Townhouse Homestead Tuesday

The weather took a turn for the cool last week, but is on it's way back up to the mid eighties this week with cooler evenings and it is wonderful. The vegetables are still growing and I am using them up as they ripen.

First up is a grand kettle of tomatoes. I simmered it, seasoned it, and let it become tomato sauce. I also chose a larger sandwich size tomatoe that was given to me and harvested some seeds from it for next years gardening. I don't know what kind of tomato it was, but the tomato tasted good so I will give it a try and I saved a couple dollars saving them.

This morning I made eggplant lasagna. It's all ready to pop in the oven later for dinner. The eggplant was given to me and there's the sauce in it's final stage. I will can some of the rest later this week after I make vegetable broth. The cheese layers are from home made ricotta and mozzarella blended with herbs grown on the deck of our townhouse. 

Cooler temperatures meant that I could take advantage and make some fresh bread. It was a wonderful opportunity and does it taste great. The rest of my time has been spent preserving the last of the herbs and I'm hoping now that the basil will bolt so I can harvest some seeds. I am trying some cooler weather spinach in a container and I have some parsnips in another container. Here's hoping something comes of them. I will be checking in on the bucket butternut squash at Karen's and probably finish up the tomatoes there in another week or so. I hope everyone got the bounty they wanted from their gardens and thank you for stopping by for a visit. 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

Everyone is saying that summer is winding down. In some ways it is, but there's so much more left. I think we measure summer by school vacations. Long after the kids go back to school there is still plenty to do. I still have harvesting, canning, cooking, and garden clean up ahead. After that the holidays slip in there so quickly and then there we are planning for next spring and suffering from garden fever. 

It's been busy here as it has been on farms across this great country. I  may only have a small container garden, but the farm markets are bursting at the seams with the wonders of nature. 

One of my favorite items to can is apricot jam. Our favorite meal around here is apricot ginger chicken. I got a great price at the farm market and I now have a nine cup supply to get us through the winter. I failed at dehydrating apricots. I admit to using too much citric acid and from now on will stick to jam.

I harvested peppermint. This was quite a bit for something that is growing in a pot on the deck. I made peppermint extract and dried leaves for tea. I am going to propagate a new plant and hope I can have fresh mint through the winter. Wish me luck. I'm going to do this with some spearmint also.

I got a few cloves of garlic. This was planted in defiance because we are not allowed to grow (farm) here at the townhouse. I was honest with them and told them I planted it to keep the mice away. LOL It has a bit longer to cure and then I will wash it and store it. My transplanted chives also produced an abundant crop for me and I have added chive butter and chopped chives to the freezer.

My daughters once every so often will take me to Niblack foods. It's a store with all the great stuff that I can't make for myself right now.  All organic products of course. I stay away because the bill can get quite high, but on this trip we got some saffron rice, a sesame snack, quinoa, raw sunflower seeds, pine nuts and coconut oil. I harvested a large bunch of basil and used the pine nuts to make my pesto for winter. I freeze it in ice cube trays. I propagated a new plant that I have inside now for use through winter. I hope I can keep it alive. I am going to make sunflower bread with the sunflower seeds. It came highly recommended with strawberry butter. Sounds like it would be great for a cool Saturday morning.

Every where I went in July it was Christmas. My Christmas gift to us in July was home made almond biscotti. I had made biscotti before, but it was a total fail, but I tried again with a simple recipe this time and now I can't wait to make my lemon lavender biscotti for the holidays with our great lavender harvest.

I have been baking my own bread this summer and this was two loafs of french bread that I must say was out of this world as just a slice of bread, but topped with home made basil pesto, tomato and mozzarella cheese and broiled was a beautifully light summer dinner. I'm amazed at how little pesto is required to make something so delicious.

For this coming week I have more harvesting to do. I see my rose bush is blossoming again and I want to make rose water for cooking. My sage is running away in its hanging basket and I need to harvest it. I am going to put it in the ground so that next year it may be ready sooner. I'm also going to put the rosemary in the ground. It's not farming or putting in a garden, it is a small pleasure from mother earth. 

Thank you everyone for stopping by. I'm having a wonderful summer and I hope you all are too. Have a wonderful week and happy harvest.

Townhouse Homestead Tuesday

Wow that was a fast week. To say time flies when you're having fun is not totally the truth. Let's say time flies when your busy. To start from the townhouse this week I've gone back to seriously baking and cooking. Doing what I can to eat better, but still enjoy food and life. I've gone back to baking my own bread. I've tried a lot of new recipes floating around on the Internet, but I'm going back to my good old Betty Crocker recipes I got as a teenager in the sixties. I just like the result, taste and I like the kneading. I know it's easy to let the machine do it, but when you've spent so much time doing something a certain way it's hard to let go.

I like home made bread better for French toast. I can slice it to the thickness I want and when soaking in the egg mixture it holds up better. Doesn't that look yummy? It certainly was.

I also make this ahead and keep it in the refrigerator so my daughter can take it to work for breakfast. I never did this when the kids were younger, but now it works great for her. 

Another task this week was cleaning the recipe files and papers. Over the years I've accumulated so many books, papers and clippings that I could never find what I needed when I needed it. I got a good start, but there is more to do.

This is some of the before. Can't believe I let it get so out of control, but...

look how neat the after is. I found recipes I thought were lost and would never find again and I can now just go to the right spot and get it. I put printed recipes in plastic sleeves to preserve them and can just pull them out of the notebook and wipe clean if they get messy. 

From the sewing and craft room this week I used a few scraps to make a candle cozy for 4th of July decorating. I don't do a lot of decorating any more so I'm keeping it simple with a holiday candle.

Sewing projects listed on the store have already started selling. There were pillows and napkins.

https://www.etsy.com/listing/192554082/hand-made-16-inch-black-cotton-pillow?

https://www.etsy.com/listing/192563409/hand-made-16-inch-teal-pillow?

https://www.etsy.com/listing/192564741/hand-made-screen-printed-buddha-pillow?

The pink napkins have sold, but the green napkins can be found here:

https://www.etsy.com/listing/192558851/set-of-4-double-sided-13-inch-napkins?

Well I guess that's why the week flew by. I harvested parsley and basil from the garden this week and dried it for my soup mixes. I also took some clippings of my peppermint plant to start a new one and it's already rooting. Everything is growing nicely. It's small and mostly herbs, but it's my bit of earth. 

Thank you for stopping by and I hope everyone has a wonderful week.

Linking to: We Call It Junkin