Back in March I saw a post on Food in Jars about salt preserved key limes. I bookmarked it and finally the other day I saw key limes for sale at the store. In Florida we had a small key lime tree I grew from seed—even managed to get a few fruits off one year—and while most ‘wild’ citrus was oranges or grapefruit, I once came across a key lime tree! That’s a good find!

Staring at the photos on Food in Jars I was entranced and could just imagine sipping a homemade limeade from the juice I would ferment. Oh, it looked so good; I had to make it!

I sliced up the limes and instantly my mouth was watering, the tangy scent teasing my nose. But, I kept them for the jar and managed to put them into an old spaghetti jar we’ve kept around for pickles and other home preservation ideas.

Some juice managed to fill the bottom of the jar but like Marisa, the author at Food in Jars, I had to buy some lime juice to finish it off. I was able to find key lime juice at the store which made it even better—I would have settled for regular lime juice if I’d needed to.

The other thing I’ve been doing is making pickles with the insane amount of cucumbers we’re getting. Insane. I think I picked 30 within two days! We have so many claussen pickles right now and since they have to be refrigerated I am running out of room in my fridge for that type. We also have pickles still from last Fall so I wanted to make something else.

I ended up making some relish based loosely on a recipe I found online. I am not a sweet relish or pickle fan and every recipe I found had sugar in it. Even Googling ‘no sugar’ resulted in a recipe with Splenda. Dude. No. So, I just left the sugar out and adapted it for my needs. *I did have to drain the water from the veggies/fruits before putting in the vinegar concoction…because I used my food processor to chop everything up the water easily leeched out.*

The result was 5 pints of relish ready to be eaten sometime soon! These jars came from my mom without lids but I bought replacement lids at my local grocery store very easily. The jars are super cute and I’m glad to have found some way to use them. I’m probably going to make more soon and was thinking of making some kind of cucumber chow-chow too. Any other ideas for cucumbers?

I’m starting a new series of portraits of the vegetables and fruits I harvest out of the garden. Hopefully I can make it a weekly series!

I’ve officially been calling myself vegetarian for a year! Time has flown by and while I knew I would make it this long I think I wasn’t sure how long I would keep it up beyond this. Since things have been going swimmingly I plan on keeping this as my food lifestyle until I decide otherwise. That said, I *am* looking forward to my birthday because I plan on eating a large portion of sushi.

Throughout this year I’ve read various food blogs, some meat eating, some veg, some into the primal/paelo thing, others into organic/whole living, and there are many thoughts you can glean from them all. In all most of them stress a whole food, unprocessed way of eating which I have come to think is probably the most important thing if you are looking at bettering your diet.

As for being vegetarian I am always trying to be better, to eat healthier instead of leaning on pastas and rice or other soy based ‘fake’ meats. I use them on occasion but they don’t make up the bulk of my diet. I don’t even eat that much tofu, rarely buying it, but I do love tofu in Thai and Chinese dishes—I just need to figure out how to cook it like they do.

I think the biggest struggle is being out on road trips and finding something quick to eat. It is really something I need to start preparing for at home better and taking more foods with me, I just haven’t figured that part out yet. I think it frustrates Chris because he always rags on me about going somewhere that I can eat at. Since he has been doing field work the last several months he’s not kept to eating mostly vegetarian and I think that is part of the problem, we aren’t on the same page while traveling so we’re trying to juggle finding something for both dietary needs. My biggest problem with this is that while I *can* find a place to eat with a vegetarian option is something greasy or carb loaded like fries, potatoes or fried vegetables. Not exactly healthy either.

The other frustrating thing is that yes, I can eat a salad, but then I have to pay the same price as it would be with meat, only have them take the meat off. Hardly seems fair. More vegetarian options, please restaurants! I do like Subway having avocado to add to the sandwiches now, it bulks up a veggie sub much better.

