Wading Through a Cranberry Blog

Squash blossom fritters and chile rellenos

2009-09-12T16:27:00.000-07:00

I've been making the above this summer and thought I would share how I do it. First, pick some squash or zucchini blossoms that have bloomed that day. I pick the male flowers because I don't know if the female ones got fertilized and will begin to grow. Usually there are more male flowers anyway. Clean them carefully by rinsing them out and reaching inside to take out the stamen (the thing with pollen on it.) Try not to tear them. Buy several pasilla chiles or Anaheim chiles. (I think pasilla have more flavor.) Recipes:

Squash Blossom Fritters

clean, dry squash blossoms with part of their stems left on
any type of cheese you like, cut into a long wedge shape to fit the size of the blossom
cornmeal
vegetable oil
beaten egg

Put the cheese wedge (try to keep it from breaking) carefully into the blossom with the skinny side close to the opening of the flower. Use a couple of toothpicks to pin the flower petals over each other, sticking the toothpicks through the petals and into the cheese.

At this point, pour enough oil into a skillet to about 1/2 inch deep and heat over medium to medium low heat.

Dip the stuffed blossoms into beaten egg, coating thoroughly. Then coat with cornmeal.

Fry in oil for a minute, then turn and fry another minute. The cheese will start to melt and may ooze out a little. Remove and drain on a paper towel with a paper grocery bag underneath.

Eat promptly with a good homemade salsa. I like to made a roasted orange bell pepper and habanero salsa with these.

Chile Rellenos

pasilla or Anaheim chiles, roasted, seeded, and peeled
long wedges of any cheese you like (goat cheese and aged white cheddar are good, although Monterey Jack is traditional)vegetable oil
beaten egg
cornmeal

Preheat oven to "broil." Put the chiles on a cookie sheet or roasting pan in the oven to roast, turning them periodically to brown/blacken them until they look about 75 to 90% blackened. You can turn the oven off and let them sit inside for about 15 minutes or remove them and put them in a glass bowl covered with plastic wrap for about 10 minutes. You should be able to get a knife under the skins and peel the skins off easily after doing this. Try to keep the peppers whole and not pierce them. Make only 1 slit in the side of the pepper to reach in and clean out the seeds and veins. You can run them under gently running water to help get the seeds out.

Stuff the peppers with a wedge of cheese similar to how you stuffed the blossoms and fasten with toothpicks. Follow the same instructions for coating with cornmeal and frying as for squash blossom fritters. Remember with both fritters and chiles that you don't need the cornmeal to color much to be done.

Many people return the chile rellenos to a casserole dish and bake with a tomato sauce after frying. However, I like to just eat the chile rellenos fried with salsa and accompanied with some type of tangy vegie salad (like arugula) and maybe some Spanish rice.

Good stuff! As soon as I perfect the habanero and orange bell pepper salsa recipe, I'll post that, too.

The urban garden continues to yield its bounty

2009-08-26T17:49:00.001-07:00

Lemon basil, kale, and beets growing on my apartment porch right smack dab in the middle of sunny Los Angeles!

A corner of my square foot garden planter-on-wheels with carrots and beets I pulled out today.

You can see how these buildings shade my porch and prevent my plants from getting more than about five hours of direct sunlight. Because of this, my beets were only the size of large radishes and my white, orange, and red carrots were pretty little.

Next task to attempt: convince the apartment manager to let me grow a winter crop on the roof.:) Due to our long growing season here in So. Cal, I can sow cold weather crop seeds now (like more lettuce, kale, beets, peas, bok choi, kale, etc.) and have a new harvest by November. If I plant on the roof, I'll get enough sunshine for them to get big.

One of my favorite ways to eat arugula..

2009-08-04T21:50:00.000-07:00

Tuesday night dinner: asparagus risotto with "squash and smash" arugula, basil, and cherry tomato salad.

I've managed to grow some pretty good-looking arugula this year..beginner's luck..and have had a pretty long-running crop. It's the beginning of August and two or three of the twelve or so plants I've got has begun to shoot up some seed pods, which isn't bad for arugula planted at the beginning of May. My leaves have been nice and green and apparently not very many bugs like the taste of arugula because the leaves are fairly spotless. I harvest them by picking the bigger leaves around the outside of the plant right into my salad spinner basket, which I then take in and rinse and spin and cook. In this photo you see lettuces near the bottom. Arugula upper right, then (going counterclockwise) kale, carrots, and then beet greens and swiss chard.

Here are my cherry tomatoes that are not yielding a lot, due to only 5 hours per day of direct sunlight on my shaded porch, but are giving it a go nonetheless.

To make "squash and smash" salad:
A couple of handfuls of arugula
A couple of handfuls of basil (Italian or spicy basil work best)
About a pint of cherry tomatoes (be colorful!)
Red wine vinegar
Olive oil
Salt and pepper
Kalamata olives, preferably oil-cured but brine-cured are fine

Put the cherry tomatoes in a bowl and cover the bowl with a paper towel. Use one hand to reach in and pop or smash each cherry tomato while your other hand hold the paper towel to keep tomato seeds from squirting you in the eye or flying this way and that in the kitchen. :) Tear or cut up the olives into pieces and add them. Splash with some vinegar--start easy and later you can add more if it needs more tang. Salt and pepper things. Then drizzle olive oil over it. Mix around with a fork. (The juices from the tomatoes make a lovely vinaigrette with the other ingredients. And, by the way, regular tomatoes just won't work the same. It needs to be cherry tomatoes.) Just before serving, rip the arugula and basil into the tomato/ olive mixture and toss. Eat it all up. Leftovers will be very wilted.

Colachee. So good it's not even funny.

2009-07-23T21:57:00.000-07:00

Tonight's dinner featured "Colachee," a succotash-like side dish made from corn, zucchini, tomatoes, onion, and green bell pepper. And that's a tamale I ate it with. Garnished with a slice of heirloom tomato.

