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The key holder on our messenger bag inspired this project!

I dispensed with a major pet peeve of mine–digging through my purse to find my keys–today with a simple craft project using only items I had laying around the house!

My beloved Timbuk2 messenger bag has a nifty little clip on the end of a ribbon, so I can attach my keys and never lose them in the otherwise cavernous bag. So why not my other purses?

Now each of my purses is outfitted with a clip made to hold my keys. It was quick and easy, even for a novice with needle and thread like myself.

Materials

• 1 keychain with a swivel hook and several detachable key rings or several individual swivel-hooks as pictured
• several 4-8″ pieces of remnant ribbon, preferably in colors that coordinate with your handbags
• heavy-duty thread that matches the thread
• sewing needle

Here’s how I did it…

Everyone probably has something similar to this in their junk drawer, right?

My original idea was just to completely replicate the Timbuk2 bag, so I set off rummaging through all the shit treasures in our junk drawer and tool box looking for several clips.

Instead, I found this little gem! I bought it some time ago to do something similar to this and it failed because modern-day car keys are too big to fit on the tiny rings and it was far too bulky to carry around in my already heavy purse.

But what if I turned it upside down and used each little detachable key-ring in a different purse? That would give me four built-in key holders at any one time so that I could easily change bags on the run. Score!

For purses that had a clip on the inside, I wouldn’t even need to do any sewing, but for ones that didn’t, I would just sew in a ribbon just like the Timbuk2 bag.

My everyday keys.

Here are the keys that I carry on a more or less daily basis: one set of house keys, one car key.

They fit easily onto the swivel hook of the blue keychain, meaning that I can detach them without taking my gloves off when it’s -20C! That’s less convenience and more necessity here in Helsinki.

The other thing I love is that I can easily detach the car key and leave it behind on days that I’m taking public transport instead of driving without breaking a nail fiddling with a conventional keyring. Less clutter and weight in my bag leaves room for my Kindle, a knitting project, snacks for the kids, or a few small groceries picked up on the way somewhere else.

Attach a keyring to the zipper in your purse...

However, my new Marimekko bag has solid zip-pulls, and it’s extra-large, three pocket design meant there were extra nooks and crannies in which to lose my keys. So I pulled out my sewing box and got to work.

I chose a short piece of extra ribbon I had laying around. I eye-balled the length of the ribbon so that the heavy keys would rest on the bottom of the purse instead of dangling with hopes that the ribbon will last longer and that I’ll have less jingling as I walk around town.

The finished product.

Then I put one end of the ribbon through the key ring and folded the ribbon in half so that it overlapped itself by about half an inch. At this point, if you have a sewing machine, I would recommend machine-stitching for extra durability. However, I doubled-up about 18 inches of heavy-duty thread and hand-stitched down the edge of the ribbon, across the cut edge, back up the other side, across the top of the ribbon (just below the keyring) in a square and put a few stitches in the middle of the square for good measure.

Then I folded the other end of the ribbon down half an inch and carefully stitched it to the top edge of the canvas of my bag. I made sure that I was getting the needle all the way through the inside layer of canvas, but that I wasn’t hitting the outside canvas–I didn’t want stitches showing through or want my brand-new bag to pucker.

Leather or other materials may pose more of an issue than cloth, but hopefully you can find a tag or other bit of cloth that you can get a needle through to outfit all of your bags with this nifty little key-holder.

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I like to bake. People have been known to covet my pie and my pancakes have garnered acclaim on two continents. And then there’s my bread and my pizza dough. I mean, when it comes to baking, I know what I’m doing, right? I have conquered high-altitude baking. I unraveled the mysteries of British flour from strong to self-rising. And yet, after seven months, I’m just starting to figure out Finnish flour, and doing a lot more research on it than I was expecting! Oh yeah, and here I am four months later revising it again to include even more info!!

Part of it might just be the Finnish language. For all its rules and structure, there are still several ways to say just about everything. And each brand seems to do its naming conventions slightly differently. I’m trying hard not to think that they’ve done this intentionally to confound me! Here’s an example: Luomu means organic in Finnish. I try to buy organic whenever I can, so I look for this. Sometimes the word Luomu is just on the bag, but sometimes it’s incorporated into the name of the flour itself. So Luomuvehnäjauho (organic wheat flour) is the same as Vehnäjauho Luomu (wheat flour, organic). Seems simple in an of itself, except that if you’re shopping with children and trying to hang on to the subtleties of the different types of milk and yogurt too, it might be just a little bit too much to take in.

