Gardening Is Harrowing

Last weekend, I dragged Doug out on his Sunday to tour the Rainbow Gardens nursery. I hit pay dirt in the herb section. I could not wait to get home with my pineapple mint, celery leaves and Japanese eggplant plant. The San Antonio sun has scorched them by this Sunday and I don't think they will recover. They never made it to pots since I'm waiting on the raised beds. And that pineapple mint plant was a variegated beauty.

I "thought" I read something about deheading bell pepper blooms. So, there I am deheading in a manner that would make an Islamic jihadist proud when I notice that I've got tiny bell peppers peeking out of the blooms I just picked. Didn't remember reading that's where the peppers will appear. Thank goodness, I had correctly remembered about the deheading - taking off the first bloom is supposed to increase the plant's production. It was probably unnecessary, considering our favorable weather conditions lately, but at least I didn't kill my chances of getting a pepper off the plant entirely!





My first suburban garden vegetable!






I was also grateful to discover that my pepperoncini was supposed to wrinkle. I removed them once black showed up around the shoulder of the pepper, which is I read denotes maturity. I will crockpot dinner tomorrow with my first garden spoils!

Pepperoncini Beef

2 1/2 - 3 lb chuck roast
1/2 large onion, sliced
5 garlic cloves, smashed
4 pepperoncini, (if using jarred variety, use the whole 16 oz jar with vinegar, omit b. vinegar)
1/3 cup Basalmic vinegar
2 - 4 sprigs of fresh rosemary, stem and all



Place all items in ziploc bag. Marinade overnight. Slow roast in low crock pot (0ven about 250) for 6-8 hours. Shred. Great served on rolls with your favorite melted cheese. Perfect for a crowd.

Loco for Coconut

I am consuming a great deal of coconut these days. This started back when we were on our detox diet. Coconut is highly nutritious and is now medically linked to good health. The good news is: it is good tasting and good for you.














Coconut oil is a medium chain fat, the kind that helps with heart health and lowering bad cholesterol. It has antimicrobial effects and supports the immune system. I use it in the place of shortening in recipes. It can be warmed to resemble vegetable oil for recipes that call for that. It has a high smoke point so makes a good choice for sauteeing. It is rancid resistant.











Coconut water is the clear liquid that comes from young coconuts. It is highly hydrating and alkalizing. It contains high levels of potassium, calcium and magnesium. Coconut water is replacing sports drinks in both professional and amateur athletes to replenish electrolytes and eliminate cramping. Currently, I am drinking the Vita Coco brand that has added fruit juice. We also stock a water with lime juice.









I saved the best for last. Turtle Mountain makes a variety of coconut milk based products. Coconut milk comes from cooking the meat of mature coconuts. It is rich in texture like cream and has a high oil and sugar content. Rarely eating bovine dairy, I rejoiced when I found ice cream made with coconut milk. The Pure Decadent brand is by far my favorite and I would wage that it's as good as anything coming from B & J or HD. This brand sweetens with Agave nectar, which I also use now instead of honey or sugar. NadaMOO!!! and Coconut Bliss are carried by my regular grocer so I have to stock up when I make it to Whole Foods.

















I just discovered the So Delicious brand, also by Turtle Mountain, is making dessert bars (Chocolate robed vanilla ice milk on a stick) and ice milk sanwhiches! Nabbed those up immediately. I also buy the brand's yogurt when at Whole Foods. I find it more tart than yogurt, and frankly not as enjoyable as the sinfully good Fage, but I prefer it over goat milk yogurt.

All things coconut are gaining in promenience in nutritional and alternative, wholistic uses. The Coconut Research Center compiles and publishes articles on the nutrition and uses of coconut products. Anti viral, bacterial, fungal and parasitic is reason enough to start consuming coconut!

It does taste good. Coconut milk is spendid in morning smoothies. Firm white fish is delicious cooked in a combination of coconut milk and diced tomatoes. Hydrating is always a problem, and the resulting cramping, when working out but coconut water does that plus naturally restores our electrolytes. Diminshing cow dairy in my diet is more choice than necessity and I am hoping that substitutions of some of my favorite foods with coconut products will garner a healthier state.

Heck, millions of people around the equator can't be wrong!

Side note: I originally planned on naming this post Loco Coco. I did not because it is slang for the male member.

Container Gardening in San Antonio

Doug and I continue to make changes based on personal guidelines of greater self-sufficiency and economizing. And one of the changes we've made recently has been to begin growing some of our own food. We now have a culinary container garden!


