chicken feathers

how we eat - day 6

Before I publish our day's menu I'd like to share an annotated list of my favorite food related publications.  Some I've had for quite some time and are well-worn, others I haven't had for very long but I can tell that they will be classics.

Gardening
Square Foot Gardening by Mel Bartholomew.  This book is awesome because it makes gardening very accessible - you just have to think about your garden one square foot at a time.  We've never had space for a huge garden but the amount of food we've been able to grow using this method has been remarkable - even with my greenish-black thumb.  The "Guide to Growing Crops" in the back is worth it's weight in gold.

Four-Season Harvest by Eliot Coleman.  This book was a revelation for me!  Growing food year round completely changed how I think about food storage.  His techniques are creative, low-tech, and intuitive.  If he can be harvesting fresh salad greens all winter from his Maine garden, surely I can be doing the same in our comparatively mild climate!

How to Grow More Vegetables* (and fruits, nuts, berries, grains, and other crops) *Than You Ever Thought Possible on Less Land Than You Can Imagine by John Jeavons.  First, I love this title!  He writes just like I do (I love parenthesis and impossibly long sentences)!  This book is similar in concept to Square Foot Gardening but more scientific.  It is really intriguing and strongly argues for the need of closed-loop living. 

Lasagna Gardening by Patricia Lanza.  I will be trying this technique for building soil this year.  We'll see how it works.  You essentially build the soil from the existing ground up.  You just layer different organic ingredients until you've got about a foot of goodness and then plant right into the layers.  Fascinating!  I love that there is no digging involved.

The New Seed Starters Handbook by Nancy Bubel.  This is the Holy Grail of seed starting.  Every thing you need to know and more.

Locavore Living
Omnivore's Dilemma by Michael Pollan.  A super interesting book in which he researches and explores several meals - conventional, sustainable, and hunting/gathering.  I love his style of writing and he poses some very interesting points and dilemmas (surprise!) that we face as eaters.

Animal, Vegetable, Miracle by Barbara Kingsolver.  She has long been one of my favorite authors.  Now she is elevated to sainthood in my eyes.  How I would love to have dinner with her!  Read here for a long Kingsolver love-fest.

Cooking
What's For Dinner by Maryana Vollstedt.  This is my go-to book for meal planning.  I've tried almost every recipe in there and save one or two flops, each recipe is a gem.  The meals are simple and delicious. 

The Art of Simple Food by Alice Waters.  I just checked this book out from the library but it has now been added to my wish list.  She breaks recipes down into 17 areas such as sauces, pasta, soups, beans, and roasting.  She outlines a few simple methods in each of those areas that can be infinitely adapted to whatever the fresh food of the season may be.  Alice Waters just may be my Kingsolver of the cookbook world.

Real Simple the magazine.  They have stellar recipes.  I rip out the ones that look good and store them in page protectors in a three ring binder.  I have them organized by season.

cooksillustrated.com.  You have to subscribe to their site but IT IS SO WORTH IT!  Every recipe ever published in the magazine is in a searchable database so when you have a pound of...say...belgian endive (I don't and never have but the name is so delicious!), you just type in "belgian endive" and up pops...well, let me check...holy smokes!  10 recipes!  How about Braised B.E. with Bacon and Cream or Grilled B.E?  You can sign up for a FREE 14 day trial - do it!  You'll love it!

www.everydayfoodstorage.net.  This is a fun site dedicated to helping you incorporate food storage into everyday meals.  I really like it for her recipes using whole wheat.  She's obsessive about food storage.  I like that in a girl.

There you have it.  A peek at my foodie bookshelf.

Here's a peek at our menu.

Breakfast:  Russell, Grant and Anna:  Cheese and Toast and Apples ala Grant.  Toast and butter for me.  I meant to have some applesauce but ran out of time.  I barely managed the toast.

Lunch:  Tuna Pasta.  This is a family staple.  Read here for the recipe.

Dinner:  Split Pea Soup, Cornbread, and Salad.

