Beautyberry, Callicarpa americana

     Known for its edible small purple berries. I have eaten the berries raw, and they don't have much flavor. Popular for creating jams/jellies - sugar and pectin will have to be added.

    Usually you see the brightly colored magenta berries for months in the summer. I was finally able to get a picture of the flowers themselves.

Stuffed Onions with Italian Meat Sauce

 

     I love old recipes. It's not really because they are healthier, but usually they are healthier because they involved less processed ingredients. I love that most older recipes are simpler, with fewer ingredients and are usually cheaper and more easily acquired than a lot of modern recipes. I can't even watch cooking shows because as soon as the recipe calls for some expensive ingredient that I might have to go to a specialty store to get I look at the show like mystery horror fiction - fresh terragon? Pickled chives? Veal? Custard? Not going to happen.

     This recipe came out amazingly. I made the meat sauce the day of in the slow cooker, then baked the onions and meat sauce for about an hour in the oven. When I make it again I am going to supplement the hamburger with turkey burger, lowering the price without changing the flavor much, and baking the onion a little bit longer so it's more tender. But came out great for a first try.

Nailed it.

Water Hyacinth Recipe

      The hardest part about eating vegetables might be the texture. Or maybe because it's unusual, or not native to your culture. People question the safety of vegetables they have never heard of, as if it must be unsafe to eat if it's not available at the store, which is illogical. There are a great deal of vegetables we probably should be eating because they are sustainable and local, but aren't. Is that because big business controls everything?

This recipe is great with frozen broccoli if you have no mushrooms.

Water Hyacinth with Mushrooms and 🧄

A recipe by Chrissy.

-  4 cups water hyacinth, sliced into strips the size of green beans.

- 2 cloves of garlic, minced

- 3 teaspoons olive oil or your favorite oil, sunflower is good but coconut is so so.

- 1 cup mushrooms, frozen is ok.

Put the oil and garlic into your favorite cast iron skillet and bring to medium heat, then add mushrooms and sliced water hyacinth. Cook until tender, about 20 minutes, stirring and turning often.

Eat the Water Hyacinth

Raw

     If you want to grow your own food, you may have to open up to the idea of eating some fruits and vegetables that are not commonly found at the grocery store. And if you live in Florida, you're going to be working with a whole different plant set and growing season changes than them Yankee gardeners. All this flexibility in diet isn't easy, most people eat the foods that they were raised eating and find trying new foods to be difficult.

     Water hyacinth is my new favorite local food. It's a water plant that grows in warm water, and is well known for how quickly it creates baby plants. In the past it has been used to pull toxins out of water sources, indeed, water purification is one of it's advantages. After I had added it to my pond the water instantly cleared and the fish became visible. Because the pond water is kinda yucky, I feel that water hyacinth should always be cooked, and I handle it like it's contaminated with E.coli (as it may be after the great manure spill of 2016). 

     According to Green Deane, the best way to eat water hyacinth is to stir fry, and I completely agree. With oil and garlic preferably. It has a taste not dissimilar from some good fresh green beans, which are hard to come by nowadays. The texture is decidedly different, as the air bulbs are crunchy and airy, like eating potato chips, and can be a bit chewy. Overall I would say that water hyacinth is quite palatable.

     Water hyacinth is very different from other fruits and vegetables. Because it is so unusual I couldn't get the kids to try it, what a shame! It's so easy to grow in the pond - right plant, right space - that is seems to be ever bearing. Like ever bearing crunchy green beans! Even if the kids never eat it, I know I can eat it and the rabbits do quite enjoy the green bits (they won't eat the roots.)

     This video talks a little bit about how water hyacinth is used at this lake to feed local livestock, including chickens.

 

Shell Ginger Smoothies

     Since learning that Shell Ginger is a superfood, I have found that it can be good in a green smoothie with plant based vanilla flavored protein and frozen blueberries. I have also found that freezing the leaves in advance and then removing the center spine improves their consistency in the smoothie without sacrificing any nutrition.

