Monthly Archives: November 2012

Thanksgiving memories

Sorry I have been away for so long. We have just been finishing projects, enjoying the cooler weather and now with our first dusting of snow hunkering down and enjoying a reflective season. Proeun was off for the whole week of Thanksgiving and we finally had minimal projects to work on. It gave us time to enjoy our home, farm and family.

For Proeun and I this time of year is always amazing. It was 10 years ago this week that Proeun proposed to me. Or as he said yesterday, “10 years ago I was busy trying to convince you that I was the one.” He didn’t have to work too hard. There have been alot of great Thanksgivings since then and Proeun is always at the top of my list of gratefulness. Now as we start our 10th anniversary year we are living on our dream property and creating a dream life. Part of that is having a place to raise our soon to be 5 children.

We are all anxiously awaiting the arrival of our 5th baby, so I will probably be more or less absent from this space for awhile. But I did want to share a great picture with you captured yesterday at our prenatal by our amazing midwife Tracey of Twin Cities Midwives.

Mavis (and all the children) can hardly wait for the birth of her new little baby. She has been going through the pregnancy with lots of sympathy pains. Here she listens to the heartbeat of our family’s newest member.

Eggy Comfort

Even though the days are getting shorter and our girls (hens) are taking a bit of an annual rest we still get plenty of eggs to keep our family going. I think I have said this before but I honestly probably wouldn’t be farming if it didn’t taste so good. Now that we are actually on our farm and can begin our own meat production (yes we do eat meat) and ramp up our egg production I am having to learn a whole new way to eat though using fresh, in season ingredients. At this time of the year that often means stored foods.

Since discovering a few years ago that I have a dairy allergy I have also been learning a whole new way to cook. Unfortunately many western egg dishes pair eggs with cheese so many of these are off limits to me. So with eggs piling up I began looking for other options. So I turned to one of my all time favorite cookbooks–Madhur Jaffrey’s World Vegetarian. Some of the ingredients in the book have been hard to find in my neck of the woods but I am learning good substitutes. So this weekend I made the Eggs in Coconut Milk Sauce. Here is my variation.

Amy’s Eggy Comfort

5-6 hard boiled eggs

1 can coconut milk (I love Thai Kitchen brand)
1/2 can of water (I use the coconut milk can to get as much as I can in the sauce)
1/2 tsp tumeric
1/4 tsp ground cinnamon
1/2 large onion finely diced
2 hot peppers diced
3 tomatoes peeled and diced
15 Thai Basil leaves
1 TBSP tamarind soup base (use 2 TBSP fresh lime or lemon juice)
dash of salt

Hard boil and peal the eggs. Then either quarter them lengthwise or score them being careful not to cut all the way through (I started out trying to score them but ended up quartering most of them).

Put the remaining ingredients in a medium pot, bring to boil, reduce heat and simmer for 15 minutes. Add the eggs, stir gently and simmer for 3-4 minutes.

Serve with rice, I love Jasmine rice. Enjoy.

So the onions, tomatoes (we still have some green tomatoes slowly turning in our garage), peppers and of course eggs all came from our farm. I love it when we are able to use our own produce to make yummy dishes like this.

Daylight Savings Time

So last weekend Daylight Savings Time ended in our neck of the woods. With close to a month and half left to go before the winter solstice and a pregnancy ticking down as well this momma is tired, really tired. It was a long, great, learning type season and things are slowly being crossed off the list of late fall and winter tasks. So when it gets to be about 7:00, a couple hours after the sun set, I am ready for bed.

So sorry I haven’t been very interesting lately, and today will prove no different. My days are filled in the close quarters of home (which looks a lot better thanks to a new paint job my parents provided last weekend). We hydrate, consume calories, rest, learn a bit, try not to drive each other crazy and most importantly rest. Cabin fever may be an issue this year, but as Proeun said, enjoy the rest because soon the busy season will be here again. I guess that is seasonal living, not always glamorous, but exactly what we need. Enjoy your own little hibernation and break.