Spoons in the mail.

So, I haven’t talked about it much on here, but I have been having a really intense flare of my fibromyalgia for about six weeks now. There’s definitely an aspect of this blog that involves my disabilities, but it’s not really so much to talk about them specifically. It’s a food blog… just a food blog by a blogger who happens to have disabilities and wants to share with you some ways that that impacts being a baker and a beginner farmer gardener, as well as to talk about when I find solutions that make doing those things easier for me, like when I found this palm peeler.

But, today, I’m going to talk about my disabilities a little bit more than I usually do. And that is because I got an awesome, beautiful gift from my friend Katrina yesterday.

Lately I have just been feeling shitty. Winters are the hardest time for me, historically. I’ve been chronically sick since I was eight years old, and I always dread winter, and I always get to January or February and think, “I need to move someplace warmer.” But I love seasons that change, and I love New York area autumns, and I couldn’t live someplace that wasn’t close enough to drive up to New England every fall. I couldn’t live someplace where you don’t go pick apples, swear up and down that you will not come home with too many this year, and then pick, “just a few more because that one looks really good” and put it in your bag that is already sort of dragging on the ground… and then spend weeks eating apples, baking apple pies, making apple butter, and so on.

Surprisingly, my rheumatoid arthritis is much more controlled than it was this time last year, but with my health, if it’s not one thing, it’s another, and this time, it’s my fibro choosing to throw a temper tantrum. I’m tired but I can’t sleep, my muscles ache, my tender points radiate pain, and despite tinkering with my meds, we haven’t quite worked it out yet. To be frank, I’ve been quite incapable of making dinner for us most nights, and I’ve had to rely on my wonderful Charlie and our well-stocked freezer to get us through. (My mom dropped off some vegetarian chili and some vegetarian lasagna today, too.)

Anyway, it’s been kind of a bummer, and my friends are noticing. And yesterday, I got a package from Etsy shop Mudaliscious of a gorgeous set of ceramic measuring spoons! Katrina sent a note with it that said, “Dear Cat, I thought you might like some extra spoons. Hope things are looking up soon.”

I sent Katrina an email last night telling her how awesome she is. I felt very serious saying things like, “this was really meaningful,” but, it was. It just made my day, and I wanted to share it with all of you. I don’t even know if I’ll ever use these to cook! I suppose that at least once, I would like to pour some rich vanilla liquid into them and see what it looks like when there’s that tiny drop at the bottom of the spoon that won’t come out.

I miss baking. I do have plans in a couple of weeks to have some friends over to have a tea tasting, and at least one person has already committed to come over beforehand to work in my kitchen sweatshop, so I’ll have something else for you by then even if I’m not feeling better.

Lemon (Not Poppyseed) Ginger Cake

A few weeks ago some of our dearest friends, Micah & Casey [of Casey's Chai Cake], had an engagement party, thrown by some of our other wonderful friends, Kai & Sarah and their new baby! The party was on a Sunday, and Micah actually came to hang out with me on the Saturday beforehand since Casey was busy with some other stuff. They recently moved several hours away from us, so it was absolutely awesome to just get to hang out all day.

One of the things I’d been planning to do that day, though, (before I knew he was coming) was to bake a bunch of stuff. Our winter farm share pickup is usually on Wednesdays, but there had been so much snow that week that it had been rescheduled to Saturday. Since Charlie was working, it was going to be a huge hassle for me to get there, but, the internet saved the day. A quick post to Facebook asking if anyone would be in the area where the share was yielded a friend from high school willing to snag it and bring it over to this side of the river with her, and, well, that was definitely deserving of a batch of Dressmaker’s Double Stout Cookies.

And, of course, I was planning to bake a cake for the engagement party! I hadn’t yet completely decided on what to make, and I considered attempting to pull the wool over Micah’s eyes and pretending that the cake was for something else, but instead, I decided to get his input on what sounded good. Since he’s such a cheery, helpful person, I even had a kitchen assistant and, bless his heart, a dishwasher.

We decided on a Lemon Poppyseed Cake, since I had either a bunch of lemons or a bunch of oranges floating around, and lemon was the victor. I started stirring and mixing while Micah rounded little balls of chocolate stout cookie dough onto baking sheets.

And then, when it was almost ready… I couldn’t find the poppyseeds.

I knew I had poppyseeds. More than one container of them, in fact, as I’d bought some in a package and then found them in a different package in bulk. Unfortunately, when you live somewhere that you’re not the only single person in the entire house, sometimes things get moved or tossed, and despite searching high and low in every freakin’ cabinet… there are no poppyseeds to be found.

The weather was still a bit crummy, and we’d already gone to the store once, so Micah and I decided to make it a… Lemon NOT Poppyseed Cake. I started to rattle around in the cabinets and came up with some candied ginger that I bought for some cookies but rarely have use for. A new cake was taking shape.

