Hanging out in a brown paper bag

This is where mushrooms like to live in your refrigerator.  Plastic, aaccckkkkk…they hate that!…..can’t breathe….get slimey….yuck.  But a nice brown paper bag,  ahhhhhhhhh.   They keep for a long time.  They don’t spoil, and might just get a little bit dry, but that’s okay.  They can still be used—just like dehyrdated shrooms.

Outdoors meets Indoors

Here another guest has shown up! Earlier this year Natty came to visit for awhile. Do you ever have those dreams of living in the Swiss Family Robinson tree house? I think this kind of helps satisfy that for me.

Although, one of these would REALLY do the trick. Roderick Romero seems to have a very good nature connection, as can be seen in his lovely tree house creations. He is best known from the ’90s for singing along with his wife, Anisa, in the Seattle based, indie space rock band Sky Cries Mary, but then they both took a break to follow some of their other creative passions!

Ahhhhh……so much living to do!

side note: His middle name is Wolgamott. Can you imagine being his mom after he has gotten in trouble as a child, and having to belt out, “RODERICK WOLGAMOTT ROMERO!! You get your butt over here RIGHT NOW“!

Pink Kimchi

This is my 6th batch of kimchi. Every batch is slightly different, and this one turned out pink from the red carrots from my garden!

People have been fermenting foods since ancient times, mainly as a way to preserve food. This is done through a process called lacto-fermentation, where starches and sugars in food are converted into lactic acid. Lactic acid is a natural preservative that inhibits putrefying bacteria. Every culture has there favorite varieties of fermented foods. Korea’s is kimchi. I am kind of addicted. You can taste the “life” in it!  My batches take about 7 days, and I taste it every day to see how it is coming along. I can barely wait for the batch to be done. As soon as it is ready, I usually take a jar to my friend Matt, who in one smooth motion  grabs it out of my hands, and instantly starts dipping his fingers in and munching. Fermented foods are alive with beneficial organisms called lactobacilli, which help promote the growth of healthy flora throughout the intestine. Digestibility and vitamin levels of the fermented foods are increased. Many cultures eat just a small bit of fermented foods with each meal to aid in digestion.

I’m diggin’ the recipes and knowledge that I gain from these two books!!

• Nourishing Traditions by Sally Fallon
• Wild Fermentation by Sandor Ellix Katz

Baechu (Cabbage) Kimchi

Basic kimchi from “Wild Fermentation”

Ingredients:

• Sea salt
• 1 pound Chinese cabbage (napa or bok choi)
• 1 daikon radish or a few red radishes
• 1 to 2 carrots
  
• 1 to 2 onions and/or leeks, scallions, shallots (or more!)
• 3 to 4 cloves of garlic (or more!)
• 3 to 4 hot red chilies (or more!) or any form of hot pepper (without chemical preservatives)
• 3 tablespoons (or more!) fresh grated gingerroot

Process:

1. Mix brine of about 4 cups H20 & 4 tablespoons salt. Stir to dissolve thoroughly.
2. Coarsely chop cabbage, slice radish & carrots, and let veggies soak in brine, covered by a plate or other weight to keep veggies submerged, until soft, a few hours or overnight. Add other veggies to brine, such as snow peas, seaweeds, jerusalem artichokes, anything you like.
3. Prepare spices: Grate ginger, chop garlic & onion, remove seeds from chilies and chop or crush, or throw them in whole. Kimchi can absorb a lot of spice. Experiment with quantities. Mix spices into paste.
4. Drain brine off veggies, reserving brine. Taste veggies for saltiness. You want them to taste decidedly salty, but not unpleasantly so. I too salty, rinse them. If you cannot taste salt, sprinkle with a couple of teaspoons and mix.
5. Mix veggies with ginger-chili-onion-garlic paste. Mix all thoroughly and stuff into clean quart-size jar. Pack tightly into jar, pressing down until brine rises. If necessary, add a little of reserved vegetable-soaking brine to submerge veggies. Weight the veggies down with a smaller jar, or a zip-lock bag filled with some brine. Cover the jar to keep out dust and flies.
6. Ferment in your kitchen or other warm place. After about a week of fermentation, when it tastes ripe, move it to the refrigerator.
   

You can start eating it right away, but it will keep for months in the refrigerator, and the flavor develops more over time.

Okay, that’s it for today. I think I will go to the store now to gather the ingredients for batch #7!

To compost or not to compost

I have a small garden patch (about 5×15) between my cottage and the one in front of me, to which I have added compost twice a year for 3 years. Initially, the ground was rock hard and crusty. I chipped away at it with a shovel for about a week. A jack hammer would have been easier. I like having the satisfaction of knowing what effort I put in, and seeing the results. The first year the plants were all very shabby and scraggly, but each year they have become more prolific. These are scarlet pole beans that eventually climbed way up into an adjacent tree!