The first bit of advice I got on Finnish flour was from a fellow American expat here in Helsinki. She said, when all else fails, get the flour with the pulla on the bag. That would be Sunnuntai Erikoisvehnäjauho (Sunday Special Wheat Flour in English). I’m taking a guess that this is designated special because it’s the flour used for Finland’s amazing cinnamon buns (kanelipulla or korvapuusti depending on the whether you lay the dough spirals upright or on their side before baking and whether you include cardamom or not). Sunnuntai (Sunday) is the brand name, and the company has a fairly helpful Finnish flour primer on its web site. Myllyn Paras also provides a similar guide to its flour, but the English language translations leave off some key words that you’ll find below!

Branching out from the pulla flour presents some challenges. Here are some helpful words to know (besides jauho, which is the Finnish word for flour):

• täysjyvä or kokojyvä or graham* – wholegrain
• vehnä – wheat
• kakku – cake (as in cake flour)
• karkea or maalais – coarse/rustic (also sometimes seen as semi-coarse or puolikarkea)
• ruis – rye
• sihtiruisjauho or ruissithijauho- fine-milled rye flour
• tuore – fresh (this can show up if you buy flour from co-ops or the market)
• Sämpyläjauho, hiivaleipajauho – These two provide the name of what you bake with it right in the name of the flour–rolls and “yeast bread”

* Although everything I’ve read indicates that the word graham means, in fact, whole-wheat and not graham like graham crackers, I recently bought Pirkka’s Luomu Grahamjauho and it appears to be plain white flour like you’d use in pancakes, muffins, etc. So the mystery continues!

The Nordic Recipe Archive has a page on flour and also has a nice glossary of Finnish food terms that are both worth checking out if you’re struggling! It also conveniently points out that the reason I haven’t found anything resembling high-gluten bread flour here in Finland is because it’s too darn cold for the gluten to develop in the wheat crops here. Fascinating!

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I particularly like the colors in these two paintings by my son, Gabriel

Let’s say we don’t put a crayon into our child’s hand until they are a year old (it was earlier than that for us!). That means that, when I began my decluttering adventure, I found roughly 8 years’ worth of artwork (combined total for two children) in a giant stack in my basement. We do craft projects nearly every day, and they spent part of every day of their preschool lives doing craft as well, so you can see how quickly that can multiply. Each piece is unique, captures their developmental milestones in visual format, and, especially now that my son writes “To Mommy” on almost every piece, is very difficult to let go.

And yet, I could not justify taking a three-foot stack of kids’ artwork to Helsinki with us. What to do, what to do? I turned to the “Reduce, Reuse, Recycle” mantra for help with this tricky situation!

Reduce
I was able to immediately reduce the giant pile-o-pictures by pulling out some nice ones and sending them to out-of-state relatives. This made me feel good because I was sharing part of my children’s experiences with them, and they were appreciative too!

Reuse
I’ve already blogged about Zero-Waste Wrapping Paper, but it’s worth mentioning again. Larger paintings, especially those that come from easel paper, make great home-made wrapping paper. Not only does it add a personal touch to your gifts, but it doesn’t contain the heavy metals present in many commercial wrapping papers and can, therefore, be recycled. Double bonus.

Note to pack-rats: Do not fool yourself into keeping a life-time supply of child art for wrapping paper. Only keep enough for a month or so, or one major holiday at most, because you know they’re going to keep painting more!

Recycle, But Scan First!
Once you’ve sent some of the artwork on and set aside enough to wrap a holiday’s-worth of present-wrapping, it’s time to recycle 95% of the rest. Yes, I kept a small file-folder of items from the 8 years of artwork: Gabriel’s first rainbow painting, Lily’s first flower, a special drawing of Grandma, Gabriel’s first picture of our family.

But before I recycled, I took photos and/or scanned in the best ones and plan to keep those digitally for posterity. We have a combo printer/fax/scanner that is amazingly high-quality for the price, but I also took digital photos of anything too big to fit on the scanner bed. The photos are slightly lower-quality than the scanner, even with my 12.1 megapixel camera, but are good enough that I could easily put together a photo book for each child sometime in the future if I wanted to (and I do!).

I’m also planning to publish a digital album of their work so that friends and family can see the art they create in Finland. There are so many free services out there for digital storage these days (Picasa, Facebook, and Evernote just to name the ones we actively use) that it makes sense to store things this way instead of on CDs or even a disk drive that might contribute to your clutter.

So how have you found creative ways to declutter? I’m always looking for new ways to simplify!

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Festival Pasta

I make a lot of things from scratch because cooking is a hobby of mine. But it is not gourmet night every night in my kitchen. Despite my desire to participate in Meatless Monday, I often struggle to come up with anything besides leftovers after a hectic day of school, swim lessons, and the general chaos that accompanies our transition from the weekend back into the week.

