Jul 28th, 2010 by Angela
Just a quick post to share the recipe for my favorite childhood snack.
We were given 40 lbs of honey (albeit, crystallized, so I’ve had to de-crystallize it in batches), so I’ve been trying to come up with ways to use it in my cooking. We’ve made several batches of jam, substituting honey for a portion of the sugar (more on that later this week.), and tomorrow we’ll be canning peaches with honey instead of sugar and also starting a batch of mead.
I wanted to pass along a recipe that my mom used to make me for an afternoon snack – it’s super simple and quick to make, uses whole, natural ingredients, and kids love it.
Larksong’s Energy “Candy”
Time: less than 10 min start to finish - no baking!
1 cup natural nut butter (we use the grinder at the grocer’s – no added sugar, just nuts – peanut, almond or cashew – all are yummy!)
3/4 cup dry powdered milk
1/4 cup wheat germ (I keep mine in the freezer – it goes rancid easily)
1/2 cup honey
Additional 1/4 cup wheat germ (to roll balls in)
Directions: 1) Combine first four ingredients in a bowl and let your kids use their hands to knead them together until a homogeneous, non-sticky dough forms.
2) Pinch off scant tablespoons of dough, roll them in your hands until they form a ball, and then roll the ball in additional wheat germ to coat.
3)Enjoy now with a big glass of milk, or store in the fridge up to 3 days.
Posted in From my kitchen, Moderation and Economy, Playing/ Free Exploration | 3 Comments »
Jul 21st, 2010 by Angela
It’s late July in the BCS Teaching Garden @ Salt of the Earth Urban Farm! The pumpkin vines have taken over! The runner beans are finally climbing their poles, and we have summer squash setting on every plant!
The garden is really changing – we pulled all of the garlic and shallots from our family beds and will expand the Teaching Garden this fall (we’re planting fava beans there). All of the peas are gone, and this week, we’re sowing fall crops like rutabagas, beets, and cauliflower, in their place. The peas in the front yard will be replaced with leeks and a fall planting of broccoli.
Look look look!! There are about two dozen little Golden Hubbard winter squash that have set in the front yard! The vines are attempting to migrate out into the street, and I have to turn the vines back toward the house every morning. (Yes, I have paint all over my hands – I was painting trim (ugh) upstairs right before taking photos.)
The center of the backyard is really taking off – our family bed of potatoes is almost finished, and we’ll be replacing it this fall with a few fruit trees. The BCS potatoes (planted a little later) are growing nicely, and volunteers have been mulching them every week with more straw. The cold-stunted summer squash there are finally catching up -
Patti-pans, crooknecks, and zucchini are all setting fruit!
And, after much babying and coddling, and swaddling in plastic during our bitterly cold May, the tomatoes have decided to show their gratitude. The plants are loaded with little green fruit, and a few cherries are already turning red!!
What exciting changes are taking place in your garden this summer?
Posted in Locally grown, Working the earth/harvesting its bounty | 5 Comments »
Jul 20th, 2010 by Angela
Little Hen’s new favorite jam: Black Currant!
I’ve always loved a little Cassis in my hot tea in the winter, but this is the first year we’ve tried jam made from these relatives of the gooseberry, which have a distinctive, smoky/ musky flavor.
Black currants are full of pectin, so they are perfect for jam – all you need is currants, sugar, water, and a little lemon juice. (Although, next time, I think we’ll try adding some cardamom or cloves, as Sarah@ UrbanMamas suggested).
Here’s what we did:
Sterilize jars, wash lids and rings and get them hot. Have canner going and almost up to a boil. Then, you can start making the jam –
In a heavy bottom pot, bring to a boil:
2 1/2 cups water plus 5 heaping cups black currants, stems removed, and washed (that’s how much we picked). Reduce and simmer 15 minutes, crushing berries against the side of the pot. (Berries should be soft and well cooked.)
Add in 6 cups sugar + 1/4 cup of lemon juice and return mixture to a full boil. Continue to boil until you have reached the setting point (22oF) (check often – mine took about 15 min – you don’t want to over cook!).
Remove jam from the heat, and continue stirring once a min for 5-7 min (this helps distribute any berries so you don’t have floating fruit). Pour into hot, sterilized jars, place lids and rings on, and process 5 min in a hot-water-bath canner. Enjoy!
Posted in From my kitchen, Learning, Locally grown, Uncategorized | No Comments »
Jul 19th, 2010 by Angela
A bit late, but here are some pics from our drive out to Sandy Farms last week to pick sour cherries. (A big thanks to Chris at Lost Arts Kitchen for letting me know about the good cherry picking there!)
This was the first time I’ve cooked with sour cherries, and we made sour cherry + brandy jam, and sour cherry + rhubarb jam. Both were delicious! We also started some cherries in brandy and some in vodka, for liqueur making next month, and froze a LOT of cherries for pies this winter.
