The hard way.

I am really trying to do things by hand whenever I can. It's a process, and I know that. Changing just a little bit at a time makes it easier to manage, and one day you wake up realize you are much closer to your ideal than you ever though you could be and it doesn't feel like it was hard to do.

I've never believed that you can convince people through words...of anything. I've always thought the best way to convince people of something is by example. I don't bother much with political debate among my friends; it doesn't really interest me. That's not to say I don't care about the state of the world, or issues at hand, but I think the best thing I can do with my life is to make my life the best it can be and have my life live up to the ideals I believe in. And in that, I hope that those around me will see that it's not so hard.

I never thought I could run. I just assumed it was something I couldn't do and no amount of talk could convince me otherwise. That was until I saw a friend of mine run a marathon and my mind was changed through her example. If she can run a marathon, I thought, I can certainly run a 5k. And I did. And another since, plus a 10k and a marathon relay!

I hope that others who don't think it's possible to cook from scratch every night, bake your own bread, grow your own food, make your own soil, knit your own clothes and live without a car will see me and realize it's not so hard. If I can do it, anyone can. I'm just trying to add more and more things to my list that make my life more sustainable, happier and healthier.

I'm having a little BBQ get-together this weekend, and I'm baking all my own buns and rolls and I'm making my own veggie burgers. I went to the store to get everything I needed the other day and went to get some paper plates because I don't have enough dishes to cover everyone and it would just be so much easier to be able to throw away plates than have to clean everything three times over during the day. But I got to the paper plate aisle and my options were either non-biodegradable plates for $3.50 or biodegradable plates for $5.00. I just couldn't do it. It wasn't worth it to me to spend that money on something I know is bad for the environment or spending even more on something that's better but still not good when I could just work a tiny bit harder and wash people's plates as we go. So, I didn't buy them. I went to buy bread crumbs too, which I need for the veggie patties, and I looked at the ingredient list in the pre-packaged bread crumbs and it was about a mile long. It's just supposed to be bread! So, I didn't buy it. I just have to make a tiny bit more effort now to set aside some of my homemade bread to toast and use for bread crumbs.

I bought yarn to make a blanket that came in a skien. Normally, at the yarn store they will wind it for you on a machine so it's ready to use when you get home. But, for some reason they didn't ask and I forgot. So, I had to figure out how to do it without a machine. And, granted, this isn't some environmental issue; I'm sure the yarn-winder isn't that bad for the environment, but it turns out it's really easy to do on your own. It's something that takes an extra five to ten minutes before you sit down to knit and it was actually kind of fun. It was so satisfying to make the little center-pull ball of yarn – all on my own! With my own two hands!

So, little by little I'm trying to incorporate more things that do on my own and not rely on pre-made things. Sure, it's a little harder, it takes a little more time. But, what else would I do? Watch TV? That's just boring (aside from The Office and 30 Rock....and Breaking Bad).

The ever evolving plan.

I wanted to share something today, but I didn't know what. Then I remembered my garden planner. It started off so neat and organized. I had my beds divided out by season, and an average 2'x2' area for each vegetable I intended on planting.

Now, it's gradually becoming an accurate representation of what is going on in my garden. And it's insane. As you can see, some vegetables have been pushed out and are floating in space until they become a reality. Some are a mess of individual plants like the broccoli and cauliflower, and some are an indecipherable mess of rows. I really can't keep track of these at this point. Which radishes were harvested and which are new sowings? How many rows of onions are there? They are all squeezed in between everything else and I can't see half the lines on here.

The planning application I am using has a nifty harvest tracker too, which as I continue to harvest things I will share. It should look pretty impressive by mid-summer.

We're eating from the garden tonight.

Eating from the garden is going to start being the dinner plan in this house more and more often. The other night I made pasta with kale and just went out the front door to get my produce for the evening.

Yesterday, I harvested another row of radishes. These were much bigger than my pervious harvests; they are like supermarket-sized radishes! Next week I am going to start pulling spinach too; it's getting so bushy they are starting to block each other out from the sunlight.

Suddenly, I went from waiting for little seeds to sprout, to having 10 small radishes in a week, to next week when we will have fresh radish, kale and spinach coming into the kitchen. It's only going to get better from here!

Getting bigger all the time.

I think it's really Spring. I mean it this time. Suddenly everything in the garden is starting to grow fast! If the plants say it's Spring, I believe them. The kale and spinach seem to be adding an extra leaf every day. I'm going to start thinning the kale and eating the ones I pull and the spinach will be ready to harvest soon.

I set out my lettuce starts, which are pretty sad. I left the plastic covering on them inside on a sunny day and I burnt them. A few made it and came back, but they are pretty puny. But, never fear, I sowed lettuce seeds a couple weeks ago and they sprouted! We'll be knee deep in lettuce this summer after all.

The free-box eight-year-old endive seeds are far exceeding my expectations and are growing in pace with the kale and spinach. I've never actually eaten endive before. I should probably start looking into recipes for that because by the looks of I'm going to have a lot of it to eat.

Somewhere in my excessive garden planning and overzealousness to have a lot of onions, I sowed a lot of seeds and didn't account for the starts I had growing inside. I went to transplant the onions and realized I didn't have any space for them. Whoops. So, I am trying to squeeze them in where I can; right now I have some inbetween spinach rows. Hopefully as the spinach are harvested the onions will get bigger and they won't bother each other much. Then the spinach bed will be replaced by onions as the season goes.

