Culinary Techniques

So I thought that since my blog is all about my journey to being greener and more organic as well as my journey to becoming a chef, I would start to share with you all our daily recipes and techniques that we are learning in class. Today's recipe was for Beef Stroganoff. I don't have a copy of the recipe on me at the moment as I am now blogging from my new iPhone as I feel like I will actually be able to continue posting to you all while at work and on the constant go. The wonders of today's technology. So the recipe will come soon. But here are some pictures of the dish. Oh and it was Delicious with a capital d.

Ciao xo

Busy few weeks

I have to say that it has been quite an eventful few weeks. I am sorry for not writing lately, but with everything going on there really hasn't been a whole lot of time to come and write for you all. But I promise to be better about that.
   So as I said the last few weeks have been quite eventful. I started my lab classes at school where we are actually working in the kitchen cooking and fabricating things. Right now I am attending the Kitchen Essentials class, and I don't think that I will ever look at another potato the same way. We have sliced so many potatoes in learning the many different cuts that we are required to know, and eaten so many recipes that are centered around potatoes that I think I could turn into a giant potato. But I have learned some very amazing new recipes and ideas for my restaurant along the way. For example today we made two different kinds of soup. First we made a potato soup which was pretty simple. It was basically just red potatoes that had been medium diced boiled in chicken stock with crisped bacon, and sauteed celery and onions and then we simply added roux which is just a simple sauce made of butter and flower, then two gallons of milk (it was a rather large batch of about three gallons) and cooked till the potatoes were tender. In the end after a bit of seasoning it tasted like clam chowder minus the clams.
   Next we made an Indian soup. It was diced carrots and onions that we boiled down with chicken stock till tender, then we pureed it down to a soup and added seasonings including curry, cayenne, (I added sugar as it made a huge difference) and some salt. Then finally we added half a quart of heavy cream. And voila. Such an awesome recipe and was my favorite of the two.
  We also had our Tour de Coop here in Cedar Rapids last Saturday and Sunday. We had dismal weather, but it managed to stop raining for the duration of the tour, and we actually had a great turnout of about 30 visitors per coop! I don't think I have ever had such fun talking about chickens with complete strangers. There were all types of people from every walk of life who came out for the tour. We had families who came with their kids, 4-H teens and their parents, other local backyard chicken raisers, prospective chickens keepers, and they all just seemed like such nice people.
  Oh and I also went through a minor tragedy in the family. We lost three of our chickens. Two of them we lost to a dog who killed them, and the other we think died of old age/stress because she kind of just flopped over. But I am now back to full capacity as I wasn't going to just show my single chicken I had left, and I got several new girls from another local chicken raiser who was looking to thin out her flock. And I am as happy as a clam! They are a great bunch of girls with such personalities, and all the eggs I get every day! I get up to about five eggs a day on average, and my new favorite chicken is named Blanche after the golden girls ( I have three named after them and am just missing a Sophia). She is a little white leghorn with a HUGE and i mean huge comb and attitude, and for such a little bird she lays the biggest white eggs! They are like twice the size of jumbo store eggs. It's awesome.
So yes thats pretty much how things have been going for us lately.
Ciao xo

Inspiration

  So as you may have noticed, I haven't posted much in the last week. Well lets just say that shit really hit the fan in my house over the last week and a half. But I have learned from everything I have experienced over the last week, and am inspired to be even more self-sustaining over the next several years.
  Looking back on everything it seems that aside from the tragedy that struck my chicken coop yesterday (which I will talk about in another post), the worst and most influencing thing that happened to me and my partner was the local gas company disconnecting our gas. Yep, they came out several days ago and shut us off. And of course with the luck we had been having, within twenty-four hours of our gas being shut off, the temperature plummeted here in Iowa and the inside temperature of my house this morning was 45 degrees F. Well we fought with the company for several days, and finally in the end my sister-in-law was good enough to help us get it turned back on so we could have heat and hot water. Oh yeah I haven't had a shower in four days, gross right?
  I take personal responsibility for the fact that we paid the bill late due to our busy schedules, but I don't think that it was even remotely humane of them to shut our gas off when the weather forecast had predicted such cold weather. Well I won't lie, I am filing a formal complain to the board of utilities here in Iowa, but this experience has made me even more determined to become more and more self-sustained. So now I am planning on looking into getting solar panels that I can then tie into our heating system so that we can eventually just do completely away with using gas all together. Of course that won't be able to be achieved right away as, well if this hasn't taught me that I am financially poor, we will have to buy one at a time due to the high cost. But in the end we will be able to live a greener, more sustainable life. I think all in all its a win.

