Junque Food - Almond Milk & Flour, part 2

It doesn't look pretty, does it?

It's the paste left over from blending soaked almonds with water, this is what is strained out of the almond milk.

I had heard that this paste could be dried and made into almond flour, or as a protein powder for smoothies, etc.

Of course, when I went looking for a recipe to do that, all I could find was people using slivered almonds, or taking the skins off the soaked almonds in order to make it more "flour" looking.

I didn't do either. I should be hanged as a bad example.

I took the leftover almond paste and spread it thin-ish onto a cookie sheet lined with wax paper, and let it dry. This took about 3 days. Then I pulsed it in the food processor until fine. And it looks like this:

So it's not all white and pretty like everyone else. I bet it can still be used just like other almond flour.  And I will use it, and let you all know if the skin makes it bitter or whatever.

I wonder what I should make?

I could use it to coat fish, or make cookies (eventually, I don't think I have enough to make a batch yet. this is about a cup and half that you see in this picture.

Or muffins. The list is pretty endless.

And I need to make more almond milk.  That's right I didn't tell you about the Almond milk itself.

It's fabulous.  I didn't sweeten it, because I wanted to try using it in scrambled eggs. The store bought almond milk is all sweetened with "cane juice," which is code for sugar. Sugar comes from canes, people. Don't let those labels fool you!

But I digress.

Store bought almond milk is too sweet to make scrambled eggs. So I figured I'd test it out with homemade unsweetened almond milk, and it worked just peachy! I can have creamy eggs again! Woo Hoo!

Now, the Paleo blogs I've been reading have made good use of  blending dates into a paste and using that to sweeten things. I even saw a recipe for making coffee creamer using either almond milk or coconut milk, and sweetening it with date paste.

I am going to try this as another way to get off the commercial creamer that I am addicted to. If I can, that will be the last bit of corn syrup that is OUT of my diet.

And then I will do the chubby girl dance, for sticking it to the man for their totally yummy, but ultimately horrendous for me commercial foods.

*nods*

I know this blog is not very coherent, but I'm not quite awake yet this morning.

Junque Yard - My Daily "Salads"

I call them salads. I don't know what else to call them. They don't have lettuce or spinach or any leafy greens, though, so I don't know if they count as salads.

I'm gonna officially call them my Junque Salads, because the ingredients change with whatever I have floating around in my fridge, along with whatever I harvest from my garden.

Cucumbers are a must. I will be picking my first from the garden this week. I have my eye on two very sweet looking cukes that are just starting to plump up.

Banana peppers are a usual staple. I've been harvesting them for a week or so now. I hate hot and mild ones, and both are yummy.

My purple bell pepper plant is going gang busters! I can't believe I've got colored peppers already this summer.

I bought a bag of scapes from the farmer's market two weeks ago, and I'm still using them. OMG the best of both onions and garlic, in a little green tube. NOMMINESS!

Carrots are a must, and I always try to have some in the house. The carrots I planted a couple of weekends ago haven't started making an appearance yet, but when they do, their thinnings will make for yummy greens in my salads.

Green beans, broccoli, onions, kohlrabi....whatever else is hanging around gets chopped and thrown into the mix.

Dressing is simple, a little apple cider vinegar, a little olive oil, and a lot of spices. I'm partial to a little bit of salt, pepper, oregano, and Mrs. Dash.

You might ask, "Why no leafy veggies?" To which I answer, because this is what I take to work, silly person.  And I don't want to eat wilted veggies for lunch!

And you might say, "So why don't you leave off the dressing and mix it when you go to eat it at lunch time?"

And I'll reply, "Don't bore me with petty details, you whippersnapper!

The honest answer is that I get bored of leafy veggie salads quickly. This way, I can make it a day or two ahead of time, and have a few meals out of it. The dressing acts as a marinade, and all the veggie's and spices' have blended flavors.  I just throw a couple of slices of turkey or chicken breast on the top, and I'm ready to go to work with little to no effort in the morning.

It's all good.

Junque Food - staving off the boredom of salads

I always say that I love me a salad that I don't have to make. That rule gets relaxed in the spring when I pick my first greens from the garden. But it's short lived. I really do get bored eating salads quickly.

And I'm not talking potato salads, cole slaw, or pasta salads. Those are temporarily off the menu while I try this Paleo Diet thing. And if you haven't read me gushing about my personal experience with Paleo diet, click here: Do you eat what you grow?

Ok, back? Good.

So back to salads. I needed to wrap my brain around the fact that salad doesn't necessarily have to mean leafy greens. Particularly for lunches at work, where the leafy greens tend to not stay fresh and crisp by lunchtime.

Since my body craves "crunchy" I've been making salads that have whatever fresh veggies that I have around. Here are some of the things I've been using, in various combos:

sliced or julienne carrots
celery
banana peppers
brocolli florets
slived green onions
crushed garlic
cucumbers

And I usually toss it with a red-wine vinaigrette and a splash of garlic-red chili sauce. Occasionally I'll sprinkle some Parmesan cheese on top for a little extra Oomph. Even though that's not Paleo, but it sure is tasty!!

I also made a pretty good better-for-you cole slaw this week. I had a bag of pre-shredded cabbage that I mixed with onion, garlic and a little more carrot than the teeny amount that comes in the bag. I dressed it again with the red wine vinaigrette in stead of sour cream and mayo. It was pretty darn good!

And the red wine vinaigrette turned the cole slaw a pretty shade of pink, too.

heh.

Share with some of your favorite non-traditional salads, please!

Junque Yard - veggies and fruits galore!

I need to brag just a little. I just bought nearly a metric ton (slight exaggeration) of fruits and veggies. Some from the farmer's market, some from a local discount grocery store, and some from a local restaurant supply chain store that had some good sales. You tell me if I did a good job

From GFS (the restaurant/party supply store:

• Two 5lbs bags of natural frozen chicken wings.
• Two 4lb crates of fresh strawberries
• Various 1lb containers of spices.