I'm guessing my mom gave Colachee its name. And--let me pontificate--what's in a name, anyway? Colachee by any other name would taste as good, true? Ah, yes..although it may sound less inelegant.

Mom made and froze a large quantity of Colachee one summer when we lived in Idaho and must have had it's ingredients growing in the garden located on our 1/2 acre back lot. I remember as a kid being surprised that I really liked it. Recently the memory of it and the fact that I had some of its ingredients on hand made me want to figure out the recipe. Colachee has the distinct characteristic of tasting even better after it has sat in the fridge for a day or two. And it freezes very well. I recreate it here probably the way my mom originally made it..that is, without a real recipe. But these approximations will probably get you close. Adjust as you'd like.

Chop 1 green bell pepper, 1/2 to 3/4 of a large onion, 1 large tomato, and 1 large zucchini. Cut the ears off 1 corn cob. Saute all but the tomato in about 1/4 cup of butter. Cook for a while until veggies get a little tender, then add the tomatoes and cook them a while. Remove from heat and salt and pepper.

Here's a pretty heirloom tomato from the Farmer's Market that I added. I also used purple onions and a combination of purple bell peppers and Anaheim chile pepper. Don't do this. It definitely needs that green bell pepper taste. The purple onions were fine, though.

And here's dessert: plain yogurt with honeydew from the 99 Cent store and sweet plums from the Farmer's Market.

Last but not least, this meal's compostables, which were fed to the worms in my parking garage bin.

Eating the garden

2009-07-21T21:48:00.001-07:00

Time to eat the fruits of my labors..and that of other Hispanic farm workers.

My dinner tonight consisted of pasta w/ swiss chard, garlic, and olive oil; heirloom tomato, purple bell pepper, and lemon basil salad, and beet, arugula, and goat cheese salad. And I sopped up the olive oil with a piece of crusty whole wheat bread.

The arugula, swiss chard, and lemon basil were grown by me in my little garden (pic of newly harvested swiss chard above and lemon basil sprig here). My beets and tomatoes aren't ready yet so beets and heirloom tomatoes are from the Farmer's market. And purple bell peppers were found at the 99 Cent store.

All of these are easy and favorites of mine.

Chard pasta: Boil any type of larger pasta (penne, linguine, etc.) to al dente and add the cut up stems of chard at the end of the cooking time. Right before turning off the heat, add the chard leaves and immediately pour into the colander. Drain and return to the cooking pot. Add about 1-2-3 cloves (to your liking) of minced garlic and drizzle w/ olive oil (again however much you like but generally just enough to lubricate everything.) Grind pepper and salt on top. Add some fresh grated Parmigian, Romano, Asiago or whatever tasty hard cheese you have on hand, if desired. Also good add-ins are a sprinkle of dried parsley and/or crushed red pepper flakes. Serve right away.

Tomato, pepper, and lemon basil: Chop tomatoes and pepper (yellow bell peppers are my favorite for this). Rip up basil leaves. Splash w/ red wine vinegar (go conservative at first and taste for the right amount of tang.) Add olive oil (keep about a 1:3 ratio for vinegar to olive oil). Grind salt and pepper on top and mix. Serve right away.

Beet, arugula, and goat cheese salad: Boil some beets. Cut into slices when cool. Rip up some arugula onto a plate. Cut some herbed goat cheese into slices or pieces (Chevre brand is good.) Chop a granny smith apple into bite size pieces. Arrange beet slices, apple, and pieces of goat cheese over arugula. Make an oil/vinegar dressing that is sweetened slightly with honey or sugar. I like to use this muscat orange vinegar from Trader Joe's w/ olive oil and honey. Make sure to put salt and pepper in the dressing and drizzle over the salad. Again, serve right away.

I was so proud of my swiss chard and arugula. They have grown so healthy looking..probably thanks to the vermicompost in the soil and compost tea (both homemade!) I've used to grow them. Grown completely organic, with no chemical fertilizers or pest control, and a lot of Farmer Winnow's obsessive-compulsive kind of love! Here are compostables from this meal waiting to become part of next year's garden:
And the worms are now eating it for their dinner! :) Ecology!

Wanna quick overview of vermicomposting?

2009-02-20T22:11:00.000-08:00

Here it is...

Meanwhile, back at the Wriggly Wranch..

2009-02-09T18:02:00.000-08:00

No deer or antelope to speak of this time around. This range/ranch is more of a plastic box with legs that houses eisenia fetida, or Red Wriggler worms. These very squirmy wormies are originally from South America and like to live in the relatively shallow top layer of earth, where they eat decaying organic matter. This fact makes them ideal for vermicomposting (you know, "verm" + "compost"), due to the fact that they are tolerant of living in small spaces like a plastic box with legs.

I got my Wriggly Wranch when I attended a Los Angeles County Dept. of Public Works- sponsored gardening workshop where eager but yet-ignorant citizens can learn about backyard and worm composting as well as fire- and water-wise gardening and grass recycling. If you attend, you can buy either a biostack or worm compost bin with worms at a subsidized price. Yes, the subsidized price still wasn't dirt (pardon the pun) cheap, but I consider the Wriggly Wranch and my worms worth the $65.00 I paid out.

I set up my little worm condo on my porch at the beginning of November 2008, when we were having some unseasonably warm weather. Setting up the bin involved wetting and fluffing a compacted brick of coconut coir (the shaved outer layer of coconut husk that covers the shell) inside the Wriggly Wranch and then burying the worms, along with some kitchen scraps, in it. Put the lid on and wait and the worms eat the coconut coir and the kitchen scraps and produce a poo poo (aka "worm casting") so full of plant nutrients that any old nasty seed tossed into it will sprout a healthy seedling in just a couple of days flat. The worms can eat almost half their weight in food per day when they're feeling their oats (..or green pepper stems, or mango peelings), quickly producing a finely textured compost in a fraction of the time it takes to compost in the traditional way.

