North Texas Spring

Seriously, I planted a garden (my first) in the early days of the warm month of March... then there was a cold snap- a freeze- and some of those plants suffered... some even didn't make it. I nursed them for some time, but I finally realized that they were dead.

I waited...

Mid-late April came, the weather has been wonderful, so I went to Covington's Nursery (a local place) and sought advice, then replaced the few plants that had died.

In addition, I sought advice regarding another issue... the dang beetles that seem ubiquitous for the area. The other night, I had noticed that they were every-freakin-where, and especially LOVED my garden. There was certainly evidence of them destroying my plants.

You see, I want to be an organic farmer- OK gardener. I have chosen as many "organic" things as necessary, even considered the fact that bugs like gardens, but until I actually encountered my first pest problem, I didn't understand.

*there's a reason to go as local as you can*

I asked about the beetles and the employee suggested at least 3 alternatives- all natural- that I could use to ward my garden of these pests. One involved an all-natural contact pesticide, another involved sprinkling the ground with diatomaceous earth, and the final was "garlic spray". I understood the words garlic and spray, so I inquired further.

Two bulbs of garlic + two pints of hot water + blender for 1-2 minutes + 1-2 days = a wonderful spray concentrate that repels and possibly kills many a pest. I sprayed this all over the garden.

I tried this and last night noticed that all those black beetles that were on the garden the other night were all over the yard, but when I checked the garden, one or two were straggling around on the dirt until I sprayed them with the garlic spray, I didn't see them again when I checked later.

Now there's a frost warning/advisory for this evening.

I get it, there is a cost to growing your own food that goes beyond money. It's an investment of time, energy, and problem-solving. It's a classic man-versus-nature battle.

There are many complexities involved. Just the other day I noticed ants crawling all over the bed of the garden along with other unidentifiable bugs. Do I try to get rid of them or let them stay? Are they going after my vegetables or just making a home in fertile soil? Are they helpful or harmful?

These are the type questions that we all ask when it comes to our health. I am currently teaching my Sunday school class on the "Three Simple Rules". They are as follows: 1.) Do no harm, 2.) Do good, 3.) Stay in love with God.

Without thinking much about it, I've asked these questions for years regarding my diet and exercise regimen. Am I doing harm? Am I doing good? These are the same questions I must ask when deciding on my gardening experience. How will my actions harm my family? How will my actions do good? Do I still love God?

All I know is that I sprayed the dang garden with some garlic spray and covered it with some plastic bags. If there are vegetables in the summer, then you will know that I have somehow become triumphant in this epic battle between man and nature... and when that epic battle is over, I know- if nothing else- that I have grown and learned so much more that I ever could have by reading about it.

God Bless!

Paul

Am I Really "That Guy"?

To be clear, I am "that guy".

The fact is that I have not been running for a little while due to injury.

So what have I been doing to exercise? Well, I guess the best way to describe it is that I've gone back to my roots... my ancestral roots that is. Yard work... whether that's ancestral or not is yet to be determined, but to be honest, I should confess that I am "that guy" in the neighborhood.

You see, I don't see yard work as a chore, rather I see it as an opportunity to "cross-train", exercise or basically get back to the basic, simple mechanics of the human body.

It is my belief that the human body was designed for work. Throughout ancient history, human beings have accomplished and created amazing things with simple tools. As we have progressed as a species, we have streamlined much of that work; including but not limited to agriculture, food production, building structures, travel, communication, etc. In addition to all this innovation, we have also suffered from diseases that our ancestors did not have to deal with nearly to the extent that we are today, such as obesity, heart disease, cancer, etc.

I bring this up because for everything I do "simply", I remove a modern convenience and make my life slightly more complex. Take my last four posts for example. For me, the process of cultivating yeast and making bread from scratch is easy, but that's because I am committed to it, and I've practiced it for a long while. It is much easier for me to go to a store and purchase bread, throw ingredients into a bread machine, or use a multitude of manufactured ingredients to make my bread "from scratch", but I don't.

