With the increase in number of plants that require watering, it’s become a time-consuming task to get to all of them as much as they need it. Also, too much water doesn’t make it to the plant, no matter how careful I am. In this unusually dry season, conservation of water is a priority.

My daughter, Inga, came to see me this past week, making her winter visit to get out of the cold Idaho weather. She asked if she could do a project of creating a dripper system like one she had recently installed at her own home. I jumped at the opportunity!

We stopped by Home Depot to talk with the helpful clerk there and purchased all the items she needed. We learned several things along the way that will make the next system easier.

Our first lesson: 500 feet of larger diameter tubing is too much to work with at one time. From now on, I will need to cut it into manageable pieces and use connectors. As she was unwinding it, it all became too entangled.

Our second lesson: Let both the larger diameter tubing and smaller ¼” tubing set out in the sun to make them more pliable. In fact, she found that soaking the smaller tubing in very hot water for a while made it so much easier to work with. You can see the pan here beside her as she works (plus my shadow as I took the picture).

Our third lesson: Wear sturdy gloves! Cutting the holes and pushing the emitters and connectors into the tubing can be hard on your hands after a while. The blue object in her hand is the hole punch. First, she punches a hole in the larger tubing, then into that she inserts the ¼” tubing with a connector. At the end of the smaller tubing, she inserts the emitter and sets it close to the plant.

Here is a close-up of the connection between larger and smaller tubing.

Here you can see the emitter, where the water drips out onto the plant (in case you wondered)!

She ran the line all around my bananas, coffee, plumeria, blueberries and more.

Our fourth lesson: When you have an acre with plants spread out all over the place (even on a small portion of that acre), 500 feet doesn’t go far. This time she put in two systems, one off the hose bib by the back door and one by the front door.

Between the two, it covers part of the plants behind the house, all of the front garden area, and up one side of the driveway. The next 500 feet I put in will take care of the other side of the driveway, my vegetable beds, and the patio. I’m sure there will be plenty more lessons learned along the way!

Is that a backache, Inga?? Thank you so much for making my gardening easier!

A hui hou!

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If you’ve never tried quinoa or would like to know more about it, check here. Tabouleh is traditionally made with bulgur, which is made from wheat. Quinoa gives a great nutty flavor and is great for those who can’t eat wheat.

The first time I tasted quinoa (pronounced KEEN-wah) was in the early 90s when I lived in Tucson. A friend was a caterer and made a quinoa salad. I was hooked, but I never tried to make anything with it myself. Recently, I bought a bag of red quinoa from the bulk bin at a health food store, determined to try cooking it myself.

A friend here in Kona invited me over for lunch a couple weeks ago. She made a Quinoa Tabouleh from a recipe found on a prepackaged bag of quinoa. Here is my own version, using the red quinoa sitting in my cupboard.

1 cup cooked and cooled quinoa (See “Notes” on how to cook quinoa)
½ cup chopped parsley
¼ cup chopped chives
1 tablespoon chopped fresh mint
1 clove minced garlic
1 tablespoon minced fresh basil
Juice of one large lime
1/8 cup Extra Virgin Olive Oil
1/8 teaspoon freshly ground sea salt
Freshly ground pepper to taste

Toss all the ingredients together. Chill to allow flavors to blend before you eat.

This amount makes enough for one large serving, or two or three smaller servings. The Bearss lime was picked from my tree, and the herbs were all freshly picked from my garden. I’ll definitely make this again.

Notes: For this recipe, bring 1 cup water to a boil in a sauce pan. Add ½ cup quinoa and brought it back to a boil. Then cover, lower heat to medium and cook until water is fully absorbed by the quinoa, about 12+ minutes. Take it off the heat, fluff it up, cover again, and let it stand. I should have added a smidge more water to this and let it cook a little longer. You need to test it to make sure you can chew it. My dish was a little nuttier than I remembered, but it was still tasty.

The top photo was taken with flash; this one was made with no flash. Which do you think makes the tabouleh look better?

A hui hou!

This post was entered into the “Grow Your Own” roundup, created by Andrea’s Recipes and hosted this month by House of Annie.

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While many of my friends and relatives are suffering under severe winter weather, I’m living here in sunshine and warm weather. I have had my share of cold, snowy and icy winters, so I’m not sorry to be living here now.

This past summer I attended a conference that was held at the Hilton Waikoloa here on the Big Island. I drove up from my home to attend. It was great fun to act like a tourist on my own island.

I spent several afternoons walking around the grounds and taking pictures. There were too many to put here individually, and the collages I’ve made don’t do it justice, so please look at this slide show before you read another word.

For a full-sized slideshow, click here

I first visited this hotel in 1995, fifteen years ago, and I’m still never tired of finding something new around a corner. I enjoy the dolphin area most of all. They are so playful. Check out the Dolphin Quest to find out more.

