Friday's lunch...

French fries baked in coconut oil with garlic dill kefir cheese.

Kefir cheese is made by straining the whey off of freshly made milk kefir.  Donna of Cultured Food Life uses it for all sorts of fun things, even ice cream.  It turns out a lot like cream cheese, and you can season it a number of ways.  For this dip I used dried dill from my garden, a clove of garlic, lemon juice, salt and pepper and then whipped it with a hand mixer.

I've completely departed from processed sugar, and even try to avoid it in small amounts.  Ketchup contains a lot more sugar than any of us imagine, so even though I love it on my french fries, I decided to find something healthy to use instead. I certainly did not miss the ketchup with this spicy yumminess on my taters!

Also, we don't eat a lot of potatoes, but do not avoid them!  We also had sprouted mung bean soup with these fries which was loaded with turmeric, cumin, coriander, garlic and ginger which was actually a Dr. Oz recipe.  Of course, I probably doubled the spices, but that's just me.  Herbs and spices are true medicine.  No mung bean soup pic...I pureed mine and it just looked like green goop.  Delicious green goop!

What's for dinner??

Beef liver and caramelized onions, bacon and ginger-cinnamon carrots.  

We've been...Googled...

A new coloring book arrived this morning...also known as, the Google Fiber manual. 

A young man wired yet another device to our house and a certain little Miso was thrilled to receive this new coloring book from..."The Google Maaaaaannnnn!!" 

I was checking for hidden cameras.  They've documented just about everything BUT the insides of our houses and I wondered if they'd outfitted their installation techs with cameras to make even the private parts of our homes and lives...available for all to inspect!   My insightful husband simply commented with "No, that's called Facebook"!  Yes...self-imposed lack of privacy!

We'll see what brother has to add to the book today.  He's usually in charge of deconstruction, but maybe he'll want to leave his mark instead. 

 

I'm humming right along on my desk caddy.  It's going to take many layers of paper before it's satisfactory.  I've had to put  my beloved crafts aside the past two days because when I do my grocery shopping, there's always a lot of food to prep.  

Yesterday I made paleo chili.  I'd love to share the recipe but I read 3 different ones and then used the salad bar technique to make my chili.  I had random tomato products that needed to be used, a nice pound of grass-fed beef, freshly made beef broth and a TON of spices.  No beans, but I did add sour cream and cheddar to the top.  My kids loved it despite begging for more and more water, and eventually they needed milk to put out the fire. 

Today I'm making Indian food...chicken tikka masala, and mung bean soup.  The mung beans have been sprouting on my counter for a few days so hopefully they won't give any of us "issues"! 

Not just pinning anymore...doing!

Pinterest...either you love it, or you avoid it for one of many reasons.  It's endlessly fascinating to me, but it can suck your time up like the fiercest Hoover ever built.  Currently, I have 54 boards, 1,712 pins of inspiration, ideas, loves...and craft projects to try, someday!  Someday when I'm not busy sitting on my can clicking away at pretty pictures, that is!

Someday finally came...completely on a whim. I started with this project pinned from gingerbreadsnowflakes.com which is a tutorial on weaving in the Saori style.  Cardboard and yarn, I have lots of those!

This was my first...I went wild with color, picking every little crazy scrap of yarn I had.

 

I'm in the St. Valentine's Day mode, can you tell?   It seems I rotate my craft projects based on the approaching holiday.  My husband commented that this weaving has now replaced my winter craft of crochet.  I try, I try...but my brain cannot make sense out of the directions for crochet projects.  I need something hands-on and very forgiving...which can be "messed up" a little and still look good!   Oh!...all the scarves I've made with the uneven ends and skipped stitches, bahhh!

I also love projects which allow me to use power tools.  :)  Deeply embedded in my heart, is a love for tools.  I love tools corded...battery powered...hand powered...from small pliers to radial arm saws, my heart goes pitter pat.  I'm downright twitterpated for tools! 

