Survival for the Fittest: Inexpensive Nutrient Dense Survival Stores

The other day I gave my criticism of a prepper's guide to "Survival Food for the Poor." As I mentioned in my critique the biggest problem with the suggestions given in the guide boiled down to lack of nutrient density and an over abundance of carbs.

Rather than leaving you with a mere criticism I promised that I would provide an alternative list of foods to stock up on while still retaining the budgetary spirit of the original list.

My suggestions follow:

1- Water: It truly cannot be overemphasized. Water is necessary for life, plain and simple.  The minimum needed is about half of a gallon per person, per day. However, you truly cannot have too much water as, even if you have more than you can drink (unlikely) water can also be used to cook, clean, grow foods etc. I recommend storing at least 2 gallons of water, per person, per day for a minimum of 2 weeks. This sounds like a lot of water but water is very cheap. It is cheap to buy, even cheaper to bottle/can tap water. Don't forget to have an alternative water collection source beyond your stores be it access to a body of water coupled with water purification methods (tabs or filters) or even a rain barrel or two.

2- Brown Rice: This is one of the few carb rich foods you will see me recommend in this list but I do so never the less for a few reasons. First of all, rice coupled with beans will provide the range of amino acids. Not as good as meat, fish or fowl, but very good and additionally, very cheap. As I mentioned in my last post, don't let the reduced shelf life brown rice has compared to white rice trick you into opting for the latter as it literally pales in comparison. Furthermore, the shelf life of brown rice if properly stored is still about 2 years, which is more than enough. An added benefit to storing brown rice beyond the fact that it contains more nutrients than its white counterpart is the fact that you can actually plant it and expect something to grow later (given you live in a moist enough climate.) As it turns out, most places which you can buy both brown and white rice, they tend to be the same price. Well... kind of, they are the same price per pound, by per nutrient, brown rice is actually cheaper.

3- Dried Beans/Lentils: A necessary counterpart to brown rice. Together you will be getting a complex amino acid profile with a food that stores indefinitely and is tremendously inexpensive. I recommend a variety of dried beans and lentils as each provides a slightly different nutrient values, but more importantly you can enjoy a variety of flavors, textures and colors which will assist in keeping up morale. If you want to get the absolute most bang for your buck, check the nutrient labels and stick with the beans and lentils that afford the highest amount of protein and fat per unit. Typically this will be things like split peas and garbanzo beans.

4- Nut Butters: These will be a valuable source of both fats and proteins while giving a unique flavor addition to your stores. There are dried options of things like peanut butter which can store for many years, but if properly canned and stored, just the nut butters themselves can last upwards of 15 years too. My same reasoning as with brown rice (if you are still eating your stores out of necessity years from now, you need an additional food allocation plan in motion) applies with non-dehydrated nut butters. In addition, the dehydrated forms actually contain less fat and require water and preparation time and effort. When picking nut butters select options that contain as few additional ingredients as possible, particularly sugars. Instead, opt for "natural" versions which should contain nothing more than the nut in question, and salt. These will store longer, be more nutrient dense, and contain more nutrient value per dollar, even if they are slightly more expensive at face value.

5- Dehydrated Eggs: This may be slightly less palatable than the fresh versions, however they are pretty inexpensive and will provide you with the top tier protein available, even if you have to reconstitute them. Honestly, most people can't tell the difference as many of the eggs consumed in restaurants are reconstituted from dry.

6- Dehydrated and Canned Dairy Products: Most people are familiar with dehydrated milk, but you can also get dehydrated cheese, sour cream and even butter. Canned versions of each of these if you can fit it into your budget as they taste better and have more fat retained. This is where I would have ended my commentary on this category, but thanks to the wonderful world of other preppers on the internet I found viable ways to can milk,  butter and cheese so perhaps you can get the best at an inexpensive price after all just for exchanging a little bit of labor.

7- Fish Canned in Oil: Canned fish in general will be the best, and likely cheapest, source of "meat" that you'll be able to find. There are certain options which are better than others (eg. whole albacore vs. chunk tuna) but this will boil down to price and preference. Even if you get the bottom of the line versions of canned fish, the nutrients will still be very high. Canned fish will also be a source of nutrients like iodine, which will likely be lacking from the rest of your food stores. I recommend choosing oil canned fish rather than water, simply because the price is typically the same, but you will be adding additional fat content. If possible and within reason of price, try to get olive oil rather than canola oil or soybean oil, but this is about emergency rations, not ideal diet, so the fat afforded by even substandard oils such as soybean oil is still a good idea to get for your stores.

8- Bone Broth: This is likely to be the most unique suggestion on this list simply because it really isn't something that you can go out and buy. Bone broth is a tremendously healthful food as it contains readily assimilated nutrients. While you can't go to the store and buy a pallet of bone broth, you can gradually accumulate it for your stores (a strategy you should employ to satisfy all of your food stores by the way). Each time you eat something with bones: chicken, ribs, thanksgiving turkey etc. throw the extra bones in a freezer bag, once it is full, boil the bones with enough water to submerge them and a tablespoon or two of vinegar for 2 or 3 days. This is most easily achieved by means of a crock pot as it will keep a low but constant heat with minimal power. After straining the bones and lil bits of leftover meat, cartilage and fat, can the remaining bone broth. Don't fret if the contents gel, that just means its good for you. 

