Now Appearing on Etsy!

I am interrupting regular, unscheduled inculcation of urban homesteading with a commercial plug for my soaps.

My good friend Angelina has been telling me since last year that I should put my soaps on Etsy, so I finally sat down and took the time to set up my Etsy store. So, if you want to favorite me or anything like that, I really wouldn't mind at all.

The Growing Challenge, A Long Overdue Update

Who knew that by participating in the growing challenge I would be jinxing myself and facing actual gardening challenges this year?

First my seedling starting method largely failed. Then we didn't actually have our summer start until, well, it kind of didn't start at all. We've had hot spells and then more cool and rainy weather and it hardly feels like we had a summer and here it is almost over.

The good thing is that I got my raised bed made almost a month ago and got it planted out. The bad thing is that I haven't made the second one I needed to get done. Hopefully I can get that done soon and get some garlic in next month.

Here's the south end of the raised bed. You can see rattlesnake beans in the back, radishes at the far left, kale in the center and beets and Brussel sprouts at the right.

Here's the center of the bed. At the left you see cabbage and then directly to the right cauliflower starts. The far right is the same radishes (oh I forgot to mention that the radishes are inter planted with chard) and below the radishes are lettuce. I need to plant some more lettuce.
This is the north end of the bed. It has at the far left basil, then to the right cilantro, then broccoli, and then cabbage and cauliflower.

These are some potatoes that I threw into an old tire. They seem to be doing well.

I should mention that all these pictures were taken several days ago and all of the plants have gotten much bigger. I also have carrots and green onions planted in those beds, but they aren't visible in the photos. Parsley is coming up now, above the basil and it wasn't yet in these photos. Also, I have added another tire on top of the potatoes because they have grown lots.

This is a bowl of peas that Isabel picked from the dying pea vines. She also shot this picture.

Cheapotle Sauce

Here ya go hunnybunny!

1 medium or two small cans of chipotles in adobo sauce (I would guess the total is about 10-12 oz of chiles.
1 tsp sugar (I use sucanat)
1 tsp sea salt
1/2 tsp garlic powder
2 tbsp white vinegar
Water to reach your desired consistency (I used about 2 to 2 1/2 c.)

Pour all ingredients except water into blender. Add about 1 cup of water and then start to blend. While blender is running, continue to add water to achieve your desired consistency. Blend until smooth. Store in a jar in the fridge.

Midi Poche

This is a recipe that I got off of Magpie Eats last summer. If I'm serving as a main dish I double it.

2 small eggplants, sliced into 1/2" rounds

2T lemon juice

1 T plus 1/2 tsp salt

4T unsalted butter

2T olive oil

1 shallot, minced (or half an onion)

3C chopped, seeded tomatoes

Pinch of sugar

1/2 tsp chopped fresh thyme, or a pinch of dried

1T minced fresh basil, or 1 1/2 tsp dried

1 tsp crushed allspice

1/4C all-purpose flour

1C cooked rice

1/4C freshly grated Parmesan cheese

Preheat oven to 350F. Place the sliced eggplant in a colander. Sprinkle with the lemon juice and 1T salt. Let stand 30 minutes.

Meanwhile, heat 2T of the butter with 1T of the olive oil in a medium saucepan over medium heat.

Add the shallot. Cook 2 minutes. Add tomatoes; sprinkle with sugar. Add the thyme, basil, allspice and 1/2 tsp salt. Cook, uncovered over medium low heat 20 minutes. Set aside.

Brush eggplant with paper towels to remove salt. Pat dry. Heat more olive oil in a heavy skillet; dredge eggplant in flour and saute in batches until golden. Drain on paper towels. Layer rice, sauce and eggplant in a casserole dish, sprinkling cheese between layers. Bake, covered, for 35 minutes or so.

Hippie Chicks

Until last Friday I had never tie dyed anything. Then we got the opportunity to try it out with some families from our homeschool group. Boy, I must say it was fun. Waiting with anticipation to see what you have created for a day added to it. There is something to be said about delayed gratification, I think.

The two little girls had my help, of course, but they choose the designs they each wanted to do on their dress from the design book and largely choose their colors, though I helped guide them a bit with that.

Juliana choose to do a spiral and she choose multiple colors, all of them, really. I think that it matches her whirlwind personality and she looks incredibly cute running around in it.

