Swamp Yankees From Outer Space

Bad Blogger!

2009-08-02T13:09:00.000-04:00

I've been very negligent in my posting lately, apparently being unemployed or underemployed is more conducive to blogging than having an intensive internship. Luckily (or not so luckily) you haven't missed out on much because I've been too busy to do much crafting and the weather is so bad here that not much is going on in the garden either.

There are a few interesting things though. I believe I mentioned earlier that I had bought all kinds of crazy things to start from seed this year and now some of them are actually producing!

Here is a ground cherry in action:

And here is a tomatillo:

Although I knew the ground cherry and tomatillo were fairly closely related (both being husk nightshades) I didn't realize how similar they were. Before they fruited the only really distinguishing characteristic between the two plants was the purple vein running along the stems of the ground cherries.

I'm actually really excited about both of them too. Not only are they are producing heavily (provided nothing happens before they ripen) but they are also really attractive plants (not nearly as random and awkward as a tomato) with pretty little flowers.

I also have jalapenos!

The one thing that concerns me is that after it produced these three it stopped flowering and shows no sign of starting again, possibly due to the bizarre weather we had. If it indeed is done producing those will be expensive peppers ($1 a piece!).

Finally we actually have...tomatoes!

For those of you who are already effected by the nasty late blight that is devastating tomato crops all over the northeast...don't worry these sucked anyway. I mean they were really bad, mealy and flavorless. Again the crappy conditions (cold and wet through all of June and July pretty much) are probably to blame.

I'd rather not end a post on such a sad note as the generally badness of New England tomatoes this year so here is some absolutely professional looking bread that mom made.

Although the word rustic seems to fit I also can't help shaking feeling that the one on the right kind of looks like a toe. Sorry if that puts you off bread for awhile.

Escarole

2009-06-29T18:46:00.008-04:00

I thought I was already a vegetable nerd but since I've started working on a farm I've been exposed to some new veggies I hadn't really used before. I'm sad to say one of these was escarole:

I've been missing out. Although it's in the endive family escarole looks more like a head of lettuce although I wouldn't really eat it like lettuce. It's a little tougher and has a mild bitterness (but definitely not too much) so it's delicious cooked.

Since it's featured heavily in Italian cuisine that's what we stuck with: first we made the classic escarole and beans (or more accurately: "scrole and beans"). This dish is basically cannellini beans, escarole and lots of garlic with some Parmesan for serving. We also put some sausage in ours although it certainly can be a main dish even without meat. Also: it really should be served on or near some good toast.

Next we used some escarole in Italian wedding soup. Our version had spicy meatballs, escarole, potatoes and onions in broth although there are lots of other variations of this soup. Again the escarole was fabulous.

If you can find some at your local farmer's market I highly recommend trying some. Cook it the way you would any other cooking green or throw it in a soup.

Anybody have any other favorite ways to use escarole?

Bag Balm and 100th Post!

2009-06-23T12:23:00.003-04:00

This is my 100th post on this blog. Woo hoo! In celebration I may eat some cake. You should too.

In other news: after my recent post on hand balm a wise person sent this along in the mail to me:

Bag balm! Originally for udders but now loved by humans and cows alike, including Shania Twain! (Don't worry I didn't just call her a cow.)

Besides being awesome for my gnarly farmer hands it comes in the most adorable tin:

The best part though is probably the picture of udders on one side:

From what I've read this stuff has a multitude of uses, from soothing a fresh tattoo to diaper rash. I bet it's also amazing for dry feet. You could slather a bunch on before bed and then put socks on and wake up with feet as soft as udders! I may have to do that to someone I know (who has particularly dry feet) while they are sleeping. I'll let you know how that goes.

Garlic Scapes

2009-06-21T16:32:00.002-04:00

It's garlic scape time of year again. For those of you who haven't had the privilege of growing your own garlic (I highly recommend it), scapes are the flower stalks that you pull off around this time of year.

They are actually quite yummy, with a fresh slightly mild garlicky flavor. Although you can use them any way you would normally use garlic they are also good chopped up in salads or grilled whole. I put them on a grilling rack so they wouldn't slip through the cracks but if you're brave you could throw them right on there, just watch them carefully so they don't burn.

These are some of what we picked at home, I think we should have about 40 clubs of garlic if all goes well and they don't rot right in the ground from all this rain.

Interesting fact I recently discovered at work: if you pick about 2000 of these you'll end up with white crystals all over your hands from the sap that comes out of the scapes. I have no idea what it is besides garlic juice but I smelled like it for the next couple days. At least I didn't have to worry about vampires.

Totally Shameless Product Promotion

2009-06-15T18:39:00.007-04:00

I'll tell you upfront that I have no other motive for telling you about this product besides the fact that I really like it.

Back to the beginning: when I first started my current job (organic farm intern) I discovered that the combination of lots of dirt and wind can make your hands really freaking dry. I'm not really sure why mud is considered a spa treatment because in my experience it doesn't really do much for your skin besides dry it out. But clearly I've never had a spa treatment so what do I know.

Although I have my day to day moisturizer that I really like (Nature's Gate Tea Tree Lotion since I'm name dropping anyway) it wasn't cutting it for my terrifyingly dry rough hands. I knew I needed something more in the "balm" category, ie: more oily and thick.

I went to my local food coop prepared to pay out the nose but I was amazed when I looked at the selection. Burt's Bee's was $10 for a tin and a smaller brand was $20! But this was only about $6:

Not only does it work fabulously but could you resist that badger? Now what I can't figure out is how they extract the balm from the badger. Do they have to kill it and render it or do they just provoke it into excreting it from a gland?

Recipe Organization for the Obsessive Collector

2009-06-08T18:12:00.001-04:00

I'm sure you've figured out, based on the fact that every time I go somewhere I buy I cookbook, that I'm a rather obsessive collector of recipes. Besides buying cookbooks I also subscribe to cooking magazines, look for recipes online and take cookbooks out of the library. What this means is that I end up with stacks of recipes that I've printed from the internet, torn out of magazines or even photocopied from books.

My only salvation from being killed by a toppling stack of cookbooks is that I get many of them from the library first and if I see only a few recipes I like I just photocopy them using our handy scanner/copier/printer. The downside is that if there are too many recipes to copy I end up buying the book.

I guess there is technically another downside which is that I end up with stacks of loose recipes. They accumulate on all surfaces, even the cats, until eventually you get an avalanche of paper or someone spills something on the entire pile. Either way it's a mess.

My solution: three ring binders! Although I always pinch my fingers in the rings I still think that three ring binders are one of the marvels of modern technology. Here are two other marvels which help me get organized:

Without my paper cutter and fancy ass hole punch it would take me a lot longer to get all my recipes stored away. It also helps to have pretty binders:

My recipes are divided into several categories: cocktail recipes, canning/preserving recipes, desserts, and those I've cut out of Cooking Light (which I have a subscription to). I really enjoy the magazine and there are actually quite a few recipes per issue that I want to try so to make them easier to find I just cut them out and tape them onto paper so I can recycle the rest of the magazine. It saves space and time when I go looking for the recipe because let's face it, no matter how much we think we're going to go sift through old magazines for those recipes we liked, we never do.

I suppose I could save space by getting rid of the photographs but some of them are so pretty, it's half the reason I want to try the recipe!

Finally there is my binder of everything I've photocopied or printed from the computer. It's at least and inch and half thick.

I made dividers for the different categories to make finding things easier. I used old folders (I had a stack of legal sized ones for no apparent reason) and cut them to size so I'd have the tabs for easy flipping.

I got a little crazy with my categories: appetizers, breakfast, breads, tapas, soups, vegetable sides, starch sides, main dish: Mexican/Cuban, main dish: Asian, pasta, pizza/sandwich, main dish: seafood, main dish: veggy, main dish: meat, main dish: meat light. These are of course customizable so if you aren't as nutty as me you could simplify.

Once it's all established it's easy to keep organized. I just hole punch the new recipe and slip it in.

A final upside to cooking from photocopies is you feel very little guilt about scribbling notes all over the recipe once you've tried it, or spilling food on it for that matter, which I inevitably do.

Broken Key Fix

2009-05-29T17:08:00.010-04:00

(I hope you're prepared for the most exciting and revolutionary craft project of this decade.)

I always though my purse was a tough place. With all those things jostling for space (keys, wallet, nail file, pocket knife, ping pong balls, chapstick, and moisturizer to name just a few) it is no surprise when the occasional pen gets broken. But when my boyfriend presented me with a broken key I realized that men's pockets may be even worse than my purse.

To be fair this key was crappy to begin with, instead of a metal top it was all plastic and I think it might have actually been partially broken when he acquired it anyway.

Whose brilliant idea was it to make the top out of plastic anyway? Seriously, I want to meet that person and have a word with them.

When it finally broke completely I realized it was a rather dire situation. With no way to attach it to a key ring it was just asking to get lost. (And trust me, he'd lose it.)

So I sewed a solution which I think was rather clever if I may say so.

It was basically a rectangle of fabric I folded in half and then sewed up along both sides. I then flipped it inside out and cut a little slit in the folded end. I reinforced the slit like a button hole so I had a tube with the key sticking out one end and the other end was open. I folded the open end over a key ring and sewed it down. Here you can see the side that was folded down:

And here you can see my reinforcing:

I also made a point of choosing nice manly fabric. Had it been for myself it probably would have been purple and floral. The best part was that it took all of about five minutes. I know I could have just gone and gotten a new key made but in my experience when you copy a key the copies tend not to work as well as the original.

I'll even admit I was tempted to make decorative floral covers for all my keys...but that would have been a little too Martha for me.

First Salad of Spring

2009-05-24T12:23:00.005-04:00

Thanks to a concerted effort and some row covers we've already had our first salad from the garden! (Well actually it was at least a week ago but I've been neglectful about my posting so here it is finally:)

The main component was mesclun mix and baby salad greens that we grew by direct seeding them. The problem with that method, especially with a new mesclun mix, is that you're never quite sure what is something you actually planted or just something that volunteered. Once we managed to discern which plants were edible and picked the leaves that were big enough I also threw in some violets and redbud blossoms. I was very lucky that they were both blooming at the same time because they are both edible and look amazing together.

This was a fancy shmancy dinner since we had a guest so the salad was served alongside homemade bread and a vegetarian curried mushroom parsnip pie I made. The pie was delicious but it wasn't actually vegetarian since I used chicken broth. I'll also confess that I used storebought crust since it was already in the fridge.

Here's a bonus recipe that isn't nearly as seasonally sensitive:

Can you tell I only thought to take the picture after I'd started eating it? This one may not look nearly as flashy but what it lacks in appearance it more than makes up for in flavor. Plus I think it's super easy (once you find the ingredients) considering how fancy it seems.

The first major ingredient is Israeli couscous (which is different and larger than the North African couscous most people are used to seeing). It basically tastes like a little pasta so if you really can't find it you could definately substitute orzo (although you miss some of the nice toasty flavor of the couscous).

Next we have French lentils (or Lentils du Puy, or green lentils). These lentils stand above all other lentils in my opinion because of their texture and flavor. They stay firmer when cooked than other lentils so they work perfectly for a salad (instead of turning into mush). The flavor is also amazing, when I cooked them for the first time I swore someone had thrown a bunch of black pepper in there with them but that is actually just how they are by themselves. Their color is also really cool: when raw they are a mottled bluish greenish color. I hope you can find them reasonably priced, I get them at a local natural food co-op in bulk so they aren't terribly expensive.

Next you'll need feta. I used Narragansett Creamery's Sea Salt Feta which is local! I'm excited about local cheese because until recently (as far as I'm aware) there wasn't any large scale cheese production in Rhode Island (at least not for a couple of hundred years). If you happen to be in RI and get to try some the Atwell's Gold is especially delicious.

Back to the salad: once you've located your ingredients you just boil and drain the couscous and lentils (separately). I don't really have a definite timing for either, I just keep checking them until they're just tender enough.

Once drained I dress them with olive oil (I won't tell you it has to be this or that fancy kind, let's just say the best you're willing to pay for) and balsamic vinegar. I also throw in some herbs (maybe oregano or thyme and either fresh or dry, depending on if I feel like going outside to pick it). I also (gasp!) use garlic powder.

When the salad is ready to serve toss in some feta and if it's a Friday night and you're feeling really crazy you can serve it on a bed of arugula. I just happened to have some on hand so I ate mine with it and it's perfect because the peppery flavor in it really compliments the pepperiness of the lentils.

Now if I were to suggest that this is a meal in and of itself I'm sure the meat lovers out there would scoff but I'm serious, I can sit down and eat a huge bowl of this for lunch. It would also be great to bring to a party if you want to seem like a real fancy pants. Once you start rattling off the international list of ingredients (preferably with an English accent) people will surely be impressed.

Peas

2009-05-16T17:09:00.004-04:00

Although we have lots of plants started this year we don't have much out yet besides greens and snow peas. But oh do we ever have snow peas. First we soaked them overnight and planted them in a bed outside. After we'd finished that we realized we still had lots of extras that were already soaked so we either needed to use them or throw them out.

We used up some of them by planting them in toilet paper tubes and keeping them inside to germinate. The rest we put between two damp paper towels to sprout. Once those sprouted we picked one of our big barrels outside that needed to have a non-nightshade in it this year (for disease avoidance rotation reasons) and planted them in it.

So now, although we already had a bed and a container filled with peas waiting to sprout outside we also had these inside:

Since I have trouble throwing away any baby plants we found another container to plant these in. We used freshly cut branches to make a tipi for them once they start climbing:

Here's where we learned our first lesson: even though we planted the sticks upside down they still started to get buds on them and they're probably rooting. That may be a fun mistake to deal with later in the year. Next time we'll use dry bamboo.

We also learned that peas transplant fine. But here is the really interesting thing: the ones we started inside and put out last are the biggest. The ones we sprouted and then planted outside are considerably behind them and the ones we planted directly outside are the furthest behind. So the lesson is that if you can manage to keep seedlings inside as long as possible they'll get bigger faster than if you put them outside and it's still chilly. I'm sure this information was already in a book somewhere but it's much more convincing when you experience it first hand.

Finally, did you know if you have extra peas plants that need thinning you can toss the pea greens in salad as long as they're still fairly small? It's crazy to think that what some gardeners throw away other people pay big money for at restaurants. Speaking of salad...well you'll just have to keep checking back for that post.

Cookbooks Etc

2009-05-15T09:40:00.007-04:00

Buying used or vintage stuff doesn't count as materialism or consumerism because it isn't contributing to the supply for new goods. At least that's what I tell myself. So without further apology here is the stuff I've found recently:

First the cookbooks, this one was too gorgeous and for a couple bucks way too good a deal to pass up:

I also love unusual cookbooks and this one seemed fairly unusual:

That is of course until I got home and my dad informed me he already owned a Burmese cookbook. My thunder was sufficiently stolen.

I also just found my own copy of this for only a couple bucks:

I think I'm the only one who likes it but I couldn't resist this teapot:

Here's the back:

And here's the mark on the bottom:

And this mug, the owls!:

Finally I got this box:

I think it probably came with some wine in it or something so it might be silly that I paid for it but I like it and it seemed super useful...now I just have to think of something to put in it.

And now I present a photo essay that illustrates what it is like to try to photograph something with a cat around:

Fin.

Ginger

2009-05-04T15:46:00.000-04:00

I've decided you can never really have enough ginger in your diet. Besides being yummy it is also really good for upset tummies and muscle aches (which I've had plenty of since starting to work again). Actually you probably could have too much ginger but I doubt I'm at any risk for that. The problem is that fresh ginger is kind of a pain in the ass, at least I think so. If a recipe calls for a couple teaspoons you have to fish it out, peel it and grate that little bit, only to have to repeat the process the next time you need a little and by my standards that is a pain.

We accidentally stumbled upon a way to avoid this hassle. Mom really likes ginger tea so we started using the food processor to grate whole pieces at a time and then we divide it into tablespoon sized piles which we freeze. This way when mom wants to make a couple cups of tea she can just take one cube of ginger out of the freezer. But it also works great for cooking. The other night I had a recipe that called for fresh grated ginger so I just threw in a couple pieces, still frozen.

It even kind of works for sun tea. Although our usual recipe calls for mint of some kind along with the black tea I wanted to try some with ginger. Using the frozen grated ginger you definitely get some ginger flavor but it's not super strong.

The scary looking stuff floating on top is actually the ginger. It also serves as a good theft deterrent, who would want to steal something that looks like that?

We also tried planting some. We started with a fresh piece (we tried to find one that wasn't too dessicated). This one already had little knobs like it wanted to sprout so we figured it was a good candidate. Here it is in all it's knobbiness:

Look at that knob close up; doesn't it look like a claw?

We cut off pieces and soaked them overnight.

Doesn't it look like a monster's toe floating in there?

The next day we planted them:

We planted three pots and put them in a sunny spot. I can report that a few days later there is some sort of leaf poking up so I think it worked!

I'll let you know if we actually ever get any ginger.

Just Shameless Flowers

2009-05-01T14:04:00.002-04:00

Sorry about the rather infrequent posting, I was so traumatized by the spider incident that I had to take a little break. Just kidding, I've actually been working and those four hour shifts are really wearing me out.

Despite my rigorous schedule we've still been working on some projects but for now I'll just show you some of what's in bloom. Of course there are violets:

I really like them, I don't mind a yard full of them although I'm not sure everyone agrees.

Close by we also have vinca:

And then there was the magnolia which bloomed for all of about 5 days this year but it sure was nice while it lasted.

The combination of a couple days in the 90's and some cooler weather and wind in between meant all the petals fell quickly, and specifically on our driveway:

It's nice until you realize that they rot and get all slippery. You really have to be careful.

Just in case you can't quite make out what kind car that is it's a Rolls Royce, in case you were wondering. More real goings on coming soon, I promise.

Trauma

2009-04-21T08:58:00.007-04:00

Warning: you might want to skip this post if you don't like spiders (don't say I didn't warn you Amanda).

So...I hate spiders. Well, hate isn't really the right word, more like fear. They creep me out, a lot. But I don't like to kill them! I just really really don't like when they are near me and I don't realize it and all of a sudden I'm an inch away from touching one or something horrible like that.

I'm also convinced I have an abnormal number of traumatizing spider encounters (but I'm not sure if they are what cause my fear of spiders or just karmic justice). Here's a good one: when I'd first moved into my old apartment I was going to bed one night and as soon as I turned the light off I felt something hit my arm and I knew, I just knew it was a spider. And guess what? It was a giant black spider. I slept with the light on that night.

Then there was the time I was unrolling a sock and felt something kind of damp in my hand. I threw whatever it was on the ground and leaned down to inspect what looked like a piece of black lint. That was until it unfurled it's 8 terrifying legs and crawled away.

It's mostly the big hunting spiders that bother me. Tiny ones and daddy long legs (which aren't technically spiders I believe) don't really bother me. But there is an exception: specifically the time I was watching television in the dark only to have a black spot obscure my vision. When I put a hand to my face to brush the spot away I realized it was a daddy long legs...crawling across my eye. It was so light I couldn't tell it was there.

So here is the latest incident: I was fiddling with something in my apartment (and by apartment I mean my parent's basement) when I noticed something black a few inches from my hand. Thanks to our handy bug catcher thingy I captured it:

It's playing dead but trust me, it's not.

Here you can see it's horrendous fangs and stripey legs. I hate when they have stripey legs.

