I finally got around to signing the Millions Against Monsanto petition, which was one of my three "Take Action" mini-challenges for the NOFA-NY Locavore Challenge. The petition is a call for labeling of transgenetic (a.k.a. GE or GMO) foods, something almost all Americans support but our government refuses to do. Why? Because if people could choose whether to buy cereal made with transgenetic grain or not, many of them would be products with made choosing traditionally-bred ingredients. This wouldn't be good for big agribiz, which have links to the government through campaign contributions and especially the revolving door (where people transition easily to and from important positions in government regulatory bodies and the industries the said body regulates). Of course, the revolving door doesn't just happen in agencies like the USDA and FDA (Henry Paulson? Timothy Geithner? Ring any bells?), but that's a subject for another day and venue.
Anyways, I feel that I should have a right to choose whether I'm consuming transgenetic crops or not. Personally, I'm not as concerned as some about health problems transgenetic crops may cause. What first truly turned me off to transgenetic crops was the way Monsanto, which dominates the transgenetic seed market, successfully sued farmers for patent violations. To me, farmers having to choose between seed saving and risking a patent violation because of the crops their neighbors choose to plant seems wrong. Seed saving is at the heart of agriculture -- without seed-saving, we never would have had agriculture in the first place!
This leads to questions about genetic diversity. When people save seed, the crop will gradually adapt to grow best it it's microclimate over time. On the other hand, when farmers are forced to choose from only a few varieties of seed offered by a limited number of companies, the uniformity of the genetic make-up of the crop makes it very easy for a pest to mutate a bit and easily begin to have a big negative impact on a large swath of our cropland. Of course, it's also not great for farmers to have to incur the expense of buying seed they could have taken from their own fields.
Remember that pest problem I mentioned? It isn't just a hypothetical, as "superweeds" that are resistant to Monsanto's Round-Up pesticide continue to spread. This is causing farmers to turn to R, 2-D (an ingredient in Agent Orange) and other pesticides to augment their use of Round-Up. Although various studies turned up different conclusions about whether more or less pesticides have been used because of genetic engineering, the appearance of superweeds and farmers' response doesn't make transgenetic crops look to green going forward, does it?
Anyways, I could go on about transgenetic crops, venturing into topics like Bt and all the unlikely places it's shown up, but I'll let you do your own research. For me, it really comes down to this: With their track record, do I really want companies like Monsanto gaining even more control over something so vital to human life as the food supply? If you feel like I'm preaching to the choir when you read this blog post, please do sign the Organic Consumers Association's Millions Against Monsanto petition. For now, the best way to avoid transgenetic products is to buy organic.
Friday, September 30, 2011
Sunday, September 25, 2011
Abbreviated Days 17 to 24 of 2011, Busy and Sick but Still Eating Local
I can't believe I let myself go over a week without posting! In my defense, the past week has involved a lot of stuff for my Irish dancing, a car accident in front of our home, my mom's birthday celebration, and a get-together with friends, most of which occurred while a had a bad cold. To ease myself back into blogging, I'll just post some of the more food-related highlights of the eight days from Saturday the 17th through Saturday the 24th.
On Saturday the 17th, my mom and I ate lunch ate Farmers and Artisans after I had a dance show nearby. My mom and I ordered two sandwiches, the Tomato Basil Caprese Panine and the Apple Camemburg Panine. The former was excellent, with plenty of basil and oozing mozzerrella. Both of us hated the cheese on the latter, which I thought tasted literally tasted like vomit. With another cheese, like cheddar, combined with the crisp apple (Ginger Gold?), the sandwich would have had a wonderful flavor. It was our first meal out since the Locavore Challenge started, so in the end it was just nice to eat a meal without either of us having to cook it!
On Sunday the 18th, I had an Irish dance competition in Syracuse. We were starving by late afternoon, since all we'd eaten so far were fruit smoothies for breakfast and a packed lunch of homemade bread, grapes, and pears. It was a good thing we could go back to The Restaurant at Elderberry Pond, where we'd previously eaten after going to the State Fair on the first day of the NOFA-NY Locavore Challenge last year. Our meal started with apple cider and bread, both of which were above critique. Then we moved onto soup, with my mom choosing potato leek and me ordering squash tomatillo bisque. I'm so glad I took a risk with the soup, which really highlighted the complex spiciness of tomatillos. For a main course, my mom chose chicken in a cranberry sauce with tomatoes and summer squash, while I had fettucine with vegetables. My pasta was good, and my mom's chicken was perfectly cooked. Somehow, we found room for the unique and delicious elderberry-apple pie a la mode for dessert. Overall, it was a meal that satisfied stomach and soul.
Thursday the 22nd was my mom's birthday. For dinner, I made Swiss chard fettucine with leftover mozzerella and feta cheese instead of ricotta (garden Swiss chard, fettucine from Flour City, Tuscany on Main olive oil [Wild Card Item], farm stand onions, farmers market basil, cheese made from friend's goat's milk). I'm told it was excellent, with a flavor that was sweet and slightly spicy, but my nose was too stuffed up for me to taste too much. For dessert, I made cake (Thorpes whole wheat flour, Upstate Farms butter, homemade maple syrup, yogurt made from friend's goats' milk), and ice cream (friend's goats milk, friend's goats milk cream, homemade maple syrup). Only my dad liked the cake. As he said, it tasted "healthy," which my mom and I think a cake just shouldn't taste. The ice cream was a much bigger hit.
