Composting Confession

I have a confession. I hate the smell of compost.

My husband and I recently bought one of those compost bins you can rotate that turns the compost. We thought this would be a good option for a two person house and would contain most of the smell that we've been told about. This also prevents our dog from romping in a compost pile.

My husband and father-in-law (thank you Howard!) started putting it together on a Saturday afternoon and a few hours later we had a compost bin!

So, back to my comment about the smell. I guess I should clarify - I hate the smell of my compost. According to some of the books and websites I've been reading, compost should have a "pleasant earthy smell." Mine smells nothing like that! The smell is hard to explain. It doesn't have the ammonia smell that "Let it Rot" mentions. It just smells like rotting food. I did turn it yesterday to try to introduce more oxygen so maybe that will make it smell more "earthy."

Of course I haven't finished reading any of the books I got from the library on the subject. Apparently, composting is not an exact science and more of an art. This does not bode well for me because I'm a very process oriented person and don't have a creative bone in my body. I suspect composting will be one of those things I'll just have to learn about through trial and error...

It's CSA day!

I'd been saying that I was going to join a CSA (Community Supported Agriculture). Well this was the year we finally did it! We joined the Growing Community CSA. They provide organic and naturally grown produce. We chose this one in particular because they have a pick-up site near where we live. Most of the ones we found had pick ups at the farmer's market Downtown.

One of the main reasons we wanted to sign up for a CSA, besides supporting local farmers, was to force culinary exploration. We really don't mind trying new things, but rarely ever do. We believed that getting a new batch of produce each week would force us to eat what was in season. We were worried. Neither one of us had really eaten that many greens, which we understood to be a staple in the shares you get from these things. Being from a southern family in a rural area, my experience with greens was limited to collards swimming in "pot liquor." This was the food that my parents served each New Year's Day and swore that I would have bad luck all year if I didn't eat them. (just so you know, I didn't and my luck was just fine) My husband's family was from Pennsylvania and didn't like many vegetables so his exposure was even less than mine.

Well that's all changed. In the 4 or so odd weeks that we've gotten shares we experienced lots of different things, mainly greens. We've had to do a little detective work - you see they don't really tell you what you have in your bag. I'm not sure if most are like this, but the emails we get from Growing Community aren't very specific. Usually the emails will say we're getting greens, but no specifics. The Internet has been very helpful with identification.

Here's what we received in our bag this week.

You can see the turnips front and center. I haven't had any turnips before (I told you I was going for a culinary adventure here). I plan on pairing them with some potatoes in a turnip potato mash. I saw Ina Garten do this once on The Barefoot Contessa on Food Network so I think that should be good.

These guys are new. We haven't seen them in our bag before. The bag says Braising Mix. Apparently they are a mix of dandelion, mustard, chard chicories and Asian greens. I'm not sure what I'm going to do with these yet.

The email actually did let us know we would be getting them and suggested we saute' them in a little olive oil and salt and pepper.

This bag is full of pea shoots. When we first got these, I thought they were watercress. We used them in an Orange Salad with Blue Cheese. Yum!

I have no idea what these are. Bok Choy maybe?

This is a familiar site. It's kale. What we've found is that most kale recipes are soups. We made a particularly yummy kale and chorizo soup with our last few shares.

Well that's what we got this week. I'll update later on the unidentified vegetable.

The Beginning

I started what I call my "green journey" a few years ago. It started with recyling. We moved into our new house and with curbside pick up there was really no excuse not to. Well... except forgetting to take it to the curb.

My next big step (and what is probably my journey's real beginning) began with a New Years resolution. Not a New Years resolution to go green, but a new years resolution to get off my butt and keep a clean house. I was tired of scrambling around the house trying to clean up before company came over so I made a resolution to clean the house every week so that I would be ready for anyone who came by.

I did pretty good with my resolution, but I started to get an alergic reaction to the cleaning products so I decided to do what I'd been saying I was going to do for a year or so - I went to natural cleaning products. I was unnaturally afraid of being "greenwashed" so I started making my own cleaning products using vinegar and baking soda.

That step snowballed into other "greener" practices. The thought that the chemicals in those product caused my allergic reaction got me thinking about other chemicals - in my food and in the plastics I stored my food in. So I decided to make some changes. In this blog I am going to talk about some of the changes I've made and some of the challenges I've had going "green."