A day of work and an unlikely dinner hit

It was a beautiful day! Here's how we spent it.

By the time all were hungry I wasn't sure there was anything left in me to cook, simply lifting a wooden spoon felt like a chore; and the fridge was running on empty as well.  

Luckily on the stove I already had some simmering broth, in the fridge I found a bowl of leftover rice and the last of some whipping cream.  In the pantry was stored some dehydrated onions and the last of last year's garlic.  The real prize to this meal though was the nettles in the garden!  I threw it all together and sprinkled it with fresh nutmeg with out a care of what the response from my customers would be.

It proved to be a hit!  Some pretended not to like it but I caught them serving up more than two bowlfuls.  And Charlie out of no where cried out "yummy, yummy"!  

Country Cooking Club

A neighbor and I make up the country cooking club that meets in my kitchen on Thursday evenings.  As long as the weather is crummy enough to keep us out of our gardens and one of us was able to make the trek to a decent grocery store we cook.  

It started out with my fear of cooking lamb, or possibly even eating lamb.  So we first did a white bean rosemary lamb shank stew and it was delicious!  We also did lamb kafta with fatoush and an incredible lamb shoulder roast.  

I should have been better at keeping a record along the way but honestly there is not much time for pictures and writing notes when there are many mouths to feed.  Here's a few of the recent dishes I did catch:

Ecuadorian Chicken Stew.  What intimidated me the most about this recipe was the achiote paste but that is what made it fabulous.  This was a perfect comfort meal on a freezing Feb. evening.

More recently we  made hassle back potatoes.  We let Clara and Maryanna practice their knife skills on these.  They were fun to make and fun to eat!

We also made lamb liver and onions.  Before cooking this my neighbor taught me the very important lesson on how to properly clean and season a cast iron skillet, and also how to have the patience for transparent onions.   Charlie gobbled the liver up and begged for more.

We also discovered these super simple kale and goat cheese frittata muffins.  The red pepper in them made all the difference although I found when feeding them to my children it required a bit of crumbled bacon and less goat cheese.  These are perfect to pass around during the 20 min drive to church.

This next dish, lemon-pepper soy-ginger lamb heart stir fry, was unexpectedly my favorite.  When I opened the package of lamb liver I did not know the heart was hiding beneath it.  At first I was going to throw it to the dogs but decided to experiment instead.  It was so tender!  We cooked this on an evening when the boys were away so us girls got to enjoy it all to ourselves and Maryanna now says lamb heart is one of her favorite foods.  She also said, "maybe it was so good because we loved the lamb so much and he loved us".  

Recently the temperature has been warming up so we opt to stay outdoors instead of cooking. The girls on the other hand join for their own club.  They are perfecting the recipes from the Mudpie cookbook they got for Christmas.  

And I have to admit it looks tempting, one of these days I'm going to dig in with may hands and join them.

How to can

I don't really know how to can, or even grow tomatoes, but my generous neighbors do.  From the 30 tomato plants I planted we've probably only picked 30 tomatoes.  So we helped our neighbors pick theirs and also visited a u-pick farm where the tomatoes were plentiful but expensive.  We got just enough to experience canning.  

It was a muggy 90 degree Michigan day so I set up in the garage with a portable stove, I borrowed a few needed supplies and jumped right into it.

I even borrowed the recipe, which actually isn't a recipe but a handful of ingredients followed by "to taste" as passed down through a line of my neighbor's Italian ancestors.  Basically I used about a bushel  of mixed tomatoes smashed through a strainer, 5 onions, 2 bulbs of garlic, 1 1/2 cups sugar, 1 T of salt and 1 T of pepper.  I let it simmer down for at least 4 hours until it reached desired taste and consistency.  The key ingredient of the sauce though was reserved for the very last step, a whole bunch of freshly picked basil leaves, like a whole plant's worth, tossed in (whole leaves) and then it is immediately ready to process.  The other secret to this sauce is regular stirring, to prevent burning it required my attention at least every 15 minutes.  But being outside I was able to move between projects and boy did we enjoy the smell!   

It was important though to keep the little ones away.  George still not feeling well rested in the tee pee.  That was fine until a chicken decided to join him.
 

The girls spent the day in the sandbox but I was unable to capture Henry. He had picked out some running shoes from a garage sale just that morning and did not seem to stop running from the moment we tied the laces, and I believe Peter was probably chasing him.

All the while James cared for Charlie and William kept the chickens out of the garage and out of the tee pee.

