bee creative

preserved lemons

Organic lemons were on sale.

I mixed up directions from here (Nourished Kitchen) and from a cookbook by Yvette Van Boven called Home made. 

catching up

First rose is blooming. This is Lady Banks.  It's probably been blooming for a couple days.  I've been a bit distracted as I've been working through a cold. 

A little comfort food.  I made these donuts last Sunday and they are so good.  The recipe calls for a donut pan.  Since I don't have one I used a baby bundt pan.  These are topped with pear-ginger jam.

And these:

with cocoa powder mixed into honey. 

 

changing colors

Adding a bit of red to the shawl in progress.

I was worried that I'd missed seeing the bank of magnolias bloom at one of our local parks but I was right on time.

Playing with photoshop again:

The current reading list:

A library card is a wonderful thing...I check out books I wouldn't necessarily buy.  It's possible to do things like check out the book version and the movie.  I've already watched Handmade Nation, but have just taken a peak at the book.  I'm not sure the movie said anything new to me, but it was interesting (warning if you watch the trailer all the images may not appeal). 

Almost every movie needs popcorn, even a documentary:

This is a spicy version:  cinnamon, nutmeg and chipolte powder. 

recycle day: storing food

I am continuing to think about how I recycle...how much of what is considered waste can be reclaimed, reused. 

I want to share not just things that might be clever, but also the very practical.  The things we all might do, the basics.  To look closely at the things in my home and celebrate sustainability. 

With that in mind, here is something very simple:

I buy most of my food bulk.  A few exceptions are olives and the occasional jar of peanut butter (although I think I am done with that!).  Most of the jars that I buy can be reused. Popcorn anyone?  A cup of cocoa?  Or even better...a mocha? 

My favorite homemade mocha right now is made from espresso,  1/2 tea of cocoa powder and a tablespoon of honey. 

Another simple idea I've been playing with recently is making my own containers for seed starting.  I've been using pages from an old phone book to make containers to hold the soil mix and seed.  I think this will work better than my egg shell experiment...the dogs dug those up. 

I'm also remembering my grandfather who often started seeds in yogurt containers.

And because it is May Day, Bluebells in a blue bottle.

some weekends...

It wasn't that I got distracted this weekend... although yesterday I picked up a copy of Digital Expressions by Susan Tuttle from the library and did spend some extra time on the computer today.  

I didn't even spend the weekend napping or being lazy...

(This blanket was perfectly flat until Lola decided to arrange it to her liking.)  

I just didn't do most of what I planned to do. 

Rather I seemed to spend a lot of time day dreaming and shuffling fabrics back and forth and thinking about whether to cover (the middle of this did not turn out the way I wanted), or to cut.  To use this pattern or that pattern. 

And I did discover that the secret to making good (what I think is good anyway) nut butter is to roast the nuts and not be stingy with adding oil. 

And I did find this really good interview with Bobby McFerrin (he talks about improvisation) which I think applies to all types of creativity.  He talks about the need to just keep going.

I did that. 

 

 

 

come for tea?

You could have a bite of yogurt cake with rhubarb sauce:

It's the first stem of rhubarb this year (from the garden) plus a few frozen strawberries to make it red. 

We could tour the garden.  I had to try another batch of lettuce in egg shells as the first batch didn't work so well...

I'll show you my sky scarf:

It's getting quite long.  It seems quite different to me to look at it as a whole rather than close up:

Every little section has something I love.  The colors here are so soft they might not show up on all monitors quite right...and the yarn I spun on Friday night is here somewhere.

And I'd share the thing that has excited me the most this weekend...  The indigo yeast vat that I started last summer and thought wasn't working very well, sat outside all winter.  While I was cleaning the garden last weekend I decided it was probably time to dump it somewhere.  But when I looked closely I realized it was an interesting shade of green and I thought "Hmm, maybe I should bring this inside and warm it up a bit?"  So I did and amazingly enough...it works! 

The yellow is velvet dyed with onion skin.  I love these colors together. 

like a bumble bee...

Oh spring surely did arrive this weekend...

The plum blossoms were the first to open.  I hope it sets fruit this year.  Lots of bumble bees around this weekend so maybe...

Yesterday was the first Farmer's market of the year... I bought cheese, bread, radishes, broccoli, carrots, Brussels sprouts and potatoes.  This year there seems to be more spring veggies, not just things stored through the winter like the potatoes.  There were quite a few greens too. 

Half of the radish leaves went to the chickens and half was used to make pesto for my lunch. 

With such beautiful weather, this weekend really was spent mostly in the garden.

But I did do a bit of spinning and knitting.  I think I've solved one of my problems with my sky scarf.  I've continued to have problems working on it every day and have been mostly just noting the weather and then catching up on the weekend.  This week I'm going to try something new.  I've got a second project I'm going to work on as well. 

While I was cleaning out baskets I found a shawl I had started and then put down at some point (probably to start the sky scarf).  I've decided that after I finish spinning and knitting my daily row for the scarf, I'll continue spinning and knitting on the shawl until I've satisfied my need to spin/knit in the evening.  I think this will make the spinning/knitting more of a commitment for the day. 

spring cleaning

I want to know why the weather is given as 40% chance of rain instead of 60% chance of sun?  Mostly we got the sun.  And oh it made me happy...

