Patchwork

I don't care for perfectly matching fabrics, nor do I like totally random; I like to see the fabric all speaking the same language, I'm looking for the theme.  Look at my patchwork here:  to me, all these fabrics have something to say in dark, bold colors.

Utensil/straw rolls made for J

 I literally lay fabrics next to each other to see if they speak the same language.  Their message surprises me constantly!  Like a chorus, maybe, where the different parts create harmony as well as dissonance in service of the whole song.

Hotpads made for my friends R & P

 I know some patchworkers use viewing tools and computer programs to match the fabric to their liking:  good for them, not for me.  I prefer fast and loose with a whiff of mystery:  how will it turn out?  Not always to my liking, but always interesting.

What I Did Yesterday

Friends! I was swept under the tide of big kids' activities this fall, and I dropped everything I could to keep my nose above the water.  For me, that meant keeping up with the laundry, good food, and bills/paperwork, and everything else had to wait. I'm eager to get back to you!  

Last week, Phoebe and I picked out a custom blend of apples to make applesauce: Fuji, Grimes Golden, Gold Rush, and Smokehouse. Twenty bucks for two bushels of apples, a good price.  I really should have read my canning notebook more closely, though, because I would have met my applesauce goal with 1 1/2 bushels.  In the spring sometime, I take inventory of the preserved food in freezer and cupboard, and then I set some targets for the year's preserving.  

So I stashed the apples in the basement until I could clear a day to make applesauce.  Phoebe was keen to help, hooray, so I planned for a day when she did not have preschool, but her help couldn't extend much beyond washing jars.  Hot apples in a food mill are too much for a four-year-old.  

I made a grand total of 33 quarts of applesauce yesterday.  Oh, I was tired! I did not do laundry, go food shopping, or editing.  I stood in the kitchen and canned.  But the resulting applesauce, from those four kinds of apples, is so delicious: deeply rich apple flavor with no sugar needed, thanks to the sweet Fujis.  And now my canning goals for the year are all crossed off.  

Putting some tomato-canning photos in here as well!

Here's my list from this year, basically in chronological order: 

7 half-pints strawberry freezer jam

18 pints frozen blueberries

13 pints frozen sour cherries

25 pints frozen corn

17 pints dilly beans

3 quarts frozen green beans

8 pints pickled red beets

9 pints bread & butter pickles

3 half-pints blueberry syrup

5 half-pints pickle relish

10 pints 7-day sweet pickles

5 half-pints duck sauce

2 quarts frozen grape pie filling

3 quarts grape juice

4 half-pints spiced grape butter

21 pints pizza sauce

14 quarts tomato soup

28 quarts whole tomatoes

7 half-pints pimentos

3 half-pints peach jam

33 quarts applesauce

And I'm back on the laundry today, with a grocery shop planned as well. 

Red Sundress, Almost Kitschy

This is a summer work dress: cool and breezy in 100% cotton, printed and dark enough to look decent through splashes and dirt from canning and gardening, and not restrictive at all for lifting and bending and wrangling and the full workout. I love it!

The bandanna fabric could be cutesy and kitschy; I sort of itched to pair it with rick rack or calico or even some crocheted lace.  But no: cute is not my look.  But still: I wanted just a little pizzazz somewhere.

  Look closely at the yoke in the front:  I hand-sewed running stitches in black and white perle cotton around some of the circles and squares!  Subtle and happy. 

Also, inside the dress, I made the channel for the drawstring out of striped blue cotton and finished the hem in light blue bias tape.  I really need a little fizz somewhere in my clothes, a little patchwork effect if you will.

I used this dress pattern seven years ago, the second dress I ever made for myself.  This time around, I did not widen the bodice, and I'm really pleased with the fit.  I wish I had made the red dress a touch longer.  Also, I have to say I no longer own that plaid sundress because the fabric turned out to be part polyester as plaids often can be, and I really cannot abide that wrapped-in-plastic feeling in the summer.

Genevieve took these photos of me as I ripped the unholy mess of cucumbers out of my raised beds.  That was extremely satisfying. 

The Summer of the Cucumbers

I have accidentally not blogged since June! Hello! How is your summer going now that it is ending? Mine was really nice and I have no reason for the lack of blogging except perhaps I was buried under a heap of cucumbers?

