Pumpkins Galore

Please note: I wrote this and then for some reason didn't publish it?

My kitchen table has been taken over by pumpkins. It annoys Shinerman, but all I see is the yummy goodness I'm going to make. Can you say BPA-free Pumpkin Pie?

We've been going to the Coppell Farmer's Market for a while. They have a couple of organic produce vendors and it's all local. Except for the Wild Alaskan Salmon people, which they said is fished by a local family, but I think is a little out of place. The fish was fished by locals not Salmon People. sigh...I'm tired.

We've gotten most of our produce from there since we stopped getting the organic co-op. Oh, I didn't tell you about that? After our friends with whom we were splitting a share decided to stop, the delivery spot we went to dwindled and it was no longer cost-effective. Then we couldn't get a delivery close by on the weekend, yada, yada.

We also have been getting our meat and eggs there, it really has been great. This last weekend was bring the weekly email and get a free pumpkin promotion. So of course I did! And here is how we came to have a table-full o'pumpkins:

Me:Hey, I brought my email for my free pumpkin, can I just pick one out?

Market Man: Sure(he waves towards them) you want more? Take more.

Me: looking as if I don't believe him

Market Man: You want 3 take 3. You can have 10 if you want, we gotta get rid of 'em.

Say the above in an old Jewish Man's cadence; I don't know if he was or not, but that's how it sounds when I replay it in my head.

I took 3 'cause that's all I could carry and went and enlisted Shinerman and the Man. We got 9 total; I felt 10 would be too selfish. Add that to the two we already had and we had a table full!

We've now pureed several and started pumpkin wine out of a few, as well.

Easter, naturally

Every year for Easter we go to Houston to visit Shinerman's family. It's a weekend of fun and eating way too much. Usually it means we bring a ton of 'stuff' back, too. But I guess my and my sister-in-laws frustration with the overflowing Easter baskets got through. There were no Easter baskets, just some crafts. Which is even better, because then they are creating something themselves. I think we actually came back with less than we took. This was because we took some naturally dyed Easter eggs that we, obviously, didn't bring back.

This was our first year to dye the eggs using natural dyes, and I think our last using conventional eggs. In the past it just hadn't made sense to me to pay so much for eggs we weren't going to eat. But this year, I felt really guilty buying the conventional ones. I don't just buy the farm raised eggs because they are better for you, but also because they are better for the chicken. I'm really just so done with factory food. Of course this means that we'll be eating the eggs next year, deviled eggs anyone?

I was really impressed with the outcome of the natural dyes. I didn't take pictures, sorry. Just a few days before I made some black beans from scratch and used the left over water from their soaking. This made an absolutely beautiful purple-blue color. I also saved the brown skins from a dinner's onion. This made the eggs orange-yellow. They also ended up splotchy from air bubbles - not sure why that happened. I also used some turmeric that made the eggs a really bright yellow - those were great and I wish we did more of those. The only disappointment was the chili powder; I had some leftover from a chili packet. But it just left the eggs a light, light beige - unimpressive. The littlest man was full of wonder at figuring out what color things would turn out. So much more fun than the chemical dye pellets!!

So, how did we do it? Just bring the items you are using to create the dye to a boil. Boil until you get the color you think you want. I did these all for about 15 minutes, except the bean soaking water since that was already really deep purple. Drain any solids from the liquid, unless you want to see what sort of patterns they'll give. Stir in a teaspoon or so of vinegar. Put in your hard-boiled eggs. Leave in the liquid until they reach the color you like. We left ours in overnight, mostly for simplicity sake. If you're eating these, be sure you do any overnight soaking in the fridge. I liked the matte look of the eggs, but you can shine 'em up with some vegetable oil if you wish. You can also boil the eggs in the liquid themselves, but I always have a hard time boiling eggs so I decided to do it separately. Yes, I can cook really well but can't boil an egg - crazy, I know.

We also replaced the plastic green grass this year. I have always hated that stuff! It seems like you're still finding it on the floor and in crevises in July. I had some leftover green felt from the littlest man's strawberry Halloween costume. So we just cut that up into strips - perfect!!

We did have to do plastic eggs for the daycare party, though. I made sure that instead of going into his playthings, they went went into a baggie with the felt grass to be used again next year. I may have to find another option for his basket next year, though. He used his 'baby' one again this year and I don't know if a hippopotamus basket will fly for a four-almost-five year old.

How was your Easter? Do anything fun and/or eco-friendly?

Our Garden

We finally got our garden planted for the late summer plantings (I say we, but it was really just Shinerman). We planted pole beans, lettuce, carrots, chives, cilantro, okra, broccoli, broccoli raab, and beets. I bought certified organic seed packets at Central Market.

I tried to talk Shinerman into planting the lettuce just a few seeds at a time so we could have successive harvesting, but he doesn't think that they'll grow very well at all. So we'll see, we might have a plethora of lettuce to share with friends and neighbors.

I think that's a big part of having a garden, sharing your bounty. I think the very nature of gardening and harvesting really requires you to share. Because you don't want all that okra or lettuce to go to waste, right? Sorry about the little tangent - I'm taking hydrocodone after getting my wisdom teeth reomoved and I'm feeling a little out of it.

Anyway, we already have some okra and pole bean sprouts! woohoo! Unfortunatly, the only way I know of cooking okra is to fry it. I'll have to do some research...

Hear are some pics of our garden.

Tuesday Night TV, My Favorite

So, yes, I do try very hard to be at home watching TV Tuesday nights at 8pm. Come on, I don't have a TiVo and I'm lovin' me some Sundance channel The Green. I would also love to be able to see Discovery's Planet Green channel (sweet website by the way), but alas DirecTV doesn't have that one on our plan and I'm not going to pay more for just one channel.

Anyway, The Green is three hours of great greenness. They have several shows and usually an interesting documentary, as well. My favorite by far is the show It's Not Easy Being Green. It's a reality show about this family in England who moved out to the country and is trying to live completely green and off-grid. They do some really interesting things, for example they built themselves a waterwheel to create electricity for the house. As Shinerman says though, they are able to do most of the things they do because of they're location; they have a stream AND a natural spring on their land. This week, they hooked up a wind turbine to run the battery for a pump that is taking water from the spring and supplying the house with water. I'm green with envy.

Of course it's a ton of work and they have a bunch of people who come and help, including two family friends who moved in with them to join the fun. They have two pretty cute kids in college – a guy (who is literally half-naked for the majority of the show) and a girl – for those who might be interested in something of that nature. See related image below. This next week they are supposed to be killing the pigs they've been raising. Mmmm, bacon…

Speaking of interesting Green viewing items, the Angelika is showing The Unforeseen this week. It is about the real estate development of Barton Springs in Austin. The director was on KERA's THINK Wednesday morning. I hope to be able to see the film, it sounded like something that should open up some people's eyes.

Pick your own fruit!

Since my decision to go ahead and make some jam and freeze and/or can some fruit, I've found a great resource for farms you can visit to have a day of picking fun. While many of the early summer crops are already done, there are some late ripening blackberries and of course peaches. It'll have to wait for us until July, though. We're going camping this weekend HOT!!!!