this has been a week of not much happening in terms of independence days. this is the point at which i started to lose interest in the garden last year. things were in the ground and i would find "better" things to do with my time. goal this coming week: plant something! preserve something! hack down the yard weeds! spend time in the back yard!
1 planted: nothing
2 harvested: one of our basil plants for pesto thursday night. two sugar snap pea pods just before i tore out the plants to make room for more planting. not sure what i'll put in that pot...
3 preserved: nothing
4 stored: picked up a couple months' worth of honey and 9 months' worth of yeast
5 prepped: received my order of five colored bucket lids with spouts. not sure how the spouts will do with emptying/refilling.
6 managed: weeded a bit
7 cook something new: cole slaw! from the new moosewood cookbook. yum.
8 work on local food systems: csa pickup - fruit shares have begun!
9 reduced waste: nabbed a novel and several half-filled notebooks from neighbors' trash piles
Monday, June 30, 2008
Friday, June 27, 2008
independence days week... 9 i think
1 planted: kentucky wonder green beans beneath my corn and sunflowers
2 harvested: a handful of snap peas, mint for tea
3 preserved: nothing
4 stored: placed a bulk food storage order! 25lb baking soda, 25lb red wheat berries, 25lb garbanzos, 25lb lentils, 1lb thick rolled oats
5 prepped: placed an order for some bucket lids with spouts to see if we can do those perhaps instead of/to supplement gamma lids (which are quite expensive!) also, joined in on sharon's food preservation class which starts next tuesday :)
6 managed: weeded the corn patch
7 cook something new: made a mahvelous mock tuna from garbanzo beans. also blettes grand-mere, which is swiss chard with raisins, rosemary, and pine nuts.
8 work on local food systems: joined the just food mailing list.
9 reduced waste: can't think of anything out of the ordinary here...
10 learned a skill: i don't know that i like this category because i feel like learning is not a "boom. it's done." thing. i can't say "i learned THIS this week," because learning is a long-term process for me. perhaps i'll skip this category from now on.
2 harvested: a handful of snap peas, mint for tea
3 preserved: nothing
4 stored: placed a bulk food storage order! 25lb baking soda, 25lb red wheat berries, 25lb garbanzos, 25lb lentils, 1lb thick rolled oats
5 prepped: placed an order for some bucket lids with spouts to see if we can do those perhaps instead of/to supplement gamma lids (which are quite expensive!) also, joined in on sharon's food preservation class which starts next tuesday :)
6 managed: weeded the corn patch
7 cook something new: made a mahvelous mock tuna from garbanzo beans. also blettes grand-mere, which is swiss chard with raisins, rosemary, and pine nuts.
8 work on local food systems: joined the just food mailing list.
9 reduced waste: can't think of anything out of the ordinary here...
10 learned a skill: i don't know that i like this category because i feel like learning is not a "boom. it's done." thing. i can't say "i learned THIS this week," because learning is a long-term process for me. perhaps i'll skip this category from now on.
Monday, June 23, 2008
independence days check in
i've started to lag in my independence days efforts, but this week, my lady led the charge and we actually got a lot done! (and most of it was done yesterday!!!)
planted: none. hoping to plant beans under the corn this week.
harvested: much lettuce, lambsquarters, onion greens, 10 quarts of strawberries from our csa's u-pick venture, roughly 10 sugar snap pea pods which got added to a quart we got at the market
preserved: froze probably 8 quarts of strawberries, plus a couple pounds of rhubarb. the plan is to make strawberry-rhubarb crisp next week (we didn't have oats this week)
stored: nothing that i can think of
prepped: also nothing that i can think of
managed reserves: again, nothing i can think of
cooked something new: strawberry pie (my very first piecrust EVER), pb granola bars for the son who doesn't like to eat breakfast
reduced waste: participated in crunchy chicken's liquid gold challenge saturday, ate the entire GIANT BOWL OF LETTUCE that my lady made for us to use up the bounty of lettuce from the csa and our garden
expand local food community: picked strawberries at our csa farm, borrowed a pastry cutter from a friend (instead of buying my own) - she'll get a piece of pie in return
learn a new skill: fertilizing garden, making pie crust
planted: none. hoping to plant beans under the corn this week.
