Posts from — October 2011

Student Designed & Built Chicken Coop,
Photo credit: Project H Design, used with permission

The other night, we attended a scintillating presentation that connected three of our continuing interests: community, farmers’ markets and chicken coops. The lecture was part of the Penny Stamps speaker series at the Michigan Theatre every Thursday at 5:10 which is, for my money, the most intellectually stimulating, regularly scheduled free date night in town.

Last night’s speaker was Emily Pilloton, who created her own non-profit when she had only $1K in the bank based on the idea that good, sustainable design could transform the world. But instead of working “wide” her organization aims “deep.” They developed a Design-Build curriculum for Bertie County, North Carolina. Why Bertie County? The superintendent of this poor district read about them in Dwell magazine and invited them, first to build playgrounds, then to develop a curriculum… and teach it. The way Emily told the story was moving and quite engaging, but it’s also nothing that educators haven’t already experienced. Her students were dealing with being single parents, having a record of serious offenses, poor anger control and worse communication skills. Some didn’t know how to read a ruler. Others didn’t know how to read at all. Their Studio-H class was, for some students, the ONLY face-time they had with an actual teacher, that is, ALL their other classes were on-line. (One student was even taking P.E. on-line, however that might work.) She did not romanticize the experience; in fact, she said, with some amazement, that she didn’t realize how difficult working with high school students would be. I believe I chuckled out loud.

The first project was to build a “cornhole” game and to use computers to design the graphics that they painted on the boards. Emily gave some pretty clever prompts to spur these designs, like a limited color pallet based on the colors of the cornbags and a different action verb for each student like “fold” or “stretch.” These boards were auctioned off to fund the next project which was a bit more ambitious. Bertie County is largely agricultural and its largest crop come from mass chicken factories. Their second project was to design a small, family-sized chicken coop. Actual chickens were brought into the class room so students could get to know their “clients” and to better understand their needs. They made several iterative designs with cardboard and sticks then selected models for their full size coops. Some groups used reclaimed lumber. All of them used some kind of MIG welded structure. In the end, all three of the project were delivered to local families for actual use in their yards. The recipients all seemed pleased with the coops but I couldn’t help thinking they might fit even better in a trendy community like Ann Arbor more than rural North Carolina.

Then the flood hit North Carolina. And another flood. And a tropical storm, I think. The class arranged a town meeting to discuss what the town needed, in effect to answer not just how the town could re-build itself back to how it was but how it could re-build itself better. What came out of the conversations was that even though Bertie County is an agricultural community, there is no place to buy good produce. The class proposed a farmer’s market. Again they went through the iterative design process, but this time it involved several community wide discussions. Emily noted that these design meetings created opportunities for folks to talk across lines of race, age, history about something they all care about– the future of their town. Eventually a design was selected that picked up elements of local vernacular architecture, was easy to use both for the vendor and buyer, and frankly looked cool but not “art school.”

Windsor Farmers' Market
Photo credit: Project H Design, used with permission

And then they did what from my perspective was entirely impossible: they built the structure, using paid student labor and no subcontractors. Emily’s architect partner got a contractor’s license. The design passed flood and tropical storm durability approval. The students weren’t directly paid “wages” and there were those pesky safety laws to obey, I gather, that forbid having youth operate certain pieces of potentially machinery. But the building was built. Its opening day as a Farmer’s Market was October 1st, just a couple weeks ago.
One take-away I got was that they used turned a liability into a strength. When they lost protection, they gained flexibility. Four weeks before the class was to start, the superintendent got run out of town due to what Emily called “kindergarten politics.” Their program was so endangered that the only way the school board would allow it to go forward was if it took absolutely no money from the district. And that included salaries. I gather that she and her partner – the “non-profit agency” – funded their programs through grants and a small salary from the community college, where their cross-listed course allowed students to earn college credit. They applied an agile, design-oriented approach to their own enterprise.

And the other lesson was “deep not wide.” Do something, in particular, specific even if it can’t be universalized or scaled large. In a sense it’s the second verb of their motto “Design. Build. Transform.” The relationship between building and transforming was also very strong in the presentation. Her notion of design struck me so strongly I wrote it down verbatim: “interesting solutions to worthy problems.”

Emily Pilloton came into rural North Carolina, far from her native habitat of San Fransisco, and, not only did she make it home, she made community.

