Gardening

One way to extend your pantry is to grow your own foods. This is not always the easiest thing to do. We live in an apartment and are lucky to have a complex with garden plots. For the last two years these have not been the most successful plots but I think I have finally figured out how to fix the problems. Our weather has been rather uncooperative with late starts. Last year we had frost into June then the weather turned amazingly hot and we didn't see rain for the entire summer. I lost the plants I started because I started them too late and they were not hardy enough to survive. I bought plants but they were in the ground too late to really produce well.
We have two plots, each 6x6 raised beds. One is our "permanent" plot that we filled with herbs and berry plants. This year I plan on adding a comfrey plant. The other is our veggie garden.
Our plants for the year - zucchini, watermelon (because we had seeds from the year before - watermelon is hard to grow in our area), pie pumpkins, tomatoes, jalapeno and sweet peppers, spinach. I think that's everything. I do plan on buying an additional blueberry plant to add to the permanent plot. It does cost to use the plots - $20 per plot per year.
I started plants a week ago - everything but the spinach and the zucchini. The zucchini I purchased is a 60 day crop meaning that they'd be producing before I got them into the ground and I don't want that. I might start them in May so they have a little time to grow before I plant but that all depends on the weather.
Knowing your weather and what grows best is a trial and error process but you can ask your neighbors. I never rely on USDA charts because I know they are for more professional growers. That doesn't mean they aren't useful but I find talking with people who are actually growing food in the area are better resources. Here in the Palouse region of Washington, I have found that tomatoes, peppers and zucchini are almost fool proof plants.
Now things to look for when you plan your garden, especially if you are "unseasoned" - I swear by growth dates. Each packet of seeds comes with a number of days. Ideally this is the amount of time it takes to produce a crop. If you've lived in your area awhile then you have an understanding of your growing season. Here, up north, this is the time between the last frost in the spring and the first frost in the fall. Some plants can tolerate some frost but it's best to use those dates when planning your garden. I know that we often have frost and snow up to May (on average not on odd years like last year). This tells me that I can plan to plant in May (or gives me a time to start looking for the end of frost). Some plants such as peas and potatoes prefer the cooler weather and can be planted in April (my mother says the rule of thumb is to plant them on Good Friday). Peas don't really do well when the weather gets hot. As much as I love fresh peas - I don't bother with them because I, personally, have not had good luck with them.
I know that the first snow fall often comes at the end of October but that the frost can start early September. Reoccuring events help. Our county fair is in September and that gives me an indicator for weather patterns. We can easily get really cold weather during that week and some years the fair just wasn't worth braving the cold for. Other years, the weather is beautiful.
In a perfect year, I can get my garden prepped in May and my plants planted. I have until the middle of September before the frost can potential kill my plants. That gives me a growing season of approximately 120 days. I work to avoid anything that takes that long, instead opting for plants that mature in 60-90 days if I can get them. As I said some plants, such as pumpkins, will tolerate the cold and many will not have numbers lower than 100 days. I still seek out the lowest number I can.
There are tricks to extending your growing season such as using greenhouses and frost protectors. This year I plan on experimenting with them but at this point I can't share any experience with you.
Now, on another note, I plan on growing some plants on my balcony and in my apartment. We have limited space so I can't go hog wild but I will be planting the spinach indoors - for longer growing season and convenince. I will be using containers to grow peppers and tomatoes as well. For me, this is a back up plan in case something happens to my garden. I'm thinking about making or purchasing one of those topsy turvy tomato hangers for my balcony (probably making). The trick here is to purchase good soil for the plants I keep close to home so they have the best possible chance of survival.

