Hello Monday - hello Abundance!

Good morning everyone!

I hope all you Mothers out there had a fantastic day with your loved ones!

I sure did! We set out really early (6.20 AM) to Schnepf Farms in Queen Creek, an organic u-pick farm. They opened the peach orchards just the day before for picking, and lovely sweet smelling (and tasting) organic peaches were a-plenty!

 

 

We also got some wonderful apricots. There’s just nothing like freshly picked organic! So good! So juicy! So bursting with real flavor!

Unfortunately, there wasn’t anything much in terms of vegetables,  which was a bit of a disappointment for me!Luckily, we are not too far away from our own garden-fresh zucchinis and tomatoes! I just harvested the first zucchini this morning and there are more to come!

But it was a lovely trip and the kids sure enjoyed themselves, not only at the picking, but on the train ride around the farm, watching some very obliging peacocks up close, the petting zoo  and the general play area.

 

 

I just thought it was so funny, that in an orchard full of about one thousand or so peach trees, that were loaded with peaches, my boy would, excitedly, yell “I found one!” whenever he picked a ripe one. So cute!

And I love that even though my boy in particular, isn’t much of a fruit eater ( he still has some residual texture issues with juicy fruit, but he drinks it just fine in the veggie and fruit smoothies I make though,) his enthusiasm for picking the fruit was in no way dampened!

My girl, who could live on fruit and veggies alone, could hardly wait to lay into all that we were picking!

 

Since we were so early, we didn’t have to fight any crowds, or the blistering heat, so it was great!

 

 

Of course today, I’m busy with my abundance of peaches and apricots!

 

 

The apricots we’ll keep for eating, since we didn’t get too many, but most of the peaches will need freezing or canning within the next couple of days. I’m not much of a canned peaches fan, so I will mostly quarter and freeze them for morning smoothies, blender ice creams and peach cobblers/pies at a later date!

 

And when I went into my little backyard garden this morning, it became clear that I really needed to make a move (yet again) on my abundance of herbs.

I plant a lot of herbs every year, because I just LOVE fresh herbs for cooking. And every year, they go totally nuts in the yard and produce like crazy! Which means that about every three weeks or so, I process the bunches of herbs, that I haven’t either used in the kitchen on a daily basis, or given away, for freezing or drying.

 

 

This morning I started again, as this weekend seems to have brought a LOT of growth for the herbs! So, my countertops are loaded with bunches of Lovage, Dill, Winter Savory, Thyme, Lemon Thyme, Chives, Cinnamon Basil, regular Basil,  Tarragon, Parsley, Rosemary, Mint and Lemon Verbena, waiting to be prepared for the months to come, when our little garden will succumb to the blistering heat - until “Winter” finally brings some relief and with it a new opportunity to plant and grow!

 

But for now, I am thoroughly enjoying the abundance of great family time, good food and the amazing smells mingling in my kitchen! And I am so grateful for the abundance that is in my life!

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Homemade Bread - Spelt Sourdough

 

Today’s bread was a bit of an experiment for me!

I used half freshly ground organic spelt (in the vitamix) and half sprouted (then dried, then ground to flour) spelt.

I used my usual no knead ratio, which usually produces a relatively easy to handle, even though very soft, dough.

Not in this case however. I suspect that the sprouted flour reacts somewhat differently to moisture!

It produced an amazingly sour flavor (in a good way) but the dough stayed VERY soft and sticky, even after the addition of some more flour.This made it very hard to handle the dough, hence the somewhat odd shape and crust. It didn’t even hold it’s basic shape while I was lifting it from the proofing basket to the Clouche on a parchment paper!

The flavor and texture of the bread is, however, very good. As I said, amazing sourdough flavor, nice open holes in the crumb and a lovely crunchy crust!

I will experiment further and will post a recipe once I have devised a more manageable dough!

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Natural, Homemade Goo Remover (that really works!)

I love bottles, and jars and all manners of appealing vessels for lotions and potions and food and, well sometimes just to look at.

I’ve been decanting stuff into pretty bottles ever since I can remember. I have also been known to choose one product over another because one was in a pretty re-usable jar/bottle/vessel. Yes, that’s me!

Somehow my bottle/jar/vessel love took a bit of a back seat while the twins were toddlers. Maybe for obvious reasons, like most of my pretty bottles/jars/vessels are quite fragile. Some more than others, but none of them are exactly toddler proof.

But in the last year or two, it has returned to me and many a plastic containers has once again made way for mason jars, glass bottles and pretty pottery.

