Thursday, December 30, 2010

Arizona Winter ....

Weather update from Shamba's front yard:

Flurries, yep, snow flurries ... at 2:45-2:55 p.m. today.

I wondered what that white stuff was on my black pants hanging on the patio furniture ... then it was all around me for a few moments .... and I recognized it, snow, very small flakes and nothing lasted very long once it hit the ground or bushes.

One of my neighbor's kids cried: "Look, snow!"

Haven't seen it in almost 20 years here. It sometimes hits the ground but it doesn't last beyond a couple of minutes.

Just my few flakes worth,

Shamba


Southern Arizona is very cold today and northern Arizona is inundated with the snow from a large winter storm the past 24 hours. Roads to Flagstaff have been closed just past Sedona, the snow and wind creating great snow drifts make driving too dangerous.

It's 1:00 p.m. here MST, in Phoenix in my front yard and our temps are dropping from mid 40s the past hour I'll bet.

We had good rain from the storm but now the sky is mostly clear and it is cold out there. It's only 48-50 in Phoenix today! And there's a wind of about 15-20 miles and hour. It' supposed to be that cold for the next two days.

I haven't been this cold in years here at home! Of course, it was easily this cold when I lived in the Maryland-DC area.

We're not going to be much over 50 degrees for the next two days and very clear cold nights are starting tonight; temps tonight are supposed to be 19-29 degrees. I’m definitely covering plants for the next 3 nights.

One station this morning was saying it could be cold enough tomorrow morning to maybe worry about rained streets turning to ice. I haven't seen snow flurries here in 20 years and we can get fog in the winter but I've never seen ice on our roads.

I haven't wrapped my head up in years but my ears hurt so after being in the wind today I had to put on something. I just had too much to do today to let it go another day.

People who ccame to warm southern Arizona to see the bowl games here are in for a surprise as far as daily temperature are. Northern Arizona is all snowed in. Most of the roads north from Phoenix were closed the last day or so. The roads may be open this afternoon.

peace, Shamba

Tuesday, December 28, 2010

A Very Late Merry Christmas ...

A Very Merry After Christmas and Happy New year!

Four of us had a very festive day at a heavily decorated house with lovely Christmas background music, homemade lasagna, green bean salad, green salad, lots of little chocolate cakes and “things” for dessert. And there were many friendly cats, so it’s good that all of us were fond of cats. :)

I have decoration of evergreens, pine branches and such in the house and it all smells very good.

A neighbor of mine gave me a “branch “ of Brussel sprouts since she had so many herself. I’ve never seen how these grow before. This is a neighbor I’ve given some extra greens to when my CSA share is a little too much for me.

We;’ve had some lovely winter weather in the 70s but this midweek we’re getting a very wet storm and 4-5 nights of freezing nights in the mid-20s. we’ll see if it gets that cold. I put out some extra bedding for the cats to snuggle into.

And I learned to make butternut squash soup this holiday season.
Peace, Shamba

Saturday, December 11, 2010

Small Update in December

I have been doing things but it doesn't interest me to keep track of my small culinary victories like it did.

It seem like all the blogs, (food blogs, I call them) I've been reading for the past two years about food sources, preparing food, cooking, and other food preps are not what they were. There are good reasons for this, employement issues, growing children, just life happening for everyone. Some bloggers have also become more public spokeswomen for the causes they believe in, some are writing books and just involved more in the Real Life than the blogs of Cyber Life. Some post less than they used to.

In any case, I miss reading them the way I used to. Who else was going to tell me that red lentils cooked the fastest of lentils? For this woman who hardly ever knew how to cook much, the past two years have been a great education about food and especially food I'd never tried before. I will keep looking at the blogs that I've become so fond of and I do wish their owners to have the best success at whatever they're doing.

And, I've learned how to make pumpkin soup, it wasn't great but I'll be better next time. I have two large freezer bags of cut up butternut squashes in the freezer and I want to make butternut soup next.

that all for now, don't let the christmas Crazies get to you.

peace, shamba

Monday, November 8, 2010

Not much of an update ...

Not much to report except I tried a butternut squash recipe last week and it came out okay. the recipe was actually on a label attached to a butternut squash from last year and I wrote down the recipe.

Halve the squash and scoop out strings and seeds.

Stuff with combination of pineapple, cinnamon, brown sugar, some melted butter and bacon and/or cheese.

Put on baking sheet with 1/2 inch of water. Cook for at least 45 minutes.

Pretty tasty and smaller squashes make good side dishes for a meal.

Everything I planted is still growing.

I went through the digital recipes I have from doing cut and paste versions of them from cooking sites and blogs recipes. I have them all consolidated under types of food and I want to print them out at some point.

Someon I used to work with had a massive stroke at work two weeks ago and has never regained consciousness. His family took him off life support last
Friday. I didn't knpw him well but who I did know was kind and good and he lieaves animals and people he took care of behind.

another old friend from high school, has to have neuro surgery in a couple of weeks to correct misalignment of spine somehwere in the cervical vertebrae near the skull.
Eek! But they are all very confident that it will come out all right.

And Saturday night I went to M. 90th (!) birthday party that she threw at a local Greek restaurant. M. is still very sound of mind and spirit and is pretty good in body. She had invited about 60 odd people and I think they all came! there was lots of Greek food, some wine, lots of music, conversation about how we all knew M. and her family, and dancing with the Greek dancers and belly dancers!
A very good time was had by all.

peace, shamba

Thursday, October 28, 2010

Decisions .... no, Decisions!

I've been thinking about these decisions for a year so this is no thoughtless process here.

First on the list: something has needed to be done to my 30 year old bathroom for well, a long time. Tiles are loosening, the soap dish fell out of the tiled wall long ago, the bathroom sink vanity/cabinet leaked for a while and so the floor of the cabinet is disintegrating and some wall board damage near the bathtub shower area. So, there is going to be a remodeling project to fix the WHOLE THING AT ONCE.

After a few weeks of weighing options, I signed a contract with a reputable company I know and we’ll schedule a date when the materials come in. They said it would be just about 2 weeks before they would call me. No debt is involved, just funds I thought I would use for this and some small home improvements. Once this is done, it’s DONE for another 20-30 years, unless I decide I don’t like it and want something else! I sincerely doubt I will tire of it and want another one though. This is also the biggest and most expensive project to be done.

Second, after that will come getting rid of old carpet. I’ve been boxing books--my endless supply of books, it seems-- in anticipation of that. I also have to move all the stuff out of the bathroom that isn’t attached to a wall!

third,there is a storage unit place about a block from me I’m going to visit to rent some space for a couple of months. They are offering a free month’s rent when you sign up for their month to month agreement. I’ve used this place before to store stuff.

Fourth, I’ve planted some lettuce (Romaine) and a bell pepper plant this week. The containers are all in the front of the house for the winter as that is where the sun is that they need. Some of the containers are moving in next to the other flowering plants in containers that flourish year round.

I get greens from the CSA but I really like having some lettuce around all the time.

Fifth, I have a list and things to keep me busy in the next few weeks while I ignore all the political stuff about the election next week. But I did vote and send in my ballot.

Actually there's a lot to want to ignore these day. Corn, oats, wheat and rice have
gone straight up in price since June. People want to invest in something that gives them a return and savings and equities aren't doing it these days so commodities are a big thing to give a return. People always need to eat.

Since I don't get to a grocery store every week these days, I don't track prices of some items like I used to week to week. I go like 2-3 weeks. It seems to me these price rises aren't showing up yet in stores but they'll have to eventually.

peace, shamba

Wednesday, October 20, 2010

Heat is GONE

Looks like it's over for this year, nice storm in today and outlook is for next 10 days in 70s and low 80s. We can turn the AC completely off!

Also, picked up romaine lettuce and bell pepper plants to plant in containers in the next few days.

We'll see how that works out.

peace, shamba

Wednesday, October 13, 2010

the walls are moving in ... it seems

Seldom in my life have I felt so squeezed I couldn’t find money in my resources for normal/expected increases in daily life. But I feel some economic walls moving inward the past couple of weeks. It’s like I’m watching them actually move and it’s totally unnerving.

Mostly it’s because of many things, property taxes are one. They went up this year, that was expected, but more than I thought. And this is the time of year that my health insurance opens enrollment. This year there are no new plans but the same as last year although I could change plans if I wanted. I don’t want to change but the cost isn’t staying the same, it’s gone up by $40-50 (?) a month. I expected some kind of increase but that seems a lot at once!

As soon as the health care act passed this summer, I received a letter from the state retiree’s plans that warned us all that this would only increase costs including our premiums. I wasn’t really surprised but seeing the costs going up is anxiety provoking. Of course, the co pays will go up as well.

Fortunately, I don’t have lots of meds to take but I have a chunk of stainless steel in my right hip joint that I can’t go with uninsured. As temporary as it was, that year or so with a hip deteriorating saw me going more and more disabled and that’s a frightening feeling. The replaced hip was like a miracle to me postponing aging and disability for a lot more years! (Knocking on wood!) My hip is good is good but it may required revision someday, and my other hip is wearing a little more all the time and maybe I’ll need that replaced someday.

