Building a lasagna garden

 I wanted to talk a little bit about gardening today.  It's the backbone of my world these days, lol, especially this time of year, when it's the backbone, the head and the heart! lol   One of those landmark moments in my life was the day that I stumbled across an old book by a woman named Ruth Stout.  She wrote about mulching and composting and a no-till garden. She was a feisty old woman that I could really relate to. I had already read books by Helen and Scott Nearing called Living the Good Life, where they waxed eloquent about the practical realities of living off the land.  This was back in the early 70's.  The Mother Earth News  magazine had begun publishing filled with information for people who wanted to "get back to natural living" and "live off the land".  I was young and energetic and had become a bit of an idealist.  I had a young baby and was determined that he have a better beginning than I had had myself, so I breastfed him until he was almost 6 months old, when he started walking. I made my own baby food fresh every day. I grew my own organic (I say organic--we didn't put any chemicals on our food, but our place was surrounded on 4 sides by farm fields that were sprayed to death for generations and probably the water table was full of it too, so...lol). But by golly, I had a DREAM!  I became an eco-warrior before it was chic. lol

  Fast forward through my life, and I have lived in several places, tried to garden in most of those and wasn't always successful. I grew pots of veggies if I couldn't garden in the dirt. I always at least had window herb gardens, and as much as I did not want to move back to Illinois, I always yearned for that kind of gardening and that kind of country life. In 1995, I moved near Asheville, North Carolina. After the first year of living in a log cabin on a lake where the lots were small and too densely wooded to get enough sun to grow anything, we bought a little 1/3 acre lot with a tiny blue house on it. It even had a white picket fence all around the front yard.  The back yard was long and deep and narrow, and perfect for a garden.  All the way at the back was a tiny stream that ran through it, and right in there, we set up 3 beehives.  About this same time, I came across a book by a woman named Patricia Lanza called  Lasagna Gardening.  I read it in one night and was so excited I could barely wait to get started.

  The basic premise of Ms. Lanza's book was a no-till garden with long rows no more that 4-5 feet across (depending on how tall you are).  She said you didn't have top dig or till the ground at all. Just lay out your beds with newspaper or other paper layers and wet it down good as you put the papers down. Thick layers if you have a lot of grass.  We looked at our lawn, looked at each other and got to work. Instead of newspaper, we used heavy brown paper that came from where we worked. It was untreated paper that lay between layers of other fragile paper used in making plastic in the plant we worked in. The beauty of this stuff was that it came in 5x10 foot sheets. We brought some home and got to work. Put down the paper and water the heck out of it. We laid out 4 beds that first year. about 20x5 foot long.  From a local nursery, I ordered several truckloads of finely mulched material as well as compost. ( For the record: we spent quite a bit that first year buying mulch and compost, because we didn't know things that we know now. That hasn't happened since.)  Asheville has a leaf composting facility where the city picks up residential area leaves and dumps them and then continually maintains the place by scooping and turning and it makes the most beautiful compost I have ever seen. You can go there and they will load you up with as much as you can use. For free. 

 Ms. Lanza has a formula for the beds, which consist of layering (like a lasagna) organic materials. We had a friend with horses and got a whole load of spoiled hay for free. We also were given free access to all the pony poop we could use. YIPPEE!  So that first year we started the beds with paper, hay, mulch, compost, leaf compost, manure, and some grass clippings thrown in.  You layer and layer until you're out of materials...at least, that's what we did. The final layer on top was a couple of inches of the finely ground mulch. Now...she said you could plant right into this top layer the first year, even though it wasn't dirt, and you could grow vegetables. I was skeptical, naturally, being from the farming center of the country. I thought it couldn't possibly work WELL, tho it might work some. But I wanted a garden so bad I was willing to give it a try. So I bought some seeds and some plants and started making holes.

