It's Easy Being Green

Most of us know and understand that our society is a “throw-away society”. People just discard things instead of trying to figure out ways to use them completely. This is one of the many ideas I’ve studied a lot as I learn to live a more sustainable life. One way you can be especially resourceful is around food. No, I’m not talking about just freezing your leftovers for use in future meals. I’m talking about appreciating a harvest to its fullest extent.

We recently started buying whole fryer chickens at Sam’s Club to cook up for dinner. My girlfriend stumbled upon an amazing recipe called Salt Crust Roasted Chicken. It’s awesome and we’ve probably enjoyed the meal three times in the last few weeks. If you’re interested in the recipe head to her blog, Harvest of Daily Life. Once you pick the roasted chicken of the drumsticks, thighs and breasts many people would just consider throwing the rest out. But that chicken carcass still has at least two cups of perfectly good meat left on the bones! Think about all the possibilities for that meat: chicken soup, chicken stock, chicken quesadillas, enchiladas or chicken salad. Anything that would use shredded chicken is perfect.

Here’s the process:

1) Take your chicken carcass and place in a stock pot. Fill the pot with water so most of your chicken carcass is covered and start boiling away. Throughout the process add a couple cut carrots, stalks of celery, onion and some garlic. Just let the mixture boil away on your stove while you do other things. The longer you let it boil, the more rich and intense your chicken stock is going to get. Once it’s boiled for a couple hours, you’re done with the first step.

2) Next, pour your stock out of the pot and into a bowl fitted with a strainer. It will catch all the loose meat and bones. Put your strained stock off to the side. Now take a couple minutes to work your way through the bones, picking off the bits of meat. Discard all the bones, skin and pieces of gristly fat leaving you with a nice helping of chicken meat. At this point, you could recombine your fresh stock and chicken meat to make soup (chicken & rice or chicken noodle) or chicken & dumplings. You can also freeze the chicken stock in small containers for use in other recipes and freeze the chicken meat in small Ziplock baggies for use later too.

Last night, we boiled down the leftover chicken carcass and turned it into fresh chicken noodle soup. It made a huge pot of soup though, more than the two of us could eat in a couple nights! But, that’s ok. Yesterday we spent the day canning our leftover soup so it can be stored in the cupboard just fine. If you don’t want to go through the process of canning, you could also freeze the soup in containers and reheat them in the microwave. While we were at it, we also processed some butternut squash soup that we had stored in the freezer. In the end we came out with 4 quart jars of chicken noodle soup and 2 quarts of butternut squash soup! That will make a lot of meals and save us a lot of money. Plus, the feeling I have from keeping that food from going to waste is so good.

If you’re looking for a great recipe book with complete instructions on home preserving, I recommend the Ball Complete Book of Home Preserving. I’ve been using this book for more than a year now and I have discovered several recipes to use up extra fruit or other food items before they spoil. One of my favorites is the strawberry lemonade concentrate mix that you make from frozen or fresh berries and bottled lemon juice. Simple and refreshing. I’ll post the recipe below.  I had to buy mine piece by piece at the local hardware store. That kit would have saved me a lot of time!

Do you have a favorite way to make the most out of the food you buy and cook? Tell us about it and share your recipes!

Strawberry Lemonade Concentrate

Courtesy: Ball Complete Book of Home Preserving

You will need 6 cups hulled strawberries (I use the cheap bags of frozen berries), 4 cups freshly squeezed lemon juice and 6 cups of granulated sugar.

1. Prepare canner, jars and lids for water bath canning.

2. In a blender or food processsor fitted with a metal blade, working in batches, puree strawberries until smooth. Transfer to a large stainless steel saucepan as completed. Add lemon juice and sugar and stir to combine. Heat to 190 degrees F (88 C) over medium high heat, stirring occasionally. Do not boil. Remove from heat and skim off foam.

3. Ladle hot concentrate into hot jars, leaving 1/4 inch (0.5 cm) headspace. Wipe rim. Center lid on jar. Screw band down until resistance is met, then increase to fingertip-tight.

4. Place jars in canner, ensuring they are completely covered with water. Bring to a boil and process for 15 minutes. Remove canner lid. Wait 5 minutes, then remove jars, cool and store.

5. To reconstitute, mix one part concentrate with one part water, tonic water or ginger ale. Adjust concentrate to taste.

