Lessons Learned 2 October, 2011

Lessons Learned
2 October 2011

My top five google searches this week all involved Tree Identification based on leaves, bark, and fruit.

I spent the whole week rereading my science book for my midterm. I got an 84 because I second guessed my self out of the right answer.  Really if my teacher looks at my test I might get an 88. One fill in the blank question was really close.

I lost 2 pounds by osmosis this week. I only hope I can continue all the down to 153 by the end of the year. That is five more pounds to make a total weight loss of 20 pounds this year. If I could lose more so that I can zip my wedding dress up by our anniversary I would be very pleased. One can dream.

Today my family started RCIA, we are converting to Catholicism. Today's lesson was God The Father. The first part of the holy trinity. I really like how they explained Creation vs Evolution either way it starts with the Father.

Earlier in the week I was watering some of our plants and I randomly started thinking about how I should pray for a storm that will filled the cracks in the earth, and quince the the thirst of the land. It is Texas, south Texas so the sky was blue and clear and it was hot 95 degrees. Round about 6 o'clock dark clouds rolled in. It stormed. The wind blew everything across the yard, and I rushed out to save the lawn mower, and rototiller from the rain. I thought I might be lifted up off the ground and land in the cow pasture behind us. Really I felt like God said, "I heard you."

Every drop of rain is a beautiful commodity. In order to break the drought we need 15-28 inches of rain.

This drought might last until 2020!

I want to move, no I want to stay until I finish school. No, really I want to move north, Then again we bough the house and I love it. I have no say in anything! We are staying for at least three more years maybe more. All we can do is wait and see. All I do is ask my husband if he can make things happen. He basically gives me a verbal pat on the head. "Silly woman. I have no say either."

 Right now we have squash growing. Really growing. I can almost taste the fresh squash sauteed in butter. This is the first time since we've moved here that we thought we would get to eat something that we grew!

Right today I realized that there are 83 days until Christmas! Eek! Santa is not ready this year. I am making a list, checking twelve hundred times, and hopefully I will start shopping soon.

I hope that the Autumn brings you brisk breezes, pumpkins, apple cider, hot chocolate, and that all your days are filled with love and laughter. Be well my friends.

Recipe Tuesday

Yesterday when I uploaded a bunch of pictures from my camera I found my food pictures and decided to post an easy recipe that is both photogenic and tastes just as good as it looks. Trust me my three year old asked for more. Is there any other critic as hard to please as a toddler? I don't think he is a toddler anymore. My baby is growing to fast! Today's recipe comes from Jamie Oliver's food revolution cookbook. Warning I went a little crazy with the pictures! Maybe saying a little crazy is an understatement but once I added the bacon to the peas I was inspired. I hope it inspires you too. This meal is really, really yummy.

Mini Shell Pasta With A Creamy Smoked Bacon and Pea Sauce

 I love Jamie Oliver. I love easy his recipes are to read and follow. I love that he is a family man, not that it makes the food better. He seems like he really cares for people in the community. So I feel good about supporting him by paying full price for the book, okay I got 10% off.

 So while I was making this I thought nothing was as pretty as the green peas and bacon.

 So I got the camera and started taking pictures. Hello yummy peas.

 I couldn't stop. I wanted to show you how pretty this dish is. I wanted you to want to make it too.

 I thought these pale little creatures needed to be shown before it became a wonderful, unforgetable dish.

 I made my poor husband grate the cheese, he grated more just in case I wanted to make it super cheesey. He loves cheese.

 I love fresh mint from my garden. It smells fresh and wonderful.

 Mix in your cream and mint.

 Then add in the shells. Do you see their transformation as they get dressed up for a night out?

  Cheese always makes the everything better.

 Then finally you dish it up on a plate and just look at it. It smells like heaven.

 So I just wanted to take a bigger picture with my red table cloth and here you see my not trained eye and know that my hobby is a hobby not a career. Really a little extra cheese on top never hurt anyone. It is a healthy dish for all.


Mini Shell Pasta With A Creamy Smoked Bacon and Pea sauce

Ingredients:
10 slices of bacon
a small bunch of fresh mint
salt and pepper
1 pound dried mini shell pasta
a pat of butter
2 cups frozen peas
2 tablespoons of creme fraiche or heavy cream (in a pinch use milk)
1 lemon
6 ounces Parmesan cheese

To prepare your pasta:
Finely slice the bacon. (I suck at cutting raw meet. So I just just do the best I can and I like the thicker chunks of bacon) Pick the mint leaves and discard the stalks. (If you don't happen to have a ton of mint growing outside, you should. Once the mint takes root it grows like crazy all you do is water it.) Finely grate the Parmesan cheese. (Or buy the cheese shredded from the deli. Use the good cheese it makes the difference.)

