Thorns and Thistles

 Be thankful for the

          thorns and thistles which keep

       you from being in love

    with this world.

     - Charles Spurgeon -

Hello dear friends!  I had never intended to write a post again, but  a rather odd thing happened the other day, I guess you could say it was an answer to a prayer.  You see, the other day I was thinking of something I wanted to tell you all (I've forgotten what it was) and during my conversation with my Heavenly Father, I said "Lord, if you want me to continue on with this blog, you will have to give me a sign, like someone leaving a comment."  Well, within twenty-four hours I received a comment from Old Fashioned Rose, so Old Fashioned Rose, if you are reading this, you are an answer to a prayer!  

These past several months have been a time of thorn and thistles here at Sweet Briar Cottage, as I am sure this year has been for you all also.  It began with the gardening season, it was such a cold Spring everything was so slow to germinate and many seeds needed to be planted and replanted.  I know a lot of you had very hot weather, but we can't complain here, on the contrary, there were quite a few times that found us reaching for a sweater in July and August.  What we did have, was a drought.  Most of our days were taken up with watering the garden and keeping the intense sunlight from blighting the vegetables.  BTW, we discovered that hanging mosquito nets over the plants, helped with that.  We bought  our netting at a garage sale, it was intended for hanging over a king-sized bed, it netted (no pun intended) quite a bit of yardage perfect for protecting the plants. So that was that.  Never have we worked so hard in the garden.  It took Ran, Jamie and me many hours everyday to keep it going.  But we were blessed.  While we didn't enjoy the huge yields we have in the past, but they were sufficient for our needs.  Our philosophy is to eat what the Lord provides, so if a crop fails or doesn't perform well, we just say it wasn't what He intended for us to eat.  Evidently, He didn't think we needed much in the way of cauliflowers or Brussels sprouts,  but now broccoli, was coming out of our ears. Ha!  Seriously though, we do take this conviction with the utmost solemnity, and it has stood us in good health for many years.  You know you are on the right track when you visit the doctor and he queries you on what you are doing to stay so healthy and takes notes.  But alas, we are getting downright elderly and there is no cure for growing old.  We have noticed that the days of being a weekend warriors are over for us.  Things still get done, but at a slower pace.

On a personal note, I have just been shutting myself off from the world.  Just don't seem to have the patience any longer for people that want to bring drama into my life. So I've been letting one-sided friendships slip away and even this blog, which always has its "contrarians"  (comments you don't see), has been put aside. The few friends that remain, tell me they are doing the same.  Do you feel the same?  I once heard a sermon by Tolver that spoke of a believer's path being a solitary and lonely one, and I am finding that to be true.  It is difficult to live in this world and not be of it.  But oh the peace, dear friends, that comes from such a life. 

SELF SUFFICIENCY

I a big proponent of being a self-sufficient as one can possibly be.  We grow all our vegetables and fruits, and Ran catches (he holds a "master angler" award from the Michigan DNR) most of our meat in the form of walleye, salmon, pike and bass.  Other than that, our protein comes from beans and nuts.  Once in a very rare blue moon, we will find lamb  or some grass-fed organic beef on sale and stock our larder.  And at Thanksgiving I do buy an extra turkey to can, but on the whole, we eat between  one to two pounds of meat a week for our family of three adults.  A lot less than the national average, the average American consumes over 224 pounds of meat a year.  Yikes! No wonder everyone is complaining about the price of groceries.  Meat is becoming a luxury item, that's for sure.  I just spied a grocery store ad for a sale on hamburger at $4.88 a pound.  Even lowly ground turkey is over three dollars.  I can remember for years it was a cheap option for meat at  ninety-nice cents a pound.  Even dried beans are selling for over two dollars a pound.  So I can understand how all this inflation is very scary for a lot of people.  

So anyway, I encourage everyone to get out there and grow some of your food, don't be discouraged by bad weather and nay-sayers.  At the very least, it's good exercise.  And get the whole family involved.  In our family we say, "if you don't work, you don't eat".  To grow a productive garden takes a lot of time. and work.  Too many people become discouraged if their first attempts don't produce.  The other day, once again, someone told me how "lucky" I was to have such a nice garden, and was bemoaning the fact that they weren't blessed with a green thumb.  I was too polite to say it, but what I wanted to say was that luck had very little to do with it.  I didn't see them out there hoeing at six in the morning before it got too hot.  I didn't take a week-long vacation and leave my garden to its own devices.  I didn't see them out there hauling buckets of water, or picking potato bugs off the plants.  I don't see them studying up on how to get rid of garden pests organically.  I don't see them composting, then carrying heavy shovels of compost into the garden to amend the soil.  Yes, I am blessed, but lucky I am not.  It definitely doesn't feel lucky when I'm standing in a ninety degree kitchen peeling and canning beets while they are sitting in the air conditioned living room watching TV.  So to get off my soapbox and get back to self-sufficiency, the other day I made a list of everything I would need to purchase for a year in addition to what Ran catches and we grow.  Here's the list:

2 gallons cider vinegar (canning strength)

1 gallon white vinegar (canning strength) 

12 pounds of cheese ( 1 pound per month)

12 pounds of shortening (for use in baking and frying)

1 gallon cooking oil (we use olive oil)

50 pounds of sugar (mainly to be used in making jams, jellies, and wine)

100 pounds of flour ( this may seem like a lot, but we bake everything from scratch and I only bake sweets once a week)

24 pounds of coffee (what can I say, we love coffee)

50 pounds oatmeal (oatmeal is our staple breakfast)

100 pounds dried beans (2# a week)

10-20 pounds cornmeal ( beans + a whole grain make a whole protein, thus beans and cornbread is a common meal among the poor)

2 quarts of molasses (no need for brown sugar add 1 tablespoon to sugar, plus black strap molasses has a lot of minerals in it and is very healthy for you)

Baking powder and baking soda, a couple containers

12 jars of organic peanut butter (a jar a month)

2 pounds canning salt (not just for canning but also for cleaning cutting boards and possibly for curing meat)

1 pound of cinnamon ( cinnamon is good for keeping your blood sugar level, hence we put a big spoonful into our oatmeal every morning)

Even at today's prices I think I could purchase these things for around a thousand dollars or maybe even a little less, if I shop carefully at the bulk food stores and our Amish discount stores.  And yes, if I really needed to, I could go without the coffee. Ha!  I could resort to my own herb tea, while tea isn't my jam, I have given some to several of my tea-drinking friends and the say it is very good tea.  Basically, I just put everything in my garden I know to be good for you into it; raspberry leaves, chamomile, peppermint, rose petals and hips, anise hyssop,  lemon balm, and dried blackberries and raspberries.  It's a pretty tea, if nothing else.  So any way, I hope the list helps you, if you live as we do.

 There you have it.  My camera bit the dust, so I cannot share with you any of my creative endeavors, but the period I have been away from blogging has been one of my most creative periods I have experienced in a long time.  Will I write another post some day?  I'll have to see how this one goes, I'm aware blogging is sort of a dying medium, and those that do read them prefer style over substance.  So will anyone even look at a blog without some sort of pretty photography?  Well, all that will depend  upon you dear  readers and the prompting of the Good Lord.  So whether we meet again or not, I  pray that you all have a peaceful and fruitful life!

Hugs

Jane

Spring Fever

 Hello dear friends!  Hope all is well in your neck of the woods.!  As usual, I will start with the weather report. Ha!  Cold and windy.  But we finally got a few pretty snows.

Isn't it pretty?  Outside and in.

I do love a pretty snowfall!  In spite of the cold, we are thinking of Spring and have started collecting our maple sap.  We've boiled down over a quart of syrup already. Kind of odd weather  this year; a few days above freezing, than a couple days of bitter cold and wind.  Most of our snowfall has been that ugly slushy stuff, but I'm happy to have had a few lovely ones. 

