Celebrating 10 Years Together!

Today we celebrate out 10 year anniversary. 

We are still so in love. When you are first engaged and dreaming of your life together you really don't know how your love could grow. Ours sure has. 

We are best friends. We love working together and playing together. We have 2 amazing children and a wonderful life. I look forward to many more beautiful years together.

A Leafy Green Meal Plan

It has been a fun challenge to figure out how to fit all these greens that we have been growing into our meals. To begin with, I wash and rinse greens every day and that is quite a process. I've learned that taking the rib out of collards, kale and turnips make them a lot easier to eat--especially for the girls. Another thing I've figured out is that it is more efficient to go ahead and prepare all of the greens at once. For example, in the past I would only wash the kale that I would be using for the specific meal. Now if I wash and trim all 2 pounds at once then dinner prep is quick and we have left over greens that we can eat the next day.

So this is how I do it now. First I cut out the rib if necessary. Then I let them soak in a sink of cold water for about 10 minutes. Then depending how dirty the leaves are I might do that again. I then take them out (inspecting for bugs on each leaf since I am neurotic about not eating bugs) and dry them in the salad spinner. Then I bag them in a clean bag so they are ready for the meal.

I've never really cooked with Bok Choi before this year. I've found that the stalks can be used just like celery. I chop them up and add them to salads, sandwiches and cold salads like potato salad and chick pea salad.  If you are going to cook them with the leaves then they need to cook about twice as long (cook ribs 3 mins then add leaves for another 3).

Here's a meal plan for a typical weak during this season:

Sunday--Spicy Chick Pea dish and salad
Monday--Tofu and sauted kale lasagna and salad
Tuesday--Burritos with black beans, rice, collards, olives, avocados, salsa and vegan sour cream on top
Wednesday--Harvest bowl with cornbread, leftover black beans, mashed potatoes and turnips, and avocado.
Thursday--coconut milk and curry stir fry with tofu, bok choi, mushrooms and salad
Friday--Cashew cheese macaroni with sauted swish chard
Saturday--Cold chick pea salad sandwiches

Two new blogs

I started this blog almost 4 years ago. I created it after hearing from my friend Shael that blogging was a great way to keep in touch with friends and family all over the country. Since we had moved to 3 states in 3 years and all our family was out of town I figured I'd go ahead and give it a try. I was surprised at how easy blogger was to use. I also found that it was a great way to record our pictures and stories without getting all my scrapbooking stuff out!

Blogging keeps getting more popular and there are blogs for everything! Blogger now lets you monetize (place ads on) your pages but I want my personal blog to be a space were people are not bombarded with more advertisements.

I've started 2 new blogs. The first one is a gardening blog. It has the same gardening posts that I create for this blog but I modify them just a little so they are not quite so personal. Click on Southern Organic Gardening to check out the page. One reason I chose to name it Southern Organic Gardening is that we've found that a lot of the information on the web and in books about organic gardening is focused on gardening in the Northeast or West (California). Not much is out there on organic solutions for the South and as you know our climate is very different. Especially here in Columbia and in our sand for a back yard. I hope to expand the Southerrn Organic Gardening blog to include pages on our favorite products, local and national links, and answers to frequently asked questions about gardening in the South. I've also put ads and linked it to other gardening blogs hoping to cash in on all this information we are sharing :) I'm still adding lots of new stuff and since it is a blog I'll keep updating it on a regular basis so bookmark it or become a follower to help me spread the blog and the ads!

The second blog is for the new dance classes that I'm starting--Mommy and Me Ballet The class is held at the same studio where I teach other dance classes, but it is separate in that I'm doing all the marketing, class design, and billing. I started the Mommy and Me Ballet blog because I wanted a place for parents to go to get information since I was doing a lot of emailing and answering the same questions over and over again. I'm working on a website but that is taking me a while to create since I've never done one before. So the blog is the place to go for now. I've had one class so far and it has gotten great feedback. I taught this same class in Indianapolis and it was very popular and I'm hoping the moms here will spread the word and I'll be able to open up another class.