Running for me has opened new areas of understanding. It's deeper than just exercise, it's a connection between me and those who have gone before me. When I run, it's almost a primitive experience. My, and your, ancestors ran and walked everywhere. Our bodies were designed and have adapted for this lifestyle.

The problem is that we have lost much of this. Our ancestors lifted heavy things, dug holes, gathered food, hunted, ran, walked, cooked, fought, etc. They were strong and fit, because if they weren't they'd die.

We have cars, trucks, lawnmowers, bread machines, and tractors. We eat food that is made in factories thousands of miles away, drive our cars everywhere (even when it's only a mile away), use machines for just about every activity, and we wonder why we have so many more problems with pollution, heart disease, allergies, diabetes, etc. that our ancestors never experienced.

All this is to say that I am "that guy" in my neighborhood. Today's cross-training was to weed- wack the tall, tough weeds and to mow. I didn't use the electric weed-wacker, or gas-powered lawn mower. I'm the guy that people turn their heads to look at. The one whose lawn-work is not making all that much noise.

 This is my weed-wacker. It's powered by me, and my arms. It's cheap and simply requires that I walk while swinging it at the tall weeds... talk about a workout!

 This is my backyard, I include it to show the area that I generally had to work the weed-wacker and the lawn-mower... you'll see why this is important (perhaps)

This is my front yard- a before picture, though I'm not sure the prevalence of tall weeds is shown in this picture.







This is the front yard, after the massacre of the weeds took place

This is my lawnmower- a reel mower, completely controlled by me, my arms, my legs and my body

This is to shame anyone who thinks that a reel mower would be too much work, as my six-year-old begged me to help... then I took a picture

It is my opinion, my theory that as we have made life easier for ourselves, we have complicated our health way beyond what those before us had to deal with. All those machines in the fitness center, all those weights, exercises and diet plans come from the fact that we are not performing the work or consuming the food for which we were designed. Thus, one might conclude that this is our chief problem as a species.

Cultures and societies without our modern conveniences don't have our problems. I had always wanted a reel mower, but did not get the opportunity until I moved to Texas and bought a house. I do own an electric weed wacker, but use it mainly when I want to get the job done quick.

However, I find it much more rewarding and healthful to go back to the basics and complicate my life a little more. My goal is simple, yet very hard to do- to get as much off-the-grid as I can and to lead a more healthy and vibrant life.

God Bless,
Paul

Bread With Homegrown Yeast

My last three posts had everything to do with capturing and cultivating your own, unique yeast. Now, it's time to use the yeast to make your own bread at home.

What you'll need:

FOR THE POOLISH (bread starter)
1 Large bowl and a wooden spoon
1 C starter
1 C spring/filtered water (to avoid the chlorine in tap water)
1 C whole wheat flour
1 lint-free towel/cloth

FOR THE DOUGH
1 Large bowl and a wooden spoon
~5.5 cups whole wheat flour
1 TB Kosher salt
2 Cups spring/filtered water
Olive oil
1 lint-free towel/cloth

TO PROOF THE LOAVES
2 bread pans
2 lint-free towels/cloths
Whole wheat flour for dusting

TO BAKE THE LOAVES
1 large pizza stone
1 pizza peel
Whole wheat flour for dusting
Sharp knife
1 pan of water

Making the poolish (bread starter)- usually done the night before I am going to make bread
1. In the large bowl, mix together the starter, flour and water with the wooden spoon
2. Using warm/hot water, soak the towel, wring it out so the towel is damp and warm
3. Cover and set aside for 9-12 hours

