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I can’t wait to finish the transition because I have a lot of new posts lined up such as a new dandelion greens recipe (it’s dandelion season for many of us and will soon be dandelion season for everyone), a tutorial on making excellent pie crusts, and a shortbread recipe that we love.  Also coming up are some hints on garden planning and crop rotation on a small scale.

Happy homesteading!

Before: the blueberry bed is completely rampant with weeds and one of them living in this bed is a noxious persistent grass that sends runners underground.  It ‘s called quackgrass and is similar and often mistaken for crabgrass.  While crabgrass grows low to the ground, quackgrass grows rather tall.

Blueberries, like many cultivated food plants, does better when not competing with too many other plants near its roots.  They like good drainage but don’t like their roots to ever dry out so a heavy mulch of pine shavings is generally recommended.  The pine shaving help keep the soil acidic which blueberries prefer.

After. I have weeded and mulched my five blueberry plants.  I have two more blueberry plants to get in the ground that were transplanted from my old house and have been living in a pile of dirt.  They need to be situated soon so they can settle in.

I have, for a multitude of reasons, become more disconnected from my garden than I like to be over the past couple of years as our life has done a tremendous amount of shifting and changing.  Leaving one garden and having to begin from scratch in a new one has been a daunting project which I have not been at liberty to give as much energy as I’d like.  It is, never-the-less, beginning to take shape; to emerge from the vast expanse of lawn into an urban homesteader’s design of raised beds, fruit trees strategically placed, and permanent plantings beginning to mature and fill out.  The weeds are, as you can imagine (and see for yourself!) out of control.

Late winter is the time to strategize how you want your garden to evolve.  When winter’s fist of ice let’s go of your region it’s time to clean up anything you didn’t clean up in the fall.  It’s time to prepare beds for planting with early crops like lettuces, greens, potatoes, peas, and favas.  I don’t have a huge property and yet landscaping, planning, and maintaining the 10,000 feet of this earth I call my own is actually overwhelming to me.  I used to think I wanted a few acres and now I know that I’ll never be ready for that much responsibility until I can tame this small lot I have now.

I started with my monastery garden- pulling out the carcasses of last year’s fava’s, weeds, tomatillos, and rotting chard clumps.  It is now ready to be planted with seeds and potatoes.  Being out there felt so good, like coming home after a very long trip around the world.  Plants and soil induce a great calm in my body that is at once a relief and quietly energizing.  Late yesterday afternoon I cleared my blueberry bed.  It was a long quiet meditation on how humans are always trying to force control in their environments and what it says about us.

I do believe that the style of gardening each of us has says a lot about us.  It tells our secrets if only most people could read gardens for the open hearts they are.  I have friends who keep extremely tidy gardens with never a weed allowed to sprout and I know people who exert a certain amount of control but who let a couple of corners grow long and let surprises rise from the dirt, and then there is me.  I always seem to let my garden go semi-wild.  Weeding is therapeutic and yet I have so little time outside of work and parenting that it is one of the first things I let go of when I’m thinking about how I will spend my time on my days off.

I knelt down to the blueberry bed and knew that the network of spreading quackgrass roots underneath the surface was already an intense highway of tough growth that I was going to have to fight with my hands, my weeder, and my back.  As I began pulling at the easier chick weed and gentler grasses I thought about how combative the quackgrass made me feel.  I was developing, in my mind, a plan of war against it.  Yet even as I thought about how to get as much of the crawling roots up as possible I felt a deep sense of futility.  You don’t, you can’t, get rid of quackgrass.  Unless you resort to poisonous measures.  Just like the bindweed that plagues my yard will always live here with me.

We humans like to conquer everything around us.  We like to be in complete control and to dictate what will and won’t live in our environment at all times.  We demand that plants and animals live by our rules, that any species of plant we don’t appreciate is completely eradicated because the sight of unwanted plants offends us deeply.  That’s what we tell ourselves.  How many gardeners do you know have become like mad generals fighting crabgrass?  I have heard many gardeners talk so vehemently against it that I could easily imagine them resorting to explosives if only that would kill it all finally, forever.  Tough weeds inspire anger, frustration, and dictatorship in most gardeners.

