What I couldn't live without

And I'm not talking about stuff like my family, my friends, my beliefs, and all that.  Maybe I'll have a post like that on another day, but not today.  Today is about STUFF. 

I like to consider myself a minimalist.  I've recently discovered, however, that I wasn't quite as much of a minimalist as I thought I was.  I went through some old boxes and folders and bookcases and I gave away/sold/recycled/threw away 12! bags of stuff.  And there is still quite a bit here, but I am getting closer to what I feel is really the stuff that we need/use/like, etc.

And speaking of living without stuff, I had an experience with that when my husband and I were fairly newly married. 

We had been married for 8 months and we were living in a two bedroom apartment here in Normal, and I got a job offer in Chicago.  We knew that I had to take it because a) it was in my field; I had been working as a receptionist since we got married.  Not that there is anything wrong with that profession, but I had a bachelors in technical writing, and had recently finished a year in a masters degree program in English, but couldn't find a job in training in Normal (a somewhat common theme over the years - In the 16 years since this time, I have been able to work as a trainer here in Normal for 4.5 years of it.) b) I was working as a receptionist (yea, I know I said that) and Mr. Simple had an graduate school assistantship and that was it for our income.  Can you say "living on love?" So we decided that we needed to be bringing in more income and we could do that if I took a job in Chicago and Mr. Simple found one in Chicago c) Mr. Simple's mom lived in Chicago and we could stay there until the lease was up on our apartment in Normal so we didn't have to pay double-rent for 4 months.

So we moved in to his mom's place, but she ALSO just lived in a two-bedroom apartment.  We still had to pay rent on our other place for four more months.  So we decided to just leave everything back at our old apartment besides the clothes that we needed, and that was about it. We would come down about once a month to our old apartment and stay for the weekend, etc.  Whenever we came into our old apartment, it amazed me that I had a whole apartment full of stuff and there wasn't one thing that I recalled missing while I was living in Chicago.

(Oh, and in case you are wondering about that timeline, we lived in Normal from 1995-1996, Chicago from 1996-1998, Springfield and then Decatur from 1998 - 1999 and then we've been back in Normal again since 1999.)

Anyway - -

Here are the things that I would have a hard time living without now.  Things I use everyday.  Most multiple times a day.

1 - Cast iron combo cooker.  I use this most days at least once, and sometimes twice a day for cooking.  And I'm turning into quite a foodie lately, and I really like to cook, and I recently bought some new cookware, bakeware, and utensils, and cookbooks and I love it all.  But if I could only have one thing from the kitchen, I'd take that.  Although I do like my new chef knife an awful lot.

2 - My smartphone.  I know.  Two years ago, I just had a "regular" cell phone.  I rarely texted. I never checked my e-mail from my phone.  But as I increased my freelancing, and after I moved the the preschool from the family room downstairs (which is also where the desktop computer is) up to the living room, I had no way to check my e-mail during the day, and my smartphone let me doing that.  I found it so much easier to text the daycare parents than calling them to just ask them a quick, simple question. And although the photo quality leaves a lot to be desired, there have been times when I had my phone with me and I didn't have my camera, and I was able to get a shot that I wouldn't have otherwise been able to get. I also use it as my alarm clock.  And as a timer at swim meets.  And to entertain Super sometimes.  :) I really wish the screen was a little bigger though.  And that iPads were less expensive.  :)

3 - Laptop.  Mr. Simple and I bought a laptop a few months ago.  We use it for our businesses (Mr. Simple, after years of working in media relations and public safety, now owns his own business and does interior house painting. I do freelance technical writing & training and I do Simply Living In The City.)  It has been really helpful to have something so portable, especially since we are both using it, and especially during my transition from daycare provider/freelancer/owner of SLITC to "just" freelancer/owner of SLITC because it enables me to use a computer.  I can take it to meetings if I need to and I can use it during my SLITC classes if I need to.  Oh, and we gave the desktop computer to the kids, and the laptop has fingerprint scanning to log on, and only Mr. Simple and I have fingerprints that are registered, so I don't have to share the computer with my kids. Ever.  Priceless, I tell you. :)

4 - Lined Crocs.  I know.  Not what you expecting. Mr. Simple bought me these at the beginning of winter and I thought I wouldn't use them.  I wear them almost every day.  They are like being able to wear slippers, but more like a shoe.  I'm not embarrassed (although maybe I should be :) ) to wear them in public, but I would be if I was wearing slippers.  And they keep my toes warm when I wear them, which for me, is like foot nirvana.  I've had "regular" crocs before too that I wear in the summer, and although I like them, I really love these for fall/winter. Of course, the fact that we have practically NO snow here this winter probably makes me love them more than if we had had 12 feet of snow this year. 

