Playing along with Ginny of Small Things.

Shh.  Don’t tell Ben, but the elves are making him some of Elizabeth Zimmerman’s mitered mittens, in Barberic Farm yarn to match his warmest winter hat from last year (this yarn is hard to capture in a photo, so you’ll have to take my word for it – it’s pearly and luminescent).  And I’m very privleged to be reading the excellent Kingdom of Childhood with two other Waldorf mamas.

Hello everyone, here are two of the past week’s menus at our house, and I didn’t forget my promise for a nourishing vegetarian soup – Potato Leek is here to rock your tastebuds and soul.

Monday:  “Pasta” Cheesy Emmer, Roasted Cauliflower & Beets, Pan-fried Hamsteak

Tuesday: Soup with Meat Split Pea Soup with carrots, onion, and ham (leftover from Monday)

Wednesday: Leftovers

Thursday: Casserole Black Bean Tostadas and Pumpkin-Pecan Muffins (both recipes from Feeding the Whole Family, but I made the tostadas by hand – thick and lumpy, but delicious!  And the pumpkin-pecan muffins were awesome.)

Friday: Shabbat Roasted Chicken Breast with simple sauce (from Julia Child), Apple-Walnut Kale (from Feeding the Whole Family, this was sooo good), and a loaf of local bread

Saturday: Soup Three Sisters Stew (from Feeding the Whole Family, it was wonderful to have this waiting in our crockpot at the end of a long day of CSA distributions)

Sunday: Homemade Pizza with Veggies

Monday:  “Pasta” Rye Berries with Pumpkin Sauce (sauce recipe from Eat, Taste, Heal) and Braised Country Ribs with saurkraut

Tuesday: Soup with Meat Roasted Carrot-Tomato Soup (meatless this week, also I roast the carrots as well as the tomatoes)

Wednesday: Leftovers

Thursday: Casserole Tamale Pie (Beans and Veggies topped with cornbread, basically), and apple-carrot cake, for Martinmas

Friday: Shabbat Pot Roast with Root Veggies, Potato Gratin, and Braised Collard Greens

Saturday: Soup Butternut Squash Soup

Sunday: Homemade Pizza with Veggies

And now . . . potato leek soup.  If you serve this chilled, it’s vichyssoise.  This soup is a favorite in our home – super simple, basic, nourishing, delicious.  If you want, you could use chicken stock instead of water, but it certainly does not need it.  The most important part is to use equal parts leeks to potatoes – the leeks are what give this soup its supple silken texture, and a lot of healthy goodness, as well.  This is a good soup for those recovering from illness (omit the cream for anyone who is sick).

Potato-Leek Soup

2 cups chopped potatoes (scrub them well and leave those delscious skins on!)

4 tablespoons butter

6 leeks, cleaned and cut into 1 inch pieces (or as many as you need to equal about 2 cups)

3 cups water (or chicken stock if desired)

1 1/2 to 2 cups sour cream or heavy cream (optional – this soup is amazing with cream, but it doesn’t need it.)

Some days, I do not get to start my morning on my mat.

Some days we seem to wake up attached to our difficulties.

Some days feel like walking up a steep hill, sliding on thousands of tiny pebbles.

Some days, thousands of pounds of grain appear and get loaded into your horse stall, ready to be distributed to CSA members tomorrow, and you walk outside to greet your farmers, then realize you have paint smeared all over your face.

Some days, you give in and give yourself and your child a nap.  Some days, your daughter, the one who has spent the morning wicked crabby, wakes up and says, Mommy, I really really like you.

Some days go on and on, but somehow dinner gets made, and the table gets set, and everyone does sit down together.  Candles are lit, a blessing is said, and we are, indeed, blessed.

Blessing on your weekend, friends.  For those of you who are members, we’ll see you tomorrow, and joyfully give you the first half of your shares!

Today, I’m joining Ginny of Small Things, who had the fabulous idea to photo our current knitting and our current reading – so here we are!

