Cooking without the Oven

Since deciding not to cook indoors, I've had to be more creative about preparing meals. I don't usually bake much this time of year, simply because I don't like to heat up the kitchen on a hot summer day, but I do tend to use the stovetop daily. Without that available, food has to be prepared other ways.

Here are the appliances I've been using instead:

• Solar ovens
• Large George Foreman grill with interchangeable plates for grilling and a deeper baking one for thicker foods - plugged in outside
• Rice cooker - plugged in outside
• Toaster oven - inside

I also have a propane camp stove and a wood-burning rocket stove but I haven't fired them up yet. The idea of cooking over a hot flame when it's 105 degrees outside is not appealing.

How have I been using these appliances?

• The toaster oven has been used for toast and reheating cornbread.
• The rice cooker has - surprise! - been used for cooking rice.
• The grill has cooked onions, squash slices, and peppers. It's also toasted up bean burritos on several occasions.
• The solar ovens have been used to steam vegetables, toast almonds, and bake rice - all standard foods I cook in them. I figured out I can "saute" onions by tossing diced onions with a little oil and roasting them in a covered pan in a hot solar oven.

I also reheated some leftover pizza from a local restaurant and successfully baked my first batch of cornbread in a solar oven.

Living without the inside oven and stove is not that difficult, but it does require more planning. I can't wait until 5 pm to think about what to make for dinner unless we just want rice and grilled vegetables. And even then, I'd rather plan ahead and cook those in the solar oven so the cooking doesn't use electricity. You can see what I'm cooking in the solar ovens any time by checking out the log.

Speaking of utilities, I received the gas bill yesterday. I must have read the meter wrong as they wrote it down as seven therms, not eight, and then billed only for six after multiplying by the "billing factor". This means the other efforts I made during the month to reduce the bill - taking cold water showers, for example - did pay off a little. It's too soon to look at the meter to see whether not using the oven inside is helping, but I sure am enjoying a cooler kitchen.


I also used some reflective insulation to put together a little insulating cover for the chest freezer. It won't make a huge difference but every little bit helps.


The reflective side is on the bottom.

Now, if you'll excuse me, I need to check on the zucchini "steaks" cooking in the grill, the diced onion and zucchini cooking in one solar oven, and the oat groats baking in the other. Later, I'm melting the chocolate for a tasty fondue in the solar oven, but not until I clear out the onion smell!

Growing Shade

Our new house is totally exposed to the elements on the east, south, and west sides. During the hot summer, this means it bakes in the sun. Figuring out how to provide shade is proving more difficult than usual because of the elevated heavily-compacted pad the house sits on - a pad that was engineered to keep this house from being washed off the property like two other mobile homes have been. In other words, it's not smart to mess with the pad if we want to keep our house. No trees can be planted in the pad because the roots would destabilize it.

Not only do we have a bit of elevation gain from the pad, the house itself sits up on house jacks, raising it another 12-24 inches. This is good from the standpoint of easy access to plumbing underneath the house but a real challenge when it comes to shading the exposed sides of the house all the way up to, and preferably over, the roof line. We can't plant close to the house plus it's the desert and trees do not grow to such tall heights quickly. Buying full grown trees are simply not an option on our budget.

What we can do, however, is nurture and encourage the drought-adapted desert trees that are already here. There are four mesquite trees situated at various points on the east, south, and west sides of the house, each about 20 feet or so from the house. Mesquites can grow pretty big with a canopy that spreads out and provides significant shade. We are working to encourage more rapid growth by providing wells for additional water (graywater from the house) and I will prune them to encourage more upright growth this fall.


This little guy has the furthest to grow. It's just over a foot tall so far. I've scraped a temporary well around it and have been pouring buckets of water on it. I did some minor pruning to remove low branches already.


This tree has potential but it was leaning way out from the fence. I pruned it heavily and then tied two of the major trunks up to the fence. It still needs a well formed around it. I'll probably use some of the rock around the property and mortar to keep it intact since it's close to our driveway.

With any luck, we'll start getting some shade out of these trees within the next five years or so. We plan to leave all of the mesquites growing on the property for shading. They are good for that and they have deep taproots to find water. The pruned branches can also be burned in the rocket stove and future cob oven.

