Freezer Celery

Several years ago I started growing celery in a half barrel on the back porch. It's always done well...as long as "well" is defined a bit differently than traditional grocery store celery.

A perennial, it comes up in the spring. Lots of leafy growth. Thin stems. When the weather gets warmer, it starts to bolt. I harvest it prior to bolting and chop leaves, stems and all, putting it into freezer bags. During the winter I just grab handfuls for soups, stews, casseroles, etc. I'm not excited about big celery chunks, but I like the flavor in food, so this method works well. It is quite flavorful. And since it's one of the top 10 "bad" foods, pesticide-wise, this seems like an easy alternative.

Plastic cups, BPA, and kids

A couple years ago I decided to eliminate most of the plastic storage containers in my kitchen. I bought class bins for flour, sugar, dry beans, pasta, etc. With all the new information on BPA, this week I finally took all the plastic cups--especially for kids--out of the kitchen. I started using something else for the kids months ago. Thought you might be amused to hear what...

My kids drink out of glass jelly jars. Half-pints for the half-pints. :) They are just the right size for little hands, they don't break easily, and they are heavy enough to not tip over. Love them for everything but outdoors and car trips. I have a few plastic cups saved in the pantry for outdoor use (minimal) and today I bought a couple of BPA-free tippy cups. While my youngest two are getting older, I still like to have something for use in the car and in carpeted rooms.

My youngest also still needs cuddle/bottle time for attachment purposes, so I bought some glass bottles today. I think it's hilarious. Decades ago people got rid of glass bottles because they weren't safe, replacing them with plastic. Now we get rid of the plastic and replace them with glass. Too funny. I did have an option for BPA-free plastic bottles, but I like the durability of the glass, along with the fact that it washes so well in the dishwasher. Plus, who knows what they've next discover is wrong with the plastic???

Still can't figure out what to do about freezer containers. I read one article that said that the older the plastic, the less BPA leaching. The freezer boxes I use once belonged to my grandma and are old, old, old. Wonder if I have a better chance using those than trying something new? I do use some glass jars--quart and pint--for freezer storage, but I don't like to use them exclusively. They're heavy, hard to thaw from if I'm in a hurry, and can break in the freezer.

So what are you doing about food/beverage containers and BPA?

Processed Food is Less Expensive?!?

This article really bothers me. Why do so many people believe that it's cheaper to eat processed foods? It isn't. How can we help more people to understand?

Incidentally, I'm no food saint. I've evolved. From the days dating my future husband, when I thought it was amazing that he could put together a meal of hamburger helper and canned green beans. Then to our early marriage when I cooked cream-of-soup casseroles and thought I was cooking from scratch. To these days when the bulk of what we eat is either grown in our own garden or in our local community.

We've changed.

Simply Sustainable

Simply Sustainable, to be published by Herald Press in 2010, will help readers meet the challenges facing the earth and our communities by offering realistic alternatives to many of the consumer choices they make everyday. The learning and experience of contributors from around the world will offer tested and proven methods to better care for God’s creation.

Want to contribute as a writer, reviewer, or tester? Visit the website.

Sunflower Seeds + Orbit Gum ?!?!

Sunflower seeds. A healthy snack. Inexpensive. And one that can be purchased in the U.S....unlike many of the other snacks that GG is used to eating. More sunflower seeds have been eaten here in the past month than in the past ten years.

For Christmas, BigSis gave LilDude a couple "BigePaks" of Orbit gum in his stocking. I found the empty containers while cleaning out LilDude's room a few weeks ago and decided they'd make great snack containers. The lid has three openings...the entire top can screw off for larger items, or you can pop off the large round clear plastic top or tiny square opening. Both the "pop tops" are on hinges, essential for easy kid access.

It's great for a lot of snacks, but it's perfect for sunflower seeds. It doesn't spill and it's easy for little hands to get just a few seeds out at a time.

So anyway, next time you end up with an Orbit gum container, think twice before tossing it. Or give it to me. ;) I'll use it!

Compost Pile Eatin' (Mustard Greens)

Imagine my surprise to return from China and find gorgeous mustard greens growing on top of my compost pile. I'm not sure how it happened. I recently composted some mustard that had gone to seed, but I'm shocked and slightly doubtful that it would grow this quickly.

