Pumpkin Coconut Soup

I have some pumpkins and even more butternut squash taking a siesta in the root cellar at my parents' home up the street. They're calling to me today. They store whole for quite some time, but c'mon, I should be using them up more. So here's a recipe for the squash. You can substitute boxes of frozen squash puree, or any cooked winter squash or canned pumpkin puree you like. Spice it up with curry paste or curry powder if you dare.. but it's a nice subtle pumpkin coconut soup for those days when you aren't quite up to extra spice. I like to serve it with marinated venison or chicken grilled on a skewer, then served with tortillas. Hold a warm flour tortilla, and then place the skewered meat on your tortilla, and use the tortilla to hold the meat as you remove the skewer for serving. I'm hungry... so on to the recipe.

Keng Bouad Mak Fak Kham
Thai Pumpkin Coconut Soup

6 to 8 medium shallots unpeeled, roasted until soft
*or see substitution below
3.5 to 4 cups of pumpkin or butternut squash, cooked
*This is about a 4 pound pumpkin or squash, if you have whole ones in your root cellar
For many people, these may also be frozen squash, or cans of pumpkin puree
1 can 13.5 or 14 oz. coconut milk (check the Asian food section in your market)
3 cups vegetable or chicken stock
1/4 cup fish sauce (Asian)
Generous grindings of black pepper
1/3 cup minced scallions
Pumpkin seeds, if you have them.

Place coconut milk and chicken stock in a soup pot and then add pumpkin or squash puree, stirring to combine. Add roasted shallots or garlic, or the dried toasted onion option. Heat to a boil, stirring regularly. Add the fish sauce, turn down and allow to simmer for 5 minutes. At this point I usually use my stick blender and blend the soup smooth. It eliminates any stringy bits from our home grown squash or pumpkins. Store bought sieved purees may eliminate the need for this step. Taste for salt, but usually we don't need any extra beyond that provided by the fish sauce.
You can serve this really beautifully in a baked pumpkin shell, but in the winter there usually aren't any available. Serve in individual bowls or a soup tureen with each serving topped with toasted pumpkin seeds or minced scallions.

Another version of this adds some curry paste or powder for some spice. That's a good idea if you have colds or flu in the family. Either way, it's a good way to get extra vitamins in the family during cold and flu season.

*roasted shallots or garlic: place 6-8 whole shallots or 2 cloves of garlic in aluminum foil and drizzle with 1/4 tsp. oil, wrap well, roast until tender and the skin has darkened. Another option is to dry roast the whole cloves in a frying pan until the skin has darkened, but the inside is sweet and tender. You can also take 1 tablespoon of dehyrated onions and toss in a hot skillet and keep stirring and tossing around until dark tan, and then add to the soup.


A vegetarian version could include tiny cubes of tofu floating in the pumpkin soup, and use only vegetable broth, and substitute tamari sauce for the fish sauce. Either way, it's gluten free and nondairy.

Happy Winter -- It's been a mild one so far!

Save the goats! Save my Children!

A concerned neighbor approached my husband tonight. He brought with him a law numbered 5-2009. Our village, upon discovering we have no livestock laws, has issued a moratorium on permits for livestock. I wondered why. The neighbor wants to help. He gave me all the paperwork from the last, closed door, village trustee meeting.

I have a herd of 2 dairy goats, which provide milk for my family, my parents, and an additional 5 gallons of milk that is distributed to needy families by the food pantry that operates around the corner from us. This is a small village - 600.

I called my favorite village board trustee who informed me that a complaint has been lodged by a 'neighbor' about my goats. I'm quite surprised. I have really great neighbors, and the goats stay in the barn. They're quite happy with their feed of goat chow and hay and all the snacks (weeds and produce) the neighbors pick out of their garden for them. It's the neighbors I have to keep out of the goats, ha ha, not the goats out of the neighbors space. The barn is a magnet- but that's okay.

