Ordinary Time

The first item is canning. Last weekend I went to my favorite farm stand to get some sweet corn for Labor Day. My choice was to get two dozen ears (which is what I went for) or a bag of over five dozen ears and not quite half the price per ear. Guess which I picked. It was a lot of corn. So everyone are their fill, but we still had quite a bit left over.  This was not all of it. That evening, my first plan was to find a spot in one of the refrigerators to keep it (it was all blanched) until I could tackle it later in the week. Not surprisingly, it didn't fit in any refrigerator. So I. and I found ourselves cutting corn off the cob on Monday evening. I ended up with 18 cups of really good frozen sweet corn.  But wait, there's more! Eight cups more to be exact. This I set aside to make corn relish with. This is what I did today because I was worried about it going bad before I could get to it. I'm happy to report that all six pints of corn relish sealed. Items still on my can...

When the apple trees are dropping apples and you have to grab the good ones while you can. If you want to can apple pie filling, that is. This is because only evenly shaped apple fit in the peeler/corer device and I really don't want to peel dozens of apples by hand. So this morning H. picked, G. spun the apples through the peeler/corer, and I took off any last bits of peel and blanched them. We'd done twelve cups of peeled, sliced, and blanched apples by noon.  Then I spent about four hours in the after turning them into pie filling and canning it all. I ended up with 13 pints of caramel apple pie filling to store. Well, there are 13 pints sitting there. I actually ended up with 9 pints to store because four jars didn't seal. The masses are thrilled because this means I need to make pie this week to use them up. I am not thrilled because I really wanted them all for later and making pies was not on the week's to-do list. It really seems as though the failure rate for B...

This morning I finally finished bagging up the last of the frozen blueberries. As I was working on it, I realized I thought U-pick places such as the one J. went to with the masses was a good deal, but I had never actually done the math. And to clarify, they picked at a place where you just pick the fruit. There are no activities or petting zoo or concessions. The commercialized places are rarely a good deal , plus I find them tedious and annoying. But as usual, I digress. All this to say, I actually did the math when the blueberries were back in the freezer.  The total amount of blueberries frozen was 44 cups. We baked with and ate at least six cups, plus J. and everyone baked and ate probably another six cups. I'm going with 56 cups of blueberries total, but that is probably a little low. I did some math and learned that we paid $1.25/cup of blueberries. So that seemed like a good deal, but I wanted to be sure, so I looked online at frozen blueberry prices. Our local chain grocer...

Since H. and R. had picked so many apples on Friday and they were covering most of our counters, it was time for J. to begin his cider pressing activities. He has kind of fine tuned the process this year to make it more efficient. This is a good thing because the apple trees are loaded. Step one is to grate the apples in a food processor. The next step is to press them with that guillotine-shaped thing there in the center of the table.  J. has it set up so that it has a jack pushing down a block of wood inside the strainer which is holding the grated apples. The key piece to this is the paint straining bag that holds the apples inside the strainer. It is so fine that only cider can come out. Plus they're cheap and washable.  The strainer is sitting in a foil pan with a spout cut out of it. In probably about an hour J. processed all the apples that had been picked and had about two gallons of cider. These early apples that he's using are pretty tart which makes a great tasting ...

I was taking a weaving class for much of the week and tonight was the Inclusive Game Night that our church hosts once a month. This means I don't have a lot of extra energy for writing. The weekend also promises to be busy, so I'm not sure you should expect too much for the next couple of days, either. Maybe Monday things will go back to normal and I'll have brain space to write.  I did get some nettle leaves dehydrated today, though. 

A long while back, Y. had mentioned that she would love to be able to just pick different ramen from the wall of ramen at our not-so-local Chinese market, so that was one of the gifts we gave her for her birthday... a ramen shopping trip. Her birthday was in February. Sometimes the stars just don't align easily, but today I rectified this and we had our shopping trip.  She knew what kind she wanted so opted for bigger packages of those. I'm pretty sure one of those is blisteringly hot. They did get carried up to her room to ensure their safety in the face of the swarms of locusts which inhabit out house.  I also did a bit of stocking up. I have been reading about tariffs and supply chains and what not, and it suddenly occured to me that a good portion of our regular pantry staples are Asian products imported from various Asian countries. A moment of panic seized me that I would either not be able to find or afford our usual items. So...  Pretty much all those bottles came...

You all know that I really don't like to spend a lot of money on food, so it's probably not terribly surprising that I find the idea of foraged food intriguing. I actually have a pretty good sense of what wild food we have growing on our property, but what to do with that wild food isn't quite so clear, such as stinging nettle. This seemed like a perfect excuse to get some books. (Though isn't everything the perfect excuse to get books?) I was spurred on to acquiring these books because the tons of stinging nettle we have growing by the creek was coming up and I wanted to do something with it other than make tea or in a pasta sauce. Here's the first of several books I've found.  It's a beautiful book with interesting looking recipes, though probably a bit heavy on the mushrooms for some of my children's (and my) taste. It was Y.'s night to cook and she was game to try the nettle recipe.  It tasted pretty darn good and we will make it again. But I don...

