My Husband Flew The Coop

Oops.  A little typo.  My husband is building the coop.  Thank goodness.  I'm glad he's still around. 

Jeff is getting lots of help.

  His best helper, Tristan, has all the right tools.

 

I can't wait for it to be finished so the little henny pennies can move in.  Grace has named them already: Ruth and Naomi.  If we get 4, the other two will be Mary and Elizabeth.  If we get 5, I get to pick the name and I pick Omeletta.  (grin)  But I think we'll start with 2.

The coop will be the Sunny Side Up Hut.  The nesting boxes will be, of course, The Egg Plant.  And the run will be The Chicken Strip.  Only 4 cells of my brain remain.  It's tough being the sole, self-appointed building-namer of our household. 

Bounty in a Box

Did you know most produce travels approximately 1500 miles before it reaches your plate?  That's a lot of pollution!  Plus, how many vitamins are lost during that transit time?

Everything in this box was grown and harvested 30 miles away from my home.  And that makes me feel pretty peachy.

We recently subscribed to a Community Supported Agriculture (CSA) share with Z and D Frago Family Farm.  I picked up this box yesterday from Debra, who would be the "D" in "Z and D". She is as nice as can be and is a wealth of farming knowledge.  It's comforting to meet the people who grow the food I feed my children. 

If you are local to my area, take a look at their listing by clicking the link above.  If you're not, check out localharvest.org.  There are CSA's all over the United States and they usually have several drop off sites in the surrounding areas.  Plus, you'll find information on farmers' markets, family farms, and other sources of sustainably grown food in your area, where you can buy produce, grass-fed meats, and many other goodies.  California's climate allows many farms to continue producing for their CSA subscribers year-round.  But most farms will begin their CSA's by May and go through October.

Just for fun, I looked up listings for Tennessee because I know my dear Jana lives there.  The first CSA I clicked on offers (in addition to fruits and vegetables) "flowers, wreaths, preserves, soap, bread, vinegar and bath and body products"!  Isn't that fun?!   

The second CSA I clicked on showed this photo for their shares starting in May.  It just makes my mouth water!

There is such an abundance of organic, local goodness out there that is far better for our bodies, our local communities and our planet.  (Food, Inc, the movie or the book, does a good job of explaining why it's better).

Our house must be full of fruit bats and bunnies, because the persimmons and white radishes were gone the first day we got the box. I heard a small *poof* sound and saw a suspicious cloud of smoke where the tangerines used to be. The sweet potatoes didn't stand a chance, and the butternut squash was never heard from again.

My kitchen has been a blur of cooking and baking: Cream of butternut squash soup and braised radishes.  Citrus marinated chicken and sweet potato casserole.  Winter vegetable and sausage soup.  Lemon bars, lemon bread and cranberry orange bread.  Oh my! 

(I'm happy to share any of these recipes--just ask in comments).

I think it will be exciting for the joeys to see what shows up in the box each week. 

And, finding and trying new recipes for some of the interesting produce we would never otherwise purchase, grow or know about, will be a fun and challenging adventure.   The exposure of these interesting foods to Bug, Bex & Dee (and myself!) is priceless.

Just look what we have to look forward to this summer (a photo Debra posted of a box that went out to a subscriber in July):

Now that's a bounty in a box!

_______________________________________

With such bounty comes humble gratitude. 

Let us all be in prayer for the people of Haiti.

Blog Action Day – Climate Change

Today I’m talking about climate change. It’s the topic for Blog Action Day ‘09. (I first read about this on Reduce Footprints).

What the blazes is Blog Action Day and why would you care?

“Blog Action Day is an annual event that unites the world's bloggers in posting about the same issue on the same day. Our aim is to raise awareness and trigger a global discussion.” -blogactionday.org

“This December, world leaders are meeting in Copenhagen, Denmark to draft a new global climate treaty -- one that has the potential to turn the tide on global warming and get our planet back on a brighter path. The problem is, most world leaders and their negotiators aren't getting it. They're not planning to do enough to to avert the climate crisis. But we can change that -- with one number, and one day. Sound implausible? Take a minute to hear us out. The number is 350, and it's now the most important number on the planet. 350 is the number that leading scientists say is the safe upper limit for carbon dioxide in our atmosphere, measured in parts per million. Since we're at 390 ppm now, it's a tough number, and getting back to it will require remarkable efforts. The good news is that people all around the world are mobilizing around 350 in a unique and beautiful movement to solve the climate crisis.” -an email from Bill McKibben, Co-Founder of 350.org

So. Let’s talk about the weather. Things are heating up? Not so you’d notice. But the science is clear. Greenhouse gases, like carbon dioxide, are being released into the atmosphere causing our globe to warm up. Small changes in temperature cause huge changes in the fragile balance all of life depends on.

