The Muddy Kitchen: Easy Beans

Beans are not hard! Well, they are at first, but then you cook them, which is not hard.

The day before I know I'm going to make something with beans, I buy a bag of them at the store and bring them home. As I put them in the pantry, I think to myself, "I'll get started on those beans early tomorrow! Dinner will be a snap!".

The next day, and this part is very important, I totally forget to cook the beans. Or worse, I remember to cook the beans several times, but decide to keep doing what I'm doing at the time, instead of starting them. Somewhere around 3:00 pm, I think, "Oh no! I need to get those beans on!" and find a big pot and lid.

Easy How To: Fill the pot about 3/4 with water, put a lot of salt in, and dump a bag of beans in, after rinsing them off. (When you're rinsing the beans, check for and remove little pebbles or weird screwed-up beans.) Crank the heat up under them. Let the water boil for a couple of minutes, remove from heat, and cover. Go back to forgetting about them until around 4:30 or 5 pm.

If you have other prep work to do, this is a good opportunity for that.

For the pictured dish, I chop a couple of onions and green peppers, and mince some garlic.

After a while, remember that the beans still need to be cooked and put them on low-medium heat and keep it there for another hour or so. Add water to keep the beans immersed, if necessary.

Here's more of what I did for the pictured beans and rice dish. I learned it from Mark Bittman's How to Cook Everything. In your biggest pot, heat a few tablespoons of oil and sautée the onions and peppers in cumin (at least a few tablespoons) until they're getting soft and the onions are almost translucent. Add the garlic and cook for a couple of minutes. Then, dump in a couple of cups of brown rice and twice as many cups of water. Bring to a boil and reduce heat to simmer. Here's where I add the beans that have been cooking. May as well let it all cook together in the same pot. I don't even drain the beans first. It all goes in! Aren't you glad you used the big pot? I cook it all until everything is tender, turn off the heat, and stir in two cans of coconut milk.

Then, serve massive amounts of it to some delightful children. You can skip that step, but I don't recommend it. I think this sight really brings out the taste of the cumin.

This dish is a hit in our house. It's cheap, it's easy, and it makes top-notch leftovers. The kids sigh about how much they love it and groan about how full they get from eating it. My ulterior goal is to teach them to cook it for themselves before they leave home for Their Adult Lives. On my mental list of survival recipes, this is at the top.

Goes to Market: Food Eating, a Backyard Manifesto

Do you eat food? Thought so! That makes you part of something called a food system. How's that feel?

Every time you buy something and eat it, you are participating in a massive operation by which food is produced somewhere, processed somewhere else, and made available to you somewhere else. If all you do is buy and eat food, you may feel like a less-than-influential player, but nothing could be farther from the truth. As a matter of fact, you're part of the largest, most powerful group in the system. Nobody doesn't eat. Well, I take that back. There are these people, and if you are one of them, you can skip this post. Shouldn't you be outside staring at breakfast, anyway?

Here at Backyard University, we learn about our role in the food system, and work to empower ourselves and our community to have access to the kind of food all humans need. Real Talk: We also eat a fair amount of frozen pizza and sweet luscious candy.

Food Roots is a local non-profit that we enjoy working with. Their aim is to help people in our area be more aware of their part in the food system, and be more effective in the role they choose to play. They accomplish this by serving as a Small Business IDA administrator, growing fresh produce for the local food bank in the Sacred Heart Garden, and updating and maintaining the North Coast Food Guide, among many other efforts.

Being a non-profit organization, they also have several fund-raising events throughout the year, one of which is their annual Incredible Edible Plant and Fruit Tree Sale. Last Saturday Thomas and I went to the plant sale, to lend a hand.

Before the sale started, we labeled tomato starts (plants that have been "started" for you, just add dirt and take credit in the fall).

We transplanted lettuce and tomatoes, and spent most of the sale time talking to people and helping whenever we could.

It is starting to feel like a spring tradition, going to the Food Roots plant sale.

Everyone comes out of their damp little homes to get ready for the sunny days we hope are ahead. There's a bit of catching up, comparing notes, and dispensing of gardening wisdom (mostly by Shelley Bowe, Food Roots Program Manager extraordinaire.)

Food Roots is on a clear mission, but what about Backyard University?

What is our zealous vision for the future? I could start frothing about organic local sustainable blahblahblah, but those definitions are subjective and they speak to a set of values that aren't necessarily universal. Sure, Monsanto is the devil, but what do we do about it? Eat "real food"? Like vegetables and fruit? Okay, does it have to be USDA-Certified Organic (an ever-cheapened standard)? And if so, can it be from Holland?

