Nurturning a Pioneer Spirit: De Mystifying Food Canning

The Appeal of Home Food Canning.


Home Food Canning holds an appeal similar to that of baking.

It's relatively easy and often very inexpensive.

As well...

it can become an enjoyable, productive and money saving experience...

shared by family and friends.


If you have yet to fill a jar with something fresh from the earth...

and enjoyed it at a later date...

click on the video link below...

It will de-mystify this mundane miracle....

and put you on the path to your own canned goodness.

YouTube - Home Canning Basics - Part 1- Introduction

Real Food Is Soul Food | Food Renegade

One of my favorite reads is The Real Food blog, written by The Food Renegade.

Several weeks ago it posted a fantastic article about the Soul of Real Food.

Here is a short excerpt:

"Real Food is old and traditional. It’s sustainably grown, organic, and local. And it nourishes the soul as well as the body.

That’s because finding, cooking, and eating Real Food is a craft. I once heard that cooking was the only art form that uses all five senses. It engages the whole person, and as such rewards the whole person. Preparing Real Food isn’t just about good nutrition or ethics. It’s about becoming the people we are meant to be, becoming more fully human..."

Read the entire article (and, believe me, it's worth the short amount of time) by clicking the link below:

Real Food Is Soul Food | Food Renegade

Lesson From History: The Dignity of Making Ends Meet

A beautiful little reminder from one of my favorite food blogs.

Lesson From History: The Dignity of Making Ends Meet

Even nonstick pans need some seasoning | HeraldTribune.com | Sarasota Florida | Southwest Florida's Information Leader

Even nonstick pans need some seasoning | HeraldTribune.com | Sarasota Florida | Southwest Florida's Information Leader

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Swap Neighborhood Fruit! Visit neighborhoodfruit.com

This is a lovely way to swap Neighborhood Fruit! Neighborhood Fruit is an organization designed to help you find backyard fruit and share your bounty with your neighbors. They believe that cities resplendent with edibles are better places to live, and sharing with neighbors is a great way to get there. Through their mediated online platform, you can find fruit in any quantity you want. We hope you let others know about it.


Welcome to Neighborhood Fruit! | neighborhoodfruit.com

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CREATE A SUMMER-KITCHEN...IN THE GARDEN?

Vintage
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Below is an excerpt from Frugal Luxuries, published by Bantam Books, NY, 1997
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Lingering Wisdom

"May I a small house and large garden have;

And a few friends, and many books, both true;

Both wise, and both delightful too!"

--Abraham Cowley, The Wish
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" If you are involved in the art of preserving foods, you might find yourself bent over a hot stove during the warmest months of the year. Take a cue from the past and set up your own version of a summer kitchen in a shady area near the garden. This is done by using your camp stove to blanch vegetables and to simmer and seal jars of jams, jellies, and preserves. You may use a small, clean child's wading pool to wash your produce beforehand. When you are finished, simply drain the pool water into your garden."
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Note: All kinds of tasks may be made more pleasant when taken out of doors.
Monica at The Homespun Heart took her ironing board to the garden last month and watched her children play as she performed this often dreaded chore.
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What are some of your tricks for transforming mundane tasks into more pleasurable events??

Growing (Self-Watering) Heirloom Tomatoes in a Teeny...Tiny... Garden.

Recently, my friend Cindy over at Dirt Du Jour posted about a successful, frugal, water-saving technique for growing Heirloom Tomatoes in containers called...

The Earth Tainer TM .

A Revolutionary Alternative in Container Gardening...
Self-Watering and sturdy enough to grow heirloom tomatoes.

Here's the catch...

You cannot buy it... you must make it yourself.


If you're interested in knowing more,


the nice folks who designed The Earth Tainer


offer detailed instructions on how to make it....

for FREE.

Heirloom tomatoes

Originally uploaded by LensENVY


Click HERE to learn how download FREE instructions or...

to watch the FREE how-to video.

Broken Stemware... Onions... and... Bell Jars.

A Simple... Green... Way to Grow Windowsill Chives.

You might want to think twice before discarding those sprouted onions...

...and pretty pieces of broken stemware.

I save the sprouted onions and snip their green stems (i.e., chives) to use in recipes

such as soups & salads or as a garnish.

A spritz or two of water is all we need to keep them green.

We nestled the onion bulb (on the right) inside a wineglass with a broken stem...

then added a bit of moss (for looks :).

The onion bulb on the right... we set it inside a small iron garden urn!


Oh...notice...yet another way to use the broken wine glass is...


to turn it into a bell jar (as we did in the photo above, on the right).




Frugality...Function...Charm & Whimsy...

all rolled into one little project.

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