As I pulled and knelt and tried not to strain my weak back I thought about these things.  Most of us would agree (regardless of our different political viewpoints) that dictatorships are evil, that we don’t fancy fascists or kings to tell us who we must be or how we must live.  Yet how many of us attempt complete dominion over the property we have under our feet?

Perhaps my garden philosophy will seem weak to some as it seems to have arisen from a lackadaisical approach to weeding, but I realized as I weeded that I really don’t hate the quackgrass or the bindweed (which I secretly think is one of the most beautiful plants on earth and whose tough scrappy survival is a thing of legend) and that all I want is to keep it within bounds enough to let me grow food for myself and my family and to grow plants to invite the bees and the butterflies and the wasps to my side.  I don’t want to be a fascist of plants in my garden because my garden is reflective of my mind and my heart and what I really seek in life, in my whole life, is balance.

I have called my garden style neglectful yet the funny thing is- I actually like weeding.  But over the many years I have been digging in the dirt I have found that one of the most delightful things about gardening is finding surprises- letting strangers into the garden path- seeing wild flowers emerge amongst my lettuces lightens my spirit.  Every gardener leaves a legacy of themselves in the dirt they tend which, if the ground is later nurtured by another, will rise and declare old hands, old styles, other plants you never thought of planting because you never met them before they showed up at your garden party.  A gardener who spreads poison everywhere to kill off the quackgrass kills also the insect larvae that we depend on to pollinate the earth, it kills the sleeping seeds in the earth which also slowly chokes the potential of diversity.

I know that some people get great pleasure from a well kept garden and I’m not saying there’s no value in that too, but I wonder if something more might be let loose in the spirit if gardeners who normally keep an iron control over their yards were to let little corners go slightly wild?  Look at your garden and ask yourself what it’s saying about you.   Should there be any aspect of it that is nothing but a fight?  I don’t want anything in my garden to be a fight.  I don’t want any plant to be a villain.  I feel the same way about people.  How you treat your garden is reflective of your core values.  This is why I never use weed-killer.  I don’t use any pesticides that can’t be considered organic and, actually, I can’t remember the last time I used any spray in my garden besides dormant oil- a mixture of sulfur and copper.  And even that I use very rarely.  The reason is because my mother taught me, from when I was a very small person, that the earth is who we are.   That we rise from it like all other animals and plants and life-forms and that how we treat it is how we treat ourselves.  We aren’t separate.

What you spray on your plants you are spraying on yourself.  What you feed your plants you are feeding yourself.  How you work in your garden, the style in which you steward your patch is reflective of who you are.  How you treat the dirt is how you treat the world.  How you treat your plants is also how you treat other people.  Who do you want to be?

I want to create balance here.  I want to grow food, which means I have to weed more often than I do to give room to the food plants to thrive.  But I don’t ever want to become a dictator in it, I don’t want to squash out diversity or look at weeds as evil because so many plants that we call “weeds” are actually strong herbal medicine that we can turn to heal our wounds and invigorate our bodies.  How many gardeners curse stinging nettles because of the sharp stings they receive when bumping into them amongst the Campanula?  Yet stinging nettles are one of the most powerful (yet gentle) herbs on earth and have nearly every nutrient humans need to survive, and are one of the nine sacred herbs.  Perhaps instead of cursing them, they can be slightly contained or picked and used with reverence.  Perhaps they can be removed from the Campanula bed but let free underneath the almond tree?

I take Kung Fu with my family and our instructor asks us all the time to apply the principles of Kung Fu to all aspects of our lives and I thought a lot about this while I tamed my blueberry patch.  By the time I got to the last clump of quackgrass, inevitably leaving 5,000 bits of it below surface, I no longer felt combative but peaceful.  I will always live with quackgrass and it’s alright to exert some limitations on it but it will not make me angry.  I will not grow hateful when I see hundreds more of its blades rise above ground in the spring.  It’s part of this landscape.  It has its own place here, just as I do.  I want harmony in my life.  I want balance.  I want more control over my yard than I currently have but I never want to lose the sense of adventure that letting corners of it go wild give to me.  Letting corners go wild means that I am also letting myself go a little wild.  I want to always keep in touch with the rampant tangled network of intertwining lives that nature is when at its best.