Don't worry my faithful readers, I'm not changing or deleting this blog! I'll be updating it again very soon with a week's meal plan based on greens, dance recital pictures, more recipes, etc.


 

Friday harvest and recipe

• 3 lbs potatoes
• 2.5 lbs collards
• 3 lbs bok choi
• .75 lb turnips
• 1.5 lbs turnip greens
• .75 lb radish
• 1.25 lb swiss chard
• 1 lb kale
• .75 lb little bok choi
• 14 oz lettuce
• 1.75 lb bunching onions

Here is a recipe for a Greens, Tomatoes, and chick peas dish I pulled and modified from Joy of Cooking (my all time favorite cook book.) Rachel Ray also has a similar recipe. It is quick (30 mins) and easy. Spinach is probably the best--you can even use frozen. I use whatever greens we have available. The spices may be unfamiliar but we use them a lot for Indian dishes. You can get them at an Indian grocery or on Amazon.

1 onion
1 can crushed tomatoes (can used diced also)
3 tsp. coriander
1 1/2 tsp cumin
1/4 tsp.  Garam Masala 7oz
1/4 tsp. turmeric
1 can chickpeas, rinsed
1 tsp of salt (or to taste)
1 bunch of greens rinsed and chopped or 1 pack of frozen spinach

Heat onion in oil or water until soft. Stir in tomatoes, coriander, cumin, garam masala, turmeric and salt. Cook for 3 mins. Stir in Chickpeas and greens and cook 10 minutes or until the greens are as soft as you like!

Serve over any grain like rice, basmati or jasmine is perfect but we just use brown most of the time. I've also served this with quinoa. I usually double the recipe also.

Mother's Day Harvest

This was a wonderful and relaxing Mother's Day. I slept in and rested on the porch with a good book (Middlemarch by George Eliot) while Daniel made all the meals, cleaned inside and worked outside. I also wandered through the garden picking these beautiful spring veggies and taking pictures of flowers and bugs. We also planted most of the summer veggies that we started from seed including zuchinni, yellow squash, trombone squash, cucumber, pole beans,  cantelope, eggplant, basil, more swiss chard and bok choi. I re-potted the tomatoes since we have to wait for garden space to come available. Okra, bush beans, sweet potatoes, and watermelon are still waiting to be planted.

As I mentioned in an earlier post we are keeping track of all the produce we harvest by weighing it and charting it on a clip board in the kitchen. Here is the harvest amounts from Sunday.

• 1.5 lbs collards
• 1 lb 4 oz kale (lacinato)
• 2.5 lbs lettuce (butter crunch and green leaf)
• 10 oz spinach
• 4 oz peas
• 1 lb 4 oz radish (or about 10) 

Now you might be wondering what we do with all these greens! Stay tuned for recipes and ideas. Believe it or not by Wednesday night we have already gone through everything but a few ounces of lettuce and collards.

Science and art presentations

Last week the girls had to give presentations on their science and art projects for our homeschool coop. For science, we worked together to build a cardboard box solar cooker.  Here are the directions for the cooker that we built. We took pictures as we assembled it and tested it out on a sunny day on our back deck.

Gluing foil to the inside of 2 boxes.

Here's a picture of the big box with a whole cut into the top and crumpled newspaper in the bottom.

This is the oven all assembled and cooking on the deck. Just as the oven got up to 200 degrees we put a pot of chocolate, peanuts, and raisins inside. The hottest it got was 215 degrees.

We checked on it in an hour and it was nice and soft.

The girls wanted to be able to serve their chocolate treats to the class so they spooned it out on wax paper, put sprinkles on top and let them cool.

As you know you can melt chocolate outside on most sunny days in Columbia. I used this recipe because it was quick and easy and fun for the kids. I did some research and found that a typical slow cooker cooks at 200 degrees on its lowest setting. Later in the week I put a pot of lentils out in the oven and left them there all day. Yes, the lentils were cooked when I got them out in the evening!