Knitting some Elf Slippers for Ella for Martinmas (one is already finished – hooray!) with lovely bright red yarn from our sweet neighbor at Red Hen Farm, and I just got out from the library Eat Taste Heal.

Welcome, November!

Ben the scarecrow

First, a quick glimpse back at Halloween – we threw a party with a bunch of friends who also have little ones (ages 5 and under), and had a blast!  I’ve been dreading Halloween all year – the corn syrup junk candy, the gory terrifying masks and costumes.  Not toddler friendly.  Not even close, in my opinion.  I was hoping to pretend it wasn’t happening for one more year.  But, as I said the other day, when someone explained all about Halloween to Ella a few weeks ago, I jumped on it, and voila, we were going to throw the best Halloween bash ever.  I think we did pretty well!

Everyone came in costumes, there were plenty of homemade treats to be had (eating pumpkin doughnuts off a string with no hands, anyone?).  We played pin the face on the jack-o-lantern, pumpkin bowling with butternut squash as the bowling pins, and had a merry time (unfortunately, my camera ran out of space – wish I had more pics to show you!).  Our living room was full of talking, laughing adults and children.  Now that’s a holiday I can get down with.  So next year, we’ll definitely do it again!

Oh yes, and I became obsessed with putting together this table runner – Ella helped me glue the patches onto the pumpkins, and then I quilted them and appliqued them onto some muslin, finishing just in time to have it on the table for the party, where it promptly disappeared under all the yummy food!  Still, it was fun to make, and a great way to use up some scraps!  I still need to put in batting and quilt it, for next year.

On to November.  This month, I’m joining Lisa and Elizabeth‘s wonderful Piece Together Peace Project.  “How can you be peace today? What is the one thing that you can do differently to bring more peace into the world?” I firmly believe, like Lisa and Elizabeth, that peace begins in our selves – our hearts, our words, our homes.

It is so very easy to try to change other’s actions, to try to make them better.  It is much harder to look at ourselves, and how we can change.  For November, I’m going to continue with an intention I’ve been working on for some months now – working on myself, and letting go of working on other people.  As much as we like to think we can make other people change their behavior, it’s much more effective to change our own.  This applies to spouses, children, co-workers, community members.  We can make our communication more clear, we can work on our patience, we can work on setting loving but firm boundaries when we need to (instead of letting something go too far, then freaking out), we can make time in our lives to find space and peace through some sort of spiritual practice, so that we build up a reservoir of peace to draw upon when we need it. This is a gift I work to give myself, my family, my community.

Often it seems easier to be grumpy, to let a negative interaction linger on and on, and it can indeed be hard work to turn towards the positive, but not as hard as repairing the damage we cause by adding more negativity.  This is especially true, as I have been learning, with small children, who mirror our emotions so closely, and really absorb our beings.  For further inspiration, the wonderful Carrie has a fantastic old post that continues to inspire me about being the Queen of your home, and holding the space.

Please join us, and set your own intention, however large or small, to begin creating a world of peace, today, right here.

Here we go.  Thanks for your patience – I made stock last week, but then some of our family got sick and drank it all up!  Plus, we’ve been busily getting ready for Halloween (someone explained all about trick or treating to my three year old – whoops – so we’re holding a non-corn syrup, non-terrifying party here at the house.  An excellent exercise in embracing what you don’t like).  But here we are now!

This is very, very simple.  You’ll do great.  I made chicken stock for many years and was frustrated with the results, and now my attitude is more like, Throw some stuff in the pan and check it at the end of the day.  The most important things I’ve learned are these:

1.  Use a good chicken carcass. If you made a lovely roasted local, free-range chicken, you’re ready to go.  If you have chicken feet, giblets, and neck to add, so much the better.

2.  Don’t try to make a gallon of stock out of one little carcass (or a pound or two of bones, if you’re buying them as bones).  This is crucial!  Also, I think this is where most recipes go wrong – they call for you to add way too much water, which gets you watery, chicken-scented broth.  We want stock, also called bone broth.  Hearty, nourishing, gelatinous stock.

