Me and Mom, the Origianl Type-A

It's late and I've been making marinara sauce since about 10 am this morning - I'm about 13 hours in and will probably hit 14 total. But, I am almost done, just about 30 minutes more to boil down the last stockpot full of sauce to the right thickness, then it is ladeled into jars through the funnel, lids are put on, rings are screwed on and tightened and the jars go into the canning bath for about 25 minutes...this process I have repeated over and over again today. I bought three 20 lb. boxes of roma tomatoes from the couple that runs my favorite farm stand. They drive over to eastern Washington weekley to pick up produce. Last week I put in my order for the roma tomatoes and sure to their word, they had them ready for me to pick up on Wednesday morning. I gave the tomatoes a couple of days to ripen further, which made today my long day of sauce making in the kitchen. The thing about making marinara sauce is that it's lots of work all at once and then long waits. I try to use the long waits efficiently to have everything ready to go for the next round, onions chopped in the food processor, tomatoes cleaned, trimmed and ready to go through the food processer. But sometimes there's nothing really to do but wait while the sauce is boiling down. So today I've had the luxury of getting a few things done for my online job, but I've also been browsing facebook and internet news sights quite a bit. I don't normally get this much time online to just goof off, and to be honest, I'm glad. If I didn't have the tomato sauce to show for my time today, I'd feel a bit like a loser. I'm no Type-A, but I am also not really one for wasting large amounts of time, I like to be productive. I'm more a Type-B that has Type-A tendencies and I likes to surround myself with Type-A's, the husband for instance is a Type-A, as are several of the friends I've been closest to over the years. I like the influence that Type-A's have on me. The original Type-A in my life is my mom. She was queen of getting up early, even on the weekend. I remember many times as a child, waking up to the sound of the vacuum running in the hall outside my bedroom. She liked a clean house and never went to bed with dishes in the sink - something that I probably won't be able to say tonight, but now that I'm grown up, I generally feel the same way about going to bed with a clean kitchen. She would have liked for me to keep my bedroom cleaner as I was growing up, and I think it would have made her happy if I'd made my bed every morning - as a kid I did so sporadically, but this was a habit I didn't firmly form until my freshman year of college in the dorms. Luckily the bed-making habit was firmly in place before I got married, the husband is very faithful about tasks like this, for the most part he tolerates my "free-spirtedness", but it helps that I have a few standards.Well, like I said, I've had some time on my hands here and there today, so I decided to share a picture my mom sent me as an email attachment recently. She took an picture of the two of us - I don't know when it was taken, sometime probably in the last 5 years - and she photoshopped the heck out of it. That's another thing my mom likes to do, make adjustments to photos, it's kind of become her hobby. She's a good person, my mom, she's quirky and thoughtful and nice. Now it's time to get back to that marinara sauce!

Mmmmm...Raspberry Sauce

I can't remember if it was an experiment or a mistake, but last summer I made and canned raspberry sauce for the first time. When I make jam, I don't use pectin, just sugar and a longer boiling time, so it could be that I'd set out to make jam and just didn't boil the fruit down for long enough. I honestly don't know. But, experiment or mistake, I loved the raspberry sauce I made, it was delicious over waffles, french toast, ice cream, chocolate cake and brownies, and most of all, over creme brulee. I was on the look out this summer for when the raspberries would show up at the farm stands. While out in the La Conner area about two weeks ago I found a stand selling half flats for just $6, so I bought two. The berries sat in our extra 'fridge for about a week, partially due to procrastination, but mostly due to work obligations and the short get-a-way trip the husband and I took to Victoria. I did finally get around to turning those lovely berries into sauce and canning it. I ended up with 11 half pint jars of sauce and one partial jar that I refrigerated instead of canning. I had a jar from last summer open, and decided to do a side by side taste test. It reminded me of a part-time job I used to have at a winery when I lived in California, in our staff meetings, we sometimes did side-by-side tastings of the same wine but different vintages. So I'm going to give it my best "wine-speak" review, here goes: The 2009 vintage raspberry sauce was tart and short to start, it was reminiscent of meyer lemons and jasmine. It's finish was smooth, sweet, and light. The 2010 vintage raspberry sauce is sweet and more full bodied from start to finish, it reminds me of honey, and nectarines with the slight spice of nutmeg. Neither sauce had strong tannins, even though the seeds were left in the sauce (I like them and don't strain them out). The 2009 is a developed sauce whose flavors have had time to mingle, the 2010, though young, drinks well now and will only continue to improve.Now, don't you think I need to be a dessert sauce sommelier and get paid lots of money to tell people what they are tasting and what it would be good with? New career direction maybe? Naw, I'll just stick with spending my days in a classroom teaching math and in my free time I'll enjoy my homemade raspberry sauce.Speaking of which, only a few more days until I'm back to work full-time. I think having an untraditional year this last school year has made me feel a bit anxious about going back to full-time brick and mortar work. I'm excited and looking forward to the year, I just don't always adjust to change as gracefully as I could. I need to work on that.

