hump day nuggets: little bits of the season in photos and words about the last week
The windows are steamy and the fruit is ready. An erotic energy pulses through the room as I grip flesh and squeeze the pit in one rhythmic motion…
I’m talking passion in the kitchen, of course.
We are putting up a lot of food this year, way more than ever before. I organized all the jars on a shelf and Margot said, “Wow, mom. That will feed our family all winter!” A simple observation that made me beam with pride.
I find such connection to myself and my family when preserving food. It’s a primal instinct we humans have, to care for creatures. Whether children, pets or friends, we need to comfort, love and tend to others. I think this manifests differently in everyone. For me, feeding good food to those in my care is an important way I express my love.
In this unpredictable, fragile life, the food we eat is an easy something I can grip. I have control over how my family nourishes their bodies. It’s our health insurance. And, everything surrounding food is an awesome lesson I get to talk about with my kids. We garden or cook together daily and talk about land, waste, vitamins, body systems, sharing, farming, seeds, animals, weather…cooking with my kids is an exquisite opportunity to teach. I cherish those messy, inquisitive, s l o w meals.
foodie nuggets.
*Also, I am listing my food sources and links in this post. As with everything I publish, links are not paid for unless I specifically state the business is a sponsor. Click to read more about approach to sponsorship.*
:: “Mama, I should prolly eat all these peaches so I can feed my body protein.”
“Well, peaches aren’t really pro…”
“Well, they kind of are.”
“No, not really. Fruit is…”
“I just like to think my peaches are protein, ok mom?”
:: The food we preserve: much of it we grow, much of it we score for free and much of it we buy. All of it comes straight from Montana dirt and is tucked away in jars and freezers within a day or two of harvest. In addition to being so fun and so affordable, the taste is exceptional. I will take a Paradise Valley canned peach over a fresh, trucked-in one any ol’ day.
40 pounds of peaches (seconds) from Forbidden Fruit Orchard in Paradise, Montana for $24
This year I only made six jars (!) of our beloved peach butter. I made so much apricot jam that I thought canned peaches would instead be a nice addition to our pantry. I’ll tell you how we feel about that in February.
Also a lame beet year for us. I bought 20 pounds of beets from Benson’s Farm (located at 2418 S 7th St W in Missoula) for $10!
:: Simple Wild Rice Salad
1 cup wild rice, prepared
1 cup sprouted beans, prepared (a new fave around here, we found them at Costco)
1 onion, chopped
3 cloves garlic, minced
olive oil
1/2 cup pine nuts
1/2 cup dried cranberries
your favorite salad dressing (we mix balsamic, olive oil, mustard and lemon juice)
Add a smidge of olive oil to a skillet and cook onion until translucent. Add garlic (or add garlic at very end if you like it hot like me). In a separate pan, heat pine nuts over high heat stirring constantly for a few minutes until fragrant and browned. Mix rice, beans, onion, pine nuts, cranberries and dressing in a bowl. Voila. Also great with chunked tofu.
:: Margot and Ruby ran and intentionally tripped over rotting apples in our neighbor’s for a good chunk of time. Play can be found anywhere.
:: Didn’t have a ton of basil this year so I bought a pound for $15 from Farm to Family. To preserve basil, we purée with olive oil and freeze in ice cube trays. You can do the same with pesto by adding nuts, parm and garlic but I find those ingredients are best when added fresh and this method is much more versatile! We use cubes for soup starters, pasta sauces, pizza, rice…anything you’d put basil in/on.
:: Picking raspberries at Laura’s house. Or as Margot says, “Picking lazberries at Warla’s house.” There are so few words she mispronounces. Those two are my favorite.
:: In the freezer: LOTS of corn (also from Benson’s Farm), puréed beets and carrots (an easy start to this soup or awesome addition to so much food) and the basil-olive oil cubes.
