Labor Day Vacation and 70 pounds of Tomatoes

A lovely week, busy, but lovely.  I began Wednesday afternoon stopping by the grocery store one last time and then home to prepare for my second plant based cooking class at Country Village.  I should say I started Tuesday night as I got to go out to Ruth & Mike's organic farm and help pick the produce I needed for my class.  I started working at home Wednesday about 4:00 p.m. getting fresh kale in the dehydrator, sauces prepared ahead, three chocolate cakes baked, and various spices and supplies marked and ready to go.  I finally stopped about 11:45. Up early frosting chocolate gluten free cake, shredding zucchini, and making cauliflower rice.  I had 38 people signed up for the class and I'm already learning that means I'll have about 24 people, so I prepared for 30.  It's nice to have some samples for the store employees too.  It's a lot of work, but I really enjoyed it.  Took it slow, taking a few tea breaks along the way and just getting it done.  I smiled to myself a couple times when I remembered I was "working at home" which is the long term goal.

 The class was a whole lot of fun.  Twenty three people attended to learn some tips about plant based cooking along with some nutritional information.  It went very smoothly, didn't seem like we forgot anything important. There were some great discussions. A couple people even came in from the store, curious about what was going on, paid and sat in on the class. I learned that I should find a way to cook in the fall.  Based on the comments I requested, many people would like to know more about cooked vegan cuisine.  I've purchased a couple induction burners.  I am hoping they'll work for the class.  It would be fun to do some cooked root dishes in the fall.  We might schedule an all-day class on a Saturday, we'll see.  The most important thing is that we all had a good time and I'm welcome to do another class. Woo Who!

Sharing Some Fresh Garden Stevia

Friday came with some oral surgery and sleep through most of the day.

Saturday we enjoyed a leisure morning and picked up our Kaylee for a day of fun.  We stopped by the garden for some weeding and watering and then off to Sauve Island to enjoy the Blackberry & Bluegrass Festival and giant corn maze.  They had given us tickets when we bought the peaches so we thought it a good way to spend a sunny day with Kaylee.

 A little fine face painting.

It was a good family fun event.  Lots of space, not too crowded,  and vegan and vegetarian choices at the food trucks too.  We enjoyed a roasted eggplant gyro and a felafel gyro.  The corn maze was pretty fun, but it was way too big for me.  It spanned 2 and a half miles and wasn't as easy as I thought it would be.  Kaylee thought grandma and grandpa were giving up because we finally went out the entrance.  We were in there quite awhile and based on the checkpoints we saw, we traveled quite a bit.  I did feel like an older grandma after a bit.  That doesn't happen very often.

We stopped by Proper Eats on the way home for a bowl of broccoli bisque and I was feeling quite winded.  I think it was probably too much fun after my Friday adventure at the dentist.  Sunday I took it easy, read, napped, and relaxed in the sun.


After a full day of rest, I was ready to tackle the 70 lb of tomatoes I had gathered over the weekend from our garden, 50 lb organic heirlooms from Willow Grove Gardens, and 20 lb of beautiful big heirlooms I picked up at Bella Organic Farm.  I packed the big heirlooms with fresh rosemary and lemon juice.  30 lb of the small organic red heirlooms I roasted with onions and garlic, then removed their skins and simmered them all with some fresh oregano and rosemary until thickened for a nice tomato sauce.  I got about 12 jars of the sauce.  Then I canned some of the nice big red ones and dehydrated about 10 lb of the smaller ones.  It sounds like a lot of work, but I went at it very slow, systematically, and I was done by 5:15 p.m.  I even found time to put together a black bean enchilada casserole.  I still have time to do this blog and relax before bed. Nice Monday!

 

Vegan Black Bean Casserole with Homemade Cashew Cheddar Cheeze

It's been a full and productive week.  I'm feel rested and ready to head back to work where we'll be "ramping it up" with the month end work, then the planning fun ahead. 

Beets ~ What to do with a lot of them in the winter

I got to spend some time with Ruth last week. She's my favorite organic farmer. That's a treat in the winter because I don't see her much.  In the spring and summer she's working her organic farm and I get to see her weekly at the farmer's market.  With a full time job, organizing a family, and a working organic farm, she doesn't have too much time to just visit.  We did a short presentation a nutrition class about organic farming and plant based eating last week.  Then we got to enjoy a vegan lunch a local restaurant.

Before she came out she told me she had lots and lots of beets and was worried about them rotting.  There are far too many for just her family.  I told her to bring some and I'd do something with them.  Last summer I dehydrated some of my beets and it worked out great.  I grind them and use them in our smoothies or just eat them like any other vegetable 'chip'.

Beets are some of the vegetables my husband didn't like too much before I got some vegan cooking training.  It's one of those vegetables like spinach, so many of us grew up with this canned over cooked version of what the spinach or beets used to be, no wonder many people don't like them.  I like to chop them and put them in our raw salads and smoothies.  When they're in season and plentiful, I usually just roast five or six and leave them in a bowl for one of us to grab.  That is one of my own motto's, 'have the good stuff handy'. 

