Posted on 03/23/2008 11:36:40 PM PDT by nw_arizona_granny
Americans finding soaring food prices hard to stomach can battle back by growing their own food. [Click image for a larger version] Dean Fosdick Dean Fosdick
Home vegetable gardens appear to be booming as a result of the twin movements to eat local and pinch pennies.
At the Southeastern Flower Show in Atlanta this winter, D. Landreth Seed Co. of New Freedom, Pa., sold three to four times more seed packets than last year, says Barb Melera, president. "This is the first time I've ever heard people say, 'I can grow this more cheaply than I can buy it in the supermarket.' That's a 180-degree turn from the norm."
Roger Doiron, a gardener and fresh-food advocate from Scarborough, Maine, said he turned $85 worth of seeds into more than six months of vegetables for his family of five.
A year later, he says, the family still had "several quarts of tomato sauce, bags of mixed vegetables and ice-cube trays of pesto in the freezer; 20 heads of garlic, a five-gallon crock of sauerkraut, more homegrown hot-pepper sauce than one family could comfortably eat in a year and three sorts of squash, which we make into soups, stews and bread."
[snipped]
She compares the current period of market uncertainty with that of the early- to mid-20th century when the concept of victory gardens became popular.
"A lot of companies during the world wars and the Great Depression era encouraged vegetable gardening as a way of addressing layoffs, reduced wages and such," she says. "Some companies, like U.S. Steel, made gardens available at the workplace. Railroads provided easements they'd rent to employees and others for gardening."
(Excerpt) Read more at dallasnews.com ...
Cheese Nibbles
1/2 cup butter, softened
1/2 cup mozzarella cheese, shredded
1/2 cup cheddar cheese, shredded
1/4 tsp. Worcestrershire sauce
1 cup flour
1 cup crisp rice cereal
Stir together butter, cheeses and Worcestershire
sauce. Add flour and rice
cereal; stir thoroughly. Roll dough into
marble-sized pieces. Place on
baking sheet and bake at 350 degrees for 8-10
minutes. Cool slightly before
removing from baking sheet.
Linda D
CAN - CAN BREAD
1 pkg active dry yeast
1/2 cup warm water
1/8 teaspoon ginger
3 tbls sugar
1 can (13 oz.) evaporated milk
1 teaspoon salt
2 tbls oil
4 - 4 1/2 cups flour
dessolve yeast in water in large mixing bowl;
blend in ginger and 1
tablespoon of the sugar. Let stand in a warm
place 15 minutes.
Stir in
remaining sugar, milk, salt and oil. With the
mixer on low speed, add flour
1 cup at time, beating well after each addition.
(you may have to beat the
last cupful in with a heavy spoon) The dough
should be heavy and stiff but
still to sticky to knead.
Place dough in 2 well-greased 1-lb. coffee cans.
Cover with the well greased
plastic lids from the coffee cans. (at this
point you may freeze- will keep
about 2 weeks unbaked in the freezer)
To bake, let covered cans stand in a warm place
until dough rises and pops
off the plastic lids which will take about 45 to
60 minutes. If the dough
was frozen it will take 4 to 5 hours after
removing from freezer. Remove
the lid and bake in preheated 350 degree oven for
45 minutes.
Brush top
with butter.
Let cool 10 minutes on a rack, then loosen loaf
with a thin knive and slide
the bread out. If you have any trouble, cut the
bottom out and push bread
through.
I clipped this recipe from a newspaper many years
ago (don’t know which one)
it is one of my easiest bread recipes and we make
it often.
Linda
You can cook anything in a slow cooker from your
favorite recipes for the oven. Here are a few
guidelines:
If a recipe says: Cook in slow cooker:
15-30 min 1 1/2- 2 hours on
High or 4-6 hours on low*
35-45min 3-4 hours on high or
6-10 hours on low*
50min-3 hours 4-6 hours on high or
8-18 hours on low*
* Most uncooked meat and vegetable combinations
will require 8 hours on low.
SOME TIPS:
1. Use less in slow cooking usually about 1/2 the
recommended amount. 1 cup is enough for any
recipe unless it has rice or pasta. Soups add water
or stock just enough to cover. If milk based
soupshave no other liquid for initial cooking add
1-2 cups water. Add milk, sour cream or cream in
the last hour of cooking they tend to break down
in extended cooking. Condensed soups may be
substituted for milk and can be cooked for extended
times.
2. Use leaf or whole herbs preferred ( use 1/2
the recommended amount because their flavor will
increase ) If you use ground herbs add the last
hour of cooking.
3.Dried beans should be soaked overnight and/ or
boiled before adding to a recipe. Cover the
beans with 3 times their volume of unsalted water and
bring to a boil. Boil 10 min then reduce heat
and simmer 1 1/2 hours until beans are tender.
Drain and add to recipe. Beans should be
completely soft before you add them to sugar or tomato
mixture.
4. If a recipe calls for cooked noodles, cook
noodles before till just tender al dente then add to
cooker. If rice is called for stir with other
ingredients add 1 cup extra water per 1 cup raw
rice. Use long grain converted rice for best
results in long day cooking.
Milk Substitute Recipe
Commercial kitten formulas such as KMR are by far
the
best choice for feeding kittens. However, animal
hospitals and pet supply stores sometimes run
out; or
you may find some orphaned kittens in the middle
of the
night when everything is closed.
In an emergency, the following recipe may have to
suffice:
1 cup whole milk
2 egg yolks
1 tsp. salad oil
1 drop liquid pediatric vitamins
Mix all the ingredients and warm to about 95
degrees
Farenheit. Refrigerate the unused portion.
For more insight into caring for strays, pick up
a copy
of The Stray Cat Handbook
[http://164.109.153.102/product.asp?isbn=0876051468],
by Tamara Kreuz, published by Hungry Minds, Inc.
Getting The Skunk Out
The best cure for skunk odor is a mixture of one
quart
hydrogen peroxide, one-fourth cup baking soda,
and two
tablespoons dish soap. Wet your cat thoroughly
with the
mixture, let sit a few minutes, and then rinse
well.
