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

We had a very quiet Easter here at the townhouse. Caught up with a few people we hadn't heard from in a while and just relaxed. Dinner was peaceful and it was prepared a bit ahead of time so it too was not time consuming and flowed smoothly. To brighten up our Easter dinner table we used some of the Pyrex collection and my daughter loves to collect misfit lazy Susan pieces. With the vintage table cloth that is by no means in perfect condition it made a setting for a lovely early Spring/Easter dinner.

This townhouse homesteader is trying to create a meal planner and build a stock so it is easier to combine the work schedule and have the best meals we can. This week the only addition we made to that stock up was onion rice mix. I made this with my home made onion soup mix and while I was putting it together I decided that this will be a side for roast pork. The fragrance spoke pork.

I put this up in 8 ounce jars. With just two of us one cup of rice is a lot so we can get four servings from each jar and of course they are vacuum sealed for a healthy shelf life. That's all that's new as far as the homesteading side of the townhouse for last week. We've done plenty more and have plenty more we can do. Thank you for stopping by and have a wonderful week. 

Recipes here:

https://www.pinterest.com/pin/461970874252980526/

https://www.pinterest.com/pin/461970874249489880/

Townhouse Homestead Tuesday

Things move along quickly when you're having fun. Did I say that? I always feel busy, but some how it's not all fun. Plenty is though and I'm enjoying my labor.

This past week my daughter baked lemon lavender shortbread cookies. They were beyond awesome. We've harvested a new crop of lavender to dry and use and there's plenty more to come. 

Do you recognize it? The new to us green Cinderella Pyrex bowl found thrifting earlier. I put it to use making up my corn bread mix for the up coming chili season. It's all stored in Ball jars along with the extra corn meal. Some is in the pantry for instant use. 

Since the holiday was celebrated quietly and there was just two of us and we didn't need a lot, we only had one dessert of  red, white and blue cookies after the turkey burgers, corn on the cob and roasted rosemary potatoes. 

The container gardening is going well. I am getting a good harvest of herbs and the sweet potatoes are getting larger every day. 

The peppermint is getting ready for me to dry the leaves for my winter supply of tea. I have peppermint simple syrup blending for my ice tea. 

I always love the freebies and have decided to share them this week. I'm always trying to save on my groceries and use some coupons, but a few programs allow you to get cash back on items other than a lot of processed foods. This includes fruit and vegetables which you never see coupons for. This past week Savingstar.com had free Morton salt. All you do is request the item and when you purchase the item with any of your registered grocery or drugstore cards they credit your account with the full purchase price or the coupon offer price. To save more you can use regular manufacturers coupons at the store to purchase the item if one is available. It takes a few minutes, but it's worth it when that cash becomes available. I got one box of salt and the other was a surprise from a friend who likes my baking. It's already saved in the canning jars I found thrifting earlier and I recycled the salt container tops to put on my canning jars for future use. This idea I found on Pinterest.com.

Savingstar had a free offer for a Hershey chocolate bar and it has been put aside for that dreaded, overwhelming desire for chocolate. Yes, I can resist until then.

It's been a busy week here at the townhouse. I've had sewing for income to keep me busy and cleaning, photographing and editing pictures of items to list on the store and the regular life that keeps us hopping. I was blessed last week with a day long visit with my grandsons and this week I will get to spend time with my granddaughter. They grow so fast and I cherish every minute with them. Thank you for stopping by and I wish everyone a wonderful week. 

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

Townhouse Homestead Tuesday

For a few weeks now I have been trying to decide if I should start another blog to cover the different side of my life here at the townhouse. The major reason that I have decided not to is time. I'm very busy managing three on line stores and selling on different venues too, so after long discussions and deliberations I'm starting a new feature on "The Craft Zone" and calling it "Townhouse Homestead Tuesday". I think it's more than appropriate since the art of farming, raising animals, sewing and living a sustainable life, is in reality a craft. I have so many stories that I can post about under this title so here it goes. 

Yes it's a townhouse apartment. Not the best living situation for a want to be farm girl and not the best neighbors, but we are making it work. The rules are strict, but not for everyone as we have discovered. I'm going to do what I can and if they ask me to remove things, I will. I understand their rules and yes I've seen the critters that they say are no good, but they even spray to kill the bees. Living here is not forever. We live in the back section of the campus and enjoy a forever green wooded area. Actually it's a gorge and earthquake fault, but this is what I enjoyed with my coffee this morning. 

We have some very large raccoons who visit also, but there are wild turkeys and so many beautiful birds. This makes the day wonderful for me.

Last week there were so many sales on strawberries and I picked up two pounds to dehydrate. I am always looking for healthier snacks and these came out so good.

Eggs were $1 a dozen and I had been interested in making these peppered pickled eggs. I found the recipe here on pinterest. http://pharmacist.hubpages.com/hub/spicypickledeggs. I made them yesterday and harvested the seeds from the peppers I used. In two weeks I can taste them.

I was being a rebel when I started this sweet potato. We have such poor light in the townhouse that I never expected it to do anything. Well, to my surprise it did. I pinched the leaves off, and put them in water to root. They rooted so quickly that they had to go in a pot or I had to throw them away. One daughter bought me the planter and another gave me the bag of soil and I was on my way to growing sweet potatoes in a container.

I have strategically placed it on our small four foot square deck and stairs at the back door and put a solar light in it to make it look nice. They are growing well and are larger now. So far it's passing property inspections and I haven't been asked to remove it. There's more growing and more to be planted and more to write about, but for now I"ll leave it for the next post. It's not all thrifting, selling, sewing and fabric crafting here and "Townhouse Homestead Tuesday" is proof that there's plenty to enjoy in life for this townhouse farm girl.