feeding our families - march

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Hello again to all of our "feeding our families" friends. How fun and exciting it has been to be sharing with everyone through these first months of the year. Even if the kitchen and pantry are feeling less than thrilling at the moment. It is still winter here though, and probably that, plus garden yearning, really add to kitchen blahs? What a time to start up this project!

I am afraid I am only going to talk about cabbage. Raw, sautéed, fermented. It really is a very handy winter vegetable. And everyone here loves it. So yay. But I will try not to subject you to too much more cabbage-ness.

But a favorite recent lunch was sautéed onions and cabbage on toast. I think any vegetable simply sautéed and served over toast makes a good lunch.
Oh, and my girls really love onion too. If I am chopping onion for a meal then they will came and take big chunks off the plate for raw snacking.

I would like to start making more varieties of lacto fermented vegetables besides the usual sauerkraut. I do not use a culture for our cabbage/sauerkraut, just whey and sea salt, or no whey and extra sea salt. Anyone else having success fermenting other vegetables, with or without a special culture?

I would also like to start doing some soaked grain baked goods. Perhaps the buttermilk biscuit recipe in Nourishing Traditions would be a good place to start. Baby Elsa has not had any grains yet and I would prefer them to be soaked to begin with.

A couple questions answered from last time…

What do we do with our cultured cream? Well, the main reason I like to have it on hand is to add some cultured probiotic goodness to our meals. I will stir it into soups or stews just before serving, or drizzle it on top of a bowl of beans. Really good with any dishes were you might use sour cream. Very similar to sour cream, just not as thick, a little less sour. Also called creme fraiche. Also good on fruit. Served on biscuits with honey. Good for baby while we are waiting for our raw milk share to begin again, as I would prefer for her to have only raw or cultured dairy.

How do we make our rye porridge? Coarsely ground, soaked overnight if I remember, cooked in three times as much water on stove top, stirring very frequently as it has a tendency to stick and burn if you're not careful. We do the same thing with other grains, barley being another favorite. We used to do a "grain of the day" (Waldorf) porridge rotation throughout the week, which is useful for menu simplifying, plus if someone isn't so fond of one grain then at least it's not coming back around for another week.

Peanut Butter Cookie Recipe

My recipes of course have to come with notes and rambling…
These cookies are very rich. You can make them with other nut butters (maybe seeds too? sunflower? sesame tahini cookies?) but I warn you that then they become even more rich. Peanut is my favorite, followed by walnut (in photo) which I made recently when we were out of peanut butter. (Used hand blender to make walnut butter in a jar, worked well.) I want to try them with pecans soon.

You can make them less rich by substituting 1/4 cup of sugar for 1/4 cup of the maple syrup. But then they have sugar. We use organic sugar.

We use all organic ingredients. Always. Because we are very afraid of gmo foods.

For fats/oils in baking we use coconut oil or butter. We do not use the extra virgin super coconut flavored oil because some people here do not like coconut, and also it will change the taste of these cookies, which is fine if you like the coconut flavor, but we use the milder version, expeller pressed and organic. And organic butter, because dairy, yikes, add 100 other concerns besides gmo's to the list of reasons why we won't eat conventional dairy products.

Also I have made these with kamut flour.

Now we shall try to get on with the recipe...

1 ½ cups brown rice flour
1 cup peanut butter (or other nut butter) (ours is fresh ground peanuts. do not use one with sugar added)
½ cup coconut oil or softened butter (or melted and slightly cooled butter)
½ cup maple syrup (careful it is not so cold that it hardens your oil/butter, but I never go so far as to actually warm it)
¼ teaspoon salt

Oven at 350 degrees (F)

In a medium bowl add peanut butter, coconut oil or butter, maple syrup, and salt. Mix well. Add flour. Mix well again. The dough will be fairly wet. In general it is very forgiving. I rarely even measure the ingredients exactly, but then again I have been baking these for about 15 years.

Place tablespoon size balls (I use an actual tablespoon measuring spoon to scoop up the dough) on cookie sheet with an inch or so between them. They will not spread too much. Then make the cute little criss cross peanut butter cookie prints with a fork. If dough is too sticky then dip your fork in cold water  occasionally while making the marks, no more stickiness…

Bake for 10 minutes. Let cookies cool on tray for a bit before trying to move as they will be delicate while still hot. Makes about 2 dozen-ish.