No one need share my philosophy but I encourage all of you to look at your garden and ask yourself what it’s saying about you.  Then ask yourself what you want it to say about you that it isn’t.  Your garden is simply an extension of yourself.  What you do in it, what you make of it, how you feel about it, and how you treat it all comes right back to how you treat yourself, how you think about yourself.

Now it’s time for me to begin harvesting the dandelions I’ve been “cultivating” where the dog doesn’t go because spring is approaching and dandelion root is cleansing; it makes a perfect spring tonic for the body.  It’s time to harvest some of the young dandelion leaves for salads and pastas as well.  Dandelions are an incredible source of nutrition and health for the human body.  Don’t douse them all with weed-killer- instead go dig them up and dry the roots, eat the leaves, and feel the generosity of earth in your blood.

Happy gardening this week to all of you!

Dandelions (Taraxacum officinale): Plant Profile

Mushrooms, Dandelion Greens, and Pasta in a Cheese Sauce

This is a classic winter salad that invites a lot of variations.  The tartness of the citrus is mellowed and complimented by the richness of the avocado.  I am transcribing a very simple version here with almost no adornment because I think it’s always best to start off with something simple and then embellish from there.

I don’t buy a lot of imported produce because I believe it’s important to eat mostly locally grown food but I allow myself a few indulgences and one of the regular indulgences I allow are avocados.  Because I let myself buy quite a lot of avocados I don’t let myself buy citrus very often.  A family friend sent me two boxes full of oranges, lemons, and grapefruits from her own yard that she grew without pesticides- it was a gift  beyond price!  I haven’t had a grapefruit avocado salad in years and it is the perfect antidote to the usual deep winter root vegetable flavors and the grey skies.

Ingredients:

4 cups lettuce

1  large avocado

1 grapefruit

4 tbsp mustard vinaigrette

(Serves 4 as a side salad or 2 as a main salad)

Method:

Divide lettuce onto your plates evenly.  Slice the grapefruit in half and then (using a small sharp knife) cut out the sections and divide the slices evenly between the plates.  Slice your avocado in half, remove the pit, and then slice long narrow slices lengthwise.  If serving only two plates of salad remove all the long slices from one half and arrange on one plate (fanning them out is pretty) and then do the same with the other half.  If making four side salads then I cut the long slices in half and divvy the avocado up between the four plates and arrange neatly.  Drizzle 1 tbsp of dressing on each side salad or 2 tbsp on each main salad.

Variations: Kalamata olives are very good with citrus and avocado.  Feta is wonderful on this salad.  Instead of a mustard vinaigrette you could use a balsamic or a dressing flavored with rosemary.  Slice red onions paper-thin and add to each plate sparingly.  The same can be done with shallots.  If you don’t have grapefruit but you have very good oranges on hand- use them!  Oranges go very well with the avocado too.

Usually when you thread your machine you use the same color for the top spool as you do for the bobbin.  This is fine when the fabrics you are sewing together are the same or when the underside of your project will never be visible.  However, if you are sewing something like a place mat and the top side is one color and the underside is a different color, it will look more professional if you match the thread on each side.

This is easy to do: what you need to know is that when you’re top-stitching the thread you see on the right side of the fabric (the side facing up to you) is coming from the top spool of thread and the stitching underneath (the side facing down while you’re sewing) is coming from the bobbin.

Match the bobbin thread as closely as you can to the fabric on the underside of your project.  If there is great contrast between the top and bottom fabrics (as seen in my example) some of the darker thread will still be visible on the underside but it will be a lot more subtle.