More Pesto Here We Go!

So...I started 36 basil plants from seed this spring. I transplanted them to one of my raised beds in May. I was worried at the time that they'd make it because even though the weather was great when I put them in the ground, the temperatures dipped low a few times in the couple of weeks that followed. I also learned a lesson in applying fertilizers. I overdid it a bit, when I put the starts in the ground I added a side dressing of "Bio-Fish" fertilizer which is made by a company called Down to Earth. It's a great fertilizer, but in moderation. I burned the plants a bit by using too much.

The damage was obviously not lasting, these plants came back very strong.

I've already done a thorough picking of the plants twice and made batches of pesto with the harvest...but it's been almost two weeks since the the last picking and the plants have loved the watering and sunshine . As you can see from the picture above, some of the plants were going to start to flower and bolt if they didn't get some attention.

So I went out and spent about 45 minutes filling my basket up. It was the most I've picked at any time. I knew that I'd be doing this, so I'd made sure a couple of days ago that I still had everything needed in my kitchen to make pesto.

First I started with the fresh garlic, peeling isn't my most favorite chore, but I think it tastes better than the pre-peeled kind that you can buy in bulk or the chopped stuff that comes in a jar. Even though it's a bit of a task, it's worth it.

Hazelnuts - though I would probably prefer pinenuts, they are too expensive to buy for the mass amount of pesto I've been making, hazelnuts are a good and more affordable substitute. I've actually considered using walnuts as well.

For the first couple of batches I used shredded parmesan, but this time around, I had picked up a blend of shaved hard cheeses at Trader Joe's.

Then there was the olive oil. The thing about it is, I don't really measure any of this out, I like to make my pesto in a more casual way. If it looks like it is going to need more oil to get the texture I want, I add more, or if it doesn't taste "smooth" enough, I add more cheese or nuts. It may mean that one batch is slightly different than the next, but I like variety so that doesn't bother me.

With the first batch I froze the pesto in a muffin tin, though I liked the amount that each muffin cup held, it was pretty difficult to get the frozen pesto out. When loosening it up with a butterknife didn't work, I ended up turning the pan over and running warm water over the back to make the individual pesto portions come out. It was messy so I decided after that to use small party cups instead. I fill each cup about half way, covered them with wrap and into the freezer they go. Once they are frozen I'll pop them out of the cups and store the frozen pieces together in a freezer bag. I think I've got about 20 dinner-sized portions stored now. From the looks of it, there's going to be plenty more to come before the basil is done for the season. I'm excited that there will be lots of pesto flavored dinners to come this winter, it's one of my favorites! This is also a much more affordable way to get pesto, I wouldn't be willing to spend the money to buy this much pesto from a grocery market. I also love it that I know exactly what went into making it, there are no mystery ingredients. A taste of summer basil during our cold Pacific Northwest winters is going to be pretty great!

4th of July

The strawberries were picked from our garden, but the blueberries weren't - mine aren't quite ripe yet. We're off to celebrate Independence Day at a friend's house on a lake. As expected, it doesn't look much like summer here today - it's always said that summer in the Pacific Northwest doesn't start until July 5th...but hey, at least we've got lots of strawberries!

Happy Independence Day!

Kitchen Herb Garden

Snow in May...

The past few days have been full of strange weather...wind storms that lead to power outages, torrential amounts of rainfall, thick fogginess, and tonight, snow. Very wet, slushy snow. I'm glad I held off from putting any of my little seedlings that have been growing in the Pod into the ground. As it is, I'm pretty sure that the ice pack is not a good thing for the spinach, lettuce and swiss chard that I started from seed in raised bed. Most of it was intended for our chickens anyway, so it's not a huge loss. But, this does make me more empathetic with farmers...how frustrating it would be to lose an entire crop to a freak spring snow storm!

