As a step toward feeling better and NOT as a New Year's resolution, I have decided to try and dial-back sugar consumption in our household. It is going so-so.
On the upside, I have discovered stevia. It has already replaced the teaspoon of sugar in my coffee, with none of the tummy-burning side effects of some of the other "alternative" sweeteners that I've tried. It's a small win, but I'll take what I can get.
On the downside, I am still firmly in the grip of an intense sugar jones, and am probably not a lot of fun to be around at the moment. The kids are also not taking things so well. After our Voodoo Doughnut binge (the blame for which lands squarely on Anthony Bourdain), the withdrawl has been unpleasant. I know, that just like exercise, the first few days to a week are the painful part, after which you start feeling benefits and eventually end up feeling better than ever. It's the getting there that's not so fun.
Next on my list of healthful adventures - the making and drinking of green smoothies. I'm not expecting them to be received with open arms, but we're going to give it an honest go. This is going to be an interesting week around here...
Wednesday, January 13, 2010
Tuesday, January 12, 2010
I like to prune it, prune it
The modest increase in daylight seems to have given rise to a mild case of Spring fever in yours truly. Unfortunately, my cranky arthritic joints aren't really on board with all of the gardening & cleaning chores that my panicked brain insists that I get cracking on. As a sort of mind-body compromise, I've been doing some of the lighter yard work, like pruning my zillions of trees.
In reviewing the layout of our yard and garden over the past year, we've had to make a few difficult decisions about which plants and trees will be staying, and which ones will not. It is honestly painful for me to cut down a healthy tree, but I've decided that sacrificing a few for the good of the many is the best course of action. They are just too crowded, and if left to grow to maturity, will completely blot out the sun in several parts of our yard. And so, seven or eight of my poor little trees have a date with destiny this coming weekend. I console myself by knowing that the harvested wood will be used well, and by promising to plant at least as many new trees (in more appropriate locations and of varieties better suited to our climate and our family's needs) as trees that will be taken down.
In fact, just today I picked up a 3-variety dwarf apple tree from Costco. It will bear us Gala, Chehalis and (my favorite) Honeycrisp apples, yet remain nice and compact, without throwing too much shade or crowding out other plants & trees. It is a little surprise gift for my darling husband, who makes a mean jug of hard cider and has been pining after (pun totally intended) his own fruit trees with which to make his potent potables. But before the reward comes the work, so angry knees & shoulders or not, I'll be outside quite a bit this week, pruning and chopping. Uhg.
In reviewing the layout of our yard and garden over the past year, we've had to make a few difficult decisions about which plants and trees will be staying, and which ones will not. It is honestly painful for me to cut down a healthy tree, but I've decided that sacrificing a few for the good of the many is the best course of action. They are just too crowded, and if left to grow to maturity, will completely blot out the sun in several parts of our yard. And so, seven or eight of my poor little trees have a date with destiny this coming weekend. I console myself by knowing that the harvested wood will be used well, and by promising to plant at least as many new trees (in more appropriate locations and of varieties better suited to our climate and our family's needs) as trees that will be taken down.
In fact, just today I picked up a 3-variety dwarf apple tree from Costco. It will bear us Gala, Chehalis and (my favorite) Honeycrisp apples, yet remain nice and compact, without throwing too much shade or crowding out other plants & trees. It is a little surprise gift for my darling husband, who makes a mean jug of hard cider and has been pining after (pun totally intended) his own fruit trees with which to make his potent potables. But before the reward comes the work, so angry knees & shoulders or not, I'll be outside quite a bit this week, pruning and chopping. Uhg.
Sunday, January 10, 2010
Field Trip – Boulder, Colorado
Well, it appears that my fount of snappy titles hath run dry. I’m going to go ahead and blame it on these past few days’ lack of oxygen and/or excessive wine intake because… well I can’t think of anything else to blame it on.
For 48 whole hours, I managed to shake the confines of my lovely but too familiar hometown, and sneak away to Boulder, Colorado with the hubby. ‘Twas lovely.