We also started our onion seeds.  Starting seeds is sort of a bone of contention in our home.  In the Fall we purchase our seeds during the Black Friday sale and give great consideration to them, but by the time seed starting starts, Ran has the seed packets squirreled away throughout the  house and garage and mixed with older packets.  By that time all the varieties that I have given so much consideration into are all mixed up and we cannot remember what we bought or why.  So we never really have the garden we envisioned when we were planning.  We just kind of gather up as many packages as we can locate, and decide on the spot what to plant.  It usually isn't until July that I discover those special herb  and rare flower seeds I intended on planting. tucked away in a tin or cubby.  We are usually pretty organized and analytical people when it comes to most things, but when it comes to planning a garden, we tend to fly by the seats of our pants.

One thing I plant every year is gourds.

For some reason, gourds just capture my fancy.  I have them in bowls and crocks and hanging on knobs everywhere.  This year I will probably plant some spinner gourds. So cute.  And I'm going to try my hand at growing broom corn and making a handcrafted broom this year. BTW, Ran made that lovely pie safe for me.  If you can't afford an antique learn to make your own.  He sprayed the tin panels with vinegar and stuck them outside to  be rained and snowed on for several months to give them that authentic rusty, crusty look of the primitives that I love.

Crafting

Whilst we are still in the hibernation period, I've finished two more projects. This blue Scandinavian  sampler:

And this pair of red petticoat socks:

All the materials came from the thrift store including the cross stitch chart.  My word!  Crafting can be expensive!  I love to watch flosstubers  on YouTube and the  money they spend on their hobbies is unbelievable with their special linens, flosses and even cross stitch charts run around ten dollars.  Add in the cost of framing, for very few of them actually frame their work themselves, I bet they have almost a hundred dollars into each work by the time it is finished.  My little sampler cost $1.29 for the linen (it had the original price tag on it for over $14) 59 cents for the chart and 50 cents for the floss.  And I have lots of linen and floss left over.  So what does that add up to? $2.38?  And the frame was 50 cents picked up at a garage sale this Summer. So for less than three dollars and a month's worth of work I got the perfect sampler to fit over a little rosemaled shelf.  Couldn't be happier with it if I had paid a hundred dollars.  

BTW, see that pretty Meissen candleholder?  Paid a quarter for it a thrift store.  Ditto for the soft paste, two-hundred-years-old  blue and white cup next to it.  I have always loved antiques and it took me years to save up for my first "genuine" one, a Victorian mirror (ugh!). Although I couldn't afford any, it didn't keep me from going to antique stores and looking at them and going to the library and reading about them to educate myself, so I would be able to spot them if I ever came across the real McCoy at an unbelievable price.  And it's amazing how often it happened.  The other day I was telling Ran that we have become one of those people that we used to read about when we were younger that had so many antiques their homes were like a living museum.  How we used to read about those people and sigh.  It will never happen to us, we just weren't born to such good fortune. This happened the other day when I was cleaning out my linen cupboard and a pretty stoneware piece that I had forgotten all about fell out between the folds of a runner. How I love antiques!  It's such a thrill for me to see the potter's thumbprint in the glaze and think that two-hundred years ago he was putting it in a kiln. How many generations is that?  Just think of all the people that have loved and valued that simple crock!

Anyways, enough of me waxing on about antiques!  The socks were knit from Rowan felted tweed yarn.  I paid $1.50 for two skeins from my local thrift store.  I checked the other day and the yarn is still available.  It runs around $15 a skein.  $30 for a pair of socks?  Not I, said this cat.  I know many knitters that will only use the yarns called for in a pattern, but I love, love, love, finding some old vintage yarn and making a pattern my own.  And some of those old vintage woolen yarns are so much nicer than the new stuff.  Don't be afraid to try!

The Pantry

Well, we are still eating out of the pantry.  For those that are interested today's meal consisted of chicken and gravy on homemade biscuits, with a side of broccoli and strawberries for dessert. The chicken was  home- canned as was the broth to make the gravy.  The broccoli and strawberries were homegrown and frozen.

Basically, we are just trying to eat through the jars of 2021 and 2022 food to use them up and to make room for the coming canning season.  This isn't about saving money or anything like that.  Just rotating my stock. As space comes available, I'm starting to restock the shelves.  I canned 8 quarts of winter squash the other day.  We still had more, so I gave some to a neighbor and some to our friend Tyler for his chickens. Note to gardeners:  Mooregold squashes are very prolific! And wonderful keepers.  And I prefer them to pumpkin for baking.

Stocking Up

The other day Ran and I were reminiscing, as old people, we do that a lot. Ha!  We were chatting about back in the late 60s and early 70s everyone had spaghetti for dinner on Friday nights in our little village.  Back then Catholics were pretty strict with not eating meat on Fridays and the fixings for spaghetti could be grown quite easily even in a postage sized lot, which was the typical size of a village lot back then.  Just room enough for a fruit tree and a small garden, the kids played at the park or in a vacant lot.  It wasn't uncommon for Catholic families to have eight or more kids, so they ate a lot of spaghetti.  It wasn't long before the Lutherans on the other side of town caught on to spaghetti on Friday nights as a good and thrifty idea. So back when we were kids, if you were invited to dinner at anyone's house on a Friday it was a pretty safe bet you were going to be eating spaghetti. When we were first married we followed with that tradition.  Only I added a side salad and garlic bread made from the week's stale bread.  Often I would buy the sauce, because it made for a speedy meal  that way.  We always bought the cheap sauce that came in the can and was located on the bottom shelf in the grocery store. So the other day I was wondering if you can still buy spaghetti sauce in a can and if it is still so cheap.  Checked our local Meijers store and Hunt's sauce in a can was $1.37, then I went to Save-A-Lot and their store brand was even cheaper.  That with a pound of store brand spaghetti, which is what? about $1.50 a pound?  You have a pretty cheap meal.  So one of the things  if you don't can and want to stock an emergency pantry, is get yourselves some of that cheap spaghetti sauce that comes in a can.  You can always add meat or peppers or mushrooms or whatever you want to it, if you want something fancier and can afford it.

Well I suppose this post has rambled on long enough.  We are still in our quiet season and there isn't much excitement going on, not there ever is. I hope you all have wonderful week ahead!

Hugs

Jane

Baffled

 Hello dear friends!  Keeping warm?  Ha!  I guess April Fool's Day came early for me this year.  I decided to write  the last blog post because I discovered that more people were reading my blog the past few months then when I was posting regularly.  But you know what?  As soon as I posted the last post my readership flat-lined.  Oh dear!  But I don't care, because it was nice to reconnect with you.  So I will continue to blog, although irregularly if for no other reason that this blog acts as my own personal journal and it is fun to look back and see what I was thinking and doing at different stages of this old journey called life.  

I was going to write about what we were eating during our year of eating out of the pantry, but I don't think it would be helpful to others, because we have a rather unusual lifestyle (we only eat two meals a day), and because some of our pantry meals are not inexpensive unless you have someone in your family is an avid fisherman or you have such a well-stocked pantry that I have, which very few people besides some Amish have. Ha!  But here are some tips for stocking your pantry:

HOW TO HAVE  A WELL-STOCKED PANTRY

1.  GO SHOPPING.  So many people use those shopping services today, but you have to go to an actual store to discover the real bargains.  It really doesn't take that much time.  Ran and I go "bargain hunting" twice a month. We only shop the outer boundaries of the store; the dairy, produce and meat sections.  Things like flour, sugar and spices, we buy in bulk a couple of times a year.  We buy our coffee at the Amish scratch and dent store.  Sometimes we find coffee at the "reduced for quick sale" shelf which is usually tucked away  at a corner in the back of the store. We often find milk that is reaching its expiration date and thus the price is reduced, which we make into yogurt, which is then made into cheese.  Often there are unadvertised sales on meat. (We found a nice lamb roast for $4.99/lb. this past week!)  These bargains would have been missed if we weren't in the store to discover them.

