#mainemom

Tidepool/Zen Garden GOALS

Portland Head Light:

Lighthouses GALORE

And a bit further south in Old Orchard Beach…

Temps were in the 70s!!! BALMY!!!

Cool teen dude got a new surf board (thank you to the awesome Corner’s Surf Shop in Old Orchard Beach!) so I got his old one and ALL THREE OF US (3/5 ha!) finally got to all go out together!!! IT WAS SOOO FUN!!!

I watched a pine tree branch swaying in the wind. It was pointing upward and looked like it was trying very hard to stretch toward the sun (spring in Maine can make one very poetic).

It was only when the wind blew the branch that it sunk down, into the shade, and then whipped up higher toward the sun; much higher than it did when it looked like it was working so hard. It blew around wildly with…

Over the past few days I have been making pasta sauce from my garden yield and also discussing other ideas from the kitchen with co-workers. One thing that we all have are family recipes for ways of cooking from growing up and watching the adults in our life cook and prepare foods. One big adventure in the kitchen that I have learned from my family over the years is making fresh pasta sauce. This meant slaving for a few hours of cutting and pureeing tomatoes then pressing that all through a small holed colander to separate the seeds, skin and juices. The next step is to then be stuck in the house for at least a day usually two to cook it down and evaporate the extra water. Well two years ago I got to the cooking part and found I didn’t have enough time so it was going to have to wait till the next day. I packaged it up and put in the fridge. The next morning I found that the majority of water had separated and was at the bottom. All I had to do was scoop off the remaining sauce and my cooking time was now only a few hours! I’ve been so excited about this I share this with everyone and now I’m sharing it with you. 

One last tip I have for today is a great way to prep clams. All this requires is a few boxes of cornmeal and time (a few hours) for letting the clams sit before you cook them. Put a little cornmeal in the bottom of a pot throw in from clams add a little water and repeat till all the clams are covered and the pot is filled with water and cornmeal. The idea is the clams will borrow in the cornmeal like it’s sand and it will flush out any sand in them leaving them sand free and have a sweeter taste and less fishy.