Most of my spring cleaning happened in the garden today(had the day off from work)! Weeding and digging and pruning.  I harvested a handful of lettuce that reseeded last fall and is just now starting to grow.  I was experimenting to see if I could save lettuce seed.  I'm not actually sure where that lettuce seed is at the moment, but what reseeded in the garden did beautifully. 

I also did some spring cleaning in the pantry.  I pretty much made this up but it is loosely based on the rhubarb chutney recipe in Small Batch Preserving by Ellie Topp and Margaret Howard.  It has dried cherries, dried prunes, dried apricots, apple cider vinegar, red onion, rhubarb (from the freezer, my plant is almost ready to start harvesting from) and a bit of sugar. 

Also did some closet organizing whenever the clouds sailed over and covered up the sun.  This once was the leg on a pair of pants.  Now it's the latest thing from the indigo vat...and yes there is a spot of dirt on the fabric.

moving through the day

4:44 AM  I can hear the rain hitting the chimney.  Often I wonder what it would be like to live under a tin roof.

6:01  Having my second cup of coffee.  Wondering about wardrobe choices.  Layers are very necessary where I live.  I wonder if the lighter layers for winter could be made to stand alone for summer?

6:56  Just came back in from the letting the chickens out.  The code for the sky scarf for the last three days would be G-G-G.

8:04  This morning I'm being more deliberate about cheese making then I usually am.  I'm following these directions for making Paneer.

9:00 Been working on a Jelly for the last hour. There's a break in the rain so I'm off to the grocery store to get potting soil.

9:55  On my way to the grocery store I saw two cars go by with snow on them.  Talked to one of my brothers and he said he had an inch of snow this morning.  No April Fools joke, that is unless you thought it was spring...

11:23  Just finished planting up the tomatoes, peppers, cabbages, and broccoli.  The indigo isn't up yet.  Maybe I need to reseed?  Nope, need to be patient, I just looked up the germination time and it can take over 32 days!

(I'm particularly pleased with these tomatoes.  They grew from seed that I saved two years ago.  I'll thin these to just one plant in a couple days.) 

2:34  Spent an hour or so outside, some beautiful sun breaks off and on this afternoon.  Made an indigo vat (chemical) to dye a sweater that could use a pick-me-up. 

4:00 Cleared the table.  I'm finding that I need to have an open space available to work if I want to keep working on things during the week.  But I constantly fight a desire to stack things...like books.

6:23  Time to think about what I need for work tomorrow. 

dark days: fish for dinner

 

Local halibut with chives and thyme from the garden.  I did add a bit of salt and pepper.  Pickles for a vegetable.  I had red potatoes as well but was too hungry to wait for them to cook, so they'll wait for another meal. Maybe breakfast...

 

details

It may be cold, wet, and windy; snow may be in the forecast...

But spring is coming.  Yesterday I had two eggs on the same day for the first time since Jitterbug started molting in the fall.  More of the crocus are popping up in the garden too.  And the rhubarb is up to four inches. 

Maybe it will be t-shirt weather soon?  I'm going to be ready.  Today I tried out another pattern.  This one is destined for the dye pot. 

The next one will have a few more inches added to the bottom and the neckline adjusted just a bit.  Patterns are like recipes...the details are adjustable. 

No recipe involved here. 

I've been craving a cheese sandwich but didn't really want to make bread and then have a lot of it that I would end up eating, so I bought a small loaf of locally made sourdough.  Added a little local cheese and a saute of cabbage, apples and hazelnuts and I had this week's Dark Days meal. 

Hmm...maybe French toast for breakfast? 

 

comfort

Some days I like to walk home in the rain and the wind.

Today I could have made a better choice about footwear though.

It made me wish I still had some of the tomato soup I had for dinner last night.

This is my dark days meal for the week.  I made it with tomatoes from the freezer, an onion, herbs, and just a tiny bit of olive oil and salt.  The olive oil and salt were not local.  All ingredients were roasted in the oven for about an hour.  And then I tossed everything into the blender. 

Since the oven was on, I decided to bake the last of the potatoes from the farmer's market.  I'll still be able to get local potatoes from the co-op, something that makes me very happy. 

And then a small project that also brings comfort:

I made this scarf a year or two ago with a skein of locally spun/dyed yarn.  I love this yarn, but it slides of my neck very easily.  Rather annoying.  So tonight I spun just a bit of yarn and crocheted the two edges together to make it into a cowl.  Much better. 

Using things up...

Years ago I wouldn't have been able to imagine not having milk in the house...it was essential.

Last night I decided to use up what milk I had to make one of my favorite treats, pudding.  Topped with the last of the strawberry-honey jam I made last year.  

I am feeling no sense of panic about having used up the milk.

I've been using up some favorite scraps on this project.

I'm feeling no sense of panic that there won't be more favorites.  New favorites come along...and it's good, maybe even necessary?  Thinking about what I consider essential and why. 

dark days: knitting and eating and thinking

Somehow my mind has started connecting my sky scarf and the Dark Days challenge.  I think because I am knitting with local yarn (mostly!) and there is so much gray right now...

