Homemade Tomato Soup with bread - Ah, Winter Lunch

Not our lunch today, but a memorable
one from Vezelay, France

It is blizzard-like outside. We have just tasted bliss in a winter lunch from our summer labors: sweet and dill pickles, fresh Italian bread into great grilled cheese sandwiches, homemade yogurt with last season's frozen blueberries, and, here it comes, Sue's fantastic winter feast - homemade tomato soup.

Oh my.

Joel sat silent during most of the lunch except for sweet moans of pleasure. Once he spoke in sympathy for our world, "Don't you wish you could feed this meal to everyone in the world?" Yes.

The pickles came from small jars. With each we remember gathering cucumbers late in the season at every farmers market we could find.
Though Joel makes great wheat bread, we did finally find the amazing Roma bakery in Lansing, Michigan and treated ourselves to rum cake and a fresh loaf of their bread for super grilled cheese sandwiches (olive oil and butter loaded with Colby and mozzarella cheese lightly dusted on each side with garlic salt before pan toasting).

The star of this meal, preserved at the peak of tomato harvesting - Tomato Soup - is the great gift in the cupboard all winter long: tomatoes cooked down with bits of vegetables - celery, carrot, onion onion, maybe a sweet pepper and a full bouquet of fresh basil. All blended, added lots of butter and seasonings, put in jars, then hot water bath in pint and quart jars. Preserving food to sustain us through blizzard days.

I'll get the true recipe for you when the season comes. If you try this fine soup, prepare to buy at least a bushel or two of tomatoes. You may be giving a lot away.

Yes, I'm back to the crunchy blog and so happy to be with you. As always thank you for stopping by and checking on me. Love, Helene

Bread and Butter Pickles - A Great Place to Start

       My good friend, Karmen, hand writes actual letters that I am so greatful to receive.

These special post office gifts from our Karmen include cartoons and tidbits of news and quotes that declare the season we are in. The letter today began with a special quote:

In the summer the song sings itself. – William Carlos Williams

        Daughter Jessie started a garden this year – tomatoes, peas, peppers, zucchini , and cucumbers. We got regular updates on the progress of this enriching experience. The cucumbers have burst forth with enthusiasm. It’s pickle time!

       For all the life we lived together as Jess grew up, the preserving details seemed to have been obscured by the bounty. She had questions for her garden goodies and she wanted answers . . . Now!

We made a shopping list for bread and butter pickles – big pans, canning tongs and funnel, canning jars with lids and rings, box of coarse salt, seasonings: mustard seeds, celery seeds, and the far east wonder, turmeric. Don’t forget white vinegar, sugar, and a large onion.   

        We went over the process in notes – cut the cukes in 1/4 inch widths, soak them in salt water brine for about 3 hours, sterilize jars in hot water pan. Bring the vinegar, sugar and spices to a boil. Fill the jars with the cukes and onion. Pour the hot vinegar over the cucumbers, put the lids on, Carefully place the jars in a big pot of boiling water for 15 minutes.  Remove the jars with the tongs and let cool in plain sight.

       We got the call about 8:30 that evening: Ping!  My favorite summer song.

Later Jessie said the jars are gorgeous and that she feels so good about her first canning experience, she said she feels liberated.

Thanks for stopping by again, we love to hear comments. Enjoy the summer magic!

Love,

Helene (author of A Homestead Decade, How Crunchy GranolaChanged My Life, Amazon e-book, $2.99)

Cooling of the Dunes 24x20 oil by Joel F Ellis
A great place to enjoy summer - ahhh.

Happiness Runs in A Circular Motion . . .

       I've been thinking a lot lately about what makes for happiness. The founding fellows thought so much of happiness that pursuit became a declaration. The word has almost become undefinable yet we all have a vague feeling of what happiness can mean to our lives. 

       We recently watched an interesting movie, Hector and the Search for Happiness, in which a psychiatrist subjects himself to a journey of researching just what people think is happiness. One of several views in the movie seems to define the feeling for me, "Is happiness not the sum total of lots of small joys and pleasures?”  ― François Lelord, Hector and the Search for Happiness  I'll bet you can think of ten moments right now in your memory that compile a swell of happiness in you.

        

Egrets returning to Michigan

       Okay, listen up, and I mean that – listen inside you, a tune you know very well, while I tell you a special story of happiness.

       We were walking across the beautiful Lake Lansing Park near our home on a chilly morning when a child, a girl maybe 8 or 9 years old ran past us. She was on a mission. She ran into the depths of the wooden play structure at the south end of the park, a temple, a great cathedral for play.

        In the center of the structure is a large simple xylophone. I imagined this child in the early

morning rushing through a bowl of colorful cereal thinking over and over on what she was about to do. I imagined her raising the hammer above those heavy metal strips, first cautiously – two notes to start, up one, and up again another – two strikes, then gentle steps back down as she continued to play the song, until emotion filled in us as it must have in the composer.
       This song of victory, of nations, of workers humming in labor, this song presented by a child, rang out across the lake forcing every molecule in the cloud-like morning fog to echo the centuries old cry of Beethoven’s powerful Ode to Joy!

       Now I am happy to think that you have read and perhaps sing again this treasured piece. As Donovan Leitch reminded us, "happiness runs in a circular motion, thought is but a tiny boat upon the sea, every body is a part of everything anyway, you can be happy if you let yourself be".

Thanks as always for stopping by. I recently took a big step for me and opened a Facebook account. Fascinating.

love, helene (please check out A Homestead Decade, How Crunchy Granola Changed My Life, Amazon e-book, cheap 2.99)

E.H. Rusk, artist, Preserved Living Gifts In Her Paintings

       We’ve almost eaten all the pickles. The sweet salsa tomatoes are all gone as are the stewed tomatoes that perked up vegetable soups and Italian sauces. One half-pint spiced blueberry jam sits yet on the shelf looking a bit bewildered. We have consumed the carefully preserved foods from 2014.

