These last few weeks I’ve been a bit distracted, and not really posting as much as I was. I’ve missed two Thrifty Thursdays in a row now! Yikes! I promise to get back on the wagon next week (but Katie Jean had a great tip this week about paper products).
I’m officially 36 weeks pregnant (almost 37), and come Tuesday, when I hit that 37 week mark, I could have the baby anytime. So I have anywhere from one to seven more weeks to be pregnant (but only the high end if I go past my due date). I had Henry 3 days before I was due with him, so I don’t think it’s likely that I’ll go far over this time, but you never know. 🙂
In the mean time, I have tried to keep up on the Independence Days post to share with you…
Plant Something – Saturday, Rick planted more spinach, radishes, kale, Swiss chard… I think that’s all. 🙂 It’s been so cool and rainy, we’re hoping to eek out a little extra time with our spring greens this year!
Harvest Something – Spinach and radishes and lettuce all ready almost every day now. It sure is nice to go pick a bowlful of spinach for lunch.
Preserve Something– This week, I didn’t really do any preserving, but I DID start making kombucha for the first time (fermented green tea). We’ll see how it goes – it takes two weeks!
Reduce Waste – The usual… chickens, compost, recycling, etc.
Preparation and Storage – We didn’t do anything really in this category this week either, but I did hear recently that Colorado is now allowing rain water collection, so we are talking about rain barrels and where and when we want to go about doing that!
Build Community Food Systems – Well this week we finally made it up to the CSA! We planted a musk melon field and cucumbers. The pick your own strawberries were ready, but I was pooped at the end of the day, so I didn’t pick any. Please cross your fingers for me that there will still be plenty of strawberries next week… I really want to make lots of jam and other yummy goodies!! Also, I do post weekly ads on craigslist and other sites for our city’s farmers market. I’ve gotten a couple of responses from potential vendors in the last couple of weeks, so that is good!
Eat the Food – This week was a tight week, so we ate mostly from the freezer. Lots of pork on these kinds of weeks. 😉 We did BLT’s with our bacon and lettuce from the garden, and spinach a few times as well. Here’s a recipe we had last night (based on one from Everyday Food magazine), called Ham & Egg Fried Rice.
For Four:
1/4″ thick by 8″ (or so) cured ham steak, cut into bite size pieces
One bunch of scallions, one shallot, or half an onion finely chopped (the real recipe calls for the scallions, but I always use whatever is handy)
3-4 cloves of garlic, pressed or minced
1-2 inch piece of fresh ginger, finely minced or grated
2 cups cooked rice, rinsed and drained (we use brown)
2 TBS soy sauce
2 TBS rice vinegar
4 eggs
salt & pepper
In a large skillet or wok, heat 1-2 TBS vegetable oil over medium high heat. Cook ham, onions (or white parts of scallions), garlic, and ginger until ham is nearly cooked through, onions are soft and garlic & ginger are fragrant (you could also add red pepper flakes if you like it spicy) – about 4 minutes. Add the rice, soy sauce, and rice vinegar (also, if you used them, add the green parts of the scallions). Season with salt (if needed) and black pepper to taste. Cook stirring frequently, about five more minutes, until ham is completely cooked. Put into serving dishes.
Wipe out the skillet with a paper towel and add a little more cooking oil. Fry the eggs, seasoning with salt and pepper. Top the rice bowls with the fried eggs and serve.
This goes great with steamed bok choy or spinach as well. It’s quick and tasty!
The Lazy Homesteader 
We just scored a perfect barrel from a friend with the plans of converting it to a rain barrel. Why would Colorado restrict people from collecting rain water? Just curious. There are no restrictions on rain barrels out here in the Seattle area.
KJ
I’m glad to hear there are no restrictions in Seattle (since the rumor is it’s pretty rainy there). 😉
From what I understand, for Colorado, it has to do with water rights. Here in the arid West, the rain runs off into the rivers and streams, and all the rivers are associated with water rights (even some in other states, i.e. the Colorado river provides water to many Southwestern states like Arizona).
So the thinking was if you collected rain water, you were essentially stealing the water from the rivers, and thus who ever owned the rights to those rivers. It’s a little screwy, but it also makes sense, since our water pretty much exclusively comes from the precious precipitation in this area. And usually there’s not a lot after the winter is over.
Luckily, people are realizing that collecting H2O in a rain barrel is only temporary. That eventually that water gets used by the people who collected it, and it still goes back into the water systems. 🙂