To Cook Your pasta:
Bring a large pan of salted water to a boil. Add the mini shells and cook according to the package instructions. Get a large frying pan over a medium heat and add a good lug of olive oil and the butter. Add the bacon to the pan, sprinkle a little pepper over and fry until golden and crisp. Meanwhile, finely chop your mint leaves. As soon as the bacon is golden, add the frozen peas and give the pan a good shake. (Or stir it to mix it all up) After a minute or so, add the creme Fraiche (or heavy cream, or the milk if that is all you have)and chopped mint to the bacon and peas. Drain the pasta in a colander over a large bowl (you are just saving some of the cooking water so just take a cup of it out and drain the rest). Add the pasta to the frying pan. Halve the lemon and squeeze the juice over the pasta. When it's all bubbling away nicely, remove it from the heat. It's really important that the sauce is creamy, silky, and delicious but if it's too thick for you, add a splash of the cooking water to thin it a bit. Add the grated Parmesan and give the pan a shake to mix it in. (Or just stir it like me. I use a heavy cast iron pan and when that thing is full of food there is no shaking it up. I tried but I could barely lift it with two hands much less shake it. Really the pan weighs almost five pounds on it's own. That might make me a weakling but I do not mind. Lesson here use a light pan. But I love my cast iron pan and won't so I just gently stir.)

To Serve Your Pasta:
Divide your pasta between plates or bowls, or put it on the table in a large serving dish and let everyone help themselves. Lovely with a simply dressed green salad.


Here is the link to his website, and to this recipe. http://www.jamieoliver.com/recipes/pasta-recipes/mini-shell-pasta-with-a-creamy-smoked-ba this is his UK Website. Here is the link to his USA Website which doesn't have the recipe converted for us. He has a ton of amazing recipes available http://www.jamieoliver.com/us/recipes/pasta-recipes. Dear Jamie Oliver Thank you for cooking and sharing your talent with the rest of us. Love me.

Now I must study for my science mid-term or start the stew for dinner. I hope that you house is filled with a lovely scent of comfort food that draws your family in to the table, and as always may you be blessed with love and laughter.

In garden news...

My kids planted their first little garden bed so I thought it was the perfect time for an update on the garden. Rob has spent the last few months turning beds of clay into growing machines or at least add so much organic martial that we have a slight chance to eat something grows from our ground.

This is the boys' garden bed also what Damian wanted to to do for his birthday. Finally a month a later he planted his little seedlings and some root crop seeds for luck. They are so proud of all the hard work that went into this bed. I really hope it grows and produces tomatoes, green beans, beets, carrots, acorn squash, watermelon and pumpkin. We let them load it up in a desperate attempt to assure at least one thing grows. This is the bed to watch over the coming weeks.



This is our squash bed. It has green and yellow zucchini, bottle neck squash, straight neck squash, and summer squash. Then we also have a verity of beans and we just added some greens along the sides. Wishful thinking.


This is our bed of melons, orange watermelons, Christmas melons, cantaloupe, and Gaia melons. Wishful thinking all the way. See that pile of dirt over there? We buy dirt by the truck load in order to make our clay dirt into a lovely soil. For these three beds we have bought four truck loads of dirt, thirty bags of compost manure, and countless other additives. Do you see the grey paths? That is the dirt we started with. Because of the drought it is hard packed and causes Rob nightmares when he thinking about cutting into it. Maybe he deserves a back rub. . . Then again my very big bath tub is filled with his pots of seeds that he has started and hasn't made their beds yet.

Look! Do you see what I have been dreaming about? That is right I dream of baby squash. They are beautiful aren't they. I have big ideas for them and they all involve butter.

This plant has a tiny baby. Right now it looks like we might get lucky.

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I just love the sight of all these green squash leaves. They are all grown from seed. My heart is all a flutter with anticipation

This is my little herb garden. These beds boast rosemary, sage, lemon basil, lemon mint, oregano, sage, lemon balm, basil, peppermint, and one eucalyptus tree. We didn't know it was a tree when it was planted here (it is the tall skinny plant on the left near the porch) we will find a new home for it when it gets a little bigger or in the next couple of months.

Finally my asparagus. We can't eat for another year or so but it is very happy and adds a nice green reminder of when things go right. I love these ferns but I will be the first one to happily eat them when their time comes. Rob made a little fence for them so that they would not fall over.


There is a garden update. I know I did not include any trees in this post but I will another day after the grass is cut and the trees look taller then the weeds. So for now I am living with a prayer for rain. Dear God please send rain. Amen

I hope you are blessed with love and laughter and a green garden.

