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 ...
Ox Cheek Casserole
4 large carrots, scrapped and chopped
1 sweet potato, scrapped and diced
1 large onion, thinly sliced
1 large leek, thinly sliced
1 tablespoons of olive oil
500g ox cheek, cut into 1 inch cubes
1 tin butter beans
1 large garlic clove, finely chopped
1 pint of vegetable bouillon or beef stock
half a teaspoon of dried oregano, thyme, rosemary
1 bay leaf
1 tablespoon of cornflour
Salt and pepper to season
Trim and dice ox cheek. Prepare all the vegetables. Heat the oil and saute the onions, garlic and leeks for about 4 minutes. Add the ox cheek and brown for about 3 minutes. Add the rest of the vegetables and saute for another 2 minutes. Add the vegetable stock, herbs,bay leaf, salt and pepper and bring the casserole until it just starts to boil and then turn heat down to simmer with the lid on. Place in the oven at 170C for around an hour. Check every now and again to make sure the casserole isn't becoming too dry. Add a little more stock if it is. After an hour, mix the cornflour with a few spoons of stock ( you can take this from the casserole itself) until it is smooth and add back to the casserole, stirring in to thicken it. Cook for another 30 minutes.
The comments are interesting, too.
10th
From your link:
“In sad contrast, 60 percent of the refined foods in U.S. supermarkets now contain soy. Worse, soy use may double in the next few years because (last I heard) the out-of-touch medicrats in the FDA hierarchy are considering allowing manufacturers of cereal, energy bars, fake milk, fake yogurt, etc., to claim that “soy prevents cancer.” It doesn’t.
“P.S.: Soy sauce is fine. Unlike soy milk, it’s perfectly safe because it’s fermented, which changes its molecular structure. Miso, natto and tempeh are also OK, but avoid tofu.”
Butternut Squash Tarts and the Credit Crunch Lunch
The economic doom and gloom has crept into our kitchen. But it's a good thing. We worked out the school lunch meal bill for Alex and Freddie was about £1200 ($2069) a year. The meals are made from decent ingredients but I still think its a lot of money for a child's lunch. So here is the Great Big Veg Challenge Credit Crunch Lunch. Alex has switched onto packed lunches, Freddie is still unconvinced and every morning inspects his sister's lunchbox, looking wistfully...
“This is SO unfair. She is getting really nice food. You are trying to ma-nip-ul-ise me,” complained Freddie.
“No Freddie, it is entirely up to you - if you want to have these lunches you only have to ask.”
I know, its a sly trick. And the hardest thing is ensuring that I can maintain the irrestibility of the packed lunches. Our first Credit Crunch Lunch offering for the blog is Butternut Squash and St Agur cheese tarts. (Cost approximately 40 pence a tart)
Butternut Squash and St Agur Tarts
500g (1 1b) ready-made shortcrust pastry
For the filling
Half a medium sized butternut squash, roasted
1 tablespoon olive oil
salt and pepper to season
3 eggs, beaten
1 egg yolk
150ml (quarter pint) creme fraiche
1 teaspoon of dried sage
125g St Agur cheese
Preheat oven to 180 C (350F). Cut the squash in half lengthways, scoop out seeds and rub a little oilive oil, season with salt and pepper and place flesh side down on a baking tray. Bake in the oven for 40 minutes. When cooked, allow it to cool down, peel and cut into small cubes. Place in a bowl with a little olive oil and the dried sage. Mix together the beaten eggs, extra egg yolk and creme fraiche. Add a twist of freshly ground pepper.
Line the bottom of metal tartlet tins (mine are around 12 cms in diameter) with non-stick baking paper. Lightly grease the sides of the tins. Line with the pastry and prick it. Bake blind for about 6 minutes in an oven at 190C. You can if you prefer make just one large tart in a single flan tin, or this recipe makes about 8 tartlets. Take them out of the oven and share out equally the butternut squash cubes between the pastry cases. Pour over the egg mixture and sprinkle equally between the cases little pieces of the cheese. St Agur tastes good but if you prefer milder tastes, some soft goats cheese. Place them back in the oven and bake for about 20 -25 minutes. The contents of the quiche will rise. Take care that the pastry does not burn.
