3rd Time's a Charm

We have started a 'sourdough starter' 3 times now. The first time, I left it alone for a couple of days and then stirred it with a metal spoon. Both no nos, I read. The second time I forgot to 'feed' it every day. This time though, Stephen and I made sure we fed it everyday, kept it in a warm spot and stirred it with a wooden spoon. Now, day 5 of the process, it looks like this:

 

Stephen smelled it (since I encourage him to smell everything we use in cooking) and he wrinkled his nose, rubbed it hard and said 'That does NOT smell good!'

 

The brown liquid layer is called 'hooch' (seriously) and from what I've read is fine, you just stir it back in. For those who, like me, have not made a sourdough starter before, it's not hard (if this works, that is). We started with 1/4 cup warm water and 1/4 cup flour, mixed it together and then everyday at the same time (approximentally) threw away half of it (don't ask me why, for I don't know why) then re-add 1/4 cup warm water and 1/4 cup flour. The starter was probably ready yesterday (since it smelled soury and was foamy), but we didn't have time yesterday to figure out what to with it.

Now we have taken the starter and added 1 cup of warm water and 1 cup flour to 'proof' the mixture.
It now looks like this:

As Stephen so ably noted earlier, our kitchen - and therefore the whole house - smells a bit rancid. I'm hoping this is just the smell of sourdough...

We are supposed to leave this mixture for 2-6 hours until it is bubbly and then we can make Ma's Biscuits from Little House on the Prarie (Stephen's request).

Finishing reading 'By The Shores of Silver Lake'

We also got around to opening the coconut I kept talking about.

Stephen thought holding it was super cool, especially since it sloshed

Like our very authentic method of drilling open the holes to get out the milk?

Pouring out the clear coconut milk

Cracking it open on our porch

'Feels icky!'

 

We tasted both the fresh and some dried that I had on hand. Stephen had some difficulty swallowing both and said he preferred the dried, sweetened coconut.

The leaves have been EXTRAORDINARY here this year. Tuesday we went leaf collecting after Darling got off work.

'Oooh, purple leaves'

Orange ones!

Yellowish green ones

And super vibrant yellow ones!

It was excellent seeing how God changes the trees to prepare for winter, and how wonderful He does so in a way so pleasing to the eye. It's been great to talk about the verses in Ecclesiates where Solomon reminds us 'There is a time for everything and a seaons for every activity under heaven...'

 

 

Hot Chocolate & Onion Rings

Well we headed to that indoor Farmer's Market I wrote about last time...the one that is supposed to be on the second weekend of October... Did you catch that? Second weekend. Oops, Shaun, this is the first weekend. But we did have a nice time seeing the trees with lots of fall colors. What was extra fun was that last night we had something like an ice storm, which froze water on the car, power lines and the trees. So not only did we have green, yellow and red trees to look at, we had silvery frozen ones too, and all mixed together!

We are almost done with our first 'Little House' book with Stephen.

To celebrate, we had an excellent, spoiling snack of onion rings and hot chocolate by kerosene lamp. Since it's an overcast day, Stephen got to see the lamp in twilight. He said, 'Oh, the light is sooo beautiful!' :0)

Stephen decided to hide behind me (and it looks like we are a commercial for Hunt's Ketchup)



 

Yesterday, Auntie and Stephen made the most amazing robot out of a kleenex box and 2 paper towel rolls. Her creativity astounds me. Stephen loves it, named it Skeeter after his stuffed frog Tante Crystal gave him, and accidentally broke his legs (the robot's, that is) while Skeeter danced at dinner.

 

As I'm sure you on the edge of your seat wondering what book will those 3 crazy people read next? after a vote, we decided on Little Town on the Prarie. It comes after the Long Winter and details early settlement life in De Smet, South Dakota. We've had alot of educational opportunities while reading this series already (as I'm sure you're aware of), and Stephen is hopeful that one day we may visit South Dakota ("where Mt Rushmore is and where Laura, Ma, Pa, Carrie, Mary and Grace lived!" [and yes, he quotes them all everytime we read the books]).

 

A reminder from St Augustine:

Faith is to believe what you do not see; the reward of this faith is to see what you believe.