I have met many biscotti in my life that I didn’t get along with because they tasted like cardboard.  I don’t like them too sweet either, or covered in chocolate, or filled with dried fruit and citrus rind.  I’m not sure what made me try this recipe in the first place, considering how I felt about this famous cookie at the time, but I did and it transformed my opinion.  I got the original recipe from a favorite cookbook “The Complete Italian Vegetarian Cookbook” by Jack Bishop which I highly recommend.  His recipe calls for eggs plus a couple of egg yolks to add richness to the cookies.  While I am a fan of eggs I am not a fan of a strong yolk flavor*.  So over time I adapted this recipe to better suit my own preference.  I am offering you my version of this classic dipping cookie.

Almond Biscotti

Ingredients:

1 cup whole almonds

2 cups unbleached all-purpose flour

1 cup sugar

1.2 tsp baking powder

Pinch of salt

4 large eggs

1 tsp vanilla extract

Method:

Preheat the oven to 350 degrees.  Spread the almonds on a baking sheet and lightly toast them (about 8 minutes).   Set them aside to cool but don’t turn off the oven.  Cut parchment paper to the size of a large baking sheet.

In the bowl of your stand mixer blend the flour, sugar, baking soda, and salt.  In a separate bowl beat 3 of the eggs with the vanilla extract.  With the mixer on med-low speed add the eggs to the flour in a steady stream and keep the mixer going until the flour and eggs have been completely incorporated.

Roughly chop the almonds (I like to chop them in half so the chunks are fairly big but you can chop them a little smaller if you like).

The dough is very sticky!  Remove it from the bowl of the mixer onto a floured pastry board or your counter – you will need a pastry scraper to help you knead the dough gently (just until it’s smooth).  You will need to add more flour as you go along and may even need to rinse your hands off once or twice.

Gently knead the almonds into the dough.

Cut the ball of dough into two pieces.  One at a time, transfer each one to the parchment paper covered baking sheet and roll them out until they’re about 12″ long and flatten out so that they’re about 3″ wide.

Beat the remaining egg in a small bowl and add a small splash of water.  Brush the egg wash on the outside of the dough, including the sides.

Bake in the oven (on a middle rack) for 30 minutes.

Remove the cookie loaves from the oven and turn the oven down to 325 degrees.  Let the loaves cool for a few minutes (allowing the oven to reduce in temperature as well) and then cut them up on the diagonal in approximately 1″ wide pieces.

Turn them on their sides and return to the oven for ten more minutes.  If you live in a damp climate, as I do, I recommend turning your oven off after ten minutes but let the cookies completely cool down inside the oven.  The texture of these cookies is definitely hard and crisp enough to encourage dipping, but if your air is generally a little damp then the cookies may not achieve as satisfying a dryness as is desired.  When they’ve completely cooled store them in an air-tight container.

Recipe Notes: I think the egg wash is important here, but I hate that one recipe of these only uses about half of the beaten egg.  So if you want to be extra thrifty, I suggest doing a double batch at a time.  Each recipe makes about 24 biscotti (depending on how thickly you cut them) so if 48 biscotti sounds extreme- freeze half of them for later or share them with others!  If you’re out of vanilla extract (as I am right now!) you can scrape some vanilla bean seeds into the eggs and let them sit for ten or fifteen minutes.

*So unless I get one of my friends who are excellent cooks to do a hollandaise sauce recipe for Stitch and Boots, there won’t be one.  I can’t stand any sauce made up primarily of egg yolks.  Mrs. Carlton?  Mrs. Evich?  Mrs. Lagarde?  Any of you up for the challenge?

One of the goals of the Farmhouse Finishing School is to help people learn better household management skills.  Keeping your spice and dry-goods shelves in your kitchen organized and cleaned out may seem a little too Martha-Stewart-perfect for some people but there are excellent reasons why you should periodically look at the food and spices you’re storing on your kitchen shelves and exert some effort to organize and clean it all up.  This is a primer on pantry management.  Some people have actual pantries, big enclosed rooms in which to store their canned and dry goods for cooking with, but most people have only a few shelves in their kitchen to use as their pantry.  In either case, the place where you store all your bulk long-term storage goods needs to be periodically inspected and cleaned.

Here are a few reasons to do this:

• Inspecting your dry-goods closely allows you to identify any pantry pest infestations.

