Category Archives: Cost Cutting

A Year of Backyard Food: A Study

01 Sunday Jan 2017

Posted by in Cost Cutting, Garden Concepts, Garden Inspiration, Garden Plan

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INTRODUCTION

Its that day once more, that day the ends the annual cycle of time, also known as my sister’s birthday. Happy birthday sis! It’s a pretty popular event; people all around the world celebrate by drinking profusely, declaring how the next year will be the one, and making out at midnight. I prefer to celebrate by eating dinner around 6pm and falling asleep promptly at 9pm once again disappointing CFO. He’s a party animal.

I’m not one for making these so-called resolutions, because I feel that it is a system of preplanned failure. If you ever bought a gym membership in January, you are not my people. But I respect your choices. I prefer to think upon the last year and note what worked, and what didn’t, and make some informed decisions of how I might make better decisions going forward. For example, last year I evaluated how much I have zero interest in cleaning my house, and how I have lots of interest in paying people to do it instead. That’s a “resolution” I am happy to keep going in 2017.

When it comes to the garden, I think about what worked, and didn’t work a lot in January. Mainly because its time to order seeds and get planning. One of my goals from last year was to keep track of what I grew and what I harvested. I was sure that growing food in the backyard is a financially stable way to eat better, but I have no evidence to support the statement. I wanted to do a season-long very unscientific study to prove my point, mainly to CFO, but also to the 22 people that might read this post. I am happy to say that not only did I complete my project, but also I am here, on December 31 to report the results.

HYPOTHESIS

Growing vegetables in one’s own backyard provides a cost savings over purchasing the same food in a grocery store. I know this might seem obvious, but food in this country is shockingly cheap. I felt as if my work was cut out for me.

METHODOLOGY

In order to report the findings as accurately as possible, I had to consider the costs to grow said food, as well as the market value of the food I harvested. I factored in all of the things I use to grow food: cedar for beds, compost, seeds, transplants, fertilizer, mulch, water, and also the grow light system I purchased to start my own. The only thing I did not include was labor. I mean, let’s face it. If I weren’t willing to donate my time this whole adventure would be pointless. I also think that the time I spent in the garden probably equals the amount of time I would otherwise navigate the produce aisle at my local store, which is about as easy to shop as a new IKEA during the grand opening.

For the harvest itself, I had to find a way to quantify the value of what I had, and the only way I could think was to compare it to the USDA’s Agricultural Marketing Service produce commodity averages. This is an average of the countries produce costs at retail, and is published weekly. It worked pretty well for the common items, but for those odd duck veggies I grow (parsley root anyone?), I had to get more creative. I found an online co-op that published produced prices daily, and used that for a reference. Also, because I practice the general “organic” growing system, meaning I do not use anything on my crops that requires a gas mask, I opted to compare the produce to the organic rates. I know, I know…kind of unfair because I don’t normally buy organic produce, but I grow it and this is my study.

DATA ANALYSIS

The grand total of my garden expenses was…. $1284. Yikes. Last year had some expensive costs to be fair: CFO finished building the remaining garden beds and I invested in a growing system for the basement. Ideally, those two purchases will not be on-going costs. Using cedar, the beds should last 10 years, and since I received 3 shipments of broken growing lights, the supplier sent me about 12 bulbs at no cost in order to maintain his positive EBay rating. I should be good for a while. Based on annual expenses like seeds, compost, mulch, etc. I realistically spend about $250 a year, which seems much more reasonable. Maybe this wasn’t the best year for my study. Meh.

In 2016, I grew a total of 87 varieties of 54 different fruits and vegetables. I began the harvest the week of April 17 with asparagus, and ended the harvest the week of Thanksgiving with sage, kale, and Brussels sprouts. That’s 8 months of food! That’s a win in my book. I had some winners and some losers. I was giving away tomatoes, squash, basil and berries, but the melons and eggplants eluded me due to my unpreparedness with the late cabbage and unwieldy tomatillos. My peppers were a flop again for the third year. But I won’t be giving up on them just yet. Overall, I think this year was my most successful garden year. I figured out the watering system and my rotation and spacing scheme worked out very well. I didn’t have any problems with transplants because I grew them self. In order to properly assess the produce harvest, I used a kitchen scale, and weighed 470 lbs of vegetables for a grand total cost of….

Drum roll please…

$1250!!!!!

And yes. I know that is $34 in the red.

RESULTS

So okay, I technically didn’t make money on the garden, but if you consider I “spent” $34 for 470 lbs of vegetables, many of which are still stored in my freezer or canned and in the pantry in various forms, I think I did pretty darn good. And what a fun project. At its height, the garden was astounding, and received comments and questions from the neighbors (possibly some grumbling and complaints that I tuned out) and also kept me outside for a good chunk of the summer. I got to make farm dinners for family and friends that visited, we grilled vegetables I didn’t know could be grilled, and reduced our grocery expenses to the point where I could justify buying lobster for dinner. I even liked keeping track of all the produce; my charts and files have provided me solid information to make better planning for next year. I think I will keep this going if I can.