Ingredients:

1 chicken carcass (or about 2 pounds chicken bones), plus any drippings from your roasting pan

3-6 carrots, depending on their size

2-4 onions, depending on their size

2-4 celery stalks (or a handful of celery leaves), depending on their size

2-4 leek tops, if you have them

1 bay leaf

2 sprigs dried thyme (or 1/2 tsp dried thyme)

A quick note on this ingredient list: this is not set in stone.  The most important thing is that you have your chicken bones and some of the above veggies.  Use what you have.  I often don’t have celery, so I make it without.  When I cook with leeks, I cut off their tops and pop them into the freezer to save them for stock, but if I don’t have any, no big deal.   Also, you can scale this recipe up very easily.  If you want, save chicken bones in the freezer as you get them, then make a huge batch.  Chicken stock does not have to be perfect to be amazing.

* Place your carcass in a small stock pot (it should fill most of the pot – mine shown here is a 3 quart. )

* Scrub your carrots, cut off their tops, and cut them in half if they’re huge.  Add to pot.

* Cut off the tops and bottoms of your onions, cut in half, and peel off the skin.  Some people add the skin to the stock – I don’t recommend this, as it can add bitterness.  Add onions to the pot.

*  Rinse celery well (careful of grit), chop if needed, and add to pot.  Add leek tops if you have them.  Add herbs.

* Now, fill your pot most of the way with water (leave some room at the top so it doesn’t bubble all over your stove when it begins to simmer).  If you have to use a larger pot, please just fill it with water to cover your chicken by about an inch, don’t fill it all the way up.

* Bring to a simmer, and simmer gently, uncovered, for at least 3 hours, or as long as you can stand it.  Do this on a day you’ll be home most of the day  -start it in the morning, and let it go on and on.

* The stock should turn a lovely deep tan color, and will reduce in volume.   When refrigerated, it should thicken up and turn gelatinous (like Jell-o).  This gelatinous quality means that you have extracted the goodness from the bones - this is health, and you want to make sure you get all you can!  If you’re not sure if your stock is done, cool it, put the whole pot into your fridge over night, then check it in the morning.  Does it jiggle like Jello?  If not, put it back on to simmer more.  If it jiggles, congratulations!  Let it warm up and then strain through a colander or sieve, and discard the bones and veggies (feed the veggies to your dogs, they’ll love you!).  You can strain it through cheesecloth if desired, to get out any small particles – I personally don’t bother with this.

* Now you have endless possibilities!  To help sick ones get well, serve this broth hot in a tea mug, with some salt to taste, and lemon juice if desired. You can add chopped carrots, onions, and celery, cooked whole grains, and chicken meat for chicken soup, or use this to cook grains or rice or as a base for any soup.

If you don’t need to use it right away, store this treasure in your freezer so it will be waiting when you need it!  (Seriously, this is like gold when you’re sick – nothing worse than trying to make chicken stock while you’re sick.)  Freeze it in mason jars (leave about an inch of air so it can expand as it freezes), or you can freeze it in an ice cube tray, pop out the cubes, and put them into a bag or jar in the freezer.  If you’re low on freezer space, you can always simmer your stock longer, reducing it further, then use the ice cube freezing technique – just remember to add water when you use it, since it will be very very strong!

And there you have it!  May this fill your home and your soul with amazing smells and flavors and health.  As always, please feel free to ask if you have any questions.  Blessings on your weekend, and your kitchen!

we took a drive to Warwick, to get milk from Chase Hill Farm, who supplies so much delicious cheese for our sandwiches at Wheatberry.  It couldn’t be a more beautiful time to drive up into the hills, through trees that continue to be ablaze with color.

Did I say we got “some” milk?  I meant we got a lot of milk.  Six gallons.  For drinking, for cheesemaking, for warm milk and honey.  When you don’t get it often, it’s a little hard to restrain yourself.  Ahem.

