The Last of the Garlic

Rachel found some local garlic back in July and I am now down to the last few bulbs of my half bushel.  Good to know For the Record. 

I adore garlic and I don't use a garlic press:  I chop it fine and put it in at the end of a cooked dish, so its flavor can be noticed.  Or I use it raw (pesto, salad dressing, hummus, etc.).  Yum.  My mother says my children smell like garlic.

And speaking of Rachel, I made her this flower as a thank you  - she knows what she did. 

And the wrapping of the little flower necessitated the holepunch, which led to an Accidental Clean.  I like how my life is all connected!

An Accidental Clean Leading to a Marker Roll

Have you noticed I haven't written about zone cleaning for a while?  It's just the dailies getting done around here recently - meals, laundry, Sparkle & Shine.  But sometimes the messes push me right over the edge and I find myself doing An Accidental Clean (Rebecca's term).

Last Saturday, I needed the hole punch and I was afraid that it was at the bottom of the children's drawer.

I meant to have Genevieve work with me, to show her a little organizational methodology, but I just couldn't bear it any longer so I ripped into it and made a very efficient job of it. . . .

until I realized the markers had no boxes or containers anymore.  The short story is that the markers remained on top of the dining room buffet, a visual to-do list, until I sewed a marker roll for them.

  The colored pencil wrap/roll was moderately successful, but I am pleased to say that this one is wholly successful. 

And cute, in my opinion.  And nice to sew something for my family for a change.

The Difference Between Gumbo and Jambalaya

My husband grew and froze okra last year, and it's burning a hole in my freezer now.  So I figured I would make some jambalaya.

Good thing I did a little research.  In an anti-scholarship mood because I'm at the tail end of my grad class, here's what I recall from my google searches and links:

Jambalaya is a Creole one-pot dish with rice.  It starts with the Southern cooking holy trinity:  onion, celery, bell pepper.  It usually has spicy sausage, seafood of some kind, and chicken.  It has tomatoes and the seasonings usually include black pepper, cayenne, and thyme.

 "Gumbo" is derived from an African language word for "okra." Gumbo is more like a stew that is thickened with okra when it is in season or file powder (sassafras) otherwise; some people do thicken it with a roux.  Otherwise it has the same elements as jambalaya, except no rice.

Now, there are a million variations on that theme and I hope some of you tell me yours in the comments.

 I made up my own variation:
- nixed the chicken because it just takes on flavors and anyway, I was using flavorful homemade chicken stock
- used chorizo because the store was out of andouille sausage and the nice guy said chorizo is just spicier, that's all
-used lots of vegetables, with the meat and seafood added for flavor

 . . .and it was so fabulous we ate every bit.  That could be a comment on my cooking or on gumbo itself.  Maybe you should try to figure it out in your kitchen!

Thrift at Home Gumbo

First, make shrimp-shell infused chicken stock. 
Peel about 1 cup shrimp (mine were frozen, so I thawed them first), setting them back in the fridge and reserving the shells. 

Add the shells to 1-2 cups chicken stock and simmer for at least 30 minutes - longer with the lid off will reduce and strengthen the chicken stock, which could be a good, needful thing.

Saute in cast-iron Dutch oven:

1-2 onions, chopped
1 bell pepper, chopped
3-4 stalks celery, chopped

Add 1/4-1/2 cup chorizo or andouille sausage, finely chopped.

Add (all approximations):
1/2 tsp. thyme
1/4 tsp. oregano
1/4 tsp. sage
fresh ground black pepper
cayenne

Add the shrimp-shell infused chicken stock, straining out the shells and discarding.
Add 1-2 cups tomatoes, fresh or canned.
Add 1 cup chopped (thawed) okra

Cover and simmer 20-30 minutes

Turn off heat.  Add chopped shrimp.  Allow to sit 5-10 minutes, covered, to cook shrimp.  Serve as a stew with bread because you will want to swipe every last bit out of your bowl.

Mr. Thrift Trashpicks

(say that title real fast a few times!  and then tell me in the comments about your trashpicking or trashpicking avoidance)

My husband found a box of lincoln logs in a pile of moving-out trash curbside.  Trash-picking is a perk of having neighbors and in the city, we have a lot of neighbors.  Both our children's bikes were trashpicked.

The lincoln logs are more remarkable for my children because we are reading about Laura and Mary's Pa who builds houses.

Like Pa, Genevieve has been building houses with whatever she can get her hands on - she calls this creation in the backyard an ant house.

Ben likes Lego.

When my children's faces look like this, I ask them do they have a mommy. 

And if yes, why does she let them go around with such dirty, snotty faces?

Goodbye Butternut, Hello Dandelion

We ate the last winter squash two weeks ago (duly noted for next year's plan and storage).  I made a pureed soup and then Three Sisters' Stew which reminds me of a southwestern chili.  Apparently the Native Americans called corn, beans, and squash the three sisters.  Blurry photo, but documented.

And then, hallelujah, the dandelion sprouted in our yard and appeared on market.

We ate it on a bed of roasted potatoes, with hot bacon dressing and chopped hardboiled egg.  Delish. With biscuits and strawberry jam on the side.  Hello, spring!  We sure are ready to have you back.

Thrifty Business Cards

I keep taking timid steps into business. After looking at business cards online, I made my own on Microsoft Word. I made sure they were the right size by holding a friend's business card up to the screen. I'm very low-tech.

Then I printed them on card stock and sewed them onto little scraps of fabric.  My husband shakes his head at my labor-intense business cards, but I get a little thrill out of using these pretty little scraps, the embodiment of my thrift-is-beautiful philosophy.  And no one else has business cards like mine!

However, I postponed my outside sales event that I was madly preparing due to forecasts for snow, wind, and rain.  And then the skies cleared a few hours before the scheduled time!!  How annoying.  I consoled myself by noticing it was still cold and there had been snow in the morning.

So I listed some things in the shop instead.  And poked hopefully at my lily of the valley.

The Orange Wrap

I was commissioned to make this shawl wrap for a friend who is getting married.  It needed to be orange and whimsical.  I experimented with what I secretly call "messy applique" - the pieces are stitched on with loopy, multiple stitch lines and the raw edges all hang out.  It has a fresh look that I'm falling in love with, although it was not as fast or simple as I thought it would be. 

I am, however, pleased with this wrap.  I had three days to execute it and that included shopping for the fabric with children in tow.. . children who are starting to catch on that the fabric store is a "treat" only for mommy.