1 Million Pound Harvest

This growing season I am going to track what we grow (weight wise) and add our meager amount to the Freedom Harvest challenge. Think we can grow 200 pounds of food? Eh. Me either. But it's worth a try! I think last season our harvest was about a pound...
Here's to hoping this season will be better! To learn more about this challenge, and to participate, read about it here.

So far we have baby lettuce sprouts, morning glory (not edible, of course), some cauliflower...and I think that's about it.
Come on Spring!!

Eat Local

The Boy and I are going to sign up for the Los Poblanos Organics CSA. We know that eating with the season's is important, as is supporting local farmers (and business people!). Hey, and they even deliver! How much more simple can it get? According to their web-site, this weeks box (all for only $28.00) contains 4 apples, cherry tomatoes, celery, garlic, bok choi, cilantro, wild carrots, avocados, red pears, baby spinach, and 3 kiwis. Other than the kiwis, it all looks really good! Add in a bag of beans from the Farmers Market and a bag of rice...endless meals! Ok, not endless, but tasty meals if nothing else!
They also offer a work share program! Work 2 1/2 hours a week and you get 50% off the cost. Good to know in case money gets very tight.

Vegan Mac and Cheese

We have been eating a lot of more vegan food over the last couple of days and I wanted to share an absolutely fantastic dish we had for dinner last night (and lunch today)

The low down...
Vegan Dad's Creamy Mac & Cheeze (As directed. We didn't have any sunflower seeds, so I subbed more raw cashews)
1 Tbs Green Chile Powder
1 Tbs soy sauce
1 bag Morning Star Crumbles (I have a weakness for these)

-Mix everything together.
-Pour into a greased 13x9 pan.
-Top with homemade bread crumbs (ours are, of course, spiked with some green chile powder)
-Bake in a 400* preheated oven for about half an hour.

So. Tasty! Even tasty as left overs!

Fermentation Madness

The Boy is reading Wild Fermentation and seems to want to make every single thing in it. Since we are short of flat surfaces to store our jars of bubbling goodness we will be putting in shelves this weekend.

Currently bubbling away-
Kombucha
Ginger Beer
Hard Apple Cider

On the short list of things to get started this week-
Kimchi
Mead
Sourdough (this is a maybe for me, but The Boy loves sourdough)

We are in desperate need of more glass jugs though. Sunburst Bottles has a great selection of large capacity glass bottles, if we can't source them locally that is where we will get them for future projects.
Oh the excitement of wild fermentation! I love to sit and watch the jars start to spontaneously bubble with no aid from us other than a piece of muslin to keep the flies out. (photos coming soon)

Wild Fermentaion and New Fur Kid

I've been a bit MIA lately :) We got a new furbug! His name is Ziggy and he is such a little terrorist! He is a doll, but rather a handful. Here is a photo of him while still at our local Animal Services Shelter (he is an ex-stray)

(Can you see his little goatee? So cute!)

After reading several stellar reviews of the book Wild Fermentation, I just had to get it. It's a brilliant book! I read it in one day and we now have two (not including our kombucha) wild fermentation projects going! One is a hard apple cider and the other is ginger beer, both are starting to bubble and do their fermentation dance. I'm so excited about this project! I've been taking lots of photos, so hopefully a how-to/step-by-step post for ginger beer will be in Herb-Cat's future...

"Meat"balls.

These are the best "meat"balls ever. All measurements are approximate, I usually don't measure things.

-4 eggs
-1/4 cup dried minced onion
-3Tbs vegetable broth powder
-1/4tsp onion powder
-1/4tsp dried parsley
-1/8tsp black pepper
-1 tsp minced garlic
-2 cups grated cheddar cheese
-1 cup homemade bread crumbs (recipe to come)
-1 cup finely chopped walnuts (we use the food processor)

1. Mix all ingredients together.
2. Lightly oil a baking sheet and preheat oven to 400*f.
3. Roll mixture into meatball sized balls (or what ever other shape strikes your fancy at the moment).
4. Bake for about 20 minutes until they are nice and crispy (don't get them too crispy, they are rather nasty when they get too dried out).
5. Nom. Or you can freeze them (on a baking sheet in a single layer then put in a container) and nom them at a later date. They freeze very well!

Purslane

The other day I was taking a gander at one of the local papers here and noticed this article on purslane (Portulaca olearacea). I had seen this "weed" in the backyard growing all over the pathway I put in earlier this summer. I put on my internet searching skills and came up with a lot of very interesting information!