*Replace the starter with 1/2 cup of flour and 1/2 cup of water

Making the dough
1. To the bread starter, add all the water, 1 cup of the flour and the salt, then stir
2. Add the second cup of flour and continue to stir, then add the third and fourth cup
3. After the fourth cup, the dough should be harder to stir- dust the counter with half a cup of flour and scrape the dough onto the surface- put the rest of the flour over the top and get about 1/2-1 full cup and set that aside, you'll need it to dust the dough while kneading it (fill the bowl with water and let it soak)
4. Knead the dough, incorporating the flour- it will be sticky, but be patient, just keep working the dough by flattening it and turning it, etc.
5. As the dough ball is formed, dust with flour ONLY if the dough ball is excessively sticky- you want it to be moist and tacky, but when it gets too sticky you can dust it with flour
6. Once the dough ball is firm and springy to the point that it rebounds when you poke it, you can set aside and scrape out and dry the bowl
7. Coat the bottom of the bowl with olive oil, place the dough ball into the bowl and lightly coat with olive oil
8. Cover the bowl with a damp, warm cloth and let it sit for at least 3 hours

Second rise
After 3 hours, knock the dough ball down, lightly knead it, then cover and let sit for another hour









Proofing the dough
1. Remove the dough from the bowl, separate into two dough balls, let rest
2. In two bread pans, place the other towels and dust with flour
3. Flatten and roll the two dough balls into loaves and put into the pans- cover and let sit for 2-3 hours
4. One hour before baking, place a pan with water on the bottom rack of the oven, place the pizza stone on the top rack, and preheat the oven to 450 degrees








Baking the loaves (oven at 450 degrees)
1. Dust the pizza peel with flour and gently turn one loaf onto the peel
2. Using the knife cut 3 diagonal slashes into the top of the loaf
3. Open the oven and slide the loaf onto the stone
4. Repeat steps 1-3 with the second loaf
5. Set a timer for 20 minutes- don't open the oven
6. At the end of 20 minutes, reduce the temperature of the oven to 400 degrees and bake for an additional 20 minutes- don't open the oven
7. Using the peel, remove the loaves and put on wire rack to cool (minimum of 20 minutes)



 *Just dust off the excess flour




Don't worry if the dough looks a little flaccid when you put it on the peel and onto the stone, and don't worry about those three cuts you made, as you can see, they are necessary for what happens in the oven.  Once you put the dough onto the 450 degree hot stone and close the door to the 450 degree steam bath you've just created for it, the phenomenon known as "oven spring" occurs.

In that 40 minutes of baking (20 in 450 degree and 20 in 400 degree) the loaf springs up and becomes plump. The crust will be chewy and hard and the inside will be soft and flavorful. There is nothing about this bread that I don't like. It's hearty, soft, nutty, buttery, and chewy all at the same time. There are no flavors outside of yeasty, sourdough.

The lengthy fermentation process has made this bread significantly more nutritious than anything you can buy in the store. There's even some argument that the lengthy fermentation process might alleviate some of the adverse symptoms of diseases involving gluten intolerance.

And the cost? Well, once you have all the equipment (which isn't all that much), a bag of whole wheat flour costs about $5-6 and it takes about half of that bag to make these two loaves- well worth the risk of trying. You can also make these into round loaves using the exact same process with just different pans... so the possibilities are numerous.

Storage
I always take one loaf, put it in a gallon bag and into the freezer - to thaw, I let it thaw naturally inside the plastic bag until it is completely thawed

For the other loaf, I cut slices to order from one end and place the bread on that end, upright and cover it with a towel

*the loaves last for about 3-4 days before becoming stale, let it sit out much longer and it will become a host environment for mold

Let's Grow Some Bacteria! Part 3

In my last two posts I discussed some of the history of bacteria, including the vilification and attempt at control of the bacteria around us. In this post, I intend to show you how to cultivate your own bacteria that can be used in bread-making or pizza dough making, etc.

There are a few good things about making your own yeast, or shall I say "capturing" your own yeast as yeast is always around us looking for a host. Yeast gets its energy from sugars found in various fruits and vegetables. It's bacteria and ultimately a decomposer- as it works, it releases gases which are used in the manufacturing of alcohol and the rising of bread.

In order to capture or "make" (you like how I reversed the quotations?) your own yeast, you need 2 essential ingredients and 2-3 important pieces of hardware.

