Finger-lickin' Everyday turkey pot pie

(Recipe for tonight's supper of Pot pie below.)

So, I've been thriftily getting an average of 3-5 meals each out of three pound chickens for our little family. I don't buy meat every week, and we try buy ethically and stretch it a good long way when we do. But the boys are getting bigger and eating more! On a whim, Paul and I decided to try a turkey, still frozen in the store, leftover from thanksgiving. It was almost eighteen pounds. I brined it for a couple days while it thawed, roasted it up just like I do with my usual chicken, except with loads of stuffing, which I think helps keep the bird nice and moist because the cavity isn't all full of hotted air.After the first meal, of stuffing and fresh meat, we had:
meals of:
-mashed potatoes and gravy (make potatoes extra and save for winter cheese and potato pie; my favorite)
-turkey pasta salad with almonds and dried cherries in a creamy poppyseed dressing. (Gib's other favorite)
-Turkey teriyaki over rice with steamed broccoli
-lots of cold turkey for lunches
-turkey soup with big fluffy dumplings. every one's other favorite. The secret is to not to boil the broth hard--ever. Simmer like you know it's going to be delicious.
-fresh turkey baby food
-Turkey omelets
-and, tonight, finger-lickin' turkey pot pie. it was so gratifying. everyone enjoyed this simple dish so much. no herbs or fancy flavors. just pure goodness.
And, as I still have a nice jar of broth and two containers of meat, later this week, I'm planning: -on using more broth in a pineapple fried rice dish
-turkey sandwiches with kitchen sink sprouts
-using the broth to float my gnocchi in tomorrow
-some kind of yummy salad?
-maybe turkey-black bean burritos. Burritos are great to make a handful extra and stick in the freezer for lunches.

That's a very reasonable 13 meals. It was expensive, this no-hormone, no cages, pastured, bird, but we've also been so enjoying not being so scrimpy with meat--I wasn't stretching the turkey thin in these meals. So I consider this very economical. It certainly was less pricey than an equivalent amount of chicken. A perfect focal point for our winter menus where we want good simple food, but not as spare as it will get come Lent in a month here.
Oh, and there's been not a whisper of anyone being sick of turkey. It's juicy and good. We've been so enjoying. We don't really eat much meat usually, and, never hosting the big holiday meals, never have large-scale leftovers of roasts. Heck, we wouldn't anyway. The family's big and hungry enough that there aren't many leftovers to speak of when we get together!

Finger-lickin' Pot Pie
easily, many other meats could substitute in here just fine. Also, parsnips, potatoes I would have tossed in if f I had had on hand. The crust I just made up, and we all loved it so much. We ate up every morsel and for once I'm not sorry there were no leftovers because I think it would get soggy.
2 cups pieces turkey meat, white or dark
2 stalks celery, chopped thinnishly
2 chopped, peeled carrots
1 1/2 cups peas
1/3 of an onion, finely minced (for most kids don't like the feel of onion in their picky little mouths) I would have used a whole if I hadn't just happened to have a part left over from another meal
1 1/2 cups broth
2/3 cup milk
good grinding of black pepper

Boil the celery, peas, and carrots 10-15 min, until just tender.
Saute the onion in turkey fat skimmed from the broth jar. Just to golden.
Heat the broth and meat to a simmer. It had been in the fridge for a week, after all. Mix veg, onions, meat, broth, milk, salt and pepper to taste. If Paul hadn't been around to keep an eye on the brood, I would have done the above, and prior chopping and washing of the above, ahead of time, and just assembled the pie and popped it in the oven an hour before dinner. Maybe. Okay today I would have put the baby on my back and cranked some loud music for the boys to jump around to and done it all as I did in the hour before supper.

Now the fun starts: biscuit-pie crust
3-4 cups flour, pile in a heap on butcher block or big bread board
stir into it with a fork:
1/2 tsp baking soda
two good pinches of salt
now I took my dough knife and chopped a quarter cup (half a stick) of butter into the flour. I just chopped until all the pieces were pea-sized or so. I suppose a chef's knife or butter knives or fingertips could do the same thing. I did chop, not knead or rub. The butter was just out of the fridge.
Now-- I made the flour into a little mountain and made a hole in the center. Quick as can be, I stirred 3 Tablespoons full of good plain full-fat yogurt in. I incorporated as much flour as possible, then take the soft dough out and set it aside and do it again until most of the flour mixture is dough. Maybe three times. I stop before all the flour is incorporated so I won't have to add more for rolling out the crust. I took half of this crust, and rolled it out. This makes a big flaky, floury pile that doesn't seem like it's ever going to hold together at all. That's good; it will, though. All along I'm dusting the excess flour over and under the crust to incorporate it; I roll the crust out as big as my pie pan. I take my dough knife and scrape up the edges on the four sides all around and fold them inward, like folding it in half and in half again. Roll it out again. As soon as possible, I set that crust into the deep dish pie pan. I do the same with the second half, and fold the finished crust in quarters to rest a minute.
Pour the filling into the bottom crust. If there's too much, (I want to leave an inch of room so it doesn't boil over) I put the extra aside for another meal or an extra little pie or hand-pie for Paul's lunch. Best not to overload!
Now I take that folded crust and unfold it on top of the pie. There's a good bit of over-hang. I seal the top crust to the bottom crust all the way around the edges by pressing with my fingers. I fold the excess under against the inside of the pie, because we like crust so, double thick is great. I crimped the edge with my fingers. I slit the top with a knife to let the steam out, and pop it into the oven, which is preheated to 425 F.

