New home, new blog

It has been quite some time since I posted on Apartment Homesteaders.  Since my last post, we have moved to a new home and I have completed graduate school.  Check out our new blog Green Living on the Edge as we settle into our new home and continue to learn more about self sufficiency and green living.

Autumn has arrived!

Apples...


The weather has not cooled off yet, but Fall has definitely arrived. The flavors and scents of this season are my favorite of the year.  We have already had some mashed sweet potatoes and are getting ready to cook some squash.  We took a trip up to Oak Glen this past weekend to enjoy the apple-licious fun!   We were hoping to pick some apples ourselves.  Unfortunately,  due to the weird weather this year, the current batch of apples has already been harvested.  We had to settle for already picked apples, fresh cider, and fresh, hot cider donuts.  It was still a good time.

It was a little distressing to witness the many tourists who had no idea how food grows.   People were visibly upset when told that there were no apples to pick.   I assume they thought the apples are constantly growing and, like at the grocery store, are always available whenever you want them.   When we were in Oak Glen over the summer, we also saw people upset that there were no apples available to pick.   It is frightening to think that few people know that food has a growing season and that plants are impacted by factors such as weather.  I work with kids and it always amazes me that the concept of ingredients is foreign to many students.   To these students, food comes from the store or the restaurant.   Many have a hard time grasping that food does not magically appear at your car window.  I did appreciate that there were many families enjoying the apple season and showing their kids where apples grow.  Kudos to those parents!

We enjoyed learning about the wide variety of apples that are available from the apple stands that you do not find in the grocery stores.   We decided to try Mutsu apples for baking and preserving. Now I just need to decide on the recipes to use.  Any suggestions?


**Book Suggestion: We both have recently read (and watched the documentary) "The Botany of Desire" by Michael Pollan.   He delves into the history of the apple and the reasons for our limited selections.   And he discusses Tulipmania!   A must read.

The ants crawl in...

The Joys of Container Gardening

Basil and cilantro: Before the infestation

We love shopping at the local Farmer's Market and I have wonderful co-workers who share vegetables and fruit from their home gardens, but we want to be self sufficient and grow some of our own food.   Since we do not have a yard, we are starting a container garden to grow fresh produce.  We planted runner beans, squash, carrots, radishes, sweet basil, salad mix, and cilantro.   

The garden was off to a great start.   With the exception of the runner bean incident (see "Runner Beans on the Run") things have been growing well.   The replacement beans are thriving and it has been thrilling watching all of the plants grow. 

Then, the weather warmed.  We noticed a few ants hanging around the cilantro.   The daytime temperatures were hanging around the 100 degree mark and we assumed the ants were looking for water.   Then more and more ants started to arrive.   Our cilantro started to die.   

Keith consulted his dad and we learned that ants are attracted to the sugars produced and excreted by aphids.    Upon closer inspection we spotted the aphids lounging around the cilantro leaves.    Darn those aphids and ants.  

A ring of cayenne pepper slowed the ant invasion but not until after we have lost the majority of the cilantro.   We continued looking for natural ways to repel insects.  

Squash, radish, carrot

Our next tactic will be to sprinkle food grade diatomaceous earth around some plants and see how that works.  I have used this in the past and at my work it was recently used to help stop a tremendous ant invasion. We have heard mixed reviews on using diatomaceous earth.  One garden supply store employee told us it was nasty stuff and that the only place in town we could buy it at would be a pool supply store.  He did not know that there were different grades and assumed food grade was not different from what we would find at the pool supply store.  He recommended some spray on organic chemicals with a label to call poison control if ingested.  Hmmm.... not sure I want to trust his advice. We then went to the feed supply store down the street and asked about the diatomaceous earth.  Here we were told it was great stuff and they wanted to sell us a 40 pound bag.   We were told we could sprinkle it on our dog to control fleas and ticks. We settled on a 6 pound container, the smallest amount they sold.   It is still a bit excessive for a container garden and will take us years to get through the one package.   Let's hope it works. 

