growing and learning

"'tinky baby"

08:27 AM, Wednesday, June 18, 2008 .. 5 comments .. Link

so dd1, well21 months, aka Lion has started having awareness of her diaper. it started a few months ago....
I was changing a stinky diaper when dd4 (Bear) walked by. "oh, that is STINKY!" and plugging her nose, she backed away, repeating "stinky stinky!" Lion thought it was funny, so she plugged her nose too and repeated "tinky, tinky." the next day, we were driving and passed a dead skunk. Before I could say anything, Lion plugged her nose and said "'Tinky!" okay, she realizes this is more than just a diaper thing - she knows what the word (and hand sign) mean.
Now, for some Lion "'Tinky" foibles:
she brought me her teddy bear (a Build-A-Bear from Grandma when she was born, picked by her siblings) and sniffed his behind area. "Tinky!" she declared, and grabbed a wipie from the pack. she spent the next 3 minutes wiping the "stinkies" from his bottom. Only after she was done with that did she allow me to clean her bottom!
Bear's My Little Pony also had a "Tinky" behind the other day. she thrust it in my face (back side, of course) and announced "Tinky." she then plugged her nose and carried it by the tail to the window sill where she forgot about it.
I was sitting on a banana chair and Bear had draped herself across my lap, bottom up. Lion comes over and sees Bear's underwear peeking up out of her pants. Lion delicately pinched it up and then announced: "Tinky" and backed away, fingers on her nose. Now Bear has been having some accidents recently in this department, but his time she had not.
This morning, Lion brought me a dress-up princess dress for assistance in dressing; I was sitting at my computer. oh, she stank.
me: "are you stinky? should we change your diaper?"
Lion: head shakes.
me: "well, someone is stinky."
she then sticks her head under my chair arm to smell my bottom, and then backs up with her fingers on her nose
me: "oh, mommy is stinky?"
"yeah"

mostly, she only claims "tinky" when she herself is stinky, but not always. I am trying to figure if the other times are preceding the stinky, and if so, can we start the process of potty training?

Pantry Replacement Chart

10:22 AM, Saturday, June 14, 2008 .. 6 comments .. Link

I wanted to post my chart: "Pantry Replacement Times." This is a tool I use to track how long it takes us to consume certain items in my pantry/food storage/freezer storage. I made this in the OpenOffice version of Excel

Pantry Item	size of item	start date	end/start date	end/start date
balsamic vinager	1 qt	10/2407
Basmati Rice	20lbs	09/01/07
brown sugar	4 lb	9/23/07	4/17/08
butter	6 4-lb
cornstarch	1 lb	11/28/07
dry milk	#10 can	04/15/07	12/14/07	03/25/08
eggs	5 dz	12/20/07	01/03/08
EVOO	2 liters	05/07/07	10/24/07	03/??/08
green peas	5 lb	04/14/08
hard white wheat	45 lb	12/01/07
maple syrup	2 qt	05/08/08
molassas
oatmeal	42 oz
salt, cooking	1 lb	06/07/07	11/27/07	04/27/08
soft white wheat	43 lb	4/21/08
vanilla	2oz/4oz	04/22/07	08/06/07	03/25/08
veggie oil	3 pints	03/01/07	07/17/07	03/10/08
white unbleached flour	75 lb	12/06/07
yeast	2 lb	03/25/08

