Hello Out There....

Hello, friends, it's been awhile. So where in the world have I been? Well, pregnant. Is that enough of an explanation? I didn't think so. I'm coming up on 6 months pregnant, and have been just exhausted for the last few months. Don't get me wrong, there have been many a blog post I have begun composing in my head as I go about my day, but when it comes time to actually get on the computer - during Molly's naptime or after she goes to bed - I've been choosing rest instead. In fact, I'm behind on all things computer, not just blogging about all the things I love to do!

That said, I'm still doing many of the things I normally talk about, I'm just not writing about them. I've been making bread and muffins (including fabulous chocolate chunk muffins) from my make-ahead mixes quite a bit, as well as gearing up for a wonderful season of fresh, organic produce. I've still been getting my bi-weekly produce delivery (which I have been getting mainly fruit) from this great company, and just received my third weekly box from the CSA I joined for the first time this year, which will provide mainly vegetables. And, in my own vegetable garden, I've planted broccoli, greens, sugar snap peas, onions, potatoes, tomatoes, peppers, zucchini, cucumbers and more.

What do I plan on doing with all of this produce? Good question. Normally I do lots of canning and freezing. This year, who knows. My whole life feels off-kilter when I'm pregnant, and I can already tell I'm just not on my game right now. Last year, I did a ton of canning, though I often made it happen after Molly went to bed, into the wee hours of the morning. This year... I don't think I'll be doing that. So we'll see what happens. Generally, when something inspires me to can, I do it. I'm not counting on much inspiration this year!

One exciting thing going on at our house is that it is strawberry and asparagus season in Southeast Michigan!! After a long, cold winter, it is always so wonderful to see the sun come out and the asparagus poke out of the ground. Then, a few weeks later, flowers start to appear on the strawberry plants and soon beautiful red strawberries are popping out everywhere you look. This year, the warm weather has given us strawberries about two weeks earlier than normal. Before Memorial Day, I picked a small handful of berries that didn't make it into the house. On Memorial Day, I picked just under 5 pounds of strawberries. A few days later, I picked just under 10 pounds!!!  I could hardly believe it. 

What ever will I do with all of those berries? Well, normally I would make plenty of jam and experiment with other recipes, but this year I might just eat them, share with friends and freeze what is left. I did borrow my mom's food dehydrator, and had dreams of experimenting with strawberry fruit leather, but lately I think it might take all the strength I can muster just to get the strawberries cleaned and into a freezer bag. So we'll see. They sure are delicious.

So, there you have it.  I have major respect for all those mamas out there having babies and taking care of their families and blogging all about it.  I plan to keep sharing my escapades with you... if you'll keep reading.

Seed Starting - Getting Ready for This Year's Vegetable Garden

Every year, I think I am going to try to start some of my vegetable plants from seed.  Most years, I never get around to it.  Planning 8-12 weeks in advance means thinking about gardening in the middle of winter, while there is often still snow on the ground.  Usually, I don't get past the thinking stage.

Well this year, perhaps because because I have less time for projects/hobbies, I made it happen.  Yes, you read that right, life with a 19 month old means I have less time, but somehow I sometimes actually get more done than I did in prior years.  Call it better planning, an increased drive for autonomy, call it whatever you want.  All I know is that when you don't have much time, sometimes you get more efficient about using the time that you do have. 

Now, have I spent one minute organizing the basement, the garage, or the mountains of paperwork that also stress me out?  Nope, somehow those projects just never make it to the top of my priority list.

This year, the stars were in alignment, I had the materials I needed, and I ended up making the time to get it done.  I broke up the project of starting seeds in to three mini-projects. 

One day, I organized my pots and containers that would hold them.  And then Molly woke up from her nap. 

Another day, I filled up the pots with seed starting mix, watered them and brought them upstairs to a sunny, south-facing window in our extra bedroom.  And then Molly woke up from her nap.

Well today, during what I call my "Mom's Morning Off," when Molly goes to daycare in the morning and I don't have to leave for work until noon, I finished the job by actually planting the seeds.  I do love my Monday mornings.

Surprise, a Productive Fall Weekend!

This weekend, my husband and I had a chance to catch up around the house.  For him, that meant spending two full days collecting the millions of leaves that have fallen on our yard and getting them mulched with the mower and into the compost pile.  For me, that meant a few things:  putting our vegetable garden to bed for the winter, doing some cooking ahead and... playing with my new Nutrimill grain mill!  I love when it happens this way - I didn't really plan to get all of this done, so the fact that I did was a huge bonus!

Here's what I was able to do:

          ::  Put our vegetable garden to bed for the first time in the 5 years I have lived in this house.  It always seems to get really cold really fast, and the fall ends up being such a busy time for some reason.  I always have the best of intentions, but I have never actually pulled up all of the old plants and organized the beds for next year... until now!  Not only did I clean out the dead plants, but I gave each bed a thick blanket of mulched leaves and grass clippings, that will hopefully block out some of the weeds in the spring and also add nutrients and organic matter to the soil.  We didn't have a stellar year in the vegetable garden, and I just didn't spend the time out there like I usually do, so I'm hoping my little bit of extra garden love this fall will translate into a more productive season next year.  It certainly can't hurt!