:: I am honored to bring you a wonderful giveaway and opportunity from a sponsor. Natalie and Nathan (owners of Feeleez which I’ve raved about before!) are presenting an e-course about parenting on the same team. I know both of them (they live here in our sweet valley and I so enjoy their blogs) and can whole-heartedly attest to the lovely, kind and real way they move about and parent. You can read more about the class and their parenting approach and sign up for the class here.
And, you can leave a comment for a chance TO WIN a space in the class, set to begin next week! Comments close and winner randomly picked on Saturday, October 8.
*Also, in the spirit of this foodie post, you MUST check out Natalie’s miniature fairy food shop!*
:: I shared a lovely evening and meal with best pals last week. We surprised a friend who is hard to surprise because she’s so dang intuitive. To pass the time while we waited for her to show at the restaurant, we set the timer on the camera and twirled.
:: Confession: I ruined 10 pounds of beans. I picked them and tossed in the fridge to blanch and freeze later and forgot about them. Oh, man. I was wrecked over the slimy discovery. They weren’t too far gone so I thought I could pick through but I ended up just delaying the inevitable. They weren’t fresh and not worth preserving. We ate a select few and tossed on the compost with a heavy heart. All that real estate in my garden, gone. All that love, water and food, gone.
Thankfully we haven’t had a frost yet and our bean plants haven’t heard the news of my irresponsible goof. They keep producing like crazy and I am preserving as I pick. Last year, a friend gave “us” (really, me, I ate the whole thing) a jar of her pickled rosemary lemon beans. We made some this year using this recipe. I tripled the garlic.
:: We have a lot of summer squash this year and have been making a lot of squash fritters. We made up this recipe and it is more bready, like a pancake, which the girls love. Also, I have heard from many that Smitten Kitchen’s recipe is an awesome, more traditional fritter.
and great cold for breakfast. piggy piggy piggy
Ruby’s right elbow dimple makes my jaw ache with love.
If anyone gets too close to Ruby while she mixes the batter, “NO! STIRRING! ME!”
All those food reflection makes me want to get in the kitchen. So, bye bye.
Happy hump day out there.
*Nugget it up and share. If you’d like, link to your nuggets in the comments.*
:: :: ::
51 Comments
Unnnnhhhhhhhh! And I mean that in a GOOD way! This post makes me wanna come raid your cupboards! How amazing that you have preserved SO much for your family for the off-season. Perfect! I haven’t yet tried canning anything myself, but your posts never cease to inspire me to try new things. I’ll definitely be experimenting with canning next year!
Those Zucchini pancakes sound AMAZING. I’m always searching for new ways to get veggies into my somewhat finicky girls, and those just might do the trick… and if not, more for me!
I have pumpkin bread in the oven as we speak… my house smells like heaven.
My nugs this week:
http://littlesidekicks.blogspot.com/2011/10/hump-day-nuggets-smelly-cat.html
ohh and ps… I want to NOM NOM NOM on Ruby’s elbow! tooooo cute!
Oh man, we LOVE zucchini pancakes (fritters!) over this way–my girls are awesome, awesome, awesome about vegetables, but my oldest will only eat zucchini shredded, so I make a variant of those frequently with her. So, so good.
Took nuggets for a test spin this week: http://smallandfierce.blogspot.com/2011/10/hump-day-nuggets-lets-give-this-shot.html
three things: one, the gleaner in me thinks those are not rotten apples at margot and ruby’s feet! fill a bucket, chop off the bad parts = applesauce!
two: i am so sad to hear about your beans, and find you brave share about such a thing. i don’t think we have ever had enough room in our fridge for 10lbs of beans, so i think i’d be forced to deal with them. still though, i know what that’s like, and i feel for you. pickling is my favorite way to preserve beans. i never tire of them.
three: your fritter recipe is just the sort of thing i like to put out in our food pantry, to give our clients ideas of things to do with fresh veggies. we often have a lot of summer squash donated from local farmers and gardeners, and i know people would love this recipe. do you mind if i print it and use it in our non-profit nutrition education, for low income folks? i would, of course, credit you…
my email is kayte8 at gmail dot com. thanks. gorgeous post.