I got to spend the day tooling around the town solo while the hubster toiled away, earning that paycheck that I so gleefully redistributed in the city’s lovely shops and funky little restaurants. In the evening, Bill & I met up and had dinner at a little bistro on Pearl Street, SALT. The food there is incredible, and in addition to being tasty, is also seasonal, locally sourced and organic. Everything we ate and drank there was phenomenal, but the serious show-stopper was the Dark Chocolate Caramel Salt Tart. Words cannot describe…
In addition to eating and drinking, which I probably did just a little too much of, I went on an odd but interesting tour of the Celestial Seasonings tea factory.
I learned a lot about how teas are made (Egyptian red hibiscus is what puts the “zing” in their Zinger teas), and got to spend a good 10 minutes inside a room in the factory, known as “The Mint Room”. The mint leaves, you see, must be sequestered from the rest of the other tea ingredients because of the sheer potency of their aroma. Visiting the mint room is a polarizing experience. Folks love it or hate it. I, for one, have horrible sinuses, so my minty experience was a therapeutic one. I huffed and snorted the menthol-y goodness, while other tourists, eyes watering and noses burning, were forced to cry "uncle" and step out.
I also attempted to take a tour of the Redstone Meadery, but arriving too late, was forced to settle instead for a tasting of half a dozen of their exquisite meads, darn it all. ;)
Good food, cool people, and a breathtaking landscape. John Denver was right, people. He was right.
For 48 whole hours, I managed to shake the confines of my lovely but too familiar hometown, and sneak away to Boulder, Colorado with the hubby. ‘Twas lovely.
I got to spend the day tooling around the town solo while the hubster toiled away, earning that paycheck that I so gleefully redistributed in the city’s lovely shops and funky little restaurants. In the evening, Bill & I met up and had dinner at a little bistro on Pearl Street, SALT. The food there is incredible, and in addition to being tasty, is also seasonal, locally sourced and organic. Everything we ate and drank there was phenomenal, but the serious show-stopper was the Dark Chocolate Caramel Salt Tart. Words cannot describe…
In addition to eating and drinking, which I probably did just a little too much of, I went on an odd but interesting tour of the Celestial Seasonings tea factory.
I learned a lot about how teas are made (Egyptian red hibiscus is what puts the “zing” in their Zinger teas), and got to spend a good 10 minutes inside a room in the factory, known as “The Mint Room”. The mint leaves, you see, must be sequestered from the rest of the other tea ingredients because of the sheer potency of their aroma. Visiting the mint room is a polarizing experience. Folks love it or hate it. I, for one, have horrible sinuses, so my minty experience was a therapeutic one. I huffed and snorted the menthol-y goodness, while other tourists, eyes watering and noses burning, were forced to cry "uncle" and step out.
I also attempted to take a tour of the Redstone Meadery, but arriving too late, was forced to settle instead for a tasting of half a dozen of their exquisite meads, darn it all. ;)
Good food, cool people, and a breathtaking landscape. John Denver was right, people. He was right.
Saturday, January 2, 2010
Eggzilla
I realize that I write about my chickens and their eggs way too much. But this is what passes for excitement 'round here -
One of these things is not like the others...
Do you see the super-jumbo egg? The thing was literally so big that we couldn't close the carton. The kids were unbelievably excited about the "super egg".
We weighed it before cracking it open - with much ceremony - to make cookies. Eggzilla weighed in at 4 ounces. A QUARTER-POUNDER EGG, PEOPLE. It turned out to be a double yolker, much to the girlies' delight.
Yes, my friends, this is what we now consider newsworthy in these parts. What a wild and crazy life we lead.
Do you see the super-jumbo egg? The thing was literally so big that we couldn't close the carton. The kids were unbelievably excited about the "super egg".
We weighed it before cracking it open - with much ceremony - to make cookies. Eggzilla weighed in at 4 ounces. A QUARTER-POUNDER EGG, PEOPLE. It turned out to be a double yolker, much to the girlies' delight.
