Womanhood – Page 11 – Home's Cool!

Blessings of Habit, Good ol' days, Homemaking, Recipes, Who's the mom here?, Wives, Womanhood

The Fastest Way to Put Up Greens

Posted on May 12, 2011May 13, 2011 by Katharine

Now that the wonderful produce from the garden needs preserving, let’s talk about how to get the job done as fast as possible and get out of that hot kitchen lickety-split.

Today’s vegetable is beet greens, one of our favorite treats. In fact, we love beet greens so much, we planted two rows of them and will not allow them to mature to beets. We will just pull them and use them for greens. These instructions will work well for any type greens you cook, though.

The first step is not to pick the greens, but to heat the blanch water, which takes a long time. If you have an exhaust fan over your stove, you will be glad if you turn it on.
Bushel of Greens
Now pull or cut your greens. I like to lay mine in a bushel basket as I pick them. Here you see them after a light rinsing. Now I place them in a five-gallon bucket and fill with water. After sloshing them around a bit, I place them into the basket again, tip it to allow most of the water out, and take it indoors.
They Float
To finish washing greens, I like to use my clothes washing machine. I always wash a bleach load of towels as the last laundry use, so my washer is bleached. Using the large load and gentle rinse setting, I fill it with cold water and add about 1/3 bushel greens. NO SOAP! I allow it to agitate for 3 to 4 minutes, then stop the cycle and allow it to sit for a few minutes. The greens will float and I scoop them off the top half of the water, into a clean pan or bowl. They will be a bit torn, but we are going to chew them, anyway, right? I then allow the cycle to complete, including the spin portion. (Hint: I always fold or iron clothes while waiting for this, so I do not forget it.)
Debris in Washer
In the bottom of the washer will be debris, which you should remove and save for your chickens. Then repeat step 3 to rinse another 1/3 bushel. Although this may seem like using too much water, the alternative is to wash them a few at a time in the sink, using at least seven pans of water for each fourth bushel. The mechanized way is much faster, and I don’t think it wastes water.
To prepare your kitchen, gather a couple strainers, one that will work in the boiling pan, and one that will stand in the sink. Fill either a very clean sink, or a large pan or bowl with cold water.
The StrainersSink Ready
Once the blanch water boils, fill a strainer with raw greens, and carefully lower into water. Cover pan and wait 4 minutes. Using a potholder, raise greens from boiling water and allow to drip a moment. Then plunge blanched greens into the cold water. Stir them gently to help cool quickly. Then transfer to standing strainer to drip before dumping into clean pan or bowl. Repeat this step until all greens are blanched.
Raw, Fluffy and CrispyBlanched, Four Minutes LaterPlunged into the Cold WaterAllowing Excess Water to Drip Off
I started with a bushel, but ended with this, which the pan says is 8 quarts, but only made six, when packed down.
Eight Quarts?
Box or bag for the freezer, and label with date and contents.
Boxed, Labeled, and Ready to Freeze

Too much work? You’ve never tasted fresh beet greens . . .

Cats, Inspiring, Womanhood

Katharizing the Whole World . . .

Posted on May 10, 2011May 29, 2014 by Katharine

I seldom use the suggestions for Postaday blogging but one recent topic has struck my fancy: explaining my name.

Katharine is a popular name, if you count all its variants, such as Ekaterina, Caitlin, Kate, Kitty, and even Karen. Chosen by Russia for its famous queen, by Shakespeare for his famous shrew, and by the parents of the famous actresses, Carlyle, Hepburn, Z-Jones, and Ross, it is now also the top hit on every search engine because of England’s recent joy.

Katharine is also a family name, for me, handed down from my mother’s side. According to her, the family, being Lutheran, chose the name of Martin Luther’s wife for one of their daughters. Eventually it came to me to bear the honor of sharing with this great woman who never really achieved fame, nor wanted it.

We go farther back than that, however, back to the foundations of language, itself.

Specifically, the First Century Greek language contains words like katharismos, meaning “purifying”, and katharos, meaning “pure”. With Greek being the dominant language of much of the western world for some time, it yielded the name, Katharine, a good choice for parents to name a daughter if they aspired to purity for her, and a popular choice if they were educated people.