I built some makeshift trellises for the peas out of the trimings from our fruit trees. No bad, huh? And, look, they grabbed on! How do they know there is something to grab onto there? It boggels my mind. I wasn't going to do peas this year, but Mike said he wanted them and I'm glad he did. I'm getting very excited for fresh peas and getting to watch these guys climb.

When I was on a run last week I came upon my neighbor's house with a wheelbarrow out front with a sign propped up inside that said “Free Raspberries (not the whelbarrow)”. So I loaded up and walked back home with a bunch of raspberry vines. We planted them and some died, but some made it and now we will have fresh raspberries too.

Wind.

I got my bike back the other day. I thought for sure it was totaled from my accident, but it wasn't. It needed the front end pretty much rebuilt, but it cost less to fix it than buy a new bike. I was kind of looking forward to getting a shiny new bike. But I can't complain; this one is only a year old. I took the bike out the first night to meet people for a birthday-karaoke celebration (no, I did not sing). It was great. It was just the way I remembered it being. It helped that it was night and the streets were pretty empty. I rode again during the day and it was not nearly as relaxing. Stupid cars. Anyway, it was such a great feeling to be back out there. I smiled when I heard the sound of the wind in my ears as I went downhill. I hadn't heard that sound in four months. I missed it.

Potato Bread.

It was late Sunday afternoon when I realized we had a lot of leftovers and there was no need for me to cook dinner. We ended up going out and eating on Friday and Saturday and I was starting to feel like I hadn't been in my kitchen in ages. The most I had done in there in almost three days was make coffee. So, I decided to fill my idle time with some bread baking. I cracked open one of my bread books and decided to do something I have been wanting to do for a long time, but haven't ever made: Potato Bread.

Another free box find from a couple months ago finally got used, the food mill or potato ricer. It's the coolest thing ever. I was really excited.

The final product was AMAZING. It's potatoes and bread all wrapped up into one and it's the fluffiest thing I have ever baked. I'm definitely doing this one again. Plus it made the biggest dough I have ever kneaded, so I have a round loaf to save and freeze and a sandwich loaf to eat this week.

Easiest. Bread. Ever.

I found this recipe in my Encyclopedia of Bread and Bread Baking book a little while back. It has got to be hands down the easiest, fastest, most filling loaf of bread ever. The book gives a little history about the loaf. It was published in Britain during World War II. I can understand why, it's hearty and easy and doesn't use a lot of ingredients. So, here it goes; a true no-knead bread.

(The book recipe makes 3 loaves, so I reduced this quite a bit)

5 cups whole wheat flour

2 1/2-2/3/4 cup warm water

1 tsp. dry active yeast

1 tsp. Brown sugar

1 tsp. salt

Mix yeast with 2/3 cup warm water. Add sugar after a couple minutes and let sit for 10 minutes.

Sift flour and salt in a large bowl, make a well in the center.

Add yeast mixture and remaining water to flour.

Mix until it forms a slimy ball (I find that my dough is often too floury, so add water as needed). Tim did not make the bread. He served only as moral support.

Then, get this, dump it into the pan. Cover it with oiled plastic wrap.

Work on your knitting, or whatever for 30 min. Side note: I realize this is far to large to be a baby scarf. And, Mike pointed out that you probably don't want to wrap something around a small child's neck anyway. So, the scarf is for me. I screwed up anyway (I'm turning it into a pattern though, can't you see?) and it's my first attempt. But, after that I'll make a baby hat, or blanket, or something else appropriate and appropriately sized.

Then, put it in the oven at 400 degrees for 40 minutes.

That's it. And this is a really yummy, filling loaf of bread. One slice feels like a meal.

I knit!

I had more guests in town last weekend, so I fell off the blog wagon. I'm back now to an uneventful life filled with watching young plants, baking bread and knitting. That's right! Knitting! My best friend since the 3^rd grade came out to visit me and she taught me how to knit. It may be a bit of the blind leading the blind as she has only been knitting for a year and she taught herself. But, she made a lovely red scarf for my Birth-mas (We are really bad about giving gifts on time) and it looks like she knows what she is doing to me.

So, I am going to start my first knitting project, which will most likely be a scarf for a six month old child. I'm set to have a niece or nephew born this summer who lives in Colorado, and I figure this should work out well for next winter. My goal in knitting talents is to be able to make myself a cozy, oversized cardigan with big buttons. This make take years, but it's my goal.

While my friend was here we made pizza too. It was the first time I had ever made my own pizza dough before. For some reason it just seemed so hard, even though pizza is an “easy meal”. I'm glad I did it though, because it really was easy, and it's a great way to use up leftover bits of vegetables and onions and scraps of cheese. Pizza is going in the repertoire.

In other news, the radish pasta we made from the first harvest was amazingly delicious. I still have a bunch left over for salads, and think I might try to make radish butter with one of the next harvests. Doesn't that sound amazing? The broccoli starters are still standing. I'm not sure how. We have had crazy amounts of rain the last week or so, even for the Northwest, and the wind has been horrific and it's been really, really cold. I had to break out my dead-of-winter-sweaters again. It was sad. The forecast right now still looks a little sketchy, but I have a faith that Spring will come to Oregon this year. I'm just not sure when.