Town House Homestead Tuesday

Winter is moving in this weekend, with the first predictions of snow, and I am not ready. Most of the yard is taken care of, and with the shed at least secured, we have been able to store materials, fire wood, gardening supplies, and yard ornaments in it. What a blessing to have it available. 

My herbs that I move indoors a month ago are enjoying the windows. Yesterday I harvested parsley. It was taking over the window and I now have it drying for future cooking. Later today I would like to see what I can get for oregano, lemon balm, mint, and sage before winter really gets here and I put them to bed.

I have collected all the dried zinnia seeds. This is a mixture of red, yellow, pink, and white that I will be packaging up soon. Things that can wait until I need to be inside, but I am excited to have a bounty for adding to the pollination garden next spring. 

I swapped out Halloween for Thanksgiving. I've always loved yellow ware bowls and I had two small ones that fit nicely into the cubbies. I've already cooked a turkey and have a nice breast to serve. Just the two of us and some simple sides. It is going to be relaxing and simple. I've been baking and preparing so our staycation week goes easy on me.

Once again I was gifted more vegetables. Even a couple of vegetables I've never tried before. I can only say that the beets were out of this world and I can't wait to grow some myself.

This post will end with Hunter. At nine months he is still full of puppy power and confusion, but he made it through Halloween. It helped not to have any trick or treaters. His treat was popcorn. He discovered thunder and lightening, but is not afraid of it. He only wanted to chase through the yard to figure out where it was coming from. I have considered changing my homestead title to "Mud Puppy Homestead", but it would make it all about Hunter and I'm not giving that up yet. We can only imagine what will happen this weekend when he discovers snow. That's some of what's been happening here at the Town House Homestead. Thank you for stopping by for a visit and have an awesome week. Share your bounty and love. 

Town House Homestead Tuesday

What a wonderfully productive, yet slower week and weekend we had. Ginger Bean, my dear Emily, came Saturday and dog sat while my daughter took me to a gallery showing, and we did a few errands. It was quite wonderful. Emily brought her freezer full of compostables and we got them in the bin too. While we were out she filled my crisper bin with fruit and veggies. I knew she brought a few items, but when I looked Sunday morning, this is what was there.

Lots to cook with this week and meals that can be shared. Also included was a head of garlic.

Bright and early Sunday morning I harvested oregano, parsley, bunch onions, chives, one more pepper, and some beans. What a bounty.

I also put some sage and oregano up to dry last week. I will need dry herbs for holiday cooking. 

The seeds from the squash will be saved and dried for my future garden, that is getting closer. If not I have some good compost going, and my buckets to keep container gardening.

I was most excited to harvest my sunflowers. I couldn't believe how large they got and most of them did a wonderful job at seed development. Only one performed less that the rest, but I was only supposed to have four sunflowers any way. I put four seed in pots to start. Only three came up in a week. I put a new seed in the fourth pot and to my surprise both seeds sprouted. The seed company said these don't transfer well, but I did it anyway. I think the result is awesome. I have seeds for my feathered friends this winter and maybe some for us, and a good selection to plant more next year.

We got a living room accent wall painted this past weekend. Yes, notice it's blocked off so that Hunter doesn't end up a black puppy with white paint. He's good at getting into mischief. We are so excited to be able to install wall shelves before the holidays. 

We had the most beautiful sunset Sunday night. My daughter captured it well. The ducks are a constant here because we have a neighbor who feeds them. Some evenings it's like watching a star wars battle, but this picture summed up the most wonderfully relaxing, but accomplishing weekend we've had in a while.

And to end on a mischievous Hunter note, yes he's a puppy, eight months old now and weighing in at at least forty five to fifty pounds. I turned my back to do a chore for a few minutes and one of the sofa pillows no longer exists. That was this mornings adventure with Hunter. I have nothing more to say. Thank you for stopping by and have a wonderful week. Remember to share your bounty along with love. 

Town House Homestead Tuesday

This week was good for harvesting a few herbs and veggies from the gardens. I'm beginning to consider these practice runs for a larger garden next spring. 

We got a very large colander of mint that I have drying for tea. My lemon balm is recovering from insects that tried to eat it away, and I have chives and oregano ready to harvest this week.

I harvested patty pan squash and a pepper along with some calendula blossoms. My daughter is going to start making soap soon. We try to leave some blossoms for the bees too.

I boiled the squash whole and then stuffed and baked them. They are so good and make a complete meal or a great side dish. Not a large farm harvest for sure, but for the two of us it's fine. Our garden will grow larger in time. 

I have five buckets of beans growing along the walk and am hoping the deer leave them alone. They know we have Hunter now so we haven't seen them around, but you just never know..

If they leave them alone we may have a couple of meals that will have fresh beans as sides.

I've been cleaning and polishing a couple of vintage mid century chairs that my daughter got for her living room. I'm just taking advantage of the cooler temperatures and the sun. 

The big project has been the restoration of the shed. Something we've been waiting 16 months to get to. Our great friends at CCH Lawn and Landscape spent time this past weekend power washing it for us, measuring for new doors and investigating the way to secure the floor. This out building is needed to store our tools and garden supplies and we are very excited about it.

