2013 Summer Bucket List

Big and I a thousand years ago

Summa Summa Summa tiiiiime.
Summer seems to simultaniously drag on and fly by, doesn't it?
Days seem hotter and slower and then you look up and it's October! I can't believe it's Independence Day already. This year, Big and I made a bucket list. A bunch of awesome fun stuff that we want to do as much as possible this summer, my first as a SAHM. She has some summer camps and fun trips planned but I also want free time to go where the day leads and find fun stuff for she and I to do together. She'll only have one summer as a ten year old and Little is still small enough that she can't get into TOO much trouble if we're out and about. So, without further ado, here is our bucket list.

~Cosca Park- A great large park and playground with shaded areas for picnicking, a big pond with paddle boats, a skate park and a nature center. We've already gone once.
~Great Waves - As it sounds, a water park. It's close and fairly reasonably priced.
~Cove Point -Another water park. Further away but cheaper.
~Library - Ideally we'd like to go once or twice a week. We recently went a little crazy in a used book store so haven't had a reason to!
~Colonial Farm - I've been meaning to check this place out for years, this summer it will get done! It's close, it's free and it's educational. Win Win Win
~Go to the Pool - What would summer vacation be like without frequent trips to the pool? This one apparently. It's been raining so much we haven't gone!
~Visit the monuments and museums - We live about 20 minutes from DC. We need to take advantage of it more!
~Visit Polyface Farm - If nothing else gets done, this will get done. Polyface is Joel Salatin's farm and it's about 2 hours from here. They have an open door policy - you can go down and look at everything, anytime.
~Visit friends - Luckily, we live in a neighborhood with lots of awesome kids for Big to play with.

That's our list. Big wrote it up on pretty paper and it's on the refrigerator for quick reference. What do you have planned for the summer? Have you made a bucket list?

How I Menu Plan

A few months ago I started menu planning and it has made such a huge difference around here. I started when I was searching for something to make these people for dinner and pulled out a few heads of rotten broccoli and a bag of rotten green beans from the refrigerator. It was late, I had no idea what we were eating, and we were wasting food. That night, after we ate Top Ramen for dinner, I sat down and worked out the rest of the week and haven’t looked back since.

I know a lot of people plan breakfast, lunch and dinner. Around here, as it’s just Little and I during the day (and she’s still mostly on a liquid diet) I only plan dinner. As big is getting out of school next week that may change. I’ll update this if and when we do.

First thing I do is check the fridge. Did you know if you have stainless steel appliances you can write on them with dry erase markers? The front of the fridge is where I write our calendar. If there’s girl scouts, an activity at school, a night out or whatever, I need to plan around that. No big, labor intensive meals when we have to be somewhere at 6:30. After that, I open the door. Did something not get eaten from last week’s menu? Any produce hanging around that needs to be eaten? Plan your meals accordingly.

We have certain nights that we have certain things. I would die of taste bud boredom if we had, for example, spaghetti every Monday. What we do instead is a flexible day. Tuesday is something from another culture. Think Taco Tuesday, but with more options. Wednesday is beans. From Red Beans and Rice to Falafel. Friday is homemade pizza day (try this dough recipe, it’s perfect!) but that could be BBQ chicken pizza or Margherita pizza or Chicken Ceasar Salad pizza.

I try to do a big something on Sunday or Monday that we can use to make other meals. Extra points if it goes in the crock pot.

This is this week:

Monday – Crockpot chicken, asparagus, sweet potatoes

Tuesday – Taco Bowl

Wednesday - Egg Roll in a Bowl – Made from leftover chicken.

Thursday – ‘Brats and Sauerkraut (and broccoli)

Friday – Margherita Pizza

Saturday – Birthday Celebration!

Sunday – Sloppy lentils, broccoli cakes from leftover broccoli, homemade fries

I was too lazy forgot to go to the store so Monday and Tuesday got switched. No biggie. Be flexible. Life happens. Sometimes your crying baby lets you know that the grocery store is NOT happening that day. Sometimes your couch is super comfortable. Whatevs.

Do you menu plan? Any great recipes to share?

I Got the 'Bootch

Kombucha.

Do you brew?

I DO!

