Blogging Community

Myshell took a break from coloring her world to nominate me for a Community Blogger Award. This kind gesture was a complete surprise to me, especially from a brand new reader. I’ve seen the award on other blogs and secretly wondered if I might ever be considered a positive enough influence to receive something like that. I guess I’ve hit the big time now.

In doing a little bit of research on this award, I found that it was created only last month. Cellobella of the RedSultana blog writes:

The Community Blog Award celebrates people who reach out and makes the blogger community a better one. I couldn’t find an existing award so I made it up myself, mainly so I could acknowledge the inaugural winner of the award.

She maintains a growing blogroll of all those who’ve received the award if you want to follow the spread of it around the blogosphere.

As I’ve mentioned occasionally here, I really like problem-solving. This means that anytime I am reading blogs, my mind is constantly sifting through the writing to find tips and tricks. This may be something as small as, “Can I gel my marmalade without buying pectin?” to issues as large as, “How will we survive when we can’t afford to gas up our vehicle?”

Many minds working on the problems facing us today can come up with better and more diverse solutions than just one mind. This aspect of the blogger community is very helpful and a compelling reason to participate. Many bloggers are very generous in sharing their experiences and solutions, as well as in encouraging ongoing discussion in their comments. I’m happy to be a positive force in this community and thank Myshell for her recognition of my efforts.

One of the best community building blogs I read is Crunchy Chicken. She challenges everyone to kick their greening efforts up a notch with all of her challenges. She is consistently positive, even in the face of personal crises, and encouraging to others. And she fearlessly takes on topics that make many a blogger blush. So, Pollo Crujiente, consider yourself awarded.

Food Preservation Supplies

Nikki asked me in comments to list what I keep on hand for preserving food. As much as possible, I try to get items that I can re-use or things that have other uses. This isn't always possible, but keeping that in mind may help cut down on the clutter.


REFERENCE MATERIALS

Websites - National Center for Home Food Preservation is a great site full of information on drying, canning, freezing, pickling, curing, storing, and making jams and jellies. Another good guide for drying can be found here. I've linked to the Prudent Food Storage FAQs before but here it is again. Other than that, I do a lot of searches when I am looking for something specific (such as what to do with kumquats).

Books - I've been picking up books on food preservation for the past few months at the used bookstores. I had to buy a couple of them new because they just weren't showing up used. Here's a list of what I have. I'm not saying these are the best, but they suit my needs and were available. I look carefully before I buy to make sure they are relatively current, have recipes I will use, and are in a format that I like.

Root Cellaring: The Simple No-Processing Way to Store Fruits and Vegetables by Mike & Nancy Bubel
Ball Complete Book of Home Preserving - purchased new
The Big Book of Preserving the Harvest by Carol W. Costenbader
The Well-Stocked Pantry: Preserving Fruits & Vegetables by Carol W. Costenbader
Stocking Up III: The All-New Edition of America's Classic Preserving Guide by Carol Hupping
The Joy of Pickling by Linda Ziedrich
Wild Fermentation by Sandor Ellix Katz - purchased new
Dry It - You'll Like It by Gen MacManiman

People - my CSA is full of people with far more experience preserving food than I. They have been generous in sharing tips and recipes with me. I also glean information from any source I can. For instance, at a cooking demonstration months ago I heard the instructor mention that he makes limoncello and his own vinegar. Last night, he was the instructor again so I stayed after the class to ask him about it. I now have a better sense of how to proceed with both of these projects.


CANNING SUPPLIES

I purchased some of my supplies new, such as the waterbath canner, a wide mouth funnel, jar lifter, some jars, and new lids. I've picked up quite a few jars at church yard sales, too. Unfortunately, the thrift stores around here price the canning jars higher than they are new. A couple of weeks ago, I scored a canning utensils set for just a dollar so I now have another funnel, two styles of jar lifters, tongs, and most importantly, the lid magnet. I already had a soup ladle, which works well for spooning into the funnels.

Other than that, the only supplies I try to keep on hand are ingredients such as canning salt, sugar, and vinegar. Now that I have some lemons, I can freeze some of the juice to use in canning.

I have an abundant supply of adhesive address labels that I can cut up to make labels for my jars. I use a permanent pen, such as a Sharpie for this.


DEHYDRATING SUPPLIES

I bought a food dehydrator years ago. I still have it but wanted more trays. Since they are quite expensive and I was having trouble locating them in town, I put that idea on the back burner. In the past month or so, I've picked up two more dehydrators by the same manufacturer that use the exact same trays. I now have 12 trays, which is the maximum that can dry on one machine. I got rid of the jerky maker parts year ago. Blech!

So far, I haven't dried anything that needed special pre-treatment so I don't have any of those ingredients on hand. I've dried chile peppers, both red and green, celery leaves, parsley, cilantro, zucchini slices, and yam slices in the dehydrator so far.

Since I live in an arid zone, I'm exploring more air and solar-drying options. I've found that old nylons (pantyhose) work well for some things such as corn. I just tied a knot between each ear and hung them up in the garage from a nail. I tied up some of the fresh red chiles from the CSA on string and hung them up. Unlike these traditional ristras, I left lots of space between each one, hoping to reduce the possibility of molding.

For outside drying, which I've not tried yet, I'll explore this site and try to acquire the materials cheaply.

Ristra photo by pdgibson on flickr.


FREEZING SUPPLIES

The only supplies needed for freezing are ziploc bags and a straw. Some people freeze food in glass jars or plastic containers, but I find those take up too much space in the freezer. Plus, I'm not exactly graceful or careful so I worry that I'd end up with a lot of broken glass if I tried doing that exclusively! The freezer ziploc bags work fine. I seal them almost all the way closed, push out excess air, insert a short piece of drinking straw, and suck out the remaining air while sealing. It works fine unless your bag has been recycled so many times that it has pinholes in it. I label the bags with the food and date using a Sharpie pen.

I would also recommend keeping an inventory of what's in your freezer. I did that this weekend, reorganizing at the same time to fit in some free bread, and was amazed at everything I had in there. We even enjoyed an "old" brownie that I found in the back corner under everything else.


FERMENTING SUPPLIES

I've not done much fermenting yet so I don't have many supplies. I really don't anticipate getting into brewing wine or beer, so I don't have a big bucket or siphon or airlock and whatever else is needed. The alcohols I plan to make use vodka as a base so I just need to put the mixtures in jars to steep. For ginger beer, I have ginger powder, dry yeast, and empty water bottles for bottling. For kimchee, I simply need a few pantry ingredients and my canning jars. For the vinegar I want to make, I'll probably use one of the large pickle jars I picked up at a yard sale. I do need more cheesecloth, although I'd rather find something reusable to cover it with.


STORAGE SUPPLIES

I use glass and ceramic jars with the clamp-style lids for storage. You can order new rubber gaskets for these online, although I was able to get them through Ace Hardware locally. I've picked up all of my jars used; as you can see here, they come in all shapes and sizes.

I spent several months checking local bakeries and stores to get their empty 3 and 5 gallon buckets. They often had none available or no lids. They were usually food-encrusted, taking quite a lot of time and effort to clean. I could have purchased new food-grade buckets with lids or bought clean used ones, but I would rather spend my time than my money. I followed the instructions on the food storage site linked above for packaging dry beans and grains. The only "supply" needed is dry ice, which you cannot store so it must be purchased each time you're ready to pack up some food. Like the freezer, an inventory is critical to managing the supplies. It doesn't do any good to have food stored if you don't know what you have or if you don't use it.

I'm sure I've forgotten a few resources and supplies, but hopefully this will be a good starting point for anyone interested in preserving food. Many supplies can be obtained at a cheap price through yard sales, church sales, and thrift stores. Freecycle and craigslist are also worth checking.