Isabel choose a star design and we didn't have chopsticks on hand to do the actual design in the book, so we improvised with rubber bands. The star ended up being more of a fireball or nova, but I think that it is also fitting for our fiery middle girl.

Maddy did a bag and she did it on her own. She also whisked it away and filled it up as soon as it was dry, so I haven't been able to get a proper picture, but you might be able to get something of an idea of what it looks like from this poorly lit picture.

Farmers Market Purchases-8/21/08

The biggest news at the farmers market is that tomatoes have arrived in earnest! Here's what I got today, from left to right.

• Ginormous sweet onion
• Two cucumbers (leaning on top of the two green bell peppers)
• Two green bell peppers
• In the left top bag, William Pride apples
• A stack of tomatoes
• Four small Klari Baby Cheese pepper (the yellow ones in the front)
• The second bag from the at the top, red potatoes (about 3 lbs)
• A stack of various squashes and zucchinis
• A leek
• To the right of the leek is wild spinach or lambs quarters
• Corn
• Green onions
• A bag of broccoli
• Two torpedo onions (red)
• Two bunches of beets
• A bag of Sungold cherry tomatoes (the best variety ever) on top of the beets
• At the far right are two eggplants

I'm partcipating in Kerry's farmers market reports at To Every Meal there is a Season.

Making Yogurt

After many attempts, I finally found a method that works well for me. I've tried making raw milk yogurt without heating the milk, but didn't find the texture satisfactory, so I decided to relent and scald the milk. I make 1/2 gallon of yogurt at a time.

The only two ingredients you need for a 1/2 gallon of yogurt are: just shy of 1/2 gallon of milk and at least 1/4 c. of live yogurt.

I used to use non-homogenized, pasteurized milk (not ultra pasteurized), but the tight supply at our raw milk farm eased, so I've been using raw for many months now.

Pour your milk into a stainless steel pot:

Heat to scalding. If you forget your milk is heating and it boils over, it will still turn into yogurt, the texture just isn't very smooth and it doesn't set as well. After you scald your milk, let it cool until it is still warm, but you can comfortably put your finger in. I would estimate it needs to be about 110 or 115 degrees.

Remove the skin that has formed after it cools. It is kind of like a crusty butter. Juliana love to eat this.
Pour some of the milk and all of the yogurt into a jar and shake gently to combine:

Add the rest of the milk, shake gently again and put a lid on it. Then keep your jar in a warm place (about 100 degrees F) for at least six hours. The longer it sits, the more tart it becomes. We like it right at six hours. I've tried several methods, as I've already mentioned. I've tried using the light in my oven, hoping the heat from the pilot light would be warm enough, insulating it in an ice chest by itself, using bottles of boiling water in the ice chest with the yogurt and I didn't have good luck with any of those methods. The thing that finally worked for me was to wrap the jar in an electric heating pad and put it on the low setting. The heating pad I have doesn't quite wrap around the whole jar, so I put a towel on the part of the bottle that is exposed. After three hours, I rotate the jar 180 degrees within the pad to give that strip not covered by the gap a chance to get up to the same temperature as the rest of the jar. Works great. I swapped my friend Angelina her extra heating pad for my retro yogurt maker because she didn't need to make large quantities like I did.

After you have let it incubate for the desired time, pop it in the fridge. We usually like our with pure maple syrup though we'll mix it up sometimes and stir in some jam if we are feeling really wild!

Nourishing Traditions Ketchup

The ketchup recipe I use is in Nourishing Traditions. I use this book for reference a lot. I don't use it so much as a cookbook for meals, but I do use the recipes for many basic sauces, condiments and such and I find the nutritional information very useful.

3 cups canned tomato paste, preferably organic

1/4 c. whey

1 tablespoon salt

1/2 c. maple syrup

1/4 teaspoon cayenne pepper

3 cloves garlic, peeled and mashed

1/2 c. homemade or commercial fish sauce

Mix all ingredients in a bowl, thin to preference with filtered water and then place in jars. This recipe will yield at least a quart, but the final yield will depend on how much water you add. The top of the ketchup should be at least one inch below the top of the jar. Leave on the counter (covered) for about two days, then transfer to the refrigerator.