The baby chicks (who are big enough now that I really should stop calling them baby chicks) were pretty wigged out by the snow - it was the first they'd ever seen. They were hiding in the hen house while the snow was falling. I brought them some bird seed to scratch in the covered run under their house and that seemed to lift their little chicken spirits.

I've been pretty busy lately, I just got done helping the husband for two days with a job he had installing crown molding. It was hard work, but we work very well together on projects of that sort. The experience actually put us both in the mood to do some crown molding in our own house. I've always wanted to finish our dining room ceiling - I think we may just get around to it one of these days.

In addition to being a "carpenter's assistant" for a couple of days, I'm still subbing a few times a month, doing my online teaching job, and working a couple of days a week at a greenhouse supply store. It's a lot to juggle, but I'm happy.

Today is a quasi-day off for me, I still have some online work to do, but nothing that will take me away from the house. So I've been having a slow morning. Plucking my eyebrows, spending time with the cat, making banana bread, and mixing up the spread that we put on our toast. I use 1/3 butter to 2/3 extra virgin olive oil. When I first mix it in the food processor, it is pretty runny, but the olive oil thickens when it is refrigerated. So by the time we need it to spread on our toast (or freshly baked banana bread!), it is a perfect spreading consistency.

Later I may work out a bit on the ellyptical and then head out to the chicken coop to see how my feathered friends are today. I'll probably intentionally let myself get distracted in the greenhouse after I stop at the chickens. It's nice to have a day where I can linger a bit, even if it is still pretty chilly outside!

Homemade Pasta Success!

Yup, did it...I'm proud to say! [Disclaimer: if you're not in the mood to read a very detailed description of my meal prep, you might think about skipping this post. I'm not usually one to be super elaborative when it comes to cooking, but right now the mood is striking me. Just sayin', fair warning!] The recipe I *sort-of* used is here. After reading pasta recipes on a few other websites, I picked up some semolina flour at the market and ended up using about 3 cups of that and another 1/3 of a cup (actually probably more like 2/3) of vital wheat gluten flour. I'd read that it's the gluten that gives the dough it's "chewiness" and allows it to be flexible enough to cut it and boil it without it falling apart. I don't know if it was either of these two flours or the combination of the two or my inexact measurements, but I ended up using 7 or 8 eggs instead of the 4 called for in the recipe (the eggs were super fresh, from that day and the two days before - the ladies are laying between 2 and 4 a day lately). I also ended up dropping in a bit of olive oil as the dough was mixing to help it pull together, it was pretty dry and crumbly without the olive oil and eggs. Oh - I also pinched in a bit of kosher sea salt.So how did it taste? The answer is good, thick and rich. I think the semolina flour and fresh eggs were the major contributors. The texture kind of reminded me of a thick tortellini that I had when we were traveling through Italy. Maybe it was because of the thickness of the pieces I cut or that I didn't roll the dough quite thin enough, but it took more like 12 minutes of boiling to cook the pasta rather than the 4 minutes called for in the recipe. Even still, the pasta ended up al dente. Rather than a marinara or fettuccini sauce, I kind of made up my own sauce/topping. That after noon I stopped at our meat market and I picked up two 8 oz. top sirloin steaks. I trimmed them and cut them into thin strips. Then I marinated the strips in balsamic vinegar, herb infused macadamia nut oil (just brought back from Hawaii!), and fresh ground pepper. I cooked the steak for about 12 minutes at 450 degrees. Then I mixed in some roasted garlic (yes, I also roasted it myself - this was a very handmade meal!), some of last summer's oven dried roma tomatoes, and parmesean cheese. The entire thing went back into the oven to melt the cheese while the pasta finished boiling. We had a mixed green salad with the pasta and if I do say so, the meal was delicious!So now I am kind of wanting to tweak the recipe even more or even try a different recipe - maybe from an Italian cookbook I have. The question is when do I ask for the pasta maker attachment for my Kitchen Aid mixer? Birthday...Wedding Anniversary...Christmas?

There are now lots of pasta dishes I'd like to get around to making from scratch!

By the way, Happy Monday, I hope you have a great week!

