Wednesday, January 30, 2013

Time to Order Gardening Seeds!

This time of year I am overwhelmed with gardening catalogs. I get catalogs from the companies I normally order from and I like to look at those. However, I also get catalogs from companies I have never heard of! 

While I don't like all the junk mail, I usually do look through all the gardening catalogs.  It is addictive! I just love looking at all the vegetables and herbs and thinking about what I will grow this spring and summer. While I do save a lot of my own seeds, I always manage to find something to purchase!  This is what I decided to purchase for this year.
  • Popcorn. If you read my post on the goals I set for this year, you know that I want to grow my own popcorn. I selected the variety Chocolate Cherry. This variety grows two ears per stalk and is resistant to drought and earworms. When I went to order it, it wasn't available! The seed failed the germination trials! So instead, I ordered some very old heirloom seeds (pre-1885) called Pennsylvania Butter Flavored. I got these from the Southern Exposure Seed Exchange. I like to order from this company because I know they grow everything in their catalog in the same hot, humid conditions I have at my house. Good service, reliable company. At this point, I haven't decided whether to look for Chocolate Cherry from another supplier or just stick with Pennsylvania Butter Flavored. I don't have room for both. If I plant them together, I won't be able to save the seed because they will intermingle. If I can find the Chocolate Cherry seed, I may plant them together anyway. I just won't be able to save the seed.
  • Green beans. I didn't save any seeds from my green beans last year. I did hit my goal of canning 51 quart jars of green beans, but didn't have enough left over to save any seeds! Not a problem, I bought more this year. I purchased two different kinds. I also purchased enough so I don't have to save seeds this season either. Again, with two different heirloom varieties, they need to be separated to gather true seeds and I don't have room for that. The first packet of seeds are called Bountiful from Territorial Seed Company. I really like this company. I have purchased seeds from them for many years. Good, fast service. These green beans are stringless. The second packet I bought are called Royal Burgundy Bush Beans from the Victory Seed Company. These are also stringless. (This is important at my house or no one will eat them!) I have also purchased from the Victory Seed Company for many years. Good, reliable company as well.
  • Tomatoes. I always save tomato seeds from Roma tomatoes. Roma are the most reliable tomatoes to grow in the south. Most tomatoes stop producing when it gets too hot. Not Romas! These things grow and produce at temperatures of 100+ degrees in my yard. Still, I am always looking for new varieties to try. This year I am trying a hybrid Roma type. It is a determinate. That means the plant stops growing when it matures and all the fruit ripen at the about same time. All of my heirloom Roma tomato seeds are indeterminate type. They keep growing and growing all summer long. The only thing that stops them from growing and producing is frost. I normally have indeterminate Roma tomato plants over seven feet tall at the end of September! I want to see if the determinate plants give me more tomatoes at one time for canning. If they do, I will switch to an heirloom determinate type for the future. I grow so many tomatoes, I may not notice the difference between the determinate and indeterminate plants. That is why I love testing new stuff! I got the tomato seeds from Southern Exposure Seed Exchange.
  • Grains. I really haven't decided if I am going to try to grow grains this year.  (I haven't purchased the seeds yet.) I am thinking about trying my hand at Amaranth. If I do, I will buy it at Southern Exposure Seed Exchange. If they can get it to grow, so can I!
Some of the new seeds have arrived at my house and some are on their way.  I hope they get here soon! I am ready to start my seeds. The new seeds will join the ones I saved from last summer: squash, tobacco, tomatoes, peanuts, peas, lots of different herbs, and onion sets. Mid-February is the magic date to start seeds where I live. I am not sure I can wait that long!

Monday, January 28, 2013

Cooking with Food Storage: Sourdough Waffles

This cooking with food storage post also features one of my non-electric kitchen appliances!

I am not a big fan of sourdough. The flavor in most sourdough recipes is too tart for me. So, when I find one I really like, it becomes a keeper! That happened with this recipe! It has a very, very mild sourdough flavor. The addition of cinnamon helps too. 

Here is the recipe:

2 eggs 
1/3 cup powdered milk
1/4 tsp salt
2 tablespoons sugar
1/2 tsp cinnamon (Cinnamon doesn't like me so I only added 1/4 tsp.)
2 cups sour dough starter
1/2 tsp baking soda
water or flour to adjust the batter consistency as needed

Of course, since this is cooking with food storage, I used powdered eggs. The equivalent of two eggs is four tablespoons. Then I added the powdered milk.


As I have mentioned before, powdered eggs tend to lump up so I mixed the eggs and dry milk together breaking up any lumps as necessary. To this I added the salt, sugar and cinnamon.
Then I added the two cups of sour dough starter. Remember, you should use starter that you fed 12 - 24 hours ago.  It should be bubbly like this.


When mixed into the dry ingredients this is what it looks like.