Everybody took turns "testing" the sauce and by the time we got it to our taste I had just about scorched my tongue.  We ended up with 17 quarts but consumed 3 in the following 2 days.

Perhaps our tomatoes will decide to ripen before the first frost, maybe I'll get lucky and find my own supplies on craiglist, I hoping because I realize canning tomatoes is something I now "can" do and I really hope to do again soon.  

Little helps for healing

The younger half of our family has not been feeling well.  Fevers, coughs and congestion have caused for demanding days and sleepless nights.

As one friend observed, "there is much giving and receiving in your home". And Clara takes to the giving naturally, especially when one is not feeling well.  In her own gentle way she whispers, sings and places her arms around who ever is in need.  In this case she collected her favorite rocks and placed them along George's body as he was suffering with a high fever.  This moment was too sweet not to capture, she was so intent and George shortly fell asleep.

Meanwhile in the kitchen I began brewing up some "potions" as my kids like to call them.  I consulted with the wise woman behind Indigo Forest and she suggested adding elderberries and rose hips to our regular red raspberry and nettle tea, that is the dark one and actually tastes good I'm told.

The other jar is a remedy made from a pound of garlic that was soaked in apple cider vinegar for four days, I strained it and then added some water and honey.  I got the recipe from here  and I have to say it is strong, even for me.  I swallowed the test dose in too much haste and honestly almost instantly threw up.  I went down to my knees and had to breath slowly for a few minutes before I could get back to normal motion.  But after the initial shock of the test dose I felt great, and have since taken a few spoonfuls to support my immune system as I'm caring for those who are sick.

Henry and Maryanna actually really like the garlic solution, I suppose they really need it the most.  Charles is still too young for honey so I'm just giving him sips of the herbal tea and spoon feeding him warm chicken broth.

George on the other is refusing both the herbal tea and garlic solution.  Instead he got into the cabinet with herbs and on his own took two dropperfuls of burdock blend and on another occasion chewed up a capsule of golden seal.  In both cases he said "yummy"...........and anyone who has ever tried those knows there is nothing yummy about them.  Perhaps he was in tune with what he really needed, I don't know, but I do believe if we are in tune we can know.

The tastier healing tools are pictured below.  We went through almost $30 of cough drops this week probably because everyone loves cough drops, even those who are not sick.  I told them anyone could have a cough drop after two spoonfuls of garlic juice and everyone but Paul and James fell for it.  They are tall enough to simply sneak a cough drop whenever they want.  But I have urged them to open the wrappers very slowly because even after the tiniest "crinkle" many little bodies come running with open hands.

Additional healing tools have included homeopathic remedies, essential oils, saying lots of prayers and practicing Jin Shin Jyutsu.  I believe in the Eastern philosophy that healing is 70 percent in nurturing and care and only 30 percent medicine, so that is what I practice with my family.    

And lastly, here's to the kind neighbor who not even knowing what I've been struggling with dropped off a fresh cut bouquet from her garden.  My spirit was revived by her visit and I'm happy to say all the little ones are slowly mending. 

  

When your garden gives you weeds

"When your garden gives you weeds.......eat them"

So weeding the garden has been added to the routine of daily life, they grow as constant and high as the laundry and dishes around here.  And after a week of resting my ankle on the couch it all seemed to run away from me.  The good thing is we can actually eat some of the weeds.  Pictured below is our strawberry patch infested with lambs quarter, my friend Beth cooked some up for us while they were still tiny on Memorial Day, by now they are so tall and numerous we are able to feast on them.  So we picked a very large pile.

Also from the garden we picked a pile of garlic scape.  They are the curly green things that grow out of garlic, and to be honest when I first saw them I thought there was something wrong with the garlic.  I quickly learned that theses are actually the flower of the garlic and it is recommended to pick them off to encourage larger bulbs.  We picked a large pile and cooked them with whatever we've been making, using them kind of like chives or onions.  There was so much leftover though we also made a few batches of garlic scape pesto to freeze. 

To prepare the lambs quarter I snapped off the roots and on the larger ones picked the leaves off the stem.  These were rinsed and soaked until the water was clear.

Then I simply tossed them in a skillet with butter and the garlic scapes.  They cook up just like spinach, wilting and shrinking in size but are packed with a lot more nutrients.

I paired it with a few fresh eggs and was wishing the goat cheese I experimented with wasn't such a flop - it would have been the perfect finish to this farm fresh lunch.  The lambs quarter was even better than spinach!  And it was free and I had to clear it out anyway.  Now, if I could only convince the rest of my family.

