heads, with individual leaves about ten inches in diameter.  Seriously, it's been awesome!

The tomato plants are showing signs of blight (we've had an extremely wet spring) but I'm hoping that I can combat that with spraying (someone recommended a Melaleuca product, so I'm trying that this year, since the commercial stuff didn't do anything last year) and pruning.  The beans, however, are making my heart feel all warm and fuzzy.  Go beans!!  Produce like crazy!!!

My only regret with the raspberry bush is that we didn't plant an entire forest of them.  They're just starting to come on, and mmmm....so tasty.

And the peppers--somehow this year we are growing the biggest peppers we've ever grown.  I picked the first peppers and eggplant today.  Pizza tonight!!!

Applesauce

Want to know something?  "Applesauce" was my first word (or more like "applesloss" if you want to get technical).  It's good stuff.

I love canning applesauce.  It comes right at the perfect time--I'm sick of pitting peaches, hulling strawberries, snapping green beans, blanching tomatoes, crushing blueberries.  Applesauce is like a gift--quarter the apples, throw them in a pot with some water until they're softened, crank them through the strainer, and bam!  Applesauce.  I love it.

Our kids have been there for every step of the way on all the food preservation this summer; they've snapped their fair share of green beans and been up to their elbows in strawberries.  But applesauce is something that they can really do "all by themselves" (boiling apple mush, however, is still done by Neil and I).  Plus, we let them eat all the apples they want, which is like a dream come true for some reason.

 

Isaac wasn't really a big apple fan before Saturday afternoon, but he's been very enthusiastic ever since (I guess if you get plunked down with 140 lbs of apples as your only toy for several hours, you do what you gotta do).

Foodie Friday: Zucchini and tomato tian with Parmesan breadcrumbs

I know, I know.  I've been a real slouch about posting recipes lately.

My little sister Elise called me on Tuesday from Provo.  "I need the recipe for that zucchini and tomato thing you made," she said. 

I figured if a college student who had been back at school for less than 24 hours was making that request, I should probably post the recipe for everyone.

So here.  Enjoy.  It's really good.  I promise. 

So does Elise.

still not wanting to blog, but wanting something of a record

Last week was a whirlwind.  I canned tomatoes, salsa, peach chutney, and dilly beans.
It may not sound like much, but it was a LOT.

Juliet's birthday was on Saturday.  I think she had a lovely day. 

One of the components of Juliet's birthday dinner:  heirloom tomato and peach salad (we also
had honey-grilled salmon, roasted green beans, and extremely decadent brownies).

Abigail peeling garlic for the dilly beans

The day we processed 30 lbs of beans.  It took us literally all day--we started at 9:30 am, took a break from 5-7 pm, and finished around 8:30 pm.  The girls were amazing little helpers.  Seriously.  Amazing. 

And some pictures before church on Sunday (and Jooj's awesome bathtub hair).  Don't you love Isaac's tie?  And I wish Juliet's dress came in my size. 

so I found the pictures after all--they were hidden in a duplicate folder

Modeling the apron Mary Beth gave me (and holding an awesome cookbook my parents bought for me--I think at Anthropologie, if you're interested in picking one up).  I should say that my presents this year were wonderful--I was so touched by how every gift was something that was perfectly tailored to my tastes and interests.  Really, really, really cool.  And all the photos on this post are taken the camera my parents gave me.  And I have been loving running with my new technical running clothes (thanks, G'ma and Papa!) and my iPod nano and Nike + sport kit (from my sweetheart Neil)--as soon as I get it calibrated. 

We made pizzas for dinner on my birthday--this combination of red onions, grilled eggplant, garden tomatoes, and freshly-made pesto was my favorite

A slice of the truly delectable flourless chocolate torte that Mary Beth (and Abigail) made.

Chocolate torte and orange gladiolus from the garden, post-festivities.

We spent Wednesday morning canning--pictured are peaches, peach jam, zucchini relish, 
and apple butter.

On Thursday we experimented with making mozzarella.  I really need to do a Foodie Friday
post on this (if there's enough interest--please comment if you'd like to learn more!) so I'll save
the details for that.

Stretching and kneading the mozzarella

Mary Beth & I holding finished mozzarella balls

Fresh mozzarella on rye with basil leaves and tomatoes, on heirloom tomatoes.

I should also say that we did indeed replicate the Artopolis crostini with amazing results.  