2.  WHEN YOU FIND A BARGAIN, BUY A BUNCH  When you find an amazing bargain calculate how much you will need for a year.  We always reserve between $20-$30 a month for these sorts of purchases.  Most people can afford $20.  It might mean giving up some little luxury, like eating a PBJ instead of stopping at the fast food place because you are too tired to cook, or not buying that bag of chips and pop, or consolidating some errands and saving on a tank of gas, or doing your own nails instead of getting a manicure.  There's all sorts of ways to save $20 a month!

3.  BE OPEN-MINDED  The other day I was standing in the grocery store contemplating whether or not to buy some bags of frozen chicken leg quarters that were 39 cents a pound, when I overheard a woman say "oh gross!".  Now just why frozen leg quarters are gross and fresh aren't, is just not a concept I can grasp.  I guarantee that if I had bought 20 pounds for $7.98 and canned them up and made something and served it to her, she would have been none the wiser to whether they had started out with frozen or fresh meat to begin with.  And I would have had eight lovely pints of canned chicken and several pints of chicken broth in my pantry for a remarkable price.  BTW, if I would have bought forty pounds and canned it, that would have been enough chicken for an entire year and for less than twenty dollars.  A local thrift store gives out fruits and vegetables left over from their food pantry.  I like to leave those things for the truly needy, but the worker implored me to take them because they would just get thrown out at the end of the day otherwise.  You see, people are so privileged in this country that even those that are begging for free food, turn up their noses if it isn't exactly perfect.  So I gladly accepted the free oranges and made some lovely marmalade from it and the brown bananas were made into bread for breakfast, etc.  When eggs were so expensive, our friend Tyler started raising chickens and giving them out to friends and neighbors.  But being busy and a bachelor, he didn't wash them.  I was astounded at how many people complained and rejected his  free eggs just because they didn't look like they came from the grocery store, especially when eggs were were selling for over four dollars a dozen then.

4. LEARN TO COOK  So many of the recipes I see nowadays are not exactly cooking, it's more like assembling ingredients.  A can of this, a package of that. By just knowing a few basic cooking skills, you can eliminate the entire middle and frozen  sections (and most expensive) of the grocery store. Eliminating all those items, you'll have more money to stock up on the basics.  Learn to make a basic white sauce, which herbs and spice to use, with what,  what temperatures to roast, boil and bake at. (all posts I have written about in the past).  Learn how to make your own pasta, bread, baked goods from scratch by learning the ratio of fats, sugars and flours.  As I try to use up every last bit of things in the fridge that have been hanging around since the holidays, I have been baking with some unusual items.  I made oatmeal cookies last week using the last of the maple fudge for some of the sugar, pear sauce and a dab of sour cream  substituted for some of the fats, and diced up dried apricots instead of raisins.  Knowing that fat is fat and sugar is a sugar (except honey which you should use less and bake at lower temperatures), you can use every last drip and dab of food.  We come as close to zero waste as possible. BTW, the cookies were delicious.

5. USE IT ALL UP  Ran caught a lovely walleye last week so we had a our usual fish dinner with coleslaw and tartar sauce.  When  we were clearing the table there was about a tablespoon of tartar sauce and a quarter cup of coleslaw left over.  Now most people would probably have just tossed them, but then most people are not as parsimonious as me. Ha! I combined them with a the quarter cup of turkey I had leftover from the previous meal (turkey Reubens  made from canned turkey) and made enough sandwich filling for one sandwich, which I prepared, wrapped in waxed in paper and put in the refrigerator for someone to discover. BTW, aren't sandwiches tastier if they are cut corner to corner and wrapped in waxed paper? Mrs. Rachel Lynde, a character in Anne of Green Gables, always claimed you can tell a good homemaker by her bread management and would always check others breadbox to see if there was any stale bread in there.  Waste not, want not! 

So anyway, that is but a few ways I manage the grocery budget so I can stock my pantries.  Hope it helps!

BAFFLED

Well, we are going through a cold spell lately.  As many of you dear readers know, we live in a very old house, at least one-hundred and fifty years old and probably older than that.  Although we did our best to insulate it, it is still a cold drafty little place.  The upstairs is unheated and the only heat is via little vents in the ceiling  from the room below, basically it works on the theory that hot air rises.  This morning the inside temperature was 52 degrees (Fahrenheit)! But we stay toasty while we sleep because we dress our bed warmly.  I made quilts from scraps of wool, with old down comforters for the batting and flannel sheets for the backing.  I then hand-tied the top to the bottom.  The reason these quilts keep us extra warm as opposed to a regular quilt is because of the baffling.  The layers of top, bottom and batting are not compacted like in a pretty quilted quilt.  This allows air to be trapped between layers or to be more precise, baffled. Here's a link on how to make your own woolen quilt:

 https://hopeandthrift.blogspot.com/2015/03/sweet-briar-journal-lessons-from-my.html

I was too lazy to make all those little squares for the quilt on the bed so I just cut big squares and rectangles for the top and sewed and cut to fit the unusual sized bed.  It's a two-hundred year old rope bed and is shorter and narrower than standard beds.  Anyway, I find that woolen scarves from the thrift store (I wait until they have their winter clearance and buy them for less than ten cents) make quick work of this sort of quilt.  I was going to pretty the quilt up with some lace and hand-embroidery, but never got around to it. It works and gives me that primmy vibe I like.

I also use baffling to dress warmly.  As most of you know, I only wear skirts and people often ask me if I'm cold in winter.  Actually, quite the opposite.  I've tried wearing fleeced-lined pants when walking and frankly they don't work.  What does is wearing tights, a flannel petticoat and a skirt made from a natural material like wool or a heavy cotton. On top I wear a silk undershirt, a flannel or wool blouse and a wool cardigan.  The warmth from my body heat gets trapped within the layers. I'm warm.  Besides baffling, the other key is to use all natural materials.  Those blankets and clothes made from acrylics, won't keep you warm, so if you need to buy blankets, look for woolen ones and fortunately the thrift stores still have affordable ones.  BTW, don't waste your money getting used ones dry-cleaned, just wash as usual, if they shrink, you will have boiled wool, which is even warmer.

SPEAKING OF WOOL

This is my first project I finished for 2024:

A wool work sewing roll. I dislike having clutter about the house and craft projects always create so much clutter, so I made this sewing roll so at the end of the day, I can just roll up my project and tuck it away. And it keeps everything together.

BARGAINS

Besides the lamb I bought at a remarkable price ( I have another roast in the freezer so I might can them both up, we'll see) I spotted the store still had Christmas items for 90% off.  So I bought two packages of Hershey's kisses for 59 cents each, that I will chop up and use in chocolate chunk cookies sometimes in the future (cheaper than a bag of chocolate chips)  and one of those boxed  panetones  for a dollar.  Which I made into Skiers French Toast.

Skiers French Toast

2 tbsp. corn syrup

1/2 C. butter

1 C. brown sugar 

1 loaf of white bread (or in my case, 1 loaf of panentone)

5 eggs

1 1/2 C. milk

1 tsp. vanilla 1/4 tsp. salt

In a small saucepan, combine corn syrup, butter and brown sugar and simmer until syrupy.  Pour mixture over the bottom of a 9" X 13" pan.

Slice the bread in 12-16 slices and place over the sugar-butter mixture.

In a bowl, beat the remaining ingredients together.  Pour over bread. Cover and refrigerate overnight.

