Lazy Granola with Chinese 5 Spice

13 Jun 2011 Leave a comment

by katsmama in food, Uncategorized Tags:


I’ve been cleaning out the freezer in the garage, not cleaning cleaning, you know, just sorting out what’s in there and eating it if possible. I came across a quart of peaches in vanilla sugar that I had sliced and frozen last summer. Since we are only a month away from new peaches, I figured I should do something with them.
Last year I made a peach crisp and instead of using cinnamon, I used some Chinese 5 spice powder. I had gotten it at our co-op, where you can buy bulk spices and herbs. I like being able to buy a tiny bit of things I’ve never tried before. I open the jar, smell it, scoop a little in a bag- it winds up being like 25 cents for a recipe’s worth. (It drives DH crazy, though, because I never label the bags, so there are all these bags of green herbage in the cabinet)
I had first used the 5 spice in a dry rub for steak, which got a thumbs- down from DH, and a thumbs up from me. So, then I tried it in peach crisp, and loved it, but it got a thumbs down from basically everyone else that I made taste it. We are picky around here, I tell you.
According to the Spice House website, which is a supplier of herbs and spices, their 5 spice mix is: “Gently hand mixed from China Tung Hing cassia cinnamon, powdered cassia buds, powdered star anise and anise seed, China No. 1 ginger and ground cloves. http://www.thespicehouse.com/spices/chinese-five-spice-powder By my count, that’s only 3 spices, unless the seeds of anise taste way different from the pods…and the cassia buds taste different from the bark… which I guess it could, but that still only makes 4. It’s a mystery.
Frontier is the distributor of the bulk spices at my co-op, and their website doesn’t list any ingredients at all- their listing reads like the J. Peterman catalog: “Chinese Five Spice Five Spice Seasoning includes all five tastes: sweet, sour, bitter, salty, and hot or spicy. Thought to create a balance of yin and yang, this spicy blend makes for a great twist on American dishes too. And it’s salt free!
Maybe I should sell it harder with my kids, “C’mon, try it, you know how you’ve been needing to balance your yin and yang!”

I loved the 5 spice, but I am virtually the only one in my house who does. So, then, I figured the streusel topping stuff was essentially granola, and wouldn’t life be easier if I could just slice some peaches, put yogurt on top and sprinkle it with granola. I could cook up a big batch on a cool day, and have it ready for peaches any time I wanted.
Lazy Granola
2 cups rolled oats
1/3 cup oil
1/3 cup brown sugar
2 teaspoons 5 spice powder, or cinnamon, or whatever spice floats your boat
½ cup almonds
Dump everything into a bowl and mix with a wooden spoon- all of the oatmeal flakes should be pretty evenly coated with the sugar/oil mixture. Preheat oven to 250, pour the granola mix into a sheet pan and toast for an hour. Shake and stir it every 15 minutes so it browns evenly. When it cools, store in an airtight container.

No photos- beautiful arty pictures of year-old frozen peaches, or uniformly brown granola are beyond my food stylist skill level right now.

Asparagus Update

27 May 2011 1 Comment

by katsmama in food, gardening, Uncategorized Tags: , , ,


The shoots of Asparagus in the new, horseshoe-shaped bed are up- thinner than pencils, but they show me the plants are alive. I’ll carefully layer more compost on top (carefully, because I don’t want to knock anything over). I’ve had to grub out some thistles that like the compost and moisture, too. Once the trench is up to ground level, I will put on a thick layer of mulch to keep down the weeds.

Little asparagus shoots, before I dug out the grass and thistles.

Bloom Day

16 May 2011 1 Comment

by katsmama in gardening, Uncategorized Tags: ,


Wish I'd planted these lilacs underneath my window, instead of way back by the fence.

Last year, there were enough currants on this bush to make jelly- see, even on bloom day, I think in terms of food.

The tulips and daffodilas are faded, and the iris and peonies are waiting in the wings, so right now it’s a show that belongs to the cherry tree and the lilac.

Tiny proto-cherries, Northstar variety.