9- Dehydrated Dark Leafy Greens: This is pretty much the only "veggie" that you'll see on my list. Part of the reason for this is that the more nutrient dense dairy, egg, and fish you eat, the less necessary many vegetables actually are.  Another reason is that most of the vegetables you consume should be sourced from your garden. However, for sake of variety and just to be certain about getting vitamins and minerals it is a good idea to include leafy greens, basically the most nutrient dense vegetable option. This is another suggestion that will require some work on your part however, but yet again, the work is minimal and affords huge pay off. You can buy greens and dehydrate them, but if you aren't yet gardening (shame on you) creating food stores may be a good excuse for you to start since leafy greens are pretty easy to grow and usually have a very high yield. I recommend in particular kale, chard and turnip greens. Each of these have an enormous amount of vitamins and minerals per unit, turnip greens in particular even offer a high calcium profile. To prepare these for storage either use a food dehydrator, or lay leaves out on a few baking sheets and leave in the oven at 200F until they are completely dry. They will be very dry and crumbly at this point, which is good because you can then crumble them into swing top jars and fill them quite densely. Try to limit the amount of stems put in as these contain less nutrients and are more bulky. To use these dried leafy greens you can just sprinkle them into soups etc. to increase the vitamin and mineral content of a meal.

10- Unrefined Sea Salt: "That sounds pretty fancy" you may be saying to yourself, and yes, compared to industrial refined iodized salt, it kind of is, if by fancy you mean "nutrient dense" that is. Unrefined sea salt contains trace minerals which will benefit you while still serving the versatile purposes of salt such as flavor modification, preservation, sanitation, and providing much needed sodium. Is unrefined sea salt more expensive than industrial refined iodized salt? Yes it is, but we're talking salt here so its still really cheap. This is a store that I really can't imagine you storing too much of either. 100 lbs of salt sounds like a lot, but remember that its cheap, versatile, and stores easily. The worse case scenario with storing "too much" salt, would be that you could use it as a much sought after trade commodity in a post-collapse scenario.

11- Honey: This could be classified as a "luxury" option. But honey is an important addition to any food store. For one its sweet, and thats actually a good thing, sometimes its good to have sweet things around to help keep up morale. However, honey is more than just empty sugar calories. It has a strong anti-microbial quality that will actually assist with immunity from disease. Additionally if you are consuming honey which was created locally, you will receive a reduction in allergy affliction.

12- Dried Spices/Teas: Again a "luxury" option at face value, but don't underestimate the importance of WANTING to eat the food that you've stored. I don't' care how much variety you've dried to build into your food stores, you will start to get a little tired of the daily fare. One way to fight against this malaise is to literally spice things up. More importantly, many spices contain additional benefits than simply flavor. Dried chile flakes and powder will provide capsaicin, a chemical which helps a variety of ailments for example. Teas are another good idea as they will give some flavor variety to your drinking options while providing additional benefits. I suggest in particular: chamomile, red raspberry leaf (particularly for women), ginger and peppermint. However, go check out your local tea selection, many of them list the ailments for which they will benefit the imbiber on the packaging.

13- Vinegar: If possible, get apple cider vinegar with a mother. I suggest this because it is contains more benefits which can be easily assimilated by the body than refined white vinegar affords. The reason I suggest that you get vinegar "with mother" is that if emergency situations are greatly prolonged, you can actually make more vinegar since you have the mother culture in the bottle too. Whatever kind of vinegar you end up getting, don't skimp on amounts. While the average person may not use a lot of vinegar day to day, you mustn't forget the nutritional benefits of adding vinegar to food and drink, nor the preservative and sanitation qualities vinegar possesses. Vinegar is yet another store that should be stored in large amounts due to its versatility, inexpensive nature, and potential future as a trade commodity.

14- Cheap Vodka: Don't be confused, this suggestion is not intended to be drunk as you might think but rather to release nutrients from foods, aid in food preservation and assist in sterilization. I won't get into the non-nutritive qualities of vodka here, but there are many. I would suggest that you add a splash or two of vodka to various meals to release more nutrients from the foods. Many nutrients are water soluble (easily achieved, any meal you will prepare will contain water in some fashion) some nutrients are fat soluble (this can be achieved by use of the oil from the canned fish as well as the dehydrated dairy products) and some are alcohol soluble (these are the ones that you won't be able to take advantage of without the assistance of the vodka). While vodka is useful, even in its cheapest forms, it is still more expensive per unit than basically anything else on this list, and you could do without it if you must. Leave this as one of the final additions to your stores, after you've satisfied the rest of your needs.

15- Whole/non-gmo/non-hybrid dried seed foods: This could contain some of the above suggestions such as beans and rice. However, this category could also include: wheat berries, whole oats, quinoa, peas, sunflower seeds, whole peanuts, heirloom corn etc. I would suggest storing much smaller amounts of these than the rest of the list because they will be part of a long term food procurement strategy ie. growing your food. However, most of these dried seed foods can be bought in bulk at average grocery stores so instead of a handful of them, you could have several pounds of each on hand. If you have to eat some, there will be enough to supplement the rest of your food stores you can, but try to not eat these outright.

Lady is a liar

You may recall our new cast of characters here at OLAC including Charlotte's beloved Lady.

As it turns out Lady is a liar.

I reported before that Lady was a Pearl-White Leghorn hen. Lets just say that wasn't quite accurate.

Now, I know what you're thinking "uh, oh. Is Lady a fella?" the answer is no (well... I don't think so, chickens are tricky that way) though for a while I was worried that was the case too.

You see, Lady was once a pretty lil fluffy yellow chick. However, much to Charlotte's dismay, she quickly dispensed with her yellow plumage and replaced it with beautiful white feathers. But that was only the first molt, this week I began noticing that Lady, a chicken who was supposed to be a Pearl-White Leghorn, aka a very white bird, has a suspiciously reddish head/neck/shoulders. Not to mention the fact that her supposed creamy white legs were awfully slate colored.

Since I know essentially nothing about chicken breeds I presumed this meant that she got mixed up with one of the Cornish X Rocks that our friend had ordered along with our chicks. This was reasonable, as Cornish X Rocks start out fluffy and yellow, and end up white. This is a problem though because all of those chicks were male.