This is the best shot I could get of him before we released him outside. I'm sure though that by now he's found his way back to the basement and is lying in wait for me somewhere even more terrifying like my sock drawer.

And if anyone recognizes this spider and just happens to know that he's poisonous...please don't tell me, I'll only be further traumatized.

Make Your Own Travel Chopstick Case

2009-04-14T10:21:00.000-04:00

Although this technically falls under the crafting category of "things you didn't know you needed," it is still a really cute idea. The premise is that instead of wasting a pair of disposable chopsticks every time you go out to eat you carry along your own pair.

There are other designs floating around for these cases which inspired my design (and those might have better instructions if you are looking for a really precise tutorial). Although you can make these with one piece of fabric I wanted mine to have a contrasting interior so I started with two sets of fabric to make two cases:

Here is where I have to make a confession about where I got the fabric: I bought it at Walmart. I usually try to reuse or recycle fabric as much as possible but I was really picky about the prints I wanted for these and Walmart has this new section of fat quarters for quilting which has some surprisingly modern patterns.

Out of each set I cut one of each of these shapes:

(You'll see later why the outside piece is larger than the inside piece.)

I then pinned them together with the right sides facing each other and sewed along the bottom (leaving a gap large enough to flip it right side out later):

I then pulled the shorter side up so the points of both pieces met (but it is still inside out):

Here it is pinned together:

I sewed all the way along the remaining sides and trimmed off some excess fabric at the corners:

Now the case is ready to flip inside out (so the right sides of the fabric are on the outside now). The last major step was to sew the opening closed and then fold the bottom up to where it begins to angle towards the point and sew that down on either end.

This is what one end looks like:

The reason I made the outside piece bigger than the inside was that if they had been the same the seam would have come out at the top of the little bit you folded up and I thought it would look neater if it was on the inside. So essentially it is being hidden on the inside of the little pouch you make.

Now all you need is something to keep it rolled up. I sewed a piece of ribbon on the outside of the point and added a button over it to cover my messy hand stitching. I folded the ends of the ribbon over and sewed those down to keep them from unraveling.

Slip in the chopsticks and its ready to be rolled up.

I didn't give you dimensions for how big to make it because it really depends on the chopsticks you get. The ones I found are actually children's chopsticks that I got at a local Asian produce store. I specifically got the children's sets because they are much smaller and therefore more conducive to being lugged around in a purse all the time. Here's a closeup of the chopsticks, they're actually very cute:

Here it is all rolled up and ready to go:

I ended up making three of them. The top one was the test run so I'm keeping that one but the other two are gifts.

Here's the button from the bottom one, it came in a bag of vintage red buttons. It's a face!

Hopefully these came out sturdy enough that they can be thrown in the wash after they are used.

So those are my kind of instructions. If anything isn't clear feel free to ask and I'll attempt to explain!

Super Frugal Cooking: Reusing Stock Chicken

2009-04-09T10:31:00.001-04:00

I guess to begin with I need to make a distinction between several ways of making stock. The first method, which is what you see in cookbooks, involves buying a whole chicken or something like that and then boiling the heck out of it. This inevitably leaves you with delicious stock and a bunch of flavorless chicken.

The second method, which isn't particularly relevant here, is using only inedible chicken parts to make stock. For instance we save all our bones and scraps (like wing tips) in a bag in the freezer and then when we have enough we use those to make stock, maybe with a bag of chicken feet (think I'm kidding?) thrown in. I like this method a lot because it makes you feel like you really aren't wasting anything. But to be fair I'll admit that is a cultural bias, in some places chicken feet aren't considered inedible.

So back to the method of chicken stock that involves a whole carcass. What bugs me about that is all the wasted meat. Some people still use the 4 hour boiled meat for some things but I've tasted it and it just doesn't work for me. So I started doing my own version of this process which involves cooking the chicken for only an hour, taking off the meat and freezing it and returning the bones and scraps to the stock to continue cooking. This way you get chicken that is still edible (although not the tastiest you've ever had) and good stock.

(Bag-o-cooked-shredded-frozen-defrosted Chicken)

While I have described this method previously I don't think I've ever really talked about what we do with the shredded frozen chicken. You might expect these bags to languish in the freezer, forgotten and frostbitten but quite the contrary, they are in high demand. This is because we've found they make really good chicken pot pie (or chicken and biscuits, or chicken and dumplings, or chicken over rice).

Of course when we make any of these variations on the basic creamy chicken stew with veggies over starch recipe we use our homemade chicken stock, which is kind of funny because we are reuniting the chicken with the stock. And although these all come out good there is just something about the frozen chicken that doesn't quite live up to using fresh (by grocery store standards) chicken. But this is a frugal recipe so of course we're going to find a way around that arent' we?

One day inspiration struck me, why not try a little curry powder? (Or perhaps it was the need to use up the gigantic jar of Madras curry powder I had bought.)

(This is the aforementioned giant jar of curry powder.)

I put in a couple teaspoons or so to my basic recipe (flour, fat, stock, milk, misc. veggies, chicken), not so much that it tasted like a full on curry but enough that you got a little of the spiciness. And it was surprisingly good and made up for what the chicken itself lacked. (I'm not giving you a recipe since I don't really have a set one but if you wanted one you could look up any good chicken pot pie recipe and just add a couple teaspoons of curry powder.)

Anyone else use curry powder in something that isn't strictly Indian cuisine? I'm curious because this is a new concept to me and I'm surprised I don't see it as an ingredient more often.

Container Gardening on the Cheap

2009-04-06T11:14:00.008-04:00

As I may have mentioned previously the sunniest part of our property is unfortunately the driveway. This has led to an ever expanding container garden that lives there. Like everything else we tried to do this as frugally as possible which means we don't go out and buy lovely glazed ceramic pots for all our plants (although I'll admit I've bought a couple).

The cheapest way to get containers for a garden is obviously to see what you can get your hands on for free. We've had some luck with this, even getting one from a neighbor who knew we used them. But eventually we realized we actually had to buy some. I began noticing that all the large pots, even the plastic ones at the big stores, were still expensive, usually $10-20 each. Now this isn't terrible but for crappy plastic containers it seems like there would be cheaper alternatives. Why would I pay $20 for a plastic pot when I can get a plastic storage tote for $4?

Even better yet I realized we had at least one old tote that was cracked lying around. So I grabbed that plus a couple new ones and transformed them into containers for the garden. The only real modification they needed was drainage holes. I used an electric drill to make 6 holes in the bottom of each container. (These holes will later be covered with whatever we have around, seashells or pot shards, to keep the dirt from falling out or clogging them.)

I put a piece of wood under the spot where I was drilling. Why? Maybe to protect our immaculate lawn? Whatever my logic at the time was it seemed to help. And yes that is me actually drilling the holes, I swear it wasn't staged.

This is my crappy old container after drilling. How did it get so cracked you ask? (I'm aware you probably wouldn't ask that but let's pretend.) It was my recycling bin for awhile. I know it's not standard but my landlord didn't seem to think I recycled so I had to get my own and this had a green lid so I figured it was close enough. And apparently it was because the recycling guys always grabbed our stuff. But perhaps the bin wasn't quite close enough because it got some pretty rough treatment in their hands and that it how it came to be cracked and mangled. And now you know.

And this is the nice new one I defaced. Perhaps purple isn't the best choice but for $4 I can't really complain.

That was basically all that was needed to transform the totes. I even kept the lids to shelter the containers until the seedlings emerge to protect them from cats. Although if you do this you have to remember to take off the lids so the containers can get water when it rains. But then again you might want to leave the lid on if you are worried about a really torrential spring rain washing away your seeds. It is a delicate balance of lid use, but I don't have a job so what else do I have to do?

And if you are aesthetically offended by the look of these (which I wouldn't blame you) you could always surround them with your nicer containers.

I wish I had some nice pictures of these filled with plants but it's a little early for that. Since this is the first year we've tried to use these types of containers I guess this is still all theoretical but I don't see what could go wrong unless the plastic leaches chemicals into our vegetables and they all mutate. I hope that won't happen, but I promise to let you know if it does!

The Joys of Poutine

2009-04-02T16:52:00.015-04:00

I don't actually know why I didn't think of this myself: french fries, gravy and cheese. What else could you really want out of life? I'm not sure why this brilliant Canadian creation doesn't get more attention.

Although I've never had authentic poutine (ie: made in Canada) I've been striving to replicate it myself. The only problem is that finding cheese curds around here isn't exactly easy. So up until now I've just been eating fries with gravy, and not even the proper gravy, I use canned turkey gravy (don't scoff unless you've tried it).

But lo and behold on my first trip to Trader Joe's this weekend I found Wisconsin cheddar cheese curds! I'm not positive what the exact difference is between cheese curds and regular cheese (I'm sure I could figure it out if I checked Wikipedia but I already looked up poutine and that's enough research for today) but from what I understand cheese curds should be squeaky.

So with my squeaky cheese curds in hand I returned home and threw some frozen fries in the oven. I suppose I could have made real fries or used homemade gravy but that doesn't really seem quite in the spirit of poutine.

So once my fries were sufficiently heated through I topped them with the curds and put them back in the oven for a second to get a little melty. Then I topped it with deliciously hot microwaved Campbell's turkey gravy (which I have a soft spot for even though I'm not sure it counts as food).

And it was amazing, really amazing. I may in fact start a poutine fan club in Rhode Island. (And yes, I know those are technically potato wedges and not fries but that's all I had! And I also know cheese curds aren't always orange but a little annatto never hurt anyone.)

P.S. Funny story: 5 years ago I was in Quebec and didn't even order poutine! Sadly I didn't know it existed at the time and therefore missed my opportunity to try probably one of the most brilliant culinary creations ever.

P.P.S. I don't actually recommend trying this. Unless of course you want to get really fat, really quickly. In which case be my guest.

Garden Bed or Litter Box?

2009-04-01T14:36:00.000-04:00

The tough thing about gardening is that there are so many unknowns. Although cooking can have variables generally if you have the correct ingredients and follow the correct procedure things come out fairly reliably. But with gardening things can vary wildly from one yard to the next or one year to another.

Take for instance one of our unique problems: where we see plant beds our cats see big giant litter boxes. Gross, I know, and not something any gardening book can really prepare you for. The first issue is that their incessant digging tends to kill any baby plants that come up. The second is that for food crops, especially greens, I don't think raw cat manure is the most sanitary thing.

This has already become an issue with our garlic crop this year. We should have seen it coming. We put our garlic in the same place we had our wheat last year (which you may recall Toaster also destroyed). So we needed to protect the garlic, and quickly.

Our solution: a frame of sticks covered with chicken wire. So far it has worked quite well and is also quite elegant if you ask me.

And yes I know it's all crooked, that was on purpose. We were going for a rustic look.

Dress Shirt Refashion (Finally)

2009-03-29T14:12:00.002-04:00

First I will give you the dramatic before and after of this refashion and then you'll get the back story.

Before:

After:

The back story: while sifting through my closet for something to refashion I came upon an old dress shirt. It had been well loved in its day but now it was far too dingy to be used for formal occasions. My first thought was that it needed to be dyed but I also realized that once dyed the cut would be too formal to be useful so it also needed some refashioning.

The first thing I tackled was the collar. It was too pointy and extreme so I opened up where the two pieces were attached. I have no idea what they are actually called so let's refer to them as the collar and the base of the collar.

And here is the obligatory help from a cat, they like to hold down fabric for you:

You can see where I seam ripped between the two pieces:

Once I had separated the top piece I was left with a nice little stand up collar. All I had to do was sew the piece that remained back together which I did by hand.

Next I tackled the sleeves. After about 50 false starts I decided just to chop them off (with a lot of experimentation to figure out the angle at which this should be done). I used leftovers from the sleeves to make a cuff (is that what it's called if it doesn't have a button?) for the sleeve. I actually had to piece it out of two different lengths but you can't really tell because the much smaller piece is on the inside of the arm. To gather in the extra material I went with one large tuck. (I only have pictures from after it was dyed.)

Although I liked the shirt a lot better with short sleeves it was still a little boxy so rather than attempt to reshape the entire thing I just added two ties at the sides:

I left them really long so they can actually be tied in several ways; as shown above or tied in front at the waist or as an empire waist.

Finally the shirt needed dying. (Pretend it wasn't already dyed in previous pictures). I did some research and decided after finding much praise for it that Dylon dye was good and widely available. (The "colour" page [I love British spelling] on their homepage has a cool color wheel of all the dyes.) After much mental anguish I went with "ocean blue:"

I was happy with the saturation of the color but disappointed that it came out a little streaky, although that is fading with every wash (and also could have been my fault).

I also had no idea how dying over pin stripes would turn out, whether they'd still be visible or disappear completely. I like that they are subtly still there.

It ended up being way more work then I expected but it was worth it because I really like it now:

P.S.: Total cost: About $3 for some cotton fabric to make the ties out of (I had plenty of white fabric but I wasn't positive any of it was 100% cotton so I had to buy some) and the packet of dye.

Just to Tide You Over

2009-03-26T14:34:00.004-04:00

My latest refashion took longer than I expected plus I want to get really good photos of it before I post it so in the meantime one of my less awe inspiring creations: a new kind of pizza.

I'm sure you've heard of veggie lover's pizza or meat lover's pizza but how about salt lover's pizza? This is what dad and I invented: it has anchovies, bacon and ham on top. Plus jalapenos and onions just for good measure.

I labeled the picture because it was a little confusing. And for those of you who are connoisseurs of fine china the plate is from Walmart. Fancy isn't it?

P.S. I bet you're wondering if the pizza was actually edible. In fact it was, and quite delicious too. Plus I got my necessary sodium dose for the next week or two.

First Seed Sprouts

2009-03-17T19:11:00.006-04:00

We just got around to starting our first seeds for the garden Friday (alyssum, forget me nots, and both peppermint and spearmint). The flowers were added to our plan at the last minute in an attempt to attract more bees to our vegetables. Apparently our cucumbers just weren't sexy enough for the bees last year because we had quite a few pathetic little ones that never developed and a farmer told me this was because of lack of pollination.

So we picked alyssum and forget me nots in the hopes that they would be nice enough to attract some attention but not so gaudy that they were detract all attention from the vegetables. This is all purely theoretical so I have no idea if it will actually work.

So Friday we planted and by Monday we already had baby plants! These are our baby alyssums:

Very exciting but it also reminds me how much more work we have to do. Oy.

Mom's Jacket Refashion

2009-03-16T11:26:00.004-04:00

This poor jacket, it just can't catch a break.

When I was in middle school (way back in the 90's) it served me well. Once my arms got too long for the sleeves mom inherited the coat. This may sound backwards to you but sadly there are things that I outgrow that still fit mom. I don't think we've been able to share shoes since like 6th grade. But enough about my ginormous feet.

Mom used the coat for quite a few years before managing to get paint stains on the sleeve AND break the zipper (I blame Land's End, stupid coat only lasted a decade or so!). So she came up with a plan to salvage it.

Like me she has an aversion to replacing zippers so she opted instead to make her own toggles and loops to keep the coat closed. She made everything out of fabric scraps from the stash (including the toggles). She also used coordinating pieces to cover the paint stains on the sleeve.

I told her it's totally 80's and made her promise to only wear it around the yard. Her defense was that she missed out on 80's fashion so she needed to catch up.

Homemade Frozen Burritos

2009-03-14T18:00:00.001-04:00

For a household that makes so many things from scratch there are a few dirty secrets lurking in our cabinets and freezer. One of the worst atrocities is Tina's frozen burritos. For those of you not familiar with them they are incredibly inexpensive and not so healthy. Unfortunately they are so deeply ingrained in my Dad's routine that I saw no hope of weaning him off of them.

But since the two of us have so much free time on our hands (unemployed and retired respectively) I figured we could make our own passable substitute. The challenge wasn't making a better tasting burrito but one that worked out to being as cheap.

For cheapness using dry beans is essential. When I am diligent in my bargain hunting I can usually find pinto beans for no more then $1 a pound. Although we could have left them meat free I decided I wanted some pork in them and at $1.99 a pound for pork loin I figured it wouldn't jack up the price too much either.

The first step was to pick through a pound of dry pinto beans. Does everyone else do this with their dry beans?

My parents make me look through for rocks although I don't think I've ever found one. I do however find some pretty funky looking beans with holes that look suspiciously like they were formed by worms. These pathetic looking ones got discarded:

Then I rinsed them and covered them with water. I also added some ground cumin and some epazote. If you are not familiar with epazote it is an herb used in Mexican cooking, often with beans. All I really know is we get it at Mexican markets and I had to pick some twigs out of it:

But wait! Didn't I forget to mention letting the beans soak overnight? It's because I didn't! My parents insist that it works just as well to bring the beans to a boil, let them simmer for a few minutes, turn off the water and let them sit for an hour and then cook them. And that is what I did.

And in the mean time there was the pork loin to deal with:

If you find that awkward to look at you're not the only one. Let's move on to cooking it:

Dad cut off a two and half pound piece (I don't really do meat butchering) and we browned it in my fake Le Creuset dutch oven. We then added some wine (which is totally optional) and a couple cups of water and cooked it in a 200 degree oven for awhile. I say that because I don't remember how long it took. What I do know is that we cooked it until it was all nice and falling apart. (The pork loin we get for $1.99 a pound is kind of tough so stewing it like that is really one of the only options.)

If it sounds like we did this all in one day we didn't. But we can pretend we did. So...later that day (or like two days later) we mashed the cooked beans. Dad has a thing about mashed beans so I wasn't allowed to totally mush them up but I mashed enough that it was kind of like refried but with a few whole beans floating around.

Also that day (yeah right) the meat got shredded up:

This all went together in a big pan with the addition of a few ingredients, one of which was these:

I have only recently been converted to using canned jalapenos when fresh one's aren't available and I've got to say, I'm a true believer now. Although for most things I usually prefer fresh I've got to say that sometimes even when we can get fresh jalapenos they are so crappy (ie they are either scary and wrinkly or they are so mild they might as well be a green pepper) I'd rather just use canned.

So a third of a can of jalapenos went into the mix along with a couple teaspoons of ground cumin, oregano, chili powder, sweet paprika and a touch of hot smoked Spanish paprika. The mix still didn't seem beany enough so in went a can of black beans at the last minute. (I was secretly rooting for black beans all along, they are my favorite.) I also threw in a cup or so (don't really remember) of frozen corn. And then there was more seasoning: garlic powder, black pepper and about 3 tablespoons of lime juice to freshen it up.

Once the mix was done all that was left was to wrap up the burritos. What we actually ended up doing was refrigerating the filling and wrapping them the next day. Although the tortillas need to be heated to make them pliable the filling was actually easier to deal with when cold. I think we did about a half cup of filling each and we ended up with quite a few. The picture below is only about half of them. We froze them quickly on the tray and then later went back and packed them into bags to keep in the freezer.

Since we did this a while ago and have had time to eat most of them I can tell you the results of this experiment. The burritos are delicious, much better than Tina's. But as for price, well they weren't so great. Although they worked out cheaper it was by maybe only 20 cents or so. The disappointing part is that the biggest expense was the tortillas themselves. They ended up being about half the total cost of the finished burritos. This could be avoided by making your own flour tortillas, if you can get them to come out as nice big circles, which I never can.

So is this going to save you a ton of money? Not really, but it will taste so much better and probably be better for you.

P.S. If any of you ever try to follow these as actual cooking directions I apologize in advance.

Sima

2009-03-06T17:08:00.011-05:00

Sima (not to be confused with Zima, although I suspect there may be a connection) is a sparkling Finnish beverage made by briefly fermenting lemon and sugar.

