Kairos—“a right, opportune, or supreme moment in which something special and unique happens”
gardening
This Week
This week I will remember…
~eating fresh asparagus from our garden…in March!
~listening to local farmers speak so passionately about being stewards of the land.
~tiny hands cutting fruits and vegetables.
~sweating, while in a sleeveless shirt, pulling weeds in my garden…again, in March!
~bird song drifting through my windows.
~raspberry green sun tea.
~eating outdoors for the majority of our meals this week.
~sharing a meal with my family at an amazing restaurant that serves delicious local food. Yum!
~searching for a great new read.
~my girls, sitting in their own petite rocking chairs, reading books for over an hour.
~exciting new changes coming about for our family.
I hope all of you had a great week! Enjoy your weekend!
Completely
Yesterday we embarked upon a new adventure in our household: the girls made dinner! From start to finish (with a little help from Mom with some knife skills and boiling water), they created and prepared our entire evening meal.
The three of us girls went to our local natural foods store and I told them they could pick out anything they wanted to use in their dishes for dinner. What seemed like a very random combination of items to me, ended up turning out just great! Yet another example of what goes on in those little minds of theirs.
On my two-year old chef’s menu was a fruit salad with watermelon, kiwi, apples and blueberries with a homemade raspberry lime dressing (recipe courtesy of her big sis).
And on my five-year old chef’s menu was a spinach salad with apples and kiwi and a homemade raspberry lime dressing. (She created the recipe for this dressing completely on her own. In the store she told me she needed to buy limes to use as the acid with the olive oil in her dressing. A smart cookie this one is!) And the main course was her all time favorite: angel hair pasta with pasture butter sauce.
Rhubarb Goodness
As the rhubarb in my garden continues to flourish (despite the fact that it is only mid-March), I was reminded that I still have a bit of rhubarb frozen in my freezer from last spring. Last night I decided to make my all-time favorite rhubarb dish with some of last spring’s left overs.
This is an old recipe of my mom’s. I believe it is adapted from a recipe taken from a church cookbook of some kind, and it is just the most yummy dish imaginable!
Rhubarb Squares
2 cups flour
1 cup butter (softened)
1/2 cup sugar
Blend well and press into an ungreased 9 X13 pan. Bake at 350 degrees for about 15 minutes.
While that is baking, mix
2 eggs (beaten)
1 1/2 cups sugar
1/2 cup flour
1/2 salt
3-4 cups chopped rhubarb (depending on your love of rhubarb)
Once the crust is done baking, spoon this mixture on to the crust. Bake for another 35 -40 minutes.
I hope you enjoy this delicious early spring treat!
Industrious Minds
It never ceases to amaze me what games and activities my girls come up with when left completely alone, without any direct instruction from adults. From imaginary play, to art, to “work,” their minds are constantly striving to create new worlds, new projects, new concepts.
Yesterday I made it my goal to not get bogged down with the items on my to-do list, and instead to silently observe my little ones throughout the day. It was astonishing what those girls accomplished when their minds were able to run free!
Emerging
It was with joyful hearts that we threw open the doors yesterday and ran out to enjoy the fabulous day that greeted us! What a day it was, filled with a playhouse being opened up, soil being worked, and sun being soaked up by our pale skin.
“I want to make my own thing!”
These are the words that ring throughout our home at least three times a week. My girls just love to cook and/or bake “their own thing” and yesterday was quite the large step for my oldest daughter.
In the past, she had been content to mix random ingredients together, put it in our counter top convection oven (with Mommy’s help of course), and eat her creations. Now with that said, she has done quite a bit of experimenting with various flavors and has come up with some delicious combinations, but the creations were random none the less. But yesterday she said to me, “Mommy, I want to make my own thing, and I want it to be an actual recipe.”
So I decided, why not throw caution to the wind and let her completely take over the kitchen. With a little bit of my help reading the measurements, she made cut out sugar cookies completely on her own!
Now the crowning moment of this adventure was when it came to the topping for these cookies. My little five-year old gazed up at me and said, “Mommy I think I am going to sprinkle a little sugar, cinnamon and rosemary from our garden on top of the cookies. That way we don’t have to use food coloring or sprinkles with the yucky chemicals.” (Oh she had just made her mama’s day with that one!) And an fyi…the cinnamon and rosemary combination is one of those flavor combos she came up with during her previous food experiments. And let me tell you, it is really delicious!