Tonight, the thought of coming up with something creative and meat-free for dinner sounded especially daunting because my husband just left for a business trip to Helsinki. But what I came up with–a variation on one of the first recipes I ever invented back in college–is a recipe that is healthy, meat-free, and can be prepared in 30 minutes or less. I call it Festival Pasta not only because of all the different colors in the dish, but because there are so many substitutions you can make that you’re nearly guaranteed to have what you need to make this in your kitchen on any given Monday!

Festival Pasta
Serves 4 (if two are children, expect a few leftovers!)

1/2 pound whole-wheat pasta
2 cloves of garlic
1 T olive oil (you can cut back on this if you’re using cast-iron or non-stick. I used stainless tonight and needed the extra oil to keep things from sticking too much)
1 bell pepper, chopped finely
1 small zucchini, chopped finely
1 small yellow squash, chopped finely
1 c. button or crimini mushrooms, chopped finely
3 large roma tomates, chopped
1/3 c. wine
1 c. marinara sauce or 2 T pesto or 1 T olive oil
1/2 c. black beans (or really any kind of beans)
1 c. spinach, chard, or other greens, chopped or torn
1 c. fresh mozzarella, cubed, or 3 T grated Parmesan cheese
salt & pepper to taste

Put a large pot of salted water on to boil. While water heats, clean your kitchen & pour a glass of wine. Seriously. You’ll feel better cooking in a clean kitchen, and you need wine for this recipe, so you might as well open the bottle up front. Put on some good music too, maybe Mon Monarch or Death Cab for Cutie. You have about 7 minutes, might as well use them wisely.

If you’re my best friend, your kitchen is already clean and you’re pregnant so you have to skip the wine. Spend your time on Facebook, or prep your vegetables so you can move more slowly later.

When the water boils, add the pasta and start 1 T of olive oil heating in a skillet over medium heat. When the oil is hot, add the garlic and chopped pepper and cook until the garlic is golden, 2-3 minutes. Then add the mushrooms, squash, and tomatoes and cook until soft, another 7 minutes or so.

Note:The more your children complain about eating veggies, the smaller you should cut the pieces in this pasta sauce, but there’s so much good stuff going on in here that hopefully they won’t notice. If they love something like cubed mozzarella or olives, add those to distract them from the green stuff You can make this with any type of vegetables, the ones listed above pretty much represent what is available in my garden at the moment!! If your kids are really veggie-averse, I recommend pesto and really finely chopped veggies.

About now, the pasta is probably done, so drain it and throw it back in the pot to keep it warm. Add the wine to the veggies to deglaze any brown bits on the bottom of the pan and then add the beans and sauce. Stir to combine and heat until bubbling, then add the spinach and turn off the heat. You only want the spinach to wilt, not cook until it’s brown.

Pour the sauce into the pasta pot and stir to combine. Then add the cheese and season to taste with salt & pepper. Serve with a salad, a big glass of wine for mama, and fruit for dessert and you’re set! Meatless Monday in a snap!

Check out other Meatless Monday ideas from the Meatless Monday carnival over at Midnight Maniac.

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My first ever Phat Fiber box!

My father used to tell this great story about sawing off the treadle of my grandmother’s spinning wheel as retribution for her not letting he and my uncle go out to hunt. In the end, they climbed out the window and went anyway, and I can only imagine my grandfather’s reaction when he learned what the boys had done. Personally, if it were my wheel, I think Dad would have had to worry more about my wrath than Grampy’s, but who knows.

Those of you who have been coming here to read all about gardening are probably wondering what the heck I’m talking about. I admit it: I’m taking a break from gardening posts to talk about another (relatively new) hobby of mine–spinning. I started knitting this past fall and decided it would be even more fun to knit if I was making my own yarn. Perhaps it was the story of Dad and the spinning wheel, perhaps it was a desire to connect with my grandmother, but I was drawn to spinning and so I signed up for a class with an amazing teacher.

Not long after, I hosted a second class at my house and decided I needed a spinning wheel of my very own. One came to me gently used, and I’ve been spinning like crazy ever since. One of the first things I noticed is that there’s sooooo much out there that it’s hard to pick a place to begin. There are countless varieties of sheep, each with a different texture to their wool. There’s alpaca, angora (goat & bunny), llama, and I even know someone who has spun dog fur. Then there are the plant-based fibers: flax, cotton, bamboo, and the more exotic seacell. When an old friend from high school introduced me to Phat Fiber, I was instantly intrigued.