I batch bake these and freeze them and they can be taken out the night before to be defrosted for use in school lunch boxes. They are just as delicious eaten cold as warm.
DO YOU HAVE A FAVOURITE CREDIT CRUNCH LUNCH BOX MEAL?
The FDA is the govt, and they “are here to help.”
Umm hmmm.
Gordon Ramsay's celeriac lasagne
And without a warning Gordon-season has crept in on you. The nation has been watching a lot of him on TV these days, but I am up for the double-whammy and am devouring his new book at the same time. To be honest, I am really useless at boosting viewer numbers and our TV set really a waste of money - but this time I had even put a note in my calendar and still only managed to watch his “kitchen nightmares” twice. The book is a fantastic read, though, but I think I've said that often enough now.
One of my favourite recipes in there is for celeriac lasagne. As I said with the celeriac soup I posted the other day I really love this vegetable and I have set out on a mission to save it from oblivion. This “lasagne” does not contain any pasta, it's simply layers of cooked celeriac slices and celeriac purée, topped with a bit of parmesan (which you can well do without) and popped in the oven for just 15 minutes. The result is a creamy side dish of celeriac which I love to serve with steak or a Sunday roast... so simple, but utterly delicious.
Gordon Ramsay's celeriac lasagne
(serves 4 as a side dish)
1 large celeriac
juice of 1 lemon
60 g butter
4 tbsp double cream
salt and pepper
nutmeg
25 g parmesan - optional
Peel the celeriac and cut in half. Use the one half to cut 5 mm slices and trim to fit the dish you're cooking this in. I sometimes use a big soufflé dish, but on other occasions I serve it in individual ramekins of about 8 cm diameter. Put in a bowl water acidulated with half the lemon juice. Dice the remaining celeriac and cook in salted water with the rest of the lemon juice for about 15 minutes until tender. Lift out with a spoon and transfer to a food processor. Use the water to cook the celeriac slices until tender, but keeping their shape, about 10 minutes. Blend the celeriac cubes smoothly with the butter and double cream, season with the salt, pepper and nutmeg and set aside. Preheat the oven to 220 C.
Butter your soufflé dish or individual ramekins. When the slices are cooked to the required consistency, drain them and arrange a first layer on the bottom of the dish/es. Spread some of the celeriac purée over it, then repeat these layers to fill your dish/es, finishing with a bit of the purée. Sprinkle with some parmesan if you like and put in the oven. Bake for 15 minutes until golden brown on top.
Yes, don’t get me started on how “helpful” the FDA is. They put any number of doctors through hell because they found effective treatments that threatened the cancer industry. People like Harry Hoxsey, Stan Burzynski, Royal Rife and in Canada, Rene Caisse have all been perscuted by the medical establishment.
“THE” Pancake
This gourmet delight is so beautiful you won't want to eat it... but you will... I know you will...and you'll love it :-)
Dr. Gott’s No Flour, No Sugar Cookbook
http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0446582506?ie=UTF8&tag=htbm-dotcom-20
Dr. Gott’s No Flour, No Sugar Diet
Gluten-free, Sugar-free Cooking: Over 200 Delicious Recipes
This recipe is sugar-free flour-free. It contains no sugar, no flour, and low carbohydrates.
1/4 C oat bran (1 Grain exchange)
egg (1/2 Protein)
1/4 C cottage cheese or ricotta cheese (1/2 Protein exchange)
1/2 banana (1/2 Fruit exchange)
4 oz blueberries or strawberries (1/2 Fruit exchange)
2 T Walden Farms sugar free pancake syrup
1 T walnuts (if on maintenance)
Dice strawberries and banana. Mix egg into oat bran, add some of the fruit to the batter. In med/large skillet heated to med/high spread the dough into pancake form. When it gets brown and crispy around the edges, carefully flip; it's big and thick. When fully cooked, move to large plate. Spread cottage or ricotta cheese on top, drizzle syrup, finish topping with the rest of the fruit, then nuts. This is an “Oh My God” kind of good!
