Used Up

"There is rhythm to being a farm girl.

It is the rhythm of working hard when there is work to be done.

It is the rhythm of finding joy in the "doing" of the work.

It is also the rhythm of slowing down to enjoy each moment."

Rene Groom

Be sure to visit Lori's blog to see what Friday Farm Girls is all about!

This morning we're getting ready to go to Wisconsin with Lori and her family to get our Christmas tree!  Everyone's running around, cleaning up from breakfast, taking showers, making sandwiches, and preparing for our fun day with friends.  Meanwhile, my Friday Farm Girls @ Heart post...

There always seems to be stuff left over.  No, not leftovers, as in dinner, though we have lots to eat from yesterday's Thanksgiving meal.  Meal leftovers doesn't usually doesn't happen much in our family.  No, I'm talking about leftovers as in one last bowl of ripening tomatoes on the counter, or a small pile of apples in the basement "bomb shelter" from our apple-picking trip.

What to do with that stuff?  Make stuff!

The last of my garden tomatoes were getting a little wrinkly as they reddened, though there was nothing else wrong with them.  I made eight cups of pico de gallo, which we ate throughout the week.

And the Northern Spy apples were starting to brown in spots.  Two of them had rotted through and we threw them out.  So I made a quick batch of applesauce.

You'll have to trust me that the applesauce was delicious, because I didn't take a picture of it and we ate it all.  Northern Spy apples are great for applesauce.  (But, they're a pain to peel.)

I'll post about Thanksgiving soon--right now I have to finish my tea and get things ready for our drive to Wisconsin!!  Blessings to you all, dear friends and readers.

Back to life,
Christine

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The Autumn Garden

"There is rhythm to being a farm girl.

It is the rhythm of working hard when there is work to be done.

It is the rhythm of finding joy in the "doing" of the work.

It is also the rhythm of slowing down to enjoy each moment."

Rene Groom

Be sure to visit Lori's blog to see what Friday Farm Girls is all about!

A post from my October activities...

An autumn garden means it's time to prepare garden beds for winter.  Leaves from the church property next door floated down over the two beds closest to the back fence.  That's okay; they'll work their way into the soil for next year.  But plants that survived into October needed to be harvested, then pulled up and disposed of.  Beds needed to be weeded just a little, and some things also needed to be planted.  First, I dug up my little rosemary plant.  It was sort-of medium-sized, but I was happy since I don't use it too often.  There is nothing like fresh rosemary!  Every time I worked in my garden, I would run my hand through the needle-like leaves and breathe in the heavenly scent.  Mmmm.

I removed the "leaves" from the rosemary, then hand-chopped them up finely, and put them in a glass jar in my freezer for the winter.  The plant yielded enough to last me through next summer.

Then it was time to harvest the oregano.  I decided to dry it, since I already had a bunch in the freezer and I was running out of freezer room.  Some of the oregano was flowering; I discarded those portions.

A spider in the garden is also a good opportunity to use my camera!

I checked my autumn lettuce; I planted it rather late, so I hope I'll soon get to eat at least a little.  I've never done well with lettuce and I'm not sure why.  The little plants are really pretty, though!

A friend gave us a box full of strawberry plants!  While Thomas was digging to build up the bed where I wanted them planted, I took a few moments to snap a shot of the flowering grass.

Once they were planted, Jacob helped me water.  Actually, Jacob watered and I took pictures--naturally!

I checked on the garlic, which had already begun sprouting.  It'll stay in the ground through next spring, when it will sprout again.  At some point over the summer, I'll dig that up.  I hope a ton comes in next year, since I've already used up all the garlic from this summer!

Then it was indoor time and time to put up the parsley and oregano.  Look at all that parsley!

Fernando and Joe were real sweethearts to spend over an hour picking all the parsley leaves off for me.

That metal bowl in the photo below was filled to the brim with parsley leaves!  I usually chop my herbs with a chef's knife--they last so much better when chopped by hand--but there was simply too much.  I decided to use my immersion blender base with the cup and blade attachment.

