What a difference two weeks makes . . .

I took some pictures two weeks ago and, as I was looking at today's pictures, I realized that the garden has grown quite a bit. I'm sure we'll have peas, beans and beets. Not so sure about the summer squash. The last two pictures show the squash progress. No blossoms yet so, unless we have a late late late frost, I'm not so sure about any harvest from them.

Things to Ponder . . .

While Sneelock and I were having lunch at Uncle Tim and Aunt Linda's the other day, we had a dicussion about eating at someone else's house during the challenge days. They asked, if they invited us over, would we have to bring our own food and not join them with what they had prepared. It occurred to us that if the settlers were invited to a neighbors house for a meal during the harsh winter months, they certainly would not insult their hosts by refusing to share the meal they had prepared. They would probably have brought some of their harvest to share, but certainly would eat what was put on the table by their host and/or hostess. I would like all of us to ponder the possibility of allowing for invitational meal "freebees." What do you think?

Also, I wonder if there is any possibility of increasing the "allowance" from $10 to $20 per person. I think the extra $10 would make the challenge much more Do-able and allow more of us to stay in the challenge for a longer time. What do you think about this idea?

General Update

A miscellany of things to post, nothing so important as to warrant its own post.

The garden in Akron is fading. I still have corn growing, carrots, one big arugula plant, and one summer squash that fell from someone's pocket. There is also a watermelon the size of a water baloon, I don't have much hope that it will make it to an edible size. Something is happening to my tomato plants there. There are no ripe tomatoes, there are no rotten tomatoes on the ground. Parts of it look either broken off or eaten off. At any rate it is producing 0 tomatoes. I picked a few corns today.

I have tomatoes a plenty growing at Therese's house (thanks, Mom, for the great birthday present!) And a handful of bean plants growing in my own yard (along with radishes that will probably light my mouth on fire.)

Speaking of tomatoes, I canned a bunch last week (plain.) Now I am cooking the under-ripe ones (which have in the meantime ripened) into tomato sauce. Tomatoes, garlic, basil, salt. I plan to freeze some of the sweet corn i picked today as well.

This past weekend I met a darling couple, Pete and Joann Hopkins. They are the parents of my friend Erin. They have a few nice acres with a pond and some woods. We hiked around their property. Erin found some wild onions down by the creek. I found some field mint growing near the pond and a black walnut tree. They have a chestnut tree as well. There is supposedly a cherry tree somewhere around too but we couldn't get to it because of a deadfall in our way (not that there would be any cherries now.) I sat around and fished for a good long while, catching nothing but some rays.

I hope to get enough work done tomorrow that I can head out for a forage this Friday. Anyone who wants to play hookey, meet me at spencer lake!

Vegan Diet - The Finale

By the 5th day I was done with eating left overs. I decided that this day would be eating vegan from a modern perspective. I dug out a banana pancake recipe from the Skinny Bitch book by Rory Freedman and Kim Barnouin. Ingredients are pictured - whole wheat flour, maple syrup, baking powder, coconut butter, almond milk, vanilla and a banana. Results also pictured - the pancakes were delicious and very filling! I made a total of 4 pancakes so I warmed the last 2 for breakfast on Friday.

In the morning of day 5 I walked up to Good N Raw Cafe right down the street from my house to get lunch. They are well stocked with ready made raw vegan selections. I got kale chips and vegan "chicken" salad made with nuts and lots of other animal friendly ingredients. I made a sandwich for lunch on sprouted grain bread and topped with tomato and snacked on kale chips. Dinner ended up being a glass of fruit juice because I had dental work done.

While writing this post, I'm celebrating the end of my vegan week at Root Cafe, a little vegetarian cafe in Lakewood. I opted for a vegan organic whoopie pie and cup of pumpkin coffee with sugar and cinnamon, no cream.

Being Vegan and Beyond

As a continuation of my previous post, the 5 day vegan diet went fairly well. I ate leftovers days 2 -4. I doctored up the barely edible corn soup to a delicious spicy black bean soup, scouped out a majority of the boiled onions added a can of black beans, chili spices and a banana pepper that my coworker gave me from her garden - yum! yum!

