I’m thankful that there are people who take the time and effort to grow food to sell at the farmer’s market. This makes it much easier for those of us that want good healthy local food and don’t have the space or time to grow it ourselves. I also appreciate that it gives me the opportunity to get involved in my community and to get to know my neighbors.

I’m thankful that I have space for a few homegrown vegetables. I don’t have much space, but things I manage to grow give me a deep sense of satisfaction and freedom. I’m very very thankful for this opportunity.

I’m also thankful for my heritage and the women that came before me who canned and preserved and grew their own food. I’m thankful that they passed these lessons down through the generations and I can help my sister pass them along to her children. I love canning in these jars that my grandmothers used for so many years.

I’m particularly thankful for the changing seasons and the beauty and variety it brings to my life. I really appreciate the ebb and flow of the seasonal changes and I love being in tune with those through gardening and eating seasonally.

When I step out onto my back porch I am thankful that it is trees I see and not skyscrapers…

For muddy little hands that bring me flowers.

Llamas at dusk…

Dancing in the rain!

And I’m even thankful for Camels in the Snow!

At Roberts Roost I’m thankful for…

Hands, they do such amazing things,

And Band-aids to patch up the hands after a project is done (there is always blood…)

What kinds of things are you thankful for?

My name is Susy, I’m a new writer here at Not Dabbling in Normal. My pen name is Chiot’s Run. I blog about gardening, canning, local living and all kinds of fun stuff over at Chiot’s Run, you can also follow me via photos on my Flickr Photostream. I also write over at Simple, Green, Frugal Co-op several times a month.

I think I was asked to be a writer here because of some of my interesting hobbies. They aren’t the typical hobbies for an early 30’s girl. While many women my age are acquiring shoes, bags and clothes; I’m busy learning beekeeping, maple sugaring, canning, cheese making and other crazy things.


My husband and I own a small business, 2nd Mile Productions and I work for a non-profit as well, Colombian Christian Mission. We both work from home which allows us to spend our time a little differently than many people. I’m able to spend my days gardening and my evening working. When it’s maple sugaring season we’re able to run outside periodically to check the boiling sap, then get back to work.

Over the past couple years Mr Chiots and I have been building a network of local farms for our food supply. We feel very strongly about knowing where our food comes from and knowing the people that produce it. We get raw milk from a wonderful little local farm, with this we make our own butter and cheese each week. We visit the local farmers markets and have developed friendships with many local growers.


We try to source other things we need locally as well, like yarn for knitting and soap for bathing. When we need to buy a product like canning jars, we try to find a small local business instead buying from a big-box type store. If we can’t find it locally we search out small handmade places in other parts of the country. I love knowing that someone put love and effort into the things I’m using.

I hope you’ll enjoy the things I write about. Most people think I’m a bit weird, but I’m sure since you’re reading this blog you’ll be among the few people that find me interesting.

What hobbies do you have that aren’t seen as “normal”?

Nothing is as essential to being self-sufficient as food production and storage of food.  Today I’m going to touch on some ideas for stocking the basic must have pantry.  My goal in my pantry stocking is to have enough of the staples put up so that in the case of emergency I am set at least for a few months…or if my older boys all descend at once I have plenty of food at least for a week or two!

When I designed our house 15 years ago our boys 4, 6, and 8 and I knew that in the teenage years I would need some major food storage capacity.  My pantry is good size but you don’t need a designated room for food storage.  For many garden vegetables a cool garage is great.  Spare bedrooms, hall closets, many different places can be use for food.

I think food storage is a matter of priorities.  I have heard from many people that they just don’t have the room for keeping extra food.  Yet their closets are overflowing with never worn clothing, or cabinets full of appliances they seldom if ever use.  I don’t have a problem with these things but I would not give up perfectly good storage to keep them when I could keep an extra bag of wheat in there.