CAUTION: Do not attempt to keep this mixture on
hand — it’ll explode any closed container you
put it
in, which is why such a surefire cure isn’t
commercially available.
When used as directed — mixed fresh, rinsed off,
and
discarded afterward — this homemade solution is
safe.
If you’d rather deal with something that you can
safely
store, however, buy a commercial deskunking
product
from your veterinarian or pet-supply store.
Answers to all of your cat-care questions are
right at
your fingertips when you have a copy of Cats For
Dummies, 2nd Edition
[http://catalog.dummies.com/product.asp?isbn=0764552759
], by Gina Spadafori and Paul D. Pion, DVM,
DACVIM,
published by Hungry Minds, Inc.
http://www.headachecure.org/herbal-cure.htm
Herbal Remedies for the common Migraine
Herb 1: Feverfew
It is already a very popular herbal remedy. It is also called Bachelor’s Button, and is a very popular folk remedy for headaches and migraines. For many years, it was believed to relieve fever symptoms, but that was wrong. Today it is used mainly to prevent and treat headaches and migraines.
Migraine relief is supposed to be achieved by taking a certain amount of feverfew daily for a set period of time. In one scientific study, two thirds of those suffering from migraines found relief from feverfew, when taken over the correct amount of time. However, these experiments were poorly controlled, so they show us little in the scientific world. Afterwards, more studies were made and showed the opposite, that feverfew could do very little to help those with headaches and migraines. It is believed, however, that feverfew will work on most headaches, but not the same for migraines.
Feverfew works very similar to Ibuprofen, it is believed that is has chemicals that make blood vessels in your head spasm. New research proves that one key material in feverfew, parthenolide, make have leukemia-fighting properties within it, so you may see more variations of it being used in years to come.
Herb 2: Peppermint
This has been used for hundreds of years. From the common tea to extracts, there are ways to enjoy peppermint. Heed this warning, do not take peppermint if you have stomach acid or related problems.
Peppermint is also very good for its aroma and cooling properties.
Herb 3: Passionflower
This is a calming herb. Taken with tea before bed, it can help you get to sleep. One clinic trial found that it lowered anxiety. It also is believed to have pain killing properties. This is very good for migraines.
Herb 4: Ginko
The leaves of the ginko tree. This is a very popular herb for headaches. However, some medical evidence disagrees. Ginko is said to improve the flow of blood and get more oxygen to the brain.
Note: Ginko should not be taking with pain killer such as advil, aleve, etc.
Herb 5: Cayenne
This is part of a pepper. Many peppers have something in them called capsaicin, which among other things is believed to raise the human pain threshold. Very good for migraines.
Herb 6: Willow
White willow bark is especially popular for headaches because it works very similar to aspirin, getting rid of your pains and causing inflammation to go down. Just as any other painkiller, it is no long term fix.
___________________________________________
IRRITABLE LAP SYNDROME
Symptoms: The cat appears unable to settle
comfortably on laps,
instead treading, kneading, rearranging itself,
fidgeting,
vocalizing, getting up and turning around,
falling off lap and
getting back on again, attacking magazines,
needlework, computer
keyboard, telephone etc.
Treatment: Immediate treatment is
essential. Drop whatever you
are doing (literally if need be) and give 100%
attention to the
sufferer otherwise symptoms may escalate and
become quite distressing
to the lap-owner. Only prolonged attention will
cure an attack of
Irritable Lap Syndrome. Like Collapsible Legs
this syndrome is
incurable, although attacks may be effectively
treated as and when
they occur.
_____________________
LAP FUNGUS DISORDER
Symptoms: Having taken over a human lap,
the cat proceeds to
spread in all planes. This may be accompanied by
secondary symptoms
such as high volume purring, dribbling, kneading
and snoring. The
condition is highly contagious and several
fungoid cats may infest a
lap simultaneously.
Treatment: Topical treatment with
proprietary anti-fungals is
ineffective. Prompt treatment (as per Irritable
Lap Syndrome) is
required to alleviate the worst symptoms although
in a number of
cats, such treatment actually exasperates the
condition. This
disorder manifests itself periodically through
the affected cat’s
life and there is no long-term cure.
_____________________
SMURGLING
Symptoms: Varied: sucking at clothing,
owners earlobes/
nose/fingers/skin, drooling, glazed expression.
Often accompanied by
kneading and high volume purring.
Treatment: Ultimately incurable. It is
possible to remove
smurglable items from around the cat. The ailment
may be transmitted
to humans in the form of large laundry bills,
misshapen clothing and
chapped skin.
_____________________
GREEBLINGZ
Symptoms: Random dashes through to
helter-skelter running
through house in pursuit of unseen prey.
Greeblingz are believed to
be non-visible entities and some authorities have
linked them to UFO
sightings or feel that they may be diminutive
other-dimensional
beings. Cats suffering from greeblingz typically
have wild-eyed
expressions. There is a minor danger of
greeblingz attaching
themselves to humans; if a cat tackles such
greeblingz, injury to
humans may result. A very few cats are naturally
immune.
Treatment: None known. Anti-epileptics are
ineffective as the
condition appears unrelated to other forms of
seizure. Avoid getting
in the way of a cat engaged in greebling hunting.
Attacks usually
subside spontaneously, perhaps as greeblingz
return to their own
dimension. These irritating creatures are not
visible to human eyes,
but no doubt the superior sight and hearing of
cats enables them to
see them.
___________________________________________
AN OLDIE BUT GOODIE
Once there was a little girl who seemed
very lonely and sad so
her parents took her to pick out a puppy from a
friend’s litter.
When they got to the house, all the puppies were
wagging their tails
and jumping up on her, except one. It was curled
up all alone in the
corner and quiet.
“What’s wrong with that one?” she asked.
“Oh she was born with
a bad leg and can’t play with the others and will
be crippled her
whole life. We will probably have to put her
down,” said the owner.
The little girl said, “She’s the one I
want. I want her.” The
owner handed her the puppy and said that he
wouldn’t charge her for
it.