• Discover what dry-goods you don’t use and don’t buy them in the future.

• Organizing what you have allows you to remember things you could be using that were hidden from view.

• Storing your dry-goods properly will allow you to prolong their shelf-life.

• When you can see what you have on hand you are less likely to buy doubles of anything.

A view of my kitchen cabinet before the clean-up.  Please observe that many things were shoved on the shelves in plastic bags.  Goods stored in plastic bags are hard to see, vulnerable to pests, and more likely to go stale before being used, and there are health issues to consider as well.  What a mess!

Over a period of several months I have been negligent about storing my pantry goods properly and this has caused several problems.  I finally got tired of not being able to see at a glance what was on my shelves and I decided to tackle the mess.  It took six hours to tame my spice cabinet and my food shelves, a task which would have taken a lot less time if I had been in a habit of storing things properly in the first place and cleaning my cabinets out more often.  It’s a good idea to do a thorough clean-out at least twice a year.

I discovered that I had three boxes of powdered sugar, about six packages of mustard seeds, old grains that were stale, and spices with no integrity left they were so old and grey.  Because I have to be careful with what I spend on groceries I see that I have been exercising poor household economy.  If your kitchen cabinets look at all like mine did, then you need to clean them out too.  Where to begin?  It can be a daunting project.  I understand a reluctance to dive in but the rewards are worth it.  Be prepared to clean out a lot of jars.    If you have a working dishwasher this may save quite a bit of time.  I don’t, so I had to wash a ton of them by hand.  The first concept I want to discuss, before you dive in is proper storage containers.

Out with plastic- in with glass!

I can’t stress this enough: storing anything long-term in plastic is a practice you must wean yourself off of.  Plastic is an unstable material.  It emits, at different temperatures (most notably in heat) and in reaction to certain foods, molecules into your water and food.  Please feel free to do some research on the subject as I have done. Food kept in plastic containers can take on the smell and taste of plastic.  All plastics off-gas chemicals when new and many plastics off-gas from the time they’re made until they completely biodegrade which could take a few hundred years.    Once plastic molecules enter our water and/or food and we ingest them, they build up in our bodies and studies have shown that these plastic molecules are shared with babies through their mother’s breast milk. Plastics have been implicated in many health issues and continue to be studied.

If you insist on continuing to use plastics to store food be sure that the plastics you use are Bisphenol-A free, don’t reheat food in plastic in the microwave even if your plastic containers say they are “microwave safe”, and don’t store sauces in plastic as it has been found that the wetter your food the more likely a transference of plastic molecules to your food is.

Glass is generally more expensive than plastic storage containers but well worth the investment.  Glass is a completely inert material and therefore doesn’t off-gas chemicals into the air or into your food or body.  Cared for properly it can last indefinitely and is therefore will save you money over plastic in the long run.  Glass will never give your food an off flavor.    The number one best pantry container to store your dry-goods in  are swing-top jars.

Swing-top jars, also called wire bale jars, have a replaceable rubber gasket and a metal clamp which secures the lid tightly onto the jar with and airtight seal.  The gaskets will dry out and crack with age so a part of your cabinet clean-out is to replace old gaskets.

The disadvantage of swing-top jars is that they can be costly to buy.  If you have a “Cost Plus” near you,  see if they have any on hand.  I have, in the past, found their prices to  be reasonable.  You can also find these at most well stocked kitchen supply stores.  Sometimes you can find them in thrift stores.  If you find them used just be sure to sniff the interior before buying.  It is extremely rare for glass to take on a permanent odor but I had it happen to one jar.  Look for scratches on the interior, scratches compromise the usefulness of a jar rendering it much more likely to break.  Be sure to replace the gasket (if it even has one) with a new one when you get it home.  If you can afford to invest in a larger quantity of these jars at one time you can buy them from manufacturers online.  The best deal I have found so far is from Freund Containers, by the case.  They have a minimum order amount so be sure you are prepared to meet it.  You don’t need a special license to buy from them.  (Just to be clear: I have no affiliation with them at all except as a customer of their goods.  If you buy from them I receive no compensation or benefits.)

