busy, busy.

Busy, busy. Oh, August! We are in the peak of summer and we are looking forward to fall. We have had a few nice cloudy with some much needed rain days and have been spending time close to home, but busy busy!

LEGO Mindstorms

The boys have been busy...playing outside and inside. Snuggling. board games, karate, library, painting, robotics, building science kits, and this week making movies of each other with the video camera.

solar and generator powered robot kit

The kitchen is always a busy spot - this time of year the garden and CSA bring in an abundance of fruit and vegetables and it can be (who am I fooling, it IS) a full time job just keeping up! There has been canning, freezing, drying, baking, making. So good!

zucchini bread

dehydrated tomatoes in olive oil with spices

calendula oil

The home...I love re-arranging furniture and organizing. It makes everything feel fresh and on those hot hot days when we spend more time inside, it helps us feel all energized and creative. I also love walking into a nice bright and clean living room when my kitchen is overflowing with vegetables, canning jars and (a lot of) dirty pots! The boys always like it too and they recently got into refreshing their space and added some color and wall decals.




And last but not least, the garden. This time of year is jungle time. Tomatoes are just ripening, cucumbers are fattening up, the squash is growing so much every day it is amazing, and everything is so thickly entwined and jungle-like that it is sometimes hard to find and pick everything! I often find a HUGE cucumber in a bush or something. ;) But it is all so beautiful and busy.




I love that after a few months of slow and summer there is this mad dash to fall feeling once the garden starts to peak - the light changes, it starts getting dark a little earlier again, the mornings feel a little cooler. Ahhhh.


How is your August?

rhubarb syrup :: rhubarb soda

It is that time of year...rhubarb time! I try to make a bit of everything with it so that it can last us through the year. Frozen, jam, compote, chutney, syrup...combined with some of the decadent freshness that is the seasonal treat like rhubarb ice cream or granita or baked honey glazed rhubarb. The house has the constant rhubarb and honey smell this time of year and it is a good thing.


We have a lot of cold and now wet this week (frost tomorrow night?) so it is perfect for home and kitchen puttering. Yesterday I made one of my favorite things. Rhubarb syrup - this year with ginger and cardamom. SO GOOD.


::Rhubarb Ginger Syrup::

8 C chopped rhubarb
1.5 cups honey
sliced fresh ginger (2" knob)
2 cardamom pods, cracked - seeds only into pan (optional, but it is good!)
1/2 vanilla pod scraped (or 1 tsp good vanilla extract)
2 cups water
(If you want it to look pink, add a slice of fresh beet)

Combine everything in a heavy-bottomed sauce pan and bring to a boil. Lower the heat to a simmer and cook gently until the fruit is soft and the liquid has thickened slightly, about 30-40 minutes.

Run the mixture through a fine strainer (or cheesecloth) that has been placed over a large bowl. Strain until most of the liquid is in the bowl. Give a little press on the solids with a spoon to extract more syrup.

Pour the syrup into a clean bottle, cap or cork the bottle and refrigerate. It will store for quite a long time in the fridge.

The solids make a nice rough jam or are fantastic added to baked goodies (just remove ginger slices), so if you want you can put what is left in the strainer in a clean jar and keep them in your refrigerator and use as needed! I'm making muffins this morning with it.

What to do with it? I love using it to make rhubarb soda. Or, add a little to lemonade (my boys love this) or iced tea. Drizzle over vanilla ice cream. Or perhaps ... vodka and a sprig of basil!

Of course the first thing we did with the syrup was make rhubarb soda. We don't drink store bought carbonated beverages/sodas, but having a rhubarb ginger soda is a real treat - and sweetened with only honey!

::Rhubarb Soda::

Ice
Rhubarb Syrup (for a pint canning jar glass I fill to about 1/4)
Club Soda
Sprig of Fresh Basil (optional, but so good!)

Put the syrup in over the ice and then gently pour the club soda over. Lightly crush the basil and stir in. It is so so so so so so good!

More rain and cold this week, and more rhubarb in my kitchen! Today we are freezing some so that we have it when the strawberries are ripe. Yum.

.

weekending ... kitchen catch up.

While we don't really need to treat weekends differently than weekdays we do love having Brice (my husband) home so it does make weekends special. The boys have always been 150% during the day and fall asleep early kids, and so don't get a lot of time with their dad in the evenings during the week. And my husband works a lot. So weekends we try to do *at least* one family thing to spend time together - a park, a lake, a museum, a walk, a small town treat. And we try to always have home time so Brice can relax and just hang out with his boys. He needs that down time and they need that dad time. That is usually my time to get stuff done in the kitchen...


