Poor Man's Minestrone

Poor Man's Minestrone or, as my Mom always called it, Hamburger Soup... Whatever you want to call it, it made a yummy dinner on this chilly gloomy day for me and the boys!  It was the third workout in as many weeks for my 38 cent crockpot and it did its job like a rockstar!

This is a clean out the little bits left in the fridge, freezer, and pantry kind of dish...

Next time it might be a little different depending on what veggies I have that need to be used but to make the soup today, I broke up and fried 1 lb of hamburger.  When that was nearly done, I added about 1 cup of sliced baby carrots I'd forgot about getting for snacks, 4 sliced up ribs of celery that were right on the edge of turning wimpy, and the half an onion rattling around the bottom of the vegetable crisper, roughly diced.  I let this cook until the vegetables were starting to soften.

Meanwhile, into the crockpot went the end of a bag of frozen corn, the end of a bag of frozen peas, a big handful of frozen green beans, 2 packets of dry onion soup mix, and a can of diced tomatoes.  I added the burger mixture and a couple of tomato cans of water (gotta get all that tomatoey goodness!), set the crockpot on high, and gave it a good stir.

Now, this is the really important step in making this soup so pay attention!

I went to the laundromat and did my laundry (yay for clean clothes!) while the soup simmered away and the flavors blended just like magic.  Yup, I just walked away and forgot about it for a couple of hours.

When I got home, I added a little more water, the end of a box of shell macaroni, approximately 2 tsp Tony Chachere's Cajun Seasoning, and walked away again for about 30 minutes.  Then it was time to dip it up and enjoy with a couple of crackers...

Love in a bowl!!  Or, if you're like me, in a big coffee cup!

Forgotten Skills

Photo credit:  Village Green Network

One of the Facebook/Blog pages I follow started this morning off with these words:  "Amazing how a decision to start growing your own food cascades into so many different things in your life. New friends (invaluable support), baking your own bread, making your own taco seasoning, making your own laundry soap. The list goes on and on..."  (Karen Taylor of Old Pa Farm) Not sure my list of mostly forgotten skills would look exactly like that but the words and sentiment got me thinking about how many old and [by many people] forgotten skills I use in my day.  Some things I do because it's how I learned to do it growing up and some is a conscious choice for either thrift or to leave an environmentally softer footprint on the Earth.

I garden.  Most years I do anyway.  And I will be when this coming Spring finally gets itself underway.  In the past I've used much the same methods I learned from my Dad - organic for the most part but willing to bring in a chemical for limited use if I found myself dealing with a pest I couldn't otherwise control.  In the past, I've hired someone to rototill the ground but this year I'm going to experiment with creating permaculture beds.  That's something I'm pretty excited about!

I preserve garden produce for later use.  This summer I want to make red and green salsa, dilly beans, apple pie filling, applesauce, spaghetti sauce, garlic preserved in vinegar, sun-dried tomatoes in olive oil, refrigerator dill pickles, strawberry freezer jam, frozen diced tomatoes, and several dried herb blends.

I cook from scratch.  Well, sometimes.  I admit a lot more boxed stuff has slipped in during the past 18 months.  It's been a time of big adjustments that affect all parts of my life and that's part of the reason that real cooking has fallen by the wayside.  It's something I laugh about now and then, but Derek loves the TGI Friday's(TM) Tater Skins from the freezer isle and would eat them 3-4 times a week... I about had a heart attack right there in the frozen food section when I saw the price and started making them at home.  Mine are so much better he tells everyone that they "are the bomb!" And I want to get back to even more real cooking over the coming months.  One of the first things I plan on doing is getting my sourdough starter going again and making our bread.

I make many of my own cleaning products.  Again, I've slipped a little in doing this but getting back to it more and more.  I've found that I can make my own product that is very effective for much less money. Some of my forays in cleaning products have been laundry soap, dryer sheets, and a concoction (I hope I can replicate) that did an awesome job getting puppy stains out of our carpets.

I create things.  For Christmas I made Derek an afghan in his favorite sports team colors and since we have serious lack of bedding (thanks, in part, to puppy chewing) it's been helpful in keeping him warm on some of those unusually cold nights we've had lately.  Over the last year and a half I also made some of the items we've gifted for birthdays and Christmas, cards, our potholders and some of the decor on our walls.  Several items have used recycled or re-purposed materials.  I love that it saves money, but even more I love that it is unique, kind of quirky and very personal.