Most visitors are captured by the romance of riding to your room on a boat through the lagoons, even though they are man-made.

Along the edges of the boat ways you’ll find statues and birds of all sorts.

I have traveled extensively throughout Japan on many different occasions, so I loved finding the strong Japanese influence on the décor throughout the hotel and grounds.

Around the swimming pool you’ll find statues that represent the animals of the Chinese zodiac. I don’t think I got them all. Some were hidden from my line of sight.

Down the walkways of the hotel you’ll find works of art and more statues of Kwan Yin and other Bodhisattvas. I’ve done another post on Kwan Yin, but I didn’t show you all of the ones I photographed there.

A hui hou!

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Like many “foodies,” I learned a lot of my cooking from my parents at home as a child. Because I came along at the end of the Great Depression, there was one staple that always found its way to the table in our home – Potato Soup. And I hated it!

Then, by the time I got to my 7th grade home economics class, I started learning how to cook the “right way,” or at least the way the teacher thought we should cook. What was one of the first things we had to learn to make? Potato Soup! And I still hated it! My folks had a good laugh over me having to learn how to make something I detested.

In the early 70s, I found Diet for a Small Planet by Frances Moore Lappé (or Frankie, as she was known), and it changed the way I ate forever. After that, I found Recipes for a Small Planet by Ellen Buchman Ewald. In that was a recipe for – you guessed it – Potato Soup.

This recipe looked interesting, and with great fear and trepidation, on October 31, 1974 I tried it. (I know the date because I always date a recipe the first time I use it, and make comments on it.) To my total surprise, it was delicious! I continued to make it according to that recipe and since then I have altered or adjusted it a bit here and there. Here is the latest version that I made just this past week.

In 1-2 tablespoons of extra virgin olive oil, ssauté 1 large chopped onion, about 4 or 5 baby carrots (or 1 large carrot), and several potatoes cut into large chunks. I used one large Idaho potato and 2 medium-sized red potatoes. Because I like the color variation in the soup, I leave on the peel, which I love anyway, and which is quite nutritious.

Once the onions were transparent, I poured in a can of fat-free chicken broth.

I added freshly ground sea salt, ½ teaspoon chili powder (or you can use paprika), fresh marjoram, and about 1 teaspoon dill weed. I didn’t have any this time, but usually I like to add caraway seed, as well.

Let that simmer until potatoes are tender, but not falling apart. This takes about an hour.

Just before serving, I added about 4 cups of non-fat milk. I think I should have added a little less because the soup ended up too thin. Bring this to a simmer for about a minute, but don’t boil.

Ladle into bowls and eat with grilled cheese or freshly baked bread. Need I tell you that my attitude toward Potato Soup has changed dramatically? Try it, you’ll like it!

A hui hou!

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One of my earliest memories was hearing my parents play and sing together. My dad played the piano, while my mother played the violin. Sometimes they sang together in performances, not just at home. I started playing piano at the early age of five, gradually adding in violin and French horn.

Many times I sang and played with them. I remember when I was as young as five (maybe even younger), being part of their performances. As an adult, I added even more instruments – guitar (both folk and classical), recorder, lute, organ, balakaika, koto and on and on – and I kept on singing.

When my brother came along, he sang along with us with, sometimes playing his trumpet or piano. A few weeks ago, my brother posted about the sheet music he has from that era. I still have some of those pieces, also.

In a musical family, it’s no surprise that there are piles of music all over. They take up all the storage space in my living area. Periodically I go through these stacks and reorder them according to my passion du jour.

This past week, while rearranging my music one more time, I pulled out old sheet music from the twenties and thirties, music my parents played and passed on to us. Sad to say that many of the covers had been torn off; I think it was to make it easier for them to keep it on a music stand while they played. I’ve made copies of those not destroyed.

I also have stacks of music from my teen and early adult years of the forties and fifties, as well as from the era of my hippie days in the sixties and seventies. Each of these generations of music has its own particular flavor, as you know. Maybe I’ll show covers from those eras another time.

My mother and my brother share January as their birthday month (Happy Birthday, bro!), and she would have had her 96th birthday this month if she had lived. Although she was quite musically talented, I believe her creativity in other areas often became stifled, not because of the era but because of the expectations required of her as a pastor’s wife. She and my dad passed their creative genes to my brother and to me. It is up to us and future generations not to let it die.

 

My hope is that my own musical children remember hearing and playing music in our home from their early years, and that they have passed it on to their children and grandchildren.

A hui hou!

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When my brother and I were growing up in a preacher’s home, many of our meals were made out of what was on hand and leftovers. Our parents had a knack for creating some interesting and tasty meals out of little bits of this and that.