We have basil, oregano, dill, parsley, chives, tarragon, thyme, rosemary, mint, tomatoes, bell pepper, hot peppers, mexican lime and myer lemon growing in pots. Having grown basil, thyme and rosemary last year, I know the pleasure of walking out your back door for herbs.

This year, a friend taught me about self watering pots. Without them, I don't think I would have delved into the concept of suburban gardening. Keeping thing properly watered has always been a challenge and the key reason I eventually kill everything. Self watering pots have reservoirs so watering doesn't have to done as frequently as traditional pots. The plants drink what they need so there is less chance of them being shocked from drought when I'm gone for a weekend or me over watering them just in case they are thirsty. The pots and the soil mix used in them optimizes the plant's utilization of water, which helps to conserve water. The plants drink from the bottom up rather than water draining out the bottom from top watering.

Gardener's Supply has a wide assortment of self watering containers. We could not find them at our local Lowe's or Home Depot. The Earth Box was available at our local nursery but its kinda ugly to me. There are homemade and store bought systems that can turn traditional and not-so-traditional containers into self watering pots. Catalogs such as Plow & Hearth and Frontgate are now carrying swcs and as their popularity grows, so will their availability.

The internet has great websites, videos and blogs related to container gardening. I am finding Edward. C Smith's book on this kind of gardening especially helpful. Overstock.com has the book for under $13 new.


We selected the Cortina pots...we like how attractive they are. They are plastic and will likely have to replaced over time. However, they are light enough to move around as needed and we have all this great color. There is a lot of variety to meet the needs of the container gardener.


Herbs that like drier soil, such as the oregano and cilantro are in traditional pots. Moist loving mint, peppers, chive and parsley are thriving so far.



In addition to the culinary containers, we are in the process of redoing some of our xerolandscaping with edible landscaping. The plants underneath this Crepe Myrtle will be removed to make way for a gas powered generator, rain water urn and raised beds with fruits, flowers and vegetables. We will be implementing the model of Square Foot Gardening.

We've thought we would eventually have to leave our San Antonio house and head to the Hill Country to do what we've now learned is possible right in our Three Lakes backyard. We've also learned that anyone, in any kind of living space, can be more self-sufficient and lower their food bill with container gardening and Square Foot Gardening.

Woo hoo for basil in the backyard.

Basil Mayonnaise


From Bon Appetit magazine. We had ours with artichokes too! Good with asparagus or tomatoes, on sandwiches and salads.

1 cup mayonnaise
1/4 cup chopped fresh basil
1 tablespoon fresh lemon juice
1 garlic clove, minced

Mix first ingredients in medium bowl. Season with salt and pepper

Atlas Shrugged - Part Two

"People don't want to think. And the deeper they get into trouble, the less they want to think."

"Do you know the hallmark of a second rater? It's resentment of another man's achievement."

"There might be some sort of justification for the savage societies in which a man had to expect that enemies could murder him at any moment and had to defend himself as best he could. But there can be no justification for a society in which a man is expected to manufacture the weapons for his own murderers."

"Wealth is the product of man's capacity to think."

"An honest man is one who knows that he can't consume more that he has produced."

"Money will not purchase happiness for the man who has no concept of what he wants: money will not give him a code of values, if he's evaded the knowledge of what to value, and it will not provide him with a purpose, if he's evaded the choice of what to seek. Money will not buy intelligence for the fool, or admiration for the coward, or respect for the incompetent."


"The man who damns money has obtained it dishonorably; the man who respects it has earned it."

"Money is the barometer of a society's virture. When you see trading is done, not by consent, but by compulsion - when you see that in order to prodcuce, you need to obtain permission from men who produce nothing - when you see that money is flowing to those who deal, not in goods, but in favors - when you see that men get richer by graft and by pull than by work, and your laws don't protect you against them but protect them against you - when you see corruption being rewarded and honesty becoming a self-scarafice - you may know your society is doomed."



"Whenever destroyers appear among men, they start by destroying money, for money is men's protection and the base of moral existence."

"When you have made evil the means of survival, do not expect men to remain good. Do not expect them to stay moral and lost their lives for the purpose of becoming fodder of the immoral. Do not expect them to produce, when production is punished and looting is rewarded."