It is not an exact science, but I try very hard to remember to update it every time I have to bring some food upstairs from the storage room. I decided to add the size of the container when I noticed that I had 2 sizes of vanilla. so the blue is for the 2oz size, and the black is for the 4oz size. You need to remember to compare apples to apples - otherwise you will not understand why you went through so much vanilla in such a short time. LOL!
Of course, then there are times you make oatmeal cookies (3cups) and apple bars (2 cups) and oatmeal once a week; and your oatmeal usage explodes. That is why it is important to have a running chart, so you can find your average over a period of time.
I also have some items that I opened BEFORE I made this chart. At that time I was just writing the date I opened the package on the lid or label. I have not yet moved those over to my chart.
And I am much better at charting my dry pantry items than my fridge or freezer items. A work in progress. but it has really helped me see what we need for our long term storage.
For example, recently, I was approached with the opportunity to buy bulk EVOO that is packaged in such a way as to last 10-15 years. Did I want any? How much? Well, I looked at this chart and realized that I go through 2 liters in about 5 months, on average over two bottles. because the time was 5 months for both bottles, I figure that is a close approximation of use. Also factored into that was my current bottle is a bit more than half gone, and we are a little more than halfway to 5 months from when I opened it. So I figured I would need 5 liters a year, or about 1 1/3 gallons a year (they were coming in gallons). I could order with confidence on how much I needed.

Entry #200: CAST IRON question!

11:16 AM, Thursday, June 12, 2008 .. 4 comments .. Link

okay, I know in over 2 years, 200 is not that many, but, mostly I like to read everybody else's homesteading journeys. and I like to post homestead-y things, after all, that is the purpose of this blog site. Do not get me wrong, please, I love reading about your lives and families. but I am a more private person and so I like to post mostly homesteady things here. and I should post more, but I have this feeling that no one is interested in my garden delimas or animal woes. which I know is silly, since that is what I love to read the most on other people's blog. silly me.
anyway, onto the homesteading question of the day. I am borrowing my mother's dutch oven for the summer. I would give you any number of excuses, but part of repentance is to OWN the problem, RECTIFY the problem, NEVER REPEAT the problem (I am using "problem" here instead of "sin", because this was a sin against a beautiful piece of cast iron, not against God, unless you count not taking care of what He has given me, of which sin I am guilty in this!)
so, my mom gave me her dutch oven for the summer, the one out of her 3 that needed to be re-seasoned so that I could learn to do that as well. what did I do with the thing? I sat it on my back porch thinking it would be fine for a few weeks. We have had an uncharacteristically WET spring here, and it has rained 2-3 days each week for the past 3. Now, my cast iron is not only needing to be re-seasoned, but is rusty as well.
so, thanks to kitty, I have scrubbed my pot and lid with veggie oil and salt until the rust was gone.
but it isn't. I mean large sections of my pot are reddish-orange. should this worry me? I have coated it with oil and sat it in the oven as per Kitty's instructions. but will I need to scrub it again to get off the orange coloring? it seems to not want to come off.
I would appreciate any help you can give me

beans and rice

09:16 PM, Friday, June 6, 2008 .. 1 comments .. Link

I made tacos tonight. but meatless. and dh gave me THE LOOK. "can I just have a quesadilla with the ricew and beans on the side?" "sure, you can make yours a quesadilla." He was, as he says, "afeared" of a rice and taco.
but he made a taco, good example for the bean-disliking children. I had made this before, and LOVED it (dh had been feeling ill that evening so he did not try it then), so I made me a PACKED-FULL taco, and Lion (dd1) had a half-taco with sour cream, cheese, beans and rice, and tomatoes. Bear (dd4) rolled her eyes and put a good-sized scoop of the R&B on her taco. Bug (ds6) balked, tried to convince us that he had a scoop ion his tortilla (yeah, sour cream and cheese!) He finally put a good-sized scoop on his plate. dh made a taco too. He loved it! silly husband, he ought to trust me a bit more on food stuff.

We have resorted to bribery on bean nights: tonight it was ice cream. no ice cream if you do not eat your beans! I know "they" say not to bribe with dessert. but we feel it is very important that the family learn to eat beans. so we bribe. at least for now. as they learn to eat them, we will phase that out. meanwhile dd1 happily ate hers no problem. Bear ate hers without balking, but Bug needed a time limit. and he ate his R&B without gagging - just eating bite after bite. which tells me this bean dish was better than others, at least in his mind.

so anyway, without further ado, here is the really yummy R&B dish we served tonight. from Cuisine at Home weeknight menus:

Boil:
1 c chicken stock
1 T lime juice
1 t sugar (today I used 3/4 t honey - I did not taste the difference)
1/4 t salt (I used a rounded 1/4 t salt - my homemade broth is salt-free)
1/2 c long grain rice (we only use basmati around here)

when rice is soft (and with basmati, I had to add some water before it was done), add:
1 T unsalted butter (but I used salter - again, the broth thing)
1 can black beans, drained, rinsed, warmed (or one heaping cup of homemade beans)
1/4 c fresh cilantro (I used 2 T dried)
lime juice to taste

well, I also added some water since my beans were cold, and I didn't want to dirty a pan just to warm the beans separately. anyway, this made GREAT tacos!

