Got Bored. Made Butter.

Was recently informed that our local and wonderful Lubber's Farm can no longer be covered under insurance if they continue to do their raw milk shares. We have until December 31 to pick up our last gallon of milk. Sad day for a lot of families. I've been pondering what to do with the milk that I've gotten. Matt doesn't drink too much milk so it's usually up to me to creatively consume the raw milk. I've made ice cream, cheese, and butter. All were delicious. I figured there was more of a need for butter at this point. Freshly baked bread goes hand in hand with prepared butter. Unfortunately, John's latest batch of bread was quickly consumed and this is a once a week endeavor. Oh well, there is still bagels left!

 

It still amazes me that taking a white cream and blending the smithereens out of it turns it yellow! This batch turned out a lot better than the last. I don't know why. maybe because this time I kneaded the butter in cool water vs. water so cold your hands go numb. It was less crumbly.

As far as the farm goes, I'm glad they can still make their cheeses. Apparently as long as you age the cheese for at least 60 days, It's "perfectly safe". Although raw milk is perfectly safe to begin with... Oh USDA, how I wish I could believe that you really do have the peoples interest in your hearts. On the upside, I am looking forward to the possibilities of being an intern at the creamery in the summer. I'm excited to see what they are planning to do with all the excess milk now that it can no longer go to cow share members...

Catching Up Quick!

It's been a rush chiseling away at this little man. Finally knocked out all the body parts so all that's left from here is just carving and working out the joints. I'm really excited that it's all starting to come together now. I can feel good about taking three days off to go down to Ohio and spend a weekend with the family!

He stands about three feet tall with basic motor functions. Arms can go up and down, bend at elbow, and hands can swing left and right. I would've really liked to have had ball joints, but I have no clue how to do that properly.

Well, i have to pack up and go to Ohio!

5 Year Old Girls Like Pink Right?

Gosh, I hope so. This is the first year I really truly feel like an aunt and actually look forward to Holiday gift making/giving. A lot of it might be because my niece Kyliene is finally at that age group where kids can actually start doing things. I figured with the move into the new house and tons of yard space, a gardening kit would be pretty sweet! But not just any gardening kit...

I looked online for some stuff and a lot of the bags were pretty cute, but it came with either thin and flimsy metal that would rust at any sign of moisture, or just a really cheap plastic that would barely last a summers worth of digging.

I remember when I was about 6 or 7 and my aunt Denise bought me my first cooking/baking set. It was so exciting! I felt so special when I opened that box and saw a real grown up apron, waffle iron, tea towels, measuring cups and spoons. None of that kiddie stuff because in essence, you really can't kid a kid. They know when you give them crappy stuff that was made for children only. And children don't want to feel like children. They want to use what the big people use and feel grown up!

So that's what I did. I went to Home Depot and picked up a spade, trowel, and...whatever those three pronged tools are called. Yay! Then I went to the fabric store and found a discounted scrap of pink duck cloth. Perfect! I'll make a garden bag so she can put all her tools, seeds, and gloves in it along with whatever curiosities she finds while digging in the dirt!

This is the progress so far:

The strap on the side there is going to be a looped holder for the tools. It was midnight by the time I pinned it and with a sigh of exhaustion figured it was time to call it quits for now.

P.S. I still use the apron my aunt gave me ^_^



EDIT: This is the finished product! Well sort of. I ran out of fabric for one more strap. Oh well, off to Fields Fabrics!

May have to pick out better seeds if there is any still available this season. I doubt little girls love onions and turnips haha!

My Goal for Next Year is to Finish it This Year...

Black Clu- black cherry honey wine. The Clurichaun series is similar to his other meads, but with the delicious addition of hops.

Sad but true. The Clurichaun is my only goal this year and I hope to get it done by January. For anyone who isn't sure what a Clurichaun is (or how to pronounce it) think Leprechaun. A small mischievous creature that helps in the magical making of beer, wine, and in this case: mead. I've had this project assigned to me by Steve Haystead of the Bardic Wells Meadery back in July. Well summer was crazy but things are slowing down a bit. Needless to say i've been pretty gung-ho on this little man for the past couple months. A lot of the delay was my unease about creating the joints. Well I got tired of having a bunch of body parts lying around and started connecting them.

So, by now the only thing left to do is make the head and legs. From there, the devil is in the details with joining everything. The best part that I am looking forward to is making the clothing...

Harvest Dinner Party

It's a sigh of relief and a breath of fresh air having a place of our own. A place where we can finally have the parties we want to have. These usually consist of good beer (in often times vast and variable quantities), tons of great food, and a heaping handful of really incredible friends. With the holiday season coming up and the passing of the Turkey Day feast, it's always nice to set a time to get together and celebrate with your close friends.

