A Moby, a Stroller, a Garden, and a Mama

Whoa, 2 posts in 2 days...I'm obviously on a roll! Just returned from the farm and the baby is sleeping peacefully out in the car. Yes, I have decided that it is perfectly acceptable to leave my little babe in the comfort of the car because she ALWAYS wakes up when I try to bring her in. But be not afraid, I check on her constantly and make sure the temp of the car is Goldilocks perfect. And when I say a lot I mean it...shoot I have checked on her 3 times while writing this paragraph;-)

Anyhoo...this are really heating up out at the farm. Framing inspections are being done Monday and then full steam ahead with sheetrock. The blueberries are all in bloom and weeds are beginning to infiltrate the garden. Because I was pregnant...and hot...and lazy last year I basically grew 3 tomatoes and a bunch of lovely weeds. I am not paying for this. I have approximately 300,657 hours of work to accomplish in order to be able to plant and about 3 weeks to get it all done. No biggie;-) But the super stellar news is that we have picked our first asparagus spears of the year! And they will be soup tonight. We have come to realize that both Jon and I love asparagus. And did you know that it will grow without much help for 20 plus years!!!! Providing you with lovely green veg early early in the spring.

So, I decided that we made the asparagus bed much much too small and decided to plant more crowns today. And so came the conundrum of new motherhood. "Where does baby go when mommy needs to work?"

I pulled out the Moby first, a wrap that allows me to wear Katelyn securely on my chest. (And yes the proper term is "wear" its called "babywearing" its a big trend...all the cool kids are doing it) However, bending over with said baby on said chest is laborious and felt dangerous and uncomfortable to her.

I then got out the car seat stroller combo thingy and wheeled it through the bumpy treacherous garden...are you getting a visual? She proceeded to scream when placed in said stroller. Even when given loud music playing toy...and soft teething toy...and homemade bunny toy. GRRRR...

So my big lesson for today? Mama is the best baby "holder thingy" Which is fine with me because I love holding me some baby Katelyn...just not when I need to plant asparagus.

So I did what any good mom in my situation would do, I fed her, put her in her carseat, drove 5 min away from the farm so she would fall asleep, turned around, and finished my garden chores:-0

Like a boss!

Hola!

Whole Wheat Goodness

Thursdays are my Mommy's Bible study morning and today I was reminded that "yes I do in fact have a blog" and maybe I should post more consistently, or at least more than once every few months:-) So, when the little lady fell asleep before I even left the driveway of our lovely Bible study host I decided that God was allowing my some free time and I should take advantage of it by posting the recipe I adapted for some really scrumptious muffins this morning.

I am working to empty our freezer of last years stores so that I can begin to fill it up with all the yummy produce and fresh fish we will be soon getting out of the garden and Atlantic Ocean:-) As such, I am plowing though frozen blackberries and blueberries. I wanted to make a baked good incorporating one of these for the girls today and decided on blueberry muffins, because really who doesn't love a good blueberry muffin? Well, I also realized that I did not have white flour only whole wheat. So I did a quick search for whole wheat muffins and came up with this.

Unfortunately I also didn't have milk but I did have yogurt, basically the same thing right?! I also had a jar of homemade applesauce from Jon's grandma so I was on my way. Of course, I didn't want to use veggie oil and I wanted to add a few oats but I mean a recipe is a suggestion right?

So a few substitutions and 20 min later I had lovely moist muffins that were healthy and perfect for discussing Easter and parenting on a Thursday morning...not to say you can't have these on a Saturday...or at night...discussing the weather...or not even talking at all...or by yourself.

Hmmmm....feel free to make or not make this at anytime to

eat anywhere with anyone.

;-)

Whole Wheat Blueberry (Applesauce and Oat) Muffins

1 1/2 C Whole Wheat Flour

3/4 C Sugar

1/2 t Salt

2 t Baking powder

1/3 C Butter

1 Egg

1/3 C Yogurt

1/2 C Applesauce

1 C Frozen but thawed blueberries (preferably ones you have bought in July from Antlered Acres and frozen for use all year round...just sayin;-)

Pre-heat oven to 400 and grease your muffin tin or use cute little paper cups like I did.

