Sustainable Eats

New Site!

May 11, 2009 · 6 Comments

I finally got my domain to resolve so the new site, the shorter amount of typing and personal IP: www.SustainableEats.com is up! Please switch any RSS feeds or email updates, blog links or other to that one since I’ll be making all future posts there.

I have lots to add about putting my tomatoes in the ground, building my hoop house and getting this spring garden party started finally!

The irrigation is here and I’m starting to put it in, read why chickens make lousy housepets and see the chicken coop come together.

Urban farming at it’s best, right from the comforts of your own desktop. Hope to see you over there!

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How Can You Save Money Buying Locally?

May 6, 2009 · 3 Comments

Have you ever heard of a wholesale buying club? It’s kind of like Costco for savvy shoppers who are able to pool orders together with other savvy shoppers and get amazing deals on REAL FOOD. Shhh, dont’ tell everyone about it though.

A whole new world has opened up for me this year. I can’t even remember the chain of events that led to this amazing discovery but I know it started with reading Animal, Vegetable, Miracle and then The Omnivore’s Dilemma and then seeking out meat buying clubs which lead to my discovery of the Kenmore Milkshed (how can I be 42 years old and never even knew you could get real milk?) and then all those deals they get gave me the idea to approach other farmers and ask if they had buying clubs.

Those same farmers at the market you buy from every week probably have a program for wholesale prices or significant discounts for large orders. What? That’s right, DEALS ON REAL LOCAL ORGANIC food. You know, the best kind of food you can eat, the right thing to do, and usually the highest priced items.

If you frequent a farmer it can’t hurt to ask if they have discounts for buying clubs. The worst thing they could do is say no but likely they will say “Oh yes, I’ll email you the wholesale price list.” And there you go – down the path to saving money and doing the right thing for the farmer and your family.

Here are two more great secrets that are semi-local:

http://www.BobsRedMill.com sells all their items on their website with significant savings if you purchase them by the case, or if you purchase bulk grains and store and grind them yourself they cost pennies on the dollar. Shipping is pretty nominal, they have no genetically modified items, many organic items and they will gladly tell you where each item is sourced. All their wheat is from Washington or Montana, and their lentils are from Washington. Their oats are from BC.

http://www.AzureStandard.com is like a traveling PCC. Their prices are mostly better than PCC and almost all of their items that carry the Azure Standard label they grow organically in Durham, OR which is just south of Eastern Washington. They deliver to the greater Seattle area once a month, although getting setup with a delivery point is tricky since it’s a huge truck that doesn’t like to get off the freeway in the city. Most drop off points are south or north of the city. You can also elect for them to ship your order via UPS but then you pay the shipping fee.

They carry some great items that PCC doesn’t have and the best part for me is they grow their own duram wheat and make their own pasta in Oregon state so it’s the closest convenience food that meets my criteria. They also grow quinoa, popcorn & corn organically on their farm which we had stopped buying because I wasn’t able to determine the source. I’ll be doing some posts hopefully next week on making my own masa for corn tortillas and tortilla chips with their corn. And unlike PCC they have organic aged cheeses from California! PCC does have parmeson, for instance, but it’s made in Wisconsin or Italy.

So – remember – ask your farmers, cheesemakers, fishermen and ranchers about buying clubs. Just between us locavores…

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Chicken Love

May 1, 2009 · 3 Comments

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I did it – I didn’t chicken out. We got the chickens today!

We drove out to Monroe Farm and Feed Supply right next to the fairgrounds and they had hundreds of chickens, turkeys, geese, ducks and rabbits. The kids were beside themselves and got to choose their own chicks. They’ve named them Wishbone, Drumstick, Pot Pie and McNugget. Hopefully that will help keep us from getting too attached to them but we are going to take some pretty heavy preventative measures when we build the chicken fortress. I know we have raccoons in the neighborhood and we have a dog ourselves so it should be pretty well fortified.

Right now I have them in a plastic tub that used to house dress up clothes. I put pine shavings on the floor of it, put it inside a cardboard box for better insulation then put a toy broom across the top and suspended a red heatlight from that. I put the whole thing under the dining room table to help trap in the heat since I don’t yet have a cover for it and when I do it will probably be chicken wire.

Earlier until I finally rigged that whole system up they were a little lethargic but once they warmed up enough they started running around and checking out their new digs, stretching their legs, picking on each other and looking adorable in turns.

Toddler is chicken crazy and learning to respect the no touch rule. But my very own Chicken Little is the most surprising. He has spent literally hours sitting next to the chickens, singing to them, crooning and telling them all the things they need to know. He’s turned into quite the mother hen. The amount of empathy in his heart is enormous and somehow he’s never had the chance to show it before. He wanted them to sleep in his room but I had to put my foot down because he’s already up with the chickens and we didn’t need to make that literal…

In the future I plan to make a more detailed post on chickens. For now you can do some reading at www.mypetchicken.com. They have a great list of breeds and free ebook full of details on caring for chickens. www.backyardchickens.com also has tons of great info and lots of great pictures of chicken coops to give you ideas that you could build yourself. We plan to convert an existing old cedar doghouse into a chicken house and bump out an addition on the side so there is room for 4 or 5 chickens. I got 4 today but I have a feeling I need one more. We eat a lot of eggs!

One more fantabulouse resource for those in the Seattle area: Seattle Urban Farming Coop has a facebook page, working on a website and a yahoo chat group. They banded together I believe originally to purchase organic chicken feed at wholesale prices but the group has morphed into much more. The chat group is a great way to share information, resources, equipment and more amongst folks who live in the Seattle area and have anywhere from small garden patches (or none) to small farms or homesteads, or keep bees or livestock in or close to the city. It’s a great group and wonderful resource.

Online chicken resources:

  • http://citychickens.com/
  • http://urbanchickens.org/
  • the city chicken
  • www.backyardchickens.com
  • www.mypetchicken.com
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    Could you go no GMO?

