Dandelions

As you might have noticed, I haven't blogged as regularly recently, and here is the reason: The gardening season has begun ! We have been eating our own spinach and green onions already, planted a lot of stuff and worked on our other garden beds to prepare them for what will soon be planted in them.

Tomorrow we will harvest a particular crop that grows unasked, but certainly not unwelcome, and in abundance: Dandelion greens.

Dandelions have roots that go very deep into the soil. Thus, they draw lots of minerals and nutrients to the surface of the soil, and store them in their greens too. Therefore, they are a very healthy addition to our, and your, diet, if you take the time to pick them.

All parts of the plant are edible, really, here is a list of uses (via About.com):

• Dandelion root can be roasted as a coffee-substitute, or boiled and stir-fried as a cooked vegetable.
• Dandelion flower can be made into a wine, or boiled and stir-fried as a cooked vegetable.
• Dandelion greens (i.e., the leaves) can be boiled, as you would spinach, and used as a cooked vegetable, in sandwiches or as a salad green with some "bite."

After cutting them, wash your dandelion greens well, and cook them like spinach. A little bit of garlic and onion goes well with it, and if you add Parmesan cheese when you serve it, I am sure you will like it, too.

Gather your dandelions while you may.

Unleavened Bread

Yesterday I mentioned Passover and the Feast of Unleavened Bread, so today I would like to share a recipe for flatbread. This unleavened bread is great for sandwiches because it stays moist:

Ingredients:

3 eggs
1/3 cup oil
Salt to taste
3 cups all purpose flour

Beat eggs, mix with oil and salt (to taste), then add flour gradually, alternating with water until the batter is easy to pour. Pour into a very well-greased 15x10-inch jelly roll pan. Bake 15 to 20 minutes at 450°.

If you prefer whole wheat flour, use 4 eggs.

"Forced" Homemaking in the City

One of my readers was so kind to share her current situation on the last post titled "Jobs, jobs, jobs", and I am sure that her experience is shared by many women recently: She lost her job and is home all day now, the children are grown up already, and living in the city her means of growing a garden are very limited too. It is a terrible situation to be in, very frustrating, and I guess the temptation to just sit in front of the TV all day just to kill time and don't think about how bad things are is big. But of course this will make things worse. So what can you do if you are thrown into a situation like this, with less money than you are used to to boot ?

For a start, you can always start buying less convenience food and more raw ingredients, and start cooking and baking from scratch. If you bake your own bread, for example, you will save a lot of money and also eat healthier as the bread you bake lacks artificial ingredients, flavor enhancers and other unnecessary stuff.

WHOLE WHEAT BREAD RECIPE

To bake two nice loaves of whole wheat bread you only need

6 cups flour,
2 tsp active dry yeast
1/2 cup of lukewarm water, and another 2 1/4 cups of lukewarm water
2.5 tsp of salt,
and time to knead and bake. Whole wheat needs to be kneaded for 20-30 minutes if you do not wish to bake a door stop ;)

Dissolve the yeast in half a cup of water, then add flour, stir, add salt, stir, add the remaining water, stir. When the ingredients are mixed, start kneading, not to forceful at first, just gently, and once the dough begins to be elastic, you can knead more vigorously.
Adjust the consistency of the dough: If after about 10 minutes of kneading the dough is not springy but still somewhat juicy, add a little more flour. If it gets too dry and somewhat hard, add a little more water - it will probably be enough to make your hands wet and continue kneading.

After about 10 minutes, give your dough time to rise. Place it in a greased bowl, cover it with a damp cloth, and give it about 2 hours to rise for the first time. When the dough is doubled, punch it down and let it rise another hour.

Then form your two loaves, put them on a greased baking sheet, cover them and let them sit again while the oven preheats. Bake your bread at 350F for about an hour. It is done when
- it is golden brown
- makes a hollow sound if you pick it up from the baking sheet and tap the bottom sharply with your knuckles or fingertips

Other than baking your own bread, you can make your own stock for soups:

SOUP STOCK RECIPE

Simply save vegetable trimmings from onions, carrots, celery, mushrooms, garlic, eggplant, zucchini, squash, spinach, parsley, potatoes, etc. Cover trimmings with water, bring to a boil them in plenty of water and then simmer gently for about half an hour, until the vegetables are very soft. Drain, discard the vegetables, and freeze the stock you just produced. You can use it for and kind of soup you wish to make. Do NOT use pepper innards, artichoke trimmings, tomato trimmings, or any trimmings from any member of the brassica family (cabbage, cauliflower, broccoli etc), they will make stock bitter.

And one last idea:

PASTA FROM SCRATCH

3 eggs
1 tsp salt
herbs to taste
2 cups of flour
flour for the kneading board (no need to skimp on flour when making pasta)

Crack eggs in a bowl, add salt and any herbs you like (basil, for example, does well, or even pepper), and beat the eggs. Then add flour and knead dough quickly. Let sit for a few moments, the roll dough out on a floured surface, turn dough often while rolling it out. When the dough is thin enough to your taste, cut in pieces and let the pasta dry. Store in fridge or freezer.

Baking and cooking from scratch will save you money, give you meaningful, important work to do at home, and you will find that it is a satisfying experience to eat better with less costs. Your family's health will benefit, too, let's not forget that.

These are just a few examples... You could also start sewing your own clothing, knitting sweaters, growing a kitchen garden and planting potatoes in a bucket on the balcony, make your own soap, or any number of other activities in the home that improve your life and give you meaningful work to do at the same time.

If you have more ideas, dear reader, please add them.