Worms, seeds, and beans.

Posted On November 23, 2011

Can you see him? Can you see my little worm friend nestled beneath the squash?

I've inherited a little tub filled with lovely worms, and here I go forth into the world of vermicompost. I am excited. I've read absolutely nothing about it, but I have been throwing in scraps of veggies and they all seem to disappear. Hungry, those worms. I'll keep you all posted on these little guys.

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I've always been okay with roasted squash seeds… but really only enough to have a small handful and get annoyed with the chewy hull and move on to something else. Until now. I have found the way! I have always just cleaned, soaked, then roasted them. Until I recently read that they should be boiled in salt water for 10 minutes before roasting. I thought I would give it a try.

Roasted with a little coconut oil and salt, then sprinkled with nutritional yeast and a little pepper. Oh my. I'm a serious fan. We demolished an entire bowl full in an evening. They were still chewy, but totally manageable. Something about it just toned down the intensity of the hull and made the whole thing way more pleasurable. And these little buggers are so good for you. Plus, I just have a lot of squash these days, so I'm grateful to have figured out a preparation that gets us to actually enjoy these and not leave them to stale on the counter. 

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I finally got around to shelling my dry beans. It was a bit of a mistake, really. I mean, we had only planned to harvest them as fresh green beans, but when our pole beans grew so tall and heavy that they toppled the whole trellis down on top of all the bush beans, we just left it. Well, we left it after I almost injured myself trying to pull the trellis back up. So it just laid on the beans until frost, then we harvested all of the dried out pods and stuck them in a basket. They sat for a few weeks until recently, when I took on the project. And I must say- the shelling of dry beans is a chore I will look forward to in the future. It was so meditative and satisfying. The beans were plain at first, but grew in complexity before my eyes. They came in such a variety of tones and patterns. The act of pulling apart the old dried up skin to reveal these hard little seeds- such sturdy and nourishing things. I just found it to be so beautiful. I don't even know if I can eat them like this (being that I'm allergic to some mature legumes). But they are lovely. I will definitely be finding a way to grow myself some pinto and black beans next year.

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I've been feeling very present lately- or at least I've been meditating on being present in my life. It's something my head keeps revisiting over and over. I suppose that might be part of why I haven't found time to write here. When I get a moment I find that a warm blanket and a conversation with Jeff are what I prefer. But I do love writing here. I plan to simplify my posts and update more regularly, but it'll take a little adjustment in my style. In case you hadn't noticed, I'm a tad long-winded when it comes to the old blog. But if you've gotten this far, I'll assume you don't mind.

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Things to look forward to here in the coming weeks:

::Recipes/Food
::Crafting updates
::Greenhouse progress
::Thoughts on the exchange of energy (again)
::Kid updates
::Gratitude Fridays