The idea behind Phat Fiber is to put together a box each month that highlights cottage industry fiber vendors. I should say three boxes each month, because you can choose just yarn, just fiber, or a mix of the two. For $33, I could sample quite a variety of fiber without having to commit to large quantities of any one thing. I went for it. Now, let me tell you, buying a Phat Fiber box is a bit of an adventure. The boxes sell out within a minute of being posted to Etsy and there are only two opportunities each month (usually about 12 hours apart) to buy each month’s box. I missed out on the morning purchase by seconds (I got to add the box to my cart, but the last one sold before I could complete the purchase), but later in the day I scored my first “Fluff” box of fiber.

It arrived a few days later and I was delighted with the contents! Over twenty samples ranging in size from about an ounce to a few grams, all representing the fiber artist’s vision of “The Elements.” Well, I could hardly wait to spin it, so I finished up some experimental yarn I was playing with so that I’d have three empty bobbins and could get started.

My Air & Water singles, still on the bobbins

I decided to do a skein of two-ply using the wool-based blues, turquoise, and purples. Spinning purists are probably shrieking at this point because they know I’m about to say that I mixed everything from ultra-silky alpaca to a fairly coarse South African wool to a gorgeous Merino-Silk mix in the same skein. But that’s what I did and I actually love the results! I split each sample into two bits (one for each ply of the finished yarn) and spun them in order on the first ply and in reverse order on the second ply to somewhat balance everything out.

I have to take a moment to call out my favorites from this first skein (I’m guessing I’m going to have a plant-based skein and another wool skein with browns, greens, and earth tones, but that will have to go into another post!). The first fiber I grabbed out of the box was my favorite in terms of texture. This gorgeous mix of ultra-smooth Alpaca, Tencel (a fiber made from wood pulp!), and wool was blended and dyed by Fiber Fancy. The color, appropriately-named “Earthy,” spun up as a lovely almost silver and the feel of this fiber sliding through my fingers was heaven! What a great introduction to Alpaca for this beginning spinner!

The plied yarn, still on the niddy...

Next, I have to mention the Merino-Silk blend from Extreme Spinning. The silk made it feel just a bit stickier than the Alpaca, but it was soft and easy to spin even at super-fine lace weight.

And finally, another gorgeous alpaca was probably the over-all winner. A blend of Mohair, superwash, merino, alpaca, and just a tiny bit of glitz, Frozen Lake from Silver Sun Alpacas was superior both in texture and in color. I loved that it was dyed first, then blended together instead of blended and then painted. And I really liked the blend of dark & light fibers–this spun up absolutely beautifully and stood out from the medium blues and blue-greens that many folks chose to represent the water element.

If you are a spinner or a knitter, check out Phat Fiber. You’ll be glad you did, and will probably be stalking their Etsy page the day the box goes on sale next month just like I will be!

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Tending to my seedlings last winter

With this post, my garden primer series transitions from the planning stage to the doing stage. I will be writing about what I’m actually doing in my garden as I do it, so if you’re in Zone 5-ish, you can probably follow along in your own garden! So, if you’ve been following along with this series, you’ve already figured out how much garden space you have, how many vegetables you want to plant, and considered whether you’d like to have a container garden this season.

Now it’s time to talk about starting seedlings. Whether you’re starting seeds in a couple of cottage cheese containers in a sunny window or hoping to start most of your vegetables from seed this year, the process is pretty much the same, and so are the benefits. Improved selection of varieties, a desire to know that your food was started in chemical and disease-free conditions, and the need to garden when there’s still snow on the ground are all reasons to start vegetables from seed.

Now is the time to start everything from basil and parsley to peppers, tomatoes, and tomatillos. And if you’re doing spring crops like Brussels sprouts, lettuces, broccoli, or cauliflower, these can be started now as well. I also start several annual flowers from seed for my cutting garden and container gardens, which saves money down the road and again, gives me more varieties from which to choose.

So first, you need to figure out where you should start seeds. Light is going to be key, so if you’re going to use sunlight, pick your absolute sunniest window, probably a south-facing one with not much in the way of trees or other houses directly outside to block light. I start seeds both in my sunroom, which has both south-facing and east-facing windows, and in the basement under fluorescent lights. You do not need special grow-lights–the inexpensive fluorescent fixtures you can pick up at the local big-box store will do just fine. Seedlings prefer 14-16 hours of light per day, which natural light does not provide at this time of year. So if you use a sunny window, you might want to consider some supplemental light for 3-5 hours per day. Just turning on the lights in the room does not help–the seedlings need the lights to be no more than 2 inches above them to replicate the intensity of the sun.