I ended up with two storage containers full of parsley; very nice.  :)  Then it was time to sort the oregano, tie it up, and hang it on my hanging rods (thanks, dear husband!).

The basement is nice and cool, and I now have both sage and oregano hanging.  Pretty soon I'll take the dried plants down and process the herbs for storage.

I love "putting up" for the winter!

Fernando read this to me this morning in our devotions together:

She looks well to the ways of her household,

And does not eat the bread of idleness.

Proverbs 31:27 NASB

Back to life,
Christine

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A Hearty Soup for Autumn

"There is rhythm to being a farmgirl.

It is the rhythm of working hard when there is work to be done.

It is the rhythm of finding joy in the "doing" of the work.

It is also the rhythm of slowing down to enjoy each moment."

Rene Groom

I'm linking up with Lori's Friday Farm Girls @ Heart today.

I thought I would post a recipe today.  I'm feeling cold, and rightfully so--the thermometer has been in the 40s and 50s whenever I've checked!  Still, there has been no hard frost yet, which is good because I still have a few herbs in the garden to process!

With the cold days, and especially with the wind that has recently been howling, it's a great time to break out the soup recipes as I plan our family's weekly dinners.  This particular soup is one of our favorites, and just by looking at the title, you'll be able to tell why my guys love it so much.  It's also very easy to make.

This soup can also be healthy with just a bit more planning.  Dry beans are cheaper and healthier than canned, so plan this soup a day in advance so you can soak the beans overnight.  When I soak and prepare my beans, I double the amount I need, because you can freeze cooked beans!  Then the next time I need beans, or make this soup, I can simply pull the beans out of the freezer to defrost.  Healthy, and easy!  We've put up lots of tomato products for the winter, so it's easy to pull out those jars for the spaghetti sauce.

No matter how you make it, it really is a quick recipe.  My boys make this on their own, which frees me for other things instead of meal preparation.  Like blogging.  :)


Easy Taco Soup

1 pound hamburger, cooked and drained
2 cups water
3 cups spaghetti sauce (about the size of a typical store-bought jar)
3/4 cup dry beans (soak overnight, change water, simmer until soft; substitute 1 can beans, drained)
1 packet taco seasoning mix (we use 3 T of our homemade taco seasoning)
1 T chili powder
1/4 teaspoon salt

Mix all together and simmer for 15 minutes.  Serve with cheddar cheese, sour cream, and other taco toppings if desired.  Also may serve with tortilla or corn chips.

She rises also while it is still night

And gives food to her household

And portions to her maidens.

Proverbs 31:15 NASB

Back to life,
Christine

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Another Fruity Day in the Kitchen

"There is rhythm to being a farm girl.

It is the rhythm of working hard when there is work to be done.

It is the rhythm of finding joy in the "doing" of the work.

It is also the rhythm of slowing down to enjoy each moment."

Rene Groom

Be sure to visit Lori's blog to see what Friday Farm Girls is all about!

Last week, I posted about freezing bananas.  This week it's all about grapes!

On our end-of-September trip to Stovers U-Pick in Michigan (read the details here), we picked apples--lots of apples.  And then we heard someone comment about the raspberries.  So Jacob picked a pint of those.  Then we saw grapes.  So we picked a bunch of bunches.  (We also picked acorn and butternut squash.)

But enough of that.  We ended up with the following on our counter:

It was a mixture of Concord grapes, champagne grapes, and green grapes.  I checked my Ball canning book and found a recipe for "grape preserves without added pectin."  I had never made/canned grape preserves (or any preserves) before, so I figured this was a good first recipe to try.

The recipe called for Concord grapes, but I figured a mixture would be fine.  First, Joseph and I picked every grape off its vine, and placed them all in the colander to wash off.

Then came the longest hour I have ever spent at my kitchen counter.  Joseph and I squeezed every grape, shooting the inner pulp into one pot, and placing the skins in another.  This is an important step, in order to save and use the skins, but also to get rid of the seeds while saving the pulp.  Below is the pot of pulp, before and during simmering on the stove.