For those who are local Linda Diane Feldt will be at the Ann Arbor Green Fair this Friday to promote wildcrafting, I have her book Beyond Spinach and recommend it for anyone interested in cooking their weeds.

Eating weeds was only scary the first time I did it,   Now, not only does it seem normal, it just makes sense and it always tastes so good!  Free food I didn't have to plant, water or even weed.

Weeds for dinner

It was so exciting to find a patch of nettles on the very edge of our garden - free food! But before we started consuming them I took a sample to a plant expert neighbor just to be sure. 

I first had nettles 3 years ago as part of an herbal infusion during my pregnancy with George.  At first taste, even mixed with other herbs and honey, they were almost too bitter to swallow without gagging. But I have since grown to like the taste enough to drink it alone, and I suppose enough to rejoice in finding this weed all over our property.

It was two years ago that we took the Huron River edible plants walk with Linda Diane Feldt but it wasn't until yesterday that I had the courage to go out forging on our own.  I took Henry with me and it turns out the patch on the edge of the garden got mowed down but we found another huge one towards the back of our property.  I had gloves on and collected them in a brown paper grocery bag.  All the while urging Henry to stand back from getting stung by the nettles.  I think that made him really curious because I caught him more than once reaching out to see what would happen, good thing he did not actually come into contact because his skin is so sensitive.

In the kitchen I was not as cautious.  I thought just soaking them in water would take away the stingers but no, I got stung.  I showed the kids my sore fingers and reminded them of why they should be careful in handling this plant, but it really was not so bad.  I proceeded to wash and pick off the leaves with zip lock baggies over my hands. I followed Linda Diane Feldt's instruction as she explains in her book Beyond Spinach.  So here they are into the pot. 

I decide we'd make soup after finding this recipe online.  We used fresh goat milk instead of half and half, grated in a bit of nutmeg, cut chives from our garden, topped it with parmesan cheese and it was incredible!  Paul and I recently heard Joel Salatin speak and what stuck with me was his encouragement to find connections with our food, that something happens on a chemical level in our bodies that helps us digest better when we find connections with our food.  The kids certainly felt the connection because they wee lined up with bowls to give it a try (that rarely happens with something new).  Maryanna doesn't look too sure but they all were curious what it was going to feel like to eat "stinging nettle soup"as the called it.  Turns out most of them loved it coming back for seconds and thirds.  

Henry was among those who had three bowls, maybe because he felt the most connected watching me collect the nettles and he being the one who carried the bag back to the kitchen.  I'm happy the kids liked it, it is so full of nutrients, high in iron and calcium and more protein than most other greens, and it was free!  Not too far from my kitchen door and requiring almost no work from me, what a gift from nature.

I made 5 qts but this is all that was left, time to go cut down as many nettles as we can and process them for the freezer for future use.

How to love fat

I've been itching to make butter ever since my sister in law posted about it a few weeks ago.  So we picked up some fresh cream from our cow share and were surprised at how simple the process was.

All I did was poor it into the food processor, add a bit of salt and press "on".

In less than 10 minutes I heard a sloshing sound and saw it had separated.

I poured off the liquid (buttermilk) and saved it for baking or pancakes.

Then pressed the remaining solids into a few butter jars.

Of course we spread it on warm toast right away.  And here we are only a few days later and we are already halfway through it all (maybe because I've caught a few fingers in it eating it straight?)

It is kind of funny how afraid I use to be of butter, or any fat for that matter.  But now I am in a season where fats (the good ones) are an essential part of my diet.  I'm in no place to articulate the "why's" but after reading Weston Price's Nutrition and Physical Degeneration I was convinced that I my body (and my children's) could benefit from more nutrient dense food.  And I love that one of the ways in which we do that is through butter and full fat dairy products!

In addition to butter I have been consistent in taking fish oil.  This is not as yummy as butter and actually a bit expensive but I do it as an investment in my long term health.  Not all my children will take this willing, they prefer other brands that are flavored, but George and Henry would drink this (the fermented one) straight from the bottle if I allowed them to, probably because I've been taking this since they were both very young and throughout my pregnancies.  I admit it was very hard for me to swallow at first but after a few years it is starting to taste good to me too!  They do make cinnamon and chocolate flavored variations but I prefer my fermented fish oil as is.