- Sunshine

chicken boulion substitution

02:41 PM, Thursday, June 5, 2008 .. 0 comments .. Link

okay, most of the time, I do not use boullion cubes. I use homemade turkey stock (made in November from begged-for carcasses) instead of boullion cubes and water. but I have one recipe that calls for 3 cubes and only 1/2 cup pf stock. and I have noticed that every time I make my chicken pot pie, I do not feel so good. Thinking about it, I decided that the only thing in there I do not usually eat is the cubes. and in the cubes? wanna read the ingredients?
salt
sugar
MSG
hydrogenated palm olein
corn starch
onion
chicken fat
chicken meat
garlic
turmeric
disodium inosinate
spices

where is the CHICKEN in that? hello! ingredient #6 - salt, sugar, and MSG are the first THREE ingredients! so two weeks ago I decided it was time to clean out my freezer. I had 2 bags of frozen vegetable peelings, tops, almost bad-in-the-fridge-so-I-put-them-in-the-freezer veggies, so I turned those into 7 quarts of veggie broth. I also had two bags of chicken bones from roastings, chicken innards, bits and pieces, so I turned those into about 8 quarts of chicken stock. I then took that chicken stock and boiled it down. I boiled it and boiled it and boiled it. Eventually I had about a cup of dark brown THICK concentrated paste. My own version of a demi-glace. it tastes yummy. I put it in a half-pint canning jar, and put it in the coldest part of my fridge. it should keep for 6 months or so, according to the various websites. I would put it in the freezer, but it is already so hard, I do not know what would happen if I tried to get any out!

so, back to the pot pie. I made it again last night. I dug 3 t (or so) of demi-glace out of my jar and added it instead of boulion cubes. I also added about 2 large pinches of kosher salt (maybe a teaspoon?) First, can I say, it was a wonderful pot pie. tasty. tasty. and second, I did not get sick-ish last night.
anyway, what I did this week.

dangerous encroachments

08:28 AM, Thursday, June 5, 2008 .. 2 comments .. Link

look what is happening in the great state of New York this week! coming soon to a state near you.

can I just say how much this scares me? no need, I am sure you all feel the same.