Even so, I'm not sure the trees we have will provide enough shade to offset the temperature rises we're likely to experience here over our lifetime, but we'll do what we can! (Thanks go to Beany for linking to that presentation.)

Welcome to Alluvium Acre

While digging a trench to plant potatoes last weekend, I finally decided on the name for our little acre of land here. It's one that my sweetie and I had bandied about in the past, and as I dug in the sandy soil, it was obviously an appropriate one. We are calling this place:


Alluvium Acre

To understand the name, it helps to understand the process of erosion. Mountains are in a constant state of weathering and erosion. Rain carries rocks, sand, and silt down the slopes and canyons where they are deposited at the bottom. An alluvial fan - a fan-shaped area of sediment - can form at the bottom of a canyon on the flat ground below it. With multiple canyons, multiple fans are created that overlap and blend together.

Over a long period of time, an alluvial plain can form over a broad flatland from sediment carried down from higher ground. A plain spreads out farther from the bottom of the mountains than the alluvial fans. The sand and silt deposited as sediment in an alluvial plain is called alluvium.

Our new home is in an alluvial plain, filled with good quality soil that has plenty of sand in it. This is great for gardening, unlike the lower region of Tucson where caliche - a hardened layer with lots of clay in it - can make it difficult to dig without heavy equipment and can prevent good water drainage. We've dug as deep as 18" here so far without hitting caliche, and hope that our alluvium, with the addition of some homemade compost, will provide fertile ground for our garden.

Cooking Outside in Summer

Outside temperatures are currently over 100 degrees in my corner of the world during the day. Inside temperatures are more comfortable, ranging up to 83 degrees before the air conditioning kicks on. In an effort to keep the A/C use down, I am striving to do more of my cooking outside.

Three solar ovens are at my disposal but I am not currently using them as much as I could or should. I'm still struggling with two problems. The first is finding a suitable location for them on the property where the shiny panels will not reflect blinding bright sunlight at neighbors' houses or cars on the roads bordering our property. Since we sit lower than almost everyone around us, this is a problem and will be even worse in the winter when the ovens need to be angled to catch the sun's rays. The second problem is loose dogs and coyotes; I worry they will knock over the ovens in search of food or, worse, mark them by urinating on them.

I will find solutions to these two problems, probably by building some kind of screening that blocks the reflection but not the incoming sun and elevating the ovens off the ground.

There are other options for cooking outside in the meantime, and for other types of cooking. In our last home, the only outdoor outlet was on a screw-in socket on the outdoor patio light - rather inconvenient for regular usage. Here, however, there is an outlet right on the front porch. Shortly after we moved in, I put my metal wine cart (never been used for wine) on the porch for various uses. A couple of weeks ago, as the temperatures started soaring, it occurred to me that moving some of the cooking outside would help keep the kitchen cooler.


Even though my sweetie generally cooks his rice in the morning, we still put the rice cooker outside. We've used the grill outside a few times as well. I haven't moved the toaster outside yet, but am considering it, and if I decide to make something in the crockpot, it's definitely going to be plugged in on the porch. Besides just cooking the normal foods in these appliances, I have decided I need to start changing how I cook other meals in order to take advantage of the outside outlet.


Tonight, I made dinner in the grill, cooking ingredients that I normally would have sauteed in a skillet on the stovetop. After preheating the grill, I tossed in whole I'itoi onions (small local onions from my CSA), a couple of hot peppers from our garden, and CSA corn cut off the cob. I also put in a couple of small tomatillos from our garden. When those were tender, I removed them and put in a whole layer of cubed summer squash from my CSA share. As soon as it was done, some soyrizo (vegan chorizo) from Trader Joe's went in the grill. While that browned, with occasional stirring, I diced a few fresh tomatoes from the CSA as well as a sprig of basil.


All of this, along with the soyrizo, was stirred into some leftover rice, cooked in the rice cooker on the porch this morning. It was a delicious dinner that kept the kitchen pleasantly cool.

Our long-range plans for the property here include building a cob oven for bread baking and having a convenient place to use the rocket stove on a regular basis (that won't result in the local fire department rushing out here). With the addition of a small sink and counter, I hope to eventually have the outdoor summer kitchen I've longed for. That dream is not going to come true for a while yet, but in the meantime, I intend to transfer as much of my cooking as possible to the solar ovens and outside electrical appliances as possible. Now, if I could find a solution to the fly problem...