Another thing that returned, is my love for “making it myself” all the way. Before I was married and had kids, I would make my soap, lotions, potions, toiletries, etc. myself too. Well, I am going back there!

Not only have I recently switched the family to natural and organic in almost all things food, I am also going organic and homemade on the toiletries and cleaning front again! The benefits, even though it has only been a few months, have been tremendous to me personally already. I can’t wait to see what health benefits we reap in the long term!

 

But I digress! Back to the jars and bottles and things! If you love containers as much as I do and love to reuse them and give them new life in so many different ways, you also know the pain that is the removal of  labels and sticky, won’t-ever-budge adhesive residue!

Be it on glass or plastic, the easier the label comes off, the more impossible it seems to remove the adhesive they use for labels these days!

I seem to remember that you could just soak something and the label would come clean off, or at most you had to give a couple of spots a quick scrub. But not anymore!

These days it seems that there are adhesives that don’t respond to anything much. Especially when you have a clear label. It peels off easy enough, but then your left with the almost invisible sticky residue that won’t respond to heat, soap, scrubbing or anything! And every time you think you got it and your vessel dries, there it is again, sticking to your hand and collecting every particle of dust, fluff or hair in sight! You know the one I mean, right?

 

Yes, that stuff! Ugh!

 

Turns out there is a way to get that stuff off. Easily even!

Which brings me to my recipe of a different kind today! So if you already tried soaking and scrubbing and dish soap and the stuff just won’t come off, try this!

 

 

The natural, and oh-so-effective “Goo-Be-Gone” you can whip up in your kitchen!

 

It only has two ingredients:

Baking Soda

Coconut oil

Yep, oh and you might want a jar, so you can make up a batch and have it handy.

Basically, all you do is to make a paste of some room temperature coconut oil and baking soda. Mix it all up in a jar and keep it handy for when you need it!

 

I can’t even believe how well this stuff works!

To use, you just scoop a little out of your jar, put in on the “goo” you want to remove and scrub it with a damp scouring pad or a magic eraser.

 

Now, back to that impossible-to-remove adhesive!

It takes a couple more steps, but nothing too wild. I did several bottles today and it didn’t take me long at all.

First fill the vessel that has the goo on with hot water. Close the lid, so the hot water stays in.

Spread your coconut oil/baking soda paste on the goo.

 

 

Let it sit there for a couple of minutes.

Then take a scrubbing sponge or scourer and lightly scrub it. I tend to use a Magic eraser on plastic so I don’t make any scratch marks.

Once your done, rinse with a little washing up liquid or pure castile soap (that’s what I use) and voila - you have no more sticky residue!

 

 

If you should have a particularly stubborn adhesive, just get a little more of the coconut goop on and repeat. In 10 something bottles I only encountered one spot that I had to do twice!

As an added bonus your hands smell yummy!

 

Try it sometime! It really works well!

Note: Before you use it on different kind of plastic, acrylics or wood (like removing a kid’s sticker from your wooden floor,) please test in an inconspicuous spot and make sure your scrubber isn’t too abrasive!

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Project Life Share - January 2013

I just realized that I shared February with you before I shared January!

So, without further ado, here is some of our January!

 

 

I chose to stay pretty neutral for the cover page this year, just depicting a few things about our family.

 

 

 

As you can see, this month I have a lot of journaling going on and I chose many different forms of it. Predominantly, for the more wordy posts, I tend to use the computer however and print either directly on the journaling cards themselves, or on a separate sheet of paper, which I then trim to size and adhere on the journaling card.

 

 

 

 

I used Cathy Zielske’s templates for the “conversation with” pages. It’s such a fun way to make a snapshot of where the kiddos are at that point in time!

 

 

 

Excuse the blur please, my DSLR seems to be on it’s last leg and it goes through fits where it just won’t do any photos quite right. Hopefully you get the idea though!

 

 

The blank spot is where the invitation to a party is kept. Rather than blurring it all out, I just took it out before photographing this page!

 

 

More weird blur - sorry!

 

 

And that was January! Now I just need to catch up and fill in the gaps on March and April and then I can share that with you too!

Have a wonderful day everyone!

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Homemade Bread

This week’s bread was quite the surprise.

Just lately my sourdough has really been taking off and has become quite volatile within 20-30 minutes of feeding it! It might have something to do with using structured water to feed it!

So, yesterday I thought I would try it on a much heavier dough. Normally it takes around 18 hours for the sourdough to rise (first rising), double in volume and develop that yummy sour dough flavor throughout the whole dough. Since I was making a double batch, I would have imagined it taking even a bit longer.

