Earth Day dish cloths

 

It's Earth Day 2026 and to celebrate I'm re-purposing some scrap fabric and terry cloth towels and making some dish cloths.  Kitchen duties and cleaning can feel so domestic and sometimes boring.  I like to embrace the feral side of domesticity every chance I get.  A little wild and free to be creative and repurposed old things or scraps feels a bit feral over just buying some cheapies at the store.  I think we should add in a little color and personality to the monotonous routines we sometimes find ourselves in.  I also want to make a matching dish towel drying mat for my clean dishes.  *For the dish cloths,  I cut out 5 inch squares from the fabrics and used 1 terry and one cotton print fabric, I put the right sides together and sewed around the perimeter.  I left a 2 inch area on the last side, to turn the square right side out.  After turning the square, taking care to be sure and push out the points on the corners, I top stitched around the square and turned fabric in to close 2 inch gap.  I also sewed diagonally across the square so it stays laying flat and doesn't pucker in the center.  This is an easy and fun beginner friendly sewing craft that is both useful and cute!  These little dish cloths are so unique and makes cleaning up a little more fun.  They can also be used under a hot coffee mug or at the espresso machine for quick clean up. The cloths are sturdy and of course washable/re-usable and will last years! I hope you give them a try! Happy Earth Day!! 

xo ~tina

dutch baby, rain baby

I look outside and judge the type of rain based on if the chickens are out of their house

she can not decide, so we just leave the door open

We started the day in cotton gowns, sleeveless and as it started to rain I reached for a plaid shirt:: by the time the day darkens into night, we will be back in our flannel pajamas and definitely warm socks tomorrow. 
I made a blueberry Dutch Baby because it seems like the perfect rainy morning to get the oven going.  It is an easy make, but I have read online that sometimes people struggle with the puff aspect of the oven pancake.  I'm not sure and can't attest to what problems they run into, but I'm wondering if it has something to do with the age of the eggs?  So I can only recommend using farm eggs, either from yours or your neighborhood egg person,,,they are everywhere these days <yay> My recipe is: 

preheat your oven to 400 degrees (mine is convection and automatically adjusts this to 375)

3 farm fresh eggs (room temp)

3/4 cup milk

3 T melted butter.   preheat and melt it in your size 8 or 10 inch cast iron skillet and pour half of it into your milk and egg mixture.  I use my stove top for this step. Leave the rest in the pan on low. 

3 T (more or less) raw cane sugar.  you can put less but you may not get that crusty sweet top that pairs well with the tartness of the blueberries. 

1 T vanilla

pinch salt

3/4 unbleached organic AP flour 

1/4 cup wild blueberries, frozen (my favorites are found at Trader Joe's and are wild harvested from the Boreal forest in Canada) I really do think the tiny berries work great here.  I add half to the buttered warmed skillet bottom, pour in my batter and sprinkle the rest on top and pop into the oven.  

Bake for 20+ minutes, until puffed and set in the center. 

While your Dutch baby is baking, set your timer on your phone because you don't want to forget it, ahem.  take your phone outside in your backyard and walk around with your pajamas in the rain (if you are so lucky) and enjoy this time while your breakfast cooks. This is part of the "recipe" so you must do it for the pancake to come out!! :))

I hope you have a wonderful weekend.  I have a lot of work to get done at home today.  But I plan to do it well fed and very well caffeinated. OK, I'm off to find those wool socks I already packed away because we will wake up to 40s tomorrow! 

xo, ~tina

spring, welcome

Spring arrived in what seemed like a hurry. Wasn't it just the long days of February? The fact is the days are whizzing by, and I'm not sure why? I feel like I am just flipping the calendar months every time I turn around. April has not brought us much for showers, so what does this mean for our May flowers? It didn't seem to slow down my lilacs or roses from doing their thing, for which I am thankful.  Today is hot, record or near record high set.  I'm still waiting for the final tally. At 6 pm it is still 83 degrees. We will wake up to 70s in the morning and then a storm is promised and a sharp drop down to the 50s.  I love a swift change of weather like that and I hope we do get that rain.  We NEED it.  I made a sourdough lemon cake that was really good ~to welcome spring and it was like eating sunshine.  We spent last Friday (used) car shopping for my 17.5 year old who was due an upgrade from the car she's been using.  We found one that was exactly what we were looking for! She was surprised and happy and all the things that make such a purchase feel just right.  Also makes the work we do outside of the home that much more needed, especially during the times we are in right now and the prices of everything we need! That also makes us think about the things we don't need so much right now too and perhaps simplifying even more, where we can.  I don't know about where you are, but here, these gas prices are pretty invasive to the purse strings. So anyway,,, Happy Spring! xo ~tina

