I Disappeared

I guess I dropped out of blogging for about four months. The reason, in short: I got pregnant.

For most of the hot months of this year, I was feeling extremely lethargic and occasionally gross (but never nauseous) in the stomach. I spent July and August sleeping from about 9:30 pm to 6:00 am every day with the occasional nap at lunch time and a pretty much daily nap during the evening news. All this lethargy caused three things to happen: 1) I stopped caring about blogging, 2) I mostly stopped cooking, and 3) I tried really hard to keep up with my bees but doing so was not in the best interest of my health.

Spending a hour in the heat of an August afternoon dressed in bee garb with a hot smoker in my hand nearly made me pass out on more than one occasion. My beekeeping became a total chore and somewhere in the season my hive beetle management issues got totally out of control and they devastated the colony. I was so disappointed to have failed on my first attempt, but I’m resolved to give it  a go again.

But the good news is that I’m carrying a healthy baby boy due at the end of February! I’m learning a lot about the costs of kids as well as the environmental impact. Hopefully I’ll maintain the energy to write about that every now and again.

Lentil Shepherd’s Pie

1 onion, finely chopped
2 tablespoons olive oil
2 tablespoons flour
12 to 16 ounces vegetable broth
16 ounces prepared lentils (Trader Joe’s steamed lentils are perfect)
Worcestershire sauce
Dried sage
Dried thyme
Salt and pepper
10 ounces frozen vegetable medley (any combination of peas, carrots, green beans, corn)
Prepared mashed potatoes
Garlic powder
Cheddar cheese

Saute the onion in the olive oil in a medium saucepan until softened. Push the onion to the side of the pan and combine the flour and about 1/2 cup of the broth stirring constantly to make a roux. If the roux seems dry, add more broth. Stir the onions into the roux. Add the lentils and stir until combined. Season with Worcestershire, sage, thyme, salt and pepper to taste. Cook over medium low heat adding broth until the desired consistency is reached (should be wet without being soupy).

Prepare the frozen vegetables according to the package directions.

Spread the lentils over the bottom of a casserole dish. Top with the vegetables. Spread the mashed potatoes over the vegetables. Top with garlic powder to taste and shredded cheddar cheese. Broil for 3 to 4 minutes or until the cheese is melted and starting to brown.

Serves 6

Hive Photos

I have been seriously neglecting this space lately–lots of live action life stuff going on this summer! So, to keep things lively, here are a few photos from my last venture into the bee hive.

A frame without too much development--mostly just honey and a little stored pollen. Notice the worker flying in the top left side of the image!

This frame is full of open brood (not capped); it's probably full of eggs the camera can't capture.

This frame shows more capped brood, with honey stores on the right.

Food, Inc. Event

On Friday night, I attended Nashville’s opening of Food, Inc. at The Belcourt Theater. The event was sponsored by Whole Foods and featured lots of snacks and a panel discussion with regional and local food advocates and growers.

Much of the information conveyed by the film was old news to me, but the interviews and stories were very compelling as was the graphic footage of both industrial animal and vegetable farms and slaughterhouses. It was so compelling, in fact, that I frequently had to cover my eyes (and even once wanted to stick my fingers in my ears).

But I already knew about sick cows being slaughtered along with healthy ones and the dangers of working in meat processing plants. What I didn’t know about, and consequently feel most enraged about right now, are the depths to which agricultural companies like Monsanto will go to hurt/subdue farmers. The story of Moe Parr, an old-school seed cleaner, broke my heart. Here’s a guy in his 70s, been cleaning seeds for farmers his whole life, who is sued by Monsanto for “encouraging farmers to commit copyright infringement.” You see, behemoths like Monsanto patent their seeds, and farmers who buy Monsanto seed are not allowed to clean and keep seed at the end of the harvest. Keeping the seed (which resulted from their own farming practices on their own fields) is illegal because Monsanto “owns” the idea of the seed, the patent for its genetic makeup. Moe Parr wasn’t even cleaning seed for Monsanto farmers, but the mere fact that his business exists in a world where Monsanto seed is used by 90% of farmers constitutes a threat. Moe eventually settled out of court with Monsanto due to his inability to continue paying legal fees–imagine that.

Other interviewees and personalities in the film include Barbara Kowalcyk food safety advocate who lost her son to E. coli; Joel Salatin, a philosopher farmer, who offers some delicious sound bytes on respect for food animals equating to respect for other human beings; the great food writer Michael Pollan; and Eric Schlosser of Fast Food Nation fame.

I encourage everyone to see this film. It will be eye-opening for many people and galvanizing for those of us already in the know. I, for one, don’t think I can eat meat of unknown original any longer. That means no meat in restaurants. My meat would have to come from my CSA or from a store like Whole Foods who can track its source to the grower. Sounds like a tedious way to deal with my protein sources, but I think quality is my choice over convenience in this instance. But GO, see the film. I hope that it will make you think and help you make better choices in the grocery and at restaurants.