Mayonnaise Tutorial

I always use the mayonnaise recipe from Nourishing Traditions and we really enjoy it a lot. I haven't bought mayo or Miracle Whip for more than a year since I started making it myself.

1 whole egg, at room temperature
1 egg yolk, at room temperature
1 teaspoon Dijon-type mustard
1 1/2 tablespoons lemon juice
1 tablespoon whey, optional (will make your mayo keep longer and add good bacteria to your diet)
3/4 - 1 cup extra virgin olive oil or expeller-pressed sunflower oil or a combination (I use half sunflower and half olive oil)
generous pinch sea salt

In your food processor, combine egg, egg yolk, mustard, salt, lemon juice and optional whey. Process for about 30 seconds, or for me, as long as it takes to measure out the oils.

Pour the oils into your dripper compartment so that it slowly goes into the food processor to allow it to emulsify. Taste and adjust seasonings if necessary.

Blend for several more minutes until it is creamy and thicker. Pour into a jar and refrigerate immediately if you haven't used whey; let it sit in the jar (covered) on the counter for about seven hours if you have used whey.

Mayo that doesn't have whey will last about two weeks. May with whey will last several months and will thicken up as it sits.

The New Pet

Meet Cookie. The new birthday pet!

Making My Own Products, Long Term

A couple of weeks ago I was talking with a friend about how I hadn't made anymore mozzarella or ricotta after my first attempt, though it was relatively quick and easy. I started thinking about how many things I have tried and haven't repeated or I've tried and did for awhile then fell out of the routine of doing them.

What is sometimes easy to forget are the things that I do make regularly that have replaced purchased products. They are healthier if I make them myself, usually less expensive and more sustainable because an organic option is frequently available (and I use it if possible) and less packaging is used when I make things at home. All things I make at home are in glass jars or bottles that we wash and reuse. I also reuse the bands and dome lids on anything that isn't being canned.

Here is a list of products that I make regularly that have replaced packaged products in our home. I'm focusing on food, but I'll throw in a couple others just because.

• Yogurt-I usually make half a gallon per week.
• Fermented Ketchup-I make over a quart a few times per year, because we aren't big ketchup eaters.
• Granola-We don't buy breakfast cereals.
• Bone stocks-I make a huge batch, cook to condense it and then freeze; I collect bones and carcasses in the freezer until I'm running low on stock and am ready to do a new large batch. I do this a few times per year. I use stock in rice and other recipes that call for stock or broth. Tastes much better and is much better for you than canned stock or bullion.
• Kombucha-I make about a gallon per week.
• Mayonnaise-I make a pint every couple of weeks. More frequently if we are eating lots of tuna salad. I am going to do a tutorial on making mayo in the next couple of days, because the last tutorial I did was on the now-defunct Yamhill County Urban Homesteaders blog and I had someone email me for my mayo recipe.
• Baking soda and vinegar rinses-For my hair. No shampoo or conditioner here for the past three years.
• Cheap-otle sauce-(Lawrence coined that spelling!haha!) I make a few times per year, a quart at a time. Much, much cheaper than the store bought version.
• Roasting my own coffee-I buy green beans by the ten pound bag from a local roaster, so there's much less waste and it's very fresh.
• Jam-I've made jam the past several years and haven't purchased it in a very long time. All the jam is made from fruit we picked ourselves.
• Salad dressings/vinaigrettes-I make as needed.
• Soap-I make natural soap and haven't bought any since I started making it a couple of years ago.

What about all of you? How do you feel about this subject? Are you making more products for yourself than you used to? Do you wish you had time to integrate more? What kinds of things are you making? Please comment or, if you'd like, post about it on your own blog. Let me know if you do!

6 Hard Years

Isabel is six today. She's always been a difficult child, though she also conversely can bring a smile to people's face like no body's business and honestly tells many people that she loves them and they are her best friend. She is a child of passion and shyness and tantrums and sweetness.


We thought we wouldn't make it out of her first year with our sanity, but we did. And it is six years later.


We sprang for a very special gift this year. Isabel has been in love with Phantom of the Opera ever since she saw the movie a couple of years ago. So, we got a pair of tickets to go see it in two weeks. She has felt in her bones that it was meant to be that she should go. Ever since she heard a radio advertisement in May announcing that it's opening day was on her birthday, she has been wishing and hoping that she could go, but Maddy dashed all those hopes by continuously telling her that theatre tickets were very expensive and we wouldn't go to a show, because to take the whole family would be too expensive. She was shocked and joyous when she opened her card and she finally figured out that those little paper stubs are tickets to Phantom.


