Pepper Paints » art

Thursday’s Recipe …. Countertop Sour Pickles

Kristen — Fri, 23 Jul 2010 14:04:18 +0000

My kitchen has been smelling like a deli this week! It brings back fond memories of the years I spent hanging out at Bernie’s!

I shared on my twitter and face book about how great my countertop pickles tasted and was then asked by so many people for the recipe–So here it is!

I belong to an organic produce co-op. One of the other members spoke of her counter top pickles and was also asked by many of us for the recipe. She referred us to Wild Fermentation. I linked to this website back when I made fermented carrots and sauerkraut.

Basically this is what I did–Because these were not just picked out of my garden -I soaked my cucumbers in cold water in the fridge for a few hours to crisp them up. I had regular old large cucumbers not pickling ones so I cut them in half and then quartered them. I dissolved 1 Tablespoon of salt for each cup of water. I think I did 8 cups of water for the 3 large cucumbers I had. I did not have a large enough jar so I used the inner crock from one of my crock pots. Perfect!!

After stirring and stirring to dissolve the salt I gently crushed several heads of garlic-say 4 or 5 with the back of a spoon-just to crack them open and threw those in the water with a small handful of peppercorns , 4 heads of flowering dill and a small handful of fresh dill and 2 freshly washed oak leaves from the big tree. The oak , grape, sour cherry or horseradish leaves are to help keep the crunch.

I mixed all of that around and placed a plate on the top to keep the cucumbers submersed in the brine.

I then put the lid on very loosely–leaving it slightly cracked open on one side.

The next morning I noticed a few bubbles–IT”S ALIVE!!! Then there was a film that I scraped off over the next couple of days-then we tasted on day 2–delicious!! Actually we ate several!

It has been really hot here so the fermenting went quickly! I left them 1 more day and then moved them into jars (that I have been saving from our Bubbies pickles) and put them in the fridge to slow down the process.M more were eaten this morning as I moved them into the jars–lucky I ordered several more pounds of cucumbers this week!

We might need to add some Rubens to the menu!!

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Post tags: art, brine, Bubbies, bubbies pickles, co-op, countertop, crock, crock pots, crunch, cucumbers, cup, dill, Farm, Fermentation, Fermented, Fermenting, Food, Foods, garden, garlic, horseradish, Kitchen, leaves, organic produce, PepperPaints, photos, pickle, pickles, recipe, Rubens, salt, sauerkraut, Sour, Thursday, Thursdays, twitter, Wild, wild fermentation

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Cleveland Rocks!

Kristen — Wed, 21 Jul 2010 15:00:14 +0000

My husband and I both grew up in Cleveland. I don’t think we thought we lived in such a rockin’ place when we were younger. Last weekend we went home for a visit. I love being a tourist in this city! So much to see and do!!

Friday we took the kids to our old favorite hang outs on Coventry (the Greenwich village of Cleveland). Most are gone now and the crowd isn’t quite so hippy but it was still fun. Playing at the playground and eating dinner at Tommy’s. We need a Tommy’s here in Clintonville. It would surely do a bang up business!!! Pretty Pleeeeeze???

Saturday we headed to the newly renovated and free Art Museum. It is awesome!!!

Then we headed to The Botanical Gardens. I can’t say enough good things about the Hershey Children’s Garden. We could play there all day.

Look –apparently Ginger has a twin in Cleveland

Saturday night we took my in laws to Sokolowski’s to eat. On the recommendation of Anthony Bourdain of course– we got in touch with our Polish heritage!

Sunday morning we boarded The Rapid and headed to the Terminal Tower for a view from the observation deck. It has been closed since 9/11 and is only open for a few weekends.

Just about everyone in Cleveland had the same idea! We waited in kine for 1 hour and 45 minutes. Ginger was not happy

The ride up didn’t get much better

But the views were so cool! Cleveland really does rock! The ethnicity, the history and the big city feel.

Thanks Cleveland! We will be back soon!

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Post tags: anthony bourdain, art, art museum, Botanical, botanical gardens, Children, Cleveland, cleveland rocks, clintonville, coventry, dinner, ethnicity, Food, free art, Friday, garden, Greenwich, greenwich village, hershey, hippy, Kids, Museum, observation deck, photo, photos, playground, polish heritage, Sokolowski, terminal tower, Tommy, village of cleveland

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Staying Cool!

Kristen — Thu, 08 Jul 2010 22:25:00 +0000

It certainly has been hot around these parts !!

Not feeling like doing much except trying to stay cool!

