Lately

Lately I've been taking pictures of many things with my new camera (thanks to a good friend giving me a great deal on hers) and will soon be updating them on the blog. I've got a lot to learn about taking good pictures with my first good camera ever, so please be patient as I try to improve things to the next level. If you don't hear from me for a while, I'm still here, still busy, and still thinking about blog stuff. (Oh, and also a birthday, Halloween, and other important goings on.) It's almost that time of year when things just get busier and busier!

Anyway, hope you enjoy the updated pictures! :)

Too Busy?

A man too busy to take care of his health is like a mechanic too busy to take care of his tools.

-Spanish Proverb

Entrance Hand Washing

Over two years ago I wrote a post about our family's habit of removing our shoes at the door, which my husband and I agreed to adopt as a family rule when we were first married. Later, we also decided to make hand washing an entrance habit when our first child was born at the beginning of flu season. This was, I think, one of the best habits to make part of our family culture, in terms of illness prevention . These two things we do when we get home--removing our shoes and washing our hands--are now so ingrained in our children that even the baby (currently almost 18 months) runs for the bathroom after we help him take off his shoes. And when friends come over, they are subjected to these rituals as well, most with a sense of perplexity... Sorry kids, but we like to prevent illness as much as we can. :)

Perhaps we are weird, but I would rather wash school, work, and store germs down the drain than catch everything everyone is exposed to! Not to mention all the dirt and grime that you actually can see...

As the CDC states: "Handwashing is easy to do and it's one of the most effective ways to prevent the spread of many types of infection and illness in all settings—from your home and workplace to child care facilities and hospitals. Clean hands can stop germs from spreading from one person to another and throughout an entire community."

So let's consider the simple things and keep our families healthy this season!

Fall Reminders

For most of us, fall is definitely in the air! The days have cooled, the nights have started to freeze, and the leaves are turning colors and falling. Time for fall cleaning and retiring that garden bed. I love gardening, but I have to admit it's a relief when I get a break each winter. :)

It's time to finish those canning projects and add the finishing touches to our harvest for the winter. I brought in all the pumpkins and melons (none of which we planted--they just grew on their own) to store them indoors, and now my food storage room is about full. It's a good feeling.

It's also time for fall planting, for those of you who, like us, add a few permanent plants each year. We planted a fruit tree (to replace one from last year, that didn't make it), a grape plant, and four raspberry plants. Now is a very good time to plant any of these, as long as they are potted plants (and not bare root). Keep watering them until it freezes consistently at night and they should do fine through the winter and come back beautifully in the spring.

Oh, and for those who missed my autumn post last year with tips for staying healthy as the weather cools, click here.

Happy fall, everyone!

Cooler Yogurt

Last week I wrote about our journey to raw milk and mentioned that with all the milk we are getting I've been able to make lots of things with it I never could before. One week I made a gallon of yogurt and it was so fun to have that much all at once!

I've made yogurt many times in the past, but always with store milk and always in my yogurt maker. This time, since there was so much of it, I finally made good on my desire to try making it in a cooler, something which had been on my to-do list for quite a while. And the result was so rewarding! It turned out much thicker and better than what I'd made previously. Everyone in my family enjoyed it.

In my search for how to make yogurt in a cooler, I found many, many sites, but these were the ones I referred to most:

NourishingDays.com
FoodinJars.com
KitchenStewardship.com
EverythingHomewithCarol.blogspot.com

I also found this cool site, which discusses "more than six ways to incubate yogurt without a yogurt maker":

SaladInAJar.com

I really liked the idea of making mine in a cooler, rather than a crockpot or oven with the light on because it doesn't require the use of any more electricity. As long as the temperature stays consistent for several hours, it should work just fine, which is why a cooler works. And after a successful first attempt, I give this green option the green light!