  Even that very first year, my garden was magnificent.  Our house was on a corner lot, and people were always stopping traffic to gawk at our gardens and to talk. I had 12 ft tall sunflowers bordering one of the beds. All the vegetable beds were interplanted with zinnias and marigolds and nasturtiums. Everything grew like crazy. And I was hooked on lasagna gardening. I couldn't fathom any other way to garden, it's so easy. Weeds are at a minimum, the raised beds hold water better than flat ground. There's no need for any extra fertilizing because it's really one big bed of compost. At the end of each garden year, we lay the dead vines and stalks down on the bed and cover them with more straw and whatever chicken house material we've gathered over the summer and lay it to rest. And in the spring, we add more and more and beds get a little higher and the soil more beautiful and it is a sight to behold.

Here's one of the beds in June of last year. This is the 3rd year of gardening here since we moved to IL and had to start all new beds.  I was heartbroken to have to leave my garden beds in NC..they were so beautiful. 

(Here's one pic I could find from NC) This was probably the second year gardens.

    I cannot imagine my life without being able to grow my own food. As things change in this world we live in, it's a skill we had all better cultivate if we want to know how to keep ourselves alive and healthy.  My food keeps me nourished physically and spiritually and emotionally. It does not make me sick. It gives me a financial freedom.  It connects me to Creation. It fills my pantries.  And I am blessed to be able to do this...to share with others. Every year I donate fresh vegetables to local food pantries. And the more I give, it seems the more I get.  And that, my friends, is a Universal Law.

   So---I hope that you got some information you can use from this. I hear people all the time say they would like to garden but can't, because they can't and have no one to till the ground for them. This is your  lucky day!  NO more tilling or digging or any of that hard work.  We have chickens and we also have a 3 compartment compost system in our backyard. We compost everything that comes out of our kitchen and flower beds. When we clean the chicken coops, all that manure and straw goes into the compost. After the first bin gets full and composted a bit, it gets moved and eventually finds its way to the third bin which is ready-to-use compost.  We have a neighbor out here with horses who is more than happy to supply us with all the manure we can use free for the hauling out of his stable cleaning piles.  One year we met a woman with goats and got loads of goat poop.  All in all, it's a great FREE system for building heavenly garden beds.

"A garden is a work of ART..using materials of Nature..."~~Anonymous

  

Today we're making healthy happy granola!

 We eat a fair amount of granola. I have been making granola since the 70's (do tell!) lol, and have as many recipes as I do chickens. lol  If your family is a cereal eating bunch, making the transition from commercial boxes to home made can be a satisfying, healthy and economical move for you. Not to mention the fact (and this is big for me) you know exactly what's in it. NO fillers (sawdust?--seriously). NO high fructose corn syrup. No chemical additives. No empty calories at all.

  This is the list of ingredients to make a basic granola:

      8 cups rolled oats. (not quick-old fashioned)

      1/2 cup dark brown sugar

      1/4 cup barley malt syrup (optional--I have it, so I use it)

      3/4 cup honey

      1 cup oil (I use coconut, but any vegetable oil will do)

      1 Tbsp. cinnamon

      1 Tbsp. vanilla

    [ Dried fruits and nuts, coconut, sesame seeds, flax seeds, sunflower seeds (preferably raw), raisins...whatever your family likes best.  I dry a lot of my own fruits and use those in my granola and makes it even less expensive to make.  As you can see by the ingredients, it isn't costly. This recipe make a big gallon jar of granola.]

    

   You want to get out a medium sized saucepan and mix together the next 6 ingredients on the list.  (Hint--if you put the oil into your measuring cup before the honey or BMS,  the sticky stuff will come out effortlessly!)  Cook over a low flame, stirring to dissolve all the ingredients.  While this is cooking, assemble your dried fruits and nuts...I often use a combination of nuts, like walnuts, peanuts and almonds.  Depends on what I have on hand.  You can put in coconut if you like that. Put in whatever seeds you like into the oats mixture.  DO NOT PUT THE DRIED FRUITS INTO THE MIX YET.  

