I miss this place

Gazing across the miles, lungs full of fresh air, nothing seems stagnant. Only beauty exists here.

Wheat Bread

While making pizza the other night I noticed the recipe for whole wheat bread on the back of my King Arthur wheat flour.
I had most everything I needed already, so i got some molasses and went to work. It turned out very tasty but it did crumble a bit towards the end, and in the middle. I maybe should have cooked it a bit longer?
I still have half a bag of flour left and I have made bagels, bread, 2 pizza crusts and pancakes. Go Me!
Since the bread became crumbly I made breadcrumbs. So far I have made baked chicken tenders with them~ sooo yummy! Chicken cut up into strips, dipped in flour, then egg, then the crumbs. I'm not sure if you need to dip them in flour first or not, but it works either way!

To make crumbs, leave bread out to sit around and get stale. Then bake it a little bit on very low heat, like 200 degrees to thoroughly dry it out. Then add spices of your desires and chop!
My cucumbers are coming back! this makes me soooo happy~
they were forming teeny cukes, turning brown and dying. Leaves were dying, it was awful. But now I have soooo many happy little cucumbers, I can't wait to make so many pickles!

Farmer's Market! For your health!

Saturday I went to the local farmer's market and got 2 large zucchini, 3 medium yellow squash and 6 pickles for $3! Usually farmer's markets operate a weekend day (or both) and a week day, and every town I have ever lived in has had a farmer's market. This one is pretty small, but still wonderful! I like to go Tuesdays so I get a chance to talk to some of the farmers and get advice.

I made Farmer's Market Lasagne.
It turned out so delicious that my neighbors were bartering food for it!
1 chopped zucchini (and I added 1/2 a squash)
1 chopped sweet red pepper
1/2 cup shredded carrot (store bought for me)
3 cups baby spinach (also store bought, too hot now for it)
1 26oz jar pasta sauce (Full Circle Organic Roasted Garlic was on sale and info read healthiest)
1/2 15oz jar ricotta
6 regular uncooked lasagne noodles, broken in 1/2
1 cup shredded Mozzarella cheese

Step 1: Cook the zucchini, squash, pepper & carrots however you like, just until slightly tender. Heat up pasta sauce (I don't think I did this now that I think about it...)
Step 2:Layer 1/2 cup sauce, 4 noodles, 1/2 veggies, 1/2 cheese & repeat! Bake for a WHOLE HOUR at 350 degrees. Cover with foil if it browns. The reason for the caps is that I always forget to look how long it takes to bake and starve in the meantime. ;)

I also made Honey Glazed Chicken Stirfry
This turned out super easy and delicious, the sauce is like terriyaki
12 oz skinless/boneless chicken breasts
2 tbs honey (local)
2 tbs vinegar
2 tbs Orange Juice
4 tbs soy sauce
1 1/2 tsp cornstarch
4 cups veggies
2 tbs oil for cooking veggies
2 cups hot, cooked rice

Use a WOK~ they ROCK!
Step 1: cut everything up. For veggies I used peas, onion, broccoli (frozen, store bought) squash & zucchini of course, and shredded carrot for color & oomph! Cut the chicken into bite sized pieces.
Step 2: Mix up your sauce in a bowl~ honey + vinegar + OJ + soy + cornstarch.
Step 3: Cook the veggies in oil 4 minutes or so, until tender. Remove from wok and put the chicken it. Cook it all the way, pile it all in the middle and add your sauce. Cook and stir until thickened and bubbly and add the veggies in, tossing and coating it all in deliciousness.
Serve over rice, aint it nice?!

Tonight I am going to make pizza again, and I think I am going to do some jalapenos, cheddar cheese... and chicken sausage. Yum! :)

Pickles and Hot Sauce

I grew some cucumbers and they were yummy, but I don't prefer plain ol' cukes. I like 'em pickled. Refer to page 212 in Back To Basics for info and recipe. (don't have this book yet? Well you're crazy because it's awesome!) Ok, so it may be in the mail... I will tell ya what I did.

Pickled Cukes~ I sliced my cukes into spears and soaked them in Brine (1/2 cup salt : 1/2 gal water) it is best to use salt with nothing else in it or else the cukes will turn color or the water will cloud. I used regular table salt because that is what I had, so the water is a bit murky but that is just because of the additives...
I let them sit on the counter for about 8 hours and drained them. Meanwhile I brought vinegar, salt, sugar and water to boil. I put the cukes in a mason jar along with jalapenos I grew and some garlic. Usually you want to add some fresh Dill here, but the dill got over run with weeds and I haven't started anymore.
After you're smelly vinegar mixture is done you pour it into the jars with your cukes & spices. Now put on your lid and boil it in water for 20 minutes. This cans it! Take out your jars with some tongs and let cool. Enjoy!