And I’m a few years away from Medicare, and what form will that take by then or not???

And there’s some increase in my taxes coming in 2011 that I have to talk to my accountant about before the end of this 2010.

What I'm personally afraid of is having to do without way beyond what I know how to do! And then doing without even more and more and more down the line.
Doing without can be relative depending on what your normal economic levels are. I've done without at times in my life, but they are nothing compared with what others have had to do without, like really no money for anything but food.
I've always been able to have the right kind of food and enough of it. I cut other things out of the budget at times but never had to worry about food. Whatever I cut out was a matter of time before things got better and I could spend on those things again. And maybe now there will be no better times for a long time or not in my lifetime?

just some serious thoughts today,

shamba

Tuesday, October 5, 2010

Storms came but storms went ...

Black, thick low hanging clouds over the valley today. Foreacast said probabilities of off and on thunderstorms and rain throughout today with temps about 85degrees.

I had some errands to do so I plotted my route and started out . I didn't get very far before it started raining, then pouring then fogged up windows and thunder and lighning so I pulled over in an office parking lot to wait it out. I haven't done that in several years but I could not see anything for fogged windows and the rain.
then it started hailing, so I pulled the car around behind the building and some trees to keep the hail from hitting the car. About pea-sized hail, no damage but a lot of noise.

The parking lot was filling with water rapidly and the center of the lot was the low point and it was deep enough to have waves!

I must have waited 20-25 minutes before some rain let up and I could see how deep the water was ... about 6 inches but I didn't want to wait for another rain band to come. I put the defroster on to get rid of the fog, ran window wipers and proceeded to come home.

My house got a lot of rain but no damage but there are outtages and wind damage and who knows how many accidents all over town. Needless to say, I didn't get my errands run but the car isn't covered in dust anymore. Storms should move through by by early evening.

peace, shamba

Monday, September 27, 2010

Medium sized victories ...

Okay, I finally tried cooking and eating spaghetti squash today. Solar oven cooked squash, salt, pepper and some spaghetti sauce I really like made a decent lunch. I like this dish and it's really easy to make.

I'm in the process of packing up my shelves and shelves of books, rocks, sea shells and various other small souvenirs from trips over the years. No they're not going away, just until I get new flooring. My carpet is a little over "mumble, mumble" years of age and needs to be long-before-this-replaced! Doing anything about the flooring seemed so intimidating with all the stuff that has to be packed and moved around.

I figure I'll pack books, etc. and then arrange for flooring: I don't want any more carpeting though. This is easier for me than trying to decide on what I want, arrange for installation and then have a date to pack everything in a hurry. We'll see how it works out buf so far I've got 2 bookcases packed out of 5 (floor to ceiling books cases in the computer room). All the really breakable things in that room are almost all packed, too. Some spiny seashells need some spacial packing.

Any way, these seemed better than small victories in life so I called them medium sized.

peace, Shamba

Friday, September 24, 2010

Back to Some Regular Business ....

I've been eating rather much and not the best stuff the past month, burgers, burritos, picked up pizzas eating out with friends to try new stuff and new beer! and not enough green stuff. There were often vegetable that went with all these heavy meals but not much green. This really adds up on the scales and to the system generally within just a month or so!

So, a few vegetarian days and/or lentil/rice dishes will set some of this over indulgence right.

I just didn't want to eat the CSA veggies like I usually do so I lost some eggplant, basil, arugala. Fuzzy grey just doesn't look good on the pretty purple egg plants! Mea culpa!

However, the squashes, melon, great melons! peppers and chiles were eaten or frozen/dried for future use.

Seasons are changing even here in the desert. Lack of sun in the north patio is increasing every day very quickly, plenty left for solar cooking but it really moves every couple of days.

And because the seasons are changing there are herb plants available again at the neighborhood nursery so I picked up some: Italian parsley, thyme, Greek oregano, basil and one more oregano plant. I didn't even have any dried oregano, all gone!, and couldn't find the bottle of thyme I'd bought a couple of weeks ago. It will be nice to have some fresh stuff again. :)

Last year, I just kind of used the fresh stuff and watched how much they grew. This coming fall,winter when the plants really produce I will pick them and get them dried.

I just put leaves and greens put in the dehydrator and leave them sitting for a couple of days without the heater and they dry quite well.

Feeling much better than a couple of weeks ago. 90s instead of 103 is good and the evenings and mornings are almost cool, more like an absenth of warmth than cool yet.

cheers,
Shamba

Thursday, September 9, 2010

A Post ...

Something like a malaise of heat and humidity overtook me the past few weeks. Of course, I'm still cooking, or eating someone elses' cooking, and things generally are going well.

this week my sinus headaches may have morphed into a low grade infection, maybe or not. I get one of these once a year. Usually, extra sleep and good food and laying off any dairy for a couple of weeks clears it up.

that's all for now ...

peace to all, shamba

Wednesday, August 18, 2010

Herb Garden Report

Last September, end of September, I got some herb plants; Greek oregano, Italian parsley and basil. I gradually added to this group over November to January; thymes, another basil plant, cilantro, chives and some catnip. I bought a bronze fennel mostly cause I liked the way it looked, pretty metallic touch. It could be used for herbs, though, too.

These plants transplanted well into containers, produced pretty well and thrived until about April-May. I was able to use them in my own cooking and dehydrated some of them. Mostly though, I just liked them growing there and smelling so good.

RESULTS:

The sunshade I put up in mid-May probably helped keep them going a couple of more months. The basil and cilantro went to seed and even clipping off the flowers they didn't do so well and died sometime in June.

The parsley went to seed, too, but it still produced some until about June-July.

The fennel just didn't make it through the heat and the catnips got exposed to the sun too much for a few days and they didn't make it. this was sometime in June.

I had two thyme plants, one was a very lemony thyme. One went just seemed to give up one day and the other one is still alive today.

the oregano plant produced less and less the past 3 months but was alive until I think it drowned the week we had 3 monsoon storms in addition to my watering the day or so before that happened. It just was so water logged after that week I thought that's what killed it.

Factors that I don't know how they affected the plants:

Type of pot they are in;

Whether the plant would do better in the ground and not in a container;

Regularity of feeding, since May this has been spotty;

Life cycle of the particular plant;

Should I be going only by the Low Desert Planting schedule that I have a copy of from a local organization or can't I just grow them whenever they'll grow?

CONCLUSION:

This was a success as far I'm concerned this time around; first time I'd done it, got pretty good production from the plants for 6 or so months.

I want to add some rosemary and get some lavender to grow at the other end of the patio. My friend, S. has lovely lavender growing in her yard and I want to have some, too.


I also had very good time doing all this and I'm going to do it again.



peace, shamba

Tuesday, August 10, 2010

Still living and eating ;)

I'm still living and eating but not writing much these days. Mostly I cook a one pot dish with meats, veggies and separately some rice or pasta. Sometimes it's just some veggies and rice for dinner. (I'm very fond of peanut butter/honey/jam sandwiches for lunches which, of course, require no cooking.)

Today, it's eggplant in one solar pot, sweet and red potatoes, onions in another pot and baby beets.

I haven't used egglplant much before this summer but I've been using simple preparations for what the CSA gives me.

peace to all,
Shamba

Thursday, July 29, 2010

Dilemmas ...

To solar cook or not to solar cook …

To eat a peanut butter and honey sandwich or delve into the onions, lentils and rice(they’d have to be cooked)…

To wait and see if the sun comes out of those grey clouds that aren’t raining or not ….

To be one with the plethora (I’ve always loved that word) of tomatoes from the CSA or …

Whether ‘tis nobler to cut the tomatoes and brave the damp heat outside to dehydrate or wait until another using the dreadful humid heat to postpone action …..

Okay, so I made my choice! :)

I cut up the tomatoes and put them outside in the Tulsi oven to dehydrate. I’ve saved some to eat not dehydrated, too. Dehydrating will take a day or two but no more than that. If they are out there too long, like a day too long, they can taste scorched. I swear the last group I did just tasted too crispy and a little scorched. But two days in the sun has come out tasty before.

As for lunch, it’s lentils and rice and onions and some herbs and out in the other solar oven.

And the sun has come out in a clear blue sky after mid day.

Most days of the past two weeks have started very overcast looking like some rain but they clear off and don’t do anything else. My neighborhood finally got some rain last night …. Steady couple of hours, no big wind storm.

The clouds when they are fluffy and white seem like they are ships with puffy sails gliding in a fleet across the sky. The dark low clouds and the puffy fleets are a welcome change from endless hot blue sky. Some people would find endless blue sky hard to ever get tired of but it is possible.

And on Food shopping day from Sprouts, I filled in my gaps in food storage:
Chickpeas, red lentils, yellow split peas, cornmeal, farina, dried apricots, dried cranberries, two jars of that applesauce I really like from Sprouts, a special on an attractive jar of apricot jam so I got one of them.

Looking over their bulk spices section to see about having lemon grass or sweet grass. I didn’t get anything there but picked up two bunches of fresh parsley to probably dehydrate if I don’t get it all used in a few days. I’m completely out of ANY kind of parsley, and my parsley plant isn’t producing much of anything right now.

