Dash to the Finish

October 23, 2013October 22, 2013 / makingofahome / Leave a comment

Every year it happens. The mad dash to get anything and everything in the garden harvested and indoors before temperatures dip below freezing for the first time of the year.

That day came on Monday, when the evening’s forecasted low was 27 degrees. So, I spent my day entangled amongst the tomato and cucumber vines, and bending over the multiple herbs remaining in the herb garden. Each year I say I will do this all sooner, so I’m not rushed come late fall when cold temperatures are eminent. But each year I find myself in this position, racing against time.

But I must say, I’m growing to enjoy this dash to the finish line. Because at this time of year, when I’m weary of harvesting, canning, freezing and drying, I see ahead of me a time of rest. A time spent nestled inside, surrounded by projects and crafts. It is at this time of year I am grateful to live in an area where we experience all four seasons. When there is a natural break, and a chance to rest and recharge for the next growing season. This time of rest is so close now. I feel the subtle pull inward, and I cannot wait to embrace all that it has to offer me in the days, weeks and months to come.

Cooking Sauce with Daddy

September 19, 2013September 18, 2013 / makingofahome / 3 Comments

While I was enjoying myself at a baby shower in the beautiful Anderson Japanese Gardens, my girls were home making pasta sauce with Daddy. My husband gets huge bonus points for this because not only did he cook with the girls (a feat in and of itself), he took pictures of them doing it! In honor of this momentous occasion, today I bring you a blog post written by the man himself…

Pasta sauce, or “sugo” has a special place in our family. Every holiday I can remember involved Grandma Jan’s giant pot of sauce, simmering on the stove, filled with meatballs and hunks of pepperoni. The pasta was always an afterthought, the lowly vessel on which more sauce could be ladled. Her recipe was given to her by her mother-in-law, my Great-Grandma Lou. She could flat-out cook and to this day, her skills bring the conversation to a halt, as eyes glaze over in remembrance of what she could do in the kitchen. Although she is no longer with us, her memories inspired a lazy Saturday to turn into a sauce making event that I was honored to share with two excited and delightful sous chefs.

This time of year brings us tomatoes, onions, oregano, carrots, and basil right out of the garden. Despite eating more than we process, there were enough tomatoes to get the project started. The girls both helped with Gianna pulling carrots from the garden and Addie peeling cloves of garlic. Both girls helped peel onions and prep the herbs. We absolutely destroyed the kitchen, used every cutting board in the house, and left onion skins all over the floor. Despite the mess, I was able to spend a few hours with my girls recreating the smells and flavors that I remember growing up with. My most sincere hope is that they will remember these moments and find time to create them with their children and grand children, so that future generations will know the importance of food, family, and the sense of community only found in the kitchen.

August Action

August 29, 2013August 27, 2013 / makingofahome / Leave a comment

There has been a lot of action of late in our gardens. It is truly at its peak, and despite the near 100-degree temperatures this week, we find ourselves entwined in vines of all sorts, harvesting all this fabulous veg.

Tomatoes make an appearance at our dinner table each night, for I am not sure there is a better fresh vegetable on earth than a homegrown tomato. Herbs are being dried each day in order to preserve them for the winter months. Onions and beans are being diced and then destined for the freezer. And who could forget our school garden, from which we just reached the 100 pounds donated mark! Yup, the students of Cathedral of St. Peter School have donated 100 pounds of fresh produce to the Plant a Row for the Hungry program at our local food pantry.

So much wonderful August action in the garden right now. I hope all of you are finding yourselves in the midst of such garden greatness as well!

Our Summer Kitchen

August 20, 2013 / makingofahome / 1 Comment

With the garden flourishing, there is a lot of action in our summer kitchen. Thank goodness for the cool temperatures that graced us last week! It made the whole idea of standing over multiple pots of boiling liquid all day a lot more tolerable.

Grandpa Dit’s Bread and Butter Pickles were first on the to-do list. One of my favorite canning goodies.

Preserving sweet peppers for winter. I take the time now to dice the peppers, and then freeze them in plastic freezer bags. Then in the winter I can just pull them out and add them to anything calling for some sweet pepper love.

A new one for us: Jalapeño Jam. It sure smelled good while making it. I guess we will see how it tastes in a few weeks. Fingers crossed.

After harvesting our rhubarb, I chop it up and freeze it in freezer bags so we can enjoy this spring and summer treat all winter long.

Our tomatoes are finally starting to ripen. I must say, our tomatoes are kind of lack luster this year, which is very disappointing because putting by tomatoes is my most favorite produce to preserve. But here is one nice sized basket I was able to garner from the garden last week. I made tomato sauce with this collection, and then froze it in our deep freeze for the winter months when throwing pasta in a pot and adding a jar of homemade tomato sauce is just what those little school girls want for dinner.

B.L.T.s I would be hard pressed to find anyone who does not think this sandwich tops the list of greatest summertime foods. The bread is from Banana Cherry Bakery, the bacon is from the hog we purchased from this farmer, the tomatoes are from our garden, and topped off with a touch of homemade mayo. (I use Jamie Oliver’s mayonnaise recipe from this cookbook.) Oh my. Delicious.