State of the Garden

It's June in the Southwestern desert. That means temperatures soar over 100 degrees during the day and rain is a distant memory. The ground is dry and parched, the weeds and grasses yellow and brittle. Although desert adapted plants are leafed out and blooming, especially this year after plenty of winter rain, our human-planted garden is dependent upon us for water almost daily.

It didn't make for the prettiest pictures, but I photographed our meager garden in full afternoon sun to give you a feel for how the sun glares down on us here. Then I felt bad and darkened most of the pictures so you wouldn't be blinded. Next time, I'll leave them be and let you don sunglasses.

The tomatoes that we moved from the old house to this one have not fared particularly well. The move itself stressed them and it was very windy the day after they were relocated. They have slowly faded, although a few are producing tomatoes. The other problem is that these heirlooms don't particularly like to be grown in containers.


Several tomatoes were planted in the ground a couple of weeks ago. They seem to be doing pretty well and putting on a bit of new growth. With the heat now, they are not likely to produce much fruit, but if we can get them to hang in until fall, we'll likely get a crop then.


Near the tomatoes are a few asparagus that we got as starts from the CSA. The rabbits are completely ignoring them for now. Will they be so disinterested when they put up the spears in a couple of years?


The peppers from last year made it through the winter. In fact, they never really quit producing. It's time for me to pick a bunch of peppers again already!


The blackberries we bought last year put on a lot of growth once we moved out here. Come fall, we plan to put them in the ground somewhere near the wash. We'll see how the wash flows and water runs across the property during the summer monsoons first.


I jumped right on an ad listed on craigslist for raspberries and a boysenberry recently. If all of these transplant well, we'll have some tasty berries around here.


The same person was also selling strawberries so I picked up a few of those. Behind them are some of the herbs and more peppers we moved from the old house.


I figured as long as I was buying fruit-bearing plants off craigslist, I might as well take a chance on a young banana tree...


...and two young avocados.


The welded cover and chicken wire is the only thing protecting these okra youngsters from the quail and rabbits. The first batch was wiped out before more chicken wire was added. As it is, I've got to keep an eye on the garden patch. On Wednesday morning, a quail dug under the side and was panicking about being stuck. I was nice and let her out, only realizing later that the dogs would have enjoyed quail for dinner.


My sweetie's native American garden (aka "the three sisters" aka corn/beans/squash) had to be enclosed after the birds got a bit too enthusiastic about the seedlings popping up. He still needs to put a "skirt" around the bottom edge to keep bunnies from burrowing under the bottom. They don't just like the plants; they also like to make a little depression in the cool damp dirt and hang out during the heat of the day.


From a craigslist ad, I got a bunch of hardwood shavings and sawdust from a cabinet maker. This will be great for the compost pile once I get the big three-bin system put together.

*Updated* Scaling Back: Today's To Do List

As any compulsive list-maker knows, it's easy to add far too many things to the "To Do" list. After all, scratching pencil marks on paper is easy. It's doing what these marks say that is more time-consuming and sometimes difficult. So, in the spirit of trying to take it a little easier on myself today, I've put together a fairly scaled back list.

• Shower & wash hair (only about every 5 days now - the hair washing part) - done
• Vacuum up laundry soap powder that spilled in vehicle yesterday on way to laundromat - done
• Find receipt for defective thermometer - done
• Preheat solar ovens
• Unpack one box in the office and put everything in it away - done
• Start spaghetti sauce in one solar oven and steam squash in the other
• Drop mail off at close post office - done
• Return thermometer - done
• Use coupon for lunch at salad bar buffet - done. Yum.
• Come home, sit on my butt, and read the latest scifi book from the library
• Check on food in solar ovens

I know this looks like a long list but each thing on it is a rather easy task that won't take much time or effort. And, believe it or not, this is a much shorter list than I have for a normal day. I also won't sweat it if a few things don't get done. It's okay if the box doesn't get unpacked and the squash doesn't get cooked. The rest I would prefer to get done.

40 minutes later

The problem with sitting down in the office to make up the To Do list is that you can't see all the little tasks that you have forgotten you need to do. So far that includes hand-washing the bras left to soak overnight, rinsing them, and putting them out to dry; bringing in the last of yesterday's laundry that finally dried overnight; dumping the collected water in the shower on the little mesquite tree (so it will grow up and provide some shade!); vacuuming the rest of the dirty vehicle, not just the laundry soap; and bringing miscellaneous stuff in from the vehicle. All this when I hoped to spend 5 minutes vacuuming up the soap...

