HOME MADE CAMOMILE TEA

  In many summers I have collected wild herbs from nature and dried them for brewing tea in winter. Herbs such as raspberry, stinging nettle, and rowan leaves. This summer I tried to grow some camomile. It did grow, but not as generously as I was expecting. None the less, I was still able to collect a few bunches of it for tea. And that´s enough.

  The recipe:

1 tsp dried camomile flowers
2,5 dl hot water
(honey)

+ Pour hot, almost boilig water over the camomile and let simmer for 10min (or longer for more intensive flavor). Sweeten with honey if desired.
  The flavor of camomile always brings summer to my mind, and therefore is a perfect drink for winter.

HOORAY FOR LOCAL FARMERS!

  Shame on me! For over ten years I have lived next to a farmer who grows organic produce (only plants, no smelling animals luckily!), and until now I have never bought anything from him. I always thought he would only sell huge bunches to big supermarkets or restaurants. But I was wrong.

  Yesterday I went and bought my first batch of his lovely organic veggies. Earlier we talked and agreed on a deal that I would give him twenty bucks, and he put together a suitable bunch of produce worth the money.

Potatoes, cauliflower, cabbage, and yellow onions are in season. (There were a lot more potatoes, but there´s no sense in stuffing them all in the picture.)

Lovely, smooth potatoes with the thinnest peel.

It is funny how you appreciate your food more when you know where it comes from. And I´m totally happy that all of my money went straight to the farmer, not into the pockets of faceless supermarkets (which do stand their place in stuff we can´t grow or produce locally).

Perfect...

  Now all I need to do is conjure up different dishes of these lovely veggies. It makes cooking somewhat more simple too; now I don´t have to figure out what to buy, only to use the ingredients I have.
  Today it is time for a cabbage pie. I have a bag of tomatoes, which I got from a friend in our village (who is also a farmer, but not an organic one,) waiting in the fridge. I will combine those two into a healthy pie.
   I just love this time of year with it´s abundance of fresh produce!

LOSING BABY FAT, PART 3: MISSION COMPLETED

  I have done it! All the weight I gained during my second pregnancy is gone. All of the 20+ kilos. I can hardly believe it myself.

I´m so happy to be back at my normal weight range!

  It took less than five months. I gave myself time until the end of this year, but I´m at the finishing point already. Yippee!
  It feels like the weight just melted off on it´s own, since I have done no exercising and have eaten as much as I wanted. I have followed the all-I-can-eat diet plans I put together, which I have also shared in my earlier posts. I am active in my everyday life, and I believe that counts as "exercise" in practice.
  In addition to staring at the kilos on the scale, I also like to keep in mind the BMI chart. Making sure that my weight stays in the healthy zone. I like to keep the index around 20. Too skinny is not good or healthy either.

  A toast for me is in order, I will now go and make a nice cup of green tea.   =)

KITCHEN GARDEN

  I´m a beginning gardener and don´t have a particularly green thumb to begin with. But I have the will to try and learn new things, so I try to grow something in my garden.
   My grandpa used to have a kitchen garden, way before it was "fashionable", and he always said he wanted to be somewhat self sufficient with food in case of another war time. He was a young lad during WW2, and remembered and dreaded those times. Well, my gardening isn´t due to a fear of another war, but rather in the means of reducing commercial consumption.

Welcome to my small, humble, and very amateur garden.

This year I grow strawberries, rhubarb, cucumber, spinach, lettuces, garlic, carrots, potatoes, kale, and raspberries.

Potatoes are blooming. I threw them in the ground a bit late, so harvesting will be later than usual.

This is a specialty I´m very happy to have accidentially found a few years back; the common ice plant. It has become my absolutely favorite lettuce. Unlike other lettuces I´ve had, this one is fleshy, soft, and juicy. I slice it into thin strips and eat with pesto sauce, or put it on bread with only butter. Very nice.

This is what the leaves of the common ice plant look like underneath. They are full of little water crystals inside the plant´s leaves. Therefore it is so moist and delicious to eat. And I´m happy to say that these babies grow practically on their own, with no special care needed!

A guest in my garden. I don´t use any pesticides or commercial fertilizers. In the spring I only throw in some of our own compost and that´s it.

Flowers are not important to me, but I have a few edible ones growing, like this marigold. They make a nice garnish for dishes.

  My simple philosophy for gardening is that what grows, grows, and what doesn´t, dies. I don´t want to fight nature and make things only complicated. The plants that succeed naturally in my "care" are the ones I will focus on. And the ones that don´t I leave for others to grow. Gardening should be fun, and the most fun for me is when it doesn´t rule my life, but still gives me culinary experiences!

RASPBERRY SEASON

  Raspberries are my second favorite of berries, right after strawberries. I boght a few bushes 3-4 years ago, and this year is the first they actually bear fruit well. I´m so excited!

Mouthwatering!

A perfect piece of nature.

Here is my dinner from the other day. There were still some strawberries left in the garden, and I found wild blueberries in our back yard. In they all went along with some sunflower seeds and honey.

  I always prefer eating raspberries raw when in season, but now that I have an abundance of them, I think I will make some simple jam of them too for winter. I use the same recipe for all kinds of jams. Simple and savoury.

The recipe:
1 kg (approx. 2 liters) berries
1/2 dl water
1/2 kg jam sugar (which is 98 percent sugar and some pectin in it)

+  Place the berries and water in a kettle and bring to a boil. Add the sugar and let simmer for 10-15 min. Let cool and scoop into jars.
  I like to freeze my jams for winter. That way they won´t spoil for sure.
  Yum!

HOLIDAY FASHION - BY THE SEA

  Holiday season is at it´s hottest right now. We, as a family, have spent a lot of time in our summer cabin by the sea. Whenever I´m there, surrounded by the big blue water, I only feel comfortable wearing something blue. I want to match with the nature around me, go with the natural flow.

  This is what I made for this holiday season for my trips to the archipelago region.

For fabric I used an old bedsheet, which had different prints on either side. Mixing them gave a more interesting look. A head scarf is essential in the winds of the sea, especially when boating, and it protects from the sun as well. This  dress can not be worn without something underneath it, so revealing it is in the front... But that makes it perfectly adjustable to any weather! The hotter it is, the smaller the under garment. Here I have a tank top with a wrestler´s back.

No makeup is my holiday style. Leaves me more time to sauna and swim!

  This dress was originally an apron called "Mangotango" from the book A Is For Apron . I adjusted the back of the skirt to reach around my waist, and added little length to the hemline. I find it easier to wear as a dress rather than an apron.

  Although in "the real world" we are living through the sabbat Lammas, and I want to wear powdery colors, at sea in our cabin only water-like colors go. I would feel uncomfortable slipping into something peachy for instance. Funny, but with these little details like this I can make my life a better place. I love beauty and all things pretty in life, and I want to contribute to that myself the best I can.