Eighth of an Acre Bounty

I’ve been searching around lately for a 100% whole wheat pizza dough recipe. Most recipes that purport to be whole wheat dough are in actuality somewhere between 30-50% whole wheat with the remainder being either bread flour or all purpose. Now I’m not going to claim that I don’t like white pizza dough – but in the interests of using whole foods and better nutrition (and the 50 lb sack of whole wheat flour staring at me from a corner of my office) I really wanted to find a workable whole wheat version.

I found what I was looking for on The Nourishing Gourmet. I’m not a complete Sally Fallon convert and don’t exactly follow all of her guidance on never ingesting unsoaked wheat, nuts or seeds, but I do find a lot of useful and intriguing information in Nourishing Traditions -particularly the fermentation recipes. This dough recipe went the full 9 yards in terms of calling for an overnight soaking/fermenting of the wheat flour beforehand. I thought what the hell and went with it, using a few tablespoons of yoghurt to get it started since I didn’t have any whey defrosted (and I wasn’t about to defrost a gallon jug of when for two tablespoons).

The dough came together quite easily the next day and was a very pliable pizza dough. For toppings I used a tablespoon or so of roasted tomato paste and fleshed it out with some tomato sauce (both canned from our garden this summer). Mozzarella and a bit of blue cheese, minced garlic, fennel seasoned ground beef and baby spinach topped it off. The crust was most definitely wheaty – not at all reminiscent of the simple starchy 00 flour pizzas of Naples, but it wasn’t bad. More a flavor to get used to than anything else. And when you top things with cheese and goodies, who can complain?

Local Ingredients – Whole Wheat Flour, beef, fennel, tomato paste, tomato sauce, spinach, garlic.

Non-local Ingredients – mozzarella (didn’t make my own this time), Blue cheese.

Today was an absolutely beautiful day. The sun came out to play and the temp was up in the 50’s. Both Gary and I were not willing to let another day like this pass without getting some quality time in the yard so we knocked off around 1pm and went out to play.

I’ve been itching to get at least one of the new cold frames built since I scored free wood from a dumpster at Lowes the other weekend. Today was the day and I measured and calculated to see if I truly did have enough free wood to complete it (and I did, yahoo!). So here is the product of today’s efforts. We picked up two sliding glass door panels for free off CraigsList last fall. All the wood was free – so this is a 78″ by 39″ coldframe, all for the cost of a handful of deck screws.

I cut and assembled the four sides separately and Gary helped me to put it all together with his nifty corner clamps holding it in place while I fastened. I occasionally make fun of him for all the newfangeled gadgets he buys for the shop, but they come in handy!

The cold frame is now living in the new bed we built last summer. Eventually this bed will be a hoop house again and house peppers for the coming summer. But it usually doesn’t even get warm enough for putting tomatoes and peppers out until May around here, so in the interim I plan to get a good harvest of cold hardy greens going. I should get a harvest of lettuce, bok choi, mache and radishes before I have to move the cold frames and put the plastic back up.

I cleared the bed of its winter blanket of maple leaves yesterday. Hopefully the newfound sun and the addition of the cold frame in part of it will start warming the soil a bit. I’ve started some seeds inside already (details next post) and if the weather stays – I’ll direct seed some radish in the next day or two.

Puttering in the yard this afternoon, each of us pursuing our own little projects – it almost felt like summer was already here. I’m hoping today was a harbinger of the coming season.

This past weekend while at the West Seattle Farmers Market I picked up a small package of dried beans. The name of the beans was written in thick felt tip and not all that discernible, but they were the most unfamiliar of the three dried bean varieties that Full Circle had on their table. A bit of time, guesswork and creative spelling back at home finally rendered me with the answer that I had purchased Arikara beans.

I found this blurb on them at the Monticello Store website

Arikara beans, “Ricara” beans to Thomas Jefferson, were named for the Dakota Arikara tribe encountered by the Lewis and Clark expedition during their “Voyage of Discovery.” These beans were among the significant horticultural “discoveries” of Lewis and Clark, and perhaps more importantly, dried Arikara beans helped feed and sustain the members of the expedition through the arduous Fort Mandan winter of 1805 when temperatures averaged four degrees. Arikara beans were likely first grown in eastern North America by Thomas Jefferson at Monticello. Jefferson said the Arikara bean “is on of the most excellent we have had: I have cultivated them plentifully for the table tow years.”

Arikara beans were developed by Native Americans to produce in the remarkably short growing season of the northern plains. Jefferson referred to them as “forward” beans, because they bore so early in the season, as early as July 1 in 1809. Eastern North American gardeners need to sow seeds in sunny, fertile garden soil two weeks before the average spring frost date to avoid hot, humid temperatures. The beans can be harvested young and prepared as “snaps,” or dried in the pods for stews and dried bean dishes.

