GNOWFGLINS™

We picked up 1/2 of a local grass-fed beef yesterday. 372 pounds. Of course some of that is bones. It is nice to know where the beef came from and I also know the person who bought the other half. And now we are set for another year. Our next beef we hope to raise ourselves.

After being out of beef for a month or more, I have missed the delicious ease of having ground around. So tonight we are having an old favorite: Sloppy Joe’s in a Bowl. I am also making Carrot Cake. We haven’t had that for awhile; two square pans are in the oven now. Smelling good!

My thoughts are turning toward the weekend. We will have guests over both on Saturday and Sunday. Saturday’s guests are the family of one of my college friends. She is a great gourmet cook. I try not to feel pressure over this; her tastes are so refined. She does nothing to make me feel uncomfortable or nervous and is quite complimentary of anything she eats here, so this reassures me. I was thinking of cooking up some Middle Eastern foods for her and her family. The menu so far has Arabic Meatballs and Stuffed Grape Leaves on it. What else? If I could get some parsley tomorrow, I could make Quinoa Tabouli. I will probably stray from Middle Eastern fare for the dessert. Carrot Cake or ice cream would go, I think.

Speaking of ice cream, on Sunday I made my usual Vanilla-Coconut Ice Cream (our favorite) but I added one teaspoon of mint extract to it. Wow! How refreshing. Drizzled with chocolate syrup, the dessert was awesome.

I also need to plan Sunday’s menu. That will be next.

After a completely objective drawing (thank you to my son, Mikah), I am pleased to announce the winner of the ‘Use Less Plastic’ Challenge. Please join me in congratulating Sara! I will be sending her a 2.5 quart stainless steel mixing bowl.

This was a great challenge! I am very thankful to everyone who participated! Let’s keep up our desires to cut back more and more. If you figure out any way to reduce plastic that we have not mentioned or not solved yet, I surely would appreciate hearing from you in the future.

A friend gave me a similar recipe last summer. Kids love this applesauce — what I love is that it is easy, raw and nutritious! You will need a Vita-Mix or other such heavy duty blender.

(choose organic ingredients)

• about 4 apples, sweet variety such as Fuji
• handful of raw almonds
• handful of raisins
• 1 teaspoon cinnamon
• pinch nutmeg
• 1 cup pure water

Wash, quarter and core the apples. Place in the Vita-Mix wet container, along with all other ingredients. Put on lid with tamper.

While using tamper, turn on to variable speed #1, increase to #10, then flip to HIGH. Run only as much as needed to chop all ingredients into a thick sauce. Do not puree.

Serve immediately and enjoy!

My allergies are no better, which was the stated goal of my going on a juice fast. That is a disappointment, but I have to say that I wasn’t expecting them to go away. Nor did I lose any weight.

But the fast was not without benefits. I’m so glad I did it.

I enjoyed tremendously the days of focusing on raw fruits and vegetables. Almost everything I ate was refreshing (some things didn’t taste so good, due to my inexperience). It affirmed my desire to eat more and more fresh foods. We aren’t growing much of our own, other than sprouts and microgreens. We do have a freezer full of local, natural fruit. I long for the day when all our fresh produce (or most of it) will be right here for us to harvest and preserve. That will be so exciting!

So from here on out, I vow to eat more, and not less, of the fresh fruits and veggies we have available. This morning, I cut up a pineapple and a cantaloupe and I also made raw sweet potato cereal for breakfast. The kids were so happy with me. As a mom, I sure do love to please them!

Even though the challenge I issued to myself and to others — Use Less Plastic — will be wrapped up tomorrow, I hope that what we’ve learned and done will carry on for much longer.

For myself, this challenge came at a good time. As many have echoed, using less plastic has been on my mind. Sharing this experience with all of you gave me great motivation to make small and big changes.

Here’s a bit of what I’ve learned and what I’ve done and even what I haven’t solved yet.

I don’t need plastic as much as I thought I did! This should be no surprise. I know it doesn’t surprise my husband, who has said it for years. I suppose he’s allowed an “I told you so…” I have used such little plastic in the last two weeks, I am amazed.

Unbleached parchment paper is my friend. I love the stuff. I use it and reuse it (it wipes clean). I have a stack on the kitchen counter, perhaps unsightly, of the half-dozen pieces that are in the rotation of kitchen use. I wrap peeled oranges in it for packed lunches. I cover bowls for refrigerator storage (secured with a rubber band). I wrap cheese and onions and apples in it to put in the fridge. I wrap up cookies in a single layer and then put that in a freezer bag for freezing. Both the bag and the paper I can use over and over and over.

Still need to hunt down paraffin wax paper bags and butcher paper. As yet, I don’t have any, nor have I seen any available locally. I envision replacing plastic snack bags, sandwich bags and freezer bags with these bio-degradable products.

Stainless steel for popcorn bowls. I initially kept back 5 plastic bowls for popcorn during my kitchen clean-out, but then I remembered that there are inexpensive stainless steel bowls ($1.99 each) available that would work just as well. So I got some yesterday. I think I’ve replaced everything I intended except for the funnels. I need both regular and wide-mouth funnels in stainless steel and I think I can get those from Azure Standard.

I still don’t have my own supply of reusable fabric shopping bags. I’m too busy making them to fill orders around here. In the meantime, when shopping we ask for paper bags or we say we don’t need a bag at all. I don’t mind bringing home paper bags as I use them for shipping, packaging, wrapping paper, and placing between tortillas.

