homemaker

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 🙂

Renewal

/ makingofahome / 4 Comments

This past week has been one of the hardest in my role as Momma.  I cannot quite articulate what it is, but I have just felt as if the wind was taken out of my sails.  I am unsure if it is the fact that my oldest daughter is off to school, or if it is the realization that summer is quickly drawing to a close, or maybe it is a combination of both.  Whatever the reason, I yearned for something, anything, to pull me out from beneath this rubble.

It wasn’t until early this morning, when my two little ones sat on the deck, still in their pajamas, watching the sun rise above the roof of our house, that the clouds seemed to part in my mind.

I am truly blessed to have these little ones before me.  To have a husband who works so very hard so that I can stay home and be the homemaker that I truly believe I was meant to become.  To have a lovely roof over my head that shelters my family.  It is with humbling gratitude and a sense of renewal that I face my day and week ahead.

Wishing each and every one of you a wonderful week filled with gratitude for the blessings in your life.

New Chapter

/ makingofahome / 2 Comments

And so today on this crisp, cool, beautiful morning, my oldest darling girl began a new chapter of her life.  It was with tearful eyes and a heavy heart that I sent my little girl off to kindergarten.  Although I stood by trying to sequester the sobs wanting to escape my lips, my five-year old waved to me with an I’m-never-looking-back smile on her face, turned on her heel, and walked through the doors of the school.  I stood there frozen, with images of a tiny baby lying next to me in bed in the early morning, with bits of sunlight dancing on her face.  How did that tiny baby grow up so fast, ready to begin her school years so quickly?

A part of me feels like this detachment is so unnatural at such an early age in life.  But my teacher-self knows that this is what is best for her.  She yearns for school.  For the challenges, the friends and the fun.  And although I have found myself struggling within my own head today, questioning whether or not this is what is truly best for my little one, deep down I know that it is. So today I offer forth my most encouraging thoughts to my precious, sweet girl.

At This Moment

/ makingofahome / Leave a comment

At this moment I am…

~thrilled that it appears we will have a bit of a raspberry crop this year after all.

~watching two pajama-clad girls running around the yard on this beautiful morning.

~proud of myself for overcoming some major fears this past weekend in The Warrior Dash.

~tearful about Wednesday, the day my oldest baby will head off to all-day kindergarten.

~saddened that this week marks the end of summer.

~getting that itch for fall and everything that comes with it:  leaves, apple cider, football and woolens.

~excited to pick the next piece for my book club 🙂  I’m thinking of choosing this one…One of my top three favorite books of all time.

~thankful for a lovely afternoon yesterday with a wonderful group of women and their families.

~wishing you all a wonderful week filled with fabulous memories!

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.}

Once A Year

/ makingofahome / 2 Comments

One of my favorite times of the year has arrived, and that my friends is peach time!  I love fresh peaches so much in fact that I only eat them when they are in season, in their absolute prime, in the middle of the August heat.

We buy our peaches locally from a family fruit farm where they grow all of their own peaches in their orchard, and they are to die for.  After the market last week, we ran home and got to work on my favorite pie on earth:  Grandma Dit’s Peach Pie.

I still remember being in about forth grade and I was home sick from school because I was running a high fever.   It was late fall, the time when most schoolchildren begin to fall ill, and I found myself buried beneath the afghan on the couch, watching reruns of Saved By The Bell.  My mom asked me if there was anything she could get me to eat that would make me feel any better.  I told her the only thing that would heal what was ailing me was Grandma’s peach pie.  There were no fresh peaches available in late fall in Rockford, Illinois, so my mom did what any good mother would do.  She improvised.  She went to the grocery store and bought a pre-made peach pie.  I took one bite, spit it out and said, “This is not right.  It’s not the same.  Never mind.”

I don’t know why this story has stuck with me for so long, but I think it is because there is no replacement for real, in-season peach pie, using my grandmother’s recipe.  So here goes…

I make my own crust (recipe found here).  Then I fill it with delicious sliced peaches.

I add about 10 tiny dollops of butter on top of the peaches, and then create a mixture of 1 cup sugar, 4 tablespoons flour and 1 teaspoon cinnamon.  I scoop this mixture over the peaches and butter so the entire pie is coated.  I then add just a touch (about 1/4 cup) of water to the pie.  This creates a delicious custard-like consistency.  Bake at 400 degrees for 15 minutes and then reduce the heat to 325 degrees for 45 minutes.

I truly hope you enjoy this recipe that I hold so close to my heart.  Enjoy!

Fun with Fungi

/ makingofahome / 1 Comment

Here in the Fagan house, we LOVE mushrooms.  Because of our love of this delicious treat, we have tried our hand at growing mushrooms multiple times with limited to no success.

But, it appears the tides have turned.  And it all began with a roll of toilet paper.

My brother-in-law surprised my three year old (perhaps the largest fungi fan in the house…seriously!) with a very creative birthday present:  A TeePee Pink Oyster Mushroom Kit from Fungi Perfecti.

Since we had attempted mushroom growing in the past with limited luck, I was skeptical to begin the process again.  But low and behold…it worked!  We now have beautiful PINK oyster mushrooms, growing out of a roll of toilet paper!

I would highly recommend trying this project with young kids (and let’s be honest…big kids too).  It was so interested to learn about the entire growing process of fungi, and then to watch the mushrooms grow (and grow VERY quickly) right in front of their eyes.

{We took step by step pictures of the entire growing process.  Enjoy! }

{After three weeks in a dark cabinet.}

{After sitting in the fridge for 2 days to start the fruiting process, we then let it sit on the table in our dining room and after 2 days this is what happened.}