Once the pulp was softened, we put it all through the food mill to remove the seeds.

The food mill awaits

To the pot of skins, we added enough water to cover (I think I added too much; more on that later).  Then we simmered them as well.

Meanwhile, Joseph measured out the sugar (we used cane juice crystals) we would need once the pulp and skins were ready.  Um, it was a lot of sugar.  Very sweet.  (More on that later...)

Joseph put the sugar in a large glass measuring bowl, and then we waited for pulp and skins to come to a boil.  I decided I wanted smooth grape preserves, so I used my immersion blender to puree the skins.  The recipe called for us to bring the whole mixture to a boil, and boil it until it reached the gel stage, or 220 degrees Fahrenheit.  Which it did.  But it didn't pass the "spoon test" for the gel stage--meaning it didn't sheet off the spoon.  What to do?  We let it boil five more minutes.  220 degrees.  Still no sheeting.  The Ball canning book did not specify how much time this would take...  We let it boil five more minutes.  Ditto on no sheeting.  I finally shrugged, and figured we'd just go ahead and can it (by now the water bath canner, jars, and seals were ready to go).

Waiting for the to reach gel stage

In all, we successfully canned ten half-pints of very sweet grape preserves.  Or, I should say, grape "sauce."  Since one jar didn't seal, we put it in the fridge (after it cooled, of course), and it remained sauce-like.  Hmm.  Thomas said it was still good--we all agreed that it tasted delicious.  After reading my friend Mary's blog post about canning crab apple jelly, I think we should have let the jam mixture boil for a lot longer than we did.  Or, maybe I added too much water to the skins.  Or, maybe using cane juice crystals instead of sugar affected its ability to "gel."  Too many ifs in my experiment!!

But the preserves were canned and sealed, and I was done with it.

The boys all agreed that we would certainly use the grape "sauce" on toast and even sandwiches.  Thomas encouraged us to "spread in thinly!"  My smart comment here:  My genius mind thought of another creative way to use it:

Sweet grape sauce on Andy's vanilla frozen custard!

This farm girl's taste buds were dancin'!!  What a sweet experiment we had, and what a sweet time I spent in the kitchen with my precious Joseph.  Next year, I'll be ready to try something different for my preserves, such as using agar agar as Lori blogged about.  Let's see:  ten jars--that means about once a month, I'll have a sweet reminder of this day, plus a sweet anticipation of trying this again next year!


Back to life,
Christine

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Goin' Bananas!

"There is rhythm to being a farmgirl.

It is the rhythm of working hard when there is work to be done.

It is the rhythm of finding joy in the "doing" of the work.

It is also the rhythm of slowing down to enjoy each moment."

Rene Groom

I promise the below story has more to do with bananas than with Jacob's Bible:

Jacob left his Bible at church a week ago.  A family picked it up and called us, letting us know they had brought it home.  They live pretty far away, so we were wondering how to get his Bible back.  The mom (Mom #1) ended up having an appointment near the area, but we were gone for the evening.  She decided to drop off Jacob's Bible with another mutual friend and church family member (Mom #2), and that lovely lady dropped off his Bible at our home for us.  In addition to Jacob's Bible, Mom #1 blessed Mom #2 and us with a whole lot of "going" bananas.  So when we arrived home that evening, Jacob's Bible and a plastic bag of very ripe bananas were sitting on our front porch.

I knew we wouldn't use all the bananas before they went bad.  Also, I had very little time for baking this week, so I couldn't even make huge batches of banana bread (my favorite).  I had heard that bananas freeze well, so that is what I decided to do.

I peeled the bananas and cut them in half, mostly because a few of the bananas were really bad and I threw out portions of certain bananas.  I laid halves of bananas together on Glad Press 'N Seal, since I still have some left and it seals things up nicely.

I pressed the plastic around each banana section, squeezing out as much air as I could.

