Chocolate Box Cottage Diary, Volume 2
Week 51: December 24, 2022

What with the Christmas baking, chimney cleaning, and restarting the indoor salad garden we are as busy as Santa’s elves! What a busy and blessed week at Chocolate Box Cottage!

Indoor Salad Gardening

Let’s start with salad gardening. Growing salad shoots in cereal bowls keeps us in salad greens all winter, right up until the outdoor garden is producing.

Traditional “sprout” seeds like broccoli and peas join microgreen seeds, buckwheat and tendril peas. In about a week, they are ready to harvest with scissors.

By planting a batch of bowls every few days, the indoor salad garden keeps producing. Enjoy beautiful gourmet salads with just a little work.

Christmas baking

Looking for an easy, festive drop cookie?

Mix up a batch of Confetti Cookies; they’re simple, colorful, and fun! A delicious vanilla cookie batter is shaped in balls, rolled in sprinkles, pressed with a glass, and baked. The satisfying cake-like flavor of these cookies will grab you!

Granola is always a welcome gift. This batch of Pecan Promise Granola will be divided: 1 tray gifted and 1 tray kept.

There’s nothing quite like homemade pies for Christmas and it’s (almost) as easy to make two as one. One for Christmas Eve and another for breakfast on Christmas morning with coffee, tea, and cottage bacon (ham). See my recipe for Butter Pie Crust.

Miriam and I enjoyed an old-fashioned Christmas baking day which included these delicious apple pies and a batch of Confetti Cookies.

And since I was not planning to bake bread, I decided to use up the accumulated starter in my jars by making a batch of German Bread-Spice Crackers this week. What is bread spice? A mix of spices used in German breads; brotgewürz in German. It varies, but mine includes caraway, anise seeds, fennel seeds, celery seeds, and coriander seeds, ground to a powder.

I added most of the sourdough from the jars to the Ankarsrum mixer bowl, leaving enough behind to feed and maintain my starter. Whole grains were milled into flour in my KoMo grain mill, including whole wheat, spelt, rye, einkorn, and millet.

Cracker dough was rolled very thin – the thinner the better – then cut in squares with a fluted pastry wheel or crinkle cutter. Docking the crackers with a fork releases air bubbles. And don’t forget to sprinkle with salt! I don’t have an exact recipe for these, I go by feel.

Sam’s projects

Samuel has been mysteriously busy in the barn. I’m not sure what he’s up to, but I am sure it will be good. We agreed to give each other practical gifts this year, and I asked for a pantry makeover, while Sam hinted at a backpack leaf blower. The “economy” leaf blower he has been using for years is giving out – it’s requires tinkering each time he wants to use it.

We both could use new wheelbarrows. A stout metal one for Sam, capable of hauling firewood, hot coals, rocks, dirt, and manure; a plastic one for me, to tote compost, potted plants, and garden harvests to the kitchen for preserving.

Samuel climbs the ladder to the roof for several tasks: blowing leaves off, cleaning out gutters, and cleaning the chimney.

In addition to cleaning the chimney, Samuel disassembled the stove pipe, carried it outside and cleaned it out; vacuumed out the elbow in the brick chimney; emptied the wood stove of ashes; cleaned the glass window.

Christmas Tea

Weekly tea at Mom’s took on a Christmasy theme this week. Granddaughters Miriam and Savannah + Emberly joined us for non-alcoholic Holiday Wassail, homemade clam chowder, fruit salad, carrot sticks, and Confetti Cookies. So thankful to have Mom and Rolly to celebrate with.

Gift baskets

I whipped up a triple batch of Maple Vanilla Syrup and added jars to a couple of Christmas gift baskets. This basket for my son Clayton includes Hot Cocoa Mix + a bottle of mint extract, dried Paragon pear slices, Pecan Promise Granola, gourmet coffee, Vanilla Lace Pear Jam, Vanilla Maple Syrup, Roasted Tomatillo Salsa Verde, and a half gallon jar of Goldenkraut (not pictured).

This Christmas gift basket for my sister’s family includes a full dehydrator batch (9 trays) of blackberry applesauce fruit leather along with a variety of pear preserves: dried, jam, and butter + Crock Pot Apple Butter + Maple Vanilla Syrup nestled in paper shreds in a thrift shop picnic basket.

Fermentation

I finally got around to straining my made-from-scratch Persian basil vinegar. It tastes and smells delightful and the color is captivating! After straining the herbs out, the resulting young vinegar was transferred to a boiled jar with a lid to complete fermentation.

In about a month to 6 weeks it will be ready. I can already envision Persian basil vinegar used in salad dressings and marinades for meats and vegetables.

Christmas Eve dinner included Old World Roast Beef and Vegetables, like my Grandma used to make. The roast is first soaked in clabber or cultured buttermilk for 1-3 days, then drained and baked with root vegetables.

I love this spattered yellow and white enamel roaster! I use it for roasting meat and veggies and for baking bread.

Family pictures

Bookshelf

In honor of Christmas, I encourage you, dear reader, to read the story of Jesus’ birth in the Bible. You’ll find it in Luke chapter 2. Like many families, we cherish the tradition of reading this story every Christmas Eve.

Merry Christmas, dear reader! I wish and pray for God’s best for you this Christmas and in the coming year.

Blessings,
Michele and Samuel

Note: This post contains links to products and vendors I use and appreciate for their quality and usefulness. Some are affiliate, some are not. I may earn a commission from qualifying purchases when you use the links I provide; this does not change your price.

