Sunday Lunch

Sunday lunch was typically a very nice meal in my home growing up.  At least, that's how I remember it (a roast with carrots and potatoes comes to mind).  The food wasn't always fancy, but we ate from nice dishes, used my mom's special green stemware, and the food was put into pretty serving bowls.  My mom had two sets of "nice dishes".  One pattern was of little blue flowers with scalloped edges, and the other was rimmed with a design of honey-colored wheat.  The blue flowers were my favorite, but I preferred the wheat dishes on Sundays because they matched the glasses better.  

I try to do the same thing in our home on Sundays.  We typically don't eat out even during the week, but it's particularly important to us to be home together in the (relative) peace of our house on the Lord's Day.  Blair has a chance to wind down from leading worship and spend a few moments with Noah.  I try to have as much prepared the night before as possible, leaving minimal work in the kitchen once we get home (after all, I have a two-year-old used to eating at noon).  We sing the Doxology as our blessing and wait to see just how long Noah will last at the table before it's time to excuse him to his play.

Yesterday, I served mac and cheese (homemade, of course), peas (my mother would have served green beans), yellow squash, potato salad (with homemade pickles), and rolls.  There were leftover apple cinnamon muffins from breakfast for anyone in need of a sweet (Mr. Noah), and plenty of leftovers to send with my darling to work for his lunch today.  There was something about the dried onion in the mac and cheese that made me think of Grandma Cook, although she would have put them on green beans, and I found myself wishing I'd made mashed potatoes and deviled eggs in place of the potato salad.  Potato salad is just too summery, and yesterday felt like Autumn (I'll enjoy it while it lasts).  

Sunday lunch is a tradition dear to me (and to Blair), and I hope that one day it will come to mean as much to my little ones as they grow up as it did to me in childhood.

Friday Photo

This is how Noah sits in the sandbox.

 Notice that horrible, terrible, mean old mosquito on his face.

My Love Had a Birthday

Noah and I spent the week making decorations and a card.

A simple meal of meatloaf and fresh garden veggies.

And a homemade apple pie.  The crust and filling recipes are both from the 1954 Better Homes and Gardens Cook Book.  My favorite. 

Despite the fact that he did not get any extravagant gift, Blair declared it his "best birthday yet."

Apples, Apples Everywhere

And quite a few to eat!  I remember as a little girl going to my grandmother's house around this time of year to help out with apple picking.  She only had one tree, but it usually produced a large number of apples.  The only thing I ever remember her making with the apples was applesauce.  Lots and lots of applesauce, usually stored in the dozens upon dozens of empty butter tubs she saved.  Grandma Cook would sit in the kitchen paring, slicing, and cooking while we worked to pick all of those apples under and in the tree.  My dad would use an apple picker of my grandfather's making, which was little more than an old shovel (or other tool's) handle with an old coffee can nailed to the end, while Matt and I worked on the ground and from the few branches we could reach.  

I've done my own fair share of paring, slicing, and cooking over the last two apple seasons.  I'm not quite good enough to peel the entire apple while keeping the skin intact, but I'm determined to get there.  We have two apple trees of our own in the backyard that aren't yet old enough to produce fruit, but when they are, I'll be ready.  I like to call these "real apples."  Apples that look the way they are supposed to.  They're not shiny and gleaming and perfect.  But they taste so much better than those farmed-for-the-store apples.

Noah prefers his apples lined up in a row.

Making some applesauce of my own.

This is about 1/3 of the apples in our house.  We have very generous friends.

Apples sliced to be frozen, bagged, and used in pies later in the year. 

I have several ideas in the works for these apples, and hopefully over the next couple of days I'll have a few more to share with you.  For now, I shall go have a snack.  An apple, of course.

Weekending

These beans will stay on the vine for the rest of the summer until they are completely dry.

I have already used a large part of my garlic harvest.  It was small this year because I didn't realize until too late that I needed to cut the scapes.

The okra is blooming beautifully.

Tilling up some new dirt for the autumn garden.

Noah will tell you that, "They're busy!"

One day, we'll sit in the shade of these apple trees

instead of in the shade of the laundry line. 

(By the way, I'm looking for vintage sheets or even those that are just a little old and thin.)

Sadly, not all of our blackberry stalks survived the dry heat this summer.   Fortunately, we have two good, healthy stalks to put back here once they are dormant.  

So grateful for the cooler weather.

A Bit of Writer's Block

Sometimes, even at the end of a wonderful day, there is no quieting of the mind.  And yet I really have nothing to say.  Just images, flashing several at a time.  Reminders of the day's moments, triumphs, and stumbles.  The rhythm of another day has passed, the rhythm of the next already at the forefront of my thoughts.  And so it should be.

