Sing a Song of Ascent

Today is the winter solstice. Here in Colorado that moment occurs at 10:47 AM and from there we inch steadily toward summer.

Old Sol captured yesterday morning as it crested the hogback's southern pass. During summer months the sun crests at a point north of this image's left border.

From Wikipedia:

The Winter Solstice occurs exactly when the earth’s axial tilt is farthest away from the sun at its maximum of 23° 26′. Though the Winter Solstice lasts an instant in time, the term is also colloquially used like Midwinter to refer to the day on which it occurs. For most people in the high latitudes this is commonly known as the shortest day and the sun’s daily maximum position in the sky is the lowest. The seasonal significance of the Winter Solstice is in the reversal of the gradual lengthening of nights and shortening of days. The Winter Solstice is also the shortest day or lowest sun position for people in low latitudes located between the Tropic of Cancer (23°26′N) and the Tropic of Capricorn (23°26′S).^[1] Depending on the shift of the calendar, the winter solstice occurs some time between December 21 and December 22 each year in the Northern Hemisphere, and between June 20 and June 21 in the Southern Hemisphere.^[2]

Think Outside the Can: suggested uses for fresh pumpkin & squash

butternut, acorn, sweet dumpling squash and pumpkins remain in season

I’m fond of pumpkins and winter squash. I like to grow them, enjoy cooking with their sweet, nutty meat and adore roasting and eating the seeds.

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butternut sage goat cheese pizza

I make pumpkin butternut pie, classic pumpkin pie, spicy pumpkin-raisin scones, butternut-sage pizza, stuffed acorn squash, baked pumpkin in both the French and Mexican styles and pumpkin soup.

buffalo chili in a pumpkin bowl

I also use mini pumpkins as chili bowls. While I’m not going to share each of these recipes in this entry, here are a few of my favorite fresh butternut squash and not-from-a-can pumpkin recipes.

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Pumpkin Butternut Pie

My pumpkin butternut pie features reduced sugar and half the milk fat of traditional pumpkin pie. The applesauce/ginger combo contributes a little zing.

Ingredients

2 nine-inch unbaked deep dish pie crusts

1 ½ cup sugar ( ½ white and ½ brown is nice)

¾ teaspoon salt

1 teaspoon ground cinnamon

1 teaspoon ground ginger

½ teaspoon ground nutmeg

¼ teaspoon ground cardamom

¼ cup unbleached white flour

2 teaspoons vanilla

4 eggs

½ cup unsweetened applesauce

2 cups baked, mashed pumpkin

1 ½  cups baked, mashed butternut squash

1 (12 oz) can evaporated milk

1 (12 oz) can fat free evaporated milk

Directions

1. Preheat oven to 350.

2. Combine sugar, flour, salt, spices in small bowl. Lightly beat eggs, applesauce and vanilla in large bowl; add pumpkin and sugar-spice mixture. Gradually stir in evaporated milk. Place fork-pierced pie shells on jellyroll pan, fill.

3. Bake for an hour or until toothpick inserted near center comes out clean. Cool on wire rack for 2 hours. Serve immediately or refrigerate.

HINT: to avoid spills, fill pie shells after placing them on oven racks.

OPTIONAL: place pecan halves around the outer rim of the pie just before baking.

photo by Giggle

Want a more traditional pumpkin pie recipe? Mark Bittman posted a lovely from-scratch pumpkin pie recipe on his blog, here.

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Pumpkin as a side dish

French-style baked pumpkin: place 3” pumpkin wedges flesh up on jellyroll pan, grind pepper over it, bake 45 minutes (or until cooked) at 350; sprinkle with Muenster cheese, bake another 5 minutes. Serve.

Mexican-style baked pumpkin: place 3” pumpkin wedges flesh up on jellyroll pan, grind pepper over it, bake 50 minutes (or until cooked) at 350; move to serving platter, cover with chipotle salsa. Serve.

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A word about pumpkin butter:

I love a gingery pumpkin butter, and put up six luscious pints of it this season, though I’ll not post my recipe. Here’s why: the USDA says it is not safe to home can winter squash (which includes pumpkin) because wide variance in meat density creates problems in achieving an even, above-boiling temperature, without which the butter may harbor active botulism spores. Read all about it here.

