Our harvest Summer 2013

 

The cuban peppers, tomatoes, and basil are few of the first summer bounty from our  garden. I am planning to save the basil in my freezer for the long winter. I did few researchers on basil and few suggested to place them in the food processor with olive oil pulse and save them in air tight containers. 

I am canning tomatoes into a sauce hopefully, I have enough to do so. 

The cuban peppers, I have to be a bit creative to use them. I usually use them to cook and add into egg omelets, How do you use your peppers, I would like to know. 

Stocking up on Solids...

I have this thing whenever, I go to a fabric store I have a tendency to buy prints which attracts me the most. Due to habit I have acquired a bit of a collection. 

Recently I have been trying to work few quilt blocks here and there. On the course of this process I have come to realize that I do not own any solids in my collection of fabrics. All these years I have been collecting prints.

I took the opportunity when I saw the sale at the fabric store and stock up a few colors that might work with the prints I have in hand. Do you collect fabric? Do you buy solids at the same time with your prints? Do you keep a track of your prints and buy your solids later when they are on sale?

I am running out of storage space better work on a quilt soon!

New England Aquarium

We took the kids to Boston, a trip to the aquarium was FUN! Nicolette was super excited to see the octopus. I could see older one did not care much, but enjoyed being outside with everyone. The weather was beautiful and it was packed. I wished we picked a weekday for much quieter and detail walk around tanks. 

I always get excited seeing the huge tank at the center of the acquarium and the gigantic manmade corals. The sea turtle was making his way to the surface of the water to get a fresh breath of air.Their were divers feeding and another was demonstrating the marine life and the water system of the newly renovated aquarium. 

The outdoor sea lions were much fun to watch. One sea lion was hanging out by himself. However others were entertaining the spectators by racing in the water and splash landing on rocks. According to the information they were all rescued from the nearby sea shores. The feeding was super cool Nicolette was very observant, she also had her first experience in touching a Rays. 

We left Boston, entertained by fish and full bellies with Vietnamese food!

Green Tomatoes

I took these pictures couple of weeks ago. You, might wonder why I am posting them now. I want to share how I build my garden. By now most of you may have vine ripe tomatoes. I had few of them too. I will write all about my tomato harvest and what I did with it on a another post. 

I know I planted many varieties of tomatoes this year. Silly me, I did not save any of the names, I know one reason, was during planning I planted seeds early March. However, none of my seeds could not make it this year. I have a feeling it was due lack of care. However, these guys were so happy this year at this new spot. I have build two raise beds behind my kitchen this year. Which is next to the compost. I will be adding one more raise bed and that will be the only one for this yard. 

Few things to remember when planting your tomatoes are... 

Tear away few leaves from the root ball up and plant them really deep. This will aid plants to have sturdy trunks and healthy roots when they are young. This palnting method will also protect them from Spring rain and storms.

Condition your raised bed dirt with egg shells, compost, and once you plant them add a thin layer of straw to protect the dampness of soil, this will also help in weed control.

Water them when they are young, until the new leaves starts to grow. 

Plant your basil with tomatoes, they like each other, but this year I did not plant them together.

I would like to hear how you plant your garden tomatoes, if you have them in your garden.

Thrift store journey...

I took a small day trip with my neighbor to a thrift store. It is always fun to go out with a gal who knows the place. My lovely neighbor knew exactly what I was looking for. It was fun we were there super early go through store. She had three boxes that she wanted to donate and I had none. Perhaps, next time I can be more prepared. 

The store was in an old house. I wish I took some pictures and it was four levels counting the basement. The volunteers were super nice and very generous to slash the prices. 

What did I score? well, few things. To begin, I was actually gravitating towards the picture frames and I found few neat pieces. 
A beautiful hand embroidery piece and it was framed, no date on it but it could add some color to my sewing room. I am thinking to paint the frame to add a bit of color to the piece. 

The other frames were, one for little Nicolette and to my sewing / creative room. 

A neat hand appliqué table cloth...

Eight bulb vases (these were quarter a piece). I love to plant bulbs with my daughter and watch them grow. This will be a cool projects for this Fall/ Spring. I am planning to do this with kids at school as well. I have been eyeing the bulb vases at the nursery and did not want to pay that high price tag.  

Four, candle stick holders once again a quarter a piece. 

Cheese dome with a board. I always wanted to get one, but keeps forgetting. We could have some cheese this Fall. 

Guess what, the total for all this was eighteen dollars not too bad. The most high tag was the embroidery piece. 

Do you make time to go to a thrift store if so, do you stay closer to your town. 
What have you scored recently from a thrift store?

Canning Mistakes

We have been using our blueberry syrup with pancakes. I have to admit it is yummy. Kids LOVE it. If I let them, they would have them everyday! Nicolette think she still needs her regular syrup with blueberry syrup. I have been trying to explain that it is our new syrup instead of the store bought. 