A visit to my local nursery

12 May 2011 2 Comments

by katsmama in gardening, goldfish pond, Uncategorized Tags: , ,


Mother’s day seems to be the official day around here to buy plants, even though the average last frost date isn’t until the 15th. We went hiking on the actual holiday, but I stopped at my favorite local nursery after work today. I have ordered a bunch of plants from a friend who has started seeds for a school fundraiser, but I had to fill in the gaps, and pick up the floating water plants that I can’t overwinter, but Gulley’s can.

Water lettuce and water hyacinth- I picked the biggest ones they had in the bucket. The lettuce is more than a foot across.

When the girl was a baby, we would go to Gulley’s once a week in the winter, just to enjoy the greenhouse- they actually had a Koi pond inside, with a bridge overlooking the water, and turtles basking…they have removed it, because it really doesn’t make sense to have several hundred square feet of retail space devoted to goldfish. Especially when they didn’t even sell goldfish.
So, on Monday afternoon, I got 2 kinds of tomato, a kohlrabi plant,(because my kids keep insisting that they only like the broccoli stems, not the florettes, and kohlrabi is basically broccoli stem) a “Wee be little” pumpkin, and a jalapeno and a sweet pepper.

Just a box of plants- pond plants in the bag, everything else in 2"pots.

I have always hated green peppers, but if I am trying to get my kids to try new things, I should also…and notice how much better home-grown tomatoes taste than grocery store ones? Maybe it’s the same with peppers.
I resisted the huge selection of herbs- especially the scented geraniums, which they had several varieties of, but I have one already, a rose-scented, and no space to overwinter any more than that.

I went ahead and planted everything when the temperature was 80- then looked at the weather forecast- rain/snow mixture predicted for last night. Curses!

When I went to bed the thermometer was at 40, and it was sprinkling. I covered the plants with big clay pots, just in case it did freeze. When I woke up today, it was cool and rainy, but no snow on the ground.

Come on, weather, warm up so the tomatoes can be happy...

The goal- get them before they go to seed.

08 May 2011 Leave a comment

by katsmama in gardening, lawn, Uncategorized Tags:


 

Plenty of nectar for bees, deep roots that accumulate nutrients, salad greens for the adventurous. What's not to love?

It does not fail- whenever my mom comes to visit, she comments that there is an excellent product called weed and feed, and it kills all the weeds, and fertilizes, too, and there’s even a generic version, if I think the name-brand is too expensive.
Argh. I’m polite, she is my mother, after all, and I say something like, “Oh, yes, we’ll have to look into it.” I don’t tell her that I don’t use pesticides because my kids play on the lawn, or because our storm sewers drain to the river, or because lawns are the leading cause of non-point water pollution. Saying that to her amounts to an attack- didn’t her kids play on the lawn? Her storm sewers drain to the entire Eastern United States (she’s in the mountains- headwaters of the Arkansas river…)
She doesn’t have any dandelions, though.
We’ve got enough for everyone.
Since I won’t use poison, I have to work on weeds the old fashioned way- with a paring knife, or sometimes a digger, or sometimes just bare hands. I have filled buckets this spring- they go into the compost pile, with a layer of dead leaves on top, and a scoop of soil. I am not sure if my compost gets hot enough to kill dandelion seeds- I haven’t been too scientific about it.
This year, for the first time, the kids have helped. I demonstrated how to lever the plants up at the crown, and offered to pay a dollar per bucket. It worked for a while- although I did see the boy blowing the seed heads off one that we missed. I don’t know what he wished for. More dandelions, I guess.

I realize that just popping them up out of the ground doesn’t get rid of them- they’re perennial, they have deep roots, they’ll keep coming back. But after May, they aren’t so bad- no yellow flowers bringing down property values, just green leaves. They aren’t prickly like thistle, or annoying like bindweed, or crazy making like mallow ( my least favorite weed) they’re just green.

Edited to add: My mom is really quite wonderful. Aside from a blindspot to herbicides, she is super smart, nice and caring. She also has dial up internet, so it’s possible she will never read this.  Also, I noticed today that some dandelions in the front yard have gone to seed. Curses!

$15 well-spent

07 May 2011 Leave a comment

by katsmama in lawn, Uncategorized


I texted the kid up the street today-“can u mow? we r desperate!” Moments later he called, “did you get my text? I asked. Um, no I just wonedered if you needed your lawn mowed. Gotta love this kid.

