My thoughts on Food, Inc., about four years later than everyone else.

Finally watched Food, Inc with my boys today, as part of school.  The 91 minute movie took us more than two hours to watch, because of the little girls needing attention, and for pausing to comment on the movie itself, both by me and by the boys.

I would say that I already was aware of about 95% of it, having learned from other sources the same/similar information.  But, it’s just GOOD to have what I already know be reinforced, and to learn even that 5%.

Most of what I didn’t know had to do with the human element:  The progression of how subsidized American corn has been exported to Mexico, putting Mexican corn farmers out of business.  Then, slaughterhouses advertise in Mexico, soliciting illegal immigrant workers — often ex-corn farmers — and even BUS them to the U.S.  Then, the employers have basically slave labor because the illegal employees don’t want to get busted by ICE and deported.  So, they have zero voice, and they’re one more source that keeps the price of low-quality meat unnaturally suppressed in the American market.  I had never heard that, nor pieced it together for myself, but it makes total sense.

I told my boys at the end, “I know that you already knew much of this, but sometimes, it helps that, instead of hearing your mother harp on you –” Twelve-year-old Grant interrupted and laughed, “You can hear OTHERS harp on you!”  Ha!  He said this with good humor, as none of the boys felt “harped upon”;  they all appreciated the content and found it interesting and confirming.  They also commented that, at the end of the film, where all the suggestions are made for how to be better food consumers, “We already do all of that!”  My oldest said that, instead of our family being the health-freaks amongst our circle of friends* and being the odd man out, that, maybe by the time he’s a grown up, the weirdo will be the guy who regularly eats fast food cheeseburgers. Most touching was 10-year-old Wesley saying, “I hope you get to be in a movie like that some day.”    Not that I aspire to be an interviewee, or that I even merit that, but that’s how he sees me, which is so precious to me.

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*Not that we’re the ONLY people we know who are committed to eating healthy, but it’s still not the norm, by far.

Garden productivity… :) Makes me pleased. And a few other things.

Wee little garden update:

This morning, I harvested $6.58 worth of fresh, organic produce.  Here’s how I figured it:

• One head of lettuce (Simpson Black Seeded — one of the BEST choices I made for my garden this spring).  Seven oz, after being torn and washed.  Five ounce containers of organic lettuce are typically $3.99.  At that rate, my lettuce is worth $4.49.
• Two ounces broccoli — actually my largest head of broccoli so far, only about 5″ across… Turns out that broccoli typically doesn’t produce well at first try…  Still, I’m not giving up.  I may try a different variety next time, though.  And plant it later, as the best of my broccoli has been harvested this month, when it’s warmer.  Anyway.  I can typically get organic broccoli at the store for $1.49/lb, so my two ounces equals $0.19 worth.
• Turnips — 3.5 oz.  Actually, they’re not turnips.  They’re the roots of Tyfon greens, which is a cross between a turnip and a kind of Chinese cabbage.  Tyfon was a good choice when they were young and it was cooler, and we ate a ton of it, usually garlic braised and mixed with red chard.  But as the weather has warmed, the Tyfon has been an absolute aphid MAGNET.  Gross.  So, I pulled the remainder of them out this morning, and a few of them had biggish, turnip-looking roots.  Thus, 3.5 oz of “turnips”, at $2.99/lb = $0.65 worth.
• Six ounces carrots.  We have a spot at the end of the garden where my daughter Fiala dumped an entire packet of carrot seeds.  Even with regular thinning, it has turned into a carrot forest.  I did a little research, because these carrot tops were developing powdery mildew.  It turns out that powdery mildew — which is fairly harmless on carrots, though it can spread to other plants and stunt growth — flourishes in dry days, in shady conditions, and in crowded plants which inhibits circulation.  The “carrot forest” is, unfortunately, largely shaded by a tree.  It’s dry here.  And, they’re crowded.  Thus, I’ve had to pull out lots of baby carrots, which really aren’t akin to grocery store “baby carrots”.  When they’re not full-grown, they’re rather bitter.  But, they’re still edible.  So, 6 oz carrots at $0.99/lb = $0.38 worth.
• I also harvested eight cherry tomatoes — 4 yellow and 4 red.  Organic tomatoes are really expensive — typically $3.99/lb.  So, my 3.5 oz of cherry tomatoes is worth at least $0.87.

If my math is right, that is $6.58.  And that’s just from today!  I’m daily harvesting produce.  AND, there’s still a bunch of red chard I need to harvest before it bolts, which I will do later today.  Organic red chard is typically $1.99/bunch this time of year, and I have enough for a good 4, 5, 6 store-sized bunches.  Maybe more.  And there are some lovely green onions that can be harvested.  Even though my garden is small — about 7′ x 20′ — it has been extremely productive, once I got it going…  Definitely more productive this spring than last;  I’ve learned a lot in quite a short period of time.