Texas Sage, Scarlet Sage, Tropical Sage, Salvia coccinea

     It's hard to believe how many flowers this plant has over the course of the growing season. I feel like it blooms if it gets any amount of watering. I have even taken to trimming off the spent branches after the seeds have been thrown off to encourage more blooms. I feed the branches to the rabbits, of course.

   Texas sage is a tender perennial native to Mexico but found in Florida and other parts of the Southeast. It can freeze to the ground in the winter time, and I have lost several plants that way.  I have also lost a few plants to irregular watering. It is edible, has a bitter taste which is good for flavoring chicken. It is in the same family as the hallucinogenic sage, but it is unknown if Texas Sage has hallucinogenic properties. Maybe you can tell me?

    Propagation of Texas sage is primarily done by seed, but I suppose you could do cuttings of new growth if you were desperate. Texas sage is woody, so follow the same cutting directions as if you were making rosemary cuttings. I like to do nothing to propagate Texas Sage, and then later find seedlings in unexpected places, and I move the seedlings to where I want the plants to grow. The seedlings transplant easily.
     Flowers can either be red, pink, white, or possibly other colors I have never seen. Red is the most successful in my garden, but that could be because I have had red the longest. It gets visited by a variety of creatures including hummingbirds and bees.

Grocery Store Onions

     You can plant the bases of fresh green onions. Most will regrow their leaves and provide you with additional green onion to eat. This will be the first year I have been able to keep them alive into the hot part of the summer, because the onions can't dry out in the heat. Shade is helpful also.

     You should try it! It's rewarding to see the fast growing changes and growth. And it stores food outside in the ground, uneaten by bugs and rot. The onion's pungency repels other insects.

Beans, Spring of 2019

     This spring I decided to try something different.  I planted a bunch of mystery beans in my containers, along with some morning glory. The beans were cheap and white, and said they were bush variety, so why not? I guess I am a why not kind of person.
     The germination rate on the beans was pretty decent - more than half sprouted. I can't complain about that.

     The best thing about beans is that they have been hybridized to grow quickly. This is a boon in our short spring growing season. Beans share this trait with peas. Every day you can walk over and visibly see that there has been a change from the previous day. Suddenly there are flower buds and tiny pods. Leaves are good in salads and smoothies, or with the stalk fed to the rabbits. And the flowers are gorgeous!

     There is a lot growing on in these pictures, as I am a big fan of polycultures and diversity. I am learning to appreciate the traditional choice of potting mix - that spaghnum moss is an excellent moisture sponge. It makes me wonder what other traditions people are growing on? I will post more pictures as they flower and fruit, assuming I can keep up with rhe watering!

April 29th, 2019

Dwarf Yellow Canna

     Cannas. So beautiful. They bloom all the time, and they are edible and attract pollinators. They make great bog plants and they look good in ponds. Makes a great gift.

Self-Reliance Expo 2016

This year there will be a gathering of people with a common interestt at the 2016 Self-Reliance Expo in Lakeland,  Florida. It will be held at the Lakeland Civic Center on September 9th and 10th. Tickets are $10 for adults and children 12 and under are free. Vendors will be there too.
I have never been to a self - reliance expo. The last expo I was at was probably DragonCon. So I am expecting awesome guest lectures and business development.  Toying with the idea of creating some business cards for Eat Your Sand and giving them out while there. Maybe even a custom t-shirt. What do you think?

Backyard Green Smoothie Recipe

1 loquat leaf
4 red hibiscus leaves
4 hibiscus leaves
6 lemon leaves
1/2 ginger leaf
rosemary - greens from one sprig 4" long
1-2 cups cold water

optional : canna - no added flavor, no significant nutrition
     lemongrass - tasty but adds a real "grassy" flavor
     mints

     Directions - add all ingredients to blender and blend on high for at least 30 seconds. There should be enough blending that a foam is created on the top, which quickly dissipates. Then pour through a strainer into a large enough jar to hold your smoothie, which should be enjoyed immediately or refrigerated and enjoyed within about 3 days. Take the strained contents to the compost heap, give to the rabbits now, or freeze into cubes for treats for the rabbits later.

Slow Cooker Spoon Bread with Seafood Recipe

Wine and Wine Cooking, 1972. Cookie, Animal Control, 2013.

