Speak to me of worm bins

So it's the time of year where I need to start thinking about next year's garden. And that includes considering soil augmentation. The soil at Fwigf is pretty good, however I only have one small plot. This means I'm not able to engage in any true crop rotation without doing a lot of session planting. And even then? I am going to wear down my soil in a few years. Unless I start supplementing.

Now, Fwigf is an organic practices only garden. This means I can't go and pick up a container of synthetic fertilizer, I need to get manure or compost. I don't know if you've looked at price comparisons, but covering a 400sqft area with enough manure and/or compost to make a difference in soil quality does get kind of pricey. And I am time rich but cash poor.

The obvious answer is to start a compost pile/bin. Or this would be the obvious answer if I didn't have a pair of inquisitive jerks who insist that EVERYTHING is either food or something to knock over then roll in. I think my dogs are really goats in disguise. Maybe a cross between goats and something larger, like say an elephant, given the noise the fuzzy heathens make going up and down stairs. But I digress. A compost bin/pile is not something that is feasible given my current space/living situation.

Which leads me to researching alternatives. In my travels (read: finding blogs and wiki articles through google) I've come across the idea of using worm casings. They are apparently a low nitrogen growth enhancer. A little goes a long way apparently, and they have the added benefit of being organic which means I can use them at Fwigf.

They are also hella expensive to buy. Probably because worms are small and worm casings are basically worm poop. Small critters produce small poop (the exceptions being human babies and puppies, both of which contain a little known quirk of anatomy which allows them to pull poop from sector Fecal Five, the poop dimension).

The good news is I can in fact raise worms and harvest worm casings at home. For pretty cheap since I'd have to feed them things like table scraps and coffee grinds. You know, things I'm currently throwing out because my Heathens won't let me have nice things like a compost pile/bin.

I have never raised worms however and have no idea where to start. Should I just go dig up a bunch of earthworms? Perhaps enlist friends with toddlers and make use of the slave labor to dig worms up offer free babysitting? What do I need to start? Is this a thing I should even consider? Anyone actually try this?

Red Noodle Beans

Chinese red noodle beans were an experiment this year. I'd never had them before, either eaten or grown. Honestly I decided to grow them because they look cool. Yup, that very mature and well researched reason. But the seed was inexpensive, it was a heritage type of bean, I had the space. I decided to go for it.


Seriously, don't these look cool? (Image from http://www.cherrygal.com/images/RedNoodleNew.jpg)

We planted a single row of them in Fwigf. I proceeded to spend all summer worried about them. The reviews said they grew like kudzu, mine were a bit short. They were supposed to get 8 feet tall, they were barely three feet by mid-July/early August. They hadn't put off a single flower or bud and it was approaching mid-August. I had written them off as a loss resolved not to plant them next year and chocked it up to a learning experience.

Then they exploded.

No seriously. In two weeks I went from 3 foot stalks with nothing happening to an over grown hedge putting off massive beans by the handful. For context on size, each bean is roughly 18-24 inches long. They go from blossom to full bean in 3-4 days. I have roughly 10 pounds sitting at home. That we harvested today. This isn't counting the maybe 3-4 pounds I dehydrated for soup mixes last week.

Apparently noodle beans are fantastic in stir-fry. They can also be used instead of green beans in any recipe. I'm debating the pros and cons of making green bean casserole (the kind where you use the can of cream of mushroom soup and fried onion strings) using these instead. In fact? Screw it. I'm going to do it.

But I'm going to can them first so I can do it for Thanksgiving. Maybe I'll do a mix of these and green beans in the casserole for Christmas. Red and green beans swimming in white. That's festive right? Gross sounding. But festive.

Peppers

Today we're going to talk about drying out and preserving peppers. Specifically hot peppers. I can't can them because I only have a water bath caner, and trust me you really want to can those in a pressure caner. So what else can you do to keep peppers? I'm going to look at 2 different things today.

1. Roasting then Freezing

This is honestly what it sounds like. Cut your peppers in half lengthwise. Preheat your oven to 375, coat with a little olive oil, put your peppers on the pan cut side up, sprinkle lightly with salt. Roast for 20 minutes. Once they cool put them in your freezer. I'm doing this with jalapenos. You can then use the roasted peppers as a substitute for fresh peppers in cooked dishes.

2. Drying

There are a few different ways to dry peppers. You can dry them on the line (like I had set up for corn) but it takes a few weeks to dry them out completely. Leave them whole since it'll cut down on rotting before they're dried. Just tie them up and leave them in a place with open air circulation.

You can dry them in the oven. Set your oven as low as it goes (Generally 120-150) and leave the door open partially. Flip the peppers every hour so they don't scorch. If they start cooking your oven is too hot.

Dehydrator. This is the easiest way. Seriously. Cut them in half and stick them in the dehydrator until they're dry.

