oh that veganist chick gives me the creeps

lately there are three things that have been burning my butt. here they are in no particular order.....

1. the veganist chick that has been popping up all over the t.v.

this woman burns my butt for many reasons. i only wish i was a better writer so i could clearly and concisely spell out my complaints in regards to this issue. first let me say that i have not, and probably will never, read any of her books. i am basing this opinion solely on a few t.v appearances. once she was on oprah, and then again i saw her on one of the weekday morning shows spouting out about how going vegan will change your life and the world. first off the health benefits she is talking about are in regards to going vegan vs. a huge industrial, grain fed, confined meat diet, and NOT, vs. happy, healthy, small farm, pastured raised meat. BIG DIFFERENCE!!!! also, she suggest replacing meat with highly processed soy laden meat alternatives. have you ever read the ingredients on those things?? absolutely gross!!! any soy product that is not ferment first is not good for you. that's right all you soy milk drinkers, i repeat, not good for you. not to mention that most of the soy out there is controlled by some huge icky bad guys, sprayed with chemicals till an inch of their little plant lives, and genetically modified to boot. yuck, yuck, triple yuck!!!!  

ok, so on the chicks website, at one point, they point out the benefits of your new vegan diet.  let's take a brief look at those shall we.....

"effortless weight loss and maintenance:" not if your eating a crap load of sugar in those vegan cakes and cookies. sugar, if not burned up, turns to stored fat. 

"greatly lowered risk of, and potentially even reversal of, major diseases such as cancer, diabetes, and heart disease:" yeah, if you ferment all that soy you are now eating, otherwise, i'm not to sure about that one folks.

"increased life expectancy and quality of life:" quality of life without raw milk butter?? i don't think so.

"avoidance of food poisoning and viruses:" tell that to all those folks who got sick eating tainted spinach.

"both short-term and long-term money savings:" cause shopping at wholefood to get all those meat alternatives is super cheap. sure.

"help to feed the global poor:" not when the two biggest crops in america are corn and soy.  unless you think sodas and meatless chicken fingers are gonna solve that problem lady.

"reduction of global warming:" not when the majority of our veggies are shipped in from mexico, canada, peru, and god only knows where else. and, what?? you think that meatless chicken patty and meatless meat crumble grew on a tree like that and wasn't processed in a huge energy using factory?? silly girl.

"diminished animal suffering:" tell that to all those poor innocent helpless insects that have succumbed to the powers of roundup. ladybug killer!!!!

"increased spiritual awareness and personal growth:" just cause you're a vegan, doesn't mean that you can't be an asshole. 

ok, enough of that.

2. beets.

i hate beets. ray loves them. i don't care how good they are for me. i don't care if they have lots of iron and stuff like that. they taste like dirt, and no amount of salt or butter will ever change that. so, needless to say, when we got beets in our csa, i made ray eat them. i ate a few just to confirm my hatred. the only way i could choke them down was to totally revert back to 2nd grade and hold my nose while i ate them. bleeech!!!

just cause you don't see a hunk of meat on that plate, don't think for a minute that the veganist is getting to me. cause the next morning i ate this.....

.... farm fresh happy chicken eggs, toast with plenty of raw milk butter and local honey, and a tall glass of raw cow milk. take that vegan lady!!!!

3. my new bike (which i do not have a picture of yet)

well this not so much burns my butt, per se, but it sure is hurting from yesterday's inaugural ride around town. ouchy!!!!!! viva la bicyclette!!!

and the milk rides shotgun

it's here! it's here! i can't tell you from where or how, but it's here. finally i got some raw milk. and to boot, it comes in a reusable glass container. how granola is that??!!?? to get it home, mr. milk had to ride shotgun in a little cubbyhole i made for him. buckle up!!

since it's not all that easy to pour the milk from a huge gallon jar, i'll keep just a bit in a pitcher for easier everyday use. score!!! little by little, inch by inch, we're moving away from the big bad wholefoods market. take that you icky GMO lover!!!

last post from g'ville

last post cause in about 10 minutes the computer is going into a box for it's long journey to st. louis. next time you hear from me i will be in the gateway to the west. so here is a quick look at some lasts....

last harvest from the 2010 garden.

last meal cooked in the kitchen.

last nap.

i know i will have super fun in stl with the happy family back together again and i can't wait for the new adventure to begin. but for now i gotta make this short, for i need to get back to packing. i still got a ways to go before the movers get here in the morning. but first here is a quick list of things i will miss about good ole g'ville....