A random week of photos

So here is some weird random pictures of our week.........

I have this cookbook that is supposedly 'old recipes' revisited for modern times (aka old recipes with measurememts adjusted and seasonings added). Stephen & I decided to make the carrot cake recipe. The first mention of carrot cake is when George Washington ate one in a tavern in 1783 on 'British Evacuation Day'. This recipe called for 1 cup of oil (!) and I just couldn't do that (1920 calories, my friend) so we substituted applesauce (100 calories!).

Stephen waiting patiently with the carrots, raisins & pecans (we tossed them with flour which distributed them very evenly in the cake). Stephen was particularly excited to make this recipe because it was technically a 'carrot applesauce cake', which they made in an episode of Super Why (a show he used to watch).

Stephen's early morning drawing of a bird (it's better than what I can do, for sure). Darling & I are thrilled that he takes after Jax in art.

We are learning about tropical fruit. This is our papaya that we bought very green and tried to ripen in a bag for 5 days. It kindof worked. Darling liked it; Stephen & I weren't the biggest fans (it's particulary hard when you've had ripe from the tree). Coconut on Sunday!

This picture is for Tante Crystal - we love Skeeter the frog!

Stephen has taken to our music studies incredibly well! So well in fact that we found a toy trumpet (plays like a harmonica) for $15 on Amazon.

5 minutes after receiving it from the FedEx man

 

Stephen liked to hold the keys while Darling played

 

He didn't go to bed with it, but he did jump out of bed in the morning to play it first thing.

 

His favorite song to listen to right now is Festive Overture by Shostakovich (which has a great trumpet intro). After we took Darling to work, he asked to listen to Festive Overture so he could play along. Then he asked to listen with headphones so he could hear better.

Stephen thanks Jesus for his trumpet about every time he picks it up. He also thanks Him for 'the people who made it in the factory' and for 'telling Ama and Ada to buy it'.

 

He may not have slept with it in his bed, but his trumpet is definitely his best bud right now (can you tell we are loving it?)

While we were waiting for Darling to get off work on Wednesday, 3 deer crossed the parking lot where we were. This happened last year at this time too and we spent the fall watching a herd of 9 deer.

If you look closely, you can see one of the 3 over Stephen's shoulder

 

We are learning to not scream (in delight) whenever we see animals (especially dogs). We move slowly and quietly... This came in handy as we followed the 3 deer across the parking lot.

 

Tomorrow we are hoping to go to an indoor farmer's market and take a drive to see the leaves changing color. If we actually accomplish this, I'll include photos on the next post.

 

God bless you all!

Shaun for the crew

'Little House on the Prarie' Afternoon

Darling, Stephen & I are reading 'By The Shores of Silver Lake' by Laura Ingalls Wilder as we drive to Darling's work. There has been several things that have come up as questions from Stephen. For instance - what is a kerosene lamp? What does it look like? What is threshing? To that end, we planned an afternoon to experiment with making the green pumpkin pie I've meant to make for years, ask my parents to bring their kerosene lamp and to make a button lamp. Here's how it went --

We made the button lamp from 'The Long Winter'. When the Ingalls ran out of kerosene to keep their lamps running, Pa bought a large can of axle grease from the store (the only type of grease left in the town). Ma made a candle by taking a button and wrapping it in a piece of calico, tying the cotten tightly with thread near the button. She then twisted the top into a wick and coated the tip with grease. Then she placed the button bottom in grease on a saucer. When the lit the top of the calico, it burned and created light. Which considering they had 7 months (!) of blizzards every 2 days (!!) and it was dark alot, I'm sure the light was a great comfort.

Darling devised ours this afternoon using some bacon grease (the thickest grease we had), a button and some leftover turtle cotton material from a pillow I made for Stephen. It worked! I was a bit surprised, actually. First, it burned down a bit, until it reached the thread, then it began to pull the grease up 'wicking' it and creating a continual flame, just like a candle. It was so cool!

The button lamp, from the top

 

Placed in the bowl of grease

 

Here's where we weren't sure if it was going to just burn the cloth and then then grease (it was in the sink and we were ready with water)


Here it is in it's continual burn. It made a surprisingly big flame.