Further research found that Arikara beans are designated in Slow Food USA’s Ark of Taste and

because the Arikara Yellow bean does not fit the established classes for dry beans in North American, there is no ready market for the this bean and thus the bean’s existence is seriously threatened.

Hey, can I pick em or what? Given the short season/suitable for northern climates description (and Full Circles obvious success in growing them) I immediately pulled about 40 of the fattest looking beans aside to give a try at planting this year. I set about half of the remaining package to soak overnight in cold water. My beans were destined for soup the following day.

I started the soup by dicing about half an onion and two strips of bacon and set them to saute in a pot. I pulled out a quart of turkey stock (leftover from the Thanksgiving Turkey carcass I carried home with me this year). Diced up a few stalks of celery (organic and purchased from a local produce stand, but of unknown provenience). We had also picked up a replenishing stock of carrots from Full Circle and I prepped several of these as well.

After the onions and bacon were ready I added the soaked beans and quart of turkey stock to the pot and simmered for about and hour and a half. I tossed in the carrots and celery and when they were just about done I added the remainder of a quart of quartered green tomatoes that had been lingering in the fridge.

The beans were delicious. Savory and buttery and perfect winter fare, the soup wasn’t too shabby either! So there ya go – I tried something new and found something new to plant!

One of the goals Laura laid out in the intro to the Dark Days challenge was to try cooking with something unfamiliar. I have actually not really done that to any extent, mainly because I think I have done a lot of experimental cooking and tasting in my life. And in our household we really don’t have fussy eaters. That is unless  you count Gary’s ban on tofu of any sort, hot chile, bitter greens, super stinky cheese and large tapioca pearls (something about being a supertaster, but I ain’t buying it! ). Even then, these are items that I will either sneak into meals (telling him he needs his greens) or eat when cooking for myself (New Mexico green chile, yum!).

The items I haven’t eaten at least once stray into the obscenely expensive/ethically questionable (foie gras, caviar) or limited seasonality/availability (fiddleheads). There are a few out there I just need to seek out (goeyduck for starters…).

Who is that in my leeks?

In our failure to complete the upgraded fencing in of the chickens last weekend Blume and Dahl regularly go on walkabout during the day. We got a bit of sunshine this afternoon and as I scooted outside to absorb the last rays before the sun dropped down over the hills I spied an interloper.

Actually, there were two interlopers. Both girls had successfully made little wallows in the one slice of garden that was still graced by sunlight. When I came around and saw Dahl she had her head tucked securely under her wing and was in hot pursuit of a bonafide catnap.

Thankfully none of the chickens are very interested in the leeks. And as leeks and two surviving broccoli plants are the only things showing signs of life in the garden right now we aren’t too concerned. But they did scratch apart one of my poppies this afternoon. The fencing has got to go up!

As I mentioned below, I missed last weeks Dark Days post so this one will cover two meals. First up was this weeks meal, a variation on keftedes as learned from a Moroccan friend.

I took a pound of beef from our quarter of grass-fed beef (Prairie Springs Ranch) and mixed it with a bunch of minced garlic, diced shallot, cilantro, ground cumin and coriander, salt, pepper and a drop of lemon juice. Hand molded into small patties and cooked em up on our cast iron skillet. Along with the keftedes I roasted some sunchokes in olive oil and garlic and also cracked and warmed a pint jar of green beans I canned this summer.

Last weeks Dark Days post would have been about the sunchoke gratin I finally got around to testing out. Despite never having tried this before, it came out pretty tasty and was surprisingly simple. I alternated thin slices of sunchoke with slices of leek from the garden. Between the layers I seasoned with salt, pepper and diced rosemary. The nifty little pottery casseroles I brought back from Turkey on our last trip there. These have been incredibly useful for a two person household when you don’t want to make a full size dish. Once all the layers were completed and seasoned I poured a bit of cream over each one to juice it up a bit. They went into the oven for around 45 minutes and came out a bubbling goey treat.

Local Ingredients: Beef, Sunchokes, Leeks, Rosemary, Green Beans, Cream, Garlic.

Non-Local (or unknown): Salt, Pepper, Olive Oil, Cumin, Cilantro, Coriander, Shallot, Lemon Juice.

Well once again I ended up taking a unintended week off from blogging (aside from my little post on Tuesday when I just had to express my delight at seeing that helicopter take off from the capital). I went down to Oregon to visit my grandparents last weekend and had a good time catching up. Then back home and into the thick of work and everything else. So if there are any readers left, sorry for the long silence!