Hours later

Well, flexibility is important, right? I did not get any solar cooking done because I was gone much of the day on errands. At this point, I don't have a good location outside of the fenced yard to set up the ovens where they won't be disturbed (or peed on) by the resident coyote and loose dogs. So, no solar cooking got done.

However, I did pick up a number of things from craigslist. Driving to get them, loading & unloading took much of the day.

And now the vehicle needs to be vacuumed again. I'm going to wait, though, as I still need to pick up a bale of hay for mulch.

Overwhelmed

I am drowning in the feeling of being overwhelmed. Overwhelmed with bad news about the economy, the oil spill, dwindling energy resources, and climate change. Overwhelmed with the amount of unpacking and arranging left to do in my new home. Overwhelmed with the number of small repairs needed. Overwhelmed with what we need to do to make our home energy-efficient and low water use. Overwhelmed with what we need to get our property ready for gardening - preparing beds, clearing weeds and brush, pest control, and getting plants. Overwhelmed by the decrease in physical fitness from the last six months of stress-induced inactivity. Overwhelmed by the increase in physical problems resulting from inactivity, high stress, or poor food choices over the past few months. Overwhelmed emotionally by all of the recent change (scored over 300 on this life event stress scale).

I ended up crying yesterday at a doctor's appointment while trying to explain why I had not kept up with my stretches for the TMJ due to the craziness in our lives recently and then getting overwhelmed with sadness over my nephew's death. My physical, mental, and emotional reserves are damn near empty yet life must go on. It's really hard to move forward when each decision involves so many elements to weigh and consider and everything we try to do keeps running into obstacles.

I focused for so long on just trying to find a place where I could settle in and make a home to get through the tough times I see coming that I neglected to take into account all the work necessary once I found it. I'm not naive; we had a long list of projects and plans for when the right property showed up. Somehow I just didn't think it would be this hard, though. This scares me because I really don't think life is going to get any easier. As change comes (from economic pressures, peak oil, & climate change), everything is just going to get harder and harder. And I'm not ready for that.

I think I need a month or two in a dark quiet cave somewhere, maybe with a nice hot spring...and a masseuse...and a personal chef to prepare nice organic local meals...and some musicians playing calming healing music. Yeah, that might do it.

Dream on, Chile.

I know, I know. Take a deep breath and just do one thing at a time...

Book Review: American Apocalypse II

As per FTC regulations, I am required to disclose that I have a financial relationship with the author.

Sounds unseemly, doesn't it? Not to worry, it's better than it sounds.

I was the editor for American Apocalypse II, written by nova. This relationship came about after I received the copy of the first book in the series and volunteered to send the author corrections for it. Instead, I ended up editing the second book for him, and, if I may say so - and I may since this is my blog - it made a considerable difference in the quality and readability of the second book.

I enjoyed the editing process and learned quite a lot while doing it. Besides general proofing and editing, the story needed to be converted from blog form to a more traditional format for a fiction novel. I hope that readers of the first book, and nova's blog, will be pleased with the difference they see in the second published book. And, I hope that the more polished quality will attract new readers to the series as I think nova has an interesting and fresh voice in the world of post-apocalyptic fiction.

American Apocalypse II: Refuge picks up where the first book left off. The existence of a part two to this story is a spoiler in and of itself as the first book left us wondering whether the protagonist, Gardener, and any of his friends were still alive. In order for the story to continue, some characters must survive. This book finds them alive, but wounded and bleeding. During their recovery, the author takes the opportunity to continue developing their characters. We begin to get more familiar with what makes them tick and see their bond to each other strengthen. The growing love between Gardener and Night weaves through the story, keeping the reader hoping for a happy ending.

The group treks to a small town where they hope to find refuge through the winter before continuing their journey. After a rocky start, they integrate into the community and provide local law enforcement. Through their encouragement, the town becomes better prepared for life after the economic crash. The need to contend with outsiders intent on grabbing power and resources provides opportunities for frequent high-intensity action scenes throughout the book. The plot builds to a surprising climax likely to give anyone living in a densely populated part of the country pause.