When I started our pantry from scratch I took the time to keep a journal for a couple of months of what we ate.  I did not want to purchase a lot of things that I would seldom use.  I came up with a basic list of ‘must haves’ at all times from that journal and then fleshed the pantry out from there when I added new recipes and needed new ingredients.

Here is my list of staples. With this I know that now matter what happens I will have something for dinner or in case of prolonged power outage or outbreak of sickness I know we will not go hungry.

Home Canned…

• Canned tomatoes, sauce, and paste (soup base, base for most pasta sauce)
• Jams and Jellies
• Fruit Sauces, apricot, peach, and apple
• Fruit Syrups (we eat a lot of pancakes and waffles)
• Vegetable Stock

Bulk Grains (purchased in 25# and 50#)

• Wheat (both white and red for fresh whole wheat flour)
• Oat Groats (for grinding into flour)
• Barley
• Rolled Oats (cookies, oatmeal, crisps, bread)
• Cracked Wheat (breads)
• Spelt (flour for bread)
• Quinoa (cereal and bread)
• Rye
• Corn (for cornmeal)
• Brown Rice

Oils

• Olive Oil (breads and cooking)
• Canola Oil (breads)
• Sesame Oil (Asian/Indian cooking)

Baking Supplies

• Baking powder
• Baking soda
• Yeast
• Salt
• Molasses
• Sugar
• Brown Sugar
• Egg Replacer
• Vanilla
• Spices especially cinnamon

Dried Beans and Nuts

• Lentils
• Yellow and green split peas
• Navy
• Small white
• Black
• Garbanzo
• Kidney
• Walnuts (snacking, breads, trail mix)
• Almonds (snacking, trail mix)
• Cashews (cashew milk, trail mix)
• Peanuts (trail mix)

Misc.

• Raisins (granola, pie, cinnamon rolls, bread, trail mix)
• Canned Pineapple (smoothies and pizza)
• Coconut Milk (smoothies and chilled pumpkin soup)
• Rice Milk
• Wild Rice
• Tea (mama needs her tea)
• Honey (baking, granola, tea)
• Popcorn
• Nutritional yeast (vegan sauces, popcorn, toast)
• Mustard (beans, salads, sandwiches)
• Shredded coconut (breads and granola)
• Dried cranberries (trail mix, granola, snacks)
• Various dried whole wheat pastas
• Cocoa Powder
• Balsamic Vinegar (dressings and flavorings)
• Peanut Butter
• Cornstarch (thickener)

Frozen

• Peas, corn, green beans, pureed pumpkin and squash, spinach
• Freezer jams
• Ice Cream (husband’s indulgence)
• Roasted Peppers (breads and pizza)

Water

• Enough for each person to drink and cook with for 1 month (this takes some planning and some room)

This looks like a long list but for us these are the things, along with fresh vegetables and fruits, are what I have come to know are the basics for what I cook.  With the exception of my bulk grains most don’t take up much room even when purchased in larger than usual quantities.  I also try to store in glass as much as possible.  It is easy to clean and doesn’t leach chemicals over long storage periods…not that I’m sure that Tupperware does but just in case.

A few tips for  getting started stocking you pantry…

• Buy in quantity when you find a good sale.
• Look at the dates when possible and buy the freshest.
• Don’t buy more than you can reasonably use before its past its prime.
• Make sure you have a spot to properly store (example cool dry dark for grains)
• Don’t over buy if that means kicking spouse out of bed to use it for storage!  Moderation in everything…
• Rotate your pantry…put the items you just bought at the back of the shelf and use the oldest first.
• Check things like flours and grains for moth or mice infestation…take care of promptly before they get into the rest.  Better yet  store in varmint proof containers.
• Start slow…take the time to know what you really need and use.

Remember to just smile when your friends and family tease you about being Noah stocking up for the flood…cause you know who’s doorstep they’ll be standing on when the next disaster hits!

So do you have any tips on food storage…what’s in your pantry?