A Typical Day

I've noticed a number of people blogging about what a typical day looks like for them. In some ways, I envy these folks with a nice routine to their lives. On the other hand, I'm easily bored and enjoy variety. There is very little routine to my days, as what I do depends on what opportunities have arisen. I can say for sure that we will arise early each day, make coffee, feed the dog, dress, and walk the dog. On week days, I usually also put my sweetie's lunch together while he gets ready to bike to work.

Once he leaves though, my day can go in a zillion directions. I once had a boss who did everything in crisis management mode. She didn't seem to be able to plan ahead well so she always had to deal with something urgent. My days are like that, but on a less critical nature. Priorities must be set for each day, usually to deal with the most perishable food on hand or the harvest that is available for only a short time.

However, there is more to life than food so occasionally I must set aside time to balance the checkbook and pay the bills. Or gather the empty buckets for rain. It is sprinkling this morning for the first time in ages and I want to collect some water. Since we're in a rental, I have to make do with buckets lined up under the drip line of the roof instead of a proper gutter and cistern. To avoid irritating the neighbors, I dropped a clean cloth in the bottom of each one to muffle the dripping noise.

Food quickly calls me back though. For example, here is my "To Do List" for the next few days:

• Clean and dry several bunches of cilantro
• Make cilantro chutney after finding a recipe
• Figure out what to do with the rest of the cilantro to preserve it
• Try making jelly with the pyracantha berries in the back yard
• Harvest kumquats and more Calamondin limes
• Get more ice to pack around the Meyer lemons to help them ripen
• Make the final preserving solution for the black olives and can them
• Continue brining the green olives
• Check on the salt-packed olives
• Make two versions of preserved lemons
• Pick limoncello recipe and make that
• Make lemon marmalade
• Review how to make lemon extract and try that
• Make another batch of Calamondin lime marmalade
• Sort through all the kumquat recipes and decide what to make (Top contenders are kumquat marmalade, merlot candied kumquats, kumquat liqueur, and maybe preserved kumquats.)
• Time permitting, try cold rinsing acorns to see if more flavor remains than boiling to remove tannins. Make pancakes or biscuits with acorn flour.
• Time permitting, harvest "mother" from apple cider vinegar and set it up in leftover merlot for red wine vinegar.

Oh, and I've got to go by the thrift stores at some point to get some sweats or jammies to sleep in. I was cold last night and we've not even hit winter temperatures yet. A friend in the East laughed at me when I complained that the other morning got down to 49 degrees. She doesn't understand how wimpy desert dwellers can be about the cold.

Of course, I also need to plan and prepare our regular meals. And I have volunteer work for the CSA that I need to attend to. Blogs to read. Blogs and e-mails to write. Ticks to kill. Dog puke to clean up. It never ends.

I keep thinking that if I could only get caught up with everything, then I could set a routine and my life would flow more easily. I finally realized that this will never happen. There will always be an urgent harvest to gather, food to preserve, pests to deal with, expenses to pay, files to sort, and people to contact. That's life. Or at least that's my life. Recognizing that I don't have to rush to catch up lets me focus on each task more fully instead of constantly worrying about the next thing on the list. As I mentioned on another blog, dealing with peak oil and climate change issues requires a lifestyle change.

What Do You Do?

A friend recently sent me one of those silly e-mail surveys designed to get to know someone better. The first query was about occupation. I thought about it for a moment and came up with:


The Procurement, Processing, Preparation, and Consumption of Food.

On further thought, I'd add Cultivation in there, too. Any ideas on how to convert this into a job title? Am I a "Farmwife" even though I don't live on a farm?

I have been feeling for a while now that my life revolves around food. Almost everything I do, in some way, relates to the above description of my occupation. Here's a list for my resume.

Cultivation:

Compost
Add all produce scraps to the compost pile.
Turn, aerate, and water the compost as needed.
Shred newspaper, chipboard, and cardboard for the compost browns.
Sift finished compost for garden use.
Load, haul, and sift free compost from the Community Food Bank site.

Fertilizing
Drain off compost tea as needed, dilute it, and fertilize the garden.
Rinse coffee grounds out by the basil plant.
Practice "natural" liquid fertilization of the citrus trees.
Research humanure and composting toilet systems for our future "farm".

Watering
Save all warming-up water from tub and sink, and haul it out to the garden.
Save rinse water from dishwashing for the citrus trees.
Save rinse water from cleaning vegetables - all organic - for the garden.
Put water from hand-washed clothes on the citrus trees.
Occasionally drain washing machine water into 5 gallon buckets and haul out to the citrus trees.

Mulching
Rake and spread fallen leaves and grass trimmings under the trees.
Leave fallen citrus and pomegranates on ground to dry, then stomp to crush, providing mulch for trees.
Spread large wood bits sifted out from the free compost under the trees.


Procurement:

Barter (aka "Will Work for Food")
Trade volunteer work for CSA share.
Trade service for food. (Example: will take my apple picking pole to lady's house tomorrow to help her harvest lemons from the top of the trees. She sells most to a local store, but will give me some in exchange for the help. Otherwise those lemons are not harvested at all.)
Exchange preserved foods with friends.

Purchase
Plan meals around available food.
Watch sales at all available food sources.
Shop for food as needed to supplement garden and CSA share.
Research and track down bulk food sources for local and/or organic food.

Harvest
Pick foods from garden as available.
Talk with local people who practice wildcrafting.
Research ediblity of local plants, both cultivated and native.
Track seasonal availability of wild and cultivated plant products.
Harvest wild and cultivated plants (legally) when ripe. Examples: olives, mesquite beans, Calamondin limes, pyracantha berries, acorns.


Processing

Cleaning
Brush off excess dirt from any vegetables for storage (such as winter squash.)
Sort out stones from beans and grains.
Sift and winnow grains as needed.

Obtain Supplies
Collect food grade buckets and lids from local businesses.
Purchase clamp-lid glass jars and ceramic crocks from thrift stores and yard sales.
Clean containers and allow to dry completely.
Special-order new rubber gaskets for clamp-lid containers.
Purchase dry ice to aid storage of dry grains and beans in buckets.
Purchase canning jars from thrift stores and yard sales.
Clean jars and inspect carefully for nicks and cracks.
Purchase new lids and rings for canning jars.
Purchase used food dehydrators of current type from yard sales and thrift stores to stock up on drying trays. (Decide whether to resell machines with less trays.)

Storing
Research storage requirements and times.
Freeze grain-based goods immediately upon procurement to prevent insect infestations.
Carefully pack dry foods in appropriate containers for storage.

Preserving
Find online resources with current information on food preservation.
Purchase resource books, preferably used, with food preservation information.
Trade recipes with friends.
Prepare and freeze foods. Examples: green beans, sweet corn, roasted tomatillos, roasted eggplant, roasted and pureed winter squash, fresh herbs, shredded zucchini, pureed melon.
Prepare and dry foods. Examples: winter squash seeds, raw pistachios, red chiles, tomatoes, fresh herbs, citrus peels.
Prepare and can foods, primarily condiments. Examples: watermelon rind pickles, lemon zucchini relish, blueberry syrup, sour orange marmalade, brined olives.
Prepare and ferment foods. Examples: tomatillo escabeche, black spanish radish kimchee, ginger beer.

Maintain Food Stock
Take inventory of all food on hand.
Organize pantry, storage, and freezer.
Create and maintain spreadsheet for inventory tracking.
Determine quantities used per month per person for re-stocking purposes.


Preparation

Meal-Planning
Inventory perishable foods and review stored foods.
Plan dishes to best use perishable foods before they spoil.
Plan meals around these dishes.
Plan for leftovers or additional food for work lunches.

