110821 Garden Report

My garden has done better than I had hoped.  As I've indicated before it is pretty small but I have obtained a lot of organically grown, fresh, tasty, low cost food.  I harvest a portion of lettuce every day and it just continues to grow.  It has been an excellent addition to salads and sandwiches.  My single tomato plant is full of green tomatoes and I have eaten a half dozen ripe ones.  They are delicious.  I still have nothing going on with my two pepper plants so I think those were a wash.  I eat green beans twice a week and the second planting is producing really well.  My third planting of radishes is just now getting ready for picking.  I built a new raised bed with a lot of sharp sand mixed in for a carrot bed.  They took ten days to sprout but now they are growing nicely.

I always try to use a raised bed when I grow carrots.  This is for a couple reasons.  Carrots prefer very loose soil.  I mix in large quantities of sharp sand, which loosens the soil, aids drainage, and seems to reduce carrot maggots.  The sharp sand is uncomfortable for them.  Carrots do not like a lot of humus.  Carrots will get all hairy with lots and lots of little roots if the soil is too rich.  The part you eat is a root and you want it to grow down to seek water and nutrients.  I loosened up the top four inches of soil with added sand and then added another 2-3 inches of sand and potting soil to the top.  The raised bed is simply made by using boards from an old pallet that I picked up for free.  I put a layer of sand on the surface to prevent slugs from attacking the plants; slugs cannot travel across sharp sand.  It is light colored so it also reflects light back up to the plants, which is important in late plantings since there is less and less sunlight each day.  If you ever buy sand for your garden make sure you ask for Horticultural Sharp Sand.  This will be washed and low in salt.

These are three of the tomatoes.  They are a nice size for me, about the size of a racket ball.  Each tomato is big enough for one serving so I don't have to store any leftovers.  These tomatoes are very meaty and a rich, dark red.  I only eat home-grown tomatoes, I never buy tomatoes in a store; they have no flavor.

 

This is the best book I have ever come across for growing lots of food in a small space.  I have adapted the concepts of Square Foot Gardening over the years based on my own experiences and other gardening practices that also make sense to me.  I highly recommend this book even if you are an experienced gardener.

We are near the end of the traditional gardening season in most places but you can garden well into the Fall and even early Winter using raised beds and Square Foot Gardening techniques.  Since you are only gardening in a small space it is not hard to construct a framework which you can cover with plastic to extend the gardening season.  You can continue to grow non-flowering crops (radishes, lettuce, cabbage, carrots, and other greens) as long as the air around the leafy parts of the plant stays above freezing.

The many flowering plants I have in and around my garden did their job.  They are nice to look at and they brought in all the beneficial insects I wanted.  I had no insect pests in my garden at all and there were plenty of bees to fertilize my beans and tomatoes.

The dense planting pretty much prevents weeds from growing.  I spend, at most, ten to fifteen minutes a week weeding.  And these are just tiny weed sprouts.  Newly planted beds, like my new carrot bed, need the most work.  I will wait a couple more days before I weed the carrot bed because I want the carrots to be firmly anchored in the soil before I start pulling stuff out.

Have any of you tried a garden this year?  Tell me about it.

Leftovers

What do you do with your leftovers?  I'm sure if it is a chunk of steak or a hamburger it gets reheated and eaten for a snack.  Or you might be one of those barbarians that eats cold pizza for breakfast.  But your kitchen generates more leftovers than you think, most of which probably goes in the garbage or down the drain.

Bacon Grease Container

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My mother, like most women of her generation and further back, saved all her bacon fat.  She kept it in an aluminum can on top of the stove.  The grease at the bottom of that container was probably 20 years old.  But this is what she used to grease her cast iron skillets whenever she had other foods to fry.  Hamburgers, fish, chicken, pork chops, you name it and she fried it in bacon grease.  It cost nothing except our health I guess.  Because of that I am pretty partial to the bacony flavor and usually cook some (Turkey) bacon just before I fry potatoes. I love real bacon but very rarely eat it anymore.  Maybe a piece or two a year when dinning out.  I got 105,000 hits when I did a Google search using the term "Bacon Grease Container" so obviously this is still being done by many people.