Ingredients
1. Flour- either whole wheat or rye
2. Water- either spring or filtered

Supplies
1. Cheese cloth
2. Medium sized ceramic, clay, stainless steel or wooden bowl (NOT PLASTIC)
*3. Optional- rubber band or rope and/or wooden spoon

Process
1. Put 1/2 cup of flour into the bowl
2. Add 1/2 cup of water + 2 tablespoons
3. Stir, then cover and secure with the cheesecloth- leave out in the kitchen (you may want to transfer it to the top of the fridge or somewhere out of the way as it develops)
4. Every morning- uncover it, stir it and re-cover
5. Every evening- add 2 tablespoons flour and 2 tablespoons water then stir and re-cover

The transformation will be interesting, nerve-wracking, and fascinating all at the same time. The mixture will bubble up, subside, show small bubbles, stink like rotten milk, smell like old beer, smell like bread and so on for about 2 weeks. After two weeks or so, you should have a yeasty starter ready for your first breads.

Like I've said before- simplicity is king here... simplicity and patience and you will have a healthy, tasty starter ready for nutritious bread baking for you and your family.

Once the starter has been used once for bread baking, then you have a choice. You can leave it out, continually feeding it, or you can cover it with plastic wrap and place it in the refrigerator... then you only need to feed it once or twice a week. Either way, if you follow these simple directions, consider it a first step in reducing the dependency on foreign yeast and bacteria and one step closer to being off-the-grid.

As the bacteria grows, stay tuned for my new series... how to make the bread.

God bless, and good luck!
Paul

Let's Grow Some Bacteria, Part 2

I have read many books and articles that have blamed the advent of agriculture as the cause of many, if not all, of our modern health problems. The argument is that the human species used to roam the Earth hunting for meat and gathering nuts, fruits, vegetables and berries. Once we introduced agriculture into the mix, the problems started. We stopped hunting and gathering and began to divide into classes of farming, manufacturing and whatever else- because ultimately once we had a set system for food, we could settle down and start a more organized society.

At some point, grains entered the scene, and the downfall of the health of our species began. My counterpoint to this is that agriculture has been around for hundreds of thousands of years, but our current health crisis has only really been around for the last hundred or so years.

My argument is that our current health crises derived, not from agriculture, but from a system of "enhancing" our agriculture in order to produce more food with a consistent and predicable product. This requires a strict regiment of processed ingredients- derived from agriculture- but not ingredients that occur naturally in our environment or in our bodies.

Enter... or shall I say, exit... the bacteria.

There are two types of bacteria- the good kind, and the bad kind. When these two meet, they compete and, more often than not, the good ones win. However, if you want a consistent and predicable product, this is the very last thing you want- because, sometimes the good bacteria loses. So, considering all this, food manufactures have developed preservatives and alternative methods (alternative to what was established thousands of years ago) in order to make food faster and last longer- thus making it cheaper. This, I believe, is a large part of our problem.

Flashback... the original process of fermentation.

Thousands of years ago, a regular dish consumed by the ancient Egyptians was called "Wheat Mash". It was simply wheat and water mashed together and eaten. Not that difficult a concept. Somewhere down the line, someone must have left the mash out too long and noticed something quite unusual. From that potentially simple mistake was born, quite possibly, beer, wine, and bread... and would be the advent of pickles, cheese, kimchi, etc.

Essentially, it comes down to the competition of good verses bad bacteria. The process of fermenting grains, fruits and vegetables by making the environment conducive for good bacteria to prevail. Why all this? It's simple- thousands of years ago, there were no refrigerators or freezers. There was no such thing as harvesting your crop, eating some of it and then freezing whatever you needed for the winter... you needed to can it through the process of pickling it. In addition, water was not all that safe to drink, so fermenting grapes or grains would produce a low level of alcohol which would kill any bad bacteria that existed in the drink.