The sky scarf, month number five: 

 I've been wondering, once the scarf is finished, will someone look at it and think, "Hmm...that reminds me of the sky?"  Will they look closer and see the fat white stripe, and wonder if that was our snow storm?  Will they see the orange stripe and wonder if that was the morning after the lunar eclipse? 

Yesterday as I was knitting, it became very real to me that a story can be told without images or words.  That a color could hold a story...

 

As for food...

I didn't really join the Dark Days Challenge to explore eating locally, I already knew I could.  I mostly wanted to check in with myself to see if I was eating as locally as I thought I was.  To push myself a little further. 

The ingredients that I find myself considering the most as I plan these meals are fats for cooking, sweeteners, salt, baking soda/powder,  and spices.    This is where I am at currently as I consider these ingredients:

Fats:  I am using butter, hazelnut oil (very sparingly as it's expensive), or cooking with water instead of my usual olive oil for the most part.  I have also used some bacon fat and might at some point consider rendering fat (don't look if you are vegetarian!).  I don't eat much meat though.   Today I experimented with making ghee. 

Sweeteners:  Honey or fruit (apple cider works great for some things).  This really changes baking.  Found a web site this morning that I want to explore more.  But really, the bottom line here is that I need to bake less. 

Salt:  I am going to try making my own.  Found this blog post for a resource.   Just have to decide which beach seems best to collect from....

Baking soda/powder:  Well, back to that baking issue.  Sour dough anyone? 

Spices and cultures:  Certainly we could adjust to cooking without spices.  Many wonderful herbs can be grown locally.   I could either give up foods that made with a culture (some of the cheeses I want to make for example) or be really wild and see what cultures are hanging around (that could be dangerous I'm thinking).  But that seems to be taking things a bit far.  I'm pretty sure the shipping of cinnamon is more sustainable than apples from New Zealand to Washington. 

 

 

The other thing that I am looking at is that I've given myself a bit of a break by allowing foods that are bulk to be exceptions to the local rule.  This is the area that I can get better at.  I think I can establish the same rule for bulk that I have for vegetables and fruits.  If I can find it or grow it locally, I have to buy it locally first.  If it's not available in Washington, then it needs to come from the west coast. 

 

This week's Dark Days meal was an experiment in making pasta with whole wheat flour.   This is one of the flour choices that is available to me locally. 

I made a topping by sauteing onions in butter, adding a handful of cabbage and then sprinkling in a bit of rosemary.  Tasted great, looks... well... And I cheated a bit.  Used salt. 

 

let it snow!

Hello snow... I've been waiting for you. 

We don't have much snow yet...but enough to enchant my walk.  Enough to distract me for several hours today.

Enough that soup was the perfect meal for lunch.  It also happens to be my "Dark days" meal for the week.  I added some dehydrated corn and peppers for some extra flavor.  The last potato from my garden and a handful of parsley that I picked today went into the pot too.

Parsley is hardy stuff, but we're supposed to have a pretty long stretch of cold so I pretty much picked everything.  I'll make a "pesto" with most of it. 

This is last week's "Dark Days" meal that I never got around to posting.  It turned into a comfort meal of sorts.  The last of the sugar pie pumpkin I grew topped with hazelnuts, a boiled egg and apple slices. 

It was good. 

 

creating shelter

It's wet and windy, a very stormy day.  The kind of day would have us all looking for shelter (my word for 2012) sooner or later. 

Shelter has a relatively simple definition, a place of refugee or protection.  More than anything, as I think about shelter this year, I want to document how I create shelter, what kind of home maker am I, how I feather my nest...

Today's mending:

What if it is enough to know what is underneath something? 

The silk/hemp fabric that I used for some of the squares on my "made of stars" blanket has frayed very badly.  The fabric was a gift from my mother and I want to be be able to keep it where I can see it, but it's just not standing up to the wash and wear that I put this blanket through.  And so I am layering fabric over the top of this fabric.  The red in the background is the first piece that I have used to cover one of the silk/hemp squares. 

What if we broaden our definition of a garden? Green onions anyone? 

 

And my Dark Day's Meal for this week: 

What if I make my own fruit/nut bars...make them just what I want them to be?   They make a yummy breakfast with a bowl of local yogurt. 

one step back

As a focus word for the year, "one" was a good word for me.  It helped me keep in mind that one act, one stitch, just one thing is a way to move forward.

My sky scarf is a good example of that.  Just a little bit each day.  Even if it's just a word, capturing the moment. 

Today I took one step back to my focus word for 2010, "direction."

I've been wanting to paint a compass rose on my floor for quite awhile.   With a little supervision from the dogs, I got busy and did it.  That's Madi up in the corner, one of my brother's dogs and sister to Lola. 

It made me think about how sometimes having something that is worn and tired gives permission to take risks.  Would I have painted this on a new floor?  Maybe not. 

I thought about the difference between reaching for perfection and reaching for improvement.  Two different things. 

This weekend I hope to stencil N, E, S, W and a rose on the compass.  A good direction. 

My "Dark Days" meal for the week: 

One more step backwards brought me to my word for 2009, "intersection."  I like thinking of intersections as a meeting place.  There is something about joining a challenge that seems a bit like creating an intersection...

in season: last farmer's market + a little crafting

 

A few years ago I bought a set of glow in the dark stars for a project that I was doing for some children.  