 Total spent = $45.00




From Sav-A-Lot (discount grocery)

• 2 huge bunches of bananas
• 2 cantaloupes
• one bag of sweet onions
• 2 bags of carrots
• 4 kiwis
• one bag of grapes
• 2 whole chickens
• 2 packages of 1/2 ground beef & 1/2 ground pork
• 1 large package of diced fresh beef for chopsuey
• one cabbage
• coffee
• 12 avocados
• one pineapple
• and probably some more things I'm forgetting

total spent = $65.00

From the Farmer's Market 
(I should preface this by saying it's still early in the growing season here in the Midwest, and therefore there isn't a lot of harvesting veggies available)

• bag of green beans
• bag of scapes
• 2 seedless cucumbers
• several bunches of small onions
• several heads of garlic
• one large head of kohlrabi
• one small container of early tomatoes

total spent = $15.00

That's a grand total of $125.00.  I feel like I did great, and got a lot of bang for my buck. What do you think?

Junque Food - Faux Rice and other things Cauliflower can do for you.

I love Cauliflower in it's natural form. It's always on a veggie tray at family dinner's. I dig it steamed with Mrs. Dash and garlic, and way back in the day when I tried the South Beach Diet, I fell in love with the "Mock Mashed Potato" recipe that was in there. It has become a must-have for holiday dinners.

Now that DaHubster and I are endevouring to lose weight and live healthier, we are trying The Paleo Solution (I hate calling it a diet). I've talked about it some in other blog posts, but essentially, it means giving up all processed foods, grains, and dairy. As a diabetic, I try to stay away from processed foods in general (except when I'm weak and cave), and I've been on and off lactose intolerant for years. That means the hardest thing for me to give up is grains. No bread? *cries*  I love my homemade bread.

Ok, ok, quit crying.

Without lifting a large portion of the book (and putting you all to sleep in the process), the gist of it is that grains are not well digested by the body, and people have varying degrees of bad things happening in their guts when they do attempt to digest grain.  The one that's pertinent to me is inflammation. Do your joints hurt you constantly? Mine do. And I felt a lot of relief in them just by giving up grains. Only after a couple of days, I was moving around better, quicker, and with more energy than I have in a long time.  If giving up bread, pasta, rice and the like is the cause of me feeling better, than I'm going to continue. Because I've felt like crap for eons, and it's nice to not feel that way anymore.

Ok, quit preaching and get on with the recipes.

So...cauliflower.  Natures faux rice.  The interwebz and the books we've been picking up use a lot of riced cauliflower in dishes that call for rice.  We've tried some of them, and have been pleasantly surprised.  No, it doesn't taste like rice, But it does bulk up our dishes like rice does, giving us that satiated feeling, without the hunger in a couple of hours, like you do when you eat take out Chinese.

I'd resisted ricing a cauliflower, because I thought it would be a pain in the ass.  Not so.  Cut up a head of the 'flower into smaller florets. Then pulse them in a food processor until they look like grains of rice. I have to do it small batches because I have the smallest (and loudest) food processor in the known universe.  Put the cauliflower in a container and throw it in the fridge, and it will last about a week.

One head, depending on the size will give you 3-4 cups of "rice."  Here are some of the things I've used it for:


Califlower Pizza Crust.  OH YEAH, BABY....God's most perfect food, made low-carb and totally yummy.  Not entirely Paleo, as it does have cheese in it, but Mammit, I'm not perfect.  And this crust us yummy. So says even my mother, who hates cooked veggies.  This recipe is every where on the Webz now, but I originally saw it on www.eat-drink-smile.com and did I mention that it's yummy?  My only change to that recipe is that I would pre-bake the crust longer at a lower temp than she calls for. My crust was a bit soggy in the middle. But utterly edible.


Paleo Dirty Rice. The Hubster made this as a side dish because I'm constantly complaining about the amount of salads we eat.  I mean come on. What to make as a side when you don't want to eat grain? Make this. "Totes to the Yum" as I said when I did it this. You can probably add in some lean meat and make it a whole meal. Was great stuff.

Faux Fried Rice. I didn't really use a recipe, but I hunted around, and this one looks unusual, but really good.  If you like to experiment, I say go for it. I like the addition of bacon and fish sauce, and will definitely have to give this one a try.

My Faux Fried Rice was more basic: onions, peppers, tiny cut chop suey beef, and eggs. And it was PHENOM. Definitely something that will become a go-to at our house.

So yeah, there you have it. We love it, and it's an easy way to incorporate a few lower carb meals into your life.  And if you do try, see how it makes you feel afterwards. You might come to the same conclusion that I did.

Junque Yard & Junque Food

I feel like it has been forever since I updated here.  I haven't because there hasn't been anything Earth shattering going on around here. My knee is healing well, and I'm off crutches and the cane I downgraded myself to last week.  So that makes me happy.

Yesterday I bought tons of veggies at the farmer's market - green onions to dehydrate, more garlic (homegrown tastes so much better than what is in the store, I cannot recommend it highly enough), more banana peppers (mine are still producing, but not the quantity I got last year, and I am running out of jars of pickled nanas at an alarming rate), cukes (I'm getting tons of flowers, but not so much are actually fruiting) for pickling. I keep picking and using the bell peppers I have, so they aren't turning red on the vine - however, I found a vendor that had an over abundance of orange and red bells for 75 cents a piece - SCORE!  Those will be chopped and frozen for putting into dishes.

My biggest score, and here's my nuttiness showing, was a 10 lb box of Michigan blueberries. A greenhouse I pass by on my way to work everyday has been advertising the blueberries for a couple of weeks now, and I realized that if I wanted to make jam and freeze a bunch for the winter, I had to get them NOW. So I did.

Now, I'm staring at the bounty in my kitchen, and wondering WTF was I thinking? Good thing I have tomorrow off, Imma be processing all this stuff for freaking ever.

I have my mother coming over today to help with the processing, which is greatly appreciated.

I have a friend from out of town coming over tomorrow, which makes me happy, too...She can yack at me while I'm chopping and canning.

It's a great thing that I work better under pressure. I have to finish cleaning the house, and then just dig in.

I couldn't be happier.  :)

To my East Coast peeps, I hope that Irene does you no harm. Take it easy out there...

Junque Food -Banana Pepper recipes!

Whilst looking up some new 'Nana pepper recipes, I found some darn good ones (and not just peppers, too!)  to try!