Ciao xo

 

That time of year...

It is officially October! October is a very special month to me for a myriad of reasons. First I was born on October 9th, so first reason, its my birthday month. Second reason is the season. I know technically its autumn, but there is just always something specific about October that, to me anyways, makes it feel like October has its own special season. Next there is Halloween, All Hallows, All Hallows Eve, Samhain; only the most spiritually influencing holiday of the year. I think aside from one's birthday and Christmas, eveyones favored holiday should be Halloween. Who doesn't love to dress up in a costume? So with all of these amazing aspects to October, I have dubbed it my time of the year.
   The leaves are changing in full bloom now with color coming from each and every direction. Each tree seems as if its a star changing from one phase of its life to the next as their colors go from green to yellows and golds, deep reds and burgundies. All these leaves have me thinking two things. I really need to buy a rake! And its time for scarecrows! Every year we take leaves and make our own homemade scarecrows which hang out on our front porch to scare trick-or-treaters on Halloween. I remember growing up instead of stuffing some old clothes to make scarecrows, my friends and I would rake up enough leaves for a big enough pile to hide all three of us in at the bottom of my driveway. When a car would come barreling down the street BAM! We would jump out of the leaves with a rake just as the car was passing my driveway to scare the crap out of the driver. Lets just say we got into some trouble when one of the cars careened into a telephone pole...
   Fall harvests. Its that time of year, the time to collect your last harvests of the season (unless you have either a cold box or a hoop house of course ^.-), and to clear out the garden patches for the spring plantings. Well my goal is to become as self-sustainable as I can be. So we have decided that we are turning the very back of our yard into our own little farm. We have mapped it out and planned out all the seeds to be planted in the spring. There will be five beds, and I am finished with three so far. It's a lot of work digging up all that dirt and removing the turf AND THEN tilling the soil! Just for the three beds it took me two days to do. (I will have to go out and take pictures when they are all done so you can see the plan) We plan to go to the local composting center and get a bunch of free compost to mix in with the soil so that in the spring we just have to loosen up the earth before we can start planting. I am so excited for next years harvest! I think the chickens even like the garden beds because they helped us dig it up the whole time while they searched for bugs and ate any grubs they came across. They are adorable when they help me in the garden!
   Now my favorite (and yes I have may favorites but this is really the biggest thing) thing about this time of year, is the cooking that goes on. Pumpkins! They are all ready to either be harvested or have already been harvested and are ready to be carved for Halloween and cooking! Pumpkin pies, pumpkin muffins, pumpkin breads, pumpkin soup, pumpkin ice cream. The list goes on and on of the many wonderful things that you can make with a pumpkin. So many that I can't keep up, and pumpkin is utterly one of the most amazing fruits. And yes. I call it a fruit. Not a vegetable.
   So even on a rainy day like today, I can't help but absolutely love October and this time of year.

Ciao xo
  

Lions, Bears, Tigers Oh My!

