In awe of sisterhood...

Friday I spent my knitting class watching a set of sisters.  I can't get the images out of my head and I have been reflecting upon them all this week.  These sisters with similar strained expressions upon their faces while trying to eek in a needle when they pulled a stitch too tight...making crazy comments about who had a more difficult time with their hair...

"We have the same type of hair, I'll show you what to do with it."  The older sister takes the younger sister to her door-less bathroom where she proceeds to dampen, blow dry, and brush the younger sister's hair.  Being adults now, this seems silly, but the older sister is determined and the younger sister allows it...similar to when they were young and the older sister would braid the younger sister's hair into crowns around her head.  The younger sister warned the older sister that it was not going to work, but the older sister insists and continues to make an attempt to tame the unpredictable hair of the younger sister.  After a while the older sister puts down the brush in defeat...the younger sister's hair is in a massive tangled mess, wild and standing on end to make a massive mess of stuff  somewhat resembling hair upon her head.  The younger sister within seconds pulls out a ponytail holder and whips the mess into her regular messy bun hairstyle.  The older sister then says, "maybe we don't have the same hair after all..."

The younger at the point of tears looks at the older sister for reassurance, but what she finds is even better...the older sister is making horrid faces at an attempt to purl for the first time.  The sisters' have faces of rubber able to flex into all sorts of bizarre and ridiculous expressions.  Realizing that her older sister is not perfect gives the little southpaw a new lease on knitting...she picks up her needles and hand dyed yarn, ready to take on the world...

The scene is a hotel room, on an annual family vacation to celebrate Granny's birthday.  The older sister rolls over on her bed and sees the younger sister on her bed, most likely reading.  The older sister watches for a minute and then says, "It's like you are becoming a real person."

The younger sister is taken aback for a moment and thinks...what was I before?  Then she decides to take it...validation is worth it especially from someone as cool as your older sister.  

Later that day I see the sisters, sitting next to each other talking like best of friends...which strikes me as odd since they are 5 years apart, and at their ages, it may as well be light years...They have hit a place in their relationship which my sister and I only hit after we both were mothers, finding common ground in our children and both conforming to and rebelling against, at the same time, to the way we were raised, the way most parents do, realizing why your parents did the things they did, and adding your own spin to things.

  I am in awe of both sets of sisters...as they grow together making memories and finding special moments in life.

Here's to you sister.

Roasting sauce

I was making roasted tomato sauce a bit ago, and mentioned it here.

 I have gotten several requests for how to make roasted sauce so here it goes.

First get a lot of tomatoes.

A dear friend of mine offered to let me buy discounted tomatoes from her CSA (community supported agriculture) share, so I had a full bushel of beautiful paste tomatoes.

I washed those red orbs very well and then cored and cut them in half.

Then I removed all seeds that were readily available (not necessary but makes things go quicker.)

Yes, I left the skins on!  No standing over the hot stove with boiling water.

Then, the larger tomatoes were cut again into quarters and left the smaller ones in halves and placed them skin down in a glass baking dish.

I learned the hard way, make sure they are in the top 2/3 of the oven which is preheated to 350.

Put them in and let them cook for about 45 minutes to an hour.

At this point you have lots of juice and wilted mushy tomatoes.  Drain the liquid off (you can put this through a few layers of cheese cloth and preserve the little bits if you want) and put the remaining shriveled tomatoes into a pot.

Using a stick blender (you could run it through a food processor or blender before putting into the pot, but I am in love with my stick blender) puree the tomatoes and you have tomato sauce...mine was thicker using this method than if I skinned and left it to reduce for hours over the hot stove.  I just heated it up in the pot and let it boil for about 15 minutes so that it would reduce a touch and be hot for canning.

Continue to can/freeze as you normally would tomato sauce.

Salsa, Traditional Tomato Sauce, Roasted Tomato Sauce

(I did the lemon juice and pressure canner method found in the Ball Big Blue Book of Canning.)

One note about this method.  I did tomato sauce both ways (roasted and the traditional remove skins core and remove seeds puree and boil for hours upon hours) this year.  I found this.  After canning, the traditional method continued to be smooth and uniform looking after canning, but the roasted ones separated a little bit and had a chunkier look.  I think this may have been avoided if I had pureed the tomatoes a bit more, but I enjoy some tomato chunks in my sauce...it reminds me what it really  is...TOMATO sauce.

While I had tomatoes on hand, I also made up a year's supply of salsa...the zesty salsa recipe from the same Ball book, but I put in about half of the hot peppers that the recipe called for...okay so some not so zesty salsa...but for our family it was perfect...