It was all cooked in 25-30 minutes, just goldening on top and around the edges. Rested for 10 minutes. Served nice and hot but not scalding! Everyone was so happy.
Our six year old adds, "make sure to say that kids like it too!"

Whew. That sounded like a lot of work, but that crust took just a couple of minutes. Really. Like, less than five. I've made a lot of fussy crusts with taking in and out of the fridge, and ice water and vodka and whatnot. They were so fussy I never made anything with a crust! I'm not sure vodka and ice water weren't just trying , and failing, to make up for my not knowing how to just do this quick and with a light touch. I don't think Grandma used ice or liquor in her crusts, and I don't think she just always served tough or heavy crusts! But as I get the hang of it, it's not so hard. Just making one every once in a while was so worth it, I think I'm getting the knack now, and I can just bang these out!
The crust was between a biscuit crust and a pie crust: crisp outside; flaky, light, and soft inside.

Miscellany of Frugal Food tips

Our family of five spends $400 a month and I feel like we live like kings. We shop at our co-op or farmers' market. We shoot for local, real food. I say amen to all the folks I meet who want real food! Do you wonder if it's possible to eat fresh, local, ethically grown food without being rich? I think it is!
-planning is huge. I make the most I can out of all our meat. A roast, salad and sandwiches from the leftovers, broth and sauces from the bones, fat, and juices. We look to buy whole birds/small animals and split half or quarter cows/other large animals with neighbors and family. I look at what's leftover when planning the next shopping trip--we buy exactly what we need
-plan ahead for snack food and lunches. I like to have grabbable snacks around for emergencies and busy days. I have found it useful to package up leftovers into meal-sized containers before we eat. Otherwise if it's good, it just gets all eaten, or only
the unpopular bits are leftover.
-when we have beans, I make tortillas the next day. I make a bunch extra, wrap them up and freeze them for good quick meals.
-Gardening! It's not as hard as it seems! The garden gets a little better every year, as I learn from my mistakes. Really, the first year I planted tomatoes, I was amazed that these things grown with next to no assistance. It's like a miracle every year. You plant things, and they grow, and make fruits! What a gift from God!
-we never buy prime cuts. Luckily, our neighbors we are buying beef with this year want exclusively prime cuts! Jack Sprat and his wife, you know.
-we planted strawberries, mullberries, raspberries, blackberries, juneberries. I get blueberry bushes for friends who have better yards for growing them. Berries are so expensive organic, we can never afford to buy them, even locally and pick-your own. Once planted, they get better every year and come back on their own. (did I mention I love perennial foods?!!)
-we have a small yard, so glean from other people's fruit trees. Most people with fruit trees don't seem to know what to do with all the fruit! Some people are happy to let me harvest their whole crop instead of letting it fall on the sidewalk. This has worked for me with apples, pears, crabapples, grapes. One good little tree gives us a year's supply of applesauce and apple butter. Fruit is really important to us! I have gotten fruit from vacant lots.
-We get WIC. I know lots of people qualify for this who would never think of getting assistance--we love the program. they are always very respectful, and we can buy all the food at our coop. they also give vouchers for our local farmers' market.
-we make everything we can from scratch. little by little I've built up skills and habits. for instance, I realized we used a lot of ketchup; when I canned tomatoes I put up a year's supply of ketchup for not much extra work. pickles, jams, sauces--this type of stuff is way more expensive to buy than to make. yogurt, fresh cheeses. I don't know if fermented grains would be better nutritionally for you than other grains, but they are for us. I started a lot of this reading "More With Less", the mennonite cookbook. They also have a seasonal cookbook, "simply in Season".