The secret is a balsamic vinegar reduction, which tastes...just...amazing.  (Very simple:  

slowly boil balsamic vinegar until it's reduced by about 3/4 in volume, then drizzle--we used

it on crostini, bruschetta, and pizza). 

eating from the garden

One of my friends told me last week that her husband said having a garden was like having another child.  I thought about this while I was picking beans this morning after my run and decided I'd have to agree...it just takes some serious time.  And love.  I'm saying this as I think about all the time I've spent lately clipping leaves and spraying my tomatoes for early blight (most disheartening thing ever.  No fun at all). 

But on the other hand, the fun thing about the garden is all the lovely produce.  And we're at the point in the summer where sometimes it feels a little overwhelming--what do you do with all of this?  So here are some ideas:  this is what we've eaten this past week or so.  Bolded items are from the garden.

Stir-fried tofu with leeks, peas, onions, and lemon rice (Neil made this and it was so tasty!)

Pasta with sauteed (sorry, no accent mark!) zucchini, peppers, chard, and onions

Baked zucchini (slice in half, score with a fork, brush with olive oil and sprinkle with fresh Parmesan, bake at 350 for 30 minutes), mashed turnips, fresh whole-wheat bread, fresh tomatoes, cherries, and apricots

Grilled fish tacos with onions, cilantro, and lime (plus lots of fresh guacamole)--this didn't have much from our garden, but it was the universal favorite meal of the week--the kids wanted to eat it again the next night.  I served it with lettuce rather than cabbage. 

White bean and kale soup with zucchini and rosemary, plus fresh peaches and rosemary rolls

Roasted garlic soup with baguettes and peaches (not much garden, but this meal was at Abigail's request.  The kid loves garlic).

Cannelloni beans with caramelized carrots, onions, and pecans, roasted green beans (my new favorite food EVER and so simple:  toss 3 lbs of young green beans with 1 head peeled garlic cloves, 3/4 t. salt, 2 T. olive oil, spread on a rimmed baking sheet or two, then roast at 400 for 35 minutes.  Amazing, except for the part where Abigail ate four cloves of garlic and smelled rather...exciting), fresh blueberries, and whole-wheat bread.  (the beans are pictured at the beginning of the post)

Panini with fresh basil pesto, heirloom tomatoes, and mozzarella.  First one of the season, and sooooo worth waiting for. 

We've also been eating pounds and pounds of fresh green beans as snacks, plus cucumbers and cherry tomatoes.  Ah, summer. 

A few things

This is Juliet's superhero costume.  She wears it all the time.  I think it's adorably hilarious.

This spring I planted fifty or sixty gladiolus bulbs.  I'm not a fan of paying exorbitant florist prices, but I must admit that nothing gives me a little lilt of happiness like a vase of gorgeous flowers sitting on the kitchen table.  So I love this time of year when I can grow my own!

We're eating a lot from the garden these days--I go out in the morning and see what's ripe and that's what we have for dinner.  These onions, peppers, zucchini, and rainbow chard came together with some whole-wheat linguine (unfortunately, we discovered that we prefer the taste of kale to chard.  Next year we'll plant more kale and less chard.  We were seduced by its gorgeous coloring!)

Last night we had mashed turnips, baked zucchini, the first of the tomatoes, and fresh cherries and apricots.  (We also had a million cucumbers to eat but I forgot to cut them up.)  And then after dinner I spent an hour picking beans, and we pulled out about two pounds to eat, then blanched and froze another 3 quart bags of beans.  And then we canned a bunch of cherries.  We're slowly shifting into those typical late-summer evenings...harvesting and processing.  A lot.  Oh boy.  My feet hurt just thinking about it...tonight is reserved for blueberries (again!) 

And last but not least, I want to give a shout-out to our cloth diapers!  We've been using them for thirteen months now (we started in June with Juliet before Isaac was born; Isaac began wearing them when he was two weeks old).  I am still so in love with cloth diapering.  Aside from the fact that I never have to buy diapers ever ever, which is completely awesome, they are so lovely and user-friendly.  No more diaper rashes, and the cloth diapers smell so much less than disposables (which I didn't expect at all--but when we were on vacation a couple of months ago and Isaac wore disposables, I noticed that the disposables are much more odorous).  If you're contemplating making the switch, I would highly recommend cloth diapering (so would Neil).  And yes--they do get completely clean.  :-)

squooshing

Last Tuesday the girls and I made an enormous batch of strawberry freezer jam.  After I explained that their responsibility was to mash up all the berries, they could use their hands, and I didn't care if they ate berries as they worked, Abigail turned to me with a glow in her eyes and said, "Mama, I think this is the best job ever."

blueberries

The blueberries are on!