Pickled carrots & jalepenos - YUM!

a pickled 'nana recipe that leave the 'nanas whole.

Stuffed Banana Peppers - these are breaded and deep fried (or pan fried, if you prefer)
Ricotta-stuffed Banana Peppers - a homemade take on "poppers"

Scrambled Eggs with Banana Peppers, Feta & Chives

Here's a comment on another blog that I will most definitely be trying: "Here's an easy recipe that I use all the time. Brown bulk sausage and drain thoroughly. Either melt a soft cheese product or make a quick white sauce and add your favorite cheese to it. Mix the cheese (or cheese sauce) into the sausage. Slice the top of the banana pepper off and make a slit down one side, seed the pepper. Spoon the sausage and cheese mixture into the pepper. Cover the entire pepper with store-bought canned crescent rolls to seal them up ( Large peppers may take up to 3 crescents, but with this , the more the better). Bake according to the crescent roll can. These are simply delicious. I usually make 6-8 peppers and refrigerate the left overs. A friend of mine gave me the recipe, but she uses hamburger instead. If you freeze your peppers whole, you can thaw them out and fix this any time of the year.
(from: http://chowhound.chow.com/topics/419306)


heck, I might go to the store right now and get some crescent rolls. :) 

Junque Food - Sunday meal

DaHubster and I have long been talking about buying meat locally from the farmer's market we frequent. The prices are more expensive than at the grocery store, but as we are wanting to try to eat more local it makes a bit of sense. Local farms produce grass fed meat, which is supposed to be healthier for you and the animal. Smaller farms have more expensive overhead than commercial farms. I get it. We are even rebellious enough to want to "stick it" to the government that dictates what and how we eat, even if it means paying a little more for it. Those of you who talk to me during the week have heard my political views ad nauseum, and I won't bring that hear. Sufficiet to say, we want to try locally grown meat, particularly lamb, which is claiming a premium in the grocery stores anyway these days, so why not?

There's a vendor at the farmer's market we go to who sells beef and lamb. They freeze it solid and take it in coolers to sell instead of taking orders one week and have their customers pick it up the next week. We discussed it amongst ourselves, wondering if we should try some lamb, and initially decided against it this week. Then changed our minds when the blueberries I'd wanted to buy for jam weren't available as I thought they would be. Hubster actually went back to the market to get it. Unfortunately, they were out of lamb steaks by that time, so he picked up 2 lamb shanks. Neither one of has cooked it, but the seller told DaHubs to cook it long and slow. He thought that meant indirect heating on the grill, more so than how you would cook a steak, but I had doubt. Calling on my best friend in the world, the internet, I saw that long and slow for lamb shanks really meant braising in a dutch oven for HOURS. The meat is tough. Looking around for recipes, I finally settled on this one. I figure if I have to cook it for hours, why heat up my house for it? So, the crock pot it is! this recipe has all the goodness we love in food: garlic, onions, more garlic, tomatoes, etc. It's going to be a hit, I just know it.


I also have a garden bounty salad marinating in the fridge of cucumbers, hot nana peppers, onions, and carrots. YUM.

I will let you know how it comes out.  :)

Junque Yard

I know it's finally summer when I spend more time picking fruits and veggies than I do weeds. Such a great feeling to fill up a couple of bowls of NOMmies, and take it into the kitchen and prepare it for where ever it's going to go.

Yesterday I picked a bowl of cucumbers. I'm trying to pick them when they are relatively small, because last year I found that the smaller they were, the tastier and crunchier they were when I made them into pickles. The larger cukes became soggier pickles. So my plan of attack is to make smaller ones into baby dills, and any larger ones into relish. I have had a small bowl of whole baby cukes soaking in salted water in the fridge overnight.

I also picked a good size bowl of banana peppers. I think I only planted hot nanas this year. Last year, the hot nanas I got from the farmer's market were so tastey that I mixed them in with my own mild nana peppers when I pickled those. We've been eating canned nanas on EVERYTHING. hot dogs and brats, pizza, you name it. It's been awesome. I had promised to share some of that bounty with some of my internet friends, but I didn't, because the recipe I used made them pretty salty. I don't want to be responsible for anyone retaining water or getting high blood pressure from my salty nanas, so if you are still out there, and haven't defriended me for going back on my promise, I swear, You will get some this year!

I also picked some young carrots yesterday. They were 3-4 inches long, and oh so very sweet. We planted lots, and plan on planting more before frost because I can't bear to eat commercially grown carrots anymore. There is such a taste difference. I have a friend (I'm looking at your, JayBee), who loves the pickled carrots that come in canned jalapenos. I plan on canning up some of that this year, too - just reversed - more carrots than jalapenos (which I am also growing).

Then there's the beans and raspberries. The only produce that seems to be hit each year by Japanese beetles. Those creepy beetles are pretty to look at, with their iridescent brown backs and a stripe of black with white spots on either side. But they are like little zombies hanging on the leaves of my plants. Clacking at you with their little mandible. Flying at you when you brush up against them. *shudder* All they do is munch on leaves, and do what appears to be the horizontal mamba with each other out in plain sight. HAVE THEY NO SHAME? I've been making DaHubster go out ahead of me, and he swoops them into a jar of soapy water to kill them. UGH! they creep me out.

Anyway, Hubby picked a small bowl of yellow beans, and I blanched them for eating with Sunday's meal. First beans of the season, YAY!

The raspberries are winding down. They ripen so fast that it's hard to keep up with them. They seem to ripen, then go to mush within a day. I've been out there almost every day picking and picking and dodging those creepy beetles. Then I freeze them for jamming later. And no, there will be NO beetles in the jam. I prommise.

Our romas are continuing to put out plump juicy looking tomatoes, but they are still very green. I learned this week that if you freeze whole tomatoes, the peels will fall off when defrosted as if you had blanched and shocked them in cold water. This will knock off about 1/3 of the time it takes to can those puppies. So that is what I plan to do, if they ever freakin' ripen.

My bell peppers are coming along. Not much exciting there. They say you should take off the first large peppers while still green, then you can let the next set of peppers ripen to whatever color they become. So I will be picking the first bunch in a few days.

