Dreaming of Tuscany

Having completely thrown over my plans to spend the day with the apples, I've instead been pouring through A Thousand Days in Tuscany, a book my Mom brought over last night. I've taken a brief break from reading to start a loaf of Schiacciata Toscana, or Tuscan Flat Bread. I love books with related recipes written in them. I'm guessing it will be like a fochacia bread with fresh rosemary, sea salt, and olive oil as focal ingredients. It contains a fair amount of cornmeal so that will add a bit of a different texture, I think.


I dashed out back and picked some rosemary and basil. I have a bowl full of fresh tomatoes and am trying to figure out what all I want to make. Maybe some pasta with grilled chicken? Shall I pick some beans to add to the mix? A bit of zucchini is always good with the abundance we have right now. Decisions, decisions. How blessed we are to have all that we do!

The bread is on its second rising and I've just minced the rosemary so my hands are fragrant with that delicious piney scent.

We've just tucked the boys in for naps and I need to spend more time outside cleaning up the garden spaces. I pulled the sunflowers out over several days this week and discovered all sorts of things still growing, hiding and seeking out a bit of sunshine. We'll see how they do know that the crazy canopy of sunflowers is gone. I've been collecting seeds from the various flower heads for planting next year.

I am planning on not having the sunflowers in that garden area next year. I also think the mallows and cosmos were a bit much. They simply all engulfed the smaller plants and groundcovers I put in. Right now there are purple mums blooming away, a purple delphinium, and one purple anenome. The gladiolus came in purple as did a mystery bulb. There are a lot of different greens from the rosemary and basil plants to the lemon balm and baby tears.

Besides all the glorious shades of purple, there are bright spots from the nasturtiums and a few forget-me-nots. The forget-me-not seeds are easy to save as they are little burrs and I am forever picking them off of whatever I've worn into the garden. They also love to attach themselves to my hair where I seem to find them hours later.

As the days cool we're spending as much time out back as we can. The boys played out back as I pulled and cut and tended the gardens yesterday. They love their sandbox and running through the grass. Pumpkin loves to see all that's still growing and is happily counting watermelons and cantaloupes. I'm amazed by the tomatoes and beans! Some of the tomatoes are enormous and I hope they ripen up this week.

This is so wonderful to be enjoying the bounty. Worth all the endless hours of work this spring and summer to make it all happen. I will be even happier next year when all I have to do is plant and not do all the work we did to get this all going. We still have the old garden area to whip into shape and I am planning on doing more weed pulling as soon as I can put the bread in the oven.

Ciao!

PS- Here's the link to the Spice Pumpkin Waffles. The chutney recipe requires me typing more, so it'll be up another day.

Zippy!

That's the best way to describe the Curried Apple Chutney I made yesterday. It's the most amazing recipe of apples, raisin, brown sugar, curry and other spices. But to keep it from being basically a baked apple, it also has vinegar, onion, and sweet peppers. Oh my! I am so looking forward to trying more than just a sample spoon.

The original recipe called for hot pepper and garlic which I omitted due to personal preferences here. Oddly enough the yield should have been five pints, but I barely had two and a half pints. Canning recipes and yields can be so odd. I also put up another five and a half quarts of pickles from the garden cucumbers. Cause we needed more pickles. If they was ever an emergency situation, my family would be surviving on bread and jam and pickles. Of course, we'd be able to eat these for weeks on end!

I got a pot of applesauce simmering on the stove waiting to be finishing and put into the jars. I kept all the cores and peels I've been making and am planning on running them all through the press I have. It'll all probably only amount to one cup of juice and a big mess, but since I have everything on hand I might as well try and it will mean they'll be almost no waste. I suppose I could keep the leftovers from making cider for cider vinegar. Maybe next year.

I did try to run the peels and cores through the mill I was given so as to make apple butter from the leftovers. That was just an exercise in frustration and mess just like the peach experiment. Glad it was free. I'll probably try it again with tomatoes since they are soft, but if that doesn't work it will need to find a new home. Grumble.

It certainly feels like autumn around here! The spice applesauce simmering on the stove, the pumpkin spice waffles cooking in the waffles iron, & the pumpkin candle burning. Even my coffee tastes like autumn as I mixed together brown sugar, cinnamon and cloves and tucked them into a jar on the counter for oatmeal mornings.

I discovered the mix is delightful in my coffee as well. Much cheaper than a Pumpkin Spice Latte and easier to get around here. Though I do love those lattes! It must be a family thing as my sister in California mentioned having one the other day--over ice. By mixing the spices in the sugar I am able to stir it all evenly into the coffee without the spices just floating on the top as they do when I just sprinkle them in.