I’m not a hippy. I don’t live in a grass hut and wear a leaf over my privates. I don’t have hairy arm pits. I don’t use an old t-shirt instead of toilet paper and then wash it so I can reuse it.

But you know what? Hairy arm pits are not a prerequisite to caring passionately about the environment.

So instead, I just buy toilet paper that hasn’t been bleached. (And by the way, it’s still white, so I’m confused by the practice of bleaching it in the first place…) It’s a simple little change. No one will notice, right? AH! That’s where you’re wrong! To say “my small changes won’t make a difference anyway, no one else is doing it, what does it matter anyway” is a victim’s statement. A whiner’s statement. I won’t make that statement any longer. I choose to say “I have committed to doing the best I can, when I can, however large or small of an impact it will make. I am proud of the green choices I make for my health, the health of my family and the health of this planet”. I know better, so I do better. No more procrastinating, no more hiding behind ignorance. The planet is in crisis. We are on a path to runaway climate change. I can do something about it.

In fact, I believe it’s the little things that are going to help make the turn around—that are going to pull us back from the 390 ppm of carbon dioxide our atmosphere is currently harboring and return us to a safer 350 ppm. Oh sure, the vast majority of change will probably come from corporations scaling back emissions and car companies creating cars that run on alternative fuels or something. But what about you & I? You are I count as one and two of the 6 billion people on earth. 6 billion people? That’s a lot of sway. That’s a lot of influence. And because people get jaded by the thought of full-scale, whopping changes in their everyday lives, we can instead focus on small, practical changes. Change out one traditional light bulb to a CFL? I can do that. YOU can do that. Heck, let’s just go all nutty and change every light bulb in the whole house! You’d be surprised at how pleased with yourself you’ll be. Ride your bike to the store to pick up a head of lettuce? (And take along a reusable grocery bag?) We can all do that. What if all 6 billion of us did that?

I am very well-read in some subjects and not so much in others. What can I write about climate change? What do I know? I’m not privy to the cutting edge science that leads us to the number 350.

But I can show you some things we do here at Kitchen With Kids. I can tell you that we are a normal, middle class family who loves Disneyland, backyard barbecues and individual servings of applesauce. We’re not perfect. But we also love this breathtakingly beautiful earth. So we’re implementing the changes that make sense for our family. Some of the changes are mindless. Some of the changes require a little sacrifice. But all are do-able. All are helpful.

Here’s the twins gettin’ jiggy with it in their chlorine free Seventh Generation diapers. (Which I’ve found to be just as effective as Huggies). Seventh Generation has online coupons and promotions in Babies R Us mailers. Earth’s Best and Full Circle diapers are great alternatives. Or, just one up me and use cloth diapers.

Chlorine free baby wipes. Again, just one up me and make your own “green” baby wipes, using chlorine free paper towels.

Here’s a few organic items we keep in our pantry. Organic options aren’t just at Whole Foods or Trader Joe’s anymore. A lot of these items are from Save Mart and Costco.

And just in case you were wondering how buying organic foods can reduce climate change, you can read this and/or this.

A tour of my fridge:

Look at the price on those grapes--$1.99 a pound—the same price as the non-organic grapes.

Think organic cheese is too costly? This cream cheese was 50 cents more than the traditional brand. 50 cents really adds up in a grocery bill. Believe me, I know. But so does a Starbucks coffee once a day. Or eating lunch out. So we don’t do that and instead we do this.

Organic chocolate syrup??? They’ve got organic everything!

Vinegar is a great cleaning product—a great alternative to harsh chemicals.

Seventh Generation has wonderful dish- and dishwasher soap. Again, I use coupons. Even Save Mart now carries this brand and I’ve seen it on sale there a couple of times.

This is by far my favorite laundry detergent. The eucalyptus and lavender fragrance leaves my clothes smelling so good.

But if that doesn’t float your boat, even Costco carries an environmentally friendly laundry detergent. And guess what? It costs less than their traditional equivalent!

The joeys have organic body wash. These brands lather up beautifully.

On any given day this is on my island countertop. Gross? Well, yeah, a little. But whatever.

It all gets taken out to our compost bin.

What else? The joeys and I wear tons of hand me downs. We like to buy produce locally at the farmer’s market. I like to combine a walk with a trip to the grocery store. I save gas, emissions, money and I get my work out in. We all have our own reusable water bottle or sippy cup, so there’s no need for bottled water.

