organic – Peaceful Reader

Good-bye to January

I’m ready for February, even though we are still in the middle of winter, it puts us a little closer to Spring. It’s very cold here with mounds of gorgeous snow, and I did make it outside for one long walk with the dogs. I still feel bedraggled many days and overwhelmed on other days but there is still an inching toward feeling healthy and whole again. Soup always makes me feel better!

I made a delicious black bean soup from the New England Soup Factory Cookbook, a Christmas gift from my mother-in-law. This is the second soup I’ve made from the book and both recipes were easy to follow and tasted delicious. The first recipe I made a few days after Christmas and it fit the bill for how I was feeling: Spicy Chicken and Rice Flu Chaser Soup and my mother had just gifted me several local farm-raised chickens. Look at all the wonderful mothering help I’ve received! Grateful for that during this tough month.

This black bean recipe was very easy to put together on a Saturday afternoon and even though I didn’t have any sherry in my cupboards it turned out amazing. We added diced avocados as well because why not?

So, of course, I’ve been eating well. And reading lots in between creating major lesson plans for school. I had a library hold on The Midnight Library by Matt Haig, which I read an amazing review about and the book is short but worthy. It pokes into some philosophical ideas I’ve thought about over the last few years. The road less traveled or the road not taken…

Let’s dive into February and find ways to educate ourselves and celebrate Black history everyday through February and make it a part of who we are.

Growing memories

{Back door of my grandmother’s home : circa 1999}

I come from a long line of gardeners. My grandmother had an amazing green thumb and had a large square garden in her backyard and grew a variety of plants in and around the house. I remember clearly the Clematis that climbed a trellis right outside her backdoor so as you walked out you were greeted with an airy wall of delicate purple flowers and lovey green leaves. She had a huge hill of rhubarb growing that we would suck on after dipping the end in a cup of sugar she would provide. I remember eating garden produce like sugar snap peas and raspberries right out of our hands as we picked. She didn’t believe in spraying and loved that her garden was clean of chemicals. Oh and the ground cherries-so delicious to pop right out of their paper-like shells and eat immediately except if we were saving up for a pie. Rhubarb-ground cherry pie is still my favorite even though I haven’t had it for years.

{My new garden box with lettuce varieties}

My husband is blessed with a green thumb as well. I can grow things but he has like magical powers and we are amazed at his ability to resurrect plants that look like they are ready for the compost pile. Every year we plant a variety of flowers and vegetables around the house. We don’t have a set spot for either but intermix them together. This year we planted kale, sugar snap peas, cauliflower, broccoli, basil, cilantro, butternut squash, and cucumbers. Plus we watched a master gardener class with Ron Finley and we are rooting and will plant a sweet potato bc he made it look so easy. And then we have a whole variety of flower pots and window boxes that we filled in yesterday. My grandmother loved geraniums and this year I have two varieties planted in pots to remind me of her all summer long. I don’t have an actual photograph of her smiling while gardening but in my mind I have many snapshots.

With our extra amount of together we stumbled upon an Epic Gardening video with Kevin and we learned a lot about ginger and have a large root planted in a shallow pot. Both the sweet potato and ginger pot may need to live inside our house in order to stay warmer if we have an unusually chill fall season. Today we celebrate old memories and new ones we are making together. We will always look back on the 2020 spring/summer pandemic with interesting memories of gardening, good food, good books, extra streaming time, and planting some new adventures. Peace.

Slow August Day in Fertile

{Cloth napkins-YES!}

We had an lovely vacation getaway in Northern Minnesota the past long week. It was spectacular and I have many stories to tell but on the way home, we stopped at an amazing restaurant, Cafe Mir, in the small town of Fertile, IA. Honestly, I’d never heard of Fertile before today. Now I’m a fan and I will be back. I was impressed that they have their own small public library.

