Growing our own food

Over the last few years we have been learning to grow our own food. Patch and Carlie do the heavy lifting, and in the past we sort of let Patch try her hand at farming, but this year I have gotten more involved. I am dedicated to growing more produce to make it less expensive to eat healthy foods, and also because then we know exactly what goes into our food rather than wondering when it's from a store.

On top of that, it's really satisfying to eat something which you have nurtured and worked hard to grow in the desert environment of Phoenix, AZ. So this year we are having some good success with an Artichoke (above left) a tree which is 1/2 peach and 1/2 plum and will soon have some great peaches for us.  Beneath the shade of the peach and plum tree are 4 pots of berries which we thought we had lost due to too much sun, but after moving it under the tree and watering it by hand they have begun to revitalize!

This year we planted cherry tomatoes, onions, garlic and jalapenos in pots for the first time, and grapes are growing up a trellace outside my bedroom window which will be delicious AND help provide much needed shade and protection from the heat in a room which gets more than it's fair share of both.  Not far from the grapes grows a nectarine tree which was just planted this year. We should be able to pick it's yummy fruits in about 3 years.

We would like to also harvest our own eggs (like they are talking about tomorrow here: http://www.phoenixpermaculture.org/events/raising-chickens-in-your-backyard-6) but suspect our HOA is against it. We will see. But because we are trying to live as sustainably as possible, we are investigating methods which use less water, provide more protein, etc. Currently we are doing a lot of container gardening as shown above, and there are 2 raised beds which are not yet in use this year, but which will be planted soon with whichever seedlings make it. We have been making our own compost and striving to grow organically, but I would like to improve this and make it a  more sustainable circle of life through a process called Aquaponics. I've joined a few aquaponics groups such as this one: http://www.phoenixpermaculture.org/group/aquaponics and have been investigating. I even wrote to gardenpool.org to see if we can get a tour and learn about their successful aquaponic efforts in Mesa, AZ. We hope to use the back yard farm skills we are learning along with green building practices to create a more sustainable food source for our house, and probably enough to share with others.   I will post here as we continue learning as we grow.

Market on the Move - Rescuing food that would be lost

Today I am roasting and preserving peppers that I got from Market on the Move (also called MoM) check out their link for one near you: https://www.the3000club.org/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=57&Itemid=59

MoM rescues food that is left at the border and not allowed to cross. For 10 dollars they'll give you a box of up to 60 pounds of food. Basically they give you one large or 2 small boxes to fill up, and then you can eat it, preserve it, or share it with friends and neighbors. I'm thinking about hosting one in our neighborhood cuz they're usually not around here. In a way it's Freeganism. It's food that is not going bad but which for some strange political reason is being abandoned, and the great part is that anyone who wants to pitch in a few bucks can get some. Sometimes friends partner up so it's only 5 bucks each for 30 pounds of produce each. Or you can join their club for 100 dollars which puts you on an email list to tell you when and where to meet up, and you get a box every time they come around instead of pitching in 10 bucks every time which actually adds up to more. Either way, it seems like there is a way almost anyone could benefit from this.

I partnered up with zenjen and Ineda from This is HOW, and together we bought about 120 pounds to divvy up. I gave some of mine to some neighbors of theirs down the street to build comradery and had a great talk with them. The rest I took home. Some of it I didn't preserve soon enough so ended up in our compost but most of it we ate in salads and various healthy and delicious meals like eggplant and zucchini lasanga. I used the roasted peppers in a salad dressing of roasted peppers in olive oil mixed with a pear balsamic. Smokey and DELICIOUS!

Patch hates eggplants and zucchini, so some of the eggplant did go bad. I wasn't sure how to preserve it and didn't look up how in time. But next time I get my hands on eggplant I'll know what to do and handle it better. Still, what we did eat was delicious. The last of the zucchini I have plans for. I'm going to ask Carlie to make some of this delicious looking zucchini risotto I found on All Recipes http://allrecipes.com/recipe/zucchini-risotto/ and the rest of it will be made into little zucchini bread muffins which will be given to neighbors, frozen for later, or gobbled up by Carlie and I pretty quickly I'm guessing!