-sunshine

tomatoes: inside, outside, upside down

12:56 PM, Saturday, May 17, 2008 .. 3 comments .. Link

I was planning to do my tomatoes in the upside-down bucket manner this year. There is a lady on freecycle who has buckets I can have... the problem seems to be one of co-ordination. The SL freecycle, you just leave your stuff on your porch and whoever you choose for your stuff comes to pick it up. Here, I cannot ask anyone to drive so far away from town (with gas so expensive) just to get a cheap $5 waffle iron, so I mention when I go into Logan and we meet somewhere on main street and pass-off whatever items (it makes me feel kind of furtive and almost illegal to meet a strange car in a parking lot and hand over a package to a stranger....). Well, all is well and good until....
A lady who has something I want also lives so far away from town, but in the OTHER direction. She also brings her stuff into town and drops them there. But we are NEVER in town at the same time.   sigh. so she has a lot of 5-gal buckets I can have and use for tomatoes, but I cannot get them! LOL!!! But anyway, back to the tomatoes....
I am planning this method, just going to go by what I read on the internet, and some people have had great success with it, and some have not. And on Sunday, the Women's group at church passed out a flyer that someone will be teaching upside down tomatoes today. Oh, I was excited - they must have done this before, right? So I want to get all mine done while there. but no buckets. well, I have one from other stuff, so I find a lid for it and off I go with my bucket, 1.5 cu feet of potting soil, and a lovely Roma plant.
Seven sisters were there, and it turns out, no one there had done upside-down tomatoes before, but we all liked the idea, which is why we were there. So we are learning together.
We cut the 2" hole in the bottom and the lid (actually, it is a 2 1/8" hole - her husband couldn't find his 2" oh well....close enough!) put down a coffee filter, and filled with soil. right up to the brim; I watered mine about half way so that the soil would be damp, then added the rest of the soil. put on the lid, tip it upside down.
cut an "X" in the coffee filter, use a narrow garden trowel to dig out a deep hole for my plant, and stuff it in as deep as I could.   I added more soil around it, and some water, and carried it out to the car.
Right now, my plant is on my deck outside my bedroom. It is keeping company with the lemon tree I received for Christmas two years ago, and the lime and the banana tree I received for Mothers day this year.   They all like the warm sunlight of daytime here, but I have to bring them in at nights still. Frost is still very likely. so I will keep my tomato there as well for a while. I have to bring them all in anyway, what is one more plant?
until my dh comes into our bedroom tonight and finds ONE MORE PLANT in our bedroom......

food shortages

02:34 PM, Monday, May 5, 2008 .. 9 comments .. Link

A lot of people are talking about the rice/ grain shortages. I feel a lot of peace about it. At least for my family. See, after we moved into our new house with the huge empty basement, I felt the Holy Spirit prompt me to start buying a years supply of food. I took some extra cash we have every month (we have been blessed with that) and started buying food storage items. I quickly bought a 5-gal (60 lb) of honey from a honey store here, and slowly bought wheat or sugar at Costco.
Last spring, I would guess about a year ago, I walked into my normal grocery store and saw that they were having a "food storage" sale - 6-gal buckets of rice, wheat, oats, etc. So I splurged and bought 9 buckets at $13.99 each. I thought I was doing great, and continued with my allotted amount a month otherwise. Oh, if I had known then, I would have bought MORE at that time, we could afford it, but I already felt like I was going over budget...
Fast forward to today. We have a room downstairs filled with buckets (these are 6-gal and hold various weights, depending on the item):
8 Soft White Wheat
8 hard White Wheat
4 Hard Red Wheat
4 reg oats
3 quick oats
6 basmati rice
2 brown rice
2 black beans
2 white beans
2 white flour
2 popcorn
1 each of:
white sugar
pinto beans
kidney beans
cornmeal (which has SHOT up from $23 to $84 in 2 months)
lentils
bread flour
Gretchka (Kasha/ toasted buckwheat)
raw buckwheat

still on order (with my prices locked in!):
1 bucket spelt
4 buckets egg noodles

and yet I wonder if I have enough! I read these news articles, like those posted by "the Intentional Peasant" and Deanna and fultoncountymama. and I wonder if I have enough to last the coming storm! ai ai ai! fret not, I also have some canned and dried fruits and veggies, but not near what we need. I do have 200 empty canning jars all with the screw-top lids for whatever my garden might give us. I am hoping to do tomatoes and peaches again for sure! I am studying ways to store potatoes and hope to have a bumper crop of those as well! I am getting a split half of grass-fed beef in July (which is a quarter of a cow, splitting the whole half with a SIL and a BIL)
we are taking gun classes this month and next and will start on an arsenal as well as food storage. I think that if you have a supply of food, that gun may well be what keeps your food yours in a crisis. Is that a mercenary way to think? I do not feel so. I would gladly share my food with those who cannot afford to stock up right now, but I think there may well be a lot of angry people who lived for today and their toys and did not plan for the winter ahead, for the coming "seven years of famine" (not that I am saying there will be 7 years, but referencing the experiences of Joseph in Egypt)
I am trying to cook out of our storage. my children do not like beans, but we have them at least once a week anyway. I think maybe we will go to twice a week, actually. We try to have rice once a week, and I am trying bread recipe after bread recipe trying to find a wheat bread dh feels is light enough (and crust soft enough) for sandwiches. so if you have any suggestions, do let me know!