The best liquid base for any gravy or sauce is the water from whatever starch (potatoes, noodles, rice) you are going to eat with your meat.  Cook your starch before you make your gravy and use that water stirred in to your pan drippings, butter, and flour.  The starch in the water helps to bind and thicken the gravy and you get whatever nutrients cooked out of your starch, especially potato water, added to your gravy.  If you like to make sauces from scratch get in the habit of freezing your starch water in one cup increments to use later.

When you boil vegetables, like most people do, first thing to remember is to just use the bare minimum amount of water.  Then save that water to use when you cook starches later.  When you boil foods you boil out most of the water soluble vitamins and minerals.  What you are left with is some fiber, sugars, and residual starches/proteins/trace nutrients.  The only way to recover the vitamins and minerals you THINK you are eating to reuse the water to cook something that absorbs water such as rice, beans, instant potatoes, or noodles.  It adds a nice flavor and you recover what would otherwise be thrown away nutrients.

I save all the liquids left when I cook meats in a covered dish in the oven (roasts and chicken mainly).  I also save the gravy left in those convenient frozen meat entres. I only buy these when they are on sale and I have a coupon but I often find pretty good deals on them.  Normally I advocate cooking whole foods mostly from scratch but these products are really convenient and flexible.  Anyway, I save the gravy that I don't use and store it in a never ending container in the freezer.  The plasticware looks like a parfait with all the different layers of gravy and broth.

If you have been a college student, military member, hiker, or just really down on your luck it is highly likely that you have eaten some version of Ramen noodles.  I can tell you that Soldiers never seem to tire of them.  At 15-20 cents a pack they have been the basis of many fine meals in my house.  But what do you do with all the broth left over?  Some of you drink it but I find it a bit too salty for that.  So it too goes in a container and in the freezer.  I'll use it later as the water in my instant potatoes or noodles and get a second helping of the flavor.  Truthfully there isn't too much nutrition in the water (trace amounts of a lot of different things so it is not an empty food) but it tastes good in potatoes and noodles.

Garbage Soup/Stew.  Living by myself I don't actually have too many leftovers.  I cook single servings or I'll cook enough to split up into containers for two or three meals.  But when my wjole family was together we always had some leftover vegetables and small pieces of meat.  I would save these in the freezer until the cold weather came and then make a big batch of what some people call Garbage Soup.  To make my soup I only

need to buy two things, a can of beef broth w/onions and a can of diceed tomatoes with garlic.  Since I could buy these anytime and store them on the self until it was soup day I generally got these for less than 65-75 cents a can.  I put my big soup pot on the stove on low heat and poured in the diced tomatoes and beef broth.  To these I added the contents of all my never ending plastic containers of leftovers; vegetables, meat scraps, beans, and gravies.  Sometimes it was necessary to add more of something (potatoes, onions, etc.) to get the balance right but not usually too much.  I let it cook for hours, added some gumbo file` powder  (a seasoning/thinkener made from sassafrass).  My wife will tell you that the secret to a good soup is the file' and you generally can only find it in the south.  She always knows when I have forgotten the file`. (My dad, who grew up in Tennessee, clued us in to this stuff.  He also makes outstanding soup.) We were almost out of it and searched high and low.  Finally, when we visited our son stationed at Fort Campbell, I was able to buy two jars at the local Piggly Wiggly store.

I am sure there are many other things that fall under this heading but as always, I only talk about things I have actually done (unless otherwise noted).

Cook Cheap!

Eating on the Road

Well, it's August, the tail end of the travel season in summer.  So this might be a little late for some of you but my wife and I do most of our traveling before and after the heavy tourist season.  We do this for a couple reasons:

1. It is generally cooler.  Neither of us like hot weather and April-May and September-October are much more pleasent times to travel.
2. It is generally cheaper. The heavy tourist season brings with it higher prices for everything.
3. It is generally less crowded.  Who enjoys crowds and long lines?