In the early fifties, I discovered my name means “purity”. I wish I could say this discovery dominated my every act from then on. However, the thought of it did lend me a certain awareness of possessing a backbone, of wondering about purity. Although this awareness resided quietly in the back of my mind for many years, it would occasionally surface, especially when I learned a meaning of any other name. In fact, learning name meanings became a hobby I enjoyed from about age eight.

No kidding, at a young age, I read baby name books from cover to cover, comparing the names of my acquaintances to my perceptions of their personalities, and, later, comparing the names of various beaus and the implications of the meanings, to my future.

Even today, when a person introduces himself to me, I mentally scour the pages of names I memorized for clues to his personality. Fitting or not, it colors my first impression. Still, I also realize we cannot help the name our parents chose and not every “John” grows up to be “Baptist”, although I believe each one is “given of God”, which is what the name means.

This beginning made me a person who feels sorry for people whose names have no meaning. Chosen from thin air because they feel good in the mouth, like pablum does, these names often are misspelled by any definition of phonetics. Often they also imply absence of a daddy in the “family”, and sometimes the absence of even a granddad or great-granddad. It saddens me, for the bearers’ sakes, this having no definition or history, no foundation or instruction for the core of their beings.

Like candy, their names give only short-term gratification and leave behind no sustenance.

I would be unfair, though, if I did not tell you one more thing about those Greek kathar- rooted words: They also gave us our word “cathartic”, which word I will leave you to look up, and to chuckle about, to yourself.

Herbs, Homemaking, Womanhood

Weekly Photo Challenge: Round

Posted on May 4, 2011March 18, 2015 by Katharine

Oh, after such a long time of sketchy Internet service, the (round) sun is shining and the air is crisp and wonderful. Such cool breezes as we cherish are blowing over our land and the trees positively glitter from being so clean.

Opportunities to snap photos were also sketchy, since I believe cameras prefer not to be wet. However, catch this:

What I hope is a Viceroy caterpillar is gobbling my rue plant. His little middle is growing round and rounder. At least this one is leaving the dill alone.

We have a set of antique wagon wheels in our herb beds:

cos, burnet, thyme, and wheel — Cos, Burnet, Thyme, and Wagon Wheel

This first one shelters the cos, burnet, and thyme.

rosemary, pineapple sage, cos, and wheel — Rosemary, Pineapple Sage, Cos, and Wagon Wheel

It’s twin decorates the rosemary and the pineapple sage.

I do love all my herbs and hope you have discovered the joy of growing them.

Believe it or not!, Who's the mom here?, Womanhood

The Coat Hanger, Revisited

Posted on May 4, 2011May 4, 2011 by Katharine

It’s all new, but it’s old as life, itself: a new way to kill.

You go to the Planned Parent Hoodlums (PPH) and find someone there (Nurse? Janitor? Toxic waste clean-up pro? Who knows?) to give you a poison pill you cannot swallow until you e-mail a doctor.

Right.

You do NOT get a chance to consult with a licensed physician as the FDA says you should. You just web-cam the guy.

It’s the all new telemed coat hanger. And it costs the PPH a lot less. They don’t have to hire a doctor, after all. Whew! Wasn’t THAT a close call!

Friends, this is NOT about equal access to healthcare for women.

This is about those who PROFIT from reaching their tentacles into places where abortion was already “RARE” and causing more of it, by inflicting a dangerous drug cocktail on women and even minor females.

These women and girls are told that if they have any physical troubles, to go to an emergency room and pretend they are having a legitimate miscarriage. Think: If you were a little girl who may or may not have known how you got pregnant in the first place, and have had NO medical counsel, would you know if you were having troubles that necessitated an ER visit? Maybe. And your UNATTENDING physician—where is he? Still unattending, of course, since what he has done is very lawsuit worthy.

Basically, if you dare darken the doors of PPH, you could be merrily sent on your way to hemorrhage to death. Wow, that will certainly cost taxpayers less, since PPH can lay off the toxic waste disposal team, if they bother to have one. Or, hey, they could lay them off and pretend they did not, since they are so into pretending lies, and still collect the money for it. Perfect set up!

But if you do manage to realize you need the ER, and if you do feel enough shame to join in the cover up, and if you do have those poisons racing through your veins, and if the actual REAL attending physician happens to believe you—you will receive treatment based on incomplete information. How safe is that, hmm?