-seasonal eating. Buy what's cheap when it's cheap, in quantity. We eat a lot of squash and beets in the winter! Mushrooms and beef in fall, chickens, dairy, eggs, and onions in spring. Vegetables galore in the summer. I recommend "Full Moon Feast". and "Midwest Gardener's Cookbook".
-free and cheap garden ideas: buy green onions, save the rootbase and the bottom inch of stalk. Stick these in the ground, and next year enjoy fresh green onions! An herb garden has a big payoff--once planted, perennial herps just come back on their own, with no extra money and harldy any work. I don't ever buy fresh herbs from the coop, but cook with them every day for free!
-I haven't yet successfully started tomatoes and peppers from seed, but all the gardeners I know who do this often have lots of starts they want to give away for free.
-alfalfa sprouts and other bean sprouts: I grow these in a jar with a screen lid on the dish drainer. Great for the winter when fresh greens are so pricey and shipped across the country
-I seed coriander/cilantro from the bulk whole herbs at the coop. also coop garlic is way cheaper for planting. than garden suppliers, and usually open-pollinated, heirloom varieties. Ditto onions and potatoes. If I have some spouting or getting all soft, I just plant them out. I say amen to a lot of what has been posted and will try to only add my extra bits:
-we buy all our food at our co-op or farmers market. we shoot for local, real food.
-We get WIC. I know lots of people qualify for this who would never think of getting assistance--we love the program. they are always very respectful, and we can buy all the food at our coop. they also give vouchers for our local farmers' market.
-planning is huge. I make the most I can out of all our meat. A roast, salad and sandwiches from the leftovers, broth and sauces from the bones, fat, and juices. We look to buy whole birds/small animals and split half or quarter cows/other large animals with neighbors and family. I look at what's leftover when planning the next shopping trip--we buy exactly what we need
-plan ahead for snack food and lunches. I like to have grabbable snacks around for emergencies and busy days. I have found it useful to package up leftovers into meal-sized containers before we eat. Otherwise if it's good, it just gets all eaten, or only the unpopular bits are leftover.
-when we have beans, I make tortillas the next day. I make a bunch extra, wrap them up and freeze them for good quick meals.
-we never buy prime cuts. Luckily, our neighbors we are buying beef with this year want exclusively prime cuts! Jack Sprat and his wife, you know.
-we planted strawberries, mullberries, raspberries, blackberries, juneberries. I give blueberry bushes to friends who have better yards for growing them. Berries are so expensive organic, we can never afford to buy them, even locally and pick-your own. Once planted, they get better every year and come back on their own.
-we have a small yard, so glean from other people's fruit trees. Most people with fruit trees don't seem to know what to do with all the fruit! People are often happy to let me harvest their whole crop instead of letting it fall on the sidewalk. This has worked for me with apples, pears, crabapples, grapes. One good little tree gives us a year's supply of applesauce and apple butter. Fruit is really important to us! I also get fruit from vacant lots
-we make everything we can from scratch. little by little I've built up skills and habits. for instance, I realized we used a lot of ketchup; when I canned tomatoes I put up a year's supply of ketchup for not much extra work. pickles, jams, sauces--this type of stuff is way more expensive to buy than to make. yogurt, fresh cheeses. I don't know if fermented grains would be better nutritionally for you than other grains, but they are for us. I started a lot of this reading "More With Less", the mennonite cookbook. They also have a seasonal cookbook, "simply in Season".
-seasonal eating. I buy what's cheap when it's cheap, in quantity. We eat a lot of squash and beets in the winter! Mushrooms and beef in fall, chickens, dairy, eggs, and onions in spring. Vegetables galore in the summer. I recommend "Full Moon Feast". and "Midwest Gardener's Cookbook".
-free and cheap garden ideas: when I buy green onions, I save the rootbase and the bottom inch of stalk. Stick these in the ground, and next year enjoy fresh green onions. An herb garden has a big payoff--once planted, perennial herps just come back on their own, with no extra money and harldy any work. I wouldn't ever buy fresh herbs from the coop, but cook with them every day for free!
-I haven't yet successfully started tomatoes and peppers from seed, but all the gardeners I know who do this always have lots of starts they want to give away for free.
-alfalfa sprouts and other bean sprouts: I grow these in a jar with a screen lid on the dish drainer. Great for the winter when fresh greens are so pricey and shipped across the country
-I seed coriander/cilantro from the bulk whole herbs at the coop. also coop garlic is way cheaper for planting. than garden suppliers, and usually open-pollinated, heirloom varieties. Ditto onions and potatoes. If I have some spouting or getting all soft, I just plant them out.
-I look for recipes that have just a handful of ingredients, most in my pantry, playing backup to whatever's in season. Simple but really good.
-I don't feel at all bad about being cheap. It is a delight to have good, fresh food. I like my food better since I don't get everything year-round. By the time it finally warms up enough for minnesota greens or chives and peas, or cools off for apples and soups, we're all so hungry for them!

