Clean your Veggies! And eat them too

Well sorry I am not posting so often. I am so busy in my garden in the summer, and I celebrated my 30th bday in CA with my nephew and rest of family on the last week of June. I'm a busy girl right now! Although not busy with my crafty stuff :( Hopefully I will have time soon. I was washing my kale and snap peas from the garden in a bowl of water when I was reminded of the Oprah Earth Day show which I totally LOVED that she did and had all these fantastic topics and information for the masses who may not have otherwise accessed it. I remembered there was a friend of Julia Robert's (who was also on the show) on there who had a recipe for a veggie spray to clean your veggies and fruits. I am going to get the stuff to make it tonight, but I thought I would share it with you as well if you are interested.

Sophie Uliano's Veggie Cleaner Spray

From the show Oprah's Earth Day Event

If you can't buy organic produce, you need to make sure you wash it thoroughly. Use this spray to make sure your fruit and vegetables are squeaky clean.

INGREDIENTS

• 1 cup water
• 1 cup distilled white vinegar
• 1 TBLS baking powder
• 20 drops of grapefruit seed extract*

Combine all ingredients in a large container or large bowl (baking soda will fizz up at first). Then, transfer to a spray bottle with a pump. Spray mixture on produce, and rinse thoroughly after 5 to 10 minutes. She said on the show that it takes 5-10 min to get all the pesticide residue and waxes to come off from your veggies and fruits. But also with organic you need to wash as well because of the manure, compost and possible other things they may use for fertilizer and/or pests that aren't necessarily safe to ingest (ie. diatomaceous earth I use in my garden). IF you are interested in Sophie's website and other green ideas check out her awesome website Gorgeously Green!

Garlic Scapes! How do I love thee? Let me Count the Ways

Garlic scapes are these curly things that grow from the tops of your garlic in the garden. They usually pop up early-to mid summer and they are actually how the garlic "seeds". The best time to cut them is about as soon as the start appearring, but be sure to gaze at them often, because they blend into the foilage and are hard to notice at first! I had to sit and stare at mine a few minutes before I noticed they were everywhere. Though if you don't plant more than a few garlic plants, you won't have to look so hard. I have two big patches of garlic growing in the garden right now as we love garlic and the flavor is SO much more amazing when you grow your own than buy that garlic at the store. There's no comparison.

But I really look forward to when the scapes are ready to harvest. Even if you choose not to eat them, it's best to cut them off when they start growing as they take away energy from the plant growing the bulb underground. You may be lucky enough to find these at your local farmers market. There are plenty of recipes for garlic scapes out there, but not many very unique ones. You will see a lot of the same ones out there, sauteed with butter and salt, pepper is most common and easy. Since they are mdly garlic flavored, but with texture of asparagus, they are good that way. I have a bag full of them to eat right now and I have been adding them to soup but last night I decided they would make a great pizza topping and I am glad I tried it! They were AWESOME on pizza! Here are the two recipes I tried and both were really good. I was nervous that the red sauce would overpower the flavor of the scapes but they blended beautifully and tasted out of this world.

We bought the inexpensive pre-made pizza dough at Trader joes, but any crust you prefer would work fine. We baked one on the pizza stone and the other we used a grill method, first baking it for about 5 min at 400 degrees, then sliding on the top rack of the grill (on low) and putting the cover over it. Keep an eye on this though, if it gets too dark on the bottom move it back to the oven to finish it. But it adds nice flavor and cooks it like it's in a woodfire oven. :)

