Christmas Stockings #2 & 3

Finally got two other stocking pictures loaded. We are really excited about the market tomorrow. Hope to see the regular market goers there.

~~Laura

Christmas Stocking #1

I will have this at the market Friday


~~Laura


For a larger image click on the picture

Elizabeth's Dishcloths

I am making cute dishcloths for the farmers market, and I thought that I would share a sample with you.

Some are really neat bright colors, and some more pastel. The one below is one of the examples of my bright ones. It is a waffle knit pattern that I got from homespunliving , and I am playing around with the stripes. Some will have two, and others none. If you don't wash dishes yourselves, they make really neat gifts and presents!

~~Elizabeth

Sneak Peak

Here are a few sneak peaks of Christmas stockings I'll have at this week's market. I will post the finished products before Friday. They are made with fabrics and trim from Santa Fe and Homestead in Fredericksburg. -- Beautiful

~~Laura

The Only Way To Eat Kale!

WE LOVE KALE SALAD! This one has lemon juice, olive oil, kalamata olives, pine nuts, orange bell pepper, and sprinkled with a big dose of hemp seeds. YUMMY!

~~Laura & Muddy

(Daddy even likes it too!)

Picnic Roll

Here is a new addition to our farmers market goodies. It's a picnic roll that we will be selling with cute blue handled utensils. I'll have these in different fabrics including a fun retro style we picked up in Santa Fe. I am also starting on some Christmas stockings that I will post later.

~~Laura

Au Revoir Garden Bread

Now that hatch chili season and basil weather is coming to an end, we will put a couple of breads to rest for the farmers market.

Our 2 french loaves that are stuffed with hatch chilis and sun-dried tomato pesto bread will be temporarily retired to make room for some fun fall goodies.



The new additions will include Pumpkin Cranberry Loaves (made with honey and no sugar), and our version of the Chocolate Zucchini Muffins. The pumpkin cranberry loaves are made with fresh organic cranberries that are sooo delicious and give a bright light flavor instead of the heavier denser dried cranberry versions. The chocolate zucchini muffins are so light tasting they could fly away -- once again with whole wheat flour and honey.

~~Sisters

Our Favorite Time Of The Year

Our favorite time of the year is 'Green Hatch Chili Season'. We will either get our roasted hatch chilis from Santa Fe, NM (if we are there in September ;-)) or we will get some from Whole Foods. (in the pictures below) We love to visit all the vendors at the Santa Fe farmers market who not only sell the chilis, but also roast them on site. The smell of roasted chilis can't be matched.

After packaging bags for the freezer, we then go to work.




Our first favorite thing to make with the fresh green chilis is homemade hot sauce -- YUMMY!
We use fresh tomatoes, garlic, cilantro, green chilis, lime juice and salt. Then we blend it all up in a food processor. While we are munching on chips and hot sauce, we start getting creative.




For this particular meal we made some chili mashers to go with Daddy's meal.




Here is Daddy's 'meat and potatoes' meal. We used grass-fed beef, organic carrots, the chili mashers, and of course chili season wouldn't be complete without roasted green chili french bread.


While Daddy was enjoying his steak we were enjoying our "BIG" salad. We start with a bed of greens, PILE on guacamole, sprinkle on corn and red peppers, splash on some of the roasted hatch chili hot sauce, and for an extra punch throw on more diced chilis.

Below is Muddy's salad ~~ Can you tell that we are from the Southwest? ;-)




To kinda cool the palate, this particular meal I made whole wheat sopapillas. We dipped them in plenty of raw honey ---- YUUUUUMMMMMY!

~~ Laura

My Two Best Friends ~~Laura

Serving Muddy

Not only is Muddy a vegetarian, but she is also a raw vegan. We also eat mostly raw, so we enjoy our meals together. Here was a surprise lunch that we made while she was out. She enjoyed it so much that she had us repeat it for her lunch in the car on the way to Santa Fe.

The yellow dish contained a raw mock egg salad -- but boy did it taste like the real thing. We used fresh dill from the garden which made it extra eggy special.

The stuffed mushrooms were unbelievable! Raw shitakes soften nicely with the marinade.

Our favorite is always the SUSHI! We make it ourselves with all of the fresh veggies we can find. Sweet rice miso is a very nice substitute for the white sushi rice as well as ground jicama or cauliflower. We are showing two variations below--Elizabeth's and Laura's.

Just keep raw nori sheets on hand and voila! Veggie sushi in seconds.

~~Laura

Serving Daddy

It must be difficult for Daddy living with 3 vegetarians. Although we fix him meals with meat, sometimes we like to make them fun and "manly". This was a fun "diner burger meal". We still used our healthy ingredients, -- grass fed beef, whole wheat grain buns, organic cheese and veggies, and organic homemade fries.

A while back we purchased diner style baskets and condiment containers for mustard, mayo and catsup (those colorful plastic squeeze bottles) from World Market. This makes a FUN meal for Daddy (we will sometimes join him and make veggie burgers). We normally end this meal with organic ice cream sodas.