The next best storage container for your pantry goods are canning jars.  These come in many different sizes.  They have a two piece lid which creates a good seal if you screw it tightly.  These jars are much less expensive to buy than the swing-top jars.  The disadvantage of these is that it is impractical to screw the lids tight enough to get an airtight seal because if you manage to get the lid on that tightly you may not be able to unscrew them later.  While I have never had a pest invasion in my swing-top jars I have definitely had a breach of my canning jars by pests.  But with good cupboard management you can keep this problem at a minimum.

Getting Started:

• Clean up your kitchen before you start this project.  You will need all the counter space and dish-rack space you have.

• Have a stack of clean dry dish towels ready.

• Be sure you have a sharpie pen on hand for labeling jars as you go along.

• Pick one shelf to start working on.

How to clean and organize the shelves:

• Pull everything off the shelf you’ve picked to start with.  Everything.  Put it all out on your counter.  If you don’t have enough counter space you may consider dragging a small table into your kitchen temporarily to give you more space to lay it all out.  (If your kitchen is too small for this then even bringing in a chair can give you extra surface space.

• One jar at a time, examine what you have.  Open each jar and look closely at the contents and give it a smell test.  If you haven’t used the contents in over a year you probably aren’t going to use it this year either. Throw it out.

• Any herb or plant matter can be dumped on your compost pile.  If you have a hot composting system you can dump everything on the pile.  If you have a cold composting system you will want to avoid putting grains or proteins in it.  If you have hens some of your old grains may be enjoyed by them.  (But don’t give them rancid food.)

• Clean the jars you empty as you go so they’ll be available for anything that’s been left in plastic bags and needs to be jarred.

• Any goods still in plastic bags: transfer to jars and label the jars with your sharpie (directly onto the glass).

• Wipe the empty shelf clean with a damp  dish towel or sponge.  Any spilled food, especially grains, will attract pests.

• Put everything that has passed inspection back on the shelf.

Repeat these steps for all of the shelves you need to go through.  Once you have finished throwing old food out and cleaning up what you have you can spend a little time organizing the shelves to make more efficient use of them.

Here are some guidelines for deciding what to keep and what to toss:

• Herbs and spices are generally at their best for one year.

• Herbs and ground spices should have a pleasant strong odor on opening the jar.  If you can’t smell them or if the smell is weak, they are most likely too old to do your food any service.  Toss them out.  Save any glass spice jars and soak them in warm soapy water to remove the labels.

• Turn the contents of jars around and upside down.  If you can see any webbing the contents have been compromised by a pest and should be thrown out.  If the contents (especially with regard to spices) don’t shift and move when you shake the jar around then they have probably settled from disuse and compacted- this is generally an indication that they are very old and should be discarded.  In some cases this will mean the contents got a little damp and should also be tossed out.

• Look for any visible weevils or moth larvae.  Toss anything that has them.  (If the item is something your chickens might safely enjoy – give it to them.  They love to eat bugs!)

• Everything should get the sniff test.  If you don’t have a great sense of smell then have someone in your family who does perform this test.  Flour, nuts, oils, nut butters, and grains can all go rancid.  The smell will be slightly sour and musty.

• Canned goods, whether made at home or bought from the store, may be capable of lasting 10 years but they don’t actually improve with age and their nutritional integrity, like all stored foods, declines incrementally starting from the moment they are first canned.  In most cases you shouldn’t hold onto canned goods for more than two years.  If you haven’t eaten it by then, you won’t, you’re just hoarding it.  My personal rule of thumb is that if I haven’t eaten it in a year I toss it out.  You can put the contents of most canned goods on your compost pile so that they really aren’t going to waste but will add to your soil.  (Recycling at its best!)  The exceptions I make to my one year rule of thumb is if I preserve way more of something than I need one year and I have lots left over the next.  If I’m making my way through the jars of that item I will keep it, knowing that I’m actually eating it.  This is true of the pickles I made the year before last.  I made twice as many as we could eat in a year and we have been steadily working our way through them.  I still have some left and we’re still eating them.*  On the other hand, I have some jalapeno jelly that I made a year and a half ago that didn’t have any heat to it and so I didn’t really enjoy it and haven’t been eating it.  It’s time to toss it out.