"Throughout men's history, money was always seized by the looters of one brand or another, whose names changed, but whose method remained the same: to seize wealth by force and to keep producers bound, demeaned, defamed, deprived of honor."

"Yet through all the centuries of stagnation and starvation, men exhalted the looters, as aristocrats of the sword, as aristocrats of birth, as aristocrats of the bureau, and despised the producers, as slaves, as traders, as shopkeepers - as industrialists."

"Just pass the kind of laws that can neither be observed nor enforced nor objectively interpreted."

"...who drift from failure to failure and expect you to pay their bills, who hold their wishes as an equivalent of your work and their need as a higher claim to reward than your effort..."

"...yours is only to give, but theirs is only to take, that yours is to produce, but theirs is to consume..."

"You have been called arrogant for your independent mind. You have been called greedy for the magnificence of your power to create wealth."

" You must support them because they cannot survive without you."

"If you saw Atlas, who holds the world on his shoulders, if you saw that he stood, blood running down his chest, his knees buckling, his arms trembling but still trying to hold the world aloft with the last of his strength, and the greater his effort the heavier the world bore down upon his shoulders - what would you tell him to do?"
"To shrug."

" We are able to act. They're not. So it's we who'll win in the long run, no matter what they do to us."

"Any human being that accepts the help of another, knows that good will is the giver's only motive and that good will is the payment he owes in return." "You're an object of charity who's exhausted his credit long ago." "Thanksgiving was a holiday established by productive people to celebrate the success of their work." "...no man had the right to seek his good through the violation of the rights of another." "They're eating us alive, and it's no use fooling anybody about how it's the rich that they're after." "If you want to defeat any kind of vicious fraud - comply with it literally."

"Pleasure is not an essential of existence."

"When in doubt, it is the weak that must be considered, not the strong."

"They have no right to fail, no matter what conditions happen to come up."

"Freedom has been given a chance and has failed."

"One had to deal with the situation of the moment without considering its cause."

"Those who are big have to serve those who aren't. If they refuse their moral duty, we've got to force them."

"If we do away with private fortunes, we'll have a fairer distribution of wealth."

"Nobody will be permitted to decide anything."

"You might have to worry about another other breed of men, but not about the modern intellectuals; they will swallow anything."

"We want to leave people with the illusion that they're still preserving their property rights."

"He was seeing a long line of men stretched through centuries from Plato onward, whose heir and final product was an incompetent little professor with the appearance of a gigolo and the soul of a thug."

"His purpose is not to operate a railroad, but to hold a job."

"It's just a journey to talk people into continuing to break their backs at making profits in order to support men who are superior by reason of not making any."

"Man can never be free of hunger, of cold, of disease, of physical accidents. He can never be free of the tyranny of nature. "

"When all of Europe put into practice the ideas he preached, he came to live in America."

"It doesn't make any difference to the poor whether their livelihood is at the mercy of an industrialist or of a bureaucrat."

"We can never lose the things we live for. We may have to change their forms at times, if we've made an error, but the purpose remains the same and the forms are ours to make."

"Wherever you are, you will always be able to produce."

"How could it be possible that the educated, the cultured, the famous men of the world could make a mistake of this size."

"There wasn't a man voting for it who didn't think that under a setup of this kind he'd muscle in on the profits of the men abler than himself."

"I'm making enough for my needs - and nobody else's."

UGA Graduate Spring Graduation

What happens if Atlas shrugs?

The idea of Going Galt is more appealing to me every day as I am mystified by the actions of our government in the last 9 mos or so.

Going Galt comes from the book Atlas Shrugged by Ayn Rand, where economic producers withdrew causing the motor of the world to stop. As an antil-socialist/communist, the book's theme that wealth producers force wealth redistributors and their supporters to suffer the consequences of their oppressive misuse of government is a wickedly delightful concept to me.

"Galt leads a revolutionary movement in which all the top leaders of the banks and corporations forsake their corporate jets and perks to work in diners or as subway repair guys. No they weren’t fired by Galt. Rather, Galt urged them to go on strike and withdraw their expertise from an increasingly socialist world. Deprived of the genius of their genius, the world economy collapses."- Tristero

One libertarian columnist ridicules Going Galt as the right's version of the left's "moving to Canada if Bush is reelected.". Except the left didn't follow through. Does the right have more doers and producers that mean what they say and say what they mean?

Only time will tell if our current political climate is going to save us all or bring about economic catastrophe of Gore-Inconvenient Truth-End Of The World proportions. Meanwhile, I am enjoying Atlas Shrugged and pondering ....