Well. That’s that. We are far from perfect. I’m guilty of a few pretty un-green habits. But these are just some of the things we do that we believe can make a big impact in the long run. These things fit easily into our lifestyle and we’re proud of them.

Be a champion for the only home we have. Let me know in comments what sort of things you do.

Super Muffins (and a bit of a high chair rant)

The twins are napping and they're going to be ravenous when they wake up. So I thought I'd whip up a batch of super muffins while they're down! These muffins are super! And super good for you. As you'll see, they look good for you and even kind of taste good for you too. But we're finding we don't mind that so much anymore. In fact, we're starting to prefer it. Right before I got pregnant with the twins, I was craving McDonald's and Taco Bell at least once a week. Then I got pregnant with the twins and only wanted cereal and fruit smoothies every 2 hours. But my fast food cravings came back once the twins were born, though something strange and mid-lifey happened. I started to feel my mortal-ness in a big way. I love my kids insanely and I fear leaving them too soon. I started musing far too often about devastating illnesses that could strike. Saturated fat started to sound less and less tasty. Partial hydrogenation started to seem more and more evil. Choosing organic when I can, choosing fresh more often than not--those things seem so much more appealing now. Oh sure. I can hork a chocolate sheet cake with the best of them. And no one can take away my coffee creamer. Holidays? Forget it! I want butter by the pound and sugar baked into every chocolatey confection there are recipes for. But even cakes can be made with fresh, unadulterated ingredients, instead of modified food starch and yellow #5. I'm just talking about doing better most of the time. Not being a fanatic. But not continually making poor choices. Not taking the fun or occasional treats out of life. But stocking the pantry with dried fruit, oatmeal and whole wheat pasta to make game-time meal decisions a no-brainer. Not making my kids crazy. But always having fresh fruit on hand (better yet, growing our own) and offering a veggie platter when it seems the snack monster has possessed my daughter (daily, and with a vengeance at 4 pm). You must know, with such a long and preachy lead in, I'm going to try to persuade you to really love these, and it's going to be a hard sell. Especially near the end, I think I'll lose most of you. Okay, enough stalling. Here's the ingredients. I left out the one that's going to freak you out. Baby steps. Everything looks okay so far, right? (Yes, organic eggs are freakishly expensive!! We're looking into keeping a couple of backyard hens. A suburban home doesn't always lend itself easily to an organic or sustainable lifestyle, but keeping backyard chickens is remarkably easy and cost effective. Plus their poop would do wonders for our compost!). (Thanks to my friend Erin for always inspiring me to know better, to be better and to do better). Here I'm cracking 4 eggs into 1/2 cup of extra virgin olive oil.

Then I need 1/2 cup of applesauce. This is a jar of applesauce I put up last summer from the apple tree in our backyard. Have I told you about our cool apple tree? It has 5 branches from 5 different apple varieties grafted onto the trunk, so in a given season, we enjoy granny smiths, fujis, red delicious, yellow delicious or gala apples. Home Depot! Who knew?

Then 1/2 cup of sugar. It seems like a lot. But this recipe makes 36 muffins, so it's tolerable.

This is agave nectar:

I like agave nectar. It's low on the glycemic index because it has a low glucose content. On the downside, it does have a ton of fructose in it, not unlike the dreaded high fructose corn syrup. In fact, I think I read that it's levels of fructose may exceed that of hfcs. You could possibly romanticize this product and think it is directly dripped into this bottle from a freshly-cracked organic agave core held by a Bohemian woman dressed in burlap in the middle of the Mexican desert and sent straight to market by way of a Prius. But it's not. It's processed and hydrolyzed, like other sugars. But I like it. (It's possible that I just like anything from Trader Joe's. I'd find something good to say about a bag of clipped toenails if it was sold at Trader Joe's). It's a nice substitute for granulated and brown sugar because it is so stinkin' sweet that a tablespoon or two will do for a lot of recipes. Here I'm adding 2 tablespoons (1/8 cup) of agave nectar.

A teaspoon of vanilla.

Now I'm whisking it all together.

Wanna see how fast I can whisk?

Even faster!!

Okay. 3 cups of flour. I'm using 100% whole wheat because you really can't tell the difference in this recipe.

2 teaspoons of baking soda.

Somehow, as I was uploading pictures, a happy little girl snuck her way in. Would you look at that hair??? 1/2 teaspoon of cinnamon.

Mix it all together. It's lumpy.

Look at these pretty zucchinis!

