The Beauty of Spring, and Idealist Dreams

It's a little funny that in the past month, we have gone from Winter to Spring, in a big way. I've got peas and radishes going nuts in the raised bed, and my snapdragons are about to go back into crazy blooms. Spring fever is in full-swing, and it's really hard not to go out and turn the whole yard into a garden every time the sun is shining.
I have my hot weather seedlings chugging along nicely under a grow light in the dining room. I have an interesting array of heirloom tomatoes, as well as a purple tomatillo, ground cherry and miniature pepper plants. It's fun to think of them looking like their seed catalogue cousins in just a few months!
As there isn't too much more I can do outside at the moment, I've found a lot of interesting hobbies for indoor time. Every winter I manage to re-learn knitting, with it getting easier each year. This year I am determined to continue it even after the warmer weather comes, though I usually just go running outside instead. I'm almost done with a classy wool scarf for hubby, and I'm working on my first sock. We'll see if I get as far as making its friend, but here's to hoping!
I also sewed a simple skirt last weekend. I haven't made one since high school, and that one looks okay from a distance - if anyone who has half an idea about sewing looks at it closely, however, it's pretty scary. Patience is something I'm working on, and did not have much of in high school. My recently completed skirt does have lovely french seams and an elastic waistband to make its bold 70's pattern quite flattering.
I've been glued to a lot of books recently - thanks to the library and Amazon!

• Sewing in a Straight Line - has the skirt pattern I used. Listed as a 1 hour project, which took me about 5, but whatever, it's done!
• A Very Small Farm - needed a small book to read on the bus/Metro last week, and this just happened to be the right size. It's one of those books that just makes your heart feel good (or at least mine).
• Make the Bread, Buy the Butter - was on the waitlist at the library for months for this one, but it was definitely worth the read. Hubby actually told me to read this one (mostly because I make butter sometimes and he thought it would convince me to not make it!).

Another source of ideas/projects/inspiration has been the blog Cold Antler Farm. I got her book from the library a few months back and have been following her blog ever since. The little farm that she now has is a big inspiration, and her new book, Barnheart, looks interesting as well. I'm inclined to wait until I can get it from the library, but I do look forward to reading it. What she describes as "Barnheart" is really how I feel right now.

Symptoms of Acute Barnheart: Endless hours spent baking bread, studying chicken coop plans, gathering eggs, browsing seed catalogs, weeding the vegetable garden, attending sheepdog trials, dreaming about heritage-breed livestock, and longing incessantly for a farm of one's own.

While I don't have chickens (yet), and I don't have a sheepdog or heritage animals (yet), this is pretty much my dream and goal for the (near?) future. Hubby, who is from rural Minnesota, is decently frightened when I really get talking about it, but neither of us want to continue to live, or eventually raise a family, locked in the suburbs. I like to think my crazy hobbies are just research and preparedness for the future!

For now, I'll let the cats out to mow the grass, and keep dreaming. :)



Awaiting Spring; Winter Foods

Winter just hasn't been that...winter-y around here. All of the area bulbs have been halfway out since mid-January, and I noticed some daffodils in full sun blooming last week. The temperatures are still bouncing between actually cold, and quite spring-like, but I have to remember to hold my horses when it comes to spring planting etc. My neighbors did think I was a little crazy for putting together the new garden bed in the beginning of February, but now it will be ready when the weather is!

As it is still winter, I'm trying to go through the stock of food built up in our freezer and pantry. Last fall we purchased a decent amount of beef from Oakland Green, an old farm/ B&B about an hour northeast of us. Hubby actually went with me (likely to restrain my spending, but he actually chose the more expensive cuts!) and we had a lovely time - resulting in bringing home enough meat to fill half of our freezer. We've since gone through the roasts and ground beef, and I have been slowly incorporating the more "interesting" cuts (offal), which are cheaper and require some creativity to make appetizing. Liver is still not high on my list, and tongue does add a different taste (even when slow-cooked in BBQ sauce), and the heart also makes a decent stew. It's nice to try different things that we may otherwise not have, and I like the idea of making use of/eating the whole creature. The freezer is the emptiest its been in a long time, save for stock, pizza sauce and even some ice cubes (which makes the hubby very happy).

My Reblochon is aging nicely in our corner (by the poorly insulated back door -thus nice and cool for cheese aging!) and I've been learning a lot along the way. The main thing I learned is that brushed rind cheeses are actually not that easy, and possibly not the next step I should have taken! After the cheese is pressed and salted, it needs to be flipped and wiped down with a brine every other day, and I guess such diligence is not my strong suite. I ended up battling some vicious fuzzy blue mold (not the yummy good kind!) and I think I delayed my cheese's proper aging in the process. In the past week it has finally started to develop its characteristic orange hue, and my blue arch nemesis seems to have been put on the back burner.

Just to prove that things haven't stopped fermenting here, I made my first batch of Kombucha, from a scoby I grew myself! I don't like the idea af spending $20+ to purchase a starter (and then what if something goes wrong?!?), so I found a method to grow it from one store-bought bottle ($3 - much better!). It's neighbor the sourdough starter is starting to behave (and smell/taste) better, mostly because I've learned how to better take care of it (aka cook with it more often!). I just pre-baked a couple of sourdough pizza crusts for dinner tonight - to be topped with homemade mozzeralla and pizza sauce! I'm still working on acheiving the proper crust and flavor when baking sourdough loaves, but they are steadily improving in both departments.

Hubby does not always appreciate all the healthy foods I keep around here (and therefore force upon him), so for Valentine's Day, he received a basket of goodies that don't normally make it through our door. Candies and chips were the majority, but some homemade chocolate chip cookies seemed to also go over well. The flowers he got me are still doing well, but the chocolate and banana bread beer are now only a memory. ;) 

Current and Future Food; Early Spring as Well?