Dh and I are trying to prepare for the coming storm. I, being a student of history, have seen this coming for years. YEARS. I pray daily we have another couple of years before the storm really hits, so we have time to pay off the house and get an alternative source of energy for the well and the freezers.

This summer I am borrowing my mom's dutch oven and going to start experimenting with that method of cooking. something that I can use and do even if we have no power or no propane in our tanks.

well, off to reorganize that storage room, actually - it is packed and hard to get into!

WA-HOOO!!!!! advice needed.

02:01 PM, Wednesday, April 30, 2008 .. 6 comments .. Link

dh has agreed to chickens!

doing the happy dance here! We get to get chickens! hehehe! the kids are excited to have chickens. I am excited to have a grasshopper control and fresh eggs. A brother from our church said he will help us build a coop, so dh is going to talk to him about which plans to use and what we need to purchase.

but here to come my delimna: what chicken should I get?
I want: layers
cold-hardy
not easily spooked or mean (I have small children)

now, looking at this site, I have narrowed to the following:
Americuana
Austraorp
Delaware
Favorelles
Leghorn
New Hampshire
Plymouth Rock
Rhode Island
Sussex

any ideas or help would be appreciated. i think I want to have 8-10 hens and a rooster. should I make sure they are all the same breed, or would crosses in a next generation be okay? I am so excited! I cannot believe it, but, here we go....

garden notes

05:30 PM, Tuesday, April 29, 2008 .. 0 comments .. Link

garden:
have 4 4'x18" SFG raspberry beds ready for starts tomorrow. I will be getting these from a neighbor.
have 3 4'x18" SFG strawberry beds ready for starts tomorrow. from a different neighbor. of course, one already has some plants from last year.
my potato garbage can is ready for that experiment. I axed gashes in the bottom and buried the can 6 inches into the ground. We get some mighty strong winds here and I do not want them being blown over. I filled it with water yesterday to see if it drains effectively. It stood there last night as I was watching it (clay soil) but it was drained and dry this afternoon. I think that should keep it moist enough once I start filling it with soil and straw and potatoes. I am getting two more gabage cans off of freecycle thursday, so I will get those ones ready this weekend. I will plant red, russet and yukon in different cans.
I have 12 squares of peas. some are coming up and some are not. I am worried about these - they should be big by now.
1 SF of beets
1SF of onions
1 SF of spinach
1 SF of romaine (I will plant more next week for a staggered harvest)
and 3 SF of carrots in an extra tall 3'x1' box

I think I will do 4 SF of tomatoes, vertically. My other tomato plants I want to experiment with the upside down in a bucket idea.
Also, 16 SF of corn. the SFG book says that you can do one plant per foot or four. one seems not really worth the effort, but 4 might get kind of crowded. maybe I will do two....
oh, cucumbers... where am I to put those?

12 of melon/pumpkin/cucumber.... gee, these get fewer and fewer each time I think of them! I keep remembering something else that needs to grow vertically up on the north face of my beds....

let the punishment fit the crime, I always say

11:17 AM, Wednesday, April 9, 2008 .. 6 comments .. Link

http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,348171,00.html

and why not? can't give 'em the death penalty (even if we did, it would never be carried out); they cannot live within so many feet of parks, schools, bus stops, churches, etc where children congregate in many cities, so where can they live? they have a hard time finding work.
so, if this would help, I say why not. I like the option there too - drug-induced or physical. let them choose....