   When your pan of goo is completely dissolved and mixed, pour it over the oats mixture and using a large wooden spoon or spatula, mix thoroughly. You want to coat all the oats completely with the hot mixture.  Next, we're going to put this into a 250 degree oven to toast and dry out the mix. This part of the process will take about an hour or so.  You want to get in there and mix and stir it about every 15 minutes, so that it doesn't burn.

  Now, after it's all golden and yummy looking, add the dried fruits you chose and mix it up again.  Let it cool before putting it into a one gallon container. And there you have it.  A healthy nutritious breakfast that's quick to fix on busy mornings, and makes a great snack too.  We eat it with milk or mixed with yogurt--both equally good. The Irishman and I both are a little lactose intolerant, so we don't use much dairy in this house. I have found a really good organic soy yogurt and we have Rice Dream rice milk.  If you want a hot breakfast, all you have to do is pour your milk over it and stick it in the microwave for a minute or so. 

  One thing about this hearty treat--It doesn't take much of it to fill you up, A cup of granola is about all my hardworking Irishman can eat and I eat a little less than that usually. Satisfying, filling, good for you..

  It doesn't get any better than that!

Bon Apetit!

Monday mornings at Honeysuckle Hill

  Last night, at the very last minute...I decided to make some healthy crackers to go with our Sunday night supper salads. I've been perusing recipes on the web, found a lovely site called Maria's Country Kitchen,. written by one of the famous Rodale family women. I found a lot of recipes for homemade crackers and decided that I wanted the easiest one I saw, lol.  There are whole grain crackers, no grain crackers, cooked cracker, raw crackers...vegan crackers...you name it, someone has tried to make it. It's a lot of time consuming fun looking at new recipes. lol


  This picture is the mixed up cracker dough all patted out in the pan.   The basic ingredients are simple enough :


2 cups whole wheat pastry flour (I use Bob's Red Mill)
1 tsp. salt
2/3 cup warm water
1/3 cup olive oil




  Then I got a little wild, and added a few raw sunflower seeds, some flax seed and some black sesame seeds. Then I thought--rosemary would be good!  And garlic granules. 


   Just in case I was getting a little over the top, I thought I'd better stop.


   You mix it up with a fork or spoon and mix it just until the ingredients are combined.  I put a sheet of parchment paper on the baking sheet, but you can just oil up your pan, then oil up your hands, and put the dough onto your sheet and start patting it out to the edges of the baking sheet.  I have a really large sheet from my restaurant days that I use--if you use smaller ones you'll probably need 2.  Try to pat it out as uniformly as possible, but don't make yourself too crazy with it.  It's not rocket science folks--just munchies! lol  I ground cracked black pepper onto the tops and ground some sea salt too, just because I could.


  Then I baked it at 375 degrees.  Now--her original recipe said to bake them for 15 minutes. Mine took longer than that. Ovens vary, sloppy cooks like me mess up baking times because I put in a little too much water or oil...you know--usual stuff.  I think next time I'm going to try baking it at 400 degrees and see what happens.


  Here's what was left halfway through our salads:

 (As one of my friends says: click to biggify)


    Here are the salads:

 Needless to say, the crackers were a big hit with Mr Man and I just had a few more for lunch with my soup.
 I'll definitely be making them from now on. That's the problem with some of this stuff, you start making it from scratch and you can never go back to store bought junk again. I think they could have been a little thinner and crisper if I'd rolled them out with a rolling pin and that would be good too. But these were yum.




  Okay--Monday chores calling my name.  It's been a rainy morning and I slept in...so cozy and calming, falling rain.  The critters are all pretty serene too,lol.




   Bon Apetit!

Inventory findings and other craziness...

LOL...

   Well...the pantry inventory. There were some things that surprised me more than other things...like all the freaking APPLESAUCE I have !!!! And I have less peaches and almost no tomatoes.   Enough green beans left to get through til the summers harvest. More canned chicken breast and turkey and broth than I thought. I found a bit of older jams and jellies that I am contemplating what to do with, but only 2 jars of peach jam left. The old stuff is mostly blackberry jam, which I'm not crazy about and rarely eat (or open, apparently).  The Irishman likes it... And I have blackberries in the freezer too, so depending on what this years crop looks like, I might take the old stuff and make jelly. Because honestly, the only reason I don't like BB jam is all those damn little seeds.  lol  I have 15 pounds of  assorted rices (Brown, Jasmine, Basmati).  13 pounds of dry beans. 22 pounds of various flours. 19 pounds of quinoa. 4 gallon jars of rolled oats. 

