Kaia woke up early yesterday and couldn’t sleep last night ’cause she was so excited about starting school. She’s been going to a 3 day a week Montessori school, but this is a new school that goes through high school. We’re really excited to see how things go. The school looks fabulous! Kaia will actually be going 3 days a week and home schooling on the other 2 days. That’s one of their ‘school options’ that she can do through the 12th grade if she wants! And check out the curriculum. It makes me want to go back to school 🙂 (oh, and no, she’s not wearing any makeup)
Monthly Archives: August 2008
Yummy Jam
Kaia and I spent most of yesterday canning up Jams of every sort… there was Raspberry jam, Strawberry-Raspberry Jam, Blueberry-Blackberry-Raspberry-Strawberry Jam… and they all came out perfect and delicious! We found great, simple recipes in the Pomona Pectin Boxes, and they only used a little honey.
Here’s the “Everyberry Jam” on the stove:
Canning Frenzy!
We’ve been canning all day today! Woohooo!
Friday we canned up 8-8oz. jars of salsa. It’s a fantastic salsa fresh, but not as tasty cooked. Still, it’s pretty good. Today, we canned up 12 pints and 2 quarts of Basil Marinara sauce and 6 quarts of Roasted Tomato Garlic Soup. The marinara sauce turned out good, but could use more oomph, so we’ll have to add a little fresh spice to it when we use it. The Roasted Tomato soup turned out absolutely delicious!!! I’m excited to have all these yummy soups to look forward to this Fall and Winter! So, here’s the soup recipe (we doubled it):
Roasted Tomato Garlic Soup
8-12 tomatoes (depending on the size)
2 carrots — cut in 1″ pieces
1 large onion — quartered
2 large whole heads garlic — peeled
olive oil
2 1/2 cups chicken or Veggie. broth
1/2 cup chopped fresh basil — (or 1 Tbsp. dried)
1/2 pint cream
Core tomatoes and cut in half. Place, cut side up, on foil covered cookie sheet. Use enough tomatoes to cover the cookie sheet. Then add carrots, onion and garlic to the cookie sheet. Brush with olive oil. Bake at 400F for about an hour, or until veggies are roasted and a little blackened. Place in a large saucepan with the broth and basil and simmer for about 10 minutes. Blend with a stick blender (or in small batches in a blender) until almost smooth. Add cream. To can: Process in a pressure canner, pints for 60 min. and quarts for 70 min. For dial gauge canners use 11 pounds pressure at 0-2000 ft., 12 lbs. at 2001-4000 ft., 13 lbs. at 4001-6000 ft. and 14 lbs. above 6000 ft. For weighted gauge canners use 10 lbs. pressure at 0-1000 ft., and 15 lbs. over 1000 ft. This makes ~3 quarts of soup.
Anyone have a good low sugar raspberry or blackberry jelly recipe for canning?
Tomatoes and Berries galore!!
Kaia and I went Blackberry picking yesterday and got gallons of blackberries, and even a few raspberries. The vines were dripping with berries as big and juicy as I’ve ever seen. The raspberries weren’t ready just yet, but the farm owners had picked some of a different variety a few weeks ago and frozen them. So, I got a few gallons of raspberries too. So, we should have lots of yummy jam soon!!
Look at how huge these things are!
We’ve also been canning up some tomatoes. A local organic farm had some problems with their packing boxes and ended up with some bruised tomatoes that their buyers wouldn’t accept. So, they were trying to get rid of them and selling 20# boxes for $12!!! We got two boxes and I can’t find a bruise on them! They are perfect!!
So, tonight we canned some salsa, and on Sunday we are going to can some Pelati and some Roasted Tomato Garlic Soup. MMmmmmm…..