It took a while before the Trad Wife label made it into my consciousness. Much of popular culture tends to bypass me, and I think it was one of my children who first brought it to my attention. Curious, I then had to look it up. My immediate reaction was not positive, but there was no blog post about it at that time, because I needed to come to terms with it all. This was mainly because on some superficial level, my life and those glossy social media Trad Wives were kind of the same. I knew they weren't, but I truly didn't have words to explain the difference.  The library to the rescue! A while back, I came across the concept of Radical Homemakers. this sounded promising based on what I read, so I put the book of the same title on hold. And waited and waited and waited, until yesterday when it finally arrived at me library. And while I've just started reading it, I think this is my answer. From the introduction: "Some of the Radical Homemakers I came to know professed...

Today ended up being one of those days where I took care of a few tasks that have been hanging over my head. And as usual, each task was neither as difficult or as time consuming as I had built it up to be.  I started out with dealing with eggs. Remember all my moaning about the hens not laying? That is no longer an issue. Instead, if I don't deal with eggs every day we will be overrun. I think we're getting at least 13 eggs every day. And while the masses are enjoying having unlimited access to eggs, it is still difficult to keep up. So I decided to take a couple dozen and make some muffin tin omelettes. Many people like them and they are stored in the freezer which makes it a great way to them from going bad. Today I had some bell peppers that were languishing in the refrigerator, so I sauteed those with some onion and mixed in some chopped tomato left over from a previous dinner. I felt virtuous for not only dealing with some eggs but also making use of vegetables that might...

As long time readers know, one way we can feed our family within our budget is to buy ingredients in bulk. For nearly twenty years my friends and I would order through a local(ish) farmer and make a day of it together going to pick up our pounds and pounds of food. My usual order included things such as wheat berries (to grind to make flour), oats, dried beans, popcorn (to grind and to pop), other bread baking ingredients, bulk spices, and dried milk (also for baking... and making hot chocolate mix). As people grew and moved out on their own, my need for such vast quantities of food went down some, but we currently still have nine people at home, so having large quantities is still really helpful.  And then the farmer stopped doing the twice a year orders and I lost my ability to buy large amounts of wheat berries for a somewhat reasonable amount of money. We'd make bread occasionally, but recently we'd kind of fallen off the wagon, even though nearly everyone likes our homem...

I spent a bit of time writing out a response to someone about ways to keep grocery costs low. The extremely short version?  Don't shop at expensive stores Don't buy prepackaged food Stick to ingredients  Make a plan and shop with a list Use meat sparingly  Don't waste the food you buy I can still feed nine people for a little under $200 week with this plan. It is doable and no one goes hungry. In thinking about it all, I realized tonight's dinner was a perfect example.  I had bought a lot of food for the holidays (definitely going over my $200/week budget.) I also admit to overestimating what we needed, though half the family being sick probably played into that. As a result, I had a refrigerator full of random vegetables that were going to rot if I didn't do something with them. Yesterday we had green chicken curry which took care of the two bags of green beans and tonight we had millet grain bowls. I love a good grain bowl because they just need little bits of var...

It has been a full week since I had done any laundry and the piles were growing disturbingly large. Plus, I had all the table linens from Thanksgiving piled in a basket and staring at me. There was nothing on the calendar, so decided I needed to tackle the laundry.  But the post has ironing in the title. That's because the laundry piece is the fast part. Once the table linens are clean, I need to iron them before I put them away.  (This saves me from swearing at myself when I've left setting the table until the last minute and wouldn't have time to iron anything.)  If it were just the linens I might have finished them up today. But it wasn't and I didn't. You see I stopped into my favorite thrift store yesterday (Christmas shopping, you know) and what do I find? Fabric. Yards and yards of extremely nice fabric that I can definitely use. I ended up getting probably thirty yards of fabric for about $15.  So now I have the table linens and the yards of fabric that all ...

We have lived here for nearly seven years and for the most part feel very settled. There is still one area where I just can't quite get over the grief and challenge of living in a new place. And what is that one thing? Grocery shopping. I still miss my fantastic grocery store where I could get all the ingredients I routinely cook with. This would include Chinese, Vietnamese, Korean, Indian, Middle Eastern, Mexican, and European ingredients and produce.  I have found places to buy them all, but I have found them in five different stores in very different geographical locations. Instead of just being able to get the one or two things I need that week, I have to plan and make a special trip to one of the five grocery stores that carry them. And if I'm making a special trip, it makes sense to do a bit of sticking up because it will probably be a couple of months before I get back to that particular store.  I am making it work, because really, what other choice do I have? But it ta...

