Eating Local

Eating Local / Maybe / NaBloPoMO / Zone 9 Gardening — No Comments
22
May 11

Home is such a Good Place

I got home late Friday night and slept until 10ish Saturday. Then I mosied over to the garden to see what a week away had done. And there were tomatoes. Lots and lots of tomatoes.

The tomatoes are coming in!

So I spent a good hour and a half yesterday picking tomatoes and digging up some of the potatoes. And I got myself good and dehydrated, as well as good and overheated. The first sign I had screwed up was when I was driving around and started to get cramps in my feet. And then second sign was when I got the headache that wouldn’t quit. It took 6 doses of aspirin and several glasses of water before I was back to normal. I think it was somewhere around 4 this morning that the headache broke. It’s my own fault for working in the middle of the afternoon after being in a very dry environment.

But at the same time, even though I over did it, I’m happy. I sliced one red and one yellow tomato in the picture above, sprinkled it with a little salt and drizzled a bit of olive oil. Then I put a bit of basil over the top and had them for dinner last night. And I’ll be making lots of fresh salsa and gaucamole over the next few days as I’ve also got hot peppers from the garden as well.

I didn’t hit the garden until later today and it was a bit cooler as well as a little breezy. I got the rest of my potatoes dug as well as pulled all the onions out of the garden. I have free space now and am going to spend the next couple of days getting it ready for beans and squash. I’m getting back into my regularly scheduled groove and I’m loving it.

Eating Local / Maybe / NaBloPoMO / Zone 9 Gardening — 2 Comments
10
May 11

How Does My Garden Grow?

My garden this year is in better condition than my garden last year at this time.

Freshly watered dill
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The hope that someday these lovely babies will be in a jar in my pantry
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And next year, I’m going to try my hand with True Potato seeds since I had several potatos bear aboveground fruit :)
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Green Beans
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First Ripening big Tomato of the year!

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Eating Local / Frugal February / Retro Kitchen — No Comments
13
Mar 11

Meatless Mondays

I feel the need to start diversifying my diet by trying new food items on Mondays… Specifically meatless new menu items. While tomorrow is kind of off the cuff, here’s what I have on the menu.

Breakfast – Oatmeal with Cinnamon and half & half with a couple of scrambled eggs with Veggies.
Lunch – Egg Salad
Dinner – Lentils of some sort with a salad.

I made up the egg salad tonight after getting home from working in the garden. It looks and tastes delish:
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Oh and that rich yellow color you see, the result of the wonderously yellow yolks from Mrs. B’s Chickens (they are fed all kinds of goodies – veggie scraps, weeds from the garden). Here’s the recipe.

3 Hard boiled eggs finely diced
1/4 of a large onion finely diced
1 tbsp dill relish
1/4 cup Mayo (or Miracle whip if you prefer).
ground pepper (to taste)

Put all in a bowl and mix together. Chill until nice and cold. Serve on crackers or bread of choice.

Eating Local / Project 43 / Take a Picture / Zone 9 Gardening — No Comments
6
Mar 11

The Green of Spring

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It is the time of year where the landscape is shifting from brown to the varied hues of green that only come with spring. Spring means renewal and growth. Spring means the world is waking up. Spring means everything is fresh and lovely as the old is replaced by new.

Spring also means working the garden, but it’s a work that I love. Cleaning out overgrown parts of the garden. Scratching through the dirt to break up clumps. Pushing seeds into the ground or sprinkling them over the surface, covering them with a thin layer of soil and gently patting them into the soil. Watering seeds so they come up through the soil covering them so the seedlings can begin the journey to either feed some of the native wildlife or end up on R’s and my plates.

But when the end of the day is near, I love taking a step back and looking at the garden. I love to see how the light plays with the leaves of the plants. I love to watch how the sunlight catches a water droplet on new plant and creates a mini sunburst. Sometimes its a time to rest, but more often than not, I find myself grabbing my camera and trying to capture what I see.

Surprises happen regularly when I shoot with the macro lens. I can’t see everything until I get it home and load it in to my computer. Thats when the stems and capillaries of the plants pop out at me. I notice the litte scallops along the edge of the lettuce plant. The bug I didn’t see when I was trying to get the macro lens to focus says “Hello” on the screen and I notice the details on its head and body. Or I see the flecks of dirt clinging to the lettuce leaf.

And all I want to do is share this wonderful, glorious world and what I find in it.

Image: Photographed in the garden with my Nikon D80 and AF Micro NIKKOR 60 mm lens. ISO 640 F4.0 Shutter speed 1/1600

Eating Local / Project 43 / Take a Picture / Zone 9 Gardening — 1 Comment
5
Sep 10

The Art of Vegetable Gardening

Over the past two years, I’ve fallen in love with vegetable gardening. It’s a great way to destress after a day of work. I save money on my food budget. It’s fun to cook or can what you grow. And it’s even more fun to share what you grow with people.

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Getting a few goodies from last summer's harvest ready for some friends of mine.

The last few weeks have not been kind to the garden overall due to the high temps. Most of the vines withered due to the heat. Luffa sponge vines and sweet potato vines are thriving despite my ignoring them along the weeds that were blossoming. Currently I have luffa vines sprawling all over the place and the sweet potato vines have taken over their plot.

