Homemade concoctions to aid in making homemade concoctions.

 

A few holidays ago (I have no idea which one) Charlie started building me a drying rack as a gift. Six, maybe 8, months of starting and stopping later it's finally finished and in full use! It's basically a pine frame with slots to slide trays in. The trays are also pine and I hot glued taut screen on top of each tray.  The whole thing, though large, is lightweight and easy to move, but also slips nicely into place underneath the kitchen counter. So far I'm drying snow/snap peas and fava beans for fall planting, various herbs, and thin slices of a large beet.

The beet is an experiment. My favorite lip balm has a hint of beet powder in it to tint the balm. I'm interested in trying to make my own with fewer ingredients and perhaps a bit brighter color. Wish me luck, it may take me another 6 to 8 months to get around to making it!

Wildflowers in the kitchen

When I heard the slightest whisper from spring the inspiration to play came on full force. The violets peeked their pretty little faces toward the sunshine and I gathered a cupful for kitchen experiments.

 

Violet petals in sugar with a hint of lemon zest made the prettiest lavender sugar!

Egg white wash over whole violets, sprinkled with sugar makes for candied violets. I'm dreaming of cupcakes fit for a fairy party!

 

And because  the violet sugar was so fun, I tried the same with dandelions. I don't know if the color will keep, but I'm already thinking of what other flowers I can try!

 

 

Organization, Baby Steps

Our kitchen cabinets are the original to the house, steel mid-Century GE space age things. We have a dream of having the painted at a car place, but not the funds, so they're rusty and imperfect and perfectly suited for the aesthetic of the rest of our home.

Anyway, a few days ago I was unloading the dishwasher for the bazillionth time (really probably the 3rd time that day...how?! why?!) and decided we needed a better system for the utensils.

As with 90% of the population I vowed not to be more frugal this year, so naturally Charlie needed to make a a custom sorter for the drawer, right? The old and icky contact paper needed to go, too, so I thought a nice piece of fabric doubled over would be a better alternative (after all, it could be washed when the time comes). I measured the drawer, marked the size on the fabric and quickly serged the edges together to make it into a large mat.

Not too shabby for a quick project that didn't cost an extra dime to make, huh?

Mulch it good

When I first got into veggie gardening we talked about buying a tiller and working the land that way. Since permie school/hippie camp, I've come to know, love, and totally rely on building mulch beds. Remember how I do it? Start by suppressing grass and weed growth with cardboard.

Pile on layers of mulch in a variety of forms. We have a hill of decaying shredded woody material so I use that, grass clippings, leaves, chicken litter....whatever is free and handy.

Water well, add soil/finished compost in pockets throughout the deep mulch and plant directly into the soil.The next season that whole mound you made will be beautiful, dark, rich compost, full of worms and ready for growing.

Sitting on a Stool Decision

I've added the Basil poster to the shop alongside the tomato one. Today I pick up a framed humongo print of Desert Scene...all gorgeous 2'x 3' of it, framed in a basic walnut frame. It will be the first time I've had a print that large in my grubby little paws. To say I'm excited...well, it's an understatement and I can't wait to take pictures!

In the meantime, we're still working hard on the kitchen (sloooowly). Plans keep changing based on affordability factors: with the wall one flat level, the back of the stove would show, so we opted in stair stepping it down. Also, Ikea no longer offers the oak butcher block counter tops that we have! They have a butcher-block-look-alike that is laminate over MDF, but it's just not the same. We mulled over a couple solutions, and I think what we decided on is going to be pretty cool in a Bauhaus sort of way. We made the decision through a series of text messages between C, who was working at home mudding and painting the walls, and me, supervising the young 'uns at birthday parties all weekend.

The stools in the mock up above are a possible Craigslist score (checking them out this afternoon). They are a mid-century Arthur Umanoff design for Raymor, but I don't know much else about them or him. I wasn't sure about even going to check them out, but kept thinking about them. Looking through my inspiration pictures (and then doing a mock up) I realized I'd better jump on the chance! The natural seat and airy legs will be perfect for an already busy area, keeping them functional and not as much of a focal point. We'll see!

More KTSD

Still making progress despite 6 inches of snow (no quick trips to the hardware store) and my week down with the stomach flu (C on full-time kid duty). The image just below was the plan. Then we realized a slide-in or drop-in stove would double or triple the cost of what was already in-the-distant-future stove. THEN... the snow melted and C schlepped the kids across town to Ikea, only to find out the oak butcher block counters we were counting on have been discontinued.