Lessons Learned September 25, 2011

Lessons I learned a weekly debrief
September 25, 2011


Reading the Odyssey and then writing 3000 words about it in a week is hardcore! I love the Odyssey, I love the misadventures of Odysseus I have read it twice before this week started. But both times before it took me a month to finish it. Reading it in a week, in an online format makes my eyes hurt. At the end of the day I just want to close my eyes and do nothing else.

Forestry lessons this week included measuring a tree three different ways. One involves measuring shadows three different times. Well it turns out if you wait until 7pm the sun is setting and there are no shadows to measure, if you try to do it in the morning well said tree's shadow is on the neighbors house making it ridiculous to bother with. So now I am waiting until later in the day when the shadow is on the ground. It is due today.

I printed out a wonderful Pirate preschool unit study for James. It is easy and quick lessons for him on numbers, numbers, sizes, matching, but there is only one letter lesson. I think letters are the foundation to reading and that is what I want to work on with James but because I declared pirate week I have to stay on theme...

The same Pirate Preschool Unit Study caused me to spend six hours cutting little details out with little tiny scissors. My hand is cramping still, my wrist is screaming, and my poor fingers are deformed. What I do for love and homeschooling.

I learned how to use my canner this week! It was stressful because I was filled with anxiety. It turned out to be easy. I breathed a sigh of relief and excitement in one exhale. Really now I want to can everything. Now if only the garden would start producing some lovely vegetables for me to can, or freeze.

Damian loves Pirate week! He has read Gulliver's Island, Kidnapped, Captain Courage, and. He carefully read each chapter of Pirates at Noon, then answered the questions and finally glued them in to the lap book he is making. I love it when he is happily learning!

Rob has done an amazing job on the garden beds and it looks like we might get squash. That is another post about the garden. The boys planted their own garden bed yesterday so I will start doing weekly garden updates so you can join us on the journey from seed to plate. Now we wait and see and hope for rain. Lots of rain!

I hope that you have a lovely week filled with love and laughter.

Chicken Broth

I used my beautiful canner by myself for the first time ever this week to can chicken stock,or is it broth, no I think it is stock. My wonderful loving husband bought the canner for my birthday a few years ago. At the time my son could fit in it with plenty of room for veggies, so I was doubtful that I would ever use it. I love homemade chicken stock or broth or whatever and since we switched to Organic farmers market whole chickens I make broth after I cook the chicken. It is easier then you can ever imagine! First the pictures of canning. . .

That black line above the canner is the Microwave! This thing is huge!

These jars are quart size. If you are like me 4 cups fit into each one perfectly.

Four Quarts of Chicken stock. They are beautiful!

So I discovered the easiest way to cook a chicken in a crockpot. First defrost it, if your microwave refuses to defrost anything like ours, ours is only good for a bread box, place it in the refrigerator over night. You roughly chop one onion and put at the bottom of the crockpot. Place your defrosted chicken on top of the onion. Season your chicken and then put the lid on it until it is done. Here is the recipe and the link to the wonderful website I found it. http://www.100daysofrealfood.com/2011/02/25/recipe-the-best-whole-chicken-in-a-crock-pot/ 100 Days of Real Food Thank You for the recipe and awesome job! You have inspired me to give up my cereal crutch even though my kids now think I am the worst. Well until I let them eat banana pie for breakfast... Moving on.

The Best Whole Chicken in a Crock Pot

Ingredients

• 2 teaspoons paprika
• 1 teaspoon salt
• 1 teaspoon onion powder
• 1 teaspoon thyme
• ½ teaspoon garlic powder
• ¼ teaspoon cayenne (red) pepper
• ¼ teaspoon black pepper
• 1 onion
• 1 large chicken

Directions

1. Combine the dried spices in a small bowl.
2. Loosely chop the onion and place it in the bottom of the slow cooker.
3. Remove any giblets from the chicken and then rub the spice mixture all over. You can even put some of the spices inside the cavity and under the skin covering the breasts.
4. Put prepared chicken on top of the onions in the slow cooker, cover it, and turn it on to high. There is no need to add any liquid.
5. Cook for 4 – 5 hours (for a 3 or 4 pound chicken) or until the chicken is falling off the bone. Enjoy!

This is a really good, really easy recipe. Then if you are like me and love homemade chicken stock pour water over the bones and let it simmer on low overnight. Okay I also add garlic, carrots, celery, and a few other herbs and spices. This is completely optional but it makes the broth so much better. Then next morning you will wake up to a lovely smell. Of course you have to separate the broth and the bones but if you have a strainer it is just time consuming. Here is the good news chicken broth lovers you can freeze it in ziplock bags or any other freezable containers.