Last Wednesday we ate an early dinner and hurried over to our favorite local farm for opening day. 

Blueberries are my favorite thing to pick as a family--easy reach for the kids, no bending or stooping or reaching for the adults.  Just big, beautiful, juicy clusters hanging right in front of your eyes and hands.  The kids actually picked about a pound and a half into their bucket (not including what they ate and/or fed to Isaac). 

We were in such a hurry to leave that Juliet arrived without any shoes--a source of great glee to her. I can totally sympathize--I love being barefoot. 

Hurray for blueberries--I love to freeze them whole and eat them with steel-cut oats all year long.  Plus, they seem so Fourth of July-appropriate, don't you think? 

this morning before breakfast I picked several zucchini and squash, a huge bunch of bolted cilantro (tabletop decoration!), broccoli, and a bowl of raspberries.  I still need to go back out and harvest lettuce, turnips, carrots, and peas.

wish you were here. 

image

bouquets

edible bouquets, courtesy of the garden: broccoli and (a single head of) Boston Bibb lettuce.

(please note:  Abigail devoured all of hers in about seven minutes flat.  I barely got in there to wash it before she started munching...)

garden 2010

I realized yesterday that I should post about our gardening efforts this year, since we're almost a month in already!

This year we tried something new: growing our transplants from seed. These are normally things we'd buy at the nursery, but we wanted to give it a shot ourselves. Eventually we'd like to be saving all our seeds and replanting exclusively from those, but we're easing in to it.



Oh--and our seed-growing spot? Master bathroom. Bathtub. (really looking forward to taking a long luxurious bath again one of these days...)


Our original plan this year was to nearly double the size of our garden, but Neil remembered (as he was tilling, and fortunately before he tilled that area!) that our electrical lines run right through the planned expansion site. So...our garden is a little bigger than last year, but not as big as we'd like. We're still contemplating our options and dreaming about the day when our garden will be the size of our current backyard.

A couple of weeks ago we planted peas, lettuces (lots of different kinds), a couple of varieties of spinach, green onions, leeks, kale, and radishes. All of those are now up and growing happily; yesterday we planted turnips, carrots, parsnips, beets, and more radishes (interplanted with the parsnips to break the soil for the weaker parsnips). Ideally, we would have planted those earlier, but we had to wait until we re-tilled the almost-bricklike clay that comprises our backyard (awesome developers who scalped and sold off the topsoil).


Jules standing near the lettuce box (you can see the just-transplanted leeks in this shot)

The chives have been up for about six weeks now and we've been eating them quite a bit; the oregano and rhubarb are up as well and almost ready to begin harvesting. The raspberry has put out a million new shoots and we really need to get pruning there...

If you're interested, here's everything that's going into our garden this year:

• Broccoli (Calabrese)
• Herbs (lavendar, rosemary, dill, cilantro, basil--oregano and chives already growing)
• Peppers (Sweet Red, Sunbright, California Wonder, jalapeno, Anaheim)
• Leeks
• Eggplant (Black Beauty)
• Tomatoes (Fourth of July, Brandy Boy, Big Mama, Best Boy, Steak Sandwich, Super Sweet 100)
• Okra (Clemson spineless)
• Brussels sprouts (Long Island Improved)
• Watermelon (Sweet Scarlet Hybrid)
• Cantalope (Ambrosia)
• Pumpkin (Small sugar)
• Peas (Super Sugar Snap, Little Marvel)
• Radish (Cherry Belle)
• Turnip (Purple-top White Globe)
• Spinach (Baby's Leaf & Harmony hybrid)
• Parsnips
• Yellow onions (sets)
• Beets (Detroit Dark Red)
• Kale (Vates Dwarf Blue)
• Swiss Chard (Bright Lights)
• Lettuce (Simpson Elite, Vivian, Burpee Bibb, Little Caesar)
• Beans (Bush Blue Lake, Kentucky Wonder)
• Corn (Early and Often)
• Cucumber (Sweet Burpless hybrid)
• Squashes (zucchini hybrid, Pic-n-Pic, Waltham Butternut)