So I guess we can just nix that mock up. We're thinking of doing polished concrete instead, but adding another DIY to the to-do list, 2 young and energetic kids (meaning there's only 1 person who can work on the overhaul at a time), and the house being in shambles...Let's just say I'm not so sure about that.

Reset downed connections

Since Mabel started preschool months ago, I've heard very little from her about her school day experiences. When I ask, the majority of the time I get a very teenage response, "Stop asking me questions!" I stop and we drive along in silence until we come up with some impromptu game that creates fun connections and chatter, but still no answers.

A week ago she was coming down with something, maybe the flu, and I didn't know it yet. The teenage attitude and toddler tantrums came on strong and I was at my wits end. Rather than continue the power struggle, I pulled out some craft supplies and we got busy. It wasn't totally easy from there on out, but when we make stuff together the only rule is to keep the materials (glue, paint, etc.) on the paper set aside for arts and crafts. Beyond that? There are no right or wrong ways to make things.

The looseness of creating helps clear up the air. As a reminder to myself, and perhaps a tip for others: When communication is down and all else fails, use feathers to paint with glitter glue and let the connection reset.

Using the Harvest

This past Saturday, these greens (a combination of sorrel, sweet potato leaves, and Malabar spinach), with the addition of some frozen chopped spinach, became a spinach and cheese pie.

Did you know you can eat sweet potato leaves? They're a great spinach substitute. I collect the young leaves that still have a bit of shininess to them. When I'm using them in a recipe like this pie I quickly blanch them prior to making the pie filling. 

The crust is a basic Pâte Brisée but I skipped the sugar because I don't like the slightest hint of sweetness with a savory filling.  The filling is very similar to this one, but I added some mozzarella since I had it on hand. 

A few more garden critters

We're finding a lot of critters in the few minutes we spend outside each week. It's so hot I have a hard time motivating Mabel to play out there and should admit that I'm pretty happy to sink into the couch for a while each afternoon, too.

We found another batch of swallowtail caterpillars, both of which are now chrysalis. Saturday night I made a sorrel tart. The sorrel, straight from the garden to the kitchen, had lots and lots of little snails which I collected in a jar. I told M we weren't going to keep them, but they're still in the jar on her work table (aka the den coffee table). I'm thinking we could become Matthews, NC's first escargot farmers.  

It handles beautifully

Before I really started learning about plants and gardening, I had no idea what an invasive species was. Now that I'm paying attention to what grows in our yard, I know first hand: wisteria, Japanese honeysuckle, privet, and many others. We fight them back as best we can by uprooting, avoiding chemicals, but most of the time it feels like a hopeless battle.

Out of his own personal curiosity, Charlie saved a few logs from chopping back the privet, air dried them, and saved them for a time when he could experiment in the wood shop a bit.

One of our back doors goes to a porch we never really used, mostly thanks to some out of control holly bushes that made the porch experience uncomfortable. The brick stairs were separating from the main porch, and though sturdy, their use always felt a bit precarious. Also the screen door handle (originally an acrylic rod)  was missing, so reentry was cumbersome. Out of sheer laziness, we just didn't use the porch. Until...

We were required, as part of the appraisal and loan approval process, to rebuild the porch. During demolition the hollies were leveled to the ground. Without the overbearing prickly shrubs, the area was once again functional. 

Over my maternity leave I worked on little projects around the house, including painting thresholds and sprucing up around the exterior doors. The missing handle could no longer be ignored, so I suggested we turn a handle from some pecan saved from a fallen branch. The pecan wasn't dry enough to turn. Charlie took the idea and ran with it though, making a lathe-turned handle from one of the pieces of invasive privet! He finished it with shellac (I believe), and the door is as functional as ever; dare I say it handles beautifully?

A few more clothes

This dress is another variation built off the Dear My Kids' pretty ruffled pinafore wrap dress. I took off the wrap front and added giant keyhole to back. The keyhole was meant to make the arms easier to get into, but I made it a little lower than I should have, so I added some pleats to close it up a bit. Now it's a perfect-for-summer dress.

I had a yard and a half of navy flocked dot cotton fabric and decided to try my hand at something else, so I bought Figgy's Ayashe blouse pattern. The pattern has a few different finishing options, like a bias tape neckline or a mandarin collar; I went with the bias tape neckline and elastic waist. The instructions of the pattern are quite detailed, but as a hobby seamstress, I don't always have the patience to get that "pro" finish. Let's just say I fudged a few steps with the serger. The way the sleeves were attached was a different process than the method I was taught, so I used the more familiar method to me. They turned out just fine and I'm pretty sure the results would be identical either way.