Yes, my friends, this is what we now consider newsworthy in these parts. What a wild and crazy life we lead.
Walter, the $170 clam
Say hello to Walter.
Walter and his elusive brethren, the pacific razor clam, once again lured our family out to the wind-whipped Washington coast for a nighttime dig in the dead of winter. The siren song of a fresh, hot bowl of razor clam chowder had even the littlest members of our family suited up and ready for a freezing, wet battle on the beach.
An hour and a half's driving, a spendy-ish hotel stay, a decent case of clam-gunner's bursitis and a touch of windburn (for good measure) yielded us naught but a lone clam. Such are the risks taken by a modern-day forager. A whole lot of planning, driving and specialized gear guarantee you exactly nothing. We weren't the only folks striking out though, and something about failure on a large scale lessens the sting of being outwitted by a 4 inch bivalve.
And so, our proposed dinner of razor clam chowder was instead, demoted to potato soup. Walter alone was sauteed and eaten by Billy, our resident shellfish stalker.
He was reportedly "clamtastic".
Walter and his elusive brethren, the pacific razor clam, once again lured our family out to the wind-whipped Washington coast for a nighttime dig in the dead of winter. The siren song of a fresh, hot bowl of razor clam chowder had even the littlest members of our family suited up and ready for a freezing, wet battle on the beach.
An hour and a half's driving, a spendy-ish hotel stay, a decent case of clam-gunner's bursitis and a touch of windburn (for good measure) yielded us naught but a lone clam. Such are the risks taken by a modern-day forager. A whole lot of planning, driving and specialized gear guarantee you exactly nothing. We weren't the only folks striking out though, and something about failure on a large scale lessens the sting of being outwitted by a 4 inch bivalve.
And so, our proposed dinner of razor clam chowder was instead, demoted to potato soup. Walter alone was sauteed and eaten by Billy, our resident shellfish stalker.
He was reportedly "clamtastic".
Welcome Home (Yeastitarium)
Just back from our all too brief, and nearly fruitless expedition to the coast to dig clams, the hubby and I find ourselves scrambling to catch up on all of those little projects and chores which have fallen by the wayside during the holidays. Always first on Billy's list, his beer.
Here we have a montage of Bill's brewing efforts to date, minus the ill-fated brown ale.
L to R - 5 gallons "Amber Honey Lager", 1 gallon "Imperial Stout", 1 gallon "Blueberry Honey Ale"
Bill is bottling all 5 gallons of the Amber Honey Lager tonight. Good thing we've been saving our beer bottles and mooching would-be recycled glass vessels from our friends too, because this batch will yield approximately 4 cases of beer, aka 48 bottles of bubbly happiness.
Besides the beerfest, we've also got a few wines still going. The 5 gallons of grape wine (we're not sure of the variety, but are assuming it's something in the vein of "Concord") made from our own homegrown grapes, is about 3 months old now. Taste-wise, it is still in the "hooch" phase, as in, technically alcoholic, but not exactly pleasant to drink. From what I've read about concord grape wine, it takes at least a year to be decent, and is actually quite respectable by two years old. We'll see...
We've also got one gallon of blackberry wine working and whoa nelly is that stuff strong! Like strip the paint off your walls strong. I'm not sure if that one is going to ever be potable or if it's headed toward vinegar or maybe cooking wine.
We bottled the rhubarb and cherry wines a few months back and have been drinking them and sharing them with friends. They are pretty darn good, in my biased and inexpert opinion, especially the rhubarb, which is essentially a dessert wine. We'll be sure to make more of that next year, since we have a HUGE rhubarb plant that provides us with more fruit than we've ever known what to do with.
Besides all of the alcohol, we have the ever-present Amish bread starter on the counter, fermenting away. I popped the lid off this afternoon to give it a stir and accidentally inhaled a bit of the escaping gasses. My head swam! And I feed this stuff to my kids?
