Can’t Wait Until Gardening Season? Here are 10 Great Resources to Get You Started!

I admit that even though it is still bitterly cold where I live, I have been dreaming of gardening again.  Maybe it’s the longer days with more sunlight.  Maybe it’s the garden supplies and the seeds that I am starting to see in stores, or my seed catalogs calling my name on my desk.  Maybe it’s the microgreens that I started growing about a week ago in front of my living room window.  Or perhaps it’s merely due to the fact that I am just getting tired of the cold and dreary weather of winter.

Whatever the reason, I am quite ready for Spring to arrive.  It will still be awhile before I can actually get things growing in my garden, probably about 2½-3 months from now (I envy you, Warm-Climate-Dwellers!), but I can start planning and preparing for the coming garden season now. 

As I was thinking about springtime and gardening, I thought that I would share with you some great resources to help you start planning for your garden too.  I advocate organic and ecological gardening methods here at Day by Day Homesteading, so the following resources have that focus.

1.  Best Tips for Starting Seeds Indoors from Mother Earth News- This is a great article to learn the basics of seed starting, and I even learned a few new tips myself from reading it.  To learn more about seed starting, you can also read my post on seed starting that I wrote last February.

2.  Healthy Soil- I cannot stress enough that healthy soil is so much more than just a place to hold your plants.   Healthy soil is an entire complex ecosystem!  If you don’t have healthy living soil, you won’t have very healthy plants.  Healthy soil is good for the plants themselves and for you when you eat those healthy plants.  Restoring Your Soil: Tips to Make Your Garden Greener from Gaiam Life gives many good tips on how to improve your soil for a healthy and more productive garden.

3.  Sheet Mulching (also known as “Lasagna Gardening”)- Sheet mulching is a great way to build healthy soil quickly using layers of different organic materials.   To see great examples of how easy it is to use this method, watch these videos.   A tip:  If you have a choice to use hay or straw as one of your layers, I recommend using straw instead of hay.  The difference between these is that hay contains seeds, which you don’t want in whatever mulch you will be growing in.

4.  No Dig Gardening- A good gardening method to dramatically reduce weeding, and increase soil fertility and productivity.

5.  Straw Bale Gardening- This gardening method can be used to grow plants just about anywhere- even on rooftops!  I personally used this innovative gardening technique to grow my very first garden, and it worked beautifully!  I highly recommend that if you would like to explore this gardening technique that you buy the book Straw Bale Gardens by author Joel Karsten to use as a reference.

6.  Herb Spiral- permaculture (video)- I really love my herb spiral!  With an herb spiral, you can grow many plants in a small space, and it allows you to take advantage of microclimates that exist within the spiral to grow a variety of plants that have different growing requirements. 

I especially enjoy growing herbs in mine, but you can certainly grow a variety of plants in an herb spiral, including lettuce and strawberries!  One of the many great things about an herb spiral is that it can be constructed in less than a day.

7.  Making a keyhole garden bed- Keyhole beds are nice because the design allows you to reach everything from either the center of your garden or from the outside, as well as reducing the amount of space that you would otherwise devote to paths.  Many folks are even creating raised versions of these garden beds so that they don't need to bend over when they work in their garden or harvest.  

In Lesotho, they are building the raised bed versions to help families grow their own food despite the  drought conditions that often occur there and to prevent soil erosion as they grow crops.  

Check out the keyhole bed that I created last year.

8.  Hugelkultur-  An interesting name, but a very cool concept for building a raised garden bed!  The concept involves burying a pile of wood logs and then growing your plants on the sides and the top of that “mound.”  The result is a raised garden bed that holds moisture extremely well, and creates a very productive growing space.

This is something that I haven’t tried yet, but I have a tree in my backyard that was trimmed last fall (with all of the logs just sitting back by my garage right now), so I am thinking that this would be a perfect way to use at least some of that wood!

9.  Small-Space Gardening-  I am a firm believer that everyone can grow something, no matter how much space you have.  Even growing microgreens, sprouts indoors or herbs in pots on your windowsill is still something that you don’t have to buy from the store and that you will know how it was grown.  And, it will actually be fresh when you eat it, unlike most of the produce in grocery stores that was harvested days ago (if it’s even that fresh).  I have a lot of interest in growing things in smaller spaces, since I don’t have the largest yard, but I am also interested in how we all can make our lives more sustainable wherever we live, including in urban areas.

10.  Permaculture- Ah permaculture, how do I love thee?  Permaculture is what helped bring me from a doom and gloom outlook to one where there is hope and empowerment to help change the world (although I still do have my moments of frustration with the status quo from time to time).  Yes, it involves gardening techniques, such as many of those that I have described above, but it is also an entire design approach for living more in harmony with nature.