 

Lovely nasturtium, with lettuce and not-yet-red bell pepper growing in the background. And, for those in the desert, Palo Verde "leaves" make the perfect straw for mulch.

Audrey, who turned six this month, in an outfit she picked out on her own. Darling girl.

Fiala, in one of her newest favorite activities. She is about 75% healed of her Candida Albicans system-wide yeast infection, BLESS GOD!!

The many faces of FiFi. She saw a bug, her one phobia.

About two minutes post-bug. She's laughing at me grossing out over her picking her nose. She's quite pleased with mom being disgusted.

Precious girl on the tree-trapeze. There is such a tender spot in my heart for her. We have had *SUCH* a difficult three years+, and it gives me indescribable joy and relief that we may be coming out of it. Truly, all glory and thanks to God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ who redeems and heals.

Bubble burst

“Two minutes.  I’m walking Mommy out.  I’ll be back in two minutes.  Don’t come out.  Let me have TWO MINUTES with Mommy,” my hubby Martin stressed to the children, who were finishing dinner.

It’s a weekly event.  I go grocery shopping on Wednesday nights, and he walks me to the car, carrying my shopping bags and unlocking and opening the car door for me.  When you have five children, it’s pretty amazing how valuable a tiny slice of time together can be.

“So, even though I didn’t start this diet to lose weight, I’m pretty happy to have lost some.  Guess how much!” I demanded as we walked slowly toward the car.

I was thinking that he hadn’t noticed;  he hadn’t mentioned anything about it.  I thought he’d say, “Two pounds?  Three?” and I could return with a triumphant grin, “No!  Almost EIGHT!”  I’ve lost 7.7 lbs, to be exact.

He looked me over with a thoughtful, “Hmmm…” Then, he confidently guessed, “Seven point five pounds.”

WHAT???

At that point, Audrey came running out, barefoot in the 45° weather, in tears, “Granty ran into me and hit my mouth!!”

Our two minutes were clearly up, so we quickly kissed, I stuffed my near-shock at his accuracy, got into the car, backed out, threw “I love you” hand signs*, and went off to the grocery store, smugness deflated, as Martin tended to the crisis.

I asked him about it again this morning, and I’m still not sure if it was just a good guess or an accurate estimate based upon close observation.  It’s his secret, I guess.

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*We have a “secret” sign in our family.  It started with my hubby saying, “Love yas!” as he held up the normal “I love you” ASL short-cut, usually to Audrey, as he was backing out of her bedroom door at night.  When she was really little, Audrey started one-upping him by holding up both hands with the sign, saying, “Double love yas!”  Then, she raised the bar by crossing her two forearms into an X, with the “I love you” sign flashing on both hands, “Triple love yas!”  So, now, we all “triple love yas” each other… 

Health stuff: Me, Fi, avocados, and candida.

• After writing this, I thought, “How cliché!  I’m writing about a diet and it’s the new year, when everyone has made new commitments (again!) to some diet or another.”  But, for better or worse, that’s not what this post is about.
• It appears my three-year-old, Fiala, has a crazy-bad body-wide yeast infection, and I was reading up on Candida overgrowth for Fi’s sake, when, to my particular interest, I read that Candida is frequently the source of hives in adults.  I’ve been getting intermittent hives for about the last two or three months, and the last two weeks have been AWFUL, with nightly hives (they’re always worse at night) and day-long burning and itching skin, especially on my hands, forearms, thighs, belly, and neck.  The whole world of Candida overgrowth is confusing and I haven’t even begun to scratch the surface.  Trying to establish some sort of anti-Candida protocol is really hard for a three-year-old;  you just can’t make them quaff a teaspoon of apple cider vinegar, no matter how you disguise it.  For me, though, it’s a little easier.  I am embarking on a week-long cleanse.  I don’t even know if I’m doing it “right”;  I’m just following what seems logical:  Eating a all-sugar-free-even-honey-and-fruit, super-low-carb diet, basically a Paleo diet.  I’m counting my carbs (minus dietary fiber), and maxing them at 30g/daily.  I’m also supplementing with probiotics (lots) and with apple cider vinegar (lots).  Part of me is concerned that I don’t know enough to start the diet knowledgeably, but the other part of me has decided that doing the best I can, and adding to my knowledge as I proceed, is what I need to do, otherwise, I’ll keep dragging my feet and eating toffee.    I figure that even if the hives are not from Candida, at least I’ll probably lose a few pounds this week.  At least, I hope I only have to do one week.  We’ll see.  Maybe it’ll be as easy as starting a gluten-free diet nine years ago, where I felt SO MUCH BETTER that how much “trouble” it was became a total non-issue, and I knew I could never go back.
• 

  The post from which this beautiful pic comes mentions the giant amount of "good" calories that come from avocados. For the record, I don't give a rip about calories, and my body doesn't, either. My body does, however, care about sugar. I can eat fat-laden meat and fruits and veggies and gallons of honey and never gain an ounce, but if I eat me some sugar, and too many grains, I *PACK* on the pounds. I think those Paleo folks are onto something.

