Granny-a-day!

Now that my prayer shawl is done, I have been thinking about my next project. Today I found it. I am joining Granny Square a Day. Each day for 2012 I will crochet one granny square. This is such a great project. Not to demanding, but just enough to force me to get in some relaxing crochet time each day. I encourage you to head on over and join the project. Stay tuned for updates on how things are going.

A Simple New Year

I was fortunate to have grandparents who believed in the "summer home". In his later years, my grandfather had a house built in his home town. On weekends they would head there to get away from it all. My father bought the house from them right before my grandfather died. I have many memories of time spent up there with family. So when I am looking to get away from it all, I head north. And so we brought in the new year on a quiet, relaxing note.

We built a fire and sat quietly reading, doing puzzles, and finishing up that crochet project I had been working on. Which is now complete. Yeah!

We baked up a pan of sourdough friendship bread, that was devoured with requests for more, and toasted in the new year with sparkling grape juice. We also listened to the wonderful sounds of the old player piano, peddled by my youngest daughter.

All in all, it was a wonderful and peaceful way to bring in the new year, and I feel very blessed to have this legacy to share with my children.

Thrifty Thursday and Soup's On

One of my favorite things to search for at thrift stores is books, and so this week I would like to share two of my current favorite book finds.

I picked up Alaska Sourdough over the summer for a few dollars. It was to good to pass up. The down to earth format of this book makes you feel right at home in the tradition of sourdough. It is easily available through Amazon. I did have to laugh the other day when an older version of this book was pictured in an article on old cookbooks in the new issue of Grit magazine. An absolute read. The Bakery Lane Soup Bowl I picked up for 89 cents at our local Goodwill. It is full of recipes for soups, salads and breads from the Bakery Lane Soup Bowl. With the weather turning cold outside these two books make a perfect combination of comfort suppers. Simple, frugal and heartwarming meals of soup and bread are just what's in store for winter.

With that in mind this soup has been on the menu this week. I am great at throw together soup, and the children just love to dig in. This week's soup was a combination of:
1 can tomato juice
1 bottle carrot juice
2 bags of frozen peas
1 bag good quality pasta
1 tablespoon italian seasoning
I find making homemade soups with things I have on hand the easiest and healthiest way to feed my family. On those nights when I'm not feeling well, I can through together a whole food meal in minutes. I hope you have the opportunity to enjoy a pot of homemade soup in the near future. Use what you have on hand and I assure you, your family will love you. You can also view this post over on Simple Lives Thursday at GNOWFGLINS.

Crochet

I use to be an avid crafter. In the last few years I had set it aside for other things. I missed that part of my life. For those of you who are crafters you know that when your not working on a project it feels like something is missing. Well it is time to integrate that part of me back in, and so I have a new project. This is a prayer shawl in the making. An opportunity for me to sit and think of others while a practice a skill that is such a part of me. If you have set aside your crafts, I encourage you to pick them back up in the new year. Even if only for a few minutes a day. The benefits of that time of relaxation is worth it in itself, but you will also have something beautiful to pass on to others. An early start on next years Christmas presents.

In the Kitchen

Well it's been a few days and so much has been going on. This is all that is left of the chocolate sourdough cake. It was a huge sucess. I adapted the recipe from the King Arthur Flour 200th Anniversary Cookbook to use 2 1/2 cups white spelt flour and buttermilk instead of milk. It actually made 2 9" cakes. One is unfrosted in the freezer for New Years. The icing is grandma's standby. Powdered sugar mixed with leftover coffee. Yum!!

This is a picture of the cinnamon rolls a made for breakfast with the friendship starter. The recipe was from Friendship Breads by Jackie Gannaway. The icing for this was pure luck. I did not have powdered sugar in the house when I made these. I decided to take 1 cup of turbinado sugar and 1 tablespoon of arrowroot powder to the blender until it was a fine powder and then mixed just enough milk to make a icing. Success!!

In other news, I was very excited to find my great grandmother's buttons. They were not in a jar but in a box. My daughter will get to add her great-great grandmother's buttons to her new button jar. For Christmas she also recieved a box of Whitman's chocolates so that she will be able to have a sewing box just like grandma. Things are quieting down here from the holidays and I hope to start a few home projects soon, but for now, it's time to relax.

Christmas Morning

The presents have been opened and everyone is happy. While everyone is playing with all the new items, I have been playing in the kitchen. My first batch of water kefir was ready this morning, so I made water kefir lemonade and moved the grains over to a new batch of sugar water. I also whipped up a quick batch of peanut butter cookies that I found over at Heather's Prairie. I did use an all natural peanut butter and organic pure cane sugar. I also added 1 cup of allergen free chocolate chips to the mix. The family is loving them and they were so easy to make. In the oven sits the starter for a chocolate sourdough cake, which I will make later this evening. The starter has been fed and a new batch of buttermilk is up and going. Now off to get ready for the day. Wishing you all a very happy holiday.

A Sourdough Update

For those of you following my adventure back to sourdough I thought I'd bring you up to date on what's been going on this week. On Wednesday both the buttermilk and traditional sourdough were ready to go. The buttermilk sourdough was perfect, the traditional needed a little work. I had forgotten that when using spelt flour a cup is not really a cup, it's 1 1/4 cups, do to it's ability to absorb water. So my traditional sourdough looked a little thin. I decided to add 1 cup extra cup of flour, 1/2 cup of water and 2 teaspoon of sugar, to thicken it up and get it active again. After another day of sitting it was looking up. I give each of these a good stir everyday and have left them out to make some holiday treats with. After that they will head to the fridge. The friendship sourdough got a stirring on Thursday (Day 6) and this morning I fed it with an additional 1 1/4 cups flour, 1 cup milk and 1 cup sugar (all organic of course). Now that batch will get a stirring everyday with the others until Monday when I will feed it one more time and it will be ready to use. Hmm, I'm thinking of an after holiday batch of Friendship Cinnamon Rolls. Today I also started a batch of water kefir. You can read more on that over at Marquardt Health Coaching.

On another note, thanks to the wonderful man in my life, all the presents are officially wrapped and under the tree. Well, all but the box of chocolates that my dog decided to unwrap and attempted to snack on. It's is wonderful that he loves to take the kids out and spend time with them. I wish you all a wonderful holiday filled with joy and happiness, and maybe a little sourdough.