I just came back from a one-week TDY (Temporary Duty) in Heidelberg, Germany.  It is only a four-hour drive under normal conditions but accidents and construction always add to that.  Many years ago when we lived in Stuttgart, Germany (1988-1992), we looked forward to driving the Autobahn because the  roadside Reststop restaurants were a great place to get good, cheap food.  At that time, these snack shops and restaurants were family owned and run.  They took great pride in offering local specialities, competative prices, and good customer service (like feeding and watering your dog).  Now these restaurants are all franchised; they serve the same stuff, no variety, and there is no competition so the prices are much higher. The food is still good, Germany has strict food laws, but I cannot justify the price of a meal there.  I can get that same meal off the Autobahn for at least 25-30 percent less.  So while it is tempting I have to take a pass.

I long ago got in the habit of throwing an ice chest in the car with a good selection of energy drinks (I don't like coffee and I need something to keep me awake), snacks like peanutbutter crackers and fruit, and stuff to make a sandwich if I really get hungry.  When we lived at Fort Belvoir, VA and Fort Meade, MD we used to drive home at least one weekend a month.  This required at least one meal on the road.  Feeding five (six once our future daughter in law became part of the family) at a restaurant near a highway was just too expensive.  We did it in the winter out of necessity but in the warmer months we packed an ice chest and had a picnic on the way.  Would the kids rather have a McDonalds hamberger?  Yeah, probably.  But they also enjoyed the break from driving, walking the dogs, and sitting together to eat a picnic lunch out in the open.  And dad wasn't grumpy from wasting money on crap food.

My wife would put together snack bags of pretzels, those chedder cheese fish, or something using sandwich bags.  This is far cheaper than buying single serving snacks.  Drinks were usually Capri Sun drinks, which we could buy fairly cheap at the commissary from time to time and when they were empty the package didn't take much room in the trash bag.  You will pay a minimum of $1.50  and it is more common to pay up to $2.50 for a drink out of a roadside rest vending machine.  No room for a cooler?  Ok, put your drinks in the coldest part of your refridge and just before you leave wrap them all together in a towel and stick them under the seat.  They will stay cold for at least an hour (if your floor isn't a hot spot from the exhaust); longer it you put a "Blu-ice" block in with them.

On my trip last week I made my own ice blocks in large tupperware type containers so I would have cold drinks during my week-long trip.  As it turned out I had a refrigerator in my room but you never know.  I packed enough drinks for a week, stuff for sandwiches, and apples.  I always put a towel on the top of the food to keep the cool air low in the cooler.  I stopped once after 90 minutes for a bathroom/leg stretch break and got a drink and stopped again for lunch at a scenic roadside parking area.  I ate my large meal at lunch most days on the trip and had a sandwich or leftovers for supper.  I bought some food items in Germany to bring home and packed them in the cooler.  My ice blocks were still good after five day.  I bought a Subway sandwich for the ride home and had another cheap lunch on the road by supplying my own drink, chips, and dessert left over from a previous meal.  Sitting out in the sun and enjoying the view, solitude, and meal makes for a pleasent and refreshing stop.

Something I used to do on long trips, mostly before I got married, and even more often while in the field on training exercises was engine block cooking. This was far easier with pre-1990s cars and trucks than modern vehicles but you could probably still do it with certain models.  Internal combustion engines are only about 18-20 percent efficient.  The vast majority of the energy is wasted as heat.  You can use this wasted heat to cook or reheat food.  This was a huge fad at one time in the early years of cars.  I won't go into this in any great detail because there is so much out there on the internet and some books.  I'll just add some key points:

http://www.wikihow.com/Cook-Food-on-Your-Car's-Engine

http://www.wisebread.com/cooking-great-meals-with-your-car-engine-the-heat-is-on

1. Never attempt to heat canned food of any kind.  The can will explode if if gets hot enough.
2. Use only Heavy Duty aluminum foil.
3. Cook dry foods like meats, vegetables, etc.  Don't try to seal foods with lots of liquids like stew, soup, chilli.  The steam will open up your package.
4. Reheating is far easier than cooking from scratch.
5. The old Boy Scout foil pack meals work great.  Just do a search for "Boy Scout Foil Dinner"
6. Make sure all seams are well sealed when you foil pack a meal.
7. Be careful, the engine and your meal will be REALLY hot.
8. Always turn off your engine and be careful around thermostat controlled fans.

