Here as promised is the amazing Parsnip Spice Cake recipe, and some other ideas. Parsnips are a great winter food. Their flavor improves after they are touched by frost. Then they last, if kept cool, until well into the spring. They have a flavor which contributes well to other winter foods.
Parsnip Spice Cake
You can fix this either wheat-based or gluten-free.
2 eggs
1/2 cup sunflower, canola, or olive oil
2/3 cup sugar or succanat, or 1/2 cup honey
1 tsp baking soda
1/2 tsp salt
1 tsp ground ginger
1/4 tsp ground cloves
1/4 tsp ground allspice
2 cups grated parsnip
1/3 cup raisins
1/2 cup chopped pecans, walnuts, or hazelnuts
1 cup Golden Buffalo wheat flour
OR 1 cup unbleached white flour
OR 1 cup brown rice flour
Grease a 9" springform pan. Mix eggs, oil, sugar, baking soda, salt, and spices. Stir in parsnips, raisins and nuts and mix well. Then stir in your choice of flour and mix. You're right, there is no milk or water added, but the recipe works.
Spread the thick batter evenly in the cake pan and smooth the top. Bake at 350 degrees about 45 minutes, until done. Let cool 10 minutes, then remove the springform and put on a plate for serving.
You could bake this in a 9" cake pan, well greased, and invert it onto a rack for cooling, if you don't have a springform pan.
You could change the spicing to your own taste, or use dried cranberries or other dried fruit in place of the raisins. After it is baked, you could sprinkle it with powdered sugar, or frost with a cream cheese frosting, but I think that would be over the top. It makes a fine moist cake or coffee cake as is. It's fun to tell people it's parsnip cake and watch their looks of incredulity (even disgust), until they taste it. You don't have to apologize for this nutritious treat.
Irish Parsnip Puree
1 lb parsnips, peeled and sliced
1 largish carrot, peeled and sliced
1 large potato, peeled and sliced
1 apple, peeled and cut up (optional)
1 cup broth
1/2 tsp allspice
2 tbs butter
Put vegetables and apple in kettle, add broth. Simmer until tender. Drain, reserving liquid. Run through blender, using reserved liquid as necessary for consistency. Return to kettle, add allspice and butter, salt and pepper to taste.
Parsnip Go-With
* You can add peeled and cut-up parsnip to many kinds of soups. It is particularly good in black-eyed pea soup or split pea soup. Try it where you would add turnip, or use them both.
* Add to oven-roasted vegetable mixtures along with carrots, turnips, potatoes, onions, leeks, rutabagas, or what-have-you. They will cook perfectly well along with other roots cut up similarly. (Oven-roasted vegetables take 45 minutes to an hour in a 350-degree oven, or an hour at 325, or less time at 400. You can generally fit them alongside other things you are baking. Toss vegetables in a little olive oil, sprinkle on your choice of herbs and a little salt and pepper.)
* Saute peeled cut-up parsnips in butter in a skillet, then add a little liquid and herbs of your choice and braise until tender (maybe 20 minutes, more or less, depending on the size of the pieces). You may top with sour cream, yogurt, or sharp cheese, and/or finely chopped walnuts.
* In a little water or stock, cook equal amounts of cut-up carrot and parsnips (maybe 25-30 minutes). Puree in blender, adding a little cream or milk, and salt and pepper to taste. You can do the same with with parsnip and turnip. Decorate with chopped parsley and a pat of butter.
* You can use grated parsnip in place of carrot in any baked good such as cakes, cookies or quick loaves, or use half and half grated parsnip and carrot.
Have fun with them. If you get them in your CSA share, don't let them sit in the frig until they are really past it (which will take a while). Parsnips are a valuable addition to the cornucopia of winter foods.
Friday, February 6, 2009
Friday, January 30, 2009
Natural Limits
It's time to think about natural limits. This can be a bit frightening to those of us brought up to believe that the sky's the limit, there will always be more of everything, our children will always have it better than we did, the Dow Jones will always go up, well, you put in your favorite pipe dream here....
Overshoot is a fact of life on a finite planet. In the web of life, some life forms follow a slow and cautious path, having evolved ways of not overrunning their subsistence. Other life forms go for growth, growth, growth, inevitably followed by crash. Even a slight knowledge of the growth cycles of forms of life on this planet corroborates this fact. Lemming populations follow a bubble of growth, outrunning food supplies, then a crash. Their predators follow a similar pattern.
The motto of the cancer cell is growth at all costs, even at the cost of the life form it inhabits. This bears a startling similarity to the raison d'etre of the corporation: growth at all costs. Corporations are a very simple form of life. And the less supervision they have, the more they will adhere to their simple goals of more growth and profit for themselves, and externalizing the costs of their decisions.
There are some qualities that we have which are infinite. A teacher once told me that "the treasure which we have, which is Attention, is infinite". Yes. We can always pay better attention to ourselves, our bodies, our families, our earth, our behavior. And, most spiritual traditions believe in an infinite spirit, a universal soul or God. Most people believe that there is an infinite place of delight for us after death.
But there is no way that there is an infinite amount of physical "stuff" for every person on Earth; there is not an infinite amount of energy available to the ever-growing population of Earth. There is not an infinite amount of food, or an infinite number of acres of land on which to grow it. If we can't bring ourselves to live within our means on this planet, there are four predators which will do it for us: Famine, Pestilence, Plague and War.
Let's look at some practical, near-at-hand examples of limits.
1. Residential real estate cannot continue to rise in value far faster than the average take-home pay of the people who buy the homes. The real-estate bubble started about 2000. Take-home pay (adjusted for inflation) has been flat for decades. The real estate meltdown will stop when the relationship of home prices and take-home pay reaches historic norms again. You can't trick this process, or have the government bail it out by maintaining irrationally high real-estate values. If take-home pay sinks, as it looks likely, the real estate will need to sink to match.
2. The stock market cannot rise in a stable way any faster than the basic value-creating abilities of our society. This includes what we make, what we grow, what we dig out of the ground. Anything more than that is speculation and leverage. Leverage by its very nature cannot continue forever; it is a Ponzi scheme. Unfortunately, the news is even worse on this front. At the end of World War II, the U.S. had the largest manufacturing sector of any nation on the planet. Now, our claim to fame is that we have the largest retail sector, and the largest imbalance of trade. Well, you just can't make money selling "BUYING". Not in the long run, anyway.
What needs to happen? First, we need to start making things again. We need to restore the manufacturing industry in this country. We're smart enough to do this. Second, we need to stop buying cheap stuff from other countries, much of it worthless, some of it toxic. Third, we need to put some controls on the rampant leverage some organizations and traders are using to cheat the system and pull the nation's long-term value into their own short-term pockets.
3. We need less retail space. This is painful, I know, especially when it is a small business started by someone using their life savings. It is absolutely impossible for the people in the U.S. to continue the buying spree they have been on for the last decade. Can't be done. No more residential ATM. So, most unfortunately, small and large retail businesses have ramped up as if not just the spending, but the growth in spending, was going to last forever.
What we can do to help: support small businesses, local businesses. Keep the money in our community. Support local families with the dollars that you do spend. It is not our job to support people in China, Singapore, Sri Lanka, the Barbados, etc., by taking out debt that we cannot afford.
4. There is a natural limit to the energy available on the planet; almost all of it is nuclear energy--from our sun. The Earth has a sun budget coming in every day in the form of direct heating, ocean waves, wind, and hydroelectric. (How do you suppose that water got up into the sky in the first place?) The other basic source is Earth's natural radioactivity, which came from the dust of dead stars. We can tap that with geothermal energy installations. And Earth-based nuclear power plants, though there are lots of unsolved problems involved in that. (Peak uranium, anyone?)
We've been living way beyond our means on fossil fuels. They're called fossil fuels because it takes geologic time to make any more. The readily-obtainable fossil fuels are half gone, the easier half too I might add. Getting oil out of shale and tar sands is tremendously expensive in fuel and water, and it's uncertain that the world can afford it long term. Like somebody who has been poor for a long time and suddenly gets a big windfall, we've been drunk on the wonderful nearly-free energy we found. So much of it was wasted, and is still being wasted now.
The fossil fuels had a role to play in the planet's thermostat too. When the fossil fuels were laid down, the Earth was very hot, and the carbon dioxide level was very high. This carbon was sequestered under the ground, even under the oceans, where it couldn't do any harm. Like children, we found the wonderful treasure trove of carbon, dug and pumped it up, and are busy burning it, putting that dangerous carbon dioxide back into the air. Not much surprise that the Earth is heading toward a hot future.