The question of protein keeps coming up from various people and my answer is that I get it from beans, eggs, nuts/nut butters and quinoa. I don’t eat all of those on a daily basis, but at least one of them, the quinoa is probably a once a week thing. I haven’t had my blood tested or anything, but I feel fine. I don’t feel like I’m struggling for lack of anything.

Recently I started trying to eliminate coffee from a daily occurrence. When we were on the A.T. and F.T. I didn’t drink coffee due to its diuretic effects and I didn’t want to be stopping to pee every mile during the morning. I felt good not drinking so much coffee and really enjoyed it even more when we were in town stops, lingering over the coffee and chatting with other hikers. It was a treat. Lately I’d been feeling foggy in the late afternoons and sort of exhausted, I started thinking of a possible culprit. So, I eliminated coffee and switched to tea. Generally I drink herbal teas but I’ve been using up some White/Green Tea fusion and some other strawberry flavored black tea and then adding in coconut milk (the kind that is refrigerated) to sweeten it up and have been enjoying that. I know it has caffeine but it hasn’t made me feel nearly as jittery or drained. While I do have that general end-of-day tiredness from staring at screen all day, I don’t feel like I want to curl up and sleep the minute I get home.

My goal for the next year is to just start being more balanced with my eating and remembering to eat well, lay off the cheese so much and ease up on sugars and deserts. I know there is much more to being vegetarian and others talk about various nutrients like Allie at Colour Me Happy recently did regarding B12.

It is definitely a learning experience!

Two previous posts regarding this journey:
+Going Veg
+Thoughts on 6 Months of Being Vegetarian

We had a scattering of beets that survived a round of seed planting back in January. They were part of the bad carrot planting we had, rains too heavy and washing away the seeds. But a few stuck and it was finally time to pull them up and replace them with peppers. When we were pulling them I was reminded of this recipe from a new-to-me blog that I bookmarked over a month ago. I dug it up in my feed reader, looked it over and decided it was doable.

As you see above, all of that came from our garden. The only thing that did not come from the garden was the garlic (not ready yet), tarragon and bay leaves (don’t grow them), coconut and olive oils (need a plantation for those), and salt and pepper (don’t own a salt flat and don’t grow the black pepper plant either). So, all in all, I was doing pretty good.

We pulled one leek and one onion early…and I added a few things into my soup that weren’t in the recipe linked above. I added garlic chives, dill and the onion—she only called for a leek. After pulling the one leek, I will definitely be growing a lot more of them in the future. Oh, and the carrots, she didn’t call for carrots but I needed to thin mine out.

I roasted the carrots and beets for an hour at the suggested temperature. The skin peeled right off the beets!

Sautéed up the garlic and onion mixture…

Then put the beets in with about four cups of water, letting it boil for a few minutes and then simmering for about 10. Afterwards I put it in increments into my food processor to blend it….

And then it was done! Tastes pretty darn good! It has an earthy flavor too, very ‘dirty’…it just smells of the garden! I will definitely make this again next year when it is beet season once again!

Last week, about a month into the fermentation of the sauerkraut, I skimmed off the last bits of mold that had formed on the surface water and jarred up the sauerkraut. I gave it a taste beforehand and it tasted pretty good. Still crunchy and there was no mold growing on the actual cabbage itself.

Will I make sauerkraut again? Maybe. I know we will have more cabbage in the garden in the future and it is hard to eat it all so I may end up doing this again. I might try the jar method next time.

I only put the sauerkraut in the jars and stuck them in the fridge. While some places say to put them in a hot water bath, most blogs I read were against that because all of the good things from the lacto-fermentation would be killed in the process. Storing it in the fridge will keep other molds and bacteria at bay and it will last in the fridge for several months. I have yet to eat any of it; I need to think of a meal to pair it with.

Miss the original post on starting this whole process? Read it here.

A few weeks ago I was at a local garden center, The Arbor Gate, and they had some seeds on clearance. I found a package of broccoli sprouts and jumped at the chance to try them out. I thought it would be fun to see how it worked but also to have sprouts on hand, and a specific amount of sprouts at that. Of course it takes a few days to have sprouts ready, but if you were planning a meal for a few days out that involved sprouts, it would be easy to start. I always feel bad when I waste sprouts bought at the store because it is inevitable that we won’t eat them all before they spoil.

