Humble Homemaker

I have a question for all you granola munchers out there.

I used to make yogurt a lot, a tradition which fell by the wayside as soon as I realized that I was expecting my third child. I'm ready to pick it up again, happily, but I have a question about the process that the Internet seems at a loss to answer for me.

In every set of directions I find, they recommend heating the milk to 180 degrees and then cooling the milk to 110 degrees to add the starter. I understand why you would want the temp at a certain point for the starter, but why would one heat the milk to 180 to begin with? If I am using store bought milk I wouldn't need to pasteurize it, so what is the point? I don't get it.

If any of you know why I would need to do this, can you please enlighten me? I would love to know!

So Crafty and Then Some

For years now I've been wanting to make Christmas stockings for the kids. I waited until I knew we were done having babies. I wanted to make them a coordinating set and I didn't want baby #4 or 5 to get the Odd-Man Out stocking because I lost the pattern or I couldn't get the same yarn. This is the year for stockings, though. I cast on October 1 in order to give myself plenty of time, but it got done a lot faster than I had anticipated.

Lo! A Stocking!


That's Bartlettyarn in the 2-ply. Colors are Cranberry and something else. The neutral color is Light Sheep Grey. The red is much deeper in person. More like a, uh, cranberry. I suppose I could take a better picture, but it's pretty cold outside. The pattern is Holly from Annie's Woolens. The website says it is a traditional Scandinavian pattern. We do like to get the Swede on around the holidays. Pickled herring. . . yummm.

I've also been pretty busy with the jelly making. Rachel and I got together over the weekend and made a bunch of grape jelly from some of my dad's grapes. The grapes are pretty hit-or-miss, but this was a very good year for the juice.

Last night I did a little experiment. Rosehip Jelly. From my parents' rose hips. I think I'll plant some roses next spring that will give good rose hips. There seems to be some wild controversy on the internet as to the best time to pick the rose hips. I think my dad picked them after a light frost. I got just under three pints from two quarts of rose hips. I can't wait to try it. However, I have a quart of grape jelly in the fridge that didn't get canned, so I think we should eat that before opening anything new. Does anyone have a good recipe that calls for a cup or two of grape jelly?


Yummmm. Sugar.

My Back, In Pieces

Oh, my Lord, but my back is aching.

It's that time of year again when the most routine of chores get ignored. Laundry piles us, bathrooms go unwashed (to some extent), meals are neglected and floors uncleaned. Canning season.

So far I've put up, let me see, 28 + 14 + 7= about 49 million quarts of tomatoes. There has been a batch of beets and green beans and a batch of sauerkraut Rachel made. She's making more because there is little else in this world Peter loves more than a pile of sauerkraut. We have plans, big plans, for another session of applesauce, too. Yes, the cellar's getting full and ready for winter. If only I had some squash. The long summer days are dwindling and we're making the most of them.

Next week school is starting and we're all ready to begin homeschooling Thomas. We're homeschooling for a number of reasons and it has been a new experience for me to actually make this information general knowledge to family and friends. It's unlike me to step out of line, to do something outside of expectations, and I've been surprised at how little the surprise of other people has affected me.

When I tell most people, I can tell they are taken aback and that there is a lot going on in their minds, but, this being the Midwest, they actually say very little. Universally, what they DO say is, "Well, what about socialization?" The peer interactions in school must have improved since I went through because I don't remember them being all that positive. Sure, I had friends, but the friends I have today are not the friends I knew growing up.

I don't know what the path will be like. I don't know how long we will do this, whether it will just be for Kindergarten or through college. I know Thomas has friends now and he'll have friends in the homeschool co-ops I hope to join and the scouting troops we'll hopefully be part of later. Really, I'm not worried. If nothing else, he'll learn to swear really well from me or my dad (who will handle any advanced cursing lessons).

In any case, no child of Peter's or mine has even a slim chance of being 'normal', regardless of where he or she is taught to read or write. Wish us luck!

Does This Zucchini Make Me Look Fat?

