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Springtime means it’s time to include nettle in each jar of iced tea I brew. It helps keep hay fever at bay. And time to chop fresh mint and cilantro in salads. I’m convinced it does wonders to keep our sinuses clear when we cut and stack hay. And time to make our food hotter with garlic, onions and all kinds of peppers. Sure, they’re healthy. But I have other reasons. Warm weather means our windows are open and the one resident here who alleges that my cooking peels paint has fewer reasons to lob sarcastic asides. 

We actually don’t get sick here. Maybe it’s Isabelle’s raw milk, maybe it’s our raw honey  or maybe it’s the threat of homemade remedies. My remedies work like a charm (the scary incantation sort of charm). I'm one of those loony natural healing people. I have jars of herbs I grow and dry, bottles of tinctures I make, and perhaps most frightening---concoctions in which reishi mushrooms and schizandra berries float. I've discovered that healing doesn't lie in any of these substances, it lies in my family’s strong dislike of being dosed with them. Perhaps they have indistinct baby memories of crushed garlic and mullein oil in their once tiny ears as ear infection remedies or perhaps they're just afraid of what else I might do. They know that a cough or sniff will doom them to my ministrations. 

My craziness is beginning to seem a bit less loony. Apparently mild over the counter painkillers are linked to hearing loss and liver damage. Cough syrups are useless.  Antidepressants (now prescribed in record numbers) are ineffectual for most people with mild or serious depression. And those handy meds for “acid stomach” are linked to dementia and osteoporosis.

My family may be onto something by avoiding my remedies. Now if all of us can just do better avoiding conventional remedies unless we really, really need them. So drink herb tea, eat fresh salad and open the window. It’s spring!








 





 
 
 
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Not the tawdry kind of cheap and easy. We don’t talk about that where I live, at least not if you want to show your face at the post office or volunteer firefighters’ pancake breakfast.

No, I mean the kind of living our grandparents or great grandparents practiced. Being frugal, making do and doing what has to be done as easily as possible.

I’m that sort of farm wench. I live this way partially from necessity and partially out of sheer unwillingness to participate in the spend-till-you-wreck-the-earth style capitalism. My family doesn’t care much if we wear clothes till they’re worn out or eat pretty low on the food chain. We’re careful to buy quality when we do buy so our purchases last.

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This attitude carries over to our food. We raise what we can, put up as much as possible and buy in bulk when it makes sense. Cooking this way may seem to take time but when the house is stocked there’s no need to run to the store (which is too far for convenience anyway).
Take our old friend, the dried bean. Few food items are as cheap and nutritious as dried beans. Cook up a pot of beans and use them in two or three recipes. If you have the freezer space, freeze a few batches so you don’t have to heat up the house during the summer months. I make bean chili, beans and rice, bean casseroles, bean soup, bean dip, bean pate, bean sandwich spread, refried beans, bean enchiladas, heck, I put beans in dessert. Ever tried navy bean cookies or garbanzo lemon cake? 

Cooking dry beans yourself is much cheaper than buying the canned version. Once drained, the actual volume of canned beans comes to about 50 to 60 cents a cup. Dry beans, once cooked and drained come to 15 to 30 cents a cup (depending on type of bean and whether you buy in bulk).

Home cooked beans are not only much lower in salt, they’re also totally free of the toxic chemical Bisphenol A (BPA) used in the lining of cans and other food containers. And cooking beans at home is easy. Yes, advance planning is required but planning is required for just about everything except breathing. Soak them the day before, even start the first boil the night before. Turn them on when you’re home, off when you’re not. Beans are forgiving.

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A pot of life-enhancing pinto beans just finished simmering.  Here’s what I’m making. (I don’t stick to actual recipes, so toss in what sounds good and adjust as you choose.)
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Refried Beans (a favorite with my family) 

 
2 cups raw pinto or black beans (or mixture)

olive oil

1 large onion, chopped

3 cloves garlic, chopped

2 teaspoons ground cumin

a hefty dash of dry chipotle powder or cayenne powder

1 teaspoon sea salt


Dump the beans in a colander, rinse well and check for stones. This is a wonderful job to assign young children. They enjoy the tactile pleasure of running their fingers over beans in the colander as water pours on them. 

