Teaching at my first Workshop this weekend!

This weekend I will be teaching at a FREE Intensive Workshop on gleaning, starting your own community food based swap events, & lacto-fermentation (I will be teaching the last two)

-Lunch & childcare included!

Saturday Sept 22nd
10am-4pm

For more information and to RSVP by Sept 18 (sorry for the short notice)
Contact

 Aryeh Shell or Carla M. Perez

Movement Generation 510.649.1475 oraryeh@movementgeneration.org

http://www.movementgeneration.org/mg-fall-equinox-weekend-sept-22-23

Heading in to Fall

I am starting to feel the change of the seasons in the air.

As Autumn comes around each year I am filled with the sense of a fresh start. My body feels different; my eyes seem to see things in a new color palate. I get the urge to make lists, scheme up exciting new hopeful plans, and organize my home. (edit: I have been researching a bit what the ancient traditions of this time of year are and have found it is/was common to do fall version of spring cleaning for your home) I prepare, re-evaluate, and make decisions. The months we are heading in to are the ones in which I shine. 

Perhaps it's because the fall marks the beginning of a new school year which itself represents a fresh new chance to remake yourself & start anew.  From here we can see the door start to open up to the holiday season which itself is an exciting time. The ancient Celts had two important holidays this time of year. Alban Elved (or Mabon) on Sept 21st is the Autumnal Equinox and is the time for finishing the business of Summer. The Celts considered the end of fall their new year (Samhain) and spent much time, from now until October 31st, harvesting, preserving, and preparing for the cold months ahead. But it wasn't all about looking towards Winter, both of these holidays are also a time to celebrate the harvest and indulge with many feasts and festivals. 
For me, this time of year brings my birthday (it was on the 6th) and reminds me that I have a whole new year ahead of me to look forward to and fill with experiences. 

Today I indulged my ancestors (my last name means apple). There is an old apple tree in my neighborhood that is very tall so it is impossible to pick the apples it produces. Every apple on this tree comes crashing down to the cement parking lot below it bruising & rotting. I decided to salvage what I could, so I rode my bike over and ended up picking enough apples off the ground to fill up my pannier. Pounds and pounds of apples. When I got home I washed them, cut off the wounds & brown spots, cooked them with some lemon juice then canned them. Out of these poor rotting unwanted fruits I was able to get 5 jars of apple sauce. I think that's pretty cool. 

How does Autumn affect you? What are you doing to prepare for the upcoming months?

Homemade Food Swap Haul

This is why I love Homemade Food Swaps! I came out of this one with more food than I get during a regular grocery shopping trip and everything was of amazing high quality and locally made/grown. 

I ended up making 5 different things to trade: whole wheat cheese crackers, fruit bars (newtons style in apricot, persimmon, & appleberry), garden huckleberry jam (fruit grown in my yard), medicinal herbal tea blends (all herbs grown in my yard), and edible flowers (from my yard). 

Check out all the amazing things I got in my trades!

All this!

3 doz eggs, focaccia, soup, salsa, whey, jams

more jams, strawberry shortcake, bread, cookies, homebrew beer, kombucha, chai tea,

cookies, candied nuts, granola, triple sec, queso blanco, irish soda bread, candied lemon peel, & more cookies

Putting Up My Fall Harvest - Canning Tomato Sauce

I haven't had much experience with canning. My mother is a "Master Food Preserver" so I haven't had to learn how to do it myself. I just pick up a bag full of jams, pickles, & sauces every time I go for a visit. But she lives far and I decided it was time to stop being lazy and get a little bit deeper in to practicing what I preach. 

Those lovely jars of pasta sauce up there. That's all me! I got a bunch of tomatoes at the crop swap last weekend so I did a harvest of my own and joined them with the ones for the swap. I was SURE it would be enough for 4 or 5 jars of pasta sauce. Obviously I had never made pasta sauce for canning before. Those 2 jars are all my millions of tomatoes gave me, but I'm sure they are two amazingly delicious jars of sauce. Hopefully I'll get my hands on some more tomatoes soon and make another batch. 

Traditionally, you remove the seeds & skin when making pasta sauce. I think that is a huge waste of both time and nutrients. Instead, I just ran all my tomatoes through a blender, skin, seeds, & all. I then sauteed up some onions & garlic in olive oil, added rosemary, the tomato puree, basil, & parsley. A pinch or two of salt and let the whole thing simmer till it was the thickness I desired. 

