How I really work

In the past, I have read blog posts that expose a person in their true form.  They always awe me as I'm the person who tries to do a quick tidy behind the child before I shoot the picture.  Of course, half the time I miss the shot.  Then there is another good percentage of the time that I would not even think about taking a picture no matter how cute my kid is being because there is just no way I could make the background look presentable in any amount of short time!  

On Wednesday morning, I walked around my house, and took note that nearly every single room was destroyed.  Many spaces just had their typical stuff scattered around.  I only make the kids tidy their rooms for vacuuming once a week on Friday's.  So, it's safe to say, their rooms are messy.   Naturally, my canning from Monday is all sitting on the counter still in all its red bejeweled glory. The hallway looked as if a book tornado make a few passes. (the little kids like to read books by pulling off the entire shelf, sitting in the pile, and then reading.) It also was the home of the spilt box of costumes. The front room had the remnants of a pillow fort and the toys that they were playing with inside of said fort. The dining room had the leftovers of a get well soon card that the family made together for my sis who just had surgery, and the toys that were brought in to keep Zander happy on the floor and not crawling over the masterpiece in the making.   The kids bathroom was host to a family reunion for the toothbrushes thanks to Abigail.  She set out beds for each one, and made sure they had snacks.  Toothpaste, of course.  Darling in its own disastrous way.   Am I painting a picture yet?

My problem is I don't know where to start.  I wanted to put away my jams and syrups so I could prepare the kitchen for Strawberry 2.0, but this is what I ran into when I went up the stairs to get to the food storage closet.  

 These are some of our costumes.  Let me explain.  I love all things pretend.  I love to sew and buy costumes.  In our last home, Khali had a gigantic closet and we hung up all of our costumes in there.  When we moved, there was no extra closet space to put them.  Since I didn't have a solution for this, I left the costumes packed in a box, stored in the back of food storage closet knowing that without a good place for them, they'd constantly be a mess.  However, I now have a 6 year old who is extremely curious and can ready very well.  So, of course when I asked her to retrieve some salsa one night, she stepped on top of this box to get it and read 'Costumes' written in fat sharpie.  My salsa never was brought to the kitchen, and when I went upstairs to see where my child had gotten lost, the costumes were being strewn about as Bell looked, excitedly, for a princess gown.  I had successfully avoided the problem of costume storage for 8 months.  That was 4 months ago.  Since then, whenever the kids wanted to play dress up, they dug through the box casting off the rejections in all directions.  Then someone (generally me) would go toss them all back into the box for the process to repeat another day.

So, with an entire house to put back in order, I went to the garage. I had seen a costume wardrobe on Ana White's website.  I figured if I fixed my costume problem, then I would be able to traverse the path from my kitchen to the storage area, and then, and only then, could I clean up the rest of my house.  This logic works for you,  doesn't it?  If it does, please come help me explain to my dearest.  He doesn't get it at all.

I didn't have any nice wood to work with, and my dearest darling has banned me from spending any more at Lowes or Home Depot this month, so I went with plywood leftover from my Chicken Coop project.  While not being ideal wood, this helps me solve the problem of what to do to with these piles that are taking over my garage.  (The wood on the left is slated for Potato Boxes. My next project!)

 The next problem comes from not having a table saw to rip down the boards, or a chop saw to make quick cuts.   I did have my trusty old Jig Saw.  Thanks Daddy for giving me your cast off tools!  I obviously was slightly determined or the lack of the ideal wood and tools would have sent me to choose a different starting point in cleaning the house. Maybe the costumes?  Nah.

I had the base built in about 2 hours in the afternoon, and even had enough time to make a proper dinner!  Because this was turning into a use-it-up project, I went to the paint closet and made my selection from there.  I went with 'Twig Basket', since I wanted a neutral color to work for all my littles.   I managed to paint it while the older kids cleaned up the dinner dishes.  After bedtime, I pulled out my Silhouette and cut out the freezer paper stencil I used on the base to jazz it up a little.

I didn't wait quite long enough to stencil,  I got a bit of paint (a whole lot of paint) on the sole of my iron.  But this isn't the first time a craft project has made a mess of my iron. A little salt will clean it up!  