On Friday the 23rd, my friend Karin De La Rosa, the NOFA-NY WNY coordinator, hosted a dinner and Lakeview Organic Grain chicken feed pick-up. Diners were Karin, Karin's husband, my goat-keeping friend, the goat-maid's husband, my parents, and me. Karin provided salad and butternut squash soup made with the products of her humungous garden, as well as wine. Paula brought "The Imam Fainted," which is an eggplant dish. My parents and I brought apple cobbler (Thorpes apples, homemade maple syrup, Upstate Farms butter, egg from my hens, Thorpes whole wheat flour, honey from my dad's bees) the apple cider my dad had made from apples he and I picked from our yard and our neighbor's. There's nothing like good food and good company -- and the good feeling that my chickens are now eating quality local feed!
On Saturday the 17th, my mom and I ate lunch ate Farmers and Artisans after I had a dance show nearby. My mom and I ordered two sandwiches, the Tomato Basil Caprese Panine and the Apple Camemburg Panine. The former was excellent, with plenty of basil and oozing mozzerrella. Both of us hated the cheese on the latter, which I thought tasted literally tasted like vomit. With another cheese, like cheddar, combined with the crisp apple (Ginger Gold?), the sandwich would have had a wonderful flavor. It was our first meal out since the Locavore Challenge started, so in the end it was just nice to eat a meal without either of us having to cook it!
On Sunday the 18th, I had an Irish dance competition in Syracuse. We were starving by late afternoon, since all we'd eaten so far were fruit smoothies for breakfast and a packed lunch of homemade bread, grapes, and pears. It was a good thing we could go back to The Restaurant at Elderberry Pond, where we'd previously eaten after going to the State Fair on the first day of the NOFA-NY Locavore Challenge last year. Our meal started with apple cider and bread, both of which were above critique. Then we moved onto soup, with my mom choosing potato leek and me ordering squash tomatillo bisque. I'm so glad I took a risk with the soup, which really highlighted the complex spiciness of tomatillos. For a main course, my mom chose chicken in a cranberry sauce with tomatoes and summer squash, while I had fettucine with vegetables. My pasta was good, and my mom's chicken was perfectly cooked. Somehow, we found room for the unique and delicious elderberry-apple pie a la mode for dessert. Overall, it was a meal that satisfied stomach and soul.
Thursday the 22nd was my mom's birthday. For dinner, I made Swiss chard fettucine with leftover mozzerella and feta cheese instead of ricotta (garden Swiss chard, fettucine from Flour City, Tuscany on Main olive oil [Wild Card Item], farm stand onions, farmers market basil, cheese made from friend's goat's milk). I'm told it was excellent, with a flavor that was sweet and slightly spicy, but my nose was too stuffed up for me to taste too much. For dessert, I made cake (Thorpes whole wheat flour, Upstate Farms butter, homemade maple syrup, yogurt made from friend's goats' milk), and ice cream (friend's goats milk, friend's goats milk cream, homemade maple syrup). Only my dad liked the cake. As he said, it tasted "healthy," which my mom and I think a cake just shouldn't taste. The ice cream was a much bigger hit.
On Friday the 23rd, my friend Karin De La Rosa, the NOFA-NY WNY coordinator, hosted a dinner and Lakeview Organic Grain chicken feed pick-up. Diners were Karin, Karin's husband, my goat-keeping friend, the goat-maid's husband, my parents, and me. Karin provided salad and butternut squash soup made with the products of her humungous garden, as well as wine. Paula brought "The Imam Fainted," which is an eggplant dish. My parents and I brought apple cobbler (Thorpes apples, homemade maple syrup, Upstate Farms butter, egg from my hens, Thorpes whole wheat flour, honey from my dad's bees) the apple cider my dad had made from apples he and I picked from our yard and our neighbor's. There's nothing like good food and good company -- and the good feeling that my chickens are now eating quality local feed!
Friday, September 16, 2011
Day 16 of 2011, Weasel-Proofing
Another of my six-week-old chickens was killed in the early hours of this morning. The noise the chickens were making awakened my dad, who ran downstairs to check on them. He found a dead chick. It had been killed by a wound to the neck, just like the chick on Tuesday.
For breakfast, my mom made Flour City emmer orzo that she'd got at the Lexington Food Co-op last night. My dad and I ate ours with peach (Thorpes), while my mom had hers with frozen blueberries (frozen from a nearby low-spray farm).
For lunch, we all had last night's leftover soup with my homemade bread. It's the second time this week that my dad's brought leftovers to work and heated them in the microwave (I think the first time was ratatouille), and he's really enjoying it. He usually just brings things like sanwiches, salads, fruits, and yogurt in his lunch. By contrast, my mom and I started eating more and more hot lunches we starting homeschooling five years ago, and it's now rare for the two of us not to cook three meals a day.
For dinner, my dad made corn on the cob (farmstand) and my mom made spaghetti (pasta from Flour City, garden tomatoes, farm stand garlic, Wild Card Item olive oil from Tuscany on Main, ricotta cheese made from our friend's goats' milk). She wanted to try out on a small scale the tomato sauce recipe from The Art of Simple Food, which she's considering making on a large scale and freezing or canning to preserve some of my garden's tomatoes. It was a little bland, but will work fine as a means of preserving a lot of tomatoes for winter.