I had an extremely busy work week so I think being on the vegan diet was beneficial. We had a stash of licorice, pretzles, brownies, cider donuts which I was able to avoid. I did go out for Starbucks soy chai a of couple days to get away from the office (After consuming it, I'm wondering if contained honey??). I also had a soy dark chocolate mocha from Caribou (looking back does their dark chocolate have any dairy in it?) Its very surprising looking at labels and finding eggs, dairy, honey in many unsuspecting foods. Skimming the label it may say no dairy but the product will contain eggs. And then there are always mystery items that you have no idea what that was made from. Being vegan takes a lot of research, knowledge, awareness, and the list goes on and on.

Ifffy Fall Plantings - I'm still learning . . .

Some of the seeds I planted the last week in August are not doing as well as others. The first picture is the turnip patch. Kind of shrimpy? The second is the summer squash in the yard waste pile in the corner of the garden. The plants look very healthy. I'm just not certain they have enough time to produce. Although the seed packet claimed 45 days - I think it will be a bit longer. The third photo was taken in the carrot patch - yes, I said carrot. The kale seeds must have gotten loose in the organic fertilizer and they have taken over. If you look REALLY close - you might see a couple carrot tops!

Lots of Beets and Bumper Crop of Beans!!!

The fall plantings are progressing nicely! The beets in the first picture were planted August 15 and are growing great! The second photo shows the last planting of beans (planted around August 30). I think the garden fairy is cheering them on!!! The beans in the last photo were also planted around August 15th. LOTS of bean blossoms!

Pass the Peas Please!

I think the garden fairy was working overtime last night. Lots of pea blossom to photograph today!!! It looks like we're going to have lots of peas this winter

Proposed Twist To The Challenge

Ok, every survivor game has a twist. How about a points system? Here's how it will work:

We all start on Jan 2nd with 100 points. For every day that we follow all the rules we get a point added on to our total. If we "cheat" points are deducted from the total as follows:
1 cheat item (no size limit) consumed in one sitting, minus 10 points - this can be a steak, a cup of coffee, 1 beer or glass of wine, a prepared sandwich or salad, a burrito from Moe's, etc. It all has to be consumed in one sitting and can only be one item. If you eat 1/2 burrito and save it for later, that will be considered 2 items and 20 points. If you get the chips and salsa with the burrito, you have to count that as a meal.
1 cheat meal, minus 25 points - this can be one meal plus beverages or a special occasion at a restaurant, at home or a friend's house. Any amount of items for that one meal, no to go boxes or that will count as another meal and another 25 points.
1 cheat day, minus 50 points (eliminating the free day, this will give us 2 cheat days as long as we accumulate points along the way).
If someone hits zero, then they're out. The last man standing or the person with the most points come March wins.
If this method is agreed up, I can put together a sheet for us to track our points.
So what do you say??

What Do Vegans Eat?

The picture says it all! Vegans have lots of choices! It became clear once I had a majority of the ingredients for my recipes out on the table. I stepped back and said wow! That's a lot of food!!

I shopped at 4 different stores to get all the ingredients. Instead of plain bread crumbs (which all had dairy in them) I bought matzo meal (which is just whole wheat flour and water). I also bought Kitchen Basics veggie stock because some of the others had honey in them.

I started out Sunday morning with a bowl of oatmeal and raw sugar with a side of grape/apple juice.

Then I moved onto 2 recipes in Rupert Wheldons book before going to yoga, date biscuits and corn soup.

The date biscuits were very simple - wheat flour, sugar, peanut butter, dates and water. All mixed and baked for 20 minutes in a 350 degree oven! Very delicious too! I packed these in baggies and put them in the fridge to enjoy as a mid morning snack.

The corn soup turned out pretty bad. It's basically water, canned tomatoes, corn and onions. It had a strong flavor of boiled onions and was pretty bland, but I ate it for lunch with a couple slices of bread from the multigrain baguette.

After lunch I made one more recipe from No Animal Food - Apple Cake. This is okay, not the best apple cake I've ever had. The recipe calls for white flour and I used wheat so I'm not sure if that would have made a difference.

The second book that I cooked from was Vegan Recipes by Fay Henderson. I made Rice Pudding which was pretty good , but not the usual creamy cinnamony sweet I'm used to made with milk and white rice and extra sugar.