I ran to the store this morning to buy castors to put on the bottom so that we could move it easily.  This addition puts the project at a grand total of $7.00 out of pocket.   I had it upstairs with a few costumes already hung up when the little girls woke up to surprise them.  

Ideally I'd finish up the project with 

• Baskets on the top shelf  to hold wings, crowns, hats and armor.
• Full body mirror on one side
• Hooks for bags on the other side
• Sword Storage
• Organize Shoes that are now tossed into the bottom.

Not too shabby for a day project eh?  

Homemade Bagel Chips

When you make the Original Chex Mix, do you buy bagel chips to put in? Or, are you like me and refuse to pay $5.00 for a 7oz bag?  Sadly, bagel chips have always been one of my favorite ingredients in the mix!  So, this fall, when I started making Chex Mix recipes, I thought to myself, "I make croutons at home.  Why not Bagel Chips?"   Well, guess what.  I tried it.  It's super easy and cheap to boot.  Score!

• First, you slice your bagels.  For future reference, I'm using 3 bagels in this batch.

Depending on what I want the chips for, I slice them differently.  For any snack mix, I prefer the coins.

For soup or salad, I go with the faster method of plank slices.  Why?  Because, I'm lazy like that.  

• Second, combine 2 Tablespoons melted butter or olive oil with your choice of seasonings mixed in.  I'm a garlic lover, so I added 3 large garlic cloves, minced.   You could do onion and garlic, parmesan and garlic, herb and garlic (Told you, I love garlic.)  Then placing all your bagel pieces in a large plastic bag, pour in the melted butter/olive oil and shake.  This will help with equal distribution.

• Third, Empty contents of your bag onto a cookie sheet, spreading them out evenly.  Pop into a hot oven at 325 for 15-20 minutes until they are turning brown.  (YMMV, so watch carefully!)

• Fourth,  Enjoy!  Once they are cooled you can put them in a container for storage for the week, or use them immediately in your soup.  

I was raised by a woman who is amazing in the garden.  She could grow so much food, tucked into a small confine, that it would feed my family and give us enough to share each year.
I then married a man, who was raised by a woman, who to this day gardens 1/2 an acre.  In fact, to her surprise, it keeps getting a little bigger each year!
I have, many a time, helped in the gardens.  I have weeded a row, or gone out to harvest a few items for dinner, I have snipped many gallons of beans to prepare them for canning.
However,  all of those things and more, left me completely clueless as to successfully growing my own garden.
Last year I tried at our rental home in Brier.  Khali harvested 3 crops of carrots, and I brought in a few salad dinners, and 3 peppers.  Our tomato plants molded in the ground toward the end of summer.  It was a might sad.
This yearI tried again to put a few things in the ground.  I killed 2 sunflowers and some chives.  The 6 strawberry transplants I was given by a friend in the spring have all successfully doubled.  I know the strawberries produced, however between the squirrels and the children, I never got anything from the plants.  I killed a few tomatoes but one, delicious heirloom variety lived and flourished!
And then became to heavy for my wimpy 3 foot wire cage and fell over.  After tying the plant to a tree to support its weight and it falling over, we staked it deeper within the ground with large sticks in teepee form, and it fell over, we gave up and let the tomato plant lay on the ground.  The plant had 3 reddish tomatoes on it today!  Unfortunately, 2 of them were nibbled on  and the last one was infested with slugs.  From the looks of it, there are plenty of  good green tomatoes on the plant that we will be picking this weekend.

It's really too bad I haven't figured out how to grow my own tomatoes yet.  Sure would make canning tomatoes much cheaper in the fall!  I am thinking perseverance and a wire caged garden would help further my efforts!

Such a Yummy Day

Mixed in with a huge day of homeschooling, many loads of laundry, and all the other normal every day things today I canned.  Again.

This morning I did a load of Black Beans.  I did the same thing as with the Kidney Beans the other day.  I soaked them overnight, rinsed them a few times, and then filled the jars about 3/4s full with beans (for pints that is about 1 1/2 cups).  I topped the jars off with water and a tsp of salt for flavor.  They then processed in the pressure cooker for 75 minutes.
     Beans - $3.00
     Lids - $1.16
     Each Pint = $0.57 cents
     The bottles contain a bit more than a traditional can of beans you'd buy from the store.

