Ever since my husband received The Art of Fermentation for his birthday, it has been a fermentation frenzy in our house. Today I present to you a bit of a photo journey through our fermentation experimentation…
…a little beer…
…and mead (a.k.a honey wine)…
…and sauerkraut.
It seems as if it has been a very long time since I posted a recipe in this space, so here goes nothing. As I’ve said a lot over the past few months, finding my grandfather’s recipe box has been a fun adventure filled with cooking experiments and taste tastes.
This particular card has been one I have played around with quite a bit over the past few weeks. And this weekend, after a lot of testing and even more tasting, I think I’ve come up with a great pumpkin bread recipe that allows you to forget about adding in all of that refined sugar and unhealthy oil. Enjoy!
Pumpkin Bread
1 1/2 cups honey
1 cup coconut oil (melted)
4 eggs
2/3 cup water
1 3/4 cups all-purpose flour
1 1/2 cups whole wheat flour
2 teaspoons baking soda
1 teaspoon salt
1 teaspoon cinnamon
1 teaspoon nutmeg
15 ounces pumpkin puree
Preheat your oven to 325 degrees. In a large bowl, beat the honey and melted coconut oil with an electric mixer. Next add the eggs and beat until smooth. Then add the water and beat mixture again. Set aside.
In another large bowl, mix both flours, baking soda, salt, cinnamon, and nutmeg. Add the dry mixture to the wet mixture slowly, beating with an electric mixer. Finally, beat in the pumpkin puree. (I add dark chocolate chips at this point sometimes too 🙂 ) Pour into two greased loaf pans. Bake for 55-65 minutes.
For those of you who may not have known, this past weekend was National Alpaca Weekend. And for those of you who may not know my girls, they cannot miss out on any type of festival that involves seeing, touching and playing with animals. So, while Daddy was off setting up his tree stand for the upcoming deer season, the three of us girls headed out for a day of fun, and lots and lots of fiber.
Our first stop was Willow Glen Farm. This absolutely gorgeous property was nearly five miles from the main highway. We followed a winding gravel road until we saw a beautifully crafted barn situated amongst the most exquisite backdrop of rolling hills and arching trees. It was a most serene dwelling for these beautiful animals that my eldest daughter called “the mini camels” (which we later found out to be kind of a true statement because alpaca are related to the lama and the camel). While at Willow Glen we had the opportunity to feed some of the male alpaca, see some baby alpaca and also purchase some lovely felted crafts.
We later made our way over to True Colors Alpaca Farm. We found this farm to be a bustling place, filled with all kinds of people wanting to see these interesting creatures. The highlight of this particular visit was the girls got to pet a tiny baby alpaca. They were in seventh heaven. Of course, once the girls pet the baby, they were ready to go. So, off we went, but not without buying some fiber to take home with us for a soon-to-come felting project.
As the mercury begins its descent, we are spending a bit more time indoors these days. So with that, we are making every effort to bring a bit of the outdoors in. I truly believe a great deal can be said for the tactile experiences of interacting with nature, and when the late fall and winter months do not allow for such easy access to these experiences, I think it is important for people (children especially) to not lose that intimate contact with nature.
For that reason, we have been gathering outdoor artifacts and putting them on display in just about every room of our home. The girls love this activity, because they get to have a direct hand in “decorating” the house. They have been filling up Mason jars with water to display mums and lavender, collecting rocks to sprinkle on tabletops, and picking gourds in the garden to create their own fall adornments.
I hope all of you are enjoying these first beautiful days of fall! Have a wonderful week!
As the physical labor of the garden wanes, I find myself needing to supplement my days with a bit of an extra workout to keep my body and soul fit during these cool months to come. But when? This seems to be the question I have asked myself each morning for the past several weeks. I’m not sure how, but I find not only the minutes, but the hours of the day disappear without my noticing.
The funny thing about the whole situation is two years ago at this time I was working full-time, carting my kids off to day care for 10-plus hours a day. And now, when I do have so, so, so much more time to spend with them, it still seems like there is not enough. I guess this is what all of those mothers meant when I had my first little baby, and they told me time and time again that time goes by so fast, and you must take in and cherish all moments, good or bad (or terrible for that matter), because they are so fleeting.
So I find myself today, sneaking in a very quick workout in my garage, while my youngest takes a tiny nap after her dance lesson. We mamas have to just do the best we can, with the time God has given us.