I'm no expert, so I don't want to give any instructions for canning but there is a TON of information online. A quick search will turn up more info then you could ever look through. 

My Backyard Crop Swap Haul

Today was the second of our newly started Backyard Crop Swaps that happen at the Phat Beets N. Oakland Satruday Market. These swaps happen the FIRST Saturday of every month. Last month was our first one and I came home with an impressive spread of fruits & veggies. This time was even better with more people showing up and a wider range of items.
I brought a bunch of mullein (for teas), culinary sage, Vietnamese cilantro, tree collards, & baskets of garden huckleberries. 

I came home with all this:

From the top:
Large bag of dried stinging nettle
oyster mushrooms
summer squash
curly parsley
figs
tomatoes
large zucchinis
eggs
mint
Jerusalem artichokes
hot peppers
peppino melon
purple potatoes
and green beans.

And I didn't have to spend a dime!
Eating well and healthy is totally possible when you can get your community together to share their resources. With events like these swaps everyone who participates benefits. Like me, you can turn your bumper crop (even if it's just herbs you grow in pots on your porch) in to wide variety of produce.
I'm off to turn all those tomatoes in to some pasta sauce. More on that later :)

Fun with Nasturtiums

 Nasturtiums pretty much grow like weeds here in California. Most people know these edible flowers have a nice spicy flavor that make a great addition to salads. But there are other things you can do with them as well. The whole plant is edible: flowers, young seeds, leafs and stalks. Here are a couple of other options for putting nasturtiums to use in your kitchen.:

I headed out around my neighborhood with bags in hand and collected both flowers and young seed pods.

Wild overgrown bush of nasturtiums

These flowers grow everywhere. I wondered around and collected from about 5 different patches in my neighbors front yards.

Young seed pods

 The seed pods grow in clusters of 3. You want to pick them when they are still green. As soon as they start to get tiny red spots or turn yellow its too late. They will be be woody and not very palatable.

I ended up with a full bag of flowers and just enough seed pods to fill a small jar.

The first thing I made was "Poor Mans Capers". Real capers are the seed pod of the caper bush, however, nasturtium seed pods taste remarkably similar when pickled.  I used the lacto-fermentation method of pickling for these.

Poor Man's Capers (lacto-fermented)
Young Nasturtium Seed Pods (enough to fill your jar with 1/2 inch space at the top)
zest from one lemon
1 small onion cut in to slices
clove of garlic cut in to 2-4 pieces
bay leaf ripped in half
3 or 4 small sprigs of thyme
about 6 pepper corns
1tsp salt


Mix all the ingredients (minus the salt) together in a bowl then empty in to your jar. The goal is to have the flavorings spread out somewhat evenly. Sprinkle in the salt then fill with water up to the top. Put cap on jar then shake well to dissolve the salt. Uncap the jar, place inside a dish (to catch any liquid that might spill over), then top with a plastic bag filled with just enough water to seal off the entire opening of the jar. Make sure all organic material is under water and not touching air. Let sit to lacto-ferment for 6 days. You should see a good amount of bubbles forming and the liquid should smell sour. 
You can use these capers the same way you can use the real deal. The only difference is these ones will cost you next to nothing, be hyper local, handmade, and great for your digestion.

The next thing I made was a quick tasty dressing/sauce using the nasturtium flowers.

Nasturtium Flower Dressing/Sauce

6 cups of loose nasturtium flowers (or one produce bag full)

2 cloves of garlic

1/4 cup extra virgin olive oil

1/8 cup apple-cider vinegar

1/2 tsp salt (or more to taste)

1/4 cup water

Place all ingredients in blender and process till smooth. 

This is a super basic recipe. Feel free to play with the ingredients. Add herbs from your garden, try a different type of oil/vinegar, or add other edible flowers. Each new ingredient will change the flavor just a little bit. Mess around till you find your perfect combo.

I used this sauce as a flavoring for a vegetable quinoa dish I made (below). I love the bright orange color and could imagine using this as a salad dressing, sauce on meat, or dip.

Quinoa with garden vegetables and Nasturtium dressing

Trades! How I've been feeding myself with almost no money.

Lately I have been doing a lot of trades. Most specifically, food items for food items, though not strictly.