Goats aren't particularly smelly. We only have females, so there's no stinky rut cycle from a buck. They're not particularly noisy - they will call to the people who are out in their gardens and beg through the window of the barn for treats. And they do have their favorite people - like the adult neighbor ladies who live next door. These are my neighbors who put in a row of burdock because the goats really like it. Burdock is a weed, by the way. So clearly, it is not them.
I called several village trustees I'm acquainted with and urged them to consider compassion and wisdom as they discussed and voted. These economic times are challenging in the Northeast, and more gardens than ever are being dug and planted. More people are relying on their own industry and thrift, than ever.

Now is not the time in a small NY farm village, to limit the contents of one's barn and one's ability to feed their own family. Not to mention.. who is going to buy the large amount of specialty milk my family would require with our caseine and lactose intolerance problem? Should the village be able to limit, for no good reason, my children's access to safe food and drink?

They may be messing with the wrong mama. I will go door to door and campaign for my goats, the people's right to raise food for their own family without interference, and maybe it may help that my own mother is on the village planning board.  I doubt it, frankly, because she hadn't heard of the law when I approached Mom. I'm not sure who has juridstiction here.

It's not like the neighbor two doors down and their friendly labrador/poodle mix who they cannot keep on a leash. It's not like my goats go in their barn and bother them. And yet I have sweetly returned their pooprador home from my barn at least a dozen times without complaint, instead of calling the dog catcher (if we have one). Because Curly is a nice dog, and it's not his fault his parents just open the door and let him out to turn over people's trash cans and poke his head in my barn.

The next village board meeting is July 18. I'll have to skip soccer practice to rally the board in support of my goats. In the meantime, I am mentioning this to every family who drinks my goats milk, and to every friend of my goats, and every parent who loves their children and would do anything to help them grow up safely without diarrheal disease and other misery from drinking something harmful for them. Please consider calling my village hall in support of our goats.

As I asked the village board member tonight. What would you have me give my children for breakfast tomorrow if the village votes my goats out of the barn? Do you know of any place in the three county area which sells goat milk by the gallon? I cannot buy 1/2 pint cans of goats milk for $2.99. I urged the board members to act with compassion and wisdom, because my goats are no threat to the natural resources or happiness of my neighbors. But they are necessary for the welfare of my children.

If you read this, I encourage you to call, between the hours of 9a.m to 4p.m. Monday through Friday, and leave a message with the village clerk or leave a note for the village mayor of Rushville. The phone number is (585) 554-3415. Please call in support of Mrs. Kolz' dairy goats for her children. The goats live in a barn, and provide milk for the children, manure for the neighborhood gardens which supply families and the food pantry, and also provide free milk for needy families. And please be polite, this is a small, country village and we're polite. Thank you.

The Little Children that Could

I blogged yesterday about the Little Bake Sale that Could. The Big Sister in need of adoption is now fully funded, her mother tells me before we had the chance to mail our check out. The Candy Cane Club children are looking at sending their $75 to SWAN - Serving Women Across Nations http://www.swanforhumanity.org/about.html The children will send their check earmarked to buy school children shoes to protect their feet from parasites, so they can attend school. http://www.swanforhumanity.org/AdoptaSchool.html

According to their website: "2009 finds Bolivia's political and economical status precarious. The poorest country in South America is seeing inflation gobble up the already meager household incomes resulting in families going hungry. 'The older children understand,' says one mother, but is is hard to see the little ones cry for want of food."

Take a look, it was founded by one of my favorite authors Liz Adair, and my friend Terry Adair Gifford, a girl I grew up with near Ferndale, Washington and her sister Ruth. When I knew Tudy Adair (aka Liz Adair) she was the mom who let us use their barn for barn dances, baked seriously yummy cinnamon rolls, and had this funny to me rule that her children had to eat breakfast before school, or they didn't go that day. Odd what one remembers 20something years later. Terry served a full time mission for The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints in Bolivia, a couple of years before I served mine here in Upstate New York. I'm delighted with what she has been impressed to do for the people of Bolivia that she loves dearly. They provide microcredit (small loans) for mothers to be able to begin or grow tiny businesses to feed their families, and other inspirational projects. Well worth our time and money. May God bless them all.

