Welcome to the Weekend coffee share! Can I get you a cup of coffee? Tea? Or perhaps some hot chocolate? There’s also the option of a refreshing orange/pomegranate smoothie available. How are you doing?
If we were having coffee I would tell you that I’m doing good. I celebrated my 43rd birthday on Friday, and I feel very blessed. I feel blessed to live to experience another birthday, I am grateful for my health, my children, my family, my friends, my home, good food, work, to be surrounded by amazing nature, and all the peace in my life. I am in a good place right now, and I am very grateful.
Yesterday we decorated our Christmas tree. My ten year old daughter is in charge of that, and I’d say it turned out nicely.
As promised I’m sharing photos of the new varieties of sprouts that I wrote about last week. The Adiago mix was rich in taste and a nice side dish to all the vegetarian dishes I made this week. I also tried it on top of avocado sandwiches, and I really liked that combination, with some herbal salt and black pepper on top. The Fenugreek has a lovely aroma, that made me think of an Indian restaurant. They also have a slight taste of curry, which may have contributed to my association to being at an Indian restaurant. I am most definitely going to introduce both the Adiago mix and the Fenugreek to our regular diet. The first container in the photos is alfalfa (a permanent resident in my fridge,) the second container is the Adiago mix (new to me variety,) the third is Fenugreek (new to me variety).
How is your weekend so far? I have some errands to run today, and I’m also going to prepare a presentation that I’m having in school next Tuesday. Have a wonderful rest of your weekend! Thank you Natalie for hosting the Weekend Coffee Share.
Welcome to the Weekend Coffee Share! Can I get you some coffee? Or tea? The first couple of days of the week we had plenty of snow, but it is unfortunately all gone now. The children were overjoyed the two days we were able to go sledding down the little hill in our school yard. We are hoping for more snow, the temperatures are 26-28F at night, with a high of 32-34 during the day. What’s the weather like in your corner of the world?
This is what it looks like now…
I’m trying two new varieties of sprouts this week, Fenugreek and Adiago mix (broccoli/clover/rose radish.) I recently read a book about sprouting, to inspire me to try new types of sprouts. I’ve been into sprouts for many years, but I mostly trend to fall back to only two varieties; mung beans and alfalfa, so I decided I wanted to try some new varieties. I’m excited to see the result.
At work I’m sprouting alfalfa with the kids this week (last week was mung beans.) I believe that the art of growing your own food, in the region where you live is an essential skill to live a sustainable life, therefor I see it as my responsibility (and greatest joy) to grow food with all the kindergarten children I have the pleasure of spending time with. Here in the Nordic countries we have several months of darkness in the winter, and sometimes very cold weather, to grow food in these conditions takes a little more knowledge compared to let’s say California, where I used to live. Sprouting is the easiest way I know of to get fresh greens on your plate during the winter. It doesn’t require any special tools that you don’t already have in your kitchen. A glass jar (mason jar or similar,) a small piece of fabric for a lid/drainer and a rubber band to attached the fabric to the top of the glass jar, water and seeds is all it takes to get started. The seeds themselves are tiny and take up very little storage space, but produce a lot of food. They also have a long shelf life, and it is worth it to purchase seeds especially for sprouting (event though you can sprout almost every bean and legume there is.) It’s definitely worth it to have a few varieties at home at all times.
A corner of my kitchen counter where I have my sprouts. I started the two new varieties yesterday, along with another batch of my all time favourite alfalfa. It’s very rare for me to not have alfalfa sprouting on the counter, and at least one ready-to-eat jar in the fridge. As you can see in the photo there are no special equipment needed for sprouting. The fabric on top of my jars is pieces of an old repurposed t-shirt.
Added Benefits of Sprouting:
It is easily digestible.
Sprouting increases the vitamins and mineral content.
Can I get you a refill on that coffee/tea? What are you up to this weekend? Have you been celebrating Thanksgiving this week? There are always so many things to be thankful for. When we lived in the US my daughter used to celebrate with her dad’s side of the family. That was the only time of the year when she saw them. Any talk of Thanksgiving makes her miss them so much that I choose not to make a big celebration this year, to make it easier for her. I don’t think she realised it was this week. Instead we are looking forward to the upcoming Christmas break, and Christmas with my brothers and their families. Are you starting to look forward to Christmas? Any plans? We are going to take out some Christmas decorations from storage today, it’ll be fun 🙂
I hope your week is fabulous! Thank you Natalie for hosting the Weekend Coffee Share.
Welcome to the Weekend coffee share! Can I get you a cup of coffee? Or tea? How are you doing?
It finally starts to get a little colder here. It’s around 27F and a tiny little bit of snow outside. I went out for a longer bike ride today and it was windy and cold, very refreshing! What’s the weather like where you live?
Since we are moving in three months I’ve been showing our current apartment to two different families this week. Everyone liked it a lot. It is a very nice apartment, just not for us. (We need one more bedroom, and prefer the countryside. We currently live in the city.) Showing other people our home made me think about how I would love to be able to see our new home in person before moving there, but I don’t know if that will be possible, it is still under construction. Can I get you a refill on your beverage?
This week I’ve been thinking about different communities that I am a part of, and what they mean to me. I really like this blogging community, I am right at home at my workplace community, then there’s my family, my close friends, my neighbours, the gardening community at the allotment garden, and my classmates at the university (communities mentioned in no particular order.) The older I get I realise the importance of being a part of a community. I don’t think I’ve realised that earlier. Today one of my colleagues/fellow gardener/friend sent me a message asking me if I wanted some more Jerusalem artichokes, she already gifted me a huge bag of them. I feel so blessed having kind, thoughtful people like her in my life. I will definitely remember her when we receive the next delivery from one of our trees in the Crowd Farming Project (should be next week.) The thought of someone I’ve only known for a few months thinking about me when harvesting in their garden makes me emotional and so grateful. It contributes to the feeling that I am at the right place in life, and that is a good feeling.
How are things in your neck of the woods? Any fun plans this weekend? I have some school work to do, but there will be time to visit my allotment garden as well. I need to put some mulch on my garlic bed. The warm weather we had earlier made the garlic grow a lot, and now they need protection from the cold. Thank you Natalie for hosting the Weekend Coffee Share.
GreenDreams 