One day the garden zucchini is just a wee fingerling on the vine, the next you discover a zucchini so large that you beg it to be merciful to your children when it becomes your Benevolent Overlord.
The measuring spoons are provided for scale. I should have used Henry, but he was out with Peter when this photo was taken.

I'm not sure that this has any useful purpose anymore or if it should head straight for a position in politics, but I'm going to try shredding it and freezing it for winter, per Rachel's suggestion.

Also, I'm still interested in toe-up sock patterns, so if you have one, please feel free to give me your suggestion. I've been on Ravelry and I've found one potential pattern, but I have to wait to read through it before I'll know if it's going to work.

I'm back to my garden now. It's been sadly neglected this past week, so who knows what other surprises await!

Genius Becomes Me

I love natural peanut butter. My kids eat peanut butter by the metric ton. We go through jars of this all-important commodity like Hummers go through gasoline.

The biggest problem with natural peanut butter comes when my knife rattles around the bottom of the glass jar and I finish scraping the depths free from any remainder of gooiness. The big problem with peanut butter, with my whole life, really, is mixing the oil and peanut butter in the next jar. There has never been a good solution for this. I've tried blenders, both regular and immersion, I've tried the every popular Knife Method whereby butter knives are used to stab the glob of peanut butter until it eventually surrenders to the oil, I've tried turning the jar upside down and waiting for gravity or good luck to do the work for me. It's all ended the same. My shirt covered with oil, the jar and counter slick. I'm sure that mothers from back in the Dawn of Time struggled with the same delemia--jar of peanut butter in one hand, butter knife in the other, saying "Ugg! There has to be a better way!"

I have finally found a way to lighten the burden of this tedious household chore. I wish I could patent this, but it's too, too simple.

When I open a new jar of peanut butter, I do a couple of stabs to The Blob to help some of the oil get to the bottom of the jar. Then I microwave the jar, sans lid, for about 30 seconds. I take it out and give it a bit of a stir and pop it back in for another 30 seconds. Be careful after this, though. The jar can get kind of hot. A final stir will easily blend the oil and peanut goo together. Hurrah.

Maybe this is something that everyone knows, but for me it was like the rising sun. Now I just need to figure out how to get peanut butter off of a computer keyboard.

Strawberry Shortcake

The last two weekends have been a lot of fun.  We took the kids strawberry-picking and look at what we got:

Nearly 20 lbs of fresh, organic strawberries.  How lucky am I?  I don't know how many pounds of strawberries the kids ate in the field, but I do know they weren't very hungry for a while afterwards.  I brought the berries home and spent some time cleaning and freezing them so, hurray!  Strawberries in November!

As if this weren't enough, we went back last weekend with my parents and picked, oh, yes, another 10 lbs of strawberries.  This time I froze some, but with the others my mom and I made this:

Two batches of strawberry jam.  One for her, one for me.  And it tastes as good as it looks.  I pretty much want to roll around on top of a giant waffle covered with fresh jam.  If I go pick some more berries, I may be able to.

I think Anna may want to join me.

Here's Thomas, contemplating The Berry:

I'll be sad when strawberry season is over.  But since I don't have any more money to give the people who own the strawberry field, it might not matter much anyway.  It's just nice to know that the berries are out there, just waiting to be made into jam.

Cooking the Compost

Here's a really useful thing I've learned to do: make my own vegetable broth.

My sister in law, Rachel, has elevated cooking vegetable broth to something like neuro-science with variants that produce beef-like effects or chicken-like effects. She will often caramelize onions, add seasonings, or include extra vegetables to produce some desired, pre-designed result. This is wonderful and admirable. I aspire.

But, bless her understanding heart, Rachel taught me the bare-bones basics of constructing my own homemade vegetable broth. It's so simple that I thought I would share it here with you. Considering that boxed broth runs towards $2.50-$3 a box, it's a skill I find worth having.