While I don't know much about chickens I do know that males don't lay eggs.

Luckily one of the other prominent features of Cornish X Rocks is their stocky legs. Something which Lady thankfully lacks.

When I discussed my confusion with Garrett the Chicken Man, he said that Lady's very un-Pearl-White Leghorn features are actually hallmarks for Araucanas. This comes as something of a surprise because Mango is an Araucana and she looks, to be blunt...nothing like Lady.

As it turns out though, Araucana's are bred for the egg colored trait, not for uniformity in their plumage.

Since Lady is probably going to end up with a buff/yellow head and neck, Charlotte is pleased. But she was even more excited to hear that Lady is likely to give us blue, green or even yes...pink eggs. 

If she turns out both once being a fluffy yellow chick and then later laying pink eggs we're going into the chicken breeding business and marketing Lady's offspring as Princess Chickens, perfect for little girls.

Eat Your Colors: Eggs

Britt keeps up with the food hippie stuff more than I do, but I have heard from time to time that the new trend in deciding on what type of diet one should be eating is to "eat your colors."

The main intent of this notion is that each color in a food represents a different vitamin or mineral and that by eating a variety of colors you are also consuming a variety of necessary nutrients.

This seems awfully simplistic but as a ceramic artist I am accustomed to the visual cues that certain mineral oxides display in a given clay body or glaze recipe. While these days we order mined or purified forms of minerals (red iron oxide, cobalt, potassium carbonate etc.) from specialty shops, in the initial stages of glazing ceramic objects early peoples had to rely on the naturally occurring mineral deposits found in trace amounts in the materials around them.

In fact, the first glazes weren't even applied to the ceramic objects at all, but rather each object was given a vitreous, glossy surface simply by the ash from the wood used to stoke the fire achieving such high temperatures that it began to melt and left behind trace minerals such as calcium and potassium, which when left to cool, hardened to a glassy finish.

Because of my background in ceramics as well as my identity as a Catholic I have a intimate understanding of the hidden inner essence of things which are often only hinted at by outward appearances.

That being said, the thing which finally convinced me to foot the bill for cage-free eggs wasn't animal rights, wasn't ecology, but rather it was the fact that factory produced eggs have less food in them.

Sure, a dozen cage-free eggs is still 12 eggs as much as a dozen industrial eggs. But within each egg which came from a chicken who was allowed to actually walk around and maybe even scratch around to eat a bug or two there is a substantially larger amount of nutrients.This became most evident to me when I compared a run of the mill, industrial egg to one of the cage-free eggs we purchased. The color difference was striking, the yolk of the industrial egg literally paled in comparison. It was yellow, barely yellow, where as the cage-free egg was what one might call orange.

According to Real Food University , which sites studies from two articles published in Mother Earth News, an egg produced by a pasture raised chicken versus an egg produced in an industrial egg factory contains:

• 1/3 less cholesterol
• 1/4 less saturated fat
• 2/3 more vitamin A
• 2 times more omega-3 fatty acids
• 3 times more vitamin E
• 7 times more beta carotene
• 4 to 6 times as much vitamin D

Of course, as with all dietary guidelines, understanding vocabulary is half the battle. I mentioned above how we had decided to switch to cage-free eggs over standard industrial eggs. However, after re-watching The Natural History of the Chicken (a splendid and highly entertaining mini-documentary by the way) I saw a scene of a huge industrial barn swarming with chickens and lamented the practice to which Britt said, "yea, well that's technically cage-free."

Sure enough, the rolling lush green hills littered with frolicking chickens which I had imagined was an utter fantasy compared to the actual practice of cage-free egg production. Now, don't' get me wrong, when given the option between a cage of chickens huddled unhealthily close together who are never allowed to walk around or even touch solid ground and the crowd of chickens I saw milling around the floor of the vast barn complex, I'd gladly choose the latter, however its still not quite the ideal I had in mind.

In comes Val, our new Transylvanian Naked Neck, and her lovely large brown eggs. Because we were saving some to give to the priests who serve our parish we actually had yet to eat any of Val's eggs until this morning. Charlotte eagerly helped crack them and was excited to make breakfast with me, however we only had two of Val's eggs to the third egg I added to the skillet was one of the cage-free eggs we had bought. The difference was stunning, in fact I had flashbacks to the day we compared industrial eggs to cage-free eggs. The difference was so stark that while our typical breakfast conversation is Charlotte asking for more "yellow egg" (yolk) today she was asking for another bite of "orange egg."

I'll give you 1 guess as to which 2 are Val's

Why are Val's eggs so much deeper in color? Because not only is Val not confined to a tiny cage, not only is she allowed to walk around and scratch up the dirt to eat bugs and rocks (both of which have a wide array of mineral contributions to her diet) but she also gets to see the light of day. Whether you care about humane animal practices, if you care about your food you'll quickly realize that a happy chicken, is a productive chicken, in both the quality and quantity of her eggs.

I can only imagine what it would be like to compare Val's egg to an industrial egg, it would be like seeing a yolk's ghost.

Moral of the story? Don't just eat your colors. Eat vivid, deep, rich colors, because there's more food in there than their pale counterparts.

Chicks (and one Chicken)

List of new characters in Our Live Active Culture:

Val: An 8 month old Buff Transylvanian Naked Neck (sounds salacious, no?). She was procured for free from a family who is thinning their flock a bit. Since getting Val she has survived temperatures as low as 14F and all the while has dutifully supplied a large brown egg 5 out of 6 days. Val was promised to us on Valentine's Day (hence her name) but we picked her up Saturday.

The rest are chicks which we received Tuesday, though they arrived early Monday morning to our friend's house from McMurray Hatchery (a great resource for chicks with incredible service and excellent breeding stock by the way.)