I followed the directions on the packet which included soaking the seeds in a bleach solution, 1tbsp bleach to 1c water for 15 minutes and then rinsing thoroughly. This was to prevent E. coli contamination.

Then I soaked the seeds in water overnight. I’m using a pair of old hose that had runners in them. I didn’t feel like running all over town to find cheesecloth so I used that instead. It worked perfectly and I kept the section I cut off for future use.

After the first night of soaking you can already see the sprouts starting.

Twice a day I would rinse the sprouts out and drain them and put them back in their corner, covered with a towel. This is the second day.

Four days in I had sprouts that I could eat but I wasn’t quite ready for them. This is where I made my fatal mistake.

Looking good!

I had forgotten to use them in a smoothie on Friday morning so I was going to take them to my parent’s house for the weekend and eat them the following morning. Well, when I went to get them out of the jar that morning I found the sprouts covered in mold (which you can see barely in the photo)! I should have refrigerated them as soon as they were big enough to eat. My mistake and I will learn from it in the future! I don’t think they were molded when I left on Friday evening, but I can’t be sure.

I’m happy that the experiment worked—I didn’t realize it was so easy to sprout. But, refrigeration is key to preventing spoilage after they are ready to eat. I should have known better!

Oh well, next time!

Due to the large amount of cabbage we currently have, I finally decided to make the sauerkraut. I debated on what kind of receptacle to use, finally deciding to use the large dutch oven I bought Chris for Christmas. Apparently there are fermenting crocks one can buy, and perhaps if I make sauerkraut in the future after this initial experiment I will buy one. For now the dutch oven will work.

I alternated between chopping up the cabbage, rinsing it and then layering it in the dutch oven, sprinkling it thoroughly with salt on each layer. The salt assist with drawing out the water from the cabbage. I went by Wild Fermentation’s directions but there are many directions on Google and it seems that you can do it in many methods, including a glass jar—another option I might try next time.

Once I had all the layers I went through and packed it down. This also helps with crunching some of the water out. Yes, really bad self portrait, but I’m all about the action!

I looked for awhile for a weight to keep the plate down and opted for some Tupperware filled with water. I already took one off as the water have risen enough that only one was needed. The plate keeps the cabbage packed down and the weight works to raise the water level in the crock. The water will slowly evaporate and I’m supposed to replace it with a salty mix of water in order to keep it all covered. Currently it is covered with a cloth and tucked onto a corner of my kitchen that I don’t use too often. I’ll keep checking it every few days, looking for mold to skim off and to see about refilling with water. I’ll probably do a weekly Fermentation check so you can see how the process is going! Hopefully in 2-4 weeks I’ll have something good to eat!

I pulled all of this out of our garden plots today. I could have harvested more but it is much easier and better to go every few days and get what you need. Tomorrow night I’m going to roast the beets and turnips with carrots, then cook up the turnip greens for dinner. The tops to the beets will be saved to be added into my green smoothies.

Some of the Chioggia beets were getting rather large. I am loving the striped pattern on the stalks!

Also, a few of the turnips were rather large and I will probably work my way through the larger ones this week in order for the smaller ones to get a little larger.

Most of the radishes were harvested several months ago but I found a straggler tucked away next to the turnips.

And it all fits nicely in my reusable bag. I’ve been trying to bring them with me lately, especially since I’ve been pulling a lot of cabbage. It becomes difficult to carry it all!

If only it were tomato season right now. We have our seedlings started and a few have come up and if all goes well we might have some tomatoes in late spring.

Are you growing anything right now?

