Snippets

Our school year begins Monday and I am still doing last minute preparations so this blog post is just little snippets of our lives the past couple of weeks. I have to thrown in here just how excited I am for this school year. I have been a rather reluctant homeschooler up til now (I am not saying I am head over heels still, but I am getting there). There is something about this year that has me so enthusiastic about schooling. Maybe because it is Little L's first real year, or how much I planned out, or maybe even the crazy strict homeschooling laws here that will keep me in line (somewhat joking there). I don't know, but I am going to embrace it! We'll start our day off with a special back to school surprise breakfast treat - waffles with whipped cream. 😋



Little L has been having fun digging for treasures on the banks of our creek. There is one special place her calls his mine where most of the treasures are found, especially after the flooding. He has quite a stash of old glass bottles from that mine but the ones you see above I just can not get clean. The top photo shows how they were when he dug them up and the bottom one is after I scrubbed them with baking soda, vinegar and thieves soap. I got them mostly clean but as you can see in the one bottle there is something stuck inside. Kevin thinks it might be old hardened stove polish (that is what the bottle once held). Any thoughts on how to get it out?



Made my first ever sauerkraut thanks to a great group of ladies I joined at our local library. It was very Home Fires-esque. I look forward to the next meeting. I was the youngest one there which was a bit funny but eh, that's okay. This is from the group's flyer:  "FULL CIRCLE FUTURE HARVEST is a group of like minded people that meet throughout the year to discuss what WE CAN DO to improve our lives as well as those around us. The programs are presented by the group and community members, including Master Gardeners and healthcare professionals. The group promotes the importance of having healthy soil and growing non-genetically modified seeds to produce nutritious fruits and vegetables, as well as explores the use of functional medicine. Applying these practices to our lives help us attain and maintain a higher quality of life."



Little L's latest creation out of Kevin's old construx - a helicopter. It has already been taken apart and made into a corn combine. He is obsessed with those right now. In September he gets to go visits one of Purple Grandma's friends and ride in one as he harvest the corn. That will be quite the big day for him.



There is a big possibility one of our chickens might be a rooster. This is Egger, one of Little L's chickens. We are a bit nervous about the outcome of this if Egger really is a rooster. Thankfully we live out in the country where we are zoned for roosters so either way we won't have to find him a new home. Phew!!

Snippets

Real Food on a Budget

Most of you already know of my love for real, organic food. I have been carrying on and on about it in this space for years now. I am also pretty sure you know of the importance of budgeting in my family - more people means more love but also more money spent on food. Let's face it - eating healthy, real food and saving money don't exactly go together, unless you think about the money you'll save in the future on doctor's bills. However I am talking about the present. The time when we only have X amount of money to spend on groceries that need to last us Y amount of days.

I confess as hard as I try to budget (and believe me I put a lot into it - hours each week), there are weeks where we'll eat like kings for a few days only to find out we are short on money towards the end of the week and end up having to eat ramen noodles to get by. We are essentially undoing all the good of the real food we previously ate with the processed junk. Ridiculous, right?! I just find myself confused and thinking something's gotta give.

With that in mind, you can imagine my excitement when I saw that one of my favorite authors is coming out with a book all about eating real food on a budget. 😍 Lisa Leake's new book 100 Days of Real Food on a Budget is available for pre-order now and will be released on Tuesday August 14th. I had the pleasure of getting an advance copy in the mail just the other day (I may or may not have jumped up and down and squealed like a schoolgirl when it arrived). I have been reading through it every chance I get. The recipes all look incredibly scrumptious and I look forward to trying them as soon as possible - the Southwest Salad is calling my name. For my fellow vegan and vegetarian friends this cookbook has quite a few recipes to meet our needs and most can easily be adapted (ie. use homemade sprouted almond milk in place of the cow's milk). It contains recipes for other dietary restrictions as well. Equally exciting though is the entire first chapter. Lisa shares her budgeting tricks, ways to lower your grocery bill, and meal plans that even include average costs as well as a meal plan template. She also has a supermarket coast comparison chart that really opened my eyes. Granted prices vary depending on where you are living but it still gives you a good idea of where to shop for particular items. Every family that wants to eat healthy but feels like they never could due to expense needs a copy of this book. It really can be done!