Building Healthy Habits for Kids

I was reading a post on eating from a toddler's perspective. It got me thinking. I have raised a good eater. My son is rather open to foods and will choose healthy over unhealthy more often than not. He still likes treats such as soda, chips and candy but he will choose to eat air-popped popcorn and fruit if I offer them. I can't say I have the perfect advice for raising healthy eaters since we still have our share of unhealthy habits but I do know I did somethings right.
Plate Rule: In our house the rule is you don't have to clear your plate but if you want seconds you have to eat everything on your plate. That includes later. You can't scrape your salad into the trash and then decide 30 minutes later you want more pasta. There have been nights when my son's plate has sat on the counter half eaten while he decides whether or not he's still hungry.
New Food Rule: You have to try one bite of a new food. If you don't like it then you don't have to eat it (but the plate rule is still in effect). My personal belief is that if it's healthy and I still don't like it then I eat it fast and I eat it first. If it's not healthy then I pass on it.
Those are the only two rules we have about eating but we have some guidelines about snacking. The biggest guideline is - if we shouldn't eat it then we shouldn't buy it. On occasion, I buy a junk food something - box of doughnuts or oreos, a bottle of soda. These never last long in our house and they are a rarity. That doesn't mean we don't have snacks. We keep popcorn in the house and my son is quite familiar with the air-popper so he can make his own snack. We set limits to how much nucoa he can use and he stays within those limits. He's free to experiment with seasonings and other ideas. (He's put barbeque sauce on his popcorn.) We keep instant coffee, tea and individual packets of crystal light available for drinking. I, personally, don't like the crystal light but my husband does and if it keeps him away from soda I'm all for it.
Another thing I did was taught my son to be self-reliant in the kitchen at a very early age. I worked the evening shift when my son was two and I hadn't met my wonderful husband yet. My son was an early riser. I was already exhausted and I couldn't keep getting up with him every morning. So I taught him how to make breakfast. We designated a drawer that was his. I filled it with breakfast bars and snacks. He knew that when he was hungry he could make his snack. It wasn't long after that that I had him making real food. By the time he was five he could make his own packaged mac and cheese. I know it's not the best food but it taught him valuable skills in the kitchen. Now at 15, he can cook just about anything. He's been creating his own recipes for the past 5 years and has even entered contests.
I keep him involved with the whole process. We talk about what we want to eat, how do we want to prepare it, what sort of vegetables should we have. I ask for his input when I go grocery shopping. When we have extra money, we talk about what would we like to try. With the bountiful baskets we get lots of interesting fruits and vegetables. He's very honest. He'll talk about what he didn't like whether it was texture or flavor. We talk about our food as we eat it especially if it's new.
I have made mistakes - I will be the first to admit that. My favorite mistake story happened when my son was about 4, I think. He was going through a phase where he just wouldn't eat his vegetables. I kept trying to think of creative ways but I didn't want to deceive him - he's a smart cookie and figured out I was slipping cauliflower into the mac and cheese. After that he was suspicious and I didn't want to make him hate vegetables. So I thought I'd get creative and make a Bob and Larry salad. For those who don't know Bob is a tomato and Larry is a cucumber on Veggie Tales. When I served it to him, all beaming because I was an awesome mom, he started crying - you killed Bob and Larry. It was an absolute failure and I had to give back my mom of the year award. He got over it but he still remembers it. I still can't get him to eat raw tomatoes but atleast now we can talk about why.

Foraging - touching base

I have nothing that I can think to share today. I am uninspired and my brain is blank. I've been thinking a lot about what foods we eat and where they come from. It all started with this article.
I don't have good answers which is why it's gotten me thinking. That coupled with finances has got me wondering if we could really survive off of foraging. I can't hunt - just don't know how and haven't been able to talk myself into it. I do fish but I haven't been overly successful with great fishing. That's something I plan on working on this summer.
We can forage but will it be enough. It's a learn as we go and I still don't know enough. In the meantime, I've started some of my garden plants inside. We have jalapenos, tomatoes, pumpkins, watermelon and maybe a few other odd seeds that I had leftover. I bought a package of sweet peppers and will start them this week. I will, also, be planting some spinach in an indoor container. The plan is to have indoor plants and garden plants so that if the weather is uncooperative I will still have food, how much I can't say. We'll have a few more varieties that I'll plant from seed not starts.
I look forward to what the year is bringing. We're still getting a little snow and cold weather but warmer weather is coming and the foraging will begin. We'll see where it goes from there.

Let's Move

letsmove.gov is First lady Michelle Obama's response to the obesity epidemic that is sweeping our nation. While the information here is still valuable information, I find her approach to be the same as everyone else's and not a real solution to the problem. I am currently writing a letter in response to her approach and will post that here soon.
With that aside, I appreciate the effort and will only focus on the positive aspects of the site.
There are 5 main sections of the site - about let's move, food and nutrition, physical activity, steps to success and join let's move.
The about section includes information on what obesity means and how it is affecting our children. I believe this is a real issue. We are getting fatter and our children are getting fatter. We eat poorer quality food and move less. The rest of this section is how Let's Move came to be and all the hoopla around the movement.
The food and nutrition is further broken down into 4 sections - Healthy Moms, Healthy Families, Healthy Schools, and Healthy Communities. I'm a little disappointed with the title Healthy Moms but it's about eating well during pregnancy so Dad's can't really be included. I like this approach - it's not just a family problem, it's a cultural problem and Let's Move takes that into account.
Under her Healthy Schools, Michelle Obama has started a program to help schools develop better menus with higher quality nutrition. Again, a step in the right direction.
The Physical Activity again breaks down - family, school, community.
The Take Action offers worksheets and charts to help individuals and groups to become more healthy - focusing on more than one aspect of health.
Join us allows the viewer to connect with groups in their area or to start one.
This is a good basic site to visit and offers parents a chance to see what changes are coming. I believe in supporting this cause because it is the individual that makes the change. If we show that we want this, then the world will fall in step. We can't get the USDA to change the foods they offer school districts if we don't speak louder than the companies that serve them now. We make the change, we can't wait for someone else to make the change for us.

