Seitan

I forgot to post the recipe I used for the seitan I made the other night, so here is the link and below is the recipe: About.com: How to make Seitan

Combine 1 cup vital wheat gluten flour with 1 tbsp garlic powder. In a measuring cup combine 1 cup vegetable broth with 2 tbsp soy sauce or liquid aminos. Mix wet ingredients with dry and knead until well combined. Let sit for 5 minutes and lightly knead again. Cut dough into 3 or 4 cutlets about 3/4 inch thick. In a pot, combine seitan dough and 6 cups (one quart) vegetable broth and bring to a simmer. Simmer on low for slightly more than one hour. Remove finished swollen cutlets and use immediately or bag and freeze.

You can usually find vital wheat gluten at any health food store. I bought mine in a box made by a the Arrowhead Mills company. A 10oz package will make approx. 2 batches of the recipe listed above. One batch would be enough to make about 2 meals for a family of 3-4 people.

Seitan can be used in a variety of ways. You can cut it up small and put it in stir-fry or even use larger chunks to make sandwiches. It has a much better "meat" consistency than tofu and the protein in seitan is better than soy when it comes to bodily absorption.

Seitan isn't as versatile as many soy products though. Tofu is capable of taking many forms which means you can easily use it to replace eggs in many applications.

I have much more to say about seitan but I will leave it for another time.

First efforts

Saturday I started a batch of the super-tea, Kombucha. I have never made this stuff before so I will post again when it finishes to let everyone know how it came out. I am excited about planting when the weather gets better. I plan on starting my garden indoors this week since I have some time off finally.

From Food I Made

Last year I started a lot of plants inside in March and by the time the frost stopped coming, many of my plants had already grown too big for their containers and died. This time around, I am starting a bit later and then as long as I have some sprouts when the weather turns, I'll be in business.

Things I plan to do differently this year? Well, last year we closed on our house on June 24th, so that left me in the lurch for a good early start on my garden. I will definitely have the plants in the ground after the last frost this year. I also used Garden-Tone vegetable fertilizer which worked pretty well for me. This year I plan on giving compost tea a shot. From everything I read, not only is it better than any fertilizer on the market, but it is also as vegan as fertilizer comes. The garden tone had live enzymes and microbiotics to help increase the fertility of the soil. Compost tea is essentially the same, without the chicken feces as a fertilizing agent.

After a year of growth and stabilization I think the soil I am using will probably be pretty fit to grow pretty much anything and with the mixture of compost and peat I am planning on adding, the potential should be plentiful. I know that it can take as many as 3 years for a good soil base to form, but I am working on starting that base now. I also have my own heap of compost that I am tending to which may add to my efforts later in the summer.

In addition to the Kombucha, I am also making my own seitan now. I just finished my first batch and it looks amazing! We have been using this meat substitute for a while now, but buying it can be taxing. You only get enough for one serving and it costs between $3 and $5 a package, depending on what you buy and where you get it. A box of vital wheat gluten was $3 at my natural food store and it makes 2 batches, 16 servings. I love wheat gluten as a protein substitute because of the highly absorbable protein it contains. Soy is alright, but wheat gluten is better (provided you don't have a gluten allergy).

That's all for tonight. Just imagine how rewarding it will feel when you are able to make the food your family eats in an easy and plentiful way! I'm even more excited than you are!

In the beginning...

I'm starting this blog in an effort to become a better urban farmer by gathering information from many sources and combining all the info I receive here. I am reaching out to anyone who knows anything about farming in a urban environment to offer advice on best methods to grow plants, conserve energy, cultivate soil...etc. I am also planning on recording my ever expanding and improving efforts to garden and farm via text and images. I have many years of experience working on farms and growing vegetable gardens but I would definitely still consider myself an amateur farmer. What I lack is the knowledge of proper soil composition and plant cultivation needed to successfully sustain myself and my family and that is the point of this blog.

While self-improvement is my number one goal, my secondary interest is to provide accurate information to anyone reading these entries in the hope that we may all benefit from a self-sustaining lifestyle that is, at its very core, organic. I am using only the most natural and earth-friendly methods to grow, harvest and prepare my foods. I am vegan but that doesn't mean I want everyone to be. My purpose is to inform and to become informed about a better way to live, save money and enjoy my food.

Knowing where the things you eat and drink come from is important. Together we can all watch our food grow from the seed to the fruit to the table and know what went in and where it is from every step of the way.

This blog, the information within and my purpose in its creation, is to take back control of what sustains us all: FOOD.