Gettin' Crafty

I took the plunge and made a few shirts for the Little Bit.  He turns two on Saturday and I've been meaning to make something for him since before he was born.  Better late than never, right?

To start with, I got an easy pre-made applique and an iron-on transfer from Joann Fabrics.  Since I'm not terribly crafty, I thought it better to start small.  These were insanely easy.  Seriously, I put a sheet of cardboard inside the t-shirt, lined up the design and ironed them on.  Took me about 10 minutes total.

The lighting is terrible on this one but it's a bright red monster
on a black t-shirt.

I'm getting ahead of myself with this one since he can't even
wear it for another 5 months.

Since these went so well, I decided to step it up and make an applique from a pattern.  I stumbled on an amazing blog a few weeks ago called Crap I've Made.  She's got some great ideas, including this one for a two-year old's shirt (she's also got a link to the pattern but you could make it yourself easily).  I decided to make it for Little Bit to wear this Saturday.  

The process was really pretty easy.  Well, until I got to the sewing part.  I fused the applique itself to the shirt in 3 pieces using Wonder Under (it's awesome stuff, really.)  Now, by itself, Wonder Under should hold the applique to the shirt just fine.  But I wanted to get fancy and stitch around the design.  Oy....well, it wasn't as bad as it could have been.  

The shirt looks fine from afar, but when you get up close, you think I'd been drinking when I did the stitching.  For the record, I had not, it being bad for the baby and all, I just stink at sewing.  I've had zero training, my machine was a freebie because it was already broken and including this shirt, I have stitched about 4 things.  Ever.  So, don't judge me too harshly...

Not too shabby from way back here.

Oh, but up close!
I think this is what you'd call a "Monet."

I was really pleased with the cost of all the projects.  The t-shirts were all on sale at Joann for $3 apiece.  The big brother iron-on and the red monster applique both came in two-packs for $4.  The fabric for the 2 t-shirt could have easily come from a scrap bag, but as I don't have any scraps, I bought a bundle of fat quarters for $8 and have lots of fabric left over.  I also bought a bag of felt buttons to make the pom-pom for the hat for $5 since I can see myself using them for many projects in the future.  The thread I used for the stitching is left over from the few cloth wipes I made nearly two years ago.  Oh!  And the wonder under was $7, and I have yards left over.  So, each shirt was more-or-less around $6, which is certainly comparable or even cheaper than buying a shirt new.  It doesn't compare to getting it second hand, but, hey, I made this, and it was fun.

Tomatoes Galore!

Our CSA has lots and lots of bulk tomatoes on sale right now.  Which works out great since our tomato crop is embarrassingly pitiful.

Last week, I ordered 20 lbs of San Marzano paste tomatoes and 10 lbs of heirloom (Cherokee Purple, Red Zebra, Brandywine, etc).  The paste tomatoes are perfect for sauces and canning, while the heirlooms are great for slicing and eating fresh with salt and pepper.  I looooooove tomatoes.  They are my favorite food so when I saw that Johnson's Backyard Garden was selling them in bulk, I knew I wanted to preserve some for the winter.  Homegrown tomatoes taste so much better than store bought that you can't even compare the two.

Ain't that purdy.

I ate 10 lbs of these heirlooms in a week.  No joke.

The paste tomatoes are alright to eat, but they are really suited for canning.  They have a firm flesh, small core and few seeds.  They cook up with a nice consistency too.  Canning is much simpler than I used to think.  You 1) blanch, 2) prep, 3) pack, 4) process.  Not much more than that.

We had 20 lbs of San Marzanos altogether.

I didn't get pictures of each step in the process, I may do that later when our next bulk order comes in next week.  But here's a shot of the final product:

Put them into jars along with some lemon juice and salt.
Ta-da!  Canned tomatoes.

I got nearly 10 quarts with 20 lbs of tomatoes.  Not too bad.  As you can see, I canned the tomatoes with only salt.  This way, I can make them any way I want to later.  For the batch that I'll get next week, I'll be making up some spaghetti sauce and salsa, too.  As far as salsas go, I pretty much like it all.  D, though, is particular about his salsa.  He also eats a lot more of it than I do so he's coming up with a custom recipe for the big batch.  I might also go crazy and get a whole bunch of tomatillos to make my favorite tomatillo salsa!

Can't wait for next week!

Goodbye Student Loans!

I can't tell you the pleasure I take in posting this screen shot:

D's student loan was paid in full yesterday.  That means, apart from our mortgage, we are 100% debt free.  In 3 years, we've paid off; $8,000 in credit card debt, a new vehicle, both our student loans, and 11% of our house (on top of the 14% we put down).  It's shocking to me when I add it all up.  And what's even more shocking is that I don't feel like we missed out on anything because of our frugal lifestyle change.  And we're definitely not rich.  D is a software engineer so the pay isn't terrible but we'll certainly never be rolling around in a bathtub full of money.  But shaving a little here and a little there and snowballing your debt payments really, really pays off.