It's all in the juice

Knowing where your food comes from sounds easy. Orange juice comes from oranges - end of story. That's not true. Understanding the processing of our foods gives us better perspective of what we are putting into our bodies.
Oranges are a one season crop - they are prolific in the winter in the Southern states. That means one harvest for juice manufacturers. However, the demand for orange juice is year round.
The solution was easy - juice all the oranges, place them in large vats, suck all the air out and wait for the supply to dwindle before filling up more containers. The problem with this is the juice lost it's flavor with the air. Well that, coupled with the American public's need for consistency.
You see, not all oranges taste the same. Some are sweet, some are a little tart. Each vat would have it's unique combination of oranges but that's not good for a company - they need each bottle to taste the same.
Enter flavoring. After sucking all the life out of the juice, the companies add flavoring to the orange juice to make it taste like their orange juice should. That makes for a consistent product. The really tricky part - they don't have to label the flavoring on the package. Due to the type of flavoring they use, the FDA does not require it to be disclosed.
I learned this a few weeks ago from an article on secret ingredients in our food that we don't know are there. Every time I learn a new trick that manufacturers use on us to make the food less expensive to make it confirms my need to eat more natural and to produce my own food.
So I juiced oranges this weekend. I have, now, just over a gallon of orange juice in my fridge.
Back in January, I bought a box of tangerines from bountiful baskets. The cost was $15 for about 40 pounds of oranges (if I remember correctly). It was a great deal and I thought it would give my teenager a healthy snack. Well, we didn't count on getting more oranges and citrus from the baskets over the next three baskets. Pretty soon, I have a huge bowl of oranges/tangerines on my counter and over half a box of tangerines on my porch. We were getting sick of them. I ate an orange a day for most of February and the pile never seemed to go down.
I borrowed a juicer from my mother and went to work.
Before I cut up the oranges for juicing, I zested about 20 of them, giving me about 1 quart of large zest pieces. I saved about another quart of peels (2 quart sized bags full of large peels) to put in the garbage disposal or for potpourri. Then I juiced. The hardest part in juicing oranges is peeling them. All in all, it took me about an hour.
I made orange tapioca. It didn't come out perfect but it was fun and I'll try it again tonight to see if I can make a shareable recipe. However, I did learn something - cheap canned orange juice tastes a lot like homemade orange juice. Which got me wondering - are they actually 100% natural with no added flavors? That just might be true. That flavor we associate with cheap orange juice might actually be the true flavor of orange juice. I may have to contact Western Family and ask them.
I will say - I won't be buying any orange juice in the bottle or carton any more. It's time to learn to appreciate the fruit as nature intended.

Paleo and Hunter/Gatherer Diets

I had the privilege to review a book called The Hunter/Farmer Diet Solution. The book doesn't come out until April 1st so I'm not going to talk too much about it but it got me thinking. The idea is that some people are Hunters and some are Farmers and that they should eat accordingly. I and my family seem to fall into the Hunter category.
Cool because I had two Paleo diet books from the library and maybe it was time to start eating a more Paleo or Hunter/Gatherer diet.
The idea behind the Paleo diet is that you eat what they would have eaten in the Paleo era. It's a gluten free, dairy free diet with some weird other rules. I didn't like the Paleo diet which was a shame because I loved the Hunter diet.
Neither diet has you counting calories, the concept is to eat like we should be eating if we lived in an era outside our own.
Interestingly enough, a group of friends and I have been discussing historical diets and I have been watching The Supersizers Go - a BBC show on historical diets (currently airing on the Cooking Channel).
All of this has gotten me thinking, which doesn't work with our American cheap diet experiment this month. We like to forage and are planning a year of learning to eat what we can find to help us maintain a food budget. That sounds a lot like living like a hunter/gatherer but we have access to a grocery store.
It's as if all this information is coming together to show me the perfect diet (not weight loss diet, just diet diet). I will have to use more modern storage to preserve what we acquire but maybe it's time to start getting rather serious about our foraging.
This year we are branching out and trying a different mushroom (as soon as we find it) or two if we are able to find them. We will harvest nettles and cattails this spring and search for wapato plants so we can harvest potatoes this fall. We may be picking arnica and other herbs for medicinal remedies. All this depends on us having the luck to locate these plants. We'll keep an eye out for more fruits and berries and nuts as the year goes on.
I still plan on making something with our acorns that are sitting in the freezer. I think I'll grind them up into flour and make acorn cakes.
We might get brave enough to hunt for wasp larvae and make the soup my son has been eyeing since he found it in a Native American cookbook.
I hope to find snails and learn to cook them.
It sounds kind of gross - some of these foods but I want to be a Hunter/Gatherer. I keep thinking about ways to grow my own food while living in an apartment. We've talked about raising guinea pigs for food since they breed rather rapidly (I know we had a ton when I was a kid) but I think they are cute and I haven't a clue how to turn them into food. My mom and I talk about learning to hunt and the problem is we are hesitant to take a life even though we have no problem eating meat and love meat.
So much to think about. Foraging might be a great way to stretch the budget but I also see it as learning a skill that may very well save our life some day.