I minced the candied ginger as best I could (it’s a sticky, stick job!) and added a bit of powdered ginger to the batter to meld with the lemon and cardamom flavors that were already dancing around.

The cake was a huge success, with people eating piece after piece, and asking for the recipe. So, here it is!

Ingredients

3/4 cup oil
1 1/3 cup white sugar
3 eggs
1 cup sour cream
3 cups all purpose flour
1 1/2 teaspoons baking powder
1/2 teaspoon baking soda
1 teaspoon cardamom
1/4 teaspoon powdered ginger
1 teaspoon salt
zest of three lemons
juice of one lemon
3 tablespoons minced candied ginger

Directions

Sorry I don’t have a picture of this one! It’s for a 10-cup bundt pan, and I used my Heritage Bundt Pan, so it looks a lot like my Counting Cups Cake.

Adjust oven racks – you’ll be baking this on the bottom rack. Preheat oven to 325*F. Grease and lightly flour a 10 cup bundt pan.

In a stand mixer, combine the oil and the white sugar. Add the eggs one at a time. Stir. Add the lemon juice. Stir.

In a separate, medium bowl, combine the flour, salt, baking powder, baking soda, cardamom, powdered ginger and mix completely.

Alternate adding the dry mixture and the sour cream to the oil/sugar mixture a little at a time until they are all completely mixed together. Fold in the lemon zest and the candied ginger.

Pour into the prepared bundt pan. Bake on the bottom rack at 325*F for about an hour, or until a toothpick inserted comes out clean.

Getting excited for gardening.

I know that there’s approximately two feet of snow on the ground, but I’m getting excited for gardening already. And, quite honestly, if you’re in my area (zone 6) and you’re planning to grow some veggies that enjoy cooler weather, like kale, cabbage, broccoli, and brussels sprouts, it’s time to start ordering seeds! If you’ll be doing indoor starts like I am, it’s actually going to be time to begin those for the cool weather veggies very soon.

One thing that’s going to be different about the way I garden this year is that I’ll primarily be doing container gardening instead of planting things directly in the ground. This is because we’ll likely be moving sometime during the growing season, and I don’t want to give up gardening entirely. I’m not sure when we’ll be moving, or if the space we’ll be moving to will have a garden, or access to a community garden, or if I’ll just be able to have some containers, but having containers will be my bare minimum, so I figure I’ll be able to take them along.

Last year some of my big problems with my garden were timing (I started much too late) and pests, particularly a groundhog, and I think that will be alleviated a bit by planting in containers and keeping them in areas where he’s not comfortable going, like our deck. I need to get my hands on some containers, so if any of my buddies who read this have some that they’re not planning to use, I’d love it!

Here’s the design I came up with for my containers. (Yeah, I made a cute little sketch… sometimes I miss art school, ok?)

In case that’s illegible, or you’re a person with a visual impairment, it’s a picture of a rubbermaid container. I’ll be drilling holes in the bottom (or taking someone’s that they don’t want anymore because it has a crack in the bottom) so that it has drainage. The back side of it has chickenwire that is supported with simple wood poles on either end, and that will be my trellis for things like peas and beans! I’ll also have a thin pipe that will go to the bottom of the container that I’ll water the plants through, since from what I’ve read, if you water from the bottom, the roots are more likely to grow down instead of spreading out, which is really ideal for small spaces like container plants. Pretty neat, right? Is there anything I’m forgetting or that you can think of to improve about it?

I got my seeds this year from a really incredible local source. I joined the Hudson Valley Seed Library, and when you join, you get 10 free packs of seeds. I chose almost all things that can go in containers in case we move (one or two things can’t really, but I couldn’t resist).

Here’s a picture of all my seed packets laid out. Some of them are “garden packs” from responsible wholesalers, “art packs” that have beautiful designs by New York artists, and “library packs,” which have seeds grown right here in the Hudson Valley by small, sustainable farms. I can even send some seeds back that I’ve saved after my harvest this year!

Here’s what I got:

• Royal Burgandy Bush Beans

• Shirofumi Edamame Soybeans

• Di Ciccio Broccoli

• Parisian Carrots

• Forest Green Parsley

• Vates Blue Curled Kale

• Dinokale

• Tom Thumb Lettuce

• Sugar Ann Snap Pea

• Doe Hill Peppers

• Sugar Baby Watermelon

• Long Island Cheese Pumpkin (Google a picture of these, they’re cute)

I also have Bloomsdale Spinach and Purple Vienna Kohlrabi, and a Painted Daisy Art Pack that I already ordered from them, as well as the a beautiful variety Radish Art Pack that they sent to people who signed up for membership. :)

Cool weather growing starts sooner than you’d think! I’m also thinking of buying a fruit tree, like an apple tree, to keep in a container, but I’m working on finding the right orchard and the right variety (dwarf, self-pollinating, with apples that are versatile and/or store well). So, lots of research is going into that. I know that I won’t get fruit from it right away, but it’s a long-term investment that I’m happy to make. And if, for some reason, I were to move someplace that apples didn’t do well, or I absolutely couldn’t live someplace where I had space for a dwarf container tree on a balcony, it’s the type of thing that I’d be happy giving to a good home… I mean, wouldn’t you be delighted to get a tiny apple tree in a pot as a gift?