CONCLUSION

I conclude that 2016 was a good year in garden for me. I have already started plotting the changes and new vegetables and varieties to try, and making my informed decisions to better myself.

Next year will be…the Year of the Salad (because I have 10,000 lettuce seeds to start).

I hope you have a wonderful New Year and have grand adventures in gardening!

The Mystery of the Green Cucumber

06 Saturday Aug 2016

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Poona Kheera cucumbers start out white, turn yellow, and finally brown when mature. They are edible at every stage.

For the last few years I have been growing a variety of cucumber called Poona Kheera, which is an Indian variety that looks more like an elongated potato than a cucumber. They don’t look so delicious, but they have a really crisp, refreshing flavor that is great for slicing and eating. I have been using the same seed packet since 2014, so you can imagine my surprise when this summer, some of my cucumbers popped up green.

I have no idea how this happened. I tried to do a little research on the well-regarded internet, thinking cross-pollination may be at fault, but from what I gather cucumbers will only present mutt-like fruit during the second generation of breeding, not the first. Weird. I guess it is possible a stray seed fell into my seed packet during the packing stage. Or, this plant is a natural cross that happened on the farm and made it all the way to Wisconsin just to be discovered by me! These are heirloom, open pollinated varieties after all. Truthfully, I will never know, but none the less I am taking credit as the Discoverer-on-Record. I present to you….

Green Mystery Cucumber

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The fun bonus part in all of this is I now have two varieties of cucumbers to experiment with, and since my Indian variety are for fresh eating, my mystery cucumber is for…PICKLES! Which are my absolute favorite way to strip the cucumber of nutrients, pack them full of delicious salt, and top every sandwich-like food.

I tasted these very traditional-looking cucumbers, and their flavor was bland, to be nice about it. They were crispy, yes, but nothing special. This quality makes them a great candidate for a boiling water bath canner. Cucumbers did well this year, so I have a quite a few pounds of these green mysteries. I experimented with two recipes I found a recipe in the Ball Preservation Book that requires, a dill fermented pickle and one that is described as making phenomenal grilled cheese sandwiches. Umm….SOLD. IMG_20160723_202112

I don’t have reprinting rights, but you can look it up: Cucumber Sandwich Pickles. These are a sweet pickles, and I made 5 pints from 3 pounds of cukes. Because I have little patience for holding out on tasty things, I popped a jar the same day, and we enjoyed a delicious, if not unique, gouda and pickle grilled cheese dinner.

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My fermented dills are a true experiment, in that I have never done this before. It didn’t seem too complicated. It called for something called “pickling spice,” which was $4.23 at the grocery store, but the ingredients were all spices I have in my pantry so I whipped together my own mix.

  • 2 Tbsp whole mustard seedsIMG_20160731_111308
  • 1 Tbsp whole black peppercorns
  • 2 tsp whole caraway seeds
  • 1 tsp whole dill seed
  • 1 tsp red pepper flakes
  • 1 tsp ground ginger
  • 1 bay leaves, crumbled
  • 2 cinnamon sticks, broken
  • 6 whole cloves

I combined this with fresh dill and 2 garlic cloves, and packed a jar with pickles and topped with a salt solution: 4 quarts water, 1 cup 5% vinegar, 0.75 cups iodine-free pickling salt. To keep the good stuff below the liquid level, I topped it with a brine-filled freezer bag and its now hanging out in my basement.

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To be continued…

Fancy Food for the Rest of Us / Chive Blossom Vinegar

23 Thursday Jun 2016

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“Shitake ragout,” “huckleberry gastrique,”freso chili coulis,” “fennel-tomato confit”… these are fancy ways to describe trumped up stews and sauces. I know this, I know this a million ways, yet shitake ragout sounds delightful, whereas mushroom stew sounds like I forgot to make it to the grocery store again. I find the marketing of food astounding, and absolutely fascinating. I mean, don’t get me wrong, I understand why this is done, and if I ran a fancy locally-harvested restaurant I would make my menu descriptions sound as if you were consuming liquid diamonds. And I would charge $3,575 per ruby-crusted plate. But, I do not have a fancy restaurant and probably never will but I do know how to make some fancy-sounding sh*t.

A few weeks ago I was swimming in chives. I read somewhere once that chives repelled certain fungus that attached fruit trees, and in my nascent garden wisdom I planted twelve (12!) chive transplants. Ha! What a garden rube I was. Anyways, three years later I am a little over my head with chives come May. In the fall I may dig them up and set up a $1/plant sale with a manila envelope and an “honor system” placard. I am always googling things like “how to use a million pounds of [insert todays vegetable here]”, because as we all know a backyard garden is bank or bust. A few weeks ago, not surprisingly, it was for chives. Chive biscuits, chive egg soufflés, frozen chives, chive pesto, etc. etc. etc. all the usual suspects…and then…chive blossom vinegar. Now that is something that piqued my interest and used a part of the chive I had been using as table flowers or compost color. Chive blossom vinegar sounds like something I could pay $6.99 for at the pricey grocery store, but never would on principle. So, if you have a veritable chive forest as I do, you may want to give this a try and bring your lettuce to the next level. I have used already it to make lots of dressings for salads, otherwise known as “mesclun greens with spring pea tendril, yellow radish and chive blossom vinaigrette, $7.”

