S-T-O-P means "stop"

... said Zoltan to me this morning in the car. This is a child who only recognizes half the letters of the alphabet, can't draw a letter that looks like anything other than a scribble, and still colors like a 2 year old (i.e., all scribbles). Yet, at not-yet-four he recognizes the stop sign. This is not a child following in his sister's path!

Our first CSA haul

Yesterday the kids and I went to the local synagogue to pick up our first fall CSA* order. I can't deny it, I was and still am absolutely giddy about the whole thing. I had forgotten we also got an egg share, so I picked up a carton with 11 eggs as well.

As you can sort of see, we got the following: a head of Romaine lettuce; a monster cauliflower; a zucchini; a red, a green, and a tiny-maybe-hot pepper; a small bag of potatoes; a bunch of apples; a bag of green beans; three enormous radishes and greens; a bag of lemon verbena; an acorn squash.

The fun part is now we re-do our meals list for the week to work in the bounty. And of course we're adding salads to our lunches. With lemon verbena oil as part of our oil and vinegar for dressing!

* CSA = community supported agriculture, wherein a group of people put up a bunch of money before the planting begins, and then everyone shares the risks and rewards of a harvest. They are nearly always local and usually use more organic methods than agrobusiness. The synagogue bit - just happens that they have a relationship with the CSA and people can join the CSA through them. I haven't joined the synagogue, although it is a possibility for the future.

Moving out of our comfort zones

Once upon a time, Terry was the chef in the family and I was solely the baker. Then, I stayed home and that didn't make sense anymore. I moved out of my comfort zone. It wasn't always pretty and we had some fights over allegedly constructive criticism.

Tonight Terry wanted oatmeal raisin cookies. I agreed to participate but he would take the lead. I started directing him to where different ingredients were. When I told him to get the flour down his reply was "Wait, there's flour in this? Isn't it just oatmeal?"

Honey, when we have an income again, you can experiment with using only oatmeal. For tonight, let's put the flour in!

Major Academic Milestone

This week, Alex brought home a "my first reader" type book from school. She said it's for her to practice reading. We've been busy and hadn't gotten to it when, this morning, I suggested she read for a bit before she had to catch the bus.

She read the first two pages ALL BY HERSELF!! Then we had to go.

Many of the words were sight words that we've been working on each evening, and it's sure paying off. I am excited for us to continue the story tonight when she gets home.

Cougar All-stars

According to the school newsletter, Alex was one of two All-Stars in her class for September (the school mascot is the cougar). We have no idea what that means, but congrats to Alex!

Garden!

We don't have the time or the yard for a large garden but Terry did manage to put in 2 small "children's gardens" for A and Z. Well, next year it can be for them, for this fall we planted what we wanted. And this will be helpful as the government most likely plans, today, to take away my family's income for an undetermined amount of time.We can eat radishes and lettuce!

Then

Now

Conversations with Zoltan

Z: Mommy, [name of teacher] comes on Fridays.
Me: Yes, but you don't go on Fridays, not until Mommy starts working.
Z: Yeah. I love Fries days. But I like chicken nuggets more.

Four coughs

There are four people in my family. And right now there are four coughs in my house.

One is GERD/reflux
One is most likely a sinus infection
One, I suspect, is allergies
And one little cough is a simple common cold

Homemade bread

It turns out, in America, that the fewer ingredients your bread has the more it cost. Being all house poor and all, paying $5 per loaf when we go through 1-2 a week wasn't working out. Plus, a good friend gave me the her special secret recipe (ok, not so secret and easily found here). So, I got cooking. Well, baking.

The first batch was decent. The second pretty good. By the third I definitely had the hang of things.

 The only problem is that we gobble up the first loaf the within the first 24 hours and then have to ration out the sandwiches for the rest of the week out of the second loaf. The only good news is Zoltan seems interested in helping me, so it can be a weekday activity we do together.

Pectin free jam

We eat a lot of jam in our family. Lots of peanut butter and jam, lots of toast with jam. We throw jam into our oatmeal and in our plain yogurt. For the 13 years we've been jam making, we have always stood by the Certo product and method. In fact, we've been quite timid about venturing on our own.  Until last year, when we made our own pectin.

I think that was our "gateway" experience. With homemade pectin, you add some, see if things gel, add some more, see if you get fruit cement, then grump about the ruined jam.

A couple of weeks ago I entered the as yet untraveled ground of pectin free jam. First, the trip to Butler's Orchard in Germantown. Because of some bad instructions by the lovely workers at the orchard, by the time we realized the middle was not in fact the picked over part there was massive grumpiness and hunger (Zoltan) and hot and tiredness (me) so we left with a mere 2lb of  raspberries. Then to the farm market, where we got 25lb of tomatoes and what I think was about 18lb of peaches. After lunch, while the rest of the family napped, I made raspberry jam. Way easier than I thought. One of the things I really like about jamming "outside the box" is the fruit to sugar ratio - 1:1 rather than 1:2. The jam tasted intensely of fruit, and was plenty sweet. In fact, the kids spent a healthy amount of time lobbying to be allowed to eat the jam with a spoon.

Some web sites that helped me figure out what to do:
http://www.nwedible.com/2012/08/how-to-make-pectin-free-jam.html

http://www.100daysofrealfood.com/2012/05/10/how-to-can-some-jam-a-simple-method-without-pectin/

http://www.epicurious.com/recipes/food/views/Old-Fashioned-Raspberry-Jam-230700

The raspberry jam turned out perfectly. It has a wonderful jam consistency. The peach turned out not quite so "jammy" and a bit more syrupy ... well thicker than that ... more like Russian vareini.Turns out the riper the fruit, the less pectin, and the peaches were "seconds" so, well, overripe. The taste is wonderful and the kids like it on their pancakes so it's still a win.