Remember that you need enough space not just for the tiny seedlings, but for the growing plants, which you will likely have to transplant into bigger pots at least once during the spring. Do not fill every ounce of space you have with trays right now, or you’ll have nowhere to put the plants as they grow!

Next, select and wash your containers. The experts will recommend washing your pots in a 1/20 bleach solution if you’ve used them before, but I have to admit that bleach grosses me out, and I’ve never had a single problem with disease after washing my pots in hot, soapy water. I use trays with 48-72 individual cells in them to start my seeds, but you can use any sort of container from yogurt cups to clay pots. Just make sure that you poke some holes in the bottom of the containers if they don’t already have them so that the roots don’t get water-logged when you water.

Then select a good quality potting medium. You do not just want a bag of topsoil–buy something that says it’s specifically for containers and/or seed starting. Most experts will recommend buying a soil-less seed starting medium (usually a mix of vermiculite and peat), and if this is your first time starting seeds, I would recommend it as well. However, if you can get through a couple of growing seasons without disease problems, you can probably save some money later on by buying a regular potting medium that is cheaper than soil-less mix, and also has some compost in it to feed the seedlings early on.

Now you’re ready to plant. I fill a 1.5 gallon pitcher to the 1-gallon mark with soil and then add water to it until it’s totally damp, but not dripping. It will take more water than you think to moisten the soil, and doing it first, instead of trying to water the cells after you have already planted seeds in them, will prevent washing the seeds away and/or not having enough soil in the pots. One gallon of moistened soil is about enough to fill 1 flat. When trying to estimate how much soil to get (which is never an exact science!), I have found that 1 cubic foot of soil (a regular-sized bag) is more than enough to do 5-6 flats of seeds. Remember that you will need more soil to transplant the seedlings, though.

Next, gently pack each cell or pot with soil. You don’t want to pack it like brown sugar in a measuring cup, but you do want to make sure that there’s enough soil in the cell to support your seedlings because that tiny bit of soil will hold all moisture and nutrients for your plants!

I usually take a plastic plant marker (which I re-use because I’ve had mold problems with the wooden popsicle-stick style plant markers) and poke a hole in the center of each cell. Planting depth for seedlings corresponds to the size of the seed, so a pumpkin seed gets planted deeper than a tiny broccoli seed. The rule of thumb is to plant seeds 2-3 times the size of the seed. So if your seed is a 1cm pumpkin seed, for example, you can plant it 2-3 cm (about an inch) deep. Gently recover the seed using the plant marker and then immediately write the seed type on the plant marker and stick it in the pot. It’s amazing how interruptions (in my case, curious children) can cause you to forget what you’ve just planted. Despite my best efforts, I typically end up with anywhere from one four-pack to a whole flat of “mystery plants” each season either due to me forgetting to mark something, mismarking it because I was distracted, or due to little fingers helpfully removing the markers at some point in the season.

OK, so what should you be planting now? Do not plant pumpkins now if you live in zone 5, or you will have a pumpkin jungle well before you can plant the seedlings out in mid-May. Do plant the following:

• peppers (8-10 weeks before last frost date, which is May 10ish for most of Zone 5)
• tomatoes (6-8 weeks before last frost date, but I plant heirlooms earlier because they seem to be more slow growing)
• cole crops like broccoli, cauliflower, cabbage, etc. (4-6 weeks before plant-out, which is usually a month before last frost date)
• herbs like basil, parsley, and cilantro (4-6 weeks before last frost date)

Most packets of seeds will provide a recommended seed starting date, so the above is provided just to give you an idea that it’s time to get going on seedlings if you’re going to start some.

Keeping the soil evenly moist is probably the most important thing you can do to ensure success with seedlings. If they dry out even once, they will likely die. It is also important to water the seedlings from the bottom instead of pouring water directly on to the seedlings. Not only can the rush of water bend or break a new seedling, but water can also wash tiny seeds away and splash fungal spores onto leaves, causing disease problems. This is why I suggested poking holes in the bottoms of any food containers you re-use for starting seedlings–that way you can place them in a tray and pour water into the tray, instead of on to the surface of the soil. If you’re using traditional seed flats, you can pull one 4-pack out of the tray, pour about an inch of lukewarm water in, and replace the 4-pack. You may have to water as often as twice a week until you get the plants potted up into bigger pots that can retain more water. The cells dry out quickly–try your best not to let them.

A good example of true leaves on tomatoes. The "first leaves" are beginning to shrivel about an inch from the base of the plant.