I hope all of you find a bit of extra time in your day today 🙂
A sure fire sign that fall is upon us is when we start to find apples popping up here and there at the farmers’ markets. Last week, we found our very favorite farming family at market with their tables loaded down with the most beautiful apples. There were Cortlands, Jonathans, Honey Crisps, and Crimson Crisps. Each more delicious than the next.
With all of this goodness to choose from, the girls and I decided it was high time to start making apple sauce. So yesterday, with much fanfare and hullabaloo, we began our apple-sauce-making soiree.
The girls did all the work, while I took pictures and drunk in the sounds of 2Cellos on the IPad. They used our very favorite apple peeler/corere/slicer to do the majority of labor, and then took turns adding some yummy local honey and spicy cinnamon to the mix. We make our apple sauce in our slow cooker, so we just set it and forget it 🙂
A few hours later, once the aroma of the sweet and tangy apples, floral honey and spiced cinnamon fill the air, we have the perfect apple sauce for our family’s liking. Fall is here.
At this moment I am…
~sorting through pictures of our trip, and creating a little slide show to share with the family tomorrow at Tuesday night dinner.
~packing homemade apple sauce into jars from a weekend filled with more canning and freezing and drying oh my.
~starting a quilting project for a very special couple.
~shaking our growler of mead (a.k.a. honey wine) we started to ferment this weekend. (The recipe and information about mead can be found in this book.)
~watching our crazy cat try to crawl up the screen of our kitchen window. Such a handful this little lady is. She wants in on any and all action going on in the house.
~planning my oldest daughter’s first “kids” birthday party with twenty five of her classmates. I’m tired already 🙂
~washing clothes. My typical Monday ritual.
~soaking in this absolutely gorgeous fall day.
~wishing all of you a happy Monday!
Upon our return from Disney, it was to the garden we went for some fall harvesting and some more planting. We came home to our second round of beans, ready and waiting for us on the vine. They were a very welcomed surprise after eating a bit too much non-homegrown food on our trip.
There were also about 80 tomatoes begging to be picked, and a whole lot of raspberries ripe and ready for a little princess to pick for her afternoon snack.
We then set to planting our new beds with some cold-hardy greens. We are hoping to add a hoop house or some type of low tunnel over these beds once the frost sets in. (Even though that seems very far off at the moment, as I listen to my air conditioner humming at this precise moment, when it is a whopping 90 degrees again today.)
While working on last week’s “A Day in the Life” piece, I found myself drawn to the little odds and ends sitting around the house. Those objects that often go unnoticed because we see them each and every day, yet it is these objects that make our house a home. Today I share with you some of the odds and ends of our home on this sixth day of September.
Amid the labyrinth of power lines and close proximity to our neighbors, we are slowly but surely developing for ourselves a bit of a suburban homestead paradise all our own. When we took possession of this property four years ago, we were given a perfectly blank slate to work with because the previous owners had just filled in their in-ground pool. This left us with a lovely, flat, fenced-in canvas that we are now able to glean a great deal of food from.
{Before. Late July 2012.}
The gardening space we previously had contains 12 4X8 foot raised beds and one 4X16 foot raised bed. Then just outside that space we have a smattering of lavender and rhubarb and some heirloom perennial flowers. Last year we added 2 apple trees, an asparagus and strawberry patch, raspberry bramble and an herb garden to the mix.
And now, here we are…
I am so thrilled by how the space turned out. I must say I was a little skeptical for a while there, when the vision in my head did not seem to match what lay before me. But with a bit of digging, a little building and a whole lot of hauling, I am satisfied to say the very least.
We used the beautiful circa 1850 barn timbers I mentioned in a previous post to create a more permanent border for the existing asparagus and strawberry patch. We used the remaining timbers to create a brand new perennial vegetable bed that will soon be home to more rhubarb (rhubarb wine here I come!), asparagus and Jerusalem artichokes.
We then added three additional 4X8 foot raised beds and one 4X4 bed. This fall these beds will be loaded with cold hardy annual vegetables that we then hope to cover with a hoop house of some sort. We are crossing our fingers this will give us delicious, fresh vegetables year round. We also plan to add some gorgeous tree stumps around the fire pit for prime seating for those s’more-roasting evenings right around the corner.
Making of a Home 