Homemade Baby Food Class

I am "teaching" a class for new moms at one of the local clinics. Since I love growing food and making it into meals for our entire family, this one was a natural for me. I am excited about getting to use my mommy brain in a creative way. Most of the work on home made baby food 101 has been done by great women already. I am just going to steal from them (referencing them of course) and be the conduit between them and moms who are eager to learn about something that seems so big, technical and overwhelming. Thanks to www.wholesomebabyfood.com and "First Meals" by Annabelle Karmel, all I am doing is sharing my enthusiasm and their expertise.

What to do while it grows...

So I have been asked what we do while we wait for everything to grow. Sure, we have some early harvest, but in NE Wisconsin, the growing season is pretty short and "early" is relative. June is often a resting month. February and March are the seed starting months. April is the month of exhilaration when the herbs are shooting up through the snow promising spring mud and tilling. As soon as the ground is worked, some early plants go in and then the real work begins in May. A lot of hurry up and wait from May 1st - June 15th as we hurry to put some things in and then wait to put the others. June is the calm before the storm.

What does grow very well in June are herbs and strawberries. Basil in particular. That being said, June is our soup, stock, strawberries and pesto month. We roast several chickens per week, piece them, eat some for dinner and then freeze the rest in 2c bags for winter soup. The bones and scraps also get frozen into 13c containers and when we have 2 or 3, we pick a bunch of herbs, some carrots, celery and onions and make stock. Our stock pot renders 6-7 quarts of stock per batch. When we are bored with the chicken task, we switch gears to picking 5c of basil every 10 days or so to make batches of freezable pesto. Around Father's Day, we go to Pick Your Own strawberry fields and enjoy watching our kids eat more than they pick. 3 trays of strawberries, a couple of hours in the kitchen and freezer jars render us a freezer full of jam. Last year's uneaten blueberries need to leave the freezer to make room for the jam and pesto and so they also become freezer jam. By then end of the month, we have a freezer full of strawberry and blueberry jam, stock, soup meat and pesto.

So, stock is piling up with more on the stove and I cannot wait to switch into tomato season!

Bunnies are so cute.... until they are eating your green beans!

It has been far too long since I updated this. Life with toddlers, a dog and a big garden seems to leave little time for much else. I am grateful and glad that my life is so full.

We have live traps. Two of them. Thanks to my friends Brian and Cheryl, the bunnies are going to be part of the 3915 Hasenfeffer Relocation Program. Every year that we have lived here bunnies have overrun our perimeter. Our faithful feline, however, made it clear that they were not welcome in the garden unless they were throwing themselves on his altar. Unfortunately, Casper's nine lives ran out this spring and our golden retriever hasn't figured out how to intimidate the cuddly little varmits. I have planted 4 rows of green beans - 3 times! I have a sparse crop of pathetic bean bushes and on Jul 2nd no hope of a harvest any time soon. Armed with live traps, some of Brian's expertise and the eventual addition of chicken wire, however, those little guys are going to find a nice country life for themselves starting tomorrow morning. Fingers crossed. My beans are in need of some relief!

(BTW... what is up with rabbits that eat green beans but not my gourmet salad garden... really?!)