Now why would we participate in such an obscure cultural tradition? Is it because we are honoring our Finnish ancestors? Or perhaps we were taught the technique by an elderly Finnish neighbor? Nope, nothing as cool as that. Mom got it from a Time Life book. Although to be fair it is from the 1969 Food of the World series which in my humble opinion is fairly badass. I recommend grabbing them if you come across them, especially if you find not only the cookbook but the larger book it came inside of.

Back to the wonders of sima: not only does it fulfill my love of all things sparkly beverage related it also avoids the guilt of buying can after can of seltzer (which is essentially using fossil fuels to ship water).

Here is how it is made: you take a few lemons and peel them and then get rid of the pith (yucky white stuff).

(The batch pictured included ginger which is what is being chopped.)

Then throw the peel and lemon into water with some white and brown sugar. You heat this up to dissolve the sugar. You then let it cool before adding yeast (so the yeast isn't killed) and then let it sit at room temperature for 12 hours. This is the first fermentation.

Then you take sanitized bottles (we use old Grolsch lager swing top bottles, I'm frankly not sure what other kinds would work) and add sugar and two or three raisins before pouring in the liquid.

If you figure out how to do the pouring step without making a total mess feel free to enlighten me.

You then seal them and let them sit at room temperature until a mystical process takes place which results in the raisins rising to the top (some mumbo jumbo about carbon dioxide...I don't believe a word of it). See the raisin at the top!?

Then you chill and it's ready to drink! Now you may wonder, with all that fermentation, wouldn't it possibly be alcoholic? According to my mom the short fermentation and small amount of sugar aren't enough for it to get very alcoholic (probably less than half a percent).

But a word of caution: open these with all the care you would use for a bottle of champagne! There have been a few explosive sima incidents and I wouldn't want anyone to loose an eye.

Now to totally disregard tradition here are some of our variations: we tried adding some ginger with the lemon once, it was good but not really worth the effort, it wasn't nearly as gingery as we expected. We also added lime once which I liked. Lemon lime soda!

And a note on peel: mom will only use the peel of the lemon if we get organic ones (pesticides and all) so if that isn't an option you can always leave the peel off. The sima will come out good but without the hint of bitterness the peel gives it (which may or may not be a good thing in your opinion).

Here are our instructions based on the Time Life ones:

Sima variations
makes 9 - 10 pints

3 small lemons
a chunk of ginger
or
2 small lemons
1 lime
or
a couple large lemons

If fruit is organic separate zest so you can remove as much of the white pith as possible. Slice peel and fruit thinly.

Peel ginger and grate or chop.

Bring 5 quarts of water to a boil. Add fruit and 1/2 cup each white and brown sugar.

Let cool to barely warm (100 to 105 F/40 C) on wrist.
Add 1/8 tsp. (baking) yeast

Leave at room temperature for about 12 hours.

To bottle in pints:

Wash the bottles in hot, soapy water. Rinse very well and drain.
Add 2 raisins to each bottle. Using a funnel, add 1/2 tsp. sugar to each bottle.
Then fill with sima, straining out fruit, and cap.

Leave at room temperature until the raisins rise to the top. Check frequently because
the raisins may subsequently fall but the bottles are still ready to refrigerate. Keep
cold until serving time (or else!) and open cautiously.

Seasonal Denial: Make Your Own Seed Starter Pots (With an Attempt at a Tutorial)

2009-03-01T13:36:00.026-05:00

There's lots of snow on the ground. But I'm still in denial, convinced that spring is right around the corner.

In the spirit of this we already ordered seeds and they have arrived. We also went through our old seeds and pulled out all the ones we'll try this year:

Not a great picture but it was the last decent one I got. Why you might wonder? Well did you notice a shadow looming in the upper left hand corner of the picture? It foreshadows what happened next:

And then this gesture which was just unnecessary:

You might think I stage this stuff but I swear, I was trying to grab a few quick pics and he interjected himself into the photo shoot totally uninvited.

But back to gardening. Feeling a little overwhelmed this year by all the different seeds that need to be started and the new beds that need to be dug in time for those seeds to be transplanted I printed my own calendar to keep track of it all. It's super boring, I could have made it much fancier.

But what would have been the point of a nice calendar when my horrendous handwriting is going to inevitably ruin it?

If you have denial like me and you want to start preparing you can make your own seed starter pots out of newspaper. Here is my kind of tutorial (this is as close to one as you'll get from me):

Newspaper Seed Starter Pots:

1. Start with some newspaper (discard the sheets that are just a single page, they aren't wide enough.) You will also need a glass bottle (although I suppose any material would work, as long as it's open at one end). Mine was 2 inches across at the bottom and 4.5 inches tall. Another size might work but I haven't experiment enough to be sure. I told you this wouldn't be much of a tutorial!

2. Cut the newspaper into strips across the width. I made mine as wide as the bottle I was using. (And they'll be as long as the newspaper when it's folded open. You need this much length for it to work.)

3. One strip at a time wrap them around your bottle.

4. With the opening of the bottle on top pull the roll about halfway off the bottle.

5. Starting with the seam where your strip ended fold the top part into the opening of the jar.

Do this all the way around.

6. Pull the pot off and flip the jar over and stick the bottom of the jar into the pot to squish down the bottom.

7. Your pot is done!

The bottom may look a little funky but as long as all your dirt doesn't fall out it should be fine.

Now repeat as many times as necessary. Here is what we got done so far:

The advantage of these is that you can put the whole thing right in the ground. But it's probably a good idea to rip off some of the extra paper if possible and make sure the bottom is open for the roots to escape. Despite this it's still better than having to totally uproot the poor little seedling. Much less traumatizing.

And in case you were wondering; those were NOT my hands making the pots. My finger nails are much nicer.

P.S. I'm sure there are other variations of this out there and maybe even this exact same version. My mom has been doing it for years so she doesn't remember where she first learned.

P.P.S. Feel free to tell me anything that isn't clear. I'm still working on the whole tutorial thing.

Decoupage Insanity

2009-02-24T16:29:00.010-05:00

It's funny how taking up a new kind of cooking, baking for instance, makes you realize how many more kitchen gadgets you need. I never thought I would be in desperate need of a candy thermometer, or an apple corer. Luckily I've been successful in finding most of the things I now desperately need, although a few of them have taken some extreme effort to find.

Although not a necessity, I've found that nice trays are important for cookie presentation. After I've spent hours slaving over cookies it seems like a crime to throw them into an old take out container. (Yes we save the nice plastic ones for leftovers. But don't worry we don't microwave in them.)

When I unearthed this one from my parents collection I was devastated by it's state of neglect. I love paisley! Turns out they used it as a tray to keep the cats' water and food dishes on for a long time. Stupid cats.

The only logical thing was to rehab it. I had read about using fabric to decoupage. Slapping a piece of fabric on it and calling it a day seemed like an easy solution. Somehow though my mom talked me out of the fabric idea and convinced me to use paper. (Not really sure, looking back, how that happened.)

Unlike some crafters I don't have a collection of wonderful vintage images to use for decoupaging. (Where the heck do you get those anyway?) Even if I knew where to get them I'd probably be too cheap to buy them. My only choice therefore was the magazines we have lying around. For whatever reason I decided I needed to cut out tiny squares of solid colors to do a mosaic like thing.

I started by cutting a template out of orange juice carton plastic. I then laid this down on whatever part of a page I wanted and used an exacto knife to cut around it. I then repeated this like 8,000 times.

In the mean time I also spray painted the tray black. I sanded it a little to make sure the paint would stick but not enough that I actually got rid of the texture from the chipped paint. I was feeling too lazy.

Now came the worst part: deciding how to arrange the squares. I literally tried at least 10 different placements, putting all the squares down and then taking them off again. I think I may have gone a little mad in the process.

When I finally decided on the configuration that irritated me the least I put them all down with Elmer's glue and then gave it a coat of Mod Podge matte finish. I was using one of those spongy brushes and the pieces were wrinkling and the edges were curling so after that initial coat dried I switched to Royal Coat high gloss spray. I like the gloss and spray much better but it built up really slowly. I ended up using the entire can and it still could use more layers.

But it's nice and shiny!

So the downsides to this project: I have no idea what I'm doing decoupaging. There are too many products and I have no idea which to use. It was expensive because I needed so much spray to get it nice and thick. Finally, that spray stuff takes forever to cure, like two weeks at least!

So overall very frustrating. Fiddley crafts just aren't for me.

Candied Ginger and Lemon Peel

2009-02-23T10:44:00.022-05:00

When I decided I wanted to candy some ginger I got to thinking about the ginger tea we always drink. It's Stash brand and it's actually ginger lemon. (I highly recommend it for when you are too lazy to make your own ginger tea. We keep a few boxes on hand at all times.) I like it a lot more than straight ginger tea because the lemon tempers some of the heat.

So I decided when I candied my ginger I'd do some lemon peel at the same time. I started researching on the internet for instructions and guess what I found? There are as many different instructions for candying ginger as there are people who've tried it. So I kind of averaged out the recipes and hoped for the best.

To start with I had to zest my lemons. Mom insisted on organic lemons (since you are using the peel which is where all the chemicals would be) so we had to shlep out to one of the local health food stores (actually we had to try two before we found them). Some instructions want you to cut the peel off and then cut off the white pith. I found that using a vegetable peeler I was able to avoid most of the pith.

On a side note I have a friend who peels all the white stringy stuff off the outside of oranges and eats it. Yuck.

So after I had my nice pile of zest (and some sad naked lemons which I had to think of a use for) I got to work on the ginger.

It seems the proper ginger peeling method is to actually use a spoon rather then a peeler. Here mom is demonstrating proper spoon peeling technique:

Once I had a couple roots peeled I cut them into approximately one inch sections. I then flipped these sections so the cut side was up (and down) and sliced them thinly this direction. It's important to cut your pieces length wise because otherwise you are running against all those little fibers and it could get very hard to cut. But luckily my ginger was fairly fresh so no fiber issues.

So those steps again are: Peel:

Cut into sections:

Flip and cut sections lengthwise:

Here is my finished pile of cut ginger:

Most of the instructions for both lemon peel and ginger said you need to boil and drain them several times to get them tender before candying them. I boiled my lemon peel once and it was nice and soft and not at all bitter.

I tasted a piece of uncooked ginger and it was also nice and tender so I decided to avoid boiling it at all. (Plus it was nice and juicy and since you boil ginger to make tea wouldn't you be losing a lot of the flavor if you did this?)

Another inconsistency I found in the instructions was that a lot of people complained that most recipes call for way too much sugar syrup. Although the sugar/water ratio needs to stay the same I think that you need just enough of the liquid that the peel and ginger could float around and get coated. I ended up with about 5 cups each of sugar and water.

You then boil it until it reaches 125 degrees on a candy thermometer. What a time I had finding a candy thermometer! But that's another story. I think it probably took mine about an hour to get to this point? Of course I didn't time it because that would have made sense.

I drained my ingredients (saving the syrup that drained off) and tossed all the lemon peel and ginger into a bowl of sugar so it could get nice and sugar crusted. I had to peel a few pieces apart to make sure they all got coated and you need to be careful here because the pieces are very hot.

Here they are drained:

And sugared:

I then laid them out on wax paper to dry for a little bit and they were done! They were both delicious. The lemon peel is milder but the ginger is super intense. It's definitely only for people who really like spicy ginger. The only down side is that once they were coated in sugar the lemon and ginger was fairly indistinguishable.

Those of you with an aversion to waste might be thinking: "Whatever happened to all that syrup?" I had a plan, and it was a good one. My plan was to save the syrup to use in making delicious gingery lemon sodas by combining it with seltzer. This notion was backed up by many people who suggested saving the syrup.

Of course what I hadn't thought of was that if you are candying the ginger and lemon you are also candying the syrup. So when I initially poured it out it was nice and thick:

But within a few minutes it had begun to solidify. There would be no ginger soda for me apparently. Now our only option is to reheat the entire jar to soften it or throw the whole thing out. Not a tragic loss but still disappointing nonetheless.

And the best part about candied ginger? Ginger has medicinal uses so you can just use those as an excuse when you eat some. For example: I had a tummy ache so I needed candy, I swear.

Starting to Think About the Garden

2009-02-18T12:41:00.003-05:00

So maybe this is a little preemptive but we had a garden planning session this week. It's probably the bout of warm(er) weather but I started to feel anxious that we hadn't ordered any seeds yet. So we ordered...lots of seeds. In all we spent $30 including shipping. This may not sound super frugal but if you figure how many plants we could have bought with this had we waited till spring and bought baby plants it wouldn't have been many.

So here is the run down of what we bought and where:

From S eed Savers Exchange:

1. Ground cherries (a.k.a cape gooseberry): These are totally weirdly awesome fruit/veggie things we discovered at our local farmer's market. They are reminiscent of tomatillos with their papery husk but taste very citrusy, kind of like pineapple. And for those of you with a very good memory I posted about them last summer and even threatened to grow them.

2. Tomatillos: We love salsa verde and tomatillos are just so expensive at the farmer's markets we figured we should just grow our own.

3. Double yield cucumbers: One of the only things we were successful growing last year was cucumbers so we decided to test our luck with this variety that is supposedly "remarkably productive".

4. Dragon carrots: I really don't care for carrots, especially cooked but I can never resist a purple vegetable so we'll give these a go even though our root crops are usually wildly unsuccessful. (Our radishes are generally inedible.)

And from the Bountiful Garden's catalog (website here):

1. Lemon cucumbers: Cucumbers that look like lemons? How could I resist that!? Plus they are supposedly excellent pickles and rust and drought resistant.

2. Pak choi (a.k.a. bok choy): I love bok choy, especially in wonton soup.

3. Southern giant curled mustard greens: We needed some quick greens for the areas of the yard that get good sun early but get too shady in the late summer. This plan might work...in theory. We'll see.

4. Spearmint and peppermint: We are mint fiends. We put it in various Asian foods, I make mojitos with it and we drink unholy amounts of mint tea. We have a little in the yard but we're going all out with a whole bed this year. Mmmmm...mojitos.

We even walked around the yard and planned out what we'd put in existing beds and where we could fit some new beds. There was a lot of discussion so I used my master draftsman skills to draw up a plan so we wouldn't forget our ideas. It may be a little technical for you but it gives you a general idea:

I know that was a lot of information to take in so here is a close up of one corner in case you'd like to copy my technique:

For those of you not familiar with technical abbreviations it says (from top down): all mint bed/early greens, early greens, all cucumber. Don't be intimidated by my skills, you don't need to be so proficient in planning to design your own garden beds.

So now we need to get to work making lots of little pots out of newspaper to start seeds in. Look for a post on that soon!

Custard's Last Stand

2009-02-13T16:41:00.000-05:00

Well perhaps this isn't the last stand of custard, but it does seem to be neglected lately. Maybe I am making too much of a generalization from my experience but it seems like no one likes custardy things anymore (at least no one my age).

My guess is that it's an issue of texture. I can't get my boyfriend within 10 feet of anything too squishy. (Which makes for a tragic situation when it comes to ricotta.) Custards also seem to be very out of style. Which, as I recently discovered, is a real shame.

I had a bunch of egg yolks leftover from baking so the logical conclusion was custard. Although dad was rooting for something sweet, (coconut custard....yuck), I was in the mood for something savory. So I googled "savory custard" and I got this recipe. It seemed pretty straightforward so I tried it.

You start by putting your milk (or cream, but I had milk) in a pot along with a sprig of fresh thyme and garlic. You heat it until just steaming to infuse it with the flavor of the garlic and thyme and then remove them. Although the first time I made this I had fresh thyme I didn't the second time so I put some dried thyme in a mesh tea ball and put that in the milk. It worked fine for infusing but mom almost killed me when she tried to clean the milk out of the mesh. Oops.

Next you mix the eggs with cheese. I used Parmesan and mozzarella since I already had the pre-shredded kind (which is all mom can eat). Then you whisk in the milk very slowly. This is important because if you incorporated too much at once the heat of the milk could start to cook your eggs. And although it hasn't happened to me I'd imagine you'd get something like scrambled eggs, which is fine but not at all the point of a custard.

Then you put your ramekins (or one big dish which is what I did) into a bigger dish in an oven preheated to 300 degrees. Then you pour (very carefully!) boiling water into the outer dish without getting any in your custard. I actually managed to do this successfully, twice!

The recipe says it will take 30 minutes to cook plus more time if you used milk or a bigger dish and since I did both mine took at least 45 minutes. It's done when the mixture is not quite set, it should still jiggle a little in the middle.

The recipe is so easy (at least in terms of how difficult I figured a custard would be) and also fairly fool proof. Although it calls for 3 eggs plus 2 yolks I have done more yolks and less eggs and also once I just used 5 eggs. Both times it worked fine.

The only issue I found is that I used the sprinkly Kraft Parmesan that comes in the green bottle (don't judge me, it's cheaper!) which had a tendency to settle to the bottom so the lowest layer of my custard was a little more grainy from the cheese. But the rest of the custard came out amazingly creamy (even without cream) and the Parmesan layer didn't really bother me.

What I think is the most amazing thing about this is that it was also virtually lactose free. I used 100% lactose free Lactaid (whole) milk and the Parmesan and mozzarella were also (supposedly) lactose free. Although I did this so mom could eat it I didn't detect any loss of quality because of the adjustments.

Now mom makes fun of me because when I come home and I'm hungry and there are no leftovers I'll just whip up a quick batch of cheesy custard for a snack. But of course it's not quick at all, it actually takes about an hour (although much of that is unattended) so I end up having to have a snack while I'm waiting for my other snack to finish. Still worth it though! Long live custard!

Another T-Shirt Refashion: Tank Top

2009-02-10T16:29:00.010-05:00

After my success with my first t-shirt to tank top refashion I decided to try another one. This time I based it on a favorite halter top I already owned. I started with a kind of yucky XL men's t-shirt (I didn't' want to start with a really nice shirt since this was an experiment). Here is the before:

And after:

How I did it: I used my old shirt to design a pattern piece for the front and the back. Here are the pattern pieces:

As you can see I had a little difficulty getting a good picture.

Actually a lot of difficulty. Finally I got a good one:

Now for my boring attempt at technical instructions: both these pattern pieces are for only half, the right side of each piece is where the fold would go. The one on the left is half the front piece and the one on the right is the same half of the back piece. Tip for knits: last time I tried folding the fabric in half before cutting and it stretched all wonky. This time I cut out one side and then flipped the pattern and used it to cut the other side and this worked much better. The back piece of the shirt is pretty basic with the exception of a little flare at the bottom. The front is the same but taller. It is also not a perfect rectangle: it curves in a little at the top but not too much because I wanted to have enough fabric to scrunch up at the top of the halter. There are seam allowances on the sides of the front and back and a hem allowance on the top of the back piece. There is also a hem allowance on the top of the front but this is larger because it will also form the channel for the straps. Finally: I didn't add a hem allowance to the bottom because I used the bottom of the old t-shirt for the bottom of my new shirt because that hem is always so nice and professional looking. The strap is one long tube which I sewed and then flipping inside out, threaded through the channel at the top and sewed down in the back. Here is the back so you can see the detail:

So I had some more photography issues. And if you think that is the same cat it's not. Don't believe me? Here's proof:

Finally got a good shot:

Here is a closer one. You can see how the strap works and why it's important to make your top hem large so you can get the strap through it:

Another tip: to avoid the little logo on the shirt I cut the back piece out of the front of my old shirt (since the back is shorter) and the front piece out of the back (since the back had nothing on it).