This year my neighbor and I planted some beans in a bed in which we had not added compost. The results are in!

This

is

as

good

as

it

got!

Stackable Wood Bin

I constructed my compost bin a couple of years ago. My neighbors are invited to contribute to it. I chose this design to make turning the pile easier. To turn the pile, you remove the top tier and place it on the ground next to the bin, scoop some of the compost into the new pile, add another tier, and so on, until you have turned the whole thing. I’m happy to be taking my trash out to the dumpster less frequently, and to be adding back valuable nutrients to the soil, and then receiving those nutrients back in the food I’ve grown. If anyone is wishing they too could make one of these, well the plans for this design and others are here at Digitalseed.

I’m not feeling quite up to par

That’s what my grandpa McConnell used to say when he didn’t feel so well.

I have this cold and I’m not wiped out, but I have no fire. Today I took naps, read, soaked in my neighbors bathtub full of Epsom Salts with lavender & eucalyptus essential oils, used up a couple of boxes of tissues, took too many kinds of herbal supplement remedies, went to tai chi but shouldn’t have…..anyway…………

I needed to prepare something for dinner so I came up with this miso soup. This soup feels kind and friendly to me yet puts it’s hands on it’s hips and shakes it’s finger at whatever is ailing me. I’m just tipping my bowl to slurp the last drops out right now.

To make one BIG bowl of soup, I sauteed in a bit of olive oil:

• some garlic
• lots of fresh ginger
• hot peppers from the garden. If I didn’t have hot peppers I would have used red pepper flakes
• mushrooms

Then added:

• cubed tofu
• chopped lacinto kale
• enough water to make soup
• tablespoon of dulse (a seaweed high in vitamins, especially B, minerals, trace minerals, and good source of electroytes. This adds a bit of a salty flavor but is relatively low in sodium!)
• teaspoon coconut oil
• yellow miso at the last minute

I’m headed back to the couch to read and fall asleep again.

aaaaaarrrrrrgggghhh!!!!!

I checkmarked one box and hit one button, and

BAMMM!!!

accidently deleted all the comments from every post on this blog, except the one on the “About” page. I’m sorry to everybody who’s comments were deleted. I really enjoy and value your interaction! I tried to retrieve them, but I don’t think it is possible. I promise to never checkmark that box again!!!!!! I’m a little bit sad now. I’m going to bed.

the Costa Rica adventure

I think most of you know that I won a trip to Costa Rica last month. I work at Whole Foods Market in the vitamins department. The company New Chapter, which makes organic, whole food vitamins and herbal blends, had a sales contest. Two people from each of the top five winning teams (out of 38? stores) got to go visit New Chapter’s biodynamic farm, Luna Nueva, in the rainforest in Costa Rica. Our team won 2nd place! So off to C.R. I went, along with another team member, Robert.

There were about 17 people from our region, the same amount from the southwest region, and a few people from our global team as well, so about 30 some people altogether.

New Chapter grows a good portion of their turmeric and ginger on this farm. It was really a very lovely experience! We stayed in adorable 2-5 person cabinas, ate organic, group meals (98% from the farm), had guided tours through the rain forest, turmeric fields, biodynamic gardens, and sacred seed sanctuary where New Chapter works with indigenous communities and Costa Rican ethnobotanists to maintain and grow endangered medicinal herbs. Other activities included a zipline through the rainforest canopy, and a trip to Tabacon Spa and Hot Springs near Arenal Volcano.

Tom Newmark, CEO of New Chapter, and Steven Farrell, Botanist and Luna Nueva farm manager, guided most of our tours. They were absolutely wonderful people, who spent lots of time talking and connecting deeply with each and every person. Full of good humor and sparking with life, they shared much knowledge, and exhibited such integrity with all of their practices. Oh, it does a heart good…..

Tree planting day

Luna Nueva farm is next to The Children’s Eternal Rainforest, which is a private reserve of about 54,000 acres of land. New Chapter owns a small island of rainforest (about 125? acres) that has been seperated, by clearing from farmers, from the mother rainforest. They say that an island won’t survive unless it is re-connected to the mother. The size of the mother rainforest is also very important to keep biodiversity alive and healthy. They wanted to re-connect these two rainforests, but needed to purchase a strip of land between them. Two regions from Whole Foods Market had fund raisers to help them purchase this land. They were successful, so we planted trees one day to establish a corridor reuniting the forests! They are doing a lot of work to help create awareness among local people as to the importance of keeping the rainforest alive and healthy, and helping to educate on more sustainable yet profitable practices for people and the surrounding land. Here is a very nice video about The Children’s Eternal Rainforest.