After each section was sealed, I placed them all into a Tupperware container, which went into our freezer.

It's not a whole lot of bananas, but they'll do for smoothies and banana bread.  We kept some of the better bananas out and made banana blueberry smoothies for the guys.  I personally can't wait for banana bread.  It is one of the very few ways I'll eat a banana; I do not like them raw in any way, shape, or form.  'Tis true!  I love love love banana bread, and I have a banana cake recipe that is out of this world.  I love banana pancakes and banana muffins, too.  But I can't stomach just peeling a banana and eating it!  I'm so glad some of these bananas are earmarked for baking!


Back to life,
Christine

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Some "Sage" Advice

"There is rhythm to being a farmgirl.

It is the rhythm of working hard when there is work to be done.

It is the rhythm of finding joy in the "doing" of the work.

It is also the rhythm of slowing down to enjoy each moment."

Rene Groom

Thanks to Mary's blog and a few other websites, I decided to try drying some herbs.  I had never harvested the sage in my garden before, and just let the little plant grow each year.  But the leaves were so pretty this year, I figured it would be a good first attempt at drying.

Here is a nice pile of sage, all clean and dry and ready for processing.

All I needed was some string to tie the sage in little bundles.  I may have made the bundles too large, but again, this was my first attempt.  I still have a ton of herbs to harvest in my garden!

Fernando, dear heart, hung some long, thin wood pieces in our basement "bomb shelter and food storage" area.  I tied the sage bundles to them.

A few websites instructed me to place the bundled herbs in brown paper bags, and a few gave me permission to simply hang the herbs upside down to dry.  I don't have a lot of space for hanging, so I opted for simply hanging them.  Time will tell if this method really works--sources claim it takes about two weeks to fully dry herbs.  I also learned that high-moisture herbs such as basil do not dry well, so I went ahead this week and started processing my prolific basil for freezer storage.


Back to life,
Christine

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Beauty in Autumn

"There is rhythm to being a farmgirl.

It is the rhythm of working hard when there is work to be done.

It is the rhythm of finding joy in the "doing" of the work.

It is also the rhythm of slowing down to enjoy each moment."

Rene Groom

I'm linking up with Lori's Friday Farm Girls @ Heart today.

Normally, I post my flower photos over on my photography blog, but today, I was musing on the beauty that I've seen this autumn season so far.  Even as the warmth of summer fades, veggies are harvested, and flowers begin to fade, I can find beauty in the Lord's creation.

I'm starting off at my home, below.  We have a pie-wedge yard, with the point in the back, so our very long front extends from the edge of white fence on the left all the way to the edge of the brown wood fence on the right.  There is lots of grass to mow!

Below shows one of my gardens, which the guys helped build.  I've shown it before, but it sure looks pretty this day as the sun nears its setting.

This is my new "dirt pile" garden, near the walkway to the front porch of the house.  Earlier this summer, I transplanted all these flowers from the above garden to this pile of dirt.  The Asiatic lilies have died back, but the Russian sage has bloomed in its pretty purple array.

Detail of Russian sage

I found a dianthus flower, as well as my variegated beard-tongue, still blooming in the first garden.

And in my back yard, I enjoyed spotting the fruit of my cherry tomato plant.  Most of my cherry tomatoes never made it into the house; I usually popped them into my mouth as I worked the garden.  (Shh--I didn't wash them first!)

Lori spotted this huge guy in her green peppers one afternoon.  I've never seen one bigger, and he kept turning around and looking at Lori, who was behind him!

I'm so thankful to the Lord that He gave us this season of warmth, with all of its color and beauty, for us to stop and savor up for the winter.  Just as I can my tomatoes and other vegetables, to "save up" for the long winter, I am trying to save up the warmth and beauty and color of summer to enjoy all winter long.

I'm also thankful that the Lord allowed me precious time to stop and linger over His creation.  Amid our hectic autumn schedule, He gave me peaceful moments.  Thank You, Lord, for slowing me down just a bit!


Back to life,
Christine

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