Author Archives: Melissa | Growing Green Nutrition

Mouth on fire

Guest garden post from Farmer Brown . . .

Observation: Some varieties of peppers get hotter when bitten into and then sit in the fridge for a few days.

We’ve noticed this a few times this summer.  I grew a number of peppers that can range in heat levels (variety of heat levels from peppers on a single plant), so I started tasting a pepper from each plant as I picked, and sorting them into bags for hot and sweet (not hot).  But some of the peppers I’d tasted wound up being very hot, even though they were in the sweet bag.*

We decided that maybe since I was tasting the tips, it was that some of the tips were mild even though the tops were hot, so I started tasting both places, and I caught more, but still we’d get hot peppers in our sweet bag.

I then tried tasting all of the peppers at a picking, but still some wound up hot in the sweet bag.

I have a hypothesis that some of the peppers (that have potential to get hot) release more capsaicin (what makes them hot) when they’ve been bitten into.  This would make sense if capsaicin is a defense against being eaten (by mammals).

Has anyone else noticed this?  I keep meaning to get around to somewhat more formal experimenting, but I haven’t yet.  I’ll write more if/when I do.

*Melissa’s note: Since I’ve been doing most of the cooking lately, I’ve usually been the “lucky” one to encounter the surprise peppers in what should have been the sweet and mild bag.  I’ve had a enough unpleasant experiences — burning lips, mouth, and a random place on my face that I touched after handling a pepper — that I’m quite wary now.

Muscle memory

After hitting the gym very regularly during my pregnancy, things took a sharp turn post-baby.  Once I was cleared for take-off exercising again, I started going to the gym a couple of times a week, sometimes using the free childcare, sometimes leaving Gabriel with Matthew.

I fell into a somewhat regular pattern that completely fell apart once maternity leave ended and I went back to work full time.  After a couple of months of rarely darkening the door of the YMCA, I cancelled my membership.  I just couldn’t justify the $46 a month when I was making it there less than twice a week.

Enter unemployment and more free time — at Matthew’s urging, I’m considering gym options.  I’m torn between my familiar YMCA, which, due to our move, is now solidly in the “biking distance” category, or another gym that is just a couple of blocks away and easily walkable.

I’ve visited both gyms and worked out as a guest in the last two weeks, trying to get a feel for each facility and weigh the pros and cons.  While, on the whole, I’m much more active since I ditched the desk job for days filled with biking around with, and chasing after, a toddler, I’m enjoying the feeling of a good, full-body weight lifting session.*

If it weren’t for the distance, I’d probably pick the Y with little debate, despite it being more expensive.  However, I’d be bringing Gabriel with me most of the time, and I’m a little uncertain about biking with him in wintry weather.

If we have a very mild winter, like last year, it would be a moot point.  But you never know with the weather — with the YMCA, I may well be faced with the dilemma of driving (which I balk at since it’s less than two miles away) or skipping the gym on some days.

I’m still not sure what I’ll do on the gym question (though I should follow through and do one or the other), but I will be looking into some kind of under-the-helmet head covering for Gabriel so we’re ready for chilly rides, one way of the other.  Do they make balaclavas for toddlers?

*Not one to ease back into things, I returned home after the first workout and proceeded to hang a load of laundry, only to find that I could barely lift my arms up to hang the clothes on the line — oops!

Little gardener

Now that Gabriel’s walking, he’s ready to take a more active role in the garden.  I’ll let him take over the narration.  First, there’s horseback riding.

The best way to the garden is on horseback.  After that, the real work begins.  I oversee the gardening crew — they work hard, but sometimes need a little direction.

The amaranth looks good, but those fingerling potatoes aren’t going to dig themselves, Dada.  And what about the eggplant?  Your water break is over!

Mmm, this eggplant is just my size.

Oh no, looks like the bugs were getting to this one.

A little help over here, guys?  Some of these squash weigh more than me — this cart isn’t going to move itself!

Making seitan

About a year ago, the topic of seitan came up with a friend, and she mentioned a YouTube video on making seitan in a pressure cooker.  Our previous attempts used the basic simmer in broth on the stove top method, and, while the results were okay, we weren’t crazy about the texture.  Perhaps pressure cooking was the trick?

While rather over-sized for everyday cooking, pressure canners can double as pressure cookers (but not vice versa), so I already had the necessary equipment.  I just lacked the time and motivation to experiment.