It was a bit difficult for her to grasp the whole concept, but we will wait till all our store bought syrup to be gone then we will have only blueberry syrup. 

She took every bite of her pancakes and nothing was left! 

One Hour, Listening to Music, and Creating

Some who was close to me once asked how do I managed my time. Well, I wish I have more to say however, I try to relax, and get my work done as much as possible during mornings. I will work in the craft room for certain time just like I would work in my yard. Lately, I have created my playlist to last long just around an hour so I can get things done during that time while enjoying my favorite music. 

This is much more relaxing than using the timer. I know I need to wrap things up and move on to the next task. I find this way that I do not get bored and i can work on multiple projects. 

What works for me right now will not work for me when the school starts but I might tweak my schedule this year so i can spend more time creating and hanging around with my family!

My point is Music could help you to organize your work style when you are at home. In some occasions to motivate you as well. 

My Sewing Machines

I do have a story to tell,and this is how it goes. When I was just stepping towards my teenage years. My best friend made a very cool zipper pouch to store pencils in other words a pencil case. I can vaguely remember it was quilted, had an odd shape, but was made with a beautiful fabric. Don’t know much about the odd shape. This lead me to explore my mothers sewing machine. 

I made the same odd shape pencil case. During this course I manage to break few needles, learned how to change needles, learned to attach a zipper the best I can, and above all I learned to work on this project without my mother’s permission. She did had a difficult time to understand why her machine would not work properly for a while. 

Then I learned how to do patchwork for a brief time through my mother in - law. I borrowed a sewing machine from a friend during my first years in US. 

Finally, I bought one for my self. I was not happy with the machine at all. After two attempts on machines. I invested on a Viking. I was so happy with the brand and decided to up grade I have done it twice and I am doing it again this Summer. I still LOVE my current machine (which is on this picture) very much but I am ready for the next level. More to come on my NEW Machine on future posts. 

Dosa, The thin indian pancakes...

This is a well known, widely spread, and staple dish in South India. It is popular in Sri Lanka as well. How did I came to know about this yummy dish is through my mom. She would take the time to make this at home. I remember this is not something we made often because, it is much easier to go out to have this meal. We use to go to a special restaurant call Shanthi Vihar in Colombo, Sri Lanka it is still there but gone through many ownerships I guess. 
How I got my hands around this dish was I had a parent from North India in a school I taught in VA , she was kind enough to give the recipe, and get some of the ingredients to make the dosa. 
I have to admit with time and practice I have gotten better making this at home with an ease now. Not only that, I have made some changes to this as well. I have recently discovered that fermentation does add a twist to this pancakes. 

This is how I make them... 
1 cup Urad Dhal (skinned, white)
2 cups rice (white rice)
1/4 cup masoor dhal
1/4 cup split green moong dhal
1/4 cup split yellow moong dhal
1/2 tsp fenugreek seeds 
1 tsp salt
2 tsp sugar
non stick spray (pam)

Wash and soak all lentils, rice, and fenugreek. Add water about 3 to 4 inches above the grains and let is soak over night. Next day morning using your blender grind the soaked grains using less water to make a paste not so runny and not so thick. After all the grains are grounded add enough water to make it  pancake consistency. Now add the salt, sugar, and let the mixture stand on your kitchen counter for several hours. I usually have this for dinner. Recently, I found out if it is fermented it will add a different taste to the Dosa’s and it be comes more crispier too. 

Heat a pan, spray non stick, and ladle the mixture. (when you spoon the mixture to your pan you should hear a sizzle). Now, using the back of your ladle/spoon spread the mixture on the pan, starting from the center making a circular movement towards the rim of the pan. In other words you are spreading the mixture on the pan to make a thin pancake. Now cover it with a lid and cook it for about 30 seconds or so; until the back of the pancake becomes golden brown. Then remove the pancake using a spatular and cook the other side for few seconds and transfer it to a plate. Serve warm with sambar or potatoes. I will write a post on that later. 

I hope you will give a try to this wonderful dish. It is very light and you can make the mixture and use it several times. I make different masala’s, sambar, and curries to go with it. It does take some prep time but once you get the hang of it it is not too bad. 

Sewing with Scraps...

I always want to work on quilting. I have painstakingly taken every possible step towards it. I love quilting and have done few projects for my kids and even for ourselves. I remember creating few quilts for my little one from used baby blankets. 

The other day I had few pieces left from a project and I was playing with them. Little Nicolette like to sip my water, tea, sometimes she will get to juice if I am having something at my table. I care less using a coaster at this table; my bits of fabrics lead to creating a small coaster I can use at my craft table. 

At this moment this is how it looks! I can see my self getting hook on this track! 

