Vegan 'till 6pm

Mary Beth of Salt and Chocolate posted a link to a great podcast that I wanted to pass on.  Mark Bittman talks about his book Food Matters, and how he has Incorporated a vegan way of eating into his normally carnivorous life.  I listened to it and thought he had a refreshingly balanced approached to the subject.  I'm usually turned off a little bit by people with "loud soapboxes" so his personality appealed to me. He talks about eating less meat and other animal products to benefit both health and environment.  Anyways, Mary Beth is inviting others to join her in becoming vegan 'till 6pm.  Guess what?  I'm in!  My husband is a meat eater and as hard as I've tried, I just can't convince him to give it up. That is why this approach would work for us. It is more or less just a way of cutting back- way back- on animal products in our diet.

I'll share more as I get going, but I envision grains for breakfast, salads for lunch and then a normal dinner. Not too hard right? Just more plants! The hardest part for me will be giving up milk, cheese, yogurt and eggs.  I've long suspected that I have an intolerance or sensitivity to dairy but have never attempted to cut it out of my diet. (I take that back. Once I bought some goat's milk but when I tried to drink it, it smelled like a really stinky goat that I saw on my field trip to a farm in grade school.  I poured a $7 quart of it down the drain.)

 

**I also watched this last night.  I know, weird right?  A documentary on Saturday night!  If you enjoy that kind of thing, I thought it was very insightful.

Okay, this whole deal starts tomorrow for me-  Join in if you like!

Garden 2009

  

Planning for this year's garden is in full swing.  This will be the third year that we grow veggies in our back yard and we've got big ideas for that 15ftx 45ft plot of dirt.

 (The New Victory Garden- awesome book!)

 As much as I think that I would love taking on something like this..."Be realistic, be realistic, be realistic" is my mantra this year.  Last season I planted 4 cherry tomato plants!!??? After eating gobs of them ourselves and forcefully offering them to all of our friends and neighbors, we just couldn't consume all of them.  So, this year I am focusing on things that we like eating,in quantities that we enjoy, and that can be easily preserved.

The girls have been especially inspired.  I have been trying to find age appropriate ways of incorporating them into the planning.

After going through our favorite seed catalog (Bountiful Gardens- heirloom/non genetically modified seeds), we picked out our favorite veggies.  Each girl was allowed to pick one or two packets of seed for her very own tending.  For Hannah sunflowers are always a must.  She also wants to try some strawberries.

 

 Emma and I measured our garden space and then worked out how much room we would need to plant what we ordered.  She investigated which plants grow well together and created a little "vegetable friends and enemies" chart.  Then, I gave her some graph paper and asked her to create a map of our intended plans to scale.

 

It proved to be a great little math/science/nature study assignment.  She worked hard on it and enjoyed the detailed and spacial thinking that it required.

In the previous years we have just grown our vegetables in the ground.  However, our soil is very clay based and it has been hard to amend it for better draining.  So this year I have requested above ground beds.  My husband has also promised to a install drip irrigation system.  Last year I relied up on timed sprinklers or manual watering.  I'm finding lots of inspiration out there.

Here is what we hope to grow this year:

corn (I haven't had success in years past with non-gmo corn seeds, I'm going hybrid this year)

potatoes

zucchini

broccoli

cauliflower

cucumbers

snap peas

carrots

leeks

radishes

onions

tomatoes (roma, cherry, and large heirloom)

sweet bell peppers

strawberries

green beans

greens (butterhead lettuce, gourmet mix, chard)

squash (acorn, butternut, yellow crookneck)

The seeds are on their way and we are making room around the sunniest spaces indoors. The last frost date around here is about middle of May.  Planting day is coming soon!

New and Different

First off, I'd like you to meet Mulligan.

 

He's the newest member of our family and we affectionately refer to him as "Mully".  After visiting my cousin Jenny last week, we fell in love with her pug named Chip.  You have to know that we don't really "bond" with animals much and so for us to make a connection the way we did...we just had to have one of our own.  So, we found Mully and here he is.  We no longer watch TV.  Just the dog.  He is so entertaining.  We're giggling, giggling all the time.  I am sure that many, many adventures await us.

   

We made some crazy popcorn for Valentine's Day.  It had bites of licorice, hot tamales, and red sprinkles in it.  The girls went nuts!  The recipe came from Better Homes and Gardens March issue.

 

All kinds of other interesting popcorn ideas in there.

I am stuck on this song.  Can't stop listening to anything Ray LaMontagne.

 

I'm taking this picture to my stylist next week. My hair is just about this long and definitely wavy enough. I have an outragously outgrown version of this and am ready for a change. What do you think?

This is by far the greatest crepe recipe I have ever tried.  Made 'em this morning with a cream cheese filling. Yu-ummmy.

My Netflix Queue is almost empty.  I have watched some bummers lately.  Not sure how I even made it passed the first 5 minutes of this one.  Help, all the main characters are dying!  Suggestions for happy movies please!

 

Carl and I attended the Washington Association of Wine and Grape Growers Annual Fundraising Event last week.  He designed a print that was to be auctioned off, so we were invited. The whole dinner was amazing...but my favorite part was the the Cabernet Sauvignon Sorbet.  DANGEROUS!  I must figure out how to make this.  Or, maybe its better that I don't!

Speaking of dangerous...I ate a Big Mac today for the first time in about 5 years. Even thought I knew it was like "poison on a bun"- it was extremely satisfying.

  

I am pretty sure that I am the last person on earth to talk about Artisan Bread in 5 Minutes a Day.  It is really revoloutionizing my life.  Imagine mixing the basic bread ingredients in a giant tupperware container (no kneading!!!!) and storing it in your fridge.  Whenever you need a nice, warm crusty loaf just pull out a hunk of dough, let it rest 20 minutes or so, then bake it.  Presto, fresh bread without all the effort.  Love.

Okay, wow a lot of links in there.  Thank you for all your sweet words about the Valentine's pictures.  You really know how to puff up this mama's heart.  Upcoming posts: planning the garden, homeschooling updates, a bit of spring sewing, and a give away!!