Next up? The Oliver + S Sailboat Top (with short sleeves), then maybe onto a few pairs of shorts/skorts.

Using the whole hog, I mean hen

I wasn't raised in a particularly food-centric household, and in my late teens to late twenties was a vegan. This meant I didn't really know how to cook much besides dry pasta. I could heat up a can of beans or cook a mean tofu patty, but when I became a meat eater again I left all meat cooking up to Charlie. He knew his way around an iron skillet, mentally stores and adeptly cooks his dad's recipe for a burger with perfection every time.

When I was finally ready to "honor" the animal through cooking it, well, I had to learn from the very beginning.  I also keep my internet ears open to new ways to use up the whole animal, at least as much as I know how. If you're in a similar boat, I've listed a few of my favorite go-to recipes below.

My own drawing of Ally, our mean black hen

I use these recipes nearly weekly:
How to roast a chicken (Martha Stewart)
How to cook a chicken breast (The Kitchn)

Bone broth: My approach is different than others I see online, I'm not sure how I came up with the process, since I use the internet as a cookbook.
Roast the skin, bones, drippings, fat in the oven on 350 for 30 minutes, stir/flip everything as best you can and roast 30 minutes more.
In a slow cooker/crock pot, cover the bones, etc. with water, add 2 bay leaves and a handful of thyme. Simmer for 12 hours. After you strain out the solids, you will have a richly flavored, unsalted broth.

Floursack tea towels from Girls Can Tell

Keep it going perpetually if you want, like Nourished Kitchen does. I generally use it for a giant batch of soup and toss (or bokashi) the bones.

I most often use homemade broth for chicken noodle soup or chicken and dumplings. Sometimes I'll use it in place of water to cook rice or barley, which is fantastic.

For chicken noodle soup I loosely follow the directions my sister in law gave me: 

Boil some kind of chicken with bones in. Today I used chicken thighs but I usually do a whole cut up chicken. Remove chicken to cool and pull off the bone. Put chopped onions, carrots and celery in broth cook until just done, add meat back in ( no skin, : p ) add salt and pepper to taste. I scoop out a cup or two of it and puree it and put it back in. Then I make a roux ( 3 or 4 tblspn butter same amount of flour, melt and add some stock, then pour it all back in the pot. It gives it some thickness which we like. Then just add noodles or rice, (I use the Amish egg noodles, they are yummy) when they're done YOU EAT!

Mabel will drink the broth and call it a meal.  If we have extra broth left over, the dogs get it with their dry food. After all, they deserve a nutritional boost, too!

The pitter patter of progress

Look! Just for you I created a fun survey where you can tell me which type of column you'd like to see on our house.(Woo hoo! Lucky you!!)

Create your free online surveys with SurveyMonkey, the world's leading questionnaire tool.

Though I'm not sure this picture says a lot, compare and contrast with this one and see all the work we've done.

Mabel went to Nana's and Paw Paw's so I thought we'd spend the weekend solely working on the columns, getting the project finished. There are, with us at least, certain methods to our DIY madness and sometimes we have to be honest with ourselves about these projects. Money is limited, and it is the facet we most often have to remember.

Despite my hope for a big unveil this morning, we had a budget set aside of less than $80. Most of that ended up going into reciprocating saw blades. We bought a $20 one meant for cutting iron which turned out to be overkill; a $3 blade for thick metal was actually the blade we needed. When you're talking about an $80 project, $23 takes a big cut (no pun intended). It didn't leave us enough to get the wood for the facade of the columns, and we decided to wait to get that wood anyway. For a nominally larger cost, we can get a higher grade board from a local lumber yard rather than from the big box store. A higher grade board will mean less knots and mars, making the finished column smoother and much prettier.

This coming weekend we'll both have paychecks to dole out for the finishing wood and trim, so until then our yard will remain (as one friend deftly put it) one trampoline shy of redneck gold. All of that is to give a glimpse inside how our renovations work: with time, ingenuity, and a little bit of spending money. Oh, and a generous Nana to keep the little one distracted and happy all weekend--essential to success.

It took an entire day to get the iron work down and the 4 x 4 (actually 2 2x4s laminated and screwed together) cores for the new columns up. That "entire workday" happened on Saturday, after I spent 6 hours volunteering at the community garden. My body still hurts.