It's really not as complicated as some of the above tutorials make it look. What I did was pasteurize my raw milk first, because I had read that the good bacteria in raw milk competes with the yogurt cultures and so has a harder time thickening--I don't know yet if this is true for the milk I use. If you want to do this (those of you with raw milk), you can either heat the milk to 145 degrees and hold it at that temperature for 30 minutes, or you can heat it to 165 degrees and hold it there for just 15 seconds (link). Then I waited for it to cool down to 115 degrees.

Once the milk was at 115 degrees, I poured a small amount of it into a smaller bowl and whisked the yogurt culture (2 Tb. per quart of milk) into it until well mixed. Then I added this yogurt mixture back into the rest of the warmed milk and mixed it some more.

The last step can be done several ways (refer to above links), but this is what I did:

Line the inside of your cooler with towels (I used a large cooler since I made a gallon of yogurt). Heat a large pot of water to boiling, turn off the heat, leave the lid on, and take the pot off the stove. Immediately put the pot into the towel-lined cooler and shut the lid. Pour the prepared milk mixture into quart and pint jars, then place them next to the pot in the cooler, without touching it, and cover everything with another towel.

Then you just leave it all in there, undisturbed for 8-24 hours. I love how flexible this last part is so that I can check it when I really have the time. I left mine about 12-14 hours (overnight) and it was all finished and a better, thicker consistency than any time I've made it in my yogurt maker.

Yay for fresh, easy, and yummy probiotics!

Baked Sweet Potato Chips

I love yams and my husband does too, but for some reason our kids take quite a bit of coaxing to eat them. I'm afraid I'll never understand that... After receiving yams in our Bountiful Basket for the second week in a row, I decided I needed to try something different, something that might be a little more appealing to little kids' tastes. I found this recipe on simplyrecipes for baked sweet potato fries and decided to try it, even though I'd made sweet potato fries with yams before (different recipe) and they weren't exuberantly received, even though they were quite good. I thought this time they might go over better sliced round like potato chips--and sliced as thin as I could make them. 

Verdict? Oh. My. Gosh! Sooo good. I suddenly understood what the author of this recipe (see link above) meant about being addicted to them. My oldest daughter and I couldn't stop eating them--even before we sat down to dinner. There definitely weren't enough of them for our whole family (though my picky 4-year-old still wasn't overly impressed, unfortunately). Now I can't wait till we get yams or sweet potatoes again!

Notes: Baking times are approximate. For best browning results bake only one sheet at a time. The addition of the raw sugar helps with caramelization and obviously intensifies the sweetness of the chips, but it can easily be eliminated.

Sweet Potato Chips

Yield: Serves 4-6 (side dish)

2 pounds sweet potatoes or yams, about 3 large ones
1/4 c. olive or canola oil
1-2 Tb. raw sugar
1 Tb. salt
1-2 Tb. spice or spice combination of your choice (optional): chipotle powder, smoked paprika, Chinese five-spice, pumpkin pie spice, garam masala, Cajun seasoning, etc. (I didn't add anything more than the oil, raw sugar, and salt, and found nothing lacking in the taste.)

Preheat oven to 450°F. (For more crispiness, preheat your oven to 500°F, then turn down when put pan in.)

Peel sweet potatoes and cut off ends. Slice potatoes into thin rounds, as uniform in thickness as possible.

Put sweet potatoes into large bowl and add oil. Mix well to combine. 

Sprinkle with salt, sugar, and spices of your choice (optional). Use hands to mix well, so all pieces are coated with oil and spices.

Spread sweet potatoes in single layer on baking sheet.

Bake for 25 to 30 minutes at 450 degrees. After first 15 minutes, remove baking sheet from oven and turn over all chips. Return to oven and bake for another 10-15 minutes, or until chips are well browned. Let cool for 5 minutes before serving.

Urban Homesteading

Months ago, one of our neighbors took a look at our backyard and the then halfway-built chicken coop and exclaimed, "It looks like a farm back here!" He had no idea what a compliment he was bestowing with that statement, because he was surprised when I thanked him seriously and told him that was kind of what we are working toward.

