Tuesday, April 30, 2013

They're In The Ground

Well, actually, they're in the containers but I think you know what I mean. I spent yesterday evening planting, fertilizing and praying that they grow!


I found transplants of heirloom tomato plants and I got two of them along with some herbs



These are the chives.


That's basil on the right and parsley on the left. I only hope the squirrels aren't attracted to them



And I am most excited about these, the tomato plants. I love, love, love homegrown tomatoes.


These are the lettuce seeds and the one thing I am a little nervous about. I've never tried to grow any kind of lettuce before, so I'm keeping my fingers crossed. By the way, Lola was trying to get my attention while I was taking pictures so that is why her "rear end" is in the picture.


Another thing that I'm keeping my fingers crossed on is the baby bok choy seeds, but I have high hopes. There's Lola's "rear end" again. You would think that no one ever pays attention to her, which if FAR from the truth.


This is just some more of the herbs that I had left over, chives, basil and parsley.


I'm just adding this to show you what Lola looks like when she runs through the puddles in the backyard the day after it has rained. But I still "wuv" her!

Now it's time for the sunshine, water and prayer to get this garden growin'.

Kathy




Sunday, April 28, 2013

"Edible Foodlike Substances"

I love Michael Pollan, well not love love, but really admire him and his philosophy on nutrition. Another of my favorite books is "In Defense Of Food" (an eaters manifesto). I can honestly say that this book really, fundamentally changed my thinking of food, nutrition and the nutrition business. And yes, it is a business.

According to Mr. Pollan, "the more we worry about nutrition, the less healthy we seem to become". It is what he refers to as "nutritionism".  Just what is nutritionsim? I won't be able to explain it as thoroughly as Mr. Pollan, but I will give you the general idea. We've always been told to eat lots of fruit and vegetables because they are healthy for us. Nutritionist have told us that these foods are full of antioxidants such as beta-carotene, lycopene, vitamin A and others. So over the years food scientists have made supplements containing these nutrients so we can just take a pill instead of eating the foods containing them.

I'm sure you've all seen milk containing omega-3, orange juice containing added calcium and other products containing beta-carotene and lypocene. But it seems that even with all this new science, we are getting less healthy and more overweight than ever. Maybe, just maybe, is doesn't all come down to isolating the one particular nutrient.

Whose to say that the beta-carotene in a carrot, while being a powerful antioxidant, doesn't work it's magic because of the other nutrients in the carrot, whether it's the fiber, vitamin A, etc. Could the beta-carotene be destroyed in the digestive system without the other parts of the carrot to help it out? What about the omega-3 in salmon, maybe it needs the nutritional compounds in the rest of the fish to be of any value to us?

That's why Mr. Pollan urges us to eat food instead of  "edible foodlike substances".  It seems that a lot of products on the market today are "no longer the products of nature but of food science". Mr. Pollan also laments our culture of eating in the car instead of at the dinner table. And no truer words are spoken when he tells us to not eat anything if there is nothing in the ingredient list that your grandmother wouldn't recognize and if the list is more than five ingredients long. We should also avoid foods that make health claims.

This is just a small portion of what the book is about, but I think you might get the general idea. He talks about the Western Diet, why you shouldn't get your fuel from the same place your car get its fuel, try to eat with family and friends to fuel not only the body but the soul.

I'm not going to sit here and say that I can follow all of this advice all the time. But I learned a phrase from the Oprah Winfrey Show a few years ago, lean into it. While I would like to follow all these suggestions all the time, making sudden changes usually doesn't work. And when I am eating out or at someone else's home, I will eat their food and enjoy it and be thankful for it and fuel my soul with their company. But I will try to take one day, one meal at a time and "lean into" this way of thinking about food.

If you haven't read this book, I hope you will. I think you will like it and I hope, as fascinating as I did.


Kathy





Saturday, April 20, 2013

Seeds..Seeds..Seeds...

I've gotten the official word, well, not me personally, it's time to plant some seeds. Our local gardening expert was on the radio last week and said now is a good time to plant seeds in our area. Planting tomato transplants or peppers really cannot be done until the first week or two in May, in our area, because the chance of frost is about over. As a matter of fact, after it being in the 80's last week, the past two days it has rained and gotten a lot colder. Sleet was even reported in some areas of town and last night there was a danger of frost. But we're warming up again today.

