Snap Peas Mountain Style

First, you start with real good garden soil, a set of plant starts, and eventually you will have a gorgeousness that looks like this.

 

When the first pea pods appear, they will be tender enough to put in the skillet without steaming first.  If you like peas in the pod, you’ll leave them on longer, but to make this dish, you’ll need to string them, and/or steam them for tenderness.

Make some bacon.  A whole pack is nice because you can eat while you cook.  I prefer to buy bacon free of nitrates or nitrites and sugar when I can find it.  Sautee some onions in bacon grease until they start to brown.

Then, add the washed pods and peas.

Cook them over medium to high heat until they are fully greased and tender.  The amount of grease you use depends on your tastes.  I use the whole pan from making the pack of bacon.  When tender, crumble in some bacon and serve.

 

You’ll notice that this dish is similar to the Appalachian green beans and kilt lettuce and onions.  Pork was a mainstay of the Appalachian diet, and used to flavor many dishes from cornbread, beans, to greens.  Because chickens provided eggs and cows provided milk, they were not butchered as regularly as hogs.  When not eating pork, or chicken for Sunday dinner, Appalachian peoples ate the meat of hunted animals including, rabbit, deer, squirrel, wild turkey, opossum (some folks didn’t care for it), and groundhog (has a reputation for being greasy).  In our family we eat rabbit, deer, and wild turkey, as well as fish caught from our lakes and streams.  I prepare a traditional foods diet for my family most days.  I have found that if we eat foods that we are genetically predisposed to tolerate, then we have better outcomes physically.  My family has lived in the mountains for generations.  My ancestors were Irish and Cherokee primarily.  My husband’s were Melungeon.  By keeping the traditional Cherokee and Appalachian food ways we were familiar with, and researching those that had been lost to industrialization we have found healthy eating.  Being involved in where your food comes from both animal and plant forms, is extremely rewarding.

Snow Cream

There’s nothing like six or more inches of snow to give you a hankering for a treat from your childhood.  Here in the mountains a big snow provides an easy way to make an iced cream treat that is as good as it is cold.

Snow Cream

Snow cream is simply made given you trust the snow to be clean enough to consume.  The way I make it, all of the ingredients are estimated.  The important know how is the concept I suppose, then you can make it to your liking.

Start with melting a sweetener of your choice into some heavy cream or whole milk. (You can also use low fat milk, but I don’t think it would taste near as good or be very nutritious for you.  Treats should not be empty calories in my opinion, so go for the gusto!)  The sweetener we use is honey and/or maple syrup. (We use only unrefined/moderately refined sweeteners that hold plenty of nutrients such as iron or enzymes.)  Since our sweetener is already liquid it doesn’t require a lot of heat to completely mix with the milk.  Allow the milk mix to cool, and add a little vanilla… or a lot if you are like me and love strong flavors.  Next, gather your snow in a large stainless steel bowl or pot.  You will want to compact it a bit and gather a large amount.  Scoop from the top layer of snow only, being careful to not dig down too close to the ground.  At least 4 inches should be on the ground for making snow cream.  I was always told not to eat the first snow of the year as well.  Once back inside, slowly mix the milk soup into the snow stirring thoroughly, but with a gentle touch.  Keep mixing until it is to your desired consistency, then eat and enjoy!  The Haywoods certainly enjoyed their snow cream this year.

Or, you can do like I did as a kid wanting snow cream.  Take your favorite pancake syrup and a spoon outside, squeeze some into the snow, and chow down.  🙂

Fog

I sat in the living room with Ivy in my lap watching the fog come up the holler this morning, and wondering how the rest of the weekend will play out.  The gas company is still working on roads and new pipeline.  The yard is becoming a mud pit, and I am ready to have the peace back around here.  Today, I caught about five of them hovered around the chicken coop.  One of them was giving one of our roosters hits off of his cigarette.  I quickly went out on the porch to make myself known.  I was about to have words with him, but I was able to restrain myself, and they just as quickly left our yard.  I know that when all is finished, it will be better for us and easier on the vehicles, but right now, it’s hard.

