Category Archives: Food

The first day of Advent and a start to our off-the-cuff Hanukkah celebration…

santa

~A couple of pictures from last week~

one

Clearly, they are ready for December, even if I’m not.  I’m getting there though, partially with the help of Advent baby-steps.  And also with the promise of some actual, honest-to-goodness, day time, alone time, this weekend, with which to get some crafting done.

Yesterday’s advent treat was the making of cinnamon-apple sauce ornaments.  Oh, the house smelled so good!  We’ve always done the kind without glue, but maybe they would hold up better with?  We ran out of cinnamon and ended up adding in some rice flour, which made them too brittle, but still usable, for this year anyway.  I don’t suspect they’ll make it to next year.

apple

We were gifted a set of Christmas dishes a couple of months ago.  Today’s task is to switch out our regular dishes for the new festive ones.

On Tuesday a friend asked me what I had planned for Hanukkah.  I think my deer-in-the-headlights look was fairly self-explanatory.  I completely and totally forgot the holiday entirely.  I mean completely.  Didn’t even cross my mind.  Even though last month I would have told you that I absolutely planned to do something to mark the festival, on account of Elijah learning about Jewish culture this year.    So…a simple, and impromptu celebration was planned.  We made latkes for lunch and talked about the frying oil putting people in mind of the miracle of the lamp oil.  We talked about the menorah, it’s symbolism and features.  I asked the two older boys to design a menorah for us out of supplies that we had around the house.  This is what they created:

lit

I hope you are all enjoying your holiday season, however you choose to celebrate!

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crafts, Festivals and Celebrations, Food, Homeschooling, Kids, Life
3 Replies

Thankful

pie

table

goose

We’re back up and running here, after a week of having no internet access.

There are so, so many things that I am thankful for right now, far too many to count.  My heart is overflowing with gratitude for the life we’ve been blessed with.  We’ve had a wonderful holiday weekend here and I’m not ready to give up the last little bit of it, to be tied to the computer for a more official post, but I thought I would stop by and share a bit of our holiday with you.  And to say thank you for sharing this space with me.

I’ll be back soon with lots of holiday crafting to share!

By
Festivals and Celebrations, Food, Kids, Life
3 Replies

The Festivals of Autumn

We’ve been busy this season, oh, so busy!  So busy, in fact, that I’ve not had time to share any of our celebrations, so here is a quick little “catch up” post.

With a third grader in the house again this year, we’ve been working with some of the Jewish holidays.  I always feel like I’d like to be Jewish in the autumn time.  Those festivals are all so beautiful.  We did mark the High Holy Days, and had some really moving conversations about forgiveness, atonement, and personal growth.  I don’t really have any pictures to show for that time and much of our celebration was of a very personal nature, but I can share some of our Sukkot celebration!

lesson book

~drawing of a sukkah from Elijah’s main lesson book~

building

The building of a sukkah was a special project for Steve and Elijah to work on together, but the decorating was a group effort.  They used instructions found in The Family Treasury of Jewish Holidays to build the frame, which unfortunately, had some serious design flaws (it actually collapsed.  twice.).  That book does have some nice stories in it though and really nice explanations of the different holidays.

sukkah

The sukkah was very pretty once it was all decorated.

the sukkah

For Michaelmas we baked dragon bread.  We used our own acorn flour and they turned out….well….pretty gross.  But they had a lot of fun making them.

e-dragon

The boys took these two pictures.  The one above hasn’t been baked yet and the one below had recently come out of the oven.  I served them with “fire jam” (I took raspberry and peach jam and mixed them in a swirl in a bowl), which redeemed them a little.  But just a little.

dragon 2

One of the wonderful things about our new house is that it came with a piano, which we are greatly enjoying.  We’ve been learning seasonal songs.  At Michaelmas we learned the song “Michaelmas” found in Pentatonic Songs for Nursery, Kindergarten, and Grades 1 and 2by Elisabeth Lebret.  We learned the words, we learned to play it on the recorder and we learned to play it on the piano.  And now we’ve done the same with the song “November”, from the same book, for Martinmas (that song was actually a part of the Martinmas play that they were in last year).

