Townhouse Homestead Tuesday

One of my challenges to myself for 2015 was to learn how to knit socks. The brain is getting there. I made my practice sock and started a "real" sock. Before committing to the socks and the use of small size double pointed needles I needed to get back into the knitting frame of mind. My knitting in the round project was a simple hat.

I found my years old, hand written mitten pattern and I will make myself mittens and an ascot style scarf to go with my hat. The time I have to knit is when all the work is done at the end of the day, of course when I'm tired and don't want to think, but it came back to me.

I've become motivated to finish the cardigan sweater that was started quite a while ago, but the motivation comes from all the altered clothing ideas that I've been seeing on line. I have crochet reclaimed trims that I want to add to make it unique. The bag of red yarn are factory ends that was given to me to make myself more socks and speaking of socks...

here's where I am with them. I am ready to start decreasing the toe. It isn't perfect, but it's a sock and it's for me to wear in my boots. This is a Mary Maxim yarn that I got a few years ago that I kept to work with my spool. I have a few different colors so after I make the solid colors I will start by making mismatched socks because I'm a big fan of them.

This townhouse homesteader has been busy doing other things too. The canning of meat that we find on sale along with the canning of my soups so I can make a large batch and not lose it and just learning to can things I've never done before. Thirteen months ago I made sour milk chocolate cake out of some milk that didn't quite curdle, but was at that almost turned point. I baked it in pint size wide mouth jars. I've done this many times with banana bread and I knew it could be done with cakes, but it was new to me. The jars are still well sealed and I ate it this week and I am still alive. I wouldn't give this as gifts unless I put a short expiration date on it, but it is something to consider if you bake from scratch and can't eat it fast enough or need smaller helpings. Yes I can freeze it, but I only have an apartment size freezer for now and loafs of breads and baked goods waste what little  space I have in the freezer. 

Once I figure out and get the socks accomplished it's on to making simple cheeses. That's the second challenge for 2015. I only had two. So thank you for stopping by to visit and I hope everyone has a wonderful week.

Townhouse Homestead Tuesday

I just came in from watering my (BIG!) garden. It's looking good and is growing so well. It's all herbs and sweet potatoes, but it's mine. This past week just flew by for me. Probably because I have too much to do and never enough time. We all know how that goes. I had some catching up to do also because my daughter and I took off for a four day weekend in Vermont over the holiday. The day after we got back my herbs went in and that was two weeks ago today. 

This is what went down this week.

This is a batch of Jalapeno pepper jelly. I have been buying it at quite a price and decided that I would make it this year. I've already given the grounds keeper a jar because he came and started helping me clean the front garden by cutting back a bush. Some time this summer I will be making roasted pineapple and habenero pepper jelly/relish. 

For those who know me I love my goodies. I will not deny that I have a sweet tooth, but I do realize that I don't need to eat it all at once. I baked carrot cake in jars to put on the shelf for those hot summer days when baking is not likely to happen. My recipe makes so much so I put up ten jars and still had a good size cake for the week. 

I harvested a good bunch of flat leaf parsley. It's on it's way to drying and over the weekend I found a new coffee grinder at a thrift store, that I now have to grind my herbs after they've dried. 

I am so happy with the success of my basil. I harvested a large bunch and it is also on it's way to drying. These are just a couple of the herbs I use in my soup mixes. My kitchen is smelling so wonderful this week.

Last but not least I started a pint of chive vinegar. I cut the flowers before I moved my chive plant from the front garden to the back garden. It was so large I divided it into three and if I like this chive vinegar I will hopefully have more flowers through the summer. If not I will have my chive butter for those baked potatoes through the winter. 

That's what went down this week at the Townhouse Homestead and I am having so much fun doing what I can in a small space. Anything can be done and I am so grateful to farmers for providing the fruits and vegetable I can't grow at this time. Thank you for stopping by. Have a great week everyone.

Thrift shops popping up all over. Fun hunting.

