Greetings to Houston Chronicle Readers. I’m so excited to have been a part of the article “Some Houstonians are preparing local foods for the holiday table“. Take some time and look around the web site. And you have any questions, please ask. You can also join us on facebook on our Sustainable in Houston Page.
This year’s goal is to have a local Thanksgiving with as many self-made items as possible. Since I’m the lone cook for Thanksgiving, I’m starting the prep work tonight so Thursday all I have to worry about is reheating the sides and cooking the bird and the pie (pumpkin).
Tonight’s prep involved slicing a sugar pumpkin in half, scooping out its guts (and saving the seeds for next spring), and then popping it into the oven for an hour or so until it’s fork tender. Once it cooled a bit, I started removing the skin. I was surprised to see something that looked like a bright orange bundt cake! It looks so much better than the pumpkin that comes in the can.
Once I got all the skin peeled, I tucked everything into a glass container and put it in the fridge. The pie will be mixed up and cooked Thursday.
This morning’s breakfast was quick and easy because I was dawdling a bit. A whole wheat english muffin topped with some of the strawberry preserves I make this summer and some Ste. Maure Cheese from Pure Luck Farm and Diary (available through the Houston Dairymaids).
I love snacks like this. Take 1 apple and slice in chunks. Take 2-3 tbsps of cajeta and put into a small dish of some sort – I used a small jelly jar. Enjoy.
Regular Cajeta from Blue Heron Farm. They also make a bourbon flavored Cajeta as well.
When I came home from my 2.5 week jaunt around the midwest and southeast United States in early November, I figured that my fridge would be emptier than it was when I left. R and I’d been eating out of my pantry for the week and half before I left, and we’d made a pretty good dent. And since R was staying at the apartment to take care of the cat, I encouraged him to eat more from the fridge while I was gone.
When I came back, there was more food in the fridge than when I left. He had gone out for dinner instead of cooking and had bought the necessary items for sandwiches and kefir. I had food that I had carried back from the midwest because it reminded me of my childhood. As I looked at all that food, I started thinking about an article I’d read in Urban Farmsteading about food waste and I realized I wasn’t very happy with the notion of having to throw out all that old food even though I knew it needed to be done.
I sat down and started cleaning out the fridge to see what was left. It had been a while since I’d cleared out the old stuff in the fridge so there were a few science experiments waiting for me. I started calculating the value of the items I was throwing away in my head as I pitched. I estimate $200-300 worth of food that went into the trash. It made me realize that even though I have abundant resources in terms of local food purveyors at the market and my garden, I was wasting a lot of money and I didn’t like that feeling.
With Thanksgiving being around the corner, I’ve continued to explore my feelings related to food and how I waste it. I don’t want to be an average American and dump 1.28 pounds of food a day in the trash. I want to be a better steward of my food resources.
I’ve worked on changing my habits around food consumption. I’m buying what I need and I’m planning meals around what I have in my pantry, what I have left in the fridge, and what’s coming out of the garden (currently not a lot, but it’ll be back up to speed soon). I’m also working at not eating out as much and reheating leftovers as either lunch and dinner. Both steps will be kinder to my wallet. I’m also taking a look at portion sizes and making sure that I’m getting enough without overeating. Thanks goodness for veggies to help fill you up!
If it’s anything like my challenge to get rid of plastic in my life. Its going to be two steps forward and one step back, until I get the hang of it. Until then, I’ll practice, practice, practice, until it’s a part of my lifestyle.
Baking soda is a cheap and effective all-purpose cleaner, scouring powder, polish, and fungicide.
Not only can you use it for cleaning your sinks, tubs, and silver, you can also use to clean yourself. Baking soda can be used as a substitute for toothpaste. It can also be used as a deodorant for your arm pits (it won’t stop sweating though), a soother for bug bites and sun burns (mix it in a paste, apply and let dry), or as a mouthwash.
Here’s a list of 60 ways you can use baking soda every day for household chores and personal care. As a bonus, the cardboard box it comes in is easily recycled!
Apparently, my taste buds have changed. Not a little. A lot. Since switching to a diet where the majority of my food travels no more than 100 miles until its in my fridge, I’ve noticed a few things.