After dinner, my dad and I spent time screwing on boards over the chicken wire on the lower part of the chicken coop to provide additional protection from predators. We think the killer is a weasel, because my dad read that weasels commonly kill only one chicken at a time, leave it after attacking, and come back to retrieve the body later. This fits the pattern of the killings of our chickens, and also fits because a weasel would be small enough and smart enough to get by the electrified wire we have going around the chicken coop. Hopefully, the additional protection offered by the boards will be enough. From what heard from other people, though, weasels can be a really hard predator to deter. Weasels enjoy killing for the fun of it, and people have lost whole backyard flocks.
I really hate this assumed weasel more than other animals that have preyed on my birds in the past. At church last year, one sermon suggested that the reason why we dislike certain people so much is that we find many of their worst traits uncomfortably familiar, because we may be trying to deny to ourselves that we possess these traits. Perhaps this lesson could be applied across species. Weasels, like humans, are highly intelligent predators that will also kill for sport.
Alternately, it may be that I hate the assumed weasel so much because many of the previous losses could be taken as lesson. For instance, it was almost as if the fox was telling me to make sure I put my turkeys away as soon as dusk began to fall when I lost my adult turkey tom because we stayed too late at dinner while the turkeys were free-ranging. With the assumed weasel, I'm not really sure what I'm supposed to learn. Many people, including my neighbor, let their hens free range during the day, while I've taken more precautions by keeping them in a moveable coop. Having plywood on the sides just isn't workable long-term solution, and even the electric gets to be a real pain over the long run (which is why we stopped in the first place). Perhaps the lesson from the assumed weasel is that these measures are necessary when younger chickens first go outside.
What happens though if the attacks don't stop when the chickens start perching off the ground at night, like I'm hoping will happen? Or what happens if it realizes that it would be easy to get into the barn and kills one of my young turkeys at night? What is the lesson then? I guess I'll cross that bridge when I get to it. For now, I'm living with the fear of the unknown.
Day 15 of 2011, Like An All-Day Feast
When my mom got me up this morning, she had warm Apple-Cheese pancakes waiting on the table. She'd come across the recipe yesterday afternoon when we were looking for recipes for lunch then, and we'd agreed it would be good to try for breakfast some time. Omigod, the pancakes weren't just good, they were amazing. The titular cheese was ricotta, so it didn't really flavor the pancakes in the way a stronger cheese, like cheddar, would. Instead, this recipe really allowed the apple to shine. The recipe suggested serving the pancakes with maple syrup, which I normally would find an excellent pairing for apple, but the pancakes were sweet enough from the grated apple in every bite that no other sweetener was necessary. The only problem was that my mom had only made a half recipe, so there wasn't enough of the pancakes to go around. Both of us spent the day craving more! I think it was definitely the best new recipe we've tried all month.
Because there wasn't enough of the pancakes, I ended up making smoothies to augment our breakfast. My parents had rearranged the freezers on Sunday night to fit in all the chickens we'd butchered. I'd forgotten all about the strawberries from Thorpes that we'd frozen in June because they were in the freezer in the garage, but I rediscovered them with when the rearrangement had some of them transferred into the freezer in the kitchen. I snapped them up at the first smoothie-making opportunity, which was this morning. Just as I suspected, though, they weren't sweet enough in the smoothie on their own. I turned to trusty old peaches, my all-purpose smoothie sweetener. The mix of strawberry and peach was pretty unique, although it vaguely reminded me of strawberry-banana yogurt.
Lunchtime once again came and went without us eating, and we had a bit of an argument about food when we finally got around to figuring out what to eat. We settled on having boiled potatoes (garden), corn on the cob (farmstand), and homemade bread.
Still tense from our debate over lunch, we procrastinated on starting dinner. I had dance class again tonight, so at a certain point we had to decide. My mom was leaning towards trying a recipe for Greek pizza that she came across earlier this month, while my dad and I were more inclined towards a soup recipe I'd come across yesterday when trying to figure out lunch. My dad and I ended up working together on the soup because the Greek pizza called for mozzerella cheese, which we didn't have.
As I cooked, I made a lot of modifications to the recipe. I used Jacobs Cattle Beans from Cayuga Organics in place of red lentils, garden Swiss chard in place of mustard greens, and Delicata squash in place of butternut squash. The cookbook is called Eating Local, and I think that my modifications to use the local food available definitely fit the spirit of the book. We all liked the soup a lot, although I think I'd make it spicier next time. (Other ingredients included the Wild Card Item olive oil, various spices that were Marco Polo items, a dried red chili from Thorpes, and chicken stock that we made from the bones of one of the chickens I raised.)
While I was at dance class, my mom went to the Lexington Food Co-op to get Flour City's pasta. It seems to be the only local store stocking that pasta currently. While at Lexington, she also purchased three jars of White Cow Dairy yogurt. This yogurt, produced from the milk of local grassfed cows, is sold in these ridiculously expensive tiny glass jars. The flavors, though, are just so amazing that the occasional splurge is so worth it. My mom bought Strawberry Rhubarb yogurt for my dad and I, while she purchased Lemonberry (lemon raspberry) yogurt for herself. The Strawberry Rhubarb was almost to die for, but the Lemonberry was ten times better. What a nice late-night snack!
As we were heading home from dance, my mom was saying that she can't keep living with fighting about every meal. I think it's a bit of an exaggeration, but I know a lot of our discussions about what to eat in the past few days have been tense. We ended up eating some pretty great food today despite it all!