    April 28, 2009 · 2 Comments

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    It’s a great question and one as recently as last summer I would have answered no to.  I remember hearing a news report about 4 or 5 years ago that some foods in the grocery store were modified genetically.  I felt cheated.  I felt deceived.  And then I promptly forgot about it.

    I’ve come a long way since then.

    It’s easy to fall back on old eating habits, forget what you’ve read or just assume that the FDA would not allow harmful things in the food chain.  That is a naive and dangerous approach.  I’ve compiled some tidbits I’ve cut out of recent newletters (mainly the PCC Sound Consumer) or online discussing just how poorly your food chain is regulated. 

    As you read through these, ask yourself if the FDA and USDA are really protecting you.  Make your own decision.  And when you get done go and join the No GMO Challenge over at Real Food Media.  If enough people sit up and pay attention, take the pledge for 30 days, and word gets out to food manufacturers, it will change things.  This is your vote.  Make it count.

    Children’s allergies are up to 1 in 26 kids. In 1997 it was 1 in 30 kids. Peanut allergies have doubled. Genetic modification, anyone? (US Center for Disease Control and Prevention)

    A federal appeals court ruled against a meatpacker (Creekstone) which wants to test their cattle for mad cow’s disease. The USDA tests only 1 percent of all US cattle. Larger meat companies feared they would be forced to test for cow’s or lose market share if Creekstone was allowed to claim their meat was BSE free. (LA Times)

    NOSB (National Organic Standards Board) voted in Nov 2008 in favor of developing farmed salmon as USDA certified organic. If approved, certified organic fish would be fed 25% non-organic fishmeal from wild or mercury contaminated fish. Think confined feed lot operation only with fish, their pollution, waste and parasites going directly into public waters. Please don’t buy farmed fish.

    A University of Vienna study found negative effects on reproduction in mice eating GM corn from Monsanto. This same corn is approved for human consumption and currently in foods in your cupboard.

    Milk and meat from the offspring of cloned livestock are currently in the US food supply and have been now for several years. (Wall Street Journal)

    The USDA, FDA and EPA have announced that an experimental GM cottonseed developed by Montsanto has entered the US food supply illegally. (Union of Concerned Scientists)

    26 university scientists have issued a complaint to the EPA saying biotech companies are preventing them from fully researching the impacts of GM crops. (NY Times)

    If you are concerned at all by anything you’ve just read here please go sign up for the No GMO Challenge. Your children will thank you by hopefully being able to have children of their own someday.

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    Homemade Food Scrap Digester

    April 26, 2009 · 2 Comments

    img_1775One of my projects for this week, along with re-potting the tomatoes, was to make a scrap composter.  We have a great compost program for yard waste in the city but I wanted those nutrients for my yard.

    I followed the directions I found on a handout I got from a Tilth volunteer at last week’s UW Farmer’s market that don’t seem to be on their website. 

    Here’s how I made it:

    • I bought a galvanized 20 gallon metal garbage can with lid at City People’s for $22
    • Drilled 20 – 1/4″ holes in the bottom with a regular drill
    • Drilled 20 – 1/4″ holes around the bottom 1/3 of the can sides
    • Buried the can in the ground to just above the holes, or about half of the can’s height
    • Backfilled dirt around the can

    To use the composter I put a layer of dried leaves in the can bottom and then threw my recent food scraps in (veggies, eggshells for calcium, coffee grounds, etc).  I threw a few more brown leaves on top of the food scraps and tightly closed the lid so racoons, rats and the dog couldn’t get in.

    Layering dry and wet will help the composting process and ending with one layer of dried matter will help keep fruit flies and odor at bay.  Worms will find their way in through the holes and being to work. 

    In about 6 months the process should be complete and you can buy a new can to start a second batch of compost.  To get to the completed compost at the bottom shovel off any incomplete compost and put it in your new can.  Remove the completed compost or leave it in the first can to use as needed. 

    This was a fun project to do and a great learning exercise for kids.  My 5 year old gave it two thumbs up!
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    Toddler in action – crushing up eggshells for the compost bin. A busy child is a quiet one…

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    Taking Stock

    April 26, 2009 · 7 Comments

    I wanted to share the list of items that we are growing on our small city lot because it still astounds me that there is room for all this bounty.  Once you start looking at your yard as growing space and remove the lawn all kinds of possibilities open up.  Maybe this list will inspire you as well.

    Side orchard:

    • Liberty apple
    • Cox Pippin apple
    • Montmorency cherry
    • White Gold cherry
    • Italian Prune plum
    • Blues Jam plum
    • Bay
    • Quince
    • Columnar Golden Sentinel apple
    • Yuzu
    • Desert King fig
    • Violetta fig (potted)
    • Dalgo crabapple
    • Improved Meyer lemon (potted)
    • 15 Jersey Knight asparagus
    • 2 Hardy Annanasnaja arguta fuzzy kiwi
    • Table grapes (future plan for arbor over garage door)
    • 32 Tulameen raspberry canes

    Front yard planted in ground:

    • Rubel blueberry highbush
    • Legacy blueberry highbush
    • Darrow blueberry highbush
    • 3 rhubarb plants
    • 3 Globe artichokes
    • Bronze fennel
    • garlic, chives, scallions, leeks and storing onions
    • 3 bags or barrels of potatoes
    • chammomile

    In raised beds:

    • 30 tomatoes
    • 2 eggplant
    • 15 basil
    • Nantes carrots
    • beets
    • radiccio
    • Swiss chard
    • kale
    • brussel sprouts
    • broccoli
    • corn
    • mache
    • claytonia
    • French sorrel
    • purslane
    • green beans

    Lower front terrace outside fence:

    • 8 lowbush blueberries, Tophat
    • 6 cranberry
    • 2 lingonberry

    Just in front of the front fence so they can grow up it:

    • 3 zuchini
    • 1 Magic Lantern pumpkin for jack-o-laterns
    • 1 Sugar Pie pumpkin for pies
    • 1 muskmelon
    • 2 cucumber
    • 1 butternut squash
    • sunflower sentries – these are re-seeding from last year and I’ll re-plant as needed.