The Children’s Eternal Rainforest

Cooling off after tree planting!

Check out Flickr for a compilation of mine & Robert’s photos. When you get there, click on “Slideshow” near the upper right hand corner. Some of the photos are labeled so if you want to know more information, try clicking anywhere around the bottom part of the photo. The label (if there is one) will appear. Enjoy!

The tastes of summer….food happiness fills my heart!

I had the day off today, and the garden is providing lots of variety this month. Several types of green beans, tomatoes, zucchini, watermelon, basil…..nothing like fresh, summer bounty! For lunch I whipped up some sauteed tempeh & green onions, alongside a salad of fennel & roma tomatoes tossed in olive oil & lemon juice, seasoned with salt & pepper. And then……well you just HAVE to try this next recipe. ZUCCHINI-BASIL SOUP. I sat out in my garden, blissfully savoring every bite of this refreshing, summer lunch!

zucchini-basil soup

From “Gourmet” magazine, July 2008

“This smooth pureed soup manages the near-impossible feat of being velvety and creamy without any cream. Ribbons of zucchini add a final soupcon of elegance.”

• 2 lb. zucchini, trimmed and cut crosswise into thirds
• 3/4 cup chopped onion
• 2 garlic cloves, chopped
• 1/4 cup olive oil
• 4 cups water, divided
• 1/3 cup packed basil leaves

Julienne skin (only) from half of zucchini. Toss with 1/2 tsp. salt and drain in a sieve until wilted, at least 20 minutes. Coarsely chop remaining zucchini.

Cook onion and garlic in oil in a 3 to 4 qt. heavy saucepan over medium-low heat, stirring occasionally, until softened, about 5 minutes. Add chopped zucchini and 1 tsp salt and cook, stirring occasionally, 5 minutes. Add 3 cups water and simmer, partially covered, until tender, about 15 minutes. Puree soup with basil in 2 batches in a blender or food processor (use caution when blending hot liquids).

Bring remaining cup water to a boil in a small saucepan and blanch julienned zucchini 1 minute. Drain in a sieve set over a bowl (use liquid to thin soup if necessary).

Season soup with salt and pepper. Serve in shallow bowls with julienned zucchini mounded on top.

Holy snack-a-roli!

Just when I thought it couldn’t get any better…..George introduced me to a new soft blue cheese (St. Auger Blue) to use for one of my favorite snacks…..on top of radish slices. I have been eating this combo for 12 years, always exploring different soft, blue or gorgonzola cheeses. This one is dangerous!

I got started on this snack when an acquaintance shared this delightful preperation with me, explaining how he had eaten this often while visiting France. It’s like cheese on a cracker….you get soft texture with crunch…..but the crisp, cool, moist radish imparts a little more life than a dry, dusty cracker. Don’t get me wrong, I love cheese on crackers too, but something about this combination is so refreshing and satisfying.

This year I read somewhere that radishes and daikon can help a person digest fat.

Are you thinking what I’m thinking????? HELL YEAH!! I can eat ALL THE CHEESE I WANT now! Bring it on!

Those French people! I’m always reading how they eat high fat diets, and this and that, yet they have a much lower rate of heart disease and obesity, and overall health is so much better than ours. Maybe it’s all about the food combining.

(Perfectly good piece of French wisdom, but still thinking like an American)

cutest lunch box ever!

I saw a lunch box like this in a movie once, but couldn’t remember which movie. On my visit to China last year, I saw a similar lunchbox in many of the shops, but I was holding out for the one in my memory. My friend Jill and I looked all over to find “THE ONE”, but it didn’t appear. A few months after our return, “THE ONE” came in the mail! She had found it at an Indian shop. I did a search for “Indian lunch box” and found a site that sells them. I’m enamored with my gift. On my lunch break the other day, I nearly used up the whole half hour taking pictures of it instead of eating. I even prepared a special Indian meal the night before, as a tribute to the following day’s christening of the lunch box. That food was YUUUUMMY! I borrowed my neighbor Adam’s cookbook, called Madhur Jaffrey Indian Cooking. Only problem was that I actually made the FULL recipe for 4 separate dishes, and was eating it all week. Aaaalllllmost wore out the welcome. The lunch box was perfect for the leftovers though.

Check out the bamboo-ware roll-up from my friend, Michael! Ahhhhh, friends, and their thoughtful gifts…..One day a year and a half ago, I was eating lunch and contemplating the plastic-ware. As I chewed, I thoughtfully studied my utensil, considering how sometimes I use more than 1 package/day. A picture began to form in my mind, of the possible size of a heap of plastic silverware used by the whole world in just one day. The next day I brought my own silverware. It took me a few months to get in the habit of remembering it each day. I had a pile of cloth napkins, and some miscellaneous unmatching silverware and prepared a stack of roll-ups at the beginning of each week. Then I received this lovely bamboo set, which is quite lightweight, and I now carry at all times in my purse.

