Well Worth Watching Wednesday

Well worth watching Wednesday...that has a nice ring to it, doesn't it?  We enjoyed The Story of Stuff of when it came out and the boys and I found this new short film well worth watching this morning.  I hope you'll watch it too, you can just by clicking the link below.

The Story of Bottled Water

Stinging Nettle, Elderberry and Other Signs of Spring

When you're living at 1200 m you wait a long time for Spring to arrive.  We had snow 3 or 4 times again last week but the last of it has melted and we've had  a couple days of warm, sunny weather.  Warm and sunny enough that the air up here held the promise of Spring!!  The other day I headed down the bank to see if the nettle might possibly have decided to show itself here.  This is what I found. 

A few little stems poking their way of out the recently snow-covered soil.  I can't tell you how pleased I was to see it.

The nettle patch here grows right under the Elderberry bushes.  A glance at those showed more signs up Spring.

Then yesterday after a very warm day in town (especially warm when you're "mountain" people (like us just now) and come to town in jeans and long-sleeved shirts only to discover all the "town" people wearing shorts, sandals and short-sleeve t-shirts) I decided to spend some time on the garden beds here.

Aside from only 4 worms (such poor soil) guess what else I found...

tiny spinach plants growing where I had planted it last year.  Some of it was left to go to seed and it was such a treat to see this sprouting up here. 

Even though we're missing our gardens at our old home we can find pleasure in whatever we can manage to grow here.  Seeing that spinach helped me decide to go ahead and prepare more spaces to plant here even though we don't know if we'll be living here come harvest time or not.  If not, then we've decided to just hope that whoever is living here will be so excited by harvesting the food that they will become as enchanted by gardening as we are.

Favourite Curry Recipe

Last night I decided to make a big pot of my favourite curry recipe (and I forgot until just now that I meant to try just a titch of fresh nettle in it) so that we could have an early dinner last night, a dinner-on-the-run for S and leftovers for tonight's dinner so that I don't have to make anything when we get home.  We've been seeing a lot of these veggies these past months and, while we enjoy them thoroughly, we're looking forward to having some fresh, local veg available soon. 

Here's how I make this curry.

In a large pot I melt:

1/4 cup butter (or you can use coconut oil or grapeseed oil)

Then add:

1 chopped onion

several cloves of garlic (I like lots)

a spoon of fresh grated ginger

1 tsp cumin

1 1/2 tsp coriander

1 tsp garam masala  (those 3 are the must spices I use but you can also add some curry powder or tumeric if you like)

Stir this and let saute on lowish until onions are soft but don't let garlic burn.  Have all your veggies chopped and ready to add.  I like to use

2 large potatoes - peeled and chopped

4 carrots - peeled and chopped

1 large yam or sweet potato - peeled and chopped

a good amount of cauliflower - cut into bite size florets

butternut squash - peeled and chopped (although didn't use it this time)

I add the veg to spice/onion mixture and stir to coat.

Then I add about 2 cups of stock, 2 cups of my stewed (or canned) tomatoes and

1/3 cup red lentils (not any other kind, these cook up and blend in and act as a thickener).  I let it cook for about 15 or 20 minutes until the veg are soft and the lentils are blended in.  Then add

1 can coconut milk

1 cup chickpeas (or more)

1 cup frozen peas

Cook a few more minutes until the peas and chickpeas are heated and it is done.  I like it best served over rice with a splash of Braggs.  My boys tolerate it with rice but LOVE it served on bread.  Go figure.

Tie-dyed T-shirts

I have always loved to Tie-dye things, I have since I was little.  When my boys were little I used to tie-dye their little t-shirts whenever they started looking too grubby or stained from food.  It seems another member of my family may have inherited this love.  W bought a white T-shirt at the thrift store this winter and, after a few uses noticed it had a spot that wouldn't wash out (he hasn't changed that much since he was a toddler after all).  He decided he would use some of the black dye I had mixed up for another project (I found a very nice pair of Lululemon fleece yoga pants at a thrift store for $1 but they were a mauve colour and I prefer black) to dye his shirt.
He sorted out how he wanted it to look and used elastics to "tie" it.