In a twist from the standard post-apocalyptic fiction genre, nova introduces a character who claims to be a Norse goddess. While some readers on the blog initially expressed disappointment that he was venturing into the fantasy realm, I think most agreed later that this element gives the tale an interesting added dimension. No matter what your opinion, nova will keep you riveted from beginning to end in this new installment of the American Apocalypse series.


The book is available from Amazon in print or electronic form. I prefer the cover the author chose for the electronic form so that is the one pictured here.

I suppose the FTC would also like me to tell you that while I do not receive a percentage of the book's sales, I will earn a bonus as the editor if the book sells a lot of copies so I do have a stake in encouraging you to buy the book.

If you enjoy fiction in the action/adventure, Western, and/or post-apocalyptic genres, though, I'd recommend this book regardless. It's a good read that is perfect for summer. You can, of course, choose to read it in original rough draft form on nova's blog but extensive rewrites and corrections before the book was published mean it is a somewhat different and improved version of the original story.

Before my readers point out that I seem to be violating my "no ads" blog policy, I wish to provide some clarification. I feel that promoting something that I personally have had a hand in creating is quite different than allowing someone else's ads to appear on my blog. Other than the first book in this series, I have never accepted a product for free and reviewed it here, and I would not have done it this time if I didn't already like the product (nova's writing).

I would also like to point out that I really enjoyed the editing process and hope to be taking on the next books in the American Apocalypse series. Eventually I may be doing the same thing with some of my writing. In addition, I am open to the possibility of doing some editing for others if they are interested in publishing their fiction. Non-fiction would be okay, too, as long as the author was responsible for the fact-checking. Feel free to ask. Well, maybe wait until after I get this five foot stack of boxes unpacked in the office.

End of commercial.

When Is It Good Enough?

1. When it's perfect.


2. When you are tired of working on it (but you know it's not perfect).


3. When you are too busy to spend any more time on it (but you are pretty sure it's not perfect yet).


4. When others tell you it's time to wrap it up no matter what shape it's in.


5. Some other criteria. Please share...

Book Review: American Apocalypse

As per FTC regulations, I am required to disclose that the author of this book sent me a free copy after I agreed, at his request, to review it. I receive no financial benefit from him or from Amazon for recommending it.

Months ago, my sweetie mentioned reading an interesting post-apocalyptic story online, being written in serial format on a blog. I got the link from him and started reading the fictional story of the American Apocalypse.

Since Nova wrote this in serial form, the reader starts at the earliest post - back in July 2009 - and works his or her way forward. The advantage of this format to the writer is he is able to get immediate feedback on his work and find out if there is any interest in his writing. The readers get to enjoy a story in the making and provide feedback and comments which, in some cases, actually influenced the future direction of this story.

In the serial format, nova has definitely mastered the art of the cliff-hanger, often leaving the story hanging at a critical point, all the better to draw readers back for the next installment. I often lingered over each installment, since I found that reading the comments was almost as much fun as reading the story, especially when the author spoke to his writing process.

The reader must keep in mind that the blog is essentially a rough draft, however, and take typos and grammatical errors in stride. Since one does not necessarily make money from blog-writing - many readers out there still prefer a printed book, or at least an entire book available all at once in electronic format - rewriting and corrections come later when the author pulls the material together for publication. These products can then be sold to a wider audience than those that may stumble across one's blog.

Nova is a prolific writer on the blog, has already finished three volumes of the American Apocalypse, and is currently working on the fourth. The first one has been in print for a while and the second just became available this month. But, I'm here to review the first volume, the one that started it all.

The reason I was willing to accept a free copy of the book for review - something I generally do not do - is that once I started reading his blog, several weeks before the author contacted me, I was hooked on the story. Nova is a great storyteller with an interesting and fresh take on post-apocalyptic America. Think Wild West meets economic collapse with the setting on the East coast.

Over the course of the story which follows a young man struggling to survive after losing his job, the reader learns how things fell apart. The parallels to trends happening today are sometimes alarming as the story follows the implications out to a possible future. Crowds of newly homeless all striving to find ways to survive and get their next meal in a world of disappearing public resources spells trouble for society.

Our main character earns the nickname "Gardener" after using a sharpened garden trowel to dispatch someone trying to take advantage of another in need. In a world too broke to pay for much law enforcement anymore, Gardener sees a need for those who would commit evil or take advantage of others to be dealt with and he has the desire to be the one dispensing justice.

