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Sun Dec 25, 2011 at 19:00:00 PM PST
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Pot Luck is an open thread...
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Thu Dec 22, 2011 at 13:23:26 PM PST
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We had a death in our family today. Rosy Rose, the Rhode Island Red chicken, met her maker. And if I get my way, she'll be an excellent source of fertility for our fig tree (my plan involves somebody who isn't me digging that hole so we'll see if it happens).
I just want to share the craziness of our little flock with everyone, to tell you how it is that I had seven chickens (now six) and get about one egg a week.
Rosy Rose, who is no more
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Sun Dec 18, 2011 at 07:40:54 AM PST
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( - promoted by Jill Richardson)
Happy Sunday Bread Heads!
I have a bit of a problem, since I have promised two things for this week, Gingerbread Men and Christmas pudding. Since the pudding recipe is a little more rare than the Gingerbread Men, I am going to go with that one, sorry for those looking of the cookies, I promise that next year I'll do them early and thoroughly.
Now, let's talk Christmas pudding. This is a really traditional English dish. It is a cake made of bread crumbs, and studded with dried or candied fruit that is cooked in a mold surrounded by boiling water over several hours.
The real deal Plumb Pudding is made with suet, which is the beef version of lard. You can make this recipe with suet, which is really good and tasty no matter how much you squirmed reading about it, but it is not always easy to find, so I am going with butter instead.
The recipe I am giving you today is my own take on Christmas pudding. I come from a family that inexplicably does not like rum nor brandy which are the traditional flavors for the cake and the hard sauce that go with it. So I have changed things around to us Amaretto and Grand Marnier.
This gives a wonderful almond and orange flavors to the dish that contrast nicely with the fruit which is raisins (white and regular), candied cherries and the special twist ingredient of candied pineapple.
This recipe, like all traditional feast foods takes some advanced preparation, it is going to take a couple of days to candy the fruit (unless you want to commit the heresy of using the candied fruit from the store, in which case you may be cursed onto the seventh generation. Just sayin') and you will need to make a loaf of bread for the bread crumbs, and there is a need for part of the recipe to sit overnight in the Amaretto.
So, all told if you want to have a pudding for Solstice or for Christmas Eve or Day you have to get started today!
For the bread I use either French Bread or English Oatmeal Bread. By clicking on the links you can find the recipe for each.
Before we start, I have to warn you, this is an unlovely if tasty dish. It is not going to have the pristine look of a cake that is iced or even the smooth texture of bread, it is going to look more like what it is, a bread pudding. But if you can get around that it is delightfully tasty!
But enough cautions and warnings, let's make a Almond Christmas Pudding with Grand Marnier Butter!
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Mon Dec 19, 2011 at 00:32:42 AM PST
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I'm curled up with a World Bank report and I've come across the following statistics. Globally, as of 2007, here is the area devoted to each of several crops:
Maize: 158 million ha
Oil palm: 14 million ha
Rapeseed: 30 million ha
Soybean: 90 million ha
Sunflower: 27 million ha
Sugarcane: 23 million ha
Plantation forestry (paper & lumber): 139 million ha
Total: 481 million ha
Included among this is a little less than 36 million ha of biofuel feedstocks (the number was 36 million ha in 2008 and since the numbers above are 2007, the biofuel feedstock amount was presumably a bit less), which includes 8.3 million in the EU (mainly rapeseed), 7.5 million ha in the U.S. (mainly corn), and 6.4 million ha in Latin American (mainly sugarcane). And I believe I read recently that some 70% of corn is fed to livestock. If that's true, then about 40 million ha of corn goes to uses other than livestock and ethanol, i.e. feeding people.
In 2007, the total world arable area used for farming was 1554 million ha. Of that, the 441 million hectares of crops noted above used for oil, biofuels, livestock feed, paper, etc, make up about 28%. In addition to the 1554 million ha of cropland, there was 3,400 million ha of pasture.
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Sun Dec 18, 2011 at 19:00:00 PM PST
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Pot Luck is an open thread...
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Thu Dec 15, 2011 at 12:30:03 PM PST
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Originally posted on Pesticide Action Network's blog, Groundtruth.
I spent the weekend glued to coverage of the high drama unfolding at the climate talks in Durban, South Africa. I watched closely because there is so much on the line affecting our and our children's future. In the final turbulent days, there were critical moments when a binding treaty with relatively ambitious and fair emissions cuts seemed almost possible. And then, well - the U.S. and our cronies played power politics behind closed doors, just as they have before.
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Tue Dec 13, 2011 at 21:25:04 PM PST
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Originally posted Dec 8 on Pesticide Action Network's blog, Groundtruth. Note: a second blog by Marcia Ishii-Eiteman on the final outcome from Durban, including civil society responses, was posted on Groundtruth on Dec 13 and will be posted here mid-week.