     This recipe came from another amazing antique cookbook thrift store find. Spoon bread is a somewhat custardy cornbread, which can only very loosely be called a bread. It is supposed to be have the consistency of a quiche or, more accurately, a bread pudding which can be eaten with a spoon. This meal could be a nutritious one for anyone who has trouble chewing. Perhaps the best part about it is that it can be prepared with pantry ingredients on hand, with the exception of butter (maybe substitute oil) and fresh eggs.

Spoon bread with Seafood

For the spoon bread:
1 1/2 cups milk (powdered or fresh)
1 cup corn kernels (frozen, fresh, canned, dehydrated)
2 or 3 teaspoons sugar
2 tablespoons butter
1/2 teaspoon salt
1/2 cup uncooked yellow corn meal
2 eggs
1/2 cup sauterne (sweet white) wine, or substitute milk

     To prepare the spoon bread - whip the eggs, then add the other liquid ingredients and mix thoroughly. Slowly add the remaining ingredients, mixing well. Line the slow cooker with parchment paper, and slowly pour in the spoon bread batter. Put the lid in place, and turn on the highest setting for at least 1 1/2 hours.
     My delicious variation - We happened to be flat out of corn, so I used frozen mixed gumbo vegetables (okra, peas, etc.). It was a tasty, healthy substitution. I ended up taking the kiddo to the library at this point, and the spoon bread cooked for about 2 1/2 hours in the crock pot without burning. I love that kind of recipe!

For the sauce
3 tablespoons butter
1/4 cup sifted flour
3/4 teaspoon seasoned salt
1 1/2 cups milk
2 tablespoons chopped green or mild onion (or substitute powdered onion)
2 teaspoons lemon juice
1/2 cup sauterne (sweet white) wine, or omit
1 cup vegetables like peas or carrots
1 can of tuna (6 1/2-7 oz), drained

     To prepare the sauce - Mix together all the ingredients sans the tuna slowly in a saucepan on the stove. Bring to a boil, allowing the sauce to thicken. When the sauce has reached your desired thickness, add the tuna and remove from heat.
     My variation - omitted the wine and used frozen yellow squash as the vegetable. Used powdered onion and dry dill. Yum!

Rice WIne Recipes

Author Unknown Fast
Rice Wine Recipe

3 lbs white rice (not instant)
1 lg box white raisins (15 oz)
1 box dark raisins (15 0z)
2 tablespoons yeast
5 lb sugar
3 large peeled oranges or dates, quartered
6 qt water

     Thoroughly mix all the ingredients in a large 5 gallon bucket. Stir every day, keeping the lid on between stirrings. After about 20 days, rack to bottles. About 10 days later, after the yeast has settled, rack to clean bottles and serve.

Longshen Rice Terraces, China

Jack Keller's Rice Wine Recipe

2 lbs long grain brown rice
2 lbs granulated sugar
1 lb chopped golden raisins
7-1/2 pts water
4 tsp acid blend
1 tsp pectic enzyme
1 tsp yeast nutrient
1/2 tsp tannin
1 crushed Campden tablet
Champagne or Sherry wine yeast

     Rinse the rice well, then put in glass bowl with just enough water to cover rice. Chop the raisins and add to rice, adding enough water to cover them, too (1 quart total). Soak overnight or 12 hours. Pour rice and raisins into a nylon straining bag, saving the soaking water. Put sugar in remaining water in large pot and put this on to boil. Bring to boil and remove from heat, stirring until sugar is dissolved. Put nylon straining bag in primary and pour in soaking water. Add acid blend, yeast nutrient and tannin. Pour sugar water over this and stir. Cover with clean cloth and set aside to coll. When at room temperature, add crushed Campden tablet and stir again. Recover primary and let set 24 hours. Add wine yeast and recover. Stir daily for two weeks. Remove bag and let it drip drain (do not squeeze) into primary. Recover primary and let wine settle overnight. Rack into secondary and fit airlock. Rack after 3 months, top up and refit airlock. Repeat 3 months later. When wine is clear, stabilize, wait 10 days and rack into bottles.

