Spring...maybe

Spring is finally here! Sort of.  It has at least made an attempt at appearing so I guess I will take it.  With the warmer (relatively speaking) weather comes all the fun stuff spring had to offer: getting the garden ready, cooking outside, drying the laundry on the clothesline, and of course ASPARAGUS!  We burned the overgrowth off the beds and now are just waiting patiently for those tasty little spears to poke their heads through the earth.  I love asparagus.  Our whole family loves it.  It is something we look forward to each spring and we would usually have a few spears by now but since mother nature refuses to cooperate I guess we will have to wait a little longer.  In the meantime I thought it would be nice to share some of my favorite ways to cook asparagus.

Grilled Asparagus
Combine 3Tbsp Olive Oil with 2 cloves finely minced garlic in a zip-top bag.  Put your asparagus in the bag and shake to coat.  Refrigerate for about an hour or so.  Fire up the grill and lay those babies perpendicular to the grates (you don't want to lose any of those tasty little buggers!)  Sprinkle with a little sea salt and fresh cracked pepper and cook until slightly bendy but still firm.  Don't worry if they get a little char on them, it only makes it better!  Enjoy!

Asparagus soup
Bacon
1lb asparagus (cut into 1in pieces)
3-4 large russet potatoes
1 small onion (diced)
2 cloves garlic (minced)
Heavy cream
Flour
salt
pepper

Cut peeled and and washed potatoes in to 1in cubes and place in a large pot.  Cover with water (potatoes should just be covered with water) and bring to a boil.  Reduce heat and cook potatoes until tender. While your potatoes are going...Cook bacon over medium/low until fat has been rendered and the bacon is just starting to brown. Remove bacon and reserve about 2Tbsp fat.   Add your onion.  Cook until onion starts to soften.  Add the garlic and cook everything for about 1 minute.  Sprinkle 1Tbsp flour and cook for another minute or so.  Remove from heat.  Add one cup heavy cream and stir to combine.  Add heavy cream mixture and asparagus to the pot and bring to a boil.  Reduce heat and simmer until asparagus is tender and the soup starts to thickens.  Add salt and pepper to taste.   Enjoy :)

New Year's Resolutions

I know I have made this promise before, but this time I really want to deliver.  I have a million things floating in my head that are just dying to be blogged about and I am setting a resolution this year to find time to actually post them this year.  Cleaning tips, cloth diaper reviews, recipes, funny stories and pictures that want their 15 minutes.  So, here's to finding that 25th hour in the day and making this blog happen!  Happy New Year!

Cloth Diaper Woes

As you may have read in my previous post, we bought a house recently and have been staying with my in-laws until our house is ready.  As I was getting everything ready and we finally made the move, I thought I had it all together (well, as together as one can be with three kids under 4 and a busy farmer for a husband.)  I was excited to be doing laundry in a house with a water softener because our old house had crazy hard water and stain removal and the dingy's were a constant battle.  That is until I had to wash the cloth diapers.  We have used cloth diapers on all of our kids and have never had a problem.  It did take a lot of research and a little bit of tooling around with the amount of detergent and the number of rinses before I figured out what worked best for our water, but once I had the formula I never had an issue. And then we moved.  The soft water I had been looking forward to has now become the bane of my existence.  I know they say to use less detergent and more rinses.  Did it.  Try washing more often.  Did it.  Try stripping and starting over.  Did it.  I am tempted to try vinegar, but have heard such mixed reviews that I don't know if I want to risk it.  I miss my cleaning smelling, easy to wash, super absorbent diapers!  Currently I do a cold wash with 1tsp detergent, hot wash with about a tablespoon of detergent and then up to three rinses.  I have tried less to detergent to cut down on the rinses, but then the diapers smell disgusting and worse than disgusting after they are used.  It didn't help that my father-in-law was trying to be helpful one day and threw the diapers into the dryer after only the cold wash...I think he may have baked in the stink ;)  He meant well so I guess I'll give him a pass.  I never thought I would be doing laundry, longing for my hard water back!  

We are finally finishing up with the updates on our new house and plan to move in this week.  I am seriously considering not hooking up the water softener.  I hate hard water stains, but I don't know if I can take the smelly diapers!  I think a little extra cleaning might be easier to handle than the eye-watering stench of a cloth diaper with soap build-up.  I guess the grass isn't always greener on the other side and the water isn't always better!  Maybe there is a way to have both soft water and clean diapers, but I'm not sure I have the time to figure it out.  They can't smell any worse though, so maybe I should just fiddle with the softener and see what happens.  Wish me luck!  