Our world today is wrapped up in a lot of fear mongering, and many times, we are tempted to feel powerless to stop the horrible things that are happening.  Permaculture offers many practical solutions to help us meet many of our challenges that we face in today’s world.   To learn more, I highly encourage you to check out the permaculture link above, as well as the post that I wrote about Why Permaculture is Truly Awesome.

Are you inspired yet?  I can’t wait to start planting, can you?

Gluten-Free Sourdough Bread: My Journey Toward Finding Deliciousness (and Lessons for My Gluten-Eating Comrades)

Ah, bread!  It was my favorite food group before I had to go gluten-free.  However, for a long time, I found that in order to simplify my diet, I needed to avoid eating bread when I was in the beginning stages of my gluten-free diet and early on in my journey to regain my health.  I’m happy to say that I am now far enough along in my health journey that I can enjoy bread again, the gluten-free way.

The topic of eating grains in our world today is filled with controversy.  Many are now asking if we should all be eating a Paleo diet and avoiding all grains as well as many other starches.  Are grains inherently indigestible and harmful to our health? 

It is true that everyone has unique health and dietary needs, and I would urge you to listen to your own body (and, in many cases, health practitioners) concerning what is best for you to eat.  It may be that for some, avoiding all grains at least for a time may be extremely beneficial to help you to heal.  I do believe, however, that the story about grains may not be as simple as we are generally being told, and there may still be a way for us to enjoy grains in a healthier way.  Let your body be your guide.  If you feel horrible after eating something, by all means, you probably should avoid it (or at least for awhile).

The issue of gluten vs. gluten-free grains is an important issue for many people today, and many have resolved that a great deal of our dietary ills today have to do with the consumption of gluten-based grains.  Having been on a gluten-free diet for the last nine years or so, I have learned quite a lot about many of the negative effects of gluten, but it turns out that the issue of the inability to digest gluten is likely more complicated than the simple question of “Do you want gluten with that?”

Those Grains Today…

I am by no means an expert on the topic of grains and nutrition, but I have learned a few things about modern wheat and other grains over the last few years:

1.)  The wheat of today that is used to make a great deal of the foods in the Standard American Diet is not the same wheat of yesteryear that our ancestors once ate.  Through traditional plant breeding techniques (i.e., non-genetic modification) that have occurred over the last several decades, certain varieties of wheat were bred to be resistant to various types of diseases that historically plagued wheat (a problem exacerbated by the practice of huge swaths of mononculture wheat farming, of course). 

Efforts were also made to make wheat more “nutritious” by increasing the protein content of wheat, and this has inherently changed the wheat that most people are consuming so dramatically that it barely resembles the original varieties of wheat, such as Einkorn.  In fact, the ancient varieties of wheat such as Einkorn contain many fewer chromosomes in their DNA than the modern varieties of wheat that are present in most grain-based foods today.   

These changes in the wheat that humans are currently cultivating have made it pretty difficult for many people to digest, and in fact, it has been said that the modern wheat varieties may even have a drug-like effect on the human brain and may cause problems with our thinking and digestion (there’s that gut-brain connection that many of us keep hearing about).  For many folks like myself, these effects can even lead to autoimmune problems and other immune-related issues.  Some experts even say that modern wheat isn’t really fit for any human consumption, period.  All I know is that there sure have been a lot of changes made to the staple grain that has historically been referred to as “the staff of life.”

2.)  There is also a major issue with how we typically prepare (or rather, don’t prepare) our grains today.  Traditionally, most grains (as well as nuts and seeds) went through a process of soaking, sprouting, or fermenting (such as what occurs during the process of preparing traditional sourdough bread).  The advantage of these traditional preparation processes of grain preparation is that the indigestible, enzyme-inhibiting components of grains, known as protease inhibitors, get broken down, as well as the anti-nutrient component called phytic acid that reduces the absorption of minerals like calcium, iron, magnesium and zinc.    Our bodies have to work much harder to digest these foods when the proper preparation of grains does not occur, and for many folks, this can even trigger bad digestive issues and or immune problems (it is now known that half of our immune system is located in our digestive tract.). 

The “pre-digestion” processes of soaking, sprouting, and fermenting make grains, nuts, and seeds much more digestible and easier to assimilate the nutrition that these foods contain.  Since very few of us have ever eaten properly soaked, sprouted, or fermented grains (beer excluded), this lack of proper grain preparation likely presents a big problem for many people. 

