For Those Who Stayed

 So, I super left Iowa.  A couple of times.

For those who didn't, there is an excellent new song out:

A Month of Scratch Cooking

 July I did an experiment...or as Gramma would have called it...did nothing at all.

Nowadays cooking everything I ate from scratch ingredients myself for an entire month is not the norm.

By "ingredients" I mean no premixes (no "cake mix" "pancake mix" etc)flavored coffee, bag-o-salad,  prepped veggies from the store...whole veg and fruit YES, cut veg and fruit NO.

There were 2 exception meals.  I was invited to join friends in a meal made my a visitor from out of state.  They actually made almost everything from ingredients!  I had a few store bought pickles and some pimento stuffed olives.  The main dishes were bean soup from dry beans and chili with meat.  I had quite a bit of chili.  It was great!  I skipped the crackers and bread.

Fortunately I like making mustard so I had that as a condiment.  Along with all the flavored vinegars I make.  I needed to buy some kombucha from the folks who supply me with kombucha vinegar for free.  SO...I re-brewed the kombucha with berries and mango skins.  It re-fermented and we called it good. 

The other exception meal was a pre-committed meal at a work event my department was hosting.  It would be odd to cater a meal and refuse to eat it!  We catered in bbq pork sliders, raw veggies with dip (they were cut and I ate them but I skipped the "ranch"...I hate "ranch" so that was an easy miss).  We also had some coleslaw and another salad.  No pastries or cookies which was a choice by someone else, though I validate it in general.  The sliders were good! 

I definitely appreciated the meals I didn't cook and clean up from more than usual.

It was easy.  I just needed to think through the next day at some point of an evening.  If I had a field day coming up,  I made sure I had a "grab n go" option ready for the morning.  Mostly this was nuts and whole fruit or clean whole veg.   A few times it was boiled eggs and salad in one of my thrifted tiffins (those metal multi-tiered lunch carriers popular in India).  It gets lots of use and even more this month!  One person traveling with me was so impressed he kept asking about the tiffin.  I had a spare, also thrifted, that I use very little so I gave it to him the next day. 

Salad in a mason jar with nuts and chia seeds for protein is another good option.

I've been doing my own salad dressings for years so that's easy.  Just throw vinegar and oil and whatever herbs/spices are handy, bit of fresh ground pepper.  A dollop of my homemade mustard if I'm feeling fancy.  I'm not much on sweetening them.  All about the savory salads.

Once the serviceberries were coming on, a handful of those went in pretty much everything. 

I am growing greens so actually went the whole month just eating my own greens.  The bugs destroyed all but one kind this week so greens options are getting a bit thin.  

For meat/eggs....lots of my friend's free range eggs that she lets me "u-pick" without washing or refrigerating.  I ran out late last week and got a bit creative over the weekend.  At work we had canned a goat and no one seemed to want it so I've been eating up the goat meat to free up the jars.  We also got free salmon at work and I took one, cleaned it and am keeping it in the work freezer (a tiny one).  I took a piece home now and then to thaw and cook.

I have a fishing license and could have made more use of that or any use, if things got thin.  I also have good sources of frozen, local free range meat at a couple of farmers markets.

On days I was home, or going to be home in the late afternoon rather than not until late evening, I set up my simple solar cooker so lunch or dinner would be ready.  Even used it for late morning coffee sometimes but that's normal.  A new favorite meal is solar cooked quinoa and lentils with dried tomato and some herbs and a handful of service berries.  When it is done cooking, I thrown on vinegar, oil, pepper and a bit of salt.

Normally I don't add salt because any food not prepped at home is incredibly SALTY which bloats me up like a tic,  My sodium intake was consistently low to the point that on hot sweaty days, I actually included some salt to compensate.

Another result: I saved a boatload of money!  Came in at about half my usual food spend, which is groceries and all meals out and coffee out. So that helps.  I've cut back on meals out, coffee out is rare now, but I do buy pre-made bread at farmers markets and etc.

One factor in the low food bill is that my serviceberry bushes were bonkers so I ate a TON and have 7 or 8 quarts in kombucha vinegar to keep for the off season.  Critters were eating the free potatoes I planted so I harvested those and ate them.  Then all the canning at work resulted in quite a bit of free protein.  I have had coffee in stock and got a gift of another pound of coffee so didn't need to even buy coffee beans.

Still...what I did buy is clearly cheaper than prepared food.  For example, today I restocked with some ingredients, keep the habits going, and spent:  20$ for 4doz eggs and 8.50$ for a weeks worth of veggies.  

I expect another 30$ this week to stock up my coffee, grains, and dry beans/lentils because those are all pretty tapped out. 

I learned that having nuts on hand keeps me from running to the store for fieldwork lunches when I have low supplies of grab-n-go food.   Nuts or seeds and an apple or orange can get me through a day.

There is likely more but I'm supposed to be focused on a webinar...

R.I.Pee Wee

 

Paul Reubens, Pee Wee Herman, died today.

He will be missed

https://youtu.be/BodXwAYeTfM

I Grew Free Potatoes!

 And it kind of worked!!  

In April I came across free potatoes and carrots at a thrift store in the region.  Some were pretty edible.  But, I figured if they were at all edible in April, probably store well or overwinter in the ground well so I planted some.