~*~
Apple-Cheese Pancakes
from Moosewood Cookbook
1 cup cottage or ricotta cheese
1 heaping, packed cup grated apple (any kind but Delicious)
3/4 cup flour (you can use 1/2 cup white and 1/4 cup whole wheat)*
1 Tbs honey
1 tsp fresh lemon juice
1 Tbs sunflower seeds or chopped almonds**
1/2 tsp cinnamon
dash of nutmeg or allspice
4 eggs, separated
1 tsp salt**
Mix everything together except eggwhites. Beat these until stiff and fold into batter. Fry pancakes in butter on both sides until brown. Serve with maple syrup or preserves, sour cream or yogurt, fresh fruit, cinnamon sugar. (Mix and match.)
*Laura's note: My mom instead used 1/2 cup soft white whole wheat flour and 1/4 cup hard red whole wheat flour.
** Laura's note: Omitted by my mom.
Spicy Bean Soup with Greens and Winter Squash
modified slightly from "Spicy Lentil Soup with Mustard Greens and Butternut Squash" in Eating Local
2 Tbs oil or butter
1 medium yellow onion, minced
4 cloves garlic, minced
1-inch piece fresh ginger, peeled and minced
OR at least 1 tsp ground dry ginger
at least 1 tsp ground turmeric
at least 1 tsp cumin seed, toasted and finely ground
at least 1 dried red chile, broken in half
2 c bean of choice
1 bay leaf
1 qt chicken or vegetable broth
1 qt water
Kosher or sea salt (optional)
freshly ground black pepper (optional)
2 c peeled winter squash, diced
1/3 pound greens like mustard greens, chard, or spinach, cut crosswise into 1/2-wide-ribbons
If using lentils:
Heat oil or butter in large pot over moderate heat. Add the onion, garlic, ginger, turmeric, cumin, and chile and saute until the onion is soft. Add the lentils, bay leaf, broth, and water and bring to a simmer. Cover and adjust the heat to maintain a gentle simmer. Cook until the lentils are soft, about 30 minutes. Season the lentils with salt and pepper, if doing so. Stir in the squash. Cover and simmer until the squash is almost tender but still slightly firm, about 8 minutes. Stir in the mustard greens, re-cover, and remove the soup from the heat. Let satnd until the greens soften and the squash is fully cooked, about 5 to 10 minutes. Remove the bay leaf and chile. Taste and adjust the seasoning. Serve immediately.
If using other beans:
Pre-cook beans. Heat oil or butter in large pot over moderate heat. Add the onion, garlic, ginger, turmeric, cumin, and chile and saute until the onion is soft. Add beans, bay leaf, broth, water, and squash. Cover and simmer until the squash is almost tender but slightly firm, about 8 minutes. Stir in the mustard greens, re-cover, and remove the soup from the heat. Let satnd until the greens soften and the squash is fully cooked, about 5 to 10 minutes. Remove the bay leaf and chile. Taste and adjust the seasoning. Serve immediately.
Because there wasn't enough of the pancakes, I ended up making smoothies to augment our breakfast. My parents had rearranged the freezers on Sunday night to fit in all the chickens we'd butchered. I'd forgotten all about the strawberries from Thorpes that we'd frozen in June because they were in the freezer in the garage, but I rediscovered them with when the rearrangement had some of them transferred into the freezer in the kitchen. I snapped them up at the first smoothie-making opportunity, which was this morning. Just as I suspected, though, they weren't sweet enough in the smoothie on their own. I turned to trusty old peaches, my all-purpose smoothie sweetener. The mix of strawberry and peach was pretty unique, although it vaguely reminded me of strawberry-banana yogurt.
Lunchtime once again came and went without us eating, and we had a bit of an argument about food when we finally got around to figuring out what to eat. We settled on having boiled potatoes (garden), corn on the cob (farmstand), and homemade bread.
Still tense from our debate over lunch, we procrastinated on starting dinner. I had dance class again tonight, so at a certain point we had to decide. My mom was leaning towards trying a recipe for Greek pizza that she came across earlier this month, while my dad and I were more inclined towards a soup recipe I'd come across yesterday when trying to figure out lunch. My dad and I ended up working together on the soup because the Greek pizza called for mozzerella cheese, which we didn't have.
As I cooked, I made a lot of modifications to the recipe. I used Jacobs Cattle Beans from Cayuga Organics in place of red lentils, garden Swiss chard in place of mustard greens, and Delicata squash in place of butternut squash. The cookbook is called Eating Local, and I think that my modifications to use the local food available definitely fit the spirit of the book. We all liked the soup a lot, although I think I'd make it spicier next time. (Other ingredients included the Wild Card Item olive oil, various spices that were Marco Polo items, a dried red chili from Thorpes, and chicken stock that we made from the bones of one of the chickens I raised.)
While I was at dance class, my mom went to the Lexington Food Co-op to get Flour City's pasta. It seems to be the only local store stocking that pasta currently. While at Lexington, she also purchased three jars of White Cow Dairy yogurt. This yogurt, produced from the milk of local grassfed cows, is sold in these ridiculously expensive tiny glass jars. The flavors, though, are just so amazing that the occasional splurge is so worth it. My mom bought Strawberry Rhubarb yogurt for my dad and I, while she purchased Lemonberry (lemon raspberry) yogurt for herself. The Strawberry Rhubarb was almost to die for, but the Lemonberry was ten times better. What a nice late-night snack!