So, the issue of consuming grains is likely not simply a matter of gluten vs. gluten-free, or even whether the grains are organic or non-GMO, but we must also consider whether the grain, bread, etc., has been properly prepared so that your body can digest it and utilize the food in the first place.  The latter issue is much more difficult to address through commercially available bread and other grain-based products, although I am starting to notice a few sprouted grain products here or there when I visit grocery stores. 

Very few of us have eaten true sourdough bread before.  I’m not talking about most of the so called breads that are labeled as “sourdough” that can be purchased in a typical grocery store.  The majority of these “sourdough” breads will actually have some bakers yeast added to them in addition to the sourdough culture.  Adding the bakers yeast speeds up the baking process, but you end up missing out on many of the critical health benefits that true sourdough bread offers.

True sourdough bread takes time.  From start to finish, the process can take a number of days to get a viable starter culture going and to allow it to become active enough to bake with.  Then, it takes a good portion of a day (or longer) for the bread dough to rise prior to baking.   To me, one of the best parts of sourdough bread, besides the delicious flavor that is imparted to the bread, is that it is created through a culture that contains both wild yeasts and bacteria in a symbiotic relationship, similar to that which is present in other lacto-fermented foods and beverages like kombucha.    

While there is debate concerning whether any of the living cultures remain in the bread after it is baked, you will still end up with a bread that is much more easily digested and nutritious, since the cultures have “pre-digested” the flour during the fermentation and rising processes.  Since the bread dough is fermented, much of the phytic acid and the protease inhibitors are dramatically reduced or eliminated. Some folks even claim that this process can break down difficult to digest proteins like gluten if the dough is given enough time to ferment.  I cannot personally verify that claim, so I choose to stick to using all gluten-free flour when I make my sourdough bread, but long-fermented sourdough bread might be an option if you are willing to explore that process.  If you are very sensitive to wheat and/or gluten, I would strongly recommend doing a lot of research on the subject before experimenting with that technique in an attempt to break down the gluten and other proteins in wheat flour.

All bread used to be made using the sourdough technique until the advent of bakers yeast in the 1800s.  Due to all of the nuances involved with the process of sourdough bread baking, bakers yeast quickly became the favored method of baking by bread makers.  It made the industrial process of baking bread speedier and more “efficient” for the bread baking business.  However, in the process of making this industrialized bread, you no longer get the pre-digestion of the grains and the anti-nutrient components never get reduced or neutralized.  This is a recipe for digestive problems of all sorts.  Not only that, but the bread produced in this industrial fashion simply does not contain the depth of flavor that you get in real sourdough bread.  That can only come through fermentation of the dough, and the longer that you can ferment it, the better.   Just don’t let your bread dough become an episode of I Love Lucy and let it take over your oven and your kitchen! 

My Gluten-Free Sourdough Bread Baking Adventure

I was determined to find a way to make my own gluten-free sourdough bread for several reasons.  Most of all, I wanted to start baking my own gluten-free bread at home.  If any of you reading this eats a gluten-free diet and routinely buys commercial gluten-free breads, then you know that not only are such breads fairly expensive, but it can be difficult to find gluten-free bread that actually tastes good.  Bread that is not just okay and utilitarian, but something that you really enjoy eating.  In my viewpoint, that is how food should be, especially if we happen to have food sensitivities.  I say, “Away with you, bland foods!”  The foods that we can have should rock our taste buds and leave even non-food-sensitive folks loving it! 

The truth is that although there are now more gluten-free bread options on the market than ever before, and they are certainly getting better and more flavorful, it can still be difficult to find a brand that you like.  Many are very bland tasting, and some even easily crumble apart.  Even when you finally find a flavorful and soft gluten-free commercial bread, it can be difficult to find gluten-free bread that doesn’t contain some sort of ingredient that you would prefer to avoid.  Some even contain GMO ingredients, which makes having food limitations even more of a challenge!

At first, I was intimidated by the idea of baking my own gluten-free yeast bread.  It sounded too difficult to do.  For a long time, the only type of bread that I made myself were quick breads that required no yeast.  Then, I tried baking some gluten-free yeast bread but I didn’t really like the results.  That bread was flat- literally flat.  It didn’t really rise much at all.  This might possibly have been due to the fact that I was using older yeast that could have been past its prime and may not have been too viable anymore.   The finished product was also kind of bland tasting.  After that mediocre attempt, I put my bread baking aspirations aside for awhile.