Or maybe not. At this point, the consistency will depend on how much liquid is in your starter. If you are feeding your starter with equal amounts of water and flour, your waffle batter will look much more like normal waffle batter than mine does. I like my sour dough starter a little thicker. When I feed my starter, I use 1/4 cup water and 1/2 cup flour. If you do that, the picture above will be an accurate reflection of what your waffle batter will look like. (BTW, powdered eggs also affect the batter consistency. If you use fresh eggs, you will have a thinner batter.)

What you need to do now is adjust the batter to the desired consistency that will work in your waffle iron. If your batter is too thin, add up to 1/2 cup flour. Don't overdo it, only add a little at a time. 

If your batter is too thick, like mine, add some water. I added about 1/4 cup but I didn't measure, so my estimate is not precise. I added a little at a time until the batter was a consistency I liked. You could use regular milk here too. Here is what I got.


When your batter is the right consistency, add 1/2 tsp baking soda and mix well. The baking soda helps to cut the sour taste of the batter. 

Be sure to replenish your sour dough starter by feeding it. The two cups in this recipe used almost all of my starter. 


I added 1/2 cup of water and 1 cup of flour to feed my starter. It will be ready to make bread tomorrow.

You are now ready to make waffles! My waffle iron is a NordicWare 15040 Cast Aluminum Stovetop Belgium Waffle Iron.  It is non-electric! It has a lot of great reviews on Amazon.com.


What I like most about this waffle iron is that it can be used on any stovetop. Electric or non-electric. It even works great on my ceramic stovetop. Sadly, the only thing it won't do is cook over an open fire. The handles are too short and made of plastic. To cook over an open fire, I will have to get another model with longer handles made of wood.

The biggest difference between this and an electric waffle iron is the need to preheat both sides. You also need to cook the waffle on both sides, just like you would make a pancake. I normally cook longer on one side, flip it, then cook it a bit more on the other side to make the waffle a golden brown color. If you find this confusing, don't worry, directions come with the waffle iron.

Here is a picture of the finished waffles!


Perfect waffles, with a very mild, delicious, sour dough flavor!

Friday, January 25, 2013

Can You Make A Fire Without Wood?

Of course you can! Think of all the places where wood is scarce: the desert, the great plains,  the arctic (antarctic), maybe even your house. 

Even if you don't have a fireplace at your house, there may come a time when you need to build a fire. If you should ever have to go without electricity, what will you use to heat and cook your food?  If it is winter, how do you plan to stay warm? Do you have enough propane to cook with while you wait for the electricity to come back on? Let me give you an alternative solution to keeping an emergency stack of wood. This item is usually available anywhere people are located and can be easily used as a substitute fuel in place of wood.

It's newspapers! In addition to burning, newspapers have a lot of useful purposes and I will show you some of my favorite uses in another post. This post is centered around how I use the majority of my newspapers. Newspapers can easily be burned as an alternative to wood. However, to do that you must make them into logs. It is really quite easy to do. 

Start with a stack of newspapers. Take a small section and lay it out flat. To me, a small section is no more than five or six pages. If you have a section that is bigger than five or six pages, break it apart into smaller sections. Now, take another section and lay it on top of the first. But, this time place the fold on the opposite side from the first section. You want to alternate the folds in your stack of papers so one side of the log will not be bigger then the other. As an alternative, you can cut the paper at the fold and then neatly stack all the individual pieces.

In the picture below, I hope you can see that the section on top is showing its fold, while the section below has the page edge showing.


Continue stacking the newspaper this way until you have a two to three inch stack. If I have newspapers of different sizes, I usually separate them into different stacks but this really isn't necessary.


Now, take a section at a time and tightly roll it up. If you cut your newspaper and now have individual pages, roll five or six of them at a time. For the newspaper to burn like a log of wood, the paper must be rolled very tightly. Once the first section is rolled, start again with the next section and continue rolling it on the outside of the first section. Don't worry too much if the first few logs you create are not tight. You will get better as you make more.


If you have some other paper items, you can add them to the roll as well. In the photo below, I have some cereal boxes left over from a family member's visit. While you can put these boxes in the recycle bin, this is an alternative way to use the cardboard. You can also do this with junk mail (I try not to use colored, waxy or photographic paper) as well as old bills that you have paid. We file our bills for six months to one year. When we run out of room, the oldest bills go into the shredder or into a newspaper log.


Continue to roll the newspaper until the log is about four inches wide. Then tie it off with some string. Cotton string is best so it will burn with the log.


Here you can see that I have made four newspaper logs. These logs will burn for about one hour. They didn't take more than 15 minutes to make.


We have a bin in our garage that we use to store the newspaper logs. That way they are handy when we need them. 


There is one thing to remember when burning newspaper logs. They don't burn like paper. Tightly rolled logs burn just like wood. This also means that they can be difficult to 'start' on fire when you are trying to light them. You can't just put a match to one end and expect a roaring fire. You will need to use fire starters and kindling, just like real wood.

And I am sure I don't need to say it, but I will anyway. Be sure to use all necessary safely procedures around fire. Use the logs in a fireplace or if burning outside, use a fire pit. If you don't know how to make a fire pit, do an Internet search. There are lots of instructions on how to make one on the Internet.