Then put beans in a large pot, cover with water and bring to a boil. You can do this the night before, which speeds the next day’s cooking process. If you have time, let the beans sit in the hot water to soak at least till the water cools. Then drain the cooking water, cover them again with fresh water and bring to a boil. Turn the heat down and let them simmer until done, usually about an hour and a half. (Two batches of cooking water increases the digestibility of the beans I’m told.)  Don’t store beans too long. Old dried beans of any variety take a very long time to cook and lose flavor. 

 
Anyway, drain the cooked beans and get on with it. Heat some oil in a frying pan. Add the onion and cook till translucent. Add the garlic. Then get out your handy blender. Toss the onion and garlic mess in the blender with a bit of water. Whirl it around. Dump this into a large bowl, adding the spices and salt. If you prefer, put a cup or more of whole beans into that bowl for some texture. Then start blending the beans in batches. Depending on your blender, you’ll have to add a decent amount of water to even encourage it to run. At least a cup of water to every two and a half cups of beans. Don’t worry if the beans seem too thin. The thinner they are, the longer you’ll bake them to reduce the moisture content. You’re aiming for cooked oatmeal thickness now. After they’re cooked, you’re aiming for mashed potato thickness. 


Once you have the rest of the beans blended and scraped into your bowl, mix everything together. Then scoop into a heavy casserole dish that has been pan sprayed. Bake at 350 for an hour or two. You’ll need to mix every half hour or so while they bake, scraping the dry refried beans from sides and bottom to rejoin their beanie friends in the middle. These beans thicken a bit as they cool. 

 
Serve as a make-your-own-burrito meal with all the fixings. Or stuff into bell pepper halves with fresh corn, salsa and cilantro topped with cheese. Or serve with chips and salsa. Or roll into enchiladas. Or do what you’d like.  We always make a triple or quadruple batch of these beans.
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Toss In What You Have Beans 

olive oil

1 large onion, red preferred

2 or more cloves garlic

1 teaspoon whole cumin seeds (optional)

1 large bell pepper

3 cups cooked beans---black beans, black-eyed peas, pinto beans or mixture is good

1 pint home canned tomatoes and hot chili peppers, OR 
     Rotel tomatoes and chili peppers OR 2 fresh tomatoes,
     chopped plus one small minced hot chili pepper

1/2 cup cranberries, chopped OR 1 small ripe mango, diced

1 teaspoon sea salt

¼ cup chopped fresh cilantro (optional)

2 small cooked sweet potatoes, diced OR 1 ½ cup cooked
    quinoa, brown rice or pasta 

 Heat oil in large pot, add onion and cook till translucent. Add garlic, cook a minute or two longer. Then add cumin seeds and bell pepper. Cook, careful to avoid burning cumin seeds. Mix in beans, tomatoes and chilis, cranberries and salt. Simmer 10 minutes or so. Stir in cilantro and starch of choice. Heat through. This is better then next day when flavors have blended. Wonderfully colorful with cranberries, mixed beans, cilantro and sweet potato. 

 


 
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Chocolate Beanie Squares  (delicious and flour-free) 

There are recipes out there for bean brownies. But really, don’t call them brownies, because they don’t have the texture of brownies. You’re asking to have your dessert rejected. And if possible, enjoy the real pleasure of subversive cooking and don’t tell anyone there are beans in the dessert until AFTER they’ve enjoyed eating. Then chuckle all you want. 


1 ½ cups cooked, drained beans (navy beans, garbanzo beans, black beans, pinto beans)

3 eggs

¼ cup butter, melted

¼ cup cocoa powder

dash salt

 ½ teaspoon baking powder

EITHER dash of vanilla extract OR dash peppermint oil

½ cup honey

¼ cup mini chocolate chips or shaved chocolate

6 ounces milk chocolate chips or shaved high quality
    chocolate

Option (when using vanilla, not peppermint) ½ cup peanut butter, divided

Put beans, eggs and butter in blender. Pulverize into smooth slurry. Dump out into mixing bowl. Add cocoa powder, salt, baking powder and mix. Add honey and chocolate chips, mix. Now for your choices.  

MINT: If you are making mint squares, add the mint oil, scrape the batter into a prepared (greased or sprayed) 8 x 8 pan and bake at 350 for approximately 20 to 30 minutes, just until the middle is firm but not dry.  As soon as your remove the pan from the oven, sprinkle the 6 ounces of milk chocolate evenly over the top. Immediately cover the top with a cookie sheet to hold in the heat. After a minute or two, remove the cookie sheet and spread the melted chocolate with a knife. For an extra spectacular presentation, sprinkle with peppermint candy canes you’ve heartlessly chopped into pieces. Cut when cool.

