Stocking the Pantry

One of the things I find very helpful in keeping our household orderly (along with menu planning) is to have a well-stocked pantry.  I always like to have jars full of staples on hand - beans, rice, oats, lentils, etc.

Recently I had the opportunity to get some of these staples from a buying club and was pleased to be able to really stock up and get buckets of some things (organic coconut oil and natural peanut butter), big paper bags of other things (french lentils, rolled oats, beans) as well as essential oils, coconut milk and more - all this without having to go to a grocery store.

(even though we've eaten loads of legumes for years this is the first time we've tried French lentils - they're our new favourite)

So along with our cold-room full of preserves and stored veg. we also have a full pantry which means very few trips to the grocery store for us.  This is such a time saver and...frankly, a sanity saver because I find big grocery stores - with their vast array of choices - to be pretty overwhelming and time-consuming places.  Stocking up on all the essentials now means more time outside in the garden in the coming months. 

Stocking up also usually leads to a cooking day when dry pinto beans are turned into jars of re-fried beans and put in the freezer for future use. 

(the boys love to have re-fried beans on hand so they can use them on corn tortillas with our salsa for their lunch)

Rolled oats are made into big jars of granola.  And lentils are made into a favourite - lentil casserole (which we now like even more with French lentils instead of brown lentils).

Impatient Peppermint Laudry Soap

I was going to patienty wait a month for my peppermint soap to cure before starting to use it for making laundry soap, but then I was looking through the book Smart Soapmaking and read a bit about curing that made me think perhaps it might not be entirely necessary for me to wait that long for it to cure.  It had only been a week since I had made the soap but, being ever so slightly impatient, that was all the encouragement I needed...I put the book down and got out the grater.

I grated and grated some more.  Mixed together a new minty fresh 2 qt jar of laundry soap powder and went off to do a load of laundry.  The Impatient Peppermint Laundry Powder worked like a charm.

Needless to say I'm tickled at the idea of no longer buying any soap...not even for doing laundry.

Handmade Soap

I can't quite recall for how long I have been wanting to make soap.  I've made all kinds of other goodies from scratch but never soap.  At long last I decided I Must Make Soap and it could not wait a moment longer.  A dear friend came over so that we could make it together (surely this must be the best way to make soap - or anything, for that matter - for the first time). 

Now, this friend and I both seem to be instructionally-challenged, by that I mean that we both find it difficult to follow (or stick with) directions of any sort, we both have a tendency to want to try something different.  We started off following one recipe and then, as we looked at our carefully measured ingredients and considered the amount of soap we though it would make, decided we need more.  Happily, I had a recipe from another friend on file and we were able to slightly change our proportions and continue on.

I had some spices another dear friend had passed on to me after her sachet making (when she was clearing out in preparation for her big move) and I ground some up to add to our soap.  We both were wanting our soap to look something like these beautiful bars.  We added a few bottles of our favourite scents - orange, clove, cinnamon and tangerine.

It was incredibly simple to make, the longest part was waiting for the lye/water solution to cool to the appropriate temperature.  So quick and easy!

What amazed me most is that one can take such simple, few ingredients and end up with something so beautiful and useful.  It's magical to me.  And actually, it is, to me, very much like gardening - take very little and with a touch of magic (and perhaps a bit of luck) you have such goodness.  I love it.

In fact, I loved it so much that the very next day, after slicing up these bars and phoning my friend to rave about them, I started another batch with my boys.  And now I can hardly believe I waited all these years to try it.  Hmmm, it seems I've many years of soap-making to catch up on...I could make calendula, comfrey, chamomile...even nettle!

Antipasto in the Cupboard Under the Stairs

The last two weeks have been a blur of finishing up the garden, building compost, canning, celebrating and all sorts of other things.  I am happy to say that I am finished with canning for the year (and please don't tempt me into doing any more by offering me any produce - I never can so no).  Last week I made antipasto and decided that would be it for the year - no more.  Enough.

And so, here is my "cupboard under the stairs" in this house, all done for the year.  I love having a coldroom with shelves to line up all the things I've put by for the year.  We've definitely got enough tomatoes between the canned ones and the passata as well as the stewed ones in the freezer.  And, I think there is plenty of everything else as well.  This year we have my regular peach garlic salsa and hot salsa as well as an extra special batch of what I'm calling Johnny Cash salsa for my husband.  The floor of the coldroom is mostly filled with boxes full of potatoes (the Kennebecs did great -they're huge!- as did the Sieglinde potatoes) and soon it will be cold enough that I'll have to move the onions and the rest of the squash in as well.

 

Bliss to be done and feeling all tucked up for the wintertime.