Auntie Katie's Split Pea Soup

2 carrots, sliced
2 ribs celery, sliced
1 onion, diced
1 parsnip or potato or both, large diced
1 ham hock
1 3/4 c. green split peas (1 lb) washed, stones removed
1 bay leaf
1 tsp. dried thyme
4 c. chicken broth (I use 4 c. water and 4 bullion cubes for this)
4 c. water

Add all ingredients to a large soup pot, bring to a boil and then simmer for at least an hour OR dump all the ingredients into a crock pot and cook on high for 7 hours.

Season with s&p.  And fresh parsley if you have it.

Mom's Cornbread, Jennified

1 1/2 c. white whole wheat flour
1/3 c. evap. cane juice sugar
1/2 c. cornmeal
1 Tbsp. baking powder
1/2 tsp. salt
1 1/4 c.  milk
2 large eggs
3 Tbsp. butter, melted

Combine dry ingredients in medium bowl.  Mix wet ingredients together and then add to dry, stirring just until combined.  Bake in a greased 8 x 8 pan at 350 for 35 minutes or until golden brown.

I feel that I need to add, lest you think we are obnoxious purists over here, we will be scarfing down some brownies from a box in just a couple minutes.  You've gotta do what you've just gotta do.
 

how we eat - day 5

We did much better with our meals today.

Breakfast:  Russell's famous pancakes with maple syrup and homemade apricot syrup
Lunch:  went to a friend's house and were treated to broccoli soup and fresh, homemade bread!
Dinner:  black bean enchiladas and steamed broccoli

If you have a hankering for pancakes that are near perfection, look no further...

Emerald Kettle Pancakes (Russell's famous pancakes)
2 c. while whole wheat flour (maybe a bit more)
1 tsp. baking powder
heaping 1/2 tsp. sugar
1/2 tsp salt
2 eggs, separated
2 c. milk
5 Tbsp. melted butter

Whisk egg whites into medium peaks.  In another bowl whisk yolks and butter.  Mix all dry ingredients.  Add milk to egg yolks, then fold into whites and add to dry ingredients, stir only to bring together, it will be lumpy.

Cook over medium heat and pass the butter and syrup - or my personal favorite, yogurt and granola.  Oh, the ecstasy!

And the black bean enchiladas which were a kind of by-the-seat-of-my-pants meal turned out pretty well.  Here's what I did.

First I soaked three cups of black beans overnight.  About two hours before dinner time I drained them, added fresh water and brought them to a boil then reduced the heat and let them slowly simmer for about an hour.  I added a scant palm-full of salt towards the end of their cooking time.  The house smelled really good.  I love the the heavy, earthy smell of cooking beans.  I wish they smelled that good during a certain point of digestion!  But, back to the recipe.

Three cups of dried beans makes A LOT of cooked beans.  I filled up a quart jar with them and stuck it in the fridge to use next week and put 3 cups worth in the freezer to use at a later date.  Beans freeze great, fyi.  That left me with just the right amount for my enchiladas - about 2 cups.

I set the beans aside and sauteed 1/2 a large onion, 1 minced garlic clove, and 1/2 tsp. cumin in about 1 Tbsp. of olive oil.  When the onion was translucent I added the beans (no cooking liquid).  I dumped the bean mixture into a bowl and then wiped out the skillet and put it back on the heat for warming up 10 corn tortillas (if you have a microwave you could just use that).  When the tortillas were warm, I spooned in some bean mixture and sprinked some crumbled casero (a crumbly mexican cheese) over the top.  Then I rolled up the tortilla and placed it in an 8x8 pan that I had filled with about 1/4 of a 14oz. can of enchilada sauce.  When the pan was filled I poured the rest of the sauce over it, crumbled some more casero over the top and baked it at 350 for 30 minutes.  I served it with sour cream and fresh cilantro.  Pretty good, if I may say so!  The kids liked it too, which is always a bonus.

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If you just are dying for more info on storing food, I have a great tip to share regarding the quantity of food to store.  It's hard to guess how much food you go through in any given time.  So you don't have to with this easy method!  All you need is a sharpie and a post-it note.

