Signs of Spring?

Signs of Spring are still scarce here so E and I decided to make some of our own.  We planted some wheat two weeks ago.

And it happily  grew in our sunny windows.

Now E has one jar full for him to munch on, one jar is for our oldest cat and one is to just look green and springy.

I decided to take down our Winter greens wreath and put my springtime needle felted wreath back up (full photo of it on that link).

The surest sign of Spring for the boys?   Bikes and scooters came out, were tuned up and put back into daily use.

And, the surest sign of Spring fever on my part...even though I don't know if we will be living here much longer or who will be living here I simply Could Not Resist spending some time preparing the soil in last year's tomato beds for planting.

And this morning?  Fresh snow. 

Homemade Granola

The other day I made a batch of my favourite granola and thought I would share the recipe.  When I first started making granola years ago it bothered me that lots of recipes had so much sugar in them, I found this one, modified it and have been using it ever since.  This recipes uses dates and apple juice concentrate as sweetener.

You'll need:

lots of oats (I fill two cookies sheets)

approx. 1 cup of dates (if you don't have a strong blender you may want to soak them first)

almonds (you don't have to use these but I like to, you can also soak these first if you want)

3 spoons full of tahini

1 can of apple juice concentrate

1/3 or more cup of oil (I like grapeseed and coconut or olive also work well)

cinnamon

I blend the dates and almonds with a bit of water and apple juice concentrate (in  my blender) until they are well ground then I add the rest of the concentrate and the oil  (you could leave the oil  out but I like my family to get this in our breakfast).  Add the tahini and cinnamon and blend.  You want this mixture to look like thickish pancake batter. 

Pour it over the oats and coat to stir.  This is where you will judge how many oats you need, you want them to be well coated but not at all soggy.  You're going to have to bake them until dry.

I usually mix mine in glass bowls or a large baking pan and then transfer them onto the cookie sheets.  You want them to make a layer on the cookie sheets and not to be piled high because then they will take longer to dry.

Bake at a low temperature, I use around 250.  I used to burn my granola quite often when I would bake it at 350 - trust us that burnt granola does not make a delightful breakfast!  Baking at the lower temperature takes longer but it dries evenly and ends up with a nice golden (never burnt) colour.  This will take several hours but you can go about your business and not worry about it burning.  I do like to stir it 2 or 3 times as it cooks, otherwise the edges will be browned and the middle still "wet".  Once it is all completely dry you can let it completely cool and then put it into glass jars for storage. 

We like it with yogurt and fruit or topped with raisins and bananas...or sometimes just plain as a snack.

Homemade Laundry Soap

Today was meant to be an X day but seems to be turning into more of a catch-up-on-all-sorts-of-things day.  This morning I went to have granola with yogurt and some defrosted apricots (from our old tree) and was disappointed to see that we were out of granola.  I've got a batch in the oven and thought I would add that recipe to my sidebar and then got distracted by the thought (and the dirty laundry that the boys are busy creating along with their papier mache projects) that it would be nice to have the homemade laundry soap recipe I use on the sidebar as well.

This is a very simple recipe, you only need  water, a bar of laundry soap (like Sunlight), washing soda and borax.

Grate 1/3 to 1/2 of the bar of one bar of sunlight (the smaller 65 g bar).  Put this into a large pot with 2 quart jars full of water (8 cups). Heat on medium until the soap is dissolved.  I then add 1/2  cup each of washing soda and borax and still until those are dissolved.  Turn off heat and add 2 more quart jars of water.  Stir.  (Your pot is probably getting fullish) 

I then divide this soapy solution between two old liquid laundry detergent bottles that I have.  Then I add 2 more quart jars of water to EACH jug and stir.  My total amount of water should be  8 quarts (32 cups) because this makes enough to do 64 loads of laundry using 1/2 cup per load. It will thicken up as it cools and you will be left with a gel like soap that dissolves nicely when you do your laundry even using cold water.  We've used it for years and find it works very well even on our grubby gardening and grubbier boys' clothes. ;-)   I've never figured out the cost exactly but it is pennies per load and, better yet, no artificial flowery smells and plastic bottles coming into our home.

Handmade Shopping Bags

I've been wanting to make a bunch of these shopping bags to have on hand for gifts and I have also wanted to use up some of my fabric.  Since we've been home I have had a shopping bag on the go at all times. 

I've also found that I can use skirts and dresses to make these bags almost as easily as I can use pillow cases.  This dress turned into 2 bags and now I've got a wrap skirt waiting its turn.

Now I've got a good start to a stack of these handy shopping bags and they are tucked away in my handmade gift cupboard. 

We definitely have the Spring cleaning bug (we spent much of this weekend decluttering) around here even though the signs of Spring are pretty slim, we've still got snow on the ground so I've no crocus or forsythia photos to show like I usually would around this time of year.  I do have pussy willows though...and they're very sweet.

Last week I cut several branches to bring inside.  I've had them in a vase since then and this morning I noticed that they had several little roots coming off them so now I can pass them on to a friend to plant out in her yard.

And we found a tiny ladybug on our kitchen table this morn...surely a good sign of springtime.

Snacks

I should mention that, along with the 3 solid meals per day we enjoy, we also like a few snacks.  Over the years of parenting I have managed to find or create several relatively healthy, whole food snacks for our family.  My first choice for snacking is fresh fruit but we also like to have our treats.  My favourites are to have fruit and nut bar (recipe on side bar, photo in link) in the freezer as well as some energy orbs. We usually have some muffins (either banana, pumpkin, blueberry or applesauce) on hand. And every once in awhile I like to make these chocolate treats.

