From the Garden

Still working on using the garden produce, I have a lovely crop of fava beans this year. Not sure if you do this, but I tend to get excited about planting food crops without really considering what I am going to do with them. So I have all these fava beans....Now What???

Well I found this really cool recipe called Fooll Mudammes. Actually I saw it for the first time when Anthony Bourdain was in Egypt. It is a traditional breakfast food in Egypt. Here is the recipe if anyone else wants to try it. It looks really good.

I will report back tomorrow!

Using What You Have

I have instituted a big spending freeze for the time being. Not because of any dire circumstances or anything, just because I have a lot of stuff and it needs to be used or let go.

This includes all the wonderful growth out in my garden as well. I have been so bad at using what I grow. I tend to love to watch it grow and wait to long to harvest it. So with that in mind the lavender bushes are in full bloom right now. Aren't they amazing? I wanted to find a way to use them when I stumbled upon this project

It is called a lavender wand. They are fairly simple to make. Your hands just need to get used to the motions. All it takes is 39 stems of lavender and 3 yards of ribbon. They dry beautifully and stay fragrant. I love these!

Garden Fresh!

from here....

to here in 15 minutes.
Carrots and kale fresh from the garden in a light balsamic glaze.

Promises of plums to come

Carrots emerging

green bean seedling reaching for the sky

This year, one of our Easter activities was to start the many seeds we will need for our summer garden. It seemed like to perfect activity to connect the children with the many beginnings and endings of life. Plus I love any activity that gets them all to sit down and be together for a while. We had a grand time digging through the seed box to see what we had for the coming months. Starting our pumpkins generated grand discussions about Halloween plans and all the different things we like to make with our yummy pumpkins. While planting the eggplants, we remembered roasting these black beauties and making the best fritters ever! I felt such a thrill as we planted each thing and my children chatted happily about the memories each plant evoked. This is what I want for my family. This is the life I am striving for.

Easter Treasures

We love to paint around here and since we mix our own paint from stockmar water color pigment concentrates we needed something to store our paint in. Each of our children received one of these beautiful handcrafted paint jar holders. I found it on etsy from the Wood Clinic shop. So much painting happened yesterday that I now need to go and buy more water color paper!

Mike is a wonderful person to work with and his product is top notch!

Look Out For Large Brown Hare

He is known to leave presents! What a lovely and very simple holiday we had this year. No driving, no fuss. Just plenty of hand crafted presents and a fabulous hunt for eggs in the garden. It was chilly and a bit damp but fun was had by all. Cap it all off with crepes ala Donni and strawberry sauce, a nice way to use up all those egg guts and dumpster strawberries, and you have one happy family!