The three soups I featured recently were so popular, I decided to share a few more recipes.
Sauté 1 diced onion and 2 cloves minced garlic in 2 T olive oil. Add 3 cups diced carrots and 3 cups vegetable broth; bring to a boil, then reduce heat and simmer for 20 minutes. Add ¼ cup minced parsley. Purée. Stir in 1 T honey, 1 t lemon juice, ½ t ground cumin, and 1/8 t ground allspice. Add salt and pepper to taste. Serves 4.
The adorable, always humorous MBA Jane is my way of honoring our Sisterhood Merit Badge program, now with 5,602 dues-paying members who have earned an amazing number of merit badges so far—7,898 total! Take it away, MBA Jane!!! MJ
Wondering who I am? I’m Merit Badge Awardee Jane (MBA Jane for short). In my former life …
For this week’s Farm Kitchen/Organic on a Budget Intermediate Level Merit Badge, I gave myself a little pat on the back.
Why, you may ask?
I’m so glad you did.
Because I am officially chemical free when it comes to my fruits and veggies, that’s why. And do you know what? It feels good.
Like I knew that it would now.
So good … so good … I got –
Well, that’s where my fondness for segueing from vegetables into song lyrics goes awry. No matter, the point is: I have been successful at eliminating those pesky non-food ingredients from my “rabbit food,” as Mr. Wonderful likes to call plants. (He’s still working on Level One, let’s say).
At first, I admit to being skeptical. I mean, I’ve never been a veggie girl, let’s face facts here. My poor mom had to drown them in Ranch just to get me to swallow them without making a face (vegetables, that is, not facts. Though facts are better with condiments, too). Basically, as a kiddo, I liked my veg in this order:
French Fries
Potato chips
Dill pickles.
I know, I know. It’s a wee list.
But it’s gotten longer these days, and it’s amazing how broadening my horizons, culinary-ish speaking, has lightened my moods (and waistband). I discovered all sorts of foods I never knew I liked, and realized how much yummier it all tastes when there isn’t an aftertaste of pesticides and fungicides. Scary ‘cides aside …
I don’t even need Ranch anymore, which my mother would say is a small miracle. A little sauté in butter and my peas are delish. A squeeze of lemon on a spinach salad and I’m in heaven. A quick stir-fry of bell peppers and onions enliven my sandwiches, and a splash of apple cider vinegar wakes up my sleepy Swiss Chard. And when it comes to my organic fruit? Mm. I never thought a fruit salad could take the place of dessert for this sugar-aholic, but guess again.
Another perk to earning this badge is all the friends and farmers I’ve met that I otherwise would never have found. It’s much more fun, healthy, cheap, and delicious to buy my organic produce from my local neighbors than it is from the big supermarket. Also, there are more samples from the farmers, which is a definite plus when you’re a try before you buy kind of gal.
All in all, I’d say this badge was a pleasure to earn. I’d tell you more but I’m too busy stuffing my tummy with organic jicama.
Only lightly dipped in Ranch.
(But it’s organic, Mom).
Welcome New Sisters! (click for current roster)
Merit Badge Awardees (click for latest awards)
My featured Merit Badge Awardee of the Week is … CJ Armstrong!!!
CJ Armstrong (ceejay48, #665) has received a certificate of achievement in Stitching & Crafting for earning a Beginner Level Quilling Merit Badge!
“Papercrafting is not new to me; however, I had not actually pursued quilling. Quilling, also known as paper filigree, has been around for centuries. It was used in the Renaissance to decorate scrolls and books. In the 18th century, it became a “ladies” art.
Basic tools currently include a slotted tool, tweezers, glue, and a tapered needle.
I studied the different rolls and scrolls, which include tight circle, loose circle, teardrop, marquise, shaped marquise, square, rolled heart, loose scroll, open heart, V scroll, C scroll, S scroll and variations on the scrolls. It certainly is nice that you can purchase quilling paper already cut into neat, tidy, and even strips!