When it comes to the cranberry sauce, I feel like people at the very best just toss together some cranberries, sugar, and maybe some orange zest to be a little "wild". At the very worst, take a 79 cent can and dump it into a pretty bowl. I love cranberries, but have never actually made a holiday cranberry sauce. This is what I came up with:

I sauted the onions until caramelized and brown then added in the cranberries, Witches Brew spiced wine, balsamic vinegar, rosemary, brown sugar, cayenne, and a pinch of salt and pepper. Simmered it until the cranberries popped then let it cool. Must say, this was a nice deviation from the standard.

When it came to the turkey, we pre-ordered it from the local Crane Dance Farms. I've never roasted a turkey before let alone a heritage breed turkey, so this was an interesting experience. Sure, sure, I've watched my mom and dad plenty of times in the kitchen trussing a turkey on Thanksgiving Day. My husband even scoffed at me for never having cooked a turkey. I quickly explained that my college lifestyle had no room for roasting turkeys- too expensive and I'd be the only one eating it!

 I kept it pretty simple by roughly following the Alton Brown recipe online. Which, ironically, is the same brine Matt always used with his turkey. Brined it in brown sugar, salt, vegetable stock, peppercorns, allspice and ginger for over a day. When it came closer to putting it in the oven, I did a dimple stuffing of apples, onion, rosemary, cinnamon and sage. It ended up cooking faster than anticipated...475 for the first 30 minutes, then down to 250 for another 2 hours. Took it out right at the 160 mark and let it rest for a while. People were still slowly coming to the party, so by around 8:30-9:00 everyone was here and Matt started carving the turkey.


A lot of people brought some really fantastic things! John baked a couple loaves of bread. Nate made a really great cornbread stuffing with sausage (I can only assume it's Lubber's Farm sausage). Rachael has been on a brussel sprout kick and so brought those to the table. Her mom whipped up a few goodies- squash and a green bean casserole. Josh and Kari also brought another green bean casserole which is good, because you can never have too much green bean casserole! Bethany brought over a simple sweet potato dish. When I say simple, I mean simple and amazing. I never understood why people cram sweet potatoes with marshmallows, butter and more sugar. Simply put, this was just sweet potatoes baked with cinnamon and pecans. Dale and Lynn brought over a pretty epic cheese platter with aged gouda, white cheddar, and 2 other awesome cheeses which I have failed to remember. To this, Bethany added a cranberry Wensleydale and I laid out the Cowslip Creamery's Brighid cheese. I believe someone also brought some bread from Nantucket Bakery as well. Greg made some pretty epic loaded mashed potatoes. Doug breaded up and fried some catfish tails for starters. Molly and Steve brought over some rolls from a farmstand in Lansing as well as a pumpkin pie from the Grand Traverse Pie Company. Dale and Lynn also brought a pear crumble with Chinese 5-spice.

Needless to say, everybody was stuffed and the food was amazing. I don't think we expected to have so many people show up, but there were probably about 20 people give or take a few that showed up! Hosting something like this makes me so glad we have the group of friends that we do. We all enjoy good, creative, and local foods which is why we probably have a lot of these kinds of get-togethers. The last one we had was a Legendary seafood "boil" at Doug's place over the summer. I say "boil" because a traditional southern boil consists of crawfish, shrimp, corn, Andouille sausage and potatoes. Which we all had...but we grilled it instead. Not to mention a plethora of other goodies that people brought from homemade pickles to garden fresh salads. Actually...here's a couple pictures from that:

Stay tuned for the next epic dinner!

Finding Motivation

Ever find yourself totally unmotivated to do anything?

I've had plenty of those days. Often times I find myself putzing around the house doing mundane chores just to say that I at least did something. But often times when I go about this routine I end up actually motivated to do stuff!

We went hunting the other weekend and our friend's dad ended up shooting a young buck. Lucky, considering the whole weekend Matt and I didn't see any deer whatsoever. Well, it ended up back at our place where the guys processed it in our garage. I would've been out there helping but I was contending myself with the wifely duties of cleaning the bits of flesh they brought in:

It was pretty awesome. That night we ended up taking the flanks, marinating in garlic, rosemary, red wine, and olive oil, then sauted it with some mushrooms and onions. That was fresh.

After it was all processed, which took a few hours, there was this deer hide. I knew I wanted to keep it, but knew it was a mess of trouble to do it myself. It had to be fleshed, cleaned, and somehow tanned. Brains and chemicals were out of the question. I considered taking it to a local taxidermist to be processed but with Thanksgiving weekend coming out, it was out of the question...