I'm very happy with the result especially considering it was an experimental version. I'm definitely going to play around with the pattern and fabric and try other versions. If this was made a little looser there is no reason it would have to be made from a knit.

Pupusas

2009-02-06T10:39:00.000-05:00

In my ideal world I'd be going out to eat a few times a week and writing about it for you here. But there are several obstacles to that the biggest one being I'm poor, super poor (getting laid off will do that to you). Another problem with that is that I can't be bothered to take pictures of what I'm eating while I'm eating it. Finally, I don't know about you guys but I'm not crazy about reading about a restaurant there is never any chance of me eating at. So I have a new strategy: when I go out to eat if there is something I really enjoy I'll try to reproduce it at home and document the results here. That way you can try it at home even if you are a thousand miles away from the restaurant I found it at.

First up: pupusas! Yeah I didn't know what they were either when I saw them on the menu. My friend Michelle (who seems to know all the interesting places to eat in Providence) took me to La Hacienda in Olneyville Square (apparently this is the second restaurant of the same name by the same people) recently to try to the pupusas. A note on Olneyville: we don't really have "scary" parts of Rhode Island but if we did this would be it. But surprisingly (actually not that surprisingly) Olneyville has a lot of fabulous places to eat. This is of course if your definition of fabulous is unusual, delicious, inexpensive food. Maybe not so much if you'd rather not see passed out homeless dudes in the middle of the day on your way into the restaurant.

Back to pupusas: although I'd never had them before they were quite familiar. They are made with basically the same dough as tamales (masa flour) but instead of being wrapped in corn husks and steamed these are stuffed with a filling, squished flat and fried, then served with a sort of coleslaw and salsa. (This place also served everything with an ungodly amount of cilantro, which can be forgiven, but I think I'll leave that out.) Although I believe the restaurant is Mexican these are technically Salvadorian.

So here's how we made ours: we started with the filling. My research showed that there are a ton of different options but we went with pork. We started by sauteing cubes:

We then added green peppers, onions and sofrito (a tomato based sauce):

When it was all cooked we shredded it, and by shredded I mean we tried that for awhile and then ended up chopping it:

To mix up the dough I just combined masa flour and water until it felt like the right consistency. How did I know what that was? I experimented to make sure it wasn't so dry that it would crack when shaped but not so wet that it fell apart.

Although some of the instructions said that traditionally you make a ball of dough, stuff it with meat and then squish it into a patty, I knew I couldn't handle that. Other advice suggested that we make two tortillas and then put the stuffing in between them. This was much easier especially since we own...a tortilla press!

Basically you line it with seran wrap, put a ball of dough in between the two metal pieces and use the handle to squish it into a nice flat tortilla. This worked fine but we hit one final snag. If I made the tortillas and then stuffed them and sealed the edges they came out with a huge lump the in the middle and didn't cook evenly at all. My brilliant revelation: squish them in the tortilla press again after they've been filled! It worked brilliantly and these were very close to what I had at the restaurant:

These are the finished pupusas. You can see that the top one is before I came up with my brilliant technique and it didn't cook quite as evenly.

Here is the final product with the salsa, coleslaw type thingy (cabbage, green pepper, and some seasoning which I've since forgotten) and some extra filling on the side because we made way more then I had patience to stuff into pupusas.

Do me a favor and search pictures of pupusas on google. Don't mine look just like the pictures?!

And yes that is a glass of OJ on the side. I'm classy like that.

These were fabulous but just as big a pain in the ass as tamales...which we make once every decade or so.

So the conclusion? Find a place near you that sells pupusas for like 2 or 3 bucks and just get those. This is one of those foods that if you can get it so well done and so cheap at a restaurant...why would you bother at home?

(Not a very auspicious start to my restaurant recipe theft series is it?)

More Karma

2009-02-02T12:56:00.005-05:00

If we were good Americans we'd buy prepackaged ginger tea and pesto in tubs at the grocery store. But we're not, we make our pesto from our own basil and ginger tea from whole ginger roots we grate ourselves. (Coincidentally both of these we freeze in ice cube trays and store in ziplock bags in the freezer.) This doesn't do much to stimulate the economy. In fact we may single handedly be bringing down the American economy (except of course for the ziplock bag industry).

And karma is a bitch. Want to guess what happened or do you need a hint? Fine I'll just tell you: pesto tea. It was bad but perhaps not as disastrous as the alternative: ginger and Parmesan on pasta.

Exhibit A: Tray full of frozen pesto.

Doesn't look much like ginger does it? We're currently accepting donations for the Mom needs new glasses fund.

Martha Would Be Ashamed of Me

2009-02-01T14:45:00.017-05:00

I'm sorry Martha, I Sandra Lee'd it! (If you're not familiar with the Food Network star she uses packets of taco seasoning and pre-made everything as shortcuts therefore if you "Sandra Lee" it you take a cooking shortcut involving some sort of processed food.)

I've been doing more baking from one of Martha Stewart's books (Martha Stewart's Baking Handbook) and I've got to admit, I took a few shortcuts. The first short cut isn't actually that bad. Martha has a recipe for fougasse which actually just points you to her french bread recipe but with a different method of shaping it. Her recipe requires you to start a day ahead of time and since I wanted the bread that day and not the next I just used my regular old bread recipe.

On that note I should mention that I've come up with a pretty effective flour ratio to make bread that isn't too crumbly. I use 4 parts bread flour, 1 part whole wheat and 3 parts all purpose flour. So for one batch that is usually 2 cups bread flour, 1/2 whole wheat and 1.5 all purpose flour. The reason I don't use entirely bread flour is that it is more expensive than regular flour but without it my bread comes out too crumbly.

So I followed Martha's instructions for shaping and here is the loaf:

It's supposed to be leaf like? At least it still tasted good but I probably should have stuck with her recipe.

The next escapade was crackers. Since I have less experience making crackers when I tried her recipe I actually followed all the instructions (well up to a point.)

I'm not sure these were technically crackers since they had a little yeast in them, they were actually more like pita bread but either way they were fabulous.

The only hitch in the instructions was that they tell you to use a pasta machine to roll out the crackers. Since we actually have a pasta machine I dusted it off and attempted to roll out the crackers and was totally unsuccessful. Her alternative suggestion was to just use a rolling pin. For me this ended up being so much easier. So why does she point you to such an obscure piece of equipment if a much more common one works just as well (if not better)?

Despite the fact that some came out inexplicably puffy they were really good. They are flavored with Parmesan and rosemary and although this combination was great I can think of tons of others that would be too.

Now I'm afraid I must fess up to my latest baking adventure for which I really pulled a Sandra Lee. I was so tempted by Martha's chocolate mocha roulade recipe that I needed to try it. What's better than basically a giant Swiss Cake Roll? (Sad that Little Debbie is my culinary reference for these.)

I did fine with the cakey part (although it's almost more like a meringue than a cake). I even whipped the egg yolks and whites by hand (with a little slave labor assistance). But then it came time to make the filling and I realized that even if I went out and bought cream to whip (not more whipping!) Mom still wouldn't be able to eat it (lactose intolerance). Then the powers of evil began to do their work on me and I decided that if I bought Cool Whip that would not only save me the trouble, but it is also lactose free! Plus it probably wouldn't cost me much more then a container of cream to whip. I was sold and I've got to say, I don't really regret it. The roulade came out great and it was already enough work without having to make the filling too.

Now to be fair, these recipes are fairly complicated and I will probably need a little more practice baking before I can execute them flawlessly. But I still feel guilty, sorry Martha! (I didn't even take a picture of it, I'm too embarrassed.)

Notebook Case

2009-01-28T12:04:00.009-05:00

I can't take up a new hobby without being a total nerd about it so when I became more interested in wine and began reading about it I came across a suggestion that you keep notes of all the wines you try. This made a lot of sense to me because if I drank one glass of a wine that I liked at a restaurant, what was the likelihood that a month from then I'd remember the variety or where it came from, let alone the name of the vineyard?

So I bought myself a little tiny notebook for like 86 cents figuring I would carry it with me in my luggage sized purse so when I tried a wine I could just write down the basics about it plus how much I liked it. It then occurred to me that the inside of my purse can be a brutal environment where things get worn, bent and sticky. I don't get the chance to try wine as often as I'd like so if this notebook was to survive long enough to get filled up, how would I protect it?

The most obvious solution to protect an 86 cent notebook was of course to spend hours making a cover. So I found some scraps from an old pair of jeans and cut out two pouches, one just a tiny bit bigger then the other. I sewed up three of the sides on each pouch and then put one inside the other and sewed the tops together (leaving a gap so they could be flipped inside out). I then used the gap to flip them and I had a lined pouch with no raw edges (except of course of course for the gap which I sewed up.

(There were some complicated deductions in there to make sure that the pouch ended up with the right sides out and the wrong sides hidden on the inside but it was done by trial and error so I'm not going to try to explain it because I don't really remember.)

I almost forgot, when I was sewing the tops of the two pouches together I also stuck in a tab of denim I had made so I could make a closure. When it was all done I added on a snap to the tab and the bag to keep the notebook inside.

If these don't sound like very good instructions it's because they aren't. I basically just made it up as I went along since I have no patience for patterns or instructions. In the end though it worked out pretty well and it was a free way to prolong the life of my 86 cent notebook! (Am I cheap or what?)

But with the money I saved I can buy more wine, which was the point of this whole endeavor to begin with.

All Cookied Out

2009-01-24T10:46:00.031-05:00

Despite being unemployed I've actually been quite busy. The last few days I've been baking, cooking, baking and then cooking some more. Plus there was a little sewing and embroidery thrown in there. Because of this I've got quite a backlog of projects to report and I'll start with what was probably the most ridiculous undertaking.

Sunday (well technically I started Friday and haven't really finished yet) I baked a lot of cookies. I mean really, a lot, probably at least 7 or 8 dozen. Although it was kind of for a bake off I was the only one who ended up baking cookies which was fine because I just like having an excuse to make ridiculously fancy cookies, especially if I can find other people to eat most of them.

All the recipes came from Martha Stewart's Cookies. I've now tried seven recipes from that book and she hasn't failed me once, although that does not mean that they are all easy either. Here are the four I made this weekend:

Cigarettes Russes:

For these I had to make a very thin dough which chilled in the fridge overnight. The next day I spread small dollops very thinly on a buttered air bake pan (I didn't have those baking mats the recipe called for and frankly I didn't need them, but the air bake pans were essential). These went into the oven until they just started to brown the tiniest bit around the edges.

(An action shot of dollop spreading.)

Now here was the tricky part: they had to be rolled around a chopstick almost instantly or they wouldn't be pliable. The recipe said to do four at a time but I found that even with the boyfriend helping we could only do two at a time. Plus, if the dough cooked a minute too long it was unrollable. In addition we needed super thin dowels to get them to come out nice and narrow but the dowels, even with a generous coating of butter, still liked to get stuck once you'd rolled the cookie around it.

Finally we got the hang of rolling them but the process was so tedious we got less than two dozen done because of time constraints.

For decoration they got dipped in melted chocolate and then rolled in almonds. Next up:

Dark Chocolate Cookies with Cranberries

I think I've said this before but I think there are few things better then chocolate and cranberries. Because of this, when the recipe called for dried sour cherries (where the heck was I supposed to find those?) I thought dried cranberries would make an acceptable alternative, and perhaps an improvement.

For these cookies you make a chocolatey dough with cocoa powder, then mix in the dried cranberries and more chocolate. They called for bittersweet chocolate but of course all I had in the house was about 4 pounds of unsweetened chocolate and some semisweet chocolate. According to my research bittersweet chocolate is somewhere in between unsweetened and semisweet in terms of its cocoa content. So I just split the difference and used half of each to try to approximate bittersweet.

Here are the cookies before they were baked. I was dubious they would turn out looking like cookies but I should have know, don't doubt Martha.

Tada! Cookies! Next up we have:

Cornmeal Thyme Cookies with "Currants"

From the second I read this recipe I knew I had to try it. Truth be told I'm actually not that into sweets. (With the exception of course of my chocolate rampages which necessitate I eat something chocolatey and usually result in making brownies in the middle of the night.) But back to the cornmeal cookies: they appealed to me because they are actually more savory then sweet and I couldn't resist a cookie recipe that called for thyme!

I was also intrigued by using dried currants in a cookie. That was of course until I went to the grocery store to look for dried currants only to find the only thing they carried were zante currants which are actually little tiny raisins. Which made me wonder, which had this recipe intended? Do they actually sell dried currants anywhere in the United States? So I went with the zante currants which were still good but not nearly as exciting as dried currants would have been. I also splurged for fresh thyme because it seemed like dry thyme just wouldn't have been quite the same.

These are the finished cookies. They ended up being closer to cornbread then a cookie, a perfect accompaniment for tea. And finally:

Cappuccino Chocolate Bites

The first step in making these was to make the chocolate goo that went in the middle. It was simply cream and chocolate which was heated and mixed, then chilled overnight, and then whisked. (I'll admit I got a little help from my prep chefs with the whisking, I'm a bad whisker, no upper body strength).

Then it was time to make the cappuccino cookies. They were flavored with fine ground cappuccino grounds (I cheated and used instant). I rolled the dough out according to their instructions and began to cut out the cookies only to find that the dough got soft so quickly (perhaps as a result of the high butter content) that it was hard to get the shapes out without destroying them. What I ended up having to do was put them on the porch (it was 20 degrees out) every few minutes to chill them so I could continue working with them.

Once I had them all cut out, cooked and cooled I filled a piping bag with the chocolate and began to pipe it onto the cookies.

In the end I ended up having at least twice as much filling as I needed (but don't worry, I made another batch of dough today and used it all up.) This was surprising since I haven't found any other serious flaws with the recipes so far. As a final touch these cookies got a dusting of cocoa powder and confectioners sugar.

Here are some of the cookies ready to go to the party (I left a few at home, it wouldn't have quite been fair otherwise).

I don't want to think about cookies again any time soon. I even had to take a few days break from eating them, I got sick of the smell of butter if you can imagine that.

I almost forgot to mention the biggest revelation, I didn't have to cream all the butter and sugar together by hand. It finally occurred to me to try it in my food processor and it worked perfectly! To think I'd been doing it by hand this whole time. Although there is additional clean up with this method if you are making as many cookies as I was it still saved time over doing it by hand. (And also, as I mentioned, I don't have much upper body strength so creaming by hand is a lengthy process.)

That was a lot of cookie related information so here is a wrap up of what I thought of each recipe, in case you decide to try them too:

Cigarettes Russes: Although technically and visually impressive the flavor was really close to a sugar cookie so I'm not really sure they warranted the effort.

Dark Chocolate Cookies with Cranberries: The substitution of cranberries worked perfectly and these were definitely popular. They weren't that difficult and although the recipe makes a huge batch of dough it can be frozen so you can make only as many as want and save the rest for easy cookies some other time.

Cornmeal Thyme Cookies with "currants": These were surprisingly popular and were also the most unusual of the cookies I made. Although fairly simple to make they are more on the sophisticated side so I wouldn't suggest making them for a children's birthday party (unless of course you have weird kids who like cornbread cookies with herbs in them.)

Cappuccino Chocolate Bites: By far the most popular cookie I tried but also a big pain in the tuches (which means ass in Yiddish but somehow seems less offensive). The dough was difficult because it had to be frozen every few minutes to be workable so you either need a big freezer or very cold weather. The filling was also tricky because it has to be made ahead of time and then whipped up for use and finally piped onto the cookies (although I also did it with a butter knife which worked fine). And of course, to top it all off, they don't transport well because the cookies are fragile and the filling is very squishable. But despite all this they were still worth it, so doesn't that really say something for their flavor? But as cautionary note: I think they contain more butter than anything else so I wouldn't try to substitute margarine, their flavor is too dependent on butteryness.

After all this cookie consumption one would think I'd want to exercise to work off all that butter, but then clearly one doesn't know me very well. I'm off to do more baking.

Black Bean Salsa: A Healthier Party Snack

2009-01-15T11:18:00.008-05:00

I've been talking a lot about all the cookies I've been feeding my friends and family but out of fear that I might contribute to the onset of Type 2 diabetes among them I decided I needed a healthier alternative.

Coming up with healthy snacks to bring to a party is harder then I expected. It should be something you can eat out of hand, it has to be as good a couple hours after it was made as when it was first assembled (if not better) and it probably should be able to sit at room temperature for awhile. Once I added healthy and vegan on to this I was practically stumped.

So I went back to that old stand by: salsa. But this isn't store bought salsa, it's much better and more practical in the winter then a tomato based salsa (most of the tomatoes in our stores are too expensive or not worth eating.)

All you need is a can of black beans (or you could make your own, if you have the time), some green and or red pepper (or yellow, or orange), onion, and frozen corn.

I simply chop the peppers and onion and add them to the black beans (which I rinse). I throw the frozen corn in boiling water for just a couple of minutes and then drain and let it cool before adding it.

For the seasoning I used cumin, coriander, sea salt, garlic powder, lime juice (or was it lemon?) and a little bit of oil (olive or one with a more neutral taste, like peanut).

I'm not sure if this step really adds anything but I'm a slave to the instructions of all the Indian recipes I've read: I toast the whole cumin and coriander before grinding them up. I do this by throwing them in a little cast iron skillet over medium heat, stirring fairly constantly until they get toasty but not burned.

I mix about a tablespoon of oil into the salad and a couple of tablespoons of lemon (or was it lime?) juice. I then mix in the spices, salt and garlic powder. As for measurements....I never have any. I do pretty much everything by eyeball and to taste.

Here it is:

Nice and healthy right? Of course I negated much of that by serving it with store bought tortilla chips. If I had more time in the future I might attempt something healthier but I have to admit, the scoop shaped chips really are handy.

P.S. You could clearly add tomatoes if they were in season but I like having a recipe that is not dependent on them for the 2/3's of the year when the ones at the store taste like cardboard.

Shirt to Shirt Refashion

2009-01-14T12:11:00.016-05:00

The back story: this past Halloween I was working at a chain coffee shop and my boss told us we could wear whatever we wanted (as long as it didn't violate any health code regulations) for a costume. I thought it would be hilarious to come dressed in the uniform of a competing chain. (It was quite funny but not so funny when our store closed its doors less than two months later.)

Of course a uniform wasn't nearly as easy to obtain as I had hoped but one of my coworkers got this shirt for me to wear:

If you can't tell it's a Dunkin Donuts shirt. I think it cost her about 50 cents so after Halloween I held onto the shirt thinking the material might be good for something.

It is made of a really thick soft knit so recently it occurred to me that I should try my hand at making a tank top (since they charge $8 and up for them). The shirt is x-large which allowed me to avoid the embroidery.

I used one of my favorite shirts as a pattern and cut out a front and back piece. I also cut out a piece of woven print fabric that I sewed onto the top of the front. I did this by putting the right side of the little woven piece against the wrong side of the knit, sewing along just the top and then flipping it around to the front so the top was a finished edge.

I then used orange lace hem tape to sew down the bottom of the woven piece. I zipped up the sides of the shirt and all that was left was straps. (The bottom didn't need finishing because I used the bottom of the original shirt.)

I used the woven fabric to make the straps and then sewed more of the orange lace over that. To cover up where the straps were sewn on I added two covered buttons. I made the buttons using this nifty kit that comes with metal fronts and backs. All you do it cut a circle of fabric and use their little rubber contraption to snap the two metal pieces together with the edges of the fabric tucked in between.

