What to Do With a Crate of Beets

 

One of our goals for this summer is to preserve more produce so that we have more homegrown options during the winter. It's a little tough though, even with a CSA and an abundant backyard garden, because so much of what is at it's peak right now is really hard not to eat right away. 

 Josh helped at the booth of our CSA farmers from Grinnell Heritage Farm on Saturday and came home with the half crate of beets you see at the top, along with zucchini, squash, chard, kohlrabi, and kale. I immediately went for the zucchini and squash, sauteed in olive oil and butter topped with a bit of local Prairie Breeze cheese and salt, but we had to make a plan for the beets—especially the greens. There were about 30 bunches, so there was no earthly way that we could ever eat all of the greens fresh. Beets are one of our favorite veggies though, and we love the greens, so I figured that I should try to freeze them to use in savory pies and stews come winter.

It's a good thing I didn't have anything else planned for Sunday morning because it took a while (not complaining, just stating a fact!). I did a little online research and learned that I needed to blanch them before putting them into freezer bags with as much air sucked out as possible (so that they will turn out sort of like the frozen spinach you can buy at the store). I made a little assembly line—wash, blanch, ice bath, dry on a towel, separate the stems, bag them up. After about two hours, we have three hefty portions of prepared greens, along with two of inch-sized stems, into the deep freeze. 

Josh has plans to pickle many of the actual beets and until them I will keep sneaking one here and there to dice and grate into salads. And so even though I thought, more than once, that eating locally can be a lot of work, I am already glad that we're planning ahead for the months when it will feel like a treat to have these greens.

Photo Friday: My Wedding Dress

 

In the process of deciding on and then participating in the making of my wedding dress, I learned a few very valuable things. First, that for such a loaded piece of clothing, it made a lot of sense for me to spend a lot of time with it over the past year. By which I mean, I was always somewhat nervous about standing up in front of a lot of people and being the center of attention in a white dress, so to make the dress part feel intimately apart of me and my life helped to make the actual experience of the wedding day a lot more comfortable for me.

The 120 hours that I spent stitching and beading my dress took the mystery out of it. I knew the fabric and the details extremely intimately and when it came right down to it, I was just happy (no, giddy) to get a chance to actually wear it. And for an item that can often lead to emotional stress—crying in dressing rooms when sizes aren't what you are expecting, going through multiple fittings—I managed to avoid most of it. Which I didn't set out to do but which was hugely comforting to me, especially because the finished dress fit me nearly perfectly. 

My dress was always a reminder of the time that I spent with my mom down in Alabama learning to make it with the ladies at Alabama Chanin, of the winter nights that I spent working on it in front of the last season of Mad Men with my then fiance. And I love that.

I also learned that with the dress, among other aspects of the wedding (hair comb, clutch, bouquets, garlands, thank you gifts), I was happier when I was able to actively participate in the making. I liked being involved. To me it wasn't ever "too much"—it was always what I was most comfortable doing. And it came with the added bonus that I was better able to plod through the less enjoyable aspects of wedding planning (mostly the following up with vendors which never seemed to end...) because I knew that I was spending the majority of my time how I wanted to be spending it.

The last thing that I've realized that I learned from making the dress (at this point at least!) was that with it, and actually with our entire wedding, we were able to make it the perfect event for us simply by paying attention to what felt right, what felt like fun. Somehow, I think we ignored most of the rules and expectations (maybe I felt like the weddings I've been to over the years let me off the hook? Not sure) and just focused on creating an event that reflected us and just felt right. Which is a most amazing and remarkable thing to realize in retrospect. After a lot of conversations and changed plans, we wound up having an intimate ceremony in the rose garden where we had our first date, followed by dinner at an Italian restaraunt, which satisfied my deep down desire for a wedding dinner party. Then the next day we had a potluck party in a local state park with bluegrass, square dancing, pie, and a larger group to celebrate with. We got to spend more time with all of the family and friends who traveled in from far away, focus on our goals of good food and music (Josh even sang with the band!), and I got to wear my dress twice!

It was the best wedding I could have ever imagined for us and I can't wait to share more photos with you  next week. Enjoy the weekend everyone!

Wordless Wednesday: What's Growing in Our Garden

 

 

 

 

A Peek into Our Canoemoon

 

Hello friends! It's been the most wonderful past three weeks—our wedding was everything that I ever could have hoped for and more, and the honeymoon (which I've deemed the canoemoon) was exactly right. Since I just got the wedding photos and am going to take my time going through them and deciding what to share (though spoiler alert, they are divine and I am so, so grateful to have such a fantastic photographer friend!), I thought I'd show you a little of our post-wedding trip north.

We love quiet, woodsy places and since we didn't want to travel by plane (seemed like more than I would be up for the day after the festivities ended), we headed 8ish hours north to the Boundary Waters Canoe Area in Minnesota. It's a wilderness area with lots and lots of lakes way up by the Canadian border.

