Vegan Jack Fruit Bread

This past weekend my husband and I went to one of our favorite markets and I talked him into buying me a 20 lb jackfruit. Not surprisingly, just like the last time I talked him into buying me a 20 lb jack fruit, I now have more jack fruit than I know what to do with.

After giving about 1/4 of it away to loved ones and eating about another 1/4 of it raw I decided to look up some recipes.

I've seen jackfruit "pulled pork" and jackfruit "chicken salad". I've tried some of these savory recipes and to me the fruit is just way too sweet for savory dishes.

So I researched some jackfruit bread recipes and found one I was able to dissect some and reassemble an easy and yummy quick bread that came out great! The original recipe called for canned jackfruit and the syrup it came in plus a bunch of refined sugar. I'm fortunate enough to have plenty of fresh jack fruit on hand and because of the natural sweetness of the fruit I really think it stands on it's own for sweetness and flavor so I was able to greatly simplify things into something easy, free of animal products and delicious!

So here's my version of jackfruit bread for you to enjoy:

Ingredients:

2 Cups flour of your choosing (I used all purpose white flour because it's what I had on hand)
1.5 TBS Baking Powder
1 TSP salt
1 Cup chopped, fresh jackfruit (If using canned jackfruit, drain and rinse)
1/2 cup Almond or Coconut milk
3 TBS unsweetened apple Sauce
2 TBS Coconut Oil

Directions:

Preheat your oven to 350°
Grease a loaf pan and set it aside (This recipe would make great drop biscuits too!)

First combine all of your dry ingredients into one bowl and set them aside.

Then put your jackfruit, almond milk and apple sauce into a blender or food processor and blend until smooth.
Warm your coconut oil so it's liquid, not too hot though, and with your blender on low add it slowly until it's thoroughly incorporated.
Pour your wet mixture into your dry mixture and stir well. It should be the consistency of a moist
biscuit dough.

Pat the dough into your loaf pan. 

You can add shredded coconut, walnuts, ground flax seed or other nuts or dried fruit to the top at this point if you'd like!

and bake for 40 minutes.

Simple and delicious and free of animal products! Let me know if you try it!

Kale Harvest: Freezer Storage

Today I harvested nearly all of my red Russian and lacinato kale.
One of the hardest parts of summer here in SWFL is dealing with the loss of the readily available back yard kale. Always fresh and ready to eat or to go in soups and smoothies and stir fry.

Well this year I've extended the harvest a bit by preparing and freezing my kale two ways.

Kale ice cubes for smoothies! 

and Kale stock for soups!

As the weather warms up and the days get longer the kale that's been growing beautifully since the Fall ... starts to look a little crappy. It's tougher, has more brown spots and the leaves aren't getting as big anymore. SO it's time to let go and move on.

But I'm not letting go as easily as I normally do!

Here's my harvest. It was about 3 pounds or so and a lot of it was less than beautiful, but still totally useable.

I juiced it all with my very tired and dull juicer and got a little over two cups total. I'm sure a better quality juicer could have gotten more out, and I had to give the machine a break halfway through, but that's ok! I've still got plans for all of the left over pulp.

I love this color green SO MUCH!!

I poured the juice into ice cube trays... the only shape of which I have just happens to be Easter Island faces. Then popped them in the freezer! Thats it! I'll leave them there and when I make smoothies I can grab a couple to add some nice, green micro-nutrients!

plus... they're fun to set up and play with...

As for the pulp, I threw it all into a large pot to cook into a veggie stock

I added some fresh herbs from the garden to amp up the flavor and slow cooked the concoction for a while. Then I strained it with a spaghetti colander and  poured the broth into freezer bags.

 And there you have it! Two easy ways to keep your kale harvest going ... at least for a while longer. I so prefer home made stocks over store bought so making veggie stock is something I plan on doing more and more often with my end harvests.

Still, it's sad to see a good crop run it's course!

*sigh*, Until next Fall, kale.... Until next Fall...

Open air composting

I get tons of composting questions so I wanted to share how we do it here at our back yard homestead. Please share your own composting preferences! There's not just one way to compost and different methods work for different people and situations! Hope I didn't get too long winded here! I think I broke it down (pun intended) pretty well! :)
And please forgive me for the typos... I did this on the fly and rushed through too much in editing!

