Meal Trains & Sacred Pregnancy

This week, I have the pleasure of sharing an article about postpartum meal trains on Sacred Pregnancy.com, a beautiful new website dedicated to sharing deep, soulful wisdom about pregnancy and conscious parenting "so that all women who are considering getting pregnant, are pregnant, or have crossed the threshold into motherhood, can come – sit down – and deepen by herself, or within a community of like minded women."

As a homebirth mama, and an advocate for mother-centered maternity care and conscious parenting, I'm thrilled to see this comprehensive - and absolutely beautiful - site come to life alongside the equally gorgeous and soulful book, Sacred Pregnancy. And I'm so honored to be a part of it!

I hope you get a chance to stop by and discover this site, and read my latest contribution: Meal Trains - Nourishing the New Mama.

Garden Experiments... Part 1

I wanted to try and grow a Three Sisters Garden this season, a Native American inspired practice of interplanting corn, beans and squash. So, I dedicated a small 4 x 4 bed to try it out. The corn has been truly fascinating to watch... look how tall it is!

Right now it's silking... isn't it beautiful? I understand the ear worms are pretty hard to control - I've already had a few on the leaves and tassels - so I don't have high hopes for much of a harvest. But nonetheless, I'm really enjoying watching it grow.

Below the corn is lemon squash; a vining squash, or pumpkin, is more traditional in a three sisters garden. But given my tiny dedicated plot, I went with a more compact summer squash. Here is the first product, looking just like a lemon! Many more are coming too. In the same bed, I also planted Dragon Tongue beans. But for some reason, they are really poking along. Plus, they are bush beans (duh)... and I really wanted to watch beans climb the corn, so I've just sown a few fast-growing purple pole beans. It's late, but maybe it will still work out. I'll keep you posted!

Experiment number two: on my back deck, I'm growing cucumbers upside down. Last spring, most of my crop was devoured by pickle worms... so to try and escape this fate, I planted two Topsy Turvy planters with Beit Alpha cucumbers and they are doing great - not a worm in sight up there! This vine grew all the way down to the ground, and is now climbing up a trellis. I've got a few more in a huge pot too... we'll see.

A couple other experiments are taking form out in my garden. I'm not ready to share these yet, but I will. Just as soon as I figure out what I'm doing! How about you... any new ventures in your garden?

A Rustic, Farm-to-Fork Party

I recently had the pleasurable task of setting the table for my sister-in-law's birthday dinner. It was an alfresco meal for 11, with a rustic, farm-to-fork theme... just up my alley! My sister already had lanterns, hanging lights, and other elements to work with, so I just needed to add a few pieces of my own, pull it all together, and make it look pretty. My goal was to keep it simple and low-budget, to honor the spirit of the theme (and my bank account!).

It turned out really beautiful, so I thought I'd share what I did. My canvas was two long tables set up under an oak tree in the birthday girl's backyard. I covered both tables with white bed sheets and topped them with hand-knotted burlap table runners I made, following the tutorial here. These were so easy to make (took under an hour for two) and only cost me about $4.50 per piece (the cost of 3 yards of burlap).

I knew flowers would really set the scene. My sister-in-law likes hydrangeas, so I set out to find a few plants I could snip from. Turns out hydrangeas have a short season here in southwest Florida; I found some at a local garden center, in a back greenhouse, that were mostly ugly and left for dead. I picked out a few with beautiful blue-green blossoms still intact, and they gave them to me for no charge... score! I also swapped my friend some homemade strawberry jam and herb cuttings from my garden for fresh lavender and Indian Blanket flowers from hers. The flowers were all arranged into half-pint mason jars (from my stash), with sprigs of herbs and jasmine from the yard. Four small arrangements ran the length of the tables with a larger one in the center. Interspersed between these were votives and two pillar candles, all from my supply.

For place settings, I hand-stamped tags I picked up from the craft store ($2.99) using stamps from my craft supply. I tied these with jute around mason jars, which held napkins and utensils and were set atop each plate. Twinkle lights and colorful lanterns strung above the tables added a luminous charm.

The farm-to-fork menu celebrated homemade, homegrown and locally harvested seasonal food, including chilled fresh corn soup shooters, chopped salad, watermelon stars & blueberries, rustic cranberry walnut bread and rosemary focaccia, local sausages, marinated cucumbers, fresh green beans, and oven roasted and herbed veggies. It was a feast!

A few more touches throughout the space added to the overall feel... I hung a chalkboard sign from a tree, under which was a buffet table, decked out in burlap, fresh flowers and lanterns.

And added a little rustic charm to an hors d'ouevres table and the bar with more fresh flowers, candles and chalkboard signs. Almost everything I brought to decorate with was repurposed from my home, or foraged or swapped for. The only purchases were the burlap and tags... for a total of only about $12 spent! 

In the end, it was a heartfelt celebration of family & friends, local food & flowers, alfresco dining, and home-spun country beauty. Here, here!

One Hundred Pounds of Tomatoes

May in my neck of the woods means tomatoes. Lots and lots of tomatoes. One hundred pounds this year, to be exact! It's the "$1 per bucket" at the local u-pick that gets me. It drives me out to the field to gather bucket loads of those ripe, juicy, red orbs of summer. This year, Sage comes along to help. Her enthusiasm for picking is short lived... but stepping on rotten tomatoes along the path, now that is some four-year-old-style fun for sure!

After picking and snacking and visiting the farm animals, we head home and I spread my loot out on the dining table. It's a lot of tomatoes, one hundred pounds! The house starts to fill with their fresh aroma as I dig out my canning supplies and start sterilizing jars. My work has just begun...

Night one: children sleeping; husband watching hockey; I process just under half the tomatoes with enthusiasm. Wash, trim, blanch and peel... fill jars ...process in water bath canner... With 14 quarts lined up on my counter, I fall in to bed exhausted and satisfied.

Night two: husband working; one kid continuously out of bed and one who coughs until she throws up; I mop up puke, change and wash sheets, bathe the half-asleep cougher, and process another batch of tomatoes. With 21 quarts now on the counter, I call it a night and fall into bed wondering why, oh why, did I pick so many tomatoes?

Morning three: the tomatoes are mocking me, still piled in boxes and lining my countertops. My kitchen looks like a war zone. I decide it's time to finish the job... 14 more quarts of tomatoes get canned and the rest go into a big pot of marinara on the stove.

In the end, I yield 35 quarts of canned, whole tomatoes; five pints of sauce for freezing; one pint of sauce for the night's spaghetti dinner; and three pints of fresh tomato juice. We're friends again now, me and those tomatoes. In fact, think I'll open up a jar or two and make some tomato soup for dinner!

Just in case you find your self with 100 pounds of tomatoes on your table, here are links to the resources I used:

How to Can Tomatoes at Home: http://www.pickyourown.org/canning_tomatoes.htm

Fresh Tomato Sauce: http://smittenkitchen.com/2010/08/fresh-tomato-sauce/ (I tripled this recipe)

My Favorite Tomato Soup Recipe: http://www.cookusinterruptus.com/index.php?video_id=60