Chive Blossom Vinegar

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Materials:

  • Fresh cut chive blossoms, 2-4 cups
  • Vinegar (5% acetic acid), about 1/2 gal or less
  • Large glass jar (I used a 32 oz mason jar); cleaned, sanitized, dry

Directions:

  1. Wash and rinse chive blossoms, drain. Make sure the blossoms are fresh and still fragrant. If they are sad looking, mushy or otherwise not absolutely delightful looking, throw into the compost bin. IMG_20160602_082344
  2. Put chive blossoms in jar. This is pretty self explanatory.
  3. Fill jar with vinegar. You can go even fancier by using rice vinegar, white wine or champagne vinegar, but I get get 1 gal. of the basic stuff for $0.99, and really who will know the difference? IMG_20160602_082550
  4. Close jar and set in the fridge for the first 24 hours, and then you can leave on the counter (out of direct light) or in the pantry for 1-2 weeks. IMG_20160602_082737
  5. Open jar, drain over a colander to remove the spent blossoms, and smell the amazing shalloty goodness and take in the lavender hue. IMG_20160612_170144
  6. You just made something that nobody sells, but they probably should.

 

 

Oh Internet! Lest We Forget

27 Sunday Mar 2016

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There was a time once, back before free two-day shipping and cat videos, back when a high-speed connection allowed for ten minute coffee breaks during page loads, and back when surfing mandated a prior notice to family members in case they tried to make a phone call while you were chatting on AIM. Those days are gone, but not forgotten, because some things don’t change. While the internet was somewhat of a major sensation in the first decade of the millennium, my mother, a very dedicated physical therapist, thought to use it to find a larger patient a mobility walker and entered “obese walker” into an internet search bar.

Take a minute.

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Ponder what else “obese walker” could drum up in an early 2000 Internet search.

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It wasn’t a medical device.

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Porn. It was pornography. See, some things never change. Can you believe the Internet is STILL full of porn? It’s just more expensive and probably more vulgar (I assume).

I thought of this story as I was searching for light fixtures to begin my new challenge for the year: indoor seed starting. How do you find the best options and types for grow lights? Simple. You Google search “best grow lights.”

Take a minute.

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Ponder what comes to mind when a non-vegetable gardener someone says “grow lights.”

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Weed. It was marijuana growing supplies. The funny thing about modern day internet, is that nothing is lost and now my poor husband will probably have to contend with unwanted pop-up “recommended” items on his Amazon page until I can dilute the search history. Woe is the life of a gardener! He did ask, “What did you think you would find if you searched for “grow lights”? Errmm…as a smart woman I struggle to answer that.

Please friends, save your self the trouble and search for this “T5 fluorescent lights, 6400K.” T5’s are supposedly the closest to actual sunlight, and that’s all we really want: you, me, our seeds, and the friendly neighborhood dealer.

I am starting out small, and purchased two Hydrofarm fixtures, each containing a single tube. These were about $50 a piece on EBay from a third-party seller. I like them, they are easy, but truthfully all of these are made in China so please don’t have high expectations. Upon arrival, one of the light tubes was broken. I contacted the seller, he had the manufacturer ship me a replacement. I got two fluorescent tubes. Both broken. I again contacted the seller, but by this time, I needed more light. My broccoli starts had gone to sprout stage. The only one happy about this was the rabbit. While waiting for the replacement of the replacement, I decided to order a set of T5 tubes from a different company, one with a stellar shipping reputation and promptly received 5 unbroken T5 tubes. Four days later I received four replacement tubes form the original supplier, all unbroken. And now I have ten grow lights. Some folks may think there is more going on in my basement than tomatoes.

Because everything looks the same at this stage, you will have to take my word for it. In the little trays I have broccoli, kale, cauliflower, cabbage, celery, celeriac, and asparagus to add to my asparagus bed, and just started are my tomatoes, peppers and tomatillos. All heirloom varieties, specifics located in the 2016 Garden Plan page. I found a boatload of these little coconut coir pellets on closeout over the winter, and bought them out. In total I got 200, at about $0.06 a piece. That beats the going heirloom transplant rate of $5/plant in this area. I used coconut coir pots last year, and had the best kale harvest yet, so I am curious to see how my little green family will do. I started about twice the number that I want to plant out, in case there are any poor performers or seedlings that just don’t make it in this world. Ironically, this is how real farmers did family planning back in the day. Take a look!

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Locavore, or Just Loca?