stars 2

We also made felted “shooting stars” with our homeschooling group.  I think this is a lovely little project.  Instructions can be found here.

boo

stars

When they were finished (over the course of two weeks), we took the kids up to a magical spot, at the top of a big hill in a wide open field, to throw them.

veiw

flying

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Martinmas has been a simple family affair.  There has been a lot of singing.  A couple of days ago we carved turnip lanterns.  And tonight we’ll have our lantern walk with paper lanterns made in years past.

DSCN5380

And next week we’ll have our harvest celebration with friends.  Here’s to many more joyous celebrations yet to come!

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crafts, Festivals and Celebrations, Food, Homeschooling, Kids, toy making, Waldorf
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turning

for galen

jumping

There was a lot of leaf play this last weekend, before the rain came back.  It was the first weekend where wool sweaters felt very much needed…for one of the days, not so much for the other.  We picked what was likely the last of the green and purple beans, the tomatoes, the annual herbs.  The very last, squishy, over-ripe, late season raspberries.

goose

In the mornings my children know that they can help themselves to a piece of fruit, to tide them over until breakfast is ready.  This morning it was a big bowl of autumn olives, gathered with friends the day before.  The autumn olives are our delicious consolation for wild grape season having come to an end.

We ate breakfast by candle lit to try to chase away the dark, the damp, the chill.  Beeswax candles with apple holders.

I’ve been thinking a lot about how our children forage.  Pretty much from mid-spring through early autumn there is always something for them to gather, to store, to snack on.  How it shifts and changes so naturally, the blueberries are getting scarce as the blackberries start to get ripe and now there are apples, then cranberries, wintergreen berries…  Even the very little one calls out and points to the vines hanging high in the tree, urging someone bigger to bring some fruit down to her. I cut way back on the amount of fruit I buy at the store.  Everyone is getting many servings a day, without my help or the added expense.  Branch to hand to mouth.  It doesn’t get fresher then that.

galen and pot

Not only does each season have it’s own feel, it’s own smell, taste, texture, sense memories, but the season as it passes by is marked by subtle and not so subtle variations of these as well.

jars

Today it is clouds, rain on the roof, mums on the table, wet wool, as stains soak out of sweaters, the smell of 4 different kinds of squash baking together in the oven, a gray world full of leaves so bright the contrast is nearly blinding, the tang of autumn olives, and later the sweetly spiced scent of cinnamon and ginger mingling with apples as my sauce cooks on the stove.

By
Food, Kids, Life, Mothering
7 Replies

the first room tour

stove

We were only in our last house for a short while before we started to suspect that we wouldn’t be staying long, which wasn’t really much of an incentive for taking the time to really make it our own.  Even though our stay here may only be brief as well (possibly as little as a year), continuing to live half in and half out of boxes without feeling at home, would surely drive me insane.  We were very lucky to find such a wonderful house, and I fully intend to enjoy our stay.

shelves

I was thinking a lot about Nicole’s post here, where I wanted to start, and where to go from there.  The kitchen just seemed like the logical choice for us.  I spent a solid week and a half scrubbing everything down, unpacking boxes, putting things in cabinets, then moving those same things to drawers, before trying them in yet another cabinet, playing musical cupboards throughout the room and trying to get everything just right.

one

Slowly but surely, one room at a time, I hope to get somewhere….somewhere closer to “home” and “settled”.

flowers

I suspect the hooks below were originally intended for stockings, but my beloved cast iron collection is occupying them now.

hearth

I should really get a close-up of the artwork on the wall above.  It’s the silhouettes of my three boys, made by Simply Silhouettes.  I had them made as Christmas gifts for the grandparents last year, and since an extra copy was only $10, guess what found it’s way home to me??  I love, love, love it.

