I just spent a weekend with my emaciated ex-wife who has recently decided that neither vegan nor even vegetarian is particularly healthy for her. While she chooses the source of all her food, meat and vegetable, carefully, she’s begun to eat modest amounts of meat again and says she’s never felt better.

I do eat meat. We have evolved eating meat and plants: we were hunter/gatherers long before we became pampered consumers. I also like things that grow rooted in the soil.

I suggest that balance should be the rule. We all know people who eat either all meat or all vegetables, undoubtedly missing some much needed nutrient in the process.

The fact that we eat meat is not the problem. How much meat we eat and how that meat is produced are problems. I’ve written about rabbit on this site. Rabbit is one of the most economical meat crops we can produce. Rabbits thrive on medium to low grade forage - mostly grass. They are naturally near the bottom of the food chain and reproduce, well, like rabbits. The meat is low fat, quick to cook, and plentiful: rabbits skeletons are light.

We also stew our old hens when they quit laying; we eat mutton when our breeding ewes (we raise Jacob sheep for their wool) are too old to carry on.

But, I do the cooking around here and push the beans, vegetables, and greens in ever changing combinations with fruits and meat. Since our house has a large attached greenhouse, we have lots of fresh plants to eat, year round. We’re comfortable eating many of them raw.

I hope, Jesse, you’ll find your way back to a happy balance that will please both you and the kids. But I won’t every say it isn’t a personal choice.

ry

A couple or three comments about growing tomatoes in Oregon. I’m making the assumption that most readers will be growing small gardens.

1) Start your plants as early as you can in a protected place. I don’t mess around transplanting to successively larger pots. Start with gallons and leave the plants in them until you can safely set them out in your garden.

2) Your intent is to have a leggy plant, just the main stem, up to 18” tall at the time of transplanting. When you do plant them in the garden, dig a trench and lay the tomato on its side, turning up the growing end just enough to have the top exposed. You should have trimmed all the foliage off the plant up to about the last six inches. You’ll end up with a trench that’s full of roots since the plant will spontaneously root along its entire length. You’ll have a vigorous plant supported by a large root structure. (If you put the plant into a patio pot, trim the foliage and then bury the plant to the very bottom of the pot.) Your soil should be well structured and light. I use rabbit manure which doesn’t have to be composted. We also keep chickens and a mule. Those droppings should be composted.

3) I plant indeterminates almost exclusively. I grow them under a “trellis” formed on 12’ t-posts topped with pvc hoops. Those hoops spread a plastic sheet to form a shelter to keep our liquid sunshine from falling on the plants. Most tomato diseases are soil born. If you can keep the soil from splashing onto the plants, you’ll find they stay healthy much later. To support the plants, I tie them as the grow to heavy twine that’s suspended from the trellis. The pruning advice is good - necessary in the way I train the plants. I aim to have two leaders from each plant.

I use “road fabric” as a ground cover. It’s durable and will last several seasons. I don’t put any organic material on top of the ground cover. Before I lay it out, I install a drip irrigation system along the entire length of the furrow in which I plant. Not only does it save water, is easily and inexpensively controlled by a timer, it completely eliminates irrigation water splashing up into the foliage, spreading disease.

Until I had to tear out my trellis system to make room for a house we started building almost 4 years ago, I replanted in the same area for four years running and had no disease at all. I hadn’t intended to do that, but the second year I got caught short of time and replanted. When the plants were disease free and productive until the first hard freeze, I decided to see how far I could push it. Normally, one wouldn’t replant tomatoes, eggplant, or potatoes in the same place, year over year.

Finally, when you find a variety that you like and that thrives where you live, save some seed. From a dead ripe fruit, take the seed, rinse it, and then “ferment” it in a small container of fresh water. The object is to remove the gelatinous coat that surrounds the seed. Rinse the seed and change the water every day until the seed is free. Lay it out on a paper towel and let it dry thoroughly. Once it’s dry, fold it into a pouch made from paper, label it, and put it in a small glass jar. I keep up to a hundred seeds of each variety, plant from the previous year’s seeds, but keep the surplus for a year or two against an emergency. I’ve had very high germination rates from seed that was four years old. The seed should be stored in a cool, dark, place. Some people freeze the seed so long as it is well dried. I have yet to try that trick.