And remember, I told you that these are very, very rich.
(Which is why I am leaving out the adding chocolate chips option. Jason likes them that way but it is too much for me.) (Also because I am not fond of chocolate.) (Yes, I know that is crazy.) (But also, when well cooled, and for a very special occasion, you could dip the cookies halfway in melted chocolate!)


Okay, recipe done now, in case you were wondering.

Those delicious peach tarts were made by the girls. Chloe sometimes gets consumed by the desire to bake a surprise something. I was not allowed into the kitchen at all.

And finally, after saying for more than 10 years that he wanted them, Jason made onion rings. Wow, they were really, really good!

So what is going on in your kitchen lately?
It has been suggested that maybe we can do one of those linky things (like for ginny's yarn-along) so that more of you can join us in the sharing. I will look into that, but for now if you would like to then please feel free to leave a link in the comments to one of your recent food posts.

I'm so late with my post this month that perhaps you have already visited everyone else…

Melanie from Our Ash Grove

Jules from A Little Crafty Nest

Melody from Bespoke

Sarah from Our Island Home

Tonya from Joyful Living

Taisa from Small Wonders

Heather from Shivaya Naturals

Thanks again to my inspiring mama friends!!!

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soon… feeding our families...

Hello all… I am very much looking forward to this months "feeding our families" series with my lovely group of mama friends, but it will probably be a day or so before I get my post done. Not that it is anything spectacular, I am just lacking time for the computer lately (always? lacking motivation to be at computer? always.) 

I will share a really yummy cookie recipe with you when I return. It is even vegan, gluten-free, sugar free, etc… You can consider it a kind of apology to all my gluten-free friends for all the yeasted wheat bread I post about.

Previous "feeding our families" posts with links to participating friends are here…

And beginning this month we will have Heather here as well, which makes me very happy, and will surely be very beautiful and delicious… (I may even read her post before I finish mine, which goes against the rule I made up for myself about finishing my post before visiting everyone else...)

Wishing you a happy day! I'll be back soon…

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bits of makings...

I told you she loved her little book! Loved to pieces, it has now been taped and glued back together, will hopefully stand up to more kisses and cuddles.

Do you know Piecework magazine? It is a love of mine. I first came across it at a california bookstore when I was in my early twenties (age determined by the date of my first issues which are from 1996) I carried around my few precious copies for years and years, somehow never thinking to see if the magazine continued publishing more wonderful issues. Then a few years ago I happened upon such an exciting find, a whole stack of free back issues!! Since then more old copies have been collected (I think most back issues are now archived digitally and only available that way, which I have no interest in, so I seek out used print copies…)

Handwork and history, old photographs, inspired projects. The Ellis Island issue in the photo is Chloe's favorite. Perhaps I can show peeks of the magazine over time, there is so so much to love…

Oh, and another special thing is my current knitting project, a cardigan for myself. Crocus, but plain, no stripes, long sleeves, buttons all the way down the front. I am maybe 2 inches below the arm dividing. I have no idea if this sweater will be finished spring, summer, autumn? No matter when, the weather around here is almost always suitable for cardigan wearing. The cardigan I have been dreaming of knitting forever... (probably since around the same time as my piecework magazine discovery, california thrift shops, a hooded orange cardigan, with pockets, it was so perfect, and very likely the time when the seeds of knitting dreams where planted in my mind…)

(I just did a quick search and see that I have mentioned that thrifted orange sweater before, and it didn't have a hood, I just wished it did.) (Only one out 4 cardigans that I have knitted ended up with a hood…)


Other bits of making…

Fun sewing for my swap match (joined Amanda)…

And!!! Tiny cabin making!!! (Or starting at least…)


There is no need to apologize for posting excessive amounts of baby pictures on ones own blog, is there? I hope not…


~ Joining friends Nicole and Ginny ~


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moments from midwinter weeks...

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Wide open doors in the middle of February. There was one recent week were it snowed for days in a row, yet melted so quickly that it never left more than a few inches on the ground. Only thin patches of crusty white in the shadiest places. Yesterday was nearly 60 degrees!