My family loves kosher dills/fermented cukes/sour pickles so much, and I had a hard time finding good pickling cukes, so I decided to use my raised bed space for cucumbers instead of green beans this year. I have tried cucumbers maybe once or twice before and got basically nothing: the vines wilted or the leaves got powdery or something ate everything.

Well. I planted the whole packet of Parisian Pickling Cucumbers, timing them to be ready once we got home from our big Seattle trip (there's a post!) and figuring that I'd only get a handful anyway if I was lucky.  Well no.  Turns out, this is The Summer When All the Cucumbers Grow.  All my friends who planted cucumbers are overflowing and pickling and laughing in disbelief.

As a cucumber novice, I am not very good at getting the buggers at the little pickling size I wanted. Overnight, they grew six inches into logs!  Which were bitter and seedy and tossed on the compost pile.

I made gallons and gallons of fermented cukes (method below).  I also made two batches of bread and butter pickles from the Mennonite Community Cookbook, as well as 7-Day-Sweets, a childhood favorite that involved pouring boiling water over the cukes several days in a row to make them crisp.  Why does this work?  I don't know, but it does.

I made pickle relish, fridge pickles, and salad after salad.  Because I planted so many plants close together and did not water them regularly, but regularly let some of them get too big, I had to deal with bitter cucumbers.  I tried cutting off the stem end and then rubbing it on the cut end until a bitter white foam came out.  I tried salting sliced cukes and then rinsing them.  My best success was slicing cukes and soaking them in salted ice water for about an hour, then draining and rinsing.

Last week, the cucumber plants finally showed signs of slowing down, so I yanked them out.  I still have over 1 1/2 gallons of fermented dills in the fridge, plus fridge pickles, and a crisper drawer full of cucumbers.  On my to-do list:  "decide what to do with cukes."  I guess we will eat pickles for every meal this winter?

Did you plant cucumbers this year and get a roaring crop? Or is something else bursting from your garden?

Fermented Dill Pickles

In a half gallon glass jar, combine:
1 Tbsp. fine sea salt (not iodized)
1 quart room temperature non-chlorinated water
1 Tbsp. dill seeds
1 tsp. dill weed
1-2 garlic cloves, sliced

Stir and/or set aside until salt is dissolved.

Wash and trim ends from small pickling cucumbers - I usually kept them under 4" and a thumb-size diameter. Drop them into the brine, shaking and pushing to fill up the jar but making sure they can all be submerged. May need to add a little more water and salt.   Keep the pickles submerged under brine by filling a smaller jar with water and capping it and setting it in the jar on top of the pickles.
Set jar in room temperature for 48 hours.  Should see foam and bubbling action.  Scrape off the foam before capping and storing in fridge. Keeps indefinitely in fridge. Sometimes I use a cup or so of the brine in a new jar of fermented dills. If you have fresh dill, use 2 heads or so in place of the dried stuff.

Bag Lady

Here is a vintage apron that a child-who-shall-not-be-named got silver paint and tacky substances on.  To be fair, the apron was given to this child in desperation that clothing not be ruined in experiments that parents generally despaired of, but still.  I salvaged some unstained parts, including the pocket, and made it into a produce bag for my market cart. I have a lot of pretty bias tape, and I've been using it on purpose recently I guess so I can feel free to find more at the thrift store. That's a weird little mind trap!

I did a sewing-for-massage trade with a friend (so wonderful!).  The piece she asked me to resize was from Nepal and when the scraps where tumbled on my floor, I suddenly saw a bag to make.  The solid colors are so great and strong together, and that pretty ruffle is just right.  I actually used the scraps entirely to make this bag.  Satisfying.

The last bag ushers in a new era: an e-reader.  Oh my.  I do adore books, but I could not picture fitting enough books in my luggage and carry-on to keep me happy for an upcoming trip.  Obviously an e-reader is the way to take 40 books along, most for me but a few for my husband and kids just in case.  I only bought two with a coupon that came with the e-reader.  The rest are free downloads, mostly old books whose copyright has expired and have been digitized for such a time as this. Here is the helpful article that led me to books I wanted to read.