I'm thinking of adding some corn and black beans to it once opened for a special treat one cold and snowy day in the future.

Did you do tomatoes this year?  If so, how?
(Linked to Simple Lives Thursdays)

A letter to myself next spring...

Dear Citysister,
In regards to your garden...
Volunteers are your friend, just don't let them take over. (Sorry, my mother in law just called and asked if the volunteers were the kids, no, they were plants that had seeded themselves into the garden somehow.)  The squash were quite annoying and made it impossible for other plants to survive or get harvested for that matter.  Be ruthless! It should become  your new motto.  The tomatoes need to be started earlier indoors and use the brooder light, when that was introduced, the tomatoes took off.  Staking the tomatoes will be a must, their vines made it difficult to harvest the early birds and the slugs loved the late ones as well as the worms and chickens when they broke out.  Tomatoes are great, but grow lots of canning tomatoes with a couple of other types, that way you get the glut at one canning time instead of a measly one or two here and there to make canning your own difficult.  Plan the garden for that matter and stick to it.  (This year I had a plan, and then let the volunteers take over, and started planting too many of one thing so I took over spaces that were meant for others.)  Potatoes rock...low maintenance, high yield, and completely different creatures than the ones bought at the store.  On the thought of potatoes...over the winter could you fix up the basement's cold storage room and make it ready for next year...it could be something special! In that vein, think about reading up on cold storage... Pole beans are great! Just think about making stronger and taller poles for them as they do tend to take over.  Get the early plants in earlier and the fall plants in earlier too...buy seeds if necessary in the spring for the fall as it is unlikely any will be left come fall.  This is the second year this has happened to you.  Spinach didn't work out too well this year but remember the chard...like spinach but grows all summer as well.  Give the squash the hill.  They were crazy this year growing 20 feet long tendrils in the wrong place...again be ruthless!  Get the garden in front of the chicken coop planted early and take advantage of the spring when the neighbor's tree doesn't have huge light blocking leaves.    Most of all, have fun thinking and planning the garden over the winter...maybe measure things out and plan on grid paper so things are a bit more accurate.  Reposition walls over the winter too...after all, one doesn't need to mow between the beds, the foot traffic is enough to keep the grass down.  (The beds were originally planned to be able to mow between the beds, but we found that with increased foot traffic between the gardens made it possible to not mow.)  And by the way, the apples from the orchard are great, but maybe you could get your act together and plant some of your own?
In regards to putting food by...
The roasting tomatoes method for canning worked great (more on this later)  DO THIS EXCLUSIVELY NEXT YEAR.  Plant more green beans.  I mean it.  And dry beans too...  Plant corn so we can put some away that we grew.  The squash are so easy to put by, decide on a favorite type.  Continue to have people keep their eyes out for canning jars for cheap...no matter what, you never have enough.  Try to clear out the chest freezer so you can shut it off for a bit this winter.  Organize the pantries and freezers over the winter so that we can optimize what we do.
Sincerely,
Citysister

In high school, I had a teacher that had us write a letter to ourselves in one year and then again in five years, with an address of someone that we believed would still be there in five years.  I remember getting that letter (well, my mom calling me saying I got some mail at their home.)  After telling my husband about this, he began doing this with his students.  Different situations occurred over the years.  For example, people move or loose touch, or in one instance a student died...do you mail the letter to his parents.  What if in that letter was something that could have saved him, or cause the parents more grief.  He sent it and left it to the parents as to what to do, but maybe seeing his handwriting gave them some comfort.  I remember writing in an attempt to be profound and reading laughing at how silly I was a mere 5 years earlier (and probably if I wrote another letter at that point and read it now, I would be equally impressed about my silliness.)

In a letter to yourself, what would you say?

Scrumptious Saturday...Slow food (early so you can join in too...)

So did you hear about Slow Food International's $5 challenge?

Basically, they're asking that you create a meal for less than $5/person made from local foods.

The $5 comes from the average cost of a fast food meal.

Dude...if I spent $5/person for a meal that would be $20/night. Multiply that by 30-31 days a month and your food budget for the month for dinner alone would be $600-$620 a month!  

JUST FOR DINNER!

We'd still need to make breakfasts and lunches.

We eat locally most of the time because it is just that, cheaper.  

Yes we do buy almond milk/almonds which don't grow around here too well, and for that matter chocolate doesn't grow locally, but it is not much of a challenge for us to do.  

So for this Scrumptious Saturday I will be preparing a local meal for much less than $5 per person.