GF Corn Bread w/green chili

 I'm sure you all know about my swap events by now (if not check out the tabs above). These trades are a little different. They are one on one trades that I set up though various websites with other food lovers and frugals like myself.
My latest trade for example: I received gluten free cornbread for some kefir grains.

It can be tricky at first, I mean, what value does something handmade actually have? What is a fair trade? Their are lots of things to consider and you can really get in to creating a "price" for your items. But truthfully, it all comes down to comfort. What are you comfortable trading your items for? Is the other person comfortable as well? If so, then, Hey! You've got yourself a trade. Don't be afraid to counter offer as well. If you think you really should get one more jar of jam for that truckload of kale then say so.

As for venues for seeking out trades...I have a few tricks up my sleeve and use them all.

Peach Ginger Jam

*First, I use this Bay Area specific website dedicated to people who love growing, raising, foraging, and cooking their own food. http://www.foundfruit.com/ 
This site has various groups you can join (or create). One of these groups is a backyard fruit/veggie exchange group. I have gotten some great trades from this group including a large bottle of apricot wine in exchange for a small Nanking Cherry plant! It also has some great event listings (you can even add your own) for food, health, and sustainability related events in the Bay Area. It's a fun site to explore.

*Next, craigslist! Craigslist has a barter section. As with everything else you do on craigslist, for some reason it seems to produce a lot of flakes. Every now and then people come through though and you can get some great trades on craigslist.

*Facebook. A friend of mine (and one of my favorite people to swap with) started a trade group on facebook and added all her friends. In turn, everyone interested added all their friends who they thought might be interested in trades. The group has about 120 people currently and I've gotten some great trades from it. My major sweet tooth was sated with a trade of 2 pairs of my bike tube earrings for 5 dozen amazing organic, healthy, & tasty cookies. Another trade, I got two jars of pickled veggies, and a jar of peach ginger jam for some of my kombucha, chard, lambs quarters, and a kefir grain.

*Local Food Swap Network. I started a once a season food swap event which has been a huge hit. It has also hooked me up with hundreds of food minded people in the bay area. Every now and then I reach out to these people for trades outside of the once a season large events for smaller more personal trades.

The trick to all this is that you need to have something people want. Either an item, service, or skill people are actually looking for or would enjoy having. If you are not a gardener or baker think about your other talents. What do you do for a living? Is it something people would be interested in trading for? Do you make things? Know how to give massages? Build websites? Sew? Can you give guitar lessons? It can be almost anything.

Here is an example of my current "I have to swap" list:
*Peach Ginger Kombucha
*Kombucha scoby
*Milk Kefir Grains
*Lambs quarters (similar to spinach)
*Chard
*Fava Beans (shelled & frozen)
*Succulent Cuttings (various)
*veggie & herb starts (Yarrow, Butter lettuce, stupice, green zebra, & yellow pear tomato, Broage, Marigolds, Russian tarragon, Cilantro, Tree collards)
*Recycled Bike Tube Earrings (http://www.etsy.com/shop/girlonbike)
*Homemade deodorant (Tea Tree or Rose scented)
*Worms (for making vermicompost)


Start looking around your house & compile a list of things you have to trade. You might be surprised at what gets offered up to you. You might also be lucky enough to meet some really nice like minded folks. 

Tomato based Italian style pickles

Plant Swap Prep: gathering cuttings, offshoots, seedlings, & unwanted plants

 Today I'm spending my day getting ready for the N. Oakland Plant Swap that we are putting on tomorrow.

This means that I am running around my house and yard searching for things to snip off, pull out, bag up, and gather together. Its amazing how easy it is to make a new plant out of practically nothing. Get yourself a little rooting hormone and you are gold. You could literally never buy another plant or seed again if you just put a little bit of work in to it, and I do mean little.

Here are some of the things around my house I am pulling from to add to the plant swap tomorrow:

Lemon Balm
I rooted this from a cutting and will take more cuttings from it for the swap.

Basil
We started from seed & rooted from cuttings various herbs including:
yarrow, lavender, rosemary, & this basil

Marigolds
Started from seeds, we ended up with more than we will use

Succulents
snapping off various succulent cuttings from around my yard

Ivy
A wonderful indoor plant that has grown long. I've snipped off cuttings for people to  root.

Lettuces
We started a little bit too many lettuces so I'll have a few to swap

Succulent
This shows a great example of how succulents multiply.
You can easily twist off these lower heads and  root them for a whole new plant.

