Fall (with a fury)!

She says:
   Today on the way to work, I could literally see the cold front of Fall weather rolling in. Kind of intimidating, kind of awesome!

P.S. I am ready for warm apple cider, so bring on Fall!

Banned from Books

He says:

Abby and I use the library quite often.  It’s about a 5 minute walk (or a 1 minute drive) from our house.  I would like to think that since we’re both avid readers we are some of the most frequent patrons that visit this small town library.  Plus, we return books on time and in good condition so we don’t have outrageous fees or missing books.  We treat the institution with the respect it deserves.

So it came as a surprise to find out that in turn for all of that respect, the library banned (BARRED) me.

I tried to place a hold on a book through the library’s website, but every time I tried it said that I was barred.  Not “delinquent” like it usually says for overdue books (not that I would know...), but “BARRED”.  I was never really given a reason for the restriction--even after I went in to get the ban lifted, but the librarian was able to set my account straight, so it all worked out in the end. 

Maybe they do this every once in a while to see who the really hardcore patrons are, the ones who will fight for their right to use the library and take action to get their bans lifted (yes, that would be me).  Or maybe it was just a mistake.

Ginger Beer

He Says:
   
   After some trial and error, I think that I’ve perfected the ginger beer method.  For my first batches I was using yeast to ferment the beverage, but it was giving me some strange results.  Sometimes it would be delicious, other times it would be insipid.  I think those hungry little yeasts were devouring every single thing they could--which included all the flavor compounds.  Plus, whenever I had made it previously, I bottled it in old Canada Dry bottles which never really held the carbonation that well.  So what I was left with was a bland, flat drink most of the time.

   After reading a book called Nourishing Traditions: The Cookbook that Challenges Politically Correct Nutrition and Diet Dictocrats (a pretty hefty title, huh?) I became turned onto the idea of using whey to ferment beverages.  Since we make tons of yogurt in our house, we had a source of whey.  This new change allowed most of the flavor compounds to stay in the ginger beer, so now all of the batches turn out tasting great.  Plus the whey adds a pleasing sour note to the drink.

   To fix the carbonation (or lack thereof) problems I started using standard beer bottles and capping them with bottle caps.  This turned out to be a mistake--and a rather messy one.  Since I had no previous experience using whey, I wanted to bottle it with enough time left while it was actively fermenting so it would produce a good amount of fizz.  Once I capped the first set I let them sit out for 24 hours.  I inspected them regularly and could see the bubbles rising and just knew that this plan was going to work.  What a fool I was.

   When it came time to taste the first bottle, I opened it and within a second the contents sprayed out of the top all over the kitchen.  I stood there dumbfounded and sticky.  There wasn’t a drop left in the bottle.  Looking back, it was unfortunate and messy, but at least the bottles didn’t explode.  For the rest of the over-carbonated bottles I enlisted Abby’s help.  She held a jar over the bottles while I opened them in the sink so that the spray was captured. 

   Learning from my mistake, we purchased plastic soda bottles at the store so that I could feel when the bottle expanded and became firm, which shows when the proper carbonation is achieved – no more messy guesswork.  Plus Abby got to have Dr. Pepper on our calzone nights.  Everyone was happy!

Now that I have the technique down it’s just tweaking to find the recipe perfectly suited to my tastes, and maybe Abby’s if she ever realizes how delicious this stuff is.

A Bit of Ketchup

She says:
  
   Oh my!  It has been quite a while since we have updated the blog.  Here are a few of the things we've been up to:

• I finished and started another semester of grad school (this is the last one before student teaching!)
• I was commissioned for a sewing project--more of the burp clothes I had made for Lizzie
• Jason started making ginger beer
• My children's library has been growing.  We had to add another bookshelf to hold it all.
• We started drinking raw milk
• And we made ice cream and butter out of the cream that comes with our raw milk
• Our garden finally produced some produce--yellow (but delicious) cucumbers
• We went to Minnesota
• We went to IKEA (and dreamed about the day that they build one near Kansas City...coming soon)
• We started making homemade pretzel burgers, like the ones at Wendy's (ours are much better)
• Jason changed his first diaper (for Lizzie, on the Fourth of July)
• We helped my best friend pack up to move to Ohio
• We went to Nashville, and eventually turned down the opportunity to move to Nashville
• I quit my job (one of them, due to conflicts with my school schedule)
• Jason made homemade ketchup

   So there's a bit of catch up on our ketchup and everything else.

Today I Received a Package

These are some of my favorite children's books that I picked out to give to Lizzie.  They all came today in one box--pretty much the best thing I could imagine opening!

