annecros

You know, this sounds like an excellent way to add fiber. I would think with all that orange there is still some beta carotene left. My first thought was of course carrot cake. I had an aunt that made a grated carrot pie that was savory and custard or quiche like. Sorry, many moons ago and I don't have a recipe and only a vague memory. Maybe in a marmalade?

I adore Alice Waters and all the wonderful things she has done. The elitism charge rubbed me the way wrong way. Most of us do not look like Martha Stewart when we come in from a couple of hours of turning vegetable beds or pulling weeds. Lesley needs to stop by one afternoon, and we'll see how "elite" she feels when she is drenched in sweat, dirty from head to toe and smelling of composted cow manure. Washing your own vegetables is a habit that Lesley has gotten out of, I imagine. The only argument I have with Water's message is the implication that growing your own food is "free" - and she has actually used that term. Trust me, it isn't free. It is much cheaper - and there are several sources out there for free or nearly free seed. However, because many who are planning dooryard vegetable gardens are using soil that has been just lawn for a decade or so, amendments in one form or another have to be added. Then there is the labor. If one would take the gym membership and apply it to the dooryard garden, however, it is quite cost effective. And the nutritional content blows away anything, even including some market produce.

Let us not forget Arbor Day, April 24th. Coming up soon. Last year, grapefruit and orange went in - this year I think a Meyer Lemon and a Key Lime. I wish I could grow stone fruit here, but it just isn't going to happen - ever. We are just now winding down our main growing season. Heat, humidity and pests are beginning to crank up. Last of the tomatoes being sauced. From here on out it will be melons, beans and (southern) peas. My marrowfat beans did better than expected over winter. Next year I will have the timing a little better, I think. I missed the window for rutabaga, but will try again next season. Root crops are kind of tricky in my climate. I've given up completely on corn. Takes up too much space. I want to try peanuts this Summer as well. I have some red Valencia seed that a friend sent me. That was the typical type of peanut grown in dooryards when I was a kid.

Impressive, given that it hasn't yet become law! Presumably New Mexico has passed its own food safety laws? Anyway, from what I can tell the main goal of the legislation is to split the FDA into two entities: one for drugs, and one for food. That seems sensible to me, not least because the food side of the FDA has been neglected in recent years. Some aspects seem sensible as well, such as increasing the number of inspections of food processing plants. Other goals, such as certifying that imported food is produced under safe conditions, are laudable, though given the huge amount of food we import, I don't know how likely they are to be enforced. An interesting provision is section 403(b), which calls for mandatory recalls of tainted foods. Right now, recalls are optional, and prosecutions for killing people with contaminated food are pretty rare. I can't say I have a problem with mandatory recalls of peanut butter a la salmonella. I have to say that worries about jackbooted thugs kicking down stands at farmers markets seem overblown; resources are scarce enough for dealing with large producers. If you're worried, you should be talking to your local government agencies, who already do oversee that sort of thing. ← OK, so where does the USDA come in? Isn't this sort of backing the FDA into the USDA's realm of responsibility? Personally, I like the mandatory recall provision, and it feels like it would be completely within the scope of the FDA's mission to put it there. I'm not so sure that shifting some of the inspection burden to the FDA wouldn't be counterproductive. I mean, you would have regulations from the FDA concerning your organic farm and what they deem as safe food production on one hand, and stringent requirements to become certified organic on the other. Glad you brought up the state and local provisions already in place. If I understand correctly, enforcement of the federal regulations would be relegated to the states. Considering the budget constraints most states are under right now, I would be more concerned that the states would just shut the markets down. No tables to kick over. The implications for imported food do concern me. The only way that I could imagine it being enforced is to severely limit imported food stuffs - produce, meat, raw food materials, etc. I don't want poison in baby formula, but I do want my dead of winter produce without paying an arm and a leg.