Make art

Make gooey messes with cornstarch and water

Clean up in the pool

And of course…lots of melty ice cream cones

Here is to staying cool!

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Unschooling On Good Morning America And In The Mainstream

Kristen — Wed, 21 Apr 2010 14:13:10 +0000

Where to start?! The media is, well the media. They are a business. They feature stories that will boost ratings. They use shock value to stir up attention and in turn receive more viewers.

So why we are surprised by both the Good Morning America and the Discovery Health reports on Unschooling? They are typical examples of biased reporting. Both were short segments filled more with shock value than facts and true glimpses into real unschooling.

Mainstream America just doesn’t get Unschooling. They aren’t going to. For heavens sake only about 25% of American adults have a face book account. I thought everybody was on face book! So imagine how the majority of the world could possibly understand Unschooling? Especially with the shows that Discovery Health and Good Morning America put out. Yet, it is so easy for me to forget that we are radical. It is so easy for me to forget that my family is so different than almost everybody else.

Partly because I don’t reflect the mainstream and haven’t for so long. I have my own fairly large community that I identify with. I belong to a food co-op and rarely shop at Kroger and I love my public radio station where they don’t play anything you have ever heard of. —–That’s weird…… Yeah, I guess. I recycle, compost, use cloth napkins, shop at the thrift store and line dry my clothes—-Oh, your one of those hippies!….. OK. My kids don’t go school—-Oh, you homeschool? Will you always do that? Do they socialize with other kids? ……No,we Unschool—— Huh?????? Like those crazy people on TV? Did you see that, they let their kids eat donuts for breakfast—– That is main steam media for you!

I don’t sit round and think about how different we are. We just live. We aren’t purposeful in every move we make. We aren’t living for “the unschooling movement.” We don’t look different. We don’t walk or talk differently. (well maybe a little differently ) Our daily life is pretty uneventful to the outside world. We get up and go about our day just like everyone else. Only we have learned a little secret that seems so unfathomable to the rest of the world. Choice

We all have them. Really we do have choices in everything we do. Yes, some choices make life harder than others but we have choices in life. And as Unschoolers we have made many, many unpopular choices.

Kids don’t have to go to school–gasp! They don’t have to get up at a certain time of day to be productive—gasp! They don’t even have to be told to learn! No, really, it’s just automatic. Adults may think they have control over what kids are leaning but kids and adults everywhere are learning ALL THE TIME!

I googled learning and Wikipedia gave me this: (from a very mainstream source even!)

Learning is a process you do, not a process that is done to you. Traditional education focuses on teaching, not learning. It incorrectly assumes that for every ounce of teaching there is an ounce of learning by those who are taught. However, most of what we learn before, during, and after attending schools is learned without it being taught to us. A child learns such fundamental things as how to walk, talk, eat, dress, and so on without being taught these things. Adults learn most of what they use at work or at leisure while at work or leisure. Most of what is taught in classroom settings is forgotten, and much or what is remembered is irrelevant

^ Russell L. Ackoff and Daniel Greenberg (2008), Turning Learning Right Side Up: Putting Education Back on Track (pdf) HTML. Retrieved February 18, 2010.
^ Greenberg, H. (1987), “The Art of Doing Nothing,” The Sudbury Valley School Experience. Retrieved February 18, 2010.
^ Mitra, S. (2007) Sugata Mitra shows how kids teach themselves (video – 20:59). Minimally Invasive Education, Retrieved February 18, 2010.

These choices we have made are hard. And Unschooling is a journey of sorts. The vast majority of unschoolers did not wake up one day and decide to make all of these radical choices in one day. But it is easy to forget that.

Beginning with following your heart and letting go of what other people think. It’s your life –who care’s what other people think. Really–let that go and be the real you. We only have one this one life to live. Live it the way you want to.

Then giving up the ” should do’s” and the “have to’s”. Really question why you are doing things. Do you really want to? Or are you just doing them because you should do them? What will really happen if you don’t do them? Can you live with that result? Can you make a different choice to get the end result you want? Then make your decision based on that. It is a process. These choices we have made seem so normal and automatic to us now that sometimes we forget how the other 99% of the world is living. There really are so few have to’s in our lives but we assume that we must do way too many of them. Don’t follow blindly. I want to make my life just what I want it to be. And fill it with what I want. You can to. You have a choice.

So to the outside world our life may seem uneventful but really it’s just the opposite. Really we are choosing to exercise our choices. We aren’t living lives full of have to’s. We are living fully everyday. Not just on the weekends or when we go on vacation. Not just when we have time. And you can too. You have a choice–to put your kids in school or homeschool or really trust yourself and live your one life freely and Unschool.