This does take some preparation of course but once you do it a few times it is pretty easy.  You can cut your travel food costs by close to 75% doing this. Wrap a couple low-fat hotdogs and chopped onions in foil, place them on the engine, start driving and two hours later you can enjoy delicious steamed hotdogs at a roadside rest. Add your own chips, sliced raw carrots, drinks, etc. and you have a fine meal.

How to Make "Empty" Foods Better

Do you and your family like waffles, pancakes, biscuits, cream of wheat, oatmeal and/or grits for breakfast?  Those are all very common breakfast foods in the US.  There is nothing exceptionally wrong with those items as long as they are only a part of your breakfast and not the sole item of your breakfast.  Eating a high carbohydrate breakfast is setting you up for dietary failure.  Yes, first thing in the morning your body needs calories because you have, in effect, been fasting for about 10-12 hours. But pure carbohydrates with the super sweet (and empty calories) of the powdered sugar or syrup typically sprinkled or poured on the above items does very little nutritionally for you.

If you do like these things for breakfast make sure you balance them with some quality protein like milk, eggs, turkey sausage or bacon, or yogurt. If that seems too heavy of a meal for you then try this.

Substitute or add one or two scoops of a high quality whey protein powder (vanilla works best for favor) in your recipe.  I don't eat any of those normal breakfast items except uncooked oatmeal myself but I have cooked most of them for my family over the years.  Unknown to them I have always fortified the food with protein powder to help them get a better nutritional start of their day.  Protein powder added to pancake or waffle batter actually makes for fluffier pancakes and waffles.  Its the protein strings that do this.  That is the "secret" behind "Better for Bread" flour that you can buy at the grocery store. I made another blackberry cobbler yesterday and added two scoops of this product to stiffen the batter.  I like more of a "cakey" texture with my cobbler and I have to say that this cobbler turned out much better than the first and now has some nutritional value beyond the value of eating the blackberries.

The typical or stereotypical American breakfast is one of the cheapest meals of the day but it also is typically one of the unhealthiest or maybe I should just say "emptiest".  A simple inclusion of a high quality protein powder can change that and your kids will never know the difference.  In fact, the slight vanilla flavor apparently makes the pancakes and waffles taste even better (again, I don't eat them so I don't really know).

Do a Google or Yahoo search using the following search string, "how to add protein powder to recipes" and try some of the resulting recipes.

There are a lot of different protein powder companies out there but I have found the one I posted here to be the cheapest and best nutritional value for the cost.  It has a very good Amino Acid profile and significant amounts of Branched Chain Amino Acids (BCAAs), which are more and more important as you grow older.  I am not crazy about the weak flavor of the Vanilla but the chocolate is very good.  One good thing about the vanilla is no one will taste it if you mix it into sauces, flour-based recipes, or drinks.  Another thing I don't like is that this particular protein powder creates a lot of foam when you mix it in milk.  That is great if you are making a smoothie but not so great if you are just mixing it with milk in a shaker.

At only 100 calories a serving it could be a great part of a weight loss or weight maintenance program.

Extra Eggs

Eggs and egg substitute products like Egg Beaters (c) or Kirkland Real Egg (Egg Product) are excellent protein sources and they all store really well.  Real eggs can be scrambled and frozen in ice cube trays for instance and then stored in plastic containers in the freezer for months. For my diet I stick to Egg Beaters, which I also freeze and thaw as I need them.

Right before I went on leave in June I saw Egg Beaters in the marked down shelf at my store; they were approaching the Sell-by Date.  So I bought two packages for less than half price.  Each package has three containers and each container is the equivalent of two eggs.  You've seen the egg, ham, and cheese on whole wheat bagel breakfast sandwiches I like in an earlier post. (Egg Bagel)  So I was thinking, how can I make it even easier to prepare my breakfast in the morning?  This is what I came up with:

I cut a canned fruit can in half to make a form.  I sprayed a non-stick frying pan and the inside of the form with cooking spray and set the form in the pan to heat up.  Once everything was up to cooking temp I poured about a 1/4 inch of Egg Beater into the form. Since it was already hot the eggs immediately thickened and sealed the bottom of the form.  I can't stand an over-cooked egg (there can be no browning) so I moved the pan on and off the heat until the egg in the form was pretty solid.  Then I lifted the form off the eggs and flipped the egg patty to cook the other side.  In 2-3 minutes I had a fully cooked egg patty that is just the right size and shape to go on my bagel breakfast sandwich. I let them cool down and then stacked them with wax paper between each one in a plastic storage container, which then went in the freezer.  When I want a quick breakfast I just take one egg patty out of the freezer and warm it up in the microwave while I toast the bagel.  Plop on a slice of cheese and some ham and in five minutes I have a great breakfast.  It can't get much easier than that.