We ate it for dinner in a family favorite recipe. The original recipe (which I found on the internet, and now seems to have disappeared) calls for kale. I love kale in it, but we seem to be able to grow mustard a lot easier!

Kale or Mustard Green Salad

Barely cook the greens (approx. 3-5 mins.) by boiling a small amount of water in a pot filled with greens. (This basically wilts them.) Drain/squeeze out the water. Cut greens into bite sized pieces. Add about 1 1/2 T. soy sauce and 1 T. sesame oil for 12 oz greens. Garnish with sesame seeds.

Swiss Chard YUM!

I don't think I'd ever tasted Swiss chard til a year or so ago when I tried it in a new recipe and failed. I am so, so glad that we tried it again...in a NEW, FAVORITE RECIPE!

Last year I planted a bunch of new stuff "to try." Some didn't come up. Others didn't come up at the time but came up this spring when I wasn't paying much attention. The Swiss chard was so beautiful I almost hesitated to eat it. But I've been wanting to try more recipes from Simply in Season, so I looked up Swiss chard in the index and settled on "Chard Cheese Bake." It was scrumptious! 'LilDude had three or four helpings. Big ones. I lost count at some point. We also had locally grown asparagus and a rhubarb/blueberry crumble made from our new rhubarb and blueberries from the freezer. I'm thrilled that it's finally SPRING! ;)

Have you ever washed anything so gorgeous???


And the final product:


Chard Cheese Bake
from Simply in Season

1 lb Swiss chard or spinach (chopped)
Cook and thoroughly drain. (In the front of the book it has cooking tips for each vegetable. I cut the stems into chunks and then rolled the leaves together and cut the roll crosswise in each direction. I boiled the stem chunks for 8 minutes, adding the leaves for the last 3 minutes of cooking time. They were perfect.)

4 eggs, beaten
1 c. milk (I used rice milk)
1 c. cheese (I used cheddar)
1 c. cubed bread (I used gf rice bread & thought it particularly good in this)
1/2 c. green onions, sliced (I used 2 T. that I'd frozen)
1/4 c. Parmesan cheese, grated

Combine all ingredients and pour into greased 2-qt dish. Cover and bake in preheated 375 oven for 25-30 minutes, until set. (It took mine at least 40 minutes.)

Raised Winter Beds

A couple of weeks ago, we enjoyed a salad, harvested from our raised beds. (Including a last tomato that was wrapped in newspaper, green, earlier this fall.)



And then it started SNOWING. I went out and harvested anything of any size (mustard, lettuce, spinach, kale), figuring that it would all freeze, turning into a slimy mess. Here's some mustard, peeking out from under the snow, along with a shot of the raised bed, with window cover.



Now that the 14+ inches of snow have melted, I was able to peek into the beds today. Imagine my surprise to discover that it's all survived...including the mustard that was NOT under glass. It's not growing fast, but it survived temperatures into the teens. Makes me hopeful that we'll be able to eat more greens soon!

Day 37, Eating in Season (93...Free!)

I've been thinking a lot about food. And about a comment that someone recently made...that you save money by what you DON'T buy. We often think of clipping coupons to save money. Or shopping sales. Or getting the best deal. But really, when it comes down to it, we do the best financially if we don't spend...or don't buy.

But you have to buy food, right? Well, unless you're completely self-sufficient you do. But there are still things we can do. We can avoid buying unnecessary items--pre-packaged foods, prepared foods--and things that are...

NOT IN SEASON!

Ever think about how much extra we pay to indulge cravings for apples in early summer? Strawberries and lettuce in winter? Oranges in July? It adds up. And off season foods aren't as good for us anyway. They've likely either traveled thousands of miles (with pesticide residues from out of country, unregulated), or they've sat in storage for months, losing nutritional value. The quality of food depreciates too. I just read an article in this week's paper talking about how apples don't bake well after spending months in cold storage.

I used to dislike the idea of eating in season. I thought I'd get tired of whatever was seasonal. But I'm changing. I enjoy eating from the season. Somehow it makes me feel more in harmony with the earth. In spring, we ate berries til we could eat no more. In summer, corn, beans, tomatoes.