New House, New Cleaning Routine

We just bought our first house a few miles away from the farm in Dousman.  It is a little bit bigger than our rental down the street from the farm, but still nice and cozy.  We are in the process of fixing it up so we can actually live in it and as you might know, remodeling can get a little dirty.  Between all the dust from demo, the soot from chimney removal and walking in and out a million times a day, the dirt has kind of taken over.  Being a little OCD about laundry, I couldn't take the kids black socks anymore so, even though I know there will be more dust and it might seem futile, I HAD to wash the floors.  Might not seem like a big deal, right?  Well we have hardwood floors in the living room that we just had refinished (beautiful job Robert Nelson from Nelson Flooring) and laminate in the kitchen and dining area so I couldn't just whip out any old thing to clean it with.  The guys who did the hardwoods recommended WATER ONLY and I knew laminate could be touchy too.  I decided to swiffer the floors with a dry cloth and then go back over it with a very slightly damp cloth.  Worked great! Floors are now sock approved and ready for action.  But I got to thinking: If I can't use cleaning products on my new floors, what am I going to to do with the swiffer sweeper and wet jet that I had been using?  I know I can use the dry cloth, but what about tougher messes?  I tried wetting the swiffer dry cloths and that worked for now, but with all the hard surfaces, I know I will be going through a lot more of them than I had been.  Hmmm...what to do... I know!  I'll make my own pads!  What about cleaning solution?  Hello Google!  There are about a thousand videos and tutorials on making your own pads, but more importantly reusing the swiffer wet jet bottle.  So now I can put all my awesome sewing skills and some of the extra cloth diapers doublers that I have to good use!  And I can keep using my wet jet with plain water instead of cleaning solution.  I knew my husband was pretty smart, but who knew deciding to have the floor refinished instead of carpeted would actually end up saving us money in the end! 

New Posts coming soon!

I know I started this blog and then just let it trail away.  I made promises of recipes and never came through.  Well, let's not think of those promises as broken.  Let's call them extremely delayed.  I am going to be maintaining this blog again as soon as I have time.  As some of you may know we recently added to our family and things have been a little hectic around here.  I would like to thank anyone who has been checking for updates to this blog.  Your curiosity will soon be rewarded!  I might not make large posts right away, but I would like to get some of the recipes going and work from there.  Once the holiday craziness dies down I will be able to give you more.  Thanks for your patience and I'll see you soon!

Here is the reason for all the delays!

I guess it's not fair to blame it all on her...but together they are a time sucking tornado!  I wouldn't have it any other way :)

Recipes Coming Soon!

I am gathering my recipes and trying to decide which ones would be good to share.  I have loads of recipes...in my head.  Most of the things I make are not from a written recipe, so I am having to write down and try to quantify the ingredients for each dish as I add them so I have something to post other than the finished product.  The other problem is deciding which recipes are even worthy of being posted.  Do I go with the simple and quick meals that are good for busy families?  Do I focus on the recipes that only use fresh ingredients and R-Meat?  Do I only post the show stoppers?  The recipes that make me drool typing about them?  I could always just go with a mix of everything.  The quick and tasty, fresh and delicious and the drool worthy.  Variety is the spice of life after all so I guess that is the way to go.  

