Archive for the ‘urban homesteading’ Category

31 Aug

Kitchen staples: granola with chia seeds

Posted by wooddogs3 in cooking, fruit, home food production, kitchen staples, preserving, recipe, sustainable, urban homesteading. Tagged: , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , .

may 2009 032

Kitchen experimentation is a lot of fun, but early in the morning on a busy workday I don’t feel very experimental. I want something comfortable and familiar, quick to prepare, healthy, and tasty. Oh yes, and I also want it to keep me feeling good all morning, not just give me a sugar rush to get me out the door.

       My homemade granola fits the bill perfectly. It offers whole grains, fruit, nuts, lots of fiber and antioxidants, and good flavor. If you eat it with yogurt, as I do, you get a good dose of healthy bacteria too. One easy kitchen job every 3-4 weeks keeps two people supplied with good breakfasts, plus an occasional handful out of the jar as a snack.

     I use agave nectar as the sweetener due to its low glycemic index and good flavor. I used to use vegetable oil but now use a light-flavored olive oil. This is a great vehicle for chia seeds, too. If you’ve read Christopher McDougle’s interesting new book Born to Run, you know about how the Tarahumara tribe uses chia seeds as an energy source. Personally, I won’t eat anything just because it’s good for me; it also has to taste good. In this recipe, chia seeds taste good.

Click here for the recipe! Continue reading →

2 Aug

My Southeast Asian Summer: lemony herbs

Posted by wooddogs3 in cooking, edible landscaping, fish and seafood, front yard gardening, herbs, home food production, preserving, recipe, sustainable, Uncategorized, urban homesteading, vegetable gardening. Tagged: , , , , , , , , , , , , .

july 2009 035

Some of the most delightful herbs used in Southeast Asia have a strong, clean citrus scent. Here we’ll consider lemongrass and lemon basil, along with a Western taste-alike, lemon verbena.  My love affair with the piquant and flavorful food of Southeast Asia continues, and I’m putting more and more thought into which herbs and roots to buy and which to grow. There’s an excellent reason to grow rather than buy: these herbs are almost never available organically grown. My experiments are aimed at seeing which ones I can grow in useful quantities without a greenhouse or other specialized setting.

They are very delicious with fish and seafood. For the Lemon Shrimp above, go to the very end of the post, after the growing info.
For more about growing and using the lemony herbs, click here. Continue reading →

27 Jul

The Joys of Summer: pizza on the grill

Posted by wooddogs3 in cooking, edible landscaping, front yard gardening, herbs, home food production, recipe, Uncategorized, urban homesteading, vegetable gardening. Tagged: , , , , , , , , .

july 2009 036

About this time of year, we have some days when it’s too hot to plan dinner. All afternoon we’re listless and have no appetite, then the sun goes down, the air cools off, and we’re hungry. Nothing was planned ahead, but we still want a delicious and healthy meal. Pizza on the grill is custom-made for those times. july 2009 040

Made with beautiful ripe tomatoes and basil from the garden, this is a celebration of summer. This version is vegetarian.

Click here for the recipe! Continue reading →

20 Jul

The Joys of Summer: more grilled vegetables

Posted by wooddogs3 in cooking, edible landscaping, front yard gardening, home food production, recipe, sustainable, urban homesteading, Vegetable dinners, vegetable gardening. Tagged: , , , , , , , , , , , , , .

july 2009 013
Here in New Mexico the hot weather has continued for a few weeks with no relief, and we’re doing more and more grilling to avoid heating up the kitchen. This has led to more and more experimenting with grilled vegetables, and so far we’ve loved them all. I also love having plates full of color, not just brown meat. If you want to reduce your meat consumption, eating more vegetables is a delicious way to approach that goal. To improve kitchen efficiency, I plan how to season each vegetable so that I can make the seasoning pastes in a sequence yet not have all the seasoning the same; this is explained in the recipe section. If you want more details on how to grill, I recommend the superb grilling cookbook by Francis Mallmann, Seven Fires. Grilling is an art, and can’t be taught in a blogpost. But it’s an art well worth aquiring.

The quality of your ingredients is paramount. I do not recommend any use of battery-raised commercial chicken, which is a disaster from the gastronomic as well as the environmental and humane standpoint. Commercially raised “free-range” chicken is only slightly better. Get some real chicken. I strongly recommend Pollo Real pasture-raised chicken; see the Delahantes’ website to see how they raise their birds. They sell at the Santa Fe farmers’ market, and it’s possible to arrange a pick-up in Albuquerque if you contact them ahead of time. Back when I had a farm and raised my own chickens, they tasted like Pollo Real chicken, by which I mean that they tasted like chicken, while American commercial chicken tastes strikingly like nothing at all. Battery farming of chickens pollutes the envoronment and spreads disease, as well as being a horrible life for the birds, so I avoid it. We need to support humane and sustainable farming, and the best way to support it is to seek out your local sustainable farmers like the Delehantes.

If you have a grill with a griddle section, you’re all set. Otherwise, a heavy cast-iron skillet could be used where a griddle is specified.
Clich here for the recipes! Continue reading →

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