Herb to Skin - Homemade Herbal Soap

I haven't talked about the garden for awhile.  The daylight will be getting a little longer now and I'll start to look forward to spring and getting back out into the dirt.  Meanwhile I'm looking to January and thinking about how I'm going to set up the downstairs nursery.  Soon it will be time to start some seedlings.  I'm thinking about what to plant and when. Last year I learned how to garden indoors and get a jump on the season.  The second year at the seedling planting, we've learned a few things, it should go better than last.

I met my friend Morgaine out in the our garden a few seasons ago and when she saw the all the herbs she asked me what I did with them.  At that time all I did was dry them.  She asked if I made my own essential oils and I said no, but there was an immediate,  loud, conversation in my brain.  Essential oils are expensive, I buy them, I did make some of my own cleaning products with them and use them on dried flowers, etc.  I would make them if I knew how.  Is it something I can learn?  Of course it is, I don't have a problem learning how to make anything I've tried. Yes, next year I will make oils. Does she know how to make oils? Last Christmas she made some wonderful herb soaps and body sprays. She gave us some of her sage soaps, lotion, and sprays right before we went to Baja.  I took it with us and every time I used it thereafter, I thought of our wonderful trip in Baja, a little aroma therapy working. Is it difficult? do I have to buy equipment? maybe she'll teach me how. How cool is that, I must do this!

So this year I planted a few more of the herbs: lemon basil, Thai basil, the big leaf green basil, two kinds of sage, thyme, rosemary, cilantro, parsley, lavender, and fennel. I call it herb hill.

Lemon Basil

Sage

Isabelle stood on herb hill this season.

I picked the herbs, dried some as usual, and this year I made oils.  I also picked some organic lavender in Sequim in July.  I couldn't grow enough here for oil The lavender oil takes quite a bit of flowers.  It was 16 tablespoons per steeping and I think it was strained and steeped four times.  The oils came out great, I used organic olive oil so I can also use them in cooking.  The sage and rosemary I picked the first hour of the full moon in September and steeped them until the next moon.  They are supposed to have the fullest potency then according to some old Farmer's Almanacs and a pretty good book I read this year about the lunar cycles, Lunar Calender, The Art of Timing.

Last night for the first time I found soap making.  It was easy and fun.  I bought the materials hoping to do that on a day off soon.  This time of year is very slow at work, it will be pretty quiet until January 3 when the holidays are over.  I usually end up taking a couple vacation days. I thought I'd just try a little this weekend and turns out it was so easy I ended up using all the soap base I purchased, eight pounds.  I do have some holiday gifts to give that I didn't count on.  That's pretty fun.

For one batch I used a goats milk base and added lavender and sage.  To the olive oil base I added rosemary and sage oils.  I also added some quinoa seeds and crushed sage for texture and skin softening.  The third batch is an avocado cucumber base which I added rosemary oil, citrus zest, and quinoa seeds.  The fourth soap is a Shea butter base with lavender oil and quinoa, lots of lavender oil. It smells wonderful.

Thanks for the inspiration Morgaine. You've helped me realize that I'm a kitchen witch too.

Winter Squash Polenta - Vegan

I made some polenta this weekend with a roasted sweet meat squash.  I made the polenta per the basic directions, 6 cups water, 2 cups polenta.  Simmer about 30 minutes, stirring frequently.  When most the liquid was absorbed, about 15 minutes in, I added about 2 cups roasted squash puree and a can of coconut milk and continued to cook for another 15 minutes, stirring a lot.  Then I removed it from the heat, added about 3 TB sage olive oil, a dash of sea salt, and a TB of pumpkin honey.

I served it warm in a bowl of marinated mixed vegetables.  The vegetables all came from our garden and were marinated and canned by my friend, Morgaine.  She has a real knack for combining herbs and oils in interesting ways.  The flavor is really nice.  That is one of the fun parts of sharing the garden, sometimes it comes back in different forms.