Preheat the oven to 350 degrees.  Uncover and bake for 45 minutes.  Serve hot.

Makes a nice family breakfast for the weekend.

THINKING OUTSIDE OF THE BOX

Rarely do I use objects for their intended purpose.  Linen tablecloths become skirts and pretty blouse become napkins.  Wool skirts become blankets and rugs and woolen blankets become woolen applique pieces.  So the other day I was perusing the thrift store on our "bargain hunt" excursion when I spotted the prettiest linen blouse (made in Italy. Oh-la-la).  I was asking Ran what I could make with it.  I didn't need any more pillows, and it was too nice to stain up for napkins and I am through with making quilts.  'What can I make with this pretty fabric Ran?'  "Well, you could just wear it as a blouse.' Duh!  Sometimes I'm so busy looking outside of the box, I forget to look at the box. Ha!

EATING OUT OF THE PANTRY

Well, this has not been a hardship for us at all and I now have room in my pantry for some of my jars of home canned goods that have been sitting under the tea table in the living room.  Hurray!  Just to settle your curiosity,  today for lunch we had grilled baked  bean and cheese sandwiches and canned asparagus.  The beans were made from our own dried Hopi Indian beans, home-canned bacon,  homemade cranberry catsup and I used some home-canned apple syrup to sweeten them.  The cheese was purchased earlier this year when our Amish bulk store was selling the ends and pieces of deli cheese for $1.89 a pound.  We bought about twenty pounds, made them into packages and vacuum  sealed the packages and froze them.  I have also canned cheese, but it's an awfully fiddly process and it's a chore to clean the jars.  I wouldn't recommend it to you canners. So that is that for this week's life at the old Zempel boarding house.  Hope you all have a lovely week and stay warm!

Hugs

Jane

Purging, Prioritizing, and Parsimony: AKA Thrifty Thursday

 Hello dear friends!  Hope you are well and safe.  I used to feel I needed to address each and every tragedy that was happening in the world, but it seems so many horrible things are happening to so many people worldwide, that I can't keep up. My news source doesn't even mention a lot of tragedies that would have been headlines for days just a few short years ago. We are living in crazy times my dear friends!  That is why I just hope that you are well and safe.  Even in my own quiet life, I was thinking nothing happened since my last post and then I remembered we had a trip to the emergency room, a court hearing and a tornado watch in those few weeks!  

Well, we had a few days in the upper 70s and lower 80s, followed by two days of snow. I was watching a little robin outside of my kitchen window while washing dishes and he was just standing there staring at the snow on the ground in disgust.  I think I could read his mind.  He looked pretty perturbed. Ha!  But the warm days made the daffodils bloom.

And we harvested the first of the asparagus.

And a few days in the eighties reminded me that I really hate summer.  I know that the warmer weather is necessary for the garden to grow and that is necessary for our lifestyle, but it only took two days for me to long for the quiet days along the fireside. I've noticed that most people that enjoy summer spend most of their days inside their air-conditioned homes or lazing about beaches and golf courses. To me, summer means days of work, often from sunrise to sunset.  And the noise!  Lawn mowers, leaf blowers, motorcycles, and sirens. Most people have seasonal depression in winter. I would have to be different. Ha!

In order to cut down on some of the work, I been purging and prioritizing my garden. I cut down several rose bushes, they are just too fussy.  And Ran dug up my herb garden.  We will still have an herb garden, but it will just be in practical straight lines in a rectangular plot instead of anything fancy. Sometimes practical has to take priority over pretty. Last fall Ran pruned my hydrangeas, and they don't look like they are coming back to life.  Can't say I'd be heartbroken if they didn't.   If they don't, we will replace them with something practical and evergreen. And easy to care for!

In The House

We are still trying to make room in our freezer, so we've been having some rather unusual meals.  Each day, we just grab something out of the freezer and try to figure out a meal from it combined with what needs using-up in the refrigerator.  We've also been going through our pantry and trying to use all the things that have been sitting there too long, or that were purchased to make a specific meal that we have long forgotten about.  One day we will have Mexican food, the next Asian and the following German. It's a good thing we have cast-iron stomachs!

We did have a wonderful meal for Easter, however.  I bought a leg of lamb for a price I haven't seen in years.  The rest of the meal was typical "Jane" thrifty, however, with the remainder of our root-cellared  potatoes and winter squash roasted and we had banana cake made from bananas that needed using up for dessert.   I had forgotten all about this recipe.  It was the one recipe that people most requested, way back in the olden days before the internet, when people used to swap recipes instead of googling them:

1890 Banana Cake

1/2 C. butter

1 1/4 C. sugar

2 eggs

1/2 C. sour cream

1 tsp. lemon juice

1 tsp. vanilla 

1 C. mashed bananas

1 1/2 C. flour

1/2 tsp. salt (omit if using salted butter)

1 tsp. baking soda

1/2 C. chopped nuts

Cream butter and sugar until light and fluffy.  Add eggs, sour cream, lemon juice, vanilla and bananas; beat mixture well.

Add flour, salt and baking soda; combine well.  Stir in nuts.

Pour into a lightly greased 9 X 13 pan.  Bake at 350 degrees for 45-50 minutes, or until toothpick inserted into center comes out clean.   Especially good if frosted with a cream cheese frosting.

It's very important to use very ripe, brown bananas when baking with this cake.  And sometimes, if I have it, I will use a 1/2 tsp of banana extract.  As with all my cake recipes, this makes a very moist "country" cake.

While cleaning out the freezer, I found quite a few bags of cranberries, so I canned six jars of relish and eight jars of cranberry catsup.  We love our homemade grape catsup, so I thought I'd give cranberry a try.  It's a winner.  Weren't cranberries inexpensive this year?  I also had bags and bags of pecans in the freezer, so I canned pecan pie filling.  I love having pie fillings on hand, it makes for a quick and easy dessert.  Just toss the filing into a lightly greased pan and make a quick crumble like the topping in this apple crisp and bake it up while dinner is being served.  Although, I must confess that more than likely I just use the recipe on the side of the Jiffy yellow cake mix for a quick dessert.

Fruit Magic

1 pkg. Jiffy yellow cake mix

1 can pie filling (21 oz.)

1/2 C. chopped nuts (optional)

1/4 cup margarine or butter, softened

Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Select your favorite pie filling and spread into an ungreased 8" square pan. Combine cake mix and nuts. Cut in butter until crumbly. Sprinkle over top of pie filling. Bake 45-50 minutes.  (I think I bake mine less, about a half hour, just until the top is lightly browned and the filling is hot and bubbling.)

Even someone that doesn't know how to bake can handle that recipe! It's a good "starter" recipe for children. Did I ever tell you the story of my first attempt at baking?  I was five-years old.  I had a gotten a cute little recipe booklet from the grocery store for free.  It was a tie-in for the Wizard of Oz, which yearly airing around Easter time, was a big event for us kiddies back in the early 60s. Anyway, I informed my mother that I was going to bake some cookies and back then children were pretty much ignored and unsupervised, my mother just said something like "That's nice".  So off to the kitchen I went!  At five, I could read but I hadn't gotten to fractions in school, so when the recipe called for 3-4ths cups of brown sugar, I figured it meant 3 to 4 cups of brown sugar! Well, you can imagine how the cookies turned out!  They ended up more like peanut brittle and were quite a chore to scrape off the cookie sheets.  But they weren't wasted, my sister's boyfriend ate them all.  After the first batch, my mother finally came into the kitchen and discovered what I was up to and sent me out to play while she tossed the batter. You'd think that first foray into baking would have discouraged me, but after learning fractions (ha!) I became quite the little baker, winning many a blue-ribbon at various fairs.  By the time I was ten, my father preferred my baking to my mother's (not the accomplishment that one might think) and I became the chief baker in the family.

