Chocolate Box Cottage Diary, Volume 2

Week 14: April 9, 2022

We are expecting snow tonight, but summer reigns in the greenhouse and green shoots are appearing, as if by magic, in pots and trays of soil-filled cells . This week saw new life in the form of Red Gem and Kilimanjaro White marigolds, Whirligig zinnias, Candy Pink morning glories, Watermelon Heaven California poppies, Mayo Bule gourds, bitter melon, Echinacea purpurea, Nigella, and Cameo Joy four o’clocks. (Thank you, Donna Sullivan Smith, Miss Magnolias Moxie, for the echinacea seeds!)

Mismatched is beautiful, when you’re a dedicated thrifter! When we moved to Chocolate Box Cottage four years ago, a friend gave me a gorgeous hanging basket geranium, a coveted Martha Washington, with two colors of red/pink blooms. The next year I took cuttings and created two “new” plants using secondhand hanging baskets. All spring/summer/fall our front porch will be ablaze with blooms and my only cost was potting soil.

Comfort Food

Comfort food means something unique to each of us. Certain tastes and smells will always symbolize security, contentment, and well-being. If you have been diagnosed with a health condition, you may find yourself needing to redefine comfort food. Instead of an indulgent food that extracts a physical toll on your well-being, consider what food, or better yet what meal, makes you feel *well* instead of merely *good.*

I’ll share pictures of three of our favorite comfort meals, and would like to hear what your top three comfort meals are. Please share in the comments!

I grew up eating Kase Knoephla, Cheese Button Soup, a German-from-Russia ethnic specialty. Handmade noodle dough is rolled thin and filled, ravioli-style, with cottage cheese and herbs. Mmm! Homemade chicken broth is a must for this. I make and freeze large batches of kase knoephla, enabling me to pull off a quick comfort food meal on a whim.

One of our very favorite comfort meals is whole poached chicken. I roast a tray of root veggies in the oven, cook a pot of brown rice, and add greens. Serve it all in a bowl and slurp it up. Enough food to eat for days!

Pizza made with thin sourdough spelt crust, topped with homemade basil pesto from the freezer, and uncured ham. Another favorite comfort meal.

Check my Recipe Box for more delicious ideas!

Spring Project: Refill the Wood Shed

One load of firewood down, several to go, depending on how much more wood we use before summer.

Locating a pitch stump is like finding treasure. Split into slivers, it can coax a fire along more quickly. Sam often refers to it as “trade wood,” because when he was a boy it was valued as a commodity for trading with friends and neighbors.

Life on the Pond

We have two breeds of ducks, and funnily enough, they take turns using the pond. These are the Indian Runners; one drake and two hens.

Ever since we’ve been married, Sam has occasionally brought me a small bunch of wildflowers when his work as a graderman takes him to mountains and meadows in the spring.

He puts the stems in his travel coffee cup with water and keeps them in his lunch cooler to keep them fresh. I trim the ends of the stems even and stick them right into a small vase, in this case a thrifted cut glass pitcher, without arranging. They’re beautiful as is.

This is something I am learning, albeit s l o w l y, to enjoy the beauty in things “as is.”

I hope you are enjoying things “as is,” too. And don’t forget, I’d like to hear about your top 3 favorite comfort meals.

Thanks for visiting!

Blessings,

Michele

Week 13: April 2, 2022

Ducks and Dandelions

We were anticipating the hatching of a nest of Silver Muscovy ducklings this week. When I say “we,” I mean me. Sam is not as keen on ducks as I am. That’s okay, he has other admirable qualities and he doesn’t mind helping me take care of them.

We had an unexpected visitor to the henhouse, unfortunately, and the eggs have vanished. We suspect an opossum, because we regularly see opossums. It could also have been a fox or raccoon, but it is not likely as we didn’t lose any birds this week.

It is dandelion season, have you noticed? Known scientifically as Taraxacum officinale, the sunny yellow flowers are popping up everywhere. It is a little known secret that dandelions, both leaf and flower, are delicious and useful. Pop them in salads where their sweet/salty/bitter flavor will shine as brightly as their color, offering benefits to the digestive system and liver. Read further to see how I used these sunny yellow flowers in the kitchen! (Link to colander here. And visit my Shopping Guide, too!)

Sam’s major project this weekend was to service the small equipment. The chainsaw, splitting maul, wheelbarrow, lawnmower, weedeater, have been cleaned and oiled; where necessary spark plugs were sanded, blade sharpened, emptied of old fuel and refilled in preparation for service.

Is there anything prettier than sun shining through daffodils?

Indian runner ducks ponder running away. In the morning they make a beeline for the ditch across the way.

Have you ever watched a carpenter bee? They drill tunnels (holes) in my greenhouse, it’s true. They also do the work of pollination. Here in my vintage A-frame greenhouse, this fellow is pollinating blossoms on a Meyer lemon tree. See the teeny, tiny green lemon just above left of the bee?