I’m having to keep the girls inside for the most part.  Today, it was so beautiful, we had to venture out for a quick swing while we caught some quiet.  What you see here is the new road.  We had to move the swingset.  The road took our compost pile, all my wild blackberries, and my bird feeders that I made with the girls.  However, it will prevent us driving through a large part of the creek.  Hopefully, we’ll have a bridge over the deepest part at some point.  Right now with the rain, we can’t park anywhere near the house.  We are parking about a football field’s walk in the mud from the house.  The dozers and inloaders coupled with the type of work they are doing has kept us out of the hills this fall.  Usually, we are in them most days.  I had wanted to take pictures of the trees and all their colors.  The leaves are pretty much gone now.  I took this next photo from the yard, catching a patch of trees that hadn’t been so blown by the wind.

I’m trying to look on the bright side of things.  John has described this month as the month from “hell”, and for him it probably has been.  October is my favorite month, so I’m giving its redemption my best shot. 🙂  I went to the produce stand on Wednesday and discovered that as long as there is something to be sold and people buying, they will be open!  They carry some local goods like potatoes, honey, sorghum, and other canned items.  The rest of the produce is trucked in from North Carolina, but it is a family business and small.  It is an outdoor stand.  Though the produce is not organic, its flavor is magnificent.

Here are some of the winter items I stocked up on, just in case they close.

In that basket are apples of all sorts, sweet potatoes, regular potatoes, and butternut squash.  I plan to peel, slice, and freeze some of these apples for fried apples through the winter.  Some of the green ones will make an apple pie.  I have Mutsu and Granny Smiths.  Sweet potatoes are something John and I have never liked until we started cooking more traditional/whole foods.  Now,in this area, most sweet potato dishes that are served are very sweet, almost like a desert.  Brown sugar, margarine, and marshmallows are added along with other spices.  It makes it taste wrong to both John and I.  However, we have found that we love them fried in butter with nothing added except occasionally a little nutmeg or cinnamon.  I thought about making sweet potato chips with some of these, or baking a few.  Yum!  I can just see the melted butter.

I also got a few huge cabbages for sauerkraut making, and a box of the nicest onions.  The red ones in the picture are the best tasting onion I have ever put in my mouth.  They are so sweet.  The little ones are PeeWee Vidalias.  I’ll have to report back on those.

Before John left today, we talked about cooking.  Neither of us can remember when I made a dinner last.  😦  I cook breakfast every morning.  It is the family meal we rely on.  This month we have been apart most of the time for dinner.  I don’t cook when it is just me and the girls.  They eat so little that we just eat lunch type foods.  I miss dinner.  That is why I bought the butternut squash.  I have never had it, and I want to make something different.  I want to eat things that are in season.

This morning, I made fried apples from the fresh apples I bought yesterday.  The girls and I really enjoyed them.  It is a traditional Appalachian food.  Many families had apple trees on their little hillside homestead.  I’ll post my recipe on the favorite recipes page.

Thanks ladies for the well wishes for the girls.  It is a minor thing – cold like.  I’m thinking either from all the wet weather or the sitting in the car cart at the mall when we went for my birthday.  It is that or the mold issue.  We are still working on that.  The ventilation has brought some help, but not quite enough.  We are looking for a dehumidifier.  If that doesn’t work…  I hope that isn’t the problem.

It is more than a blessing to be able to live in this holler and in this cabin.  It is perfect for us.  Our landlord is a true friend.  I wish so much that it wouldn’t have to ever come to an end, even when things are a bit off kilter.

Cold Weather Eating

In Spring, you are born.  In Summer, you mature.  In Fall, you grow older.  And in Winter, you pass on.

-Luther Johnson (my great-grandfather and owner of the former Cowshed Trading Post in Isom, Kentucky)

It has turned off cold really fast this year.  I remember last year at Halloween I was more than comfortable in just a sweatshirt trick-or-treating with the girls.  This year, I’m thinking I’ll need a jacket unless something changes.  This and the fact that all the cool weather vegetables have started coming in at the fruit stand (the closest thing we have to local farmer’s market… the food isn’t organic and it is trucked in from North Carolina)  have made me start thinking about and cooking the foods we tend to love in the cold weather months.

The last trip we made to the fruit stand was made for getting apples, but I saw some big, beautiful, round cabbages that were just waiting to be picked up by me. 🙂  I immediately started thinking about cabbage dishes, kraut, stuffed cabbage, before deciding on cabbage and brats for this particular head.

My mother introduced me to this dish as an adult, but I remember her and my grandmother making it in my childhood, before I would touch cabbage. 😉  It is a traditional dish, and I have added some of my own flares for flavor.

Cabbages and Brats:

Before fully cooked, you can see a few brats sticking up...

