Dairy test day update

Ice cream is out.

Light/heavy cream are out

Chedder cheese and sugarless yogurt may require more testing.  

Post- Whole 30 cleanse update

Hi!  

So, it's been more than my 30 days of "The Whole 30" "clean eating" cleanse.  

I'm adopting this phrase (clean eating) from paleo eaters because in some ways I really like it - that's how it feels, clean of things that don't have a ton of nutritional value or take a toll on our bodies to process.  I think it also emphasizes a lesson from this diet: although in the past I've thought that simply eating a lot of healthy foods constituted healthy eating, I think at this point I've noticed that all the other, less-healthy stuff was actually taking a toll on me.   So it's not just about trying to "eat more" of the healthy stuff and "less" of the unhealthy stuff - it's actually just rejecting ALL the foods that are stressful on our bodies.


But I digress.   I wanted to write an update about how my "Whole 30" went. 

Persephone Days

Elliot Coleman calls these days the "Persephone Days."    The Persephone Myth is the story of a mother who loses her daughter to the underworld, and a daughter that comes close to being trapped by death but escapes....but must return for three months each year.   Although our New England winter is longer than three months, these three months, from Nov. 15 to February 15, are the months when there is so little daylight plants literally cannot grow, no matter what the temperature.    They sort of freeze where they are and wait for the days to get longer.

So celebrate the Persephone Days by taking a walk during your lunch break on sunny days - your body will appreciate the extra vitamin D.  

Or eat a Pomegranate.   

Marrow bones

Soup bones for stock.   (saved 'em for a lucky dog!)

October! Habaneros w Chuck Berry

Summer Habeneros strung up to dry w Chuck Berry

Bok choi/Squash/Chicken / Paleo Lunch / Gratuitous Food Pics

Just my lunch.   That's all.

Steamed Bok Choi (with lemon and salt), baked butternut squash (with coconut oil) and "Damn Fine Chicken"  (from Nom Nom Paleo...see link.)

Also, I'm obsessed with my cast iron pans.   I'm liking the way they cook and the way they reheat food better than the microwave (although one more pan to clean).


http://nomnompaleo.com/post/4207543396/damn-fine-chicken

What do you eat on an anti-inflammation cleanse?

So....  this morning I made the most amazing scramble:  late-fall "found" green onions (i.e. I forgot to pick them this summer), garden jalapenos (de-seeded, cause I'm a wimp), and smoked salmon in scrambled eggs (with coconut milk).   Served with bacon, a big helping of greens, coffee, and a slice of avocado - lemon juice and evoo over all.   I would've taken a picture, but it was so good I ate it all before any pictures could be took.

Bone broth in slow cooker

And, I'm back experimenting with new recipes (my favorite!).  Today I'm using big beef femur bones to make bone broth in the slow cooker  (I'll put up a link to a website with a pretty good recipe).


I also made my own mayonnaise yesterday!   Not very hard, as it turns out....but I'll have to check out more recipes, because this one was too mustardy.

Homemade Mayo

And last, I'm making one frittata a week: meat, veggies, and eggs all cooked in a cast iron pan, slipped into the oven for 10 minutes, then broiled for 2.    It's a good "to go" breakfast.


The only downside - I'm kind of exhausted from all the shopping, prep, cooking, eating and cleaning I'm doing.   I know I cook more on the weekends to have leftovers for the week, but still....it's a lot to cook everything for every meal.  

Chorizo sausage, spinach, pepper n squash frittata

Peace!

A cool (local) Paleo food blog....

My new favorite!


http://nobeantown.tumblr.com/post/34592119622/homemade-tomato-sauce-spaghetti-meatballs


This post is about paleo spaghetti and meatballs - I want to try it.  I made amazing bolognaise and put it over grilled eggplant....in the end, it was too much meat for not enough...something to eat it on.


Maybe I'll try this next time.


(Although I'm not too thrilled about the "Paleo" label - like I'm too cool for the last 10,000 years.   I prefer the concept of Anti-Inflammatory instead.)