Our Chinese cabbage has been doing great but they are starting to bolt. We’ve been making stir fry with some of the cabbage and it has been great. Ok, *Chris* has made the stir fry. Anyway, I have been dying to make my own sauerkraut after seeing my brother make his own last year so that is on my agenda to make but I’ve also wanted to make chow chow. My grandmother used to make it a lot, well she canned most things out of her garden or from the farmers market and had a shelf full of jarred items in a small hallway in the house I visited growing up. I don’t remember eating a lot of chow chow, mostly because I thought it was a grown up thing to eat, but here I am a grown up and I wanted to make it.

I had my mom email me my grandmother’s recipe and I dug right in. Except I didn’t realize it was going to make so much! I mean, I know three cabbages, but geez, this was a lot! Her recipe also called for onion and green tomatoes, but her recipe also didn’t make nearly as much. I ended up buying one white onion and about six tomatillos because I couldn’t find any green tomatoes at the store. I should have bought about sixteen tomatillos and two more onions! But that’s ok, because in my research on chow chow, there are many different ways to make it. Some with less cabbage, some with more, some sweet, some tangy. It seems that there is no ‘right’ way to make it, which is really a lovely thought!

I nibbled a taste as I putting it into the jars and it tasted just as I remembered. I was worried as I was drowning the cabbage in apple cider vinegar that it was going to be too vinegary, but nope, pretty darn good! I’m planning on trying it out tomorrow morning with some hashbrowns and eggs for breakfast! But, I’m hoping I can expand the use of it, put it on rice and beans and other dishes that need a little kick.

Have you made chow chow?

Two years ago I spent a week as a vegetarian. We were still living in Florida at that time and Chris had been sent to work in New Jersey for a week. I’d been toying with the idea of being a vegetarian for awhile, mostly because I’d become interested by learning from my friend Eliana who went from being a vegetarians to becoming a vegan, and I wanted to give it a whirl. Chris being gone seemed to make it a perfect time to put it all on trial. The week was spent well and I learned a lot, mostly that I could be a vegetarian and it wasn’t nearly as hard as I thought. Around that time Alicia’s Silvertone’s book (insert book) had come out so I purchased that and absorbed all of the information.

Since we were going on our hike it didn’t seem very feasible to jump into this for the long term so I put it on hold. Then we were living with our families and everything was so transient that it seemed too much of a burden to handle at the time.

On May 1st of this year I decided to go full on with it. we were going to be working in the field and for some dumb reason I thought that since we would be eating out a lot that it would make it easier. I couldn’t have been more wrong on that account. Eating out has to be one of the hardest things to do as a vegetarian.

In August we finally settled down and were able to get better on planning meals and figuring things out. Chris decided he would eat vegetarian with me at home and eat meat when he was out. That helped a lot as I know people who are the only vegetarians at home tend to have a harder time with it, cooking separate meals and issues like that. We borrowed vegetarian coookbooks from the library and scanned our favorites for future use. The internet of course is a vast resource, too.

It is easy to fall into being a cheese and pasta vegetarian. I love both, but it isn’t a very nutrious or healthy way to eat either. Hence the problem with eating out; you are resorted to cheese covered items or lots of pasta. Salads are a good option but most of the time they are covered in meat. Sure you can get them without meat but you are a: paying for the meat even if you get it without, restaurants rarey adjust the price for no meat and b: you are usually losing a protein source and only a few restaurants, typically Asian fare, have tofu on hand as a substitute. You can definitely be a vegetarian and be unhealthy.

As you can tell I still eat cheese and eggs as well as milk products, though not milk itself. For milk I have switched to almond milk, even though for years I drank soy milk. Once I tried almond I never went back to soy. I’ve also found that almond tends to be a bit cheaper than soy milk.

Once we started planning meals I realized there is quite a variety of foods to eat and that for the most part I never feel deprived. It also healthier because we aren’t relying on pasta and rice only, we come up with other ideas to make things interesting. Sure, we add in meatless crumbles into our spaghetti or to use in chili and we’ve also bought faux chicken to spice things up, but we by far do not rely on those for meals.

