colors of summer.

It is that time of year - canning, drying, freezing, saving. I love when the summer fruit starts showing up - so sweet, so colorful, so fragrant. While fruit season doesn't last long, we try to preserve enough fruit at peak time to last the rest of the year. There is nothing like frozen fruit for smoothies in January, or dried berries for home made granola when the snow is piled high outside. It is a busy time in the kitchen, but it is worth it for all the months we get to enjoy our labor!

It is a busy time with CSA boxes, garden veggies, and recipes at my food blog, cook.eat.think. I'm starting a few things over there - photo challenges, canning, dehydrating, giveaway...all coming soon!

lavender...

I love lavender. It smells wonderful, it is beautiful, it has many wonderful properties. I am very sensitive to lavender essential oil and so cannot use any bath/body/laundry/cleaning supplies using lavender oils/fragrance. I can, however, handle the plant itself just fine. And what a plant it is.

We picked up a few bundles of fresh lavender at our CSA farm last week. After letting it dry for a few days, we were ready to go. There are so many things you can make with dried lavender...we decided to make lavender sugar and bath salts. Both quick and easy to make, and the boys love to pluck the buds and shake the jars.



Lavender Sugar.

It has such a nice aroma. It is a great substitute for the store bought sprinkles on top of cakes and cookies. It is really amazing sprinkled over fresh berries (try it, really!) or mixed in at the end when whipping cream for desserts.

ingredients::
1 cup organic big crystal sugar
2-3 tsp fresh lavender buds, dried (don't use the stuff made for potpourri...not for food!)
small jelly jar

Mix together, screw on the lid, and let sit at room temperature for a week or two before using for maximum flavor.


You can put the lavender buds in a little muslin bag inside the sugar to add its aroma but not add the little chunks into what you sprinkle it on if you like - or sift before using. I actually like seeing the little flowers along with the crystals. And they are edible. :)

You can of course also make this with a finer turbinado sugar...and use it for baking scones and cakes. (I'm making a lavender honey today!!!).

++


Lavender Bath Salts.

I love using dead sea salts as a detox body scrub for me, and it is a great additive every week (or whenever he has a flare-up) for the bath for my son with eczema. Dead sea salt contains many minerals and has many therapeutic qualities good for the skin, the body, and healing - and that combined with the soothing/anti-inflammatory properties of the lavender and the emollient almond oil relieves itching and flare-ups.

ingredients::
1 cup good quality dead sea salt
1 Tbsp lavender buds, dried
1 Tbsp good quality almond oil

Mix together and store in an air tight canning jar. Let sit at room temperature for a week or two before using for maximum scent. Multiply this recipe for quantity...this makes about 2 baths worth.


You can scoop this into a small muslin bag and place it into the bathwater or just scoop right into bath if you don't mind little buds. :)

There are so many great uses for lavender...I'm sure we'll make many more things as the summer goes along. These all make great gifts too (we love testing out recipes in the summer so we can have ideas for gifting in a few months).

CSA season has begun!

Today was our first CSA box of the season! Yay!

>>In our box this week @ cook.eat.think.

strawberry season!

It is time! After a break, I am back. I am blogging again over at my food blog: cook.eat.think.

My first recipe of the season is strawberry-rhubarb bread pudding. Yum.

mushrooms.

We picked up a mushroom tabletop grow bag at the Garden Expo a few weeks back, and have been excitedly misting and watching them grow. 

We started out with the base bag and cut the holes into it, as instructed. A wasn't so sure about this...


We waited several days, misting and checking, and one morning we came down and *poof!*, there were tiny mushrooms growing out the holes!


From there, they exploded and grew so fast - A had to check every few hours and measure and spray.


When the caps were 4 inches across, we harvested! Our first harvest was almost a pound of Grey Dove Oyster Mushrooms.


We made a big pot of creamy oyster mushroom soup (YUM), and saved a few to make a creamy pasta sauce. The boys didn't want to EAT "the fungus" yet, but loved growing and harvesting, and are eagerly anticipating the growth of the second batch on our bag (it says we will continue to harvest for about 90 days). We have a few books on mushrooms coming that A requested, so maybe by the next harvest he'll venture a taste...probably not, but my husband and I are perfectly happy eating all the mushrooms. ;) 

forced winter greenery.

Our indoor gardening experiments continued this weekend with some new projects. We have been re-visiting the book "Four-Season Harvest: Organic Vegetables From Your Home Garden All Year Long." The book talks about forcing winter greenery inside - which is very interesting! The boys like the 'mad-scientist' stuff we always have going on, and I like that we can bring in a bunch of things already in our garden and see what we can continue to grow.


The book suggested certain root vegetables - by planting them in moist sand and placing in a sunny window, you can force the greenery to sprout, and then just snip and eat as it grows! We went to the yard and collected parsley root, cabbage root, fennel root, and celeriac.



We rinsed the roots clean, snipped off any frosted bits and old growth (only left any new shoots) and then planted them in sand. The pots were placed in sunny windows and I know the boys will obsessively water them and keep the sand moist (the fun part!).


