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!