I’ve had meat, I think four times, during this period. Twice I’ve had fish that Chris caught, something I decided that I will eat if the opportunity arises. I splurged and had sushi on my birthday and I ate meat when I met a friend for dinner because my other options were slim. Of course I still think about meat from time to time, particularly when people talk about it or when I smell something delectable. I’ve decided I don’t really miss chicken or lunch meat. I do miss Chic-Fil-A chicken and I could probably eat a mess of Wing Stop wings, but both are fried and drenched in other stuff. I also miss shredded pork, either bbq or Cuban style. Lately I’ve been wanting meat some and I decided that I’m going to eat meat at Christmas. Ham, turkey and gravy….I can’t pass it up! I could, but you know, I’m alright with not passing it up.

I’m sure some people will think it is sacrilege to eat meat a handful of times a year, but I’ve read many blogs where people are vegetarian but allow themselves meat on special occassions. There’s no reason I can’t make my own rules as I go. Will I eat meat next Christmas? Who knows? Maybe, maybe not. I’ll see about that next year.

This vegetarian thing, though, will be sticking around for awhile I think. With enough planning (and it really isn’t that hard to plan for two people) it isn’t difficult to be a vegetarian. Eating out and visiting friends…yes, but you will find that most people are willing to accomodate and will even do it without you asking. I certainly appreciate that and don’t expect my friends to bend to my dietary needs, usually I’ll eat what I can find or try to eat something before I go somewhere. I was ecstatic when I went to a party in August where my friend had considered me the meal planning—something I did not expect!

A few tips:
-Don’t go crazy with buying all sorts of new foods. Try new things out one at a time. For one, if you don’t like what you bought, you are just wasting the food. Two, if you are the only vegetarian in the house it will take awhile to go through it. Want to try quinoa and couscous and all sorts of new grains? Pick one each week or two and try new recipes with each. Master a few recipes so you can have on hand when you buy that product.

-Buy your fresh vegetables every few days. You will be more enticed to eat them when they are fresh. If you see produce on sale, particularly if it is in season, buy extra for out of season times and freeze it. It will be great added to yogurt, oatmeal, or to make smoothies out of later.

-Prepare meals in advance and freeze them or make extra for leftovers. This works with any way of eating, but it eases lunch issues at work and will help you make better choices than ordering unhealthy vegetarian food at lunch. Plus, making your own meals will reduce buying premade items that potentially have unwanted additives in them—even if you buy organic and/or natural premade items they can be more expensive than making it yourself.

-Know that you will probably have to make weird food choices in a pinch at a restaurant. Ask the waiter questions about how the food is prepared. If you are flexible (some vegetarians are not) you may have to accept a bowl of French onion soup that has beef broth in it. Yes, don’t forget how your soups are prepared. Rice could easily be prepared in chicken broth. If you are willing to bypass that, eating out might be easier—if not, there’s always salad! I still forget and order sides of beans and they come with tiny bits of meat. My choice is either to share it with a meat eater, eat it myself because wasting food is stupid, or not eat it. Usually it gets eaten.

-Also. be prepared for weird looks by the waitstaff, comments that appear to be funny but are actually snide, and for your meal to come out wrong despite ordering it without meat. While there is plethora of vegetarians these days, and the lifestyle is much more prevalent than in previous decades, we live in a omnivorous society and folks love their meat. That said, be polite, slowly educate and spread the word without being militant about it. Actions always speak louder than words.

I’m definitely not the be all and end all on resources, I’m stil learning. Here’s some of my favorite websites and books:
No Meat Athlete
Brendan Brazier, Thrive in 30
Oh She Glows
Forks Over Knives: Haven’t watched this yet, need to borrow it from my library but it has a long list of people in front of me.
Meatless Mexican Home Cooking
Super Natural Cooking
The Kind Diet by Alicia Silverstone

That’s just a few. A Google search or a trip to the bookstore will allow you to find tons of information out there. There is definitely a lot of research that has gone into the vegetarian lifestyle.

I’ll probably do another self review again when it has been a year, see how I feel and write about it again. Until then, eat a few more veggies (you too dad! ) next time you have a meal.