A nice little surprise

I don’t think you could find more happy than me today. I was rifling through the freezer and found a bag of strawberries from last summer. What a nice little surprise. I think I might only be happier if a lepruchan rang my doorbell with a pot of gold. I also learned today that the city quit charging for compost if you pick it up yourself. So I got a truck load of compost and strawberries. What a day!

My garden space has hit it’s peak, I think. It’s around 450 sq ft, and it seems to be about all I can handle. The effort to rotate everything, get seeds started and get the beds all ready can be overwhelming sometimes. With this 450 sq ft I’m trying to be self sufficient this year with potatoes, sweet potatoes, tomatoes, garlic, onions, greens, green beans, squash and carrots. We’ll see how I end up doing.

(I should mention, if you are concerned, that I grow biointensive, so 450 sq ft using these methods is the same as almost 4 times that much if you use standard rows. Click here for more info. Although my version is a bastardized conglomeration of square foot gardening and biointensive methods. It works for me with all the other things in my life right now.)

My wife was a great help today (and a very attractive assistant I must say) as we built an RPZ, a Rabbit Proof Zone. At least I hope it is. Other wise I won’t be getting much lettuce. Those little buggers are hard to keep out of the small things, but at least they give up when the peas and beans get too big, if you can get them that big.

My next door neighbor has an old tractor tire in her back 40 that is filled with leaves. I’m going to try to procure that to grow more taters this year. Hopefully she’ll allow that and things will go well. I also have a friend who is bringing me some half barrels (from old salt licks for some cows) which I plan to stuff with taters too. I really, really, want to be self sufficient with them this year.

We had a little miscalculation on our taxes this year and ended up owing a few dollars. Just 4 thousand or so. Needless to say some of my plans have been put on hold. I think I’ll be able to scrape up the cash for one rain barrel (I found a place that sells them for $35! Suckers) and the parts for an earth oven, but most of the projects have been put on hold. No solar water heater, most of the rain barrels were cut back, not to mention our savings account was drained. That really sucks. Having a cash cushion right now would be nice. 😦

I did recently read a Dave Ramsey book though (which I would recommend to you) and it was helpful. I’ll talk more about this later this week probably.

Making peanut butter

We decided to make peanut butter today. Organic brands are expensive, and I can get bulk organic peanuts, so what the heck.

I combined about a pint of peanuts (I spilled some on the floor which was not very pleasant), a pinch of salt, 2 tablespoons of olive oil, and at the end we determined it needed just a little sugar. We added 1/2 tsp.

Run that in the food processor for about 2-3 minutes until it’s the consistency you want.

Homemade peanut butter has a much deeper and robust peanut flavor. We added just enough sugar for it to pop, but not to be overly sweet. They’ll have it with honey or jam anyway, so that’s enough sugar. Comparing to what we had in the cabinet it was much less sugary. It’s very good. You should give it a try.

Here’s a video showing the steps.

This cost us about $2 for the half a pint, not counting the massive amount of peanuts I spilled on the floor. If I’m able to grow my own peanuts in the future this will cost us even less, although the amount of work will increase exponentially.

Enjoy!

Chicken’s good for you isn’t it?

If you eat chicken because it’s healthy and good for you I would recommend you read this link.

(HT: George)

Update:  I just saw this story too.  Would you like a little poison with your boneless, skinless chicken breast?

FGLB

Rhubarb

I’ve been enjoying rhubarb lately.  This is the first of a nice long summer enjoying fresh food from the garden and the local farmers.  Yeah!

New Pollan article

Here is a link to a new Michael Pollan article about how the Farm Bill that subsidizes our agriculture leads to the obesity problem in America.  It is so true.

Hit the link for more.

Ht: Cleaner Plate Club

If you still haven’t read The Omnivore’s Delimma get off your butt and read it.  It’s way worth the time.

FGLB

Food enthusiast

I read this post today from Liz at Pocket Farms and I just felt like it really summed up my eating/cooking/food experiences.  I hadn’t really given them much thought, but upon reflection it’s all right there in front of me/you.

You just have to be willing to see it.

Makin’ Butter (UPDATED)

(Update) This morning I used the butter to cook up some breakfast, like I do every morning and there was no difference between the store bought butter and this butter.  Awesome!  In fact, I would say this butter was more useful because it was softer and appeared like it would be easier to spread on toast. 

So, this morning I’m at the local mega mart and what do I see? Some cream, produced by a fairly local dairy company. This is the same company that I’ve mentioned a long time ago, and this is where I previously bought my milk, until I found the place more local.

So I bought a pint of cream intending to make butter tonight. My plan was to use the glass jar method of butter making where you put the cream in the jar and shake it until it eventually makes butter.

The two primary pieces of hardware, one of which contains the software.

So I dumped the cream in the jar and started shaking. I had read on the net that it could take anywhere from 5 to 45 minutes to make butter. We turned on some music and enjoyed some dancing time. Below is an action shot of the shaking.

It ended up taking perhaps 15 minutes of actual shaking. And the shaking wasn’t as bad as I expected. (The kids weren’t as gullible as I had hoped and didn’t fall prey to my claims of how much fun the shaking was.) And here is what I ended up with. One container of butter milk and one solid chunk of delicious butter.

And that was it. It was slightly anti-climatic really. But I still think it was cool. My wife asked me why I would bother to make my own butter, other than the fact that I’m a freak. Well…

The pint of cream I purchased for $1.79 produced 6 ozs of butter and a container full of buttermilk. The butter cost was $.298 per oz. The cream was produced in NE Missouri on a farm that isn’t organic (at least not certified) but does pasture their cows and is hormone free.

The organic butter I purchased this morning while at the store was $4.38 (might have been $4.88 I’m not sure) for 16 ozs, which works out to $.27 per oz.