This is a good way to take advantage of sales or to use up eggs or egg substitute product that is getting near its best used by date.  Either way you save money and time.

15 Jul - Successful Forage

Last evening I went for what I expected would be a one hour walk after supper.  I wanted to go check out some cherry trees I know about and also some nut trees to see if they were going to produce this year.  Well, the cherry trees had all their lower branches trimmed and there was no way to reach the cherries this year.  Too bad for me.  But all was not lost.  Along this lane were plenty of Blackberries; some with ripe fruit and some still just flowering.

Blackberries most often grow along borders or edges; edges of fields, vacant lots, and roads. I had brought along two Tupperware(C) type containers in case I found anything to forage.  I couldn't get at the cherries so I picked blackberries.  I worked my way down this lane and in about 30 minutes I had five cups of berries to take home.  I could have picked more, many more, except for a couple things.  First, both my containers were full.  Second, I never pick all the berries from one spot or even from one plant.  Other people and of course the wildlife have a right to some berries too.  Third, and maybe most important, I was wearing shorts and a sleeveless shirt and the area was completely covered with a plant we call "Stingweed"

Stingweed, more properly called, "Stinging Nettle", is covered with millions of tiny nettles or spines that are as fragile as glass and are coated with some sort of extreme irritant. If you brush up against the plant it feels like thousands of splinters are in your skin and everyone of them burns like it had acid on it. I have walked into stingweed plenty of times while hiking and I'll take the pain as well as anyone. BUT, I will not intentionally subject myself to it for anything less than saving someone's life.  As careful as I was I still got burned a couple times and still had welts and redness on my arms and legs this morning when I woke up.  So I passed on a lot of berries.  Even so I came home with five cups.  

What to do, what to do? My first plan was just to eat them with some cereal but as I quickly filled my first container I decided to attempt baking something.  I am a fair cook but I have no claims as a baker; my wife on the other hand loves to bake but hates to cook so we are a complementary pair in that respect.  When I got home I looked up some recipes online looking for the simplest one with the fewest ingredients.  Blackberry cobbler was the winner.  Anyone that has been camping as a Boy Scout (and maybe as a Girl Scout?) has probably made peach cobbler in a Dutch Oven. It is pretty dang simple.  So today I gave it a shot in my temperamental, Dutch, gas oven.

My first cobbler

 Betty Crocker Award Winning Blackberry Cobbler

1. Mix two and a half cups blackberries and one cup of sugar and let sit for 20 plus minutes.

2. Mix 1 cup flour, 2 teaspoons baking powder, 1/2 teaspoon salt, 1 cup milk, and 1/2 cup melted butter in mixing bowl.

3. Preheat oven to 350 degrees f

4. Pour mixture #2 into an 8x8 inch, un-greased square pan

5. Spoon mixture #1 on top of this

6. Bake for 45-55 minutes

Most people eat their cobbler warm with ice cream or whipped cream but I hate warm desserts.  I let my cobbler cool then put it in the fridge to cool some more.  I had a 1/6th portion for dessert tonight and it was awesome.  This cobbler will last me six days so I'll have to freeze the other berries I have for later.  Since it was so easy and so good, I will go to some other areas I have scouted out in the past and pick and freeze a couple more quarts of berries.

There are two and a half cups of blackberries in my recipe so for a total nutrition count double and a half what this nutrition label shows (144g is one cup). Blackberries have a significant amount of Vitamins C & K as well as Copper and Manganese. One cup of Blackberries will also provide 31% of your dietary fiber for the day.  Blackberries are also a good source of antioxidants, pectin (which lowers cholesterol), and omega-3s.  It's not a miracle berry but it certainly is highly nutritious.