As we were heading home from dance, my mom was saying that she can't keep living with fighting about every meal. I think it's a bit of an exaggeration, but I know a lot of our discussions about what to eat in the past few days have been tense. We ended up eating some pretty great food today despite it all!
~*~
Apple-Cheese Pancakes
from Moosewood Cookbook
1 cup cottage or ricotta cheese
1 heaping, packed cup grated apple (any kind but Delicious)
3/4 cup flour (you can use 1/2 cup white and 1/4 cup whole wheat)*
1 Tbs honey
1 tsp fresh lemon juice
1 Tbs sunflower seeds or chopped almonds**
1/2 tsp cinnamon
dash of nutmeg or allspice
4 eggs, separated
1 tsp salt**
Mix everything together except eggwhites. Beat these until stiff and fold into batter. Fry pancakes in butter on both sides until brown. Serve with maple syrup or preserves, sour cream or yogurt, fresh fruit, cinnamon sugar. (Mix and match.)
*Laura's note: My mom instead used 1/2 cup soft white whole wheat flour and 1/4 cup hard red whole wheat flour.
** Laura's note: Omitted by my mom.
Spicy Bean Soup with Greens and Winter Squash
modified slightly from "Spicy Lentil Soup with Mustard Greens and Butternut Squash" in Eating Local
2 Tbs oil or butter
1 medium yellow onion, minced
4 cloves garlic, minced
1-inch piece fresh ginger, peeled and minced
OR at least 1 tsp ground dry ginger
at least 1 tsp ground turmeric
at least 1 tsp cumin seed, toasted and finely ground
at least 1 dried red chile, broken in half
2 c bean of choice
1 bay leaf
1 qt chicken or vegetable broth
1 qt water
Kosher or sea salt (optional)
freshly ground black pepper (optional)
2 c peeled winter squash, diced
1/3 pound greens like mustard greens, chard, or spinach, cut crosswise into 1/2-wide-ribbons
If using lentils:
Heat oil or butter in large pot over moderate heat. Add the onion, garlic, ginger, turmeric, cumin, and chile and saute until the onion is soft. Add the lentils, bay leaf, broth, and water and bring to a simmer. Cover and adjust the heat to maintain a gentle simmer. Cook until the lentils are soft, about 30 minutes. Season the lentils with salt and pepper, if doing so. Stir in the squash. Cover and simmer until the squash is almost tender but still slightly firm, about 8 minutes. Stir in the mustard greens, re-cover, and remove the soup from the heat. Let satnd until the greens soften and the squash is fully cooked, about 5 to 10 minutes. Remove the bay leaf and chile. Taste and adjust the seasoning. Serve immediately.
If using other beans:
Pre-cook beans. Heat oil or butter in large pot over moderate heat. Add the onion, garlic, ginger, turmeric, cumin, and chile and saute until the onion is soft. Add beans, bay leaf, broth, water, and squash. Cover and simmer until the squash is almost tender but slightly firm, about 8 minutes. Stir in the mustard greens, re-cover, and remove the soup from the heat. Let satnd until the greens soften and the squash is fully cooked, about 5 to 10 minutes. Remove the bay leaf and chile. Taste and adjust the seasoning. Serve immediately.
Wednesday, September 14, 2011
Day 14 of 2011, New Recipes and New GMO's
We ate the last of the barley for breakfast this morning. My dad had his with chopped peach, my mom had hers with maple syrup, and I had mine, as always, plain.
Right before lunchtime, my mom went to get feed at J & L in Corfu while I worked on bread. The bread was a new recipe for me, Scottish Sponge Bread from The Laurel's Kitchen Bread Book. (Note: The recipe is too long to share below. If you haven't already, just go out and by your copy of this bread cookbook. You won't regret it. It truly is indispensable.) I decided to try this recipe I've been so busy earlier in the day that I forget to start bread lately until evening, when there's not enough time for it to rise and bake before I go to bed. Because of this, bread hasn't been getting made recently. This recipe calls for the sponge to rise overnight, which allows me to start bread in the evening.
Anyways, I had to work on my bread dough right before lunchtime. It ended up taking a while, because I had to add the rest of the ingredients to the sponge part of the dough, mix it all together, get a large stew pot washed so I had a container big enough to knead my humungous amount of dough in, and finally knead it all for twenty minutes.
My mom had arrived home while I was still working on the bread. I was shocked that the bill for a mere two bags of organic feed was $75. Just a few years ago, a bag of organic turkey feed wasn't much more than twenty dollars. We just needed a little more feed to hold my birds over until our order from Lakeview Organic Grain, a NOFA-NY Certified Organic grower and grinder of animal feed in the Finger Lakes region. We've tried out Lakeview a bit before and I've been wanting to make the switch to Lakeview for years. It finally looks like we've got our act together with a couple of friends so it will be happening for good. After seeing the feed bill today, I'm even my happy about the switch. The feed for my poultry from Lakeview will be $20 to $22 dollars, depending on the specific amounts of protein mixed in it.
It was well past lunchtime when I finally finished kneading and let the dough rise again. This presented a problem, as my mom and I were both hungry and grumpy by this point. I was getting sick of the same old dishes we've been making again and again this month, but neither of us had any good ideas. After fruitlessly looking at cookbooks for recipes using the vegetables we have handy, I remembered that I'd had an idea a few days ago that broccoli with a lemon sauce would probably be good. I googled it, and right away found this recipe at Cooks.com for Broccoli With Lemon Herb Sauce.