The Organic Garden

"Basically, organic gardening means a partnership with nature.  Nature's gardeners are numerous and eager to help.  Millions of beneficial organisms (everything from bacteria to earthworms to ground beetles) thrive in a fertile soil, and they make things go right if the gardener encourages them.  The gardener does that by understanding the natural processes of the soil and aiding them with compost.  The inherent stability and resilience of natural systems can be on your side if you work with them.  Organic gardening is a great adventure, an expedition into a deeper and more satisfying understanding of vegetable production.  You are now a participant rather than a spectator.  You share creation."

- Elliot Coleman, Four Season Harvest

Paleo/30 day anti-inflammatory diet

So...I'm writing here so I don't annoy everyone on Facebook  (and don't sound like a groupie for the so-called "Paleo" diet, which feels like it's gained a sort of self-righteous "look at me, I'm awesome" glow around it).    And because it feels like a big deal to be making big changes.   Also, warning:  I talk about lady things (like menstruation) in this post, and if that freaks you out...sorry?

This is the end of my first week eating no: sugar, grain, dairy, legumes, canola/soy oils.  


Why did I do this? 

Garden Takedown

It's become part of the seasonal flow - a time-marker for me:  the end-of-main-garden season takedown.   I'll have to check when we did it last year - I think last year I tried to do it very early, because I knew I wouldn't have time to do a lot of gardening while starting a really hectic schedule.

This year, the beginning of September marked the beginning of another new teaching schedule at another new school - which meant a shift in priorities:  prepping new classes, learning new routines and administrative requirements, learning about a new student population, grading many more student papers all took precedence over the garden - or at the very least, gardening had to sneak in around the sides! 

Which means, as always, that I'm a little sad that I didn't get fall crops in.  I tried for some second rounds of stuff (carrots and lettuce) but when the self-watering system didn't water by itself, that was that.   New seedlings take a fair amount of TLC,  and I pretty much only had time to harvest, cook and eat.  

Now it's nearly Halloween, and almost everything has stopped being productive (even if we've only had *maybe* one light frost).   Tomatoes, squash, beans, peppers and cukes are fully done - so it felt excellent to pull them down, clean up any plant waste left around (after all the late blight I want to try to get rid of anything tomato-y to try to make it through next season!), pull up the hold straw and put down a layer of compost for next year. 

And, while cleaning up there turns out to still be some bounty to gather: a bunch of green tomatoes that can slowly ripen in the back hallway, 2 - 2 1/2 big handfuls of red fingerlings, a few beans, fall radishes that made it without any TLC, a few rogue carrots and onions, and a bunch of slightly -frost-burned jalapenos and habaneros...got to figure out how to preserve those!   We still have herbs, and I pretty recently got two tiny eggplants from the Asian eggplant.   It's fun to still be eating from the yard this late!   (And of course, the Kale lives on, proud and healthy - we'll see how long we can keep eating that!)

So....before, it was making me feel kind of bad, looking out and seeing all these half-dead plants and unharvested ripening tomatoes, etc.  Now, the soil is covered, vegetable "trash" gone, rich compost spread, poles and cages down, extra pots in the basement - it's nice to have a sense of closure on the season and turn our thoughts to what we have now (Kale, frozen tomatoes, canned goods, potatoes) and what's coming next year. 

Some Failures

I think one lesson in learning about gardening is learning to be amiable towards your failures.   They are a regular and normal part of life, and perhaps something to get used to.   Gardening for me is partly about learning to let go of perfection and control.   A garden is a process, not a product.   No matter how much hard, diligent work you put in, or how much you plan for, failure and success will both be guaranteed to arrive on your doorstep.   Especially if the garden is part of your overall life - just as with the plants, there will be a need to shift energy at different times, even if that could mean losing opportunities.  Energy is finite - and no matter how much one wants full yield and harvest, that desire has to be balanced with other things - for me, friends, lover, house, health, work and my own writing.   I am learning to cut my losses - so the eggplant never really made it off the ground, or late blight has crisped and browned the tomatoes - so I've been working on running, writing, starting a new job, moving in a new fridge (to store all our produce - squeeee!).

