Garlic, Lentils, and Beans, oh my

First up, my planters:  I’ve had the worst sort of success with the plants I bought at Wal Mart and stuck in pretty planters on our balcony.  I’m not sure what went wrong.  I had tomatoes, cucumbers, and zucchini, all of which are practically fool proof.  When I watered them, the leaves turned yellow.  When I didn’t water them for a day, thinking they were getting too much water, they went limp.  So I’ve presently got two scrawny tomatoes that haven’t accomplished anything, and dead vines.  Nice, right?

Then, a number of weeks ago, I saw a blog post by someone who took ordinary bought from the store brown lentils and got them growing at home.  I naturally thought, “I can do that!”  It doesn’t hurt that our weather has suddenly turned very spring like, with reasonably warm days in the mid 80’s and cool nights.  So I got an empty gallon milk jug, cut it in half, filled with dirt, and planted a handful of seeds.  Three weeks later, most of the seeds have sprouted and are growing joyously.  I’ve thinned them once and expect to have to do so again in a couple weeks when the late starters really get going.

 

About a week after the lentils, my jar of farmer’s market garlic cloves got inexplicably damp.  By the time I noticed and dried the jar out, quite a number of cloves had sprouted pretty green shoots.  Considering my lentils had just started sprouting, I decided to get out another milk jug and some more dirt and plant garlic.  In addition to sprightly sprigs of lentils, I also have four gregarious garlic shoots.  They haven’t grown much in height yet but the frail little shoots popping out two weeks ago have turned into sturdy dark green leaves.  I can see more leaves developing underneath too.

Yesterday I started thinking about how much Ba’al and I enjoy lima beans.  It just so happens I have a jar of lima beans in my cupboard.  “If I can get store bought lentils to grow, I wonder if I can get store bought beans to do the same?”  I thought.  Out came another milk jug (I save them for use as storage containers), the last of my potting dirt, and the jar of lima beans.  In about two weeks, we will know the success or failure of this latest experiment.

 

I’ve already devoted a considerable amount of thought to the issue of pollination, which may very well need to happen after the birds, bees, and butterflies have disappeared until spring.  If these lentils and beans happen to be self-pollinating varieties, then I have nothing to worry about.  They will take care of themselves regardless of where they are growing, indoors or out.  If they need some external mechanism, I may find myself pollinating with a Q-tip or situating them in front of a briskly blowing fan.  Needless to say, I am very much hoping either for self-pollination or for flowers to occur before fall truly sets in! 

I am at least guaranteed successful garlic at this point.  I have a tendency to forget garlic when I go shopping so having the capability of growing garlic inside practically the year around makes me quite happy.  Even if I don’t get any produce from the other experiments on this go around, it makes me quite happy to see pretty green growing things inside or out on the porch.

Housing Codes and Local Laws

Another mini-rant to start the day.

I've been washing clothes only and drying them in the apartment.  Inevitably, that means a few pairs of pants or heavy shirts end up on the balcony rail.  Well, about a week ago, I got a letter from the office telling me that it's against the local fire code and "community standards" for me to do this and asking me to remove the clothing post haste.  Ironically, there wasn't anything on the railing that day.  Apparently, it's okay for families in the complex to dry their children's swim suites and pool towels on the rail but not okay for me to dry Ba'al's pants out there.  Somebody please tell me the difference!

Myself personally, I have a feeling this has more to do with someone's fear that the complex will start to look like a getto than with fire codes.  The complex is old and something is always falling apart (don't even ask me to get started on what's been going on this summer) but the buildings look nice and the grounds are well manicured.  The complex next door to us is literally falling apart and is a trash heap in comparison to where we live.  The rents are similar though.  We're totally getting a good deal here.  It's just irritating to me that here I am trying to save money and do something good for the environment and they're coming down on me like a ton of bricks.