Recipes
Research ways to use unusual produce. Examples: Calamondin limes, black Spanish radishes, mibuna, raw pistachios still in husk.
Find specific recipes from personal collection, cookbooks, and online.
Make vegan conversion to recipes as needed.
Create new recipes through experimentation.
Keep detailed notes on recipe changes and new creations.
Organize recipe collection.

Making Food
Prepare food for meals. Examples: peel, dice, marinate, mix, puree, saute, boil, roast, bake.
Carefully save all leftovers for additional meals or new dishes.
Find ways to get "free flavor". Examples: freeze crumbs for casserole toppings, save can & pan rinsings for soup base, put cinnamon stick in sugar for flavor.


Consumption

Eating
Enjoy every last bite of delicious, healthy, home-made food.
Share good food with family and friends.

Cleaning Up
Wash huge mess of dirty bowls, pots, pans, plates, and silverware from each meal.
Persuade others that they should clean up in gratitude for outstanding food.

Jewel Tones

Behold my lovely jewel. Note the deep color, patterns, and clarity of this precious substance. Unlike a boring gem stone, this marmalade looks great and tastes great. I must resist disturbing the jar until tomorrow, hopefully giving me enough time to find a tasty scone recipe.

Over the holiday weekend, my sweetie and I went out harvesting. We didn't walk the few feet out into the backyard garden, but rather roamed around town gathering wild food from public areas. With our mild climate, there are lots of citrus trees about town with an amazing degree of variety.

Friends from the CSA directed us towards a small group of Calamondin lime trees. Despite the name, these little fruits are actually in the sour orange group of citrus. The rinds are thin and easy to peel. The juice is very tart. We mixed some up with sugar and quite a lot of water to make a lemonade-type drink for Thanksgiving.

My canning guru gave me a recipe for Seville Orange Marmalade and it worked perfectly for the calamondins. The only drawback is that it takes forever to juice the little guys! Luckily my sweetie was willing to help me out last night so that I could make the marmalade today.

This is the first canning I've done in a couple of months. I was not nervous, however, and didn't even review the basic canning instructions. I was able to prepare everything with a minimum of fuss and managed to prepare the exact quantity of jars needed despite more than doubling the original recipe. It was very satisfying to hear each and every one of the lids seal as I removed them from the water bath.

I wish I could report the same success with the acorns we harvested. After reading a number of suggestions for how to process them, my sweetie shelled some last night and put the nut meat through three boilings to remove the tannins. They were dried overnight in the dehydrator and I ground them into flour this morning. Unfortunately they are extremely bland without much flavor at all. We still have a handful left so I may try rinsing them thoroughly in cold water to see if that will help retain some flavor. Of course, the problem may not be in the processing method; these may simply not be flavorful acorns.

So far, our wild harvesting has had mixed results. The olives look to be quite successful. The Calamondin limes are a definite thumbs-up. The first batch of acorns were, quite frankly, a total waste of time.

Olive Update

My wild-harvested olives have been curing in brine for almost two weeks now. Despite writing myself a reminder to change the brine every other day, I promptly forgot and messed up the schedule. The brine gets changed when I remember, which is about every two to three days. The green olives are beginning to smell like olives. After I poured the beautifully-colored rose red brine off the black olives today, my sweetie sampled one and shared it with me. There is still a hint of bitterness but they are already tasty. Salty, but tasty. (I'm hoping the final processing step mellows out the salty aspect.)

Olives were on my mind this evening because my canning guru was kind enough to invite me to a holiday party at her home. She showed off her several gallons of olives in brine and I mentioned that she had inspired me to do the same. After eating some delicious food, much of it local, I happened to sit down next to a nice Italian lady. Since she had been a member of the CSA over the past couple of seasons, we happily chatted away about recipes and foods we'd made. I picked up some great ideas, such as making squash blossom pasta. One option is to chop and saute the blossoms to toss with pasta. The other, that never would have occurred to me, is to boil and puree the blooms to then add to pasta dough. I'm keeping this idea filed away for next summer!

We talked about olives. How can you not talk about olives with an Italian foodie?! When she cures her olives in brine, she changes the solution daily for the green olives but less often for the black ones. She told me this helps the black olives keep their color. What was most intriguing, though, was the final processing step for the black ones. Instead of putting them in a preserving solution of water, vinegar, wine, and oil, she dries them. With our dry climate here, this can be done outside, leaving the olives to dry until leathery. They are then packed in olive oil. Since I have plenty of olives to experiment with, I plan to try some of them this way.

I mentioned that we had just harvested a small quantity to try curing in salt. She hadn't heard of this method of curing without any water - not entirely surprising since she is not Greek. I couldn't tell her whether it was going to work since we just packed them in the salt two days ago, but did promise I'd keep her posted on the results.

One interesting aspect of myself that I have discovered over the past few months is that I am more willing to try something if someone I know has been successful with it already. A book may tell me how to cure olives or collect mesquite beans to have milled into flour, but I won't necessarily do anything with that information. However, once a friend mentions that they do it and love the results, I'm more likely to try it myself. My canning guru and other friends from the CSA have inspired me far more than they know this year. I've broadened my horizons and dipped my toes into new waters.

To my surprise, some of these folks have mentioned that I have inspired them in other ways. I'm finding this same give-and-take inspiration happens in the blogosphere. Blogging gives all of us an opportunity to share our knowledge and experiences, inspiring others to take a leap from interest to action. I'll be heading your way soon to learn something new, and I hope that you learned something new here today.

Lessons Learned

We've just finished our Thanksgiving dinner. Yes, we ate it a day late. I'm not so tied up in holiday celebrations to be a stickler for making particular food on a particular day to be served at a particular time. I didn't feel like pulling together the meal on Thursday so we had it this evening. The prep work started on Thursday, but I didn't even get all of that finished. Instead, we had a relaxing afternoon which included checking out some local trees for some wild harvesting. We came home with calamondin oranges, more olives, and a handful of acorns. We cleaned and dried the olives, and packed them in salt for dry-curing.

I started working on our huge dinner when I awoke at 4 am this morning. I simmered the orange peels, chopped them up, and made my marmalade. We used the extra on local whole wheat-mesquite pancakes for breakfast. I measured out all the spices and herbs for my various recipes, discovering in the process that I did not have adequate nutmeg for my pumpkin pie. Sorry Adbusters, but I had to go shopping. At least the store wasn't in a mall...

By mid-morning, I was steadily flinging dirty dishes at my mother-in-law who was on dish-washing duty for the day. She learned to duck and twist out of the way, only getting smacked upside the head once all day. (Just kidding. I didn't really hit her with any dirty dishes!) It was a long arduous day in the kitchen for both of us, but the resulting meal was wonderful and yielded enough leftovers for several days.

However, despite wanting to stick with tradition, I learned that it is perhaps time for some changes. For instance, I didn't feel like the pear cider was a must-have for the Thanksgiving meal. The fact that I couldn't find it seemed to confirm this feeling. Instead, my sweetie juiced some of the calamondin oranges we harvested. This tart citrus drink was tasty with our huge dinner. The hot apple cider was left in the pan, perhaps to be drunk later with the pie.

As we were eating, I realized that I would have been just happy with only three of the dishes: the turkey-like fake chicken, the cranberry sauce, and the cornbread dressing. I mentioned this to the others and found out they also would have been happy with less variety. All of us agreed to do without the yams in the future. Considering the amount of work is was to make my own marmalade for the yam dish, this was welcome news!

When planning meals, I usually am very good at keeping it reasonable. It's essential for me to limit the number of dishes I am preparing as I am terrible at making sure everything is ready at the same time. Invariably, there is one dish that has gotten cold before the meal is served. With the overly abundant variety I usually serve for Thanksgiving, I'm always scrambling during the last hour to pull everything together at once. No matter how well I have planned, it ends up being a bit stressful.

