Simple Winter Fare

New Year is past; each day grows imperceptibly longer now. December was the most frigid I can recall and now that we are back to average January temperatures it feels like a spring thaw. Perhaps Old Man Winter has worn himself out or there is no more cold air on the pole or in Canada to slide down into the 48. I can hope. It did get up into the 40s today and was sunny so I worked half a day pruning fruit trees. I probably lopped off more than I should have but the increased roots to branches ratio may help the trees if there is a drought next summer. If given the choice between doing exercises or doing outdoor work on a cold but sunny day I prefer to do yard work because I can see something accomplished afterward.

After the over indulgences of the holidays I am ready for the inexpensive and simple fare of winter. We eat a lot of hot oatmeal with butter, brown sugar, chopped nuts and either applesauce or home-grown cherries or store-bought raisins. A box of store-brand oats costs a couple dollars and lasts a month for two people. It cooks in the micro wave while I make the bed. When we need variety or more protein I scramble eggs and top with salsa or make French toast. Bread and eggs are also inexpensive and nourishing foods. Coffee and skim milk are our normal beverages.

My sister bakes a wonderful heavy dark bread. I like that bread with a homemade white bean soup like white chili or senate soup. (I’ll give the recipes at the end of this; the secret to any good white or navy bean soup seems to be adding mashed or powdered potatoes for thickener.) Anyway, with hot bean soup, a big chunk of black bread and maybe a small glass of left over holiday wine I feel like some monk supping in a Middle Age abbey, fortifying myself against the winter chill. Okay so I do get carried away with my imagination; still, bean soup seems a welcome break from all the sweets and pastries of the holidays.

We make soup by the pot full and then eat micro-waved left-overs for a good while so we may also have soup for an easy evening meal if we have a taste for it. If not, our supper is usually spaghetti or tuna noodle casserole or maybe salmon loaf with cooked cabbage. I try to get some omega-3 fish into our diet in winter. We still have garden sweet potatoes and butternut squash which make good side dishes with a little added butter and brown sugar. It’s a small ego trip to still be eating from the garden in mid-winter. Everything is made in large batches and refrigerated so there is very little cooking and a lot of quick microwaving.

The holidays come with guilt for me as I pack on extra pounds. Judging by the number of people who make fitness resolutions for the New Year I think I’m not alone in this. This simple winter fare probably won’t cause me to lose any pounds but it should hold me steady until spring and summer when I can. Here are those bean soup recipes:

Senate Bean Soup

2 cups dried navy beans
12 cups water
2 pounds chopped ham
1 chopped onion
2 teaspoons salt
¼ teaspoon pepper
¼ cup instant potatoes

garlic to taste

1. Heat beans and water to boiling. Boil uncovered for 2 minutes. Cover with lid and let stand 1 hour.
2. Add ham and heat to boiling. Reduce heat to low, cover and simmer 2 hours or until beans are tender.
3. Stir in remaining ingredients. Cover and simmer 1 hour.
4. If soup is too thin add ¼ cup instant potatoes, stir until thickened.


White Chicken Chili
1 medium onion, finely chopped
3 tablespoons olive oil 1 (4oz.) can chopped green chilies, drained
3 tablespoons flour
2 teaspoons ground cumin
2 (15.8 oz.) cans northern beans
1 (14 ½ oz.) can chicken broth
1 ½ cups finely chopped cooked chicken breast
In a large skillet, cook onion in oil for 4 minutes or until transparent. Add chilies, flour and cumin; cook and stir for 2 minutes. Add beans and chicken broth: bring to a boil. Reduce heat: simmer for 10 minutes or until thickened. Add chicken; cook until hot.

Economic Irrationality

Most people on the face of the earth today believe that capitalism is a system of rational economic actors i.e. buyers and sellers, consumers and producers each acting rationally in their own self interest. But an argument can be made that capitalism at its very core is irrational. No, I am not a pinko commie who is going to be quoting you Karl Marx or Das Capital. On the contrary my main source is Adam Smith, the author of The Wealth of Nations and the father of capitalist economic theory.

Economics is generally considered to be a social science which deals with the allocation of scarce resources to satisfy human wants. The allocation of scarce resources, (that is to say the inputs into the products) makes good sense; these are the scarce means to an end, that end being the products or outputs which satisfy our wants. The irrational part which befuddled Smith and other early classical economists was that the ends themselves, the outputs, the products, the wants which people sought to satisfy were also based on scarcity and not necessity. An example is in order. Water and food are necessities for human life; diamonds and other “precious gems” are not; we can live fine without the shiny rocks but it is those rocks that humans give the greater value to. Scarcity trumps necessity. Likewise gold, a soft fairly useless metal is stored idly in vaults while with the much more useful metal, iron (which has been transformed into the plow, every type of useful machinery, skyscrapers, and canned food containers) we have a hard time getting people to bother to pick it up for recycling. Bottom line is that any system that values scarcity over necessity is somewhat irrational. We see this irrationality played out in movies when people lose their lives in a quest for gold or some large gem. You want to yell out, “Hey…it’s just a R O C K!”

This inherent irrationality of capitalism, (or is it an irrationality of human nature only exposed in capitalism?) could cost us greatly if we continue to trade the health of our planet for “must have” products. Eve had everything she needed in paradise but she just had to have that “other apple”.

Ecos

Environmentalist and economists (or more accurately business) always seem to be at loggerheads. Businessmen want to drill for oil in the Gulf, along the Atlantic seaboard, and the north shore of Alaska. Environmental groups say no. Big corporations want to open national forests up to clear cut logging and oil explorations. Mining companies want to flatten some of the Appalachians to get at the coal and strip mine the Midwest. Utilities want to continue to generate power from coal. Do we want the economy to prosper or not? Do we want people to have good jobs to support families or not? Environmentalist green types fear we will degrade the planet if we accept these options.

Perhaps it is good that these two mindsets oppose each other and perhaps the debate allows us to achieve the proper balance between ecology and economics. Still, it does seem strange that two words with such similar Greek root word derivations should be in such desperate contention. Economics means management of the oikos (home or habitat) while ecology means study of the oikos. From a derivation point of view these two concepts should be synonyms not opposites.

I guess I would call myself a conservationalist; that term has been around decades longer than environmentalism. Basically, don’t use more than you need. I don’t subscribe to the idea that I need to buy more in order to keep business going and my neighbor employed. If we all conserved and used less (that includes my neighbor) then we could get by on less income and have low unemployment based on a shorter workweek. Maybe the 40-hour work week could become reality. I also don’t accept that I need to buy more in order to be happy. I am smart enough to know what I need without being brainwashed by corporate commercials. If a true need exists then there would be no need for coaxing commercials to get me to buy.

Economics and ecology need to become more aligned and work in tandem to match the similarity of their root derivation.