First Aid Kit

So I have been looking at first aid kits for a while. Trying to find the right one. One I can add my own stuff to but has what I would want it to have when I buy it. After looking and looking AND LOOKING, I decided to make it myself.

I decided to make two organizers and a bag for my mortar and pestle.


The organizers required a bit more thought then the mortar and pestle bag did. I wanted a place for some tincture bottles, some essential oils, a bottle of homeopathic arnica, a tea strainer, some teas, ginger chews, all that sort of thing. I also needed places for your typical first-aid supplies, bandages, band-aids, tape, scissors, and such.



The first organizer closed up.


From left to right: Top: Tinctures, band-aids, medical tape, pocket knife
Bottom: Essential Oils, Arnica tablets, gauze, salve


Left to right: Top: tea strainer, folding scissors, tweezers
2nd Row: ACE bandage, nail clippers
3rd Row: thermometer, sling
Bottom Pocket: cotton swabs, cotton balls, teas, ginger pieces, matches,
extra material, etc.

I am really happy with the way they came out. I bought an army messenger bag from Amazon. In the beginning I was planning on making pockets in the bag itself, but this worked out much nicer I think.

Problem Solved

I dry my herbs by hanging them on sticks. I then hang the sticks out in the garage from the rafters until the herbs are dry. While I am placing the herbs on and taking them off the stick, I am in my living room as it has the biggest clearest space for working. My biggest problem with this arrangement is; Where do I put the stick while I am trying to work? I would usually try to hang it from the cabinets, my pan rack, and various other things, much to my dismay and the dismay of those around me. But, no more. My husband surprised me with a rack he made out of a pallet. I painted it. It looks better then it did unpainted, but I will be the first to admit painting is not a strong point of mine.



This is what it looked like when we first hung it, but it swung to much so we had to rethink our hanging method. I have no idea why we thought that was going to work, but as soon as I put the stick up there we knew it wasn't going to be okay.



This is the final result we decided on two lengths of chain so that we could keep it up high when it's not in use, and lower it so that I can actually reach it when I am using it.



All in all we are very happy with it, and it didn't cost me a thing except the price of the chains which was like 5 dollars. I am especially happy that I will not have to play "hang the stick" with the kitchen cabinets anymore!

Apples and Cinnamon in Brandy

So we are on week 4 of The Nourished Kitchen's Preserve the Bounty Challenge. This week was preserving in alcohol and I had a very hard time deciding what I was going to do. I finally settled on Apples (since I had just gotten a bunch from my CSA) with some cinnamon chips in brandy. I think I will have to try this with a few more fruits before the season is over!!

I am aware that this is a rather short blog but I really have nothing else to say about this, except it looks incredible and I can't wait to try it!!

Presevering in Vinegar

This week, as part of the challenge from Nourished Kitchen, I tried my hand at preserving in vinegar. (Also known as pickling.) This was great as I have a lot of cucumbers right now. I know that it is neither particularly interesting or different, but as I said I have a lot of cucumbers so it just seemed the thing to do. I added celery seed, mustard seed, peppercorns, a bay leaf, and some crushed leaves of Thia Basil. I'm not exactly sure why I chose these spices (and herbs), they just sounded good to me at the time. Pickling is seriously probably one of the easiest ways to preserve things and it's awful tasty too!!

Preserving in Oil

So I am participating in The Nourished Kitchen's Preserve the Bounty Challenge. This week the challenge was oil preservation. I was really hoping to do eggplant, because it sounded so yummy, but I didn't see any at the farm stand I was at. So I bought a few more tomatoes. I have bought an awful lot of those lately, but considering I wasn't really expecting to do this and my weekly budget was already kind of tapped, I didn't have a whole lot of options. I definitely want to try this technique with some eggplants when I find some.

