The Saturday Evening Post | Life Pictures and How to Make Beef Stock

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I currently have a cauldron of beef stock simmering away (for the second day) on the stove top. It's looking loooovely! Stock is SO good for gut health and general wellness and it's the very best when homemade. I've been researching where to find grass-fed beef bones, and finally found a farm where I picked up four packages on Wednesday morning! Hence the title … How to Make Beef Stock. Be prepared for a very exciting post. ;o)

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Gather whatever leftover veggies you may have saved up for stock and pop them into a large stock pot. A whole onion (including the washed skin, if you buy organic), celery (including the leafy tops), some coarsely chopped carrots, etc. We keep a bag in the freezer and add to it as we have opportunity. It all adds goodness. :)

 

Toss the beef bones in coconut oil and place them in a single layer on a cookie sheet lined with parchment paper. Roast them for at least one hour at 425* F. Add them to your ever-growing pot of stock ingredients. ;)

Next, add a good tablespoon of raw ACV. This helps to release the nutrients from the bones.

Add a healthy number of garlic cloves - garlic adds loads of flavor, of course, but it is amazing for the immune system as well - lots and lots of antioxidants. 

Finally, add enough water to cover everything …

… and several bay leaves. Oh, and a few sprigs of fresh rosemary. If you don't have fresh, dried should do as well.

Simmer well for at least a couple days to make sure you get every last bit of nutrients and goodness from all the bones and veggies! 

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And now for a few life pictures …

Garden produce.

My sweet nephew was helping … :o)

Is there anything prettier than that?

Avocados on the windowsill.

Sunshine on the school bookshelves.

The first pumpkins! :)

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Have a happy, happy weekend!!

The Saturday Evening Post | Springtime + C. S. Lewis

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" ... This law was called the Law of Nature because people thought that every one knew it by nature and did not need to be taught it. They did not mean, of course, that you might not find an odd individual here and there who did not know it, just as you find a few people who are colour-blind or have no ear for a tune. But taking the race as a whole, they thought that the human idea of decent behaviour was obvious to every one. And I believe they were right. If they were not, then all the things we said about the war were nonsense. What was the sense in saying the enemy were in the wrong unless Right is a real thing which the Nazis at bottom knew as well as we did and ought to have practiced? If they had had no notion of what we mean by right, then, though we might still have had to fight them, we could no more have blamed them for that than for the colour of their hair."

~ Mere Christianity, C. S. Lewis

Flowers ...

Primroses.

Fresh eggs.

Getting ready for the hummingbirds.

Raking grass in your bare feet ... best feeling ever.

The Treehouse Garden is looking great ...

... except now I need to move the swimming pool again! ;o)

The Saturday Evening Post: Of Pumpkin Scones and Motherly Kindness

Tuesday night a few weeks ago, I announced that It Was Time, and I intended to get a Starbucks Pumpkin Scone on my way to work the next morning. I like to plan ahead when it comes to these big things -- celebration of fall, coloring leaves, and all that! ;) 

Pleased with my plan, Wednesday morning in the wee hours (5:40AM to be exact) I steered into the local drive through and cheerfully gave my order. And that remarkably inhospitable Starbucks had the audacity to tell me that they didn't have Pumpkin Scones! Pumpkin lattes, pumpkin muffins (which the Starbucks lady tried to convince me was a suitable substitute, but that is not a substitute at all, no indeed) -- but no Pumpkin Scones, not a one. Someone has apparently messed very greatly with Starbucks Priorities. Or maybe they weren't aware of the fact that October was only two weeks and one day away?

Well. My pumpkin-sconeless morning in tatters, I wended my way to work and later related the woeful story to my mother over the phone. She was duly sympathetic. However, the day went quite well in most respects and by the time I got home in the evening, I had mostly recovered my equilibrium and spirits. In fact, I wasn't even thinking of the morning's sorrowful events when I went into the kitchen and found, on the counter top, the following note accompanied by the results of some surprise baking:

DeeDee,

For your coffee time in the morning!

Love,

Mom

PS: Please put the rest in a bag.

I have a very, very sweet mother. :o)

The End.

The Saturday Evening Post: Music o' the Irish

Sharing a couple of Irish folk tunes I've been loving this year, for your listening pleasure!

  Phil the Fluter's Ball, here. Couldn't embed the video for some reason, sorry -- but this is definitely the best version. An instant mood-improving song, y'all. ;)

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Aaaand, Lakes of Pontchartrain

I love the simplicity of the guitar and violin accompaniment ... beautiful and artistic. I love this song.

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Do you enjoy Irish folk music? Share some of your favorites!

The Saturday Evening Post: Glimpses of the 4th

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Our Fourth of July generally starts the day before -- like that of pretty much everyone else in our small town! People haul their folding chairs, or blankets or ropes or tarps or other sittable placeholders (the sidewalk becomes a commodity highly in demand on July 3rd), downtown to main street; and by the afternoon, the sidewalks have been adorned most thoroughly for tomorrow's Grand Parade. My sis and I bravely braved the masses, threw down our folding chairs in a pile and then ran home again. 

Just kidding. But you can see it's a popular spot to be the day before Independence Day!

She and I were also on a mission to stock up on rock salt that afternoon, a requirement for a good old-fashioned Fourth (and if you don't already know what for and why, well, it's about time you did)... and we must not have been the only ones, because we got the last box at Walmart! 

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Morning of the Fourth ... and bright and early it must be, too, because the ice cream making Must Go On.

 

This is without doubt one of my favorite July Fourth traditions. ;o) And when accompanied by the tunes of John Philip Sousa -- I challenge you to make ice cream as yummily without it. JP IS the spirit of Independence Day!

Okay. So it made us a little distracted, so we didn't put enough rock salt on the ice, which consequently caused the ice cream to take 15 minutes longer to freeze up than it normally does. But that's an irrelevant detail.

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Aaaaand, home to eat ice cream, watch Road to Avonlea and shoot off fireworks ... a lovely ending to a grand day!

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The Saturday Evening Post: The Last Month at Home

 I brought home this lovely bunch of flowers from work last week -- a sweet lady patient has twice brought in flower bouquets for the staff since I've been a member of the office team. The first time was on Valentine's Day, then she brought more in last week -- so sweet. :)

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Read-aloud with my sis :) ....

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Dad and sis on a cake-baking adventure! (Vanilla with browned butter frosting) ;0)

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 The raspberries are finally pruned and ready for winter ...

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 and the grass I planted in the chicken pen after re-taking a corner of it {here} (click to read about my adventure with that ;) is coming along quite nicely. :)

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Now, we do not believe in fairies ;) ... but my sister thought it would be fun to make a little "fairy fire" and we had fun putting it together.

Autumn leaves make great "flames"! :D

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Grammar lessons with my sis ...

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... with homemade hot cocoa afterward. :) Perfect way to end the school day!

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I discovered this wonderful piece one morning recently when listening to the classical music station on my way to work. It's gorgeous, hauntingly so. Yes, it's 13 minutes long ... but it's worth every minute of that!! :) This is Five Variants of Dives and Lazarus by Ralph Vaughan Williams.

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Happy November! :)