The Full Circle Book Club

Hello fellow gardeners!
I thought it would be fun to suggest some great books on full circle-related issues (gardening, living simply, cooking and food preservation, being awesome, etc). Those of you who are educators now have a little more free time, and you may like reading as much as I do....so dive in!
The first book I will recommend to you is:
Animal, Vegetable, Miracle by Barbara Kingsolver, Steven Hopp, and Camille Kingsolver.

Love, love, love this book. Barbara Kingsolver, who is such a lovely and funny writer anyway, takes on the challenge of living and eating locally for a year, with her family. The funny made-up word for this is locavore. It is a partial reason to almost every home garden I know of: people love the taste of veggies fresh from the ground, they love the sense of accomplishment when they grew it themselves, and they love the lowered economic impact of walking to the backyard for a tomato (as opposed to shipping one in from Peru). The book is so full of information! I am really pumped to take on some of the things she does (I can't wait to make my own ricotta), and I don't think I will ever be ready for other things (butchering is just a little bit more than I can handle). What I love about this is the move towards a simpler life. Sometimes, it seems like the bad in the world is too much to take on. And it is a lot. But maybe, we can try just focusing on our little corner of the world. If my little corner is better, the world is a little better. And when things calm down here, I can see the good more clearly.

You should check out the book. It's at stores and
libraries all over the place. Looks like this. The other picture is of Kingsolver and her family:


In other news, we are looking forward to closing on our house. This has been quite a process, to say the least. Those of you who have not yet purchased a home since the beginning of the recession, beware the complexities of the new mortgage world. I am totally pumped for some renovations, most significant of from http://www.sky-bolt.com
which being an overhaul on the kitchen. I love where we are, and we are really pleased to know we are going to have the right to stay here for as long as we'd like. How awesome is that?

Read the book, then tell me what you think, possibly theoretical readers of the blog!
Allison

Dressing up your salad.

So, if you have ever gardened, you know that one of the first and most plentiful veggies you get is salad greens. Especially if, like us, you plant a lot of salad greens. Now, hopefully you know about the amazing versatility of spinach. Maybe I will write a whole post just about the amazing number of things you can do with spinach. Popeye got that one right, friends. Spinach is awesome.
But this post isn't about spinach. It's about salad dressing. Since a garden = lots of salad greens, and we want to eat what we grow, we eat a lot of salads. Some for meals, some for side dishes. What was that? You want to know how we dress our salads? Well, I will tell you: we make our own salad dressing!
I don't know who it was over at "big salad" who convinced us otherwise, but seriously friends, salad dressing is unbelievably cheap and easy to make. You probably have all of the ingredients in your house right now. And a jar of dressing costs probably like 40 cents. Not only is it cheap and easy, but people will think you are fancy and they will be intimidated by you, and they will think that you did something special, and it will take you like 15 seconds.
I made some salad dressing today to take with a supper (fantastic veggie lasagna, recipe will be forthcoming, and a salad) to take to my awesome cousins and their new baby Aldous. I am in love with that kid: a totally awesome mellow beautiful little man.
Here is what you do:
1. Gather your ingredients. You probably want an oil, a vinegar, and some seasonings. I usually use fresh or dried herbs and salt and pepper. You can add fruit, citrus juice, mustard, hot pepper seeds, sesame seeds, or other things. Pretty much whatever.
2. Put like 1/2 of a cup of oil, 1/4 cup vinegar, and other ingredients to taste, into a mason jar with a lid.
3. Close jar and shake.
4. Taste the dressing and add stuff if you want.
5. Eat it. Awesome.
Ok, so I know that you can get salad dressing seasoning packets. Or, you can look at the ingredients list on the packet and pick them our of your garden or get it at the farmer's market. This makes your salad dressing preservative free. Doesn't even need to go in the fridge, if you don't want it to. We also play around with different vinegars and oils and what we add in. If you want ranch dressing, just swap the oil and vinegar for mayo and buttermilk. The only thing we wouldn't make ourselves is Caesar dressing, and that is an raw egg fear plus anchovy gross out factor for us.
Oh, and if you don't have any, you should go get some mason jars. You can do a lot of stuff with mason jars, and they can be frozen or heated way up.
In summary: STOP SUPPORTING BIG SALAD. Don't be afraid of salad dressing: if you can "shake well before opening," YOU CAN DO THIS.

Project #2-lil indoor compost holder

Yeah. That's what I would buy if we were going to be swank about this. We need something to put our kitchen waste in so we aren't running across the yard every time we make a snack. Last year we found this awesome plastic trash can thing in the garage and it totally did the job...for like a month, before it completely fell apart. This may be why it lived in the garage with the mice and the old broken down car. So I started looking for something cute, like this super cute little stainless steel buddy that has a charcoal filter to prevent kitchen stinks from ruining your appetite. I fought that shopping urge and took one of our tupperwears we got from Ikea and labeled it. The label is only to prevent confusion between compost and leftovers. Not exactly deep philosophy or all that interesting, but we have really been making an attempt to make do with just what we've got more often. Good for the earth and the wallet and our sense of ingenuity.
Here it is. Note the delicious ripe cherry tomato towards the bottom of the plant. That sucker is just itching to spread its roots out.
Garden news: I totally got to eat a delicious, ripe, beautiful cherry tomato today! I want to dig in the dirt and plant, but I really want the overnight lows a little higher first. The way I figure it: when we are comfortable 24 hours a day without the heat on, our little seed friends will be comfortable in their new dirt home.

Begging the sun gods for a bit more warmth,
D and A

Just a little thing.

Isn't it funny that it's trendy to be "green" now? So many people are busy running around buying tons and tons of (green) stuff to replace stuff we already have, when my grandma is probably "greener" than most of us, because she DOESN'T go out and buy tons and tons of stuff to replace stuff she already has. And I have no proof, but I have a feeling Grandma Heille don't do recycling. Irony is thick on this one. So, while I suppose I want people to think I am as cool and green as can be, but I don't do yoga or shop at expensive grocery stores.
Ok, but I do want to be green. Green and awesome. And we don't have lots of money to spend on stuff, so we are trying to find ways to spend less money but still have a positive impact on the world around us. I stumbled upon a neat little tip this week and I thought I'd share.
We get our groceries at Rainbow, because (among other things) Rainbow has an awesome bulk foods section. Good way to save money on nuts and dried fruit and other potentially expensive things, because you only have to buy what you need, and all that. So, bulk foods is right by bulk coffee, and so I snagged a few of the paper, durable coffee bags for my bulk stuff instead of those crappy plastic bags. Benefits to paper bags:
1. Hold more
2. Totally reusable
3. Recyclable (they are just paper)
4. Fold over to keep food inside and other stuff out.
5. Makes you feel like a renegade, because they are technically for coffee, NOT cashews (I take it where I can get it)
Yup. Let's all start a revolution of buying less to help the earth. Because I don't think the rainforest is worried that your yoga bag isn't made out of organic cotton.

Um, no garden update today. Everything is the same as yesterday. Spring break looms ever closer....that's when the action starts.

Peace out,
Allison (and Desmond)