Links and Mending

• Cutting flat vs cutting on the fold (via Grainline) 

• I really like Budget Bytes. Not complicated but very appealing recipes made with real food. Many meals in my Plan To Eat meal planner are from this blog these days. (I loooove plan to

  

  Mending the wool jammie pants with colorful wool thread

  eat as well)

• Tonight's dinner from Budget Bytes.

• This mending is so inspiring. Now that I have jettisoned all the rtw that isn't quality what's left is getting mended. 

• I seriously love this. (Free Tea Party)

• Dry shampoo, where have you been all my life? This one is working well and doesn't have artificial fragrances or weird chemicals in it. 

• Someone needs to make me Feta Tapenade Tart Soleil

Fermented Pickles

A little more detail about those pickles in Monday's post...

I prefer fermented pickles to vinegar pickles any day of the week. This summer I have a really great batch going. It's pretty simple to do. I learned from Sandor Katz, both in person and from his book Wild Fermentation (I really recommend it). I make my pickles in a half gallon mason jar with a jam jar inserted in the top to hold down the vegetables. You can also buy various kinds of ceramic pickle weights but for my set up the mason jars work great. 

I start with a salt water brine (use filtered water if you can), freshly picked cucumbers (blossom ends trimmed off) and green beans from the garden, garlic from the store, and a few grape leaves from the wild vines out back (helps keep things crisp). I clean all that, put it in the crock with the brine, cover it and let it sit on the kitchen counter for a few days. It usually takes about 4 days to get going at which point I put it in the fridge to slow down fermentation. Now that my brine is filled with microorganisms a fresh batch of cucumbers only takes a day and a half to 2 days (my kitchen is at about 80 degrees) to ferment before I put it away. Soooo good. I make sauerkraut, kimchi, and pickled carrots in the fall the same way.

Read Sandor's book and give fermentation a try. I bet you'll be addicted too.

Links

• An oldie but a goodie: Natural does not equal safe on Sorta Crunchy

• I've always thought that this "meat is the worst thing for global warming" idea is bunk. The Radical Homemaker breaks it down really well.  

•  Yarn video games. YARN VIDEO GAMES!!

• Food In Jars shared a strawberry chutney which sounds great.

• Caramelized Sesame Chocolate Bar from Chocolate and Zucchini

• I want to buy ALL of Art Gallery's knit fabrics and make a thousand Auroras.

• I started reading a few historical sewing blogs and even though it's not something I'm going to sew, I love their enthusiasm! And it is interesting. American Duchess is one of them.

• Lining, underlining, interfacing, facing... so much to learn!

• You know those gorgeous blown glass beverage dispensers? I've always wanted one (not that I have room to store it or a reason to use it, but maybe one day) but they always have these cheap plastic spigots which turns me off. However stainless steel spigots are available to replace them!

• All the details of making mustard from Hunter Angler Gardener Cook

 

Garden Update and What to Make When Your Garden Produces Odds and Ends

Snails are all over the place, including our windows

In the garden:

So. Much. Rain.

This summer's garden is not great and I can't even spend much time working in it because the soil has been waterlogged for months (and this is in large part why the garden isn't great). People around here often use raised beds, but then of course there are the yearly droughts and that's when raised beds have trouble. They dry out much, much faster than the surrounding soil. So, while we have some, it's important to remember they have their own quirks which will require more attention at some point in the year.

Nevertheless, the summer squashes are actually doing rather well! Usually the vine borers get them and, while they are there in the vines right now, I think the super wet soil is allowing the squashes to do a fantastic job of re-rooting along their length. Usually things are so dry that rooting on top of the soil (or just below the soil if you bury them to help them along) like that is very difficult them. Even with all the mulch we use on our beds it is very hard to keep the top half inch of soil at all moist when the rain doesn't fall and the sun shines brightly for weeks. 