DIY Self Fire Pit for Less ...

 

I have been bit busy working in my yard with my son. We inherited couple of old trees with our home. We had to take few off with much reluctant. However,the ones we have will drop few dead branches in our yard. We have been collecting them in few piles behind the pantry and mainly behind the garage. I decided to make a fire pit mainly to burn the few branches we collect, could add a little bit of ash to raise bed to improve/condition soil, same goes to the compost to improve conditions, for us to hang out by the fire, and mostly to toast marshmallows in FALL! Bit of camping in our own backyard.

Of course safety first! Nicolette is young we have gone through many rules when we have fire at camp sites. Same rules works at home when the fire is lit we sit around and no running in the yard. 

The Total cost for the project not including labor was $ 88.81 this does not include the gravel and the edging because we had those items at home from another project. Few trips to Home Depot was all it took. I cannot wait till Fall! Extra bonus yard getting clean up from debris! Which will lead to few more projects, later on those. 

Jam...

Finally, we made our jam. I was so happy to dress them up for gifts. Some even flew out of state all the way to the west coast! I bought this stamp from a an ETSY Seller which was really cool more on that later! These 8 oz jars are like little jewels; part of me feels sad to give them away. 

It is better to give than receive. I wonder who came up with that. So far I have received many good comments on my Jam. Few think I should go into business but not me. We had so much fun encapsulating local blueberries. It would be totally cool to spread these jams on bread during winter months. Hopefully it will cheer up the winter blues we often go through. 

Homemade Granola

Now that we know how to make yogurt at home we needed to be more creative to find ways to consume all that delicious yogurt. We did made sweet vanilla yogurt. Which was delicious but we want to add granola which was not at home. 

I found this wonderful recipe from a friend. Now we can make this at home and can have a fresh batch always. I love this more than the Trader Joe brand because this had toasted almonds and coconuts yummy. Kids loved it, this was a perfect treat for them in the afternoons. 

It was so easy to made. I did add some dried cranberries to make it a little sweet!
To make it healthy I add olive oil instead of butter few changes to the original recipe but it was GREAT! 

Canning Stage 2

We went again blueberry picking and this time we want to get it right. I am doing one single batch at a time, not picking a very hot day, and measure all ingredients properly.

Yes, we finally did it! I was so impressed the second time around it was much easier and knew exactly what to anticipate. I believe the first time around it was doubling the batch and not measuring the sugar was the deal breaker. But, we love the blueberry syrup, it was a great hit around the house whenever we have pancakes. Neat gift for some of my friends. Not only that I was able to inspire few to make the sauce at home! 

I was blessed with my domestic bliss of making blueberry jam. This is something I wanted to accomplish for a while. Seeing the 9, 8 oz bottles of jam which we made from picking to canning was so fulfilling! This winter we will be having many snacks. 

Finally, it is not too bad to do canning at home. It does not take an entire day, the process is very simple and straight forward once you get the hang of it. 

Tomatoes...

Tomatoes are in peak. We had few ripe tomatoes we have been using in our daily cooking. I will be canning some this Summer for winter months. I am thinking of sauce. We have many varieties in our yard and cannot keep track of them. Their are few heirlooms in this collection as well. Last year we had tomatohorn worms attacking our plants. So far I have not seen them in our yard yet. That does not mean we will not be attack this year. We are always looking for bugs. 

We did had some kind of a bug earlier in the season which was eating almost any kind on leaves. We thought it was a beetle but could not find the source. 

Are you growing tomatoes, if so what kind do you like most. How do you condition them to get more crop through out the season. Do add the compost and wait or give a supplement. I would love to hear. 

Homemade Yoghurt

After reading few posts on how to make homemade yogurt. I decided to take matters to my hand. Some would ask why do you make yogurt at home? when you can easily buy this and readily available in any grocery store. 

Well, to answer to that question depends how much are you willing to go through the process to make sure you can save money and have good quality organic yogurt at home. If you do the math organic yogurt could run between $ 4.00 - $ 5.00 depending if you hit the sales at your local grocery store. However, homemade could be far less expensive.

Less additives and pure yogurt. Not only that you make a big batch and save itin containers. Homemade yogurt could stay in the refrigerator up to a month un-open.

Canning Stage 1

In my to do list for this Summer was canning. I rolled my sleeves up got busy with my kids! I thought I have successfully finished canning but I ended up with canning a sweet blueberry syrup. Yes, it did not work for me. I was heart broken but I learned a lesson. It is super necessary to measure all your ingredients for canning. I was relying on my kids for measuring and I decided to do double the batches. I don’t think it was a great idea. 

We will be canning again this summer for one last time but we are not going to double the batches next time and we will do a better job in measuring. We are happy to use our blueberry syrup with pancakes it was yummy.