Well, only 7 hours into it, the dough had more than doubled, the familiar sour smell was well developed and I really didn’t want to leave it for another 11 hrs. in case it would wear itself out and not rise again.

I went ahead and shaped the loaves, put them down for their second rising and low and behold - they turned out beautifully!

 

 

This was a medium hydration, no-knead dough and it ended up with a beautifully soft crumb and a rustic crust.

The whole family loved it!

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Homemade Almond Milk / Almond Milk Creamer (Dairy-, Gluten-, Soy -Free, Low-Carb, Raw, Vegan)

As you know, I’ve been making my own nut milks, but for some reason it hadn’t occurred to me to make my own almond milk. I have had the almond milk in the cartons and even though I don’t dislike it, it doesn’t blow me away either. So, almond milk wasn’t really on my to do list.

Since another Azure Standard delivery is coming in a few day’s time, I was in “use up the last little bits here and there and make room” mode and found some almonds in the freezer.  So, just because I was in the mood for a change, I thought I would make some almond milk!

Oh my goodness!! Homemade Almond Milk is N.O.T.H.I.N.G like the stuff in the cartons! It’s not even in the same flavor category!

The homemade stuff is rich and creamy (not slightly watery like the bought stuff) with a full round flavor, slightly sweet and very satisfying!

And with the addition of just a couple of healthy ingredients you have a delicious non-dairy creamer that won’t separate or curdle in hot or iced drinks!

And it’s so easy to make! If you have never tried homemade Almond Milk, you are so in for a treat!

Basically I went about it much like I did with my cashew milk.

Homemade Almond Milk

Soak 1 cup of whole almonds (I use organic) in water for 4 hrs. or as long as over night. Drain the almonds and rinse.

Place almonds in a blender with about 4 cups of filtered water. If you have a Vitamix, just fill it to the “max” line of the 32 oz. container with water. Blend on high until it’s all well incorporated. It takes less than a minute in the Vitamix, but will probably take longer in a regular blender.

Place a Nut-Milk Bag in a large bowl and pour your almond milk through the nut milk bag. Then squeeze, squeeze, squeeze until there’s no more milk coming out.

Discard the pulp (unless you want to reuse it, but I haven't found anything that yields a tasty result so far) and decant the Almond Milk into a jar or bottle.

Personally, I like to add a pinch of  Himalayan Sea Salt , 2 tsp of Maple Syrup and 1/2 tsp of Butter Vanilla Bakery Emulsion (or extract) to mine to round out the flavor some more, but that is optional. Shake it up and refrigerate!

Give it a quick shake before use. It doesn’t separate, but the milk can settle a little. A quick shake takes care of that though!

Note:

1.) Any kind of sweetener of preference can be used in this.

2.) We are soaking the almonds to remove the enzyme inhibitors from the nuts, so please DO discard the soaking water, as we don’t want them in the milk.

3.) For an even (naturally) sweeter Almond Milk, peel the skins off the almonds (or use blanched almonds) to make the milk.

4.) I have read that the 1 gallon paint strainer bags at Home Depot work just as well as nut milk bags and are much more inexpensive. They don’t last as long, but apparently they do the job. I haven’t tried them myself however.

5.) Four or more layers of fine cheese cloth also works for straining and squeezing the Almond Milk.

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Almond Milk Creamer

Make almond milk as above, then after squeezing the milk, return the milk  to the blender and add

1.5 tbsp. Organic Extra Virgin Coconut Oil

2 tbsp. Maple Syrup (or sweetener of choice)

pinch of  Himalayan Sea Salt

2 tsp of Vanilla (or any other kind of flavor you like your creamer to have) extract

Blend to incorporate fully.

You can use this straight away, especially the foamy head it makes in the blender for a Cappuccino or Café au lait, or refrigerate for later use.

Shake before use.

Notes:

1.) This creamer doesn’t seem to separate or curdle like almond milk does in hot or iced drinks. At least not for several hours! However, if preparing an iced late, I would recommend adding the creamer last, so the coconut oil doesn’t harden around the ice cubes.

2.) You can just make a little at a time too by using about 1/2 cup of homemade almond milk, 1/4 tsp Coconut Oil, 1/8 tsp flavor extract of choice and sweetener to taste.

3.) Use up to 2.5 tbsp. of Coconut Oil  for a richer, creamier result. Personally, I like it best at 1.5 tbsp., but experiment and find your own happy place!

4.) Use 2 dates in place of sweetener and blend until it is thoroughly incorporated.

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