My mom and I agreed to have this dish (farmstand broccoli, friend's goats milk, egg from my hens, Wild Card Item lemon, Thorpes soft white whole wheat flour, Marco Polo Item dill), along with our old fall-back of boiled potatoes from the garden. I put the potatoes on, my mom cooked the broccoli, and I made the sauce. Being me, I had to modify the recipe. In this case, I didn't think it was lemony enough, so I added the juice of half a lemon. We both loved the way the broccoli tasted with the lemon sauce. My mom said it was almost like candy, but I wouldn't go that far. Still, it's now my second-favorite way to eat broccoli. My very favorite, Stir-Fried Broccoli With Ginger, doesn't fall within the Locavore Challenge parameters.
Right before my dad came home from work, I took the four (four!) loaves of Scottish Sponge Bread out of the oven. We all sat down to try the hot fresh bread and all liked it. I think I'll make the recipe frequently in the future, because it's a relatively easy way to make what's about a week's worth of bread for my family at once. I can leave two of the four loaves in the cupboard and freeze two loaves, which can be taken out later in the week.
While I worked on dinner, my dad put an electrified wire around the chicken coop with the young chickens in it. He'd just gotten it back from our friend with the goats and chickens. Once the little chickens perching on a board down the middle of the chicken coop at night they should be safe, but they're young enough that they're sleeping in a pile in the corner of the coop. This is how a predator was able to kill the chick yesterday. We're hoping that the electric wire will offer some painful discouragement. In past years, we've had the electric wire up as soon as the chicks went out and had no trouble. Last year, we never got the wire up and we got lucky. We pushed our luck too far this year, and just don't want to take any more risks after what happened yesterday morning.
For dinner, I made ratatouille (farm stand garlic, farm stand onion, Wild Card Item olive oil, garden eggplant, garden tomatoes, garden zucchini), which was served with some of the best corn on the cob I've had all summer and some of the fresh Scottish Sponge bread. We finished off almost a whole loaf of it tonight!
Speaking of corn on the cob, I received the fall issue of the NOFA newsletter, The Natural Farmer, today. My favorite part of the publication is the section that contains summaries of all sorts of agriculture-related news stories recently published. I was extremely upset to learn from reading this section of the newsletter today that Monsanto is planning on starting to sell transgenetic (a.k.a. genetically engineered or genetically modified) sweet corn seeds this fall.
The list of complaints against transgenetic crops is longing, and includes the emergence of superweeds, health concerns, and lawsuits filed against seed-saving farmers whose crops crossed with GMO's through pollen drift from neighboring farmers' fields. According to a poll conducted by MSNBC that I read about it The Natural Farmer, ninety-six percent of Americans support the labeling of trasngenetic crops. The government won't even consider it, though. Meanwhile, such crops are banned in Europe.
Until now, there were no commercially available seeds for transgenetic produce. My family been buying organic grain for years, so we've not worried too much about our consumption of transgentic crops. My dad isn't too fond of Thorpes sweet corn, so I've picked my battles and let him by it from local conventional farmers. With Monsanto's release of trasgenetic sweet corn, we're either going to have to grow our own or buy organic now.
That's not the end of the world, obviously, but I do hate to see the tentacles of transgentic crops (and thus companies like Monsanto) spread. If their transgenetic sweet corn is anywhere near as successful as their trangenetic feed corn and soy, it will easily come to dominate the market. Today, about 90% of most commodity crops grown in the United States are transgenetic.
Right before lunchtime, my mom went to get feed at J & L in Corfu while I worked on bread. The bread was a new recipe for me, Scottish Sponge Bread from The Laurel's Kitchen Bread Book. (Note: The recipe is too long to share below. If you haven't already, just go out and by your copy of this bread cookbook. You won't regret it. It truly is indispensable.) I decided to try this recipe I've been so busy earlier in the day that I forget to start bread lately until evening, when there's not enough time for it to rise and bake before I go to bed. Because of this, bread hasn't been getting made recently. This recipe calls for the sponge to rise overnight, which allows me to start bread in the evening.
Anyways, I had to work on my bread dough right before lunchtime. It ended up taking a while, because I had to add the rest of the ingredients to the sponge part of the dough, mix it all together, get a large stew pot washed so I had a container big enough to knead my humungous amount of dough in, and finally knead it all for twenty minutes.
My mom had arrived home while I was still working on the bread. I was shocked that the bill for a mere two bags of organic feed was $75. Just a few years ago, a bag of organic turkey feed wasn't much more than twenty dollars. We just needed a little more feed to hold my birds over until our order from Lakeview Organic Grain, a NOFA-NY Certified Organic grower and grinder of animal feed in the Finger Lakes region. We've tried out Lakeview a bit before and I've been wanting to make the switch to Lakeview for years. It finally looks like we've got our act together with a couple of friends so it will be happening for good. After seeing the feed bill today, I'm even my happy about the switch. The feed for my poultry from Lakeview will be $20 to $22 dollars, depending on the specific amounts of protein mixed in it.
It was well past lunchtime when I finally finished kneading and let the dough rise again. This presented a problem, as my mom and I were both hungry and grumpy by this point. I was getting sick of the same old dishes we've been making again and again this month, but neither of us had any good ideas. After fruitlessly looking at cookbooks for recipes using the vegetables we have handy, I remembered that I'd had an idea a few days ago that broccoli with a lemon sauce would probably be good. I googled it, and right away found this recipe at Cooks.com for Broccoli With Lemon Herb Sauce.