Two dilemmas solved today. I've got lots more I just don't want to do any of the choices I have!

peace, Shamba

Monday, July 26, 2010

Seeking Chile ....

I was going to you blog to look at some recipes bu I get a message about your blog being by invitation only.That is if you're able to continue the blog. thinking of you and hoping everything is well with you, your puppies, your other family members.

be well and peace,
Shamba

Tuesday, July 20, 2010

Not much to say lately ....

Not much doing these days but solar cooking outside. Solar cooking these days is as much of a one pot affair as I can possibly make it because of the heat. So, meals are meat with vegetables, rice with lentils or beans and vegetables in a side pot. Actually that’s 2 pots, I know. 

Dehydrating tomatoes this Monday and Tuesday.

Heat so far this summer: We usually have an “average” of 18 days of 110 or more in the summer, figured as June, July and August. So far, we’ve had 8-9 days of these. I don’t remember how many we had last summer.

I've been working on sewing/mending projects inside. If I can get the simple mending stuff done, or get rid of the garment, I'll have a one foot high pile of "stuff" gone!

onwards, shamba

Friday, July 9, 2010

Surviving Mid-july ....

What an irritating week! No matter what little or large thing I did it seemed fraught with small irritating obstacles to whatever m y goal was! And it’s too hot and humid to get pissed off about things …. So I growled a lot this week at various things which all came out right with just a little more effort on my part and patience. Mostly this was the last part of closing my mother’s estate.

Anyway, I’m swimming in squashes and tomatoes from last week and this weeks’ CSA shares. Also, great tasting cantalope and watermelons from them the past two weeks! YUMMY! I somehow never bought watermelons for myself but I had no trouble eating up the one I had last week. 

There are two new people running the CSA pickup where I go. The previous lady has moved out of state to be nearer her family, I’m told. These kind people had our veggies waiting for us in very good sturdy tote bags, with our names tagged on the bags.

They can hold our veggies for us afor a couple of days if we miss the pickup day, which is very nice of them. We have a small group that uses this pickup point; there are several others in the metro area.

Re: Herb garden. The cilantro and parlsey are gone, my friend S. told me hers always die in the summer, and the basil doesn’t seem to want to do well. But the thymes, chives and oregano are still doing pretty well. I’m not getting a lot out of the thyme and oregano but there’s enough of it to use for what I want about once or twice a week. The CSA has been providing fresh basil leaves the past month so I’m using that or drying it.

One catnip plant is still doing okay the other has died. I grew these for the two cats that like them so much.

Re: Moonsoon possibilities and summer: Our dew points are up in the 40s and it feels like it.

The last 2 weeks the whole rest of the country has had truly horrid hot temps for the east coast and the midwest, but so far here we haven’t had unusual heat for us. We’ve had seasonal temperatures since May.

But we have two months to go yet and we could get some records temps.
Re water: I don’t think Phoenix has ever had water rationing but I’ll bet it’s coming sometime in the next few years.

Utilities and city government encourage water conservation but the more we conserve the more the water rates go up.

Our water shed got good rain this year so we’re in good shape. All our reservoirs in that watershed are full, that doesn’t include the big Lake Mead or Lake Powell up near Nevada.

Hoping for a good monsoon the next 2 months,
shamba

for Sunday dinner, July 4th!-
-corn on the cob roasted in solar oven ...
--tomatoes and squash sliced served and eaten raw ... or better with some vinagrette (SP?
--chicken breast and potatoes roasted in solar oven ...
-corn bread baked after main dishes in solar oven.

Peace, shamba

Wednesday, June 16, 2010

Back from the sea ...



I was in San Diego area. My brother and I put our parents ashes in the sea; it went perfectly. We got along well the 3 days I was there. It was very nice to see his friend, R. again. The weather was very overcast with the marine layer of clouds and cool and drizzly. It was really nice for a few days.

In the meantime, when I went to pick up my CSA stuff today, they had kindly saved my veggies from last week. I am inundated with tomatoes and various squash not to mention POTATOES! I also got the peaches from last week and the sweet corn, YUMMMMMM!

Guess I’ll be dehydrating with everything I have to dehydrate within the next few days. I also got myself several red bell peppers which I love dehydrated so I’ll have to get busy today and tomorrow.

Cats and plants doing well thanks to my friend, S., who took care of them while I was gone. No problems flying either,but it was during the weekdays so security lines and other airport things were not so busy.
Peace, shamba

Sunday, June 6, 2010

A Short Break from computers

and emails for a couple plus a couple of days.

peace to all,
shamba

Tuesday, June 1, 2010

Busy Afternoon ....

We had some overcast today so I got out and put the shadecloth over the herbs; not the greatest construction in the world but I will be refining it over the next few weeks. I think I should have moved the plants further away from that block wall given how hot the wall can get. I actually have plenty more shade cloth if I want to make aome other arrangement.

The shadecloth is fastened to the wall and fastened temporarily on some plants stakes or poles in the front and side. that given me room to pull the canopy away and water easily. Anyway, that was enough for today.






A peek underneath ....

peace, shamba

Sunday, May 30, 2010

Sunday Cooking ...

My goal in cooking is to have food for 1-3 days. Of course, this involves leftovers; leftovers that can taste good cold or re heated. The cold food will sound better and better in the next week or so.

Today it’s a turkey loaf in the Sun oven and a veggie dish in the Tulsi oven. They could both be stacked in the Sun oven but the potato dish was an afterthought so I just put it in the Tulsi oven. The potato dish is just, sweet potato and red potato chopped medium fine, a little salt, pepper, fresh parsley and dried dill. I usually add some olive oil if I’m roasting them in the electric oven but this time I'm doing without the oil.

Anyway that’s enough food for at least 2-3 days with some fruit or salad greens with it or as snacks. We got some tasty apricots with the CSA stuff last week.

Next is putting up shade screen over the container herbs tomorrow. I feel like there's a race on to do thing before the end of this week! Temps will increase a lot this week, we’ll be at 105 by the end of this week; 110 over next weekend. We’ve had a good May but the heat comes some time.

peace, shamba

Wednesday, May 26, 2010

Thinking about the coming heat ...

Some news from the big world: For the 4th year in a row, at the end of winter, the bee hives in this country, US, still have a lot of dead or mostly missing bees from the ones that were in the hive at the beginning of winter. This is the 4th spring in a row for this creepy disappearing bees issue. It’s also in other parts of the world. I don’t think we have a real handle on what causes this, too complex an issue for easy answers.

I'm putting up the shade cloth over the container herbs this week. They've done well so far but they'll need some help in the next few weeks to keep on going this summer. Actually, I don't really know if they will survive the summer but I'll give it my best effort.

The cat’s claw in the back wall is growing a lot faster since I’ve been watering this past week. Just a little regular water makes it grow like crazy. I’m working on getting it across the top of half of the block wall so it will help deflect the heat and sunlight that the wall absorbs in the hot weather. So far, the plant itself seems to agree with the way I want it to go.

And, our hot weather isn’t here yet. We hit 101 on Friday May 21 but we get another reprieve from triple digits for about another 5 days as a front blows through. Today was just dusty and windy but the next two days will be much lower in temps, about 80 degrees.

Mmm, the very old fridge is very inefficient also and it's freezing everything in it again. I'm sure this takes up a chunk of electricity.

Also, I got some window curtains on a very marked down deal and a Penny's card discount for fabric with thermal backing. I dug the card out of it's hiding place and used it. The thermal backing is supposed to help cut not only light but heat/and or cold. It definitely cut light and heat coming in a window with indirect light. Old curtains will be washed and used when clean when the new curtains get too furry from cats rubbing against them! Now, I’m thinking to do something with those very ancient drapes to the patio door. I’d get those cleaned and save them, too. There is how-many-years? of cat fur, dust, dirt and stains and who knows what else on those drapes!

I'm thinking with the way things are going in the economic and financial market place, I'm better off spending money on goods that will help the house be more energy efficient and more livable.

peace, shamba

Thursday, May 13, 2010

May 10 and 11th and 12th

Have spent several days with solar oven cooking different things:

1-Beef tenderloin, yes this turned out really well in the global sun oven. I put it in frozen and it came out pretty well. I left it longer than I intended to, about 2 hours instead of 1 ½ hours. It was a little dry but still pretty tender. It was well done, a little more than I like it. I don’t purchase this expensive meat and cook it very often—maybe once or twice a year—but it is my favorite meat meal.
It didn’t taste like grilled on a mesquite fire, of course, but pretty good anyway.

I like vegetarian food but I’m still the meat lover I was raised to be on Midwestern WASPy cooking. :)

2-Baked sweet potatotes. These were better than I thought they would be with a little butter, salt and pepper on them.

3-Eggs. Hard boiled eggs; 4 eggs in global oven for a little over an hour. Actually, it was an hour and 15 minutes.

There are a couple of other egg recipes I want to try that I found at the solarovenchef.blogspot.com and solarcookingathome.blogspot.com -- that last one is Sharlene T.'s blog.