"Experts agree...is hopeless."

"By the way, Henry, do you mind if I ask you to give me the money in cash? You see, Friends of Global Progress is a very progressive group and they have always maintained that you represent the blackest element inn social retrogression in the country, so it would embarass us, you know, to have your name on our list of contributors."

"When people are unanimous, how does one man dare to dissent?"

"Her superiors, who held the authority, seemed afraid to exercise it, they spent their time avoiding decisions."

"economic self-sufficiency"

"It was said that the large, established railroad systems were essential to the public welfare; and that the collapse of one of them would be a national catastrophe; and that if one such system had happened to sustain a crushing loss in a public-spirited attempt to contribute to international good will, it was entitled to public support to help it survive the blow."

"I'll make sure I take the rest of you along with me."

"All that lunacy is temporary. It can't last. It's demented, so it has to defeat itself. You and I will just have to work a little harder for a while, that's all."

"Whatever we are, it's we who move the world and it's we who'll pull it through."

"It is not advisable to venture unsolicited opinions. You should spare yourself the embarrassing discovery of their exact value to your listener."

"There's nothing of any importance in life - except how well you do your work. Whatever else you are, will come from that."

"The code of competence is the only system of morality that's on a gold standard."

"They dislike me, not because I do things badly, but because I do them well."

"I am in a position to speak of large sums of money. Government money."

"This is not the day for people who refuse to cooperate."

"Questions of truth do not enter into social issues."

"For thirteen years this Institute has had a department of research, which has cost over twenty million dollars and has produced nothing...you can imagine what the public reaction would be if an individual comes out with a product that revolutionizes the entire science and proves to be sensationally successful!"

"If we want to accomplish anything, we have to deceive them into letting us accomplish it. Or force them. They understand nothing else."

"Thought is the tool by which one makes a choice."

"No...not an assurance of victory - who can ever have that? - only the chance to act, which is all one needs."

"Maybe its something you've got that they haven't got."

"I'm entitled to my share."

"It seems to me that before we worry about giving some people a chance to expand, we out to give some consideration to the people who need a chance of bare survival."

"I am sure you wouldn't understand any consideration other than dollars and cents, but some people do consider their social and patriotic responsibilities."

"Either your good at running the mills or you're good at running to Washington."

"I can proudly say that in all my life I have never made a profit!"

"Our plan? We put into practice that noble historic precept: From each according to his ability, to each according to his need. Rewards were based on need, and penalties on ability."

"People don't want to think. And the deeper they get into trouble, the less they want to think."

"There might be some sort of justification for the savage societies in which a man had to expect that enemies could murder him at any moment and had to defend himself as best he could. But there can be no justification for a society in which a man is expected to manufacture the weapons for his own murderers."

"Wealth is the product of man's capacity to think."

"An honest man is one who knows that he can't consume more that he has produced."

"Money will not purchase happiness for the man who has no concept of what he wants: money will not give him a code of values, if he's evaded the knowledge of what to value, and it will not provide him with a purpose, if he's evaded the choice of what to seek. Money will not buy intelligence for the fool, or admiration for the coward, or respect for the incompetent."

"The man who damns money has obtained it dishonorably; the man who respects it has earned it."

"Money is the barometer of a society's virture. When you see trading is done, not by consent, but by compulsion - when you see that in order to prodcuce, you need to obtain permission from men who produce nothing - when you see that money is flowing to those who deal, not in goods, but in favors - when you see that men get richer by graft and by pull than by work, and your laws don't protect you against them but protect them against you - when you see corruption being rewarded and honesty becoming a self-scarafice - you may know your society is doomed."

"Whenever destroyers appear among men, they start by destroying money, for money is men's protection and the base of moral existence."

"When you have made evil the means of survival, do not expect men to remain good. Do not expect them to stay moral and lost their lives for the purpose of becoming fodder of the immoral. Do not expect them to produce, when production is punished and looting is rewarded."

"Throughout men's history, money was always seized by the looters of one brand or another, whose names changed, but whose method remained the same: to seize wealth by force and to keep producers bound, demeaned, defamed, deprived of honor."

"Yet through all the centuries of stagnation and starvation, men exhalted the looters, as aristocrats of the sword, as aristocrats of birth, as aristocrats of the bureau, and despised the producers, as slaves, as traders, as shopkeepers - as industrialists."