Crock Pot Bread Pudding

     Bread pudding is one of the easiest desserts to cook, and one of the best ways to use up bread that is stale or unappetizing. A good recipe to try if a batch of homemade bread came out a bit disappointing. A great way to get rid of leftover cornbread pancakes that the kids weren't about to eat, days later.
     This is another recipe that powdered or condensed milk can be substituted for fresh. I'll have to try homemade yogurt sometime. That means the only fresh ingredients you really need are eggs and butter.
Just throw everything but the bread in the slow cooker, then stir. Add the bread, re-stir. Cover and cook on low for three hours.

8 cups cubed bread, pancake, stale hot dog buns...
1 cup raisins, craisins, or other small, dehydrated fruit
2 cups milk
4 eggs
1/4 cup butter, melted
1/4 cup white sugar
1/2 teaspoon vanilla extract
1/4 teaspoon ground nutmeg or clove
1/4 teaspoon ground cinnamon or cardamom

Vitamin C Tisane/Infusion Recipes

Dried Hibiscus Flowers 

     Be aware that boiling the plants for 20 minutes reduces available ascorbic acid by at least 20%. Perhaps making sun tea/solar tea or steeping overnight might be a better method.

High-C Tisane (Homemade Red Zinger Tea)

Dried hibiscus, lemongrass, orange peel, peppermint, and rose hips
Boiling water
1 . Steep herbs for ten minutes
2. Drink as a vitamin C boost.

Pine Needle tisane

Dried pine needles
Boiling water
1 . Steep herbs for ten minutes
2. Drink as a vitamin C boost.

Celestial Seasoning's Red Zinger

Mint tisane

Your choice of mint or balm
Boiling water
1 . Steep herbs for ten minutes
2. Drink as a vitamin C boost.

Fresh Flowers, Water. Let chill overnight. Enjoy!

Alternative Method for Making Lye, Part 3

Barefootboy's Recipe and Method for making lye from washing soda and hydrated lime, originally found here. Edited by Tentance.

• Put 4 ounces of distilled water into two, 2-cup measuring cups (or containers).
• Slowly add 1/2 oz of the Sodium Carbonate to the water in the first cup and stir. It will clunk up, so you'll need to stir gently but well with each 1/2 oz you add. NOTE There will be some very minor but noticeable heat given off. This is normal. 
• Add 1/2 oz to the water until you reach 2 ounces. Stir until the mix is clear. There may be a tiny amount that will not mix. This is NOT a problem.
• Slowly add 1/2 oz of lime to the water of the second cup, stirring with each 1/2 added to mix as much as possible. Continue until you reach 2 oz. The mix will look like a grey white milk shake and there will be some gritty residue especially if you use garden lime. This also is not a problem.
• Carefully pour the first cup with the 4 oz of clear liquid into the first large container, leaving any non liquid behind.
• Now pour the second cup carefully into the first large container.
• The mix will now become an even thicker gray white mix. Allow to separate into a clear liquid and a white/grey solid. This can take 2 hours or more. General rule, if you can let it sit for 24 hrs, do so.
• Set up your funnel with filter on top of you second container.
• When the mix has settled, carefully pour off the clear liquid into the funnel.
• The first 3 to 3 1/2 ounces should filter off rather easily, the last 1/2 ounce will take a bit longer. You can either let the mix sit and separate over time, or put the white semi-solid in the filter and let sit until as much of the liquid as possible filters out. What will be left on the filter paper will be Calcium Carbonate (raw chalk) with lye residue. Dispose of this very carefully.

You should now have 4 oz more or less of at least 50% lye solution. Every batch has had the strength verified by the pH test and has turned out 13 on the scale.
As listed above 2 oz of Soda ash (Sodium Carbonate) to 4 oz of water and 2 oz of hydrated lime to 4 oz of water = 4 oz more or less of 50% lye solution.