         ::  Cooked now so we can eat later without a lot of fuss.  I love cooking from scratch and eating healthfully and frugally, but there are only so many hours in the day, so I try to be efficient about it.  On Sunday, I made a big pot of of brown rice and black beans for the freezer, a small pot of chili for lunches this week, some sausage/potato/bean soup, a loaf of bread, and since the oven was on for the bread, I threw in some potatoes to bake to eat with the chili this week.

The rice and beans are something I do regularly.  For the rice, I make a big pot, and then portion it out in approx 2/3-3/4 cup servings in plastic sandwich bags, freeze, and then pull out any time we have a meal that goes with rice.  Since brown rice takes a good 45 minutes to make, I don't have to worry about planning too far ahead for the rice when I have portions ready in the freezer.  To eat, we just put the frozen rice (without the bag) on a plate and microwave 2 minutes.  Not only is it a time-saver, having rice portioned out saves our waistlines too.  We know we can always heat up another bag if we want more rice, but we never really feel like it once we finish our first helping.  On the other hand, if we had a big pot of rice... we probably would eat more.

For the beans, I randomly chose an amount of 4 cups of dried black beans from my recent bulk purchase you can read about here.  I soaked them in water overnight, and then put them in a crockpot with a bunch of water.  I cooked them on high for a good 8 hours or so - it took a long time to heat up.  Once the beans were tender, I let them cool a bit, and then portioned them out without the liquid into 1 cup bags for the freezer.  Now, when I'm making soup or burritos or some other recipe that calls for canned black beans, I just go to my freezer instead.  I ended up with 10-11 cups of cooked beans from 4 cups dry.  This way is cheap, took almost no work on my part, and the beans don't have all the added salt or packaging that canned beans have.  No work and a great final product?  I'm all over it.

        ::  Last but not least, my grain mill and food grade buckets with gamma seals arrived!  It was a pretty busy week so I didn't have a chance to store my bulk purchases or try out my grain mill until Sunday.  I cleaned out the buckets and seals during the week, and then let them dry for a few days to make sure all of the lid parts were completely dry before storing my beans, oats and wheat.  The gamma seals on the 5 gallon buckets are supposed to keep the critters and moisture out.  We'll see!

As for my Nutrimill grain mill, it is wonderful, I love it!!!  I used hard white wheat from my recent bulk purchase and made some finely ground flour.  It was so easy.  Then, I made a loaf of bread with my current favorite recipe.  It was INCREDIBLE.  Seriously, I could have just kept on eating it until the whole loaf was gone.  It turned out lighter and fluffier than my bread usually is when I use store-bought whole wheat flour.  I'm never going back!  I knew I would love my new grain mill, and I have not been disappointed.

I'm always looking for more ideas to save time in the kitchen without sacrificing quality or $$. What kinds of time- or money-saving cooking projects do you do?

Until Next Year...

Over the weekend we harvested the last of our garden for the season: tomatoes, zucchini and a few small onions.  My birthday was on Saturday, and it seems that every year my birthday is the turning point between summer and fall.  We still have some kale (lacianato and Red Russian) and broccoli that I will leave in the ground and keep picking until the plants or I give up.  Apparently kale tastes sweeter after a nip of frost anyway.  I actually feel lucky to have harvested what I did this year.  With the addition of toddler Molly this year, I just didn't have the time or energy to spend in the garden like I have in years past.  The weather was also cooler than usual this summer, so the plants didn't do as well as they usually do.  However, considering the little time I did spend gardening, I am thankful for what we ended up with!  I'm already dreaming of next spring; hopefully we will have tons of asparagus and strawberries again next year. 

Even though it seems like our garden didn't produce as much as usual this year, I am thankful I was able to take advantage of our local farmers markets to buy extra fresh fruits and vegetables in season and mostly organic so that I could preserve them (relatively inexpensively) for our long, cold winter in Michigan.

This is what I froze this year:

::  Corn, blanched and cut from the cob

::  Strawberries (ours)

::  Blueberries

::  Zucchini, some grated, some diced (many were ours)

::  Green and red peppers, diced

::  Three kinds of pesto:  basil, basil/parsley and basil/spinach

And this is what I canned this year:

::  Spaghetti sauce (some tomatoes were ours)

::  Jalapeno salsa

::  Cayenne jalapeno salsa

::  Habanero jalapeno salsa

::  Dill pickles

::  My grandma's sweet pickles

::  Danish cherry sauce

::  Strawberry sauce (our strawberries)

::  Strawberry lemon marmalade (our strawberries)

::  Low sugar cherry jam

::  Summer solstice jam

::  Peach jam

::  Low sugar peach jam

::  Peach and honey jam (this was before our honey harvest)

::  Honey apple butter (our honey)

::  Cherry chutney
::  Low sugar blueberry maple jam
::  Grape juice (our grapes)

We also have some potatoes from our garden, tomato juice canned by my parents and green beans and stewed tomatoes canned by my father-in-law.  95% of the fruit and vegetables that we put away for the winter were grown either by us, our parents, my grandfather or the farmers at the farmers market.  It's good to know where your food comes from!  I'm always looking for new ideas for preserving fruits and vegetables.  What kinds of produce did you preserve this year?