This afternoon, once I got the chickens roasting in the oven (important for later!), I started working on the 20 lbs of grapes I bought for $0.99/lb.  I used my Victorio Food Strainer again with the shorter spiral.  I couldn't find any information on which grate to use though.  I started out using the apple/tomato grate, and then later moved to using the pumpkin grate as I wanted the pulp for jam.  I only had enough sugar and pectin on hand to make 2 batches of Grape Jam.  Thankfully though, we did all the mashing/juicing today and there is another 10 cups of grape juice sitting in the fridge to make two more batches of jam tomorrow. The grapes were BY FAR the messiest thing I have canned this year!
      Grapes - $20.00
      Sugar - $4.00
      Lids - $2.33
      Each Pint - $1.88
      This stuff is Delicious!  Even with the ability to buy cheaper, I'm glad I did the work to make this.

Once we ate dinner, my dear darling pulled all the remaining chicken off the carcasses for me.  We tossed the bones into the stock pot with carrots, celery, onions and bay leafs, covered in water and let it simmer away while I tried to clean up everything else for a few hours.  I was able to get 7 pint jars of delicious Chicken Stock from the 2 roasted chickens!   I have always frozen chicken stock before, but now that I have a pressure canner of course I had to can it!   It has a very short processing time of only 25 minutes, so I figured.... Why Not!?
     Chicken Bones - Free
     Onion, Celery, Carrots, Bay Leaf - Negligible
     Lids - $1.16
     Each Pint - $0.17 cents a bottle!
     Definitely worth you time!

I was also taken out to a delicious lunch at Saffron Grill in North-gate.  It is one of my favorite Indian Restaurants.  We won't break that down.... I'd have a harder time justifying it!

Such a delicious, yummy, disastrously messy day!

A Little Sweetness

I am the proud new owner of a Victorio Food Strainer/ Sauce Maker.   Let me tell you.  It Rocks.
Weeks ago I spent many an hour cruising the net trying to figure out what tool would be the best choice for working with blackberries.  I have frozen my entire harvest the past two years, but this year I really wanted to make some Jams and Syrups.  I made my first batch of Blackberry Jam over a month ago, and while it all got devoured in the first two weeks, the seed content was undesirable.  Honestly, it was just plain annoying.  The seeds made the jam very chewy and got stuck in your gums all the time!
Unfortunately, I waited too long in the season to make the decision to buy the Victorio, and I only had one bucket of blackberries left.  I took my bucket of blackberries, washed them a bit, then dumped them in a large stock pot with about half a cup of water.  I boiled them for a few minutes, till the point where they started to soften, then poured them into the strainer's hopper.  It took only a few minutes to process the seeds from juice and pulp!   (I tried to reprocess the seeds/skins but would not recommend this for blackberries.  There was not enough fruit left to separate and I ended up jamming the tool with solid seeds.)  I then poured the juice and fruit pulp back into the stock pot to boil with some sugar and some lemon zest till it started to thicken and then poured it into small jars.  Thankfully we had a little too much for 8 jars, and I had to use some up, right away.  This syrup is amazing on ice-cream and looks beautiful to boot!  I can't wait to try it on waffles!  I am sad I don't have any more blackberries to work with as I'd love to make a batch of syrup with a bit of Almond flavoring added...  Just the thought makes my mouth water.

Along with the syrup, I was able to can a few apple sauce variations.  I cut apples in half and roasted multiple huge pans in the oven, then used the Victorio to mash all of the ingredients together.  While this took a very long time to make so much applesauce, it was really light work.  Both Khali and Porter loved to crank the handle and smoosh the fruit down the hopper.  I was able to reprocess the discarded skins and seeds a second time on the apples to reclaim more sauce.  I was amazed how dry the seeds and skins where when we were done.  I felt there was very little fruit wasted.

• I combined some with Pears and a little bit of vanilla and nutmeg for an Apple-Pear sauce.
• I mixed some with Poached Peaches and Ginger for Apple-Peach sauce.
• I also left a few jars straight Roasted Apple sauce, which is delicious on its own.

At this point, I ran out of large quart bottles, and only had pint, and jelly jars left on hand.  With no desire to run to the store to pick up another case, I was inspired to cook down the rest of the apples further to make a delicious Apple Butter.  I followed the recipe found here http://simplyrecipes.com/recipes/apple_butter/.  I snuck a bit before canning it and think its a definite keeper.