We didn't go to MoM yesterday to resupply, so I'm going to have to be creative to afford the fruits and veggies we eat this week. We've been trying to eat more produce in general, and organic whenever possible. But there are some farmers markets open around here today I believe, so we may make a trip over there for some fun fresh ingredients. Farmers markets and growing our own vegetables are the way to get the best fresh, flavorful, organic produce, but Market on the Move is best for the budget. Between the 3 methods, we've been getting along well.

Right now the peppers are done roasting and they smell delicious. I'm waiting for them to cool off and then I'll put on some gloves and slice them open (not sure how hot they are, but my hands were burning a little just from rubbing oil on them so I am guessing they're pretty high up on the scoefield scale. If you haven't roasted peppers before, it's really easy!

Preheat your oven to 500F, Wash the peppers off to get any pesticides off or if you grew them organically just a good rinsing to make sure the dirt is all off, rub 2 teaspoons of oil on them, Lay them out on a baking tray, place the baking tray in the oven and keep and eye on them. I found it took about 5 minutes each side. They puffed up really nice in the oven, and they smell so good our mouths are watering! Maybe we'll put some in the salad dressing for tonight

Do not use olive oil it has too low of a burn point and will get really smokey. I forgot that info this time and phew! I'm glad the smoke alarm didn't go off when I opened the oven. It does smell delicious tho, and they still roasted so if you don't have another oil handy I guess it works in a pinch. Next time I'm going to try peanut or walnut oil cuz we have those and I bet it would be delicious. Only down side to peanut oil is you can't give them away to people with allergies, but no one in our house has such allergies so we'd be OK.

I think we'll use market on the move again even tho it's a good bet none of the produce is organic. It just helps spread the money further and I guess it's better to eat non organic produce than none at all! If you have any tips or tricks for rescuing food that would otherwise be lost, please comment below!

Accidentally Veggie - Fried Zuchinni

I have been slacking on my job of planning meals this week. In part, from a lack of energy which I had been thinking was weird, but since rereading my blog, I realize is pretty normal considering my week so far. Day after a migraine usually is a fatigue filled day, and although I didn't have bad migraines yesterday and managed to be productive and rode my trike, I also ended the day with a migraine which was probably due to packaged food I ate. When will I learn and stop eating packaged foods you ask? I don't know. Sometimes ease outweighs caution. I was quite active yesterday so between that and the headaches last night, I think it makes perfect sense that I was sluggish today. HOWEVER ...

We had delicious fried zucchini with mixed grain rice and quinoa for dinner. DELICIOUS!  So much so that we ate it before we thought to take pictures. SORRY! The mixed grain rice and quinoa was prepackaged, but has nothing I'm allergic to. The fried zucchini was made from scratch by Carlie.

The zucchini was from the Market on the Move, so was plentiful and low cost, but we are having a hard time eating all we got there. Market on the move is great because it's $10 for 60 pounds or so of produce, I didn't get to attend the class on how to properly preserve produce bought in large quantities, so I will have to explore that at a future date instead. I was thinking of perhaps asking Zenjen if she will come teach the class in my kitchen, and I can invite neighbors over to join in the fun and learning.

So our dinner was accidentally vegetarian, but it was delicious, nutritious, and I felt energized afterwards. I think perhaps tomorrow I'll try to stop by a store which sells local foods and pick some things up to go with the zucchini. Maybe I'll try my hand at some zucchini parmesan or something. And eventually I'll get around to making zucchini bread, which I loved as a child, but tweak the recipe so it's eggless.

Food Triggered Migraines

This morning I was reminded of why it's so important to read labels. There was a box of cereal taunting me from the pantry for the last couple of weeks which Patch bought for herself. Apparently she wasn't sure if I'd be able to eat it or not. She never spoke to me about the cereal, so I had no idea what was going on in her mind, but as usual I read the label before eating something I'd never seen before. Unfortunately I tried reading the label through blurry, just woke up eyes. It tasted funny to me, and I started getting an upset stomach so I stopped eating it. I started getting flashing lights and other "aura" symptoms so I thought a migraine might be coming on, but I could of sworn there was nothing in it that was on the "No no" list.