Here is a sample recipe from 100 Days of Real Food on a Budget. Click on it to see a bigger version.




For once I look forward to sitting down and planning our meal plan and budget for the upcoming week. I feel like perhaps now I can finally conquer the beast that is eating healthy while staying within our means.

I am giving away a copy of Lisa Leake's first book (a big game changer and personal favorite of my family) 100 Days of Real Food on my Instagram account. Be sure to check it out!

Real Food on a Budget

K's Birthday (and her apple doughnut recipe)

Hey there! I am still here, slowly crawling out of the hole of sickness and exhaustion. Apologies in advance for a scatterbrained post. That cold that Baby F had ended up making its rounds and we all came down with it minus Little L. We even got poor Purple Grandma sick, who came all the way out here from PA. We did quite a bit of celebrating the whole week of K's twelfth birthday (TWELVE!! Let's take a moment to acknowledge how old my baby is. 😲 My how she has grown.), including meeting up with some dear friends at Flock and Fiber, but for now I thought I would share just a few photographs.

  I am sad to say that all of our birthday supplies (including K's birthday crown, the birthday ring and our other traditions) are in storage as I never expected to be in this house for so long. Talk about total mama guilt. Thankfully K was understanding and I was able to pull off some of our other birthday traditions like her homemade apple doughnuts with hot apple cider for breakfast (recipe to follow). She requested zucchini lasagna for lunch, play time at the local park and her usual pumpkin soup for dinner. We had plans to go to the ocean, too, but it rained a lot that day (and would you believe all our rain gear is also in storage?!). However, we did make up for it later in the week, but more on those adventures later.

I have been asked by a few people on IG about our traditional homemade apple doughnuts so I thought I would share the recipe here. I found it online many, many years ago and unfortunately no longer have the source. If anyone happens to recognize it and knows where it is from please do let me know.

K's Birthday Apple Doughnuts

Ingredients:

2 1/2 cups AP flour
1 1/2 tsp baking powder
1 tsp baking soda
1/4 tsp salt
1 tsp cinnamon
1/2 cup brown sugar (we have substituted maple syrup for this in the past)
3 tablespoons coconut oil (or margarine)
1 egg equivalent (we use 1 tablespoon ground flax seed mixed in 2 tablespoons water)
1/4 cup apple cider
1/4 cup almond milk
1 grated apple (peeled first)
1 tablespoon vanilla extract
oil for frying


Directions:

In a large bowl combine flour, baking powder, baking soda and cinnamon. In your mixer, cream together sugar and butter and then beat in the egg replacer. Add the apple cider, almond milk and vanilla to the creamed mixture and beat all together. Add the dry mixture into the creamed mixture and beat until smooth. Gently stir the apple into the batter.
Cover and chill the dough for one hour.
Place half the dough on a floured board and knead lightly. Roll out to about 1/2" thick. Cut with a doughnut cutter if you have one. We use the 3 - 4" canning jar lids to cut ours out and then just cut a hole in the middle with a knife. Heat the oil in a wok or skillet to about 375 degrees. Fry the dough for 1 - 2 minutes on each side, until golden brown. Drain on paper towels. Allow to cool and eat plain or dip them in confectioners sugar.  Serve with hot apple cider with cinnamon sticks as straws. Enjoy!


p.s. -
I usually get quite a few questions about her gifts so I thought I would do a run down here of what she received from us and extended family members.You'll notice a theme of Narnia/C.S. Lewis and books.

- Courage Dear Heart shirt and jean skirt (I had to get the woman's size!)
- A Family Guide to Narnia: Biblical Truths in C.S. Lewis's The Chronicles of Narnia
- Companion to Narnia
- Childhood Chronicles Before Narnia: Boxen (She loves writing stories so this seemed very appropriate)
- This lion pattern along with yarn and knitting needles
- St. Therese/Sts. Louis and Zelie Bracelet 
- Father Brown Readers 
- The Hobbit and the Lord of the Rings set 

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K's Birthday (and her apple doughnut recipe)

Absent

Sorry, I just can't get enough of sleeping baby photos! Three out of my four children are under the weather as of right now, including my sweet baby. He is finally sleeping and I am about to go join him. I know I have been absent in this space a lot more than usual lately. I was hoping to get back to a better rhythm with blogging starting tonight but I might just have to push it off a bit longer. I am missing my routine. I have been pretty active over on Instagram, though. I admit I post there pretty regularly since there is more interaction. Blogging has become a bit lonely. Does anyone read blogs anymore? I still do, but I know I am not one to go with the crowd.