As soon as it was dry my daughter headed out to apply some paint. It will be gray with white trim. For now the doors will remain in place until they are replaced. 

I spent a couple of hours yesterday cleaning all the weeds and making sure she could paint all the way down to ground level. I discovered there is a border around the shed that has been covered in grass. On the shaded side of the shed I will transplant some Hosta's. There are plenty of them around the yard and it will be a nice touch. 

She came home from work last evening, ate some dinner and went out to paint another side. This is what it is becoming. Everything can be fixed up with a little TLC.

Of course Hunter has been such a big help lately. He's seven months old now. While we have been working on projects outside, and trying to build a garden, he has very nicely removed and torn to shreds the cardboard we laid to be a weed barrier. It upsets me to see my work undone, but I have learned to let it go, but not really. For every step forward we make in our relationship we always take a few backwards. I keep getting told to wait and he'll grow out of it. He probably will, but waiting is hard for me. So, until then, that's what's been happening at the Town House Homestead. Thank you for stopping by and have a wonderful week. To all those recovering from hurricane Harvey, we wish you the best and have donated to help you out. Love to you all and stay safe. 

Townhouse Homestead Tuesday

Still having fun here at the townhouse homestead. The work is overwhelming some days, but I am succeeding at putting together a meal plan. We started yesterday and I already see some tweaking that needs doing. For example a Thanksgiving size meal on Monday without prepping over the weekend does not make Monday easy. No, it wasn't turkey it was baked chicken and dressing with salad. Dressing made from scratch and home made bread croutons and the time was a bit more than expected. Also turning the oven on when it's ninety degrees outside doesn't work either, but we had a good meal and there were leftovers for lunches. 

My covert carrots are almost ready to harvest. They are in there and it's been fun watching them grow. I think they did well in the container, but it's the carrot top pesto I am looking forward to trying. Once these are harvested I will plant parsnips. The seeds are germinating as we speak. They take a while longer but are cold weather safe. 

I acquired a good amount of garlic and set out to dehydrate some. I've always used garlic powder in my cooking and I got one and a half pounds of garlic for $4.29. I filled the dehydrator and there was this wonderful (sarcasm) aroma that hung around the townhouse for a couple of days.

The result was awesome. I yielded about two cups of garlic chips. My favorite use for them is to put them in grinders so they are fresh for my winter cooking. Winter vegetables with a little olive oil and butter with ground pepper and garlic are so good. I up cycle my empty grinders. As long as I can get the covers off I reuse them. The one's that have pepper in them I use for pepper blends, but the one's with sea salt, etc. clean up well as far as having no remaining fragrance so I use them and gift my blends. 

I started learning how to make cheese. This week will be ricotta so I can make vegetable lasagna. My intent is to make pepper jack cheese and it requires pickled jalapeno peppers so this week I proceeded to pickle peppers. My younger daughter picked them up for me at the farmers market and I pickled seven four ounce jars. The recipe only requires two tablespoons, so I think I'm set for a while.

I harvested the cilantro and the seeds are drying. I have planted spinach in the container and it's starting to come up. I thought they were washed out because the rain came down so hard, but they survived so far. I have plenty of garlic left and plan on making garlic bread with the fresh parsley I harvested. I love using my daughter's vintage Pyrex for my cooking. My basil is growing extremely well. This picture is the third harvest. I have dried some and made pesto and this bundle will be added to the dry. I also clipped two stems and rooted it so I have a plant inside growing. I have enough to clip more so I can share this plant with others. The plants are strong. We paid $3.99 and there were two in the pot and I have harvested enough from it so that economically it paid it's way. It's still growing and I may get more pesto to use for gifts. 

This is how my daughter messes with me. We purchased a chive plant for $1 that I divided into three plants. This pot is an eight inch pot so you can imagine how large the original plant was. I've already gifted one of the smaller plants. I have this growing inside also. The townhouse complex sprays anything that's in the ground, but they leave my herbs in the pots on my little deck alone. My daughter said I need to give the chive a haircut, but I'm waiting a couple days because I need some for a recipe. My next challenge is going to be helping my rosemary plant. It has powdery mildew and may not make it, but I will give it the farm girl try at saving it. That's what's new here at the townhouse homestead. Thanks for stopping by and have a great week. 

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.

Townhouse Homestead Tuesday.

My goodness are we getting busy, but busy with fun things. Spring so far has been wet. Pouring rain almost every day and then sun. Fairly warm temperatures, but not the best. It's all up to Mother Nature. We had a graduation to attend this past Saturday. I did some baking and took it along.

I baked a cinnamon tea ring and some strawberry short bread bars and put together this party platter. 

I checked in on the tomato plants. They have been in the garden for less than two weeks and they are growing fast. They are container tomatoes and I'm hoping for a good yield from them. I have seven containers altogether. 

Yesterday I harvested the first of my herbs to dry. Here I have Cilantro and Parsley. The notes are the name and date they were put to dry. Just so I can keep track of my yields. 