Dribs and drabs

The green beans, which I planted 4 times, are finally doing ok. They'll crap out in another month, maybe more, and thus (if the soil ever dries enough) I need to do a second planting. The Violet's Multi Colored Butter Beans, which I had to plant 3 times (something was chomping all the beans this spring!) are doing amazing (except that I just noticed today something is nibbling the pods open)! They take a long time to ripen but those vines are huge and covered in pods. The purple podded pole beans are not as happy but they're ok. I think they are a little too shady on the north side of the trellis, in a shadier part of the garden, half under an Almond Verbena that is much, much larger than advertised.

an unusually large harvest, still small

Peppers and tomatoes are mostly a loss. The stink bugs are out of control this year, again, on the toms and the peppers (all those lovely peppers I grew! sniff!) have mostly rotted in the ground. Because things are so wet this year, I'm going to start another flat of Solanacae next week. Worse case scenario the weather gets super hot and dry and I've wasted a little seed and soil. Best case scenario it stays rainy all summer (like it was last summer) and those plants won't be too stressed even in August. I usually start a fall round of Solanaceae in early August in any case for planting out mid September. These will be too early for that unless I do some serious potting up and nursing along but you never know.

Eggplants, as so often happens, are just kind of hanging out. For the past few years they sit there all summer, growing super slow and throwing off the occasional fruit and then come fall, BOOM! Eggplant explosion.

Tomatillos are stressed by the wet soil. They are in our  raised beds but even so you have issues when it rains like this because it washes the nutrients downward and they get pretty hungry. Honestly, the whole garden needs a foliar feed but I can't get out there to do it for all the rain and the swarms of mosquitoes (like, 20 per cubic foot of air) are off putting.

Okra was slow to grow but now it's getting going and I get a few pods a day.

I did manage to make one jam jar of pesto plus use basil regularly in cooking. The plants aren't awesome but I have enough of them out there to add up. My papalo (only one plant came up from seed) is growing well and I am so in love with it! Everyone who lives where it's too hot for cilantro in the summer, grow this herb!

So the garden is producing odds and ends but not much of any one thing. What do you cook when this happens? These are my go to meals:

Tacos - chop and roast the odds and ends and use in tacos with beans, cheese, and whatever else you usually like.
Pizza - chopped and roasted odds and ends can add up to a nice veggie pizza
Soup - the classic way to use up the odds and ends.
Fermented Pickles - I don't just put cucumbers in my fermenting jars, I also add green beans, okra*, and peppers. Everything can be fermented. These are just my favorites to ferment in this way.
Snacks in the garden - self explanatory.


Here are some pictures of my pickles in progress: 

Pickles and grape leaves

For the second jar I remembered to add the green beans and garlic

I use a jam jar to weigh down the veg. Usually I drape a napkin over this and rubber band it under the lip of the larger jar.

 
*I think I now know why I usually (always?) see okra pickled whole. I sliced them this time and the slime infected my entire jar. I mean, EVERYTHING is covered in mucus. I'll dump the brine, rinse the pickles, and rebrine them. Hopefully that helps because I hate to waste the jar but I can not deal with the goo.

Links

 Things I've been reading...

• Trees grown in and around special plastic forms, the grafted to form solid, single piece furniture. Hopefully the plastic forms last more than one season!

• Loved this discussion about reading and interpreting ancient sagas in the modern age, with kids.

• I know it sounds ridiculous but steak is my new favorite thing. I just did not eat steak before we got an eighth of a cow as a present. Holy moly! Might try this Miso Glazed Flank Steak from Chocolate and Zucchini.

• So dorky and fascinating. Old & Interesting - History of Domestic Paraphernalia. 

• These critiques of the accuracy of the period clothing on Outlander are cracking me up! By historical clothing enthusiast Very Paige.

•  "All the time we spend inventing reasons is probably better spent responding to what occurs." The Tyranny of Random Numbers on Seth Godin's blog.

• This Pineapple, Lime, Coconut and Mint Mocktail does not seem like a consolation prize to me!

  

Broccoli is so pretty when it goes to seed.