Then one day, I decided to investigate the possibility of baking gluten-free sourdough bread to see if I could do it successfully.  I had tried my hand a number of years ago at making sourdough bread using whole wheat flour before starting on a gluten-free diet, and I somehow ended up with something that resembled bread.  Therefore, I concluded that it might be possible to bake a gluten-free version. 

As many of you who regularly read this blog know, I like to experiment with wild fermentation.  I really enjoy making and consuming these foods for their health benefits, such as the probiotic cultures and digestive support, and I really like the flavor of these foods and beverages.  Sourdough bread has been one of my favorite cultured food projects thus far.   

The gluten-free sourdough bread that I make using this recipe is healthy, hearty, and tastes absolutely awesome when it is warm and toasted with melted grassfed butter on it.  It is now one of my favorite breakfast foods, and I actually prefer it to all of the commercial gluten-free breads that I have tried so far.  The flavor is just superior to all of the commercial breads that I have tried (my gluten-eating husband even likes it).  And, because it is produced through the process of wild fermentation, containing a veritable ecosystem of beneficial yeasts and bacteria, the storage life is much longer than breads made with bakers yeast, by many days.  

For more information on the many benefits of sourdough bread, I recommend these two articles from Cookus Interruptus and Cheeseslave.com

An active gluten-free sourdough starter.  You can see the bubbles 

around the edges of the jar, indicating the viable action of the 

yeasts and bacteria in the culture.

The Process

The concept of creating a sourdough starter really isn’t that much different from other types of wild fermentation: you mix together the ingredients to create an optimal environment for your selected culture to thrive in, give it the right environment for it to ferment in (such as a warm, but not hot, place), add some time and patience, and you should end up with a viable culture.  To make sourdough starters, you basically need some good quality water (non-chlorinated/filtered is best for cultures- chemicals can kill your culture, and they aren’t really good for you either), and some flour. 

For my gluten-free comrades reading this, you will, of course, be using gluten-free varieties of flour to make your starter, with one caveat: when making your sourdough starter, avoid using the flour mixes that contain xanthan gum or guar gum already added.  It doesn’t give reliable results.  I have personally had a lot of success using straight sorghum flour for this purpose, but you could also try another gluten-free single type of flour. The recipe that I have been using gives some good tips for this.  

Then, when your starter is ready and you mix it in with the rest of your flour to make your bread dough, you can then add your pre-mixed flour blends with the typical gluten-free thickeners like xanthan gum or guar gum.   I personally have had good success using the Gluten Free Perfect Flour Blend from Namaste Foods (no product affiliations here- I just have had success using it), but feel free to experiment and see which flour blends you like.

The sorghum flour that I used to make the gluten-free sourdough starter

with, and the gluten-free flour blends that I add when I make the bread dough.

A few more tips that should make your gluten-free sourdough bread baking easier:

1.)  Your gluten-free starter will be likely be thinner and more fluid in consistency than the typical wheat-based flour that you may be used to if you have made a wheat flour based sourdough starter in the past.  This is likely due to the fact that gluten-free flours on their own without the additional thickeners simply do not contain the elasticity that gluten lends to wheat flour.    Accept it, roll with it, and carry on. 

Gluten-free baking is in a class all of its own.  Don’t let it intimidate you.  Just accept that it is a different process than gluten/wheat flour baking and move forward with your gluten-free baking adventures. 

If you are on a gluten-free diet, I want to encourage you to not feel sorry for yourself that you must eat differently than “everybody else.”  Enjoy the healthy alternative of using flours that won’t make you ill, and that you can actually make some really tasty food with.  You can do this, and it is very possible to have delicious food that contains no gluten in it.  Repeat that last sentence to yourself over and over if you must. 

Yes, eating a gluten-free diet is an adjustment, but it can still be very tasty if you are willing to learn and try new things.  Learn to love and embrace all of the tasty foods that you can eat instead of focusing on all of the foods that you can no longer eat.  There is literally an entire planet of food out there that contains no gluten.  You never know what tasty foods you might discover if you decide to step outside of the Standard American Diet food box!

2.)  The recipe that I have been using to successfully make gluten-free sourdough bread can be found here.  I will not repeat that recipe here at Day by Day Homesteading, since the author of that article does an excellent job of walking readers through this process.  However, one thing that I noticed is that I have needed to bake the bread for an hour to an hour and 20 or 30 minutes or so.  Check and monitor the internal temperature of the bread with a food thermometer to determine when it is at least 200 degrees F and the crust is browned to your liking. 

I’m not sure if the need for extra baking time is just due to the quirks of my own oven, but I recommend baking it for the amount of time given in the recipe, and then check it every 5-10 minutes or so to see if it is done to your liking.  It takes much longer than regular yeast added breads to burn this bread, so you have a lot of room to play around with.