5. There is a natural limit to the ability of Earth's natural systems to detoxify all the waste we're putting into it. When the population of the Earth was 50 million, with low technology, there was no problem. There was always clean air and water over the next mountain. No more. We have filled the planet, and now are filling the air and oceans with our waste. This is pretty serious, since we would like to have a human-friendly Earth in thirty years, in one hundred years, in a thousand years. Sure, all of us living now will be gone. But I don't want to think that my actions are leaving a toxic waste dump for my great-great-grandchildren.
This post has gotten into some serious long-term issues. Panic is not called for, and won't help us. In future posts, I want to consider a simple question: what would it take to have food on the table 100 years from now? 100 years is not that much time. The children of children living now could be alive then. Your grandchildren, perhaps, or their children. What actions can we take now to save something for them? to build something for them? to restore something for them? It is a matter of simple integrity in our lives to leave the world better than we found it, not worse. Starting from the goal of food within 100 miles, which is still a valuable goal, let's begin to look at "food for 100 years".
We will probably find that the two have a lot in common.
Overshoot is a fact of life on a finite planet. In the web of life, some life forms follow a slow and cautious path, having evolved ways of not overrunning their subsistence. Other life forms go for growth, growth, growth, inevitably followed by crash. Even a slight knowledge of the growth cycles of forms of life on this planet corroborates this fact. Lemming populations follow a bubble of growth, outrunning food supplies, then a crash. Their predators follow a similar pattern.
The motto of the cancer cell is growth at all costs, even at the cost of the life form it inhabits. This bears a startling similarity to the raison d'etre of the corporation: growth at all costs. Corporations are a very simple form of life. And the less supervision they have, the more they will adhere to their simple goals of more growth and profit for themselves, and externalizing the costs of their decisions.
There are some qualities that we have which are infinite. A teacher once told me that "the treasure which we have, which is Attention, is infinite". Yes. We can always pay better attention to ourselves, our bodies, our families, our earth, our behavior. And, most spiritual traditions believe in an infinite spirit, a universal soul or God. Most people believe that there is an infinite place of delight for us after death.
But there is no way that there is an infinite amount of physical "stuff" for every person on Earth; there is not an infinite amount of energy available to the ever-growing population of Earth. There is not an infinite amount of food, or an infinite number of acres of land on which to grow it. If we can't bring ourselves to live within our means on this planet, there are four predators which will do it for us: Famine, Pestilence, Plague and War.
Let's look at some practical, near-at-hand examples of limits.
1. Residential real estate cannot continue to rise in value far faster than the average take-home pay of the people who buy the homes. The real-estate bubble started about 2000. Take-home pay (adjusted for inflation) has been flat for decades. The real estate meltdown will stop when the relationship of home prices and take-home pay reaches historic norms again. You can't trick this process, or have the government bail it out by maintaining irrationally high real-estate values. If take-home pay sinks, as it looks likely, the real estate will need to sink to match.
2. The stock market cannot rise in a stable way any faster than the basic value-creating abilities of our society. This includes what we make, what we grow, what we dig out of the ground. Anything more than that is speculation and leverage. Leverage by its very nature cannot continue forever; it is a Ponzi scheme. Unfortunately, the news is even worse on this front. At the end of World War II, the U.S. had the largest manufacturing sector of any nation on the planet. Now, our claim to fame is that we have the largest retail sector, and the largest imbalance of trade. Well, you just can't make money selling "BUYING". Not in the long run, anyway.
What needs to happen? First, we need to start making things again. We need to restore the manufacturing industry in this country. We're smart enough to do this. Second, we need to stop buying cheap stuff from other countries, much of it worthless, some of it toxic. Third, we need to put some controls on the rampant leverage some organizations and traders are using to cheat the system and pull the nation's long-term value into their own short-term pockets.
3. We need less retail space. This is painful, I know, especially when it is a small business started by someone using their life savings. It is absolutely impossible for the people in the U.S. to continue the buying spree they have been on for the last decade. Can't be done. No more residential ATM. So, most unfortunately, small and large retail businesses have ramped up as if not just the spending, but the growth in spending, was going to last forever.
What we can do to help: support small businesses, local businesses. Keep the money in our community. Support local families with the dollars that you do spend. It is not our job to support people in China, Singapore, Sri Lanka, the Barbados, etc., by taking out debt that we cannot afford.
4. There is a natural limit to the energy available on the planet; almost all of it is nuclear energy--from our sun. The Earth has a sun budget coming in every day in the form of direct heating, ocean waves, wind, and hydroelectric. (How do you suppose that water got up into the sky in the first place?) The other basic source is Earth's natural radioactivity, which came from the dust of dead stars. We can tap that with geothermal energy installations. And Earth-based nuclear power plants, though there are lots of unsolved problems involved in that. (Peak uranium, anyone?)
We've been living way beyond our means on fossil fuels. They're called fossil fuels because it takes geologic time to make any more. The readily-obtainable fossil fuels are half gone, the easier half too I might add. Getting oil out of shale and tar sands is tremendously expensive in fuel and water, and it's uncertain that the world can afford it long term. Like somebody who has been poor for a long time and suddenly gets a big windfall, we've been drunk on the wonderful nearly-free energy we found. So much of it was wasted, and is still being wasted now.
The fossil fuels had a role to play in the planet's thermostat too. When the fossil fuels were laid down, the Earth was very hot, and the carbon dioxide level was very high. This carbon was sequestered under the ground, even under the oceans, where it couldn't do any harm. Like children, we found the wonderful treasure trove of carbon, dug and pumped it up, and are busy burning it, putting that dangerous carbon dioxide back into the air. Not much surprise that the Earth is heading toward a hot future.
5. There is a natural limit to the ability of Earth's natural systems to detoxify all the waste we're putting into it. When the population of the Earth was 50 million, with low technology, there was no problem. There was always clean air and water over the next mountain. No more. We have filled the planet, and now are filling the air and oceans with our waste. This is pretty serious, since we would like to have a human-friendly Earth in thirty years, in one hundred years, in a thousand years. Sure, all of us living now will be gone. But I don't want to think that my actions are leaving a toxic waste dump for my great-great-grandchildren.
This post has gotten into some serious long-term issues. Panic is not called for, and won't help us. In future posts, I want to consider a simple question: what would it take to have food on the table 100 years from now? 100 years is not that much time. The children of children living now could be alive then. Your grandchildren, perhaps, or their children. What actions can we take now to save something for them? to build something for them? to restore something for them? It is a matter of simple integrity in our lives to leave the world better than we found it, not worse. Starting from the goal of food within 100 miles, which is still a valuable goal, let's begin to look at "food for 100 years".
We will probably find that the two have a lot in common.
Saturday, January 24, 2009
January: What We're Eating
We're pretty much on winter rations now; it takes a little time to adjust from eating fresh food in harvest and putting it up, to admitting the harvest is over and eating the stored foods.
Fresh-----
We're still eating fresh apples, the late fall Winesaps from the Western Slope, that have been keeping wonderfully fresh and crisp in our cool garage. Winesaps are marvelous storage apples, good for fresh eating or pies.
We have four different kinds of potatoes: Yukons from our CSA, blue potatoes, red thumb fingerlings, and Russian banana fingerlings from White Mountain Farms in southern Colorado. They're holding out well in the cool garage in paper bags, protected from light.
We're just finishing up the Colorado red onions I bought in the fall from the cooperative, and have plenty of yellow onions from our CSA.
We still have pumpkins from our CSA; they're holding out remarkably well in a fairly cool and dry room. I need to push myself to use them, while they are still good. I used the other squash I had. The spicy pumpkin soup is a big favorite of ours. And cubed pumpkin goes nicely in stews or chile.
I fixed Parsnip Spice Cake recently; I'll post the recipe next time. Kind of like carrot cake; very moist and good. I used brown rice flour (CA), raisins (CA), and pecans (OK). It doesn't need frosting; I amazed our hosts by taking it to a potluck. Parsnip cake?
We're getting loads of carrots from our CSA; there is never a problem finding good uses for carrots. We're also getting a steady supply of daikon, potatoes, onions, leeks, beets and turnips, as well as several kinds of cabbage.
Frozen----
We've been eating the broccoli, green beans, and snap peas I froze last summer. I think I will cut down on the blanching time next season, since all of them are a little softer than I'd like.
Dried----
I've been throwing some dried bell peppers into soups and stews; they are very nice and I think I'll make more of them next season. I've also been munching on dried peaches, both homegrown and Colorado organic, prunes and apricots. We don't fix many desserts since we both have to watch our weight, so we usually have our fruit as its own sweet self.
I've been using home-dried herbs in cooking, particularly parsley. I ended up getting way too much parsley at the coop, and dried several jars full, but it's coming in handy now.
Canned----
We're really enjoying the nectarines I put up in light honey syrup. I loved the fresh Colorado nectarines so much, I got carried away preserving them, with 40 pint jars put up. Oh well; we can have one a week until the next harvest. I've also opened up several jars of spiced peaches, which make a wonderful ice cream topping. We've also had several jars of the Santa Rosa plums.
