Oh... hello.

I seem to have taken an unplanned 10-day vacation from blogging. Sometimes, life needs attending to. But I think I've got the chaos down to a dull roar, so I'm back.

Not writing every day did free up a little time, I must say. The past ten days have seen the following accomplishments:

- I finally finished the book I've been reading for weeks, The Book of Air and Shadows (excellent, by the way -- I love thrillers that work Shakespeare into the story).
- We mucked out the pond, fixed the leak issue, moved lots of very heavy stones, and generally made the place habitable again.
- We had our first visit in months from our friendly neighborhood bathroom-window-sleeping bat.
- The peas sprouted.
- I nearly killed all of my seedlings by leaving them out in the sun on a day that should not have been over 90 degrees in early April, dagnabbit. I am a terrible seed-mother. The sage and thyme might not make it. Very, very sad.
- I cooked quite a number of worth-writing-home-about meals.
- We moved furniture around.
- We entertained friends, old and new.
- I spent some quality time with my sewing machine.
- I did the dreaded taxes, phew.

Looking forward to getting back in the game. Got some fun stuff to share with you this week, in celebration of Make Week over at Simple Organic, as well TV-Turn-Off/Digital-Detox/turn-that-thing-off-and-get-out-in-the-world Week. Should be fun.

This Moment: Innocence

No words, just a moment from this past week that I want to pause and savor. Go on over and check out all the moments being shared at SouleMama this Friday.

Pita: Five-Minute Magic

You know what I love about making pita bread with the Artisan Bread in Five Minutes a Day method? It literally takes five minutes to bake. OK, that's assuming you already have dough in your fridge, and your oven is preheated to 500 degrees already, and you've already rolled out your little pita rounds. But seriously! They bake in five minutes! And it really is kind of like magic.

First, preheat the oven to 500 degrees, with a baking stone set on a rack in the middle of the oven.

Now pull your dough out of the fridge. If you already are using the Artisan Bread in Five Minutes a Day method, then most likely you have some kind of dough in there already. So far I have tried a good half-dozen different dough recipes for pita, and the only one I found that did not work was the olive oil-enriched whole wheat from Healthy Bread in Five Minutes a Day. If you have the basic recipe from either book, or a close variation (like European peasant bread, for example), it should work fine.

Dust your pizza peel with whole wheat flour. (It provides the best stick-prevention.)



Dust your rolling surface with whatever kind of flour you like, and grab a plum-sized hunk of dough.



Roll it out with a rolling pin on your floured surface until it is about 1/8 inch thick. It needs to be pretty darn thin in order to puff properly. Carefully transfer to your pizza peel, and repeat until you've run out of space on your peel.



Now you're going to very carefully slide your pita circles onto the hot baking stone. Don't burn yourself! (I say that because I burn myself nearly every time.)



Now shut the oven door and wait five minutes. If you peek after two or three minutes, you should see this:



Exciting, isn't it? When they're puffed and browned (roughly 5 to 7 minutes), use the pizza peel to slide them back out of the oven.



Aren't they lovely? We had them with our Persian sloppy joes last night, and they were about 1000% better than the pita you can buy in the grocery store. Five minutes! Love it.

In the Ground

Just in time for the 90-degree weather around here (in early April??? I'm so confused), we got our first crops actually planted in the ground! Woohoo!

We'll be growing Amish Snap Peas, whose seeds look exactly like little dried peas, quite high on the cute-o-meter. Thankfully, I had a five-year-old to help me with the row-marker signs.



And then we planted our blue potatoes! My theory was, if you're going to go to the trouble of growing your own potatoes, they might as well be ones you can't buy in the grocery store. Thus, All-Blue potatoes from Seeds of Change. The potatoes had chitted nicely while waiting for their bed to be ready, so hopefully they will make themselves right at home. Unfortunately, my assistant had moved on to more exciting activities, so I was left to make my own row-markers.



In other kitchen garden news, the seedlings have stayed out all night the past two nights. I wasn't intending to harden them off so early, but it's been so warm, I'm all thrown off. They seem happy, but I'm going to have to bring them back in later in the week -- hope they don't rebel.

Funny how much gardening and parenting are alike.

Sunday Seedlings Update #6

It's been an exciting week for the kitchen-garden-in-progress. For one thing, the raised beds finally got some soil in them! But... it's not enough. I need to top them off a bit so I'm comfortable with the soil depth, and then... I need to plant! I have peas and blue potatoes that are just begging to be put in the ground. Very exciting.

And on to our seedlings...

The leeks have become a tangle of grasses. Anyone know what to do with them at this point?? I'm out of my depth. I assume they need to be thinned, but I'm too chicken to do it. I know they're supposed to be transplanted when they're "the size of a pencil, maybe a bit thinner," but it's hard to imagine how they're going to get to that point.



The thyme is also a bit of a tangle, but herbs being what they are, I'm not too worried about it.



Look! The parsley is starting to look parsley-ish! First true leaves have appeared in the last few days, very exciting.



Eggplant is coming in nicely. Last year I only had one surviving plant from the seeds I started -- hoping for a better yield this year!



I planted the basil in eggshells. Just because. I'm a big fan of cute, and a big fan of eggshells in the compost, so I thought this might be a cool combination. I have had very good success with basil for many years running now, so I hope this year doesn't disappoint me. Especially considering how much I start to rely on it for my cooking...



Broccoli! It's so cute, I can't stand it.



Tomatoes have come up nicely, need to get some more varieties. I'm thinking just one is too limiting, even if they do well. Any heirloom recommendations?



And this silly sage sure has kept me waiting, but all of a sudden it's had a growth spurt! It looks so lovely, reaching for the sky...



Our weekly summary:

Leeks: Planted 6 weeks ago, has become a thicket.
Thyme: Planted 5 weeks ago, finally has first leaves.
Parsley: Planted 4 weeks ago, first true leaves!
Eggplant: Planted 4 weeks ago, looking good.
Sage: Planted 3 weeks ago, wowie! Getting tall.
Broccoli: Planted 3 weeks ago, tall and hearty-looking.
Basil: Planted 1 week ago, just emerging.
Tomato (red calabash): Planted 1 week ago, coming up nicely.

Check back every Sunday (or sometimes Monday) as we follow the progress of our kitchen garden from seed to table!

Abundance

It is Easter afternoon, and I'm going through the photos we've taken in the past few days and just feeling so incredibly blessed. Healthy children, beautiful weather, delicious food, and time to enjoy it all.

Here are some glimpses of our Easter preparations and celebrations. I hope everyone is having a joyful day, whatever you are celebrating on this fine Spring day.



















Exciting things afoot with the kitchen garden, so stay tuned tomorrow!

This Moment: Meditating

No words, just a moment from this past week that I want to remember. Check out all the moments being shared over at SouleMama.