1. Slice brats and chop cabbage.
2. Heat skillet on medium heat with a little bacon grease in the bottom.
3. Brown the slices of bratwurst.
4. Add the chopped cabbage.  Add enough liquid (I use homemade chicken stock, you can also use beef stock or water.) to make the cabbage swim a bit, but don’t cover the cabbage.  It will wilt as it warms.  You may have to turn the fire up a bit at this stage.
5. Add salt and pepper to taste.
6. When cabbage is tender the dish is finished.  Serve hot.

I served it last night with fried potatoes and onion and cornbread.  It really hit the spot and with that combination was a really budget friendly meal.

I have been making my own chicken stock for quite sometime, and it is much different than the flavored water you get in the store. 😉  I make it from left over bones, gristle, some skin and fat (if we haven’t eaten it all), and the usual organs and gizzards that are left within roasting birds.  To that I’ll add some bits of veggies that have been left over, or quickly chopped – onion, carrots, and celery.  I then add some salt, cover it completely with water (as much as will fit in the stock pot without spilling over while cooking), and bring it to a boil.  After it comes to a boil, I turn the heat down to a simmer and let it cook for around 12 hours.  I check it to make sure too much water hasn’t left the pot, and if it is getting low I add some.  When the time has passed, strain out all the bones, bits, and veggies, and put it in a container for refrigeration.

The final result after refrigeration, looks like this…

Notice all the fat rises to the top.  Some will skim this fat off and use it for cooking, I like to leave it in to add flavor to whatever I’m using the stock for.  The stock is not a watery one.  It is thick and gelatinous.  This is how you know you used enough bone and have gotten the optimal amount of nutrients from them.

It is delicious and adds so much to any dish, especially soups.  It makes an excellent warmed drink as well, for those days when you feel under the weather.

Cooking like this is another reason I love the fall of the year.

Appalachian Green Beans

It wasn’t until my adult life and the city experience that I learned there was any other way than the Kentucky mountain way to fix green beans, or breeds of green beans that didn’t have large bullets (seed) in the pod.  It was odd to me that someone would simply steam their green beans, pick them early from the vine for the crisp thin pod, or squirt lemon juice over them.  Green beans in a salad was something I hadn’t seen before.  I had a hard time accepting there were people that liked green beans made without fatback bacon, bacon grease and salt and pepper.

Homeschooling the girls is opening my eyes to a lot of things.  We’ve been on the homeschool rhythm for a month now, and I’m even reluctant to call it a “homeschool” rhythm.  Naming it something other than our daily rhythm has helped give it priority for me.  It is now important enough not to neglect.  This rhythm has made me more conscious of involving both the girls in my chores and I have been pleasantly surprised at what they are capable of at such a young age.

We picked our first mess of green beans from our vines on Sunday.  A few days ago I decided to break them up and string them so we could have fresh beans for dinner.  At first, I was going to do the stringing and let Deladis break them, but she wanted to string too.  I showed her quickly as I kept the pace of our work.  She caught on so fast and when I looked up again she was meticulously pulling the strings down the pods and breaking the finished bean.

I continued to work and was glad to share this with her.  This is real tradition right here folks.  Women and men in the mountains have been sharing the work of bean stringing since they came to the hills.  I can’t describe how my heart swelled with joy that my child taught me that she was ready and capable to learn this task.  I didn’t really teach her at all.  She learned through imitation.

She was so proud when we were finished.  I double checked the beans as there is nothing worse than a pot of stringy beans, and she did pretty good.  They were still a bit stringy when we ate them later, but not too bad.

To cook a mess of fresh green beans Appalachian style, you prepare them as we did here, then, follow these instructions.

1. Cover the broken and strung beans with just enough water to be even with the beans.
2. Place a generous amount of bacon grease (some folks use peanut oil).
3. You may also add fatback (fatty salt pork) and cut onion, but that’s optional.
4. Add salt and pepper to taste.
5. Bring the pot to a boil.  Turn down the heat then let simmer 2-4 hours depending on the amount of beans.

When the beans are cooked through they will be soft but not mushy.  They will be much darker in color and the bullets (seed) will have turned brown in most cases.  Common breeds of beans grown in the mountains are white half runners (probably the favorite), fall beans both white and speckled, October beans, Kentucky Blue Wonder, Creasy (Greasy) Beans, and bush beans.  The beans you see in these photos are Kentucky Blue Wonders.