  In news related to the above (and below), avocados, though they are technically a fruit, have NO sugar!  Well, not “no”:  An average-sized avocado has 0.4g sugar and 0.1g starch.  That’s pretty close to zero.  And they’re super high in fiber, avocados have a reasonable amount of protein (especially for a fruit!), and are crazy-high in Omega 6 fatty acids, and EFAs are also supposed to be good for Candida sufferers.  And, oddly enough, avocados are related to cinnamon!  I’ve long known that Fiala can handle cinnamon with no allergic reaction.  I wish I would have discovered the connection, long ago.  Fi’s been eating avocados like crazy the last week or so; a local grocer has them on sale for 4/$1.00 (Bashas’, for those readers in Arizona — the sale is good through Tuesday.)  I found this page very interesting;  it’s about different varieties of avocados.  I was trying to find what kind we have.  I’m still not sure.

• Speaking of Fiala, you may have seen on OSC’s Facebook page that there was a chance she has Type I (juvenile) Diabetes.  I’m happy to announce that her urinalysis was clean — no glucose.  Part of me was kind of hoping that diabetes was at the heart of her life-long health struggles, because that would be a clear path, and it’s treatable.  But since she doesn’t… we’re back at square one.  I was really unhappy about that for a few days, and now I’m OK.  Better than OK, actually.  We see the naturopathic doctor again on Friday.  She’s planning on ordering up some blood tests based on what did or didn’t show on Fiala’s (very, very clean) urinalysis.  I’ll ask her about Candida then.

“Come, oh winds of testing…”

I got carded last night at Trader Joe’s, buying some sparkly for New Year’s.  That cashier knew how to perk up the outlook of a down-faced 38-year-old.  I had a good laugh with the lady right behind me, who congratulated me on the event.  She was friendly and warm and had a Nigerian accent, and I left with a smile on my face.

At the previous store, Costco, I had decided that despite my current state of affairs — a really ugly situation with my ten-year-old son and a neighborhood boy, which has escalated into three families boycotting our family, and which is still not even remotely resolved — that God didn’t intend for me to:

a) walk in shame
nor
b) treat people like crap just because I’m feeling badly.

When I go on my weekly marathon grocery shopping trips, where I typically visit 4-6 stores and spend 3-4 hours doing so, I make an intentional effort to be kind to customers and cashiers, to go above and beyond what might be expected of a typical late-night shopper, and to spread the love of Jesus, if only a smile at a time, to those I encounter.  This approach almost never fails to have some sort of positive effect on someone, and often results in some really interesting interactions with shoppers and/or store employees.  Last week, a cashier at Bashas’, Nina, told me that I was her favorite customer.  I laughed, and then she prompted me, “Now, you’re supposed to say, ‘And Nina is my favorite cashier!’”  I complied, although, honestly, she’s not.  She’s kind of grumpy and gets on my case about often needing assistance to find out-of-stock sale items late at night:  “What do you expect?  It’s 10:45 at night!  We close in 15 minutes.  Of course the butcher isn’t here and there’s no one who can help you in meat.”  She also makes fun of me for taking so long in the store.  I check my list, I check my coupons, I read labels endlessly…  I’m sure I take longer than the typical shopper.  In spite of this, though, she likes me.    I think I like her more, for liking me.

Nina thinks I’m amazing for having five children and tells everyone about it — other employees and customers alike.  I don’t particularly think that’s a reason for merit, but I’ll take it.  She wasn’t there last night, though, to prop up my ego;  her son got married on the 27th and she took the whole week off.

Anyway.  Back to Costco.

My cashier there was Richard.  He’s tall and very thin, and I have often wondered where he purchases his jeans, though I have never mustered up the courage — or would it be cheek? — to ask him.  He asked me the standard question about whether I had found all I was looking for.  I replied that I had, thank you, and made eye contact with him, smiling.  He paused, responded cheerfully, and with what seemed to be an intentionally friendly manner, finished up my order.  Not friendly-flirting.  Friendly as in, “Wow, you are treating me like a person and I appreciate it.”  As I walked away, I marveled at, truly, how little it takes to make someone’s day a little better.

That’s when I resolved to still do my normal, intentionally kind shopping trip, instead of wallowing in the misery of the situation with my son.

Misty Edwards helped me, too.  To be honest, I’m not a rabid fan of hers.  Those who like her tend to REALLY like her.  I’m not like that.  I just don’t often enjoy listening to endless Misty-IHOP music;  it just doesn’t float my boat, even though I love, love, love worship.*  Last night, though, when I got into my hubby’s car to go grocery shopping, he had Fling Wide on, and I let it play, needing some soothing for my sore soul.  Track 5 came on, the title track, and I almost fast-forwarded it because I just don’t like the opening lines, “Awake, awake oh north wind, awake, awake oh south wind…”  But, I let it play because I love the electric guitar on that song, and I was thinking, “How does the chorus to this song go?  I think I remember liking it.”  And I did.  I do.  I hit repeat, really listening to the lyrics the second time through, part of which say, “Come, oh winds of testing…”

“What??” I thought, “I’m not liking winds of testing right now.”