The most exciting adventure this week was my daughter's. A co-worker is teaching her more about bee keeping and Sunday she got some hands on experience. She will be helping to care for this hive over the summer. This has been a dream of hers and she said she wasn't the slightest bit nervous. That' some of the activities here at the townhouse. There's always something to keep us busy and I'm sure it's the same for you. Thank you for stopping by to visit and have a wonderful week.

Townhouse Homestead Tuesday

Today is going to be in the mid 70's but we're expecting snow on Halloween. It's been cool, no cold off and on so far this fall so this is a welcome day. With the change in the season comes changes in what we eat and the blessings of winter vegetables. I don't grow my own, but the farm stands and super markets are loaded with deals.

I have a hanging basket of spearmint by the front door of the townhouse that just doesn't want to quit. I harvested it and set it back outside to do it's thing. I yielded two more cups of dry leaves for winter tea. I may get one more harvest before it goes dormant for winter.

At the market I got a four pound four ounce head of cabbage for 99 cents and I was curious about what I could do for meals from one head and a few vegetables and a little meat. I got ten servings of stuffed cabbage using ten leaves, 3/4 pound ground beef, 1 cup of leftover rice, an egg, a little onion and some home made bread crumbs. Then on to cabbage soup. I got four servings of soup and used one can of stewed tomatoes and 4 ounces of polish sausage.

I made a pot of boiled potatoes and cabbage that I'll reheat with some butter and pepper and there are about six servings there. Last but not least is fried cabbage in olive oil a small amount of butter, salt and pepper. About three servings there. So all in all I yielded about 23 servings from my four plus pound 99 cent cabbage.

Butternut squash was 99 cents each this week and I got two more to try some soup. I just made up my own recipe because all those I found added more than I was willing to use. I used two cups of cooked squash, not pureed, two cups of home made chicken broth, two tablespoons of my sage/pepper butter made earlier this summer and salt to taste. Served with a biscuit and it was gone in no time. I was getting tired of pumpkin everything so I made gingerbread biscotti. We like it more than pumpkin. I needed bread so I baked up a couple loaves of sandwich bread. It went well with all the soups. I was able to harvest a few more sprigs of fresh rosemary and I think I will get some more sage before I let them rest for the winter.

Finally I made some three cheese tortellini soup. I used 8 ounces of tortellini two cans of Italian style stewed tomatoes and 4 ounces of sausage. Served this up with fresh from the oven garlic bread made with home made french bread and it was a delightful meal on a cold evening.

This weeks freebies included a Biscoff cookie coupon, a cat food coupon, samples of Scotch brand products and taco seasoning. I spent last evening with my younger daughter just running errands and she brought me onions because there were to many for her and she paid for four pounds of carrots for me. I am so grateful and can see the veggies in my stir fry, stews and carrot cake. It's going to be a wonderful winter. Thank you for stopping by and have a wonderful week.

Townhouse Homestead Tuesday

We are enjoying the herbs from the garden and making them ready for the upcoming winter months when we won't have fresh. Getting herbs to grow inside is hard here because we have little to no light or room for it. This week has been a busy one. 

We harvested the lavender and dried it. We have a good solid cup of buds to use for cooking and adding to whatever we want. Two of the plants were new and one is older and we think for the size of the plants we did well. Double last years harvest. Not bad for the room we are allowed for plants. We have a pint of lavender simple syrup brewing for iced tea and lemonade this summer. A little goes a long way. 

I harvested the spearmint for a batch of mint jelly. I liked the jelly, but can't wait to work with my peppermint.

My green onions have been so abundant that I cut some of them to freeze in oil for those wonderful winter vegetables. I also have a cup chopped in a jar in the refrigerator to use now. I also made herb butters. I made basil butter; basil, lemon and garlic butter along with parsley butter. These have been frozen for winter use.

This morning I harvested Rosemary and Sage. From this I will make more butters and oils for winter storage. I can't wait to have sage and pepper butter on my sweet potatoes. I have a lot left to the plants, so having fresh for a while is wonderful.

Bread making this week included one loaf and six rolls. More than enough for two for the week. 

This past Sunday we spent some time with a dear friend who had come home from California for a visit. It was a dish to pass event at an outdoor park and I made this bread pudding to take. I made it from this pinterest recipe http://www.pinterest.com/pin/461970874250028516/. The only change I made to this recipe was to include the cinnamon with the sugar and flour so it mixed through the pudding instead of being sprinkled on top. I also used a homemade sweet bread, that was a pinterest fail as far as a sandwich bread, and it was delicious in the pudding. Needless to say not one raisin came home in the dirty dish.

There's been plenty to do for our simple townhouse homestead lifestyle including making a new supply of laundry detergent. Starting next Monday the landlords are doing inspections of selected units and I so hope it's not ours. We will spend this weekend hiding a few things and making sure we are within the rules. I am keeping things neat and organized so they cannot find issues. I'm also trying hard to understand why we pay so much money to rent and live under these conditions but this too shall change. We are determined, but need to change at a pace that doesn't end up being a big mistake. That's what's new at the townhouse homestead this week and thank you for stopping by. Have a wonderful week.