A couple weeks ago I brought one of them home and set it on a counter.  I was a bit surprised to see it glowing one night when I turned out the light.  The shadowed part of the star is where it didn't absorb as much light due to a dish that was sitting next to it.

 

We are certainly entering the darkest part of the year.  This morning dawn was at 7:58 and sunset will be at 4:14.  That's just a little more than 8 hours of day light. 

I've recently realized that one of the things I appreciate about this time of year is the ability to see the stars and the moon more often when the skies are clear...but I'm really looking forward to the days getting longer again too. 

Saturday was the last Farmer's market for the year.  I bought a few vegetables and fruits to eat this week, cheese, and dried beans and a few more potatoes to add to the winter supply.

It's time to see if I can make it through the winter without buying fruits and vegetables that aren't local; the exceptions being citrus and avocados (if I can find them) from California. 

My Dark days sole meal seemed too easy... potatoes, pickles I made this summer and creme fraiche.    This is a combination I found in a cookbook named Plenty by Diana Henry.  At first it seemed a little strange but then I realized that it really is a warm potato salad.  Henry suggests salmon as a possible addition to this meal.  That would be good.  I'm going to try it that way next time.

One of the things I've realized recently is how lucky I am that the area I live in can grow such a variety of food. 

Back to present making... 

dark days + local color

The "sole food:"

One of the things I've realized lately is that although most of my food is locally sourced, I do depend on a few basics that are not:  olive oil, spices, and salt.  For the Dark Days sole meal  I've decided I need to make no exceptions. 

Today's Breakfast:  a local cereal that I noticed at the co-op and hadn't gotten around to trying yet, apple from Mom and Dad's, and hazelnuts.  Yum.

No salt and no spices; not even some local honey as I'm trying to get my sweet tooth under control.

 

This would be more of a making the pantry more local update:

In my effort to replace some of the foods I've been counting as "exceptions," I decided to make some hazelnut butter as a replacement for peanut butter.  I used the directions in Stocking Up  by Carol Hupping, which gives the option of using water to start the clumping of the nuts from a flour (which is really what the nuts are at one point of grinding) to a spread. 

I do have some ground nuts set aside to try as a flour as well.  I've already done this with almonds successfully so the hazelnuts should work. 

And then for local color:

My version of Jude's rings.  I'm going to call it an egg ring or a seed ring.  I used a local red cabbage for the dye bath. 

 

let's call it cottage cheese

It started out promisingly enough, it could have been feta (what I was aiming for).  I suspect it went another direction due to temperature.  It's still very tasty.

Today I was off work a bit early.  It gave me a chance to gather a few more windfall branches and to finish off the wreath I've been making.  It's becoming a tradition to make wreaths from whatever branches fall out of the neighbor's trees during November windstorms.  The little reindeer was a gift from someone.  It looks right at home munching on a few branches.

I also started a couple dye baths with red cabbage.  One in an aluminium pan and the other in stainless steel.  Red cabbage dye baths seem to change color easily, but I always like whatever shade they become.  This one has a bit of local wool that I want to use in the sky scarf. 

Thinking about how we can adapt to what is available. 

dark days challenge: preparing for the week ahead

So I am thinking I will aim for a bit of a schedule with Dark Days posts.  Every Sunday and Wednesday I will probably post about food.  I think more than anything, joining this challenge is about posting on a regular basis about food.  It's an important part of how I express myself creatively.  I also think it sometimes takes some creativity to eat sustainably, organically, locally, and ethically, especially during the "off" season.  It would be lovely if it didn't, but that's not the world we live in yet. 

Because weekday meals have to be quicker to prepare and easy, I often spend a good part of the weekend trying special food projects or preparing basics that I will eat for the week.  For example,  I love this recipe for homemade Bouillon.  I often add it to beans, grains, pasta dishes or salad dressing during the week.  This weekend I decided to make a dehydrated version. 

I noticed some of the onions I had bought for storage were sprouting (probably not dry enough when they were harvested) so I dehydrated a handful of onions, carrots  some celery leaves and parsley.  

I placed it all in the blender with some salt and made a seasoned salt.  Or a bouillon? 

I tested it out in soup that I made with winter squash from my garden, apple from Mom and Dad's, celery and onion from the farmer's market.  Topped with a pickled crab apple; one of my other experiments this weekend. 

I pickled both crab apples and seckle pears.  They are supposed to sit for a month before eating, but I just couldn't wait to try a few.  Oh so good!  

Some of the squash  was also used in a salad.  I sauteed it with raisins, hazelnuts and spices and then put it on top of a green salad with cheese. 

There are two more pieces of squash in the fridge that I will eat this week.  Not sure how yet. 

And then there is the project I am waiting on right now:

I am making feta.  This is my second attempt (lesson learned from first batch, less salt), but the first time with cow's milk (might have a little less tangy-ness).   I'll try to have more info on this up on Wednesday. 

__________________________

The break down for  2 meals plus 3 prepared foods

Local and organic:  onion, carrot, parsley, celery, squash, apple, vinegar, ginger (yep, isn't that cool!), lettuce, raisins, and hazelnuts.