harvested: much lettuce, lambsquarters, onion greens, 10 quarts of strawberries from our csa's u-pick venture, roughly 10 sugar snap pea pods which got added to a quart we got at the market
preserved: froze probably 8 quarts of strawberries, plus a couple pounds of rhubarb. the plan is to make strawberry-rhubarb crisp next week (we didn't have oats this week)
stored: nothing that i can think of
prepped: also nothing that i can think of
managed reserves: again, nothing i can think of
cooked something new: strawberry pie (my very first piecrust EVER), pb granola bars for the son who doesn't like to eat breakfast
reduced waste: participated in crunchy chicken's liquid gold challenge saturday, ate the entire GIANT BOWL OF LETTUCE that my lady made for us to use up the bounty of lettuce from the csa and our garden
expand local food community: picked strawberries at our csa farm, borrowed a pastry cutter from a friend (instead of buying my own) - she'll get a piece of pie in return
learn a new skill: fertilizing garden, making pie crust
Friday, May 23, 2008
independence days weekly update
1. planted: replanted some more peas that didn't come up.
2. harvested: nothing yet, but i found four stalks of wild garlic that i want to nab. three are in our back yard and one is in the front yard of someone down the hill from us. my potatoes are sprouting now! the purple peruvian ones. yay!
3. preserved: not so much.
4. stored: i stored 3 more liters of water, and about 7 cups of white rice that the roommate left behind when he moved out.
5. prepped: built the bean trellis frame, just need to add strings. made stick-trellises for the peas. dug up half a bed that will hopefully be finished and planted with popcorn and sunflowers and melons this weekend.
6. managed: went through the freezer and composted some old old veggies. cleaned out the fridge of all the things the roommate had left in there to rot.
7. cook something new: made the red, gold, green and black chili from fatfreevegan.com - it was excellent!
8. work on local food systems: shopped at the farmer's market per usual and welcomed back some of the farmers who were returning for the summer season.
9. reduce waste: i ordered pet food online and specified that i didn't want any packing peanuts or other plastic packing materials, so they stuffed the box with shredded junk mail :D that made me very happy. have also been eating the food that the roommate left behind him. snagged a 3L soda bottle from our neighbor's recycling to store water in.
10. learned a skill: hand-cultivating a garden bed was new to me. it's some work!
eight out of ten this week :) not bad.
2. harvested: nothing yet, but i found four stalks of wild garlic that i want to nab. three are in our back yard and one is in the front yard of someone down the hill from us. my potatoes are sprouting now! the purple peruvian ones. yay!
3. preserved: not so much.
4. stored: i stored 3 more liters of water, and about 7 cups of white rice that the roommate left behind when he moved out.
5. prepped: built the bean trellis frame, just need to add strings. made stick-trellises for the peas. dug up half a bed that will hopefully be finished and planted with popcorn and sunflowers and melons this weekend.
6. managed: went through the freezer and composted some old old veggies. cleaned out the fridge of all the things the roommate had left in there to rot.
7. cook something new: made the red, gold, green and black chili from fatfreevegan.com - it was excellent!
8. work on local food systems: shopped at the farmer's market per usual and welcomed back some of the farmers who were returning for the summer season.
9. reduce waste: i ordered pet food online and specified that i didn't want any packing peanuts or other plastic packing materials, so they stuffed the box with shredded junk mail :D that made me very happy. have also been eating the food that the roommate left behind him. snagged a 3L soda bottle from our neighbor's recycling to store water in.
10. learned a skill: hand-cultivating a garden bed was new to me. it's some work!
eight out of ten this week :) not bad.
the no-power-hour
inspired by crunchy chicken's eco-throw-down challenge, we're doing a no power week starting monday. here's what we've got so far for an outline:
1. the fridge stays on.
2. the rest of the breakers in the box get turned off so we don't accidentally flick the light on out of habit.
