Low Tea, and book swap

I didn't get around to doing a video tutorial, no surprise their, but I have something even better! Low Tea treats!!! Low tea is held around 1-3 the typical time for the wealthy who don't go to work, wear as High tea is held around 6 with dinner for the working class who get off of work at that time.

 

We had  a simple chi tea, and a cinnamon orange rooibos blend. I used cream instead of half and half (which is homogenized and absolutely terrible for the body).

We had blueberry lemon scones, orange cranberry salad, turkey open faced sandwiches, and a delicious quiche made by my cousin.

Since all our beautiful flowers are gone I used some fake flowers that actually look quite nice  and I put them in a mason type jar with a flip lid.

The lovely quiche. 

Us ladies have a bit of an affinity to hot sauce.

We also discussed the books we had read the month before, and traded for some new books to peruse.
This is the book that I am borrowing. I haven't started reading it ye, but I am looking forward to this collection of short stories.

Now for the Recipes!

The Sandwiches were so easy. Great harvest has Stuffing bread right now so I sliced that and put cream cheese on it, some homemade cranberry sauce that I pureed in the blender, and some turkey slices. You can change this by using mayo and by putting pickled red onions on too. If you don't have access to the bread then a whole wheat will work great. So Yummy and easy either way! 

The cranberry sauce is supper easy, 1 cup of water and 1/3 cup of honey in a small pot. Bring to a boil and add 4 cups of cranberries. Bring back to a boil, then simmer for 10 minutes. Now you can add orange zest, cinnamon, nutmeg, nuts, blueberries, or something else, or nothing else. For the two recipes that I used it for in this blog I din't add anything else.

The Orange and cranberry salad was just 4 oranges sliced, and about 1/2 cup of cranberry sauce with the cranberries still mostly in tacked. (As in Not Pureed and not that canned jelly kind). Mix the two together, and their you go. Now that I think about it though, It would have bean nice to put a cinnamon stick in with the cranberries while they cooked.

For the scones I used a recipe from a blog Be book bound. I did alter it, so this is my little twist, and I also didn't have the sugar to I didn't do the topping I made my own up instead.

• 2 1/4 cups of flour
• 2 tsp of baking powder
• about 1/4 tsp of salt
• 1/2 tsp of baking soda
• 2 tbsp of honey
• 1/4 cup of cubed and cold butter
• 1/4 cup of non hydrogenation shorting, chilled.
• 1/2 cup of yogurt mixed with 1/4 cup of water (easier to keep on hand than buttermilk)
• 1 egg
• Zest from 1 Lemon plus a bit of juice, about 1/8 of a cup
• about a cup of frozen blueberries (if you use frozen too, don't dethaw them or they will make your scones all weird, the same goes for muffins)

Preheat your oven to 400. sift all the dry ingredients. Add the butter and shortening and cut it in by hand or with a food processor. Just like making pie. Mix the wet ingredients and combine with the dry. Fold in the berries. Put on a buttered baking sheet and form into a squareIsh shape. You'll want it to be about 1/2 in tall. With a nice knife, cut into squares but leave them in place. Bake for about 25 to 30 min. When you pull them out let them cool for 5 min, then re-cut, will be so easy, you might not even need to. After they have cooled completely drizzle some glaze on 'em.

For the glaze:

Mix juice from 1/2 a lemon with 1 1/2 cups of powdered sugar till smooth. Now add in 1/8 cup of cream cheese to the mix. (you can add more if you like) It is easiest to mix with a fork. You may need to add some water, about 1/4 cup so that it is the consistency of thin to medium paste, depending on what you like. I like mine thicker because it stays on the scones nicer. 

My bag: natural and handy products

It seems so silly to me to post about what I keep in my bag/purse. I mean, why would I want to show people all the boring stuff that everyone keeps in their purse. But I decided that I would share my essentials that I keep in my bag at all times because some of them are, in my opinion, quite helpful. 

All of my bags are either vintage (above) or big earth friendly totes that I keep my embroidery and what not in. I love my wallet. It doubles as a clutch. It opens up like a wallet, but it also snaps open on each side that I can fit everything but my nook and notebook in, including my phone, this makes it so that I can take everything with me that I need out and be all fancy dancy. 