Winter Sun

We had some sunshine all around this weekend.  Clear skies most the weekend. We even got a chance to get out to the garden and do some winter clean up and just be outside.  My son is in Alaska awaiting a plane to Hawaii, it's taken about three days so far to get from Afghanistan to California.  He called from Siberia Friday morning, stopped in Germany, Alaska, Hawaii, and then will be in his own home sometime next week.  I know his family is thrilled, I am.  His wife called last night to tell me she received a text and then he called right after that. He made it back!

The Brussels Sprouts are Happy

New Garlic

The other son has also been given a clearance to be able to live at our house when he gets to come home.  We were told that wouldn't be possible and the thought that this could never be his home again hasn't been fun. That was a ray of hope.

So, it's on to the holiday season and I've decided to get a tree, decorate a little, and celebrate the love this holiday season.  I went to a few bazaars to see if I could drum up a little holiday spirit and it worked.  I wandered through the pretty things and handmade goodies and talked to artists and old ladies and shared some smiles. I picked up some nice gifts and got some great ideas for my own crafty projects. We are still a family, if only two, but we are a family.  Our granddaughter has also been placed in our daily lives to help with this empty nest. That is a big blessing. There is a lot of love in my life!


"If you are patient in a moment of anger, you will escape a hundred days of sorrow." 
Chinese Proverb

Fall's Beauty

Every season has its special beauty and autumn is no exception. Watching the trees turn from a uniform green to all varieties of gold, yellow and red is a spectacular experience. One can almost be blinded by the fiery brilliance. How can it be that all this beauty is sign of death and decay? With all this beauty there is a certain sadness in knowing that the changing colors foreshadow the arrival of a long cold winter.

Fall By Family Friend Poems / CC BY 3.0

Homegrown Bean Enchiladas

Homegrown because the beans are from the garden as well as many other ingredients.

I cooked white beans until almost soft but still have some texture.  I then made re-fried beans with a bit of coconut oil and mashed some of them.  I added a pint of Morgaine's black bean salsa and cooked that together for a few minutes.

The verde sauce:  Fresh tomatillos, green peppers, garlic, lime juice, cumin, sea salt and fresh ground pepper.

Added a tablespoon of beans to a corn tortilla and a tablespoon of shredded almond chedder cheeze and jalapeño jack rice cheeze.  I put a layer of the verde sauce on the bottom of a 9x13 pan, rolled the enchiladas in the sauce and then poured the rest of the sauce on top of the prepared enchiladas.  I topped it with the cheeze and baked at 400 for about 40 minutes until the cheese was melted and toasty.

I made some chipotle creme with coconut creme, chipotle chili powder, cumin, cayenne, and lime juice.

These are vegetarian enchiladas.  I was hoping for vegan as I bought some almond and rice cheeses.  I have to read the packages better before I buy something at the market. I found out when I got home and took a closer look at the ingredients that they both contain casein.  That's milk protein. Of the many reasons I don't want to ingest cow's milk is the animal protein. Casein has been shown to increase the growth of certain cancers.  It's one of the very first studies discussed in the China Study. The nut cheeses I bought are healthier than dairy cheese since they don't have the fat and cholesterol and made with almonds and brown rice. But, I thought I was buying dairy free cheese.  I used them because I had already bought them, I am a flexitarian. Next time I guess should really just make the nut cheese myself.

I should remember one of Dr. Leslie Van Romer's food  rules: "If it has a package, I probably shouldn't be buying it."

Quinoa with Roasted Squash and Greens

I took the rest of the roasted squash, a pumpkin, a delicata, and the butternut squash and cut them up in about 1 inch cubes and tossed them with some quinoa.  Then I sauteed a red onion, rough chopped portabello, some fresh green beans, garlic, a little sea salt and pepper and then added chopped Swiss chard and tossed it about until the chard was just wilted.

Creamy Leeky Potato Soup Sans Cream

Creamy Potato Soup with leeks, red onion, garlic, celery, red bell pepper, yellow and green mild chili peppers, 2 small jalapeños, fresh thyme, fennel, and a some freshly grated nutmeg.

I used some red potatoes from a fellow gardener and a few of the blue potatoes from my garden. Most of the vegetables except the leeks and celery, and the herbs came from our garden. I'm still working on the food we grew this year, even with the strange weather.