What all this did was to help human beings develop gut bacteria that was conducive to processing all this fermented food. If nothing else, it kept us alive as a species... however, in the modern era, we have developed processes that no longer need all that unpredictable fermentation. Instead, we have introduced a lot of chemicals and ingredients into "food" and water in the name of health... but we have a higher cancer rate, heart disease rate, and obesity rate than any of our ancestors ever had.

Why?

Agriculture?

Grain?

I do the best I can to stay away from fad dieting, artificial sweeteners, and any other kind of processed food. But it's hard to avoid. I started this blog a few years ago when I overheard a teacher in the teacher's lounge during lunch explaining that it was "impossible" to not consume high fructose corn syrup... I wanted people to know that it was more than possible, that I had been doing it for years, and I wanted people to know how much simpler it was that they were lead to believe.

I wanted to rise above the standard, climb to the top of the mountain of truth and scream, "We can do better!" It's takes time, and the Lord is well aware that I am not completely there yet, but I am trying. I encourage you to try, too.

This part two is more on my rationale for attempting to make my own sourdough starter... stay with me for part 3, because I am going to give you step by step instructions on how to make your own sourdough culture with wild-caught yeast and then, hopefully, to develop your own bread using only 4 ingredients- flour, water, salt, wild-caught yeast... it's a start- and well worth it.

God Bless!
Paul

Let's Grow Some Bacteria! Part 1

OK, I am well aware of the fact that America has somehow decided that bacteria is the devil incarnate. Most of everything we do involves some sort of anti-bacterial campaign. Hand sanitizer companies, antibiotic companies, antibacterial soap companies, etc have certainly benefited from the hype... of course, you know who else has benefited from this trend?

Bacteria- not the good kind, the bad kind.

We like things controlled. So, we want a sterile environment, but we forget what our bodies are capable of. Our bodies learn, they adapt and it is those adaptations that make us stronger as a species. When we kill all the bacteria around us, we don't realize the actual damage we create... then we hear about the "super-bug".

We have so overused antibacterial everything, that we have actually become weaker as a species while allowing the bad bacteria to evolve and become stronger. Call me crazy, and I'm not a scientist, but our desire to control everything around us- from processed food and processed footwear to processed bacteria and processed air and water, that we have actually held our bodies captive to the adaptations necessary to become stronger.

One of the ways we take control of bacteria is through yeast.

Ok, I get it... yeast? This guy is beyond crazy. But here me out.

Exodus 12:14-15
"14 'This is a day you are to commemorate; for the generations to come you shall celebrate it as a festival to the Lord—a lasting ordinance. 15 For seven days you are to eat bread made without yeast.On the first day remove the yeast from your houses, for whoever eats anything with yeast in it from the first day through the seventh must be cut off from Israel. '"

I never knew this before, but this Sunday when I heard this passage, I finally understood the importance of the line "remove the yeast from your houses" as sacrificial as it was.

If you've ever made bread, rolls, or any type of bread with leaven, you have most likely made it with a yeast that you purchased in a store, just as I had always done. You may have even bought sourdough bread or ordered a sandwich with this type of bread without ever really knowing what you were ordering.

I did all this until I read the book, "Cooked" by Michael Pollan. In it, Pollan describes the ever-appetizing thought about "gut-bacteria". In brief, we've lost that development of gut-bacteria which has potentially led to many disorders of digestion and possibly a lot worse. What I want to highlight here, however, is the idea of yeast.

Commercial yeast bought in stores is actually cast-off yeast from brewers. I didn't know that. That is the yeast that the vast majority of bread makers use. Commercial or Baker's yeast is called  Saccharomyces cerevisiae; however, yeast used in sourdough bread- the wild caught kind- the very kind that the Israelites would have used, the kind that is cultivated over time and even passed down from generation to generation is called  L. sanfranciscensis- a name bestowed upon it when the prevailing thought was that this was a specific strain of yeast only found in San Francisco. However, this same strain was discovered across the globe to be in wild-caught yeast.