Garden beet is very low in calories (contain only 45 kcal/100 g), and contain only small amount of fat. Its nutrition benefits come particularly from fiber, vitamins, minerals, and unique plant derived anti-oxidants. More about beets Beet Nutrition Facts.

Ruth brought out a nice big bag of large red beets, just picked the day before.  I gave a few to my friend Rachel, I made some beet chips, roasted some, pureed some and made some chocolate beet cupcakes with Kaylee.  I used them all.

Holiday Crafts at Grandma's House

We squeezed in a little holiday fun together too this weekend.

Kaylee Does Farm to Table

Kaylee came over to play yesterday.  I recently downloaded an electronic cookbook for kids, Monkey Mike's Raw Food Kitchen, an Un-Cookbook for kids.  I printed out one for her house and one to plat with at our house.  It's a cute little cookbook with activities and games. It's good for a nice reading practice book too. I found a couple cute and easy recipes we could try together: Dracula's Carrot Salad with Count Your Blessings Salad Dressing and Hunky-Dory Almond Hummus.  She told me on the way to my house she had asked for gluten free treats at the school Holiday party and the librarian told her she bring some hummus.  Kaylee said she was excited about that because she had never tried hummus.  So, we made some together.  She liked it.  Even though there aren't many spices in it, she did say it was a little too spicy by itself.  Mixed with some crunch celery, carrots, and cucumber, she liked it just fine.  I warmed some pumpkin polenta and 13 bean stew I made in the morning and served it with our salad and hummus.  I was pleased she ate a two servings of the salad and hummus.  She liked the stew and pumpkin polenta, but enjoyed the salad more.  Fine with me, the salad, raw veggies, and hummus make for a complete meal.

One of the best parts of the day was when I reviewed the ingredients and realized I had all except some fresh beets.  I do still have some beets growing out in the garden so we had a little "Farm to Table" exercise.  Out to the garden we went to gather some beets.  There were some more treats out there too.  We came home with some chard, a small red cabbage, and a nice big fennel too.

 She's still a bit too small to use a chef's knife, but not too small to use a food processor.  Kaylee read all the ingredients and instructions aloud to me.  I explained what I was doing and what tools I was using when paring and pealing the vegetables.  She ran the processor and helped toss the salad arrange it all for dinner. 

 

The Dracula salad is a version of a beet and carrot salad I already make regularly in the summer.  I like this recipe, the addition of almonds and raisins makes for a variety of textures.

Dracula's Carrot Salad

1 beet
3 carrots
2 green onions
12 almonds
2 tablespoons raisins
2 tablespoons cilantro leaves

Count Your Blessings Salad Dressing

Juice of 1 orange
2 tablespoons macadamia nut oil, (we used hazelnut oil)
2 teaspoons almond butter
Teensy pinch Celtic sea salt

Hunky-Dory Almond Hummus

1 ½ cups almonds soaked in 1 ½ cups filtered water for four hours or more
Zest and juice of 1 lemon
1 clove garlic minced
1/4 teaspoon cumin
1/2 teaspoon sesame oil
1 tablespoon olive oil
1/2 cup water
Big pinch Celtic sea salt

Garden Update

We're finally getting some sunny days, not too many, but they are beginning. Friday and Saturday this week were not only dry, but sunny and warm. I managed to get out into the garden both days. Friday I planted carrots, beets, some nasturtiums, and pansies. Saturday was 70º, I wore a shirt with no sleeves and short pants. Woo Who! We both got out there Saturday, Scott weeded around the onions and garlic giving them room to grow. Some of the garlic I planted is elephant garlic and I can see the stalks getting quite thick. I cleared out a mound and planted some slicing cucumbers and a row of delicata squash.

Oregano

Garlic

I'm pretty pleased with the plants that are coming back or still alive from last season. The herbs are rockin', we have lots of oregano, sage, rosemary, and thyme. The artichokes are all showing some life and when I was out there Friday I accidentally dug up some bulbs from the Mystic Spirit Dahlia I have out there. There was some green shooting out the tops of them. I gently put them back in the dirt and said a few encouraging words. I hope they grow. I do like that flower, it added such life to our garden.

Mystic Spirit

The gardening indoors has been going along a bit slow. I have had some disappointments in the germinating department, but that's how it goes. I tried some Stevia seeds this year and none of them germinated.  Too bad too, they are kind of expensive seeds.  But, I did order some seedlings, just in case, which were delivered last week.  I will have my Stevia in the garden this year.  I only grew four plants last year and that provided quite a bit of Stevia for myself and a couple friends. I have some broccoli, cauliflower, fennel, tomatoes, peppers, green onions, and a couple other veggies started. I'll get some corn started in a week or so. I don't want to be too early with the corn this year. I ended up planting it a few times last year. This is the time I get quite anxious and concerned that I won't get everything planted when I want to. It always works out, I'm just impatient.

Kaylee and I decorated some wooden dolls last weekend.  She took them out to the garden with my point and shoot camera and had her own little photo shoot.  I think her pictures came out rather well.  I also bought her a pair of her own gardening gloves this year.  She had a good time trying to move the weeds with the gardening claw. It's much taller than she.