• Purslane contains more Omega-3 fatty acids (alpha-linolenic acid in particular) than any other leafy vegetable plant.
• It also contains vitamins (mainly vitamin A, vitamin C, and some vitamin B and carotenoids), as well as dietary minerals, such as magnesium, calcium, potassium and iron.
• In Greek popular medicine, purslane is used as a remedy for constipation and inflammation of the urinary system.

So we decided to try some on the taco's we made last night instead of lettuce. Oh my! That is one tasty plant! It is very crisp (and stays so even on top of hot beans, unlike lettuces) and has a mild, yet distinct flavor. I can't wait to add this "weed" to other meals! It's hard to beat having a free, healthy plant taking over your yard.

Word of caution:
Please carefully and positively identify any plant before you eat it! There is a sneaky purslane look a like that is toxic. Spurge. As far as I have read an easy way to identify the difference between your friend purslane and the bad spurge is that spurge will release a milky substance from it's stems when broken and purslane doesn't. So milky substance (when identifing purslane) = bad

Related articles:
A Guide to Wild Edible Plants for Parents and Teachers to Use With Children
About.com:Edible Landscaping
Purslane Article
The Joy of Purslane by Susan Weed
New York Times Article

Thinking Not Doing: Week 4

Goals:
1. Plan a garden.
-The Boy planted the bamboo (pictures to come)
-While he was amending the soil for the bamboo I found a cache of more morning glories. I have no idea where they have come from but they have the most beautiful purple flowers.

2. Take a "formal" herbwifery class.
-I brought several Sage Woman and The Essential Herbal magazines that Cory gave me. Both have amazing information and inspiration.

3. Choose a major, and act on that choice.
-The Boy and I have been talking about opening an all vegetarian restaurant. I think that would be a wonderful project, but not one we are ready for at this time.

4. Learn to tie dye.
-I'm really slacking on this goal. All the materials are in a box next to the back door, I just keep putting it off for some reason.

5. Organize the soap lab, and make space for an herbal lab.
-I went on a "cleaning out the cupboards" over the weekend on a couple products I am making for swaps. That helped a bit.

6. Replace our current refrigerator.
-Nope

7. Learn to can and preserve food.
-I made and canned mustard yesterday. I think I must have done something wrong though because it is as thin as water. I took a lot of photos so hopefully I will have them up some time this week.

8. Get 24/7 off the ground.
-Voted on logo colors.

9. Exercise four days a week.
-I'm so embarrassed about this goal. We did yoga for about five minutes on day. I spent some time weeding. That's about it though.

10. Be a vendor for two more shows.
-I still haven't heard from the woman I emailed last week. I think it's safe to assume I didn't get in. I wish she would email me so I would know for sure.

Kombucha

Here are some fun photos from our most recent batch of kombucha.



Here you can see the scoby fell to the bottom and folded over on itself. It looked a bit like a tortilla. Notice the yummy bubbles at the top? This was our best batch of kombucha to date.




And a shot from above. Doesn't that look delicious? Ok, maybe not. But it sure makes a delicious beverage!

Recipes

My name is Brittney. I am a recipe addict. I have piles all over the house of recipes. I can't stop looking for more to print and try.

For this weekend I want to make (and can!!) some salsa and hot mustard. I'm a picky salsa eater, so it will be nice to make it just how I like it! We also go through a lot of mustard at my casa, it will be good if we can make and store our own.

Favorite recipe sites at the moment-
RecipeZaar
VeganDad
Post Punk Kitchen

Kombucha

Yeah! I got my Kombucha babies in the mail. Thank you Dancing in a Field of Tansy! (Kristine keep an eye on your mail box *grin*) I'm so excited to make my own rather than fork out four dollars a bottle for the ones they have at the store. If you have never had Kombucha you must try it! I didn't know a lot about the health benefits until recently. It just always made me feel so refreshed and clean. I recently read an article on Nourished Mother regarding fermented food and it all clicked! Now I need to locate a continuous brewing system so I can have Kombucha every day!

Cheesey Weekend

Good Monday Morning!

I had a fantastic weekend making mozzarella and bread. I didn’t get around to making the liquid soap that has been on my to-do list for the past several weeks, nor the tie dying. It was, none the less a very wonderful weekend.

Here are some photos of the yummy cheese making experiment.

Here we have the curds setting up. They are in cubes because I sliced them to make them easier to scoop out :)

Here are the curds after a night of hanging in the cheese clothe to get as much whey out as possible. At this stage it was very crumbly!

Here is the finished cheese! See how it is shiny and more "plastic" looking than the previous photo? That is because I kneaded it and soaked it in hot water until it had the delicious mozzarella consistency.

I made a delicious wheat bread with my fresh mozzarella, about a cup of chopped garlic, and oregano. It was fabulous! It didn't last long...