I do my own home repairs and upgrades.  Inasmuch as it's safe and I have the skills to do a reasonably good job, I do my own repairs and upgrades.  A recent example was replacing a burned out breaker in our box.  Calling an electrician would have run around $100.  A few friends telling me it was an easy do-it-yourself job and a Youtube tutorial later, I did it myself.  The new breaker cost $11.84, including tax.  Money savings aside, it was a powerful feeling when I flipped that switch and everything worked!

I get to know my neighbors.  For me, a sense of community is important.  I am a naturally friendly person and I like finding people nearby who can share information and skills and, sometimes, garden tools.  Besides, being sociable is a good skill to have... so many of us suffer from nearly unbearable loneliness these days.  I also want to try and barter for things I can't do on my own like get our one neighbor who co-owns a dog grooming business with his daughter to cut the dog's toe nails.  I've talked to him a number of times about gardening and learned that he's diabetic and baked goods won't appeal as a trade off... so I'm hoping this summer to woo him into a barter arrangement with lots of fresh garden-ripe tomatoes!

Could I do more?  Sure.  Will I?  In time, probably.  I've already started a list of upgrades and additions for the 2015 garden...

Droid...

Photo courtesy of Single Dad Laughing's
Facebook post 12/8/13.

When I moved to Georgia one of the very first things Derek did was drag me to the Verizon store to trade in my oh so simple flip phone for a fancy-schmancy 'smart phone.'  And I've hated that phone... It's had some operational issues where it didn't ring with an incoming call and just sent the caller directly to voicemail until they shot me texts askings where the %^&$# I was and why the (&^% I wasn't answering their calls.  And all the functions and apps and alarms and voices and stuff made me feel dumb.  And I felt like a slave with an obligation to see what it was every time the dumb thing said "DROID" in my pocket or purse.

A couple of weeks ago one of the dogs, presumably Gizmo since he has a taste for electronics, found Derek's even smarter smart phone unattended on the table.  He tried to make it his mid-day snack.  Whether he's the one that got it off the table or not, he is the one I found huddled over it on the floor.

And since Derek didn't continue the $6 a month insurance, there's no free replacement...

And since we're broke, buying him another one is out of the question...

And since he needs to carry a phone with him for his work, he's been taking mine.

And you know what?

I'm not even missing the silly thing 95% of the time.  Now and then it would be convenient.  Some may even call it needful since we don't have a landline at home but not being tied to a phone and all the demands it presents has been freeing.  We talked a little about getting me another cheap flip phone and he will use my Android but I'm thinking I might just not get another one at all.

How's that for simplifying life?

Acts of Eco-Terrorism

I guess it's fair to start off with an admission... I am a tree lover.

My heart makes a little lurch from sadness when wind blows a tree over or someone does something stupid and hits one with their car.  I can't help but think those shattered branches must be painful.  And it makes me unhappy when they get torn up for urban development.

Ok.  There are exceptions.  Notably these 3 trash trees that were so prolific in my yard and neighborhood back in Utah (and I'm sure other places, too, but I'm hoping not in Georgia!).  Most people called one of them either a Chinese Elm or a Siberian Elm.  I was told once that neither of those is correct but my hatred for that kind of tree is so strong I almost immediately forgot its right name.  This is the trash tree that drops those zillions of seeds in late spring that look like over-sized oatmeal.  And every blasted one of them that touches ground sprouts.  They can grow as much as 10 feet a year so within a single growing season you're dealing with a good sized tree.  Another one that was found very frequently in that area was called the Tree of Paradise.  It had big yellow cones of flowers in the spring that produced copious amounts of pollen that for many people that brought on allergies of a crippling scale.  And it smelled bad... not like something died bad, but very unpleasant.  It also dropped seeds that sprouted with extreme ease and grew quickly.  These sappling trees, when you tried to pull them, slipped their bark off all wet and slippery and they emitted that same foul odor.   The  other tree to garner my ire is a Box Elder more for the nasty, cannibalistic, red and black colored bugs it attracts en masse than for anything else.  These trees are some I'd be happy to live without in my world and I've happily hacked many of them down.