Not coming to movie theaters near you, but taking place right now in Durban, South Africa is "The Great Escape 3." This is how Pablo Solon, Bolivia's former lead climate negotiator,
describes the scene at the UN climate talks.
"It's the same movie - it happened in Copenhagen, in Cancun, and it will happen in Durban. The richest nations are trying to escape their responsibility to reduce greenhouse gas emissions now... It's really a genocide and an ecocide."
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Tue Dec 13, 2011 at 21:05:45 PM PST
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On December 6, there was an event entitled Responding to the Global Food Crisis: A Challenge for All. It was moderated by David Beckmann of the Christian anti-hunger group Bread for the World. The panelists were:
- Asmita Tiwari, Risk Management Specialist at the World Bank
- Gawain Kripke, Director for Policy at Oxfam America
- Devry S. Boughner, Director of International Business Relations for Cargill
The event was hosted by the Bretton Woods Committee. I was not there, but I do have the video of it.
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Mon Dec 12, 2011 at 10:18:49 AM PST
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My "no sugar for a month" attempt has failed. On the 10th day, I caved. I should say that prior to that, I accidentally ate some sugar because it was in the sauce on my pizza. It was homemade sauce that I made, with about 2 tbsp of sugar per gallon of sauce. I didn't even realize it had sugar until about 2 days after I ate it.
But on Day 10, I failed for real. That was Saturday. My cat had gotten in a fight and came home with a huge abscess. I took her to the vet, where she spent the entire day getting stitched up. The vet called me mid-day to tell me it would cost $600... unless I'd like them to do $200 of blood tests too (no, not really). She came home all woozy from the anesthesia, and thrashing around in her carrier to get her huge collar off (the type they put on cats and dogs to keep them from chewing the wound). She's got a large shaved area with a ton of stitches and a drain (which looks like a 6" drinking straw) sticking out on both sides. There's plenty of blood and bruising. It's gross. She looked miserable that first night.
On top of that, I had a migraine. At the end of the day, I decided: Screw it. Then I went to the cupcake store and ate 4 mini cupcakes.
Since then, I've continued skipping the sugar. I mean, I've already ruined the idea of going a month without sugar. I could give up entirely and just eat sugar to my heart's content. But so far I haven't. The truth is, I feel good when I'm not eating junk all the time. Gorging on fruits, veggies, grains, beans, and other whole foods FEELS GOOD. (And on the other hand, I crave chocolate...)
This sugar-free experiment has largely been a bust, in my view. It would be much more meaningful for someone who actually ate processed foods, who had to read labels and discover for the first time what actually goes into their food, or who had to cook their own food from scratch for a change. That isn't me. I've just continued on as normal, without the usual chocolate and cupcakes. As long as I avoid eating out, it's easy. Very easy. Logistically, anyway. So, I think I'm gonna shelve my "sugar-free" experiment after a mere 10 days. Too bad I didn't try to do something like this a decade ago, when it would have resulted in a huge increase in awareness about what I was putting in my mouth.
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Sun Dec 11, 2011 at 19:00:00 PM PST
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Pot Luck is an open thread...
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Wed Dec 07, 2011 at 19:30:26 PM PST
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Since I've been eating at home a lot, avoiding sugar has been relatively simple. The cooked apple, cinnamon, raisin, and pomegranate mix I made to put in my yogurt is delicious but it does need a teaspoon of honey after all. Mostly, I've been making soups - lentil soup, split pea soup - and eating that. And it doesn't hurt that I live with a chef.
Two days ago was my first big temptation. I came home and as the smell hit me when I walked in, I knew immediately: there were fresh baked cookies in the house. Fortunately, I had just gone hiking, so my body felt cleansed, which is when I'm least likely to want a cookie. And I was coming directly from an Ethiopian restaurant, so I was stuffed full. Altogether, not hard to say no to cookies.
The next day, yesterday, things got a bit trickier. I had a migraine, and for whatever reason, I craved sweets. I went to bed early, brainstorming all kinds of potential sugar-free concoctions. (What if I put raw cacao beans in the food processor with bananas? Avocado? Should I add peanut butter? Would the mix need honey?) But I wasn't motivated enough to act on it.
For a "sugar-free" diet, today was a sugary day. I'm only avoiding actual sucrose - cane and beet sugar - and I already don't eat artificial sweeteners or high fructose corn syrup. But there is still honey and maple syrup. I woke up to smell pancakes, which my roommate was making for his kids. He made enough for his "big kid" (me) too. He said there was no sugar in it, so I helped myself and poured on the maple syrup. Then, later, I made one of my yogurt meals with rolled oats, my apple mixture, and some honey. When I went to have a sandwich before my hike, I opted against almond butter and honey. But my goodness, without any jam, almond butter alone really sticks to your mouth if you don't add honey!!
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