Whenever you open a new container of whatever, mark the date right on the lid, box, cap, whatever.  Then, when you've used it all up, write down on your post-it note (mine is on the inside of one of my kitchen cabinet doors) what the item was, the size of the container, and how long it took you go through it.  That's it!  If you want to make sure that you have 3 months of peanut butter and jelly, just look at your list and you'll know exactly how much you'll need.  Easy peasy! 

how we eat - day 4

Today was supposed to be my big multi-media tour of our long-term food storage system.  Alas, the technology stars did not align and I cannot for the life of me figure out how to get the video from our camcorder to our computer.  I've disconnected and reconnected just about every possible cable and setting and whatnot.  I'll just have to make peace with a still life portrayal. 

So, long-term food storage.  My love child.  This is beans and grains...the things that store well for 20+ years and can sustain life even when solely consumed.  Our church encourages members to store a years' worth of these items.  A years worth of wheat and pinto beans, while life sustaining, sounds terribly bleak to me.  I wanted to make our long-term storage fit into what we eat all the time.  So our "years' supply" is exactly that - the beans, grains and legumes that form the basis of our meals and the amount that we can consume in a year's time.

How much wheat DOES one eat over the course of a year?  I have no idea.  I haven't measured our consumption yet.  Lds.org offers a nifty little calculator, though, that gives you a ballpark figure of a base amount. 

I typed in 3 people because I figure Grant and Anna count as 1.  I wanted a 12 month supply and viola!  900 pounds of grain and 180 pound of beans and legumes.  Yipes!  That's alot of wheat and pintos!

I thought a lot about what we eat and decided to break it down as follows...

Grains
white rice - 150 lbs
hard white wheat - 200
soft white wheat - 300
steel cut oats - 35
popcorn - 50 (what?!?  who eats that much popcorn?  we don't.  but you can grind it to make cornmeal.)
regular rolled oats - 150
barley - 25
total = 910 pounds

Beans and legumes
lentils - 50lbs
black beans - 50
split peas - 50
garbanzos - 50
navy beans - 50
kidney beans - 50
total = 300 pounds

We also have some hefty quantities of a couple other things
non-fat dried milk - 25 lbs
evaporated cane juice sugar - 100

And how, might you ask, does one store all that in a very small house?  Well, lucky for us, we have a large unfinished basement that we basically treat like a big giant junk drawer.  We have food tucked here and there.  If you promise not to judge me, I'll go downstairs and take a couple of pictures.  You promise?  Okay, hang on.

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I'm back.  With pictures.

the beans

wheat

wheat and other stuff...like christmas decorations and a scale and a night stand and a dutch oven box sans dutch oven.  welcome to my reality, folks.  the the dirty underbelly of our city.

We have our long term storage in 5 gallon buckets.  We don't have any rodent problems, or flooding issues but if we did, I figure the buckets are a pretty safe way to store the food.

One more thing before you nod off.  My most excellent organizing system that I am SO PROUD OF! 

First, I label and date each bucket when it is filled.  Then, with my buckets stashed in random nooks and crannies...how's a girl to know what she has?  Masking tape, baby!  Each "active" bucket (that's the one with the colored gamma seal lid [a screw on air tight lid that makes getting into the bucket 10 times easier than wrestling with the regular lid] and is the bucket we are scooping from) has a little numbered label on the top right.  That 6+ you see tells you that there are 6 more buckets (plus the contents of the "active" bucket).  When the bucket is empty and I refill it with a new bucket I'll cross out the 6 and write 5.  "It's a totally brilliant plan!"   If you are interested in food storage for your family - fire me an e-mail.  I LOVE talking about this stuff!

Menu time.  And then I'm done.  I promise.

breakfast: russell: cereal, anna and grant: cheese and toast, me: soda bread toast - no tea :(
lunch: i have no idea.  I went out with a friend and I didn't ask the kids what they ate.  Probably pb&j and apples.
dinner:  we were SUPPOSED  to have black bean and spinach enchiladas but I forgot to soak the beans and then I ran out of time before my yoga class to make anything so russell and the kids were on their own.  nachos were on the menu.  i had leftover bean soup when i got home.  it was even better the second day, fyi!

Whew.  A peek at our basement AND a leftover confidential!  This is a big day!