Now this brings me to a few more thoughts on fat.  I was changing in front of the mirror the other day and felt the corners of my mouth start to turn down to a frown, I heard the old crazy voice that existed even before I was a teenager say......"you are fat"!  The pattern is all too familiar.......it opens the door to feelings of disgust and in turn triggers the action of physically abusing myself in the form of depriving myself of food, or over exercising, or both.  

This time I fought back violently with the thought..... I am not fat, I am me.  Sure I have a bit of excess flesh after having my eighth baby but that flesh is there to serve me, it provides soft cushion to cuddle a squishy newborn and it is the very reserve that nourishes my baby, protecting me from further physical depletion.  

Why is it that we are so crazy as new mother's to "get back to normal" physically?  Maybe the "normal" I am trying to get back into (size 2 skinny jeans) is not even normal at all, maybe I am already "normal" right now and what I'm trying to get back into is "crazy". 

This may sound all too personal but it feels good to process, even if it is in front of an unknown audience.  And even if my only audience was my two little daughters I would shout it out to them from the depths of my heart and up top the high roof of our old barn because this battle is so unserving to the beautiful and powerful women it plagues.  Oh how I wish someone would have declared it to me at a much younger age, from their heart, that I was beautiful, that all women are beautiful, no matter what the shape, size or form.   

So still standing there half dressed in front of the mirror my thought process continued, it turned from beating myself up over excess flesh to the chuckling thought...."my body looks like a renaissance painting........I am a masterpiece".  What a refreshing thought, I then looked up at my pregnant belly cast and thought of all the amazing things my body was capable of, including growing a baby and giving birth.  

Our bodies are a gift no matter what the shape or size, and our worth is not dependent upon the variables of our physical form.  I can't believe it has taken me so many years to understand this truth but I do look forward to the freedom it will allow in living it.  Because the truth is this is a battle I faced even wearing size 2 jeans.

Now that doesn't mean I'll be stuffing my face with cookies and fast food because that is just another form of physical abuse.  But I will certainly eat when I am hungry and love the food that I eat, butter on my bread, whole milk in my cereal and liberal amounts of olive oil on my veggies.  And simply love being me, in any physical form, however that may look, today.          

Herbsicles

We were hit with a few nasty viruses this week.  And since I am less than two weeks away from my due date my midwife gave me some good tips on nursing everyone back to health, herbsicles was one of them.

First I brewed up a big batch of family immunity tea.  This one included what I had on hand but there are many variations.  Below is a mix of echinacea, nettles, oat straw, red clover, rose hips, red raspberry and alfalfa.  Just before bringing it to a boil I turned off the heat and covered it letting it steep for around 4 hours.

After the herbs were strained (and then reserved for the chicken scrap pile) we were left with a strong beverage.  I mixed a little with berry juice and encouraged Paul to finish a tall glass of it.  He did with all sorts of gasps and great facial expressions. 

I don't mind drinking bitter herb blends but just like Paul most my kids won't take it alone.  I was generous with the spoonfuls of raw honey I added because not only does it add sweetness but raw honey is also an immunity booster (still I would not serve raw honey to babies under 1).

Usually I'd just serve this infusion up as a beverage but since we were dealing with sore throats and sores in the mouth I poured it into popsicle molds.  

George and Henry have been clearing the nasty Hand-Foot-Mouth virus where it is so painful to eat and drink that there is risk of dehydration.  I was very pleased to see both of them consume a couple of these herbsicles with no problem.  I had to make a few batches to keep up with the demand because even the older kids liked them.

Then before I could fill another batch Paul got to the molds and made his own version of a healing popsicle, he filled them with fizzy root beer.   Clara experienced a quick recovering from a high fever on the couch and has since been declaring it was all because of Daddy's yummy popsicles......Gak!

A Yule Log for the New Year

Paul spent most of his vacation working, not on his laptop but off with a chain saw and tractor collecting and splitting wood.  

  

Even the evenings we spent visiting and celebrating with family were consumed with the conversation of wood.  So in honor of all his hard work and enthusiasm we celebrated the New Year with a Yule log cake.  

Maryanna and Peter were on cooking duty for the week so they assisted me in trying out this recipe.  It was super rich and yummy with fresh eggs from our ducks, thick cream from our cow share and the contents of a whole vanilla bean.  It did not stand a chance resting in the fridge while we waited for dinner to finish roasting in the oven, the cake became the dinner.  And perhaps this dinner will become a new New Years tradition.   

The kids savored each bite and licked their plates as we discussed all the exciting things 2012 may present.  

To be sure there is much more work ahead.......

but so is there the promise of reward and satisfaction of a job well done.  Happy 2012!