I also made the tomato soup for part of dinner which has beetroot. The color of this soup is so beautiful and rich! It is delicious although another soup where the onion was overpowering (I'm wondering if I need to try a different type of onion) This was worth making as a challenge item since I had beets and tomatoes from the garden.

Also for dinner I made the lentil layer dish. Good, but again too oniony. I was done with onions for the day!!

Yesterday I had leftovers for breakfast, lunch and snacks throughout the day. For after-dinner dessert I went back to No Animal Food and made a baked banana. I mashed it and topped it with some brown sugar - delicious. For dinner, I cooked from Vegan Recipes. I made the nut roast, good but a little dry so I whipped up some portobello mushroom gravy . I also made Autumn Salad which has cabbage, beets, apple, mint, nuts and lemon juice. This was very sour and hard to eat!

Today, I'm eating more leftovers - the rest of the tomato beet soup, apple bread, rice pudding & date biscuits.

Finally Organized!!

Picture of the inside of my freezer once organized. Its a little more full with the weekend additions.

Current inventory:

Cabbage & Apple Salad

Bean Sprouts

Tomato/Beet Soup

Beet Tops

Kale & Kale Chips

Raspberries & Raspberry Sauce

Apples & Baked Apples

Apple Sauce (Either with last year's preserved apricots or blackberries)

Tomato Sauce

Layered Stuffed Cabbage

Garlic with Olive Oil

Chives & Dill

Green Beans - plain & some with garlic/tomatoes

Onions

Lemon/Lemon Juice

Chili

Did I miss anything???

Where Do I Start?

I've got a lot to say and only an hour to get it done before heading off to work.

I'll start with some past successes and failures.

Successes:

I made and froze 7 soybean patties from a recipe in Gene Logsdon's book Small Scale Grain Raising. Ingredients and results pictured!

Chili

This is one of my favorites, tomatoes, peppers, corn, potatoes, chive, garlic, whatever I have. So far I have 3 little batches. I will most likely combine all the mini batches into a big batch and add soybeans and serve over rice. This should make a few good meals :)

Tomato Sauce
This can go in both successes and failures. The first batch that I made for mom and me turned out wonderfully. The second batch for mom, Mark and me was not as good because the tomatoes were not ripe enough. I made another small batch on Sunday for the 3 of us which turned out better.

Failures:
Cabbage

I cooked cabbage and a bunch of other misc items from the garden and added 1 TBS of salt. It turned out terrible and I ended up throwing it out. I'm not sure why I added so much salt. It seems when I'm tired I don't make very wise cooking decisions. (too horrible looking to show, although I did take a picture).

Mishap

The freezer was very unorganized and one of the containers of layered "stuffed" cabbage came crashing down and the plastic shattered.

All in all the successes have outweighed the failures. Details in the next post.

Unconventional "Legal" Trade

I was out of garlic. So, yesterday I cooked up some of the tomatoes and green beans from the garden with some illegal store bought garlic and took it to my Mom's house. I shared the green beans, tomatoe dish with her and my sister and in turn Mom gave me some lovely garlic from her garden. I'm back in business!

Tons of tomatoes

WOW - I am amazed at all of the tomatoes in my garden. We've harvested a lot already and there are still a ton of green tomatoes ripening as we speak (or read in this case). Not pictured - all of Mark's birthday roma tomatoes.

Thankfulness . . .

The garden is progressing nicely. Pictured below are: 1) The beet greens (even if they don't develop huge beets - we still have the greens; 2) Yaaaaaaaa - the turnip roots are starting to develop; 3) The second crops of beans promise to be productive - there are LOTS of flowers buds and even some baby beans! I'm very thankful for all of the blessings of my lovely garden and all of the lessons I've learned during this challenge.

Lettuce Pray

The lettuce in the strawberry patch is quite small - although my prayers are focused on what I will be able to freeze for the challenge. When I wake up every morning, I can't wait for the daylight so that I can discover new awesome harvest in the garden. The first picture is the lettuce which is still quite small. The second picture is two 12 foot rows of sugar snap peas. Every day, I examine for the first hint of a blossom - none yet but I know they are there somewhere - just waiting to explode out and make me VERY happy. The last picture is two baby butternut squash. I planted two butternut squash plants which had wonderful blossom and promised a bountiful harvest. But alas, the deer found the plants and chomped off most of the blossoms. On their repeat visits, they munched off the baby squash. I am trying to figure out a cage system to save these two. Maybe I just have to claim them! Okay deer family - these two are for my family!!! That should do it!

