Reality Sink

Morning Sink

Wednesday, 11/20/2014, 7 a.m.

Ditching the produce bags, made easy

Plastic is one of the miracles of modern life. Using plastic in cars makes them lighter and more fuel-efficient. Plastics might help people "feel" their prosthetic limbs (which are also made with plastic) . The computer I'm typing on is made with a good bit of plastic.

I don't have a problem with plastic, per se, but with "disposable plastic" -- all the single-use items that have come to define our Disposable Society that trades short-term convenience for long-term headaches. Plastic bags are the second-most common type of ocean refuse (after cigarette butts), and they stay toxic even after they break down. In the U.S., we use 100 billion of these single-use bags every year, costing retailers some $4 billion annually.

Plastic shopping bags at my house generally get at most one more use, usually lining a bathroom trash can, which is more than I can say for the flimsy produce bags. And once I got to thinking about it, I didn't see the inherent need to put little individual baggies around everything. What harm will truly come from the red bell pepper touching the zucchini?

Managing fine without the single-use baggies.

Using the hand basket in my cart at the grocery store is super-simple way to avoid the produce bags. I've found that it's quite easy to arrange the produce in groups in the grocery checkout line so that (1) the checker can ring things up in a group, and (2) I can ensure that firmer items like onions and potatoes get rung up/bagged first, and softer things like peaches/pears go on top. 

As you can see from my grocery cart, I don't avoid plastic altogether (the deli meat is in a single-use bag), but I do my best to limit it. Ideally I'd bring my own container for the deli meat, but at this point I am doing well to remember my reusable bags, so the bonus here is that I don't have to remember anything!

You can buy reusable produce bags for as little as a few dollars each, but I've been shopping this way for more than a year now and truly don't see the need.

No change is too small.

Inside My Fridge - September 29, 2014

Hurrah! I cleaned out the fridge!

I've got a pot of beans in the back, and I think I'm going to try some red bean hummus. I've become a bean convert after reading (and subsequently purchasing) An Everlasting Meal; cooking them with Tamar Adler's method and mindset yields an abundance of blessings, for both palate and soul.

It's a busy week, but I think we're in good shape. In the foil packs are leftover chicken ( which I am planing to freeze for easy chicken-noodle soup on the first chilly/rainy day) and country ribs (which I can't eat so spouse will probably take for lunch). We've got plenty of fruit (there are still local-ish peaches here, but they're going fast), cucumbers, squash, tons of yellow peppers from my dad, two pints of yogurt and a little half-pint of almond pesto. You can see some homemade sauerkraut on the top shelf; I've been making an active effort to consume more fermented items, and find that this crunchy kraut is great on a sandwich!

Also (not pictured) I have my first butternut and acorn squash, though I know I'll pick up several more at our last Farmer's Market. I'm thinking to do soup with white beans for the acorn squash, and probably roast the butternut and toss with pasta and the rest of that leftover chicken. I also have a few Brandywines I need to pick before the critters get to them and one gorgeous eggplant that will probably have to become Eggplant Parmesan.

I really love Eggplant Parm, but if no one else was enthusiastic about it, I'd probably make that dish once during the growing season, and just roast or sauté the eggplant the rest of the time (which the kids will eat, but not much and not with gusto). This will be the third time this summer for me to make this dish, and it's because...well, who could say "no" to a 6-year-old who begs for eggplant? Not me!

Inside My Fridge - August 15, 2014

Why do I share pictures of what's inside my fridge? Well, as I said on my first post on the subject (four years ago), I initially planned for this to be a weekly series. In America, where children routinely go hungry each day, we throw away almost half of our food. It boggles the mind. 

Frugality is not just about "not buying stuff" or "not spending money," but about using what we have, using it all. To that end, a weekly cleaning and assessment of the fridge ensures that we find items before they go bad, so that we can use them up. The weekly "Inside My Fridge" picture was meant to be a vehicle for me for refrigerator cleaning, and some meal planning. If you click on the "Inside My Fridge" tab at the top of this blog, however, you'll see that I quickly abandoned the weekly commitment.

I didn't clean my fridge pre-picture, but I have a pretty good idea of what's in most of the fridge right now. The majority of those tomatoes will go into a sauce for pizza tonight. Pizza is also the plan for the chunks of fresh mozzarella in the jar by the peanut butter, and for the roasted zucchini slices in the jar to the left of the basket of oranges. I ran out of containers, so my cantaloupe is covered with plastic wrap; I'm happy to report that plastic wrap is used rarely in our home these days.

