Dark Days meal

I set out at the beginning of last summer to make it to January using only vegetables from my garden (of the ones I grow, anyway).

Well, here it is, well into February, and it looks like I'm going to make it all the way to my first harvest in June, with some to spare. I've still got plenty of tomato sauce and frozen tomatoes, cucumber and eggplant, loads of pickles, several jars of corn relish, one more quart of blanched chard, roasted frozen green and jalapeno peppers. I have plenty of frozen vegetable peelings for making stock. Just used the last of the raspberries, making me eye my non-bearing apple tree with evil intent: wouldn't that space be better used as a a berry patch? Hmmmm.

So here's a "larder meal," made from my stores (plus some CSA onions). Oh, also? Go Team Eggplant.

Pumpkin-eggplant soup with carmelized onions
1 roasted medium-sized eggplant, peeled and cubed
3 roasted medium-sized tomatoes, or 3 tomatoes blanched and peeled
1 quart pumpkin puree (approximarly equivalent to a can)
1 quart vegetable stock

1 large onion
1-2 teaspoons molasses

seasoning:
1 teaspoon whole coriander
a few green peppercorns
1/2 teaspoon dried tarragon
1 teaspoon coarse salt

Put the first four ingredients in a large pot and bring to a simmer. In the meantime, melt about 3 tablespoons of butter in a skillet, turn the heat down to low and add the onions. When they start losing their shape, add the molasses and slowly sautee until the onions are completely soft and shapeless. Grind the spices (in a spice grinder, coffee grinder, or mortar and pestle) and add to the soup. Add the onions, draining any leftover butter into the pot.

Cool with a little cream or half-and-half when serving.

Are we frugal, poor, or just lazy?

One of the things I've found in trying not to buy anything, is that I don't really buy anything. I'm not really sure why this is. I've never been one of those people that hunts down bargains. (Talk to my brother in law, who once drove 30 miles to buy milk at $1.59 a gallon. In his defense he bought enough for everyone, and I mean everyone.) I don't clip coupons, mostly because they tend to be for name-brand extras that I don't use anyway.

We make a decent living. Yes, we're trying to put two kids through college with cash (one down, one to go), so that takes every dime of discretionary money, but the point is, we have discretionary money. If I buy an extra skirt, it's not going to put our tuition payments in arrears.

Which brings us to the most likely culprit-- it takes effort to spend money. Go to the store, go to the mall, stop off on the way home. Even entering all that initial info for "one click shopping" on line is often more effort than I'm willing to put in.

Which gives hope for everyone. If you're not naturally frugal, and you've got money to spend, you can still avoid the beast just by remembering that shopping is a pain in the ass.


The vegetable ingredients are all from my larder, frozen or canned last summer, but that's just me bragging. Feel free to buy these ingredients from your local CSA, neighborhood grocer, or even a chain or big box store.

Eggplant Chili
1 pound ground beef
1/2 pound chorizo sausage, skinned and crumbled
1/2 cup eggplant puree
1 pint tomato sauce or loose paste
1-2 tomatoes, blanched, peeled and cut into chunks
1/3 cup salsa verde
1 medium onion, diced
1 cup dry mixed beans or 2 cups soaked or canned
chili powder to taste (at least 2 tablespoons)
sea salt

If using dried beans, the instructions will say "soak overnight" but I've found this is not enough. Boil your beans for 30 minutes in 2-3 quarts of water with a little salt, add another 1-2 quarts of boiling water and soak in the hot water at least 2 hours. Drain and discard the water (or pour it onto the compost).

To make the eggplant puree, slice one medium eggplant, dredge heavily in olive oil, and saute until it starts to fall apart. Peel off the skin, add about 1/4 cup of the tomato sauce, and whisk briskly by hand, or in a blender or small food processor.

Saute the onions in about a quarter cup of water, until soft; when all the water is gone (and not a second later, or the onions will burn), add a tablespoon of olive oil, then crumble the meat onto it. Brown the meat (don't worry if you get "burnt" meat on the pot-- this is good, it will flavor the chili. Add the chili powder and simmer a few minutes until thoroughly mixed.

Once the meat is browned add all the sauces and simmer until the browned residue has been released into the sauce, then add more chili powder if needed. Mix thoroughly and add the beans. Simmer at least 30 minutes, being careful not to burn it by stirring frequently.

(post moved, in case you found the old link and it doesn't go anywhere)

February 5 is World Nutella Day

This week I bought a grilled cheese sandwich and a drink (on existing credit) at the rink, and a candy bar. As I was eating the candy bar, I thought, well, crap, I just bought something I don't need.

Which is what this is about--I just never thought about it. It was only a buck, I was bored, and I didn't even think. I knew that I would have to eat dinner at the rink; I could easily have packed a dinner here. I just never thought of it.