3 Carrots in the wee greenhouse...2 of them are putting out flowers for seed (carrots are bienniels..so the seed saver book tells me)

Maybe 10 potatoes with eyes in the ground on April 8.

The gophers or something have been murdering the potato plants and I'm low on veg at the house yesterday so I dug one or 2 plants (hard to tell when the little b*st*rd gopher things eat the tops off!) and got 2-3 lbs of nice red potatoes.  I left a few tiny ones in the ground.   

I had some for lunch today with the goat meat we canned at work a while back.  This had loco-lime spice mix on it, that was a gift...and DELICIOUS!!

My July experiment is cooking from ingredients everything I eat.  Whole raw fruit or veg is allowed...which will help with an all day meeting I need to go to  (and one person's bday dinner has been booked for this month since December so that would be a meal where I make an exception).
Getting free potatoes and having meat that I prepared in the past really helps.   

I got enough greens out of the garden for salad and topped it with some service berries I picked over the weekend and soaked in vinegar, finished it with a vinaigrette that I made.

Over all, a very "local" lunch and dinner.  Breakfast was eggs from a friend's hens so also very local.  Spices for the most part are from elsewhere.  Herbs mostly out of my garden.

Last time I tried to grow potatoes, I got less out of the ground than I put in...sort of like this years corn "crop" (is it a crop if the harvest weighs less than the seeds you planted?)  (perhaps an "anti-crop")

Giving up on 3 local restaurants

 For real!!!

My builder is at the place (YAY!!!) and the crew likes cinnamon rolls.  OK then.  I brought them cinnamon rolls on their first day back on the job.

So.  They needed 6 rolls.  I had to go to 2 places to get a total of 6.  That is fine.  2 from Restaurant G...um...they are OK.  Dry. Frozen and thawed out.  frosting on the side in a little plastic tub.  Meh.

Restaurant Z.  Those were really good.  Not too sweet. Moist.  1 frosted, others plain (which personally I prefer.  If you are hiding the roll under a giant pile of gunk, there must be a problem).  

Today, I tested Restaurant T as they are closer to my place.  Um.   BARF!!!!!!!   They heated up the roll in a microwave which makes the bottom BLAZING hot.  the rest was still frozen.  And the frosting was off brand shortening and powdered sugar.  PUKE!  I threw it out.  I asked for a non-warmed up roll and they said they couldn't because they were frozen.  They served it in a styrofoam container which I am pretty sure had been in the microwave too.  Double barf.   Nothing like the smell of hot cheap plastic to whet the appetite.  I tried a cookie as well.  You wouldn't think you could mess up a peanut butter cookie but alas...it tasted mostly like baking soda and shortening.  Maybe margarine but I'm pretty sure it was shortening.  Also threw that out. 

I am at work today, the weekend, making up a bit of time lost to the construction and didn't remember lunch so ordered "to go" from Restaurant G.  Well, 2 out of the 3 items I ordered were in the bag.  I give up.

Which is fine.  I was going to see if I could do all of July cooking from scratch, minus 2 events that are already booked and a possible birthday dinner with a friend that is pending a date.  No "to go" meals or "I can't be bothered" unplanned outings.  Not even treats from the farmers market.   So, probably good that the restaurants are letting me down.  I won't miss them.

Certainly the value for money isn't there other than bringing the builders treats and getting them to keep showing up.

ICWA Upheld by Supreme Court!!!

 I generally avoid politics here but this is a big one.

The Supreme court UPHELD Indian Child Welfare Act.  This is such an important law.  I can't even start on why and how because that is a graduate seminar in history, law, genocide and more.

For the full background, or fuller because there is no way to contain the impacts that this law was meant to correct in a webpage, book or other written material, check out these pages:

Native American Rights Fund

https://narf.org/nill/documents/icwa/index.html  which is HUGE so start here

https://narf.org/nill/documents/icwa/ch1.html

National Indian Child Welfare Association

https://www.nicwa.org/about-icwa/#:~:text=The%20intent%20of%20Congress%20under,%C2%A7%201902).

Excellent Presents Redux

 MORE excellent presents

cash for construction...because "construction"...

Coffee bean sampler! Yay!!! I get to grind and taste compare 9 different coffees.  AND a friend got the same batch so we can be precious coffee princesses together.  I should blog the flavor options.  

I even have an artisanal hand grinder at the office and a french press.  So I can be a coffee dink at the office.  Nice.

And visiting relatives (HI!!) brought me that box of groceries...coffee beans (I just finished the first bag of 3 and it was DELICIOUS!!! I think I have enough for one last cup tomorrow), and other treats all of which I eat like nuts (heh heh...I said 'nuts')

I got a bag of goodies and a free lunch from a friend today...including a new enamelware cup (that might be out of her overstocked cupboard and I do not mind at all) which I will be using for my coffee taste testery.   And I'm sure the chocolates in the bag will go really well with coffee.

All excellent gifts.   I'm wearing undies and sox that were gifts in the past.   (I am also wearing  other clothes, not just undies and sox, that's for later while I'm eating my bday treats while watching Grace and Frankie Season 6 on DVD from the library)

But what did I do as a warm up for my birthday you ask....butchered and canned goats. 

You know, like all the single ladies.