Next year, it will be a simpler meal: some kind of fake turkey, cornbread dressing, cranberry sauce, potatoes with gravy, and green beans. We never have room left for pumpkin pie, so this may even wait until another day. With less stress, I may even throw myself into trying to make a satisfactory gluten turkey dish and see if it's possible to make an edible jellied cranberry sauce from scratch. I'm looking forward to more time spent enjoying my family instead of slaving away in the kitchen.

Planning the "Big Meal"

I just reviewed my Thanksgiving menu plan from previous years to see if I could swing making it a local meal. As a vegan who really craves the traditional foods during this American holiday, I am reluctant to discard anything from my carefully crafted menu. It took me a number of years to collect and develop healthy vegan versions of the dishes I enjoyed growing up. Re-creating these tastes goes far beyond simply eating a good meal; it conjures up warm and pleasant memories of family gatherings when I had far fewer responsibilities and worries.

My menu plan:


Turkey-flavored "Chicken" strips
Cornbread Stuffing
Mashed Potatoes & Turkeyless Gravy
Yams with Orange Marmalade
Smoky Green Beans
Cranberry Sauce
Fresh Lemonade
Spiced Apple Cider
Pumpkin Pie with Whipped Topping
As you might imagine, the centerpiece for the meal is always the greatest challenge for those who prefer vegan dishes. I had originally planned to do without this year, but I changed my mind. Ordinarily we avoid the meat analogs as they are so highly processed that they are not a particularly healthy option. This is a feast day, so I will make an exception. I'm allergic to tofu, so a Tofurkey is out of the question. We've purchased the grain and vegetable Celebration Roast for the past few years but neither of us really care for the sausage stuffing. Last year I tried making my own gluten roast but the texture came out rubbery and unsatisfactory. We ate the emergency back-up Celebration Roast.

This year, I plan to change fake chick'n strips into fake turkey strips. It's simply a matter of cooking up the strips and then soaking them in an appropriately-flavored broth. I successfully did this for my sweetie's birthday, creating faux shredded pork for vegan tamales. For anyone interested in getting their hands on some great recipes for vegan meaty-flavored broths, check out the monastery cookbook, Simply Heavenly!

The cornbread stuffing is as close as I can come to my mom's cornbread stuffing without using turkey drippings and a ton of eggs. It starts with a fatfree vegan cornbread recipe from my McDougalling friend, Jan. I've linked to her quickbread recipe file before. Once cooked and allowed to dry out overnight, it is combined with a veggie broth, chopped onions and celery, and herbs for a delicious stuffing. I'll let you in on a little vegan secret. Adding some nutritional yeast gives it that full-bodied taste that normally comes from the eggs.

My mashed potatoes are wonderful. The secret is in using Yukon Gold potatoes for their naturally rich buttery flavor. Unfortunately, we didn't get any from our CSA farmer this week so I will be substituting his red-skinned potatoes. The dish won't be as rich but it will be drenched in gravy anyway. My gravy is a rich vegetable broth with extra seasonings as per the monastery cookbook, thickened with toasted flour and soymilk. It is indeed finger-lickin' good!

Yams did make an appearance at the CSA so I'm all set for that dish. The challenge will be trying to find some ripe local sour oranges or kumquats, harvest them, and make some quick marmalade for the recipe. I'm just not sure if my schedule will allow for that wrinkle. If not, I'll pick up some organic orange marmalade at the store. I actually prefer the sweet yams with marshmellow and pecan topping, but nobody else in the family likes it. Plus no-one sells vegan marshmallows locally so I've given up on recreating that traditional dish, although Ricemellow Creme worked pretty well as a topping one year.

Green beans are so tasty by themselves that I forego the effort to make homemade vegan "cream of mushroom soup" for the Campbell's traditional Thanksgiving dish. We also normally avoid fried foods so there is no way to really replicate the crunchy fried onion topping. Rather than make something that does not live up to the memory of the original dish, I simply flavor fresh green beans with a little sugar, salt, and Liquid Smoke. This year, I may try using smoked salt instead of Liquid Smoke. And my CSA green beans will be frozen rather than fresh.

Cranberry sauce is my downfall. I have never tasted a homemade cranberry sauce that I liked. It is totally pathetic, but I actually like the highly-processed jellied cranberry sauce. It is the only food I buy that contains corn syrup, something I usually avoid like the plague. Again, my only excuse is that this is a feast day that comes but once a year. While I still have the option to do so, I will put aside my ecotarian principles and buy a can off the shelf quickly hoping that nobody recognizes me in the store.

For beverages, I usually purchase a bottle or two of Sparkling Pear Cider. These sparkling fruit juices are a cut above the competition, most likely because they are made by an award-winning wine maker. The pear cider pairs beautifully with the Thanksgiving dishes. I may still pick up one bottle since it comes from just one state away, but I thought I'd try a few more local beverages as well. Can't get much closer than my neighbor's lemon tree for fresh lemonade. And the apple cider comes from a farm just an hour's drive from home.

It took me years to come up with a satisfying pumpkin pie. I didn't want to use margarine, even the vegan Earth Balance option, in the crust so I was thrilled when Mary McDougall came up with a great pie crust recipe using cashews. (And yes, she is the good doctor's wife.) Chef Deb at Vegsource offers up several pumpkin pie recipes, including some with no tofu. A decade ago, it was hard to find tofu-free vegan custard pie recipes that would set up properly. Her recipes work!

The final dilemma was replicating Dream Whip. Yes, I grew up in the age of Dream Whip, Jell-o salads, and tuna casseroles. As a child, I thought these foods were heaven. As an adult, I avoid them but it doesn't mean I don't occasionally want something that reminds me of childhood comfort foods. During a vegan cooking demonstation at Tucson's only vegan restaurant, I learned that there is a vegan whipping cream available. It's another highly-processed food product that I purchase only once a year. Once thawed, this stuff whips up just like whipping cream. Uh oh...I just remembered that I just sold my electric handmixer in my ongoing quest to convert my kitchen to manual tools only. Oops. Well, it should be interesting to see if I have the stamina to create a whipped topping with my little rotary eggbeater!

So, that does it for my meal plan. The non-local ingredients include most of the seasonings, the "chick'n" strips, cranberry sauce, pear cider (if I buy it), cashews, RichWhip, and only three of the vegetables needed for the broth (carrots, celery, parsley). With better garden planning, those vegetables could come from our yard. In future, tougher times, I know I will probably have to forego the fake turkey, cranberry sauce, pear cider, and crust and topping for the pie. I think I can live with that, but this year, let me live in denial for just one day.

Hapy Thanksgiving!

Good for the Economy

Want to support your local economy (without going into debt)? Consider joining a CSA. My local CSA was featured recently on the local PBS channel. You can watch the short video clip here.*

You can read about the past food I have picked up at my CSA if you don't mind drooling all over your keyboard. Joining the CSA has improved my quality of life in more ways than I can list. I eat better-tasting food, more variety, and more organically-grown food. I have become an enthusiastic proponent of local food. I meet great people that are concerned about their diet, their community, and the environment. I get to hang around with other "foodies." Did I mention the food I eat tastes great? The quality of a finished dish depends not only on the preparation of it but also the quality of the ingredients. My CSA produce is often harvested within a day of when I pick it up. That freshness makes a big difference in the taste.

On the schedule for today: planning my local Thanksgiving meal featuring primarily local food. I will pick up my CSA share tonight and then raid my sweetie's garden. The rest will come from CSA food that I have canned or frozen this year. I'm already getting hungry.

*VeganRuthie, I'm sorry to tell you that I am not featured in this video. They came on a day that I wasn't there. Lucky me.