Does that make me an eco-terrorist?

I guess it's possible the answer to that question depends on your point of view.  The trees probably felt terrorized.  But I wasn't protesting anything... just getting rid of trash from the yard.

Eco-terrorism is not new.  For my whole life I've heard of rogue environmentalists turning animals in fur farms loose and driving huge metal spikes in pine trees to damage logging equipment.  It's dangerous and I don't advocate doing it any more than I like to see the devastation of clear cut deforestation following a logging operation.  But it's a fact of life that both have happened and in some places continue to happen to this day.  Man is hard on his environment.  Oftentimes much harder on it than is needful for the continued existence of humankind.

Photo credit:  http://www.facebook.com/photo.php?
fbid=480842885305117&set=a.212356272153781.
52976.212102705512471&type=1&theater

I do have to admit, though, this is the first time I've seen this form of eco-terrorism:  illegally ripping up a piece of developed land to plant a tree.  And I don't support it either.  In all likelihood, that tree will be removed and destroyed and the road will be patched and life will go on.  All this activist will have accomplished is to waste the money to buy the tree, the time and effort to get it planted, the time, effort and wages of the city workers to remove it and patch the road.  And in the end, the tree is dead.

It's sad.  No one wins in this situation.  Or maybe that's the point... no one wins but it does get attention.

I think this is the most dangerous kind of eco-terrorism because it tugs so hard at the heart.  Part of me wants to applaud and hope the tree will stand as a monument of protest to urban sprawl but I just can't bring myself to encourage all the other idiots out there.

So I'm showing you and rambling on trying to say don't do stupid stuff.  There are better ways to make the world a better place and get your point across.   Get more creative and stay legal.

The Bartered Life

One of my favorite bloggers, Northwest Edible Life, posted a link from one of her favorite bloggers, Dog Island Farm, about the comeback of bartering.  I find the idea of bartering, or trading something I have that you want for something you have that I want without it being a cash transaction, very intriguing.  Especially notable is the Food Barter described in a NY Times article from March 2011 linked both in the picture below and in the post from Dog Island farm.

http://www.nytimes.com/2011/03/13/nyregion/13barter.html?_r=2

“We came to the conclusion that it would be really fun to get all of our food-centric friends together and do a swap on a larger scale,” Ms. Paska recalled. “When you make a batch of pickles, jam or the like, you often end up with excess that you’d feel comfortable letting go of for the sake of keeping your pantry interesting. For a few of those excess jars, you end up getting fresh, handcrafted foods for virtually no cost.”  (Kate Payne)

Would you be interested in joining me in this kind of swap?

I think it sounds like a tremendously fun evening and a chance to taste something new.  If I can get a few affirmative comments from local friends, I'll host a swap in May.

Sourdough Cinnamon Rolls

Ever since the sourdough bread came out so nice last time and was surprisingly easy to make I've been thinking about using the dough for cinnamon rolls.  Oh mama!!  Most brilliant idea since topping them off with cream cheese frosting!

Even if I did have to learn to make my own powdered sugar because I guessed wrong in not buying some at the grocery store yesterday and the packages in the storage room were brown sugar and not powdered sugar.  It was another kitchen thing I'd never done before but is exceptionally easy and probably a lot cheaper.  You  just put regular granulated sugar and cornstarch (1-2 Tbl cornstarch to each cup of sugar) in the blender or coffee grinder and whip it up.  The cornstarch is just to help it not cake in your canister.  Easy peasy...

I tried a tiny bit on the end of my tongue when it started to look "right" as I was hoping to show you with this inside shot of the blender.  It was still grainy and needed a few more seconds of pulsing but it really made me think about this article on the damage sugar does inside your body.  I first thought of it when the instructions I found said not to use a glass blender cup because the sugar would permanently scratch it but pressing those sugar grains against the roof of my mouth with my tongue is when it really made sense that Dr. Dwight Lundell said sugar is abrasive to the insides of your veins and the body's natural defense to injury is  inflammation which with our high sugar diets is a chronic thing and causes heart disease and other ailments.  It's worth the few minutes it takes to read the article then get just a few grains of sugar on your tongue and rub them against the roof of your mouth.