This project for an artsy desk caddy made from tin cans inspired me to finally do something cool with the huge collection of tin cans I've saved.  They've been on my drafting desk for years...filled with Sharpies, and markers, and pencils....on my desk, eating up valuable space.  I wanted something portable, sturdy and spacious. And of course...I needed my cordless DeWalt, various hand tools and a "serious" hot glue gun...not one of those low-temp craft store ones that you could practically squirt ON your hand and not even feel it!  Low-temp glue also dries too fast, and the pieces eventually pop apart.  The hot glue gun I have growls when it heats up (kidding) and it squirts out glue so hot, you could give yourself a 3rd degree burn in seconds (NOT kidding). Rabid hot glue guns bring back fond memories of gluing hundreds of gaudy jewels onto set pieces for the Branson sensation, Shoji Tabuchi's wife...Dorothy!  She had a glorious shell with glittering (plastic) jewels which held her as she "emerged" into view...Glamorous! 

I drilled some holes so I could join 2 sets of the larger cans with baling wire to a wooden purse handle, then hot glued every can together.  Bashi watched with delight as the cordless drill whirred loudly...when the drill bit went through the first can he let out a revered..."whoa"...yes son, I know!  Anyway, it's solid.  Here it is for now...

My plan is to decoupage dress pattern paper all over the sides, which will not only make it look sweet, but will give it an added level of sturdiness.   This pin for the "altered tin can" made me happy...I hope mine rust on the edges too.

Lastly, I'd like to address the fact that I've been non-blogging since September!  I started a few posts...but either they were too personal, or I was just complaining.  :)  I've decided that sharing my current craft projects would be the best direction to take this blog.  With two toddlers, and a little one on the way...you'd think I wouldn't have TIME for arts and crafts.  But I must make time...or I'll go crazy.  And that's a fact.

What's growing...

This has been...one busy summer.  A summer filled with cherry tomatoes, pickling, organizing, crucifix painting and farmer's markets, among a million other things.  It's amazed me how just planting a few things can really change up what you need to buy at the market.  I've been saving seeds and plotting out a fantastic idea for next year...no yard, just garden...except for the front, desert landscape!  Food in back, inhospitable thorny plants in front.  Must protect my harvest.

The temperatures were in the 50's this morning when we all woke up, and the overcast sky facilitated a wee bit of "sleeping in", which means some minutes past 7:30 a.m.  It all made me want coffee, and I trudged through my morning with a pouty lip until I finally decided it was time...an Oddly Correct time, to be exact.  I have grown even more snooty when it comes to coffee, maybe "picky" or "discerning" would be better words.  I only go for pure, freshly made coffee from places that know where the beans are from...and that don't do "frappuchino's.  I was in the Quay on Sunday, one of the two coffee places I still go to, and heard a guy order a latte and then asked them to put whipped cream and caramel sauce on top, and then he added, " You know...kinda like Starbucks" then he grinned like he was a "rebel".  The barista just nodded, and decided to take the high road and remain polite.  That's one of the many reasons why I go there, they're high quality...and high class.

That was one of many incidents lately where I thought..."What were they thinking?"  Sometimes I marvel at the things people do or say.  At the Quay that day, I was wondering why someone would come to a place that was obviously the polar opposite of a Starbucks and order something like that?  No one goes to a Chinese restaurant and orders a hamburger.  It's like going into an "organic gardening center" and asking for Round-up!  It just isn't done.

As I left the Quay with my two littles,  we were walking down the sidewalk when a man in a shiny red car decided that the sidewalk looked like a driveway, cut us off and drove down the sidewalk, over the curb and then parked his shiny red car.  Really?  The curbs didn't scream "not a road"?  Or the woman with children wearing very colorful clothing didn't inspire the red car to go a little slower or maybe, stop?  Once again, what was going on inside that noggin?  Like the owl and the Tootsie Pop..."The world may never know".

Thankfully, even though he almost ran over my kids...I only merely pondered leaving a note on his shiny red car that said, "Sidewalks with people on them are NOT for driving upon, pay attention".  But, I figured it would be a lost cause.  I did, however, realize that we did not say our "Please God protect us from crazy drivers" prayer before we left the house.  As we back down the driveway, we always say it...and this day, we forgot for some reason. Who knew we'd have to worry about the sidewalks too though??  Some days are just like that...

