It be Talk Like a Pirate Day!

In case ye need a refresher:

In case ye have no clue what I be talking about: TalkLikeAPirate.com

Thanks be to Jeff for reminding me.

Hearty pie

In response to my craving for chocolate, Chris helped me make a pie. We decided to use some of our oat groats, cooked until soft and blended until somewhat creamy, along with wheat flour and mesquite meal, for the bulk of the crust. The recipe is as follows:

Preheat oven to 350° F

Crust

• 2 cups whole oats
• 4 cups water
• 30 pecans (shelled)
• 1 3/4 cups whole wheat flour
• 1/2 cup mesquite flour
• zest of one grapefruit
• 1/4 cup olive oil
• pinch of salt

1. Cook the oats in water until grains are soft and chewy. Then blend until somewhat creamy.
2. Crush the pecans and add them to the oats.
3. Mix the whole wheat flour, mesquite flour, salt and grapefruit zest together and then add to the oats.
4. Add the olive oil to the oats.
5. Mix thoroughly.
6. Put the dough into a pie dish and spread it along the bottom and sides until it is 1/4-1/2 inches thick.

Filling

• 2 medium apples
• 2 peaches
• 1/4 cup honey
• 1 tbsp wheat flour

1. Cut up fruit into small chunks.
2. Mix with the honey.
3. Add flour to the fruit.
4. Pour the fruit filling into the crust.
5. Crumble additional crust mixture on the top so that the fruit is concealed, and pat this down lightly.
6. Bake until done (1 hour)
7. Drizzle honey on top

The resulting pie is very filling, somewhat tasty (Chris thought it was very tasty), and handsome. The crust held its shape surprisingly well, and we could actually serve nice wedge-shaped pieces of pie. It’s the dessert equivalent to Essene bread: It really sort of tastes good, it fulfills a need, and you know it’s good for you, but it’s not quite the same as the “real thing”. The pie was better the next day after the fruit soaked the crust a little bit more, making it softer and less dry. We think a few minor changes would make a huge difference: Add 1/2 cup (instead of 1/4 cup) of honey to the fruit; add more fruit; substitute wheat flour for some of the oats in the crust; and top it with homemade local ice cream!

Tonight’s dinner

We realized that we haven’t written about any of our meals for a while, instead opting to write about where we’re purchasing our food. To get us back into describing our meals, here is what we had for dinner tonight (this meal is more or less typical of the sorts of things we’ve been eating for the past two weeks):

• Squash soup: made from half of a Hubbard squash (previously baked, then mashed), half of a medium yellow onion, one large clove of garlic, a roasted Anaheim chile, and a little bit of salt (this soup was very good, but in retrospect I wish we had added a tomatillo – it would have added a great flavor as well as thickened the soup)
• Potatoes and sweet potatoes: sliced into strips, drizzled with olive oil and salt, baked, and then topped with leftover homemade tomatillo salsa (a surprisingly good combination!)
• Salad, our first since we began this experiment: arugula, lemon basil, cherry tomatoes, olive oil, and lime juice (this would have been great, but the basil was a week old and tasted a little funny)
• Beans: leftover from a few nights ago; cranberry beans and Colorado River beans cooked with cholla buds, onion, roasted Anaheim chile, and honey

Cats and chickens

It’s been a while since we’ve posted any pictures, so we thought we’d post some photos of our cats and chickens (two of them, at least). We promise not to turn this into one of those blogs where they constantly post pictures of their cats, but we can’t help posting photos of them at least once!

Thor, our sweet older cat

Hansel, our new energetic kitten

Bali, a gift from our friends Chi, Rodd and Brad

Einstein, one of our Ameraucana hens

The chickens finally seem to be starting to lay again, after a hiatus during the heat of summer. We’ve gotten two eggs in the past two days, which is as many as we’d gotten in the previous two weeks. Our high temperatures have finally moved away from the 100° range (down to 90-95°), and the chickens seem to be enjoying the cooler weather (as are we).