I've still got another twenty pounds of apples on hand. I'll probably make more of everything and some apple butter as well. So yummy! I do love all the foods that are in season this time of year, don't you?

I used up the rest of the pureed squash I had frozen last fall for the waffles this morning and I'm down to one Hubbard squash from last year's garden. It's a big one, but I think I'll need to try and find some more. They are such good keepers and I use them in any recipe that calls for pumpkins or squashes. I didn't get any planted this year, but will make it a priority for next year's garden.

Well, I need to go and stir the applesauce and scrub down the cider press as I've not used it before. I'll let you know how it goes!

Sunshine & Apples

The sun returned & disappeared throughout the day, but I am just glad for the amount we had! The boys and I took a bit of a country drive. It was wonderfully sunny and we enjoyed seeing some of the leaves changing.

We went into a little town, Hygiene, which was in fact quite clean. We checked out the little store and stopped in the local cafe. I bought a cup of coffee and the ladies there let the boys each pick out a gourd from a box a neighbor had brought it. I bought some potatoes from an unmanned roadside stand just tucking my money in the jar and taking the potatoes. Love this life!

We then went to Sweetheart's office and the four of us enjoyed a picnic lunch. The weather turned and it got rather chilly by the time we were done. On the drive home we stopped at the farm and picked up our first box of apples.

While the boys napped I filled the two dehydrators up with apple slices and took my book, The Ministry of Motherhood, by Sally Clarkson out onto the porch with my cup of vanilla tea. I was happily reading and rocking and sipping my tea when the clouds rolled back in. I read for a few minutes, but since my book was getting wet from the rain I decided to come back in.

Now the boys are up and playing with their blocks and gourds and dinner is cooking in the background. I'm planning to do a bit more prep work on the apples and getting ready for canning tomorrow. I'm going to make applesauce and maybe more apple chips. I recently read about making apple butter from milling the cores and peelings. Since I was given a food mill last month I'm planning on trying this idea. I've also been longing to try a apple-ginger-curry chutney recipe so I'm going to try to squeeze that in as well. We'll just see how far the apples go.

I've also got to do something with the cucumbers from the garden so maybe I'll get a batch of pickles in as well. The kitchen will see plenty of use tomorrow! I think I'll plan to do something in the crockpot as well to make sure we have dinner.

My, what a difference a little sunshine can make. Have a wonderful rest of the day.

Hello Friends

We are on day three of no sunshine. This picture was obviously not taken this morning. On the up side, our home feels so cozy with the pumpkin spice candle burning. It really does cheer up the breakfast table.

I'm feeling a bit lost this morning as my plans changed. I was planning on having a friend over for the morning, but she had to cancel. I was going to fix us brunch with a ham quiche and a tomato with herb cream cheese tart.

Now that seems like a lot for just me. The boys are happily enjoying their toast with honey bear & yogurt with raspberries. They do like quiche though, too. It's become my default dinner when what I planned hasn't defrosted, or I've just run out of time.

Last evening found me outside covering up as much as I could in the garden and picking anything close to ripe. We're forecast for snow. The lows are listed as 34 degrees which is just too close to freezing for me. I'm hoping this will pass without a freeze and that the warm weather will kick back in. I've got a delicious pile of produce to work on today. One watermelon, a pile of pickling cucumbers-cause we need more pickles-our purple carrots, tomatoes both red and yellow, peas, zucchini and two okra pods. What do you do with two okra pods?

I have hundreds of tomatoes still out there too green to want to pick. The first of my yellow tomatoes were ripe and so I picked some of those. I was thinking they'd be beautiful layered with all the red tomatoes for a tart. Sprinkling a bit of chopped basil on top would be lovely as well. Hmm...maybe I'll make something up with them later today for dinner.

I had Bunco with my lady friends last night. It was fun. I won, so of course it was fun! Our group also does mini gifts for certain rolls and so I came home with money a some darling Autumn cookie cutters, as well as a ceramic coffee cup with lid and one of those things to keep from burning your hands. It looks like a Starbucks cup without the logo. The lid and sleeve thing are made from silicone.

The box says you can save the world by using this cup. Hah. There's only one way to save the world and a cup isn't it. It is however a nice fit. I'm not bothering with the lid and sleeve today, but those will be nice when I'm out. I've missed having a comfortable cup since I dropped my favorite one on the concrete a few months ago.

Maybe the boys and I'll will make some cookies this morning to test the new cookie cutters. I think we need to do something fun on this gloomy day. I'd never survive living in Seattle that's for sure. (Hi to Carrie in Seattle! I miss you!)

Well, the boys are done eating and it's time I start. Blessings to you all. Thanks for all your kind comments on the last post. The encouragement is so nice.