Bad for the Economy

Oh my gosh, they're right. My lack of spending is bad for the economy. Or, more accurately, my unwillingness to be in debt. I feel so guilty that I have no mortgage, no car payments (on my 8 year old vehicle), and pay off my credit card each month (which I use primarily to get free stuff at REI).

I now see that it is all my fault the economy is in trouble. It is up to you and me to save it. We must go out and get mortgages. Probably ought to buy new cars while we're at it. And, you know, going thousands of dollars into debt over the holidays might not be such a bad idea either. Ha!

All Local Salad

Finally, I managed a 100% local dinner! I've come close many times but always with an ingredient or three from somewhere else. Tonight, my salad stayed local.

Mixed lettuces: greenhouse in back yard
Heirloom tomato: local farmer at Farmer's Market
Toasted pecans: Benson (50 miles)
Lemon juice: neighbor's tree (Traded a local pumpkin for lemons.)
Drizzle of honey: Tucson
Salt: Pacific Ocean (Ok, so it's a stretch, but it's on the right side of the country!)

It was yummy. I really liked the combination of tart lemon juice with sweet honey, along with the crunchy pecans. And my sweetie grew some darn good lettuce!

And yes, I managed just fine with only salad. I'm stuffed from eating homemade cinnamon rolls today.

Chile's Pain

You would think having used the moniker, "Chile", online for almost a decade now that I would be expert in all thing chile-related. To be honest, I am not. For instance, I don't know what these little dried chiles are called. They fell off a pretty little wreath when I was browsing in the Native Seeds/SEARCH store a few days ago. Since they were not lacquered, I asked if I could have them and they agreed.

One was missing its stem, so I cracked the skin open this morning to retrieve the seeds so we can try growing them out. I tasted a bit of the chile powder and it was HOT. My mouth burned for quite some time. It gave me second thoughts about wanting to grow these peppers. I love the taste of chiles but too much heat masks the flavor. The low end of the Scoville scale is where I prefer to hang out. However, in minute quantities, hot peppers can give a nice little kick that doesn't cause too much suffering.

Suffer I did, however, about half an hour later. While showering, I rubbed my itching eyes. It didn't matter that I had washed my hands earlier; the heat from a chile is notoriously hard to remove . Instantly I realized my mistake. Yet again, I had rubbed chile heat into my poor eyes. I don't believe I have ever handled chile peppers, fresh, dry, or roasted, without later rubbing my eyes. You might be surprised to learn that most do not consider me to be stupid. However, I consider this repeated self-injury to be pretty darn stupid. One would think I'd learn not to do this, but no, it happens every. single. time.

I don't recall doing this as a child. My dad grew chiles and jalapenos in the way back yard. The way back yard was the yard beyond the back yard fence. The garden was grown in this outer perimeter, away from the games of children and the ramblings of dogs. Didn't I ever help clean or cook the chiles as a child? Or did my parents instinctively know then that I would attempt to blind myself after helping in the kitchen? Perhaps I did it one time and screamed so loudly that they banished me whenever chiles were present.

I am an adult now. I generally learn from my mistakes. Usually I don't repeat the stupid things I do, instead finding something new to screw up. But I make this mistake over and over, cursing my stupidity each time. Ah well, it must just be the price I have to pay for enjoying a food so full of flavor. With pleasure often comes pain.

Transitions

Despite my best intentions to take a break from all the negative news, I couldn't help wandering over to the Peak Oil Premonitions blog today. Highlighted is a program from BBC Wales called "Back to the Land". You can watch all of it on YouTube: Part 1, Part 2, Part 3, and Part 4. It will only take half an hour out of your day.

Everyone is going to have to transition from an oil-intensive lifestyle to a lower energy way of life, although many folks are going to do this involuntarily when there is no longer a choice. For those that are paying attention, peak oil concepts are popping up in more places. Blogs and websites with advice on how to start transitioning to a life less dependent on cheap oil are easy to find. Just following the links on a view of them could keep you busy for the rest of your life.

Reading about this is not enough, though. It may change how you think, but what is really needed is change in how you act. Will you drive to the supermarket to buy food for the week - food that has been shipped in from all over the world? Will you bike to pick up a CSA share or visit your farmer's market for food that has been grown locally? Or will you step out into your yard, onto your patio, or reach over to the windowsill for really local food that you have grown yourself?

We are striving to grow more of our own food, and by "we", I mean my sweetie, but at this point many of our meals are centered around whatever comes in our CSA share. Unfortunately, I still end up buying a fair amount of food, other than produce, from other places. Trader Joe sees me more often than the grocery stores but I'm finding that I'm uncomfortable with how many of their products are shipped from far away. My guilty pleasure is perusing the aisles of ethnic grocery stores, where I often pick up one or two items that are new to me. Unfortunately, these usually came from another country, another continent.

I am beginning to realize that my transition to local food has been progressing too slowly and gently. I'm making progress, but also still hanging on to my old favorite foods - foods that often require ingredients that don't grow nearby. Is it time to just say no to chocolate? Do I have to give up my Peppermint JoJo's that just showed up for the holidays? No clear answers have emerged yet, but I think it's time to step up my efforts.

And on that note, I'm off to have my mesquite beans - harvested from my own yard - milled into flour. All I have to do after that is figure out how to use mesquite flour!

The House Debate

One of the uncertainties we still face is what size home we will live in when we buy our own place. Every now and then, I see references to the really small houses featured on a number of websites. Looking at the pictures, reading the stories, and watching videos touring the houses makes me long for a simpler life filled with far less clutter. I start looking around to see what else I can jettison from our long list of possessions. I start talking up the idea, again, with my sweetie.

Then reality kicks in with the coming hard times. I’ll read more on the expected fallout from peak oil and climate change and dire predictions of economic collapse (from those websites I’m supposed to be taking a break from). Looking at what I need to do to prepare makes me want to gather all the necessary supplies for self-sufficiency right now. The challenge in our future is not knowing what will still be easily available or possible to get with just a little bit of extra effort. The temptation to make sure we have absolutely everything we’ll possibly need is great, but not necessarily realistic (especially for the budget!) And, of course, it would require a larger house or multiple sheds to house it all.

We have experienced both extremes in home size already and can see the advantages and disadvantages of both. We lived for 2 ½ years in a 25 foot RV parked on our own land off the grid. Most of our possessions were packed away in a 10' x 12’ shed although we had access to seasonal clothes, books, and my desk. The total interior space in the RV was about 200 square feet for two of us plus a dog and a puppy.

After an adjustment period, I found there were certain advantages to the smaller space. Preparing a meal was easier because everything was right at my fingertips. Literally! I had to simplify my food preparation as I could not possibly fit all of my kitchenware in the small space, even with our remodeling. We pulled out the rear couch-bed and built in a large pantry cabinet. I could clean the whole “house” in less than half an hour. I slept right below an outside window so I fell asleep to the sight of stars (and often to the chorus of coyotes).

Of course, there were disadvantages as well. We slept on a pull-out bed the was larger than a twin but smaller than a double. It was cozy but not always in a good way. If one person turned over, the other had to as well or suffer being poked by knees. I love cooking and baking, and so I missed my packed-away kitchenware. The oven was so small I rarely baked, opting instead to drive twenty minutes to my mother-in-law’s house. The shower was tiny and the closets barely large enough for a week’s worth of clothes.

A distinct disadvantage of the RV was the lack of insulation, but that was not a function of size. Our temperatures throughout the year covered a 105 degree range but the climate would have been livable in a well-insulated passively cooled and heated home of any size.

All things considered, I think our experience in the small space was valuable. When we finally left and unpacked everything that had been stored in the shed, we ended up getting rid of much of it. Many things no longer seemed valuable or special to us after being out of sight for so long. That was an important lesson in keeping clutter, especially decorative clutter, to a minimum.