My First Quilt Was a Challenge

<----My nephew Noah Napping with his grandma in his new quilt . Well I first say sorry I haven't posted in a couple weeks. I had no idea it had been so long! I don't know if many people even read this, but I got caught up with all kinds of business the likes of which I can barely remember. It is a blur, but I ended up flying to California to stay at my parents and visit with my brother, sis-in-law and nephew for his 1st bday party on the 28th. My bday is on July 3rd so we celebrated together. For Noah's bday I really wanted to make him a quilt but I had NEVER made one before. THose of you who are familiar with the process know it's not for the weary. I waited too long to make it as I was busy (as previously mentioned) and I had about 2 weeks to throw something together. I had fabric in mind for it and since I am a total beginner I used this very simple pattern from about.com to started. I used the diagonal pattern and I wanted to use sock monkey fabric, banana print, brown paisley for the backing and the sock fabric print for the border. After I got all the squares together using my serger (as some quilters do not recommend serging a quilt because of accuracy, I was too busy to worry about that stuff!) I realized that it was going to be huge, so I cut off about 5 rows of squares on the bottom entirely. IN the end it was about 36" square. After that I attached border strips using the sock fabric print, and then "bagged out" the quilt to finish it easily rather the more fancy, accurate way of finishing. I figure Noah may end up dragging this thing around anyway, so accuracy was not too important, and serging was important for durability. Quilting it was a challenge as I could barely fit all that stuff in my sewing machine and still sew straight. You must need a special foot for quilting but I was too flustered to even look for one, I just had at it on my regular little Brother sewing machine. I quilted the quilt in diagonal lines for easiness and to avoid highlighting my sometimes, inaccurate seams by not "stitching in the ditch". I bought my first cutting mat and rotary cutter for this project, they were on sale at Joann Fabrics 40% off so that was good enough excuse for me to get one. I have to say, if I cut all this with scissors it would have taken MUCH longer! Cutting all the pieces was the most tedious part of it. Ironing and sewing the patches was the next hardest part. I did little parts at a time. I cut one day, sewed the front another, sewed the backing another, and layered/quilted the last day. IT was necessary as I have no patience with myself. Overall, it's a cute quilt! Not perfect by any means, I would have liked to have the bananas on the backing and the paisley where the bananas are in hindsight. But there was no way I was gonna tear that thing apart and start over again! I also made Noah a sock monkey, I put it together in the car while we drove to the Seattle airport (1-1/2 hour drive) so it was very, ahem, home-made looking. I didn't get a picture of it but you wouldn't be impressed anyway.

Planet Green Channel

The first "all green channel" http://http://planetgreen.discovery.com/ Planet Green I don't know when this channel started airing officially but I am sick today at home and I cannot change the channel! Everything on is interesting and fun to watch. Even if I am aware of many of the things they are doing I am really enjoying seeing people adjust their lifestyles and not to mention all the hot guys, and sexy people in general talking compost, green building, etc... Right now there is the show on with hottie Adrian Grenier called Alter Eco, http://http://planetgreen.discovery.com/tv/alter-eco/ and they are building a house the green way but meeting interesting people and showing cool edofriendly shops while they are doing it. OK i know that being green is getting trendy, and this is kinda cheesy for those of us who have always been into protecting the earth, but if this is what it takes to make things more positive for our future let's just let this run its course and hope that it turns out positive. BEsides I can't get enough of these hot guys like Leanardo DiCaprio http://http://planetgreen.discovery.com/tv/greensburg/ talking green ! And they have http://http://video.on.nytimes.com/?fr_story=36144fd6c6cc39bfcb995f6b75346b16f0f84e9a funny commercials! And did I mention SEXY HOT GUYS???? (Yes guys, that machositic "I can't give up my giant truck" primative attitude is NOT attractive to most women).

