gardening

Gratitude

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This week I am so very thankful for…

~working in the soil and getting all of our tomatoes planted.

~great new additions to our book shelf. (This one, this one and this one.)

~time to sip coffee and stand in the garden at day break.

~dance recital costumes with glitter, glitter and more glitter.

~two little ones playing catch with their dad and great grandmother in the backyard.

~an upcoming birthday celebration this weekend.

~only six more days of school…then “school’s out for summer”!

Whatever you are up to this weekend, I hope you enjoy yourself thoroughly!  Happy Friday!

Garden Party

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This Mother’s Day was one for the memory books. I rose early for some quiet time with my hubby.  I sipped coffee while he made homemade cinnamon rolls that he and the girls were planning to serve to me later. When the girls awoke, the wild rumpus started (Oh Maurice Sendak, you will forever be remembered.) There were cards, there was frosting, and there were the most precious video cards that the girls and Tyler had worked on the day before, complete with costumed princesses, fairies and singing. It was a wonderful start to a fabulous day!

When the noon hour arrived, so did our entire family for our first annual Mother’s Day Garden Party. The kids played the day away in the playhouse, entertained us with their musical instruments, and then rounded out the day in the kiddie pool. The adults enjoyed rhubarb bellinis (yet another favorite Jamie Oliver recipe of mine taken from this cookbook), some tasty food, and of course, great company.

On the food docket for the day was pulled pork that I slow roasted for fifteen hours the day before, served with two different barbeque sauces my hubby made that morning. We also enjoyed rhubarb squares (the recipe can be found in this post), a mojito cake made from a Pampered Chef recipe I love to bust out when the weather gets nice, and coconut macaroons that I found a recipe for in Taproot magazine. All of our guests also brought dishes to pass including salad made with home-grown lettuce, and mushroom crustini’s made with locally grown mushrooms and bread baked by nuns in an area convent.

I know I mentioned it yesterday, but again, I hope that all of the mothers out there had a wonderful day on Sunday. We are all so lucky to be able to tend to our children each and every day. Even though some days can be rough, and we may want to just take a momma’s time out, it is comforting to know there are a plethora of other moms out there giving it their all.  Thank you for reading this blog, for your comments, and your thoughts.  It is a true blessing.

Garden Update

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We at the Fagan abode have been out in the garden a great deal the past few weeks, and I must say it is starting to feel like we are actually getting somewhere!  My hubby got out a couple of weeks ago and planted our beets:  Chioggia and Early Blood Turnip.  Last week I planted the rest of our greens:  Lacinato Kale, Silverbeet Swiss Chard, and Georgia Southern Collards.  And my five year old planted carrots:  Dragon and St. Valery.

This past weekend, while my husband had the girls up in Wisconsin fishing, I planted my annuals in my herb garden:  Grandma Einck’s Dill and Genovese Basil (this I had started indoors back in February).  I then added Amish Snap Peas and our beans:  Bountiful, Burpee’s Stringless, Dragon’s Tongue (my girls’ favorite because of the purple stripes), Pencil Pod Golden Wax and Royalty Purple Pod.  And while I was at it I threw in my Black Beauty Zucchini. (I’m hoping these will do alright since it is not quite past our last frost date.)

Then yesterday we escaped to the farmer’s market for a while, and the girls each bought a basil plant of their own with the money they have been saving since Christmas.  They were even lucky enough to get a planting lesson from the farmer who sold them the basil.  This is why I LOVE market…The direct interaction with the farmer.  So, so, so much can be learned!

Makings

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With Mother’s Day right around the corner, the girls and I got to work last night on some cards for the ladies.  Back in December, Santa gave us a great all-natural card making kit by Glob and we had not yet used it. ( I believe the big man in red informed me he purchased this great gift from Nova Natural 🙂

What we loved best about this card kit is that the card stock is seed paper.  So, after all of the mommas are done admiring their creations, they can plant the paper beneath a thin layer of soil and some lovely flowers will sprout…genius…a card and present all in one!

It never ceases to amaze me how beautiful the paintings of children turn out.  They have no set idea in mind, they just create, and the result is breathtaking.  I even tried to just “paint” my own creation last night, but found myself with a flower, leaf, etc. every time.  The mind of a child is one I think we all wish we could emulate.  That wild abandon that turns out to be true beauty so much of the time.  Love.

Wowie Wow Wow!