3. we're picking up some extra local-beeswax candles at the market tomorrow.
that's all i got. working will involve electricity still. as will commuting by subway. also, i'm unsure about whether our stove/oven uses electricity... though i doubt it. another iffy thing is the boiler that heats the hot water for us as well as the people who live above us... i'm not going to cut them out of hot water... or me.
personally, i'm looking forward to no tv for a week.
1. the fridge stays on.
2. the rest of the breakers in the box get turned off so we don't accidentally flick the light on out of habit.
3. we're picking up some extra local-beeswax candles at the market tomorrow.
that's all i got. working will involve electricity still. as will commuting by subway. also, i'm unsure about whether our stove/oven uses electricity... though i doubt it. another iffy thing is the boiler that heats the hot water for us as well as the people who live above us... i'm not going to cut them out of hot water... or me.
personally, i'm looking forward to no tv for a week.
Thursday, May 22, 2008
managing stores: making room in the freezer (though not minimizing waste...)
last night i went through the freezer and threw out several *very* freezerburned bags of vegetables from long long ago. peas-n-corn, edamame, and half a banana met their demise upon the compost pile. now i can start freezing rhubarb and stuff!
Monday, May 19, 2008
weekend progress
saturday i went to the market myself and did ALL THE SHOPPING by myself. this isn't a big deal if one normally takes a car to the store to do the grocery shopping, but we take transit to the union square farmer's market to do grocery shopping. i had the giant whole foods bag my boss gave me slung over my shoulder with the whole foods goodies in it (paper towels, toilet paper, baking soda, toothpaste, broccoli, plus a couple other things), my backpack with a dozen and a half eggs in it plus my water bottle, and two green grocery bags full of food. it was heavy! but i did it! *proud*
in the afternoon, i broke the ground in a section of the yard along the border between us and our one neighbor. i plan to plant corn and sunflowers (and maybe watermelons) in that space, plus the "garden in a roll" butterfly garden that our now-ex-roommate ruben gave us. the bed is about 2 or so feet wide and the yard is about 20 or 30 feet long. i broke about half of that length with the hand cultivator to about 4 inches deep, pulling all the rocks out (now i've got half a bucket of rocks if you need some...) it was a lot of work, and it felt good :) i also nailed together the frame for the bean trellis. i was tired after that and figured i'd put the strings up later.
sunday i made stick trellises for the peas that are up, and i re-planted more peas that still hadn't showed (others i'd planted at the same time had come up already). then we did laundry, hung it outside, went to the regular grocery store for bulgar, canned tomatoes and canned corn (heavy things i didn't want to carry home by myself on saturday, haha), came home, and it started to rain. argh. so i pulled all the laundry in and hung it up inside.
then ruben came over and packed up the rest of his stuff and we took him and his stuff over to his phat pad in the west village (it's so beautiful! classic new york, you know?) and he took us out to dinner at lime thai (limethai.com), and it was very nice :)
oh, and saturday i took our recyclables out to the can, and the upstairs neighbors had put a 3 liter empty gingerale bottle in the can, so i snagged it and pulled the label off and cleaned it out and filled it with water, so i stored 3L of water this weekend. oh, and ruben left us the food that he had at the house, so we now have roughly 7 cups of white jasmine rice that we put into metal containers this morning for storage. oh, and on sunday when we were on our way to laundry, we passed a dumpster someone had hired for their remodeling/cleanup, and in it were (are, really, cos we didn't go back to get them yet) various window-type screens, irises that were dug up, a sawhorse, and a bunch of other stuff, plus a ton of dirt and actual trash. i'm very interested in the screens for dehydration purposes, and also the sawhorse for holding up the screens. plus the irises cos they're really pretty flowers and i hate to see them just dug up and thrown away :(
so yeah. um. busy productive weekend :)
in the afternoon, i broke the ground in a section of the yard along the border between us and our one neighbor. i plan to plant corn and sunflowers (and maybe watermelons) in that space, plus the "garden in a roll" butterfly garden that our now-ex-roommate ruben gave us. the bed is about 2 or so feet wide and the yard is about 20 or 30 feet long. i broke about half of that length with the hand cultivator to about 4 inches deep, pulling all the rocks out (now i've got half a bucket of rocks if you need some...) it was a lot of work, and it felt good :) i also nailed together the frame for the bean trellis. i was tired after that and figured i'd put the strings up later.
