May Newsletter

Spiritual Goal: Share a your testimony. "It is my testimony that we are facing difficult times. We must be courageously obedient. My witness is that we will be called upon to prove our spiritual stamina, for the days ahead will be filled with affliction and difficulty. But with the assuring comfort of a personal relationship with God, we will be given a calming courage. From Divine so near we will receive the quiet assurance," Boyd K. Packer, Ensign, Jan 1999.

Physical Goal: Learn and practice daily deep breathing exercises. "If each of our bodies is a temple, some of us have temples that look as if the maintenance crew retired three years ago; the noble spirits that inhabit them deserve a better place to dwell...we can make our lives better and teach our families valuable habits through regular exercise. We have ample reason to recognize the care of our physical bodies as a spiritual obligation," Ensign, Sept 1990.

Provident Living Goal: During the first week of May, plant peas, leeks, and onions starts outdooors. Start sweet potato slips. Plant soft neck garlic in groups of three to five cloves throughout the flower and vegetable beds for the positive effect garlic has against pests as well as medicinal and culinary delight. Begin to harden off brassicas. Plant fruit trees plus blackberries and raspberries. The second week of May, plant everlasting spinach, Swiss chard, spinach, kale, and turnip seeds plus brassica seedlings as well as potatoes. The third week of May, plant lettuce, beets, carrots, cucumber, melon, and winter squash seeds plus potato starts. Continue to succession plant carrots, spinach, kale, leeks, and lettuce. Be prepared to watch the weather and cover thing up.“Should evil times come, many might wish they had filled all their fruit bottles and cultivated a garden in their backyards and planted a few fruit trees and berry bushes and provided for their own commodity needs. The Lord planned that we would be independent of every creature, but we note many...home owners buy their garden vegetables from the store. And should the trucks fail to fill the shelves of the stores, many would go hungry,” Spencer W. Kimball, Conference Oct. 1974. 

Storage Goal: 100 grains per person, 1 #10 can apple slices per person, 1 #10 can raisins per person, 1 large container cinnamon, 24 rolls toilet paper per person, 2 rolls paper towels per person, canning jars, long-term storage, open pollinated garden seeds "...how many of us would have jeered at the sight of Noah building his ark. Presumably the laughter continued until it began to rain and kept raining! How wet some people must have been before Noah's ark suddenly seemed the only sane act," Elder Neal A. Maxwell, For the Power is in Them, p 20).

Emergency Kit Goal: Battery powered, solar, or hand cranked radio and flashlight, batteries, hurricane lantern and candles, matches“The revelation to produce and store food may be as essential to our temporal welfare today as boarding the ark was to the people in the days of Noah…” Ezra Taft Benson

Increase Self-Sufficiency: "Yams" in North American grocery stores are usually sweet potatoes and belong to the morning glory family (Convolvulaceae). Yams are tropical plants that belong to the Dioscoreaceae family. Traditionally, 'yams' or sweet potatoes are reserved for Thanksgiving and Christmas dinner. Made into a gagging-sweet concoction covered with burned miniature marshmallows, they rarely become culinary friends of the masses. Sweet potatoes can be used in a variety of delicious, savory dishes, which most people enjoy. Along with potatoes, sweet potatoes make a tasty, nourishing staple crops. Therefore, we should grow them. 

Six weeks before your last frost, start sweet potatoes from slips. Grown from a mature sweet potato, slips are easy to start if you have a sweet potato and a few jars. To start your slips, you need one or two healthy, clean, organic sweet potatoes from the health food store. Carefully wash and cut them in large sections or starts. Using toothpicks to hold the sweet potato start, suspend each section half in/half out of a jar of water. Put them on a window ledge or on  a heating pad set on low. Witness one of God’s miracles, as the start covers itself with leafy sprouts on top and roots on the bottom. 

Carefully, cut the slips from the remaining sweet potato and roots with a sharp knife. Compost the now spent sweet potato. Place a piece of plastic wrap or waxed paper tightly over a shallow dish of water. Make a hole for each sprout. Gently push a sprout through, allowing the bottom half of the stem to submerge in the water. Soon roots will emerge from the bottom of each sprout. Now you have sweet potato slips. Let the roots continue to grow until they are about an inch long, when the slips will be ready to plant. During this process, change the water and throw out any slip that doesn’t produce roots or looks unhealthy.