I’m swimming in potatoes from the CSA! I’m eating them but they keep coming in good numbers. It's a good thing I like potatoes; mostly chpped up, like diced but not tiny cubes, with onions and just roasted.

We also got eggs this week, so it seems a good time to make the grits,chiles,eggs and cheddar cheese dish and freeze a chunk of it.

Peace, Shamba

Thursday, May 6, 2010

new and some stuff to wonder about ....

News lately:

--the financial situation in Greece in still not quite finalized, I think, so many times it’s been reported as “all taken care of” I don’t know if the latest version of their bailout/stabilization is done or not. A section of the Greek public is so worked up their demonstrations turn into riots and people are being killed in these demonstrations now. Did this influence the stock market drop today ?

--US Stock markets this week have had some losses, but today they had a big spike drop of almost 1000 points. They came back up though and show a total loss in points today of 347.80 to 10,520.32; S&P had 1128.15 Some commentators think the Greek and European financial situation is going to get worse and is a picture of the kind of austerity measure we'll have to take.

what I want to know, and I don't anyone is going to tell me!, is does that mean I have until the end of 2010 to get some more things done at the house?

--Bad oil spill from BP rig in the Gulf of Mexico; spill is growing hugely and could be spread around the west coast of Florida to the Keys and then up the East Coast.
What does this do to the temperature of water in regards to hurricane formation???
Is it going to hit the gulf Coastline, so far it's just hanging out there in the Gulf and hasn't come onto shore yet?

--The 99 weeks of unemployment that have been extended by Feds over the past year or so has not been extended to more. So, those people because of the recession for the past two, almost 2 ½ years, are going to run out of their UE benefits quite soon if they haven’t already--how many people is that and will they all be on the streets?

I think they just drop off any unemployment stat sheets and will that make the emplyment rates look better?

--Much more unemployment is probably coming with the education cuts across the country and also municipal and state workers will be let go starting with the fiscal year beginning July 1. Of course, many government employees have been let go all along the last year anyway.

Local weather news, no 100 degree days yet.

shamba

Thursday, April 29, 2010

One more thing off my list of to do... Water related ..

this is partly prep stuff and partly just maintenance on the house and partly, "help, this needs to be fixed!"

My very old toilet has been on it's last legs for at least a year, leaking now and then, but it increased in leaking the past couple of months. Also, all the faucets in the house seem to all start leaking badly in the past few months. did they all decide to leak together to get me to do something?! I was amazed at how much water these drips totalled up to after I plugged a sink one day to see how much water was being wasted. Wow, waaay more than I realized.

So, after checking on kinds of toilets available and some other realated info, I got a new one yesterday and all the dripping faucets have been totally fixed. So, the new toilet uses much less water than the previous one (we found a date of 1968 on the old one!) that's about how old the buildings are but I didn't realize it had been THAT long.

Yes, someone had to bring all the stuff and install it. Everyone I know who used to help me with such things have aged or developed their own problems about doing moveing and lifting of things like old/new toilets. That's one thing about getting older, sometimes you have to pay more for things to be done than doing them yourself with help.

I've also been much better about using water generally. When a cup of bowl has a little water in it, I don't pour it down the drain anymore, I had it to a plastic pitcher I have and use it to water my plants. When I change the cats' water, I pour that in the plants and give the cats fresh water. I also have a 2 1/2 gal bucket under the hose faucet in the back of the patio so that catches anything there. there's not too much that's comes out of there unless I'm using the hose but whatever falls is usable from the bucket.

peace to all,
shamba

Tuesday, April 20, 2010

more pics ...









It's hard to get a good picture with the contrast of shadow and sun so stark in the afternoons .....earlier in the day with the whole back patio in sun it's easier to get a better picture.

Some of the container herbs ..

Thursday, April 15, 2010

Tax Day 2010 already!

Notes from this past week or so:

Quake news on April 5 or 6: On local news yesterday evening: Calexico, California has a water plant off line for at least 60 days as a result of the quake a day or so ago. So they have to conserve water.

Channel 12 talked about what happens here, Phoenix metro, if the big One hits southern California. Well, they’d be coming here, we ‘vet always known that. Such an event in California would interrupt 60% of our fuel supply and 90% (!) of our food supply. That’s what they said. I knew the fuel supply would be affected, I guessed by about half, but I didn’t know the food supply percentage was so high.

Spent a really lovely afternoon at S.’s house and met many of her cats! I took two rolls of film of the cats. Most of them were quite obliging to have their pics taken.  I got a couple of ceramic pots for her. I needed some more to choose from to translplant some things in this week.

S. also has lavender and a an interesting looking catctus/succulent that she said I could have some of.

Busy week, I ran a lot of errands today, some to look at things, some to acquire supplies—really materials for the herb container garden in the patio area.
I picked up a card reader for the digital camera cards, previous one was broken; picked up a roll of shadecloth or sun screen fabric; a small solar stake light and some masonry nails. The fabric isn’t needed right away but in a few weeks—2-4-weeks, I’ll probably need it.

Moved all the herbs into the back patio. I moved some of the aloes to the front porch and the plant stand there. They’ll do better in that sunlight for the next 6 months than the herbs will. And if, probably really “when” not if, the herbs need to be covered with the shade/sun screen fabric they’ll all be in one place I can do it easily.

Also, added a sage plant to the herb group.

Picked up my 2009 taxes today and my mom’s estate taxes and made my weekly vegetable run for CSA veggies. I signed up for another round of CSA foods. I'm actually catching up with the overflow of veggies I've had in the past few weeks--passing some on to S. and a neighbor, dehydrating all the dill, and just eating more.

the DJA has gone up to 11,1??? this week.

cheers,
shamba

It’s getting warm in the car when I’m out—lots warmer. We’ll come close to 90 degrees this week.

Monday, April 5, 2010

Easter Monday ...

Another beautiful day in the high 70s. :)

Transplanted into better and larger pots: Italian parsley, Lemon thyme, French thyme, Greek oregano, and cilantro.

Still out in the front of the house: Sweet basil, 2 bronze fennel plants, and chives.

Tomorrow, I’m doing the 3 cat nip plants into bigger containers and they’ll be out front for the cats to use/play with. The two tortiseshell females, Tortie and Chloe, particularly like these plants.

Hung up my two clay sun faces on the patio wall facing the bedrooms. They look better over the plants and I get to see them this way when I go by the patio doors. I left the other face on the wall facing the plants.

Monday morning, lots of smaller earthquakes today south of the Imperial Valley/Salton Sea area between Baja and mainland Mexico, The reason is the Sunday quake in Baja California (near Mexicali) which rated a 7.2 on the Richter scale. K. called me from San Diego yesterday afternoon to tell me about the quake they felt quite a bit in La Jolla. He said the buildings swayed a little (they live on the 3rd floor of 5 floors) and the pool water sloshed out of the pool itself. He’s never been in a quake in La Jolla. He lived in Palo Alto when the big quake hit in the Bay Area in 1989.

He was the quake happened only about 100 miles from Yuma and so that’s why Yuma felt it so much. A lot of people in Phoenix also reported feeling the quake, I didn’t but I was asleep! This is the first time I can remember so many people feeling and earthquake in Phoenix that came from the California or the Mexico border area.

Lots of home videos from Phoenix and Yuma, that show water sloshing around inn pools and over flowing the sides of the pools because of the quake.

I hope it doesn’t happen again very soon.

Peace, shamba

Monday, March 29, 2010

Herbs and some spring organizing ...

I transplanted the parsley and oregano in bigger pots this afternoon. Boy, were they root bound. Anyway, they are in the back patio area now,there’s plenty of sun there now during the day. I’m going to try the shade cloth thing when the sun is stronger and the heat is here in the back patio.

The container herbs can just be out in the sun for some time each day during the heat and then be put in the shade against the house wall but the shade cloth makes more sense. I'll have to ask a couple of people how that might work.

I went to Safeway to check on produce prices, just out of curiosity. I really haven’t looked at much produce there since I joined the CSA. I have bought some apples and bananas the past 2 months though. All, I can see is that Safeway has slashed prices again or maybe temporarily on most everything especially lettuces. All the kinds of lettuce were like 10 bunches or pounds for $10.00! Everything else, including the sweet peppers, were pretty much the way they were 2-3 months ago.

I checked the jam/jelly aisle and the lentils and bean prices. The jam, at least this week, is lower than I bought the last time I was there. The lentils and beans seemed much the same.

We are fortunate in the Phoenix area to have a lot of competition among several grocery chains. We also have a number of farmer’s markets available valley wide every week almost all year round.

The last few months, Safeway and Basha’s in particular seem to be in some kind of price war. Or at least the Basha’s near me is in a lot of competition with the Safeway a mile away. The Safeway is much bigger and has a wider selection of food but the Basha’s is in very easy walking distance. Basha’s has also filed for Chapter 11 the past year.

I, then, walked around the corner to Whitfill nursery and checked out their herbs. No cilantro there today but I got some English thyme and a “Bronze Fennel.” The fennel is really quite pretty with that bronze color and the slender branches/shoots it sends out. I looked at the French thyme and decided I liked it a lot, too but that’s for another time. I looked at the rosemarys and the lavender, too.

yesterday was a beautiful day for Palm Sunday!