Local but not organic: milk, butter (I made it from local cream), and cheese.  Local but not organic is something I need to look a bit closer at.  The milk and cream come in glass bottles.  I have chosen to go that route over local and organic and in plastic. 

Organic but not local:  Pepper, pears, cinnamon, sugar,  and olive oil.  The only one there that I should have used would be the pepper and cinnamon; the rest I could have found substitutes for.  For the pears, I could have sliced larger local pears.  For the sugar in the pickled fruit, honey of course!  Instead of olive oil, I could have used hazelnut oil or left it out. 

Not organic or probably organic but I don't remember for sure: spices used with the squash, the salt, vegetable rennet, and culture for the cheese. 

Ethical and sustainable?  I believe so! 

 

 

Dark Days Challenge: eating from local food sources

This year I've decided to participate in the Dark Days of winter eat local Challenge . The goal is to eat a meal once a week sourced only from sustainable, organic, local, ethical sources and to blog at least once a week about our efforts.

For the past three years or so I've made sure that most of my food is either local or purchased bulk all year long,  so I know I can do a couple meals each week.    We have some great resources in this area and I've figured out pretty well how much I need to preserve to get me through the winter. 

The big challenge for me is to make sure I don't cut back on the amount of fruits and vegetable I should eat, just to maintain eating locally.  To balance eating a healthy diet with being local, even through the hardest month, March.... 

Also, in addition to at least the one sustainable, organic, local, ethical meal per week, I want to work on is replacing some of the foods that I buy bulk with local options.  Hazelnut butter rather than peanut butter.  Honey rather than sugar (which I've been changing over to for several months now).  That kind of thing.

I can be a little more creative with the food choices I think. 

 

 

practice makes pie

 

And other things.

I am often asked on the bus if it is hard to learn to knit.  I have to answer that I honestly don't know.  I learned to knit while I was a child.  And to crochet and to make pie. 

(This pie was made with half oat flour and half wheat.  It turned out very well.)

Thinking a lot today about when and how we learn skills. 

Spinning is a new skill for me (about one year).  Spent an hour or so practicing plying this morning.  Oh what fun!

Practice, practice is an important part of it all. 

That, and a willingness to play. 

That's what I was doing with the geranium leaves when I realized they made a rather nice flower. 

P.S.  The photo of Briar and I is ten years old now.  It was taken right after her first bath. 

P.P.S  I think the secret to good pie crust is to use just enough water to hold the crust together, that the water should be cold (and the butter if that is what you are using for a fat), and to not overwork the dough.  I specialize in rustic looking pies rather than re-roll. 

 

quince + a few memories

Recently I checked out The River Cottage Preserves Handbook by Pam Corbin from the library.  I need to find a copy for my collection.  Certainly I want it so I can try several of the recipes... but this passage was what really made me smile:

You don't need to turn the clock back far, just a couple generations to the 1950's when to own a home refrigerator or a freezer was considered opulent, and of course fresh foods didn't arrive each day of the week, each week of the year, by air and sea from all corners of the globe..." 

That little bit reminded me of a story my parents tell of when we lived in a small village in South Eastern Alaska.  At that time mail came in once every two weeks, by float plane, weather permitting.   My grandparents, being aware of the lack of fresh food we were eating, decided to mail some fresh green beans from the garden to us.  Unfortunately weather did not permit and the green beans did not arrive fresh.  As the story goes, the pilot of the plane was not happy. 

This shipment was much more successful.  The quince my grandmother mailed me, plus a bit from my own shrub, made the most beautiful quince paste/cheese (a preserve that is like fruit butter but cooked longer).  I used the recipe from the cookbook mentioned above.  It is the first time quince has turned pink for me when I cooked it.  I'm not sure if it was the directions to cook the quince peel, seeds and all or if it was the cook until mushy and then let sit for several hours that did the trick, but either way I'll be following this recipe again. 

Next recipe to try:  Honeyed hazels.  Or maybe Spiced Pickled Pears...

one fall day

 

Cold and sunny.  A perfect day to work in the garden, start a new dye pot (it's the water that the goldenrod was in with a variety of leaves added) and go to the farmer's market.

There is snow/rain mix in the long range forecast.  That has to be "taken with a grain of salt" around here. But it has been cold.  We are certainly moving into another season. 

 

I never thought celery would become a seasonal food for me.  I had an apple/blue cheese/celery salad for lunch and peanut butter and celery for a snack.

I'll be making celery salt with the leaves, a season of another sort. 

gifts from the family

I'm not sure how old I was when I figured out that Clarence and Lucille weren't biologically related to us.   I think one of my brother's didn't figure it out until he was a teenager.  They were just always there...for family events and in family stories. 

My grandmother recently sent me this.  A set of pillowcases with tatted edging that Lucille made. 

It's something I'll treasure. 

 

My grandmother also sent me some quince.  I poached some of it and then made a yogurt cake (I used oat flour and whole wheat) with quince and blackberries.  Rather than stir the fruit into the batter, I placed it on the top of the cake before baking.  Worked much better this way...

one moment

Today I realized one of the gifts of taking a photo is just to be in the moment...one magical moment caught:

And a kitchen update:  the feta is a tad bit salty but good.  I'll be making it again.