I am SO trying plain yogurt and chili sauce on my husband’s version of okonomiyaki (Japanese cabbage-based pancake/fritters). What a great idea!
…Oh, and that elbow dimple is the sweetest.
Delicious! And a quick question as well–do you use a pressure cooker to can your beets?
Hey Dig: I would like to gently correct one tiny fact in this yummy blog. Those beans are NOT gone! The will nourish your sweet family in next years garden as soil. That compost plays such an important role in future beans to come! LOVE:)
“RANGE PORN” made me laugh out loud! So much cuteness and hilarity in your blog – another fine read.
🙂
Happy Autumn thoughts from Ontario!
Cake, You are right. Notice I said “rotting” not “rotten”! And, OF COURSE, anyone make make anything I make! Please print out and share. I love that idea.
I so struggle with the daily task of food preparation. I want the best for my family but feel so defeated by my lack of kitchen skills, its hard. The way you talk about how it makes you feel to nourish your family makes me want to try just a little bit harder. Thank you.
Beautiful! This is my first year preserving and although our garden was left to fend for itself for the most part this year we were gifted with quite a few veggies. Tomatoes and beets were the only things we managed to can before the frost (up here in Ontario we’ve already had a few). Our freezer is brimming with grated zucchini for our own version of fritters!
Love this post!
Jasmine: Yes! I use a pressure cooker for the beets.
ctb: What a sweet correction. Yes, I suppose that is right. But still.
Don’t you just love admiring that stash of jars – a thing of beauty, my friend! I feel for your beans – I once burned an entire giant pot of stewed tomatoes (with garlic, peppers, etc) and had to dump the whole multi-gallon mess into my compost pile. I may have cried. And I completely agree about kids in the garden, kitchen – may be the beginning of a revolution 🙂
So many beautiful jars! You should be so proud. Just think if you move you’ll have a bit of this house with you all winter. I’m so jealous of your growing season. I tried my first garden in this wilderness spot we call home and it was a miserable failure. The wind did everything in, but we’ll try again next year with hopefully a bit more luck.
I would love to win your e-class giveaway. Sounds like a fantastic tool to add to my belt.
Hope you’re enjoying your fall weather.
I want some salad.
And please, please tell me you pickled some of those beets. Please.
This is such an awesome post. This year I did my VERY FIRST EVER canning! I made some applesauce. Man it is good. I can’t wait to do more next year. I want to plant my own garden in my backyard and put up so much more. This year has revolutionized my thinking on feeding my family and I find that things like putting up food for the winter take me back to my farm girl roots. I can’t wait to do more! I will be bookmarking this page, and maybe emailing you in the future for tips!
If armageddon hits, I’m headed your way – just kidding, but your canning skills are amazing.
Mmmmm.
Thanks for the fritter recipe. My 17month old loves eating and I can’t wait to have a fritter party…tomorrow!
I love, love, love those old mason jars with the star. Just looks beautiful with the beet red behind it. Good job preserving!
Love Ruby’s little pigtails.
I can’t get over how much Ruby has grown up right before our eyes in the pictures this summer. Such a little lady now…losing those traces of baby. Beautiful girls you have…including the pup. 😉
Oooh…the first lines of this post…steam-ay baby. Pulsing. Yeah.
Okay, I’ve been reading but doing a shit job of commenting and now’s my turn to catch up.
Random notations I love.
*hanging pumpkins
*the pic of Ruby and Margot on the ground in this post
*black and white photo of twirling feet and trying to figure out if I know any of those shoes and legs and fabulousness.
*your talk of canning and blanching and grown-up kitchen things. I want to be you when I grow up and become a real kitchen woman
*Margo’s discussion on protein. I hereby prophesy that Sister is going to write a college thesis on some sort of foody protein something. And she will prove that she was right.
*Fairy Avocado Earrings. Hello, fabulous
*I want to bite Ruby’s cheeks.