I cut the ends off and throw them into the compost container to dump later!

Then I shred the zucchinis using a box grater.

Look at how fresh! That's a lot of zucchini. I only need 2 cups, but I'll use all of this anyway.

Then a cup of raisins or any other favorite dried fruit. This is an antioxidant blend sold at Costco that has blueberries, cherries, cranberries and plums.

Okay. Here's the part where most of you are probably angling your mouse pointers up to the little red x. This is a puree of blueberries and collard greens (can also be made with spinach).

It's a puree from The Sneaky Chef cookbook. The Sneaky Chef and Deceptively Delicious cookbooks aim to help one add veggies into regular recipes without changing appearance, texture or taste with the use of veggie purees. I love these books. I rarely use any of the recipes, but mostly ideas and inspirations from them. Like adding this puree to these muffins. Or, for instance, I also add spinach purees to spaghetti sauce and broccoli purees to refried beans for burritos. It's an amazingly easy way to boost the nutrient/antioxidant levels of regular meals. I have no intentions of being "sneaky" or "deceptive" or hiding these purees. Bug cooks most meals with me, so there's no pullin' any fast ones. She still eats fresh whole vegetables at mealtimes. But this is a nice and easy extra boost that helps us fit in that challenging 5 servings of fruits and vegetables a day.

A few months ago, I spent a day steaming and pureeing vegetables. I spooned the purees into zip-top freezer storage bags and tossed them into the freezer. I pull one out and thaw it in the fridge whenever I need one.

So if you're still with me, in goes the blueberry/collard green puree (about a cup to a cup and a half). Don't be grossed out.

If you're still grossed out, have a helper mix it up for you. You can stand back and breathe deeply into a paper bag.

Bug's favorite job is lining the cupcake tin. (Yes, good gracious, she is obsessed with winter clothes. I don't know why! I can't break her of it! And I figure in the grand scheme of choose-your-battles toddlerhood, it's an easy battle to surrender.) Usually we use silicone cupcake liners that my mother in law gave me. They are wonderful! In fact, I wish we had used them today so she can see them in action, and if I had thought about it, we would have. But instead, we decided to use paper liners for a change today.

Here I am filling the cups 1/2 to 3/4 full. I like to use my Pampered Chef scoop for stuff like this. It makes me feel important.

Here's a finished tray, waiting to bake.

Bake at 350 degrees for 18-20 minutes.

Okay, look. I know they look gross. They're kind of ugly if you stare too long. But try to think wholesome. Think organic bakery. Think San Francisco co-op. Think homegrown hippie who doesn't shave or shower. EW! No, don't think that! Dah! I just lost you again. Think tons of vitamin-rich vegetables wrapped up in a sweet batter and a cute muffin paper. Think life-extender!

See, they're not that bad. They're cute like how a pug is cute. They're so ugly, they're cute.

Well. The twins are up, and they seem to like 'em. The evidence is crumbled all over the place. (Muffin Drawback: swiffer vacs don't do sticky-crumb pick-up. And while we're on the subject-what in heaven's name would I do without my swiffer vac? Probably curl up into a trembling lump on the floor and whimper myself to sleep, while day by day, heaps of after-meal crumbs bury me.) (Rebuttal to the Muffin Drawback: I have a dog! Or, I could always ask Caleb to come over.)

How much do you love their new high chairs. Thank you Ikea! I think anyone who designed any other high chair that is sold in America should have to stand trial for crimes against homemakers. The blatant, flagrant, overt and incredibly confounding creation of nooks and crannies in high chairs is enough to make me scream, yell and question humanity. Just thinking about it, my head is starting to spin, exorcist-style. Why, oh why, would anyone put so many creases and crevices in a device that will be used to feed a child?! Do they think we'll like the aroma of 3 month old banana rotting in between the tray pieces? Do they think we'll enjoy the sound of crunchy pasta rattling around somewhere inside the seat? Do they think we relish the days we get to take the high chair outside and pressure wash it on the patio and then violently take a toothbrush to it? Someone tell me please!

Then dfK got this high chair from Ikea for her son. My head stopped spinning. My life, in an uncontrolled highchair-hating tailspin, became peaceful and recognizable once again. These high chairs have nary a nook, nor a cranny. God bless you Ikea. Here's that charming little girl again!

And this one. *sigh* What to do with this bald little boy?

So I have this feeling you're still gagging. Or at the very least, eyeing me skeptically and wondering if we should continue being friends. Here's some more evidence that people (kids) will actually eat these. (Excuse the horrible videography. It's hard to feed and film simultaneously.)