My pumpkins are a disappointment. They are flowering like mad, and I see the bees are loving them, but they are not setting fruit. The flowers are all male. I had this happen with zucchini a couple of years ago. I don't know if there is anything I can do differently to make them set female flowers or what. I need to research this. In the meantime, the pumpkin patch is doing what it normally does, sprawl all over the place with vines and giant leaves - it's starting to choke out other plants. My original plan was to see which pumpkin plants set fruit, and pull out the excess plants so that the sprawl was semi-sort of contained, but that is not going to happen. Ahh well...such is the life of an urbanite farmer here at the micro mini-ranch.  :)

Junque Food & Junque Yard....Strawberries!

I didn't put in a reference point. What you are looking at is a HUUUGE bowl of strawberries. (duh, I mean you can see they are strawberries, but how big the bowl is -  is unclear. It's large. Trust me.)

It's always been a goal of mine to produce enough strawberries to make jam. Each year, I never think I'm going to, so I just eat them raw. Which is fine. There is nothing more perfect than a ripe strawberry just picked from your own stash. I've grown enough to make strawberry shortcake (I prefer Bisquick's Classic shortcake recipe for the biscuits) in the past. but mainly, I like to eat them fresh and whole. Taking a handful to work for breakfast is a sure way to have a great day.

That said, I've always wanted to make jam from my own berries. I've done it with store bought berries with absolutely fine results. But the news articles out there lately say that strawberries are one of the most pesticide laden commercially grown foods out there, along with celery, peppers, etc. The skin on the berries is so soft the pesticide sinks in, and sometimes normal washing isn't enough to get it off. Plus, you never know how long ago they were picked, how long they've been sitting in a warehouse, or on a truck, etc.

DaHubster's Aunt Carol makes a freezer jelly that is beyond great. every year we get a jelly jar from her, and it always goes way too fast. I want MORE! I want my own.

Actually, the last time I made strawberry jam, it didn't set up so well. It was incredibly runny, more like a strawberry sauce with chucks of berries in it. It's excellent stirred into yogurt or on top of ice cream. It did not go to waste, that's for sure.

Enough tangents..back to the point. I did a dumb thing, and assumed I wouldn't have enough strawberries for jam this year. LOL. I had about a half of of quart picked, and went to the farmer's market, where only one vendor was selling berries. At $4.50 a quart. That's not a bad deal, since most grocery stores sell theirs on sale for 2 for %.00 a pint. These berries were HUGE, and some of them were not quite ripe, which if not so diplomatically said out loud, and very kind offered to let me pick my own out of their stash behind the counter. I was embarrassed, though, sure they were thinking that I was one of the hard to deal with customers. I just took the best looking quart I could see on the table.

Then I went home and picked my own strawberries, and I could see that the quart I got at the FM was NOT needed. I had so many, that I had to inside to get a bigger bowl.  I picked until my legs were wobbly and my back hurt from bending over so much. then I sent DaHubster out to pick the rest that were ripe enough. Giant bowl. Huge amount of berries.

I should have picked first, *then* gone to the market.

Ah well, live and learn. I have a ton of strawberries, and there will be jam. And 3/4's of it will be from my own garden.

I can live with that.  :)

Musings from the Junque Pile

Happy Sunday! Happy Independence Day Eve! (???)

What a difference a day makes. The humid has ramped down, and it's a balmy 70 degrees this morning at the micro-mini ranch. A day when one might want to fling open the windows and let the breeze in. Well, maybe. I have to see how much the temps will climb later today. LOL

It seems that my weekends have become reversed. Saturdays are the days one usually try to get their cleaning and errand running done, with Sunday being the traditional "day of rest." I find that the older I get, the more Saturdays have become the day of relaxing and unwinding after the week of work struggles and drama. Sundays then become the frenzy of cleaning and cooking for the week.

I'm not saying I was a complete bum yesterday, but I will admit to a nap in the afternoon.

This being a three day weekend (YAY!), I don't feel as rushed as I would normally. However, if I want to relax and have some fun, today's the day for doing, if you know what I mean. I have a living room full of animal hair encrusted furniture that if they don't get vacuumed in the immediate future, will soon animate themselves and start shedding on their own. And probably begging for food.

I really need to take down the bird feeders, wash and refill them. Or I'm going to start losing some of my favorite birdie customers.

Weeding is always needing to be done out on the back 40 (that's inches folk - it's a micro-mini ranch for a reason). And I really REALLY need to move some of my colder weather crops (lettuce, spinach, sugar snap peas, etc) into a shadier location so that they don't die in the upcoming heat of summer.

And I need to come up with breakfasts and lunches for the week. If I don't, we will be sneaking off the fast food joints, and spending money that we don't have to fill the void.

I'm not complaining, but I am listing some of this stuff as a way to keep me honest. Everyone gets into a "I don't wanna do it" mood occasionally, and lets things slide. I've been there for awhile now - just doing the minimum to keep going, or "keep up appearances." I need to boot myself in the behind and get on top of things. Besides, I'm not such a psycho hose beast when the house is relatively clean, there's good food in the fridge, and more growing outside, and the place looks less like a tornado hit it (technically, it was more of a heavy duty windstorm that hit a few days ago, but unfortunately, I can't blame the weather for my lack of tidying, can I?...yes, I can.)

All right, then. Someone needs to come hide my Kindle, and yell at me if they see me playing games or posting delicious recipes that I find on Face Book.

 K?

Junque Yard & Junque Food

Hot and muggy. Wow what a change from the cold, rainy spring. I'm giving all kinds of props to DaHubster, who fixed our AC this past week. The man is a mechanical genius.  I can sweat it outside for a bit while I write this on my laptop (any spelling errors are due to the fact that I can't see the monitor outside), and then go inside and cool off. Then sweat some more as I start cleaning.

The veggies are finally starting to grow. The poor tomatoes have finally started to leaf out and I spy a few blossoms! The pepper plants all have blossoms or teeny tiny little baby peppers on them. It always cracks me up, the first little peppers on a plant that never looks big I  enough to support any weight. But the more you pick, and the hotter it gets, the more it grows. I love growing peppers.

