My neighbor gave me some chestnuts, quite a lot of them as you can see from the photo! I don't know what they sell for or the open market but when I lived in Asheville, a street vendor sold fresh hot roasted chestnuts every fall, 6 for $1.50.
Chestnuts are very good nutritionally, being lower in fats and calories than most nuts. (Most nuts have nearly 50% fat; chestnuts only about 1%.) They don't keep the way most nuts do, so they need to have some processing or they will mold and spoil in just a few days.
Chestnuts are best known as roasted, because that brings out the sweetness. However, back in the days before the chestnut blight, they were used in a variety of dishes from a vegetable side-dish, or boiled and mashed, to puddings, stuffing ingredient, and even roasted and ground for flour. You can roast, peel and freeze them but since I'm out of freezer space, I'm looking at alternatives.
I have several ideas in mind for their use. Certainly, I shall roast and grind some (as soon as I can afford a grain grinder). I plan to puree some for use in combination with some kind of fruit for a leather roll-up, and I want to make a batch of chestnut biscotti.
I'll post pics and recipes when I make something with them.
I know I have mentioned several times that I am having a great fall crop of raspberries. In most years, my fall crop is always better than the earliier crop in June; this year it has been a bumper crop. Which is a good thing because most of my 'backyard crops' for this year are non-existent.
The photo above was taken just 2 days ago, so you can see there are more berries still to mature. My raspberry plants are a mix of Heritage, Caroline, and some native canes from North Carolina I acquired years ago. I can tell the native berries from the other 2... they are smaller berries. Then, Heritage matures earlier than Caroline, so I'd say the photo is probably of Caroline berries, although I wouldn't bet the ranch on it.
I suppose I have picked about 4 gallons or more, from a total of about 20 row-feet of canes. I think the size of the yield this year is due to several reasons. For one thing, they have been in this spot 2 years now, and I think they like it. They are also lightly organically fertilized just once in spring, and side-dressed with minerals like Greensand, or Azomite. It is probably a boon that we had lots of wet weather off and on, too.
With all the rain we’ve had this week, I searched my brain (and recipe file) for a pot of something I could make that would last for 2-3 days and have a warming effect. Around this area, a favorite and easy simple dish is “Soup Beans and Cornbread”. It’s basically just a pot of pinto beans served with cornbread on the side (although some folks put cornbread in their bowl of beans).
Beans are high in protein, but they are not a complete protein by themselves. The addition of a whole grain creates a high-quality, high-fiber, fat-free protein, with equal or better nutritional value than a protein like meat, and with far less cost incurred. As an example, beans and rice would be a complete protein provided you used rice that has only had the husk removed, like brown rice. (White rice doesn’t cut it, not even the ‘enriched’ white rice.)
So adding whole-grain cornbread along with beans could also provide a complete protein, that is, if you can find corn meal that is not de-germed. Most corn meal on the grocery store shelves has been de-germed so it can last almost indefinitely. BTW, the bags of masa harina (used to make tortillas and tamales) is corn meal that has been bleached with lye.
I keep some stone ground whole grain cornmeal in the freezer that I use for my cornbread; the germ will become rancid stored at room temps for very long. Most cornbread recipes call for more corn meal than flour, somewhere close to a 2:1 ratio. I make mine almost the opposite, and I use white whole wheat flour. It still makes a nice crumb but not so much that I make a big mess trying to slice a wedge of cornbread to butter.
Cornbread follows in a separate post.
Soup Beans 1 pound dry pinto beans 1 large onion, diced 1 clove garlic (if desired) 1 or 2 smoked ham hocks 1 or more onion, finely diced for garnish red pepper flakes, to taste Freshly ground pepper and any herbs of your choice, to taste. (Remember, the ham hocks will be salty. I generally don’t need to add any salt; it can be added if necessary when served.)
Sort the beans carefully to remove any small stones and yucky beans. Rinse well, cover with 2” of water, and soak overnight in the refrigerator. If time is a factor, bring the beans to a boil, turn off heat and cover for 2 hours. In either case, discard the water, rinse again, and cover with 1-2” of water. Add the smoked ham hocks and chopped onion, bring to a boil, and then reduce heat. Cover and cook on low until beans are almost tender. I’m cooking this batch in a crockpot, and it may take 6-8 hours.
