Whole Food Freezer Cooking has quickly become one of my most popular workshops, and today I'm releasing it in full as a ready to go, self-paced program. Perfect for those of you who've not been able to join the live sessions in the past!

Freezers are often considered to be the most underutilized appliance or tool in the modern kitchen. We all have them, yet few of us use them to their full potential. Whether your freezer is large or small, we all have some room to store a few homemade meals, prepared in advance, that will be ready and waiting to provide nourishment during busy times. Or, if you’re like me, times when the family chef would simply like a night off.

The recipes in Whole Food Freezer Cooking place an emphasis on fresh vegetables, fruits, whole grains and legumes, high quality meat and dairy, healthy fats, and plenty of herbs and spices. Most of the recipes are naturally gluten free, and many are vegetarian or can easily be made so. While this is not an exclusively Paleo, Vegan, or Gluten-Free program, we've had participants who lean toward these diets take the class and found plenty of the recipes work for them as is, or with a few substitutions. 

This ready to go, self-paced workshop is divided into six very full classes, each containing an extensive ebook, as well as video demonstrations.

Essential Details:

• six very full classes
• beautifully designed recipe ebooks for each class, easy to download and keep forever
• printable sheets for recipe/menu planning and freezer organization
• dozens of delicious recipes 
• email support if you have questions
• informative and encouraging video cooking classes
• self-paced - you do not need to be in class at a specific time
• permanent access to the website (save your passwords!)

The Six Classes Within the Workshop:

1. Dinner Hour :: A bit of advance work sets you up for incredible peace of mind throughout the week.
2. Single Serving Meals :: Whether it’s for the lunch box, travel, or a weeknight dinner for one, learning to prepare a variety of homemade “TV dinners” is a tremendous time and money saver.
3. Breakfast Just Got Interesting (and easy!) :: So many of us are heading out the door each morning. Meals that are easy to prepare, with the benefit of rich homemade flavor, beats a bagel at the coffee shop any day.
4. Soups & Stews  :: A classic freezer meal! Surely we couldn’t forget about some of the best soups and stews that are suitable for freezing.
5. Meal Starters & Organizational Methods  :: Learn to prep single ingredients, or simple combinations of ingredients, to store as meal starters. In this class we’ll also cover tips and methods to plan your freezer cooking day(s) and how to stay organized while doing so.
6. Snacks & Desserts :: Because what is better than a sweet treat or nourishing snack tucked away in the freezer? So great to have on hand when company stops by, or a last minute invitation to head to the park for the afternoon.

A few sample pages:

Whole foods, lots of inspiration, support as you need it. That is my focus.

It's going to be fun! And it's all ready and waiting for you right now!

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$30.00

I hope to see you in the workshop!

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If you've taken workshops with me in the past, you might be familiar with my early bird "bring a friend" offer. This self-paced program doesn't easily lend itself to something like that, so I am releasing this with my very best price right out of the gate. Thank you!

Cinnamon, Maple, Peach Leather. (From Country Kitchen :: Summer 2017)

Best I can tell, we’re in the path of about 75% totality for today’s big event, and while we don’t have any of those special glasses, I’m told we can go down to the library where they have plenty to share. We’ll see. Truth be told, what I really feel like doing is spending the afternoon right here digging potatoes - at least a row or two - bathed in the dark silence of waning midday light. What better time to gather my thoughts, and to let a few go, as well. I may not feel drawn to viewing the eclipse with a crowd, but I do appreciate the power such an anomalous event presents to our species that tends to move out of sync with the natural world. Today, people will stop and notice. I think that will be my favorite part.  

And with that, I must now share the news that Country Kitchen :: {Late} Summer Session has been cancelled. I realize this is probably a trivial announcement, but one that I must make nonetheless. I was going to share in explicit detail about the why, with profuse apologies, but I'll try not to do that. Sometimes things just don't work out. I will say this: In short, hours of video footage have been suspended in the ether for days, not making it to my computer’s editing software, as they should. The fix is going to require experts, it seems.  So we’ll take care of that this week and be in top shape for the autumn session, due out in early October. I’m bummed, and briefly considered releasing it as a smaller course with the ebook and community aspect, but in the end, didn’t feel 100% about that. I also had my friend Ben join me on this one and you guys would have really enjoyed his contribution. But I’ll do my best to see if he can be convinced to meet up for another Country Kitchen in the future. 

The silver lining is that I will now be able to release something I’ve been getting inquiries about but putting off: Whole Food Freezer Cooking. (I try not to offer workshops too close together.) This is a popular late summer/early autumn class, a time of year when many of us want to feel a bit more nested, organized, and polish a few systems around the house, especially the dinner hour. The class will be available tomorrow, with full and immediate access to the entire workshop. If you’ve not had a chance to take Whole Food Freezer Cooking in the past, you might want to check it out. It’s been a game changer for many!

