Kitchen stuff

I love projects. Some of my favorites are kitchen and garden projects.

Lately I've had a few kitchen projects going on. They're not insanely exciting, but they help me feel more connected with my food, kitchen and community. It's interesting how much emotional weight food holds.

Here are a few of my projects:

1. veggie stock. This is a pretty "normal" thing these days. I love having homemade veggie stock in the freezer! I keep the cuttings form celery, carrots, onions in a freezer bag and when I get a full bag or two, I add a handful of garlic, some fresh stuff, water, boil and voila! veggie stock.

2. frozen asparagus. I have been busy blanching and freezing asparagus. I'm excited. I'll be great to have local, fresh from frozen asparagus in the middle of winter!

3. pickled asparagus. Through our food club's recent asparagus bulk buy, I purchased 15 lbs and pickled it. I made a herbed and a spicy dill asparagus spears. I haven't tried them yet, but am excited to.

4. Homemade onion powder! I had a whole bunch of onions that were beginning to go soft and slightly moldy. So I cut off the moldy parts, washed them down, sliced them and put them in the dehydrator. Then I pulverized them in the food processor and I now have amazing smelling onion powder! Totally great feeling to do that within a day of us running out of what we had in the cupboard. And I didn't waste any onions!

5. homemade garlic powder: I got 5 lbs of organic, peeled garlic with our last produce buy. They are, as I type, humming along in the dehydrator (in the garage so we don't have to inhale the strong, yet yummy, scent.)

6. Spinach! The spinach in the sideyard garden has gone NUTS! So I've been blanching and freezing it too. It'll be fun to eat spinach from our garden through the winter. Speaking of this, I have another big bowl in the freezer to work on.

Upcoming projects: Strawberry Season is coming! WOOOO HOOO! I'm excited and have plans for: Jam, homemade fruit leather and tons of dehydrated strawberries. Elliott eats them like candy!

I am FIRST, a SAHM

This journey into SAHMhood has been interesting. The end of this month will mark 5 months since I've been home.

It has just been recently that I've started identifying myself first and foremost as a SAHM. Before it was, "Used to work for the Oregonian... blah, blah, blah, explain, explain, but now I'm at home." It was a funny realization to me when I just stopped doing that. It was funny to finally be okay with this. Fine to not have a paying job and to recognize that keeping my house together and family sane is my job. And I'm really okay with that. More than okay, really. I'm starting to really feel like I'm owning this job, I guess is more the way to put it. I'm thinking as a mom first, not as an employee first.

I'm doing more things, and less, than I ever thought I would. It's funny how busy our days get.

I'm cooking a lot more. And that's a very good thing, I think. I'm getting more adventurous and feeling more confident about taking liberties with recipes that I never felt I had the time/resources to do before (there was no time before to re-do dinner, for instance.)

I'm sewing less and gardening less. I hope this is just because I'm in a class right now that takes up almost my entire Saturday. The last one is this coming Saturday, then I'll feel like I have a real weekend back. But, despite less time in the garden, I'm still impressed with what is already coming out. Today I blanched and froze a whole bunch of spinach, our beets that were overwintered are almost ready to pull out and the onions are growing like gangbusters. I was able to put a layer of compost down in the flower beds in the front yard, the sunflowers are about 3 inches high in the front yard. I also put down a THICK layer of mulch in the front flower beds. I really, really don't like to weed :)

My next garden goals: get out to the community garden and finish amending the soil in the second half of my plot so I can get corn seeded soon. I also want to get the hot peppers and tomatoes into the ground. Actually, one tomato in the ground, one will go in one of those hanging upside down pots... I decided to experiment and see if they actually work. Also, I want to get the hedge trimmed, the lawn (what little bit we have) weed whacked and mowed.

My biggest project is trying to (gently) convince Nate that we NEED chickens. I really, really, really want chickens! One, because I would love the eggs and can't imagine anything better than getting them from our backyard. Two, I know Elliott would LOVE to have chickens (he always loves visiting our friend's chickens). And Three, I just love that we CAN have backyard chickens in Portland. I think it'll help me feel a little bit more like a farmer :)

Okay, that's really it for now. I'm not super exciting these days. Busy with kiddo, school, food club stuff, household stuff, pets... it's a busy life even if I don't get paid for it. Well, I do. Elliott's been big on giving out kisses and hugs these days. It's very sweet and makes everything worth it for a little kiss on the cheek.