snow days

I’m sitting here drinking Kombucha ~TRILOGY~ (Raspberry, Lemon, Ginger), because one can only drink so many latte’s, teas and cocoas. This is snow day 5, after all. We did not lite the fire today, either. The sun is out and it is 36 degrees, tomorrow will be 41 WHOO HOO! We got 4 inches of sleet, snow, freezing rain all mixed together forming a solid sheet of ice, everywhere. The streets are iced over, a full size truck driven across ~barley leaving a mark. Crazy! The temps stay COLD too which means this ice hasn’t gone anywhere. This is subtly like Maine weather. School has not and will not open this week. So, we are home and I sewed a coverlet for my old ugly couch. The couch is so very comfortable, so it gets to stay. The couch is in my bedroom and serves as a quiet spot for everyone who needs one. I repurposed a well loved striped percale king size bed sheet set and only sewed it in two spots. You wouldn’t have to though, you could just tuck the arm pieces and center in. If it were just me sitting there I probably could have not sewn the arms to the center. Kids + Pets = Sewn lol I’m going to insert a little sketch to show you how I used the sheets. I used the flat sheet over the center part of the couch. I cut the fitted sheet in half and used the gathered parts on the arm of the couch. I sewed where the fitted sheets meet the flat sheet. I hope that makes sense. Here is the image. Don’t laugh!!

So there you have it. Snow days and new life for old things.

~ homespun tina

Molasses Cookies

                    

{Post Script: a few of you had questions about what to use in place of  raw sour milk- and you can add 1 tablespoon of vinegar to your store bought milk to sour it- do not leave pasteurized milk out at room temp to sour!!!} 

A Rural Maine Molasses Cookie and What It Tells Us About the Past

I have a handwritten molasses cookie recipe from my great-grandmother, Grammie Whitcomb. When I first baked it, I assumed something was missing. There is no white sugar, no brown sugar, and no added sweetener of any kind. The cookies are not very sweet.

That turns out to be exactly the point.

In rural Maine kitchens of the 1800s and early 1900s, molasses was not just a flavor. It was the sweetener. Refined sugar was costly, sometimes scarce, and not used casually. Molasses, by contrast, arrived cheaply by ship and was a common pantry staple in both coastal and inland households.

Because of this, many everyday baked goods relied on molasses alone. These recipes were practical and filling, meant to nourish rather than indulge. What we would now call cookies were closer to soft biscuits or small spiced cakes, eaten with coffee or tea or packed for work rather than saved for dessert.

The recipe itself reflects this way of cooking. It uses sour milk, a common farm kitchen technique before refrigeration, and baking soda activated directly in the molasses. The spice blend is simple and traditional, relying on cloves and cinnamon rather than sweetness for depth. The proportions lean toward bread rather than confection.

By modern standards, this molasses cookie tastes restrained. By Maine standards of the time, it was familiar and comforting. Our palates have changed, but the recipe has not.

This is not an incomplete recipe or a mistake. It is a small, honest example of how rural Maine families baked when ingredients were valued, sugar was used sparingly, and food was meant to sustain.

The use of shortening in this recipe is just as historically appropriate as the use of molasses. In rural Maine kitchens of the late 1800s and early 1900s, “shortening” was a general term that most often meant rendered lard, though later it could also refer to commercially produced vegetable shortening. Butter was valuable and often reserved for the table or special baking, while lard was inexpensive, shelf-stable, and commonly used for everyday cooking.  The simple use of the word “shortening” suggests a transitional period, likely in the early 1900s, when the term was understood to cover whatever practical fat a household kept on hand.

I keep the recipe exactly as it was written, with a note explaining its history, so it does not get corrected by future generations. It reminds me that one cup of molasses really was enough, because for a long time, it had to be.

weekending