Just eat together.

When I started this blog, my goal was to post at least once a month, and I've met that goal until recently. My spouse is in the armed forces and, of late, frequently away from home for long stretches, leaving adult energy stretched thin down here South of Sunnybrook.

I've always been a big fan of family dinners. I loved them when I was a kid, and I love them now. I find it harder to have regular family meals when the other adult is gone, but the ritual of dinner, the giving of thanks and sharing with each other, this is what keeps us sane.

I think the idea of family dinner can be intimidating sometimes. But a bucket of fried chicken around the table is "family dinner." Baked potatoes and broccoli is family dinner. I prefer homemade, but it certainly doesn't have to be fancy.

"It is what it is"

And on the night I took the picture above, I'd been working for a day or two at one end of the table, with beans drying at the other end, and the kids had colored there in the afternoon.  As you can see, we just scooped out spaces for our plates and lit the candles (which "makes it special" according to my kids). By the time the fish was ready, I just didn't have the energy to lead a full-on table clearing, so I let it go.

Sometimes the perfect is the enemy of the good. On this night, we laughed, and shared, and had a great time surrounded by the detritus of our busy, bountiful lives.

Share time. Offer gratitude. Eat together.

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And just after I posted this, a friend shared this link on Facebook. Quote: "...life on this little blue planet is too precious and fragile to be spent lamenting crusted Raisin Bran in the sink. That what really matters is grace, forgiveness, and understanding. And love. Always, unequivocally and without fail, love."

Sugar Cereal

Sugar cereal and Saturday morning cartoons

I joked recently on Facebook about how Southerners run to the store for milk and bread if snow is forecast, and a friend joked back "You buy groceries? I thought you guys were self-sustaining." 

It got me to thinking about how often living a simpler, more sustainable life can seem daunting in our media-saturated, consumer culture. For me, it's all about making very small changes. I'm not an all-or-nothing person. And, for the record, I have no desire to be self-sustaining, though "community-sustaining" is certainly a goal.

We talk as a family about our goals, and then find ourselves buying more organic, more local. Food is sacred. It literally creates us anew. Some Buddhist practices teach that how food is grown and prepared impacts not just the body, but the soul as well. Food prepared with a bad attitude causes a kind of metaphysical/spiritual damage, just like eating food full of hormones and pesticides can cause physical harm. 

So yes, the goal is to prepare healthy food with love...but it's also important to be honest and objective about where we are now. It's rather like filling a Facebook feed with a bevvy of gardening posts; it can mistakenly give people the impression that one is feeding a family of four from a flowerbed garden. (For the record, probably 10% of our food comes from our own garden + my dad's garden, though hopefully more as time goes on.)

Similarly, when shopping with my children recently, my 7-year-old son asked, "so mommy, is sugar cereal so bad we really should never eat it?" That gave me pause. In the pause, my son pointed out, "Well, we used to eat it once a year, on vacation, but we didn't do that this year. Is once a year okay?"

Pretty sure those honeycrisp apples in the background are not organic either.

"Yes, once a year is certainly fine," I said. "......so let's get the little boxes so we can try a lot of different things." This suggestion was well received, and then gave us the opportunity to read labels, to look at packaging claims (like "Good source of VITAMIN D"), to consider degrees of processing for different foods, and to discuss what choices mean for our bodies and the greater world to which we are connected. I love buying the little boxes, which you can cut open and use as a "bowl" of sorts. I always wanted to try even one of these as a kid, but it was completely verboten, and I coveted those little boxes.

In our world, as it exists today, we cannot avoid chemical pesticides and fertilizers. Even if I only consumed what I grow here myself (assuming I could grow enough), I would get some runoff from my uphill neighbor, or from the bird that eats it elsewhere and poops in my garden, or my wheat is cross-pollinated with GMO wheat, etc. There is no perfect, chemical-free, food-world....but this doesn't mean that my choices don't make a difference!!

Nowadays, I buy only organic strawberries and spinach. I buy organic bananas, unless they just look horrible (only usually about 10 cents/lb more than alternative). I buy organic apples about 80% of the time. (I have tried to begin with foods containing the most pesticides and petrochemicals, and/or the cheaper organic alternatives, and work from there.) And nowadays I buy sugar cereal once a year. We don't have to be all-or-nothing. The journey toward sustainability and moderation, for me, is made up of many, many small steps. 