Runner Beans: Part II

 

Peanut, Peanut Butter, Jelly...

Part Two: The Jam 
To Pectin or not to Pectin...


When I lived in Oregon, there was a pick your own berry farm about 4 miles from my apartment.   For just a couple dollars, you could take a bucket and fill it with sweet, succulent berries in just a few minutes. Berry season is not quite the same in Southern California.   The store bought blackberries and raspberries are terrible and tasteless.  Farmers markets are a little better.  We tend to go more for strawberries and just plan to vacation in Oregon or Washington each year during berry season.

For my first attempt at jamming,  I made a mixed berry jam from the motley assortment of raspberries and blackberries we picked at a you-pick farm in Oak Glen, CA.   The jam turned out decent for a first attempt but I felt the amount of sugar in the recipe was a little out of control and I am not a huge fan of the texture from the pectin.  The pectin gel texture of the jam is a little unnerving to me.  It also seemed a little strange to be adding a chemical into the preserves when the point of making my own is to know what is in my food and to be assured that I am consuming natural and fresh ingredients.

I decided to go au natural  for my next attempts.  I opted for strawberry preserves with half the sugar of the previous recipe and no pectin.  The preservative in this recipe was lemon juice and lemon zest.   I am not sure how well this will hold up in the cupboard compared to the pectin recipe.  I think it is worth the risk to go natural.

The canning process went smoothly.  Instead of boiling the jars to sterilize them, I saw a suggestion online to heat the jars in the oven.    I opted for the toaster oven instead so our apartment did not overheat.  The jars were super hot but it seemed to work.  We left a little jam out of the jars to taste test today.   The strawberry jam and fresh peanut butter made a delightfully delicious sandwich on fresh sourdough from the farmers market.    And we will have jam left for when Keith makes his fresh bread from scratch!

Now the science experiment begins to see how long the jams will hold up in the cupboard.   And I was very brave and gave my new in-laws a jar of strawberry jam.   I have yet to get a response.   Hope that is not a bad sign...

Sterilizing the jars

Looks like carnage, tastes delicious!

Steamy

Our giant kitchen

When life hands you tomatoes...

Make Salsa Fresca!

A coworker brought a huge bowl of tomatoes into work last week.     Normally, I am not a fan of tomatoes.     However, since I am trying to expand my horizons and learn new skills, I took this bowl of tomatoes as a personal challenge.     I brought home the entire bowl.   

We discussed using the tomatoes to make a few jars of pasta sauce. I am also not a fan of pasta so we opted to go for a big batch of salsa.  I looked to a couple of our trusty cookbooks for salsa recipes that could be used with canning.  I did not find quite what I wanted and turned to the trusty Google search.  I started to realize that most of the recipes for salsa that is going to be canned contain large amounts of vinegar or tomato paste.  I wanted to use fresh ingredients and did not want my salsa to taste like ketchup.   I decided to freeze whatever we were not going to eat this week and save the canning for another day. 

I am not very good at following recipes.  I use recipes as suggestions and go with my personal tastes to improve and customize.    I figured out what I wanted in my salsa and we made a trip to the Farmers Market to get the rest of the ingredients we needed.  I was ready to salsa!

Here's what I used.   Measurements are not exact.  Go with what tastes good to you!

Ingredients:

About 35 small Roma Tomatoes: Seeds removed

1 Red Onion

1/2 Yellow Onion (Only because the other half was a little funky looking)  

1 Jalapeno: Seeds removed

1 Green Chile Pepper: Seeds removed

8 Cloves Garlic

A Plethora of Cilantro*

A pinch or 3 of salt

I sliced the ingredients up a little bit then threw all the ingredients in the food processor.   I processed it until we liked the texture and called it salsa.    It was very easy to put together. 

Here's what we got:

Carrie's Salsa Fresca

We enjoyed fresh salsa with dinner tonight.  We have plenty left to have throughout this week, to freeze a little, and to fill a half pint jar to give away.  Yum! 

