Thai Lettuce Wraps

The title of this recipe reveals an obvious departure in the use of entirely local ingredients. Fortunately (depending on one's standards), healthy and sustainable food needn't be entirely from within state lines. In fact, the type of food and how, where and when it is produced often have more bearing on health and environment than the distance it travelled to your plate.

You may be wondering, if 'food miles' aren't a major issue, why bother with local food? This is a broader topic that I'll address in subsequent blog entries, but safe to say there are substantial benefits of local food distribution that go beyond mileage.

Returning to the topic at hand - lettuce wraps - here's a crispy, high-protein treat that's perfect on a hot summer evening. Since I more or less threw this together on a whim, let's dispense with formal measurements:

• Lettuce leaves (washed)
• Peanuts
• Peanut sauce (prepared or homemade)
• Extra firm tofu
• Brown rice (cooked)
• Garlic, chopped
• Chili pepper, chopped
• Cilantro
• Olive oil
• Lime/lemon juice

Tofu prep: Tofu, straight of the box, tends to be a bit watery. For a chewier texture, cut a package of tofu into cubes, apply light pressure (not so much that you mash it into soymilk) to drain off water, then place them in the freezer. When ready to use, thaw, apply pressure and drain additional water.

Sautee the garlic and chili in olive oil. Add peanuts, tofu and peanut sauce. Cook until tofu is browned.

Remove spines from lettuce (the crunchy parts don't wrap very well). Wrap tofu mixture, cilantro, brown rice and a dash of lemon. Dip in peanut sauce.

When wraps inevitably fall apart, resort to fork.

Slow Start!

It's been over month now since I started some tomato and jalapeno seed indoors. Almost all the seeds took and have grown well, despite only getting a couple hours of waning light a day. The house kept the soil warm though which is the most important factor early on. Three weeks ago I planted spinach and sunflower from seed directly in the garden, and they've all seeded easily. There's been almost constant rain for two weeks and haven't been able to do anything in the garden as the soil is too soggy, but maybe next weekend.

One thing I'm learning about growing indoors first is that the plants need to be "hardened" before directly transplanting them outside. I put out the tomato plants one day, each being small with two leaves each, and were in the sun too long and some scalded. They've mostly recovered but I've yanked a few out, which I had to do anyway as I seeded two per pot, and left the stronger ones in there. But in the future I need to put them out for an hour at a time at first, away from the sun, then gradually extend their time outside and also ease in their exposure to direct sunlight. I have no idea if they'll be "hardened" enough to transplant when I do, but I'll find out quickly enough if they fry in the sun!

But, these were simply an attempt to get some produce earlier in the season. Even if they all get wiped out I'm still planting tomato and jalapeno from seed. The spinach only takes 45 days to mature so I should have a bunch by early June. They aren't a summer plant so in the fall I can plant the rest along with the pumpkins.

On a somewhat unrelated note, for anyone looking to keep the extra weight off this summer I recommend two things: Special K (or the superior generic Shaws brand which has 1 extra gram of protein, is cheaper and stays crispier longer in milk, hell yeah!) and fresh fruit. I eat a big bowl of this with fruit on top twice a day and eat a somewhat normal, healthy meal for lunch or dinner. Shaws has had $2 blackberries and I eat a container of that for dessert. My blackberry bush is blooming strong right now so I'm hoping I'll have my own this summer if I can keep the birds, bears and squirrels away from it. I sprinkled some organic animal repellant around but I have a feeling I'll need some kind of netting, or possibly a machine gun.

Spring 2009! Let's get it started.

It's about that time again. Year Two of Scott Farm has officially begun. If you followed last years blog you'd remember it was a pretty difficult first year for an inexperienced gardener. Between insects, diseases, freak hailstorms and squirrels I had my hands full but I still managed to get a crapload of veggies and learned a lot of hard lessons.

This year I'm armed with more knowledge and experience, plus a fantastic companion book called "Rodale's Complete Guide to Organic Gardening". When it says "Complete" it means it. It has everything from A to Z, plus troubleshooting for all your plants whether it be with the soil, insects or diseases specific to those plants. Highly recommended!

As you can see from the photo I'm mostly starting from seed this year. I have green beans, spinach, two types of tomatoes, pumpkin, jalapenos and broccoli. I also have two sapling basil plants and plan to get some white onion bulbs to finish out the garden. The pumpkin I'm planting sometime in June so they're ready for Mia's first birthday as we're planning a "fallsy" backyard birthday for her. Yeah I said "fallsy".

You need to start growing something. Even if you don't think you have the room, you do. You don't need land. Just some pots, soil, a plant, good sunlight and water. If you've never grown anything yourself now is the time. It's tastier, healthier, cheaper and just fun to do.

There's a reason most of us don't eat as healthy as we should. Good produce at the store is expensive and doesn't keep long. For about $5 you can grow dozens of tomatoes from spring to fall with just one plant. Last year I had cucumbers and I scratched my head about why mine looked so different from the store versions. The store ships them from west coast to east coast and coats them in wax to preserve. By the time I buy one it looks like a shiny turd that will go rotten in my fridge in a few days. I had cucumbers from my garden in my fridge for almost a month and they were as fresh and tasty as if I'd just picked them.

Not only do you get fresher produce that tastes 100x better than the store stuff, but if you can manage your garden organically then you know there are zero pesticides or fungicides in the food you eat. You don't have to worry about a salmonella outbreak in your spinach because you got yours from your garden, and unless you're out there taking a crap in the soil you won't have a problem.

For first year gardeners who don't have any land to work with, go to your local nursery (or even Home Depot if that's all that is around) in a few weeks and buy sapling plants. They've already grown from seed and are about 3-6 inches high, all you need to do is put them in a pot and take care of 'em. Most produce will start maturing in 2 months, and from that point on you'll be getting a steady supply of it until the fall and even winter if you keep it out of the cold.

Any questions, let me know and if you have your own "Recession Garden" starting I'd like to hear about what you're doing.