3.  In general, I eat this bread as toast with butter on it for breakfast.  I have not tried it yet as sandwich bread, but you certainly could if you can get it to rise and bake to the texture of your liking.  Try it and see what you think.  You may find that you just like to eat it as toast as I do, but everyone is different.  Either way, it makes a very delicious bread!

4.  If you have extra starter after baking your bread, you can continue to feed it with flour and water and keep it going continually if you like, similar to the process of making continuous brew style kombucha.  This is useful if you would like to have a continuous starter to always make bread with.  However, since a sourdough starter needs continual care and needs to be fed everyday (I feed mine with equal portions of sorghum flour and filtered water, with ¼ to 1/3 cup of each), you may wish to take a break from this process from time to time.  In that case, just feed it with the flour and water, stir, and keep it in an enclosed container such as a mason jar with a lid in your refrigerator.  

It is ideal to feed your starter every few days when it is in the refrigerator, but I have left mine “alone” to fend for itself in the fridge when I have gone on vacation for a week or so, and I have been able to revive it after several days once I have taken it out of the fridge and started feeding it again daily.   Reviving your starter after a period in the refrigerator can be tricky, and you’ll have to experiment to see under which conditions your starter does best in.  A sourdough starter can potentially be a little finicky, just like a pet.

I hope that you will give sourdough bread baking a try, especially if you need to stick to eating a gluten-free diet.  It may just change your relationship with bread, forever!

Got Dry Skin? Calendula Lavender Lotion Could Be the Answer!

Back in December, I wrote a post about how to make a healing salve using calendula and and lavender infused olive oil. Both calendula and lavender are great for the skin, and if you happen to have any herbal infused oil left over from making a salve, you can make some lotion with it too.  Two projects for the price of one!  Score! 

When I made this lotion, I wanted to make something myself by which I could recognize all of the ingredients.  I have decided that I am done buying commercial lotions that contain who knows what chemicals, or buying products that don’t really work that well anyway.  My skin is also pretty sensitive to a lot of synthetic ingredients, and I really don’t want to add any unnecessary toxins to my body if I can help it.

This was my first experiment with making my own lotion, and I’m really glad that I tried it.  I also made some lotion bars awhile back, but this time I wanted to make something that was actually more, you know, lotion-like.

For the ingredients, I used calendula and lavender infused olive oil as the oil base for this process, and then I also added shea butter, coconut oil, vitamin E oil, beeswax, and lavender essential oil.  Simple, recognizable ingredients.  Just the way I like it.  If you would like more information on how to make an herbal infused oil, please check out these two posts.

This lotion does have a somewhat oily texture to it, resembling a little like an ointment.  However, once it absorbs, your skin is left very soft and moisturized.  And, you don’t need very much of this lotion to get the job done.  A little bit goes a very long way!

Where I live, we have had a number of days lately when temperatures have dipped below zero degrees (F).  Thank goodness that I’ve had my trusty homemade lotion to keep my skin in excellent shape!  My hands usually have a tendency to get very chapped during the cold winters here, but thanks to this lotion, they are staying very soft and well moisturized.

The one thing that I would caution with this lotion is the container that you store it in.  I made the unfortunate mistake of putting my first batch of lotion into plastic bottles (after everything had cooled).  Not only does this lotion not flow out of the plastic bottle cap like a typical commercial lotion does, it is somewhat difficult to get out of the bottle in general.  I did make a second batch of the same lotion, and used small glass mason jelly jars to give the lotion as gifts at Christmastime.  Success!  Just make sure that whatever sort of container that you store your homemade lotion in has a wide mouth so that you can easily reach in and get some out. 

You could certainly make this lotion with any number of herbal infused oils, but I still think that calendula and lavender are two of the very best herbs for skin.  The bottom line here is that you will know the ingredients that your lotion contains and what you or your loved ones are putting on your skin.  Just be aware that if you make this with infused olive oil, your lotion will likely have a green color.

The people that received the lotion as gifts have just loved it.  I bet that you will too!

Calendula Lavender Lotion

Ingredients:

• ½ cup calendula and lavender infused olive oil (or olive oil infused with other herb(s) of your choice)
• ¼ cup coconut oil
• ¼ cup beeswax
• 1 teaspoon vitamin E oil
• 2 tablespoons Shea Butter or Cocoa Butter
• Essential oils of your choice (I used lavender)

Instructions:

1.  Place all ingredients except the essential oils and vitamin E oil into a glass jar.  Pint sized mason jars are ideal, but you could also reuse any other type of glass jar that you have on hand (such as from spaghetti sauce).