I also missed last weeks Dark Days post, so the next post will be a double. Things around here have been cold. We got a bit of snow last night, but it is mostly melting off at the moment. We finally got around to getting some better fencing for expanding and splitting the chicken area. Blume and Dahl are regularly escaping thier 3′ chicken wire fence so that needed to be addressed. In addition I want to expand thier pen area but split it in two so that I can sow seed on one side while they scratch the other. That way we are growing at least a portion of thier food ourselves. And they can do thier own harvesting and fertilizing.

We knocked apart the last raised bed in the backyard in anticipation of redefining the coop area. I heeled in the two sage plants that needed to be relocated – still need to find a final resting place for them now. We also ordered several dwarf hazelnut trees that should arrive sometime in April. So if we don’t get the farm, at least we will have nuts in 10 years.

If it warms up enough we will work on a gate today (extreme cold ain’t kind to the burgeoning carpal tunnel of two career computer monkeys). Gary came up with a brilliant idea of wiring pvc pipe to the ends of the cattle panels we bought and then strategically sinking short rebar stakes in locations where we want to secure the fencing. This would be a sturdy enough fence when erected and when the girls were ranging in it. But at the times when we have them in the other pen, we wouldn’t have a big obstructive fence in the garden area. I am excited to see how it works. Part of the trick of working with such a small amount of land is figuring out ways to make it work for us, and still be somewhat presentable and pleasant for at least half the time.

While we were at the hardware store I noticed a dumpster stuffed with a good deal of odd-cut cedar boards. I asked if I could have them and came home with what I think will be enough to construct at least one of my Glass door cold frames. A lucky find. I am gearing up to start seed shortly and this year I am trying my hand at making newspaper pots. Several nights this week we rolled pots as we watched tv. I am a bit concerned about them holding together long enough for transplanting into larger plastic pots but I figure it is worth a try.

Huxley has been particularly needy since I left for 3 1/2 days. This is the look of a dog that really wants to sit on your lap and can’t understand why you won’t let him. (We regularly cuddle and he climbs up on my lap, but he is over 100 pounds and has a tendency to put my extremities to sleep if he stays too long.)

We’re moving on

This weeks meal is essentially the same as last weeks featured meal – with a few additions. The truth is that the farmers markets have been pretty scarce lately and the main output from our own garden after the snow has consisted mainly of Leeks and Eggs. That, coupled with the fact that I am trying to eat something other than potatoes all winter led to a reinvention of the Leek and Chevre omelet of last week. The chickens are still putting out eggs like it is the height of summer. A pleasant surprise as I did not at all expect this sort of production in January. We don’t artificially light the coop, so they must know something that is escaping the humans of the household.

This meal was also an attempt to use some of the leftovers we have in the fridge from earlier meals this week. I decided to make a quiche with our abundance of eggs. Another simple and easy meal. I made a pie crust from whole wheat flour. I’ve been experimenting with proportions of white to wheat flour in my crusts over the past year and have found that I can use 100% whole wheat without sacrificing any of the flakiness or tenderness in the crust. For the quiche filling I pulled two leeks from the garden, sauteed the last of the salt preserved green beans (featured in my first Dark Days post), threw in some shredded beef from an earlier pot roast meal and topped with the remaining chevre I picked up at the farmers market last week. We also dipped into jars of salsa canned earlier this year for adorning the slices of quiche. One mild tomato salsa and one spicier tomatillo salsa for me.

One of the challenges for me in trying to eat locally this year is the lack of greens after a big freeze. I’ve mentioned in earlier posts my goals of getting together a much more comprehensive winter garden for next year, but this year everything that was exposed to the elements took a header and we are essentially left with sweet and starchy items until the first spring greens come in. It seems to be the case for our local farmers as well if the offerings at the markets are any indication.

Now don’t get me wrong, I love potatoes, squash, onions, apples, leeks, etc. And if I were actually doing enough physical labor during the spring/summer/fall I would look forward to winter when I could hibernate, loosen my pants a little and binge on the starchy goodness until work season rolled around again. But as it is, I make my living sitting in front of a computer regardless of the season. And I’m afraid no amount of dog walking, manic gardening or home improvement projects is equivalent to the labor expended during a haying/planting/harvest season.