~~Sisters

French Day

While studying French with our friends, we enjoyed this Provencal Fougasse with our salad for lunch. Although this is an awesome bread, we don't make it for market because of it's 1 day shelf-life. It tastes great for a couple of days, but it is the texture of a cracker after the first. (This particular day it turned 'cracker' on us after 2 hours. ;-)

EASY TO MAKE

~~Laura

Another Thief Outside Our Kitchen Window

Pizza Fridays

Our whole family enjoys pizza, but each in our own way. Muddy likes it raw, Daddy has to have the meat, Elizabeth likes a variety but absolutely NO tomato chunks, and Laura ~~Everything but the ONIONS! Here are 2 pictures of our most recent pizza feast.

Laura mills fresh whole wheat flour and makes the dough from scratch. We then go out to the garden and find some of our toppings -- The pizza below has eggplant, greens and fresh herbs. Then we saute and add anything we have on hand. Some items include - olives, artichoke hearts, home-dried tomatoes, red onions (for Muddy), peppers, home-canned tomato sauce, shitake mushrooms, and turkey sausage for Daddy.

The bottom is a calzone which is everything stuffed into the dough, baked, and then dipped into tomato sauce.

~~Sisters

Ladybugs

Because of a wet summer and warmer fall, some of our fall plantings were becoming dinner for some creepy crawlies. Our remedy---The mean old Ladybugs ;-) This is one of our most exciting treatments for our garden.

Now we are enjoying some collard leaves (in the picture) that don't look like swiss cheese. Our broccoli and cabbage are also looking healthier now.

~~Sisters

We Are Back From Santa Fe ~~ Here We Go

3rd time's a charm...

OK! Here we go again! Last week seemed empty compared to this week! We have been visiting our grandfather (Poppie) in the hospital for the past 2 weeks and he finally came home Tuesday! We would sit with our grandmother (Mamie) for a couple of hours (sometimes more) and would bring over some chicken stock, lemon ginger honey tea, and homemade applesauce -- Poppie's favorite.


Yes we did have toe surgery! I had both sides of my right big toe (ingrown) cut out and Muddy had her whole left big toe nail taken off....She even admits that my surgery was worse - I had shots and she didn't. ;-)



Below is what I did while on the couch for the first 2 days.

My cute little pink toe?

Here is the rest of what I have been working on in the hospital. I will post a picture of the finished piece when it is done. It is a cross-stitch sampler of all the names of Jesus. I just decided to start it one day! I have had it for years. I think that I want to stitch some Bible verses in the font that 'Savior' is in - the pink one on the bottom left. I just need to find an alphabet with that font.



~~Laura

What a week!

WHEW! This has been one of the busiest weeks ever. We have had everything from toe-nail surgery to a Farmers Market. We will definitely have a whole bunch of posts coming, so keep with us and we will try to 'keep 'em coming'. ;-)

~~ Laura

Summer Memories...

Flip Flop Shop

The Flip~Flop Shop is now open!


The flip flops I make are soft and fuzzy, so they're great in the summer "and" the winter!
(Muddy, Laura and I like to use them as slippers also!)

They make great presents for Children, but Adults can't resist them either!


The Flip~Flop Shop


~~Elizabeth

Is it mine or his?

I made some homemade doggie biscuits for our Mr. Bingley. In this first picture we are having him "leave it". That is something that we have taught him to obey before he digs into treats. He won't even trust himself to look at it until the person that said 'leave it' says 'OK!'.

The second picture is me trying the treat myself. (with Mr. Bingley eying me) ~~~ They were really good!


We will have some of these treats for tomorrows farmers market.

~~Laura






(And no he did not eat the whole plate....we allowed him just one)

The Rest of the Story

You are probably all wondering what happened to our birds. They have left us! I personally saw the first bird flying in the garage. A couple of hours later they were ALL gone! (boo hoo) It was really strange that the time that it took them to all hatch was spread out over 3-4 days, but they all decided to leave the nest the same day. Pretty neat!

Here is a picture of the 'empty nest'~

~~Laura

Garden

Here's some pictures of the summer garden. The charentais cantaloupe were sooo...juicy and yummy. The zucchini plants were beautiful and just died out too soon. The beet greens were a daily part of our meals. Corn, blackberries, and the tomatoes were all great. But, wow, we love swiss chard. Sauteed in garlic with a squeeze of lemon juice and soy sauce--awesome!

~~Sisters

Happy Birthday Laura!

Thought we would start at the end of July--My 16th Birthday. It was a pretty special one because my parents went halvsies with me on my new sewing machine! My old one (Elizabeth calls it her new Elna Jane) just wasn't giving me the right tension -- so my parents surprised me with the idea of helping pay for one so I could get it immediately. Of course, as soon as the new one entered the house, Elna Jane acted perfectly--good for Elizabeth.


Since I'm the baker of the family, I like to make all the birthday cakes--even my own. This wasn't actually a cake, but it did the job just fine. I found this recipe for chocolate zucchini muffins on Debbie's Blog. I'm up for anything with chocolate. I have made these three times since then, and have even changed the recipe --- keep an eye out for the new version in our upcoming cookbook.


Daddy took the family to dinner for our celebration. Muddy and I asked the waiter to make special salads. The waiter later told us that the chefs in the kitchen were so excited and had alot of fun coming up with something different and special. Here's the result. It has lots of veggies, mango, raspberries, avocado, as well as a beautiful chunk of brie--my favorite.

The waiter then surprised me with a little birthday candle on my dessert plate. What a special ending to a perfect birthday!

~~Laura