I like to use my bag (I usually use a fair trade bag that fits over my shoulder more comfortably) because it is easier to carry that way. I have a larger notebook and a smaller notebook that I interchange  I usually have my nook (I'm so addicted, haha) and a ponytail, you just never know when you need to but your hair up. I always have a bit of first aid because, well, I injure myself quite often. i have band-aids, Clean well alcohol-free hand sanitizer, Hemp-Eaze that I use like neosporin. It works so AMAZING!!! 

I like to keep lavender oil and a blend of clove and peppermint oil in a roll on in my bag. The roll on I put about 20 drops of clove and peppermint oil in and fill it the rest of the way with almond oil. I use this for basically any aches and pains and headaches. 

I usually have either a 100% pure lip gloss or some sort of chap stick like Terra Tints or Burts Bees. I also keep a shaker with my veggy supplement in my bag to sprinkle on food. You can dry greens from your garden and crush them up and use that as a supplement in the winter so that you can get plenty of greens. I like to use hankies simply because I like them better and the one above goes really well with my purse. It comes in handy for all sorts of things, such as spray off a table at a park and use one side to wipe it off and the other as a place mat, it is better on your wallet and the planet than using wet wipes. 

Other things that I like to keep in my bag are a small tape measurer, a water bottle, some sort of snack like dried fruit, and a nifty little fold up brush that comes in so much handy. If I'm going to be out for a long time I might bring along a makeup compact.. maybe. It is so easy to find natural products for your purse. If you go to a natural grocery store then chances are just standing in the sales line you'll find most everything you need.

My cat decided to get in on the action and I couldn't resist putting her in here. :D

Delicious beets and eggplant.

Howdy doody! I am so awake, it's crazy. I actually slept until about 9:30 because oddly my chickens stayed quiet. And then after I did dishes and laundry I decided to make coffee with my new french press. It's actually really easy. I figured it would be, and I like it a lot better than those complicated machines. (I know what your thinking, but for someone who drinks coffee like 3 times a year, they are complicated to try and figure out.) I have some supper yummy cream from grass fed cows (I know, cows not goats. But hay! I can't control when the goats are pregnant!) so I decided to pour some it. I usually like my coffee black, but I needed to use up the cream, plus with the cream in it pares a bit better with this awesome chocolate. Unfortunately its only 55% cocoa (I like baking chocolate. So Yummy!) but the Ancho and Chipotle chilies and dried cherries make up for it. Plus they wrap them in love poems, awwwwww. 

 Yesterday at about 6 I started dinner. I was just going to fry up the eggplant that I had, my husband likes to eat them like french fries dipped in mustard and ketchup, he likes them basically any way, but that's the easiest. I fry them in a batter like fried chicken in a bit of olive oil in a pan.  But, about halfway through I decided to use up the zucchini and bell pepper that I had. I was being to lazy to clean up the dishes, so I didn't have enough room to batter the eggplant, so they were going to be kind of plane. I ended up making this fancy dancy thing that tasted so good! i normally don't like zucchini at all, and I only sort of like eggplant, but MAN! This was GOOOD STUFF! The side veggies are sauteed with a bit of butter and olive oil, and molasses. They tasted like roasted beets but tool way less time to cook.

Eggplant baked in a Bechamel sauce served with zucchini, bell pepper, and beets.
Serves 4. Active time is about an hour, inactive time about 3 hours depending.

• 2 large eggplant sliced to a width of 1/2 inch and with the bitters drained. (slice them and put a couple layers of paper towel between them to remove the bitter juices. This will take from about 1 hr to 3 hrs)
• olive oil, for frying. (do this at a lower heat. If you want to fry them faster use grape seed oil)
• 4 tbsp of butter
• 1/4 cup of flour. Either white wheat, spelt or rice flour or cornstarch. (I have never tried anything else to thicken a sauce, but I know that these work great.)
• 2 1/2 cups of milk
• 4 to 8 cloves of garlic minced

Preheat an oven to 350. Fry the eggplant in oil of choice for 2-3 minutes on each side. Layer them in an 8 inch baking dish with the garlic and some salt and pepper. In a saucepan melt the butter and combine the flour with it. Let it get a bit brown then slowly whisk in the milk. Let it thicken and bubble a bit then pour over the eggplant. You can either season the sauce with salt and pepper or put some Parmesan or Asiago cheese in it. About 1/4 cup of cheese if you choose to do this, I went with the salt and pepper instead. If you want you can also put some cheese on top. Bake for about 45 minutes or until the top is bubbly and a bit golden.