On Sunday Charlie mended the fence while I built a small retaining wall from some 4 x 4s we had on hand. Having the dogs in the fenced area most of the time, they've created paths where they run laps around the perimeter of the space. That path, even on a gently sloping hill, has created an erosion problem which, in turn, created soil build up around the fence at the bottom of the hill. The soil build up pushed the fence every which way, making it lean and wobble. Once again the fence is perpendicular to the ground and we're already seeing and hearing the pitter patter of progress.

Preservation Proclamation

Friday evening I made a big pot of sorrel and potato soup from MizTrail's Easy Growing. It was excellent! Part of the issue with growing non-traditional honky foods is that I have to figure out a way to cook them and use them. Especially when they start coming in by the truck load. Note to self: having 3 sorrel plants for a family of 3 is more than plenty. Thanks in part to the potatoes, the soup was filling enough that it provided dinner for 2 (Mabel wasn't feeling experimental that night), Saturday's lunch for me, and a big enough batch for the freezer that we'll have dinner another night.

I spent a couple hours in the community garden on Saturday morning, first teaching a class (of 2!), then attacking the weeds* that had taken over. Currently the garden consists of 20 mounded rows, each 8' wide and 25' long. We've consistently had 3 people there working on Saturdays and 2 stalwarts who make it out a couple times during the week. Suffice to say, the uprooting of weeds has been much slower than the growth of new ones.


I brought some clear plastic to the garden to begin solarizing a couple of the beds. In return, I came home with a plastic grocery bag full of lamb's quarters, a giant cilantro plant that went to seed, and a bin of red wrigglers. Later in the afternoon I gave my own herb garden some TLC by giving one of the rosemary bushes a trim, uprooting and drying catnip (for our own use as tea), and dividing a few of my plants-gone -wild in preparation of unloading (errr...) giving them away.

This is actually a different batch of pesto than the cilantro pesto I made, 

but what can I say, it's Monday and I'm lazy.

To recap: we're now well stocked on rosemary infused oil, rosemary balsamic vinegar, cilantro oil, cilantro pesto, and coriander. I'm still deciding what to do with the lamb's quarters, we have a ton of lettuce to go through before I get to them.

All of this jabber is to get to the point of what my Mother's Day consisted of: preserving. Whether keeping herbs in oil, vinegar, or finding a way to freeze them, I've already got a nice stockpile and the summer growing season hasn't really started!

*Most of these weeds are edible, but we want more mainstream crops producing food for Friendship Trays.

DIY Soil Amendment: Calcium

Calcium is one of those things we don't usually talk about in terms of garden nutrients, right? I mean, you buy a bag of soil amendments and the big numbers are NPK, but what about the little guys? The minerals and micro nutrients that feed soil health? I'm no soil scientist, I don't purport to be an expert, but I can recognize a deformed fruit when I see one. (Blossom end rot, anyone?) Funk lookin' fruits can be a sign of calcium deficiency. Calcium is vital for sugar production in plants, it's part of what keeps your vegetables from being bitter. 


To boost my beds with a bit of calcium I fill empty milk and dairy containers with water to rinse them, but instead of pouring the water down the drain I'll pour it on a garden bed. I'm also hoping the finished bokashi will add micro nutrients to the soil, and the addition of bokashi-composted bones from dinner should add a little something to the soil, too.

We also have a plenitude of eggshells. After a Sunday of cooking snacks for the week ahead I generally have a small pan full.Now, if you've ever thrown eggs in the compost bin you know they break down very slowly. When added directly to a garden bed they break down even more slowly, so they don't directly provide much calcium to your plants; something like Soft Rock Phosphate is better suited for that. This past winter I've been saving the shells from hard boiled eggs and grinding them up. I've also been taking the shells from other eggy exploits and sticking them in the oven to bake when I'm cooking dinner. My theory is to kill off unwanted bacteria and dry the shells out for storage. They, too, are ground up. In the end, I have something that looks like this:

The texture ranges from a fine dust to gritty bits that look like pulverized shells on the beach. Since eggshells are a good way to keep slugs under control, the grit should work double time. The powder will be more readily available to the plants and the larger grit will work as pest control.

It's not revolutionary, but I get a little excited about free garden solutions. Do you save your eggshells? What's your favorite free soil amendment?

Running the natural course

Plants are waking up, stretching their leaves and saying hello.  Those tuckered out from a long fall and winter of growing are setting seed, ensuring their place in the gardens next year.