Pineapple Jalapeno Hot Sauce & Spicy Pickled Cucumbers

Pineapple Jalapeno Hot Sauce~ I have 4 jalapeno bushes in 5 gal buckets (now I know you only need 2-3 gal per bush) plus some young plants that started from seed and take forever. Its wetter here than their natural habitat so I've had to pick some peppers early. I made hot sauce with these cause they are so dang hot! !
We had around 10 or 15 peppers, put in a blender, added vinegar, sea salt and pineapple juice. It turned out wonderful! Just add a little bit of everything at a time and taste~ you can always add more but can't take it out! :) Also if you aren't doing sweet, use water & onions & garlic for savory-ness.

Holla!!!! Penos

In my large cucumber pot I had dill & carrots growing. In the first photo you can see a tiny dill baby sprouting up. The other shoots I thought were carrots, but they were weeds! I let them take over the dill and I pulled one up randomly to see how it was and there was no carrot on the end! So we pulled the rest of the weeds up... Gotta watch those weeds, they are sneaky.

I am a creator

I create things, I make things, and I do things. I can simply sit and be, but my being loves to create. I paint, sew, cook, grow, play... As much as I enjoy to destroy, I first create it for myself. I'll post these things here too.

Bagels~ I eat more bagels than anyone else I know. If I don't dumpster them I will now bake them from scratch. Panera bread double bags their bagels and breads and tosses them nightly. Get them and give them to your friends and neighbors. I have eaten these bagels for years... Once stale they make great bagel chips and croutons. Next I will try Atlanta Bread...
I have used this recipe and my only problem was they didn't rise enough and were quite dense. But delicious! I didn't put them in a warm enough spot during the second rise. I drizzled some local honey over them because we forgot to mix it in! This made em sticky, I liked it but you may not.

Pizza! This is a no brainer. It takes me less time to make my dough, top it and cook than it takes to call up a delivery place, put in my order, pay and wait for it to come. I also pay upwards of $5 less.
Go to your grocer, to the aisle with Yeast. Look on the back side of the packages and you will usually find a recipe. If there isn't one, do not despair! Just Google it, it's the 21st Century use it to your advantage. The kind I bought is specifically for making pizza and it has been the best so far.
Choose a sauce, BBQ, Alfredo, Pizza sauce, I LOVE Newman's Own Sockorooni (or something) but it isn't the healthiest. The last time I made sauce from canned tomato sauce, sliced tomatoes in juice, tomato sauce, tomatoes from my garden, and spices.
Then add your cheese and toppings. I like to mix some cheddar in with my Mozz, but you can do anything. Bake 12-15 minutes, and pet your full pocket.
(Photo Coming Soon?)

Capitalism is a Pyramid Scheme

The of those lower on the pyramid enriches the ones towards the top. To stay stable, the economy has to draw in more and more resources- colonizing new continents workforces and aspects of our lives. The resulting inequalities can only be maintained by ever-escalating force: armies occupy countries, police patrol neighborhoods, security cameras point at ever cash register.
Capitalists make money not only on what they do but also from what they own. It takes money to make money, as they say. Business owners, landlords, and large shareholders are capitalists: so are executives who receive salaries padded with money produced by other people's efforts.
Capitalists cash in on the activity of the exploited. the exploited can only make money from their own labor, so its easy for employers to pay them less than the value they produce. When banks and credit card companies make money off debtors, they're exploiting them, the same as a corporation that pays an employee a dollar to make a $200 pair of shoes.
Others are at the mercy of the economy but excluded from participating in it. The unemployed and the homeless are excluded, along with most of the occupants of shantytowns around the world. Prisoners are often both excluded and exploited, being forced to work at a pittance that amounts to slave labor,. Being excluded is not the same as being outside the market- the dispossessed are poor precisely because they are inside capitalism.
We're encouraged to compete against each other to improve our positions on an individual basis. But there's not enough space at the top of the pyramid for all of us, no matter how hard we work- and no pyramid scheme can go on expanding forever. Sooner or later its bound to crash: recession and global warming are just the first warning signs. Instead of going down with the Pharaohs, let's join forces to establish another way of life.

To obtain some badass posters updated from the above capitalism pyramid scheme go here. Disperse everywhere.