Counting My Blessings

I am a big fan of "counting your blessings" although I admit that that saying used to annoy me.  Perhaps it was because older relatives would say it to me when I was a teen and wanting to complain about something.  These days I take it quite literally and I actually do count my blessings.  I write them in a gratitude journal, I say them to myself each day, I give thanks out loud for particularly wonderful or touching blessings and sometimes...sometimes I take photos of them but always I am aware of the multitude of blessings in my life.  Friday afternoon the boys and I took a break from working to do something we'd been looking forward to since we knew we were moving here...actually something I've been looking forward to doing for many years.  This move brings us back quite close to our old neighbourhood and that means we are back near our old bakery and little neighbourhood grocer but now I'm actually close enough to bike to it.  Hurrah!  So Friday afternoon the boys and I donned our helmets, got out our bikes and E timed us to see how long it would take to get there.  Five minutes.  Five minutes to delicious fresh made bread.  Definitely a blessing!

I was so tickled to be able to get my bread (without even a plastic bag) and tuck it into my basket to bike home.  E made us mushroom soup again and when S got home we happily had our fresh rye bread with soup.  S asked me if I was tickled pink to have been able to ride to the bakery and, as I happily nodded my head, W answered (in his dry way), "Yes, she even made me take a picture".  I really did and now I can share it with you. ;-)

Butternut Squash Gnocchi

It is important to me to eat and cook with local (or better yet, homegrown), seasonal food as much as possible.  I love the seasonal variety it adds to our menu but I mostly like knowing that our food hasn't been shipped from far away and I also love the taste.  We have been using a lot of root vegetables, squash, cabbages, onions and the like in our meal  plans lately along with all our  preserved garden goodies.  This week we enjoyed Jamie Oliver's roasted vegetables again (Love These!).  We used one of our squash for roasted squash bisque and then I decided to try a new-to-us recipe from a Vegetarian Times magazine I was passing on - Butternut Squash Gnocchi (with sage butter, and believe me, Everything tastes better with sage butter).

These were delicious!  I didn't bother putting the cooked squash through a sieve, I just mashed it in a bowl and then added the rest of the ingredients (minus the nutmeg).  Very simple and very tasty.  We ate it alongside a savoy cabbage I had chopped and sauteed with garlic, oil and a bit of soy sauce -simple, quick and yummy.

All this squash eating has us also eating a lot of squash seeds.  Now whenever I bake squash I also bake the seeds at the same time.  I put them in a cast iron fry pan and drizzle a little oil over them and then just sprinkle with whatever herbs or seasonings we feel like - a nice snack to tide us over while dinner finishes cooking.  I think I'll try to find a few more new recipes to see us through this winter season and then, before we know it Spring will be here, with fresh greens, asparagus, nettle, lamb's quarter and lots more.

Goodness in a Jar

There has been a whole lot of tomato processing going on here lately.  In my old garden I uesd to plant around 90 tomato plants to get the amount I wanted for the year and it wasn't unusual for me to end up going to a U-pick to get some extras.  This year I only have around 50 tomato plants but the soil is SO amazing that I'm getting loads of tomatoes off each plant.  Yesterday morning was spent making more passata and canning another batch of plain tomatoes.  If I could only can one thing each year it would have to be tomatoes (ooh,  plus peach butter...oh, and salsa, we can't go without salsa, oh but what about jam??).  Having homegrown, canned tomatoes to use makes everything I make - from soups, to sauces, to casseroles- taste so much better.  The difference is amazing.  I like to tell people that I'm not really a good cook, it's just that I use good canned tomatoes in everything. ;-) 

I've always just followed the instuctions in my well-used Ball canning guide.  I've had this for at least 20 years and I think it is a great resource for anyone just learning to preserve.

I like to put a leaf of basil in when I have it fresh and I use lemon juice rather than citric acid.

I used to like to have about 80 jars on hand but now that I do so many stewed tomatoes for the freezer I don't do as many jars of regular canned.  Although, it would be tragic to run out...

I hope you're enjoying getting some summertime goodness tucked away for winter too.

Garden Harvest

There is always such a flurry of productive activity at this time of year as I work to get our winter stores of food put away. I thought I'd share some of our food squirreling here.  Last year I used all the peaches for peach butter and didn't can any plain ones, E was very disappointed so I made sure to can a batch of peaches for him this year.

I've got a tray of nettle seeds drying for my nettle seed salt.

We keep picking tomatoes to enjoy fresh and to preserve.  I also tried making my own pizza sauce to can for the first time.

We've got our supply of squash brought in - all the better to make roasted squash bisque.

We've been feasting on E's watermelons. 

And feasting. 

 And feasting.

I was pleased to find a delicious way to use up eggplant.  I did mean to actually use this as pesto but when I was taste testing it I realized it was so tasty that we ended up eating it all on rice crackers for a snack.

I also made sure to dig up and bring in some herbs last week to make sure I have a fresh supply to go with all the ones I have drying.

