My New Blog

Don't worry, I'll still have this one. And I'll now have more time to actually keep this one updated, too.

My good friend Sheila and I are collaborating on a focused, local food blog, Mindful Plate. It's been a long couple of weeks and I've finally got it mostly the way we want. I first started out experimenting with Movable Type after another good friend, Angela, installed it for me and showed me some of how to use it. After much gnashing of teeth I finally came to the conclusion that Movable Type is powerful and useful for some people but it wasn't the thing for me. I don't have the level of coding knowledge necessary to get the site looking the way I want and to maintain it, nor do I have the time to learn and get up to speed on what I would need to know. I also wanted to be able to do it myself rather than having to lean on Angela. She's a busy lady in her own right.

So, Plan B. I switched over to Wordpress.com. I was able to get things up and looking like I wanted and had a considerably easier time. In the future, I will upgrade to Wordpress.org and migrate the whole thing to my server. In the meantime, I need to catch up with things that were neglected around here.

Please, visit the new site, bookmark it and let me know what you think!

Buried Treasure

Look at these fingerlings I dug out of my garden yesterday! There were only enough for one dish of roasted potatoes. Too bad I didn't get them planted earlier. I planted them in late summer/early fall, so I was so excited to get anything, but still...I would have liked more. They were so fresh and delicious. Pulling potatoes up in January. Who would've thought?

Using the Crockpot for Breakfast

I'm generally not a crockpot kind of gal. I find that it leaves my dishes with a smothered flavor, especially if I'm doing a meat or chicken dish. Soups usually turn out well enough, but not nearly as good as in a pot or dutch oven, so I rarely bother using my crockpot unless it comes down to the issue of not being home in the afternoon or evening to start dinner. In a pinch it's worth using. The only exception I had found to this was cooking beans. It does a great job with those. Now I have another use for my small crockpot. Breakfast.


Those of you who know me in real life know two things about me. I'm usually late and I'm not a morning person. That doesn't bode well for morning appointments or making breakfast at a reasonable hour. My hubby husband frequently has to leave in the morning to get to work. He could cook something himself, I suppose, but it just doesn't happen, so he usually leaves with only a cup of coffee in his belly.

I've long wanted a rice cooker with a built-in timer to make hot breakfast cereal, porridge, if you will. I've not wanted another appliance taking up space on my shelf or to spend the money. Last week I had a bright idea. Put the cereal into a crockpot with a spoon of yogurt and some sugar and spice and then hook that up to a timer on the outlet and program it to come on in the early morning hours and shut off mid-morning. This gives the grains a chance to soak overnight and release some of the phytates* and allows us to wake up to a pot of hot porridge. It stays warm for an extended period of time in the crockpot, so people can serve themselves as they wander down. So far I've only tried rolled oats, but I am planning on trying whole wheat farina and steel cut oats this week. The rolled oats have gotten thumbs up from everybody in the family.


*I'm not sure if the presence of sugar and cinnamon inhibits the soaking process. I should probably check on that.

Good Things to Come

I know that things have been slow around here, but I've been installing everything onto a new computer and cleaning my office to accommodate it. That has been one heck of a job and it's not even finished yet, mostly the office cleaning part, but I still have a couple more things to get onto the computer, too.

After my computer and office are good to go, I'll have more interesting things to post. I even have a new, focused blog launching with a friend very soon.

So, stick around please!

Beekeeping Victory

This past week, Maddy followed up her letter to the editor with a petition and in 2 1/2 days she was able to gather 27 signatures. On Thursday she wrote a letter to accompany her petition and asked city planners to continue to allow beekeeping in the city limits. We dropped her package off at the city planning office right under the 5:00 deadline, confirmed that it would be entered as public testimony at the meeting that evening and crossed our fingers.

This morning's paper has details on the meeting and the fact the the city planners voted unanimously to keep beekeeping legal in our city limits with NO restrictions! Many ban opponents showed up in support of beekeeping and only one ban supporter testified! That one supporter was the author of the wacky bee feces letter.

This was an excellent example for Maddy that if you do get involved, change is possible and that it's very accessible to get involved at a local level. She is considering taking up the poultry and rabbit keeping issue next.