The pumpkin "patch," a laughable term, as the pumpkins are squeezed into the corner of one raised bed. They are supposed to take up a huge amount of room, but I don't have the space, but I wanted my own sugar pumpkins for baking this year. I put them next to a fence, and will encourage them to grow up by adding a trellis. You can net the fruit so that it will grow supported and not drag down the vine. Keep your fingers crossed that that little experiment succeeds. These little guys have grown about 4 inches in the last week.

The potatoes have also grown. DaMan lobbed several inches of straw on top of them last weekend, and we feared that we over did it, and the straw would smother them. NOPE! They are growing up fine through the straw.

The strawberries are in the middle of their productive period. I've picked two bowls of these wonderful berries, and we've been eating them straight out of the garden. I've never enough to make my own jams. Instead I buy quarts from the farmer's garden to make jams. Occasionally, I get enough to make a strawberry shortcake, though I mainly just like them for picking and eating. Honestly, if there's nothing more perfect than an exactly ripe strawberry, I don't know what it is.

The raspberries continue on their journey. Staking them up was the idea I'd had in ages. it's going to be so much easier to pick them this year than last.

The loofa experiment is progressing slowly. The seeds have sprouted, and there are close to a dozen or so seedlings popping up in their container. I need to trellis them as I will the pumpkins. Scrubbies here we come!

The sugar snap peas are nearing their end. I'll plant another round in August for a fall crop. Love me some sugar snaps! BTW, I made 2 pints of that pickled sugar snap pea recipe that I talked about last week. AND THE ARE FABULOUS!!! I added a touch more red pepper flakes than the recipe called for, and they are wicked spicy, tangy with with the vinegar and other spices. So very good. You should try them.

I noticed that we do have peaches this year. Last year we had a bumper crop, and made peach preserves until we were sick of it. I'm told that peaches don't produce heavy quantities every year. I guess they are a lazy tree.  This is also an older tree, how old, I have no idea, it came with the house. But we've lived here for four years, and have only had 2 big years. I counted 6 peaches other night. They are slightly larger than olives at this point. We'll see how many others are hiding in there.

OK, its getting too hot out here, I'm going back inside...  :)

Junque Yard

Good evening...and Happy Belated Solstice!

I am finally starting to see some growth here at the micro-mini ranch, despite the lack of sun and the warmth that generally accompanies it. I have a pot of basil that is doing well. I should have enough to pluck and dry a large batch of leaves on my dehydrator this weekend. Last year I grew basil in a pot and it did really well, that is, until someone (probably a rabbit) chewed the main stalk off at the base one night. I noticed it the next morning, and was just sick about it. I've had trouble growing basil in the past, but finally had felt I'd gotten the knack.

Basil, unlike most herbs, is a little more persnickety in their water requirements. Most herbs you have ignore a bit, make them feel just a wee bit neglected. Then they turn up their oil production and you get all the wonderful scents and flavor you crave. They are woo'ing you, as it were.  Not so the snobbish basil. If basil feels the least bit neglected, it will up and die on me. It wants its soil to be moist almost all the time. It prefers potting soil rather than the clay-packed soil in my yard.

So anyway, I was out one weekend morning last summer, surveying my little green kingdom, and I see that my prize basil has fallen over like I tree in the woods that I wasn't around to hear. Did it make a sound? If it did, I didn't hear it. I will admit that I got a little misty seeing my plant all keeled over, the leaves already looking limp. No pesto. No tossing a few leaves in a soup or a salad. Then I thought, maybe I can dry the leaves and save it that way?  And I did!

I plucked every last beloved leaf off the stalk and gently washed them. Then I laid them in a single layer on several trays of my dehydrator and turned it on.  Within about an hour and half, they were done. I gently crushed the dried leaves into glass container with an airtight lid, and sniffed dramatically one last time.

Over the next few months, I realized what I boon I had made for myself.  Home dried basil is so much more aromatic and flavorful than store bought dried basil. It really needs to be capitalized: its Basil. My spaghetti and pizza sauce become more masterful. Garlic bread became godlike with a sprinkling of my Basil. Pasta salads and even roasted veggies which are NOM to be begin with became MOAR NOM (if you pardon my LOLspeak) with the Basil. In short, I will never buy dried basil again when I can make Basil at home so easily.

And so can you. You don't even need a dehydrator. Go out and buy yourself a basil plant from a farmer's market or local nursery. They should still have some in stock. if not, pick up a packet of basil seeds, and plant in a pot. Keep the soil moist, and in a warm, sunny spot. When the plant starts to get tall and a little bushy, pinch off the first layers of leaves, that causes the plant to become bushier, and less likely to flower. When it starts getting cold, or when you want to harvest and dry your leaves, pluck them off, wash them gently in cool water. Pat dry. Then layer then on some parchment paper set over a cookie sheet in a single layer, if you don't live in a warm humid climate, put them on top of your fridge for a week. They will dry naturally. If you want to speed up the process, put the cookie sheet in your oven set to the lowest temp on the dial. Leave the door open a crack to let most of the heat escape. You don't want to cook your leaves, just speed up the drying process. Check on your leaves every 20 mins or so. Some ovens get too hot for this process, so it's important to check often. You might want to turn off the oven at intervals. The leaves are done when they are dry and crumble easily. Let them cool, and put them in an airtight container.

Now you know what I know about Basil. And it's all thanks to some waskily wabbit.

Junque Food - Spaghetti

From time to time I get asked about my spaghetti sauce recipe. I don't really have one. My family didn't really rely on recipes when I was growing up, unless they were trying something new and fancy. Spaghetti was the dish I usually asked for as my birthday dish as I was growing up. And since, as I kid, I had no interest in cooking, it wasw one of those meals that miraculously appeared on the table. Well, not really. But you get my drift.

My family, as I said, didn't really use a lot of recipes. The women in my family that have awesome trait of being able to dissemble a meal in their brains and say, "Ahh...so that's how it works." And that's how they would cook. It's not an exact science, and we've all had some experiments that didn't quite work out, but for the most part, it worked for our family. My talent for eating something and figuring out the spices and cooking method didn't evolve until my early 30's, but I am glad it did. It makes cooking more fu.n. And it drive DaMan and my mother in law crazy. If they don't work off a recipe, they don't cook. Hubster has mellowed on this somewhat. If he's cooking, it's something he knows how to do, or he asks me for a breakdown. He doesn't get nearly as frustrated as he used to when I tell him, "a little bit of this, and a pinch of that..."