Links and Things

Links and things. 

• A few weeks ago I was talking about how I didn't want to use quilting cotton anymore because it's not the best for garments. It is definitely not the best for the types of blouses I'm making at the moment but I've used it successfully for garments where the stiffness and lack of drape usually found in a quilting cotton works to the advantage of the pattern (as long as it is good quality quilting cotton... a lot of the super cheap stuff I used to buy was horrible but I've found lovely fabrics in that genre as well). Tilly and the Buttons has a nice post on when and how to successfully use quilting cotton for garment sewing. 

• Conventional mobile bee operations and Stalinist apartment blocks are an apt comparison. (on Root Simple)  

• We have a brisket from Yonder Way Farms so we're going to corn it. (on Rhulman.com)

• I think I'm finally going to get around to making some mustard. Maybe I'll start with this Brown Maple Mustard. (on Putting Up With Erin)

• Strawberry Swirl Brownies. Good lord. (on Dessert for Two)

• This Chile con Carne Verde was spectacular (as all Homesick Texan's recipes are!).

Oliver + S School Days Coat Pattern and Cabbages

OF course I didn't follow my original order-of-garment-sewing plan. I made a muslin of a Butterick kimono top, a wearable muslin of the Lane Raglan by Hey June, and the Gathering Apron by Sew Liberated. Then I made Small the School Days Coat by Oliver + S. I have never sewn a coat or anything with this kind of lining and since I want to sew a coat for me this year I decided that starting with a kiddo version was much lower stakes and great practice. 

This coat is a FABULOUSLY written pattern. Having just sewn an apron with poorly written instructions this was delightful. Everything was clearly illustrated and explained in great detail. Love it! I'll definitely be sewing Oliver + S patterns again!

The exterior fabric is a poly wool coating in red, yellow, and blue plaid that I got on sale from fabric.com. It was a little thinner and floppier than expected but it worked well. It's a pretty loose weave though, so there was much fraying if I wasn't careful. The body is lined in a dark green cotton who's origin is lost to the mists of time. The hood is lined with a cool pinwheel print quilting cotton from my grandmother's stash. The sleeves and patch pockets are lined in a mustard yellow broad cloth I bought from a fabric warehouse in TN 12 years ago. I made the toggle cording from some bright yellow bias tape I've had in my stash for years. I didn't have toggles and didn't want to go to the store so I used some vintage buttons from Stitch Lab and made my own. Other than the fact that I made the closures too short (not paying attention!) I think it turned out great! I sewed up a size 5 which is a little large for Small so the shortness of the closures is ok for the moment. I'll fix it later when he grows fully into it. It took about 14 hours to make and I do not, by the way, recommend that much sewing in one 24 hour period.

In other sewing news, I'm about to trace and cut out a muslin for the Ashland Dress (I'll make it tunic length though) also by Sew Liberated. We'll see how this pattern turns out. The apron pattern had "basic written instructions and assembly diagrams" and then you can access videos online for further instruction. Um... no. I'm pretty sure I'm not a beginner sewist but these instructions were terrible. Not fully illustrated and not complete basic instructions. I also don't want to have to watch online videos even if I was a beginner. I want to watch Buffy the Vampire Slayer or listen to Savage Love while I'm sewing. Sometimes I want to enjoy some peace and quiet. Patterns should come with instructions. If this one isn't easier to work with than the apron pattern was I think I'm done with Sew Liberated. Anyhow, I'm planning to make the final version out of Kaffe Fasset shot cloth in Moss. I got swatches of moss, viridian and Aegean last summer at Stitch Lab and I've been waiting impatiently to bring these colors into my wardrobe because they're gorgeous. 