I really do NOT have a “bring it on!” mentality to testing.  At all.  I don’t like being tested.  I don’t know if Misty really does, or if she simply has made peace with the value of being refined by it.  In any case, she appears to be further down that path of maturity than I am.

To most of the song, though, I really can yield, singing loudly and with full agreement, “Fling wide the door to my soul/Open up the door to my heart/Have Your way, have Your way…” even though I have to will myself to sing the next few lines about “I won’t be afraid/I’ll embrace the flame” and I’m sure any fly buzzing around the cab of the car would note the lack of conviction in my voice at that point…

I hit repeat on that track about six or seven times before I just resigned myself to the fact that I needed to put the song on a continuous loop-repeat.

Even though I really need to update that 101 Random Things About Me page, #43 is still in full effect:  “When I’m upset, I love to go on an errand by myself and BLAST worship music in the truck, singing my guts out.”

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*Gross generalization:  I find that most IHOP worship tends to be really internally-focused, introspective, “search my heart… I am weak and lowly…” kind of worship, and I tend to prefer songs that focus directly on Jesus and His character and ability, and/or a little more transcendent worship/rejoicing in who He is…  Hard to explain.  Not trying to pick any fights with anyone, just trying to explain where my worshiper’s heart is at, and it typically doesn’t beat in quite the same place that Misty Edwards, et al, seem to beat.

Organic deals of the week

When I got home last night from grocery shopping, it was just after 11 p.m., and I was giddy, even though I was exhausted:  I was walking on air from being under-budget (to make up for last week’s going over-budget) and getting some great stuff… even purchasing some “extra” groceries that I know will last longer than seven days, helping keep next week’s expenditures down, or to make room for a more expensive budget-eating item (like the 3 lb bags of raw almonds that I love from Costco at $9.99 a pop).  It truly makes me feel great when my persistence and conviction to feed my  family well on a budget pays off.

Again, everything I purchased this week was “clean” –  no preservatives, no artificial colors or flavors, no polysyllabic additives that are supposedly edible*.  But, like I blogged last week, my goal is to buy as many organic products as possible while staying within my family’s budget of about $25 per week per person.

It’s my plan to regularly blog about organic deals both to encourage ANYONE that it is possible — with some planning and searching — to eat organically, inexpensively, and to give anyone in the Phoenix area a “heads up” about these local deals.

Although I went to five stores last night in my marathon weekly shopping trip, all of my organic deals came from Sprouts, a local natural foods/farmer’s market chain.  It has locations in California, Arizona, Colorado, and Texas.  Most grocery stores’ weekly sales start on Wednesday and end on Tuesday of the next week.  Sprouts, however, has “double ad Wednesdays” where the sales of both the previous and the current week are valid.  So, double the number of things are on sale if you shop on Wednesdays.  TOTALLY worth it.  So many times, I’ve purchased a sale item on one Wednesday, and purchased it again the following Wednesday.

Here are my fave cheap organic purchases from this week’s trip:

1. $1.00 for a 12 ounce container of Pacific Natural Foods’ organic condensed cream of mushroom soup — gluten free, but not dairy-free.  Regularly $2.99 for each container, it was on sale for $2 at Sprouts.  And I had downloaded a coupon from Pacific’s website for this soup.  Sale + coupon = item at 1/3 the normal cost.  It’s been so long since I’ve purchased Campbell’s cream soup, so I don’t even know the normal price in a local grocery store, but I have to think that it’s at least a dollar, if not more.  Lemme check…  I’m sure few would buy Campbell’s online, but looking online, it’s at least $1.50 – $2.00 per can, and that’s for a 10.5 ounce can.  Frugal shoppers would buy locally, on sale, with a coupon.  Still, I think this amounts to organic for the same price — or cheaper — than conventional.
2.  $2.99 for a  3 lb bag of Bosc pears from Sprouts.  These pears are from Domex Superfresh Growers, which (the best I can tell) is an independent coop of small, family farms in Washington state.  Honestly, Sprouts had conventional pears at $0.77 per pound, so I could have purchased my pears more cheaply…  but other local grocery stores had pears for $0.99 – $1.29 a pound or more.  So, this is roughly organic for the same price as conventional.
3. Would you buy yogurt for 37.5¢ per 6 oz cup?  That’s way cheaper than Yoplait.  Even on sale, Yoplait is rarely less expensive than 50¢ per 6 oz cup.  So, why not buy 32 oz tubs of organic yogurt for LESS??  I paid $2 for a tub of lowfat vanilla yogurt by Wallaby Organic Yogurt at Sprouts, which works out to 6.25¢ per ounce.  Wallaby is an independent co-op of eight family farms located in Northern California.  Depending on your family’s needs, tubs of yogurt might be less convenient, but for us, tubs work better.  Those who can eat dairy typically mix a big spoonful or two of yogurt with dry cereal and some fruit (most often frozen blueberries), and a 32 oz tub lasts all week.  It’s one of my favorite late-night snack/desserts, too…  I spoon frozen blueberries into the bottom of a bowl, top it with yogurt — my favorite is actually plain, full-fat yogurt — drizzle with honey, sprinkle with granola if we have any…  Yum!  This deal is organic that is cheaper than conventional.
4. My last deal of the week is organic celery on sale for $0.99 per bunch by Earthbound Farm, found at Sprouts.  Once you’ve eaten organic celery, you will NEVER eat its bitter conventional equivalent.  Earthbound Farm is an independent co-op of about 150 farmers, mostly in central California.  This deal is organic for the same price — or cheaper — than conventional.