Charlotte finalizing names

Lady: A 5 day old Pearl Leghorn who happens to be Charlotte’s favorite, this coincides well with the fact that she is the prototypical chick: fluffy, cute and most importantly yellow (Charlotte’s favorite color). Eventually she will become white, but Charlotte need not know that yet. I have also been warned by Britt’s brother (who has raised chickens most of his rational life) that she may end up suffering from a bit of a “Queen of the Roost” complex. She is also predicted to be our most prolific layer of large white eggs, so it may be a title well deserved, but only time will tell.

Biscuit: A 5 day old Rhode Island Red who is also generally yellow, but has a blushing of red on her top “coat”. Biscuit is somewhat unmemorable other than the fact that her name was inspired by the story of the Little Red Hen (in Britt’s southern version the hen makes biscuits instead of bread *shrug*) and therefore is one that Charlotte often recalls. She is supposed to grow up to be the largest chicken, in close contention with Lady. I am interested to see how she’ll turn out as Rhode Island Reds are enormously popular chickens because of their strong capacity to produce large brown eggs as well as meat.

Bird's Eye View (hyuck, hyuck)

Betsy: A 5 day old Barred Rock, she is one of two black chicks but since the other has no feathers on its neck she is easy to discern. Betsy is probably the most docile of all the chicks, she still is energetic, but compared to the rest she is markedly more subdued. She will eventually become black and white…checkered (for lack of a better word) which is the very definition of “barred”. Barred Rocks are another popular dual purpose (eggs and meat) breed.

Mango: A 5 day old Buff Araucana, by far the largest chick of the batch, Mango stands nearly a full head taller than her brood mates. She is likely to continue to distinguish herself even after everyone’s height averages out because of her pastel colored eggs. Because the exact tone of the egg shell depends both upon the individual chicken as well as the individual egg we’ll have to wait in anticipation to find out if she’ll lay pink, green or blue eggs. 

And Finally, after much suspense…

Pesto: A 5 day old Black Transylvanian Naked Neck. She was the star of the teaser comic book cover featured in last post. At the end of day 2 (after being shipped from Iowa, and then taken home in a home-made pet crate along with her 4 brood mates from our friend’s house to her new home at an undisclosed location) Pesto looked a lot worse for the wear. She was gasping and lethargic and frankly looked like she would likely die in my hands, let alone survive another day. However, after deciding to leave her be and give her some rest and then having a discussion with Charlotte about the possibility of her death, followed by night-time prayers beseeching St. Brigid (patroness of chickens) to spare Pesto if it be God’s will, Pesto seems to have made a full recovery and is just as chipper and chirpy as her friends. Praise God! 

 

Other than the fact that it would be sad to lose any of the chicks, Pesto was the one I was most looking forward to, Naked Necks are actually incredibly versatile birds who are great layers, decent meat birds (with the added benefit of having less feathers to pluck when it comes to dressing). However, because of their looks (which I find entertaining rather than offensive) they aren’t as popular as they should be. Maybe that’s part of the allure too, I have a certain penchant for “heirloom” and “unique” livestock and crops (just wait till you hear the list of seeds we ordered…)

Pesto the Chick

The Green Spiced Monster

We have a plethora of unripened, green Tomatoes.  I'm also up to my eyeballs in roasted green chiles that I got at the farmer's market on Monday.  So, what to do about this dilemma?  Make Pesto!

What?  Isn't Pesto just Basil and nuts?  Not this pesto!

Green Chile and Green Tomato Pesto

Ingredients:
2 green tomatoes
1 - 1 1/2 green Chiles- roasted, seeded, and skinned

Roasted, skinned, seeded and split

a handful of fresh basil (from my window herb garden- still going strong!)
another handful of pine nuts (crispy-fied)
2 small chunks of Parmesan cheese
about a 1/4 cup of Extra Virgin Olive Oil
Salt and Pepper

To make-

1. Wash your Basil, wash and slice your tomatoes and chile.
2. Put your Basil, Salt, Black Pepper and Pine Nuts in the food processor- process for a few seconds.
3. Add your tomato and chiles, pulse another few seconds
4. add the Cheese and EVOO.  Another few pulses.
5. Taste to make sure it's the right spice level for you- add more chile for more heat, more tomato for more bulk or more basil to even out the spice.  If it's too spicy, too bad. There's no going back, so add your chiles a little at a time if you care about this.  Although a cup of milk with dinner might help.
6. Top your favorite food!  We did pasta (a special treat for the toddler in the house who thinks pasta is likened to candy since we've cut back on grains!) but it would be good on pizza, spaghetti squash, etc.  Tell me what you topped with it!

Enjoy!

Its Snowing Outside: Perfect Time to Work on the Garden

As I write this post I am looking out my window onto my backyard which is covered in 6inches of snow and I'm thinking "perfect time of year to work on the garden."

Don't get me wrong, I'm not going to go trudging through the snow to plant seeds or anything but late Autumn and early Winter are crucial times to work on your garden; although, its not what most people think.

The first lesson when it comes to gardening is that making an effective garden is a year-round activity, at least if you want it to be healthy and fruitful. Sadly the majority of hobbyist/backyard gardeners only think of their garden when they walk by the potted plants at Lowes in early Spring. But if you haven't done anything with your garden by then, its too late.

You may recall from some of my dumpstering exploits that I procured a reasonable amount of lumber by which I was able to make two nice new garden beds. Because last year I spent way more money buying dirt and manure trying to fill the bed than I could have ever imagined (let alone the fact that nothing makes you feel more like a fool than buying dirt) I vowed to utilize only free sources to fill these new beds.

An added benefit to using this approach instead of buying commercial top soils and fertilizer is that you can have a healthy organic garden which can produce as well, if not better. To achieve this free, organic, biodiverse soil for your garden bed you first have to understand few things. Well... really only one thing actually: decomposition.

