One More Stir Fry

In this week's CSA box we found: mixed Asian greens, mixed salad greens, kohlrabi, snow peas, new potatoes, and basil.

Spending a couple of days away from home always throws off my meal planning. There are the days away, of course, but then there is always that day or two after we return that we just can't quite pull a meal together and we end up scrounging. By "scrounging" I really mean eating bacon sandwiches. Bacon is pretty much always my last stop nothing-else-in-the-house-to-eat meal. I'm not complaining about that, by the way.

So, for this week's CSA I can tell you my grand plans for our produce, as we haven't used much of it yet, but I don't have yummy pictures to show you. But oh! The anticipation for next week!

The mixed greens and kohlrabi have been or will be eaten in salads. The new potatoes are going into a hash and poached egg dish I have planned for tonight.

The snow peas will go into a beef and snow pea stir fry over rice.

(recipe in Chinese Cuisine)

The basil will go in Tomato Basil Soup and the mixed Asian greens will go into Bathing Rama.

(recipes in Feeding the Whole Family)

But I can't let you go without sharing at least one recipe with you, can I? No, of course not! So, here is a chicken stir fry from last week that has a medley of Farmer's Market produce in it.

Spring Farmer's Market Stir Fry

3/4 lb. chicken, sliced

* 1/2 T. cooking sherry

* 1 T. soy sauce

* 1 T. corn starch

* 1 tsp. sesame oil

canola oil, for frying

3-4 dried hot red peppers, chopped

1 large or 2-3 small spring onions, cut into a large dice

2-3 garlic scapes, chopped into half inch segments

3 C. greens (Napa cabbage, bok choy, or other Asian greens), shredded

# 1/2 T. cooking sherry

# 2 T. soy sauce

# 2 T. water

# 2 tsp. sugar

# 2 tsp. cornstarch

# 2 tsp. white vinegar

1/2 C. dry roasted cashews

cooked brown rice, for serving

1. Whisk * ingredients together and add sliced chicken. Allow to marinate while you chop the veggies.

2. Mix # ingredients and reserve until later.

3. Heat canola oil in a wok. When oil ripples, add chicken and stir fry. When cooked, remove to a plate.

4. Reheat wok and oil and stir fry dried peppers, onion, and garlic scapes until fragrant.

5. Add greens and stir fry until bright green and wilted.

6. Return chicken to pan.

7. Add # sauce and quickly stir fry.

8. Add cashews and stir to mix.

9. Serve over cooked brown rice and enjoy!

For more CSA recipes check out Lisa's blog Earth Mama 101.

Yarn Along | Squishie with Stripes

I was really hoping to have this second squishie done by today, but a weekend spent away from home plus the last two days spent playing catch-up add up to very little time for knitting. Even the easy knitting. But, I'm about halfway done and I'm following through with my daring plan to do a stripe. I grabbed this orange pima cotton from my stash (originally purchased to make a bib) even though I didn't really like the color before. Now, paired with the seafoam green, it really works for me. The green helps to soften the orange...tones down the garishness a bit. 



For the first time in a long time I don't have any books in progress. Not a one! There is a copy of Making is Connecting on hold for me at the library, just waiting for me to find the time to pick it up, which is part of my plan for this afternoon. I definitely get my tax-payer-dollar's-worth by taking full advantage of my library's willingness to order titles that are not in the collection through inter-library loan for me. But, when I want to read brand new books, I always request that they purchase them. And they almost always do! It makes me feel like I have incredibly good literary taste. Or maybe I just like to read the same things that everyone else does. Either way, I never lack for interesting reading material.

For more Yarn Along goodness head on over to Ginny's Small Things.

Portrait of a Homebirthing Couple

We're sharing Silas' birth story today...

Laboring at home ~ Photo by our Beautiful Midwife

Visit Crunchy Domestic Goddess to read all about our decision to have a homebirth.

While Wandering

While Wandering | The Little Bug and I have gotten into the habit of taking walks whenever we go into town to run an errand, leading us to explore neighborhoods and streets and alleys that we never knew before. There are little notes of beauty in all of them and these are what we try to see...While Wandering.

Won't you join us?

This week it was a trip to town to get coffee with our mommy-friends. This is the wandering that followed...

Weekending

We're recovering from a weekend away from home. Babies and puppies both do not like long car trips, I have found. But highlights from the last two days include:

• My family circled around for Silas' tree planting
• The discovery that nursing while in the car seat is the only way that long car trips are possible
• Apple cider dougnuts from the Farmer's Market
• Despite how much I disliked growing up in a small town, understanding--as a young mother--what some of the benefits might be
• Rhubarb custard pie
• Family reunions--yes, even family reunions

Sorry this post is so brief...my day today will be spent trying to get back into our daily rhythm, doing piles of laundry, and playing catch-up. How was your weekend?