Canning Canning Canning Canning Canning

Food comes in fast and furious around now, and most idle moments are spent processing this food for storage. I know that I spend a large amount of time doing food prep, and I'm sure that the other people involved in the challenge are doing the same.

Therese traded me grapes for wheat not long ago. She asked me the day before she was going to pick them, 'How much do you want?'

'I don't know, get me like 2 gallons.'

Did she get me 2 gallons? No. She got me probably 6 gallons. I used them to make grape butter (same concept as apple butter but with grapes, it turned out more like syrup than anything,) grape jelly, raisins, and grape juice. I just build the dryer for the raisins yesterday; I finally turned the last of the grapes into juice today. The jelly wasn't 'challenge legal' so I've already started sharing jars with friends and family.

We had family dinner this past Thursday; I came home with a bag of tomatoes. Today I canned tomatoes, yellow squash, and a couple of jars of pickles (I saved the leftover sauce from the bread and butter pickles when Kathy and I canned.) I also froze cantaloupe from my garden, and winnowed several pounds of wheat.

Idle time watching TV is spent picking apart wheat grain heads. I have 15lbs of unprocessed grain yet to go.

I also made a bit of a discovery today. When I collected the elderberries a couple weeks ago I took about a third of them and just cooked them down, no sugar added. I was looking for a savory or herbal flavor instead of something sweet. When I processed them I squeezed the cooked pulp to get all the goodness out of it. Today I was scrounging around for as many jars as I could find, and looked at that jar of elderberry essence. I found a good layer of oil on top of the jar. I decanted it off - probably only a few tablespoons were there but it has a very distinct flavor profile. It is almost like olive oil but it has a more complex flavor. It has a floral front and a dry finish. One of my favorite things about these food challenges is getting the opportunity to experience foods that nobody really eats any more. I know where at least one more of these trees is, and plan to go pick the berries to make more oil.

Stocking Up

I have a most recent favorite book I've been using in the challenge - a 1974 masterpiece titled 'Stocking Up'. It was created by the staff of 'Organic Gardening and Farming' and edited by Carol Stoner.

We were stalking around Therese's garden and came across a large zucchini and several Gretel variety eggplants that were ready to be picked. here is what 'Stocking Up' suggests for preserving these vegetables;

Freezing is recommended for eggplant; 'Select firm, hevy fruit of uniform dark purple color. Harvest while seeds are tender. Wash, peel, and cut into 1/3 to 1/2 inch slices or cubes. Dip in solution of 1 tablespoon lemon juice to 1 quart water. Blanch 4 minutes in steam or water. Dip again in lemon juice solution after heating and cooling. Pack and freeze.'

Drying is recommended for zucchini; 'Do not peel, slice into thin strips and blanch about 7 minutes.' Blanching is suggested because it 'sets the color, hastens drying by softening the tissues, checks the ripening process and prevents undesirable changes in flavor during drying and storage.' The book then goes into great detail about constructing drying trays and systems.

Historical Vegan Diet

Starting this Sunday, for 5 days I am going to be following a historical vegan diet. This mini challenge is inspired by Sarah Lohman and her blog Four Pounds Flour www.fourpoundsflour.com. She is currently doing a 5 day vegan challenge. While reviewing the recipes in the 2 books suggested by Sarah, most of the ingredients in those recipes mirror what will be availabe to us for our 2012 challenge. I will be preparing everything on Sunday so I will be ready to go for the week. Details to follow.

Tomatoes Galore!!!

I am happy with the tomato harvest this season. I hope Sharon is ready to create some "saucy wonders this weekend! Speaking of creating - I thought I would include a picture of one of the reasons I have been a turtle in my garden this year. I've been creating garden sculptures for the last couple of years and have participated in several outdoor art and craft shows. Pictured below are two of my sculptures. The taller sculpture is one of my latest. It's name is Moon Beams. I hope to display some of my sculptures throughout my garden next year - all in "turtle" time you know!