Learning to Read

I've loved Leila's recent posts on learning to read. Never taught anyone to read before, but Gibbie and Ezra are on the cusp! I learned to read in first grade. I remember longing to read around five years of age, but it didn't then occur to me I could learn before they taught us in school. Maybe I wasn't ready to any earlier. By second grade I was reading chapter books late into the night.
What we're doing: reading out loud, lots and lots and lots. Picture books, poetry, comic books, favorite novels. This is seriously my favorite pastime. I basically married Paul because he would read books out loud with me. Gibbie won a little prize at his school last year among kids his age for reading the most hours during a reading fundraiser. The tricky thing was remembering to write it down. Our family chapter book really put us over the top because it means we read in the car and while doing dishes and other otherwise unliterary moments.

We are going through some popular phonics-early readers, but mostly the kids seem to respond best to tailored instruction. For instance, I've noticed that Ezra breaks words down into sounds orally, but has trouble sounding out written words, and is sounding out and writing his own phonetic words in a way Gibbie never did. Gibbie, when we work on reading, always wants to write out the words we sound out on his slate or in his notebook. We did get them each a special notebook and pen, just theirs, in which they do plenty of practicing and playing around.

I would like to read Uncovering the Logic of English by Denise Eide because her premise makes so much sense to me; that English is phonetic if you really learn the actual rules of phonics. (I think; I haven't read this yet!) This makes so much beautiful sense to me.

These boys are both writing lots of letters everyday, and have many of the building blocks of reading in hand. They seem to be synthesizing those elements into bona fide reading in different ways. All very exciting, and we're just not going to push it, or worry about comparing them to any brilliant friends of ours who all were fluently reading years earlier than us, all right?

Ezra's Sunshine Quilt

I made a quilt for Gibbie when he was small, and have been intending to make one for Ezra ever since. Gibbie's is rather a Valentine's quilt, in reds with lots of velvet and corduroy and flanneliness. Ezra, of course, needed something different. I believe the first time we took Gibbs to church, he was wrapped in his quilt, as it was winter and none of his limbs would stay in their places in a snowsuit yet-- Ezra's, being just finished now, obviously was not in use as a baby quilt, but has been fun in a different way because he can be a part of it.
Ezra's quilt is sunny. I remember sitting all day in my nursing couch with this one when he was yet tiny--my August baby, and just thinking how sunny and joyous all was. He has often chosen bright sunny colors. In fact, I often look to his drawings for color inspiration; he picks loud but harmonious combinations I wouldn't think of.
We went to the fabric store together, and looked at fabric. There was also a lot of searching in the piles of old clothing and linens. My neighbor Wendy gave us the backing fabric, which had been a crib sheet, and was nicely softened. I embroidered all the borders between squares. That was fun. Embroidery is one of my favorite crafts, and I don't do it very often. Partly, I just like looking at and using my amazing embroidery floss box, which I started way back in junior high or high school, when I did a rash of crazy quilting. (still working on that quilt too!)I have these lovely blue birds from an old garment my friend Maggie gave me. They have been waiting for homes. Two flew onto Ezra's quilt, where he wanted them, in the middle of the back. One alighted on Gibbie's quilt. Another reason I like quilting is that we can always add on later. Working on this has given me all kinds of ideas--how fun and easy to add pictures, or sew on special things, or stitch in a little poem or song.
For batting, I used an old lambswool sweater that was beyond repurposing. I think this will be warm. It is not bulky at all. The binding is inspired by those blankets that were always on the bed at Gramma Loretta's house, with the silken edges--so nice to rub as you fall asleep.

A good small quilt remains good. It can always be used along with bigger blankets to stay warm in bed. It can go on laps to watch movies even for teenagers or grownups. Kids use them to lie on the floor, or build forts on the couch, or any number of other things. And the more loved they are, the more reason to keep growing them, with new patches and pictures! Plus, they're good for you, with all that love stitched into them!

Kid's Blogs

Drawings, photos, coloring pages, and real life photo journalism by the children of The Full Cup!
Gibbie's work can be seen at Gibbie'sPhotos.

And original work by Ezra may now be viewed at Ezra's Picture Pages!
Artwork is chosen by the kids, with text dictated by them also.

