A few random thoughts for the day

Well, we have the bathroom remodel finished and it just looks great. We spent a lot more than I had originally intended, but I think it is money well spend. And we should be able to recoup some of the costs when we get ready to sell next year. And it won't be a day too soon.

My garden is doing well so far. The green peas are blooming so we will have fresh peas in the next couple of weeks. And I noticed this morning that my tomatoes have several bloom buds on them. Hopefully I can start picking tomatoes by the first part of June. Strawberries are just starting to come in season so it is time to start thinking about what I want to do with those as well.

I have found a lady that has LOTS of canning jars that she doesn't plan on using again and she is willing to sell them to me for $4 a case. I may go ahead and buy them all. It won't hurt to have them around if I can clean out the shed enough to have a place to store them.

I need to get serious about cleaning house. The whole place is covered with construction dust from the bathroom. And it will feel good to have everything clean to go with the nice new room.

I am getting really worried about the safety of the food supply. Radioactive Iodine 131 has been found in our local milk supply. It isn't in dangerous levels yet, but it doesn't bode well for the future. If they don't get that Japanese nuclear plant under control, it will only get worse. I can only imagine how bad it is for the folks living in Japan. I pray for them.

Death and taxes. Well, no one we know has died yet, and the taxes have been filed. We had to use the refund from one to pay the other. Sigh. But at least that chore is over with for the year.

I am still keeping an eye on properties in the area we want to move to. There aren't many for sale that will satisfy our needs, but the ones that are have been on the market for a while now. Maybe they will still be available when we get ready to move and the price will be more negotiable. Or maybe something more desirable will show up. Either way, here is hoping.

These chores will not get done by themselves. I had better get busy.

Will gardening be illegal?

There is a certain amount of idiocy you expect from city governments. And it seems, the larger the city, the more idiocy there is. Backing up heavily traveled streets for months to put in bicycle lanes, poorly timed traffic lights, ordinances on how often you must mow your yard, etc. Most of these do have some sort of reason behind them.

But when city governments start placing heavy fines on otherwise law-abiding citizens for having a food producing back yard garden, you are crossing over to the realm of the absurd. A gentleman in Atlanta has been fined almost $5000 for planting part of the 2 acres he owns in vegetables. These food crops are for his own personal use, he gives some to his friends, and any extra he will take to the farmer's market to sell. He isn't using his yard to grow cash crops, it isn't a business, and he isn't annoying his neighbors with heavy farm equipment. He has a garden as a hobby for his own enjoyment and just happens to have a bounty to share.

The City's stance on the issue is that his property is not zoned for agriculture. So this past Spring, after getting the citations in January and February, He applied to the city to have his property re-zoned. It was approved. The Code Enforcement officials are saying that he still owes the fines, and now the penalties for not having paid them, because there were food crops growing while the rezoning was still under consideration. And they are suing to get their money.

I am not sure exactly what their problem with this gentleman actually is. Did someone complain? Is the zoning commissioner some sort of Nazi who wants complete control over what the citizens do on their own property? Is this just a way for the city to collect money they otherwise are not entitled to? Or is it something bigger?

It is bad enough that the Big Three agri corporations (Monsanto, Cargill, and ADM) are trying to control the food supply through genetically modified food and the availability of heirloom seeds, but trying to prevent individual citizens from having a backyard garden is going too far. The vast majority of people who do have a backyard garden only do so to either have fresh produce during the summer months or maybe to can, or because they just enjoy gardening. They don't do it for money, because there just isn't enough money in it to justify the costs. They do it for the food and the love of getting dirty.

I worry about what this means for all of us in the long run. I guess I will have to get a fancy trellis for my tomatoes and call them landscaping.

The cost of eating

Last night, my husband and I had to make a trip to the grocery store for a few necessities, like milk, tea, lunch meat, etc. and I was just appalled at how much prices have gone up in the last few weeks.

The sale price for chicken breasts was $1.99 a pound! On Sale! That is simply insane. Generic canned corn was 79 cents a can. When did that happen? Granted, I do not buy a lot of canned vegetables since I put up most of ours, but the last time I looked they were around 50 cents a can. Some times, if the store is having a case sale, you can get them 3 for a dollar. But almost 80 cents a can is insane. For generic. I didn't even look at the name brand. I was afraid to.

