Reminder: Easy As Pie Giveaway - Ends Saturday

Hey folks, remember to enter the Easy As Pie giveaway for your chance to win one chocolate cream pie mix and one coconut cream pie mix. Winner will be chosen Saturday.

Silly Birdies

Why do my chickens like to perch outside but never in their house? Instead, they sleep in a heap.

Garden Goals

Since I'm starting vegetable plants for spring I've been thinking about my garden goals this year. After I stopped farming our land I had a few years of very small (tiny) gardens. Part of the problem was simply that I had to get another job so I didn't have time and energy to grow much food. However I think mostly I was just very sad. I had anticipated problems and obstacles in staring my small farm, but I did not anticipate freakish amounts of rain. 

 

But I'm all better now (I've stopped beating myself up over my failure... there is really nothing I can do about 90+ inches of rain in 9 months) and ready to approach the garden in a professional manner again. I don't plan to sell produce, although I've had a few people let me know that they'll buy any extras, but I do plan to get back to growing in a professional way. This means carefully scheduling seed starting, transplanting, direct seeding, etc. (so there are not large gaps in production), choosing varieties intentionally (less "oh this looks fun" and more "I know this tomato produces well in this area"), collecting data on the harvest (so that over time I can compare varietal performance, effectiveness of techniques, location, etc), cover cropping, and crop rotation (actually having a plan about where things go). A professional grower (as opposed to a casual gardener) has a plan, works the plan, keeps records and uses all that info to inform next year's plan.

My production goals for this year are simple:

• Grow the tomatoes we need for the year. We eat a fair amount of canned tomatoes. I'd like to grow and can everything we need. Food storage is going to be a challenge.
• We also eat a ton of canned chilies and pickled jalapenos. I'd like to grow and can our year's supply. 2010 was a great pepper growing year for me.
• Beans! We are huge bean eaters. Grow, dry, and store our beans for the year.
• Garlic. I grew great garlic in TN but I have not grown good garlic here. We go through 3 or 4 heads a week every week of the year. Lets call it a low 150 heads of garlic a year. 
• Grow enough luffa to replace our purchased scrubbie pads.
• Develop an effective rotation plan for the new flock of chickens in their fancy new mobile house.

Eventually I'd like to grow all our onions, parch corn, potatoes, and sweet potatoes as well. Since we live in such a mild climate we eat out of the garden all year. It's not critical that we have a winter store of food. However, the foods I've mentioned we use unseasonably as the basis for our meals which are otherwise filled with fresh garden produce.

What are your garden goals this year?

Props To "Cooking Light" For Changing Their Stance On Eggs

For the past few years the magazine Cooking Light has mostly just ticked me off. Their premise, that one should become healthy by eating lean meat and low fat dairy, I think is wrong headed. The emphasis on lean chicken breasts in particular makes me crazy. Seriously, how many lean chicken breasts does one person want to eat?

That is slowly changing. Recently (I wish I could be more specific but I couldn't find it... certainly within the past two years) Cooking Light had a short article on eggs in which they partially revised their stance. They said the cholesterol in eggs isn't so bad and since eggs are so nutritious you should definitely eat them. But then went on to say that you should limit yourself to one a day so that you don't consume too much cholesterol! Everything in moderation, right?

I found this very irritating. They had the evidence right in front of them but were too cautious to really come out and make a stand which would contradict what "everyone knows" about eggs and cholesterol. 

However, this month, the very first article after the letter from the editor and the letters to the editor says this:

Easy As Pie - Review and Giveaway!

Easy As Pie is the brain child of an old friend in Charleston, South Carolina. She makes cream pie mixes in 5 flavors. Right now Chocolate Fudge, Banana Pudding Pie, and Coconut Cream Pie are available for order. Each package includes pie filling mix and meringue mix with instructions for both stove-top and microwave preparation.

My mom gave me three of the mixes so for NYE I used the Banana Pudding Pie mix. Now, since I am incapable of following a recipe to the letter and since I didn't have bananas or Nilla Wafers I substituted 1 3/4 c. pureed strawberries for the water and made a Strawberry Cream Pie instead :-) 

Unfortunately I don't have a picture, but OMG, what an incredible pile of meringue! My husband, as a great lover of "calf slobber" (as my grandfather used to call it), was ecstatic. The pie had a nice strong vanilla flavor (and berries in my case). For me it was a touch too sweet, but then I normally use half the sugar a recipe calls for so I don't have average tastes. As my mom pointed out, since the instructions require the addition of shelf-stable ingredients only, this is a perfect pie mix to bring camping or to your electricity-free cabin in the woods. The ingredients are all things you've heard of and don't include corn syrup or hydrogenated oils.