For more "weekending" visit Amanda at The Habit of Being.

Weekend Review & Giveaway: The Joy of Hobby Farming by Michael and Audrey Levatino

If you are, like me, yearning for a few rural acres to call your own, you may bristle at the term "hobby farmer." It conjures up an image of someone who drives an hour commute into the city for an office job and then putters around in a garden on the weekend and maybe has a horse or two. If you can, take a deep breath and then let go of that image. Instead, think of hobby farmers as all those individuals who are committed to localism and growing food and the like, but who just happen to have to supplement their income with off-farm work. For better or worse, this is the reality for many of us who share a hankering for a little land. Michael and Audrey Levatino give us the scaffolding for getting started in such a venture in The Joy of Hobby Farming: Grow Food, Raise Animals, and Enjoy a Sustainable Life (2011).

This is definitely not a comprehensive volume to starting your own farm, but it is a fairly good primer that introduces a newbie to many aspects of farming and raises many questions that s/he may not think of. The book is divided into four sections: Place, Growing Things, The Care of Living Creatures, and Running Your Farm as a Business. The most helpful, in my opinion, is "Place," where how to find and purchase land, essential equipment, and basic outbuilding maintenance are discussed. Issues such as water tables, mineral rights, and easements are raised; all things that someone new to rural life may be unfamiliar with, but are crucial to know about. Additionally, the guidance that is given in how to juggle off- and on-farm work is especially helpful. They encourage one to immerse oneself into the real work of farming (otherwise, why have the farm?), but they also help to prioritize that work into things that are essential and things that are better contracted out if time must be spent at an off-farm job.

As 10-year veteran hobby farmers of 23 acres who sell at Farmer's Markets, the Levatinos speak from a place of experience and encouragement. They see hobby farming as an integral link in restructuring our broken food system and in reclaiming self-sufficiency. They make their lifestyle seem incredibly inviting and make the reader feel as if this is really something that you, yes you, are able to do. You will get the most out of this book, however, if you envision for yourself a farm that is similar (vegetable, flower, honey, eggs, etc.) to theirs. If you are interested in keeping meat animals, dairy animals, or running a CSA, then this book has little for you beyond the introductory information. But if you do see yourself as growing enough produce to sell at a farm stand or market and maybe keeping a few chickens, then this book is a good place to get your feet wet before you do some more in-depth research.

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My review copy of this book was provided courtesy of independent publisher Skyhorse Publishing and I would like to pass it along to you. Leave a comment on this post and one lucky individual will be randomly selected to receive this book. Comments will be closed and the winner will be announced in this post on Friday, July 1.

And the winner is...Tracey from the blog Clover!
"I would love to read this...thank you so much."

Drop me a line at cpcable (at) gmail (dot) com with your address and I'll drop your book in the mail! Congrats, Tracey!

This Moment | My Knitting Helper

Playing along with SouleMama today. In her words: {this moment} A Friday ritual. A single photo - no words - capturing a moment from the week. A simple, special, extraordinary moment. A moment I want to pause, savor and remember. If you're inspired to do the same, leave a link to your 'moment' in the comments for all to find and see.

Photo by Steve

There's still time to enter this week's Giveaway!

CSA: Potatoes and Basil and Kohlrabi, Oh My!

This week our CSA included:  Bok choy, new potatoes, spring salad mix, kohlrabi, basil, and peas.



We're starting to get to the part of summer that I love; when there are actual vegetables that we can sink our teeth into in our box and not just greens (not that we don't love the greens!).

So, here's the breakdown: The spring mix and kohlrabi were consumed as part of big supper salads.

The bok choy was included in a delicious pork stir fry.

(Recipe in Chinese Cuisine)

The new potatoes went into a warming tofu miso soup.

(Recipe in Feeding the Whole Family)

And the peas went into a not-too-spicy green pea curry.

After college, I worked briefly at Barnes and Noble. This is either the best or the worst job for a bibliophile, depending on how you look at it. I loved being surrounded by and talking about books all day. But, the employee discount was also really good, making the spending of my entire paycheck in the store an all too common occurrence. One book from the sale table that I couldn't pass up was Michele Cranston's Fresh. I was drawn to it, honestly, because the photographs are amazing. Everything in it looks delicious. But what sold me was that it was arranged by season. We've made a fair number of the recipes and they're good, but we've found that they are consistently on the bland side. The green pea curry was no exception, so we jazzed it up a bit from how it's printed.

