The only pretty ring time

We've been seeing signs of spring around here for the past couple of weeks now and it's been pretty glorious. The weather hasn't exactly been consistently pleasant, we've definitely been getting our March winds and some rain to boot, but we've been getting ourselves outside at every opportunity. Silas loves to be out, digging and dumping sand, gathering rocks, letting the chickens out, turning the water on and off, watering the garden, soaking himself, and generally having a good time.

Our earliest plants have started blooming and all of the fruit trees have buds. Tres started the first trays of seeds for the garden two weeks ago and he and Silas planted the first seeds in the ground yesterday. 

forsythia

lilac buds

The chickens are back up to nearly maximum output, laying 4-6 eggs per day. The jackrabbits are out and quickly multiplying. I've started hanging the wash outside again. One of our beehives is busily buzzing (the other didn't make it through the winter, more on that in a separate post). Our sweet spring baby is growing steadily and (despite photographic evidence to the contrary) spending more time awake and alert. Don't you love the promise that spring brings?

What can make me feel this way?

Last Saturday (March 1st) at 9: 16 p.m., we welcomed Fern into our family. We're all doing well and have spent the past week happily at home, getting used to new routines and each other. Thank you for all of your congratulations and support!

Keep movin' on

Hmm, I've started two entries since the last I actually posted and published
 zero. . . I guess that's how things go sometimes. I don't have a lot to say now either, so I'll just put up a sort of random hodge podge. Let's start with some sweet photos (with the new camera I got for Christmas - yippee!) of Silas from the past couple of months.

Reading with Auntie

Making breakfast

 Enjoying a Valentine's Day treat

Trying on Papa's boots

I've been doing a bunch of cooking/baking since I got off of bedrest (other than spending time with Silas, it was what I missed most). I've made these cookies, sans filling, although I'm sure that would be amazingly delicious too, about four times in the past month, for ourselves and to thank all of the neighbors who helped us out. They are super, super good. You should make them. In a very similar vein, but for breakfast, is this delicious oatmeal. I've only made it with regular milk and I subbed dates for the raisins (because raisins are gross). It's also a definite winner. On the more savory side of things, we've really  enjoyed this a couple of times in the past month (subbing a pound of sweet potato and a pound of rutabaga for the kale, squash, and leeks and throwing in a quart of canned tomatoes - this recipe is very adaptable to what's on hand, I think the biggest key is making sure you do the onions, carrots, and celery for the full 15 minutes and get them really nicely browned). A garnishing spoonful of pesto is an especially nice touch.  Lastly, I can't recommend this cookbook enough. Every recipe we've made has been wonderful and the hummus is fantastic. I can't wait until we have fresh produce in the garden and I can try the other 75% of its recipes!

This, sadly, doesn't make the cut for recommended recipes,

but it looks pretty and it's the only food photo I've taken this past month

Happily (despite all of the foreboding, worrying, and, upending of everyone's lives), this baby has remained inside and, while the doctors keep telling me it will probably be be any time, we're still waiting for things to get going. My due date is a week from Monday, we'll see what happens!

This is actually a couple of weeks old,

but you get the idea

While the merry bells keep ringing, may your every wish come true

Fun with "balloons"

It's been kind of a wacky past week or so around here, as I ended up on hospital bed rest for preterm labor a week before Christmas (not the way I intended to first talk about this pregnancy on the blog, but what can you do - he/she is not due until 3/3/14 and, current concerns notwithstanding, we're very excited!). Happily, they were able to stop things within a few hours and I've remained stable since. They let me come home for bed rest on the afternoon of the 24th and our wonderful families all changed their plans and came up here to celebrate with us. It was obviously not the Christmas we had been planning, but a wonderful time with both of our entire immediate families all together. 

 His and his pjs

 Tres's endives

 Cousin Eddie, is that you?

 Delicious, delicious Christmas dinner

It's been an unusual interlude, to say the least, but I can't begin to say how lucky and grateful I feel for all of the love and support that our families and friends have given us. Sitting around for weeks (best case scenario and what I'm really hoping for) won't be the most exciting use of my time, but it's so much better than the alternative, that all I can really do right now is thank my lucky stars and hope that all continues to go well.

Reading Fox in Socks with Opa

Watching Oma hem

Walking with Auntie

We hope that you all had wonderful holidays and wish you happy, happy 2014!

Greens, greens, and nothing but greens

Now that's a lot of kale!

I may have mentioned earlier that we've got a serious kale crop this year. Now, we're not in a super rush to use it all up or anything - barring a super intense snow/freeze, the kale will last here well into winter - but we will have to eat it quite consistently in order to get through it all this winter. While we really enjoy kale, it turns out that we don't actually have a lot of go-to recipes for its use. I've been doing some experimenting these past few weeks and have a few to share with you, some new and some we've used for awhile.

First up is a new one to us, from my perennial favorite. This was an especial winner, as it used some of our copious sweet potato harvest too. The only changes I made were, obviously, substituting kale for the chard, using cheddar (it's what I had), and leaving out the fancy herbs (which I didn't have). I blanched the kale before cooking it with the onions (I was worried it might be too chewy/crunchy, otherwise, but it may have been an unnecessary step).* I do recommend being a little skimpy with the first sauce application, as the top will get crunchy if you don't have enough to cover it. Oh, and it's totally delicious.

Next is a family recipe, from my Oma. We've typically eaten it as a side dish at Christmas time, but it's also makes a nice meal, with some potatoes (I especially like it on her dumplings).

