The End of My Daily Posts

I have been thinking about this for awhile and have decided to stop Blog 365. I'm glad that I did it for nearly seven months because it forced me into the habit of posting more frequently. I will still post frequently, maybe even daily most of the time because I have some things going on that I think are interesting and I'm betting many of you will think they are too. I just don't need the pressure of a daily post right now. I have other things that need my attention and thinking of a blog post when I don't have anything in mind can suck time that could be better used elsewhere.

I hope all of you will stick around for my still frequent, but not quite as frequent posts.

Cherry Blueberry Pie

My friend Jacki gave me a large bag of sour cherries on Friday. I was so excited to make a sour cherry pie. However, outdoor work on Saturday prevented me from getting to them until yesterday. Despite being refrigerated since Friday afternoon, most of the cherries had passed their prime. So, I only had 1/4 of the cherries needed for a pie. Luckily we had that bowl of blueberries handy. The remaining blueberries were just enough to fill the rest of the pie. Now we are blueberry-less again, but we had a delicious cherry blueberry pie for dessert last night.*

I used the recipe for a sour cherry pie from a fabulous food blog I just discovered. I made some tweaks like using blueberries to get to the volume of cherries needed and I used a flour that I get from Azure Standard which is an unbleached flour with either the bran or germ left so that it is somewhere between a whole wheat and an unbleached white, but otherwise followed the recipe. I haven't made a pie other than pumpkin for so long that I can't even remember the last one I made.





*Shhh, don't tell that I also had a slice for breakfast. It was so good with a steaming hot cup of strong coffee.

Blueberry Season is Fully Here

It did get a slow start, though. Friday of last week, we went picking at the blueberry fields we went to last year. They had opened two weeks late with a much smaller blueberry crop than normal. We picked for more than an hour and I came home with about 2 1/2 pounds of berries.

Then a wonderful thing happened. I found out about a blueberry u-pick that was much closer to us. A couple miles away, whereas the other field was at least 15. But here's the really fabulous and novel thing for me, you can pick for $2.00/lb or you can pick for free and leave half of the berries you pick for the farm to sell. How cool is that? I can support my blueberry habit for free this summer for a little sweat investment. The only bad thing is that they are open from 7-12 and I'm not a morning person, so I really have to make an effort to get out there earlier than 11:25am, which is what happened this Friday. Still I managed to get 5.5 pounds picked in that 35 minutes, with Maddy's help, so we took 2.75 pounds home.

This morning's breakfast.

The blueberries remaining from that 2.75 pounds. We are definitely going to have to make another longer trip this week. I need to freeze lots and maybe dry some.

A Glorious Day for Mundane Outdoor Tasks

A July day with the sun peeking out sometimes and a high of about 80 created ideal circumstances for the routine things that we don't always keep done. Things like sweeping up dog hair from the back stairs and trimming the laurel hedge (don't plant this unless you love to trim hedges) and gathering pine cones and trimming back blackberries.

You know, the fun stuff. Much was accomplished and more to be done.

Cherry Pit Ice Cream

I first heard of the idea of cherry pit ice cream from Garlic Breath.

Not everyone knows this but the almond oil that we associate with the sweet almond-y smell isn't really almond oil from the nuts that we eat. Sweet almond oil from that nut is mostly scentless and is used in massage oils and soaps and such as a base. The fragrant bitter almond oil is from bitter almonds.

Cherries (and apricots and peaches) have a tiny kernel in the pit that looks almond-like and has an almond-y smell. Of course, the pits also contain small amounts of cyanide and are touted by some to be potent cancer cures. We didn't experience any side effects from eating the ice cream, but you should be aware before you decide to eat any. I don't have any qualms about eating it anymore, though I must admit that I didn't have a small amount of worry as I was eating it last night, for the first time.

I took the hammer to a few cups of cherry pits and smashed them up.

Then infused the milk and cream with the cherry pits.

After a few morse steps, you get to enjoy a cup of this delicious confection. I think the taste is a mixture of pistachio and almond, not straight almond. The ice cream was rich and creamy and nutty. The color was a buttery yellow, thanks to the gorgeous orange color of the dozen pastured egg yolks in the creme anglaise base. I wish you all were here to share a couple scoops with me. I will be making again, at least once. I almost have enough pits for another batch.