All of this is convincing me more and more that I am not putting up enough food. We need to be able to eat out of jars or the freezer and not have to make bi-weekly trips to the local grocery store. I have canned some chicken and beef, but I am thinking I need to do more. I need to find a couple of bags of chicken legs and thighs for 59 cents a pound (sometimes I can still find them for that) and can them up. 10 pounds bags will make around 8 or 9 pints of meat and 7 or 8 quarts of broth. So for $5.90, that is a minimum of 8 or 9 meals, but really closer to 12 since I don't always use a whole jar of meat per meal for the 3 of us. And the broth is quite useful for a lot of things too, not just soups.

I have canned a lot of fruit this year. Mostly peaches and plums but I have done a few blueberries and some cherries. I think I have enough beans to last the year, but you never really know. I didn't put up enough corn this year but that is one of those things that sometimes we eat a lot, sometimes we don't. I don't know, I guess we will be OK.

I plan to start curing some more Canadian bacon today. My son really likes that for sandwiches in his lunch bag. And it freezes well so I might as well. And the pork loin was on sale for less than $2 a pound, which is quite a bit cheaper than over-processed lunch meat.

I really don't know how people on fixed incomes or low incomes with families can afford to eat. I realize the over-processed convenience foods are cheaper, but you don't actually get much food value out of those.

There has to be a balance somewhere in all of this.

End of Summer

School will be starting next week, but it seems that I still haven't finished with the canning thing for the year.

Last weekend I stopped by a farm market for some tomatoes to can. While I was there, I also picked up some new potatoes, early apples, a cantaloupe, zucchini, corn, and a box of over-ripe peaches.

Let me tell you something about peaches. They are best if you go out to the trees, cup your hand underneath it, and it falls off in your hand. That is how you know if it is ripe. The next best thing is to find a farm market that sells peaches and buy a box of their over-ripes. You can get them for almost nothing, and with the exception of a few bruises, they will be the best thing you have ever put in your mouth. They are the "bite-into-it-and-juice-drips-off-of-your-elbow" ones that those in the know will fight over. These peaches are the proof that the fruit you get at the grocery store is a joke.

I picked up a "lug" (about 1/2 a bushel) of these over-ripe peaches for $10. We ate several of them fresh and I put the rest in the freezer. There were only 3 out of the whole box that I had to throw out because they were too damaged. I still had 9 quart-ish sized bags for the freezer. My husband had never really had a "good" peach before and was simply amazed. Now I need to get some more.

I told my dad about them. He wants to do a swap of canned peaches for canned pears. He has a buddy with pear trees that gives him 5 or 6 5 gallon buckets of pears every year. So Dad is going to can up some pears for me and I will can some peaches for him. We are already swapping plum jam and preserves for purple hull peas, so the fruit swap is just a bonus.

But it will keep me busy for a few days. Not that I have a problem with that.

Long, Hot Summer

So far this summer it has been exceedingly hot. We had almost a week in June where the temps were over 100 with heat indexes around 110-115. And it hasn't rained since Memorial Day weekend. At least, not more that 10 or 15 minute showers.

It is making gardening more difficult this year. I have been having to water about every other day just to keep everything from getting crispy. It completely killed my crop of wax beans and it is really slowing down the melon and squash.

I picked our first black-eyed peas yesterday and got enough for dinner. I have limited garden space so there will not be enough to can, but just for eating fresh, we should be good for a while. If I can keep them watered. I will probably be able to pick bell peppers by the weekend but they haven't put on much of a crop either. My okra isn't even putting on bloom buds yet. I don't know what is wrong with it. I am usually up to my eyeballs in okra by now.

My dad gave me some purple hull peas and a few ears of corn over the holiday that I need to do something with. I will probably do that this afternoon. I would like to go by my favorite farm market and pick up some more tomatoes and peas to put up. I think I have 1 pint of tomatoes left from last year, and I would like to make some juice and sauce this year as well.

I have some potatoes I need to can and I need to get some more beef and chicken as well. I will have to wait for a sale on that though.

I did dry about 9 pounds of onions a week or so ago, but that won't last long. I love to cook with dried onions. It is just so much easier than chopping up an onion every time I need a little for a recipe. I wonder when I will be able to find some more on sale?