Pasta Bolognese My Way

Earlier this year my parents came out to visit us in Washington state. We went to Seattle for dinner one night and ate at this wonderful place called The Pink Door http://www.thepinkdoor.net/ . I ordered some homemade spinach lasagna, Jarrod ordered some sort of pork chop, and upon the servers reccomendation my parents both ordered pasta bolognese. I don't eat beef but of course I've heard of the dish, it's pasta with meat sauce I thought. BIg deal. But all my parents kept saying was "this is so good" and had Jarrod give it a try which had him saying the same thing.
   So ever since I've been wondering the big deal is. This weekend I whipped out the ol pasta machine and decided to make my own version to see if it was any good. The recipe sounds so simple I couldn't imagine what was so great about it. So first I made a wheat noodle version of tagliatelle, since that's the type of noodle the dish was served with at the restaurant. Tagliatelle is a wide egg noodle, wider than fettucine.
Then I made my own version of the sauce after reading several different highly rated recipes of the beef version, I adapted them to make my own recipe. The sauce smelled wonderful cooking and the noodles were a pain to make, as is all homemade pasta, but well worth the effort as always.
While you don't have to make your own noodles, I highly reccomend you buy fresh made noodles or at the very least, get those fettucine noodles in the refrigerated section to make this dish. The results were out of this world yummy, I don't know why because the ingredients are very simple. I do admit that the use of milk in the sauce seemed very weird to me and I was skeptical, but not anymore. From now on this will be a treat in our house.

Cara's Pasta "Bolognese"
Serves 4-6

For the Noodles Makes 1 1/4 pounds.
2 1/2 cups all-purpose flour, plus extra for kneading
1 cup whole wheat flour
5 large eggs

Mound flour in center of a large work surface, and make a well in the middle. Crack eggs into the well. Using a fork, beat eggs; slowly incorporate flour, beginning with inner rim of well. When flour is incorporated, gather dough together to form a rounded mass. Begin kneading dough with the palms of your hands. Once dough comes together, scrape up any dried bits of dough; discard. Lightly flour work surface; knead dough until smooth and elastic, about 10 minutes. Wrap dough in plastic wrap; rest for 30 minutes at room temperature before using. Divide dough into 4 pieces; keep 3 pieces covered with a slightly damp kitchen towel. Flatten dough to a shape somewhat narrower than pasta machine opening. Lightly dust dough with flour. Feed through machine's widest setting. As pasta emerges, gently support it with your palm and guide it onto the work surface.
Fold dough in thirds; roll out again. Repeat process 5 times. Pass pasta through the next finer setting, repeating the folding and rolling process 6 times. At the third setting, repeat process only 3 times. If pasta sheet becomes too long to work with easily, cut it into 2 pieces. Dust pasta lightly with flour to prevent sticking, if necessary. Roll dough through progressively thinner settings, without folding, until you have reached the thinnest or next-to-thinnest setting. Using the widest-cut attachment of the pasta machine, cut pasta sheets into 1/2-inch wide strips. To cut pasta by hand, cut each pasta sheet into 10-inch lengths. Brush lightly with flour, roll up sheet, and, using a sharp knife, cut into 1/4-inch-wide strips; unroll. Use tagliatelle immediately, or dry on a floured work surface and store in an airtight container for up to three days.

For the Sauce
1 tablespoon olive oil
1 large onion, chopped fine
4-6 cloves garlic, minced
3 carrots, chopped fine
3 celery ribs, chopped fine
1/2 pound ground lean turkey
1/2 pound Hot Italian Turkey Sausage, removed from casings
1 cup milk (any FF, 2%, whole, whatever you prefer)
freshly grated nutmeg to taste
1 cup dry white wine
 28- to 32-ounce can whole tomatoes including juice
 1/2 cup tomato sauce

**To make a vegetarian (lacto/ovo) version use Gimme Lean Veggie Sausage grounds and/or Veggie meat grounds in place of the turkey. I am sure it will be just as tasty!

In large heavy saucepan heat oil over moderately high heat and sauté onion, carrot, and celery, stirring 2 minutes. Add turkey and turkey sausage and cook, stirring, 2 minutes, or until meat is no longer pink. Season mixture with salt and pepper.
Add milk and nutmeg and cook, stirring, until most milk is evaporated, about 10 minutes. Add wine and cook, stirring occasionally, until liquid is evaporated, about 10 minutes.
In a blender or food processor coarsely purée tomatoes with juice and stir into sauce with tomato sauce.
Cook sauce at a bare simmer, uncovered, stirring occasionally, 1 hour and 15 minutes (sauce will be thickened) and season with salt and pepper. Sauce may be made ahead and cooled, uncovered, before being chilled, covered, 2 days or frozen 1 month. In an 8-quart kettle bring 7 quarts salted water to a boil.
Cook pasta until al dente (about 6 minutes for fresh, longer for dried) and drain in a colander. In a heated large bowl immediately toss pasta with sauce. This is essential to toss the pasta with sauce because the noodles will absorb some of the flavor.