In our household, eating in season often means not having to buy at all. At the moment, we're enjoying apples off our two trees. Butternut squash. Garden carrots and cabbage. Every bit we eat is one bit we don't have to buy.



I know not everyone has a garden. (This is for you, Ans!) But I've noticed that our raised beds and our pots produce a fair amount of food.



Here's my first attempt at CELERY. It's actually done better this fall than it did all summer. Maybe it's a cool weather crop? Whatever the case, it's producing pretty well at the moment. Since celery is one of the dirty dozen, I'm happy that it's finally producing.



We've switched to Fall/Winter crops in our raised beds. I'm currently trying to grow spinach, lettuce, kale, mustard, bok choy. We had our favorite kale salad with the thinnings today.

If you have space for even one backyard pot, it might be worth giving a few seeds a try. 'LilDude and I recommend it. He and I spent the afternoon outside, getting our share of vitamin D. And dinner was worth the effort. Tacos/rice/beans (with canned garden salsa and tomatoes from garage storage), cabbage salad (I'll post that tomorrow), sweet squash, and frozen blueberries. Satisfying sigh. :)

Day 25, Chix/Turkey Vegetable Soup (93...Free!)

You know the criteria by now...if 'LilDude asks for 3rds, the recipe gets blogged. :) Tonight the kids all enjoyed "Chicken Vegetable Soup" from Simply in Season. 'LilDude had three helpings despite one concern...

"Mom, there's a bug in my soup."

I didn't doubt it since I'd just brought the broccoli and kale in from the garden, but I asked anyway, hoping it was pepper. "How do you know?"

"It has LEGS."

Lizzi consoled him. "That's okay. Bugs are just protein. People in other countries eat bugs all the time."

That satisfied 'LilDude.

I hope you enjoy it, legs or not... ;)



Chicken (Turkey) Vegetable Soup
-modified from Simply in Season

The recipe calls for a 3 lb chicken, cooked, with reserve broth. I just cooked a turkey, so I used that meat & broth.

3 c. carrots, diced
2 c. celery, diced
1-2 medium onions, diced
1 medium parsnip, diced
2 cloves garlic, minced

In large soup pot saute the above in 2 T. olive oil. Add a little water for steam.

1/2 t. ground red pepper
salt/pepper to taste

Add the 2 above ingredients and cook over medium heat until vegetables are tender but not mushy, 15 minutes. Add water to chicken/turkey broth to make 12 cups. Add to soup mixture along with cooked chicken or turkey (cut into bite-sized pieces.)

2 c. broccoli florets
2 c. kale, chopped
1/2 t. dried dill (or 1 1/2 t. fresh)

Add, bring to boil, reduce heat and simmer to blend flavors.

Note: We had leftover rice in the fridge. 'LilDude LOVES rice and added some to his soup. The cold rice helped to cool the hot soup. The kids also added Parmesan cheese or grated cheddar if they wished.

BTW, I don't think I'd ever eaten a parsnip until last year. I really like them. And in a recipe like this, they provide a little sweetness that's not-to-be-missed. Now if I could only figure out how to grow them.

Day 14, Breakfast Blitz! (93...Free!)

**Edited to say that I plan to keep adding to this post so check back for more breakfast ideas... ;)

I whined about this awhile back, but just in case you missed it...

BREAKFAST IS A MAJOR SHORTCOMING AT OUR HOUSE!

It's every man, woman, and child for him/herself. (And it would be every dog for herself if Sara the dog knew how to unscrew her doggie food container.) Generally speaking, most people grab cold cereal with milk. Although we try to limit ourselves to cereal at or below 10 cents/ounce, that is becoming harder and harder to find. Anakin loves cereal and usually fills his bowl to overflowing...with Dad and Lizzi close behind...so one box of cereal doesn't go far. In additional, the nutritional value of most cereals is quite unimpressive.

So what's a family to do???

PLAN! I'm ready for a plan! I implemented it yesterday and have succeeded for TWO WHOLE DAYS. ;) I figure if I post it here, I'm more likely to stick to it, so here goes...

I made several categories of breakfast foods. Each day of the week, I plan to select an item from a different category. You'll recall that 'LilDude needs gluten/casein free food, so you'll notice that the list is geared in that direction. On the few selections that include gluten or casein, I'll modify for him.