1. raw milk
2. meat in a jar
3. farm tours
4. hubba bubba bbq in flatrock
5. asheville, nc
6. pig girl, colby, and the rest of the brown/caldwell gang
7. art and light gallery
8. did i say meat in a jar
9. all the awesome little towns around here, soluda, hendersonville, etc.
10. general merchandise
11. MEAT IN A JAR!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

bye bye g'ville. it's been fun.

thanksgiving 2009

thanksgiving breakfast.
(must start off the day with a local bang and get fortified for the cooking marathon.)

*local pastured raised bacon
*local farm fresh eggs from the raw dairy guy and his happy sunshine lovin bug scratching chickens
*homemade 1/2 wheat biscuits made from organic flour and local raw milk butter
*locally made strawberry rhubarb jam
*YUMMY!!!!!!

well folks there's really not a whole lot to talk about this week since the really fun stuff revolves around buy christmas gifts (and we can't talk about that yet). but i can give you a little run down of the thanksgiving dinner that ray and i made for ourselves. as you know, and for those of you who might not, we try to do as much local foods around here as possible. the next priority is organic, high frutose corn syrup free, minimally processed, AND after watching FOOD, INC with ray the other night, FACTORY FARM FREE. unfortunately this INCLUDES the BBQ!! oh precious pulled pork and ribs how i will miss you. (just wait til i get my hands on a small smoker/grill and learn to do them myself. we even stopped by the most wonderful bbq stand in all the world while running gift errands on saturday and only got a few veggie sides and cornbread for lunch). but anyway, here is how the thanksgiving feast went down.......

here's the main event.

*local pastured raised pork roast.

i decided to braise the pork in apple cider.

*USA grown organic onions
*locally made apple cider
*rosemary from my own garden
*organic bay leaves

see you in a little while. into the oven you go.
at the end of cooking the roast, i took out the meat and then simmered the liquid down into a wonderful apple cider onion sauce.

at one point i had all the burners going and something in the oven. now just think what i could do if i had one of those super duper 6 burner gas stoves!!!!

here we have it folks.

*braised local pasture raised pork in a local apple cider and organic onion sauce
*USA grown organic mashed potatoes with locally grown garlic and local happy cow buttermilk
*homemade USA grown cranberry sauce (not sure if the cranberries were organic, but the oranges and the sugar i used were).
*cornbread dressing with homemade cornbread from organic corn meal with organic onions, organic mushrooms, and celery.
*braised brussel sprouts (i'm not sure of the sprout's history since ray got them on the way home one night).

here's a close up for the pork with the most wonderful sauce.

and here is my dinner company not wanting to get his picture taken. too bad.

all gone!!!!

ms. maisy moo lynn would like some thanksgiving treats.
maisy laid under the table at my feet all dinner long.
sweet girl.

mr. keebs was to busy looking for the kitty.
he saw this kitty out in the yard the other night and has been looking out the front door windows for about 2 weeks now. he does this every night for hours.

oh, wait i forgot to tell you about the pie.

PIE!!??!!

sweet potato buttermilk pie.
(recipe borrowed from smitten kitchen)

*locally grown organic sweet potatoes
*local happy cow buttermilk
*farm fresh local happy chicken eggs
*organic butter (i ran out of the raw stuff)
*organic sugar and flour

poor maisy..........
still laying under the table waiting for her thanksgiving dinner and pie. sorry sweetie, remember you are on a fat old lady diet till we get a few more pounds off ya.