That is all. Good night. xo
Another great use for pureed beets that we discovered this year: beet hummus! Pretty, tasty, and freezes well. Here’s the recipe: http://www.thyhandhathprovided.com/2010/10/most-beautiful-thing-i-ever-made-beet.html I’ve got a rainbow of canned goods on top of my cupboards as well…it will help the gray MT winter not be quite so gray.
I love that you show your love for your girls through food, mostly because it is something I really feel I am lacking in. I just have a hard time getting myself excited about food, so it is hard to get my girls interested in trying new things. The zucchini fritter recipe sounds like a great place to start, though.
Love the elbow dimple!
Thank you for the links & info about the local produce. I’m hopeless when it comes to growing anything (and at least a few years away from escaping the hopelessness) so starting with someone else’s locally grown goodness seems like a good place to start.
Since I probably won’t get my nuggets up till tomorrow, here’s highlights from one of the favorite activities from the week, pressing apples for cider with my kids:
http://cohesive-pieces.blogspot.com/2011/10/just-little-of-everyday-sort-of-magic.html
Everything looks amazing! Thank you for sharing!
“For me, feeding good food to those in my care is an important way I express my love.”
I love this!! This is the reason I cook and bake. If someone I love is happy, sad, scared, frustrated, just had a baby, just got a job, just smiled at me, is just there…they get cooked for by me.
Love all the preserving you are doing, I am a bit intimidated by the whole canning process, but you are inspiring me!
I couldn’t have said it better! I express my love for my family through homemade meals as well. So poignant and so true!
Yuuuuuuuuuuup. I feel ya sister – on the insurance policy of healthy homegrown foods, on the nurturing and showing of love with said food and working so hard to get everything from the garden preserved that *any* loss – even a small one – is felt with a big twist of the gut.
To the compost, I say. And then let’s have some peach butter. Mmmm…
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Burb~ This comment is dedicated to you and all those people who preserve food. It is so therapeutic…one of my greatest joys is to look at my canned goodies lined up on shelves and nestled in my freezer! Canning is something that is a cherished & healthy tradition near & dear to me ….I KNOW myself, Your Great Grandma, Grammy, Grandpa, Grandmother, Great Auntie Lois, Great Auntie Jane and countless loved ones from before are all smiling because this lives within you and your children!
Love you tons….Mom
Just wanted to give you credit for the 18 pumpkins we harvested. You were the inspiration for our corner garden. We (especially my boys) have always wanted to grow “stuff”. Never mind that our pumpkin patch was accidental (our daddy tossed our jack-0-lantern into the corner last year, and voila!). But none-the-less, because of your passion and encouragement, we tended to them every day and even purposely planted zucchini in our tiny sun spot! Seriously, our corner of sun is so small, that the pumpkins sprouted under our fence, onto our carport, and into the neighbors drive-way!!! More sun there, I guess 🙂 Just proves that you are absolutely right. You said one time that any amount of sun and space can be utilized (or something like that :).
So thanks a bunch (or a “patch”),
Kelly
love this post… smells like the earth.
Fabulous post! You make approaching winter seem not so bad.
Freezer & pantry full of hearty food, quilts, fires, cozy cuddles.
I’m liking it & I like NOTHNG about winter!
Happy Harvesting!
Aahhhh Nici on this gray Oregon day I needed your blog to add some joie to my vivre (I think that’s how you say it).
Thanks for what you do 🙂 you make the world a better place. Fo serious.
Also glad you enjoyed my orgasmic story.
Wow all those yummy home preserves – good effort , I want to get out planting in my garden right now so I can have a full harvest to preserve.
I’m afraid to ask, but does 40 lbs of peaches equate to only 6 jars of butter? Holy.
Your gardening, crafting, writing, cooking, and canning are such an inspiration for so many of us. And I love that preserving and sewing was passed from generations of women to you. There’s strength in tradition, and embracing it.
I am proud enough to make it through my first harvest and learn from it; but I am inspired and feel the spark. Maybe soon I’ll reach outside of my comfort zone and try to preserve; but not this year. It’s all about pacing and learning.
And never can get enough of range porn. It’s SO hot. LOL.