He came down, pushing the mower and carrying a broom, and started to negotiate. I was worried- but I shouldn’t have been. “I’ve been thinking…about the price…” he chewed on his lip.

 I jumped in, “Well, last year it was 15, and that seemed fair.”

“I know, but I think 10 is more fair.”
Huh?
My lawn is kind of a pain to mow- the front is pretty straightforward, but in the back I have carved out serpentine beds around the trees, and there is a swingset that can’t be moved, and a frisbee golf target, and a teepee, for crying out loud, that have to be moved. And this kid wants to charge me less, because it turns out he’s afraid that if it’s too expensive, I’ll mow it myself. There is no way I want to mow this disaster!
So, I insisted on 15, and asked him to set it on the highest setting, even though he commented that it hardly looked like anything was cut off. I told him that it was okay, I could tell.

Here’s how great this kid is- I showed him where the squill is planted, and showed him the seed heads that are ripening, and asked him to mow around it because I wanted it to spread, and he was totally okay with it- no eye rolling, no questioning looks, no wondering aloud why a person would want flowers where the grass is supposed to be. He is a prize in the lawn mowing world.

Vanilla Trellis Tutorial

05 May 2011 11 Comments

by katsmama in containers, gardening in containers, Uncategorized Tags: , ,


Sweet little baby vanilla orchid- the pale green sticky-outy thing is an epiphytic root.

 I never believed I could grow a vanilla orchid without a greenhouse- credit the Botanic Garden (again- I’m a little obsessed with the place). At the very end of my visit there with my wonderful MIL, we went to the learning center at the children’s section. This place isn’t quite a greenhouse, but it has large south windows. There was a display of herbs and spices, and an employee was working on a plant in a container- wrapping a long vine around a tower made of chicken wire with sheet moss inside. I asked what it was, and actually said “Squee” when he told me it was vanilla.

In “Growing Tasty Tropical Plants,” (ooh, it’s overdue, need to renew it…) I learned that vanilla was not appreciably different from most of the tropical “houseplants” I currently have. Their major needs are something to climb on, filtered sun, and humidity.

The cage the guy was working on at the Botanic gardens supplies two of those needs- something to climb and humidity, because the sheet moss can hold moisture and slowly release it. Filtered sun it can get on the back patio in the summer, and in the Boy’s room in the winter.

I went home and promptly ordered a vanilla orchid plant from eBay, then set about designing my own humidity trellis.  Vanilla orchids don’t bloom until they get to be about 10 feet tall, but I didn’t want to create a ten foot tall cage, so I made mine modular, and figure the vine will wrap around, adding length without too much verticality. Once the vine gets to the top, I can make another tube, lash it on with cable ties, and be good to go.

I used cable ties to connect the layers of mesh and sheet moss.

I had a roll of hardware cloth in the garage, and as I sketched and thought about it, I decided to make it like a quilt, with two layers of metal mesh that overlap in the center, leaving about 6 inches on either end, and a layer of sheet moss in the middle as batting. I stitched it together with cable ties. The humidity is supplied by a 1 liter pop bottle that sits on the shelf made of the inner layer of wire. I poked pin holes in the bottom. When I  fill it the water slowly drips down the tower, where it can evaporate.  In my first bottle, I poked too many holes, and the bottle drained in about 10 minutes. Ideally, it would be much slower. I have adjust the tightness of the screw top, so it slows it down, but it isn’t quite dialed in perfectly yet. The benefit to using a pop bottle is, I just have to check the recycle bin to get another one, poke fewer holes, and experiment.

I laid out about 12” of hardware cloth and cut it using wire cutters- I had to weigh it down so it would lie flat.

Lay out the green sheet moss- I got it wet so it would be easier to work with- I was outside on a windy day. I covered the bottom 18 inches of it but left the top bare.

Lay out the second piece of hardware cloth unevenly, so that the centers overlap, but there is about 6 inches on the bottom (this end will go into the flowerpot) and 6 inches on top (that’s where the water bottle will go.)