Squash Casserole

*Another great way to use up summer squash and zucchini.

8 cups chopped zucchini and/or yellow squash
1 large red pepper, chopped
1 large onion, chopped
1 cup shredded sharp cheddar cheese
1 cup breadcrumbs
1/2 cup olive oil
2 large eggs, beaten well
1 tablespoon dried basil

Combine all of the ingredients in a large bowl. Brush an 9- by 11-inch baking dish with olive oil. Pour the zucchini mixture in the dish.  Bake at 350 degrees for 45 minutes or until the top is browned.

Serves about 8 as side dish, 5 or 6 as a main course

Refrigerator Pickles

To combat the coming onslaught of cucumbers.

8 cups diagonally sliced cucumbers (1/2-inch thick)
1 medium Vidalia onion or other sweet onion, sliced (1/4-inch thick)
2 celery stalks diagonally sliced (1/2-inch thick)
coarse salt
2 cups sugar
1 cup cider vinegar
1 teaspoon celery seed
1 teaspoon mustard seed

In colander set over a bowl or sink toss the cucumbers, onion and celery with 1 1/2 teaspoons salt. Set aside to drain, 30 minutes, tossing occasionally. In a small bowl, combine sugar, vinegar, celery seed and mustard seed; stir until sugar dissolves.

Divide the cucumber mixture among clean jars or airtight containers and pour vinegar mixture over mixture. Refrigerate at least 8 hours or up to 2 weeks.

Zucchini Bread

I’m sure everyone already has their own recipe for turning an abundance of zucchini into a breakfast/dessert quick bread, but here’s mine just in case.

2 cups shredded zucchini
3 eggs
1 3/4 cups sugar
1 cup oil
2 cups flour
1/4 teaspoon baking powder
2 teaspoons baking soda
2 teaspoons cinnamon
1 teaspoon salt
2 teaspoons vanilla
1 cup chopped nuts (optional)

Place the shredded zucchini in a strainer and press to remove excess liquid. Beat the eggs, sugar and oil together in a large bowl. Add the flour, baking powder, baking soda, cinnamon, salt, vanilla and nuts. Mix until combined. Gently stir in the zucchini.

Divide the mixture between two greased loaf pans. Bake at 350 degrees for 45 minutes.

Line Drying Instructions

I had an epiphany this morning. I remembered this book I bought years ago when I was purchasing my first home. Home Comforts: The Art and Science of Keeping House is exactly the kind of book my friends make fun of me for having. It’s 800 pages of knowledge on 100s of housekeeping tasks–lots of grandmotherly and practical advice. Cheryl Mendelson* covers everything from how to fix a broken book binding to how often to wash your bedsheets and how. It’s  come in handy a few times, and I decided to consult its wisdom on line-drying today.

Mendelson comes in strong with 3 pages of text and 2 diagrams on line-drying (using a machine dryer got 4 pages, believe it or not). The image above illustrates the most helpful principal I gleaned from the book–the art of making your clothes into boat sails. You see, I was under the impression that you just wanted stuff to lay flat so as not to let it wrinkle. But really, the most effective line-drying requires a gentle breeze and clothes hung just loosely enough for the wind to come along and fill them like a ship’s sail. I tried it out right after reading this, and it was truly efficient (it helped that the “breeze” was a 95-degree Tennessee summer blaster).

Two more helpful tips from the book:

• “Towels will line dry to be much softer and fluffier if you shake them energetically before you hang them on the line. Make them snap. This loosens up the pile very effectively. Shake and snap them when you take them off, too, to soften them.”

• Pin socks at the toe.

*In researching a little further for this post, I learned that Mendelson has a 416-page book JUST about laundry. I bet she’s really fun to talk to at parties.

Other helpful tips from the book:

Purple Bean Salad

A bag of purple beans (think green beans but in an exciting dark purple) showed up in my CSA box this past Friday. I really love green beans, but I held off from eating them myself because I had a potluck to attend on Wednesday. With minimal internet surfing, I found the How to Cook Like Your Grandmother blog (seems right up my alley) and a recipe for Purple Bean Salad. While I didn’t have the time (or the ingredients) to make my own chive blossom vinegar, I did wind up making this salad for the potluck. I substituted white wine vinegar but should have maybe found something a little milder (it was still met with positive reviews). And it’s completely gorgeous in a white dish–the red and the purple vegetables just radiate healthiness.

Food on Film Week at The Belcourt

For all my Nashville people: The Belcourt is screening Food, Inc. on Friday, June 26, at 7:00pm with a panel discussion to follow. For more info and tickets, go here. I hear that the tickets are about half sold out, so hurry and get yours!

The week following is full of events and more film screenings. On Saturday The Belcourt is holding an information expo in its parking lot featuring local markets, CSAs, publications, non-profits, etc. Sunday through Thursday, the following films will play: The End of the Line, Pressure Cooker, and The Garden.

Support our local movie house! It’s the only one this city’s got, and it does great work.