in the kitchen

Pie Night!

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Chicken Pot Pie. Shepherd’s Pie. An underspiced but worth improving tomato-zucchini pie. Followed by Peach Pie Pops (they look like lollipops, but they are tiny, personal pies on sticks!), Lemon Meringue Pie, Peach Pie, a triple layer lemon/peach-pear/cream pie, and a Butterscotch Pie. Oh, and ice cream. No, I didn’t make all of that. Just four of them. Which was two more than I originally planned. Because sometimes Pie Happens. I’d post pictures, but we’ve eaten it already. Yes, we had help. And yes, there are leftovers. But they aren’t so pretty any more. Thanks to all the Pie Night …

homesteading, sewing

Reusable Dry Goods Bag

We’ve got reusable fabric shopping bags. Why not have something reusable that you can use in the bulk foods aisle? I came up with this baggie a couple months ago, using fabric from the stash and ? for possibly the first time since leaving school a million years ago. Since then, it’s brought home walnuts, cornmeal, and granola. When it gets dusty inside, I throw it in the wash. The contrasting square is there so I can write in the bag’s weight when empty, which would simplify the check-out process at the store. So far, PCC has been awesome about …

Caitlyn

Getting There Faster

While waiting for her grilled cheese sandwich yesterday, Caitlyn invented a transporter. Grandma’s house is just too far away. She explained that she wanted a box that she could go into and then when she left it, she would be in California. Actually, she decided, this box should have three doors, one for Grandma’s house, one for the museum/aquarium we recently visited, and one for a specific corner on the road to Grandma’s house, one that is often hugely decorated for the most recent holiday. It was covered with enormous red hearts and twinkly lights when we saw it last …

Caitlyn

Eavesdropping in the car

I’m providing the transportation for Caitlyn and her friend to and from circus class these days. Which means I get to overhear some of the things the girls say to each other. Caitlyn’s friend apparently can’t decide if she wants to be a teacher (both girls adore their teacher) or a nurse (the friend’s mom’s new job) when she grows up. But she’s only going to do either one on the weekdays; weekends are for skiing. And nights are for reading and knitting. Caitlyn wanted to know when her friend would sleep and received a superior-sounding reminder: “You know how …

Seasons

Gravity wins

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At breakfast this morning, we admired the first of the three amaryllis flowers which had opened overnight. The petals were creamy, streaked with light red (not pink, mind you, light red). It hadn’t opened all the way, only about half, so looking at it full on made me think more of trumpets then stars. The second flower probably would have opened tonight. Amaryllises are ridiculous flowers. You take a bulb the size of a medium onion and put it in pot. Sometime later, it sends up a fat stalk and then unfurls huge, super-saturated flowers, roughly the size of a …