She also received another thoughtful gift. Maddy saved a lot of money from work she's done recently and purchased a guinea pig for Isabel. The one we got off of Freecycle a couple months ago has been very loved and she thought that Isabel would really like to have her own.


Now, I'm off to prepare for an afternoon birthday party and special dinner.

This Week's Meals

Kerry at To Every Meal There Is A Season, asked about my last farmers market post what I would be making with all those vegetables. So, I will share this week's meal plan. Farmers market ingredients will be in italics.

• Potstickers (green onions, bell pepper); Rice; Steamed and Dressed Beets
• Roast Beef; Roasted Potatoes; Green Beans
• Midi Poche (Eggplant, Tomato and Rice Casserole), Salad (Lettuce, Radishes, Spring Onions, Mushrooms, Carrots, Peas)
• Goat Chops; Zucchini Gratin; Sauteed Corn & Bell Pepper
• Korean BBQ; Steamed Broccoli; Rice

Plus the sausage, sauteed zucchini and tomato salad that I already blogged about.

See how easy local eating is!

One Local Dinner

Here is last night's dinner. It is probably about 95% local, maybe more, with most everything having been purchased at yesterday's farmers market.

On the left, you see a tomato salad with a basil balsamic vinaigrette, on the right is sauteed squash and zucchini, at the top is a sausage; not pictured was sourdough bread from a Portland bakery. The only items that weren't locally produced were the olive oil, balsamic, salt, pepper and butter.

It was delicious.

Blueberries A-Plenty

We've made three trips to our local blueberry patch and I finally remembered to take pictures yesterday. This is the patch that has two u-pick options. One is to pay $2.00/pound, the other is to pick for free and leave half of the berries you pick for them. We've been taking advantage of the second option.

The owner is a super nice lady and this is a little enclave of fruit, vegetable and bee paradise in an unexpected pocket of residences off our major highway's frontage road, behind a fueling station. I never thought something like this would exist where it does. It's great.

The owners have a swing set that the kiddies can play on and it's under a nice spot of shade.

There are rows and rows of tall blueberry bushes.

On the left are the blueberries and on the right is one of their vegetable gardens.

The berries.

The weighing station. I don't know why Maddy had such a funny look on her face. She is none too happy that I'm posting this picture, but I explained that I had to since it was the only photo of the scale. She didn't think it was a good enough reason, but here it is anyway.

Today's Farmers Market Bounty

I haven't recently extolled the virtues of our local farmers market, so I'll take a moment to do so now. It has been going for a little more than two months now and is, sadly, more than halfway over. We live in a smallish town, but we have a great farmers market for a town our size, I believe.

These are today's purchases:


It includes, from left to right:

Some funny shaped squashes; they are long and shaped similar to Armenian cucumbers
Bratwurst sausages from locally raised natural pork
Sweet corn
Torpedo onions
Broccoli
Small plums
Beets
Carrots
Cabbage
Eggplant
Romaine lettuce
Tomatoes*
More squash from a different vendor
Red potatoes
Sweet onions

Omitted from this picture was the bag of the sweetest cherry tomatoes. They are orange and I think they are called Sungold or something similar.


*Today was the first day that real, ripe, local tomatoes have appeared at the farmers market. Some vendors have been selling green tomatoes for a couple of weeks. There is also one vendor who was selling tomatoes for a couple of weeks, but I'm unsure where they come from. It's kind of unclear with them, so I don't usually purchase many things from that booth.

My New Bed

I am experimenting with a couple of new raised beds. I've never had them before. There were a couple things we took into consideration before choosing materials: chemicals that could possibly leach into the soil, cost, and using items that we could recycle into the beds. Lawrence has worked on wood kiln and repairing various equipment for the lumber industry and was very uncomfortable with the chemical used on even "untreated" lumber. He was also concerned with durability of untreated lumber in a wet environment that would be in contact with soil constantly. I really didn't have any strong preferences either way. Masonry products were something that I considered, but the cost is fairly prohibitive. Lawrence suggested Hardibacker, which is cement board that you use behind tile mainly. Cement sets when wet, right? We have lots of steel bar and rebar around the shop and I thought that Hardibacker might be readily available at our local Habitat for Humanity ReStore (it was, but not in the thickness I wanted).