A Naturally Julienned Salad

He says:

Last week Kansas City had a major storm system pass through.  It rained and hailed so hard that we were both woken up early in the morning  by the noise, and I got up to close all of our windows because of the torrential rain.  I thought that would be the end of it.

I came home from work the next day and looked at my garden, or what was left of it.  The plants looked like someone had been through with a weed-eater.  Every plant that was in the ground had damage.  None of my freshly transplanted seedlings made it.  Only 3 of the 6 of my glorious cabbages were salvageable.  In short, it was a nightmare.  I had been fighting back the caterpillars by hand for the past couple of days going over each leaf by hand  only to have the whole garden destroyed over the course of a few hours.

The situation could be worse.  We’re not dependent on the plants for food, and I have some other seedlings started that I transplanted yesterday.  Plus we have really good farmers’ markets close by so we won’t be without fresh produce.  However, none of this makes me any less upset over the loss of our green babies.

Our Green Babies? (An Update)

She says: 
  They grow up so fast!  Last week we had our first tiny baby seedlings. 

Remember this?

    This week, there are loads of sprouts.  They've been transplanted into a medium size planter tray, but aren't big enough to go in the garden yet.   Jason is protecting them from the slugs and caterpillars as long as he can.

They grow up so fast!

Edible Glue

He says:

   I love cultured foods.  If you've been reading this blog you know that fermentation is one of my interests.  I only have a few permanent cultures in the house (sourdough, kefir, kombucha), but I do a lot of one time fermentations (like sauerkraut, kimchi, ginger beer).  I have to stop myself from buying more cultures because I don't want culture maintenance to become a huge time sink.

   So ignoring any misgivings about time management, I ordered another culture.  This one is called viili and it's a Finnish yogurt strain.  Much like my kefir and differing from store bought yogurt, you don't have to incubate the milk, it just sits on the counter for 24-36 hours.  How easy is that?
  
  It is described as being more "ropey" than most traditional yogurts.  Sometimes it will pull back into itself if you try to scoop some out with a spoon.  I find this characteristic exciting, while Abby is grossed out by it.  I thought I would have an aversion because it was described as having a mucous-y texture, but it isn't at all offensive.  My only complaint is that it isn't as sour as I thought it would be.  It's very mild much like a thick milk.  Abby says it tastes like liquid glue would taste.  I suppose that could be true, but hopefully it carries more health benefits...

   I'm going to see if it develops into something altogether different than my kefir strain.  I hope it does since I don't really see a need to keep two extremely similar cultures alive and fed at the same time (time sink warning!).

Caffeine Vacation

She says:
  
   I am currently on day five of my vacation from caffeine.  <----- That's the nice way of saying I'm ending my addiction. 

   A while back I realized that even though I love coffee, I wasn't handling caffeine very well.  Without my morning cup of coffee, I ended up wandering through my day with headaches and the light-sensitivity of an oncoming migraine.  In less than a year I've gone through an entire 100 pill bottle of migraine medicine (which has caffeine in it!).  If I caught up on my coffee intake later in the day or had an extra serving to help me along with evening classes, I end up feeling jittery (minimum) or about to have a panic attack (maximum).

   This past week without caffeine has not been particularly pleasant either.  Headaches galore!  Weird sleeping patterns! Unable to regulate my body temperature! But in the end, it is all for the best.  I still plan to drink coffee on occasion (because I love it!), but not to the point that it makes or breaks my everyday life.

Our Green Babies

He says:

   I fancy myself a bit of a gardener, and the "bit" should be stressed.  While I have grand plans for our future property, right now I have to settle with what we have - a 1'x12' gardening strip on the side of our house.  I've heard that we all have to start somewhere.

Ample gradening space, eh?

    Last year I planted so many things, but I think a mixture of bad germination rates from the seed packets and a horde of voracious slugs claimed everything but two cucumber plants, one pitiful daikon radish and tons of mustard greens in pots.  Fun fact: you can scorch your mouth by eating raw, fresh mustard greens.  Every salad that I had only had one ingredient (mustard greens) and each one ended with me crying from the heat.

   This year I learned from the my previous mistakes and bought some plants as transplants and then seeds from a reputable source that moves a lot of product so they should be fresh.  So far the strawberry and cabbage transplants are doing well, the peppers not so much probably because we get a paltry amount sun on the side of our house.  We have 2 strawberries!  It appears that our slug problem is still the death of most of my seeds so I decided to grow them as transplants.

Our strawberry crop so far

   Last weekend Abby and I planted 20 seeds in tiny seedling containers.  We've got kale, malabar and regular spinach, swiss chard, and cucumbers.  Abby only helped me because cucumbers were included, just kidding?  The idea is that we will transplant these seedlings once they sprout then move them into a bigger containers and then finally into the ground.  That way when the ravenous slugs emerge from their vile ground dwellings and descend upon my garden the plants will have a little more defense than if they were just seedlings.