Most projects only get a few minutes of attention here and there. Just like building soil, everything requires time, so time gets split between chores. Painting the playhouse would be a prime example. The tee pee won't be finished until the peas grow and climb. 

{Click on the images to see them larger}

Family Dinner Traditions

Family dinner is a fantastic thing. Unfortunately (brace yourself, I'm about to let you down) we don't sit at the table and have them very often. Um, actually never. We did for a while, but for whatever reason we haven't found a dining table set up that keeps that role. Instead it's covered in fabric or another project. Right now it's just sitting in a room that doesn't heat very well, so that room stays blocked off through the winter. I know, weird. Whatever.

But the past 2 nights we've made dinner as a family. That, my friends, makes for some spectacular fun while working the kid's brain and forcing C and I to maintain a steady and heaping helping of patience.

Some ground rules: Mabel isn't allowed to get near the stove. She's not allowed to use knives, either. She's a great helper with stirring, kneading dough, and, when all else fails, sweeping the floor. Inviting a toddler in the kitchen makes for messy cooking--none of that clean-as-you-go stuff. The extra bits of time go into engaging her young, active mind.

Sunday we spent the day being lazy and doing whatever we wanted,randomly convening in the kitchen to work on the simmering from-scratch chicken noodle soup. Mabel's job? Take the pasta dough and roll it into little balls, then help roll it out through the pasta roller.

So she's 2 and she's already helped Mama make buttermilk biscuits, egg pasta, and turned masa into tortillas. Now that's a family dinner tradition I think we can keep.

Practicing Clutter Bug Restraint

Remember this drawing? I turned it into a repeat pattern and sent it off to Spoonflower to have fabric printed. I had an idea that if it turned out OK I'd use it in the laundry room as a curtain. I picked the cotton voile and ordered 2 yards. It's sheer enough to diffuse bright light, while opaque enough to maintain a good amount of privacy.

There are still a few touch ups left to make the laundry room finished, but I'm so happy with it. I've done my best to keep the clutter to a minimum, which is not a strong point for me. This particular nook of the house gets a good amount of sun, making it a favorite napping spot for 2 little kitties, but it also heats up pretty quickly in the summer. The sheers will diffuse that heat while allowing the natural light in. Plus I think the oranges in the curtains tie the weird orange rug into the room design; it might just stay after all!

The sewing table is covered in a tan cow hide, leftovers from a reupholster project. The brown laminate top was just too industrial for the space. Leather, fortunately grips to the table so the sewing machines don't dance around while in use.


That blank wall is tempting me to hang some art, but I'm holding out, waiting on some extra funds to properly frame a photo by Abby Powell. Since we usually take on an anything goes attitude with decorating, I feel like this is the closest room I'll ever have to a Mossy Shed.

There you have it: the quietest, sunniest room in the house. Inspiring space for folding laundry or blah-blah-yawnsville?

Seed Bug

The bug bit and I'm ready to start planting. I bought a couple pounds of Kennebec potatoes (not from Johnny's, from a local source) to put in the ground and I've placed a seed order from Sow True seed. We had several weeks of spring like weather to tease us all into wintry restlessness, and with the return of cold now I have to sit back and wait.

Each year I go back to the Lazy Gardener's Seed Starting Chart on You Grow Girl, though some of the seeds I've ordered that aren't on the list. To fill in the blanks on the missing data, Weekend Gardener is a great resource!

Obsessiveness is borne of restlessness, and if you don't believe me you can check out my Google Doc worksheet. There are some math errors on there, I'm sure, and some dates that are off, but the good thing about planning well in advance is that I have wiggle room!

Food Forest Example

A while back I posted a worksheet to plan a food forest garden. I've used it a couple times, but thought I'd share this one since it's time to start thinking about spring gardening.

This particular food forest/guild will be planted in a Charlotte, NC community garden and will be about 20-feet in diameter. The plum tree will be the center, the outer circumference will be planted with daffodils, garlic, chives, and crocus and act as a deterrent to deer and squirrels.*** The other layers of plants that will benefit the tree and each other mutually, including gathering nutrients and attracting/deterring insects.  The idea is to have a garden that provides it's own nutrition, mulch and soil building, while providing an assortment of food to those that tend the area. It's a commonly used permaculture technique to provide larger yields and require less work; just the way I like it.

Filled with herbs and fruit, this could be quite a tasty garden!

***Though I don't think there's actually true squirrel or deer deterrent!