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*Again this week, my least “clean” purchase was conventional cereal, two boxes of Post Honey Bunches of Oats with Strawberries.  I purchased these (my son Ethan’s favorite cereal) for my older two gluten-eating sons at $1.88/box from Bashas’.  The cereal is naturally colored and flavored, but BHT is added to the packaging as a preservative.

Organic on a shoestring. And is organic even worth it??

USDA Organic.  Its merits are debatable.

• The program allows pesticides and herbicides that, perhaps, shouldn’t be allowed.
• It also doesn’t — at all — solve the basic problem with farming monoculture.
• And, since an alarmingly increasing number of the small organic farms of years past are getting bought out by huge farming corporations, buying organic is no guarantee of supporting a family farmer, or even a small, locally-owned farm.
• Organic doesn’t mean “local”, either, of course, and folks debate if it’s better for the environment to buy local conventional produce or organic that has been shipped 2,000 miles.

The USDA Organic program definitely not perfect, and it solves few problems with the massive corporate farming system in the United States.  The only thing that really consistently solves all those problems is growing your own organic garden, or perhaps supporting your local organic farmer by purchasing a farm share through CSA subscription.  I participated in a CSA — it (sob!) just ended for the season last week — but even though I got raw dairy, organically-raised meat, free range eggs, and organically farmed produce, it still didn’t cover all my family’s needs.  I’m also growing an organic garden, but I simply don’t have enough room to grow everything we need to feed our family, and even if I had the room, my neighborhood’s HOA doesn’t even allow chickens, let alone a couple of sheep or a cow.  While growing your own organic crops and raising your own organic protein of choice is most ideal, that’s not realistic for most of us.  And because of those difficulties, I still think eating organic is a good compromise.  Not perfect, but good.

Not that I can afford to eat 100% organic;  I don’t think I could do that even if there were fewer than seven mouths to feed in our home.  So, by and large, we eat “clean” all the time*, and eat organic when possible, and I work towards making organic eating possible on a tight budget.  Eating clean and cheap is simple (though inconvenient):  Buy loads of fresh fruits and veggies, bulk brown rice and other whole grains, dry beans, some dairy and eggs, some meat, nothing prepared, very few frozen or boxed items, eating every meal from scratch… But eating organic and cheap is much harder.

However, I have found that there are some organic standbys that are consistently the same price — or even less expensive — than conventional.  You just have to keep your eyes open and be willing to shop at more than one store.  For instance, here in the Phoenix area, there is no reason NOT to eat organic carrots.  I know that my local natural foods market, Sprouts, ALWAYS carries five pound bags of organic carrots for $3.99.  That’s $0.80/lb.  Typically, one-pound bags of conventional carrots are around a dollar.  Of course, if you buy conventional in bulk, you may pay around the same price or perhaps a bit less as organic-bulk carrots;  five pound bags of conventional carrots are typically $3-4.  My point, though, is that you can often (not always) find organic deals, if you keep a sharp eye out.

And, every week, I seek to purchase organic products to stock my fridge and pantry, on a shoestring.  My own organic deals of this week:

1. Two, ten ounce boxes of Erewhon Organic Crispy Brown Rice gluten-free cereal from Bashas’ (local, family-owned chain) on clearance for $0.99 each.  Better price than conventional.
2. Sixteen cans of S&W organic canned diced tomatoes, 14.5 oz size, for a net of $0.48 each — purchased in two small 8-pack cases with a buy-one-get-one-free coupon at Costco.  Better price than conventional.
3. Five pound bag of frozen super sweet white kernel corn by Watts Brothers Farms for $5.49.  That’s $1.10/lb.  Better price than conventional.  You can typically find frozen conventional corn in one pound packages for $1.25 – 1.50.  Costco typically carries a selection of 2-5 varieties of organic frozen produce, most hovering around $5 for 5 lbs.
4. Half gallon of Horizon half-and-half at Costco, at its normal price of $3.99.  My husband and I lighten our coffee with half-and-half and regularly use up about a quart plus a cup every week, so this will last us more than a week.  The best price on conventional, all-natural, no-additive half-and-half is $1.87 per quart at Fry’s.  It’s $2.29/qt at Bashas’.  So, this deal is that you can purchase organic for roughly the same price as conventional.