Make your own soda

I have been drooling over the Sodastream Fountain Jet Soda Maker since I saw it last year at a local outdoor/hardware store (great place to find the coolest items). The cost of the system has left me wanting. It's about $100 and I am just not ready to invest that sort of money. However, recently I reviewed Homemade Soda by Andy Schloss. He shared recipes for making your own sodas, many which could easily be made from carbonated water. This is the same concept for the Sodastream. The device makes carbonated water in a reuseable bottle and then you add syrup. The syrups come in a variety of flavors. Between the two, we could completely give up purchasing soda all together.
I really want one and I have an opportunity to test the Sodastream Fountain Jet Soda Maker. I know this isn't my normal sort of post but I believe that the Sodastream is the new wave in sodas. It's economical, environmentally sound and it's fun.
My best memory of soda comes from a time when Schwann's sold their soda maker (back in the 80's). I loved it and it was fun to make your own soda. That was similar to the Sodastream of today. I don't know why Schwann's stopped with their make your own soda line. I can give my son the same memories.
Please help me convince Bzzagent that I am perfect to test this product. Not only will I review the product itself but I can do a whole series of posts for making your own. I believe that the investment will pay off.

Sprouting

Grr - the internet gremlins strike again and ate my original sprouting post.

Getting adequate nutrition is difficult right now. Access to fresh produce is limited, expensive and with all the recalls getting harder and harder each day. Crops haven't been as good and I know my garden has been struggling for the past two years due to the bizarre weather patterns.
I started thinking about using sprouts as a way to add inexpensive greens to our diet. I bought seeds years ago but I couldn't get myself to follow through. For whatever reason, the process intimidated me. I read extensively on the subject to find myself less sure. Finally, one day not that long ago I decided it was time. Learn now or give up the idea.
I was shocked and amazed how easy and inexpensive it all was. Now I bought the seeds from the bulk section of our local Co-op so I have no idea what I spent but I know it was less than $1 for each little package because I wasn't willing to invest much in an experiment.
Items needed - quart sized canning jar, canning ring, 1 new knee-high stocking (less than 50 cents at Walmart for 2), and 1/4 cup of sprouting seeds. I selected alfalfa (with legumes you may need a bigger container). Add the seeds to the jar, cover with water, attach knee high stocking to jar over opening and secure with canning ring. Soak overnight. Drain and then "rinse" seed 2-3 times a day until sprouted to your satisfaction. To rinse, simply fill the jar, swirl around the loose seeds and drain. I kept my jar on the counter near the stove so it wouldn't get forgotten. The jar got minimal sun.
When sprouted, set in fridge and eat. Our 1/4 cup of seeds filled the jar with sprouts. The sprouts can last up to 10 days depending on the variety. If they start to yellow, set in the sun for a little while until green again. Don't let them get too hot or they will spoil.
We've been enjoying the sprouts all week. I keep thinking I need to come up with some recipes but for now we're enjoying them with our meals as they are.
There are many types of seeds out there for sprouting. According to the chart on Sproutpeople, the most nutritious are - Alfalfa, Clover, Lentil, Mung Bean, Pea, Pinto Bean, Radish, Rye, Sunflower, Wheat, and Soy.
They do sell sprout seeds at Sproutpeople but I found better prices at Amazon. Amazon, also, has large bulk seeds for reasonable prices. The highest price I saw per pound was around $30 for broccoli but most seem to be under $10 per pound. This may seem cost-prohibitive but remember 1 pound of seeds will make a really large amount of sprouts since 1/4 cup seems to make about 4 cups of sprouts (perhaps even significantly more since they are tightly compacted).
I do recommend purchasing a small amount of seeds to determine what sprouts you and your family will like best.