A bigger dilemma came from my husband, who wants to buy a jacket that's on sale right now. Nope, I told him, you agreed to do this with me. He argued that it's the perfect jacket, and it's on sale. It won't be on sale in March. I don't know if he bought it or not; I guess I'll find out when the credit card bill comes.

This is how we talk ourselves into things we don't need--it's just a dollar, it's on sale, I didn't know about this perfect jacket when I agreed to do this. Our culture is relentless in its quest to get us to acquire things.

Not buying things, oddly takes more forethought--make the nutella, plan the purchase, use what you have. Joe Salatin and others call our economy and culture "extractive"-- we take things out of it without putting anything in. It's very easy to acquire in our culture, much harder to create, harder still to forego.

Oh, and in case you don't believe me: World Nutella Day.

Nutella-Filled Sandwich Cookie Recipe
Adapated from 101 Cookbooks

2 1/2 cups whole wheat pastry flour
1 teaspoon baking powder
scant 1 teaspoon salt
6 ounces (1 1/2 sticks) unsalted butter, room temperature
2/3 cup natural cane sugar
2 large egg yolks + 1/2 the egg white
1 tablespoon vanilla extract
2-3 tablespoons milk or cream

Homemade nutella

Preheat oven to 350 - racks in the top 1/3 of the oven. Line a baking sheet with parchment paper.

Whisk together the flour, baking powder, salt and set aside. In a separate bowl, beat the butter until it is fluffy and creamy. Add the sugar and mix some more, scraping the sides of the bowl once along the way. Mix in the egg yolks and vanilla extract, scraping the sides again if needed. Add the flour mixture a little at a time. The original recipe said do this by hand, but I used the hand mixer and it was fine. The dough will be dry, so add the egg white and dribble the milk in alternately with the flour.If the dough is on the dry side stir in the milk as well. With your hands, form the dough into a large ball , then divide it into four equal pieces. Chill for about 10 minutes (again, original said 30 minutes, but this made the dough too stiff to roll).

Flatten each ball and roll out the dough wafer thin, about 1/8-inc. Stamp out using the cookie cutter into bite-size or larger cookies, depending on the size of your cookie cutter (I used a donut cutter, so mine are a little big). Arrange cookies 1-inch apart on prepared baking sheets before sprinkling with a small pinch of salt and sugar.

Bake for about seven minutes or until the cookie edges are golden brown. Remove from oven and cool completely on a rack.

Smear about a 1/2 teaspoonful of the nutella on a cookie, then sandwich it with another. Don't use more chocolate than that, it overwhelms the cookie flavor.

Groceries

You may have noticed that I like to cook. Here's what I ran out of this week, while I was snowed in with nothing to do but hang out in the kitchen:

Flour: unbleached, cake, oat, bread
Oil: sesame, walnut, canola
Rice: arborio, brown, wild mix
Mustard: stone ground, dijon
Popcorn

In addition to the items above, I did not run out of whole wheat flour or corn meal, olive oil, long grain rice, basmati rice, couscous, or pastina, and I always keep a jar of yellow mustard, as well as ground dry mustard. I'm guessing these are things that most people don't have in their kitchens and never miss. But I always have them, and never think twice about restocking when I run out.

There is nothing on that list that I can't do without. I can make perfectly good meals with olive oil and plain old white rice, and I really shouldn't indulge my taste for white flour anyway when wheat is so much better for you (plus you can't find organic white flour to save your life, plus I have plenty of wheat). Bread flour is just a lazy indulgence (although it does make better bread, I swear it).

I stood there with my shopping cart full of these items (and they aren't cheap either) and dithered and rationalized. I am, after all a cook. It's food, not luxury goods. I use all of these things all the time. Just because "ordinary" people wouldn't know a bag of wild rice if it hit them over the head doesn't mean I shouldn't get it. After all, it's ordinary to me. Furthermore, I haven't bought any vegetables in nearly 8 months, since I was so successful at preserving the harvest this year, so that balances it out, right?

Ah, the spirit is willing, but the flesh is weak. I skipped the wild rice and the stone ground mustard. Everything else is in my pantry now.

What's the verdict? Did I violate my rules?

Convenient stuff

I need a phone.

Mind you, I have a phone. In fact, several phones. I have a cell phone, as does my son, my daughter, and my husband. Then there's "Phone Henge," an archeological site of marginally functional cell phones that we mine for plugs, headsets, and exchanges. They need to be recycled, but recycling phones is another errand, plus my brother-in-law never lets us get rid of electronic items because he's convinced the evil-doers are out there just waiting to get into the memory chips and get numbers from old bank accounts, from which they will reconstruct our lives and steal all our money.