2.  Place your glass jar into a medium sized saucepan that is filled with a few inches of water, turn on the heat to medium, and loosely put a lid on your jar to cover.

3.  After heating for a little while, the ingredients in your jar will slowly begin to melt.  Stir or shake to mix the ingredients together as everything melts.  Typically, the beeswax will take a lot longer to melt than the rest of the ingredients.

4.  Once everything is melted and mixed, turn off the heat but leave the jar in the water so that everything stays warm.  Add the Vitamin E oil, as well as the essential oil(s) drop by drop according to your scent preference.  Mix again. 

5.  Pour the liquid into whatever containers you will be using, and let it cool.  Small glass mason jelly jars work well for this, as well as small metal tins.  Remember that this lotion does not dispense well from plastic bottles!  

6.  Use like regular lotion.  

 

 

This post is shared at Healthy, Happy, Green & Natural Party Hop

Getting Fresh with My Pumpkin Pie (It’s Gluten-Free and Milk-Free Too!)

Due to holiday season craziness (you can relate, can’t you?), it has been about a month since I wrote my last Day by Day Homesteading post.  During that time, I found myself frantically preparing for Christmas, traveling to visit family in two different states, working a full-time job, baking and fermenting, and making homemade herbal remedies to give as gifts. 

While I really do enjoy the holiday season, I admit that I probably overdid it on the activities, and I likely did not get as much sleep as I needed.   I eventually found myself to be ill, likely with the flu, not once, but twice within the two weeks right before Christmas.  Fortunately, I was feeling better by the time Christmas Eve rolled around, and things were looking much brighter and much more festive for my health by then.  

Ever since the holidays have ended, I have been laying low and have continued to take a short break from writing posts.  I am now finally feeling like things are starting to get back to a fairly normal (and not so insane) schedule.  I have started fermenting things again (I took a break due to all of the holiday busyness and traveling) and I will really enjoy my finished kombucha and gluten-free sourdough bread when they are ready.  I promise that I will write all about making gluten-free sourdough bread in a future post, so never fear, Dear Reader, if that is a subject that you are interested in.

Amongst the busyness of the 2014 holiday season, I made a huge discovery for my gluten-free and mostly milk-free (except for butter, which I can tolerate) world: homemade gluten-free pumpkin pie made with coconut milk instead of sweetened condensed milk, and pumpkin puree made from fresh sugar pie pumpkins that I grew in my own garden. 

Mind you, I made this same yummy dessert before using canned pumpkin, and it was pretty tasty.  However, upon making two pies using a pumpkin from my garden, I have to tell you that this pumpkin pie is in a class all of its own!  I can say that it was probably the best pumpkin pie that I have ever eaten in my entire life. 

My husband, the non-food-allergy-guy, even loves this pie, so you know it has to be tasty.  He has made me promise that I will continue to grow the pie pumpkins in our garden from now on just to make this pumpkin pie.  I have to agree that once you “think outside the can” and have pumpkin pie made from fresh pie pumpkins, you’ll never want to go back to using canned pumpkin again!

Granted, making pumpkin pie this way does require some extra work, and perhaps this method is primarily for the hardy and the determined, but believe me when I say that the extra work required will be well worth it when you take your first bite of some of the most delicious pumpkin pie on the face of the earth!

The Basics

First things first.  You need to use a pie pumpkin variety or another type of sweet variety of pumpkin in order to make pie.   The variety that I grew was an heirloom variety called “Sugar Pie Pumpkin.” They are much smaller (generally growing to a size of 6-7” in diameter), and I believe, much sweeter than your typical Jack-o-Lantern type of pumpkin varieties. 

During the 2014 gardening season, I grew a total of nine sugar pie pumpkins from two pumpkin plants in my modest sized garden.  The plants took a little while to get growing, but once they got started, they really did well and darned near almost took over my entire garden.  I had to secure the vines to the outside of my garden fence just to keep them from being the “Pumpkins that Ate my Garden and My Backyard Too.”  

The pie pumpkins were probably one of the most fun plants that I have grown so far in my short two-season gardening career.  The bees really loved the pumpkin flowers too!

My homegrown pumpkins are still keeping pretty well in the cooler temperatures of my basement, having harvested them around September.  That’s a good thing, since I’m dreaming of eating more of this pie once I have some time to make it.  I was able to make two pumpkin pies from one fairly large pie pumpkin, but depending upon the size of the pumpkin that you are using, you may need to add a little bit of canned pumpkin as a backup if you don’t have quite enough fresh pumpkin.