   So far two of the kale "babies" have emerged.  Nothing else yet, but I guess it's still early.  Every day I take them out in the morning, water them, and then bring them back in at night so they're safe.  I can't wait to taste them.
 

Look at those babies!

Happy May!

Here is a picture from May 2nd:

Right now it's 93 degrees outside.
What the heck, May?

One Foolish Errand

He says:

Years ago a seed was planted in Abby's and my mind. It came from different sources for each of us, but it’s genesis was around the same time. About 2 years ago I was listening to a podcast about homebrewing beer and the host of the program mentioned that his favorite sour beer was New Belgium’s La Folie. I had never tasted a sour beer, and this host sure was talking it up like something great. I was interested. A friend of Abby’s had mentioned to her that during a brewery tour she had tried La Folie and liked it even though she didn’t especially enjoy beer. Abby was interested.

Being two self-actualizing young adults, we went in search of this beer. And search we did. I will say that our interest started about 2 years ago and we saw a bottle of it in person for the first time last night. Before that there were phone calls, store visits, and website searches to find this thing. Apparently stores get shipments in about once a year and then it flies off the shelves, usually right about the time that Abby and I would catch wind of it. It always seemed just out of grasp.

You can only imagine the excitement when we happened upon not one but two bottles of this supposed elixir. We purchased one, drove home, and drank it as soon as it was cold. After our first drinks, I can say that I was certainly glad we didn’t purchase both bottles. I won’t bore anyone with tasting notes, but I will say that I was disappointed (and so was Abby). It was sour, actually very sour. But that was it. No layering of tastes, no life changing new flavor, just sourness.

Certain stories and figures of speech come to mind that say that the journey is better than the end or that it’s not about whatever lies at the end but about how you get there. I can’t help but notice a similarity. We will certainly remember this saga. But, man, I sure wish the end to this journey would have tasted better than this.

Dress Up

She says:
   I have books, journals, and a "crafts" folder in my favorites bar chock full of things I plan to make someday.  This dress from Target was yet another thing that I saw and thought "I could make that!"  So I bought it.  The dress cost something like $21.99, which I supposed is a reasonable dress price to some people, but is about $17 more than I would want to spend on it.  My plan was that I would have to make myself a dress in order to return this dress (I was going to use it as a pattern), and since Target has pretty strict return policies, I knew I would have to get it done in 90 days if I wanted my money back.  This helped move someday to today!

Target dress.

   I used a couple of tutorials that I had previously saved in my "crafts" folder (here and here) along with using the dress as a pattern to come up with a way to sort of recreate the dress.  However, I decided not to put in the pockets.  I know pockets in dresses is the thing, but that's extra fabric at my hips that will absolutely never be used as pockets, so I nixed them.  Instead, I spent my time learning how to use bias tape to make my neckhole nice and neat (and an alliteration).
  
   I went a little bit crazy buying clearance fabrics to try to use in this project.  I ended up buying all the good-looking fabrics I could find on the super-cheap ($3 per yard), which got me 5 different patterned fabrics to work with...so I made five dresses.  It felt like it was taking forever sewing in little bits and pieces whenever I had time: a side seam while my quesadilla was cooking, closing up the armholes after finishing homework and before moving on to more homework, etc.  But I got it all done within the 90 day Target return window (waaaaaaaay within, thank you!).  I returned my one dress for $21.99, and kept my five new dresses (which cost a total of $26 in fabric, thread, and elastic purchases).

 



Even though this is the worst lighting in the world, all five dresses are there!  The front one is red with small white hearts.  The second one is purple with yello polka dots.  The third one is navy with white polka dots.  The fourth one is maroon and tan checked.  And the last one is a gray and pink paisley.

  

Hey Diddle Diddle

She says:

   During the epic snowstorm we had last week, I got to stay indoors (yay!) and do homework (boo!). The good news is that one of my homework assignments for this week was to write and illustrate a childrens' book.

   If you want to take a look at the most adorable cow ever (and more!), here it is:
Hey Diddle Diddle Book Project

   Stay tuned to see what we come up with during this week's snowstorm!

What did the grape say when the elephant stepped on it?

Nothing. It just let out a little wine.

 

He says:

 

I don’t brew beer much anymore. It’s not that I don’t like beer anymore, I still like to drink it, but I’ve found that my attitude has changed about the act of brewing. The process that I was using took about 3 hours of time and then probably another hour of setup at the beginning and cleanup at the end. A 4 hour chunk of time is a big commitment and slowly I found myself just not wanting to make it. Fermentation still hold a special place in my heart, but I moved on to non-beer fermentations recently, such as sauerkraut, kefir, and most recently ginger beer (which isn’t really a beer since there are no grains).

