Where to begin today’s blog? Well, as you can see, I have moved the blog to the wordpress section of my site (you can view old blogs here).
I have been keeping busy, working on a few comic book projects(Project Noah’s Ark & News Media), helping my sister (Tajlyn) with her musical identity (graphics, marketing and web stuff). She has finished recording her first album and is available now for pre-sale. Check it out here!
Along with working on projects & looking for new ones to start on in the future, we are also preparing for the winter. This will be our third winter in the cabin. I think it will be a lot less stressful this year (my father in-law is letting us borrow his generator as long as we need. Exciting!). Our neighbors have been very helpful with our transition out of city-slicker-ism. They have helped us with gathering firewood and given us tips on how to live up here.
My husband went with our neighbors and told me about his first “lumberjack” experience. After purchasing a wood gathering permit, we are able to gather wood from anywhere in the forest. One the chosen day, we woke up at 5am, so they could leave at 6. The sun at 4000 feet is pretty intense regardless of the temperature and wears you out quickly, so an early start to a day outside is key. There are certain areas where there are enormous piles of large tree trunks that you are allowed to take. They hook a chain up to the logs they want, hop in the truck and pull them out. Then load these huge oak and pine tree trunks into the bed of the truck. My husband said the mosquito swarms were insane. After a few hours they were done with the first load. After our generous neighbor unloaded his truck, he chopped the trunks into smaller pieces (at an extremely accurate and fast pace) and left them on our property in a nice pile. Now on to the fun part. Chop, chop, chop those larger pieces in half so they fit in the fireplace. I attempted this yesterday in 100 degrees. I made a nice little splice in the wood. I have yet to actually be able to chop one by myself, but I will continue to attempt to chop those pieces in half (we have 3 more truck loads to go get before the rainy season begins). They make it look so easy. I know I will conquer this new yearly task with repetition. If not, well then I will have to use the neighbor’s wood splicer.
Enough about wood tho. What about food? What do you do when money is scarce and you live on the edge of nowhere? You grow your own food and cook from scratch. This year’s growing of food isn’t going that swell. The dirt here is mostly rock and we were unable to build raised beds this year, making this year’s garden not the best. There is more corn than last year and we have a nice amount of basil. However the melon, onion, spinach, pumpkin, peppers and Echinacea are not doing so well. We are bummed, but we are planning out next years garden and it is going to be wonderful. Thankfully I made a few new friends who know farmers who are overflowing with veggies and will be bringing them our way next time they visit.
Cooking food from scratch – a tedious, lengthy event. Especially when your blender has broken and now instead of daily smoothies, I am hand squeezing juice. It tastes awesome, but I really miss having a blender. I am getting faster at cooking. I have my Greenie Mac n Cheese recipe down to a science, but it still takes a little over an hour to make. This recipe is extremely good and I would like to share it with you.
Ingredients:
Half a bag of pasta noodles (about 8 oz)
1 1/2 – 2 cups green beans (chopped)
1 1/2 – 2 cups petite peas
1 cup broccoli (chopped)
2 green onions (chopped)
2 cups shredded cheddar cheese
1/2 cup shredded pepperjack cheese
2 cups milk
1/4 cup butter
3 tablespoons whole wheat flour
salt, pepper & basil to taste
2 pieces of whole wheat bread (toasted)
Directions:
- Cook pasta as directed (boil water, add noodles, cook 15 minutes, less time if you are at lower elevation)
- Once noodles are cooked, drain and rinse. Pour noodles into a 13×9 casserole dish.
- Put the empty pot you used for the noodles back on the stove and melt the butter at a low heat. Do not burn the butter.
- Once butter is melted, add the flour to make a roux. Stir flour and butter together. I usually remove from heat for this part so I don’t burn the roux
- Add the milk to the roux and mix well.
- Stir the cheese in to the milk and roux and turn the stove top to medium heat. Stir gently, I tend to splash at this point if I go too fast.
- Pre-heat oven to 350 degrees farenheit
- While the cheese is melting into the mix and your oven is pre-heating, you can start adding the green beans, peas, broccoli and green onions to the pasta that is chillin’ in your casserole dish. Mix in the greens as you add them. You want about a 70/30 mixture of veggies to pasta (mostly veggies)
- Don’t forget about your cheese mix! Stir it as needed and don’t let it boil. Once the cheese is melted, you will have a nice, somewhat thick cheesy sauce. If it gets to this point before you are done adding the veggies, remove the cheese sauce from heat and cover.
- So, you’ve added the veggies, now back to the cheese sauce. Stir in salt, pepper and dried basil to taste into the cheese sauce. Mix well.
- Time to toast those two pieces of bread
- While the bread is toasting, pour the cheese sauce over the noodles and veggies and mix well.
- Once the cheese is covered all over the pasta and veggie goodness and the bread is done toasting and cooled off, crumble the bread pieces over top of the veggies and pasta.
- Put casserole dish in oven for 30 minutes and ta da! A nice filling meal or a great side dish for large families/parties
Enjoy!
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