And how obvious PPH does not give a hoot.

About you, that is.

Just money.

Let me tell you one thing: If someone gave a young BOY a poison pill, told him he might feel bad, and if he goes to a doctor NOT to tell what happened, it would be murder and certainly not bankrolled by our taxes.

Let’s hope.

Believe it or not!, Inspiring, Scripture, Wisdom, Womanhood

Wrapped in Nothing But a Bedsheet . . .

Posted on April 25, 2011August 8, 2011 by Katharine

The powers-that-be have just dragged her from the bed of a man to whom she is not married.

Perhaps all she is wearing is a bedsheet.

Perhaps he is one of the powers-that-be.

Nevertheless, there she stands, exposed, before her authorities. They do not care about her. They do not care about right or wrong. The have stalked her, captured her, and reduced her to the status of rubbish for one purpose: to trick a popular counselor of that day.

“The law demands this woman be stoned to death,” they announce. Then they wait. They are so sure. They have Him this time. The Man of Mercies will have to admit that mercy does not always win. They think.

He is unperturbed. He stoops and writes in the dust. A list of their sins? Perhaps. Do they look around themselves, worriedly, confused? Perhaps.

Meanwhile, the life of a woman hangs over eternity. Perhaps, thrown down to the ground, does she cower? Perhaps. In a culture that forbids her uncovered state, in a land filled with huge stones, she waits, uncovered, for her stoning.

Finally the Man stands to speak. “And whoever is without sin should throw the first stone.” Then he resumes writing.

Beginning with the eldest–perhaps wisest–each man drops his gleeful attitude, drops his stone, drops his case. Point taken.

The kind Counselor turns to ask the woman, “Where are they? Who is accusing you?”

The answer, from inside a bedsheet: “No one.”

“Neither do I condemn you.”

Notice He does not say she did not sin, but only that He does not condemn her. She stands obviously guilty and shamed, but for her, there is now no condemnation.

Stoning is not prevalent in our society, but prostitution is. I want to ask you: How many of us have been there–a blackened past forgiven by the mercies of God?

How many of us throw away that forgiveness? How many of us hug our sad past close and get it out to look at it and mourn over it, to relive it to its fullest? How many of us labor with all our might to get out from under sin that no longer is over us? How many of us on, stormy days, add to the bad past by letting it create for us bad choices, bad attitutdes, bad excuses?

A bad present?

Jesus asked only one thing from that woman, that day, and asks it of us, too: “Go, and sin no more.”

Do you know the difference between wisteria and lilac? This is wisteria!

Homemaking, Womanhood

The Costliest Perfume

Posted on March 31, 2011March 9, 2018 by Katharine

Do you ever have a day when you have to unload before you can function? It’s like having your arms full of groceries when someone wants to shake hands. “Hello. Glad to meet you. Let me unload, first…”

Today, chick checks are driving me nuts. We’ve had horrible troubles with a wicked old raccoon, torturing our poor hens have to death and then leaving them to die. Chickens cower when I check their feed and water. Rain waits until I’m half-way past the lilacs on the way to the coop, before it sends a few drops directly over the rifle. Then I have to dry the rifle so carefully.

After lunch, and after the lunchtime chick check, is when I decided it—I had to unload before I could function any more and definitely before I laundered shirts. I calmed myself and gathered gloves and a lopper. Eight joyous branches later, and our dining table centerpiece was doing what lilacs do best. They may be too much perfume for one meal, but are just right, for right now. As the house fills with their scent, I relax.

I once had an opportunity to visit West Bend, Wisconsin, during the bloom time for lilacs. West Bend must have a policy about lilacs because everyone there has them, even fast food places. Arriving at dusk, my family and I wandered out of our car and into the spicy sweetness. Their essence was too strong to recognize on the balmy evening air, but it was sublime, as it is in my house, right now.

Was it like that when Mary bathed and anointed Jesus’ feet? The Word says the house filled with the perfume. Jesus said we always would remember her, too. I feel glad for her sake, but I wonder why He said this and why we remember her.