• Cabinet items that have been stored in their original packaging, such as crackers and cereals, should all be checked for freshness.  They go stale surprisingly fast.  One way to prolong the shelf life of cereals and crackers is to transfer them to swing-top jars when you get them home.  I now do this automatically with most boxed items.

• Baking soda and baking powder don’t necessarily go stale or rancid but they will become less effective.  It is wise to replace them every six months or so.  You can often buy them from bulk bins and transfer them to permanent jars in your cupboard.  Buy small quantities to reduce possible waste.

Now that everything is clean and all your food is in labeled jars…how do you organize it all?

There isn’t one answer to this because how you use your kitchen is highly personal.  You must think about how you cook.  What things do you reach for the most?  Those things should be on the lowest most accessible shelves.  Reserve the top shelves for bulk goods you don’t use as often, or for back up bottles of condiments you buy or make in multiples.

I have organized my own cabinets so that my son’s snack foods are all in one place on a low shelf.  My other lowest shelf has my baking goods on it (sugars, nuts, raisins, chocolate chips) and the next shelf up has the flours and grains I use the most.  The top shelf has my dried legumes which I only grab for once or twice a week to make big batches of them.  My spice rack is loosely organized by my use of them.  I have all my sweet  baking spices, including baking soda and baking powder, on one shelf.  I have my spicy and savory herbs on another shelf together.  I have all my bulk spices (like black peppercorns and mustard seeds) in large jars on the two shelves they will fit on.  This works for me but perhaps you cook differently and so you need to think about how you grab for things and group your jars together accordingly.

Pantry organizing tips:

• Group like things together: it is much easier to make shopping lists when you can easily see all like-items next to each other.  If you know you need more olive oil and you’re looking at the shelf where you keep it but you don’t see any vegetable oil (because you put it somewhere else) you may decide to buy some because you think you’re out.

• Put the things you use the most on the most accessible shelves.

• Spices and herbs should be close enough to your stove to be easily grabbed without being stored right above it where the heat and moisture from the stove can degrade them quickly.

Don’t be afraid to try different ways of organizing your pantry.  Once you’ve already cleaned and sorted through your supplies it is much easier to move them around and play with how best to arrange them all.

Now, go put on some motivating music, crack open a festive beverage, and get those cabinets looking shiny and fresh!

*However, they are softer now than they were when under a year old.  They are not getting better with age.  I’m just not going to waste them because they still taste good and we’re still using them up.

Rutabagas aren’t as commonly used in the US as turnips and yet they are, in my opinion, much more delicious.  In Scotland and other places in Europe rutabagas are known as “yellow turnips” or “Swedes”.  When raw they have a similar sharp peppery bitter smell and a watery crisp consistency but when roasted rutabagas are much richer than regular turnips.  They are a golden color and sweeten with roasting.

In this recipe I have seasoned rutabagas with turmeric which intensify the golden color of the rutabagas and add an additional earthy tone to the flavor.  This is a simple side to make to dinner whether you are having a vegetarian main course or a meat dish.  It is a fall and winter root vegetable which can be stored in root cellars so may also still be available in early spring, but by mid spring should no longer be making appearances on the dinner table.  Enjoy it now!

Turmeric is not a spice I use often but I got inspiration from my friend Riana here on her flickr pages in her series on healing herbs and spices and how to use them in everyday ways.

Ingredients:

4 medium to large rutabagas, trimmed cubed to 1″ pieces

1/4 cup olive oil

1/2 tsp turmeric

a couple of pinches of coarse sea salt

several grinds of pepper

Method:

Preheat oven to 375 degrees.   In a large roasting pan or a large heavy duty baking sheet, spread out the rutabagas.  Sprinkle the salt and turmeric on the rutabagas.  Grind the salt on them.  Drizzle all of the oil on them and then, using a spatula, toss the vegetables in the oil and spices until thoroughly coated.