I want to talk a little bit about the work that I am doing with CLUC through facebook. On a daily basis I update the page and post links and informatino regarding backyard chickens and making them legal in different cities around the world. Well about a week ago we congratulated North Vancouver for finally succeeding in their efforts to bring the chickens home as they were able to have their backyard chickens ordinance passed with a 5-2 vote in favor of the ordinance. I am slightly jealous of their ability to raise eight hens, two higher than our limit, but congratulations was owed one way or another as this has been a two year long issue for them.
  A little background information on North Vancouver. Back in 2010, they started their movement towards achieving higher self-sufficiency with plans for local city farms, and ordinances to allow personal urban farming on properties with animals such as chickens and even bees. In 2011, North Vancouver voted in favor of an ordinance allowing multi-resident properties to keep up to 100,000 honey bees. But North Vancouver is also an area teeming with natural life and what does one often find in the woods up north? Bears. So far this year, 10 black bears have been killed due to their aggressive actions towards humans. In North Vancouver the police and animal control have to decide when its in the best interest of the bear as well as the general public to put down a bear. All 10 instances, both parties agreed that it was in everyone's best interest.
   Well earlier today, the North Shore Outlook published an article where a member of the North Shore Black Bear Society commented his thoughts on the new chicken ordinance that was passed a week ago. Webb was reported commenting things like, "Absolutely chicken coops are an attractant [to bears]" and "[Webb]  has seen first-hand the damage caused by a bear attack on an illegal chicken coop in West Vancouver where hen-keeping is not allowed, as well as bear attacks on other enclosures housing rabbits and even pigeons on the North Shore".
  Interesting because when searched, there is no record in the news of any rogue bear attacks on illegal chicken coops in the West Vancouver area. In fact the most recent bear attack was on a woman and her dog in her back yard. The mother bear was provoked into attacking as unbeknownst to the homeowner, two baby cubs had stumbled into the line of trees bordering her backyard. Both parties made it out of the conflict fine by the way.
  The thing that stands out the most about the article is just how little Webb knows about the ins and outs of raising backyard chickens. He goes on to say that, "If you keep chickens, you should go and get an electric fence; likewise with beehives" and " cultivating urban agriculture — even fruit-bearing trees — can be dangerous to both people and bears if certain precautions aren’t taken" and lastly "“And if people have fruit trees and want to keep them, they should put an electric fence around it. If they don’t want to do that, cut the trees down, it’s as simple as that."
  I will agree with Webb on one single point. The secuirty of your hens is of upmost importance. They have been domesticated for so long that many of them don't know how to fend for themselves against predators even their own size let alone the size of a bear. So it is up to us to provide them with safe housing that is predator proof. But I am not in any way agreeing with him that by keeping hens will further attract even more instances of run ins with bears. Instead of spending his time whining and complaining about things he considers to be a hazard, why not use his precious time to come up with another solution such as creating a forest preserve that can be maintained and monitored at all times to provide the bears with a secure and closed environment that they can thrive in while also providing further protection to North Vancouver and its residents? What do you think?

Ciao xo

Out with the summer and in with the autumn!

   The time has come. The end of the summer growing season and the beginning of autumn. Each day the air gets a bit crisper and the dew on the morning grass has a little bite to it. Our first frost a few days ago (rather early for us here in Iowa) has many trees already changing their colors to match the season. It is my personal favorite time of year. In the mornings its cool enough that you need a sweater and a warm cup of coffee (or cocoa for those of you who don't like the strong stuff haha) to watch as the morning animals take to life for the day, and in the afternoons its still warm enough that you can shed your sneakers and wander through your yard and let your toes feel the soft grass. Now if you are like me and let your chickens free range: Watch your step!



(One last male pumpkin flower fighting to live)

So it's at this time of year, as urban farmers, and even farmers out in the country begin to take inventory of their crop for the year. So I thought that I might share some pictures of what we have harvested, and what is now left of my almost bare garden. I still have several things left to do in my garden however before winter comes. I will be ditch composting my chicken manure to create a lush and ripe garden bed for our corn next year, and I need to dig up and till our garden plots that we are adding to the back of the yard, so that first thing in the spring I can get my berries in the ground. 

  Speaking of spring, doing a little research I came across several great articles on having a late garden well into the autumn season and early winter. Using many greens that require a hard frost to become sweet and edible, and then by overwintering them they will also produce much earlier first thing in the spring. Something to definitely look into. I am thinking of trying that with my lettuces and my broccoli to be specific as according to what I read its the best time to plant both of them, and neither did very well for me this year.

  Mother Earth News, a magazine and website dedicated to self sustainability and organic methods of living, has an article dedicated to this topic in their Sept-Oct issue. You can find the article here on their website. It talks much about what types of plants are good to plant in a fall garden, and how to go about starting your fall garden. I found it very enlightening that greens and root vegetables actually thrive better in the cold than they do in the heat, and certain greens such as Kale actually need a good frost to make them sweet and delicious.

