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Confessions of a lazy wannabe homesteader

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Wild Violet Jelly

April 28, 2014 Marie 1 Comment

violets violets3 violets2 steeping_violets violets4 violets5 violet

For several years now Spring has come and gone and I’ve completely missed violet season. But by complete and sheer luck I managed to be at the right place (home) at the right time (yesterday) to notice patches of my yard in full bloom with pretty little wild violets. The neighbors probably thought I was crazy, what with being pregnant and laying on the sidewalk picking itty bitty dainty flowers. Wild violets are, I gather, hated by those who love a perfect, zero-weed lawn – but they’re loved by me. I may not have a perfect lawn, but I have violets! And when Mother Nature hands you a free bounty of edible flowers, who am I to ignore her?

I ended up with two cups (unpacked) of violets from the yard, but I worried it wouldn’t be enough – after all, I’ve never made anything from violets before so I don’t know how strong the flavor would be. My sister, who happens to live down the street, came to my aid and sent my lovely 7 year old niece outside to pick as many as she could. And, as it turns out, with her help I had enough violets for two batches of jelly!

I spent an hour or two at the kitchen counter picking stems off the flowers, though I’m not really sure I needed to. When I had 3 cups of flowers, I tucked them into a wide-mouth canning jar and poured 2.5 cups boiling water over them to let them steep. This was the most frustrating part as I am not a patient person: you let the violets steep in the water for 24 hours. So excruciating when you’re excited about a project and can’t wait to get it done! The water goes from clear to a gorgeous shade of blue and gets darker the longer you let it sit. And then science happens when you add lemon juice to your mixture and the color changes from blue to purple – which is definitely something I’ll be doing in the future with this little Mr of mine when he’s old enough (what kid doesn’t love seeing colors change like it’s magic?!) From there, it’s the usual canning routine – sugar, pectin, bringing to a boil, ladle into sterile hot jars, etc, etc.

The end result is a beautiful preserve that tastes not like anything I would have expected – it doesn’t taste “earthy” or like you’re eating a jelly made of flowers. It tastes fruity, really. My first batch hasn’t quite set up right, though that by no means makes it inedible. It will just end up being spread almost like honey on biscuits or mixed in with some homemade vanilla ice cream. The next batch I’ll process a bit longer in hopes it helps with the consistency issue. If I manage to nail the time down properly, I’ll come back and update this with a proper recipe. If not, no big deal – there’s always next year to try again!

Featured, Posts food, preserving

Smitten’s Chocolate Macaroons

April 13, 2014 Marie Leave a Comment

macaroons1 macaroons2 macaroons3 macaroons5 macaroons4It’s incredibly rare that I see a recipe and immediately have to make it. Half the time I’ll favorite the link with the best intentions of getting to it eventually and before I know it I’ve completely forgotten about it. Occasionally, I might actually purchase the ingredients to make a recipe and then just not feel up for it afterward.

Today, I made the dark chocolate coconut macaroons from Smitten Kitchen. I’m not sure what compelled me to make them as soon as I saw them in my blog feed – perhaps it is my love of chocolate and coconut together, or the fact that the recipe looked dirt easy to whip up, or simply because it’s been a while since I’ve tried something new? I think these might be my new favorite treat to whip up – the whole thing goes together quickly in the food processor other than having to melt the unsweetened chocolate (which also goes pretty quickly). I did have a bit of an issue when I poured the chocolate in with the rest of the mixture in my processor – the machine couldn’t spin anymore because the mixture was so thick. My parents bought me a pretty high-powered machine for Christmas a few years ago so it was pretty unexpected. I’m thinking next time I might just hand-stir the melted chocolate in so I don’t burn up the motor by accident.

My pictures really aren’t as pretty as Deb’s, and I don’t own a cookie scoop (yet) so the finished product isn’t perfect looking. But the taste? SO GOOD. Biting into it is like biting into a piece of homemade fudge, only softer and more tender. And the richness of the chocolate? Swoon

The best part? The husband isn’t a huge fan of anything other than chocolate chip cookies, and certainly isn’t a big coconut fan. Which means I have these all to myself.

 

Featured, Posts food

Winter treats

December 3, 2013 Marie Leave a Comment

image

December photo project day 3 – frozen custard from my favorite place down the street from work. Today I grabbed a “whitser” made with the candy cane ice cream and Oreo chunks. Every week the featured custard changes, and for $3.50 you can get a hot dog with ketchup and mustard and a single scoop. Probably not my healthiest lunch choice, but it’s still delicious!

On a related note, I always feel weird trying to snap photos of places and things in public. Especially with a proper camera and not a cell phone. How do other bloggers manage it? Is it just conquering a fear or feeling less self-conscious about it?

Featured, Posts december photo project, food, Me

Corn relish, again

October 6, 2013 Marie Leave a Comment

taconight3 taconight2 taconight1

 

I’ve lamented before that taco night just isn’t the same without corn relish.  Last March I found and tried a canning recipe for the relish, which turned out to be a decent alternative – not perfect, but still tasty. Canning isn’t exactly difficult, nor was the recipe really time consuming, but I just couldn’t find the energy to make it again. So here I’ve sat, relish-less, for a year and a half and with less-than-complete tacos.

Today, that ended. Kinda. I scoured the internet for a non-canned recipe and found this one. Easy enough, right? I ended up making two batches, and they’re currently cooling in the refrigerator. So we’ll see if the recipe is family-approved! I’m not sure this will become my go-to recipe, but it will certainly work in a pinch when I haven’t had time to make a giant canned batch but want my relish fix!

In other news, last week my latest Amazon order arrived, bringing me my fancy new cast iron tortilla press! I’ve been making my own homemade tortillas for a while now, but I’ve been rolling them out by hand (pretty time consuming when you’re hungry and just want to eat). I kept putting off buying one, but now I don’t know why – this thing is fabulous. And I’m so glad I did my research and read some reviews on the aluminum varieties – I love cast iron anyway, but having that weight works for you in pressing the tortillas. (I’m probably crazy, but I think next gardening season I need to grow myself some corn for the sole purpose of making my own masa for tortillas.)

 

Featured, Posts food

Sunday

September 29, 2013 Marie 1 Comment

knitpicks pearwalnutcakeThe house is unusually quiet this morning. The stepson is here for the weekend but he never comes downstairs until 11 or noon (that’s a sore subject that I won’t get into here). The poor Mr is sick and sleeping on the couch. I’ve had the whole house to myself. No video game explosions in the background, no chip bags rattling around. Just pure, blissful quiet.

Yesterday a Knit Picks order came in. I always forget how quickly their shipments arrive here – they have a distribution center in Ohio so it isn’t like it has to travel far. The yarn is for a super secret project for a fellow knitter, and I have two balls of each color. I had popped the Knit Picks color images into Photoshop to see them all together, just to make sure the colors worked, but seeing them in person in proper daylight makes me love them that much more. (The yarn is Swish DK, and the colors are Serrano, Orange, Honey, Marine Heather, Wonderland Heather, and Dove Heather).

Pear Walnut Spice Cake for breakfast. My parents have pear trees on their property, so my mom has been canning and baking up a storm. She made 3 cakes – one of me, one for my sister, and one for my dad. It has this delicious maple syrup/powdered sugar glaze on top and goes great with coffee as you might notice. The Mr says cake is not for breakfast but I disagree – cake is always acceptable for breakfast.

 

Featured, Posts food, home, knitting

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