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Our three little Auracana hens are growing bigger and bigger every day and their personalities are developing more too. Check out our live chicken cam where you can see a video stream from their pen 24/7. Just click the video box to the right of this post and sit back to watch the fun! You can also chat with me live via Twitter using the hashtag #babychickcam

I finished assembling the backyard chicken hutch that Talina got as a birthday gift from her parents and soon it will have its own special place out in the vegetable garden. In the meantime the chicks will stay inside where it’s warm and dry. Don’t get discouraged if you don’t see the chicks on cam. They’re probably just trying to get some privacy as they sleep right beneath the lens of the camera. Those naps don’t last long though so check back regularly to see what kind of trouble they might be getting into.

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Our newest additions to the Half-Acre Homestead have arrived.  We picked up three Auracana chicks from one of our friends yesterday who made a big order and wanted to share in the fun.  Auracanas are the “Easter Egg” chickens that lay green and blue eggs.  We’ve kicked around the idea for a year or two, just wanting to start out with a couple hens to provide us some eggs.  Our decision was pushed last year when we had a terrible problem trying to combat the swarms of squash bugs that devastated our zucchini and summer squash plants, leaving us little to enjoy.

Unfortunately we lost one little girl late this afternoon.  It seems the long journey was just too much for her.  She was sluggish on arrival but some sugar water helped perk her up.  Her activity improved along with her eating and drinking but late this afternoon she just quit moving around and wouldn’t get back up again.  We were really excited about her because she had different coloring from the other two girls and it looked like she was going to be a standout.

Our other two girls seem to be doing just fine.  We’ve been getting a kick out of their little antics, spontaneously falling asleep and waking up.  They love to cuddle too.  They’ll roost in the home office for a few weeks until the weather is nice enough for them to transition out full time.  Now it’s time to build them a little garden hen house.

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There’s been a lot of talk about how harsh our everyday, household cleaners really are.  Not only to ourselves but also to our environment.  We’re beginning to see some, commercially produced cleaners that are more natural and biodegradable.  It’s a small niche market right now but as the green movement picks up, more and more companies are turning to more sustainable options.  Not only will it be better for our environment in the long run, it will also protect our children from allergic reactions, poisonings and illnesses in kids associated with chemical-laden cleaning products.

Smaller companies like Seventh Generation are working to produce more natural cleaners and more sustainable lifestyles.  The Burlington, Vermont company lends its employees up to $5,000 to buy a hybrid car or make energy-efficient upgrades to their homes.  They also reimburse employees up to $500 for alternative commuting costs and gives them another $500 to buy energy efficient appliances.  The company also participates in a reforestation program in New Orleans.   Another company making environmentally friendly cleaning products is Method.

Even cleaning giants like Clorox are entering the green age.  This month they’re releasing their new line of cleaners called Greenworks.  The eco-friendly products will be sold right alongside their normal line and will apparently cost about 20% to 25% more.  As part of their move to get on the green movement, the Clorox company also purchased Burt’s Bees for $950 million back in November.

I’ve been interested in making some environmentally friendly cleaners at home.  I recently bought two different books that have different formulas and recipes for homemade cleaners.  I picked up Homemade: How to Make Hundreds of Everyday Products Fast, Fresh and More Naturally and 1,001 Secret Household Hints and Formulas.  I’ll of course post my thoughts on these books when they finally arrive.  I’m hoping they turn out to be helpful in our pursuit to continue living in a more sustainable way in 2008.

Do you have a homemade or store-bought cleaner that’s environmentally friendly and works great?  Post a comment and let us know about it!

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U.S. News and World Report had some interesting facts about the amount of corn being grown and used in food products these days.  According to the magazine, U.S. farmers harvested about 13-billion bushels of corn this year which is the largest harvest on record.  That’s great for the farmers and the government subsidies that were handed out to them to increase the corn production.  However, there’s new concerns that we’re intaking too much corn in our diets.

Because corn syrup is such an economical sweetener, it’s used in just about everything.  Some estimates suggest that close to 10% of our daily caloric intake comes from high-fructose corn syrup.  It’s said that the average American consumes 42 lbs. of the sweetener every year, most of that in the form of sugary soft drinks.   That breaks down into 76,000 calories a year, enough to feed some men for 29 days.  Sugar is just as bad but some health experts say if you just cut one sugary soda or flavored water, per day, out of your diet you would cut 10lbs. of fructose consumption.