Nevertheless, there are some hazards to avoid:

Hazard A: You need to learn how not to "overfeed" the bin. If you feed the worms the right amount, your bin will smell earthy but not stinky at all. The worms like to eat food scraps as soon as they begin to acquire bacteria. (Think of veggies that are starting to get slimy or droopy and brown-looking. This yukky stuff is just perfect to the worms.) Because they like decaying food and can consume it quickly, you'll only be left with stinking food scraps if the worms have too much to eat and can't get to all of the food yet. The worms, if not overfed, will eat the veggies before they can begin stinking and before they start growing mold. Thus, a very clean, stink free bin due to quick "turnover" (consumption, digestion, and excretion by the worms.) If you see mold begin to form in the bin, chances are you've overfed. Word to the worm-wise: be advised that if you put in some freshly trimmed green parsley stems..or fresh anything.., the worms may not eat them for about a week or more, until they start to wilt and go bad. In the picture to the right, you can see the food scraps and coconut coir. At this time, I had a small amount of worms and this amount of food turned out to be too much for them, which I learned when a white mold started to form on the surface of the coconut coir beneath which some of the food scraps were buried. In the left front corner, you see some pumpkin seed sprouts. These were pulled out of the coconut coir where they'd begun to sprout up.

Hazard B: Bugs. Little other creatures will also make a home of the bin (especially if you put the bin outdoors for any length of time.) Springtails, fungus gnats, mites, fruit flies, drain flies, and house flies all like the decaying organic matter in your bin and will happily abide/nest /eat there. Most of these bugs actually help the composting process and do not hurt the worms or the compost. However, if you are like me, you do NOT want house flies and fruit flies and flying things that escape the bin in your house. Don't fear. You can prevent them from getting in there or get rid of them if they do take up residence. When you "feed" the bin, it's important to bury the scraps in the "bedding" (which can be moistened coconut coir, shredded paper, shredded cardboard, etc. on top of or mixed in with the worm castings) to keep fruit flies and the like from laying their eggs on the decaying food.

As the weather began to dip below 50 degrees at night (which is sort of a minimum temperature for the worms), I brought my Wriggly Wranch inside and put it in a corner of my kitchen by the NatureMill and the trash can. Although the lid was on all the time, there was a thriving ecology of bugs that were living in the bin such as springtails, fungus gnats, mites, and drain flies. I learned that the teeny tiny fast-crawling hypoapsis mites eat fruit fly and fungus gnat larvae as well as decaying organic matter so I decided we should keep those around. Besides, the mites aren't interested in crawling outside the bin because there's no food for them outside. As far as the flying pests, it took about a month and a half of burying food cleanly and vacuuming up fruit flies flying around my kitchen, but I did eradicate the population. (Beneficial nematodes can also be introduced to the bin to eat fly larvae.) Always keep an airtight lid on your compost collection bucket, too, because the fruit flies will begin to lay eggs on that if you expose it to the air.

Hazard C: (And this isn't a big hazard.) Wandering worms. There are certain conditions that will cause the worms to crawl up the sides and up in the lid of the bin instead of staying in the dirt. Avoid too much moisture, not enough moisture, too much acidity, not enough bedding material, and overcrowding/overpopulation. (Worms may also temporarily crawl out of the dirt when the barometric pressure drops due to rainy weather, too.) I've never had a worm actually crawl through the aeration holes in the lid, even though some are small enough to do it, because they like to avoid light and dry conditions. You've got the ideal moisture level if you can squeeze a drop or two of water out of a handful of compost. Add more water or bedding material to get the balance right. Important to have enough bedding material because if the worms are living in a container that mostly consists of their poop, it can be toxic to them. So get a good percentage of bedding mixed with the castings. If you feed your worms lots of acidic food such as tomatoes or fruit, your bin might be too acidic. Try adding garden lime or eggshells to get the ph balance corrected. If your worms have been eating a lot, they'll tend to reproduce and crowd the place. They might be crawling out of the dirt just to get a little elbow room (although they don't really have elbows.)

Hazard D: Know what not to feed the worms. No citrus. It has too much acid and isn't good for them. No oils or salt, not even a little bit. And just so you're aware, the worms will avoid anything that is so disgustingly rotten and moldy that it looks like a science experiment. FYI white or blackish molds are safer than pink, yellow, green, or other colored molds. A little white or black mold is OK. The others are starting to make penicillin.

Here's a gleeful picture of the contents and inhabitants of my worm bin. This is a cucumber and some junk mail being eaten. The bin has been doing well since its inception and I'm thinking now that I'm going to turn the outdoor traditional compost bin into a worm bin as soon as the nighttime weather gets above 50 degrees outside. By the way..the worms like to ideally live in temperatures from 50 to 80 degrees, but can survive, although not thrive, at somewhat higher or lower temperatures.

WINNOW'S PICK! Currently, I feel that vermicomposting outshines the competitors (porch traditional compost bin and NatureMill) as the glittering ideal in composting methods! Its advantages include: 1) stink-free when done right 2) best compost (finely textured, most aerated, most plant nutrients) 3) can be located in a kitchen without offending humans 4) can be fairly bug-free when done right, 5) nice by-product compost tea, 6) quickest composting time (just as fast as the NatureMill without the smell).

Now if that's not enough to motivate you to get yourself some worms, I don't know what will. :)

Kale and Roasted Vegetable Soup

2008-12-14T23:01:00.000-08:00

This is an excellent winter vegetable stew that is worth passing on! Dee-licious! For those who find vegetarian cooking not very flavorful...here's an exception. I substituted kabocha one time and pumpkin another time for the butternut squash with pretty good results. You might want to even add a couple of drops of honey on the pieces of squash during the roasting to increase the sweetness a little. What makes this soup flavorful is the roasting of the vegetables, so roast well. Don't be afraid of well-browned and even little blackened-looking corners, since that's the good stuff. Be sure not to add too much olive oil, as this will prevent good browning. Another thing, if you don't have an immersion blender, these babies are a must for people who make soup frequently! SO much easier than trying to put things in the blender and much easier to wash after using. My Braun immersion blender is one of my favorite-of-all-times kitchen tools. I put the roasted garlic, onions, and tomatoes in with the vegetable broth and pour some of the broth in the roasting pan to scrape out roasting juices into the soup pot and then use the immersion blender on everthing. I cut the leaves off the kale by holding the kale leaf, stem up, and running the knife down the stem where the leaves connect. Cut the stems up and throw them in to simmer for a while but don't add the leaves until the very end, so they'll stay nice and green.