In addition to the science presentation, the girls also had to choose 2 pieces of art that they worked on during the year and present them to the class.

Here is Ellen showing her acrylic sunflowers painting she made after studying Van Gogh.

Here is Arianna showing off her tree that she painted using textured paints.

This shows another student giving her presentation. You can see that the group is a variety of ages from preschool to high school--about 20 students in all.

Greens and daisies

It's that time of year again. We are bringing in tons of greens. For example, today I went out at about 11:00 am and picked a handful of lettuce, baby bok choi, sweet peas, radishes, and green onions and mixed it all together for a salad.

We ordered a scale to keep track of the amount of veggies we bring in. We are keeping record of it all on a clip board for now but I plan on charting it as we get in more food. For the first week we brought in 11.5 oz of spinach, 26 oz of sweet peas, 9 radishes, 22 oz lettuce, 15 oz baby bok choi, 1.5 lbs of bigger bak choi, 1 lb young turnip greens. And our spinach is huge.

We loved looking at it so much we just had to take a picture! Is it because of the compost tea?

This is the bak choi bed. This is an asian green that we use just like the other greens--in stir fries, steamed or chopped really thin in salads. We like it because it is a more heat tolerant than salad greens and more tender than traditional southern greens.

Here's the lettuce bed.

So I also had a birthday last weekend--yes I am 32 years old now. Thanks to all my friends and family who contributed to a wonderful weekend. I took a road trip to Nashville to meet up with my best friends from Indy. We all have soar jaws from talking and laughing so much! I got home in perfect time to receive hugs and kisses from my wonderful family, lots of birthday cards and a package with a new zoom lens! I tested it out on the daisies that are blooming in the back garden. What do you think? The pictures really don't do justice to the beautiful flowers. I really do love having flowers all over the yard.

Malaguena

Ellen and I have been working through a piano lesson book called Alfred's Basic Piano Library-- Level 2. She started learning the Malaguena on Monday and we took this video on Friday. She is so proud at the end of her song and so am I.

twinkle twinkle

Arianna got a violin for Christmas and has been practicing during the day. We do not have a teacher so we bought a Suzuki method lesson book and CD and have been learning by ourselves. She plays 6 different variations of Twinkle Twinkle and also 2 other songs along with the CD for practice (that is what you hear in the background.) I've got more videos on my youtube page if you are interested in hearing her other 2 songs. The violin is a hard instrument to learn and I am so proud of what she has accomplished.

Ambrose Farms and Capers Island

Friday we took a field trip to the Charleston area. Our first stop was an organic farm where they offered u pick strawberries. It took us about 30 minutes to pick about 30 pounds. The farm was amazing. The plants looked so healthy and the farmer was very friendly. He explained how the main things he uses on his plants are compost and fish emulsion. The plants were so healthy and the berries were huge.

The main reason for the trip was a tour of Capers Island. The island is a barrier island that was bought by the state in the 50s. It is protected and very primitive with no water or electricity. They do allow primitive camping but it is only accessible by boat.

The tour guide was very enthusiastic and started sharing interesting facts about the fish right at the marina. He really never stopped talking and answering questions. He started out explaining these stone crab and blue crabs that he had in the tank on the boat. We stopped and looked at some traps in the water.

 He used his "overhead projector" to show us exactly where we were on the coast--the inlet between Dewees Island and Bull Island.

 We floated around in this section of the inlet for a little while waiting for the dolphins to surface. We saw several all around the boat. They were so fun to spot and of course Arianna was excited to see her favorite animal in the wild.

 It took us about an hour to slowly cruise over to the Island from Isle of Palms Marina. Once we got to the shore, the guide walked with us and stopped every so often to name and explain all the different shells and marine creatures that we are all so familiar with. He also talked about how and why the trees are fallen and how to tell the difference between pine and oak skeletons.

I loved learning all those little facts. Here's Ellen showing off the welk shells she found.