Lemon Balm Popsicles

I saw this idea on an herbal email list I'm on. Take a bunch of fresh lemon balm and put it into a 1/2 gallon jar.

Add boiling water.
Then cover and let sit for 20 minutes. Strain; sweeten to taste with honey and then pour into popsicle molds.

Good luck finding popsicle molds in stores at this time of year. I couldn't find any, so I'm using our little four pack mold and refilling it every time the girls have one, with the lemon balm solution that I have refrigerated. They got approval from the girls. They said it wasn't the best popsicle I've ever made, but it was still really good and they wanted more.

Applesauce and More Cherries

We've been on a dehydrating kick here since I got my new dehydrator the week before last. I've been drying a lot of cherries, because they are so expensive to buy. Sure, they don't taste like fresh cherries afterwards, but no dried fruit ever does and they are still tasty. They are good for baking, sprinkling in hot cereal, adding to trail mix or eating plain or with some crispy nuts (which I can now also make with ease).

Don't these cherries look like pretty jewels?

Cherries shrink considerably when they dry and it also appears that little hand have stolen a few while they were drying. So far I have 1 1 /2 quarts dried, but I have another full batch in the dryer right now, so I anticipate ending up with a 1/2 gallon or more.

We had the chance to pick even more cherries on Monday, so who's going to turn down the offer of free delicious, organic fruit?

I decided to dry all the Bing cherries and to freeze the lighter ones; I don't know if they are Royal Anne or Ranier cherries.

Most everything I read suggested freezing them in a sugar solution, but I didn't want added sugar, so I froze a tray without and they seemed fine. I'm don't know if they will eventually suffer some damage from being frozen without a sugary solution, but I'm going to take my chances and freeze all of them plain.

I don't have a pitter and Angelina's is broken, so I couldn't borrow it, but I have two able helpers who have begrudgingly helped me pit them.*

One other thing that I have been using the drying for, while drying the cherries, is to make apple fruit leather from applesauce that I preserved last fall. We hadn't gone through it as fast as I anticipated, so I had a lot left and when I opened my dehydrator box and saw a fruit leather tray included a light bulb clicked and they have been a huge hit. I'm rationing them out though, because now we are going through applesauce like crazy making these and I probably won't be able to get good priced apples to make more until September.

It takes a little more than 1/2 quart of applesauce to fill the tray.

Several hours later, voila, apple fruit leather from organic applesauce.

*A strange coincidence when I was shopping online today. I went to Lehman's to look for a clothesline wire for my new outdoor clothesline and on the front page, they had only two items advertised, taking up a full page: cherry pitters and clotheslines. Weird. Like they had been listening to me all morning and tailored their homepage to me. I hadn't even searched for cherry pitters at all on my computer, so it's not like it harvested information from my previous web searches.

Strong Arm Tasks

Today I flexed my muscles by rearranging my bedroom furniture and digging the first two foot deep hole (with a post hole digger) for the clothesline T posts that Lawrence made for me. I'm so excited to get them up and functional!

Fresh Pea and Fava Bean Salad

This is a salad that I made for dinner on Thursday. It was made using fresh shelling peas and fresh fava beans from the farmers market. A lot of people aren't familiar with fresh fava beans and they do take a bit of work to prepare, but it isn't anything that requires a high level of skill. You could easily give the task of shelling and then removing the skin after blanching to your children, if you have any and you are short on time. Or just have them help you and make the job go faster. Shelling peas are easier to prepare than favas and they are also easier to shell, because they just pop right out. But both are delicious and worth the effort. They went very nicely in this salad that also had rice, parmesan and a dressing with olive oil and lemon zest. So fresh and summery.

Sunday's Word, Week #29

hegumen

–noun Eastern Church.

the head of a monastery.

Happy Birthday, David!

I fear this may be my last installment of the Happy Birthday David annual photo. I believe I've run out of pictures of my dear cousin. This is a more recent one, taken just this May.

I hope you have a wonderful year and I thank you for always being a great sport and just for being you!