Every week I have a similar story:  Organic items I’ve purchased for the same price or lower than conventional by always making my grocery list with the store’s food ads in front of me, checking the store’s clearance area, knowing which stores have the best deals on which items, using coupons when possible, comparison shopping, and keeping track of an item’s normal selling price.

No wonder my brain feels full.

I should start a regular series of my cheap-o organic finds.  Hmmm…

——————

*Well, most of the time, say, 97-99% of the time.  I have virtually eliminated chemical additives of all kinds from our food and other non-healthy stuff like corn syrup and hydrogenated fats.  But, occasionally, a couple not-perfectly-healthy things slip in.  My least “clean” purchase this week was two boxes (for my older two, gluten-eating sons) of General Mills’ Honey Nut Cheerios.  $2.98 for two 12.25 oz boxes, on sale plus a coupon.  See ingredients and nutrition info below.  Not terrible, certainly, but not fabulous.

Karen the Farm Lady tantalizes you…

I have been Farm Lady the last few days, barefoot in the kitchen, and I really love it. I’ve decided that I would gladly do a swap with someone: They can come daily and clean my home, and I will do all their healthy grocery shopping and cooking and baking, accommodating all their dietary needs or restrictions. I’m sort of joking, because I think in order for it to REALLY work, that person would have to live very close to me. Still. One can dream, right?? If interested, apply below in the comments.

It tastes as good as it looks!

I’m finally 100% happy with my bread.  Yes, it’s gluten-free, dairy-free, egg-free, rice-free, potato-free, vegan, made with this homemade flour blend.  Now, I just need to post the recipe.  But that takes a while.  Saturday, maybe??  Monday??  Stay tuned.  My friend Kim (of Gluten Free Real Food) sampled the bread yesterday, and she said it was really good. 

Yesterday, I turned all this basil (about ¼ of what I could have harvested from my garden) into little ice cubes, made by chopping washed leaves with a bit of olive oil in a food processor (a delightful, free hand-me-down from the afore-mentioned Kim), putting 1 Tbsp of the mixture into ice cube trays, and topping it with filtered water.  It made 40 “ice” cubes, which I will happily add to soups, stews, sauces, etc., in the dead of winter, and think happy thoughts about my garden.  I’m going to make some more this afternoon.

I look like an aging goober with really yellow teeth. Oh, well. At least I can grow some good basil.

I worked this morning in my garden, staking my tomatoes, weeding, and making a general assessment of overall garden health…  I was going to plant more carrots, but Fiala, my almost-three-year-old “planted” the seeds in the family room carpet yesterday.  I have determined that all — or at least most — of my garden problems were simply from the intense heat.  The days are still hot — usually hitting 105° daily — but the nights are relatively cooler — in the 70s or at least the low 80s.  Now,

• my Mexican Grey Squash are growing very nicely.  I still haven’t harvested any mature fruit, but there are about six squash growing healthy and strong…  At least 2-3 of them should be ready to eat in another week or so.
• My pole green beans have recovered from serious heat stress and are growing fresh green leaves and blossoms.
• There are a total six green tomatoes on my eleven plants — don’t laugh!  Up until now, I have harvested ONE tomato, and it was really small.  So, I’m really delighted about my tomato plants — growing more robustly in the last few weeks than they have all summer.
• I also have 7-8 volunteer tomato plants sprouting up… I’m not sure if I’m going to have room for all those tomatoes!  We’ll see.
• My green chile plant is blooming nicely.
• My Hopi Pumpkin plant is absolutely taking over the world — it’s about 10′ x 10′, and now it is finally producing some green pumpkins which are NOT dying, but actually growing bigger.  I hope I get to reap some before I grow terribly annoyed by the prolific/invasive grower and root it out.
• I have carrots that are growing nicely.
• Red chard growing nicely, too, though it seems like the bugs REALLY like it, so I’m going to have to spray it with some organic pesticide…  (I bought Raid Earth Options chrysanthemum-pyrethrin-based pesticide because I had a buy-on-get-one-free coupon.  For the record, it discourages bugs for about three days, and you can’t let any overspray hit bees, or it’ll kill them.  And, a garden needs its bees!!)

I’ve put up ten quarts of pickles in the last week or so, using cucumbers from the CSA/farm share to which I belong.  Four in the first batch, six in the second batch, which I canned this morning.  The first batch was WAY TOO SALTY, because of some vague wording in the recipe I was following coupled with me not being sharp enough to figure out the error.  The best part of the too-salty pickles is the cloves of fresh garlic I threw in.  YUM.  I’m going to have to pickle me some garlic!!  In the new batch, in each jar, I used ½ tsp dill weed, ¼ tsp each brown mustard seed, coriander seed, and black peppercorns.  No garlic this time — not enough to spare!  I look forward to eating my not-too-salty farm pickles.