 
PEANUT BUTTER: If you are making peanut butter squares, add the vanilla extract and mix in ¼ cup of the peanut butter. (It helps to melt it a bit or toss it in the blender in the bean step---now I tell you.) Scrape the batter into a prepared (greased or sprayed) 8 x 8 pan and bake at 350 for approximately 20 to 30 minutes, just until the middle is firm but not dry.  As soon as your remove the pan from the oven, sprinkle the 6 ounces of milk chocolate evenly over the top along with dollops of the remaining ¼ cup peanut butter. Immediately cover the top with a cookie sheet to hold in the heat. After a minute or two, remove the cookie sheet and spread the melted chocolate with a knife. Cut when cool.

 

 

Make all the bean jokes you want. I live with fans of Blazing Saddles, The Onion and XKCD online comics. Chewing and guffawing are a constant around here.










 
 
 

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We don’t eat raspberries in the winter. 


It’s simple. They don’t grow the in the winter. We eat locally as much as possible, so that means if we haven’t canned or frozen raspberries from last summer’s harvest we’ll wait until they ripen again. 

Eating locally isn’t a trend. It’s a return to a way of life that makes sense. 


Why is it worth the trouble?

1. Save energy and reduce your carbon footprint. Food travels an average of 1,500 miles before reaching the consumer's fork. Combination foods travel even farther. One study found that the sugar, yogurt and strawberries in fruit yogurt traveled over 2,200 miles.

Buying locally can slash these numbers by more than 90 percent. It isn't hard to buy local yogurt, honey and fruit to mix up a homemade snack. This also cuts down on global warming gasses, making the end product more sustainable. In fact, the World Watch Institute reports that a typical North American meal uses up to 17 times more fossil fuel than a locally sourced meal.

2. Preserve flavor. Because today's crops are grown to be shipped long distances, growers plant varieties that will survive transport best. That means the peaches are not grown for flavor but hardiness, the tomatoes are chosen for their thick skins and standardized size. Growers pick produce long before natural ripening. The taste suffers even more during cold storage and shipping. As a result, who really wants to eat the cardboard-like fruits and vegetables available most of the year at the supermarket? Few of us know what straight-off-the-vine grapes taste like, not many of us have ever tried freshly picked sweet corn or cherries still warm from the sun.

But when you buy locally, you get a powerhouse of flavor. Farmers can pick the fruits and vegetables at peak ripeness because their customers are an hour or two away. The taste will convince you that buying foods in season from local growers is the only choice worth making.

3. Gain nutrients. According to USDA data, random samples of fruits and vegetables show 26 percent less calcium, 36 percent less iron and 29 percent less vitamin C compared to 1975. Not only do food crops need to reach peak nutritional levels by fully ripening on the plant, recent studies have shown that organic farming methods lead to improved nutrient levels. A four year, 25 million dollar study conducted by researchers at the Tesco Centre for Organic Agriculture at Newcastle University, United Kingdom found that organically grown foods contain higher levels of cancer fighting and heart healthy antioxidants. The study concluded that, compared to standard commercially grown fruits and vegetables, organic produce has on average 40 percent more antioxidants. Other studies have shown similar results for animal products. Consult Eat Wild at (http://www.eatwild.com/) for similar results pertaining to pastured, organic milk, meat and eggs.

4. Preserve family farms. For every dollar spent on food, approximately a dime goes to the farmer. The remaining 90 cents has a lot to do with profits made by corporations when wholesome food are converted into high calorie, low-nutrient products.

Local growers who find direct sales for their products with restaurateurs, farmers' markets and grocers can get full retail price for their food, meaning they can afford to remain on the land. This maintains the bedrock lifestyle that formed this country. Only one percent of Americans now farm as their primary occupation. Get to know the farmers who grow your food when you join a CSA, buy on the farm or see the growers week after week at market stands. You can ask questions about how your food has been grown, find out how to prepare it and learn what it takes to support non-industrialized food in this country.

5. Help your local economy. Money spent on processed foods and products produced elsewhere does little to sustain your local economy. One study followed the funds spent on food as it persisted in the local economy. It was found that a dollar spent at a supermarket was less than half as valuable in local reinvestment as one spent with an area grower or producer.