“It is important for me to pay the same for
her as you charged
for her brothers and sisters,” said the girl.
So her parents paid the man and they left
for their car.
As the little girl walked away, the owner
could see that the
little girl limped and had a brace on her leg.
Like so many other
children of the day, polio had found another
victim.
As she hugged her new pet, the owner saw
the puppy’s tail
wagging for the first time and the girl turned to
him and said, “I
know what she’s going through mister.”
A few links for those of us interested in herbal uses for healing.
If the day should come that you cannot go to a Doctor, you may be glad for a little knowledge of their uses, I do use them when possible over chemical medicines, but for the big diseases, find I am paying out over half of my income on the doctors prescriptions.
granny
http://www.naturalherbsguide.com/herbal-antioxidants.html
http://www.naturalherbsguide.com/herbal-remedies.html
http://www.naturalherbsguide.com/
http://www.best-home-remedies.com/
http://www.herbportal.com/herbal-medicine-articles/herbs-for-arthritis.htm
[These sites have links and so much information, that you will not need the above links.]
Native Herbal Knowledge:
http://www.kstrom.net/isk/food/plants.html
Native Traditional Food, Health & Nutrition:
http://www.kstrom.net/isk/food/foodmenu.html
Native Recipes:
http://www.kstrom.net/isk/food/recipes.html
Culpepers complete herbal on line:
http://www.bibliomania.com/2/1/66/113/frameset.html
Carrots:
http://www.bibliomania.com/2/1/66/113/20979/1/frameset.html
[This will be one of the books used as a base for the modern herb books..granny]
http://www.botanical.com/botanical/mgmh/mgmh.html
A Modern Herbal, first published in 1931, by Mrs. M. Grieve, contains Medicinal, Culinary, Cosmetic and Economic Properties, Cultivation and Folk-Lore of Herbs.
* Plant & Herb Index More than 800 varieties of herbs & plants.
* Index of Recipes A listing of 29 plants that include recipes.
* Index of Poisons A listing of 44 plants that are listed as poisonous.
Regarding cultivation - Keep in mind that this was written in England, with a climate similar to the Pacific Northwest in America.
For Medicinal Use - Bear in mind it was written with the conventional wisdom of the early 1900’s. This should be taken into account as some of the information may now be considered inaccurate, or not in accordance with modern medicine.
[the above links are worth taking a look at, if for no other reason, than to learn what is really growing in your yard.
granny]
http://www.botanical.com/botanical/mgmh/l/lovage42.html
http://www.botanical.com/botanical/mgmh/poison.html
Index of Poisionous Plants
Aconite
Apple (Balsam)
Apple (Bitter)
Baneberry
Bloodroot
Bryony, Black
Bryony, European White
Bryony, White
Cabbage Tree
Calabar Bean
Calotropis Cherry Laurel
Clematis
Coca, Bolivian
Cocculus, Indicus
Dropwort, Hemlock Water
Foxglove
Gelsemium
Hellebore, Black
Hellebore, False
Hellebore, Green
Hellebore, White Hemlock
Hemlock, Water
Hemp, Indian
Ignatius Beans
Ivy, Poison
Laburnum
Laurel, Mountain
Lovage, Water
Mescal Buttons
Nightshade, Black
Nightshade, Deadly Nux Vomica
Paris, Herb
Poppy, White
Saffron, Meadow
Spurges
Stavesacre
Strophanthus
Thornapple
Wake Robin, American
Yew
Are you keeping up?
I am not attempting to take up being a vegetarian, and have posted some of their recipes, that I collected the year that I had to live off my storage food and had no way to go to Kingman for fresh groceries.
There are bread machine, crockpot, herbs and I forgot what else I have posted the last couple days.
granny
Links cover food, health, history and links to more links:
http://www.kstrom.net/isk/food/plants.html
http://www.kstrom.net/isk/linkpage.html
http://www.kstrom.net/isk/food/foodmenu.html
http://www.kstrom.net/isk/stories/ebooks.html
http://www.kstrom.net/isk/mainmenu.html#mainmenutop
http://www.kstrom.net/isk/food/foodmenu.html
http://www.kstrom.net/isk/food/recipes.html
http://www.kstrom.net/isk/food/plants.html
Links to Aboriginal Resources
http://www.bloorstreet.com/300block/aborl.htm
http://www.cs.cmu.edu/~mjw/recipes/
http://www.kstrom.net/isk/food/r_squash.html
http://www.kstrom.net/isk/food/r_corn.html
http://www.kstrom.net/isk/food/r_corn.html
Corn casserole (serves 4-5 as main dish)
3 cups Monterey Jack or similar grated cheese
6 slices whole wheat bread torn up
1 lb canned creamed corn
1/2 cup chopped celery
1/4 cup chopped onion
1 cup corn
3 eggs beaten with:
1/2 tsp salt
1/2 tsp Worcestershire sauce
6 drops Tabasco sauce
1/2 tsp dry yellow mustard
Fry the onion and celery together. Layer the bread (bottom) vegetables, and cheese in an oiled casserole dish. Pour the creamed corn over the top. Then pour the egg mixture over that. Let it stand 30 minutes, then bake in a 350° oven for 1 hour, placed in a pan of hot water.
As a main dish, this supplies about 40% of a day’s protein requirement. By protein complementarity, the available amount can be increased to 55% by adding 3/4 cup sunflower seeds, but some people don’t like crunchies in it.