A Vat of Indigo

This picture shows a scene from our backyard several nights last week. I am swishing fabric in my indigo vat. Newly dyed cloths and shirts hang on the clothesline. Gibbie is making a giant mudpuddle out of his digging hole. Ezra is in the hammock hanging from the clothesline. His foot is sticking out.Indigo was easier than I expected and super gratifying. The color is rich. My indigo I got in a kit at my fabulous local art store, Wet Paint. I dyed cotton and linen, including t-shirts for Ezra's birthday, as well as clothes of mine that were formerly white. White clothes and I don't get along very well, as they soon become no longer white. I also dyed plain fabric that I have an array of plans for. The colors turned out strikingly vibrant! Rich, lovely blues. We will see how they wear--I am expecting a gradual fade as with blue jeans. Next time I do this, I would like to make it an event, as the vat can dye so much fabric, and have others join in.

This Kitchen

So remember this kitchen when we first got this house? (Same view in following two pics.)Paul wanted the kitchen to be yellow; "Gram's-making-oatmeal-raisin-cookies-I-hope-yellow. " We ended up going a little mellower, because the kitchen tends to be such a flurry of activity anyway. I still hope the pantry (thank God for the wonderful pantries in this house!!) will be that yellow-yellow when we get around to it. No hurry.There were no appliances, and the walls were rotting apart, and everything was dirty and mousy, we are just so thrilled with how it all turned out! Paul put in the cedar panelling, which was salvaged by my ever-resourceful father from someone's trash. We sanded and refinished it, and it's so nice and warm feeling. Under a few layers of plastic and linoleum were real wood floors, worn but solid. Paul put in lovely lights where there were none, in just the right places, and a great sound system for listening to all our favorite public radio stations.
The hutch and butcher block we thought of while trying to imagine how this kitchen may have first been in 1900-- probably not built in cabinetry, but simple freestanding furniture if any, and a big table? The butcher block (craigslist) is awesome for kneading, chopping, rolling, grinding, all of which happen a lot in this kitchen!

Buildig A Bicycle

For a couple of years now, I've been dreaming of owning a bike with a few specific features: single-speed, road tires, bullhorn handlebars - along the lines of your basic hipster bike. I didn't have the knowledge or parts to build something like this myself, and didn't feel like going to craigslist. I tried to get one person to build it for me, and then she passed me off to another guy who I finally started working with last Friday to build my long-desired bike from the frame up.

It's a vintage (1960's or '70's) polish frame called a Tyler. It's surpisingly light for something that old.
We overhauled and greased-up all the bearing systems.

Almost all of the parts were from Daniel's home stockpile. We got used brakes (with new pads) from Sibley Bike Depot along with new Salsa brake levers.

It was great to finally get the bike I've wanted for so long, and be able to participate in building it.

Thanks, Daniel.

Backtrack to a Birthday

Back in August we had a birthday. We had a simple and very fun backyard party here in our very own backyard. As you can see, the birthday boy wore his superhero costume. Above, he has just opened what turned out to be the specialest present of all, a little paper mache box shaped like a cat, containing three guitar picks. Guitar picks are very special things to Ezra. He carries them around and benevolently dispenses them. He loves having this sweet box that looks like "his cat" to keep his picks in.
We had a puppet show, totally kid-run.
It was a costume party. I believe Gibbie was a pirate, Gabe a lion, Helen a queen, Natalie and Janine fairies, and Kaleb wore a dazzling white suit. Friends, neighbors, family, and cousin Fiona were also in attendance. Above we see the duck pond. Kids fished for plastic ducks with a net to win a cookie.

One of the real treats of Ezra's birthday was having our friend Kaleb with us. He knows Ezra well and gave him a special present which Ezra is opening in the last picture here. You can also see the hand-decorated birthday signage and wrapping paper.