One of the boards I go to regularly is for families trying to live eco-friendly.  Recently, a woman came on looking for ideas to reduce her water usage.  One of the suggestions made was to stick a bucket under the shower while the water is warming up.  That water an be used for watering plants, soaking dishes, really anything you don't need hot, hot water for.  The original poster liked the idea but the suggestion led to a discussion about gray water.  It turns out that in many cities, it is illegal to recycle gray water (water with soap in it) into your toilet.  How crazy is that?  One of the best ways to reduce a city's dependence on water is *illegal*!

Recycling

A couple weeks ago, Ba'al picked up a booklet at one of the farmer's markets put out by a local earth friendly coalition.  It is basically a list, broken down by category, of all the things that can be recycled locally and where to take said things.  Among the surprises:

Boulder Running Company, to which one can take worn out athletic shoes for recycling.

Many dry cleaning facilities accept plastic sheeting and wire hangers for recycling or reuse.

A program that accepts old cellphones and refurbishes them for the families of deployed soldiers.

The number of retailers, Whole Foods and Wal Mart included, that take in plastic shopping bags for recycling.

*Many* companies recycle ordinary household batteries

The local Renew store is also featured in the booklet.  I *love* Renew.  People who are renovating bring in their old appliances, extra tile, fixtures, cabinets, really almost anything you can imagine that would go into the building of a house or office.  People who need something can then purchase these things for much less than retail.  It's fabulous.  The link contains a list of Renew locations.

The one thing that REALLY bugs me.  The only "full service" recycling facility *in*the*entire*city* is about fifteen miles north of us.  There are plenty of bins located at various retailers close to us but none of them take all the basic household items.  Wal Mart has bins but only takes office paper and newsprint.  King Souper has bins but only takes office paper/newsprint/junk mail and "tin."  So we've got boxes in the back of the truck and make the trek up to the very most northern part of town once a month or so.  

Now I know why

We were at the Pontiac, etc dealership yesterday to get a VIN check on one of our vehicles (an oddity in CO motor vehicle law:  All vehicles must have a VIN inspection prior to registration, apparently to help prevent thieves from registering stolen cars in their name).  So Ba'al and I wandered around the showroom while waiting for our car.  We looked at a hybrid.  Nice, but neither of us really wants to drive an SUV.  Looked at one of their V8 sedans.  Also nice but our next new vehicle is going to have alternative fuel capability.  

At that point, a salesman wandered over and asked if he could help us.  Ba'al asked if he had any flex-fuel vehicles.  The guy says he's got trucks.  Ba'al asks about family cars.  The guy asks why we're interested in such vehicles.  We say economy.  Guy quotes us a (ficitious) current E-85 price.  Completely stupid of him to then argue with me about local prices.  We'd just filled the car not an hour earlier at the station near our house that sells E-85.  I know exactly what we paid.  Then the guy starts into a lecture, well practiced by the sound of it, about how you lose efficiency, etc when you use E-85.  I walked away.

In our house, major financial decisions go through me.  Therefore, the moment I walked away, that salesman lost a potential customer.  The vehicles Ba'al drives at work (Tahoe's) run exclusively on E-85, which is one of the reasons why his department is not in a complete panic yet about the price of fuel.  On the average night, he drives around 200 miles and uses approximately 10 gallons of fuel.  That's darn good milage in any vehicle and anecdotal evidence completely contrary to the party line about losing efficiency.  Finally, the family car is primarily my car.  I do not need, nor do I want a V8 sedan.  The more V's under the hood, the less efficient the car is in stop and go traffic.  Since 90% of my driving is and will be in stop and go city traffic, I want a smaller vehicle and a just-big-enough-for-the-size-of-the-vehicle engine.  That maximizes in city efficiency.

Walking away from that conversation, I told Ba'al I now understand why people are so wary about flex-fuel and alternative fuel vehicles.  The  car lot salespeople convince potential buyers that these vehicles are sub par compared to the big flashy V8's.  What it really is is salespeople losing out on commissions when someone decides to go for the smaller, less expensive flex-fuel option.  Has nothing to do with vehicle efficiency or any of that jazz.  It's all about the pocket book.  Therefore, anybody who is considering flex-fuel or alternative fuel options for their next vehicle purchase, do your research before you go shopping.  The salespeople aren't there to help you pick the perfect vehicle for you.  They're just interested in the biggest commission they can possible make off of you. 