  Are you bored stupid yet???    LOL

The point is...that I have enough food in there to feed us for a while. I know that this year I will not be buying any apples. The ones from our tree are probably going to make cider vinegar and eating apples.  I can look at this list and figure out meals.  You get the idea. It's no longer so much of a mystery to me...

  I have a nice variety of food that we love and can eat.  I have pastas and sprouting seed mixes and oils and peanut butter. I have seaweed and I have polenta and I have pickled beets and kraut.  I have tea bags and some coffee and canned pineapple.   I am pretty darn satisfied with my pantry.

  ~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*

  Today the Irishman helped me get the kimchi going. I use a very simple recipe from Sharon Astyk's book Independence Days  and after reading up and around the 'net,  I decided to make it from everything BUT the napa cabbage that most recipes call for. I used regular old everyday green cabbage, I used red cabbage, and I used Savoy cabbage. I sent himself out to bring me in a big yellow bowl full of kale (yup--we're still eating kale out of the garden and it's as sweet as ever!!).  We cut that up and put it in. We chopped and sliced carrots, garlic, ginger and daikon radish.  Then we made a batch of brine, 2 tablespoons of kosher salt (pickling salt) to every gallon of water.  I didn't have one bowl big enough for all the ingredients, so we divided it up into 2--my big old cut glass punch bowl and another medium sized bowl.   Here's what it looks like now:

  It will sit in the brine for 24 hours,  after which I will mix up the chili pepper/paprika mixture and put that and a bit of sugar into each of the jars it will go into.  These jars have to be allowed to sit at room temperature so the fermentation process will start, and then can be moved into the refrigerator.  It takes anywhere from a few days to a few weeks for the kimchi to ferment properly, depending on a few environmental factors. The last time I made it, it took a while, and I never did refrigerate it...just left it all on the counter and ate some almost every day until it was gone.  I really need to buy Sandor Katz' books on fermenting foods...lol

  After it gets jarred tomorrow, I will take some more pics and post them, so you can see how beautiful this stuff is--there are a lot of different ways to make it, and it is said that there are as many recipes for kimchi as there are families in Korea.  The health benefits of fermented foods is well known and I know we feel better eating them...kraut, kefir, kimchi...yum!!

   Alright--that's all for tonight.  I'm heading off to bed so I can get up early and try to work in the garden before it gets too hot.  It was another barn burner today, as they say in the sultry midwest. 

Bon Apetit!

On another subject...

  I have decided to get more disciplined about writing here (my bad)--and I KNOW I have said that before! lol

  I'm also going to expand the subject matter a little, back to how I started with gardening and stuff too. It's that time of year here...

  I have been reading all these wonderful authors and bloggers lately who are teaching me so much, and reaffirming things I already know, but have pushed to the back edges of this cluttered mind of mine. SO--that being said...I want to start today with a serious pantry inventory, and I'm sorry, but to make it more fun for me, I' dragging you along.

 Let me first say that I have repurposed 2 mostly unused closet spaces in my house for pantries. They were both good sized walk-in closets (something I have always coveted, but never had in my entire life).  I bought metal shelving at a hardware store and made more shelves in addition to the ones that were already there. These closets both have big deep pine box-shelves in them, which are a godsend.  I left the clothes hanger rod in one, and use it to hang bags of drying herbs in the fall. I use big brown grocery bags and put the plants, roots up, into the bag and then use wooden clothespins to attach them to clothes hangers and hang them up to dry.

  I have collected glass (my favorite, but harder to find) and plastic gallon jars to store dry goods in, like flour, sugar, oats..that stuff.  I buy in bulk when I can and order online only if I absolutely have to. I grow a lot of vegetables, as most of you know, and I can like crazy.