No matter what drying method you use keep the peppers in an airtight container. They can last for a a year or so. You can also grind them into chili powder..

Food storage and pets

So everyone knows the best way to ripen tomatoes is to keep them on your counter after you pick them, right? Right. Well I can't do that anymore. At all. Why? Because my cat is a jerk. She has decided that she enjoys the feel of her fangs sinking through the thin tomato skin into the pulpy goodness below. She has discovered that round tomatoes are fun to knock off the counter and chase.

Did I mention my cat is a jerk? Because she is.

But this brings me to a very important topic:

Pet Proofing Preservation

So how many of us have a beloved fur ball that just can't wait to mess up their stuff? The vast majority? Yeah. Not everything can go into pet free rooms (which are only pet free until the fuzzy bandit figures out how to open the door) or totes (which collect condensation, so are bad for things you're trying to dry). So how the heck do you keep your food (and your fluffy jerks) safe?

Carefully.

Basic kitchen safety covers most of our problems. Things like making sure your pet isn't underfoot while taking your jars out of the caner. But what about the boiling hot jars sitting on the counter? All breakable and enticing to mischievous four foots? I have no idea. Thankfully Minerva (the aforementioned tomato killing jerk) isn't interested in the jars while they're hot. Once they cool they go up on a shelf that she (so far) can't get to.

But the tips that I have so far are as follows:

Keep anything breakable/edible out of pet reach.
Keep dried things in totes with a well fitting lid
Accept a certain level of loss comes with owning pets.

Ahhh Yeah, be jealous

Be jealous because your SOs don't set up a clothes line (henceforth known as  food line) in your kitchen.

BEHOLD!

Isn't it majestic? Not pictured is the fan under it, blowing up toward the line to keep air circulating.

Please ignore the YELLOW of my kitchen walls. My landlord calls it 'depressed man yellow' because it's so bright that it helps combat depression. I call it 'rather oppressive yellow'. Anyhow, that sucker is about 8 feet or so in the air, Husband needed to stand on a chair to put the nails in to hang it from, and he clocks in at 6 and a half feet. That's high enough to keep both my dogs, and my pain-in-the-butt cat from knocking things off of it.

What on earth is hanging from the wooden clothes pins? I'm glad I pretended you asked dear reader! That is 9 ears of dwarf corn that I'm drying on the cob for easy storage. That big long green thing on the end is a line of herbs. From the bottom up we have:

Cutting Celery
Sage
Purple Basil (or as I lovingly call it: Goth Basil)
And regular Basil

I call it my soup bundle. When it's done drying I'm going to toss a bunch of each into  the jar that I have the dehydrated green beans and soup noodles in. And when the corn is done drying I'm going to put some dried corn in there too. Yup, dehydrated soup mixes are a go.

Also Husband and I have been cleaning the basement. And by 'Husband and I' I mean 'Husband'. Apparently the dust and mildew down there sets off headaches and dizzy spells if I'm working for more than 30 minutes. But Husband is awesome and is cleaning. While he was cleaning he discovered a root cellar.

No seriously. There's something down there that can only have been intended as a root cellar. It is tucked away in a corner, with two exterior walls that never see sunlight, with a third wall and built in shelves. And a window. All we need to do is add a fourth wall (which can be heavy plastic) and a vent into the window. Guess what is happening before next winter? Yup, come this time next year I'll have a legit root cellar for storing the produce from my better planned garden. Which will have more squash, so there will be more need. But if nothing else it's a safe place to keep all my canned goods out of the sun, and my dry goods safe.

Yup. Somewhere along the line I've turned into my grandmother's memories of her mom in the '40s. And I'm perfectly ok with this.

Tonight is the march of NOM!

We went to the garden this morning. We harvested a handful of snow peas (it's been so damn cold that they're still producing. It is august. They ought to be dead by now), the last of the cucumbers, some tomatoes, more evil tasty peppers, some spinach, a few blue potatoes, some more corn, and three pumpkins.

You read that right. Pumpkins, in August.

There is only one thing for it. Tonight? I make pie filling. Just the filling mind you, pie crust and I are not on speaking terms. Husband is also going to make beer at some point, as one of the harvested pumpkins was The Beer Pumpkin. The one he has been babying since he saw it. So some time in the next month or so Husband is making me pumpkin beer out of our own pumpkins. It must happen.

But first, I make beef stock. The plan is to freeze the extra stock that I don't use for soup tomorrow so that I have it for the future. I am also going to dehydrate the veggies I don't use, and make "instant" soup mixes where we just  need to add meat and broth (or broth for veggie soup). The dehydrated versions will take up less room than jars of soup, and save me jars.