Deciphering Mainstream "Organic" fertilizers Pt 1: Chicken Manure Products

It's no secret that I have a real beef with using synthetic fertilizers in a garden. Not to name names but there are some pretty popular brands out there that are so successful at growing foods fast and furious that even the most devoted organic gardeners can get caught in their web of lies via the temptation of a bigger and faster growing crop.

Things get really confusing though when an aspiring organic gardener sees a plant fertilizer labeled as organic. Organic means good, right?! Well, not always... So I wanted to sum up a few of my personal reasons behind the bad taste in my mouth over these "organic" products.

First and foremost keep in mind that just like any other product labeling, these popular brand name companies are out to SELL to you .... not to take care of you.

The word "organic" can be used in the traditional, chemistry sense when not involved with the actual food products on the shelves at a grocery store. There is no USDA food regulation for labeling fertilizers as organic.

When you see an "organic" label on a fertilizer product.... it means that it's an organic compound in the truest sense.... not in the sense of it being USDA certified organic and safer for human consumption.

Here's an example. There are some dry, granulated "organic" fertilizers made entirely out of the bedding or litter used in factory farmed chicken housing. So what does that mean? That means these chickens who are processed and pumped full of antibiotics, GMO corn and growth hormones are housed on top a layer of material like wood shavings.

(image courtesy of CETFA)

After the chickens have been harvested for slaughter the bedding is removed with all of it's nutrient rich (and GMO, hormone, antibiotic rich) chicken manure, bagged up and sold as organic fertilizer.

YUM! .... yeah, not at all.

Now don't get me wrong! Chicken manure is a fantastic staple in the organic gardeners bag of tricks, but when that manure comes from factory farms there is NOTHING sustainable, organic, healthy or kind about it.

An alternative? Raise your own chickens (you really only need 2 or 3 for a back yard garden and you get eggs!), find a friend who raises chickens or look up local and humane chicken farms in your area.

Photo Courtesy of Backyard Chickens.com

Talk about how these birds are raised and what they're fed before adding the manure to your own compost. The extra effort is worth it! Yes it's true that these bagged, mainstream products will boost the growth of your veggies and speed crop production at mind blowing rates.... but at what cost? Is it worth it?

Native Florida Crops: The Bird Pepper

This beautiful little gem of a pepper that will set your face on fire. The bird Pepper!

The bird pepper is native to much of the eastern US including Florida. Also known as the piquin or penguin pepper, it does very well in our hot, humid and wet summers and will thrive year round growing into a large, ornamental bush when left to do it's own thing. 

I may be exaggerating when I accuse if of facial combustion, but I don't have  a very hot-pepper-friendly kind of pallet. I can handle a little heat like an occasional jalapeno. However!!! These little flame bombs are several tens of thousands units higher on The Scoville Heat Scale than the humble jalapeno. They are still "mild" enough to actually have flavor to them. 

They're sweet and tangy somewhere under all of those Scoville units. The only way I know this is because of the way I prepare and preserve very hot peppers from the garden. I keep them is plain white vinegar in the fridge. No special preparation, just vinegar and peppers... example:

1. take one glass jar
2. add a hand full of bird peppers
3. cover peppers in white vinegar
4. put a lid on the jar and place in the fridge

I learned this method for keeping very-hot peppers from my great aunts who used to grow an abundance of cayenne and store them in old salad dressing bottles this way. After several weeks, the resulting liquid is a flavor infused vinegar that adds quite a nice kick to cooked greens like collards and kale. The vinegar keeps for well over a year and you can just continue to add fresh pepper to the jars or bottles as they're picked.

The juice from the bird peppers that  I have in my fridge right now is full of heat but also full of sweet flavor. Even for a heat resisting foodie like myself it's really quite delicious!

You can kick up the process and experiment by adding garlic cloves or dill seeds, but the basic method stays the same.

Photo Credit: Debbie from Banana Avenue

The peppers grow easily and abundantly in full sun and are fairly drought resistant but they do prefer a nice consistent moisture. The leaves are edible as a tiny, nutritious green that you can add to salads or sauteed dishes. The peppers grow from green to almost black to orange and then bright red. They're ready for picking or for falling off the plant and re-seeding when they reach the brilliant red color that make such an attractive ornamental. 

Photo credit: Debbie from Banana Avenue

You can also dry the peppers and grind them for use in chili's or as a topping for pizza or wherever else you like a nice dash of heat. 