Amazingly, after canning for four days straight, the only wound I received was a burn from that darn apple butter.  Watch out when you're cooking it down, you're working with such a thick sauce the air bubbles pop pretty high!  

There is a beauty involved with canning.  I am enjoying looking at all of the bottles filled with beautiful food.  Part of me just wants to keep canning and putting food away.  It is the same part of me that sheds a tear whenever I drive past a blackberry bush that is now succumbing to fall.   But at the same time, I am very excited to be putting away the canning supplies tomorrow and reclaiming the kitchen and dining rooms.  Now if only I could figure out where to put all this food!

 

September is for Preserving

I have been very busy this month working on putting away produce for the rest of the year.  Blackberry season seemed to be a bit late this year, not really coming on until the second week of September, but the kids and I have managed to put away about 4 gallons of berries, and make one batch of blackberry jam (not to mention several batches of muffins, pie bars, and any other baked good that sounded delicious at the time).  I think the season is just about over, but I am trying to get another gallon or two to make into Syrup.  We will have to see if the bushes have enough left to support this en devour.

Saturday a friend called me and asked if I was interested in some boxes of tomatoes as she was at a fruit stand in Bellevue picking some up already.  She kindly brought me home 4 boxes of tomatoes.  When trying to figure out how much of any food you will need, it's a bit of an iffy proposition with multiple variables.   I have never tracked how much of anything we've used before in a winter, so this was my best guess.  I knew that we needed to make a batch of Chili Sauce, and that we were out of all canned tomatoes.  Turns out that 80 lbs of tomatoes turns into 46 quarts of tomatoes, and 9 pints of Chili Sauce. (In case you are wondering, Chili Sauce is what we serve on our roasts every Sunday and is a staple in our home.  I believe the original recipe, that my family still uses today, came from my husbands great-grandmother.)

I feel lucky that only 2 of the quarts did not seal.  They are sitting in the fridge for use this week.  Now I just need to figure out where I am going to store all of these!

It has been a busy weekend.  I never want to see another produce box of tomatoes, unless it looks like this. Zander was a pretty good little guy while I slaved over the steaming stove for hours at a time.  He thought playing in this box was a great thing, especially when I added Goldfish crackers into the equation.   

He is pretty Select, don't ya think?

Khali helped me in the kitchen canning the first two batches of tomatoes on Saturday and was an invaluable addition.  She is growing up so quickly!  Today she helped take care of the little two by making them a box train and pulling them around, and around, and around the house.   She had a good time in the creation of her idea, and the little kids had a good time snacking and riding around.  

I am all done with Tomatoes for this season.  Now I just have to deal with the boxes of apples.... but that is for another day.  I ordered a Victorio Food Strainer to help me with this project that will be here soon!  I'm actually a little excited about this next canning activity!  

Quick Fix - Changing Pad cover

I am a procrastinator.  I over plan, and under achieve.  This should be the vinyl saying on my craft walls.

I bought a terry cloth fitted sheet when I was pregnant with Abigail.  I did get it died as an experiment that wasn't all that successful as the brown is streaky, but the cover looks better brown than the yucky cream it came to me in.  Unfortunately, it didn't fit my changing pad, since it was a standard fitted crib sheet.  I tried to keep the excess fabric tucked under the pad, but honestly, I'm not that detail oriented!  I just used it as it was, and didn't really put much more thought into it.

Nesting comes in different forms, and for me, this just needed to be fixed.  Tonight!  

So while Kolton read The Storm Testament II to the family for bedtime, I turned the cover inside out and put the sheet onto the changing mat.  That allowed me to easily pin 4 places to sew new box corners and also able to cut the excess sheet away leaving an extra 1/2 inch allowance hanging past the table.   I also pinned where to sew 2 button holes for the safety belt to be threaded through.  That only took a chapter.

Once the kids were brushing their teeth and heading to bed, I quickly sewed the new seams for the box corners and 2 button holes. Then I took underwear elastic and zig-zag stitched that around the entire bottom of the sheet pulling the elastic taught around each corner.  15 minutes :) tops for this... and it only took me about 2 years to actually get done :)

  

Foodies - Great Resources!