How to Endure Economic Downturn and still Eat

My husband has worked for his benevolent employer*, Maco Bag, for a good sixteen plus years. Their boom and bust cycle hasn't been hard to adjust to. Periodically over the last few summers (we've been married 4 years soon), we've taken a day off, unpaid a few times a summer, which really FarmBoy just used a day of vacation to cover. Maco Bag Group packages and assemble items, as I understand it, and FarmBoy works in their warehouse, keeping it organized and correct in the inventory system. His favorite part is driving a forklift as necessary, and doing inventory at the end of the month. Or that's my story, and I'm sticking to it. You know, over-sized Tonka toys, and over-sized cute boy driving one. Yes, I see you do understand.

This winter the employees were called in and informed that sales and orders were down a bit and most employees were given one day a week furlough. I think this is benevolent, as opposed to laying off a bunch of workers, then retraining a new crew in a few months when orders pick up again. They will pick up again, won't they President Obama?

How does a family of seven get through the inevitable ebb and flow of orders in a factory job? We'll discuss some tactics we use over the next few days. I've compiled some resources and websites that may be of use to you in your quest to endure the downturn in the economy too. My thanks to the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints for making so much information available to everyone.

My first principle was to pare down our needs, from our wants. We have resources for some wants, but the key is separating which is necessary from which becomes expendable. Your choices may vary from mine, so adjust as necessary. Our priority is paying our mortgage, fuel bill for heat and two automobiles, and providing food and clothing to our children, maintaining our goat herd, and providing adequate clothing and food for ourselves. We have good dental, and RX, and health insurance through FarmBoy's employer, a flexible savings account for vision and eyeglass and hearing aid expenses, and a 401k we invest in weekly. That said, we feel very blessed, recognizing how quickly most of this could disappear.

To that end, we have heeded the counsel of a living prophet (see Amos 3:7, Holy Bible).  It's important, much like Noah's warning to get in the ark, and our family began a 1 month, then 3 month, then one year supply of basics for our family. Why should you do this? You might consider that it will absorb the impact of reduction in force at your employer, it will help insure your family's survival in case of death of a parent (and income loss), it will provide your family with comforting and familiar foods in times of stress and economic trial (like an ARM housepayment going through the roof because unemployment didn't pay enough to make the full payment). If you didn't have to buy food for a month, or three, how much cash would you then have? $500, $1500 maybe. Things to ponder. What could you pay off, if you freed that cash up for a payment? What debt could you reduce and free yourself from if you or your spouse lost your job, and you could still go to the pantry and prepare meals without a trip to the grocery store.

I don't have all the answers, but I have some good questions. Let's explore some of the options together. One thing I do is store whole grain. It doesn't go rancid like flour will, eventually. I retrieve a 5 gallon bucket from the closet, spin it open, and scoop out a #10 can of wheat berries and pop it into my electric grinder (with emergency hand crank available). That's fresh, fiber and vitamin filled whole grain flour, in 10 minutes or less. I don't make bread - but I do make muffins, biscuits, pancakes, cookies, brownies, and apple and other fruit crisps. You could make bread too, if you like. Save me the heel, with lots of butter, please.

I started with the information found at http://www.providentliving.org/. May I suggest a 1 month surplus of the things that your family eats each week? For example, make a list of two weeks worth of meals. What are your common breakfasts, lunches, and dinners? Real ones, that you eat now.

My children like Oatmeal for breakfast in the winter. I have #10 cans of rolled oats stored, which I can also use for apple crisp, oatmeal for breakfast, and oatmeal cookies. We also have boxes of instant oatmeal, just add water type, in cardboard boxes, with individual paper bags inside. For long term storage, these would have to be kept in something secure, like a 5 gallon bucket with a lid, because they'd be susceptible to moisture, or rodents, or a teething Jack Russell Terrier Puppy on a quest. If you have one like this. On alternating days we might have some high fiber cold cereal, like GoLean Crunch, and a small handful of raisins or other dried fruit. So I store some boxes of cereal (calculate how many servings your box actually feeds, and how many people are eating this.) Of course you'll need milk on your cereal, so I suggest storing either vacuum packed milk like Parmalat, or shelf-stable soy milk that you rotate, or powdered milk. Occasionally we have sweet rolls and bacon strips, so you could try canning pumpkin bread in a jar, and storing some ready to eat fully cooked bacon, that you can find in the produce section in some stores. I presume so you put it on a Bacon, Lettuce, Tomato sandwich. Granted, the shelf life