My mom’s garden provides swiss chard to the chef and they use sustainable, local ingredients when possible. Not hard to do when you’re in Iowa; we have so much produce and organic farmers raising sustainable meat. While many restaurants are on this bandwagon not always is the food as amazing as the concept. Everything we ordered was delicious. There were 5 of us and we ordered a sauteed eggplant dish as a starter, and as meals, we had a pork and beef lasagna, a braised leg of lamb, Hrbek’s ribeye steak, and a wood-fired Margherita pizza for Groovy Girl. I had a “cornucopia salad for dinner, the lighter eater that I am, which is roasted sweet corn, feta, mixed hot and sweet peppers, cilantro, and lime. It was such a refreshing combination and a perfect amount. We had rhubarb pie for dessert and they make their own fresh bread as well.

{rhubarb pie}

The table was interesting with a lot of mismatched glasses, plates, and bowls giving it an authentic old farmhouse appeal. Also, they used real cotton napkins which just warmed my heart. I don’t know when I’m going to take the time to drive an hour and a half north to dine again at Cafe Mir but I know there are other treats on the menu I want to try. Road trip anyone…? I’m also curious to see what they will change seasonally.

{unassuming front of Cafe Mir}

After being on vacation I am realizing that my need for real food, homecooked, slow-cooked grub plus my natural inclination to eat small meals is often confounding to people. I just like to know where my food comes from and I’ve purposely spoiled myself. I like real greens not iceberg lettuce in a salad. Why bother? I’m not a meat eater and I prefer small batches of food compared to large platefuls. I’m not trying to be a pain; I just like what I like.

Happy Holidays!

Weekend festivities

It snowed last night which means for many children celebrating Christmas that Santa’s journey will be made much easier in his sled. My children are all older yet they appreciate snow a little more at this special time of year. I love the snow when I can stay inside, curled up in front of the fire with a very good book. Luckily I got most of my errands/shopping done yesterday.

I have a lot of cooking and baking to do today and I thought you might like some recipes. Heather and Tristan have been vegan for about a year now and that changes our holiday meal drastically. We are pretty healthy eaters leaning more toward vegetarian so it’s not like a cooking crisis but traditional meals like oyster stew and clam chowder on Christmas just won’t do. Instead will be having a carrot and potato soup with fresh homemade bread, a salad and homemade vegan brownies for dessert. It will be a simple meal sandwiched between two church services.

Tomorrow we are going to have a tofu/potato scramble, vegan cinnamon rolls and mimosas (luckily those are vegan naturally!) for breakfast after a few gifts have been opened. Later in the day we will sit down for a late supper of turkey lasagna (my husband begged for one non-vegan item), a a vegan roast (Heather and Tristan are bringing it), this amazing cauliflower dish from Jaime Oliver, mashed potatoes and vegan gravy, and a vegan berry pie. I’ve got my work cut out for me so I don’t know why I’m still standing around.

Happy holidays everyone for what you may celebrate may be different than I; I wish for you a happy and contented life as we move into a new year. Another year for Trump to mess things up giving us all the more reason to stand up and be heard.

Merry Christmas, Peace on Earth, and

JOY to the World.

29 days of book love…

Just like participating in Nano (National Novel Writing) writing every day during February has been challenging. I love books can easily come up with 10 books I love on the spot but my goal was to write about books I haven’t blogged about already (at least recently) and to do it EVERY day. My days are busy. School, Groovy Girl, busy husband,…and I make food from scratch just about every day.

I have an amazing author/twitter friend (@joellewrites) that I met after reading her book Restoring Harmony a few years ago. She lives in Canada now but did live here and left after Bush took office-you remember all those voices chiming in that they would move after he took office and started a war after 9/11. Well she actually did it. This fact got my attention and I applaud her for standing up for her beliefs.

Restoring Harmony is dystopian-still very hot after The Hunger Games trilogy brought the whole genre to the forefront. What I like about this story is that it’s more real but without so much bloodshed.

A dystopia (from the Greek δυσ- and τόπος, alternatively, cacotopia, kakotopia, or simply anti-utopia) is a community or society that is undesirable or frightening.

Molly’s family grows their own food and survives on an isolated farming island in Canada but when her mother receives word that her grandmother has suffered a stroke back in the states Molly is the one who needs to cross back into the U.S. to help her grandparents to safety. An economic collapse has crippled the U.S. and oil is almost gone, poverty, hunger and rampant crime have taken over. Molly leaves the only world she knows and uses her smarts to help her family to safety. The story is exciting and eye-opening-could this world be part of our own future? Read Joelle Anthony’s Restoring Harmony and see. This is perfect for late elementary-middle school students.