 
Editor's Note: To calculate the amount of homemade lye to use in your soaps with your choice of oils, head over to the SoapCalc website. In field 1, choose NaOH (sodium hydroxide). In field 3, choose Lye Concentration 50%. Adjust your superfat and oil percentages and calculate as usual.
When in doubt, do a small test batch. You can always add more water and "cook" the soap for a longer amount of time in the crock pot or on your survival fire until you obtain the desired consistency. This homemade sodium hydroxide might lend itself more to the hot process method until you become more familiar with it.

Previous method discussion

Alternative Method for Making Lye, Part 2

This is an explanation of how to make common lye, sodium hydroxide, from readily available ingredients.
Explained very well by Barefootboy, from the Homesteading Today forum. Edited by Tentance.

Alternative Method for Making Lye 

     Due to the restrictions being placed on lye sold in stores because of the criminal use of it, I'd like to bring up an alternative method of making lye that does not require wood ashes.
     Get hydrated lime at a hardware store (as builder's lime) or garden supply store, it is used in gardening and I found it under the Hoffman brand. The next ingredient is a little trickier, you need to find some basic washing soap powder. It should be straight Sodium Carbonate with NO additives or perfumes. Arm and Hammer (Washing Soda) does sell it in the old blue box some of us remember for childhood, but most big box stores don't carry it. Try discount or dollar stores. I found 100% Sodium Carbonate being sold as a pool chemical inexpensively, called "Pool Time pH UP". Or, you could try heating regular baking soda (NOT baking powder) then use it as the soda ash. I'm not sure how long to heat it, as I have not tried that method, but chemically it's correct.
     If you do get these two, simply make an equal mix of each in filtered or distilled water and carefully combine. I suggest starting out with a cup of each to get used to the steps. This will create a white solid (Calcium Carbonate = chalk) and a liquid (Sodium Hydroxide = Lye). Using a funnel and a coffee filter, filter out the white solid.
     I mixed 1 tsp of the Sodium Carbonate with 3 oz of distilled water, and 1 tsp of the lime with 3 oz of distilled water. I poured them together and waited 5 minutes for the solid and liquid (lye) to separate, then filtered the mix through a coffee filter in a funnel. The result shows all signs of being Lye.
     This process does NOT require heating at any stage of it. It is simply dissolving two powders in enough water so they can mix and separate, and then filtering off the liquid. If you use 1 ( oz, cup etc) of each chemical (lime and carbonate) and 1 (oz, cup, etc) of water in theory you'll end up with 1 (oz, cup) of the solid and 2 (oz, cups) of the liquid which will be 50% strength lye (which may need to be further diluted with water to be used with a lye calculator).
     BUT as they said in MASH "this is meatball surgery" this is meatball chemistry, so you will not get the exactness you'd get under controlled lab or industrial conditions.
     On the other hand, it will work, and has signs of being economical (yield/cost) and IS an alternative to getting hassled whenever you want to make a batch of soap.
     I found that I had to use 2 cups of water to each cup of lime/carbonate (4 cups of water). I am filtering the mix now, and it's looking like I'll recover 2 cups of lye solution, so the 50% strength still looks viable. At the max I'll get 2.5 cups of lye solution, so that's still somewhere between 35 to 40%.

The fancy term for this is a "double displacement reaction" [Editor's Note: Double displacement reaction - aqueous metathesis (precipitation)]. The Sodium Carbonate swaps with the Calcium Hydroxide (slaked lime) to create Sodium Hydroxide (lye/liquid) and Calcium Carbonate (chalk/powder).

     Read more for a better recipe and breakdown of the method. Check out this post for confirmation of the validity of this method from a chemistry and soaping text.

     From PlicketyCat:

     You can grind limestone or seashells (calcium carbonate) and then heat it in a kiln/bonfire (1200F) until it calcinates and forms quicklime (calcium oxide), then soak the quicklime in water to create slaked lime (calcium hydroxide).
     You can also burn kelp/seaweed to create soda ash (sodium carbonate) instead of heating baking soda. Soak your soda ash with water and filter to leach out the carbonates, and mix that solution with our calcium hydroxide water solution to form Sodium Hydroxide (and dry calcium carbonate again).
     Or burn wood to create potash (potassium carbonate) and a small amount of soda ash (sodium carbonate). Soak the ashes with water and filter to leach out the carbonates, and mix that solution with your calcium hydroxide water solution to form Potassium Hydroxide (and dry calcium carbonate again).