"Ultimately, "Atlas Shrugged" is a celebration of the entrepreneur, the risk taker and the cultivator of wealth through human intellect." - Stephen Moore

Jessica Graduates UGA!

Doug and I head to Athens, GA tomorrow to witness Jessica's graduation from University of Georgia. She is throwing a celebration brunch on Sunday with her cohorts and their families (that's classmates to some of us).

UGA tradition is that one does not venture through the UGA Arch until one completes their studies in preparation for graduation. With their last final exam done, Jessica, her cohorts and teachers headed over to the Arch for a mini ceremony then out to lunch to celebrate all their hard work.

More Than A Twist Of Lemon

I awoke to a morning of solitude and a drawer full of extra large, juicy lemons. In the quiet, I began to prepare a welcome home, lemon themed feast for Doug. I like to think all the juicing and zesting of these bright colored fruits seduced the clouds overhead to relent. Now there is sunshine all around!

My Favorite Lemon Pudding
Sara Moulten

Ingredients

• 3/4 cup sugar I substituted with Xylitol, 40% fewer calories and 75% fewer carbs
  
• 1/4 cup cornstarch Gluten free
  
• 2 1/2 cups milk I substituted with Almond Milk
  
• 3 large egg yolks, lightly beaten
• 2 tablespoons finely grated lemon zest
• Pinch salt
• 1/2 cup fresh lemon juice
• 2 tablespoons unsalted butter, at room temperature

Directions

Whisk the sugar and the cornstarch together in a medium saucepan. Add the milk and whisk until smooth. Add the egg yolks, zest, and salt and cook, stirring frequently at first and constantly towards the end, over medium heat until thickened enough to thickly coat the back of a spoon.

Remove the pan from the heat and stir in the lemon juice and butter. Pour through a strainer into a large serving bowl or 4 individual serving dishes.

Let cool to room temperature. Chill, loosely covered, for at least 2 hours and up to 3 days, or until set and thoroughly chilled. Serve chilled.

Serving mine garnished with fresh strawberries, parfait style.

Lemon Spaghetti with Chicken and Asparagus
Inspired by Giada de Laurentiss

Ingredients

• 1 pound spaghetti I used Ancient Harvest Quinoa Pasta gluten free
  
• 2/3 cup olive oil
  
• 2/3 cup grated Parmesan I substituted Manchego (sheep) for the cow cheese
  
• 1/2 cup fresh lemon juice (2-3 lemons)
• Salt and freshly ground black pepper
• 1 tablespoon lemon zest
• 1/3 cup chopped fresh basil leaves Fresh from my patio
  

Additions

• Boneless, skinless chicken breasts, poached in equal parts olive oil & lemon juice with garlic clove at 325 until done, about 40 min, diced. Here I used a split breast, took a third of the lemon olive mixture to cook the chicken in. After cooling, I strained it and used in for the sauce.
  
• Asparagus, roasted at 400 for 10 min, chopped.
  

Directions

Cook the pasta in a large pot of boiling salted water until tender but still firm to the bite, stirring occasionally, about 8 minutes. Meanwhile, whisk the oil, Parmesan, and lemon juice in a large bowl to blend.

Drain the pasta, reserving 1 cup of the cooking liquid. Toss the pasta with the lemon sauce, and the reserved cooking liquid, adding 1/4 cup at a time as needed to moisten. Season with salt and pepper. Add chicken and asparagus. Garnish with lemon zest and chopped basil.

This is equally as good with broccoli and shrimp. Leftovers are best served chilled the next day. Serving this with a simple of salad of radicchio and fig with a...lemon vinaigrette.

Lemon Rosemary Infused Olive Oil

Lemon peels from 1 lemon, without white pith
4 sprigs rosemary
1 cup olive oil

Warm the olive oil, 2 rosemary sprigs and half the peel over very low heat for 20 minutes. Allow to cool for half an hour. Place remaining rosemary and lemon peel into a stoppered bottle. Strain oil and pour into prepared bottle.

A homemade bread dipping sauce or marinade for poultry. Use to prepare salmon, green beans and asparagus for roasting. Drizzle in mashed potatoes, over hummus or as a finishing oil for Italian white bean soup.


Blueberry Limoncello Cooler
Giada De Laurentiss












A bottle of Limoncello. Top pitcher off with Pelligrino. Spruce up with blueberries (frozen blackberries are a great substitute) and torn mint. Wah lah.