Come back Monday when we can talk about how to store in glass, where to find it…and how to paint on it!

Kim can also be found at the inadvertent farmer where she raises organic fruits, veggies, critters, kids…and a camel!

Yesterday, Alan described his winter squash predicament and how he was able to turn his “lemons” into squash soup. We too are faced with a squash predicament. We plant cushaw squash which are beautiful winter squash that we typically have been able to store for a year or better…but not this year. We had way too much rain this year and our garden was never right because of it. Our cushaw (from seeds we saved) grew but the squash never got to their typical gigantic size. We waited and waited and finally decided it was time to harvest the cushaw regardless.

(Cushaw going bad…note how the green is bleeding into the white)

When we usually store the squash, we make no special arrangements. They just sit in our kitchen as a bit of a fixture. We cook them as needed throughout the year. We started with the same method this year and quickly found we are not going to make it through the winter with cushaws.

(save the seeds…you can roast them or save them for next year’s garden)

I can’t bear to waste food though so we baked up a number of cushaw squash pies. Before you dismiss the idea, consider that a pumpkin is basically just a squash too…we’ll use essentially the same ingredients as you would for a pumpkin pie, except for the squash-for-pumpkin switch. In fact, a cushaw pie tastes very much like a pumpkin pie except it is much smoother and more mild (it’s hard to explain…but try it). If you bake up a number of these pies, you can freeze them very well for later!

(Ready to go in the oven…isn’t that a great color!?)

So, if you still have squash after making Alan’s soup, give cushaw pie a try! I think you could safely substitute any winter squash and have an excellent pie!

(ahhhhh…I see my next meal!)

Cushaw Squash Pie

4 eggs
4 cups pumpkin/cushaw (or 1 large can)
1 1/2 cups sugar
1 tsp salt
2 3/4 tsp pumpkin pie spice (or mix your own…see online)
2 large cans evaporated milk

Combine all ingredients and pour into prepared pie crusts. Bake at 425 for 15 minutes. Then reduce heat and bake at 350 for 45 minutes. Makes 2 pies.

Warren can also be found at My Home Among the Hills writing about the adventures of life in WV.

Winter squash is something we seem to have in abundance this year.  That is a good thing, but some of it doesn’t seem to be storing very well.  It could be a problem with the cure time in the field, or with the weird temperature fluctuations we have had.  regardless, we have quite a bit of squash that needs to be used or it will rot. 

While I was away over the weekend, CC caught an episode of Giada At Home and was inspired to make squash soup.  We usually don’t like squash soup.  Most of the ones we have tried were too sweet.  This one turned out nicely savory.  We loved it so much we are going to make all our questionable squash into soup and pressure can it for later use. (We pressure can lots of things.  Saves us room in the freezer, and they don’t go bad when the power goes out.)

Squash Soup

Based on Giada De Laurentiis’ recipe.

I have always wanted to extend my growing season.  I have not wanted to invest the money in a greenhouse.  Well if there was money I suppose I would!  Anyway I have found and easy, cheap, simple way to extend my zone 8 Pacific Northwest season!

My tomatoes have long shriveled and turned black from our first frost weeks ago.  My beans are gone too.  I have not said goodbye yet to my eggplant or bell peppers. They are still ripening and providing me with fresh nutritious produce.

I raise my main garden veggies in raised beds (minus squash and melons) due to our notoriously wet weather here in  Washington state.  I put up tunnels of concrete reinforcing wire that I placed in the bed by bending over and using tension to keep them in place.  I covered with clear plastic and held it down by brick.  Quick, easy, inexpensive!  I put them on early in the spring and just never removed them.

Although there are no new peppers being set, the 100’s of immature peppers are now getting a chance to ripen.  There aren’t the huge harvests that the late summer brought but there are a handful every day much to the delight of my pepper loving heart!

With any luck I just might have fresh peppers for Thanksgiving!

So do you have any inexpensive season extending secrets you would like to share?