It seems like the girls and I have been pitting cherries endlessly, but we’ve enjoyed the fruits of our labors -
Not much says “summer” more than a rustic cherry pie (with cornmeal, butter crust), hot out of the oven!
Posted in From my kitchen, Locally grown, Moderation and Economy | 1 Comment »
Jul 14th, 2010 by Angela
The early morning was spent preparing a big batch of Hood River organic cherries for the dehydrator. We ate oodles fresh, and what is left will go in a batch of sweet cherry brandy (makes the best fruitcake for Christmas).
If you don’t have a cherry pitter, check out this tip, and these, for how to remove cherry pits. I like the way the cherries dry better when they’re sliced fully in half, but I do pit them when making brandy, pies, feeding them to the children.
Later this afternoon, we’re going picking for sour cherries (more on that tomorrow). I’m excited to get some locally – I’ve actually never cooked with them before, and hear they make excellent pie and jam.
I really like preparing stone fruit for jam, drying, etc. It’s such a rhythmic, meditative process. Gives me time to think, pray, while slicing the fruit, removing the pits to a separate pile. It reminds me a bit of traditions that use prayer beads. It’s a very peaceful thing, really.
Posted in From my kitchen, Locally grown, The Gift of God | 3 Comments »
Jul 12th, 2010 by Angela
We’re harvesting 8 types of hard and softneck garlic this week (and shallots, and pulling up spent pea vines). Despite some of the garlic struggling with rust due to the rainy weather, nearly all of the bulbs are big and well formed and beautiful.
Garlic is so easy to grow, and heirloom garlic come in such an amazing range of subtle and sharp flavors – nothing like grocery store garlic (80% of which is grown in China, btw). And shallots – which easily run $6/lb for organic shallots in the store – are even easier to grow (I buy the bulbs for planting at the Asian market for about $2/lb (much more economical than the $10+/lb for planting shallots at local nurseries in the fall – it’s not organic, but then I save some of the harvest for replanting, which, of course, were grown organically.)
We’ll save the best of the bulbs to replant this fall and expand our harvest for next year, and also have some to share with BCS Teaching Garden volunteers, so that they can start a garlic patch of their own (the garlic planting class is coming in October – keep an eye out for more info this September.)
And a reminder – we’re having a workshop this Saturday from 9:30-11:30, followed by a potluck lunch – check the info out here if you’re interested.
Posted in Locally grown, Moderation and Economy, Working the earth/harvesting its bounty | 2 Comments »
Jul 2nd, 2010 by Angela
The past week, we’ve been tackling some simple sewing projects (and I mean simple, and even then my seams are wonky).
Most other times of the year, sewing feels more like an obligation, but it’s really relaxing after dinner in the summer – especially after grubbing around in the dirt in the garden much of the day, it’s nice to sit down with pretty, clean stacks of cotton prints and play, you know?
Last week, on the way to the library, we made an impulsive stop at The Fabric Depot (my first visit, ever), where I happened to find bolts and bolts of fabric 70% off, and therefore spent way more than I had intended – because it was such a good deal!! All of the super cute prints were $3-4/yd, and the plan is to use much of the 10 yds (yikes!) to make several of these and these for the girls (they’ve suddenly gotten too tall for all of their skirts!).
With the remnants and also some of my thrift-store fabric stash, the girls and I cranked out a few dollie quilts (especially Firecracker, who likes to sit in my lap and help guide the fabric), and also
made 8 more library/grocery tote bags for birthday and hostess gifts. (We cut out fabric for another 8, but are a little burned out, and will probably wait a few weeks to piece them together.) The one above is my favorite. It’s made from some vintage thrifted fabric for the body, an old 100% cotton sheet (that I tea-dyed) for the handles and lining fabric, and a little piece of that uber-expensive batik-print fabric for the pocket (I sprung for a fat-quarter, since it was so pretty).
I also made some little kid-sized totes (like the one on the right). Tum Tum LOVES his sombrero tote and carries all his little toys in it (very handy at the restaurants, church, meetings, etc), so I made a few for my nephew and some friends’ kids. (Fabric Depot had some very cute Eric Carle fabric, as well as a fishy/octopus print that worked really well for these). The girls each have one, as well, and keep colored pencils, stickers, notecards and cardstock in theirs – which keeps them occupied at boring meetings, as well.
(Little Hen got bored with cutting fabric, and started creating her own fabric art bouquet out of the trimmings and straight pins.)
After a week of non-stop sewing, we’re going to take a little break and hopefully get the front of the house painted and some other summer household projects finished. What summer crafting have you been up to?
Posted in Crafting, Sewing | 2 Comments »
Jun 30th, 2010 by Angela
A few things from this morning’s harvest. Carrots, beets, 3 types of kale, lots and lots of chard, and buckets full of sugar snap and snow peas.