    In my semi-shady backyard I have or will plant:

    • 2 evergreen huckleberry bushes
    • countless strawberry plants in the rockery
    • peas
    • celery if the seedlings make it.  They aren’t very happy right now
    • mustard
    • cardoons
    • lemon verbena
    • lemon balm
    • chocolate mint
    • rosemary
    • sage
    • oregano
    • marjoram
    • lavendar
    • tarragon
    • cilantro
    • parsely
    • thyme
    • red currant
    • black current
    • aronia
    • sweet woodruff (for flavoring soda)
    • 1 service berry tree for jam or dried fruit for baking
    • lovage - to be used as drinking straws for bloody marys when we have time to sit around…

    It’s pretty astounding, isn’t it?  All in the same space that was previously un-usable or was rarely used front lawn.

    We are trying to design the garden so that it fits well with the neighborhood and adds to resell value should we choose to sell the house.  With some planning and creativity you can do amazing things with your landscaping.  Growing groceries isn’t just for farmers anymore and can fit well into just about any landscape design.

    A future post for next year when the fruit trees and berry bushes are bearing fruit will be on bees.  I wanted to get them this year since I was told the reason some of my zuchini fruits last year rotted and fell off was lack of pollination.  For now I’m happy to have gotten the garden beds in and focused on irrigation and chickens.   More to come on those topics hopefully next weekend.

    One last note – all the berry bushes and trees I purchased in March as bareroot stock.  It’s a much less expensive way to purchase plants.  They are shipped to you during the dormant season for significant savings.  I ordered mine online from www.raintreenursery.com and www.onegreenworld.com.   Both are located in the Pacific NW and have disease resistant varieties that are acclimated to our conditions.  One Green World especially has amazing customer service – phoning before shipping each order to be sure everything is correct and let you know when things are coming.  They were great to work with and let me change my order just before shipping.  Raintree as well even went so far as to apply a discount code to my order that I had forgotten to use during the checkout process.  I recommend them both.

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    Planting the Seeds of Change

    April 26, 2009 · Leave a Comment

    It’s a radical idea to grow your own food and more empowering then you can imagine.  Everyone who has seen our front yard converting from green lawn to growing beds and orchard has asked the same question – “Do you really think you can grow enough food to feed your family?”  My answer is unequivocably “YES!”

    By the end of WWII 40% of all American produce was grown in yards.  A lot has changed in 60 some years.  We’ve forgotten that we have the ability to grow food, and even more empowering then growing it is completing the cycle – letting a few of everything go to seed and storing those to use next year.  Knowledge is power, and dangerous to food corporations. 

    If everyone was doing 15% of what I am doing – just saying no to food that contains dangerous chemicals, or is harvested using forced and/or child labor which happens even in this country (think of your year-round tomatoes) - food giants would sit up and take notice.

    In the same way the toy industry suddenly realized this year that consumers would indeed hold them responsible for using lead, pthathlates and other dangerous chemicals in children’s toys and baby items, they would realize the future needs to change.  Knowledge is power. 

    My challenge to you is to take the time to understand exactly what is in one grocery item per week and how it is made and harvested.  Email or phone the company.  Read the ingredients on the box.  Use your google skills.   Empower yourself.

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    Planting Potatoes

    April 19, 2009 · 3 Comments

    I finally got around to planting my potatoes (late of course).  Potatoes are a fun thing to grow with kids and a great thing for someone with minimal yard space to grow.  You can even grow them on a patio or balcony.

    You can buy seed potatoes at most garden shops or through seed catalogs.  Or you can buy eating potatoes from a trustworthy organic farmer and hope they don’t have any diseases that might contaminate your soil for future plants in the same family as potatoes (like tomatoes for instance).  Once you buy your potatoes you put them in a brown paper bag in a dark place for a few weeks until they sprout.  A garage is perfect.  Non-organic potatoes won’t sprout, by the way, because they’ve been gassed to keep them from sprouting on you.  That’s in addition to the pesticides they have.  Nice, eh?

    Once your potatoes sprout you can cut them into pieces, being sure each section contains 2-3 eyes.

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    You can grow potatoes by simply putting them in the ground but then you need a larger area, and you have to dig them up and hunt through the dirt to find them all.

    It’s much easier if you use something like a large container, chicken wire, or a burlap bag.  You can probably find used bags by emailing a coffee roaster – they often also have spent coffee grounds which are good added to veggie compost piles.

    You want to put a layer of straw, dirt, sand or mulch down and then gently place your spuds with the plant parts pointing up.  Cover those with a layer of your growing medium and water. 

    When the plants grow above the dirt level you once again add a layer of dirt.  This process will repeat until you reach the top of your growing container.  This is called “hilling” potatoes.  It encourages the potato plant to produce more tubers in each layer. 

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    In the fall when the plant dies down you can start digging up your potatoes.

    I have also seen instructions for building a wooden box with slats on the side so that you can remove the lower slats in order to harvest the new potatoes without disturbing the plant.  A nifty idea but it does require more effort to build the box and then you need to store it and clean it well between growing seasons so you don’t risk contaminating next year’s crop or attracting pests – crop rotation is a critical part of organic farming.

    For more complete growing instructions, as well as instructions on making your own potato box visit Sinfonian’s Square Foot Garden, a great Seattle area gardening blog.

    And here those same potatoes are on May 6, ready for a new layer of dirt so they can make another layer of potatoes in my burlap bags.

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    Confessions of a Hyper Locavore

    April 19, 2009 · 4 Comments

    Allright, it’s time for me to come clean.  Friday while shopping for sweetener, soap and bulk Glory Bee honey at PCC I felt a tinge of guilt.  My toddler was pointing to the Annie’s bunny crackers pleading in that sweet little Oliver Twist voice that is so hard to refuse. 