Kim can also be found at the inadvertent farmer raising organic fruits, veggies, critters, kids…and a camel!

We thought we’d try a little something new on Sundays.  Various of the Not Dabbling in Normal authors were tasked with posting pictures with fall colors (and not just leaves!).  We hope you enjoy.  Please leave us a comment if you’d like to suggest a theme for future installments!

Well its fall!  We’ve officially had our first hard frost.  The wood stove has been fired up and the soup is simmering.  When we think of fall the beautiful fall leaves come to mind.  As lovely as they are, and we’re going to share some, there are so many other colors that make us think of fall and hunkering down in preparation for winter.

After the leaves have dropped the trees reveal their treasures that have been hiding beneath…these are tiny crab apples.

These are apples that have fallen with the leaves where they will lay all winter feeding the birds.

There are pantries bursting with the colors of newly canned jams and jellies…this is apricot.

The earthy colors of oatmeal on a cold frosty fall morning…cinnamon, apples, and raisins.

And of course there is the fire in the sunsets we watch while trying not to shiver and blur the photo too much!

Then there is there is  the fire in the leaves as they put on their final show of the season!

And lest we forget my personal favorite fall color…the color of life feeding mulch that covers  newly cleaned beds….and the dark rich earth it shelters with all the dreams for what will bring color to the garden next spring.

It sure is hard to beat a good fire…

Outside just changes.  It feels magical to explore…

One last hoorah!

The annual pumpkin sacrifice…

A little work….

A little play…

So what brings color to your life in the fall? Hot Cocoa, a favorite scarf perhaps?

Remember to let us know what you would like to see pictures of each Sunday…we love your ideas!

“Mom there’s a chicken with its head gone on the back porch”

“What?”

“There is a dead chicken on the back porch…well I’m thinking its dead.  If it’s not that is weird!”

“Ughh, that *&%* dog!”

“I think she just wants to play with them.”

“Yeah by biting their heads off?”

“She’s just a dog, isn’t that what dogs do?”

This is the conversation I had yesterday with one of my kids.  One of my very favorite chickens was laying decapitated just outside the back door.  Yes no head to be found.  If it wasn’t for the head thing I would have thought she was taking a nap, she looked so peaceful…again except for the head missing.

This is the 3rd headless chicken that has been laid (no pun intended, really) on our doorstep since we got Sugar from the Humane Society, a lab mix.  She really is a good dog…well again except for the head thing.  I have patched every hole in the chicken fence I can find.  I have clipped their wings but still they are breaking curfew and sneaking out.  Be warned my sweet chickens, the world is a big bad place outside your little run…there are racoons, coyotes, bobcats, and a playful black lab to avoid!

Did you know that chickens are escape artists?  And that dogs like to chase chickens that escape?  Yep that is the nature of it.  The food chain I suppose…lucky for Sugar the camel is a vegetarian since he would be the next link in our chain!

I’m off to fix the chicken run…again!

Kim can also be found at the inadvertent farmer raising organic fruits, veggies, critters, kids…and a camel!

Next week we will be starting a new series of posts to fill both an information need that has been expressed and our currently empty Friday writers slot.  The series will be called Homesteading 101.  We will try to explore some of the challenges people face when starting out on a homesteading adventure or when adding new skills to their lives.  That doesn’t mean that we think we have all the answers.  WE DON’T!  But, collectively, we have tried (and, at least in my case, messed up) a lot of different things.  Many of them haven’t worked, and we will try to share those things too.  We hope this becomes a great conversation, with readers and guest writers filling in the bits we have no experience with.  We also hope it becomes a resource for folks who are just starting out and for those of us looking for new ideas.

Some of the topics we will be discussing include

Food Storage

Canning

Home Heating

Rain Catchment Systems

Livestock Basics

We would love to hear what you would like to see in this series.

Easy fix #2 – Vanilla.

