...Growing, Building, Cooking, Preserving, Crafting...

2006 began our urban homestead when I broke ground on a garden, which now includes perennial fruits, flowers, & many vegetable varieties. We dream of solar panels, keeping bees and hens. Until then we'll continue growing and preserving our own fruits and vegetables, building what we can for our home, cooking from scratch, and crafting most days.

1.04.2013

Ready for the New Year

Happy 2013!
Happy New Year!  We rounded out 2013 with a couple more cultural holidays before capping it off with a New Year's celebration with close friends.  There are a handful more of cultural holidays dangling into January and February that we are excited to explore as well.  But most of all we're thankful for a fresh start and are excited about planning some travels and family outings this year.

Our Kwanzaa centerpiece (w/ a few makeshift items as we used the
resources we had available at home):  Kinara (candleholder) with
mishumaa (candles), mkeka ("straw" mat--ours was made out of
construction paper), mazao (fruit--V contributed some from her toy
kitchen), vibunzi (ear of corn for ea. child in the household), kikombe
cha umoja
 (unity cup--using Daddy's mate cup), and zawadi (modest
gift--we chose V's beaded bracelet.)
Our karamu (Kwanzaa feast) with Squash, Lentil, and Chickpea Stew w/
Peanuts and Cilantro; North African Spiced Carrots; Southern Kale; and
Fresh Fruit Salad with Whipped Cream
Boxing Day Feast of Ham, Smashed Garlic Peas, and
Parsnip and Potato Hash Browns.
Helping prepare a Breakfast Casserole for our NYE
overnight guests.  V cut the chicken sausages and
learned how to crack eggs
Cardamom Pistachio Rice Pudding for NYE dessert--whoever found the
whole almond in their cup will have luck all year. 
Cooking down a pot of Southern Style Collards for
our auspicious NYE menu.
Lots of lucky foods on our table:  Hoppin' John,
Collards, Lentil Soup, Pork, Fish (Herring), and
other offerings to round of the evening with good friends
And we welcomed 2013 with our neighbors grilling
weinies and sipping champagne in the park at noon on
New Year's Day.

3 comments:

  1. totally stumbled randomly on your blog while searching for urban homesteading blogs and come to find out you live in milwaukee too!! just came back from a victory garden initiative meeting on homesteading and i am feeling especially inspired. nice blog! feel free to come visit mine as well (if you are so inclined)
    www.thesmeiskafamily.com

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  2. Jodi--thanks for checking it out. I popped over to your blog this morning too. Will have to look at it more. I hope the UHL went well. Wanted to attend, but sometimes in the throes of parenting and keeping up with everything else I find that I can't make it to every one of these amazing local groups that I can. Will try to stay tuned. What's your e-mail?

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  3. I feel your pain...life is mighty hectic these days. twoboobstwobabies@yahoo.com (i breastfed twins...had to make light of something with so much stigma....)

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