All the tomato products I use now are from tomatoes I preserved last summer and fall: tomato sauce, diced tomatoes, and juice. I love the flavor. I find that homemade tomato sauce is not as thick as commercial, so for pizza topping I just cook it down a little more with herbs and olive oil.
Lactofermented----
We have really been enjoying the cucumbers and green beans I put up last summer. We've polished off four jars of cukes and two of green beans. The green beans get cut up for salads, or served as a side dish. I have one jar of cukes and one jar of green beans left. Next year: more pickled green beans, fewer frozen.
I also made several kinds of sauerkraut which are good, and lactofermented salsa which turned out really well. I haven't bought salsa in over a year.
Staples----
I've been cooking blackeyed peas and dry baby lima beans, having one or the other on hand most of the time as a side dish. We've also been having some pinto beans. I haven't yet cooked the black beans we got at the coop in January, though I had a very nice dish of them at a friend's house. I've got Colorado garbanzos soaking now.
DH gets his weekly homemade pizza, made with Golden Buffalo flour (NE), homemade tomato sauce, Rocky Plains sausage (Kersey CO), mushrooms (Hazel Dell, Windsor), fresh mozzarella (Windsor Dairy), and sometimes black olives (CA), and a little non-local trim in the form of artichoke hearts.
I've been enjoying the gluten-free oats (WY), or Colorado millet for breakfast. Local eggs are hard to find this time of year; sometimes we have to settle for "store" eggs. Maybe this summer we can get our own chickens again.
I've been cooking the Colorado quinoa, mainly in the form of Quinoa Cooked Like Pasta. Use lots of boiling salted water, add a cup of quinoa, and let cook for about 15 minutes, then drain. This is nice with (homemade) basil pesto, or other sauce.
Meat, etc.----
Most of our meat comes from Rocky Plains in the form of Colorado-raised buffalo, pork and lamb. We've been enjoying the pastured poultry available through Eastern Plains. One chicken makes several nice meals, and then the broth and meat from the carcass makes several more in the form of soups and casseroles. So although the chickens are expensive by the pound, they have a tremendous amount of flavor which is very satisfying and make a lot of nutritious servings.
Seafood is a miniscule part of our diet; once every few months, a meal of Alaskan wild-caught salmon.
Exceptions----
Compared to last year, I've eased up a little on the restrictions. I've bought balsamic vinegar, mustard, occasionally artichoke hearts, and regular and gluten-free pasta for infrequent meals. And for New Year's Eve, a carton of ice cream as a treat. Try butter pecan ice cream, home-canned spiced peaches, and a little Bailey's Irish Cream liqueur poured over. Yum!
Although I've loosened the restrictions, we're still using way more local foods than last year, when I was using the on-hand foods we still had. Central to our diet this winter are the fruits and vegetables I've stored in various ways, and the staples acquired through the cooperative.
I'm keeping track of how much I stored, and how much I'm using, so I can calibrate my efforts for next summer and fall.
Comment----
I'm enthusing over these foods that we have, and sometimes I say we eat like "kings and queens", but really, these are simple ordinary foods, not expensive. And we're eating not like kings and queens, but like ordinary people did 100 years ago, foods from diversified farms and gardens. The foods are fresh and flavorful, and satisfying.
By getting vegetables through our CSA, and bulk foods through the coop, we can get high quality for very reasonable prices. Cooking and putting up is essential for this kind of eating. You can't buy nectarines in light honey syrup no matter how much you have to spend, but for a modest cost you can make your own.
Like lots of things in life, it's the attention that you pay that makes the difference. Take time to find local foods; take time to cook; take time to preserve them for the winter. Cook and eat them with appreciation and respect. And give thanks for the bounty.
Fresh-----
We're still eating fresh apples, the late fall Winesaps from the Western Slope, that have been keeping wonderfully fresh and crisp in our cool garage. Winesaps are marvelous storage apples, good for fresh eating or pies.
We have four different kinds of potatoes: Yukons from our CSA, blue potatoes, red thumb fingerlings, and Russian banana fingerlings from White Mountain Farms in southern Colorado. They're holding out well in the cool garage in paper bags, protected from light.
We're just finishing up the Colorado red onions I bought in the fall from the cooperative, and have plenty of yellow onions from our CSA.
We still have pumpkins from our CSA; they're holding out remarkably well in a fairly cool and dry room. I need to push myself to use them, while they are still good. I used the other squash I had. The spicy pumpkin soup is a big favorite of ours. And cubed pumpkin goes nicely in stews or chile.
I fixed Parsnip Spice Cake recently; I'll post the recipe next time. Kind of like carrot cake; very moist and good. I used brown rice flour (CA), raisins (CA), and pecans (OK). It doesn't need frosting; I amazed our hosts by taking it to a potluck. Parsnip cake?
We're getting loads of carrots from our CSA; there is never a problem finding good uses for carrots. We're also getting a steady supply of daikon, potatoes, onions, leeks, beets and turnips, as well as several kinds of cabbage.
Frozen----
We've been eating the broccoli, green beans, and snap peas I froze last summer. I think I will cut down on the blanching time next season, since all of them are a little softer than I'd like.
Dried----
I've been throwing some dried bell peppers into soups and stews; they are very nice and I think I'll make more of them next season. I've also been munching on dried peaches, both homegrown and Colorado organic, prunes and apricots. We don't fix many desserts since we both have to watch our weight, so we usually have our fruit as its own sweet self.
I've been using home-dried herbs in cooking, particularly parsley. I ended up getting way too much parsley at the coop, and dried several jars full, but it's coming in handy now.
Canned----
We're really enjoying the nectarines I put up in light honey syrup. I loved the fresh Colorado nectarines so much, I got carried away preserving them, with 40 pint jars put up. Oh well; we can have one a week until the next harvest. I've also opened up several jars of spiced peaches, which make a wonderful ice cream topping. We've also had several jars of the Santa Rosa plums.
All the tomato products I use now are from tomatoes I preserved last summer and fall: tomato sauce, diced tomatoes, and juice. I love the flavor. I find that homemade tomato sauce is not as thick as commercial, so for pizza topping I just cook it down a little more with herbs and olive oil.
Lactofermented----
We have really been enjoying the cucumbers and green beans I put up last summer. We've polished off four jars of cukes and two of green beans. The green beans get cut up for salads, or served as a side dish. I have one jar of cukes and one jar of green beans left. Next year: more pickled green beans, fewer frozen.
I also made several kinds of sauerkraut which are good, and lactofermented salsa which turned out really well. I haven't bought salsa in over a year.
Staples----
I've been cooking blackeyed peas and dry baby lima beans, having one or the other on hand most of the time as a side dish. We've also been having some pinto beans. I haven't yet cooked the black beans we got at the coop in January, though I had a very nice dish of them at a friend's house. I've got Colorado garbanzos soaking now.
DH gets his weekly homemade pizza, made with Golden Buffalo flour (NE), homemade tomato sauce, Rocky Plains sausage (Kersey CO), mushrooms (Hazel Dell, Windsor), fresh mozzarella (Windsor Dairy), and sometimes black olives (CA), and a little non-local trim in the form of artichoke hearts.
I've been enjoying the gluten-free oats (WY), or Colorado millet for breakfast. Local eggs are hard to find this time of year; sometimes we have to settle for "store" eggs. Maybe this summer we can get our own chickens again.
I've been cooking the Colorado quinoa, mainly in the form of Quinoa Cooked Like Pasta. Use lots of boiling salted water, add a cup of quinoa, and let cook for about 15 minutes, then drain. This is nice with (homemade) basil pesto, or other sauce.
Meat, etc.----
Most of our meat comes from Rocky Plains in the form of Colorado-raised buffalo, pork and lamb. We've been enjoying the pastured poultry available through Eastern Plains. One chicken makes several nice meals, and then the broth and meat from the carcass makes several more in the form of soups and casseroles. So although the chickens are expensive by the pound, they have a tremendous amount of flavor which is very satisfying and make a lot of nutritious servings.
Seafood is a miniscule part of our diet; once every few months, a meal of Alaskan wild-caught salmon.
Exceptions----
Compared to last year, I've eased up a little on the restrictions. I've bought balsamic vinegar, mustard, occasionally artichoke hearts, and regular and gluten-free pasta for infrequent meals. And for New Year's Eve, a carton of ice cream as a treat. Try butter pecan ice cream, home-canned spiced peaches, and a little Bailey's Irish Cream liqueur poured over. Yum!
Although I've loosened the restrictions, we're still using way more local foods than last year, when I was using the on-hand foods we still had. Central to our diet this winter are the fruits and vegetables I've stored in various ways, and the staples acquired through the cooperative.
I'm keeping track of how much I stored, and how much I'm using, so I can calibrate my efforts for next summer and fall.
