Giveaway: Grain Mains Cookbook Bundle

I was offered a copy of this book to review honestly, which is exactly what you'll get here, I hope that you can trust in that. The publisher was also kind enough to give me two extra copies to share with you, my readers and friends, hence, the giveaway!

Grain Mains is the latest offering from Bruce Weinstein and Mark Scarbrough, the same fellas who brought us Goat: Meat, Milk, Cheese, one of my favorite go-to guides for creative and delicious ways to use up our frequent surpluses of goat milk and meat.

Both Goat and Grain Mains go well beyond the standard cookbook, in terms of informative and, more importantly, pleasurable content and truly unique recipes. Weinstein & Scarbrough write with humor and wit, which makes reading this book cover to cover (when was the last time you felt inclined to do that with a cookbook?) both interesting and entertaining.

The recipes within feature many fairly uncommon grains in some familiar preparations, as well as some more creative, altogether exotic dishes, the majority of which can be prepared to accommodate a vegetarian or vegan lifestyle.

I am particularly intrigued by the Burgers recipes, as most commercially available veggie/non-meat burgers leave a great deal to be desired in terms of taste and texture. Now, if only I could find a good source of organic bulgur and millet!

Although the recipes sound fantastic, I've yet to attempt to prepare one for our family because a) Most of the exotic grains called for have been quite hard to come by, and b) Because my children are rather persnickity eaters. If I can locate a good, affordable source of organic whole grains, I will definitely be game to make a salad or main dish for my husband and myself, but scouring the earth for organic black quinoa is not high on my list of priorities at the moment. If you know where I can score some, let me know!

Overall, I'd recommend this book, especially for self-styled foodies, looking to explore new culinary horizons. The relatively new-to-American-palates grains featured in the majority of the recipes within Grain Mains have the allure of being rather exotic, as well as the benefit of being uniquely rich sources of fiber and other beneficial plant compounds that are key elements in a healthy, whole foods diet.

Different, delicious and good for you? Yes, please. :)

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And now, on to the freebies!

One reader will receive a copy of Grain Mains - 101 Surprising and Satisfying Whole Grain Recipes for Every Meal of the Day by Bruce Weinstein and Mark Scarbrough.

While another reader will win the contents of the gift basket pictured below:

One copy of "Grain Mains" by Bruce Weinstein and Mark Scarbrough, one package of organic Mekong Flower rice, one package of organic Hard Red Wheat Berries, and two jars of my homemade jam.

To enter, leave a comment on this post. Please be sure and provide me with a link back to your blog through which you can be contacted, or an email address to reach you at if you win.

For additional entries:

-Like Girl Gone Granola on Facebook. Leave an additional comment letting me know that you liked it.

-Follow this blog (whether you're an existing follower or a new one, leave an additional comment letting me know!)

Entries will be accepted until 11:59pm, PDT on 9/14/12. A random winner will be selected with the help of random.org, and the results posted here on 9/15/12.

Good luck! :)

The 4th Annual Jam-o-Rama

Someday I'll work up the courage to try "real" canning. By which I mean, using a pressure canner, rather than just a hot water bath to safely heat and seal my jars. After all, water bath canning limits you to canning higher-acid foods, since it isn't able to reach the intense temperatures that a pressure canner can. I've pressure canned salsa and a few other odds and ends before, but only with my Mom present. She has a dandy old pressure canner, which I happen to be terrified to use alone.

Firstly, because there is a right way and a wrong way to use a pressure canner. I have an inordinate amount of fear that I will miss a step and somehow manage to blow up my kitchen. After footing the bill from my car accident, I'm not sure that my insurance agent would be super keen to learn of my dabbling with super heated liquids encased in immanently breakable glass jars either.

Secondly, I'm not a huge fan of mopping my ceiling. My husband's beer brewing mishaps have seen well to that.

So, I'm primarily a jam kinda gal. In fact, my very good friend Jen and I have a yearly summer canning fest that we've dubbed the Jam-o-Rama.

This year, Jen got a great deal on a case of beautiful, locally grown peaches, so we're making three kinds of peach jam/preserves - Spiced Peach, Raspberry Peach and Earl Grey infused Peach. This jam-o-rama is definitely an all day affair, but sooo worth the trouble.

Our jammin' lasted a full 10+ hours this year, and resulted in a total of 78 jars of gorgeous, delicious jam.

My share of the goods

Spiced Peach, Raspberry Peach and "The Earl"

After four years of hardcore jammin', we gals finally seem to know what we're about. I daresay that "The Earl" is our best effort yet. Alas, because this was our first time trying our heavily modified/improvised recipe, we only made a double batch (as opposed to our usual, quadruple), and therefore ended up with just 9 half pints each. We'll definitely make a bigger batch next year, but after peeling and chopping 30 pounds of fuzzy golden orbs, I think we're all peached out for now.