The Art of Picnicing

Okay, we are such picnic-ers we find ways to picnic in the winter even: on a blanket in the snow, for school lunch, a meal after church, on any friendly floor--but the real fun starts when we can have outdoor picnics!
Now that it's really summer, we pack a picnic everywhere we go.This lovely basket, pictured late last fall, was a gift that came filled with small metal dishes and cups as a child's toy set, but we've put it to hard real use. Most often I leave all the dishes at home, pack it with whatever foods we have on hand, and toss in a few of our everyday cloth napkins, maybe a knife to cut up fruit, or a spoon if needed for serving. We bring along a big water bottle or two, and make sure they're full before lunch for drinking and washing up. For our picnic, we use the napkins as plate, tablecloth, napkin, and towel all in one. When biking, the picnic blanket can double as a pillow for the kids, or be snugged around them if it's chilly.
For us, this is a great alternative to the waste of fast food and the expense of a restaurant. It takes little time to put together in the morning, but this small forethought saves us from ending an otherwise nice morning with tears and distress from tired hungry little ones, creating instead a little island of rest and nourishment in our busy day.
Ideas to fill a lunch basket, pail, or bag:
-any kind of leftovers, in a screw-top jar, with a spoon or fork. Paul found tiny wood sporks for a couple bucks apiece at our co-op.
-hummus mix: we get it in bulk at our coop. Stir in the water at the picnic spot.
-dried fruit
-powdered drink mixes: I also keep a few in a corner of our bag always, just in case we get stuck somewhere hungry and need a hold-over to stave off falling apart till a meal.
-cheese, salami, hard vegetables.
-sandwiches. Peanut butter and honey is a family favorite. At one time in my life, I ate tortillas filled with cheese and sprouts every day for a year.
-hard boiled eggs (don't forget the salt shaker or egg slicer!)
-a small jar of soup or yogurt. Hot soup, cider or cocoa can go in the classic thermos, or try a coffee travel mug if you have a convenient holster for it on car, bike, or backpack!
-ants on a log (celery spread with peanut butter, dotted with raisins. kids like to help make)

For more picnic ideas read the fabulous Best Friends for Francis by Russell Hoban.

Elise Mittens

I have sold my first pair of mittens.
They were commissioned by the lovely and talented Elise, a coworker of Paul's. Making them was such fun.
I knit them in a "cashmerino", which is a rather luxe baby-soft blend of wool and cashmere. They were really fun to do. The request was for pretty, feminine, and delicate pale lavender/periwinkle mittens. I wanted to do cables in a bulky Lamb's Pride, but realized this would not turn out delicate. So I thought of lace. But lacy mitts don't make for warm fingers.
After flipping through a few pattern books and finding nothing like what I wanted, I turned to Barbara Walker's wonderful treasuries of stitch patterns. I found a lovely tulip bud edging, which made a chain of leaves. From this I extrapolated the pattern for a single knitted leaf.

One of the first things my mother showed me how to knit was mittens without a pattern. (It's funny, she says she doesn't like designing!)
Knitting Details For knitting-types:
Freestyle Mittens:
-In the round, on double-points: Knit a ribbed cuff. I like K2, P1
-Knit around plain 3-4 rows. Increase a bit for hand width.
-Make a gore for the thumb: Increase the first stitch of one needle. Place a marker and Increase again. I like to increase here by knitting into the front and back of the stitch, which makes nary a hole. Wrap the fabric around thumb to determine number of thumb stitches. Continue increases (first stitch of the same needle, first stitch after the marker) until gore has enough stitches.
-Knit around until mitten reaches webbing of thumb comfortably when tried on.
-Now I like to knit the thumb. I do this because it's easier and prettier than making a hole for the thumb and trying to pick up the stitches around it later. Put hand stitches on holder, (everything except the gore) knit around for length of thumb, decrease quickly, and sew in tail.
-Pick up hand stitches and join thread in by knitting a stitch, and then knitting with two strands until the tail is used up. It doesn't show.
-Knit around until mitten is as tall as the index finger when tried on. Decrease quickly and sew in end of yarn. Voila!

In my early mitten-making days, after a few rounds making three mittens in search of two alike, I learned a few mitten-making tricks for patternless rogues:
-Either write down what I'm doing as I do it, or be prepared to count stitches and rows on the first mitten many times over.
-Make the ribbing around the wrist long enough--snow and cold like to get in between the coat sleeve and mitten!
-I like to increase three or four stitches right above the cuff and two stitches in the hand right above the thumb gore for good fit. These increases can be nicely hidden by the ribbing or gore.
-Check to make sure the thumb gore is wide enough and long enough--this makes for the perfect fit.

In the Elise Mittens, the leaf is appliqued on, and the curlicues are embroidered in a chain stitch. This would look nice in contrasting colors on the right mitten, but I wanted it to look knitterly and subtle.

