Missed a Challenge Check-in

There are less than 60 days left in the year which means I missed posting the last 10-day check-in for the 100 Days Challenge. How is everyone doing? Are you still sticking to your chosen challenge every day or are your goals slipping amidst holiday preparations?

I've been doing pretty good with avoiding food waste. It may have been a case of going to extremes (again), but I decided I was not going to toss the box of stevia packets that has been sitting on my shelf for some time. The contents of many of the packets had clumped together and would not dissolve in liquid, making them uesless for my hot drinks. (I've tried the liquid stevia products and they give me a headache.)


The spice grinder came to the rescue. Along with all the packets, I added some sugar so there would be enough volume in the grinder to work well. (I love this Cuisinart grinder because it has a removable basin, great for dumping out the contents and for cleaning, but it doesn't seem to work well with small volumes of anything.) The sugar provides the traditional form of sweetness that my taste buds recognize and seems to increase my mouth's acceptance of stevia as the primary source of sweetness. The grinder made quick work of the lumps and yielded a fine powder for sweetening. I'm still trying to figure out the right amount to spoon into my drink and often end up with it either too sweet or not sweet enough.

Too many greens in the refrigerator lately led to more composting than is ideal. I've been better about it the last few days. We've had fresh arugula over mashed potatoes, Mexican soup with chard, and a delicious "cream" of potato/mushroom soup with more chard. To make the soup last night, I started by pressure cooking diced potatoes. While they were cooking, I browned a chopped onion in the soup pot. I usually make my soups fatfree but last night I was craving a little more richness so I added Earth Balance (vegan margarine) and flour to make a roux. To this, I added drained water from the cooked potatoes and some additional water, stirring it in slowly to avoid lumps. Next, the cooked potatoes were added along with salt and pepper. To make the soup creamy, I used a masher to break up the potatoes a little more but not completely. All that was left to add was a little bit of dehydrated celery, some dried mushroom slices, and chopped chard. By the time the chard was cooked, the vegetables were rehydrated. A splash of Liquid Smoke added the final smoky taste.


Rather than toss the bitter orange eggplant from our garden, they went into the CSA surplus basket last week. A few more will go in this week, with the caution again that they are quite bitter. Some people like that evidently or bitter melon would never have been cultivated in gardens!

This year's pomegranate seed liquor was strained just this morning. I don't think it is as good as last year's. Maybe drying the seeds first is important to impart more flavor. Hopefully it will be better after it ages a bit with the sugar syrup added. We are not drinking our liqueurs on a regular basis. After watching several public television episodes lately about Scandinavian cooking using aquavit, I'm inspired to try using the liqueurs in cooking occasionally. The authors of the book that inspired me to make liqueurs in the first place recommend doing this; I just keep forgetting. Perhaps a list of what I have posted in the spice cabinet would be a good reminder. Or, I could just make a sign to put on the wall by the stove that says:

Add Spirit to your cooking ---available in cacao, Calamondine lime, cherry, ginger,
lemon, orange, peach, pomegranate, prickly pear, and vanilla!

I've also saved the seeds from two other fruits we've had recently. Once in a while, I crave Mexican papaya. Since Arizona borders Mexico, this is a far more local fruit for us that papaya shipped across the ocean from Hawaii. Mexican papayas are larger and less sweet than the ones from Hawaii but still tasty. They have an interesting nutty flavor, as well, that is reminiscent of walnuts. Since walnuts give me heartburn, I do enjoy that aspect of this fruit once in a great while. When slicing it up, I decided to see if it might be possible for us to grow a papaya. Using this site as a guide, I cleaned and dried the seeds. My sweetie is going to try growing some in a pot that will eventually live in a greenhouse that we hope to have someday.

The other seeds I saved are not for growing new plants. I've saved the seeds from every CSA watermelon we've eaten this year. I enjoy making this bean soup with roasted watermelon seeds. In fact, I've got some Mayacoba beans soaking right now to make soup tonight. Hopefully the clouds outside will burn off so I can toast the seeds and cook the beans in the solar ovens.

That's all the challenge news from here. What's happening with your challenge?