Cherry Frozen Yogurt

I made cherry frozen yogurt with some of that load of cherries we picked. I had already planned on making this, but it worked out perfectly to take to the dinner party to meet Riana and her family.

This yogurt is so good. It is cool (duh) and creamy with that tanginess of yogurt underneath it all and the fresh sharpness of cherries. Mmm. It wish you could taste it. This picture doesn't really do it justice, but I couldn't spend a long time taking a photo when I could be eating it, right?

All the Way from France

I got to meet my an online/blogging friend for the fourth time yesterday. This one traveled the farthest...all the way from southern France. Riana from These Days in French Life, her husband and her adorable daughter came to the Pacific Northwest to visit family and she stopped in our little town to meet Angelina and me. Our families got together for a delicious mostly local dinner. There was pea shelling, chatting, frog catching, nosebleeds, potato washing, running, egg gathering, pasta making and more chatting going on.

I have to say that I felt really honored to meet Riana, because I think she writes such a compelling and honest blog about a radical lifestyle change that inspires me all the time. It is always a treat, but a bit surreal to put a real life face to a photo and blog voice and interact with that person. I did feel like a third wheel at times, but I expected that because I already knew that Angelina and Riana have so much in common not just in lifestyle but personality and history-wise. It was still a really great evening and if you can meet your blog friends in real life, it is an experience that I highly recommend. I've only had good times with the four that I've met so far.

Cherries, Calves and Chickens

On Sunday we went to my friend's house to deliver the chicks to their permanent home. While we were there we got to see her two new calves. One is named Hamilton and I can't remember the other's name.

Aren't they cute with their big brown eyes?

And one of the roosters, strutting his stuff.

And perhaps best of all, she let us pick cherries from her trees. We picked many bags and she sent home five full produce bags full, which I estimated weighed between 15 and 20 pounds in total. (More on the cherries in later posts.)

Blue Cheese Dressing

4 ounces good quality blue cheese, crumbled
1 clove garlic, minced
1/2 teaspoon Worcestershire sauce
1 cup sour cream
2 tablespoons mayonnaise
1 tablespoon fresh lemon juice or white vinegar
salt and freshly ground pepper to taste

Put all ingredients in jar and shake to combine. Thin with milk to your desired consistency.



Note: I didn't make up this recipe, I found it online, but it was so good I had to share.

Approaching Meal Planning as A Puzzle

My method of meal planning took a major turn last fall when we started receiving our CSA share. Prior to that, I had relied heavily on the farmers market during the summer and our local natural foods store in the off months for most of my produce needs, but I made a meal plan then picked up the items that were available at the market or natural foods store and got the remainder at a conventional grocery store.

When I started receiving our CSA share, I had to figure out what to do with all those vegetables, none of which I requested nor could I substitute. These circumstances, coupled with the fact that we buy a lot of meat and staples in bulk, makes meal planning more of a puzzle than anything else. All the pieces are there, you just have to figure out how to arrange the ingredients you have into palatable meals that use the ingredients you have on hand before purchasing extra items. Yes, this method does take more time. Sometimes I have to research how to prepare an item or find recipes that utilize it, primarily for infrequently seen items like fava beans, tatsoi or rabbit. However, we have a much more varied and local diet that we used to have. And it is rewarding to have a small grocery list at the end of meal planning.

Here's what I have put together for this week. I will list the local ingredients in italics:

• Hamburgers (beef, lettuce, spring onions, tomatoes [on the slim chance I can find local ones at the store], buns)
• Dilled Potato Salad (potatoes [1/2 local, 1/2 unlocal because I ran out of the local ones], celery, onions, dill, mayonnaise)

• Local Version of Cobb Salad with Homemade Blue Cheese Dressing (lettuce, eggs, leftover chicken, avocado, cucumber, radishes, salad turnips, carrots, spring onion, bacon, blue cheese, sour cream, milk)

• Kidney Bean & Corn Salad (kidney beans, corn, bell pepper, red onions, parsley)
• Sauteed Greens (kale, wild spinach, beet greens, turnip greens, chard)

• Roasted Chicken (chicken)
• Fava Bean and Rice Salad (peas, rice, fava beans, basil, parsley, lemons, parmesan)
• Roasted Beets (beets)

Obviously, I didn't mention things like oils, vinegars, salt, pepper and spices. Those items aren't local. But we do have a lot of stuff that is, as you can see.