SO as far as edible ornamentals go, the Bird pepper is a fantastic addition to any Florida yard-scape, garden or permaculture system. It's always best to plant edible natives when possible. They require very little maintenance and really aid the ecosystem because they actually LIKE it in Florida. You wont have to fight it to keep it alive and it's a great plant for a beginner gardener!

My design for mobile greenhouse planters!

I've been thinking about how exactly to go about growing food on the Manic Organic bus for a couple of years now. Sort of weighing my possibilities and options for the space.

As was was falling asleep one night, a few months back... I had an idea! Cement mixing trays, funnels, tubing and viola!! We'll have planters!


I asked my good man to build me some wooden frames from the scrap lumber and pallets we had laying around. He built them to fit the plastic cement mixing trays and I drilled a single hole into the bottom of each tray.

We purchased plastic funnels and put one in each hole, fixing them in place with some silicone

 These funnels will attach to drain hoses underneath that will divert excess drainage into buckets hidden behind the curtains.

                                             
 The excess water that drains from the trays can be reused as it's collected. I do plan on having a worm bin in the bus as well so it could also be used to moisten the worms habitat when needed. Everything will be fairly self sufficient on board!

 I fastened mesh cages from some old aluminum screening we had salvaged from something , somewhere (re-use and up-cycle whenever possible!) This will keep the soil from falling through the funnels and clogging up the whole system

I've decided to use lava rock for the bottom of the trays. It's fairly inexpensive and lighter than stone or gravel. We need to keep the weight to a minimum so things don't get too top heavy even though the wooden frames will be secured to the walls before we drive anywhere.

The rock will fill the trays up to the level of the tops of the funnels, creating a reservoir space for water to collect. If the water level goes over the top of the funnel then it will drain out so nothing can get flooded or too saturated. This is very similar to how an earth box works. When you have the constant moisture available to your plants they really thrive. Plus the lava rock will also provide some air space for roots.  The soil will go on top of the rocks and fill the trays nearly to the top. I haven't gotten that far but I'm so excited about our progress that I had to share where we're at so far!

Transforming The Manic Organic Mobile

My very first event, all set up and beautiful!

 The Transformation of my bus over the last few years has been on of the most thrilling and fulfilling projects I've ever embarked on. throwing caution to the wind and chasing a dream is something everyone should try at least once. Yeah I lost a ton of money and yeah I've been pretty broke for a while because of it, but I've learned so much from this process and I'm still learning.

I'm evolving and changing my ideas and implementing back up plans all along the way. I've never thrown in the towel or given up on this project.

As much as I enjoyed selling locally sourced, organic produce out of my bus at various events and markets the competition with conventional produce and my insistence on staying local and serving MY community was a losing combination.

There are too many cheap, conventionally grown produce stands in our area. They sell fruits and veggies from Mexico and china and they're a fraction of the price of the quality organic that I was selling. They're also riddled with pesticides, usually weeks old and rather flavorless.

Time and time again, however, people chose to go with what cost less out of their pocket. You just CAN'T make people care about the quality of their food. It's depressing...anyway...

The worse part is that often they lie to their customers and tell them that what they're buying IS local and organic. Even with the original packaging in plain sight. The frustration and profit loss I suffered competing with these guys was too much. So I shut down the operation and moved on to plan B.

I decided the best way to combat these fraudulent produce vendors in my neighborhood would be to help connect existing, local growers who have conscious and sustainable food growing practices and to help others learn how to grow food in our climate.

The result has been plant and seed swaps twice a year, gardening workshops, home garden consultations, facebook pages for local growers and supporting home made food and craft swaps in our south Sarasota County area.

I feel very accomplished with how things have been coming together and working out! I'm helping more, unused space become filled with food growing goodness in my community and I'm helping connect like minded people. Together we're forming quite a nice sub-community of people who care deeply about the food they eat and the soil it's grown in.

As for the bus! Well, I'm turning it into a mobile greenhouse now! the interior will now house growing containers for organic veggies and I'll take my bus to all the same events and markets to help teach people the the most inexpensive food comes from their OWN back yard.

I'll be blogging the progress as I go! It's very exciting and I'm totally stoked and ready to get things done! To see more photos of the bus and how things are evolving please check out the photo gallery on my website by clicking HERE!