    Since taking our pledge for 2009 of not buying any processed food unless we know where every ingredient comes from and how it is made the only thing I’ve bought that sort of breaks these rules are Tillamook and Beecher’s cheeses.  Tillamook is from OR and Beechers is made in Seattle but I don’t know the cows or how they were raised.  Neither claims to be organic so I’m sure they aren’t.  They are in clear violation.  In my defense I had no idea that cheese would become our single most expensive item.  And we eat a lot of it!

    But the crackers and cereal are hard habits for my little guys to break.  I’ve been experimenting with dried cereal and “narfs” in the dehydrator and made crackers in the oven a few times but frankly I’m finding it hard to make time for extras like those.  And I just can’t make crackers in the form of cute little crunchy bunnies.

    So I broke down.  The kids are thrilled but I had to come clean so that you all can keep me honest.  It would be so easy to let that stuff start sneaking in again but I know once it starts so does the constant whining for things, the arguments over why we don’t buy things like that, and that escalating bad behaviour once they eat that stuff. 

    I’m having a serious case of cracker remorse. ..

    p.s. I had forgotten about this one until I opened the butter door in the fridge tonight. I’ve been reading about Kerry butter from Trader Joe’s and my neighbor phoned when she was there asking if I needed anything. I had her buy me butter. From Ireland. It’s really good and insanely cheap for what everyone has blogged to be pastured, organic butter but it doesn’t say that on the label. And now I have to come clean about that as well.

    p.p.s.  I had also forgotten about this one – I bake predominantly with coconut oil now that we have cut all seed oil out of our diet and that certainly doesn’t grow anywhere around here either.  You *could* do all your baking with butter and frying with ghee but that is way too pricey for me.  I’m hoping to do a post at some point on why seed oil is harmful and why coconut oil really isn’t but there are so many projects to go this spring that I’m having a hard time staying relatively sane!  For now just google and do some reading on your own…

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    Homemade Soda

    April 18, 2009 · 23 Comments

    I’ve never been a soda fan – too bubbly and sickly sweet for me – so it’s been with vindication that I’ve learned as an adult how evil it is for your body.  Of course my kids idolize it now that it’s been demonized so I’ve been trying to figure out a way to make healthy soda.

    I ran across this article while googling for I can’t remember what and was intrigued.

    A few weeks back I made the ginger bug as my culture by placing a cup of filtered water in a mason jar, then adding a teaspoon of diced ginger root and teaspoon of organic sugar to it.  I placed a paper towel over the jar and used a rubber band to keep it on so it could breathe.  I did that every day for about a week.

    By the end of the week the “ginger bug” was bubbly and smelled just like strong ginger ale.  It tasted like strong ginger ale too – not sweet at all. 

    I made a batch of simple syrup and when that was cool I added the ginger bug and 2 cubes of frozen lemon juice.  I put the lid on the jar and let that sit on the kitchen counter for about 4 days.  I tasted it one night and gave a little woot.  It was lightly bubbly, not too sweet, delicious.  My kids love it!  My husband even thought it was tasty! 

    For me the best part is that it’s something healthy, and I don’t just mean that it’s not as bad as store bought soda is because it’s organic sugar and has no additives.  It really IS healthy.  The active yeast I harnessed has eaten a large amount of the sugar and left us with some wonderful probiotics in it’s place.

    You’ve probably read a lot about synthetic probiotics and how good those are for your immune system and gut flora.  Those are nothing compared to the probiotics in kefir, kombucha, homemade yogurt and this soda.  If you really want to improve your digestion, make it easier for your body to absorb the vitamins and minerals that you are consuming, stave off those creepy flu bugs or give your body a better chance to do it’s job and protect your from rising rates of autoimmune diseases then eat real probiotics. 

    Homemade soda is a great place to start!

    Here is how to make your own soda:

    Note – You will need a glass jar that holds a gallon or two of liquid, depending on how much soda you plan to make.

    Make your culture or “bug” in a pint mason canning jar.

  • Place one and a half cups of filtered water in the jar. Chlorinated water may kill your happy organisms which would mean no bug or bubbles.
  • Add one tablespoon of diced fresh ginger root and 2 teaspoons of white sugar
  • Cover the jar with a paper towel and use a rubber band or the canning ring to keep that on so you don’t get fruit flies
  • Leave it on the kitchen counter away from other fermentation or culturing projects
  • Every day add 2 teaspoons of diced fresh ginger and 2 teaspoons of sugar, swirling the jar to aerate it.
  • You can aerate the jar more frequently during the day to keep it oxidized and make it work faster.
  • If your bug gets moldy or starts to smell funky discard it and start again.
  • Depending on room temperature and other factors your bug may be ready in 3-4 days, or may take as long as a week. You will know it’s ready because it will be very bubbly like soda.
  •  

    Add Flavoring.

  • Steep your flavoring in half of your filtered water (i.e. to make one gallon total of soda you will have 1/2 gallon of flavoring water, the other half will come from your simple syrup.)
  • To make ginger ale gently boil one sliced thumb’s length of ginger root per gallon of water for 20 minutes.
  • To make lemon, lime or orange soda boil citrus peel for 20 minutes.
  • To make sarsparilla or root beer let about 2 Tablespoons of dried sarsparilla root and 1 – 2 Tablespoons of dried wintergreen leaves steep overnight in your water. You can find both at Bob’s Homebrew in Ravenna/U District in Seattle.  You can also easily grow edible wintergreen in the Pacific NW.  I found my plants at Raintree Nursery.
  •  

    Make Simple Syrup.

  • Warm the rest of your filtered water and dissolve 1 1/2 cups of sugar per gallon of finished soda you plan to make. I made one gallon of soda total so I made 1/2 gallon of simple syrup, using 1 1/2 cups organic evaporated cane juice.
  •  

    Finishing Steps

  • Let your simple syrup cool to body temperature
  • Pour the simple syrup in your gallon jar and then add at least one cup of your bug and your flavored water.
  • If you like you can add additional flavoring like blackberry syrup or citrus juice.
  • Cover your jar tightly and let it ferment. According to the article I linked above, you let it ferment from 4 – 10 days depending on how sweet you like your soda. The shorter fermentation times will yield a sweeter soda. This is all dependent on room temperature and bug strength so taste it every day.
  • When your soda is ready you can divide it into smaller bottles and let it sit at room temperature for another 2-5 days to build up some fizz inside each bottle.
  • Once it is fizzy enough for you, put the bottles in the refrigerator to stop the fizzing process.
  • I don’t like very fizzy soda so I omitted this step and just put it into smaller mason jars in the fridge. The bigger the jar and the more frequently you open it, the less fizzy your soda will be.

