Souper Sunday

It's that day again friends... Sunday. For those of you who work all week, this day sometimes feels like "Shmonday" a.k.a. "I feel stress because the work week is staring me right in the face." I've got to be honest, each Sunday I feel the anxiety levels rise. My stress level has decreased a bit over the years however, thanks to a few sneaky tricks. I've replaced "Shmonday" with what I like to call Souper Sunday.

What is Souper Sunday? Well, it is the day I pretty much cook our meals for the entire week. That's right friends; I cook enough food to make us through the week. Crazy? Maybe. Stay with me people.

How does it work? Well... lazy coffee drinking Saturday mornings equal pulling up my favorite Pinterest pins and checking what we have in the freezer. This is followed by an intense amount of defrosting and come Sunday morning, the Klann kitchen is a cooking warzone. I typically make two crock pot meals, quick weekday grab and go breakfast, and something for Sunday dinner.

Tortilla Soup and all the fixings.

If you've lived on a farm (or are a parent for that matter), you know that there are constant projects and mouths to feed on the weekend. This means time is of the essence. By cooking for a few hours on what used to be stressful "Shmonday," those projects are still possible. By dedicating some forward thinking and a few hours of cooking time, hungry mouths will have something delicious to dig into after a long day of chores. Am I convincing or what?

There are a few tricks I would like to also share about Souper Sunday and here are some pictures to help illustrate:

1. Have precut vegetables on hand. I keep a gallon freezer bag full of veggies on hand in the freezer for Souper Sunday. My bag has carrots, celery, and onion ready to go.

2. Process your vegetables as you buy them. I am a firm believer in shaving time off tasks as much as possible. Exhibit A: I purchased a large package of celery from Costco and I make sure to clean and cut all of it during one session. We have veggies to eat in the fridge, veggies for the meal I am cooking on that day, and divided packages of veggies for another day. This not only saves me time later, I only have to wash these dishes ONE time.

Lunch for the week- leftover minestrone and four days of cabbage soup.

3. Serve up lunch. Each week I prepackage my lunches in mason jars. I like mason jars for Souper Sunday soup because they don't leak. I love being able to pack my lunch quickly in the morning, and making lunches each week saves our family lots of money.

Even the hens win on Souper Sunday. Our well deserving, super egg laying, spoiled girls were served warmed up leftovers this morning. Happy hens = yummy eggs.

Think about making Souper Sunday a tradition at your house, I think you will be glad you did. By cooking ahead, I can enjoy a few hours the day outside with our feathered and furry friends. "Shmonday" no longer feels so stressful, and I like the sound of Souper Sunday better!

 Here are a few updates from the Honey Bee Haven:

Today's projects include checking on my honey bee girls, playing on the teeter-totter with the goats, and thinking about which seeds to start in the greenhouse. Lots to do, but it's possible with Souper Sunday.

Autumn Chores

As I look at the last post date, I truly have two choices to make. I could feel bad about how ridiculously long it has been since I last shared farm news, OR I could share some updates and forget the first part! I choose the later. 

Back to school and fall harvest equal a mountain of tasks that I wouldn't even be able to list had I not captured some of them on camera. We've celebrated the arrival of two new calves this last week, harvested enormous quantities of vegetables and fruits, canned, saved seeds, bottle fed our two precious pygmy goats almost to complete independence, prepared the bees for winter, and did I mention start school and survive soccer season? 

Three generations- Patch the bull, baby brother Buddy the bull and mama Snow White.

Are you ready? I don't even know if I am! I have so many pictures to share, it is hard to know where to start. Perhaps the best conclusion is... the realization that I can quickly share the snapshots now and then share the nuts and bolts of these projects over the upcoming winter months. Fall is upon us farm friends. Instead of an overwhelming declaration of information all in one sitting, I will plan to share more as the upcoming nights grow longer. 

Seed Saving

Zucchini

Pumpkins

Our annual pumpkin pick down the driveway proved quite successful this year. The bees did an amazing job cross pollinating and providing a crowd pleasing variety.

Grapes

Thanks to the thoughtful planning of Grandma and Papa Klann before us, we have three varieties of grapes growing on the farm. One small seedless variety that melt in your mouth and two seeded varieties. 

This is the first year the purple concord grapes were able to fully ripen on the south side of the house. 

Eleanor and Emmett celebrate successful grape picking. 

Red Pepper Jelly

There is a special someone in my life (my baby brother Jake) who celebrates his birthday in October. It's a big sister's job to make sure her "little" brother gets what he wishes for on his special day. Uncle Jake asked for jelly and that is just what he will get. 

Mixing ingredients to make red pepper jelly. Once canned, you dump it on a cube of cream cheese and spread it on crackers. It makes for a sweet, spicy mix slathered on a cracker.

Fifty plus baby bell pepper plants grew in the garden this year. Because of the incredibly long growing season this year, we were able harvest lots and lots of peppers. Peppers in Central Oregon are pretty hard to come by unless you grow them in a greenhouse. This year proved anything can happen.

Tomatillos

For a year that I hadn't even planned on harvesting tomatillos, we had a good one! We grew tomatillos last year and several plants reseeded themselves in the garden. I would cautiously estimate 30+ pounds of tomatillos came out of the garden this year and this equated to green enchillada sauce and lots and lots of salsa. If you haven't tried growing a tomatillo, I would suggest it. They aren't the slightest bit spicy, but they add a lot to a recipe.

Tomatoes, tomatoes

The tomatoes came on late this year and for a while I was afraid I wouldn't have any to harvest. Last weekend we worked to pick, clean, slice, and dehydrate over ten pounds of tomatoes. Grabbing them out of the freezer in the dead of winter to toss on top of a salad is well worth the effort this time of year. 