Put in the oven and every ten minutes turn the rutabagas with a spatula to be sure that all sides have a chance to roast.  When the rutabagas are soft and melting on the inside with crunchy golden roasted edges, they are ready to serve.  At this temperature it should take between 45 minutes and an hour.

Recipe Notes: You can cook these more quickly by increasing the oven heat to 400 degrees, but if you do this you need to check them more frequently to prevent scorching.  I like to use an herbed coarse salt on all my roasted vegetables, if you’d like to do the same but don’t have any you can simply add  1/2 teaspoon of your favorite dried herb combination.

Most people I know are omnivores so when they want something substantial to put in a bun they simply go for the classic meat burger.  I was brought up as a vegetarian and have never reconciled myself to the taste, and more particularly, the texture of meat.  So when I want to eat a substantial sandwich I turn to veggie burgers, and I don’t want ones that are meaty and chewy.  I want one that is flavorful, robust, and textured without being toothsome.  So I am on a quest to develop a repertoire of veggie burger recipes that I can make, freeze, and then grab for easy nutritious meals when I haven’t had time to cook from scratch.

This particular recipe can be baked or fried (sautéed) but will not hold together on the grill.  I will be experimenting with bread  crumbs which are a usual ingredient for their ability to soak up moisture and stiffen patties.  I didn’t want to have breadcrumbs in this particular recipe because I wanted to keep the proportion of beans to grains at a 2 to 1 ratio.  The results are satisfying, flavorful, and just the perfect quick meal I was hoping for.

Ingredients:

4 cups cooked kidney beans

2 cups cooked quinoa

3 large carrots diced small

1 large onion diced small

3 ribs celery diced small

2 tbsp olive oil

1 bunch cilantro (chopped well)

1-2 pickled (or fresh) jalapenos (finely minced)

1 tbsp cumin

2 tsp salt

Makes 10 to 12 patties

Method:

Have your kidney beans and quinoa prepared ahead of time.  Heat the olive oil in a medium sauce pan (on medium high heat) and add the carrots, onion, and celery.  Once they start lightly browning turn the heat down to med/low and stir frequently.  When the onions get soft and sticky they’re done.  (It should take about 25 minutes.)

In a food processor combine the kidney beans and quinoa and pulse several times.  You want the beans to maintain texture but you want enough of them to be crushed that the beans and quinoa stick together.  Put this in a large mixing bowl.  Add the caramelized vegetables, cilantro, jalapenos, cumin, and salt and mix really well.

Form into patties.  You can make them any size you like.  I made mine palm sized and kept them fairly thick.

To cook: heat a tbsp of oil (any you choose) in a sauté pan and sauté patties on both sides until they develop a crispy brown crust.

To serve: I don’t eat my veggie burgers with buns when I eat them at home.  I like to eat them with sliced avocado, some cheese melted on top, and some salsa.  These have a slight spiciness (depending on how many jalapenos you used) so if you like really spicy food you can use a super spicy salsa or a hot pepper sauce drizzled on top.  If you like your veggie burgers with a bun you can eat them with a bun as well with pickles, lettuce and tomato.

If I had sides to go along with this veggie burger, like steamed or roasted vegetables, I would use one patty per serving.  If it’s going to be your whole meal, I would use two patties per serving.

Recipe Notes: I use 2 jalapenos for mine because I don’t like really spicy food.  There is a wide variation in spiciness when it comes to jalapenos so be cautious.  I prefer them pickled because they have a little tangy taste to them.  Veggie burgers freeze well.  To freeze them: lay the formed patties on waxed paper on a baking sheet and freeze for several hours until they are hard, then put them in freezer bags.  For longer term freezing I recommend using a vacuum sealer.   Caramelizing vegetables takes time but in this recipe it adds an important dimension to the flavor so I don’t recommend skipping it.

This recipe is vegan: unless you melt cheese on it or top it with sour cream.

This recipe is gluten free: provided the quinoa you buy was not processed in a facility that also processes wheat and if you use fresh jalapenos instead of pickled ones.