P.S.  I couldn't stand it and switched th blog back!  Let me know if it is still requiring a sign in and I'll play with the settings.  I have a choice now! 

being local: cheese making and other Sunday projects

I decided it was time to try making a different kind of cheese.  I chose Feta.  This is after it was drained and before I cut and salted it.  It won't really be ready to eat until Friday.  Right now it tastes like mild goat cheese. 

I also made farm cheese with the last of the milk I had.  This recipe for ricotta is a great place to start if anyone is interested in making cheese. 

Made a yummy lunch with pesto, tomatoes, and walnuts.  The basil and tomatoes are from the garden. The last of the basil and the tomatoes are winding down.

 

This experiment had mixed results.  It's gluten free foccacia.  One of my favorite uses for the grapes from the garden is to use them as a topping on bread.  I'm not sure if the moisture from the grapes made the bread gummy or something else (since I've never made this recipe before), but the middle is still a bit raw.  It did, however, taste really good and  I'm hoping it will toast well. 

As for the tale of two pots:

My sample fabrics are the same color. 

 

less than a five dollar dinner

Today I found a challenge that was something I just had to try, making dinner for five dollars or less.  Why five dollars?  It's the price of an average fast-food value meal. 

I know that I treated myself to a mocha and a cookie this week that cost more than that.

Dinner came in at $1.61 a person, plus I had a glass of wine that would work out to somewhere between $1.50-$2.00.

Zucchini stuffed with quinoa, corn, bell pepper, a touch of walnut, a few spices and topped with cheese.  With a yogurt-basil dressing.  So good...

And all organic, all local except for the quinoa (but was organic) which was purchased in the bulk section at the co-op.  Time to make, less than an hour. 

I think I can still afford a serving of strawberries for desert. 

Berries won't be arround much longer.  It's certainly autumn.

The fall crocus are here. 

second leaf

Normally I photograph and save the first autumn leaf that catches my eye.  This year it is the second.  The first one is lost somewhere, perhaps pressed between two pieces of paper where I thought it would be safe? (I found it the last week of August.)

This is the one I noticed this morning.  Along one of the paths I normally walk there were many, many leaves to choose from already.  For the next couple months I will probably be picking up leaves every day. It is something I tend to do every year.

This will have to happen every year too. 

Plum crumble.

"Actually" (to quote a 2 year old I know), maybe more than once. 

 

eating local: pancakes, pizza, and mint ice cream

Pancakes:

At the beginning of the summer there are strawberries, and then I usually can pick all the raspberries I want to eat or preserve, and then blueberries.  By the end of August I have to buy berries again (saving what's in the freezer for winter).  I really savor these, knowing that the season will be over soon...

I'm still experimenting with not eating much wheat and less dairy.  It's been fun trying new foods or using foods in new ways.    The pancakes were made with oat flour (Washington flour), an egg from Chattanooga, almond milk that I made and baking powder. 

Pizza

I've been experimenting with pizza crusts too.  Topped with homemade roasted vegetable sauce, zucchini, onions,peppers, roasted corn and homemade ricotta type cheese. 

I make a farm style cheese about every other week.  I'm not very exact about it.  Just bring what milk I have to an almost boil and then start adding vinegar a tablespoon or so at a time until it curdles.  I then strain the curds from the whey.  Sometimes I press the curds into a jar to mold it, other times I take a fork and stir it up a bit.  Sometimes it gets stringy while I'm cooking it so I knead it a bit after I strain the whey off;  that makes it mozzarella-like. It's really easy, really....

I like that it's not quite exact.

 Mint ice cream

Although this batch of ice cream was made with a bit of sugar, I've been experimenting with sweetening with agave, honey and brown rice syrup.  All seem to work well in ice cream. If I'd made this with honey I would be able to say it was 100% local.  For flavoring I steeped the cream/milk mixture with mint from the garden.  I'll be making more. 

The chocolate sauce is made with agave and cocoa powder and is definitely going to be made again too.  I found the recipe in Raw Energy by Stephanie Tourles.

Now it's dinner time...time to go play in the kitchen some more!  Some kind of salad  I think. 

day twenty-four: thinnings

 

Editing, pruning, cropping, thinning.  Processes that make space, that allow growth.

Dinner tonight, with eggs. 

Minus the dirt. 

 

day fourteen: gluten free pasta

After finishing the elimination diet I tried last month, I decided to keep wheat and dairy to a minimum.  Not having achy joints and congestion is so worth it.  With that in mind I've been researching and trying gluten free recipes.  My favorite source for recipes so far has been Gluten Free Girl and The Chef.  I checked their cookbook out from the library and liked it so much I bought a copy.  I've also tried several recipes from their blog. 

Most recently, I made gluten free pasta. I didn't follow the recipe as written, I'm pretty much incapable of doing that...but I didn't stray too far.  The pasta turned out fantastic! 

As for the rest, it's a combination of Swiss chard, zucchini, toasted walnuts, basil, a bit of my homemade tomato paste and Parmesan. 

Oh yum! 

in season: food choices

Saturday mornings often start with paging through cookbooks and making lists.  This morning was no exception...

My newest cookbook at the moment is Super Natural Everyday by Heidi Swanson.  I'm finding lots of intriguing recipes in both the cookbook and at her blog that support how I've been changing my diet; most importantly at this time, less sugar. 