When the beans are about 20-30 minutes away from being tender enough to eat, remove the hocks. Chop the meat from the hocks, shred and add the meat back to the pot, along with some red pepper flakes, and a generous amount of black pepper to taste. If you want to add any herbs, now is the time. (This is also the time your cornbread should go in the oven!)
When the soup beans and cornbread are finished cooking, ladle the beans into a bowl, add minced onion on top, butter a wedge of warm cornbread, and enjoy!
Note: I find that this makes a lovely and substantial lunch meal break in the summer when I’m busy in the garden. That leaves plenty of room for a super salad at suppertime when it has cooled down a bit.
Cornbread recipes are as controversial as pinto bean or chili recipes, and everyone has their own way of doing them. My recipes are just good ole basic recipes, and can be tweaked to your personal taste in all sorts of ways.
Cornbread 1 cup whole grain cornmeal 1 ¾ cups all-purpose flour (I prefer white whole wheat flour) 2 tsp. baking powderbig pinch of baking soda (about ¼ tsp.) 1/2 to 3/4 tsp. salt (depends on the kind of salt, and your taste buds) 1 stick unsalted butter that has been melted and allowed to cool (or ½ cup ghee*) 1 ¼ cups milk (don’t add it all at once; some days it takes less to make the batter and some days it takes more) 1 large egg (I’m using a duck egg, because I have them.) Sugar is optional; I think it depends on where you were raised!
Preheat the oven to 350ºF and put in the oiled cast iron skillet to heat. (Because I’m a butter freak, I use nearly a Tbs. of butter in the skillet. The butter can easily brown too much or even burn, so I add it just a minute ot two before I’m ready to take the heated pan out of the oven and add the batter.
Mix all the dry ingredients together in a large bowl. If you only have regular de-germed corn meal, you can add some drained corn kernels to help round out the protein; plus, they add more texture.
In another bowl, beat together the milk and the egg until well light and frothy, then whisk in the butter. Dump this all at once into the dry mix and stir gently until everything is just moistened. DO NOT OVER-MIX.
Take the hot iron skillet out of the oven, dump the batter in and spread gently to even it out. Place the pan back in the oven and bake for about 25 minutes, or until the top is lightly browned and a toothpick or table knife inserted in the center comes out clean. Baking time will vary with altitude and humidity. If you have added corn kernels, the baking time may be a bit longer.
Remove pan from the oven and allow it to cool for 5 minutes before cutting. You may choose to turn the pan upside down over a plate to remove the cornbread; when I do this, I put a second plate atop the turned-out cornbread and invert it again so the top is facing up. The presentation is much nicer!
*Ghee is clarified butter; once clarified, it will keep for a very long time in a jar on the shelf without becoming rancid.
Would you steal a drug that your child needs to survive? Is it sometimes wrong to tell the truth? Is torture ever justified?
There’s now a free (and for years an extraordinarily popular class) Harvard University course being offered online about looking at, and challenging, the reasoning behind the how’s and why’s of the moral decisions we make every day.
Over the years, more than 14,000 students have taken popular course “Justice” with Michael J. Sandel. Interest has run high outside the classroom and recently enough money was raised to produce it like a big HD multimedia event and not some boring online class.
After I watched the intro (above) and took a peek at some of the classes, I intend to watch as many of the 12 episodes as I can; if I really like the class I’ll watch them all. They will all be available on YouTube, or linked together here.
In today’s world, the scandals all over the news appear to stem from lack of moral fiber. Our moral compass is broken. In my grandfather’s time, a man was judged by his ethical fiber, and a man’s word (and or handshake) was his bond.
I think it’s time we re-examine what it means to have ‘moral fiber’ and perhaps this course can give us some insights about how we (and others) got here, and whether we can change it.
CNNMoney.com just announced the Atlanta-based Georgian Bank has failed, the 95th bank failure so far this year. That's an average of more than 10 per month, with probably more to come.