On a different note, the sedum is in bloom and the bees are buzzing all over it.  And so are the moths, butterflies and even nasty ol' flies.  Flying things just seem to love it.  Another fun garden surprise this week was finding an eggplant growing on this odd plant that I allowed to keep growing by my zinnia patch.  And climbing up through a volunteer tomato plant that I actually staked up...is an ornamental winged gourd plant.  So many fun and strange things popped up on their own this year.  Plus, looks like our autumn decorations will be taken care of this year!

Organic lacto-fermented dill pickles...

This pickle post is especially for Judy!  

Pickles!  What's not to love?  Sour...crunchy...probiotic..."pre-digested super raw" veggies.  Traditional...medicinal...and really good with a grass-fed beef burger!  These pickling cucumbers came out of my backyard, I'm a first time pickle grower.  Up until now, I've always bought them from whomever sells organic picklers at the City Market. (Did I use "whomever" correctly?  I never know...) It's great fun for my kids (and myself) to check under the big, prickly leaves for pickles.  Sometimes you miss one that's situated sideways and it grows into a giant...those always end up in my salad.

Dill!  Also from my backyard.  A few plants volunteered, and I literally sprinkled the ground near them with seeds from last years dill thinking..."Hmmmf, we'll see!"  What I saw was...every seed sprouting into a carpet of green.  They would get about 6 inches tall and stop growing.  So I started thinning and realized, why am I not dehydrating this?!  The house smells wonderful when the dill is drying.

Together at last...cukes and dill.  I scrub the cucumbers with a previously unused toothbrush to remove the spines and dirt..  Then I decide.  Chips?  Spears?  Whole?  They all end up pretty much the same, but whole pickles take an extra day or so.  I wash the bugs off the dill, I'm a strict no-pesticide type of gardener.  If the bugs eat it, guess they were hungrier than I was!  I like to do at least a quart sized wide-mouthed jar, but my favorite is the two quart Ball jar...or the gallon size if I have a great windfall of goods to ferment. 

Next, I add garlic that I peel and slice in half...the amount varies, 2 cloves will do for basic flavor...I've been known to add an entire bulb, especially a small locally grown bulb.  Then...spices.  This is where you can really personalize it.

 

This batch has mustard seed, peppercorns, dill seed, caraway seed, allspice and bay leaf.  All organic...pesticides have no place in fermented foods, or any food for that matter!  My usual concoction for a quart sized jar of pickles is as follows, which I usually don't display on a pretty plate, I just measure and dump right over the cukes:

1 tsp mustard seed

1 tsp peppercorns

1 bay leaf broken into 4 parts

3-4 allspice berries

2 fresh dill flowers, plus greens (or a dried flower...or 1-2 tsp dill seeds)

1/2 tsp red pepper flakes

Sometimes I'll add a piece of cinnamon stick, or some sliced up jalapenos.  For whole pickles, I stuff them down in the jar so they won't float when the water is added.  Same with spears.  For chips, I just pile them up in the jar.  Next, make brine.  The best brine solution for pickles is, as Sandor Katz describes in his book, "Art of Fermentation", 5%.  Which is 1 quart of water with 3 Tbsp of salt.  I use grey Celtic sea salt.  You can heat this solution to make sure the salt is dissolved, then let it cool completely (too hot and it will kill the good bacteria) before pouring over cukes, or just let it sit.  This also lets the chlorine have a chance to escape if you don't have a good filter.   

Where the "lacto" part comes in is...you can use whey to kick start the fermentation process.  I strain whey off of kefir....curds and whey, little Miss Muffet??!  That's the stuff.  But it's not necessary as the pickles contain everything they need to ferment themselves.  If I have fresh whey, I'll put a Tbsp in, but often I just put a little pickle juice from a previous batch in as a "starter".  Even this is, unnecessary.

The brine goes over the cukes, and you want at least an inch of brine over them.  Chips are tricky because you want to keep your cukes below the surface of the water.  Anything sticking up could mold, but it won't hurt you...hard to believe, but it's true.  You should scoop it off with a plastic spoon (I never use metal utensils to work with fermented foods, especially anything silver...silver kills bacteria).  I'll weight the cukes down by sticking a smaller glass jar on the cukes to weigh them down, then I put a coffee filter over the top and secure it with a rubber band so bugs can't get in.  Or, you can just put a lid on it!  Plastic lids are best.  The waiting game begins.  

