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. 

Simple labors this Labor Day.

Spending a quiet day today. My daughter has her first Labor Day off in seven years. We started with a late morning breakfast.

It included potatoes on the waffle iron. She saw this on Pinterest and just had to try it. We had a few chopped potatoes in the freezer from another cooking project so away she went. We had just enough for one waffle and it worked out to be enough for two. We splurged and had bacon, but I want to state that we did not have bacon on National Bacon Day Saturday. Add some scrambled eggs and fresh hot coffee and we were off to a good Labor Day start.

She has said over and over to me for the past year that we needed to add some green color to the bland brown apartment cupboards, so today I humored her. We took a ride down the street to raid a friends garden for herbs. Thanks to Command Hooks I have sweet basil and lemon basil drying on the bland doors. 

I have two pints of Rosemary infused oil brewing. In a few days it will be ready to strain and put in my fancier oil jars for use through the winter.

Of course not all of the basil is going to be dried. I made some basil garlic compound butter. We will be putting this on some corn on the cob and I will use some on roasted potatoes, but most of it will go in the freezer to use over time. I can't tell you how wonderful our little apartment smells. Days like today let you know that Family and the simple things are the most important. I am grateful to Carter's bountiful gift. Thank you.