lots going on around here and there's been some blog-neglect going on. let's get up to speed, shall we?
valentine's day happened. lucy wore her thrifted heart jammies. the only thing on my wishlist was for hudson to laugh out loud--and of course, being the true mama's boy that he is, he did it yesterday. there's nothing like hearing a baby laugh for the first time--it brought tears to this mama's eyes, let me tell you.
we very much enjoyed a breakfast of eggs-in-toast. jeremy cut out little hearts--what a sweetie. want to see the very best recipe tutorial for eggs-in-toast? look no further than pioneer woman, of course. click here.
instead of store-bought valentines, lucy gave out clippies to her girl classmates. boys got reusable snack packs, of which i almost stuffed with organic fruit rolls, but decided against this at the last minute. didn't want to go overboard, and if you read my last post, you'll know that there was plenty of sugar anyway.
my brother and i ALWAYS handmade our valentine cards for school. i have super-clear memories of sponges cut in the shape of hearts, glitter and lots of construction paper. thanks, mom. can't wait to relive these moments with lucy & hudson.
living in california means that we can get locally-grown strawberries for much of the year. these are from southern california, and they are so-so. not nearly as good as peak-of-season berries, but hey, you take what you can get. we're planning on a massive strawberry patch in our yard this spring & summer.
one of these things isn't like the other...
we made gnocchi from scratch. they turned out pretty heavy. not sure what we did wrong, but we are headed to jeremy's very italian grandmother's home tonight for a tutorial. i'll be sure to post again when we get it right.
i also made frozen hash brown patties. one of lucy's favorite breakfast foods--but when i checked the nutritional list on the trader joes brand, i was shocked at the number of ingredients. our homemade patties contain organic potatoes, organic olive oil and a bit of sea salt. they're not quite the same as the store-bought, but i feel better about giving them to her on occasion.
the chickens really loved the potato skins--who knew?
we made biscuits. these DID turn out and oh my, they were good. i think the trader joe's brand i had been buying has soy in it--and we are trying to stay away from non-organic soy. SO. when the recipe came with our farm box this past friday, we had to try it. you should too!
green onion drop biscuits: (makes 16)
2 cups all-purpose flour (organic at whole foods)
2 tsp baking powder
1/2 tsp salt
1/4 tsp baking soda
3 tblsp shortening or butter (we used butter) (organic at trader joes, costco, whole foods)
1/2 cup finely chopped green onions (these came in our farm box)
1 cup low-fat buttermilk (hormone-free at trader joes)
preheat oven to 400. combine first 4 ingredients in a large bowl, cut in butter w/ pastry blender or 2 knives until mixture resembles coarse meal. stir in onions. add buttermilk, stirring just until mixture is moist.
drop by heaping tablespoon onto prepared baking sheet. bake at 400 for 12-15 min or until lightly browned.
we made 1 batch of these in the morning, and then made a double batch to keep on hand in the freezer. now we'll have ready-made biscuits on hand for soups & stews!
our auracana hen (named peach) is now laying pretty green eggs that martha stewart would be jealous of. we're pretty sure we'll be adding 3 more hens come springtime--upping our laying flock to 6, the biggest we've ever had. we've also found a source for organic feed locally. very exciting.
hot dogs made from grass-fed beef exist. and they are quite good, as far as hot dogs are concerned. no gristly mystery chunks--regular hot dogs truly skeeve me out. i found these at whole foods, along with organic buns and organic ketchup. we sure don't eat hot dogs on a regular basis, but they're good in pinch. lucy gave them 2 thumbs up. 
okay, i think i've covered all of the bases... now i'm off to enjoy the weather, instead of just blogging about it!
2 comments:
Oh yeah, once you make biscuits from scratch you realize it's so easy and so much better that there's no point to ever opening a can again! (except for my mama's chicken & dumplings - for whatever reason the canned tastes better in there) We used to add the green garlic (and some cheddar) from the farm box to the biscuits. Really good!!
Another option for your hot dogs is Fearless Franks from Niman Ranch. But I love Applegate. I'm so going to miss this stuff when there's no TJ's or WF around.
These biscuits are delicious!!! Thanks so much for the recipe. We also had leftovers that were wonderful toasted.
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