This weekend we went to Eugene for a parade.  I think is was just to celebrate Eugene life, very refreshing.  It was lots of fun, and quite political.  But that shouldn't surprise me, it is Eugene after all.

Tonight I made my peanut pasta for dinner.  It is really easy and I thought I would share the recipe.  You can make it with either whole wheat or regular pasta, but it is one of the few dishes that I actually like the nuttiness of the whole wheat, usually I'm left wondering why I chose the whole wheat over the regular. 

1 lb whole wheat spaghetti
5 carrots chopped
1 tbsp sesame oil
1 tbsp fresh garlic
1/2 tsp ground ginger
4 tbsp all-natural peanut butter (Jif won't cut it)
4 tbsp soy milk
3 tbsp soy sauce
1/4 c water
hot sauce to taste

Put on a big pot of water to boil for the spaghetti.  Cook the spaghetti until about halfway done and then add the carrots so they cook together. 

In a small sauce pan, heat the oil on med to med-low and add the garlic and ginger.  Cook for only a minute of two, making sure not to brown the garlic.  Add the rest of the ingredients and stir.  At this point, I like to use a hand blender to really mix the peanut sauce up well.  Also, make sure to turn the heat to low if you are still waiting on the pasta to finish up.  If the sauce is to thick for you (I like it thick) add some more soy milk or water. 

Drain the pasta and carrots returning them to the pan.  Add the peanut sauce and mix well.  I like to garnish with a few uncooked carrots and cucumbers.  Dig in!

photo by Carol Ester

This week I was at Biofest 2008.  What is Biofest you ask?  A celebration of life?  Well, sort of.  Part of being alive is eating.  And when something goes in our mouth it tends to get processed by our guts and then, well, you know, flushed.  This flows to the water treatment plant for treatment which consists of a giant vat of microbes who eat up all of the nutrients in the water and then settle out.  What settles out becomes biosolids and this is what biofest was all about.  I have a new experiment that is using biosolids as a soil amendment.  What this means is that we are adding biosolids to improve soil quality for growing better plants.  What you ask again, adding this substance formally known as sewage sludge to the soil to make it better?  In a nutshell, yes. 

Turns out it has many desirable qualities not unlike compost.  The process that this stuff goes through makes it safe for handling and even around the home (these are Class A biosolids I'm talking about.)  You can find them at your Home Depot bagged up and ready to go.  A popular one around here is Tagro from the city of Tacoma, WA.

Although biosolids get some bad press once in a while, it is after all an easy target, they are a good thing and a great way to close the nutrient loop.  See nutrients are added to farms, taken up by food, and then end up in waste water.  Instead of just dumping the biosolids as waste, nutrients are returned to the soil closing the loop.  How they are returned to the soil is a very regulated thing rest assured, and it still suffers from the bad case of NIMBY. 

Are there undesirable things in biosolids?  Well, yes, but not in unsafe levels.  You see, what ever we put in our bodies, like meds, or apply to our skin, like makeup, ends up in the biosolids in small amounts. It is kind of like a mirror to our society.  If you don't like what's in biosolids then maybe they don't belong in our lives at all.  A good example of this is PBDEs.  They get in wastewater from dust in our homes.  Seems unlikely but it's true.  It finds its way into dust by coming out of disintegrating plastics, mainly ones that have flame retardants in them.  Scary stuff. 

In any case, my project will hopefully demonstrate some techniques that landscapers and homeowners can use when planting into a soil that has had its quality compromised by compaction.  I'll let you know how it turns out. 

photo by stephen foster

Last night I experimented with a new bread recipe.  For a while now I've been making all of our bread from scratch.  This takes a lot of time, but is well worth it and it makes the house smell delicious.  I decided to try out a new bread, since up until now I've only made whole wheat bread.  This was rosemary focaccia bread that I adapted from this recipe I found on Epicurious. 

1 cup mashed potato (I used Austrian Crescent)

1 cup whole wheat flour
4 cups all-purpose flour, unbleached
3 fresh rosemary sprigs, chopped
1 tablespoon salt
2 cups water
2 tablespoons dry active yeast
6 tablespoons olive oil

Boil the potato for 6-7 minutes or until soft enough to mash.

To make the sponge, combine 1 cup of water with 1 tbsp of yeast.  Whisk until the yeast is dissolved.  Add the 1 cup of whole wheat flour and stir with a wooden spoon until most of the lumps are gone.  Let this sit while you make the rest of the dough. 

Combine the 4 cups of all-purpose flour with the salt, the other tablespoon of yeast, and half of the rosemary.  Combine this together; I like to use the whisk from earlier.  Add 4 tablespoons of olive oil in a well in the center of the flour mixture.  Using the wooden spoon, stir until a nice ball forms.  Add the other cup of water in two or three batches, stirring to combine in between.  Once all the water is mixed in, add the sponge.  Mix this well while adding more all-purpose flour until the dough can be kneaded by hand, only slightly sticky.  Turn dough out onto a floured surface and knead for a few minutes with floured hands adding more flour as necessary to make a nice smooth dough. 