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These are the words my five year old daughter uttered when she woke up Wednesday morning and realized that the day had finally arrived…the day of the first farmer’s market of 2012!

Even though the weather threatened storms, it held off long enough for us to make an appearance.  It was truly wonderful to reconnect with those farming families we hadn’t seen since the end of October.  We had a chance to chat, catch up with one another, and discuss this year’s harvest.  This is why I love going to the market.  There are true relationships formed when you interact directly with the person who grows your food. We grow a large majority of our own food, but we still attend the market each week to interact with others in our community. To feel a part of something real.

We left the market with a tote full of rhubarb (we cannot harvest ours until next year), local honey and some delicious brick oven pizza.  Who could ask for a better morning? 🙂

Chocolate Chip Zucchini Muffins

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This week I decided to take stock of our basement deep freezer.  I wanted to be sure that we had eaten all of our delicious frozen veg, soups, pestos, sauces and jams from last harvest so I could plan out our storage for this year’s goods.  I had to laugh out load when I looked in the bottom drawer of the freezer to find it filled with bag upon bag of frozen shredded zucchini!  I was immediately reminded of the chapter entitled “Zucchini Larceny” in Barbara Kingsolver’s Animal, Vegetable, Miracle when she says, “July is the only time of year when country people lock [their] cars in the church parking lot, so people won’t put squash on the front seat.”  I was indeed still finding myself in this position of having an extreme over abundance of zucchini, even though we were far, far away from the month of July.

I struggle to throw any kind of food out, so I racked my brain for something that would utilize at least some of our zucchini stock.  And the idea came to me…chocolate chip zucchini muffins!  I could use a bunch of the zucchini I had stored, and also use my favorite Pampered Chef stoneware muffin pan 🙂

Like I so often do, I grabbed my two year old sous chef, and got to work.

Zucchini Chocolate Chip Muffins

3/4 cup  stone ground wheat flour

1 cup all purpose flour

1/2 teaspoon nutmeg

1 teaspoon baking soda

1/2 teaspoon cinnamon

1/2 teaspoon salt

1 cup sugar

1/2 cup canola oil

juice of 1/2 a lemon

2 eggs

1 1/2 cups shredded zucchini (with excess water drained off)

5 oz chocolate chips

(A side note on my recipes:  I use all organic products.  And I use local products when available.)

Preheat oven to 350 degrees.  Combine flour, salt, nutmeg, baking soda, cinnamon and sugar.  Combine eggs, oil, lemon juice and zucchini in a separate bowl.  Mix wet ingredients into dry. Then add the chocolate chips and pour into muffin pans.  Bake for 20-25 minutes. (Note:  I did bake these muffins in a stoneware pan, which often requires a longer cooking time than a metal muffin pan.)

Enjoy!

Farm Visit

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Saturday morning greeted me with the sound of rain pounding against the roof of our house.  I couldn’t believe that, yet again,  the weather was not cooperating with our planned trip.  We had been arranging to visit a nearby farmstead for over six months now, but every time the day arrived,  the weather was poor, the kids were sick, an unexpected errand popped up, and our trip was put on hold.  But this past Saturday, despite the rain that was coming down in sheets outside the window, I decided we were just going to go for it.  And I’m so very glad that we did!

This past weekend we had the absolute pleasure of visiting the Nadig family’s farm.  Although the weather was a bit chilly, the rain stopped when we arrived, and we were immediately greeted by the warmest of families we could have ever hoped to have met.  This family of seven seemed to completely embrace that which is true stewardship of the land in a way that can only help to enrich the earth and everything she has to offer.

John and his wife Charlotte have a vision to “provide healthy, chemical free food to [their] children and practice what [they] consider to be godly stewardship over the land and animals under [their] care.”  John visited Joel Salatin’s Polyface Farm and has adopted many of the farming practices that Salatin and his family practice in the Shenandoah Valley of Virginia.

We spent the morning walking the farm and learning a great deal from John…and three of his young children, ages eight, six and five.  Let me tell you, these little ones knew more about the life cycle of plants and animals than most adults could ever hope to know in a lifetime.  My girls were immediately swept up in their discussions of life on the farm and as I assumed would happen, my five year old asked if she could stay there and live with them 🙂

After what was an amazing morning, we pulled away from the farm with 35 pounds of grass fed ground beef, eggs, beautiful hand-dyed, hand-spun wool yarn, and minds filled with information and wonderful memories.  Thank you Nadig family for a wonderful visit!