Fast forward a couple of years to our life in a 3500 square foot home. Yes, it was ridiculously large just for two people and two dogs. We didn’t actually want that much space but could not pass up the unique house that we purchased. The house was earth-bermed with an interior open air courtyard. Picture a square donut. Every room had a sliding glass door into the 50’ x 18’ courtyard. There were clerestory windows on the south-facing wall at the front of the house and the south-facing wall bordering the courtyard. (Good picture here of clerestory windows. Example of earth-bermed walls here. If I can get our scanner working, I'll post pictures of our place later.)

The house was very energy efficient despite the large size and two air conditioners. Even in Phoenix, our total summer utility bills averaged $100. Had we been more aware at that time, we would have converted the entire courtyard into an edible garden. It had its own cooler microclimate that would have supported it without needing huge quantities of water. Oh well, missed opportunities.

Alright, back to the point. With all this space, we could spread out and never be crowded. I finally had space for every single piece of kitchen equipment I owned with empty cabinets left over! There was, for the first time in my life, enough counter space to work without constantly having to move something first or clean up the last mess. I loved that kitchen. The house had sufficient space to have separate art studios. Guests could have their own room and not have to share with the dogs. The workout equipment had its own room with floor space left over for yoga. No time wasted moving and putting things away all the time.

On the downside of the equation, other than the enormous mortgage, was all the empty space. We felt compelled to fill it up, even though we never did really furnish the whole place. We were more wasteful with money during our tenure there, buying stuff we ultimately ended up selling at a loss when we moved. And cleaning? Oh. My. Gosh. It was a nightmare. It took me 45 minutes just to vacuum the entire house. That was such a joy when the house sat on the market for seven months. (Unique houses are harder to sell.) And, an unfortunate design choice by the original builder meant that all the bathrooms were in the back half of the house. Arriving home desperate to go meant a long run to the nearest facility.

We have no interest in going back into a space that huge. I’m not sure we really want a space as tiny as the RV, either. There are the issues of food preservation and storage to consider. On the other hand, these folks came up with a very workable solution to moving normal household chores, and even the pantry, outside. I highly recommend everyone, but especially those living in an arid desert environment, explore this entire site. You will find it very inspiring!

The housing debate continues on. How small is too cramped and how big is wasteful and unnecessary? Do we remodel an existing structure or build from the ground up? Do we even have time to consider building our own when we don’t yet have a firm location picked out or the capital that would be needed? When will our fairy godmother show up with easy solutions to all these questions?!

The only thing I know for sure is that my dog would be perfectly happy in a small space.

Bed Warmers

Crunchy Chicken's Freeze Yer Buns challenge has not been much of a challenge for us yet. Our daytime highs have been in the 90s and the nights pretty mild in the upper 50s and low 60s. We haven't talked about turning on the furnace pilot light. In fact, I even left some windows open for few nights last week. Mild fall weather is a definite plus in the desert, but this year has been milder than we recall in the past few years.

However, this weekend the temperatures started to dip into the somewhat chilly range at night....all the way down to the low 50s. I know this may make some of you really jealous, but we consider this our payoff for sweltering through the summer heat! Still, even with this cold snap, I hope to keep the furnace off until it becomes absolutely necessary. I have plenty of blankets ready to pile on the bed as the temperatures continue to drop.

Slipping into bed at the end of a long, hard day should be a pleasure. The sheets should embrace you and the pillow invite your head for a long visit. Unfortunately, cold sheets are rather off-putting and create a certain tension immediately upon encountering them. That problem was remedied this morning as I peeled those dirty suckers off the bed and replaced them with cozy warm flannel sheets. I can't wait to go to bed tonight!


My sweetie and I aren't the only ones who deserve a little extra warmth on the cold nights. This weekend, we headed down to the feed store and picked up a bale of straw. Well, he picked up the straw while I gathered a few ripe olives from a tree across the street. It was a nice ride home; the heavily laden trailer slows my sweetie down enough that he's finally riding at my pace. Once I have my own Xtracycle, I'm going to have to plot ways to keep his bike loaded heavier than mine so that he's happy at my slow pace.

Did I forget to tell you that I'm getting an Xtracycle? Yep! My sweetie is building me a long bike to which we'll mount the snap deck and bags. And by "building", I do mean from scratch, as in a pile of tubes arrived in the UPS truck and my sweetie cut and welded them together himself. I still need to pick a color for my new bike though. Any suggestions? Green as a Chile? Hot Red Chile Pepper?



We have potato plants! Hopefully, insulating the boxes will help them make it through the cold nights. Yes, it's a bit late to get them started, but remember that I live in the southwest desert. The boxes are against a south-facing wall and now have a nice insulating wall of straw built up around them surrounded by some clear plastic drop-cloth already on hand.

Most of the remaining straw went to mulch my grapefruit tree. This little tree has come a long way in the three plus years we've been here. The first winter, it had one measly little hard grapefruit on it. Last winter, it produced about four grapefruit, probably due to more regular waterings. This past year, I put a lot of effort into caring for this tree. I gave it regular water, I gave it compost tea, and I mulched it to get through the cold winter and hot summer. It now has 3 dozen fruit on it! They are probably ready to eat even though they are green, but I'm savoring the lush appearance of its good crop. (Citrus need cold weather to change skin color; they may be perfectly ripe and delicious even with green skin!)

The last little bit of straw got tucked in around my basil plants and one last surviving eggplant. I know it's really late in the year to expect this eggplant to survive, but it finally has a tiny little baby eggplant on it that I really want to nurse to maturity. I have hopes for it since this raised bed is built with bricks and surrounded by a brick patio and wall. These gather heat during the day and may keep the plants a bit warmer through the nights. The little chickenwire cage gives me an easy way to drape a sheet over the plant on cold nights, too. Not pictured is the potted tomato plant on this patio that came back to life after the summer heat passed. It has blooms on it and can also be covered with a sheet. Unrealistic to hope for summer produce in November? Yes, but a girl can dream.

Cure Your Own Olives

Step One - Pick the olives
Supplies needed: Olive tree(s), ladder, small bucket

We learned, after picking from three other trees, that the gray-leafed olive trees in our area have big fat olives on them. The green-leafed olive trees have smaller olives with larger pits. Hopefully they will all taste good, but future picking will concentrate on the plump olives.

Edit: My Canning Guru advises that you frugal pickers out there resist the temptation to collect olives that have fallen on the ground. There is no way to know whether they fell due to the wind, a bird, or something wrong with the olives. I'd like to add that it's also a very bad idea due to the likelihood that a dog urinated on the ground there at some point, possibly in the recent past!


Step Two - Sort the olives
Supplies needed: Bucket full of olives, several bowls, good light

Sort the olives by ripeness. Green ones are fine; they will cure as "green olives." It is also okay to have pink ones that are no longer green but are not dark purplish black like the fully ripe ones. Different stages will cure at different rates, though, so they must be sorted. I tossed out any wrinkly olives for fear they might spoil the batch.


Step Three - Prepare the olives
Supplies needed: Water, colander, sharp knife, glass jars or ceramic crocks

Rinse the olives well. Cut a slit in the side of each olive to allow the brine to penetrate. Place in jars or crocks, but don't fill all the way to the top.


Step Four - Cover with brine
Supplies needed: Water, salt, plastic baggies, jar/crock lids

Prepare a brine solution with 1/4 cup salt per quart of water. (That's 1 tbs salt per cup of water if you want to try this on a smaller scale.) Pour over olives in each container until they are covered. Fill plastic bag with water and seal. Place on top of olives to keep them submerged in brine. Put the lid on the container.


Step Five - Cure the olives
Supplies needed: Water, salt, patience

Every other day, dump out the brine solution and cover the olives with new brine. This process draws the bitterness out of the olives. You didn't know raw olives were bitter? Go ahead, take a taste. I'll wait.

