Chocolate Box Cottage Diary, Volume 2

Week 14: April 9, 2022

We are expecting snow tonight, but summer reigns in the greenhouse and green shoots are appearing, as if by magic, in pots and trays of soil-filled cells . This week saw new life in the form of Red Gem and Kilimanjaro White marigolds, Whirligig zinnias, Candy Pink morning glories, Watermelon Heaven California poppies, Mayo Bule gourds, bitter melon, Echinacea purpurea, Nigella, and Cameo Joy four o’clocks. (Thank you, Donna Sullivan Smith, Miss Magnolias Moxie, for the echinacea seeds!)

Mismatched is beautiful, when you’re a dedicated thrifter! When we moved to Chocolate Box Cottage four years ago, a friend gave me a gorgeous hanging basket geranium, a coveted Martha Washington, with two colors of red/pink blooms. The next year I took cuttings and created two “new” plants using secondhand hanging baskets. All spring/summer/fall our front porch will be ablaze with blooms and my only cost was potting soil.

Comfort Food

Comfort food means something unique to each of us. Certain tastes and smells will always symbolize security, contentment, and well-being. If you have been diagnosed with a health condition, you may find yourself needing to redefine comfort food. Instead of an indulgent food that extracts a physical toll on your well-being, consider what food, or better yet what meal, makes you feel *well* instead of merely *good.*

I’ll share pictures of three of our favorite comfort meals, and would like to hear what your top three comfort meals are. Please share in the comments!

I grew up eating Kase Knoephla, Cheese Button Soup, a German-from-Russia ethnic specialty. Handmade noodle dough is rolled thin and filled, ravioli-style, with cottage cheese and herbs. Mmm! Homemade chicken broth is a must for this. I make and freeze large batches of kase knoephla, enabling me to pull off a quick comfort food meal on a whim.

One of our very favorite comfort meals is whole poached chicken. I roast a tray of root veggies in the oven, cook a pot of brown rice, and add greens. Serve it all in a bowl and slurp it up. Enough food to eat for days!

Pizza made with thin sourdough spelt crust, topped with homemade basil pesto from the freezer, and uncured ham. Another favorite comfort meal.

Check my Recipe Box for more delicious ideas!

Spring Project: Refill the Wood Shed

One load of firewood down, several to go, depending on how much more wood we use before summer.

Locating a pitch stump is like finding treasure. Split into slivers, it can coax a fire along more quickly. Sam often refers to it as “trade wood,” because when he was a boy it was valued as a commodity for trading with friends and neighbors.

Life on the Pond

We have two breeds of ducks, and funnily enough, they take turns using the pond. These are the Indian Runners; one drake and two hens.

Ever since we’ve been married, Sam has occasionally brought me a small bunch of wildflowers when his work as a graderman takes him to mountains and meadows in the spring.

He puts the stems in his travel coffee cup with water and keeps them in his lunch cooler to keep them fresh. I trim the ends of the stems even and stick them right into a small vase, in this case a thrifted cut glass pitcher, without arranging. They’re beautiful as is.

This is something I am learning, albeit s l o w l y, to enjoy the beauty in things “as is.”

I hope you are enjoying things “as is,” too. And don’t forget, I’d like to hear about your top 3 favorite comfort meals.

Thanks for visiting!

Blessings,

Michele

Chocolate Box Cottage Diary Vol. 1
Week 31: August 6, 2021

Once upon a time, a man and his wife went for a drive up a steeply curving mountain road not so far from home.

The road wasn’t long, but it was dry and dusty and as the man and wife wanted to breathe in the mountain air with windows down, it necessitated a slow pace for the car.

Once they stopped and the billowing clouds of dust settled, their eyes opened wide at the scene before them: they had been here before, but it was somehow different. Somehow they had stumbled onto a scene so picturesque it most certainly belonged in a fairytale: The Land of Berries and Wildflowers.

Wildflowers dotted the landscape, with colorful butterflies fluttering to and fro.

Acres of laden huckleberry bushes stretched out before them.

It being a dry year, they did not expect to find many berries, making it an unexpected gift.

Can you guess what they had for dinner?

Sourdough Huckleberry Hotcakes! End of fairytale? I don’t think so.

In the Garden ~

It is time to put in a late crop of beans. Meanwhile, we are enjoying Dragon Tongue beans on our table! The broad, flat pods are light yellow streaked with vivid purple and a wonderfully rich “beany” taste.

Find Dragon Tongue beans here: https://www.rareseeds.com/store/vegetables/fall-favorites/dragon-tongue-bush-bean

I harvested a bounty of culinary herbs this week to refill the spice jars.

Working with fresh herbs fill the kitchen with heady scents and makes a house feel like home. The herbs that don’t fit in the dehydrator will be bundled and hung from the kitchen beams.

