Recommended Reading: Rosemary Gladstar's Herbal Recipes for Vibrant Health

This book is a life-changer:

Herbal Recipes for Vibrant Health: 175 Teas, Tonics, Oils, Salves, Tinctures, and Other Natural Remedies for the Entire Family

 I have always felt that we rely too much on chemical preparations, rather than the natural herbal remedies mother nature provides. And that a lot of herbal solutions have been lost in Western cultures (think witch hunts) whereas many Asian cultures know and still use herbal remedies. When I visited rural health facilities in Vietnam for example, they had lovely herb gardens which they explained were part of traditional medical treatments.
 I loved the author, Rosemary Gladstar's, writing style - teaching and encouraging at the same time. I want to try everything that she recommends.

Reuse Recipe: Tomato Sauce

Let me preface this recipe by saying - this is not a true re-use recipe, not like making use of the stale bread and sour milk, but it is a real money-saver! I was complaining once to my friend, Alissa, how I would never grow enough tomatoes in our (small backyard) garden to make a years worth of salsa and spagetti sauce for our family. She proposed this brilliant solution of buying large #10 cans of tomato sauce, crushed, and diced tomatoes. These are a great way to save money in general - like Money Saving Mom describes here.   They are about $2.75 per can at my local Costco - with 2 cans and some other ingredients I make approximately 12 jars of "healthy" spagetti sauce.  The same amount of spagetti sauce would normally cost about 20$, even on sale.
I cook by feeling/tasting more than numbers, but here is the general outline of my sauce recipe:

1. In a frying pan/non-stick sauce pan - cook 2 large chopped onions, a couple tablespoons of olive oil, and a bunch of chopped garlic (3-4 tablespoons). Add the spices you like/have on hand - a small scoop of basil, a big scoop of parsley, rosemary, oregano, and salt to taste. 
2. I like to add broth or a small amount of meat to give the sauce some body. In this batch, I used 3/4 lb of hamburger meat that I happened to have leftover from something else. But I have used turkey broth, chicken broth, or bouillon cubes.
3. Dump everything from the frying pan into a very large stock pot along with 2 #10 size cans of crushed tomatoes, diced tomatoes, or tomato sauce.  
4. Look around the freezer/fridge/garden for greens that need to be used.  I love growing kale in my garden, so easy and so productive. If it is summertime I might run out and harvest some fresh, but  I also blanche and freeze whatever kale or other greens (beet tops, spinach, collards), we don't eat fast enough.  In this particular batch I added half a gallon ziploc of kale, some frozen leeks that were looking a little freezer burned, and a small sandwich bag of parsley that I had frozen.  This is also a good way to use up that bag of spinach that is about to turn soggy.
5. Go do something else for awhile and let it simmer until you have a minute. Taste. Add a bit more salt, maybe a handful of sugar if it tastes too acidic, and let it simmer on. 
6. Just before dinner, break out your immersion blender and blend it all up. Use some for spagetti that night,  and let the sauce cool some with the lid on your stockpot. 
7. Pour into mason jars or recycle any (well cleaned) glass jars for the purpose. Allow about an inch of headroom.  Cool jars in the fridge over night - then put them in the freezer.  I lay them on their sides and then stand them up once they are frozen.  If you prefer plastic containers, those work fine too. We use about 1 jar of sauce/week - so 12 jars lasts 12 weeks. If you have a pressure canner, you can also can and store these at room temperature. 

Vintage Finds

Love this fabric. If I had the time, I would make it into a giant stack of cloth napkins -- about 50 of them.  In the meantime, I have listed it in my shop. If no one purchases it I won't be too sad.

Vintage Napkin Fabric

This fabric would make a great blouse or dress, but again, keeps sinking to the bottom of my priority sewing list, so I am putting it in my shop.

Cut'n Sew blouse or dress

Sew Special

I am still stuck on my cowboy quilt, not sure how or what to intersperse among the 20 bearpaw blocks... I guess we could call it "quilter's block"! Very bad pun. sorry.
Other projects are getting done though.  Here is my new blouse. Based on Lisette pattern #2211. I have a long torso, and I like my shirts long, so I made the tunic length and then hemmed it to fit.  After I tried it on I realised that I must also have wide shoulders. It fits great, just a wee bit snug across the upper back. Luckily, I found this great post from the lovely Sarai of Colleterie.  Will make those adjustments next time. Yes, I liked this pattern enough to make more of them!

Lisette blouse #2211

Homeschooling Summary of the Week

Our new homeschooling books came this week! They are:
Family Math for Young Children and Phonics Pathways.

