I said I would do it and I did! Here is the new page, connecting all my green activity suggestions.
Tag: garden
A New Page!
Announcing Another New Page – Recipes!
Okay.
I know this site is a mix.
But so is home life.
One minute you’re mopping the face of a heart-broken pre-schooler
while dispensing wisdom about overcoming heartbreak.
The next minute, supper is due.
Or past due.
You come here for help and encouragement about the home.
Me, too, sometimes.
And if I am not feeding a soul, I am feeding a tummy.
Or 17 tummies.
And looking for that recipe.
Or wishing for a new recipe.
When one of my own recipe cards is lost, I come here, myself.
Really!
I need that recipe!
When you need a recipe,
or a boot in the motivator,
or you just want to think about food,
And have fun.
P.S. I know I have not found all the recipes I’ve posted at Home’s Cool, and need to search for more. They’re tucked into all sorts of places, kinda like at my house. If you find one somewhere, here, and it’s not on the new page, let me know, please. I’ll send you a yum recipe of your choice from my private stash as a reward.
My Grandmother’s Quilts
This is my most visited post, so far. It amazes me that folks come here, most. Enjoy.
I just want to tell you about my grandmother, Laura, this time.
I am a grandmother, and when I was little, I always wanted to be one. When I need inspiration, I remember my grandmother, Laura. Life is so different, now, though.
I know she was elderly because she had arthritic knuckles, gray hair, and a craggy voice. She wore a dress at all times, and she wore shoes with thick, high heels that tied on, sort of like men’s dress wingbacks, perforations and all. Do they even still sell those?
She sewed all her dresses. And sometimes, as a gift, she sewed my mother a dress, too. And she sewed the first dress I ever wore when I was very tiny. I know she made these dresses, because she made a quilt for each of her grandchildren. She did not go to a store for fabric for these quilts. No, she used fabric scraps from sewing dresses. When she made my quilt, she was careful to use many scraps from my mother’s and from my dresses.
I look at the quilt she made for me and I see the dress my mother wore to church in summer. I see a dress my grandmother wore. I see my very first, ever, dress I wore when I was tiny.
I don’t know how my grandmother found the time. She babysat three children, to make an income, because she was widowed when my mother was six. She used her entire, small backyard as a strawberry patch and put up all those berries or traded them for peaches and crabapples to put up. She made her own soap on the wood stove in the woodshed for all washing needs, for clothing, dishes, and bathing. She heated with wood or coal. She did laundry in the woodshed using a wringer washer and hanging it out in summer or in the woodshed in winter, when it froze.
And she prayed. I mean, she really took time out to pray. She would tell us not to bother her while she prayed, she would go to her room and shut the door, and she would pray.
When we visited her, we played with her one box of toys, leftovers from when our aunts and uncles were little. We loved these odd toys that didn’t do anything except prop up our playtime. She let us watch while she made us rolled-out sugar cookies in shapes like stars, hearts, and flowers. When we asked for colored sugar, she told us it tastes the same. We didn’t believe it.
One wonderful time, I got to sleep with her because I was the oldest and probably would not kick too much. I got to watch her unbraid and comb her hair, which was far beyond waist length. Seeing my grandmother in her gown in the moonlight by the window, combing amazingly long and wavy hair, made her seem to me like an angel. I was in awe.
Then she broke the spell by rebraiding her hair. She never used a rubber band, but simply pulled a strand of hair and wound the end of the braid like a fishing lure. I was filled with questions, then. Why do you braid your hair to sleep? How does it stay in place with no rubber band? I don’t remember her answers, but only my awe and her amusement.
She died about 48 years ago. I still miss her. I still want to be like her when I grow up.
Here is the quilt she made for me. You can see light red and white tiny checked fabric on the bottom, just right of center. That was my baby dress. It had teensy rickrack on it.
Just right of that is a sort of black and pink Tattersall with pink x’s. That was my mom’s summer Sunday dress for a while. It had white lace at the neckline.
Partly out of view on the left is a white with black swirls. My grandmother wore that. There we all are, in one quilt.
Weekly Photo Challenge: Purple
My husband and I have been married 42 years. Since we both grew up with lilacs in our mothers’ yards, we wanted them in our yard for our children.
Almost every place we lived, I tried to grow us a lilac bush.
I had little success, which surprises most people, since they are an easy-going plant. We’ve moved about 15 times, so we left a wide wake of surprised friends.
We’ve settled in, where we now live. On this property, which has amazingly elevated, rocky soil, are four lilac bushes: a pink, a French blue, a white, and a wild purple. They bloom. They grow. They survive drought. We can hardly believe it!
The fragrance is the stuff of dreams.
You Can’t Fax a Fig
We have all sorts of electronic substitutes these days. We push a button and things happen, things appear. We can bank on-line. We can borrow a book through the Kindle service. We can send an e-mail.