    I’d love to hear how yours turned out, or flavorings that you used. The sarsparilla is my favorite!  Here is my flavoring water that I’ve let steep with sarsparilla root and wintergreen overnight, before adding the bug and simple syrup.
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    Lemon Lavender Cupcakes

    April 18, 2009 · 2 Comments

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    I promised my 5 year old cupcakes today to make up for missing yet another birthday party and we decided on lemon. Last winter when meyer lemons were in season I juiced bags of them and froze them in ice cube trays. I also grated the zest and froze it in a ziplock. We’ve been using it in ice cream and recipes and are going through it way faster then I had expected. Hopefully we’ll have enough left by midsummer for at least one lemon tart!

    While working in the backyard today I spied the mundstead lavender flowers from last summer, dried on the bush. I picked a handful and they still smelled lovely so I brought them in to add to the cupcakes. There is something so romantic about the notion of cooking with flowers and they impart such a great, delicate flavor and aroma and interesting speckle to baked goods.

    My toddler insisted on frosting and then the five year old decided he wanted raspberry jam in some and raspberry icing so we customized them but the lavender ones were by far my favorite.

    Lemon Lavender Cupcakes

  • 1 1/2 cups whole wheat pastry flour or white whole wheat flour
  • 1/2 teaspoon baking soda
  • 1/2 teaspoon baking powder
  • 1/2 teaspoon salt
  • 1/2 cup softened butter
  • 1 cup evaporated cane juice or rapadura
  • 3 eggs
  • 2 tablespoons buttermilk
  • 1 teaspoon vanilla
  • 1 teaspoon lemon extract
  • 2 tablespoons lavender flowers
  • Mix together the flour through the salt. In a new bowl cream together the butter and the sugar. Add the eggs, one at a time and fully incorporate each one before adding another. Add the buttermilk, extracts, lemon juice and lavender flowers. Mix well. Add the wet ingredients to the dry ingredients and mix until no lumps remain.

    Pour into individual cupcake liners and bake for 25 minutes at 350 degrees F. Let them cool on a wire rack.

    Make an icing from 1 cup powdered sugar and 2 tablespoons milk or buttermilk. Add more lavender flowers to the icing. Spread it over the cupcakes and let it set up before eating.

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    City Chickens

    April 17, 2009 · Leave a Comment

    Chickens are on the list and now that the garden is started I’m starting to research them. Spinach and Honey had a great chicken post from a workshop she attended. It summarizes a lot of what I should be reading but I’m having a hard time nestling into bed with my Backyard Chicken book before I fall asleep.

    We have a very large old doghouse that we plan to convert into a chicken coop but I’m starting to feel like maybe it’s not large enough from some of the coop pictures I saw on backyardchickens.com.

    I planned to keep the chickens in the back yard in an area that I never finished landscaping. It gets morning sun but not summer afternoon sun. It’s about 5 x 15 feet with some nice shrubbery on the west and north sides which I would think would make it cozier but then I’m not a chicken. Maybe it makes them nervous that racoons can sneak up on them.

    And my yard is constantly full of energetic young super heroes running and screaming, slip and sliding through summer. Maybe that will make them nervous. This needs to be good for the chickens and not just our breakfast. Maybe I’m chickening out…

    Any chickens on here that want to comment?

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    Finally – Mozzarella that made my husband say mmmmmm

    April 15, 2009 · 12 Comments

    Last Saturday I set about making mozzarella again. It makes me really mad when I can’t get something to work (or I misplace something and can’t locate it.) I will spend all my energy figuring it out. I knew the last time I made mozzarella that I let the milk get too hot which makes the cheese tough and chewy. This time I figured out how to better control the temperature. And you can too by following my simple instructions.

    You will need a few things to make cheese but most of these items are for pressed cheeses (goat’s milk tomme, cheddar, monterey jack, etc.) I have links to several cheesemaking supply places on the right side. One thing I love about www.dairyconnection.com is they have a $20 cheese mold with follower that you can use to make any kind of hard cheese. This puts a new hobby right smack into your budget. They also have all the cultures you will need.

    If you are going to order from them you may want to get a few items so that you save future shipping once you realize how fun cheesemaking is. Like chevre molds, cheesecloth and butter muslin, both thermophilic and mesophilic starters (I also have some flora danica that I use for chevre), citric acid which you can also buy at the grocers, cheese salt to save you from having to crush up kosher salt, and vegetable or animal rennet. That really is just about all you need to make all non-molded hard and soft cheeses with the exception of a good digital read thermometer that you probably already have or can purchase at Target. And a good, large stock pot. And a colander. And a whisk. And two wooden spoons. I bet you have those though.

    To make mozzarella and ricotta from the spent whey you need:

  • 1/8 teasoon direct set thermophilic culture
  • 1 gallon whole milk (raw if you have it but never ultrapasteurized)
  • 1/2 teaspoon liquid rennet diluted in 1/4 cup cool water
  • 1 teaspoon citric acid for the ricotta
  • Heat the milk to 90 degrees over low to medium heat then add the starter culture, cover it and let it set for 90 minutes while you do other things. This first heating step can be done over direct heat (with the cheesemaking pot on the burner) but the rest of this will be done using a modified double boiler, or you can put your stock pot into your sink full of warm water and keep adding hot water to get the sink water back up to temp as needed.
    Double Boiler

    Add your diluted rennet and stir it very gently, using an up and down motion. This is basically like playing little bunny foofoo with the spoon. You don’t want to over mix it. Then cover the pot.

