Garden Delights - Don't that Beet all!

Business life has been intense lately, mostly because of unexpected computer death, unexpected new computer glitches and all the accompanying headaches. Truly a love/hate relationship. So, to detox from this desk bound electronic entanglement, I wander out to work in the garden.

Our endless late cold and rainy weather finally ended in June, and we were able to get the rest of the garden planted. Greens &  root crops were planted earlier in the raised beds we were able to put up on Mother's Day. As a result, while our first summer squash are just coming on, we have been rich with lettuce, chard, and beets for some time (also radishes, other greens, onions, etc...). We love salads, greens, and sweet, colorful beets. Brilliant gems of the garden, beets are incredibly nutritious. Not only are the roots full of vitamins and minerals, but the greens are rich in nutrients as well. Did we mention they are delicious?

So it was no surprise when my sister e mailed us a link to a New York Times article touting beets as a superfood with a plethora of wonderful recipes.

Well, I can always use more recipes, especially now when the dinner menu question is: "What would you like with your Beets?" (earlier it was Asparagus, then Artichokes.. whatever needs eaten before it gets past it's prime). On top of that, I am always looking for recipes that are compatible with cooking in our solar oven (see earlier post: Sun Worship - of the Culinary Kind ).
We easily roast beet roots in the Solar Oven. Wash the beets and cut the leaves off, leaving about 1" of stem. Place in lidded casserole, add about 1/2 cup of water, cover, and cook in solar oven until tender when pierced with a fork. The time varies depending on the size of the beets, but all should be done in an hour. When done, remove from the oven and allow to cool in the covered baking dish. At this point the ends and skins should slip right off.
Roasted beets are wonderful sliced plain or in a salad, dressed with a vinegarette. They are fabulous heated and served with a dollop of sour cream. They're the basis for borscht, a more wintery favorite around here. They will keep several days in a covered bowl in the refrigerator until you are ready to use them.

But back to the NY Times article. There was one idea I had never had that looked like a Solar Oven winner. I am sure the original recipe is marvelous, the one I modified and made, substituting what I had on hand, sure was:

Beet & Beet Green Gratin Variation

6 to 8 beets with greens 
Salt to taste
3 eggs
3/4 cup skim milk
1 tablespoon extra virgin olive oil
2 large garlic cloves, minced
1/3 cup sliced green onions
1/2 cup grated Swiss or other cheese
dash Cayenne pepper
Freshly ground pepper to taste
1. Roast the beets as noted above. Cool, slip off the skins and slice.
2. Wash and sort the beet greens, discard the stems and chop the leaves coarsely.
3. Heat the olive oil over medium heat in a medium skillet, and add the garlic. Cook for about 30 seconds, stirring, until fragrant. Stir in the greens. Stir together for a minute, season the greens with salt, cayenne and black pepper, cover with a lid and turn off the heat. The greens will wilt as they steam slightly.
4. Preheat the Solar Oven (regular oven to 375 degrees). Oil a 2-quart lidded baking dish with olive oil. Beat together eggs, salt (about 1/2 teaspoon), pepper, milk, green onions and cheese. Gently stir in the greens and beets. Scrape into the gratin dish. Bake until puffy and lightly browned on the top (35 to 40 minutes in conventional oven). Allow to sit for 10 to 15 minutes before serving. Serve hot, warm or room temperature.
This should serve six.
Enjoy!

It's All the Buzzz...

MOSQUITOS AND THEIR NATURAL CONTROL

Mosquitoes, those annoying, whining, biting insects,  are high on the list of important pests due to their ability  to transmit diseases such as malaria and encephalitis.
While  human malaria is not an issue in most of the United States, there are  occasional out breaks of encephalitis. West Nile Virus is a mosquito  transmitted encephalitis, primarily a virus of birds, but other animals  and people are occasional hosts. You can find the most recent  information on West Nile Virus at the Center  for Disease Control website .
Adult mosquitoes feed on flower nectar. Soon after mating male  mosquitoes die and the females require a blood meal for protein for  their developing eggs. Some feed during daylight hours, others at dusk and dawn.
They will be found near water, as moisture is essential  for their reproduction. Mosquito eggs and larvae grow in water while the  adults are terrestrial. Eggs can be laid on land, but cannot hatch or mature until flooded.
The most effective, long term mosquito control is to prevent  reproduction by altering their habitat.

HABITAT CONTROL  CHECKLIST:

•Drain puddles of standing water, or fill with dirt.
•Empty containers that collect water and store them upside down.
•Check faucets and irrigation for leaks or seepage.
•Remove debris from gutters.
•Change water in birdbaths at least weekly.
•Drain water from plastic pools when not in use.
•Check pool and spa covers, as well as sheets of discarded plastic film.  These catch water easily, shield against evaporation and even help  moisture condense, providing superb breeding sites.
•Stock watering troughs and ornamental pools with fish and encourage  natural predators such as frogs.
•Regularly remove floating debris  from ponds and reservoirs to reduce  egg-laying sites.
•Fill tree holes with sand or mortar.
•Promote drainage of old tires by drilling holes.
•Avoid overwatering of lawns and gardens and drain standing water.
•Manage weeds around bodies of water where adult mosquitoes congregate.
•Encourage natural predators such as birds, bats, and yellowjackets(!).
•Treat standing water which cannot be drained with Bacillus  thuringiensis israeliensis (Bti), often sold as 'Mosquito Dunks'.