Green Pea Curry

Adapted from Fresh by Michele Cranston

2 Tbs. oil

2 tsp. yellow mustard seeds

1 tsp. grated fresh ginger

2 garlic cloves, minced

1 large white onion, thinly sliced

2 tsp. ground cumin

2 tsp. ground turmeric

2 tsp. curry powder

1 chili pepper, seeded and finely chopped

3 large tomatoes, seeded and roughly chopped

1/2 C. chicken stock

1 tsp. fresh mint, finely chopped

2 C. fresh peas

salt, to taste

juice of 1 lemon

cooked brown rice, to serve

1. Heat the oil in a deep frying pan. When hot, add the mustard seeds and cook until they start to pop.

2. Add the ginger, garlic, onion, and salt and cook until the onions are soft.

3. Add the cumin, turmeric, curry powder, and chili pepper. Cook for a minute or two.

4. Add tomatoes and chicken stock and simmer for a minute or two.

5. Add the mint and the peas. Cover and cook for 15-18 minutes, until the peas are tender.

6. Adjust seasoning if necessary, finish with the lemon juice, and serve over cooked brown rice.

7. Enjoy!

For more CSA goodies and recipes head on over to Earth Mama.

Yarn Along: A Squishie Complete

A completed project! And it was a success all around. My first foray into the world of dpns became less and less frustrating with each and every round. In fact, I've already cast this project on again and am going to make the medium-sized squishie. And then the large one. Perhaps with a stripe (now I'm just getting bold!). Silas was also a fan.



He ended up with a lot of seafoam green lint between his fingers. How do babies have this magical ability to gather lint between their fingers and toes? I clean those suckers out with a fair amount of regularity and still he gets all sorts of hair and fiber stuck in those little lint traps.

So, yes, more squishie goodness is on the needles. And for reading, we're on to The Joy of Hobby Farming by Michael and Audrey Levatino. It's more of a manual than a pleasure read, so there's a little bit of skimming going on. But, it's helpful. We're hoping to start looking for The Farm in the next couple of years and there is much to think about in that regard. And I'm still working through The Wonder Weeks. After reading the section that's applicable to Silas, I thought I should read about the developments that we have to look forward to before I take this one back to the library.

For more Yarn Along goodness head over to Small Things.

Don't forget to sign up for this week's Giveaway of handcrafted wall art!

While Wandering

The Little Bug and I have gotten into the habit of taking walks whenever we go into town to run an errand. We live in a suburban development where there are no sidewalks. The road that runs in front of our house has a speed limit of 55 (although you would think that it was 70) and is more heavily traveled than we thought it would be. In short, when I walk out my front door I hit a wall. There is no place to walk. I feel so absurd getting into the car and driving to a place that is walker-friendly, but that's what we end up doing. To at least justify the trip a little bit, I head to town with the purpose of running some errand. Once there, I pop Silas into the sling, where he usually falls asleep, and we walk around wherever we happen to be. Since this has become such a rhythmic and regular thing for us, I thought I might start documenting what what see in all the different places that we walk. What we see While Wandering.

These are from our wanderings after a trip to the hardware store to procure tomato cages.

Happy Summer Solstice to you!
What do you see while you wander?

Father's Day Weekend

Our Father's Day got off to a rocky start, but after we'd all had a nap everyone was much, much happier. People who are far more eloquent than I have written amazingly touching tributes to the fathers in their lives in celebration of the day. All I can say is that I am so very blessed and grateful that my son has Steve for a dad. At every turn he shows me, once again, that he is capable of kindness, humility, and love beyond measure. He requested a strawberry rhubarb pie as his treat for the day. So, a strawberry rhubarb pie he did receive. 

Other highlights from the week's end:

• I joined some friends in a trip to a local farm and made arrangements to begin procuring some of our food items directly. It has been a very long time since I've been on a working farm and I had forgotten the realness of it all. The dirt and the smell and the omnipresence of cycles of life and death. It felt full of honesty.
• Our weekly trek to the Farmer's Market to pick up our CSA share. The Farmer's Market has become our social outing of the week. We inevitably see everyone we know while we're there, which is wonderful. It makes us feel like we're part of a community.
• I cut out the pattern for my first sewing project (with the exception of burp cloths and wipes) in a year and a half and my very first sewing project ever to use a pattern.
• A little bit of weeding was done in the garden, but really only the littlest of bits.