I really wish I had an outdoor kitchen to do my canning in. I hate heating up the house every time I get out the pressure canner. But if I had a shop like my Dad's, I could set everything up out there like he does. He cans all of his garden on his fish-fry burner out in the shop. He has a "kitchen" out there, complete with running water, cabinetry, sink and a couple of refrigerators and freezers. No range, but with the double gas burner, he doesn't really need it. It is really a good setup. He will spend most of the day out there pretty much all year. He has some big exhaust fans for the summer and a wood stove for the winter. And every week or two, his Lodge buddies will have a pot luck in his shop. It works out great.

I am jealous.

Canning Time!

It is getting to be that time again...Canning season. We managed to consume a great deal of what I canned last year. We still have some things left, like some of the jellies, a few jars of beans that I canned late in the season, and some fruit. We also have a couple of jars of meat left, but I have started using those more lately to rotate them out.

The garden is starting to produce too. I didn't plant a lot of stuff this year, mainly squashes and peas. I wanted to try some new things this year so I planted 3 different kinds of squash; butternut, patty pan, and spaghetti squash. I planted the butternut last year, but I got it in late in the season so I only got 2 squashes off of it. But this year I planted earlier and have gotten a better yield.

I am looking forward to my favorite Farm market opening. Time for tomatoes, beans, potatoes, corn and melons. Peppers, fruit, green beans, onions, and other veggies I get from another farm market. I can get just about everything I will need to can for the year over the next 2 months. I have been told I need to make more sugar-free blackberry jam and black bean - corn salsa. LOL

I have already been drying cherries and strawberries. I need to dry some more onions.

I guess I had better get busy.

Jars, Jars, everywhere...

It is canning time again. I think I have mentioned that already, but I mention it again because it has really started up now. Yesterday I canned blueberries. Today I am canning beans. Tomorrow I may can tomatoes. This is the time of year to stock up for the winter.

So far this month I have canned beef, chicken, beans, cherries, blueberries, and now beans. I hope to do a lot more beans, corn, peas, carrots, and whatever else I can find to put in a jar.

I have dried potatoes, sweet potatoes, carrots, onions, peppers, strawberries, and made fruit leather and jerky. So far. I hope to do some more jerky and vegetables. I might dry some more fruit this year as well.

With the cost of food steadily rising, and no end in site, it can only be a good thing to be prepared. And I actually have fun putting everything away for a rainy day. We never know when the power will go out, or if my husband will lose his job. These are all things that having a supply of food in the house will help with. We won'd have to worry about having enough to eat. And since I am growing part of this myself, it is costing us only the seeds. That is a much better way to ensure you are eating healthy and not getting a bunch of preservatives in your food.

My biggest problem is where to store everything. If I try to can, dry, or freeze everything we will need for a year, I just won't have enough space, even using all of the closets, to put everything. A year's worth of food takes up a lot of room.

Since I try to find things when they are on sale and stock up, maybe I should look for another one of those diy cabinets with the doors on it. The one I have now, that I am using as a sewing storage/food pantry, is already full. And it is only mid June. By August, I will have jars, bags, and shelves overflowing.

But it is always better to be prepared than to be caught unaware.

Excalabur 2900 dehydrator

I got my new dehydrator in this week and I am so excited. It is more than twice the size of my old one (15 sf of drying space) and actually much faster too. The first day I got it, I dried 6 chopped bell peppers (on sale for $1.78 for all 6) and 5 chopped onions ($1.99 for a 3 pound bag) and still had 2 trays left empty. The same amount of chopped dried onions retails for about $6. And since I use the peppers and onions all the time when I cook, it is a great deal for us. And also much better for cooking when I just don't feel like chopping up an onion.

I also picked up some really nice strawberries from a roadside vendor this week. I have bought from them in the past and they are some of the best strawberries you will ever eat. At $14 a gallon, they are a little bit expensive, but still cheaper than the grocery store, and the taste just can't be beat. We ate a few of them fresh and the rest (a little less than a gallon) I made into fruit leather and dried sliced. The finished product gave us about 10 fruit roll-ups and almost a quart jar of dried slices.

