The Official Office

I would like to preface this post by noting that as I type, I am indulging in a salad made from our ripe homegrown tomatoes and homegrown basil, sprinkled with a little balsamic vinegar. Pure heaven.

One of the perks of being two people in a three-bedroom house is that in addition to having a guest bedroom, you can use another bedroom as an office, which is what we've been doing for the past two years. Nick had a dual Ikea desk setup with a pair of monitors, and my computer was hooked up to the television to enable us to view Hulu and Netflix options on our television. This worked reasonably well, but it wasn't ideal. Using my computer as an actual computer was difficult on a gigantic screen as the font size was always too small, and I had no place to actually sit and work, as the couch and coffee table just didn't cut it.

When we first moved in, we had originally intended that the office would be located in what I call "the front room", which is the first room inside the front door. It adjoins the dining room and the hallway leads from it to the bathrooms and bedrooms of the house. It's closer to the kitchen and the main living space of the house, plus it has a lovely bay window. The previous owners hadn't really been using it at all, as best we could tell, and it seemed like wasted space. We put bookcases fully of books and a comfy chair in the room, but truth be told, we never actually used it.

This year, I decided to finally get serious about the project. This involved, first and foremost, replacing the boring white color on the walls. Our friends can tell you about the months this room spent with various swatches of brown and gray on the walls while I hemmed and hawed. Literally months, and I am using the word "literally" correctly here. I finally decided to go with a color called Purbeck Stone, from my favorite paint company, Farrow and Ball. Who else? I love them. It's a soothing medium gray that shades to taupe in the right light, and it's quite earthy. Darker and more brown than the light gray in the dining room. I hoped it would be just what we were looking for.

I purchased two gallons of paint back in June, while my parents were visiting, but only got around to painting about three weeks ago. My fantastic husband helped me empty all the bookcases of books (which are currently covering our dining room table) and move the bookcases away from the walls. I painted the trim with Benjamin Moore Impervo in White Dove (same as in the kitchen). The weekend I set aside to paint the walls unfortunately happened to coincide with the weekend I first received what's called trigger point dry needling as part of my physical therapy plan for chronic back pain (a tale for another time), so my motion was markedly limited. The fantastic husband saved the day again! I did all of the prep (cleaning walls and taping off the newly-painted trim) and did the cutting in, while he did the actual roller painting since I couldn't stretch to do that. Once the painting was done, we (read: hubby because I'm gimpy) moved Nick's desks into the front room and split them up to give us one desk apiece. I have a desk again! Over the last week or so I've been hanging artwork, and although this room is by no means fully completed, we are quite happy with it. See for yourself! The photos were taken at night so the lighting isn't quite right, but you'll get the idea.

View from the entryway 

 My desk

Nick's desk 

It's awesome! We have an office, one that we can both use at the same time (or rather, we will once we replace my wireless card and I have internet access again). We still have a lot of work to do, though. Needs some kind of window treatments, for one. I kind of want to put a cushion on the wide windowsill, but it's far too high to be a window seat so perhaps I'll just put out candles and seasonal things. On the far side of the room the wall juts out to make room for the hall closet, leaving a recessed area 15" deep by 11' long. Guess who's planning DIY built-in bookshelves? They're going to be a sort of 5th wedding anniversary present to each other, since wood is the traditional gift. Stay tuned!

Totally Tomatoes

It has been a busy canning weekend at our little house in the woods! Between the two of us, this weekend Nick and I put up eight pints of pickles, a pint of tomato jam, nine pints of salsa, and a pint of homemade ketchup. That plus decorating the new office (to be addressed in an upcoming post)

Salsa and ketchup? Yes indeed! Yesterday Nick used his home brewing grain grinder to grind up a few pounds of tomatoes, plus onions, bell peppers and garlic. To this he added chopped jalapeno peppers and cilantro to make salsa fresca. We used our old (new) pressure canner for the first time as well. Nick made two batches; a larger mild one and a smaller batch that was heavy on the jalapenos. How were they? We've only tried the mild so far, and it's...ok. Lovely fresh tomato flavor but the all of the bite of  the onion, garlic and jalapeno cooked out. Needed acid, too, though it tasted better with some lime juice added. So not amazing, but a good starting point.