Weekend Cooking; Salt Sugar Fat

Those are definitely three ingredients you use in cooking but I want to discuss the book by Michael Moss. I listen to this book back and forth from school on my phone. I often make faces in my car as I listen and I’m sure that I crack up my fellow drivers. The information in the book really disgusts me. I generally think that food has been ravaged more recently but the book relays how long this “manufacturing” of food has been going on.

I’ve heard all the big hitter names, Kellogg’s, General Mills, Post, Coca-Cola, Pepsi, Unilever, and Cargill have all been mentioned and I’m only half finished with the book. Let me preface this with I know they are just trying to make money because they are a company but my answer back is do they have to make money on the backs of others (that would be us the guinea pigs). How much is too much money for CEOs and this goes for many businesses today.

I’m amazed at how all these food companies play with our food, adding more sugar, salt, and fat to appeal and pull us to buy their products repeatedly. It comes down to manufacturing the tastes that our body has adapted to crave because they’ve made you crave it. (crazy, yes) I’ve long been a consumer of a more organic and homegrown options and I don’t buy much processed food. My kids have long been taught how advertising works and to avoid believing even the most ordinary claims. They even know that the word “natural” does not really mean that anymore AT ALL.

But there is so much more to tell and it has a lot to do with psychology and how how our brain and our tastebuds work together. Food manufactured to taste like food. Makes you wonder why we don’t just let it be food. You know the fresh stuff that grows out of the ground and that we raise on farms. All in the name of progress; so women could work and get a meal on the table fast. The biggie food companies hired chemists to turn food into fast food. Jell-O, pudding, TV dinners, boxed mashed potatoes, anything that could be created anew and made quick. Progress.

I wish I knew how we could turn this back because we definitely have a problem with obesity in this country. Right about the time video games and other techno toys pulled kids to the sofa or bean bag chairs and grabbing quick and easy food from the kitchen to fuel their play they stopped playing outside and burning those calories.

My mom was a pretty healthy cook and we ate mostly homemade and homegrown. Going to McDonald’s was a huge treat and it did not happen very often. We had Kool-aid and popsicles in the summer time but we didn’t live on the stuff. Our evenings were spent playing kick-the-can, football, baseball, or other running around games. My mom even kicked us outside in the wintertime to “blow the stink” off us.

It’s a good book and I’m going to finish it as I begin my summer cleaning. I think we foodies have to band together to work toward change in this area.

This post is linked to Beth Fish Reads Weekend Cooking meme. Click her link to find many other food-related posts and recipes unlike this one which is really just a infomercial about the hazards of processed food. Stay tuned for fresh spring pesto, freezing leafy green veggies, and the rabbit that ate my garden.

A snowy yet green Christmas

(image)

I find it difficult to balance holiday cheer while staying true to my earthy self. There is mass frenzy to get so much done in such a short amount of time. I am always behind because I’m trying to do so much at school, at home, and at church. Here’s a rundown of my recent compromises that cause me small but real anguish.

Why does it bother me? I think it is just who I am.

At school:

All last week Janice and I made cut out Christmas cookies for each student and staff member at Highland. It is a huge project but so worth it when the classes line up at the end of their library time and see a tray full of cookies ready for them. They each get to pick one from the tray and carry it back to their classroom to eat. Too me this is one way to celebrate the wonder of the holiday as kids get to pick up a homemade cookie to enjoy. For me I balance the joy I feel at giving out the cookies with the huge process of cutting out, frosting each cookie with the fact that each cookie I just made has shortening, white sugar, powdered sugar, and dye in it. I understand it is just one cookie and my own kids have certainly enjoyed holiday treats like this but I cringe at the yucky ingredients that go into such a “treat”. I can’t justify the expense of doing an all-organic cookie though and their little taste buds would not care. I am happy it is a homemade cookie with out anything in it that we can’t pronounce!