* Plethora, in this case, means use to your taste. We are cilantro fiends and I added a lot of cilantro to our salsa.    We were shocked recently when a friend told us she did not like cilantro.   We find this unacceptable.  

Runner Beans on the Run...

Missing: One Small Pot Newly Sprouted Runner Beans

One of the challenges of living in an apartment is a lack of a yard.    We shop at a farmers market on Saturdays and tend to find ourselves saying, "When we have a yard we will grow...".   Until then, we are trying our hand at organic container gardening.    We planted 5 containers of veggies just over a week ago.   We have a variety of containers and mixed in some organic potting soil, worm castings, and peat moss.   Seeds were tenderly planted.   Each day we have delighted in watching the first tips emerge from the soil.   This is especially exciting because Keith has never grown anything from seed.

We knew there would be challenges with container garden on our apartment balcony.   We considered the amount of sunlight.  We made sure they were in an area that we could monitor and water them easily.   Container size and placement were discussed.   We figured squirrels and other critters would probably not run up and down the stairs to get to our crops.   It seemed that we had everything figured out.

Then I got the tragic phone call.    I was out Sunday afternoon when Keith called to let me know that our smallest container that was growing runner beans was missing.    Theft was not an issue we had foreseen.   Granted, it was only a small container and the costs involved in planting that one pot were very small.   But why the heck would anyone steal a pot of runner beans?   We felt violated and saddened to lose the plant that had been off to such a great start.

We have since replanted in a larger container, theorizing that the small container was easy to carry off and the larger ones would be more difficult.    Hopefully, the new beans we planted will start peeking out soon.

As in anything else we might do, no matter what you plan for the unexpected will happen.  Who stole the beans?   The world may never know.    But we are certainly keeping an eye on some of the neighborhood kids and making sure that are containers are less portable.

We miss you, runner beans.

Peanut, Peanut Butter, Jelly...

Part One: The Peanut Butter

We were browsing through the Riverside Farmers Market this morning, enjoying the new addition of live music, when I saw a vendor with a large bin of fresh peanuts.    Fresh peanuts?  Why not!   I was sure I could figure out something to do with them.

Shell, innards, raw, and roasted

Once we got home, we began shelling the peanuts.   Remember, peanuts are a legume and not a nut.   The fresh peanuts must have been harvested mere days ago.   They were still moist inside and out.   When you buy peanuts in the store they are usually dry roasted or at the very least dehydrated.   Fresh, raw peanuts are more like a pea or soybean in texture and flavor.   The inside of the shells is moist and squishy and the skin surrounding the peanut is still soft.  The peanut itself is a pale white and is very soft.

Partially roasted peanuts

Once the peanuts were shelled, I experimented with roasting them.   Our apartment gets very hot when the oven is on.   I decided to roast the peanuts in the toaster oven to keep the apartment a little cooler.     After ten minutes at 300 degrees, I flipped the peanuts and kept them roasting.   They developed a lovely sheen as the water escaped from the peanut and the color turned from white to the more traditional "peanut brown".   After about 40 minutes I decided the peanuts were done roasting.   They were still a little moist but they were no longer sticky.   

Next experiment: Turning Peanuts into Peanut Butter.     As newlyweds who opted not to register for traditional wedding gifts, we do not own a food processor.    Our mortar and pestle were a little small for mashing peanuts, so I got out the trusty blender.    After blending the nuts for about 8 minutes, it started to resemble natural peanut butter.  To make the texture a little smoother I added about a tablespoon of peanut oil.    More blending and there it was at the bottom of my blender: Fresh Homemade Peanut Butter!

So I didn't make much but it's a start

Three hours and half a cup of peanut butter.   Not a bad way to spend a Saturday afternoon.    

Homesteading is a science and an art.   It definitely requires experimentation. Next time I will probably roast the peanuts for a little longer or try roasting them while still in the shell.   And I will probably buy more than a couple handfuls of peanuts.