And the best thing is the freedom we have now.  Our monthly financial commitments are 1) mortgage, 2) car insurance and, 3) utilities.  All the others we could put off if D suddenly lost his job or we one of us got sick.  Our plan now is to build up our savings to cover at least 6 months of expenses, then work on home improvements and building our retirement fund.  We're still debating about whether or not to snowball the payments into the mortgage or just pay the minimum plus a little bit since we're not underwater.

Seeing that big, fat $0.00 fills me with joy and hope for the future.  Financial freedom feels so good.

Conner Family Farm

We're starting to get some veggies from the garden.  For all the squash we're getting, the patty pan are still MIA.  Maybe they take longer than the regular straight neck.  Not really sure.  But I do love some patty pan squash so I'm really looking forward to them maturing.

Some seriously huge zucchini squash.

A one day harvest. Check out the weird double squash things.

Seriously.

We may have underestimated how much this 3 sisters bed would grow up.  Trying to pick the squash in between all the corn plants in a daring endeavor involving desperately trying not to squash on the squash (get it?  haha) or fall over into the corn.  Somehow, I managed it.

The corn and sunflowers now peek over the fence.  Check out the red amaranth in front.

At the very left of the above picture, you can see a wire cage.  Growing up in that cage is malabar spinach. It's not a true spinach but it grows very well in hot, humid weather and the leaves taste like, and can be eaten just like spinach.

Malabar spinach next to the amaranth.

There are rows in here somewhere.  Really.

Wow.

We kind of forgot to train the peas up the corn stalks once the peas started coming up.  They seem to have found the squash more appealing than the corn, but they're mostly just growing free-for-all all over the place.  They make nice trip wires when you're trying to get into the rows to pick squash.

The peas seem to be growing up the squash instead  of the corn.

I'm sure our neighbors think we're nutters or hippies or something.  We're about to have some sunflowers peeking out above our fence.  Hopefully, the HOA won't mind too much.

Yet another view.

D and I celebrated our 3 year anniversary yesterday.  When I got home on Sunday, this was waiting for me.  I fell in love with it at the local nursery a few weeks ago.  It's about 4 feet tall and looks so pretty in the sun.

My anniversary present.

Another surprise was the new bed D built for black eyed peas (cow peas) next to the potatoes.  Black eyed peas are very heat tolerant and will germinate and grow long after it gets too hot for most other bush and pole beans.  Considering it's been 103 F (39.5 C for you metric folks) past two days, we'll be growing lots of cow peas.  I planted two rows of 10 seeds each about 6" apart this morning.  In the North cow peas are seen as "poor people food."  I don't know what they're talking about.  Cow peas are delicious.

Black eyed pea bed D built for me this weekend.

The peppers are giving us lots of fruit.  However, these "tame" jalapenos are not quite as tame as the ones we grew last year.  I bit into one this weekend and got a real mouthful of surprise.

Pepper galore.

The zucchini squash plant this year has gone crazy this year.  I've never seen a zucchini get to big.  It's easily almost 4 ft tall.

Zucchini and cucumber.

The cucumbers are growing really well too.  They just now started putting on flowers.  We did get two fruit yesterday but our friendly neighborhood mouse had already taken several bites out of them.  We set out more snap traps but the ants have found the peanut butter bait more appealing than the mice have.

All this is just two cucumber plants.

This little mouse melon is supposed to be native to our area and grow very well. It's finally got runners about 6 inches long after nearly 2 months of growth.  We'll see what happens.

Go, little mouse melon, go!

The tomatoes are still barely alive.  I know I should probably rip them up but I just can't bring myself to do it.  So they're dying a slow, ugly death.

Tomato plant.  Sad as always.

D planted some musk melons a few weeks ago (did I tell you that, probably not).  They seem to be doing really, really well.  I planted some lambs quarters in the cinder blocks around them and they've sprouted but are too tiny to photograph.

The musk melons are doing quite nicely.

The strawberries are putting on another round of fruit.  However, we let the weeds run rampant.  They'll be this weekend's project.

Somewhere in all that bermuda grass are strawberries.

And, as you can probably tell, as the weeks go by, we keep planting even more.  We're going to be up to our eyeballs in squash in a few short weeks.  I'm hoping that our pressure canner will help us get all of this yummy stuff preserved.  

We're still trying to experiment with tomatoes.  I'm going to try and plant a second crop of tomatoes (just a plant or two) in pots after the worst of the summer heat passes.  

The nice thing about our long growing season is that it's actually two seasons.  We have one season that runs from about March - early July and a second that runs from mid-August - October or early November.  In between, everything pretty much stops growing.

If you bungle up the first planting, you've got another chance.  However, you are highly unlikely to get anything out of your garden from mid-July through mid to late August.

Garden Update

Whew!  This garden is really getting going.  Nearly everything is doing really well.  The corn, beans and squash are doing so well, they may take over the bed entirely.  Not all of our corn came up so some of the beans don't yet have trellises.  We 'll probably string some extra hog wire behind each row to give the beans something to climb (and help the corn stay upright in our windy area).