They have both added a lot of fun and games to our homeschooling. Family math is a creative approach to looking at the math in our every day lives. This week we estimated numbers of large and small blocks in jars and counted them, played in and around shapes on the floor, and made comparisons. We are learning short vowel sounds from the Phonics Pathways book and playing the "short vowel shuffle" which my daughter can't get enough of. I heartily recommend both of these books so far!

	Monday	Tuesday	Wednesday	Thursday	Friday
Reading	Phonics a	Phonics e	Phonics i	Sick day	Sick day
Writing	Letter a	Letter e	Letter i	“	“
Math	Estimating	Comparisons	Inside outside Shapes	“	“
Science	X	X	X	X	X
History/Geography	X	X	X	X	X

Recommended Reading: The Red Necklace

I am thinking that I should rename these posts about books. Sometimes I may not want to recommend the books that I read... so far not necessary though!
The Red Necklace by Sally Gardner was an excellent story. I would label it a historical fiction, since it is set during the French Revolution and includes a lot of accurate information about that brutal period of France's history. The only aspect that I did not like was the spooky black magic of the book's villain, Count Kalliovsky. It gave me the shivers!  I am a wuss about anything remotely scary.

The Red Necklace

The Silver Blade

When I finished the book I realised that their was a sequel and ordered it from the library.  The Silver Blade was a good conclusion, I liked it, although again, the villain was very spooky. Maybe these would be good Halloween reading recommendations.

Reuse Recipe: Sour milk

This past week I had a whole gallon of 2% milk that went sour. I am not sure how it happened since the expiration date had not been reached and it was unopened?  But it was a fun challenge to see how many ways I could use it up.  Usually, when/if milk goes sour in my fridge it is a much smaller amount.

First, I made my go-to recipes for when I have sour milk:

1. Sally Lunn Bread from my favorite bread recipe book: The Bread Machine Cookbook. It used only 2/3 cup of milk.
2. Far: which I learned to love while living in Brittany, France. I forgot to take a picture of it, but it looks like the photo below.  My family calls it custard. It is good warm or cold. Normally, it uses prunes and raisins, which sink to the bottom of the pan while it cooks. 

Photo From: http://pepsakoy.blogspot.com/2011/11/far-breton.html

Here is the recipe that I have been using for it lately (very easy to make):
4 c. whole milk ( I used 2% sour milk and it still turned out, but I have also added an extra egg to make sure it was thick enough)
7-8 large eggs
1 c. sugar
10 T. butter (melted)
1/4 t. salt
1t. vanilla
Blend it all up a little bit.
Then add 1 1/2 C. flour and blend it up until it is only slightly lumpy. Use a cold stick of butter to really thoroughly butter a glass casserole dish. My French host family told me that that was what makes it yummy. Then put a few handfuls of raisins and/or prunes in the bottom of the dish and pour the batter on top. Bake at 375F for about 60 to 75 minutes. Check it by making sure the center is cooked, "set-up" and not liquidy at all.


Then since I had so much sour milk, I branched out into some new recipes.  Here are the 2 cookbooks that I used it this week:

From the Betty Crocker cookbook, I made:

 1. Waffles: which normally uses 1 3/4 cup of regular milk, indicated that 2 cups of buttermilk and less baking powder could be substituted.  I made 2 batches and froze one for quick breakfasts later in the week. I have tried several waffle recipes over the years and this one is great.  Crispy on the outside, but moist inside.

2. Buttermilk Brine Fried Chicken: This used about 4 cups of sour/buttermilk. My first time making this recipe. I hardly ever make anything fried, but wow it was delicious! The buttermilk brine is like a marinate for the chicken (I used thigh meat). It calls for 1/3 cup of salt and a 2-4 hour soak. By the time I got around to making dinner it had been in there about 7-8 hours. It was nice and salty.  I think I might try to leave it in less time on the next go and see if it is even better/mildly salted. 

From the Boston Cooking School Cookbook: 

1. Doughnuts/sugar cookies - I love this cookbook because it is from the depression (1932) and it has a lot of good reuse/thrifty type recipes, including a whole section on toast and crumbs! The sour milk section of the index listed doughnuts, which is another fried thing that I have never made before.  They were delicious, no comparison to the insubstantial store bought version.  But the recipe made a huge batch - like 2 dozen biscuit sized doughnuts. I fried half and baked half, just for comparison.  The baked "doughnuts" were more like not very sweet sugar cookies. My kids loved both.  

Vintage Finds

vintage hobnail white milk glass vase

Now available in my shop! Freestyle Homemaker

Sew Special

Time to show off a few other items for the cowboy/farm bedroom while the cowboy's quilt is in process...

Inexpensive farm art - These are 8 x 8 canvases from Michaels. The kids helped me paint the backgrounds and then I used our projector (no fancy cricut machines here) to trace the silhouettes in pencil. I just filled in the outlines with white paint.