As to the root trimming trick, that certainly works. But since I’ve got long trenches filled with roots, I prefer simply cutting back on the water to induce ripening. With the drip system and the sheltered planting area, the plants get only the water I give them.

Two other points: I don’t compost any solanaceous plants. If you do have a disease in your potatoes, tomatoes, or egg plant, the chances are, you’ll spread it throughout your garden. It’s not worth the risk.

When you do end up at the end of the season with lots of green tomatoes, chutney, fried tomatoes and gravy, pickles all come to mind. But during the season when the fruit is still ripening, do your morning tomatoes, bacon and gravy with ripe fruit. You’ll like it a lot. Remember that using the green fruit is a compromise: the object is to not waste the still unripe fruit.

Beavercreek at 1150 feet when the growing season starts a month later than it does in Portland.

For those who live in the Portland area, you’ll find Cardoons in the demonstration garden at old Fort Vancouver. The were a staple of the diet there. Whether one can equate Cardoon with Chestnuts, it appears that they may have served a similar purpose for the Hudson Bay Co.

For those who contemplate having them in the garden, be aware that they naturally grow quite tall. Their blooms, similar to an artichoke but far more compact, open like a thistle to reveal their deep purple coloration.

Also beware that, like thistles, to which they’re related, their seeds will readily migrate and root. The solution is to never allow the blossom to mature, but, believe me, even one produces travelling seed.

Ms Madison implies that they come on the market as a winter vegetable. We’ve had success wrapping leaves as they emerge, depriving them of light, then using the ribs while they’re tender.

We’ve kept bees for better than 20 years now, first to augment orchard and garden production on our small place in SE Portland (two or three hives), and then in rural Clackamas County where we’ve had 20-25 hives.

Just as urban gardeners who misuse herbicides and pesticides, contributing to the environmental load of “non-point source” contamination of waterways and the landscape, so can the hobby beekeeper do more harm than good if they do not follow the best industry standards of parasite and disease control in their hives.

Don’t get me wrong: we need more hives under management - hobbyists are a fine way to achieve that goal. But anyone and everyone who takes responsibility for a hive or more, must use the powerful tools available to them exactly as they are meant to be used. Bees are not under your control. Your sins of commission and omission will assuredly become someone else’s problem. And since the range of solutions we have at our disposal is small to begin with, every time a beekeeper contributes to the steady march of resistance in the pests we confront, it becomes more likely colony failures will continue to rise, our agricultural industries will be threatened, and people will lose their livelihoods.

This is a project you should learn about in detail before you assemble your first hive. Know whether you’ve got the time, time on the bees’ schedule, not yours, the strength, the resources, and the persistence it takes to be a good, responsible beekeeper.

ry

In response to #214: be careful what you wish for. I don’t know about the person you’d like back in your life, but you should wish for the old Joy you used to have. IMO, the newer versions just aren’t up to the comparison. Whole sections axed. The trend seems to be toward quick and easy instead of good and thorough. If you have to replace your Joy, start searching for a copy of an edition no later than the mid-70’s. (On that note I’ll retire to the kitchen where I can assume the warmth is from the stove and not the flames I’ll probably have to endure.

ry

One?!

My early edition of Joy of Cooking simply because it was helpful when Mom wasn’t around to instruct. Of later gifts, “Simple Foods” by Waters.

But then there’s....

One more: this is a plea for safety.

Those turkey fryers, the ones filled with five gallons of hot-almost-to-the flash-point oil; the ones that make the news every year by incinerating at least the porch or back deck: don’t chuck them, but don’t use the oil either.

I almost always, now, poach big birds. Your turkey or goose will cook almost as fast in water as in the fat and you can flavor the water with vegetables before you begin the bird. Plan on an hour (always use a thermometer to check the bird) in the water and another 10-15 minutes in a very hot oven to add some color. No stuffing in the bird, of course, but in these days of salmonella and e. coli, that’s not a good idea anyway.

After you’ve carved the bird, throw the bones back in the cooking water, add more veggies if you like, and boil up a wonderful soup base, now redolent of the whole meal.