That's got to be a Sasquatchian carbon footprint. Is the only answer grazing on kale we grow in our backyard and staring at the sun? It's enough to make a girl buy a box of Twinkies from the local convenience store and completely ignore an egg recall. Who eats eggs anymore anyway?

No, this isn't about making our dreams come true. If it were, we'd have an anvil cannon . This is about building personal strength, through awareness and skill development. The students at Backyard University learn how to grow and make food. They learn that it's a little hard, always rewarding, kind of fun, and sometimes weird.

They learn to experiment and cook food they love to eat. They are encouraged to see the food system around them and work within it to support the things they believe in. That's why you'll see us in a garden most sunny days, and at the Tillamook Farmer's Market this summer, working at the Food Roots Community Table and selling our wares. But, if you check the candy aisle at our local big chain mega-grocery store from time to time, you might see us there too. We do so love sweet sweet candy.

Tails and Tidings: Laszlo! by Thomas

It was September, on a rainy cold afternoon. When all the other dogs at the shelter looked their scariest. The reddest teeth. But that afternoon, we found the dog that was perfect. Laszlo!

He is my dog. You can say that, if you want.

My mom said he was perfect for me, my dad was reluctant, but I thought he was the perfect dog. The perfect little monster! He even tried to escape once, drool around his teeth. And he had his head stuck in a metal mesh fence. They got him out, he was no more than a nightmare. If he could remember that day once more, he could, something I can't talk about. Boy, he would do something bad.

But now let's go to the happy scenes :D The happy scenes are, he's just a cute little puppy.

He's done many things with me. He's gone to places with me. He'd done pretty much a lot of stuff with me. We've had him for seven months and I gotta say he's very nice. When mom sings to him, he shows his teeth, which is really cute.

One time we were at the beach,and me and mom and my big brother Henry were cleaning up, picking up trash. And I was waiting in the car and Laszlo was actually smiling, he was just so warm, sitting in her seat.

The Garden Dirt: Dreams of Mycelium

You've met Thomas. Here's something you might not know about him, he hates mushrooms. Always has. If you feel the same way, he's going to sit next to you and pitch freestyle origami airships at me while I tell you of our Mushroom Saga. I will try not to choke up, for it is a tale of hope and disappointment and more hope, and beeswax.

Last year, around this time, Geza built this stellar box of cow poop.

Think that's gross? Let me tell you a little secret: Everything good comes from poop. The endless flow of matter, through its cycle of growth and decay, is a constant riveting sci-fi romance ambigram, in which poop is the main character.

But, here's what's disappointing about this box of poop: It looked like this a year later.


It was supposed to be overflowing with lots of freaky shaggy mane mushrooms for us to eat! Ouch! Okay, except Thomas. Thomas was not disappointed. If you ask him, this tale of failure is a happy one. Case closed. If you ask me, it did not fruit* because we let it get too dry.

*"To fruit" is what you call making mushrooms. Now, go forth and think of mushrooms as fruit.

I used this kit. I'm sure it's a great kit, with lots of fungal potential, but we screwed it up somehow. In a case such as this, my expert advice, seasoned by years of experience, is to rake it up and use it for something else.

I felt knocked down, humbled, yet ready to give it another go. Most of us still love mushrooms, and to grow mushrooms would at least earn us honorary family membership in some sort of elf or fairy organization, which can't be a bad thing. Even Thomas can get on board with that. We will bring intentional fungus to Backyard University!

Most of the stuff we mail order for the garden comes from one place, Territorial Seed Company, mainly because they're fairly close to us. I ordered a new mushroom kit from them. The log kind this time. What does that mean? The first kit was mycelium* riding on some sawdust. It was supposed to go into the soil and bloom ' shrooms everywhere. You saw how that went. This kit has the mycelium embedded into small wooden dowels, in a corkscrew groove up the side.


*Mycelium is something like roots for a fungus, sort of. It's threadlike and is usually not seen, when there is fruiting fungus about, because it's embedded in some sort of substrate. That means covered in dirt or growing in/consuming a chunk of wood in most cases. In our case, we will be watching for it at the end of the logs. From what I've read, when the ends of your logs turn white, you've got a good mycelium growth going on inside and fruiting is hopefully right around the corner.

After choosing and preparing your log,, these little babies go into the drilled holes.