Another succulent I took cuttings from.

I can't wait for the swap tomorrow. What a great way to start a garden or green up your home all for free.

I leave you today with a picture of some artichokes in my front yard. I watch these things grow larger and larger every day and I can't wait to sink my teeth in to them. I like the background of lawns & cars. Such a stark contrast. Get outside and enjoy this beautiful day!

Swapping Plants - edibles, house plants, cuttings, succulents, herbs, seeds, etc.

I just started my newest swap project: The N. Oakland Plant Swap!

This will be a twice a year event for people to gather together and trade all their edible and inedible: unwanted plants, cuttings trimmings, seedlings, starts, foraged plants, and seeds.
This is also a great place to bring any extra pots, natural fertilizers, vermicompost/worms, garden tools, etc. you have and are no longer using. Pass them all on to a new home and come pick up some new-to-you plants for your garden and home.

I hope to see lots of edible plants, herbs, house plants, flowers & succulents. Bring it all!


Our first swap will be: Saturday May 7th 2-4pm
Click the logo below for more information.

If you don't already have something like this in your area, consider starting it. It takes little effort and can be done just once or twice a year having a great impact in your community. This can be an amazing way to get all the plants you need/want for your home and garden completely for free!

Food Swap Success!

I just finished hosting my first Homemade Food Swap and it was a great success. The event was covered by a reporter for KQED's "Bay Area Bites" and the article should come out on Monday.

For the swap I made 10 bottles of Peach Ginger Kombucha, 3 Vegan Boysenberry swirl Chocolate Cakes, 3 Kiwi Apple Galettes, 2 bags of Borage Lemon Balm Mint Tea, and 2 bags of Yarrow Tea.

I walked away with ALL THIS:

2 logs of homemade goat cheese,
2 bottles home brew beer,
2 Jars of Apple Butter,
round of 8 cranberry scones,
13 different chocolate truffles,
seeded granola,
candied pecans,
5 spice nuts,
saffron pears,
homemade challah bread,
3 mini strawberry pies,
blueberry ginger water kefir,
pasta sauce,
radish onion relish,
spicy sweet pickled dates,
lemon curd,
cardamom butter cookies,
organic herbs (peppermint, holy basil, and a blend of calming herbs)

SCORE! I can't wait for the next swap.

Top 5 posts of 2010

I had such a great year in 2010 with this blog. Some post really exploded gathering more attention than I could imagine (though you can't tell from the comments...really, you folks need to comment more), others just kind of petered out. These are the top 5 most popular posts I made in 2010 for Girl on Bike:

#5
Urban Foraging N. Oakland
Here I talked about finding a tasty fruit tree in my new N. Oakland neighborhood.


#4
Homemade Wall Hanging Bike Rack
The 5 bike wall mounted rack Dan and I built in our dinning room


#3
Super Cheap and Healthy Pesto
Eating well for less :) How to substitute some of the most expensive ingredients in pesto from some healthy less expensive ones and still get great tasting results.


#2
Toothpaste Alternatives - Homemade Toothpaste
Recipes for DIY teeth cleaners

#1 (this post far surpassed all others in views)
Homemade Deodorant
This post continually showed up on message boards and re-posted by other bloggers. It makes me very happy to know so many people out there are interested in healthier products and reducing the waste that comes from all the commercial products we buy.


Thanks for being such wonderful readers in 2010. I hope to share much more internet time with you in 2011!

I Brake for Berries

Right now raspberry bushes are sharing their bounty here in the bay area. On the way home from the Beehive Market I rode past this amazing berry patch and collected a few to take home with me.

Urban Foraging: Loquats

Here in Oakland/Berkeley loquats are EVERYWHERE. And THIS is the time to pick them. Right now they are perfectly sweet just waiting to be eaten.

*Click on the image below to see a close up of the tree, its leafs, and the fruit clusters so you will be able to identify them in your own neighborhood.
Make sure to look for fruits with a deep orange color. They should be firm giving way only slightly under the pressure of your fingers.
You can bite right in consuming the skin if you like but I think the texture and tartness takes away from fruit so I (and most people) prefer to peel the skin off before eating.
Inside you will find anywhere from1 to 5 large seeds. These are hard and not edible so spit those babies out. Enjoy the small amount of flesh you do get, there are plenty on the tree to satisfy your loquat hunger.