For decomposition of organic materials (the crucial ingredient in any good soil) you need: life (worms, insects, bacteria etc.), water (to encourage the life and to expand the cellular structure of the organic material) and time (often much less than you'd think if you have enough of the other two).

Soil is simply a combination of minerals, decomposing organic matter, water and filler material. If you look at your average commercial bag of topsoil and you'll often see manure, humus, peat moss and vermiculite. Translation of all of those things? Rotting stuff and filler. Just because it is simple though does not mean that it isn't vital in fact Colorado State University is currently engaged in a global campaign to revitalize soil. Plus, as President Roosevelt once said during the Dust Bowl crisis in America, "A nation that destroys its soil, destroys itself."

When starting a new garden bed there are several schools of thought in regard to preparing the site, many people will recommend things like tilling, either by hand or with a powered tiller. This is a good idea, as it loosens the soil and introduces air into the soil (something that many people neglect to realize plants need too). However, I'm a bit of a pragmatist when it comes to work, in as far as I don't care to do more of it than necessary. That being said, I prefer the "lazy man's" approach to preparing the site: laying down cardboard.

Charlotte helping flatten out the cardboard scraps.

Cardboard is easily sourced from.. just about everywhere, dumpsters, your own packaging refuse, or any grocery/department/liquor store will gladly give you more than you can take.

(photo credit)

The cardboard that I laid down in our new beds serves a few important functions. First of all, it creates a barrier for preexisting weeds so that they do not spring up from below when it comes time to plant your edibles. While this dense cardboard barrier is enough to keep weeds from popping up it is also permeable, organic matter. Once it has had sufficient water and time to decompose it will provide additional nutrients to the soil as well as be soft enough for the roots of your jack-o-lantern pumpkins to reach down through.

Charlotte's jack-o-lantern "Nice Guy" (ps. thats not a real knife she has)

However, the most important function which this wet layer of cardboard provides is an ideal habitat for worms. Worms are the hard workers that do the tilling and aeration for you, if you just give them the right environment, food and time to do the work. Not only is allowing worms to till your garden for you a less work intensive approach, but it is in fact more effective than hand tilling because it gives the added benefit of worm castings (aka. poo). I'm not enough of a scientist to know precisely how or why, but decomposed material which has been consumed, digested and expelled by worms has a significantly higher amount of certain important garden nutrients like phosphorus and nitrogen than if the organic material were left to decompose by itself.

This is part of the reason this snowy, cold, wet, time of year is ideal to do these kinds of garden preparations, because enough moisture (by means of snow), time (by means of passing through the non-growing season) and encouraged decomposition (thanks to expansion and contraction of water logged celluar structures) takes place that by the time next spring rolls around you'll have a lovely dark, rich, worm ridden soil to plant your delicious lovies in.

Enjoying the fruits of last year's soil preparations.

The next step, after laying down your cardboard is to lay alternating layers of "greens" and "browns". Greens are things like: grass clippings, kitchen scraps, rotten jack-o-lanterns etc. Browns are things like: dead leaves, corn husks and mulch.

This time of year is often a great time to layer your kitchen scrap sourced "green" heavy compost because it has already had several months of hot weather, insects (flies, pill-bugs etc.) and moisture to allow for the scraps to compost nicely. Its a perfect time of year to empty out your compost bin into your aspiring garden beds.

Raking in a year's worth of kitchen compost

As for this time of year being a good time for "browns", I think you can look out at your leaf covered lawn and only guess. There are lots of good ways to get "browns" but frankly I can't think of a more universally beneficial strategy than to use the leaves from the trees around you, which so graciously have decided to fall down for easy pickings. You get to clean up your lawn, you get to add nutrients to your garden, you get to provide a insulation to the decomposing "greens" between each layer, and you don't contribute to our already over extended landfills. If you're nice I bet your neighbors will even let you have their leaves too!

(photo credit)

Once you have laid alternating 2inch layers of "greens" and "browns" until your garden bed is full, the last step is: wait. Simply let the worms do their job underneath, the organic materials throughout decompose and the snow, rain, and sun encourage the whole process.

Thanks to a little proactive work in the late Autumn and early Winter you can enjoy soil that retains water, but allows it to drain and is full of rich organic nutrients but resists the growth of unwanted weeds by next Spring when you're ready to plant.

Pork and Pumpkins Are So Appetizing!

Pork and Pumpkin with Bacon and Red Wine sauce, sprinkled with Roasted Pepitas and Pecans!

We went to a party Saturday night, and I promised to bring something.  I was going to make chile, but someone else was already bringing 18 pounds of meat.  So I thought that was covered.  Instead, I made these delicious, incredible, completely invented appetizers. They were awesome.  They were amazing!  They were a huge hit!  And they were pretty to boot.  You should make them for your next fall party- Halloween, All Saint's day, Oktoberfest, or Veteran's Day anyone?  Thanksgiving too!

What do these things all have in common- other than being delicious that is?

 Ingredients-
1 pie pumpkin
1-2 lb pork roast, fat trimmed, cut into 1 inch chunks
1 package nitrate/nitrite free bacon, cut into 1 inch pieces before frying
About 1 tablespoon ground cinnamon
About 1/2 tablespoon ground cumin
Salt and freshly ground black pepper  to taste
1/2 cup red wine
2 tablespoons organic sucanat or other dry sugary thing like rapadura, etc.
Roasted Pumpkin seeds or Roasted Crispy Pecans

What?  You don't keep a pumpkin peeler in your drawer?

 Step 1- Peel your pie pumpkin.  I have several from the garden, but this one was from the store and was a "Baby Bear" pumpkin.  Our Dachshund likes to eat our pumpkins out of the garden, so we're having to fence off the remaining few in an attempt to get them to ripen without becoming Dog Food.  Anyway, peel your pumpkin with an ordinary pumpkin peeler.  If you don't have one of those, a potato peeler will do.