    Your milk with rennet needs to sit just around 90 degrees for about 30 minutes. Check the milk frequently and if the temperature drops, warm up the water in the outer pan until you get it back up to the right temperature. Keep track of the temperature in the outer pan. If it gets more then about 20 degrees hotter then what you want the milk to be at you’ll need to add some ice cubes or your milk will get too hot. Too hot will make your cheese tough and dry. Luckily as far as mozzarella is concerned it will still melt just fine on pizza if you mess up but it’s nice to get the basics down so you can move on to aged cheeses like cheddar.

    After 30 minutes (or sometimes sooner) you can insert a clean finger or butter knife into the milk to check for a “clean break”. That basically means the milk has congealed like soft jello and will part when you draw a line in it with your finger or knife.

    Clean Break

    Once you have a clean break you need to cut your curds. You can do this with a whisk by inserting it straight up and down so it touches the bottom of the pot then drawing lines vertically and horizontally to get 1/2″ cubes.

    Cutting Curds

    Now raise the temperature to about 102 slowly. This will take 20 to 30 minutes and you will do this by getting the water in the outer pot up to no more then 120 degrees farenheit. This is one of the critical steps to good texture. Dont’ let the curds get above 102! Once they get close, turn off the heat – if you have an electric stove move the pots to a cool burner – and let it sit for about 10 minutes.

    Meanwhile line a colander with cheesecloth and place it over a large bowl in the sink.

    After 10 minutes drain out the whey by pouring everything into the colander. Save the whey for making ricotta. You can do this for about 3 hours and after that I believe it won’t work any longer (from what I’ve read). If you won’t be making ricotta you can save this whey to add to smoothies, soups, or baking since it is still loaded with proteins and minerals. No more buying whey powder at the health food store!

    Put your curds back into your cheese pot and put that back into the double boiler. You need to keep the curds between 98 and 102 degrees farenheit. If they go over 102 they will be tough. The curds then need to stay at that temperature for about an hour. They will keep weeping whey which you can continue to drain off.

    Cooking the curds

    While your mozzarella is “cooking” pour your whey into another stock pot and heat it to 180 degrees farenheit over direct heat. Add 1 teaspoon of salt and 1 teaspoon of citric acid. Stir the milk until it separates.

    Instant ricotta

    Line your colander once again with butter muslin or a tightly woven non-fuzzy tea towel and drain once again.

    Draining ricotta

    After about 15 minutes you can tie the tea towel or muslin onto the handle of your sink to continue draining for a few hours. Once that is done scrape the inside of the towel or muslin into a container. Your ricotta will last about 2 weeks in the fridge. Refrigerate or freeze your whey for other uses. This ricotta is amazingly creamy – not at all like the grainy ricotta you get from the store. However, it will only yield about a cups worth. It’s great on pizza as well.

    The trick to the mozzarella that I have not yet perfected (because I don’t have a fancy pH reader and I can’t get the pH strips to work well) is getting the pH around 5.0. So I look for firm mozzarella curds after about an hour and just go for it.

    Make a brine solution in a bowl with about a quart of cold water and 1/4 cup of kosher or cheese salt. Set it aside.

    This is the fun part. Heat some water to 180 degrees. Take a small amount of curds, about a tennis ball’s worth for pizza or you can use tablespoonsful to make little balls. Shred the curds best you can so they heat up evenly in the water. Put them in a mixing bowl. Add the heated water. Using your wooden spoons, press the curds together to form a nice ball of cheese again. Then take the ball out of the water and squeeze it so the ends squish out of your fist. You can gently (and carefully since it’s a little bit hot) stretch the cheese, fold it and then repeat. This stretching is what makes mozzarella soft so do it several times.

    img_1618

    Put your cheese ball into the brine solution for about 5 minutes or longer if you want it really salty. Repeat until you’ve used up all the curds. Store your mozzarella in an airtight container in the refrigerator for up to two weeks.

    Think tomatoes and basil and red wine and summer…

    If this sounds like a lot of trouble to you go to the UW Farmers market and buy the mozzarella from Julie or her sons at River Valley Cheese. It’s only $5 per big lovely blob – no dishes to wash or futzing involved.

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    Bread Shaping

    April 15, 2009 · Leave a Comment

    I’ve been meaning to add this post forever! Here is how I shape my bread.

    Divide

    On a well floured surface divide the dough into two equal balls.

    Flatten and fold

    Roll or pat into a large circle then fold the top of the circle down. Press down gently to be sure no air pockets remain.

    Fold the left side

    Fold the left side over to the middle. Press down gently to be sure no air pockets remain.

    img_1630

    Fold the right side over to the middle. Press down gently to be sure no air pockets remain.

    img_1632

    Roll or pat that out into a rectangle just slightly wider then your loaf pan. Note my heirloom bread pans – my dear grandmother gave them to me when I was little and I’ve never been able to part with them. They must be 50 years old and still work great.

    img_1633

    Starting at the top, tightly roll your dough down towards you so there are no air pockets inside.

    Gently pinch along the seam to seal and pinch the two outer edges sealed as well, tucking them slightly under the roll. Place your roll in the pan seam side down.

    If you wanted you could spread melted butter and then sprinkle very liberally with brown sugar, raisins and cinnamon before you roll this bread up. Then you could either bake it as a loaf or carefully saw it into cinnamon rolls instead of making a loaf of bread.

    Of course now I cannot find the rest of the photos displaying the last two steps but if I do I’ll add them again.

    Conversely, you can simply shape your dough into a ball and place it on a pizza peel that has been liberally sprinkled with polenta, semolina or corn meal to rise and then bake it freeform on a baking stone. If you don’t have a baking stone or pizza peel yet I highly recommend you get one. They are great for baking hearth style breads and the only way to get that great pizzeria crust on your pizzas. Father’s day is coming up and they make a great gift…

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    The Front Yard Conversion is Almost Done!

    April 6, 2009 · 7 Comments

    My wonderful husband spent the weekend building the fence & garden boxes for the front yard conversion and we’re close to done!

    img_1647

    The grass is out, the front is terraced, the nasty “legacy” plantings are gone (after five years of work!), the garden boxes are framed and we have security from stray dogs.