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Fairy Gardens

Kristen — Tue, 30 Mar 2010 22:45:31 +0000

I would love to say I thought up this beautifully bright activity but I saw it here. I love this blog-I could spend hours looking through all the bright, sunny, beautiful photos.

Start with a shallow bowl or container (check the thrift store if you don’t have one).Cover the bottom with charcoal (pet store), then a layer of sphagnum moss (garden or craft store) top with potting soil.

Next plant (sprinkle) easy seeds of your choice-grass, clover, chia, sprouts etc… We used clover and Kentucky Blue Grass-of course we would choose this over Shade Turf-how boring! You can plant in a design or all over-you decide.

We picked out a few little plants at the nursery but with the weather changing I bet you could dig a little something up in your back yard.

Now on to the best part…..The decorating……colorful gravel, glitter, feathers, colored craft sticks, marbles, pretty rocks, anything that glitters

After planting spray with water frequently-keep moist-and wait for your garden to grow! We can’t wait to see what our garden will look like when our grass and clover sprout.

On a final note-after I took these photos Ginger tripped and dumped my garden and part of Molly’s. But we tossed everything back in the pot and sprinkled a few more seeds on the top and another handful of gravel-all while breathing heavily. ugh accidents happen!

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Post tags: activity, art, back yard, blog, blogs, charcoal, chia, clover, color, craft, craft sticks, craft store, Fairy, fairy gardens, feathers, garden, glitter, glitters, gravel, kentucky blue grass, marble, marbles, moss garden, photos, potting soil, rocks, shallow bowl, sphagnum, sphagnum moss, sun, thrift store, weather

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Happy Birthday Molly!!

Kristen — Sun, 07 Mar 2010 16:43:00 +0000

You greeted me in the kitchen this morning at 6:50 AM with two of the seven kids you had spending the night for your 11th birthday party. The three of you had decided early into the party that you would be staying up all night. And just like you-you met the challenge! Your drive and inner strength never ceases to amaze me. Yet I am sorry for the times when I expect this strength from you. It is easy to forget how young you still are. You have become quite a young lady in the past year. The pre teen years are not an easy time. I know it is both a public and internal struggle and I promise I will try to be more patient with you. You deserve that and so much more my middle child-and all the baggage that comes with that placement.

It is a beautiful sunny day today much like the day you were born. About this time 11 years ago Tanya, Nina and Kellie were rubbing my swollen feet with essential oils trying to help me relax and and encourage my labor. (this is after they made me drink caster oil and root beer shots but I really try to forget that awful part) Mostly because at this point my water had been broken for 34 hrs and you still were not ready to come out! So stubborn!! We chatted as I drank tea (that tasted like dirt) and opened my mouth and lifted my tongue for tincture after tincture that burned holes in my gums. I was pretty tired because I had been running the steps the previous day (while rubbing my nipples to try to jump start my labor). So now I was ready to be pampered a bit. Your Dad and I headed to the bath tub and sure enough around noon my contractions really started. You were by far the easiest of my three births. About 4 1/2 hours later you were born in our bed with Jake cheering you on. By 7:00 that night we were all sitting on the couch eating Chinese food and watching the Disney movie (Fly Away Home, I think). You were easy going and so beautiful-dare I say one of the most beautiful babies I had ever seen. And today you have certainly grown into that beauty. But not with out a fight-that red hair brings much fire with it but that is what makes you so special!! I keep reminding myself that fire will serve you well-it is what will drive you so far ahead of the rest. What may be a disadvantage to some, is to you a different and better way of doing things. Your creativity, individuality, spunk and drive are so astounding to me. I can’t wait to see what the next year brings for you!! I love you Molly!! Happy, Happy Birthday!

(I wish I had some baby photos to share-I need to learn to scan!!)

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Post tags: art, birthday, birthday party, caster oil, Happy, Kids, Molly, photos

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Perfect Night For A Snow Fire

Kristen — Mon, 15 Feb 2010 01:41:58 +0000

I posted the photos backwards as to not ruin our secret to getting this roaring fire started

We hear there is more snow heading our way!!

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From Where I Sit………….

