No Better Time than Pumpkin Time

It's the time of year where all you want to do at the end of the day is sit down with a steaming mug of hot cocoa and a darn good book to read.  Perhaps you imagine yourself in an oversize snuggie, or maybe cuddling with your cute, fluffy, semi-evil cat.  Where ever your imagination takes you, it should be a mission of yours' to keep this recipe in mind.

Pumpkin-y Goodness Cocoa Full of Yummy-ness and Sunshine
Serves 1
Ingredients
     -2 tbsp. pumpkin
     -3/4 cup soymilk, cowmilk, or whatever milk you like
     -2 tsp. cocoa
     -3-4 drops liquid stevia (you can use 3 tsp. of sugar in place of stevia)
     -1 tsp. molasses
     -a dash of nutmeg

Heat up milk in a saucepan. Add remaining ingredients and heat through. Pour into your favorite mug and enjoy.  

And this one! Don't forget this recipe!

This is my favorite recipe in the whole wide-world for when company comes over.  It is soooo tasty and it tricks my friends and family into eating more good-for-you garlic than what they know!  

Go to your local farmers' market and stock up on winter veggie staples like potatoes, onions, garlic, and squash for this recipe.

Roasted Winter Veggies
Serves 8 to 10
     -5 to 6 cups chopped potatoes, red. yellow, purple, fingerling, whatever
     -3 large carrots
     -2 large yellow onions
     -1 large red onion
     -1 to 2 bulbs garlic
     -5 to 6 large beets
     -2 to 3 delicata squash (the small yellow squash with green stripes)
     -1/3 cup olive oil
     -1/3 cup balsamic vinegar
     -2 tbsp. dried Italian herbs
     -salt and pepper, to taste

Preheat oven to 400 degrees F.  Chop everything up to around the same size and place into a large, preferably glass baking dish.  Pour olive oil and vinegar on top and toss to coat.  Sprinkle herbs, salt, and pepper, to taste.  Place in oven and set timer for 15 minutes.  After timer goes off, stir veggies and place back in for another 15 minutes.  Repeat 2 to 3 times until veggies are tender. 

Gleaning: Our Numbers So Far

We are halfway through the gleaning season, busily racing to pick aging corn, softening melons, and mammoth zucchinis.  Already, I have tapped out my volunteer list serve with notifications of gleaning opportunities, and the few volunteers that do occasionally show up appear haggard and impatient for the season to be over. I can't blame them! 

As of today, we have gleaned 21,681 lbs of produce in Chautauqua County from farm fields and gardens this year, with 74% of the total from the month of August alone! Needless to say, August has been a busy month!

Gleaning beans at Anderson's Produce in Jamestown

So... What are we doing with all this food?

Here's the list:
-Freezing it
-Handing it out to soup kitchen visitors
-Distributing it in our food pantry
-Cooking it into the soup kitchen meals
-Dropping it off at other soup kitchens, food pantries, and human services agencies
-Giving aging produce to farmers for their livestock
-And handing it out to anyone who will take it!

And even though our numbers are great and we are constantly busy with gleaning, distributing, and preserving produce, we can always use new places to glean!  If you have a fruit tree, a garden, or a farm where some of the food goes to waste now and then, please let us know!  We are always happy for a call to glean, no matter how big or small the job.

Know What You're Buying

Found this awesome information for buying produce at a grocery store!!!!!  Write this down on a piece of paper and slip it into your wallet or post it on your refrigerator at home to help you remember!

Chautauqua County Farms VS NYS Farms

Roots and Wings Family Farm Recipe for Garlic Scapes

It is almost GARLIC SCAPE SEASON! Let's celebrate this joyous time with a little recipe from a local farm in Cherry Creek, NY.   Check out the farm's website here.

GARLIC SCAPES!!!!!

Grilled Garlic Scapes from Roots and Wings Family Farm 

Garlic Scapes, as many as you desire

olive oil

salt

what ever seasonings you desire

1. Toss garlic scapes in olive oil, salt, and seasonings.

2. Wrap loosely in tin foil and place over the grill or at the edge of your camp fire. 

3. Roast until tender (10-15 min) depending on how hot your grill or fire is.

4. Enjoy!

Green Cleaning Supplies: Do It Yourself

Ever wonder what's in Windex?  Or perhaps in your toilet cleaner, sink cleaner, shower curtain cleaner, counter cleaner, tile cleaner, wood cleaner, drain cleaner, linoleum cleaner, dish and clothing detergent?  No?  

Do you know what's in here?...
Do you WANT to know what's in here?

Here in the states, cleaning products (in fact, ALL of our PRODUCTS including personal care products, medicines, childrens' toys, and even our food) follow the super logical, morally-incorrupt principle of "Innocent Until Proven Guilty".  This means that chemicals used in the production and synthesis of our products do not undergo rigorous, unbiased testing for the sake of the consumers health.  