He learns the hard way that he is not equipped for the job. Luckily for him, he is mentored by another man who has better training. With Max's guidance, he learns to handle a gun - a more potent weapon than a sharpened garden trowel - and they are endorsed as their town's volunteer deputies.

Gardener makes several friends, and a fair number of enemies, over the course of the story. While starting a relationship with a local girl, he still struggles to get over his unrequited love for an old flame. He learns what it is to have friends that look out for you and that you want to look out for in return.

This book has, as a friend put it, a "high testosterone level." While there is good character development and exposition, some may be turned off by the amount and type of violence. Anyone familiar with the stories of the Wild West, however, will remember that gunfights and violence were part of life in those times. There were those who broke the law, those who kept the law, and those who fell somewhere in between. Even when Gardener and his friends fall somewhere in between, we cheer for them nonetheless.

The only negative comment I have about the book is that it needed more thorough editing. Some corrections have been made since the printing of the copy that I received, but I have not seen the later version and can't speak to it. However, it is imminently readable and I do recommend this book.

Plus you'll have to read it in order to move on to the remaining books in the series for which I can guarantee improved editing. More on that in my upcoming review of the second book.

I Started a New Blog...

I needed a place to explore my desire to try writing fiction. I've reposted several essays put up on this blog over the years but, as my introduction over there states, I hope to be writing new material soon.

Be forewarned, though, it may be of a darker nature than what you are used to coming from me. Hence the blog name...Dark Roasted Chiles.

The Kitchen is Open!

While I want to share my clean and organized kitchen with you, I also want to show you how some of my salvaged appliance parts have been put to use. The kitchen is a great place for re-use and repurposing, as anyone who has ever cleaned out an empty jar and then used it to mix up lemonade knows.

Despite a minor mishap this morning - knocking half a bucket of water over while mopping the floor - finishing up the kitchen clean-up and organization went fairly smoothly. For the first time since a friend helped me clean the place before we moved in, entire counters were cleared off and wiped clean. I'm trying to minimize the amount of clutter that stays on the counters, as well as take a few precautionary steps to keep them clean and dry.


If you don't remember how bad it was, here is what the kitchen looked like before.


Here is the after shot. Doesn't it look inviting now? There's plenty of room to work and eat.



Eating area. A tablecloth was necessary to cover the six-foot table due to the poor condition of the top. It was a yard sale purchase almost 15 years ago. Placing the microwave over here clears up counter space for food prep. The trash cans under the table are for the dogs' food. The chairs were freebies from a neighbor that I helped move.

We won't be buying water anymore since we have good well water now. However, I still have some filtered water left over from before so I had to set up the dispenser to use it up. I don't know whether we'll keep it. Probably, since we're keeping a few of the 5-gallon water bottles for emergency water storage and we'll need a way to dispense the water if there is an emergency.



The little space next to the refrigerator has been covered with clutter since we moved in (whether or not there was a refrigerator in place.)


Can you believe this is the same space? The peaches came from a small orchard one mile from our house. You may recognize the glass jar on the left from your doctor's office. It is the same type of container used to hold tongue depressors and cottonballs. In fact, that's what was in the two jars I bought at a thrift store over 20 years ago. Now they hold rags to be used in place of paper towels.



Large drainrack made from plastic tote and top drawer of defunct dishwasher. I wanted a much shallower tote but this was the only one I could find that was wide enough in both directions. I'll probably slide it under the table when empty. The other drawer from the dishwasher will live by the utility tub once I have my outdoor kitchen set up (probably next year).

Scroll back up to the clean kitchen photo (2nd photo from top) and note the top of the tote is on the counter. This is where I place dirty dishes to keep the crumbs, mess, and moisture contained.

And, yes, I did buy a huge jug of soy sauce just because it was so much cheaper (and it's the brand I like). Price tag on the jug says $19.95 for 1 gallon. My sweetie thinks he can come up with some use for the empty jug.



The produce bins from the defunct refrigerator fit perfectly on my steel shelves. I removed the two pieces of tempered glass from the part the drawers slid into in the fridge. They fit on top of the bins, which is handy to keep dust out. The top bin has all the lids to my remaining plastic storage containers as well as lids to my new Pyrex glass storage containers. The bottom bin contains all the dishtowels and dishrags.



