New day

This morning has a strangely first-day-of-school, New-Year's-Day feel for me.

All of my kids have graduated from high school. Yes, this is normal and expected, but when you've homeschooled for 18 years, it's a big mental adjustment. I've just lost a big chunk of my identity. Of course, I've known this was coming and have been mentally preparing for a long time. And although the boys still live here, they need very little from me.

I've thought about taking on a second job. I considered just finding a full-time job, but I think that  leaving my job at church would probably be the change that would tip me over the edge. And in the end, no job that I would find would allow me the flexibility to run off and be grandma whenever I want.

So I've made a few decisions.

I'm going to spend some time during the rest of this year catching up with friends and family that I just haven't had much chance to connect with over the last several very busy years.

I'm going to get back to consistently walking, taking my vitamins, and eating better; all things that have gone by the wayside as I've dealt with my eye issue, the back pain from the accident last fall, and the stress that has been almost eating me up.

I am reviving my business, which has been languishing for about ten years. It's been sitting there waiting for me to be ready again.. More about that later.

I'm going to spend some time enjoying my sons while they are still here.

And I am going to soak up every bit of sun, pool time, fresh produce, etc., that summer has to give.

Summer supper

Summer food is my favorite. There is just no substitute for fresh veggies. Tonight we took advantage of several of my favorites in one meal.

We started off with sweet corn. Now, that is an appetizer.

The main course came about from the necessity of making a dent in the pile of cherry tomatoes that I picked today, coupled with the fact that I had some beautiful eggplant from the farmers' market.

I sliced the eggplant, salted it, and let it weep for a while to get rid of the bitterness. Then I tossed it with olive oil, (1 cup), wine vinegar (1T.), and salt and pepper. I topped it with a bunch of cherry tomatoes and then drizzled about 1/4 c. of olive oil with three cloves of garlic crushed into it over the top. I topped it with some fresh thyme, oregano, and basil. Into to the oven at 400 degrees for about 45 minutes. When it came out I topped it with some more fresh oregano and feta cheese.

We had fresh sliced cukes on the side. It would have been excellent with some crusty bread, but I was out. It would also be incredible on pasta. Maybe with some toasted pine nuts. And some kalamata olives.

Or maybe throw it on chicken. With some of the aforementioned olives and some capers.

I think I need another eggplant.

Strange goings on

This is a very strange restaurant in the smallest town in Connecticut. I know about it because this is where my friend Lori and I waited for a ride and a tow truck when my car misbehaved on the way home from visiting my daughter in New Hampshire. There was an old car full of young hippies/woodsmen, too. With dogs. And a guitar.

The whole thing was very surreal.

The $250 tow was pretty solid, however.

But we made it home, back to normal life, and all is well. Except at the grocery store.

First, I only ever go to this particular store because they carry the yogurt that I prefer and generally have better produce than the closest one does. Today they were out of the yogurt. The lettuce was six days past the sell-by date. They were out of the fresh green beans that were on special. They were out of salted butter. They no longer carry good parmigiano. So I was already feeling like I would have been better off at the store closer to home.

In the check-out line I was disappointed because the rather surly cashier didn't ask if I had found everything, like they usually do. I was ready to give her the list. After I paid and as I prepared to take my cart and leave, I felt something slam into my back and knock me into my cart.

It was a motorized shopping cart. One of the people of Walmart--we saw a few today, or maybe it was pajama day at the grocery--appeared to have escaped and was at Kroger, allowing a two year old boy to help her pilot the cart.

Yes. I was hit by a motorized shopping cart. I have a bruised back and a sore neck, knee, and ankle, too. I feel like I did when I was rear-ended at low speed. I'm probably going to have to make some visits to the chiropractor.

One of my friends said that the weirdest things happen to me. Yes. Yes they do.

Ratafia!

When I got 1/2 bushel of peaches and needed to get them taken care of as quickly as possible, I turned to one of my favorite cookbooks for preserving ideas, The Fancy Pantry by Helen Witty. The second recipe I saw was for peach ratafia. What Georgette Heyer fan could pass up the chance to make ratafia? So in about six weeks, I'll let you know what we think.

