And you'll find that you're in the rotogravure

I'm not sure why, but I've got a thing for Easter. I suspect that it's because I also love spring and, for me, it's a celebration of the season (eggs, baby animals, new plants growing, flowers), plus a chance to relive/recreate fun childhood memories. Also, chocolate. At any rate, we had a good one this year and hope that you did too.

Carrying on a family tradition: decorating
pussywillow branches with egg and bird ornaments

I made the kiddos a few little Easter presents - fabric baskets (I won't lie, these are really more for me - adding another kid has somehow significantly multiplied the amount of storage/organization we need around here) and little felt chicks (Fern's is a rattle, with a bell from a cat toy inside of it).

I also tried my hand at tsoureki again and was, again, pleasantly surprised with the results, given my relative lack of experience with baking bread. I made the full recipe, which made 4 of the loaves you see below, and pretty much filled up the KitchenAid. Although I'm sure we'll finish it all off, I might halve it next year and cut down on the amount of dried dough I have to clean off of the mixer head. . .

Most of our activities this year centered around eggs. Silas really liked dyeing them. His preferred method was to put one in each jar of dye, then promptly remove them and put in a new batch of eggs. I convinced him to leave a few of the early eggs in a bit longer, but we quickly used the 15 I'd hardboiled and moved on to dyeing raw eggs from the fridge. Luckily, there were plenty on hand (the chickens are laying up a storm these days!). We dyed every egg in the fridge and then saved the dye so that we could do the next day's eggs as well. I didn't do any more experimenting with natural dyes this year, but I'd like to try again next Easter, especially with onion skins and perhaps some red cabbage, as they're awfully pretty.

The main event yesterday was the egg hunt and it was a lot of fun this year. Silas started out slowly. Excitedly carrying around the first two eggs he had found, he was uninterested in looking further.

Then it became this.

Followed by this.

 After a refreshing snack, he was excited to find the rest and (of course), upon doing so relatively quickly, wanted to keep finding more. Ah, the enthusiasm of the two-and-a-half year old.

Fern got a new Easter shirt too - it's a little
silly, but it was a quick sew and I've been
itching to make her a little something to wear

Tasting much sweeter than wine

A few weeks ago, we had a really nice long weekend with Tres's pop, sister, and her husband. We got some quality time together, enjoyed lots of good food and beer, and they gave us a ton of help around the house/yard and with the kiddos. 

Important lessons from Uncle Steve

Headed to the Yakima with Auntie Jessie (and Booker)

One of the projects they took on while they were here was harvesting one of our beehives. The bees didn't survive the winter - I'm not sure if it was disease, pests, an excess of moisture, or some combination - so we harvested all of the honey from their hive. It wasn't full, about half of the combs only had a few inches of honey at the top, and we got about 2.5 gallons of honey from it. I intend to clean/melt the beeswax too, but haven't gotten to a second attempt, after my first failed. I'll post more about it after I try again. The other hive seems to be doing quite well and we may attempt to split it later this spring.

Our supervisor and official taste tester hard at work

 Our stash,  in the (poorly lit) pantry

To remove the honey, they cut the combs off of the bars (I didn't get photos of this part, but here's what the hives and bars look like), crunched them up, and put them in a paint strainer inside a fifty gallon food grade bucket with a spigot on the bottom,  lined with another paint strainer. The honey slowly strained through the cloth and they poured it into pint jars. It was pretty slow going, taking about 12 hours (15 hours?) over the course of two days. As it slowed, it didn't need such constant surveillance, just occasional checks and jar replacement. This was a totally manageable technique for processing what was, for us, a large amount of honey. Assuming (hoping!) we don't lose a hive again, we won't need to do things on such a large scale in the future, but we would employ a similar technique (crushing, straining, jarring) with different equipment. I'm really happy with how it worked out and so grateful to our family for making it possible during an otherwise busy (crazy?) time for us. It was a wonderful family weekend. Oh, and we've been eating honey every day since. It's delicious.

The fam-damily (sans photographer Grandpa)

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.