What's important about the bacteria discussed is what it does and has done to our guts. Our guts are so accustomed to the norm that our immune system has trouble adapting to changes. The gist in "Cooked" is that fermentation is an incredibly important facet in our species and it's almost been completely eliminated by processed, controlled, and structured food production.

I have since learned about the importance of fermentation, and I have made my own sourdough culture/starter. It's simple, but does take time, patience and care. I have started to make my own bread, which I had been doing before, but now with yeast that I have cultivated.

Please consider these words as a precursor to tomorrow night's exciting continuation of "Let's Grow Some Bacteria!"

God's Peace,
Paul

Salsa Party

I just thought of a great idea. A "Salsa" Party! We provide salsa music and the salsa and you just bring your own chips to share... it's a win-win! I only say this because I have just consumed some of the best salsa I have ever made and this completely ties into yesterday's post (Put It in a Taco).

This evening I had some leftover London Broil, so I sliced it into small pieces and heated them up on my cast iron skillet.

In addition, I heated up a few tortillas and placed the beef inside... wait a minute, I should at least start from the beginning, because, often when dealing with beef, the veggies take much longer. Let me start from the... start.

1. I diced a yellow onion and put it in in a small pot with peanut oil over medium heat.
2. After the onion started to really cook, I diced 1 jalapeno with the seeds in tact and added it to the onions (I lightly covered the pot with a lid, because One does not simply cook a jalapeno without making the air around them unbearable.)
3. I then peeled about 3-4 cloves of garlic and chopped them into smallish pieces, then added them to the onion and jalapeno mixture and recovered letting them simmer on lower heat.

*keep in mind that with this mixture, I continually checked and stirred for even cooking

4. I then diced about 4-5 medium sized tomatoes, and , in a separate, bigger pot, I put them on the stove to slowly start to simmer.
5. When I was confident in the cooking of the "aromatics" (onion, garlic, and jalapeno), I added them to the tomatoes and stirred and turned the heat to medium and let it cook for about 10-15 minutes.
6. I added cilantro, chili powder, cumin, salt and pepper to taste. Then I waited.
7. I let the pot cook down a little while, then...
8. I used a hand blender in the pot to break down the mixture into "salsa-sized" chunks (only you can determine when to stop) *note that a blender works just fine, you'll just need to spoon it into a blender and chop and puree it to your liking.
9. I put the whole amazingness into a bowl and dreamed about its future.

10. While dreaming about this amazingness, I (cooked my child's food) heated up some tortillas, put the now hot steak into the tortillas, sliced an avocado and put it in the tortillas, then finally put the amazing-should-be-making-me-a-million-dollars salsa on top.

So, I made some awesome steak tacos from yesterday's steak with a touch of whatever I had in the fridge made into a salsa. Salsa is the perfect condiment. Full of vegetables, low in carbs and fat, and high in necessary nutrients for a successful life.

I write this mainly because I was thinking about what raw ingredients should we always have on hand. My answer is that we should always, at least, have the necessary ingredients for a salsa. Think about that for a moment. Tomatoes, jalapenos, onions, and garlic. The seasonings are all about what your individual taste is, but consider the number of things you can make with just those 4 main ingredients.

You could make pico-de-gallo, pasta sauce, side dishes, just serving them as vegetables, etc. These are the main ingredients I try to make sure I always have on hand, because even though I think making anything into a taco sounds easy, sometimes it's much better if you add a little more.

Eating simply is all about that. Cooking fresh and homemade food can be as simple as what I described. First, stock your refrigerator and pantry with the essentials, then go wild. If time is a constraint, just keep in mind that I did all this after working all day and then coming home and doing a 15-mile bike ride. Then, of course, I still had to make lunches for tomorrow, get the boy in the bath and do our nighttime routine, and clean the kitchen. And, oh yeah, I also sat down to write this.

Point is? I'm going to throw an amazing salsa party and if you're not there, it's your loss.

Love you :-)

Paul