Frypan Corn/bean Fork Bread Serves 4-6
1/2 cup dry beans (kidney or black)
3/4 cup bean stock
1 large onion chopped
2-6 cloves garlic, minced
1 egg beaten
2 tbs corn oil
1 cup cornmeal
2 tsp baking powder
1 - 4 Tbsp chili powder
3/4 cup grated cheese
1 tomato cut up very fine
a few green onions cut up
1/4 cup black olives sliced
Cook beans covered, with a bay leaf, in 2 1/2 cups water so about 3/4 cup liquid will remain when they are very tender. If you bring them to a boil, then turn off the heat and let them cool off an hour, you can then boil them without soaking all night previousy. Add salt the last 15 minutes only. Fry onion and garlic in a little corn oil, in a big skillet that can go in the oven. Leave half of it in the bottom of the skillet. Mix the cornmeal, other dry ingredients, egg, beans and bean stock with the other half of fried onions/garlic. Mix thoroughly and pour into the skillet on top of the fried onion/garlic left in it. Bake at 350° for about 12 minutes, then sprinkle on cheese, olives, tomato and onion, bake 5 minutes longer. This is a fork-eating, not a pick-up corn bread. The corn and beans combine protein complementarity to make one serving about 20% of a day’s protein requirement. However, you better make 2 skillets of this for your family if this is the main dish.
Indian cornmeal pudding serves 4-6
There must be several hundred recipes for this. East coast tribal people taught settlers how to make it. Settlers sometimes calld it “Hasty pudding” kind of a joke, because the stone-ground cornmeal required many hours of baking. This recipe adds a small amount of soy grits — precooked soy beans ground up to a fine quick-cooking meal. Through protein complementarity, that greatly increases the availability of proteins in this dessert.
4 cups milk
1 cup yellow cornmeal
1/4 cup soy grits soaked in 1/2 cup water
1/3 cup butter
1/2 cup brown sugar
2/3 cup light molasses
3/4 tsp salt
1/2 tsp cinnamon
1/4 tsp cloves
1/4 tsp ginger
1/8 tsp allspice
1/8 tsp nutmeg
1/2 cup fine-chopped dried apples (optional)
2 eggs
In a big pan, bring the milk to a boil, then add the cornmeal and soy grits gradually stirring rapidly to keep lumps from forming. Lower heat and beat vigorously until it starts to get thick (about 5 minutes). Remove from heat. Add butter, sugar, molasses (can use maple syrup) and spices, let cool somewhat. Stir in 2 beaten eggs. Pour into buttered baking dish, bake 50-60 minutes at 325°, until pudding is firm. Serve warm with cream, vanilla icecream, or plain yoghurt.
If soy grits is used: one serving is about 30% of a day’s protein requirement. Some kinds of cornmeal (stone ground) have more protein and other minerals and vitamins, though it depends on where/how it was grown.
Corn Soup, Serves 6-8
This is another one where there’s a million recipes, plus the fact you can throw in whatever you have on hand.
1/2 lb salt pork
2 big onions, sliced
3 cups diced boiled potatoes
2 cups boiling water
2 cups cooked corn, fresh or canned
4 cups hot milk
1/2 tsp salt, pepper to taste
chopped parsley garnish
Cut pork into 1/2-inch dice, try out. Add onion, cook slowly 5-10 minutes, stirring, until transparent but not bfowned. Add potatoes, corn, boiling water, hnot milk. Season to taste, serve with garnish. Other things to throw into this soup: cooked carrots, rutabagas, turnips, leftover beans, canned tomatoes. Leftover ham, chopped. Use a broth made from any bones instead of water. To make a thicker chowder, make a roux of 2 Tbs butter and 2 of flour, frizzled, stir this into 1 cup of the milk, cook and stir until thickened. Stir this white sauce into the rest of the liquid as you add it to the vegetables. Like most soups and stews, corn soup is mostly an idea rather than a recipe. What you put in it depends on what you have.
http://www.kstrom.net/isk/food/clover.html
Clover (Basibuguk meaning “small leaves” or Trifolium pratense), dried flowers, leaves and combinations with other herbs (roots) was used as a medicine (for heart trouble), but its primary use was as food and as a tea. Dried clover blossoms were put in with soups and stews, where they added vitamins and minerals and a hint of sweetness from their honey.
This hint of honey-sweetness usually doesn’t survive in dried clover blossoms, unless sun-dried, and fairly fresh. At my local food co-op (where they’re sold for $22.50/lb, emphasizing business opportunities here for reservation youth) they are rather tasteless, whatever small content of vitamins and minerals may remain. A clover-blossom tea made by steeping a handful of such dried blossoms with a big spoonful of dried mint, pouring on about a pint of boiling water, though, is quite nice. I tried stewing the blossoms, and find that they dissolve into the gravy if cooked long (presumably adding vitamins, etc.) I also tried boiling them, and eating with salt and butter, and find this an acceptable vegetable, if you don’t have anything lse in the house, and it wasn’t something you paid $22.50/lb for. Fresh clover blossoms cooked for a very short time in a small amount of water, with butter and brown sugar, is quite good.
As I was researching for these plant pages I learned that apparently non-Indian herbalist types now are dissing white clover and lavendar clover, in favor of this red clover I got the pic of. As far as native people are concerned, the clovers are all good eating, good teas. The idea that 4-leaf clover, if you find one, is lucky, BTW is Indian, from thd sacred 4 directions. 3 is a sacred number to Christians.
http://www.kstrom.net/isk/food/r_teas.html#nutri
CAUTIONS, DISCLAIMER, AND OPPORTUNITY
There is a lot of modern interest in “Native plant medicines” both from big drug companies and from people who want simple treatments, inexpensive, and without the harmful side-effects that are sometimes manifested in chemical or synthesized medicines. These pages may occasionally mention traditional medicinal values of certain plants, but in general plant medicines is not a topic I’m going to go into here, for several reasons.
1. It can be dangerous. If you are a city person, or for that matter a reservation resident ignorant of plants, and go out hunting and trying to use “medicines” you can make yourself or others very sick, even die. Plants are not in and of themselves “healthy” or even necessarily safe. There are very powerful plant poisons, and some of the most powerful chemical poisons were originally developed from those of plants. There is also a consideration of how the plant parts must be processed or treated proprly, what parts to use, what proportions, and what mixtures.