In gardening news the cabbages are getting to a harvestable size and I've already made (and consumed!) a half gallon of sauerkraut. There is another half gallon on the counter just starting to get fizzy. The broccoli harvest has also been amazing this year and the greens as always are chugging along nicely. I planted new lettuce a few weeks ago. These were plants I started myself so they shouldn't bolt prematurely like the ones I got from the nursery (really not impressed overall with this organic nursery near me). The onions and celery are also doing well. The yellow snow peas I planted are growing fantastically but they aren't sweet so we're mostly not eating them. Ill harvest a big batch of them soon, as they are now long in the tooth with fully developed seeds, and use them for soup. Our tomatoes, peppers, and tomatillos, as well as spring herbs

and flowers are ready to go in the ground when the weather warms and stabilizes (a few weeks). I didn't grow eggplants because I normally find eggplant varieties I like at the store. I usually buy jalapenos and serranos from nurseries as well.

We also planted 2 Fuyu persimmons, a Golden Dorset apple and a Japanese plum. Added to the 3 figs, 2 mandarins, a loquat and a kumquat, I'd say fruit abounds on this property!

And just because I think his ability to curl his tongue is amazing, I give you Small.

Book Review: Laurel's Kitchen Bread Book

I have been making bread for years and some time ago I stopped using a recipe. While I can definitely make a good basic loaf by feel, at some point it started to drift away from good towards mediocre. I decided I should go back to using a recipe to shed any bad techniques I'd developed and make my loaf great again. 

Since I only cook with whole wheat flour (King Arthur white whole wheat in particular because that's what is available at my local grocery store) I opened up the Laurel's Kitchen Bread Book (subtitled A Guide To Whole-Grain Breadmaking) by Laurel Robertson with Carol Fliners and Bronwen Godfrey. I've had this book for a decade but I think the only thing I baked from it was sourdough (all I remember about that is I don't like the smell of fermenting rye flour!).

I should have returned to this book long ago! The Basic Whole Wheat (page 80) is fantastic. I experimented with the suggested variations: butter, oil, and without fat- all are wonderful although butter is my favorite. Since I started making yogurt again I've been using whey instead of water and as the weather became warmer I cut the amount of yeast in half because it was rising too fast... It's a versatile bread.

The whole wheat challah is phenomenal although it always seems too wet so I reduce the eggs by one and the total liquid to 2 cups. I make the raisin version which is a delicious sandwich bread. FYI, toasting really brings out something special in challah.

The Late Winter Garden

Horseradish. The roots were tiny!

We just built a bunch of new beds and with the three we have left to build it will about triple the garden size - back to pre-baby square footage. YAY! I'm very excited about this year. Now that my son is older and we've made the section of the yard that contains the garden safe (as safe as anything can be for a toddler who has more ability to lift and climb than he has sense) I think I'll be able to garden regularly. 

Happy sigh.

Gardening makes me feel very much like me. It's who I am. I am a grower of plants. 

I transplanted a bunch of runners from last year's strawberries into a new bed. I think we'll have around 30 plants this year without having to buy more. We'll see how it goes. A few of them are already blooming (silly strawberries) and it's going to freeze tonight. Everything got heavily watered today to help prevent frost damage (except the strawberries. whoops.).

Tiny wheelbarrow

On an adorable note: To my son, all red berries are strawberries but blueberries are "blue strawberries". Also, he started digging holes and "planting" sticks and acorns and leaves. Upon observing this, my

Super Strong Vanilla Extract

As a fun extra in the shop for the holidays I'm making super strong vanilla extract. This is what we all wished normal extract from the store was but it never turned out to be. 

It's the real deal, folks and you only need a little (not tons extra like I always used) because it powerfully tastes of vanilla (as it should!). When you uncork a bottle of this you smell the vanilla, not the vodka. I'll be selling some in the shop for a limited time but if you want to make it yourself, here's how:

Chop 1/4# vanilla beans (grade B or extract grade or splits) into 1/2" pieces. Mix with 1 quart vodka (I used Texas vodka). Shake daily for 30 days. Strain or not.

Left: Extract freshly mixed day 1. Right: Fully extracted (30 + days)

I'll give you a heads up when the bottles are ready to ship. 

