Cathy’s Cooking Corner

In the last newsletter I wrote, “If you know of something to wrap the burritos in other than foil to heat them to go, I’d love to hear from you. I like to use as little foil as possible because of aluminum’s implication in Alzheimer’s.” I received several replies suggesting I use parchment paper. Thank you! I thought maybe the rest of you would like to know, too.

Speaking of those wonderful eggs, I decided to put my basic quiche recipe in this newsletter. I would say it is probably our family’s favorite way to eat eggs. It is a never-fail recipe with its silky texture and savory flavor. This is also a great way to use leftovers. It is a great main dish for breakfast, lunch or dinner.

Quiche

1/2 pound sausage, bacon, hamburger or meat of your choice, fried
1 cup shredded cheese (or more)
Your choice of veggies: sauteed onions, mushrooms, tomato slices, steamed broccoli, olives, wilted spinach or kale, eggplant, zucchini slices, sauteed garlic, etc.
4 eggs, beaten
2 cups light cream
1 Tbsp. mustard
3/4 tsp. salt
1/8 tsp. black pepper
Unbaked 9-inch pie crust

In the bottom of the pie crust, layer the meat, then the veggies of your choice and top with the shredded cheese. In a mixing bowl mix together the eggs, mustard, salt and pepper. Add the cream and mix. (A stick blender works beautifully.) Pour into the pie crust over all. Bake 15 minutes at 425 degrees. Then reduce oven temperature to 300 degrees and bake 30-35 minutes more until knife comes out clean when inserted in center. Let stand 10 minutes before cutting. Serves 6. Enjoy!

Maybe you have a favorite egg recipe you’d like to share. I’d love to hear from you!

Time to Put Eggs Back on the Menu

The nation’s top nutrition advisory panel has decided to drop its caution about eating cholesterol-laden food after many years of warning people not to eat high cholesterol foods. It has been discovered that for healthy adults, eating high cholesterol foods does not significantly increase the level of cholesterol in the blood or increase the risk of heart disease. This is something that has been known for a number of years, but has just now been acknowledged by the government. (Why didn’t scientists and doctors know that dietary cholesterol didn’t significantly increase blood cholesterol years ago?)

So now you can eat your Jehovah-Jireh pasture-raised eggs without any guilt. We do recommend that you do not eat an excessive amount of eggs at one time – definitely not more than one dozen eggs at one time. I say that in jest, eggs naturally tell you to stop eating after you have eaten several eggs. They are not like some foods where you want to keep on eating.

To read more about the amazing reversal in scientific opinion on dietary cholesterol, you can check out this Washington Post article.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/wonkblog/wp/2015/02/10/feds-poised-to-withdraw-longstanding-warnings-about-dietary-cholesterol/

All of this makes me wonder how many other “scientifically” proven “facts” are error, and we will look back years from now with amazement of how naive and unscientific we were.

Poultry Processing Inspection and Certificate

Our chicken and turkey processing facility has been inspected by the Maryland Department of Agriculture and we have received certification. We are now certified to sell our poultry at other locations other than our farm, including stores. While this inspection is not required for on farm sales of poultry, it gives you a level of confidence that the chicken and turkey that you purchase has been processed in a facility that has been inspected and has been processed in a sanitary and approved manner.

We did some investigation into having drop off points for the chickens or to sell our chicken in some of the Maryland MOM’s stores. We did not get much interest in the drop off points and so at this point we will not be pursuing that. After talking things over as a family, we decided not to pursue selling chickens in the stores at this point. It would mean significantly increasing production and processing chickens every week. None of us enjoy processing chickens enough to do it every week and the wholesale price would also reduce our profit margin. We are open to any suggestions you may have.