All is well on the baby front. I was showing so early and measuring ahead of dates, that we though we might have twins. So, we decided to go for an ultrasound just to be sure all was ok. Turns out there is one happy baby in there and one freakin huge placenta! From what I understand the main reasons for big placentas are moms with Syphilis (which I don’t have), diabetes (which I don’t have), Rh incompatibility (which we don’t have), and just because. I guess it’s just because. Big placentas often grow big babies… :-O
Isabella and Daisy went in to get spayed last week. Daisy came back her usual self and just bounced all over the place. We tried to keep her calm so that she wouldn’t break her sutures. She did fine, but for some reason Isabella’s wound opened a tiny bit, about the size of a pencil eraser, and she was having some swelling under one of her nipples. So, we took her back in and they put an adhesive on the skin to get the wound to close. But they also had to give her a cone to keep her from licking it.
She was not happy about it, walked around the house backwards, and somehow still got around it to lick the wound. Within a day it was opened up again, so I decided to do it my way. I cleaned the wound and put a sterile dressing with honey on it, then wrapped her belly in an ace bandage. So far so good. She’s able to move around and hasn’t tried to take it off. She’s eating well and I’m giving her some herbs in her food to keep down infection and to decrease the swelling (which is gone now). 
Coconut Milk Ice Cream-Mint Chip
Here’s a little recipe I put together yesterday in an attempt to ease a craving for mint ice cream. It came out very good and has no dairy or soy in it, so everyone in the family can eat it.
In a blender blend:
2 cans (13.5oz) Full Fat Coconut Milk
2 heaping Tbsp. cocoa
1 tsp. Vanilla extract
2 tsp. Mint extract
3 Tbsp Agave syrup
Blend until fully mixed. Then stir in 1/3 cup of chocolate chips. Pour into a bowl/dish/tupperwear suitable for freezing and place in the freezer. I stirred it every hour for ~6 hours, until I went to bed and left it in the fridge over night. It may do fine if you just leave it in the freezer without stirring, but I don’t know. (I don’t have an ice cream machine, and the freezer method seemed to work just fine) In the morning, I had a delicious spoonful of mint ice cream and was even better than the store bought!!!
You could make all kinds of variations to this, as long as you have the basic coconut milk…. like vanilla and fresh fruit, or vanilla and cookie dough chunks… etc.
Let me know if you come up with any that you like!
many disconnected thoughts
We have been without a good rain for months! The pond is dry, the plants are wilting, and everything is parched, and there is no rain in site! Please do a rain dance and send some our way!!!
Kaia, Toby, and I took the Amtrak up to RI and Mass. for a family reunion this past weekend! It was the first one in 22 years! It was wonderful to see everyone and hear so many family stories. I was 12 at the last reunion, so I didn’t remember much. All of my great Aunts had fun telling me how much like my great grandmother I am. I found out that she couldn’t work as a Nurse once she came over to America, so she got her certification in massage and worked as an herbalist and massage therapist. One of my cousins remembers her having 2 recipe books that she kept everything in, so he is going to go through some of the boxes of stuff in his attic (that have some of her old stuff) to see if he can find them. Wouldn’t that be amazing!! Some of those recipes would be from the 1800’s! She also read palms and tarot, which I think is pretty cool too.
We had a prenatal today and all is well. I’m 13+ weeks, but measuring ~16, so I may get an ultrasound, just to make sure I’ve not got two in there :-O We did hear the a heart beat though, nice and strong. And I’ve started feeling movements (Toby and Kaia felt it too). I felt them really early with Kaia too.
We’ve been trying to clean up the yard to get ready for our open house party in Sept. Toby’s mom came up today and helped chop up a bunch of construction wood for winter. The longer pieces will go towards making the raised garden beds.
A friend of mine is wanting to get ‘back to the land’ and has asked to live on our property for a year in exchange for house and childcare help! This would be an amazing help to us!!! She could help me get the garden beds prepared before the baby comes, help when the baby gets here, help with spring planting, etc… We are probably going to get a big family tent for her, and set up a propane stove and composting toilet for right now. And before the cold weather sets in, we will probably build a small addition onto the cabin with a separate entrance. That way she will have water, heat and electricity. I’m not really looking forward to more building, but it would be great to have her out here. And the guest house would be great in the future for friends/family, or WWOOFers or something.