today's harvest

Today's harvest: nearly 4 pounds of tomatoes,
1.5 pounds of pole beans, and a perfect cucumber.

Oh, tomatoes! We were hoping for a bumper crop this year. For the past two summers, Luella stole the show and our attentiveness to our favorite garden produce suffered greatly. In 2010, we pulled out all the stops and had high hopes for tomato salads every other night, thickly sliced Brandywines on cheese sandwiches for daily lunches, and plenty left over for ketchup and sauces for the cold winter nights ahead. It's September 10th... and I just harvested enough tomatoes for our FIRST tomato salad of the season for tonight's meal. Many tomatoes still on the vine are blushing. An improvement from the entirely green fruits I was frowning at just yesterday. The optimist in me is hoping we'll put up more than the 5 pints of ketchup that we made last year. Crossing fingers!

part two: pancake making

No from scratch pancake batter is complete without a fresh egg. Gavin's two main chores are taking out the compost and gathering the eggs. Perhaps he is feeling a little territorial? Or maybe it's just more showing off for the camera? Anyway, enjoy this moment for the happy chaos.

Step two: gathering the egg for the batter

part one: pancake making

When was the last time a loaf of bread was on my shopping list? Or a bag of flour? Or a box of cereal? Or Eggos? Okay, Eggos haven't made their way into one of my baskets for a while, but still.

Since this January when our new Nutrimill Grain Mill arrived via UPS, we have ground our own grain daily for sandwich bread, dough to form our own hot dog buns or pizza crust, cookies, and last but not least our morning pancakes.

More and more, conversations around me center around local food. "I just bought a bread machine, and I'm making my own bread!" "Have you guys seen Food, INC.? I'm thinking about going in on a pasture fed cow!" "I made jam this summer, and I brought some over for you to try." On these occasions, I shyly admit that we are grinding our own grain. Conversation stops, I get blank stares, and before anyone can get a word in edge wise (I can only imagine they must be thinking "how does THAT work?") I exclaim, "It's not that hard! It only takes a few minutes! It's a small counter-top appliance! It's only a little loud! We use a bread machine!" Doth she protest too much? The truth is, this little appliance, this little "extra" step is so outside mainstream family life, that very rarely do I encounter someone who has any idea what I'm talking about. I feel like I have three seconds to educate an acquaintance before their eyes glaze over. And I think I'm failing at explaining. Maybe it would be better to SHOW. Enter part one of making pancakes at our house. Before we begin, I have one huge disclaimer. It's not always this chaotic. We wanted to film the process with the kids, they are not always so involved. Gavin knew he was on camera, and acted accordingly.

Step One: mill the wheat, oats, buckwheat....
whatever grain suits your fancy. One or all.