Beets and Zucchini: even if you dont like zuccini you will love this.

• Six medium zucchini
• 4 beets
• 2 bell peppers
• 4 tsp of molasses or maple syrup
• 2 tsp of fructose or sugar (it actually seemed to need this even with the sweetness of the beets)
• 1 tbsp of butter
• 1/8 to 1/4 cup of cilantro chopped. you can always use parsley if you don't have cilantro. 
• Feel free to add any Swiss Chard or other type of green sliced into ribbons.
• salt and pepper

Slice the zucchini and beets thinly, about 1/8th of an inch or thinner if you can manage it. A mandolin works great for this. slice the bell pepper fairly thinly. Put everything in a saute pan reserving the cilantro and other greens. When the butter melt mix it all together, you want everything to be a bit purple. Put the lid on and cook until the beets are easily pokeable. Add the cilantro and if you chose to have greens put those in now also, saute until the greens are easily chewed. Serve with the eggplant dish. 

October

 I'm going to have a couple tutorials sometime this week, one on making sauerkraut, and another on either making quill pens or a fabric dying diy, and possibly both with video. Frankly I'm astonished that I'm actually thinking about doing something so involved with my blog. My slacker self aside, their have actually bean some fun stuff happening around my little homestead!

I made Sauerkraut with my mom. We also made another batch yesterday with red beets instead of the golden ones. So pretty! 

Why did our chickens cross the road, to vises with the neighbor chicken of course!  The chickens in my neighborhood are all very friendly with each other. My neighbor down the street's chickens also like to go over to my neighbor's house to visit with his chicken.

I have bean working on some collagy things that are pretty fun. 

This is now officially my favorite soap. It smells so good and  makes my skin so soft. It is scented with essential oils so it doesn't bother my nose or head. :) Also it's only about $4, and for me that's about $1.50 a moth for a bar of soap, an I use it quite liberally. 

The cat and chickens keep having all these face offs, ware they both end up running away in fear.  I am rolling my eyes at Isabella, she is such a city cat! I suppose I should be glad she isn't eating my chickens. lol

I painted some awesome shorts. Their are all sorts of diy's for this kind of fabric painting this is my favorite, http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9aZ2ri_EDaI

We celebrated my grandma's birthday with muffins from farmers market (and cupcakes)  and tea for breakfast. Then we went to an alternative health fare at Barns and Noble's. Later we had pie from farmers market and goat milk ice cream. 

I have bean enjoying this awesome weather, sitting in my rocking chair. Oh, and those are a pair of my new glasses. 

We went to goblin valley in Utah. It was my first time camping in a tent and I loved it! 

Sputnik decided to climb into the bike trailer. 

This is my first ever white lasagna! I put greens and things from the garden into it. 

Jacob was the Brawny man for holloween. 

I was some space princess person, I'm still not quite sure exactly. 

My chickens are becoming ugly. This was from yesterday. This morning when I went to feed them, they had so many more patches. Sad, so sad. But, they need to molt so that they can be warm for winter. 

And I found out that my husband is obsessed with arcade games. He even likes watching people play them on You Tube. Sometimes he amazes me with he things he likes.

Happy Fall Back everyone! I hope you enjoyed that extra hour of sleep that I didn't get because my chickens demanded to be fed. At least I finally got something posted for once. Don't forget that tutorials are coming up within the next week!!!!! Yay!

And Here are some supper cool you tube channels that I follow. Most of them are nerdy, but I really like expanding my mind when I watch videos.

This one is about how trees get water up so high. by 1veritasium 

by minutephysics

You live in the past, by vsauce. This is my favorite, they have all sorts of neat things.

Death of Yolo by bball1989

Elements- Dubstep Violin- Lindsey Stirling by lindseystomp