Peach Ratafia


1 cup granulated sugar
½ cup packed light-brown sugar
½ cup water
3 cups sliced peeled ripe peaches
Peach kernels (if you are able to get them out of the pits!)
1/8 teaspoon ground mace
1 quart good-quality brandy
1. Combine the granulated sugar, the brown sugar, and the water in a saucepan. Bring the mixture to a boil and boil the syrup briskly, uncovered, for 3 minutes. Cool the syrup.
2. Put peach slices and the kernels into a 2 qt. glass jar or crock with a snug cover.
3. Stir the cooled syrup, the mace, and the brandy together until they are completely mixed. Pour the mixture over the the peaches and stir the whole business. Cover airtight. Set the containers aside for at least a month and preferably 6 weeks. Stir or shake the contents once in a while.
4. Strain the cordial through a fine-meshed sieve bottle it (if corking, use new corks only.) Refrigerate the fruit.

From The  Fancy Pantry by Helen Witty

Grandma's Bread and Butter Pickles

Soak for 3 hours:

2 qts. sliced cucumbers (Thin)

1/3 c. salt (Use pickling salt.)

2 onions (med.)

Add 2 c. celery last soaking hour

Bring to boil:

2 c. vinegar (Heinz is best. Really.)

2 c. sugar

1 t. celery seed

1 t. mustard seed

½ t. turmeric

Add drained pickles & let come to good simmer.

Fill clean jars. Process in water bath for 10 minutes. ( My grandma didn't do this, but, based on recommendations in the Ball Blue Book, I do.)

Playing with pickling

I'm still trying to get over my cold, but I couldn't take sitting still today. I decided that being outside and getting my vitamin D would be a good idea. I did some more work in my garden and ended up with a lot of little green cherry tomatoes that had fallen on the ground or were growing in spots where they ended up sitting in the dirt.

Yesterday I found a recipe for basic brine and I pinned it so that I would be able to find it when I needed it. I decided that I needed it today. I like something zippy with most of my meals, so we go through a lot of pickles. I'm determined to fill as much of that need from my own garden as possible, so it seemed like a good time to get started.

I didn't have the time, inclination or energy to can today, so I just played a little with some refrigerator pickles. The big jar of the green tomatoes is just brined. The smaller jar has brine and red pepper flakes. I discovered that I had twelve pounds of carrots and part of them were needing to be used, pronto. So I sliced up a pound of them and combined them with some sliced onion, garlic pepper, and red pepper flakes. The cukes are just in brine and garlic pepper. I did them mainly to see how they would turn out.

Tomorrow, if time permits, I am going to do some bread and butter pickles and a couple of small jars of squash pickles and beets.

I love taking the goodies that are coming from the garden now and doing tasty things with them to keep them for the winter.

Pack it in

The next three weeks is going to be crazy. Cuh-ray-zee.

Wednesday and Thursday I'll be off on a road trip rescuing my daughter from behind the cheddar curtain. Friday I'll be busily preparing for the baby shower that a couple of friends and I are hosting on Saturday for another friend who is pregnant 12 years after her last one. We have ballgame tickets for Saturday night.

Sunday is an out-of-town trip for a shower for Bethany. Next week we will have out-of-town-company Monday through Thursday as we prepare for more out of town company Friday through Sunday. And another ballgame Saturday night.

Then there will be three days respite during which I will work frantically to get my at-work work done and my house somewhat sane before I leave for four or five days to take my Precious back to Wisconsin and help her and Evan make their first of two moves this summer.

In the midst of this I need to keep working on my pool, continue reclaiming my house from the great storage expulsion,feed people, and work on some web/social networking/marketing stuff for a friend's new business. And do my job that they pay me for.

When I come back it will be June. It will be four days until Jonathan's graduation party and five days before we begin demolition on our main bathroom.

Garden food

I'm hoping that by posting this here I will remember in the spring, when I don't feel like tilling and planting, and in the heat, when I don't feel like weeding and planting that second round, why I have a garden.

Tonight's dinner was yet another marvelous collection of garden goodness. We have had so much wonderful pesto this summer. We have had zucchini sauteed, in cookies, and--as it was tonight--in pasta. Tonight we added a red pepper from the garden and, garlic from the farmers' market, and some of last night's leftover chicken.

Last night we had roasted chicken accompanied by roasted beets, turnips, and carrots from the garden. We've had cukes on our salads, and tomorrow night we'll have a cucumber and yogurt salad with some korma. Early in the season we had many wonderful mixed green salads and hope to enjoy a second round this fall. In the meantime, we're about to get the first of what promises to be a flood of tomatoes.