Anyway, here's my process for cooking spaghetti. Yours, if you have one, will certainly vary. I am always of the mind that knowledge is power, so share your variations with me in the comment section below!

Ingredients I use most often:

Italian Sausage (mild or hot)
large cans of diced and crushed tomatoes (home canned when I have them)
diced green peppers
diced onions
lots of garlic (powdered when I don't have fresh chopped)
spices of your choice. I learn towards basil more and more and less towards oregano than I used to)
about a teaspoon of sugar (just to cut the acidity of the tomatoes, NOT to sweeten the sauce)
olive or any other light cooking oil


Take the saugage out of it's casings and fry up in a heavy bottomed fry pan, chopping it up as fine as you can while it cooks. Remove from heat, and drain it on a paper towel like you would bacon.

In a heavy bottomed stock pot, heat up a tablespoon or so of oil, and toss in the onion, green pepper, and garlic. Sautee the veggies, stirring frequently until the onions are translucent. Stirring often will keep them from sticking to the bottom of the pot and browning. When the onions are no longer white, add the sausage and the cans of tomatoes, sugar, and your dried spices of choice. Put a lid on, and let it come up to a boil, then take the lid off, and lower the temp to simmer.  I let mine simmer all afternoon, stirring often.

That's it! I usually make it a day ahead of time to let the flavors meld together. I taste it often and adjust spices as I need to.

The only note that I would add is that if you choose to use fresh spices instead of dried, add them at the end of cooking, and not during the cooking process.  Fresh basil tends to turn black and look unappetizing, and fresh oregano tends to turn bitter. I like a blend of dried and fresh. I use dried during the cooking time, and then chop fresh and sprinkle it on the top of the finished meal before serving. It's very pretty that way too!

So, what do you different? Tell me!

Musings from the Junque Pile

Good Morning!   The weather might cooperate today. It is supposed to be 60 and mostly sunny. Not quite shorts weather, but after the insanity that comprised of this past week, I'll take it.  We had 3 days of almost 100 degree weather earlier in the week, then temps plummeted to the 50's with lots of fog and rain. My poor tomatoes have no idea what do with themselves. My peppers are growing, though not as fast as I would like.

The rains damaged some of my strawberry blossoms, and I'm hoping they were already visited by the bee fairies and were already fertilized. I will be checking on them later today to see if there are any burgeoning berries. If I don't, I will lop off the damaged blossoms and see if I can coax the plants to re-bloom. These strawberries are heavy producers, and I can usually get them to bloom 2 to 3 times during their month of production.

The bin of potatoes that was constructed by DaMan has sprouted! I am so excited about this as it is our first time growing potatoes.

I am serious need of hacking back some of the more over-zealous herbs. The oregano, as usual is dominating the sage. I need to take it down a peg or twelve.

This year I planted borage, a lessor known herb. I want to see what it does, and it is purported to bring in bees and butterflies to our yard. We get a pretty heavy traffic of butterflies, which are always a joy to watch.

I need to get off my duff and plant the rest of my containers. I want to put chamomile in one, dill in another, and loofa in another.  That's right, I said LOOFAH!  LOL. Those sponges that you scrub yourself in the shower with?  Those! I saw a packet of seeds at the store earlier this spring, and I amazed. I never gave a thought to loofah, or if I did, I thought it was a sea sponge. But no, it's a squash!  You can even eat it. The packet says that if you pick it early, it can be sliced and sauteed like a zucchini. Or you can let it mature on the vine, and dry it for your very own personal scrubby.  How amazing is that? Anyway, I can't wait to try it. And report back to you, of course.  :)

I also need to get my booty to the nursery for a couple of flats of marigolds. DaMan and I like to plant them in between the veggies we are growing as a deterrent to rodents and some insects. Since we are not usually overrun by either, we want to keep up the tradition. Plus, it's a little bit of flowery colorfulness in and amongst the veggies. They have a strong menthol smell to them, which, I believe is part of the deterrent.

In other news, I spent a couple of hours trimming up our dog, Muffett, yesterday. The poor old girl had lots of winter coat that needed to be shed. She's got a very Wooky like coat, but her undercarriage and legs grow silky hair that doesn't take well to being buzzed with the electric clippers. So we sat outside yesterday afternoon, and she let me attack her fur with the scissors. She looks pretty good. Now, I need to clip her nails. She is NOT going to like that at all.

I also spent a good portion of yesterday cooking for the week.  I made a hugs vat of spaghetti sauce, that will also do double duty as pizza sauce. A loaf of bread was made, as well as a double batch of chicken curry salad for sandwiches.  We will be eating well on the micro-mini ranch this week!

Junque Pile

The holiday weekend has been nice, with a few bumps in the road, but that's to be expected, right?  Saturday started out with a trip to the local farmer's market, where we bought some of the tomato and pepper plants. We have a favorite vendor there, a life-long multi-generation farmer woman who always takes the time to talk to us, and give up hints and tips on growing. She also sells lots of heirloom variety plants, and we have had great luck with her plants. She's friendly, knowledgeable, and a hoot to chat with.  I believe she's got a secret crush on the Hubster, and it's reciprocated, even though he won't admit it.

It's not normally too early in the season to plant the warm weather veggies, but the spring has been so cloudy and cold, most of the tomatoes and peppers aren't as robust looking as they normally are. But we make do, right?

picture borrowed from www.plantertomato.com

We like to buy farm eggs at the market when we can, but the ultra-premium price they go for here is not conducive to our family budget. At least some of the time. This past Saturday we decided to splurge when we say another vendor was selling duck eggs. Never having had them, we chatted the seller up on the difference between duck and chicken eggs. They are larger, richer, with a bigger and more vibrant yolk. If you've had farm fresh eggs vs. store bought commercially laid chicken eggs, you know the yolks are more vibrant in and of themselves. Duck eggs go way beyond!  We brought them home, lovingly cradled in my arms, and I set to work frying up a couple for us. Delicious! The whole meal was.  I felt all down home. Bacon, a fried duck egg, and toast made of home made bread. It was almost a religious experience. If the city I live in won't give in and let the residents keep chickens (a cause I've helped lobby in the past), I'm going to smuggle a couple of ducks in here, I swear it.  :)

The weather precluded us from planting a lot, though the Hubster did construct a cage for growing potatoes. We were originally going to grow them in a set of leftover tires from our car, but after researching on the net, he decided that a cage of landscaper's cloth filled with straw would be more to his liking. He planted a good 4 lbs worth of potato eyes, while I attempted to weed the herb garden and the poor pitiful strawberry garden.

