backyard

Our Weekend

/ makingofahome / 1 Comment

This past weekend we opted to stay close to home because many of us in our little household of four were getting over the lovely beginning-of-the-school-year sniffles. It always seems so odd to me to have a cold in the middle of a ninety degree heat wave, yet that was our particular situation this weekend.  So with lemon tea and honey in hand, we set to having a fun-filled weekend none the less.

The first pumpkins of the season made an appearance at Friday’s market, so we had to buy just a couple.  The girls worked hard all of Saturday morning, digging out the seeds and preparing for some roasted goodness.

While the girls worked hard on the pumpkins, I got busy making my homemade granola. We were able to purchase some delicious home-grown oats from Hazard Free Farms, which helped to make the granola extra yummy.

I also tried another treasure from Grandpa Dit’s recipe box: piccalilli.  I must say, standing in the kitchen over a giant pot of boiling veggies on a ninety-seven degree day was not one of my brightest ideas, but the final result was quite tasty.

And I chopped the day away, getting food ready to put by in the freezer for the winter months.  Andrea Hazzard, from Hazzard Free Farm, gave us a great suggestion for preserving watermelon.  Pour boiling water over a bit of honey, making honey water.  After cooling down the honey water, pour it over diced watermelon until all watermelon is covered.  Then freeze it for enjoyment in the winter months.

Rajah enjoyed finding a new hiding spot.  Oh my.

And Tyler enjoyed some brewing time.  He concocted a batch of caramel creme ale.  Yummy.

I have also been hard at work in the backyard, continuing with our garden expansion.  I am so excited to bring you the finished product in tomorrow’s post.  Hooray!  See you then.

The Three T’s

/ makingofahome / Leave a comment

If you may have noticed in this post, or this one, or maybe this one…We are surrounded by tomatoes, tomatoes, tomatoes…Oh my!  Last week we stared at the tomatoes filling every container available in our house and covering every horizontal surface of our kitchen and tried our best to formulate a plan.

Try as we might, there was no way this family of four could consume all of these tomatoes on our own, at this moment.  So preserving was our solution to our overabundance, and preserve we did.  We made tomato paste.  We cooked up some good ole Italian tomato sauce.  We dried. We froze.  We’ve got tomatoes in all forms now, safely tucked away in the larder and in the freezer for enjoyment over the winter months.

And now as I peer out my kitchen window, there is whole new crop ready to be picked.  Ah.  The tomato fun never ends 🙂

Garden Renovation

/ makingofahome / 1 Comment

We have yet another project in the works.  In an effort to add more perennial and annual growing space, we are again (for the forth year in a row) expanding our garden.

We are trying to keep renovation costs to a minimum so we are repurposing materials we already had on our property.  We were also lucky enough to obtain reclaimed timbers from an old barn to create some raised beds.  (Remember the ones we were going to use for a new dining room floor?  Enter new idea.)

As you can see, it is definitely still a work in progress.  Hopefully, I will have pictures of the completed project soon.

Canning Day

/ makingofahome / 3 Comments

Mom (standing with hands on hips, a bit overwhelmed):  What am I going to do with all of these vegetables?

Five-year-old Preservation Expert:  Mommy, there is a lot of stuff here.

Mom (hands still on hips, a bit more overwhelmed):  Yeah.  Got it.  I’m still trying to figure out what to make with all of it.

Five-year-old Preservation Expert (with a look of absolute clarity):  I know!  I think we need to have a canning day!  Like, a whole day when all we do is can and freeze stuff for winter.

And so continues a day in the life with a very young child that just gets it.  Of course.  Why wouldn’t we put some of this food by for when the bounty is less?  Sometimes it takes youth to open our eyes to what is right in front of us.  Wonderful suggestion my darling girl.