PROTECTION  FROM BITING MOSQUITOES:
•Limit outdoor activities during mosquito active dawn and dusk. Learn  the activity patterns in your area.
•Use window and door screens.
•Put mosquito netting over infant carriages or strollers.
•Wear long-sleeved shirts and pants.
•Use repellents on exposed areas of skin.

NATURAL REPELLENTS:
Duration of Safe Protection: It appears that protection is about two hours for mosquito repellents that contain 10% essential oils. Catnip oil may be more effective than DEET, although not as long lasting, and citronella, catnip, lavender, tea tree, eucalyptus, lemon eucalyptus, bay, some of the mints, and others are also effective. Note that if you make your own, essential oils should never be applied to the skin full strength. Add them to a base, or carrier, oil such as soy, olive, canola or other vegetable oil.
From: Joel R Coats, Entomology, Iowa St. U.,: "The essential oils may not provide as long of a residual protection, but they can repel for two hours - so there would be trade-offs for people preferring the natural oil, or that don't plan to stay out for 6 hours,  or don't mind reapplying it every couple of hours, or prefer using it on  kids."
Citronella candles and incense work best if there is relatively little  air movement, but are otherwise useless. Research shows many products, such as wrist bands and pins with  repellent, ultrasonic & electronic repellers, brewer's yeast,  vitamin B1, and mosquito plant, to be of little or no value, although  some people swear by them.

Tip for natural oil based repellents -  it only takes a little. If you get all oily it doesn't work any better.  Put on a little and spread it around evenly, the residue left on your hands should be enough for your face and neck. While we used to make a natural insect repellent, it is not legal for us to sell it from our location in California. The ingredients: Lavender; Eucalyptus; and Catnip essential oils are not on the Minimum Risk Pesticide List, and there are restrictions for Citronella essential oil as well.

Your county  Agriculture agent will have more information and tips that are specific  to your local. Contact them for further assistance.

Sharing Opportunity...

We are fortunate. No way to deny it.
While far from monetarily rich, our life is full: we have food and shelter; clean abundant water; work; access to school for our children; and a certain amount of access to health care (see earlier posts "A Hungry Man" & "Health care Blues" ). Our life is full of opportunity.
While taken for granted by a large segment of the world's population, this is not a given for an even larger population. Much of the time opportunity is limited in one way or another for people who are ready to work and embrace the responsibility it takes to achieve their goals.

One opportunity we have is to pay it forward. Take some of our good fortune to enhance opportunities for others. We do that in a number of different ways.
As parents, we help our children have the best life possible. From providing nutrition to teaching them to be responsible, conscientious, humans, we do our best to try to raise them ready to face adulthood.
As family we try to be there when there is a time of need.
As community members we volunteer to help fulfill the needs and services within our community both as individuals and in our business.
As Americans we vote and work for the greater good of our nation.
As humans we contribute to organizations that work for the good of all mankind around the planet.

As I have mentioned before, we at Simmons Natural Bodycare have some favorite organizations that we contribute to regularly. These include Heifer International, Trees for the Future, CarbonFund and Kiva.

We have just started a Lending Team, SimmonsNaturals Sharing Opportunity, at Kiva.
Sometimes it only takes a helping hand to give someone the opportunity to improve their situation. We have benefited from the opportunities available to us and want to share, so we started a team to encourage individuals and small businesses who wish to give a lending hand to other entrepreneurs around the world.

Personally, while there are many areas of humanitarian and environmental work to be done, we have chosen to support organizations who facilitate the long term work that aids individuals in achieving a secure standard of living in keeping with their culture and community. These organizations provide the tools and education, a small loan that must be repaid, livestock, or other building blocks that people can utilize to improve their lives over the long haul. While our contribution may be small, it joins with the donations of others to help make a real difference in people's lives.

A percentage from every 4 ounce bar of Simmons special Soap sold goes to help Heifer International in their mission to work with communities to end hunger and poverty and care for the earth.
By giving families a hand-up, not just a hand-out, they empower them to turn lives of hunger and poverty into self-reliance and hope. For every 12 bars ot the soap we sell we plant a tree through Trees for the Future.

Now we are asking you to join us in giving small loans to enable entrepreneurs around the world grow their small businesses and improve their lives by joining our Kiva Lending Team. It only takes as little as $25 to invest in someone's future. And, when your loan is repaid you can loan it again to help others. The perfect "pay it forward"! Learn More about KIVA.

Balance...

My haiku for 2/8 - Tai chi mirrors life/ Expanding and contracting/ Around our center.