The soil has been to wet to mess with the strawberries, and as a result, the grass has started to take over the patch. But when I saw that they were struggling to put out their pretty little blossoms, I knew I had to do something. So Sunday, I was delicately weeding in and amongst the strawberry crowns, trying not to disturb them, while ripping out the grass. Thankfully, Hubster was smart and got a couple of extra bales of straw, as we hear it makes for great mulch, and weed suppressor.

When it was storming too much, or the fog was too thick, we'd come inside and do the normal weekend things every body does, cook, clean, etc. I attempted to make some home made hamburger and hot dog buns, with a 50% success rate. I made the buns too small, anticapating that they would grow larger after the last rise.  Not so much, unfortunately. Next time I will try not to be so frugal and squeeze more buns out of the batch. Either that or we will have to have teeny tiny burgers.  LOL.  Check out the recipe I used here: Belle's Hamburger Bun recipe on Allrecipes.com.

On a sad note, my microwave died on Sunday.  It was a quick and most likely a painless death for the poor overworked thing. It was a gift from one of Hubster's cousins, and we'd had it for most of the time we've been co-habbing (about 8 years). I was heating something up, and it just shut down. I thought that the circuit breaker blew, as it occasionally does. The fridge and the microwave are on the same circuit, and they occasionally fight each other for current (it's an older house).  But no, the circuit didnt need to be reset, and the fridge was still running. I guess the fridge won that little battle.

I breifly contemplated running and experiment where we see how long we can go without a microwave before Mr and Mrs Junque kill each other, then I slapped myself upside the said and told myself to get real. I may be all for "Living the Simple Life," but there's simple, and then there's simple.  Right?

Today, the weather god's have promised sunshine and warm temps. I'm holding them to their promise, and we will get those tomatoes and peppers planted.  We will also get the cukes, zuke, and loofa seeds in their appointed spots and make the appropriate genuflections to the above named gods that the weather becomes summer like, and the seeds germinate.  I draw the line at ritual killings, but do you think they would take an offering of some misshapen hamburger buns??

Junque Yard

It's Memorial Day weekend, and in my neck of the urban woods, that means it's planting weekend. Our frost free days start around this time of year, though you wouldn't know it from the temperature this Spring. I've complained enough about the lack of warmth, and the excess of rain, and I shan't do it again here (yes, I said shan't).

My house has very little natural sunlight peeping into the windows, and my years' past attempts from starting my garden from seed indoors have been failures. Yes, I've tried grow lights, fluorescent, etc. and all I get are thin, leggy stalks that struggle to survive. If one of my herd of cats doesn't dig into the soil and kill the burgeoning seedlings, they are too weak to make it outside. So unless I seed directly outside, I buy starters from the local Farmer's Market. I am lucky enough to live in an area where farms do good work. Tomatoes and peppers are must haves in my garden. DaMan and I have found that we enjoy Roma tomatoes for canning. We just put them up plain to turn them into sauces at a later date. I have a fondness for banana peppers, which I pickle and can vast quantities of, but love to slice them fresh and put into salads, or just dress with vinegar and a little oil, maybe a wee bit of onion for a quickie side dish.

Bell peppers are a staple in this house hold - all colors of the rainbow. The price of bells in the grocery store have doubled and sometimes tripled over the winter. I can't swallow paying $3.99 for a red/orange/yellow pepper. I plan on doubling my production of those this year, and freezing them for cooking with later on.

Cucumbers are another thing that I enjoy growing. I don't buy starts of those, as they are a warm weather plant, and I can seed those direct. I'm going to be trying out a bush variety that is supposedly more compact than the vine variety. The plan is to pick them small to make pickles, but there's always a few that hide under the foliage, and grow GI-NORMOUS.  Those will go towards making pickle relish. I made both sweet and dill relish last summer, and ran out of the sweet sometime after Christmas.  They made handy gifts, and were well received.

DaMan has a fondness for green beans. Unfortunately, we get lazy, and let the bean grow too large. Then they get tough and stringy, and not very palatable. Lesson learned. Pick your green beans early and often!

This year we are going to be trying potatoes. DaMan will be growing them in a set of tires. Yes, tires.  Potatoes grow in an interesting way.  You get starter spuds from the nursery, and cut them up so they have at least one eye each. Place the tire where you want to grow (where they will get at least 6 hours of sunlight a day), and throw some compost, or well amended soil, or heck, even rotted straw in the bottom. Lay the potato pieces eye side up, and cover with more soil or straw. Water well. The eyes become the stalks of the plants. When the stalks are about 6 inches high and leafy, throw more soil around them, mounding them up. Continue to do the same, and when the stalks and leaves wither and brown, yank them out of the soil, and count how many new potatoes you have!  The tires (or you could use a clean dark colored garbage can) act as a warmer for the soil (black draws in the heat from the sun). But it also serves the purpose of growing something else that isn't taking up space in your garden. And here at the urban micro-mini ranch, space is at a premium.

I haven't even touched on our fruit bushes, the lettuce "patch", or the herb garden...yet. :)

Junque Food

"Isn't she lovely? Isn't she wonderful?" I have to say, DaMan and I are contenders in the home made pizza arena. We've got it down to a science, but it's kind of fun, too.

I make the pizza dough in batches of four, and freeze them. I make the sauce ahead of time and freeze it too. The toppings are always what we have on hand. Now that summer's coming, the variety will change, as veggies will be plucked from our garden and thrown on a whim.

This pizza was topped with pepperoni, cheese, pickled banana peppers, and fresh spinach from the garden. And it was heavenly. Now, I'm not saying that I will never order for pizza delivery again, but I tell you, when you can make it so easily, it's hard to justify dialing up Domino's.