Well, small market growers - backyard hobby gardeners - organic farmers are in a bit of a tizzy around and about concerning H.R. 875, the Food Safety Modernization Act of 2009. This bill would establish the Food Safety Administration within the Department of Health and Human Services. If I am reading it correctly, it basically establishes a federal authority over all food production. A food production facility is defined as: Very broad indeed. There are also requirements for tracking of food product, process controls, record keeping and "good practice" standards, Imported food must come from "accredited" sources and may limit ports of entry to those where facilities are present to test said food product, and some other stuff. I know we have some Slow Food people around, where are you guys on this issue? What is the organic farmer to do, if forced to use food safety measures that conflict directly with regulations? What about Suzy hobby gardener and her tomato table at the Flea Market? So far the news I have read has been generally negative in response to this bill - but most have been op-ed in nature. I can find plenty of opinion right here in the forums! I must say, I do not want to worry about a salmonella laced peanut butter cracker sickening myself or a loved one in the future. And I also must say that my opinion of the actions of the peanut plant in Georgia is a very low one. But, this is a bit much to me.

Thanks! It is generally a cup or less that I have in excess. I think I may have ended up with a cup and a half a time or two following different recipes and instructions from all over the place - I've kept my plain starter over a year and have kept it wet. My rye starter is only a little over a month old. I did dump some in a basic muffin recipe yesterday. I was disappointed - the flavor was great, but the muffin was very dry and sort of tough to the tooth. I am going to look for a richer (fatter) muffin recipe, maybe. Or maybe something calling for potato flour or something to keep things softer. I see no reason why it shouldn't work with any recipe calling for baking powder, right? Isn't there an issue with baking soda for leavening and the chemical reaction with sourdough? I am not quite at the point where I can overcome my nurturing compulsion to let them go a month. Anyway, hubby took the extra muffins to work, and had no trouble getting rid of them. Some of those folks don't have the opportunity to eat something baked fresh very often, so even my castoffs are good to them. Thanks. I've seen that "Instant Sourdough Flavor" as well Mitch, and wondered about it.

Those are two very good questions I would like to know the answers to as well. Particularly the "any old recipe" question. I'm keeping my rye starter stiff, because the bread I am playing with there calls for it - but I am also discarding more than I would like in the processes I am following.

OK, maybe I should have used the term "excess" instead of "discard" in my query! I've had excess when following recipes that call for fed starter or a "bigas" or a "preferment" etc. I have also discarded some wonderful looking and smelling stuff. Maybe I am overfeeding? I would think that many people (outside of an expert or professional, of whom we have many) could have come through the learning curve of cultivating and maintaining a starter and had the opportunity to dump out perfectly good goop - and all the while saying to oneself "What a shame." Even one who is at a level to have purchased a start from King Arthur Flour, and followed these directions: Sourdough starter tips could find themselves in the position of dumping stuff all too often. Beginner stuff, I know and confess, but hey, ya gotta start somewhere! That market has been saturated. I've run into this myself. I bake practically for two people. There are quarterly gatherings and holiday season and such when I am baking like a maniac. Sometimes life gets in the way of an 8 hour rise, and the calendar says two weeks. A dozen muffins? No prob, 45 minutes tops, send the extras out. I also cook and bake other things. I firmly believe that sourdough needs to be in the rotation, but it is a rotation. I guess I am looking for some way to preserve that wonderful flavor, utilize this wonderful stuff and still keep my pets fat and sassy. And of course it must be quick and easy! I know, I'm ridiculous!

I have a plain starter and a rye starter in residence in my fridge that are well established. As a firm believer in frugality, I cringe when it is time to feed, and the discarded starter ends up on the compost pile, or ANOTHER batch of pancakes! I know it's only a nickel or a dime or so - but I would really like to use the good stuff to better effect. Am I correct in assuming that I can just adjust the flour and water quantities in a quick bread recipe, and use the quantity of starter for flavor? Should make a wicked good blueberry muffin. Do you have any favorite ways of using up this precious stuff? Thanks in advance.

Well, a particular pot for sure. One that my Mom gave me when I first got married as a little "hand me down" and one that I cooked with often when making family meals and teaching my kids to cook enough to feed themselves. Pot cook I am.