After about three weeks, start tasting your curing olives periodically. It's okay, I'm not messing with you again. Really, you need to do a taste test every week or so after the first three weeks. When they no longer taste bitter, they are ready for preserving.


Step Six - Preserve the olives
Supplies needed: Cured olives, water, vinegar, wine, olive oil, oregano, bay leaves, garlic

Preserve the cured olives in equal parts water, vinegar, wine, and olive oil. Suggested flavorings for each gallon container are 4 tablespoons oregano, 10 bay leaves, and 2 whole heads of garlic, peeled and sliced. At this point, let them absorb the flavoring for a couple of weeks before eating.

My Canning Guru, who shared the recipe with me, prefers to process the canned olives further to ensure they will be shelf-stable. She heats the flavored solution, packs the olives into sterilized jars, and then processes them in a water bath. After opening a jar, she refrigerates it. However, she got the recipe originally from Charles DeConcini who skips this step and hasn't killed anyone yet with his olives. Whether I take the extra precaution of canning the olives may depend upon the intended recipient...


Why bother with all this work?

1. Free food!
Have you looked at the price on a small jar of olives in the grocery store lately?! The only cost involved here is time, salt, and water. I can't reuse the drained brine on the garden but I'm going to try pouring it on a troublesome antbed.

2. Wild harvesting
There is lots of food growing outside my garden available to harvest. Olive trees are cultivated rather than wild plants, but they are not farmed in town. (Watch for another post soon on harvesting mesquite beans to be milled for flour!)

3. Learning new skills
Acquiring new skills is a good thing, especially when they yield a tasty result. Plus, continuing to learn new things is an important component of brain health.

4. Avoiding waste
While olives are not native to this area, and indeed the pollen causes tremendous allergy problems for many, this is an edible resource. There are many olive trees all over this area with zillions of ripe olives dropping off of them. The birds eat a very small proportion of the total olive "crop" and the rest just create a huge mess that stains the ground. It's too bad more folks in the area don't harvest them for food. Only one person approached us in the park as we picked olives. She grew up in Europe and remembered helping her grandmother cure olives. Inspired by us, she planned to go home, collect a ladder and her hubby, and head out to another park she knew was loaded with olive trees.

5. Marital bliss
My sweetie loves olives. I love my sweetie. 'nuff said.

Edit: My Canning Guru adds another reason to cure olives.

6. Ancient traditions
By collecting and curing your own olives, you are participating in an ancient method of food harvesting and production. I hope she doesn't mind if I quote her directly:

...feel the link with women and men who have for over 7,000 years harvested olives. Athens is said to be so named because Athena offered her people the olive tree, whereas Zeus offered salt.

She points out that Lawrence Durrell said of olives, "The whole Mediterranean ... the wine, the ideas ... seems to ride in the sour pungent taste of those black olives ... A taste older than meat, older than wine. A taste as old as cold water."

Sunday Dinner

Our schedule is a bit more relaxed on Sundays so I can usually find time for making food from scratch. This evening's dinner was very close to being entirely locally grown or made. The exceptions were primarily the seasonings.

I purchased the locally-baked Italian bread this morning at the farmer's market; I haven't asked about the source of their wheat but I suspect it's not local. Once toasted, it was brushed with Earth Balance vegan margarine and sprinkled with garlic powder and salt.

The semolina flour for the homemade pasta came from Bob's Red Mill in Oregon, but the package does not indicate where the durum wheat was originally grown. I added fresh ground lemon pepper to the flour, along with a generous bit of nutritional yeast. We usually just stir water into the flour, avoiding the use of eggs and oil. Today I decided to see what would happen if I used some flax seed "eggs" and a very small amount of olive oil. The dough seemed a little easier to handle so I will continue to experiment to see whether the flax or the oil, or both, did the trick.

To make flax seed "eggs", just grind 1/3 cup of flax seeds in the blender until pulverized. Add 1 cup of water and blend on high speed until the mixture thickens. Use 3 tbs in place of each egg in recipes. This works wonderfully in pancakes, muffins, cookies, and quick breads. It keeps about a week in the refrigerator in a jar, although I've used two week old flax seeds "eggs" without ill effect.

I made the pasta dough mid-afternoon to allow plenty of time for the process. After the dough had been well-kneaded, it needed to take a rest for a bit. The softened dough was then be cut into smaller portions to make it easier to work with. I have a marvelous hand-cranked Atlas pasta machine that makes quick work of kneading and smoothing the dough and then producing thin sheets to be fed through the cutters. Once cut, I hung the noodles on a laundry rack to dry for an hour.

My attention turned next to making a salad to go with dinner. Following this guide for de-seeding pomegranates kept the mess to a minimum although it didn't speed up the process. The pomegranates were from a friend's tree here in town. The lemon cucumbers came from my CSA and the basil from my patio. I'm all out of CSA garlic, so that came from the grocery store. The salad was dressed with the tiniest smidgeon - maybe 1/8 teaspoon - of olive oil and balsamic vinaigrette. I had my reservations about adding the basil to the salad when I was making it, but the flavors went together like chiles and onions.

The one downside to tonight's meal was that it took enough of my energy that I didn't feel up to processing the olives I picked today. From reading about curing olives, I think they will be okay just soaking in water overnight. I can tackle the brining job tomorrow and post pictures of them. By early next year, I can toss some home-cured locally-grown olives with my homemade pasta!

Things To Do

Win the lottery.

Buy a little chunk of land.

Pitch a tent or build a mud hut.

Find some poop.

Plant a garden in the poop.

Pray for rain.

Eat more raw food to save on cooking fuel.

Stockpile chocolate because face it, life just isn’t worth living without chocolate.

Teach the dog to catch gophers to save on dog food and save the garden, too.

Convince my sweetie that cloth wipes aren’t all that nasty.

Buy industrial-strength gloves for laundry duty.

Learn to live without showers.

Buy more deodorant.

Meet the neighbors and try not to look (or smell) like a damn hippie.


Did I forget anything?

Mmm, gingery

Got more ginger beer than you can possibly drink? You can use some to make gingerbread. The following recipe is an amalgamation of three different recipes with additional tweaks along the way. Review from my sweetie: TASTY!

Chile's Ginger Beer Gingerbread
1 1/4 c warmed ginger beer
1 tbs vinegar
1/4 c molasses
2 c whole wheat flour (I used King Arthur brand White Whole Wheat flour.)
3 tbs brown sugar
1/2 tsp salt
1 1/2 tsp baking powder
3/8 tsp baking soda
1 tsp ginger
1/2 tsp cinnamon
1/4 tsp cloves

Preheat oven to 350 F. Line an 8" x 8" baking pan with parchment paper or re-usable baking mat.
Combine the wet ingredients. In a separate bowl, combine the dry ingredients.
When the oven is hot, pour the wet ingredients into the dry mix. Stir quickly and do not over-mix. Pour into pan.
Bake 40 minutes until a toothpick comes out clean.
Let cool 10 minutes. Remove from pan and let cool completely before cutting.
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Do not eat this all by yourself in one sitting. That would be gluttony. If you do not have a large family that will scarf down this bread within a couple of days, freeze slices to pack with your own or your sweetie's lunch each day.

Just wondering...

Does anyone else feel like the roller coaster is starting to pick up some speed?












I mean, other than Nalilo who obviously did when riding this roller coaster.

A Little of This, A Little of That

Or the tale of another frugal soup…

An impromptu trip to see my mother-in-law this weekend did not leave me much time to plan our weekend meals. She doesn’t have much food on hand that we can eat and I hate to spend our time there shopping at the overpriced grocery store. I usually haul all of our own food down for our visits. If I’m really organized, I’ll plan the meals and even prepare some of them ahead of time. About all I did ahead of time this weekend was to throw a big batch of brown rice in the rice cooker on Friday afternoon.

