Natural dyes, flower baskets, egg vases, buckwheat pancakes, chocolate bunnies, and happy babes. It was a good, good day.
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seasons
For anyone who knows me, you know I love my weekends. They are the cherished space where my family gathers and takes a collective exhale. During this time of year, our schedules slow (except during soccer season), our days are spent outside, and our mornings always begin with something yummy to eat.
My boys, especially Jacob, live by what comes out of the kitchen. I am asked daily what they will be eating, and I am often surprised about how strong their feelings towards food can be. We are a family making radical transformations in our diet (more on this next week), and having my children play an active role in their food is important to me.
As the spring season is now thoroughly upon us, fresh and easy meals are the ones that we love to both cook and eat. This weekend will see two of my favorites hit the Saturday brunch table: Orange and lavender scones and baked eggs with herbs.
Baked eggs have been all the rage lately, just search those two words on pinterest and you will see what I mean. I am a fan of the egg cup baked in muffin tins for a quick weekday breakfast, but come Saturday morning I like my eggs served up extra special. Fresh eggs, cream (we either use raw cream or coconut cream), herbs and parmasean cheese bake together to create a yummy and healthy treat. I layer ramekins with a tablespoon of cream, three eggs, and top it off with herbs and cheese. Bake in a 350 degree oven until set, and serve with a slice of toast.
As for those scones, well we have a new recipe that has recently crossed our path that my boys can not get enough of. Elana’s chocolate chip scones are a favorite in my house, and I do not hear the end of it if ever I run out. Almond flower, grapeseed oil and a touch of agave nectar combine with chocolate chips to create a low sugar, high taste combo.
For Spring, however, I wanted something with a touch of orange and a hint of lavender. We took Elana’s original recipe and added in orange zest, lavender blossoms, and coconut oil to give it just the right spring feel. Of course, you will need to be careful about little hands stealing your scones and crawling off to eat them in their entirety. This seems to be a common problem in our household, and may account for why they disappear so fast.
Orange, Lavender Scones
adapted from Elana’s Almond Flour Cookbook
2 1/2 cups blanched almond flour (we grind our own from blanched almonds in the food processor)
1/2 tsp sea salt
1/2 tsp baking soda
1/3 cup coconut oil – melted
1/4 cup agave oil
2 large eggs
1 tsp lavender blossoms
1/4 cup orange juice
Orange zest from one orange
Preheat the oven to 350. Line baking sheets with parchment paper.
In the bowl of an electric mixer, combine your dry ingredients together. In a seperate bowl, whisk together the coconut oil, eggs, agave nectar, orange juice and orange zest. Add to the wet ingredients until just combined. Fold in the lavender blossoms. Drop the batter in scant 1/4 cups 2 inches apart, onto the baking sheets.
Bake for 12-18 minutes, until golden brown. Allow to cool for 30 minutes on the baking sheet and serve with honey/lavender whip cream (just whip your cream with a tbsp honey and 1/4 tsp of lavender blossoms)
** Please note that these scones are not traditional in their sweetness. They are made with a small amount of agave nectar to keep the sugar content down. For added sweetness, you can dust the top of the scones with sanding sugar before baking. If you want to make a more traditional scone, simply add the orange juice, lavender blossoms, and orange zest to any traditional recipe.
What would eggs and scones be without a bit of tea? I love to use fresh or dried herbs to make my own teas, and this combo actually can go from my dresser drawers (sachets), to my tea cup. A little roobios, lavender, chamomile and spearmint combine for a blend that smells delicious and tastes just as good.
The boys call it their weekend cocktail, and it works to begin the day as well as to end it.
For the boys, Saturday mornings are always craft time. This was a tradition that was started years ago, and admittedly was a way for Joel and I to get a little extra sleep. With Landon here, that is not a real possibility any more, but Jacob and Elwood still love coming downstairs to see what awaits them to create.
Last weekend saw boxes, shells, and elmers glue. The boys made a whole collection of treasure boxes to give to friends (and keep for themselves), and it kept their little hands busy almost through until lunch.
Of course, one always needs to be careful about those sneaky little brothers. They are notorious for stealing your shells while happily eating your scones.
Wishing you many blessings, in whatever celebrations are taking place in your home this weekend.
I am joining Linda at Creative Friday . Lot’s more Spring goodness to be found!
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I had a conversation with my husband a few months back that went like this:
Me: “I found the perfect house!”
Him: “We’re moving?”
Me: “It is up near Carter Lake, has a ton of property, and it comes with 49 goats”.
Him: Blank stare. Dead silence.
Joel is a patient man, a good man, and certainly a saint in the making for marrying the likes of me. Over the past 10 years he has sat by patiently as I charged into the world of writing, and although he works tremendous hours he has little complaints when I hand him three kids and tell him I have to get out the magazine, knit one more row, write a blog post, or test a recipe. Having said that, I might have pushed him a bit too far with the issue of goats.