The cost of today's failed bank will cost the FDIC an estimated $892 million. Sigh.
Installing Solar Panels at Wayne National Forest, photo by US Forest Service
The U.S. government has awarded $550 million in grants for renewable energy projects, which will double the amount of stimulus money heading toward green energy over the next few years. The move signals an encouraging commitment to a clean energy future, which will help to combat climate change and create greatly needed green jobs.
The grants will be given in cash to companies, instead of tax credits in order to provide an reimbursement to solar, wind, biomass and other renewable energy production facilities.
Projects already underway include the Wayne National Forest installation, which was given $400,000 to add 250 additional solar panels to a facility that already had 50 previously installed. The Solar Expansion Project is funded by the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act (ARRA) of 2009.
I'm not sure I really understand all of this... the FDIC has spent a lot of money to pay off depositors in failed banks, and is now short of cash. Just 2-3 days ago, I read the FDIC is considering a huge loan from banks. This is where I get confused...
We know the government owns the FDIC, and we know the government has lent billions to bail out banks. So why would the government (FDIC) borrow money from (government) money in banks? Isn't that like borrowing your own money?
Now, I just read (Bloomberg) that if the FDIC 'borrows' from the government, it will push us past the debt limits. Does that mean the US government is 'tapped out'??
I've written a few things lately about this precious metal we call gold, mostly from a financial value viewpoint.
Lately I've been thinking about this lovely malleable metal in terms of adornment. I lived in Miami during and after the first influx of Cuban Refugees in the early 1960's. It wasn't until they had been amongst us a year or two that I frequented some common areas. One thing I remember is all the heavy gold chains and ID bracelets the men wore and it wasn't 14KT either.
The only jewelry I could afford as a young adult was silver, and I soon learned I couldn't wear it without my body reacting to it. I began to wish I had some gold jewelry, other than small gold studs in my ears. When I divorced my first husband, I immediately bought myself a heavy gold nugget ring which I wear to this day, and a Museum Movado watch with an 18KT gold case. Eventually I bought a few more select pieces that I wore with my corporate drag.
Now I dress comfortably in jeans and hiking boots, and seldom wear any of the jewelry except my nugget ring, and a couple of small gold chains. I've given some of it to nieces, but even they dress down these days. However, the allure of gold still remains deep within me.
As to the value of gold jewelry... would I trade what few pieces I have left for food in a real crisis? I really don't know since I have never been in that kind of situation. I do regret some pieces I hocked, or sold, to pay rent. I was friends in the 1960's with a Hungarian man who came to the US as a refugee in WWII. He would buy any kind of gold jewelry at yard sales, auctions, etc. I remember him describing people in the war-torn areas of Europe who wore coats with gold jewelry sewn inside. They were always able to trade for food with it. I guess once you have seen it happen, you know it can happen again.
On the financial/market value side of gold... if you have been watching the market, gold is up further in value, well over $1,000 now. The IMF has announced they want to sell 403 tonnes of gold, which is about 1/8 of their gold holdings. 403 tonnes has a market value of close to $13 Billion.
Unconfirmed via Reuters reports say China is interested in buying it, if the price is right. They said $13 billion is small beans to the Chinese, who have more than $2 trillion in foreign exchange reserves. The Chinese report having 1,045 tonnes of gold already, accumulated slowly over the last 10 or so years. I wonder how much the US still has?
Last year in a moment of panic about the banks, a neighbor withdrew $25,000 from her savings and installed a home safe. I suggested she buy gold with it; gold was $928 then. That would have bought around 27 ounces of gold, worth about $2500 more today. Her savings were paying a pittance, even the CD's. After about 60 days, she put it back in the bank.
Results are discouraging, but not a total failure... and I learned some lessons that will be helpful in the future, plus gained a small pile of fingerlings to eat!
When I started the Great Potato Experiment, I had no room to plant fingerlings, so I planted them in tires. Two things I did wrong: One, I put the tires over weed-cloth because the area was just grass. Secondly, I used straw and grass clippings, no dirt.