Anyone else thinking about gardening yet? What zone are you in? What are you going to grow?

Blogger of the Week on Made Just Right!

So, for readers who are already here, let me fill you in that I’m pretty excited that this week I’m being featured as the Blogger of the Week on Earth Balance’s site, Made Just Right. If you just landed on my site because of one of my recipes or one of my giveaways, you might not realize that I’m a blogger with some disabilities, and the article on Made Just Right talks a bit about me living with them.

If you’ve just landed here on my site through the Made Just Right article, welcome! I hope you’ll find some tasty recipes and get some entertainment as I attempt another year at gardening. As they mentioned in the article, I do a lot of vegetarian and vegan cooking, and I try to source my ingredients from local farmers and Community Supported Agriculture… but I do want to warn you that there are some delicious baked goods recipes on here, too! When I bake, I always reduce the sugar in recipes and sometimes look for other healthy ways to go about improving on a recipe, but others are just really delicious tasting food to be eaten in moderation and shared with many friends. Baking is actually a stress reducer for me, so, I benefit from it that way, too. :)

If you’ve never been here before, you might want to check out my story of how I got started baking (which is how this blog got started!). There’s also a tag of my gardening adventures from last year, but this post, Thoughts on a Farming Love Affair, from a Beginner Disabled Gardener, is a really good one to check out.

Thanks for stopping by. I’m on Facebook as Measuring Spoons, or you can subscribe to posts by email to stay updated. Oh yeah! I haven’t really gotten into tweeting, but I’m @MeasuringSpoons and WordPress now awesomely updates my posts to Twitter automatically, so maybe one day I will actually enter the realm of microblogging… (or maybe I’m just too verbose).

Winter BBQ for the win!

So, if I haven’t made it obvious by now, my partner Charlie loves grilling. And when he got a fancy grill for his birthday last May, there was joking talk of shoveling the snow off the deck in the dead of winter and grilling even then.

Well, I didn’t underestimate that sentiment, but I don’t think anyone expected that it would be this much snow, since we’ve had a metric ton. But, he had a hankering for grilled food, and he had the day off for the Lunar New Year, so today, I was treated to a winter BBQ!

Here’s Charlie out on the deck.

(“Smile for the camera, Charlie!” gets us a thumbs up with an oven mitt in lieu of gloves.)

And just to give you an idea of how much snow is on the deck, this is the vantage point of the photographer (me!) from the sliding glass door, trying to keep the cat inside (who for some reason thinks he wants to go out – he doesn’t).

(Charlie ultimately decided to just wade through the snow in his boots instead of shoveling off the deck. It was that kind of day. If we have company for the next winter BBQ, we’ll probably clear it off.)

Anyway, while Charlie was outside in thirty degree weather, I was inside marinating tempeh. Because of some fun (and thankfully temporary) medication switches, I’m really trying to watch my sodium this week, so I decided to step in and make my own marinade. Charlie does an amazing job at this and is usually in charge, but is occasionally a bit more heavy handed with the soy sauce than I’d choose to be.

I pulled out my balsamic vinegar for most of the flavor, then brought in just a bit of soy sauce for balance. And, I was sure to measure so that I knew what I was getting in to (whereas our normal marinade making experiments are usually… “a little of this and a little of that”).

Ingredients

1 brick o’ tempeh (ok, an 8oz package), sliced into 4 “cutlets”
3 tablespoons balsamic vinegar
1 teaspoon soy sauce
1 teaspoon extra virgin olive oil
a squeeze of fresh lemon – perhaps a teaspoon
1/2 teaspoon garlic powder
2 sprigs fresh rosemary

Directions

Mix the vinegar, soy sauce, oil, lemon, and garlic powder thoroughly in a shallow dish wide enough for all of the tempeh to lie flat in. Let the rosemary, however sad and leggy it may be from lack of adequate sunshine at this point, sit in the bowl for a few minutes to release some flavor. Get the tempeh good and soggy in the marinade, let sit in the fridge for five or ten minutes (or longer, but that’s all I had since the grill was already going) and then flip over, ensuring an even coating. Refrigerate for a few more minutes, then grill until warm through and the edges begin to blacken.

Black Bean Bonanza

In this recipe, you’ll get a night of black bean tacos, plus a night of delicious black bean burgers, all out of the same pot of beans!