Best of all, your house will survive the experience.

ry

On number 19:

Richard, would you agree that preparing these birds (or range fed duck, for that matter) is best adjusted toward preparing large game birds? For those who have not tried heritage breeds, most tend to be leaner than those bred for a huge breast and rapid growth. In addition, you won’t find these birds pumped full of water or broth. I use techniques out of older copies of Joy which have “game” sections.

Richard

Farming and cooking in Beavercreek, OR

If you have an open kitchen, maybe even if you don’t, consider serving the meal in discreet courses over the afternoon and/or evening. No need to get everyone to table and serve the whole meal from soup to salad to dessert in one frantic burst. Adds informality, allows guests to circulate, removes all timing problems, and, best of all, eliminates the need to loosen the belt half way through the meal.

Be sure to withhold the dessert to the end of the day so the kids and husbands earn the sweets.

ry
Beavercreek, OR 

I’m surprised at both of you: publishing negative comments about two or three perfectly useful and tasty parts of a beef, none of which should be allowed to go to waste.

1) In my grandfather’s day, they used to give beef liver away: they don’t do that anymore.

2) Almost everyone overcooks liver of all kinds. Sliced thick or thin, it should be very pink in the middle, otherwise the texture becomes granular. Milk is not necessary. If you find mature beef liver too strong, slice some onions and cook them together - actually, start the onions first so you caramelize them but don’t overcook the liver. The sweet onions will offset that strong taste.

3) Kidney’s do take some extra prep: as a kid, when we entertained a lot in a town that had no caterers, my job when we served beef and kidney pie, was to clean the kidneys. Read first and decide whether you want to tackle the project - in my opinion, it’s worth the trouble.

4) Again, you shouldn’t publish what you botch unless you fess up. Basic tongue is simple, tasty, and a tradition in many cultures. Here’s one EASY way: Wash the tongue. In a deep vessel, cover it with water adding a little sugar, cider vinegar, bay leaf, whole mustard, and garlic. Bring to a boil, then simmer until the tongue is cooked through. Remove from the water and let it cool enough to handle. The skin will peel off easily. If the tongue is cooked, you won’t need a knife. Slice thinly if you’re going to make sandwiches (you really don’t need a butcher for this, just a well sharpened blade) or thicker if you’re going to plate it.

You can strain the cooking liquid, reduce it, and make a gravy, adding vinegar to taste. Or you can stew some stone fruit (plums, apricots, etc) and top the meat with those. Total prep time should not exceed 15 minutes and cooking time will depend on the size of the tongue but not exceed 90 minutes.

Now, try again, both the liver and the tongue, and then print a retraction - these morsels are by no means waste meat.

Richard Yarnell
Beavercreek, OR

As a youngster, I used to stand in the front row of the Vita-Mix demo stand at the County Fair. I got my share of samples, but the guy usually booted me out so a paying customer could get in. In those days, the whole thing was stainless. Now they’re plastic. Except for the cap that goes into the top, they’re Lexan. (The hole in the cover is to allow the specially made push stick to be used while the machine is running. It’s just short enough to stop above the blade. It helps to use it while making thick concoctions.

I disagree with Hank about making Humus in the Vita Mix. I like mine a little course so the food processor is a better choice, IMO.

Last week, when we were treated to a a recipe for cucumber soup, I was going to post about what we call “Yogi’s,” yogurt based smoothies, both sweet and savory - Hot summer ones are yogurt, cucumber or tomato or both, olive oil, lemon, salt, and a fragrant herb of choice. Since there isn’t a real liquid to start with, I coarsely cut the cucumbers and liquefy them first. Since I don’t peel the cukes, I like to run them on high (Vita Mix high) long enough to make the skin disappear. Everything else goes in to become smooth. Finally, to cool it all down, several ice cubes which, when reduced to water so fast, makes the Yogi cold.

For those of us of a certain age, my County Fair days were back in the late 40’s and 50’s, the Vita Mix, or any equivalent, powerful, blender has another important use. By making cream soups with totally macerated veggies, we improve by three and four times, the amount of nutrition our guts can extract from things like spinach, kale, chard, beet greens, broccoli, etc. It takes me about a minute to reduce a batch of lightly steamed spinach into a creamed soup.

flipping

One other thing: it’s berry season in Oregon. Although high powered blenders can dispose of the seeds, I think they spoil the taste of a berry Yogi. So in our kitchen, we run them through the Vita Mix and then a strainer before putting the juice back in the blender with the rest of the ingredients (lemon, sugar, and yogurt plus a few ice cubes.) The birds will love you for your trouble.