I've been experimenting with sourdough lately, so you can see my jar up yeast up there on the top shelf, next to a "mixed berry" homemade yogurt. The white crock is full of yogurt to strain/flavor tomorrow. Today, I'm making pickles with cucumbers, and with onions/peppers!

If you haven't seen a fridge picture in a while, send me a challenge! Post on my Facebook page Becky's Favorite Things: https://www.facebook.com/MakeYourFavoriteThings and ask me to post a picture....right now!, or post your own there if you're feelin' froggy.

And if you find refrigerators as fascinating as I do, you'll enjoy visiting my initial inspiration for the "Inside My Fridge" project, Mark Menjivar's "You Are What You Eat" project (warning: his pictures are much more professional than mine!).

My Neighbor's Garden: tomato in the flowerbed

My very first post on this blog was about planting edible landscaping, and my first foray into that endeavor was putting squash into my flowerbeds. In the four years since, I've gradually been digging up and planting my only prime, full-sun space...which is the front yard. 

Now, I live in a rural/suburban area, and several of my neighbors have always had gardens. But this year, I've seen all sorts of wonderful edibles springing up in front of people's houses, and I decided I want to start sharing some of them. The house above is one I pass by daily, when I take my dog for a walk. Sometimes I chat with an older gentleman who has a morning cigarette on his porch. There are always lovely flowers/bulbs blooming here, and it's always a treat to pass by. This year, I was really pleased to see a few tomato plants keeping the flowers company (you can spot a few ripe ones if you look closely!).

Keep it growing folks!

Soothing Body Balm, with Lemon & Lavender

 

I have fairly dry skin, especially in the winter. I used to slather my face with Vaseline before bed, but wanted to find a non-petroleum alternative (FYI, aquaphor is 41% petrolatum). I began experimenting, trying many formulas and ingredients, and this is my official "Becky's Body Balm" recipe. It is soothing, moisturizing, and chock-full of great stuff for your skin!

I started out making it as just a blend of oils, but it was too....oily. The beeswax helps a lot. If you make your own, experiment with varying proportions of ingredients to suit your taste and/or budget. 

The basic recipe is 1 part beeswax, 1 part coconut oil, 1 part shea butter, and 1 part a mix of olive/sweet almond/jojoba oils. I also add some raw cocoa butter, pure Vitamin E oil, and essential oils.

Step One: set up a double boiler. Mine is just a stainless steel bowl set over a saucepan filled with water. I turn it on to medium, but then keep it low once the water has heated up.

Step Two: Add beeswax; I like these little pellets. Keep an eye on it and, when the beeswax melts, you'll probably want to lower your heat.

Step Three: Add coconut oil. I try to put in the things that can take a higher heat first, so the heat will only go down from here!

Step Four: Add raw cocoa butter. This is what it looks like, if you've never seen it before, and yes, it does smell like chocolate. 

I was so excited when I first got my cocoa butter that I decided to make something with only cocoa and shea butters, but what began as a "deliciously chocolate" aroma was so overwhelming after heating/cooling in my kitchen for a few hours that I actually became nauseated. Now I only add a small amount (as you can see above).

Step Five: once all of that has melted well while I mix gently, I turn off the heat completely and add in the shea butter. Shea butter can range naturally in color from a more ivory to a yellow color but it's never pure white in color. What I'm using in this picture is actually Shea Butter’s fraternal twin, Kpangnan Butter (sometimes called Golden or Yellow Shea), and is very similar in quality to shea...it's a good substitute if you can't find shea.

Step Six: add in olive oil, sweet almond oil, and jojoba oil.

Step Seven: Remove bowl completely from the saucepan and stir regularly. If you have a stand mixer with a paddle attachment, I think it would be ideal to use here on a really low speed, but I don't have one. I set my bowl on a towel stir it very regularly. Once it begins to firm up at all around the edges/top, stir continuously. This is very important to ensure a smooth, even consistency.

Once I can see it getting firmer/thicker, I add the Pure Vitamin E oil and any essential oils. Currently, I use tea tree oil, and lemon/lavender essential oils until I like the smell.

Once it has cooled down and smoothed out, pour into your container of choice and use/share! This is a great way to reuse old body butter containers. Jelly jars also are an affordable/convenient option. I recently found a great source for these little tins, which are wonderful for the Body Balm.