Charlie and I have been trying to live more frugally and more healthily, and one of the things that means for us is trying to use less processed fake meats.

Why less processed fake meats?

• They’re more expensive than some proteins. Even at the most expensive store I can think of in the area, organic black beans are $1.99 for a pound, and there are places that you can get them for half of that, at least. The Gardein Crispy Tender Strips that I love so much are $3.99 for 9oz (and are much less filling).

• Fake meats are less sustainable than legumes since they’re more processed, so more fuel, electricity, etc, has to be used to produce them.

• Dried beans & legumes can often be purchased in bulk, which eliminates the need for wasteful packaging. If you’re cool like me & Charlie, you might even bring your own bulk and produce bags made out of old teeshirts.

• Fake meats may be healthier than real meats, but they’re definitely not whole foods, and we want to eat as healthy foods as we can.

Now, one of the problems that I face in terms of using dried beans is that a lot of them have to be soaked overnight, especially my favorite, black beans. (Soak overnight if you’re planning to slow cook in the morning. Soak all day if you’re planning to cook on the stove at night.) Between typical human forgetfulness and fibro fog+lyme brain, I almost never remember to do this. On Sunday, I even woke up early and said to Charlie, “Hey, I’m going to go soak the beans! I’ll cook them on the stovetop instead of the slow cooker, and we can eat them for dinner tonight!” I then promptly forgot for at least three hours.

After that fail and some googling, I learned that if you find yourself in this situation, you can boil the black beans for two minutes, then let them soak in the hot water for two hours instead of all day. I’d say that the cook time was a bit longer than usual, but it definitely worked out well.

Anyway, my plan for our Sunday night dinner was black bean tacos. We eat tacos fairly often, but usually with refried beans from a can. We made a big pot of black beans and used about a third of it for tacos. The next night, I made black bean burgers, which were pretty incredible. We still have four patties left to freeze. Charlie, though he is a tofu-loving meat eater, is not a big veggie burger fan, but he ate the whole thing. He said that it wasn’t quite a burger, but it was definitely a good sandwich.

I served the burgers with cheese and avocado on top, and with carrot sticks, orange slices, and kale chips. It was an easy meal that was really healthy. If you want to make things really easy on yourself, keep a few burger buns in the freezer along with your burgers so you’ll be ready to go.

Ingredients – Black Bean Mixture Base

2 cups dried black beans
1 medium onion, finely chopped
1 large roma tomato, chopped
4 oz mushrooms, finely chopped
1/2 packet natural taco seasoning
1 teaspoon garlic powder
1 teaspoon cumin

Directions

In a medium to large pot of water, bring the black beans to a boil for two minutes, then let them soak for a minimum of two hours. (If you have the time, soak in cold water overnight as this retains more nutrients.)

At the end of the soaking time, drain off the water and replace with about 4 cups of water. Simmer on medium-low heat for about an hour, then add the onion, tomato, and mushrooms. Simmer for another 30 minutes or until the beans are soft enough to eat and the water has reduced. If you prefer your burgers to have a plainer taste or a different spice, you can remove a portion of black beans (probably 1/3) for tacos and leave the rest for burgers, but keep in mind that the seasoning amounts here are for the entire batch.

Use what you will for tacos. Store the extra black beans in a container in the fridge until the next night, when you’ll make the black bean burgers (unless you’re feeling super ambitious and want to do it immediately). When transferring the bean mixture to a container, use a slotted spoon so that any excess liquid does not transfer to the container.

Yield: Enough for tacos for two hungry people who really like tacos, and six large black bean burgers.

Ingredients – Homemade Black Bean Burgers

3 cups seasoned black bean mixture
1 large egg
3/4 cup breadcrumbs
1 teaspoon dried cilantro (use 1 tablespoon fresh if possible)
1 tablespoon chopped fresh parsley
3/4 cup fresh or frozen corn

Directions

Preheat the oven to 375*F. Using a potato masher or a pastry blender, smash the black bean mixture in a medium bowl until it is the desired consistency (I prefer to leave some beans whole). Add the egg and mix well. Add breadcrumbs, cilantro, and parsley and stir, ensuring the they are evenly distributed. Finally, add the corn. Shape the mixture into patties (we got six large patties out of it) with your hands.

Bake at 375 degrees for 10 minutes. Fry briefly in a pan with olive oil until browned on both sides if desired.

To store in the freezer, place a sheet of wax paper in between the burgers so that they don’t stick together. To reheat from frozen, let sit on the counter for about 5 minutes (ok, this just happened because I was prepping other things last night). Bake at 375*F for 10 minutes on each side, then fry in a pan with a bit of olive oil until browned on both sides.

It didn’t occur to me at the time, but I bet adding some nutritional yeast (perhaps 2 tablespoons) would be a great addition when the breadcrumbs go in. Next batch, I’ll experiment!