Now, if wood is scarce where you live, what do you use for kindling? Paper! This is a perfect use for junk mail. I only use plain basic paper, no glossy stuff. Roll individual sheets of paper (and envelopes) and then give them a twist to keep them that way. Any size paper will do. Standard size paper or standard size postcards both work well. I can use between four and ten pieces of paper kindling on a five log fire at my house. I keep it next to the fire place so it is always handy when needed.


The other empty basket is for small wayward branches that fall off the trees in my neighborhood on a windy day. I collect them from my yard and store them here to use as kindling. And yes, that is a usable washboard in the background! It lives by my fireplace.

Here are the leftover pieces of glossy junk mail that will go into the shredder. They are next to my 'helper' who insisted I have her input on this project.


Whether you want a fire to keep warm or need to cook food when there isn't any electricity, consider a no cost (or low cost) alternative to wood! Newspapers!

Wednesday, January 23, 2013

Butter Does NOT Need Refrigeration

I recently got an email from a new reader asking me what that red jar was that seems to be in almost all the pictures I take in my kitchen. You can clearly see it in this picture.


So, I thought I would answer it here. That is my butter jar! It is a popular myth that butter must be refrigerated. It isn't at my house. If you think about it, people have been eating butter for centuries. There wasn't any electricity then. If you were lucky enough back then, you could chill your butter in a local cold spring. Most people used what I use to store butter, my butter jar. 

It is easy to use. The butter goes into the cup on the top, and water goes into the cup on the bottom. It is the water that seals the butter and keeps it fresh. You can get the idea from this picture. You can purchase these from a lot of different companies. Do a Google search on 'butter crock' and you should find plenty of sources. 


In my house, in the winter, room temperature is between 65 - 68 degrees. At this temperature, the butter will stay fresh for one month. In the summer, room temperature is about 78 degrees. At this temperature, the butter will stay fresh for two weeks. Change the water in the jar every day or every other day.

I do not use butter from the store in my butter jar. (I do purchase butter from the store when I am doing a lot of baking. For example, at Christmas time.) Butter is quite easy to make. Even better, if you use shelf stable cream, no electricity is necessary! You can see how I make butter here.

Try storing your butter on the counter and start to reduce your need for electricity!

Monday, January 21, 2013

Make Your Own Sourdough Starter

Do you have a sourdough starter?  If you don't, let me suggest you make one! With it, you can make bread, pancakes, waffles, muffins, biscuits, bagels, pies and even cake! The best part is you don't need yeast in your recipes when using sourdough starter.

Before people could go to the store and buy yeast, bread was made using a starter such as sourdough. Sourdough likely originated in ancient Egypt. It was used to make bread all through the middle ages, crossed the Atlantic Ocean and went west with the pioneers. What I think is the best part of using sourdough is the total control you have over the taste. You can make it extra-tangy or extra-mild.  

Long ago, I thought the only kind of sourdough that was acceptable, was sourdough started on the west coast (think San Francisco sourdough). That was before I knew that all sourdough starters take on the characteristics of the local wild yeast.  What that means in the south is, my sourdough bread will not taste like San Francisco sourdough bread since the wild yeast are different here.  Your starter will taste different where you live as well. Since you can't keep the San Francisco flavor in your sourdough starter, why pay for it? It doesn't make sense to pay a lot of money for a starter that originated somewhere else.

What to do? Start your own! My friend Chef Tess has a tutorial on her blog that gives step by step directions. She also has a great sourdough bread recipe there as well. This is how I made mine.

Start with a clean non-metallic container. Sourdough and metal don't mix so be sure to use non-metallic spoons when you are stirring as well. This is what I use. I got it as a present. It is from the King Arthur Flour Company.


To the container, I added 1 cup of water and 2 cups of whole wheat flour. I mixed that well and added 1/4 teaspoon of yeast. (Adding the yeast is not necessary, it just speeds things up a bit. If you don't add the yeast, it will take longer to get a good sourdough starter because your starter will need to collect wild yeast from the air.) I used bottle water to avoid the chlorine.


The next day, I poured out some of the starter and fed it again. This time I used 1/4 cup bottled water and 1/2 cup whole wheat flour. Stir well.


I repeated the process for four days. At the end of that time,  the starter was ready. It should be nice and bubbly and look like this.


Now the starter is ready to use in lots of yummy recipes! If you aren't ready to use your starter yet, or if you have a starter and want to take a break from using it, you can put it in the refrigerator. When in the refrigerator, you will only have to pull it out weekly to feed it. When you want to use it in a recipe again, take the starter out the day before and feed it. The next day it will be ready to use in your baking.

I have also had some success freezing the starter for up to six months. In my experience, when I let the starter go longer than six months in the freezer, I have mixed results when trying to re-activate it. If you want to take a break from sourdough for longer than six months, you can always follow these directions again to start a new batch.

I will post some of my favorite recipes soon!