Home gardening offers ways to trim grocery costs [Survival Today, an on going thread]

Dallas News.com ^ | March 14th, 2008 | DEAN FOSDICK

[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."

[nw_arizona_granny]

Cold Snap, Warm Cinnamon Apples, and the Jane Doe Cowl (scroll down!)
jess

Winter has more than arrived in the mid-Atlantic. The cold blasted in this week, the first week to dig out one’s loved and worn mittens, hats, scarves, pantas, cowls, glittens and all the other winter whatnots of which only knitters seem to know the proper names. (v. “neck thingies,” “head thingies,” “hand thingies”). I had few obligations this frigid weekend - at least no unpleasant ones - other than vague plans to hang out with friends and have dinner with Chris’ dad. Brunch out in the neighborhood turned into me making waffles and duck bacon (for a friend who doesn’t eat pork - a convenient excuse to try something awesome!) and not really getting out of my PJs. Plans to knit at Brooklyn General became, hey, why don’t you come over for waffles and we’ll hang out in our PJs all afternoon.
waffles with cinnamon apples

[note our favorite mug in the background, it’s from danmade, purchased at this year’s renegade craft fair!]

We had a bunch of Honeycrisp apples on the counter, and as it is really past Honeycrisp season, they’d been kind of watery and bland. On to Pink Lady season! I do love me some designer apples. Anyway, in the name of not wasting food, I suspected that like overripe bananas their disappointing qualities would fade when cooked, so they ended up as a topping for the waffles, and they did cook right down and recover their intensity.
cinnamon apples

Stovetop Cinnamon Apples
Makes about 6 servings

5 apples, peeled, cored, and sliced about 1/4” thick
1 tsp. cinnamon
1/3 -1/2 cup sugar (depending on how much of a sweet tooth you have)
a squeeze of lemon
a dash of nutmeg

1. Toss all ingredients together in a bowl.
2. Cook in a medium saucepan over medium heat for about 10 minutes, stirring frequently, until apples are tender and a nice syrup has formed.

Next time I’m going to try this with a teaspoon or two of fresh ginger juice to add a little bite. If you want to try it that way, peel and grate a section of ginger into a cheesecloth or tea strainer over a bowl, and press out the juice, then add to apple mixture after cooking.

(the waffles are Mark Bittman’s Rich Buttermilk Waffles from How to Cook Everything, and the whipped cream is whipped cream!)

After brunch, we pretty much sat on the couch drinking coffee, knitting, and reading the Times. I made a lot of progress on my as-yet-unnamed cowl. The first sleeve is complete, and I’m on to the second. The goal is to complete this before Christmas.
unnamed cowl

It is already apparent that I am going to love this sweater. One hopes that is the case with something self-designed. But the blessing and the curse of this sweater is the Morehouse 3-Strand Merino. Like any super-soft unplied merino, it’s going to pill and the fabric will weaken, and it may not hold up well for more than a couple of years. However, I do plan to share the pattern (with the caveat that I have not written many patterns, and have never written one for a sized garment), so will probably knit this again. When that happens, I will be using something hearty and durable like Cascade 220.

At least I know this sweater will come pre-cat-haired.
sweater, interrupted

Catty is profoundly unhelpful. There isn’t even any alpaca in this yarn!

http://beta.bloglines.com/b/preview?siteid=94487

[TenthAmendmentChampion]

It would be nice if someone could bring a well-bahaved dog over to your house for you to pet and make a fuss over. I want to get a training course so we can train our dog to behave better. She jumps on people and is pretty rambunctious. I'd like her to be placid and well-behaved so we can take her more places.

[TenthAmendmentChampion]

It would be nice if someone could bring a well-behaved dog over to your house for you to pet and make a fuss over. I want to get a training course so we can train our dog to behave better. She jumps on people and is pretty rambunctious. I'd like her to be placid and well-behaved so we can take her more places.

[TenthAmendmentChampion]

self ping

[TenthAmendmentChampion]

My mouth is watering for that recipe! Imagine making it with maple syrup, agave nectar or honey! mmmmmmmmmmmmm

[nw_arizona_granny]

http://beta.bloglines.com/b/preview?siteid=574631

Tourist Scams
schneier

Interesting list of tourist scams:

I have only heard of this happening in Spain on the Costa del Sol, but it could happen anywhere. This scam depends on you paying a restaurant/bar bill in cash, usually with a €50 note. The waiter will take your payment, then return shortly after, apologetically telling you that the note is a fake and that you need to pay again. He will return the “fake” bill to you, and any change you’re due. Of course, you gave him a REAL note, he gave you a FAKE note, and you gave him a second real note, so you paid €100 for a €50 meal. What I do now is write unobtrusively on all large notes I get, so I can challenge them if it happens to me.

[nw_arizona_granny]

LOL, While you were posting your Cider syrup, I was posting Apples for waffles, top of next page.