super cool backyard and a new dairy

i really should be working on the garden and sowing more seeds, but after a 1/2 day at work, a movie, a belly full of dinner, and trying to recover from either allergies or the creepy crud, all i feel like doing is sitting here and looking at garden blogs. this, of course, reminded me that i needed to pop up a little post on my own blog in order to show you my new favorite super cool backyard (which unfortunately is NOT mine). i've been reading through all my copies of organic gardening and mother earth news, and i came across this article about folks homesteading in an urban environment. ok, so it's not the first time i've read about this, however, until now, i have yet to be thoroughly awe struck and completely motivated to turn my plot into something beyond a cute little garden. here is their super cool blog and here is a picture of their super cool backyard. and even better than that, i showed ray the pictures and he is totally on board in trying to accomplish something similar at our house! now i just gotta drag out the thick, thick, super thick book of the neighborhood rules and restriction to see exactly how far i can take this without getting into a big heap of trouble. not to mention that i have started a little notebook about green lawn care and alternatives to a grass lawn for ray and he is all about it. but it's not like he has been using chemicals on the yard. no chemical here folks. boy does he ever like to hand pick his weeds. he'll do it for hours like some kind of weed meditation. (wow, now that i read that back, it sounds so...so....so dirty!!!) so soon i will be posting up pictures of the yard as it looks now and will keep posting as we progress on the new project.
till then i leave you with pictures of the new dairy where i am now getting my raw milk. not that there was anything wrong with the other dairy, but this new dairy has some definite benefits. for one you can go there and get milk at anytime day or night, and since they have a bigger production they are never out of the milk. also they have butter, buttermilk, and cream for purchase that is made with their raw milk, as well as, fresh pasture raised eggs. yummy!!

new dairy.

cows roaming freely in the pasture.

so the cows are on one side of the street and the milking parlor on the other side.

check that out!!!!
look at them crossing the street all orderly and such.
i'm sure the thrill of it is gone for the kelseys, but that was one of the coolest things i've seen in awhile.

i wonder what they talk about on the walk over?
how many "why did the cow cross the street?" jokes do you think they have?

i'm coming, i'm coming!! hold your bovines!!

DUKE!!!! WHAT THE??!!??

more cows, two goats, and a jane

here are some more cow pictures that i scanned last night from mr. white's jersey dairy.

hello there.
"it's 4 am, time for milking."

say raw milk cheese.

are you looking at me?

i think they are discussing the crazy chick over there by the fence taking their picture.

not cows.

jane... my little puggle friend that i walk at lunchtime four days a week.

got raw local milk??

in an effort to feel more productive on this friday evening, i decided to scan in some pictures i took last fall. this one of a cow patiently waiting in the milking parlor to do it's thing, is definitely the clear winner. it was taken over at mr. white's dairy, which is where we get our raw milk. this lovely lady most likely had a hand in providing the milk i drank with the cookies that i ate this evening for dinner. with only 7 miles between me and the dairy, that's what i call local. thanks moo cow!

do you know the cows where your milk is produced?????

catching up in the kitchen

to understand what has been going on in the kitchen, i must first tell you about a few of the goodies i acquired over the holidays. twice we stopped at a lodge cast iron outlet and bought a few pieces of cookware. three pieces to be exact. a small skillet, a 10 inch round griddle, and a two quart serving pot which i have nicknamed "mini dutch." (i so wish i had pictures to share with you, but the battery in my digital camera was dead.) also, ever since i started making bread, i've been on the look out for a bread box. i wanted a vintage one, but i still needed it to go along with the current kitchen decor. not an easy task i must say. but at christmas, i remembered that my grandmother had a pretty darn cool silver one in the garage that she offered to me a long time ago when she gave me the matching canisters. but the bread box seemed pretty dirty, and since i really didn't have need for one at the time, i declined. but now it is mine. i was going to get navel jelly to help with the rust, but once i got it home, it clean up pretty nicely considering where it had been living over the last decade or two.

grandma's old chrome bread box and my new cast iron cookware. ray and i have decided that we are going to, piece by piece, replace all the current cookware with the lodge cast iron. also i am very much hoping to go to the cornbread festival over in tennessee this year.

since returning home i've been putting the new cast iron to work.

here we have morning oatmeal with pecans from my nannie's yard.

the griddle gave us some of my best pancakes thus far.

buttermilk pecan pancakes.

although i could get four pancakes on the griddle, it worked best with just two or three at a time. these babies needed room to grow.

all that, plus the good fortune soup, a loaf of traditional irish soda bread, and two batches of cookies that were ravenously eaten before i could photograph them, bring us up to today. a lazy sunday. so i started the day off by making a new batch of local raw milk yogurt. again i must give props to the yogurt maker.