Jellies and Jams

Salsas

Green beans

...well--you get the picture. So I need storage space, and you can find it, if you really look. However, keeping it organized can be another whole ball of wax. And knowing what's in there at any given time...that's what today is all about.  lol  

Inventory.  Any thing I can not figure out how to use has got to go. I know there  are some bottles of sauces and stuff that I got for a song thinking I could use for something..that are still there a couple of years later.

 They gotta go!

 Also I have not replenished some of my stores of flour and things lately because I started feeling like a hoarder and was afraid one of those tv shows might find me out and descend on me and humiliate me. lol But I've been making a LOT of bread and bagels and stuff lately, so the stores might be winding down. I need to know this stuff.

Though an inventory can be a daunting endeavor, it's absolutely necessary.  So I'm going to get busy with that, and come back later and give you the results of my findings.  I know I can knock my grocery bill back with a little more mindfulness. And be a better steward of my family's assets. And get a handle on things. lol

  Join me in this scavenger hunt through your own pantries and closets and if there's stuff that can be donated to food banks, well and good. If there's stuff we need to eat more of--yippee!!

  Ready--Set--GO !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Creamy Carrot Vegan Soup....

  Today I made this wonderful soup for our lunch. It was delightful, not mention really filling and satisfying.

  Here's the list of ingredients:

  2 medium onions, chopped small.

  3 organic celery stalks, scrubbed and thinly sliced

  Approx. 10-12 organic carrots, scrubbed and sliced into thin rounds.

  2 cloves of garlic, minced.

  Sea salt and pepper to taste.  

   Extra Virgin Olive Oil

***Assemble these items in a soup pot or dutch oven.  Cook over medium low heat until the onions are translucent.*** 

  Next, pour in about 3 cups of water (or enough top almost cover the veggies). Put a lid on and simmer until the carrots are done.

  I almost always have leftover brown rice and/or quinoa in my fridge.  I used quinoa in this recipe (my preference) because it's so packed with protein and has such a delicate taste.  If you aren't aware of the healthiness of quinoa, it is a complete protein, which means it contains all 9 essential amino acids. It is also a good source of manganese,  magnesium, folate and phosphorous. 

  What enables you to make a creamy carrot soup is the addition of the quinoa. It thickens, smooths and enriches the soup.  I used about 2 1/2 cups of quinoa in it today. (and about a quarter of a cup of leftover brown rice that needed to go somewhere.) lol  I put approximately a half teaspoon of nutmeg and cinnamon in it  too.

  I got to use my new immersion blender today for the first time, to blend the soup and make it all creamy. You can use a regular blender if you don't have one...just be careful, because it's hot.

  As you can see from the picture, this soup was as thick as a stew. (Probably that extra rice, lol).  You can easily thin it down with hot water if you choose, but we ate it just like this.

  It was ready in under an hour (I'm a pretty fast chopper) and even if you have to cook the quinoa, it cooks in 15 minutes or so, and can cook while you're simmering the carrots.

  I topped it with a sprinkling of dill and a bit of chopped cilantro (because I had some in the fridge). 

   Bon Apetit !!!!

The High Holy Day of Gluttony is over!!! Now what to do with all those leftovers?

  I didn't actually wake up this morning with any intentions other than maybe a bit of sweeping up and straightening... LOL  Alas, then I turned on my computer and well, here we are!

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

  One thing I love about these big eating holidays is that there are almost always leftovers at our house. This is partially due to my diligent "no plate left unfilled"--ever--strategy.  

  I think that one of the worst nightmares I have is that I throw a party and there isn't enough food.  So, naturally, I cook enough (as my mother used to say) for Cox's Army (whatever that was).  lol In my due diligence, I cook more than I need to almost every time, because obviously, more is better.  And then when the smoke clears and the dust settles and everyone is gone, I have loads of stuff to figure out what to do with. 