The refrigerator's meat drawer bin makes a handy container for recycled plastic bags and one of the door bins holds bottle cleaners and gloves under the sink. I try to remember my own cloth bags at the store but forget once in a while. People also sometimes give me things in plastic bags so there are always a few around for re-use.



One of the smaller door bins works perfectly to hold ice, too.



Oh yeah, here is the recycling nook set up where the dishwasher used to be. The two totes hold different types of recycled material. The container on the right is for trash. After unsuccessfully checking several stores for trashcans that would fit in that space - with a lid to keep out bad dogs - I spotted a container designed for holding charcoal BBQ briquettes. It's absolutely the perfect size and even has a snap open section on one end of the lid.


I'm looking forward to preparing and cooking food in my clean and organized kitchen, and being able to easily find the spices to make it all tasty. In fact, I plan to peel some of those peaches and make a cobbler tonight. There's already some leftover homemade vanilla soy ice cream in the freezer waiting to go on top.

The Ultimate Spice Rack

For the past two months, my seasoning options have been limited for those few times that I actually did some cooking. As my sweetie kids about his mother's cooking, I used both spices - salt and pepper. It wasn't as grim as all that, though, since the herb garden survived the move quite well. As needed, I could harvest hot little peppers, basil, dill, marjoram, mint, oregano, savory, and/or thyme.

However, I missed my spices. As long-time readers might remember, I have a wide variety of herbs and spices, many in jars I have been refilling since my college days. The limited cabinet space in this house left me no room for the spice collection; it usually takes an entire cabinet shelf to line them up in alphabetical rows. I've looked for spice racks in the past, and did so again over the past month, but they generally hold only 14-20 jars. Um, that ain't gonna cut it, not with my 80+ containers.

I began visualizing what I would need my sweetie to build for me. Something big with just the right size shelves, lots of shelves. Maybe it could fit along the wall behind the counter between the lower and upper cabinets next to the refrigerator. That would get it away from the heat and moisture near the oven and stove, two of three things that are bad for spice and herb quality. Light also degrades them, but not quite as quickly as the first two. Perhaps my sweetie could make little cabinet doors to go in front of them, even though that would mean having to keep that counter cleared off all the time. Hm.

Dream on, Chile! With so many projects and so little time, this one was not a high priority. It had never even gotten past the dreaming stage to actual design.

Last weekend, we stopped by a yard sale in our neighborhood. The guy had some great stuff. My sweetie spent quite a while checking out the tools which, surprisingly, included a number of hand drills. We have several already, but there was a nice little one for tight spaces that my sweetie was happy to pick up. I walked around the tables and saw .... it.

The Ultimate Spice Rack.
That may not have been why it was built or how the gentleman used it, but, for me, it looked like it would be perfect. Let me describe this baby for you. It has 5 shelves. Each shelf stretches 31" wide, is 3 1/4" deep, and has 6 1/4" space above it.

Oh my God, I could, like, fit ALL my jars on that thing!

I took it home and promptly discovered there was not a single location in the kitchen where it would fit. This sucker is huge. I looked around the laundry room and pondered. Yes, it could fit, but I'd have to wait until after the chest freezer delivery to determine its ultimate location. Finally, today, I got my sweetie to put it up, securely screwed into the studs in the wall.

Every last one of my herbs and spices fit on this rack. There was no room for the extracts but I had room in the cabinet for those. There was just enough space in the bottom corner for a container of seasonings leftover from packages and restaurants. The room is fairly dark but if I decide the spice rack should be covered, I can put a small curtain rod above it and sew a custom curtain to hang down over it.


Impressed? Oh. You want to see it?

Okay, here it is. Click on the photo if you want to enlarge it and peruse my spice collection (or just go back to this post and read the list.)

Learning to Cook Again

I know it will sound like I'm whining again, but the fact is that this move and the subsequent barrage of challenges and drama have left me clueless in the kitchen. During the intense time table of the actual packing and moving, we, as usual during a move, relied on fast food for our sustenance.

Subway sandwiches and Chipotle's burritos were frequently on the menu. Luckily, they both offer vegetarian options so we were able to eat reasonable healthy food. Higher in fat and salt than my home-cooked meals, but far better than some other restaurant options.