       We know new produce will soon “come on” fast. Peas first, then beans – little surprises under large green leaves – tomatoes will tease with tiny yellow blossoms, then tiny green globes. But these take so long we may become complacent until they ripen and for the love of life itself, you better be ready for the beautiful, brilliant, succulent, . . . you get the idea. If you are canning tomatoes this year start planning now.

       This week I had an epiphany about preserving all this beauty when we happened on an estate sale in our area. The sale consisted of mostly art, oil paintings, from the hand of an elderly English professor at the university, Elizabeth Hartley Rusk. She took to still life works. I imagined her enthusiasm as she discovered light direction and its shadowy impact on the fruits and container forms in her paintings. How she might have gathered her “models” for these pieces – pots and bottles and pitchers of all sorts. How she chose the varied colors of grapes and apples and peaches.

     We could not resist. We selected some of these beauties to bring home appreciating the artist’s fine efforts she gave to her art. Then, in a flash, I realized that these paintings, works that were carefully crafted compelling us to look at them and see, may be the ultimate experience of preserving foods.

Thank you for coming back. I had to complete a big project leaving this little blog for a while. Please come again soon and thank you for the increase in sales of A Homestead Decade, How Crunchy GranolaChanged My Life, we were delighted with the personal notes from some of you.

 In Peace,

Helene

Paintings by Elizabeth Hartley Rusk, English professor from Michigan State University
passed in 2010 at the age of 98

Ah, WINTER

Winter may try to

rule our sorry selves,

no match, my dear, for the

laughter of children

and happy dog.

Love, 

Helene

Thankful for Special Gifts

Hello again – I’m happy you returned. I wanted to tell you so much since we were together but always some interruption, then a large box came into our life. Last week we were in one of those plowing through the to-do lists, stirring the pot with a nasty mix of worries, when the doorbell rang.

A box lay against the door as the delivery agent hopped in her truck. An unexpected gift from beloved friends. We carefully opened the box to a note, “From the Farm”.

A large bouquet of natural grasses including broom corn, wheat stalks, some delicate other and one large dried Hydrangea blossom carefully huddled in anticipation of the coming praise. The bouquet spoke dramatically of the bond this friendship has over many years.

But wait, there is a smell, a rich deep earthly animal smell: a small rolled bag in the corner of the box stuffed with a ball of white wool. We drew in healthy breaths of the pheromones and imagined the low barn light, soft chawing from the belly of contented sheep laying comfortably in recently harvested straw – oh my, there is no other full memory than this, all the senses merging into this wonderful gift from the farm.

Now there is something grand to be thankful for, thank you, dear friends Sue and Ron.

To learn about the experiences that brought us to this good gift, treat yourself to a laugh and a moment of thoughtfulness about living close to the land while learning to do a business that goes national, check out the Amazon Kindle book, A Homestead Decade, How Crunchy Granola Changed My Life, cheap 2.99. Thank you and wishing you a bountiful Thanksgiving.

love, Helene

Listen to the Music of Fine Preserving

They are so pretty, those singing jars of pickles and tomato salsa, golden peach jam, apples and spicy blueberries. Each with one tiny song – a little “ping” as the heated jars cool on the counter. The sight and song is part of the reward of canning summer food for winter enjoyment.

This year we could not resist the bounty and gathered a little of this and a little of that for a steady accumulation of these pleasures, forgetting the really hard work that goes into this type of preserving food. We started with blueberries and ended with cinnamon apples.

A five-pound box of tasty Michigan blueberries called for that favorite recipe from the treasured  FinePreserving by Catherine Plagemann. Find all the little half-pint jelly jars, buy some caps and rings, sugar and spice, set it all up for a long look at the interesting art installation.

Apples are easy thanks to the hand cranked apple peeler/corer. Place the fresh apple on the spike, turn the handle and watch the long strips of peel stream into the refuse bowl. To fully enjoy apples this way, ask a three year old to join you. You will have delights to last your lifetime.

Tomatoes are the hard ones. This year the little garden could not produce tomatoes. In our frustration we went to the market and bought a half bushel of big red globes.

Tomatoes come on in a rush which is why eating while planning just what to do with them diminishes the crop before they are preserved. Oh those luscious, wet dribbles spilling out of slices on a plate with just a dash of salt, mmm wonder full, simply full of wonder.

Then the work begins, the mission: garden salsa. Drop tomatoes one at a time in boiling water then into a big bowl of ice water, peel and nibble, peel and cut, keep moving. Fill up vessels of chopped tomatoes with onions, garlic, peppers, a little celery, spices, vinegar and a bit of sugar. Keep moving. Drain. Heat in a pot. Get the jars ready (or containers for freezing when the can part of canning gets to be too much). Prepare a hot water bath for the jars. What the heck, this is a lot of work.

I am very aware that each canning season may be my last, aware that in the disbursement of goods from passing elders, the jars of their preserves are often divvied up among the living loved ones giving us real food for thought. I am aware that these small colorful memories including the immense joy of seeing amazement in young bright eyes at their first experience saving food will last a lifetime.

Ping. One by one the cooling jars one-note at us as we lay exhausted on the sofa. Yeah. It’s worth it.

Thanks for stopping by. I hope you get a chance to read my memoir book about the time I learned all this stuff, A Homestead Decade, How Crunchy Granola Changed My Life, Amazon Kindle 2.99. If you like it, please write a review. Enjoy this beautiful Autumn. Love your people every day.

affectionately,

Helene