Likewise, the USDA warns that family recipes –indeed any non-approved-by-them recipe—for home preserves should be discarded. Get the USDA canning guide and other great home preserving resources  here.

That said, know this: according to the CDC, there are 145 cases of botulism reported it the US each year, of those 15% are tied to home-canning. The US death rate from botulism, once about 70 per cent, is now around 7.5 per cent.

8 Tips for Beginning Snowshoers

For those in colder climes (and this week that would include Merry Old England), now is the perfect time to snowshoe. If you can walk, you can snowshoe. It’s that easy; but there are considerations beyond putting your left foot forward.  Here are 8 quick tips to help make your family outing a grand success!

Don’t rush out to buy: rent

Try different styles, makes and models before investing in a pair of ‘shoes.  We rented four different brands before settling on the Mountain Safety Research (MSR) Denalis. I like the way the MSRs sound on the snow and appreciate the grip afforded the wearer by the toothed metal bar, but the biggest advantage, for me, is this: the MSR rubber fasteners are fast, easy and don’t get tangled. I hate messing with wet ribbon straps.

Don’t over do it

While snowshoeing is a lot like walking, the gait is different and thus uses your muscles differently. Avoid muscle pulls and aches by limiting your first few times out to a couple miles.

Dress in layers

I wear a long-sleeved capilene top with a front zipper, a fleece jacket and thick ski tights when snowshoeing. This ensemble, while perhaps not perfect for a jaunt into the corner store, does keep me perfectly warm. I snowshoe the Colorado Rockies where we get some mighty serious wind chill. I’m usually on a hill, thus am creating plenty of body heat, so I regulate by zipping and unzipping the base layer and by rolling up my jacket sleeves.

Mittens or gloves?

Both. Wear liner gloves under mittens to keep your digits warm and dry. The liners will help keep moisture off your skin while mittens help retain your body heat.

Get gaiters

Gaiters keep your feet dry, something you want to do in the winter if you’d also like to keep your toes.

Let me tell ya where to go

Go to a familiar area. Blowing snow can quickly cover tracks, so don’t think you can rely on following your own tracks back to your car. Better to know well the area, then you are not as likely to get lost. Additionally, roads to popular trails are usually on the snow removal list.

Pack more food, water

It’s wise to pack extra food and water when going out in winter, because sometimes stuff just happens. Since snowshoeing requires extra energy, you’d best have eats on hand.

Finding your way

I always carry a compass, but in whiteout conditions, a GPS trumps a compass. A few years back, we were six miles from our car when a brisk wind came up and quickly obliterated the tracks we had just put down. Our GPS kept us on the straight and narrow and directed us back to our vehicle. Think worse case scenario. Here’s the thing: worse case rarely happens, so planning for that almost guarantees your total success. After all, you’re ready for anything, right?

Want more?

Here’s the REI expert advice page for snowshoeing.

Happy Holy Days

I suppose you’ve heard about the reinvigorated campaign against Christmas commercialism. You can read the story here.

It’s an interesting question of balance, this celebrating the birth of Christ and the winter solstice and Chanukah and Kwanzaa together (however separately) and also trying to remain focused on the spiritual component of the season.

I’m all for restraint. I’m also all for festivities that invite soul searching and why-am-I-here type questions. I’m not wild about materialism any day of the week, least of all during these holy days.

I think our task during the holidays is to invoke good cheer. It isn’t what you buy or even what you say that makes the season of giving bright. Instead it is –as it is always—what is in your heart. So go on, give a smile, there’s more than a few people in need of those. And some of them aren’t even Christians, if you can imagine that.

Homemade English Muffins, or how to improve an already good thing

These muffins freeze well and make a great, fast breakfast.

English muffins are neither English nor muffins, but that won’t matter to your family when you serve them fresh off the griddle! Your loved ones will be wowed by the nooks and crannies, but they won’t miss the dough conditioners and preservatives found in the commercial version. (Click here to read more about bread additives.)

I’ve been making English muffins a few years, but recently stumbled upon Alton Brown’s Food Network recipe and embarked upon a voyage of discovery. Here’s the thing, I will often read four or five recipes on the ‘net, then return to a circa 1970 Rodale book or a more recent Cooking Light volume for guidance. My recipes are often an amalgamation of this process. But there was something about Alton Brown’s recipe that made me want to prepare it the moment I read it. And I’m glad I did, because his version produces top quality fork-split muffins. In that regard, it is far better than the recipe I have been using. If, however, you don’t have English muffin rings, and aren’t looking to invest in a half dozen (which, if purchased online, will run you about $16, shipped) there’s little point in mixing the batter. Trust one who has tried coffee cans, tuna cans, homemade aluminum foil rings and, yes, bona fide English muffin rings: you need the real deal.