This one is a simple ‘synthetic’ vs. ‘real’ discussion. You know where I’m going to fall on this one – go for the real stuff. We are, after all, working towards a whole foods kitchen. Why have one of your most common flavorings be a chemically derived fake? If you’re worried about cost, don’t let that deter you from using good quality vanilla – you can make your own extract that tastes as good – or better – than the high quality extracts for a fraction of the price. Follow the links farther down in this post for those instructions. My sister does this and is so enamored with her homemade extract that I have vanilla beans coming from my co-op to make my own.

Vanilla was ‘discovered’ along with many other important flavorings – like chocolate – when Europeans came to the Americas. Prior to vanilla being used as a catch-all basic flavoring (after it was able to be synthetically mass-produced in the 1930s), rose-water was the most common flavoring. In a cookbook I read based on Laura Ingalls Wilder’s writings and life, rose-water was talked about as being a staple flavoring in the kitchen. If you want to make your own rose water, try here or here.

There are two things that need to be in a discussion about vanilla – real vs. synthetic and basic safety information for buying vanilla.

First, then – what is the difference between real and synthetic vanilla?

Synthetic vanillin (vanillin is the substance that gives vanilla its characteristic flavor) was first developed in 1874 from coniferin, which is found in pine bark. Two years later, vanillin was synthesized from wood creosote and a few decades later, vanillin derived from clove oil was available. In the 1930s, vanillin was able to be much more cheaply produced using waste from the Kraft paper-making process.

Today, some vanillin is produced from lignin wastes (from paper-making) but most comes from a two-step process using the chemical precursors guaiacol and glyoxylic acid. Because of the origin of the flavoring (conifers or extracts from coal tar), synthetic flavorings have a bitter after taste. Red dye is used in synthetic vanillas to give it its dark, murky color. Products labeled ‘vanilla flavoring’ are a combination of pure vanilla extract and imitation vanilla extract. The flavor difference is not as noticeable, but it’s still not the real thing (she says with her nose in the air).

A company named Rhodia sells a biosynthetic vanillin made by the action of microorganisms on ferulic acid extracted from rice bran. It is sold under the trade name Rhovanil Natural and can be labeled as a natural flavoring. Source

So what is ‘real’ vanilla and how is it processed?

Picture credit

Vanilla begins with an orchid – it is the only orchid out of almost 20,000 varieties that has edible parts. This type of orchid opens its flower for less than a day and must be pollinated within that time, so vanilla was not able to be grown commercially until hand pollination of flowers was developed. Once pollinated, the flowers develop long, thin pods which are picked when still green.

Once picked, the beans are plunged into hot water and then the drying and sweating phase begins. Every day the beans are dried in the sun and every night they are wrapped in blankets to sweat. After the beans become a dark brown color and develop a white crystalline substance (vanillin) on the outside of the bean, the drying and sweating process is done. The beans are then aged to bring out their full flavor, a process that can take a few years.

You can see why synthetic vanillin is a boon for the ice cream and chocolate makers – it would simply be too expensive to add real vanilla to mass-produced foods. It’s a lot easier – and cheaper – to simply pull vanillin out of coal tar or paper waste.

Most of the vanilla on the market today is from the Madagascar islands. If you find ‘Bourbon Bean’ vanilla, it will come from these islands and is the sweetest and thinnest of the three types of vanilla beans. The Mexican vanilla bean has a stronger flavor, but when buying Mexican vanilla, heed what I say below.  Tahitian beans are the thickest of the three and very aromatic, but not very flavorful at all, mostly being used in perfume making.

You can buy real vanilla in several different forms: extract and essence, pods (beans), powdered, and vanilla sugar. Vanilla extract and vanilla beans are the ones I’ll talk about here.