Dumpster Treasure

It's amazing what people throw away....

Yay Bike to Work Day!

This was my first official "Bike to Work Day" and I loved it! Totally worth waking up at 6:45am to head out to all(we made it to 3) the energizer stations and the main event in Downtown Oakland. We first headed over to Actual Cafe to say hello to my buddy Sal and dance to some funky beats to get the morning started right.
Next we headed over to Frank Ogawa Plaza in Downtown Oakland for the main Bike to Work event. We arrived around 8am and there were plenty of people showing their bike love.
Luckily the line for the free pancake breakfast and coffee was short and went really quickly.
Our lovely pancake servers. Thanks so much!
The pancakes were delish, and they even let us go back for seconds!
On the way home we stopped by another energizer station at 40th & San Pablo and picked up a pastry provided by Emeryville's own "Pixar".

Then while heading back to the house we made one last stop at the community garden where they have a wonderful raspberry bush. Being responsible urban foragers, we only picked the raspberrys that were growing on the outside of the fence over on to the sidewalk. A perfect way to end our morning of free feasting.

We spotted this very pretty flowering plant and grabbed one of its dried up flower clusters to collect seeds. Hopefully we can get a few to sprout and have one of these grow at our house.
Once home we emptied out our free goodie bags and were so excited to see all the amazing stuff we got. First off, how rad to see my fellow blogging buddy Meli from Bikes and the City on the cover of the Momentum Magazine. Second, a FREE EcoMetro Guide? Um...awesome! Also, free Cliff bars, Ghirardelli chocolate squares, Numi teas, stickers, a bike map of Oakland and coupons.
Thanks dudes! Bike to work morning was wonderful.
If I'm up to it I'll be heading over to the "Bike Away from Work" party this evening too :)

Urban Foraging N. Oakland - Arbutus Strawberry Tree

While riding my bike around my new N. Oakland neighborhood, I came across a row of about 6+ Arbutus Strawberry Trees. I don't see these fruits very often so I was excited to come across a whole bunch of them just blocks from my house. Luckily these trees are just coming in to season so the trees are full of ripening fruits. The bell shaped flower of the Strawberry Tree are edible and have a slight honey like flavor.

The fruit is small with spiky red skin, yellow flesh, and can be eaten whole. The texture is a little bit mealy but has a pleasant light almost apricot like flavor. You want to pick the fruit when it is dark red and soft when you apply light pressure. They should come off easily when you pick them.
Keep your eyes peeled around your neighborhood for these spiky red fruits. They are great eaten right off the tree or can be turned in to a wonderful jam.

Happy Foraging!

Air layering local fruit trees

A while back I touched on the subject of taking cuttings showing you all an amazing succulent garden I stumbled upon and my own succulent cuttings rooting in a window sill. Not all plants root well from cuttings so today I'm going to show you a great technique for taking a cutting of a fruit tree that will up your chances of success.

Air Layering!
This process takes a bit longer and requires more work than just taking a cutting but for some plants it is much more successful. The idea is to create a cut on a branch but still have it attached to the tree to receive nutrients. You simulate it being in the ground so it begins to grow roots out of the cut in the branch. Hopefully after enough roots have grown you can fully cut it from the tree and plant it with its new roots already ready to take over.
This is my first experiment with air layering so you'll be learning with me on this one.
The plant chosen was the wonderful Strawberry Guava I found in my neighborhood awhile back.

Air layering is best done during the spring when the tree starts showing signs of new growth.
Choose a good size branch at least a couple of feet long. Cut two parallel lines around the branch roughly one inch apart. Make sure to only cut deep enough to go through the bark. Make sure you make this cut below a node.
Make a single cut connecting the two lines and peel away the bark. If you have a rooting medium brush it on the exposed branch. (I did not do this so we'll see how it turns out)
Gather a recycled piece of plastic around the branch a few inches under the cut and attach with a twist tie or something similar.
Fill the entire area a few inches below, a few inches above, and all the way around the cut with sphagnum moss or coconut coir (I used the coir). Make sure to wet the moss or coir really well then wrap the plastic around it tightly and seal up the other side again with a twist tie or something similar.

I haven't found anything online that gives exact amounts of time to wait for roots to begin growing so I plan on checking back after about a month and a half. When I do I'll post an update and let you know how it is working out.