Townhouse Homestead Tuesday

It finally got here. My daughter is taking a staycation to relax and putter and do some of the things she's wanted to do and just take it easy for a few days. We have done just that. I still find lots of chores to do but that's okay too. Yesterday I seriously had to harvest basil. My plants were getting very tall and abundant so it was time to make pesto. I had enough for a very healthy batch and the plants are still strong and I may be able to do more. Here's hoping.

It tastes so good and it's on the menu for tonight. I will be making Bruschetta. I have home made French bread, home made pesto, farm fresh tomatoes and yes believe it or not I did it.

At the first of the year I had given myself two challenges. Well at my age a lot of things are challenging, but the first was learning how to knit socks. Now twelve pair later I think I've met that challenge. the second challenge was learning how to make cheese. Not to become a serious cheese maker, but just enough to cut the budget a bit, to know a little more about what was in our food and to enjoy different things. Being on a budget I took the time to build my supplies with the gracious help of my daughter. Total cost to get these supplies was $53.97. I know to some of you it sounds like very little, but that's a fortune for me to take out of a very minimal budget. It took me a few months with list in hand to built the supplies, however I now have the supplies to make many batches of cheese. After breaking down the cost of this first try it came to a whopping $3.71 for just shy of a pound of Mozzarella and took about thirty minutes to produce. I reduced the cost to our budget in half for a pound of cheese and I know what's in it. I got over my nerves and just did it and now I can take on the next type of cheese. I am so excited to know that this is simple and budget friendly.

This past Sunday morning we headed out to a farm stand that was recommended to us and got some basic lettuce, tomatoes, cucumbers and so on for our meals and the sign said all plants 50% off so we looked around. They were overflowing with the regular flowers and herbs and I was looking and reading and enjoying the aroma of the plants. My daughter said that if I was going to get a new herb I should try something new and there were only two or three that were different from what I was already growing on my mini deck. This plant kept calling me back because it has the aroma of pizza spices and it intrigued me. It was a winner to me so for $2 I brought it home. It is Winter Savory and I am so thrilled with this herb. I google searched it, went on Pinterest and learned about it and yes, on the way around doing errands nibbled on it's peppery leaves. When we got home for lunch we made simple tuna fish on Ciabatta rolls and I added thin slices of onion and chopped some of the winter savory for my sandwich. It was wonderful and fresh tasting. It is a perennial plant and when we have a permanent garden it will be added. We are getting closer to that happening and some days we just can't wait. So that's what's been new for the garden and learning this past week in the townhouse homestead. Thank you for stopping by and visiting and I hope you all have a wonderful week.

The Vermont Cheese House

Rick and Jody the owners of The Cheese House will make you feel so welcome when you visit them. We were just spontaneously driving through southern Vermont not looking for anything when we came across this quaint cheese house and gift shop. We just had to stop. The original owners built the cheese house to resemble a wheel of cheese which you can see when you visit thevermontcheesehouse.com to see how it looked and learn it's history. Jody explained that they lost their cheese making room during hurricane Irene last year and are starting to rebuild the business after the damage. I can tell you that they are well underway and I wish them a good season. Needless to say yes I did shop. I bought goodies to eat of course. No shirts or souvenirs just items for my tummy. You can order these items at the above website. You will need to read the ordering information carefully because the items are perishable and may not be easily shipped until the weather cools off. Rick and Jody explain clearly on their site.  Here are some of the goodies we came home with.

First and most important the maple syrup. Sold at the Cheese House but from Bob's Maple Syrup. bobsmapleshop.com. I'm always looking for fig spread or jam and sure enough they had fig spread and I didn't leave without some. We also purchased Boysenberry syrup from Maple Grove Farms of Vermont. maplegrove.com. We had home made waffles for dinner the evening we got home and used the boysenberry syrup on them. Yummy!

I can only tell you how wonderful the raspberry peach jam and apple butter were. They are from the Side Hill Farm in Brattleboro VT. No website was available, but I bet you can order them from the Cheese House. Then there were Halladay's herb blends. Sure I know I can get some of these locally, but I had never seen the Lobster bisque dip or the Dilly herb dip. I've used the Dilly herbs on Tilapia fish since we've been home and it was awesome. If you can find them you should try them. The website is halladays.com.

Then there's the cheese and sausages. Many, many to choose from but we purchased smoked apple cheddar and these two fine items. Venison summer sausage and Truck Drivers' sharp cheddar. When they say sharp this is it. As you can see there's not a picture of the apple cheddar and the Venison sausage has been opened. We couldn't wait so we sampled some with special crackers in our hotel room.
I really hope you can find time to stop by their site and check it out. Business's trying to recover from natural disaster can use all of our help no matter how little it can be. Just make sure you read the shipping information.  Have a wonderful day. I look forward to sharing more of our finds in this coming weeks blogs.