5 -  Local cream and milk.  I love, love, love being able to make my own butter and my own ice cream and my own yogurt.  It is so easy and it is so fresh.  And we can add whatever we want.  It is so cool.  I make butter in this food processor, yogurt in a yogurt maker like this one, and I make ice cream in this ice cream maker. 

6.  My water bath canner.  I used that thing All.The.Time in the fall.  I like my pressure canner too, and I like freezing things and I like drying things and I like vacuum packaging things.  But if I could only have one thing for preserving the harvest, I'd definitely take that canner.

Preserving The Harvest: What I've done so far this year

I had very lofty goals for 2011 and I haven't fulfilled those goals, but I have preserved a fair amount. Here is what I have done so far:

Canned
12 pints of tomato sauce
35 pints of corn
21 quarts of peaches
12 pints of strawberry jam
12 half pints of peach jam
7 pints of veggie relish
7 pints of banana pepper mustard
12 pints of salsa
60 pints of applesauce
---------------
Still planned for canning:
7 pints of ketchup


Freezing
2 gallons of green bags
1 gallon of basil leaves
1 quart bags of dried:
-rosemary
-basil
-lavender
-chives
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Still planned for freezing:
6 quarts of apple pie filling

Drying
- apple slices
- apple leather
- basil
- oregano
- parsley
- lemon balm
- spearmint
- peppermint
- lemon verbena
- lavender
- sage
- tarragon

I haven't done any pickling yet, and I may or may not get to it. I also recently got a Food Saver, but haven't used it either. My canners and my dehydrator, however, have seen LOTS of action this year.

I grew all the herbs, onions (for the relish), the peppers (for the relish), the tomatoes (for the sauce and the relish), and the green beans. I bought the strawberries, the peaches, the apples, and peaches. I had to buy most of the zucchinis for the relish because my squash got squash bugs BAD this year. I also grew peas, lettuce, cabbage, spinach, swiss chard, broccoli earlier in the season, but we ate all of that fresh.

I also taught a class about Preserving The Harvest. I'll put more info over here very soon, but I have finally got Simply Living In The City off the ground! I'm kind of proud of myself! It was a really fun class and I enjoyed teaching people about it and talking with people that are interested in preserving and just talking to other people who enjoy a similar "simple" way of life.

I'm a contradiction, that's for sure . . .

I've been busy (don't I always say that when I haven't blogged for awhile?) with the end of summer and school starting up again. I'm not happy at all that Fall just seemed to arrive all of a sudden. I was hoping for an Indian Summer, or at least a more gradual move to cool temperatures. But temperatures have been highs of 70s and lows in the 40s for over a week now and it isn't looking good for a return to 80s and 90s. Thankfully, I do love Fall quite a bit . . . .

Anyway, over here in Simple Land, I've been busy with gardening and budgeting and canning and reading. LOTS of reading. I'm set to get starting with the actual start of writing my book next month, but I'm trying to get as much research done before the writing begins. Not that I won't do research along the way too, but not as much. And I've been busy with homeschooling and child care and getting used to Flower being back in public school.

Next week, we will have some surplus in the budget, and I've spent the last few weeks thinking about what I would like to use with some of the surplus. And I think I've decided.

I'll be purchasing:

1) Canning jars. Mostly in pint sizes but some more quart jars too. The jars are starting to go on sale, so even better, although I want to make sure and buy them before they are gone for the season.
2) Apples and Peaches. I'm hoping to can at least a couple dozen jars of sliced peaches and cinnamon applesauce.
3) An iPhone. :)

Contradictions, I tell you.

Apples

I want to make and can some applesauce. I know of a few apple orchards (Apple Blossom, Curtis) around here, but their prices are little steep for me. I don't need beautiful apples, just ones that will work for applesauce. So locals, anybody know where I can get some cheaper apples around here? I'd be willing to drive a bit - but probably not longer than about 30-40 miles. And non-locals, any tips on where you get your apples???