Quilt the layers together using cable ties. You could use wire for this, but I think it would be a pain- the hardware cloth wants to roll up, with cable ties you loop, then zip tight, and it goes pretty quickly. Usually my crazy frugality prevents me from buying something new for a project, but in this case, I went to the hardware store and bought cable ties- 2 dollars, and totally worth it.

The bottle fits into the top, and the bottom goes into the pot for stability.

Roll up the quilt, using a pop bottle to make it the right size- the bottle will rest on the shelf created by the inner layer of wire. Use more cable ties to connect the ends together, and maybe spin the tie ends to the inside. I forgot, and they look kind of terrible. I guess I could trim them…

Put the trellis into your pot- I used a 10” diameter clay pot, then filled it with orchid mix. This is when it would have been good to have a helper- the orchid mix is chunky, too chunky to fit through the holes in the mesh, so it would have helped to have another set of hands to stabilize it. I put the trellis in, filled in and around with orchid mix, then I put the plant in, and added orchid mix to fill in the rest of the way.

 The plant is only about 4 inches tall now- once there is no frost danger, I’ll put it outside on the patio and watch it grow.

Cold-Brewed Coffee- oh my gosh!

20 Apr 2011 1 Comment

by katsmama in favorite things, food, Uncategorized Tags:


I’ve written before about deciding to spend less money on trips out for coffee, and I mostly have. The hot brewed coffee using the little Melitta filter funnel has been great. The magic moment, though, was when I learned about brewing coffee at room temperature to use as iced coffee.

 Holy cow- there are apparently devices that you can get to make it for you, but honestly, if you have a jar and a strainer…
Here’s what you do- put about a cup of coarsely ground coffee into a jar, then add a quart of room temperature water. I’ve tried it with filtered water and straight out of the tap, and I don’t think there’s much of a difference. We have good tap water here- if it’s good enough to drink, it’s probably good enough to brew cold.
So, where were we? Oh yeah, coffee in jar, water in jar, let it sit…I go about 12 hours, or as long as I can remember. A woman at City News, a non-Starbucks coffee institution, told me they brew it for 24 hours. I think the longest I’ve gone was about 16 hours. Then strain- I strain it through a mesh strainer, then use a coffee filter as well.It gets muddy if you skip the second straining.

No photos…jars with coffee… a more talented photographer maybe could make that work.

 I keep a jar in the fridge, and pour it over ice, with a bit of milk and a little raw sugar. I drink it through a straw, so I get little chunks of undissolved sugar on my tongue…bliss. Caffeinated bliss.

Squill

17 Apr 2011 Leave a comment

by katsmama in gardening, lawn, Uncategorized Tags: ,


worm's eye view of the blooms

In my never ending quest to eliminate lawn (well, I guess it will end someday, when there is no more lawn…) I have planted Siberian Squill in the back yard, next to the hillbilly goldfish pond. I bought  48 bulbs from McClure and Zimmerman, and stabbed into the lawn with my trowel, opened up slits, and placed the bulbs in.

 I’d like to believe it was by design, but I love the way the flowers in the bed by the pond look as if they have just spilled over the sides, and there are little blue flowers mixed in with the grass. They are supposed to spread over the years, and this is the space where the grass is worst- no shade at all, and I don’t water or fertilize. I spread some of my precious compost on the area last year, and I dig out the perennial mallow, but I have to say, the lawn is never my top priority.
Squill has pretty blue flowers, and there are variations- like blue with white stripes and white with blue stripes. Sigh. I just got my new McClure and Zimmerman catalogue, which means they’ve already got me thinking about a new order. I hope to let squill self-seed, and naturalize on its own. To get it to spread, I need to  let the foliage go yellow, which means don’t let the kid from up the street mow for a couple of weeks.

 The kid from up the street said to me today, “can you just give me the money?”

ahahahahah… No.

Bloom Day

15 Mar 2011 1 Comment

by katsmama in Uncategorized Tags: ,


I was tickled the other day to see blooms on the mini iris I had planted last year next to the hillbilly goldfish pond.  Squee! I thought- and just in time for Bloom Day. That’s all that is blooming, but it reminds me that Spring is on the way.

Iris Reticulata- my new favorite flower, but only because it is blooming right now.

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