urban earth mother

I haven't planted any squash this year (although some sort of marrow or melon is growing in the compost heap) but I saw some squash blossoms at the farmers' market on Tuesday and thought I'd give them a whirl. We have found that in the summer we consume less milk, but have not actually cut back on our milk order. This has been leaving us with a lot of extra milk at the end of the week and I've been trying to find ways to use it. Last week I made yogurt 1 and a few weeks ago I did a fresh cheese with herbs.The cheese was really yummy and easy so I opted to try that again and make stuffed squash blossoms. I do not have pictures of the cheese-making process, but it was quite easy. Gather random herbs from the garden (I used oregano, basil and sage) Chop said herbs Put milk and herbs into a pot and bring to a boil. Add 1 cup buttermilk (I make it from powder) Add 1/4 cup vinegar - the curds will separate almost instantly. Drain curds in cheesecloth. Ad...

The spread We hosted the breakfast for our neighbourhood for Boston Shines (a big clean-up) this morning. One neighbour brought two HUGE boxes of doughnuts, one made two coffee cakes and I provided the savouries. I was asked, after posting some pictures on Facebook, for the recipes, so here we go with them.     Ready to get hotted up Breakfast Toad-in-the-Hole Sauté sliced mushrooms in butter  with a little pepper until browned. Remove from pan. Cook sliced small tomatoes in same pan (add more fat as needed), browning both sides. Remove from pan. In same pan cook bacon (I did the facon in this pan but it could be back bacon). Remove and crumble. Cook link sausages (4) in the pan until browned. Cut into thirds, remove. In a blender, whiz up three large eggs. Add 2/3 cup of flour and some salt. Deglaze the cooking pan with milk. Add the milk to the egg/flour. Add enough milk to make the mixture the thickness of heavy cream. Heat oven to 400F Add fat ...

It's time to start the garden! Sunflowers sprouting This year we started  some herbs and flowers inside. We, that is to say the Child and I, have planed lots of sunflowers. Round two is peaking up here in the kitchen. Round one has already gone outside to the big patch of contaminated dirt that formerly had a willow tree. The tree came down twice in two separate storms so we though it best to chop it up rather tan wait for it to get really big and come down on top of the shed.  We would really like to plan something nice like a blueberry bush there but after having the soil tested, we know we can't grow any food there until the soil has been  cleaned. Enter the sunflowers. She's two, it's time to put her to work Apparently, sunflowers are very good at removing containments from the soil.And as long as you don't then eat the seeds or put the plants into your compost, they are an effective and quite cheap way of cleaning up decades of crap that has buil...

I finished it last week and she's worn it twice now.  It is VERY warm! She probably doesn't need the liner in her jacket with it.  But it should be good for cool spring days and,  as you can see, there's room to grow.

I managed to score some beautiful llama/alpaca yarn at the winter farmers market a few weeks ago. I only bought two skeins and that seemed enough for a sweater for the sprog. I'm making it a bit long do she should be able to wear it next autumn and winter as well, provided she stays tall and skinny (clearly she didn't get that from me). I'll post when I finish and she's wearing it.

slightly crappy webcam photo I've decided I'm just not cut out for scarves. Not that I don't have a variety of very nice ones, it's just that they don't seem to entirely work in the cold weather. Both scarves and neck gators seem to have the fatal flaw of leaving bits of skin exposed either above or below and letting the wind whip right through. Enter: The Dickie. I admit, I got the idea of knitting dickies from watching Big Bang Theory with Howard's ever-present neck accessory, but it seemed like it might be quite practical. I whipped out one on some random circular needles with some yarn I had in my office (what, you don't have yarn in your office?) and after wearing it once I was sold. Dickie #2 (pictured) I made for Spouse. I used two stash yarns at the neck, switching just to the blue for the tails. This one has a particularly long front so that it can be tucked in to a wide variety of necklines. The double bulk at the top is exceptionally warm ...