I'm slowly working up to writing out my thoughts regarding the whole 'Trad wife' thing. Which is a term I hadn't even heard of until the whole Republican response to the State of the Union address. (You would think my family wouldn't underestimate my ability to be clueless about popular culture, but this particular ommission baffled even them. What can I say, it's kind of my super power.) But I'm still bashing the all out in both my own head and in numerous conversations with J., so it will be a while before I have something coherent to say.  So why do I even mention it? Because I wanted to share an old post with you and because it does mention homemaking, I'm starting to feel as though the Traf wife concept is a bit of the elephant in the room. I have written a lot about homemaking over the years, but I would never see myself falling into the Trad wife pigeonhole.  But the post... Sometimes I will look to see what posts people are reading here and use t...

A friend asked about how to go about involving young children in cooking, and when I started to answer, I realized that I had a lot more to say than just a FB comment. And since Y. made some absolutely delicious steamed buns for Chinese New Year that I wanted to share with you, this seemed like a good time to write a longer post about children and cooking   First the baozi (or banh bao, we use the terms fairly interchangeably.) There were four steamer trays full, plus three more that didn't fit. It's rare that we have enough steamed buns to satisfy everyone. My only contribution was getting down a pan and answering a question about which tool to use for one step.  Now onto children cooking. I'll start with what I wrote in my comment and then continue. For really young ones I stick to things that have limited mess potential.. ripping lettuce, kneading a little bit of dough, slicing soft fruit such as bananas with a dull knife, etc. The trick is to find small tasks to occu...

I didn't accomplish a lot today. I've either been out in the barn worrying about Vienna or inside the house worrying about Vienna. When I was not worrying, I was scrolling on my phone. You know, because it was a distraction from the worrying. Sometimes when I'm scrolling, I'll look to see what people have viewed on the blog. And to prolong the scrolling, I'll click on it and reread it. Sometimes I have written about something I don't remember, so that's a nice bonus. Which is why I found myself reading the post,  Learning is Messy  . It wasn't terribly old, but I realized that there had been a comment asking a question that I had never replied to.  So to save you all from endless navel gazing about how worried I am about Vienna, I thought I'd answer the question... even if it is nearly five years late. The question was essentially: Did I have any recommendations for ways to come to terms with the mess that living with children can entail, particularl...

I've learned that I do have a place that when I walk in, everyone does know my name. It's not a bar. It's not even a barn. It's... The eye doctor. We go to a small, one doctor office in our small town. Evidently when you and your many children cycle through on a yearly basis (meaning I'm in there every few months, it seems), you become known.  The best story happened this week. P. needed an eye appointment, and had one scheduled for yesterday afternoon. The previous night she had meant to grab an insurance card, but forgot. So, because I was driving right by there (it's on the way to the library, so I'm always driving right by there), I said I'd pop in and make sure they had the insurance information on file. So I did, and they did.  As I was walking out, the doctor saw me and asked if I had a moment. I said I did, so he asked if I liked to preserve things, like making jelly and what not. I said, yes, in a questioning sort of way because I couldn't f...

I'm done canning apples. My totals?  21 quarts apple sauce 4 pints apple butter 12 pints caramel apple pie filling 6 pints curried apple chutney 2 gallons dried apples 6 trays of apple fruit leather Of course, when you suddenly have that many more jars  to store, you have to figure out where to put them. This is why I spent the afternoon cleaning out and reorganizing one of the pantries. I got everything to fit and I no longer have to avert my eyes from the chaos and grossness of that particular pantry. I have enjoyed putting canning supplies away. J., on the other hand, is just beginning his apple adventure. This weekend he figured out how to build a functioning cider press. B. had come over yesterday to visit, so he helped with the construction.  The basic frame as of yesterday. It looked even more guillotine like before they lowered that top cross piece. Today J. finished it and got it working. It took several attempts before he figured out the best way to chop the app...

My to do list was stupidly long this morning. It was a combination of still catching up with life after ignoring so many things getting ready for school combined with far too many apples and a limited amount of time to get them processed. I just finished the last email, thus crossing off the very last item, right before I started this post.  Among other things we canned 7 more pints of caramel apple pie filling, 6 pints of curried apple chutney, and dehydrated about three quarts of apple slices. (It has not made the slightest dent in the apple supply. And by we, I mean me plus L., G., K., Y., and H. (R. watched.) They were extremely helpful and good natured about it all. I did cancel math for the day, so that might have had something to do with it. I know I promised there would not be endless posts about apples, but here we are. Tomorrow is our co-op so no apples will be dealt with, it should be safe to read.

Our apple trees are loaded with some really good apples. Because there's no way we can eat that many apples fresh, despite Java's help in working her way through the tree next to the pasture, we need to do some canning. This isn't just a few jars, but major apple sauce production.  Knowing this, I scheduled the rest of this week off from school so we can get through them all. I think Friday, Saturday, and Sunday will be solely dedicated to apple sauce and apple butter. Today was dedicated to caramel apple pie filling.  My goal was 14 pints, figuring I'd do the recipe twice. At least that was the plan. I'm both annoyed at the Ball recipe book as well as myself. I've made this recipe before; several times, in fact. No where did I write down the yield for how many apples. (I've done this in nearly every other canning recipe I routinely use. I know exactly how many cucumbers I need for 7 quarts of dill pickles, for instance, because I kept copious records.) With...