Kimchi

Nappa Cabbage, young onion and daikon after soaking overnight in brine

I've found pitchers are good for brining a lot of stuff

Ginger and garlic

Kimchi flavors: garlic, ginder, Korean chili powder & anchovy sauce
(the last two, plus daikon radish, found at a Korean grocery in Allston)

Many vessels for brining

Ingredients (I've found having a kitchen scale fantastic for this stuff)

Mixing everything together

Stuff into clean jars, pour brine over all

ready to ferment

All in all, I'd like to say, a resounding success.  After learning from other fermentation fails, I thoughtfully placed these puppies in the basement.   Fermentation happens best between, I think, 75- 85  degrees - and it goes faster the hotter it gets.   Our apartment is often in the upper range of that, I think, in the summer, so sometimes things get a little too ferment-y.   One week in the basement, however, worked well.

One addendum to Liana Krissoff's excellent recipe: when the fermenting is done, I poured off the brine and replaced it with water, extra garlic, ginger and chili.  Otherwise it's overwhelmingly salty.

Tomato time!

It's that time again, folks!  

gutted tomaters, waiting to be roasted

Time to pile up so many tomatoes you forgot you had a kitchen counter.  

This year, my tomatoes clearly got a fungal infection (that I think I diagnosed as fusilarium wilt).   It means that many of the leaves turn brown on one side, and the plant gets sick.   This happened to my roma tomatoes out back.  I have been willy-nilly sharing soil between potted potatoes, compost and tomatoes, but no more.   I'm going to try to do a small crop rotation and leave that area tomato-free for a few years (sad!   it's pretty much the only totally sunny area in the back yard!) and see if it can heal.   Bugs and pests I can deal with (mostly), but diseases that persist in the soil are tough.


But, I'm still harvesting a fair amount  of Romas (if not the gargantuan quantities of other years.)  And some odd green-purple ones from out front.

Observe...

I cut them in half, lay them face-down on parchment paper and "slow roast" in the oven for 1/2 an hour.
Then it's easy to remove the skins and freeze them.

This year, to prevent disease, I'm throwing all tomato parts (guts, seeds, core, peels) in the trash

Sad Cabbage

 In the end, my cabbage will look like this:   

see, doesn't it look delicious?

But first I had to take off all this:

Because something ate the entire top half of my beautiful cabbage plant!

I know.  It's gross.

Stupid bunnies.  Go eat something else.

August Update

Well, it's the beginning of August and I am....at home.

Let me explain: usually, every year from August 2/3 - 15th, I am more or less out of commission - Dawn and I load up approximately half of our worldly possessions, hop in the car, drive 2 1/2 days out to northern Michigan, camp in the woods with a bunch of dear friends (and about 1,500 other like-minded ladies), get sweaty and dirty, then drive back home again.   By then, half the month has passed. Dawn usually has to go right back to work, and even if I have been off of work it still takes me a couple of days to get back into the groove of home, life and summer.  (i.e., I want to sleep for approximately 27 hours).   I get some food preservation done, but in a week or two, it's time to start getting ready for work/school in September.

This year, we skipped the trip.   I missed the feeling of being rejuvenated and sparkly about the whole world, but I finally realized why my late-summer/early fall garden usually goes straight to hell: August. Usually when we come home, the tomatoes are a mess, the squash has died, the weeds are rampant, the carrots are bitter and I have no more energy to deal with any of it.

This year in late July, instead of packing and shopping and cleaning for our trip, we bought string and 8 ft. poles and strung up our tomato wildness.  Dawn pruned the raspberry canes.   I harvested onions and garlic, pulled up our (meager) carrots, fed the plants, made compost tea, weeded and laid down straw on our paths, sifted compost and have actually started fall plantings!    (usually I try to do this, but don't get around to it until early September, and thus everything is only barely getting started by the time frost comes around).

What am I planting for the fall?   A second try at carrots, a second round of beans, some radishes, and today (this very day) I am going outside to plant lettuce and arugula for the fall right on the new moon!  (It is said among gardeners that planting on the new moon harnesses lunar energy to help plants sprout and grow faster - one is also supposed to harvest on the full moon!).