So grateful for the constant stream of Teaching Garden volunteers today. Folks were working hard from 9:30 am straight through to 4:30pm. We’re feeling very, very blessed. A big thank you to all of the helping hands!
Posted in Building Community, Giving, Locally grown, Working the earth/harvesting its bounty | 3 Comments »
Jun 26th, 2010 by Angela
It’s late June at Salt of the Earth Urban Farm (home of the BCS Teaching Garden)! Finally, some warm weather (mid-upper 70’s) has settled in (the tomatoes, summer squash and bush beans look much happier) and everything is flourishing.
The harvest is increasing – every week, we are taking a few dozen cartons of organic snow and sugar snap peas, as well as boxes and boxes of lettuce, chard, kale, bitter greens, and a few choice boxes of herbs and strawberries to Birch Community Services. We are still looking forward to the coming months and being able to take in more and more food to share amongst the families at BCS (loads of organic bush beans, tomatoes, potatoes, and summer squash will be coming soon!).
Here are a few shots from around the yard – mostly in the front yard -
A few shots of the front yard, here. Can you believe just a few short months ago, it looked like this? —>
(And a day before this, it was just weeds and lawn! Taken late-February 2010.)
Front to back in this shot – variegated land cress, beets (with a few Butternut starts peeking thru on the right and a crate of potatoes to the left), Italian kale, cardoons, salad greens, Oregon Sugar Pod II peas, California poppies and De Milpa tomatillos.
Tomatoes in the front are underplanted with beets and cosmos. In the backyard, with nasturtiums and lettuce (the shade from the tomatoes will keep the lettuce from bolting in the July/Aug heat.).
Mature artichokes and cardoons take up a lot of space, but while they’re still growing, I’ve underplanted them with daisies, nasturtium and chives (winter squash, dahlias, sunflowers, fennel, and wildflowers are visible in the background.)
Not shown – I planted an herb bed in the front yard – three types of lavender (two culinary, one for sachets), three types of rosemary (I love rosemary!), tangerine sage, tricolor sage, lemon verbena,and curry plant from starts (when pinching pennies, get the 4-inch pots – they were $3 each, versus $9-10 for the next size up, and $30 for large rosemaries and lavenders in gallon pots. They’ll grow big, too! Be patient!) I also transplanted in two types of thyme, oregano, Greek basil, Thai basil, and Genovese basil that I started from seed a while back (for a savings of about $15 over buying potted starts).
Much of the back isn’t so pretty yet, but here’s a shot of the linear beds near the house -front to back – garlic; parsnips, kale, chard, carrots; peas and poppies underplanted with kale. I didn’t take any shots of the bush bean, asparagus, potato and squash beds, which make up about 60% of the backyard.
Out back, we’re still doing the fairly miserable work of ripping up bamboo (rhizomes and all) for a future raspberry patch (to the left in this picture) and quince and pear stand (where the current volunteer hazelnut currently resides.) The far NW corner of the yard (not pictured), which will eventually be our Zone 3 fruit orchard, is currently overrun with weeds. I did manage to get three apple trees and a Desert King fig planted back there, and my husband expanded the chicken run (while protecting the young trees), so the hens could make short work of the weeds and give me room to underplant the trees with red clover and more lavender. We are still hunting for a persimmon, a dwarf apricot, and black currants to put back in that area.
More shots from out back in the coming month – the rows of bush beans and summer squash are quite small, and the limas and runner beans are barely reaching up their poles).
If you’re interested – we’re having a free hands-on workshop on Saturday, July 17th here at the garden from 9:30-11:30 and follow up with a potluck luncheon from 11:30-12:30. We will be doing a garden tour, discussing high-summer garden needs and prepping for a fall garden. We will be starting seeds for fall crops (cabbage, broccoli, cauliflower, etc), possibly harvesting potatoes, and doing regular garden maintenance. Bring your garden gloves, shovel, and a dish to share. Children are welcome.
Contact the garden coordinator for Birch Community Services, Tiffany, at tiffany.mach@yahoo.com to sign up.
Posted in Building Community, Homemaking, Learning, Locally grown, Working the earth/harvesting its bounty | No Comments »
Jun 23rd, 2010 by Angela
A while back, Sunset Magazine called for summer recipe submissions with 5 ingredients or less. I sent in a recipe, and they published it in the July 2010 issue!
It’s a super easy fruit salad recipe based on a dish I make all the time in the summer. (It’s a great dish to take to a potluck, btw.) I basically use my homemade lime marmalade warmed up to make a dressing, and tossed with any cubed melon. (Although, it’s also good with some fresh mint added, or using strawberries and oranges if melon isn’t available).
So, check out the current issue of Sunset for the recipe!
Posted in From my kitchen, Homemaking, Locally grown, Moderation and Economy | 2 Comments »
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