I quartered the potatoes and just covered them with a couple cups of vegetable broth and some water. I simmered the potatoes until they were tender then mashed them with roughly in the same water they were cooked in.

In another pan I sauteed the leeks, red onions, garlic, peppers, and fresh herbs. I added the sauteed vegetables to the potato mixture and simmered together for about 15 - 20 minutes.

House smells good today.

Roasted Fall Vegetables

The roasted vegetables are my husband's handiwork. He brought home some very large, tired carrots I wasn't interested in using. I already had a few things going. He said he would peel and clean them. So, I walked him through the process while he prepared the vegetables. He added some parsnips, a large beet, a big yam that needed a home, some homemade garlic chili oil, and fresh herbs. He's my favorite sous chef.

Pumpkin Polenta

I ran across this idea from a blog I read called Gluten Free Goddess.

Her recipe is for four servings, I doubled the polenta recipe to use in other meals later.  I used four cups low sodium vegetable broth, 2 cups water and 2 cups polenta.  When the polenta had absorbed most of the liquid I added 1 can of coconut milk, about 3 cups pumpkin pureé.  The pumpkin came from the garden, but I didn't grow it.  It just appeared in the corn rows.  I assumed it was either a gift or the folks stealing the corn put it down and forgot it.  I also added fresh herbs from my garden, parsley, rosemary, and some purple basil. When it had simmered a little I added 2-3 TB vegan margarine and 1 1/2 TB agave.

Tomatillo-Avocado Salsa Fresca
by Karina Allrich - Gluten Free Goddess

3 tomatillos
1/2 orange or yellow bell pepper
1 Anaheim chili pepper
1 fresh lime
A dash of extra virgin olive oil
A drizzle of raw organic agave nectar
Sea salt, to taste
A handful of fresh chopped cilantro
1 small avocado

Remove the papery skins from the tomatillos and wash the stickiness off with produce soap and water. Roughly chop. Toss into a bowl. Wash and halve the bell pepper; seed and chop one half. Add to the bowl. Stem and clean the chili pepper; dice. Add it in. Drizzle the mix with fresh squeezed lime juice, olive oil and agave nectar. Season with sea salt, to taste. Add in fresh chopped cilantro and stir to combine. Cover and chill till serving.

Just before serving, peel and pit the avocado, dice it and add the avocado to the salsa.

This is the same pumpkin polenta chilled, then sliced and warmed, served with black beans and roasted vegetables (carrots, beets, parsnips, and yams).

Green Tomato Bread

If you live in the Pacific Northwest, I don't have to ask if you had any green tomatoes in your garden this year. I pulled some of the tired tomato plants the other day and brought home a box of red and a box of green tomatoes.  Some of the green ones will ripen, some of them I'll use now.  I googled green tomato recipes and found a few I wanted to work with.  I made two of the bread recipes yesterday, they are both very good. 

They're both called Green Tomato Bread.  Of course I made some changes, I made them both dairy free. One is made with green tomato puree, and molassest.  I used date sugar instead of brown sugar, wild flower honey, grape seed oil, egg replacer instead of the eggs, and roasted pecans instead of walnuts.  It's a dense bread, almost a cake. This one is vegetarian because I used the honey, but if you use agave it is a vegan bread.

The second one, by the Southern Chef in Louisiana, came out a little more light and bread like. This recipe called for two cups of sugar, too much for me, I used 1 cup of agave instead. Other changes I made were: egg replacer instead of eggs, applesauce instead of oil and roasted pecans and cashews.

A Good Day for Gardening

Artichoke Blossom

Well, it wasn't a 70° day, but it was pleasant.  I spent about four hours in the garden and could have done more.  I did work up a bit of a sweat and decided I'd gotten my exercise for the day very early.  Just like a regular workday, noon came before I knew it.  I stayed out until about 1:00 p.m. or so and then went home, ate a nice bowl of beans and spent the afternoon with Rhonda.