If your location isn’t known for its loose, well-drained soil, you will need to amend it with lots of compost. Since sweet potatoes don’t like to fight too much resistance, loose soil is critical for growing them successfully. If you are growing according to Ruth Stout’s mulch method or Patricia Lanza’s Lasagna method, move the mulch aside until you see the loose soil below. After the danger of frost has passed and soil has warmed up, plant slips 12 inches apart next to a trellis (trellising vines conserves space). With a trowel, push the soil aside, slip in the slip, and let the soil fall back down over the roots, leaving the new leaves is above ground.  Move the mulch back in without letting it actually touch the slip. This cuts down competing weeds and conserves moisture. Plant calendula between them to attract insects beneficial to the sweet potatoes. Also, don’t plant beets, carrots, or potatoes nearby.

Water your sweet potatoes, thoroughly soaking until all of the surrounding dirt is moist. For the first week, water everyday, then every other day during the second week. After that your usual once weekly irrigation should suffice. Since sweet potatoes produce less in dry weather, mulching and regular, weekly watering are insurance during the hottest part of the summer. Do not water during the last 3 to 4 weeks before harvest to protect the developing roots.

All through the growing season, young sweet potato greens can be steamed, sauteed, or stir fried. They are very popular in African and Asian cuisine. I read one study, where many children in Vietnam were dying or growing up mentally/physically impaired with their mono-diet of rice. Malnutrition is a problem, when no vegetables are present in the diet. Usually, a few children in these villages were healthier than the rest of the young population. Upon inquiry, researches found mothers of these children added sweet potato greens to their children's daily rice rations.

Below are only a few of our favorite sweet potato recipes.


Roasted Sweet Potatoes
Toss cubed sweet potatoes with other cut-up root vegetables, onions, garlic, and mushrooms with savory herbs, paprika, salt, and pepper. Roast at 400F for 40 min until tender. 20 minutes before the end of the roasting time, add asparagus or Brussels sprouts. It is not necessary or even desirable to use oil when roasting vegetables. We love to have this along side roasted portabello mushrooms, steamed cabbage, and roasted apples.

Rustic Gallette

1 onion, pureed

4 cloves garlic, minced

1 t. dried thyme (or 1 T. fresh) (or substitute 1/4 t. garam masala, cumin, and curry powder)
1/4 c. fresh parsley

1 t. powdered, dehydrated, salt-free, vegetable seasoning mix
1/2 c. white beans, pureed
1/2 c. unsweetened plant milk

Salt to taste

1/4 t. cayenne pepper

Paprika
Smoked Paprika

1 bunch kale, rinse well, remove large thick stems and finely chopped

2 medium sweet potato, thinly sliced (1/8 or thinner)

2 medium red potatoes, thinly sliced (1/8 or thinner)

8 oz. mushrooms, thinly sliced

Preheat oven to 425°F.  Cook onion, mushrooms, dehydrated vegetables, and garlic over lowest heat until mushrooms begin to turn golden. Meanwhile, puree white beans and plant milk. Add thyme, parsley, kale, and bean mixture to onions. Continue heating until just kale is wilted, about 5 minutes. Remove from heat. Arrange ½ of the thinly sliced potatoes on the bottom of a 9 inch round cake, overlapping so none of the pan is showing. Spread ½ of the kale mixture over the potatoes. Arrange sweet potatoes over the kale mixture, making sure to overlap. Spread the remaining kale mixture and top with the other ½ of thinly sliced potatoes shingles. Press galette down until compact. Sprinkle with paprika and smoked paprika. Bake in pre-heated oven for 45 minutes until potatoes are tender with crispy edges. Cut galette into wedges and serve with spinach raspberry salad and baked apples.

Chipotle Limas       

2 c. dried lima or butter beans (or black beans or lentils)
½  onions, chopped or puréed
2 cloves garlic, minced
16 oz. tomatoes, puréed
1 orange, zest and juice
1 ***chipotle chili in adobo sauce, puréed with onion
1 t. oregano
1 T. cumin
½ t. salt
¼ t. pepper

1 sweet potato or yam, peeled and cubed
½ c. chopped cilantro, half for garnish reserved

*** Do not use the whole can. Use ¼ -2 chilies.

Soak beans for 24-48 hours. Drain and rinse. Cook on low with just enough distilled water to cover for 6-8 hours. 60 minutes before dinner, steam onion, chilies, and garlic in water until soft in a small sauce pan. Add the remaining ingredients, except reserve to pot. Cook for 40 minutes or until sweet potato is soft. Purée sauce. Stir into beans. Sprinkle with cilantro. Serve with a large romaine salad and poached pears.