Dehydrating

I've been thinking about buying a dehydrator for some time but could not find one anywhere then about two months ago a local "box style" store had them on sale. I went to buy one but yikes, all sold out. It would seem that I was not the only one in Powell River wanting to buy a dehydrator but none the less a rain check was offered and within two weeks it would arrive. Well two months passed and well...yahoo!!! it arrived.

I plan on drying fruit I grow but that won't happen until next summer and I was just too excited so I purchased fruit I normally don't buy anymore, mangoes. BIG mistake, the mangoes, having travelled a long, long distance, were tasteless. Lesson learned!!! But what could be worse than tasteless dried mangoes? Well my friends that would be mango crisps. Yup, I sliced them too thin, and dried them for too long without checking on them. Why did I not check them? Because ... I put them in before going to bed and 12 hours later??? So there you have it crispy mangoes.

British Columbia Foodsafe program and eggs..

My husband and I attended Foodsafe courses on Saturday. These courses are mandatory for people working in the food industry and although some of the information is just good common sense, quite a bit of it was new to us. We both passed with flying colors which I hope is a good omen for the opening of our new restaurant, Magpie's diner.

The instructor spoke at length about salmonella poisoning transmitted by cross-contamination of raw and undercooked poultry and other feathered fowl and eggs. Having my own chickens I asked if salmonella is a problem with really fresh eggs...he vehemently replied YES!!! He went on to further say that chicken eggs, coming out of the chicken's keister, are filthy.

I didn't say anything because I felt that this was not the place to discuss eggs or chicken's keisters...the class is just a 7 hours with an exam at the end but....

Eggs do not get dirty if the chickens have lots of space and their nesting boxes are cleaned whenever they decide to poop in their boxes. We check our chickens in the morning and evening and often in the middle of the day. If there is any poop or any broken eggs in their nests...we clean them out, right away.

Now having said all that ... my chickens have laid an egg in poop, and I do have a life besides worrying if the chickens nesting boxes are always clean, but eggs do not come out of a chicken's keister dirty and crusty. So eggs don't usually have to be washed, in fact, you should never wash an egg, unless it has been laid in poop, and then it should be used first.

Another reason why eating locally is so important...crust free eggs.

But seriously .... I do not for one minute believe that an egg, eaten within a few days of it being laid by a happy chicken, in a clean coop with lots of space where chickens are allowed to be and do whatever it is that chickens like to be and do, is as full of salmonella as eggs that have been laid weeks ago, by stressed chickens, not allowed to behave like chickens, laying eggs in filthy nesting boxes, in coops that house thousands of chickens and never, ever, and I mean ever seeing the light of day.

Hanging laundry

My mom used to hang laundry year round, outside in the summer and inside in the winter. For a very long time I didn't. Seemed to me like I was going backwards. I mean civilization moves forward, it progresses with each generation, new inventions, jobs get easier blah, blah, blah...


What was I thinking? What are we all thinking? Clothes dry, naturally, on their own, it just happens, for free and with very little effort on my part. Why oh why was I paying and using more electricity for something that happens for free?


No I don't have 5 kids at home, but you know my mom did, all girls, and she managed. We wined, sulked, I mean in the 70s those jeans had to be super tight, and nothing would tighten a pair of jeans like the drier. But..my mom held fast.


And now here I am, hanging my laundry, saving money but even more important than saving money, I'm doing my small bit to save this great, big world of ours and you can to.

Just try changing one small thing in your daily life that will help you go green and save the earth and some money. Turn the lights off when you leave the room, grow some lettuce and herbs in a container outside your backdoor, buy a drying rack and start hanging your dedicates, take transit, recycle as much as you can...change one or two of your not so green habits and before you know it you will be changing some of your bigger not so green habits.

laundry hanging in my unfinished basement

Cleaning without chemicals

How do you clean your house? Are you still using toxic harsh chemicals?

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"Household cleansers are the major source of home toxins. Approximately 500,000 tons of liquid cleaners are washed down U.S. drains annually. Most of these products rely on petroleum-based surfactants, solvents and other chemicals, some of which are known to be acutely toxic in large doses. Others have been linked to reproductive illnesses and cancer. Most of these chemicals have not been tested for their impact on human health. Many household cleansers contain substances such as glycol ether, Stoddard solvent, naphtha, and kerosene, which are neurotoxins and central nervous system depressants. These substances can cause confusion, headaches, lack of concentration, and symptoms of mental illness."

- Judy Morgan, environmentalist & instructor of Saving the Planet Starts at Home

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And not only are these chemicals extremely toxic but they cost a small fortune.

Why don't you try vinegar and baking soda? It's much less expensive, it works, and it's much healthier.

This is how I clean the bathroom:

The first thing I do is pour about a 1/2 cup of vinegar and a 1/4 cup of baking soda in the toilet bowl. It will bubble to start, let it sit in the bowl while you clean the rest of the bathroom.

I have straight vinegar in a spray bottle and I use it to wash the shower/bath walls. Then I sprinkle baking soda in the tub and scrub. It's a soft scrub and will likely not scratch your tub and it rinses away very easily. Tub done.

Onto the bathroom sink. I sprinkle with baking soda and scrub just like the bathtub, rinse and then I spray the sink, the taps and counter with with vinegar. Leave it a few minutes then rinse. I just use the same rag but rinse it out with warm clean water.

At this point I wipe the cupboards, moldings and the glass again I just spray the surfaces lightly with vinegar and rinse with a clean water.

To the toilet. I spray the outside and the lid with vinegar and wipe. Then scrub the bowl, it will bubble a little more, flush. Rinse your cloth and give the toilet a final wipe.

I wash the floor with hot water, vinegar and some liquid dish soap. And that's it.

You might think that the bathroom will not smell clean or even worse smell like vinegar but that's not what happens. The bathroom has a fresh clean smell and the vinegar evaporates very quickly and you don't smell it at all.

Do not use vinegar on marble. For more information on using vinegar click here: http://www.apple-cider-vinegar-benefits.com/cleaning-with-vinegar.html .

Persimmons

Have you ever tried a persimmon? They are very common in Italy but not so much here in Canada. They usually start to show up in grocery stores in the fall. I bought two from the Italian store when I was in Vancouver last weekend. My husband and sons never developed a taste for them. The Hachiya type, which is what I purchased, has to fully ripen before it can be eaten. The fruit must be really, really soft, if you eat it to soon it leaves a nasty film in your mouth. I've been told that they can grow here in Powell River, I'll have to keep my eyes open for male and female trees, both are needed to grow fruit. Give them a try, they are really tasty.

You can read more by clicking on this link: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Persimmon.

On the needles

The weather is still gray, windy and rainy, perfect for staying indoors and knitting. I am by no means a good knitter and I can not read a pattern to save my life, but I can knit and pearl which is enough to knit a scarf.

This is my third attempt. The first was unravelled because I was told my needles were much too small for the type of yarn I'm using. The second time I unravelled the scarf because I just didn't like it so here is hoping the third time is a charm.

Mom's soup

Today is one of the most miserable weather days I've experienced since moving here. The rain is coming down sideways, the wind is howling, the ocean is angry with big waves and huge whitecaps and it's cold. It's soup time. My mom's soup, in Italian, minestrina con pasta fina, is just chicken broth with fine (little) pasta and topped with grated parmigiano. My mom made this soup throughout the year but especially if we were sick with a cold or the flu. And it just so happens that my son and his wife are both down with a cold so mom to the rescue.

Just bring some broth to the boil and then add some fine pasta, as much or as little as you want. Keep in mind that it expands, top with grated cheese, snuggle up with a blanket and rest.