The Garden is Humming, Now What?

Time in the kitchen is an important part of our daily lives, both B and I enjoy cooking and the kids have also shown interest in making their own recipes.  Never is our time in the kitchen so intense as come August.  Until now we have one crop at a time coming in that we eat and preserve; rhubarb, raspberries, peas, each coming in their own window.  Right now begins the onslaught.  Every spare moment will involve cutting, blanching, roasting, baking, and the hiss, hiss, hiss sound as the pressure caner works overtime.  

It can be easy to get lost in getting everything put up, so we also make an added effort to cook out of the garden daily.  This can be to the kids chagrin as they have decided that we do not grow the good vegetables.  Ha!  I challenge you to name a vegetable we do not grow, or like corn can get so easily grown locally.  Kids! :)  A favorite they do agree on is zucchini bread.  I baked six loaves yesterday, a great start on my freezer stock.  It is a go to weekend breakfast treat during the winter.

We were about 50/50 kid approval wise of what we made this week.   They liked the jalapeno poppers and the Indian Spiced Corn Soup that I made last night.  I got a neutral on the Late Summer Minestrone soup that I got from this months Living Magazine, which was great by the way.  They were less than thrilled with the Borscht.  They both love beets, but I guess they just want them roasted, not in the form of a pink soup.

Zucchini Bread

3 C Flour
1 tsp. Baking soda
1 tsp. Salt
1/4 tsp. Baking Powder
3 tsp. Cinnamon
3 Eggs
2 C Sugar
3 tsp. Vanilla
1 C Vegetable Oil
3 C Shredded Zucchini

Preheat oven to 350.  In a large bowl combine dry ingredients, mix together, and set aside.  In a stand mixer beat eggs, add sugar, vanilla, and vegetable oil and mix until well combined.  Add shredded zucchini (you can use any summer squash, I suggest squeezing the surplus liquid from it before adding to the batter).  Mix until well combined, then add dry ingredients and mix.  Split batter between two loaf pans and bake for 1 hour or until a tooth pick comes out clean.  You can also add 1/2 cup of chopped nuts to the batter before splitting into pans, but I tend to leave them out in case I want to take a loaf to a party or give as a gift, I do not have to worry about nut allergies.  Enjoy.

#100HappyDays :: Day 94

We do not grow our own sweet corn as it is space intensive and we have such a great source of locally grown.  When the first of the it hits the roadside stands we happily stock up, especially at 13 ears for $5.  We eat plenty of fresh, but since buying our pressure caner two years ago, try to can as much as possible for off season cooking.  At Julie's suggestion I subscribed to the New York Times Cooking newsletter.  I am so glad that I did, I have been trying recipes out of it the last couple of weeks right and left.  The Indian Spiced Corn Soup was simple, fantastic, and most importantly a kid pleaser!   I The first sweet corn of the season providing a deliciously happy moment.

#100HappyDays :: Day 93

August has arrived and even just a few days in you know it.  It has its own feel; a combination of lazy hazy days and the hustle and bustle of finishing up summer while simultaneously preparing for the school year.  The days have begun to grow shorter and the light is taking on that special golden hue that I so love this time of year.  As we walk the property there is just a certain feel to everything, the locusts hum and the garden is producing.  It feels as if everything has hit its stride, instinctively knowing that change is coming and every moment should be enjoyed before the season is out.  I love the feel of late summer.  Maybe because we head off on a much anticipated vacation, or it is the time when we eat the freshest and put up most of the garden produce for the winter, or maybe it is just because it is the final build up to my favorite time of year, the fall.  Regardless, an August day with its fluctuations between busy and relaxed make for many happy moments.

#100HappyDays :: Day 92

Thistles are a royal pain when you are gardening organically.  Since we do not use herbicides, we need to take them out by hand.  They come up everywhere and even the best of gloves are no great protection when pulling them.  They do come out fairly easily most of the time, but it is a never ending task, and even with the best intentions there are always areas on the property where they will grow with flourish, flower and at the moment they are creating thousands of seeds that I am sure we will see next year.

The plant itself is nothing to look at, but the flowers are gorgeous and do have a rich Celtic history.  When I looked out my kitchen window last night the sun was setting just right, and the thistle seed and web were both sparkling.  Proof that a happy moment can even come from a pesky weed.

Do You BuJo?

At the beginning of the summer I heard through some friends about the bullet journal (BuJo), and hosted a class at our house to find out more.  I have been a fully digital girl for a long time and rely heavily on it for my calendar and address book but at heart I am still a list maker, and note taker, and like to be able to quickly refer back to something long since completed.  As I have downloaded any number of apps for this purpose, I have yet to come across one that does exactly what I would like.  I have taken to using two separate notebooks at work for our weekly meeting notes, and find that when I need to jot something down, since life is so digital, I either have sticky notes everywhere or will jot a note down in one of two places on my phone, both mediums have the problem of being out of sight, out of mind.

Enter the bullet journal, one place for everything.  Though a major component of it is also to house your calendar, I do not use it for that function, except to highlight a special event on a given day, like a birthday or anniversary.  More importantly, I use it to house notes on particular projects, party plans, school related stuff, random business cards that I want to hang onto and weekly to-do lists, goals and menu plans....yes, I am even trying to menu plan!  Though I may not be sticking to it entirely in this season of garden bounty, it is nice that my ideas for the week are there to look back on.

I also enjoy that I have made it part art journal too.  I can doodle and decorate.  On busy summer days when there are an impossible number of to-dos running through the ongoing list in my head, I am happy that I have a place to find everything.  There is something about having a little bit of analog in this ever digital life that is grounding.