I also have two truly ancient old-fashioned wired phones and a wireless. They were all purchased for a couple of bucks at the resale shop. I consider wired phones a necessity. I always have phone service in emergencies, because the wired sets don't need either the house electricity or a cell phone grid. They work even when the power goes out. This is the number I give to stores when they won't accept "you don't need my phone number" or "000-000-0000."

But there isn't a phone in the kitchen anymore, because the resale specimen that was there died. When the phone rings and I'm in the kitchen, I have to go two whole rooms over to answer it.

I understand there are people who feel this way about tvs.

Peppery shortbread cheese crackers

3/4 cup whole wheat flour
1/4 cup corn meal
4 oz. of cheese (cheddar, gruyere or Parmesan) grated
6 T (3/4 stick) of unsalted butter, cut into pieces
about 3 T heavy cream
seasoning: 1 teaspoon each white and green peppercorns, 1 1/2 teaspoons coarse sea salt, ground together, 1-2 teaspoons pepper flakes, or use the pre-mixed seasoning of your choice


Mix all ingredients except cream in a food processor; run the machine until dough forms a clump, adding the cream a little at a time to get a nice maleable texture. (I only have a 3 cup foot processor, so I had to divide the dough into thirds). Form into three 1 1/2 x 8" logs, roll in plastic wrap or wax paper and place in freezer until firm (a couple of hours). Slice into 1/4" or thinner rounds. Only have one log out at a time; leave the others in the freezer until you're ready to use them. Line a baking sheet with parchment paper and bake at 350 for 15 minutes.

Update, Feb 27: Made these again using a pepper-jack cheese instead of the seasoning. Also good.

No Buy February: The Rules

I jump started a discussion on My Folia (where I journal my gardening) and on my personal Facebook page, and discovered that there's a lot of anxiety about this idea of not buying stuff. "No Valentine's presents?" "Can I buy a heat mat for my seedlings?" "This is the one time of year when we splurge!" "Can I buy things that I use to make other things?" et cetera.

So on this first day of February (Imbolc or Candlemas in the celestial calendar, for those who keep track), I thought I'd try some clarifications.

1. What do you need? First and foremost, this is not about spending no money. It's about mindful spending. Don't buy what you don't need. If you have a major seed starting project for your summer garden, and you're out of fluorescent bulbs or starter mix, then this would be something you need, because February is seed starting month in a lot of places. If you're in Chicago and the sole comes off your boots, you need boots. Buy away!

2. When do you need it? I don't care if it's on sale, or you're afraid it won't be at the store in a month. You can't buy it if you don't need it now. So, no bathing suits unless you're heading to the Caribbean.

3. Do you already have it? Sole-less boots you can buy. A second pair of boots, no. If it's something you've been planning to replace, well, hold off for a month. Make it do, for now.

4. Can you make it? This is your Valentine's Day and February birthday category. Make a gorgeous dinner, a spectacular card, bake a cake, or paint a pot that you already have as a gift for the gardener in your life. You don't have to give up giving. You just have to give up buying what you (and your loved ones) don't need. For the cooks among you, or the really committed, I'll throw snacks in here. You can live for a month without buying potato chips.

5. Were you planning to buy it before you left the house? If not, then it's an impulse buy. Leave it on the shelf. Corollary to this, was it in the budget already. A completely self-serving rule, this would cover things like piano or, um, figure skating lessons for the kids. (Thanks, Gwen)

6. Is it from the Target Dollar Spot? Never buy anything from here again. Items from the Dollar Spot are unnecessary almost by definition.

7. Do you think you'll still be using it in 6 months (or if a seasonal item, at this time next year)? If not, then you don't need it.

In the end, you need to define this challenge for yourself. Don't let me tell you what you need. But that's the point. You shouldn't cede that power to the marketers, either.

Sweet and Spicy Pumpkin Loaf
Adapted from Orangette

1 ½ cups unbleached all-purpose flour
1 ½ tsp cayenne pepper
1 tsp baking soda
1 tsp salt
1 tsp rosemary, ground fine
1/4 tsp baking powder
1/3 cup water
1/4 tsp pure vanilla extract
1/4 tsp almond extract
6 Tbs unsalted butter, at room temperature
1/2 cup honey
2 large eggs, at room temperature
1 cup pumpkin purée (or cooked, puréed—until very smooth—winter squash, yams, or sweet potatoes), at room temperature
½ cup coarsely chopped almonds

Preheat the oven to 350 degrees. Grease (with butter or cooking spray) a 9- by 5-inch loaf pan.

Whisk together dry ingredients. In another bowl, mix water and flavor extracts. In a large bowl, beat butter until creamy, about 30 seconds. Add honey, and beat on medium speed until lightened in color and texture, about 3 minutes. Beat in eggs one at a time. Add pumpkin purée, and beat on low speed until just blended. Add the flour mixture in three parts, alternating with the water-flavorings mixture in two parts, beating on low until smooth and just combined. Scrape down the sides of the bowl with a rubber spatula as necessary. Fold in almonds. Pour batter into pan and spread evenly across the top.