Our vegan barbeque experience in Portland included “psstrami,” their take on pastrami, made from seitan and served with barbeque sauce.  The texture and very thin slices were great, but frankly, I thought I could do better flavor-wise in the barbeque department.

With that in mind, I pulled out the canner two weeks ago to take a stab at the seitan.  I more or less followed this recipe/method, except I brilliantly decided that a single recipe would not yield much, and as long as I was heating up the canner, I may as well go for a double.

Though it seemed like extra trouble, I wrapped my uncooked dough in cheesecloth as suggested, locked the lid, brought it up to pressure and waited.  Once depressurized, I opened the canner to find two HUGE logs of a suspiciously meat-like substance.

Half pleased, half horrified, and a good dose of overwhelmed at the sheer quantity of seitan I had created, I set about the task of slicing it — some ultra-thin slices for sandwiches and some chunks for other dishes.

Over the past two weeks, we’ve had seitan reubens, gumbo, stir-fry, and, of course, the barbeque seitan sandwiches (which were better than the food truck version).  Gluten overload, anyone?

Anyway, I’m really not sure how long prepared seitan is supposed to keep, but we have just a bit left.  If it seems okay, it may make a final stand in tonight’s dinner, possibly as some kind of bbq/stir fry fusion dish.

Thoughts on pressure cooker method
I really liked the texture of the ends and outside part of the seitan logs — very similar to what you buy in the store (usually for $4-$5 for just a few ounces).  The center of the log was very dense, and while edible, was not my ideal. Perhaps smaller logs would help?

A double recipe was WAY too much.  Sure, I got to use it in fun, creative, and tasty ways, but we were eating seitan in some form almost every day for over a week — I really prefer more variety in protein sources, especially because beans and soy are healthier options than concentrated wheat gluten.

I’ll probably make pressure cooker seitan again as a single recipe with two or three smaller logs, but I’ve also seen a recipe that calls for baking the seitan in broth.  Now that we’re back to oven weather, that may come first.

The bad and the ugly

Unfortunately, my good biking tale was not the only noteworthy bike-related happening last week.

The Bad
Two Sundays ago, Matthew discovered that his rear shifting cable was shot, despite the cable and the shifter itself being replaced quite recently.  He finished his ride using the three front gears (incidentally, this was also his inaugural ride with Gabriel in the IBert on his bike).

He’d been wanting to take it to the bike shop for a tune-up anyway, so he arranged a bike swap with his dad (he doesn’t have his own back up bike, which is something that we plan to remedy) and sent his trusty steed in for repair.

Matt’s two cents: “Winona has been very reliable.  It’s not her fault.”*

He was back on his own bike by Wednesday, setting off in the same cloudy, damp weather I experienced.  On his way into work, he noticed that his handlebars were loose.  Assuming the shop had forgotten to tighten something, he pulled out his tool set (we both usually bike with a few small tools for minor repairs) and tightened the handle bar stem.

The Ugly
All seemed well until after work, when he was over halfway home.  As he made a turn through an intersection, the handlebars came off and he crashed.  And I received the, “I’m mostly okay, but can you come and pick me up,” call.

His main injury was a badly sprained big toe — I’ve never had a serious toe injury, but it turns out that they can be pretty crippling.  He could walk, but not well, so he was pretty out of commission for a couple of days, doing the ice, elevate, and pain reliever drill.

The story on the bike was that the part of the stem that goes into the head tube  and secures with a long bolt cracked, so even though the bolt felt tight, it was slipping, more or less like it was stripped.  The bike shop’s best explanation was age/normal wear and tear, though it is not an especially old bike.

All in all, things could have been a lot worse, but this part failure definitely surprised us.  For summer biking, we had both eased away from what, at least for me, had been a hard and fast “no open-toed shoes while biking” rule into wearing Teva sandals.  I enjoyed being able to wear the kind of footwear that I wanted at my destination, no carting around an extra pair of shoes required.

Since sturdy, closed-toe shoes probably would have prevented the sprain, we’re obviously rethinking our footwear choices.  Due to the injury Matt’s trying to find something that’s foot shaped and waterproof, but with a thick sole — anyone have any suggestions?  He normally wears Birkenstocks or Five Fingers, as he can’t find any other footwear that is shaped like his feet.

We both feel that biking is generally safe enough, but it certainly has its dangers, just like ANY form of transit/most of life in general.  This was a scary, startling, and painful experience, but Matt can’t wait to ditch the bus and get back to his faster, more energetic commute.
*Bonus points if you can guess the name of the TV series from which that quote originated.  Hint: Matthew likes sci-fi.