Comment----
I'm enthusing over these foods that we have, and sometimes I say we eat like "kings and queens", but really, these are simple ordinary foods, not expensive. And we're eating not like kings and queens, but like ordinary people did 100 years ago, foods from diversified farms and gardens. The foods are fresh and flavorful, and satisfying.
By getting vegetables through our CSA, and bulk foods through the coop, we can get high quality for very reasonable prices. Cooking and putting up is essential for this kind of eating. You can't buy nectarines in light honey syrup no matter how much you have to spend, but for a modest cost you can make your own.
Like lots of things in life, it's the attention that you pay that makes the difference. Take time to find local foods; take time to cook; take time to preserve them for the winter. Cook and eat them with appreciation and respect. And give thanks for the bounty.
Sunday, January 11, 2009
Pumpkin--More than Pie Timber
We still have several nice-looking pumpkins from our CSA, and one from my garden. They keep fairly well at cool room temperatures, but it's time to use them. If you have pumpkins stored in your house, look them over every week or so, and be sure to immediately cut up and use any that are starting to get soft spots.
I have a pumpkin article from last year too: A Pumpkin of Your Own.
Fresh Pumpkin Pie
For this recipe you will need about 2 cups of homemade pureed pumpkin, just a little more than a pint jar if you have canned or frozen pumpkin. Commercial pumpkin is great, but it's mixed with squash and has some water squeezed out of it, so it is a little thicker. However, in a pinch you could use it in this recipe, just increase the milk by 1/4 cup. For your own pumpkin, be sure to start with pie pumpkins, not jack-o-lantern types.
2 cups pureed pumpkin (local)
2/3 cup honey (local)
1/2 tsp salt
3 to 4 teaspoons spices, chosen in your favorite combination from ginger, cinnamon, cloves (less), allspice, mace, nutmeg, or cardamon powder
1 cup milk or light cream
4 beaten eggs (for extra-large, use 3)
1 9" uncooked piecrust, preferably homemade
Heat oven to 450 degrees while you mix up pumpkin, honey, salt, spices, milk and beaten eggs. You can use a whisk or a mixer. Pour into pie shell, bake at 450 degrees for 10 minutes, then reduce heat and bake at 350 until done, about 45-50 minutes. You can test it with a table knife, inserted into the filling about half-way out from the center. If the knife comes out clean, the filling is done. Good with whipped cream.
For a 10" pie pan, increase the recipe by half (3 cups pumpkin, etc).
Making pie crust at home is really not hard, and your results are bound to be better than commercial crusts, since you are using better ingredients. Here are recipes for "normal" wheat-based piecrust, and gluten-free piecrust.
Homemade wheat pie crust
1 1/3 cup white flour, Golden Buffalo flour, or whole wheat pastry flour
1/2 tsp salt
6 tbs homemade lard (for pete sake don't use shortening or commercial lard, but you can use butter)
1 tbs vinegar
a little cold water
Mix flour and salt, then rub in the lard by hand until particles are small. Add the vinegar, then a couple of tablespoons cold water, and knead the dough together. Add more cold water until the dough hangs together. Roll out on floured surface, transfer to pan. Fill and bake.
Homemade gluten-free pie crust
1/2 cup millet flour
1/2 cup brown rice flour
1/3 cup sweet rice flour
1 tsp xanthan gum
1/2 tsp salt
6 tbs homemade lard or butter
1 tbs vinegar
a little cold water
Mix flours and salt. Rub in lard or butter. Then add vinegar and a couple of tablespoons cold water, kneading until it holds together, adding a little more water as needed.
Now, instead of driving yourself crazy trying to roll out this delicate dough, pat it into the pie pan with your fingers. Take some time to get it even on the bottom and up the sides. Fill and bake.
Cubed Pumpkin--Ingredient
Start with a pumpkin, cut in two on the equator, scoop out the seeds, separate them from the strings but do not rinse, and roast the seeds in the oven at 325 degrees with a teaspoon of oil and a little salt, until they are nice and roasted. With the remaining flesh, cut in narrow strips, cut off the remaining strings and the shell, and cut the meat into small pieces. If you do a good-size pumpkin you will have enough for several recipes. It keeps for several days in your frig.
Pumpkin Soup
2 1/2 cups peeled cubed pumpkin
1 goodsize carrot, peeled and cut into small chunks
1 medium onion, peeled and diced
1 garlic clove, minced
2 1/2 cups chicken broth or water
salt and pepper to taste
1/3 cup heavy cream, or 1/2 cup half and half
2 tablespoons olive oil
1/2 cup fresh parsley, finely chopped, or 2 tablespoons dried
1/2 to 1 tsp chipotle chili powder (ground smoked jalapenos)
1 tsp soy sauce
1/2 tsp cinnamon
1/2 tsp allspice
Put into kettle pumpkin, onion, garlic, carrot, broth or water, salt and pepper. Bring to a boil, simmer 30-40 minutes, until tender. Let cool a few minutes, then blend the soup in a blender and return to the pan. Add olive oil, cream, and spices. Add more water or broth if it is too thick. Simmer ten minutes, then taste for seasoning. You can add more chipotle, cinnamon, allspice, salt or pepper as you like.
Millet Pilaf
This recipe combines two of my favorite foods. Millet has a natural bitter coating like quinoa, which needs to be removed by toasting or by pouring boiling water over and soaking overnight. This recipe uses toasting.
1 cup hulled millet
2 tablespoons olive oil
2 medium or 1 large chopped onion
1 to 1 1/2 cups peeled cubed pumpkin
one quart chicken broth, vegetable broth, or water
1 teaspoon salt
1/4 teaspoon pepper
optional: one cup sour cream
optional: one cup sliced fresh mushrooms
Toast the millet in a dry cast iron or other heavy skillet until it starts to brown. Remove. Add oil to skillet, saute the onions, then add back the millet, the pumpkin, salt and pepper. Transfer to casserole dish, and pour the broth or water over it. Cover and bake at 350 degrees for 1 1/2 hours. Keep a lookout and add more broth if it gets too dry. When done, stir in the sour cream if you like. You can also add the sliced mushrooms to the saute, before the baking step. Garlic could also be a nice addition at this point.
I have a pumpkin article from last year too: A Pumpkin of Your Own.
Fresh Pumpkin Pie
For this recipe you will need about 2 cups of homemade pureed pumpkin, just a little more than a pint jar if you have canned or frozen pumpkin. Commercial pumpkin is great, but it's mixed with squash and has some water squeezed out of it, so it is a little thicker. However, in a pinch you could use it in this recipe, just increase the milk by 1/4 cup. For your own pumpkin, be sure to start with pie pumpkins, not jack-o-lantern types.
2 cups pureed pumpkin (local)
2/3 cup honey (local)
1/2 tsp salt
3 to 4 teaspoons spices, chosen in your favorite combination from ginger, cinnamon, cloves (less), allspice, mace, nutmeg, or cardamon powder
1 cup milk or light cream
4 beaten eggs (for extra-large, use 3)
1 9" uncooked piecrust, preferably homemade
Heat oven to 450 degrees while you mix up pumpkin, honey, salt, spices, milk and beaten eggs. You can use a whisk or a mixer. Pour into pie shell, bake at 450 degrees for 10 minutes, then reduce heat and bake at 350 until done, about 45-50 minutes. You can test it with a table knife, inserted into the filling about half-way out from the center. If the knife comes out clean, the filling is done. Good with whipped cream.
For a 10" pie pan, increase the recipe by half (3 cups pumpkin, etc).
Making pie crust at home is really not hard, and your results are bound to be better than commercial crusts, since you are using better ingredients. Here are recipes for "normal" wheat-based piecrust, and gluten-free piecrust.
Homemade wheat pie crust
1 1/3 cup white flour, Golden Buffalo flour, or whole wheat pastry flour
1/2 tsp salt
6 tbs homemade lard (for pete sake don't use shortening or commercial lard, but you can use butter)
1 tbs vinegar
a little cold water
Mix flour and salt, then rub in the lard by hand until particles are small. Add the vinegar, then a couple of tablespoons cold water, and knead the dough together. Add more cold water until the dough hangs together. Roll out on floured surface, transfer to pan. Fill and bake.
Homemade gluten-free pie crust
1/2 cup millet flour
1/2 cup brown rice flour
1/3 cup sweet rice flour
1 tsp xanthan gum
1/2 tsp salt
6 tbs homemade lard or butter
1 tbs vinegar
a little cold water
Mix flours and salt. Rub in lard or butter. Then add vinegar and a couple of tablespoons cold water, kneading until it holds together, adding a little more water as needed.
Now, instead of driving yourself crazy trying to roll out this delicate dough, pat it into the pie pan with your fingers. Take some time to get it even on the bottom and up the sides. Fill and bake.