Maybe it is because we are talking about apples this week in Preschool, or because we are going to an apple orchard for a field trip on Friday, but I'm just craving all things Apple. Apple crisp, apple pie (I make a mean apple pie using the pie crust recipe from The Little House Cookbook), applesauce (with chunks in it, of course. And a touch of cinnamon.), apple dumplings, apple cider, apple donuts (LOVE these!)

Or maybe it is the nursery rhyme we are studying in preschool - "An Apple A Day"

An apple a day keeps the doctor away,
Apple in the morning, doctor's warning.
Roast apple at night, starves the doctor outright.
Eat an apple going to bed, knocks the doctor on the head.
Three times a day, seven days a week - ruddy apple, ruddy cheek.

It wasn't until I started teaching preschool that I'd heard the rest of the rhyme beyond "An apple a day keeps the doctor away" part. I might have an apple two or three times a week, but not 21 times. I guess I need to work on that, at least through the rest of September! I want those ruddy cheeks!

If You Think You Can, You Can!

My sister and I decided that we wanted to can most of what we grew in our garden. Both of us had watched our mom can, but had never really canned ourselves. (Well, that's not exactly true. My sister did a little water bath canning last year, but neither of us had pressure canned before.) So when our mom was out here last May, we asked our mom to buy us canning supplies for early birthday presents. (My birthday is in August, and my sister's is in September.) So she did.

Here is our lovely new pressure canner.

And then we grew stuff - tomatoes and green beans mostly. We had decided to plant roma tomatoes so that we could do tomato sauce. Well, as you might recall, our tomato situation was mixed. We planted one row of 12 plants in May, but we didn't have many cages, so we lost quite a bit to rot from being on the ground. But we still harvested about 500 tomatoes. In late June, we planted another 10 tomato plants. And then we proceeded to have the coolest summer ever. So we have only harvested a few tomatoes off the second batch, and who knows how many we will get before the frost. We used this squeeze/de-seed/de-skin contraption (It is a Back To Basics Food Strainer. It is AWESOME!) and put them in gallon bags, and then we stored them in our awesome friends' freezer. (Thanks Joy!)

We ended up with about 16 bags of tomato stuff, but it wasn't sauce yet. Because you have to boil the tomatoes and reduce them by 1/2 before canning it. It was a little disheartening to see half of our hard work just evaporating away . . . .

After boiling it down, we put it in quart jars and then put it in the pressure canner. We thought it would be complicated, but it really was easy to use. Each of us ended up with 6 jars. We may end up with a few more if the second batch of tomatoes ever turns red.

Some of our tomato sauce before we put it in the pressure canner

Then the green beans. We planted the beans early on, like back in the middle/end of May. Along with Peas. And they never really grew. So we tilled again, and tried the beans again. The second batch of green beans grew much better. I don't know how many green beans we've picked. We did a hot pack of the green beans, and then pressure canned them for 25 minutes. We have canned 14 jars (7 jars each) green and should have at least 6 more. So each of us will end up with 10 quarts.

Our green beans

It doesn't sound like we harvested much, and part of that is the boiling down that you have to do for tomato sauce, and part of it is that we are dividing the jars between our two families.

But the important thing about this year is not how much we are canning. It is that we are learning how to can.

OK, now we CAN relax . . .

and just wait until it is harvest time because we are ready now. My parents were in town this week, and my mom had agreed to get her two daughters a lovely, lovely present. One that we had actually asked for. We asked for the thing that all women want - canning supplies.

In all seriousness, we both did ask for them, and so tonight, off we went. We hit Farm and Fleet first, and bought this pressure canner, a set of 12 quart jars, and a strainer/sauce thing, that hopefully will help us make our tomato sauce much easier & less messy. We decided to go next door to Wal-Mart and look for a cold bath canner. We found one, and we also found the very same pressure canner except that it was $11 cheaper. So we hurried, bought the cheaper canner at Wal-Mart, and then hurried over to Farm and Fleet to return the more expensive one. We had to hurry because Farm and Fleet was closing in 15 minutes, and my parents were leaving in the morning.

So for now, we wait. And hope for a bumper crop. And that our children will be good while we are canning our "Simply Tomato Sauce". And beans, if they ever start growing. And applesauce. And peaches. And jam.

I'm getting hungry now.