Attempting to blow it out. We ended up needing to snuff it out with a plate (cuz the flame is surprisingly big). In the future I think we would use a smaller button, to make not such a big flame. Then again, if we were in a large room needing a lot of light for many people, this size would be much more preferable.

 

 

AND --

We finally made the green pumpkin pie!

Right before the Ingalls endured the long winter, Ma had Laura pick a green pumpkin from the field to make a surprise pie for Pa. She lined the bottom of the pie with brown sugar, 'spices', then the pumpkin, thinly sliced. She topped it with 1/2 cup vinegar, a pad of butter and another crust. When Pa tried it, he said in surprise, 'Apple Pie?! Where did you get apples?' Since reading this story when I was about 8, I have wanted to make a green pumpkin pie. You may recall we picked a green pumpkin when we went to the orchard last weekend.

 

Since the instructions via the book were rather vague, here's what we did: lined the bottom pie shell with 3/4 cup brown sugar, 1/2 tsp cinnamon and 1/8 tsp nutmeg (amounts from an apple pie recipe I have). Then we placed the green pumpkin pieces on top of that. Then we poured 1/2 cup of white vinegar on top, adding a pad of butter on the top and covered it with another crust.

 

The end result was a delicious, incredible, moist pie that -shockingly- tasted just like apples! That said, I didn't read the instructions close enough. Ma had put the pie in right after breakfast so it would be ready just in time for lunch. Hmmm.... I suppose that is why it was a 2 hour pie. And it even had a slight al dente then (but that was good too, surprisingly enough). SO! For the next one (and trust me, there will be another, it was so good) I will either boil the pumpkin first (or pressure cook it) to soften them so it will bake quicker in the oven. Unless I need to run the stove for a heat source already (like Ma) and having it in the oven for 3-5 hours is a good thing.

Janou and Stephen VERY excited to start

 
The hallowed out shells

Stephen holding the peeled and scraped out pieces (he really liked rubbing his fingers on the 'icky' part inside)

Stephen also loved placing the pumpkin pieces in the pie shell. FYI: make the pieces into much smaller pieces than what I did. Especially if you don't roast or boil the pumpkin first.

Playing 'How long are my arms?' with the pie shell boxes

Consulting the book for instructions

The pie cut up nicely (which after 2 hours I wasn't sure what we would find)

Now we had to eat the pie by kerosene lamp to be truly authentic (Stephen had gone to bed an hour before. He'll try it tomorrow)

The one on the left is the one with the crust on top, the right one we did a crumb topping. Another FYI, use a top crust. VERY necessary to make the pumpkin steam properly.

 

At this point, I really wish I had another green pumpkin to cook. It was a blast and we had a wonderful afternoon. We have loved learning new ways to come at things today. We're finishing the day by watching 'Cinderella Man', a movie about a boxer who gets a second chance during the Great Depression. Another time when a button lamp or a green pumpkin pie recipe would come in handy.

 

Love to you all, whomever you are. God bless you and know we are praying for you.

-Shaun for the crew

Hail & Birthday Pie

On Thursday we had an incredible hail storm! We got a great pile right under the gutter outside our window.

 The pile under the gutter

 

He and Auntie got red hands from showing me all the hail they collected.

Stephen has been waiting for 3 months to throw a snowball (I'm not sure why...)

 

Stephen was very excited to put on his wintercoat. Although by the time we got to Darling's work we were SO HOT we had to take them off again (hello fall!)

 

The road looked like it had snowed

Jax called for Darling's birhtday and Stephen was SO EXCITED!

 

The peach pie I made for Darling's bday dinner. It was good, but not nearly as good as when we had it with Jax (Jax always makes it better!)

We were given a gift card to a local restaurant from Auntie & Uncle, so we used it for Darling's bday lunch. He got a free sundae! And it was pretty good too!

 

 

Today Papadou and Janou are coming for us to have  'Little House on the Prarie' afternoon. We are going to make a green pumpkin pie (from 'The Long Winter'), have Stephen see a kerosene lamp work (not a common thing now-a-days) and Darling has made a button lamp (also from 'The Long Winter'), which works amazingly well! Tune in later for the photos...