I decided to make a card with a simple flower design on it. Since I’ve made lots of papercraft cards, it was pretty easy to get into the process. I used teardrops for the flower petals, a loose circle for the center, and shaped marquise leaves. I’m very happy with the result and look forward to the next project!!”
How about a Christmas tree that’s roughly four feet tall, perfectly symmetrical, and very much alive? In late September, my local nursery puts their trees on clearance, so that’s when I usually adopt my soon-to-be Christmas tree for around $60. Some years there’s another local endeavor selling live trees for $125 but not this year.
My feelings are identical to the way I felt when my parents let me pick out a puppy or choose from a litter of kittens. This one! Its roots are securely tucked into a root ball covered in burlap. Each year, I bring a tree home and carefully and routinely water it until I can get it planted, usually in March sometime.
Grown and out the door, my farm is home to a couple dozen trees I’ve fallen for over the years. Some of them are now HUGE! Thought to protect homes from evil, it’s no surprise we want them indoors with us. Outside greenery, brought inside, is the centerpiece of our holiday season.
The worship of trees goes back to the time of the earliest Pantheists. (Pantheism is the worship of nature.) Integrated into our holiday customs are early Christian and Jewish practices, Roman traditions, medieval pagan rituals, and Victorian nostalgia. Germans introduced Americans to the Christmas tree (tannenbaum), but they weren’t the first to believe that evergreen trees represented eternal life because of their perennial green color during winter. Ancient homes were decorated with boughs and the tops of trees turned upside down to entice the spirit of nature inside for prosperity and good health.
Cut, faux, or alive—what’s your centerpiece this year? Having tried them all, I can make a convincing argument for all three. For every Christmas tree cut, two are planted. With over a million acres set aside to grow Christmas trees, one acre provides the daily oxygen requirement for some 18 people, but there’s just something sad to me about that lifeless hulk slowly turning brown out the back door. And I can’t for the life of me envision Pan, the god of woods, fields, and flocks, coming into my home to play his flute for my faux tree, even if it is an “eternal” tree.
Check out www.livingchristmastrees.org, a Portland, Oregon-based company that’s been in business for over 20 years delivering full-size Christmas trees and then planting them at schools, churches, and parks after Christmas.
Maybe you’ll be getting a new deck of cards this year in your Christmas stocking. If so, here’s an idea for what to do with your old deck. I made this scrapbook-inspired advent calendar last year from an old deck of cards.
In the spirit of upcycle and on a mission to make an advent calendar, I rummaged through my craft boxes, finding spare scraps, odd buttons, random thread and lace, and numbers, and then scrounged some holidayish-looking items. Using a fabulous vintage frame I’d been saving and an old deck of cards, I started cutting and pasting, the old-fashioned way. The cards have special meaning because my grandpa, now gone, gave me this deck many years ago after teaching me card tricks. Casino issue, the whole set had been punched with a hole upon its professional retirement, perfect for this project.
Most of my advent calendar is upcycled, but I did use a new alphabet stamp set and pad for some of the numbers and a dear friend lent me her Cricut machine that cuts paper into all kinds of shapes and sizes. Even the styrofoam backing is a scrap I snagged from the ‘shipping warehouse’ side of our farm.
When I showed my mother the finished project, she asked how on earth I burned all the edges of the paper and cards so evenly. Here’s a handy tip: rub the edges of your paper with a brown stamp pad, and it instantly looks rustic, aged, and even a bit burned in places.
Underneath each card is a smaller card with a note that is a 24-day treasure hunt for my children. Every year, I come up with things like, “Where on earth might your dollies be?” And then, underneath their sleeping dollies, sugar-plum lollipops await them or the promise of an extra-long bedtime story.
This year we’re having fun with the Elf on the Shelf. Anyone else doing that?
Buy props used in MaryJane’s books and magazine!
5% of profits will benefit www.firstbook.org, a non-profit that provides new books to children from low-income families throughout the U.S. and Canada.
Here’s how:
MaryJane will post a photo and a description of a prop and its cost along with a few details as to its condition here: https://shop.maryjanesfarm.org/MaryJanesCurations. It’s a playful way to be the new owner of a little bit of farm herstory.