We are contentedly wallowing in zucchini. Are you as impressed with the versatility of zucchini as I am? I serve it at least once a day in some form or fashion and we never tire of it!

Bubbly, hot pizzas, fresh from the baking stone!

I didn’t follow a recipe, but used half fresh-ground whole wheat and half bread flour with my Dakota Pioneer Everlasting Yeast, which gave it a complex, almost wine-like flavor. You can use your sourdough starter for the same effect.

Pizza is a good way to use a young starter that isn’t quite strong enough to raise a loaf of bread. If you use a well-preheated baking stone like I do, the intense heat will raise airy bubbles in the crust, giving it that brick-oven texture you crave.

I am relieved the roses started blooming again. I was concerned the intense heat of July may have finished them off for the season. Perhaps I will add some more rose petals to my ongoing jar of Half Century Potpourri.

And now, I wish you farewell. Thank you for being here, Dear Reader.

Blessings to you ~ Michele

If you have a few minutes to relax…

Last week’s Cottage Diary entry is here:

https://staging.chocolateboxcottage.tv/cottage-diary/weekly-tea-date/

Week 29 July 24, 2021

This fourth week of July included a beehive check for us newbie beekeepers, a regular supply of duck eggs, and a Very Important Birthday.

A Very Important Birthday ~

Let’s start with the Very Important Birthday: my stepdad, Rolly Griffith turned 90! I appreciate Rolly more than words can describe. He is a rock for our family and he is so good to my Mom. Rolly says he is so grateful to have had two great loves in his life: his first wife of 54 years, Shirley, who passed away in 2005, and my Mom, his second wife of 15 years.

He is a good listener, such a rare quality, and a good counselor.

We celebrated Rolly at a gigantic birthday party at a local park this weekend. I got to meet relatives I had never met before!

Beehive Check at Chocolate Box Cottage ~

Our beehive is situated in the middle of our small home orchard, surrounded by fruit trees: apricot, peach, Italian plum, cherry, and apples.

The chickens currently have run of the orchard. Time will tell whether this is a good choice or not. We may change the fencing at some point.

We had ups and downs with keeping bees since we began in 2017. We lost one colony when we moved the hive from our previous home in Central Point to Chocolate Box Cottage, so we had to start over.

Today we wanted to see how the bees are doing and check on the status of honey production.

Do you grow your own herbs and spices?

Here is part of my annual supply of dried oregano. My goal is to pack 2 quart jars full of dried leaves every year. We use it all.

The small apothecary style jar belongs in my spice drawer. Yes, I have a spice drawer, not a spice rack. Keeping spices in a drawer protects them from sunlight and keeps them cool, prolonging their freshness.

Sam and I joke that one of the reasons we haven’t caught the plague is that we eat so much oregano! Oregano has antimicrobial, antiviral, and expectorant qualities, among others. It really is a powerhouse herb!

Find spice jars like mine here: https://www.bedbathandbeyond.com/store/s/vibe-spice-jars

Duck Eggs in Gem-like Hues ~

We are now blessed with duck eggs, thanks to three shimmery black Indian Runner hens and two drakes. I find it fascinating that each duck hen lays a different colored egg, though they are all the same breed.

We have not eaten fried duck eggs yet, but I have used them in baking cookies and muffins.

Blackberry Season is Almost Here ~

I have picked berries every summer since I was a little girl of 4 or 5 years old. So far there are just a handful of ripe berries at a time.

Cooking & Preserving From the Garden ~

The harvests provide inspiration for meals. Some of it doesn’t make it to the kitchen. Kale, blackberries, basil (green and purple) yellow crookneck squash, green and yellow zucchini, peppers, tomatillos, cherry tomatoes, calendula (edible petals), and Barese melon cucumbers.

Walking into the garden and deciding what to eat based on what is ripe is my favorite style of cooking!

As our kids were growing up, we brought them into the garden. They each had a raised bed or pot of their own to tend, depending on age.

At mealtimes, we talked about the food on our plates. Whether it came from our garden, was foraged, or bought at a farm or the store.

Recipe for Spiralized Zucchini Butter Spaghetti: https://staging.chocolateboxcottage.tv/recipe-box/spiralized-zucchini-butter-spaghetti/

Wood Shed Update ~

The back wall of the wood shed is made from reclaimed aluminum sheets. Used pallets line the floor beneath the neatly stacked firewood. Oak posts came from our pasture. See the mound of bark surrounding the posts? We are deciding how best to utilize it.

From the Oven ~

This is the bread of my ancestors. Bread ecipes and instructions for creating an Everlasting Yeast bread starter will be included in my book, along with variations.

Farewell ~

Thank you for visiting Chocolate Box Cottage ~ see you next week!