So, no Country Kitchen today, but we do get an eclipse! And really, if we had to choose... xo

For the first time in my homeschool mom life, I do not have that back to school feeling. Last year I hoped it would be gone, with Emily off to college and all, but it was still present. This year - so far at least - I’m not feeling it and it’s been glorious. It’s not that I dislike the back to school feeling, I’m just ready for something new, ready to be anchored by a rhythm other than the idea of school. This is the first August since I can remember that I don’t feel like organizing anything, starting a new project, implementing an improved system of some kind, or purchasing “office” supplies. Instead, I am immersed in the height of gardening season, harvesting and processing food nearly every day. There is a watchful eye toward the wild landscape, gathering late-summer milkweed pods, waiting for chokecherries and blackberries to ripen, and wondering if this is the year I’ll finally do something with the fruit of our enormous crabapple tree. 

There hasn’t been much time in front of the computer lately, it’s just the nature of our family life right now. This means my summer edition of Country Kitchen has been a little slower than I’d like, but it’s nearly together and will be released next Monday. The entire class will be ready at that time so there will be no registration period, you can jump right in! Let’s call it: Country Kitchen :: {Late} Summer Session, 2017. All of the details will be posted here on Monday. Looking forward to it!

So here I am, not feeling the school calendar, loving the final stretch of summer. Before I know it, fair season will be here and with that, late night sounds of doodlebug races from the fairgrounds across town, wafting through our bedroom window just as they did when I was a little girl. I’ll remember strawberry milk from The Ellis Farm, burgers from The American Legion, and my favorite, the fruit cup served with a two-pronged wooden fork from a lady unaffiliated with any organization as far as I remember, but she was always there. I ate so many of those fruit cups as a kid. Our town fair is one of the biggest (the biggest?) in our state, so as these things go, it’s gotten fairly commercial in recent years and my interest in attending is not the same, but it was a fun tradition to grow up with. Being proper local kids, we saved our allowance throughout the year and attended the fair all four days, always working one booth or another for an afternoon or two, and ruling the midway (or so we thought) with ride tickets supplied by my grandfather. 

There’s always a headliner country band on Sunday afternoons, free with the price of admission. As fair concerts go, it’s usually a band either past its prime, or one yet to be known. These things are booked about a year in advance and a few years back a never-heard-of-band called Florida Georgia Line was hired for the upcoming season. Over the course of being booked and the fair actually taking place, that band went and made a big name for themselves and our town with a population of 10,000 suddenly saw crowds and traffic that rivaled Woodstock. We were driving in the opposite direction that day, heading out of town, and the road to the fairgrounds was an absolute parking lot, several miles long. I don’t know if I’ve heard anything by Florida Georgia Line, but I hope their fans got a good show that day. 

These days, not into blossoming onions, jumbo smoked turkey legs, or one more “As Seen On TV” booth, I’m content with late night sounds of the fair through my bedroom window, and the comforting memories of what was. Now if only the sound of those doodlebugs could somehow carry the sweet-savory scent of old school fried dough mingled with that of the animal barns. I’d like that very much. 

(These photos are from The Brooklyn Fair, a little more my size and speed. I love fair photos!)

Young Emily helping Grandma June. 

I feel devoted to my garden this summer in a way that is unfamiliar to me. Normally, I’ll do my part in preparing beds and all that, but tend to run on the low maintenance end of the gardener spectrum. But this year, for whatever reason, I can’t seem to keep my hands off of her - like the aunt with uncontainable adoration that’s just gotta pinch your cheeks one more time. Poor garden. She looks amazing though and doesn’t seem to mind the incessant doting. 

As summers go, this one is mild so it’s been easy to keep my southern New England humidity complaints to a minimum. Still, I find myself seeking quiet on most afternoons. Not as desperate as the sit-in-front-of-a-fan-eating-frozen-grapes kind of hot afternoons, but a slow down of a less urgent kind. Enter my new knitting companion: Heartland. Thought I’d mention it here in case I’m the second to last person to know of it. It’s a Canadian TV series about a ranch family and their teenage daughter who is a gifted horse whisperer, or as she prefers to call it, horse listener. It’s a family friendly kind of show with a whole bunch of feel good moments which is exactly how I like my media these days. (Whether or not those feel good moments are cheesy and unwatchable is debatable in this household, depending on who you're asking.) What really gets me is the gorgeous Alberta, Canada location the show is (mostly) filmed in, and equally, the horses. I’m not a horse person by experience, but married into a family of serious horse people so the lifestyle feels familiar (my father-in-law a former cowboy, blacksmith, and farrier; my mother-in-law a professional horse trainer), and I wouldn’t be surprised if there is a relationship with horses at some point in my life. 

Anyway, the horsemanship in this show is incredible, and the whole setting is a pleasure to watch. So if you’re like me and enjoy a good dose of oxytocin with your TV viewing, Heartland might be something to pair with your knitting on these remaining summer afternoons.