I go through phases in my kitchen leaning on one method of preparation more than the rest for periods of time, depending on what life has on my plate.  I am aware that going into the rainy season soon on top of being returned to baby momma status, that I will be soon turning to my Crockpot to avoid the evening dinner woes that are inevitably on the horizon.  

Today I came across another local North West transplant.  Whom like me, is enjoying a summer of moderate temperatures, unlike the ones we left back home further South.  If you're looking for some recipes to add to your  menus, check Jessie out over on her blog Bites.  I have a few recipes bookmarked to start with including the Slow Cooker Chocolate Mess.  With a name like that, and a picture of it served with Ice Cream.... I just can't wait!  She also has beautiful red dish ware that serves as the backdrop to most of her food pictures that I'm in love with.  

Tonight for dinner, I made her Crockpot Chicken with Black Beans  for dinner knowing that I would be coming home from shoe shopping with the kids and we would all be hungry.  With only 5 ingredients, I had the time to put it together in the Crockpot while telling the kids to get their shoes on and get themselves  into the car.  The recipe also works using frozen chicken, which I tend to always have in the freezer and keeping preparation simple.   We served this over rice, but I would like to try it wrapped up in a tortilla next time.  The kids all asked for seconds, so despite its lack in appearance, this recipe is a keeper for us!

Crockpot Chicken with Black Beans

1 lb frozen boneless chicken 

1 (15 1/2 ounce) can black beans -drained

1 (15 ounce) can corn - drained

1 (15 ounce) jar salsa, any kind

1 (8 ounce) package cream cheese

Directions

Combine frozen chicken, black beans, corn and salsa into Crockpot.  

Keep in crock pot on low for about 5 hours or until chicken is cooked and easy to shred.

Add 1 package of cream cheese (just throw it on top!) and let sit for about 1/2 hour.

Break your chicken into pieces, or shred and serve over a bed of rice.

Dry Mixes in the Kitchen

Today , despite the extremely warm temperature, the little two girls ate the rest of the oatmeal packets that I had bought on a killer sale this past winter. All of my girls love oatmeal whether its for breakfast or a snack, and the older kids are also able to make their own, which at this season in life, is a big plus for Mommy! I have made up an oatmeal mix before hand and kept it in a larger container to measure out individual bowls, but really wanted to keep the 'single serving' idea going to reduce both disaster and waste. The girls all really enjoy being able to choose different types as well. Many websites tout being able to use snack size bags for this, but I really dislike storing food in plastic bags. I may be the only person with this problem, but without a doubt, one or two bags of some substance gets pushed to the bag of the cupboard. Undoubtedly, I only find it way after its prime and it often will have bugs of some sort. That means all my efforts to be frugal and healthier are blown to bits because I end up throwing away the food from that cupboard! I have learned to keep all food in very tightly sealed containers, it just works out better for me. Luckily I have kept all the baby food jars Abi has eaten in the past year and they are a perfect size to store a single serving of a flavored oatmeal!

I let the girls help with the entire project, from the blender, to the measuring, to the snacking on the raisins the entire time, which created a huge disaster, but proved to be a lot of fun as well. (I would have taken pictures of them being all cute, but my camera was upstairs and I was too lazy to go and get it, sorry!)

Here is what we did:

• 1/4 Cup quick oats
• 2 Tablespoons ground quick oats (like a coarse flour)
• 1 Tablespoon non-dairy creamer (think coffee)
• 1 Teaspoon -1 Tablespoon sugar (sometimes brown, sometimes white)
• 2 Tablespoons dried fruit bits of your choice (or however much more you can git into the jar)

We mixed up three kinds of oatmeal this time around, Blueberries and Cream (which contains dried blueberries and extra creamer), Raisin Spice (which contains raisins, 1 heaped tsp cinnamon and a healthy sprinkling of nutmeg) and Apples and Cinnamon (which contains dried apple and 1 heaped tsp of cinnamon). The sugar amount is really going to vary depending on what your families tolerance is currently set to. Since my kids have been eating the Quaker oatmeal packages, they like it very sweet. I am planning to make each batch with a bit less sugar until we taper down to 1tsp of sugar, unfortunately, right now, to make it palatable for them, we are closer to 3/4 Tablespoon.