Green beans like this are a wonderful summer and fall meal with cornbread, fresh cut tomato and cucumber,  roastin’ ears (corn on the cob) and fried potatoes.  It is definitely a fresh meal of substance when there isn’t meat available.  November was usually hog killing time in the mountains and that was the main meat source for the mountaineer.  Chicken and cattle were too valuable for other purposes to eat often.  Pork chop or tenderloin is also a good addition to this meal in the fall when you need heartier fare.

Another great way to make green beans is called shucky beans in most families with which I am familiar, but many Appalachians call them leather breeches. (Tipper at Blind Pig and the Acorn has a great post on leather breeches.)  These are dried beans and must be soaked overnight and cooked slow until tender once again with the same added ingredients as the fresh beans.

Enjoy!  We sure did. 🙂

Sourdough Bread

I’ve been experimenting with sourdough bread making with great results.  I made my own starter.  Bacteria from my surroundings cultured my starter and gives it a distinct flavor.  It is one plus to living off grid.  I don’t have to worry about bad air ruining my adventures in friendly bacteria. 🙂  I made my starter with rye as per the instructions in the Nourishing Traditions cookbook.  It stews for seven days on a counter top, covered with a cloth to keep bugs out, until you have around three quarts of starter.  You use two to make three loaves of bread and save the other quart for next time.  I use whole grain spelt flour to make the bread.

My lovely starter

As you can see here, the starter develops yeast naturally from what already exists in your surroundings.  The dough rises beautifully with nothing else added.  I flipped when I first saw this look in my starter, but was reassured, and then began to notice that it looks quite a bit like packaged dried yeast, just moist and gray.

I’m out of batteries in my camera so I don’t have a picture of a finished loaf, but it looks like the milk and honey sprouted wheat bread that Jenny has blogged about at The Nourished Kitchen.  The bread is a bit more dense than store bought breads, but oh so tasty.  Mine has a distinct cheesy flavor of a sharp variety.  Almost like a dry Asiago or sharp cheddar, but better than cheddar.  Yours will taste different.  That’s the adventure.  I have heard that you can get unique flavors by creating starters in different containers and setting them in various locations around your home.  Ummm… bathroom sourdough.  I’m kidding. 🙂

Storing your starter for next time is fairly simple.  Place it in a glass container in the refrigerator.  It can keep a month or so without feeding it, but I wouldn’t go any longer than that.  The starter is a living thing and needs fed.  That becomes obvious and so interesting when you actually put your hands in the dough to knead.  It breaths and pushes back.  🙂  You can also order starters online.  Cultures for Health has a wide variety of affordable starters for sourdough and other creations that I’ve been dabbling with lately – namely yogurt.  I recommend purchasing a starter if you live in a place with lots of traffic, pollution, or an area that is not well ventilated.

We are enjoying sourdough here, and I am quickly learning that we don’t have to be afraid of real, fresh food like we have been taught to fear our grocery store food.  Knowing from where our food comes makes all the difference in the world and is why I’m loving my kitchen experiments.

Soupbeans and Cornbread

This has been the most rainy summer I can remember – and cool.  I’m not going to complain too much though because summer heat makes me miserable.  Summer is usually my least loved season.  We did most of our fall garden planting and the rain is good for those freshly planted seeds, but knocked us out of taking Deladis to see a movie for her birthday yesterday and lake swimming.  The weather and being tired of too much zucchini, squash, lettuce, and cucumber in our diets contributed to my wanting to make what, for us, is typically a cool weather supper.

Soupbeans and cornbread is an Appalachian staple.  I can’t remember a time when it wasn’t in my diet.  It was hard for me to understand how so many people I encountered from outside of this area didn’t have a clue as to what it is.  Soupbeans are commonly confused with bean soup, which is a very different dish.

Soupbeans and cornbread was a meal that was born of necessity.  With hard times came, the need for cheap and nutritious meals.  Beans and corn meal were things that most people kept on hand or were easily acquired.  Mountain cooks worked their magic and made this a meal that is not only extremely cheap, but absolutely delicious.  It is my favorite Appalachian meal, and we certainly enjoyed it last night.