My online friend, Cherry, gave me her recipe for pizza dough.  She said she found it online long enough ago that she doesn't remember where, but has tweaked the recipe enough that it probably doesn't matter.


Pizza Crust

1 package yeast (or 2 1/4 tablespoons if you buy your yeast in bulk)
1 tsp sugar
1 c very warm water
2 1/2 c bread flour
3 tbsp olive oil
1 tsp salt
1 tbsp italian seasoning ( I just used powdered garlic and crushed basil)

Combine the water, yeast and sugar. Let it rest til the yeast starts to bubble (about 10 minutes). Add half the flour, the oil, salt, and Italian seasoning, Gradually add as much flour as needed to make a soft dough, Dump onto floured surface and knead for 5 to 6 minutes. Let rest for 20 to 30 minutes. Divide into 2 equal portions. Roll out to desired thickness/size. I usually prebake the crust for 6 to 7 minutes at 400, top, and bake another 6 to 7 minutes. Of course, the baking times will vary with how thick or thin you roll your crust.

I also poke the crust with a fork several times just before putting it in the oven for the blind bake so that it doesn't puff up any more. We like our crust thin here at the micro mini-ranch.

As I said, I double this recipe, and make 4 crusts at a time. I ball the unbaked crust into ziplock baggies and freeze what I won't use in a week. Cherry has said that she rolls out her crusts and does the first bake, then freezes them. If I had more space in my freezer, I would probably do the same thing, as it would be quicker to throw the end product together at night after I get home from work, but I don't.  The frozen dough takes about 2 hours to thaw, or is thawed if I take it out in the morning and put it in the fridge before work.  It's a little wet and sticky, but that is handled by tossing on a bit of flour and doing a quick knead prior to rolling out.  The dough also stays fresh in the fridge for about a week.

I challenge you all to make a fresh pizza from the ground up. Tell me what fresh veggies you use, odd combos that work for you and your family. Making something from scratch is so satisfying, isn't it?

Junque Yard

It's a slow news day on the neo-faux-ghetto homestead...

Spring has been a cold and wet loser-fest. I hate to sound like a Negative Nelly, but I heard one newscaster say something to the effect of there only have been 4 clear days since the end of February. And it's probably been longer, because I remember January and February both being cloudy all the freakin' time.

The point is, there hasn't been any dang sun.

This makes for slow growing here on the urban micro-mini-ranch. I've got herbs going crazy, but that's about it. The sugar snap peas that I planted at the end of March are only 2 inches high. My spinach and lettuce aren't even worth mentioning - and that's usually my first bumper crop of the season!

The strawberries are struggling, as the ground has been too wet to weed and replant the runners that popped up at the end of fall last year. Yeah, they don't tell you that, do they? You may only get about a month's worth of strawberries (these being the June-bearing variety), but they make baby plants all summer long. I swear strawberries are like the bunny-rabbits of plants.

I have one herb that I have no idea what it is. It's driving me crazy. It smells a little bit like oregano, but it looks nothing like the oregano I've got, and I only planted one kind. It's the mystery herb, and it's about to get the axe, unless I can identify it.

I have onions coming up that I planted last spring. They disappeared mid-summer and I figured I must have planted them in a place that was too wet for them to tolerate, they got soggy and croaked. Nope..these are apparently ghost onions, and have decided to come back and haunt my herb garden again this spring. Will they disappear again mid-summer?  I'll keep you informed....

And lastly, I spent 2 hours tying up the raspberry canes tonight. I'd been kind of ignoring them, because they were supposed to be dug up and put into a new bed that we've been trying to build since there was still snow on the ground. However the weather hasn't allowed us to get back there and finish. Well, that and the fact that we ran out of wood, and haven't found any other useable scavenged wood lately. So, those darn raspberries, being contrary by nature, decided to grow like nothing else in my edible beds, which means like Popeye's forearms after a can of spinach. I decided that the raspberries will be moved after they have been harvested (I didn't want them not to produce if I moved them too late in the season - I know raspberries are hardy, but still...if you've ever had fresh off the vine, you know why I'm being cautious), so we've got a couple of months yet to finish the berry boxes at the back of the yard.

I'm going to the Farmer's Market for the first time this year on Saturday. I've been waiting to see if it's open yet, and finally got word that it is, so look out farmers. I'm-ma comin'!  I can't wait to get my hands on some plants and some early veggies, and some more plants...and maybe some eggs, and them more plants! woo hoo!

Junque Food

By request: Broccoli / Cabbage Slaw Recipe
(or Brocco-Slaw as my family calls it)

If you prefer, you can shred your own broccoli/cabbage/carrot mix in a food processor. Cut the florets off and use them for another dish and shred the stalks.

If the stalks have an uber-tough  skin, peel it with a potato peeler first.

Using only the stalks will keep the texture of the slaw more consistent, as the buds on the florets will degrade into mush. And it's a great way to get 2 uses out of one veggie. 

(I bought a bag of pre-cut mix because it was on sale for $1.50 a bag)

Measurements are approximate, adjust for your own tastes and balance

• One bag of shredded broccoli / cabbage OR shred your own broccoli stalks, purple cabbage and carrots in a food processor.
• 1/2 onion diced
• 3/4 cup apple cider vinegar
• 1/4 cup olive or light veggie oil
• Spices of your choice, I used dried basil, garlic, salt and pepper. Thyme would be a good choice, too.
• No more than 1 teaspoon of sugar, honey, or agave nectar (to cut the acidity of the vinegar)
• Optional: If you want a creamier slaw, you can add a large scoop of sour cream or mayo, but it really doesn't need it.

Mix thoroughly, then mix again. You want to get as much vinegar coating everything as possible.  Store in the fridge overnight, stirring when you remember.  There will be lots of liquid in the bowl, so use a slotted spoon when serving.

I found that the flavor was better after sitting for 2 days, and was still awesome 4 days after making.  I was using it as a topper for tacos, and it was PHENOM(A NOM NOM).

I want to try this slaw again, but with an oriental flair to it. I will probably use rice wine vinegar, soy sauce, and a drop (no more than) of sesame seed oil.  Maybe some lemongrass? I don't know. My attempts in the past have not been very successful in getting a light and flavorful taste, so I'll keep playing with it.