Once the kneading is complete, form into a ball and put in a bowl that is greased with olive oil.  Swish the dough around and flip once to coat completely in the oil.  Let this sit until doubled in bulk.  Depending on the room temperature, this will take 30 minutes to an hour.

Turn out onto a lightly floured surface and punch down.  Using a butter knife, cut in half.  Knead each half a bit and then press or stretch into a square or circle about one inch deep.  Grease two baking sheets and place the flattened dough on them.  Push your fingers into the dough to make dimples.  Brush with one tablespoon of oil olive for each dough circle.  Sprinkle with salt and the remaining rosemary.  Let rise for about 20 minutes until puffy.  Make sure you start preheating the oven right away at this point to 450 degrees.

Bake for 18 minutes and cool on a rack.  Ready to eat in about 5 minutes, if you can wait that long.  Enjoy!

I recently heard about a HUGE piece of ice falling off and disappearing from northern Canada.  The ice shelf was the size of Manhattan and tall as a ten-story building!  At first it just separated from the island it was on and floated away, but then it was there one minute and gone the next.  Temperatures in the Arctic are changing faster than anywhere else on earth.  The thing that is bad about all this ice disappearing is that it acts as a giant reflector, bouncing the sun's rays back into space.  When the ice isn't there, the water absorbs more heat, thus contributing to more warming.  This is what I keep hearing about the effects of global warming, most of the consequences help to speed up the warming, making it go faster.  So the warming is not increasing at a steady or linear rate, but at an increasing rate.  It's unsettling how so many global trends are rising at an increasing rate, like population, fossil fuel use, warming, I'm sure there are other big ones I'm missing. 

Another disturbing part of all of this is how well documented the undoing of our planet is.  It seems that if we would spend just as much time and energy actually trying to stem off the pollution we could stop it.  But I guess people won't take it seriously until science spends enough time proving that it is a bad thing.  Well I'm convinced.  How about you?

Quick list of things to do:

1. Decrease purchases of new items
2. Drive less, bike more
3. Grow things
4. Stay local - with food, travel, and especially your money
5. Vote with your dollar

In other news, Slow Food Nation '08 took place recently in San Fran.  Over 60,000 people attended.  Some people regard this as an elitist food tasting event for the rich.  But what it really is, is a connection to our past food traditions that make this country and its unique regions so special.  I wish I was there.  (Even if I couldn't afford the food right now)  I love the idea of Slow Food and Megan and I try to do things in our own home to celebrate the idea of it.

Things to help slow your food down:

1. Bake goodies from scratch
2. Bake your own bread (for the smell alone!)
3. Find locally produced veggies, cheeses, and meats
4. Sit down as a family without gizmos playing in the background
5. Find a U-pick operation
6. Join a CSA

photo by mental.masala

What a surprise to me.  I had no idea that McCain was going to pick Gov. Palin as his running mate.  Maybe it's because I've never even heard of her before.  Not that it matters, I just hope she's qualified to be president.  Well, I guess W lowered that standard.  But I digress...

What I find interesting, no wait distubing, is that according to this article Palin isn't sure that humans are behind this funny little thing called global warming.  Wait, what?  Are we still having this debate? We humans have deforested most of the planet (the thing that captures CO₂ ) and at the same time have pumped huge amounts of carbon dioxide gas into the atmosphere.  This has resulted to a quick increase in CO₂ levels in the atmosphere.  And you don't have to take Al Gore's word for it (see this 2005 NOAA release).  The fact that CO₂ is a greenhouse gas is well known.  So let's see, more CO₂ means more heat.  Maybe I'm oversimplifying it a bit, but it's not that tough.

Way to pick them John.

Megan has been reading a new book titled Last Child in the Woods.  It has just been updated and rereleased.  The main premise is that our children, and society in general, is suffereing from nature deficient disorder.  In other words, we are losing our connection to nature and in doing so we are compromising our health and sanity.  It really isn't that hard to agree with, but the book does cite a lot of research to back up its claims (see here and here.) 

This had me thinking about my self being nature deficient.  I spent the first six years of my working life taking care of 40 acres at Canterbury Retreat Center.  I remember thinking that I would always work outside.  No way I was going to sit at a desk and punch buttons (aka push papers.)  I loved the nature connection.  While there I started studying Florida flora and joined the Native Plant Society.  It was at a Native Plant Society annual conference that I realized I wanted to work with agriculture.  I guess I thought I would work outside in that field as well.  As of late, I spend most of my time behind the screen (like now.)  I'm actually suprised I chose this path.  Lately I have been realizing that I need to make more of an effort to be outside.  Maybe it's the having kids thing helping me to reexamine my life and priorities, but I'm hoping it's more than that. 

Today we went to the park and just kicked around for a while.  I hoisted Ruby into her first tree, a magical moment (not in the Disney sense.)  She plunked herself down amid moss, pinecones, sticks and stuff.  It felt good, really good.

In other news, we went to Portland's International Test Rose Garden to meet Ruby's aunt and uncle for a picnic last Saturday.  They are moving back to Florida to be closer to friends and family.  Their west coast family is going to miss them a lot.  Have a safe trip and best of luck!