After previous moves, I usually had the kitchen unpacked and set up within a couple of weeks at most. Not so this time. As you know from reading previous posts, all manner of obstacles have popped up, ranging from no hot water for two weeks and leaks in the kitchen to surgery on the dog to remove cancerous masses and the death of my nephew. In between were a lot of minor repairs and a looming deadline to finish editing nova's second book.

We have been here for two months. With no space to work and no time to prepare food, we came to rely heavily on frozen, processed, and take-out food. I will not get into the ugly list of what we have eaten but suffice it to say it has not been up to our usual standards of a healthy low-fat starch-centered plant-based diet.

Here is what my kitchen looks like today.


Every surface is covered with stuff, making it very hard to prepare food. The big fridge is gone but I haven't had time to empty and move the smaller fridge into its space yet.

Despite the mess, I started trying to make some meals again over the past few weeks: a few soups and stir-fries, a potato salad, some pasta dishes, and homemade ice cream. I keep running into the problem, though, of not having a clue what to make. I've forgotten how to cook.

This morning, I wanted to be sure we wouldn't end up going out for food over the weekend. The challenge, however, was to come up with cold dishes to help us cope with the 100 degree days. Salad to the rescue!

I preheated the Sun Oven and got several containers of potatoes ready - one sweet, one mixed red and Yukon gold. When they were tender, I removed them and put a big pot of water in the oven to heat.

The sweet potatoes were peeled, mashed, and seasoned. I have an abundance of candied citrus peel in the refrigerator so I minced up a small bowlful, added water, and simmered them in the microwave for 30 seconds. That plus a scoop of Earth Balance veg. margarine and some salt and pepper yielded a tasty orange mash.

The waxy potatoes were peeled and cubed. While still warm, I tossed them with juice from my refrigerator pickles - the sweet ones, not the dills. Diced onion, pickles, celery, vegan mayo, and salt and pepper turned the spuds into a nice potato salad.

Once the water in the solar oven was hot, I brought it in and cooked up a pound of macaroni plus a handful of frozen green beans. The pasta was split after draining for two different salads.


One has celery, onion, vegan "hammy bits", canned peas, vegan mayo, some pickle juice, and salt and pepper.


The other has the green beans, some roasted carrots from the freezer, celery, canned peas, onion, and lite Italian dressing.

You're probably chomping at the bit to point out that the food I've prepared still contains processed and store bought ingredients. Yes, it does. However, it also includes locally grown, organic produce from the CSA and food that I preserved from past seasons. It may not be much, but at least I'm finally moving in the right direction.


Where were the dogs while all this cooking was going on? Well, Polie likes to hang out under the porch chasing lizards. Angel likes to watch Squirrel TV.


In front of Angel, just at the bottom edge of the shadow cast by a tree, is a cross-shaped hole where the ground squirrels live. There are four little babies and they like to pop their heads up, along with an adult, and survey the big wide world around them.

(Click the photo for a close-up view. If you zoom in, you can spot the cross-shaped hole in the section of fence just to the right of Angel's right ear. The light spot might even be a baby squirrel's head...)

There's another hole off to the right where one of the mature ground squirrels spends some time digging during the day. When it's going back and forth, Angel looks like she's watching a game of ping pong. The squirrels know they're safe and are fairly bold, especially when Angel stays up on the porch to watch. She could watch them for hours, twitching her stumpy little tail every time one pops up.

Letting Go

Life lately has been about letting go:

- of the dishwasher (although I salvaged the two drawers to use as mega-drainracks, copper fittings, and drain hose).

- of the inefficient behemoth refrigerator (although I salvaged the glass shelves to use for cold frames, the produce drawers to use as bins, and the door bins for some future use. Also, the drain hose.)

- of expectations that my manufactured home will be considered anything other than a trailer or mobile home by others, even though it's technically a step up from those.

- of my plans to get settled into my new home quickly.


The hardest loss, by far, was that of my nephew, a young man with goals and plans, and hopes and dreams. His unexpected death leaves a huge hole in the lives of his family and friends. Despite the sadness, though, life goes on for the rest of us.

How we live our lives is, I've always thought, more important than how long we are here. Listening to the eulogies delivered during services yesterday set me to wondering what words might be spoken at mine and whether any changes are needed in my life. I suppose loss often triggers a period of reflection and self-assessment. I have no answers yet.