Even as I woke early this morning with the thunder (and rain!), it felt so nice to just be still and let my mind wander, enjoying the sounds from outside and the quiet within.

**By the way, the chicken and dumplings are not my usual recipe.   They come from here.**

A Slow and Steady Pace

The relief of cool weather hasn't made it here yet (nor will it until at least the middle of October), but I feel our days settling into a more "autumn-like" pace.  Blair's back at school, so our days start early and have more structure.  And yet, there's a slow, steady, and comfortable pace to the way Noah and I move through the day.  We read and sing and snuggle.  We stir the tomato sauce cooking in the crockpot and put bread or muffins in the oven.  We still have to wait until late in the day to go out and play, but we seem to always find just enough to do in the house.  Nothing is rushed.  Nothing is pressured.  My floors need mopping and the bookcases could use a good cleaning, but I have fresh tomato sauce and yummy muffins on a pretty plate.  

And I have slow, easy days with my little boy.

Weekending

We had one of those rare and glorious weekends where Daddy was home with us for longer than a few hours.  Noah helped me make a loaf of bread (and if you've never tried a fermented bread, I highly recommend it), but mostly we just laid around watching the Olympic Games.  I did also make tomato soup, and there's just something so delectable about making something from scratch with ingredients you plucked from your own backyard (or you already had on hand).

Tomato Soup

2TBS butter

2 TBS olive oil

3 cloves of garlic, minced

2 stalks celery, finely sliced

1 small yellow onion chopped

1 quart homemade tomato sauce

2 cups homemade chicken or turkey stock (or water)

3/4 cup heavy cream

salt

pepper

basil

Melt the butter and oil in a large soup pot.  Add garlic, celery, and onion.  Cook for 15 minutes or until vegetables are soft.  Add tomato sauce and stock.  Simmer for 15 minutes.  Using an immersion blender (or small batches in a regular blender), blend until smooth.  Slowly add cream.  Season to taste.  

**I also added a packet of slow-roasted tomatoes that I made and froze last year.  To make these, slice tomatoes into halves or quarters depending on the size, drizzle with olive oil, salt, and pepper, and bake at 200 for 3 or 4 hours on a foil lined baking sheet.  If you're in a hurry, you can increase the oven temp and decrease the time.  They just won't be quite as sweet.

If you want to make this in larger batches to freeze, simply complete all of the steps except adding the cream.  Add the cream once you've thawed the soup and are ready to serve it.  

Good Food

And fun at the table!  Not that Mr. Noah is an adventurous eater, but he does enjoy begging for and then refusing to eat everything on my plate.  He just enjoys being together at the table, and I think that's something so many families in this country miss out on.  Meals together at the table.

Lately for lunch, I've simply been eating a cheese and mayo sandwich with tomatoes fresh from the garden.  Today, I enjoyed that with my homemade pickles.

Supper has been anything from popcorn to homemade pizza to vegetarian spaghetti (which was absolutely delicious).  

Of course, I'm a little biased, but the homemade tomato sauce going on everything sure does taste great!

So, turn off the TV, clear your table, and sit down for some good food and conversation with those you love.

A Late Summer Backyard

Well, at least his arms and face are safe.

Sometimes It's Necessary

...to have popcorn for supper.  Really.  I promise.  It is.  Now, you won't find this little bit of information in my diatribe post on motherhood, but sometimes those days (and nights) simply exist. 

Add a little melted butter and parmesan, and you're good to go!

More Gardening

It's time to start thinking about what we want to put in our autumn garden this year.  Last year we let it slip by us completely, and I set my mind that I would not do that again.  We want to set out broccoli, cauliflower, kale, butternut squash, and acorn squash.  It's still about four weeks too early for most of it, but I did need to get my broccoli seeds started in the house now.  Last year, I marked this on Pinterest as an idea for starting plants inside.  It's an experiment, and if it fails, I guess I'll be buying broccoli plants in a few weeks.  Here's to optimism!  

Catching Up

This first trimester has been quite rough.  Not as bad as it was with Noah, but still plenty miserable.  There's been much laying around doing nothing around here lately because of that (and the insane heat).  This past Wednesday, though, I hit the second trimester, and I can feel myself beginning to pull out of this sick haze.  Noah and I have been a bit busier, mostly in the mornings, and it feels good to get something accomplished during the day.

I actually took this about several days ago.  It's hard to tell from the picture, but it's actually a double rainbow.

He's become quite the little tomato picker.