Jerusalem Artichokes

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After reading an article in Mother Earth News a few weeks ago, I felt inspired to try a new veggie!  The article discussed a variety of perennial vegetables, in addition to asparagus and rhubarb which tend to be the perennial veggies that people are most familiar with, but the one that caught my eye was the Jerusalem artichoke.  I was very intrigued by these perennial tubers.  Jerusalem artichokes (also known as sunchokes because they produce beautiful yellow flowers similar to a sunflower) can prepared in much the same fashion as a potato.

I was thrilled when I walked into my natural foods store yesterday and found a giant basket of Jerusalem artichokes nestled in amongst the locally grown kale and spinach!  I grabbed a bag of these little guys and headed home with an idea in my mind to create some form of soup with them.

So yesterday, with a tiny two-year old sous chef by my side, I started my experimental run with Jerusalem artichoke soup.

I first put 4 tablespoons of butter in a stock pot.  After the butter was melted I threw in one diced yellow onion and 2 diced leeks.

I cooked these veggies down until tender.  Then I added 10 medium Jerusalem artichokes that I had diced (I left the peels on for added nutrition).  I then covered all of the veggies with about 2 quarts of pork stock that I had on hand.  I then covered the pot, and let the veggies simmer for about 20 minutes.

While the veggies simmered, I fried up a pound of bacon. (A note…my girls ate about 2 strips each, so it ended up being a bit less than a pound of bacon that I actually ended up putting in the soup 🙂 )  When the bacon was cool enough the handle, I chopped it up into bite-sized pieces.

Once the Jerusalem artichokes were tender, I ran an immersion blender through the soup.  Then I added 1/2 cup heavy cream and 8 oz Havarti cheese (shredded).  After the dairy was incorporated, I added the chopped bacon to the soup.  I flavored with salt and pepper from there are viola…Jersusalem artichoke soup!

I hope you enjoy this great little veggie that has gone unnoticed for so long here in our house.  The soup had a very similar texture to that of potato soup, but with a slightly sweeter taste.  I would say that this experiment turned out to be a success.

Humbled

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Last week I was incredibly humbled, surprised and excited when Becky from Clover and Thyme honored me with a Versatile Blogger Award!  Thank you so very much Becky for this wonderful honor!  Being new to this whole blogging world, your recognition really brightened my day and reaffirmed why I do what I do.  Thank you.

If you get a chance, be sure to stop by Becky’s blog.  It is a joy to read!

So here are the Rules for Versatile Blogger Award according to their site:

  •  Thank the person who gave you this award.
  •  Include a link to their blog.
  •  Next, select  blogs/bloggers that you’ve recently discovered or follow regularly. ( I would add, pick blogs or bloggers that are excellent!)
  •  Nominate those bloggers for the Versatile Blogger Award — you might include a link to your post nominating them, or to the Versatile Blogger Blog.
  •  Finally, tell the person who nominated you 7 things about yourself.

As I said earlier, I am still very new to this whole blogging world, so I am just beginning to explore all of the wonderful blogs that are out there.  Here are the blogs that I follow regularly and I would like to award with the Versatile Blogger Award.  Thank you all for what you do!

Amanda Blake Soule at SouleMama.  I have been following this blog for nearly a year now and it is utterly amazing!  Her posts vary from crafting to homesteading and everything in between.  I also have many of her books which also contain fabulous project ideas for moms and kids alike.

Ashley English at Small Measure.  I found this blog a few weeks ago via SouleMama and it too is just fabulous!  I especially like the amazing recipes she includes in many of her posts.  Yum!

Paola at Love and Cupcakes.  This is a wonderful blog featuring wonderful recipes.  I especially love the desserts that can be found on this site 🙂

Scott and Kim at Aquaponic Family.  This is a great site about an at-home aquaponic system.  It is full of great information!

And here are a few interesting tidbits about me: 1.  I could live on cheese and desserts alone.  2.  I enjoy reading the classics (must be that English teacher in me 🙂  3.  I fell in love with photography when I was a senior in high school when my parents gave me my first Canon Rebel for a graduation present.  4.  I just saw The Hunger Games and LOVED it!  (The books were of course fabulous as well!)  5.  I have been taking on a more active role in my husband’s fitness company and I have been greatly enjoying it.  6.  My girls and I have been enthralled with the Junie B. Jones book series these days.  She is a hoot!  7.  We just returned from a great trip and I cannot wait to share some of our experiences with you!

Have a wonderful week!