Fall Plantings (Done in Turtle Time)

Pictured below is the section of the "Turtle's" garden dedicated to late summer plantings. I'm not certain how much of a harvest we'll have - but it was worth the effort to be able to eat during the winter. The first picture is a series of summer squash planted in the "weed" pile at the back corner of the garden. The area is near two large maple trees and there are too many roots in the ground to be able to plant successfully. So, when I saw the pile of yard waste getting higher, I thought I'd give it a try. The second picture is the last planting - green beans galore! The third and fourth pictures are the entire fall garden. I planted three rows of peas, four rows of pea pods, summer squash, two rows and a spiral of green beans, three types of beets (two rows each), four rows of carrots, two rows of lettuce, four small patches plus numerous random plantings of kale, two rows of turnips and quick growing red cabbage (turning out to be VERY slow growing!)

"Space" Invaders

My garden has a species of "Space" Invaders. I guess the packet of Kale seeds opened into the bowl of organic fertilizer. Pictured below - 1) Kale in the baby beets; 2) More Kale than carrots; 3) Kale in the Pea Patch; and 4) Kale invading the turnips. In many cases the Kale is growing much better than the seeds I planted . . . hmmmmmm . . . . I think I'll be having a LOT of Kale to trade!!!

Fishing & Forage

The Turtle and I made our way to Spencer Lake for a morning of fishing this past week. We didn't catch any fish. After 3 hours of sitting around with virtually no interest from the fish we set out into the field for a bit of foraging.

Please, if you are going to forage for wild food, do your own research. Don't take my word here as bible on what is safe for you or your family to eat.

To the left are some of the interesting things we found out there - most but not all of them edible. Starting in the upper left we found some hickory nuts. I has spotted these on a recent hunting excursion and took a few home to identify. There are 5 varieties of hickories in Ohio, 4 of which are edible. The non-edible one distinguishes itself with 4 bony spines along the nut shell. They have a green husk that rots to black, and the husk segments into 4 sections as it dries. Although the ground was littered with old nuts, most appeared to have been from the previous year and wouldn't yield anything edible. We did score a couple dozen newly fallen nuts. I discovered that you can smack them on top with a kitchen mallet and the husk will split off of the shell readily.

Just west of the hickory nuts are an old favorite - black walnuts. We had a monolithic walnut tree growing next to our house growing up which would dump its bounty onto the roof every fall. The sight and scent of these is unmistakable - round green husks with a pungent almost pine-like smell.

Down from there is a little plant we discovered near the shores of the river. It had thorns and small yellow fruits, a few which were ripe. I broke a fruit open and it had the scent reminiscent of a green pepper or tomatillo. I took this sample back with me for identification. Thanks to the OSU Weed Guide I identified the plant to be horse nettle. It is a relative plant to the tomato, tomatillo, ground cherries, etc. but it is not edible! Lucky thing my mom was there with me to constantly tell me, 'don't put that in your mouth.' I imagine I must have been a handful growing up!

Left of that we have another plant we had not previously discovered in our foraging. Mom asked me about cattails which we saw. I reached over to pull a dead one up to show her the part of the root where the starch is stored. When I stepped near the bank I evoked an herbaceous scent. We poked around until we found the source - field mint! I had never tasted this variety of mint before. It is pretty readily identifiable by the ring of light purple flowers which ring the stem, and the unmistakable scent of mint when the leaves are broken off.

Finally pictures is a cluster of elderberries. There are several elderberry trees at the north end of the lake I spotted while out hunting. We picked about 2lbs of them in pretty short order. Before cooking these have a potent dry flavor and a texture like raw cranberries (or, for those of you who have never bitten a raw cranberry, the texture of balsa wood.) Cooked without sugar these yielded an almost coffee-like flavor.

We also saw several ground cherry plants, many growing right along side the road. If you have ever seen a Chinese Lantern plant, ground cherries look a lot like them (big surprise, they are relatives.)

We also saw a lot of jewel weed, which means there is a lot of poison ivy. I myself don't have a reaction to it, my mother does though. Looking at the OSU site I saw that poison ivy yields clusters of white berries. Be careful when foraging out there, and don't put that in your mouth!

Okay Already - Fine!!!

I was feeling some pressure about this whole sugar bucks thing from some of the scratchers. So, I finally knuckled under or buckled under the pressure and created the much desired sugar bucks. Here they are! (I still have no clue but at least now I have the sugar bucks!!!) Anybody have anything to sell - I'm going to press with the design and I want to know how many to print. (tee hee).