2. Another reason to avoid this subject is that a sacred or religious aspect is involved in much Native plant medicine, of most kinds, and for most tribes. The principal repository of medical lore for Anishnabeg peoples is Midè an untranslatable word, usualy translated as Grand Medicine Society. One of the principal teachings of Midè is that every plant has a use — but not necessarily as a medicine or food! All the uses have to be learned, which was part of the instructional lifeways of traditional upbringing — now almsot entirely lost. The Midè initiate (usually someone who was sick and needed to be cured that way) used to be taught a sort of general medical course, general health. Other medicines were held by individuals, and most knew only a few. Ojibwe medicines tended to be complex, mixtures of many kinds of different parts of plants (almost always roots, though), gathered and treated at different times of year, mixed in specific proportions, and administered in scheduled doses of particular size and dilution. This was never public knowledge, and much of it was learned only by apprenticing to a particular doctor to learn his or her particular medicines.
True doctors were all specialists: they knew a few remedies, and those with different problems had to find the right specialist. This means — for now — that any old person who claims to be an “elder who knows all about all plants” is inevitably a fake, a charlatan usually involved with New Agers who want to believe everything is easy.
3. All native people who really know anything about uncultivated (”wild”) plants know that prayers and thanks are to be given to the Great Mystery who provides and reveals their proper uses by people. Usually an offering is made of tobacco, sometimes silver is buried by the “chief plant” of a group, representing the spirit of those particular plants. This isn’t just a gabble of some formulaic “prayer”. All of this is part of an attitude, a culture, a religious outlook, a local society, and a history which it does not seem to me can or should be acquired on this medium. I will here present and discuss only foods and flavorings — an adjunct to a cookbook. As in the wild rice section (a sacred gift), I will often try to show some of the history, feelings, etc., from my own experiences. I.e. our involvement with traditional foods shouldn’t be like opening a can or microwave package. (but there’s the practical aspect of feeding a family or lots of people.) But I’m no anthro, to talk of rituals and ceremonies. Discussions of history, etc., are likely to include accounts of arrests and harassments of Native people, bad laws and land thefts, environmental pollutions, destruction of Native lands and waters in respect of ability to survive from their natural gifts.
4. for city dwellers, in most major cities of the U.S. and some in Canada, there are health foods stores — co-ops, usually — where many herbal products are carried. Rarely, if ever, are these provided by Native people. There is a whole little industry of herb growers, gatherers, and distributors who provide quality, reliable, clean-processed non-standard plant products for these stores. It has occurred to me that this is an ideal mini-enterprise for some tribal people, including youth during summers. To learn the locally-available plants thoroughly, perhaps to garden larger supplies of some of them, to process and package them and connect with some of these co-ops and co-op product distributors. Such an enterprise would involve youth working with and learning from knowledgeable elders. In the sales and distribution of local herbs, youth would learn practical business methods too.
Users of traditional plants for flavorings, teas, and tonics should be aware that all of them definitely have a certain general health value: nutritional, vitamins and minerals. People of the north did not have green vegetables, fresh fruits, etc. available during hte long winters. Fruits and gardened vegetables such as corn, squash, pumpkins, beans, were dried, but these do not supply the full range of vitamins and minerals (although drying usually preserves what they do contain better than any other method). Anishnaabeg people mostly drank teas, rather than water, and these contained vitamin and mineral components not available to them during winters from other parts of stored or hunted food. So some of these can be thought of as vitamin/mineral supplements. Unfortunately, scientists usually haven’t gotten around to analyzing such wild plants for nutrient content, unless they have become of economic interest to white people or businesses. (What we do know is that unless it were a general starvation winter, Native people didn’t suffer from scurvy or any of the other deficiency diseases. They were getting quality nutrition when fresh plant foods were unavailable for many months.)
This is something that the Herb Research Foundation (associated with the American Botannical Council) may be able to help Native groups with. Read their mission statement, reports, and some ongoing projects on their pages.
Google
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NOTES for the incomplete ones: remove as individual pages are completed.
3. Chokecherry and other cherry twigs Ikwemusk (women’s medicine). No pix. I can scan a drawing.
7. Sarsaparilla Wabos odjibik. Rabbit root, Auralia naudicallis
8. Sassafrass.
9. Dried leaves of strawberry, Odeminidjibik, raspberry Miskominaga wunj, blackberry. Odatagago minaga wunj
10. Arborvitae (spruce, Thuja occidentalis). Gijikandug
11. Pine needles. Jingwauk
13. Goldenrod. Adidjidabowano, giizisko mushkiki (when it’s medicine) , Solidago aromatic, single pannicle of flowers, more pointed leaves, leaves smell sweet. Dry upside down.
15. Wintergreen Winisibugons, Gaultheria procumbens. Ferment leaves and berries in glass or pottery in warm place for several days. Then strain. Do not try to extract with hot water.
16. Slippery elm Gawakomisk, Ulmus fulva, a foof more than a drink. Good food (powdered, jelly-like) for people so gut-sick they can’t hold down much else.
Get names, amounts, and try to find pix of each wild plant. All except swamp tea and the other one are sold in health food co-ops for around $20-$30/lb (so city dwellers can try them) and it would make a nice summer business for a few tribal kids, find, dry, package, and get co-op distribution.
http://www.herbs.org/index.html
The Herb Research Foundation is the world’s first and foremost source of accurate, science-based information on the health benefits and safety of herbs-—and expertise in sustainable botanical resource development.
World news on herbs and vitamins, links:
http://www.herbs.org/current/topnews.html
http://www.kstrom.net/isk/food/wildrose.html
WILD ROSES: HIPS, HAWS, VITAMIN C
Wild roses of many species (Oginiminaga wunj rose berries, in Ojibwe) are abundant on the western prairies, especially when water is anywhere nearby. They like sun. The ones I’ve seen in North and South Dakota all have pinkish blossoms, like this drawing, but I’ve heard there ar white, yellowish, and pale reddish-brown ones also. These roses, blossoming on thorny briar tangles, flower through June and begin to set their haws, hips or berries, which are ripe by early fall, as shown to the lower right of the drawing.
Rose hips have been an important food for all Native tribes where any kind of roses can be found. They are extremely high in vitamin C, much more so than oranges, for example. Dried, they keep well, and will always be available in winter. Most health food co-ops sell them (for $25/lb or so, another economic opportunity for tribal youth in late summers).