Kristen — Thu, 31 Dec 2009 21:06:05 +0000

From where I am sitting I can see behind me, a favorite window seat. A place to perch, read a book and catch the afternoon sun that pours through the witches balls my family has gifted me each Christmas. A view of the garden my husband and I dug the first year we moved here. I can see the door most used by friends that stop by to visit. From here we often watch neighbors, strangers and dogs coming and going on their path to the park. The same path that I ran so many times in the last several months.
To my right is a buffet that holds linens used by both my Mother and my Grandmother, two shiny silver lights that create just the right ambiance when lit, clay pieces my children have made and a drawer that holds bits and pieces of the past year in review.
To my left is the kitchen; the often messy and most used room in our home. Countless meals prepared and shared here. But my view from this seat only allows a glimpse of that chaos. My eye is drawn straight to the window that overlooks my back yard. From here I can see trees and beautiful summer sunsets. I can hear the band play on crisp Fall mornings and the baseball team usher in the beginings of Spring.
And in front of me it is like a wide angle lens. The dinning room table scattered today with colored pencils, drawings, stuffed animals. The book shelf, full of knowledge; of books waiting to be read, project ideas jumping off the pages various markers and blank papers waiting to be filled. A notebook recording 2009′s days, pages scrawled and lists and appointments checked off. Then there is the basket of clean laundry for five folded and waiting to be put away.
But again my eye is drawn past the chores. Now into my warm and comfortable living room. The room that holds so many possibilities. There are plenty more books in this room. There is music both recorded and waiting to be thumped out. There is a fireplace, art that I have shown in this past year and family photos preserved. The furniture is comfy as is the floor covered in an old family rug. An often joked about, over-priced, coffee table where games are played. This room is inviting and both calm and busy at the same time. My living room is eclectic. There are disco balls hanging in front of an antique mirror that seems to pull me forward into the future yet reflects all that is behind me. Plants full of life and treasures picked up in places both near and far, serving as memories of past experiences. And just outside the set of double windows there is the tree house that our family and friend built together, a new trampoline and the sounds of happy children gathering in the sand box.

I am surrounded on all sides by beauty and comfort and the encouragement brought on by this past year. But when I look beyond all of this, there is the future. One that fills me with anticipation. 2009 was a year of progress for me personally. It was a year that I stretched myself in ways I never imagined. It was a year that I took time out for myself. Because my children are a little older, I was able to move my focus away from the all encompassing parenting of the past 14 years. It was a nice year, a busy year.

2010….sounds sci-fi almost. Hard to believe it is here. It is the now. I have plans. Plans to really embrace this year in a new but familiar way. Simplify and return to what I know. A year of comfort and focus. A year free of judgment and of what is “supposed to be”. A fresh yet reminiscent outlook. I am very comfortable where I sit but I plan to get up and move around little. Maybe venture out more and choose a new seat from my familiar surroundings, because where I have been is also where I am going. Welcome 2010!!!

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Post tags: afternoon sun, art, back yard, beautiful summer, book shelf, colored pencils, crisp fall, dinning room table, fall mornings, family photos, friends, husband, photo, photos, project ideas, summer sunsets, wide angle lens, window seat, year in review

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Lanterns Of Tin And Bees Wax

Kristen — Wed, 23 Dec 2009 03:24:44 +0000

We have been very busy around here!! We read Sun Bread by Elisa Kleven and used her recipe to make a little sun of our own! I love, love, love her books. The illustrations are beautiful.

We made tin can lanterns

We made fire starters by dipping pine cones into melted bees wax

And we made these beautiful bees wax lanterns to hold a small tea light, by repeatedly dipping a water balloon in melted bees wax.

And then there has been the baking…………….

And the eating of course!

We are almost ready but still have a few last minute things to prepare and gather. Looking forward to the next week full of celebrations with friends and family from both near and far. We’re almost there!! Almost………

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Post tags: art, baking, bees wax, blog, celebrations, elisa kleven, family, fire, fire starters, friends, friends and family, illustrations, lantern, lanterns, little sun, photos, pine cones, recipe, sun, sun bread, tea light, water balloon

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Holiday Scented Playdough

Kristen — Tue, 15 Dec 2009 16:10:50 +0000

Peppermint and/or Pine scented Playdough

In a pot mix together

1 cup flour

1/2 cup of salt

2 t cream of tarter

add

1 cup water with many drops of red or green food coloring

2 T oil

several drops peppermint essential oil to the red batch and pine essential oil to the green batch

cook on medium heat until a ball forms and pulls away from the sides of the pot.

Put this into a plastic tubby with a few holiday cookie cutters attatched and this makes a great gift for a little person.

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Post tags: art, COOKIE, food coloring, green food, holiday, holiday cookie cutters, peppermint, photos, playdough

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Pepper Paints » art

Thursday’s Recipe …. Countertop Sour Pickles

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