(P.S. It occurs to me that it might not be obvious from the picture but the lower half of the left jar is dark because you're looking at a pile of vanilla beans. The right jar has no beans in it... that's just the color when it's fully extracted. )

Tex-Mex Monte Cristo

I like the idea of jalapeno jelly (and so I always make it) but I never know what to do with it other than the classic "baked with cream cheese" dip. Here's what I came up with today and it was delicious. 

Grilled cheese and ham topped with jalapeno jelly. It's like a less complicated, Tex-Mex, Monte Cristo.

 

Look What I Found Under A Potato Plant...

... plus a bell pepper.

1.75# of potatoes under this plant

Very Easy Potato and Roasted Broccoli Soup

I really like soups but when they're as easy as this one, I adore them. Here is my potato-broccoli soup in 4 easy steps.

 1. Make mashed potatoes (with butter, without, with milk... however you like). 

 2. Roast the broccoli (or other vegetables... the version pictured also has roasted cauliflower and carrots). 

 2b. Saute onions, garlic, and celery in butter (or roast all that along with your broccoli). 

 3. Dilute mashed potatoes with broth or water until thick or as thin as you like. 

 4. Add your roasted and/or sauteed veg. - DONE!

Bonus: At this point you can add cream, or not. Cheese or bacon or yogurt or not. Puree the soup or leave it chunky: it is totally up to you.

And remember, since I can't write a good recipe I just gave you a general formula. If you like potato broccoli soup that is a whole lota potato and not so much broccoli then prep your quantities accordingly. If you're a broccoli fiend then roast a ton. If you don't think you have enough broccoli then just roast some more and add it later. The cool thing about soup is that even if you end up with too much it freezes well and you can always beef it up, change the spices, or throw in some of whatever you've got at a later time. Such a flexible meal!

Soup in jars cooling for the freezer

Winter Vegetable Moussaka

Moussaka is amazing. For those not in the know, it's a Greek casserole made with layers of potato, ground beef, tomatoes, zucchini, eggplant, and topped with a creamy blend of yogurt, feta, and eggs.

fun was had with the waffle blade on the mandoline

But eggplant and zucchini are summer vegetables and we try to eat seasonally and domestically (right now all the summer produce in our grocery store is coming from Mexico) so I decided to give it a try with winter vegetables. This version includes potatoes, brussels sprouts, turnips, and onion pre-roasted with olive oil and butter then layered with canned tomatoes, spices, and topped with yogurt-feta yumminess.

It was fantastic. 

It wouldn't be moussaka to me without the buttery potato layer but the rest can be altered. Might I suggest sweet potatoes and kale? Pumpkin was going to go in this batch but I ran out of room so I think a pumpkin-potato-spinach version is coming soon. As far as I'm concerned one can not have to much topping so while I always double what my recipe calls for, I think tripling or quadrupling would not be unreasonable.

Here is my (somewhat unspecific) recipe for Winter Vegetable Moussaka (based on and reworked from a standard version in one of my go to cookbooks The Mediterranean Cookbook)

Winter Vegetable Moussaka

1# Brussels sprouts
3-4 turnips
12 red potatoes
2 onions
lotsa garlic
optional: 1 # ground beef, other vegetables as desired
butter, olive oil, and salt to roast
1 28 oz can diced tomatoes
1 Tbl tsp fresh thyme and/or oregano (2 tsp dried)

For the topping:

3 cups strained plain yogurt (I use unstrained Greek yogurt)
4 large eggs
1 cup feta, crumbled
salt and pepper to taste


Slice or chop the vegetables. Coat in olive oil/butter and sprinkle with salt to taste. Roast in a 400* oven until soft and crispy (aprox. 30 minutes). Lower oven to 350*.

{NB - I normally slice some of the veg (like turnips and potatoes) and chop others. Depends on what texture you're looking for. Try it both ways and see what you like best.}

Beat together eggs, yogurt, some salt, and pepper.