:=D :=D :=D :=D

We got our first share of milk today.  It is awesome, I think.  I haven't actually drunk any of it yet, due to the veg and beef soup I started making at about the same time.  If anything, the half gallons we got today have even more cream than the jars we saw during the farm tour a month ago.  These jars have a full two and a quarter inches of cream on them.  I've already made my first batch of butter.

The easiest and oldest method of butter making involves putting cream into a sealed container and shaking.  I have a lump of butter and about a cup of buttermilk, the real stuff, not the skim milk sour, cultured buttermilk sold in stores.  The butter turned out amazingly golden yellow.  I haven't seen butter this color since I was a little girl on my parent's farm.  Once I open the second jar and make another batch of butter next week, I'm going to make a soft buttermilk cheese as well.

Larga Vista Ranch also sells grass fed, grass finished beef.  We bought twenty lbs of stew meat and chuck roast in addition to picking up the milk.  A pound of the stew meat made its way into the afore mentioned veg and beef soup.  It has way more flavor than super market beef and since the owner uses homeopathic treatment for most of the illnesses his animals contract, it's also completely free of drugs and hormones.  I am so very glad we learned about what Doug and Kim are doing!  Not only is my family eating better, I've also learned a lot of things from them related to what I want to do with our own farm in the future.

Agricultural Adjustment Act of 1935

I did some poking around this morning after getting curious about the comment Hot Chocolate made to my last post.

When the Agricultural Adjustment Act was proposed, it operated on the primary assumption that if fewer farm products were produced, it would actually lead farmers to receive higher prices for their crops.  It's a reasonable assumption.  After all, vast tracts of land in this country are almost magically fertile and produce an abundance of food.  What this assumption fails to take into consideration is that, as in many countries with highly productive lands, the issue is not supply and demand.  The issue is transportation to markets that actually *need* what the farms produce.  This is why we have chronic oversupplies of food stuffs and yet still have children and families who are malnourished for lack of access to wholesome food.

The AAA proposed cutting production to increase prices.  One of the ways the bill did this is still with us today in the form of a program that has helped increase the fertility of land; farmers receive a subsidy for allowing a certain percentage of their land to lie fallow, that is unplanted and unused even as pasture land, each year.  By letting land rest, it is able to replenish minerals drawn out by our typical farm crops and restore itself.  A good thing, right?  A program that lets farmers do the right thing for their land without penalizing them for it.

The more controversial part of the bill is what Hot Chocolate referred to.  In the 1920's and 30's, cotton production was at an all time high.  Pork prices at the consumer end were at an all time low.  For these two products, and these two only, the AAA of 1935 (there was an earlier AAA that was stricken down as unconstitutional) encouraged farmers to produce less.  Cotton farmers were encouraged to plow under a quarter of their total crop.  Pig farmers were encouraged to slaughter a percentage of their herds.  For these efforts, the farmers received a subsidy.  Trickle down economics worked also; as less cotton and pork made its way to market, the consumers paid more which meant the suppliers paid farmers more.  Not much more but it did help.  The Agricultural Adjustment Act ONLY affected cotton and pork.  NO other food stuffs were subsidized by asking farmers to produce less.