After making this I've decided I need to get an electric pasta machine. That hand cranker is quite a pain in the ass after awhile!

Old School Soups for those chilly Spring Nights

Well I've been SO busy in my garden this month I have barely had any time to work on anything else. Hence the lack of any new items in my store lately.

Spring is "go time" for me in the garden and I am so busy planting veggies, tilling, weeding and watering that I have to put almost everything else on the backburner. Not to mention the 2 stray cats we are taking care of for now until we can find homes for them. Having 6 cats and 3 large dogs in a tiny 1000 sq ft home can get a little crazy and messy!

But back to my point- even though it warms up and we are ready with our shorts on, we still get a sporadic sprinkling of chilly and/or breezy spring days that make us grab the sweatshirts in defeat. As I've mentioned before, my hubby LOVES soup so we pretty much always have some every week even in the summer. I've got a long row of leeks that I planted last summer, they overwintered and then got big enough this spring. Now I think they are getting too old because some are going to seed, look at this big wiggle "scape" growing on one of them. I cooked this one last night and I couldn't bear to throw into the compost so i wrapped it around my neck like jewelry for the evening.

So one thing I have been making lately is potato soup with leeks to use up the leeks. This soup is something my grandma used to make all the time and always in HUGE batches because my mom came from a family of 12, yes 12! My grandma is gone now, and over the years of trying to get this recipe the way she made it I've realized that the most basic of ingredients is all that is needed.

Potato Soup

2-4 leeks (depending on size)

Bag of baking potatoes

Garlic (optional)

Salt Pepper

Chicken or Vegetable Broth (optional)

Slice tops of leeks off the leek and discard into your saintly compost pile. Then trim the end of the leek off, slice in half and thouroughly wash them out under water, to get all the dirt out of the layers. Then slice them up, put a little spray of oil or bit of butter in your pan and start to sautee, chop up the garlic and throw it in the pot too.

While they sautee over medium heat, peel and chop your potatoes up. They don't need to be fancy cause you will be pureeing the soup at the end. Throw em in the pot and pour water or broth over the vegetables until they are covered. Bring to a boil until potatoes are soft, stirring occasionally.

Turn heat to low, and puree the soup in batched or with an immersion blender. You can make it as smooth or chunky as you wish, just try to make sure you blend up those leeks. Then salt and pepper to taste. Voila, potato soup.

I like to serve with fresh snipped chives, sour cream, and/or light cheddar cheese to sprinkle on top.

The other soup I have been making lately is a new favorite for us, but an old favorite for a lot of people, chicken and dumplings. I never had this before I made it for myself and I don't know why. It's satisying, comforting and delicious. The original recipe called for 1 medium chopped onion, but I like to use sliced leeks instead.

Chicken and Dumplings

1 1/2 pounds organic chicken breast tenders

2 tablespoons butter

1 russet potato, peeled and diced

2 medium carrots, peeled and diced or thinly sliced

1 medium onion, chopped or 2 medium leeks, sliced

1 rib celery, diced

1 bay leaf, fresh or dried

Salt and freshly ground black pepper

1 teaspoon poultry seasoning,

 1/3 palm full (I use season salt)

2 tablespoons flour, a handful

1 quart organic/free range chicken broth (it's one of those boxes- like 4 cups)

2 cups Heart Healthy Bisquick Mix (the lowfat one)

1/2 cup organic milk

Fresh dill

Fresh chives

Handful flat-leaf parsley, chopped

1 cup frozen green peas

Dice tenders into bite size pieces and set aside. Wash hands. Place a large pot on stove over medium high heat. Add butter, vegetables and bay leaf and cook 5 minutes, stirring frequently. Season mixture with salt, pepper and poultry seasoning. Add flour to the pan and cook 2 minutes. Stir broth or stock to the pot and bring to a boil. Add chicken to the broth and stir. Place biscuit mix in a bowl. Combine with 1/2 cup milk and mined fresh herbs of choice (like the dill and/or chives).