Growing Groceries.com
The Ultimate Tool for Measuring Plant Health
Posted: 09 Dec 2008 09:20 PM CST
I should preface this post with the disclaimer “Serious and Geeky Gardeners Only” as only the most obsessed among us would desire such a garden tool as this. It ain’t yo’ mama’s three prong cultivator.
A refractometer is very likely the best instrument available to measure the health of your plants. Refractometers are used in a multitude of fields ranging from medical to scientific, to beekeeping. They are most often used to measure the dissolved solids (sucrose, for instance) in a liquid substance- the Brix reading. On the surface this seems like it would have no application whatsoever to gardening, but it can be quite a powerful tool to let you know just what’s going on with your plant. It can also give you clues into the nutritional value of your produce.
For gardeners, in the simplest of terms, a refractometer will tell you if your plant has watery cells. Watery cells are bad. Bad watery cells! You want your plants to have lots of dissolved solids like sugar. A high Brix reading means your plant has a higher carbohydrate level than a plant with a low Brix reading.
This is helpful in monitoring the health of your garden crop. Think of the Brix scale as a measurement of a plant’s immune system. A plant with a low Brix reading is more susceptible to disease and even insect damage. By monitoring the Brix, you can identify and correct problems before they become problems.
For instance, if you regularly test your tomato plants with a refractometer, you may notice a steadily declining Brix reading. You can takes steps to raise it mid-season, by side-dressing or foliar spraying to bring the Brix back up again before it translates into a serious problem.
It’s also helpful as a guide to measure the progress of your soil’s health and your elite skills as a gardener. If your tomato plants have a Brix reading of 6 and the next year have a reading of 8, you can pat yourself on the back for being so flippin’ cool. On the other hand, if last year your Brix was 9 and this year it’s 7, you will be able to ask yourself “What was I doing then that I’m not doing now?”
Of course, everything has it’s limitations and drawbacks and refractometers definitely have their fair share. In very small gardens, it’s not practical to test very often. Testing is done by squeezing sap from parts of the plant- leaves, stem, etc. If you only have two tomato plants, the amount of plant material you’d need to collect would hurt the plant if done regularly. If you have twenty tomato plants, then it’s much easier to spread the damage around so no one plant is affected from loss of it’s parts. Capesh? You have to have enough plants to take an average sample from.
How to Use a Refractometer in the Garden
A Refractometer is pretty simple to use, depending on your model. I have a traditional portable refractometer I bought from GrowOrganic.com. Digital refractometers are also available for a higher price, but this one works fine. It consists of a prism, a focusing eyepiece, and a plate over the prism that smooths the liquid across the prism. The reading goes up to 32 on the Brix scale, which is plenty for agricultural use.
They can be pricey. I bought mine for around 90 bucks. If you find a source for a similar refractometer at a lower price, please let me know. For me, I think it was worth the investment.
The liquid extracted from the plant is dropped onto the prism and the plate is shut, making sure the liquid covers the entire area of the prism. You then point the plate towards the sun and look through the eyepiece..you’ll see something like this, but with more numbers.
Am I not a great artist?
You then read the number where the two colors meet and that’s your Brix reading! Nothing to it, right? Note it down in you garden journal,clean of the prism off with a soft, damp cloth and your done!
Extracting Sap
The difficult part is actually getting the sap out of the plant. Try as you may using household devices, there’s no substitute for a sap press (expensive) or a modified pair of vice grips like the ones sold at GrowOrganic (not so expensive). Even with these tools it takes practice. Practice with weeds until you get the sap squeezing thing down so you don’t defoliate all the plants in your garden.
* The Brix number in and of itself isn’t as important as how it compares to the previous number. Although there are guides as to what Brix level is good for such and such a veggie, many different variables can change the Brix. Such as the area of the plant the reading was taken from.