Mix flour, sugar, salt, and baking powder in large bowl. Mix egg, yogurt, applesauce, and soft or melted butter in separate bowl. Mix wet and dry together and

then mix in blueberries gently trying to not break them too much.

Fill muffin cups 2/3 full and bake for 20-30 min.

Enjoy!

I don't have a picture of the muffins because I wasn't planning on this post but I do have a picture of this...

And isn't that just as sweet...

The $8 Chicken Challenge

So recently I have been reading a lot of blogs as I am currently doing a lot of feeding the baby...aka sitting around for long periods of time for most of the day;-). Although this time is precious and a nice respite from the previously crazy pre-baby 9+ months preggo and need to get stuff done time I will admit I get a little bored hence, the blogs.

One thing I have been exploring is the concept of real food eating. Basically, eating foods made from scratch from whole food ingredients. Cutting out the processed foods that most of us have come to rely on as food staples. A true "real foodie" makes her own bread, cultured dairy products, tortillas, chicken stock, soups, and all her veggies come from the produce section not cans. The produce is organic and the meat, dairy and eggs are grass fed. Although I have not progressed to making my own sourdough tortillas...or my own sourdough anything as of yet, I do think that this way of eating is much healthier and worth

taking a good look at.

One conversation that seems to come up very often is "can real food be affordable?" We all know that canned foods, frozen foods, and conventionally raised meats and dairy are cheaper than their organic and grass-fed alternatives. However, if you are making a lot of these foods from scratch can you stretch a buck?

All this to say that I challenged myself to see how many meals/products I could make out of an $8 free range, no hormone, but not organic chicken. Sid

e note: The organic chicken was $14 bucks and I felt the

free-range chicken was very good as well.

So here is my chicken ready to be roasted. I put carrots, onions, and mushrooms below it as a side but also to use as roasted veggies though out the week. So 3 hours at 300 degrees and I had a perfectly roasted juicy chicken for dinner.

The next day I took off the rest of the meat, put it in a container in the fridge and made stock in my crockpot with the chicken carcass and some onion skins, carrot skins, celery tops, bay leaves, peppercorns, and garlic cloves. 12 hours later I had 3 quarts of beautiful healthy and tasty chicken stock.

The rest of the breakdown included:

Dinners:

Chicken tacos

Chicken with Salsa rice

Lunch:

Chicken and olive salad in lettuce wraps

Chicken sandwich

So in the end I had 3 dinners, 2 lunches, and 3 quarts of stock for future soups. Not bad for $8!

I think that this real foods things might not only be affordable but frugal. I could have even bought the organic chicken and still felt like I got my moneys worth!

Does absence make the heart grow fonder...or not?

So its been almost an entire year since I have even been on my blog. I found out I was pregnant a few weeks after my last post and was going to wait to post until I was allowed to tell everyone, and then I didn't post...then it got to be awkwardly long since I had posted so I decided not to post, then I got really big and pregnant and busy and forgot to get back to posting...so yeah. Please forgive;-)

Anyways, I now have a beautiful 10 week old little girly named Katelyn, that's Katelyn, not Katie...at least not yet. Mommy wanted a unique name she could have all to herself ( I wonder where that comes from?) and daddy wanted something traditional...so Katelyn it is.

We are also in the midst of building our soon to be dream farm house...complete with wood stove, geothermal heat, 3 porches, and big kitchen for preserving the garden goodies. After many fallouts with the state of NJ and a couple problems with the farm itself we are finally on our way! The foundation is in and currently curing and the framing starts next week. Although last year at this time I was savoring all the snow and posting copious amounts of pictures of the outdoors on my facebook I have to be happy that we are having a mild winter...repeat have to be happy about the no snow winter...blah.

So now that I am a stay at home but not yet my home mom I thought I might get back into this blog thing...I promise to be more committed...at least when little K is sleeping;-) Pics of the build process to follow.