Soupbeans (not to be confused with bean soup): Feeds a family of four for about 2 days

• pinto beans (2 cups dry)
  
• bacon fat and/or salt pork (fatback)
• onion
• water
• salt and pepper

To begin, soak 2 cups of dry beans in enough water to cover them over night or preferably 24 hours.  My grandmothers called this “getting the gas out”.  They were exactly right.  Soaking makes the beans easier to digest and causes less bloating and gas.  I like to soak my beans long enough so that they sprout.  I have noticed this takes the unwanted side effects of beans completely away and cuts down on cooking time.  On the day of cooking, put the beans in a large stock pot.  Cover the beans with water, then add as much water as you want for soup.  Cut up some onion and add to the pot.  Add salt and pepper to your preference (I use unrefined sea salt for valuable nutrients.)  Then, the most important ingredient is added – fatback and/or bacon fat.  Traditionally, this was a piece of fatty pork cured in salt.  If that wasn’t available grease from the morning breakfast would suffice.  Most often bacon grease is what I have on hand and I use it generously.  Bring the ingredients to a boil and then, turn down the heat to a low-medium.  Cook the beans until they are a light reddish-brown color and soft.  This will take 2-4 hours.

The food accompanying soupbeans are just as important as the main dish.  Soupbeans are traditionally served with cornbread.  The cornbread is often eaten as a side, and another piece broken up into the beans to sop the soup.  Sauerkraut is a great addition to a bowl of soupbeans.  I can’t have this meal without making fried potatoes and onions.  Both of these foods were traditionally served with soupbeans.

A great plus is all of these food items are very cheap.  This meal can easily cost under $10 and will feed a family of four one meal for around two days.  It is a hearty meal, but I warn you… it’s very easy to overeat because it is so very good.

Take a look at my page of favorite recipes to see how to make my cornbread.  I hope you enjoy this beautiful Appalachian meal created out of our great ability to “make-do”.

Pickles

The weekend held more canning for me.  Not in the way you might imagine, however.  There was no vinegar or boiling and sealing jars involved.  I used an even older method of preserving food through lacto-fermentation or fermentation through lactic acid.  It is a far superior way of canning to today’s methods in terms of nutrition.

“The proliferation of lactobacilli in fermented vegetables enhances their digestibility and increases vitamin levels. These beneficial organisms produce numerous helpful enzymes as well as antibiotic and anticarcinogenic substances. Their main by-product, lactic acid, not only keeps vegetables and fruits in a state of perfect preservation but also promotes the growth of healthy flora throughout the intestine.”

-Sally Fallon, Nourishing Traditions pg.89

So far, all I have tried is cucumbers and of course made dill pickles.  We have eaten two jars already and I have ten more in the works.  I plan on trying to do lacto-fermentation with kraut next. Yum!  It’s really good in a bowl of soup (pinto) beans with cornbread.

It has taken me a couple of tries to get my recipe right for my pickles.  The website that coincides with Sandor Katz’s book Wild Fermentation has been a big help.  I used the recommendations there and the recipe in Nourishing Traditions to develop my own.

Line the bottom of some wide mouth canning jars with leaves that are high in tannins.  I use blackberry leaves as that’s what I have in my backyard.  Grape leaves are suitable as well.  These will keep the cucumbers crispy.  In the bottom (for a pint jar), place one clove of garlic and 3/4 teaspoon of dried dill.  Slice cucumbers into 1/4 inch slices and stuff the jar leaving about an inch of space from the top.  Fill with water to cover the cucumbers, but keeping it an inch from the top of the jar.  Add 3/4 tablespoon of real sea salt (unrefined), and put a smaller lid on top of the cucumbers to hold them under the water (it is important they remain submersed).  Put on the lid.  Then, leave the filled jars sit in a warm spot for 2-4 days.  My last batch had to go for four.  The first batch went three.  Taste them after a few days to see if they are to your liking.  It is normal for them to be bubbly.  Any scum that might form on the top, just skim off.  It will be obvious if something has went wrong and they are no longer edible from smell.

The pickles are delicious and the closer you get to the bottom of the jar, the more you can taste the flavor of the garlic.  It makes me happy knowing that I am eating a pickle that is more beneficial to me than a boat load of sodium, artificial colors, and other preservatives.  This experience has made me brave enough to try other fermented veggies, and I might even buy some kefir grains as I get serious about kicking my coffee habit.

If you’d like to know more about fermenting vegetables, check out this video with Sandor Katz.

Abundance

Why do you spend money for what is not bread, and your wages for what does not satisfy?  Listen carefully to Me, and eat what is good, and delight yourself in abundance.

Isaiah 55:2 (New American Standard)

We are getting some serious amounts of food from our garden now.  It is a delightful abundance!  What you see above was grown without pesticides of any sort natural or otherwise, and without any fertilizer or “plant food”.  This isn’t even the half of what we’ve harvested the last few weeks.  Here you see yellow crooked neck squash, cozocelle zucchini, potatoes, and calypso pickling cucumbers.  We have gotten scallions and salad bowl lettuce as well.