Cubed Pumpkin--Ingredient
Start with a pumpkin, cut in two on the equator, scoop out the seeds, separate them from the strings but do not rinse, and roast the seeds in the oven at 325 degrees with a teaspoon of oil and a little salt, until they are nice and roasted. With the remaining flesh, cut in narrow strips, cut off the remaining strings and the shell, and cut the meat into small pieces. If you do a good-size pumpkin you will have enough for several recipes. It keeps for several days in your frig.
Pumpkin Soup
2 1/2 cups peeled cubed pumpkin
1 goodsize carrot, peeled and cut into small chunks
1 medium onion, peeled and diced
1 garlic clove, minced
2 1/2 cups chicken broth or water
salt and pepper to taste
1/3 cup heavy cream, or 1/2 cup half and half
2 tablespoons olive oil
1/2 cup fresh parsley, finely chopped, or 2 tablespoons dried
1/2 to 1 tsp chipotle chili powder (ground smoked jalapenos)
1 tsp soy sauce
1/2 tsp cinnamon
1/2 tsp allspice
Put into kettle pumpkin, onion, garlic, carrot, broth or water, salt and pepper. Bring to a boil, simmer 30-40 minutes, until tender. Let cool a few minutes, then blend the soup in a blender and return to the pan. Add olive oil, cream, and spices. Add more water or broth if it is too thick. Simmer ten minutes, then taste for seasoning. You can add more chipotle, cinnamon, allspice, salt or pepper as you like.
Millet Pilaf
This recipe combines two of my favorite foods. Millet has a natural bitter coating like quinoa, which needs to be removed by toasting or by pouring boiling water over and soaking overnight. This recipe uses toasting.
1 cup hulled millet
2 tablespoons olive oil
2 medium or 1 large chopped onion
1 to 1 1/2 cups peeled cubed pumpkin
one quart chicken broth, vegetable broth, or water
1 teaspoon salt
1/4 teaspoon pepper
optional: one cup sour cream
optional: one cup sliced fresh mushrooms
Toast the millet in a dry cast iron or other heavy skillet until it starts to brown. Remove. Add oil to skillet, saute the onions, then add back the millet, the pumpkin, salt and pepper. Transfer to casserole dish, and pour the broth or water over it. Cover and bake at 350 degrees for 1 1/2 hours. Keep a lookout and add more broth if it gets too dry. When done, stir in the sour cream if you like. You can also add the sliced mushrooms to the saute, before the baking step. Garlic could also be a nice addition at this point.
Tuesday, December 30, 2008
Save Some for the Kids
Ten or twenty years ago, I often saw bumper stickers on the backs of huge motorhomes on the highway: "We're Spending our Children's Inheritance". This, I think, was supposed to be cute. Now the $90,000 motorhomes are sitting forlornly with For Sale signs, worth a small fraction of their purchase price. The former vacationers? Who knows? Some of them have run completely through their children's inheritance, and are wondering how they can make payments on their own house. The formerly-cute statement is somewhat chilling.
But in a larger sense, that is what we are doing as a community, as a nation, and even as a world. We were gifted with a finite but huge inheritance from Mother Earth in the form of petroleum. In a little over a hundred years, we have squandered about half of it. (That's what Peak Oil means: half of it is gone--the easier half.)
The other half of that petroleum we leave for not just our heirs, but all succeeding generations of humans. And we're not showing significant signs of slowing down our consumption for the purposes of saving some for future generations.
At the beginning of the 20th century, we had a world endowed with ice caps and glaciers, pure air, an Aral Sea. Nature had put a lot of the carbon away safely in the petroleum, in the coal, in the limestone, in the permafrost, in the frozen clathrates in the ocean, in the forests that covered a significant portion of the globe. In the process of claiming our inheritance and that of our descendants, we're cranking that carbon back into the atmosphere in the form of carbon dioxide.
Two hundred years ago the oceans were packed full of beautiful lifeforms, in a highly complex web of life based on plankton. We found that many of these lifeforms were tasty or otherwise useful. The incredible bounty of the oceans made it seem that we could keep pulling out fish and shellfish forever, as much as we wanted, and not even have an effect. Unfortunately, the 20th century factory ships depleted most of the fish stocks, and pollution from land-based activities is causing major dead zones in most estuaries. Plankton is said to be down by 70% over levels earlier in the last century. Another inheritance taken from our kids, and their kids, for generations.
Bringing it closer to home, here in Larimer County we're busily engaged in paving over good farmland, putting up yet more retail space, or developing yet more subdivisions far from the city centers. The only thing that has slowed this process down is the real estate meltdown, not any consideration for preserving the land so that future generations can have food. Our priorities are cock-eyed. Do we need more McMansions, or do we need food? Your choice. As petroleum gets more expensive, importing food from every other country in the world becomes more expensive, and industrial-style farming becomes less cost-effective.
In the economy, we're rolling up a Mt Everest of debt for succeeding generations to cope with, or not, as the case may be. Greed doesn't look so "good" these days as it did in the 90s. The U.S. has been living so far beyond their means, drawing down the inflated equity of their homes, spending their way into their own mountains of debt, that the rest of the world which has been selling us all this stuff is sinking too, now that we're tapped out.
I don't have the answers to these enormous problems. This is too big for one person to have the answers. We all need to be thinking about ways to preserve the wealth and bounty of the natural world for our grandkids, their grandkids, and on into the future. One of the best compliments you can give for someone who died is that he or she made the world a better place than they found it. The generations now on the Earth (us) need to be thinking about how we can make the world a better place, individually and in communities.
We know that the future won't look like the 20th century, and we know that it certainly won't look like the breathless extrapolations common in 20th century science fiction: everybody with their own little copter to get around, colonies on Mars, endless supplies of everything, endless wealth for every inhabitant of the planet.
It's a shock to realize that the supply of everything on Earth is NOT infinite. As you spend some time thinking about it, you go down through layers and levels of thinking. Petroleum scarce? plastics scarce. Then you can think about how our lives are surrounded and supported by plastics. Petroleum scarce? we're not going to be buzzing off to Europe or Australia every year on vacation; maybe we won't be able to see far-flung family members very often, or ever. Natural gas scarce? How do we heat our homes? How do we generate electricity? That opens up another thousand questions. But putting our heads firmly in the sand won't solve the problems, and leaving it for "future generations", i.e. our grandkids, to solve shows a total lack of character and integrity on our part.
So I'm sending this question out into the community: What can we do to "save some for our kids"? What I'd like to save for my grandchildren's children:
* A HEALTHY OCEAN. Let's clean up the plastic waste now, and take steps to ensure that no new plastic waste goes into the ocean. Let's stop overfishing NOW, not in decades to come when the fish are gone. And I don't believe you can have a healthy ocean without the humans controlling their greenhouse gas emissions.
A FEW THINGS YOU CAN DO: Stop buying fish! Cut down on your plastic consumption. Work hard to prevent pollution from entering the rivers and the oceans.
* HEALTHY SMALL FARMS. This means healthy topsoil and lots of small working farms, and lots of farmers; farms in every locality growing food for their neighbors. We have overshot with the principle that "efficiency" means less human labor and more use of fossil energy, fossil water (aquifers) and agricultural poisons. The most productive farmland in the world is in the form of individual small plots, carefully tended. We have land to do that, in our own backyards, in our public areas, on our schoolgrounds. We just need the will to do it.
A FEW THINGS YOU CAN DO: Plant a Victory Garden. Support local farms by buying their produce. Work with government entities to protect and expand small farms, and get farms in the hands of young people who want to farm.
* AN INDUSTRIAL BASE in the U.S. This means jobs, where people actually make things and add value. Retail sales and services are the branches and leaves of the tree of the economy. We've cut our tree down at the roots (by outsourcing practically all real manufacturing), and it's just taking a little time for all those unsupported branches and leaves to fall, but fall they will. Have you tried to buy a kitchen brush lately? All from China. Not some but all; every one. Trying to buy American-made goods is an exercise in frustration.
A FEW THINGS YOU CAN DO: Look for American-made goods, and complain to your store if none are available. Support re-skilling, both personal and industrial; this means that you learn some skills such as knitting, sewing, cooking, gardening, home repair, etc., and support for vocational training for young people (and older, too, for that matter).
* A SOLVENT NATION, STATE, CITY, AND FAMILY. When I think about this subject, the Oxygen Mask analogy comes to mind: Put on your own mask before you help others with theirs. The first thing we all need to do is balance our own household budgets, and live within our means. The CEO of 3M Co., George Buckley, said recently: "...the first responsibility we have as the leaders of companies is to make sure that we ensure the health and survival of our own companies first, not necessarily other people's companies, or, for that matter, the whole U.S. economy." When households, and companies, live within their means, they have a chance of accumulating some assets which can be put to work building factories, making jobs, and improving the community. When our nation stops trying to be a world empire, and becomes a fiscally conservative and responsible world citizen, all the countries in the world will benefit, including ourselves. But the transition will be painful, and we have to expect that.
