Getting Back in the Groove: The Weekly Menu

In an effort to get back to both blogging and menu planning, I give you our menu for next week. I need to be using my pantry items more consistently and I find menu planning to be essential in meeting that goal. Actually, for this menu I will only need cabbage (in season, and on sale!) and we'll need to restock the green smoothie ingredients mid-week, but other than that I have everything I need. I started my second quarter this past week, so a menu will definitely be helpful managing my time, since I have a boatload of reading to do. Speaking of which, I need to get back to it!

Merry Christmas

I apologize for the lack of posting, it has been a rough month for me. Plus I've been fighting with Blogger about including and formatting pictures in my posts. I'm sure it is mostly my ineptness with this new-fangled technology :o)  but it is frustrating nonetheless.

I wish you all very happy, healthy, and safe holidays, we'll catch up soon.

Giving Thanks

So what are you making on this day of thangsgiving? I am making what I made last year. My mouth is watering already for the green beans...

Drooling concluded, moving on. If you should find yourself with leftover squash, may I suggest this? I was craving a creamy squash soup, but not the curry that typically flavors such things. This hit the spot. It's also a great way to use up extra squash (the butternut that I had from the farmer's market was huge). The only note is that if your squash is already cooked it should not be too heavily sweetened or seasoned. The seasonings in this are very much dependent on the squash you use and your own taste, so the quantities should be viewed more like guidelines.

Autumnal Squash Soup

Serves 2-4, depending on how thick you make it and if you are serving it with anything else.

2.5 cups steamed and mashed squash (mine was homemade and therefore a looser consistency; you can use canned, just add about 1 cup of water to a 15 oz can of packed squash)

2-4 tbsp cream, half and half, nut cream,or milk of choice

1-3 tbsp dark agave

~ 1/2 tsp rubbed sage (use less if using ground)

~ 1/4 tsp ground nutmeg

~ 1/3 tsp ground ginger

fresh ground black pepper

salt, to taste

1 can or 1 1/2 cups mild white beans, rinsed and drained (optional)

water, broth, or additional milk/cream sufficient to achieve desired consistency

Place everything in your blender or food processor and blend until smooth. Heat over medium-low until bubbling gently. Cook, stirring frequently, 2 minutes and then taste and adjust seasoning and thickness as needed.

Serve hot.

Local Deliciousness

Along with my soup (which was made with local butternut squash) I had this yummy (mostly) local salad: lettuce (CSA), pear (CSA), toasted pecans (gifted by a friend who's father-in-law brought them from TX where he had shelled them himself!), goat cheese, and honey mustard vinaigrette (with local honey).


I am winding up the last 2 weeks of my first quarter of my Ph.D. program. That combined with the work on our house has made for a busy and challenging last couple of months, hence the lack of activity here. But I do have a few things I'm working on and I look forward to more doing more regular posting. I'll have some house updates as well as a few recipes. 


Also, a small note - I'm sorry I had to add word verification to commenting but I was getting a lot of spam comments. I'm hoping this will take care of that and I can remove it shortly.


In other news I have taken Crunchy Chicken's challenge:



I know it's getting later in the season, but I hope you will consider making at least some of your holiday handmade, or planning ahead to do so next year. We've been doing more and more of this the last couple years and we find that everyone seems to really enjoy the gifts. And we enjoy giving them because we feel like they actually come from us and are within our means (which makes the whole season so much less stressful!). It's a win-win all around.  


I hope you have a very joyful Thanksgiving.

A Reccomendation, a Discussion, and a Change

First thing first. If you have not yet seen Food, Inc. go. If you balk at paying $15 for a movie (and really, who doesn't?) plan on hosting a viewing party the minute it comes out on video. Those of you who are dyed-in-the-faux-wool vegans may argue that the film does not encourage people to go outright vegan and is therefore not helpful. However, the film talks about more than just animal agriculture, it is a larger discussion on our whole food system.