With the break in the temperatures and the long weekend, I decided to work on the garden. I went to the store this afternoon to pick up the plants for my fall garden and some soil for my cold plants (broccoli, spinach, and lettuce) which I will start from seed. When I got over to Mrs B’s, I was overwhelmed at first, but slowly I found my rhythm. Frustration melted away as piles of weeds grew. Locked up muscles loosened as I prepared the ground. And stress melted away as I moved my fingers through the dirt, transplanting what I purchased. There is more work to do tomorrow.

And while this summer hasn’t been as bountiful as I expected. I look forward to the fall and the early morning light that lets me peek into the world of plants, take pictures of the stunning beauty of nature and share it with you all.

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Eating Local / Project 43 / Retro Kitchen — 3 Comments
18
Aug 10

Fig Preserves

Last weekend’s new recipe project: Fig Preserves from Bayou Woman
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11 half pints are in the cupboards.

Eating Local / Retro Kitchen — No Comments
8
Aug 10

Two New Keepers in my Cooking Repertoire

One of my goals this year is to try new things in the kitchen. The first thing I tried happened yesterday after I got my milk allotment at the local farmers market. While I’ve had yogurt before, I’ve never made my own yogurt. My goal with this experiment was to see if it was worth my time and effort to do this on the a regular basis – it is.

Homemade Yogurt and Spiced Peaches

Homemade Yogurt and Spiced Peaches

The longest part of the yogurt experiment, other than the fermenting after adding the culture, was getting the milk up to temperature and keeping it there long enough for the milk proteins to reorganize themselves. I deem this mission a success and homemade yogurt is now something I will be doing regularly. The great thing is that I can use my current batch of yogurt to reculture new batches.

The second addition is a seasonal recipe that will allow me to have peaches when they are out of season and super expensive in the store – Spiced Peaches. My Aunt Mary sent me my grandmother’s recipe a few weeks back and I found a couple more recipes on-line. I combined them all and came up with these:

Spiced Peaches

Spiced Peaches

You wouldn’t think that vinegar and peaches go together, but you don’t taste the vinegar at all. Instead you taste sweet syrup with cinnamon and cloves in it.  I’ll post the recipe in the next few days.

Oh yeah, not only do spiced peaches go well with yogurt. It’s fantastic when it’s slightly warmed and spooned over vanilla ice cream.

Eating Local / Project 43 / Retro Kitchen — 1 Comment
2
Aug 10

Looking at Dairy Options

Tonight I am in Dairy heaven. For in my fridge, I have two half gallons of Jersey Milk from a local farmer. They look something like this:

Fresh Cow's Milk

This, my friends, is what real milk looks like. Not that smooth, white milk you find in most grocery stores. That milk has had most of the good stuff pasturized out of it so it can sit on a shelf longer. Instead, I have a luscious pale yellow cream layer that sits on top of silky white skim milk. From it, I can make cheese, butter, yogurt, sour cream, whipping cream and half and half. Plus I can have milk to drink as well.

So after I am done here, I’m going to go peruse Home Cheese Making by Ricki Carroll and decide what I need to order from cheesemaking.com so I can play with my wealth of milk, and create truly local versions of some of my favorite things.

Eating Local / Retro Kitchen / Take a Picture / Zone 9 Gardening — No Comments
5
Jan 10

Garden 365 Day 5 – When Food and Art Come Together

When Food and Art Come Together

Eating Local / Financial Freak / Weighty Matters — No Comments
13
Dec 09

Eating Healthy on a Budget Part II

Tonight I took Angi’s shopping list that I mentioned in Part I and went window shopping at the local branch of Safeway to price the items on it. Here’s the list with the prices behind the item:

  • 3 apples $1.69/lb
  • 2 banana baby food .65/each
  • 1 qt half/half $2.99
  • orange juice (tropicana 50) $2.99
  • 2 tomatoes $3.59
  • 2 green peppers .69/each
  • bag of corn chips (Tostitos family size Restaurant Style) $3.99
  • healthy snack cookies $3.99
  • 4 Light & Fit Lemon Yogurt (6 Oz cups) .55/each
  • 1/4 lb Genoa Salami $8.49/lb
  • 1/4 lb deli cheese $7.99/lb
  • 1 lb hamburger (assuming 85% lean) $2.71/lb
  • Coffee (folgers 10.8 oz can) $3.99
  • Store Rolls .59/each
  • Chocolate Chip Cookies $2.59
  • 1 6 oz bag spinach $2.99
  • 2 cup sprinkle cheese (8 oz) $2.49
  • Kashi Cheerios $3.99
  • Cheerios $3.30
  • 1 Fiber Plus Bars $2.99
  • 1 Kashi Bars $4.99
  • Mission Bell Low Carb Wraps – Medium Sized $4.29
  • Grapes (1 package ~1.5 lbs) $4.79/lb
  • Strawberries (1 lb) 3.99

The grand total for all of this, was $76.53.

One thing that struck me as I was wandering the supermarket aisles pricing the items on her list is the amount of pre-packaged food that appears to be healthy on the surface but really isn’t all that healthy when you start looking at it – especially for someone with PCOS. Many of the pre-packaged foods are carb heavy even if you take into account the dietary fiber.

But the challenge here twofold: stretching the budgeted dollars so that Angi and her family get more healthy food AND give Angi healthy options so that she has snacks that are portable for her on-the-go work day and that are more balanced towards 40% protein/ 30% carbs /30% Fat.

In the next part, I’ll revamp shopping list, create a menu, and do some shopping.

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