Happy eating!

How does my garden grow? Well...

2008-11-24T20:40:00.000-08:00

Here's a gardening update:

The basil was growing blissfully. And the mint was minty fresh. When one day, I began to notice some tiny holes in the leaves. Hm. As if something was munching on them a little bit. But not too bad. Literally overnight, the holes became gaping and the leaves looked positively chewed-on! Little black spots peppered the plant here and there. I began to google furiously to find out what bug was marring my herbs and what organic (human tummy safe) pesticide I could use to make sure it kept its little mandibles off my crop!

I tried a homemade organic pesticide made of hot pepper, ginger, garlic, and a good dash of cayenne pepper. (Put these in a pot and boil like a tea, then cool and spray onto plants.) This spray must have just made the plants a little spicier, maybe even tastier, because the bugs were not deterred. Chomping and more chomping occurred. Finally, the telltale black spots (turns out that's bug poo poo) helped reveal the identity of...

the greedy Cabbage Looper caterpillar!!

These little critters hatch from eggs laid by moths on the underneath side of the leaves. They start out so small you can't see them at first but eat so fast they double in size practically daily. They were the exact same green color as my plants and held absolutely still when they were eating so were very camoflaged. You need to examine the underside of your leaves to find them. When I tried to pluck one off a leaf, he reared up and swung his head and forelegs around surprisingly quick for a caterpillar and tried to grab onto my fingers as if to scare me off. Which he did. Then he kind of hung in the air like a stallion pawing, challenging me to just dare to try that again. Lively little guys these. Not your amiable slow moving little caterpillar.

Moving on from hot pepper garlic ginger spray, I came across diatomaceous earth next. This stuff is gleaned from the bottom of the ocean and is made from tiny plant matter whose atomic structure is in the shape of a diatom. Because of the diatom shape, this dust has sharp corners which cut a juicy bug's exoskeleton and basically cause it to bleed to death over a period of about 48 hours. I bought some of this and discovered it's rather labor-intensive to apply and also started to feel bad for the little caterpillars I began to see suffering and limping along due to coming in contact with it. Not the most humane way to kill something..akin to being killed by being slashed thousands of times with a razor blade. I began to mercy-kill the little things by plucking and smushing underfoot.

A more effective organic pesticide was identified..BT or Bacillus thuringiensis, a "bacteria that infects the gut of soft bodied caterpillars" and causes them to die 3-5 days after eating leaves that have been sprayed with it. Three to five days is the catch. Until they finally get sick and die, they can dessimate your plants in the meantime (as you can see from the picture below.) So keep plucking and smushing underfoot as your firstline method of pest control. And when you spray, BE SURE to spray the underneath side of leaves, where caterpillars eat. Best way to do this is to tilt the pot sideways to make the underside of the leaves more accessible while you spray from the side.

As you can see, the mint plant has made a full recovery after treatment with BT and is growing nicely. The basil is pretty much back to normal, too, with only a little bit of chewed-on-ness from some other bug I can't identify but who isn't eating a whole lot.

However, in the meantime, one of my pots of lemon basil has been all but wiped out by another kind of caterpillar which is brown and slower moving than the cabbage looper. I collected about five or six of them one night and put them in a jar with a lid so I could try to identify them when I had time. And..I haven't had time yet. But these caterpillars seemed to not be very affected by the BT since this pot was sprayed several times with BT....(?) Another weird thing..three other pots of lemon basil weren't touched by these brown caterpillars. So, the score so far is: Bugs 1, Winnow 1.

Urban Compost/ "You're doing WHAT with your garbage?"

2008-09-13T13:30:00.000-07:00

You're wondering what in the world made me decide to pursue composting with such fervor. How does an apartment dweller go about composting? Why do I rip the plastic window out of my junkmail, shred it, and keep it in a bag along with dryer lint and other odd shreds of paper? Why do I hoard (yes, I even fish them out of the trash) apple cores, carrot tops, banana peels, green pepper stems, and slimy vegies-in-transition from the crisper tray in the fridge? And what about asking the man at the cutting table at Home Depot if I can have a couple of buckets of his sawdust? What's behind this composting thing of mine?

Well, there are many benefits of compost: It keeps our landfills free of methane and acidic leachate. Methane can leak into pockets of soil, possibly contributing to explosions and acidic leachate can assist in making other soil toxins more mobile and thus more dangerous. When incorporated into soil, compost provides nutrients to a plant's growing area and increases the soil's drainage and ability to retain moisture. It can even promote resistance to pests and disease in plants. Compost has been shown to help prevent soil erosion, clean up contaminated soils, and prevent pollution. Compost takes that which is essentially refuse (rotting/ inedible food or lawn clippings, junk mail, paper waste, dead leves, etc.) and makes it into something beneficial to our ecosystem!

Oh! I'm environmentally-minded! Working for the health of the planet, doing my part to be "green." Well, yes. I think so. I like the idea of doing what's good for the earth, not being wasteful, and being resourceful. I think those things are important. But to be truthful..I suspect this is primarily a genetically-motivated behavior.