After much thought and research and discussion have reached something like homeostasis in my views on diet as it relates to my health, the environment, and ethics. I may lose some readers for saying this, but it is more important to me that I be sincere and forthright than to appease others. I am not opposed to responsible, sustainable animal agriculture. I am well aware of the arguments that there is no such thing. I disagree; people and animals have co-habitated and co-depended on one another for thousands of years. Our eco-systems are dependent on both fauna and flora inputs to be healthy. I am not under any illusions that will cease to be the case. I am adamantly opposed to industrial animal agriculture and I know that as a nation we eat entirely too many animal products. I believe that a plant-based diet, meaning consisting primarily of plants, is most definitely the healthiest, and most sustainable, way to eat. However, I don't think that advocating a vegan diet as the only option is the most efficacious way to encourage people to improve their health and that of the planet.

I aim to never stop learning, I am always reading, researching, browsing. At this point I find myself most in line with Michael Pollan's position of "Eat food. Not too much. Mostly plants." And more importantly with the position that we should endeavor not to eat that which our great-great grandmothers would not recognize as food (I'm perfectly willing to pretend that my great-great grandmother was quite the world traveler and ate foods from all cultures). That means that processed foods are out, including vegan processed foods. I think whole soy products in moderation are a perfectly healthful part of a varied diet. However the pervasiveness of soy derivatives (and corn derivatives for that matter) in our food supply concerns me. If your primary or sole motivation for being vegan is animal rights then I understand that veganism is essentially your only philosophical option. However, from the standpoint of health and environmental concerns I don't see a great deal of difference between eating fractionated "food like substances" (especially from GMO crops), vegan or otherwise, and eating conventionally raised animal products. They are both hard on our bodies, the environment, and the people involved in producing them.

This small but significant shift in my perspective has led me to reconsider my blog title. Firstly, I don't want to misrepresent the vegan community. Much of what I do eat is and will continue to be vegan, however I do incorporate some dairy and eggs into my diet. That combined with the broader focus I have take to include my path to simple, greener living has led to the choice to change my blog title (the actual web address will remain the same). I hope you find it informative and encouraging.

Goings On

A photo journal of my little neck of suburbia over the last few weeks.

Nearly open sunflower in my mom's garden.

My first time growing okra. I was blown away by how lovely the flowers are. This is a Red Burgundy Okra from Seed Savers Exchange.

A summer supper: CSA coleslaw (cabbage, turnips, carrots) and homemade chili covered baked potato (with homegrown tomatoes).

Biscotti for a crowd. Recipe needs a some work, but is very delicious, it just wasn't dry enough.

The original baseboards at our new house. You can see the paint build up on the bottom. The original paint was oil based and there are at least two layers on top of that. Unfortunately, they were not properly primed before being painted over with a latex paint and as a result are peeling in some areas. Which means we have to replace them if we want our paint job to be durable.

There's a toe-kick piece at the bottom that we had to remove first. You can clearly see the paint layers here. As you can also see, they put in the baseboards and then painted. That order is backwards and is resulting in more work for us.

Here is the wall with the baseboards completely removed. The other issue we have found are that they did not smooth the plaster below the old baseboards. The new ones we are putting on are about 1/4 inch shorter, so we are having to improvise. Also, since they painted the baseboards in place and didn't tape off very well, there is a paint line on the floor around the perimeter of the whole room that I have the privilege of scraping off with a putty knife and some solvent. Fun.

When we closed a couple weeks ago I was so excited to discovered a volunteer watermelon plant! At the time I didn't see any fruit on it. Well this past weekend I discovered a couple. No idea how we missed them. Here's the little one.

And here's the big one! I've never grown watermelon before and I've no idea what kind this is, so I'm not sure when to harvest it, but since we've yet to have a really good watermelon this season I'm salivating already! The vine is really healthy and spread out, with lots of flowers, so I'm hoping we get a few more fruit off of it.