Our seedlings are doing great - we plan to transfer those to bigger pots this week. That along with the forced winter greenery pots gives us a nice number of things for our indoor winter garden!

If you haven't read the Four-Season Harvest book and are interested in extending your growing season into the winter, you should check it out. It is a great read.





Four-Season Harvest: Organic Vegetables From Your Home Garden All Year Long by Eliot Coleman.

Photo of the Day...Seedlings!

The seedlings are growing fast! We installed 2 small under the cabinet lights, and have the plants under cool and warm bulbs when there is not any sun (like the last several days). Many cells were planted with just 1-2 seeds, but the lettuce greens were sown a little thicker and will be ready to go into a bigger pot shortly!

The boys have been carefully misting with water each day, and checking the progress! Looking good.

We read today about sprouting/growing celeriac in sand to get celery shoots, so we will be trying that soon, and also will be starting a tray of wheat grass to use in our smoothies. Hopefully our green thumbs will continue!

indoor gardening!

With the gorgeous weather and A getting over a bug he caught on Halloween, we have been staying close to home. Lots of garden cleanup work, bread making, bubble blowing, book reading, microbe researching, and craft/giftmaking planning. Oh, and indoor garden planning. The indoor garden has been on our mind for awhile. At first I really wanted a lean-to greenhouse outside, but with HOA restrictions, cost, limited placement options with our tiny space, massive snowdrift possibilities, and me not wanting to permanently affix something big to the side of our house, well, we are bringing it inside. I seed start in the basement each spring and usually grow window herbs through the winter, but we wanted to do a little more this time.

The boys wanted to help with everything from seed selection to technical requirements to planting, so they have been involved in planning. This is going to be pretty basic, but the plan is to start seeds in trays - we are testing two planting mediums so the boys can see which produces the best seedlings. We plan to take advantage of any sunshine during the day, and then move trays into our growlight seedling setup in the basement at night...just until seeds germinate and we start getting some growth.

The boys did the planting today. We setup the two soil mediums, planted all seeds, marked all of the cells with what is planted there, watered and put it in the window to start. We started a graph of what seeds we have, what their germination needs are and water preferences. A wants to expand that to include seed to plant time estimates and harvesting notes. Good ideas!


After rambling on you are probably wondering WHY are we starting seeds inside in November? Well, we preserve and freeze and save foods all summer from our farm visits and garden and work to keep our food local as much as we can. We do sprout a lot in winter, but fresh herbs and greens would be wonderful. Last winter the boys grew a few carrots, radishes and small onions in a window, so why can't we do more?


We are planting a few things for this first round (they will be transplanted into larger pots later)::
-mustard greens
-salad bowl lettuce (cut and come again)
-spinach
-cilantro
-chives
-swiss chard
and by special request we will try
-window box roma tomato


As we go we plan to succession plant what is working, eliminate what isn't, try new things, and see how much we can grow inside in the winter. Should be fun - and the boys are EXCITED to see results!

late october garden.

While the nights have been cold, we haven't had any hard freeze yet. So, while most of the heat loving plants are long gone, we still amazingly have a lot going on in our garden. As the sunflowers are picked clean by the goldfinches, we still have swiss chard, parsley, flowers, raspberries, chives, and many other goodies packed in with other interesting things like ornamental cabbage and millet (planted by Chipper, our resident chipmunk, all summer).


This weekend we do have some low temperatures coming along with rain and possibly snow, and if so, much of our greenery will be gone. We are going to go out today and tomorrow to cut the last bits of anything edible - bring in the brussel sprouts, dehydrate the rest of the parsley, cut all the last bits of chives and swiss chard and nasturtiums, and pluck those last sugary sweet raspberries. I also like to leave some things for the winter rather than rip everything out - they look lovely in the snow, and give the wildlife a few things to nibble on as it gets colder.


I do have one last spot where we are growing leeks, radishes, and spinach - which we will grow and pick as long as possible...just to give us that last hurrah of the garden.



While I know we won't get much (if any) snow, we often do get flurries at least once by Halloween. The boys are very excited and have been looking to the weather forecast to be sure they haven't yet changed their prediction. If we get any little flurries they will be greeted with open arms as we once again spin on this big rock into the next season.


More garden photos posted to Flickr...

apple time.

With the changing leaves comes apple time! We make applesauce, apple butter, apple pie filling, dried apple rings, have lots to juice, do apple crafts, and generally over do it every September. Loads of fun!


Today the boys made applesauce. They peeled (using our hand dandy peeler/corer) apples, measured the juice and maple syrup, sprinkled cinnamon, and grated nutmeg. I love kids in the kitchen. I just read the recipe and did the stove-top work - put it on the stove, let it simmer, and put it in glass jars when ready!


This applesauce recipe is a good one. Tastes like fall. To get the recipe visit my food blog - cook.eat.think.

last blast of summer.

The boys and I made homemade marshmallows yesterday. So what else can you do but start a fire, get out the skewers, and roast some marshmallows and make s'mores!