Dried rose hips need to be boiled about 10 minutes to make a tea of them; just pouring hot water over them results in a fairly tasteless brew. Use 2 tablespoons per pint of water, boil covered. The hips must expand, split, and let the water get at the soft seeds within. The resulting tea may be pinkish, depending on the type of roses whose berries are used. The hot tea is acid-tasting, but not as sharp as lemon juice. Some like it sweetened. A half-teaspoon of dried mint may be added to give it a different flavor. Purchased rosehips for tea you’ll find only the hardened dried shell of the berry. Boil that 15 minutes for your tea.
Native women didn’t brew a tea and throw away the cooked berries. These were used in soups and stews. The “leftovers” cooked out in a largish batch of rose-hip tea (the berries expand a lot) are a good dinner vegetable, with butter and salt. There is still a lot of remaining food value in the cooked berries. At $25/lb who wants to throw them away?
During World War II, when the government urged householders to grow food in victory gardens as part of the war effort, rose hips were stressed as a high-C food. At that time, there were plenty of recipes around for eating the actual berries, as “dinner vegetables” and as various kinds of preserves and jams. But they have gone out of fashion now, and the government would prefer you to buy ascorbic acid, for the quite inadequate C that it states as minimum daily requirement. (The body uses or excretes vitamin C; it is not stored. It is water-soluble, and no harm is done by “overdosing” if there is such a thing. All kinds of stresses appareently increase the need. Mega-amounts seem to promote good health and fight many diseases and effects of aging in a great variety of ways.)
It is now known that rose hips contain biologically valuable bioflavinoids. Citrus fruits — usually cited as the best natural source of vitamin C — have them too, but in the bitter white under-peel that is usually not eaten. Of course, you can buy bioflavinoid pills. A curious thing — when I was reading and researching for these plant pages, I looked at both “balanced nutritious meals, not pills” nutritionists’ books and at books by the kind of dieticians who want you to swallow $100-worth of vitamin and mineral diet supplements every day. Both types give long (meals) or short (pills) food lists for foods that are good sources for various dietary requirements. Nobody mentioned rose hips.
Yet they are quite popular among yuppie health co-op food buyers. By hanging around the big herb area at the neighborhood co-op I belong to and questioning people, I found that rose hips among these people are used only for tea — no one considered eating the berries! They were quite surprised when I mentioned it could be done.
Recently, I pulled the following table from the powerful AGIS ethnobotanical database of Native traditional plant food phytochemicals. It’s a chemical analysis, and doesn’t directly compare with USDA food nutrient analyses — no real way to compare the parts-peer-million reported with minimum daily requirements of vitamins and minerals in a certain amount of rose hip tea or cooked rose hips. Too, I think the analysis is old. The table generator does not pull a great manu minerals and compounds that nutritionists have found are important — and that are retrieved for other plants in this database.
What the table below shows is that rosehips are extremely high in vitamin C (ascorbic acid), have some beta carotene (plant form of Vitamin A), bioflavinoids, and considerable pectin — soluble form of fiber, which helps to prevent intestinal cancers. lowers saturated fats and triglycerides, helps to control blood pressure and good for the heart. But this table does not state the biochemical analysis in a way that is readily translatable into human nutrition. Disappointingly, it appears the fantastic phytochemicals database has been prepared more with the needs of the medical/chemical industry — looking for new sources for salable drugs and food supplements — in mind than of people (such as Native groups) interested in these plants for non-technical practical uses.
The table below is active”. Click on the chemical name for a summary of its use by the body Reffectivenesses or presumed medical uses.
Table-maker : Phytochemicals of Rosa spp
Chemical Part Low (ppm) High (ppm)
ASCORBIC-ACID Fruit 1,000 12,500
CAROTENOIDS Fruit 100 500
CATECHINS Fruit 8,000 9,100
CITRIC-ACID Fruit
FLAVONOIDS Fruit 100 3,500
FRUCTOSE Fruit
GLUCOSE Fruit
ISOQUERCITRIN Fruit
LEUCOANTHOCYANINS Fruit 13,500 17,500
MALIC-ACID Fruit
PECTINS Fruit 34,000 46,000
POLYPHENOLS Fruit 20,200 26,400
QUERCETIN Fruit
RIBOFLAVIN Fruit
SUCROSE Fruit
TILIROSIDE Fruit
RECIPE
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CREDITS: Wild rose and haws from the Colour Herbal by Nicholas Culpepper, 1649. This neat book has stayed in print over 300 years. The latest edition is a large paperback issued by Sterling Publishing of Tornonto, $17.95 (US), $24.95 (Can). Culpepper was an interesting character: an early 17th-century doctor who decided to try to serve the poor instead of getting rich doctoring the rich like others of his class were doing. He prepared his herbal to help country people, who were being forced off their land to the slums of London, so they could recognize herbs that could (in the medical thinking of his day) help them. He used common, not scientific, names to organize the plants, and color paintings to help the people identify them. His advice is nonsense, and the modern herbalist who “updates” it isn’t much better in a practical sense. The plants are all British, with only an occasional one like this, the wild rose, that’s similar everywhere — but the book is beautiful and a good read. From it, I finally learned what a Mangel-Wurzel is. I’m not telling!
Copyright 1995, Paula Giese
Last Updated: Thursday, December 28, 1995 - 4:50:50 PM
[I think the link to the Culpepper book is in my post 1368....
granny]
http://www.kstrom.net/isk/food/r_beans.html
BEANS AND GREENS
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Nutritional Data for BEANS; BLACK, MATURE SEEDS, COOKED, BOILED, WO/SALT
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Nutritional Data for BEANS; GREAT NORTHERN, MATURE SEEDS, COOKED, BOILED, WO/SALT
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Nutritional Data for BEANS; KIDNEY, ALL TYPES, MATURE SEEDS, COOKED, BOILED, WO/SALT
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Lima beans, lots of types, Nutritional analysis
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Nutritional Data for SUCCOTASH; (CORN AND LIMAS), CND, WITH WHOLE KERNEL CORN, SOL&LIQ—Doesn’t include extras like the cream sauce, below, just plain corn ‘n’ lima beans. CND means they are canned — hove lost lots of nutrients, have added salt. From the “Limas” search, you can find raw ones.
