Signs of spring!

Well, in our minds anyway. All of our lovely "warm" (I use that term loosely) days have graduated into over cast and damp. Supposed to snow tomorrow.

But! That does not stop the intrepid Pfannenstiel household! We've had a busy weekend so far.

I made ricotta for a pan of manicotti for tomorrow. Homemade manicotti is lovely at this time of the year. Warm and filling. Making ricotta is actually pretty easy. Boil milk and salt, add lemon juice, skim of curds and then drain them. On the right in the following picture is the boiling curds and whey, on the left is the draining ricotta. The cheese cloth is the extra fancy, cut up pillowcase variety!


And the finished ricotta. It will be enough for a pan of manicotti. Could also make a pan of lasagna with it! 8 cups of milk produced 3 1/2 cups of whey and about 1# of dry ricotta.

So what do you do with all that whey? They organic milk we use is EXPENSIVE, and I was loathe to throw out the whey. So I made bread with it! Farm house white from an recipe on the internet. It calls for 4 cups of water or milk, and I used my 3 1/2 cups of whey and added an extra half cup of milk. The recipe makes three large loaves of bread. So, for 1 gallon of organic milks ($7.00) plus some flour ($2.00's worth rounding up). I got a pound of ricotta (about $6.00 a pound at the local italian store), and 3 loaves of excellent bread ($5.00 each from the bakery); a savings of $12.00! Bread pictured below, right before it went into the oven.

And we also started our seeds!

Yeah dirt!

Andrew putting seeds in. We started 3 kinds of tomatoes (roma, cherry, and golden) plus ground cherries (supposed to be good for jam and pie) and brussels sprouts!


The cat food cans and trays

And up on the shelves. The shelves are actually in the nursery, because it is the warmest room in the house (we use a space heater for Zach). Andrew is going to add the lights this afternoon! And the diploma is going to come down, because I don't think the seeds are going to be nearly as impressed with my doctorate as I am!


And throughout all of our chores this morning, Zach remained cute as ever!

I sorta took this one upside down.


Pushing our lion along!

Goings on at the end of Feb

Despite some persistently cold damp weather we are preparing for Spring! The seeds are going into seed starter this weekend. This has been a surprisingly complex project. Several options are available for starting seeds, including starter kits from Home Depot, direct sowing, and the cobbled together way Andrew and I are doing it.

I've been saving cat food cans for a month (trust me, that's a lot of cans). We are going to put holes in the bottom of them, put seed starter and seeds in them, then place the cans in 4 sided cookie sheets (bought special for this project), and place them on the shelves Andrew and Zach assembled this past weekend. We have lights to go over the seeds to help keep them warm and grow appropriately. We will then water them by putting water in the cookie sheet and allowing capillary action to draw up only the water the seeds and starter need. We suspect this process is going to go on for about the next 2 months. We will then spend a week hardening the babies off, and then plant!


Shelves, good for climbing!

Zach has become fascinated with his ball this week.

We are much more brave about standing and cruising this week too.

And, drumroll please, we've finally learned how to crawl. Of course, Zach knows what the camera is, and then drops and won't crawl but mugs and looks cute instead. So, this was the best shot I could get!

It's Saturday, the band is playing..

Honey could we ask for more? It is the Praire Home Companion Spring Show and we are feeling it here in Freehold also.

Today has been a typical suburban Saturday at the Pfannenstiel house. Zach slept through the night for the first time in a week. He's been going through a growth spurt and teething. Therefore he's needed some extra snuggles and formula in the middle of the night. But, he's gained at least a pound, and the following pictures are in 18 month clothes.

Now, surrounding Andrew show the fruits of our labors today. I made an excellent wheat bread (2 loaves), we are having pizza for dinner, and Zach's food is in the ice cube tray. What you can't see are Andrew's trips to Home Depot for garage organizing, the supermarket for groceries and the collective nap to recover!

I am also in the process of setting up my crafting corner. The Bernina (thanks MaryAnn!) is out of storage and waiting. I ordered some hemp cloth, PUL and Fold Over Elastic to make wee diaper covers for the new baby, and some larger diaper covers for Zach. Even with S&H, I figure if I make 12 diaper covers for Zach out of the PUL and hemp, they'll be about a third of the price of the diaper covers we have been using.

However, as part of the setting up process I unpacked a box of crafting stuff that has been sitting there since I left Athens, GA. Oi vey. I had the Gordian Knot of yarn. Yarn left overs from every knitting project I've done since I knit a blanket for Memere in 1993 or 94 was in one big intractable lump. Now, that blanket is home with me, and is quite warm for mommas and babies. But, did I really need to keep the 15 grams of yarn left over? Or the pink yarn that I seriously over bought for Katie Madison's blanket? I have 2 skeins left! I have yarn that I can't identify! I have acrylic, soft and scratchy. I have wool, dark heathers, bulky and warm (and really impractical for the human furnace that I married). I have cottons and blends. And after 30 minutes of work that I've been avoiding for about 4 years, the yarn is unknotted and I am working on putting it away. I just know there's a metaphor in there some where.