So while the boys are playing at the park or riding bikes or building radio kits or flying kites or playing Pokémon or board games or just snuggling and reading books with dad I play mad scientist.


This weekend we had a home day on Sunday - and it was HOT outside! We did a lot of deck clean up and yard work, and then the boys spent the afternoon outside with Brice while I caught up on some things. Catching up for me includes things like baking, bottling a batch of kombucha, soaking something or other, making almond milk, making yogurt cheese, or attempting to organize the pantry after a week of boys rummaging through it. ;)


And lately of course it also includes starting more seedlings, checking trays, and hardening trays off to go out. In the summer it usually means canning and preserving.


By Sunday evening I am usually happy to be out of the kitchen (and the garden).


And have something to show for it.


.

in my kitchen...

There is always something happening in our kitchen. Something fermenting or rising or culturing, dehydrating or stewing. With so much available to us here in southern Wisconsin (and in our garden) we make many things from scratch...I just love making my own yogurt, butter, kombucha, bread, or vanilla extract and growing trays of greens and herbs. There is something deeply satisfying about spreading homemade butter or jam on a piece of fresh out of the oven bread. And the process of making each thing is very meditative for me - I love it. I need it.







This week we have a lot happening as we grow through spring - I feel so good when we have a pantry full of delicious things we have canned, and I feel downright prosperous seeing a counter full of goodness in the works. This week we had rhubarb and the canning jars above are the top of the top...ginger rhubarb fridge jam. Oh yes, it.is.GOOD!


So - what is happening in your kitchen this week? What is in season where you live?

(top to bottom:: rhubarb, butter, vanilla extract, watercress, mixed greens, kefir, jam, kombucha)

january days.

The January blah's have hit me hard. I have so much work to do and absolutely zero energy to do it (I work after the boys go to bed at night). This happens every year at this time, but every year I still try to fight it. My body wants to be still and rest in the numbing cold, but my to-do list is miles long.

Lucky for me I have these two little boys who just keep going, and going, and going. They drag me along in their enthusiastic wake and energize my January slug.


The past few days we have spent a bit more time in the kitchen. The kitchen is a good place to be when the temps are below zero and there is just no way we want to go out again. The warmth, smells, and process of making something to nourish us in more ways than one energizes us all.

G, the little chef, loves to cook and bake the most, I think. He loves measuring, scooping, stirring, assembling, watching through the oven window, and seeing what we have created together.


So the past few days we have baked bread from a wild starter, cranked out noodles we made from semolina flour and eggs, slow cooked chili, made caramel popcorn, and juiced and blended our breakfasts. Our counter is covered with soaking things, sprouting things, trays of greens, and freshly baked bread.


With all of this, G came to me with a photo from the latest food catalog (his favorite reading) showing pink icing sprinkle covered heart cookies, and wanted to make some. Now. He said to me, they are white sugar cookies, mama, not brown (ahem). He told me in his G way that he loves our brown cookies (whole wheat flour), but in the photo they are white. With PINK icing. So, together we made white sugar cookies. With pink icing. And sprinkles. Twice. Perfect!

I'm looking forward to February for more energy, more garden planning, more sunshine, less work (ha!), more fun, more sleep, inspiration, fresh air, and maybe, just maybe, more heart shaped pink icing covered sprinkle coated sugar cookies.

Sprouts!

They arrived! Today our sprouter and sprouting seeds arrived. This is something we wanted for easier sprouting for our bread - and also a great tie in with all the planting excitement this week. We ordered two blends - Amber Waves of Grain is a mix of grains that we will sprout and use in our bread baking. French Garden is a green sprout mix which we will use as a salad base, sandwich ingredient, or raw snack. Yum.


The boys wanted to do the steps for sprouting, so we started a batch right away. We first measured the mix, put it in the container, rinsed well, and then covered with water to soak. The boys will help check/rinse a few more times after this initial soak cycle is done and then we will have sprouts!


G was more interested in the process of prepping the seeds, but A was very interested in the additional books that came in from the library today. He had two books come in about seeds/plants, a few cool books about the human body, and some other fun story reading. His favorite plant book today:




Plant Packages: A Book About Seeds
by Susan Blackaby






Hope you all have a wonderful weekend!