I attached and cleaned out the frige today. I tossed, scrubbed and cleaned out the whole things, crisper, middle and freezer part.

I had to throw out some greens leaves as they were at the end of their lifespan. But I chopped the rest of the chard, Chinese cabbage and spinach together, rinsed them and then decided to just use them as a salad with the rice and lentils that were in the global sun oven today. I mix the lentil dish and the greens together as a giant tossed salad with vinaigrette. Mine was an Italian type but I’m sure other kinds would work well, too.

It was a pleasure to chop all these greens with the new knife. The right tools DO make a lot of difference no matter what you’re doing in life.

Leftover greens get used tonight or tomorrow for a potato and greens dish. Or maybe I’ll just eat them as a salad dish with the leftover lentils.

Used the rosemary and tarragon that I had purchased at the grocery for dehydrating in the global oven. They were getting rid of a lot of packages of herbs at half price, so I figured the purchase was worth a try to dehydrate. Normally, the packages are like a little over $3.00.

peace, Shamba

Friday, March 26, 2010

Catching up this week.

March 26,

We had our association HOA board meeting last night. It’s been very quiet around the place. We’ve had no major repairs to make since we replaced the damaged rafter holding up the front porch roofs. We have a substantial amount in our bank accounts! The increase in fees is helping us by us putting the increase away to take care of property insurance, which is what it was intended to do. For the foreseeable future, we’ll have a positive cash flow. We have some HOA dues delinquencies but not too many. Here hoping we don’t have any really big unexpected things come up like we did the whole new water line thing about two years ago. :0 We made major broken line repairs over and over and then finally had to redo the fresh water lines, those old pipes just wouldn’t hold together anymore.

Our units are generally worth about $50,000-55,000 these days. That’s just about the 50% decline in prices for the Phoenix area during the last two-three years. A couple of units have sold in the past two years. Our property managers said they’re beginning to see some properties move a little more than they did 6 months ago. They’re hopeful it will get better and one of our board members said we have to wait another couple of years for things to get better. He’s hopeful too, that things will increase in value. I think he’d like to get out of being a landlord himself here although he is a good landlord and good for us to have on the board.

I didn’t mention anything about the further deterioration of housing and any other market. We didn’t have time for those kinds of discussions and needed to get a lot of business done in our time allotted. One member had worked 12 days in a row and looked really kind of tired. He works for an airline, counter agent. Our property managers are good but they work regular hours and attend some board meetings during the week so they were ready to go home and forget work.

March 22,

Interesting, to say the least, point from Jim Puplava at www.financialsense.com this past Saturday, March 20, 2010. He has a weekly show that is available to listening on the website in a variety of formats. The topics and guests for each hour are listed at the website. I don’t listen to everything every week, but this past week I listened to the MP3 version of Hour 2 on the topic: “Turning Point: Change Ahead for Markets and Economy.” This part of the program was about 1 hour and 15 minutes. About 35-40 minutes into the program at the end of this Turning Point Segment Puplava says and I paraphrase I’m not direct quoting. As matter of fact I think he’s quoting a guest from the hour 1 of this date.

Everybody known a major financial crisis bigger than we’ve ever seen before is coming. What nobody knows, what nobody is smart enough to know, whether it’s 3 months, 6 months, 1 year or 2 years. Big money is preparing for this because everyone knows it is coming.
: (

Cheers,

Friday, March 19, 2010

herb cooking class ...

I attended my cooking with herbs class Thursday morning. This was certainly well worth doing! there were 15 of us in the class and a knowledgeable and happy instructor. Apparently, the business is doing very well these days.

I am thinking a Yeast Bread Primer might be fun and useful to go to in May and the Indian Cooking class they’re offering.

In any case:
1. Harvested some parsley and basil and dehydrated them! Herbs are still really growing.
2. Huge pot of beef barley soup plus various veggies. Only I threw in some well cooked wheat berries instead of the barley.
3. Lantana plant in front is growing bigger every single day. It’s in the 80 the past few days and everything that can do so is putting forth blooms of one kind or another. Citrus blossoms will pop open any day on the two trees we have in our area in the back of the townhouse complex. Also, the pomegranate tree will bloom in the next month.
4. Tomorrow it’s roasting veggies to catch up with CSA veggies.

Peace, shamba

Tuesday, March 9, 2010

I wonder these things ....

I wonder … but I don’t expect anyone to really have the answers, I just wonder these things from time to time and they’ve been piling up in my head so here they are.

I wonder when or if we’ll start hearing the “D”epression word instead of the “R”ecession word or the “G”reater “R”ecession words …?

I wonder when we’ll have to watch all the local gas stations for which ones have gas to buy rather than watching which one has the best prices …

When will car dealerships, or any auto repair place, not have regular deliveries of the parts and stuff they need to repair cars?

Will they just say, “Come back tomorrow or a few days, we might/may have it then?”

I wonder when nail polish and nail polish remover won’t be so easily available …. I like polish and use it but I don’t have a clue what it’s made of, but something in it must be related to petroleum …

What about the elements of hair coloring and highlights that I get done by a good friend who has a local business …

When will there be fewer ball point pens—surely, their plastic and ink related to petroleum?

Will there ever be fewer kinds of cell phones to choose from?

Digital cameras come in all shapes and sizes of Mega Pixels? When will we see fewer of those available in stores?

And how long will film keep existing and will they stop developing/processing it? There are still people using film out there and I’m one of them although I have a small digital camera as well.

What about flatscreens used for tvs and computer display screens?

When do all the elements that go into electronics start becoming scarcer? Recycling of electronic parts, that’ll be a bigger business than it is now . ..

Will the city of Phoenix ever tell residents they’ll HAVE to conserve water?
Not just “encouraging” conservation but really having to learn to handle water differently to conserve it …

When or will local governments in the USA encourage residents to use rain water and rain barrels to help provide water for themselves? This assumes that governments/utilities will still have a part in delivering water to communities … .

How long will professional sports teams keep traveling around the US when there’s a crunch on gasoline/jet fuel? (I’m thinking of the US here but other countries have the professional sports, too.)

Will the PGA, WPGA, NFL, NHL and NBA (I’m probably leaving some sport league out of this that I don’t know about) just have smaller geographic groupings of competing teams? Maybe individual sport franchises in certain cities will just fold and not exist?

University and college sports teams and their various tiers of competition? Will they just wither away over time?

Will all kinds of tv get less over time, whether it’s cable/satellite/broadcast? Time and energy will be too expensive or available for these to exist the way they do now? Just paid tv/internet for those who can afford it?

Will grocery stores or farmer's markets have signs in places where certain foods used to be like "Bananas/Certain meats sold out and no more expected for a month or so." Or "No more Pomegranates/Apples/Pears/Almonds/Walnuts, etc. until next year." Meaning, next year's harvest, our allotment of seasonal food is gone for the year.

it's hard to push thoughts like these away anymore in the last couple of years, on this blustery, squally day with bursts of moderate rains. Another storm!

Shamba

Monday, March 8, 2010

one more storm

March 7th, Another Sunday of rain, moderate to heavy rain at times all day long. It was lovely, really. And we’re not going to have the clear sunny weather until Wednesday morning because something else is passing through Arizona tonight and tomorrow. Honest to god I could have used a rain barrel this winter!

The desert parks in town are all green, green, green. March is here and I haven’t made it out to the desert to drive around and see the green growth plus some flowers that are out there. I just need to get up some morning, take the camera and take off in the car.

We’re only 6-8 weeks from May, too. The temps will go from just around 70 to 80 and then suddenly to 100 in those weeks since we usually break 100 sometime in early May.

That’s all for now, Shamba

Thursday, March 4, 2010

What a beautiful day!

Cool breeze but our usual sunny skies with some white clouds! the citrus buds are about to pop open but haven't yet. The pomegrante tree is all leafed out. It only take 3 weeks once it gets a very few leaves open.

I put rice out in the Tulsi oven for cooking in the back patio. It's the first solar cooking dish of the year. :)

March 4th Veggies Are –

Carrots Sweet Potatoes
Citrus Mustard Green
Swiss Chard Lettuce Heads
Dill Turnips

Oranges! And the Chard is gorgeous and lettuce heads HOORAY! Things look very familiar to eat this week. That means just the reading of the names makes me want to eat them. :)

All, i mean ALL of my grains were gone after 2 months of using what I had on hand, I've very fond of cooked cereal for breakfast and that's where most of the grains go. So, I trundled off to Sprouts to fill out my grains list. Picked up some bell peppers for very inexpensive eac. I'm going to dehydrate them in the next few days.

Feeling better than I have for about a week.

cheers,
shamba

Update march 1st

Monday
I have a list of preps and I just keep working on going down the list. However, it seems like the past month I feel an urgency to get more done but at the same time I feel like a deer looking at the oncoming headlights of some big thing! It kind of saps the energy,too. and makes my neck and shoulder muscles tighten up after reading about this stuff lately. Need to do my shoulder stretches more or stop reading so much stuff lately.