Keep having a wonderful week.
Jennifer
I have a confession too! Last week I picked the last of my basil from the greenhouse. I didn’t have the time to process it, so I threw a damp cloth over the bowl and threw it in the fridge. It got pushed to the back and forgotten! I was totally bummed.
On a non foodie note, are those cute orange shoes/boots that Ruby is wearing the one’s Margot used to sport? What is it about the younger one’s moving into the clothing items of the older one’s? It feels so significant and it is happening FAST!
I just introduced myself to Natalie at the market last weekend. I have been reading and enjoying her blog for awhile. I saw her and recognized her, but have never actually “met” her. Now we have!
Finally, will you share your tomatillo salsa recipe? I have a pile of them in the fridge and haven’t looked for a recipe yet.
cheers,
Kara
Happiness: No way! I canned 10 quarts of peaches and 6 pints of butter with the 40 pounds.
Kara: Yes! Totes Margot’s orange shoes! Yes, so so fast. So sorry about the basil. Oh, it is a terrible feeling. For the tomatillo salsa, I used the recipe out of the Ball Blue Book. Easy and so good.
Phew! Glad to hear that the 40 lbs also equates to a lot of canned protein.
BTW, I made a version of your fried rice the other night and added some fresh shrimp and ginger. And Ben’s complement to you was mumbled through a stuffed mouth “holy crap”. Yep, that good.
Ok, back to spreadsheet hell before I can enjoy my weekend.
Peace and happy sewing.
Jennifer
I love this post! I’ve followed for sometime but dont comment a lot. I don’t know if it’s all the mason jars, since i just decorated my wedding in nothing but mason jars (which has nothing to do with canning…), but I just love this post. It warms my heart and makes me smile! And how cool is this, one of my longtime childhood friends now lives in Missoula, and I mentioned that i followed your blog, and she thinks she knows you! Small world!
Thrilled to have stumbled onto your blog today. I love this post! Seeing the jars lined up both in my pantry and my freezer makes me incredibly happy as well.
Love all the canned goodness in this post … that picture of the finished product on the black surface … beautiful!!
i had the same thought as ctb. totally sucks to miss the chance on fresh food, but it would only be a *true* waste if you threw it in the trash. hooray for compost!
love all the food, and what great deals! …i think i farm/garden (farden?) so i can preserve…
would love a shot at the parenting class. they have a cool thing going.
I always want to win what you’re giving away 🙂 especially anything from Feeleez. We love their cards so much! They’ve helped us alot. Ben said just the other day “i feel mad” and then made his “mad” face… and then went on to talk about how he felt better. I interpret that he feels better after feeling expression.
thanks, as always, for the introduction.
Erin
You got a better buy that we did on peaches, but they had to come farther to get to us. Yummy anyway! I made quite a bit of peach butter for the first time. Yes, I will make it again! I substituted some for part of the liquid in waffles and it was heaven.
And I just found those sprouted beans at Costco too. Sometimes things like that are bland but these are very flavorful. I’m going to cook up a big hamhock and make bean soup.
You really do take such good care of the people that you love…all of that growing, preparing and canning…quite admirable, mama. This is good good stuff.
Happy weekend to you all!
Jenny V
My New England nuggets…
http://dagrumpymudder.blogspot.com/2011/10/indian-summer-on-east-coast.html
I want that photo of the close up jars in full rez so i can blow it up and frame it in my kitchen.
Such a beautiful post, Nici!! You are killing it in that kitchen! Dang!
I grew up with a huge veggie garden in VT and a mom who made pesto. I miss it…I miss it so much I’ll just have to go home next week!
When (not if, when) you visit Seattle with your brood, I’ll make my famous (as of today) truffle oil and nutritional yeast kale chips. YUM!!!
xo
Melina
I’d love a chance to take the parenting on the same team course. Thanks!
How entirely inspiring as always *sigh* looking forward to our growing & harvesting season here downunder & to reading more on the feeleez blog: always great finding another source that resonates.