Of course, her story provides a glimpse into the seamier side of life in Jerusalem. Things were different, then. Adultery and prostitution were against the law, then. Nowadays they are just entertainment for the soaps crowd and fun pastimes for teens. Most kids of today have not heard and would hardly guess these activities are sin, would never be able to guess why. Almost no one can see the demise we’ve inherited from them. Ruined personalities, ruined families, ruined towns, counties—even whole states can trace their downfall to the ruin of marital faithfulness. Whole villages have thrown away the solid ground on which they built. It won’t take much of a wave to wash them away. It will be sad when it comes, and it only takes one village ignoring erosion to start a huge washout.

Will anyone ever see it? Will anyone ever feel sorry about it and stop it?

Mary did, although it meant embarrassment for her.

The perfume of lilacs, faithfully calling to us, can make a difference in this world. Like Mary. I want to be like her. I want to be always at Jesus’ feet.

Blessings of Habit, Coffee-ism, Homemaking, Inspiring, Recipes, Wisdom, Womanhood

The A-OK Breakfast – Veggie Frittata!

Posted on March 30, 2011April 17, 2011 by Katharine

Good morning!

The hardest thing about dieting, for me, is that the only way I can really lose weight and stay healthy is to cut carbohydrates. I dread that. I love chocolate-coated sugar bombs with milk and cream on them. I love pancakes with too much syrup. I love granola bars, instant milk stir ins, and smoothies.

The only way I can make myself follow a low-carb diet is to keep telling myself that sweet = poison. In a way, it is true, for me. Sugar sure is sweet and sure is poison. Most sugar substitutes are, also. Since I stopped allowing sugar past my lips, I have been tons healthier. I try hard to stick to only 10 grams of sugar per day, although I often go up to 15 or 20. Still, I try.

Now, lest we be confused, in my book, starch = sugar. If you paid attention in school, you learned that starch changes to sugar in the body, often as soon as while it is in the mouth. So–no sugar = no starch.

Exit: breakfast as we know it. Enter: eggs, the wonder-food.

Long ago when scientific empiricism ruled, children learned in school that eggs are nearly a perfect food. Soon after that, media sensationalism took over and we all became scared of the egg. Impossible! Now, surprise, surprise! the egg is coming back into vogue, probably because if we want, we can circumvent media tripe by watching the computer, instead, choosing to read the research for ourselves, instead of trusting the interpretation of those who have agendas.

Slowly it trickles down and grows to a deep sea of truth. The truth is, I cannot eat the average donut or cereal breakfast and lose. I ate that way for most of my life, and now, the part of me that processes sugar is worn out. It’s gotta be protein and greens for me.

I have learned, from long years of perfecting my breakfast menus, that I cannot tolerate egg after egg after egg, unless I do something drastic about the boredom. So I collect amazing egg recipes. Thinking others may be in the same boat, I have decided to share, every Monday, how I have beat egg boredom. (Yes, I know today is Wednesday. Minor glitch. Just think–you only have to wait five more days for the next installment.)

Today will be the Vegetable Frittata. It is so NOT breakfast-y, that it shocks the taste buds into sobriety while delivering tons of great nutrients to the fasting body, including one of the most easily digested protein sources, the lowly egg.

Here it is, in all its glory. Adjust it to meet your taste buds and your veggies on hand. Enjoy!

Vegetable Frittata

2 T. olive oil or butter
4″ sprig rosemary
1 or 2 green onions, chopped
1 clove garlic, pressed
1 or 2 mushrooms, sliced
1 small tomato, chunked
2 eggs
grated parmesan cheese (opt.)

Warm oil with rosemary in covered saute pan for a minute. Add onion and garlic and saute briefly, stirring, until clear. Add mushrooms and increase heat slightly. Saute, stirring, until mushroom begins to shrink and brown. Onion should brown, also, and garlic should be nearly overdone. Increase heat slightly and add tomato. Stir and fry until tomato just begins to peel.

vegetable frittata-1 — Just After Adding Tomato

Beat eggs with 1 teaspoon water and add to pan, stirring constantly until done. If desired, contents of pan may be pushed into interesting shapes before egg sets.

vegetable frittata-2 — Prepared with Love

Sprinkle lightly with parmesan cheese, salt, and pepper, if desired, and serve with 2 ounces of pomegranate juice and/or 1 cup coffee or tea. Serves one.

Enjoy!

Okay, I know it’s a shock. Move to a sunny window, close your eyes, pretend you’re in Italy, and learn a new thing.

See ya’ tomorrow!