And we all know that when you eat those salty B.L.T.s you need something sweet after, right? We whipped up a batch of this amazing cinnamon sugar popcorn. Wow. It has quickly become a staple at our snack times this week.

The makings of our dinner from last night, and breakfast this morning. I love the fullness that this time of year brings. Such garden abundance is truly a blessing.

This Week in my Garden

July 25, 2013July 24, 2013 / makingofahome / 2 Comments

It’s crazy what can happen to a garden in a matter of weeks. For so much of the summer, our garden is green. Lettuce, kale, arugula, Swiss chard, peas, beans, carrot tops, etc. But now…now is when the real fun begins. Color.

The raspberries are starting to produce juicy crimson fruits, tomatoes are moving from green to a pale red, and blood red beets pop from beneath the surface of the soil.

Join me today for a walk through our garden…

Beans, Beans Everywhere

July 17, 2013July 15, 2013 / makingofahome / Leave a comment

One thing is for sure, we have a LOT of beans coming through our kitchen door these days. So many beans in fact that there is no feasible way to eat them all. Enter “Operation Dilly Bean.” If you have never eaten a pickled bean, a.k.a. dilly bean, you must make it your duty to eat one this year. A dilly bean earns a solid ranking in the top 3 list of pickled veg in my book. Yum.

This past Sunday found me hovering over the kitchen island chopping beans and breathing in vinegar fumes, with visions of dilly beans dancing in my head. The past few years I used a dilly bean recipe from this book, but this year I decided to mix things up a bit and try something new. I used the basic pickling recipe from this cookbook, and based on how great Miss English’s other recipes are, I’m sure this one will not disappoint.

Our System

July 16, 2013September 1, 2015 / makingofahome / 1 Comment

When we created our garden five years ago, we sectioned off a very small portion of our gardening space with chicken wire and created a compost pile. Since that time, our composting operation has been evolving because to be perfectly honest…it never really worked as well as we felt it should.

When we visited Growing Power in Milwaukee, Wisconsin a year and a half ago, we were inspired by the vermicomposting system Will Allen set up, but we were never able to get the results from our worms that he seemed to be getting. It was not until this past winter when I read Will Allen’s book Good Food Revolution, that I realized our mistake. We were overworking our worms. We were filling our vermicompost with loads of food and paper scraps and they simply were unable to keep up. While reading Allen’s book, I discovered Growing Power’s secret: Growing Power allows their collected food scraps to partially decompose first, then add the worms to the mix. Bingo.

So, after many a year of trial and error, I believe we finally have a system set up that will work. Because as Will Allen says in his book, he can predict a garden’s growing success based on “how much attention has been paid to creating fertile soil.”

We place our compostable materials (food scraps, grass clippings, leavings, paper shred, egg cartons, coffee grounds, etc.) in the wooden boxes. (We cover our boxes with burlap just to cut down on the bugs and smell, but it still allows the compost to breath.) We try to turn this pile over every couple of weeks. Once the scraps begin to brown and break down, we move them to the red garbage can, and/or the blue plastic bin, and/or the black tower. These bins have some holes drilled on the sides for aeration, and this is where our worms are. (The black tower is an actual vermicompost bin we purchased a few years back. The benefit of this type of bin is that liquid can drain off the bottom and can then be used to make compost tea.) Once the worms do their work we are left with compost the consistency of coffee grounds. This compost can then be added to our garden.

All Things Garden

July 15, 2013 / makingofahome / 2 Comments

With July now well under way, we find ourselves amidst the heart of our growing season, with a list of chores longer than we could ever hope to complete in a day. Although I can sometimes get frustrated by this endless to-do list, I am reminded that the jobs of a garden are never actually done, so therefore I need just to work through each day, doing what I can to tend to this growing space of ours.

In honor of this height of garden productivity, I’ve decided to designate this week as “Garden Week” here on my blog 🙂 I hope you all enjoy this fun little adventure through our week of gardening bliss.

To start things off for the week, I wanted to give you a little taste of just what our garden is looking like. Off we go…

First Harvest

July 10, 2013 / makingofahome / 1 Comment

Yesterday was a big day for our school garden project. The garden was bursting with vegetation, so we decided it would make the perfect day for our first official harvest of the season! We were able to glean lettuce, Swiss chard, kale, collards, snap peas, beans, beets and carrots from our seven-bed school garden.

Once the produce was picked, rinsed and sorted, we drove to our local food pantry to drop off our donation. Along the way, we spoke of the importance of helping those in need for God tells us “to be openhanded toward [our] brothers and toward the poor and needy in [our] land” (Deuteronomy 15:11).

If you are interested in donating to the Rock River Valley Food Pantry, visit their web site here.

School Garden Update: First Week of July

July 3, 2013June 30, 2013 / makingofahome / 3 Comments

It dawned on me the other day that I haven’t given you a proper update on the school garden at my daughters’ school, The Cathedral of St. Peter School, since May. What a travesty I tell you! So, slip into your spiffiest garden shoes, and come along with us on a tour through the school garden…