This last bit isn’t really farm-y or even food-y.  BUT, I’m pleased with myself, because it is a cheap way to make my home more pleasant.    My sister, who teases me unmercifully on topics ranging from my horse teeth to my hairy toes to my crunchiness and everything in between (I love her dearly and she keeps me humble), bewailed my sadly scentless laundry.  I explained that we couldn’t do scented detergents or fabric softener because of Fiala’s skin issues.  When she mourned for me, it really got me thinking about ways I could make my laundry smell pleasant and fresh without hurting Fiala.  A few weeks ago, I was at Trader Joe’s and noticed their filter-paper enclosed lavender dryer sachets.  Voila!  Perfect.  The $3.99 price tag made me grumble, but four packets which each last 6-10 loads… I figured the package would last me a month.  Well, my local natural foods market (Sprouts, which is taking over the West — you may see one near you soon!  It’s a good thing.) is running a 25% off their bulk products this week.  They have a lovely wall of half-gallon jars full of spices and herbs, and I thought, “I wonder if they have dried lavender flowers?  I could make my own dryer sachets!”  Turns out, they DO carry lavender!  Even on sale, it was $13-something per pound, so I tentatively filled up my little plastic ziploc baggie with what I figured was more than enough to make four sachets to do a little price comparison.  The total cost???  FIFTY TWO CENTS.  That’s it.  And when buying lavender as an herb, it was taxed at the grocery rate (1.8%) instead of the general merchandise rate (≈9.8%, depending on the municipality).  And, I already have a little cotton drawstring bag that I’m planning on using.  So, I’ll have my gently lavender-scented laundry now, at 1/8 the cost.  Ha!  I feel pretty good about that one.  Because I get excited about weird stuff like that.

And now, this post is so long, I guess I could have used the time it took creating it to have done the bread recipe.  :\

Ups and downs on the farm

“I almost love the CSA I’m participating in,” I thought last night, as I sipped the homemade chamomile, sage, and mint herbal tea “my” farmer, Dana Mast of WindyView Acres, had included in yesterday’s box of goodies.

I more love it than not, but it hasn’t provided the overflowing basket of abundant greenery I thought I’d be receiving weekly.  We had a weird winter here in south-central Arizona, and the location of the farm (Dewey, AZ) had freezing night temperatures into May!  Dana has been farming there for fifteen years, and she said it was the longest, coldest spring she can recall.  Logically, I can extend her some grace;  of course the freezing temps could stunt growth… and that is one reason why CSAs exist — to help the farmer offset some of the risk associated with farming.  I appreciate her efforts to make up for the lack of produce by adding extra eggs, milk, cheese, and even farm-raised, chemical-free meat and home-baked goodies…  And, I extend her grace when she doesn’t communicate all that well;  I know she’s super, super busy.  But, it does make me at least start to have second thoughts of the cost-benefit of the endeavor.  One friend of mine has even dropped out, due to her disappointment.  I haven’t given up on Dana and the farm, but I’m kind of waiting until the end of the season to pass my final judgement on whether or not the whole adventure is worth decreasing my already-tight grocery budget by $25/week to accommodate the cost of the CSA.

Yesterday, she said that a pack of coyotes got into her chickens and killed 80 of the 120 (if I’m remembering the numbers correctly).  On top of that, the remaining chickens are molting, which decreases egg production.  So, no eggs are likely for the rest of the season. 

Banana peppers

Still.  Last night, we enjoyed dinner, largely courtesy of the CSA.  I made a delicious scramble with Egyptian Walking Onion bulbs (like shallots), garlic, green onion tops, red bell pepper, banana peppers, zucchini, mushrooms, sheep milk feta cheese, fresh oregano, and fresh Thai basil, two goose eggs, and 18 chicken eggs.  (All items in bold were from the farm.)  I served it with fresh farinata and gluten-free sour-milk biscuits (made with this flour mix), on which we gleefully slathered butter and honey.

My son Wesley, who as I have mentioned previously, gets a severe asthmatic reaction from dairy, has been able to drink raw goat milk from the farm.  Last night, he ate two and a half biscuits made with sour cow milk, and he didn’t even wheeze.  Not at night, nor this morning.  Hmm…

Yesterday’s haul had:

• black Spanish radishes (have to look up recipes for these huge, spicy radishes… found these…  looks good!)
• Button red radishes
• Egyptian walking onions
• green (spring) onions
• a small bag of about six assorted hot peppers (banana, jalapeno, and Thai hot)
• several sprigs fresh oregano
  

  Black Spanish Radishes -- they're the size of beets! White inside, though.