is only about 150 days, so that's less than six months storage time. I'm a bacon lover, so I'd be willing to take one for the team and heat up a package and make bacon tomato spinach sandwiches. Just to keep the food storage rotated and everything fresh, of course. I'm good like that.  For this purpose I followed the advice of Wendy Wittt and began a food storage inventory notebook.  Now I know that in 4 months, the height of tomato season here, we will eat and replace into our food storage, 2 lbs. of ready to eat bacon.

You can store bottles of juice for a year, without any loss of quality, and rotate them and work them into regular use before they go past expiration date. So there are four breakfast possibilities: instant oatmeal, boiled oatmeal, cold cereal with milk, fruit juice, banana bread slices and bacon. Considering you could also store pancake mix for a year,a few bottles of maple flavored syrup, (just the dry ingredients for a thriftier approach,) you could have better breakfasts in a downturn than you enjoy now.  That will be a good start for a day of job hunting and resume polishing, no?

Tomorrow - What's for lunch anyway?

*Any time they'd like to return his hours to a full 40 per week, I'd write a lovely, glowing blogpost about how they were voted into Rochester's Top 100.  Truly. With their logo and hyperlinks to their website. Nope, not a link yet. Alrighty then, pancakes and bacon and eggs it is for breakfast!

I'm not Giving Up the Chocolate

It's not necessary. Really. What lunch is complete without a little taste of chocolate? Ok, most of them. But a day is made brighter by a little bite of brownie, c'mon, unless you're like my dear friend who shall remain nameless that thinks chocolate tastes like soap.

I have the coolest Aunt in the world, Fay DeBoer.  It's her birthday, 29 AGAIN! If you knew her, you'd be nodding your head up and down with me, ayep. Some of her cool things she does is make dresses for little orphan girls.  Cute, cute dresses for cute little orphan girls. In fact, I coveted a couple of her dresses when she brought them to my parent's home when we lived in Washington state.  She told us that these two dresses needed to be worn by a little country girl. And gave them to my only daughter. Nifty thing is, that those two dresses were so well made, and so beautifully done, that they are now beloved by my third daughter. Still loving the dresses! Still loving the Aunt Fay! Happy Birthday sweetie.

Aunt Fay likes chocolate brownies now and then. In fact, I imagine she probably has a little cocoa in her food storage too. My favorite brownies had to be tweaked a little for my emergency preparedness recipe. Here's the original recipe, and the notes for how to eat out of your food storage, follow.

Chewy Gooey Cocoa Brownies

1-2/3 cup sugar
3/4 cup butter or margarine, melted (or other fat)
2 T water
2 Large eggs
2 tsp. vanilla flavoring
1-1/3 cups flour (I have used 100% whole wheat, 1/2 all purpose flour, and other variations)
3/4 cup Baking cocoa
1/2 tsp. baking powder
1/4 tsp. salt (optional if you use salted butter)
3/4 cup chopped nuts (completely optional)
Preheat oven to 350*. Grease 13x9 baking pan. Combine sugar, butter and water in large bowl. Stir in eggs and vanilla. Combine dry ingredients in medium bowl; stir into sugar mixture. Add nuts if desired. Spread into prepared baking pan. Bake for 18-25 minutes or until toothpick inserted in center comes out slightly sticky. Cool completely, then cut into bars. Makes 2 dozen brownies, depending on how you divide the pan. Needs no frosting.
Food storage substitutes:
How to substitute for 1 egg :

1 teaspoon dry unflavored gelatin
3 tablespoons cold water
7 teaspoons of hot water
Combine gelatin with cold water. Let sit for a moment to hydrate the granules.
Add hot water, stir well. Use in place of 1 egg.
***For baking*** reduce the amount of liquid in the recipe by 1/4 cup per egg replacement used. Experiment with this to see how to adjust your favorite recipe. In my case, I used one real egg in the brownies, and one egg substitute and the recipe is perfect! Another day... I'll use two egg substitute measures. Just for you gentle reader, because we have 30 dozen eggs in the cool cellar.