Another thing that I noticed when making pumpkin pies using this method is that it took longer than usual for the pumpkin pie filling to bake all of the way through, perhaps due to a higher moisture content in the puree made from fresh pumpkin.  Either way, I would try baking your pie(s) for the suggested length of time in whatever recipe that you happen to be using, and then continue to check your pie as it bakes about every five minutes or so to see if it is done.

Making the Pumpkin Puree from a Fresh Pumpkin

This may indeed seem quite intimidating at first.  After all, it is likely that the majority of folks reading this post have never made pumpkin puree in their lives.  This was certainly the case for me, but if I can make puree from a fresh pumpkin, I know that you can too!

After doing a little bit of internet research on this process, the basic idea seemed relatively simple:  cut up and peel your pumpkin into chunks, boil the pumpkin chunks in water on your stovetop, drain, and then puree the pumpkin.  Sounds simple, right?

In practice, the process for me turned out to be a little more involved, however:

1.  Cut up your pumpkin into larger sections. 

2.  Scoop out all of stringy pulp in the middle, along with the seeds (which I later separated, saved and dried to be planted next year, shared with fellow gardener friends, and hopefully some to be roasted and salted for a tasty treat).

3.  Peel off the outside skin of the pumpkin using a knife (a vegetable peeler would work well too), and cut the remaining pumpkin flesh into smaller cubes.  Good sized cubes for this purpose are probably about 4-5 inches wide.

4.  Place pumpkin chunks into a large pot, fill the pot with enough water to cover the pumpkin by a couple of inches, and bring the water to a boil. 

5.  Once the water is boiling, cook the pumpkin until the chunks are soft when pricked with a fork.

6.  Strain the water from the cooked pumpkin and place them into a large bowl.

7.  Using an electric hand mixer (or a high tech blender), or a hand held potato masher, mix until the pumpkin turns into a smooth puree.

8.  Add all of your ingredients and spices to make your pumpkin pie filling and proceed to using your favorite pumpkin pie recipe from there.   My preferred sweetener to use for baking is sucanat, as it still contains all of the minerals that natural sugarcane has, and it gives whatever I am baking a depth of flavor without being overly sweet. 

I personally choose to avoid using white sugar in my baking, as it has been stripped of all of its minerals and exerts a very imbalancing effect on the body.  If you have blood sugar difficulties such as with Diabetes, you may wish to do some research to determine whether or not sucanat is right for you, and perhaps choose a different sweetener that will best meet your personal needs.

How to Make Your Pie (Lactose-Free and Gluten-Free!)

If you have to avoid most milk products like I do, or if you would like to explore a healthy, and extremely tasty alternative, then you will love this pumpkin pie recipe from PieChef.com, which calls for using full-fat canned coconut milk in place of the typical sweetened condensed milk.  You would never know that it contains coconut milk, and even your more traditional non-food-allergy pie eaters will still probably love it.   

And, what is my favorite way to enjoy this pie?  With creamy, dreamy, and dairy-free vanilla coconut milk ice cream, of course!

Thus far, my gluten-free pumpkin pie baking experience has consisted of using a mix to make the gluten-free crust, but I am hoping to try my hand at making my own from scratch in the future.  This would probably make a good "night or day before" type of project so that you’re not overwhelmed and have one less thing to do when you make the rest of the pie from scratch.

I would encourage you to give this process a try, especially if you grow your own pumpkins in your garden.  Your taste buds and your family and friends will thank you! 

And for those of you who haven’t seen what my pumpkins looked like growing in their natural habitat in my garden, here is a peek at what they looked like:

One of my pumpkins growing on the vine, almost fully orange.

Seven of my nine sugar pie pumpkins after harvest.  They are now being stored down in my basement during the winter months.  Tasty goodness, here I come!

Learn How to Make a Calendula Lavender Salve

Calendula is an herb of our dreams when it comes to healing.  It is antiseptic, detoxifying, and cleansing.  It has properties that can help your body to heal both topically and internally.  It can help with cuts and wounds, burns and sunburn, insect bites and stings, rashes (including diaper rash), cradle cap, and even hemorrhoids and varicose veins.  When taken internally, it can help with a number of issues, including digestive problems, cramps, and cleansing and nourishing the lymphatic system.  Good stuff!  And, calendula is edible too: Some edible uses of this herb include adding the flowers to stews and soups, salads, and decorating baked goods with it.