My mom and I agreed to have this dish (farmstand broccoli, friend's goats milk, egg from my hens, Wild Card Item lemon, Thorpes soft white whole wheat flour, Marco Polo Item dill), along with our old fall-back of boiled potatoes from the garden. I put the potatoes on, my mom cooked the broccoli, and I made the sauce. Being me, I had to modify the recipe. In this case, I didn't think it was lemony enough, so I added the juice of half a lemon. We both loved the way the broccoli tasted with the lemon sauce. My mom said it was almost like candy, but I wouldn't go that far. Still, it's now my second-favorite way to eat broccoli. My very favorite, Stir-Fried Broccoli With Ginger, doesn't fall within the Locavore Challenge parameters.
Right before my dad came home from work, I took the four (four!) loaves of Scottish Sponge Bread out of the oven. We all sat down to try the hot fresh bread and all liked it. I think I'll make the recipe frequently in the future, because it's a relatively easy way to make what's about a week's worth of bread for my family at once. I can leave two of the four loaves in the cupboard and freeze two loaves, which can be taken out later in the week.
While I worked on dinner, my dad put an electrified wire around the chicken coop with the young chickens in it. He'd just gotten it back from our friend with the goats and chickens. Once the little chickens perching on a board down the middle of the chicken coop at night they should be safe, but they're young enough that they're sleeping in a pile in the corner of the coop. This is how a predator was able to kill the chick yesterday. We're hoping that the electric wire will offer some painful discouragement. In past years, we've had the electric wire up as soon as the chicks went out and had no trouble. Last year, we never got the wire up and we got lucky. We pushed our luck too far this year, and just don't want to take any more risks after what happened yesterday morning.
For dinner, I made ratatouille (farm stand garlic, farm stand onion, Wild Card Item olive oil, garden eggplant, garden tomatoes, garden zucchini), which was served with some of the best corn on the cob I've had all summer and some of the fresh Scottish Sponge bread. We finished off almost a whole loaf of it tonight!
Speaking of corn on the cob, I received the fall issue of the NOFA newsletter, The Natural Farmer, today. My favorite part of the publication is the section that contains summaries of all sorts of agriculture-related news stories recently published. I was extremely upset to learn from reading this section of the newsletter today that Monsanto is planning on starting to sell transgenetic (a.k.a. genetically engineered or genetically modified) sweet corn seeds this fall.
The list of complaints against transgenetic crops is longing, and includes the emergence of superweeds, health concerns, and lawsuits filed against seed-saving farmers whose crops crossed with GMO's through pollen drift from neighboring farmers' fields. According to a poll conducted by MSNBC that I read about it The Natural Farmer, ninety-six percent of Americans support the labeling of trasngenetic crops. The government won't even consider it, though. Meanwhile, such crops are banned in Europe.
Until now, there were no commercially available seeds for transgenetic produce. My family been buying organic grain for years, so we've not worried too much about our consumption of transgentic crops. My dad isn't too fond of Thorpes sweet corn, so I've picked my battles and let him by it from local conventional farmers. With Monsanto's release of trasgenetic sweet corn, we're either going to have to grow our own or buy organic now.
That's not the end of the world, obviously, but I do hate to see the tentacles of transgentic crops (and thus companies like Monsanto) spread. If their transgenetic sweet corn is anywhere near as successful as their trangenetic feed corn and soy, it will easily come to dominate the market. Today, about 90% of most commodity crops grown in the United States are transgenetic.
Day 13 of 2011, The Predator Strikes
There are good ways to be woken up and bad ones. I remember being so instantly awake and excited when my mom came into my bedroom on a morning in December 2009 to tell me that Obama had won the Nobel Peace Prize. This morning wasn't like that. Before she had even finished saying "Good morning," I was pretty sure from her tone that one of my chickens was dead. I was once again instantly awake, but this time there was dread in my stomach.
Something got one of my chickens early this morning. Around 5:15 this morning, my dad got up because my six-week-old chickens (the ones that were recently moved outside) were making a racket. He checked on them, but it was too dark to see if there was anything wrong. He went out to the workshop, a little outbuilding at the end of our driveway that he uses as an office and for a lot of beekeeping stuff. When he was in the workshop, he heard the chickens making a fuss again. Once again, he went out to check on them, and it was once again too dark for him to be able to see much of anything. At this point, my mom also came down to see if the chickens were okay.
It wasn't until it got lighter that my dad discovered that one of the young chickens was dead. By the time I'd gotten up, the other young chickens had started pecking at the dead bird, so I had to get it out of the coop. The chick had been died from a neck wound inflicted through the chicken wire. It turned out that it was Bertie, a cockerel that I was considering keeping as a new rooster. He was the biggest of all my chicks, and seemed quite gentle. He was also gorgeous, and and his black back and white belly made him appear to be wearing a tuxedo. I guess predators appreciate quality, too.
After all the excitement about the dead chick ended, we all had barley for breakfast. My dad had his with frozen blueberries for a local low-spray farm, I had mine plain, and nobody can remember what my mom had on hers. It may have been chopped peach or maple syrup.
For lunch, I made some more spaghetti sauce and mixed it with the leftover tomato sauce that my mom had made for the pizza. I also cooked the last of the spaghetti noodles from Flour City. We topped our spaghetti with ricotta cheese made from our friend's goats' milk.