So, I missed a week of blessed-out connection to the land.   But I also got to not feel frazzled and crazed around the edges of the trip.   I saw family and friends.   I am slowly preparing for the fall.  I celebrated Lammas, a holiday on the pagan calendar, for the first time, with some local lady friends.  I never really appreciated Lammas before - it represents the midway point between the solstice and the equinox, so it doesn't have the energy of shifting daylight that the quarter-year festivals have, but garden-wise, its an important transition time nonetheless, and one that I usually miss.  (I think) it represents the first harvest of wheat - so it is the time to harvest things that you started sewing months ago, back when it first got warm (remember that)?    I was just finishing teaching a class that I started in early May, so it seemed extra appropriate - I could see how much my students' writing had changed over that time, which is a cool thing to "harvest".   It's also a nice reminder that it does take months to harvest things - the things we "plant" now (exercise, self-care, planning for the fall, meditation, stories I start writing) may not have immediate payoffs.   Sometimes by the time we get a payoff, we almost can't remember who we were when we started.   hmmm.

Last, I think for this important date, early August, it's a time when we can turn all the way around.   The stuff that we planted in the spring is now harvested and eaten or mature and ready to use.   Now it's time to start a new planting and look forward for the fall.

Garden-wise, August is also the time when everything is wet, damp and sweaty.   In this time, inevitably, the tomatoes have some kind of disease, the squash has some kind of mildew, and the grasshoppers are happily bouncing off of every surface, chewing through our leaves.   A period of intense rain in late July brought on the mold and mildew (and blossom-end rot on some fruits), but with sunny days things are evening out.   Also, although there are grasshoppers, there are also bees and dragonflies, ladybugs and tiny parasitic wasps whipping through my garden.   I let some of my herbs and even weeds  flower to provide food for these little helpers, and they pay me back by keeping  my plants well enough to grow.   My compost is fine and dirt-like, thanks to the little red compost worms who happily chomp through almost anything we put in there.    We are also at a period where I've harvested enough veggies that I'm starting to make entire meals (almost) just from the garden.   That is always the coolest to me.

Dried:
garlic & some onions

From the garden:
eggplants (A whole bunch of little ones!)
tomatoes (cherry, roma and regular)
beans (only some!  next year, the bean teepee returns so I can make dilly beans!)
kale (so much kale, mountains of kale)
beets
cucumbers (also few, we planted late)
basil (pesto city!)
hot peppers
squash (only one so far).
(one last) Napa cabbage.
(one last regular) cabbage (in the fridge).

Cruel, Cruel Summer

Well, my work part-time gardening is only paying off....medium.


So far, my straight up late start on some things plus an incredibly cool, wet and rainy summer plus my very shady backyard = not a whole lotta action.

So far we've harvested one cucumber, one eggplant, a handful of (sickly) roma tomatoes, onions, garlic, a bunch of tiny bitter carrots, a few peas and plenty of lettuce, nappa cabbage, arugula and herbs.    So greens = happy (except for my cabbage that has been eaten by ....something),   roots and fruiting plants = not very happy.
Right now my garden makes me think of mid-July, not early august:   squash and cukes are just flowering, we're just getting the first ripe tomatoes, tiny peppers forming, beans flowering, etc.

But today at least is hot and sunny...we'll see if things are able to take off.


The biggest pest I have right now is something, probably a rabbit, that ate my carrot tops and half of one of my cabbages.   I'm used to dealing with tiny pest problems (like bugs and slugs).  I'm not sure what I'm going to do about the big nibblers.  They've been in our neighborhood for quite some time, but I was hoping the cats would keep them away.

I have managed to make at least one *amazing* stir-fry dinner so far:

From our garden:  
garlic
onion
eggplant
nappa cabbage

From Boston Organic:
Mango
more onion
green pepper
ginger (amazing!  so juicy!)

From Trader Joe's:
Basmati rice
"Thai Curry Simmer Sauce"
chicken.


I grilled the chicken, cooked the rice, fried the eggplant, garlic and ginger in peanut oil in a big wok.   (cooked eggplant for over 1/2 hour a la Mark Bittman...it became creamy and delicious!) Threw in onions.   Peppers.  Cabbage.   red pepper.   Fresh mango.  Cut up chicken and stirred it in.   poured simmer sauce on top.  Delicious!   (also, I am very proud to now be able to grill a chicken breast *while* stir frying on the stovetop inside.  I am magical.)

late June salad recipe

Simple, but exactly what I've been eating.  I love arugula, so anything with it will be delicious to me.