We had black bean burritos Friday night and luckily had some leftovers. In the morning, I filled the ice chest with burrito and salad fixins’. We were happy with burritos and salad for lunch and dinner on Saturday, but there was no way I wanted burritos again for lunch on Sunday. I have no problems eating leftovers, but combining them into a new dish keeps the meals more interesting and enjoyable. Plus, there was only one lavash left.

On Sunday morning, I started working on a batch of soup at about 9:30. First, I cut the kernels off the couple of cobs of frozen CSA corn that I’d defrosted earlier. I tossed the cobs in simmering water to extract every bit of flavor from them. Since I had started some stock, I went ahead and prepped the rest of the vegetables. Bits and pieces went into the stock: garlic skins and stem, green onion ends, and a little bit of black pepper and red chile flakes.

After simmering for an hour, the stock was ready. I cut up the empty soymilk container to hold the compostable veggie bits. (You can see pictures of how to cut down your soymilk cartons here - no need to install the Japanese language pack to see the photos.) Now it was time to start adding soup ingredients to the pot. The corn kernels and leftover black beans needed a little extra cooking time. About fifteen minutes later, I added the chopped shallot, green onion, and garlic. I tossed in a couple of cups of cooked brown and basmati rice.

My soups are not thin, watery broths; they are thick meal-in-a-bowl stews. Plenty of grains or starchy vegetables help make the soup nice and filling. The leftover half cup of uncheese sauce added a nice thickness to the soup. This uncheese recipe uses cooked carrots or winter squash, and I had still had half a cup of thawed pumpkin puree left after making it. Why not stir it into the soup?

The soup at this point was heavy on starches – rice and corn – but a bit light on vegetables. Chopped Swiss chard added some greens without the sharp taste of some of the other winter greens. With the burrito theme going on here, a hefty cup of salsa seemed like a good plan. As soon as everything was heated through, lunch was served with the last remaining lavash split between the three of us.

The result was delicious. My sweetie is accustomed to these kinds of creations but my mother-in-law was a little surprised at the tasty lunch. It’s really not hard to create a delicious soup from leftover bits of this and that as long as the flavorings and ingredients go well together. In other words, the Swiss chard today would not have melded well with the Mexican theme if it had been previously sautéed with ginger and soy sauce.

I also may accumulate bits of cooked leftovers in a container in the freezer for future soup, again keeping complementary flavors together. I often rinse out the last bit of leftovers out of pots and pans with a bit of water and then add it to the container in the freezer. This is a great frugal way to extend a pot of soup while adding flavor. We recently had soup that was made up primarily of a few leftover Asian greens plus rice cooker rinsings. It's a stainless steel pot and a layer of rice always sticks to the bottom. Rather than waste the food, I add a little clean water and leave it to soak for half an hour. The rice and water is saved for soup.

How do I know what seasonings go together? Experience is the best teacher but reading and observation are also very important. When I look at recipes, I pay attention to what kind of herbs, spices, and seasonings are used. Each ethnic cuisine tends to have a specific set of seasonings common to most of the recipes in that geographic region. For instance, Mexican recipes will often feature chiles, garlic, cumin, and oregano, while a Thai recipe may call for kaffir lime leaves, chiles, fish sauce, lemongrass, and galangal. Leftovers from these two cuisines would not blend well together. This geographic index to spices is a good starting point.

Also, remember that taste and smell are intricately linked. If I’m not sure which spice or herb is needed for a recipe, I may sniff different spices and herbs while tasting the food to see which seem to go together. It sounds goofy, but it works!

Healthy Eating

For health and environmental reasons, at least 99% of my diet is plant-based. I have made no effort to hide my belief that a vegan diet is the healthiest option for me. Let me point out here that I am not what some would call a true vegan because I do eat honey and I will even rarely consume cookies baked by a friend that contain eggs or dairy. The change in my eating habits came after first encountering the writing of Dr. John McDougall.

One of the things I really like about Dr. McDougall is his passion for research. He wasn’t satisfied with just his plain ol’ medical degree because he really wanted to know why some people were healthier than others regardless of age or wealth. While working towards becoming a board-certified internist (more school!), he started reading through the zillions of medical research papers gathering dust in the local medical library. Despite the admonitions of his superiors, he began telling patients about the results of this research and what it might mean for their health. People were interested and amazed to learn they might have some control over their own health.

There was and still is a distinct drawback to his approach for him personally. His advice is based on his years of medical practice, observation of populations, and tens of thousands of research papers. Patients that listen to him and make changes get healthier and no longer need to see him. Not a great way to build up a profitable practice. Heck, he barely needs to prescribe drugs so he can’t even be looking for kickbacks from the pharmaceuticals, and since he doesn’t recommend supplements in place of good eating, he can’t jump on that profitable band wagon. So, he’s found ways to make a living while fulfilling his goal of helping actually heal people rather than treat symptoms only.

Why am I telling you all this? Am I his advertising agent? No, but I have met the man. I found him to be incredibly passionate about getting people healthy, even if it means telling them what they don’t want to hear and irritating the heck out of the rest of the medical community which depends on people being sick for their profits. He has integrity, a rare quality these days. And I trust his opinion far more than I trust the opinion of any lay person out there or even another doctor or researcher that tells me their study showed this or that. Dr. McDougall’s medical opinion is not based on one or two studies; it’s based on thousands. I may not practice everything he preaches, but the man has got it figured out.

I’m not going to go into all the details of his recommendations for a starch-centered, plant-based, very low fat, whole foods eating plan. Anyone interested can spend a few hours, days, or weeks on his website educating themselves for free. He addresses general good health as well as specific medical conditions. The articles in his archived newsletters each have long lists of citations so people can even go to PubMed and read the original paper (or at least the abstract) for themselves.

Stick around to hear how we plan to survive when we can't go shopping at the closest natural food store anymore.

Fatigue

Sharon is back to blogging as usual at Casuabon's Book, but reported a disturbing observation from the recent US Conference on Peak Oil and Community Solutions. I am apparently not alone in having difficulty with the realities facing us, worrying about not getting ready quickly enough, and feeling generally worn out by the constant barrage of bad news.

On some days, I can really knuckle down and focus on just doing what I need to do to prepare, whether that is getting another quilt at the thrift store, learning to preserve food in a less energy intensive way, or riding my bike instead of driving while on other days I feel compelled to read more and more of the bad news and predictions about peak oil, climate change, and the worsening economy until I am just numb. On some days, I curse humans for what we have greedily done to this planet while on other days I remember the good things human culture has produced. On some days, I'm eager to do every possible thing I can to reduce my impact but on other days I wonder what the point is and why I'm fighting so hard for my own survival.

To say the last few months have been an emotional roller coaster would be the understatement of the year. It would be easier if everyone was on the ride together, but that is not the case. So, along with the stress of trying to figure out what to do, there is the stress of seeing most of the U.S. going on with business as usual. It can be very surreal at times.

It dawned on me today that I've seen something similar in a movie. In Terminator 2, Sarah knows for certain that the world as we know it will end on a specific date. The fact that no-one believes her causes extreme stress for her. If others believed, then there would be support for changing the future. Because they don't, she is faced with shouldering the responsibility for stopping the end of our world pretty much all on her own. It's not surprising that she's depressed and prone to violent mood swings!

Thank goodness there are people all over the world that are aware of the changes that are coming for us. There are scientists, analysts, writers, speakers, and policy-makers that are trying to make a difference. And then there are the folks at the grassroots level, living their life or changing how they live their lives in ways that demonstrate there is an alternative to massive consumption of resources. My fantasy is that we can make a difference, each spreading the word in our own way. My nightmare is that it's already too late. Is it any wonder that I don't sleep as well as I used to?