Well, I'll be darned! The packet of starter that came with the "mix" started right up! Very sour compared to my plain old "vanilla" starter. I know so little about whole grain flours, I don't know if that is a result of the rye flour it has been eating, or the culture. I've been feeding it a week or ten days or so now, so it is well developed and ready to play with, I think. Doing some recommended reading, and I think I will be giving this a whirl in the next few days. I'm sure I will have questions! The next few days the weather should make bread baking fun, but I need to let my regular starter stretch its legs first. Whole grains make me nervous! I don't know them as intimately.

If you are driving as far as Lauderdale Lakes, you should stop by the Swap Shop Flea Market on Sunrise west of I-95. On the west side of this monstrous complex is a very large Farmer's Market that features asian as well as tropical produce.

OOPS! My bad. I read the ingredients on the package for the starter pack, and it listed: Spelt, water. So, I guess it is a spelt sourdough. That seems easy. I suppose I could just as easily cut out a portion of my starter and feed it on spelt for a week or so and get the same results, but I went ahead and bought two more packages of the mix. One to rob the packet out of (and eventually bake with the cast off), and the other to bake today for hubby's lunch bag tomorrow. He's fixated. It'll take me a couple of months before he gets tired of it, if he ever does. I think a tried a recipe at one point that called for buckwheat flour, but it got the big thumbs down and wrinkly nose. Edit and OOPS again: I reread it, and it does say Sourdough (Whole Grain Rye Flour, water) so I was right the first time. It just had a funny punctuation and line breaks on the ingredient list. I've got too much going on!

Just today - Quaker Instant Oatmeal, Apples and Cinnamon. I had to have it. Gone - Frozen Burritos

Quite a few Asian grocers out west - all up and down 441.

Darling husband has a fixation for the bread of his childhood, and loving wife that I am I strive to indulge his every whim. The most elusive of these desires has been Baurnbrot - German Farmer's Bread or Peasant Bread. Hey, this should be doable right? I can make the mustard he loves from scratch, I have access to all sorts of German cold cuts, cheeses and sausages that are authentic to his taste, Brochen are relatively easy to produce - but the Baurnbrot I have attempted in the past has never been "right." So, yesterday at Whole Foods (ugh) I ran across this This Seitenbacher "Mix" for "Original German Farmer's Bread," grabbed it, brought it home and baked it. OK, home run. Hubby loved it, best bread he's had in 20 years, yadda, yadda. The silly thing retails at Whole Foods for $6.99 and makes about a one pound loaf. A pound of this bread just gets hubby started, especially in the cooler months. The rub is that this mix is just a package of spelt and rye flours with sea salt, a packet of active dry yeast, and a packet of sourdough starter. I think I can do this cheaper and more efficiently. I suspect that the secret ingredient (outside of technique, and I pretty much have that down) is that starter. It appears to be a rye flour based starter (by greyish appearance) and I would hope that it is live. Smells wonderful. I noted on the website that they sell the starter in packets, and they mention that many home cooks start their own sourdough with the packets. I'm thinking that I could probably go buy another "mix" - rob the mix of the starter packet, feed the starter a day or two - and maintain my own. After about a dozen loaves, it should work out to a cost effective average - and I can whip a loaf out at hubby's whim. Here's where my need for help and lack of baking experience shows. I have never kept a rye flour based starter and don't have a clue. Do you feed it with a rye/wheat flour mix? Would just plain old sourdough starter be just as good, and is it perhaps the spelt/rye mix proportions that does the trick? What are typical spelt/rye proportions? Thanks in advance for any help. I am willing to spend a few bucks and experiment for a while to get this right. Next Christmas, I'll hopefully be able to send a five pound loaf off to my German Mother in Law and make her cry!