Drop tablespoonfuls of prepared mix into the pot, spacing dumplings evenly. Cover pot tightly and reduce heat to medium low. Steam dumplings 8 to 10 minutes. Remove cover and stir chicken and dumplings to thicken sauce a bit.

Stir peas into the pan, remove chicken and dumplings from heat and serve in shallow bowls. There you have it. Both recipes are easy and delicious and perfect for those breezy evenings.

Ski-To Sea Weekend Here

Well it's that time of year here in Whatcom county, Ski-to-Sea is on sunday!It's time for Ski-to-Sea race this weekend for any of you interested here is the info. Ski To Sea relay race info The Ski To Sea Race consists of 7 legs starting at the Mt. Baker Ski Area. The 2007 Race is online, with video of each leg. Visit them by pasting this into your browser http://www.skitosea.com/content/Race_Legs_info/Race_Legs_info.asp The legs of the race are as follows: Cross Country Downhill / Snowboard Running Biking Canoe Mountain Biking Sea Kayak I am NOT racing this year! I don't know if I will again ever, it's tough and the people I get stuck training with don't really take it seriously so I've given up. I may be down at the festivities and party area though. There's plenty of bands, bars, parades, and festival all for celebrating the end of the race. And don't forget the parade on Saturday! You can see the Blonde Ambition Belly Dancers (my old troupe!) in the parade if you go :) Cross your fingers for great weather! It always seems to rain except the year I raced it was super hot, of course.

I Made a treasury! WOOHOO

This is so cool, I totally snuck into the treasury and made myself one. It's a rasta treasury, naturally. :) Take a peek before it's gone!

Making the Meditation Flute Bag

SO my friend Greg sends me a message a couple months back and says he has some knitting missions he would like to take on for him. I of course say I will. This is one of them. Being a musical type he recently bought a meditation flute "Ala David Carradine" he said and he needed a bag to carry it around. This flute is 3 feet long and very narrow.

So I bought 2 skeins (135 yards each) pretty Manos Del Uruguay Space-Dyed Wool Yarn in "Jungle" -shades of green (http://www.manosdeluruguay.co.uk/) and knit the pattern for a Mutidirectional Scarf from this site in a very long length. www.angelyarns.com/free-patterns/noro-scarf.php Then I threw it in the wash with some towels and felted it. It felted very nicely and made the colors blend a lot better. But the purpose of felting was to get a more fabric-like material.

I cut the width and lenth of the scarf out of the felted yarn and then if I was thinking this out, I would have sewn the strap on the edge of the fabric at this step. I used nylon webbing and 2 D-rings to create the strap. Taking a very short length of the webbing (maybe 2-3 inches) I singed the ends with alighter (to keep it from unthreading) and then folded it over the top of the 2 D-rings and sewed it together. Then sewed the piece near the bottom end of the fabric. Then I took the rest of the of the webbing (about 2 yards) and sewed the top of the strap about 4 inches below the top of the fabric on the edge. Really I didn't do this till later, but I will explain why, it was a mistake.

Then I sewed a thin layer of cotton fill, the length/width of the fabric, onto the felted fabric. At this point I folded the piece in half (with filling on outside of fold) and sewed up the seam on the edge. Carefully I turned the tube right-side out. I took some thin, black taffeta and sewed a tube almost the same width and length of the bag and with the right side facing out, I sewed the top of the bags together, afterwards, stuffing the black tub inside the felted tube. This is the lining so the flute can easily slide in and out of the bag.