Mia's Beef Stock

You need:

1 good sized beef marrow bone
1 medium sized sweet onion, cut into large chunks
1 heaping tablespoon of minced garlic
1 tablespoon of salt
3-4 quarts of water

Sweat the onion in a sock pot. Add the garlic and saute until the garlic is toasty-colored. Add the marrow bone, salt, and water. Set on low and let it do its thing, covered, for 4- 6 hours. Remove the bone, and use or freeze with the onions and garlic still in the stock. Alternately you can just make it in the crock pot.

Tomorrow I make soup. Beef and Bacon soup.

Beef and Bacon Soup

You need:

1 lb stew beef, cut into chunks
1/2 lb thick cut bacon
1 handful of green beans cut into 1-2 inch pieces
4-5 small potatoes cut into chunks
1/3 package of Orzo or soup pasta
3-4 carrots, sliced into coins
3-4 ears worth of dwarf corn (roughly 1/2 package of commercial frozen corn)
1 handful of spinach
1 small handful of okra
2 bay leaves
salt and pepper to taste
Oregano
Parsley
Sage
Basil
1-2 quarts of the beef stock outlined above

Cook the bacon until crispy. Brown the stew beef in the bacon grease. Add in everything else and set on low. Let it simmer for 4-6 hours. This can also be made in a crock pot if you want. Eat with a crusty bread.

Still with me after this recipe dump?

Because now I want to talk to you about my pumpkins.

As you know I grew Long Island Cheese Pumpkins this year. From what I'd read they were better than sugar babies for making pies, and they would keep like preservation pumpkins in a root cellar provided they weren't cut into. So I decided to grow them, thinking 'what the hell, the seed packet is $3.00, if it doesn't work or I hate them I'm not out much.'

Guys?

I am never growing a different type of pumpkin. Ever. Allow me to preach the joys of these things. The outer rind is thinner than a sugar baby, which means it comes off easier after steaming or roasting. The inner rind (the part used for pie makin') is thick, and creamy. It looks and smells a bit like a butter colored cantaloupe.  The pulp is small and easily removed, the seeds are large and are easy to separate from the pulp. I'm currently making pie, so I'll post tomorrow about how it tastes. But I can't see how this wouldn't be amazing. Why the hell did sugar babies replace these?! If you're going to grow pumpkins for eating, grow these. Seriously.

Pumpkin Pie Filling 

You need:

1 medium sized Long Island Cheese Pumpkin
nutmeg
heavy cream
brown sugar
all spice
cinnamon
ginger
cardamom
1 frozen pie crust (because fuck making that fickle bastard)

Cut the pumpkin into wedges (leave skin on, trust me). Remove the pulp and seeds. Roast the slices on a lightly oiled baking sheet at 390 degrees for 1 hour. Let the slices cool until you can handle them. Peel the skin off, it'll be easy to pull off after the pumpkin is cooked. Add the pumpkin and spices to a food processor. Pulse together, add heavy cream until the texture resembles a thick custard. Pour the custard into the crust. Bake at 350 for roughly 30 minutes, until the crust it starting to brown (check frequently to avoid burning). Let it cool.

Because pumpkin pie isn't complete without whipped cream:

Basic Whipped Cream

You need:

1 quart (or however much you have left over) heavy cream
1/4 tsp vanilla
1 tsp white sugar

Pour the cream, vanilla, and sugar into a food processor and pulse until a light and fluffy whipped cream happens. Or you can use an egg beater. But I don't have one of those.

There's one more recipe that I forgot to include the other day. I made a pork rib marinade with the Peppa Sauce that I made a couple of weeks ago. So here's that too.

Peppa Pork 

You need:

1 lb pork ribs
2 tbs Worcester sauce
2 tbs soy sauce
3 tbs Peppa sauce
1 tsp smoked paprika
salt and pepper to taste

Put everything together in a container in the fridge. Let the pork marinade over night, flipping frequently if the marinade doesn't cover the ribs. Either bake, or grill the ribs like normal.

Husband and I did the pork in the crock pot with some sweet onions. It came out tasting more like a delicious pork roast than ribs, but it was still tasty tasty stuff.

Ok, I think that's it for today. Time to go continue my cooking.

Tomato Sauce for freezin'

So today I'm making tomato sauce. Because I have tomatoes that are ripening faster than I can eat them raw. So I'm doing a basic sauce.

Lazy Freezer Sauce

You'll need:

Tomatoes
Salt
Pepper
Basil (fresh if you've got it)
Parsley
Oregano
Thyme
Rosemary
Garlic
Bay leaf

Wash your tomatoes well. Cut them into chunks. Toss them (seeds, skin and all) and the seasonings into a sauce pot on low. Let them simmer for 20 minutes covered. Uncover and let cook down about another 20 minutes to thicken. Strain to remove the seeds and skins if you want to, then put it through the blender until it reaches your desired consistency. Then toss the sauce into freezer bags and freeze until you're ready to use it.

This is a good basic red sauce, when you thaw it you can add meat or cheese or more veg depending on what you feel like having for dinner that night.