Crafts

Whenever someone asks me what I've been up to, I always answer, "cleaning out the freezer or cleaning out the attic" You'd think that one day it would come to an end!  I keep all my crafting items in the attic and my fabric stash is immense.  My problem is that I love fabric, particularity the pretty reproduction fabrics put out by quilting companies. I can't bear to waste a scrap.  So, I began this scrap quilt last winter.

I was thinking of making a quilt for our bed, which is a two-hundred-year-old rope bed and an odd size, but quickly into the project I decided that it was too busy for my taste.  So, I tucked it away and forgot about it. It was a shame, since I only had about five more squares to finish it into a nice lap-sized quilt.  Guilt got the better of me and I had to take it out and finish it.  I am glad to have it behind me, so I can get on to something more enjoyable.   While I was quilting and quilting (did I mention I hate quilting?) Ran kept me company by whittling these two adorable spoons: 

The larger spoon is a coffee measure, the tiger maple came from our firewood pile. And the little spoon is a little scuttle for salt. He used a dye I made from rose galls to stain the tiger maple piece.  I also used the rose galls to dye some cross stitch fabric for this picture on the left:

The little picture to the right is made from a scrap of fabric that was used in some strapping for an antique chair that I had saved.  We never waste anything! I used the oil some fancy olives were packed in to roast our asparagus in this week.  And to sauté some onions and peppers.  Rose gall dye, olive oil from a jar of olives, old upholstery used as cross stitch fabric, may seem like carrying thrift to extremes and some might think it is downright miserly, but to me, it is a fun adventure.  

So that is it for this Thrifty Thursday.  Stay safe and stay thrifty!

Hugs

Jane

Colorful

Hello dear friends!  Hope you all are doing well.  We're still spending a good portion of our days watering, trying to keep our garden alive.  My! It's been hot!  But the today we finally had a break from the heat and are having the Picture-perfect summer day.  So many flowers are blooming right now.

This is a garden on the south side of our home.  It's a true cottage garden, in that every plant is either something that someone has given us, or a volunteer plant growing elsewhere in the yard.  It's been thrown together with no forethought on what "goes" but just planted by sticking whatever we found,  wherever there was an empty space.  And you no what?  It's one of the prettiest gardens  that ever existed.  (Sometimes I wish I were a better photographer so I could capture the true beauty of this place, but it is what it is, and if people desire an "artful" blog, I'm afraid they will have to go elsewhere.)  Oh!  And the birds do their part also. Many of the flowers have been reseeded courtesy of the birds. I'm a firm believer in not coddling  plants and letting them live where they want to, no hybrid roses for me!

Here's an area of the yard we will be working on this fall:

This is the back quarter of our property where our apple trees grow.  We plan to plant "something" to make this area completely secluded and have a little sitting area. Even on the hottest days, this shady area is cool.  We've already earmarked some ferns and hostas to go back here.  Any ideas?   I'd love your input. This year we decided not to mow the grass back here and there's all sorts of wildflowers  and herbs growing;   Fleabane, Self-heal, Queen Anne's Lace, Wild Lettuce, Mullein  and Red Clover to name a few.  It's so enjoyable to learn of all the herbs and their many uses. You are never too old to learn something new!

IN THE KITCHEN

This recipe is something new I learned  last year.  For years I've looked at this recipe in one of Mary Mason Campbell's recipe books and ignored it because it seemed too "ordinary".  But last year I had such a glut of summer squashes that I was willing to try anything to use some up. Hence, this recipe, which has become a staple summer meal for us:

 Casserole of Summer Squash

2 tbs. olive oil
2 lbs. summer squash washed and cut into cubes (I use a mixture of summer squash, zucchini and eggplant)
1 white onion, chopped
3 large tomatoes, chopped
2 tsp. pepper
1 tbsp. salt (scant)
2 tbsp. sugar
1 tsp. dry mustard
1 tbsp. oregano
1 C. breadcrumbs
1 C. cheddar cheese
2 tbsp. butter

Preheat the oven to 350 degrees. Parboil the squash for 5 minutes, Drain.
Put the oil in a 3quart casserole. Put in vegetables.
Mix together dry ingredients and half the cheese. Spread over top of the vegetables.
Dot with butter.
Cover and bake 50 minutes. Uncover and scatter the remaining cheese over top.  Return to oven until the cheese is melted.

Isn't it colorful?  We substituted some cheese crackers for the breadcrumbs, just because we had some and they needed using up.  Makes it even more colorful.  Happy days when the garden starts producing!

And look! Canning season has begun! One commenter expressed skepticism that I truly canned as much as what I said I did, but this is just the result of one day's canning session, and my true canning season doesn't really begin until the beans and the tomatoes ripen.  Then it's not unusual for me to can 30 jars a day.  Anyway, I know I should let these comments pass, but it does get tiresome some times. 

And speaking of gardens, with all this dry hot weather, now is the time to be drying your herbs in your car. Something I wrote about way  back in 2012.  Good advice never goes out of style.

This was a dandy year for cherries.  Usually the birds have them eaten before they are ready to be picked, but this year there were even  too many  for them!  I ended up with a dozen jars of cherry preserves.  We will treasure those!  And we had enough cucumbers for a dozen jars of relish. We go through a lot of relish. There'll be more on the way, not to mention pickles.  And I got an amazing deal at WalMart.  They must be getting rid of a brand because they had cans and cans of corn and beans on the sale rack. The expiration date on the cans was 2023 so it wasn't because they were expiring.  Anyway, I bought two  six pound cans of corn for $1.50 each (that's 25 cents/lb!). So I recanned the corn into smaller pint jars.  We never have any luck with corn, between the deer and the raccoons, it just isn't worth our while to grow.  And what they don't eat, the crows will finish off.  Oh! speaking of deer, we spotted twin fawns standing in the street in front of our house.  Gosh, they're cute, but such pests! They know they have it made, with a stream and grazing land behind our house, and apple orchards and our garden, plus the fact that there's no hunting in the village, I'd say they are the smartest little deer!

SEWING

During  the "big lockdown" I took up sewing again.  I haven't done any for years, and it was fun to rediscover the craft.  But not being able to avail myself to any stores, I had to "make-do" with what I had.  Using an old linen tablecloth and substituting some woolen goods for the interfacing I fashioned this old-timey vest.  It has a cute peplum in the back.

Sorry about how awful these pictures are.  I am not a model and the one thing I hate most in the world is having my picture taken.  The photographer gets one chance with me and that's what I go with. ANd I wouldn't know where to begin with photoshopping.  It must be tiresome to be a model, or one of those influencers you see on Instagram.  And I hadn't given any thought about how stupid this vest would look with a t-shirt, (I just put it on to take the picture). Or how I had the back all twisted about. Or that maybe the back would look smoother if I hadn't had a big bulky belt on underneath it.  Oh well!  You get the picture.  

Currently I'm knitting a shawl from some yarn that I picked up at the local thrift shop for 50 cents a skein.  It's just a simple shawl, but the variegated yarn intrigued me. It 's not the best yarn, but I'm not a yarn snob and the entire project will cost me $1.  Not like I'm giving it as a gift or anything, just something to do. Truly a mindless project for the times I'm monitoring the pressure canner.  

Well, the world keeps getting crazier, but life is as good as you care to make it.  I hope you all have a glorious week ahead of you. And that's this week at the old Zempel boarding house.

Hugs

Jane

Memorial Day

Happy Memorial Day dear friends!  Can you believe that we have already reached the end of May?  It seems that you wait for spring to arrive and it feels like it will never get here, then one day, ta-da! it's Spring!