Afternoon Tea for Lunch

My tea rituals have become quite a nice habit - not quite a daily habit, but close.
One day this week my tea time and lunch time kind of morphed together...it wasn't the most balanced lunch ever, but it was yummy - a good mix of sweet and savory. Lately I've been brewing green tea with Earl Grey and stirring milk and honey into it right in the pot.

I have two of these vintage tea cup and plate sets. I found them recently at a thrift store that raises money to support a local senior center. There were actually four of them in all at the store, I've been tempted to go back and see if the other two are still there. Almost everything at the store is priced pretty low.

Tired, But Drinking Tea

I just spent one of the longest "school days" of my life substitute teaching for a fourth grade class. I took the job last second without much thought. These kids were fine one-on-one, pretty sweet actually, but as a group they gave me a run for my money - literally. You can tell a ton about a teacher by the way her student's behave when she is not there, and this teacher has definitely got her hands full. If I were her I'd probably take the Friday before a 3-day weekend off too, I'd need the rest from that group of darlings. I was glad when the bell rang to let the students out for the day, it couldn't happen soon enough. So now I'm catching my breath, marginally helping the husband prepare dinner (steak fajitas), and allowing myself to sit down for a cup of tea. Tea has become a recent habit [again] for me. There's something soothing about a warm cup of tea. I'm also trying to not talk myself about hitting a Zumba class tonight with my neighbor...even though I'm tired, I need the exercise after a day like today. So thank goodness it's Friday and thank goodness I'm not that 4th grade teacher!

Resolution: Cloth Napkins

I've mentioned one of my New Year's resolutions a couple of times recently...so here it is. I'm going to make this the year that we stop using paper napkins and switch instead exclusively to cloth. My goal with this resolution is to try to consume just a little less, kind of a small gesture to the environment.Last week I specifically purchased a few different fabrics with this project in mind. The first one I cut into was this adorable navy print with white bicycles. I used a cloth napkin I bought a few years ago at Crate and Barrel as a pattern. It measured a little over 18 inches square. I cut my squares to have 20" side lengths, then folded the edges over twice and sewed them. Their size when finished was about 18.5" on each side.

Although I cut four napkins, I have only finished two so far. To keep from getting sick of my resolution too quickly I decided that I'm going to work on my new napkins a bit at a time. There will be time to make many more, in all different fabrics. My idea is to have different sets that I can switch out based on the month or season, I think that will make it more fun for me.

I also decided to make a couple of napkin rings...that way we can use our napkins for more than one meal and easily keep track of which one belongs to each of us.

So obviously because two napkins aren't going to last us an entire year, there will be more napkins being sewn up...and I will share as I progress.

We regularly have undersized loads of kitchen towels going through our washer and dryer, so washing these napkins will just mean making those loads a bit more full, really using hardly any more energy than we are already using. The best part about this project is knowing that we will be wasting just a little less.

A Bit of Reflection

It's Monday again, but it is the Monday before Christmas, which makes it a better Monday than usual! We had a fantastic dinner with our neighbors last night...it was somewhat of a progressive dinner, we started off with drinks, appetizers and gifts at our house...they brought over some fantastic cheese and crackers, and I tried a recipe for amazing potato skins that I found over at epicurious. They were quite the hit and I will definately make them again, hopefully soon! We next moved the party to their house for dinner, venison marinated in balsamic vinegar and an amazing mixed green salad with gorgonzola. For dessert I'd made creme brulee the day before, but the fun part was everyone getting the chance to use the torch to melt the sugar on top of the custard the way they wanted to. We all had so much fun using the torch that I will definitely have guest torch their own creme brulee in the future, who doesn't like to play with fire?! The creme brulee turned out great, better even than the first time I made it. The s-son had a friend over to spend the night, the husband had picked up on of those take 'n' bake pizzas and a couple of movies for the two kids, because I'd trippled the recipe for the creme brulee, we also set them up with that for dessert. While we were hanging out with our neighbors in the front room, the boys were in the kitchen having their dinner, I went in there for a minute and saw them with pizza in hand happily munching away, and empty creme brulee ramikins sitting by their plates. They admitted with grins on their faces that they'd had their dessert first. Can't say I blame them, it was the first time the s-son's friend had ever had creme brulee.