Put it in the dye pot.

Rinsed it out.

And hung it out to dry, he is quite pleased with how it turned out.  I have a feeling this may be just the beginning...

Stinging Nettle Pie?

Thanks to my generous friend I have been able to keep us well-supplied in nettle this spring while I wait for ours to start to grow up here.  We've had nettle in all sorts of things and, after two dinners of nettle/chickpea canneloni in a row and countless smoothies, the boys (including S) were getting a little worried that I'd gone a little more overboard than usual  and was now going to be putting nettle in Every Single Thing we ate. 

Friday afternoon came on quickly this week and I decided to cap off our busy week with our favourite Dutch Apple Pie.  Just before the pie came out of the oven they all looked at me (a little anxiously, I think) and asked, "Is there nettle in the apple pie?"  Poor things.  I'd almost feel sorry for them except...

a visit to my lovely friend yesterday had me coming home with a huge amount of fresh nettle.  And, as is my tendency, I may have overdone it just a bit; I've got plenty to eat fresh this week and after filling one table cloth full to dry I had to get a queen size sheet out and set it up on the floor to dry more.  This should give me a good start on my year's supply of dried nettle for my infusion (a photo of the gorgeous green infusion on that link).

The Dutch apple pie?  No, it didn't have any nettle in it. This is the recipe I use (with just a little less sugar) and it is delicious. 

 And really, as someone living in an apple growing region, I feel it is...my duty, really, to make apple pie with local apples on a regular basis, it is so important to support our local apple growers and I'm willing to do my part. ;-)  I hope you'll give this recipe a try with some local apples too.  If you do, let me know how you like it.

More Reasons to Love Preserved Tomatoes

When I preserve my home-grown tomatoes each year I make sure that, along with frozen stewed tomatoes and regular canned tomatoes, I put aside enough for a few batches of tomato passata.  It is such a wonderful thing to have on hand when you want a simple, delicious, no-work kind of homemade dinner.

Just saute some garlic, bay leaves and black pepper in olive oil.  Then add the jar of passata.  It is thin at first but it thickens up wonderfully.  I like to make this in a cast iron fry pan for a few reasons: 1) Cooking acidic foods in cast iron increases the iron content of that food. 2)  The shallow fry pan (as opposed to a pot) allows the sauce to thicken quickly.  3)  Um...I just have a thing about cast iron fry pans and love to use them as often as possible.

Getting nice and thick.  I added some of my dried oregano.

I mix it in with cooked pasta and then serve extra on top of the pasta.  We like it with a sprinkle of fresh romano cheese.  Last night we had it with a delicious Red Kuri squash a generous friend had given to us.

Simple and very delicious.  Not a speck left over.

So Much to Love About Long Weekends

We love long weekends around here.  We love them even more when they involve a road trip.  Road trips are a regular part of our life and we consider them a good opportunity to sort of blow the cobwebs out - change things up, explore something new and just have fun.  Our dog loves them too.

There were properties to look at and, when you're looking at acreages for sale then you're bound to pass some good garage sales too.  I found some metal chairs (4 for $5) that need a bit of fixing to be just what I've been looking for.  W was given a bike frame to work on (just what  he'd been looking for) and S got a box full of old glass insulators (probably 30 of them) for $5!!

There were eggs to be dyed.

There was chocolate to be found.

There were good meals with family and lots of visiting.  And...there was a new-to-us free re-use "store".  Do I even need to tell you how much I love this idea?  I think I'll show you instead.

Free.

Free!

Free!!

Free!!!

Plus some other outside things as well. Why doesn't every landfill/transfer station have a free store?   Hope you had a lovely long weekend too.