Surprises are not always good surprises.  This morning's sunrise brought us an unexpected litter of four baby bunnies, born to our youngest rabbit.  Two grey, one dead when we found it, one white, one grey with a white stripe and belly.  She is only 5 months old, and seemed completely uninterested in being a mother.  No nest, not unusual for a first time mother....but even when Tyl built her one, nice and warm, with the three living babies in it, she completely ignored them.  We fed them kitten milk, warmed them in our hands every two hours, tried to keep them alive, but just before sunset, the last two breathed their last struggling breaths.   Better this way?  Okay, probably...wheeuw...I didn't know I needed any more excitement or unhappy endings right now!

So, I guess, with all four buried under the peach tree and the mom recovering by herself, this is closure.

Dear Family and Friends,


It has been two years since my last post.  But now I have easier access to a computer.  Now we have two computers infact.  So here goes again!


It's back to school next week.  And since I mostly use this blog for postings about what I eat here in Belgium, this entry is entitled Back to Food.


I made another new recipe.  A sneaky recipe.  I'm sure generations of mothers have been doing the same thing, even my own mother.  The goal of the sneakiness is always the same:  get the kids to eat their vegetables and, if possible, like them.  The means must vary in severity according to the strangeness or disgust-factor of the vegetable, in this case, chard. 


Observe please:





On the right, the chard, minced even further than in this picture, and mixed with chives (for flavor)
On the left, a pan of corn mush (coarse corn meal, 1tsp honey, salt, cumin, soaked in just enough hot water to make it soft) covered in two layers of bacon.  I baked this first to get the bacon well cooked before adding the vegetables on top and pouring 4 beaten eggs+1/4 cup milk over the top.  I added a sprinkle of salt and pepper, for the adults, and baked it for 20 minutes at 180 (375) and 10 minutes at 200 (400).





It ended up tasting like a corn quiche.  I guess it's kind of a version of polenta pie, really.  Whatever you call it, it had bacon in it, so the kids ate it.  Best part is they didn't even ask what the green was! 

I read that if kids eat any food three times,  they  develop a taste for it.  So I just need two more sneaky chard recipes...

So, about three weeks ago we took a weekend trip, thanks to T's hockey games, to the Flemish Ardennes.  This hilly part of the country is beautiful, very reminiscent of the Napa Valley, but also very European, with the typical architecture of the region and the centuries.  We visited two cities:  Ronse and Oudenaarde.  We all liked Oudenaarde a lot!

                    

The rabbits eat grass.  In the winter I have had to buy grass, hay, for them from the store.  This year I tried to harvest as much as possible, and see if I could reduce the cost of my lawn mowing.

Now, the rabbits mow the grass in the backyard, but all my attempts to have them graze in the front yard, in a small cage, have ended in chasing them down all over the street and out of the neighbors' yards.  So, I took out the clippers at the end of May, and mowed that 2x15 foot patch of ground myself.  Tyl helped, with scissors.
I dried the clippings and bagged them.  In June I re-mowed; in August, again, and finally at the end of September the patch was harvested for the last time.  After drying the clipped grass in these cardboard boxes, I stuffed it into old paper flour bags.  Two boxes filled one bag. 
     =       



Over the summer this patch of grass
                                yielded  these 8 bags of hay

How much will this save me at the store?  No clue, yet.  Until next time then!

The Coconut Lime

1 tbsp flax seed,
1/2 to 1 cup dry shredded coconut
         soak these two ingredients in water for a little while
         then put them in the blender with:
1 banana
1 lime's worth of juice
1-2 handfuls of fresh sorrel leaves
pinch of salt


Raspberries made healthier (for 2-3 people)

1 1/2 cup frozen raspberries
juice of 2 oranges
1-1 1/2 tbsp cocoa powder (unsweetened)
1/2 tsp honey
handful baby spinach
2tbsp yogurt (optional)

This story is about the Easter Bunny, or in our case, Bunnies.


We have three,  and they do the yard work.  We play on the lawn, and they mow, aerate and fertilize the lawn, in any weather, without causing any kind of air or noise pollution, other than the output of CO2 from their respiration.  But then, their fertilization of the grass stimulates carbon sequestration, too.  (Some day I would like to quantify their CO2 balance, and see if they are a net contributor to greenhouse gases, or a sink for those carbon atoms.)

Today I decided to get an idea of the financial costs of owning rabbits vs. owning a lawnmower for lawn care.


Consumption:
This year (January through April 2009)  I have spent 18.76 euro on rabbit food (alfalfa pellet mix) and 25.00 euro on annual vaccinations.
That is 43.76 euro so far, with an average of 4.69 per month for food.  I should expect to spend about 38 euros more this year on rabbit food, for a total of about 57 euros for the whole year.  It should be less if I can stock up when the food is on sale, or find a cheaper pet store. 
I don't know how much city-treated water they drink, but I think I will call the cost of it negligible, especially compared to the cost of doing one load of laundry or dishes.

A power lawnmower, on the other hand, eats gas or electricity and oil.  A liter of  "benzine"  right now, in our town, costs 1.193 euro.  I have no idea how many liters per meter the average lawnmower gets, or how many kwh per square meter.  I do know that lawnmower exhaust smells worse than rabbit pee, and doesn't fertilize as well.

Speaking of fertilizer, how much does a lawn need per year in this climate and soil type?  This is fairly depleted scraped clay we are on, here.  My lawn is the greenest of all the back yard lawns on this side of our street ( I can see them from the upstairs window).  So lets assume the cost of fertilizer is too high to be much bothered with purchasing and/or using it, if the neighbors don't.