Fake Honey

The price difference between corn or rice syrup and honey is big enough that it has attracted fraud. We have heard about this fraud for some time. Recently, we found the evidence that it is actually happening. The website of a manufacturing company in India that produces honey grade invert syrup says this: “Honey grade invert sugar syrup is widely used in honey processing and food processing industry. Chemically, honey is equivalent to invert sugar. It is often mixed with regular honey during packaging… Honey grade invert syrup has similar character to honey… Manufacturers often mix Honey Invert sugar with natural bee honey to keep up with the demand.” http://www.invertsugarsyrup.com/honey.php

Another manufacture of honey grade invert sugar states: “Honey Grade Invert Sugar Syrup offered by is extensively used in food processing and honey processing industry. Chemically, honey is equal to invert sugar and is often mixed with regular honey during packaging. This invert syrup has similar quality to honey…”http://www.tasteagro.com/honey-grade-invert-syrup.html

And a third website states this: “Invert sugar is a golden yellow coloured viscous liquid consisting of equimolecular mixture of glucose and fructose. Being 25% sweeter than regular sugar, this is generally applied as sweetener in food and pharmaceutical industries. This is often known as artificial honey for its composition being nearly the same as real honey… Honey-industry: Because of similar physical and chemical properties like that of natural honey, invert sugars can be mixed with honey for obtaining better texture and flavour. Sometimes, it is also used for bee feeding.” http://feedgradericeprotein.com/invert_syrup.html

Now we know why there has not been a shortage of honey in grocery stores even though honey bees have been dying all across America. Packers are mixing invert sugar, costing only about thirty cents a pound, with honey. The unsuspecting American consumer has been deceived and sold a fraudulent honey diluted with inverted sugar (likely GMO). http://www.gmo-compass.org/eng/database/ingredients/130.invert_sugar_syrup.html

Eating on the Road

One of the difficulties we face, once we start eating good food, is what to do when we leave the comfort of our homes and don’t have access to our kitchens. After you hear about the effects of eating “store-bought” food and find yourself not feeling good when you eat out, McDonald’s just doesn’t seem so attractive anymore!

Last March, I took a trip out to Chicago for a health seminar. I had recently found out about the effects of glyphosate, and the prospect of eating low-quality food for a whole weekend did not appeal to me. I was flying, so I couldn’t take a cooler. I decided to try to pack four days’ worth of food in my suitcase and make all my own meals! Here’s what I took:


Grilled chicken breasts
Breaded beef sandwich steaks
1 dozen hardboiled eggs
Two heads of lettuce
A six-pack of yogurt
Two loaves of homemade bread
Mayonnaise
Sliced cheese
1 lb Heavenly Honey
Peanut butter
Butter
Homemade cookies
Small brown paper bags

You may be amazed that I was able to pack all that in my suitcase and still have room for my clothes. As I list it out here, I am amazed as well! After packing everything I wanted to take, I set the suitcase on the bathroom scales. It weighed 49 pounds–almost over the limit! I took out a few items and got the weight down to 47.5 pounds. Ready to go!

My room at the hotel had a small fridge, so when I arrived, I put the perishable items in the fridge and walked down the street to the nearby Jewel grocery store. I was happy to find that they had a selection of organic food–I wouldn’t have had to pack so much! Oh, well. I bought a bag of baby carrots, a bag of tortilla chips, and some distilled water. I was all set.


Yogurt made an excellent breakfast, along with a hardboiled egg and whatever else I decided to throw in–maybe a peanut butter and honey sandwich. After breakfast, I would spread out my sandwich fixings on the vanity and prepare lunch, which I took along to class.

Back in the hotel in the evening, I made supper. This could be another sandwich, or a salad with chicken breast if I so preferred.


This worked out well for me. I had nutritious, organic food, much of which was homemade. I didn’t have the luxury of hot meals, but that was a small price to pay for eating real food!

Six months later, Dad took us guys on a Dad-and-the-boys trip to Colonial Williamsburg. This time, we were only gone for two days, and we drove to Williamsburg, so we were able to take a cooler and an electric skillet. We had cereal for breakfast, made sandwiches for lunch, and heated up food in the skillet for supper. It worked very well. The hardest part was washing up the skillet in the bathroom sink!

For an extended trip, one strategy is to find health food stores along your route, and “re-stock” as necessary. You may not even need to take much along. You may also be able to find some healthy restaurants to eat at as well.

You don’t have to resort to eating “garbage” whenever you take a trip. With a little planning, preparation and extra baggage, you can eat nutritious food wherever you go.

Cathy’s Cooking Corner: Egg Burritos


We recently discovered a wonderful breakfast food to stock up in the freezer – egg burritos. I had decided to make up a bunch of meat and bean burritos and then decided to try some egg burritos. I wasn’t sure how well the scrambled eggs in the burrito would freeze. Would they be good or would they be rubbery or watery? I’m pleased to tell you that they were wonderful. Since I didn’t want to store them in aluminum foil, we wrapped them singly in plastic wrap and then froze them. After they were frozen, we grouped the burritos in gallon Ziploc bags and put them back into the freezer.