(As you can see we still have a bit of harvesting left)

Some Fall Garden Favorites:

Kale

Radicchio

Swiss chard

Carrots

Radishes

Lettuces - My favorite is Romaine

And Broccolis

  As the season grows cooler every day I have actually noticed quite a large increase in the growth of my broccoli ( an Italian Heirloom breed), and so my hope of being able to harvest it has returned. Picture below :)



  The article is just wonderful with helpful tips and suggestions and has actually given me one that I plan on hopefully putting together this weekend; a cold frame. Its a rather simple idea really, basically you are just giving your plants a winter shelter to protect them from colder temperatures at night and even during the day once it starts to snow, and a properly made cold frame with things such as black-painted bottles of water will stay warm even in some of the coldest temperatures. (another great idea right there with soda bottles simply spray painted black and filled with water to retain solar heat)

   In our garden this year we grew (or attempted to grow) several items including pumpkins, watermelon, peppers, tomatoes, broccoli, lettuce, basil, and we have naturally growing onions and rhubarb in our yard. Below are some pictures I took this morning in the garden.

(our baby peppers. Can't wait to try them!)

    As you can see our peppers are rather small. It was our first time trying to grow peppers, and they were choked out first by the pumpkins which took over pretty much the entire garden, and then after that they were taken over by watermelon vines, which we unfortunately were unable to harvest any viable fruits this season. 

   The peppers are just now able to grow as the watermelons pretty much died off during our first frost, and then the pumpkins have been pretty much cleared out for the end of the season.



(The peppers are still flowering which leaves me with hope for even more to harvest later in the season)

Speaking of pumpkins. At the top of this post you will find a picture of several of our pumpkins grouped together. I know of at least another 3 - 4 we have hidden around the house and the yard, but Tim has been harvesting them for close to three months now, so who knows how many we really have.

This is all thats left of our pumpkin patch (imagine it three times this size if not bigger)

And to the left is one of our last two pumpkins that are still growing in the patch. We are lucky if we get a single male flower anymore, and I only saw one flower at all this morning so I think they will be our last two of the season.

Overall there is still quite a bit to do in the garden before winter gets here. So much to do with so little time left as I am thinking we are going to have an early and harsh winter this year!





Ciao xo

CR-CLUC

A picture of Rebecca's Hen Maxine

  Lets chat a little about our local group here in Cedar Rapids called CLUC. If you are wondering what CLUC stands for, it stands for Citizens for the Legalization of Urban Chickens. This group was started back in November of 2009 by the amazing Rebecca Mumwaw. She spearheaded the campaign and effort to have the keeping of backyard chickens legalized here in town. She spent countless hours working with the city to raise awareness and bring change to our city of five seasons. (don't ask haha.) And in 2010 the ordinance to allow up to 6 hens in a backyard was passed! If it weren't for the work of this one woman we wouldn't be here today!
  I am rather new to the world of chickens, and have Rebecca to thank for it all. She leads the Urban Chicken class that each person seeking the $25.00 permit is required to take. I had the opportunity to adopt three hens from a woman a few towns away, but there were no classes scheduled for several months, and Rebecca took the time out of her day to run through the class with me over skype! A few days after that I was able to bring my girls home. So in truth not only do I owe Rebecca a very big thank you, but everyone else in Cedar Rapids does as well.
  Since passing the chicken ordinance back in 2010, Rebecca and CLUC haven't stopped their work and efforts. We have been helping Iowa City with their attempts to get a similar ordinance passed, and we have a facebook group dedicated to furthering awareness and assistance to others in the country who are trying to go through the same endeavor.
  Since beginning my journey into the world of chickens, my eyes have truly been opened to the backwards thinking of many people. Something that I always get from people when they find out that I raise chickens is, "Chickens in the city! But the smell and poop! Chickens are meant to be out on a farm." Of course they are right that chickens are indeed meant for farms, but there is absolutely nothing wrong with raising them in your backyard. They make wonderful pets and provide you with the amazing farm fresh egg every day! What a blessing.

Cedar Rapids CLUC Facebook Page

Ciao xo