Baked Black Beans, Serves 6
1 lb black beans
1 large onion, chopped
2 cloves garlic, minced
3 stalks celery, diced
1 minced carrot
bay leaf, thyme, parsley, tied in bouquet
1 tsp salt, freshly ground black pepper
3 Tbs butter
1 cup sour cream mixed w/ 1 cup plain yoghurt
Chopped parsley
Soak beans overnight in water to cover, or boil 2 minutes and soak 1 hour, then re-boil. Drain soaked beans, add 6 cups of water. Add vegetables and seasonings, cook slowly until beans are tender, 1 1/2-2 hrs. Discard herb bouquet. Place beans and thir juice in bean pot or casserole. Add butter. Cover and bake until beans are tender, 2 hours. Mix yoghurt and sour cream and stir into hot beans.Sprinkle parsley over the top and serve from casserole.
Succotash with Cream, serves 8-10
2 cups fresh shelled lima beans
1/4 tsp dried rosemary
2 cups fresh corn stripped from cob
4 Tbs butter
3 tsp chopped parsley
1 can chicken consomme (not diluted)
2 Tbs flour
1 cup whipping cream
Shell the beans out of the pod like peas. (About 2 lbs of limas in pods shells out to 2 - 2 1/2 cups.) Place beans in a small amount of boiling salted water with rosemary and boil covered about 20 - 30 minutes until tender. Meanwhile, strip fresh corn from cob. Just as beans are done, frizzle the corn in 2 Tbs of butter (it only takes a few minutes if the corn is fresh, should never take longer than 5 minutes). Add the remaining butter and the cooked, hot beans. Stir in parsley. Heat the soup just to melt it if it has become jellied in the can. In a bowl, add the soup to the flour and mix till smooth. Pour this into the bean mixture, and stir over gentle heat until it thickens slightly and the raw taste of flour is gone. Add the cream. Taste for seasoning (soup probably has enough salt) Heat to boiling, serve hot with more parsley sprinkled on it, or black pepper ground coarse over it (unless somebody doesn’t like this). Note: you can if you must use canned corn, but don’t use canned limas for this.
Green Chili Beans Stir Fry, serves 4
1 lb green beans, string, snap in 2” pieces
2 Tbsp oil
2 cloves slightly crushed garlic
2 (2 “) dried red chili peppers
2 Tbsp raw blanced skinless peanuts
1 tsp chili oil
Pour boiling water over beans in colander for a few seconds. Drain, pat dry, set aside. Heat a wok or large skillet vewry hot (about 30 seconds); add oil and heat 20 seconds. Add garlic and chis, stir-fry for 10 seconds. Add beans and peanuts. Styir-fry for 30 seconds. Remove from fire, toss with chili oil, serve at once.
Cream of green beans soup—serves 10
2 quarts chicken stock
1/4 cup butter
1/2 cup flour
1 onion chopped fine
1 stalk of celery chopped
2 leeks chopped fine
2 sprigs parsley chopped
1 1/2 cups cooked green beans (can use frozen, not canned)
1 cup cream mixed thoroughly with —
2 egg yolks
Melt butter in large soup pot, add flour and stir until golden. Add chicken broth and cook stirring until smooth. Add vegetables. Simmer 30 minutes, skimming several times. Add green beans, reserving a few for gannish, and simmer 5 minutes. Blend a batch at a time until all vegetables are pureed. Return to pan and reheat. Whip egg yolks thoroughly into cream. Add some of the hot soup to this mixture, then pour the mixture into the hot soup, stirring. Cook, stirring, below boiling point for 3 minutes. Don’t let it boil. Taste for seasoning, add a little salt. (The tastier the chicken broth you start with the less salt you need at the end). Serve with a few beans floating on each bowl.
Wild (using tame) Greens and Flowers Salad — Serves 4 - 6
Salads were much liked in the Spring when new, tender greens appeared. A great variety of mixtures was used. Since salt was uncommon or not used at all, salads were flavored by herbs, oil pressed from seeds, and especially with a vinegar made from fermentd, evaporated uncooked maple sap (which we can’t do or get). So this is an approximation of the spring tonic salads beloved by all woodland people after the long winters.
1 cup watercress leaves and (only) tender stems
1 cup lamb’s quarter new leaves (or use small spinach leaves)
1 cup arugula lettuce torn (not cut) to bite-size pieces;
can also use Bibb or less espensive leafy (not iceberg) lettuces
1/2 cup tender nasturtium and violet leaves torn up
1/2 cup nasturtium and violet flowers (in season)
1 Tbsp honey
1/4 cup cider vinegar
1/3 cup salad oil
As much tender mint leaves as you like in the salad
2 tsp fresh mint chopped fine and bruised
2 tsp chopped tarragon (fresh) or 1 tsp dried if necessary
optional: salt and pepper to taste
Combine honey and vinegar, whisk in oil, which in crushed mint. Season to taste with small amount of salt. Pour over greens and flowers in large bowl, tossing for at least 3 minuts to cover all lightly with dressing. Serve immediately.
Lambs quarters (chenopodium album) is a fuzzy-leafed weed that can be found in city empty lots (though it depends on the nvironment whether you’d want to eat if if gathered there). I don’t know its Ojibwe name, “Indian spinach” it was called by older ladies years ago. It is very very high in beta carotene (plant vitamin A) and calcium, and is a good food for nursing mothers where there are no dairy cattle or milk. Violets of all sorts flower all over city and suburban lawns as weeds. All species are high in vintamins C and A. Chickweed (Stellaria media, Ojibwe name winibidja bibagano, or “toothplant””) is another common spring herb that grows all over (as law weed for example) as low, spreading mat, It is very high in vitamin C, and was therefore a common anti-scurvy remedy for this deficiency disease. I’ll be running ID pix for it in the Plants section here. Small amounts of new mustard leaves (brassica negra) were used for pungnt flavor, probably not too easy for city-dwellers to find, but sometimes sold in produce or health food stores. Wild onions and leeks was also traditional and sought from early spring until gone in winter — flower heads as well as leaves and bulbs would be eaten in salads as well as cooked>
Salad oil was pressed from some kinds of seeds I don’t know, from sunflowr seeds, but most especially the oil that can be pressed/cooked out of acorn meal which has been cold-water leached of bitter tannin. There was supposedly less of the bitter tannin in acorns from certain oaks: mitigomisk. Bitter kind was called wisugimitigomisk (bitter oak). The acorn meal was a general good (and whole acorns of the sweet kind were roasted) and the oil was all-purpose cooking and household utility oil, used on bullrishes for weaving to keep them soft, water resistant, and shiny.