But it’s not real money, not a real book, and not a real letter. We’ve trained ourselves to accept the electronic substitute and taught ourselves to believe it costs us less, although usually it does not. Not if we think about all the real costs.
Anyway, I’ve been picking figs, lately, and the only, ONLY, ONLY way to get a fig that is still warm from hanging in the sunshine is to get up out of a chair, go outdoors, walk over to the tree, reach up, grab ahold, and pull a fig off the branch.
And it is worth all that incredible effort. A warm, ripe fig is a soft and squishy confection, what some might call “deliciously juicy”. Softer than a banana, sweeter than a strawberry, not sticky like caramel, yet reminiscent of all three, a fig can only truly be compared to another fig.
Oh yes — worth it.
And the people who like a fig enough to plant the tree, or to get off that chair and go on out there, or to cut the stems off the fruit and get out some canning jars, or to stir some canned fig into a cake batter — they’re worth it, too.
These are the kitchen people. The real butter people. The whole wheat flour, olive oil, honey, and home-grown eggs people. If offered store-bought, um, we really don’t mind fasting that much.
Got figs? Get these recipes!
MYO Fig Bars
2 c. chopped figs, stems removed
3/4 c. water
1/4 c. honey
2 tbsp. whole wheat flour
Boil until clear. Cool.
Dough:
1/2 c. butter
2 small eggs
1 tsp. vanilla
1/2 c. honey
1/2 tsp. soda
2 1/2 c. whole wheat flour
Cream butter and honey. Add eggs and vanilla. Beat until fluffy. Add flour and soda (sifted together).
Press half of dough into 9×13 pan. Spread fig filling evenly over dough. Roll remaining dough on wax paper and flip onto top of filling. Press gently. Mark bars by cutting through top, slightly. Bake at 375 degrees until lightly browned. Cool. Cut bars. Better than you-know-what.
Fig Bread
3 eggs
2 1/2 c. sugar
2 c. mashed, ripe figs
3/4 c. very fine olive oil
3 c. flour
2 tsp. baking soda
1 tsp. salt
1/2 tsp cinnamon
1/2 c. buttermilk
1 c. chopped pecans
Beat sugar into eggs. Add figs and oil. Sift together dry ingredients. Add to figs, alternately, with buttermilk. Beat well. Fold in pecans. Bake at 350 degrees for 1 hour in greased and floured loaf pans. Yields 3 loaves.
Have fun!
Germ Warfare – 3 Plus Recipes!
A friend and I were discussing blanching before freezing when she asked, “Do you have to?”
In an emergency, many foods you ordinarily would first prepare, you may freeze raw and untreated. Don’t expect them, though, to last over three months because blanching destroys the enzymes that induce ripening. Some vegetables, when not blanched, will continue maturing, though frozen. Unblanched okra, for instance, will become woody over time, in the freezer. So use these foods quickly. The foods must be perfect and unwashed. Freeze soft things before wrapping for protection from freezer flavors.
One friend only shells (does not wash) her surplus field peas and freezes them in one huge plastic bag. They separate easily. She measures, washes, and cooks as usual. She says they taste exactly the same but she does use the unblanched ones first.
I have found that you may treat the following produce this way if it has not been washed: whole tomatoes, whole apples, whole plums, whole carrots, whole peppers, edible pod peas, shelled field peas, and whole okra. All are for cooking only, except plums make good frozen treats. Be sure you remember you haven’t washed them before you use them.
The reasoning behind not washing vegetable before freezing is that they have a natural protective coating that helps ward off drying and if you freeze them wet, they will be impossible to separate for individual use. In the case of beans, this is not a factor, if you will immerse the entire package in warm water to rinse, later. Just think. If it is waxy, don’t wash it. If you want to freeze individually and bag later, it’s okay. Do not freeze anything with bad spots. How will you remove them once frozen? Just think. More info, starting here.
Two foods that you should always blanch and freeze are corn and greens. These two also taste pretty bad when canned, and take a lot of time and heat. One food that even the freezer books say we should not freeze is potatoes. I do not know why, because I have never tried it. I know, frozen potatoes are available in stores, but do they taste good? I’ve never tried them, either! Potatoes are best stored raw or canned.
To clean your kitchen after canning, just roll up the towels you used for covering surfaces, throw them into the washer and wipe the counter tops. You’re done! Then when canned foods are completely cool, remove bands and run the filled jars through the rinse cycle of your dishwasher. This removes the sticky film, from juices leaked in pressure cooking, which molds in the cabinets. These molds can enter the jar when you open it. They also make bad odors in your food storage area and attract bugs.
Now, DRUMROLL PLEASE, the real reason you read this far — The Recipes!
The following recipes come from several requests for instructions for making various sauces to use up excess tomatoes, etc. Also there are a few recipes for foods mentioned this week. Hope you enjoy making, storing, serving, and eating them as much as we do!