22 Sunday Feb 2015

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I often find myself in conversations talking about eating local, because I like the idea of my money supporting my economy. Sometimes I get those looks, you know the kind I am talking about. The kind of look that makes you feel like you just finished taping an episode of Portlandia…

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=V8SjkDq2ZwI

Now don’t get me wrong, part of me does really care about Collin and how successful he feels his short life was, but let’s be honest, that is my own guilty feelings of conventional chicken farming projected onto my food. If Collin knew that 8 months from his birth he would be beheaded, plucked and boiled into Sunday dinner, I suspect his outlook on life would be grim regardless of how many cabbage worms he found in his 4 acre playground.

No, my version of being a “locavore” is less bleeding heart, and more fiscally responsible. Americans, it turns out, spend less on food than anywhere in the world. In the WORLD! According to a study from 2009, we spend on average 6% of our household expenditures on food. I suppose by comparison, CFO and I are out of bounds by spending about 15% of our expenditures on food. How dreadfully European of us. That, or we are ridiculously cheap in all other household expenditures. The odd part is, I am constantly battling our monthly food budget to see how I can lower it and cut waste. I think I do very well, for example, this week I spent $67.00 on groceries for two people and a rabbit child. That’s pretty damn good, even for American standards I think. So if we already spend less on food than anywhere in the world, why do I care about eating local? I will give you my top 5 reasons.

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Local bounty crate at major chain grocery store. The farmer’s pictures are an added bonus.

Reason #1: Culinary Adventure

I love to cook. Love. To. Cook. I don’t know what I am doing in the kitchen half of the time, and have no actual training apart from experiencing home cooking as a child, but the appearance of food makes me giddy to an extent that CFO questions my normalcy. I shouldn’t even be allowed at farmer’s markets anymore because I get so overwhelmed by all the bright colors and produce choices that I get heart palpitations, need to breathe into a paper bag, and down a glass of orange juice so I can stay upright. And, my farmer’s market only has 12 vendors. My point is, when I try to stick to what is available locally, I get to try vegetables and fruits I may never have otherwise. Had I never purchased 2 lbs of tomatillos, I would never have experienced fresh salsa verde in the summer. And trust me, summer salsa verde, that’s the dream.

Reason #2: Smart Home Economics

I am lucky enough to live near food Paradise, an employee owned grocery chain that carries every possibly kind of food ever wanted needed or invented. Paradise also happens to have the best produce prices year round. Produce is a commodity item, which means the price fluctuates with the market, and why you see prices of green beans fall in the summer when there is high production and soar in the winter when they are shipped from Mexico, and then fall again when they get moldy sitting in those water spray bins. Many grocery chains are beginning to carry locally sourced produce in the summer to appease a demanding public, but if you are lucky to have your own Paradise, you may be able to find year-round local produce at rock bottom prices. For example, in February, celery root, parsnips, turnips, parsley root, and rutabagas are being stocked by the bin full and they make delightfully filling meals. And, at less than $1.00/lb for these, it’s a pretty cheap way to eat in the desolate months. Compare that to $3.99/lb for out-of-season asparagus. For me and CFO, not a tough call.

Reason #3: Local Economy Feeding

The Wikipedia definition of a locavore is one who only consumes food harvested within 100 miles from their home. That is fairly limiting, and I am not one to collect wild dandelion greens from the elementary school playground. But, I do make a point to purchase products that are grown and/or manufactured within Wisconsin and the mid-west when I am able and can afford to, because the money I pay goes back into my own local economy. More money to the producers, means more production, which means more jobs to fulfill the demand, and more people earning money to spend money. Yes, friends, this is how we can resuscitate a broken economy.

Reason #4: Diet Diversity

The sad reality is, commodity produce that we see at grocery stores are cultivars that have been specifically bred to withstand long transportation rides and bad conditions, and they are often harvested before they are ready, and artificially ripened during shipping. Think about all those green bananas from Argentina. The negative of this, is what we end up eating is a bland, nutritionally flat diet. You know who you are, if this sounds familiar: you eat a half chicken breast with 10 asparagus spears and a quarter cup of brown rice on Mondays. On Tuesdays you change it up with green beans and quinoa. The rest of the week is a similar remix. Sounds healthy, the problem is that it’s extremely limited on nutritional content. Yes, chicken breasts are good and yes, so are asparagus and green beans, but they do not have everything we need to sustain us. This is why so many doctors recommend multivitamins, because they know we don’t eat properly. By eating with the seasons, you are made to vary your diet because asparagus is not meant to grow in snow banks. By purchasing foods locally, you get the best seasonal produce available and the most nutritionally complete because it was harvested at its peak.

Reason #5: Self-Sufficiency

I want my food to be local and I don’t want to rely on horse pills to stay healthy. This, and home economics, is one of the big reasons why I grow vegetables and fruits. I also want to be able to feed myself, CFO and any future bambinos wholesome, good foods and not just corn, 175 ways. Many of the foods we now purchase from stores were once made exclusively at home by our mothers, or grandmothers, or great grandmothers, and we have lost some of those skills. I think if we care to, we can relearn them. I am not a housewife, I work full time, and travel every other week, and I have no time to do any of this because, you know, I have a very grueling Netflix watching schedule when I finally get home. It’s a struggle not to eat frozen pizza or take out some days. But I try to keep in perspective that I do these things for me and CFO. I know that I can make chicken stock, bread, fresh cheese and yogurt, ice cream and almond butter, and I can do it with less ingredients and less cost than anything I can purchase, even from my Paradise. This gives me more control in a world where we increasingly have less control. And that makes me feel good at the end of the day. No matter how many dishes are left to wash.