And so I think I'm mostly caught up and am now just canning the tomatoes as they ripen.  The forecast is calling for risk of frost so we'll be picking a lot of the tomatoes in our town garden today and bringing them home to ripen.

Worth Watching Wednesday

Last week we made time to watch Dirt! The Movie.  I'm so pleased that people are making movies like this.  Sometimes I find it difficult to watch these sorts of documentaries because they do show the damage that we are doing to this earth but they also show many, many inspiring, motivated people doing their part to help as best as they can so I always come away inspired to do more and glad to have learned even more.

We also watched Fresh - such an interesting film.  I was so pleased to see an interview with Joel Salatin.  I read his book Family Friendly Farming this summer and enjoyed it so much so it was a treat to see his farm and him in action.

Also loved seeing  more about the Edible Schoolyard program in Alice Waters' interview as well.  Anytime we go by a school the gardener in me can't help but look at the land around it and see potential garden and potential food.  Such a beautiful idea.

Preserving stewed tomatoes

These last few days have been a flurry of preserving.

I can't say how pleased I am with the heirloom tomatoes this year. I think my favourite so far is the Franchi pear tomato...well, my favourite for canning, for eating my new favourite is the silvery fir.I got started on stocking up on stewed tomatoes. This is my favourite thing to have in the freezer and we simply cannot have enough of them. This year we have one large freezer which will be dedicated solely to stewed tomatoes. I use them in almost everything that I cook - soups, sauces, casseroles, etc. I cook up peppers, onions, garlic and zucchini from the garden while I skin the tomatoes. Add them together and cook for awhile. I usually add some parsley and salt to all and sometimes basil. If I was an organized sort of person I would mark some Italian and some Mexican and add the appropriate herbs - cilantro, basil, etc.- but, sadly, I'm not that sort of person. Although now that I've written that I am going to endeavor to be organized and do that because it sounds like a really good sort of idea.Here is the first batch ready for the freezer. They are frozen in plastic yogurt tubs. Last year in an anti-plastic fit I started off freezing them in glass jars and quickly realized that they take a lot more room that way so I went back to yogurt tubs. The other thing I learned was that with the glass jars I had to take them out ahead of time to thaw (like I said, I am not that organized, dinner time would often find me stabbing at the frozen contents of a jar trying to break chunks off to thaw more quickly) whereas with the plastic containers I can run them under hot water and pop the frozen lump into a pan. I also fill plastic freezer bags and then freeze them flat on a cookie sheet. That way I can stack loads of them in the freezer.

I really recommend doing this if you have the time. The taste of this garden ripe goodness is what makes our meals.

Catching up

Lately we have had that feeling of playing catch-up...a lot.....and not really getting caught up. ;-) There are always so many things we want/need/plan to get to and only so much time in the day. Last week S got to the finishing touches on our brick path project from last year. We also, after reading The Green Gardener's Guide (love this book!!), got motivated to finally put a proper tap in our rain barrel. I love this and now want more...more...more. We don't live in a particularly rainy area but this spring we did have quite a bit of rain; it really made me realize just how much water we could have saved if we had more barrels and some storage tanks. Tanks are our next want/need/plan-to project. ;-)

Anyway, slowly, slowly we are getting things done, and I do love this pathway.

And so does kitty, see her there?

Saving seeds

I have always saved flower seeds (it's just so fun to be able to spread flowers around wherever you go. When I first read Miss Rumphius I wanted to be her, and I just happened to already have a lot of Lupin seeds in jars) but it was these beans that got me into saving vegetable seeds.

They are a simple pole bean but what I like about them is that they seem to stay tender for a long time (for those sort of people who forget to pick regularly or go camping lots). They are also very productive and they taste good raw or cooked (especially cooked and then topped with ground almonds toasted in butter with a sprinkle of Parmesan and lemon).

This year I feel lucky to know some other gardeners who are also interested in seed saving. These carrots were seeds given to me by two garden goddesses. I have two little rows coming up and I just planted two more. I think they are multi-coloured ones, aren't they Andrea?

And these are some beets that are finally sprouting. I was reminded yesterday that I want to plant extra this year so I can make huge vats of borscht to freeze for the Winter months.

More tomatoes

I had to repot some more of my tomatoes today. I've been putting them outside each day and some of them have put on quite a spurt of growth . Several of them had to go into the biggest pot that I am willing to put my seedlings into so it is a good thing that I can put them in the garden in three weeks. 3 weeks?!? Where did April go?
This plant on the right is an example of how big most of my good sized seedlings are, these are from seeds that I bought. The seedling in the middle is one that I call Andrea's Large Round Italian and it is huge. (I can't wait to see what the tomatoes look like.) I buried most of the plant in the tallest container I could find. The one on the left I call Andrea's Large Pointed Italian and it is almost as big. These are seeds that a friends saved from her best tomatoes and shared. I am so happy to have these.