I use this on my face and body every day. It is terrific for dry, cracked hands in winter, and for soothing skin in summer. Not everyone can handle the emollients on their face, but I don't know anyone who doesn't like it for knees, elbows, or ankles. I am experimenting with adding some zinc oxide to the mix for a mild barrier sunblock, and thus far I like the results! I'll keep you posted.

Go forth, and make your own!!

Season's First Eggplant = Eggplant Parmesan with Roasted Tomato Sauce

We returned from vacation to find our first beautiful eggplant. Usually, I like to make Eggplant Parmesan with a fresh tomato sauce, but all the growing tomatoes are green and I've used up last summer's frozen tomatoes. But my pantry always has a jar or can of organic whole tomatoes, and I have plenty of fresh basil, so dinner is on. 

Roasting canned tomatoes is a great way to bring out their flavor, so that's my plan for the sauce. You can use a jarred sauce for this if you want (and I use plenty of that for pizza and such), but your eggplant will thank you if the sauce is fresh....and it's really easy.

First, preheat your oven to 350F. Then, find a pan in which the tomatoes will fit snugly, but not be on top of each other. A 9" square/round pan is usually great, and most people have these in the kitchen. Add a touch of olive oil, chop an onion, add a dash of red pepper flakes, and pop it in the oven for 10 minutes or so. You want the onion to soften, but not brown.

While the onion is roasting, drain (and save!) the juice from your can of tomatoes. We'll add this back in later, but we want the tomatoes to roast, not stew. I actually had a half tomato from the garden so I chopped that into large chunks. Grab a few cloves of garlic and peel them. If they're large, split them down the middle. You can also see some shallot I found that needed to be used.

When the onions start to soften (as you can see, mine were not quite translucent yet), add in the drained tomatoes, garlic, shallot. I added a splash of olive oil, salt, and pepper and stirred it up. Now it goes into the oven for 30-40 minutes to slow-roast.

While that's roasting, it's time to work on the eggplant, which needs to be sliced thinly (maybe 1/4" slices). You can see two tins: one has some seasoned breadcrumbs, and the other has a beaten egg with a little water added to stretch it. Dip the eggplant slices in egg wash, then in the bread crumbs, and put them on a cookie sheet. Roast them at 350F for 5 minutes, then flip and roast for another 5 minutes.

I found this no-fry technique for eggplant here a few years ago, and I strongly prefer it to frying the eggplant in a skillet. It stays crisper, is healthier, and I don't have to have both the stove and oven going in a Tennessee July. I don't make eggplant parm in the winter....eggplant is a SUMMER vegetable and the flavor is far superior when it's fresh. 

Also, when I pick eggplant fresh, I almost never find that it's bitter, or that the skin is tough, and I never have to salt it ahead of time. Word to the wise: TASTE a piece of the raw eggplant to be sure! In fact, taste everything as you go. You'll learn a lot about how flavors develop.

Above, you can see the tomatoes after about 35 minutes in the oven. They smell divine.

Next, roughly tear the basil leaves, and mix them + the reserved tomato juice all in with the roasted tomatoes. This is then set aside to cool a little while we finish roasting the eggplant slices. (Taste it.)

Once the sauce cools a little, dump it all into the blender and let 'er rip. Then, (of course) taste the sauce and see if it needs salt or pepper. This is also basically how I make my fresh tomato sauce (minus the roasting of the tomato). With roasted or fresh tomatoes, it is unlikely you will need any sugar. Sauce made this way will look a little pinker than jarred sauce, and it should taste really fresh.

Now, at this point, you can (1) set everything aside and assemble the dish shortly before you eat, (2) assemble the dish and store it in the fridge to bake later, or (3) assemble and bake now. If you put it in the fridge, I recommend putting it in a cold oven so it can warm as the oven preheats.

Assembly: put some tomato sauce in the bottom of your dish. Layer in the eggplant slices. Top with grated mozzarella and grated parmesan. Then start over, until your dish is full.

Here's the dish, ready for the oven. Bake at 350F for 30-45 minutes until browned and bubbly. (So, check it at 30 and see how it looks, but know that it won't need more than 45 to cook thoroughly.)

Here's the finished dish, ready for dinner! I've set up a "glory shot" here, with the homemade bread in the background. Three out of four family members rated this dish a "10," and we picked up some more eggplant at the local Farmer's Market to enjoy the bounty of the season!