It has been a wild year so far. On the one hand, it has been the warmest year to date ever recorded worldwide, yet here it has been snowing on and off on the 21st & 22 of May! By now most of our garden is usually planted. Not this year.

From volcanoes to floods, earthquakes to tornadoes and other windstorms, nature has been wild much of the time. Our man made events, especially the massive oil rig collapse and resulting leak and slick in the Gulf of Mexico, are just as dramatic.
On top of that we focus on other less dramatic, but still incredibly important on other scales, affairs of politics, community, personal life. It's a wonder that any of us is able to maintain any cheerfulness at all. But it is the nature of living things to move toward the future with hopefulness and to seek balance and joy in their lives.

I have some favorite quotes to share:

"To the question whether I am a pessimist or an optimist, I answer that my knowledge is pessimistic, but my willing and hoping are optimistic." -Albert Schweitzer, philosopher, physician, musician, Nobel laureate (1875-1965)

How can you work for change and to better your life without optimism?

"Finish every day and be done with it. You have done what you could; and absurdities crept in; Forget them as soon as you can. Tomorrow is a new day; You shall begin it serenely and with too high a spirit to be encumbered with your old nonsense." -Ralph Waldo Emerson, writer and philosopher (1803-1882)

How can we move forward if we are ever buried under the baggage of the fear of what we did wrong in the past?

"I slept and dreamt that life was joy. I awoke and saw that life was service. and behold, service was joy." -Rabindranath Tagore, philosopher, author, songwriter, painter, educator, composer, Nobel laureate (1861-1941)

How can you live life with joy until you recognize the acts you perform in life are joyous?

What is in the world, good and bad, is what is. With this knowledge you can go forth and do the best you can. It should not impede you from doing good for yourself, your family, your community and the world. Rather it should empower you to know that anything you can achieve counts. Everything counts. And every positive accomplishment, no matter how small, is an important move forward. It is our response to life that balances what happens.

Today is not the day I can plant my garden. It is freezing and too wet. The garden will go in very late, the fruit trees will bear little. But the soil is refreshed and the water table is restored after many dry years. The garden will catch up the way it does when the conditions warm to its liking.
And I am learning to be patient.

Sun Worship - of the Culinary Kind

Patience... must have patience. It is April 16 and it's cloudy again after only 1 day of sun (yesterday) in what seems like forever! It snowed on Easter and several times since, when it wasn't raining instead. I appreciate the good this is doing for the water table, but I WANT SUN!

I shouldn't complain too much. Despite a full work day, we took full advantage of the sunny day we were given, and I hear there is hope for the near future.
I had been hoarding large laundry items such as towels and the dog blanket for the car, and we were able to get these washed and dried outside on the line. In wet weather we have a retractable clothesline and a wooden drying rack upstairs that works great for most stuff.

We also got the solar oven set up and managed to get the two most common (for us) solar dishes cooked before the sky became covered with the high clouds of today's dreariness. First was rice.
By far the easiest way to get perfect brown rice is to bake it, and the solar oven is perfect. We try to use covered glass casseroles for most of our solar cooking, and this is no exception. In a 2 1/2 Qt. casserole place 2 cups of rice and 4 cups of water. Cover and place in preheated solar oven and cook until all the water has disappeared. Voila` Perfect rice! See the wonderful Spanish Rice recipe from Morning Hill Cookbook on an earlier blog post (in the comments section).

Once the rice was done, we immediately replaced it with Banana Cake. Our family has never been big fans of banana bread (which would also bake fabulously in the solar oven), we prefer a cake to use up those bananas that have gotten softer than we like to eat fresh. We bake it in an 8" square pan and serve it without frosting, although you could fancy it up that way if you like.

Simmonsville Solar Banana Cake:
Mix together and set aside:
2 1/2 cups flour (we use whole wheat)
1/2 tsp. baking powder
3/4 tsp baking soda
1/2 tsp salt

In mixing bowl,
cream 1/2 cup (1 stick) butter
Add 1-1/2 cups brown sugar (you can use 3/4 cup honey instead) and beat until light.
Beat in 2 eggs, one at a time
Stir in 1/2 tsp cinnamon
(Optional - add 1/4 tsp cardamom)

In a 2 cup measure mash 1 cup bananas (3 bananas is perfect)
Add 1 tsp vanilla and 1/4 cup yogurt or buttermilk

Add the flour mixture to the butter mixture in about 3 parts, alternating with the banana mixture, blending until smooth after each addition.
Stir in:
1/2 cup chopped nuts (walnuts or pecans) and/or dried cranberries, dried blueberries or whatever inspires you!
Bake in greasecd 8x8 inch or 9x13 inch pan (thinner, but just as good) in preheated solar oven until done . It will be brown on top and, when tested with a toothpick or broomstraw - should come out dry.
In conventional oven, bake at 350 degrees for about 1/2 hour.

Enjoy!
P.S. I am happy to finally get to post this on a SUNNY day 9 days later...