These top two recipes will turn out respectable muffins without the special muffin rings or the #20 ice cream scoop called for in Brown’s recipe. The first recipe is from Nitty Gritty Cookbooks’ 1975 Bread Baking written by Lou Pappas. The second is my adaptation.

Sourdough English Muffins

Yield: 2 dozen muffins

Ingredients

1 cup sourdough starter (here’s my favorite starter recipe)

2 cups milk

4 ½ cups all-purpose flour

2 TBS sugar

1 1/2 tsp salt

1 tsp soda

cornmeal

Directions

Combine starter, milk and 4 cups of flour in a large mixing bowl; mix well. Cover with a dish towel and let stand at room temperature 8 hours or overnight. Mix remaining ½ cup flour with sugar, salt and soda; sprinkle over dough and mix well. Turn dough out onto a floured board and knead a few minutes or until no longer sticky. Roll out dough ¾ inch thick and cut into rounds. Sprinkle a jelly roll pan with cornmeal; set muffins on top, leaving at least ½ inch between. Dust tops with cornmeal; cover and let rise in a warm place until doubled. Cook on a griddle set to 275 degrees for 8-10 minutes per side. Split and toast.

Who wants a fresh muffin?

My Adaptation

Yield: 2 dozen muffins

For efficiency’s sake, I double this recipe and freeze muffins we will not consume within a few days. (which sounds slightly noble until you learn that we usually stand over the griddle, grabbing just-cooked muffins and slathering same with better butter.

Ingredients

1 cup sourdough starter (again, here’s my favorite starter recipe

2 cups milk

3 cups unbleached white flour

1 cup whole wheat flour

3 TBS vinegar (my homemade vinegar recipe )

1 1/2 TBS sugar

1 1/4 tsp salt

1 ½ tsp soda

masa harina

Directions are the same as above

Notes: I habitually reduce sugar and salt in recipes, figuring that we can do without some of each. This habit has never produced a bad result. I also habitually substitute a portion of white flour with whole wheat to boost nutrition. Care must be used here, as whole wheat is a far heavier flour, thus too much will change the texture of your finished product. As a rule of thumb, I use between 30 and 50% whole wheat flour in a given recipe. I routinely substitute masa harina for cornmeal when used as a coating in bread recipes: masa is finer, and adds a pleasing flavor to bread. Also, I find, masa purchased in the Hispanic aisle of my local grocer is a fraction of the cost of cornmeal. I have been experimenting with adding vinegar to sourdough bread as a way to boost the tang. I lifted the idea right off the ingredients label of a particularly tangy sourdough bread made by a regional organic bakery. This time I used 3 TBS of my homemade sage and garlic flavored vinegar. I add more baking soda for the same reason I add vinegar.

Brown's version served with homemade apple butter & better butter

Alton Brown’s English Muffin Recipe

Yield: 8 to 10 muffins

Ingredients

1/2 cup non-fat powdered milk

1 tablespoon sugar

1 teaspoon salt

1 tablespoon shortening (OK, I admit it: I used olive oil)

1 cup hot water

1 envelope dry yeast

1/8 teaspoon sugar

Brown's version produces superior nooks and crannies

1/3 cup warm water

2 cups all-purpose flour, sifted

Non-stick vegetable spray (I used olive oil here too)

Special equipment: electric griddle, 3-inch metal rings, see Alton’s Note*

Directions

Combine powdered milk, 1 TBS sugar, 1/2 tsp salt, shortening, and hot water; stir until sugar and salt dissolve fully; cool. Combine yeast and 1/8 tsp sugar with 1/3 cup warm water, allow to rest until yeast has dissolved. Add yeast mixture to dry milk mixture. Sift in the flour and beat thoroughly; cover with dish towel and let rest 30 minutes in a warm spot.