(haven't made this yet, but wanted to keep the link because it looked so good!)

http://whatscookingamerica.net/Salad/caesarargulasalad.htm

Early June, Porch view.

From last week - again, one million shades of green.

Garden Mid-June

A million shades of green: yellow-green garlic blades and bluish kale leaves in the June garden.

Still raining...

Well, in the spirit of "it's always fun to read these things next year," I'll give the most obvious update: It's cold and rainy, and has been for days.    Like, low 50's cold.   Like, cold enough in June to put a cloche over my eggplants (i.e. a fairly large pot.   To keep them warm at night).   Of course this is my first year trying real (i.e. non-asian) eggplants, and of course it gets wicked cold right after I plant them.  

My tomatoes look cold, my peppers are shivering, etc. etc.  The drama of a spring garden.   Maybe early June is the season for whining.   (Example: I think the only time its been warm and sunny was for the long weekend when we went outta town and all the seeds I'd planted withered up from lack of water.  Wah).   

Updates:  I've been forcing myself to eat garden lettuce, knowing that even though it might grow bigger, I've often waited and had lettuce bolt or get bitter before getting to eat it.   So I harvest one plant or two plants per salad (one plant at this stage seems to equal two small servings).  The upside of this is that, since I planted the lettuce in the cucumber plot, the faster we eat the lettuce, the faster we'll be able to plant the cucumbers, if it ever gets warm again.    My arugula looks great, and I use it to supplement my (but not Dawn's) salads.   We also are eating radishes, green onions and herbs.   I planted my hot peppers and I'm avidly reading salsa recipes, excited to eventually use them - the older I've gotten, the more I like just a small amount of spice in my food.  And I did my annual carrot re-plant - you know, the one where my first, carefully curated, two-seeds-every-two-inches, hours-on-my-knees, carefully-dusted-with-fresh sawdust-and-watered-every-day planting yields about fifteen carrot sprouts after weeks of careful spa treatment.  And weeds, it yields lots and lots of weeds.  especially since my compost is "cold" instead of "hot" - which means that any composted seeds aren't killed over the winter.   So for the second planting I'm ripping up all the "volunteer" tomatoes, squash, crabgrass, purslaine and other randomness around my fifteen tiny carrot seedlings, painstakingly trying to preserve them agains the much heartier weeds.     Then I basically dig some lines in the dirt in the empty spots, pour out an ass-ton of carrot seeds, swirl them around a little and say, "good luck!"
  The beets are doing their usual thing of barely coming up and growing slowly.   Well, if they don't shape up, they are going to be bush beans before they know what hit them!  :)

Also, the teensy little potted apple tree I got a few years ago has its very first apples growing...so, so cool!

pictures to come!

Spring planting

You know, I always tried to restrain myself from too much "crop update"-style posts where I just listed everything that was happening in the garden - but in reality,  I just went back and read the late-May posts for the last two years, and it was really cool.   I really like having photographic evidence of what I have done each year, and feeling like I have some kind of record of the seasons.   For example, yes, this week it is rainy and not the warmest, but it seems like its been a whole lot warmer than it was in past years.  I already have tomatoes and eggplants in the ground, and my lettuce is straight-up edible size.

Also, although I notice that each year I do resolve to "tone it down," as of last May I was still calling for a "no ground left uncovered policy."   If I continue reading into June, however, I see all my frustration: peas that were just starting to bloom when it was time to plant the cucumbers, lettuce that was still producing (and stealing growing time) when I needed to plant the eggplant, etc.

This year I'm not only trying to "plant within my wants" (meaning planting only the things that we will truly eat and want), I"m also refining  from last year - no bean teepee, more eggplants, more arugula, no broccoli (which I don't think I could say no to last year!).   Furthermore, I'm also continuing to plant "within my means" - which means doing the work that feels right, not what "must be done."

Donating my windex to charity

My homemade cleaners &  ingredients.
 (I recycled the empty "Mrs. Myers" spray bottle for the "Fantastic")

ahh.   After a grueling semester and at the end of my first year teaching, I have a few days to relax and unwind.   There's something really special about being able to own your own time, at least for a little while.   I find I can keep my mind on the one task ahead of me, instead of always trying to see what I'll need to be doing two or three steps ahead, like I do when I am teaching a full schedule.