I use whole wheat flour, ground from the whole wheat kernels I store in some #10 cans, and some 5 gallon buckets. I have vegetable oil stored, and usually have 20 dozen eggs at any given point in a very cool cellar. It wouldn't be fun if I didn't have bulk baking cocoa stored. Baking powder is stored in very small cans, because it begins to go flat once they're opened. Do not store baking powder in #10 cans unless you have some wicked large group of people to bake biscuits for, within the next six months. I have a few #10 cans and some large canisters of Hershey's baking cocoa, and a few jars of vacuum sealed chocolate chips. They'll keep quite a while, not that we'd ever let them get old.

Back to lunch. Write down 2 weeks of lunches you'd be willing to eat, and then tally up the ingredients you can use to make them. Double it, and you have a month supply of lunches. Here are some ideas. Biscuits and creamed chicken cream of chicken soup, canned chicken, a can of peas, a bottle of peaches, and a brownie for dessert. You can store homemade biscuit mix for a year. With it you can make strawberry shortcake, chicken and dumplings, chicken ala king over a biscuit, sausage gravy over biscuits, Sausage cheddar balls, a quick biscuit pizza crust, chicken pot pie, and more.
Here's just one variation to get you started thinking.

Easy Biscuit Mix
Ingredients:
6 cups all purpose flour
3 tablespoons baking powder
1 tablespoon salt
1 1/4 cups butter flavored shortening
Directions:Mix together the flour, baking powder, and salt in a large bowl. Cut in shortening with pastry blender until mixture resembles coarse corn meal. Store in a container with tight-fitting lid. For a healthier mix, make with 3 cups white flour and 3 cups whole wheat flour. For Buttermilk Mix, add 9 tablespoons dry buttermilk powder to the basic mix.

To use this mix, take 3 cups of Easy Biscuit mix, add 3/4 cup of milk, or yogurt, or buttermilk etc., and mix gently. After adding your liquid mix only until a soft dough forms. Dough may be slightly sticky but that is normal.
Generously flour counter or board and transfer dough on top dusting with a small amount of flour if dough is sticky. Pat dough out with hands till about 1 inch thick and cut with biscuit cutter or large glass dipped in flour. Place on baking sheet about 1 1/2 inch apart. Bake 425 degrees for 12 to 15 minutes or until golden brown. Brush tops with melted butter if you like.

You could roll with rolling pin but that will make for tougher biscuits. Not good, no no no.

To make dumpings, you stir as above, then drop into gently boiling stew. Turn down to a simmering boil, cook for 10 minutes uncovered, and then cover tightly for 10 more minutes. This would perk up your every day chicken soup considerably, wouldn't it? You can store canned carrots, canned peas, bottled chicken you canned yourself when chicken legs & thighs were on sale for .49 cents a pound, and voila' gourmet goodness in a pinch. Living frugally doesn't have to be living on top ramen noodles and generic box brand of macaroni and cheese powder.

The Sap is Running

It's not an old fashioned jab at my husband - the beloved FarmBoy Kolz.

In Upstate New York it's maple sugaring season. Cold nights and warmer days make the sap rise in the sugar maple trees. My industrious husband drills the tree, places a spile,

and gathers sap into large barrels which he then boils down to maple syrup. It sounds easy, doesn't it?

When you figure that 40 gallons of maple sap yields 1 gallon of maple syrup, the illusion of easy, tasty syrup evaporates like so much H2O boiling off the sap. Don't be discouraged, if you're a Noreasterner yourself, and have access to sugar maples, this might be a really fun winter project for you. You can find more information here: http://www.theheartofnewengland.com/LifeInNewEngland-BackyardSugaring.html

We found that with the trees we have on our property, along with the ones the neighbors donated to the cause, we produce enough maple syrup for a family of 7 for most of the year, along with the half pints we give to the neighbor-tree owners, and our close family. There never could be a surplus.. could there?