The sliced berries work out really well for us. I make scones with them, and we use butter and strawberry freezer jam on the hot scones. Really awesome and very easy. Take your favorite biscuit recipe (there is a good one on the back of the Bisquick box, just don't use the liquids), add 1/2 cup of sugar, 3/4 cup of sour cream, and a big handful of crumbled berry slices and enough water or milk to make a really, really stiff dough. It just needs to hold together and not be too "wet". Place the dough on a greased baking sheet and pat it out to about 3/4 inch thick and round. Slice it like a pizza and bake it in a moderately hot oven, I generally bake at 375, until it is nice and browned all over. Like I said, just awesome.

Drying food takes up a lot less space than canning, and the majority of the time, tastes just as good as fresh. 3 pounds of chopped, dried onions will fit into a half gallon jar and you don't have to worry about them getting soft or mildewed in the pantry. If you need "fresh" onions for things like potato salad or similar recipes, just soak them in a little warm water and they will plump back up. Same with the fruit. To make a fruit salad or compote, soak your mixed dried fruits in a little water or apple juice to plump them back up and chill.

Just about every vegetable can be dried and stored. Potatoes work out really well. Slice and parboil the spuds, surface dry with a paper towel and lay them out on the trays. After they are dry, they can be used for scalloped potatoes, re-hydrated and fried, or cooked in the microwave with a little milk and then mashed. Drop some in a stew or soup, run through the blender to make potato flour or instant mashed potatoes. Very very useful.

I would suggest this to just about anyone who wants to be able to preserve food without the mess and expense of canning. Buy produce when it is on sale or in season from a farmers market and dry it. And if the dried foods are kept sealed, they will keep just about indefinitely. It is a great way to save money. And eat healthier.

Squash is so misunderstood

I have been thinking a lot about nutrition lately. And how to eat healthier without spending a lot of money to do it. Usually all I really have to do is look in my garden.

This year that means tomatoes, green peas, snap beans, broccoli, and garlic. I have been reading about Native Americans and their gardening choices. They mostly grew corn, beans, and squash. It grows fast, can be planted together, and generally produces a lot of food for a small space. The corn is planted first, and when the seedlings get about 4 inches tall, they planted beans around each corn plant. As they grew, the beans would climb up the corn stalks. The squash (pumpkin is actually a squash) would be planted in hills around the field.

It also appears that when you eat these three vegetables together, it creates a complete protein very similar to meat protein. So Corn+Beans+Squash = Meat. Very useful for those lean times when hunting was difficult. And with a seasoning of herbs gathered in the wild, very tasty.

Anyway...we don't generally eat a lot of squash. The kids don't really care for it, and the only way my husband had ever eaten squash (yellow crookneck, BTW) was fried. Except for the annual pumpkin pie at Thanksgiving. I grew up eating patty pan, crookneck, and butternut squash. Can't say that I ever really liked it. But I ate it anyway.

I picked up a butternut squash on sale, thinking that it was something different and that different is good sometimes. I sliced it in half, scooped out the seeds, and turned it cut side down on a baking sheet. 375 oven until it was soft. My husband actually ate half of it by himself. It seems that he had never eaten any type of squash except crookneck and even then it was fried. He didn't really like it much so he thought that a squash is a squash, and so he doesn't like squash. He was wrong. We have eaten it several times since then.

Now I have something to add to my garden. If I can find a place to put it.

Garden Dreams

It is time again to put the garden, such that it is, to bed for the winter and start thinking about next year. I have ordered a host of seed catalogs and have even gone so far as to start making a list of the things I want to try. I have to keep in mind that I have a tiny 8' X 12' garden and a 6'circle planting bed and have to limit what I actually can plant. It is hard sometimes to decide if I want to try tomatoes and peppers again(I historically suck at them) or do the entire thing in beans. Do I want to go for quantity or diversity? High yield or stuff we actually want to try.

It is frustrating sometimes to think that we could grow a lot of things that we buy if we just had the space to do it. Like asparagus. I would love to have a big asparagus bed. We love the stuff and it is just so expensive to buy. But...it takes at least 2 growing seasons to mature. And with the way the economy and my husband's job are going, we may not be here long enough for that. So we wait.

