Clayton's Book

Clayton is turning 2 today and I made him a little book so he can practice different words. All it took was a few magazines and photos, colored card stock, and clear contact paper. I almost hate to give it away!

Clayton!

Clothes.

House. Mailbox. Tree. People.

Big red barn. Cow. Chick. Egg. Goat. Piggies. Bunny.

Food.

My family.

Church.

Birds and animals. (Bad pic; the book is nicer.)

Balls. (Don't google this.)

American flags.

Clayton is 2!

Brownie in a Mug

Today I was not sugar-free. I try to be most days, and I succeed quite often. But not today.

After my work and chores for today I felt like a treat, and of course we had none. I didn't feel like making a big to-do so I settled on our son Justin's desperate measure: Brownie in a Mug. Justin has since changed the recipe, but I find this one satisfactory.

Thanks to Elise at simplyrecipes.com for the photo.

Here's how to make it: put all these things in your mug, mix them up, and microwave from 40 to 90 seconds.
Ingredients:
1/4 C flour
1/4 C sugar
2 T cocoa
2 T veg oil (I used coconut)
1/4 t vanilla
2 T water

Suggestions for serving include ice cream or whipped cream (I didn't have either). I just poured milk in and ate it with a spoon.

Do you have a go-to emergency treat? Please share it with me!

Vermiculture

My 5-year-old granddaughter was lamenting our family's lack of animals: “What happened to your kitty?” “Where did the chickens go?” “You mean you don't have ANY animals anymore?” "No, none, Sweetie." But, alas, I forgot to tell her about the WORM BIN.

For over a year and a half I have had a worm bin so that we can transmorph (is that a word?) transform our food scraps into a healthy soil additive. Worm castings, as they're called, are a great addition to the garden or even to your houseplants. There is no odor, just nice (mushy in our case) dirt.

It doesn't take much to start a worm bit, either. You can keep it outside, like I do, or in the garage or under the sink in the house. Whatever works for you. Here are the ingredients for a simple bin of your own. 

1. Plastic storage bin with ¼” holes drilled on the bottom and up the sides
2. Newspaper, torn into 1” strips (give or take), enough to fill the plastic storage bin
3. Food scraps (No meat/dairy, and it's said egg shells and citrus peels are no-no's.)
4. Red wigglers (worms) available at fishing stores, other people's worm bins, or special wormeries.

Place food scraps at bottom of your bin. Fill bin with dry newspaper. Pour water in until paper is damp but not soggy. Place worms in bin, preferably in the middle of the newspapers about halfway down. They will go toward all the food scraps at the bottom.

To maintain, add food scraps regularly, about once a week. Add newspaper strips and dampen when level of paper becomes low.

To harvest worm castings: Push all materials (food scraps, castings, worms, newspaper) to one side of plastic bin. Fill remaining side with fresh food scraps and newspaper strips. The worms will migrate in a week or 2, when food on the “old” side of the bin runs out.

What to do with harvest: Side dress plants in your garden; apply lightly over entire garden area; add to potted plants for nutritional boost and added organic matter.

Dealing with Childhood Trauma 2: Homemade Yogurt

A few weeks ago I stumbled upon a yogurt maker at the thrift store, and bought it. Along with homemade sourdough bread, homemade yogurt was another of my mother's inventions during the back-to-basics phase of my younger years. Enough said about that. Since I have been eating whole-milk Greek yogurt with fruit in the morning, I thought it was time to try it out myself.

Well, I have learned the hard way that a product is only as good as its ingredients. I studied the yogurt-maker directions and bought some organic whole milk and pressed forward with my yogurty plans.

The instructions said you can keep the stuff in the maker 4-10 hours. I tried it for 4 hours, it was delicious and just a little runny. Last time it was more like 9 hours, and it was fantastic. I thaw out my frozen fruit, put a couple of dollops of yogurt on top, with maybe some granola sprinkled over. 

You may see the recipe on my online cookbook at http://myfamilyrecipes.livejournal.com/ 

Pioneer Trek II

Well, Allan and I did it again--we participated in our second pioneer trek as a ma and pa. We got matched up with really great kids, and every one of us came through it just fine. Here are some photos courtesy of our Trek Photographer Eric Morgensen. Note that we walked to our bus pickup place along the Seattle waterfront. Tourists were taking photos!

Here's an article about it published in the Bainbridge Island newspaper. http://www.bainbridgereview.com/news/266939401.html

One Hundred Things

Allan and I have been talking for the last year or two about downsizing, meaning finding a way to live in less space with fewer things. In order to do something like this, we need to get rid of some of our many possessions now. So, once again, I am getting rid of 100 things.

As you know, I have done this before. In fact, I have done it several times. But, since I have done it several times, it's time to cut just a little bit deeper. And I now have the perfect excuse: the Toppenish House, or TopHouse, as we refer to it. TopHouse has a modest kitchen, 2 small bedrooms, and a finished attic containing 2 rooms. There is very little storage space, meaning we will have to either not store so many things or create more storage. I prefer the “not store so many things” option. Plus, this means when it's time to move we won't have as much to move. Win-win!