Why tap a maple tree? There are several historic reasons according to a state of Vermont historical site. Maple sugar became the colonists own sweetener ending their dependence on foreign sugar. They boiled the sap from their own trees into syrup, then further reduced it to sugar crystals, often stored in a lump. It kept all year without spoiling. Also, it was never tinctured with the sweat of the southern slave as was cane sugar before the civil war. And if that's not enough motivation - how about pure maple syrup was seen on sale at Wegman's market for $22.69 a quart last week?

There is a lesson there of self-sufficiency from our colonial ancestors. How could we extrapolate this to reducing our independence on foreign oil of a petroleum variety? Polly put the kettle on - we'll all have tea, and ponder this one.

I digress. Besides, I feel a kindred spirit with colonial and pioneering American women as I tie on my bright yellow print apron with ample pockets. I come from solid, plump, British stock, and I imagine my ancestors each had the same sweet tooth I enjoy. Just a little tangible touchstone with my ancestors, boiling down the maple sap from trees planted in front of my 1840s Greek Revival home. They would have stored lumps of maple sugar, carefully meted out for special occasions or to sweeten their winter food. I'm putting up pints of maple syrup, hygienically canned in mason jars for us to miserly drizzle over pancakes, waffles, and french toast. And every so often I make a special treat where maple syrup is a guest star.

What blogpost about maple syrup would be complete without a little recipe?

An ordinary baked good takes on new levels of deliciousness with Maple Icing made from *our very own trees*. If you purchase maple syrup, my recommendation is buying the Grade B darker maple syrup for baking and such, because the flavor has more depth. You won't fail if your store sells only the Grade A, you'll just not have quite the richer slightly smokey maple flavor of a darker syrup.

This frosting has a pure and simple flavor blend of real butter and subtle maple syrup. The nuts are optional - and I usually skip them unless our English walnut trees had a bumper crop.

Maple Butter Frosting

1/2 cup butter
3 cups confectioners sugar
4-6 T. pure maple syrup
1/4 cup chopped walnuts or pecans

Thoroughly cream butter and sugar, adding maple syrup until light and spreadable, a smidgen more if you're pouring as a glaze. Add nuts if you like and frost. This frosting tastes so good you'll start dreaming up places to use it. May I recommend glazing an English scone?

Proper English Scones - yields about 18

2 cups sifted all purpose flour (256gm)
1/2 cup white sugar
2 1/2 teaspoons baking powder
1/2 teaspoon baking soda
1/2 teaspoon salt
1/4 cup margarine or butter (I use 4 tbsp on an American butter stick)
1 cup milk (If you don't have your own goat herd, cow or soy milk will do)

Optional: 3/4 cup raisins or sultanas (miniature raisins)

Directions:
1. Preheat oven to 425°F or 220°C. Grease a cookie sheet or baking pan.

2. Sift the flour, sugar, baking powder, baking soda and salt together.

3. Cut in the margarine or butter till mixture resembles cornmeal, then stir in the raisins.

4. Add the milk and mix to make a smooth dough. (Add a little more milk if necessary. The dough should not be too dry - very much like an American biscuit dough).

5. Knead very lightly for ten seconds on a lightly floured surface. Roll or pat to about 3/4" thick (2 cm) and cut into individual scones. I prefer triangles. My mother insists they're to be in circles, cut with a biscuit cutter. May be that's why triangles feel so right.

6. Bake for approximately 12 minutes, at which point they will be lightly golden brown.

They can be served with clotted cream and loads of strawberry jam, for a proper English tea snack, but in our American household, it's usually sliced, given a schmear of butter (we are New Yorkers now, after all), and a big dollop of whatever jam jar we've retrieved from our summer berry picking stash. For your purposes today, let the scone cool, and then frost the top with maple frosting. It's deliciousness will amaze you. Brilliant served with Red Zinger herbal tea, I might add.

Nibble on one whilst you ponder how to reduce our dependence on foreign petroleum, will you?