It's almost as astounding as this package of cookies I bought yesterday...  I rarely even like this kind of stuff, but every now and then a mint flavored Oreo is the only thing that will hit the spot.  Kid-O's are Kroger's knockoff and they taste about the same for quite a lot less money.  See that little blue graphic on the bottom left of the package?  It's the nutritional info for a serving... 2 cookies.  It tells you the fat, calories, sodium, etc.

Here's a close up.  If you can't quite make it out because of my lack of any real photography skills, it says they are a vegetable.  A vegetable.  Yes, I did stand at the counter blinking at the package for several minutes because my brain just couldn't fathom the marketing spin that makes cookies into a vegetable.  I still can't find the words to email Kroger to ask for an explanation.  A vegetable?

Unreal!



I've shared this post on The Country Homemaker Hop - Week 12 at White Wolf Summit Farmgirl.

and on Barn Hop #54 at Homestead Revival.

Sourdough Bread - 1st Time

To those of you with lots of real homemaking or simplicity experience this may sound silly... but I've been so excited the past week watching my sourdough starter re-hydrate and get to doing exactly what the pamphlet from the website said it should!  It bubbled up right on schedule, it formed the liquid on top just as anticipated. It even has that sourdough smell.  So today, I made bread.  Yes, it's true... I am a sourdough virgin no longer.

Last night before I (finally) went to bed, I decided on the Alaska Sourdough Bread from the Carl Griffiths 1847 Oregon Trail Sourdough Pamphlet and per those instructions, took 1 cup of starter and in one of my biggest Tupperware bowls combined it with 3 cups of flour and 2 1/2 cups of water.  This sat inside my oven with the seal on the bowl and the light on in the oven overnight to form the sponge that is the basis for bread.

To the remaining starter, I added 1 cup flour, 1 cup water and 1Tbl sugar and set it back in the fridge.  And yes, I know I didn't perfectly follow the feeding instructions for starter but this morning it's doing just what it should so I'm gonna be happy and go with it.

Today when I was ready to dig into making up my bread dough, I added 4 Tbl canola oil, 1 Tbl salt, 1 tsp baking soda, 1/2 cup sugar and enough flour that it made a ball that pulled cleanly away from the bowl and off my fingers.  The recipe calls for 5 more cups but I didn't need that much.  It only needed a touch more than 3 cups to form a beautiful, smooth, elastic-y dough.   Put just a touch of oil on top of the dough ball to help condition it and prevent it from drying out, snapped the seal back on the bowl and set it back in the oven (with the light still on to keep it just barely warm) to raise until doubled.

Next, I divided the dough into fourths and shaped into balls for those traditional round sourdough loaves.  Then covered with a damp tea towel and set them in the oven to raise a bit.  When they were getting close to size, I set them on top of the range and brought the oven temperature up to 375F.  Then I cut the expansion slashes and set them inside to bake for almost an hour.  In my research I read that moisture in the oven is what makes sourdough bread nice and crusty so I also put a cake pan with about 1 inch of water on the bottom shelf while they baked.

The result?

Oh yes!  I AM a domestic godess!!

I've linked this post the the Farmgirl Friday Blog Hop #48 at White Wolf Summit Farmgirl.

and A Country Saturday #3 at Life on a Mini Farm.

Sourdough... Start Your Engines

After The Sourdough That Wasn't because the Post Office mangled it, the wonderfully kind folks, known as Carls' Friends, at Carl Griffith's 1847 Oregon Trail Sourdough Starter sent me a replacement packet of dried starter.  After worrying for a couple of weeks that my house wouldn't be warm enough (I'm only heating it to 55F because I don't love the gas company enough to give them all my money this winter then wearing a sweater and using a space heater in the area where I'm working) I took the plunge this afternoon and started the starter.

First I found a suitable container.  The directions on the website say use glass or plastic NOT metal.  I came up with a vintage food service jelly jar my Mom probably brought home from one of the many diners she worked at in rural Southeast Idaho.  Here's the very simply printed lid.  The bottom of the bottle is stamped Pure Food Manufacturing Svc. Co., Denver Colo.  This bottle holds several cups.  It's from the good old days before the plastic single serve cups were even invented... back when we trusted restaurant workers to know that washing their hands after using the restroom was not just sanitary but simple good manners without a dozen posters in various languages to remind them.  I barely remember those days but I miss the simpler, and in many ways wiser, times.

