Crackr'in Up

A quart of crackers a day—that should be more than enough to last 2000 miles, I imagine.

Packing clothes for a two week trip and getting the gardens and strawberry bed all cleaned up and ready for spring bloom was the easy part of my travel prep. Planning travel menus while continuing to use up food supplies was a bit more challenging.

  

My dehydrator got a workout as I turned quarts, probably even gallons of fruit sauce and frozen berries into fruit leather (roll-ups). I emptied jars of grains, (teff, amaranth, red lentils), and ground them into flours to roll into trays of hearty herb and garlicky crackers, topped with sunflower, sesame and poppy seeds.

I will be spending several days in North Carolina with cousin Jeff, who doesn’t do much cooking and likes to spend hours a day bicycling. Instead of packing tour books and theater tickets, I will fill a large ice chest with frozen meals and prepared snacks to eat and share while there. I shall eat my way to South Carolina to my friend Jackie’s, and maybe even back north if I have leftovers. I will likely have surplus dry goods to unpack once back home, enough for my next trip, but hopefully not.

My travel menu:

(already supplemented with 2 non-dairy ice cream bars— yes, one a day, courtesy of Jeff)

2 blueberry, black raspberry, pear crisps—one already shared with my Servas hosts in Bethesda, Md

a jug of wild grape kombucha tea

4 quarts of assorted fruit leather (unsweetened)

3 quarts home-dried pears

rice and tofu stuffed grape leaves (the last container of those), consumed on I-95

7 containers of homemade crackers

millet balls

nettle basil pesto and pasta

tomato white bean soup

black bean soup (made in Vt and brought to Rochester, and now to NC- this definitely needs to be consumed…before it is tired of traveling)

black bean brownies

tamari garlic roasted pumpkin seeds

olive spread

walnut spread

nori to make sushi if and when most of the above is gone…

and a jar of organic peanut butter, just in case!

Maybe I should just set up at a picnic table at a park and have a party with strangers! Or fix the flat tire (my first ever), and join Jeff for a ride. Nothing like biking through the woods in spring time to work up an appetite.

Racing Nature

On your mark

                     Get set 

                                Go!

Backpedaling her way over frozen

    Bok choi and Beans

    Broccoli and Berries

Dedicated Derbbie holds her own

Racing ‘round the pantry backstretch

    Pintos and Popcorn prevail

Fall-planted Spinach sprints ahead

Head-to-head with Mighty Mache

    hurtling through snow and mud

Jockeying her way down the homestretch

    committed to a course of limited consumption

Derbbie approaches the homestretch

    easing her way through last years’ food stash

                                           Neck-in- neck with herds of wild and spiny Nettles

                                               on the cusp of breakout

                                           Derbbie streaks forwards

                                           Early planted Peas hurtle forward in the infield

                                                 Overtaking last years’ frozen Edamame?                

                                                                       A long shot

But Derbbie might just win the emptied freezer relay

    before bolting into the upcoming garden heat.

Tiny House Treats

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Wowie-ker-powie—Wienie muffins and a Lilliputian tea set!

What fun to find this spread in the tiny house where I stayed while visiting family way up north in Craftsbury Common, Vermont mid-March.

  

I’m not sure how the delivery happened, as the path was banked with nearly three feet of snow on each side, and a stream of ice at the turn, but my wee snack was delicious!

The only downside was eating alone, although, had another full sized being joined me, sixty square feet might have been a bit crowded. Who am I to complain, cozying up to the small wood stove, gazing out at mountainous scenery, while chowing down fresh goodies?

While I was visiting my daughter and her family, I enjoyed the change of scene, along with sharing soups and meals which I’d brought frozen from home in a cooler. I gifted my daughter a huge bag of homegrown sage and another of nettles, reducing my surplus, as I know that neighborhood nettles will soon be poking their prickly heads out of the earth, and I’d harvested and dried more sage than one person could use, even for sore throat tea.

Now that I have returned home, I have resumed eating my way through my cupboards and freezer. I just took inventory, and although I have used up two thirds of my food supplies, emptying jars and freezer bags daily, I still have ample provisions. My recipes are more unusual, and I am coming up with combinations I would have never imagined, some better than others, but am determined to follow through with my intention. Today’s salad is rehydrated dried beets, dried apricots, and rice with a dressing of OJ concentrate, pomegranate syrup, rice vinegar, with a dash of cardamom. It actually is surprisingly tasty. The beets have taken on an interesting chewy texture.

I realize it may not be until June that I have eaten my way down to spices and condiments. Hmmm... Two more months might drag on, but already I have fresh greens peeking out of the garden mud, so meals will soon take on a fresher focus with wild leeks, green onions and spinach.

I am blessed and grateful to have such abundance, both food-wise, and time-wise. Combining ingredients into hearty meals continues to be a fun challenge, as well as a practical strategy to start anew.

I can’t even imagine having shopping lists come June. I kind of like this eating locally, so by then, maybe I will just eat my yet-to-be grown veggies, and forage even more local wild plants than last summer.