I love how glass, wood, and stainless steel look and feel. I’m not advocating taking pride in one’s possessions. Just that if I’m going to own and use something regularly, I get far more satisfaction from using something that is naturally beautiful.

Now a few questions for you: What have you learned? What have you changed? How do you feel? What do you foresee in the future?

As I wrote at my Such Treasures blog, I’ve been keeping a juice fast since Sunday evening. I am following the guidelines in Don Colbert, M.D.’s book, Toxic Relief. My purpose for fasting has been to improve how my body handles seasonal allergies. I also wouldn’t mind losing about 10 pounds.

At first I thought I would have to borrow my friend’s juicer. But the Vita-Mix works great. The whole food juices from the Vita-Mix retain the fiber, which makes sure that my digestive system does not stop working, as in a water-only fast.

I thought I would share some of the juices I’ve made. These are rough recipes:

• Apple-Orange-Carrot
• Melon (Honeydew and/or Cantaloupe)-Strawberry-Orange-Carrot
• Apple-Orange-Carrot-Plum-Blackberry-with a few Broccoli Sprouts
• Raw Vegetable Soup (heated to warm in the VM): Tomato-Carrot-Broccoli Sprouts-Buckwheat Greens-Sunflower Greens

I’m missing food, though. Last night I made everyone else baked wild salmon filet alongside brown basmati rice and pinto beans. I wanted to eat it so badly. Well, tomorrow I’ll get to eat grains again and I’m planning on making quinoa tabouli since my friend gave me a bagful of parsley from her garden.

Now it is time for another smoothie! This one will be: Blackberry-Plum-Cantaloupe-Strawberry-Carrot.

A great alternative to the ever-useful plastic baggie is wax paper and/or wax paper bags. Some wax paper is coated with a petroleum based product, and that is not the type to get. However, there is wax paper that is coated with paraffin. This article suggests the Natural Value brand. Wax paper and wax paper bags biodegrade easily, unlike plastic, which lasts forever in our landfills.

The same article also suggests wrapping foods (that are not susceptible to drying out) in a retro way — in towels. For me this conjures up images from my favorite period dramas. A picnic basket with luscious sandwiches and fruits and cheeses being pulled from the basket in lovely tea towels.

I’m thinking that butcher paper is the way to go for freezing meat, cheese and other solid foods. Our 1/2 cow that we buy yearly comes in two layers of butcher paper that is secured with paper tape. Since we hope to be raising our own meat in the near future, I will have to investigate where to acquire butcher paper at a reasonable price. Any suggestions?

It is maybe too soon to tell, but we think we are already experiencing benefits from drinking Kombucha. Jeff is the one who is seeing the difference. He feels more vigorous and less susceptible to fatigue from stress and heat. He also seems to be less affected by carbs, which would suggest that the Kombucha is stabilizing his blood sugars. What awesome results!

I haven’t seen any health benefits in me. In fact, I continue to feel drunk for about 10 minutes after drinking a cup of Kombucha. I have to lay down because my limbs feel so heavy. This doesn’t happen in the morning, though, only at night. So there are some variables at play, but I don’t know what they could be.

Last night, I calculated the cost of a gallon of Kombucha. I calculated it at its most expensive — when I use agave. One gallon costs us $2.30. It uses 1 cup of agave ($2) and 6 tea bags ($.30). It is also done in less than a week. I’d say in about 4 or 5 days. I’m not using a heating pad, just have the jars wrapped in towels near the stove. They do feel that heat when it the stove or oven is on, but it is certainly not constant. This makes us wonder if the agave/honey are more assimilable to the scoby than the white sugar that most everybody else uses? This is surely just speculative, and whatever the reason, it is encouraging that we can turn out batches rather quickly and that we are seeing health benefits.

I’ve had a wonderfully productive morning in the kitchen. I go in spurts. Some days I spend hardly any time in there at all. Today there were lots of tasks to be accomplished and I was in the mood to do them. New batches of Kombucha, batches of coconut bark and cookies. For some time I have been baking double batches of the cookies, then freezing them. They are really yummy frozen and doing a double batch ensures they last for almost a week. I put two chickens in one crockpot, and pinto beans in another. Alfala-Clover-Fenugreek sprouts harvested (by washing) and put in the fridge. I made a pitcher of iced nettle-mint tea for allergies.

The kids have requested that I make crackers and also I would like to try a new tortilla recipe, but those will have to keep for another day.

What are you cooking today?

I went through my cupboards Monday afternoon. Here’s my bag of plastic discards.

It is going to Goodwill today. Haniya is a little upset about that. She makes a good point: if they aren’t good for us, why should we corrupt someone else? My reasoning is that if the plastics could bless someone who doesn’t have money to spend on other, more expensive, utensils, I’d much rather pass our plastics to them than to fill the dump with them.

I left some plastic in the kitchen, such as: baking spatulas, some #5 plastic bowls and plates for little guests who come to visit, and 5 plastic bowls for eating on the road and for popcorn. And the cupboards still have some large plastic food storage containers which I can’t replace until I get glass jars.

I have a list of things to pick up today, or as I am able:

• stainless steel lifter/spatula (like for pancakes and eggs)
• stainless steel measuring cups
• stainless steel measuring spoons
• stainless steel funnel
• stainless steel serving spoons

Please keep me posted on the changes you’re making during this challenge! It is encouraging to me that we’re all working on this together.