Trades

We've had some trades agreed to that have not been published here, so here they go.

I collected a big old pile of wheat. Separating it takes forever. I did some calculations and the grain weight is approximately 80% of the bulk weight of the grain heads. I offered 20oz of unprocessed wheat for SB1.50 (which should yield out 1lb when finished), and will mill the wheat once separated. Kathy and Todd took 10lbs, Sharon took 5lbs, and Therese took 4lbs.

I owed Sharon SB4 for previous work she did helping me in the garden. She paid me SB3.50 (well she paid me SB4, because she didn't make a 1/2 buck bill. So now I owe her SB.50)

I also traded 6oz roasted ground chicory to Kathy for SB5. We agreed on another trade for 1 gross of eggs for SB2.25 per dozen. She delivered 9 dozen yesterday. So as of now I owe the Jacksons SB.25, with another 3 dozen eggs yet to be delivered.

Therese (AKA Mom, AKA The Turtle) has yet to take delivery on her wheat, I hope to drop it off this evening. She has also yet to embrace the idea of SugarBucks, and wants to make trades right away to settle things. I've agreed to take grapes in trade for the wheat I am delivering.

Amber Piles of Grain

The three bags in the upper right of the picture are filled with the wheat I've separated so far. It is easy but very time consuming to separate the wheat by hand. I winnowed what I had this morning as it is cool and breezy outside. My current stores are 12lbs of grain, with an estimated 19lbs yet to process. There are a couple pounds of oats that need processed too.

Also pictured (top right, going counterclockwise,) 4 jars of apples in light syrup, 4 jars of dill pickles, 3 jars bread & butter pickles, some salted fish, 4 jars of blackberry jam, and 1 jar of whole peeled tomatoes.

In regards to foraging - I went out hunting at Spencer Lake, my favorite local hunting and fishing spot. There was a ranger there who was scolding a couple of hunters, I don't know what for. When he was done I told him about us getting kicked out of the metroparks for picking blackberries and asked if it was permitted there. He told me that picking berries, nuts, and mushrooms were permitted in the Spencer Lake wildlife area. It is good to know for sure that we have an area legal for foraging!

Cash Monies

I haven't spent all of ours yet and don't plan to until I really need it. Jessica and I get $13 for the challenge. So far I have purchased 1lb yeast ($2.34) 1 26oz can salt ($.39) 1 5lb bag of sugar ($2.69) and 1 gallon vinegar ($1.99) - $7.41 so far. Pickling with Kathy used up 2-1/2 lbs of white sugar, 1lb maple sugar, and almost half of my bottle of vinegar. She took the spices and salt out of her expenses to make it even. The last $5.59 will be spent as sparingly as possible - the only thing I plan to spend on at this point is buying some ginger to make real ginger ale. I'll probably need some more staples such as sugar and salt too.

I do not feel very confident that any of use will make it to March 15th. The last challenge was a week and we had huge piles of food. This challenge is 10x as long and I don't feel our stores are going to be enough. Only time will tell!

My $10 "Allowance"

I've thought long and hard about how to spend my $10 "Allowance." This is what I've come up with. It is "subject to change" along the way.

Cupboard items at the time of the ruling:

I have 1/2 bottle of vinegar. Full price at the store for that particular bottle - no sale - no coupons is $1.99. So, $1.00 of my allowance will be that vinegar.

I froze 1 stick of butter. The whole pound is $4.39. So, $1.10 of my allowance is the butter.

I had 5 pounds of sugar. I figure I will use half. Cost at the store $2.99. So, $1.50 of my allowance is the sugar.

I have about 1/2 jar of soup base paste. The jar costs $5.40. I figure I will use 1/4 of the jar. So, $1.35 of my allowance will be the soup base.

I had balsamic vinegar - I haven't priced that yet but I'm thinking I'll use 1/2 of what I have. So, I'm putting a price of $1.50 on that.

That's $6.45 from the cupboard

I bought small bag of brown rice for $.78, and a small bottle of oil for $1.28. Total new purchases $2.06.

Lastly, Sharon is purchasing $1.25 worth of cornmeal for me.

Bringing my total to $9.76. So, that's how my $10.00 will be spent as of this moment.