We rented a cabin for a week at Hungry Jack Outfitters which allowed us to cook delicious meals, sit on this lovely dock, swim, canoe, hike, and watch the sunset. And read, play Scrabble, read some more, sit quietly (me), and play the guitar (Josh). We camped for most of the second week, which meant mornings waking up to a foggy lake and dinners cooked over a campfire.

 

We had two entirely fantastic meals at the Angry Trout Cafe in nearby Grand Marais, each of which included a slice of pie from Lola's Sweet Life Bakery. And we saw a lot of waterfalls.

After almost exactly a year of getting ready for the wedding, having two weeks completely offline was the most perfect vacation I could ever ask for. I loved getting to slow down, be quiet, talking about our wedding memories while we paddled our canoe, and explore a new area—so much so that it's been a little hard to get back into the swing of normal life. But we came home to a garden that was absolutely bursting at the seams, and I had a new job to look forward to going back to yesterday (a food editor position with Better Homes and Gardens Special Interest Media), so all will be well.

I will share wedding photos soon and share more about the experience, but for now I'll close by sending an enormous amount of thanks to our family and friends for all of their help and support, laughter and hugs, during the wedding. We couldn't have done it without you all!

The Big Day Approaches (With DIY Garlands!)

 

It hardly seems possible that I'll be getting married on Friday, but it's true! And since I amazingly wound up with a three week hiatus from work, I get to enjoy this week as our friends and family start arriving into town, and spend my days relaxing and finishing up some small projects. 

Our festivities are in two parts—Friday is the ceremony in a local Rose Garden with dinner after at a favorite Italian restaurant for close family and friends. Saturday evening is a potluck party with a band and square dancing with a bigger group in a state park down the road from us. It should be a weekend filled with everything a wedding should have like friends, love, laughter, good music and food, and much appreciation for the moment. And after nearly exactly a year of waiting for this day, I am extremely excited.

Over the weekend, I worked on the garlands that will decorate the dance floor at the potluck party. I'd gotten two enormous sets of paint swatches from Yolo Colorhouse and knew that I needed to put the paper to good use. So with a large scallop hole punch and some Divine Twine, I started making garlands. I love that they are super simple, but that the colors make them really pretty.

The goal of the wedding was never to go DIY overboard and while I have realized that I was completely lying when I said that I was going to keep it super simple (because in reality I do care a lot about aesthetics!), I am glad that I did limit the projects to a select few. I am looking forward to finishing these up, to preparing the meal for our "welcome to town" dinner at our house on Thursday, and to making my bouquet on Friday morning because it means that I will be inherently part of the festivities in more ways than one.

Plus, I just really like making things.

So with that, I'm going to sign off of here for the next three weeks. I'll be back the week of July 18th with tales of the wedding (you'll finally get to see my dress!) and of our honeymoon up in the Boundary Waters. Cheers!

On Feeling Grounded

Those are some new peas that are growing in the garden, some of which will go into my dinner tonight.

Last week did not go as expected. It started out with lists and me trying to stay hyper organized so that I would be able to keep track of the details involved in getting a magazine issue to the printer, as well as keeping on track with wedding tasks. By mid-week, things veered off course when we learned that our magazine, ReadyMade, was being closed down.

When you suddenly realize that you are about to lose your job, things sharpen in focus. And since I have (unfortunately) been through this before, I immediately began to take stock so that I could attempt to decide how to handle it. Almost immediately, perspective kicked in.

Two years ago, I had an opportunity to take on much greater responsibility with my work and to help redefine a magazine. That allowed me to flex my creative muscles and realize that I had skills that I hadn't entirely been aware of before. And, because of the job and the move from the east coast, I met my fiance. We fell in love, bought a house, planted a garden, and created an amazingly joyful and fulfilling life together. 

In 12 days, I get to marry that man.

My close friends and family will be heading our way in a short week to help with the final preparations and to enjoy our hometown.

And I will finally get to wear my dress!

To be completely honest, I feel incredibly fortunate to have had the opportunity that I did because it allowed me to find exactly where I was meant to be. So to ReadyMade, a brand that I am intensely saddened to see disappear because it means that an open forum for creativity, sustainability and self-expression is no longer, I will always be grateful.

Positive Affirmations from Ink! Stomp

Today is one of those days where after a restless night, I'm much in need of positive reinforcement. Luckily I quickly found some in the lino cuts from Cindy of Ink! Stomp.

Cindy is a science major at university but lets out her creative juices on these prints, as well as through knitting and crocheting—which sounds like an excellent balancing act to me.

I love the simplicity of the prints and how you can see that someone's hands were involved in making them. To check out more of Cindy's work, click here to visit her lovely shop.