Frozen Egg Burritos

Flour Tortillas
Eggs, scrambled
Sausage, fried (or whatever meat you want)
Onion, sauteed
Cheese, grated
Sour cream
Salsa
Mayonnaise

Assemble the burritos, putting on whatever condiments you desire. Some other goodies would be olives, avocado slices, pickled banana pepper slices, ketchup, etc. Close the burritos with a toothpick and wrap in plastic to freeze. To warm, take the plastic off the burritos, place them in a covered pan and heat in a 350 degree oven till they’re hot. If you’ll be eating them on the run, you can wrap them in foil and heat them. I also like to thaw them overnight so they don’t take as long to bake. Delicious!

If you know of something to wrap the burritos in other than foil to heat them to go, I’d love to hear from you. I like to use as little foil as possible because of aluminum’s implication in Alzheimer’s.

UPDATE: I received several replies suggesting I use parchment paper. Thank you!

The Importance of Recycling Energy, Part 2: How to sequester carbon in the soil

This is a continuation of Part 1 in the September Jehovah-Jireh Farm Newsletter on the importance of recycling energy.

Note: Using organic farming methods to sequester carbon in the soil is an important subject that was presented to our government officials several weeks ago. Since I wrote part one, I found out that Mark Smallwood, the director of Rodale Institute, walked from Rodale Institute in Pennsylvania to Washington D.C. to hand deliver a White Paper detailing research proving that regenerative organic agriculture can absorb carbon from the atmosphere and reverse climate change. The White Paper is titled: Regenerative Organic Agriculture and Climate Change, A down-to-earth solution to global warming. The full text of the White Paper can be found at: http://rodaleinstitute.org/regenerative-organic-agriculture-and-climate-change/
Incidentally, Mark Smallwood used to work for MOM’S Organic Market in their main office in Rockville, MD. and also helped us one time to process chickens at our old farm.

 

We today have an important opportunity to make a significant step forward to sequester carbon, build topsoil, control erosion, and feed the world through organic farming. There are many that are greatly concerned that we have irreparably harmed the environment, are destroying life, and leaving future generations with an environmental mess because our excessive use of fossil fuels. Many feel hopeless and that too many people do not care what they are doing to the environment.

There is hope!

Plants to a large extent were the original source of our present day fossil fuels. Plants are also a key element in recycling energy and putting the CO2 gasses back into the soil where they belong.

There are a number of ways to sequester carbon in the soil. What I want to share with you is a simple, easy method that we have used here at Jehovah-Jireh Farm.

In the first seven years here on this farm we have sequestered approximately 325,570 lbs of Soil Organic Carbon on 35 acres. That represents recycling as much CO2 as the yearly output from approximately 146 cars. That was accomplished by increasing the soil organic matter on most of the farmland by almost one percentage point. That is without spreading organic matter or fertilizers other than lime. The only manure was the droppings from chickens when they are on the pasture and from the sheep and cows while they are grazing. The amount of  carbon sequestered is according to soil tests that were taken at the end of 2013. It represents the carbon sequestered in the top six inches of soil, although there has been much more carbon than that sequestered at greater depths in the soil. 

The method that we used to sequester the carbon was letting the grass grow a foot or more tall and then grazing or mowing the grass and letting it decompose into the soil. This is a method that we discovered as we mowed the grass in the American chestnut orchard located here on the farm and observed the significant increased growth of the grass and the increased growth, vigor, health, and blight resistance of the American chestnut trees. Mowing pasture grasses is one of the best, the easiest, and cheapest of fertilizers.

Grasses often have more root mass and depth than the mass and height of grass above the ground. When the grass is mowed from a height of 24″ down to 4″, the roots slough off to correspond to the amount of grass left above the surface. As these roots that sloughed off decompose, they build organic matter in the soil to the depth the roots had been. It is not just the organic matter on the surface of the ground from the mowed grass that contributes to the organic matter of the soil.