Making Knipfle

A favorite dinner of ours is Knipfle. It's German for noodles, though I just know it from my Gramma Loretta, who says, "ki-NIP-fla". I only know this word orally but poking around online, I found spellings Kinipffla, and Knepfla. She and my Grampa Bob grew up speaking low German in a small town in North Dakota and foods like this are one of the only remaining elements in the family of our German roots.
Knipfle are chewy noodles, filling and unctuous. They're cheap, and made only with things that tend to be in the house anyway (handy when one's run out of meat and fresh veg and fruit, and pulling together dinner!) Ezra calls them "sticky noodles". It may be the love of my teeth sinking into knipfle that has driven my love of chewy foods.
for an actual recipe, look it up as "German egg noodles" in the Joy of Cooking, but here's how I make them:
Knipfle:
in a small mixing bowl, stir together with a fork
several handfuls of flour
two generous pinches of salt
a dash of parsley
and a dash of nutmeg. (I've had questions about this: a dash is when your spice jar has a top with holes on it and you shake it once )
dig a hole in the center of the pile of flour.
break an egg or three in this hole
beat the egg up with a fork. as I beat, flour will be incorporated into the egg; let it. Mix until a soft dough forms. I usually add extra water; if too wet extra flour could be added instead. Knead for a few minutes. It's often quite sticky, and requires generous flouring, especially for children.
Now I usually drop a puddle of olive oil in my mixing bowl and roll the dough in it so it doesn't dry out while I work on some other thing for a bit. If I'll be a while, I've found it's best to put the noodle dough in a plastic bag in the fridge.
When I come back to it, I knead it until it feels stretchy. It gets smooth and feels quite like skin!
I take this elastic dough, cut it into a few pieces and begin to roll them out into ropes about the thickness of my finger. When a piece of dough gets too long for my bread board, I cut it in half so I can roll it comfortably.
Knipfle can be cooked in plain water, or it's great in chicken soup or broth. When the broth or water is boiling vigorously, I take a snake of dough and cut it into pieces maybe the length of the first joint of my finger. Gramma Loretta says, "you cut them as small as you can." I cut these straight into the boiling pot. Usually the kids like to cut some too, over a bread board, and I put these in as well.
Kids can make these start to finish with a little direction; scooping handfuls of flour, pinching salt, stirring the dry ingredients, beating the egg, kneading, rolling, and cutting dough. Both our two year old and our four year old can cut knipfle.
If your kids are anything like mine, they will enjoy also the eating! Mine like their knipfle in broth, or plain with ketchup. They are good with sour cream and salt or baked with cheese and buttered bread crumbs. Also would make a nice side for kraut and sausage, or roasted veg or meat, in stew or with gravy.

Do-It-Yourself Naked Portafilter

*Warning: This is a very coffee-geeky post. I've tried to supply term-defining links for those of you who don't know the lingo.*

I've been dreaming of having a Naked Portafilter at Amore Coffee for quite some time now. I've used them on La Marzocco espresso machines at the SCAA convention last spring and also while playing with machines at Roastery 7, but as far as day to day shot pulling goes - all the action has been hidden behind the two little spouts. One of the problems has been that, as far as we can tell, naked portafilters aren't available for old Conti espresso machines like ours. We'd have to send ours in to get modified, and who's ever going to get around to doing that?

The day before yesterday Blair and I were working and for some reason discussing our portafilter with our friend Justin from Black Sheep. He considered the brass bottom of our portafilter and said, "You know, my drummel tool could cut that." So we decided to go for it.
The initial cut.
Justin considers the first draft.
He polishes off the sharp edges.
Here's a "before and after" shot.
Finally, we get to pull shots naked!

Emergency Espresso Blend

We ran out of espresso at the shop this morning. Before when this has happened we've used some of the dark roasted Guatemalan that we always have on hand for cold press. It's kind of icky as a shot, but it's dark enough to cut through 14oz of milk in a latte and still taste like something. This morning though, I just didn't want to do that to my customers.

We've been pulling some lighter roasted Costa Rica as a single origin espresso lately. It has some nice flavor complexity after the initial brightness wears off. It's good as a shot, but doesn't stand up to a lot of milk so I couldn't just start using it as our main espresso.

So... what if I mix them? I tried blending equal parts Guatemalan and Costa Rica and threw in some Kenya we had on hand for extra sweetness. Instantly I had an emergency espresso blend to take us through the morning until our bean delivery arrived!

It's not what I would ever choose to drink as an espresso, but I'm pretty pleased with how well it worked considering what I had to work with. (For what it's worth, Michelle preferred it in Americano form over brewed coffee.)

Making Sauce

Gibbie and Ezra made tomato soup, from whole fresh tomatoes, at Oma's (that's their maternal grandmother) house the other day. In these pictures they are working with the great Vitorio Strainer. You can see Ezra plopping the tomatoes in while Gibbie works the crank.
It was a delightful little meal to greet me after my morning off, complete with fresh baked biscuits too! Oma maintains that they actually had a hand in every step of the process.
It was honestly all delicious!

Car Boy

Things break, you know. Cars, phones, CPU fans, our neighbor's wireless router (which is why we haven't posted in a long time) all break. Good thing I usually enjoy fixing stuff.