Now for the giveaway. If you're interested in receiving one Coconut Cream Pie and one Chocolate Fudge Pie mix from Easy As Pie, just leave a comment below and I'll choose a random winner on January 8. Please, one entry per person.

P.S. Dear person who wins... I opened the chocolate package to see what it looked like inside before deciding to make strawberry. The mixes inside are in separate sealed bags so there is no risk of cootie transfer. I just don't want you to worry when you receive your mixes and the chocolate has been opened. Enjoy your pie!

On Holiday Food, Family, and Velveeta Cheese

While catching up with friends post-holiday this year I noticed a trend. 

Those of us who normally eat crazy stuff like raw cheese, tatsoi, and pastured eggs can become frustrated when we spend the holidays with parents or relatives who believe healthy means low fat or that cheese dip should be canary yellow. If you spend enough time eating things cooked from scratch with whole and wholesome ingredients, both the mind and the body rebel when you consume the foods of childhood: the green been casserole made with canned condensed soup, the GMO tortilla chips dipped in Velveeta queso, or the wiggly Jello salad complete with marshmallows and Cool Whip. What is a body to do?

All this reminded me of an op-ed piece by Andi McDaniel I read in the Washington Post a few years ago. Andi is a friend of mine from college, journalist, blogger, big thinker and all around cool gal. She was nice enough to let me reprint her insightful piece for you to enjoy.

Mom's Cooking, So Hold The Arugula
by Andi McDaniel

I confess. I’m one of those “thoughtful” eaters you’ve been hearing so much about — the ones interrogating the arugula in the produce section or scrutinizing the ingredients on each box of Annie’s mac and cheese. When there’s a traffic jam in Aisle 3, it’s usually us, commandeering the tortilla chips, weighing the question of local vs. organic against any number of other eco-socio-ethical concerns.

I shop like this because, according to what I’ve learned from books such as “The Omnivore’s Dilemma” and “Fast Food Nation” and from spending two summers working on organic farms, it’s the most effective way to “vote” for a healthier food system.

But for all my pondering in the produce aisle, there’s a point where I draw the line. The few times a year when I visit my folks at my childhood home in suburban Chicago, you won’t hear me talking about food miles or the sheer horror of a transcontinental February tomato. When Mom’s cooking, I check my dogma at the door.

Part Four: Miscellaneous Methods for the Non-Disposable, Low Waste Life

This is the final part in our series. Don't miss Part One: The Kitchen, Part Two: The Bathroom, and Part Three: The Bedroom.

The Non-Disposable, Low Waste Life List of Methods

(This is the entire list in simple form.)

Kitchen

- make our food from scratch

- buy loose tea, bulk items, and no single serving sizes

- reusable, compostable, recyclable packaging

- no paper, no plastic flatware, little non-reusable food storage

- no non-stick or plastic cookware, dishes, etc.

- we don't buy water

- reusable grocery sacks

- compost and chickens

Bathroom

- no make up or deodorant

- cloth menstrual pads

- recycled and recyclable razors and toothbrushes

- pee wipes

- cloth shower curtain

- solid shampoo

- homemade soap

- vinegar rinse
- if it's yellow...
- no chemical cleaners
- buy hemp

 Bedroom

- salvaged furniture

- no VOC paint

- lighting choices

- avoid synthetic clothing

- durable clothes and shoes

- mattresses and linens  

Other

- bike

- combining trips in the car

- cloth ribbon, upcycled packaging

- paper and cardboard as garden mulch

- sew and mend

- grow food
- raise chickens

- wash in cold, dry on the line

- limit air conditioner and heater use
- upcycling

 Miscellaneous:

• Bike

This one is obvious. Biking saves fossil fuels, doesn't contribute to noise pollution, and gives you a workout. I don't live in a bike friendly city and only just recently got a bike that is comfortable enough to ride regularly (I like the kind where I sit up straight... the crouched over types hurt my back). I hope we move somewhere truly bicyclable.

• Combining trips in the car

Also obvious but worth stating because I didn't used to do it. Now I save up my errands and do them all at once. Saves gas.

• Cloth ribbon, upcycled packaging

Holiday presents reminded me of this. I use cloth ribbon which can be used again and again because unlike plastic curly ribbon it doesn't get squished, bent, broken, etc. And if it does get squished it can be ironed back out. Also, when I want a traditional bow I make my own from junk mail (particularly some of the thicker catalogs) with this tutorial. We wrap our gifts in reusable containers (glass jars, tea tins, baskets, chip board boxes), fabric, old maps, calendar pages, cloth bags, and the old fashioned newspaper. For filler we use all the shredded paper that accumulates through the year and of course reuse any peanuts or bubble wrap that people send us.