Walk with me, hold my hand, and we won't run this race in vain!

I also have to share that my kids self-rationed these little boxes to last for several weeks, saving the last two for the Saturday morning after Thanksgiving. They didn't gorge, like I did on sugar cereal when I got to college. I found this to be very interesting, and pretty cool. For them, it's a "sometimes food," just for fun...a tiny bit of Yin that must exist in the Yang.

Dog Days: Garden Tour August 2013

Espalier

In the transition to edible landscaping, I have to practice patience, as I wait for the blueberries to reach their mature height of 5-6' (still another year or two off). My fig is a cutting from the fig that grew outside my bedroom window when I was a girl. (That espaliered tomato on the left is Matt's Wild Cherry, by the way, which only needed the merest help from a small trellis to grow right up the wall!)

Breakfast

The figs are ripening now, and are an amazing treat halfway through a gardening "workout". This fig is the direct descendant of the very first fig I ever tasted. 

Brandywine

My tomato harvest this year is paltry, compared to years past. I planted them late and staked them late. I put them in my sheet-mulched bed, which I am still finishing, so things there had to fend on their own, in large part. I was a little surprised to see how well my Brandywine (started from seed, no less!) fared, so you can bet I'll plant that one every year. This plant is beautiful, and I expect it to keep producing till frost. 

Chard

This is the first year I planted chard, which has stayed lush and delicious all spring and summer! Excellent sauteed, or made into a "sauce" with ricotta cheese (thank you, Moosewood Cooks at Home, for a recipe so delicious my 5-year-old requested leftovers for breakfast). 

Pollination

My favorite new "edible landscaping" structure is my stone circle in the middle of the yard. This year, I planted it with Scarlet Runner Beans to form a teepee (that yes, the kids can play in). I planning to rotate crops here. After the first frost, I'll put in a cover crop, along with diggables (garlic, shallot, maybe some carrots), do a design with different color lettuces in the spring, then tomatoes for summer.

Spicy

Porch

I've had good luck with pepper plants this year, including one in a pot on the front porch. Jalapenos, a "salsa" pepper from a local nursery, and sweet red peppers are all *almost* ready to harvest. The spicy salsa peppers are ready when they turn red (maybe two more weeks, now that they've gone from green to yellow).

Fallow

This time last year, my front beds were bursting with tomatoes and flowers. This year, as I've cut back herbs and removed spent flowers and cabbages, I've left spots bare/mulched, so as to plant fall vegetables. Above, you can see the bottom of the cherry tomato from the first picture. All those small bunches of green plants scattered across the bareness are oregano and parsley that have self-seeded (or been moved by me in clumps). By October, they'll have filled in the areas around the fall vegetables, acting as ground cover. 

Autumn

First starts for fall: cauliflower, broccoli, chard (many colors), fennel, mustard green, kale.

As an aside, I learned this year that "Dog Days" aren't really in August at all, but are in July. They

Loving Edible Landscaping!

Picked from my "hedges" this morning!

Crock bread falls flat, twice

This Spring, I saw a really intriguing link on my Facebook feed that said "You can cook Bread in your Crock Pot! - It takes less time than the oven because the rising time is included in the Baking."  Despite the weird capitalization, I was intrigued!

Not my slow-cooker bread

I did a quick web search for "slow cooker bread" since that Facebook page did not include the URL from which the pictures originated (a huge peeve of mine). Thankfully, the blog was easy to find, and you can read the original post here. She uses an artisan bread, which I cook regularly, so I was ready to go.

According to the directions, you place ~1 lb. of dough in your crock pot on parchment and turn it on high. In one hour, you have delicious bread! 

That sounds so simple.....

Here is my dough, ready to go, in my 8-quart slow cooker. I added the lid and turned it to high.

One hour later: the dough flattened (instead of rising) and was gummy and raw. The lid was beginning to take on a lot of moisture, so I cracked it a bit, so as not to soak the loaf. I held out hope.