Yesterday I was out with Gibbie and our car started running very poorly. It hesitated and stalled whenever I was pulling away from an intersection. Gibbie was disappointed that we had to go home, so I asked him if he'd like to help me fix the car. He was very excited about that idea.I grew up around car-fixing. I can remember the little stool that my dad would let me sit on and watch him work in the garage. I thought that Gibbie would be a little too young yet, but this 3 year old was both interested and helpful. He could even hand me some tools. Because he can't read, he couldn't differentiate between an 8mm or a 10mm wrench, but he could understand the instructions "hand me the smallest screwdriver with a yellow handle." I have to admit it was pretty great to have my son already handing me tools. He also insisted on personally inspecting each spark plug.

Here we are looking at the offending distributer rotor. The rotor and cap were more worn than any I'd ever seen. No wonder things were running so badly.

What started out as let-down turned into a pretty great experience for Gibbie and I.

Mmmmouse Museum

At a coffee shop we like to go to, there was a tiny little display called "Mouse Museum".
Little folded pieces of cardstock displaying tiny paintings. As you can see in the photo, the mouse museum was patronized by cattoy mice.
Ezra had endless fun picking them up and rearranging them.




This would be such an easy little toy-game-art-project to make with things around the house.

Chain Care

In honor of our recent snow, I'll share how my bicycle chain has made it through the winter. Currently I am riding a bike with multiple gears which tend to get messed-up when covered with slush, dirt, and salt. The two products pictured above may not be the best for the job, but they've gotten me through snow and sub-zero cold. Break cleaner can clean most things mechanical just by spraying it on. I used this to get all of the crud off of my chain and gears. Silicone spray, like WD-40, is both a lube and a water-repellent. The advantage of silicone is that it doesn't tend to attract dirt like WD-40. Clean with one then lube with the other. That's it.

There are better things to use for these purposes, but the winter usefulness of these is that they're spray-on quick. How much time do you want to spend working on your bike outside at zero degrees Fahrenheit?

A Cheery Table for All

Montessori, and many others tell us to make each meal special, to communicate care by setting a beautiful table even if the meal is merely a snack for a small child. To me this means, firstly, flowers. I've long imagined that the greatest thing about being rich would be being able to have flowers inside all year long. But I'm coming around on this point. There is a time for every beauty. Flowers grow in long days, not short ones. The most cheering thing on a winter table is a candle. By dinnertime, it is yet infallibly dark already. Gibbie likes to talk about the "dark, dark world out there." What we need is a bit more light.


Ideas for winter cheer at our kitchen table:
-anything colored tissue paper taped to the windows; cut stars, snowflakes, squares, etc.
-a candle. We have a favorite candle holder (wedding gift, from 10,000 villages; thanks, dear friends!). I buy candles at the coop (yes, expensive), or the thrift store (cheap!), or make our own (the last time we did that was years ago! man, it's a great winter activity!), or scrounge them from my Dad's basement (we call it the "great source and final resting place of all things", though my brother and sisterinlaw are working hard to change that!). We light a candle at every meal. Blowing it out signals the end of the meal. It's a great way for Gibbie to understand that Mama and Papa are still busy when we're catching up after work at the end of the day.
-a nice tablecloth. Hem any piece of cloth, or buy on the cheap at a thrift store. Ours need to be changed frequently! I don't worry about stains, as we have lots. Some I shake out or flip over before changing.
-cloth napkins This is an easy way to dignify and green a meal. My mom always kept a basket near the table, and we just threw them in the wash. Even using them every meal makes an insignificant dent in the laundry load of a family. No sense in buying these new, as they are the easiest thing to sew. Old clothes, like button-down shirts, actually work much better for napkins than new fabric, as absorbency and softness are key. Easy to find in thrift stores. A family can almost stop buying paper products.
-real silver I've found that real and quite beautiful silver is shockingly cheap in thrift stores. I think no one wants to deal with polishing it. (Hint: preschoolers love to polish!) I'm having a love affair with a particular teapot I found for maybe three dollars.
-books at dinner? Sure! I do try not to keep my nose in a book at the table, but we have a special book by the table and Gibbie always looks forward to reading from it. This is covered beautifully in Honey for a Child's Heart by Gladys Hunt. I adored this book, though I must mention that the edition I read was from the 1970's, so I can't vouch for the newer one I linked to.
-kids help set the table At 3, I hope Gibbie is soon doing this on his own. For now, I keep the children's things in a drawer they can reach. I ask him to do a specific tasks ("please put a plate on the table", not "set the table") one at a time and do it with him if he's not enthusiastic about my request. Doing it with him has been a great thing. It doesn't make it a negative or adversarial thing at all, and has been a wonderfully effective tactic for growing willingness to help. In the summer, he loves arranging the flowers he picked in a jar.