I would tell you how to use your super big canner but I am not an expert so I will give you a helpful link that will lead you in the right direction. http://www.simplycanning.com/. Simply canning Thank you for walking me through my anxiety. You were a great help to me and I will be pouring over your site now that I know how easy it is to can my own creations. You too are awesome.

If I didn't have so much school work I might start buying jars in all sizes and raiding the farmers market for delicious fruits and vegetables to can. Wait I did just make a giant batch of spaghetti sauce, 18 cups of it to be exact that I divided up and froze. I know what I want for Christmas Jars, Jars, and lids that go on top. Huston I have a problem! Now if my husband could make our fruit trees grow faster. I guess we will have to buy bigger trees to make up the difference.

I hope you week is filled with dreams of chicken broth, lots of love and bright laughter.

Unanswered prayers

Remember the song Unanswered Prayers by Garth Brooks? Pandora played it for me today, I haven't heard in a long while but every time I do I look at my life and think about when I was younger all the things I prayed for, bargained for, begged for because I knew if I had that one thing, one person my life would be complete. Boy was I wrong all of those unanswered prayers that I cried over, worried over turned out to be a blessing that lead me here to this moment. My kids are playing loudly running around the house ignoring the fact that I asked them to clean up all their toys, and I am sipping coffee with peppermint mocha creamer pretending that I don't see them not listening. Believe it or not I wouldn't tried this messy life for any other that I could have had.


I think that these roads that we travel are not straight or easy. We put one foot in front of the other and move forward, sometimes we run arms wide open, other times it is all we can do to pick up the left foot and move it forward. But when you take a minute to look back across the distance that we have traveled in our lives the good, the bad, the really ugly you will find that the whole picture is really simple and beautiful. To get here I had to start at the beginning, and that one fact is true for all of us. To get to where you are right now you had to start at the beginning. The obstacles we find in our paths, all the times we fall and it hurts to breath makes us stronger. It helps us to grow into the people we are meant to be. It helps us see the beauty in the scenery, and maybe consider for a second that even the weeds have a place to. I know my kids find the prettiest weeds and carefully put them in water so that I can have their love to look at and those weeds have a whole area of the yard my husband lets them grow. Tall spindly steams with tiny delicate flowers at the top. It is easy to judge them for not being roses but really in the simplicity they are a perfect reflection of love. They grow in hard dry dirt, in small cracks in cement, in unexpected places and they survive waiting for a little child to find them and see the beauty.

I hope that your day is filled with love and laughter.

Lessons Learned September 18

Lessons I  learned this week.
September 18, 2011

I learned all about the spotted owl, banana slugs, red tree voles, and Douglas fir trees. They are all part of an old growth forest in the Pacific Northwest and all part of the same food web. My forestry class is interesting but it is very challenging.

I also learned about photosynthesis in plants and trees. My favorite science discovery was agroforests. It is basically in a simple explanation an edible food forest. Adding trees to farm lands helps prevent soil erosion, their roots helps to keep moisture in the soil during times of drought, shade in the summer, and they are just awesome.

My boys are going to be mummies for Halloween so I learned how to make their costumes.

The Iliad never gets easier to read, at least for me. It is a gruesome tale of war and I am just not the kind of girl who enjoys reading about spears piercing body parts, cutting off heads, stealing amour from the dead guy, and the like. I guess it is good I never joined the military even if we don't fight with swords anymore.

Season seven of Grey's Anatomy is instant play on Netflix! Too bad I can't just watch a marathon of the show. Seriously I watched the musical number they did and fell in love with Dr. Hunt. He was singing like he was still talking about trauma, I was blown away. I loved the whole episode even if Patrick Dempsy didn't sing.

I spent the week arguing with the boys to do school work, well until Thursday and then I just threw in the towel. They are taking next week off except for reading and piano playing. We need a break and I can give that to the kids from time to time, that is why we school all year around.

Damian is a brave kid. He pulled his tooth out by himself while looking in the mirror. Now he is missing his two front teeth.

I love potato and leek pizza.

No, I really love The Pioneer Woman Cooks. I love her so much that I want the cookbook she is working on now to just be mailed to me for Christmas. I guess I might get it next year when it comes out. How long does it take to get a cookbook out to the public?

Next week when the boys are back to school work we are doing a pirate themed lab book. I am so excited, I only hope they love it too. I will take pictures of that.

Two weeks into school I am not as stressed as I was last year, but it is still stressful looking at doing at lest 30 hours worth school work. For once I am only going to worry about doing the best I can and not about perfection.

I hope you have a wonderful relaxing week filled with love and laughter.