The weed-cloth prevented any roots from penetrating deeply in a search for water, and the fill material of straw and grass clippings did not hold enough water to create a growing medium.
When the plants died off and I dug the fingerlings (Rose Finn Apple Fingerlings) I found 50 or more small tubers the size of a nickel. I think if they had been in a better growing medium, they would have grown larger and the experiment would have been a success, even with the weed-cloth. The original tubers I planted were still intact, and had not decomposed much to make roots for new tubers to grow.
Michelle, over at Big Black Dog posted a lovely recipe for blueberry-lavender jam. I would not have thought about adding lavender to blueberries, but it sure does sound yummy. Hop on over and take a look!
Actually not much, at least online. I have been mostly absent for several days while I was taking a short course offered by the Virginia Dept. of Wildlife and Inland Fisheries.
Technically the course is on Hunter Safety, and I wanted to take it because I live in a heavily wooded mountainous area now over-populated by deer. That means hunters will be out in force when the various seasons open, and I wanted to know the rules about hunting near people and public roads for my own protection.
To my delight, the course covers a lot of conservation efforts in my state, and emphasis in the safety course is placed on conservation and protected species.
The tax on hunting and fishing licenses, guns, ammunition, archery and related items goes into a separate fund used for conservation and recreation. By a federal law, each state gets a share based mainly on population, amount of land and number of licenses, and must use some of it for conservation. In my state it's almost 50%.
That money pays the biologists, game wardens, stocking and wildlife re-population efforts (including fish hatcheries), disease control (i.e. rabies in wild animals), hunter safety education, and other such endeavors. The rest of that specific tax money collected is used for things like public boat ramps, woodland trails, forest roads, parks and other recreational areas.
I had no idea that those things were paid for specifically out of the tax monies charged on guns and hunting/fishing licenses. I must say I was also impressed at the game wardens' responsibilities to protect all forms of illegal hunting, and the kind/gender of game you can take. They have strict laws about how many of what gender, and when, to protect and keep the wildlife population from becoming extinct.
The fines for illegal game are incredibly high; taking something like a turkey during mating season can cost someone $2500. All game has to be immediately tagged with a chit that comes with your license, and anyone found with something like a deer without a tag can also face jail time, even if it is a deer you accidentally hit driving down the road. Failure to call the authorities in a case of hitting a deer makes you just as responsible as someone illegally hunting.
The course certainly changed my attitude about hunters, although there are always bad apples in any bunch.
Regulators closed more banks today at a cost of $850 million to the FDIC. Getting to be like clockwork, isn't it?
Regulators closed subsidiaries of Irwin Financial Corporation in Kentucky and Indiana Friday, bringing the total number of bank failures this year to 94, according to the Federal Deposit Insurance Corp.
Wednesday September 16, Mary Travers, the powerful female voice of Peter, Paul and Mary passed away at the age of 72, from complications associated with a bone marrow transplant she had several years ago after being diagnosed with leukemia.
The group's enduring songs of the 1960's protest movements brought urgency to the politics of the time, participating in voting-rights marches from Selma to Montgomery, Alabama and performing at political rallies all over this country.
I remember well songs like "If I had a Hammer", "Leaving on a Jet Plane", and "Puff, the Magic Dragon". At the time, I was a part-owner of a 30' sailing vessel of the Dragon class, and of course we named our boat Puff!
Her passing really marks the end of an era for me, now only remembered on recorded pieces of plastic.
Have y'all been noticing the spitting contest that's going on? It goes like this...
The Chinese haven't been too happy with how the US government has been handling the mess on banking and investment firms going belly-up... and since the Chinese have a substantial stake in US dollars, they are worried about more losses.
They say they were deliberately encouraged (and mal-informed) by some firms to invest in derivatives. So, the Chinese recently announced they would allow some Chinese government-owned firms to default on derivatives. Spit one.
Then the US government issued a 35% tariff on Chinese tires, effective with a 2 weeks notice. Spit two.
Now the Chinese have spit back, threatening to cut off imports of American chicken.
I wonder how we will spit back? I did notice gold shot up dramatically on Wednesday.