Use it up. . . . or do without

I read an interesting article yesterday about how warehouse clubs like Sam's Club and Costco are doing a booming business these days.  People perceive the prices at these stores as being inherently cheaper, even though that may not be the case.  But the point that really struck me, in light of the Great Depression food research I've been doing, was an expert quoted in the article saying that when people buy large quantities of food stuffs, they tend to eat MORE of what they bought rather than conserve it for long term.  This is precisely the reason why I've seldom bought fresh produce at Sam's Club.  The quantities are just too large for two people to consume in a reasonable amount of time without wasting.  Though, with my freezer suddenly no longer filled with meat, I am strongly considering loading up the next time we go and freezing my bounty.  But it's more fun to do that with farmer's market purchases and better for the farmer and the environment too.  :=D

Back in the days before World War II, pre mixed boxes for baked goods were pretty much unheard of.  Women either baked completely from scratch or had their own pre-mixes in jars or bins ready when they needed them.  The mixes had flour, leavening, dry flavorings, and shortening in them and only needed to be mixed with water or milk, eggs if necessary, and liquid flavors like lemon or vanilla.  I've become a huge fan of these mixes after stumbling across the list posted at Grandma's Pantry.  

I have the brownie and cornbread mixes in my cupboard and have used each successfully several times.  The brownies are tender, moist, and impressively chocolate-ly.  The cornbread is moist and dense but relatively bland, which I improved by adding honey along with the eggs and milk.  In the next couple weeks, I'm going to also make up the basic cake mix, pie crust, and hot chocolate mix.  I suspect the later will want the addition of non dairy creamer to more closely mimic commercial hot cocoa mixes but if one doesn't mind a "thin" tasting hot cocoa, this mix looks pretty much the same as what my mom used to make up by the half gallon jar.

As for storage, the best option would be glass gallon jars.  If you don't have many lying around, having ransacked your home for recyclables, I've had great results with washing out gallon milk jugs and filling them with dry goods.  The jug does need to be completely dry, of course, and I found filling them easiest with the use of a paper cone to funnel the mix in.  Most of the mixes mentioned here can be stored for three to six months (you use shelf stable shortening like Crisco) in a cool dark place, like the back of a cupboard.

Use it up, wear it out, make it work or do without

Such was the philosophy of our predecessors who lived through the years of the Great Depression.

In light of the increases in basic cost of living expenses, Ba'al and I have made some radical changes to the way we shop for food.  We buy nearly all of our fresh vegetables at farmer's markets.  I freeze about half of what we buy for future use and present the rest as creatively as possible for as many days as possible.  Most of our cans and dry goods, we buy at a local "scratch and dent" grocery.  You can't be the sort of cook who makes the same seven meals every week if you want to shop successfully at a discount grocery but if you're somewhat flexible and creative in your cooking, you can save a ton of money at these stores.  For specialty ingredients, we go to Whole Foods or a local natural food store called Mountain Mama.  I do buy some bulk items at Wal Mart or Sam's Club but there are only a few select items I buy there now.

Notice I haven't said anything about meat yet.  That's because we have reduced our consumption of animal protein to twice a week.  Yup, just two meals a week include poultry or red meat.  This is a HUGE change for my red meat loving husband but we've committed ourselves to eating smaller amounts of higher quality meat instead of animal protein nearly every night of the week.  In addition to eating less, we've also committed to buying kosher meat.  It's more expensive but more in line with our religious beliefs.  As a result, we're eating more creatively.  We had Doro Wat for our Shabbat dinner last night and leftovers of that tonight with a tomato flower salad.  Tomorrow, we're having eggplant parmesan with eggplants I bought fresh off the farm on Thursday.

Lunch the past three days has been soup.  It started as a pasta and bouillon soup on Wednesday.  Thursday, I added farm fresh veggies.  We had the same thing yesterday.  After dinner last night, I added our cucumber and tomato salad leftovers to the soup and served that for lunch today.  By the time Ba'al had his mid-afternoon snack, the pot was, at last, empty.  I love never ending soup pots!  They make lunch so much easier.

The challah (egg bread) made for dinner last night has been snacks all day today and will be breakfast tomorrow, served with cream gravy.

I have become VERY conscious of using everything I make and not letting anything go to waste.  With food rapidly becoming more expensive every time we shop, it's important to use every useable scrap.

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In that vein, I've started a braided rag rug.  It's material is old sheets and things I have lying around.  My sister is also sending me some similar weight materials she bought but has no use for.  I could donate the sheets or Freecycle them but I desperately need area rugs and making my own is better than buying them.