Budding Activist

I mentioned before that we got a letter in the mail encouraging us to go to our next city planning commission meeting to voice our opinion against the passionate supporters of beekeeping in the city. Well, we are supporters of beekeeping in the city. I guess that letter missed it's mark. What the letter did do is fire Maddy (12 years old) up to do something. The letter was actually ridiculous. Citing facts that we might not know about bees, including the fact that bee feces can be a costly nuisance. What? I've never noticed a problem with bee feces. The letter was clearly grasping.

So, Maddy wrote a letter to the editor, got it emailed just a minute under the deadline and was published in our local paper's Saturday issue. She was so proud and excited to see her name in print and realize that she, even a kid, had a way to reach people on an issue that was important to her. Our neighbor even called to congratulate her and told her that he wouldn't be able to make the planning meeting because he had to go out of town. The next step that she is planning on is to create a petition against banning the keeping of bee hives in our city limits and get as many signatures as she can before the meeting and enter it as public testimony.

This is all without our urging. She's just decided it's an issue that is important to her and she will try to make her mark.

Elvis is Here

It's not all frustration and angst around here. We have a new guinea pig to succeed Elvira. Meet Elvis:

He's a handsome little guy with chocolate brown fur and white stripes, with a small orange spot on his forehead. His name is a tribute to the memory of Elvira, aka Elvie. We searched far and wide for a female companion for Cookie. We searched humane societies, guinea pig rescues (none within driving distance), and pet stores. No females were to be had. The theory is that many were purchased for Christmas presents.

We ultimately decided to purchase a male, breed one litter for a female companion for Cookie and then we will either subdivide the cage and keep Elvis on one side, give him away to a friend (Maddy has one pet loving friend in mind already) or use the proceeds from selling the other babies to either purchase a second cage to sit next to the girls' big cage and house Elvis or pay for altering him. We will have a bit to decide. I figure we could expect to have babies anytime after mid-March. We haven't seen any action going on, but then again we don't watch them all day and apparently it is difficult to tell when a guinea pig sow is pregnant.

Does anyone want to reserve a couple piggies for pets?

Always Swimming Against the Tide

Since Friday night, I feel like I've been having to gripe, complain, ponder, vote and feel frustration over many issues that are important to me and that are being attacked. Some of them are ongoing but some are newly arisen.

It started out with a segment on 20/20 called Extreme Parenting. There were four segments on the show, the first was about orgasmic birth, the second was about Reborns (very expensive and lifelike dolls, which some women collect and treat like real babies), the third was about extended breastfeeding and child-led weaning, and the final was home births. This show was upsetting in many ways.

The first segment wasn't too bad. A little uncomfortable to watch, but it was refreshing to see labor and childbirth presented in the media as something other than one long scream fest.

The second was strange and rather insulting, because I don't consider women who carry around like-like dolls and treat them as they would real children mothers. Why was this in a program purporting to be about parenting? How can one parent a doll?

The third segment made me angry. They portrayed women who nursed their children longer than a year or so as freaks, basically. Some of the women featured were nursing six and eight years olds, which is some what uncomfortable to watch and fathom, but the truth is that it isn't unnatural or abnormal physiologically; it's just uncommon here in the US, so it's suspect to most people. They featured a woman who was tandem nursing 2 1/2 year old twins. Is it really that strange to be nursing a 2 1/2 year old? The interviewer asked demeaning questions about extended nursing being selfish on the part of the mother and perhaps damaging to a child. A psychologist worried that this wasn't allowing a child to learn to self-soothe, which made me wonder how many parents allow their child to self-soothe anyway? Is using a pacifier self-soothing? How many parents placate their child with a bottle, cup of juice, candy, video game, TV show or even a hug? Those certainly aren't self-soothing techniques. How many adults self-soothe? A child should turn to a parent for comfort and reassurance! I imagine that most mothers would be uncomfortable and tired of nursing a child past two or three and certainly at six or eight, but just because one is personally uncomfortable with it or wouldn't do it, doesn't make it wrong or damaging. On 20/20 message boards people were accusing mothers of nursing older children of child pornography and some mothers have been investigated by CPS. I find those accusations disgusting.

The final segment was also anger-inciting. 20/20 kept showing different home birth scenarios without clarifying that some were unassisted home births and some were midwife attended births. They compared it to birthing on the frontier. They accused mothers who chose to home birth as selfish. Yet, they didn't present any actual facts. No figures on mother or infant mortality rates in our country (very high infant mortality rates) versus industrialized countries where home births are more common (much lower infant mortality rates) were included in this "report". It was sensationalized editorial, not journalistic reporting.