I encourage you all to go buy a locally grown rutabaga, and report back.

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I only eat locally grown wheatgrass in my smoothies.

Sometimes You Feel Like a Nut, Sometimes You Feel Like Nut Butter

16 Monday Feb 2015

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Last spring I was in the fortuitous position of having a completely available ready-to-plant 4 x 4 foot raised garden box in the front yard. CFO removed a rotted tree stump that had been cut down year’s prior. The box was supposed to be decorative. We had it, along with two other tree boxes and a retaining wall, rebuilt with stamped concrete retaining wall blocks the previous fall. But let’s just stop pretending: the most “decorative” I get with landscaping is buying daffodil bulbs. Those bulbs are still in the garage in a paper sack two years later (but I swear this spring is the season!).

So, of course I knew that I would be planting something edible and hopefully delicious. For the longest time I planned on planting an American hazelnut tree. I was so on-board with this, I imagined hazelnut tortes and hazelnut-cherry crisps and hazelnut butter and the most amazing hazelnut cake that was served to CFO and I for breakfast in Italy on our honeymoon. Breakfast cake is the most underappreciated and underutilized kind of breakfast. It should be a Sunday requirement.

Well, long story short, my hazelnut tree never transpired after a very terse but eye-opening comment from CFO: “what about the squirrel?” Crushing, deflating, devastating realization…what ABOUT the squirrel? The squirrel, our only squirrel, would find my hazelnut tree and devour every hazelnut he can stuff into his cheeks, invite friends over for a summer barbeque, meet a lady squirrel from across the street, fall in love, get married, move in across from the hazelnut tree, start a family, the kids grow up and head to squirrel college to learn to be hazelnut collectors, and the cycle would continue. The life of my hazelnut tree was already over before it began. I planted 16 asparagus crowns instead and now my hazelnuts are exclusively purchased.

On the subject of nuts, CFO is somewhat of a nut enthusiast. In fact, he eats almonds daily. He claims it’s for health benefits, in the same way I make the claim for drinking wine. I think we both have a point. I started making almond butter on a whim because CFO loves it on toast and it looked easy. As it turns out, it is. I have not gone back to buying conventional almond butter since, and CFO is one happy breakfaster in the mornings. One of the benefits of making your own is that you don’t have to break two wooden spoons trying to stir the oil back into the solids, because you put it straight away into the fridge to keep it from separating.

Thinking back to my hazelnut obsession, I thought, what about hazelnut butter? I mean, if Nutella has taught us anything, it’s that hazelnuts SHOULD be in butter form. Am I right?, or am I right? The funny thing is, you can’t exactly buy a jar of hazelnut butter off the grocery store shelf. At least, not the kind of hazelnut butter that I choose to bring home to the family. Nutella is the kind of nut butter spread that you can have a wild night out on the town and make exciting mistakes with, but its full of hydrogenated oil and added sugar and there just isn’t a future there. I need a nut butter that is pure: no added oils or sugars or salt, as much as possible. That’s the kind of nut butter you can introduce to the parents, and form a lasting stable relationship. The best price for unadulterated hazelnut butter I could find on amazon.com was $13.99 for a 16 oz. jar, plus shipping. At that price, I think I will stick to danger and questionable decision-making of processed spreads. Fortunately, my local food Paradise (aka massive employee-owned grocery store), has hazelnuts for $3.79 for 8 oz, or $7.58 per 16 oz. At that price, I think we have a winner.

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For this recipe, you must must must have a large food processor. A blender will not work, and even with your food processor the motor will be working hard.

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Dump the 16 oz of nuts into the bowl, fitted with a blade attachment. I happen to like the taste of raw nuts, but feel free to toast the nuts first in dry frying pan on the stovetop on low-medium heat or in the oven at 350°F for 10 minutes until browed. I recommend this step if you want to peel the nuts first (completely optional).

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Begin by running the motor to grind the nuts into a fine powder.

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Nope, don’t stop there.

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Continue to grind until the nuts begin to clump. At this point we are almost 20 minutes in. But we are not done.

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When the motor starts to whine (literally, mine whines), stop and break up the clumps. Keep going!

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Now the bowl is really heating up. I mean it. It will start to feel hot to touch. Remove the vent and let some heat escape, but we aren’t done yet.

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Now we are 40 minutes into the process. As you can see, the paste is showing some oil. Nut butter is a kind of colloidal suspension, and what we are going for is for the solid nut meat to be suspended in the nut oil. So with that in mind, keep that motor moving!

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Hey look at that! Are we done? Nooo! Keep going, pay attention to the anger and heat from your food processor and give it a break when it needs it.