What is kombucha? Kombucha is a lactofermented beverage made from tea that is rich in probiotics and antioxidants and is known for curing everything from digestive problems to gray hair to cancer. Most people note just *feeling better* after drinking it. Kombucha is made by introducing a symbiotic culture of bacteria and yeast (SCOBY) to sweetened, cooled tea and letting them hang out for 7-10 days. Brewing kombucha is honestly, ridiculously easy. The hardest part is obtaining a SCOBY. They can be purchased online, made from a bottle of commercial kombucha or given to you be another brewing buddy. I made mine from a bottle of GTs kombucha. Pour it into a bowl, put a towel over it, leave it alone for a week or so. Eventually a SCOBY will grow.

When you brew LOTS of kombucha for a LONG time you gets LOTS of SCOBYs. Everytime you brew you get another one. Eventually you wind up with a “SCOBY hotel” that you have no idea what to do with but have to feed sweet tea like it was another pet.


My SCOBY hotel. There’s no pool.

Most of the time when I brew kombucha It’s a two part process. While brewing the next batch, I’m also bottling the previous. Here are my two brewing vessels, a one gallon and a two gallon glass jug.


Kombucha ready for bottling.

I find it easiest to first brew so that the tea has some time to cool before the vessels are ready.

First, you have to make tea. I begin by boiling 2 gallons (give or take) of water.


water in a pot. bam.

Once the water is boiling, I add 8 tea bags and 2 cups of sugar. We want to make kinda strong, sweet tea. I use 4 bags of green and 4 bags of black tea. Feel free to experiment with different kinds of tea but don’t use anything that is herbal or that may contain essential oils. It could damage the SCOBY and the SCOBY is your friend. Love her and feed her and she’ll take care of you. Also, speaking of taking care of your SCOBY, stick to plain old sugar. You may substitute with other kinds of sugar (for example sucanat) but don’t use honey. Honey is antibacterial and it will kill your SCOBY.

So anyway, once the water is boiling, dump in 2 cups of sugar and 8 tea bags.



Stir it all together and let it steep and cool. I put the top on to keep germies out but that’s totally counter productive to getting it cool. Let it cool for a few hours. Normally I forget about it at this point until I come into the kitchen the next morning. It’s good and cool by then.

At this point, I turn my attention to bottling. So here we are with 2 finished big jugs of Kombucha.



You can see the SCOBY at the top of the smaller jug. We’re just going to decant this into many smaller jugs for the second fermentation.

These should be enough for 3 gallons of kombucha. First we have to take off the SCOBY. I then pour the kombucha into the jug shown at the top of this photo to pour into the bottles. If you flavor your kombucha, leave a little room at the top. I flavor mine mostly with frozen fruit. I also use dried elderberries for elderberry kombucha. That, along with pineapple, are my favorites!



Once you’ve added your fruit, cap it and leave it out for a second fermentation. The second ferment allows for flavoring and also allows carbonation to build up. The longer it sits out, the more carbonation. I leave mine out for 2 days. Be careful with fresh or frozen fruit, I wouldn’t leave it out longer than 3 days.


from l to r – elderberry, blueberry, raspberry, pineapple

I’m always amazed by the colors when I bottle kombucha. Above picture was after about 20 minutes. I don’t use a lot of fruit – a few chunks of frozen, organic fruit, and it gives these vivid, beautiful colors.

When decanting into bottles, make sure you leave a cup or so of brewed kombucha to feed the next batch. I usually leave a little more than that, depending on how many bottles I have clean.



Now that that’s done and your kombucha is cooled, we just add it to this, plop the SCOBY on top and let it hang out for a week or so. Make sure to cover it with something breathable – a few layers of paper towels or a clean, white towel. The shorter the ferment, the sweeter. The longer the ferment, the more purported health benefits.

So that’s it. Easy peasy lemon squeezy.

Do you enjoy kombucha? What are your favorite flavors?

Just Another Day in Paradise

We’re getting into a kind of routine around the Brown-stead. Get up with Little and wake up Big. Let the chickens out and do their chores with Big and with Little on my back. Send Big in to get ready for school while I weed the garden and stand around looking at things and breathing.

Like my boots?

During the day I play with Little, bother the chickens, clean, cook, all that fun stuff.

Take pictures of our shoes…you know, the normal.

We eat dinner, I get Little to bed, Mr. Farmer Brown and I go close up chicken shop and watch something stupid on TV.
Big plays outside with her friends.
It’s simple. It’s suburban. It’s mundane and boring.
It’s paradise.

There are eggs in paradise, right?