The tomatoes are pretty tired now, I think I've gotten what I'm going to get out of them.  I did go home with about ten pounds of red tomatoes and five pounds of some nice green ones I saved.  Many of the ripe tomatoes do look like it's gotten too cold and some have experienced a little freeze. Some of the green ones I will try to ripen and some of them will go into some green tomato recipes.  I think I'm going to try a green tomato bread recipe I saw recently.

I pulled three of them up and worked the soil and planted three varities of garlic in their place, two purple varieties and one white. I think one of them is an elephant garlic.  I do love to roast those.

On top of the garlic I spread the dried seed pods from my shelling beans and a layer of the very large cauliflower leaves for a nice mulch.  I'm looking forward to seeing them blossom in the springtime.  I planted a little more than last year.

After that I dug up the rest of the blue potatoes, at least I think I got them all.  They do look like dirt clods.  I also grabbed a couple pepper plants to hang and let the peppers finish ripening and dry.  I planted quite a few varieties of peppers this year. Anaheim, cayenne, jalepeño, Tennessee cheese, red and green bells, something called New Mexican hot, and a few more I don't remember the names of.  I am thinking of drying them and stringing them in some artistic way for holiday gifts this year.  I came home with a few cucumber, some zucchini, summer squash, a small head of cauliflower, and some lettuce.  There's still lots of work to do. Even though I did work hard yesterday, it was a most peaceful day.

When Rhonda called, I was on my knees very deep in the potato trench.  I'd been working for four hours and when she said, let's go out for awhile, it was perfect timing.  We got to share some time talking about life and her daughter's upcoming wedding in April.  I will be helping with the food, of course.  I've catered many weddings, this will be the first that I will bring many vegan and vegetarian items.  I'm looking forward to this little adventure.

I'm a Gardener Today

Get to have a day of my own today. Starting the day a little slower than usual, sipping my coffee and listening to music. Enjoying a little extra time with my sweetie in the morning. I get to go out and do some work in the garden today.  I'm putting some bigger tools in the car than usual and getting some real work done out there.  I've been waiting for the sun to shine so I can get out there.

We've had a break in the pace at work and the sun has been shining. The weather reports say this could be the last day in the 70's for quite some time. I am fortunate enough to be able to take advantage of it to love my garden a bit today. Since the sun goes down a little earlier, we haven't been able to spend as much time out there. Many chances I've gotten on the weekends, the weather has been wet. There is much to be done. There's still lots of vegetables to be harvested, weeds to pull, and potatoes to be dug up. I can plant my garlic today and get some of the tomatoes and peppers that haven't ripened uprooted so they will ripen indoors. I'm very excited to be outside today. I do so love playing in the dirt. 

Oktoberfest Sans Knockwurst

I made homemade sauerkraut this year.  The first thing I thought of was warm sauerkraut with mashed potatoes and gravy.  Yesterday I picked some beautiful blue potatoes in the garden.

I went a little farther than the mashed potatoes. I made some potato pancakes with a some homemade applesauce, warmed the sauerkraut and grilled some lemon pepper tempeh.  I made a vegan herb gravy with black bean flakes, rosemary, sage, salt and pepper, and garlic, for the tempeh.  It was a fine example of Bavarian Oktoberfest meal, a vegetarian Bavarian meal.

I asked my husband if he enjoyed his dinner. This was his reply...

Friends in the Garden

As I was picking beans last Saturday morning, a man came up behind me because he wanted to meet the person gardening behind his house. He would also like the corn stalks when I'm done for his friend's cows. Apparently it's a great treat for them. I know this man, his name is Steve. I haven't seen him in over a year and a half. He didn't recognize me at first as he is getting a bit old, 85 I think. When I told him my name and gave him a big hug, he remembered right away. His wife died last year and she was one of my closest friends.

Last year I experienced some emotional growth. That's what I'm calling it now anyway. It seemed that devastating news came about every two weeks. It began with learning my very dear friend would be dying from cancer. I felt privileged to be able to help her through it, but it was sad nonetheless and I miss her. I missed her terribly when life seemed a bit hopeless last year. Cheryl is the first person I thought of calling when things got tense. She'd have been at every court date she could, sitting next to me and reminding me things always work out. She'd remind me that things don't always work out the way we'd like, but they do work out. The sun usually comes out, in theory anyway, we do live in the Northwest.