Here are some pictures:

The borage has bloomed!

You can barely see the rosemary underneath the pineapple sage.

The large garden patch.

A close up of the amaranth. Ooo, and check out the drip irrigation we put in  two weeks ago.

A close up of the 3 sisters.  You can see the beans that are going to climb up the corn.

The squash that were just seedlings when we left 5 days ago.

The malabar spinach has found the trellis.

My HUGE basil.  Please ignore my fingertip in the shot.

Some gypsy peppers nearly ready to pick.

The potatoes that are nearly ready.

Our monster zucchini.

Zucchini blossoms.

The cuke bed (zucchini, cucumber, and mouse melon).

Cucumber blossoms.

The black eyed pea just seeded a week ago.

The only real disappointments are the tomatoes.  We've never had a good crop of tomatoes at the house.  They were always grown in the soil and they've shown signs of fusarium wilt every year.  So, this year, I planted them in straw bales over grass in the hopes that the fusarium wilt couldn't reach them.  Well, it has.  I'm wondering if my tools may have been dirty or if they sat too long in the yard (only a day) before I planted them.  Either way, I'm not real happy.  Tomatoes are my absolute favorite food and I've always wanted to grow big, beautiful tomatoes.

The tomatoes which are barely surviving - they should be twice this size.

A close up of the tomato leaves.

We also planted some musk melons in a spare bed.  We were going to get it set up for strawberries but just ran out of time.  We decided to experiment in the bed instead.  I'll post some pics of the melon seedlings soon.

Pasta with sausage and spinach

I made this a few weeks ago and everyone in the family loved the dish.  It's moved into regular rotation at our house.

It serves about 8 with enough for leftovers (this makes great leftovers!)  You can easily half this recipe if you don't really want to feed an army.  A note on the liquid, it seems like you're adding a lot but trust me, the pasta soaks in up in no time.  The first time I made this, I used about half the liquid and the dish came out very dry.  You want it moist.

Pasta with sausage and spinach

Ingredients

1 pound pasta
1 tablespoon olive oil
1 pound hot pork sausage
1 onion, chopped
4 cloves garlic, minced
1-2 cups of other chopped vegetables, like squash or carrots (optional)
1 (14.5 ounce) can chicken broth
1/2 cup cream or half and half
1 teaspoon dried basil
1 teaspoon dried oregano
1 (14.5 ounce) can diced tomatoes with juice
1 (10 ounce) chopped spinach or chard
1/2 cup grated Parmesan cheese

Directions

Cook pasta according to package directions, taking out 2-3 minutes before it's done. (You'll be cooking it more later on.)

In a large skillet, heat oil and sausage; cook through until no longer pink. Add onion, garlic and vegetables to skillet. Add broth, cream, basil, oregano and tomatoes with liquid.
Cook over medium heat for 5 minutes to slightly reduce. Add chopped spinach and pasta; cover skillet and simmer on reduced heat until spinach is tender.

Sprinkle with cheese and enjoy!

Meat CSA

Here's a look at our meat CSA.  I pick it up monthly at the Georgetown Farmer's Market.

Each monthly box includes 17-20 lbs of:

• several packages of ground beef
• a pack or two of 4 hamburger patties
• several steaks (Ribeye, Sirloin, etc)
• a roast or two
• chili or stir fry meat
• beef cutlets
• soup bones
• a package of bulk pork sausage, local cheese or summer sausage (just depends on what's available)
• fresh eggs

Mmmmm, meat.

Last week, I made some delicious stir fry with the beef and a ton of vegetables (carrots, peppers, bok choy, basil, broccoli) from our veggie CSA.  I also experimented with a recipe since I had a ton of mint and a bag of lemons I needed to use up.  I marinated some chicken in olive oil, lemon juice and chopped mint, then grilled it.  I served it along side some roasted vegetables and some lemon-mint angel hair pasta.  Really, really good.  

Saturday, we had a friend over for steaks.  The key to cooking a good grass-fed steak is to cook is low and slow on the grill.  If you cook it hot and fast like a normal steak, you'll get shoe leather.  But low and slow will give you a tender, juicy, flavorful steak.  The first few times we grilled the grass-fed steak were a disaster!  Tough, flavorless, yuck.  We have finally gotten the hang of it.

My favorite part of the package is always the eggs. The rancher raises a grab bag of chickens including some Ameraucanas, which lay colored eggs.  Depending on the chicken the egg shells may be white, brown, pink, blue or green.  Also, the yolks are a deep, deep orange.  I've asked her how her chickens lay such dark yolks and she says she just feeds them table scraps (she must eat great!) and layer feed.  Home raised, pastured chickens tend to lay deep yellow eggs due to better and different nutrition from caged, commercial layers, but her eggs are amazing.  

A close up of the eggs.  Can you tell some of them are green and blue?

I never bake with these eggs, I only make scrambled or fried eggs so I can enjoy their eggy goodness.