I generally like John Stossel's view because he is quite libertarian, but I was disappointed with this. I can't think of him the same way again.

A few other issues I needed to address were through Change.org. I voted in favor of these topics: legalize raw milk, stop the NAIS (National Animal Identification System), and save handmade toys from the CPSIA (Consumer Product Safety Improvement Act). Voting on these topics before January 15 will give them more votes and move them higher in rank. The top 10 topics will be presented to President-Elect Barak Obama at a National Press club event on January 16.

These issues are important to me because our family drinks raw milk. We believe that clean raw milk from pastured cows and goats is the best and healthiest milk that we can consume. Here in Oregon we can legally buy raw milk, but it has severe limitations. In other states it isn't' so. Farmers can be prosecuted for selling this whole food! Consumers should be able to choose what foods they will and won't buy. Whole food products shouldn't be illegal to sell or purchase.

The NAIS is an identification system that will eventually require all animals in the US to be tagged and tracked, at a cost, of course. Besides being intrusive, this will be burdensome both in time and money for small farms and backyard farmers. Would many people still keep a small flock of chickens for their personal use if they had to register them and pay a yearly fee? These laws all seem to work in favor of large agribusiness.

The last topic I voted on is not only for handmade toys. It is really an issue that will affect all items sold for children. This includes books, toys and clothing. The issue is basically this: lots of big corporations have outsourced their manufacturing to plants overseas and many items are produced cheaply and now have safety issues. In response, Congress passed the CPSIA (Consumer Product Safety Improvement Act) in August. The problem with this act is that it is very broad and was passed quickly without much thought being given to the ramifications. It includes products that are being resold, so consignment and thrift stores that are reselling children's clothing won't be able to do that any longer. (We buy lots of our kids' clothing second hand!) Moms and dads and small business that make handmade toys, diapers and children's clothing and can't afford to have all their products tested will be forced to sell illegally or shut down their business. Parent won't be able to sell their children's used clothing on Ebay or to consignments stores. It's a nightmare. Large companies violated our trust and now everyone has to pay the price of testing or close up shop. It's an unimaginable nightmare for stay-at-home moms who help make ends meet by sewing diapers or small toys and small businesses who do a lot their business in children's resale. The Handmade Toy Alliance has a good website on the law, it's details and how you can help fight it.

And the final issue that requires my attention is our city's beekeeping and small animal keeping ordinance, which is being reviewed and likely revised. Receiving a letter in the mail today from rabid beekeeping opponents advising me that there was a very vocal and passionate contingent of people who think there's nothing wrong with beekeeping in the city has reminded me of my obligation to write an letter to be entered as public testimony during a public hearing next week. Beekeeping should be allowed in the city, bees are vital to our food supply. I also need to gripe about the proposal to change the allowable number of chickens, rabbits, ducks and/or geese from 12 to 2. What can a flock of two of anything provide (besides companionship)? Two chickens can't provide eggs for a family, two rabbits can't provide meat for a family. In this faltering economy, I believe our vegetable gardens and and small animals are going to become more important for providing sustenance to our families.

I don't know how many of you have made it this far in the rant. I am angry and tired because I keep having to raise my voice to be heard to defend basic things like access to healthy food and the ability to purchase second hand clothing for my children. I just needed to let some of it out and champion a few important issues. Not that these are the only important issues, there are still very big ones like getting our troops out of Iraq now, repealing the Patriot Act and restoring our civil liberties and alternative energy and reducing our environmental impact.

Be Your Own Roastmaster

I was talking about roasting my own coffee yesterday with a friend and this morning I realized that I don't have a coffee roasting tutorial on my own blog. I had posted one on a now-defunct homesteading blog last year, but not here in this little space.

Coffee roasting is quite easy, it is far more economical than buying roasted coffee, it is fresher and if all that weren't enough, there is less packaging involved, thus less waste.

Around here organic roasted coffee goes anywhere from $9.99-11.99/pound. I buy ten pounds of green coffee beans at a time and pay $3.29/pound. When I roast it, it dries somewhat during the roasting and I end up losing about 17% of the weight of the coffee. So, factoring that loss into the price per pound, my roasted coffee ends up costing $3.96/pound. Not bad for sustainably (not certified organic) grown coffee and my green coffee bean supplier has a direct relationship with the grower. I buy the green beans from a local merchant (Caravan Coffee) so I keep dollars in our local economy.