So what did I decide to do on my first day of total freedom?  Why, clean the house, of course!   No, seriously, there's something totally cleansing about having the time to take care of your space and return it to a condition that looks, feels, and, as of today, smells good.  For some reason it feels kind of luxurious, like taking a long bubble bath, to really be able to get in and clean all those cobwebs, crumbs, stains and streaks that have been subtly pissing you off/grossing you out for some time.   And living in a house that looks cared for makes me feel, well, pampered.   (Do you get the idea that deep cleaning is something that happens fairly rarely around here?   eep. )

So as I was cleaning today, I realized that I was running out of my $12-a-bottle all-natural cleaner.   And I hate to go to the store, so that's a bummer.   Then I remembered that I had a list of all-natural recipes from Vida Verde, an eco-friendly cleaning co-op started and run by Brazilian women.   These women came and spoke to our ESL students a few months ago about the dangers of chemical cleaners and handed out recipes.  They were friendly, charming, knowledgeable and totally rad.   (If you are looking for an earth-friendly and worker-friendly house cleaning service, for sure check them out!  http://verdeamarelo.org/vidaverde/ ).

http://walthamfieldscommunityfarm.blogspot.com/

Another cool local farm blog - they have excellent (-looking) local recipes...I'll let you know if/when I try some of them.

I really like the writing these farmers do about farming and the kind of more spiritual, reflective aspects of farming.

Of course, they are farmers, not gardeners, but you get the idea.

Pea pyramid

So, I know this looks like the back of  a drug den, or a burned out building, but it's actually my backyard and the wall of our garage.    This was my project for the day: putting up a "pea pyramid".   In the past few years, this has been my "bean teepee" where I grew pole beans.   Buuuut - the beans are always too many and too gigantic to actually eat all of them.  And the bush beans are more delicious.   And when I plant the peas behind the tomatoes, it stunts their growth.   Thus, the pea pyramid.   We'll see how they do.  

Bottom of the pyramid.  The strings are attached to tent stakes!

Need an online garden guru?

Wanna learn how to start your own garden?  How about a tomato in a pot?  A few years ago I tried to write down all the things I wish I'd known when I started....check it out!

https://sites.google.com/site/abbymachsoncarter/home/boston-backyard-gardener

Restraint.


So recently I say to my girlfriend, "I think this year I'm going to take it easy, you know, try to hold back a little and not go overboard with the garden,"  thinking, of course, that she'll understand my urge toward personal growth and maturity in this hobby of mine.

Lettuce seedlings - planted a healthy distance apart.   

Her reaction?   To fall off her chair laughing.   She starts trying to hide it, but she can't and it goes from giggles to chuckles to all-out uncontrollable laughter.   I really, honestly can't figure out what's so funny....at first.    Then she wipes her eyes and looks at me and says, "I'm sorry. I really am.   It's just that we've been doing this for five years.  And you've said  that ever year."

Sigh.   Maybe if some you are gardeners, you will understand.  It's a teensy bit addictive, you know, and sometimes it's really easy to "accidentally" bring home "extra" tomatoes, herbs, seeds, bulbs or whatever from the garden store.  (Barbara Kingsolver's husband, upon seeing her dog-eared and marked-up seed catalog, said, "why don't you just circle the ones you don't want?").   But apparently, not only am I easily enticed to overdo it in the garden, worse, I've known it and been resolving to cut back since year one.

Spring

The last posts on this blog seem one million miles away: beans, carrots, cucumbers, pickling as a way to deal with excess produce..... now, in April, we haven't harvested a fresh cucumber in months.   The last time we saw the bean plants they were brown, mildewed, frozen and rotten, waiting to get taken down.

In my head I know this happens every year.   Every year, we survive a winter (no matter how mild) where almost everything green turns brown and dies and flowers get destroyed by rain and frost.  If, like me, you have some interest in eating locally, you start in the fall excitedly carving up squash and carrots, roasting potatoes and beets and stretching out your cabbage, proud of your ability to change with the seasons.  It feels right - the weather is cold and I always crave soup and hearty things.

spring thyme and sage next with the garlic today

And then the winter wears on.