Grünkohl
2-3 large bunches of curly kale
4 slices of bacon
1/2 large onion
2 tbsp. oatmeal
water or stock
bouillon (optional, see above)
salt and pepper

Strip kale leaves from stems and wash thoroughly. Blanche, by placing kale in boiling water, returning to a boil, and draining. Puree in food processor. Chop bacon and fry in a large pot. Set bacon aside and and cook onion in bacon fat until glassy. Add kale, water or stock to cover (I usually go the boullion route, since I don't know how much stock I'll need - you just add one cube, regardless of the amount of water you use), salt, and pepper to taste, and bring to a boil. Reduce to a simmer, add oatmeal (I know this sounds weird, but it's just a thickener), and cook for about an hour (add water if it dries out). Taste it - if it's bitter, cook it longer. This is best if it sits for a day before you eat it.

This is the closest I could come to a Silas-related

photo with kale, it's a year old and he's picking cabbage

This next one's from my sister and for all of you raw kale lovers out there (it made a believer out of me!).

Kale Slaw
Chop up a bunch of kale. Not teeny - more like potato-chip sized.
Put in a bowl.
Squeeze a whole lemon over the top of it.
Dump in a fair amount of sea salt.
Drizzle in a tablespoon of olive oil.
Drop in a cut-up avocado.
Knead thoroughly (a couple minutes - with your hands).

This soup is from another old standby in our house. It's quite adaptable to what you have on hand and seriously delicious - I won't lie, though, I can't think of a way to make a vegetarian version that's nearly as good. Thoughts?

Portuguese Kale Soup (adapted from Marian Morash's The Victory Garden Cookbook)
1 pound kale
1 pound potatoes, peeled and chopped
1 pound smoked sausage (I love chorizo, she also recommends linguica), sliced
1 medium/large onion, chopped
2 carrots, chopped
2 cloves garlic, chopped
olive oil, if needed
2 quarts stock
1 quart tomatoes (she calls for 3 lb.)
1 1/2 cups cooked beans (I occasionally leave these out if I don't have any on hand, but it's better with them)
salt and pepper

Wash and strip the kale from its stems, then diagonally slice it in thick strips (you should end up with 6-8 cups). Fry sliced sausage in a large pot until lightly browned, then set aside. Warm sausage fat over medium heat (adding some olive oil, if needed). Add onion, carrots, and garlic and cook until softened, about 5-7 minutes. Add potatoes and stock, bring to a boil, then lower to a simmer for 15-20 minutes, until potatoes are cooked. Mash potatoes against the side of the pot, add tomatoes and beans, and simmer for 10-15 minutes. Add kale and sausage, cook for 5-10 minutes, and season to taste.

One last winner, which I won't repost in its entirety here, is to mix 3 large bunches of kale (blanched and pureed) into the sauce of our macaroni and cheese recipe. This was definitely Silas's favorite of the above and we liked it a lot too.

There you have it, 5 of our favorite kale recipes and plenty of kale left in the garden for further experimentation. Got any favorites you'd like to share?

*I made this again this past week and pureed the kale in the food processor after blanching, as Silas had a hard time eating the chopped pieces, and this worked well too.

Over at the Frankenstein place

Happy Halloween!

You'll need no castles in Spain

Happy fall! I apologize, if anyone's actually still reading this, for the long hiatus. This summer, while not particularly busy per se, really knocked me out. I have a post started on some of our summer activities, but I'm so enjoying the season right now, that I decided I'd rather start here. We've been having a beautiful fall and Silas and I have really been enjoying spending time outside - walking through the garden, following the chickens, filling buckets with rocks, and generally having a good time. It's such a relief, after what felt like an unrelentingly hot summer, to be able to comfortably spend long stretches of time outside.

While we were down visiting our folks for Silas's birthday, my dad and Tres went searching for chanterelles and came back with quite a haul. We enjoyed a couple of really delicious mushroom-centric meals and then made the rest into duxelles to freeze  and enjoy throughout the winter.

Silas inspects the cleaned mushrooms

Fall is our busiest preservation time and also the end of preserving season. We've finished all of our jams (I made a few jars of plum two weekends ago and declared jam season finished), canned tomatoes, and made 60 pounds of pears into sauce and preserves, so apples and sauerkraut were our two remaining items. The weekend before last, we hit up the farmer's market for 20 heads of cabbage and a local orchard for 100 pounds of apples and got down to it. Silas was a very eager and involved helper. He mashed and stirred kraut for Tres and helped him peel the apples, while I heated and ground them up.

We've also been enjoying the fall "fruits" of our garden. We've had our first good year for brassicas and are really excited for all of the kale, sprouts, and cabbage we'll be eating over the next few months. The kale has been by far the most prolific and I have some recipes to share shortly, as I've been searching for new ways to use all of that goodness. We also have a few sweet potatoes (they filled the wheelbarrow, as you can see  below - we estimated that it's about 200 pounds. . . from 25 feet of plants!). Suffice it to say, I've been looking for sweet potato recipes too.

eating squash, with chopsticks (why not?)

I peeked in on the bees yesterday and things are looking pretty good in there, lots of honey and bees but significantly slower activity. After some internal debate, I decided not to harvest any honey this year, as I really have no idea how much they'll go through this winter. So, this will be a learning year and next year, we'll do some harvesting. I have a little beeswax, from the combs I broke last spring, so I'll still get to do a little experimenting with that this year.

All in all, it's been a wonderful fall thus far and we're hoping that we'll get to continue with the beautiful sunny days and subsequent sunny dispositions for a few more weeks.