Here’s a link to her website: http://www.studio-h.org/about

Broccoli is an easy to grow crop that continues to produce late in the growing season in Michigan. If you’d planted broccoli this summer, you could be having this for dinner, even in late October:

Broccoli is an attractive, sturdy plant that likes full sun, adequate water and good drainage. The main stem holds the plant upright, and staking is not necessary. We’ve found that broccoli has very few pests or growing problems. Our usual cultural practices of close planting, rotating crops, heavy mulching, and monitoring for pests work well for broccoli.

One of the cool things about broccoli is its productivity. You can usually harvest a good central head in August, depending on planting time and weather conditions, but your broccoli plant is not yet done. If you let the plant continue to grow, you’ll be able to harvest a succession of florets of various sizes from around the main stem.

One strategy I’ve learned for continuing broccoli growth is to examine the plant regularly for flowering or bolting. If too much time lapses, the side stems can go to flower; the delicious green buds become rather pretty yellow flowers that do attract pollinators like bees but are not what I want to eat. Broccoli is fairly forgiving, however. If flowers are trimmed off, the plant will return to making small broccoli heads. Broccoli can also bolt if the weather gets too hot, although it seems pretty tolerant of Michigan’s sometimes toasty summers. Again, if a plant starts sending up long bolting shoots, those can be trimmed and eaten, and the plant will return to its small head production. The plant gets rather leafy late in the season, so be sure to check under and behind leaves for buds.

Broccoli from the garden is best eaten raw or lightly steamed. Even the smaller leaves can be eaten as they are tender and delicious on homegrown broccoli plants. We generally avoid turning our wonderful, healthy broccoli into cheesy or creamy dishes and instead enjoy its flavors and nuances in simpler dishes.

Sometimes we like to dress-up steamed broccoli with a quick, easy and healthy dressing. Here are two of our favorites. Both start with broccoli either steamed or light boiled for 2 minutes then cooled under cold running water and drained.

Honey Mustard Dressing
(from Everyday Cooking with Dr. Dean Ornish: 150 Easy, Low-Fat, High-Flavor Recipes)

1 tablespoon white miso
1 tablespoon honey
1 tablespoon mustard, preferably Dijon
1 teaspoon lemon juice
1/4 cup water
pinch black pepper

Combine all ingredients in a small bowl and whisk to blend.

Dress broccoli just before eating because the sauce will dull the broccoli’s bright green color.

Broccoli Chinoise Dressing
(from Jane Brody’s Good Food Book)

2 tablespoon Oriental sesame oil
¼ cup rice vinegar or white whine vinegar
1 tablespoon soy sauce
½ teaspoon sugar
fresh ground black pepper to taste
red pepper flakes to taste

Combine the ingredients and pour over the broccoli. Toss to mix well.

It was a fine year for growing peppers in our garden, which was made even more pleasing by the fact that we had planted 8 different kinds of peppers. Peppers are attractive plants and are relatively easy to grow. They are compact and can be tucked in in between plants or along the edge of a bed. Peppers are in the same family as tomatoes and potatoes, among others, but we’ve found they have fewer insects or other creatures bothering them– especially the hot kinds!

We tend to like food made with hot peppers, and some of us like food made with really hot peppers– the kind where eating becomes of test of strength and will. This year, however, we planted a range of peppers from mild to super hot so there was something for everyone. Since our pepper plants were quite productive, we’ve enjoyed many pepper recipes.

As pictured above, we grew California wonder (at the top of the picture, moving clockwise), Naga Jolokia (ghost pepper), Anaheim chili, Thai hot pepper, lemon drop pepper, jalapeno, ancho, and in the center Purple Beauty. The California wonder grew very big indeed; that’s a 10 ½ inch dinner plate in the picture.

The Purple Beauty peppers were fantastic, in size, number and taste. In spite of their unusual appearance, they were simply a nice mild, sweet bell pepper. We harvested about 30 peppers off of 4 plants, all big enough to stuff. And that’s what we did.

I hadn’t made stuffed peppers in a couple years, perhaps because my last attempt was not stellar. But this time, I got them so right that requests for more stuffed pepper dinners followed. Here’s the easy and delicious recipe I used.