Still on my to-do list: Blueberry, Hawthorn and Apple and maybe blackberry. We'll see how long this wave of enthusiasm lasts. ;)

Charlene

Meet our sweet new bunzo, Miss Charlene -

Her name was chosen by popular vote between my two daughters and my niece, after a spirited discussion in which the names "Fluffernut" and "Velvet" were also considered. I was right there the whole time, and I still have no idea how they arrived at Charlene. I guess this bunny girl should be glad that she fared better than our parakeet, Applesauce!

Charlene came to us through a fellow farm chick, who's dog didn't really co-habitate well with bunnies. Our lonely boy bunny, Prince Charming, was in need of a new gal-pal since sweet Cinderella passed away, so this little girl was a very welcome addition to the Boggy Hollow bunch.

Viva los bunzos!

Fruit-a-palooza!

Our apples are a little early this year, but at the rate that they're falling and changing color, if I don't get my stuff in gear and pick them soon, the deer will end up getting more of them than we will.

Not that I mind sharing a few with the deer. Especially after the apples have begun to ferment a little. Last year Bill saw an apple-intoxicated buck doing a twirly, fancy-dance in the neighbor's field. Here in the Hollow, we take our yuks where we can find them. ;)

Scarlet and I made a weensy dent in the apple onslaught today. We picked 10 1/2 pounds for us, and gathered probably 3 or 4 pounds of windfalls for the goaties.

Today's haul :)

Our four apple trees and our single pear tree seem to be going slightly bonkers this year. We're planning on taking full advantage of that fact, and making a good deal of applesauce and hard cider (and eventually, apple cider vinegar) from our lone crop.

Since our pear tree has never given us more than one or two pears in a season, I'm totally inexperienced with regard to when exactly I should pick them, and how soon after picking they need to be used. Does anyone have any experience with growing and harvesting pears that they'd care to share? As of today, they still feel rock hard, so I don't think they're ready yet, but, I honestly don't know.

The apples, though, they need picking sooner rather than later. I guesstimate that the 10+ pounds that we got today might be an eighth of our crop, maybe less. Naturally, the biggest and most gorgeous fruits are those that are way the heck out of reach, a good 15 feet or so up. D'oh!

If we can't get them, eventually the wind will knock them down, but by then they'll be deer/goat food. As long as somebody gets to enjoy these beauties, it's all good to me.

Volunteering as a Family

Volunteering in any form is an important contribution, but it has been my experience that volunteering with kids is doubly rewarding - a worthy cause is served and parents usually find a few teachable moments to capitalize on in the process. Good compounded!

Here is a link to an article about an amazing program that our family volunteers with once per month, during the school year:

http://www.thurstontalk.com/2012/03/06/feeding-our-kids-one-backpack-at-a-time/

That's me with the purple vest on in photo #1, and pic #3 is of my girls, stuffing bags full of easy to prepare snacks and small meals that will be sent home, discreetly, with kids who are otherwise food-insecure, to be eaten over the weekend when the safety net of a school hot lunch is not an option.

We are so proud to be a small part of this amazing program!

Does your family volunteer in your community? Are there any programs that you'd like to give a shout-out?

Not Keeping Up with the Joneses

My last post was my best effort at focusing on the positive. I really do believe that positivity has the power to make my life and the lives of those around me better. But sometimes the Pollyanna Sunshine well runs dry, and I find myself irritable and somewhat behind the eight-ball in terms of my life's forward progression.

Well, I'm kinda there right now.

My girls are amazing, but this Summer vacation has been rather taxing on my relationship with them. We haven't been able to do a lot of our Summer norms, like cabin camping, fishing and going to the beach, because I was physically very weak and unable to drive for most of the Summer. That alone has thrown us all way off our game. On top of that, I'm struggling with a pretty heavy case of post-concussion syndrome, which has affected my memory and my ability to organize my thoughts. Add a highly emotional tweenager, a sensitive 9 year old girl, an emotionally needy, 75-pound pooch and a small working farm to the mix and you have the ultra hot mess that is me right now. Blurrrrg...

So I'm a little extra irritable, a little more raw than usual. I am looking forward to my girls' return to school with unparalleled joy. I just need a little quiet time to hear my own thoughts, you know? And as soon as that is done, or maybe while that is being done, I also need to make up for 3 months of not doing much. This house is a wreck.