Websites for vegetarian foods and other topics

I like to collect resources and I love sharing them. There's a lot to be said for a good food resource. I have six I would like to share with you today. Three are vegetarian/vegan sites. I am not a vegetarian. I like meat. I practically live on eggs and cheese. But I can appreciate a good vegetarian dish. I like the complexity of flavors when you take away the meat and cheese. Learning new ways to cook greatly helps the budget. If you stick with the same ole, same ole, you risk not having a balanced diet. More importantly, you risk boredom. With boredom comes poor choices.
I will warn you that many vegetarian sites are politacally motivated. They seek to change food practices. This is not a bad thing but I don't expect everyone to agree with everything posted. Don't get offended but look further into the topic or ignore it all together. Me, I do a combination of the two. I like knowing what's happening in the food world. It affects how I shop but, also, it helps me to plan better. For example, the current Listeria bacteria affecting canteloupe tells me that canteloupe shouldn't be on my shopping list. The canteloupe in the market may be perfectly safe but a massive recall will drive the price up.
So onto the resources
Vegsource is a great resource for all things vegetarian. This will be a great help for those who have friends or family who are vegetarian. It talks all thing political and environmental as well as offers recipes. I will say the recipes require a bit of a search to find (I linked up the site to the best start) but they are there. Check out the recipe for chocolate hummus - man I am so there.
Vegetarian Nutrition is a fairly new website and the content is slow coming but their focus is on nutrition instead of the politics for vegetarians. It's a nice easy website that offers information about food and how to incorporate good nutrition into a vegetarian lifestyle. There are a few recipes but as I said the content is slow coming.
Gone Raw is all recipes and no articles. All the foods are vegan and uncooked (a few dehydrated recipes are included). Raw foods are making a big splash in food trends. The concept is that by not cooking the food you are retaining more nutrients. What I like best is the creativity of the recipes. There are some great snack ideas and awesome desserts. We've played with some recipes. The nice thing is they are naturally gluten-free as well making them a great resource for those with gluten issues. (they are also dairy free)
Stepping away from vegetarian eating, there are three resources that I have found that sound like they could be excellent sources of information.
Fooducate is actually an app for those who have cell phones that can use apps. Scan the barcode of the product you wish to purchase in the store and Fooducate will give you information on that food. They grade foods based on nutrition and additives. Those with low grades come with healthier alternatives. (I don't have a cell phone so this won't work for me).
However, their blog is available to anyone with an internet connection and they have fun recipes.
Shopwell is similar to Fooducate but it's a website program not one for your phone. You register for Shopwell (it's free) and then input information about yourself. You can select from a variety of dietary needs from diabetes to athletic training. Then you choose things you want in your diet such as high calcium, whole grains and things you don't want like preservatives, trans fats, sugar. Then you start "shopping". I put in instant oatmeal for my first attempt. What I got was two pages of varieties of instant oatmeal that came with a color/number code. Products with a red dot and low number did not meet the criteria I set, yellow was okay but not the best, and green meant it fit perfectly. It didn't take long for me to see what the best choices were. This is great when you don't have time at the store to read all the labels. You can "shop" at home and have a perfect list. This doesn't include prices which would make it perfect but it does allow for a better understanding of the foods you want or do not want to include in your diet. One thing you can do is rate what you already buy and see how it fits in the diet you want to have.
Last resource for today is Shelf Life Advice. This site will answer all those questions you have about how long is too long for a food. Most of the time, I don't have a lot of worries because most things are obvious when they go bad but the one thing that freaks me out is mayo. I never feel confident about mayonaise. I will eat frostburnt meat that has been in my freezer longer than my son has been alive but mayo scares me. A quick search and I learned that commercial mayo can still be safe after 4 months open in the fridge or 30 days after the expiration date but that is for better quality. There was no mention that one can die from a long opened jar of store bought mayo which strangely is a relief.