sunday i made stick trellises for the peas that are up, and i re-planted more peas that still hadn't showed (others i'd planted at the same time had come up already). then we did laundry, hung it outside, went to the regular grocery store for bulgar, canned tomatoes and canned corn (heavy things i didn't want to carry home by myself on saturday, haha), came home, and it started to rain. argh. so i pulled all the laundry in and hung it up inside.
then ruben came over and packed up the rest of his stuff and we took him and his stuff over to his phat pad in the west village (it's so beautiful! classic new york, you know?) and he took us out to dinner at lime thai (limethai.com), and it was very nice :)
oh, and saturday i took our recyclables out to the can, and the upstairs neighbors had put a 3 liter empty gingerale bottle in the can, so i snagged it and pulled the label off and cleaned it out and filled it with water, so i stored 3L of water this weekend. oh, and ruben left us the food that he had at the house, so we now have roughly 7 cups of white jasmine rice that we put into metal containers this morning for storage. oh, and on sunday when we were on our way to laundry, we passed a dumpster someone had hired for their remodeling/cleanup, and in it were (are, really, cos we didn't go back to get them yet) various window-type screens, irises that were dug up, a sawhorse, and a bunch of other stuff, plus a ton of dirt and actual trash. i'm very interested in the screens for dehydration purposes, and also the sawhorse for holding up the screens. plus the irises cos they're really pretty flowers and i hate to see them just dug up and thrown away :(
so yeah. um. busy productive weekend :)
Friday, May 16, 2008
independence days update
i feel like i didn’t do a lot this week, but then i think about how every little bit counts and it’s not ABOUT doing a lot…
1. planted: i planted out two tomatoes into the swc we built. only one of the seeds we’d planted had sprouted, so i had erin pick me up an heirloom seedling at the market. she brought me a black brandywine :D awesome. we're out of potting soil now, and out of money til the end of june (or when my stimulus payment arrives,whichever is first), so planting will be slower for the next several weeks, i expect.
2. harvested: not so much. the lettuces and arugula are doing well, the spinaches are up but tiny, one of my pea babies died, but several more are coming up. two of the basil plants bit it :(
3. preserved: also not so much.
4. stored: i scored those 2 glass gallon-sized empty wine jugs that someone was throwing away, so they’re now filled with water :D
5. prepped: laid out a frame for the beans trellis, just need to screw/nail it together and attach the strings. anyone know if garbanzo beans climb?
6. managed: not so much here.
7. cook something new: made a killer cream of asparagus soup on saturday. also cauliflower cheese pie, which wasn’t as great.
8. work on local food systems: not so much.
9. reduce waste: used a potting soil bag as the mulch cover on my swc that holds the tomatoes… and the repurposed wine jugs that would’ve gone to the recycling plant without me.
10. learned a skill: yeah, again, not so much.
five out of ten this week.
1. planted: i planted out two tomatoes into the swc we built. only one of the seeds we’d planted had sprouted, so i had erin pick me up an heirloom seedling at the market. she brought me a black brandywine :D awesome. we're out of potting soil now, and out of money til the end of june (or when my stimulus payment arrives,whichever is first), so planting will be slower for the next several weeks, i expect.
2. harvested: not so much. the lettuces and arugula are doing well, the spinaches are up but tiny, one of my pea babies died, but several more are coming up. two of the basil plants bit it :(
3. preserved: also not so much.
4. stored: i scored those 2 glass gallon-sized empty wine jugs that someone was throwing away, so they’re now filled with water :D
5. prepped: laid out a frame for the beans trellis, just need to screw/nail it together and attach the strings. anyone know if garbanzo beans climb?
6. managed: not so much here.
7. cook something new: made a killer cream of asparagus soup on saturday. also cauliflower cheese pie, which wasn’t as great.
8. work on local food systems: not so much.