When seedlings sprout, the first set of leaves they put out are not a “true” set of leaves. What this means is that they look and function differently than the “true” leaves. So when you read about seedlings and see references to report or fertilize when there’s X sets of leaves, make sure you’re counting true leaves and excluding the first leaves (see picture for an example). For example, you need to start fertilizing your plants with a diluted all-purpose plant food (I use seaweed) when they have two sets of true leaves, which will be 3-4 weeks after you plant, depending on the temperatures, amount of light, and type of plant.

Tomatoes, peppers, tomatillos and some other vegetables have lance-shaped first leaves like the ones on this poblano pepper.

You may also have to transplant the seedlings around this time–when you start to see roots emerging from the bottom of the pots, it’s a pretty good indication that it’s time to repot. I typically pot veggies and flowers up into 2 1/4 inch pots that I have saved over the years from plants I’ve bought in nurseries. But you can use any container, as long as it’s bigger than the pot the seedling has outgrown, is clean, and has a hole poked in the bottom for drainage.

Note the difference in shape between the first lance-shaped leaves (the larger ones) and the true leaves (lobed)

Well, that’s enough to keep you busy for this week. I started my first round of veggies on February 21, and am starting another flat of annual flowers & herbs today, so you can bet I’ll be talking about transplanting seedlings here before too much longer. But while your seedlings are sprouting away inside, there’s plenty to be done to prepare an outdoor home for them, so don’t forget to check back often!

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This is a great example of container gardening, taken from Permaculture 4 Renters.

I’ve already talked about growing herbs indoors to beat the winter blues, but I know a lot of gardens in urban landscapes are looking to maximize growing space using containers (no, not that kind of pot!) to garden outside too. Whether you’re planting a few herbs in a sunny windowsill inside or growing a large container garden in your yard, a few tips will help make things easier.

First, selecting your vegetables is key. Not only do you need the right types of vegetables, but the right varieties. Some tomatoes, such as Yellow Pear, Super Sweet 100, or Roma, will grow great in pots. Others need more soil and more room than most pots afford. So look for the words “compact,” “dwarf,” or something about containers when choosing your vegetable varieties. But don’t limit yourself to small vegetables and the odd tomato. You can successfully grow anything from potatoes to watermelons to zucchini in a pot if you have enough space to let them ramble. A friend asked me specifically about growing potatoes in containers, and although I haven’t tried this, I did a little asking around and have heard that the potato condo is the way to go! I may try one of these myself in my garden this year, but I don’t see why you couldn’t put a bottom on the condo, fill it with a little extra dirt, and then follow the same design as the in-ground version!

I tend to grow a lot of heirlooms in my pots, just like I do in my raised beds, so if you’re a beginner or someone who prefers hybrids for disease resistance and ease of care, check out this article on good hybrid varieties for containers. Most of the varieties I specifically mention in this post will be heirlooms.

Second, appropriate spacing is important. When your planting up your pots in May with tiny little seedlings, it’s tempting to throw a second tomato in the pot, or plant a pretty ring of flowers around a larger veggie plant. Resist the urge! This past year, I planted a ring of herbs & hot peppers around the outside of a half barrel with one single Yellow Pear tomato in it and had to transplant the poor light-starved peppers & herbs when the Yellow Pear reached five feet tall and three feet wide (and that width is after staking and pruning!). You have to consider spacing below-ground too. Healthy roots are key to healthy, prolific veggies, so make sure you’re using large enough containers for the vegetables you have selected. Garlic, onions, most annual flowers, herbs, and lettuces can survive in smaller, shallower pots, but to do a zucchini, pepper, tomato, or potato, you’re going to need a large, deep pot. Take a look at Arizona Cooperative Extension’s article on container gardening for a list of veggies and the size pot they require.

The more you water, the more you need to fertilize because watering can flush nutrients out. I recommend a seaweed or fish-based fertilizer but beware if you have pets (or pests, actually) because some fish fertilizers attract them, and they will dig up your seedlings to get at them. Best to experiment with a little fertilizer in a pot filled with dirt for a day or two–if your dog leaves it alone, you’re set. If not, look for a different product, because you’ll need to fertilize about once a month during the growing season.

My final tip is not to forget aesthetics. Container gardens are likely to be closer to your outdoor living space than any other plants, so make them beautiful. While I have a rather depraved obsession with love of tomatoes, they really look nicer with a few flowers, flowering herbs, or contrasting vegetation around them. Try edible flowers such as Lemon Gem Marigolds, violas, calendula, or nasturtiums, multi-colored leafy greens like tatsoi, mustard greens, or red-leafed lettuce, or even beans with unusual colored blooms to add a little splash of beauty to your productive (vegetable) pot garden.