Now, to be fair, my husband kicked butt while he was at the helm during my convalescence. He took care of the girls, the farm, the day-to-day odds and ends that are too numerous to name, and me and my very specialized needs, completely. Honest to God, I have no idea how he did it. He assumed the role of me, while also continuing to be him, and caregiver to a mostly disabled (albeit, temporarily, thankfully) adult. That is a tall effing order.

As a consequence of the hubster having a VERY full plate for 3 months, and my varying stages of disability/inability, a whole lot of stuff fell by the wayside, and neither of us had the energy to spare to give a crap about any of it. Laundry piled up, the vacuum sat idle, the weeds grew and grew, and we were just too busy trying to get by to pay it much mind.

To be perfectly honest, my house would probably not pass Martha Stewart's muster on it's finest day. Firstly, because I really do believe that an immaculate home is the sign of a wasted life. I have a million more worthwhile things to do than dust baseboards or flip mattresses. Secondly, because I don't believe that a sanitized home is a healthy home. We live on Boggy Hollow Farm, for crying out loud!  Mud, straw and a little bit of critter poo coming in on shoes and dog paws are just par for the course. Jars and crocks of homemade vinegar, pickles, sauerkraut and wine scattered here and there throughout our house offer proof that friendly bacteria and yeasts are welcome in this home.

We also are very into the up-cycling and re-purposing thang, which means that we hang on to useful objects, rather than throw them away, which can create a problem of its own - epic clutter.

But being able to logically rationalize having a non-sterile, occasionally-cluttered household doesn't negate my desperate, mental need for order and simplification. I wish that I didn't care at all that there is a mountain of laundry with my name on it, stains on the carpet (who in their right mind puts off-white carpet in a FARM HOUSE?!?), or over-filled junk drawers that hardly close, but I do, damn it, I do.

It isn't for the sake of keeping up with the modern ideal of what a "nice" home looks like - I forsook that pipe dream a looooong time ago - it's that I occasionally see my own environment with fresh eyes, as a visitor might see it, and am embarrassed and stressed out by my surroundings. I've said it before, physical clutter equals mental clutter in my head, and so I have a really hard time functioning in a chaotic environment. By the same token, it's also mentally and physically exhausting to even think about attempting to sort through four humans and forty(?) pets/animals worth of crap and deciding what stays and what goes. It's frugal/upcycling/we-might-need-that-again-someday! girl vs. emotionally-divorced crap-purger lady. Nobody wins. :(

So, I'm ok with a messier, less sterile, slightly more devil-may-care home environment than the average household seems to be, but I'm at a loss for how to reconcile that with the comfort that an organized and clean house brings to it's inhabitants. The promise of simplicity in urban homesteading is occasionally a bit of a tease - real food, real work, real experiences - all good things - at the "expense" of convenience, free time and rest. The more homesteading things that we make a part of our daily lives; home cheese making, brewing, garden-to-table cooking, animal husbandry, etc., the further away from convenience, free time and rest that we grow. I know that it's worth while. But - it is just exhausting. The whole "having a foot in two worlds" business - being a farmer and an urban mom - regularly kicks my ass.

We aren't keeping up with the Joneses. We aren't keeping up, period. We're getting by, sometimes, barely. I have a lot to think on about how to make our home/farm life mesh better with our city/social life, and the reasons why I need to impose some amount of order on this semi-chaotic life that I created.

Oy.

This is why I need thinky-quiet time. And wine. Lots and lots of wine.

A Plethora of Good Things

Life has been wacky for a while now, so I'm going to focus on nothing but the positives today. I've got a heck of a lot to be thankful for!

*I just found out that we've been accepted as doggy foster parents! We get our first foster pup next weekend.

*I got SO HOOKED UP with garden goodies by my sweet and generous friend, Lisa, that my kitchen runneth over with garlic and beans.

*Three of my four apple trees are loaded with fruit, as is my one and only pear tree. Pies & cider... nom.

*It's been 3 months since my accident, and I'd say I'm, 80% back to normal. My broken arm has healed, my scalp wound has finally closed, and my cognitive issues seem to be dogging me less. :)

*The girls go back to school in two weeks and three days. But who's counting?

*Fritzen & Oreo, two Lamancha does that we sold to a friend earlier this year, are here for a romantic getaway with our guy, Buckley. I get extra goat nuzzles this week!

*The vet got back to us re: Anabelle. It seems that she had something like cancer, which sucks, but the good news is that the rest of our flock is not at risk. Trying to see this as a good thing, even though I know her last days were hard.

*The heat wave seems to have passed, temporarily at least. The difference between 75 degrees and 95 degrees is too beautiful to describe.

*I have an awesome giveaway in the works! Stay tuned. :)