Start up:
A search of the second hand lawnmowers available for sale today on koopjesnet and kapaza, two local online selling forums, revealed a minimum lawnmower startup cost of 20 euro, for a manual lawnmower, used.  This is the cost of a new rabbit bought from the local "vogelmarkt"  in downtown Antwerp. 

One can obtain a bunny for free in several places around here:  the local community animal shelter (where tons of pets have been dropped since November last year---including rabbits--and the space is overflowing), local farmers and neighbors who advertise free bunnies from their own rabbits' litters.  A seller at the local Saturday market had rabbits for 7.50 (for a baby) to 10 euro (for a 3 month old).  Our local pet store sells rabbits for 35 euro.  Also, one must have a few rabbit supplies, like a water bottle and shelter.  A new water bottle runs from 2 to 20 euro.  Rabbit cages and shelters of many many kinds exist and can be bought or built from scraps (as we did at our former house--wish I had a picture!).  Heifer Project international has a rabbit burrow system that I like and would like to try one day--it uses about half a bag of  concrete (about 1 euro), and you grow a garden on top of the rabbit burrow.  A super delux rabbit home with enclosed run, where the rabbits would be eating grass, costs 259 euro at the cheapest warehouse store in Belgium.

The maximum cost of a power lawnmower was in the thousands of euros (the thing was really a truck), but a reasonable used gas mower cost 130, and the same mower was also advertised new for 225.  The cheapest used electric mower was 60 euro; the cheapest new electric mower was 140.

In summary:  startup bunny:  free to 35 euro, plus extras up to 300 euro
                         startup mower:  20 to 225 euro, plus extras up to 5000 euro



Now it is time to go feed all the pets.  Maybe next time I will compare the time costs of rabbit vs mechanical lawnmowers.  I might expostulate on dubious side benefits and hidden savings.  Then I would like to describe how to make the rabbit mower run and work well for a variety of yard conditions.  That sounds fun to me!

I found only one other post about a similar topic so far:  http://geocities.com/theirsisthekingdom/011.html
I'll keep looking!

This one was a hit with everyone! 

1 banana
1/2 to 1 c.  frozen raspberries
juice of 1 large pink grapefruit


It's a very bright pink color, and delicious!

No picture to go with this, but it was a really good meal.

pasta:  whole wheat spaghetti.

While cooking the spaghetti, steam 1/2 a medium-sized head of green cabbage, cut into chunks, over the pasta water--about 10-12 minutes.

Remove the steamed cabbage and let cool.  While it cools, prepare the rest of the salad:
             two sweet apples, cut in chunks (not peeled, but washed)
             about 1 x 2 inches of swiss cheese cut in small chunks or strips
             a teaspoon of lemon juice and/or apple cider vinegar
             a sprinkle of sea salt
Mix these ingredients together in a large salad bowl.  Add the cabbage when it is cooled.  Refrigerate to keep cool.

sauce:  1 lb. of split peas 
              chicken boullion block or powder (as much as you like to taste)

Cook the peas and boullion together in enough water until mushy.
Heat up the pasta, get the salad out of the fridge, and serve.

Enjoy March!

A few pictures of T's birhtday party on Sunday, with family and family friends.  The kids' friends are all joining us at the zoo on Saturday.  But first, check out this original cake, hypothesized by T himself and built as a joint venture between him and myself.

   

yummy!  We enjoyed it with a choice of tea, coffee, or rootbeer.

I think this is going to become a food journal again, at least, for as long as I'm interested in food.  These waves come and go.
First of all, I was asked for my oatmeal cookie recipe.  I have lost count of how many times I have asked Mom for this recipe myself, with all the moves and mess it keeps getting lost.  SO here it will stay, in cyberspace, for all to see and BAKE!

OATMEAL COOKIES  5 dozen

Cream together in a large bowl, using hand mixer or standing mixer
1 cup margarine or butter (250g)
1 cup white sugar
1 cup dark brown sugar (packed)

Add in, mixing after each addition
two eggs (on at a time)
1 tsp (theelepel) vanilla extract (or vanilla sugar if you must)

Pile on top of the mixture
1 1/2 cup white flour
1 tsp baking soda (NaHCO3, sold in GB as BiCar)
1/2 tsp salt
Mix these dry ingredients together by hand before mixing them, as a group, into the egg, butter, sugar mixture.

Stir in
3 cups oatmeal (haverflokken)
1/2 cup shredded coconut
1 cup raisins or chocolate chips

Grease a large cookie sheet/baking sheet; preheat oven to 375 F or 170 C
Spoon up bits of dough and roll them into 1"or 3 cm diameter balls, place them with space between balls on the cookie sheet.
Bake at 375 F or 170 C for 10-12 minutes.  Cool for 2-3 minutes before using a spatula to lift the cookies off the baking sheet and transfer them to a cooling rack (preferred) or dishtowels to cool.  Refill the sheet and bake some more.


Second, I am going to post my favorite smoothie recipes so I can look them up again if I want to make the same thing twice.
Here goes:

P's FRUIT SMOOTHIE
2 tangerines (no seeds)
1 apple
1 pear
pinch of sea salt

wash and core apple and pear, peel tangerines, put it all in the blender.

MINTY GREEN
1 apple, washed and cored
1/2 fennel bulb and some leaves, cut into chunks the blender can manage
1 kiwifruit, peeled
2 small handfuls or 1 large handful washed spinach
pinch of sea salt
1 tbsp Mint Alfalfa tea (made by Frontier spices, bought at Davis Food COOP)
    (other dried or fresh mint is also good to use)
pinch of dried chopped licorice root
water to make it smooth, about 1/2 cup

blend and let it soak for a minute before adding any additives (echinacea, spirulina)