Posted in From my kitchen, Homemaking, Learning on Mar 8th, 2010
Monday is baking day.
We’re enjoying the Monday tradition of baking homemade bread. Our favorite “fancy” recipe is Challah – the dough is so kid-friendly, the results wow everybody, and nothing goes better with homemade jam.
It looks like the sun is starting to come out, so I think we’ll go plant some potatoes (along with the [...]
Posted in From my kitchen, Moderation and Economy on Feb 25th, 2010
Little Hen and I made this recipe for spiced pulled-pork (from Sunset Magazine) for dinner two nights ago. I have yet to find a Sunset recipe that is a dud – there are always keepers in ever issue -but this one was a cut above. Oh my goodness, the allspice and thyme combined with the [...]
Posted in From my kitchen, Locally grown on Dec 4th, 2009
It’s no secret that pie is our dessert of choice here at the Baker house. At the holidays I try to bake a pie at least a 3 or 4 times a week, rotating between nut and custard and fruit pies. And, in my opinion, at the holidays, no fruit pie is complete without the [...]
Posted in Building Community, Changing Seasons, From my kitchen, Giving, Weaving, Working the earth/harvesting its bounty on Nov 21st, 2009
A morning spent baking a pecan pie thank-you.
An early afternoon spent planting hyacinths and digging earthworms with the girls.
A late afternoon of immense blessing – We have been given an enormous maple loom, made right here in Oregon. We spent about two hours getting it dissassembled, carried up our narrow stairway, and reassembled.
It will need [...]
Posted in From my kitchen on Nov 11th, 2009
This autumn has been the hardest on our health of an season I can remember. It seems at least part of the family has been sick almost every day since September. We can’t seem to get a break of more than 3 days without someone being sick. Right now, we’ve all got a bad chest [...]
Posted in From my kitchen, Locally grown, Working the earth/harvesting its bounty on Oct 29th, 2009
I’m feeling so much better – and very grateful that none of the rest of the family became ill. In an effort to get back into the kitchen and make something nourishing and comforting, Firecracker and I started with something easy but wholesome and cooked up a big pot of bean stew. Here’s my recipe [...]
Posted in From my kitchen, Homemaking on Oct 19th, 2009
These raspberry oatmeal bars were a hit with the kids, so I thought I’d share the recipe. It’s an adaptation of this recipe, which can also be found in Martha Stewart’s Cookies. The original recipe called for a more complicated raisin puree in the middle, and my girls weren’t so thrilled with it. Also, I [...]
Posted in From my kitchen, Locally grown, Uncategorized on Sep 19th, 2009
Final count from the Barlett harvest:
20 – 1/2 pints of Caramel-Spice Pear Butter (sorry, secret recipe!)
18 quarts of pears in light syrup (some spiced, some with lavender, some vanilla)
12 quarts of pear sauce (which we all discovered we prefer to applesauce – it has a wonderful buttery quality)
oodles of pear crisp and pear upsidedown-gingerbread cake
about [...]
Posted in From my kitchen, Giving, Moderation and Economy, Outings on Sep 12th, 2009
Today Firecracker and I are attending our church’s fall kickoff of our monthly Ladies’ Breakfast. The pastor’s wife is hosting at her house, so we thought we’d take her (and her daughter – Firecracker’s friend) a little hostess gift when we go.
Earlier this week, we went to to the thrift store and picked up a [...]
Posted in Building Community, From my kitchen, Locally grown, Moderation and Economy, Outings, The Gift of God, Working the earth/harvesting its bounty on Sep 7th, 2009
Saturday, I was blessed with the opportunity to ride with another family of volunteers out to Mosier, OR (in the beautiful Columbia Gorge) to glean pears for Birch Community Services. The weather was very rainy, windy, and chilly, so I was grateful that the children could all stay home, snuggled up reading their latest chapter [...]