So in the garage this beautiful hide sat...and sat...and sat. Procrastinating with the excuses of indecision. Do I make someone else tan this? Do I run around town looking for chemicals? Am I really in the mood to even flesh this thing? Do I even have the right tools?

Well I was tired of staring at the beautiful day outside from the confines of the house and decided "what the hell". Because earlier that morning I was outside splitting wood, which was my feeble rationale for at least doing something that day. So I grabbed a couple chairs and grabbed the largest plank of wood we had laying around. I propped up my station, grabbed the hide, and went to town fleshing the hide with a machete.

It is now salted and laying in our garage. Here's to hoping that just plain salt will do the trick. I'm really not concerned about how "pretty" or soft the skin is. I just want the fur to stay in and not go rancid. I'm thinking about incorporating it into the copper bangles I make with fabric. So, something like this but with fur!

Saucy.

But in short, you really don't need to be motivated to be motivated. Sometimes it just hits you in your everyday routines. You just need to get moving when that spark hits you, otherwise you'll never leave the couch!

A Rock and a Hard Place

15 art students, all sitting down at a big wooden art table. You know, those thick "butchers block" wooden tops with cast iron legs that could support seriously heavy-duty workloads? Back in Fall 2009, all 15 of us sat down empty handed, but with heavy hearts and a very serious topic...

When it comes to being an artist, we'd all like to think we have support. From our friends, from our family, and even ourselves, which can often times be the most difficult to find. On this very serious topic, a girl bursts into tears, "I just want my family to realize this is what I want to do!!" and then the stories spill forth from the mouths of just about every artist sitting there, and no dam could have stopped the dramas from flowing. Each story, from one to the next, with an air of familiarity. Some of us were encouraged to go into teaching because "we might not make it as artists." Others were told to go into fields where there are "more promising jobs" and of course the awful "you can't make a living by being an artist."

As I sat here, speechless, I was glad to think I had support from my family. Whether or not they really understood my directions with art at the time or not, I guess it didn't matter. But I understood their frustrations.

As an artist, it's hard enough convincing ourselves that its all going to be worth it in the end. 

The hardest thing to overcome is getting over your own self-doubt. I couldn't expect anyone to take me seriously if I didn't take myself seriously. When I first entered the art program, I never took myself seriously. Never, not once. Not until I actually started having fun with what I was creating. Then I thought to myself  "hey, I want to do this for a living!". The flood gates opened again. How can I make this a career? I can't make an honest living doing...art! Those who can't do teach right? Right?

I stopped listening to myself. And then I really really REALLY started listening to myself.

After that, I listened to the ones that mattered. Professors, other students, and other artists that HAD made it.

Sitting there at that table, we all got it. We all understood this. But on some level we wanted outside support from someone saying "Yes, you can do this. You are not weird or strange for thinking this is a perfectly viable career and you will succeed."

But we all know that never happens.

We get stuck with the furrowed  and confused brows, the slow disbelieving nods, and of course those silly suggestions of  "other options to fall back on."

People don't get it. Plain and simple.

Joe the Plumber isn't famous for what he does. He's not featured in a magazine nor seen on TV. Half the population isn't pining for his mastery. Yet he makes an honest living and you've never heard of him. He is his own boss working a job he created for himself. No one questions his decision for being a plumber.

An artist should be no different. Why is it suddenly hard for people to understand that we don't take jobs... we make jobs. We make it for ourselves, because no one else can. And that is really hard to do. Any idiot could fill out an application and get a job. I could get a job. But I don't want a job. I want to be happy, and what's so hard to understand about making some money and being happy?

It's a slow start to get to where we want to be. Some days its just not happening fast enough. There's a lot that needs to be done well before that glorious swap of craft for cash happens. And until that money starts rolling in, we're gonna have to live with those crummy day-jobs. No it's not glorious. but it makes-do. We understand that the one's in our lives just want the best for us. And maybe they want a little bragging rights too, because what parent or grandparent doesn't like to talk about how awesome and successful their children are? But please know...this...takes...time. And in due time, this will be the best thing for us.

Otherwise, we could just be the 99% sitting on the side of the road.

I choose to do something.

The First Snow

I woke up to a sunny, beautiful and brisk November morning. Once I had my morning shuffle out of the way I realized it's been a while since I went to Siedman Park. It was a perfect place to bring tofu! As I was getting dressed, the weather slowly picked up. Still sunny, but there were some clouds rolling in. I shuffled off in my bundles and with Tofu in hand not really knowing where the weather would take us.