The difficult part was setting up the garden plan in widths that left the least amount of drop. Once I got that figured out, it was a matter of scoring and breaking the Hardibacker, pounding in rebar at appropriate spacing, leveling the course where the Hardibacker would sit (thanks Philip!!), placing the Hardibacker and then filling it with soil (thanks again Philip!).





I think I might need to add some additional stakes for stabilizing the sides and we are thinking about painting the outside with lime to repel pests, but haven't decided yet. Apparently that what folks did around the areas where Lawrence grew up.

The soaker hose has been placed and I got this bed planted up yesterday. It's 3' x 10', in case you were wondering. I think that I might have planted it too densely in my excitement, but whatever. It's better than what I was growing there.

Here's what I planted yesterday:

Basil (seedlings that have been limping along in my guest room)
Cilantro
Parsley
Beets
Broccoli
Brussel Sprouts
Cabbage
Carrots
Cauliflower
Chard
Green Beans
Green Onions
Kale
Lettuce

A few of the brassicas were also seedlings that had been barely growing in my guest room but for the most part everything was seed. I hope to have something to harvest in the late summer and early fall and possibly into winter.

I hope to get one more bed built in the coming week or so, after my hubby gets some more rebar stakes to me. It will have garlic and more of the same that I planted yesterday.

Oh, I forgot, I also planted some fingerling potatoes in a tire. I will stack another on top of it when it gets tall enough. I'll have new potatoes in the fall!

I Might Not Have Mastered Organization, But I'm Persistent

You longer time readers will probably chuckle to yourself when I tell you that I am making another attempt at a family schedule and more organized life/time management.

I know, I should have gotten it by now, but I haven't. I just can't seem to have my tasks in order. I forget what I should be doing and get sidetracked. It's not early onset Alzheimer's or adult ADHD. It's just that I have so many little and different tasks to get done, that it's very easy to forget oh, 30 or 40% of them and sit there staring and wondering what it was I needed to do.

Since an earlier start to the day would behoove our finances by allowing my dear hubby to get up and at 'em sooner. I am giving it another go. I have actually printed out a bare bones schedule and I think that it will give me a concrete reminder of what I need to have done and when. It's got huge gaps in it for free flow, but the main things like dinner, bed time and waking up are there in black ink, right in my kitchen where I will see it most frequently.

Another thing I have done is buy a pretty, blank-but-lined, journal and a special pen that sits in the ringed portion (so no excuses) for my to-do list. I have allotted one page per day and shift undone tasks to the next day. I've been doing this for about five days now and it does help keep me more on task. I like being able to check off what I have accomplished and look back and see how I've been doing on my list daily. It's much more useful to me than my dry-erase board list that was short-lived.

Now, the big question is if I will be able to keep these methods up for the most part. I hope so. I'm going to try hard.

What organization methods have you scattered people found helps you in the long term?

A Mostly Unimpressive Garlic Harvest

I'm not really disappointed. How much can you expect for something that you stuck into the ground in September and harvested ten months later with no effort put into it, not even watering? Some cloves didn't produce any heads, just one larger sprouted clove, but some did produce whole heads.

Information gleaned from the internet tells me that you should harvest when about half the leaves are green and half have died back. Most fit that bill though a few of them had no green leaves remaining.

Here's the haul. Not too bad. I'm sure with proper irrigation it would have been much better. I will definitely be doing it again this year.

My Outdoor Clothesline

My dear hubby finished installing my outdoor clothesline on Thursday. The posts had been in the ground for several days, but we were waiting for the arrival of the line. He fabricated the posts for me out of scrap material that he had around the shop. I had to tighten a few lines after I hung some laundry and realized they weren't taut enough. That's been the only glitch so far.

It has five lines and it is about 33 feet long.

It can hold a lot of laundry. I think that it might even be faster to do all of our laundry on the clothesline than the dryer. Frequently a washer load is done, but I have to wait for the dryer to finish. This line can easily hold several loads of wash, so no more waiting on the dryer. And the clothes dry so much quicker than in the basement!