Eggs (w/ toast & fruit)

• scrambled
• over easy
• hard boiled
• breakfast burrito w/ homemade salsa
• quiche
• egg skillet breakfast ( recipe below)
  

Hot Cereal

• steel cut oats
• Mighty Tasty Hot Cereal (gluten free, Bob's Red Mill)
• Easy Oatmeal Recipes (crockpot overnight is one option)
• baked oatmeal (recipe below)

Cold Cereal

• homemade granola (More With Less Cookbook)
• store (ugh!) cereal, if 10 cents/oz or less

Smoothies/Fruit

• fruit smoothie
• seasonal fruit & yogurt

Other

• gluten free pancakes (Bob's Red Mill)
• rice cakes w/ peanut butter
• gluten free biscuits (Bob's Red Mill--I add raisins and sprinkle with cinnamon/sugar)
• hash browns (from leftover mashed potatoes)
  

I'll continue to add to the list as I think of new ideas. If you have good breakfast recipes that can be gf/cf modified, I'd love to know about them. Here's what we've had so far this week:

Monday: Egg Skillet Breakfast
Tuesday: Baked Oatmeal
Wednesday: g/f biscuits (& spoonful of peanut butter) w/ fruit
Thursday: Baked Oatmeal
Friday: Scrambled Eggs/salsa, toast


Egg Skillet Breakfast
I diced a small zucchini and a green pepper. I fried these in a skillet along with small chunks of sausage. After the veggies were tender, I added scrambled egg mixture (enough for our family, eggs beaten with a small amount of rice milk) and cooked until done, turning several times. I added cheese after removing 'LilDude's portion from the pan. Served with salsa, optional.

Baked Oatmeal
2 beaten eggs
4 c. oatmeal
1/2 t. salt
1/4 c. olive oil
1/2 c. brown sugar
1 1/2 c. rice or almond milk
2 t. baking powder

Mix all ingredients together. Put into greased 9x13 pan. Bake at 350 for 30 minutes. Serve with milk. Optional: add chocolate chips or dried fruit before baking.

My kids LOVE this dish. This morning, Anakin had seconds and asked if we can have it more often.

Day 12, Garden Harvest (93...Free!)

We woke this morning to a frosty ground and frozen car windows. This afternoon we scrambled to get the majority of the garden harvested. Tonight I'm making another quadruple batch of tomato sauce, but the ingredients (now canning in a boiling water bath) barely made a dent. I need to can a "few" more tomatoes, it looks like. ;) If anyone has good recipes for butternut squash/pumpkin (esp. gluten/casein free), please post. We have a "few" of those, too.

Crisp Cucumber Salad

Several years ago, my friend, Elizabeth, came for dinner. She selected a cucumber from our garden and created the most delicious cucumber concoction I've ever eaten. She recreated her "recipe" for me. We've made it numerous times since. It's inexpensive (esp. if you have garden cucumbers), tasty, and easy to make.

Elizabeth's Cucumber Salad

Peel and slice 1 cucumber.

Crush 1 clove garlic onto cucumbers.

Add:

1 T. olive oil
2 t. red wine vinegar
1/2 t. salt
1/4 t. pepper
1/2 - 1 t. dried basil (to taste)

Stir. Let sit 15 minutes. Stir again. Serve.

Day 10, Entitlement (93...Free!)

Growing up, we didn't stop in at McDonald's if we were running late. We didn't grab a pack of gum or a bag of M&M's at the checkout counter. We didn't routinely go out to eat and we never stopped at the department store's snack counter for a treat. It just wasn't a part of our lives. If we asked for a toy at the store or wished aloud to stop at the gum machine or the mechanical horse, the reply was always, "Well, did you bring your money?"

In the last twenty years, it seems that people have gone from thinking of "Happy Meals" as extras to thinking of them as a routine part of life. We're somehow entitled to that daily cup of Starbucks or a mega-sized Jamba Juice. Why? Why are we entitled to all these "extras"--no longer extras--that really aren't that good for us...and are costly??

So often, our sense of entitlement results in us living beyond our means. Our kids aren't entitled to Happy Meals...and neither are we. Our pocketbooks would be thicker and our waists and homes would be leaner if we stopped buying things that we don't need. It takes very little to be truly happy.