It's a fairly horrendous closeup but you can see the button and the straps.

Despite the frustration of sewing with knits (pieces never quite come out the same shape as the pattern you cut them from) I am happy with how it came out. I am also getting used to not having to finish as many edges since knits don't really unravel, I may never go back to woven fabric.

Oh and as for the cost; the shirt was free (the coworker gave it to me, I guess the look on my boss's face when I showed up was worth 50 cents to her), and the lace, fabric and buttons were from the stash. So all it cost me was my time (which I have plenty of these days anyway).

Karma?

2009-01-12T19:43:00.012-05:00

Today mom found a wasp in the house. We don't know how he got there but one can only imagine that he was taking refuge from the cold. Because it's only getting up to about 20 or 25 degrees here mom couldn't bear the thought of putting him outside because it would have meant fairly immediate death (or so we think, we're not entomologists).

So instead she transferred him to our verdant back porch to live among the potted plants. She used one of these handy bug catchers:

We have several and they are indispensable for humane bug removal. I have no idea where you could find them but I highly recommend them.

Of course I protested because the wasp's new home happened to be along the route I travel many times a day to get to my part of the house.

I'm not sure what this means in terms of karma but several hours later this is what my boyfriend spotted on the back porch, right where mom had relocated the wasp to:

So instead of saving him from freezing to death (which in this case I think is preferable) she delivered him into the waiting jaws of this horrible gross terrifying spider. (Can you tell I really don't like spiders?) (In fact I dislike them so much that I wouldn't have been able to take these pictures, the boyfriend did using the macro lens on his camera and I get the willies just looking at them.)

Although I guess technically I should be grateful that the spider saved me from the possibility of getting stung I'm really not, I'm more worried about what that spider could do to me considering he had no problem taking down a wasp. Yuck.

Since I can't bear to end a post on that note how about something much cuter, like Wiggin in the snow?

Awww, he's so handsome. But what I can't figure out is how he can stand to have his butt directly on the cold snow like that.

The Final Homemade Holiday Gift

2009-01-12T13:44:00.000-05:00

I know I already said this but I swear this is the final post this season about homemade holiday gifts. This one is a little belated because I didn't even see the recipient until after New Year's.

Here it is:

Although Toaster wasn't part of the gift...isn't that belly just irresistible? It looks so soft and white and downy, I always succumb and rub it, only to be reminded that it is just a trap waiting to be sprung. No matter how asleep he looks he is just waiting for you to get close enough so he can bite your hand. But he is only there so provide a size reference for what was supposed to be the subject of this post: the owl.

I made the wall hanging for a collector of owl related items. Here is a close up:

I started by having my boyfriend (who is more artistically inclined then me) draw a simplified version of a Great Gray Owl from a book on owls. I then used this as a pattern to cut out a piece of hound's tooth fabric which I appliqued to the white background. I then used mostly chain stitch to add in the detail. The eyes came out a little googly, I definitely need more practice with my embroidery.

In order to make the embroidery into a hanging I added a border of dark paisley around the white rectangle. I then lined it with a white layer and added some pretty green fabric for a backing. I sewed in three tabs to put a dowel through and tied green cord to that.

Although I wasn't totally satisfied with my embroidery skills adding the border and backing made it much more appealing. I just think I need to design myself a sampler or something so I can practice a few more stitches. Maybe I should do a sampler made entirely of eyes! That would be both creepy and very helpful.

More Cookies!

2009-01-11T18:52:00.013-05:00

Since a copy of Martha Stewart's Cookies miraculously arrived at my doorstep recently I will share with you a couple more of the recipes I tried.

First there were chocolate biscotti. Although the recipe calls for pistachios I decided to substitute almonds and I couldn't resist throwing in some dried cranberries (because I think cranberries and chocolate is a much overlooked flavor combination).

Making biscotti is halfway between making brownies and cookies. You begin by making a very dry dough which you form into a giant log. This gets baked, is allowed to cool, then sliced into individual biscottis which are baked further.

Here is my loaf after the initial time in the oven. (Sorry for the dark picture.) It crackled a little more on top then I expected which made slicing it without it falling apart a little difficult.

Here are my sliced biscotti. I didn't do the best slicing job ever but I'm not very patient when it comes to these things.

Despite the crumbling issues they were delicious. When they first came out of the oven they were still nice and gooey inside but after a few days (yes they stayed good for quite awhile) they attained the dry consistency one expects from biscotti (although not the tooth breaking consistency one finds in bad store bought biscotti).

For my next recipe I chose pumpkin cookies with brown butter icing. These were a perfect choice because they gave me the opportunity to use up some of our backlog of canned pumpkin. The only hitch was that both the cookies and icing called for evaporated milk and because of mom's lactose intolerance this isn't an option.

This led me to research evaporated milk alternatives the most common of which seemed to be diluting powdered milk with only two thirds the usual liquid. Of course this isn't very helpful because powdered milk also isn't an option for us.

But since evaporated milk (unlike sweetened condensed milk) is supposedly just milk with some of its liquid evaporated I figured I could just do that myself.

So I put a couple cups of milk in a small pan on very low heat on the stove and measured its depth so I would know when it was almost half evaporated. And I waited....and waited...and waited. After a long time (perhaps hours) it was finally reduced by half. Since I don't have any basis for comparison (I've never bought or used evaporated milk) I'm not sure how close an approximation it was but I do know my cookies came out fabulous.

Between the evaporated milk, the butter and the pumpkin they were ridiculously moist and the spices (cinnamon, ginger and nutmeg) made them very reminiscent of pumpkin pie and gingerbread.

The icing was an adventure in and of itself. I haven't really done much with brown butter before so trying that was a surprise. One second you just have a pan of hot butter and the next brown bits begin to appear suddenly. With the addition of confectioner's sugar, evaporated milk and vanilla to the butter the icing was also ridiculously good.

Look at those brown flecks in the icing, just like the recipe said!

You'd think that everyone would be grateful for the delicious bounty that my new hobby provides but of course someone had to decide they were on a diet so now I'm being cruel every time I bake something delicious.

But I don't think that these cookies were even that bad, I mean they had pumpkin and cranberries, they should just count as fruit!

P.S. Some of you may have noticed that despite my concerns about lactose in my cookies I still use butter. There are several good reasons for this.

1. Butter is just better, although I use margarine or vegetable oil for lots of things for cookies it just seems silly since so much of their flavor comes from the butter itself.

2. Butter isn't actually that bad in terms of its lactose content because it is mostly fat (and therefore the ratio of lactose is much lower). On the other hand skim milk is much worse because with the fat removed there is much more lactose in the same amount of volume.

Oatmeal Raisin Applesauce Cookies

2008-12-31T19:44:00.003-05:00

Maybe it’s the cold weather, or perhaps the fact that because of my lack of employment I am home all the time, or maybe it’s pastry withdrawal since I don’t get them free from work anymore, but whatever the reason I’ve been on a baking kick lately.

I am really not a cookie person, I don’t generally make them or eat them but at this time of year there is something very appealing about them. Plus they make the perfect snack to bring to a party. So for a recent get together I made a batch of oatmeal raisin applesauce cookies from Martha Stewart’s Cookie book. This is the first recipe I have tried from that book but generally I find her recipes to be well tested and very reliable. This one was no exception.

The addition of applesauce to a traditional oatmeal raisin cookie allows you to cut down on the butter without sacrificing any of the moisture. (Plus I got a chance to use our homemade applesauce!) My only addition was a little bit of cinnamon to the batter (because I like my oatmeal raisin cookies spiced). I even followed her recipe for the frosting; it is just water, confectioner’s sugar and maple syrup.

The cookies were fabulously moist and chewy (I’m not a fan of dry cookies) and they were quickly devoured. I don’t think I will even consider making oatmeal raisin cookies without applesauce again.

Since my copy of this book is a loaner from the library I will have to test a few more recipes before I decide if it’s useful enough to own so keep you eyes out for those too!

P.S. Happy New Year!

Homemade Holiday Gifts: Part 3

2008-12-29T13:01:00.000-05:00

Here is the last installment of the series of posts about the gifts we made this year.

Baby bibs for one of my younger fans:

We came up with the pattern through some trial and error. Here is a close up of the embroidery:

This is the first official piece of S.Y.F.O.S. merchandise.

I also made a couple more bracelets:

I buy the chains already assembled and add the beads. I also got these cute tins to send them in:

Next we have a hat that mom knit for dad. She used brown yarn for the ribbing and a variegated yarn for the rest:

Mom also made throw pillow covers as a gift. She made piping to match using bias tape and the piping filling cord you can buy at craft stores.

Finally we sent out some of our own canned goods. We dressed them up with nice cloth covers and added legible labels so people would know what they were getting.

That's it for now. Hopefully now that I don't have to be so secretive I can post more regularly.

Latkes

2008-12-28T18:18:00.000-05:00

Although I will return to the homemade gift themed posts I'd like to take a break to tell you about the extent of our Hanukkah celebration.

We always light candles on the first night, and usually the second, and occasionally we make it to the third night before we forget completely. This year we didn't even make it to the third night but we did make latkes!

So why as such bad followers of tradition do we feel compelled to still make latkes every year? Because they are ridiculously good that's why. Actually I'm not sure why we don't make them more often. (That's a lie, it's because they are fried and mom only lets us make fried foods on rare occasions.)

We use the Molly Goldberg Jewish Cookbook for our recipe. For our potatoes this year we tried russets and they worked fabulously. The latkes were crispy on the outside but still mushy on the inside (you want a little of that) and the potatoes were dry enough that the strips of shredded potato held up and didn't become one amorphous glob of potato and egg. And although you can grate the potatoes by hand if that is your only option a food processor makes it much easier.

We served our latkes with our own take on the traditional accompaniments of sour cream and apple sauce. In past years this has meant Mott's and sour cream for me and dad but not mom (lactose intolerance).

This year we did much better: we used our homemade applesauce in place of Mott's. As a substitute for sour cream we used mom's homemade yogurt (made with lactose free milk so she can eat it). If you haven't had much experience with plain unsweetened yogurt it might sound like an odd substitute for sour cream but it really works.

Keep an eye out for future posts where I will explain how we make yogurt and its many other varied uses.

Homemade Holiday Gifts: Part 2

2008-12-24T14:32:00.007-05:00

As promised here are more homemade gifts and again I didn't actually do these:

My boyfriend did this for his 10 year old sister who coincidentally has the same name as me.

This t-shirt is for his brother. He got extra use out of the stencil he made for the picture by using it to make this shirt. (Please ignore the ugly comforter, it is old and I'm sure was more attractive before it faded.)

More soon! Enjoy the rest of your Xmas eve and Xmas day!

Homemade Holiday Gifts Part 1

2008-12-22T19:45:00.016-05:00

Like so many other bloggers I have been busy working on holiday gifts but haven’t been able to post about them for fear of ruining the surprise.

For certain people I think it’s safe to start posting their gifts so here is the first round.

And I must be truthful; I didn’t have anything to do with this really (with the exception of some consultation). The boyfriend is giving these to his family:

This one is for his mom, it is an older piece that he just matted and framed. Although it's not typical of what he usually does it was one of the few things we could actually picture in his mom's house.

This one was done specifically with his little brother in mind and if you knew him you'd know just how appropriate it is.

Although my pictures don't really do the colors justice you get the idea. More gifts to come!

Frugal Lunch: Winter Edition

2008-12-21T13:05:00.009-05:00

Sometimes a cold lunch or leftovers just won’t cut it for me, I want something hot and maybe a little fancy....but I'm too poor to go our for lunch. Who am I kidding? This is pretty much the battle I have everyday. Good news, I've come up with at least one solution.

I recently got inspired by a lunch at a local diner and came up with this: baked pasta with cheese and sauce (although in Rhode Island I should really call it gravy). This may sound ridiculously simple (which is the point) but it had never occurred to me to make a version of baked pasta simple enough that it wasn’t reserved for nice dinners. Usually baked pasta to me involves ricotta (which in our case has to be homemade) and means a lot of baking. Finally it occurred to me, baked pasta could be as simple as just pasta, sauce, cheese and a toaster oven.

First cook any kind of pasta (I like penne with ridges myself) until it is done to your liking. This is where most recipes would tell you not to overcook your pasta, but who am I to tell you not to overcook it? Sure I like my pasta a little al dente but for all I know you like mooshy pasta, so I’m going to say cook it however you like it. Eat it raw if you really want to.

Once your pasta is drained mix it with a little pasta sauce. Jarred sauce is just fine but homemade would be good too if you have it around. Then top with shredded mozzarella and maybe a little Parmesan. You could even add some dried herbs and garlic powder if you felt really crazy (or if, like me, you find most store bought sauce not seasoned to your liking).

Now here is the trick for me: I’m lucky enough to have a baking dish that fits perfectly into my toaster oven so I can just use that to broil my pasta. Otherwise you’ll have to do it in your oven. I just broil it enough to heat up the sauce and brown my cheese. Again, I like some brown bits on the cheese but if you don’t that’s ok too.

Voila! You’re lunch is ready and it’s just that much more special then plain old pasta with sauce but it’s well worth it.

Here are your before and after broiling pictures. It should only take a few minutes for the cheese to get nice and toasty so you have to keep a pretty close eye on it.

P.S. Happy Winter Solstice and first night of Hanukkah!

Swamp Yankee Soda

2008-12-19T13:22:00.004-05:00

What is Swamp Yankee soda? Well it's definitely not name brand soda because Swamp Yankees are too frugal for that. But at the same time it wouldn't be generic soda because Swamp Yankees are too self reliant and ingenious for that. I actually have no idea if there is Swamp Yankee soda and what it would be but I imagine Swamp Yankees with more adventurous palates might like some of my favorites.

We haven’t kept soda in the house for years but I have to admit, I am a sucker for carbonation. For a long time I bought the flavored cans of seltzer (which still have no sugar) but I eventually just switched to regular seltzer. It’s great to keep on hand because it is good plain (at least I think so, I’m sure there are lots of people who would disagree) but it’s also great for cocktails or homemade soda.

Lately, perhaps out of boredom (having no job will do that to you) I’ve gotten more creative with the flavors of soda I attempt. A favorite has always been seltzer mixed with a little almond syrup but an even better variation is with a drop of rose water.

I have also started to use the syrups we made like our rosehip syrup which is delicious and a source of vitamin C!

But the best and most popular discovery so far is…maple soda. I just mix a few spoonfuls of maple syrup (but it must be very good very real maple syrup) with a little bit of seltzer until the syrup is dissolved and then I top up with the rest of the seltzer. It is important not to mix all your seltzer too vigorously because you will lose the carbonation which is basically the whole point of seltzer.

With just seltzer, chocolate syrup and milk on hand you can make an authentic New York egg cream! (No egg or cream required.) Although purists and Brooklynites will demand you use Fox’s U-Bet chocolate syrup I won’t insist. I usually put a couple tablespoons chocolate syrup in a cup with an inch or two of milk and mix this and then top up with a couple more inches of seltzer.

Or, if you are feeling really crazy, you can make an alcoholic egg cream. Since I’d like to believe that I’m the only one who has come up with this brilliant idea I’m not going to research it so please don’t tell me if it already exists. The idea is very simple: you just substitute Creme de Cocao (chocolate liqueur) for the chocolate syrup and make the same way.

The makings of your basic egg cream.

First: just chocolate syrup and milk.

Mix well, in fact do a better job then I did.

Next: add seltzer and ignore our messy table. You may be thinking: is that a stuffed loon I see? In which case you aren't ignoring the messy table like I asked you.

The result: a very foamy egg cream. Try not to make your as foamy as mine, I got careless. And how did that Creme de Cacao get in the picture? I swear I didn't do that, I think someone was trying to send me a hint.

Any other good soda flavor ideas out there for me to try?

Squirrel Feeding

2008-12-18T20:00:00.000-05:00

It was very interesting to hear from some of you that you are having very different acorn related conditions this year. I was even tempted to request donations for our poor squirrels.

Keeping them in mind we have changed the way we look at food scraps. Instead of thinking first of the trash or compost we try to figure out a way to give them to the squirrels (and birds of course.)

A good recent example: we were negligent in our fire-keeping-going so our latest batch of dried apples ending up getting moldy.

It was quite disappointing, although it could have also been due partly to the type we used and not just our negligence. Instead of throwing them in the compost I decided to string them up all nicely for the squirrels.

The squirrels were so appreciative that they promptly ripped the string off the tree we had tied it to.

Dad rescued it from the soggy ground and I restrung them all onto wire. This worked much better and they stayed dry in the tree while the squirrels nibbled them off one by one.

Our next opportunity to recycle our leftovers was when dad trimmed the fat off pork while making posole. Instead of throwing the fat out it went into a cast iron skillet to be cooked over low heat. The yummy crunchy bits (a.k.a cracklings) went onto our posole in place of fried pork skins and the melted fat got mixed with birdseed and poured into plastic containers to make our own homemade suet. Although you could just save the plastic from commercial suet and use that as your mold dad took the easier route (note the sarcasm) and made his own metal suet cage to fit a more readily available size of plastic container.

The squirrels are so appreciative of this homemade suet that not only do they eat it all outside, they even found a way onto the porch to eat the extra we were saving!

More good news on the apple drying front: the recent arrival of an apple corer/peeler/slicer will make future batches much quicker.

It is amazing to see this thing in action, it is such an old invention but I couldn’t imagine anything that would work more efficiently. Unless maybe you attached one to a windmill so it did the turning for you. But I don’t think we have quite enough apples to warrant that quite yet.

Frittatatatatata

2008-12-16T17:17:00.006-05:00

First some personal news relevant to this blog. I got laid off! That's right, I showed up at a mandatory meeting only to be told the store was closing that instant! The only upside is that I did get some severance pay but even with that I will still need to be even more frugal then ever. Although for the blog that is a good thing because it is keeping with the theme. Plus now I have more time to work on projects although I can't show some of them right now, at least not until after the holidays.

Back to the serious business of food: Frittatas are really a neglected egg preparation. Omelets get so much attention but they take more attention and need to be made right before eating. Frittatas are wonderful because there is a lot more flexibility, you don’t have to fold the darn thing or anything goofy like that and it can easily be made ahead of time. In fact I dare say that they are better leftover when served at room temperature. Finally, they are filling enough to be an entree but economical because even without meat they are still substantial and savory.

Although I previously included the recipe here I'm going to give it to you again plus a recent addition I made:

Ingredients:
olive oil
1 lb. zucchini
8 eggs
3 cloves garlic, chopped
12 fresh basil leaves, chopped
1/4 cup grated Parmesan
fresh grated pepper

Steps:

Grate zucchini into a colander, sprinkle with salt, let drain for 30 minutes or more, squeeze moisture from zucchini.

Heat 2 tablespoons olive oil and saute zucchini and garlic on medium high until soft (2-5 minutes). Remove from heat, let cool.

Beat eggs, add basil, Parmesan, pepper, zucchini and garlic and mix well.

Preheat oven proof skillet (we use cast iron) with 2 tablespoons olive oil over low heat. Add egg mixture, cover pan and turn heat to very low and cook until eggs are cooked almost to the top (about 10 minutes).

Pre-heat broiler, put eggs under broiler until top is browned and puffed (about 5 minutes).
Remove from heat and let cool, loosen with spatula and invert onto plate. Enjoy!

(Adapted from Cucina Fresca by Viana La Place and Evan Kleiman.)