    We still need to gravel around the boxes, string wire along the fence to make the gaps smaller (I wanted lots of light coming through) and put up the raspberry T trellises but we are getting close! I’m so dad gum excited I can’t stand it.

    It’s been a long dream of mine to use our front lawn for growing groceries since we rarely play out there and it is full sun exposure.

    Next up, irrigation system and chickens…

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    Homemade 100% Whole Wheat Bread – Swoon-worthy

    March 30, 2009 · 24 Comments

    Since cutting out the grocery store we’ve been making our bread from grain I grind myself. The grinder was the best purchase I’ve ever made. Not only are we saving money by buying our grain in bulk, freshly ground grain has a higher nutritional value since it hasn’t sat around oxidizing for months and I know it’s not rancid because I ground it myself.

    Each week I’ve changed one or two things to my bread recipe which I’ve tweaked from the whole wheat sandwich bread recipe in Peter Reinhart’s Whole Grain Breads: New Techniques, Extraordinary Flavor.  This book will explain everything you ever wanted to know about the science behind bread.

    Each week we say the bread is amazing, the best yet but it somehow continues to get better each week.  I’ve been holding off posting my recipe until it stopped getting better but I’m just going to post it now and make changes to it as I change the recipe more.

    The one thing neither of these books tells you to do is to soak your grains first which I always do. It’s disturbing to me that whole wheat consumption is rising and so is Celiac’s disease so I take the conservative road – one that also makes your bread more flavorful with an amazing crumb structure.

    This recipe will make either 2- 9″ loaves or 3- 8″ loaves. You can also reserve one of the loaves for making rolls, hamburger buns, cinnamon rolls or breadsticks. This recipe calls for both a soaker and a sponge. It is a little more work to make two doughs the night before and then incorporate them on bread day but I’ve tried it every which way and the combination of the two takes your bread to a whole new level. It’s well worth the extra few minutes.

    One final note before the recipe – I grind my own flour so you may find you need less than these quantities. Store bought flour has settled. By stirring your flour with a fork or whisk before measuring you will come closer to the quantities I am using here.

    Soaker 

    3 1/2 cups whole wheat bread flour (I use hard red wheat)

    1 teaspoon sea salt

    1 1/2 cups milk plus 2 Tablespoons of whey (or you can substitute buttermilk, yogurt or kefir for the milk and whey but your bread will be tangier)

    Mix all ingredients until it forms a ball and cover the bowl until you are done with the sponge. 

    Sponge or Biga

    3 1/2 cups whole wheat bread flour (I use hard red wheat)

    1/4 teaspoon yeast

    1 1/2 cup filtered water plus 2 Tablespoons whey

    Add all the Sponge ingredients to the bowl of a stand mixer and knead using the dough hook for several minutes until it forms a dough.  Let it rest for 5 minutes then knead it for one more minute.  

    Place this dough ball on top of the soaker dough ball in the bowl, cover it and let it sit on the counter overnight.  If you won’t be making bread the next day you can put this in the fridge for several days but bring it to room temperature before making bread, which takes several hours to do.

    When you are ready to make the bread add:

    1 teaspoon sea salt

    2 Tablespoons butter (optional)

    6 Tablespoons honey, agave syrup, or organic cane sugar (is using sugar add an extra 2 Tablespoons water)

    2 1/4 teaspoons instant yeast

    Knead this all in the bowl of stand mixer using the bread hook for about 6 – 8 minutes.  Wait until your dough has been kneading about 4-5 minutes before adding more water or flour to get the right texture.  Your dough should be “tacky but not sticky” according to Peter.

    Let the dough rest for 5 minutes. 

    Knead it again for 1 minute. 

    Check the final dough by taking a small piece of dough and stretching it out to perform a “windowpane test”.  Your dough should be elastic enough to stretch, creating a window you can see light through without tearing.

    Shape the dough into a ball and return it to the bowl.  Cover the bowl with a tea towel and leave it to rise in a draft-free place until you can poke your finger into the dough and the indentation from your finger does not fill in.  I let me dough rise in the oven with the light on for some warmth.   You can also let it rise on the counter but it may take longer.  Mine takes about 1 1/2 hours for the first rise but my house is about 66 degrees. If this takes too long for you try doubling the amount of yeast – but remember that virtually all yeast is GMO so I try to minimize my use of it.

    After the first rise you can shape your loaves (which I will have a later post on) then cover them with the tea towel and let them rise again, about 45 minutes to 75 minutes this time.  Keep in mind they will rise slightly during the baking. 

    With experience you’ll figure out how high they should look in your pans before baking.  If you get bread with large holes in the top you know you let them rise too long.  If the crumb is dense you did not let them rise long enough.  You may end up with several loaves that you save to make breadcrumbs, bread pudding or croutons out of but the experience you are gaining is immeasurable. 

    If you do happen to let the bread rise too long you can take a serrated knife and slash the tops before baking to keep them from rising up more.

    Bake your bread in a 350 F degree oven for about 40 minutes, until they are deep brown and sound hollow on the bottom when thumped.  An instant read thermometer inserted into the bottom of the loaf should read 185 – 190 farenheit.

    Remove the loaves from the pans and place them on a wire rack to cool completely before you slice them.

    Homemade bread will last for several days before it might start to mold so be sure to pre-slice and freeze any bread you don’t plan on eating in that time frame.  You can pop it in the toaster to thaw and/or toast it when you want it.

    Now you know how to make amazing whole wheat bread that everyone will LOVE.

    Homemade whole wheat bread

    Homemade whole wheat bread

     

     

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    Homemade Chocolate Ice Cream

    March 30, 2009 · 6 Comments

    Since buying this Cuisinart Ice Cream Maker
    we’ve been on an ice cream bender lately.  After all those years of trying to get toddler’s weight up (with both of my kids) I’m kicking myself for not thinking of this one sooner.  Organic milk and cream, maple syrup, egg yolks – it’s the stuff I was fortifying their sippy cups with anyway. 