You also build an invisible economy of connections, people to people, when you are committed to buying locally. Once you are a regular customer at a locally owned bakery, participate in community gardening, and meet up with the same folks each week at a farmers' market, you'll get to know people who live by similar values. These ties support and sustain communities.

6. Understand ecosystems. By voting with your dollar for locally and often organically grown foods you are swaying the marketplace towards sustainable agricultural practices. Such practices include erosion control, cover crops, windbreaks and habitats for natural pollinators. You are proactively making a difference in supporting viable land use.

When you begin to eat seasonally rather than making do with tasteless raspberries in December you are learning to reconnect with natural rhythms. Other than food they preserved, our ancestors ate exactly what came from the surrounding area. Once you eat local foods you begin to cherish the short time that blueberries are ripe, and may master the art of making jam. Winter may find you enjoying root crops and sturdy grains. Our bodies seem to be more in sync when we live in concert with the seasons.

7. Save genetic diversity. While commercial agribusiness relies on a limited number of seed varieties, often genetically modified and patented, local farms can grow any of thousands of varieties passed down for generations. These hardy stocks provide more than flavor and disease resistance, they also are genetically diverse. The potato famine in Ireland taught farmers to use diverse varieties to prevent tragedy. The new seed varieties of agribusiness do not permit diversity nor seed saving. Heirloom varieties are natural insurance for a changing climate and altering global conditions. They also give us a gift of wonderful taste since we are accustomed to the same few varieties. Ever try Wren's Egg beans, Noir des Carmes melons or Tolman Sweet apples? There are literally thousands of heirloom fruits, vegetables, nuts and grains grown on small farms.

How does one get started?

The concept may seem daunting at first. There's no need to jump in full force. Rather than an all or nothing approach, do what you can and increase your commitment as your comfort level grows.

1. One product at a time. If you are accustomed to a diet of convenience foods then take it in moderation. Every time you shop, replace a category of food on your list that is provided by a distant corporate entity with a local provider. If you normally buy bread from a corporate conglomerate, start buying it locally or make it yourself. In another week or two when you are at ease with that change, make another change. Eventually your shift to local food will be complete without disruption or difficulty.

2. Try something new. Explore farmers' markets, the offerings from ethnic restaurants and new ideas from slow food cookbooks. Oftentimes if you are a member of a CSA, you'll find yourself with an abundance of something you haven't used before. A bumper crop of butternut squash will help you discover curried soups and casseroles you hadn't imagined before you had to deal with this nutrient-packed treasure.

3. Preserve. When you have extra you'll find it worthwhile to freeze, can or dry. You'll notice it is also helpful to double recipes so you can make your efforts worthwhile. Try getting together with friends to make spaghetti sauce, chutney or pies. The results can be an excuse for a party or give you plenty to use later.

4. Share the pleasure. Join or create a network of others who appreciate local food and/or slow food, (www.slowfoodusa.org/) .

5. Proceed wisely. Become acquainted with growing times and growers. Once you are familiar with ripening schedules for raspberries, tomatoes, eggplant and your other favorites get to know local growers by visiting farm stands, farmers' markets and orchards. You can get better prices by buying in bulk, going to pick-your-own farms, asking for seconds (smaller apples, oddly sized potatoes, etc) and bidding at produce auctions. To find local farms, Community Supported Agriculture and stores selling locally produced crops consult Local Harvest at (www.localharvest.org/) .

6. Garden. Homesteaders have been eating local food for years and community gardeners haven't been far behind. If you don't have the space for your own garden, locate one near you through the American Community Gardening Association, (http://www.communitygarden.org/) .

7. Curl up with a book. A number of books on the concept of local eating have sprouted on the bestseller lists. Try "The 100-Mile Diet: A Year of Local Eating" by Alisa Smith and J.B. Mackinnon, "Coming Home to Eat: The Pleasures and Politics of Local Foods" by Gary Paul Nabhan, or "Animal, Vegetable, Miracle" by Barbara Kingsolver.

Buying local food brings the solution back home. It doesn't assume that corporate or political answers will provide the solution. Polls show a majority of us care deeply about the environment and health. Now our day-to-day decisions are beginning to reflect this consciousness. Each time a choice is made to eat healthy, locally grown food we put sustainability on the menu.

 
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