What I am tempted to do every year is to dig up the sod in the back yard and work up growing beds. Do the entire yard in food. But we have a dog back there and, Bless her Thumpin' Gizzard, she likes to dig. I think I could probably work up a couple of areas that we currently don't use for much and still manage to keep Katie out of it, but it would get in the way of my clothesline. I might be able to come up with another maybe 2' X 6' spot with out too much trouble, but the dirt there is all but clay and hard as a rock. It would take a lot of work to get it composted enough to be usable for growing. I do have a spot along the South side of the house that is outside the fence so it is safe from the dog, but it is so choked with crabgrass and some mint that ran wild about 15 years ago that I think I would have a hard time keeping it weed free. But it would be a great salad bed.

I sometimes think "If Onlies" will drive me nuts.

It's County Fair Time

For the first time in about 25 years, I entered something in the county fair. I have been canning this year for the first time since I was a kid, so I had a serious learning curve. Between trying to remember how we did it when I was helping my mom growing up, and using my Ball Blue Book and the really old Bernardin book my mom gave me, I think I have a pretty good handle on it now. So I entered 15 jars of home canned goodness in the fair.

This process actually started back in the late spring. I figured that if I was going to go to the trouble of canning, I might as well make them nice enough to show. So for each item I canned, I tried to carefully place the food, in a pleasing manner, in at least 1 jar in each batch. Some things just didn't come out very pretty though. My beans boiled out too much juice and have turned dark on top. They are still perfectly edible, but they are not fair-worthy. And I had some other things that I didn't get packed tightly enough and they floated. Like some of the peaches. They will still be fine for making pies but, again, not good enough for the fair.

Toward the end of August, I called the county extension office about how to go about entering. They said that I had to pre-register each jar by September 1 to get them in. So I went up there, got the forms, and began sifting through the jars to find the most perfect ones. I had a jar of green beans somewhere that I had lined up straight that I couldn't find in my mess of a pantry but I still finished up with 15 jars to enter.

I had to take them to the fairgrounds between 2 and 5 pm on Sunday the 14th. But we had a problem. We were going to be in Jonesboro that weekend on a college hunting trip. You know, the campus tour, admissions and financial aid folks telling us the process, tailgating and a football game on Saturday night. And in addition to all of that, we got to deal with my mother-in-law. So we got up early Sunday morning and made the drive back (2.5 hours by the way) so I could get my stuff entered. When we got up there, it seemed there was more competition than in previous years. That had me worried. Like I said, I haven't canned anything in 25 years and this was the first time all on my own. But I left them there and tried not to get my hopes up too much.

Judging was on Monday. The fair opened on Tuesday evening. We went last night to see just how I fared against everyone else. While I was frantically searching the shelves for my jars, the kids pointed out that one of my jars was on the table in front of us. It had a red, white and blue ribbon with a nice rosette that said "Best of Show" and a certificate with my name (well, it was my name but spelled wrong, go figure) on it. I got a Best of Show for carrots, of all things. Out of all of the veggies that had been entered, I took top prize. I was stunned. I was expecting maybe red ribbons. I don't think I have stopped grinning since I saw it.

Everything I entered got a ribbon of one color or another, mostly reds like I expected, but I got 3 or 4 blues and a couple of white too. I then proceeded to call every one I know. My Mom told me that she was proud of me, my Dad told me that I shouldn't let it go to my head, and my sister-in-law just said that she knew that I was going to win so why was I so surprised. My hubbie, bless his heart, had to deal with me saying "guess what? Best of Show!" all night.

Now I have to decide if I want to take those carrots on to the state fair.

Who knows, I might just win there too. If we don't eat them before then.

Ranting agaisnt the Man

Life in these United States is now more confusing than ever. $4 a gallon gas (though it has come down a bit), rising grocery prices, antibiotic filled meat, the worry over salmonella, E.Coli, pesticides, additives and preservatives, high fructose corn syrup in everything, labels with fat count, carb count, sodium count, Nutrasystem diet, Jenny Craig diet, Atkins diet, "berry of the month" diet. Eating healthy is darn near impossible.

And on top of all of that, the government will regulate everything to make sure that all of our food is just perfect. Uh huh, right. If that were actually the case, why does so much meat get recalled every year, how do tomatoes and peppers get E. Coli, and why does our milk have growth hormones and antibiotics in it?