The process itself was pretty straight forward. I used some tomato wine, (my husband's boss made it and gave us some and it went to vinegar) in place of the bit of cider vinegar. I thought it might be a nice touch. I also went out and raided my Thai Basil plant that is in my garden of quiet a few of it's leaves. I probably won't be able to raid it for a while again. (oops.)
The oil was olive oil.

It looks super tasty. Can't wait to try it.

Eating in Season

Eating in season is something I have been trying very hard to incorporate into my family's life. We do fairly well for the most part but we continually try to do better. We belong to a wonderful CSA here in Vermont, Maplewood Organics. They supply us with heavenly produce all summer long and we occasionally buy some of their grass-fed beef. (Okay, enough of the shameless plugs.) Well today was a pick up day and I found myself with a mid sized bundle of kale, among other things. Now normally all kale in this house is systematically turned into kale chips and almost instantaneously inhaled by my children. My son enjoys it so much that he is growing a kale plant in our garden. We decided, however that today we had way too much to be turning into chips so we stopped off at the farm stand and grabbed some tomatoes and made some Tomato and Kale Pesto Pizza. This pizza is a real treat and easy to do!!

The dough I used is a standard pizza dough recipe. If you don't have a standard dough recipe you like to make, I am sure a quick search will yield tons of results. Once you have your dough together then:

Preheat oven to 350.

2 cups (packed) of fresh kale
3 cloves garlic or 3 garlic scapes
1/3 cup sunflower seeds
1/4 cup olive oil
2/3 cup ricotta cheese
2 cups sliced tomatoes (seeded, if you like)
2 oz. fresh mozzarella cheese

Make a pesto with the kale, garlic, sunflower seeds and olive oil in a food processor. Transfer the kale pesto to a medium mixing bowl and mix in the ricotta. Take your pie crust and spread the kale pesto cheese mixture all over it. (Leaving a border of about an inch or two.) Then top with the sliced tomatoes and then the fresh mozzarella.Bake for about 15-20 minutes or until cheese is melted and the crust is cooked. Allow the pie to rest for about 5 minutes before cutting.

The summer is SO GOOD!

Lacto-fermented Ketchup

This weekend we bought our second bushel of tomatoes. Since we turned the entire first bushel into tomato sauce for the winter we decided to try our hand at making tomato paste with some of this bushel. The paste came out fairly well, I think will pulverize it next time by using a food processor or something. But it's definitely edible and that's aways a good thing.
I then decided I was going to make some ketchup out of the paste we had made up. I had read somewhere, probably on one of the many food blogs I follow, about being able to make a lacto-fermented ketchup and since I am a fermentation nut I decided that I would give it a try.

There are a bunch of lacto-fermented ketchup recipes online and I just kind of sifted through them and made up my own version of what I thought would A) ferment properly and B) taste good.

This is the recipe I ended up using:
About 16 oz of tomato paste (this is what I had made up to work with)
about 1/4 cup water (you would probably need a bit more if you were using store bought paste.)
3 tablespoons whey (I stole mine from some yogurt I had made.)
1 tablespoon Apple Cider Vinegar
Now this part gets a bit sketchy: I used dry mustard, cinnamon, cloves, allspice, and cayenne pepper. A couple of pinches of each. I used a bit more mustard and cinnamon then I did the others.
1 freshly mince garlic clove
1/4 cup molasses (you could really use any sweetener here either molasses or honey or even sugar if you wanted to.)

I poured all the ingredients in a ceramic bowl. (I would use ceramic or glass, definitely not metal!) Whipped it all together with a wooden spoon and put it in some glass jars. Taste it once in a while while you're making it so you don't over spice (or under spice.) Placed the tops on the jars and let them sit on the counter for 72(ish) hours. This allows it to ferment a bit. After that just store it in your fridge.

Like I said I mostly got this recipe by taking parts of other's recipes here on the Internet. Incorporating the things in the recipes I did have on hand and swapping out things I didn't.
All in all I would say this turned out to be a total success and we will definitely be making this one again.



Both of the kids not only enjoyed making their own ketchup they both enjoy eating it as well!