A few weeks ago, my brother posted a delicious looking dish he created out of what he had on hand and it looked scrumptious. It looked so good that I wanted to make it myself, and promised him I’d let him know if it was as good as it looked.

So in honor of his birthday coming up this week, I give you my version of his dish.

I had a couple pieces of chicken breast I needed to cook up, and I always have cranberries on hand. I didn’t have barley and today, I didn’t have greens, either. What I did have was a yam and a package of wild rice mixed with Jasmine brown rice. I didn’t have his vegetable broth, but I did have fat-free chicken broth.

I sautéed the chicken in a little olive oil and added thinly sliced fresh ginger, the yam cut into pieces, cranberries, and about half a can of the chicken broth.

After it had been simmering a while, I cut up a cooking banana that I had on hand, too. As I sliced it up, I thought “Now, what in the world is this going to taste like?” One just never knows, does one?

When everything seemed “done” the way it should be, I dished it up. I thought about sprinkling a little fresh cilantro over the top for more color, but that would have made it more Mexican. As it was, the red cranberries and orange yam made for a lively color combination without the green.

I have to say, it wasn’t bad – not even half-bad! In fact, it was so good I went back for seconds! The fresh ginger gave it quite a kick, as well as the soy sauce and sriracha sauce I doused over it. The end result had something like a Caribbean flavor. Next time I happen to have these ingredients on hand, I might add a bit of coconut milk.

I’m not a trained chef; I’m just a mother who retired years ago from fixing three meals a day plus snacks for four children. I don’t like to see things go to waste and I’ve never been afraid to experiment. So try it yourself – just start putting things together in a pan and see what happens.

A hui hou!

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Most of us are interested in eating locally grown food these days, and some of us even try to grow as much of our own food as we can. Try as I may, I don’t seem to be able to keep enough growing to insure that I’m well fed. There are certain times of the year that I seem to have more time to do the nurturing (and work) that is involved, but at other times, I get too busy with my teaching career and something called “Life.”

Fortunately, there are some who make their career out of producing food for the rest of us. Such is the case with Chas Canon and his family. Our Garden Club made a trip to his acreage here in Ocean View in late October of this past year. If you’re like me (and if you read my blog regularly, I suspect you are), you enjoy seeing where your food comes from.

Rather than elaborate too much on what we saw there, I’m going to give you a quick look at what he grows and how he grows it. Please click on the slide show at the bottom to see all of these pictures, and more.

There is a deep gulch on the property where he grows a few things at the bottom – even along the edge of the gulch as shown here.

Path to the gulch

Growth in the gulch

Up above near the house, we were shown how he mulches, sets out the irrigation lines, and grows great produce.

I don’t even get tomatoes like this that I try to grow intentionally!

Volunteer tomatoes

Here is where it all starts.

He showed us the book that he follows religiously. I promptly ordered a copy for myself. It is put out by the New York State Agricultural Experiment Station. Cornell University strongly supports the organic food movement.

Look for his produce at our local farmer’s market on most Saturday mornings.

You’ll get much more out of this if you watch it in full size here.

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When do you head for the “comfort foods?”

People go to their comfort food for a variety of reasons. Maybe they’ve been on a diet to get into that special dress for the holidays. Or maybe the weather has been colder than usual (like in Florida last week)! You might go because you’re depressed, or you’re sick, or you can’t think of anything exciting to fix.

Whatever the reason for you, French toast is one of my comfort foods. It’s basic, it’s simple, it’s tasty, and reminds me of my childhood. There are as many ways to prepare French toast as there are people who eat it, I suppose.

French bread cut into thick slices makes wonderful French toast. Here in Hawaii, we often make French toast out of that luscious Hawaiian/Portuguese Sweet Bread. This time, I had some leftover corn bread from my New Year’s black-eyed peas that I wanted to use up.

Making French toast is so simple that I’m almost hesitant to share this, but it might be something you haven’t thought of in a long time.

First step (after deciding which bread you want to use up) is to put an egg in a flat-ish bowl with a little milk. This egg was fresh gathered; see the way the yolk stands up nice and perky? Instead of milk, I used a splash of Almond Breeze (unsweetened vanilla), maybe less than ¼ cup.

Sprinkle a little cinnamon over it and whip it up quickly with a fork. I cut that piece of cornbread in half, then split it to make four pieces.

Let your bread soak up the egg/milk mixture for a couple minutes.

I start it over medium heat in a pan coated with spray, then for the last bit, I turn up the heat to high to get a nice color. When the egg is cooked and the bread is the right toasty brown for you, put it on a plate, add a little butter (I use the yogurt spread), douse with whatever kind of syrup you like to use (I used a Canadian Maple Syrup), and dig in!