I think this: "Well, look, there is that big Thing/collapse/market crash/outcry against city budget and it's coming and omy, it's as big and terrifying as the doomer blogs said it would be!"

More people of my circles are willing to talk about things aren't really going to get better for a long time. I'm not sure that's good or not except it might be a sign that more people are recognizing it's not going to be recovery by spring.

There's a small nursery that advertises "Vegetable Tube" gardening. I'm going to stop by there later this week and find out what that's about. Anyone here know anything?

Sunday

A nice rainy day again! I like the idea of being inside on these cold wet days we’ve had but on the other hand, I’d like a week or so inbetween them so things could dry out a little more. My plants love the water from the sky though. My parsley has lost it’s mind (!) and has a couple of really thick tall stalks on it. After this clears out today, we should have a clear week at least so far.

Ran out of any kind of bread so to have some available I did a quick bread today, caught up with the turnips and roasted them and other root veggies. I realized I could use the oven for both at the same time. Used up the last of the dehydrated vegetable broth to drink while I was cooking. Last two pieces of pizza are for dinner. Plenty of green stuff for salads.
That’s all for now,
shamba

Friday, February 26, 2010

Snippet of Phoenix Budget Struggle

From www.ktar.com:

by KTAR Newsroom (February 24th, 2010 @ 1:27pm) PHOENIX - Hundreds of Phoenix firefighters have voted unanimously to take a 2 percent pay cut and four furlough days over the next two years to save jobs.

The head of the United Phoenix Firefighters Association Pete Gorraiz (guh-'RYE-us) says the pay cuts will save three engine companies and 42 jobs.

Gorraiz says the Phoenix Fire Department will lose 40 jobs but those will be offset by retirements that will happen by June, meaning that no firefighters will have to face layoffs.

Phoenix Fire Chief Bob Khan tells KTAR Radio in Phoenix that firefighters like what they do, believe in what they do and want to protect the community and save jobs for fellow firefighters.

The final city budget hasn't been set but it will be in early March. No matter what they do the city council's action seem to enrage somebody, lots of somebodies. the public hasn't come to realize yet that less and less is what's ahead of us for a few years.

I don't blame "somebodies" for being angry. If I was 30 years younger--I'm so old I can say that now!--I would be very angry for the things I would not have in my life that I expected to have, and angry because of my children not having these things either. And not just expected material things but the choices of traveling, pursuing almost any interest I wanted and finding people to share that will also be lessened in the coming years.

Peace , shamba

Vegetable report for the week ... :)

this weeks veggies:
Carrots Kohlrabi
Rubi Stripes Tango/Lola Rosa Mix
Spinach Endive
Cilantro Citrus

I still have veggies leftover from last week but I'm doing better at managing them all week by week. also, one solution to too many veggies is to give some to neighbors or friends. It keeps things from being wasted which is my main concern. Maybe it will introduce them to some new things as well.

One of my neighbors got a deal on some russet potatoes and wanted to know if I could use, like if I “ate potatoes”. So, now I have about 8 medium sized russets and I gave her some of my CSA share. She didn’t ask for the greens but I know that she really likes greens and she took spinach and a portion of all the other greens we had this week.

As for tonights dinner, its a potato, greens, cheddar cheese and onion casserole.
this recipe is from the Crooked Sky Farms Recipes is below. I'm not in Tucson but the recipes are on the Tucson site.
Crooked Sky Farms Recipes

Greens and Potatoes Casserole
Adapted from Cooks.com
8 cups water
2 bunches chopped greens
6 or more red potatoes, sliced
2 tablespoons olive oil
1 or more onions, sliced
3/4 teaspoon salt
1 cup (4 ounces) shredded cheese
1/2 cup vegetable broth
Preheat oven to 350°

Bring water to a boil in a large pot. Add greens, and cook.
5 minutes or until tender, stirring occasionally. Drain; set aside.
Arrange potato slices in a single layer in oiled baking dish; top with single layer of onion slices. Sprinkle with 1/4 teaspoon salt; top with half of greens mixture.
Sprinkle with 1/2 cup cheese. Repeat layers once, ending with the greens. Cover with remaining slices of potatoes, and sprinkle with remaining 1/2 cup cheese.

Pour broth evenly over potato mixture, and sprinkle with remaining 1/4 teaspoon salt. Cover with foil.

Bake at 350° for 45 minutes.

Uncover and bake 30 minutes or until lightly browned and potatoes are tender.

And I'm sure this can be done in the solar oven as well as my inside oven. Maybe the potatoes won't brown on top but it will be all cooked and taste quite good, I'm sure.

Peace, Shamba

Monday, February 22, 2010

Current Food Sources

Boy, was I ambitious yesterday! (Saturday Feb 20 actually)

Tried cooked wheatberries (white winter wheat from CSA, not the hard red winter wheatberries I’ve bought before) with some milk and brown sugar for breakfast. It was okay. Even the overnight soaked wheatberries were still very chewy. I didn’t mind that so much but I thought they’d be a little softer. I think this would be better cooked in milk rather than just adding the milk to it after it’s been cooked in water.

I’ve had a terrible craving for something sweet like pumpkin pie all week. The pumpkin pie taste simply wouldn’t leave me alone so I made one yesterday. I had the pumpkin puree, added spices, egg and the condensed milk and used a pie shell I had in the freezer but it wasn’t homemade shell. I was so hungry for the pie I ate a 4th of it! But it satisfied my craving for that flavor finally.

Al, I made red lentil soup for the first time. It was okay but I’d want to use more veggie or chicken flavored broth with it next time. I had a recipe that used cumin, salt and pepper and some lemon juice and some olive oil on top at serving in the bowl. I think this might be a “learned flavor” for me.

And some chicken with veggies and leftover wheatberries is the last thing I cooked. The chicken was all thawed and needed to be cooked.

That leaves a lotta dishes to be washed one way or the other loaded in the dishwasher or the sink …

And notes about current Food Sources

1. CSA vegetables. These are more greens that I thought but I want to do a whole year’s worth of subscriptions to see what they grow all year around. I wish we could get a few citrus each week. I’d imagine we’d get summer squashes later on and I hope some sweet peppers and tomatoes.

2. Sprouts. This is where I get dry bulk things: flour, sea sale, cornmeal, farina, oats, sugar, rices, legumes, dried fruits, cereals to cook. I also can buy bulk spices here. Sometimes I buy some applesauce I particularly like here as well as canned pumpkin and sweet potato. I like these canned products rather than the similar ones at the grocery stores. They also have the usual food store supply of produce, meat, dairy etc. I also buy those things at this store.

3. Safeway and Bashas’ are closest grocery stores. I still buy peanut butter ( a LOT for the collapse is needed you know ;)) jams, maybe meat and dairy, fruit, maybe some veggies I don’t get in the CSA but I’m trying not to do that as long as I have the CSA membership. So far, it’s working for the veg.

4. Farmer’s Market weekly about 2 miles from here. This might be a more economical place to get fresh produce than the CSA pickup but I like the variety and figuring out how to prepare and eat the CSA veggies.

Peace, shamba

Friday, February 19, 2010

Back to regular routine

Back to my regular routine as of today.

My brother came into town on Monday from San Diego. He was originally going to drive in today but changed his mind and came Monday. He didn’t stay with me this time, this was better!

We had to make some decisions about personal property of my parents, pictures and some other estate related material. That went well; we made some decisions and let others go for a while. We were invited out to meet some old friends of his from grade school! These guys have kept in touch for almost 50 years. :)

Then, of course, my brother wanted to buy me dinner out which we did and he also picked up some subways one day for us to eat. Subway day was the day I decided to make a rice dish and vegetable soup so when he arrived with the sandwiches we had a lot to eat that lunch and those leftovers for dinner.

He took off on Thursday about noon. We had a good time but my plans for my vegetables kind of went out the window.

So, today I had to take stock of what was leftover and what was in the CSA batch I picked up Thursday afternoon. Actually, Wednesday noon is the scheduled time for veg pickup but the people who handle the distribution also have a regular office for their regular jobs in the hospital complex. So, when we miss a pickup day we can pickup the veggies Thursday or Friday. They have them bagged and in the fridge for us. This is very nice of them, I think!

I tried something Chile suggested for last week’s veggies—I had sweet potatoes--and it is quite good! My friend, S., also took some of the green I got last week. She liked the fennel and the dill quite a bit. I had two fennel then to use in the recipe below. I had dehydrated a lot of the fresh dill. I hadn’t done that before and I also haven’t really cooked with dill before.

Anyway, Chile’s suggestion was:
If you have any sweet potatoes left, a member gave me a very tasty recipe. Dice the sweet potatoes. Cut the fennel bottoms into bite-sized pieces. Toss both with a little oil, salt & pepper, and some tarragon. Roast until tender. It was very yummy for lunch yesterday. And, yes, I cooked it in the solar oven. :)

If you don't have any sweet potatoes left, try it with the carrots. Then serve with some kind of starch like pasta, potatoes, or rice. I suppose you could substitute dill for the tarragon, too, to use some of the dill.