Those candles are wonderful, I am not a fan of the regular wax, but there are others, not petroleum based.

We should be eating more beans, they are good for you.

[TenthAmendmentChampion]

Bookmark to soap herb source

[TenthAmendmentChampion]

http://www.mountainroseherbs.com/tea_bev/tea_red.html

They sell organic Red Tea and Honeybush Tea, which I have been wanting to try. Woohoo!!

[TenthAmendmentChampion]

I joined one of the groups I found in the 5200 post range, healthy and cheap (that's my kind of recipes!). Do you know that the thread up to post 7000 is close to 8,000 pages?? Awesome!

[nw_arizona_granny]

It would be nice if someone could bring a well-bahaved dog over to your house for you to pet and make a fuss over.<<<

Scot brings his dog, she is old and fat and is sure that I will give her a treat, if you don’t Sassy will look at you and leave you thinking that she is crying.

She controls me well, she finds the largest amount of my oxygen hose and lays on it, for her nap, and then she knows if I get up and move........or maybe she wants a bribe.

She is a wonderful Black Lab, was the kids dog, then Theresa’s dog and when she died, Sassy took good care of Scott, through the worst of it.It is too cold to type and think, or breathe and we are getting your Santa Anna wind.

[nw_arizona_granny]

My mouth is watering for that recipe! Imagine making it with maple syrup, agave nectar or honey! mmmmmmmmmmmmm<<<

I meant to check the times, we were sure close on the posting of like tasting recipes, even if different.

Mama May a friend would come to visit and she always made fried apples for breakfast and I have never figured out exactly what she did, they are different from all the recipes and i suspect she did them like my grandmother did the squash........boil first, then fry until they were a brown mush and ohhh so good.

[nw_arizona_granny]

I joined one of the groups I found in the 5200 post range, healthy and cheap (that’s my kind of recipes!). Do you know that the thread up to post 7000 is close to 8,000 pages?? Awesome!<<<

There are a couple groups that are good and there some that I should drop, as we will never cook what they post, too involved and expensive.

I like cheap, I fight Scott, he keeps buying big name cuts of meat and I want chuck steak and roasts.

When we grew our own beef, I preferred the chuck type over the more expensive parts of the animal......saved that fancy stuff for company.

When we were prospecting full time, we got so accustomed to camp fire cooking, that eating in the house was boring and tasteless........So I took a week’s supply of meat and cooked it on the last day and we ate leftovers.

Thank you for dealing with the 8,000 pages, you had the difficult job, it is easy for me to post one at a time.

And I remember in the beginning of this thread the ‘I doubt it’s’, when I said that the thread would go to 5,000.

[nw_arizona_granny]

http://www.mountainroseherbs.com/tea_bev/tea_red.html<<<

Let me know how you like the red tea, it was one that I also intended to try.

[TenthAmendmentChampion]

I meant to check the times, we were sure close on the posting of like tasting recipes, even if different.

I've had apples on my mind lately, since they're in season and the ones this year are just awesome. There's a variety called Honeycrisp that they sell at Whole Foods, I can't get enough of them. Mmmmmm!!

My daughter was talking about making baked apples. I am at work so I can't search the whole thread - do you remember posting a recipe or do you know of one? What kind of apple works best in these?

Also poached or simmered pears - they sell those at the deli case at outrageous prices and I bet you can make them yourself. That would be a good recipe to post, too. Hopefully they would tell you what kind of pear works best and how ripe it needs to be. The pears have been outstanding, too. Yum!!

[TenthAmendmentChampion]

http://eatthisrecipes.blogspot.com/2006/10/simmered-pears-in-red-wine.html

Simmered Pears in Red Wine.
Winter side dish or dessert.
Serves: 2
Difficulty: Easy
Preparation Time: 15 minutes
Cooking Time: 50 minutes

Ingredients:
- 8 firm cooking/dessert pears (in Holland we use Gieser Wildeman or Saint Remy pears),
- bottle of red wine
- caster sugar ( I use 10 dessert spoons of sugar, but you can add more (or less) if you like)
- 2 cinnamon sticks,
- Rind of halve a lemon or 400 ml. orange juice

Method:

1. Peel the pears, leave the stem and don’t cut them (if you want, you can slice the bottoms off to help them to stand up easily in the pan or when served).

2. Pour the wine into a large saucepan. Stir in the sugar. Put the pears into the pan and add the orange juice and cinnamon sticks. Bring to the boil and then turn down the heat to a simmer. Put a lid on and cook for 45 minutes or so (Gieser Wildeman or Saint Remy pears take longer – 90 minutes or so), until beautiful red and soft but still retaining their shape.

3. When you eat them as a side dish, eat them hot!(Delicious with roasted potatoes) If you want to use them for dessert, let them cool in the liquid. Serve with cream, or mascarpone, or just plain vanilla ice-cream and some port-wine or some of the liquid

Enjoy!