Absent

Just Baby and Me

Pickled garlic that later turned to this: I think it is high time to knit some bigger pants for his cloth diapers!
Last Friday was the very first Martinmas in about nine years that we didn't celebrate. As sad as that seems, there was a good reason - the children went camping with Daddy for the three day weekend. We'll make up for it and do our usual Martinmas activities later this week.

Baby F and I stayed home this trip as it was too cold for him to camp up in the mountains. I had the greatest of intentions to just relax while they were gone but I can't seem to ever just sit still. It drives me crazy so I ended up cleaning the house and experimenting in the kitchen instead. Well, I did steal a few moments here and there to read more of The Genius of Birds. This book has me absolutely captivated. Our librarian recommended it to me and I am so glad she did. I just need to hurry and finish it now so she can read it, too!

Of course there was a lot of playtime with Baby F, too. I can't get over how quiet he is when his siblings aren't around. I was wondering why he was such a loud baby and then it occurred to me that he just wants to make sure his voice is heard along with everyone else. I don't blame him!

We (as in I did the work and he supervised from his baby carrier) made a fresh batch of elderberry syrup. Feeling inspired by the goodness of elderberries I decided to experiment and make elderberry water kefir "soda". Oh.my. I am so glad I did. It may be my most favorite flavor yet. Then we gathered our not yet ripe cherry and pear tomatoes from the garden and made some fermented tomato bombs from this book. We're patiently waiting and staring at them on the counter now. It is always so hard to wait for ferments to be ready. I can't wait to dive into them. Our kitchen experiments didn't end there. We also started up a batch of pickled garlic from this book. I panicked a bit when two days later my garlic started turning a blueish-green color, but thankfully a friend showed me why it happens and that they are still good. Phew!

I tried playing a bit of laundry catch-up while there were only two of us making messes. This included hand washing some woolies. I soaked some new wool socks in conditioner in the hope of making them a bit less scratchy. Those socks were actually a prize Kevin and I won. I didn't know it but he entered one of my photographs of the dogs pulling our three oldest on a sled in a dog sledding photography contest. To our surprise it took first place. He laughed when he saw the prize was wool socks. Even though he entered he decided to let me have them. I am sure you know that made this wool loving knitter's day.

Everyone is back home now smelling of the campfire and full of stories of their adventures. Baby F and I missed them all so much but were glad for our time alone together. I think we all need that extended one on one time with each of our little ones when we can get it. Don't you agree?

Just Baby and Me

First

Those expressions! K made the same ones when she had her first solid food. A lot different than milk going down, eh??
Around our house, babies wait until close to the age of one year before starting solids of any kind. With food allergies, lack of interest, their readiness (and my own!) that is just how it worked out. It has been the norm for the past three babies and I expected it to continue with our latest one. Baby F, on the other hand, had different plans. I should have known he would. At dinnertime he would watch us intently, studying how we bring silverware and cups to our mouths, all the while making chewing motions with his jaws mimicking ours. Recently he started lunging and grabbing for our food, screeching and screaming like a little velociraptor in my and Kevin's laps. That made things a bit interesting, let me tell you! Finally, just before eight months of age, exhausted and hungry from dinnertime struggles, I gave in and mashed up some avocado for him (we love our baby food grinder that was given to us back when K was a baby - similar to this one). Oh the sheer delight of sitting in a highchair for the first time and gnawing on a spoon full of anything other than milk. I think of all my babies, he enjoyed his first eating experience the most - even with the funny faces from feeling food go down his throat for the first time. I think we might be doing something different than our usual banana as a first birthday "cake" this time around...


"Ahh yes This is what I had been wanting!" This photo is blurry but doesn't he look so proud of himself after his first meal?

First