 I think that lots of schools take this trip but it is open to the public. For more information on Barrier Island Eco Tours check out there website here.

Around here

Finally got our tomato seeds to sprout. We are growing abraham lincoln and matt's wild cherry tomatoes.

Watering with compost tea.

Observing creatures in the garden. All kinds of bugs and reptiles are coming out in the warm weather. We've seen at least 3 of these broad headed skinks living in the rocks.

Fascinated by the huge snail.

Loving Spring in the South. Azaleas, bridal vale bushes, dogwoods, etc.

Proud of all the dianthus flowers and gerbera daisies that came back from last year.

Oh, and we are tiling the playroom floor. We are right in the middle of it which is why I haven't posted much lately. We've ripped up the carpet, prepared the sub-floor and placed half of the tiles. I'll post before and after pictures when we are done.

Transplanting seedlings--Successes and Failures

Last weekend (the one before Easter) we finally got the seedlings that we started back in January (here the link to that post)in the ground.

A lot of those seeds that we started were a great success and we were very pleased with the health of the kale, collards, lettuce and spinach seedlings.

BUT almost a whole tray of summer seedlings that I started turned out to be a disaster. Hardly any of the seeds even germinated. I don't really know what happened but some reasons for the germination failure could be that the soil was not warm enough, not wet enough or maybe too wet since we noticed that the soil mix we created was a little to dense. Here's a picture of the sad tray.

I've got one tomato out of 30 that I started, no peppers, and about half of the basil and eggplants! We've learned that it's all about experimenting and trying things over and over again. So, I've started new trays of these kinds of plants and hopefully I'll correct whatever went wrong.

Another canoe trip on Cedar Creek at Congaree National Park

Saturday morning we took a break from gardening and spent the morning on a canoe trip at Congaree National Park. The Park is an amazing place just a few miles out of Columbia. They offer free guided canoe trips on the weekends. All you have to do is call 2 weeks in advance (right when they open at 8:30) to reserve your spot. We took this same trip last year and posted more details about the park and the creek here

On this trip we saw a pileated woodpecker, barred owl, lots of sparrows, great blue heron, and a baby box turtle.

It is always so refreshing to be out in the middle of the forest away from all the city noises and technology toys.

Safe and sound after the 2 hour trip (with no stops or breaks). No one fell in the water this time--that's a first!

Spring days in the garden

These photos have been taken over about a week. We spent all of last Saturday digging in the garden and getting 2 new rows ready. Daniel trimmed the lupine cover crop that had been growing all winter. We added our compost and then tilled it under and mixed it all in with shovels. Even though you don't see me in these pictures I was out there for most of the time. Daniel does way more of the work in the garden than I do but I really do enjoy being out there working along side of him.

The area that we were working in had potatoes and beans in it last year. The rows were shaped differently and we wanted them to look like the rest of the garden. The second picture is the finished product--2 more long rows.

(potatoes are planted in the 3rd row on the left. We planted those in late February)


We are excited about 2 new crops that we are trying out this year. Pictured below the top bed has jerusalem artichoke and the bottom has taro. Both of these plants are perennial and you harvest and eat the root or tuber.  They are also beautiful plants while they are growing. The jerusalem artichoke grows tall and have big yellow flowers and the taro have elephant ear stalks and leaves.

We started summer seeds (flowers, veggies, herbs) last week also.

In another part of the yard we have had this cabbage (along with  several others) growing all winter and it is big and beautiful now. We have a new found love of cabbage and I can't wait to harvest this one this weekend and enjoy it with friends.

We have lot's of sugar peas coming up on these two rows.

We have garlic and onions here with lettuce seeds scattered and beginning to sprout all over. Some other things we started as seeds in a few rows are carrots, radishes, turnips, bok choy. We will be transplanting our broccoli, kale, lettuce, and cabbage seedlings this weekend.

We ended one day last week hanging out by a fire.

Another night Daniel took E and A to see a local theater's production of The Sound of Music. We had friends that were acting in it and that musical is one of  our favorites.