Put a layer of vegetables in a large casserole followed by a layer of canned tomatoes with juice. Sprinkle with thyme and/or oregano. Repeat until all ingredients are used. Top with yogurt mixture. Crumble feta over that.

Bake 45 minutes to 1 hour until golden brown.



What favorite recipe have you adapted to use seasonal ingredients?

Winter Solstice

pecan tree

We decided a few years ago that rather than celebrating Christmas and Easter (at least as a family... we still celebrate those other holidays with extended family and friends who observe them), which have no religious significance for us, we would celebrate the solstices (solstici?) and equinoxes. Last winter solstice was the first one scheduled and we had great plans but with a very new baby all we had energy for was cooking dinner and lighting a candle. This year Poppyseed is 1 and while we're not (quite) as exhausted, I don't have a lot of time to prep a big fiesta so this is what we did:

1. Took a walk (we do that every day but this was a festive walk!)
2. Watched the sunset to say goodby to the shortest day and hello to the longest night
3. Ate a seasonal feast (tacos with roasted duck, cabbage cilantro slaw, and roasted carrots)
4. Opened solstice presents
5. Picked greenery to decorate the house (holly, bay, and Mexican firebush)

a lichen covered stick we found on our walk

Next year, if the 2 year old allows, I hope to add solstice cookie making and seed starting to the mix. In this part of the country, not only can I continually grow kale, lettuce, and such through winter but, if I want large tomato and pepper plants to put in the ground come frost free time then I need to start them nowish (because the frost free date is only 2.5 months away)!

Here are some more pictures from our Winter Solstice.

Rice and Arsenic

Probably because I have a one year old and sometimes that's a little distracting, I completely missed this when it came out. Or I should say, I missed the gravity of it. I remember hearing there was something about arsenic in rice but I didn't realize what a big deal it was. 

While the FDA is characteristically cautious in their analysis, Consumer Reports advocates taking action, both personally and in terms of regulation, to deal with this problem. 

From the Consumer Reports study:

“We already know that high concentrations of arsenic in drinking water result in the highest known toxic substance disease risks from any environmental exposure,” says Allan Smith, M.D., Ph.D., a professor of epidemiology at the University of California, Berkeley. “So we should not be arguing to wait for years until we have results of epidemiologic studies at lower arsenic intake, such as from rice consumption, to take action.” 

"People who ate rice had arsenic levels that were 44 percent greater than those who had not, according to our analysis of federal health data."

I recommend reading their entire report.  

We're taking a better-safe-than-sorry approach and have stopped eating rice (except for arborio because a little rissotto now and then is a risk I'm willing to take and Poppyseed doesn't eat it anyway). We don't really need to eat rice and it's not a particularly nutritious grain anyway. Instead we're going with quinoa, couscous, millet, pollenta (oh dear lord do I love corn!), and bulgar. We already eat some of that some of the time. Last night was a mushroom and venison stew over Parmesan pollenta and in the summer we often eat tabbouleh. Couscous also makes regular summer appearances with tomatoes and feta. Millet is going to be a new one. I've eaten it before but never cooked it.



What are your favorite grains and favorite ways to eat them? After reading those reports, are you going to avoid rice?

Links and Articles to Share

Some things that caught my attention this week...

• We recently switched our dish soap and laundry detergent based on the Environmental Working Groups "Guide to Healthy Cleaning" report. Here they explain how they graded all those products.

• Mark Bittman in the NY Times... yes, pesticides are very very bad for us... especially children. 

•  Which got me thinking about how I need to upgrade the filters in our Big Berkey to the black ones which do a better job of removing pesticides than the originals.     

•  I just bought some organic instant coffee to make these Pfeffernuesse (although obviously not with Crisco... time to render some more lard). 

• Before next summer I want to figure out a way to (easily) save grey water for the garden. Maybe the shower bucket is a good start. (although I'd want to run a sump-pump and hose through the window so I don't have to haul the bucket outside constantly. I know my limits.)