yogurt cheese

03:28 PM, Tuesday, April 8, 2008 .. 3 comments .. Link

have you heard of this? I never had, but since my family will only eat the extra thick and creamy custard yoplait. so when I bought a healthier yogurt from a goat dairy, we had a problem: 1) too sour; 2) too runny. the first is fixed by honey, the second? so I rigged up a quart canning jar with cheesecloth folded in three layers. made a yummy treat w/ 1 T honey to 1 c thickened yogurt. and ds6 can eat a batch in a day! I use the whey for smoothies or for the Simple Loaf of Bread posted by Jen Ferris. anyway, a few days later, I heard of yogurt cheese- which you make by draining the whey from yogurt! LOL!
unfortunately, the cheesecloth method means a lot of yogurt is lost between the layers. so I started to look for a better way. I found this. and at the same time I found this yogurt maker. I received both yesterday. I am making my first batch of yogurt, and the yogurt cheese is draining. I read that homemade yogurt is runnier, so it is harder to get thicker cheese. I took a suggestion from a user and placed a coffee filter over the strainer.anyway, I will let you know how they work!

later!

team bettendorf?

09:04 AM, Friday, March 28, 2008 .. 3 comments .. Link

does anyone know how to get to team bettendorf's site?

the links Katie left here are not working for me and I HAVE to find her and ask her a question

freeze goat milk?????

08:55 AM, Thursday, March 27, 2008 .. 3 comments .. Link

all right you goat milkers - can you freeze raw goat milk? and have it turn out okay? I need more in the next week, but I am afraid that if I buy some today, it will be bad by the time we get to drinking it. I would wait, but I live so far away and I can get my brother to pick some up for me tomorrow. But I would need to freeze it I think. or could I just keep it in the REALLY cold part of my fridge?

grease removal in a hurry!

04:56 PM, Sunday, March 23, 2008 .. 3 comments .. Link

I had a great idea this afternoon to remove the fat/grease from my lamb broth so we could have shredded lamb sandwiches. I poured all the liquid into a glass bowl, then put some good cling-wrap (I like the old Costco brand... they do not sell it anymore, but that is okay - I do not use it often!) on the inside of the bowl, touching the broth (or rather the grease on top!) then put some ice cubes on the wrap. the first application removed half the grease in about 5 minutes while I shredded the meat.
then I folded the plastic over on itself, dumped the ice and water into the sink, and folded the trapped grease into the plastic and stuck it in the freezer (I will give it to the dog/cats later)
I am doing a third application, but I could have skipped it, I think - a little bit of fat improves the taste of the broth....

anyway, thought I would share

Buckwheat Crepes

11:49 AM, Monday, March 17, 2008 .. 0 comments .. Link

So ds6 wanted crepes. can I say I HATE making crepes? the recipes I have made before require an hour of the batter "sitting" before you can cook them. and it is a pain to stand over the stove and cook one after another. but dh told him that if he asked me nicely, I would make crepes for lunch today. so Bug asked me very nicely, and dh "encouraged" him (and me) by setting a timer for when I needed to start these. so I rolled my eyes and pulled out my King Arthur Flour Whole Grain cookbook.
and what did I find?
the best crepe recipe EVER!!! So I am going to share.... my ~~notes~~ changes in red

1/2 c spelt flour
1/4 buckwheat flour
2 t sugar
1/8 t salt
3/4 c milk (I used dry milk - mixed with the dry ingredients and water in the wet)
2 T brandy (I don't use alcohol, so I used 1 t vanilla)
2 large eggs
1 T unsalted butter, melted (I used reg. salted... tried to leave out the 1/8 t salt, but it needed more salt, so I added it after I had cooked one crepe)

add dry ingredients to blender and mix thoroughly. seperately mix milk, eggs, vanilla, melted butter, and pour into running blender. mix until smooth. cook as you do crepes.

I doubled the recipe, and got 17-ish crepes (some are thicker than they need to be)

these were great!

ps - my tomato pot (which has 8 seeds hidden in there) suddenly had two TALL - like one inch - seedlings this morning.... I hope they are tomatoes and not a weed. we will see....