Finally! January in South Florida! The small ones in the middle are Thai Pink Egg (Hubby loves this one, though I can take or leave it). Clockwise from about noonish, the big pink beefsteak is Albany Georgia Heirloom, then JD's Special C-Tex, Kelloggs Breakfast, a mix of pink and red beefsteaks (Marianna's Peace, Earl's Faux, Brandywine OTV, Omars Lebanese, some other misc canners), two lonely Cherokee Purples, and Aunt Gerties Gold. Just about prime season here, a tiny bit past maybe. Some rebloom and new fruit set now. Three batches of salsa, unknown quarts of tomato sauce, innumerable salads. Give away to neighbors and even have a chef buying. Life is good.

Well, canned veggies do have their place in disaster preparedness. I do, in fact, keep canned potatoes in the cabinet for Hurricane season. Fry them up on a coleman stove with some onion and a couple of eggs, and you get to eat a hot meal. Canned beans make for a quick "beanie" dish if you don't want to spend the time slow cooking dried beans. Tomato paste, because it is just not worth the time and effort to make my own. I generally empty out the pantry of canned veg at the holidays, and restock by the next June. I do can some of my own veggies (pickles, tomatoes, relishes, mostly). Other than that, not if I can help it!

The best favor I did myself this growing season was invest in a roll of 10-year weed block at a home improvement store. Soaker hoses down first, weedblock on top of that, then a thick layer of mulch. I haven't pulled a dozen weeds this season. I have used old newspaper in the past, but it my climate it quickly degrades and turns into weed fertilizer! It is very economical though, and the earthworms love it.

Oh, it will work. Fried grits are wonderful. Grits and Ham are the classic combo for me. Oh, and grits and fresh sausage.

Sheesh. I really should do this - one day! I was raised in a "cluttered" kitchen - and unfortunately I have upheld the family tradition. I mean, I can find anything I want, but it is so idiosyncratically setup - nobody else can work in my kitchen - or I lose have the place for a week! My daughters are especially bad about that. I know I could open up a lot more counter space if I got organized in the classical sense. I also know that I could adapt pretty reliable. I guess I just don't have the ambition. Maybe this will get me moving. And, actually, that room could use a coat of paint anyway...

A couple of years ago I was having a sporadic problem, and traced it back to one box of bad lids - because it was from only two batches that I had done back to back. I let the manufacturer know about my problem, and they sent me a case of jars and lids.

We used the same method, along with a pair of pliers and a tree, for catfish. They are sort of "eelish" I suppose. I have killed enough, and seen enough killed, that I don't mind others doing the work. I'll stick with my agrarian activities, thank you. Though I would love to have some hens that produced eggs. Somebody has to fix the side dishes. Of course, when a hen gets too old to lay, she goes in the stew pot for dumplings. That's where hubby comes in... The funniest story my husband tells is of the "unsexed" 100 chicks he got for free with a bag of feed. He thought it a great deal. Hehehehe. He had to butcher multiple roosters, as there were of course too many, and it turned into bloody carnage. He got in a bit over his head that day, from his description. This is the sweetest guy you would ever have the privilege to know, and wouldn't hurt anything he didn't have to hurt, but he persevered and the church had fried chicken that Sunday.

My family always called them "Lady Fingers" - and they were the dickens to shell! They would tear up your fingernails and fingertips. There was another one "Rice Peas" that was even tinier - literally the size of grains of long grain rice. They really only need a blanching in a good stock. The Zipper Creams that I grow are a little bigger, and the built in "Zipper" makes them easier to shell. Hubby helps me shell, but he's just too slow. We became very skilled in the art in my family. In the Summer, if we wanted to sit down and watch TV or something, we had better have a pan of peas or butterbeans on our lap. That sounds like a great way to eat peas. I guess I get into a rut with them, but we never have enough to get tired of them. If I had room to grow enough to keep them on hand, I would probably be more adventurous. The old saying goes "Plant twice as many peas as you think you need, and you'll end up with half as many as you want."

That's a good start. Underwood uses something sort of nutmeggy or something? There is a seasoning in there, related to a curry sort of thing, or maybe sort of Greek profile, that hits a high point on the palate. Works with the salty/sweet sort of thing. I haven't isolated it yet. I just don't know. And I don't think it is MSG. I really don't. I can usually pick that out of a lineup.