It seems like everyone is opening a thrift shop in any little spot they can find these days. It's been great and adventurous for us. The pickings have been bright and colorful and even the quality has been good. We have been out twice in the last week and have had so much fun. I hope it continues. We've found items for the store and items for our personal use. What a world!

First the personal use things we found. Yes four new food saver vacuum seal canisters. All four for $12. If we had purchased new almost $50.

Canning jars are always going to find their way to my kitchen. Cannot believe I've been finding them when it seems like everyone is looking for them. Total $4.

We found two Wilhold sewing boxes full of stuff and junk including candles, picture hanging hardware, needles and thread along with stuff that went directly into the trash. I think this is the first red one we've found. We also found a wear-ever cookie gun with all the parts and couldn't resist. I think my daughter is going to keep this and use it. I had one and sold it thinking I'd never make cookies again and sure enough there's one back in our lives.

These bright colored vintage Shel-Co plastic coffee cups were a fun find. I think it's the colors that attracted us to them.

Four yellow Mikasa light and lively coffee mugs are next.

More Pyrex in the form of a cooking pot with cover.

A great collection of vintage and reproduction cookbooks and a plastic Jesus.

For linens and fabric items we found 3 yards of black corduroy, some vintage curtain panels, a vintage Vera scarf and a darling white cotton sun dress that I may take apart for the fabric if after researching proves it's not something I should sell as is. 

This was the first of the two trips we took and what fun we had. In between shopping trips was lots of baking. Yes, baking. I had half a gallon of milk sour on me and I decided to use it instead of pour it down the drain. I made several different things and found all of the recipes on Pinterest.

First there was spice cake with cream cheese icing. I made two and cut them in half freezing three pieces for later.

12 pint size jars of sour milk chocolate cake along with Valentines day cupcakes and one small cake from the batter left for eating this week.

And my favorites were the pomegranate scones. I had made scones before but not in cast iron and I just had to try this new to me pan. They were awesome. So you can see that this gal keeps quite busy. Next time those teenage grandsons come to visit there will be treats for them to eat. The second thrifting journey netted so much more and I'll be working on that post for next week. So much to do, but just living life to the fullest makes this gal very happy. Life is good.

Roasted Red Peppers

Included in all the weekends activities was cooking and canning. Roasted red peppers were next on the agenda. I cannot believe the bounty that this season has provided. I will have peppers to enjoy until next canning season. I also baked more banana bread in canning jars and made a wonderful pot of split pea soup. It's been cooler here and the soup was just wonderful. I think I'm going to make some buttermilk biscuits to have with the leftover soup later this week.

What to do on a rainy day.

No I didn't bake. I ate. I sat back in my big chair and had a cup of coffee with a piece of my zucchini walnut chocolate chip bread. I actually baked Saturday to take some goodies to a friends graduation, but not wanting to waste a beautiful zucchini I decided I needed something sweet. I mixed what the recipe said was equal to two large loafs. When I filled my canning jars I ended up with eight pints and an extra small loaf. Just enough for a single woman to enjoy. It was so good. I think it was the chocolate. Baking in the jars is working out well. I get about six slices per jar and when I need to take something to work for my break one jar works out well for the week. It keeps better in the refrigerator this way also because it is kept away from other aromas in the fridge. It isn't any extra work to bake this way. I'm glad I do this. I will enjoy summers' bounty all winter. Can't wait for pumpkins to make spicy pumpkin cake. Yum!

Banana Walnut Bread

Having had my share of unemployment and underemployment for the past three years I have not thrown too much food away. Call it frugal or panic it never makes sense to me to waste what I can use. Ever since I started baking in canning jars I can tell you that I've had good luck and bad luck with it. I decided not to throw away aging bananas this week and bake them into banana walnut bread. Reason one being that if I just baked it in pans it would take up room in our apartment size freezer that I couldn't spare and the other reason was the length of time I could store it in the jars. I also wanted to add walnuts and they are so expensive now that they would not be as fresh if frozen. I got good seals on the lids and I added bright labels. I can now put these in our storage closet that we put shelves in for our canning and have the goodness of home baked on the shelf.

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