I've received several seed catalogs in the mail and I have narrowed it down to two that I want to use. Both sell non-GMO seeds and are totally involved in saving seeds and have taken a pledge in favor of both of those ideals.







This catalog even shows you how to save tomato seeds.





I do want to say that I know my photography skills aren't the best in the world, but be assured that I am working on that. So if some of the pictures here are not as good as they could be, hopefully in time I will remedy that problem!






This is my other favorite catalog and I am going to order some heirloom tomato transplants from it. Ahh, just the thought of some homegrown tomatoes has me weak in the knees.

I've decided to only plant a few things this year just to see how it goes, if I have a "green thumb" or not. I do plan on growing some herbs. It will be nice to just go out on my deck and pick some herbs for whatever I'm cooking.

Here are a few other things that I am ordering from the catalogs:



Doesn't that lettuce mix look yummy?




Sorry about the quality of that picture, but this is baby bok choy. I love some bok choy, sauted in a skillet.




This would be planted to come in this Fall. I love some roasted brussel sprouts!





The tomatoes with the blue ribbon are the transplants I want to buy. They are Italian Heirloom. My mouth is watering.

I promise I will work on my photography skills :-)


Happy planting!!


Kathy

























Sunday, April 14, 2013

Enlightenment

It's widely known, well at least among people I know, that I have always, always absolutely positively loathed yard work, cutting grass in particular. I've always liked a pretty yard, but I just didn't want to do it. But this year it just seems different. I raked and cut the grass this weekend and I actually didn't hate it. Now I'm not going to dance a jig everytime I have to cut the grass, but I have a new, enlightened attitude about it.

I love being outside on a nice, warm day, I don't mind getting dirty and I just feel different about it this year. I don't know if it's my new outlook about all things natural or what. The one thing that did just about send me over the edge was my weedeater stopped working. The weeds had almost grown a foot overnight after the rain so I had to weed eat before I even tried to cut the grass. Then later I wanted to weed eat another area and it wouldn't come on. I thought maybe it had just overheated from all the work. But I kept trying and finally it came on and I finished. But today when I got it out it wouldn't come on at all. It took everything in me not to heave it across the yard. Sometimes it just seems like whenever I'm around electrical or electronic things something happens to them. My solution for now is to not think about it for a while and maybe it will magically start up next time.

Earlier in the year I had considered mowing my grass with the pushmower I have. But as much as I would like to use it, after cutting grass this weekend, I've decided it just wouldn't be much of an option. My backyard is so uneven, with lots of ruts where I had a large tree cut down not long after I moved in. I would never be able to get a good, even cut. Also, my son will be cutting the grass quite often this summer and he would refuse to use it so I think I'm going to have to give up on the idea......for now anyway. I do hate to put those emissions out into the air, but sometimes you just have to choose your battles.

Remember I had talked about getting an easy recipe to make homemade bread? I got my camera out today, ready to take lots of pictures of some yummy bread. Well, that was a complete and utter failure!! I don't know what I did wrong. The dough didn't rise the first time but I went ahead and kneaded it again and put it into the loaf pans for the second rising, zero...zip...nada....didn't rise again. Since I had invested all the ingredients into the dough I went on and put the loaves in the oven hoping by some miracle that they would magically bake into bread. But nope, after baking they came out of the oven looking just as raw as when they went in.

Tomorrow I'm going to ask my friend, who gave me the recipe, to help me figure out what I did wrong. I was so looking forward to some nice homemade bread. The recipe seemed so easy. Dang it!!

Tomorrow is a new day and more challenges await.......


Kathy



Monday, April 8, 2013

It's A Dirty Job

I've been playing in the dirt this past weekend. I was able to dig up some (free) dirt between my house and the house next door. I'm trying lessen the amount of dirt I will have to buy. I had to sit on the deck most of the afternoon and pick a lot of rocks, twigs and roots out of the dirt and then break up the big clumps.


Now I should only have to buy soil to fill the three big, round containers and fill in a little in the others. I'm going to start "composting" my coffee grounds, eggshells and veggie peelings directly into the containers and hopefully the dirt will be get richer as we go along.

As a matter of fact, the same night that I filled the containers I decided to make mashed potatoes for supper just so I could use the peelings in the dirt.