The problem isn’t just soda though.  Most corn is diverted as a feed crop for our nation’s cattle.  Cows fatten quickly on the grain but the resulting meat is much higher in artery-clogging, saturated fats.  It’s another reason why consumers should look toward grass-fed beef.  Researchers have also discovered that cows raised on corn are more susceptible to contracting a deadly strain of the E-coli bacteria.

With corn now feeding the ethanol market and the price of the commodity on the rise again, many companies are finding ways to turn away from the use of corn.  Back in October, Heinz announced it would stop using high-fructose corn syrup as an additive in their ketchup products.  It’s a way to keep the price down.  But Heinz researchers are now tinkering with their company controlled tomato varieties, looking for the sweetest bunch.  Heinz says they evaluate 700 new tomato varieties every year.  Jones Soda Company has never used the sweetener, instead turning to pure cane sugar juice.  The Dr. Pepper plant in Dublin, Texas is still bottling the drink under the original recipe, using real sugar.  I think the taste is amazing and if you happen to run across some bottles, you should snag some and try it.  In fact, most of the sodas I’ve come to like use real sugar, like the Mexican Coca-Colas.

If you’re looking for a fun and interesting assortment of soda you can’t find at your local grocery store, check out one of my favorite stores, Pop the Soda Shop.  They’ve got a great selection of the rare and unusual!

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Glorious is the only way I can think to describe the sudden onset of balmy temperatures and sunshine the past couple of days.  Yesterday we climbed into the land of the 60’s and it felt downright amazing.  Even before the first cup of coffee was finished here at the Half-Acre Homestead, we threw open the door and rushed outside to enjoy some fresh air.

Everly, much like the rest of us, has been getting an extreme case of cabin fever as of late.  There is only so much indoor activity to keep toddlers occupied and for our resident garden faerie, it’s just too much time cooped up inside the house.  She had a blast throwing bags of leaf mulch around the yard to help stymie the springtime mud pie that our grass turns into this time of year.  We also took the opportunity to move our rabbit hutches from their temporary home in the garage to their more permanent spot outback.  This gave Everly the opportunity to chase the lop-eared rabbit throughout the flower beds as he explored and munched under the February rays.

Today marked another stupendous day outside and so we relished it.  Darling Daughter and I poked around in the kitchen garden to take a look at everything coming to life this week.  Long lost garlic and onion bulbs have started shooting up all over the place.  Rhubarb crowns are beginning to break the soil’s surface and reach for the light.  Lemon balm, chives and sage are beginning to leaf out in their hotboxes as well as the rosemary bushes which are still triumphantly marching through the winter fully clothed.  Strawberry plants began peeking out from underneath their leaf mulch this week as well, heralding the bright red berries that will soon grace them much to Everly’s daily picking delight.

Strawberry plants are beginning to peek out of their leaf mulch this week as if trying to shake winter off for good

Homestead Hottie briefly joined us in the garden before tossing her cookies down one of the walkway aisles (her story here).  The pregnancy was getting to her today, well the whole week for that matter.  Everly and I looked on in worried support until the spewing stopped and then quickly ushered our poor Homestead Hottie back in to flop on the couch.

Later as the thermometer climbed to the 70-degree mark and there was no rain in sight, I set out to finish Talina’s Valentine’s Day present.  Built from recycled wooden pallets, I’ve been making a potting bench for my Homestead Hottie’s gardening fun.  Everly loves to be involved in any project, especially building and she has great fun helping to wrangle loose screws and sit on boards while Daddy screws them down.

Our Darling Daughter loves project time around the Half-Acre Homestead. Notice some of our cloth diapers getting some welcomed solar bleaching out on the line today too.

Just as the sun set tonight, I finished building the upper shelves.  It took little time to complete and looks great in a eco-chic sort of way.  I was thinking about painting it several different bright colors to match our outdoor cushions but Talina likes the look of the wood.  Rough cuts, nicks, old nails and discoloring will all show through a couple of nice coats of sealer.  It’s what makes the potting bench unique.  I’ll take orders if anyone else wants one.  I can guarantee no two will look alike!

The middle shelf on the hutch still has bark attached to the edges, helping to make it truly unique

Have you been out in your garden lately?  What is beginning to come back to life?  If you recycle wooden pallets for projects, let me know what you’ve turned them into.

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