It is almost daily that I wish for a simpler life, away from all of the grocery stores and gas pumps. Me and my chickens, pigs and cows could just enjoy the cleaner air of the country and can, freeze and/or dry the garden and orchard. I would know exactly what is in my food because I grew it all. We would have plenty, because again, I grew it all. And it would taste better and be healthier, because , you guessed it, I grew it all. I would know what is in it, how it was packaged, how it was preserved, how much salt is in it, and how long it is from fresh.

We have been told for so long that the government will take care of us and protect us that we just believe that if you get your food from the store, it must be good for us. But you just can't trust that any more. The government has been bought and paid for by corporate farms and industrial speculators whose sole purpose is to make money, any way possible. Including inferior food.

The only way to truly know is to grow it yourself.

I love a good sale

I guess, in a way, it was a good thing I had to go back out for school supplies...again...yesterday morning. I also noticed that we were out of milk after the kids ate breakfast, so I figured that while I was out, I would stop by the stop and pick up another gallon. I hit the produce department like I always do, and managed to get some broccoli, cauliflower, mushrooms, lettuce, green beans, raspberries, celery, bell peppers, and carrots all for half off.

The bakery was just wheeling out the cart of markdowns to it's appointed place and I grabbed some bakery cookies and a couple of loaves of Italian bread for half off too.

Then on to the dairy dept. And, lo and behold, they were marking down too. I picked up 8 1/2 gallons of lemonade for 60 cents each. 4 I put in the fridge and 4 in the freezer. I got my milk then proceeded to the meat department just to see what they had on sale. I got a package of hamburger, 2 packs of ground lamb, and a couple of top round steaks for almost 40% off.

I decided that while I was there, I should probably find the kids some lunch stuff. Pudding cups for 91 cents/4 pack, lunch meat wasn't on sale but I needed it anyway, Sara Lee bread for $1 a loaf, and a bottle of ginger ale.

Grand total was $77 and I have enough food for at least a week, plus school lunches.

Granted, I probably could have spent less if I only stuck to what I actually needed, but none of this will be wasted.

I pureed the berries and dripped it thru a jelly bag to get the juice. A teaspoon of the juice mixed with the lemonade is very very good, plus you get the extra nutrients from the berries. The pulp and seeds I put in the freezer. I am not sure really what I will do with it yet, but if all else fails, I can mix it with cranberries when I make cranberry sauce this Thanksgiving. Or I could make fruit leather with it I guess.

The peppers will be dried, the mushrooms canned, the broccoli and cauliflower are already in the freezer, the carrots we will eat fairly quickly just like they are. Several salads are on the menu for this week, and I will either freeze or can the green beans today.

We really don't care too much for lamb, but...we do like the gyro sandwiches. I did a web search and found a recipe (http://mideastfood.about.com/od/breadsrice/r/pitabreadrecipe.htm) and I also found one for pita bread (http://mideastfood.about.com/od/breadsrice/r/pitabreadrecipe.htm). They both look really easy. So I will probably try that at some point this week.

Farm market

Well, I have been busy the last couple of days. On Saturday, my husband and I took a little trip to a local farm to buy some produce. We followed the directions on their website and after the seemingly longest 11 miles, finally arrived.

They had some of the largest tomatoes I have seen in a good long while. And for $1 a pound, we got ...well, alot. Something like 20 pounds. Maybe more, I don't know. It was a box full. We also got some new potatoes for 80 cents a pound. So how ever much $11 worth was. Some squash, peppers, and a cabbage the size of a basketball. All in all, 2 big produce boxes full of stuff. I was happy.

So I set to making stuff. Yesterday, I made some spaghetti sauce. Today, after picking my daughter up from Governor's School, I made ketchup. Hehe. Cost effective? Nope, not a bit. Fun? Oh yeah! And it tastes really good. If you want the recipe that I used, look on page 53 of the Ball Blue book of Preserving and change the celery seed in the recipe to 1 tsp of cloves. It's good, I promise.

And I still have about 6 or 7 pounds of tomatoes left. I think those will just be canned chopped. The sauce just takes too long to cook down. And at 25 cents a can in the store, it isn't worth it.

Next week they should have beans and corn added to their farm store. I will be buying at least 100 ears. That should be enough...maybe...hmm, we can eat a lot of corn.