Tomorrow is Memorial Day here in the States and I want to take this opportunity to thank all who are serving or have served.  On Memorial Day, my thoughts always go to my father, who served in World War II.  He never talked of his time in the war except to jokingly recall of the incident when his ship was torpedoed and he volunteered to don diving equipment and go down in the deep ocean waters to weld a make-do repair back on.  He always joked that he was the only one too stupid (his words, not mine) to know any better.  It wasn't until after he died that I discovered all the heroic things he did in the war.  Lately, I've been pondering what he would think of all the goings-on that have been happening lately.  I have a feeling I'd be bailing him out of jail a lot. Ha!  Makes me sort of glad that he's not here to see what a mess we've made of of the freedoms he fought so valiantly to defend.  But mostly, I think of all the things I'd like to share with him.  I know he'd love our little cottage and would be thrilled to be able to go fishing with Ran.  Whenever he visited I was always sure to bake him something special.  He could eat half  of one of my pies in one sitting!  I learned to bake at an early age and one of my duties was to bake goodies for his lunch pail. So in his honor, I made a strawberry-rhubarb pie.

Strawberry-Rhubarb Pie

1 C. sugar

1/4 C. flour

3/4 tsp. nutmeg

3 eggs, beaten

2 C. strawberries, sliced

2. C. rhubarb, diced

1 9" pie shell 

Streusel:

1/2 C. flour

1/4 C. sugar

1/3 C. butter, softened

Combine first four ingredients.  Fold in the strawberries and rhubarb. Put into the pie shell.

Combine the streusel ingredients until crumbly.  Sprinkle over top.

Bake at 400 degrees for 15 minutes then turn down the oven to 350 degrees and bake an additional 40 minutes. 

This year everyone decided that the like rhubarb, so I'm making sure to can some up.  

How to Can Rhubarb

Wash stalks and cut into 1/2" pieces. removing any strings or tough pieces (young springtime stalks are the best) In a large pot add 1/2 C sugar for every quart of rhubarb.  Let stand covered, until juice appears. Heat gently to boiling.  Immediately pack into hot jars. leaving a 1/2 inch headspace.  Remove air bubbles.  Wipe rims and adjust lids. Process in a boiling water bath for 15 minutes for pints or quarts

We are also beginning to harvest the first of our asparagus.  Here's a quick recipe for a simple  little casserole:

Asparagus Casserole

1 1.2 lb. fresh asparagus, boiled until tender

1/4 C. butter

1C. cracker crumbs (we like our homemade ones made from cauliflower flour)

1/2 C. toasted almonds (optional but good)

1 can cream of mushroom soup (or 1C, of the white sauce, I write frequently about)

4 rashers bacon, fried and crumbled

Combine butter and cracker crumbs.  Pat half into a 8 inch buttered pan. Combine almonds, asparagus, and the soup. Pour over the cracker crust.  Sprinkle the remaining crumbs on top, then sprinkle the bacon over that.  Bake at 350 degrees for 20-25 minutes or until hot and bubbly.

Gardening

Memorial Day weekend is when we plant our garden.  It's slow going this year because the back  plots are very wet.  We are hoping and praying that the potatoes that we planted earlier in the season are not rotting in the ground. Such is the trials of a gardener!  That's why it's important to reserve some of your canned goods for the next season, you just never know when a crop will fail.  It looks like our poor peach tree didn't survive the winter.  It was such a dependable little tree, it certainly lived up to its name "Reliance",  it's going to be sad to cut it down.  I'm glad I  canned so many peach preserves last year!  

While Ran is busy putting in the vegetable garden, I've been busy getting the flowerbeds weeded.  Sometimes I regret the folly of planting so many flowers.  If I had to do it all over again, I think I'd just plant huge banks of tiger lilies, but oh well! I have the flowers now, so weeding will just be part of my life until, I'm too old to do it. On the other hand, one of the most enjoyable garden tasks is planning  the urns plantings.  This year I found some unusual plants called "toothache plant".  Some might think that are rather ugly ducklings but they reminded me of the flowers in crewel embroidery.

And you can see from this picture, I love my crewel embroidery!

Sorry about the dark picture, it's just a foggy, pussy-willow-gray kind of a day today.

Finding Time

After a very long winter,  it seems that springtime arrives and so do so many chores.  It's easy for all those little things that need to be done fall by the wayside. I've found that if you make a list and just make an effort to cross three of them off each day, things don't pile up.  For me one of the "chores" this week was to defrost and can all the bacon that was in the freezer.  Canning bacon is one of those "guerilla " methods of canning that isn't "Ball Blue Book approved", but something I've been doing for years, so I won't explain how to do it.  When I pulled all the bacon out, I told Ran that now we had room for all the fish he will catch, "so get out there and catch some".  It was less than an hour later that our neighbor, Ed, dropped off several pounds of frozen cod that came from his sister's restaurant. She has been closed down because of you-know-what and needed to get rid of stuff before it goes bad.  The Lord works in mysterious ways! He also gave us several dozen eggs.  What a blessing to have nice neighbors!

I also use the checking-off-the- list method for cleaning up the pantry.  Each week I take five ingredients that are unusual (why did I buy that?) and are reaching their expiration date and challenge myself to use them up.  It results in some strange meals sometimes, but we also discover a lot of new and fun flavors.  Keeps things interesting. Since I had just purchased a couple dozen eggs before Ed gave us several more, I tried pickling them this week.  The guys love them!  Who knew?

This is also the time of the year that we take our remaining onions and dehydrate them.  We never waste anything and I hate buying onions.  We use this dried onions from May until September, when we harvest our next crop.  I also fill in with chives, Egyptian Walking onions,  and spring's green onions.  We also dried all our  remaining garlic and ground it into garlic powder.  What a smelly undertaking that is!

Well, I guess I've rambled on here long enough.  I hope that you all have a lovely weekend ahead and  again, thank you veterans and those serving presently.  So that's it for another week at the old Zempel boarding house!

Hugs
Jane

Anyone Can Learn to be Thrifty

Hello dear friends!  I hope you are enjoying this Mother's Day.  Here's a bouquet of daffodils for you!

Ran is making me a gluten-free pizza in honor of the day.  To be honest, I don't much care for these sort of holidays and would just as soon ignore it completely, but I'll take pizza any day!

I'm not a fan of "special" days designated to honor people. Every day should be a day to honor those you love, just as every day should be a day of thanksgiving, a reminder of the resurrection and His birth.   And that is all I'm going to say on the subject

ANYONE CAN TO LEARN TO BE THRIFTY

Many people say to me that I am lucky to have been born with thrifty parents to learn from, this is the furthest thing from the truth.  My parents, having been young during the Great Depression, wanted nothing to do with thrift in their adulthood.  They spent their money as soon as the got it.  My mother bought new furniture for the living room every two years, my dad bought a new car probably every three years.  I remember that  my mother always redecorated her bathroom every season and would throw out all the towels and buy new ones in a seasonal color scheme.  Even as a small child I thought that was a bit wasteful.  When my father died, he was in debt.  So, no, I didn't learn about being thrifty from my parents.  But for some reason, even as a small child, I could see that this way of spending was not the way I wanted to live.  Some day perhaps I will tell you the story of when I was a child (maybe five or six) the Holy Spirit ?, my inner conscience?, my gut?, whatever it was, pulled my ear and said "pay attention"  upon seeing a TV program that was made about serious subjects that would be considered too disturbing for children. Anyway, from that day forward I was fascinated by how people lived through hard times.  When my friends were reading Misty and Flikka and dreaming of ponies and living in castles with a prince, I was reading the Moffats, Little House on the Prairie and other titles I have long forgotten, taking note of the meals (potato pancakes and applesauce) the ways they made do, the ways the entertained themselves without  toys, etc.  I was a weird little kid! I eventually graduated to A Tree Grows in Brooklyn, The Diary of Anne Frank and autobiographies  and biographies of people in poverty,  Then moved on to history books.  