The general idea of a traditional native salad is to cut down on salt, by emphasizing flavors from vinegar, honey or maple syrup, herbs, and ground pungent seeds (such as mustard). The petals of most flowers that will later be edible fruits or berries can be eaten, but not all taste good. Elder flowers and basswood flowers are especially good.
What I find rather interesting is that there is really no early record of salads in European cuisine — although peasants and country people certainly ate various kinds of early wild plants. The idea of salad seems to have been brought back to France from America in the 18th century or so. (I’m not sure English ever really have caught on about salads.) Escoffier, in the famous Guide Culinaire has braised lettuces, pureed, stuffed leaves, creamed, souflèed — but not raw! Cucumbers are parboiled, then fussed with in many ways. Cauliflower, one of the nicest (raw) salad vegetables is cooked. He does talk of cooking new peas quickly (unlike the English who cook boiled vegetables to death), but any raw vegetable, root or leafy, is carved up for a granish, or laid around as green frills, considered only for show, not edible.
So, although I’ve never seen this discussed in European cookbooks or food discussions, I think the very idea of salads came from Native people. AFter all, what did Europeans do with the tomato? for 100 years they considered it ornamental but a deadly poison!
Traditionally, the main huge salad eating-feasts were in early spring, when a great many wild plants — tough and inedible even if cooked later — come up as tender new shoots and leaves. What we now can do, because of refrigeration and shipping, is eat salads all year long — and we should! All vegetables lose some of their nutrient value in any kind of cooking. Young people should be aware that delicious and healthful salads are part of our Native food traditions, so eat plenty of it.
Gov. booklets on food and health subjects:
http://www.hoptechno.com/bookidx.htm
Chart showing what is in a raw banana:
http://www.hoptechno.com/nightcrew/sante7000/Sante7000_Detail2.cfm?ID=63107010
Half banana dipped in chocolate and nuts:
http://www.hoptechno.com/nightcrew/sante7000/Sante7000_Detail2.cfm?ID=63401990
Put any food into this search engine and find the minerals and etc in it:
http://www.hoptechno.com/nightcrew/sante7000/sante7000_search.cfm
About herbs:
http://abc.herbalgram.org/site/PageServer?pagename=Herbal_Library
Links and jobs?
http://abc.herbalgram.org/site/PageServer?pagename=Related_Links
Frybread recipes:
http://www.kstrom.net/isk/food/frybread.html
We will not find a better source of information for surviving, then is at this groups site, it is open and all its files are open so that anyone can come and read the wealth of information stored in them.
Food Storage, LDS and Friends:
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/food-storage/messages
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/food-storage/files/
This was a good site in the past for info:
http://countrylife.lehmans.com/
Mornin’ Granny!
No, I’m not keeping up! LOLOL I’ll have to save all this for a couple of months til the greenhouse slows down so I can go back over at my leisure! Some of the recipes look yummy!
Chicks came in Mon and we’ve been scrambling—haha—to call everyone who ordered them and get the right chicks to the right purchasers. Had a day care class come in yest. Love to show the kids around the store and greenhouse. Would NOT want to watch kids all day! At least I can walk away from the greenhouse when I get frustrated! LOL at myself!
Have a great day!
http://www.cs.cmu.edu/~mjw/recipes/soup/beer-cheese-soup-coll.html
2 Beer Cheese Soups : COLLECTION
(Micaela Pantke)
Date: Wed, 15 Sep 93 10:39:19 +0200
Cross Indexed Soup, Cheese
From: (Stephanie da Silva)
BEER AND CHEESE SOUP
Ingredients:
Instructions:
Mix flour and mustard into sautaed vegetables. Add the chicken or
vegetable stock to mixture and cook for five minutes.
Break broccoli into small flowerets; cut stems into bite-sizes pieces.
Steam until tender-crisp. Add beer and cheeses to the soup. Simmer
10-15 minutes. Check seasonings.
To serve, place some broccoli into a soup bowl and ladle the soup over it.
From: (Stephanie da Silva)
CHEDDAR BEER SOUP
Ingredients:
Instructions:
Melt margarine, stir in flour, salt, and mustard. cook over low heat
until smooth. Remove from heat. Add milk and worchestershire. Heat
mixture until it coats the spoon. Add cheese.
Cook over medium heat until cheese melts. Stir in beer and vegetables
bring to a simmer. Cook about 15 minutes. Serve with preferred
garnishes (croutons, paprika, whatever).
http://www.cs.cmu.edu/~mjw/recipes/crockpot/crkpot-bbq.html
Crockpot Barbeque
From: maggie P> Date: Wed, 21 Jul 93 15:55:29 EST
(From The Best of Electric Crockery Cooking)
1 1/2 lb. boneless chuck steak, 1 1/2 inch thick
1 clove garlic, peeled and minced
1/4 cup wine vinegar
1 Tbsp brown sugar
1 tsp paprika
2 Tbsp Worcestershire sauce
1/2 cup catsup
1 tsp salt
1 tsp dry or prepared mustard
1/4 tsp black pepper
Cut the beef on a diagonal, across the grain into slices 1 inch wide.
Place these in the crockpot. In a small bowl, combine the remaining
ingredients. Pour over the meat, and mix. Cover and cook on Low for 3
to 5 hours.
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