I think it's a gene. A gene probably inherited from my mother (I doubt it came from my left-brained accountant father). The mother who reupholsters couches she retrieves from the side of the road which wind up part of the living room furnishings. The same mother who used to "dump in the dumpster"--a term we children (ahem!) affectionately coined for a certain tendency to check dumpsters for things that really didn't need to be thrown away. (By the way, it was never embarassing for us to sit--or rather slink down--in the car while she did this.) Asking the produce stocker at the grocery store, did he have any vegetables that had passed their prime and were going to be thrown away that she could have to feed to her goats and rabbits (..or her children)? Cutting the mold off the cheese and using the still-good part, or cutting the mold off of any food item and using the still-good part. This mother has raised "bummer lambs" (who got sick and died despite her amateur veterinarian skills), goats who had goats and whose milk I did not like, dozens of rabbits, and one border collie who she intended to train to herd the bummer lambs. We butchered some of the goats and rabbits for their meat, although we kids didn't like eating our pet rabbits, but others (like the bummer lambs) I think my mom decided to raise for inexplicable reasons. I think my dad (who always shook his head in confusion but was patient nonetheless) asked her what the purpose for raising bummer lambs was and she used some type of non-sequitur explanation involving Pepper (the border collie) being a sheepherding dog and the fact that bummer lambs need to be raised by humans because their mothers rejected them. Did I mention the time she dug out a root cellar underneath our house in Colorado? Anyhow, you get my drift. Although when I was a kid, and especially when I was a teenager, I wanted desperately for her to stop all these things and just wanted her and us to be "normal," I guess I have eventually inherited an "unconventionality" gene from her that makes me think compost is...cool and fun.

Oh, and by the way, I also cut the mold off the cheese and use the still-good part.

So HOW does an apartment dweller compost? I'm about to tell you:

I wanted to start a porch composting bin. Got the idea for this from http://www.balconycompost.com/ only I made it a 25 gallon Rubbermaid container instead of a 5 gallon storage bucket. Punched holes in this using some scissors (holes in the bottom and the lid, too.) Then it's ready to fill up:

First, I put in some old nuts that were rancid and had been sitting in the pantry too long. And some popcorn seeds that didn't pop.

Some stale chips. And some rice that had gotten infested with weevils.

Kitchen scraps. These are trimmings, peelings, stems, food that's gone too yukky for human consumption, etc. (Here's a link that explains what types of food waste can be composted). Plastic containers like the baby spinach container you see make great collection buckets for compost until you're ready to empty them. Just find one that is airtight. Throw it out and replace with another one next time you buy something in an airtight plastic container.

Bottom layer should be browns and preferably have some bulk...these nuts are OK but it would be better if I had more of them.

Next the stale chips...

Next the rotting food scraps with the rice underneath (rice is a "brown.")

I added some dryer lint (very compostable and considered a "brown.")

Lastly, shredded junkmail, newspaper, torn up brown paper bags, torn up paper towel or toilet paper tubes...basically any paper that doesn't have a glossy finish. These are "browns."
Ok, so these sat on my porch for a while. I added more greens (about 7-8 more baby spinach containers full at a rate of almost 1 container per day) and a little more shredded paper. I tended to pull back the newspaper layer and add the greens to the green layer because I was trying to see if I could get the bin to heat up and start hot composting. (I believe I got the green layer too thick and should have added some brown layers in between.) Then I went on vacation for Thanksgiving for about six days. When I came back, the compost was putrid. Nasty nasty. TOO many greens! It did NOT smell like compost and it wasn't composting due to too much nitrogen (which comes from the greens) and not enough carbon (which comes from the browns) and it had probably become anaerobic. I rectified this by adding a lot of sawdust and a lot more shredded paper and continuing to stir and monitor the smell about daily when I added more of our greens every day. I now have a better balance on adding stuff to the bin and I make sure that for every bucket of greens I add, I also add a bucket of combination sawdust and shredded paper. Here's the way the compost looks right now and the good thing is, no more putrid and it smells like it's composting finally.

When I turn it, I can feel heat in the center when I put my hand close to it. However, it's not heating up to the point where it's steaming. One reason could be that it's too small. Most sources say the pile needs to be 3 feet by 3 feet in order to start heating. However, I have heard that you can hot compost in smaller volume. I do have a lid (with holes in it) on this bin, which might help insulate it. On the other hand, it is December (as I'm finishing this post) and colder weather is another factor contributing to the pile not heating up enough.

I will post updates on how this method works as I continue to use it. I will also be posting on vermicomposting, using a NatureMill, and using a ceramic planter pot on the porch for composting.

So that's the skinny (so far) on my "urban composting" efforts!

Labor Day's Labors of Love

2008-09-07T19:24:00.000-07:00

On Labor Day I planted some lemon basil seeds--some from a package and some I extracted from the dried blossoms of the lemon basil I bought at the Farmer's Market (so I may get two varieties growing.) This is the "how-to" video I used to educate myself on how to plant basil seeds. For the topsoil, I used a layer of compost made from my kitchen veggie trimmings + sawdust in my Nature Mill composter. Fast forward 2 weeks, and here is a photo of the little sprouts coming up out of the soil. My babies! Aren't they cute?

Also on Labor Day weekend, I planted some trailing herbs in hanging wall planters (trailing rosemary, oregano, and lemon thyme) and some potted herbs (chives, flat-leaf parsley, cilantro, Italian basil, "spicy" basil, and mint.) For some color interspersed with the herbs, I put a yellow Gazania in one of my wall planters and an orange Gazania along with some trailing purple verbena in another wall planter. Actually the Gazania I put in with the verbena is from three cuttings off the mother orange Gazania I planted with a red Gerber daisy. Here's the weird setup I rigged up to get the cuttings to root before hanging it on the wall in full sun:

You can learn how to take cuttings from a plant to propagate another one online. Here is everything I planted on Labor Day weekend:

The next weekend I wanted to try my hand at doing some more cuttings so I did some basil cuttings and a couple of mint cuttings. Here they are:

If you know me, you know I have to do things the *exact, exact, right, proper* way so these cuttings were planted in a mix of sterlized sand (I sterlized it myself by wetting and baking in oven at 220 degrees for 1 hr.) and soilless potting mix in a plastic planter that was sterlized with a 10% bleach solution. As is often recommended, I dipped the ends of the cuttings in rooting hormone to promote root growth before sticking them in their holes and covering them up to root. If I sound like I have acquired just enough gardening knowledge to be dangerous, we can thank Google and the internet for that!