For the slight increase in price I would rather buy more local and from a smaller group.

It was a cool experiment. Now the the true test will be tomorrow morning when I try out the butter to see how it tastes.

In other news, you may remember recently where I discussed a local dairy group I found and have started to purchase their milk. Well, I talked to the sales manager today about their products and in the next few weeks we should start to see their yogurt, cheese, cream, butter and such start appearing in local Hy-Vee stores. Be sure to keep an eye out for them. That’s great news because I’ve really cut back my yogurt consumption because I could only get factory farm stuff, and I’ll certainly want to use their cream when I make butter in the future.

Out

FGLB

Nourishing Traditions book review

Ever since I picked up the Nourishing Traditions book it quickly climbed my list of most important books I’ve read (and will shortly own) and I’ve had a hard time putting it down.  I thought it must be a good book because I waited for it for almost 6 months from the library, but the wait was worth it, and I think you should read it too.  After reading half of it I’ve already noticed how little I knew about food in general, the history of food and why people ate certain foods, nutritionally, rather than just for the taste.
 
The book is a great mix of medical information, stories from medical studies, information from old cookbooks/textbooks and a list of recipes.  On top of all that, the authors take a great deal of time to explain to you what they think and why they think it, and they back it up with historical examples of why what they are suggesting you should eat works as good fuel for people.  The recipes seem very interesting to make and they have quite a few recipes using ingredients that I haven’t seen a lot of other cookbooks even touch.  Furthermore, they tell you how to make a ton of things, even condiments, in a manner that most increases the nutrition of the item you are making.  The focus is always on maximizing the nutrient value of the item to be eaten, with taste being a close second or tied with maximum nutritional value as number 1. 
 
This book is a lot like Alton Brown’s cookbooks where he explains how the cooking action works (whether braising, roasting, grilling, etc) and then he gives you some recipes for how to use the cooking method to it’s full potential when you’re cooking tasty meals.  If you like how he works you’ll like this one.  Also, his cookbooks are just great cookbooks too.
 
One prevailing theme throughout this book is the focus on maximizing the nutrient content of the food you’re eating.  When a recipe introduces a new food item the author places a side bar in place to inform you about the food item, why it’s important to eat it in the specific form they have mentioned, and what nutrients you derive from eating the food item in that form.
 
If you are searching for a new book to read this winter I think this would be a great one to pick up and read. 
 
One caution I would give you is that if you haven’t already made the switch from eating processed/modified foods to natural whole foods you may not be ready for a book like this.  This book focuses on using products that are currently demonized by our food industry and medical profession, and if you aren’t ready to go against what is considered “normal” in our society you might not be ready for something like this.  This book recommends that you drink raw, whole milk.  If the idea of eating anything other than regular old skim isn’t something you would entertain than you might not be ready to read a book like this.  If you can’t fathom the idea of giving up white bread or sugar, or at least reducing their consumption and focusing on whole grains as much as possible this book might be tough to read. (However, if you want great explanations for why those foods are considered better for a person to eat than other refined foods this book provides great information and analysis on why they are better for you, and it does it by focusing on the nutrition of the food and telling you what biological need food in this specific form fills for our body.)
 
I can tell you that eating whole, natural foods, even if they are demonized, sure makes you feel a lot better.  I have less aches and pains, our family hasn’t really been sick with a transmittable sickness this whole winter, and having more pep is certainly better for me, even if my weight never changes.  It’s easy to eat plenty of fruits and vegetables when you eat this way and I can tell a difference in the way my body “runs” if I stray from this method too much.
 
Not to mention the food tastes freaking great.

FGLB

Choices

I was able to shop at the grocery store today by myself today which allows me to linger a little longer and look over more things. Even with all the great progress that’s been made bringing more wholesome foods to mainstream grocery stores, there’s still a long way to go.

At my local store they have a health food section, which is all the Organic, Gluten Free, Free Range, etc items. The problem I see is that most of the items for sale are simply rebranded things they already sold. Aisle after aisle of prepackaged ORGANIC food. Mac and cheese, soups, stocks, chips, crackers, cookies, flours, etc.

Call me crazy but eating organic chips ahoy cookies doesn’t seem all that much more healthy to me than eating non organic ones.

Personally, I think I’d rather see a section devoted more to local foods that are available than this “Health” Food section that’s mostly not. Although I did pick up some dried sea kelp which I’m anxious to try out in a few things to see how it tastes.

The main reason I spent so much time there is that I’ve finally found a source for local milk that is extremely close to raw. At least it’s a close as I can get in Iowa without owning the cow myself. (It’s still illegal to sell raw milk in Iowa and I haven’t found a cow share program yet to participate in.)

It’s a little outfit down in Kalona, IA called Farmer’s All Natural Creamery. Through their company I can get vat pasteurized milk from local Amish and Mennonite farmers where the cows are pastured and the farms have been in the families for a long, long time. Vat pasteurized means they slowly bring the milk up to the pasteurization level of 145 degrees rather than doing it super fast like most places. These other places will even go so high as to exceed 250 degrees with their milk to flash pasteurize it. They sell it under the local grocery store’s brand of milk. You’ll know the place. The one with the helpful smile in every aisle.

But what I really wanted was some heavy whipping cream so that I could make my own butter. Now, since the milk isn’t homogenized there is some cream on the top of it, and I could save that up, but I drink so little milk that it would take me weeks and I just don’t think the cream will make it that long.

But, they didn’t have any cream. They didn’t have any organic whipping cream at all. So I had to forget about making my own butter for this week. I’ve got the number for the marketing person at the company, when I get a chance I’ll talk to her to see where they sell their cream so I can get some. They make butter too but why buy it when I can make it myself?