Two hours later: still not done. I finally pulled it out around the 3-hour mark, and the results were...flat. Here you can see the crock loaf (l) next to one baked in the oven (r).

Despite these bad results, I remained undeterred. Perhaps the 8-quart slow cooker was too big or too hot. I read the comments on the original blog post and decided to try my 1-quart crock instead. A crock uses a lot less energy than an oven, plus no hot kitchen in summer, right? I had to give it another go.

Dough ready to go in my 1-quart crock. Fingers crossed.

Once again, it took several hours to achieve anything approximating "done."
While it did not flatten, due to lack of room in the crock, there was no rising.
Here, the "finished loaf" at 2-ish hours is not terribly appetizing.

Second crock loaf (l) is the same height as oven-baked (r), but horridly doughy and dense
due to lack of rise.  The oven loaf spreads a bit, then rises, and has a wonderful texture. I even put the top of the crock-"baked" loaf under the broiler, so it had an even color, but it tasted awful anyway.

 After having zero rise on the second loaf, I decided this method is not for me, unless I get helpful feedback in the comments. The artisan bread takes at most one hour, and I'd rather fire up the oven for a consistent, successful result loved by the whole family than keep trying at the crock.

If you get different results, let me know. If you're only moderately interested in slow-cooker bread, because you want to try something new, I recommend trying instead the Soft 100% Whole Wheat Dinner Rolls from An Oregon Cottage. They are soft and tasty...and I made them without a stand mixer, several times, with consistent, delicious results!

Inside My Fridge - June 1, 2013

Roasted marinated mushrooms, pear custard bars (using up the giant block of cream cheese on the bottom shelf), pears, grapes, avocados, various fruits, giant bag of broccoli, water kefir (delish!). After taking this picture, I realized the only meat is some pepperoni in the cheese drawer. Interesting. We have plenty in the freezer, I promise, though less than I used to store.

Lunch from the Garden

Sink full of freshness: spinach, lettuce, chard, peas, strawberries.

The best part of "edible landscaping" is doing the munching. There is nothing like picking your lunch! Truly, I have a garden to entice my kids to try new things....and it works, if you're patient. Besides, if something doesn't taste good, spit it on the ground! Mulch!

"Leaves and carrots," she calls it, with homemade ranch dressing.

Mine is sauteed with garlic, butter, and olive oil. Tastes like spring!

from "Grow Food, Not Lawns"

https://www.facebook.com/GrowFoodNotLawns

Still Life Goes Fast

I sometimes buy flowers to decorate my home, but more often I prefer to decorate with what is available. Pruned edges of plants become a dramatic arrangement, dried crape myrtle blossoms are miniature "winter tulips", fresh blooms and herbs brighten a kitchen window or table. Bring the outside in, keep it simple, find beauty in something that would otherwise be mundane.

 As I was walking around the house a few days ago, enjoying the warm breezes through all the open doors and windows, I realized that I usually have fruit placed throughout the house (more in the cool winter than summer), and I thought of all the wonderful Still Life art featuring a bounty of fruit and everyday objects, so I snapped a few pictures.

Consider yourself warned: these "still life" arrangements go fast if you have growing children around. So why relegate these wonderful colors to the refrigerator? I say enjoy the beauty, meditate on the impermanence of life, and then have a snack.

First Time Spring Rolling

I need more practice, which I'll get because these were a hit with the kids! 

Maybe next time we'll try them with some shrimp or fish.

Spring Sprung

Butterflies flock to the phlox.

 This bright green Heuchera with red accents lights up the shade all year.

 Lettuce seedlings in pot.

 Sherwood Purple creeping phlox -- lovely in shade.

 Solomon's Seal - another shade bed beauty.

 Baby spinach - get it before the five-year-old nibbles it all.

 Virginia Bluebells = shade stunner

 Tomato seedlings for the Fifth Annual FUUN Herb & Craft Fair. 

Bleeding Heart Dicentra (yes, shade).

More to come soon. The spouse has been gone for six months, and apparently this blog is what finally fell through the cracks. But I have been busy! My sheet mulch/lasagna bed is almost ready for planting, and I have a lovely start to my edible front yard....soon to come. Happy Spring!