When President Roosevelt seized all the US gold coins in the 1933, the US mints had just produced about half a million 1933 $20 gold pieces, called a ‘double eagle’. They were never released by the government but melted down instead, although a few did make it outside the federal vaults.
Two of the coins were given to the Smithsonian, and one went into King Farouk of Egypt’s coin collection. That coin eventually came to the hands of a British dealer and the US government seized it. Finally an agreement with the government was reached and in 2002 it was sold at auction for $7.6 million.
In 2004, 10 more of them were found in an old forgotten family safe deposit box by the family of a Mr. Switt. When the family took them to the US Mint for authentication, the government seized them, claiming they were stolen goods. Mr. Switt had been a gold dealer and the family insists he would have acquired the coins legitimately before the ban, most likely through a gold-for-gold exchange process used by the Mint in those days.
The Secret Service, which polices currency crimes, has argued that all of the double eagles that escaped government control passed through the hands of Mr. Switt (grandfather of the current owner) working with a corrupt cashier at the Mint. A Mint spokesman declined to comment on the case because of the litigation.
The family has sued the government for their return, and a District Court judge recently ruled that the government must prove they were stolen.
With the right timing and a good market, Mr. Fenton (the dealer who sold the Farouk coin) said, they could bring $4 million to $6 million each, because there are many people who would want to own one.
“This coin,” Mr. Fenton said, “has got so much charisma.”
Sometime back in my career days, I was in a workshop and this example about selling an idea came up. The tale (back in the days of the Cold War) goes like this:
The Russians and the Americans met at a bargaining table. The Russians put their demands on the table, and the Americans became indignant saying, "No Way"... and walked out.
A year later they met again, and the Russians put the same demands on the table. The Americans refused them, and left.
Six months later, they met yet again. The Russians put the same demands on the table, and after some consultations, the Americans agreed to think about it.
The point? When we first hear something that seems unacceptable, we dismiss it. When we keep hearing it over and over, we become more used to the idea. Eventually we come to believe it.
Keep that thought in mind as you hear glowing reports on the news; carefully re-check the reality around you for comparison. Are houses selling in your neighborhood? Are folks finding jobs again? Are your banks lending?
As the garden languishes in the last throes of warm weather, I have been drying more of my produce since it takes up much less space (and energy) to store.
I had lots of pole beans, and the ones that didn't get picked while still tender were allowed to stay on the vines. However, with the wet and cooler weather, I was afraid they would mold rather than dry so I picked a bunch. Put them on low in the dehydrator for a couple of hours until they were dry enough to shell easily. What you see in the photo is only a portion, now drying since I shelled them.
These beans are Kentucky Wonder, and probably not the best bean to dry as a staple. However, they can be ground into a flour to add nutrition to a number of dishes like stews and meat loaf. They make a great thickener!
Besides that, any whole dry beans that aren't eaten over winter will still be viable for planting next spring.
Then I dried some corn. Blanched it about 2 minutes, cut it off the cob and spread on the dryer shelves. I wanted to make some old-timey parched corn, which is kinda like corn nuts only not as greasy or salty. Turns out you need to dry the corn ON the cob so you have whole kernels to parch. It makes a great snack, and my neighbor has a few ears drying now on his stalks for me.
Regulators closed banks in Illinois, Minnesota and Washington state today, at a cost of more than $2 billion to the FDIC insurance fund. That brings this year's failures to 91 or 92... but who's counting? BTW, that's four times the failures of 2008. In Illinois alone, 16 banks have failed so far this year.
Minnesota’s Brickwell Community Bank has been seized by regulators. Cost to the FDIC is $22 million.
Ventura Bank, based in Washington state, has also been seized, costing the FDIC fund about $298 million.
Corus Bank, the 3rd largest in Illinois, also collapsed. The FDIC estimates it will cost the insurance fund about $1.7 Billion.
A week or two ago the FDIC reported it only had $10 billion remaining in funds. Today’s hits will take 20% of that reserve. CNNMoney.com reports that over the next five years, the FDIC expects roughly $70 billion in losses due to the failure of insured institutions. Hey, just ask the government to print more!