• several sprigs fresh Thai basil (I love Thai basil!)
• about one cup of the above-mentioned dried herbal tea mixture
• a plate with six (wheat) egg & onion dinner rolls — I kept four and gave two extra to my friend who is doing the CSA as well, since we only have two gluten-eaters in our family of seven.
• 1/2 gal raw goat milk
• 1/2 gal raw cow milk
• 2 goose eggs (each equivalent to 3 chicken eggs)
• large pork shoulder roast — a good 4 pounds or more
• two packages (about 3 lbs total) beef liver — I would never consider eating liver from any “commercial” cow…  Pastured beef, though…  I’m still a little hesitant, but I’m gonna try it!

Definitely, money-wise, worth more than $25 — since raw milk is $10/gallon and natural/organic meat is at least $3/lb, those items by themselves make it worth the cost.  But still, I mostly got into it for the produce, which has been less abundant than I’d anticipated.

We’ll see. 

 

Housework! Summer soup! Beef jerky! Computer viruses!

• Fourteen upper cabinets.  Twelve lowers.  Fifteen drawers.  All cleaned, inside and out, sorted and re-organized.  Plus, as they don’t go all the way to the kitchen ceiling, the tops are cleaned off, as well as all the decorative items that reside up there.  ~sigh~  That is a sigh of exhaustion.  And relief.  In our nearly six years of living here, I have never done all of the kitchen cabinets in one fell swoop.  It had been nagging at the back of my brain daily, each time I took something out of a cabinet and saw an accumulation of crumbs, dust, and/or greasy grime.  Note:  Gel Gloss looks fabulous for about ten minutes, but then that gleaming shine washes off super-easily with soap and water!  Not great for quartz countertops in a kitchen that gets regular abuse use.  Bummer.  Anyone have a favorite stone countertop product they love??
• Have you ever tried my Thai Chicken Noodle Soup?  I just updated the recipe.  I can’t believe it’s been almost four years since I originally posted the recipe.   The soup –  more of a meal-in-a-bowl than an actual soup — is a staple in our home, even in summer.  Lots of fresh veggies, tasty and fun.  Mmmm…
• I turned seven pounds of London Broil into beef jerky the other day.  Smoky-garlic and soy-garlic.  It’s in preparation for our vacation.  Jerky comes in handy for snacks and meals-while-driving, as well as made into various recipes (which I learned from this fabulous cookbook for hikers/campers — it’s a shame it’s out of print!  One review says “Invaluable!  Wore out library copy — had to buy my own.”  That is exactly what I did!!)…  Anyway.  What wasn’t fit for jerky got put into a pot of what was supposed to be red chile stew.  Which it was, sort of.  But, I got enticed by a Really Big package of dried chile de arbol at the grocery store last week, and thought, “Oooh, those are the chiles in Cholula [my fave hot sauce],” and I bought it, really knowing nothing about them.  Well, it turns out they are REALLY HOT.  I removed the stems, seeds, and… pith (or whatever it’s called), and my hands burned for hours, even though I think I only used five chiles.  Also, the broth was SO HOT that I had to scoop out all the beef chunks and — sadly — drain the broth, which seemed like such a waste, but I knew if I kept it as it was, it would be inedible for my kids.  I added water to cover the remaining beef (to which some crushed chile still clung), added a chopped onion, sea salt, and about eight cloves of chopped garlic.  After it had simmered for nearly three hours, I thickened the cooked-down broth with some corn starch, and served it with some Spanish rice (which I had made earlier in the week) and some refried beans (from Trader Joe’s — my favorite).  It was good.  Still, lesson learned:  very judicious use of chile de arbol in the future.
• My computer contracted a nasty virus, somehow, a few weeks ago.  It died.  Actually, it would power up, but Windows wouldn’t start.  The virus was called Windows Repair Module, which — obviously — was a fake.  How insidious.  I kept getting warnings from Windows, and it turns out that each time I clicked the “OK” button, I was unknowingly activating the .exe file associated with various aspects of the virus.  A friend of my husband’s took my hard drive home with him and worked on it every night for four nights.  He was able to pull most of my documents and pictures (THANK GOD!  I cried when I thought they were unretrievable), and save them to an external hard drive.  Then, he reformatted my hard drive.  Now, I just have to load a bunch of software that got wiped out… but that’s OK.  I then thanked my oldest son, Ethan, who will be 14 later this week.  Why?  Because “…with the measure you use, it will be measured to you.”  Ethan worked a hot and hard day at the home of a friend, laying tile and cleaning…  and with that measure of service and giving, it was returned to us, in the form of a repaired computer.
• If you’re still reading… today is my birthday.  I am 38.    The only thing I really love about growing older is the history, the perspective that it brings to my life.  I freak out less, because I can say, “Look.  We had that really rough patch five years ago, and God brought us through.”  When I was younger, everything was new and untested, and every challenge threatened to topple me.  Now, I’ve had years of tasting God’s goodness, and seeing His faithfulness first-hand.  To me, that’s a really, really valuable birthday present.