There are so many things on my heart and mind I want to write about, but I'm still trying to sort them all out. That's about impossible when the boys are up and about. I've been thinking a lot about friendships and mothering and life in general. Good things, but some of which leave more questions than answers.

Wishing you all a bit of sunshine no matter the weather!

Good Morning

Oatmeal Breakfast with Pumpkin Spice Honey Toast & Caramel Coffee

Today the weather changed. Whereas, yesterday was one of those perfect Autumn days that found me out in the garden before everyone else was up, today I just wanted to stay huddled in bed snuggled down deep. Alas, I had to get up anyway.

It was so gloomy and dark I thought our breakfast needed a bit of brightening up. Breakfast by candlelight not being an everyday thing here. Of course, it was so pleasant I may have to reconsider. In fact, the candle is still burning bright scenting our home with a delicious pumpkin spice fragrance. I cooked and baked up a storm yesterday and so am just enjoying what I made and not really cooking today, my usual preferred method for making our home smell yummy. Not much beats the smell of fresh baking bread, does it?

The good news is that Sweetheart did some work this weekend on my computer so I hope I'll be posting a bit more. The setup I've been using since July has been so uncomfortable that I have not written as much as I would have otherwise. I was in fact thinking of just quitting blogging altogether.

But, for the three of you still reading this, I've decided to keep going. Besides, where else would I be able to write and dream and share?

The boys are sleeping now, some dishes are soaking in the sink and the laundry is spinning away. Gentle music is keeping me company in the background and I am enjoying the simply beauty of a quiet afternoon. I've enjoyed a little reading (Mitford) and a lot of tea.

Around the house I've been tucking bits of Autumn color with flowers from the garden and some of my leaf garlands and ribbons. Of course, one can always tell what season it is around here based on the tea set that's in use. Since Saturday I've been enjoying my Lusterware set. It's a funny process. I needed to wash the tablecloth so I pulled out a burgundy one to replace it. Then the rose centerpiece no longer matched so I got out my candles and fruit and leaf plates. That meant that the rose Tree Chintz tea set clashed and so I pulled out the Lusterware. This then meant I needed to change the curtain tiebacks in the dining room. Those ribbons didn't match the one on the Victorian crystal candy dish and so I changed that out. Sweetheart just laughed.

While I was at it I did up a new wreath for the porch and changed out the porch flag. This necessitated the need to wash down the entire porch, walls and windows. I stopped there. Of course, I still have more leaves and ribbons and will probably putter around tucking bits and pieces here and there throughout the week.

I just heard a little boy wake up, so I'll go for now. So much more to write & share!!! Maybe later.

What are you doing to welcome Autumn to your home?

The Week

Good Morning! Here's a little sunshine for your day. Hope it's a lovely one.It's been a wonderful week with a lot of work that's kept me off the computer. I've been working out here. The Sunflowers are utterly insane and taking over the universe. I've been harvesting beans and cucumbers and now tomatoes. So exciting for this city girl!
We went to the farm twice. We picked raspberries and I made jam while the boys napped.

I brought some of those lovely flowers inside. Aren't they wonderful in the morning light?

In other big news, Dumpling turned this many:

Here he is opening presents and receiving birthday calls. It was a fun celebration with Grandma over and calls from the rest of the family. Chocolate cake and ice cream and presents helped, too.
Today I am in the kitchen making (more) pickles. The garden has really taken off and I've been collecting produce right and left. It's amazing. We had our first sweet pea bloom and the first morning glories. Better late than never!

We are hoping the good weather will hold as the watermelons, cantaloupe and other melons are trying so hard to ripen. Not to mention the ears of corn which have appeared. We had the first of the grapes the other evening. They are a small, first year crop, but wonderful! The herbs are everywhere and tucked into everything. It's truly a delight.

Look at what I collected yesterday afternoon! The beans are cleaned, cut, blanched and nestled into the freezer. My, that takes awhile to do! But I read while I worked which makes everything better. I also hauled in the biggest zucchinis yet. Fifteen inches long and four and a half pounders they are. More grating and freezing and bread coming up!

The pickles are just about done. This afternoon will be spent with my peaches. I love peaches. I'm planning on peaches slices and some peach jam. If I have enough peaches and time I'll tackle some peach butter. Everyone loved that last year.

In between, I've been sewing and pulling weeds and playing a lot. Besides our two trips to the farm, we spent a wonderful morning at the zoo. Our weather is quite fine out and so we all long to be out as much as possible.

My, but this is a random post! Maybe it's the time of year. The timer just went off. The six and a half quarts of pickles are ready now. Gotta go!

On another important note: PLEASE consider signing up for this. September 11th is this Friday and I know there are a lot of names left.