A Bear’s Fare

I officially have a worm composting system. I have been wanting to try this since I read the book Worms Eat My Garbage. My New Years resolution is to reduce the waste that comes out of our house, no more packaging, composting, cloth toilet paper, etc. Making your own worm composting system can be done in a variety of ways. You can order a worm composting or make your own.

I got an empty five gallon pickle bucket from work and had Keith drill holes around it for ventilation.  Instead of having to buy the worms for composting, I lucked out through craigslist. Someone in our area was doing the same thing and gave us a scoop of worms for free! Freecycle would be another great place to look.

Next I tore a couple of newspapers into strips, dumped them in water for a couple of minutes and added them in the bucket until halfway full. Then the worms were added, along with some kitchen scraps.

The guy we got the worms from said they like to be about four to five inches under the top layer. They also like a cover on the top, like an old towel, whole sheet of newspaper, etc.

I can’t wait to see the food turn to compost! Even more excited to put it in the garden we’re going to try and build this spring!

In other news, I finally made my own laundry detergent, thanks to this post on the PPK.  I’ve been experimenting with how much to use for laundry, this last load I used about 1/4 a cup, and the laundry had a nice clean smell to it. I’m also using it in the bathroom to put our cloth toilet paper in, that way when it’s full, empty a little bit of the water out and dump the cloth into the machine. No touching dirty cloths required.

Tamales are so cheap, easy and tasty. You can cook up a big batch and feed off them for a week if that’s what you would like. I have made tamales probably four times. They were all just “good”. None of them reminded me of the ones we would buy in California when I was little. Last time I made these tamales from Cozy Inside, there’s a nice tutorial. While the corn masa had good flavor, the insides..erm..cleaned us out for a couple of days, so to speak. This time I kept the corn masa flavor the same, but attempted to replicate the filling of these (very nice tutorial on this site, also).  I  made conqueso and added onions, garlic and carrots to the seitan mixture.

TA-TA-TAMALES

STEAMER (We have a small steamer, so also used a rice cooker and that seemed to work good)

FILLING INGREDIENTS:

3 batches seitan, chopped medium size (SAVE YOUR BROTH!!!)

4 carrots, minced

5 cloves garlic

1 onion, diced pretty small

Corn oil

5 tbs chili powder

3 tbs garlic powder

3 tbs cumin powder

2 tbs salt

1 tbs pepper

1 batch conqueso

1 can hatch enchilada sauce

MASA INGREDIENTS:

2 lbs (Half bag of Maseca corn masa)

3 tbs paprika

3 tbs salt

3 tbs garlic powder

3 tbs chili powder

1 tbs cumin

2 cups corn oil

8 ish  cup of your seitan broth

Don’t forget to get corn husks, also! I did not use the whole package, maybe less than half? Guesstimation’s the name of the game.

STEPS:

1. Soak corn husks for two hours in warm water. It works great if you plug your kitchen sink and place them in there.  

While your husks are soaking, prepare 3 batches seitan (or two and just add more veggies than I did). When your seitan is done cooking and cooled, start sauteing your veggies in corn oil. Add spices and seitan. When seitan has cooked for a couple of minutes, add the hatch chili sauce. Heat for two more minutes, then shut off the burner.

At this point you’ll want to start arranging your corn husks on a clean towel. Then go ahead and make your queso sauce.

Mix your corn masa and spices, add corn oil and mix well. Then add your broth (mix in with hands) until a thick peanut butter consistency. This should be eight cups or just a little less.

You are now ready to make your tamales. You may want to grab a helper! Baby decided he would supervise me.

Grab a corn husk and spread corn masa on the wide part of the husk. Start at one side of the wide part and spread until you are 1/2 inch away from the other side. Leave the top 3rd of the husk (towards pointy end) un-masa’d. Once you have spread your masa, add 1 tbs (seems like a little, but as Keith has learned, more filling sucks to fold and it may leak when you steam). Add a dab of queso. Roll up lenghtwise and fold the un-masa’d part up . The wide part of your tamale will be open-faced. Steam your tamales (if your steamer is too small to place them with the open face up, lay them flat) for 45 minutes until firm and the masa comes away from the husk easily.

These were super tasty! If you have any queso sauce left, top your tamale with a bit of it. So. Good.  Just to pimp the queso sauce more, we’ve used that on taco pizza a bajillion times and made nachos supreme with it over Christmas. My boyfriends snarky dad even ate some. And that is a miracle.