The best parts of this kitchen endeavor are the ingredients are of much higher quality, each serving seems to be much more filling and they are much less expensive than the store bought counterpart!

Since the kitchen was already a dusty disaster, I figured we should just keep on rolling and put together some muffin mix in larger quart mason jars as well. I followed the "Universal Muffin Mix" the is found all over the net. I have made this mix before and rarely change a thing on it. I often cut in 2.5 cups of Crisco, reducing the amount of oils/fats that are necessary later. This makes the mix much more time consuming to make, but I prefer it to the regular recipe. Make sure you have a very large bowl if you are going to attempt this! This mix fills my large 'Thatsa Bowl" from Tupperware that is a 42 cup capacity. Once mixed, I measured 3 cups of the dry mix into my quart jars and labeled them for the pantry. With this size dry mix, I use 1 cup water/liquid, 2 eggs, 1 tsp vanilla, and 1/4 cup of oil/butters. This results in roughly 12 large muffins. This is very akin to the Better Crocker Muffin Mix's that are so simple to make, but offers so many more possibilities. One of our favorite variations that is not listed on RecipeZaar is Strawberry Banana Muffins. Mix in a big heaping spoon of strawberry jam with a few over rip bananas. And, if you're wondering; Yes, heaping spoon, sprinkle, pinch, handful... those are all very useful words in my cooking vocabulary. Cooking is about living a little!

Once the muffin mixes were done, I really wanted to forge ahead and make up a half dozen bread mixes as well, but alas, my ankles were barely differentiable from my calves, so my time in the kitchen was over. Hopefully another day in the near future will yield more dry mixes for my pantry.

Sewing Hair Curlers

I have been wanting to sew these hair curlers since before we moved! I saw this posted on another blog and put it on my 'to sew' list. Unfortunately Wonderwoman is no longer blogging, but her website is full of wonderfully creative projects that I'd love to make more of. Wonderwoman found the idea here, but her's were far more inspirational. I made them out of 3 old handkerchiefs my grandma sent me in a fabric stash, and a little bit of fluff that was also laying around. Total cost- negligible. My type of project!!!

Khali's hair had been washed and was still slightly damp when I put her hair up. I used a little bit of gel before hand as well. I made 14 curlers total, but I believe that I only used 10 in her hair. (I have had to use all 14 when wrapping my hair) Thankfully it only took about 10 minutes to wrap her hair, and she didn't really care because she was reading a book :) She also didn't mind leaving them in for a few hours to dry, because she just read her book.

I let the curl rest for a few minutes upon taking the curlers out before trying to separate them. Isn't she a pretty little girl?

Seeing our Trials as Blessings

Last weekend I woke up Saturday morning only to find that the kitchen sinks would not drain. I started to try to clean them out first with baking soda and vinegar, then boiling water flushes, and finally resorted to asking my darling for help using plungers. Working on the drains for well over an hour, we had gotten some water to go down the drain, but they were far from clear. I finally caved and called a plumber. Thankfully many plumbers work weekends for the same rates at weekdays, and we had a nice gentleman playing under the sink in the grime by afternoon. Unfortunately, plumbers, are not cheap. For 2 hours of snaking the drains, the drain made a lovely sucking noise as the water quickly drained, and I owed him $150.00. Ouch!
Now here is where a choice comes in. I could either use my allotted bi-monthly budget, or put this bill on a credit card. Trying to be a responsible consumer, I wrote him a check realizing it would cut my grocery funding in half for the next ten days. Yikes!?
After searching around on the web for some frugal meals, and flipping through my home storage cookbook, I went to my fridge and cupboards with a fresh sheet of paper and pen. I made a list of meals that I could make with things that I had on hand, and also a few that I could make with only one or two things from the grocery store. With a bit of planning I was able to make nutritious meals for our family all week long, and amazingly my freezer and cupboards are not empty. This was not the easiest week to cook dinners, yet it was very gratifying. I could have easily made a different choice and put this on a CC to worry about later, however I am now very happy to have gone through this learning experience and to come out triumphant.
We have all been told to not go to the grocery store when you are hungry, and to always make a list, but how about we add one more to this list? Do not go to the grocery store, until you have made your meal plans for the week and gone grocery shopping through your cupboards and freezer.