Bake about one hour, or until a toothpick inserted in the center comes out clean. Let cool in the pan on a rack for five or ten minutes before unmolding to cool completely on the rack.

Obsolete stuff

When I was a very young child, in the early sixties, manufacturers started discovering the decades-old concept of "planned obsolesence." In the words of cultural critic Vance Packard in The Waste Makers, it's "the systematic attempt of business to make us wasteful, debt-ridden, permanently discontented individuals."

Originally coined in 1932 by an obscure economist, it took the manufacturers a while to catch on. Make things so that they break or go out of style. Parse out slightly better, more desirable versions, so that the old version is no longer acceptable (Apple is the genius without par at this).

And we bought it. Literally.

Outsourcing to exploited workers in developing countries means it's cheaper to replace most appliances than it is to get them fixed. Because we don't make these things here anymore, the people who know how to make (and therefore fix) them have all died. As this happened more and more, the small repair shops that used to exist in every neighborhood started disappearing, so that now it is both expensive and time consuming to get the toaster fixed. (And who owns them? Immigrants, from countries where they still manufacture stuff.) Shop classes, where they taught you how to do simple repairs, disappeared from public schools, because everyone is going to law school now, and teaching people how to do useful stuff is racist and classist. Just drop into Sears or Walmart or Target or Walgreen's and get a new one. Old one goes into the landfill. Use the credit card! As Judith Levine says in Not Buying It, credit is the perfect capitalist solution to keeping wages low while ensuring that workers keep spending money.

Families lost their livelihoods, manufacturing in the US died, unions struggled, the earth filled up with junk, and we poisoned a generation or two in countries where there are no environmental or safety regulations.

But man, that new iPod Touch is cool, and my toaster has a digital display ensuring the exact quality of toastiness that I desire. If I get an iPad, there's probably an app that will get my toast going for me before I get up in the morning.

Cleverly, manufacturers have figured out Planned Obsolescence 2.0: it's obsolete by age alone, regardless of whether it still works. When was the last time you got rid of something because it broke? We don't hold onto our appliances long enough for them to break anymore. Consumer durable goods are considered to be things we use for three years or more, like refrigerators, cars and other large appliances. Not things that only last three years. Things that we replace every three years. Three years? I'm supposed to replace my fridge every three years? Yes, I am. I recently tried to get my stove top fixed. It was installed wrong, and one of the burners doesn't work. The repairman refused to fix it. Told me I needed a new one, because this one was from 2002. He actually refused the minimum repair fee rather than have to fix it. Mind you, it can be fixed. But he has bought so deeply into the idea of "new" and "better" that he actually chose not to be paid rather than to support my suspicious desire not to buy something when the thing I've got is fine.

It's a pathology. We need to keep our things. We need to stop replacing them before their time is up, or worse, just adding to the pile.

Because what they've really planned the obsolescence of is our free will and choice.

Oatmeal molasses bread
recipe adapted from the American Home All-purpose Cook Book

2 c. milk
2 T. molasses
1 T. sea salt
2 T butter or shortening
1 package active dry yeast
1/2 c. warm water (barely cool on your wrist)
2 eggs
1 cup oats, ground to a fine meal in your food processor
4 c. whole wheat flour
2-2 1/2 c. white or bread flour

Scald milk (i.e. heat it to just shy of boiling, in saucepan or microwave). Cool to 100F/38C then add the shortening, salt, and molasses. Stir until it melts, then cool further to 80F/26C. I put it in the freezer to speed the cool down. Once it's cool, sprinkle the yeast onto the warm water, let it sit about 5-8 minutes. Beat the eggs into the cooled mixture, then add the activated yeast.

Stir in the oat flour until completely moist, then start adding the other flours about a cup at a time until it forms a stiff dough. Turn out onto a floured board and knead 5 to 10 minutes, or until dough is smooth and elastic. It will not feel as smooth as white bread doughs.

Grease a large bowl, and place the dough in it, rotating the dough a couple of times to make sure it is coated with oil. Cover with a damp towel and let it rise in a warm place until doubled in size. (I have had this take as long as 4 hours). Punch down, let rise again until almost double. Again, this can take anywhere from 30 minutes to a couple of hours. Grease two 9" loaf pans. Punch dough down, knead briefly to pop any air bubbles, divide in half. Shape each piece into a loaf and place in pans. Cover.

Let rise 50 to 60 minutes or until doubled. Bake at 375F for 25 to 30 minutes.

The oats give this bread a nice springy moistness, and the molasses its lovely golden brown color. Great for bread-and-butter or as a sandwich bread.