We have family in town this weekend, so they came over last night and we all sat around the fire. The kids played and ran around and when it was time for marshmallows, we invited the kids playing in the alley to come up and join us. Everyone had fun roasting marshmallows and fixing their s'mores. So yummy! The boys were very proud that they had homemade marshmallows, and one four year old told his mom, "There are two recipes we need to get from them. First, the homemade pizza recipe, second this marshmallow recipe." :)


After the kids were stuffed with graham crackers and marshmallows they rode their bikes, played hide and seek, and then put together a bunch of glow bracelets grandma brought as a special treat.


The adults all sat and watched the kids run until the darkness descended and the kids went inside for bedtime. It felt like were were celebrating the ending of summer - and while I know we will have many more hot days, those long summer nights are indeed almost at an end. Lovely evening!



Get the homemade marshmallow recipe here...

Sunday.

Today we went back to a partially 'normal' Sunday. Today is the day we usually get out in the morning for some fun and a cafe, and then we come home to all of our weekly kitchen projects - usually baking and preserving. It is fun - but with 2 adults, 2 kids, and a super tiny kitchen, it can be a bit nuts! I love it!!


This morning we went to our local botanical gardens. My back is still better with walking than sitting, so it is great to have such a beautiful place so close to home. We slowly walked the gardens and soaked up some sun, bumped into our neighbors, and ran into long lost friends. From there, we went to a local cafe for lunch! G loves the big chalkboard there - and the fresh lemonade!


Back at home, we started our projects. Today we made more traditional pickles with all of our garden cucumbers, a batch of pickled garlic, and fresh homemade ricotta cheese! Yum.


The boys love helping along the way - they stir, check the thermometer, scrub veggies with the brush, measure salt, pour things. When the afternoon in the kitchen was done, the boys strapped on their helmets and went outside to ride bikes and play with the neighbors while I finished everything up! I probably overdid it, but what a fun day. I'll be posting more food pics and some of the recipes to my food blog tomorrow!

Happy Sunday!

Butter.

A few times a year, usually in the spring, we make butter. It is a fun project for the boys as they love to shake those marbles in the jar as well as see the results of their efforts!

We used about 2 cups of cream from our 'cream on top' milk (or use store bought heavy cream). The cream went into a canning jar along with 3 marbles. Tighten lid. Then shake, shake, shake!


And shake, shake, shake. Take a break.


More shake, shake, shake. Shake, shake, shake. Shake, shake, shake (keep shaking! don't stop until that butter separates!).


And, ta-da! Butter! Spoon it out (save that buttermilk - mmm scones!) onto a wooden cutting board, fish out the marbles, and smear it around with a wood spoon, getting out all that liquid. Rinse with cool water, then smear it around some more. It is ready when liquid no longer comes out when you smear it. Scoop into a container.


Then spread some on fresh home made bread and you have yourself a delicious snack!

Theobroma Cacao.

One of the V-Day gifts for A was a "Make Your Own Chocolate Kit". He has often asked about the origin and process of chocolate, and we have read books and looked it up online...but he wanted to make chocolate! We finally had time this weekend to do it!

The kit, which contains fair trade organic ingredients, is just a few packets which contains cocoa butter, cocoa powder, powdered sugar, crystals and some paper cups. There are also a few sample cacao beans to look at and feel. There is a story included about the organic farmers who grow the cacao, organic farming methods as well as the legend of cacao.

"Cacao was so special to the ancient Aztecs that they told this legend: Their god, Quetzalcoatl, brought the cacao tree from Paradise to earth, traveling on a beam of the Morning Star. He gave the tree as an offering to the people, and they learned how to roast and grind its beans into a paste. They added spices and mixed it with water calling it "xocolatl" or "bitterwater". They believed that it brought wisdom and knowledge to those who drank it."

The instructions to 'make' the chocolate were pretty simple, but required an adult hand due to temperature. The boys poured ingredients into the bowl, stirred as it cooled, and checked the sticky thermometer for the right temperature to add or stir. Into the little cups they added natural marshmallows or peanuts. When it was ready, they spooned the chocolate into the cups, and we let them harden.



They had a lot of fun learning about and making chocolate pieces. G doesn't like chocolate, but liked the process. A enjoys chocolate a little - but only in very tiny amounts. And my husband doesn't like the richness of dark chocolate. Leaving lots of rich organic dark chocolate just for me.

Interested in chocolate? Here are a few good links.
World Cocoa Foundation | The Cocoa Tree | Chocolate Kit

In Latin, the name of the cacao tree is Theobroma cacao, which means "food of the gods."

cook.eat.think.

With the approaching holidays and all of our plans for crafting, gift making, kid projects, field trips and travel, it seems that we will be busy filling up this blog - not to mention all of the cooking, baking, food gifts, fermenting, preserving, local foods finding, and fun in the kitchen.

So what does all of that mean? I started a side blog just for food.

cook.eat.think. Visit it here.

Sustainable, local, ethical food...

eth•i•cu•re•an n. (also adj.) Someone who seeks out tasty things that are also sustainable, organic, local, and/or ethical — SOLE food, for short.

The ethicurean blog has been around awhile. I know I am a bit behind on blog reading - there are so many great ones out there and I am a busy mom of 2 little guys - but I just didn't even know about this one. I'm hooked now.