Buy seasonally. Cook simply. Eat well!

Summer Eating

Eggs in a basket.....with early summer squash and onions.

Joyous Southern Spring: Garden Tour May/June 2014

Peas

After the longest, coldest, loneliest winter in a long time, Spring has been truly welcome here South of Sunnybrook. I started lettuces from seed, but got most of my peas in later because of all the late freezes. Lesson learned: plant peas anyway, most of them will survive if they're mulched. Plus, pea seeds are cheap (I plan to save some this year also)!

Harvest

Spinach, basil, strawberries, and lots of lettuces (like the ones in my Teacher Appreciation bouquets) have been devoured by the family. We've been listening together in the car to the audiobook Animal, Vegetable, Miracle: A Year of Food Life (which is the book that first inspired me to try cheesemaking and join a CSA), and I think it's inspired appreciation in my children. It is truly wonderful to hear them go on and on about how "nothing tastes so wonderful as a good, fresh strawberry you pick yourself."

Baby Basil

For the last two years, I've planned to start various herbs, veggies, and flowers throughout the summer, so as to have filler for bare spots as I harvest, and to have lots of sets for fall veggies (which need to be planted in September-ish). I never do it though. In January, making paper pots filled with earth and seed is like planting hope, but in July I don't want to sit at the table...there is too much to do outside. 

So I am starting things in large pots, like the basil above, and will thin them and move them to the garden. I also have some German Chamomile and chives started this way, and plan to keep things growing throughout the summer.

Garlic Hat

This is my first year planting garlic. I got some Red Russian seeds from the Seed Sharing program at my local library (how cool is that??), and a few cloves of a different hardneck variety from my father. I am going to try harvesting some seeds from the flower this year. I did cut one of these flowers and fried it up along with some stuffed squash blossoms, and it was delicious! Experiment!

Scape

Garlic is a beautiful addition to edible landscaping. The scapes (or long stalks that hold the flower) can curve around into wonderful shapes that are very pleasing to the eye. For hardneck garlic, there seems to be a difference of opinion about whether you should harvest the scapes, or keep them...so I am trying both. All of the garlic plant is edible!! The leaves have a mild garlic flavor, and I add them to pesto. The scapes are also delicious in pesto, but can be grilled/steamed like asparagus! ....or you can leave them to harvest flower seeds.

Corn - Three Sisters

My baby corn is sprouting for my Three Sisters garden!! Wanting space to plant the Three Sisters was the whole inspiration for the sheet mulch project, and it's wonderful to see the life springing from the soil. Traditionally, one plants the corn in little hills 3-4 days before the full moon. While planting, offer prayers of thanks for the elements that make the plants grow (yes, I did this).

When the corn is 4-6 inches tall, I plant the beans, then when that sprouts, I plant the pumpkins. The beans are supported by the corn stalks and replenish the soil (corn is a heavy feeder). The pumpkins shade both, crowd out weeds, and discourage predators. The three also complement each other nutritionally.

Blueberry

Blueberries are not yet blue, but I am looking forward to eating them. Even when they turn blue, we don't "pick" them -- if you touch them and they don't drop in your hand, they're not quite at their perfect sweetness.

Hyssop

In the Bible, it says "purify me with hyssop, and I shall be clean" but I use my hyssop to attract pollinators, and for cut flowers. It's an excellent companion plant in the garden, and has an attractive "small shrub" shape. I do plan to try some in tea, as WebMD notes it can be helpful for everything from menstrual cramps to cough/cold.

Fig

The fig lives!! Thank goodness! This fig was propagated by my father, from the large fig tree that grew outside my bedroom window when I was a child. I was working to espalier it against the brick, but the long, cold winter caused it to die back to the ground. The current plan is to "roll with it" and use the dead branch as a trellis of sorts to train the new, flexible branches.

I know that some years it might start where it left off, and some years it might begin anew, and I am okay with that. Plus, then I can string Christmas lights on the branches either way!

Teacher Appreciation = Edible Bouquet

Who wouldn't want a beautiful bouquet....that you can eat? (Well, all except for the bright yellow Rudbeckia, but they are sunshine itself, aren't they?)

Includes freshly-harvested lettuces (grown from seeds I saved), Thai basil, parsley flowers, and chives with the blossoms. Grown and given with love for all of the amazing work and creativity our teachers share with our community.

Picking Breakfast

The best breakfast on the last day of school starts with juicy, red strawberries.
Food just tastes better when you pick it yourself!