I will keep a running list of the number and type of things I am getting rid of, so stay tuned. 

How about you? Do you have a plan for de-cluttering? Or do you have the luxury of plenty of room and storage space? How do you manage your possessions, your hobby materials, your clothing and linens, your tools and kitchen things? 
[Here they are, my 100 Things: 5 shirts; 1 pr capris; 2 jeans; 2 sweaters; 1 blouse; 1 formal dress; 2 cookbooks; 1 sign (total: 15) 1 shirt, 1 pants, 1 pkg decorative baggies, 2 bottles, box, stack papers, bubble wrap, another stack papers, 5 egg cartons, 3 trinkets, bag of shopping bags, 2 shirts, 6 books, door handle, 12 jars, banana box (total 55) ferry schedule, stack of papers, 4 boxes, fencing, 4 hankies/rags, 8 underclothing, toaster, cd, 6 bottles, cosmetics container, act fluoride rinse exp date 2004 (really!), 3 more egg cartons, first aid container, 2 expired ointments, stethoscope, 2 coats, snowsuit, almond crumbs, plastic bin, air pump, kitty litter scooper, banana box, 4 magazines. Over 100 things in 8 days (July 2-July 10)!]

Home for the Future

Over the winter Allan and I visited his mother in Toppenish, WA in Yakima County. She lives in a tiny city, right on the edge of town, practically across the street from some farmland. Right now the air is fragrant with mint! (It's generally fragrant with something, and mint is a real pleasure compared to fertilizer.)

The house next door came up for sale because the previous resident, Alma, passed away at 98 years old. I suggested we buy it and rent it to a family until we're ready to retire in 9 or so years. So we did! It is just the thing we had been hoping to do here on the west side of the Cascades, but haven't been able to. This way we'll be nearby if his mother needs us, but not in her home or she in ours. Unlike my humungous extended family, Allan's family is quite small and the support for Grandma is limited. 

The sale was final on June 17, and we went over, cleaned it up, and rented it. Our craigslist ad drew about 20 calls in the first 3 hours, so we took it down at around noon. There aren't enough rentals in Toppenish for the people who need homes. We are feeling very blessed. 

Trying My Hand at Whole Wheat Sourdough

 I have talked about it a bit, but I had a bad, bad experience with homemade sourdough bread. When I was in 7^th grade my mother, in her eccentric wannabe hippy days, decided to expose us kids to the Sourdough Experience.

You have to understand—I had really only eaten the low-end white bread for my entire life up to this point. It wasn't bad (to me), either, except for the pbj absorption problem with school lunches. But I digress.

I'm not sure why sourdough—although, come to think of it, sourdough was less work and expense than other traditional artisan loaves. [Nowadays “artisan” is a compliment.] But there were definitely some problems with our Sourdough Experience.

The first was the bread pan—it was too big for the amount of dough placed therein. After the big rise, the bread reached about halfway up the pan. This made for a decidedly short slice of bread—maybe 1 ½ inches. The sandwich made with this bread was an impractical size and the proportion of bread-to-crust was off. Plus it didn't fit into the baggie very well.

The second problem was the texture of the bread, along with the color. It was, well, transparent. I think it may have been that the dough was too moist, but whatever the issue, the bread was kind of see-through. And kind of a pale grayish whitish blueish. It was neither appealing to the eye, nor appetizing.

The third problem was that it was really, really sour. Our former sandwich bread was pretty much tasteless, so that made it inoffensive. Not so with Mom's sourdough. It was extremely offensive to the olfactory sense, my own and my classmates' as well.

Silly-looking, transparent, and smelly. But wait, there's more.

It freezes nicely!!

Peanut butter and jam, the lunchtime fare, does not go well with sourdough. Today I might try a savory combination of peanut butter and pickles or something like that on sourdough, or even something meaty. Pbj just didn't work with Mom's sourdough.

In my first marriage my husband always talked about his friend's great homemade sourdough bread, he just couldn't get enough of it. But I relived the traumatic 7^th grade year of lunches every time he brought it up. I knew in my head that there was good sourdough out there, but I just couldn't embrace the concept then, it being so fresh in my memory.

See recipe: myfamilyrecipes.livejournal.com

And then, just 40 years after the trauma (Really! That was 1972!), my friend Liz came along. Liz loves real food. And she makes all the bread for her family of 9: whole wheat sourdough. I got her recipe and method in October, when I had my broken ankle and couldn't entertain the thought of making anything, including the bed. Her instructions (she had taught a class) were so thorough and easy to follow that I couldn't resist the inner challenge. In April I went ahead and got some starter from Liz, and off I went.

Great slices--sandwiches look appetizing.

The first loaves were fine, but a little short—though not too wide because I appropriately used an 8”x4” pan. And when I offered some to my son, Zach, and his wife, Julie, I explained that it wasn't that great, not what you may expect, a little heavy, not like at the store, she chastized me: “It tastes just like sourdough, don't sell yourself short!” (God bless her.) And the rest of the family ate it all up.

And now I am a seasoned whole wheat sourdough maker!! And it's good! And pretty! With great color and a delicious crunchy and satisfying crust! And it makes excellent toast. 

Would you care for some starter?