Once everything was washed, the instructions told me to dissolve the packet contents in 3/4 cup warm water.  I added both to the jelly bottle and let it sit for a few minutes.  I admit it.  I am a very curious person.  I took a sniff.  And no, it didn't smell sour at all!  Next, I added 3/4 cup plain white flour and 1 tsp sugar and used a plastic scraper/spatula to mix it all into a moist dough.

To keep it warm enough, the website suggested setting it in the oven with the light on.  I draped a tea towel over the top just in case there is stray dust or a bug (since the spiders are coming out the past couple of weeks).  And I guess, we'll see what happens.

The 48 hours is up on Thursday between 3:30 and 4:00 p.m.  At that point I will need to feed it again and then it can be kept in the fridge until I'm ready to try my hand at breadmaking.

Can hardly wait until next week when it will be ready to use!


I LOVE SOURDOUGH BREAD!!


I've linked this post to The Country Homemaker Hop - Week 9 at White Wolf Summit Farmgirl.

Chicky, Chick, Chick... Chick?

Rumpless Araucana

Among the many things I want to add to my yard and garden is a few chickens.  I know myself well enough to admit right up front that they will be pets, chickens raised for eggs and entertainment not meat.  I couldn't kill something with my own hands that I've petted and loved and nurtured and given a name and laughed at its personality quirks.  And I certainly couldn't eat a family pet.

Australorp

If I'm going to do this, I want to do it right.  So I've been doing some research.  And that's led me in all sorts of directions from thinking about the broodiness traits of different breeds of chickens... to coop design... to what to feed them... to their unique benefits with garden compost and bug control... to the nutritional benefits of home-grown eggs... and even to the horrors of factory-farming.  And it seems like the more I research, the stronger my desire to add some backyard chickens becomes.  But also, I have even more questions; not just about how to do everything but about my ability to do it all.  I really dislike feeling so unsure of myself.

Here are some of my current questions:

New Hampshire Red

Do I just pick a supplier and order sexed chicks?  When?  What do I do with them after they arrive until they are big enough and the weather is warm enough for them to survive outside?


If I get 6-8 hens, how big of a coop/run do
I need?  How many nesting boxes do I need?  Where do I best site it on my property? 

Buff Orpington

Should I let them free-range at least part of the day?  Is free-ranging as important in the winter as in the summer?  What about predators?  I do see a few hawks circling in the summertime and we have racoons in the neighborhood.


How much should I plan on spending for feed?  Is feeding them a morning chore or an evening chore or both?  When do eggs need to be gathered?

Wyandotte

How do I tell if they are getting sick?  Where do they pick up pests like fleas, lice and worms?  Do I periodically treat for these things as a proactive step or wait until there's reason to suspect an infestation?


Any thoughts, experience, advice you can share to relieve my angst?



Credit for all chicken photos and identification to poultrykeeper.com.

Signs of Spring

Out and about the last few days I've been noticing that nature is beginning to rejuvenate... Spring is truly just around the corner.  For a few weeks now, I've been watching robins in the tree outside my kitchen window.  The first robin sighting of the year is a grand thing to me as it means that winter is coming to end.  I am not a big fan of snow and cold.

The robins in my yard move faster than I can get my camera focused and zoomed in on them so I pulled this stock photo from another website.  And learned a lot about the American Robin and how to attract more of them to my yard .

I've also noticed the past week or so that the buds are noticeably swelling on most of the trees around town.  And just today I was thinking the lawn has a definite greenish hue that's different than the straw-like shade of winter months when it's dormant.  Tulip, hyacinth, daffodil, crocus and other bulbs have sent up leaves and a few are beginning to get flower buds.   And the rhubarb crowns are starting to poke out where leaves will soon uncurl.

The spiders seem to be waking up, too.  Yesterday I saw two in the bathroom (why do spiders so frequently show up in bathrooms anyway?) and just now one ran across my screen.  No worries, they are just harmless little critters that look very much like this European Garden Spider.  If I don't know what it is, I kill it.  But these live for another day.  I've even been known, if it was in the bathtub when I wanted to use it, to catch one in a dixie cup and let it go outside.  They do their part to keep insects that are harmful to my garden plants under control so, to me, they are part of the good guys that I want to protect and have hanging around.