So here it goes a menu and cost breakdown

Steak (2.50/lb locally grown from when we bought a quarter of a cow.) Herb rub from our garden

Potatoes (grown in the yard) butter (local dairy $3.50/lb...we are using maybe 20 cents worth.) Herbs from garden

Braised kale and Swiss chard (about 1 slice of bacon 31 cents from a local meat farm, grew the chard, kale from farmer's market $2.00/bag)

So for a dinner for four using only local ingredients we spent about $5.01

Even if I took into account the cost of purchasing seeds for the items I grew, it wouldn't be over $6 for the whole dinner.

Nothing special...just a typical dinner for us.  

By the way, I'm posting this Scrumptious Saturday early so that you can maybe think about doing this challenge yourself.  

If so, let us know about it!

Knitting with little ones...

At our homeschool co-op, which started last Friday, in order to get your first choice classes, you have to teach a class.  If you don't the more popular classes fill up by 7 am of regular sign-ups (teachers get to sign up their kids a few days before.)  So, I decided to teach a beginning knitting class.  Lo and behold, it filled up with just teacher's kids and I had people begging to let their kids sign up (of course I let them.)

The prep for the class was a bit time consuming, but it was worth it to get my kids in classes that they were looking forward to (such as chess and dinosaurs.)  For each student I made a packet.  White wool (about 100 yards) was "hanked" onto a paper plate and then placed inside a gallon ziplock bag.  I cut, using the chop saw (yes dad I did it all by myself), quarter inch dowels into 10 inch segments.  I also got out our sand paper, butcher block bee wax, fimo, and wood glue.  For good measure I added a tie-dye kit.
Each kid got a wool package (spaghetti...I let them know that it was going to be their new friend hank...) two dowel segments (chopsticks they exclaim...to eat their spaghetti!) sand paper and set up a area to dye (one girl said "mom told me I was going to die my first class...I was a bit confused.")
Two girls would get a chance to dye at a time while the other girls would sand their dowels ("till they feel like silk"   I told them.)  Eventually, everyone dyed their wool, sanded their dowels, and used bee's wax to finish their sticks.  Fimo was handed out and everyone was told to make balls for the end of their sticks.  I packed everything away and the rest of the day proceeded as planned.

After getting home, I washed everyone's wool and hung it out to dry, baked the fimo for the ends of the sticks, and made little packets of wool and completed sticks for each kid in my class.
Tomorrow...In, around, through and off...we will learn the knit stitch...and maybe purl will visit too.

Tomatoes...half off...

"You can't be friends with a squirrel, a squirrel is just a rat with a cuter outfit!"

                                                                                       - Carrie Bradshaw

In my opinion, the same can be said of chipmunks.  I have watched them...happily frolicking about my back patio...jumping into their holes that surround the new strawberry bed, and in general being evil little vermin.   The first time I caught one in a trap, my husband was upset with me...in his opinion they are cute.  But I have evidence...half eaten cherry tomatoes everywhere but in my salad.  They choose the ones that are 1-2 days from being ripe...I would pick them, but also wish to have them ripen on the vine and oh so sweet.  Don't worry...

"I'll get you my pretty..."

-Wicked Witch of the West

Fall garden and seed saving

The fall garden is in and the squash starting to tell me as well...

It's almost fall.

Even though it is well over 80 by mid day, 

the early mornings and late evenings are getting cooler and the night...

well, I need a blanket (but then again, any temp under 60 I need one.)

The fall lettuce started to grow almost moments after placing it in the ground. 

As did the carrots...they know they need more time to store starches for the winter.

They must know it's getting cooler, but the fall spinach is a bit more hesitant.

It requires fall rainstorms with chilled reassurance to begin growing.

On the days we don't get the late summer rainstorm in the evening,

I go out with the hose and cool them off myself.

Trying to fool nature...

My next task is to enter my August numbers for harvest.

I've gotten a few large long pie squash,

a few tomatoes,

beans...I love the beans.

Lightly steamed so they are still crunchy,

sauteed with a little garlic,

raw out of the garden.

It doesn't matter to me.

We've also been getting the dried green beans for next year's garden.

Alongside the Provider beans, there must have been some other variety for one or two beans in the packet.

One or two plants grew that were not provider...but rather a large flat pod that had dark, navy bean type seeds inside.  I am saving them too as they bloomed a bit before the provider.

They'd make a nice dried bean I think...they are so pretty.

As with my squash, I have 4 varieties going...due to cross pollination, I cannot save their seeds for next year.

But I did save some seeds from the packets for next year.

I'm going to have a taste testing and decide what is going in the garden next year.

I love having the ability to start next year from this year's bounty.

It's how it should be.

Are you forgoing some of this year's harvest in order to save for next year?