A Peek into Our Day

Showing Adam how to write the letter "A". He did super well for his first time!

Our garden pickings this week included the first tomatoes and cucumbers! Looks like we should be making some pickles later this week. Also, we got two summer squash which went out to the roadside stand. 

Lunch was zucchini patties (click here for recipe). So delicious! I could've made twice as much and devoured them all.

The kids enjoyed some leftovers from the much-needed rains we got the last couple days.

Playing hide-and-seek under blankets. 💕 Her smile is so charming, and her giggles of delight music to the ears!

 I did some research on a few topics, including my two budding hobbies. Hard cheese making, and sourdough bread. Of course this meant browsing some websites for money spending opportunities on some needed supplies. I'm waiting to start a sourdough starter until tonight, and the cheese might be awhile still until I'm ready to dive into that, since I need a few things first, including Aaron to make me a dutch cheese press.

Skimming cream for butter making!

I had a feeling the butter was going to be done soon, but continued to keep my back turned until this happened. I was RIGHT THERE, too. This wasn't the first time my butter has exploded everywhere, either. After the first time (a couple weeks ago), I decided to always pull the mixer away from the wall so any potential spills would land on the tabletop. Of course this was the one time I forgot to do that since the first episode. 

And at this moment my cheese was also done and ready to be squeezed out and salted, and baby woke up. So I left the butter and the cheese and headed to the living room for some baby cuddles. As I sat there soaking up the love, a chipmunk popped out from under one of our couches. I sat there watching until he finally saw me and darted back. HOW DID HE GET IN OUR HOUSE???? I grabbed a stick to poke and prod around back there and try to chase him out the front door. Of course Adam woke from his nap in this time, and excitedly joined us in the chipmunk hunting. Mr. Chipmunk was pretty terrified being chased around the back of the couches, but I'm pretty sure he ended up racing out the front door to his hole at the bottom of the porch. 

While I'm not the least bit excited that we had a chipmunk in the house, this may just confirm that yesterday's signs of a critter indoors was probably not a rat, as I had presumed. 

After all that, I went to finish rinsing the butter, and packaged away nearly two pounds!

And I finished the mozzarella cheese curds and stuck them away in the freezer so we can still eat pizza and casseroles when we have less milk available.

Not pictured: Random other moments like laundry, washing dishes, cleaning off one of my bulk food shelves in the kitchen, eating chocolate, and wondering what to make for supper. 

New addition

We are so excited to welcome another little baby to our family this winter! 

Current stats (since everybody likes to be nosey):

Gestation: 18 weeks.                                                                                 

Mom feels: Great! Sometimes a little extra tired, though.                          

Cravings: Hmm. Veggies I guess! Thankful for garden season.    :)          

Baby is: Pretty active.                                                                                

                                   

Summer Squash {plus recipe for zucchini patties}

We have been harvesting summer squash this week! 

This spring I planted four zucchini seeds, enough to supply us with some for fresh eating. About two days later my neighbor asked me if I needed any zucchini or yellow squash plants because she had a bunch she didn't need. I thought it would be nice to have some yellow squash to add another color to our summer meals, so I said I'd take one of them. Next thing I knew, my husband came across the yard with a 5-gallon pail full of plants from our neighbor! She didn't know which plants were what variety, so rather than guessing, she just sent them all.... 😳 And I planted them in my garden. All 16 of them. 

Because her plants had been started way before mine, they are a bit ahead, and have been bearing fruit already. I figured if nothing else I will be able to set up our roadside stand early to help get rid of some of it, since we don't need any more in our freezer.

But first, I have been trying to satisfy my cravings for fresh vegetables. One of my favorite summer dishes (although I've made it in the wintertime using frozen, shredded zucchini, too), is zucchini latkes, or zucchini pancakes, or patties, or fritters... whichever name you prefer to call them. A quick look on Google tells me Latke is more accurate, since most people add twice as many ingredients to their zucchini "Pancakes" as I do, while the recipes I've seen for Latkes are very similar to mine. A latke is basically just the yiddish word for pancake, although they usually make them from shredded potato, rather than grains like is popular for a pancake here in America. But I'll just call them patties, as I feel like that is meeting in the middle with a term everybody knows.

Now that we have that little tidbit of useless information out of the way, let me tell you how good these are!

They're addicting.

Need I say more? I have never tasted zucchini as yummy as I have in a zucchini patty. Not even fresh, warm zucchini bread slathered in butter compares. (Did I just say that?)

I was first introduced to them while under my parent's roof as a teenager, and I have no idea where my mom (or sister) found the recipe, but for years I didn't know of anyone else who made them. Then as an adult I spent a summer in Japan, and one morning I was served fresh zucchini pancakes as part of a breakfast smorgasbord, and they were as good as ever! They tasted just like how we made them back home, only my family always ate them with ketchup (except dad who likes his with applesauce), and in Japan we dipped them in soy sauce. Now when I make them myself I vary which dipping sauce I use depending on my mood. Either ketchup or soy sauce pairs nicely with these!

Here's how I make mine:

Zucchini Patties

1 medium zucchini, shredded

1 egg 

1/2 tsp. salt

1/2 tsp. onion powder

dash pepper

1/3-1/2 cup flour 

Stir all the ingredients together, adding enough flour to soak up moisture from the zucchini. The longer zucchini sits, the more water seeps out of it, so you may need to add more right before cooking. The flour also helps hold the patty together.

Heat skillet over medium heat until warmed through. Drizzle somewhat generously with olive oil to keep the patties from sticking. Drop batter onto preheated skillet, making each patty about 3-4 inches in diameter. Let cook until the bottom is brown and crispy and sides start getting cooked. Flip them over, and let the other side cook until done. 

Serve with ketchup, soy sauce, or eat as is!

Now my mouth is watering, and I really want to go cook up today's picking into some of these! Yum!

{a day late}

"Knee high by the fourth of July"

Here in Michigan, this is how farmers gauge how well their corn is growing. 

We have two holidays for this vegetable crop ... plant around Memorial Day, and it should be knee-high by July 4th. Our first planting is that tall and better, compared to my [short] legs. Our second planting is behind by almost two weeks, which we were hoping for so we could space out the pickings for our roadside stand, and to give us a longer corn-on-the-cob eating season!