Well, now we've started February and we should be in the middle of winter. Virginia is, technically, part of the South, but it's still not supposed to be 65 degrees in February! All my bulbs in the front yard are inches above the ground and pushing higher by the day. My garlic never died back, so everybody received a healthy dose of bulb fertilizer this past weekend. I am very prepared to put blankets and/or sweaters on everyone, should winter decide to make a comeback (as it is prone to do).

This past weekend was comprised of two time consuming and rewarding undertakings - multiple dozens of cupcakes, and a raised bed in the backyard. I always love an excuse to test my baking abilities, and my co-workers are always happy to test the results - especially when a birthday is involved. After much planning and mess-making, the resulting two dozen normal sized cupcakes and three dozen mini cupcakes were ready for celebrating and sharing. The green-topped lovelies are mint chocolate chip, and about as tasty as two perfect bites could be. Making mini cupcakes is definitely a lot more work (a recipe for a dozen normal cupcakes equals three dozen+ minis), and I only have one mini pan at the moment, so there was a lot of shift work for that pan. As cupcakes go, the minis are the absolute perfect size, however. I try to avoid making a ton of white sugar/white flour baked goods, but this recipe is definitely going into the repertoire.

The warm weather of the past couple of days made it impossible to stay inside; also impossible to not think about this year's garden. I stuck my name on the list for our local community garden plots, but I won't hold my breath for this year. So, I bought a couple more fabric pots for the front yard, and also got the itch to put a raised bed in the backyard to try my root veggies again. I tried double digging a small corner late last summer for some fall crops, but even with all the amendments, the clay compacted right back down. This second attempt involved about a hundred bucks worth of cedar bed kits (two of them), amendments and the most bad ass shovel I could find. In addition to breaking our back digging up the ground last year, hubby snapped our ground breaking tool in half last year. It seems that this shovel was the answer because even our awful clay didn't stand a chance against it. Once I mastered the in-and-outs of the power drill (and leveled the yard to the smallest extent), the box of beautiful soil was ready for spring. I still need some more compost and soil to fill it a bit more, but fast-forward to early March and there will be spring planting happening! All my attempts with root vegetables have failed thus far (mostly in large pots, and then the stupid clay), so fingers and toes are crossed for success this time.

I also finally got around to starting the earliest of the early seeds. I want my annual herbs and flowers to be approximately nursery size around last front time, so we are going for an extra early start. The Striped Marigolds from Monticello and heirloom bok choi are the first to emerge. The Bok Choi seeds are from '08 so I am especially impressed with their vigor! Sharing the grow light next to the seeds are a couple of Rosemary cuttings (I expected my main plant in the front yard to croak, but it is heading towards medium-sized bush status!), as well as my lone Alpine Strawberry, and an Oakleaf Hydrangea started from a cutting (very proud of that kid). We're going to have to do some re-arranging at the end of this month to accomodate the onslaught of tomato family seeds (several heirloom varieties, but tomatillo and ground cherry as well), how exciting!

Now it is time to make some soup, because it is still February!

Fermentation Station

Winter is the best time of year to have furry pets - I have Wren warming my lap as I type. It is hard to be productive with 1-3 sleeping cats on or around you, but I guess it must happen.
As nice as the holiday seasons were, with the family visits and all, it's nice to be back to peace and quiet. My family visited us for Thanksgiving, and then hubby and I flew to Minnesota for Christmas with his family. It was all quite lovely (and made me wish we could move out to MN some time in the near future!).

More free time at home has meant a whole lot more kitchen adventures. Our counter has been home to countless new concoctions in recent weeks - hubby doesn't even ask anymore, ha. I tried out this homemade root beer recipe which, despite needing a bit of sugar, actually tastes pretty good. I don't know if I would make this particular recipe again, but hubby drank it, and that is no small feat, but I think I would tweak the drink in the future. My results were not particularly fizzy, so I might try one of the bottles at room temperature for a few more days and check the results. Our house isn't particularly well insulated, so it's probably cooler than ideal temps anyways.
The groovy bottles came from Fifth Season Gardening Co. in Charlottesville. Hubby knows that when I go to the C-ville area, I'll be coming home with lots of crazy stuff, hehe. They carry seeds from Southern Exposure Seed Exchange, my absolute favorite seed company, as well as cheesemaking basics (didn't want to pay shipping on pounds of cheese wax!) and all kinds of home brewing necessities. I finally obtained some large glass containers, and am trying my luck at a homegrown kombucha starter. It will hopefully soon be joining the ever-present water kefir and sourdough on the counter.

If it isn't obvious yet, I've been trying to avoid buying fruit juices. The two of us used to go through a container a week, and while I began watering them down, it seems better to generally cut them out. Thus all of the different fermented drinkables. Today I bottled the most recent attempt, an orange drink similar to the "Orangina" in Nourishing Traditions. I added sugar, which may have been what changed it up, because now I have something that tastes like a dry "orange" cider. It's also a little too salty. I wish I had the tool to measure alcohol percentage because I obviously left things fermenting longer than intended! A couple pinches of stevia and a handful of ice makes it decently enjoyable.
There is a gallon of delicious local milk in the fridge that is begging to be made into cheese, so I think I will try my hand at a washed-rind cheese, namely Reblochon. Wish me luck!

Also I have to leave on this completely unrelated holiday food note - Christmas pudding! I made one for a work holiday party, as I have been dieing to make one, and it makes enough for a small army. It turned out entirely delicious and decently brandy flavored - would totally make again, if only for the show. :)