One of the reasons we began the big garden was to work out some of the stress and tension we were under last year. It sure works, we also didn't realize how much we love the gardening. That's turned out to be a huge blessing that will hopefully continue for a long time. It's a very large community garden, surrounded by houses on either side. Turns out since Cheryl died, her husband Steve's eyesight has gotten weak and he can't drive. He's moved into town. He has been living directly behind my garden since last year. He says he comes out and looks around it every night. He loves our garden.

I felt comforted that someone I love has been there when we weren't. Sometimes when I'm working out there, I've had some conversations with Cheryl. I felt a little more like she has really been there. After he left I had a good cry. It was a grateful cry, kind of a cleansing cry. I love ya Cheryl, glad you are part of my life.

Cheryl Harman

Bene Bolognese

Bene Bolognese Recipe 

Made this tasty vegan version of a recipe generally made with pork, beef, and cream last night. I added some chopped eggplant from the garden, a diced mild chili, and used white troufle balsamic vinegar and water instead of the white wine. Most of the ingredients came from my garden. I am looking forward to lunch today.

Vive Bene

Garden Update - Autumn Harvest

The garden isn't ready to sleep for the winter yet.  There's been some warm fall weather and I'm getting a nice basket of ripe tomatoes every couple days.  Even the cloudy and rainy days have been warm and it seems to be dry right when we want to be out in the dirt.  The moon has kept us company a few times this past week. We have a little less daylight, but enough to get some weeding and harvesting done

Beans, Greens, & Cornbread, Vegan Peach cake and Ice Creme

Beans, Greens, & Cornbread

Had lunch with my granddaughter this weekend.  We had some Cannellini beans  simmered with a little chopped onion, peppers, fresh carrots, and chopped summer squash over steamed beet greens.  I made some quick fried cornbread, dairy free, and some fresh cucumber and tomato salad.

She's a veggie luvin' kid and that makes me smile.  She's only six, but so far she likes what grandma serves her.

We also made some dairy free chocolate chip ice cream and a peach upside down cake together.  We used raw cashews and almonds, coconut, non-dairy milk, a little agave, seeds from a vanilla bean, and wheat sweetened chocolate chips.  I would have liked just the vanilla ice cream, but it was fun for her to add something to the mixture.

Fresh & Simple and from the Garden

Steamed Spaghetti Squash with Zucchini and Summer Squash Hummus, and a bowl of fresh Gazpacho Soup.

All picked from the garden this week.

The Zucchini and Summer Squash are blended with some sesame tahini, a couple small Anaheim peppers, garlic, cumin, fresh lemon juice, and a tablespoon of garlic/chili sunflower oil.

The soup is blended fresh tomatoes, cucumber, garlic, a couple peppers, sea salt, a dash of pepper, a handfull of fresh cilantro, and a little red onion.

I poured the blended mixture over fresh chopped tomatoes, and cucumbers and some whole steamed spelt berries. I garnished the soup with chopped avocados.

Harvest Moon - Autumn Equinox at Once, a Rare and Beautiful Occurence

Super Harvest Moon

The moon was especially beautiful last night.

The Harvest Moon gets its name from agriculture. In the days before electric lights, farmers depended on bright moonlight to extend the workday beyond sunset. It was the only way they could gather their ripening crops in time for market. The full Moon closest to the autumnal equinox became "the Harvest Moon," and it was always a welcome sight.

Garden Update September

It was a slow start and we didn't get to give away as much vegetables as last year, but the garden is booming now.  We've harvested probably three loads just like this one this week.  It's been a busy week of washing, preparing, storing, and finding homes for our garden goodies.  It's been fun though.  I have lots put up for the winter.  I don't think I will be visiting a grocery store as much as I did last winter.  While canning my sauerkraut made from our garden cabbage this weekend, I realized that I am entertained by watching a canner simmer or fresh ice cream churning. Funny.