Is that a well loved copy or what?

So here is my recent variation: I added cooked pasta and black olives. You start with some cooked pasta, I used little elbows and mix it with a little tomato sauce (leftovers would work perfectly). Although some recipes want you to saute the pasta before mixing it in I'm not positive if this is necessary, it probably depends on how wet your pasta sauce is. Be forewarned it will probably stick to your pan pretty badly if you try. Either way when you are ready you mix the pasta and chopped black olives into your egg mixture along with everything else. I used 2 cups cooked pasta and black olives "to taste" (don't you hate when people say that?). The addition of the pasta may mean you have to add an extra egg or two.

Why pasta and black olives you may ask? Well I add black olives to pretty much everything I can get away with and pasta is a good way to stretch the dish economically without detracting from any of its good qualities, plus it adds good texture (as long as the pasta isn't too overcooked.)

This is the mixture when it is first dumped into the skillet.

Here it is turned out onto a plate. The dimple is where there was a bubble. It's ruined!!!! Not really but it is a little upsetting.

And here is is on my plate. With this version I tried to layer the zucchini and the pasta but I didn't have enough zucchini so it didn't really work. I'm sure it would have been cool but it is definitely not necessary.

Frittatas are best at room temperature and makes a fabulous sandwich the day after. It is also a good option to bring to a potluck especially because it is filling yet vegetarian.

And if you figure out a way to make it without getting bubbles on the bottom tell me!

(Paid for by the Committee to Reelect the Frittata)

Where Have All the Acorns Gone?

2008-11-30T18:50:00.008-05:00

You may have noticed that my posts don't generally refer to news events but tend more towards what I'm up to. But for once these two actually intersect. The news has just confirmed what we had already noticed: there are no acorns this year! A Washington Post article explains this more in depth with some possible causes, all I know is that our squirrels seem very dependent on our charity this year.

(This feeder was full yesterday. They empty it that quick.)

The subject of feeding the squirrels always causes some debate in my house. My dad prefers to feed the birds but this generally means that in reality you are feeding the squirrels and the birds might get their leftovers. Because of this in previous years his efforts have been to reduce squirrel interference in bird feeding but this year, because of the lack of other resources, he has become more sympathetic towards the squirrels and begun to feed them also.

(The temptation to add my own idea of whatever cute little thing he might be thinking is strong but I will try to resist.)

One way we are feeding them is with a squirrel bungee feeder (the link will lead you to an ad for one but it has a good picture if you haven't seen one before). We thought this would be a good compromise because they get corn and we get entertainment. But of course they outsmarted us, they managed to get the entire cob off and proceeded to just eat it on the ground. We should have known, it is very hard to trick squirrels.

(Don't let him fool you, he has already found a way to empty this feeder too, he's just biding his time.)

I'm sure there are lots of different views about whether or not you should feed the squirrels just because there is a shortage of food this year. One could argue that this is just the natural cycle of things and feeding them this year will only increase the number that could potentially starve next year. These are good points but personally, I don't really think I could take the sight of emaciated squirrels begging on my front step. Maybe we are setting ourselves up to become the neighborhood crazy people who feed all the squirrels but if worse comes to worse we could always eat them (just kidding....or am I?) I will leave you with that thought.

(Or maybe I will leave you with this...look at those cheeks!)

Most Fabulous Panini Ever

2008-11-29T20:13:00.009-05:00

I will confess that when the panini craze had just begun to sweep the country I was anti-panini. My only experience with them had been from restaurants and they just didn’t work for me. I think it was because the bread soaked up too much oil or something.

But then we tried making them at home using French bread from our local grocery. These were fabulous! The crusty bread gets nice and crunchy but because it is crust in contact with the pan and not the porous sliced edge of the bread it seems to absorb less oil (or at least that’s what I tell myself).

The trick is to squish the sandwiches before they go on the pan (we use cast iron) and then place something heavy on top of them while they cook. All of this is unnecessary of course if you have one of those fancy panini presses but since I’m not allowed to get one (grumble grumble) I make do.

In addition to the wonders of French bread panini we also discovered what is possibly the best variation of this ever. This was actually a meal of desperation one night when we really didn’t feel like shopping and wanted some comfort food.

Onto the sliced French bread I spread some mustard. Then I laid on some nice sliced sharp cheddar (we like Cabot or Cracker Barrel because they are virtually lactose free and therefore acceptable for lactose intolerant people like mom). On top of that I placed some chopped scallions and here is the secret ingredient…chopped jarred jalapeños.

You then squish the sandwich with the palm of your hand, place it on a hot but not too hot skilled, place something heavy on top and wait for the crust to get nice and crunchy and a little brown. Then flip and repeat with that side. It should be hot enough that the crust gets crispy but not so hot that it browns before your cheesy is melty.

My accompaniment of choice for the best panini ever? My own chicken and stars soup which is also obscenely easy. I use either homemade stock or Kitchen Basics (which is also very good and comes in a no salt version) and I heat it up with a little splash of white wine. I then throw in a couple tablespoons of stars and that’s it! I also occasionally throw in an egg and make egg drop soup this way.

Sadly I don’t have a photo for you, they quite literally got devoured before I had time to think of taking one. How bout this instead?:

This is where we are keeping all the canning we did this summer. It was all made by us (with the exception of two jars of jam, can you tell which ones?). Having it all in one place to oggle makes me feel very productive.

Apple Drying

2008-11-25T16:49:00.014-05:00

Farmer’s market season has just wrapped up (the last one for us locally is a Thanksgiving one which we went to this past Sunday) so this is the end of good apple season for us. We wanted to stretch it any way we could so we bought a couple of bags to dry.

Apple drying isn’t totally new to us; mom had some vague memory of doing it successfully a few years ago so we were trying to replicate that method. We tried several slicing methods. For all methods we started by peeling and coring the apples. Coring was a cinch thanks to my new apple corer!

I'm sure most of you have seen these but when I recently decided I wanted one would you believe how hard it was to find? I ended up getting it at a very nice and very pricey kitchen store in Brooklyn.

Back to slicing: the first way we tried was to use my mandoline which was quick but the slices were a little too thin and they tended to fall apart as they dried. The second method was by hand. This worked out much better because we could get thicker slices.

(These are the slices the mandoline produced. They're cute but too thin.)

An important step is to dunk them in lemony water before laying them out to dry so they don’t brown. I think we used ¼ cup lemon juice for every 2 or 4 cups of water, I can’t remember now. (Bad memory seems to be a running theme in this post...I think we need more carrots or whatever it is you are supposed to eat for memory. Oh the irony that I can't remember that either!)

We also tried several drying methods. We tried doing them on baking pans, with and without clean dishcloths underneath and also using a needle to string them up. Although stringing them up worked fine it was a lot of unnecessary work because doing them on trays with dishcloths worked just as fast.

Although we have a nice toasty fire going in our woodstove to keep them next to most of the time, I suppose you could also try putting the trays on top of a radiator or near one. They take a couple days to dry completely and they need to be flipped quite often.

Apparently (this is only hearsay) you don’t want to dry them too fast (for instance in a hot oven) because then the outside can seal while they are still damp inside, or so they say. Also you want to make sure they are completely dry before storing them to avoid mold.

(I tried using Zoe the cat for size comparison but clearly she was not in the mood.)

I’m sure these would be great for dry cereal, trail mix or baking but so far we have just been munching on them as a snack. I doubt ours will last very long but I think once they are dry they keep fairly indefinitely (although I’m sure they deteriorate in quality) so they would make good emergency rations or lightweight camping snacks. If only it was camping season. Sigh.

(I tried using Toaster the cat for size comparison too. If that look doesn't say "I'm not in the mood" I don't know what does.)

But Toaster redeemed himself by letting me get this shot of him sleeping near the fire:

P.S. I successfully bought nothing yesterday although this was more a result of the fact that I worked all day then a conscious effort. That still counts right?

Thrifting Isn't Always Thrifty

2008-11-23T20:31:00.020-05:00

I am evidence that shopping at thrift shops is only thrifty if you buys things you need. Of course I don’t, I buy books and clothes that I want (I’ve got more clothes and books then I can ever need.) But at least I’m not buying the stuff retail so that is kind of frugal! Right? Clearly I still need some convincing.

But can you really beat this?:

These three cookbooks were from the library’s annual sale (a dangerous thing I know, but I wouldn’t have been there had I known, it snuck up on me!). Altogether they cost a grand total of…..two dollars! That works out to 7.5 pages per penny! I’m a sucker for old 70’s/80’s cookbooks, especially the ones with pictures of jello molds.

Another exciting recent find is this necklace:

Although not used this shirt was a really good find:

It is a little boy’s thermal shirt that I found for three dollars at Job Lot (which you probably won’t know about unless you are a Rhode Island resident) which can best be described as a bargain place that gets other places’ leftovers. I was planning to refashion it but when I got home it fit so well I didn’t have to. I also got another thermal for two dollars at Salvation Army. Can you tell I don’t like chilly weather?

My final crime against thrifty thrifting was my recent button-up-shirt binge at Savers. I got five of them and here they are:

Here are some of the labels. I really couldn’t care less about what brands I wear but I always feel a little smug knowing I got brands that others pay a lot for for a fraction of the retail price.

I'm a sucker for little details:

Brown velour with brown snaps (and some shmutz)!

Gold sailor logo and gold buttons, so camp!

Finally I got a bad Christmas sweater for one of those bad Christmas sweater themed parties. Have I been invited to one yet? Of course not, but I’m going to try to convince someone to have one. (I’d throw it myself but living in your parent’s basement isn’t exactly conducive to party throwing.) If all else fails I’m going to wear it to a regular holiday party and hope every gets that it’s a joke. Or not, that would be fine too.

Even I have to admit that the bears are kind of cute, and those are real gold beads sewn on the tree. It's so bad yet so good.

In other news I made a bracelet and since we are at the peak of holiday crafting time it is for…me. I know I should be working on the projects I had planned but I found the chain and then I just couldn’t resist making the whole thing. It only took a couple hours (and that is with the distractions of watching a movie, a Nick and Nora film specifically) and I am very pleased with it. It was a fairly thrifty activity since I found the chain for a good price and I had absolutely all the other materials already. Plus I de-stashed my beading supplies a little which gives me an excuse to get more!

I actually added two more little dangly things after this picture was taken to fill in the blank spot where the clasp is.

Action shot!

P.S. This is my 50th post!

An Outfit for my Hot Water Bottle

2008-11-17T20:52:00.014-05:00

I must profess my love for my hot water bottle. It may not be as cute as a cat but it’s a lot more cooperative. It’s done so much for me, keeping me warm and soothing my aches, that I decided to show it a little love in return.

So I made it an outfit! I wanted it make it even more snuggly and what is more snuggly than nice worn flannel? We have a pile of decrepit but soft flannel shirts which I won’t let anyone throw away because they feel so nice. I put two of them to good use by making them into this cover.

(These are the two flannel shirts before I rescued them. See the nice green stain on the right?)

(Here it is naked.)

I started by measuring my hot water bottle. I measured it top to bottom and then side to side. I added seam allowances to the measurements and then doubled the width so I could cut a piece of fabric that was the right height but twice as wide. I cut one of these each out of two different flannels. I then folded each piece of flannel over and sewed up two of the three remaining sides so I had two bags that fit over the hot water bottle with unfinished edged where the bags open at the top.

But wait there was one more thing! On one of the bags I left about a two inch gap in the stitching at the bottom. This will be important later.

I then put one bag inside the other with the “right sides” (those without raw edges) facing each other. I then pinned the unfinished edges at the tops together and sewed all the way around. Now I had a double layered bag but with raw edges. Here is where that hole comes in handy. You just reach through and pull both bags inside out. Stuff one back inside the other and you have a reversible bag that you hot water bottle fits in with no raw edges! (Well you will after you sew up that small opening at the bottom which I did by hand.)

Now all that was left was to devise a way to keep the hot water bottle in the bag. I ended up finding two pieces of cloth that had button holes on them. (They had been those ties that you get sometimes inside a shirt that are meant to allow you to roll up the sleeves and button them.) I cut the two strips to right length and sewed them together so I had a strip with a button hole at either end. I then sewed a button onto the bag right where the neck of the water bottle is (actually I sewed a button on each side since it’s reversible.)

Reversible!

Now all I do is flip the bag whichever way I want and button the collar on and my cover keeps my hot water bottle nice and cozy so it can keep me nice and cozy! I would make these as gifts but I don’t think I know anyone else who uses a hot water bottle.

Homemade Bread and Other Food Processor Wonders

2008-11-16T20:18:00.016-05:00

Believe it or not one of the most expensive prepared foods we buy is bread. So we decided to try and make as much of our bread from scratch as possible. This was of course greatly aided by the recent arrival of a food processor (yay!) from my cousin Rog (thanks Rog!).

Although a food processor is not necessary for bread making at all it is mighty helpful for kneading if you have scrawny weak arms like me. The basic recipe that came with the food processor is actually quite good. You proof your yeast in warm water with sugar and in the mean time you mix your flour, salt and fat in the processor. You then use the feed spout to slowly pour in the yeasty water (to which you add some ice water) and then let it mix for a few seconds until it is fully kneaded. Then it goes into a bowl to rise, gets shaped, rises again and then is ready to bake.

We have used this recipe to make basic white bread but also bread with some whole wheat flour mixed in, rolls and Italian type loafs.

One of my favorite specialty breads are those long skinny crusty kalamata olive loaves you always see at farmer’s markets for five bucks a pop. I wanted to try to make my own version so I made up a batch of the usual dough but for some reason I thought I should put the olives in with the dry ingredients before adding the liquid. So instead of a lovely white loaf studded with olives I ended up with an interestingly purple colored loaf that had a vague flavor of olives. Oh and it was also gigantic. But still good! (Note to self: add olives AFTER kneading dough with food processor.)

The giant kalamata flavored loaf. You think it's ugly? Check out these rolls:

We have an astounding capacity to make ugly bread (but at least it tastes good).

My other favorite specialty bread is cinnamon raisin bread. I survived much of college eating it with peanut butter and bananas on top for breakfast. So when we went on our bread making kick I knew I had to make myself some. I made regular white dough and after it had been allowed to rise once I smooshed it out into a rectangle. I then sprinkled on cinnamon sugar and a bunch of raisins. I rolled this up and put it in the bread pan to rise again. It was fabulous. I would also like to introduce you to the best peanut butter in the world. It is so fabulous because not only does it contain only peanuts but it is also very fresh. Unfortunately you probably shouldn't bother looking for it because it comes from Providence and I have only found it in a few places in Rhode Island. But if you are a RI resident find it!

(Sorry about the blurry picture but this is the fabulous peanut butter.)

Toasted with peanut butter and bananas on top. Mmmm...must be served with a glass of very cold milk.

We’ve also used the food processor to make cookies. These were actually for an after school program my boyfriend works at and he wanted a Halloween themed snack that wasn’t candy. We got the idea for the icing decoration here (although I actually got the link from this fun site) but the recipe for the cookies here. They were excellent and moist, not like some of those gingerbread cookies that you suspect are designed more for their structural integrity then edibleness.

Naked cookies.

My boyfriend hard at work decorating the cookies.

We had a bunny cookie cutter so I wanted bunny skeletons.

When is a bunny not a bunny? When it's a whale.

I have to admit that the icing wasn’t actually homemade but this stuff that came in a squeeze bottle that was scarily reminiscent of Elmer’s glue. You just pop the bottle in the microwave and squeeze away. Although expensive it was quite handy and dries nice and hard so it doesn’t get smudged.

Besides baking the food processor is also awesome for vegetables. I love that it shreds, I’ve started making more coleslaw then I ever thought I would. We also used it to (finally!) deal with those sugar pumpkins we bought for Halloween decorations. We used Pioneer Woman’s method to make frozen pumpkin puree. There are now 5 two cup bags residing in our freezer waiting for someone to make them into some sort of delicious desert.

Next up for the food processor: ground meat. I'm making my own meatballs and I don't feel like paying $2.99 a pound for ground chicken so I'm going to do it myself!

The Conclusion to the No Oil Heat Until November Experiment

2008-11-13T11:29:00.007-05:00

We are well into November and those of you with a good memory may recall that I mentioned a plan to attempt going without using our oil heat until November. The good news is that we did! The bad news is that some of the related experiments we tried didn’t work out as well as we’d hoped.

So first here is what worked for keeping us warm:
1. Obviously the wood stove helped a lot. The only downside to this is that someone has to be around all the time to keep it going.
2. Hot water bottles and or kitties. Nothing makes a bed more inviting then a hot water bottle and or the more natural alternative: a cat. The only problem with the cats is they tend to have more free will then a hot water bottle.
3. Baking things. Our decision to start making as much of our own bread as possible was conveniently timed because using the oven more does its part to warm up the kitchen.

Between all these things we managed to keep the upstairs warm enough that it was livable. The only problem that remained was the basement which didn’t benefit from the woodstove upstairs. If only hot air went down instead of up! Unfortunately I haven’t figured out a way to change the laws of physics so we had to settle for setting up a network of fans to push the warm air down the basement stairs.

As an experiment this was amazingly successful. We were able to raise the temperature downstairs by 5 degrees! As a practical setup this wasn’t so great because 5 fans probably use a good deal of electricity and they also make maneuvering the stairs rather difficult.

But because of our initial success with fans we decided to try to approximate a hot air vent leading to the basement. We bought 2 lengths of dryer duct. At one end we duct taped the tubing to a box which was stapled to the wall (very elegant) near the stove. We then arranged the tubing so it went down the stairs and along the ceiling and in through a convenient hole in the wall into my basement apartment. Once inside the apartment it was attached to another cardboard box except instead of being open this one had a small fan at the end. The theory was that the fan would pull hot air through the tube into the basement.

When we turned it on we discovered that the fan was barely powerful enough to suck the air down through the tube so we made some adjustments and added a much powerful fan. And we gave it a full test run this time only to discover….the temperature downstairs didn’t change one degree.

So this obviously still needs some work if it is going to be helpful at all. We have since resorted to using the heat but not very much. The other advantage is that if we were to lose electricity for an extended period of time, perhaps because of a blizzard, we know that the woodstove could at least keep us warm upstairs (as long as all our wood isn’t buried under snow).

Better Late Then Never: Halloween Costume Edition

2008-11-06T22:15:00.017-05:00

I really wanted to post about my Halloween costume creations earlier but you see I had to wait for the photos to come back from the printers...and they were arriving by horse and buggy...and there was a blizzard, so that is why this is so late.

Obviously I'm lying and it's because there is really no excuse for the delay. Although to my credit these costumes weren't actually worn until after Halloween and after that there was the excitement of the election and I was sickly. But better late then never so here you go:

We got invited to a Halloween party and of course my boyfriend, being the eternal 5 year old that he is, decided the day before that he wanted to be Rorschach from the Watchmen. (If you aren't familiar with the graphic novel you can just watch the movie that will be out soon but not soon enough.)

At first I was going to veto this since I didn't feel like going on a hunt for a reasonably priced trench coat and hat. That was until my dad informed me that he had a tan trench coat which turned out to be perfect. I then recalled that some old man had left that exact hat at work so after grabbing that all we needed was the mask and a white scarf. For the mask I bought a pair of white pantyhose onto which my boyfriend drew a Rorschach-ish pattern. For the white scarf we ripped some white fabric from an old test run of a pattern. Grand total for his costume: $4 for the pantyhose. And after all that would you believe only one person even figured out who he was supposed to be?

