Defeated

Ok, Dogbeast, you win this round...

This is what is left of my compost heap. Isn't our dog industrious? She keeps managing to push the cardboard aside and pull bits of compost materials through the wire fence. And then fling them wildly about the yard, eat them, and leave me piles of unhappy tummy on her bed.

On the plus side, she has not actually gotten through the fence, so I still have hopes for being able to plant a garden once I have the beds prepared. 

Well, back to researching inexpensive compost container options...

Paradigm Shift

I've been studying up on nutrition quite a bit for the past couple of weeks. I've been interested in food and nutrition for a long time, but a few recent factors have gotten me to review some of my ideas with a more open mind.

First is the rising popularity of the Paleo diet. I've been seeing a lot of Paleo and gluten-free recipes on Pinterest for a while now. A few months back, I glanced through a couple of articles about the Paleo diet, gathered that it was a fad from the 70s, and dismissed it. Now, however, a couple of podcasters whose opinions I am gaining respect for are talking about how they switched to the Paleo diet and are feeling much healthier. It got me wondering about it again.

I was also under the impression that the gluten-free thing was mostly a fad. I know a couple of people who are allergic or have Celiac disease, but it's mostly a pop-culture trend, right? (Sorry, don't hate me for my ignorance.) I did a little more reading on that and learned that there has been a huge increase in diagnoses of wheat sensitivities in the past decade or so. Also, The National Institutes of Health concluded that Celiac disease is still "greatly underdiagnosed." There is a long, but very interesting and convincing (to me, anyway) article about wheat and why humans are developing problems with it here, if you would like to read more: 

The History of How Wheat Became Toxic

First time fermenting my own sauerkraut. So easy and so much tastier than the store bought pasteurized version! I'll take pics of the process next time I make it, but click the image for another site with good instructions.

Ok, that's nice and all, but I am too poor to eat grass-fed meat and cut out my cheap and filling grains and beans. So, the Paleo diet is out for now. (I'm still not 100% sold on it, anyway, but I am less skeptical than I was initially). And, thankfully for my budding aspirations to become a homebrewer, I do not believe that I have a medical problem with wheat or gluten. So, where am I going with this? Well, there are a couple more pieces to the puzzle.

First, I heard a story on my local NPR station in the last week or so about how people raised on farms have fewer food and seasonal allergies than people who were not brought up around animals. The story also said that maybe many of our  current problems with food and seasonal allergies are due to our food being TOO CLEAN. Our foods are so processed and sanitized that the only thing that most of us get any sort of healthy bacteria in anymore is yogurt. Unfortunately, I have not been able to find a link to this story, but here are a couple of others I found about the benefits of healthy bacteria. If anyone else finds the one I'm talking about, please let me know so I can add a link.

NPR: Diverse Gut Microbes, A Trim Waistline, And Health Go Together

NPR: Staying Healthy May Mean Learning To Love Our Microbiomes

First time sprouting beans! I used dried garbanzos and lentils from the bulk bins at Winco. They added a nice crunch and lots of healthy enzymes to a salad and stir fry last week. Click the image for a great website to learn about sprouting.

And, lastly, I feel that I eat pretty healthfully. I prepare most of the food that we eat at home, and the vast majority of that is made from whole, minimally processed foods. We eat a variety of fruits and vegetables, whole grains, dairy, and lean meats.  However, my recent annual physical showed that I am low in some important minerals. Although I am willing to take vitamins when necessary, I feel very strongly that my diet should provide the nutrients that my body needs. This is the thing that really has me questioning what is healthy and nutritious.

Studying nutrition is very confusing.  I am a skeptical person by nature. I like to see things backed up by scientific studies, but so much of the information about nutrition seems to be contradictory. Also, it is difficult not to be suspicious when studies funded by a particular company get results that benefit that company. I guess I will have to learn to trust folklore and the experiences of individuals a little more. 

My latest attempt at a sourdough starter. It's looking promising this time! Click the image for a link to the instructions I used.

I want to start out by incorporating more healthy bacteria into my diet with fermented foods. It could be another health fad, but it makes sense to me that people used to eat more fermented foods, since it is a good way to preserve foods. Fermenting encourages the growth of healthy bacteria, like yeast and lactobacillus. Strong colonies of these healthy bacteria will kill off other sorts of bacteria which can make us sick. Also, I have read article upon article stating that sprouting grains and seeds, fermenting vegetables, and fermenting flour to make sourdough make them more easily digestible and make the nutrients more readily available. And, since I happen to like many of these foods, it shouldn't be too hard to try it out and see how I feel over the next few months.

