Category: Natural Homemaking (Page 9 of 15)

Gratitude Sunday * July 10, 2011

July 10, 2011 / Lindsey / 4 Comments

Sunday’s a good day to remember what we’ve been grateful for over the past week, don’t you think? I’m joining Taryn over at Wooly Moss Roots in her Gratitude Sunday tradition, and here’s my list:

– Summer evenings cooled off & refreshed by a thunderstorm, and cool enough to enjoy a cup of hot tea.

– The flexibility of my current moneymaking situation; it’s just right. And feeling proud of myself for creating this reality.

– Hearing thunder that’s so massive I can feel it in my body.

– RAIN! Oh wow have we gotten rain this week! 5 inches, about.

– A mood-boosting afternoon spent relaxing in a shady, lush, secluded area:

– A very productive day in the garden yesterday. I’m always amazed at how much work that garden is, and I feel good to have gotten almost everything done that I wanted to.

– A bonus crop of lettuce! The greatest thing — I’d picked it all a few weeks ago and didn’t get around to pulling out the roots. Meanwhile it’s been a couple weeks since I was at my garden, and have since finished up the last of my lettuce in the fridge. But when I went over yesterday it had all re-grown and now I have a big bag of lettuce again! Even better, this crop was blessedly aphid free!

– The cool-ish weather we’ve been experiencing thus far this year, meaning we’re still eating lettuce into July! Incredible. On the other hand, the hot-weather things like tomatoes are just meandering along, but at least the cool weather stuff is lasting a good long time. How nice.

– Digging a few new potatoes. Like panning for gold! And the taste of garden-fresh potatoes is pretty amazing.

– A dutch oven my mom scored at the thrift store for me!! I’ve been after a dutch oven for a couple years now, and she looks for one every time she’s there. Cast-iron cookware is usually snatched right up at the thrift store. But the other day she came home with the holy grail! I’m so excited about it because it’s so old and it’s the perfect size and it’s in good condition (just needs cleaning), and it was only $10! It reminds me of a witches’ cauldron. I’m far more thrilled with this dusty old treasure than I ever would be with a gleaming new one!!

– A really nice morning spent with Hubby at our botanic gardens; I loved it. Actually I was playing with his fancy camera, taking lots of pictures, only to come home and see that they turned out to be terrible and I obviously don’t know how to use the camera. I was so disappointed that I almost cried. And then I realized that if the only thing I have to cry about in life right now is a crop of shitty pictures, then I think I’m doing pretty well. 😉 That hasn’t always been the case, so I’m grateful when life just feels regular…with everyone generally happy and healthy and just doin’ their thing, with only small disappointments here and there.

– Getting 5 loads of laundry done today!

– Feeling cozy inside when it’s pouring rain.

– Tea. It’s so comforting.

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What are you grateful for this week? Leave a comment!

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Make Your Own “Green Smoothie Frozen Concentrate”

July 5, 2011 / Lindsey / 1 Comment

Green smoothie frozen concentrate, (c) The Herbangardener

Green smoothie frozen concentrate made with lettuce, spinach, and lambsquarters.

So I peeked into my remaining three bags of lettuce from the garden this year, and discovered that they were starting to go south and needed to be used right away. I separated out the slimy leaves, washed the rest, and had an idea! I’ll make green smoothie frozen concentrate cubes!

To make the concentrate:

1. Pour some kefir, water, juice, or watered-down yogurt into a blender. You won’t need too much — just enough to get everything to blend together smoothly.

2. Add lots of greens. Ideas are: lettuce, spinach, beet greens, chard, lambsquarters, purslane, mint, parsley, cilantro, edible flowers, etc. (Kale is the only one I don’t like in a shake, but if you do, go for it!)

3. Start the blender and let it run until you have a uniform slurry.

4. Pour into ice cube trays and freeze.

To use:

When you’re ready to make a green smoothie, thaw out some cubes; I usually use 2 cubes when I make a shake for myself. Add the green liquid to your blender containing the rest of your smoothie ingredients — I like to use fruit and kefir with some ground flax seed and vanilla extract. Blend & enjoy. Yum!!

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If you’re curious about green smoothies, you might check out the book Green for Life by Victoria Boutenko, or the related website. My friend Sasha recommended this book to me, and I loved it! While I don’t agree with absolutely everything in the book, I’m glad I read it.

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Kitchen Tip: Brown Bag Cooling Racks

June 27, 2011 / Lindsey / 3 Comments

I have a little kitchen tip for you today!

Since we live in a small apartment, space is at a premium and we don’t have room for needless kitchenware. And so, among many other things, we don’t own wire cooling racks. If I need a cooling rack, I improvise.

For cookies, I use what my depression-era grandmother used — a cut-up brown paper grocery bag. Just cut it up and lay it on the countertop, transfer your cookies onto it, and fold it up when you’re done…and use it again and again! It hardly takes up any room, and I get to think of my grandma — and bygone days in general — every time I use it.

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What’s one way you improvise in the kitchen?

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Gratitude Sunday * June 19, 2011

June 19, 2011 / Lindsey / 2 Comments

– Relaxing by the open window, watching a thunderstorm roll in.

– Remembering, over and over, that I don’t have to get up and go to work in the morning!

– Noticing little coincidences & synchronicities in my life again. They appear when I’m in my flow & on my path, and disappear when I’m not. I hadn’t seen them in so long (during the time I was unhappy in my job & knowing that I should quit), that I’d almost forgotten about them! It’s fun to see them again — they always feel like confirmation that I’m right on track…right where I’m supposed to be.

– Though still extremely busy, I’m feeling a lot more balance in my life, and almost zero stress.(!)

– Discovering that doing contract work from home is really my thing. I’m in charge of my time! What a concept!

– Being home during the day to enjoy SUMMER!

– Eating heaps of beautiful garden lettuce, and stuffing it into body-nourishing green smoothies.

– Going to the Gay Pride parade with my Hubby…it was so fun! The vibe was neat — a huge gathering of open-minded folks, where everyone could be whoever they were and everyone was totally OK with that. Families were there, with toddlers yelling “Happy Pwide Day!”

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– The most wonderful day hanging out one-on-one with my dad, going to one of our favorite nature-places. He is such a great dad; I really cherish him. And it was so special to have some one-on-one time together out in nature. We both absolutely loved it!

I packed a picnic for us of Spanakopita, Moroccan Carrot Salad, grapes, and Finnish Cardamom Cupcakes (recipe coming soon). Yum! We ate lunch in a gazebo out on a lake, reachable by the boardwalk above.

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What about you? What have you been grateful for this week? Leave a comment!

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Caveman’s Heating Pad

April 13, 2011 / Lindsey / 2 Comments

Stuck without a heating pad? No problem! Gather one or two flat rocks (flagstone in this case) and simmer them in water on the stove (or pop them into the oven). When thoroughly hot, remove with tongs and wrap in a couple towels. Use both rocks at once, or keep one in the water to exchange when the first one cools down. You can’t exactly wrap a rock around your body the way you can a heating pad, but it’s a perfectly good do-fer solution!