Down By the Riverside...

I ain't gonna study war no more! Well folks, it is has finally happened. My days in the Army are coming to a close. I start to out process on Monday! I have two weeks of paperwork, VA visits, and assorted bureaucracy and I am outta there. I have enough accrued leave and convalescent leave for the pregnancy to get me out well before my final out date (when I really will be out of there) on June 5. However, I am effectivly off work in the Army for good starting on March 7th! Yeah!! And a big thank you to everyone who put up with my tears, whining, and general irritation with my job. I am sure I learned something, I am just not sure what.

So where does that leave us? Well, I am going to be a stay at home mom for a while! I am going to take over the family finances, spend plenty of time in the garden, take Zach and the dog for walks, make dinner, prep for the baby, and do all sorts of things. One of my first tasks is going to be to get a handle on our assets and spend some time studying optimal asset allocation and move money around.

You'll be happy to know that this plan will leave plenty of time for pictures and blogging!

Kovi making sure Zach stays put

Oh! Mom has lots of fun hair to pull!

26 week belly shot. Umm, just how much bigger am I going to get?

February is a long month

I know that sounds absurd, but think about it. The days are short, unless you are my brother and live TX or my Goddaughter in FL, spring is at least a month off. And then won't really come till after mud season. As I write this, it is alternating between snow and rain over here. Everyone has cabin fever. At least in March, even if there is a blizzard we can pretend we aren't in winter any more. Not so in February.

So, what is a modern mom supposed to do? Seed therapy (mentioned a couple of posts ago). Planning the garden is currently keeping me from going around the bend. I love the idea of building raised beds with Andrew, and thinking about how we are going to approach our yard so as to maximize the following: Flower happiness, tomatoes for canning (going to learn how to can this year), purple potatoes for chips, lotsa garlic (this actually got planted in Nov as a hedge in case Plan A didn't work), herbs, beans for eating and freezing, and the ever popular brussels sprouts!

Plus, I am looking forward to chasing Zach around the yard! And if we are really lucky, a small play station/swingset might appear.

And here are some pics of Andrew and Zach at the end of the day!

Happy Homemaking!

So, I've had a four day weekend (thanks Uncle Sam!) and boy have I been busy.

For the maple buttermilk pie mentioned last blog, I decided that I would make my own buttermilk and butter (for the crust). Turning heavy cream into buttermilk and butter is actually a pretty easy, but sorta messy. Thus, it is the perfect Michele kitchen project! 1 quart of heavy cream makes the equivalent of 3 sticks of butter and 2 cups of fresh buttermilk via the work of one standing mixer and 10 minutes. If you've never had fresh butter and buttermilk from grade A butter, you don't know what you are missing. It is FANTASTIC. It is also economical.

Andrew and I figured that 1 quart of heavy cream costs $3. 1 pound of butter (if you don't get it on sale) can vary between $2.50 and $4.00. 1 quart of buttermilk (and who EVER uses all of it?) costs $2.50. So, there is a savings right there! And with said standing mixer you can make all sorts of yummy things with the buttermilk (I made the pie and biscuits). The rest of the buttermilk will be used tomorrow in our hot oatmeal for breakfast. And then there is all that yummy butter for toast and things!

In addition, inspired by my mother who has been knitting circles around me for a year now, I picked up my knitting project; a hat for Andrew. I can't believe it took me about 45 minutes to finish. It's been 18 months since I looked at it!! AIGH.

But here are the results of my efforts and my mom's latest!

Suburban Adventures

As part of Plan C in these parts, Andrew and I are going to try to save money by making more of our own food. Thus far, this has created one rather adventuresome afternoon.

For Valentine's Day I wanted to make Andrew a Maple Buttermilk Pie. My dad made one last fall and it was quite yummy. However, the recipe calls for Grade B syrup, which is expensive (though why, as a lower grade than A it is more expensive than A is a bit of a mystery. It isn't like you overcook Grade A to make Grade B). It being February in NJ, I thought I would try to find a local source for maple syrup. Through Local Harvest I located a fairly close producer, got in touch with him and arranged to head out there.

Oh my. Now, while my standards of tidy-ness are not say my mother's or my Aunt Lorraine's, I still believe in keeping things picked up, and I am working on getting in the habit of making the bed every day (it's coming slowly Mom!). However, I am a federal food inspector these days and this place was A Mess as even my dad would label it. Several rusting hulks of cars, 18 wheelers, Caterpillars, and other assorted junk. The house on the property looked like something out of a bad gothic novel. However, I was in uniform (assulting an Army officer is a felony), it was the middle of the day, and I had my finger on Andrew's speed dial.