So it was a great weekend, full of friends and celebrations. There was also a couple of positive moves in the realm of the husband's business. We've gone so long with nothing but forced patience and an ever tightening budget, that even though it was positive news, I still experienced a bit of sleeplessness and anxiety. I guess in a way I've gained a sense of pride that we have been able to trim our expenses and live on less, I've felt a regaining of the same drive and determination that got me through my college years when I truly had almost nothing. In the last day or so the husband and I have had quite a few conversations about our current and former life styles and we are on the same page about keeping things simple as they are now, even though we aren't going to be under the same kind of forced pressure. I have learned a ton of discipline with my spending. There is a lot more scrutiny about needs vs. wants, and honestly, it feels right to put anticipation, saving, planning and patience in their rightful place with spending and financial decisions. With the affect of a recessed economy, I've also been able to see at a deeper level the material that my husband is made of...he's struggled with the increased stress and burden, but he has also shown me his strength and determination. I trust him more because of the past year. I think we have learned (and are continuing to learn) lessons that will affect us for a lifetime. Living simply and learning to do more things for myself is satisfying, I have a higher regard for my own skills as a homemaker. Professionally as well, I have a deeper sense of my own worth. I lost a job that was providing a comfortable income, but at the same time it was robbing me of the things that I love about teaching and the things that make me a great teacher. In the last few months I have come closer to finding a balance between my professional life and my personal life. I did not and never would have chosen to lose my job, it was painful, hurtful, and stressful. I can see now though, that it has all lead to me becoming a better and happier person.

So the rest of this week will hold the wrapping of some gifts, a still sort of suprise shopping trip and a stop at a dive store to have a zipper the husband's dive vest or BCD repaired - both are parts of the series of advent gifts I've been giving him this month - the gifts have been progressively getting better the closer we've gotton to Christmas. There will also be a few rounds of Zumba, a good way to offset the feasting that will happen, we are going to have the husband's parents join us for dinner on Christmas Eve before we go to a candle light service at our church. I also have a couple of much anticipated beauty appointments, one to get my hair cut, another to have a professional pedicure - something I haven't had done in over a year! I have also planned to make and can my annual batch of cranberry chutney to give to friends and family, in addition, I plan to try making lemon curd from scratch for the first time...I'll report back on how it turns out. There will also been some work in there, I don't anticipating having too much since most of my students will be taking a break for the holiday, but I do have a couple of special projects that I will be able to tackle with the extra time. I also want to spend sometime tidying up and organizing my office/sewing room. It has been severely neglected in that area for the last couple of months. I'd like to start the New Year with a work space that is neat, I work so much more efficiently and effectively in a clean environment! I may even post some before and afters so you can see in my mess how human I am!

Lastly, I'd like to say Happy Winter Solstice to you...the song that has been going through my head today is the Beatles "Here comes the sun". After today our daylight grows day by day...I love winter, it is cozy, but I'm always happy to see spring come along!

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"Sometimes our fate resembles a fruit tree in winter. Who would think that those branches would turn green again and blossom, but we hope it, we know it."

~Goethe

Goal: Creme Brulee

One of my goals for 2009 was to learn to make my favorite desert at home.

Last year I'd asked for (and received) a creme brulee torch for Christmas.

It stayed in it's box until just recently. I don't know why it took me so long, forgetfulness, intimidation, low priority?

It's a great thing that I finally got around to trying it all out.

It turned out pretty good.
I have a few ideas for how to tweak what I did next time to make it even better.I used the yolks of eggs that had been laid the same day by my hens in the custard mixture, it doesn't get more fresh than that, it made me proud to do that.
It was easy to separate the yolks from the whites because
the yolks from my hens eggs are firm and they don't break easily.

Next time I have a yearly goal like this set, I hope I don't wait so long to reach it!

Oh The Baking That Is A-Happenin'

I am responsible for yams and pumpkin pie tomorrow. So tonight we had a "do it yourself" dinner night - which around here usually means I eat leftovers and the husband has frozen pizza. This was perfectly fine with me though because I had to bake that pie. I had left over filling, so I mixed up more crust and made mini-pumpkin pies. I used a cupcake pan to make them, they ended up about the size of a cookie. The husband already had one, and they were approved.

So now I've got yams to make tomorrow, then we'll be ready to go feast. I am going to head over to Zumba first thing tomorrow. They are raising money for our local food bank. It's also going to be a way for me to burn a minimum of 800 calories! That way I can have a little pie without the guilt. I picked up a new scale today and broke it in once I got it out of the box...let's just say I know I need to kick myself into gear, like now!

I hope your holiday planning and prepping is going well!