•  I used to make truffles every year, usually with Chambord ganache. These salted caramel truffles look amazing. Now if I could only successfully temper chocolate... (and find time - seed starting and cleaning the chicken house definitely take priority).

Roasted Brussels Sprouts and Bean Salad

I seriously love roasted Brussels sprouts. They're bitter and sweet, creamy and crunchy... just awesome. Because of this love of sprouts I found myself the other day with 3 pounds of said brassica that really needed to be used, an empty stomach and a desire for a quick and easy lunch. Thus my Roasted Brussels Sprouts and Bean Salad was born. As usual this is a loose recipe: it's flexible, scalable, and really more of an outline. Use what you have, what you like, in the ratios you prefer.




Roasted Brussels Sprouts and Bean Salad

Brussels sprouts

wash and quarter sprouts

beans (cooked)
lemon
garlic
feta
salt
pepper
extra virgin olive oil

Wash and quarter sprouts. Toss with olive oil and salt. Spread on rimmed baking sheet and roast at 350 until crispy around the edges and softish in the middle (or however you like them... blackened, barely cooked, whatever). Drain beans (and rinse if you don't like the goo). Gently mix (so as not to smash all the beans) with sprouts and feta (the more the better in my opinion). Dress with olive oil, lemon juice, salt, pepper and minced or pressed garlic. Gently stir to coat.

That's it!

...toss with lemon, olive oil, and garlic

Non-GMO Masa

Did I mention this already? I was searching for GMO-free masa (because we hate GMOs but loooove tamales) and contacted Bob's Red Mill about their masa...

Hi Annie,

Thank you for your e-mail. Here at Bob’s Red Mill, we only purchase identity-preserved products that originate from non-GMO seed. We think it is very important to offer the most natural, wholesome flours and grains. You can purchase our products knowing that we make honest decisions on behalf of our customers.

I will note that the reason we do not label our products as non-GMO is because we cannot guarantee the complete absence of genetic modification in our products because of wind drift, pollinators and our lack of testing equipment. We are, however, venturing into GMO testing so that we can guarantee our products’ GMO-free status. This is a new venture that will hopefully be in fruition by next year.

Let me know if you have any further questions, take care.

Andrey Gorban

Customer Service Representative

Bob's Red Mill Natural Foods

(971)206-2231



Yay Bob's Red Mill! 

I'm very happy to see that they're going to start a testing program.


More on GMOs (Genetically Modified Organisms):
Mark Bittman in the NY Times on GMOs and Prop 37 in CA
The Non-GMO Project
GMO Myths and Truths from the Organic Consumer's Association

Green Salsa Obsession

I have become obsessed with green salsa. 

There is almost always some in the fridge these days (as long as we have cilantro of course). 

I was inspired by Homesick Texan's tomatillo salsa recipe but since my tomatillos aren't ready in the garden didn't produce at all (!) and half of us don't do spicy, I made some alterations. Here's what I do:

1 large can tomatillos

1 can green chiles (we use mild)

1 bunch cilantro

onion (1/4? 1/2? depends on the day)

a few garlic cloves
whole cumin and pepper
olive oil

Blend all that up then simmer a pinch of whole cumin in a tablespoon or so of olive oil. Careful not to burn it. After a few minutes, when the cumin is slightly softened and the oil is nicely infused, pour your salsa into the pan right on top of the oil. You can call it quits at this point or cook the salsa a little. Your choice. I do it a different way each time I make it.

Stir this into soup, eggs, scoop it with chips, use it as an enchilada sauce, a topping for rice, potatoes, or mix it with yogurt for a creamy green salsa.

I can't wait until I have fresh tomatillos again!

P.S. Since I first drafted this post I've stopped cooking the salsa. I think I liked it better that way but I am very short on time because someone, lets call them "Poppyseed", gets impatient. Anyhow, I just pour the cumin/olive oil into the blender with the salsa and give it one last swirl. Pretty darn good. 



What is your condiment obsession?