Food!

I never realized before how much I really LOVE food. I mean, I've always said that I do, and that I enjoy eating good food, but I'm realizing that my life just revolves around it. I've been a restaurant server, a pastry chef, and now a cook, and I just love creating good food. I read about food, I watch travel shows that center around food, I love experimenting with new recipes, I want to farm and grow nutritious food to share with people, I go crazy looking at all the gorgeous food at the farmers' market, and I take lots of pictures of food. I am passionate about food. 

So don't be surprised when many of my posts contain some food-related topic. 

Happy eating!

~ Hannah Elise ❤️

Applesauce

I can proudly say I tried my hand at canning, and it was (mostly) a success. I have meaning to use my canner for the better part of two years, and I finally decided to buy some apples and try it out. I wasn't sure how many to use, and I figured that I should make a huge batch my first time, so I ended up buying around 20 apples to start off with.

 

After barely fitting the apple slices into two large pans, it definitely seemed like I was going to end up with more applesauce then I did, but I guess I didn't realize how much they would boil down.

 

 

I did have to adlib a little here and there. For example, I didn't have a foodmill, so I ended up using a sausage grinder/stuffer attachment on a mixer for this, and it did work surprisingly well. I also completely forgot about my canning funnel, and couldn't find it in time, so I did get a couple burnt fingers when I dropped boiling applesauce on them as I was trying to ladle it into the jars.

 

 

Luckily though, I didn't make any major mistakes and I ended up with for jars of delicious (if I do say so myself), homemade applesauce. I will just have to remember to be a little better prepared next time, in order to save my fingers.

Kiwi Picking

 

 So I haven't posted in a while... I had been recovering after getting out of a toxic relationship, becoming better acquainted with myself again, and as a result, my schedule became busier and I always seemed to think of a topic to write for a blog post when I was out and about, away from a computer. Anyways, after half a year, everything finally seems to be falling back into place, and I am so much happier, and just more content with myself and my life, than I have been in a long time.

 

 

 So back to homesteading/homemaking/things-I-created-this-blog-to-write-about.....

 

My friend, Ellen, and I decided to spend a morning a couple weeks ago picking kiwis at a local u-pick kiwi farm. They grow two different types of kiwi there, Hayward (the fuzzy ones) and kiwi berries, or hardy kiwis. I had never eaten hardy kiwis before, but they are just delicious as the bigger ones, about the size of a large grape, and fuzz-less, so you can pop them in your mouth whole. I read somewhere that hardy kiwis are not techniquely kiwis, but I am unsure of the details there.

 

 

Hardy kiwis

Hayward kiwis



After picking a couple buckets worth of kiwis, we headed to a farm stand for some more local fruit (and honey), and then spent a couple of hours making our way through an antique mall.

 

Needless to say, we enjoyed ourselves.

 

 




 

Hardy kiwi freezer jam

 I was sure that I had overcommitted kiwi-wise, but after Ellen removed her share of them and I started mashing the hardy kiwis up for freezer jam, I realized that I probably could have gotten a few more, because three jars of jam isn't going to last very

 long...

 

Kiwis ready for ripening

 

 The Hayward kiwis were hard as rocks when we picked them... and two weeks later they still were. Luckily, on the back of the farm's business card there were directions on how to ripen them, so they are now sitting in a brown paper bag with an apple for a few days.



 

 

 

New Year "Resolutions"

Happy New Year Everyone!

 

Now, I realize that this is a couple days late, but I wanted to publish a post with New Years resolutions, and decided to think things over a few days. I don't often make resolutions at the beginning of each new year, but I've decided to start doing it, so that I have something specific to work on for the year and have a specific amount of time to complete goals in. New Years resolutions always seem to center around things like losing weight or getting rid of debt, and while I do have goals like this, they are on going and I'm not going to make resolutions like that. Sure, this year I definitely want to make sure that I stay healthy and definitely get rid of any debt I have (and more importantly not incur more), but these won't be my resolutions for the new year, they're ongoing.

 

Nope. This year, I am making goals that include skills to become more self-sufficient, knowledgable, and just to improve my overall quality of life. Some of them may seem small compared to others, but I find them all equally important, and I'm sure I'll end up adding more as I think of them, but here's a starting list:

 

Improve my sewing, knitting, and crocheting skills

Learn to use power tools (besides just a drill)

 

Expand my vegan cooking abilities

 

WRITE MORE

Learn to can

Expand my gardening knowledge

Build or buy a dehydrator

Grow and preserve as much of our food needs as possible for the year, and especially next winter

Shop local as much as possible

...and that's it so far...

Do any of you have resolutions for the new year that you'd like to share?
 

Strawberry Rhubarb Crumble

After making jam I still had several pints left, so I ad libbed a strawberry rhubarb crumble, and I thought I'd share the recipe.

Ingredients:

5 rhubarb stalks

2 pints of strawberries

 1 1/2 cups sugar

1/4 cup flour

2 teaspoons cinnamon

1/4 teaspoon nutmeg

1/4 teaspoon clove

For the crumble:

3/4 cup flour

1/3 cup butter, lukewarm

2 tablespoons brown sugar

1 teaspoon cinnamon

a dash each of nutmeg and clove

Preheat the oven to 350 degrees.

Cut both the strawberries and rhubarb into bite sized pieces and combine both in a medium size bowl.

Mix in the sugar, flour, cinnamon, nutmeg and clove.

Place mixture into a 9x9 ungreased baking dish.

For the crumble  combine the flour, butter, brown sugar, cinnamon, nutmeg and clove in a small mixing bowl, and mix until it has a crumbly texture.

Sprinkle the crumble mixture over the strawberry and rhubarb.

Bake the crumble for 40 to 50 minutes, until the topping has become golden brown and the juices are bubbling.

It's that time of year again!

Time to make jam!

It's that time of year again...

One of my favorite things about the Autumn weather is that it's the perfect time to make (and eat) soup. For me, there is nothing like spending a cold afternoon standing over a hot pot, creating a meal from scratch that is both delicious and nutritious, and I can even combine it with Christmas music and a favorite apron, to add to the fun. Who can say that about a Big Mac?