Continue reading »]]> Today is my darling husband’s birthday, so this morning the kids & I baked him a cake. I chose my Grandma’s Fresh Apple Cake recipe in part because I had ingredients on hand and in part because it was one I could adapt so that it used mainly local ingredients. Oh yeah, and also because it’s moist and delicious and one of Matt’s favorites

I’ll give you both the original recipe and the modified so that you can make it how you like, but also so that you can see how easy it is to modify your favorite recipes so that they use local ingredients. Happy Birthday, Love!

Mabel’s Fresh Apple Cake

4 apples, chopped
1 cup sugar
1/2 t cinnamon
1 beaten egg
1/2 c cooking oil
1 c flour
1/2 t baking soda
1/2 t salt

1. Preheat oven to 350.
2. Grease an flour a 9×9 pan.
3. Mix dry ingredients.
4. Add apples, oil, and egg.
5. Beat to mix.
6. Add nuts or raisins as desired.
7. Bake at 350 for 35-40 minutes.

Julie’s Local Apple Cake

6 c sliced, peeled apples
1 c local honey
2 eggs, beaten
1 t cinnamon
1/2 t ginger
1/2 t nutmeg
1/2 c olive oil (I think you could easily use local butter here, but I did not)
1 1/2 c fine-milled whole wheat flour
1/2 t soda
1/2 t salt

Follow directions as above. Cooking time will likely increase 5-10 minutes, especially if you’re baking at altitude.

We are lucky enough to have local apples through the winter here in Colorado, although I used some from my frozen stash that I wild-picked here in Lyons this fall (which is why I haven’t specified the varieties because, honestly, I have no idea what they are!!). We also have an abundance of local honey, which I think tastes better than cane sugar anyway. With the switch to whole-wheat flour, I did up the (local) egg quantity just to help the cake rise as much as it normally would with white flour. And I upped the flour quantity a bit to accommodate the honey and the fact that I think I use more apples in mine than Grandma did.

In much of our cooking, switching to local is only possible to a certain extent. We’re never going to have Colorado-grown nutmeg or cinnamon, for example, and local butter is often hard to come by unless I make it myself. And until I get better at getting the water & whey out of my home-made butter, it’s not the greatest for baking. But each ingredient we swap for a local one is grocery dollars funneled into the local economy, fossil fuels conserved, and a step closer to sustainability…

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Julie's Cherry Pie

That’s a bold statement, I know. But my Mom said it was the best pie crust ever, and she’s like George Washington when it comes to lies, so it has to be the truth.

After a flood of Facebook posts and Tweets about struggles with pie crust, I figured it was past time for me to put together a post about my obsession with consistently delivering pie crust heaven during the holidays. You see, I love pie. Not like a normal, healthy person likes a good pie. More like the way a crazy, OCD person loves something.

My Grandma made great pie. But she used lard (and later shortening) and I’m totally not going there for a variety of reasons. So I use butter. I won’t lie and say this pie crust is easy, or for beginners, because there’s a reason the title of this post is Best. Pie Crust. Ever. and not Easiest. Pie Crust. Ever.

So if you’ve made a few pie crusts in your time and are ready to try to achieve true pie Nirvana, read on!

My recipe comes from Joy of Cooking and is really simple with a total of four ingredients. But I’ve included pictures that I think help you visualize how this dough should look as you make it and prevent you from ending up with a tough crust due to over-working the dough.

Mix the following dry ingredients in the bowl of your mixer or food processor*:
2.5 cups of all-purpose flour (I often use whole-wheat pastry flour)
1 t sugar
1 t salt

Add 2 sticks of cold unsalted butter, cut into teaspoon-sized pieces and blend until the mixture looks like this:

Sablé

The French call this sablé because it looks sandy. The fat should be evenly distributed through the flour and the largest pieces should be smaller than a pea. You can mix as much as you need to here without harming the dough, but a Kitchen Aid mixer or a good food processor will do this in under a minute.

Next, drizzle 1/3 c plus 1 T very cold water over the dough and mix on the very lowest setting (or pulse if you’re using a food processor) until the dough just begins to come together. Out here in Colorado where it’s very dry, I often add an extra tablespoon of water, but if you overdo it, your crust will shrink when you bake it. So add as little water as you can until the dough looks like this:

If the dough comes together in a nice ball, you've added too much water!

Now turn the dough out onto a piece of plastic wrap and pack it into a ball with your hands. It’s OK if there are some loose pieces. Mash it into a ball and wrap it tight. Throw it in the fridge for at least 30 minutes, but up to 2 days, before you roll it out. While it’s in the fridge, the water will disperse more evenly through the dough and will help it hold together.