Until tomorrow!

how we eat - day 3

Wheat, wonderful wheat!  left to right: soft white, hard white, hard red 

One of the biggest changes for us recently has been a shift from buying flour to instead buying wheat berries and then grinding them into flour ourselves.  We have a great wheat grinder (a Grain Master Whisper Mill) that makes quick work of the job.  It's a lot cheaper to buy the berries (fresh ground organic flour for less than 50 cents a pound?  fhuggedaboutit!) PLUS the berries last for something like 20 years so we don't have to worry about our flour going rancid.  Our wheat was grown in the fields that surround our hometown so I love knowing that we've supported a local farmer and that there has been very little shipping to get the grain to our table.

When I was trying to figure out what kind of wheat to buy I spent all kinds of time researching it online.  There isn't a whole lot of information on the different types and how to use them - hard red? soft red? hard white? soft white?  what the heck?  wheat is wheat, isn't it?

So after my own rigorous trials, my two favorites are hard white and soft white.  Here's what I use them for...

Soft white grinds into a flour that can almost replace all-purpose white flour.  It is perfect for pancakes, muffins, cookies, quick breads, that kind of thing.  For some reason you often need to use a bit more soft white flour than all-purpose.  I just keep adding until the dough or batter looks right.  Soft white is pretty lame in yeasty breads and pie crusts.

Hard white, on the other hand, is better in yeasty breads and it has more of a whole wheat flavor.  It also cooks up in its berry form pretty tastily (soft white doesn't).  I cook it like brown rice and actually prefer it to brown rice.  With a big pat of butter and some s&p it's pretty darn good.

I tried some hard red but it just seems a little too dense in breads. 

I haven't tried soft red but I'm pleased as punch with my soft and hard whites that I don't feel the need to look for greener pastures.

I feel that I should add a disclaimer here.  We are not purists.  We have a couple of bags of white flour on our shelves.  Some things require white flour and I'm all about things tasting good so if a recipe really needs white flour, I'll totally use it.  But if it doesn't?  I'll grind my own.

So, with that long introduction, here's today's food rundown.

Breakfast:  Russell and Anna: cereal, Grant: toast and cheese, Me: toast and Peanut butter

Lunch:  nachos with sour cream and homemade canned salsa

Dinner:  Navy bean soup, salad with oranges, candied hazelnuts and balsamic dressing, and Irish soda bread

Navy Bean Soup (adapted from What's For Dinner by Maryana Vollstedt)

2c. dried navy beans, precooked (or you can cook them when you're making the soup)

Put beans in soup pot with 4 cups chicken broth and 4 cups water.  Add a bay leaf, ham hock, 2 cloves crushed garlic, one chopped onion and 3 ribs chopped celery.

Simmer for an hour or two.  Slightly mash some of the beans before serving.

After trying this soup for the first time tonight, I think it would be great if you added 2 chopped carrots with everything in the beginning and then a few handfuls of spinach or chard or kale or all three at the very end.

Balsamic Dressing - this stuff ROCKS! (thank you karen nerdin for this recipe!)

it's all about ratios.

1 part olive oil:1 part balsamic (or a touch more): 1/2 part sugar

(i.e. 1 c. oil, 1+c. vinegar, 1/2 c. sugar)

Mix well and add s&p to taste.

This is divine on greens with fruit and nuts and cheese - pretty much any combo you can dream of.  I love berries and feta and walnuts.  Oh me, oh my.

Irish Soda Bread (adapted from What's For Dinner by Maryana Vollstedt)

2c. all purp. flour (or 2 1/2 - 3c. soft white flour)

1 1/2 tsp. baking powder

1 tsp. salt

1/4 tsp. baking soda

1 c. buttermilk (I use reconstituted powder)

Preheat oven to 350.  Mix flour, baking powder, salt and baking soda.  Stir buttermilk into flour mixture until cohesive ball forms.  Knead in bowl a few times.  It will be REALLY sticky.  Form dough into ball and place on greased cookie sheet.  Bake until golden brown, about 40 minutes.