Tip: you can store these pears in your freezer (store them in a container with the liquid)
Tip2: Don’t throw away the liquid….it’s very tasty and you can drink it or use it as a sauce

[TenthAmendmentChampion]

Let me know how you like the red tea, it was one that I also intended to try.

I love red tea, it's delicious and good for your kidneys. I have two kinds and they are both good - Lipton makes one in a pyramid silk tea bag, very elegant.

Tazo had a box, I had to go to three Starbucks to find it. My husband doesn't care for it so all the more for me! LOL

[nw_arizona_granny]

Popular Science
Mar 1872
170 pages
ISSN 0161-7370
Published by Bonnier Corporation
Key terms
Popular Science Monthly, Chicago, dandruff, battery eliminator, marking gage, Pipe wrench, rheostats, Patent Attorney, Muscle Shoals, crosscut saw

http://books.google.com/books?id=2CgDAAAAMBAJ

copies on line to 2000

[TenthAmendmentChampion]

http://myallrecipes.wordpress.com/2008/11/30/roasted-bosc-pears-with-pomegranate-glaze/?referer=sphere_related_content/

Roasted Bosc Pears With Pomegranate Glaze
November 30, 2008 Simon Monez
Tags: Desserts, recipe, recipes, Roasted Bosc Pears With Pomegranate Glaze

3/4 cup dry red wine, such as Syrah or zinfandel
3/4 cup pomegranate juice
1/2 cup sugar
1 cinnamon stick
2 teaspoons grated orange peel
6 Bosc pears with stems, peeled
Vanilla ice cream
Purchased biscotti

Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Stir wine, pomegrante juice, sugar, cinnamon stick, and orange peel in medium saucepan over medium heat until sugar dissolves, about 3 minutes. Using small melon baller, core pears from bottom of wide end. Trim bottoms flat and stand upright in 8-by-8-by-2-inch baking dish. Pour pomegranate-wine sauce over pears. Roast pears until tender when pierced with knife, basting pears with sauce every 20 minutes, about 1 hour. Using spatula, transfer roasted pears to serving platter. Transfer pan juices to small saucepan. Simmer until reduced to 2/3 cup, about 5 minutes. (Can be made 4 hours ahead. Let sauce and pears stand at room temperature. Rewarm sauce before continuing.) Spoon glaze over pears. Serve warm or at room temperature with vanilla ice cream and biscotti.

[nw_arizona_granny]

http://www.slashfood.com/2008/12/02/a-taste-of-sweet-corn-lace/#

I must start this by saying: Forgive the plain-Jane picture. I had planned to play around with some of cookies and take pictures, but these things are so darned good that I remembered my plan the second I finished the last one. Oops.

May I introduce you to Sweet Corn Lace, straight from Alice Medrich’s Chocolate and the Art of Low-Fat Desserts. The other night, I wanted to extend my baking reach and try out some cookies I’ve never had before. Since I also wanted to be free of the allure of sugary death, I hoped to find something relatively healthy as well. Enter Sweet Corn Lace.

This delicate cookie is much simpler than it looks to make, and has a delicious, light, and sweet finish. Basically, it tastes like a sweeter, cinnamon-tinged homemade corn flake. The only problem is — they’re so light and airy, and taste so much like the cereal, that it’s quite easy to eat them all. Luckily they’re only 18 calories a cookie. Continue through the jump to check out the recipe, and if you try them, let me know what you think!

Sweet Corn Lace

Ingredients:
7 tbsp sugar
1/4 tsp ground cinnamon
4 tsp unsalted butter cut into small pieces
3/8 tsp salt
1 cup yellow cornmeal

* To do two batches at once, place oven racks on bottom and top third of oven and preheat to 350 degrees. (If you have large, un-rimmed sheets, double-batches are less necessary.)
* Cut foil the same size as your sheets, and spray with cooking spray.
* Combine 2 tbsp sugar with the cinnamon and set aside for later.
* In a medium saucepan over medium heat, simmer 1 2/3 cup water with sugar, butter, and salt. Pull from heat, add cornmeal, and stir until the mix is smooth and thick (this will take a minute or two).
* These cookies are flattened, so appropriately space rounded teaspoons of the mix on your foil. Cover the balls with saran wrap and flatten the cookies with the heel of your hand, and then your fingers. They should be less than 1/16” thick.

lace dough

* Peel off the wrap (you can use it again on the next batch) and sprinkle the cookies with the cinnamon sugar.
* Slide the foil onto your baking sheets and bake for 10-15 minutes, depending on thickness, until cookies are evenly golden brown. As they cook, they’ll expand and crack. It’ll look like they’ve broken apart like the picture above, but they’ll still be in one piece.
* Keep an eye on the cookies, and if some start to look done before others, rotate your sheets left to right and top to bottom to bake evenly.
* Use a wide metal spatula to transfer the cookies to a paper towel, cool, and store. (Cookies last 3-4 days if you can refrain from eating them that long.)