At 4:50 p.m., I realized that we needed to be leaving for my first dance class of the fall in forty minutes. We made a mad scramble to have dinner on the table in time, but ended up leaving fifteen minutes late. Dinner was only boiled potatoes, boiled green beans, and corn on the cob, but my dad had to run down the street to some farm stands to purchase the latter two items before they could be cooked. The potatoes we had on hand already, as they were from the garden.
Something got one of my chickens early this morning. Around 5:15 this morning, my dad got up because my six-week-old chickens (the ones that were recently moved outside) were making a racket. He checked on them, but it was too dark to see if there was anything wrong. He went out to the workshop, a little outbuilding at the end of our driveway that he uses as an office and for a lot of beekeeping stuff. When he was in the workshop, he heard the chickens making a fuss again. Once again, he went out to check on them, and it was once again too dark for him to be able to see much of anything. At this point, my mom also came down to see if the chickens were okay.
It wasn't until it got lighter that my dad discovered that one of the young chickens was dead. By the time I'd gotten up, the other young chickens had started pecking at the dead bird, so I had to get it out of the coop. The chick had been died from a neck wound inflicted through the chicken wire. It turned out that it was Bertie, a cockerel that I was considering keeping as a new rooster. He was the biggest of all my chicks, and seemed quite gentle. He was also gorgeous, and and his black back and white belly made him appear to be wearing a tuxedo. I guess predators appreciate quality, too.
After all the excitement about the dead chick ended, we all had barley for breakfast. My dad had his with frozen blueberries for a local low-spray farm, I had mine plain, and nobody can remember what my mom had on hers. It may have been chopped peach or maple syrup.
For lunch, I made some more spaghetti sauce and mixed it with the leftover tomato sauce that my mom had made for the pizza. I also cooked the last of the spaghetti noodles from Flour City. We topped our spaghetti with ricotta cheese made from our friend's goats' milk.
At 4:50 p.m., I realized that we needed to be leaving for my first dance class of the fall in forty minutes. We made a mad scramble to have dinner on the table in time, but ended up leaving fifteen minutes late. Dinner was only boiled potatoes, boiled green beans, and corn on the cob, but my dad had to run down the street to some farm stands to purchase the latter two items before they could be cooked. The potatoes we had on hand already, as they were from the garden.
Day 12 of 2011, Height of the Harvest
Breakfast and lunch were leftovers on Monday. We used up the leftover peach pancake batter, while my mom bought chips (Wild Card Item) so we could use up the leftover salsa for at lunchtime. For dinner, I made mashed potatoes (garden potatoes, friend's goat milk, Finger Lakes butter) and maple-glazed winter squash (garden Delicata squash, homemade maple syrup, Finger Lakes butter, cinnamon [Marco Polo item]), while my mom chopped up carrot sticks (garden).
After dinner, my dad and I went to pick tomatoes. It was mainly the hybrid late-blight resistant tomatoes that needed picking, as most of the heirloom tomato plants I planted are still heavy with green fruit. We picked about two bushels of tomatoes, so my family will definitely need to start canning soon. We also ended up harvesting a giant zucchini and sixteen pounds of potatoes.
It's so fun to harvest potatoes because I feel like I'm getting something for almost nothing. We planted our potatoes right on the bare ground and covered them in a foot of straw, as the 1959 Rodale book and Lasagna Gardening suggest. That's it. Instead of all the digging and hilling most potato growers go through, we just left the potatoes under the straw until it was time to harvest. We go through so many potatoes as a family that's it's great to just be able to grow our own with so little effort. It was probably the easiest crop in my garden this year. I'd recommend this method to anyone.
~*~
Maple-Glazed Winter Squash
adapted from Burst-of-Orange Butternut Squash recipe in Kid Favorites Made Healthy
1 lb winter squash
1/3 c water
1 Tbs maple syrup
dash in cinnamon
butter
Peel squash. Slice in half and remove seeds and pulp. Chop squash into small cubes. Put in greased 2 quart baking dish. Mix up water, cinnamon, and maple syrup, then pour over squash. Dot with butter. Bake uncovered in 425 degree Fahrenheit oven for twenty-five minutes or until tender.
After dinner, my dad and I went to pick tomatoes. It was mainly the hybrid late-blight resistant tomatoes that needed picking, as most of the heirloom tomato plants I planted are still heavy with green fruit. We picked about two bushels of tomatoes, so my family will definitely need to start canning soon. We also ended up harvesting a giant zucchini and sixteen pounds of potatoes.
It's so fun to harvest potatoes because I feel like I'm getting something for almost nothing. We planted our potatoes right on the bare ground and covered them in a foot of straw, as the 1959 Rodale book and Lasagna Gardening suggest. That's it. Instead of all the digging and hilling most potato growers go through, we just left the potatoes under the straw until it was time to harvest. We go through so many potatoes as a family that's it's great to just be able to grow our own with so little effort. It was probably the easiest crop in my garden this year. I'd recommend this method to anyone.
~*~
Maple-Glazed Winter Squash
adapted from Burst-of-Orange Butternut Squash recipe in Kid Favorites Made Healthy
1 lb winter squash
1/3 c water
1 Tbs maple syrup
dash in cinnamon
butter
Peel squash. Slice in half and remove seeds and pulp. Chop squash into small cubes. Put in greased 2 quart baking dish. Mix up water, cinnamon, and maple syrup, then pour over squash. Dot with butter. Bake uncovered in 425 degree Fahrenheit oven for twenty-five minutes or until tender.
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