Add remaining 1/2 tsp salt to mixture and beat thoroughly. Place metal rings onto the griddle and coat lightly with vegetable spray. Place a ¼ cup batter into each ring. Cover with a pot lid or jelly roll pan; cook on 300 degree griddle for 5-6 minutes. Uncover; flip rings; replace cover. Cook another 5-6 minutes or until golden brown. Place on a cooling rack, remove rings and let cool. Split with fork and serve.

*Alton’s Note: Small tuna cans with tops and bottoms removed work well for metal rings.

Esmaa’s Note: Forget about the tuna cans. For one thing, commercial food cans are now usually lined with plastic, which leaches BPA (read more about associated health risks here.) Then there’s the issue that newfangled rounded edge can bottoms no longer lend themselves to the can opener process as did the water chestnut can (pictured) that I’ve been using as a biscuit cutter for nigh onto 30 years. Also, forget making the tin foil rounds as suggested by a commenter on Mr. Brown’s recipe page unless you don’t mind the trouble to create a new form for each muffin. At least I couldn’t remove the muffin without destroying the foil round.

Brown's version ready to come off the griddle

Gardening in the Frosty Air

Our backyard this morning: 0 degrees

Ma Nature has been snowin’ an’ blowin’ up bushels of fun all week. With luck, we’ll see above freezing temperatures tomorrow. So how is it that I have bell and habanero peppers in my unheated greenhouse?

Because jingle bell time is a swell time to go rockin a greenhouse plot!

Listen, the weather outside is frightful, but fresh veggies so delightful. Which is why I keep my greenhouse rocking around the clock. And so can you.

Cold air sinks, thus the first weather-wise winter greenhouse maneuver is to elevate your garden at least three feet off the floor (or ground). Air temperature is one thing (note the semi happy leaves of the basil plant in the image below), soil temperature quite another.  The soil temperature in these raised beds is 50 degrees F, despite the fact that the outside temperature has not been above freezing in about a week.

sweet basil the morning after a -10F overnight (32F in the greenhouse)

Checking the temps before the sun crests the hogback: outside temp: -10F, inside air temp: 32F, raised bed soil temp: 50F

Got pots? We have permanent raised beds inside our greenhouse, and that’s nice, but it isn’t necessary to convince your garden to grow. You can elevate your potted garden quickly and inexpensively by making benches from straw bales. Turn those straw benches into space heaters by wrapping them in black fabric or plastic. Add another layer of heat with water-filled gallon milk jugs and cover the entire affair with foam overnight and you will be amazed by what you can grow in your greenhouse during the cold season.

loving their distress: habaneros producing winter fruit

This habanero demonstrates my thesis that hot pepper plants perform best when their life is threatened. A happy pepper grows leaves. Make your pepper fear for its life and it puts its energy into progeny, which we tend to see as fruit.

One drawback to all-season greenhouse gardening is that bug populations can thrive. During winter months when the greenhouse vents are mostly kept closed to reduce heat loss, I don’t like to use Neem and instead use insecticidal soap in the battle against bugs. As you can see, right now the bugs have the upper hand on the habanero. I’m tireless, though, so you’ll still want to bet on me.

I’ve blogged about this before (here) but thought I’d give you a few quick photos showing how I use milk jugs and sheet foam to keep hot season peppers producing even though Ma Nature is gifting us with layer upon layer of snow.

low tech heaters: water-filled gallon jugs and sheet foam

place 1/4" sheet foam over the low tech heater base

give your plants a foam blankie

tuck your babies in for the night

Uncover your plants when the sun is out or when temperatures rise above 50 degrees, cover them again before the sun sets, and you’ll be jingle gardening ’round the clock!

The Lovely Warmth of Snow

It has been cold and snowy three full days; I’m well on the way to a pair of lumberjackesque shoulders from all the shoveling. I clear snow for exercise, thus remove far more frosted flakes than would most people, but then again, snow gives me the warm fuzzies.

Snow also gives our unheated greenhouse the warmish fuzzies. It’s six degrees Fahrenheit outside and we’ve received next to no direct sun in three days, yet our unheated greenhouse temperatures range from 41 to 37.

This atomic clock and thermometer is in the sunroom portion of the greenhouse’s west wing where it is usually warmer during the day and colder at night than is the main floor around the corner. <

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There’s been a blanket –literally— of snow on the greenhouse and that’s helped keep the air warmer.

close up of snow blanket as seen from inside greenhouse

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I couldn’t get a decent photo due to low light conditions, but the main floor’s soil thermometer, inserted next to the carrots in the raised bed, reads 49 degrees. <br <br> <b r>> <br> <br>

The aforementioned carrots are in the first bed in the last image.