Although my father wasn't thrifty by a long shot, he did love history and I spent many an hour listening to him discuss world events with his friends, relating them to past history.  One of the subjects that made my ears prick up was when he discussed the inflation in Germany after the first world war.  I also had an amazing history teacher in high school, Mrs. Peck, who has lived through many of the major historical events in history, including both world wars, the depression and  the dust bowl.  She didn't  teach the class from our textbooks, she would just get up in front of the class and start telling us stories of her life.  For her, it wasn't important to memorize dates and facts, it was important to learn the causes of events.  That is why I am so passionate (some say too passionate) about what is happening in the world today.  I've seen this cycle in history before and the outcome is not good. Bless Mrs. Peck!  

I'd say I have a PHD in thrift, having studied it  for over half a century. And you can too.  I once heard an interview of a president (I think it was Truman) say that the best way to learn history is by reading the biographies and journals of those that have lived it.  And the best way to learn thrift is by reading and listening to those that have lived through difficult times. We live in a wonderful age, when you can go to YouTube and find old interviews of depression era people. There's wonderful programs like BBC's The War Farm and Tales of the Green Valley.  Watch them and take notes.  Use YouTube for some good instead of for entertainment. You can even learn how to sew and can from some of the videos. Talk to the old folks,  in these days of not valuing our elderly,  which is shameful, you will find a font of wisdom. One of my biggest regrets is that I hadn't paid more attention to the stories an old family friend, Jack Ransom, told of his life at the turn of the last century in Cross Village Michigan.  He lived among  Native Americans and learned many of their herbal remedies. How I wish I had written them down! 

And never stop learning.  We've been watching old episodes of The Amazing Race, and I garnered some tidbits from the Babushkas in Russia this week about how they plant their potatoes that I might implement this week, depending upon our horrible weather.  Just like a magpie, gather a bit of knowledge there and bit here, discard the useless and build up your own treasure of wisdom.

TWO THINGS I LEARNED FROM STUDYING THE PAST

With so much to be done, and so much of it had to be done manually, you'd think people were scurrying around like squirrels in a peanut field back in the pre-industrialization , but no, people took time to enjoy what they had, a lesson I have discovered recently.  I'm sewing a vest, but not being able to avail myself of a fabric store,  I'm learning to make-do and many ways.  I'll write more about it when the project is finished, but the entire time I've been working on the vest, I keep thinking about how the pioneer women didn't have a lot of things and sewing a dress or a blouse was an exciting event for them.  They didn't rush through the project to get it over with but took time to enjoy the process as it was a rare occasion. How they lovingly cut the pieces of their patchwork quilts from the fabric scraps, thinking of the warmth it would give a loved one in the cold, taking their time to construct them as material became available. So many of the hobbies we do are done in a hurry; quilt in a day, weekend knits, no-rise bread, etc. .  I love to knit and people are always asking me "aren't you finished yet? ".  But I only like to knit when I want to knit, seldom am I happy with a project that must be finished on a deadline.  Taking time to do a proper job, something you will be proud to put your name to, may be an old-fashioned conceit, but what joy it is to make something well-crafted. We have too many things. We have too many cheaply made things.  Enjoying  fine craftsmanship is one of the lessons from the past.

The other lesson from the past I've been thinking about this week is " eat what you grow, grow what you eat". It's been a cold spring so far, we had snow on Friday and Saturday, so we are taking our good old time about getting our plants started.  We are expanding our garden so we've had many discussions about what should be planted.  One of the main lessons you  must learn when you garden is to only grow things that you eat.  No use taking up valuable garden space to grow  radishes or eggplant if you only care to eat those once a year. (I'm talking to myself here).  And the other part is to use what you grow.  One of the first things I planted when we bought Sweet Briar Cottage  was two rhubarb plants.  I love rhubarb, not for the flavor, but because it makes you feel like a "real" gardener to see those big beautiful plants pushing themselves up through the snow in March.  But to be honest, two bushes of rhubarb is a lot of rhubarb.  I hate wasting it, but most of my neighbors do not know what  to do with it and it makes me shudder, every time I see it going to waste.  So this year I'm making a concerted effort to use as much of it as I can.  So far I've made stewed rhubarb (now there's something old-fashioned) that we stir into yogurt and oatmeal, canned eight pints of strawberry-rhubarb pie filling (from last year's frozen strawberries)

This will be used to make jam tarts throughout the winter.  I don't really need to make any jams or jellies this year, but perhaps I'll make some and just push eggs and toast for meals.  I also made this Rhubarb Custard Pie:

It's not the prettiest, because I don't have  red stalked rhubarb, but pale greenish ones.  I've often thought of digging up those plants and planting the prettier, redder  plants, however, these plants have been faithful throughout droughts and bitter cold, so I feel they should be rewarded by allowing them to have a long life.  Here's the recipe if you want it (trust me it's tastier than it looks)

Rhubarb Custard Pie

3 C. diced rhubarb

1/2 C. sugar 

2 tbsp. cornstarch

1 egg

1/2 C, cane or corn syrup

1 tbsp. butter, softened

1 pie crust

Put the rhubarb into the pie crust.  Combine the sugar and cornstarch in a bowl.  Add the egg and beat well.  stir in the cane syrup and the egg.  Beat well.  Pour over the rhubarb.  Bake at 450  degrees for 15 minutes.  Turn down the oven and bake at 350 degrees for 40m  minutes or until the rhubarb is tender.

A note on recipes:

I keep a binder with all of my garden recipes.  I start with the first fruits of the season. rhubarb and asparagus. and  continue on as things ripen in the garden, ending with squash and pumpkin recipes.  This makes it easy for me to come up with ideas for whatever is being harvested.  I just merely have to turn to that section and I have an entire collection of ideas for uses for the said fruit or vegetable. Keeping your own recipe books are so important.  Can't tell you how many times I have turned to an old "receipt" book that I made during our lean years.  As a matter of fact, one of our sayings around here when the budget is tight is to say "time to return to the old receipt book". 

Well, that's all for this week at the old Zempel boarding house!  I hope you all have the loveliest week ahead! Oh!  Before I go, I wanted to tell you that I've been enjoying this blog, A Word Fitly Spoken ... Proverbs  25:1.  It is filled with lovely words of encouragement.  Thought you might enjoy it.

Hugs

Jane

An Old-Fashioned Sweet Briar Journal

Hello dear friends!  Happy last Sunday in April!  Today I thought I'd show you some of the things that we've been doing around here for the last couple of months and some garden talk, kitchen talk and all those things that this blog is known for. So here it goes!

GARDENING

Friday it finally warmed up enough for me to get out and do some weeding.  Ran has been tilling and planting for the past month.  Since we weren't able to buy seeds locally when we needed to get them started, we relied on what we could find, what we purchased last year and what we saved.  In the end, it probably saved us quite a bit of money because many plants that we normally buy, such as; broccoli, cauliflower, celery and leeks we started from seed. Those free sample packets the seed companies sent us with our orders really came in handy!  We used last years potatoes for seed, which is fine.  The only thing we weren't able to buy was onion sets because the vegetable market we buy them from is closed.  Ran is very particular about his onions and always hand-picks them from the bin.  It must be a good strategy because last year's  crop has lasted us until just last week.  Those were some nice onions!  Anyway, we did manage to find some onion sets in the garden decor area of a dollar store.  They've been planted and are sending out little green shoots, so hopefully they will be nice wintering onions.  BTW, I'd like to acknowledge Rhonda of If You Do Stuff, Stuff Gets Done for her very kind  offer to send me whatever I needed for my garden and also for all her support and encouragement  over the last couple weeks.  Getting to "meet"  people like Rhonda is one of the main reasons I blog, so if you haven't visited her blog yet, wander over there and say "hi"!   On another note, our governor has now allowed garden centers to reopen!  She crumbled under all the pressure, so there is an example of protesting, accomplishing something. She also opened up bike repair shops and golf courses (although you must walk the course and not ride a golf cart (?!), and I won't say anything more political here but leave you to draw your own conclusions.