Even out of context this is a pretty creepy costume, except of course for the mojito. He wasn't very good about staying in character. Plus he had to lift his mask to drink, which is always something that should be taken into consideration when designing a Halloween party costume.

My costume on the other hand was much more practical. I looked at my already existing wardrobe until inspiration struck. I already had a black shirt and black skirt that were very witchy. I also happened to own a pair of black and white striped knee high socks and some very witchy high heels. After that all I needed was a witch hat. After a trip to the store I realized the only hats left were not only children's but also very poorly constructed. I knew I could do better so on the spot I decided to make myself a cute mini witch hat.

(This is my fabulous work table, it may not be easy on the knees but it's generally fairly clear.)

For this I bought: black felt, black ribbon, a giant hair clip and some black beads. I experimented with paper to design the hat, then cut it out and sewed it together. I used the ribbon as a hat band and the beads for decoration. I then cut four slits out of the bottom panel to form two loops to slip the hair clip through and I was done! (I make it sound simple but it really took hours between the experimenting with the design and the tedious sewing. Plus I would have saved time if I had sewed the beads on before I had put the hat mostly together.)

Grand total for my costume: probably about $10 for materials for the hat but I have a lot of it left over.

Tagged

2008-11-03T17:01:00.020-05:00

Bad blogger! Not only have I been bad about posting...I was also tagged and have yet to pass it on. I blame the election excitement and being sickish. I was tagged by Darling Petunia which means I now have to think of seven weird facts about myself...which shouldn't be too hard.

The Rules:

1. Link to the person that tagged you, and post the rules on your blog.
2. Share 7 random and/or weird facts about yourself.
3. Tag 7 people at the end of your post, and include links to their blogs.
4. Let each person know they have been tagged by leaving a comment on their blog.

Fact #1

I, like the person who tagged me, have large feet. You might be wondering what I consider large. I think size 10 is pretty huge for someone who is only 5'4''. But here is the weird part. It isn't my feet that are long...its my toes. My friends have sometimes referred to them as finger toes. In fact if I ever lose a pinkie I am planning to just replace it with a toe. Also, they are very useful for picking things up...almost prehensile.

Fact #2

I like hip-hop...a lot. It might not be the music you'd expect for someone who spends most of her spare time canning. My favorite artists are (in no particular order): Kanye West, Dead Prez, K-OS, Common, Blackstar (Mos Def and Talib Kweli), Lupe Fiasco, Saul Williams and Tanya Stephens (who is more reggae/hip-hop).

Fact #3

I have a secret passion for graphic novels (although not anime...I'm not that nerdy [yes I went there]). My favorite author is James Kochalka and I don't mind if you call them comics.

Fact #4

I've been dating my boyfriend for over four years and he doesn't give a rat's ass about the things I blog about (except he already ate all my strawberry jelly). I have to yell at him just to keep up with my blog. But he's a fabulous artist (he did my banner) so it's forgivable.

Fact #5

I have a strange predilection towards any and all items of kelly green clothing. I've got at least 4 or 5 t-shirts of that color. And I'm not even Irish!

Fact #6

My family represents one of the highest concentrations of useless degrees known to man. My dad got his degree to teach English (never did) and my mom got hers in anthropology (guess what she never did?!). I got my degree in philosophy with a minor in English (very unlikely to be used) and my boyfriend is working to get his bachelor of fine arts (sadly the most likely to be used although not for much profit).

Fact #7

I don't like cooked orange vegetables. Carrots, squash, sweet potato...yuck! (Although I make an exception for pumpkin pie, although I don't really like the crust.)

People I am tagging: (This is a little harder...I'm new to blogging so I'm going to wimp out and only tag a couple people).

Emma at Erl The Girl's Blog (Funny coincidence: she did a version of my t-shirt skirt as did Darling Petunia who tagged me! She also made an adorable version for her dog!)

Lacy at Razor Family Farms

Amanda who might not be so happy with me for doing this but t.s.

A Swamp Yankee Halloween

2008-10-26T19:38:00.009-04:00

I can’t help but notice that the trends in holiday decorating seem to be towards the less and less energy efficient. Take for instance those giant inflatable decorations that started with just Christmas but now include just about everything (I once saw a flamingo). Besides the energy that went into manufacturing these there is also the energy required to keep them constantly inflated. It is undeniable that these are far less energy efficient then the old standard of a pumpkin with a candle in it.

Besides being interested in lower impact decorations I just couldn’t afford one of those giant inflatable things to begin with. So this year we came up with a few alternatives:

Jack-o-lantern alternative: I’m not crazy about the idea of buying a pumpkin and throwing it away after Halloween so instead we bought two sugar pumpkins which we can use for decoration and then make into delicious pie filling afterwards! We also bought some decorative corn and we have a plan to reuse it afterwards but you’ll just have to wait to see what the plan is.

Finally, instead of buying one of those giant bundles of corn or hay or whatever they are we made our own. Since we don’t have any corn (or hay) fields close by we used what is in abundance…phragmites!

This reed commonly found in marshes is a mean nasty invasive species so we didn’t feel bad about cutting some down and when we’re all done we can just throw it back in the marsh.

There is the phragmites, corn and pumpkins. Ignore the chipped paint, thanks.

Granted we will have to come up with something involving candles on Halloween night to signal to trick-or-treaters that we are open for business but it will most likely be homemade and a heck of a lot cheaper then a giant inflatable pumpkin!

Now if we could just give the trick-or-treaters phragmites too we'd be all set.

Swamp Yankee to the Rescue: Tights Edition

2008-10-25T17:31:00.006-04:00

I am not anatomically suited for tights. I’m not sure if my legs are just disproportionately long compared to my torso, or if it has to do with my gigantic feet (trust me, I’m more likely to find myself shopping alongside drag queens than other short women like myself), but either way tights never fit me. Even if I buy a size larger then the package instructs the legs end up being way too short and the crotch of the tights falls…well lets just say it’s closer to my knees then I would prefer.

This was the problem with two nice pairs of super thick tights I had bought awhile ago. My intention had been to wear them under pants or skirts in the winter for warmth, which I did once or twice but I got sick of constantly doing that weird dance where you grab the waist of your tights and try and shimmy them up. They ended up getting shoved to the back of a drawer.

This year I have developed an unnatural love of leggings (perhaps it is a subconscious product of the four years of my childhood which occurred during the 80’s) so I pulled out the too-short-tights determined to convert them.

Since the feet didn’t have any defining features like socks I decided to leave them on as part of the legs. I simply snipped off the stitching at the end of each foot to open the tights up. I probably could have left them like this but they seemed like they might fray easily so I rolled over the edge a few times and stitched around it with an overcast stitch.

One thing to keep in mind here is that if you sew too tight you will eliminate the elasticity of the knit tights and you won’t be able to get the ankle hole over your feet. To avoid this I stretched the opening as I sewed. The result of this was that the edge has kind of a lettuce leaf look which is just fine by me.

Just promise me that if you try this you won’t abuse your leggings privileges. If college taught me one thing it is this: leggings are not pants and should not be worn like them! Further, wearing them with just a long shirt doesn’t count either; you still need bottoms to go over them!

I’m glad I could put that warning out there; it lets me feel a little better about encouraging something that has the potential for so much good and yet so much evil.

The finished product! (Look at the size of those feet!)

Daikon and Carrot Pickle

2008-10-21T20:33:00.012-04:00

Just in case you hadn't already figured this out I'm going to go ahead and put it out there: I'm a huge dork. I'm sure this comes as a shock to some of you so let me offer some evidence: when I bought a copy of the Ball Book of Complete Home Preserving early this summer I immediately began planning what I wanted to can. I went through the entire book and placed a bookmark on each page that had a recipe I wanted to try. One of the recipes I was really excited about was daikon and carrot pickles. (Just to clarify: home preserving is not what makes me a dork, it's how excited I get about it that does.)

(If you are not familiar with daikon go to a farmer’s market and get some! It is a large, white Asian radish that is good raw, or cooked in soups and stir fries and even pickled.)

Somehow though I had forgotten how late in the growing season daikon usually appear at the farmer’s market…so I waited, and waited and waited. Finally, two weekends ago, they appeared. I snatched up a couple pounds along with a couple pounds of carrots to make my pickle.

The first thing we did was cut off all the greens. Some were actually nice enough that they went into a big batch of greens we cooked up along with some kale and turnip greens. The next thing we did was peel them and cut off the ends.

Now here is the tricky part: the recipes call for very thin slices, usually 1/8 to one 1/4 of an inch. To do this all by hand would be possible but very tedious. So I invested in a $10 mandoline. These can be very dangerous so try to look for one with a nice piece that allows you to push the food across the blade while keeping your hand far away. Other than that downside they are very useful for massive amounts of chopping, especially the repetitive kind involved in canning.

(This is my mandoline, not to be confused with a mandolin because strumming this could have disastrous consequences. Unfortunately I left the handy piece that prevents me from cutting off my fingers out of this picture.)

I disregarded the instructions to cut the vegetables into spaghetti like strips and instead cut them into 2 inch lengths and then sliced these into 1/8th inch slices which will work perfectly for sandwiches.

Following the instructions I made the pickling liquid with water, vinegar, sugar and grated ginger. I then cooked the carrot and daikon in the liquid for a minute and then placed one star anise in the bottom of each sanitized jar, packed in the veggies and then covered them with the pickling liquid, leaving a half inch at the top. These were processed in a boiling water bath.

I ended up with 6 pints of these pickles which will come in handy not only for bánh mì sandwiches but also to eat alongside many Asian meals. I may be a dork but at least I'm a dork who eats well.

Kelp

2008-10-20T18:09:00.006-04:00

I have found that no matter how determined you are to be a forager it is generally something that happens more by chance then by a plan. Take for example a recent trip to the beach. This beach just happened to have nice fresh long strands of kelp washing up (if you haven’t seen kelp, look it up, it is very impressive seaweed) and kelp just happens to be the seaweed that we buy to make dashi, and dad just happened to know this. So he snagged a few pieces of kelp as they washed up (because of their size a few is plenty.)

When we got home he washed the sand off of them and hung them on the porch to dry, which they did…for awhile. The only problem is that when it was particularly humid they reabsorbed moisture from the air which essentially un-dried them. So there they still sit…waiting for a dry stretch so we can store them for future use in Japanese food.

(Toaster the cat was included to give you an idea of the size of a small piece.)

Salsa Verde (Kind of)

2008-10-15T20:36:00.007-04:00

Alas we are at the end of what was a very unsuccessful tomato season for us. We still had lots of green tomatoes on the vine and with a week or so of very wet fall weather some were starting to rot. So instead of hoping they might ripen I just salvaged the rest.

Since we already made a batch of green tomato and apple chutney (fabulous!) I decided to do salsa verde. Around this house real salsa verde is made primarily with tomatillos but since we didn’t grow any (and they are insanely expensive at the farmer’s market) I thought some fake salsa verde would be useful. I used (as always) the Ball Book of Complete Home Preserving recipe for salsa verde which, besides green tomatoes, calls for onions, garlic, chilis, lime juice, cumin, oregano, salt, pepper and cilantro (shudder). Since I subscribe to the anti-cilantro school of Mexican cooking I omitted it from my salsa.

My yield was just over 2.5 pints. Although it could be used for green chili it is also good as an accompaniment to refried beans and rice.

On a side note: Although I love the Ball Book of Complete Home Preserving and would recommend it to anyone, you can find some of the exact same recipes on the Ball website. So if you are an experienced preserver just looking for a recipe it is a good resource. In fact, you can get the salsa verde recipe I used there.

Dye Job

2008-10-12T21:04:00.006-04:00

Maybe its because lots of mom’s clothing dates back to the 70’s, maybe its because we line dry things, or maybe its just because we don’t easily part with clothing unless it has a gaping hole in it (and usually that hole has to be somewhere important like the crotch before we’ll actually throw it away), either way we have lots of items of clothing that are faded but still structurally sound.

In an attempt to salvage these items mom and I decided to re-dye them. The skirt that I dyed was one that I had picked up at the Salvation Army several years ago. It is a very nice white cotton skirt with embroidered eyelets that is lined. It was a little on the dingy side when I got it and somehow it has gotten much worse (I say that as if I’m not really sure how it happened, even though I spill something on whatever I’m wearing several times a day).

I don't have a great before picture of the skirt but this closeup shows the nice embroidery and one of the scary stains I may or may not have been responsible for.

For this project we were extra frugal and fished out a whole bunch of packs of dye that we had lying around from previous projects. I decided on coral for my skirt.

One of the downsides to dying skirts like this is that while the skirt itself was cotton and absorbed the dye just fine, the liner was synthetic so it, along with the zipper, stayed perfectly white. In this case it doesn’t bother me but it might have been an issue had I chosen a much darker color.

In the end I think the color came out a little streaky. Perhaps I had too much fabric in too small a container which didn’t allow it to all evenly get exposed to the dye. I’m hoping this will even out as I wash and wear it. But other then that I am happy because it turned what was a structurally sound but ugly skirt into a far more useful one.

I hope that the fact that the skirt is in dire need of ironing will distract you from the fact that if you zoomed in on the photo really really close you'd probably be able to see that my legs desperately need shaving.

Applesauce: A Tale in Two Parts

2008-10-07T20:03:00.007-04:00

The full array of apples grown locally are just showing up at the farmer's markets (well maybe not just...but only within the last couple weeks) so its the perfect time for apple preserving. Although we had many things in mind like apple pie filling (for which we couldn't find the required cooking starch) and brandied apple rings (for which we couldn't find the right kind of apple corer) we decided to start simple with applesauce.

We bought a bag of wonderful Macouns from our favorite local orchard and then supplemented this with 20 pounds of local apples from the grocery store (99 cents a pound!). We divided this between Macintosh, Macouns and Cortlands.

Since applesauce preferences in this house vary we decided to make two batches. (I like mine unsweetened but the boyfriend likes his sweetened with lots of cinnamon.)

Part 1: We decided to do the unsweetened batch first. We cut off the blossom and stem ends of the apples (discarded these), and cut out the cores (but those went into the pot whole). We chopped up the apples and after going temporarily into lemon water (1/4 cup lemon juice to 4 cups water) they went into a big pot with a little water to simmer. We decided to leave the skins on since they weren’t waxed and mom is convinced this is where all the nice color resides and possibly some of the nutrients. (I can attest to the color but not the nutritional value of the skins.
Our first big mistake was trying to simmer an entire batches worth of apples at one time. There were too many to practically be stirred and we ended up burning the ones on the bottom (just like with our tomatoes!). We ended up cooking the apples in much smaller batches and putting them through the ricer as we went.

Our second big mistake: using Cortlands. While all the other apples got soft enough to squish fairly quickly the Cortlands were amazing in their ability to stay rock hard after much simmering.

Our third mistake was thinking we could leave it completely unsweetened. Between the tartness of the apples we chose and the lemon juice which is required for canning it was just too tart so we ended up adding a little sugar.

Our fourth mistake (this is a lot for one project isn’t it?) was not leaving enough headspace. Even though we followed the instructions it wasn’t enough and I think some of the applesauce escaped the ring during the processing because the outside of the jars were sticky. Luckily they all appeared to seal fine.

Part two: With all the lessons in mind from our first batch we were much more successful our second time around. We left out the Cortlands all together but don’t worry, they didn’t go to waste, they went into apple crumble which is a much better use for such structurally sound apples.

We also cooked and squished the apples in much smaller batches to avoid burning. I also suspect that the skins sticking to the bottom might have increased the likelihood that they would burn so this time we peeled them off. But we didn’t throw away the peels. Instead we simmered them in a second pot with some water to extract the color.

Once all the apples were cooked and squished we added the water from cooking the skins which gave it a nice pink color. We also added the lemon juice, sugar and lots of cinnamon. I also left more headspace in the jars this time (although I’m not sure it was enough).

(Batch 1)

(Batch 2, which doesn't look as good but don't let the camera fool you, it really is better.)

Luckily this is a learning experience and not something we will be depending on this winter for all our food (I’m not sure how long we’d last on jams and pickles). So my applesauce wisdom is this: careful with which varieties you use, make sure they have similar cooking times and make sure they don’t burn!

The Shredded Paper Dilemma

2008-10-06T20:48:00.010-04:00

Like all good mildly paranoid people we shred a lot of the mail we get like credit card offers and things with our bank account numbers. This leaves us with the problem of what do with all that shredded paper. According to mom’s obscure knowledge of recycling rules you can’t recycle shredded paper. We’d compost it except dad won’t let us because he’s worried about the chemicals. So burning it seems like one of our only useful options (of course in the winter when you have a fire going anyway you can skip the shredding phase and go straight to burning it).

The only problem is that throwing handfuls of shredded paper into a fire is a little unwieldy so we came up with the idea of stuffing paper towel and toilet paper rolls with the shredded paper to make mini logs.

(The ingredients.)

(This would be a good use of child labor...I mean...a good activity for young children.)

(The finished product.)

Since we’ve started using the stove we’ve had a chance to test our shredded paper logs and the consensus is iffy. They don’t make great kindling but they burn fine once the stove is going.

This brings me to my heating challenge which my family has reluctantly agreed to (and by that I mean that I told them about it and they grumbled something under their breath which I took as consent). I’m curious how long we can go without using the oil heat and set an optimistic date of November 1st. This may not sound like much but the lows around here are already getting down to the high 30’s.

For heat this leaves us with: one small woodstove, one hot water bottle, one oven in which to bake things for which we may “accidentally” preheat the oven rather early and three cats of varying agreeableness. But one problem remains: the basement (where I happen to reside) which doesn’t particularly benefit from the woodstove. Luckily the basement stays a lot warmer then anywhere else so we’ll see how it goes.

We’re Greedy Little Bears

2008-09-30T19:32:00.003-04:00

Apparently there is someone who likes foraging for pin cherries as much as we do…bears. Luckily we’re only had one black bear sighting in Rhode Island recently so we weren’t too concerned as we returned to our secret pin cherry patch.

With the help of a boyfriend who was less than willingly dragged along we managed to pick another three quarts of pin cherries (which hardly put a dent in the crop, it seems no one else, animals included, has really caught on yet).

Since we already had pin cherry syrup we wanted a batch of pin cherry jam. We used a variation on the recipes we had for natural fruit jams (as opposed to those which use liquid or powdered pectin) and are thickened and stretched with the pulp from tart apples.

First we made our pin cherry pulp by simmering the cherries with a tiny bit of water, squishing them through a sieve, simmering the leftovers and squishing those again. We ended up with 6 cups of pulp.

We then peeled five Granny Smith apples. I cut out the cores and then chopped the rest and it all went, cores and all, into a solution of ¼ cup lemon juice to 4 cups water. When it was all chopped and treated to prevent browning it got simmered just like the pin cherries and the smooshed with our ricer. This yielded 3 cups apples pulp.

We then combined the pin cherry pulp, apple pulp and 5 cups sugar and simmered until it was thick enough that we thought it would gel.

I could say that we then immediately put it into jars with ¼ inch headspace and processed them for 10 minutes…but that would be a lie. Because by this point it was growing rather late in the evening so the pot of jam went onto the porch overnight (it’s getting cool here) and the next day we brought it back to a simmer and canned it. Our yield was about 56 oz. It’s nice and tart and makes an interesting addition to our odd jam collection.