We went with alder, scavenged by friends, mostly. They break down the fastest, but they're so easy to find around here. I used beeswax to plug up the holes, otherwise the dowels would have slid right out of whichever side of the log faces down. Of course, if you drill a small enough hole, the dowel has to be hammered into place, so sealing isn't considered necessary.

I relied heavily on internet sources for information on how best to do this project. That little pamphlet that came with the kit is infinitely losable. There is abundance of advice on how to select and prepare a log, but, if you ask me, the tricky part is the beeswax. There's very little online about how to seal these holes up. The best advice I came across was, "Try not to start a fire". Will do, but I'd like to go one step better. Due to endless rain, this was happening in our kitchen, so we couldn't go slinging wax about all willy nilly.

I was afraid the wax being too hot might kill some of the fungus on the dowels, so I tried to let softened wax cool a little first by dipping my finger into it (once it's cooled enough to do that without pain). This amount of wax was perfect for closing up one hole. After rolling it off of my finger tip and into a little blob, it was quite easy to press into the space above the dowels. From what I've read, sealing wax will also work for this, but does sealing wax smell like honey? Does it give you many opportunities to say "beeswax", as in "mind your own.."? " Mind your own sealing wax?" There's a reason that never took off as a wildly popular English expression.

The mushroom kit came with three varieties, Pearl Oyster, Shittake, and Reishi.

In order to keep my logs straight, I carved a P, S, R into the sides and dripped wax on them, so that the grooves wouldn't be vulnerable to other, uninvited fungi.

Yes, I know you're a fun guy, but I just don't want you hanging around my Shittake, so beat it.

To seal the ends or not? This is hotly debated by would-be backyard mycologists the world over. Any part of the wood that isn't covered by intact bark or sealing wax is vulnerable to other fungi entry. Since the mycelium we're trying to cultivate needs to be the only fungus eating that log, we have to keep other stuff out. However, the biggest problem with getting mushroom logs to fruit is the log drying out. A log is sort of like a bundle of straws. The ends are where moisture enters and exits most readily. Sealing them up would greatly hinder the logs' ability to deliver moisture to its center. I'm leaving them open for now, and hoping all the other fun guys out there keep their distance.

If you ever decide to grow something in your yard, start with the south side. If you live in the US, that's going to be the the sunniest spot, most of the time. Now, guess where the shadiest spot is? North side! The north side of Backyard University is a shady netherworld, populated by mosses and ferns and occasionally, resentful anemic weeds. In short, prime mushroom garden spot.


This picture fills my heart with optimism. In life, some hopes go unrealized. Some efforts fall short. Perhaps, next year, Thomas' dreams will come true and I'll have to photograph logs that grew nothing but orange slime mold. But if that day comes, I will already have another kit and I will already be on the lookout for more cheap beeswax. For intentional fungi shall come to Backyard University! Our souls are inoculated with spores of hope and it's damp in there.

Tails and Tidings: How Things Got This Way and Goats

I don't want to start a fight.

You know, the old old old argument about Darwin and evolution and how everything got this way? In the interest of keeping on common ground, I'll say something humble, like: I don't think we can know it all. Learning and exploring new theories is sure a fun pursuit, but there's so much we humans don't understand about the workings of our own brain. Our brain, which is the only thing we have to understand anything else with! The folded-up futility of that notion makes me passive and drowsy.

I'm pretty sure of one thing though, if you have an opinion about evolution, you are probably getting it wrong.

First swing! Ha! You going to take that?

So, doesn't the old song go that all things want to evolve to some higher incarnation of themselves, in order that they may better survive and leave all the losers in their dust? Not according to Stephen Jay Gould, one of Geza's favorite scientists.

Many years ago, my smart, interesting husband told me, "Almost everyone misunderstands natural selection." I remember thinking, "Oh good, now let's stop talking about this." I didn't feel like being schooled. Instead I nodded and mmmd. He went on to describe something he was reading, by Mr. Gould, that sounded like a total blur at first, but slowly came into focus as I listened and thought about it. It stayed with me, and it affects the way I approach interaction with most animals, my own family included.

Let's see if I can break it down. Living things are the way they are, because the way things are works better than it doesn't work, for now. A sudden change in environment comes along and forces some traits to the outer edges of the gene pool, leaving behind the most advantageous traits, given the new situation. That's what reproduces most abundantly afterward, so that's what we see all around us. That's all.

Let me try again. Have we all seen one of these?

Pretend the pasta dough is all of the traits possible for any given species. Now, pretend the shape of the hole on the front plate is the environment. As the dough passes through the cut out, what doesn't fit is left behind and what's coming out is shaped exactly like the imposing demands of its environment. Change the circumstances surrounding the organism, and its traits change.