The e-reader seems sturdy enough, but I still feel pretty protective towards any screens I have purchased (and let me tell you, it has been a new phone and a new iPad recently, too, and I am sick of it). So I made a little padded bag - sturdy upholstery fabric on the outside, batting scraps in the middle, and lined with a flannel shirt scrap from my husband - with the pocket positioned to hold the charger.  I'm very pleased with it. 

Singapore Street Noodles

My husband found this recipe somewhere online and cooked it with Ben when it was Ben's turn to make supper.  Total keeper recipe!  We all love it. I've tweaked it a bit, and I've also subbed in whatever vegetables and protein I had on hand: the sauce is the important part.

I loved the street food scene in Crazy Rich Asians because I love food.  Eating Singapore Street Noodles gives me a tiny little connection to the food on screen.

To cook this recipe, do all the prep and chopping first.  Once the wok for the stir-frying part gets going, you won't have time to chop anything or untie a jump-rope or check a child's "cleaned" room or supervise screen time.  Or maybe that's just me.

Singapore Street Noodles

Cook and set aside:
16 oz. pasta or rice noodles, skinny strands preferred - toss with 1 Tbsp. sesame oil after cooking to prevent sticking

Mix and set aside:
1/2 cup oyster sauce

2 Tbsp. soy sauce
2 Tbsp. ketchup
1 Tbsp. rice vinegar
2 Tbsp. curry powder
1 tsp. sriracha, or to taste (some of us add more at the table)

Stir fry in large skillet or wok over high heat:
2 Tbsp. oil
8 oz. chopped, raw chicken breast

Add and cook for 2 minutes:
1 Tbsp. minced garlic
1 cup thinly sliced cabbage
1/2 cup julienned carrots
2 tomatoes, diced

Add:
8 oz. peeled raw shrimp
sauce

Stir and cook for 2-3 minutes.
Add cooked noodles - use tongs to lift and toss and combine well for 2-3 minutes.

Turn off heat.  Add:
1/2-1 cup chopped cilantro
4-5 spring onions in 1" lengths

Notes: I don't usually use chicken.  I use more shrimp or sub tofu or mushrooms. Boneless skinless chicken breasts are super-expensive if you buy local, organic chicken; the reasonable price is a whole chicken, and I can't be bothered to skin and bone a breast for this.

The Results

We got back our test results for our backyard soil, and it is contaminated with lead. This has been keeping me up at night, stirred into the dire climate/environmental situation, worried about my family's health and the future. In all the years we have gotten extra blood tests for our children, they have never had elevated lead levels.  So I'm thankful for that.  

But I'm so sad about our soil!  Now that the black walnut tree is gone, I have sun and so much growth in the mint and the berries.  I am going to do a more focused soil test, to see if the beds are all contaminated, or just the area by the house which is typical of old houses with their former lead paint. 

I still have my raised beds with their clean soil that we brought in, so I'm growing edibles there; I may need to rip out my berry bushes and mint - I'm assuming that once a plant has been grown in lead-tainted soil, it doesn't help to transplant to clean soil. 

New this year, I colonized a ledge with two big planters filled with nasturtium seeds.  Little babies are coming up! I will never get over that excitement. I had wanted to plant grapes to climb up our side porch posts, but given our lead situation, I planted a clematis instead.  Perhaps I will become a flower gardener and rely on the excellent farmer's market 2 blocks away for my local produce.  Perhaps that is my silver lining - that I can plant all the flowers, instead of prioritizing for edibles. Poppies! Peonies! A lilac bush!

We planted our little oak tree, free from a city grant program.  It's barely taller than the irises, and I'm trying to be all mature about "planting for future generations" when I just want it to hurry up and give us some sheltering shade. 

Our street tree, a zelkova, is growing tremendously.  I planted some red creeping thyme as a groundcover in the tree well, and now I'm going to add some fencing because I think the neighborhood dogs are peeing in a corner and killing my thyme. 

I feel better for having written this all down.  This helps me have some perspective and cling to the good parts of this story and my life, instead of focusing on the bad and chewing on it to feed despair.  Today is a beautiful, breezy spring day, and I'm going to go out and sow some cilantro seeds in my  raised beds.  Onward!