It is so worth the work. So worth it.

Summer

Yes, I know. I know. I haven't been here in months. The old blog has been sorely neglected.

I promise to do better.

Maybe it's because I'm in the midst of so many creative or semi-creative projects right now, but I feel like writing. I'm getting to do my favorite kind of cooking right now: ad-libbing with what comes from the garden, digging up new recipes, or making it up as I go. We brought home 29 pounds of blueberries. We have frozen a nice chunk of them, made a batch of Boy Bait, taken a few to friends, and today is a little jam for Andrew. I would like some more berries, but Patrick started his new job this week, so he isn't available to drive the boys up to the patch. I guess I'll just need to be satisfied.

We've have a nice amount of zucchini, with more coming. The beets have been delicious, greens and all. I'll be roasting some turnips while Colin is gone, since he doesn't like them. Tomatoes are about ready and I think I'm going to have a lot this year. I hope so!

Two weeks ago we were in Nashville for the Higher Things Conference. Two weeks from today is the start of our family retreat at Redeemer, and we still have some work to do.  After that, I'm going to take a couple of weeks to focus on projects around here with an eye to having the house on the market by the end of August.

Spring is just around the corner. Right? Please?

This is the time of year when the packed down, turned-to-ice snow is a major danger to someone as graceful (not) as I am. It is the time of year when I know, intellectually, that the amount of daylight is growing each day, but the cloud cover keeps me from believing it. And, this is the time of year that said cloud cover makes me long for just a few precious rays of sun.

However, thanks be to God, this is also the time of year that I can order from beautifully illustrated catalogs and tempting websites concrete reminders that Spring will come, followed by summer, bringing with it more sun, and in turn lettuces, beets, onions, tomatoes, and all kinds of vegetabley goodness. I have spent hours planning my beds, looking through catalogs, deciding exactly what I want to plant and plotting, too, how I can plant most efficiently to take things with me should we sell our house post-planting but pre-harvest. (Hey, I can dream, can't I.)

Productive weekend

I ended up having an unexpected day at home on Saturday. It is amazing how much can be accomplished when I can just work on my house and yard all day. The kids and I cleaned inside and did some end of summer garden clean up. The yard is so much better. Lots of weeds and overgrown branches found their way to the curb. We also cleaned up the blighted tomato plants.

I still have lots of projects to get done, but it feels good to have accomplished this much.

Okay, I'm back

Bethany has started blogging again. She is inspiring me to blog, too.

We have blueberries. Lots and lots of blueberries. They are in both fridges, the freezer, and some pureed berries are fermenting on the table. Today I am making cordial and syrup with the fermented berries and making jam. We made a wonderful treat called Blueberry Boy Bait and a really yummy cobbler. Right now I'm eating blueberries in my yogurt.

That's what happens when you pick 45 pounds of berries.

Summer time and the livin' is...frantic?

What happened to the slow, wonderful summers we enjoyed when the kids were younger? I remember long lazy days with nothing to do except spend the afternoon at the pool or watching old movies.

This summer, so far, is passing in a blur.

Some of the busyness was expected. I've started working part-time. Patrick had registration and orientation. We had the graduation party. But much of it has been unexpected, and it has all worked together to make June go amazingly fast.

I'm obviously not blogging every day, but there will be another post later today.

Beef, etc.

We picked up 156 lbs of grassfed beef from a local farmer today. We purchased pork from him last year and were really impressed. We've also enjoyed his chickens. There's something so satisfying about seeing the freezer fill up. At the end of the month Colin and the boys will bring fish from Canada and it can join the beef, pork, chickens and blueberries in the freezer. By there will probably be some chopped frozen green peppers, too, because we're getting a bunch all at once.

More zucchini for dinner tonight along with fresh tomatoes an pork side. Last night I made unstuffed green peppers over rice and it was wonderful. I need to write down what I did.

I'm planting some things for fall harvest now: more lettuce and spinach, turnips, beets, leeks, and kale. Next year I want to plant potatoes for fall harvest. Our tomatoes are not producing as well this year as we had hoped, so I probably won't have a lot to freeze. It looks like the biggest bunch of them will ripen next week while I'm gone.