Kitchen Inventory

For many years, I was a stay at home mom who took on work as it came. This worked well for our rural lifestyle but when we moved to the "city" things changed. I worked part-time for a year or so and then was offered a full-time job. At this time, both my husband and I worked full-time so the household division stayed the same. In December 2010,my husband lost his job. He tried working but couldn't get anything permanent. He became a stay at home dad. This was a great opportunity for us but shifting the household duties to my husband wasn't as smooth as I had expected. One big problem we discovered was the kitchen responsibilities. The kitchen has always been my domain and I gladly passed it over to my husband. He's a wonderful cook and has his own plans for kitchen experiments. That wasn't the problem - I hadn't given up the shopping. Within a couple of months neither one of us knew what was in our refrigerator or pantry. During this time, my mom moved from the farmhouse she shared with my aunt to a place near us. The farmhouse has kitchen storage, a pantry off the kitchen, a pantry in the basement and more. She had created a second pantry in the basement (third for the house) and they had a broken freezer she called the dry storage (flour, etc protected from mice). My aunt had been getting a monthly senior food box for the last few years and my mom was a Costco shopper. When she moved, she had several truck loads of food she didn't even know she had. She mentioned doing a database so she could keep track of the food she had, shopping lists and sales/coupons. I'm not as tech-savvy as my mom but she had a point. When we moved to the city, I had written in a notebook everything we had in our kitchen. It was an ineffectual system because there was no real way to change the pages without writing them over and I didn't take the time to put them in the computer. So, I took time to go through all the food in our kitchen and list how much we had and where it was located. It wasn't a perfect list but a good start. Then I took some time to put all the food in an Excel file. I tinkered and came up with a great system. I created several columns - food item, areas they are and where I last purchased the item and for how much. The food items I broke down into several categories - Meat/Proteins, Dairy (and dairy substitutions), Grains/Starches, Vegetables, Fruit, Condiments, Misc and Spices. I put spices at the end because it was a much longer list than everything else. I, also, put a special little section at the end of the spices for my extracts. Then I created the columns - Refrigerator, small freezer, big freezer, left cupboard, right cupboard, pantry and misc (for those things that sit on the counter or the spice shelf). The last column for where I purchased and for how much was an afterthought. I had just done some shopping and in an effort to stay in budget I had written the prices on my list. I shopped with a calculator so I could keep track of how much I was spending - the prices were important because I would find better deals in various parts of the store (for example, I picked up bacon with the breakfast meats to find less expensive and better looking bacon in the meat department). I could subtract the price of the original item and add the new price so that my amount stayed fairly accurate. In the end, I spent less than my budget, missing one item on my list (not available) and picking up a handful of things not on the list that we needed (like bread). Adding those prices to my list helps me when I go to a different store. The prices might not stay the same next month but I have a better idea of what they could be. Now, the last note I would make is that with every item, I listed the number I had and attempted to make notes as to size. I printed the list out and attached it to a clipboard with a pen. It takes less than a minute to make notes about what we used during the day so that our inventory stays current. I have also made notes about foods I canned, foraged or was given, as well as things that I don't want to replace when they run out. This keeps things clear for both me and my husband. He can grab the list and see if we are out of something so I can swing by the store on my way home. There's no confusion about where the item should be. We can see that the new chicken was put in the big freezer not the small one by where we marked it on the list. Shopping days will mean being vigilant but it's not a hard task to prevent future chaos and lost foods.
If you are interested in a pdf example - let me know. I can't figure out how to post one here.

Mashed Potatoes

Continuing with the Thanksgiving theme, I thought I'd share how to make mashed potatoes. My husband often refers to these as boiled potatoes which confuses me a little but when he was growing up mashed potatoes were pushed through a ricer so they were smooth. I don't put that much effort into them.
Not all potatoes are the same, each variety has its own characteristics when making mashed potatoes. Russets mash easily and have a more crumbly, gritty texture while red or white potatoes (like Yellow Finns) will have a creamier, pasty texture. They are both great but different and require slightly different finesse.
I use a wavy potato masher. I prefer the wavy to the grided masher because the potatoes don't get stuck in the cross-sections.
Now onto the procedure. If the potato peels are smooth and clean (and the potatoes fairly firm/fresh) I scrub them and boil them, peels and all. Russets will often lose their peels after they boil but if they are getting sprouty and wrinkly, take the time to peel them. If they are firm, you can pull off the peel after they boil or mash it into the dish.
Depending on the size of the potato and the amount of time I have to boil them, I cut them or leave them whole. Obviously, smaller potatoes take less time to cook. If I do cut up the potatoes, I quarter them. Boil the potatoes in enough water or broth to cover the potatoes. My family loves potatoes boiled in corned beef broth (I strain out the seasonings so I can mash the potatoes in the remaining brother).
Boil until the potatoes are soft. Time depends on the potato and the size.
Now if using water, drain into a colander. Return potatoes to pan and mash with masher until mostly smooth. The smoothness will depend on the potato. Slowly add milk, cream or broth to the potatoes until it reaches the texture you prefer. Add butter and seasonings to taste.
If you cook the potatoes in broth, make sure the potatoes are just covered when boiling, allowing the level to drop some as they cook. Don't drain but mash potatoes in the broth. If you are concerned that there is too much broth, drain some into a container so you can add it back. Mash until desired texture. Depending on the broth, your potatoes could have enough flavor that they don't need seasonings. If they come out too dry, add a little milk or extra broth. With the corned beef broth, we leave them as they are because they are full of flavor and just a tad salty.
This is probably not a perfect description of making mashed potatoes but should help you get started. Feel free to ask questions.