table-this one

I’ve been cooking a lot lately.  Not that I don’t normally, but without really meaning to, I seem to be cooking even more then usual.  By Friday of last week, I was forced to serve combination of leftovers for two meals in a row because all of my pyrex containers were full and I had no room left in the refrigerator!

front

I still plan on doing something about the mini-blinds.  They displease me.  I need to get the kitchen set all put together nicely for the little ones.  And I still need to pull out the box with my Grandmother’s plate in it.  It doesn’t quite feel like my kitchen without that little talisman hanging over the door.

sun

But other then that it’s just perfect.

windows

in action

And just in time too.  One afternoon last week found me dancing around the kitchen, to the soundtrack from ‘Big Night‘, with a basket of fresh herbs, a bottle of red wine and a great big pile of tomatoes, which can only mean one thing…

tomatoes-cropped

it’s tomato sauce time!

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Food, Housewifery, Life, Our Little Home
12 Replies

Rustic Blueberry-Lavender Cake

berries

bowl of berries

DSCN2779

boys 2

m in field

mountains 2

elijah

hands

A hearty, toothsome, gluten-free cake, inspired by our blueberry picking adventures and all of my beloved lavender along our front walk…

baking cake

Rustic Blueberry-Lavender Cake

In a large bowl, mix together:

1 heaping T of finely chopped fresh lavender

2 1/2 C brown rice flour (or white, if you prefer)

1 C almond flour

1 T potato flour

Mix well and leave it to sit so that the flour gets all infused by the lavender.

……………………………………

In a medium bowl mix:

2 C almond milk

1/4 C lemon juice

allow the two to sit.

……………………………….

back to the first bowl, add:

1/2 tsp. salt

2 tsp. baking powder

1 tsp. baking soda

……………………………..

to the liquids add:

1/2 C olive oil

1 C maple syrup

………………………….

Slowly add wet ingredients to dry and mix well.

…………………………….

Pour into greased muffin tins (makes 24) or two medium cake pans.

Drop approximately 15 blueberries into each muffin cup or a cup of berries per cake pan.

Bake at 350 (around 20 minutes for muffins, 40 for cake) until golden brown and a fork comes out clean.

Allow to cool completely.  If you try to handle it before it is cool, it will fall apart, but once cool, it stays together quite nicely.

…………………………………..

Enjoy!


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Food, Kids, Life, recipes
6 Replies

Summer Treats

Warning: Uninspired photos ahead.  Hey, I’ve been tired lately and in this house you have to be really quick on your feet in this house in order to capture edibles before they disappear.

Soon it will be time for apple sauce and apple pie, Indian pudding, roasted chestnuts, cranberry sauce and pumpkin bread.  But right now there’s still some more time for the fun and frozen treats of summer.  We’ve been experimenting and making a lot of sweet treats this season.

Below is watermelon sorbet.  Ingredients: one beautiful melon, recently harvested from our farm.

watermelon

We just froze it and then blended it up until it was all nice and smooth.  A Vitamix is fabulous for this, but a good food processor works as well.  A bit of fresh rosemary added in is really good too!

Do you know about banana “ice cream”??  If you take frozen bananas and run them through a vitmix or food processor for a bit, it turns out that most perfect concoction with the consistency of frozen yogurt.  It really couldn’t be easier!  The picture below is from a day when we added a bit of raw cocoa powder and a splash of almond extract.  That was yummy too, but I think my personal favorite is just the straight bananas with a dash of vanilla.

DSCN2159

For frozen treats of the pre-made variety, we’ve really been enjoying the new coconut water sorbets by So Delicious.

sorbet

We like to get 3 different flavors and share them; lemon-aid, raspberry and mango being the combo of choice with the younger set (though the hibiscus flavor is really good too, and a bit more sophisticated).  It’s like fruit salad only cooler.  In a past life I was a big fan of rainbow sherbet.  And this way I get to pretend that I’m five years old again, which in-so-far-as I remember it, was a halfway decent year.