 

One of the main reasons that caused this shift is my perception of fermentation. As I read more and more about different fermentations from different cultures, I found that fermentation is supposed to be easy--so easy that it’s almost an accident to get delicious results. Beer is not like that. With beer, strict sanitation and cleanliness needs to be followed. If you forgot to sanitize one tiny bit of vinyl tubing or a spoon and it touches your beer then there’s a good chance that whole batch is ruined. You can kiss those 4 hours goodbye.

 

Sauerkraut is made by chopping up cabbage and squishing out the water with your hands, then punching it down. Ginger beer is made by making a starter from the ginger root, which comes from the earth. Good luck sanitizing that. All of these fermentations and more involve placing natural ingredients and the right conditions and allowing nature to take over. Modern beer brewing is an exercise in chemical sanitation, while traditional fermentations are an exercise in natural biology. I prefer the later.

 

I recently started two batches of wine. One wine batch is certainly much easier to throw together than beer, I think I took 25 minutes total for the two. Even though my schedule isn’t packed, I can certainly appreciate the time saved.

 

I have never been a big wine drinker, mostly being put off by the pretense that accompanies standard wine culture. I have, however, become very interested in country wines or wines made from fruits. The idea of preserving a crop of fruit by turning it into wine is intriguing. The two trial batches that I just made aren’t going to be award winners, and they will certainly have their flaws. But they will certainly be unique.

And Now For Something Weird...

She says:

   Several months ago we took a day trip to Weston and found some oddities in the little shops in the downtown, including:

Adorable welded crab sculpture

 

Tiny animal-shaped tealights

   We oohed and aahed over the tiny tealights for a moment before realizing that their cuteness would soon turn to horror upon lighting.  So, of course, we bought some to take home and try out:

 

 

"Is it getting warm in here?"

 

 

About ten minutes in. 

 

One hour later.

 

 

Well-done.

 

One Hundred Books Later

He says:

Two years ago I became increasingly more horrified by the amount of books that I owned, but never read. This spurred me on to make a New Year's Resolution to read 52 books, a monumental goal considering that in previous years I would read maybe 10 books a year. Since I was able to meet that goal without too much exertion (see 'Shoot For The Moon' blogpost), I decided to up the count to 100 books.

Completing this goal really gave me a sense of accomplishment plus I made some great headway on my "to-read" lists.

I figured I would share some of the books that stood out the most for the second half of the year:

Best Book: Something Wicked This Way Comes by Ray Bradbury
My first experience with a novel by Bradbury instead of his short stories did not disappoint. Set against the backdrop of a traveling carnival that has sinister effects on the townspeople, the story revolves around a young boy, his best friend, and his father. This book dealt with true evil, innocence, the love between a father and his son, and friendship but was never overbearing. Plus Bradbury's imagery was outstanding.

Best Feel Good Book: White Fang by Jack London
Who doesn't like a good dog book? The last third of this book is where it really shines. White Fang is saved from a dog fighting ring from a man. This man is the only one who has ever shown compassion to the wolf-dog and their interactions as White Fang learns how to accept and eventually love this man are heartwarming.

Most Surprising: The Sun Also Rises by Ernest Hemingway
I had been hearing about Hemingway's style for years before I actually picked up this book. It was extremely refreshing. Clever dialogue peppers the book which is on one of the best examples of actual conversation I've come across.

Presenting...

She says:
   One of the things I wanted to do during my winter break was catch up on craft time that I have greatly missed while being busy with school and work and more work and homework. While I still have a ridiculously long list of things I want to craft, Jason and I were able to meet my crafty needs by making our own Christmas cards and the presents we gave to our friends.
   Here are the things we made:

A "dilly" of a homemade card.

 

 

See the resemblance?  The dog on the card was made from the silhouette of an actual picture of Dilly.

 

 

A "local time" clock for a friend who loves traveling. 

 

 

A music clock for a friend who teaches band and orchestra.  The quarter note is for a quarter of an hour...

 

 

A tooth clock for a friend in dental school.

 

Etched tumblers, personalized for the drinker, including the rebel alliance symbol from Star Wars, MU logo, an airplane and a bass. 

 

 

P.S. This is "Dillzilla" destroying Geometry Town--the only "crafty" thing I made during the past semester.  Can you believe that was a final project for a graduate level class? 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Happy Two Year!

She says:
   A year ago we started our blog so that we could tell our friends and family how cool our life is.  Ha!  We're so happy that 12 months have passed and our blog is still going strong at all.  We hope to keep up with the sporadic posting or do even better in the blog's second year of existence, and we hope that you will read along and think we're interesting.  :)