A FEW THINGS YOU CAN DO: Live within your means! Buy less, pay down debt, bring your material expectations back in line with reality. Choose frugality instead of excess. Choose sensible investments (which can be many things besides stocks or mutual funds) that pay back long-term in reduced energy use, and increased benefits to our communities. Help your local governmental entities in finding ways to balance their budgets too. Let your congressmen/women know how you feel.
I get discouraged sometimes, but I have not lost hope. I think our kids and grandkids can have a good life. It won't look like what we imagined, and it will be worse in some ways, but it can also be better in some ways. I can foresee them getting off the rat race that we're on at the beginning of the 21st century, figuring out what's important in their lives (besides material goods), and having the pleasure of making things that are real, useful, and beautiful.
Happy New Year!
But in a larger sense, that is what we are doing as a community, as a nation, and even as a world. We were gifted with a finite but huge inheritance from Mother Earth in the form of petroleum. In a little over a hundred years, we have squandered about half of it. (That's what Peak Oil means: half of it is gone--the easier half.)
The other half of that petroleum we leave for not just our heirs, but all succeeding generations of humans. And we're not showing significant signs of slowing down our consumption for the purposes of saving some for future generations.
At the beginning of the 20th century, we had a world endowed with ice caps and glaciers, pure air, an Aral Sea. Nature had put a lot of the carbon away safely in the petroleum, in the coal, in the limestone, in the permafrost, in the frozen clathrates in the ocean, in the forests that covered a significant portion of the globe. In the process of claiming our inheritance and that of our descendants, we're cranking that carbon back into the atmosphere in the form of carbon dioxide.
Two hundred years ago the oceans were packed full of beautiful lifeforms, in a highly complex web of life based on plankton. We found that many of these lifeforms were tasty or otherwise useful. The incredible bounty of the oceans made it seem that we could keep pulling out fish and shellfish forever, as much as we wanted, and not even have an effect. Unfortunately, the 20th century factory ships depleted most of the fish stocks, and pollution from land-based activities is causing major dead zones in most estuaries. Plankton is said to be down by 70% over levels earlier in the last century. Another inheritance taken from our kids, and their kids, for generations.
Bringing it closer to home, here in Larimer County we're busily engaged in paving over good farmland, putting up yet more retail space, or developing yet more subdivisions far from the city centers. The only thing that has slowed this process down is the real estate meltdown, not any consideration for preserving the land so that future generations can have food. Our priorities are cock-eyed. Do we need more McMansions, or do we need food? Your choice. As petroleum gets more expensive, importing food from every other country in the world becomes more expensive, and industrial-style farming becomes less cost-effective.
In the economy, we're rolling up a Mt Everest of debt for succeeding generations to cope with, or not, as the case may be. Greed doesn't look so "good" these days as it did in the 90s. The U.S. has been living so far beyond their means, drawing down the inflated equity of their homes, spending their way into their own mountains of debt, that the rest of the world which has been selling us all this stuff is sinking too, now that we're tapped out.
I don't have the answers to these enormous problems. This is too big for one person to have the answers. We all need to be thinking about ways to preserve the wealth and bounty of the natural world for our grandkids, their grandkids, and on into the future. One of the best compliments you can give for someone who died is that he or she made the world a better place than they found it. The generations now on the Earth (us) need to be thinking about how we can make the world a better place, individually and in communities.
We know that the future won't look like the 20th century, and we know that it certainly won't look like the breathless extrapolations common in 20th century science fiction: everybody with their own little copter to get around, colonies on Mars, endless supplies of everything, endless wealth for every inhabitant of the planet.
It's a shock to realize that the supply of everything on Earth is NOT infinite. As you spend some time thinking about it, you go down through layers and levels of thinking. Petroleum scarce? plastics scarce. Then you can think about how our lives are surrounded and supported by plastics. Petroleum scarce? we're not going to be buzzing off to Europe or Australia every year on vacation; maybe we won't be able to see far-flung family members very often, or ever. Natural gas scarce? How do we heat our homes? How do we generate electricity? That opens up another thousand questions. But putting our heads firmly in the sand won't solve the problems, and leaving it for "future generations", i.e. our grandkids, to solve shows a total lack of character and integrity on our part.
So I'm sending this question out into the community: What can we do to "save some for our kids"? What I'd like to save for my grandchildren's children:
* A HEALTHY OCEAN. Let's clean up the plastic waste now, and take steps to ensure that no new plastic waste goes into the ocean. Let's stop overfishing NOW, not in decades to come when the fish are gone. And I don't believe you can have a healthy ocean without the humans controlling their greenhouse gas emissions.
A FEW THINGS YOU CAN DO: Stop buying fish! Cut down on your plastic consumption. Work hard to prevent pollution from entering the rivers and the oceans.
* HEALTHY SMALL FARMS. This means healthy topsoil and lots of small working farms, and lots of farmers; farms in every locality growing food for their neighbors. We have overshot with the principle that "efficiency" means less human labor and more use of fossil energy, fossil water (aquifers) and agricultural poisons. The most productive farmland in the world is in the form of individual small plots, carefully tended. We have land to do that, in our own backyards, in our public areas, on our schoolgrounds. We just need the will to do it.
A FEW THINGS YOU CAN DO: Plant a Victory Garden. Support local farms by buying their produce. Work with government entities to protect and expand small farms, and get farms in the hands of young people who want to farm.
* AN INDUSTRIAL BASE in the U.S. This means jobs, where people actually make things and add value. Retail sales and services are the branches and leaves of the tree of the economy. We've cut our tree down at the roots (by outsourcing practically all real manufacturing), and it's just taking a little time for all those unsupported branches and leaves to fall, but fall they will. Have you tried to buy a kitchen brush lately? All from China. Not some but all; every one. Trying to buy American-made goods is an exercise in frustration.
A FEW THINGS YOU CAN DO: Look for American-made goods, and complain to your store if none are available. Support re-skilling, both personal and industrial; this means that you learn some skills such as knitting, sewing, cooking, gardening, home repair, etc., and support for vocational training for young people (and older, too, for that matter).
* A SOLVENT NATION, STATE, CITY, AND FAMILY. When I think about this subject, the Oxygen Mask analogy comes to mind: Put on your own mask before you help others with theirs. The first thing we all need to do is balance our own household budgets, and live within our means. The CEO of 3M Co., George Buckley, said recently: "...the first responsibility we have as the leaders of companies is to make sure that we ensure the health and survival of our own companies first, not necessarily other people's companies, or, for that matter, the whole U.S. economy." When households, and companies, live within their means, they have a chance of accumulating some assets which can be put to work building factories, making jobs, and improving the community. When our nation stops trying to be a world empire, and becomes a fiscally conservative and responsible world citizen, all the countries in the world will benefit, including ourselves. But the transition will be painful, and we have to expect that.
A FEW THINGS YOU CAN DO: Live within your means! Buy less, pay down debt, bring your material expectations back in line with reality. Choose frugality instead of excess. Choose sensible investments (which can be many things besides stocks or mutual funds) that pay back long-term in reduced energy use, and increased benefits to our communities. Help your local governmental entities in finding ways to balance their budgets too. Let your congressmen/women know how you feel.
I get discouraged sometimes, but I have not lost hope. I think our kids and grandkids can have a good life. It won't look like what we imagined, and it will be worse in some ways, but it can also be better in some ways. I can foresee them getting off the rat race that we're on at the beginning of the 21st century, figuring out what's important in their lives (besides material goods), and having the pleasure of making things that are real, useful, and beautiful.
Happy New Year!
Monday, December 22, 2008
Some Winter Recipes
I'm making a determined effort to use my stored foods. It's really not a problem with the tomato sauce, and the delicious nectarines in light honey syrup. We're also using the jars of lactofermented sauerkraut, green beans, and cucumbers I made last summer. I think I'll need to make more of them next year. The beans taste especially nice in winter salads, cut small.
Winter Salad
Make a bed of cut-up or torn winter greens. Escarole is particularly nice in the winter, with that little touch of bitterness. You can use a little slivered radicchio for color. Napa cabbage, sliced fine, is also good. And we get sugarhat chicory from our CSA, though you probably won't find it in a store, another lovely slightly-bitter winter green.
Decorate with some sliced carrots, and ripe olives. If you have them on hand, add chopped lactofermented green beans or cucumbers. Or some lactofermented beets. Regular pickles can be used too, as long as they are not too sweet.
To make a chef salad, cut up roast turkey breast and cooked local sausage into small pieces, and sprinkle across the top. A few small pieces of local cheese add a nice touch.