This is my favorite type of valence/curtain (more on that another day). Made using the  "Funny Farm" line of quilting fabrics that I mentioned here. 

Farm and cowboy pillows! Same cow fabric as the valences on one side and the fuzzy cowhide on the other side. 

Homeschooling Summary for the Week

This week I picked up some history books from the library, which we added to our repertoire (see links to Amazon below):

The Very First Thanksgiving

The Very First Thanksgiving is short and not very detailed, but the illustrations were a good starting point for discussing pilgrims and Native American Indians. Also it helped my daughter connect the idea of Pilgrims and Indians to something that she already knows about --Thanksgiving.  

Tapenums Day

Tapenum's Day  shows how the Native Americans Indians in Massachusetts lived during the time when the pilgrims arrived. The most amazing part is that the illustrations are all photographs! They were taken at a re-creation of an Indian homesite in Plymoth Massachusetts. Maybe we can visit there when the other kids are a bit older. 

 ---If You Sailed on the Mayflower in 1620 is full of lots of detailed information about the pilgrims and their voyage to the New World.  The format of the book is a series of questions and answers. I thought my daughter would loose interest part way through because their was so much information, but I think the format helped her stay engaged.

Progress Chart for the week ending January 19, 2013

	Monday	Tuesday	Wednesday	Thursday	Friday
Reading	Bob Books #4 & 5	Bob Books #4 & 5	Bob Books #4 & 5	Bob Books #4 & 5	X
Writing	Letter Q	Letter R	Letter R	Letter S	X
Math	X	X	X	X	X
Science	X	X	X	X	X
History/Geography	Mayflower	Pilgrims	Pilgrims	Indians	X

Recommended Reading: Glock

I have never owned a gun. When I was a kid my dad told me about his neighbor, a young boy, who accidentally shot and killed his little sister with their family gun.  I have been too scared to have one in my house ever since.  Although, I can understand why people would want to own a gun and if they knew how to use it, feel comfortable with one.

I heard about this book, Glock, on NPR.  They have interviewed the author, Paul Barrett, a couple times. Sadly, each time has been after a mass shooting.  I found the story of the gun's inventor interesting, albeit disappointing. It provided me with a closer view of the NRA, which made me dislike them. And it reinforced my personal feeling that gun ownership is not the whole problem. The book presents some interesting data about lower total numbers of guns available in Europe and much lower homicide rates. Here in the US more bad guys have guns and more good guys too.
This book provides lots of thoughtful data on all sides of the debate. I recommend it. Definitely worth reading.
Also worth reading is this study from Johns Hopkins about guns and gun violence: The Case for Gun Policy Reforms.

Reuse Recipe: Apples, Pears, Peaches, Plums

After bread, the second most half eaten food item in my kitchen is fruit; especially apples, but also pears, raisins, and peaches when they are in season. Unlike bread, these half eaten fruits can't be stored in bag (due to bruising in the fridge). I store them in a plastic rubbermaid box, the size of a child's shoebox. I have about 7 days or less to accumulate and use these remnants.  No problem though, there are a lot of tasty ways to use up half eaten fruits:

1. Pie or cobbler- I mentioned the book Rustic Fruit Desserts in my post on bread. They also have some lovely pie and cobbler type recipes that I frequently use.  
2. Oatmeal- Stir in fruit remnants while the oatmeal is cooking
3. Fruit Compote - While there are many variations of this, I first discovered this while living in Russia. This recipe gives you an idea of how it is made,but I use fresh fruit. I usually just improvise until it tastes good to me. Think hot apple cider made with many types of fruits.
4. Fruit Sauce- cut-up fruits and simmer slowly until mushy then blend with an immersion or standard blender. You can add sugar to taste, but ut us not required. Do not add water or it will be too soupy.

Vintage Finds

Lovely thrift store finds -- now for sale in my Etsy shop

I love this Vintage Vogue dress pattern. The extra detail of the button strap is beautiful.

I am not sure what time period this box is from, but there is a lingering smell of women's face powder inside of it.

Sew Special

Moving on from the cutting and ironing phase!  I finished sewing 10 of the 20 bear paw blocks today, with the other 10 nearly done. I want to try to keep this design asymmetrical with a lot of scrappy bits thrown in between the bear paws.  More on that next week I hope.

Homeschooling Summary for the Week

My daughter just turned 4, son M is 2, and son S is 2 months.  So when I say that I am just starting homeschooling, I really mean it.  My daughter has been doing Joy School for one year now.  She loves it and I am happy with the program. She also loves reading and wants to start school so we decided to begin with the books/resources that we had on hand.  I ordered some additional books, but the ones that we are working with this week are:

1. The Bob Books (box 1)
2. A writing notebook
3. The New Exploring Science Yellow Book. 1982. Blecha, Gega, Green and Ide.  (see links to textbook shops that might have it). This is a great little thrift store find.  So far it is my daughter's favorite school activity! It is a workbook style science book with activities and pictures for each topic. I may have been so drawn to it because this is what my science workbooks looked like in elementary school! 