Easy Stuffed Peppers

Ingredients:
1 pound ground beef
1 cup uncooked brown rice
2 cups water
6 bell peppers
2 cups homemade tomato sauce
1 tablespoon Worcestershire sauce
1 clove garlic, minced
1 teaspoon basil
1 teaspoon oregano
1 teaspoon thyme
salt and pepper

Directions
1. Preheat oven to 350 degrees F.

2. Put the rice and water in a saucepan and bring to a boil. Reduce heat, cover, and cook 20 minutes. (This partially cooks the brown rice).

3. In a skillet, brown the ground beef.

4. Prepare the peppers by slicing off the tops. Remove the seeds and membrane. (I like to use a melon scoop to clean them out efficiently).

5. Arrange the peppers in a baking dish.

6. In a bowl, mix together the browned meat, the partially cooked rice, 1cup of tomato sauce, Worcestershire sauce, garlic, and spices. Divide the meat mixture among the peppers.

7. Pour the remaining cup of tomato sauce over the stuffed peppers.

8. Bake for about 1 hour in the preheated oven. Baste with sauce from the bottom of the baking dish. Peppers will be tender when finished.

We had heard about the goodness of kale chips for at least a year or two, maybe longer, but for some reason, we hadn’t got around to making them at home. I had tasted them in a Preserving Traditions workshop on the wonders of kale, read Corinna Borden’s piece on Annarbor.com, heard friends exclaim over what they like to call Oven Fried Kale, and listened to a dietitian discuss their benefits in a talk on healthy eating. I’ve recently seen commercial bagged kale chips for sale at the Co-op and other stores. Finally, a couple weeks ago in the big push of getting things out of the garden and into the house, we gave home-made kale chips a try.

And we are so glad we did!

Kale chips aren’t really chips, if chips make you think of potato chips being super crunchy and kind of greasy. Kale chips are not a lot like kale either, however, if kale makes you think hardy and fibrous. Kale chips are light and delicious with a really satisfying crunchy-crisp noise when eaten. They are quick and easy to prepare. And finally, kale chips are good for you.

The embarrassingly simple recipe follows, which can be jazzed up with a tiny effort. Buy or harvest a bunch of kale and try them out. Dare people to try them and enjoy the pleasant look of unexpected delight on their faces. Don’t be surprised if you want to make and eat more as soon as you are done!

Kale Chips

Ingredients:

1 bunch of kale
2 teaspoons olive oil
¼ teaspoon salt
1 tablespoon Parmesan cheese

Directions:
1. Preheat oven to 375 degrees F.
2. Tear kale leaves off of the tough stems, and then tear into bite-sized pieces.
3. Wash kale and dry well. A salad spinner works great for this. Blotting with paper towels or a clean tea towel will work in a pinch.
4. Spread kale in a single layer on a cookie sheet. Don’t over-crowd. If you have a lot of kale, use 2 trays.
5. Drizzle with olive oil. Then use your hands to toss the kale leaves to coat evenly.
6. Sprinkle on salt and Parmesan.
7. Bake for 10- 15 minutes until the edges are slightly brown, and the kale is crispy. Check often in the last 3 or 4 minutes so that you don’t scorch the kale chips.

My advice is to eat them as soon as they are ready. I haven’t found that storing them is satisfactory, although some kale-lovers place them in plastic bags for eating later. We like them just out of the oven. Kale chips are a great snack or a tasty appetizer for a cool fall day.

If you’ve never canned, you may think it requires extensive experience and arcane knowledge. Actually, learning to can is a fairly simple process that requires following steps and attention to details– not unlike most cooking processes.

This Sunday, you can learn to preserve apples by canning applesauce in a Preserving Traditions class. The workshop will be held on Sunday, October 2 from 2pm until 5pm at the Pittsfield Grange.

This is a hands-on workshop where participants will learn to make and can applesauce. Each participant needs to bring about 3 large apples (preferably 2 sweet and 1 tart) and a pint-sized canning jar with band and a new lid. Everyone attending will get to take home a pint of home-canned applesauce. Canning apple pie filling and apple butter will also be discussed.

If you want to participate, register early because the events do fill up. The cost for the workshop is a $5 suggested donation for non-members of the Grange. To attend, register here.

Preserving Traditions continues to offer great workshops that give participants skills in home food preservation. The events are always informative and fun. We’re lucky to have such a group in our area teaching skills to individuals and enriching our community.