Since we actually invented this recipe here it is:

12 cups pin cherries (which should yield 6 cups pulp)
5 tart apples (yield: approx. 3 cups pulp)
5 cups sugar

(Keep in mind that I only did this once so the amount of pulp you get might vary, even if your ratio was different I'm sure it would still be good. Also, you could always add more sugar if you like it sweeter, although I wouldn't do too much less because I think that's part of what preserves it.)

Pajama Pants

2008-09-27T20:03:00.006-04:00

I don’t know why it didn’t occur to me earlier to make my own pajama pants (perhaps because pants in general are intimidating) but when my favorite pair began to wear out I was left with no other choice.

Since I wanted to duplicate the pair I already owned (and me and patterns don’t play so well together) I decided to just wing it. In order to copy the shape of the pants we just folded the pants along the inseam and traced the shape onto paper. Once we had the basic outline of the front and back panel of a leg we added seam allowances.

Once I had the pattern for the front and back leg pieces I cut these out of some cheap remnant fabric I found at a fabric store and sewed them together. I used a very wide piece of elastic for the waistband and covered it with jersey to imitate the style of the original pair.

Now all they need to be complete is for the bottom of the legs to be hemmed. Which I will…eventually…because I’m really bad about finishing projects.

The Original Pair: Note I left out the drawstring (since they fit so well) and the lovely but unnecessary velour detailing on my pair.

The New Handmade Pair: Note that the legs are clearly too long and still not hemmed. Also, the pattern of the two different legs doesn't match up at all in the front. It bugs mom but I don't really care. I don't usually look at my pants while I sleep. But a good thing to keep in mind if I ever make myself a pair of plaid pants (please stop me if I ever bring up that possibility again.)

Roasted Barley Tea

2008-09-23T21:18:00.005-04:00

It is starting to get chilly here and in the spirit of frugalness (and by that I mean heating oil is bleeping expensive) we haven’t turned the heat on so we are turning to heating alternatives like baking cookies and drinking tea.

So this was the perfect time to try the roasted barley tea we bought at Asiana (a favorite local Asian foods market) this past summer. Mom had heard good things about it and at $2.99 for 2 pounds it was an affordable experiment. It also was recommended by the cashier at the market.

We followed the recipe on the back which called for 2 tablespoons to 2 litres of water and you boil the barley for five minutes. The smell is very familiar. We finally decided it smells just like burnt popcorn (but in the good way). It’s a very pleasant tea, although it is more reminiscent of coffee then of herbal tea. Our only complaint was that it maybe could be made a little stronger.

Apparently it can also be drunk cold although we missed the boat on that one, unless we get another warm spell I’m not going to be drinking any iced tea, at least not until we turn the heat on.

Frugal Shopping (But Only In Theory)

2008-09-23T20:51:00.007-04:00

I recently headed to our local Salvation Army to do some theoretically frugal shopping. It is only theoretically frugal for two reasons.

1. (And this may sound ridiculous to any of you who regularly shop at Bergdorf Goodman, although I kind of doubt that if you do you’d be too interested in my blog. Vicarious frugality?) So the point I was originally trying to make: Salvation Army has gotten expensive! By this I of course mean expensive in comparison to other thrift shops. They want at least $10 for many of their hardcover books! My opinion is that if you are going to charge a premium for used goods (vintage etc.) then your selection should be only the best. But if I have to dig through piles of rubbish to find the one gem (like at Sallie’s) then I shouldn’t be paying premium prices!

2. And the major reason that thrift shopping is only theoretically frugal for me: I end up buying things I don’t need at all and still feel justified because at least they are used!

This most recent trip actually had an explicit mission which was to find an item of clothing that could be used as material for a purse I have planned (look for that in the future…perhaps the distant future). I found it (a shirt for $7, not exactly cheap but it still had the tags on it and it was a rather large size so it actually contains a lot of fabric) but I also found a few other things…that I didn’t need at all.

The first was this adorable casserole. It’s so cute I don’t think I’ll be able to bear using it. I picked it up and examined it and then said to my mom: “Give me a reason not to buy it!” to which she unhelpfully replied: “I can’t!” Turns out she had already picked it up several times and wrestled with buying it herself. So for $3.99 that came home with me.

As did this set of 7 soup plates for $6.99. First I must tell you my justification for buying a set of 7 anything. While you may see it as a set of 8 with one missing, I see it as a set of 6 with a spare to break (which I inevitably will). And now for some praise of soup plates: they are amazing and everything looks way fancier in them. My mom recently found her own set ($6 for 8 at Savers, they are Crate and Barrel and would have been $64 new for the set) and now my boyfriend won’t eat out of anything else. So when I saw these I knew I had to get them, even if they are going into storage until we have our own apartment again.

So there you have it: frugal shopping is frugal if you only buy things you need.

More Foraging: Pin Cherries

2008-09-22T19:43:00.011-04:00

This weekend’s hike turned into yet another successful foraging expedition. Although we had left equipped to forage (zip lock baggies) we only expected to find some more rosehips or possibly some bayberries, if even that.

Instead we stumbled upon something which Mom declared was a cherry, probably a pin cherry, before proceeding to eat some. I was a little more cautious and waited to see if she went into convulsions before trying one. They were juicy and tart with a small hard pit in the middle.

Since we weren’t positive what they were we only picked two cups before continuing on our hike. When we got home we did some research and as far as we can tell they most likely are pin cherries. And it’s a good thing we spit out the pits because they and the fall leaves apparently both contain cyanide.

Although we didn’t have enough to do much they were so delicious we wanted to do something so we simmered them with a tiny bit of water until they were soft and then squished them through a sieve (so we could discard the pits). We added sugar to the resulting pulp and ended up with some pin cherry syrup which went into the refrigerator for later use in tea and sodas.

We may go back to attempt to forage more but the birds may have already discovered our secret and it may be too late. In which case we’ll just have to get a pair of pin cherry trees for the yard, it's clearly the only other option.

What We Did With Rosehips: Part Two

2008-09-18T10:36:00.007-04:00

Even after making syrup we had used only two fifths of our rosehip harvest so we decided the rest should become jam since mom had once before made rosehip jam and really liked it.

Although we consulted rosehip jam recipes and other jam recipes we ended up making up our own recipe. We started by preparing the rosehips the same way we had the last batch (taking off the stem and blossom end and chopping them). Then they went into a pan with a little water and simmered until they were all nice and soft. After a little time to cool we mashed them through a sieve with a spoon and collected the resulting puree in a bowl underneath the sieve. For good measure we took the pulp that had not made it through the sieve and repeated the process of simmering and squishing with it and got at least half as much pulp the second time around.

The pulp went into another pot to be simmered to a “jam-like” consistency but once we had added sugar we found it was already at the right consistency. How much sugar to add was a whole other matter though. The amounts given in some of the recipes we consulted just didn’t seem right so we used a ratio of sugar to pulp that seemed fairly consistent with most jam recipes in our canning book. We tasted it, decided it was perfect and poured it into sterilized jars and processed them.

From 3 pounds of rosehips we ended up with 2.5 eight ounce jars. Although this ratio seems pretty pathetic to me I just remind myself that since the rosehips were foraged the only real expenditure was time (and the negligible cost of sugar). And since we enjoy doing this sort of thing I’ll just have to think of it as a nearly free form of entertainment. (Otherwise I might go crazy thinking about the fact that I spent three days picking and preserving rosehips and all I ended up with was a few jars of jam and syrup.)

What We Did With Rosehips: Part One

2008-09-14T20:28:00.005-04:00

This weekend we fell to the task of dealing with the rosehips we had picked. Our first project was to make rosehip syrup, which was a popular use for rosehips in WWII era England as a way to get vitamin C. In fact it appears that everyone is still using the WWII recipe. We used this version.

Since we don’t have a food processor we took the stems and flower ends off by hand and then chopped them. We put them in boiling water, let them sit and then filtered them through our jelly bag. We also did the second filter as the instructions advise, adding more water and letting it sit more, although I’m not sure it was necessary.

We boiled the resulting juice down to the recommended volume and then added sugar and put it into canning jars and bottles. The canning jars we actually processed but the regular jars are just going into the fridge since (as a result of its high sugar content) it will probably keep for quite awhile in there.

Unfortunately our syrup didn’t come out the bright red color I had expected, probably because some of our hips weren’t quite ripe. After tasting it I don’t think I’d put it over ice cream but I can see sweetening my iced tea with it or making a soda with it and seltzer.

And on a completely unrelated note: today we had a new visitor. Mom found this tiny snail on our compost bin (I know it sounds fancy but it’s actually just one of those big Arizona ice tea jugs with part of the top cut out where our compost lives until it can be carried outside). I’ve never actually seen a snail anywhere on our property so I can only assume he hitched a ride here on something.

He was so cute that I didn't mind him leaving a slime trail across my hand as I transported him outside.

Mom's Cereal

2008-09-12T20:00:00.004-04:00

Don’t let the fact that I refer to it as “twig and bark” cereal deter you, people who like dry cereal (translate as everyone but me) give my mom’s cereal rave reviews.

Besides being yummy it is also homemade, economical and healthy too! Here’s her recipe:

Cereal recipe:
10 cups rolled oats (2 lb.)
1.5 cups sliced almonds (4 oz.)
2 cups raw cashew pieces (8 oz.)
1.5 cups raisins (8 oz.)
2 cups dried unsweetened bananas (5 oz.)
1 cup brown sugar (4 oz.)

Preheat oven to 350 degrees F. Chop cashews, mix oats and nuts and spread in a large cake or roasting pan in a thin layer. Toast for 15 minutes, stirring once after about 8 minutes. This will require at least two batches or two pans.

While oats cool break the banana chips into small pieces, separate any clumps of raisins and mix sugar with fruit evenly. Add to oats and nuts and mix well.

When completely cool store in airtight containers.

Makes about 17 cups.

(This is the cool chopper we use to chop nuts.)

The closest estimate we could make is that one half cup (a small serving) has about 207 calories and cost about $.24. Mom estimated calories by weighing ingredients, converting to grams and using the USDA's Nutritive Values of Foods.

Some notes on the process: use a pan with sides so you can stir the cereal. Also, bulk oats from a health food store can be much cheaper than supermarket oats and you can also find organic ones.

Rosehip Foraging

2008-09-11T19:46:00.003-04:00

The holy grail of frugal preserving is definitely something you can forage sustainably. For us one of these things is rosehips. Because Rhode Island has something like 400 miles of coastline, and rosehips love being on the coast, we have lots of them. It also helps that not many other people seem to be aware of their usefulness.

Rosehips are a great source of vitamin C and can be used to make tea, syrup and jam. Although we do have a native species of rose its hips are too small to be of much use so we pick from rosa rugosa plants which are actually an invasive alien species (another reason we don’t feel so bad about picking them).

Despite this we’re not sure of the legality of picking them in certain places so at our first stop today we had to be rather stealthy. This entailed climbing on some pretty scary rocky outcroppings to reach hidden bushes. This area (which shall remain unnamed) was too crowded so we only managed to pick 1.5 lbs and that took at least an hour.

On our way home we stopped at a parking area that allows you access to a path that leads (eventually) to the coast. Although we didn’t know for sure there would be any rosehips there we thought it was a pretty good bet and less likely to be crowded.

When we arrived at the beach we were greeted by a line of rosa rugosa plants heavily laden with ripe fruit. We rejoiced and then began filling a plastic bag with ripe ones.

As you know roses are thorny and these are no exception. So jeans, sneakers and gloves are recommended gear for picking. Of course I didn’t have several of those so I suffered in silence. (And by silence I mean that I yelped every few minutes when I’d get a particularly painful prick.)

Our new found site gave us a much bigger yield: we picked another 3.5 lbs bringing us up for a grand total of 5 lbs for the day. Not a bad haul considering the only cost was our time and a little gas money.

Look how big some of these are!

Check back soon to see what we do with all those rosehips!

T-Shirt Skirt

2008-09-08T17:56:00.005-04:00

I know, you're thinking "not another t-shirt refashion project!" But I have so many old t-shirts lying around I needed something to do with them! You didn't expect me to just throw them away did you?

Although my project was inspired by ones I had seen online I decided to just make up my own pattern as I went. First I decided how big around my waist band would be (I did this by measuring the waistband of a favorite skirt). I used this measurement not only to cut the piece for the waistband (with an extra inch for seam allowances) but also to decide on the length of the top of each of my trapezoids. Since I planned to do 6 sections I divided my waist measurement by 6 and then added an inch to that for seam allowances. For the bottom of the trapezoid I just added a couple inches. You could change this depending on how much flare (and flair) you want. For the length of the trapezoid I measured to where I wanted the skirt to end and then subtracted the width of the waistband (which I had decided was 4 inches).

I then found three t-shirts that I could cut out 2 trapezoids from each. It was important that the bottom of each trapezoid could fall on the bottom hem of the t-shirt because this saved me finishing and actually made the skirt look much more professional.

I sewed all my trapezoids together and then sewed the two waistband pieces together at the side. I then sewed the top one inch of the waistband down to make a channel for a drawstring. Then I sewed the waistband onto the skirt inside out. Then I seam ripped the entire thing off and sewed it on the right way. I used two strips of t-shirt to make a drawstring. A handy trick for getting your drawstring all the way around is to put a safety pin through the end and use this to push it through the channel.

I decided to use the logo from one of the t-shirts in the skirt (although you can't see it in this picture) because…well I don’t really know why but it looks cool.

Ta da! This skirt is so ridiculously comfy it is quickly becoming one of my favorites. Expect to see more t-shirt refashions in the future whether or not you like it! And no that is not Toaster the cat, that is actually Wiggin the cat and this is his first appearance on the blog because he is the least photogenic of all my cats (sorry Wiggin).

I'm taking the Wardrobe Refashion pledge!

2008-09-08T17:50:00.003-04:00

Since the garden is winding down and our glut of canning is just about wrapped up I will now be moving on to more wintery projects like sewing. So this was the ideal time to sign up for the Wardrobe Refashion blog pledge. Below is my pledge and check out the site for some refashionista inspiration. And expect to start seeing a lot more sewing projects!

The Pledge

I Becca pledge that I shall abstain from the purchase of "new" manufactured items of clothing, for the period of 2 months. I pledge that I shall refashion, renovate, recycle preloved items for myself with my own hands in fabric, yarn or other medium for the term of my contract. I pledge that I will share the love and post a photo of my refashioned, renovoted, recycled, crafted or created item of clothing on the Wardrobe Refashion blog, so that others may share the joy that thy thriftiness brings! Signed Becca.

Lumber Store Tomato

2008-09-04T20:34:00.002-04:00

I got home from work today and my dad asked: “Did you see the tomato I got from the lumber store?”

My immediate response was confusion, is the lumber store selling produce now too? But he explained that the woman working there had a basket of free tomatoes on the counter so my dad grabbed a good sized one.

What strikes me about that is that it would probably never happen if you were shopping at a chain store. So there you have it: free tomatoes are another good reason to support your local independent retailers.

Canning Blitz

2008-09-01T17:16:00.020-04:00

Here are the results of a few days of canning condensed into one post (prepare yourself).

First the rest of the peaches became “spreadable spicy peaches” (from the Ball Book of Complete Home Preserving) when we mixed them with apples, apple juice concentrate and lemon juice. It cooked down to a nearly jam like consistency and was ladled into hot jars and processed. (But first we taste tested it and decided that although it was supposedly sweetened with the unsweetened apple juice concentrate it really wasn’t sweet enough so we added another cup of sugar which was just enough to bring out the peach flavor over the sourness of the apples.)

We still had some peaches leftover and faced with a potential mutiny if Dad wasn't allowed to make a peach pie (or maybe crumble, which I prefer) we took the rest of the peaches which had already been peeled, pitted and halved and mixed them with sugar and froze them in freezer bags to become instant peach pie (or crumble).

Ever vigilant for frugal opportunities, as Mom and I went to dump out the lemon juice and water mixture that the peaches had floated in (while waiting to be cut up, to avoid browning) we noticed that it had alot of peach pulp in it. We tasted it and realized it was actually quite good so with the addition of some sugar we had a nice light peachy lemony drink. Mixed 50/50 with homemade sun tea with it was very yummy. It was a nice accidental byproduct of the canning process.

(And the truth comes out, now you know how messy our table usually is. Once we start experiencing landslides of circulars we know its time to clean.)

Next we did pickled zucchini slices. This would be a great way to put away those extra zucchinis that are piling up faster then you can eat them…if this is something you have to deal with. In which case I don’t really feel that sorry for you. I guess I’m a little bitter since all our zucchini plants basically bit the dust without ever doing much at all. My bitterness only grew at having to actually go to the grocery store and BUY zucchini, something no gardener should have to do.

Like the bread and butter pickles, this project involved a lot of quarter inch slicing (although I refused to make these slices diagonal, that just seemed unnecessarily difficult). I could probably make perfect quarter inch slices in my sleep (although lets hope no one finds out if that’s true).

Flash forward a few days and we are now back to watermelon. Although I had already done a batch of watermelon rind pickles I realized that I had already promised to give away as many jars as I had made which would have left none for me. So we went out and bought two more watermelons, although these were from the grocery store instead of organic.

I went through the tedious task of cutting the watermelons into one inch think slices, cutting the flesh away from the rind, peeling the rinds and cutting them into two inch long sections. These sat in salt water overnight and when we checked them the next day we found that they weren’t nearly as tender as the last batch had been after brining so these actually ended up getting simmered in the cooking liquid until they were tender. I also went the more traditional route for flavoring and opted for cinnamon instead of ginger (which my previous batch was, and I really liked).

(Look at me go!)

Since we had all that leftover watermelon (two small watermelon’s worth) I perused the Ball book for ideas and was inspired by “Zesty Watermelon Jelly” which the cookbook boasted had a “beautiful pink” color and “unique” lemongrass flavor. (Conveniently I had some lemon grass stems in the freezer.) I’m sorry to say this recipe was a lot more trouble then it was worth.

First of all it called for a jelly bag in order to make watermelon juice. We went to look for suitable fabric and we found some but it said it had a permanent press chemical applied to it and after some research we were reluctant to use it for food. So we resorted to cheesecloth but the mesh in it is so big that we ended up having to double it up to avoid getting pulp in our juice.

Finally we had our watermelon juice (which didn’t actually taste that great, kind of like pumpkin, probably the fault of bad grocery store watermelons) but we forged ahead thinking it might be improved with some sugar.

The next step in the saga was obtaining liquid pectin. I accidentally bought powdered pectin so we had to go back and get the liquid kind. And after all that what do you think happened? Our jelly didn’t gel right. We swear we followed the instructions correctly and here’s the strange thing. We had a small bit that didn’t fit in jars so that went into the fridge and that portion jelled perfectly! But our processed jars appear to be completely liquid. I tried sticking one in the fridge for a day and that helped a little but it’s not really jelled. So in despair we put them in the basement. We may try it in a few weeks to see if it has improved but if not we’ll probably just trash it.

(And I'm sorry, but those are NOT a beautiful pink color!)

But wait, there’s more!

Finally we did green tomato and apple chutney. I actually got the recipe from a great blog: The Slow Cook. We decided to go ahead and pick some of our tomatoes green because the plants are doing so badly some of them are dying with green tomatoes on the vine. At least this way we got something out of the plants. The recipe involves simmering green apples with green tomatoes, brown and white sugar, vinegar, onions, garlic, raisins, salt and lots of yummy spices. I look forward to eating it with lots of Indian food this winter (especially since I bought a huge one pound jar of curry powder).

If you’re tired from reading this post imagine how tired we are from doing all that canning? I hope with that in mind you can forgive me for going for a while without a post.