Homemade Mustard
1 3/4 c. white vinegar
2 onions chopped fine
1/2 c. mustard seeds
1/4 t. white pepper
2 t. soy sauce
2 T. white sugar
1 t. turmeric
Puree all ingredients in blender. Bring to a boil over low heat in a heavy pan, stirring continuously with a wire whip. Stir and simmer for 5 minutes. Seal in hot jars with hot lids. Place in boiling water bath for 5 minutes. Keeps very well. Yield: about one pint.
Homemade Catsup (not store bought!)
10 lb. ripe tomatoes
3 onions
2 bell peppers, red or green
1 clove garlic
3/4 c. brown sugar or honey
2” stick cinnamon
1 t. peppercorns
1 t. whole cloves
1 t. allspice berries
1 t. celery seed
1 c. cider vinegar
1 T. salt (opt.)
2 t. paprika
1/4 t. cayenne
Puree vegetables in blender, OR: chop, cook, and sieve them. Bring to a simmer. Put whole spices into a bag and add all other ingredients. Cook very slowly until very thick. Remove the bag. Seal in hot jars with hot lids. Hot water bath for 15 minutes. Yield: 2 – 3 pints. This is a good recipe for the crock pot, if you keep adding the juice until all is cooked down. It is too big for a crock pot at first, but becomes of manageable size eventually. The actual cooking takes all day on the stove top.
Tomatilla Salsa (A great use for small green tomatoes from dying vines)
5 1/2 c. chopped tomatillas OR green tomatoes
1 c. chopped onion
1 c. chopped jalapenos
(wear gloves and use ventilation!)
4 cloves garlic, minced
2 T. minced cilantro (opt.)
2 t. cumin
1/2 t. salt
1/2 t. cayenne
1/4 c. lime juice OR 1 g vitamin C tablet
Bring all to a boil in a large pot. Simmer 10 minutes. Seal in hot jars with hot lids. Place in boiling water bath for 15 minutes. Yield: about 2 pints. I cannot over-emphasize the importance of being careful with fresh hot peppers! I have made this using a food grinder, too, and it is much easier on the hands and lungs. You can grind the whole cayennes if you like, and have interesting red flecks in this lovely green condiment. The flavor when raw is sublime, but HOT. After cooking, the natural burning flavors of onion and garlic will have sweetened, though, so do not be alarmed at the raw flavor — just enjoy.
Pico de Gallo Sauce
1 chopped onion
2 chopped jalapenos
3 chopped tomatoes
salt to taste
2 branches chopped cilantro (leaves)
Mix. Refrigerate for 2 hours. Serve with chips. OR: Boil for 20 minutes, seal in hot jars with hot lids, and place into boiling water bath for 15 minutes. Yield: about 1 pint.
Pear Preserves
8 c. pears, peeled and chopped
2 c. brown sugar or honey
2 T. butter
Stir pears and sugar over medium heat until greatly reduced and thickened (2 to 4 hours). Add butter and serve over ice cream. OR: Omit butter and seal in hot jars with hot lids. Place in boiling water bath for 15 minutes. Yield: about 2 pints. This is another good one for the crock pot.
Very Quick Blackberry Sauce
1 pint frozen blackberries
1 c. sugar
1 c. water
2 T. cornstarch
Place 1/2 c. of the blackberries with other ingredients into small saucepan. Stir and bring to slow boil, mashing berries to color the sauce. Simmer until very thick. Add rest of frozen berries. Sauce will set very quickly and be cool enough to use immediately, with all berries instantly thawed. Delicious on cheesecake or pound cake. This recipe will only work with berries that have been frozen raw and are fairly easy to separate. Makes about 2 cups. Serves about nine. Also, try using 3 T. cornstarch to make a topping for a pie.
Potato Pancakes
1 qt. canned potatoes
1 egg
1/4 c. corn meal
1/4 c. self-rising flour
1/2 chopped onion (opt.)
salt and pepper to taste
oil
Grate potatoes including skins into bowl. Add rest of ingredients. Stir well. Fry in 1/2” medium-hot oil until well-browned and firm in middle, turning once. Drain on paper towel. Serve hot with honey, if desired. Serves about six.
Never Fail Meringue
1 T. cornstarch
2 T. sugar
1/2 c. water
3 egg whites
6 T. sugar
1/8 t. salt
1/2 t vanilla
This is a little tricky to time perfectly, but worth it to me. Cook cornstarch, 2 T. sugar, and water over medium heat, stirring, until thick and clear. At the same time, beat egg whites until soft peaks form. Add 6 T. sugar, salt, and vanilla, gradually. Beat until stiff. Continue beating while slowly adding hot cornstarch mixture. Beat until stiff. Apply to pie that has hot filling. Bake at 350 degrees for 15 – 20 minutes. I like this one because I don’t feel so much as if I’m eating raw egg.
Home's Cool! 