Make a simple salad dressing of olive or sunflower oil, and vinegar or lactofermented pickle juice. Shake and pour over. Ratio: about 2/3 oil to 1/3 vinegar for flavor.
Put Up Or Shut Up Stew
The following makes about 4 servings, and makes a quick hearty meal.
Feel free to substitute.
1 pound local grassfed ground beef
a little cooking oil or lard
one medium local onion, peeled and chopped
1 pint home-canned tomato sauce
1/2 cup home-dried green beans, or 1 cup home-frozen green beans
1/2 cup home-dried bell peppers, or 1 cup fresh chopped peppers
1 cup peeled winter squash such as butternut, in smallish pieces
1 tablespoon good-quality chili powder
1/2 teaspoon ground cinnamon
1/2 teaspoon ground allspice
salt and pepper to taste
Brown the ground beef in the oil with the onion. Then add the remaining ingredients, and bring to simmer. Cover and cook for 20-30 minutes, stirring occasionally, until the squash cubes are tender.
Serving suggestions:
--Top with lactofermented salsa (or other salsa).
--For low-carb meal: serve as is in a bowl.
--Serve on a bed of something you have prepared: rice, millet, quinoa, pasta, ??
--Roll up in a wrap.
--Sprinkle with grated cheese if desired.
Risotto with Pumpkin and Radicchio
Something to do with pumpkin besides pie (not that there's anything wrong with pie....)
1 cup peeled pumpkin, seeds removed (and toasted separately) and cut small
1/2 cup chopped radicchio
1 cup short-grain white rice (arborio is best, but sushi rice will also do the job; I'm not a risotto snob)
1 smallish onion, peeled and diced fine
2 tbs olive oil
3 tbs butter
3 cups chicken broth, kept hot
salt and pepper to taste
1/4 cup grated parmesan cheese
Head the olive oil and 2 tbs butter in a pan, add onion and saute until soft. Add pumpkin cubes and 1/2 cup broth, simmer 5 minutes. Add rice, salt and pepper, stir for a few minutes. As the rice absorbs the broth, keep stirring and adding another 1/4 cup of broth. After about 10 minutes, add the radicchio. Continue stirring and adding broth. When all the broth is added, stir in the remaining tbs of butter and the parmesan. Continue to stir for another 2 minutes or so.
Winter Salad
Make a bed of cut-up or torn winter greens. Escarole is particularly nice in the winter, with that little touch of bitterness. You can use a little slivered radicchio for color. Napa cabbage, sliced fine, is also good. And we get sugarhat chicory from our CSA, though you probably won't find it in a store, another lovely slightly-bitter winter green.
Decorate with some sliced carrots, and ripe olives. If you have them on hand, add chopped lactofermented green beans or cucumbers. Or some lactofermented beets. Regular pickles can be used too, as long as they are not too sweet.
To make a chef salad, cut up roast turkey breast and cooked local sausage into small pieces, and sprinkle across the top. A few small pieces of local cheese add a nice touch.
Make a simple salad dressing of olive or sunflower oil, and vinegar or lactofermented pickle juice. Shake and pour over. Ratio: about 2/3 oil to 1/3 vinegar for flavor.
Put Up Or Shut Up Stew
The following makes about 4 servings, and makes a quick hearty meal.
Feel free to substitute.
1 pound local grassfed ground beef
a little cooking oil or lard
one medium local onion, peeled and chopped
1 pint home-canned tomato sauce
1/2 cup home-dried green beans, or 1 cup home-frozen green beans
1/2 cup home-dried bell peppers, or 1 cup fresh chopped peppers
1 cup peeled winter squash such as butternut, in smallish pieces
1 tablespoon good-quality chili powder
1/2 teaspoon ground cinnamon
1/2 teaspoon ground allspice
salt and pepper to taste
Brown the ground beef in the oil with the onion. Then add the remaining ingredients, and bring to simmer. Cover and cook for 20-30 minutes, stirring occasionally, until the squash cubes are tender.
Serving suggestions:
--Top with lactofermented salsa (or other salsa).
--For low-carb meal: serve as is in a bowl.
--Serve on a bed of something you have prepared: rice, millet, quinoa, pasta, ??
--Roll up in a wrap.
--Sprinkle with grated cheese if desired.
Risotto with Pumpkin and Radicchio
Something to do with pumpkin besides pie (not that there's anything wrong with pie....)
1 cup peeled pumpkin, seeds removed (and toasted separately) and cut small
1/2 cup chopped radicchio
1 cup short-grain white rice (arborio is best, but sushi rice will also do the job; I'm not a risotto snob)
1 smallish onion, peeled and diced fine
2 tbs olive oil
3 tbs butter
3 cups chicken broth, kept hot
salt and pepper to taste
1/4 cup grated parmesan cheese
Head the olive oil and 2 tbs butter in a pan, add onion and saute until soft. Add pumpkin cubes and 1/2 cup broth, simmer 5 minutes. Add rice, salt and pepper, stir for a few minutes. As the rice absorbs the broth, keep stirring and adding another 1/4 cup of broth. After about 10 minutes, add the radicchio. Continue stirring and adding broth. When all the broth is added, stir in the remaining tbs of butter and the parmesan. Continue to stir for another 2 minutes or so.
Sunday, December 7, 2008
Living Within Our Means
Slightly off-topic for local foods, but too important to let slide. This is a distressing time in this country. The problems we as a nation have gotten ourselves into, from decades of overspending, waste and greed, are not going to vanish quickly.
I get the sense that many Americans are finally waking up from a fantasy: that there would always be MORE MORE MORE. More spending, based on more borrowing. The piper would never have to be paid. The important thing was getting the McMansion, the new cars, closetsful of clothes to put in all those double walk-in closets, and all the latest consumer electronics. So many of us have been living far beyond our means, floating on a pink cloud of credit that is evaporating and raining down pink slips all over the country.
Well, the fact is that in the long run, you must live within your means. This is true for individuals, families, cities, states, and the nation. When you've loaded up on credit and owe a lot of money, living within your means becomes even more painful. Not only do you have to cut your "standard of living" (whatever that means), but you have to cut down even further to pay off the debt you loaded up on.
We can't expect the government to bail everybody out, and we can't expect the government to take the lead on bringing us back to fiscal good sense--what used to be called "conservative" fiscal management before "conservative" came to mean tax cuts and huge increases in debt and a pointless and expensive war. I'm holding out for the original meaning of conservative as someone who conserves, something we can be proud to count among our personal qualities. If we want the government to change, we need to model that change in our own lives. We need to lead, and they will follow.
This fall, we've already seen major changes indicating that people are waking up from the fantasy and watching their spending. Some people have stopped using credit cards, which make it just too easy to buy. You have to think about your spending when you fork over dollars or write a check.
Here are some other ideas for living within our means.
1. (and only too obvious) Just stop buying the frills; no more retail therapy. Spending more than you can afford is not really fun in the long run. Spending more than you can afford on your kids is not doing them a favor. They need a stable home, with electricity and heat, and food on the table. They need these things way more than they "need" the latest gadget or toy, or the latest style in clothes.
2. (Another obvious one) Pay off your credit card balances, especially the high-interest balances. You do have to balance this with your other needs, such as the mortgage.
3. Put something aside. This means money in an insured savings account, even if it is a small amount. If your credit is toast, your cards are full, and your house isn't functioning as an ATM any more, you have all the more need for emergency money. It's up to your individual circumstance whether you pay off credit or put money in savings or both, but I suggest both. It's also wise to start storing some food, foods that your family will eat, healthy foods. It's easier to face uncertain times with a full pantry and a full belly.
4. Stop watching commercial TV. You and your kids are exposed to dozens or hundreds of very skillfully crafted advertisements every day. People with advanced degrees in psychology and sociology are hard at work designing ads that are just too good to resist. It's all part of the process of separating you from your money. For TV addicts, this will not be easy. For harried parents tired of the endless nagging for junk food and the latest toys, it may be a relief.
5. Have a talk with your partner. You and your partner need to be on the same page with the budget. If you are in the habit of managing all the finances yourself, you need to share the information and power with your wife or husband. If you have kids, the kids need to know something about what's happening. Don't scare them to death, and don't expect them to follow advanced economic theories, but kids need to know the situation. You will probably be surprised at the support you will receive, once the initial screaming is over.
6. Make a budget, and keep track of your spending. (I'm sure some of you already do this--more power to you!) If you are doing your first budget, you won't necessarily get it right the first time. Keep track of how the spending lines up with your predictions, and learn how to make it work. Everything counts--the big expenses and the nickel-and-dimers.
7. Reasonable places to spend your money--if you have some, have some savings, and have paid off your credit card balances.
* Food storage, and well-chosen household items that will enhance your ability to store food and cook for your family.