What do you guys think? Am I kooky or am I just slow to catch on? Do you have any suggestions for foods I should make that incorporate healthy bacteria? What are your favorite nutrition powerhouses (oo, I feel so buzz-wordy)?

How Very Pinteresting!

Volume 1

This weekend I tried out several things that I had pinned on Pinterest, and I thought it would be fun to share my results with you fine folks! Also, I am hoping that making this into a new segment will encourage me to stop procrastinating on other pins that I have been wanting to try and not getting around to. So, here goes!

Cinnamon Roll Pancakes - Win!

Not too bad for my first try, huh?

www.recipegirl.com

This woman is a pancake genius. If you like cinnamon rolls and pancakes, make these. You won't be sorry. 

I had planned to halve the recipe, since there are only two of us and it says it will make 8 pancakes. However, after halving the cinnamon filling and the cream cheese glaze, I realized that it is difficult to halve an egg... so I made the full amount of pancake batter. It worked out. I guess my pancakes came out a little bigger than hers, even though I used the recommend 1/3rd measuring cup. It probably would have made 6 pancakes for me, but I did four 1/3rd cup and one larger one with the leftover batter. I had to skimp a little with the cinnamon filling on the last big pancake, and there turned out to be extra cream cheese glaze. I may have added a little too much powdered sugar to it, because I had to thin it a little bit with milk to get it to drizzle. Amazing. My favorite fella says these may be the best pancakes he's ever had.

Mom's Super Laundry Sauce - Win! (so far)

Maybe I should call it Laundry Butter, instead?

www.Budget101.com

 

Fairly easy to put together, even though the dust from grating the Fels Naptha made me sneeze. The initial cost was about as much as buying laundry detergent, but the box of borax and washing soda will last through many batches, so it will be very inexpensive from here on out. 
I didn't have anything really grubby to test it out on, but our clothes smell fresh, and I don't see any residue. The reviews were very good, so I have high hopes that we will continue to love this!

Tub Scrub - Win!

Tub Scrubs Scrub Tubs!

 www.marthastewart.com

Our bathtub is terrible. It might be the original from when our house was built in 1950. In any case, it is in dire need of a reglaze. Just days after a good scrub it looks like it hasn't been cleaned in months, since stepping into it with any dirt on your feet guarantees stuck on foot prints. I have tried Comet, scouring pads, Barkeeper's Friend (liquid and powder), various combinations of bleach, baking soda, vinegar, lemon juice, salt, and dish soap recommended by the Internet, and Mr. Clean Magic Erasers. Some worked better than others, but all required excessive elbow grease to get the tub white again each week. This cheap, non-toxic cleaner blows them all away.

Well, the first round came out better than I expected! Not all of the links I have found through Pinterest have worked out so well for me. Do you have any Pinterest gems or flops to share?  

How to Cut Up A Whole Chicken

I like buying whole chickens for several reasons. They're usually cheaper per pound than trimmed chicken pieces. I've gotten leg quarters or half breasts with skin and bone for cheaper, but have you noticed they usually have big chunks of skin tucked underneath? I'm not sure how much weight that actually adds, but it feels sneaky to me. I think the thing that I like the most about this is that I can get the most possible use out of the whole chicken. The only thing I don't know what to do with is the skin. Any ideas?

There you have it! With some practice, we might be as fast as Yan someday!

A few notes:

• Save those giblets! If you aren't a giblet gravy person, your cat or dog will love you for them. I like to cut them up into treat sizes and flash freeze on a tray with wax or parchment paper. I have also heard that chicken liver makes good fish bait.
• Sorry about the pic for separating the leg quarter into drumstick and thigh. I somehow missed that one! You can see the line of fat in the picture I used for now. I'll update this post the next time I cut up a chicken.
• A post on making chicken stock with the lovely chicken carcass is forthcoming. :)

Please share your favorite ways to prepare chicken! Do you have any special tricks to make it extra delicious?

Update: Lasagna Garden and Compost Heap

Well, it isn't much to look at just yet, but here is the progress I have made on my lasagna garden. I started out by chopping down the biggest weeds (some of them literally required a saw... ). Then I trampled the rest down as much as I could. 