Thus prepared, I followed the farmer through the gate. Rust colored puddles of oily water mixtures were on the ground. I had previously talked to him about buying eggs and he'd brought 2 dozen with him. While I would like to say that I was so shocked by the conditions of the place that I didn't buy the eggs, I was too embarassed to tell him that I didn't want them. I figured I could always make egg salad out of them.

He told me to come back to the trailer where his production took place. Swallowing hard, I followed him. As we went deeper into the rust piles, through a maze of total junk, I started noticing an odor. Let's call it eau de dead rat. Holy cow. Here I am buying FOOD from this guy! I go into the trailer where he makes the syrup and see what he's offering. I rather feel like an international arms dealer at this point. But, the syrup looks ok, and I buy a few bottles. We walk out and make small talk. I pay for my purchases and hurry out of there.

But, as I write this blog, the pie is cooking in the oven. The making of the pie will be a story for another day though. Suffice it to say that I did just about everything except mill the flour myself.

And here is a belly pic of me at 25 weeks. I am a little stuck out because I am trying to hold my 24 pound son, but good grief! I didn't really know I was that big!

Working around the house

OK, so Andrew and I have now moved on to Plan C. We spent some time talking to architects about possible renovations of the house to create a master bathroom and a larger master suite. The cost is going to be prohibitivly expensive considering what we are going to be able to sell our house for, in any market, let alone this one. So, after considering the opportunity cost of that huge chunk of change, we are going with a new plan! We are going to concentrate on creating an outdoors that we can spend more time in and enjoy.

This fits quite nicely with our concept of "Suburban Homesteading". While, I recieved the nix on chickens from the Department of Health, we are going spend some time and money learning how to seriously garden and grow food. To that end, we ordered seeds today from Seed Savers Exchange and I have started saving cans from the cat food to start seeds in! We bought some fluorescent lighting and some shelving as well, now we just need to find some room in the basement to put everything up!


And of course, Zach needs to help around the house. Here he is before today's nap taking spoons out of the dishwasher just as fast as I put them in!

Fun with spaghetti

I love introducing new foods! Andrew and I had spaghetti for dinner a couple of days ago and Zach has been quite taken with the results!

Many adventures

As many of you know, I love to cook. As part of our suburban homesteading project I am going start cooking a bit more. We figure that bread is a pretty good place to economize. I am a whiz at making it, and yummy bread makes a cold day warmer. This is an example of the 18 hour bread from the Bitten column in the NYT in 2006. It requires very little work, but a lot of time. And boy is it yummy! This is probably the most photogenic loaf of bread I've ever made.

Zach is learning to stand. He can't quite pull himself up yet, but, if one of us stands him up, he will stay there for a long time!

Destructo-Boy. He actually managed to kill the lamp. Fortunatly Dad had the foresight to take out the bulb.

Oh, am I not supposed to eat paper Mom??

Learning and Exploring!

Learning and exploring is for everyone! We've had a good week here. We are settling in to the idea that we are going to be here for a while, and are starting to make plans that will help us to be excited about staying.

Plans we are excited about-
This weekend we are going to start to plan our garden and order seeds from heirloom seed companies (not sure which ones yet).

We are also going to continue on the basement painting project. The hope is that on Sunday we will move our work table to the basement, and that will be the start of my crafting area. I am looking forward to having the sewing machine out and available! My first project is going to be to sew some diaper covers for the new baby. All our diaper covers were a tad large for Zach when we brought him home from the hospital. Ergo, he was in disposables for about a month. We are going to try to save that money this go around and use cloth diapers from the word go.


Zach's new favorite place to crawl around in is our coffee table.

And out we go!

It's February!!

Well, we have had an adventuresome week. Due to market forces and a house around the corner going on the market at a ridiculously low price, we are staying put and not going anywhere for a while. Instead, we are adopting Plan B, and looking into renovating the house and creating a master suite with a bathroom. That way when we re list in a few years, we would relist as a 3bd 3 bath with 2 nice big bedrooms. I am hoping that this makes the house more marketable.

So, in the short term, that means we stop packing, take a look around and figure some things out. Andrew and I are both picking some consolation projects to work on. He's going to brew Plan B beer, and I am really hoping it isn't going to be a bitter! I am going to start a knitting project of some kind.


But mean while, Zach is as cute as ever! He's trying very hard to pull himself up onto anything. He can only get to his knees right now, but standing and cruising is coming soon!

Peek a Boo!

Look Mom! Toys!

Oh, did you want that in the drawer Mom? I was helping.



And some of the new baby boy! He's bouncing around and doing great.