Pasture based farming, using rotational grazing and managed mowing, is an important method of sequestering carbon in the soil in a very stable manner. Rodale Institute has proved that the proper organic crop growing methods are also an important carbon sequestering method. It is my opinion from my observations and research that pastures can sequester carbon faster, easier, to a greater depth, and have it more stable in the soil than can be accomplished with organic crop farming methods. That does not mean that sequestering carbon by organic crop farming methods is unimportant; it is important. But what it means is that globally we can sequester much more carbon by raising animals on pasture in pasture based systems rather than growing grain and feeding the animals grain in confinement operations. Plus, the grass-fed meats with higher omega-3 fatty acids are much more healthy for the consumer.  

Typical response of grasses to grazing. Above ground growth is more lateral and roots “die back” to match needs of above ground biomass. Diagram C. Luke 2011 http://www.sonoma.edu/preserves/prairie/management/restoration.shtml

 


http://kansasgraziers.blogspot.com/2013_10_01_archive.html
Up to 90% of a plant’s mass is in its root system. What is below the soil is much more important for sequestering carbon than what is above the soil. The plant on the far right has much more root mass than the mass that is in the grass above the soil level. The grass clump on the far left sloughed off most of its roots when it was cut short. The roots can then decompose and build carbon deep in the soil where it will be stable and stay in the soil for a very long time.

The above illustrations show the importance of managing plant roots by grazing and mowing to build carbon in the soil. The roots below the soil are more important for sequestering carbon than the grasses above the soil. This is significant, because it allows us to utilize the grass for feeding livestock and producing an income from the land while at the same time using the roots to sequester carbon deep in the soil, making the soil more drought resistant, reducing rain run off and erosion, and making the soil more fertile.

The depth that carbon is sequestered in the soil is important. Carbon that is greater than 12″ deep (30cm) is very stable in the soil. The Rodale Institute’s White Paper points out the importance of depth in the sequestering of carbon:
“It is likely that current data sets underestimate soil organic carbon stocks in organically managed systems because soil carbon is often measured at plow depth when recent findings suggest that more than half of the soil organic carbon stocks are likely in the 20-80cm depth. Beyond 30cm in the soil profile, the age of carbon increases continuously, much of it persisting for thousands of years.  How carbon acts in this subsoil range is poorly understood, but increasing rooting depth, application of irrigated compost (compost tea), choosing deep rooted grass-legume cover crops and encouraging earthworm abundance are all promising pathways for introducing carbon to depths where it is likely to remain stable over long periods.” (p. 10)

To get the greatest depth of roots in the soil, it is important that grasses be allowed to grow at least a foot or two in height before grazing or mowing. Grasses in home lawns will not be able to contribute much to carbon sequestering because they are never allowed to grow very tall.

One more plus to mowing pastures in addition to sequestering carbon is that it creates a beautiful manicured farm landscape. Beautiful pastoral farm landscapes do a soul good like a medicine. We need to create more beauty around us.
Our charcoal/biochar kiln experiment at Jehovah-Jireh Farm.

In 2009 we experimented with making charcoal to sequester carbon and to build up our soils. Inside this charcoal kiln were five metal 55 gallon barrels filled with split firewood. We made six batches of charcoal to use in the garden and in the chicken bedding. Making charcoal/biochar is labor intensive. In half of our garden, we applied about an inch and a half of charcoal and incorporated it in the top six inches of soil in a three foot wide by 70 feet strip perpendicular across the various rows of vegetables . Unfortunately, we did not see any improvement in growth, drought resistance, or brix improvement to the plants grown in the charcoal enriched soil in any of the years since then. Five years later, there is no noticeable difference in the color of the soil where the charcoal was applied.

Our experiment with biochar was not successful. It does not mean that charcoal/biochar is an ineffective method of sequestering carbon in the soil. The Terra Preta soils in South America show otherwise. Charcoal/biochar is a method that needs more research. 

There is much more to learn about how to sequester carbon and to build topsoil using atmospheric carbon. We want to experiment with increasing the brix (sugar content) of our pasture grasses. By increasing the photosynthesis of the plant leaves, the sugar (and carbon) content of the plant can be increased. The plant sends these sugars to the roots to feed the roots and microbes in the soil. By increasing the sugars in the plant, we should be able to significantly increase the carbon sequestration in the soil.

There is much more that we would like to experiment with to improve the soil. We thank you for your support of our farm in buying our farm products. Your support is what enables us to do these experiments in our living laboratory (the farm).