One of the best things about the garden and buying our food in bulk and really stocking up when things like pasta, rice, bread, and beans are on sale is that our grocery expenditures are down. What a bonus when we're eating healthier, better tasting food!

Summer food

We had some incredibly good sweet corn on Saturday. It was the best I've had in years. I'm going to run to the farm that it came from today and see if I can get some more to freeze.

I also discovered a new way to eat it. When the Aussies were here we rubbed our sweet corn with lime and cayenne pepper. it was good, but I missed the butter flavor. On Saturday I made chipotle lime butter for the corn. Oh. The smoky chipotle with the tart lime, creamy butter, and sweet corn was out of this world.

I had forgotten how excited little kids can get over a big piece of watermelon. And how sticky they get!

More zucchini. We've had it in cookies and bread. Numerous skillets of it sauteed, either on its own or with onions, or cheese, or garlic, or fresh basil, or some combination thereof. Zucchini cakes. On pasta. I haven't decided how we're eating it tonight. Probably sauteed again, because we love it that way and it's soooo easy.

We had our first plate of sliced tomatoes from our garden this weekend. We're about to be rich in tomatoes. So good.

Home again

We're home, having dealt with almost every kind of road work delay that the states of Illinois and Wisconsin can dish out. The weather was perfect for travel. Yesterday was lovely and the boys and I spent the last two hours of the trip with the windows down and the CDs cranked as we watched the gorgeous sunset behind us.

Have several blog posts swirling around in my head, but they will have to wait until after church and our annual church council picnic this afternoon.

Dinner!

Bethany and I cooked two new recipes tonight. They turned out very well.

The first was zucchini cakes. Thanks again Pioneer Woman! We have so much zucchini and the zuke cakes followed two loaves of zucchini bread today. Ours were a bit thinner than PW's, but they were yummy! We were thinking of the different ways they could be served. We are planning to try them next baked with marinara and cheese.

The other recipe was four cheese risotto. It wasn't the perfect risotto that I need to complete my list, but it was good. The cheeses in the recipe were gorgonzola, fontina, taleggio, and parmesan. (We used reggiano.) I think next time I'll use smaller amounts of one or two rich cheeses. As I was cooking it I was thinking of all of the wonderful things I could throw in a risotto. My one issue was that it took well over 30 minutes and a lot of extra liquid to get the rice not to be crunchy. Your feedback would be wonderful!

The. Best. Concert. Ever.

Wow. Just wow.

We saw Rush at the Verizon Wireless Center--which we will forever call Deer Creek--last night. It was my fifth Rush concert. The first three were in the '80's; the fourth was last year.

This one was the best. It may have had something to do with the fact that it was the final show in their two year Snakes and Arrows tour. The energy was tremendous, and Geddy Lee's voice was the best I've ever heard it. They hit all of the high points, opening with Limelight and closing with Tom Sawyer, just like last time, but the additions of Red Barchetta, The Trees, and The 2112 Overture and Temples of Syrinx were a huge treat. There was a great balance of the new from Snakes and Arrows and old favorites like the aforementioned, Subdivisions, XYZ, Witch Hunt and more.

This was the first concert for Jonathan and Andrew. It will be a tough act to follow. I've been to lots and lots of concerts, but Rush is hard to touch for sheer talent and last night was extraordinary.

RUSH again

One of the highlights of last summer was a trip to see Rush at the Verizon Wireless Center north of Indianapolis.

If you don't really know me, and didn't follow that link, you are most likely thinking that I'm somehow going to see Mr. Limbaugh. Wrong Rush. Although, I do like that Rush, too.

Colin and I are longtime fans of this Rush:

Last year Bethany and Patrick went with us to the concert. This year Jonathan and Andrew are joining us, too. They all wanted to go badly enough to buy their own tickets. The concert was supposed to have been in June, but the storms out west required a bit of date swapping, so we got an extra month of anticipation.

It is a gorgeous day and the concert is at an outdoor amphitheater. It's my favorite concert venue. I just have to get my house at least a little bit cleaned up before we go, because we'll have company when we get home.

More berries

We picked more blueberries today. It was a lovely day. We had breezes, temperatures in the 70's, and lots of fat juicy berries. We brought home 14 more pounds of blueberries. The last picking was 13 pounds and we ate them all. Some of this picking needs to make it to the freezer!