Last week I made some candied peel in preparation for plum pudding and mincemeat. After boiling the citrus peel in sugar water for over an hour, I spooned it out to dry and was left with a sweet-tart syrup. Just the right thing to go in the Christmas beer. Yes, Christmas beer! Last year I made dozens of mince pies - homemade mincemeat in shortbread crusts - some of which Spouse brought around to the neighbors. It was his way of introducing ourselves (well, himself. I shyly stayed home) and sharing a bit of British Culture. This year I suggested that in addition to mince pies we give a bottle of homebrew, hence the Christmas beer. I've only recently gotten back into home brewing, thanks to Northern Brewer's one gallon kits . They make just enough for a one-beer-drinker household. For a holiday brew though, I needed to not only make more, but to work without a net kit. I had previously bought some crushed grains at Homebrew Emporium with the plan of making custom one gallon...

Child is helping

So the summer is ending and, while it wasn't a lot, we did manage to grow some things this year. The most recent item to appear was a cucumber plant. I didn't even know I'd grown one! This plant was doing well but I really didn't know what it was (a good reason to label your seeds when you plant them) until the blossoms started to turn into fruit. Cucumber Next up, the tomatoes! We do have a couple "larger" tomatoes, but the cherry tomatoes (did not know we had those, but I got the plants second hand) have turned into a bumper crop. The red ones aren't lasting long as we tend to munch them pretty quickly. Cherry tomatoes The potatoes, which I really though would go well, are a bit, um, small. These are the Marris Pipers that we grew in the container. I had anticipated at least 10 pounds but we only got enough for a small colander. They're tasty though! The other potatoes are even fewer (and many still in the ground), but given the ...

This is a bit of a catch-up on some knitting. I joined a knit-along Google Group and hadn't made anything (wasn't really into the patterns) until June. The June pattern was this market bag . It also allowed me some stash busting of random acrylic yarn. The handle did end up too long for me (stretches a crazy amount when full) but it works for Spouse. For July, I suggested an Aran sweater tea cozy . It wasn't chosen, but I decided to make it anyway. Here is the Sprog showing it off. And a close-up of the front And here's the back. This one used some wool I bought at a farm shop a few years ago. I only had one skein so was limited to a small project. This seemed the perfect user for it. And I think the tea pot looks quite dapper!

Our very first radish!

And here's the video I wanted to post with the garden pictures but apparently I can't post videos from the mobile app.

I'm trying mobile blogging this time,  so it's a quick post The potatoes are doing so well!  It's almost time to add more soil to form hills. The peas are coming up too. And the tomato and peppers are still alive. The big news from my seed planting is the beans are starting to sprout. The child's garden is coming along too, in spite of her sitting in it.

sage The front of our house has a small bed that I dug out and reserved for perennial herbs last year. I had tarragon, thyme and sage but only the sage really lasted. And not just lasted but THRIVED! Thrived like a nuclear-fulled lizard in 1960s Japan. thyme Sadly, the tarragon, the one I really, really wanted there, did not make it. But the thyme does seem to have survived, even if it didn't flourish like the sage.  There were a couple of leafless plants in the back that I transplanted into the front without knowing if they were perennials too I think one came back. Mint? Maybe? So I think this random thing is the mint Spouse planted. I plucked a leaf and it was very mity, but there are many groundcover pants in the mint families too, so I'm not sure. with luck, whwn it gets bigger I'll be able to propperly identify it.

So I haven't posted in a while. We are still dealing with the child's lead poisoning. Her levels went up again, coinciding with he warmer weather and more outdoor time. One possible reason was that the sunlight and vitamin D were expediting the transfer of stored lead from bones to blood. The other possibility was lead in the soil. Maybe the driveway isn't the best playground But then the backyard is suspect too        We started her back on basic iron supplements, but also had the soil tested at the state university. One concern was that the soil in the raised beds was suspect, but there was also an open dirt patch where a tree went down and we were working on getting the stump out. I thought that the front would actually be the most contaminated, but as it happened`that and the raised beds were fine but the back was at medium levels, which is still unsafe for growing food and, to us, playing. Future home of sunflowers Spou...