I made a stir fry the other day and decided that I might want to post it so I had better write it down and take some pictures.  Writing down the ingredients was pretty straight forward; I started with a pretty easy recipe.  The picture taking...now that was a learning experience.  First I lined up all my ingredients in pretty pinch bowls.  I piled all the veggies on a pretty cutting board and arranged the other ingredients around them.  I took a few photographs and rearranged them. Took a few more pictures.  Then I realized I forgot an ingredient...  Start again.  After getting the perfect shot of my ingredients it was on to the composition of the meal.  And a picture of each step.  I wash my hands a lot when I cook anyway, but I think I went through a bottle of soap in this one meal.  I couldn't touch the camera with greasy, wet, or food-particled hands, right?  And to get the perfect shot I needed to make sure I stopped after every teensy step so people would know what I was doing, right?  So of course I had to take a picture of the oil in the pan (wash your hands.)  And the meat as it hit the pan (wash your hands.)  And the meat after it cooked for a minute (I don't think I washed my hands this time.)  And the veggies when they hit the pan (wash your hands.)  You get the idea.  I continued taking my pictures from every angle imaginable, trying to get that cookbook worthy shot I had in my head.  I learned that when the steam is rising from the pan, an overhead shot is probably not the best... I also discovered that the light coming from the hood over the stove is not really "ideal" for photographs.  Oh well.  Live and learn.  It kind of takes the "cooking" out of cooking to document it this way.  It was a little weird at first, but once I started seeing the dish I was making as more of an art piece than a meal, it was really fun.  I think I get so caught up in my life sometimes that making dinner becomes more about getting food in peoples bellies expeditiously than actually creating a food experience.  I look forward to creating my next meal experience and documenting it for you (even with all the hand washing.) 

In the end, I got more than dry hands and dirty dishes, I got some valuable experience and some nice photos.  I will post that first recipe as soon as I finish editing the photos and tweeking the written recipe.  I am really excited to share our recipes with you!  Super Mac's mom was a great cook and I have some of her recipes that I think people will go nuts over.  I plan to have some of the recipes follow the growing season.  Some of the recipes to look forward to in May/June:  Asparagus Soup, Strawberries and Cream Pie, Pork Chops with Grilled Asparagus and Wild Rice,  Strawberry Rhubarb Crumble.  Yum!  I hope you enjoy reading and trying our recipes as much as I do creating them!  

Until next time,

Nicole

Happy Mom's Day!

    Happy Mother's Day to all the mother's out there.  We spent the day playing outside at the park and it was WONDERFUL!  We played on the jungle gym...well we tried to get Mac Jr. to play on the jungle gym.  He wasn't really having it.  He was more into throwing sand on himself and riding the giant salamander in the sandbox.  We took a walk down a path that follows the river through the park and looked at the paddle boats.  They had a few that were shaped like animals; a dragon and a swan to be specific.  I wasn't sure we were gonna make it any farther down the path for a minute there.  Mac Jr.  was extremely disappointed he didn't get to ride the "dino", but we managed to distract him long enough to make our escape and keep walking.  We took some pictures by the river rocks and by this old well called "Hobo Spring."  Then we headed back to the jungle gym to try the slides and climbing stuff again.  It looked like he was just gonna have another meltdown, but a few times down the slide with "Ham" (he calls my sister Sam, "Ham".  Isn't that too cute?) and he was loving it!  He wanted to go on all the slides.  I made sure to snap about a 100 photos of him smiling on the slides.  You can never have too many slide pictures...or smiling kid pictures, right?  
    Every time I look at the pictures of our family today (even the ones of Mac Jr. flailing to get away to go play) it will bring a smile to my face.  This might sound corny, but spending time as a family is my favorite thing to do.  We have such busy lives that we never get to spend as much time together as we would like.  Super Mac works from before dawn till after dusk and that doesn't leave much time to just play.  Days like these make me feel so full; full of life and happiness and most of all love.  I have the two greatest boys any mother could ask for.  

Later tonight, we will be meeting my mom and dad for dinner at the Machine Shed.  Good food and family will make for a great end to a perfect day.  I could say I wish everyday was like this, but I think I appreciate them much more this way. 

I hope everyone had a wonderful mother's day.  I hope you got to spend it with your kids or at least someone you care about and who cares about you.  Until next time!  

Nicole

P.S.  Thought you might want to meet the men in my life:

 It's my Farmer, it's the best Daddy ever,  it's SUPER MAC! (This picture makes me drool a little...My very own gentle giant, or Shrek, except hot...

The Mac Jr!!!!!!!!!!!!  a.k.a. Tony a.k.a. Stinksaronious a.k.a. Doodle a.k.a.  Mackay Anthony 
Really surprised this kid knows his name.  

My Little Will.  William Walter.  He's got his Grandpa's ears and the cutest smile you've ever seen!  He thinks his brother is the greatest thing in the world and Mac Jr thinks that rocks.  They look at each other and giggle, and Mac Jr giggles because Will is giggling at him and Will giggles because Mac Jr is giggling...it could go on forever.  It is those moments that make life great. 


Love you Guys!  Thanks for being my babies!