Here's my cute-slash-expensive little cactus garden I put together about a year ago. Only $115 for all the plants and materials! When I start thinking I'm a thrifty person, reality smacks me in the face with the fact that thrifty people don't plant $115 cactus bowls. The barrel cactus only blooms once a year in late summer for a little while. A neat thing I've learned about cacti is that if you've got a chunk (big or small) that falls off the cactus for one reason or another (overwatering will cause leaves to get waterlogged and fall off), you leave it where it lies or just tuck the end into the soil a little and in about six months or so, you'll find that it's rooted and is growing itself into a new plant. Isn't that just amazing? Nature is so joyous and fascinating! You just can't keep nature down!

Here's my palm with Baby's Tears growing in the base, my polka-dot plant, and my fern. They love their lives on the porch. Thank heavens for my large, un-LosAngeles-like porch to give me some greenery and dirt in my life!

But, wait! Tune in for the next post when I talk about...COMPOST IN THE CITY!

Summer Herb Salad/ In praise of Lemon Basil

2008-08-19T11:21:00.000-07:00

This is a great herb salad recipe I just discovered and am addicted to. (Click on the title of the post to go to the website and get the recipe.) The tang from the herbs contrasts nicely with the sweetness of the corn and green beans and the avacado dressing is mild and just right. I'd recommend only using a 1/2 of an avacado for the dressing, though. Otherwise, it's tastes too guacamole-y.

I keep making this with lemon basil (http://davesgarden.com/guides/pf/go/48821/) that I've picked up at my local farmer's market. If you have never tried lemon basil, try to get your hands on some! Such a nice clean-sweet-zesty scent that causes you to compulsively and repeatedly sniff and sigh happily...this might be the original "people-nip"! I'm so smitten with this stuff that I'm going to try to collect seeds from the blossoms and grow some on my porch. (Or maybe I should do it the straightforward way and just buy a plant.) Anyway, the taste is just like the smell and description: lemon + basil. I also made a nice herb tea with it...just pour boiling water over the leaves. Another great use for lemon basil: tear up leaves with a chopped tomato (I used some yummy-flavored heirloom tomatoes from the farmer's market) and add some chopped yellow bell pepper. Splash a little red wine vinegar and some olive oil on it (ratio about 1:3 or 1:4 vinegar to oil) and grind pepper and salt over it. Colorful/aesthetically pleasing and tastes really flavorful, too!!

San Fransisco, Fourth of July

2008-08-05T21:10:00.000-07:00

This is a late in being posted, but...

The first week of July, work sent me to the Bay Area for a 3-day training in Cognitive Behavioral Therapy. I loved it. I got to get away and learn and eat (they feed you nonstop) and sleep in a quiet hotel. All the people that normally want my attention had to do without and leave me in peace for a while...glorious! A bonus was that the training ended the day before 4th of July (Friday) so I just extended my flight home until Sunday and hung out with the Lindsays, so I got a free family visit, paid for by the federal government!

Here are some street pictures and fireworks pictures. Below is a picture standing on Kristin and Mike's street. Unfortunately, the fireworks pictures were taken sans tripod so they're very "impressionistic."

Here are some domestic scenes at the Lindsays' then-furniture-less apartment. They had just arrived from Vermont a week before and were waiting on the moving van to deliver their worldly possessions.

In the absence of a couch, Mike had to recline on a blowup bed and Gretchen had to recline on..dad.

Here's the li'l gipper getting her hair done while watching "'Credibles," (The Incredibles) which I learned is her favorite movie and needs to be watched a couple of times a day!

The kiddo.

Took a fresh air walk to the community garden near their apartment.

Scenes from an evening walk we took to "The Crepevine" on Irvine for dinner. Kristin and Mike live in the Sunset district:

I'm a little naieve as a Southern Californian and didn't bring enough warm clothes (..I mean, it was July!) I ended up high-tailing it to the local thrift store with Kristin where we both bought some additional long sleeve shirts, jackets, and sweaters. Just to give this some perspective, I slept under about 4 nice warm quilts and we turned on the heat at night! It was so very windy and cold walking and walking to the wharf for fireworks that I was a little short on holiday gaiety. However, I must have benefitted from the body heat of the thousands of other San Franciscans at the wharf because I warmed up once we got a spot on the grass. The fireworks were great. We learned that fireworks will just tinge the sky with their color, but no pattern is visible when there's fog. We also ate a 4th of July dinner at a Brazilian restaurant in honor of Camila and in honor of the fact that we were starving and it was the first restaurant we ran across:)

NEXT DAY: Chinatown

Look close, there's Gretchen, Mike, and Kristin.

Window shopping.

The iconic trolley...you're supposed to take pictures of the trolleys if you're from out of town.

We bought some scarves on the street, ate some good Chinese food, and then went back to a jacket shop where Mike bought a jacket and Kristin talked me in to plopping down some cash ($219..that's CASH for a social worker..but it was 50% off) for a rock n roll motorcycle jacket. That's about when the little miss started to poop out, as you see pictured above. The ensuing crankiness signalled that the time was right to take a long drive down to Moss Beach so she could hopefully fall asleep in the car seat. Here's us searching for little crabs, sea urchins, and the like in the tidepools at low tide (around 7 p.m.):

Auntie Winnow made friends with and gained the trust of the seals by slowly inching towards them two baby steps at a time. See those trusting gazes? Only a third of them jumped in the water and swam away. The others felt very comfortable around me.

The happy family.

FRIDAY MORNING (moving backwards in time just to keep you on your toes and avoid moving around these darn pictures); Moss Beach at high tide:

A memo was circulated, notifying everyone to wear pink on this day.

We didn't take pictures of Mike, except for one faraway hiking picture (above) because he wouldn't comply with the rule to wear pink.

Again, it was freezing cold. But because making Gretchen laugh and squeal called for me and Kristin to carry her close to, and then run away from the surf (which got us a couple of times), we took off our shoes and rolled up our pants.