Progress for Week of January 11, 2013

	Monday	Tuesday	Wednesday	Thursday	Friday
Reading	X	Bob Books #1 & 2	Bob books #2 & 3	Bob books #2 &3	Bob books #3 & 4
Writing	X	Letter E	Letter F	Letter J	Letter K
Math	X	X	X	X	X
Science	X	Animals	Animals	Fruits & Seeds	Shapes
History/Geography	X	X	X	X	X

Recommended Reading: The Green Knowe Series

This lovely series, The Green Knowe, was published from 1954-1976.  It is fun to read (or listen to the audio cd version, if you are multi-tasking :)  Written in an imaginative, descriptive style, this is a great childrens book series for anyone who has ever wanted to live in a castle, talk to ghosts, or time travel.

Reuse Recipe: Bread

My children love toast. Almost every day they wake-up wanting it for breakfast. I'm surprised they don't get sick of it. Luckily, we have a bread-maker. I can pull out the machine and put all the ingredients in for a loaf in less than 5 minutes. It comes out great every time... unless I forget the yeast or other vital ingredient. :)  It is much less expensive and much easier than buying it at the grocery store. The best bread machine book, hands down is this one: The Bread Machine Cookbook.  Our family favs are the raisin bread, the sally lunn, and the wheat germ and sesame wheat.  We also use the pizza dough recipe regularly. It is enough to make 2 thin crust cookie sheet pizzas.
Anyway, the point of this bread tirade is that we eat a lot of bread, but also end up with a lot of crusts and half eaten pieces of toast.  Throwing away food drives me crazy -- so I asked myself, what can I do with all these leftover pieces of bread? How do I keep things tidy in the process?
My solution is the bread bag.  I keep a ziploc in the fridge into which I put all the leftover crusts, bits of toast, heels etc. Keeping it refrigerated allows me to fill up a gallon size ziploc bag (about 7-10 days worth) without spoilage.

Then I have enough to use for one of several options:

1. Croutons - chop stale bread roughly in cubes and toss with spices like garlic salt, parsley and chives, bake at 350 until dry an crunchy, 7-10 minutes. We eat these on salad and also in soups like crackers.
2. Bread crumbs -crush the above mentioned croutons :) 
3. Stuffing - some people call it "dressing".  Martha Stewart's website has several good recipes for it including this one.  
4. Bread pudding - This book: Rustic Fruit Desserts has a lovely chocolate cherry bread pudding that my children refer to as "cake".  I also enjoy bread pudding with apples.  The only change I think almost always improves the pudding is to add a crumb topping. 

Note - if you are not planning to eat one of these items every 10 days - you can also just make the simple croutons and freeze them until you need either them or the bread crumbs.

Vintage Finds

New in my Etsy shop this week are these vintage needlepoint canvases that I found thrifting last week. I love arts and crafts that portray motherhood.  And having been to Africa several times, these remind me of seeing mamas carrying their babies out and about with them.

 I just opened the Etsy shop over the holidays. My Freestyle Homemaker shop, like this blog, was something that I have been thinking of doing for awhile, but was afraid to add to the already busy mix of my life.  We'll see how it goes!

Sew Special

 I am currently in what I like to call the "dreaded cutting and ironing" phase of a Bear Paw quilt for my son's big boy bed.  I have been using a paper piecing guide that I found at a thrift store a while back.  It worked great! It felt a little like cheating having all those tiny triangles come together so quickly and neatly.

 I am updating my kids' room to a ranch / farm / cowboy theme - so this cowboy quilt ties in nicely. I will post more pics on the room's progress as time goes on. Here is what it looks like when I lay out what I have so far:

And I found this cute cowboy fabric at Hancock Fabrics, yee haw!

Blog Outline and Resolutions

Blog Outline

Routines, that's the way I get things done.  If I have a daily/weekly routine then I am HOPEFULLY going to be able to follow through with keeping up this blog.  Here is the plan:

Monday: Sew Special - updates on latest sewing projects
Tuesday: Thrifty Finds - what I bought at the thrift store and put in my Etsy shop Freestyle Homemaker Shop
Wednesday: Re-use Recipes/Ideas/Projects - ideas for saving money and the planet
Thursday: Recommended Reading - sharing books i'm loving that week
Friday:  Weekly Home School Summary - this is mostly to help me track progress, but an audience will help me stay on top of it
Sat and Sun:  No Posts - family time!

Resolutions

1. Keep it short and sweet
2. Lots of Pics
3. Refer to my favorite blogs and share links/ideas