Sarah’s comment reminds me of something I had intended to suggest.

Unfortunately, canning is a hot and humid activity, especially when it’s done indoors. If you can, do it outdoors like we do. We have a rudimentary gas camp stove (propane) that has a 30K propane burner on it. That’s more than adequate to keep a 9qt water bath hot (keep it out of direct wind. All that steam and heat is then out of the house. Even if your use a pressure canner, there’s significant heat and steam released from one batch to the next.

While it is efficient to do one batch after another, using water that’s already hot, it’s far easier on body and soul (sole, too) to pick only ripe produce and spread the process out over several days.

If you don’t have a gas bbq, consider picking up a single burner 30K-40K propane burner for use outside. For $40-$50 bucks, you’ll be cooler in the kitchen during the canning season.

ry

There’s another reason that home canning for gardeners has become important (not, of course, explaining why fewer people do it now than used to). There are fewer varieties of crops available to us than there used to be. Moreover, more and more of those derive from the commercial, patented, varieties developed for the industrial food industry that want uniformity of size and ripening date.

We try to plant open pollinated varieties that ripen over many weeks rather than patented varieties that ripen, for all practical purposes, all at once.

As an example, we use an ever bearing raspberry that produces two crops a year, each ripening over a period of several weeks. As a result, we have fresh berries during a much longer season (2) and the need for putting up far fewer for off season use.

For those who want to pursue use of tasty, extended season, heritage varieties of fruits and vegetables that would have been familiar to their grandmothers and great grandmothers, contact organizations like Seed Savers, among others.

There is no self-respecting gardener who hasn’t canned. None of us, as gardeners have the discipline to grow only what we can eat day to day, and most of us haven’t enough friends, let alone acquaintances to be rid of all our production. Besides, home canned food is more than likely better than commercial stuff - the primary reason being that you start with ripe materials.

You wanted a story: when I was acting at the Oregon Shakespeare Festival, we found ourselves in Harry and David country. Although our little farm had very few mature trees on it, we did have access to cherries, peaches, and other fruits just for the picking. We also had a house in which the builder had installed a well insulated room intended to be a walk-in freezer. There was no compressor but there were floor to ceiling shelves set so there was just space enough for quart jars 3 deep. I’ll let you do the calculation: 7’ high, 8’ deep and 6’ wide. Our youthful exuberance and plentiful crops led us to fill every foot of shelves with canned goods. When I left the Festival for NYC, much of what we trucked East was in quart mason jars. I think we finished the last jar of cherries 8 or 9 years later. Probably no nutritional value left but they still tasted like Ashland.

A caution for those new to canning: until you get the hang of it, stick to acid fruits and vegetables. After 40 years I still don’t can meats and generally freeze non-acid vegetables.

And as a last gesture, a recipe that may qualify as canning. Take a sound head of cabbage and shave it into kraut - as thin and uniform as you can. I suggest you refer to a copy of JOY old enough to still have canning instructions in it. In addition to salting the cabbage, to each layer add several bay leaves and two or three crushed garlic cloves. Ferment and can as instructed. However, don’t taste it until after you’ve processed the last jar. To do so cuts down on the amount that makes it to the pantry, it’s that good.

ry

I’ve been freezing pesto for years, but NEVER in jars.

Assemble your pesto (I’ve not run into one that doesn’t freeze well)
to completion except for cheese. Using a spatula, carefully
fill all the cells of a plastic ice cube tray, being careful to force
out any air bubbles (it takes a little over two cups to fill an
ordinary tray). Place the tray in a plastic freezer bag and allow to
freeze solid. Twist the tray and remove the cubes to a plastic
freezer bag (I double bag). One cube roughly equals a serving when
you add cheese at the time of use. It takes about 15 minutes thaw a
cube. I usually set them out when I start to cook and add the cheese
separately to the dish.

I’ve not noticed any change in flavor in our -10F freezer for up to a
year. Note: I do not use butter. I use a good quality EVOO, never
add salt (draws water out of the leaves), do include pine nuts, garlic
and the herb of the day. If you use an herb that’s enhanced with a
little lemon juice, that can be included in the frozen mix.