Another family and I through school has an adopt-a-family to buy gifts for and I finished wrapping my gifts on Wednesday and loaded them into the car, unloaded them at my house (so they would not freeze) and reloaded them back into the car yesterday to drop them off for the family. Luckily my extremely handsome husband drove me there and back because driving in snowstorm-like weather is not on my favorite to-do list. My hope is always to get the gifts to the family while the children are still at school-it takes a little of the magic away if you watch a young man unload the gifts from the back of an SUV-but since it was a snow day everyone was home and happy to see the gift boxes come rolling in. We tried to balance fun things for the family with four small children with practical things like shampoo and diapers. It truly is the thought that counts and we did our best and hope they are happy. My unbalance here came from the fact that I had to walk through the doors of a local Wal-Mart to buy a uniform item for the family. I haven’t been inside a WM store for about 10 years or so. I felt a little dirty but I made it through.

At home:

I’m trying to finish gift purchasing and every year balance my Target shopping with downtown small store shopping. I feel much better about the gifts I purchase from local retailers than tapping my toe in the long Target line. I purchased only three gifts this year using mega-Amazon market place-only gifts that needed to head cross country were purchased through them. I wish I could be so organized that I’d purchased special gifts all year long and had them boxed up and ready to go by December 1st. I wonder how my stepmother, mother, and mother-in-law get all this accomplished as all their gifts are already under our tree. Amazing.

Our meal for Christmas dinner will at least be farm fresh and healthy. We have a local chicken thawing, cranberries to simmer, sweet potatoes from our local co-op, salad grown locally, and a strawberry-rhubarb pie made in Southern Minnesota by a small local group.

At church:

I am on a committee that will serve breakfast this Sunday, which I love taking part in this community activity. The unbalance comes from the hot dish “we’ve” chosen to make for this breakfast. It uses boxed hash brown patties-which are just disgusting to me. I am a real potato kind of woman and would prefer to buy a bag of potatoes, shred them, and add them to the egg dish but then each one would not be just like the other. At least I’m not asked to dump any processed sausage material into the egg dish. People loved this dish last year and it is difficult to speak up for change for two reasons; I am the youngest on the committee of more formidable church ladies. It is one of those things I’m willing to let go for the trauma it would cause. No one else is going to want to put that much effort into creating a dish that many will eat in a short amount of time. Just me. We do at least serve a cornucopia of fresh fruit at the breakfast. Not seasonal but at least fresh.

The list goes on and on and it is so often difficult to justify my moral ideas of what I want to feed and gift my family compared to the masses. I don’t belong with the masses but often in trying to hold up my own moral high ground I add more work to my list when I should be relaxing with my family. It’s the circle of life with a picture of me yapping at my own tail as I go merrily around and around!

What kinds of compromises do you make to share the joy of Christmas?

Happy Holidays!

Weekend Cooking; Breakfast for dinner!

Meal planning has gone out the window during this busy summer but I’ve still crafted some inspiring dinners.

I had a bag of organic potatoes and some gorgeous farm eggs from my teaching friend John. Put them all together and you can make a wonderful crustless quiche! I sliced the potatoes and cooked them with a mix of unsalted butter and olive oil in my ever-so-useful Lodge cast iron skillet. I sauteed them for about 10-15 minutes, making sure to stir a few times. You can see the whites of the potato change color as it cooks. Once you think they’ve cooked enough then your ready for the eggs.

While the potatoes cooked I cracked a dozen eggs into a large bowl and whisked them with a big splash of milk. I added large sprinkles of sea salt, freshly ground pepper, and a seasoning salt from Penzey’s.

I was so into egg whisking I forgot to snap a photo but look at those beautiful shells.

I added some sour cream to the egg mix but you could also add cream cheese or goat cheese. I poured the egg mixture over the nicely browned potatoes in the skillet and let it bubble up all together. I let it sit on a low burner for a few minutes to cook underneath and then popped it into the broiler to finish off the top. Half way through I pulled the rack out and sprinkled grated mozzarella cheese on top.

This is what it looks like after sitting on the broiler. Watch it so it doesn’t get too brown. I sprinkled more cheese on it before taking it to the table. I used my pie cutter and a spatula and it came right out of the pan in nice pie pieces. There it is all dressed up with salsa, sprouts, a dab of sour cream on the top and a slice of toasted sour dough bread on the side. Should have had a slice of bacon on the side but it was probably already eaten! The four of us ate more than half of this for dinner with just a few slices for leftover lunch the next day. Salud!