After 3 weeks without dairy, wheat, sugar and a few other things I am feeling different enough to know that I was eating too much of these foods.  I don't have any extreme allergies or intolerance's, as I've reintroduced everything and still feel great, but I am also amazed at how much better I feel.  More energy, less congestion, no stiff joints. 

One of the recipes I tried today was for power bars.  They came out tasty but crumbly...I will try it again with just a tad less dry ingredients to see if it holds together better. 

I also tried fine-tuning my mocha recipe:

This week I've been sweetening my coffee with honey.  Today I added some chocolate to the honey.  I melted about 1 ounce of chocolate in about 1/4 cup honey.  I added about a tablespoon to my espresso along with some hazelnut milk.  Tastes very, very good.

And then there was dinner.  Swiss chard that I shredded and marinated with a bit of apple cider vinegar and olive oil, bread from the farmer's market, and a bean burger made using a recipe from Daniel Orr's cookbook, Farm Food.  I tweaked the recipe a lot so after I test it out again I may post a recipe. It's made with black beans, lentils, wheat berries and a few other things.

I loved it! 

Now there are more dishes to do.

 

eating local: cream cheese and lettuce

I recently read that lettuce was one of the most cost effective crops that a person could grow...

$2.50 to $3.00 for a head of lettuce today at the farmer's market (organic).  A bag of baby lettuce for $6.00. 

I think it was about three dollars for the packet of organic/local lettuce seed.  There are a few radishes mixed in here too.  I'll be gently selecting and moving a few of these to let grow into head lettuce and then eating the rest as baby lettuce, probably ready in a couple weeks. My verdict: yes, much more cost effective to grow myself. 

It was also more cost effective to make my own cream cheese using organic/local half and half and culture rather than buying packaged cream cheese.  About half the price.  I used directions from Home Cheese Making by Ricki Carroll.  Very yummy too.

in season: growing sourdough

One thing to remember:  If you want it to grow, you have to feed it and stir it occasionally. It survived...

 And it is tasty...

Thinking about the similarities between the moon cycle and making sourdough....

catalysts

This morning as I was knitting and reading (I go back and forth between the two when I'm reading something I want to savour.), I started considering catalysts.  Like how a bit of vinegar added to warmed milk will create cheese curds and whey.

The catalyst for that train of thought was probably the fact that I found the sourdough starter I'd fed the night before had boiled over.  No picture, it wasn't a pretty sight. 

Note to self:  Use a larger container for the sour dough starter. 

homemade candy, it's the green choice

Unfortunately I have a horrible sweet tooth, especially for chocolate.  Finding out about some of the problems with mainstream chocolate might have curbed me of the problem, or maybe the price of fair trade chocolate.  But it didn't.  There is another solution, make your own! 

The easy solution is a handful of fair trade, organic chocolate chips and a handful of local hazelnuts.  That's my daily (umm... did I say daily, meant to say more usual, yeah that's it, usual.) solution.  For this time of year, I indulged a little bit.  Homemade truffles.  Super easy, made with chocolate chips, local butter, and local cream.  I was too lazy to roll them into balls, so they are truffle chunks. 

I also decided to try homemade caramels and will never buy a store bought caramel ever again.  Like the truffles, they are very simple, just takes a lot of time and stirring.  There wasn't quite enough organic corn syrup for the recipe so I added a little brown rice syrup.  It doesn't seem to make a difference. 

A traditional candy for my family this time of year is candied orange peel.  My mother has made these for as long as I can remember.   It's kinda funny to see this candy becoming so trendy.  If anyone is trying this candy, be sure to save the syrup that the orange peels are cooked in and the sugar that the peels are rolled in for sweetening something.  I use it for tea or for cookies.

I have to confess that I've gone around the green bend.  There was some whipping cream in the 'fridge that had been forgotten and was a little past date.  What occurs first?  Making butter and then making shortbread cookies with the butter. 

I've been nibbling on all this too much and should go for a walk, but the wind is starting to kick up and it's switching between snow and cold rain right now.  And I don't think Briar really wants to go anymore....

 
And a last note, I'm having way too much fun with a filter that I found, Poladroid  (via pia jane bijkerk) and taking pictures of the snow.  So much fun that I set up a photo album,  "captured winter" (over in the side bar), if anyone wants to look at a few more images. 

P.S. for mom:  the truffles taste completely different than your fudge, so be sure to save me some.  Unfortuantely the truffles are gone.  I'd be happy to make more.   :) 

eating from the pantry and cooking by the seat of my pants

I love to cook, to read cookbooks, and to not follow recipes.  Cooking is a creative act for me and a meal is often the result of "Hmm...what have I got and what can I do with it?"

I think that eating with local and seasonal ingredients sometimes calls for some risk taking, seat of the pants combinations.   

This started with some tomato sauce.  The container that I had froze the sauce in had fallen out of the freezer and an edge on the corner (one of my few remaining plastic containers) chipped.  I popped the sauce out, put it in a bowl and let it defrost in the fridge.  That was on Thursday. 