The end result of this ferment-a-thon (besides the smell of hops, malt & yeast snaking their way through the main floor of our house) is tasty organic wines & beers that cost just pennies per serving and come in wild and crazy flavors that you probably couldn't find anywhere else. We have really enjoyed this home brewing experiment and look forward to spring and summer, and turning all of the fruits & flowers that we can lay our hands on into still more tasty beverages. We're thinking of attempting to add mead or melomel to our repertoire next. YUM.
Here we have a montage of Bill's brewing efforts to date, minus the ill-fated brown ale.
L to R - 5 gallons "Amber Honey Lager", 1 gallon "Imperial Stout", 1 gallon "Blueberry Honey Ale"
Bill is bottling all 5 gallons of the Amber Honey Lager tonight. Good thing we've been saving our beer bottles and mooching would-be recycled glass vessels from our friends too, because this batch will yield approximately 4 cases of beer, aka 48 bottles of bubbly happiness.
Besides the beerfest, we've also got a few wines still going. The 5 gallons of grape wine (we're not sure of the variety, but are assuming it's something in the vein of "Concord") made from our own homegrown grapes, is about 3 months old now. Taste-wise, it is still in the "hooch" phase, as in, technically alcoholic, but not exactly pleasant to drink. From what I've read about concord grape wine, it takes at least a year to be decent, and is actually quite respectable by two years old. We'll see...
We've also got one gallon of blackberry wine working and whoa nelly is that stuff strong! Like strip the paint off your walls strong. I'm not sure if that one is going to ever be potable or if it's headed toward vinegar or maybe cooking wine.
We bottled the rhubarb and cherry wines a few months back and have been drinking them and sharing them with friends. They are pretty darn good, in my biased and inexpert opinion, especially the rhubarb, which is essentially a dessert wine. We'll be sure to make more of that next year, since we have a HUGE rhubarb plant that provides us with more fruit than we've ever known what to do with.
Besides all of the alcohol, we have the ever-present Amish bread starter on the counter, fermenting away. I popped the lid off this afternoon to give it a stir and accidentally inhaled a bit of the escaping gasses. My head swam! And I feed this stuff to my kids?
The end result of this ferment-a-thon (besides the smell of hops, malt & yeast snaking their way through the main floor of our house) is tasty organic wines & beers that cost just pennies per serving and come in wild and crazy flavors that you probably couldn't find anywhere else. We have really enjoyed this home brewing experiment and look forward to spring and summer, and turning all of the fruits & flowers that we can lay our hands on into still more tasty beverages. We're thinking of attempting to add mead or melomel to our repertoire next. YUM.
Tuesday, December 29, 2009
Knitting Project: The Market Bag
As I am prone to do at this time of year, I have been starting knitting projects left and right, with nowhere near enough time or energy to finish them all before my crafty energy exhausts itself. Amazingly enough, I actually started and finished and even liked my latest project - The Market Bag.
Here's a picture of my bag next to the photo of what it would have looked like had I followed the pattern to a "t", which I never do.
In case you're a knitting knerd and want the deets - I scrapped the pattern for the main body of the bag (but kept the stitch count and measurements the same) and replaced it with the trusty-dusty ol' trinity stitch. I also improvised a bit on the handle, giving it two small handles instead of a single shoulder strap. After all, this puppy is going to need to carry some serious goods home from the farmers market.
I actually really enjoyed making this bag, and as soon as I finally finish the scarves that I had to give IOU's to folks for (oops), I think I'll try another of these.
Here's a picture of my bag next to the photo of what it would have looked like had I followed the pattern to a "t", which I never do.
In case you're a knitting knerd and want the deets - I scrapped the pattern for the main body of the bag (but kept the stitch count and measurements the same) and replaced it with the trusty-dusty ol' trinity stitch. I also improvised a bit on the handle, giving it two small handles instead of a single shoulder strap. After all, this puppy is going to need to carry some serious goods home from the farmers market.
I actually really enjoyed making this bag, and as soon as I finally finish the scarves that I had to give IOU's to folks for (oops), I think I'll try another of these.
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