Easiest way to build a great garden: Sheet-mulching

Easy. Do it easy. I believe this so strongly, that I even have an "Easy" tag for posts here South of Sunnybrook. And "sheet mulching" is the easiest way I've ever seen to build a garden. 

While I'm still all about adding veggies into my front flowerbeds, now that the blueberry "shrubberies" are getting larger, I can't plant tomatoes there any more. Plus, I wanted to try a Three Sisters Garden....and our full-sun real estate is our front yard, but the idea of tilling up my hillside seemed both daunting and unwise.

Summer 2013: No room for tomatoes here!.

Luckily, in May 2012, I learned about a technique called sheet-mulching. Basically, you make a big pile of organic matter on top of cardboard and let it sit for six months before planting. How easy is that? I decided to give it a go.

Building Soil

I started with several inches of manure in my bed. I am very lucky to have an aunt with horses. She is lucky to have a niece to help her cart it away! Generally, the sheet mulch begins with cardboard, but I didn't have any yet. It really doesn't matter, as long as the weed barrier is near the bottom -- it's all going to end up as topsoil anyway. A nice feature of this method is that you can make your beds any shape you like. As you can see from the picture below, I have a curve in my garden to accommodate the shade of the magnolia tree.

Wet each layer down well to get things mixing and breaking down. This does need to stay moist for optimum soil development, so I did water it occasionally during the hot Tennessee summer.

So easy, a child can do it.

Here you can see my first layers: manure, cardboard, straw...then compost, lawn trimmings, and other organic material on top of that.

I decided to use my remaining straw bales to act as a barrier to keep all my good stuff from slipping down the hillside. Two years later, I can tell you that was a good call. I am planning this year to grow a living fence just beneath the straw bale layer, using the abundance of forsythia I have on my property. I would love to know if anyone has done this before, or has other suggestions for which plant(s) to use.

I planted a cover crop in the late summer, and then last spring, I had a bed all ready to plant. I have a picture here of the bed in August of 2012. 

Getting into permaculture

Below, you can see the garden in May 2013. I decided to add a path near the tree. I also observed some erosion issues, so I built two hugelkultur berms, with swales to control water, where the two pink lines are. These have worked beautifully.

Below, you can see tomatillos, flowers, and purple basil growing near one of the hugelkultur berms. I also started an asparagus bed near the driveway. This method builds great soil, and it's so easy that I am slowly but surely planting my front yard this way! It's highly recommended here South of Sunnybrook.

Inside My Fridge - April 2014

I haven't done one of these in a while. Beautiful spring asparagus this week. I'm also really enjoying my homemade water kefir (green bottle) when it gets hot. We're also getting down to the last of the pickles I made last summer. The farmers markets are getting going here in the next week or so, and I've got cucumber seeds in the ground. Glad for spring!

Hail, spring!

Last year, the winter was so mild, I had cabbages, lettuces, and herbs available all winter. This year, we've had multiple long, cold freezes, so I've been watching the gardens carefully for signs of life, and planting peas and lettuces. After a week away, I returned to find brilliant patches of color bursting through the mulch. Above, the phlox is really amazing.

MY PRIMROSE (excerpt)

by Joseph Horatio Chant

My sweet primrose with thy open face,

And with fringe-like leaves, without a trace

Of coarseness, either in flower or stem,

Among all my plants thou art the gem.

Yep, those are strawberry blossoms! No sign of life yet in the asparagus bed though. 

January seedlings

Hope springs eternal, and every planted seed is a grain of hope for a new year, a new life. This January, I started seeds for the new year. Little lettuces and herbs offer wonderful cheer, brightening a wintry day with their fresh, green shoots. I can sow them in the garden in another month, along with seeds of the same (or different), to fully exploit the wonderful, long growing season here in the mid-South.

In the past, I've made seed pots out of old cardboard rolls, but this year, I found a little wooden pot maker (like this one) to use with newspaper, and strongly prefer the resulting pots. They are sturdier and I think the newspaper will disintegrate better when they're planted in the garden.

Some of these seeds came from my favorite Bunte Forellenschluss, with the life inside waiting, like a djinn in a bottle, for the magic of light and water. In the Talmud, there is a line that says "every blade of grass has an angel that stands over it and whispers 'grow,' 'grow.'" I like to think of all the angels invited into my home, thanks to the sacred magic in those seeds.