* Home improvements that will save on your utility bills in the future. This includes such high-return items as better insulation, weatherstripping, and insulating shades; fireplace inserts, perhaps skylights that bring more light into your home and provide ventilation in hot weather.
* Good quality American-made goods. Just say no to useless plastic junk made overseas. Don't squander your money, but there are times you need to buy something. Buy something that will last. Buy something made locally if you can--support your neighbors and your community. Failing that, try to buy American. I realize only too well that is not always possible. Wherever it is made, be sure to buy something that will serve you well and last a while.
8. Patronize locally-owned stores and restaurants. Stay out of the big box stores as much as you can; their profit runs off to other states or countries, and doesn't stay around here helping our community.
9. Learn to do things for yourselves. This is called "Re-Skilling". Our grandparents and their grandparents knew how to do things: Cook. Bake bread. Make yogurt, cheese, butter. Preserve food. Brew beer. Make liqueurs, wines, jellies, jams, sauces. Sew. Mend clothes. Mend shoes. Tend a vegetable garden and orchard. Knit, crochet, embroider, weave. Make simple furniture. Make music: play piano or other instruments, sing. Make baskets, candles, lamps. Render lard. Raise chickens, rabbits, or other animals. Make herbal teas and medicines. Treat simple health problems at home.
The more skills you have in your family, the less you need to pay other people to do these simple things for you. You can become more resilient to hard times by being able to fend for yourselves.
This is especially true if one family member loses his or her job. He or she can make the most out of the situation by learning new skills, and spending time supporting the work of the home. Yes, men can cook and clean, and women can fix a wobbly chair or mow the lawn, so don't be too hung up on gender roles. In hard times, we need everybody to do what they can.
10. Build community. This means your neighbors, your next-door neighbors, your street, your neighborhood, your community. I have read many blogs and articles recently saying that times are going to be tough, and the American people are self-indulgent and helpless and will just roll in a heap if they can't get their big-screen TVs and lattes. I don't believe it.
We haven't stepped up to these challenges because.... We Haven't Been Asked. When our president told us that the most important thing we could do for the country was to keep spending, too many of us believed him. And here we are in 2008, a debtor nation, the biggest in the world.
When columnists say that 70% of the national economy is retail purchases, it makes me feel queasy. That's a sign of how long the road is ahead of us. What organization or family can keep going for long when 70% of their effort is spent just SPENDING? A nation's wealth is based on raw materials and on the things that its citizens make. What are these columnists thinking? If only we can continue to spend money we don't have and can't borrow, that we can avoid recession?
We have a lot of resources in this country, and I mean more than oil, gas, minerals, and good farmland. We have the diverse, resilient, industrious, generous American people. Some of us are a little rusty, some have lost their way, but I have faith that as a community, and a nation of communities, we can tackle these problems and come out of them stronger.
I get the sense that many Americans are finally waking up from a fantasy: that there would always be MORE MORE MORE. More spending, based on more borrowing. The piper would never have to be paid. The important thing was getting the McMansion, the new cars, closetsful of clothes to put in all those double walk-in closets, and all the latest consumer electronics. So many of us have been living far beyond our means, floating on a pink cloud of credit that is evaporating and raining down pink slips all over the country.
Well, the fact is that in the long run, you must live within your means. This is true for individuals, families, cities, states, and the nation. When you've loaded up on credit and owe a lot of money, living within your means becomes even more painful. Not only do you have to cut your "standard of living" (whatever that means), but you have to cut down even further to pay off the debt you loaded up on.
We can't expect the government to bail everybody out, and we can't expect the government to take the lead on bringing us back to fiscal good sense--what used to be called "conservative" fiscal management before "conservative" came to mean tax cuts and huge increases in debt and a pointless and expensive war. I'm holding out for the original meaning of conservative as someone who conserves, something we can be proud to count among our personal qualities. If we want the government to change, we need to model that change in our own lives. We need to lead, and they will follow.
This fall, we've already seen major changes indicating that people are waking up from the fantasy and watching their spending. Some people have stopped using credit cards, which make it just too easy to buy. You have to think about your spending when you fork over dollars or write a check.
Here are some other ideas for living within our means.
1. (and only too obvious) Just stop buying the frills; no more retail therapy. Spending more than you can afford is not really fun in the long run. Spending more than you can afford on your kids is not doing them a favor. They need a stable home, with electricity and heat, and food on the table. They need these things way more than they "need" the latest gadget or toy, or the latest style in clothes.
2. (Another obvious one) Pay off your credit card balances, especially the high-interest balances. You do have to balance this with your other needs, such as the mortgage.
3. Put something aside. This means money in an insured savings account, even if it is a small amount. If your credit is toast, your cards are full, and your house isn't functioning as an ATM any more, you have all the more need for emergency money. It's up to your individual circumstance whether you pay off credit or put money in savings or both, but I suggest both. It's also wise to start storing some food, foods that your family will eat, healthy foods. It's easier to face uncertain times with a full pantry and a full belly.
4. Stop watching commercial TV. You and your kids are exposed to dozens or hundreds of very skillfully crafted advertisements every day. People with advanced degrees in psychology and sociology are hard at work designing ads that are just too good to resist. It's all part of the process of separating you from your money. For TV addicts, this will not be easy. For harried parents tired of the endless nagging for junk food and the latest toys, it may be a relief.
5. Have a talk with your partner. You and your partner need to be on the same page with the budget. If you are in the habit of managing all the finances yourself, you need to share the information and power with your wife or husband. If you have kids, the kids need to know something about what's happening. Don't scare them to death, and don't expect them to follow advanced economic theories, but kids need to know the situation. You will probably be surprised at the support you will receive, once the initial screaming is over.
6. Make a budget, and keep track of your spending. (I'm sure some of you already do this--more power to you!) If you are doing your first budget, you won't necessarily get it right the first time. Keep track of how the spending lines up with your predictions, and learn how to make it work. Everything counts--the big expenses and the nickel-and-dimers.
7. Reasonable places to spend your money--if you have some, have some savings, and have paid off your credit card balances.
* Food storage, and well-chosen household items that will enhance your ability to store food and cook for your family.
* Home improvements that will save on your utility bills in the future. This includes such high-return items as better insulation, weatherstripping, and insulating shades; fireplace inserts, perhaps skylights that bring more light into your home and provide ventilation in hot weather.
* Good quality American-made goods. Just say no to useless plastic junk made overseas. Don't squander your money, but there are times you need to buy something. Buy something that will last. Buy something made locally if you can--support your neighbors and your community. Failing that, try to buy American. I realize only too well that is not always possible. Wherever it is made, be sure to buy something that will serve you well and last a while.
8. Patronize locally-owned stores and restaurants. Stay out of the big box stores as much as you can; their profit runs off to other states or countries, and doesn't stay around here helping our community.
9. Learn to do things for yourselves. This is called "Re-Skilling". Our grandparents and their grandparents knew how to do things: Cook. Bake bread. Make yogurt, cheese, butter. Preserve food. Brew beer. Make liqueurs, wines, jellies, jams, sauces. Sew. Mend clothes. Mend shoes. Tend a vegetable garden and orchard. Knit, crochet, embroider, weave. Make simple furniture. Make music: play piano or other instruments, sing. Make baskets, candles, lamps. Render lard. Raise chickens, rabbits, or other animals. Make herbal teas and medicines. Treat simple health problems at home.
The more skills you have in your family, the less you need to pay other people to do these simple things for you. You can become more resilient to hard times by being able to fend for yourselves.
This is especially true if one family member loses his or her job. He or she can make the most out of the situation by learning new skills, and spending time supporting the work of the home. Yes, men can cook and clean, and women can fix a wobbly chair or mow the lawn, so don't be too hung up on gender roles. In hard times, we need everybody to do what they can.
10. Build community. This means your neighbors, your next-door neighbors, your street, your neighborhood, your community. I have read many blogs and articles recently saying that times are going to be tough, and the American people are self-indulgent and helpless and will just roll in a heap if they can't get their big-screen TVs and lattes. I don't believe it.
We haven't stepped up to these challenges because.... We Haven't Been Asked. When our president told us that the most important thing we could do for the country was to keep spending, too many of us believed him. And here we are in 2008, a debtor nation, the biggest in the world.
When columnists say that 70% of the national economy is retail purchases, it makes me feel queasy. That's a sign of how long the road is ahead of us. What organization or family can keep going for long when 70% of their effort is spent just SPENDING? A nation's wealth is based on raw materials and on the things that its citizens make. What are these columnists thinking? If only we can continue to spend money we don't have and can't borrow, that we can avoid recession?
We have a lot of resources in this country, and I mean more than oil, gas, minerals, and good farmland. We have the diverse, resilient, industrious, generous American people. Some of us are a little rusty, some have lost their way, but I have faith that as a community, and a nation of communities, we can tackle these problems and come out of them stronger.
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