This whole post actually came about because my mom and I were talking about the current economic crisis. She said that she is thankful that our family is content with so little...we aren't big on "things." It's true. Now I am led to consider ways of passing that feeling of contentment to my children.

What are your thoughts?

Your-Way Wraps

Tonight's menu...FAST food, "Your-Way Wraps." Each person made his/her own wrap, selecting from the following:

tortillas (corn and whole wheat)
rice
black beans
lettuce
chopped tomatoes
chopped red peppers
grated cheese
chicken
steamed broccoli (slightly steamed in small chunks)
salsa
Ranch dressing
green beans (to eat on the side)
sliced tomatoes (to eat on the side)

My only guidelines? "Eat some veggies!"

And my poor husband. He put his wrap together only to have it snatched from under his nose...so I could take a picture. "I want to eat it while it's hot!"

Me, focusing, "It'll only take a sec!"

I took a couple photos. Handed him back his wrap. He says, "Let me see."

"My pictures? I thought you wanted to eat while it's hot."

He looks through my digital photos. "It'll look better if you take it at a more upright angle." He hands his plate back.

He did eventually eat. :) It might not have been quite as hot, but I did get a better photo. Thanks, honey! ;)

Family Friendly Meal: Chinese Meatballs

Anytime 'LilDude asks for thirds, I consider it a recipe worth sharing! ;) Tonight we enjoyed Chinese Meatballs from the More With Less Cookbook. I have used this cookbook for years but didn't discover this particular recipe until recently. I love it for several reasons. Kids like it. Husbands like it. It uses lots of garden produce. It's gluten/casein free. And it's an "all in one"...protein, veggies/fruit, and grain all take part in the single dish.

Chinese Meatballs
Serves 8 (at our house, that's probably pushing it :)

Cook rice or noodles to serve 8.
Prepare and reserve ready to fry:

1 cucumber, peeled and sliced
2 stalks celery, sliced
2 green peppers, sliced
1 large onion, sliced (I left out this time)
1 1/2 c. frozen peas (I used frozen peas/carrots)
2 large tomatoes, cut in wedges
1 1/2 c. pineapple chunks, drained (reserve juice)

Season, shape into small balls, and fry:

1 1/2 lb. ground beef (I used 2 lbs.)

Combine and pour over meatballs:
3/4 c. brown sugar
3/4 c. vinegar
3 T. soy sauce (I use gluten free)
1/2 t. ginger
juice from pineapple
2-3 T. cornstarch

Allow sauce to thicken, then reduce heat and simmer 20 minutes.

In separate skillet, stir-fry veggies in small amount of hot oil until crisp-tender, adding tomatoes and pineapple last. Serve on large platter with rice or noodles in center, meatballs around, veggies over the rice, and sauce over all.

Note: I choose to mix the meatballs/sauce and veggies before serving. Then it's only a matter of scooping the meatball/veggie mixture onto rice.

I found a garden curiosity when I was preparing dinner. I cut open a red pepper and discovered a baby green pepper growing inside. The "baby" tasted like a regular green pepper.

Fast, Fresh Food, September Style

One of my goals this summer was to blog about our garden eatins'. Unfortunately, we were so busy eating and harvesting and preserving that I wrote very little. But, for the record, here's lunch:




Eggs cooked with green peppers and zucchini, topped with homemade salsa. Sides of broccoli, cherry tomatoes, and grapes.

Yesterday, I worked to get ready for a class I'll be teaching. Dinner hour snuck up on me. Only Lizzi and 'LilDude were home. I asked if they were hungry. They smiled...a sibling secret. Lizzi replied, "We've been snackin'. In the garden." She went on to talk about how sweet the cherry tomatoes are...and how the grapes aren't like anything you can buy in the store. "The grapes in the stores are crunchy," she said, "not juicy like these are."

'LilDude asked why they don't sell grapes like ours. We talked about how our grapes would never survive the ride from the field to the store shelves. "They'd be squished," I told him. "Just like they were when you brought leftover grapes home from kindergarten snack time." He grinned, remembering his baggie full of "grape juice."