I hope I’ve made your mouth water! Go find some of that stale bread you don’t want to throw away (but there’s not enough for a bread pudding), and make yourself a little breakfast or lunch – or even a light supper.

A hui hou!

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A question visitors often ask those of us who live in Hawaii is “When you live in Hawaii, where do you go on vacation?” It’s hard for anyone to imagine wanting to leave our beautiful island state and go somewhere else to relax.

Believe it or not, there are times when a person needs to get away from the normal routines, no matter how wonderful it is where you live. When I’m home, it is too easy for me to see all the work that I “should” be doing around the house, or to get caught up in preparing for classes, or respond to the gardening that beckons.

So my answer to the question in the first paragraph is “I go to another island!” From time to time, I visit other islands, but my favorite destination is the Kula Lodge in upcountry Maui.

This sign above one of the doors is an excellent example of how I feel when I’m there. “Live well – Love much – Laugh often.” What a great philosophy! It’s also an example of the charm this lodge holds for me.

Even the closet has a special appeal, with its lace curtain and dried flower arrangement on the wall.

One attraction of this lodge is not having a telephone or television in the rooms. I take my computer, not with the intent of actually “working,” but for some reason I find it much easier to let my thoughts flow with ideas when I’m away. I’m not caught up in checking email, or paying bills, or any of the various activities that require internet connection. I focus on writing. I have myself set up quite nicely here, as you can see.

Each room is given fresh Anthurium, Bird of Paradise, Protea and other tropical flowers. All the little touches provide the setting its allure, like this dry spray above another door.

Did I mention that the beds are very comfortable and cozy?

There is enchantment everywhere you look. I love to sit out on the deck and have a snack of cheese and crackers with juice.

There are small cottages, where I usually stay, and there are larger chalets where I have stayed when the smaller ones were not available.

These have two levels for sleeping, ideal for families or several couples. I loved the electric fireplace on a cold wintry evening.

Children (and even adults) must have fun climbing up the ladder to get to their sleeping area.

There is a good restaurant at the Lodge that serves from 7 a.m. to 8 p.m. with a wall of glass, offering an unobstructed view over the valley. Because they like to support the local farmers, their salad greens and other veggies are freshly picked, and of course they use Maui onions! Their pizza is baked in these wood-burning ovens just below the dining area.

Close to the ovens is a trail leading down the hill, giving visitors an opportunity to walk along and admire the many tropical shrubs and flowers we have here.

Outside the lodging areas, a tall hibiscus hedge produces blooms larger than I’ve seen anywhere. It’s fun to sit on my little deck and listen to visitors “ooh” and “ah” over the enormous bushes that hide me from their view.

No, I didn’t get a free meal or free lodging in return for this post on a wonderful place to go, but I did get a world of relaxation and time away from my responsibilities on the Big Island for a few days. That’s worth more than money, isn’t it?

A hui hou and Hau’oli Makahiki Hou!
(See you later and Happy New Year!)

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Every culture has its “lucky food” to be eaten on the first day of each new year. Most of the sites I checked talk about the symbolism of money. For instance, greens would represent folding dollar bills, and peas would symbolize coins. My theory is somewhat different. I believe the lucky food will be something that is common to the culture, inexpensive, traditional, healthy, and a “comfort food.”

Anyone who has ever lived in the Deep South, or if you know someone who has, then you know that a pot of black-eyed peas is a “must” on New Year’s Day for good luck. Occasionally, people eat “Hoppin’ John,” which is spiced up and served over rice. That’s a wonderful dish, too, but regular black-eyed peas is really all it takes to be lucky in the new year.

There is no recipe for this, other than to take black-eyed peas, either fresh (haven’t seen those in Hawaii), frozen (a little easier to find), or dried (which is what I did this year), and cook them up with whatever kind of pork you have on hand. Occasionally, I’ve cut up some kale or chard from my garden to add later.

The pork can be bacon, leftover ham, ham hock, or what in the South, we called “sow belly.” I had half a rasher of bacon and some sow belly. I soaked the peas overnight, drained them the next morning and added more water for simmering.

There are other ways to do this. For example, you can do it in a slow cooker, or bring to a boil then let sit for a couple hours. Everyone has their favorite way of doing it. For me, it all depends on my mood and how much time I want to take. The slower you cook them, the better they taste. I add chopped onion, and either salsa or hot sauce of some sort.

I tried to get a close-up of the peas in the pot, but the steam kept fogging up the camera lens, so this is the clearest I was able to get.

Along with corn bread and a hot pepper sauce that my brother sent me from Florida, I served them to a friend who came to supper. Enough peas were eaten by both of us to keep us going all year. (That’s not intended as a joke!)

Hau`oli Makahiki Hou!
(Happy New Year!)

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