Tomatoes!

I just bought 40+ lbs of tomatoes for $10!!! 

So excited-- tomato sauce is in my future. 

Will update with the end result of quarts made and total cost breakdown.  :-)

How to make Bread

Or, a transcript of the last hour of my life.

 Add ingredients to the bowl for making bread.
 Run out of flour.
Grind more.
Ben informs me Sam peed on the floor.
 Go help Sam clean up pee.
Baby is crying.  Needs nap. 
 Ellie has to go pee.
 Leave baby on bed.
Help Ellie go pee.
Turn on water for Sam to wash hands. 
Go to put baby to bed.
Sheet needs to be changed.
Get sheet.
Ellie needs to wash hands. Turn on water for her.
Smells like baby poop in room-- need to wash diapers.
Go to start diapers soaking.
Change baby's sheet.
Shut off water for Ellie.
Put baby to bed.
Find one more diaper-- put it in the wash.
Admire Ben and Ellie's castle-- realize Ellie never put pants back on.
Tell Ellie to get her pants on.
Go put flour into bowl and let it knead.
Stop kneeding-- realize baby still crying.
Set timer so bread can rise.
Baby acting hungry.
Remember diaper in diaper bag from yesterday.
Throw it in the wash.
Give 'middles' phone to watch pictures while I nurse.
Baby takes few sips, not interested.
Middles fighting because they are touching each other.
Ben enters scene-- tries to resolve situation, to no avail.
Take phone away from children.
Sulking because 'didn't get to see enough pictures.'
Send three oldest to bed for ten minutes for whining.
Put baby in cow chair to try and finish typing. 
Baby still crying when put him down.
Type for a few minutes.
Baby crying.
Ellie comes running out of room-- "I have to pee-- I'm peeing!!"
Run to help Ellie maybe make it to the potty.
Too late.
Clean up pee.
Wash mine and Ellie's hands.
Baby still crying.
Have small freak out session.
Apologize to kids for loss of self control.
Give each child something to do by themselves.
Put baby to bed-- still crying. 
Finish typing (hopefully!)
Ahh, baby finally went to sleep.
Children being somewhat considerate. 

So, that's how you make bread.  Hopefully there won't be as many steps for the other things on my list today, because 'make bread' was only the first.  Still on the list:

Make sauerkraut
brew kombucha
clean shower
vacuum living room, dining room
scripture time with kids
quiet time for me
change table cloth, and wash table cloths
lunch
hard boiled eggs
make egg salad for dinner
(go to the pool)-- not going to happen, considering it's already lunch time and i only got to one thing on my list.
go out to dinner with my husband for my anniversary.

now, on to accomplish something great today!

Liquid Lunch

Today is so hot!  I wasn't particularly hungry at lunch, and we ate breakfast somewhat later than usual.  So, I took a tip that I got sometime last summer at Life In A Shoe, and I made us a smoothie for lunch.  I added things that I knew were healthy and would fill us up.

Yesterday we picked up our first CSA of the season, and I have lots of veggies to use now!

Our smoothie started with some beet greens (about a cup).  I have never used beet greens before, but I read someone's post on facebook who said she had sauteed them, so I thought, 'why not use them any way that I use spinach?' So, they went in our smoothie.  I saved some to saute too, because I want to try them. :-)

Next, I added ice cubes so when I buzzed it up, it would be cool and refreshing. Then I added two bananas.  They are filling and sweet, so I didn't add any sweetener!  For some staying protein, I added about 2TBS of peanut butter.  For deliciousness, I added a scant 2 TBS of cocoa powder, and I finished it off with about 2 cups of raw milk.

I swirled it all around, and it made about 4 cups of delicious smoothie.  I was worried the beet greens would make it unappetizing-- that they would have a very strong taste and the kids wouldn't go for it, but that didn't happen.

This was a great smoothie for a hot day.  I know my kids got some healthy things in them, and that they will not be hungry for awhile. I feel great after having greens for lunch-- not tired and ready for a nap-- at least not as much as I usually do!

What do you eat for lunch on a hot day?  Or do you just skip it all together?

School day

So far school days are a little bit hectic in our house.  hopefully in the fall we will have it all worked out. I want to work out the schedule for each child and goals for each child to do everyday and goals for each child for the whole school year.  This year we are kind of winging it and it is a little bit chaotic. But with a new baby it is just how our lives have had to go for now. Here is a glimpse of our table in the mist of the chaos!

Colorful food

What colorful food do you eat? 

One of my favorite funky colored food that we have is homemade sauerkraut.  It's super easy to make, and if you use a purple cabbage in the mix, you get purple sauerkraut. 

We have been trying to add more fermented foods to our diet.  So far, sauerkraut and kombucha are about all we do regularly.  I have made fermented carrots, which I like to eat with meat, but only one of the kids likes it (forgetting now who)...

Anyway, I took this picture of our lunch one day to share:

• orange slices
• homemade sauerkraut
• quesadillas with raw cheddar and homemade tortillas

On an unrelated note, I love the picture in this post.

Fire Pit

Chris made a fire pit out back. Cool, huh?

So far, we have roasted marshmallows, cooked hot dogs and warmed up leftover potato wedges on it. Chris and the boys even made a mountain pie.  I was inside with a newborn at the time.  But I look forward to having some tasty meals around our fire pit this summer!

Goose Eggs!

Just before John was born, we bought a quarter of beef.  (What does that have to do with goose eggs, seriously!)

Well, the people who sold us the beef also sold us about ten pounds of liver.  We have been eating a lot more liver recently.  It has lots of iron and other things that are great for you.  Plus it's fun that our kids like liver.  Ben even declared that, "liver is the best meat because it's not tough like beef, or chicken, or lamb..." I wouldn't say it's the best meat, but I do like it fried with onions and gravy! (Really, WHERE are you going with this!?)

Four white goose eggs and one brown chicken egg

Also, the people who sold us the beef and the liver have geese.  (Finally, we get to the geese!)  So, we bought some goose eggs.  They were big.  We scrambled them up for breakfast one Saturday morning.  They tasted just like chicken!.... eggs. :-)

Chicken yolk with goose yolk