Here is a walk through our day of food preservation…

{A wonderful new idea I got from this magazine.  What a fabulous idea!}

{Salsa, salsa and more salsa}

{Got to love hot pink fingers for a day.}

{I struck gold this week!  I found my grandfather’s recipe box in the back of my parents’ pantry.  It contains all of his old canning recipes, including his bread and butter pickles, my favorite of all his canning greats.}

Can It Be?

/ makingofahome / 1 Comment

Way, way back in the winter months, my first post on this blog contained a picture of a fig tree I received for Christmas from my sister-in-law.  She is from California where she grew up growing figs in her backyard.

I have never had fresh figs in my life.  They are just not readily available in northern Illinois.  My lone experience with figs is in the filling of my grandma’s (and now my) Italian fig cookies.  But the figs used in this recipe are dried.

When I received my tiny fig tree it was only a twig standing upright in a small pot.  And I was told I had to keep it alive inside until I could transition it to the outdoors in summer.  Now, if truth be told, I have never been able to keep a plant alive inside.  Ever.  So, this was a tall order for me.

I pulled through all winter long, transplanted the tiny plant that grew a few leaves indoor during the winter months, and have been tending to it each and every day.

This morning I was startled to discover…I can’t believe it, but it may be true…I do believe there is the beginnings of a tiny fig forming on the tree…In Rockford, Illinois…Zone 4!

Everything But The Kitchen Sink

/ makingofahome / Leave a comment

As I mentioned yesterday, our garden is quiet the producing machine right now.  The girls and I were in the garden all day yesterday and came out with bucket upon bucket filled with onions, tomatoes, cucumbers, greens, and carrots.

This time of garden abundance reminded me of my favorite summertime dish to make:  gazpacho.  (Gazpacho is a tomato-based soup traditionally served cold.)  You can literally throw in anything and everything you have fresh in your garden, give it a whirl in your food processor and you have a healthy, flavorful dish.  It’s a great way to ensure you are getting all of your veggies in, and it tastes wonderful too.  In our house we like to serve the gazpacho in glasses and drink it like a smoothie, but you could serve it in bowls and eat it with a spoon if you prefer it that way.

In the particular batch I made yesterday, I used:  tomatoes, green and purple sweet peppers, banana peppers, garlic, red onion and cilantro.  I then add salt, pepper and Sriracha (our kitchen could not survive without this stuff) to taste.

A Summer Snack

/ makingofahome / Leave a comment

We have found ourselves surrounded by fresh veggies.  They lay on every flat surface of our kitchen and sunroom right now and I have been trying to find clever ways to eat this plethora of veg in the freshest way possible.

The biggest issue I seem to run into with my little ones is they need to have the vegetables prepared and ready to go if they are going to eat them.  So, this week I decided whip up a really quick and simple tzatziki dip with cucumbers from our garden.  I then slice up a bunch “dippable” vegetables (carrots, sweet peppers, small tomatoes) and store them in a sealed container.  Now any time a member of the family gets that urge to snack, there is a nice healthy snack waiting for them in the fridge.

{A little work from a friendly fairy always helps a bit too 🙂 }

For my tzatziki, I mix together:  Greek yogurt, cucumbers (seeds removed and diced), fresh or dried oregano, onion powder, fresh lemon juice, salt and pepper.  I just taste along the way and adjust my amounts accordingly.

Tomato Time

/ makingofahome / 2 Comments

Sorry for stepping away for a day, but my garden work kept me detained a bit longer than I thought when I was writing on Monday morning.  The tomatoes are in full swing  and I seemed to have gotten lost amongst the vines for a very long time before resurfacing and realizing that most of my day had passed me by.

This is the first year that we have not planted any slicing tomatoes.  We planted only small cherry-type tomatoes (Juliets and Mexican Midgets) for the girls to snack on, and paste tomatoes (Viva Italias, Speckled Romans and Amish Pastes) to use for tomato sauces and salsas.  What I didn’t realize about these types of plants is how many more fruits they produce compared to slicing tomatoes.  Oh my.  On Monday afternoon while I was picking, I found 4-6 ripe tomatoes, 6-8 I’m-almost-ready tomatoes, and about 20 addition green tomatoes just waiting to get ripe.  That is also not factoring in that each plant still has about 20-30 blossoms.  Apparently the tomatoes have done just fine with all of this heat.