Depending on what you have your fridge set to, you may need to let the dough warm up just slightly for a few minutes before you can easily roll it out. Do not set the dough somewhere warm to warm up. If the butter starts to melt, you get a greasy mess that is impossible to work with. Direct sun–no. Countertop over the dishwasher–no. Next to the stove–no. You get the picture.

I have stone countertops and think they’re great for pie dough, but I made this recipe for 10 years on non-stone counters, so it’s not required. What I do love is my marble rolling pin, because it’s heavy enough to do some of the rolling work for you and cold enough to help keep that butter from getting greasy.

The recipe above will make two 9-10 inch crusts (i.e. 2 open-topped pies, or 1 covered pie). So divide the dough (putting the other half back in the fridge), roll it out, and place it in the pie pan. Return it to the fridge while the oven preheats. This will help prevent shrinkage. So will pre-baking it for 10 minutes with a piece of foil in it weighted down with beans or pie weights. I do this for my pumpkin pie or any custardy pie that might end up too soft without pre-baking.

That’s it. 30 years (and two generations) of pie crust knowledge condensed down to one 800-word blog post. But my Mom swears it’s the Best. Pie Crust. Ever.

* No, I do not recommend mixing this recipe by hand unless you are a fairly experienced pastry chef. Seriously. Have you ever seen the arm muscles on a real pastry chef? There’s a reason. Let electricity help you on this one.

Continue reading »]]> I’ve been experimenting with home-made dyes for several years now whether it was dying play silks with Kool-Aid, looking for natural dyes for wool, dyes for home-made zero waste wrapping paper, or dying easter eggs.

This week, I dyed some wool roving with saffron and berries and the results were nice enough that I wanted to share!

Saffron Dye
Saffron makes perhaps the most vibrant dye of any of the natural ones I’ve experimented with, and one that seems to stay bright through multiple washings. I’ve dyed both play silks and wool with this dye, and you can bet we’ll be doing some yellow Easter Eggs this spring!

1 T saffron threads
1 c white vinegar
2 Q water
1 ounce wool roving

Bring the water to a boil and add the saffron threads. I think the *ideal* next step would be to steep the dye for about an hour, then strain and reheat to a boil. As you might be able to tell from the tiny saffron threads still stuck to my wool, I did the slightly less ideal strain-with-a-spoon-because-you’re-in-a-hurry method. Live & learn.

Add the white vinegar, stir, and turn to low. Run your wool under hot water until it is evenly wet and then add to the pot and let it simmer for an hour. At this point, remove from heat and let it sit for up to 12 hours or until desired color depth is achieved (I did the wool pictured above overnight). Gently remove the wool and submerge in cool water until the water is clear. Let as much water as possible drain from the wool and either place in a lingerie bag and hand spin (outside) to dry, or lay it in a sunny location until dry. Do not wring the wool out, because it may start to felt if you do!

Berry Dye

I have dyed eggs and play silks with straight blueberries and have found the resulting color rather blue-gray. Wanting something a bit more purple, I added some raspberries to this mix. As you can see from comparing the picture of the finished wool up top to the picture of the dye bath below, the wool did NOT maintain the brilliant violet red color of the dye and is more of a muted purple. I’m still happy with it, but will be looking for dyes to get a more vibrant red color.

Notes: Beets would work in place of raspberries, and I used frozen berries for this batch, but fresh would also work.

1 c blueberries
1/2 c raspberries
1 cup vinegar
2 Q water
1 ounce wool roving

Bring water to a boil and add the berries. Mash them up as they cook so that as much juice as possible comes out into the water. Remove from heat and, when cool enough to work with, strain, crushing the berries in the strainer to get the remaining juice out. Return water to a boil and add vinegar. Turn to low. Run your wool under hot water until it is evenly wet and then add to the pot and let it simmer for an hour. At this point, remove from heat and let it sit for up to 12 hours or until desired color depth is achieved (I did the wool pictured above overnight). Gently remove the wool and submerge in cool water until the water is clear. Let as much water as possible drain from the wool and either place in a lingerie bag and hand spin (outside) to dry, or lay it in a sunny location until dry. Do not wring the wool out, because it may start to felt if you do!

Links to other articles/posts on home-made dyes:

• A tutorial from Crunchy Domestic Goddess on natural dyes for Easter eggs
• Pioneer Thinking’s list of natural dye plants, organized by color.
• Prairie Fiber’s Natural Dye Journal
• Planet Green’s primer on making natural dyes