When we arrived at the park it was still gloriously sunny but as Tofu and I began our walk through the woods it slowly started to snow. Crossing the bridge I realized that I was actually quite enamored that it had started to snow. As we walked further I couldn't help but keep thinking how happy I was that it was snowing and how beautiful it looked in the forest. Any other year I would have despised the onset of snow. I kept thinking about why it was just so different this year. Was it because I could go back to our new home, snuggle up on our couch, make warm food in my kitchen? (yes. kitchen. MINE!) Or was it because I had no 9-5 job that I would have to begrudgingly drag myself out into the cold to scrape off a car only to have it warm up just as I get to work where I would then have to walk another 5 minutes in the cold with wet boots. Maybe it's  little of both. I get to be in a warm place called home and watch the seasons as they pass.

My thoughts slowly faded as Tofu and I came across a clearing in the woods. My memory flashes back and it's the same place my friend Rachael and I had stopped years ago. It was very similar weather, cold and wet. Maybe a little more snow then. I remember distinctly stopping here to enjoy some warm oatcakes that Rachael had made. They were amazing. Just simple and filling. Walking out into the clearing, the sun shone a little brighter and the snow fell a little bit more. I was also surrounded by many different varieties of moss and lichen. Tofu, in a burst of energy, grabbed a blue-green fluff of lichen, shook it about and tossed it up in the air. He was doing exactly what I wanted to do. Run and play. we ran out into the middle where I proceeded to throw more fluffs of moss in the air for him to catch. Upon leaving the clearing I suddenly got a craving for oatcakes...

Just on our way back, the path went parallel with the creek. I was curious if Tofu was interested. He was sniffing around and dodging very close to the edge of the creek. He bounced on top of a log that was half in the water and half on the shore covered by a pile of leaves. Tofu must have thought the leaves were solid ground, but then went "Sploot!" into the ice cold water. I think it gave him a nice wake-up. His eyes got big and his ears shot back. I don't think he hated it though... he very calmly went back to shore, shook off, and pranced about!

He was pretty much asleep on the car ride home, curled up in the back. I went though about 5 distinct weather shifts from sunny, to sunny and snowy, dark and snowy, just plain dark, to being sunny and clear again. After making lunch we curled up on the couch for a bit to watch some South Park. It seemed like every few minutes my eyes would wander out the window to just admire the amounts of snow falling. Then I remembered. Oatcakes.

I made some oatcakes and watched the snow fall some more....

My Sweet October

Wow, I did not hit the ground running with this blog. However I did hit the ground in a mad dash with everything else...all at once. Wow, I'm tired. All worth it though. I'll catch everyone up!

All the sarsparilla, peppercorn, vanilla, cinnamon, juniper berries, burdock root, and God knows what else...all simmering away.

I made Root Beer! It turned out pretty awesome! My only regret is that I didn't have any sassafras which would have given it that final root beer oomph of flavor. Sassafras is supposedly carcinogenic which is why it isn't used in commercial root beers anymore. Sheesh, can't be any worse than high fructose corn syrup... Luckily John still had some at his house for next time...

And vanilla Ice cream using the raw milk from Lubbers Farm. Pretty much the best ice cream ever!!

Made a fish head curry. Our friend Greg went fishing and caught a few salmon so Rachael and I cleaned up the heads and I made a curry the next sunday.

We were given fresh eggs by another friend of our who own chickens. The yolks were so rich and orange we had to make a giant omlette. The next day I made A LOT pierogis with the remaining eggs. the dough was so rich and yellow.

Made Sauer Kraut with some cabbages from the garden! There was some leftover whey from the last time I made cheese so I decided to do some fermenting!

This wall has been bugging me ever since we moved in...so I painted it a flat blue, put up sticky vinyl, cut out some birch trees, and painted a clear coating over. The result? very subtle tree decoration on the wall. I like this wall now. If you do this, however, don't use spray paint clear gloss unless you can open ALL the windows in the house. I happened to do this on a very cold night in October. Sorry guys....

Made ricotta cheese! Again from the raw milk from Lubbers Farm. This then went into a vegetable lasagna. There was still some leftover ricotta so I made a polenta bake with sauted mushrooms, leeks and spinach topped with the cheese.

I also finished staining the last section of cupboards! (on this side of the kitchen anyways...) 

This was all the stuff I did in October that I had actually taken pictures of. I also slow roasted a pork shoulder in Founders Habanero spite and made Tamales. Josh brought over a whole bushel of random peppers, so I made green chile/cheese tamales as well. The rest of the peppers I diced and dried along with the rest of the parsley from my garden. What an October, but I can't wait for November!

First Post

Hey Everybody
 Well I'm a little busy with trying to figure out this whole new blogging thing...but I intend to update my new and amazing ventures soon!