Friday, October 31, 2008

A month is a loooong time.

Really, how can it be that I haven't posted for basically the entire month? Twitter is faking me out it seems.

There's oh so much to say. For now I shall give you my day's labor:

OK, so the dragon was a leftover. The Wall-E and the wood fairy took me days, and believe you me you so don't want to be spending any amount of time in my house right now, but oh all so worthy of the effort. They were both so happy. Some things are always worth doing well and Halloween is one of them.

Thursday, October 02, 2008

Photographical Regurgitation

Found the entire month of September on the photo card today. Here's the scoop:

Veggies, veggies and more veggies: (example of our weekly box from the farm)


Saved from languishing unloved: (did I mention that we moved the parents for the third time this year?)

More handspun from my friend Meg's roving. This is from Eenie's lamb fleece.


And yes, soup has again made it's seasonal debut in the dinner rotation.

This is my mom's white bean with ham. It's easy peasy and SO good. Here's how you too can have beanie goodness:

What you need:
1 bag of white beans
1 leftover bone from a ham or a couple of ham hocks
2 bay leaves
1 large chopped onion
4-5 peppercorns
salt
butter
olive oil for finishing (optional)

1) Soak the entire bag of dried white beans overnight. Drain and rinse in the morning. Soak them again in fresh water until mid-afternoon.

2) Saute the onion in a bit of butter until translucent. Do this right in your big soup pot.

3) Add the ham bones, re-drained and re-rinsed beans, bay leaves and peppercorns. Cover with water. Bring to a simmer and let bubble along happily until the beans are soft and beginning to break down. Stir frequently. Add liquid as needed.

4) Fish out the bones. With a stick blender, puree the soup a bit. You still want to have whole beans floating around though. Chop up any bits of ham still clinging to the bones. Stir it back in. Taste and season with salt and pepper.

5) We serve with a drizzle of olive oil on top. You can skip it if you like, but you'll be missing out.