Wordless Wednesday {{impressions of a rainy evening}}
Mama, my hair!
To say that my youngest daughter is a rough sleeper would be an understatement.
She always wakes up with the back of her hair in knots, always,and you can tell how well she slept by how big the knot is.
She is, what we like to call, a “brain rocker”. To help herself fall to sleep she rocks her head back and forth, and in the process ties her hair into big, fat knots!
Every morning we do the “Big Comb Out”
I plop her in front of her favorite cartoon and as gently as possible work on the rats nest that was at one time her hair.
After a few tears, we get to this: nice smooth piggy tails.
Occasionally we will get fancy and do some messy buns,
but mostly she gets piggies.
The reason for nice tight piggies?
Because when nap time rolls around…
the rockin’ starts and because I don’t want a repeat of the “Big Comb Out” tight piggy tails it is.
She is a master at working those piggies nice and lose and lop sided during her afternoon naps, but at least she doesn’t get the knots.
and that
Makes for one very
happy 4 year-old.
Preserving The Harvest
About a year ago I started to change the way I thought about life. I wanted to live more self sustaining. I wanted to be able to be more self sufficient, and not have to always be so dependent on the grocery store. Over the year this has changed and grown. The biggest change I have noticed is the way I view food. Before I bought most of my food pre-made, pre-prepackaged full of chemical additives, food dyes and preservatives. Now most of the food that is eaten at this house is home made from scratch. I know exactly what is going into my kiddos tummies, the few convience (sp??) foods I do buy are mostly organic and the label is well read by me!
This summer I planted a big garden (not as big as some, but big for me, I would love to have more land and do even more) and we have mostly eaten out of it for the last few months. Sunday I had my in-laws over for dinner, the only thing that didn’t come out of my garden was the pot-roast, potatoes and rolls (I did bake the rolls from wheat I ground myself). It was a wonderful meal and it felt so good to be able to provide so well for my family.
I find myself thinking about food preservation. My great-grandmothers spent a lot of time preserving food for the winter. I am hoping to be more like that. As I was contemplating my garden and trying to reduce waste, my thoughts turned to Zucchini. Any one who has ever grown a zucchini plants knows that they produce like crazy! Typically my family would eat a little zucchini here and there, maybe I would make some zucchini bread and the rest would go to waste. It occurred to me that I wasn’t being a very thankful daughter to waste all the wonderful, good food I was being blessed with. So this year I stared freezing and preserving my harvest.
The easiest way to preserve Zucchini and Summer Squash is to grate it all up and freeze it in baggies.
I freeze two cups at a time in the baggies, that is how much my recipe of Zucchini bread calls for.
(Isn’t this a cute Summer Squash, there are so many varieties.)
To freeze Summer Squash I cut it all up. I try to make them all the same size so it will cook evenly.
evenly…is that a word???
I put it in my steaming pan (I know there is a “real word” for this pan, I just can think of it) and I steam the Zucchini for 3 minutes. It doesn’t need to be cooked all the way, just give it a quick steam bath. You can boil it in water for about 2 minutes. I like the steam method best, the veggies don’t get as wet.
When it is done steaming plunge the veggies into ice water to stop the cooking (that is if you are going to do this properly, I get a little lazy and just run in under cold water). Then I dump them all out on a clean towel to dry for about 5-10 minuets.
After they have dried a little I spread them all out on a cookies sheet lined with wax paper and slide the whole thing in the freezer.
This is called flash freezing, this is so the individual pieces freeze and don’t clump together in a big ice block, it helps keep freezer burn at bay.
Once they are frozen, after about a few hours, I take them out and put them in old Tupperware containers, anything will work, even zip-lock baggies. I just like the Tupperware (these are old freezer jam containers I had laying around) I think they stack better.
Pop those puppies in the freezer and you will have home grown, picked at the peak of freshness veggies all winter long.
All that for only the cost of seed, time and some Tupperware/baggies.
head on over to Tammy’s Recipes for more Kitchen Tip Tuesday
Labor Day…Rest from your labors…RIGHT!
Saturday I was so very blessed to be given a big box of tomatoes. My sister’s in-laws grow a huge garden and I was lucky enough to get some left overs. I didn’t get home until late on Saturday night and since the next day was Sunday I had to work on them Monday or I would lose the whole box.
Monday morning I send Dadzoo out to get me a couple more boxes of tomatoes, I figured if I was going to do it, I might as well can a whole grundle of them. He found a vegetable stand that was closing down for the season and was selling two boxes for 25$ dollars, he snagged me two!
The big box in the back in the one I got from my sister (they were beautiful, red and ripe) and the two in the front Dadzoo bought.
I added a few tomatoes from my sorry patch of tomatoes, they are the long skinny romas, the big round ones are my gifted tomatoes.
This summer my sister cleaned out my parents garage (a feat in itself) and I was given all my mom’s old quart bottles. They were a blessing too, I didn’t need to buy any new bottles or rims! This is about half of what I was given, I am going to fill the other half with sliced apples and apple sauce.
My kitchen was a mess and I think I stood there all day peeling and cutting tomatoes. Luckily I have a wonderful husband who took care of pretty much everything for me so I could can like a maniac.
Here we go, 30 quarts of stewed tomatoes, just the way I like them! Next year I would like to do double. Dadzoo and I are working on a plan to increase our tomato yield……
I was exhausted, but strangely there is something very satisfying in bottling your own food. I figure each bottle cost me about a dollar and there is no added sugar, salt or preservatives!
It was also kind of funny to have Dadzoo around. I have bottled before, but usually the bulk of the work is done while he is gone for the day. He kept complimenting me and telling me how “cool” he thought it all was.
I like is when he thinks the things I do are
“cool”
Ahhhh Man!
You know you are old when you are at the check-out counter of the grocery store making small talk with the nice 19 year old checker and he asks you how many kids you have.
“five” I say smiling, expecting the usual response of “wow, you don’t look old enough to have that many kids.”
instead I got:
“oh, five, that is a nice bunch…so do you have any that are still in school?”
**gasp** did he just say what I thought he said? My oldest child is 9 for heaven sake! I am only 31!!! Do I look old enough to have kids graduated from high school!!!
Oh wow, I need a make-over!