Winter Weekend Fun at Grandma's

Our pacific northwest liquid sunshine is back and the snow is disappearing.  Soon the pretty white stuff will be a memory and we'll be hearing everyone's driving adventures as well as what they did with their time.  Many people I know were lucky enough to take advantage of vacation days and stay home out of the ice and cold.  It's been fun seeing the pictures show up on Facebook of my friend's yards and the beautiful snow shots they preserved with their cameras. I do have a good car and could get around, but on the short trip I took to get groceries Friday, my car slid a couple times. There was an instance when I realized it wasn't going to stop before the guy in front of me. I finally brought it to a stop, but I was sideways in the intersection waiting for the light. Definitely felt a little funny waiting for that light to change. I took it very slow and stayed on the main streets that had been traveled already. I am still a California girl inside, I haven't mastered the winter snow and ice driving even after being here over twenty years. Best I try to drive as little as possible when it's icy.

Last week I was catching up my spreadsheet I use to track my vacation days and couldn't remember what I had done in February last year as it looked like I took a few days off in February very close together.  It wasn't until after I noticed another friend's snow picture was dated Feb. 9, 2010 that I realized I was probably doing the same thing I've done for the past couple days, staying home out of the cold. I had some fun with Kaylee, got some things done around the house, made some wonderful meals for the week, but I am ready to get back to work.  I found myself thinking I missed work this morning.  I am ready to talk to some other adults and do something mentally challenging for a change.  Vacation is nice, but it's also nice to get home and back to the regular routine.

Kaylee has been with us since Friday morning and we'll be taking her to her other grandma's soon.  We've been spending a little more time with her as her little brother is very sick.  He has some seizure problems and it's been complicated by a terrible case of pneumonia.  He's been on an artificial breathing device for over a week.  They tried to remove it, but he is still not breathing on his own. Today he had another seizure.  I am worried about him.  The hospital is in Portland so Rachel is staying up there at the Ronald McDonald house.  I am glad they moved closer to grandma's so we can help where we can.

We made good use of our time together inside. We made some crispy vegan oatmeal cookies.  These came out a lot like the oatmeal cookies I grew up making.  I added some chocolate chips and unsweetened coconut shreds.

 

We did some crafts, Kalyee made a great scrapbook page. I got out some pictures for her to choose from, the fancy scissors, and all the scrap booking toys I've collected and she had a lot of fun.

We had a pizza party with lots of fresh vegan ingredients. WW Pita Bread, homemade sauce with whole tomatoes, garlic, and herbs, caramelized onions, roasted red pepper, sun dried tomatoes, vegan italian sausage, and daiya cheese, a vegan cheese made from tapioca.  We used a cheddar and a mozzarella flavor.Kaylee made her's and grandpa's pizzas so his hands could be free to take pictures.



She was with me on my produce rounds Friday and noticed some blueberries on the counter at Payton's. She said "I remember you made a blueberry cheesecake once, would you make one for me?"  Of Course!  Thanks for the idea, I made one of my favorite vegan cheesecake recipes from the Vegan World Fusion Cuisine Cookbook.

"I live in the moment more than I realize" ~ Star Lotus

Lettuce, Radishes, & Herbs ~ Garden 2011

Future Lettuce (left dark mound), Herb Hill on the right

 Got a couple hours in the garden today. This is our third year out at the community garden and we learn a little more each year.  This year I am paying more attention to and keeping track of ground temperature.  Today the ground temp was around 50°.  We probably would have done better with the corn last year if we had planted it at the right time.  So far we've managed to get out and get a little weeding done and some kole crops going.  Today we planted some lettuce and radishes.  Scott cleared the weeds on herb hill.  We noticed the Lupine are already coming back.  The sage, thyme, oregano, and rosemary are showing some new green too.

 Columbine waking up for spring.

Kaylee had fun with the sunflower stalks.

Vegan Banana Pancakes

Vegan Banana Pancakes with Strawberry Maple Syrup

A nice banana pancake that can be served with a vegan nut cheese like an omelet.  This recipe only has three ingredients.  My granddaughter helped out.

Banana Pancakes

About 6 medium green bananas
     (I have made these with ripe bananas, I just skip the blanching step and mash.  I think they come out fluffier if you use green bananas)
1/2 cup flour, I used WW pastry flour
1 tsp baking powder

Cut the ends off the green bananas and score up the sides. Place scored bananas in a large pot and cover with water.  Bring to a boil and cook until you can easily poke a fork through them, approximately 15-20 minutes.  Drain and allow them to cool.

Remove peels and mash them in a large bowl.  Add flour and baking powder and knead into a dough.  Divide dough and roll into little balls and form patties.

Fry on hot griddle with a little oil, I used coconut oil, for about three to five minutes. Flip and cook for another three to five minutes.  I usually make a little foil tent to hold in the heat so the insides are cooked thoroughly.

The syrup:  I heated a package of the strawberries I put up last June with about a 1/4 cup of pure maple syrup in a small sauce pan just until warm.

Sunday Brunch for Three