In just a little over a month we will have lived in our current home for ten years. 2012 is a big year all around for my family in terms of anniversaries, but this one really struck me as being huge. For some reason I never expected to stay this long. We made the move to this house in haste, without much agreement, and with a sense that we would not be staying in the area long. Ten years later I find myself in suburbia dreaming daily of a small farm along the range of the Rocky Mountains.
The idea of a homestead is a popular one, and certainly there are many wonderful blogs that describe their daily life with beauty and grace. For me, I envision a small space where my kids can not only roam free and play, but also learn that their home can be a source of life for them, from the foods that they eat to the clothes that they make, etc.
So what happens when one of us sees goats in our future and the other does not? That is the question that has been weighing heavily on my mind for some time. The truth is I understand that right now, in this moment, our home and our three children feel like enough for my family, and that taking on something that we are not ready for is not healthy or wise. If we were to make such a move, it would need to be with the purest of intentions and certainly a bit more knowledge of what it would take to be successful than we have right now. I also, however, understand that sometimes the dream comes in stages, and that embracing the process is half the fun.
It was with that thought it mind that I started to look at my home differently, and my community differently.
When we moved to this house, one of the first things that we did was put in two huge raised garden beds. Those beds are now tended by 5 sets of loving hands, and what we don’t have room for, we grow in our community garden less than 5 minutes from our home.
We don’t have chickens (yet), but the front of our house faces a county road that leads us to a raw milk dairy farm where we can purchase fresh eggs, cheese, milk, and local beef.
We don’t have bees, but the front range is scattered with those who do, and they will not only share their local honey, but as much info as you can imagine about the life of the honey bee.
We don’t keep farm animals, but we look out over a horse farm where the boys are always welcome to come feed and tend the horses.
As I stand in my kitchen and watch my children playing in our backyard, I see the space that we could use to keep bees, the small run on the east side of the house for chickens, the cold frame being built to house our veggies into the colder months. I see the possibilities. Our home is going to grow over the years, and we are going to grow with it. We may not keep 49 goats any time soon, but we have what we need to live in the sustainable manner we have always wanted. What we can’t do here, we are lucky enough to be able to find in our community, and that feels amazing. To get to know the local farmers, gardeners, bee keepers, permaculturalists has taught me so much, and I realize how it has shaped who I have become in my daily life.
We have enough in this space we call home, and right now that is just perfect.
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Living in the present moment is something that I strive for, experiencing the moments as they come, rather than considering how they might be in the future.
No matter how hard I try, there is always a sense of shift at this time of year, and I find my mind wandering to the cool weather ahead. I don’t dwell on it, or even think of it for very long, but I can feel it.
There is the slightest chill as the sun goes down, a subtle change to the morning light as the sun rises just a little bit later, and a soft breeze that has not been here for the past few months.
I love to knit, and I pretend to be a knitter year round, but as the temperature gauge reaches well into the 90′s, my sense of joy at holding large mounds of wool fades away. I know that there are many warm days ahead, and I welcome them fully. Winter is a long season here, and extends well into Autumn and Spring, but for today I glance over the wool I know will be used in the coming months, and I can feel the shift ahead, and it makes me smile.
This blog has been having some technical difficulties over the past few days, and apparently the comments switched from Intense Debate back to blogger for certain posts, namely the two preceding this one. The comments were lost from those posts, which is a bit heartbreaking, but I am hoping that I can find enough technical savvy to correct the problem (or even just figure out what it is). Hopefully it will not continue to happen on other posts, but somehow it will work itself out, it always does 
.
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We are returning from a beautiful trip back to the east coast, where we took the boys on a tour of Washington DC. What an experience to see their eyes light up at the White House, the Capitol, the memorials and museums. With everything going on, with all the political strife, the name calling, and the general depressing news, it was great to see the world through the eyes of a 7 and 5 year old. There was so much possibility and promise, and we need more of that in these days ahead.
We arrived home to our garden overflowing, and that end of summer joy that comes from so many days toiling in the dirt. I love this time of year, when the sun takes on a lingering golden hue, when that slight chill creeps in at twilight, when the harvest has come and the fruits and vegetables are stacked on the kitchen counter. There is a moment every day when I can feel the shift in the earth becoming stronger, where that depth of summer heat is letting go, and making way for cooler seasons ahead.
These are the days when we barely come indoors between sun up and sun down. When our feet dangle in the water and all of our meals are taken creek side. It is the time that I want to freeze, or find a way to bottle so that my kids will always remember how much fun we had. Oh how I wish we could. For now we will just have to enjoy each moment, and savor these days outdoors.
The giveaway for The Rhythm of Family will end at midnight MST, and I will post the winner on the bottom of the original post.
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