Save the seeds!  But for more immediate use than usually suggested

 Step 2- Cut your pretty peeled pumpkin in half (the easy way is easier- don't try to fight the stem).  Then scoop out the seeds and save for roasting later.  Cut the pumpkin flesh into chunks about the size of the top part of your thumb.  It's finger food, you know?


Here's my pumpkin chunks on the roasting pan ready to go.  I added about half a stick of butter, sliced up all over the place, and a few pieces of fat from the piece of ham I used- just for flavor.  Lard would probably work well here, but I don't have any.

Step 3- Sprinkle salt, pepper, and cinnamon over the whole thing, then stick in an oven preheated to 415.  Roast the whole thing until they are tender but NOT mushy.  20 minutes did it for me, but it will depend on the size of your thumb- ahem, I mean pumpkin chunks.

(Step 3 1/2- fry your bacon.  Cut the bacon into 1/2 inch strips before frying- it'll go faster and be easier in the end.  Don't let them get too crispy- then you can't put them on the toothpicks!  You can do all this while you're chopping and roasting, so whenever you want to make your bacon is fine by me, as long as it's before....)

Step 4- Cut your pork roast up into similarly thumb-like portions.  You could roast along with the pumpkin, but I was afraid that they would take different amounts of time, so I pan fried them in the bacon fat that was left over from cooking the bacon  Which turned out beautifully.  I added salt, pepper, cinnamon and cumin powder to the meat before sauteing.  Then you're left with this-

Pan full of beautiful "Pan Scab" and some bacon pieces

 Step 5- Use that delicious pan scab!  This is the technical part.  Make sure you wait until your pumpkin and pork are done for this part.  Mine was sitting next to me on the stove when I did this.  Don't let it go far!  Make sure the pan is super hot, then add about 1/2 cup of red wine and 2 tablespoons of sucanat (or any dry sugar- don't know about honey, if you use it let me know how it works).  Stir, Stir, Stir like crazy!  Get all that delicious goo into the wine, and let the wine and sugar get nice and thick.  When it starts congealing just a little, take it off the heat and pour it over the roasted pumpkin and cooked pork immediately.  It's too good too wait!  Plus, if you do, you won't be able to pour it.

Just about ready- it's bubbling, but as long as you keep stirring, it won't burn

YUMBO!!

Step 6- Prep.  Take your toothpicks and repeated puncture a piece of pumpkin, a sliver of bacon and a piece of pork.  Over and over until your serving plate looks like this-

Then Sprinkle your roasted Pumpkin seeds over top, and maybe a few roasted Crispy Pecans, if you'd like.  Pecans make everything better to me, so I did.  It just gives you something to scrap the plate with when the meat's all gone.

 Step 7- ENJOY!

A close up of the finished product- pumpkin, bacon, and pork- amazing!

Surprise!  My husband makes funny faces when things are delicious!

Linking up to GNOWFGLINS

Linking up to Real Food Wednesdays!

Sustainable Patriotism

I recently heard a story on NPR regarding the first televised presidential address, despite economic woes and post-war needs for revitilization President Truman's address was about food, well... more about eating.

Photo Credit

During his address he recommended (well...recommended like the guilt inducing recomendation of a stern grandmother) to the American people that they should adopt a few simple eating rules so that those in Europe (and America for that matter) would have enough to eat as nations rebuilt after the war.
The food rules he suggested were:

1- No meat on Tuesdays.
2. No poultry or eggs on Thursdays
3. Save a slice of bread every day.
4. Public eating places will serve bread and butter only on request.

I was intrigued by these rules as soon as I heard them. Partially because I already ascribe to a modified version of them (fasting on Fridays etc.) Also, having grown up in Colorado during a decade of drought I am familiar with a similar "by request" imposition at restaurants in an attempt to conserve water.

As a patriot (not a nationalist, mind you, a patriot) I am deeply interested in the notion of growing toward not self-sufficiency but community sufficiency. While doing some more research on President Truman's food rules I stumbled across an article which expanded on the fruits of reducing the national consumption of meat by means of reducing the household's consumption of meat.:

"If every family will reduce voluntarily its consumption of meat, whether it now has meat on the table three, four, five, or six days a week, the nation will achieve a maximum saving of meat and reduce the demand for grain to feed cattle and hogs. This will also produce a downward pressure on meat prices, and help curb living costs."

I know that the news is rife with the pros and cons of the dreaded "austerity measures" that certain countries (including our own) are seeking to adopt but frankly as the old cliche' goes "all politics is local". If every family utilized less resources and also shared the surplus resources with those in their community there would be ample food(/shelter/housing etc.) to go around, regardless of the unemployment rate, the threat of double dip recession or whatever politician jargon is currently a "threat to the nation's future."

photo credit

That being said, we have come up with our own, amended and expanded, food rules list so that we can reduce our own consumption and allow for less fortunate members of our community to have enough when we have more than enough. I'm not a big bumper sticker slogan guy but "live simply so that others may simply live" is just too poetically true to be ignored.

Anyway here they are, the Catholic, Patriotic, Sustainable Family Food Rules:
1- No meat on Fridays.
2- No poultry or eggs on Wednesday.
3- Use "cheap cuts" of meat for at least 1 meat meal each week.
4- Monday is soup/stew day.
5- Make only enough food to feed the family at each meal.
6- Treats only on feast days or important family holidays.

The break down of our motivation for these food rules is relatively simple.

First of all, we already ascribe to a meatless fast on Fridays as our form of Friday penance. While our diocese does not require meatless fasting it is a nice way to nod to tradition as well as share in sacrifices of our brethren around the world who are obliged to the meatless fast.