Turkey

This might seem a little early and I feel a little like I'm copping out of a really good blog post but it amazes me how hard cooking a bird can be. Because of their size, cooking a turkey can be rather difficult. There's the balance of keeping the meat from drying out and getting the deep parts of the meat thoroughly cooked.
So while I am still under the turkey influence, I thought I would share how to properly cook a turkey.
A turkey takes a long time to cook - about 1 hour for every 3 pounds at 350 degrees. Keep this in mind when planning your cooking and even when purchasing the turkey. My almost 12 pound turkey took over 3 1/2 hours.
One thing that influences cooking time is what you stuff the turkey with. Dense bread stuffings add to the cooking time. I stuffed my turkey with apples and onions which allow air circulation through the cavities and help the turkey cook faster. I didn't use a bread stuffing, simply because we didn't have any.
If you are not using a bread stuffing, fill the cavity with moist flavor ingredients. Onions, apples, oranges, and celery are all great - they keep the cavities moist and add flavor to the turkey. Adding seasonings like - bay leaves, garlic, fresh herbs also help season a turkey.
Quite often I don't add anything to my turkey aside from what I stuff in it but there are a number of things you can do to give the turkey some extra flavor. One Christmas I marinated the turkey overnight in seasoned champagne. The recipe is here. It was a really good turkey but not enough to keep me doing it year after year. Some people brine their turkey - which means soaking the turkey in a heavy salt water solution, at least overnight. Soaking the turkey in a marinade or solution increases the moisture content in the bird.
Before cooking, you can rub the skin with butter and herbs or pull back the skin carefully and butter/season the meat underneath. Seasoning the skin only guarantees the skin with have flavor but adding the seasonings under the skin gives the meat a chance to absorb the flavor.
To cook the turkey, make sure it's a thawed as you can get. Sometimes we find the center is still a little frozen, this will add to the cooking time but not a big deal (unless you are deep frying and then you may have a problem but I don't deep fry turkeys). Place in a deep roasting pan so that it will catch all the drippings. If the turkey is quite large, lay it breast side down (can for any turkey but I usually save it for the big ones). Cook in a 350 degree oven. About half way through cooking, flip the bird over so that the breasts can brown. Be careful - you may lose the skin during this if you are not careful. You can also start breasts up and rotate more than once. It's best to finish breasts up because it's easier for carving and checking the meat for doneness.
Hope this helps and makes your next turkey cooking experience an easy one.

Canning Basics

Canning can be intimidating but it doesn't have to be. There are some basic recipes and techniques anyone can do. I don't get too fancy because I just don't feel comfortable moving to the next step but I make beautiful jams and jellies. For me - I can fruit, tomatoes, syrups and jams. I rarely get a spoiled jar and I have only had 1 jar explode on me (it was a very controlled explosion that stayed in the pot of water so I'm not sure it can really be called an explosion).
The big thing to remember is that you have to process your canning jars so they seal properly and when processing everything needs to be about the same temperature. To clarify, to process a jar - you put your food in the jar, wipe the rim, add the lid and the outer ring, set them in water and boil for a certain amount of time (depending on your altitude and recipe). The food in the jar has to be in a similar temperature to the water you put it in for processing. If the food is hot, the water should be hot; if the food is cold, then the water should be cold and brought to a boil after the jars are in. Otherwise, the jar breaks and you lose everything you have just made.
Ball Canning has a great website that offers tons of recipes and a tutorial on learning how to can. I will tell you there are a number of things out there for canning. I have purchased some canning specific items over the years but in the beginning, I used what I had. You need a large pot that will fit the jars in. I use a large stock pot. Even with a canning specific pot, I can only process about 6 jars at a time which is about what I could fit in my large stock pot. Tongs that can grab the top of the jars and pull them out of the water is a must as well. I still use just kitchen tongs instead of the fancy canning tongs. I use a lot of kitchen towels and pot holders to help. The last must have is a good way to put the items in the jar. I used a ladle and carefully added the stuff to the jar. It worked but did get messy. I do love my canning funnel and think it should be the first real canning purchase (after jars and lids). The funnel just makes it all easier but it's not an absolute necessity. Last thing is a wet washcloth to wipe the rim after pouring the stuff in the jar.
I will share that using store bought pectin and the recipes included is a great way to learn how to make jams and jellies. It's user-friendly. I still use pectin and make fancier jams (like apple pie jam which I will share soon.
One thing I do often is can tomatoes. I love canning tomatoes because it's easy. Not everyone will agree with my method and that's okay. It works for me and I have jars of tomatoes that have lasted years with no problem. My secret is to wash the tomato and remove the stem part and sometimes the little blemish on the bottom. If the tomatoes are large then I coarsely chop them, otherwise I leave them whole. Cook them slowly over medium heat (stir to prevent the bottom from burning). When hot and soupy, ladle into hot quart jars and process in boiling water for about 20 minutes. I think the time is 10-15 but I almost always keep them for 20. Remove from water and let dry and cool on counter (on top of a towel).
Another thing to share - I run my jars through the dishwasher as I start my canning recipe so I have clean, hot jars to ladle the product into.

Super Cook

I don't know how I missed posting about this website. I discovered it through the local new station's facebook page. It is the most amazing site I have seen when it comes to finding recipes.
The concept of Supercook is to find recipes with certain ingredients.
For example, in your cupboards you have a can of black beans, a can of corn and a can of diced tomatoes. You list those in super cook and it gives you 2000 recipes. The first one, 5 minute chili, tells me I have everything I need to make it. The remaining recipes list additional ingredients I will need to make the recipe.
Supercook is a database so when I click on the recipe, it will take me out of supercook and to the recipe site. All the recipes, I have looked at, have been on sites I was familiar with - Martha Stewart, All recipes, etc so I know I am getting sent to good sites that I don't have to worry about spam or viruses.
For me, I hope this site will help me use up some of those odds and ends I have collected in my pantry. It should be a great resource to break out of the same old food routine.