Here’s to a few more weeks of summer treats!

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Food, recipes
5 Replies

the Compilation Skirt

rachel

For: My sister Rachel on her 18th birthday

Pattern: inspired by both the Twirly Skirt and the Lazy Days Skirt but changed around to be for a grown girl

Fabric and Notions: hand-me-down fabric from my mother-in-law, an assortment of notions and ribbons, some vintage, some new

skirt

My mother-in-law sent over a box of fabric a little while ago and this fabric with all the purple and the batik made me think of my girl.  Isn’t she lovely?  And don’t you want to borrow those shoes?  (I know I do.  cute, cute!)  Galen made her the necklace that she’s wearing.

one-2

She was my first baby, you know.  The first baby that I tucked up in a snugli or cuddled into my bed (and yes, it’s quite true that I’ve been baby wearer and bed sharer since middle school).

And now she’s gone and grown up on me.  sigh.

r & m

She’s off to school, far, far away and that is so not ok.  But all the same it’s the way it has to be, so we’ll all adapt and move forward.

cake

I’m so glad that she was here for one last visit though.  And that that one last visit happened to coincide with her birthday.  AND, I’m also glad that the warmer then usual summer meant that the peaches ripened earlier then usual, so that I could bake her a peach upside down cake.

cake with candles

I have so much love and many hopes and dreams for my baby girl as she goes out into the world.  Here’s to bright futures, safe travels, thrilling adventures, and remembering to write home!

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Festivals and Celebrations, Food, Life, sewing
2 Replies

More from the bog

bog 2

Computer problems kept me from posting last night and this morning.  Here are just a few more photos from our trip to the bog.  I love all of that red!  Isn’t it just incredible?

pitcher 1

The pitcher plants

I wish I had gotten better pictures of the pitchers, but I was somewhat distracted by the possibility of little ones falling into the bog.

the pitcher flower

It’s so quiet here right now that it would be eerie if it wasn’t so perfectly splendid.  Though one does have to be wary of quiet.  Quiet is how I came down from putting my baby down for a nap to find my 4 year old on the shed roof (it was very little consolation that the 8 year old was up there with him).  But since I seem to have found a couple of, hopefully uneventful, moments of peace and quiet, how about a little randomness?

bog 1

I modified this recipe to make it gluten-free this morning and it was divine, but oh, all that sugar!  I’ll surely pay for it later, but I can honestly say that I didn’t care a bit while we were eating it.  If I’m naughty enough to make it again next week, I’ll be sure to take pictures and share my version with you.

I discovered a new and fabulous way of preparing summer squash and zucchini last night.  I just ate the leftovers straight from the jar and it was a pleasant reminder of how good it truly was.  I think I might even like it better leftover and cold.  Our neighbors have been over to dinner twice this week.  One of them is allergic to garlic and onions and it’s pushed me to experiment a bit.  I don’t know what to do with myself in a kitchen without garlic and onions.  I chopped up all of my squashes into a big pan, drizzled them with olive oil, followed by a couple of shakes of ume plum vinegar and a hearty splash of lemon juice.  Then I roasted them up, stirring often.  Once they were cooked, I sprinkled them with sea salt, fresh cracked pepper and liberal amounts of shredded basil, fresh from the garden.  Both company and a child of mine, who despise summer squash as a rule, had multiple helpings, so I consider it a success.

I’ve had the strangest craving for rice lately.  I can’t imagine why rice of all things, but there it is.

We’ve been eating so much corn lately!  I have a whole heap of husks that we’re saving for crafts.

I’m wondering if we will have a shot at seeing some auroras tonight.  I went out looking last night, but if they were there, it was too cloudy to see them.

And now it is too beautiful a day to spend any more time on this silly old computer!

By
Food, Kids, Life, recipes
5 Replies