My pickles stay on the counter for about 3 days.  If it's too hot, they'll ferment too quickly and get squishy, yuk.  My kitchen is about 78-80 degrees most days, and I haven't had a bad batch yet.You'll see the pickles go from bright green, to a dull olive green...the water will cloud up, and little gas bubbles will escape when you move the jar.  You can start tasting at any time...after a day, they'll still taste like cucumbers, after two days...half-sours...but three days...yum!  When they're finished to your liking, store them in the refrigerator.  They should last a few months at least, but who can keeps delicious pickles around THAT long?

There are a lot of great resources online...just recently I stumbled upon Well Preserved.  I learned how to make pickles from Sandor Katz's book the Art of Fermentation, and have expiramented with spices by looking at the bottom of a Bubbie's pickle jar, and from suggestions I've found online.

Right now on my counter I have a batch of dills and a double batch of pickled jalapeno peppers.  Who's going to taste THOSE to see if they're ready?!

3 things that made me smile...

Gen: "Mom, there's a fly in here..."
Mom: "Oh yeah?  What do you think about that?"
Gen: "It really hurts my feelings."

*******

Mom: "Girl, you need a bath!"
Gen: "Yeah, I tooted lasterday!" (Last night + yesterday = lasterday)

*******

This morning little man was chewing on a brazil nut and he started to choke on the pieces a little bit and was trying to cough them out.  When I got over to him, little girl had already put her hand under his mouth to help him out and he was OK while she had a pile of slobber covered nuts in her hand!  You can imagine the look on her face!

A rare, quiet morning...

With my birthday week behind me, and my odometer perched on a fresh age ending in a zero (that's enough information...) I begin part II of summer.  When I was young (oh no...not THAT expression) I felt that once July 4th and my birthday were done for the year...the summer took a downhill slide from there toward the inevitable new school year, and at high speed.

Sometimes I still get anxiety over it, even though I've been out of high school since rooster tail bangs were still cool.  Aqua Net plus a good hair dryer...oh, how lucky I was to not turn that combo into a flame thrower aimed directly at my face!  It's funny how sounds, temperature, even the quality of the sunlight...can transport you back into time for a moment.  The cicadas will be howling soon...and then the crickets take over in the still, humid mornings...and just when I don't think I can stand it anymore...the trees change, the rains come, and then one morning I wake up and it's already Christmas!

This morning is a very odd one...I'm the only one awake?  I've done dishes, I've sprayed down my garden...I made chai...I'm sitting here reading blogs...and I'm STILL alone.  Maybe this is why I'm sitting here thinking deep, non-truncated thoughts?  No one's trying to steal my ice water.  I'm not hearing "Ring Around the Rosie" for the 35th time.  My personal cafeteria has no customers!  :)

Now, as I hear little feet stomping around above my head, I realize this time is coming to an end...but I wanted to pass on a couple of cool blogs I found this morning.  I love good design, and beautiful illustration...and really love amazing handmade things.

Mielie - Recycled bags made in South Africa
Orange You Lucky - Colorful illustrations

Art and Cake...

I just love my baby's art...it's amazing how much of their personality shines through in the style.  So expressive!

First of all, I'm really not sure what's going on with the rest of my blog...the pictures are just, gone.  It probably has something to do with me going back and deleting every picture of my kiddos because I got tired of worrying about the iphone/location mapping issue.  Even though I have it turned off, I don't trust it.  Nor do I trust "the web"...or any other entity involved with the whole mess.  But without going too conspiracy theory on you...I'll just say that I've said enough already.

Back to the art.  Since I did attend an art school for a while, and have always been in artistic circles, professions, hobbies and the like...I would say that I've got a certain amount of  love/hate for the whole idea of "what is art?"  And naturally, being a mom...this IS high art!  My offspring did this with his own hand...while also happily drawing on his face, neck and legs.  He was really into it.  I say...this is ART.  But I also say...this could pass for art world mumbo jumbo too.  My favorite line that I use often when I see something (for example) like a toilet paper tube glued to the side of a tire...I say, "Hey...you could get into art school with that piece!"