And because I might, might, have just a little touch of OCD, I couldn't just throw the peelings in the dirt willy nilly. I cut them up into little pieces (kind of close to the same size) and put them in the containers in an orderly fashion, then turned them into the dirt. I know, I know, but I can't help myself. I'm not always that bad....hardly ever.

The weather has been really cooperating and hopefully in a couple of weeks I can start planting. I can hardly wait. I still haven't quite decided what I want to plant. Tomatoes of course, that's a given. Definitely some herbs, maybe some peppers. I would like to plant some kind of greens like swiss chard or some lettuces.
Decisions...decisions.

On another note, I think I may want to learn to make homemade jam. My grandma use to make it and it was really good. I have her old recipe box and I'm going to see if that recipe is in there. By making my own jam I can control what goes in it, no high fructose corn syrup, no preservatives, etc. I usually buy a lot of strawberries from the farmers' market in the late spring and might just buy even more so I can do this.

I also got an easy recipe for homemade bread from a friend at work. I was going to make it this past weekend and let you know how it was, but I didn't have any yeast so I will be definitely making it this weekend. She tells me it's so easy that her husband makes it every couple of days. Nothing like homemade bread.

I've been reading a lot about GMO's and the value of heirloom vegetables and saving seeds. Also, I been reading a lot about how a certain large corporation is trying to "own" most seed varieties and how dangerous that can become. It just makes it seem even more important that we save the heritage and non-GMO seeds and continue to grow those fruits and veggies. Of course, I like a good conspiracy theory just like anyone else, but unfortunately, this is really happening and we all need to be aware of it.


Kathy




Thursday, April 4, 2013

Lard....Who Would Have Thought

White and globby and pure pork fat, it's been demonized for the last few decades as the cause of heart disease, obesity and clogged arteries. We were told it was better to use vegetable oil and then canola oil became all the rage, supposedly healthier. And then there is Olive Oil.

Yes, Olive Oil is unanimously a healthy oil, along with walnut oil and a few other nut oils. I like to use walnut oil to make my homemade salad dressing. Olive Oil is good from dipping with good crusty bread, finishing off some dishes and in some cases cooking. I like a good Olive Oil.

Unfortunately, a lot of oils today are made with ingredients that have been genetically modified, especially canola and vegetable oils. Nobody knows what the effect of consuming genetically modified products will have on our bodies, time will tell. But I, for one, want to start cutting out such foods as much as I can. It's not always easy to know which  ones have been altered. But corn is a BIG culprit. Small steps.....

Then there is lard. Who would have thought that it could be a "health" food? But not all lard is created equal, unfortunately.

About a year and a half ago I was talking to one of the farmers at the farmer's market and he was selling lard. He was singing the praises of the globby, porky fat. His animals are raised on pasture and the lard that he makes from his pigs is NOT hydrogenated, therefore, it has no trans fat. Most lard that you find in the grocery store is partially hydrogenated which means they have trans fats in them. And Crisco, that is a man made product and also hydrogenated and full of trans fats and we all know that trans fat is terribly bad for you.

The lard that this farmer sells is good for baking biscuits, piecrusts and cornbread. It's fantastic to fry chicken in and wonderful to pop popcorn in. It can be used in place of any other oil that you usually use. Unfortunately, this farmer is retiring and for the last year he has been selling off his products on a pre-order basis.  Today I picked up 20lbs of lard in 5, 4lb containers that will keep in my freezer for a very long time. I plan on ordering more from him before he completely goes out of business because I haven't seen anyone else selling this product, this all natural product.

I know you're probably thinking I'm a little crazy, but look up lard online, there are quite a few articles touting the healthfulness of using lard over vegetable or canola oils. People in other countries use it instead of butter on their toast although I don't plan on doing that. Lard has a lot of monosaturated fats, which are good fats, and as I said before NO TRANS FAT. I even saw Daphne Oz (daughter of Dr. Oz and we all know how healthy that family is) on the tv show The Chew talk about the benefits of using lard.

Of course, all things in moderation and none of us needs to be eating fried foods and homemade biscuits everyday. But along with a healthy diet and lifestyle, lard fits right in. Check it out online, you might be surprised, I'm a convert.

My babies.........




Kathy