These post is linked to Weekend Cooking at Beth Fish Reads. Click on her link about Dinner; A Love Story and see what other fantastic food-related posts she has linked to this Saturday.

Moosewood Restaurant; Cooking for Health

I’ve spent my weekend joyfully running from store to store picking up items for my Secret Santa school family. I had to hunt down school uniform outfits (not easy since it is not beginning of school, I guess-who would know they would NOT stock all year). I bought the two-year old a wee baby that cries-my groovy girl said “can I just play with it for one night?” I must have picked a good baby. It warms my heart to shop for someone in need and I love participating in this program every year. It always makes me sad when under the mom’s wish list are things like this; any cleaning supplies, laundry detergent, toilet tissue, dish soap. So I got them all for her and a box of chocolates just because she deserves it.

In between shopping and Groovy Girl’s skating lesson I’ve been nourishing my food soul with Moosewood’s latest cookbook.

Packed full of goodness this one has me scribbling down ingredients and recipes. It also made me drop a HUGE hint to handsome husband that it was on my Christmas list. He is pretty health conscious and is always excited about me cooking him food so it is a win-win situation for him. With fantastic intro information the book begins with Organics, Eating Locally, Nutritional Analysis, and a wonderful chart showing pesticide levels for non-organic fruits and vegetables. Did you know peaches rank the highest?

As a runner my husband was most interested in “The Glycemic Index; Bad Carb, Good Carb, Fast Carb, Slow Carb section. Recipes include a wide variety of choices from vegan to gluten-free and food allergies are discussed as Moosewood as a restaurant now caters to many food choices beyond just vegetarianism. I was impressed with the amount of tofu recipes and the wide variety of grains they’ve chosen.

While I haven’t cooked anything from the book yet I will leave you with a sample list of what could become some new favorite recipes:

Scattered Sushi Salad

Ginger Tofu Soup (the veggie’s equivalent to chicken noodle soup)

Latin Corn Soup

Sweet Potato, Apple, and Chipotle Soup

Chunky Guacamole Sandwich

Curried Red Lentil Burgers

Spinach-Tofu Burgers

An Easy Baked Tofu (all my years of cooking with tofu-never have I baked it:(I’ve already bought the tofu for this one)

Quinoa and Collard Leaf Dolmas

North-South Chili

Oaxacan Green Mole Stew

Tunisian Chickpea Stew

See the list goes on and on and I haven’t even read through the dessert (Fig and Pecan Baked Apples, anyone?) section. There is a two-page spread made for busy nights here: “Fourteen Ways to Embellish Brown Rice.” Each one of these beg to be tried in my kitchen.

Don’t you want it on your Christmas list too??

This post is linked to Weekend Cooking hosted at Beth Fish Reads. Check out all the food-related posts over there.

George Washington Carver was amazing!

In the Garden with Dr. Carver
Susan Grigsby with pictures by Nicole Tadgell
(2011)

First impression comes from the delicately illustrated endpapers done in a field guide style; identifying plants and animals. Historical fiction picture books are a great way to introduce important heroes to young children. This one does just that as it relays Dr. Carver’s idea of a movable agricultural school through the South. Adults and children learn about healthy soil, crop rotation, the damage cotton does Southern soil and how to do more with the sweet potato and the peanut.

I loved this book as it took me through an average day with Dr. Carver and his outdoor school. Oh, I how I long for a similar experience in today’s over processed world. We could use much of Carver’s knowledge today. Through his talks he encourages one young girl who wants to grow up to be a plant doctor to “listen to the plants and they will tell you what they need.”

This would make an excellent resource for budding scientists, plant biology, biographies, black history, animals, gardening and backyard creatures. I picked it up from my local library but plan to order it for school. Carver was such an amazing person and we need his knowledge today. His ideas came to mind yesterday when my husband read me something about the Pepsi Co creating a bottle made from plant sources. George Washington Carver would be proud of this modern marvel. If we could create more plastics from plants instead of petroleum we could lessen our dependency on oil in other ways even beyond driving fuel efficient cars. 5/5 amazing stars