We make this a lot to have with soups because it's really fast and easy.  My favorite, though is the next morning when I toast it, spread it with a bit of butter and eat it with a cup of hot herbal tea. 

k-diddy

Katherine FINALLY got to meet little Rhett last weekend!  She was able to leave all her obligations and hang out with us for three days - it was wonderful.  Here's the little tank she got to love up one side and down the other.

 

I know you could make a flip book from the pictures and see him breathing, but he's so darn cute!  Anyway, we had a great time when Aunt Katherine was here.  She helped turn 50 pounds of apples into 12 quarts of applesauce (does that seem like a rip-off to anyone else?  It took all stinking day for those 12 quarts.  I suppose I should be extra grateful instead of extra annoyed.  Oh well.)  It was great having her here.  I really wish that she lived closer.  I miss having here here. Especially since Russell always makes cookie dough for us while she's here.  Boo-hoo, Kates!

Rhett loved all the attention and was a happy little camper while she was here...until we got out the camera to document the trip.  Then he started getting the grumps.  Wouldn't you know.  So here it is, for all posterity - Katherine and Rhett for the first time.

day in the life 8.13.08

I thought it might be interesting to document a typical day before the dynamic of our family changes.  I've been finding myself mourning, in way, the impending loss of what I really love - life with Grant and Anna.  I'm sure that I'll look back at my current concern and laugh.  There is no way I could have known that adding Grant and then Anna would be so stinking wonderful.  There is no reason to think that the next addition will be anything but equally awesome.  But still, we're about to leave the known and I know that the known is really great.  So with a sentimental tear or two, here is the last installment of "life with a Grant and Anna."

5:30am:  Russell is up.  He leaves around 6, I think, for a day of canning peaches.  He gave me a kiss goodbye but I was barely awake.

6:30ish:  Grant wakes up and climbs into bed with me, accompanied by a big stack of library books.  He browses while I slowly come to life.

6:30-7:  I try to read my scriptures and Grant tries to tell me stories.  I can only hold him off for so long.

7ish:  After listening to a few stories (involving "wildlife that I shot with my gun"), I get out a puzzle for Grant and take my shower.  Today is Wednesday - clean the bathroom day.  I half-heartedly scrub the shower.

7:30:  Anna is up and both kids are outside checking chickens, riding bikes, etc.

8:00:  It's time for shakes (a multivitamin deal) and breakfast once a) Anna is dressed (Grant dressed himself awhile ago), b) her sheets are changed (an accident last night), and c) Grant makes his bed.  I've found that by doing breakfast AFTER the kids get dressed and make their beds, it's way more likely that those two tasks will happen.  For breakfast we had homemade granola, blueberries, and milk.  I can tell that Anna is done when she starts rubbing her spoon through her hair.

8:30-10:  Various events...read a book to the kids, do dishes, get out another puzzle for Grant, put on some tunes for the kids (today's choice is Raffi), refill the honey jar, Anna zones out with her blanket and thumb, Grant works on further backyard excavations, read another book to the kids.

anna in the zone

grant in his hole

10-1:15:  Time for an outing.  We head over to a friend of mine's - she's also pregnant but not feeling so well.  We make playdough and then I take her to a chiropractic appointment, bring her back, and then run to the store for her.  In the meantime, the kids stay at her house (supervised, of course) and play with playdough and toys, and run around outside chasing butterflies and caterpillars.  I return and we all pick a bunch of zucchini, cukes, and basil from her huge, beautiful garden.

1:15:  Lunchtime!  A quick meal - PB and honey and a Gallicum melon.  We'd never tried one before.  It's a cross between a cantaloupe and honeydew...delish!!  The kids are hot and tired which translates in loads of energy and volume - especially for Grant.

1:45:  Naptime.  Ahhhhh.  Both kids are out without much noise.  I struggle for awhile with how I should spend the quiet time.  Make pesto? Sew some diapers? Sit down and ice my back?  I decided to sit down and take care of my back for a bit and then worked on a diaper.

the basil

3:45:  Both kids are up.  A kind of long nap for Grant and a kind of short one for Anna.  It's Anna's turn to choose the after nap video - she selects Bob the Builder which gives me about 40 minutes during which I manage to finish the diaper I was working on.