Talk about elegant fast food....

Richard Yarnell
Beavercreek, OR

--
Make a small loan, Make a big difference - http://www.Kiva.org
---

This is primarily to columnists who limit their definition of poultry to chicken, duck, and turkey: bring back the rabbit.

When it acomes to being earth friendly, the rabbit is the most efficient of all domesticated food crops. It thrives on small amounts of grass and requires little in the way of grain supplements. A 10 or 11 pound doe, conservatively managed, will produce on average 32 off-spring each year. She’ll do this on a steady diet of only 9 ozs of high quality grass or alfalfa that can be fed as pellets. She is comfortable in about 12 sq ft of enclosure. The juveniles will be harvested at a gross wt of around 5 pounds dressing to 3. The skeleton is very light so most of that is edible wt. We’re looking at a 10 pound adult rabbit producing around 90 pounds of dressed meat each year
feeding on grass and water.

The meat is low fat. Most of a rabbit’s fat is carried on the skin. Any body cavity fat will encase the kidneys. It’s versatile, easy to prepare, and nutritious, to say nothing of tasty. It resembles white meat of chicken, slightly finer grained.

When I was a kid in the late forties and early fifties, I managed 200 breeding does and sold all the rabbit they would produce to packing houses, restaurants, and neighbors. During the Depression and WWII, almost everyone with a back yard had a rabbit hutch. It may be that rabbit became associated with hard times. Believe me, it does not deserve to be banished from the table.

So cooks: find rabbit and promise not to overcook it (140-150 internal is plenty). Columnists: Unite to bring back a demand for domestic rabbit as the ecologically correct, easily produced, and nutritious source of protein and pleasure it can be. Good roasted, bbq’d, fried, as a curry, en brochette, as a meat in soups and stews,...

Richard Yarnell
Beavercreek OR

Three weeks? Is that all? I’ve had the same starter for almost 40 years now (gasp). There have been times when I didn’t/couldn’t use it regularly. On the road with a show, in the military overseas, moving from one place to another, or, as now, building a house and camping out where bread baking just isn’t in the cards.

I stop feeding the stuff, crank down on the jar it’s in after the danger of exploding dough is past and leave it in the back of the fridge. The longest dormancy was about 5 years and it did take about 4 feedings to get it back in shape, but the flavor, as best as I remember, is about the same. Surely, nothing else could horn in to replace my sleeping friends.

For Hank. I didn’t believe this, but being a sport I tried it and against all logic it seems to have worked: I’d been told that one can recover a strain (we now know, two) of sourdough critters from the soft interior of a loaf you like.

I can imagine that the interior of a loaf doesn’t kill 100% of the organisms that are active when the loaf hits the heat. I can also imagine that dormant organisms have a higher tolerance for heat of baking, but there really shouldn’t be any sleeping cells in the batter. Any ideas, or is there another agent at work - luck?

ry

I’m surprised you left out the “key” ingredient that gives the distinctive flavor to fried rice that recalls your favorite oriental restaurant - fish sauce.

For those unfamiliar with this staple, it’s a fermented product and very salty. Go slow with it the first time. Once you get past the smell of it hitting the hot skillet the first time, you’ll find it becomes a staple in vegetables and stews, stir fry and other inspired dishes. A word about the quality: fish sauce is awarded from one to five crabs, depending on quality. Never buy less than three crabs and go to five if you can find it. The difference in cost isn’t great.

As with potatoes for hash, always make sure you cook enough rice the night before to provide for breakfast fried rice in the morning. The more vegetables you dice into the rice, starting here with onions and garlic but preceded in cooking by harder vegetables like carrots, the better the nutrition will be. But even a few for color, well, it’s fine fast food.

Since I do most, if not all, of the cooking around here, I make it a point that if potatoes are on the evening menu, they will appear as hash, garnished or not, in the morning. There’s always room for the extra two or three that will be used in the morning. Even on weekdays when time is short, fully cooked, diced potato cold from the night past, brown up quickly and make almost fast food.

I just served a batch to some friends. For dipping I used finger sized (well, thumb sized) meringues that were as light on the sugar as I could managed. Added a little cinnamon to the meringue and chocolate that had very little sugar in it. The textures were nicely complimentary.

ry