Author Archives: Melissa | Growing Green Nutrition

Under pressure

In an effort to use up a little vacation time, and give myself a couple of “me” days, I took the past two Mondays off.  Relaxation efforts on the first Monday?  A big fat FAIL.

I told myself I would do better this past Monday.  That all flew out the window when I foolishly offered to deal with our latest tomato harvest, which included my first foray into pressure canning.*

A small portion of the harvest

Instead I spent the day cutting tomatoes,

Blending tomatoes,

And cooking them into sauce,

So I could cancan can.

I watched nervously as the pressure built, fearing the worst (broken jars) as I heard some suspicious noises from inside.

Nothing to do but wait.  Eleven pounds of pressure for fifteen minutes, them time for it to fully depressurize.

A peek inside . . .

No tomato vomit, i.e., tomato bits floating in the canning water, indicating certain jar breakage.  I still held my breath as I removed the jars, since sometimes a jar can crack, but remain more or less intact until moved.

All intact!  Of course, I kind-of overshot my goal of cooking the tomatoes down enough to only have to do one round (seven quarts) of canning.  My super thick sauce only yielded five quarts, which I divided into four quart jars, two pint jars, and a pint-and-a-half of tomato juice to give me seven jars for a full load.

So, relaxing Monday FAIL, but canning SUCCESS.  I’ll take it.

*We bought the pressure canner last summer, right before Pookie arrived.  Matthew used to can a few batches of green beans, but I was pretty out of commission during that time.  Matthew’s mom handled all of the tomato canning last year (water bath method), and she’s done a ton of it for us already this season.

Got a new job now in the unemployment line

So . . . here we are.  When I wrote this post a month ago, I thought there was a reasonably good chance that I would move from my current job (which ended due to budget cuts) directly into something new.

For awhile, my biggest worry was that I would have a new job but no childcare arrangements (for the past nine months, Gabriel was in a daycare center literally right across the street from my [old] office, which was a great arrangement, but whose location only made sense when I had to drive there for work anyway).

Turns out I was putting the cart before the horse, since I, in fact, do not have a new job lined up.  No job means no money to pay someone else to raise my child.

So today is the first day of being a [temporary, I hope, or at least I think that’s what I hope] SAHM.

Though it brought its own set of stresses and challenges, going back to work nine months ago was a very good thing for me.  While I still struggle with some low mood and anxiety, I credit my job with preventing me from spiraling further into postpartum depression.

Getting out of the house every day, having a break from the constant demands of a young infant, having some space to breath and eat a meal without worry of being interrupted by a needy cry — glorious.

So it’s with a bit of trepidation that I enter this unemployed phase.  I’m trying to have realistic (i.e., low) expectations for what I’ll be able to do while I’m home with him.  I hope to spend time in the kitchen, but having dinner on the table every night when Matthew gets home from work is probably not in the cards.

Today I would like to make and can salsa, but we’ll just see how things go.  One day at a time, right?

I’m hungry

The title of this post is often, though not always, the answer to the question posed in the title of the last post.  Little Pookie likes to eat.  Because of this, he is not so little anymore.

He still breastfeeds four times a day, but I’m not sure that mama’s milk is his favorite food anymore.  Tomatoes have stolen his heart.

Saturday night we had a garden fresh dinner of steamed edamame, braised fingerling potatoes, and gazpacho.  Pookie chowed down big time on the potatoes and edamame, eating almost as much as I did.

Chowing down on birthday cake

He uses his height to good advantage, getting up on his tip toes and stretching out his little arms to procure items of interest off the table.

Is this how it works?

He snagged a banana and chomped down, peel and all.

But the real trouble started when Matthew returned from the garden with a boatload of tomatoes (which I had foolishly offered to turn into sauce and can — more on that in a later post).  We used our table to spread out the tomatoes, but realized our space was limited the center of the table after we found him double fisting fresh tomatoes.

Appeased, for now

I missed the actual photo op, but snapped the above after the fact, once I removed the smashed tomatoes from his fists and offered him a few cut-up bites as a replacement.

Unfortunately, the tomatoes on the table proved such a distraction at meal times that he had a hard time focusing on the food on his plate.  Oh, little Pookie.

What’s wrong little Pookie?

A few weeks ago, I stopped into the library when I had a few minutes to kill before an interview.   I headed to the children’s section to pick out a couple of books for Gabriel and discovered What’s Wrong Little Pookie? by Sandra Boynton.  It’s a cute book, and ever since then, I’ve been referring to Gabriel as “Pookie” almost as often as I call him Sir.

Anyhow, two weeks ago, I took Pookie to the doctor for his twelve-month “well baby” visit.  I use quotes here because a few hours before the appointment, he had a massive diarrhea explosion that was the prelude to a four-day gastrointestinal bug, and, when we saw the doctor, we found out that his ear infection, diagnosed at a sick visit two-and-a-half weeks prior, had not cleared, despite the antibiotic.

This was his second diagnosed ear infection, but the previous one, back in February, was mild and cleared without antibiotics.  With the news that the first-line drug hadn’t knocked out this infection, along with the fact that he had lots of fluid in both ears, my mind immediately spiraled to a series of infections with progressively stronger, nastier antibiotics, culminating in tubes for my poor little Pookie.

We had our follow-up visit yesterday, and I held my breath as the doctor looked in Gabriel’s ears and declared that not only had the infection cleared, but both ears were completely free of fluid already (something he had not expected, as the fluid can often take quite awhile to drain from little ears — hence the infection issue in the first place).

I restrained myself from doing a happy dance right then and there.  While the antibiotics no doubt worked on the infection, I credit the warm compresses that I applied to his ears while nursing (and perhaps the milk itself) with really sealing the deal.

Of course, his clean bill of health meant that he received his postponed twelve-month shots, so  in addition to the immediate pain, he woke up this morning with a bit of a fever.  I’m hoping that abates soon and we’ll have a happy, healthy little Pookie.

Do you like piña coladas and getting caught in the rain?

And you probably like chocolate, if you have half a brain . . .

How about beaches, wine, peanut butter, beer, cute baby polar bears?

No, this is not a personal ad, but my half-hearted attempt to inject a bit of humor into a sobering topic.

Source: Huffington Post slide show

I just finished watching this slide show about what we (or future generations) may lose due to climate change.

Worth a look and then some action, taking steps to make our own lives more sustainable, but also speaking up: vote for elected officials with proven records of taking serious steps for sustainability; contact those politicians when important bills are on the table; contact businesses (big and small) who are not working toward a sustainable future and boycott their products.

Source: Huffington Post slide show

True, that in order to live more sustainably and save some of these things, we may need to consume less of them and buy varieties that are produced more responsibly, but that’s a fair trade when the alternative may be living in a world without [insert whatever motivates you here].