If you want to roast coffee, you can buy a fancy roaster. Just Google "coffee roaster" and you'll get roasters starting at about $99 all they way up into the thousands. If you want to cut costs further, you can use a cast iron skillet in the oven, a stove top popcorn popper with the handle that turns the contents, or an electric popcorn popper. I use an older 1970's electric popcorn popper that I picked up at Goodwill for about $2. It needs to be a specific type of popper. It should have a very rigid plastic lid (the newer ones use a softer plastic that will melt at the extended high temperatures in roasting the coffee), it should have a vertical interior with air vents for the beans (or popcorn) and it should spin the beans when it is roasting them. The spinning motion keeps the beans moving and prevents the oils in the beans from burning and eventually igniting. This is my popper/roaster:


Here's my method:

I pour 3 ounces of green coffee beans into my popper/roaster. Put the lid on, position a metal colander under the spout to catch the chaff blowing out and plug it in. I turn the timer on for 12 minutes. Turning the timer on is not strictly necessary for me because I stop roasting my coffee based on listening to it, but it helps to remind me how many times my coffee has "cracked".


Coffee cracks. It is part of the roasting process. It sounds almost like popcorn popping and the cracking stage lasts for about 20 seconds or so, in my experience. After about six minutes, this is what it looks like after the first crack. It is starting to turn from green to pale brown. Keep roasting it.

After about six more minutes it cracks again and smokes a bit. I stop roasting immediately when I hear the second crack. This stops it right about city roast. If you let it go for a minute or so after the second crack, the oils will really start to release and turn very, very dark brown and you will get a French roast. I like mine at city roast, it works well with my particular bean.

When your coffee is roasted to your desired roast, dump the chaff out of the colander and then pour the coffee into the colander.


It will still be very hot and roast just a little more from that heat. You can stir with a metal spoon to cool it more quickly, or just let it sit and cool and roast a bit more and factor that into your final desired roast.

It takes about 12 minutes to roast a batch, but it depends, sometimes it is a little longer and sometimes a little shorter. That's why I listen for cracking rather than go by the timer. I also don't remove the lid during roasting. I want to keep all the heat in there and roast it consistently. I only removed the lid for this tutorial, but if you are roasting your own in this type of popper, you'll probably want to keep the lid on for the whole time.

After it is cool, you can grind it whenever you're ready and enjoy a delicious, fresh cup of coffee. I'll take mine with cream and sugar.

Dinner for the Next Six Nights

It's been awhile since I posted a meal plan, or anything of substance really. This is a challenging time of year for me, because we don't have a lot of locally grown produce available. Added to this is the fact that our freezer is pretty empty of meat* and we don't purchase meat from the regular grocery store and prefer to purchase from locally raised animals and farmers we've met. That being said, I will occasionally purchase chicken, pork or ground beef from the local natural foods store, because they carry anti-biotic, hormone-free meat and some of it is locally grown. Also, our CSA is on break until the first week of February, but I did stock up a little during their special holiday harvest last week.

Here's what's for dinner for the next week or so:

• Arugula, Roasted Onion and Mushroom Pizza; some kind of salad, probably beets with a vinaigrette
• Roasted Chicken; Brussel Sprouts; Mashed Rutabaga and Carrots
• Roasted Delicata Squash Stuffed with White Beans, Greens and Sage; Sauteed Cabbage; Roasted Beets
• Dirty Rice (w/dried zucchini from my pantry); Roasted Squash, Sauteed Cabbage
• Split Pea Soup; Gingered Steamed Carrots; Cheddar Biscuits; Cinnamon Raisin Bread Pudding with Cinnamon Sauce
• Belgian Leek Tart; Mustard Roasted Potatoes and whatever veggie I can find hanging around in the fridge or pantry

This is not in chronological order, that's not usually the way I do things. We are having the Split Peas Soup and accompanying dishes tonight.

What's for dinner in your neck of the woods?



*We have a side of pork coming, probably early next week raised by our good friends Sheila and Andre at Growing Wild Farm and will probably have a side of beef soon from another good friend.