Warm season plants, jalapeno, bell pepper and habanero, are covered with ¼” sheet foam. Warm air rises from the soil and is held in place by the foam. In addition, there are gallon jugs filled with water next to these temperature sensitive plants.

the main floor as seen from the mezzanine

For more on winter greenhouse gardening, see this post.

The predicted high today is 8 degrees with an overnight of -1. That snow blanket will serve us well tonight. Sunny skies are predicted to return tomorrow and for the remains of the week. Photosynthesis shall resume then.

Dis b da Winter o’ my Content

While the world’s policy makers and shakers are focused on Copenhagen, I’m looking at a snowy hogback … and boy is my perspective skewed!

Up Ice Creek

Through the Glass Darkly (enlarge to appreciate Jack Frost's artistry)

Jaws of Life? Water begets snow begets icicles begets water begets life.

Poetry in Granite

Corn Frosted by Flakes

I actually have a point, well, a thought to share, anyway: regardless of what you see in the climate change debate, careful resource stewardship will benefit future generations. Don’t just gaze there, conserve something!

The Reserve of Turtle Beans

Or, more accurately: Finally, I got these things to grow!

I planted two new-to-me bean varieties this year. Cannelloni beans, also known as white, or Italian kidney beans, (all about dry bean varieties here) and turtle beans.

Both smallish plots of cannelloni germinated and grew well, giving us a nice introduction to growing and drying this tasty variety.

The black beans, however, were not a bright spot in my garden. Three times I planted. Three times the seeds failed to germinate. A deficient crop in my garden? Harumph! Why, it got to the point that I seriously considered the possibility that I should perhaps have read a brief how-to for this variety before throwing seed in the general direction of the terrace gardens,  rather than depend on my decades of gardening experience. Ahem.

Or it could be that this variety, a staple in Latin American fare, is simply not well adapted to my Rocky Mountain clime? Yeah, probably the seed’s fault rather than, say, mine. Ahem again.

But if one sows then saves seeds from a specific gene pool, over a few years, one creates a seed that is more adapted to her growing environment. (read all about saving seeds) So here’s what I did: I took the final half dozen black bean seeds and planted them in the greenhouse with enough time left in the fall to germinate, grow and dry seeds.

turtle beans grown for seed

A few days before Thanksgiving I harvested pods. Some of the seeds look a wee bit purpley and I’m none too certain they’ll germinate or grow a decent crop of beans, but I will try my germination test before I plant them outside next year. I’ll also hold back a few pods for another go at generating a crop of seeds next fall. Eventually I, hope, I’ll be able to convince this shy bean variety of its hearty welcome here on the hogback.

Where the Deer & the Antelope Play

The Never Summer range (CO) as seen from Cheyenne Ridge, WY.

(click on the picture for a larger version)

Have you ever wondered what part topography plays in determining the makeup of a populace? I frequent this grey matter arena whilst we investigate the grand landscape called northern Colorado.

Twenty-five miles north of Fort Collins sits Red Mountain Open Space, 15,000 acres of geological wonder and ungulates. This is where the deer and the antelope play.

Red Mountain Open Space is closed for the winter, but the day before the season ended, we hiked nearly every mile of trail in this open space park, including the Cheyenne Ridge trail, which took us into Wyoming.

Here’s a smattering of images taken during our ungulate-rich trek in and out of Wyoming.

We saw this herd of pronghorn a few miles outside the park, and many times this number within the park.

Longs and Meeker as seen from Wyoming. Mountain mahogany (foreground) adorns hillsides throughout the park.

Table Mountain (CO) as seen from Cheyenne Ridge (WY)

(click on any image for a larger version)

a few of the three or four dozen mule deer we saw in the park

Descending Cheyenne Ridge into Big Hole. Most the 200 pronghorn we saw were up on the ridge, as was the lone coyote we witnessed. The mule deer were grazing the area shown. In addition, we saw bobcat tracks in the snow in this area.

The west entrance to Bent Rock Canyon.

Late day contrasts in Bent Rock Canyon, the jewel of the park (according to me).

Swallow nests in Bent Rock Canyon.

The bend.