I enjoy picking raspberries but for me, picking blackberries is something of a chore.  The reason is how they are attached to the cane.  Raspberries sort of peel off of the stem and you just have the fruit in your hand.  Blackberries don't peel off the stem, the stem has to break at the fruit.  This makes it a harder, slower, and far messier process.  You cannot pick blackberries without getting purple, sticky fingers.  It does wash off easy enough though.

A nice evening walk and free food; gotta love it.


Everyone should have a Dutch Oven.  Whether camping or to have when the power goes out it is a good thing to have around. Get one with the flat lid if you expect to bake in it; you have to be able to put coals on top. You can cook with wood coals from a fire, even in your fireplace, or with charcoal on the ground or in a charcoal grill.

Saved some Money

Today I stopped in at the commissary not really needing anything but I was at the gym and had just checked my mail so since I was there I walked through.  I bought a large bottle of Limeade for less than half price and a package of ham chunks for half price.  Their "Sell By Dates" are tomorrow and the store wanted to move them.  Good deal for me.  The Limeade is too strong so I can cut it 2:1 and get 33% more product.

I always check the discount self first and then look for red stickers on products I routinely use.  This has saved me lots of money over the years.

I have been conducting a human experiment of sorts these past four days.  Before I went on leave I had six yogurts in my fridge.  I asked my cat sitter to take them but she declined.  The Sell By date of the oldest was 8 June and the newest was 18 June.  Being the cheap ba$tard that I am I decided to try them out.  I have eaten five of them with no ill effects and they tasted just fine. Now, to be fair, I have to tell you that I grew up in a house that threw nothing away.  Green fuzz was scraped or cut off food and you ate it.  Along with that I have been eating native food in countries with less than our high food quality standards for the past 29 years.  I have a pretty robust immune system and a healthy colony of diverse bacteria in my digestive tract.  In fact, and my wife and kids will confirm this, I often and routinely eat slightly tainted food just to keep my system strong.  As a Soldier I never know where I will be sent or what the conditions will be.  I witnessed Soldiers puking their guts up after drinking local water and eating local food enough times to know how important this can be.

I am not recommending you do what I do, it could make you very, very sick.  But there are things you can do to obtain similar resistance (in no particular order):

1. Eat as diverse a diet as you can manage.  Depending on what your racial background is, your ancesters ate from a menu of hundreds of items.  The Hunter-Gatherer ate what was available in the location and season they found themselves. This will expose you to more substances.

2. Eat mainly unprocessed foods.  Fresh or frozen is fine but the ingredient list should be very, very short. You don't want the food to be highly processed and sterile.

3. Buy fruit and vegetables from farmers markets, organic if possible.  Naturally grown fruits and vegetables contain disease fighting substances.  They also are innoculated with the local bacteria strains from the soil and natural fertilizers such as animal manures and compost. Buy from various venders to increase the variety of bacteria you are exposed to.

4. Drink a variety of real tea that you brew yourself.  Teas and herbal drinks add a host of good things to your diet.

5. Eat real yogurt with active bacteria.  Your body needs to have a healthy amount of ''good'' bacteria in the digestive tract, and many yogurts are made using active (live) bacteria. One of the words you’ll see used is ''probiotics.'' Probiotic refers to living organisms that can result in a health benefit when eaten in adequate amounts. Miguel Freitas, PhD, medical marketing manager for Dannon Co., says that the benefits associated with probiotics are specific to certain strains of these "good" bacteria. Many provide their benefits by adjusting the microflora in the intestines, or by acting directly on body functions, such as digestion or immune function. Keep in mind that the only yogurts that contain probiotics are those that say "live and active cultures" on the label. Try to eat yogurts from several different companies because they all (I presume) have their own strains of bacteria that they have developed.  The more variety of bacteria the better. Natural sauerkraut and unpasturized apple cider will also add to your body's bacteria diversity.

How will all this bacteria cultivation save you money?  First, you'll rarely get sick; your immune system will be much stronger than the average person.  When you do get sick, you will recover quicker.  Secondly, you will be able to eat a wider variety of foods and eat foods that you were able to buy in bulk, cheaply, but are past their prime.  It is nothing for me to wipe a little bit of mold off of food and safely eat it.