That was yesterday. Today, after picking a few more pounds of tomatoes from the garden, we decided to try ketchup. I used five pounds of tomatoes, mostly garden tomatoes and a few from the CSA. We found a good-looking recipe online at the Journal Sentinel to work with. Onions, garlic, cinnamon, cloves, mustard seed and dry mustard powder, peppercorns, cumin seed, salt, cider vinegar, sugar and a smidgen of cayenne pepper. Doesn't it sound good? Pureed the veggies and tomatoes, drained them in a fine sieve, and cooked the liquid low and slow, adding the spices and vinegar halfway through.

We made 1 1/2 recipes' worth, except I did not increase the sugar and I cut the cayenne pepper in half. Altogether 5 lbs of tomatoes cooked down to one pint of ketchup, but it was well worth it. It was fantastic. I think it was perfect; Nick wants to add a little Worcestershire sauce next time. When our CSA sells bulk tomatoes later this month, I will definitely be making more of this!

Squashed!

I have sad news, folks. Our lovely acorn squash vines are no more, having succumbed to the wrath of what I think was downy mildew. I'm not sure that's what it was, since the internet tells me downy mildew does not kill all the leaves and ours certainly died, but it was some sort of mildew, certainly.

However, all is not lost. Before my fantastic husband pulled up all the vines, he harvested nine (count them, nine) good-sized Thelma Sanders acorn squash (thank you, Southern Seed Exchange)! They are not full-sized but it was now or never, so... Aren't they gorgeous? They will need to sit and age/ripen for a while but should store for at least 3 months. Maybe we can have some for Thanksgiving - wouldn't that be a treat?

On an unrelated garden production note, what does one do with 2 lbs of freshly-picked Yellow Beam cherry tomatoes to use them up before they spoil?

Apparently, you can make Tomato Jam! Tomatoes, ginger, sugar, lime juice, chili flakes, cinnamon, cloves, salt...cooked down for a couple of hours until two pounds becomes two half-pints of ooey, gooey jam. I used Marisa's recipe (I'm obsessed with her blog) but next time I would scale back both the salt and the chili flakes.

Today my husband has informed me that it's salsa-making day. Stay tuned for our first attempt at using our hand-me-down pressure canner...

Oh, and I also made nine half-pints and four pints of bread and butter pickles while the tomatoes were cooking. Because when the garden production kicks into full-swing, you've got to use it or lose it!

Buried in Berries

Last weekend Nick and I decided on impulse to go berry picking, before the season ends later this month. We were unable to find a local raspberry orchard (his favorite) but I did find a cute place in Purcellville called Crooked Run Orchard that had blackberries ripe for picking. In about an hour, we picked over twelve pounds of berries! The exact total is unclear because it rained on us (albeit lightly) while we picked, so there was extra water weight. It weighed in at 13.5 lbs but they gave us a water discount.

The two of us picking together is rather funny. Nick picks for efficiency, going down the line and grabbing the most obvious, easily available ripe berries. I'm more Type A about it and try to pick every last ripe berry off the bush. He points out that we gain nothing this way, since they aren't our bushes and other people will collect anything missed later that day or the next. I told him it satisfies my inner perfectionist. We teased each other thoroughly. Good times!

So what did I do with all these berries? Made jam, of course! Twenty half-pints of blackberry jam with just a hint of warm spices, recipe courtesy of Marisa over at Food in Jars (my favorite canning blog). Nick teased me about having overdone it, but I think the family and friends who will receive this warming jam as a gift during the chilly winter months will agree it was worth it. It's delicious!