A Tomato in February
Eating a tomato in February would be like opening your Christmas presents on Thanksgiving. It would spoil the fun and kill the anticipation.
Jessica Prentice – Full Moon Feast: Food and the Hunger for Connection
I harvested this tomato from my garden a few years ago and though it would be the perfect Valentine.
Even though I won’t be eating any fresh tomatoes this February, I can dream of the tomatoes I’ll be eating five months from now!
Do you remember when you had your last fresh tomato of the season?
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Sweet Rewards
Yesterday morning I finished up our first batch of maple syrup for the 2012 season. A few days after we tapped the trees, the weather turned cold once again and the sap quit flowing. Usually I wait until I’ll have a gallon or so to finish, but I finished off the 12 gallons of sap we collected down to one quart of syrup. Instead of canning it we decided to enjoy it.
What better way to enjoy syrup than drizzled over sourdough pancakes (recipe at Eat Outside the Bag) with some homemade sausage. When it comes to enjoying maple syrup, my personal favorite is over french toast, but Mr Chiots is a pancake fan so I made him some pancakes. Since we follow the Nourishing Traditions way to eating our pancakes are always sourdough and soaked overnight.
I’m a bit odd in that I don’t really like syrup on my pancakes but I love it on my sausage. The sausage we eat here at Chiot’s Run is always mixed up the night before with herbs from the garden, you can find my Savory Breakfast Sausage recipe at Eat Outside the Bag. Since we purchased a half a hog this year we’ve been having sausage often for breakfast and we’re really loving it.
Syrup on your sausage – yay or nay? What about on your pancakes?
If you want to read up on maple sugaring I’d highly recommend these books:
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Ta-Da
I mentioned earlier this week that we were putting new shelves in our bedroom closet. The previous one wasn’t installed properly by the previous owners and was not very sturdy. We considered taking it out and putting back in with new hardware, but it was not set up for efficient use of space. After purchasing a system at the hardware store, we got home to realize that it was too deep for our small closet. We then settled on this wooden closet shelving system which was very similar and 12 inches deep and thankfully half the price of the other system.
Originally we were going to build our own system with wood but decided to purchase one to save time. I really wanted to use wood because I have a deep dislike for all things plastic, especially for those white closet organization systems for some reason.
We were a bit nervous about this system since sometimes these kinds of items are a nightmare to install. We had no problems, the system seems to be of great quality, the directions are easy, all the parts are included (and extras) and they provide you with a variety of layout options. If you’re looking for something like this I’d highly recommend it.
As usual here at Chiot’s Run, the project can’t be done right without the help and supervision of one or more of the furry residents. This day Samson kept a close eye on the hardware.
Our bedroom closet went from this:
To this:
Changing the layout to maximize the space doubled the storage capacity of the closet. Having everything off of the floor (except for the laundry basket that’s in the back corner) makes it so much easier to clean the floors. We removed the closet doors for this project and I’m thinking I may leave them off. It makes the room look so much bigger and then I can admire my handiwork.
I’m a neatnik when it comes to my closet, keeping my clothes in a very specific order and having all my hangers the same color. Nothing annoys me more than my shirts hanging with buttons facing opposite directions, different colored hangers and shirts mixed with other articles of clothing. This came in very handy when I was in college because I always knew when someone borrowed my clothes. I love that my closet is now even more tidy than it used to be!
When it comes to your closets do you keep them neat & tidy or are they a happy mess?
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Quote of the Day: Robin Mather
Having done all the needful things to ready the house for the coming winter, I had time to relax, to reach for my knitting needles or spinning wheel or that book I’d been meaning to dive into. No longer busy with the work of putting food by, I could settle in and enjoy the leisure I earned in those long summer days of hissing kettles and canning jars. By recalibrating my life to a more natural rhythm, I found an instinctive understanding of the old agrarian ways, when winters were slower and more peaceful. Winter was the season of reflection, I had come to see.
Robin Mather (The Feast Nearby)
At the moment, I’m certainly enjoying the fruits of my labor for the time I spent over a hot canning kettle this summer canning up jars of tomato soup. Somehow I haven’t yet found that down time that I find most winters. I do suppose that the sun setting earlier in the evening makes me slow down a bit. At least the tasks I do in the winter are less strenuous than the ones I do all summer long, so my body does get a bit of a break.
Canning isn’t something I spend much time doing in the summer, preferring to focus on vegetables that store without processing, but tomato soup will always be on my list. There really is nothing better than sitting down to a bowl of steamy tomato soup on a cold winter evening, add a grilled cheese sandwich on the side and you’ve got yourself a perfect meal!
What’s your favorite kind of soup to enjoy on a cold day?
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Something Sweet from the Oven
I’m not much of a sweet eater, preferring something salty instead. Mr Chiots on the other hand, loves sweets and loves to see something sweet from the oven. Winter is the perfect time for baking since it’s cold outside and you feel like you’re warming the house a bit.
Before our trip to Maine last week I remembered that I had two pastry crusts in the fridge left over from the how-to video I made for Ethel. Regular pies are not good for traveling, but hand pies are perfect. I pulled out a jar of Caramelized Apple Marmalade with Thyme (recipe from Preserving the Taste) and made up a little something sweet for Mr Chiots. If you’d like the recipes, head on over to Eat Outside the Bag.
These are so easy to make and oh so tasty, I also like that they’re not too sweet since there’s only a small amount of jam in each one! These were perfect snacks for our trip, easy to eat while we were on the go.
Do you prefer sweet or salty?