A rainbow of grasshoppers went flying in every direction from the tall grass when I sprayed it down! First time I've ever seen a pink one. That was really neat. However, a friend of mine taught me that grasshoppers can be very destructive to a garden, so I'm glad that there seem to be fewer each day. 

Next step: papier mâ ché the ground with pages torn from an old phone book and spray it with water to keep them from flying everywhere. I scattered a thin layer of grass clippings on top of that for the "green" layer and then a few inches of straw on top of that for the "brown" layer. 

 

I covered about a third of my garden with one phone book

I plan to build it up layer by layer as we generate more materials. Mostly, it will consist of layers of grass clippings and shredded paper, since we have an abundant source of junk mail delivered to our house on the regular. :) Shredded newspaper, grocery ads, and credit card offers make great compost! Just be sure to rip out the little plastic windows first and avoid glossy things like magazines since some of their inks contain heavy metals that you won't want your future veggies soaking up. 

I started a compost in the other corner on the same day, and it's coming along nicely. It amazes me how much we used to throw away that we can put in that compost heap! I got it started with a small pile of about 1/3 grass clippings and weeds and 2/3 straw, and I'm trying to keep that ratio of greens to browns. Maintaining it only takes a few minutes to make sure it's as damp as a wrung out sponge and mix it up with a shovel.

Just added that cardboard in back today to keep the pooch from pulling straw through the fence. She thought that was a great game!

Since then, we've started keeping a labelled container in our fridge for scraps. The cold keeps things from getting smelly, and I only have to go mix it into the compost heap every day or two. Here are some examples of what we have been composting so far:

What you can and cannot compost seems to be a matter of debate. I've read a number of lists and some say you can compost anything organic up to roadkill (blech). Buuuut I haven't been able to generate a lot of heat with my compost heap yet. I'm guessing that's because it is small and not contained. So, although I have seen things begin to break down in the few weeks that I've been doing this, it's not as quick of a process as it could be. I'm going to stick to the safer stuff, which means no meat or dairy products.

Oh yeah, and remember the chicken wire I put down to dogproof the garden? It's working... but she's not giving up!

Right at the edge of the chicken wire... Yep. She's getting a snootful of cayenne next time.

What do you guys think? I'm new to composting, so I I'd love to get advice from my more experienced readers. And if you're new to this, too, I hope we can learn from each other's successes and mistakes as we go!

Chicken + Ham = Chickham?

My favorite fella likes to tease me about how specific my food cravings can be sometimes. But I use it to my advantage when it comes to meal planning! When the billboard for the new Wendy's pretzel burger was making my mouth water, I got some pretzel buns and made my own! (Not to mention, taking the time to make extra burger patties to freeze for easier prep next time.)

Anyway, I've been craving colcannon for the past couple of weeks. It's an Irish dish I discovered a few years back that boils down to (ha! I'm keeping that!) mashed potatoes with shredded cabbage. It goes really well with salty, cured meats like ham, bacon and corned beef (mmmmm). 

However, I'm not buying a lot of those pricier meats until I get my credit cards paid off. Time for some creative internet searching...

Enter torihamu!

Thank you, Japan!

I took my first crack at it, and it's quite good! This article at JustBento.com explains the process much more thoroughly, but, basically, you brine the chicken breasts in a mix of honey and salt in the refrigerator for two days. You can also add seasonings of your choice (I used a bit of garlic and clove to make it more ham-ish.) Then you rinse it really well, and steam or bake it at a low temperature. I went with baking, since the author of the article liked it best and seemed to know what she* was talking about. 

It ends up with a texture very like country ham! It got a big stamp of approval from my guy, so I can definitely see this being repeated, and it complimented the colcannon nicely!

 

 

Maybe this blog will force me to learn how to take nice photos someday

P. S. I made colcannon with red cabbage, since someone nabbed the entire crate of green while I was wandering the produce section. It tastes the same, and looks like purple Easter grass! Kinda fun. :)

*Please correct my pronoun if need be, maki!

Milk Jug Watering Can

What a wonderful idea from A Journey to Dream! I had thought to turn an empty milk carton into a watering can by cutting the top. Before getting started, I did a quick search to see if someone had come up with a better method than what I had in mind, and look what I found!

Please visit her blog for instructions on making this very simple recycled milk jug watering can. 

I made my own using a pin, but I think I'll have to dig up a nail or a larger needle to make the holes wider, because I'm not getting water flow as good as hers is in the picture.

What are some creative ways you have recycled common household items in the garden?