Inspiration photo for patio though mine won't
be so elaborate with columns and a fireplace.
And it will have orange trumpet vine growing
overhead because I already have some of those.

A few more nice days and I'll be itching to get outside and dig into those flowerbeds and finish the patio structure and figure out how to do it and what to use to mulch the garden.  And of course then I'll complain about sore aching muscles that haven't seen that much or kind of movement in many months.  I may find my garden ambitions are bigger than my abilities but I'm sure planning on giving it my best shot.

Spring.  Bring it on!

In Danger of Becoming Free

"In our society, growing food yourself has become the most radical of acts."  That's a quote from near the end of the video.  And something to really think about...

This is not just a lifestyle I'm interested in but a very needed and sustainable business model as well.  It's something I'm going to be investigating seriously to meet my future income needs.

Rural Dreams

Salt Lake City is a big city.  To a small town girl like me it is, anyway.  Different neighborhoods here have different names and almost individual identities.  I live in Rose Park, for example.  Technically Rose Park doesn't start until 2 more blocks north of my house putting me in the Fairpark neighborhood, but I identify with Rose Park much more readily.

Yes this is the dreaded 'west side' of Salt Lake.  Such a laughable myth...  I love my neighborhood.  I feel safe here.  With my neighbors I have an eclectic cohesiveness here that I didn't see when I've lived in other parts of the city or in other places.  Yesterday's mail included a little newspaper that was recently resurrected with the aim of enhancing that eclectic cohesiveness.  It's called The West View.

A couple of stories in the center spread caught my attention.  One is titled Urban Growth Garden and features a garden, and a gardener named Gina Zivkovic, located about 3 blocks east of my home.  She says, "This garden always centers me -- it's a magical place."

Making the point that the history of the neighborhood was rural and that we need to return somewhat to those roots, the article states:

"When Brigham Young and his band of nomads settled the Salt Lake Valley more than a century ago, they, like Zivkovic, were cognizant of their relationship to the earth and the land.  The pioneers turned an arid valley into a blossoming city seemingly overnight.  Yet, Zivkovic notes that more than a few residents have neglected the relationship their forefathers forged.  "Historically, all this was filled with farms, orchards, fish hatcheries," Zivkovic said."

The second article is City dwellers cultivate rural flavor in their own backyards and it begins with a few sentences I find somewhat profound.

"It begins with dirt. 

Then soon with enough labor and love seeds will sprout, plants will grow and a garden will ripen. 

Gardening is, as most gardeners see it, a way for people to reclaim their connection to food and deepen the relationships that are built around the table."

It makes me wonder anew how many of life's problems could be solved with less technology and more time outdoors.  How many of my problems could be solved the same way?

A Move Toward Simplicity

Awhile back, thinking I was getting a steal on laundry detergent, I bought a giant bottle of liquid fabric softener.   I have never used liquid fabric softener in my entire life and I don't have even the first clue what to do with it.  But, perhaps, it was providence giving me a nudge.

Yesterday I happened on a "cheapskate" tip.  The website said to take a small piece of fabric... a tea towel or washcloth for example, and soak it thoroughly in liquid fabric softener then wring it out and allow to air dry completely.  Then just throw it in the dryer like a dryer sheet.  Only re-usable instead of disposable.  Supposedly one cloth is good to soften 40 loads of laundry.

Heck, I've got the stuff.  I'm game.  I gave it a try.  If I guess-timated well on how much softener the cloth soaked up and my mind didn't boggle on the math, I figured I could dry more than 2,500 loads of laundry from that one $7 bottle of fabric softener.  Not enough to break the bank by any means but that's a tiny fraction of what dryer sheets would cost.  Even buying an off brand.

And I'm happy to tell you the first load came out great.  Soft, smells nice, no static problems.  Will my washcloth-turned-dryer sheet stand up to 40 loads?  I have no idea.  And it will take a long time for me to have 40 loads of laundry to find out!  If it works, it's a pretty easy little step toward greener and cheaper living.

And speaking of small steps, here's something else to think about...