Getting ready to grow sumpin'

The posts lately on my little piece of the blogosphere have been few and far between, but here's one that shows what happens when the beast come out of winter hibernation.

My wife and I constructed a new garden bed, using some scrap wood from our refurbished back deck. We are planning to expand our food growing this year, and this is the first stab at it. The black plastic is to slow the redwood and other roots from invading the bed, and the mesh underneath the box is to shut out the voles and gophers. We filled the bottom with some goat manure from one of our neighbors, then soil from a local nursery, then compost from our compost pile, and then more soil. My wife has already transferred scallions from a large pot into the new space, as you can see.

The endeavor took us most of the afternoon, but it is so satisfying to begin a project that will yield edible rewards. And my wife and I do make a pretty good team, if I do say so myself.

Quote for the Day (Rocker Speaking Truth to Power Division)

. . . [C]orporations don’t have children. They don’t have feelings or soul. They don’t depend on uncontaminated water, clean air, or healthy food to survive. They are beholden to one thing — the bottom line. I choose to speak truth to this economic power. - Neil Young (via Jim Hightower on Alternet)

STILL the birdhaus . . . .

Our conure, Dede, has developed a taste for cheese puffs. It's a trip to watch her eat them:

 

 

Don't worry---these are organic cheese puffs we give her!

Berry bee

We are having a great year for blackberries, and a lot of the credit must go to these little guys:

We do owe so much of our sustenance to the pollination provided by bees and other spreaders of the botanical gamete, and I'd like to express my gratitude right here and now. I hope the rest of humanity, including its corporate embodiment, are as respectful of this diligent worker. Without them and all the other elements of nature's great machine, we wouldn't last a blink.

Yummy goodies from our backyard, mostly

Locally picked and processed---by us!

My wife cooked up a tasty berry/peach crisp with tons of huckleberries and blackberries from our lane and backyard. The peaches came from a "U pick" place she visited on a recent trip to Redding, and the crisp---we'll, that's her secret, don't ya know?

The baking begins

With Thanksgiving coming tomorrow, and our daughter and grand daughter visiting from Redding, the baking has begun. My wife is bustling away in the kitchen right now, but here is my earliest contribution to the feast; a loaf of honey whole wheat bread infused with a coat of butter.

I have much to be thankful for, not the least of which is my family and the love we share. I wish you the best during this day of gratitude.

2013 Gurley Lane Neighborhood Apple Juicing

2013 Gurley Lane Neighborhood Apple Juicing, a set on Flickr.

For the last few years our neighbors who have an apple orchard have invited everyone over to help juice their apple harvest. It is a fun and friendly way to share the bounty. Here are some photos of this year's event. (Click on the thumbnails to see a larger version.)

Quote for the Day (Former Candidate Running for Laffs Division)

Poor people are basically greedy. They see

food, they want some for themselves. - Pat 

Paulsen 

Pepsi Says Mountain Dew Can Dissolve Mouse Carcasses

Via The Atlantic Wire

Pepsi Co., facing a lawsuit from a man who claims to have found a mouse in his Mountain Dew can, has an especially creative, if disgusting, defense: their soda would have dissolved a dead mouse before the man could have found it. An Illinois man sued Pepsi in 2009 after he claims he "spat out the soda to reveal a dead mouse," the Madison County Record reports. He claims he sent the mouse to Pepsi, which then "destroyed" the remains after he allowed them to test it, according to his complaint. Most shudder-worthy, however, is that Pepsi's lawyers also found experts to testify, based on the state of the remains sent to them, that "the mouse would have dissolved in the soda had it been in the can from the time of its bottling until the day the plaintiff drank it," according to the Record. (It would have become a "jelly-like substance," according to Pepsi, addsLegalNewsline.)

Makes me want to do a Dew . . . . NOT!

Loafing around

After months of sour dough bread baking, a friend gave me an underused bread machine last year. Since then we have not bought many loaves, but I normally cook one or two yeast based breads a week. Tonight I made a loaf of honey whole wheat. I use the simple recipe that came with the bread maker, only I add a little molasses to the honey, as well as a bit of flax seed. I also pull the kneaded dough from the bread maker pan and let it rise in a regular loaf pan before popping it in the oven. This makes a loaf that is much more suited to slicing for sandwiches or toast.



It's a yummy concoction, and the smell of fresh baked bread lingers for most of the night.

You can't beat Taco Bell's meat . . .

. . . because it's not meat! (Via SF Gate):

From Montgomery, Ala., comes the sad, shocking news:

Taco Bell tacos' "seasoned ground beef" is mostly not beef.