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Finally, after about an hour, you will see a glossy, light concoction. Give it a taste, you should detect almost no gritty texture, but a smooth, buttery, distinctively hazelnutty flavor.

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A-maz-ing and no hazelnut tree required! Just pour into a 16 oz glass jar, cap, and place into the fridge. Hazelnuts are mostly monounsaturated fats and so the butter will not solidify in the fridge like peanut butter and cashew butter, and will be immensely spreadable and it will not separate as long as you keep it in the cold.

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For those of you with less exotic taste buds, almond butter (or peanut or any nut butter) is made in the same manner with significant cost savings. Non-oil or sugar-added almond butter can be purchased from the local Paradise for $10.29 for 16 oz. and the same amount of raw almonds can be purchased for $5.89. I think you get my point.

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There is nothing about nut butter that interests me.

NUT BUTTER

Ingredients:

  • 16 oz nuts of choice

Directions:

  1. Put nuts into blade-fitted food processor
  2. Process to fine grind
  3. Keep processing, stopping to scrape bowl when nut paste clumps, continuing for 45- 60 minutes until oil surfaces and mixture resembles peanut butter consistency
  4. Pour or scrape into glass jar, keep in refrigerator

You Stock Questions? I Stock Answers.

25 Sunday Jan 2015

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It is mid-January, and this is a garden blog. Lately I have been asking myself, who starts a garden blog in January!? When the earth surrounding you looks like the dark days of Narnia, there is not a whole lot to sow and grow. What is even in season in January, you ask? If you’re lucky enough to have a root cellar, maybe you have storage potatoes, turnips and rutabagas ready for cooking, or if you left a few carrots in the garden and you’re happy digging up the frozen tundra, I guess that’s seasonal. Up north, our much more tropical distant states graciously send oranges, pineapple and pomegranates to the arctic markets, but really, the only produce that is “in season” in southeast Wisconsin are what was frozen at the end of last summer. And at this point, all that’s left in my freezer is raspberries, blackberries, peas and a vast assortment of herbs. So what is a seasonal-minded home cook to do come January? First off, she is to calm down and buy some damn groceries. Second, she is to take advantage of the cold and make some rich, warm, silky chicken/turkey/beef/any-tasty-meat soup stock to fill with beans, grains, and root vegetables from the pantry. January is, after all, soup season. Now, I am not at food-hoarder level, but I am pretty much a certifiable food extreme cheapskate. While I do not (yet) collect scarps left on diner’s plates at restaurants, the more food I am not throwing away, the less I am paying at the grocery store to replace it. Of course, part of this is that I despise food waste. Food waste is kind of like a slap in the face of everyone that has ever gone a day without food. Additionally, most of our processed foods have chemical preservatives so they don’t readily break down in our landfills. Financially, food waste is a bummer. Ecologically, food waste is a super bummer. Vegetable gardening has not only improved the quality of my dinner table deliverables, but has expanded my view on food and food use. What does any of this have to do with soup? I give you The Ultimate Cheapskate (and delicious!) Chicken Stock. This is so simple and can cost almost no moolah if you make a few adjustments to your routine food preparation STEP 1: Gather your Equipment IMG_1268 That’s it. Right there. A large pot. If you have a stockpot, even better. But I don’t and I make it work, albeit with some manhandling. STEP 2: Collect your Ingredients IMG_1269 What is that bag of green stuff? That is two weeks worth of vegetable scraps that would otherwise be destined for the trash bin. This is KEY #1 to The Ultimate Cheapskate (and Delicious!) Chicken Stock. During the summer, most of my vegetable scraps go into Jessica’s dinner bowl or the compost bin, but by the winter, the compost is full and very slowly breaking down so I can’t dump the scraps as often as I need, so I simply keep a bag in the freezer and throw in anything that I think would flavor a stock. I usually stick to aromatics in the onion family, fresh herbs, dark greens, and roots like carrots, parsnips, turnips, etc. I avoid potatoes, which will add too much starch, and anything too flavorful like tomatoes, which can overpower the flavor. But, its really chef’s choice and every stock batch I make has a different profile. Its part of the fun! IMG_1270 Let’s see, in the mystery freezer bag I have some leeks, ginger peel, green onion, fennel stalk, Swiss chard stems, and spinach. These are the parts that I didn’t use for fresh cooking, or got a little old or wilted in the fridge. Just pop them into the freezer bag. Nothing to waste. This might add 30 seconds on to each meal you prepare. Assuming you prepare on average 1 meal a day with fresh produce, over the course of a year that is 3 hours additional work. The pot I use is a 6-quart capacity. For that size, I will throw in about 3-4 handfuls, give or take, of veggies from the bag. Now, pay attention! These measurements are crucial and precision is key to successful stock. IMG_1273 I could only use my mystery bag to flavor the stock, but there are some staples that I always have on hand and I like to throw into the pot. IMG_1272 Carrot, celery and garlic make great stock and add some goodness as well. I chop one carrot, one rib of celery, and as much garlic as I want. You will see I don’t bother peeling the carrot. It’s all good stuff, just wash or scrub any scary dirt you see. When you peel carrots for food preparation, in fact, you can save the peels and throw them into the mystery freezer bag. No waste! For the garlic, peel and smash the cloves. I don’t bother chopping. The flavor will release in the pot. IMG_1274 IMG_1275 IMG_1276 IMG_1278 Add it all to the pot. IMG_1280 Already I am getting hungry. If I were making vegetable stock, I would add way more vegetables. But I am making The Ultimate Cheapskate (and Delicious!) Chicken Stock. Now I will tell