It's Ours...

We are officially homeowners!

Weird...

I made us a smoothie this morning, as usual, and when I tasted it my mouth said "chocolate!" and my brain said "huh?". B said the same thing when I asked him later; he had thought I'd made the a chocolaty smoothie I sometimes make for a treat. But I hadn't put a lick of chocolate in the thing! Weird. It does turn out light brown in color, so maybe you can fake out your kids :o)

The Unchocolate Fruity Smoothie

1 large banana, peeled
1 orange, peeled
1/2 lb baby spinach
12 oz frozen, pitted sweet cherries
1 tbsp almond butter
3-4 tbsp vanilla hemp protein powder (I used Trader Joe's)
1 tbsp bee pollen
8-16 oz water

Place banana, orange, and half of spinach into blender with 1/2 the water. Blend until spinach is just pulled down. Add remaining spinach and pulse again just until pulled down. Add remaining ingredients and run blender until smooth (I used the "whole juice" button on my Blendtec). Add remaining water to achieve your desired consistency, or if your blender needs some help.

Serves 2 as a meal or 4 as a snack.

Fiery Roasted Salsa

In an effort to use up some of the tomatoes we harvested I canned up a batch of salsa this weekend. I combined two recipes to come up with this and doubled the batch. (If you are new to canning please stick to a tested recipe, especially if you are using low acid foods as proper acidity is critical to the safety of your final product if you are using a water bath canner.) I made sure I used plenty of vinegar to ensure adequate acidity but be warned, this is not a by-the-book tested recipe. If you want to make this but are uncomfortable with canning, or just don't want to, you can definitely freeze this, in which case you would also have more room to play with ingredients since acidity is not so much an issue with freezing.

I used peppers in three different ways and roasted the veggies to add depth of flavor. I like this kind of salsa on the smoother side, so I pulsed almost all the veggies in the blender. As a bonus this means I just left the peel of the tomatoes on, saving me a step and keeping the extra roasted flavor in. I did this whole thing on the grill to avoid heating up the house and to enjoy the lovely day. You can also use your oven's broiler, you just may have to split the veggies into a couple batches.

Unless you are the type to eat habaneros straight this salsa will knock you on your butt. I'm thinking it will be yummy mixed into some sour cream to help cool the fire.

Start you boiling water canner to heat. I heat my clean canning jars along with the water so they are hot when I'm ready to go. You'll also need a stock pot that holds at least six quarts. For more in-depth canning instructions go here or check your local library for a variety of books.

Roasted Salsa
Makes 8 pint jars or 16 half pint jars.

Slice 7 lbs of tomatoes along their equator (this makes seeding them much easier). Seed them and set aside. If you are using a meatier tomato like an Amish Paste reduce the amount to 6 lbs. The recipes I was basing this on instructed you to roast the tomatoes and then peel, seed and dice. However, seeding and dicing tomatoes that are roasted is rather difficult since they get really soft. Seeding before hand is much easier and you don't have to wait for them to cool.

Toast up 24 dried peppers about 30 seconds on each side then transfer to a glass or metal bowl, cover with 2 cups hot water, weigh down with a bowl or plate and set aside to soak. I used 12 guajillo peppers, 6 chipotles (dried, not canned), 3 Californias, and 3 chili negros. You can safely substitute an equal amount of different dried chilis, or reduce the number, but don't add more if you are canning the salsa.

Everything that I grilled: 2 heads garlic broken into cloves (in aluminium tray), 4 small onions, peeled of loose skin, 4 jalapenos, 4 poblanos, and the tomatoes. I put the tomatoes cut side down for just about 30 seconds to get a touch of color then flipped them skin side down to finish roasting. You want them to develop plenty of charred color and flavor but pull them off before they turn completely to mush. Turn the peppers and onions occasionally, until blackened pretty well on all sides. Give the garlic a toss/shake a couple times; I let them go until I was done with the rest of the veggies. When you pull off the chilis transfer them to a paper bag, roll down the top to seal and set aside. Transfer the tomatoes to a bowl as they will give off a lot of liquid that you want to keep.