For expanding a kid's eating palette, there's nothing quite like providing them with rows and rows of snack food...on the vine! :)

The 11 Best Foods You Aren't Eating

Thanks, Cath, for posting this article. Here's the list of foods with some ramblings...

1. Beets--We don't do beets, but should. Need to add it to the garden list for next year. If you have kids, do your kids eat them?
   
2. Cabbage--We have a TON of cabbage growing in the garden. I make Asian salad with it and add it to soups. Any other ideas? I'd like to make sauerkraut (love it!) but have never been successful in making it taste like the store stuff...and I like the store stuff.
3. Swiss chard--Tried one recipe with this and didn't like it. Back to the drawing board.
4. Cinnamon--Use cinnamon all the time.
5. Pomegranate juice--Never bought this. Not available locally, so feel kinda iffy about this one.
6. Dried plums--Not big on prunes. But I guess we could try. ;)
7. Pumpkin seeds--Sometimes do this at Halloween, but not a normal part of our diet.
   
8. Sardines--Not sure I want to go there.
9. Turmeric--Use it in a few Indian recipes.
10. Frozen blueberries--Integral part of our diet. The most frequent fruit we eat.
11. Canned pumpkin--Use butternut squash more than pumpkin. Isn't the nutritional value similar anyway??

12 Foods You Don't Need to Buy Organic

Here's an article about the 12 foods that you don't need to buy organically grown.

• Broccoli
• Eggplant
• Cabbage
• Banana
• Kiwi
• Asparagus
• Sweet peas (frozen)
• Mango
• Pineapple
• Sweet corn (frozen)
• Avocado
• Onion

Join the Cool Foods Campaign!

Global food crisis: What you can do

Consider what you eat

Today, the average item of food in the U.S. and Canada travels more than 1,000 miles before it lands on our tables. Through stories and simple "whole foods" recipes, Simply in Season, a Mennonite Central Committee (MCC) cookbook from Herald Press, explores how the food we put on our tables affects our local and global neighbors. The cookbook shows the importance of eating local, seasonal food and invites readers to make choices that offer security and health for our communities, land, bodies and spirit.

Increasing meat consumption has helped drive up demand for grain, and with it the price. MCC just signed on to a campaign called the Cool Foods Pledge. Amongst other consumer actions, this campaign is calling for lower meat consumption.

The Cool Foods Campaign "educates the public about how food choices can affect global warming and empowers them with the resources to reduce this impact. Join [the] “Cool Foods” Campaign and help take a bite out of global warming by changing the way you eat."

According to the Cool Foods site, the top five things you can do to take a bite out of global warming:

1. Eat Organic

I'm working on this. I'm focusing on the dirty dozen (see earlier post) and filling in anywhere else I can. It's a slow process, but do-able.

2. Reduce meat and dairy consumption.

We've never been huge meat/dairy eaters. Often as not, we have a small amount of meat distributed in a larger recipe...like vegetable/rice stirfry with a small amount of chicken or taco soup with a pound of hamburger (that feeds all of us with leftovers.) We greatly reduced our dairy consumption when we learned that Lil Dude was dairy intolerant. The toughest one is breakfast. I have a family of cereal addicts. The cereal is highly processed and dh isn't big on the double expense of buying organic milk. This is the worst meal of the day for us.

3. Avoid processed foods.

Except the cereal, we do pretty well. Again, the gluten/casein free diet that LilDude is on has helped us immensely. But the cereal is our downfall.

4. Buy locally grown foods.

I'm trying. But it's hard. It's been terribly cold and wet here. I can't even find local lettuce yet. I've been buying local spinach (but it's not organic and it's on the dirty dozen, so I hate that) and asparagus, but not much else. Yet. I'm eagerly waiting for garden produce. I have been slowly harvesting lettuce from our raised beds. We've happily eating taco salad several times over the last few weeks (with our locally grown, grass fed beef). All year we have chicken, beef and vegies thanks to canning and/or our freezers. But fresh? It's rough this year.

5. Say no to packaging.

That's automatically easier when we aren't buying much processed food. The biggest habit I lack is using my grocery bags. I've repeatedly had to send one of my big kids back out to the car to get them before we go to checkout. Do they say 40 times make a habit? Working on it...