“Recipes please! Recipes please”—Jill wants to know! I like to make up my own concoctions, but using recipes part of the time is great training for being able to wing it later. It gives me good ideas of what flavors marry well together. If you don’t want the recipes, you can quit reading now! The rest is only recipes for a four item meal. It took me a little over an hour to prepare all of these.

These are all adapted from Madhur Jaffrey–Indian Cooking

Tofu In A Red Sweet Pepper Sauce (adapted from chicken recipe)

Ingredients (T=Tablespoon, t=teaspoon)

• 1 package firm tofu (2 1/4 lb. chicken pieces)
• 1 onion, coarsely chopped
• 1 inch cube fresh ginger, peeled & coarsely chopped
• 3 cloves garlic
• 2 1/2 T. almonds
• 3/4 lb. red sweet peppers, coarsely chopped
• 1 T. ground cumin
• 2 t. ground coriander
• 1/2 t. ground turmeric
• 1/8-1/2 t. cayenne pepper
• 2 t. salt
• 7 T. oil for sauce, plus more to saute tofu
• 1 cup water
• 2 T. lemon juice
• 1/2 t. coarsely ground black pepper

Combine onion, ginger, garlic, almonds, peppers, cumin, coriander, turmeric, cayenne, & salt in food processor or blender until you have a paste.

Put oil in large, wide, preferably nonstick, pot at medium-high heat. When hot, pour in all the paste. Stir and fry for 10-12 minutes or until you see the oil forming tiny bubbles around it.

I sauteed 1/2 inch tofu cubes in a few T. oil until lightly golden. (She used chicken pieces which were to be added to sauce along with water, lemon juice, & pepper and allowed to simmer on low for 25 minutes until tender)

Add to pepper mixture–tofu, water, lemon juice, & black pepper. Simmer another 10 minutes, and there you have it.

Cauliflower with cumin and asafetida

Ingredients

• Head of cauliflower ( I used part cauliflower, part broccoli)
• 3 T. oil
• Generous pinch of asafetida (or a bit of chopped garlic)
• 1/2 t. cumin seeds
• 1/2 medium onion cut into very fine rings
• 1/2-1 fresh, hot green chili, finely chopped
• 1 t. ground cumin
• 1/2 t. ground coriander
• 1/4 t. ground turmeric
• 1/8-1/4 t. cayenne pepper, or to taste
• 3/4 t. salt
• 1/2 c. water
• 2 T. lemon juice

Break cauliflower into florets about (1 1/2 inches). Stem may be peeled (I didn’t) and cut into 1/4 inch rounds.

Put oil in large frying pan or wok at medium-high heat. When hot, put in asafetida. A second later, put in cumin seeds. Wait about 10 seconds and add onion. Stir & fry about 2 minutes or until onion brown. Now add cauliflower and green chili. Turn heat down to medium and toss. Add cumin, coriander, turmeric, cayenne & salt. Toss for another minute. Add water & lemon juice, toss, and bring to simmer. Cover, turn heat to low, cook for 5-7 minutes or until cauliflower is just tender.

Aromatic yellow rice

I cooked all these ingredients together in my rice cooker. I don’t know actual measurements for water to rice. I just eyeball it. I’ll let you come up with that on your own.

• 2 cups rice
• water
• 1 1/4 t. salt
• 3/4 t. ground turmeric
• 3/4 cloves
• 1 inch cinnamon stick
• 3 bay leaves

Remove whole spices and add butter before serving.

Yogurt with eggplant

Ingredients

• 1 medium-sized eggplant cut into 1 inch cubes
• 2 2/3 cups plain yogurt
• 3/4 t. salt or to taste
• fresh ground black pepper
• 1/8 t. cayenne pepper (optional)
• 1 scallion cut into paper-thin rounds all the way up its green section
• 1 T. finely chopped, fresh mint
• A few mint leaves for garnishing

Bring water to boil in steamer in such a way that water stays just below steaming apparatus

Steam eggplant covered over high heat for 10 minutes. (make sure water doesn’t run out)

While eggplant is steaming, put yogurt in bowl & beat lightly with fork until smooth and creamy. Add salt, pepper, cayenne, scallion, and mint and mix with fork.

Remove steamed eggplant from steamer and mash with fork. Spread out on plate to cool somewhat (so yogurt doesn’t curdle)

Fold eggplant into yogurt and garnish with mint leaves.