We had ourselves a little craft project for valentines day. Did you know that I am not at all crafty? Nope. Just handwork-y. My instincts always have me putting all paper into recycling. If it wasn't for Melanie  I probably would have never given my girls such freedom with paper and scissors during their childhood (thank you Mel) (but oh, all those scraps!)
But I sure did feel clever for this crafty little idea of mine. I do realize that cutting out hearts is nothing original, but I like our seed catalog take on it…


I love this second photo, our adorable little Elsie. I have no idea when the photo was taken or what was going on. (Please just ignore the dirty corner with the dog water bowl and cinnamon (don't ask) sprinkled all over the wall.) She seems to be enjoying herself though.

She also enjoys pulling the blankets up and tuck herself in under the covers. Unless it is actually really bedtime, then half asleep she adamantly kicks them all off.


And now we are weaving. Somehow weaving is something we have never gotten around too (I wove a few small pouches many years ago before having children, but not since then…)
Especially in the autumns I always think we will perhaps begin with some weaving (there are lots of nice mother earth weaving autumn type nature stories) but never has it happened.
And sometimes I have felt bad about that (hmm, not something worth worrying over though) and wondered why.
But now I know why…
Because my 13 year old daughter needed a new handwork activity to inspire her.
She has been stitching with needle and thread since she was kindergarden age, knitting since 1st grade, recently she has been sewing her own clothes on the sewing machine. But she is not always "in the mood" to do those things lately. Often she is, but sometimes she is seeking something different. And so now we have weaving. Hooray. And I feel just right about having waited all these years…


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just because...

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Reminiscing - February 2011 - Originally posted here… And it seems the same winter scenario applies...


February is here! We have made it halfway through winter! And while it is dumping snow on just about every part of this country, here we are in our Colorado mountains, at 7000-8000 feet, and we have just had only our second real storm of the winter. If you can even call it a storm, barely more than a few inches of snow, when in other years it would not be unusual for us to have at least several feet of snow by now, if not much more.

It leaves me feeling a bit confused, almost like it's no season in particular. However, it is super super freezing quite often, so I guess there is really no doubting it is still winter.

Other days though it's warm enough to go out and pretend that spring might be on it's way soon.

The girls are always up for outdoor adventures, no matter what the season.

This day they set out on a picnic...

Seeking just the right spot, which was beyond the snow on a sunny stone wall...

Waving good-bye to daddy.

Whispering sister secrets?

Smile for mama.

They said they were going to stay outside the whole entire day. But after about 10 minutes they came in. They said they missed me too much and wanted to come be with me :)


This was another day. They were traveling to Wisconsin. On foot, because they don't have a wagon.

They are Caroline and Charles Ingalls.

See Pa's suspenders? He (she) finger-knitted them all by him(her)self.


And now we begin the new month. I guess I don't really have a Brigid or Candlemas post this year. We did have a nice day, perhaps most memorable part being the wonderful Brigid stories we shared together. (Here is my Candlemas post from last year, you see we do so love Brigid...)

I always look forward to these special days in February, we sure can all use some extra joy and fun to help get us through the last long stretch of winter. (I pretend that it won't be too long...)

Hope everyone in the snowy lands finds time to enjoy some nice coziness!


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feeding our families - february

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So yes, I thought it would be nice to have these monthly conversations about food. I could talk about food forever (as long as I took breaks to talk about sewing, knitting and books once in a while…) (gardening talk would count as food talk…) Apparently though I am not much good at writing about food.


I thought I might keep some food and kitchen notes throughout the month in preparation for this next "feeding our families" post, but all I ended up with was this…

monday kitchen 1-13
made granola in the morning, beans soaking and then cooking in the crockpot, cream culturing on the counter
dinner - leftover elk stew (simple and delicious, baked low in oven) served over mashed potatoes

thursday kitchen 1-30
next batch of cultured cream into the fridge
must bake bread this morning
looking for a pumpkin pancake recipe - discovered we have lots of pumpkin and eggs at the moment
broccoli soup?
wondering if jason took the elk steaks out of the freezer last night, will check soon

enjoying the jar of apple butter that we opened this week (also from freezer) - so so delicious, yummier than I remembered it being when we made it - this must have something to do with the fact that it is autumns goodness spooned onto fresh baked biscuits in the middle of winter…

Yes, I make cultured cream often these days. No, we do not always have venison for dinner.