    The great thing about making your own ice cream is that YOU control the quality of the ingredients so really there is no reason to say no.  Ice cream on pancakes?  Well why not?  And let’s just take breakfast shake to a whole new level…

    Today’s ice cream was a chocolate one that went very quickly from amazing chocolate ice cream to out of this world chocolate ice cream by the addition of my Theo cocoa nibs and our cajeta.

    Ingredients

    2 cups organic, non-homogenized half and half or whipping cream (better yet raw from pastured cows if you have a reliable and safe source)

    2 cups organic non-homogenized milk (ditto on the raw from a trusted farm)

    2-5 large egg yolks depending on how rich you want this to be

    2/3 cup maple syrup or organic cane sugar

    2/3 cup cocoa powder

    1 teaspoon vanilla extract

    1 pinch sea salt

    Combine the half and half, milk, cocoa powder, salt and maple syrup in a sauce pan and whisk over low heat until the cocoa powder and sugar are dissolved.  Set it aside.

    Whisk the egg yolks well and then add about 1/4 cup of the milk mixture to them to warm them up so they don’t cook in the hot milk mixture before you get them incorporated.  Add the yolk mixture to the cocoa mixture in the pan, whisking well.  Return the pan to the heat and cook over low while constantly whisking for about two minutes, until the mixture coats the back of a spoon.

    Remove the pan from the heat and add the vanilla, mixing well.  Pour into your ice cream maker and freeze according to the directions.  Once your ice cream is soft set swirl in cajeta and cocoa nibs (or nuts and marshmallows, or dried cherries or candied orange peel or powdered espresso or leftover broken candy canes…)

    Be sure and hide this from the kids or it will be gone before you know it.

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    Cheesemaking Flops

    March 29, 2009 · 2 Comments

    So I had a class on growing groceries Sat when I normally am shopping the UW farmer’s market for food and I was unable to buy my mozzarella from River Valley Ranch like I usually do.  I decided to make my own.  I had just taken the class a few weeks before and it seemed easy enough.  Although in hindsight I realize that may be because they did all the actual work and we mostly drank wine. 

    It went well until I checked my curds during one of the rest phases and they were 110 degrees!  Somehow they had gone up from the 102 I had taken them out of the whey at.  I still can’t figure out how that happened but the resulting mozzarella was very tough.  It tasted fine though and in the end it melted just fine on pizza which is what counts.

    Trying to salvage my losses I made ricotta with the spent whey.  An hour and a half later I had the tiniest fistful of ricotta to show for my gallon of whey I started out with.  It tastes good but I was a little disheartened.  And the dishes took forever to clean up. 

    Totally worth the $5 per blob to buy the mozzarella at the market.  But don’t do it if you ever plan to buy mozzarella from the grocery store again.  You won’t be able to eat it after you taste this mozzarella!

    I do plan to make more posts about cheesemaking in the near future so check back if you were looking for photos or recipes.

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    Cajeta – Goat’s Milk Caramel

    March 29, 2009 · 5 Comments

    cajeta

    If you are a caramel fan have I got a treat for you!  A few week’s back I made cajeta from my goat’s milk from St. John’s Creamery.  It took longer then I expected but the resulting sauce was amazing. 

    Cajeta is the goat’s milk version of dulce de leche and it’s made by cooking milk, cornstarch, baking soda and sugar for hours until it boils down into a thick, rich, caramel sauce.

    We’ve eaten it on ice cream, pancakes, waffles and added it to yogurt the last few weeks.  The kids of course adore it and we’ve been sneaking it as well.

    Here is how to make it:

    2 Tablespoons Cornstarch

    1/4 teaspoon baking soda

    3 quarts whole goat’s milk

    3 cups sugar

    In a bowl make a slurry of the corn starch, baking soda and some milk to dissolve the powder. 

    In the pan add that slurry, the remaining milk and sugar and stir well.

    Bring it to a boil, stirring constantly then reduce the heat to a simmer and let it continue to simmer for several hours until it is as thick as you like it.

    I cooked mine for about 3 1/4 hours until it was a thick syrup like honey.  You can stop cooking sooner if you want a runnier sauce for mixing with milk.  You can also make this with cow’s milk but it’s called dulce de leche.  I’ve heard of folks using this between cake layers, swirled into brownie batter, as a pudding parfait layer or swirled into ice cream. 

    I’ve had mine in a jar in the fridge for several weeks and it’s just as good as the day I made it.  I’m not sure how long it will last so I plan to freeze dollops of it on wax paper first then put it all in a ziplock in the freezer to take out when I need it.  At least that way I won’t be snitching it every time I open the fridge!

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    Weekly Seasonal Menu -Late Winter/Early Spring

    March 29, 2009 · Leave a Comment

    Here we are again at the end of another food week and here was last week’s lineup:

    • Pear gorgonzola pizza with a combo of Estrella’s Wynoochie Blue and River Valley Ranch Mozzarella
    • Parsnip Cauliflower Coconut Curry Soup with veggies from Nash
    • Ham, cheddar and chive scones with ham from Thundering Hooves, Beecher’s cheddar and my chives just up
    • German Sausage from Olsen Farm in Colville, ID with homemade saurkraut made from my whey and cabbage from Nash
    • Soaked oatmeal muffins
    • Potato ham frittata with potatoes from Olsen Farm and ham from Thundering Hooves
    • Fruit leather from our applesauce made from Tonnamaker Hill Farm
    • Homemade chocolate cereal/snack in the dehydrator – hoping to post that recipe later in the week when I can remember how the heck I did it the first time
    • Homemade buckwheat cinnamon cereal made in the dehydrator – hoping to improve this one this week and post as well
    • Cheese popcorn (popped in olive oil then added butter and grated Beecher’s extra sharp cheddar and sea salt)
    • Chocolate oatmeal – made by adding cocoa powder, butter and maple syrup to oatmeal
    • Oh so much chocolate from Theo

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