Gradually, I have come to realize that what we are trying to do with the small space we have is what is now called "Urban Homesteading." Having a chic, green label like that and seeing/reading how many other people in America are also doing this, makes me feel very validated. And excited. For example, check out the video below:



I don't know how, in all my ambles through the internet I never stumbled upon the Dervaes family before. They are so inspiring! As I look through their amazing blog I am struck by what a gorgeous oasis they have made of their small city plot, and still it produces 6,000 pounds of produce annually. So that means beauty doesn't have to be sacrificed to practicality and sustainability! This is especially inspiring when I consider that my small plot of land is actually a bit bigger than theirs, so I should be able to do even more with it. But, I do have to keep reminding myself that their land got this way over a period of 20 years or more, not all at once, so my efforts year by year will eventually add up too...

And I love their slogan, Pathway to Freedom, since that's really what urban homesteading is all about!

Our Journey to Raw Milk

About three years ago I first started learning about raw milk and the incredible health differences between it and the pasteurized, homogenized milk most people buy at the store. At that time, I wrote a post with more details and included URLs to the most helpful sites I found in my quest for more information on this topic. You can find that here.

Two years ago, when we moved back west to a rural town, I happily thought, Maybe this way we can get 1) chickens and 2) a cow share! As you know, we reached goal #1 this spring and are now enjoying homegrown eggs. Goal #2 has recently been reached too, in a way... I found a generous family not far away who is getting too much milk from their cow and is willing to give us a few gallons a week. I can't tell you how excited that made me, when they first agreed to it! While this probably isn't a permanent situation (the family is trying to give up their remaining half cow share and I can't currently commit to the milking myself), it has been very fun to have this experience.

I have a cousin in Missouri who has been buying raw milk from a farmer for a few years now and here is what she has noticed about the differences in her family's health:

• Her oldest daughter's perpetual allergies are now gone.
• She and her husband both have more energy.
• Her third and fourth children never developed asthma.
• Colds went from 7 or 8 per person per year to 1 or 2. And when they do get sick they get over it faster.
• They all sleep better.

She acknowledges, "There are a lot of things that could affect all this, but I think it's safe to say that switching milk has something to do with at least some of them."

As for me, my family had never tried raw milk before these past few weeks and it took a bit of getting used to, but now I do think it tastes better than the processed stuff from the store. And I can do so much with it!

More about that in my next post...

Zucchini Brownies

As I mentioned in my two posts about my zucchini bread recipes, about the only way I can guarantee my kids will eat zucchini is by baking it into goodies. This recipe is no exception. In fact, with all the chocolate in this, we keep forgetting it even has zucchini in it! I found the recipe on allrecipes.com and modified it, as usual, to substitute whole wheat flour and honey for the white flour and sugar. (Every time I make it we eat it too quick for pictures, but I'll try to catch one next time.)

Zucchini Brownies

2 c. whole wheat flour
2 Tb. unsweetened cocoa powder
1 tsp. baking soda
1/2 tsp. salt
1/2 c. butter
3/4 c. honey
2 eggs
1 tsp. vanilla extract
2 1/2 c. shredded zucchini
1 cup chocolate chips (I used semi-sweet), if desired (to sprinkle on top)

Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Grease square cake pan.
Beat butter and honey with an electric mixer in large bowl until smooth.

Beat first egg into butter until completely blended, then beat in vanilla extract with last egg. 

Gradually mix in flour, cocoa powder, baking soda, and salt until just incorporated. 

Fold in shredded zucchini, mixing just enough to evenly combine. Pour mixture into prepared pan. 

Sprinkle chocolate chips on top, if desired. (In a pinch, when I didn't have chocolate chips, I made chocolate cream cheese frosting instead.)
Bake at 350 until top is dry and edges have started to pull away from sides of pan, 25 to 30 minutes.