Overly sweet treats in restaurants that are laden with sugar and high fructose corn syrup don’t appeal to me. Give me homemade French Vanilla Ice Cream made with local milk, local eggs and a bit of sugar made from evaporated cane juice if you please. Top it off with some of my Grandma’s spiced peaches that I canned last summer and I’ve got a treat that can’t be beat.
The cows I get my milk and cheese from are treated humanely, and are not overly treated with anti-biotics or artificial hormones. I have creamline milk! And I’ve learned how to make my own yogurt, kefir, and cheese.
The chickens have a nice pen and spend their days scratching around eating bugs, garden trimmings, and living like chickens ought to live.
While Anthony Bourdain turns his nose up at grass-fed beef, I’ll take the rich, meaty flavor of it over corn-fed blandness any day of the week. It’s not that much more expensive than what I would pay in the store.
Growing my own veggies in a 38′x30′ plot allows me to pay for the extra expense of my meat and milk, while keeping some money in my pocket. And the money that I spend with the people I’ve gotten to know over the the past 2 years stays in my community and supports local businesses and local families.
I spent much of this day dinking around, but I did accomplish a few things. I assembled my new compost bin for my apartment because I want to start improving the soil that’s a part of my back porch. I’d like to have a small shade garden. I’ve discovered my back porch is a very good environment for growing ginger. It also would be nice to have some of the more heat resistant lettuces available to go with all these tomatoes I’ve got coming in.
I also loaded two chairs I needed to take over to Mrs. B’s into the car so they could be transported over. And I cleaned the tub so I could have a proper soak before I go to bed tonight. But probably the biggest thing I did was a little garden therapy. Fortunately early mornings and late afternoons/evenings are great times to be in my garden right now. There’s great breezes coming off the Gulf and there’s always birds flitting around in the evening.
Once I got over to the garden, I got the chairs out of the car and the bird bath I had acquired on the way over in to Mrs. B’s backyard. Then I spent some time hosing down the chairs and finding the right spot for the birdbath. The chosen place (for now anyway) is the hot pepper patch.
Since it is so dry down right now, I’m hoping that by adding the birdbath to the garden, the birds will be attracted to the water and not my tomatoes. it’s rather disheartening to find a perfectly ripened tomato with a hole pecked into by a bird looking for water.
I spent a couple of hours picking veggies, doing some weeding and then deep watering everything. I’ve got a lot more work to do, but that can wait until later this week.
R. was also busy in the butterfly garden today. He got the water sprinkler set up so that Mrs. B can easily water the bed and fill her birdbath in one fell swoop.
Now it’s time for bed so I can get up early for work and adventure in the evening with my friend Mary Beth.
I got home late Friday night and slept until 10ish Saturday. Then I mosied over to the garden to see what a week away had done. And there were tomatoes. Lots and lots of tomatoes.
So I spent a good hour and a half yesterday picking tomatoes and digging up some of the potatoes. And I got myself good and dehydrated, as well as good and overheated. The first sign I had screwed up was when I was driving around and started to get cramps in my feet. And then second sign was when I got the headache that wouldn’t quit. It took 6 doses of aspirin and several glasses of water before I was back to normal. I think it was somewhere around 4 this morning that the headache broke. It’s my own fault for working in the middle of the afternoon after being in a very dry environment.
But at the same time, even though I over did it, I’m happy. I sliced one red and one yellow tomato in the picture above, sprinkled it with a little salt and drizzled a bit of olive oil. Then I put a bit of basil over the top and had them for dinner last night. And I’ll be making lots of fresh salsa and gaucamole over the next few days as I’ve also got hot peppers from the garden as well.
I didn’t hit the garden until later today and it was a bit cooler as well as a little breezy. I got the rest of my potatoes dug as well as pulled all the onions out of the garden. I have free space now and am going to spend the next couple of days getting it ready for beans and squash. I’m getting back into my regularly scheduled groove and I’m loving it.
My garden this year is in better condition than my garden last year at this time.
Freshly watered dill
The hope that someday these lovely babies will be in a jar in my pantry
And next year, I’m going to try my hand with True Potato seeds since I had several potatos bear aboveground fruit 
Green Beans
First Ripening big Tomato of the year!