At this point this is when I actually hand-sewed the straps to the bag because I was such a scatter-brain and forgot to do it earlier. But don't do this, sew them on before you close the bag together, it will be MUCH easier! And you can use your machine. Then I used a small piece of silky thick string and sewed it around the outside of the top of the bag with a yarn needle, using big stitches, so that it can be used to open and close the bag. I used almost ALL of the yarn, so make sure you get enough. That's it, voila metitation flute tote! I know I may not be explaining this clearly enough, and if I was thinking about it I would have taken pictures as I was putting it together. But I was too impatient and felt rushed as I made Greg wait long enough for me to put this together and I have yet to finish two other scarves for him! If you do attempt to make this bag or something similar, feel free to contact me and ask any questions. I will do my best to help you :)

MEow Meow kitties Attack!

WTF? I am a kitty beacon or what? As you may or may not know, there has been construction in front of my house for about a month now. They are moving our road away from our house about 50 feet. The thing is, across the old road is a big strip of trees and brush that has separated some lawns from the road, and this where a lot of strays seem to find themselves. Seems that the noise and big construction machines are scaring these cats out of the woods. The last batch of strays (Alice and Tater) were living over there.

Then this last kitty we have at the moment, Harley, we are not sure if he is from over there or not. But now another cat showed up in my front yard yesterday when I got home from running errands. After I pulled in the driveway this cute little lady walked up to me with some hungry sounding "meow meows" and she was crusty with no collar and thin. I fed her and she totally pigged out and drank the water I gave her. I would be surprised if she belongs to anyone, and if she does, they don't deserve her if this is the way they treat her. SSSOOOOOOOOOOOOOO we have yet ANOTHER stray cat in the garage, living in the big dog crate. We already started dewoming her and she's very cuddly. She loves to eat and seems to be quite happy with the new situation, although a little nervous.

Earlier this week we paid to have Harley spayed and tested for feline aids and leukemia. Even with a coupon from the Alternative Humane Society, the bill was over $100 bucks. Now some of you might think this is crazy, but I cannot turn my head and look the other way when I see stray dogs or cats, how can you???? At the very least you can take them to the humane society. There are TONS of stray cats and dogs and besides being overpopulated and neglected, many of these animals are sick, passing diseases to one another (and your cats if you let them outside) and they are breeding like CRAZY. This is a community responsibility. We should all take this responsibility and there wouldn't be this problem! I can't afford this but I am not going to ignore these sick and/or starving animals wandering around my neighborhood and I really can't understand why ALL of my neighbors ignore it! It's heartless and cruel.

I have 4 cats already and a tiny house, so even though these strays are all lovely and sweet I cannot afford to keep them. I spay and neuter them because in the chance they become stray again, they won't be spreading babies around all over the county. The stray cat population in our county has grown over 200% in my county in the past 5 years..... IF this is happening in my county you better believe it's happening in yours! Take some responsibility, even if you don't want to keep any, you can help. Call your local shelters there are plenty of them around to help. Post an ad in craigslist with the requirement to neuter or spay when they are adopted. And stop leaving your cats outside! It doesn't matter if you think they like it or not, it's not safe for them be outdoors. http://www.hsus.org/pets/pet_care/cat_care/keep_your_cat_safe_at_home_hsuss_safe_cats_campaign/its_a_dangerous_world_out_there.html

FYI- if anyone is interested in my aprons or jewelry stuff, feel good shopping there knowing that most if not all of my "profits" are going towards taking care of these animals and all of my 7 pets (4 cats and 3 big dogs) as well that were rescued. Not that this is supposed to be plug, but I can't handle this by myself! I am NOT an ANimal Shelter!!!! And our local non-kill shelter stopped fostering cats, so they have nowhere to go except the regular Humane Society and you better believe that kitty season is from Spring through fall and no adult cats are getting adopted, they are just getting euthanized. So I am not taking them there. I have a tiny 1050 sq ft home, it barely fits us as is, but I have to do this because it's the responsible thing to do for us, and our community and these sweet cats and dogs who cannot help themselves. They cannot speak for themselves either, so give them a voice and help. YOu can find A LOT of your local shelters listed on www.petfinder.com