One Big Adventure
An opportunity to log in some of the thoughts and activities of our homeschooling family of eight. We love books and good food and aspire to a Christ-centered, multi-generational, agrarian life.

Wednesday, September 30, 2009

Teatime with James

On the menu: Pretzel sticks, Bread & Butter pickles, Roast Beef squares.

On the first day of school, what is sweeter than tea for two?

Don't you like James' flowers? He went and picked them out himself.


One of James' favorite activities is to have tea and when we make some for him, he loves to help by setting the table (which is actually his toybox) with assorted china tea sets.

Thursday, September 24, 2009

Cultures for Health giveaway

There's a giveaway going on over at Kitchen Stewardship. It ends at 11:59, so if you're interested, you'd better hurry over and enter. It's cultures again. There is sourdough, yogurt, kombucha, buttermilk, milk kefir and water kefir. Someday I'd really like to make water kefir. It's suppose to be a good-for-you substitute for soda.

Hannah

Friday, September 18, 2009

Please Pray

A cancer family just found out that their son, Ricky, relapsed again with 14 lesions on his lungs. We met the James family in spring 2008 at a camp for families with cancer. Ricky had been declared NED (no evidence of disease) and was a ball of energy. A couple of months later, we ran across their caringbridge site and saw that Ricky had relapsed. He had chemo and surgery to remove the tumor and to place a urostomy. He finished treatment and was NED. A couple of days ago, Ricky had scans and a visit to his oncologist the next day. Last night, we found out from Ricky's mom, Shelli, that Ricky had relapsed. Would you please pray for them? That Ricky would go in remission quickly and the cancer wouldn't come back? Ricky is 4 and has a younger sister, Erin, who, I believe, is 2. Visit Ricky's caringbridge site for updates on him.

Another family is fighting HLH, a bone marrow disease. Their baby, Andrew, had 3 BMTs and passed away about two weeks ago. Their other son, Matthew, also has HLH (it's a genetic mutation) had a BMT a week before Andrew died. He was doing great and had been released from the hospital. Tuesday, Matthew got very sick and last night was taken to the PICU. Currently he is stable and the doctors are testing for infections. Please pray for comfort and healing for them. You will need to have a CarePage account to visit their site. Visit their Carepage for updates on Matthew.

Love, Hannah

Wednesday, September 9, 2009

The Little Ones

Momma took these pictures of James and the little girls a couple days ago. After James' hair-cut, known as 'Plan B'. He got a buzz, because he wasn't staying still. It looks pretty cute and James likes to try to make the front stand up, using a pick.




Yep, I think we'll keep them....

Tuesday, September 8, 2009

A Quote for the Present...

The past is history; the future a mystery;
But the present is a gift.
And that's why we call it the present.
~ Author Unknown

Friday, September 4, 2009

Preserving the Harvest: Okra

The first time I remember eating okra was when we stayed with the Clayton family. Mrs. Julie pan-fried breaded okra and it was really good! On Sunday, Momma and Daddy went to see our neighbors down the road (who have a beautiful garden!). While Momma and Daddy were there, the Dominy's gave them a grocery bag of okra. I wasn't sure at first how I wanted to freeze it. In the end, I just sliced it, blanched it and froze it on a tray in the freezer. I kinda regretted slicing the okra before I blanched it because it was, in the words of a friend, 'mucous-y'! But it broke up okay in the gallon bag. Now we have a gallon of okra to use this winter and I'm looking forward to using the okra in soups and casseroles.

Hannah

Thursday, September 3, 2009

Preserving the Harvest: Poblano Peppers

Momma planted poblano peppers this year and we were looking for recipes to use our abundunt crop of peppers. When I googled recipes for chile rellanos, I found this website. There is a whole bunch of recipes that we'll probably try out. With our first peppers, I made a version of chile rellanos. They were pretty good, but the onions were rather crunchy. Then a couple of weeks ago, we needed a quick dinner and Momma suggested I make chile rellanos again. So I ran out to the garden and picked about 2 1/2 dozen peppers and thought 'I won't bother finding gloves, after all, 'a certain someone' said that I wouldn't need gloves for poblanos!' By the time I blanched the peppers, my fingers were killing me! Dinner was good though and I tried sauteing the onions and added some other things to the recipe. Later I did learn many different things to try for peppers burns. Although in the end, ice water was the only thing that cut the burn.

The other day, I picked all the poblano peppers and seeded them (believe me, I wore gloves). Blanched and put them on cookie sheets and put them in the freezer. The next morning I pulled the cookie sheets out and filled gallon bags with the peppers. We ended up with a total of 4 1/2 gallons of peppers. So I'm hoping that all these peppers will about 9 meals worth of chile rellanos.

Hannah

Wednesday, September 2, 2009

Preserving the Harvest: Green Beans

Our Kentucky Wonder Beans have done really well this year, considering the late start they had. About two weeks ago, Katie frenched a whole bunch of green beans and blanched and froze them. She got 10 quart bags full and for our family we sometimes use as many as 2 quarts of beans each meal. So Katie put up enough for at least five meals. Yummm. I asked Momma this last time if I could can some more beans, because we were using the green beans, that we canned earlier this summer, more quickly than we originally thought.
Owen, Becca, Carrie and I picked the beans this time (Usually Momma and the little girls would pick the beans) and got a laundry basket full. All our big pots weren't big enough! The little girls, Owen and I spent the afternoon snapping the green beans. In the evening, Momma and I started to snap them into 2" pieces and James who was sitting with Daddy, signed that he wanted to help and came over to help and so did Becca. James helped snapping beans, and did an excellent job of breaking them into the right size. He developed some funny techniques for snapping beans. Once after James had finished a bean, he looked at us and said 'meen' and did the sign for bean. The Signing Time dvd that has the bean sign, we get from the library up at Egleston's and it had been awhile since James had watched it. So we were pretty excited that James was using signs that he doesn't use on a daily basis.

We washed the beans and since they need to be pressure canned, saved them till morning. In the morning, I started water to boil and filled the jars with the green beans. After I screwed the lids on, we had a total of 14 quarts and 2 meals worth of little beans. Now we're just waiting to take off the canner lid and see if all the jars sealed.

Hannah