The plot I was weeding is a good example of  the old proverb "a job worth doing, is worth doing well".  This plot was just put together in a slap-dash method to get some plants in the ground before the frost.  That was years ago and since then, I must have clocked hundred of hours weeding out all the purslane and binderweed and still pulling grass clumps from it to this day.  On the other hand,  the first plot I painstakingly hand dug, took the time to shake all the grass from the clumps, turned by a spade and hand tilled every square inch of, rarely needs to have much attention.  Just a quick hoeing.  So that is why I always tell novice gardeners to start small and do it it right the first time.  Your back will thank you in end!

Is it possible to love a plant?

This herb plant has been with me since I started herb gardening almost forty years ago.  Slips of it have been carried as I moved three times.  It has sired many plants that were the start of many friends' and acquaintance's gardens. It has been a loyal friend to me and I almost love it like a pet.  Last year, after a particularly brutal  winter, I thought I had lost it and was just sick about it, but I cut it almost back to the ground and gave it extra attention and it has come back bigger and better than ever.  I'm not one of those mother earth, new-agey  sort of people, but I do love this sage plant!  After all, we've weathered almost a half century together and that is more than I can say for a lot of people!

HOMEMAKING

You know the old saying "make do our do without"?  Well, my home is the ultimate "make-do".  Several times we've seriously considered selling it because it is just too small.  But as always, we realize that the problem isn't that the house is too small, it's that we have too much stuff!  One of the problems has been that it is a very old house and storage is a major problem.  Everyone that has read this blog for any amount of time, knows that I can about five-hundred to six-hundred jars of food a year.  When we first moved here, I made a back bedroom into a walk-in pantry, but one winter  a storm knocked out our electricity for five very long and very cold days.  It was then that I decided that a woodstove was a must.  Sadly the only place to put it that didn't have the chimney going up through the middle of a room or in front of a window or doorway was the corner of my lovely pantry.  And heat and canned goods don't play well together so that was the end of my dream pantry.  We tried putting long shelves on the upstairs landing.  But this is a very old house, built long before indoor plumbing, central heating or building codes, and I worried about all that weight on the joists and expected the whole thing to coming crashing through the ceiling any day.  In the fall when the shelves were at full capacity, I think I could hear the poor joists groaning.  So we finally came up with our final  and I think best solution.  Our living room is square and the doorway into it is about one foot from the wall. I could never figure out how to arrange furniture because the natural pathway is right along that wall so any furniture placed along there was always getting bumped into or moved. That is when we came up with idea to make a huge cupboard along that entire wall  built to the ceiling.  It would only take a foot of floor space and that wall was pretty useless anyway.  If it was made of nice paneling and painted, we could still hang artwork on the doors.  So Ran and Jamie built me the mother-of-all- mother cupboards this winter.

It can easily hold all my canning jars.  And because we live in a cold climate, we love that it makes the living room  even cozier.  Plus I don't have to worry about my poor joists because the downstairs one are actual tree trunks spaced about twelve inches apart notched into a sill that is made back in the days of virgin forests.  In other words, you could probably sit two elephants on the floor over there and the floor wouldn't sag a bit. As some of you might remember this was the wall that held all of Ran's guitars.  They have now been moved to where the old canning cupboard on the landing was.

We are forever moving things around to make this home work.  It was a cheap little house and it will probably never have any real value except to us, but of all the homes I've lived in, this is the one that has made me the happiest.  It really is an artistic expression of us; all  of the furniture is either made by Ran or things we picked up second hand and remade,  the artwork on the walls is our own or something that has a personal meaning to us, the things that make it a home are things that have memories. For instance, I think of my knitting as artwork, so up on the landing, I use an old orchard ladder to display some of my handknit shawls.

And I like to have skeins of yarn, old embroidery hoops, my little doll sized quilts hanging here and there.  Just so people know that a craftsperson and a musician live here.

CRAFTS

We've been basically shut in since November, almost all our neighbors and friends went south for the winter and is was so blustery we didn't travel much, so I had plenty of time to knit.  Over the past several months I've knitted, three shawls, two pairs of mittens, a hat, a Estonian style scarf, a Miss Marple scarf, a pillow, two pairs of socks, and the back and left side of a vest for Ran (this year's Christmas present) and various littles.  Here's a picture of the edging of one of the shawls:

I love the fern-like edge.  This was a quick knit and the pattern comes from Knitpicks, I believe the book was titled Under 100.  The project I'm currently working on is Spring Bloom Mitts and the free pattern can be found here.

One thing that I realized during all this shut-in time is that I need to be prepared with more sewing supplies.  When or if my local Ben Franklin reopens, I intend on laying-in a good supply of things such as sewing machine needles, snaps and fasteners, various sizes of elastic, etc.   Last week I had a bit of  a frustrating day when I wanted to sew something, broke my sewing machine needle, didn't have another one. And that was after I had to unwind a bobbin by hand because I didn't have a spare one.  So then I decided to  hand sew one of the snood-type headcoverings that I like, but couldn't find any elastic. A very long time ago I read a book about a women that had lived in either the Ukraine of Albania, I can't remember which, during WWII and afterward the Soviet occupation.  She said that the one thing she did was sew clothes for children because, hard times or not, children do outgrow their clothes.  And I had also heard many stories growing up about the Depression and how people had so few clothes, so I have been collecting nice pieces of fabric whenever I find them at garage sales and thrift stores, for "just in case".  But I never thought about zippers, snaps, bobbins, etc.  So I'll be on a mission, once the stores reopen!

IN THE KITCHEN

You hanging in there?  Ha!  We've been endeavoring to clean out our freezer in anticipation of the new gardening and fishing season.  We had a ham in there bought during the holidays at something like 68 cents a pound, and plenty of bacon because our oldest son raises his own hogs and gives us a cooler full of meat for Christmas.  We used to buy a holiday ham sausage from a Polish butcher at Easter time, but he had gone out of business long ago so we decided to make our own, all we had to buy was a inexpensive pork butt roast ($1.18/ lb.).  As the pork was the most expensive ingredient, this sausage cost us less than a dollar a pound.  And it is so good!  

Ham Sausage

4 lbs. pork

3 lbs. ham

1 lb. bacon

1 tbsp. sage

2 tsp. pepper

1 tsp. cayenne pepper

2  tsp. thyme

4 tbsp. brown sugar

1 tbsp. onion powder

1 tsp. garlic powder

1 tbsp. dry mustard

Combine all the seasoning in a small bowl.  Cut the meat in chunks that fit into your meat grinder.  Toss the seasoning with the meat.  Grind through the meat grinder.  Form into patties and thoroughly cook to temperature for pork.

I brown my sausage and can it, which make it easy for me to get breakfast on the table, but this sausage can be frozen either cooked or uncooked.  (The obvious things a person must write these days!)

If you haven't ever tried making your own sausages, you might want to give it a try.  It's almost always cheaper than those tubes of it you get at  the grocers.  And you control what is goes into it.  No pig snouts, no msg, no artificial colorings or flavors.  You can often find meat grinders at estate sales and thrift stores. It's a pretty fun thing to try out old  heirloom recipes of varieties that you can no longer buy.  So give it a try! Maybe you'll invent the next hot dog!

So that's about it from the old Zempel boarding house.  Hope you have a wonderful week.  Now get out there and be thrifty!

Hugs

Jane