A Life Sustained Sponsor: Full Circle Creations

Please welcome A Life Sustained sponsor: Full Circle Creations

Holly lives and works on the family farm that her grandparents started in 1953. She hand-makes beautiful, one-of-a-kind furniture and home decor pieces out of recycled, repurposed, and reused items. She writes about her artistic process on her blog and has her items for sale in a retail shop as well as online in her Etsy shop. She also makes custom items; giving life to your vision.

Tell us about the beginning of your business...

It all started from a dream. Okay, that’s not really what happened. I will begin by saying that growing up I was always into art and had wanted to be an artist. Somewhere along the way I gave up that dream. After college I worked a variety of jobs and went back to school a couple of times. Then I went to work for a telecom company and began climbing the corporate ladder. In 2003, I was living in Colorado when my grandparents passed away and I had an opportunity to take the management separation package from my job. I was concerned that the farm would be too much for my aunt and parents to deal with and I was worried it would get sold off, which I absolutely did not want to happen. So, I took the separation package and moved to the farm because I thought it was best way to keep it in the family.

In January 2004, I left Colorado and moved to the farm in Iowa. It had a shop and tools. Having access to these and then watching programs like Norm Abram’s Yankee Workshop on PBS helped educate me on how to use them. I discovered that I could look at a piece of furniture and intuitively figure out how it was put together. My first piece was a window seat to go in front of the picture window in the living room for my dog Tucker to lie on and watch the goings on outside.

One Christmas, I decided I was going to make all my presents and it went over so well that I continued to do that for all gifts. Later, I found myself unemployed again. There isn’t much call for middle management in my area, but I didn’t want to leave the farm. I only worked harvest (about three months of the year) for several years and decided there had to be a way for me to make some money doing something that I loved.

So I made some items and went to my first craft fair. I did okay; well enough to try again the next year, adding a couple other fairs. I was able to secure a retail space in a beauty shop in Shenandoah, Iowa and this year I decided to add the blog and Etsy shop to my business.

What is the meaning behind the name Full Circle Creations?

The name came about because the name of my farm is Full Circle Farm, which my mother and brother came up with. It has several means behind it.  I live at the top of a hill and there are great views from every place you stand, giving you a full circle view. Also, my grandparents started the farm, then everyone moved away, but now have come back--full circle--to the farm.  I decided to use the name partly because the farm is where everything is made and because people give me so many items to re-use--wood, furniture, supplies--giving it new life, bringing it full circle to be a new piece of beautiful home décor.

What inspires you?

I get inspiration from everything around me. It may sound funny, but wood sort of speaks to me. I look at it and it tells me what it wants to be. I have several really cool pieces of wood that would make an interesting tabletop or legs for a table, but I haven’t used them yet, because I believe that’s not what those pieces are meant to be. So I’m waiting for the wood to speak to me. I read as much on blogs as I can and am both inspired and amazed everyday that there are so many others like me out there. Nature and the things and people around me inspire me. The farm equipment and parts and pieces that my grandfather saved bring their own inspiration.

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Holly is generously giving-away a hand-crafted "Family, where life begins and love never ends" sign!

This sign is made from a found piece of wood that is approximately 5 1/2" x 24" long. It is painted with a base coat of black and top coat of cream, lightly sanded with an antique glaze top coat. The lettering is hand-painted in reddish-brown and black.

Just leave a comment on this post to be entered in the random drawing for this give-away. Comments will be closed in the evening on Saturday, June 25 and the winner announced in this post on Sunday, June 26.

Thank you to Holly at Full Circle Creations!

And the winner is stacythemagnificentmommy!
love that sign! perfect <3

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The winner of last week's give-away from Rumpkinz by Jeanette is lyssamay88!
Send a message to cpcable (at) gmail (dot) com with your contact info. Thanks!

Weekend Review: Kitchen Literacy by Ann Vileisis

 As I type this, my husband is in the other room watching Jamie Oliver's Food Revolution. I haven't seen much of the show, but I did see the scene in the first season in which Jamie goes to the kindergarten classroom and as he holds up a variety of produce, the wee ones are hard pressed to name them. They don't know a potato from a tomato. Obvioulsy, this is incredibly alarming and a bit depressing, but what's even more so is that it's nothing new. In Kitchen Literacy: How we lost knowledge of where food comes from and why we need to get it back (2008), Ann Vileisis reveals that things, at least in this regard, are pretty similar to 1880. In that year, G. Stanley Hall interviewed 200 Boston first-graders. He found that "90%..had no understanding of a wheat field; 75% had no concept of seasons; and more than 60% had no concept of a beehive, a crow, a robin, or a bluebird, or of planting seeds" (104). That the average American has been so far removed and as a result very ignorant of where his/her food comes from for over 130 years was surprising to me, as so much that I've read about our food system has focused on the last 50 years. Vileisis does the work of filling in the historical pieces to explain how we got from gathering our dinner ingredients from our backyard, to opening a box or picking up the phone to order take-out.