Chase Hill Farm was beautiful, of course, and we got to say hello to their sweet draft horses and the cows who make all that beautiful milk (and cream!).  Ella got all dressed up for the ride (this photo’s for you, Mom – note the bag you sent, and of course the quilted vest).

As we were getting into the car, Ben took a photo of me, and I think I squealed something like, “Oh yes, you have to take a picture of my hat!  Closer!” Lovely man that he is, he obliged me.  I made this  Foliage hat this summer, and forgot to show you.  It’s the last of a skein from my Foxfiber Farm sheep share last year – so very yummy.

It came out a teeny bit too big, but I’m hoping that if I block it, it will be perfect.  Let’s just say that’s true, ok?  I literally had just enough yarn to bind off and weave in a little tail – what luck!  This was a great pattern for learning to use a lace chart, by the way.  Really fun and quick to knit.

Saturday.  We started the day with busy, happy customers at the bakery.  A birthday package from my other was waiting for me.  Wild mushrooms were waiting at the farmers market, dahlias, and lots of cheese.  Ella had to have a stalk of brussels sprouts.

We came home, we rested, we had sauteed vegetables for lunch, and then Ella wanted to go out and play, but we convinced her to stay home and rest.  And it actually worked!  We rested.  We filled the oven with roasting squash and pumpkins, and toasted the seeds in a cast iron pan on top of the woodstove.  I straightened up in my sewing room.  Ella sang to herself, “We have to tidy up so that we can dance,” over and over while cleaning up her “picnic” and blocks.  Then we put on some music, put her hair up (as requested) into a bun and two pigtails, and she danced for an hour.  (She got hot, and off came her dress.)

We ate squash soup, cornbread, and brussels sprouts for dinner, and I knitted while Ella took a bath.  She couldn’t sleep just yet, so we came back down by the fire and sat in the big green chair.  “Sing with me,” she said, and she made up a loud, incredible song about the blue ocean and other colors of the world while I tried my best to sing along.  We laughed a lot.  It was perfect.

This past week, when Ella wasn’t deep in some sort of developmental craziness, we talked about sheep and wool.  We made some felted rocks for our nephews’ first birthdays, and we did this sheep, which I’m totally in love with.  I just drew an outline on paper, gave her some fleece and glue, and she did the rest.

Sometimes, it seems that everyone in blogland has the same idea at the same time.  I’ve seen several posts about books lately, and I had been thinking of one for weeks myself.  So here we go!

Some for littles:

(Quick note – I am very picky about books for Ella at this age.  So many picture books are actually written for the adults, not the children, and are either too scary, or model totally inappropriate behavior.  Sarah just talked about this, too.)

Farmer Brown Shears His Sheep by Teri Sloat  (seriously, can you see the naked sheep tushie in this photo?  This book is hilarious and sweet.)

When the Sun Rose and Grandfather Twilight by Barbara Berger

The Apple Pip Princess by Jane Ray (love, love, love this story – an ordinary princess restores the gardens of her kingdom!)

Mouse Cleaning by Rose-Marie Provencher

Red Berry Wool by Robyn Eversole

Digby and Kate by Barbara Baker (yes, this is an “easy read” book, but no, I’m not teaching Ella to read with it, it’s just a very sweet simple set of stories)

And some for the big people:

Sink Reflections by Martha Cilley (yes, the Flylady - this book is amazing!!)

The Naturally Clean Home by  Karyn Siegel-Mayer (a really neat book for using essential oils and herbs for cleaning)

Kingdom of Childhood by Rudolf Steiner

Doodlestitching by Aimee Ray

The Petit Appetit Cookbook by Lisa Barnes

Herbal Recipes for Vibrant Health by Rosemary Gladstar

Have a great weekend, everyone.  I’m grateful for my sweet girl, great books, good work together, and good food, as always.  Plus, getting to share it with you.