A Not So Good Day

Yesterday I had commented on FB that ARTHURitis was visiting me. Although I woke up exhausted and not feeling good at all, I seemed to get an awful lot done.

I have been at the church helping to cook Springerles. This is a grand affair. To give you an idea – we did 275 dozen last year. We, for the first time, have figured out how many dozen we get out of one batch of dough – 7dozen+3. So we have 3 dozen bottles of anise and we are cooking for 4 days. The 4th day we will cook lemon springerles, with only making 42 dozen. Can you believe we actually use the word “only” after all these figures.

I told you all of that to explain my day. I usually go and quilt on Thursday at the same church. But since I was already spending 2 days this week there, and did not feel good, I decided to forego the trip on Thursday. Instead I would stay home and get things done that had been left by the wayside, and work a little ahead for Friday.

I cooked 2 suppers yesterday. What a freedom to know I could spend time at home with my husband and our furry children and not have to rush around. DH offered to take me out to eat or p/u – but that was just looking like more trouble than it was worth. After being gone so long I want to be in my own house and backyard.

My Husband has suggested we start listening to the classics. So far we have both listened to Gilgamesh. He has listened to the Iliad and the Odessey, I am starting the Iliad. He is presently on Beowulf and tonite we started to find where we could get Aenid.

I have been bemoaning to myself about not being in any learning situation lately and decided to take that into hand myself. I got on dailylit.com and signed up for Vanity Fair, Silas Marner and Arabian Nights. I also revived listening to my Teaching Company class of Musical Theory.

After getting 4 loads of clothes done, the pup food, the yogurt and the 2 dinners while I was listening to the above, I decided it was time to tackle the garden. There were many surprises out there. Like, the smallest ears of corn I have ever seen. DH was teasing it was those little oriental ears you find in some Chinese food. Bumper crops of potatoes (red and gold) and onions. Some radishes were left, but no beets seemed to grow at all. I also could not find any of the garlic that I planted. But, today at Springerles, I learned that you plant garlic in the fall, pick it in the spring, just like spring flower bulbs.

My best crop tho seemed to be the Sunflowers this year. And how I do love them. (For those of you that don't know, my wedding bouquet was sunflowers and daisies wrapped in a brown paper bad with a string bow. )It would not be easy for us to see the birds eating from the flower heads, so I carefully removed them from the stems and saved them to put up by the window, where we can closely see the birds devour them.

With the absence of hay this ear I decided to just lay all the corn and sunflower stalks down on the garden. This was sad to do at first, but it looks like it might do the job.

I wonder what I'll do on a day I feet good?!

Further in Life

Today I am starting to get my arse in gear. I have had a flu and it has knocked me down for the better of 3 - 3 1/2 weeks. My love took great care of me, even working from home several days. The furries kept their distance for several days. Mommy had a temp of 102.5, guess I was too hot to lie on. Loki whined alot, I didn't have the strength to hold him for several day, and his nervousness turned into a couple episodes of is IBS exhibiting itself. Ming stared at me for several days and wouldn't eat. she still follows me everywhere. I wasn't very safe walking, and she still isn't sure about me. My love made puppy food, yogurt, did laundry, meals for himself (I had no willingness for food) and was just generally absolutely wonderful!

We are going to the big city on Sunday to visit friends, hubby's best person from the wedding, her sister and a mutual friend of theirs. We haven't been to the city in forever. He is salavating on coffee shops and buffets.

I am trying to cook more and more of our food. Getting back in the swing is taking some time though. But before I regress again - what I am learning about food.
The making of food is taking an order and making sense. If I take the milk, and I make yogurt I can make a gallon of yogurt for the price of a gallon of milk. This is 4 times less than buying it. I can take a fourth of the made yogurt and make Greek yogurt, just by straining off the whey.

Then I can take the whey and use it instead of water in making the bread. If I make enough for 4 - 8 loaves I can flavor the bread, make it more "sourdough" and can freeze either the dough or made bread and always have some available.

I can take milk and make 2 kinds of starters to make cheese. Basically all of cheese, that is practical to make in the home, is either made from a yogurt starter or a buttermilk starter. I can make soft cheese for cooking, melting, crackers and make a hard cheese to put back and have available for sandwiches and company.

I am learning about having deserts and snacks ready. I can make the starter for Amish Friendship Bread and then freeze and have available. I still have the goal of cookies in the freezer, ready for anytime and visitors. I would love to make English Muffins, just to see if I can. And also because we eat so much of them, it would be handy.

Life has changed so much for me in the kitchen, from the single girl eating melted cheese over the sink, from the microwave. I want to cook wonderful suppers for my husand and I love to sit down together to eat a meal! This is very special to me. Summer is the hardest time to figure food, it is so hot you don't want alot, but by 9pm, man are we hungry. In the 1st few months I cried over trying to figure what to cook, especially mixing vegetarian (I've been one for about 25 years now) and carnivore. But I have come to some standards of fixing a vegetarian meal and adding meat as a side.

I am not really into following recipes, but using them as guides. And I like to be creative. Last week I made a lovely supper with a field green salad with fruit, a yogurt Indian salad and a desert with strawberries, blueberries, 1/2 a muffin and cinnamon and sugar with sweet yogurt. But unfortunately I used all my creativity in one meal. My husand is soooooooo sweet. I also do a mean fried rice, but man that can be hot to cook! in this weather.

Also I am still struggling to keep up with other things. I have started making Christmas gifts and would love time each nite to knit, crochet, quilt - but alas, that doesn't always work. But I have also noticed how much I enjoy getting the kitchen in order, how doing dishes has become meditative and how cooking and fixing meals, is such an act of giving to your family each day.

Musings from a Housewife,