Ice Cream Makers and Almond Milk Ice Cream

There are two basic types of ice cream makers - the frozen canister and the one that uses ice and rock salt.
The frozen canister type (like we are currently using) has a thick bowl that sits on a motor which you remove and freeze. The bowl is filled with a gel that freezes and thaws as it makes the ice cream. There are some great advantages to this type of ice cream maker. It is often cheaper than it's counterpart, it's quiet and you can use it to make a variety of frozen treats from slushies to ice cream. The disadvantages are you have to re-freeze the canister after every use so only 1 recipe at a time and it doesn't make the best ice cream (but I am working on that).
The type that uses rock salt and ice often has a thin canister for the ice cream that sits in a bucket like structure which is all secured by the motor on the top. You pour a mixture of ice and rock salt around the ice cream canister and turn it on. The advantage is it makes nearly perfect ice cream without having to freeze the ice cream before eating. It's rather low tech. The disadvantages are it's more expensive and horribly noisy. The noise kept us from making ice cream as much as we would have.
I am playing with recipes and I have to say with a little experimenting I think you can get a really good ice cream out of the gel canister maker. I'm hoping because that's what we are using. With these, you need a seperate container to store the ice cream. I find that the Ziplock containers with the twist lids are perfect.
Our first ice cream we made was an almond milk - this is really simple and tasty. This version will make more of an ice milk than an ice cream but for those who can't do dairy it's wonderful.

Almond milk ice cream
3 cups vanilla almond milk
1 cup sugar
1 tablespoon vanilla
Mix together in large measuring cup and carefully pour into ice cream maker. Let stir in make for 25-30 minutes (or to manufacturer instructions). Pour into covered container and freeze overnight.

We did make a dairy version last night with some modifications that look promising so I can't wait to share them with you when I have them more perfected.

Apology

I wanted to apologize for neglecting this blog and my wonderful readers. It's been a crazy month (and if you want details feel free to catch up with my other blog.
We've had a lot of family craziness and two moves (not ours). Things are finally settling down and I promise I will start posting recipes this week. I need to make time for pies since I was going to do lots of pies and I have decided to try my hand at ice cream. I keep reading all these ice cream blog posts and I figure I need to try some. We had an ice cream maker ages ago but not anymore. I'm borrowing one from my mom and if it works out we'll buy our own.

Wheat and Flour Varieties

There are so many flour varieties that it can make one's head explode trying to figure them out. With this post I am only looking at Wheat flours. I have been trying to come up with a way to add more whole grains to our diet but whole wheat flour can be really dense and can change a recipe greatly. All purpose flour lacks the nutrients of whole wheat but is so much easier to use. Then you add things like cake flour and bread flour and I just want to curl up and cry.
So for your sake but mostly mine, I thought it was time to figure it all out. I did a google search with the hope of finding a perfect explanation but it didn't happen. I am using King Arthur Flour's site for some information and may have to google each flour as I go for more information.
Growing up in wheat country I have learned there are 4 basic types of wheat in American flours - Hard Red Spring Wheat, Hard Red Winter Wheat, Hard White Wheat and Soft White Wheat. I don't quite understand what the difference is between the two hard red wheats but they seem to have different properties. There are more varieties of wheat than just these 4 but they are the ones that seem to be used for most wheat flours.
All Purpose Flour is made from hard red winter wheat. The outside parts of the wheat are stripped leaving only the endosperm when ground. This makes the flour easy to use but not overly nutritious. There are two types of AP flour - bleached and unbleached. I can't explain the bleaching process but when possible I choose unbleached because it's just one less process the wheat goes through before becoming flour.
Bread Flour is made from hard red spring wheat. It has a higher protein content than AP flour making it produce more gluten which in turn produces a better bread. The gluten makes dough rise more and produces a chewier product (in a good way). You can "make" your own bread flour by adding gluten flour to AP flour but I don't have a ratio for you.
Cake Flour is produced from the endosperm of soft white wheat. This makes the flour very low in protein/gluten giving cakes a softer lighter texture. It's also ground finer than AP flour.
Pastry Flour is like cake flour but not as finely ground.
Whole Wheat Flour is ground hard red wheat that has all three layers in place. It can be used for any recipe but does require extra liquid.
Whole White Wheat Flour is made from hard white wheat that is ground whole. I have found that it works just like AP flour but has a higher nutritional value and more fiber.
Graham Flour is whole wheat flour that is more coarsely ground and is used in making graham crackers as well as other baked goods.
Self-Rising Flour is AP flour that has had a leavening added such as baking powder. It's in between AP flour and a biscuit mix and allows the baker to cut out the leavening.