Living things are the way they are because of events that already happened to their genetic ancestors , not because they are striving to be more fit and thus survive better. How does this theory affect Backyard University? To Goat Mountain! (for goats only)


When we planned to get a pet goat and keep it in our backyard, we had lots of helpful friends trying to brace us for what to expect. Goats love to climb and are determined escape artists. The shelter where we adopted her and Tofu wanted to make sure we were aware of goats' hoof care needs.


I know she looks extra cute, but Inez is no different from all the other goats out there. She has needs. We, as her family, must accept that unless we want to make life more difficult for all of us. Who needs that fight?

Naturally, I started thinking of Stephen Jay Gould. I figured Inez was the way she was because of the history of the genes that brought her here.

Did you know that one of goats' persistent behaviors just so happens to aid them with a personal grooming matter? How on earth did goats get by without someone to provide farrier service for them? (That's hoof care.) It has something to do with their endless desire to put their hooves on everything and push against it.

Which came first; the handy ever-renewing hooves for climbing, or the insatiable craving to push their hooves against rocks, thereby filing them down? I don't know and I don't care. I just know I get to trim less off of my goat's hooves, less often, if I provide some little scrap of something resembling what might have been a more natural environment for her.

Granted, I don't know much about what that might really be. There are so many factors to consider and I am but a humble Spanish major. However, I have a faint hunch that our Land of Many Waters is less than ideal for hoof health. (say "hoof health" five times fast and I'll send you an apple-flavored pig treat).

We live in the muddiest town in the world, surrounded by big mountains. I'd love to move to those mountains someday, and take my goat (s?) with me. Until then, we have a mini mountain in our backyard.It was built by Geza, who personally hauled giant rocks from a nearby quarry in order to give Inez the kind of hoof-to-rock action she so richly deserves. I'll still have to trim those hooves, and Inez will never stop trying to climb everything in sight, but she seems very happy with this opportunity to put her instincts to good use.

NO KIDS ALLOWED! UNLESS YOU'RE A GOAT!

She was already giving the rouge rose bush I jammed into the top of it a run for its money when we left. She can climb it deftly and looks around from the highest spot in the yard, surveying her pig and dogs like a proud queen who just enjoyed a nice little climb. I have a feeling she'll love it, even on rainy days.

Brain Storms: Mathberries

What do strawberries and math have in common? George loves them both. George is my third boy, and at the moment he is five. To you and me that means he's been alive for five years, but to George, it goes a little beyond that. He = 5.

I hesitate to attempt to explain what is going on in George's mind. From where I stand, it looks like math is the most authentic language he's encountered so far. His ability to use English is far behind his peers, but his ability to use numbers and their relationships is far beyond that of me, a big smart grown-up.

Here he is doing some geometry with his math instructor dad.

This is sort of like the stuff I was doing in the 9th grade. He likes order, patterns, and things that make sense. That's why, when I wondered to myself how to build a strawberry tower in the garden, I decided to make it mathy. I wanted George to see something special in it, even if it doesn't yet offer big red berries for him to add to his breakfast on a summer morning.

I give you, Mathberry Tower:


Looking at it from the top, you can't tell that each of those shapes, or polygons, are a different level, "stacked" up, like a real tower; a real, short, somewhat delicate, tower. Not only is it three polygons stacked on top of each other, it is a triangle, a square, and a pentagon: 3, 4, 5. I imagine George dancing around it when it's in bloom.

Then I got some burlap. I know! It's thrilling.

Burlap is a very mathy fabric. It, the berries, and a way to make a new strawberry planter out of burlap were swirling around in my foggy head one morning. If I made a sack, and cut holes, I'd be stuck with edging the holes, that would be unraveling maddeningly.
No, I needed real inspiration.

I needed a toilet paper tube.

See?

Ah,

and?

You get the idea? Well, even if you're not sure, don't worry. Burlap is forgiving, as long as you give yourself a lot of extra on the edges to fold over and iron. If you don't do that, you incur the wrath of burlap and it will unravel on you mightily, eating up all of your precious seam allowance! Run!!

Once the sides of the strip are sewn down, the whole thing might look a little like Deep-Fried Burlap, with ripples and curves. Let these little irregularities be your friend. They make the strip coil up on its own, and give you more power to sculpt it as you sew the spiral into place.

