Conejo for my Birthday dinner.

My wife is very special.  She made me my favorite dish for my birthday yesterday and I want to share it with you. The dish has its origins in the mountain areas of Mexico where I first experienced real Mexican food devoid of all that CalMex and Tex Mex spin.  This cuisine deals with the flavors that are found on the land, cactus, peppers, banana, wild game.  It is very sustainable.  It is very real.  My favorite of that cuisine is Conejo in Guajillo sauce.  Chef Hugo in Houston had perfected the recipe and his dish has been my favorite for years at his restaurant on Westheimer Road in Houston..  My wife found his recipe online and has made her own modifications to celebrate my birthday.  Chef Hugo's Mixiote de Conejo Recipe.  Yeah!

i

Conejo in guajillo pepper sauce with nopales cactus wrapped in banana leaves, black beans, jicama salad

 She did have to ask me to go shopping while I was on a business trip to Houston.  That let the cat out of the bag.  There is not much available in Little Rock, so needed me to bring back essential supplies.  She asked me to pick some cactus, jicama, banana leaves, guajillo peppers, ancho peppers, dried avocado leaves... The list pretty much gave the surprise away.  The Hispanic girls in Fiesta Grocery were tickled that this white boy was trying to shop for all this.  They all suspected that I was about to embark on tamale making and each gave me their favorite recipe.  Still, none of them knew where or why to find dried avocado leaves.  The closest substitute was bay leaves and ground star anise.

I already knew I needed to harvest some of our rabbits when I got back into town.  This meal also marks the first meal from meat that we have raised on our homestead.  That is the primary reason for calling the meat by its Spanish name, so as to distance it from the animals that we tend.  Our original intent on raising rabbits was to produce manure for the garden and to supplement the dogs' diet.  Our Aussies, however, are great culinary snobs apparently.  They do not like the meat that we produce on our own homestead.  We switched out the common feed we were buying from the farmers' association and started buying various organic grains and seeds and mineral blocks.  Our new custom blend of rabbit food now looks positively delicious.  We subscribe to the adage, "You are what you eat eats."  Now that the rabbits are finished on this blend of feed and the fresh greens of the summer garden, we are comfortable trying the meat ourselves.  Let the dogs eat... whatever they eat.

Prepared conejo, paddles of cactus, and sauce combined in a banana leaf wrap to steam in the oven

She prepared the meat, paddles of cactus, and sauce all separately and then combined them in a banana leaf wrap to steam in the oven.  The banana leaves did not fare well on the trip from the market but we managed to pull off the steaming.  I had to help in that I had to take care of the 2 year old munchkin while mommy cooked.  I took that to mean that I would direct the munchkin to hold the cook's cord while daddy tied the square knots on the banana leaf bundles of joy.

Daddy needed some additional help to do this.  He had picked up some Mexican beer and made his own Michalada as a summer time beer cocktail.  Directions are easy.  In a tumbler, add 1 tablespoon sea salt, 2 tablespoons line juice, 1 tablespoon chili powder, dash of black pepper, 4 large dashes of hot sauce, dash of coconut aminos (we don't have soy sauce in the house), ice and one Mexican beer.  It has to be Mexican, or the flavors won't understand each other and there will be quarreling.  This is for relaxation I tell you!! and for reminding me of good times with friends who taught me the drink back in San Luis Potesi.

Banana leaf bundles and Michalada

Afterwards, she complied with my selection of birthday cake ... well er, begrudgingly acquiesced to my request of flan.  A traditionalist, she wanted something to put candles in.  I still wanted flan.  It went with the dinner, and the two number candles stayed in the flan long enough for me to make my wish and blow them out and over.

Real flan made with honey, fresh whole milk, and pastured eggs.

She made my birthday the best!  Thank you!  I love you Christi.

Is this Urban Homesteading movement catchy?

Bye Bye Grass - My "garden" last summer

Yes, I plowed up my new front and side yards this year for a massive garden, but I've been doing this kind of homesteading for decades.  What pricks my interest is the startling number of times I hear that people have started their first garden this year.  Seems gas and food prices and the recession has spurred many on.  The rising distrust of the whole BigAg food chain and its suspicious quality has some concerned enough to try gardening.  The paranoia of some podcasts and watching CNN is enough to get others prepared.

Yesterday was a big day though.  My new neighbors to the north converted their south faced dirt driveway into a raised bed garden.  That was not too surprising.  They have chickens and an intense personal and profession interest in creating local food agriculture.  The lady of that house works for the Arkansas Sustainability Network.

More surprising however, the family across the street had their gas motors going tilling up the grass front lawn.  Seems their foundation beds of tomatoes last year just weren't enough.  Now they have committed to the movement.  Lawn as farm; a wonderful aesthetic if I do say so myself.

The neighbors to the south were out working on decks and tree houses and trimming the trees to get more sun into their front herb beds and rear vegetable parterres.  The lady of the house repeats her chicken envy.  Maybe this year she will break down and go farm all the way.

The neighbor across the street and down a ways with the raised hoop beds was bringing in new compost and the lady of that household was over at my garden asking what was growing.  Another neighbor across the street was planting herbs in her newly landscaped front beds.  I know she harbors a permaculture forest garden in the rear of her house.

Dirt!  My garden with transplants and seeds started.

What's going on?  Can we really be seeing Urban Homesteading as a sustainable way of life taking hold?  Wouldn't that just be the ticket?  Growing and preserving and enjoying life right in our own community.  I can dream can't I?

Meanwhile, I plot along with my own land.  The picket fence is almost done.  The beds are made. What remains of the winter cover crops are flowering.  The seeds are planted.  The rabbits are kitting.  The chicks are chirping.  Our dog is nursing puppies. My persimmon tree is moved to its showy spot in front.  Now for those spring showers...

Garden of Eden

One must start somewhere. I choose the Garden of Eden. My wife Christi and I fell in love with the idea of homesteading some land and building a straw-bale house. Our very marriage was infused with that thought. We quit our jobs in the big metropolitan Houston and sought land and adventure.

We have our land SW of Little Rock, Arkansas. With a gurgling creek and shale mountain slopes, our 60 acres is full of forest, briar and deer. We became the stewards of this wild garden of Eden we named optimistically Griffin House Farm and dreamed of sheep fields and fruit trees and a warm, cozy house to raise a family. No more will we only talk of sustainable living, aesthetics, and permaculture. We want to live it.

Christi is my Eve. She surrounds herself with animals. She feeds two cats named Bean and Ru; three Austrailian Shepherds named Gryphon, Dahlia and Paige; a Border Collie named Call; and a Great Pyrenees named Athena. You can see more of her life with the dogs on her kennel site Outfox Aussies She is my healer and studies alternative medicines. She is my life artist. She is my soul mate and heart's echo.

I am Rodney. My skill is construction. You can see my design handiwork at EcoHouse Architects I love my chickens and my sustainable gardens fed by roofwater and organic soil. My goal is to feed, house and sustain my family in the most fulfilling, healthy way.

Together we transform our Garden of Eden into Arcadia, a land rich in knowledge and experience. We aspire to live and teach green strategies and sustainable ideas. See our profession come together in our company EcoHouse Construction, or home Griffin House Farm, named after my first sustainable house and after her heart dog. The House that we build for Griffin House Farm will be our homestead and our experiment in green Living.

This is our blog.