Chocolate Box Cottage, Volume 2
Week 36: September 10, 2022

Perhaps you have heard about World War II Victory Gardens.

In the 1940’s the US government promoted home vegetable gardening as a means to increase production and consumption of fresh veggies and fruits at home and at school to improve health, raise morale, relieve wartime stress, save money, and for community beautification. Lofty goals, attainable with gardening.

Victory Kitchen

Learning and employing good storage and preservation of surplus fruits and veggies was encouraged. These skills ensure year round availability of quality nutrition, save money, and ensure the health and and strength of individuals, families, communities, and the nation. This part is what takes place in the kitchen, the Victory Kitchen.

The kitchen can be a center of production instead of just consumption. Have you ever thought about this?

Turning leftover meat into tacos

Simmering bones and veggie scraps into broth or soup

Soaking beans to cook into chili

Rooting basil cuttings

Growing sprouts

Fermenting cabbage into sauerkraut

Drying herbs to refill your spice jars

Crafting tea blends from herbs grown in a flowerbed (see fleabane tea below)

Creating herbal remedies

Turning backyard fruit into fruit leather

Keeping and baking with a sourdough starter

Composting or keeping a worm bin

Making jam

Canning tomatoes from your garden or the growers market

Brewing kombucha

Culturing buttermilk for baking and cheesemaking

Giving gifts from your kitchen

Kitchen basics

You can grow salad greens simply and productively in cereal bowls with a sunny window.

Preserving

Dried tomatoes store at least a year in a cool pantry. These will be tossed in soups and casseroles and whizzed in the blender with boiling water for pizza sauce. I recommend the Excalibur 9-tray dehydrator. Mine is 20+ years old and going strong.

Roasted Tomatillo Salsa Verde made with garden veggies, charred, simmered, and jarred in half pints. After processing in a steam canner, they are shelf stable, delicious, and highly gift-able.

Herbs

Fleabane, a common weed in the aster family with flowers that somewhat resemble chamomile, makes a lovely floral tea for free. It is important to correctly identify any wild plants used for tea, food, or medicine. I love my Chantal tea kettle with 2-tone train whistle!

Two gallon jars of made-from-scratch vinegar: Scented Geranium and Mint. These were made with trimmings from my plants that needed cutting back. The Scented Geranium vinegar in process retains the scent of the rose and citrus-scented plants so far. And the mint vinegar smells clean and bracing. I anticipate using them both as ingredients in homemade cleaning products.

A glycerite is an herb tincture made with vegetable glycerin instead of alcohol. In the case of a tincture that I need to take long-term, I find it easier to take a glycerite since it tastes sweet. The herb, St. John’s wort, Hypericum perforatum, grows wild and abundantly on our property and locally. I am so thankful for this plant that helps restore my mood equilibrium during the dark months of winter. I no longer buy commercial capsules of St. John’s wort, instead I make and take my homemade remedy.

Packets of homegrown saved seeds and seeds on a plate from a “new” heirloom variety of tomatillo I grew this year that was a real winner. Amarylla tomatillos from Baker Creek Heirloom Seed Co. are a Polish variety with a very sweet, fruity flavor. Good out of hand as a snack and in salsas.

Instead of buying orange peel spice in a jar, zest your oranges before you peel them with a microplane zester. Air dry the bits of peel on a plate and add it to your spice jar for free.

Thrifting

Watch thrift shops for deals on glass containers and cannisters. These are over-priced. A new-to-me flannel, sadly over-priced at Goodwill, but still in good shape and costs less than new.

Gift from the victory kitchen: ingredients for a stir fry lunch at Mom’s. (And a big thank you to my friend Lifan Irwin for the handmade utensil!)

1. Saving seeds = saving money. These black seeds shaped like tiny lemons are from a special flower: Cameo Joy Four o’clocks.

2. Found in my pocket at the end of the day: flower seeds and…an egg. How it survived, I do not know!

Bookshelf

A trio of cookbooks to learn basic cooking skills and other kitchen magic.

The Pioneer Lady’s Country Kitchen by Jane Watson Hopping is my very favorite cookbook. The late author was a true modern day pioneer. Her book sings with the romance of cooking and country life. It is out of print, but you can find it at my favorite online used bookseller. (Once you arrive at the site, type the name of the cookbook into the search bar. If it is not available, simply create a wish list and add this title to it. The company will email you when it is in stock.)

The Joy of Gardening Cookbook by Janet Ballantyne is an excellent primer on cooking from the garden, including tips on how to use an abundance or take advantage of less-than-perfect product. It is also out of print, so I invite you to check my favorite online used bookseller.

Forgotten Skills of Cooking by Darina Allen was an instant classic. It is a large tome with plenty of illustrations and a comprehensive education in from-scratch cooking skills.

Seemingly small tasks like these (and so many more) add up to a productive kitchen. One that takes food resources and multiplies them. It’s work, but it’s also magic.

Start small. Learn one new skill. Get comfortable with it and add another skill. Then another. Before you know it, you too will have a victory kitchen! I welcome any comments or questions about the concept of victory kitchens.

*Goals for WW2 era Victory Gardens per the USDA are listed here:

https://www.nal.usda.gov/…/victory-gardens/victory-goals

Note: From time to time I recommend products and business that I use and/or patronize. Some are affiliate links, some are not. All are ones that I use and have confidence in. Qualifying purchases may earn me a small commission at no cost to you, so thank you for using my links!

Blessings,
Michele