 This year, as I carved the turkey--(And when I say carved, I mean ripped that sucker to pieces!!) I had my trusty stockpot sitting there in the sink, so all I had to do with every bone or piece of deliciously roasted skin (and wings) was toss it over into the gaping maw. (sorry, but I don't hardly ever get the chance to say gaping maw, and this was probably it for this year).  When my 2 turkeys (one was 20lbs and the other 10) were stripped and the succulent moist pieces were in my biggest crockpot, I filled that stockpot with water and set it on the back burner on low.  And there it sat, all day long. Both of my sisters-in-law kept wanting to turn it off,  because they obviously don't know the secret of a good stock. lol One of the secondary benefits to cooking all those bones for hours, besides leaching out all the mineral-y goodness, is that it softens them even more than the initial roasting and makes them suitable doggie treats. And before anybody gets excited, I will say here and now that I ALWAYS give my dogs chicken and turkey bones and they have never had a problem. (Well, except the one time that Caylee got a short bone wedged sideways in the back of her mouth and I had to risk life and limb to stick my hand in there and pull it out. I got it and she didn't bite my hand off.  Success!!!! lol

  Anyway, this year I decided to can my turkey broth instead of freezing it, as I'm trying to move away from using the freezer for anything but the essentials.  I lost a freezer this year, and frankly, don't want to replace it if I don't have to. And I probably don't.  lol  I am drying and canning more stuff than ever.  The picture above is the canned turkey broth--7 pints with turkey chunks in them and 4 that are just plain broth. Nothing much goes to waste in this house.  Anything the dogs or chickens can't or won't eat, goes into the compost, which goes into the garden, and so the cycle of life continues.

 I canned this the day after Thanksgiving, and we have a mudroom that is uninsulated and good for storing things in that need to be kept cold. So I had set the stockpot out there overnight.

 The day after Thanksgiving, I made a shepherd's pie out of leftover turkey and gravy. The Irishman had been out cleaning up the garden and brought me in a basket full of tiny odds and ends that got missed, like carrots, beets and turnips. Oh, and a small potato. I chopped them up, added some onion and garlic. Threw in a couple of handfuls of chopped turkey meat and cooked it all together. Added just enough gravy to make it wet.  Took some leftover stuffing and lined a pie plate, poured the mixture in and topped it with crumbled chunks of dressing. Baked it at about 350 for maybe 25 minutes and VOILA!  supper.

  Yesterday we had little turkey sandwiches on leftover rolls. My SIL brought Sister Schubert rolls from Sam's and they really were good...sweet and yeasty. You put them in the oven for 10 minutes and they're done.  I put a little mayonnaise on the bottom of the roll, piled them with turkey and topped them with cranberry sauce. They were awesome. The Irishman ate 3 of them. I had one with some of my kimchi on the side.

   I managed to put 2 pies into the freezer...one was a pumpkin and one was a regular 2 crust peach pie. They weren't touched. We had so much dessert...and everyone was so full...well--you get the picture. lol  The Irishman finished off what was left of the lemon meringue last night.

  We still have cookies and a part of a peaches and cream pie left...my sister baked chocolate chip cookies. and hers might be some of the best I've ever had.  Oh yeah, I think there's still some bread pudding too, that my other SIL baked.  It rocked, with a vanilla butter sauce on top.  I'm thinking I could slice it up and toast gently on the griddle and it would be like french toast for breakfast,  Basically the same ingredients, right??

  I will bake another peaches and cream pie soon and do the recipe on here. I came up with it by the seat of my pants when I was baking the peach pie. I was afraid that I didn't have enough filling for my deep dish pie crust, so I opened a jar of canned peach slices from our trees and threw it in. Of course, then I had too much filling for one pie and not enough for two.  So...I looked in the fridge saw cream cheese and sour cream, and the rest is history. You will be knocked out by this recipe, if you're a cheesecake fan....

  Okay.  I need to go look in the fridge and figure out what we're having for dinner.  :)  Might be a turkey pot pie in our immediate future!

 Bon Apetit!