When I want to make vegetable broth, I begin weeks in advance, really. Don't let this daunt you, though. I have a gallon size Tupperware container that I keep in the freezer and when I'm cooking dinner I simply throw my compost in this container instead of the compost bucket (with the exception of things like onion skins, which I don't think you're supposed to eat). That's right--carrot peelings, potato peelings, celery ends, squash seeds, old spinach and parsley, leek tops--all the things that I would normally stick in the compost pail I put in the Tupperware container. Gross, I know. But before you get all uppity about it, though, I beg you to consider what the manufacturers are using to construct the broth the store sells. I seriously doubt that they're using fresh, virgin produce unspoilt from the dew-kissed garden. Not for broth, my friend. Kind of makes you wonder what they use for the beef broth, eh?

Anyway, when the gallon container gets full, I start thinking about making my broth. When I'm finally ready to proceed, I pull the container out of the freezer, pull my stock pot out of the cupboard, and I'm ready to go. The frozen vegetable matter gets put in the pot and covered with water. I'll swish some water around the container to loosen any parsley leaves or carrot peels that get stuck. Then I put the big pot o' slop on the stove and bring it to a boil. If you want to add something and make this Work, you can peel and quarter and onion or two and toss it in the stew. Now it's time to cook the compost.

Let the veggies simmer for an hour, covered. Then, put a colander into a large bowl. Dump the pot into the colander to strain out your vegetables. Set the stock pot aside.

I like to put a plate on top of the mash to help me press out any extra liquid before I lift the colander out and hand it off to P to take to the compost bin. Then it's back to the stock pot for your broth. Let the broth simmer, uncovered, for another hour. At this point, I sometimes get fancy with the spices and add some pepper. Then it's off of the stove and into some old mason jars. I got the plastic lids you see in the picture at Wal*mart. I'm not sure if they carry them when it's not canning season, but it's worth a look. I let them cool a bit before putting them in my freezer. And then, ta-da! Homemade vegetable broth.

For the record, I think referring to this process as "cooking the compost" is totally hilarious. This is probably because this is exactly what you are doing when you make this recipe. This may be made even funnier for me, though, because Rachel always seems so affronted by my irreverence towards The Broth. One should not take lightly the making of The Broth, you see. It is Serious Business. One must not meddle with The Broth. I don't have the proper consideration and am really not Worthy. Compost, indeed.

In any case, if you want tips on elevating this to an art form, call Rachel. It is not zen-like, but you will get excellent results. Her French garden approach is the complement to my English garden approach. I may not do it as well, but I get it done. And I love getting that extra bit of use from my vegetables before they head off to the compost heap. Tonight I nearly saluted the colander as it made it's way out the door. Well done, my little veggies. You're little lives were not spent in vain. *sniff*

Have a good night! and Thank You, Rachel!

The Happy Homemaker Strikes Again

It's baking day.

I say that like it's this definite, certain thing in my house, but it isn't. I wish I could have this really great, regimented schedule like Ma in the Little House books, but it just falls apart for me. Wash on Monday, Iron on Tuesday, Bake on Wednesday, Sweep on Thursday. . . I mean, what happens when it's Tomato Season and you're canning tomatoes and spaghetti sauce all day? Or it's time to make the cheese? Or the kids get sick and there's no way to get a loaf of bread in the oven? I have no idea. I need regimented flexibility. Most things get done in a week and if it gets to be too much, I hand P the vacuum cleaner. But what would happen if my survival depended on my ability to wash laundry (by hand!) and make my family's supply of cheese curds for the year? Lord, what if I simply had to grow my own wheat? I suppose it's a good thing I'm not a homesteader. We would have languished without sugar because I have no idea how to tap a maple tree.

I think I need to hug a farmer.

That said, this is what Thomas and I made today.
It's the Cinnamon Bread from the Simply in Season cookbook. I can't say how much I enjoy this cookbook. I have a good friend who also has this cookbook and it's uncanny how many times we'll be chatting and one will say to the other, "Hey I'm making Hearty Lentil Stew tonight!" and the other will say that she is either making the same dinner or just made it a day ago. It's a lot like being in middle school and owning matching legwarmers with your best friend. It just doesn't get cooler than that.