Tomorrow I will post a recipe for blue cheese dressing, because it was so delicious on our cobb salad last night.

Sunday's Word, Week #28

epanodos

–noun Rhetoric.

1. the repetition of a group of words in reverse order.
2. the recapitulation of the main ideas of a speech, esp. in the reverse order.
3. the resumption of the main thread of a speech after a digression.

Of Bats and Dwarfs

That's what it's been all about at our place this week. Maddy and Isabel both got parts in our local Missoula Children's Theater production of Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs. Maddy was a dwarf named Humpty (the MCT obviously has their own rendition of plays) and Isabel was a bat. It was Maddy's fifth year doing it and Isabel's first year. She's been waiting anxiously since last summer to be old enough to do it.

Here's a picture of the full cast.

And the bats. Isabel is the third from the right in the top row.

She's the center upper bat, the shortest one with the cute round face.

Maddy is the dwarf immediately next to Snow White in the bottom row.

They both did great jobs, though Isabel experienced many scared moments thinking she couldn't do it and then having a meltdown after the last show when she couldn't find Maddy in the dressing rooms and thinking she had been left down there. All was well in the end.

If you are unfamiliar with the Missoula Children's Theater, it is a great organization. Their actor/director duos travel around to about 1100 communities each year and perform productions with about 65,000 kids. They have been doing this for a very long time. There is even an award-winning documentary coming out this summer all about MCT. It is called The Little Red Truck, it is playing in only a few places right now, but it would be worth while to see behind the scenes of this great service that they do for children.

Grain Mill Test

In the excitement of the chicks hatching I forgot to mention that I got to try a Family Grain Mill in real life. It worked very smoothly and fairly quickly. It wasn't the quietest, but frankly, that wasn't a problem, because it drowned out the sound of children shrieking. I liked it very well and really like the option of a manual system to grind in case of power failure. I'd really like to try a Nutrimill in real life before deciding which to purchase.

The Chicks Hatch, In Pictures

I have a feeling that these pictures could be kind of like birth videos, you either think they are wonderful and amazing or you are completely grossed out by them. So, view them with that in mind.

This is how the hatching starts out. Just a small opening.

Then it gets bigger.

And if you look closely, you can see that tiny beak poking out in the above picture.

And more of the chick is visible.

Then it comes all the way out!

They aren't that cute when they first come out.

This is a different egg and you can see that it has cracked differently than the first one.

Maddy caught this shot of the moment the chick slipped out.

This is the very first chick that hatched out. Very tired from the hard work of hatching and resting in the tub with the warming lamp.

These are a group of about eight or ten and a newly hatched one on the left. (The chicks stay in the incubator until they are dry, then they are removed to the tub with lamp. They don't start to fluff up for several hours, though.)

Look at this handsome group!

Isn't this just the cutest little chick?

We have 19 chicks as I'm writing this. They all look very healthy with the exception of two. One of them seems to have difficulty figuring out how to use its legs and it keeps falling on its back. The other looks like it has what I would call a birth defect on its rear, though it could be a normal variation. I don't know since I am an inexperienced hatcher. I have quarantined it so the others don't peck at it. We have 12 or 13 more eggs left. I hope we have a high success rate!

PS I'd like to extend an open invitation to all my real life, local friends to stop by and view the chicks in the next few days. After they have all hatched, they will be going to my friend Jacki, who owns them and will brood her batch and the batch we have hatched together.

Chicks Have Hatched!

I will post photos tomorrow, but so far we have had ten chicks hatch. The first was just before 1:00am this morning. It's been a busy day with trips down to the basement to check the incubator and the tub where the chicks are being kept. It's very exciting and seeing the eggs turn into chicks in 21 days is really miraculous. Watching and hearing the process (they chirp while still in the shell!) was so fascinating and amazing. We were all glued to the incubator a little after 11:00 last night when the first one's beak had initially appeared. It was taking awhile, so we let it be and put the girls to bed and Lawrence went to bed. I heard it hatch though, and the flurry of loud chirps that immediately erupted. We still have about 20 eggs to go!