You start with dark chocolate (ours is from Rancho Vignola and, unbelievably, it is still leftover from last year's order.)

You add your favourite nuts.  These are walnuts from one of our walnut trees at our old home, I'm starting to realize just how crazy an amount of food I put away when I see that I still have a huge bag of walnuts to use up and we didn't even harvest any last year.)  Anyone with nut allergies can use seeds instead.

Melt the chocolate over low  heat.

Choose what else you would like to add.  I put in raisins, flax and hemp (also from RV) as well as some coconut.

Stir it up until everything is coated in chocolate and then drop by small spoonful onto cookie sheets and put in the freezer for a few minutes to firm up.  Then store in covered container in freezer. Now, the reason I say small spoonful is NOT because I think one should only have a tiny amount of chocolate (especially when it comes mixed with all these healthy ingredients), it is simply because we like to eat them frozen and if you make them small enough you can pop them whole into your mouth to suck on.  If you make them too big and have to bite them in half then you will end up with a big chocolate smear around your mouth....Every Time You Eat Them.  Trust me.

Plus if you make them small then you feel quite justified in having more than one.

Menu Planning for the (maybe not so?) Hopelessly Unorganized

I have made a goal to stick to menu planning this year.  I used to do a one week menu plan when the boys were younger because I simply did not want to have to think up something to cook each afternoon and then cook it from scratch.  I always found the thinking of a meal that would use the ingredients I had on hand harder  than the actual preparing of if.  I was inspired by another homelearning mom to try to plan for 3 weeks at a time and, living out here further away from town, I am really glad that I am doing this.  The next few months we will be using a lot out of our freezers and cold room.  I stash away so many veggies and fruit during our summer growing months that I am able to keep us stocked in our favourites throughout the year.

This is our plan for the next three weeks.  A lot of our lunches and dinners will be using our stewed tomatoes as I try to clean out a freezer.  Most of the ingredients in this plan are from the freezer, cold room or pantry.  The legumes we use were all bought in huge bags last year and I cook up big batches every so often and freeze them on cookies sheets (so they freeze separately instead of in clumps) and then bag them.  The boys each have one night a week to cook including my husband on Sunday nights, they choose what they will make.  We are, of course, open to changes and can switch nights if needed (due to being out all day) or change plans if we have company coming but overall I find it frees up an immense amount of time and energy for me to follow this.  I usually plan the main part of the meal and then if it needs to be supplemented I use the veggies on hand to make a salad, side-dish or soup.
Dinners
Monday - Chickpea Cannelloni - Baked squash (half a butternut)
Tuesday - Black Bean Tortilla (W's night)
Wednesday - Cannelloni Leftovers - Broccoli Soup - Spiced baked squash slices (other half of butternut)
Thursday -Mac and cheese (E's night)
Friday - Pizza Night (I make dough and everybody makes their own pizza)
Saturday - Homemade Perogies - cabbage salad
Sunday - S's night
Monday - Lasagna
Tuesday-Lentil Casserole
Wednesday- Tacos with leftover lentil casserole as filling (E)
Thursday - Pasta (W)
Friday - Pizza (Jamie Oliver dough, sauce from our tomatoes, various toppings)
Saturday- Stirfry (Broc, carrots, cauliflower, mushrooms, onions) and sushi
Sunday - S's night
Monday - Chilli  - Baked Potato - corn bread
Tuesday- Rice  with tomatoes, chickpea and feta - broccoli soup
Wednesday - Tortillas or sloppy joes(chilli as filling) (E)
Thursday-  Pasta (W)
Friday - Pizza
Saturday -Homemade perogies
Sunday - S's night

Lunches
Soups:
Broccoli
Cauliflower
Tomato (made by simmering some of my frozen stewed tomatoes with some broth and whizzing it up)
Roasted red pepper (want to use up the remainder of my frozen roasted red peppers)
Onion (from 50 lb bag bought in Autumn)
Nettle (hoping we can get our hands on some more fresh nettle over the next week and start eating this)

Breakfasts:
9 grain bulk cereal topped with our applesauce
Oatmeal (cooked with apples/cinnamon/raisins)
Waffles (I make a triple batch on the weekend and then  refrigerate the leftovers to be heated in toaster, we eat them with the peach butter we made in summertime)
Yogurt and homemade granola - we sweeten the yogurt with our frozen fruit or fruit butter
Toast and Egg or Egg Tortilla
French Toast
Smoothies (using our frozen fruit)

Last night I made our usual broccoli soup but I also added the leftover nettle from my infusion.  W always loves broccoli soup and comments on it but E said last night how good it was and helped himself to a second bowl, then S said it really was particularly good and that was when I told them about the nettle.  Oh, sometimes I just can't help myself, I do so want everyone to love nettle. :-)

We also used up some of our frozen strawberries to enjoy over a bowl  of icecream.  Delicious!

French Press Failure?

If at first you don't succeed...then hopefully you learned something.

My first attempt at the French Press slippers didn't work, the wool just wouldn't felt.  Frustrating.  I've never had that happen before that I can recall.  What to do with unfeltable ballet type slippers that are large enough to fit my husband's big feet? 

Happily I already had another pair on the go with Paton's wool which always felts up quickly for me.

Here they are drying by the fire and waiting for their buttons.

So...what was the lesson here?  Hmmm, use the wool you know?  Get to know more people with huge feet and a penchant for ballet slippers?  It couldn't be to try to felt a small swatch first, could it?