Here's the cutest picture of the bunch of mommy and little miss:

One of my favorite things about Gretchen is that she makes herself really clear by repeating everything she says about 3-4 times in her cute, squeaky voice. I.e. "Let's go down the hill now. Ok, let's go down the hill now. Go down the hill now." Maybe another time, just to make her point. Each time she intones as if she's saying it for the first time and it's a new idea. She's also really good at pronouncing my name, which most adults can't do. She liked to sit on my lap and help me eat my food. I hadn't seen her for some time so it was so fun to see how big she's gotten and how many words she's now got in her little vocabulary.

I'm glad Mike/Kristin/Gretchen and bun-in-the-oven now live so close to me and we can visit again soon! San Francisco couldn't be a more fabulous destination, too. Thank you, guys, for putting me up (they even borrowed a blowup bed and blankets for me) and showing me around town 'n beaches! Let's do it again soon!

Kim and Spencer tour SoCal

2008-06-11T21:37:00.000-07:00

Kim, the vacationing special ed teacher, and little Spencer, who is a professional flirt and smiley guy, visited Spencer's Los Angeles aunties early this month of June. I will defer to Kim to fill you in further on her blog, but here are some of my highlights:

While Auntie Deanna was race car driving, Kim and Spencer spent Saturday, 6/7, with me. We interrupted Spencer's car nap to get down to a craggy beach below a snotty Malibu neighborhood where they sic the local sheriff on you for daring to park near their oversized houses:). This was Spencer's first visit to the beach. While I drove the six or seven miles to the nearest non-prohibited parking space and then hiked back to the beach, Kim descended the stairs to the beach with the tired Spencer. Spencer perked up once when he saw the water and said "Oh, Wow." But once down on the sand he wanted to be held again and he spent the rest of his time doing what you see him doing in the picture.

So we hiked the arduous and hot distance back to the hot car and drove back to my apartment pool, swam some, and then ate popsicles. Then we headed out for some Korean food. We had some adventures in using 1800free411 to get directions to BCD Tofu House, which we finally found. Luckily, Spencer was very content in his car seat. Kim and Spencer are true Wilsons and enjoyed a foray into un-boring food realm. Spencer even like the pickled cabbage with only a slight bit of a little shiver when he hit the pickled cabbage juice!

Spencer got to spend Sunday with me while his mommy helped out Deanna. He was such a good boy and was friendly with everybody at church and climbed on and explored all the furniture. At home after church, he ate a banana and three bites of ramen noodles for lunch. I got him to repeat all the names of the vegetables I was eating and say "yum!" after each one, but couldn't get him interested in actually eating any himself. Then he went back to climbing on furniture and bumped his head. Being comforted and having his head rubbed was a perfect segway into a nap on the inflatable mattress. He loves to sleep with his arms around your neck and loves to pet hair. Since I am a very good napper myself, Spencer and I snoozed for about 2 hours. Then we played and took a walk and etc. before driving up to join Deanna and Kim.

Monday we took a second shot at the beach, this time in Santa Monica. First we went to the Santa Monica Pier, where Spencer and his ladyfriends rode the carousel.

Then Spencer had some superjuice and Deanna had some tea, and both felt refreshed.

We walked around the pier some.

Spencer is a very friendly little guy and says "Hi" to everyone he makes eye contact with.
Here he is making friends with a doggie and his owner.

Afterwards, we were ready to hit the beach itself.

First Spencer contemplated the waves.

Then his mommy helped him get his feet wet. He didn't like the cold, fish-y smelling Pacific ocean crashing over his tender little toes and screamed in displeasure!

He required a little comforting.

Then Auntie Deanna helped him build a sandpile (the precursor to a sandcastle)..

..and soon he was feeling much better!
So much better that he got a hankering to taste the sand, which he made a few attempts at, thwarted by mommy. On the third try he just swiftly bent down and, all in one motion, licked the sand and popped back up and thought no one noticed. We hooted!

Here's Spencer kissing up to all the right people!

Here's the beach with the pier (with rides) up above:

We drove back to Auntie Deanna's house afterwards and everyone except me sacked out for a while. I took pictures of the people who were sacked out!

We then took cousin Rhino and cousin Ernie for a walk in the neighborhood (cousin Ernie was busy peeing on a bush and missed being in this picture.)

When asked how he felt about his day at the beach, Spencer said, "I came, I saw, I conquered!"

Day with the Dalton blondies, 4/10/08

2008-05-11T21:14:00.000-07:00

Here Emily is giving Randi raspberries and tickles.

Randi was quite enthusiastic about giving her mom raspberries, too. A little too enthusiastic.

Little Kourtney was playing peek-a-boo with me with a blanket and I was snapping a picture each time she came out from under the blanket.

Emily and Randi playing with stickers together.

Emily made me delete 9 out of 10 pictures I took of her. Above right is a survivor.

Cuddling w/ Kourtney

Here I managed a miracle (really, you have no idea) in getting both twins in the frame AND both looking at the camera at the same time. Kids spend a lot of time moving around and looking down when they're playing. By the time you focus, you're too late most of the time! I had great hopes that I was going to get some really good pictures but I didn't do so well this time around.

Here's little Kestin with some cracker crumbs clinging to her face. She's saying, "Why do you keep following me around with that black clicking thing in front of your face? This is very curious."

Emily was very nice to pick me up from the airport (uh...in the middle of the night!) and give me a nice bed at their place. In the morning I woke up to little kiddies in pajamas playing and squealing outside my bedroom door. Needless to say, Emily didn't get much sleep that night and I'm only hoping Eliot did, since he had to go to work early! Randi warmed up to me pretty fast, since I seemed like a willing buddy to play with. She kept calling me Amy at first. ("Come on, Amy! Amy, wook at dis!") We all spent the day playing, chasing, laughing, and dumping out toys and then picking them up again, having accidents involving heads getting bumped, trying to get the girls to eat canned pears and hot dogs and take naps, jumping on the bed, bouncing crying girls on our hip, giving hugs, etc. (I must say, I'm amazed at Emily's ability to continually keep the bows and piggy tails in the girls' hair fixed again when they kept falling out!) Since we were pooped, Emily and me sacked out on the couch while Randi watched a kid's TV show later in the evening when the twins were asleep. Then grandpa and grandma came over with some dinner and Eliot got to join us for some food and chat. It was really great being with Emily and the girls since I haven't gotten to spend this much time with them in the past. Thanks again for letting me visit, guys! I loved it and will retain fond memories!!

birthday bowling in blue

2008-05-08T19:20:00.000-07:00

Since I am out of compliance with posting regularly, I will attempt to fill you in on the recent past.