A Christ-Centered Easter

09:20 PM, Sunday, March 16, 2008 .. 2 comments .. Link

Gloria, blessedmotherof10, recommended this book last year, and I do have to say THANK YOU! Already my kids are celebrating Easter and enjoying the activities listed, and it has only been one day. Today we talked about Palm Sunday, and what symbolism the palms had for the Jewish people. Then we made palm fronds out of that puffy craft foam-stuff. Dad read the scriptures (Matthew 21:1-11, Mark 11:1-11, Luke 19: 28-44, John 12:12-36) about the Triumphal entry while we glued. the kids loved it, and they have been waving around their palm fronds all day.

in gardening news:
I have some broccoli poking their heads out of their little homes. they are so cute!
I also have a few peas that have sprouted. oh happy days!
no tomatoes yet, but we will see. If these do not sprout, I have time to try the rest of my seeds, and/or buy seedlings in May. Either way - we will have tomatoes come summer!

garden notes

09:46 AM, Wednesday, March 5, 2008 .. 2 comments .. Link

Why didn't anyone warn me last fall that if I want to start some seeds inside before the end of winter, I need to bring some soil inside, at least into the garage. I went out yesterday to get some of my SFG soil mix because I could FINALLY see the dirt - and it was frozen solid! I could barely scrape off enough to call it good. I pulled in the pot for my dog-eaten avocado tree and mixed the soil there with the Mel's Mix I was able to scrape up, and that is what we used today. I need to keep a garden journal so I know what worked and when we did certain things, and what we did, and why it did or did not work.
okay - we planted:
36 pea seeds in (2) egg cartons. we will contrast these peas with those planted in the ground sometime in the next month - whenever we can a) find the garden boxes under the snow and b) dig up enough dirt that said seeds will be able to grow
32 broccoli seeds in 16 toilet paper tube planters. we will cull the seedlings when we know that we have at least one beautiful and hardy plant per tube.
9 Italian Paste tomatoes in 9 tubes (I wanted to do 2 in each of 6 tubes, but as these are leftover seeds from last year, we did not have enough). I want at least 3 of these plants tall and bushy and giving LOTS of paste tomatoes!
8 Rutgers tomatoes in 4 tubes (I want at least 2 of these plants)
8 Bonnie Best tomatoes in a hot chocolate box. When these get big, I will transplant them to separate containers, but for now they can germinate here. oh, I want 2 of these in my garden eventually.
8 cherry tomatoes in the other half of the cardboard hot chocolate box. I had planned on just one of these, as they are such prolific producers, but I recently found a recipe to make sun-dried tomatoes out of cherries, and I liked that idea very much, so I might make it 2 cherry tomato plants, depending on how these seeds do.

now, it might seem like I am over-planting these tomato seeds, but I am nervous about growing tomatoes from seed. no one does it; these seeds are from 2-3 years ago; you have to harden off the plants; the last time we did this, we had no fruits, just a bunch of weak, skinny, sad-looking plants (of course, that was also the year we added manure to the garden, and NOTHING grew, so that might not have been the fault of the seeds, but it may have been a factor, and I am nervous)
Right now, all of these seeds are on the windowsill in the living room, but I think I need to move them to dh's office windowsill - less likelihood of little hands "checking" on the seeds or tipping them over. besides, I think he gets more sunlight, and it is generally warmer in there.

oh and on the apple-gouda stuffed chicken, it was way too onion-y for my family. way. that was all you could taste. maybe if I had sauteed the shallot first, or cut it out all together, but as it is, I will probably not make it again.

a costco heart attack

06:10 AM, Monday, March 3, 2008 .. 4 comments .. Link

We went to Costco on Thursday.   We had our AmEx rebate check to spend - some $300 or so. I planned to do a bit of stocking up (cheese, frozen veggies, butter, batteries).   And, the usual Costco buys (baby wipes, eggs, bread, etc), and some things which we needed for which we had coupons, but would never have thought to buy at Costco (packing tape was $10 for 8 rolls; rawhide gloves). okay, so we bought:

12 D batteries
12 C batteries
72 AA batteries
3 45-lb buckets of hard white wheat (not on my list, but when I saw that Costco still had these for $17.99, I grabbed them. the other place from which I buy wheat just increased their price to $28 for the same buckets. I wanted four to complete my HWW storage, but the 4th - and last - bucket there was not sealed. So I will have to get that at a later date)
8 20-lb bags of basmati rice (which I have sitting in my hallway, but later today will buy some dry ice in town when we go for piano lessons, and will pour the rice into 6-gal buckets for long-time storage)
$70- 75 worth of fresh chicken breast, which has already been processed into:
           5 chicken cordon-bleu (I already have 4 packs in the freezer, so I only made enough for 1 more)
       5 greek chicken     (I already have 3 packs in the freezer, so I only made enough for 1 more)
           5 apple-gouda chicken   (this is a new recipe, so I only made 1 pack- I also changed the cheese from the recipe here)
          12 spinach chicken (this is also a new recipe, so I only planned to make 1 pack- it made a lot more! and I had already cut the recipe to 1/3!)
          20 chicken kiev (a tried and true, and we were out!)
          a lot of breaded homemade chicken fingers
          (now on these stuffed chicken breasts/rolls - I cheat. first, there is NO WAY one person in this house would eat a WHOLE chicken breast stuffed with stuff. I cut off the fat ends of the breasts and cut a pocket with my kitchen scissors. second, I shred my cheese and crumble my bacon or ham, and make an easier-to-stuff-filling that I use to pack the chicken pockets, and use a toothpick to close them up.    I use the skinny end of the breasts for my breaded fingers. I use a yummy rosemary olive oil bread that I get from Costco for the bread crumbs for all of these chicken dishes. I freeze them individually then I pack them 4-6 together in a freezer bag and label for later consumption. voila - instant gourmet meals)

6 4-lb packs of butter - based on past experience, this will last us 6 months. and it seems to me that butter has come down a bit since its high. I sometimes see it cheaper at teh grocery store, but I like the flavor of the Costco brand, and the store brands (which are usually on sale) are not as good.
frozen veggies (2 peas, 1 broccoli)
frozen smoothie fruits (1 strawberry, 1 mixed berry)
4 4-packs of applesauce (they are family-sized; the only kind dh will eat - doesn't even like the homemade!)
3 packs of wipies (I buy for my friend who has a Sam's card instead - Costco wipes are the BEST!)
lots of cheese - we like the extra extra sharp cheddar, and costco has this yummy white cheddar from the coast of England that we use for snacking; also a bag of mexican cheese blend that we use for scrambled eggs. I wanted a pizza cheese blend, but they didn't have any this time.

what else? I do not know off the top of my head, but the total came to $500 or so. I was unsurprised. I had wanted to come in under my rebate check, but the wheat and the rice were just too tempting. how is that - I get tempted while shopping to buy FOOD STORAGE! ah well, there are worse things to go crazy over.   so anyway, the total was about what I expected, but dh about croaked (he doesn't shop at Costco with me often). He grabbed the receipt to check the math, and when he was done, he disappeared the receipt. It is not in the car, in his pockets, his wallet, nor in any of my pockets, purse, etc. it is just gone.

oh, and I had my dad pick up some food storage for me from blue chip group that I had ordered and forgot to pick up (long story).   So anyway, I got that this weekend from him while we were in SLC. It was 5 6-gal buckets: 1 white sugar (50#), 1 small white beans (43#), 3 white flour (40#). I had wanted unbleached, but it was the bleached. AGGHHHH! oh well. too late now, and I am not that much of a fruitcake over that.   I think that is all the flour I want in storage, so we will just have to use that before we buy more.

ATTN: yogurt makers

11:37 AM, Wednesday, February 20, 2008 .. 8 comments .. Link

my family needs to make the transition from yoplait-thick custard (with lots of corn syrup) to a healthier yogurt. eventually, I want to be making my own, but for now, I am buying from a goat dairy nearby. I have strained it through cheesecloth, using the whey for smoothies, and the thicker creamy stuff I want available for them to eat like they do the yoplait stuff. but is has that tangy yogurt taste, and I need to cover that.
so my question: how do you sweeten your homemade yogurts (or do you?)
do you add fresh fruits or jams or honey or other yummy things to convince your children to eat it?

thanks!

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ATTN: yogurt makers

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