4:45-6:45:  The kids play outside.  They are vastly entertained by filling with water the huge hole Grant has been digging.  At first I thought about redirecting their activity but then I decided that "what the heck - it's a hot day and in all honesty, wouldn't it be a blast to just play in the mud?"  I didn't play in the mud myself, but instead watched the process off an on as I made a couple big batches of pesto.



7:00:  Dinner - pesto, of course!  Russell is running late so we uncharacteristically ate without him.  After a long day of playing, the kids are ravenous and eat several helpings.

7:45:  Russell is home, very fleetingly.  I am feeling worn to the bone and he takes pity on me and bathes the kids and gets them into their jammies before he heads off to a meeting.

8:00:  Russell leaves and I put the kids to bed after scriptures and prayers.  I collapse on the couch, sadly noting the prominence of my new cankles.

And that, dear readers, is a rundown of life with Grant and Anna.  Without the soundtrack.  You should thank me for that.  Although you would have a volume control and I would pay good money for something like that on any given day around here.  But I think in a few years I just might miss the chaos.  And hot, dirty bodies that come running inside bringing the smell of summer with them.  And the earnest gift of a handful of flowers with absolutely no stems.  Yes, the days are loud and full.  And I'm hungry for more.  

a few more blueberry pictures

Picking blueberries is one of my most favorite traditions that we've started since moving here.  This year we came away with 23 pounds.  We picked 13 and traded 10 for some canned fruit - I just love that!  Our freezer is full of berries now.  One of my favorite breakfasts is fresh granola, milk, and frozen blueberries with icy milk gathered around their equators.

I can't wait to introduce our new family member to the joys of Nelson's Blueberries!  I love that we drive into the hills above Hood River and then settle in to fondling deliciously blue berries with Mt. Hood overseeing the process.  It just makes me so happy.  I'm glad the kids enjoy it as well.  We were there for about 2 hours and they did great...even when Grant learned about electric fences.  !!

While we were picking Anna kept bringing me dandelions she would find.  Here's the progression.

Isn't life sweet?

it's cherry picking time

As soon as Grant saw workers in the orchards he informed us that it was "cherry picking time!"  He continued to educate us several times a day until we went for ourselves.  This year we went twice.  The first time was with Heidi, Dallas, Jenna, Rosalie and Ryan (Miriam would make her grand entrance three days later).  We picked copious amounts of Bings.  I dried 8 trays worth and froze 5 quarts.  A few days later our friends from Vancouver came over for the second annual cherry picking gala event.  The Bings were a little sparse but the Raniers were plentiful.  Another 4 trays to dry, 2 quarts to freeze, and 2 quarts of cherry vinegar.  Both picking events were great - the kids loved the cherry treasure hunt and the adults had a great time chatting.  Simple pleasures are the best kind.

heading up the hill to the orchard

Our buddies from Vancouver

It's hard work picking cherries...

...but someone's got to do it.

food storage

After Karen and Dave's wedding we drove up to Idaho and spent two nights with Russell's Dad and Step-mom.  We had a really nice, relaxing time with them.  While Anna was napping, Grant got to go see the horses and cows.  He was having a ball until one of the horses started walking towards him (it was still across the field).  Grant panicked and started lobbying for everyone to get back in truck.  Pronto.

We went to church with Bill and Colleen and one of the lessons was preparing your food storage.  The teacher challenged two families to live off the food they had stored for the upcoming week.  This would give them a good idea of what they had plenty of, and what they really needed.  Since we were heading back home the next day I thought it would be fun for us to give it a try as well.  So, upon our return, we didn't go to the store.  We just ate what we had.  We did pretty well!  Some things that I was really missing by the end of the week were cheese, fresh milk (we have powdered milk but that's pretty nasty to just drink), eggs, and fresh fruits and veggies.  Especially the fruits and veggies.  That's what I've been craving so far during this pregnancy and it was killing me not to have any of that.  So imagine my surprise and chagrin when I opened the fridge drawers on Monday (our last day of the trial) and saw this...

That would be carrots, potatoes, apples, and oranges.  Aaaaaarrrrgggghhhh!  Why I never checked those drawers is a frustrating mystery to me.