you about KEY #2: the chicken. IMG_1271 If that looks like a frozen chicken carcass, you would be correct! Just like my waste vegetables, I save the shells of the animals I consume. My freezer looks like it belongs at a Hannibal Lector dinner party. I don’t compost meat because 1) it attracts raccoons and coyotes, and 2) its illegal in my city. So what we don’t eat, I freeze. This primarily consists of bones and organ meats. For example, Thanksgiving turkeys, rotisserie chickens, ham bones, beef bones, and bones of any non-human food animal (my freezer would not actually be useful at a Hannibal Lector dinner party). This also may add an additional 30 seconds to your meal cleanup. On average I collect the bones of my enemies…er…dinner once a month. That is 6 minutes over a year. Wow. The time commitment is really adding up. IMG_1281 STEP #4: Fill the Pot with Water IMG_1282 STEP #5: Bring to Boil, Cover, Simmer Now just fill that bad boy up with water, feel free to grind in some pepper, or other dried herbs you wish, bring to boiling, pop on a lid and set to low and simmer simmer simmer as long as you want. I recommend at least 6 hours for the flavoring components to thaw and for the good stuff to be pulled into the water. If you are fortunate enough to be at home during the day, or work at home, like me, you can start this in the morning, forget about it entirely, and emerge from work 10 hours later and the entire house smells like chicken noodle soup. My mouth is watering. IMG_1286 For the majority of you who may have to leave your house everyday, this might be a weekend project, or you can do everything in a slow cooker on low. The total prep to get the pot going takes about 10 minutes. 10 minutes!!! I make stock about once a month in the winter, which where I live is 6 months, so that’s a total of 1 hour over a year’s time. Okay so I have a pot full of stock, chicken and vegetables, now what? Now, I must be honest. This next part is the most labor intensive of the entire process. You have a few options here to strain the solids from the liquid. My preferred method is to use a large measuring bowl and cheesecloth. IMG_1289 STEP #6: Strain Stock I use a 12-cup measuring bowl with a pour spout, and cheesecloth that is approximately $1.50 for two yards at the grocery store and it lasts me the entire year. Just spread a cut piece of cheesecloth over the bowl, and verrrrryyy sllloowwwly pour the finished stock over the cheesecloth. If you pour too fast, the cheesecloth will collapse and won’t strain well. IMG_1290 Next, just gather the edges of the cheesecloth to bundle the solids and remove. You can use a strainer to remove any large pieces that were missed. IMG_1292 I mean look at that color! You will notice that the Ultimate Cheapskate (and Delicious!) Chicken Stock is deeper in color and more opaque than it’s commercially prepared fancy cousins. That is due to the inconsistency and variety of flavoring components. Also, did I mention that this version is completely fat-free? No? That’s because it is not. It is not even close to being fat-free, which is why you will see it is so. damn. tasty. The chicken fat, proteins collagen and gelatin, and bone minerals all melt into the liquid with the leached vitamins and minerals from the vegetables. Smooth. Silky. Flavorful. Full of goodness. You will see. STEP #7: Cool Stock Once the liquid is separated, it will be hot. You can let it rest at room temperature for an hour (at most two), and then just cover with plastic wrap, make a few slits to vent, and pop into your fridge. Your best bet is to cool it in a place with lots of air circulation. My fridge is perpetually empty because we eat everything that’s in there, so I always have room. You want to bring the temperature down to at least 100°F, or warm to touch, but not hot. The bowl should be cool. While it’s chilling out, take some time to prepare your freezer bags. This is KEY #3: Freeze the Stock. I do this with a bottle of wine. That’s not a requirement, per se, but…isn’t it? I use 1-quart freezer bags because they can easily hold 2 cups of liquid. For 12 cups of stock, that would be 6 bags. I label the bags with the name of the innards “chix stock,” the amount “2 c.,” and date it was made. This allows me to keep a first-in, first-out inventory in the freezer. IMG_1296 But why can’t I just keep it all in the fridge? Because this is pure stuff and even with all that boiling, bacteria, yeast and mold that live in your kitchen (yes, they do) have instantly taken up residence in the stock. See, there are many benefits that preservatives provide. Increased shelf life is assuredly one of them. I have found that the stock stored in the fridge will stay fresh tasting for about 4-5 days at best. It could go longer, but you want to ensure you are re-cooking it (boiling) with all subsequent use. If you are planning to use it in the next few days, by all means don’t bother freezing. In fact, I usually keep 2 cups in the fridge to get me through the next few days. STEP #8: Freeze Stock Take your cooled stock out of the fridge. You may see a layer of oil collected at the top. If you cooled it long enough, you may see a hard layer solidify. You can scrape that of (if hardened) to remove some of the fat, or use a fat separating measuring cup. This style of measuring cup works because it is plugged at the spout and the spout feeds from the bottom of the cup. Pour 2 cups of stock into the measuring cup with the spout plugged, and then pour it off slowly into the bag (with the spout unplugged of course), stopping when the oil layer reaches the base of the spout. IMG_1299 Carefully seal up the bags, pushing out as much air as you can without spilling. You will notice that if you lay the bags flat, they self-level as all liquids do. I like to lay the bags flat on a large tray, and pop the tray right into the freezer and let freeze overnight. This makes flat, easy to store, 2-cup chicken stock blocks. IMG_1301 Now, you don’t have to use the freezer-bag method. Any freezer container would work. I highly recommend adapting to what best suits you and your stock usage requirements. So the last step takes the most time commitment. I would say, it’s a good 30-minute active process to prep the bags, pour and freeze. That amounts to an additional 3 hours annually, keeping with my 6-month stock-making schedule. So, how much time are we talking? Well let’s do the math:

  • 3 hours to collect vegetable scraps
  • 6 minutes to save meat and poultry bones
  • 1 hour to prepare the stock
  • 3 hours to freeze the stock

This brings us to a grand total time commitment of 7 hours and 6 minutes. That’s quite a lot, if it were in one day. But this is over the course of ONE YEAR. One year, friends. That sounds all well and good, but how much is this going to cost me? Oh I am sooo glad you asked! CFO talks about time-equity a lot and it usually goes something like, “blah blah blah, time, blah, blah, blah, money, blah blah blah, equity” and ends with him telling me that we cannot get a chicken coop. I think the point he is trying to make is that before I decide to take on a major project, I should assess the real value of the work involved. So here is my financial assessment of home stock making, per 12 cups (96 oz):

  • Scrap Vegetable cost: $0      Saved from the trash bin
  • Chicken bones: $0      Saved from the trash bin
  • 1 Carrot, 1 celery, 5 garlic: $0.12      Estimate based on full purchase price
  • Freezer bags: $0.67      Six bags at $0.11
  • Water and electricity: $1.00      I completely made this up
  • Gadgets and utensils: $0      Assumed these are owned (pot, tray, bowl, etc)
  • Labor: $0      I determined that labor is negligible, because it actually takes me longer to grocery shop for said chicken stock.

TOTAL COST:   $1.79 Now compare this to commercially prepared chicken stock. I used Target.com to estimate the purchase price of two popular brands:

  • Kitchen Basics Unsalted            $2.54 for 32 oz.
  • Swanson Stock Unsalted            $2.69 for 26 oz.

To purchase 96 oz, it would take 3 containers of Kitchen Basics ($7.62) and 4 containers of Swanson’s ($10.76). My homemade version is 20-25% of the cost!! Additionally, using the estimate of 6 lots of homemade stock a year, that is an overall savings of $35.00-$54.00 annually. I like that, and at least now I can provide numbers to CFO when he asks why I have to fill our freezer with bagged bird carcasses. I don’t use that much chicken stock so this all seems pointless. Hey, to each his own. I actually use stock all the time. The possibilities are endless:

  • Base for soups, stews, chilis as expected, either full strength or diluted to make broth
  • Mix with cornstarch to thicken sauces with more flavor
  • Deglaze a pan
  • Replaces water when cooking grains (rice, bulghur, faro, quinoa, etc.)
  • Dilute with water and use to steam vegetables
  • Reheat until hot, drink during a cold/flu for vitamin-packed punch
  • Poach fish and shellfish
  • Use to make gravy and sauces for meat
  • The best damn risotto you ever had

I use stock to replace water in most savory applications. Try it out, and you too will be hooked.

No Jessica! I need the carrot for the chicken stock!

No Jessica! I need the carrot for the chicken stock!

RECIPE: The Ultimate Cheapskate (and Delicious) Chicken Stock Makes 12 cups Total active time: 40 minutes Total time: 7-10 hours Ingredients:

  • 3-4 cups mixed vegetable scraps, roughly chopped (onions, leeks, dark leafy greens, etc)
  • 1 carrot, roughly chopped
  • 1 celery rib, roughly chopped
  • 4-5 cloves garlic, smashed
  • Bones and cartilage from 1 whole chicken
  • 13 cups water
  • 1 tsp ground pepper (optional)

Directions Add all ingredients to pot, cook on med-high to bring to a boil, cover, and reduce heat to low. Simmer for 6 hours. Remove from heat and strain to remove solids. Cool to below 100°F in refrigerator. Pour stock into freezer containers of choice and freeze until solid. Storage Frozen stock will taste best if used within 6 months, but can be stored frozen indefinitely. For stock stored in the refrigerator, use within 5 days.