Once she was done with her sprinkles, she sat back, looked approving at her creations and said, “Perfect. It’s just like Jamie Oliver’s pumpkin muffins when he sprinkles lavender flowers on top for sprinkles!” (My how this little one impressed me yesterday!)
Pumpkin Scones
As promised yesterday, here is the recipe for the pumpkin scones I made on “Seed Starting Day.”
Mix together the following ingredients in a large bowl:
2 cups all-purpose flour
1 cup whole wheat flour
2 tablespoons sugar
4 tablespoons baking powder
¼ teaspoon salt
1 teaspoon cinnamon
Using a pastry cutter, add 1/3 cup cold butter cut into small pieces. Make a well in the center of the mixture and set aside.
Next mix the following ingredients in a medium bowl:
2 eggs
½ cup heavy cream
¾ cup pumpkin puree (In the fall my husband halves pie pumpkins and scrapes out all of the seeds. He then roasts the pumpkin halves on the grill until soft. I then scoop out the meat of the pumpkin, run it through the food processor, and freeze it for later use in recipes. This is what I used for this recipe.)
Add egg mixture to dry mixture all at once. Then stir with a fork until just moistened.
Turn dough out onto a lightly floured surface and flatten into a circle. 
Then cut the dough into wedges. Separate the wedges as much as possible.
Brush the wedges with a bit of additional pumpkin puree and sprinkle with additional cinnamon and sugar.
Bake at 400 degrees for 12-14 minutes. Serve warm. Enjoy!
2012 Seed Starting Day
Ever since we started our garden three summers ago, the third weekend in February marked our “Seed Starting Day” for the year’s garden. This past Saturday marked this occasion and a wonderful day was had by all. As I said last week, I was feeling the need to get in the soil and grow something, so I was very happy to see that day pop up on our calendar!
We normally start the morning off with some sort of yummy breakfast, made with products from last year’s harvest. This year I made pumpkin scones, and they were delicious! (This recipe to follow in a post later this week.)
Then the girls drew pictures of what they thought would happen to the seeds once they were planted.
Here is my five year old daughter’s drawing. She said, “This is a picture of a pot, with the plant marker and a few sprouts coming up. The sun and rain are coming down on the sprouts.” Such the gardening expert!
This is the drawing my two year old completed. She said, “This is a plant with a rainbow.” She is on her way to garden expert status very, very soon I’m sure.
This year for our seed starting mix, we took a five gallon bucket and filled it up half way with compost from last summer. We then mixed in one small package of coir (coconut husk fiber), which helps to retain moisture much like a peat mixture does.
We mixed away until we had a nice ground mixture, perfect for seed starting.
Then my husband and girls got busy planting tomato seeds (Amish Paste, Martino’s Roma, Speckled Roman, and Italian Heirloom…all my favorite tomatoes to make tomato sauce with in August), basil seeds and Butterfly Weed seeds. The girls were really able to contribute to the effort this year and it was awe inspiring to see those little hands working the earth, and instinctively knowing how to plant these small seeds so that they will later grow to provide us with a bounty of vegetables.
We keep our seeds in our craft room in our basement. My husband hooks up fluorescent shop lights that can be moved up as the plants grow. He also hooks the lights up to a timer so that the plants can get 14-16 hours of light per day. We also put an oscillating floor fan in there with the seeds to help prevent mold or fungus from growing on the surface of the soil.
A Bit of Spring
This morning I feel a bit remiss because as I peer out my kitchen window I find a fairly hefty amount of snow fell overnight. The garden that was showings signs of early spring just yesterday is now covered with a thick layer of snow and the earth is hardened once again by the cold temperatures. Even though we have had a very mild winter, the need to delve into the soil and plant something is seeping into my veins.
I often find myself feeling this way on these cold February mornings and I think today I have come up with a temporary solution for my need to plant something, anything.
The girls and I grab a few Mason jars and go to work. We will sprout some seeds this morning! You can purchase sprouting seeds at just about any garden center and all it takes are those seeds, cheese cloth, a Mason jar and water.
Simply follow the directions on the back of the seed package and in about 4 days you will have lovely little sprouts to add to salads, stir fries or smoothies.
I wish you all a wonderful weekend filled with fun and family! Enjoy!
Making of a Home 