Basil seedlings in the greenhouse, 5 kinds, for tea, pesto, cooking, and pure pleasure! By planting them a generous distance apart to prevent cross-pollination, I am able to save pure seeds for replanting each year. Except for Pesto Party basil, which is a proprietary variety, a hybrid, developed by Burpee.

Processing wild milkweed seed, Asclepius fascicularis, means rubbing the (brown) seed free of the fluffy floss so that it won’t float away. The seedpods were gathered from plants growing next to a city sidewalk. (This colander gets used a lot.)

We had a special guest join us for tea at Mom’s this week, Joy Longiotti, my mom’s best friend of many years. What fun it was to remember when they were young mothers and I was a “youngster.” Joy bakes wonderful homemade biscotti, which we enjoyed with our tea luncheon.

Joy is the most creative person I know, with talents ranging from sewing and quilting, ceramics, painting, knitting, decorating, baking, and cake decorating, which she did professionally in her own business, Joy’s Creative Kitchen. In fact, she and Mom used to “do” cakes together! Mom baked cakes in round Wilton pans and base iced them, then passed them over to Joy, who did the decorating.

Joy is famous for her wedding cakes. Now retired from baking cakes, she is enjoying renewed interest in quilt making and brought several for Mom and me to ooh and ahh over, and I took pictures to share with you!

Grange Co-Op buddies: Mick McBride (center) and I used to work together at the Central Point store, Michael Villarreal (right) came on later. I stop in whenever I can to see what interesting plants are available.

We are nearing the end of last year’s feta cheese supply that has been stored in brine in the cool storeroom. Homemade feta adds a salty pop of flavor to this scrumptious Dandelion Salad with spring greens served alongside Mexican Meatballs with Creamy Salsa.

Spiralized zucchini and potato noodles step in for pasta frequently on our dinner table. (Link to a good countertop siralizer here.) We love the noodly deliciousness of zucchini mixed with potato. They’re light and filling, both! A generous amount of Freezer Basil Pesto was stirred into the veggie noodles which made a bed for poached wild Atlantic salmon received as a Christmas gift. (Now THAT’S a great gift!)

I hope you enjoyed this leisurely stroll through my week and feel a new zest to enjoy your own. The blessings are there, if we look for them.

Blessings,

Michele

Chocolate Box Cottage Diary Vol. 1
Week 28: July 16, 2021

Happy third week of July! This week was characterized by blackberry pie, zucchini every day, and everlasting yeast. And ducks! Don’t forget the ducks.

After a fun and productive Project Week , Sam went back to work and I resumed the farm chores he had taken on while he was home.

Generally I get up in the morning and take care of the animals first thing, before my Bible reading and cup of tea. That includes feeding and letting the chickens out of the henhouse, saying good morning to the sheep and giving them a treat, checking on the rabbits, and watering the garden/pots/anything else that needs water. And don’t forget the cats and dogs.

The week began on Sunday with a potluck at church in honor of Joyce Dierking, a teacher and friend who returned from a 2-year service term in Papua New Guinea. I wanted to bake a pie, so I pulled a bag of last summer’s blackberries from the freezer.

I generally pick 8-12 gallons of blackberries in the summer to freeze. Sam helps on weekends when he can. Now that it is July, the remaining berries need to be used up.

Zucchini season has begun, and I couldn’t be more thrilled!

Every so often I walk the tomato beds and tuck any stray vines inside the wire cages. This supports good quality fruit. Tomatoes in that rest on the ground are normally nibbled by hoards of hungry, big-eared field mice that call Chocolate Box Cottage home.

Adding more 60 degree diamond star blocks to the quilt in progress!

On weekend evenings we either eat on the porch, if it’s cool enough, or at the tea table in the living room. It’s special enough to feel like a date. We love C.A.T. Salad with Coconut Battered Fish!

Every year I try to invent at least one more crave-worthy zucchini recipe. This one looks promising, so watch for a recipe soon!

Here you go! Recipe for Spiralized Zucchini Butter Spaghetti here.

I just washed the jar, and doesn’t it look presentable? Normally it would be coated with glops and globs. If you look closely you can see tiny bubbles in the everlasting yeast.

These waffles are made with sourdough, or to be more precise, Everlasting Yeast, a leavener common with German-from-Russia pioneers in the Dakotas. Make your own Crock Pot Apple Butter with windfall fruit, farmstead fruit, or store-bought fruit.

One brave duck peeks out the henhouse door after his or her first night in the coop. My friend Jenna gifted us 5 Indian Runner ducks. I gave her some zucchini and I think we were both happy.

Porcelain Princess pumpkin is a hybrid, so I won’t be saving seeds from it, but will enjoy the beautiful pink 7-10 lb (3.5 kg) pumpkins for desserts and decorations.

Bee yard bouquet: St. John’s wort (Hypericum perforatum) and wild daisies. These aren’t weeds, the flowers provide food for nearby honeybee hives. I use St. John’s wort in skin-soothing salves and make an herbal glycerite to combat the winter blues.

I hope you enjoyed a cup of your favorite beverage along with our visit. See you next time!

Blessings,
Michele