In the summer months we naturally gravitate to a lighter fare of fresh foods, but none lacking in flavor.  Perhaps it’s because of the heat or because it’s readily available and fresh.  Either way, it’s a good thing.  Meals in the summer should be simple, quick, and very tasty.

Here is what I did with our abundance for this evening meal.

All the veggies are from the garden except the grape tomatoes and the white onion.  The vegetables are cut, wallowed in olive oil, salted, peppered, and sprinkled with garlic powder.  Then, they are roasted on a cookie sheet in the oven at about 400 degrees.  The salad… well you know how to make a salad. 🙂  The pork loin chop is browned in an iron skillet in bacon grease that I save from breakfast every morning.  I sprinkle it with salt, pepper, garlic powder, and basil.  This meal is finished in 30-40 minutes and is wonderfully delicious.

I am beaming with satisfaction and thanking God for all of it.

Check-up on the Food Budget

With our garden coming in good, my goal with our $269 monthly food budget is to stock up the freezer with some meat for fall and winter.  We are still eating on the rabbits my brother killed for us this hunting season and my dad brought us more from a friend of his.  That gives us a good start.  My next step was to see what I’m currently spending our money on, and see what I can cut back in order to get us a little extra meat for the freezer.  I saved the grocery receipts from this month, put foods into broad categories, and then added the prices.

Here is what I found…

• Nuts – $32.71
• Breakfast Meat – $34.49
• Other Meat – $20.83
• Milk and Half-n-Half – $27.37
• Cheese and Sour Cream – $19.48
• Veggies – $38.08
• Fruits – $23.76
• Condiments (including peanut butter and honey) – $16.72
• Oil – $3.59
• Food for Girls – $19.39
• Juice – $5.63
• Beans – $5.00
• Butter – $7.42
• Coffee – $5.99
• Spices – $1.39
• Eggs – $6.98

My grand total was $268.83!  I was pretty surprised that we had stayed right at our top amount for food costs.  Keeping a stocked pantry and freezer is a huge help.  We have also cut back on the fresh organic produce as it doesn’t seem to be very fresh from the grocery.  I bought more frozen organics and potatoes than I had this winter.  I’m also getting pretty good about not wasting food.  The only time it gets a little difficult is when Deladis goes on one of her hunger strikes after visiting the grandparents and having an abundance of sweets.  (I know… it’s the grandparents’ job to spoil the grandchildren.  One day I might have the chance myself. ;))

What I knew already and has become very apparent with these totals is that I could probably cut back on my consumption of nuts.  I eat them almost everyday in large quantities.  If I could cut back and eat some grilled cheese sandwiches instead or something similar, I could use the extra money to stock the freezer with meats.

I have tried my hand at bread making and made a soaked version of the Bob’s Red Mill Whole Wheat Bread Package.  I used to make a Pueblo Oven Bread, and I have always enjoyed fresh bread.  The soaked whole wheat was really good.  I’d like to eventually make bread without the need of baker’s yeast.  Our body’s can do without the extra yeast.  I’m going to try to make a sourdough starter from the recipe in the Nourishing Traditions cookbook.  I already have rye flour.  I just need to buy one more large mixing bowl.  Then, I might be more willing to add the extra grain to my diet.  Refined sugars and grains are the two places where I won’t budge in my dietary habits.  Grains must be properly prepared so as not to be counterproductive in our digestive tracts.

Yesterday, eating from the garden was the highlight of an otherwise difficult day.  It was a joyful thing to eat my scallions, lettuce, and roasted new potatoes – a joyfully good thing.  It makes all the fuss and hard work over the garden seem not so bad.  I’m already looking forward to planting season 2010. 🙂  Also, when I saw that we only spent $6.98 on eggs, I was happy.  It is a true reward to see our efforts paying off. It’s funny how these efforts can go unnoticed unless we make the effort to check-up on ourselves.

* Check out my new recipe for killed “killt” lettuce and onions https://eastkentuckygal.wordpress.com/favorite-recipes.  Also, there is a 3-way tie over at The Nourished Kitchen and my Honey-Molasses Cookies are in the running still :).  Voting ends July 7th.  As of yesterday, we are in the market for new laying hens.  I balked at the egg buying I had to do yesterday.