* Be Consistent! Make sure you take from the same plant parts each time or you may get wildly different readings. If you take a sample from the lower leaves, always take a sample from the lower leaves. If you take a sample from stems near the top, always take them there.
* It’s helpful to graph out your results. It’s also fun. Take your seasonal or multi year data and graph your improvement over time. You’ll also start to make connections on what causes jumps in Brix readings.
* Be sure to follow all the calibration instructions that come with your refractometer before using it!
I encourage you to give this thing a try if you have a little extra Christmas cash laying around. Or perhaps give one as a Christmas gift to a beloved gardener!
GrowingGroceries.com
http://www.growinggroceries.com
Today’s Cool Site...
Share videos with the troops
YouTube is one of the hottest Web sites on the ‘Net. But not everybody is enamored with the video-sharing site.
The Defense Department has banned soldiers from using YouTube. Why? It’s all in the interest of national security.
So, military families may be wondering how to share videos. Fortunately, the military has launched its own video-sharing site.
Videos posted to TroopTube are screened by Pentagon employees. They’re checked for copyright violations and taste. National security is also considered, of course.
With Christmas almost here, it’s the perfect time to check out TroopTube. Share your holiday wishes with family members stationed overseas.
Or, simply post a video to all of our troops. Thank them for all their hard work and the sacrifices they have made!
TO VISIT TODAY’S COOL SITE, GO HERE:
www.trooptube.tv
[From the Kim Komando newsletter: http://www.kommando.com
granny]
I imagine you can use goat milk in place of cow’s milk too. <<<
Yes, I did, when I had it.
The goat milk will taste richer, as the butter fat is throughout the milk and does not separate/rise to the top quickly, I forgot the correct word for it.
Food preparation is interesting, I have always enjoyed hearing how people reason out the changes they make to it to make it taste better.
“THE” Pancake
This gourmet delight is so beautiful you won’t want to eat it... but you will... I know you will...and you’ll love it :-)<<<
It does sound good.
We don’t pay enough attention to what can be done with vegetables and the many versions of pancakes and forget that they will take the place of bread.
There is nothing better than cornbread batter, made a little thinner and cooked in bacon drippings over a wood camp fire.
Even in the desert, wood can be found for fires, I do not use the charcoal briquettes for cooking.
Almost every country has a fried bread tradition and the pancake ideas are unlimited.
Thank you for reading the thread, you are welcome any time, to read or to join in.
It helps to know that someone is reading our efforts and we do try to offer a variety.
[smile]
I shuffled home to make my ox cheek casserole.<<<
My mother cooked brains, and every part of the cow.
I do like a small steak that is found some times, it is from the leg and is good, about 3 inches around.
I don’t eat the other things like liver.
Once I knew the function of the liver, I stopped eating it, as I am not interested in eating the impurities of the blood that has collected in it.
Has anyone ever tested the beef and pork livers for the amount of collected insecticide and roundup in them?
During WW2, we did buy and eat horse meat.
Then Otay, California was a small town of 200 or so people, 5 miles from Tiajuana.
We had a small market, a man’s garage, with a little food for sale, and when he got a horse, he butchered it out back and and the word spread, no coupons needed for horse meat, as I recall.
My dad raised poultry and rabbits for sale, LOL, that was black market selling.
I have a medium size mesquite tree in the yard, and when I prune it, I chop up the remains and hold ‘em for rib grilling season...<<<
Good for you, excellent idea.
I love real wood fires for cooking.
I am curious, and would like to try her method in a crockpot, an interesting experiment.
If you had a few chips in the bottom of the crockpot and baked potatoes, would they taste like campfire cooked potatoes?
You don’t use water in the crockpot for potatoes, just toss them in and bake...........
tribes » health & wellness » raw vegans » topics »
raw almonds now unhealthy: topic posted Fri, October 12, 2007 - 8:23 AM by Patti
On Friday, I blew the whistle on the FDA for allowing almond manufacturers to label pasteurized almonds as “raw.” It's unethical and illegal—and it's tragic that such a nutritious food would be nutritionally castrated by the powers-that-be.