Thanks for the ideas, Chile!

Peace to all , Shamba

Friday, February 12, 2010

Veggies veggies, veggies !

I have been remiss in keeping up with my vegetables from the CSA. Actually, I just haven't felt very energetic this week. My cold seems to wax and wane with the rainy weather. The next week is up to 75 degrees so I'm hoping warmer weather will make me feel more energetic.

So, today is Roasting beets and Roasting Root Veggies. The roasted veggies are good with just about anything so they’re quite easy to eat. They’re also good enough that I want to eat them so they’ll be gone in a day or so.

I’m also going to have to think interms of whole meals being vegetarian instead of just side dishes. That’ll be new for or at least I haven’t done it for long time.

CSA stuff this week:

Arugula Mizuna
Fennel Dill
Spring Mix Carrots
Tokyo Bekana Citrus

the oranges are gone(!), some of the spring mix is eaten. I want to try braised fennel sometime this weekend. I'm always nibbling on carrots so they'll be gone by next CSA day. The greens are always a little more than I can eat raw so I'm going to have to cook more of them. S. would like some arugula and dill and I certainly have it to spare.

Enough sun is available on the back patio for solar cooking again back there.

cheers,
shamba

Monday, February 8, 2010

Taxes taxes in Arizona ....

this is just a quick note about 2 tax things that happened this past week:

--Governor Brewer has been asking since last January, when she took over for Janet Napolitano who resigned to be part of Obama government, for a public vote on a 1 % sales tax.

--Divided Phoenix City Council voted to put a 2% tax on food in the city. It's supposed to expire in 5 years. Public hearings are scheduled for the next month or so for the public to react to the proposed budget, including the food sales tax. I remember when we did away with the tax on food in the early 1980s. So far have we retreated? the city was very flush with money in the early 1980s, I was still working for them then and we got very generous raises.
peace for now,

shamba

Tuesday, February 2, 2010

Happy GroundHog Day!

This is pretty meaningless in southern Arizona where six more weeks will bring spring, actually about 2-3 more weeks will bring spring.

Anyway, thoughts on the continuing drama of the times: one thought from the Arizona state budget struggles and one from my own observations.

1)On Horizon, http://www.azpbs.org/horizon/index.php , KAET Arizona PBS station, show to discuss Arizona public affairs issues. It’s how to keep track of state government. This show was from the midddle of the last week of January.

They discussed the current Governors proposal to do away with the state supported statutes for mentally, including severely mentally ill persons, as a way of cutting into the budget deficit. There was discussion of how these laws came into being around 1980; the number of people affected, how communities will be affected by the cuts, if they take place. Because of lack of any other support for the mentally ill, they also discussed how much more money it will cost in crisis management for those mentally ill who have no meds or structured support. The cost in police calls, emergency room management and other public costs would be then charged to a different jurisdiction than the state in many cases, county or city budgets. This of course does not begin to calculate the intangible human suffering and grief involved.

They finally came to the point that the result of this would be going backwards, not just in monetary terms, but human/humane terms. The host of the show seemed genuinely shocked by the logical progression that this budget proposal would lead to, if it happens. The two other panel members involved in services to the mentally ill community, of course, were well aware of the implications of the situation.
So far, most discussions I have seem on PBS or other media like this have been so theoretical and not yet “real” for the program participants. At least, I haven’t seen it so starkly like I saw it on the faces of these people. It was really quite horrible and I almost didn’t watch it but I had the feeling of being a Cassandra watching the great wave of things coming in the future and no one is seeing the same stuff yet—BUT it’s getting closer to more people seeing it all the time in front of them as it happens.

For myself, I think the Arizona legislature will be no closer to finding a budget solution at the end of June, traditional end of the session, than they are now. I think it will be such an ugly political election year. 


2)Notes from the current recession/depression are coming closer to me and the people I know. It seems like I'm aware of more people who lately have slipped a notch downward in the ecnonmic ladder.

Someone I know in the MidWest seems to be in bad straights. She made a remark on the phone the other day about eating a lot of spaghetti, I don't know if with meat or not, and not affording veggies and fruits as they were too expensive. And her husband, who's been out of work a while, makes all their bread.

I've never heard that out of her before. I wanted to say something about lentils and rice that I have a couple times a week but I actually had a roast in the crock pot and so that information came out instead.

I feel bad for her but didn't want to ask too much. She's still working, their kids are grown and they have a house. They've always wanted to move to Florida when the kids were grown enough.

A neighbor learned that she can't sell her townhouse/condo because no one wants to finance them in the Phoenix area. she'a have to sell to someone who'd pay with cash. I think that dismayed and surprised her.

There are days when things are going along fine and then some bit of news or something i hear from someone reminds me of the direction we're really going in.

On the other hand, contractors and people who fix things want work and are doing pretty well at it. I took two lamps in to see if they could be fixed to the old established, Phoenix Lamps, and I'm going to get my excellent brass, floor lamp back like new for not much money!!! I don't know how much yet but lamp is totally useless the way it is. Hooray! I love that lamp and I use it to read by sitting on the couch.

They said they were very busy and they have a wonderful store full of all kinds of lamps, from all time periods, and other furniture that they also sell. It's a wonderful old store to look at.

I'm looking at the rest of my "work on the house" list I've been getting done the past 2 years and it's time to start doing the rest of it: insulation, getting rid of old carpeting, maybe some other things as well.

That's enough commentary for now. I'm progressing eating/cooking my multitude of greens from the CSA. I passed some on to a friend so they wouldn't go to waste. next time we have mustard greens I'm going to ask to trade!

Peace to all,
Shamba

Wednesday, January 27, 2010

Jan 25th Cold and wet and cold ...

We had 2.5 inches out of last week's rains. it was cold and wet and now I'm cold with a cold! Not sure if its improving or not. Be back in a couple of days.

cheers,
shamba

Wednesday, January 20, 2010

3rd storm coming

From www.azcentral.com weather.

"Today's forecast: Stronger, wetter storm coming
by Sarah Walters - Jan. 20, 2010 01:41 AM
12 News Weather Plus Meteorologist

The second of a series of storms is moving out quickly this morning, but light rain and snow showers are still expected to continue in eastern Arizona. Expect quiet, dry weather for today, with partly cloudy skies. Clouds increase from the west this afternoon, ahead of our 3rd storm, and we pick up a 50% chance of rain showers in the Valley this evening. After midnight, rain and snow chances across the state increase.

Thursday morning, things really start to ramp up, where heavy rain and snow are likely in Arizona. Expect it to rain and snow all day long, and continue into Friday, as this third storm is stronger, wetter, and slower-moving. There's also a chance of embedded thunderstorms which could contain lightning, heavy downpours, and small hail. Not only that, but strong winds are expected by Thursday night with winds up to 50 mph. Winds will be even stronger in southeast Arizona, where a High Wind Watch is in effect for winds up to 65 mph.

By the end of the week, this 3rd storm will have dumped 2"-4" of additional rainfall across Valley locations. Higher elevations north and east of Phoenix could see 5"+. Because of the heavy rainfall accumulation expected, normally dry washes and streams are expected to flood so a Flash Flood Watch has been issued for the Phoenix metro and surrounding areas from 6am Thursday, through 5pm Friday. There is also a Flood Watch for areas south of the Mogollon Rim from Thursday morning through Saturday morning, as heavy rain of up to 7" is possible, along with melting snow. These watches mean that Flood & Flash Flood Warnings could be occur at anytime during the watch period, so be sure to monitor the weather on our 24-hour weather channel, 12 News Weather Plus. You can find it on Cox Digital Cable 83, Qwest Choice TV 66, over the air 12.2, or on www.12news.azcentral.com.

In the High Country, rain and snow will start to pick up again this afternoon and evening, and really ramp up after midnight. A Winter Storm Watch is in effect along the Rim, from Flagstaff down into the White Mountains area starting tonight and lasting through Friday evening. Snowfall rates are expected to become quite heavy after midnight and continue throughout the day on Thursday. Strong winds up to 50 mph are also expected, which could lead to white-out, near blizzard conditions.
That watch could eventually turn into a Winter Storm Warning or Blizzard Warning for the High Country. When it's all said and done by Saturday morning, this 3rd storm could dump and additional 2' – 4' of snowfall above 7000', with those higher amounts for the White Mountains area. The Flagstaff area is expected to get 2'-3' of additional accumulation by Saturday morning.

There's also a Blizzard Watch above 7,000' in southeast Arizona from Thursday morning through Friday morning. Heavy snow will be possible at times with up to 1'-2' two-day total accumulation expected. Winds in these areas will get up to 65 mph though, which means that white-out & blizzard conditions are likely. This also includes the higher elevations around the Tucson metro area. This watch could eventually turn into a Blizzard Warning.

Rain and snow chances will be dwindling late Friday into Saturday, as this 3rd punch exits Arizona. Drier, quiet conditions can be expected by Saturday afternoon. Most of the weekend looks good… with drier and slightly warmer weather. Valley highs for the rest of the week are only expected to warm into the upper 50s low 60s, and then warm into the mid 60s by Sunday and Monday.