Thankful

Having baskets full of harvest can make for a daunting autumn season. I work so hard to get the garden going, I hate to not salvage all I can from its bounty. Having the honey bees here on the farm has 100% made a difference with our garden. For the cold months ahead and the many meals we will enjoy, I thank the bees and cherish sharing it with all of these creatures (human and not!).

Cauliflower: A Harvest Win For The Whole Farm

Large cauliflower leaves provide a water source for our thirsty bees.

I've been busy lately with the cauliflower in the garden. This is the first year I was able to successfully grow it and I have to say it has been an exceptional harvest year. I started this journey in early February when I first planted the cauliflower seeds in the greenhouse. It was February 2nd to be exact. The kids and I made our daily trip into the retreat of the insulated greenhouse on a cold morning. Believe it or not, a sunny winter day with temperatures below freezing can deliver an 80 degree retreat in the greenhouse.

Below is a picture of what we planted this year. This variety comes from the company Territorial Seeds. I devour their catalog during the winter months wishing and dreaming and this year I felt like this short season variety would give me the best chance. Notice the part about "50-60 days." We will get back to that part in a bit.

Fast forward to the tail end of June (4+ months later). I've harvested roughly 20-25 heads of this amazing and delicious stuff. Yes, that is correct, 20-25. I apologize for losing count, but I can make up for it with pictures of what I did (and still am doing) with it. 

The cold crop bed at the farm. This bed includes onions, cabbage, broccoli, potatoes and cauliflower. 

With 20+ cauliflower heads ready all at once, I had to have a plan for what to do with them. I knew I wanted to harvest them before the big heat set in around here and I knew that meant pulling the entire plant. Cauliflower offers only one harvest as opposed to broccoli, which may send another shoot up. This left some gaping holes in the garden space, but I have plans for those!

Time to find some new things to add to those empty spaces.

In order not to make this post too long, I'll quickly show you a few of the things I did with this amazing harvest. The story of how to blanch vegetables and how to can them will come another day.

I made sure to wash the cauliflower when I brought it into the house to ensure that none of nature's little friends tried to join us inside. Soaking the heads for a few hours in a light salt water helps with this. I used my trusty Ball Canning book in my experiment with a few jars of pickled cauliflower. 

I can't forget to note that we had other winners in this great harvest here on the farm. Our chickens earned the right to forage and devour the left over leaves after my harvest. They were happy ladies too.

I feel very pleased with how this year's harvest turned out. We have fresh cauliflower in the fridge for snacking and meals. We have plenty of enticing cauliflower resources to reach for during the cold winter months ahead too. It has been an enormous task to "put it away" in the freezer and in canning jars, but I am thankful to have had the chance to do it. February 2nd to June 28th... not quite the timeline noted on the seed package. That is gardening in Central Oregon for you! This little face makes it all worth it though.

Enchiladas Times Two

When you are a mom, life is simply BUSY. You need lots of tricks in your tool bag to survive. One of my tricks involves meal planning and freezer meals. If I don't have a game plan for what we will eat for dinner each night of the week, I end up scrambling and we don't eat the way I want us to. If I don't take time once week to really think about what we will have for dinner, our plates end up being filled with stuff I simply don't want to take pictures of!

I typically sit down once a week with my trusty white board calendar and plan out our family dinners for each night of the week. I use a white board so that I can make changes if I need to and I hang it on the fridge to remind myself of the planning and prep work I need to do to pull it off. I guess it makes me "commit" if you will...I have it displayed for the world to see and I'd better follow through with it. 

Planning for dinner around here takes some thought too. I don't think about what I would like for us to eat, but rather I think about what I have available to me and I plan around that instead. Having a family usually means being frugal. If I plan for meals with the ingredients I already have (that I purchased in bulk when they were on sale) I save us money. If I went about it the other way, I could end up planning on spaghetti one night and spend twice as much on the noodles because they were on my menu but they were full price at the grocery store. Does that make sense? 

The other big planning that comes into play for me is the rule of two. I try to always double the recipe for whatever I am making and if I can, I will put one of the dishes in the freezer to eat another night. It's like having a savings account of freezer meals and it comes in handy around the farm when our weekend projects turn into 12+ hour days. I simply don't have it in me to prepare a meal I feel good about. If I have a back up in the freezer, I know my family is getting a wholesome meal that I am happy to dish onto their plates. 

The ingredients:

*homemade enchilada sauce (times two) using a recipe I found on allrecipes.com

*my trusty canned tomato sauce from last season

* frozen chicken salvaged from our Costco rotisserie chicken 

*chicken broth made from left over rotisserie chicken

*cheese

*tortillas

For me, it is worth the time to menu plan and to double recipes as often as I can. It saves the stress of preparing dinner after a long day of work when hunger overrides good meal decisions and it keeps good food on the table. Now that the garden is kicking into gear and canning and preserving season is here, I can set aside many of the ingredients I need to make dinners I feel good about. 

Strawberry Rhubarb "Dump Cake"

Tis the season for strawberries and rhubarb. Here is an easy recipe that consistently proves to appease the pickiest of palates. A bonus feature, it is so easy to make.

1. Ingredients:

* 1 cup of chopped rhubarb                     * 1 cup of freshly sliced strawberries                               * 1 stick of butter (cut in cubes)               * 1 box of yellow cake mix

2. "Dump" these ingredients in a greased glass baking dish in this order: fruit, cake mix, butter

3. Bake @ 350 degrees for 1 hour, cool and enjoy. 

May I suggest a little ice cream to go with this?