Vanilla extract is an easy way to buy and use vanilla and the processing is straightforward. Joy Of Baking says that “Vanilla extract is produced by steeping the vanilla beans in an alcohol and water solution for several months, sometimes with sugar added, thereby producing a clear dark liquid with a rich flavor that is highly aromatic.  The FDA requires that pure vanilla extract contain 13.35 ounces of vanilla beans per gallon of liquid and contain 35% alcohol.  This is called one-fold vanilla extract and is what you find in stores.  Nielsen-Massey Madagascar Bourbon Pure Vanilla Extract is an excellent vanilla that can be found in specialty food stores and by mail order.” When you buy vanilla extract, check the label to be sure it is ‘pure’.

If you want to make your own vanilla extract from vanilla beans, it is very simple, very cost-effective, and very rewarding. Check out my friend Paxye’s blog here and here for the process. Since pure extracts may still contain some sugar, corn syrup, caramel, colors as well as stabilizers, this is a really good alternative, especially for those with corn sensitivities (where *isn’t* corn these days?).

If you want to use whole vanilla beans, I recommend checking out the book Ani’s Raw Food Kitchen for some fantastic recipes using vanilla beans. Vanilla beans add amazing flavor to all sorts of desserts – flavor that is much more intense than when you use extract. You want to use beans that are black, shiny, moist, tender, and plump. Dry, shriveled, hard beans are useless for flavoring, so don’t buy them. Keep your beans in an airtight container but do not refrigerate.

Now,  about buying real vanilla safely.

If you buy Madagascar or Tahitian vanilla, you should be fine. The problems crop up when you look at Mexican vanilla.

According to The Straight Dope, “During the Mexican Revolution of 1910-’20 fighting devastated the gulf coast, the center of Mexican vanilla cultivation, and production dropped sharply. Faced with a flood of cheap ersatz product and little of the genuine article to sell, Mexican producers began making synthetic vanilla themselves. But Mexico was still known as the home of the world’s best vanilla, so the producers didn’t admit what they were doing. They disguised the artificial taste by adding coumarin, an extract of the tonka bean, Dipteryx odorata. Coumarin tastes and smells just like vanilla, only more so.”

And there’s the rub – coumarin, while it has its medical  uses, is not something that you want to be ingesting in your food every time you use vanilla. It’s dangerous. If you do buy Mexican vanilla ‘flavoring’, make sure that it is labeled ‘coumarin free’.

Recipe

Cookbook

I was going to go with Ani’s Raw Food Kitchen for this one and then reminded myself of the intriguing Little House on the Prairie cookbook. But I think I’ll do Ani’s book today.

I don’t remember where I first heard about Ani Phyo, but I checked her cookbook out of our library and was hooked. This cookbook has some really innovative raw food recipes that have Ani’s personal views and health and buying tips scattered among the recipes.  She is a vegan raw foodie and was my first experience with raw food cookbooks. Some of her recipes are a quick flip past (“No thank you”), but many surprised me into thinking “That sounds really good” and “I wonder if that would work”.

If today’s post made you think “Using vanilla beans sounds interesting, but what do you do with a *bean*?”, then you should check her book out. She uses vanilla beans liberally in her recipes. Her smoothie recipes all use vanilla beans, as do most of her mylks (milk substitutes). She also uses vanilla beans in her syrups and deserts.

This book turned me on to drinking coconut water after exercising, using buckwheat on yogurt (my girls *love* that), and soaked, seasoned, and dehydrated almonds for travel snacks. She has a section on raw food beauty tips and even a small one on vegan dog food. I’m of the opinion that dogs are carnivores and should eat meat, but Ani is a dedicated vegan and has found recipes that seem to keep her dog healthy without meat. That was fascinating for me.

Whether you have turned down the vegan or raw food roads or not, you’ll find something you can take home from this cookbook. It’s written in a friendly, accessible style that doesn’t skimp on the activism – or the basic information you need if you want to move your diet in this direction. She even tells you what type of blender is the best (blenders get a heavy workout in her cookbook). Give this cookbook a try and let me know what you think!

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Sarah writes about her life at The Napping House and It Blows Here.