On my birthday, April 14, I found myself at a bowling alley in Highland, UT with mom and Lindsey.

Up first, mom confidently dribbled the ball down the lane on her approach:

Lindsey corrected her, "No, no! You're supposed to roll the ball down the lane to knock down those pins at the end!"

I demonstrated the correct technique for mom, illustrating the importance of flinging your left wrist behind your back:

Mom said a prayer to the bowling gods.

Then she bowled a strike by directing the ball using telekinectic powers, a little trick she learned from reading Marvel comics as a kid.

Feeling challenged, Lindsey mustered up all her bowling skill:

But as she swung the ball exuberantly, she whacked herself in the knee and fumbled.

Meanwhile, mom struck (striked?) again!

Lindsey's hopes of winning sank.

And mom swaggered overconfidently.

As for myself, I kept above the fray by taking a lot of inane and unbecoming bowling pictures.

Photo safaris in the asphalt jungle

2008-02-17T20:44:00.000-08:00

Here's T.

and here's B.

...who are my photo safari (phrase coined by B.) compatriots. Lately we have been lurking on the streets taking pictures of various types. And eating Japanese curry...which causes gas, by the way.

Here is some of T.'s handiwork:

And here's some of B.'s:

And some of mine...

Roasted Beets w/ Walnut Gorgonzola Dressing

2008-02-17T19:06:00.000-08:00

I found this recipe (click on "Roasted Beets.." above) on the internet when looking for a way to use up walnuts and it's both delicious and nutritious (I assume). Serve it over fettucine maybe, or today I ate it over ziti. I also buy the beets with the greens on, trim and cut them, and throw them in to the pasta cooking water toward the end of the cooking time. Mixing the gorgonzola and cream in the blender might cause some consternation..try using "pulse" and scraping repeatedly; I added extra cream to make it work better. Go easy when you add the dressing and beets to the pasta, because the flavor can be strong if you get too much dressing to pasta. I don't know if this would be a kid-friendly one...? Maybe not Lindsey-friendly, either (she who prefers Kraft macaroni and cheese and Top Ramen). And men who eat only meat and potatoes might be frightened by the gorgonzola in this. Everyone else will love it!

Here's my Sunday lunch today:

With both yellow and red beets...Good stuff!!

2008-01-29T17:48:00.000-08:00

Last Friday, I dragged Deanna and Tony and their friend Glen along with me to listen to a band (Au Revoir Simone) at The Troubadour. Then Deanna and I abandoned Tony and Glen and I got absorbed in taking pictures in random spots in the club. Deanna was good enough to "stand here," "look at me," "look up," "chin down," etc. and be my model, since that was more interesting than taking repetitive pictures of the band and I'm too hesitant to snap pics of strangers. I didn't end up really listening to the band so I basically I paid $12 for the privelege of taking pictures. Hm. But, I learned some things when I took a look at my results, which is usually how it goes and what helps me do the research to find out how to get better. My shutter speeds were too slow for the most part for low light so some of these blown up show evidence of camera shake. I tinkered with the one with bright backlighting in Photoshop to make it look a little more cool. I tried to post a picture of the band but Blogger hates those pictures for some reason and it won't upload them.

My new nom de guerre

2008-01-20T18:30:00.000-08:00

Bom da da bom! Here it is: I've been reborn...as Winnow D. Asael! Although the voting was divergent, Winnow came in first, Sloane was seconding, and the rest of the votes were all over the place. So I hope you can learn to love me as Winnow, those who wanted Sandea and Wanda and Nilda and Wenila, etc.!

So my next question for my blog audience is...do you want me to use your real name when I refer to you on my blog...? You might want your anonymity, too. Another question is whether you feel comfortable with me listing a link to your blog, since that might matter to you, too. Let me know your feelings by leaving a comment. Just in case this informs you better, this is envisioned as being a blog for family and friends but not random people who I don't know too well. I'm trying to get the blog etiquette refined here....

Also, after doing some twiddling and fiddling and trying not to cuss, I figured out how to add music to my blog. Here's a picture of the lead singer of Fujiya and Miyagi maybe singing this song! I saw them recently and took the pic.

A blogger seeks her name

2008-01-10T20:44:00.000-08:00

About having my real name out there on the internet..for indefinable reasons, I'm just not comfortable with the idea. So I'm polling you, my family and friends, to help me create a new cyberspace alter ego. She must have a neat name...SO...I've recombined a special grouping of letters to come up with the following monikers and I ask for you to vote for your favorite. I WASTED A LOT OF TIME COMING UP WITH THESE NAMES SO PLEASE, I need everyone's participation!

I can be:

"Wanda Winsloe"
"Winnow D. Asael"
"Delia W. Wasona"
"Sandea Winslow"
"Linda W. Sawe"
"Wendi A. Lawson" (don’t vote for this one…it’s boring)
"Lawna W. Edison"
"Londa Weinsaw"
"Wenila Dawson"
"Wilda Al-Newson" (Western/Middle Eastern hybrid surname)
"Wildana Weson"
"Lawnda Ewison"
"Nilda W. Newsao" (Portuguese surname)
"Wanila Weldson"
"Alina W. Weldson"
"Danila W. Ewson"
"Sloane W. Dwain"

Roll these names around on your tongue and come up with the one you think will serve me best. Next time you hear from me, I will reveal my new identity! Until then, Cheerio!