9. reduce waste: used a potting soil bag as the mulch cover on my swc that holds the tomatoes… and the repurposed wine jugs that would’ve gone to the recycling plant without me.
10. learned a skill: yeah, again, not so much.
five out of ten this week.
Wednesday, May 14, 2008
score!
on my walk home from the train station today, i stopped when i noticed that inside someone's clear recycling bag was a carlo rossi 1 gallon empty wine jug. it was inside their fence, and inside a bag, so i hesitated... and decided i didn't want to look like i was trash picking.
i couldn't stop thinking about it the rest of the walk home, and almost turned around to go back and get it (i'm thinking water storage here). then, i walked past another house, and they had not one but TWO of the same carlo rossi glass gallon empty wine jugs, only these were NOT behind a fence and NOT in a bag! score! i nabbed them, and they're in the bathtub awaiting a washing-out before they get a baking soda and sunshine treatment. wine isn't the worst thing that water could taste like, but i'd rather if it didn't taste like anything but water ;)
now i'm considering putting a wanted post on freecycle for more of these bottles.
i couldn't stop thinking about it the rest of the walk home, and almost turned around to go back and get it (i'm thinking water storage here). then, i walked past another house, and they had not one but TWO of the same carlo rossi glass gallon empty wine jugs, only these were NOT behind a fence and NOT in a bag! score! i nabbed them, and they're in the bathtub awaiting a washing-out before they get a baking soda and sunshine treatment. wine isn't the worst thing that water could taste like, but i'd rather if it didn't taste like anything but water ;)
now i'm considering putting a wanted post on freecycle for more of these bottles.
Monday, May 12, 2008
weekly dinner menu starting 5/10/08
Sa - cream of asparagus soup (from The New Moosewood Cookbook, p.3)
Su - cauliflower cheese pie (from The New Moosewood Cookbook, p.159)
M - chick pea burgers (from a NY Times recipe we clipped ages ago) on top of salad
Tu - couscous salad w/spicey yogurt dressing (from the South Beach book p.262 - we'll be using bulgur rather than couscous)
W - pizza on yeast-free dough (from How It All Vegan p.115) topped with feta, spinach, tomato and kalamata olives
Th - leek and mushroom quiche ( http://homecooking.about.com/library/archive/blv214.htm )
F - xtine's bulgur pilaf (from xtine's recipe) and zucchini ribbons w/dill (from South Beach book p.237)
can i just say that the cream of asparagus soup was diVINE. mmmmm... so good. the cauliflower cheese pie was good, too. i think the crust (made of grated potato and onion) could have used for the potato to be rinsed off after it was grated. it had that gluey taste that my dad's potato pancakes used to get that makes me sort of go "ulgh" a little.
i had two wisdom teeth taken out on friday afternoon, and while i'm in very little pain from it, i'm still not up to snuff for noshing on crunchy things. hopefully by wednesday i'll be able to do pizza crust! so glad to have the teeth gone. omg.
Su - cauliflower cheese pie (from The New Moosewood Cookbook, p.159)
M - chick pea burgers (from a NY Times recipe we clipped ages ago) on top of salad
Tu - couscous salad w/spicey yogurt dressing (from the South Beach book p.262 - we'll be using bulgur rather than couscous)
W - pizza on yeast-free dough (from How It All Vegan p.115) topped with feta, spinach, tomato and kalamata olives
Th - leek and mushroom quiche ( http://homecooking.about.com/library/archive/blv214.htm )
F - xtine's bulgur pilaf (from xtine's recipe) and zucchini ribbons w/dill (from South Beach book p.237)
can i just say that the cream of asparagus soup was diVINE. mmmmm... so good. the cauliflower cheese pie was good, too. i think the crust (made of grated potato and onion) could have used for the potato to be rinsed off after it was grated. it had that gluey taste that my dad's potato pancakes used to get that makes me sort of go "ulgh" a little.
i had two wisdom teeth taken out on friday afternoon, and while i'm in very little pain from it, i'm still not up to snuff for noshing on crunchy things. hopefully by wednesday i'll be able to do pizza crust! so glad to have the teeth gone. omg.
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