The majority of next week looks dry, but there's the possibility of another storm moving through the southwest on Tuesday/Wednesday. Too early to tell at this point on the timing and intensity of this storm, but we will be watching it… being that we are in a moderate to strong El Nino pattern this winter. "

2 Storms Report

Out of Monday nights storm Phoenix got about ½ inch. Out of Tuesday night’s storm we got almost 1 inch; this are based on the figures from local TV on what the official rain gage at Sky Harbor airport registered. The cities located around Phoenix mostly got significantly more rain. Some parts town did lose power for a couple of hours, APS houses. [Arizona Public Service. Mine is Salt River Project.]

Tuesday afternoon there were what seemed like zillions of all sized cloud coming into the area and they all melded together into a very darkened sky about late afternoon. The rain sprinkled a little about 6 p.m. but started in earnest at 7 p.m. and from there it was a steady medium rain until about 11 p.m. here where I live. During the following hours it cleared out completely and we had a bright, very fresh clean feeling morning. Oh, boy, do the plants all like this moisture.

There is no sign of the next storm yet, but it’s likely to come in and start raining during the night. This one is predicted to give Phoenix 1-2 inches of rain.

Northern part of the state got lots of snow and this next storm is expected to give even more snow than the last two together but that does depend on the part of the state.

Also, picked up my first share of the CSA stuff. Boy, they are in a not so easy to find location. It’s temporary until new offices are renovated by this summer. It was: turnips, 3 oranges, carrots, a pick of 3 herbs (cilantro was my choice) wheatberries, bok choy, spring mix and one more I can’t remember at the moment. There’s a lot of the bok choy in one of those bunches.

peace, shamba

Monday, January 18, 2010

Evening Update, January 18th

Accuweather forecast info for the week:
Phoenix, AZ
15-Day Forecast
Monday, January 18, 2010
WeatherAlarm™!
Heavy rain occurring on Jan 18 | Jan 19 | Jan 20 | Jan 21 | Jan 22.
Total amount 7.09 Inches. [Bolding is mine.]

More info and serious preparedness warnings for coming stormy week:

Local broadcast news has serious messages about preparedness for local storm effect.
They are really stressing being prepared for power outages, communicating with family members and, because of possible heavy rains at the end of the week, they are seriously warning about flooding. Like any place, if we get too much rain too fast we’ve got flooding problems. This is mostly in more north of Phoenix but parts of town can get flooded. They are talking about kinds of walkie talkies that can be used for emerencies and bug-out bags if you’re in areas where you could be evacuated.

AZcentral.com

“The first of a series of storms will move through the state today bringing a chance of rain and snow. Expect considerable cloudiness and about a 50% chance of rain in the Valley during the day. Rain chances increase tonight, and by tomorrow morning, Valley rainfall totals will range from .25"-1". Heavier rainfall will be possible in the higher elevations north and east of the Valley where up to 2" of accumulation is possible. It's also going to be a bit breezy today, with winds up to 10-20 mph, gusting to 30.

Snow showers can also be expected all day in the High Country, where they will receive 1"-3" of during the day. The snowfall will pick up by this evening and overnight, where moderate to heavy snow is possible. By tomorrow afternoon, after this first storm has passes, 6"-12" of accumulation is expected above 6,000'.

Because of the snowfall expected up north, a Winter Weather Advisory is in effect from noon today, through noon Tuesday.

There's a chance of precipitation in the state, each and every day this week, as we are currently in an El Nino pattern. We are in a moderate to strong El Nino, which means the jet stream has shifted into a position where it acts as a conveyor belt, allowing a series of storms to move through the state, one after the other. The second storm will move through Arizona Tuesday night, through Wednesday. This second storm will bring an additional .5"-1" of rainfall in the Valley, and another 6"-12" of snow up north, above 5,500'.

ALERT! The third storm set move through the state on Thursday looks to be stronger and wetter than the previous two. We're expecting strong winds with winds up over 40 mph in some locations, along with the possibility of thunderstorms as well. The main threat with this storm will be an increase in precipitation intensity, and higher snow levels which could cause significant snow melt and flash flooding will be possible. The snow level will start out at 8,000' and eventually drop down to 5,500' by Thursday night. New snowfall totals by Friday are expected to be up to 1-2 feet of additional accumulation.

To get the latest weather forecast go to our 24-hour weather channel, 12 News Weather Plus. You can find it on Cox Digital Cable 83, Qwest Choice TV 66, over the air 12.2, or on www.12news.azcentral.com.”

peace for tonight anyway,

shamba

Rain Rain coming ...

We’ve got 3, count ‘em, 3 big storms coming our way this week. As a matter of fact, the first one is here as of this morning. I woke up to rain, quiet easy but steady rain. It went on for another hour or so and has let up for the time being. It’s lovely, if the whole week is this wet and not pouring it will be really pleasant, I think.

And, yes, these storms are courtesy of the Southwest Deserts’ friend, El Nino. El Nino is the weather pattern that appears every few years, 5-10, I think. And it seems to cause lots of problem when it disrupts the usual weather pattern in North and South America but here in Arizona and in Southern California it is good for more rain than usual in the winter.

Channel 12, NBC broadcast affiliate, said the first two storms are Mon-Tuesday night and we can expect ½ - 1 inch of rain in Phoenix metro area. The next storm is wetter and maybe 1-3 inches of rain.

My one grey tabby female won’t be happy with this rain but we got to have it! These 3 storms will cover the whole state and bring rain in the deserts and snow in the high country. I ought to have a map of Arizona to link to when I mention these things so I can find them on the map and maybe, if anyone is checking in here, they could see it, too. Possible 4th or 5th storms were mentioned in one forecast I heard on local TV.

I’ll have to move the plants on the front porch out a little so they can get some of the rain, fresh from the sky this week. Maybe we’ll catch up on our lack of precipitation; it seems to me we’re an inch or two down from where we should be this time of year. But then I can hardly remember a time in my life when I’ve ever heard that we had an “excess” of rain/precipitation either!

The new CSA session starts on Wednesday and I have to take my contract and check over there and turn it in and get my first load of food from there! I hope my contact can email more specific directions than I have so I can find them in the hospital complex they distribute from. I know where the major cross streets are but it’s a big complex.

Good heavens, I just found my name on Chile’s Chews local blog list! Right there in the list with Solar Oven Chef!

Of course, local blogs are valuable to those living in similar locations, I know because I read chile’s and the Solar Chef myself. My thanks to chile!

Peace to All, shamba

Wednesday, January 13, 2010

January 13th: Happy New Year!

I’m keeping on with my “using up leftovers and produce” even if the challenge is over. I drove out to the Thunderbird Banner Hospital to find out where the CSA produce is located. I’m taking over the payment and the contract for their next session next Wednesday.

A very grand lady I met on the internet in my scifi days has passed away at her home in Missouri. Her husband and some of her children were with her. Bluetopaz had a lung cancer and she was in her late 70s. She was a bright light and I’ll miss her. I'm very glad I took the pictures of her that I have now.

On January 6th, news on local NBC affiliate reported “fewer’ jobs lost than expected” in December 2008. A turn around may only be a few months away, the anchor said. I doubt it but I live in interesting times I guess.
Cheers, shamba

Sunday, January 3, 2010

It was a Christmas and now A Happy New Year!

chsitmas Day seemed to be all about cats and their servants! :)I cooked and fed my cats on Christmas Day. Then I went to my friends' house for Christmas dinner and she was doing the main cooking and her husband was feeding their 10 plus cats. He's the one with the soft heart for cats actually.

Another friend came later with her cooking after having fed her 10 plus cats!

Donna laid out all the good china and crystal bgoblets on the lovely table and of, course, the their main dish of Hungarian stuffed cabbage. Her husband is a first generation a Hungarian American. We had a grand afternoon the food was good and we laughed a LOT! A lot of strange cat and some dog stories, too. We would have bored the heck out of someone who wasn't an animal fancier. :)

This is the first Christmas in my whole life, I didn’t have anything planned for the day. so, 3 good friends and ex-coworkers ahad a very good time together.

Later in the week: I was possessed by cleaning out the corner of one room that hasn't been touched in years.

More stuff to goodwill, old yoga/exercise leotards and leggings that don’t fit. I’ve got plenty left that fit just fine. Fixed the green shawl, made one sweater into a cat bed, it was just oo full of holes to fix, fixed 2 others to be able to weat them again.

Sewing is the only mending left. That corner of the computer room looks a lot better than it did with all the mending waiting to be done.

Waste Not: A few more things to the Good will; stuffed animals, cleaned and washed; old leotards from yoga years ago that are not in style anymore. I can wear most of them them but they’re an old styleand I have enough newer things. Only box in the computer room closet will be Christmas decorations. It is much less congested.

Fixed 3 sweaters to wear again; one went for an outside cat bed—and they like it!—and shawl is fixed and functional again.

Want Not: I went through stores; moved all the newer cans of food to the right shelves.

Build community food systems: Got contract for next CSA session.

I don't really think that 2010 will much that much better than 2009, if it's better at all, but I'll see what I can do to make it better.

Peace, Shamba