Alternative Method for Making Lye, Part 1

     This is an excerpt from a chemistry text, written in 1856, called "A Treatise on Chemistry Applied to the Manufacture of Soap and Candles: Being a Thorough Exposition, in All Their Minutiae, of the Principles and Practice of the Trade, Based Upon the Most Recent Discoveries in Science and Art."
     I have taken enough college chemistry classes to realize that I never could seem to find the useful parts of the chemistry books. Perhaps because they didn't come with those chapters. But here is a small bit of a nifty chemistry which can be done at home to work-around the lack of available lye sources for home soaping.
     I love antique cookbooks and now, chemistry books. They provide a new perspective that is absent in our modern age.
     Read more for a more practical method breakdown. Do home chemistry at your own risk. Never throw salt in your eyes.
     What is soda ash? What is hydrated lime?

What is Soda Ash, really?

     Soda ash has been very popular in the do-it-yourself community. It is a household chemical that is considered to be very safe, and is chemically closely related to its cousin baking soda, though harder to find and slightly more expensive. It is used in laundry detergents, soaping, making glass, water softening, pool care, and for adding dye to clothing.
     Sodium carbonate (Na₂CO₃₎ is commercially made from common salt and limestone. It's pH is a high 11.6, compared to the more mild sodium bicarbonate (baking soda) of 8.4. The high pH and cheap production is what makes it valuable to water softening and pool care. It's unique chemical properties make it useful for laundry - "It competes with the magnesium and calcium ions in hard water and prevents them from bonding with the detergent being used" (Wikipedia). I have a nice recipe for the home-made laundry detergent here for your perusal.
     When used for home dye projects, it can help to mordant fiber-reactive dyes to vegetable fabrics. That
translates to binds certain synthetic dyes to fabric like cotton, hemp, or bamboo. It's usually used as a pre-mordant.
     When used in baking, it can replace baking powder/baking soda in order to leaven breads.
     When used to make glass, it is added to the mixture of salts and silica before the melt process is started. It hardens and makes the glass less permeable to water.
     For home swimming pools, it can be added to increase the water's pH which lessens the corrosive effects of chlorine. Indeed, finding sodium carbonate in the pool supply section of the local multi-mart can be the most cost effective way to purchase washing soda, with five pounds selling for under $15. 
     Historically, soda ash was made from leeching the ashes of certain seaweeds in a similar manner to potassium hydroxide production from wood ashes (read our post about it here). Before you ask, the common historically used plants were glassworts, saltworts, barilla, and seaweeds of the Fucus family (Wikipedia). Very little research has been done to investigate plant sources in the New World (maybe a survival project for another day?). It is mostly mined nowadays, but can be lab created in a similar manner as sodium hydroxide. 

Crock Pot Irish Soda Bread

      I had no idea that bread could be cooked in a crock pot. All the recipe books always said that bread needs to go into a preheated oven at the very least, 350 degrees F. So when I read about this technique at another website, I had to try it out for myself.

   It's simple - the crock pot is set on the highest setting with a grapefruit-sized dough ball (one pound of dough) for at least an hour. Any type of bread will work, but the crusts will be less crunchy than if they were cooked in a hot oven. I now no longer want to get a convection oven, and I can make small batches of bread without wasting all that electricity of using the oven.
     For this first experiment I used a modified Irish Soda Bread because I was so excited to try it out with the crockpot, and I certainly wasn't disappointed. I won't bore you with the details of the recipe, since I modified it anyway with semolina flour, oatmeal, and yogurt, but if you are interested in trying out a good and easy recipe, then I recommend the Best Beer Bread Recipe Ever. Just be sure to divide the dough in half so you don't overload the crockpot, which makes cooking time much longer. It lets you have another fresh loaf another day without doing any work.

     Put the dough ball on a large piece of parchment paper, and lower into the crockpot. Cover and bake or at least an hour on high. The crust will be soft when the bread is fully cooked, when its internal temperature reaches 190 degrees F. That's an hour and a half in my crockpot.