So what to do with all of these lovely tomatoes?  Tomato sauce it is!  I love, love, love making tomato sauce.  I have no idea why I cherish this activity so very much, maybe its my Italian roots, but I look forward to this activity come late July each and every year.

Yesterday I woke up early to begin this favorite task of mine.  I went out to the herb garden, enjoyed the cool damp air from the rain the night before, and spent some time in meditation just picking oregano and basil.  It was a great start to my morning.  Then with coffee at the ready, and ingredients laid out, I went to work.  And what lovely work it was, in the quite of the morning before anyone else awoke to begin their day.  Ah.

My Tomato Sauce

I kind of fly by the seat of my pants with this recipe as (much like with my pesto). I first put a good amount of olive oil in the bottom of a stock pot.  I then add garlic and onion (chopped) and I cook that down until the onions become translucent, but not brown.

I then add my chopped tomatoes and my fresh oregano and basil.  I add a bit of salt and pepper at this point, cover the pot and let it cook over medium heat for about 15 minutes.  I then remove the lid and allow to cook for another hour or so.

At this point, I run a hand blender through the sauce (I don’t strain my seeds.  I know all the Nanas out there may turn their nose at this 🙂 )  Add more salt and pepper to taste.  Then I bring the sauce down to a simmer and leave it for several hours.  I stir it every once in a while to keep the bottom from sticking.  At the very end I add a bit of butter to cut the acidy taste.

I freeze my sauce as opposed to canning it because I find it hard to stick to an exact recipe, which is so very important to do if you are canning.  I normally freeze my sauce in wide-mouth glass quart jars filled about 2 inches from the top of the jar (to allow for expansion during freezing.)

Drought

/ makingofahome / 1 Comment

Despite the best watering efforts of my sister while we were away last week, we came home to a garden completely ill equipped to deal with a week of temperatures exceeding 100 degrees.  These extreme temperatures withered our plants and brought out a volume of insects that I have never before experienced.

These conditions are reminders of just how fragile life is, that without rainfall, nothing can survive.  I try to push these ideas from my mind as I quietly tend to my plants, watering them from the city water that we are blessed to have at our disposal during the worst drought this area has faced since 1988.  But as the days pass, clouds loom overhead, but not a drop of rain falls, and these thoughts become more and more difficult to cast aside.

I pray for an end to this dryness, and for the heavens to open up and give the earth some much needed nourishment.

If you have a suggestion for Japanese beetle removal, I would greatly appreciate it!  Feel free to leave a comment on this post for all to see.  I have the traps set up along the far perimeter of our property, but the sheer number of these insects is staggering.

Fresh

/ makingofahome / 1 Comment

Each morning I make a lovely cup of piping hot coffee and stand at my kitchen window overlooking my garden.  Even in the dead of winter, when the garden is buried beneath layer upon layer of snow, I do this.  It allows me to view one area of the earth, each day, and observe all of the changes that take place and often go unnoticed.

Yesterday, as I was conducting this every day task, I noticed that the mint in my herb garden had reached an all-time-out-of-control-I’m-goiing-to-take-over-everything state.  I now had more mint than any human could ever even dream of consuming.  I twiddled my thumbs for a bit, trying to think of what in the world to do with even a small bit of this mint.  Then it came to me.  On our trip to Champaign this past weekend I indulged in this exquisite homemade, flourless cake that was served with fresh mint ice cream.  Yummy.  So, that was it…fresh mint ice cream!

I used my normal ice cream recipe, but this time I added fresh, finely chopped mint at the stage when I add the vanilla.  I covered the pan with a ceramic plate and allowed the mint to steep in the mixture until completely cool.  This allowed the lovely, fresh flavor of the mint to infuse into the ice cream.

Enjoy!