Stem your dried chilis and transfer them and their soaking liquid to a blender or food processor. Pulse until you achieve a rough paste. Transfer to stockpot. For all the veggies I ran through the blender I was going a for smooth, but not completely pureed consistency.

Skin the onions and garlic and transfer to the blender. You'll want to keep a small bowl of water handy to rinse your fingers while you are peeling the garlic as it is very sticky and you'll need to rinse your fingers a couple times during peeling.

A shot of the onions and garlic. You can see that the onions get a bit translucent on the grill, but they don't get mushy. The garlic however get nice and soft. I used a bit of the tomato juices to help these along in the blender.

You can see that the tomatoes get very soft. Blend as with the other veggies and transfer to the stockpot. If you opt not to blend your veggies you will need to peel the tomatoes or the skins will create an unpleasant texture in the final product.

Your peppers will get very dark and partially collapse from roasting. Putting them in the paper bag uses their own heat to steam them and make them easier to peel.
(And didn't B take some lovely pictures? Thanks babe!)

Pepper skins are pretty tough so I did peel them. A word to the wise: wear gloves when handling all these peppers. I didn't (and I know better!) and I had a serious chemical burn on my hands that night since I also didn't wash off the capsicum oil quickly enough.

The blended roasted chilies on top of the tomatoes. Can you see the wolf?

A close up so you can see the texture.

I also used 2 fresh jalapenos and 1 fresh poblano pepper. These I seeded and chopped fine.

Mix together all you roasted and fresh veggies, 1 bunch stemmed and finely chopped cilantro, 2 teaspoons salt, and 2 cups white vinegar. (Yes 2 cups - it is essential to ensure adequate acidity for all these low-acid fruits and vegetables). I recommend sticking with plain (cheap!) white vinegar for this as the nuances of a more expensive vinegar will get lost in all these big flavors. Simmer over medium heat 15-20 minutes.

Fill hot jars with hot salsa to 1/2 inch of top. Wipe jar threads clean, top with a hot, previously simmered lid and ring screwed on finger tight. Place into water bath, bring to a boil, and process 20 minutes. Turn off heat, leave for 5 minutes then remove jars to a towel covered counter. Leave undisturbed for 24 hours. Check seal (when you press on the center of the lid it should not pop up and down), remove rings, wipe jars clean, and store in a cool, dark, dry area. It is recommended that home canned goods be consumed within a year for best flavor, however if they are correctly processed, properly sealed, and show no signs of spoilage they will technically last quite a lot longer.

I still have something like 20 pounds of tomatoes so if anyone has suggestions for what to do with them I'd love some ideas!

Take 20 Minutes...

...and watch this, if you haven't already; it's important. http://www.storyofstuff.com/index.html I will have more to say about it later, right now I'm too tired to articulate my thoughts, and I need some time to mull it over.

Craziness

I just wanted to let everyone know that I haven't abandoned this blog! This has been a crazy couple of weeks. B and I were back from Hawaii 5 whole days before we left for Chicago for a week, then we had to move out of our house by yesterday, which means we moved into PODs since we don't actually have a house to move in to (my parents are very generous to put up with us for a month so we won't be homeless!). On top of all the copious paperwork already involved in purchasing a house, we learned that in order to qualify for our loan we have to have the water heater raised off the floor and we have to have the entire exterior of the house painted prior to closing. That's right, today I hired a painter to paint a house we do not yet own. *Super* So needless to say, we've been just a little bit busy. I promise I'll post something next week. If nothing else I'll try to keep you updated on the house status, since I know it is keeping you on the edge of your seat :o)

I'll hopefully have a chance to catch up on reading all your blogs in the next week or two, I feel so out of the loop!

Have a happy day!