Therein lies the irony for us city slickers, when we try to eat with the seasons we realize that our bodies and lifestyles have become so disconnected from the production end of things that the normal nutrient balance/body weight bell curve doesn’t exactly curve downward anymore.  So we join gyms and pay them for the privilege of sweating under their roofs – all of that energy, food energy, being spun out into nothingness on the wheels of a recumbent bike. Or better yet a treadmill that takes electricity, burning energy to assist us in burning energy. The irony…

Local Ingredients: Eggs , green beans and Leeks (our backyard), Chevre (River Valley Ranch), Beef (Prarie Springs Ranch), Butter, Milk and Cream. Tomato Salsa (Tomatoes from our backyard, other ingredients from Summer Renton Farmers market). Tomatillo Salsa (Ingredients from Renton Farmers Market). Wheat Flour.

Non-Local Ingredients: Salt, pepper, nutmeg.

Gary has been out of town since Friday, celebrating a belated Christmas with his family. I’ve been here, holding down the fort – cuddling with cats and dog and letting the chickens in and out as they please. With only one person to cook for, meals have been pretty simple around here consisting mainly of giant salads or some New Mexico green chile brought up by my cousin last year. The chile is too hot for Gary so when he goes out of town I usually load up on all the spicy meals I can.

This weeks Dark Days highlight is perhaps the simplest meal of them all, certainly the meal with the fewest ingredients (I get carried away with things to put in my salads). A very late breakfast/lunch today of a sauteed leek and chevre omelet was just the thing to fit my mood, and completely local. I went to the West Seattle Farmers Market this morning. Pickings were scarce in terms of fresh produce, everyone’s fields seem to have been as decimated as our garden was by the snow and freezing temps. Nevertheless, I did get some more sunchokes from Whistling Train Farm ( I’ve got a hankering to turn these into some sort of gratin). A few bulbs of garlic and a sweet little package of made-yesterday chevre from River Valley Ranch.

I got home and picked a leek from the garden, sauteed it while cracking the eggs and in a short time had a simple, rich and tasty brunch. Two of the eggs came from our girls (they think spring is coming too). One egg came from Stiebrs Farms. I had a camera at the ready to take a picture, since I’ve been rather remiss lately in keeping the photo montage going for Dark Days. However, a omelet flipping incident rendered the product decidedly unphotogenic. Flavor however, was unaffected.

Local Ingredients: Leek, Butter, Eggs, Chevre.

Non Local Ingredients: None!

I came across this recently and thought it appropriate to ponder going into a new year. George Carlin wrote this shortly after his wife died.

A Message by George Carlin:

The paradox of our time in history is that we have taller buildings but shorter tempers, wider Freeways, but narrower viewpoints. We spend more, but have less; we buy more, but enjoy less. We have bigger houses and smaller families, more conveniences, but less time. We have more degrees but less sense, more knowledge , but less judgment, more experts, yet more problems, more medicine, but less wellness.

We drink too much, smoke too much, spend too recklessly, laugh too little, drive too fast, get too angry, stay up too late, get up too tired, read too little, watch TV too much, and pray too seldom.

We have multiplied our possessions, but reduced our values. We talk too much, love too seldom, and hate too often.

We’ve learned how to make a living, but not a life. We’ve added years to life, not life to years. We’ve been all the way to the moon and back, but have trouble crossing the street to meet a new neighbor. We conquered outer space but not inner space. We’ve done larger things, but not better things.

We’ve cleaned up the air but polluted the soul. We’ve conquered the atom but not our prejudice. We write more but learn less. We plan more but accomplish less. We’ve learned to rush but not to wait. We build more computers to hold more information, to produce more copies than ever, but we communicate less and less.

These are the times of fast foods and slow digestion, big men and small character, steep profits and shallow relationships. These are the days of two incomes but more divorce, fancier houses, but broken homes. These are days of quick trips, disposable diapers, throwaway morality, one night stands, overweight bodies, and pills that do everything from cheer, to quiet, to kill. It is a time when there is much in the showroom window and nothing in the stockroom. A time when technology can bring this letter to you, and a time when you can choose either to share this insight, or to just hit delete…

Remember; spend some time with your loved ones, because they are not going to be around forever.

Remember, say a kind word to someone who looks up to you in awe, because that little person soon will grow up and leave your side.

Remember, to give a warm hug to the one next to you, because that is the only treasure you can give with your heart and it doesn’t cost a cent.

Remember, to say, ‘I love you’ to your partner and your loved ones, but most of all mean it. A kiss and an embrace will mend hurt when it comes from deep inside of you.

Remember to hold hands and cherish the moment for someday that person will not be there again.

Give time to love, give time to speak! And give time to share the precious thoughts in your mind.

AND ALWAYS REMEMBER:

Life is not measured by the number of breaths we take, but by the moments that take our breath away.

If you don’t send this to at least 8 people….Who cares?

George Carlin