Here's Mae, adding tiny baby pinches of sand to the soil, to make it drain better. Fun tip! A storage box and a commitment to sweep soon afterward are all you need for your toddler to enjoy playing in the dirt in the house. Real talk? She could have frolicked in the stuff accumulating under our air hockey table, but this looks so much more Montessori.


I hope I've given George yet another way to appreciate our mathberries, because this bending and twisting of fabric to achieve a 3D shape is a very interesting breed of math called topology. As math instructors always say, "Math is everywhere." They also ask if you've turned in your homework, and when you're going to make up that quiz you missed, but that's not something I can plant in, so I'm moving on.

Now that you know about topology, you'll see it everywhere: in landscapes and windsocks, toilet paper rolls and dog collars.

Or maybe you'll just go buy some fresh fruit and count the days until June. And think up more stuff to do with burlap.

How to Have Fun with Your Gun and Keep Your Mom Happy

Last summer, Henry said he wanted an air gun. He did jobs around the house to earn money, ordered it on eBay, and has shown a lot of responsibility in keeping it put away indoors, and using it safely outside. Just one problem, there were bright little plastic balls all over the garden. He received biodegradable pellets for Christmas, but this is how he managed to keep on shooting through fall.

The Muddy Kitchen: Tofu or Not Tofu?

Sure, tofu has a bad reputation. It's not exactly bursting with flavor or visual appeal. Gelatinous blocks of bean curd that don't even have the gall to taste very beany, mmmm. And you always read that tofu "takes on the flavors it's cooked with". I never noticed that. To my palette, tofu always managed to provide stubborn flavorlessness in cube form, no matter how delectable the soup or sauce it was floating around in.

Where am I going with this? A tofu recipe. A tofu recipe you might be able to believe in, because it is being passed on to you by somebody who "gets it", okay? Tofu is gross. I see things your way. You can trust me now. The following recipe might not make you love tofu, but it might just make you hate it less, which is saying a lot for a glistening chunk of colorless beanscum.

First, I'd like to clear up any confusion. This is not the Tofu I'm talking about.
This is Tofu, our pet pig, and she doesn't want to be deep-fried any more than I want to deep-fry her. She also has some nutty theories about the safety of soy food that hasn't been fermented. So, lest we go forward, patting ourselves on the back for eating "healthy", just know that nothing is so good for you that you should overdo it. More research, or a good dose of defeatism might be healthier than any one food choice. Besides, it's deep-fried, so it's all a lost cause. Let's just enjoy ourselves.

My friend, Marlene, sent me How to Cook Everything, by Mark Bittman, many years ago. I have used it more than I ever imagined using any cookbook. That's where I first saw the recipe for Deep-Fried Tofu, but I ignored it. I only hated deep-frying slightly less than I hated tofu.

Easy Girl, not you. I love you.

I gave fried tofu a chance when eating out at Momiji Chinese & Japanese Restaurant, in Lincoln City, Oregon. It was the whole gang of us, and all children were tired and hungry. As a parent, you pretty much sweat bullets, if you have any conscience at all, bringing a bunch of potentially volcanic kids into a restaurant. The first thing on the menu that jumped out at me was the Agedashi Tofu (deep fried cubes), on the appetizer section of the menu. It'd be out soon, it's sort of a finger food, and it's not spicy. Yes, two orders of that, please. It was fabulous, simple, and the kids woofed it down, so to speak. This is what led me to think maybe I would try it in my own kitchen.

Usually, I just serve it with sweet chili or soy sauce, but at Momiji, it was served with a sauce that I would guess contained rice vinegar and sesame oil.


First drain the tofu.

Relax, Baby. Still talking about the food.

I prefer to use firm over anything else. Slash the packages and let all the fluid drain out. Then cube it (1") and set the cubes on something absorbent, like a clean dishtowel. Give them all afternoon to dry. The drier they are, the easier they are to work with, which is the reason I go for firm when buying the tofu in the first place. Mark's recipe calls for the silken tofu, which is too much for me to mess with when I'm deep-frying.

When I'm ready to cook them, I prepare a dry mixture of flour, salt and pepper, and a mixture of egg yolks and ice water.
Each cube gets rolled around in the flour mixture, dunked in the egg mixture, fried until golden brown, drained on a paper bag, and eaten quickly by me and Geza.

I also feed some to the kids, but they have to be around to get their fair share. Fresh out of the fryer? It's too good to set on a plate and call somebody downstairs for. Too poppable. When I finally do offer it to them, they pig out on it.

What? Girl, don't be mad. You eat constantly. It's fitting.