When I started getting light sensitive and headachey I got up to look at the label since it was the only possible migraine trigger I'd eaten. Really should have gone to check as soon as I suspected a migraine was coming on, because the meds work best if taken BEFORE it hits. Turns out, it had barley syrup as the last ingredient. I don't know how I missed it. Barley is definitely a trigger for me. I don't know how that didn't pop out at me the first time. I thought I'd read every ingredient, but apparently not. At that point I was worried the meds wouldn't work but took one anyway. A zoloft under the tongue. DISGUSTING and didn't help the nausea at all, if anything made that symptom worse, but it did make me want to lay down in a dark place and knocked me out for most of the day. BUMMER, but at least I woke up without a migraine. Still felt fuzzy headed and only 1/2 here, but at least I was able to get up, feed the kittens, listen to some soft music. I chose to listen to Coyote Grace on low.

It was such a bummer to miss out on my day. I had plans, but it was a good reminder of why I tend to make tentative plans for everything, and an even bigger reminder NOT TO EAT things I'm unsure of. Apparently reading labels first thing in the morning is not a good idea. Because migraines are only unpredictable if I'm not paying attention. For me, they are triggered by a combination of things. I do best when I am eating right, working out, avoiding things I'm chemically sensitive to, and not around flashing lights.

Today was a stay at home in dim light day. It's a reminder to be mindful of what's going on around me, and what I put in my mouth.

What to do with eggplant but no eggplant lovers?

Today I did a search on the internet for recipes which will win over non eggplant lovers since no one in my household is particularly fond of them. They are usually expensive, so we don't bother buying them and forcing ourselves to try them. But this week we got 60 pounds of produce from Market on the Move for 10 dollars. Included were 4 or 5 large eggplants. So now we're trying out eggplant recipes for all sorts of stuff.

In my search I happened across this great food blog on which the author posts an eggplant recipe a week: http://blog.fatfreevegan.com, this article about eggplant recipes from cookinglight.com,: http://www.cookinglight.com/cooking-101/essential-ingredients/choice-ingredient-eggplant-00400000047702/, and later this week we'll try the Eggplant Papriksash from the Fat Free Vegan: http://blog.fatfreevegan.com/2006/08/eggplant-paprikash.html. I'll take pictures and be sure to let you know if it wins over my household, a group of non eggplant lovers, but who love eggplant. I think I'll also try her Eggplant Pesto and Rigatoni with Zucchini and Eggplants since the box also had plenty of zucchini, and I love Pesto but rarely eat it because it has so much oil.

In particular Carlie and I found this one interesting. Since we're the ones home right now, we thought we'd be trying it tonight with some slight alterations based on what we happened to have in the pantry. But it turned out to take an hour and we weren't willing to wait. Quick and easy eggplant parm it is: http://allrecipes.com/Recipe-Tools/Print/Recipe.aspx?RecipeID=13943&origin=detail&Servings=2&metric= We used milk instead of egg because of my egg allergy, and sliced them slightly thinner which made them a bit crispier which I particularly liked. It's the texture of eggplant that I usually have a hard time with. I'll take pictures and post how we like it, but in the mean time check out this awesome blog entry: http://blog.fatfreevegan.com/2011/01/eggplant-and-chickpea-curry.html

Pork Ribs and Mash with Salad

Tonight we are having guests over for dinner. We don't do that very often, but we wanted to spend some time with our friends, and they happen to be free on a day Patch has off. We ran to the store to make sure we had everything we needed, picked up a couple extra items, and it's going to be delicious. I'm preparing a slightly altered version of a recipe I got from a food magazine for the mashed potatoes and making a salad. Patch is cooking ribs, which were on sale, just in case there's not quite enough food to go around. Leftovers will be eaten I'm sure, so that's not a problem. We got some delicious organic sweet peppers and oranges which I plan to have in the salad along with some smoked gouda, so it should be delicious!  I'll upload pics as soon as I have them. Our friends brought strawberries and we had them over angel food cake for dessert since Patch didn't get a birthday cake. (well she had cupcakes, but apparently she wanted this instead)