Fasting on Wednesday is also something traditionally Catholic in honor of St. Joseph. Rather than extending an additional meatless day outright Britt and I have been discussing options for other small sacrifices we can make. This one may actually be more difficult than the meatless Fridays because a substantial amount of our protein comes from chicken, turkey and eggs. With that in mind though, it should make the fast more efficacious both spiritually and secularly.

Rule 3's adoption on the other hand was strongly influenced by my (albeit brief) research into the Truman food rules. From the article I mentioned earlier: "...suggested also that housewives buy the cheaper cuts and grades of meat, rather than choice steaks and chops, to bring down prices and reduce waste...75 per cent of the cheaper meats were not being used on the average American dinner table. If the housewife will make greater use of the cheaper cuts we will have about 25 per cent more use of the entire animal. This will help feed starving Europe and cut our meat bills at home. All that is needed is for the housewife to learn how to cook the cheaper cuts. They are fully as nutritious as the choice cuts if properly prepared. Unskillful cooking will, of course, produce unpalatable dishes. It is time the American housewife learned how to cook the cheaper cuts." Beyond the sustainability and economy of using the whole animal, our self-education regarding Whole Food diets has shown that some of the "less desirable" cuts of meats are in fact more nutrient dense than others. Boneless, skinless chicken breast for example is actually pretty weak when it comes to chicken options. My housewife has already begun some of this by making wonderful, nutrient dense bone broths from our "left over" bones. I'm sure she is also eager to investigate other ways to incorporate "mystery meats" into our regular diet.

Which brings us to soup/stew Mondays. Part of the reason is that if we are making these splendid broths from bones, fat, celery trimmings, carrot tops etc. we might as well take advantage of them and get a fully gamut of meals out of our food (stay tuned for a future post about how to make an entire week's worth of dinners from one roast chicken!). The other thing is that soups and stews are notorious ways to make a little bit of food go a long way. If you start with a nutrient dense bone broth, you needn't add any meat, or if so, very little and the rest (beans, carrots, potatoes etc) end up acting as texture and filler more than needed mineral and nutrient contributors.

Rule 5 has a loose association with the Truman food rules in that rather than "saving a piece of bread" each day, we only make enough food to feed us each day, thereby saving bread (or meat or veggies or whatever) because its not even set on the table. This has an added benefit of healthful portion control and digestive health. We should eat until we are no longer hungry, NOT until we are full.

The final rule is probably the most sensible, but strangely the most difficult. Americans love treats, snacks, novelty foods, easy foods, appetizers etc. But frankly a lesson I know from our Catholic fasting practices is that feast days are always more delicious and celebratory when they are special...go figure. The interesting thing is that our Faith is all about feasting, in fact a big feast is one thing we're all looking forward to for eternity. So this rule boils down to no special treats (beer, ice cream, cake, going out to eat etc.) unless it is Sunday, a feast day or a very important family holiday. By abstaining from those special treats day to day we allow them to remain special when the time for celebration comes.

Finally, beyond consuming no more than our share of resources, saving money, reducing the strain on our farm/graze lands, there is a wonderful side effect that our family is looking forward to: aid in planning. Britt mentioned that she is undertaking the Plan-It-Don't-Panic meal planned challenge. How much easier is it to know that Friday will be meatless, Wednesday won't use eggs or chicken and that we're having soup on Monday? It just becomes a game of fill in the blank after that.

Linking up with GNOWFGLINS

Make It!- Making booze the ol' fashioned way.

*disclaimer, or something* Every state/city/locale has different laws concerning making alcohol as a private citizen. Usually because the governmental body in question has a vested interest in tax revenue that they are afraid they'll miss out on. I'm no expert on the law, so before trying this at home, do whatever research necessary to cover your hiney.

Anyway, today I made wine, or at least began the process of its making. Join me in my messy and enlightening journey:

Step one: procure many many grapes.

As luck would have it my younger sister (whom we obtained grapes from at the beginning of our last experiment as well) has grape vines in her backyard that are very well established, as they are older than me, and possibly my mother (they're gramma's old vines). This time around we harvested something like...65lbs. I confess that I didn't weigh them, but it was two big ol' boxes that seemed heavier than a 50lb box of clay. You can use any grape really, each will give a different flavour and each will have a different sugar content which effects alcohol content etc. I really don't recommend just going to the grocery and buying bulk grapes when they go on sale though because most of the "food grapes" we eat aren't really sweet enough to make a decent wine (let alone any pesticides/waxes/irradiation they've been subject to, but thats another rant altogether). The best bet is actually growing your own grapes, which I hear are remarkably easy to do, but need a few years before you're getting dozens of pounds of fruit. I dunno though, try it, prove me wrong.

Step two: smash said grapes.

There are many ways to smash grapes. Fancy wine presses, which are like $175 bucks, so nuts to that. Juicers, which for legit ones aren't cheap either, plus you have to take all of the grapes off of the stems and seed them,  something I just couldn't justify spending my time on. Food processors which work for some fruits like crabapples (look for our upcoming guest post on DynoMom about our crabapple cider and vinegar adventures) but beat up grapes too much and thereby release too much grape skin flavor/bitterness. Or getting a big open vessel, dumping your grapes into it and squishing them under foot. With those options how could we do anything but make a big fun mess, right? Honestly, it was a ball, if you've never stomped grapes, I highly recommend it. Next year I will try my hardest to get a couple hundred pounds of grapes by asking neighbors, friends etc. and having a big grape stompin' party. (stay tuned...)

My feet.

Charlotte does her part.

Even Bea joins in!

Step three: procure yeast.