In an easy to read and conversational tone, Vileisis examines a variety of social elements that coalesce in our present moment. The first key shift was the relocation of our population from rural to urban. With the consumers suddenly so far from the producers it only took one generation for rural wisdom about how to select and prepare food to be lost. Advertisers, home economists, women's column writers, expanding corporate food producers, and the government all scrambled to fill those gaps in ways that were most beneficial to themselves. The subtleties in this chain of events was fascinating and with 20/20 hindsight it is at times frustrating to think about how breaking one small link would have landed us in, perhaps, a completely different place.

Vileisis ends with hope. She introduces the organic movement, CSAs, and the like and briefly touches on some of the possible motivations and outcomes of these new/old systems. Ultimately, she sees her story as a full circle with a coming home, of sorts, with food knowledge coming first hand instead of prepackaged.

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Today is the last chance to enter this week's give-away!

This Moment: Breathing In

Playing along with SouleMama today. In her words: {this moment} A Friday ritual. A single photo - no words - capturing a moment from the week. A simple, special, extraordinary moment. A moment I want to pause, savor and remember. If you're inspired to do the same, leave a link to your 'moment' in the comments for all to find and see.

Taking a legs-up-the-wall-yoga-rejuvination moment for me. A reminder to all mamas to be kind to ourselves. To accept help when it's offered. To ask for help when it's needed. To appreciate all that we have around us. Hoping you all have a lovely and peaceful weekend!

CSA Day

The third week of our CSA brought us (from left to right): Chinese cabbage, arugula, kohlrabi, rhubarb, green lettuce, and bok choy.

The bok choy went into Yakisoba (recipe in Feeding the Whole Family).

The lettuce, arugula, and kohlrabi (as well as many other veggies languishing in our crisper drawer) were cut up for a big supper salad.

The cabbage was stir fried, along with some beef, and served over rice. I grew up in a very small town and there were not any Chinese restaurants in the immediate area. My mom did make "Chinese" which consisted of that big can of lo mein noodles and sauce (you know the one) heated and served over crunchy noodles and maybe topped with some peanuts or raisins. I hated it. I thought it was incredibly gross (and I was right) and refused to eat it. So, for the longest time I thought I just didn't like Chinese food...but then I realized there was a lot more out there that I just hadn't experienced yet.

I picked up a really wonderful Chinese cookbook at the thrift store and it has become our go-to and we make a lot of stir frys now. They're so easy to make and are a great way to make very little meat stretch a long way.

Beef and Chinese Cabbage Stir Fry

adapted from Chinese Cuisine by Huang Su-Huei

1/2 pound grass fed beef

* 1/2 T. cooking wine

* 1/2 T. water

* 1 T. soy sauce

* 1 T. cornstarch

* 1 tsp. sesame oil

3 TBS. canola oil for frying

1/2 pound green Chinese cabbage, sliced into ribbons

1 large spring onion, chopped into a large dice

1/2 inch ginger root, sliced

# 1 1/2 T. oyster sauce

# 1 T. soy sauce

# 1/2 T. cooking wine

# 2 T. water

# sprinkle of sugar

# 1 tsp. sesame oil

# grind of black pepper

# 2 tsp. cornstarch

Cooked brown rice for serving

1. Mix the * ingredients in a bowl. Slice beef very thinly and add to marinade.

2. Whisk # ingredients together into a bowl and set aside.

3. Heat a wok with the canola oil and stir fry cabbage with a sprinkling of salt until the cabbage is limp. Use a tongs to remove to a strainer or colander, press to drain and set aside.

4. If necessary, add a little more oil to the wok and allow to heat. Stir fry meat until just cooked and then remove.

5. Stir fry onion and ginger root briefly (about 2 min. or until fragrant). Return meat to wok.

6. Add sauce made from # ingredients and quickly stir fry.

7. Place a scoop of rice in a bowl, add a generous helping of cabbage, and top with saucy meat mixture.

8. Enjoy!

(For more CSA recipes, head on over to Earth Mama and see what Lisa has to share!)