So, expect a photo heavy post on the new chickies tomorrow.

Tangleboxing

It's time again for our annual county parks' tangleboxing program. This is its third year of tangleboxing and we were all excited for the passports to come out. If you are familiar with letterboxing, then you will know what tangleboxing is. In previous years, the county parks department has hid boxes in 12-14 parks, but decreased it to eight this year. I can only assume that it is due to gas prices and the recognition that not everyone can or wants to do as much driving as they used to do. We found our first box yesterday on the way back from picking up our meat. If you are local, pick up a passport for a mere $2.00 at Kramer's Nursery or the County Commissioners Office and have fun with this family friendly activity!

Visiting Another Farm

We found another farm that sells chickens, lamb, lamb sausage, and rabbits. We decided to try Marilyn's chickens, lamb sausage and rabbits. She also sells live rabbits and encouraged us to start breeding and raising our own. Marilyn is amazing and liked her immensely. (There are no photos because I forgot my camera!)

She does the small farm herself. Everything from cleaning out the cages to processing the chickens. She also has a rather large garden on her farm. On top of that she has a full time job. But what I found most interesting is that she is an herbalist and used to be a biochemist studying cancer and something else that I can't remember now. When she told me that I thought "Wow! What's she doing farming?"

As we drove home, I started thinking about all the food farmers (not monoculture, huge farm, but small food producing farms) I know, and I know several, and that they are all mostly well educated. Some from what are considered very respectable universities. Some had solid careers that they gave up to farm and some still have a career and farm on the side and others didn't follow the career path that their education would have generally led to. The farmers I know are a mycologist, biochemist or have doctorates in physics or degrees in some type of writing, literature or language. These certainly aren't the farmers that perhaps some envision, someone with no other prospects, who turns to farming as a default or not-so-bright country bumpkins.

What makes these intelligent and well educated people turn to the hard, hard work of farming? I think that this is another sign of our burgeoning food rebellion. The backlash against fast, corporate food and the turn to slow, deliberate, independent food is being led by these revolutionaries.

Sunday's Word, Week #27

bedight

–verb (used with object), -dight, -dight or -dight·ed, -dight·ing.

Archaic.

to deck out; array.

A Fitting Gift

This was a birthday gift from my friend Teri. I like the philosophy. Lawrence isn't too thrilled with it though.

Happy 4th!

We spent the day with Maddy doing her first supervised babysitting gig.

Later we went to another potluck BBQ. I really enjoy them when they are with good friends, like these recent ones have been. I made chocolate ice cream for the very first time. It came out well, except that it could have used some time hardening in the freezer before we ate it. My good friend who hosted, surprised me with a birthday cake and gift!

Finally, we went out to enjoy the Chinese child labor made fire works. The smoke filled the air and our lungs and I headed home before the rest of the family with a tired and cranky Juliana. (She has always had a very sensitive nose, so along with being tired, the smell sent her over the edge.)

How did all of you spend your 4th? Was it fun?

Strangely Accurate

I found this fun little thing courtesy of a new visitor (another Lisa!), The Mad Tatter. At first I thought it wasn't me, but as I thought about it, it is accurate. Sure, those aren't my only qualities, but I think it does speak a kernel of truth.

The Recipe For Lisa

3 parts Understanding 2 parts Dignity 1 part Superiority Splash of Passion Finish off with whipped cream

What's the Recipe for Your Personality?

Birthday Fun

31

Today is my 31st birthday. It wasn't a traumatic one for me like last year. It wasn't a smooth one either. There were some misguided, very good intentions that I didn't receive well. I've come to learn that as I get older (I do realize that 31 isn't old, that's not what I mean) that I've become more set in some of my ways and can be very ungracious in receiving things that don't meet the expectations that I had in my mind or that throw off my regular state of being. That can be very hurtful to the givers and it's just not a trait that I'm particularly proud of having. It's something that I am going to work on improving, because I know how hurtful it is to me when a thoughtful gesture is rebuffed.