There are lots of cool yeasts, for this project I'd recommend either an ale yeast or if you want the final product to be a little more dry, a champagne yeast. Either option is like... 75cents or something, so its not exactly going to break the bank to go with a "fancy" yeast. Maybe its because I already went to the trouble of pressing the grapes by hand (well...foot) and may as well go all out with old school techniques, maybe its a profound self-sufficiency statement to fight "big yeast business", or maybe its because I love unique local phenomena (ie.making pots from local clay) whatever the case I decided to go the route of wild yeasts.Oh, also maybe because its easy too, since the yeasts already existed on the grapes when I smashed 'em. The only thing to keep in mind is that wild yeasts are unpredictable. They could be awesome, they could be terrible. Either way you'll get alcohol, but yeasts strongly affect the flavour of your wine. In our case if it turns out badly, we'll just make the wine into vinegar and call it a victory, but of course we didn't have to buy our grapes...

Step four: ferment.

How long it takes to ferment your wine has everything to do with heat and the amount of sugars in your juice. If you want to be savvy you can use a hydrometer to test the specific gravity of the juice at the outset to know precisely how much sugar there is, and subsequently how much alcohol there will be. I didn't. Instead I went with the tride and true "ferment it till it stops bubbling" approach. How alcoholic will it be? No idea, frankly I don't have any reason to care since I'm not bottling it for sale nor am I intending to use to to sterilize wounds on the battlefield. The small bit of technology that I did decide to use is a water airlock to allow the wine to offgas while neither causing the jug to explode nor allowing unwanted mold spores, bacteria or foreign yeasts (like from Britt's kombucha) in. These valves are something like 75cents maybe a couple of bucks if you get the elite version. The rubber stopper that it goes into is maybe another dollar if that much.

All good winemakers need someone to test the juice.

Step five: bottle.
We'll talk about this later after the fermentation is done, but in our case rather than transfering several gallons into individual wine bottles for aging we're just going to cap the jugs we are using for the fermentation. If I get really industrious I might tap the wine into some swing top bottles, but I'm not even going to attempt corking or any such fancy contrivances as that.

The local brewery store that we patronize sells a home wine making kit for $165.00, and juice concentrate for wine making for around $100. Admittedly if you popped for all of that you'd be able to make 6 gallons of wine, rather than my measly 2 so we'll say that an equivalent price for the wine we are making would be...*crunches some numbers* something like $83.00. Honestly, if you got the kit and the concentrate you'd likely make some very nice wine. But I'm too frugal, too well connected with resources, and too non-wine snobby to bother.

Now for our cost breakdown since my brain is still on "urban survivalist"mode from last month.

Grapes: free. (this would have been by far the largest cost, thanks gramma and lil sis.)
Smashin' apparati: free (between borrowing our friend's father's 10gal crock and 15 minutes of exercise)
Yeast: free (and with literally no effort on my part to boot)
Carboy/jug(s): free (we used re purposed cider jugs, which will work for both fermentation and storage)
Airlock: I dunno, say 75 cents (though I actually already owned this, so I didn't go out and buy it anyway)
Rubber stopper: um. a dollar (again, already owned it)

Hopefully by Christmas I'll have 2 gallons of delicious delicious wine thanks to old timey techniques, friends, family and a couple hours of work, oh and $1.75.


                                                                Linking back to

  

 Simple Lives Thursday

and

Real Food Wednesday

Introducing "Yumbo"

Mommy Bowl and Toddler Bowl (half way through lunch when I thought to take a picture of them)

 Today we had Chicken and White Bean soup for lunch.  What a delicious idea!  Charlotte wants to share her new favorite dish with all our favorite readers.  Enjoy!

Mommy made soup for lunch

Let me think

I'll get this chunk of beans and meat right here...

Steady, steady...

Open wide!  I hope this is good.

Surprise!  Wow! This is YUMBO!

Getting every single drop

Keep licking, there might be more on there.

That was so good it deserves a smile- but not at the expense of getting that last drop.

Still smiling, still licking.  Really, there's more in your bowl, you know.

I think she'd rather have a straw.

Mommy Bowl and Toddler Bowl both empty- YUMBO!

By the way, those are some of Joey's bowls.  If you'd like a set yourself, you can order anything you want over at our Etsy store.


Yumbo Chicken and White Bean Soup
(serves 4 lunch portions, or stretch it to feed 6) 

1-2 Tbsp butter
1 small onion, chopped
1 small clove garlic, if desired, smashed.  I didn't use it this time, but would next time.
3 stalks of celery, chopped
handful of celery leaves, also chopped
about a cup of leftover roasted chicken.  We roast chickens whole and then leave the leftovers in the fridge for a weeks worth of meals like this.
3 cups of homemade chicken stock, or at least 1 cup stock and the rest water, or add water to make it stretch a little if you have more people.
2 cups of White Beans, soaked overnight in 4 cups of water
teaspoon salt, and some fresh ground pepper

Add to each bowl
1/4 cup of shredded parmesan cheese
dollop of sour cream


Saute the onions and celery and celery leaves in the butter in a soup pot.  Add a pinch of salt after they've cooked for awhile, but not too soon or they'll just be soggy.  Add the garlic at the end and saute for a few minutes, but not too long.  You don't want it to brown.

Add chicken stock, chicken and any needed water to make the amount you'd like.  Add some ground pepper and let it cook for half an hour.  Add the beans, and cook 40 minutes to an hour, or until the beans are cooked but still firm.  Sprinkle parmesan and a dollap of sour cream on each bowl and enjoy!  YUMBO!

(**Yumbo was a term originally coined by Joey while Charlotte was beginning to eat solids, and we would use her Bumbo chair as a high chair.  Joey would sing Charlotte her Yumbos in the Bumbo song while he fed her her applesauce.**)

**This post was shared on Kelly the Kitchen Kop's Real Food Wednesday on 9/21/2011**