Back to today…

I read my food post from last month and noticed I said we don't eat rice very often. But now we just ate rice and beans three nights in a row! I made a huge batch of Anasazi beans in the crockpot the other day. Two quart jars full went into the freezer. For the first night I made some spanish rice and we served the beans over it with spinach and corn. The second night it was the same ingredients layered in a dish with cheese and baked in the oven. Last night the last of the casserole was served with roasted sweet potatoes. You can imagine how happy my family is that the rest of the beans were put away in the freezer. I think the leftover rice is bound for the freezer too.

I never made the pumpkin pancakes. They sounded too sweet. We even skipped our usual "pancake sunday" because no one seemed in the mood for them. I did make pumpkin muffins though and they were super yummy. Still a little too sweet and I will do less sugar next time, maybe just a mix of molasses and maple syrup.

I am just about at a loss as to what to feed my thirteen year old daughter, who hardly wants to eat a thing these days. I mean, she does want to eat, she is hungry, but there is not a single thing that "sounds good", or sometimes something even sounds particularly unbearable. Kind of like how Chessa can now be nearly in tears at the though of having to swallow another bite of yet another bowl of oatmeal. (At least it took her five years or so to get tired of morning oats…) (And Chloe still likes oatmeal well enough, but now only sometimes…)
It seems like one answer to this issue would be to just take/keep matters in my own hands and serve up a good meal for her, hope she will eat it, which she likely will, cause she always does, this is how dinner is, but throughout the day…
I need to get better at lunches...

Today is quinoa porridge for breakfast. Much preferred over oatmeal lately. I love quinoa, but not sweet with honey how the girls like it. Rye is one of my favorite porridges…


Menu planning… I only menu plan about half the time! Just saying that makes me wonder how following a plan only half the time could possibly be a good idea. Hmmm. I do always have meals planned ahead of time, I just don't necessarily always know which night of the week we will have which meal…
More thoughts on all that later though...


I have considered sharing some of our bread recipes here before - one of the main things that stops me is that we live at about 7,000 feet, and altitude definitely affects some aspects of baking…

So how about a few little bread baking tips for now…

1. Bake bread - if you haven't but want to, then just go for it. You can definitely do it. Probably! For example, my mother may not be able to bake bread ;)

2. Use really really hot water when proofing your yeast. The only times I have had bread not work out well was when I didn't have the water/liquid hot enough. I use super hot water from the tap, as hot as it gets. The only time I have had my liquid too hot was once when heating milk, I killed the yeast.

3. Butter and honey!!! This is a more recent discovery of mine. For more than 10 years I baked our bread with only flour, yeast, sugar, and water. But adding fat and honey makes such a difference! The honey is just a few tablespoons in place of the organic sugar used when mixing the yeast. Then I cut thin slices of butter and let them melt in the hot yeast water. The bread is more moist, slices easier, and keep longer. And it's more delicious!

4. Knead well, for at least 10 minutes, and then an extra 5 if you can. You can feel the difference when you get to that 10-15 minute point.

5. If you are rushed and anxious for fresh bread you can shape your loaves and do a single rise. The bread will not rise as much or be as light as bread made with two proper risings, but it will still be very good.

6. If your oven should ever happen to suddenly break while you have bread dough risen and ready to bake (which I really hope it does not) then you can roll all your dough out into flat breads and bake them in a skillet on top of the stove. So you see, a broken oven can be a blessing in disguise, otherwise we would have never discovered how delicious yeasted flatbread can be! You could also try this out without the broken oven part happening first...

7. Consider setting an extra ball of dough aside for other uses… pizza, calzones, cinnamon rolls! I have finally caught on to the convenience of homemade pizza night…


And that's certainly enough food rambling for now…

Please feel free to share any food thoughts you may have…

and please visit my dear friends who were kind enough to take up this little project with me… A few new friends joining this month… Thanks to all who are participating!

Melanie from Our Ash Grove

Jules from A Little Crafty Nest

Melody from Bespoke

Sarah from Our Island Home

Tonya from Joyful Living

Taisa from Small Wonders

Lisa from Hullabaloo Homestead

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