Calendula has cheery bright small orange and yellow-colored blooms, and they bring nice color to the garden.  The bees seem to really like them, and they continue to bloom for several months once established.  When harvesting the blooms, all one needs to do is snip them off with scissors or pinch them off with your fingers.   And, the more you harvest the flowers, the more they will keep growing.  The high resin content feels somewhat sticky upon harvesting.

Calendula is an annual herb that produces many seeds, so once you have planted it, you will have plenty of seeds for future years.  It has been reported that calendula can self sow its seeds, but I have planted it by seed both years that I have grown it.

Admittedly, until recently, I had not actually used any of the calendula that I have grown in my garden over the past two growing seasons.  I had very good intentions for using it, but had just not gotten around to taking any action.   Then, I became increasingly interested in learning how to make all sorts of herbal remedies, got on an herbal remedy making kick, and I made my first homemade herbal salve, a comfrey one. 

While the comfrey salve is truly awesome and healing, you cannot use it on any open wounds because it will cause them to close up far too quickly before they adequately heal.  So, I do love that salve, but I needed an herbal alternative to the conventional triple antibiotic ointment that I have used in the past for cuts and open wounds.  Enter calendula, which is absolutely safe to use on such “owies.”  And, I also wanted to add lavender to the salve, since it is one of my favorite herbs (I adore the way lavender smells!), and it also has antiseptic and disinfectant properties in its own right.

The process of making the calendula lavender salve was pretty much the same as when I made the comfrey salve.  

First, I infused 1 1/2 cups of extra virgin olive oil with enough dried calendula flowers and dried lavender flowers (I admit that I didn’t measure them exactly.  Try adding 1/4 cup of each herb at a time to see if you have enough) to cover the herbs in the pot with 1-2 inches of oil.  I used a double boiler technique to keep the oil from getting too hot.  According to the famous herbalist Rosemary Gladstar, 95-100 degrees F is a perfect temperature range to make an herbal oil infusion, but do the best you can with keeping the temperature as close to this as possible.  

I let the oil infuse on my stovetop for approximately four hours (3-5 hours is a good amount of time), and then I strained the herbs from the finished oil.    For more information on this process, please refer to my post on making a comfrey salve.

All of the ingredients needed to make the salve: extra virgin olive oil, lavender, calendula, lavender essential oil, and beeswax beads.

The dried calendula and lavender flowers after adding the olive oil, but just prior to infusing the herbs in the oil for about four hours.  Please refer to the post that I wrote on making the comfrey salve, as I used this pot inside another pot as a makeshift double boiler.

The calendula and lavender infused olive oil after the herbs were strained out.

You can either use this oil right away to make your salve, or you can set the infused oil aside for another time to work on this project.  You don’t have to do it all at once!

2.) To make the salve, I followed the recipe for making a calendula salve in Rosemary Gladstar’s Medicinal Herbs: A Beginner’s Guide.  Therefore, I give credit to her for this information, but here are the basic ingredients:

• 1 cup of your infused oil 
• 1/4 cup grated beeswax or beeswax beads
• 4-6 drops lavender essential oil
• A pinch of tumeric root powder (optional, for color)

Directions:

1. Warm the oil (you can warm the oil in a pint mason jar within a pot holding a few inches of water and then add and combine all of your ingredients within the jar).

2. Add and stir in most of the beeswax and melt the beeswax within the oil.  This can take awhile for all of the beeswax to melt, but everything should look clear once it has fully melted.  

Rosemary suggests in her book that when making the salve, you should reserve one tablespoon of the beeswax, and then add more if desired after testing for consistency.  Check for consistency by putting some of the ointment on a spoon, set on a plate, and then set in your freezer for a minute or two.  Add the remaining beeswax if you desire a thicker ointment, and add a little more oil if you desire a thinner ointment.  

3.  When the salve is at your desired consistency, add the essential oil, and then add the optional tumeric powder for color.

4.  Pour the ointment into jars or tins and let cool.  Store in a cool dark location (such as a refrigerator), and it should keep for at least a year.

My finished calendula lavender ointment (the dark spot is just from some of the herbal material that had not been strained out of the oil, which is not a big deal).

Apply this ointment topically as needed to skin rashes, wounds, cuts, and to infant skin issues such as cradle cap or diaper rash.  Now, I don’t know about you, but if I had any children, I would much rather use something like this on their tender skin than a conventional product containing who knows what chemicals.  As always, if you are unsure if this remedy is appropriate to use in a particular situation, or if the condition is very serious, such as a very serious wound, please seek the help of a qualified medical professional.

This post is shared at the Special Holiday Edition: Healthy, Happy, Green & Natural Party Hop