But what I didn't tell you on Friday is that there are plenty of issues beyond the fact that almonds will no longer be a nutritional heavyweight — like the fact that consuming them could now pose a threat to your health.
The pasteurization method the FDA is recommending requires the use of propylene oxide. Let me tell you a little something about the chemical that's supposed to make almonds safer for you to eat.
For starters, it's a recognized carcinogen. A pollution information site called Scorecard says that propylene oxide is in the top 10 percent of compounds that are hazardous to human health and to the ecosystem. In six out of twelve ranking systems, it's ranked as one of the most hazardous chemicals.
It's suspected of causing birth defects, of altering your immune system, and of adversely affecting your central nervous system, your reproductive system, your respiratory system, and your gastrointestinal tract, liver, and gallbladder.
And incidentally, propylene oxide has been banned in Canada, Mexico, and the European Union.
So why on earth would the Almond Board of California suggest that such a change be made in the first place? Simple: to save face. In the last five years, there have been two outbreaks in some of their biggest almond operations in California. That can't be too good for business. But this new gig they've got going on won't be good for business either.
Eighty percent of the almonds grown worldwide are grown in the States, which means that a good chunk of change comes from exportation. The problem: Pasteurized almonds are not permitted in many overseas countries. Domestic sales are bound to take a nosedive as well, as companies are now turning to overseas sources to get raw almonds that are REALLY raw.
But perhaps the biggest hit will be taken by the smaller almond operations. Truth be told, even though all of the problems originated with the biggest almond industries, this little piece of legislation could spell the end of the line for organic and small-time almond operations. The minimum cost of the pasteurization equipment is $500,000 — a hefty price that not many smaller businesses can afford. Shipping the almonds off to be pasteurized has its own road bumps, not the least of which includes higher prices tied up in transportation costs.
This is an awful lot of fuss, especially considering the fact that nuts are not likely to pose a threat in and of themselves. It's when manure or other fecal matter gets transferred to the crops that contamination can occur. A better solution is one that would regulate the manmade carelessness that's the source of all these problem to begin with. But with today's Band-aid mentality, the likelihood of that happening is almost nil.
Nutty for the truth,
William Campbell Douglass II, M.D.
I wonder how many of these outbreaks come from the cheap labor used in the packing houses. A lot of them use illegals and those folks don't understand American hygiene principles. Or maybe they don't care, or worse. Someone in my raw foods group said they were able to buy almonds direct from the grower. As long as you buy less than 200 lbs, you're okay.
The lack of quality of food inspection and the general willful ignorance of the damage pesticides can do is astounding. The government agencies promote whatever products the big companies want them to, to the detriment of the smaller ones. That's why the big almond grower coops went to the California legislature to require "pasteurization" of the almonds - to drive the smaller independent processors out of business. Blue Diamond might be the culprit.
TOOLS: PANDEMIC BRIEFINGS
[Reports on flu, today and history of..]
http://www.bigmedicine.ca/h5n1timeline.htm
NEWS: BUSINESS
United States: Fibertect wipe best for decon of chem warfare agents, toxic chemicals [Dec 9 Lubbock TX]—A newly-developed decontamination wipe designed by researchers at The Institute of Environmental and Human Health (TIEHH) at Texas Tech University has proven itself the best for cleaning up chemical warfare agents and toxic chemicals.
The evaluation of the nonwoven dry wipe product, called Fibertect™, was performed as part of a study by the Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory using mustard gas and other toxic chemicals. Researchers found that the Texas Tech-created product out-performed 30 different decontamination materials, including materials currently used in military decontamination kits.
The results are published online today (Dec. 3) in the American Chemical Society’s peer-reviewed journal, Industrial & Engineering Chemistry Research and titled, “Next Generation Non-particulate Dry Nonwoven Pad for Chemical Warfare Agent Decontamination.”
continued, and more reports on page...........
http://www.bigmedicine.ca/business.htm#United_States:_Fibertect_wipe_best_f
NEWS: RESEARCH [Medical related]
http://www.bigmedicine.ca/bioscitech.htm
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