The Montgomery law firm of Beasley, Allen, Crow, Methvin, Portis & Miles is suing the fast-food company for false advertising after attorneys had the Taco Bell "meat mixture" tested and found it contained less that 35 percent beef.

The nation - which until now had considered a Beefy Crunch Burrito? stuffed with Flamin Hot? Fritos? and slathered in nacho cheese sauce to be part of a nutritious diet - is appalled.

So what exactly is Taco Bell "meat"?

"Beef, water, isolated oat product, salt, chili pepper, onion powder, tomato powder, oats (wheat), soy lecithin, sugar, spices, maltodextrin (a polysaccharide that is absorbed as glucose), soybean oil (anti-dusting agent), garlic powder, autolyzed yeast extract, citric acid, caramel color, cocoa powder, silicon dioxide (anti-caking agent), natural flavors, yeast, modified corn starch, natural smoke flavor, salt, sodium phosphate, less than 2% of beef broth, potassium phosphate, and potassium lactate."

"Polysaccharide absorbed as glucose." Mmm-mm.

But look at ingredients #3 and #8 - isolated oat product and oats. Nothing wrong with oats, is there? Oatmeal is a significant sources of dietary fiber, which helps lower LDL (bad) cholesterol. Any doctor will tell you that oats are better for you than red meat.

So while Taco Bell may be fudging on their "ground beef" with cheap filler, that filler could actually be healthier to eat. Taco Bell could doing its customers a favor by deceiving them.

The good news is there's less danger from E. Coli, because bacteria don't eat all that shit!

More ground than beef . . . .

Chopsticks

No doubt due to the movie "Kung Fu Panda", my grand daughter has been wanting to learn to use chop sticks for a while now. On our recent visit to see her and her Mommy we went to a Chinese restaurant, and she picked up this skill very quickly. Here she demonstrates the next night on the leftovers:

And here's a short film of her showing off:

The discouraging thing about all this is that she's already better than me with them . . . .

I'm not one to loaf . . . or am I?

Yes, I'm cooking away lately. My sourdough starter is really active, and bread tends to rise in a much shorter time. The batch of loaves you see here had a little more sugar in them than the receipe calls for, as I am finding the dough getting really sour. The loaf on the top was a little undercooked unfortunately, and we had to hollow it out to get rid of the raw dough. Otherwise, a very nice bunch of very tasty loaves, which go very well with some 15 bean soup I made.

Are things getting worse than I thought?

This is a screen shot from the CostCo site, showing a one year supply of food for one person, marked down to almost $800.00. From the site:

Shelf Reliance is your premier source for food storage and emergency preparedness planning. Because nothing is more important than the health and safety of your family, they provide only top-of-the-line products. Shelf Reliance’s line of THRIVE Foods are held to the highest standards. All THRIVE Foods have been developed with everyday menu planning in mind; however, they are also designed to be added to your long term food storage. With their great taste and simple preparation, THRIVE foods are the perfect place to turn for healthy, delicious meals anytime.  

The THRIVE 1 Year Food Supply comes complete with 78 #10 cans ranging 5 food groups: grains, fruits, veggies, meats & beans and dairy. With over 4,700 servings and many foods with a shelf life of up to 20 years, this package will give you variety, nutrition, and peace of mind. In addition to the high quality foods this package provides, a wheat grinder is included.

'Cause you never know when a wheat grinder will come in handy. Seriously, do these folks know something we don't? And if this is only enough for one person for one year, after a few months do you have to fight it out with your family? 

We knead the dough at the birdhaus

Yes, it's bread time again. It starts, appropriately enough, with a gooey, smelly glop called starter, shown here in it's messy recycled jar. It's active (if not attractive), having been taken out and fed the night before.

It is mixed with a mass of ingredients, beaten to a kneaded pulp. And then placed in a covered, oiled bowl for the night. I use a porcelain coated bowl, as I understand metal with affect the starter. Superstition?

The dough is then place in loaf pans (some of which are metal, so there goes the whole don't use metal thing), and then allowed to rise a second time. Not quite as long this time---about six hours. I then score the tops with a sharp knife and into the oven they go.

After about 35 minutes out they go onto cooling racks. I let them cool entirely before slicing or freezing.

Lemme tell ya, they are quite yummy. I've got the starter really going strong, and it rises better than any yeast I've ever used.

It's getting to be berry time again:

While they don't seem to be as plentiful as last year, our wild blackberries are starting to be ripe enough for harvesting. We got a bout a quart today just in our backyard. Here are some photos to document the tale:

Looks like future smoothies and pies and blackberry crisps and waffles . . . but I'm getting ahead of myself, aren't I?