Food, a Mindful Meditation

Some of you who read my blog may realize that I am a person who does not consider myself religious, but does consider myself spiritual. I have a very eclectic spiritual practice, from many different methods. One of my favorite methods is Dharma Punk meditations. You can learn some great ones here: http://www.dharmapunx.com/htm/mp3.htm

The Buddha said "I was hesitant to teach because this spiritual awakening that I've had is so against the stream of ordinary untrained human consciousness that I doubt the many will be able to comprehend the subtle and profound path." Meaning it's not as obvious as it might seem. I like to remind myself of this, and to find new and interesting ways to meditate and to be mindful in my practice whatever that may look like. I am not at this time in my life meditating daily, but I am starting to become more aware of and make more conscious decisions around that.

One thing I have really found a beautiful practice in being mindful is a mindful meditation around food. It is really simple to do, and is to a large extent about gratitude. I don't do this every time I eat, but every time that I do it, I find myself enjoying my meals even more than when I do not. Feel free to try this yourself, I didn't make it up, but I don't know where  I got the idea. Probably one of my friends who practices daily gratitude.

I make my food mindful of what I am trying to accomplish. I choose ingredients that lead to health and well-being in my body, and if I focus on it, in my spirit. Each meal I have the opportunity to think through what I am preparing and how will it benefit myself and the others eating it, and the world around me. You may not think the food you eat can impact the world around you. I used to think this. The closest to understanding this as a child, was when my mother would say "finish that food there are starving children in china." Which never made much sense to me. But what this mindful meditation on my food teaches me, is to think of where the food came from and what kind of impact that has on the world we live in. Rather than talking about it any more, let me describe the actual act of mindfulness. Let's say I chose to eat hummus with pita and bell peppers that I did not grow the ingredients for or make myself. It can make a simple meal last longer, but it is so worth it.

I look at the pita bread and think or say out loud, "I am grateful for this pita bread." I pause and think about what it takes to make the pita bread and get it to me. I take a bite and then I continue to think, "I am grateful for Patch preparing this meal for me... I am grateful for Carlie buying this food" I pause and experience the bread I am eating fully feeling it's texture in my mouth, it's flavor on my tongue, it's nourishment as I eat. "I am grateful for the bakers who  made it" I pause and visualize the act of baking bread.  "I am grateful for the farmers who raised the ingredients ... I am grateful for the earth from which the ingredients came and the workers who built the equipment it was farmed with... I am grateful for water, without which we would not have the wheat which feeds us." I dip the pita into the hummus and think about the ingredients with which it was made and I think, "I am grateful for the workers in the store we bought this hummus from... I am grateful for the farmers who grew the sesame and garbanso beans... I am grateful for the person who prepared the hummus."

It is important to pause between bites as you think about what went into creating that bite. And before combining parts of the meal, I taste each part of the meal. Each ingredient may have come from a different place. One thing this has made me mindful of as well, is that some food travels great distances to get to us. If I shop without being mindful of where the food is coming from, it might take a large amount of fuel and time to get that food to the store's warehouse, and then to the store. The act of bringing food long distances can add polution to the world we live in. I think about that, and if I feel guilty, I let my guilt go and focus instead on how I might do things differently so that less stress and trauma go into the preparation of my food.

Doing this has helped me to become more aware of things. Where does my food come from. How is it grown? If it is grown with non GMO seeds in healthy soil with healthy water but travels around the world to get to me, is it worth it? Making healthy decisions for me, my family, and the world we live in is all about being mindful. I may not meditate on each piece of food I eat, but doing so on occasion has really helped me to become more aware. It has inspired us to grow more of our own food and be conscious of what we are putting in the earth we grow it in. Recently we have resumed planting and composting and we try to buy locally produced foods if we can. It's a great experience and when it comes time for harvest, it will be some of the best food we've eaten all year.

You may think this post is silly and it may not be up your alley, but I thought I would share for those who this speaks to. I hope it helps.