I'll never forget this "dude" (for he was no man, boy or even guy) that was in a foundations year printmaking class with me...he decided that he was going to work..."like the masters" and paint for two hours, sleep for two hours...paint for two hours, sleep for two hours.  You get the pattern.  Early one morning we were all corralled for a critique where he was explaining his "method"...and while someone was droning on about his "piece", undeservedly praising him and trying to make meaning where there was just ink...he fell asleep.  The other person stopped talking, and we all watched him...sleep!  This is the kind of rubbish one has to wade through in art school.  Similar to the "real world" except no one is forced to sit around and look at your art!  We were his captive audience for sure.

Alas, no more talk of art school...it's over and paid off, what's a girl to do?  

Tonight I was baking my own birthday cake.  What?!  It's true.  Not only did I make salted caramel ice cream earlier in the day...but I also whipped up a batch of goat cheese ice cream to go with it, in addition to this two layer einkorn cake using Jovial's Birthday Cake recipe, you know...because I soak, sprout, dry and grind my own flour now!!  The Mr. took the kiddos birthday shopping and I was all alone.  The icing on the birthday cake was that I was hurrying to get the dishes done because I wanted to clean the downstairs toilet!!!   Wow...making my own cake and hoping for extra time to sterilize the WC.  Holy mackerel what HAS become of me?!  ;)

Tomorrow is July 4th, which is my traditional day of birthday observance, has been for years!  I plan to start the day with a delicious pour over coffee from the Quay (one of the two places I will drink coffee from...not even from home will I drink it!!!) then a barbecue with the family and oh, maybe I'll dig around and find something to blow up?  Speaking of conspiracy theories, my dad always told me to lock away a small amount of fireworks because "some day they're going to outlaw them...and you'll have some".  Well, they haven't outlawed them YET....but I do still have some, probably should sell them...they've got to be vintage!  Dad was right, once again!

Colonies and Rookeries and Waddles...Penguinville

In the midst of the house being painted, the roofing extravaganza, family birthdays and my darling dear working out of town in my favorite place in the world...I made time for a unique project that not only taught me a lot about penguins, but also schooled me in painting on polyester!  How did I reach this "ripening" age without the experience of painting on poly?  I'm used to the qualities and response of cotton muslin...even silk.  But enough talk, let's get to the pictures.

This was a white tux that I believe was a rental.  It had stains that looked like chocolate or red wine or balsamic vinegar!
 

I sketched out the suit and circled the main stains, then strategically placed 4 breeds of penguins...gentoo, king, rockhopper and humboldt, to best cover the stains.

It was a deciding factor for the design...I flipped them different directions, made them smaller or larger...and added in rocks and such.

The next challenge came when I started trying to watercolor onto the polyester.  It bled, in two directions like a cross.  The paint crept along the threads of the suit...and they kept growing long after I thought they had stopped.  I would come back to something I had painted and it would be an inch wide spot.  Back to the drawing board.

Originally, I'd wanted to do Japanese style painting on the suit...it's a favorite style and I thought it would keep the suit soft and flexible.  It didn't take long to realize that I would have to block in areas of color with solid paint and do the art from there.  After that, it was smooth sailing in penguinville.

For the pants I decided to go big or go home.  But that's just how I am...wait until you see the back.  And since I love to paint rocks...I perched a few gentoo's on some rock nests and placed a penguin "gaurd" at the top.

This baby king penguin popping out of the pocket is probably the cutest thing I've seen in a long time.  Researching penguins put a big smile on my face...fuzzy babies, hundreds of penguins running with their flippers up, rockhoppers with eyebrows blowing in the breeze!

 For the sleeves, king penguins on icebergs...

...with lanternfish lunch swimming up above.

My lovely assistant models the jacket...

It was my hope to merge mild with wild, and leave enough neutral space around the details so they wouldn't blend and get lost.  From the back, side and front...you have three distinct views.

And the back gives new meaning to "eyes in the back of your head"...or "Watch your back!!"  This larger-than-life rockhopper means business.  The funny thing is, they are a relatively small penguin standing at around 20" tall.  But if you're standing behind this one, watch your calamari plate...