Today's shopping included a trip to the farmer's market and to the local fish store.  I ended up with some sole, some Oregon shrimp, cauliflower, and the tomato sauce.  I decided it could work together somehow, and it did.   

Here's a very flexible recipe in case anyone is interested in trying this.

Ingredients for one person:  1/2 cup bay shrimp, 2 small fillets of sole, 1 cup cooked spaghetti, 1/2 cup roasted cauliflower (cauliflower was roasted in a 375 degree oven and was coated with a bit of olive oil, salt and pepper), a pinch of herbs, 1 cup tomato sauce,  a little less than a tablespoon of butter and enough pepper, salt, and flour to coat the fish.

Here's what I did:
1.  First I started the spaghetti and put the cauliflower in the oven. 
2.  Next I coated the fish with flour, salt, a pinch of herbs (mine's a mixed blend of Italian) and cooked it in the butter.  I baked mine in the oven 'cause it was on for the cauliflower.  If you want to try this, melt the butter in the pan and then add the fish to the pan.  My fish cooked in about 5 minutes. 
3.  When the spaghetti was done, I drained it and returned it to the cooking pot.  I added the sauce and another small pinch of herbs.
4.  I then added the shrimp and heated the mixture until everything was hot and the sauce had cooked down a bit.
5.   The cauliflower (hot from the oven) was stirred in just before I decided the sauce was where I wanted it.
6.   Then I placed the pasta mixture in a low shallow bowl.  I put the sole on top and broke it up just a little bit.  And finally, a little sprinkle of parsley from the garden (that I ran out to get in the dark and the rain, 'cause it just needed something more when I put everything else in the dish).

I'll do this again.  At least, some version of it.... 

Tomatillio soup-an almost recipe

I was making tomatillio salsa when I had a "Hmm.. I wonder" moment.

A couple years ago I found a recipe for tomatillio soup in a magazine that I just loved.  When I went to look for it earlier this summer, it was missing in action (the dog probably ate it).  I recreated it from memory as best as I could and decided it was just all right. 

As I was stirring the salsa, I started  wondering what it would be like to use the salsa as the basis for a soup.  So I thinned about 3/4 of a cup of the salsa with chicken broth, brought it to a boil, and then stirred in about 1 1/2 small corn tortillas that were diced.  It was simmered  until the tortillas dissolved into the broth.  The tortillas thicken the soup.  And then I topped it with some more tortillas that were crisped in some olive oil and some plain yogurt.  Oh so good!  This was just enough for me, by the way. 

I wish I had a clearer idea about copyright and recipes, because I'm pretty pleased with this one and would love to share. 

Eating from the garden and the pantry

From the garden:  strawberries, sour cherries, lettuce, peas, and the first of the potatoes.

Local:  eggs (Mom and Dad), honey, hazelnuts, beef, butter, and flour (Pacific Northwest wheat and ground locally).  The pottery is pretty much  local too. 

The bread is Brioche dough that I fried.  What a yummy way to use up eggs.   I froze some of the dough so more can be made....

Ate some of the cherries on locally made ice cream. 

Eating from the garden: rose petals as flavoring

I've been wanting to experiment with rose petals as a flavoring for food for quite some time and finally got a chance.

The roses used were from a heirloom cabbage rose.   I've tried two different things.

My first experiment was to make a rose cream custard.  I used a recipe from an old magazine I had.  Probably any pudding type recipe would work.  The rose petals were infused in the milk mixture, strained out, and then the rest of the ingredients added.  All ingredients for this were local, except for some sugar.

The results?  Well, it's a little rich to eat much of.  That might be the results of the custard recipe (6 egg yolks). Rose flavored custard  would be nice for a tea party.   

Since I wasn't having a tea party, I did have to decide what to do with a couple servings.  Here's where I got results that I really liked-the custard went into a smoothie.  The one picture is actually a raspberry smoothie (last year's raspberries-cleaning out the freezer).  For the rose custard smoothie I used 1 cup of plain yogurt, a cup of the custard and 1 strawberry.  Very tasty.  Especially the second smoothie made.  After making the first smoothie, I froze the rest of the custard.  Freezing the custard made a better texture. 

My second rose petal experiment is steeping in the refrigerator.  I'm making rose infused white wine.  I'm going to use some of it in some type of recipe as a replacement for vanilla.  I'll probably start with a butter cookie of some sort.  It would probably have worked better if I had used vodka instead of white wine, but I wasn't going to make it to the store the night I got started on this project.   More on this experiment later.   

From the pantry: dried apples.

One of the most important things I think I've learned about eating local over the last year, is the importance of having food stored for the time of the year when there are less local foods to choose from. 

As the season of having so many more food choices approaches, I'm thinking a lot about what I want to preserve, how much to save and how to preserve it.  It's also shaped what food crops are being grown in the garden. 

The apple muffins are a great example of something done right.  For these muffins I used apples from my tree that I had dried last summer.   To use them for baking I soaked the apples in boiling water, diced them and then added them (and some local walnuts) to my favorite muffin recipe.  Very yummy.  The spread is locally made goat cheese.  I was told by the cheese maker that it freezes very well!   

The apples have also been very tasty in oatmeal.  I've been dicing them and then adding the apples at the beginning of the cooking time for the oats.

Drying more apples is definitely on the "To-do" list.