isn't she pretty.

then i decided that today was the day to make the chicken and rice soup that i had been thinking about for the last few days. for some mysterious reason i have been obsessed with soup lately. i know the weather has turned cool again, and i am a lover of the soup, but lately the soup urge has been overwhelming. i couldn't figure out what was going on. but then, yesterday, in the bathroom at earthfare, it all became clear. there on the calendar of events taped to the back of the stall door.......january, national soup month. well there you have it folks. that explains the good fortune soup from the post a few post ago, the wonderful batch of mushroom and wild rice soup from last week, and today's lunch.....homemade chicken soup with left over collard greens and sweet brown rice. not only is soup a good way to use up left over veggies in the frig, but it gives me something to take for lunch all week long.

mushroom soup with wild rice.
this soup lasted forever and got better and better as the days went by.


time to get this soup party started.
garlic, carrots, onion, celery, sweet brown rice, and although the container says seven stars yogurt, it is really homemade chicken stock. i saved a bunch of the yogurt containers back in the day when we would buy our yogurt at the store. they work great for filling up with stock and putting in the freezer. which reminds me, with only one container left, the carcass of the chicken i used in the soup today will become homemade stock next week.

also, this week at work i got some of the coolest garden advice. i've been sad, since the disappearance of nicki's pig, at putting all my perfectly good veggie scraps in the garbage can. since i can't put a compost heap in the yard (damn those neighborhood convents) and i have yet to buy one of those stupid plastic bins you can turn and turn and in 14 days have compost, the garbage can was the only other option. that was until the genius that is our client who works at a gardening store, and i hear one heck of a home gardener herself, gave me this most awesome of awesomeness's tip. she told me to save my veggie scraps and then little by little bury them about 4 inches deep all around my garden in little veggie graves. by the time you make it all around the garden, the first area is ready for more. sounds simple i know, but i would have NEVER thought of this. GENIUS!!! so today was the first day of saving my scraps. i also found a spare coffee tin that i am now filling with my used coffee grounds. i know, i know, i should have done that long before now.

making soup and saving the veggie trimmings in my super cool vintage bowl.


crap..... i almost forget the left over collards.
they were the whole reason i was making this soup to begin with.


all done!!!!
and what goes better with soup than a nice loaf of crusty bread?


what the F#*@&^K!!!!
no bread!!!!!!
no worries i will just whip up some of my new favorite bread.....
IRISH SODA BREAD


what's cool about this bread is it is SO EASY. and since yeast is not involved, you don't have to wait all day for the bread to rise and then rise again. just mix the ingredients in a bowl, kneed ever so slightly, pop it in the oven and about 30 minutes later.....bread!
here i'm making a white flour loaf with rosemary and pepper.
not a true traditional irish soda bread according to this website, but the brown loaf i made earlier this week was.


and not only is it easy, but when i baked it in mini dutch, the outside was wonderfully crusty and the inside was so tender and moist.


a wonderful lazy sunday lunch.

"gotta use up the left over collards"
chicken and sweet brown rice soup

3 cups homemade chicken stock
about the same amount water
1 cup apple cider
1 cup white wine
fresh thyme from the garden
copious amount of chopped collard greens
6 carrots
1 onion
6 stalks of celery
3 cloves of garlic
1 cup sweet brown rice
some chopped chicken

(notes: i didn't have that much thawed chicken stock, and afraid the rice would soak up a lot of it, i added some water to give myself enough liquid. but then i was afraid of losing flavor, even though the veggies would give off a good bit during cooking, so i also added some apple cider. also my chopped chicken came from the dismembered locally raised lemon pepper roasted chicken that i bought at earthfare.)

saute onion, garlic, carrots, celery, and thyme in some butter and olive oil. add cup of wine and cook till most of the wine has cooked off. add chicken stock, water, and apple cider. bring to boil and throw in collards. about 10-15 minutes later add rice. cook until collards and rice are tender. add chopped chicken and continue until chicken is heated through. then enjoy.

don't forget!!!! while the soup is simmering, make your easy as pie irish soda bread. i followed the recipe found here for the white soda loaf, but strayed from tradition a bit by adding in fresh rosemary from my garden and cracked black pepper. yummy!!!!