What is the Gleaning Project's reaction to this? BOYCOTT!!! I know it may be hard for our consumer-based society to wrap our brains around this idea, but believe me, it's for our own good!  

So put down that toxin-laden sponge and squirt bottle full of mysterious blue liquid, and pick up a rag, a bottle of vinegar, a box of baking soda, and hey, why not an apron? Let's get started.

Here are some go-to recipes for all-around the house cleaning.

P.S. You can purchase Borax (a mined mineral) essentially at any grocery store and it is super cheap and lasts for a long time.  

Scouring Powder

• 1 C baking soda
• ¼ C borax
•  Drops of essential oil (optional)

In a bowl, mix the borax and baking soda with a few drops of essential oil. Store in a shaker and shake onto that pesky soiled surface slated for cleaning.

All-Purpose Cleaner

• A spray bottle (if you don't have an empty one, just go to the dollar store and pick one up)
• 1 cup apple cider vinegar
• 1/2 cup water
• 10-20 drops of essential oil (if you'd like, I use lemon or peppermint)

Put the lime in the coconut and mix it all up. Meaning, just mix it all together in the spray bottle.

Alice’s Wonder Spray

• 2 t borax
• 32 oz. hot water
• ¼ C white vinegar
• 20 drops essential oil (optional)
• ¼ C liquid dish soap (look for a biodegradable, non-petroleum based product from a company above. We used Dr. Bronners Castile soap. Find it in Tops’ natural cleaning section.)

Dissolve borax in hot water. Add to a 32-oz spray bottle along with the vinegar and water. Then add the liquid dish soap and essential oil (optional). Shake it up and apply to sinks, tubs, tiles and floors.

What cleaning your drain looks like at the molecular level

Drain Cleaner

• Baking Soda
• Apple Cider vinegar

Fill your drain with baking soda. Pour down apple cider vinegar.  Watch the magic happen. If you need to, take a plunger to your drain (it helps!).

Beans, Beans, They're Good For Your Heart... And They're Also Super Easy to Grow!

mmmmm...beans.  They are quite literally one of my favorite foods <3 and most versatile veggie.  You can saute them fresh in a stir fry, add them to a soup, dry them and make curry, chili, southwestern bean salad, or stuff them up your nose if you are a one year-old.

Bean plants growing in our Cornerstone garden
in Dunkirk.

Fortunately for us, they are also ridiculously easy to grow (and I'm hoping most of us have matured to the point where we don't care for sticking miscellaneous objects up our noses)!  Which brings me to the subject that I'd like to talk with you about, and that is...

TODAY IS THE DAY WE PLANT BEANS FOR THE SOUP KITCHEN!!!!! 

and then blog about it ^_^ mwhahahaha

So, truth is, is that I just got back in from planting beans (and peas) and completely forgot to take pictures that I wanted to show everyone! Argh, life, don't I have it hard?  Anyway!! Today was a great day to plant them because it's about to raaaaaaain! Why is this good? I will explain if you continue reading... if you give up on this blog post then you are a lost cause and NO BEANS FOR YOU!

Heirloom variety of beans gleaned from Greystone Nature Preserve
in Brocton, NY.  

I like bullets and numbers. I'm assuming you like bullets and numbers.  SO>>> Here is a 'how to' guide to planting beans using bullets AND numbers!

HOW TO PLANT BEANS (for dummies, or post-graduate students, or mothers, or over-ambitious, plant-killing fathers, or children who decide that their noses are in fact NOT a grand place to grow beans)

• 1.  Get yo' beans.  We glean all our beans from local, organic farms and nature preserves who let their extra beans go to seed.  Here at the Gleaning Project, we then have volunteers shuck the thousands of beans picked.  Beans that we don't plant are distributed throughout the county to food pantry, soup kitchen, community, and personal gardens.

• 2.  Soak yo' beans. It's good to let your beans soak in water for at least two hours before planting. This loosens up the skin and re-hydrates your sad, little parched bean friends.

• 3.  While your beans are soaking; Prep yo' soil!  Loosen up the soil with a hoe (or whatever) and draw lines with the end of the hoe (or whatever) about 2-inches deep and 8-inches apart.

• 4.  Plant yo' beans.  Drop your beans into the little baby trenches 6 to 8-inches apart then gently cover them with about 1.5-inches of soil.  

• 5.  Water yo' beans.  Soak 'em.  Like, super soak them. Soak them so much that you find yourself on the edge of an existentially crisis. Only then will you achieve inner peace, I mean, have your beans successfully planted.

TADA! Now get out and PLANT THOSE BEANS!!!!!  

You have until late June...

now GO!