Scott Davis Anderson

After my trip to The Great Sand Dunes National Park, I decided to make my own energy bars. My friends and I regularly buy Clif Bars and it got me thinking of ways to make them myself without the additives and preservatives found in Clif Bars. Thanks to Camilla V. Saulsbury at http://camillacooks.com, I found a recipe that tastes amazing.  I do like the taste of Clif Bars, but if you aren’t a fan, this recipe might not be for you.

You will need the following ingredients to make 6 almond-cherry energy bars:

• 1 and 1/4 cups of Rice Krispies
• 1 cup of uncooked quick-cooking oats
• 3 tablespoons of ground flaxseed meal
• 1/4 cup of finely chopped dried cherries
• 1/4 cup of finely chopped roasted almonds
• 1/4 cup of brown rice syrup
• 2 tablespoons of dark brown sugar
• 1/3 cup of almond butter
• 1 teaspoon of vanilla extract
• 1/4 teaspoon of almond extract

1. In a large mixing bowl, combine the Rice Krispies, quick-cooking oats, flaxseed meal, dried tart cherries, and chopped almonds.
2. Combine the rice syrup and dark brown sugar in a saucepan and bring it to a boil over medium heat. You will want to stir the mixture the entire time, it will only take around a minute to boil. Remove the saucepan from the heat and stir in the almond butter, vanilla extract, and almond extract until your mixture is blended.
3. Pour the liquid mixture over the dry mixture, and stir until evenly coated.  As the liquid cools, the mixture will become stiff.  I used my hands to combine the mixture, like kneading bread.
4. Spray an 8-inch square pan with nonstick cooking spray and press the mixture into the pan.  Use wax paper to help press the mixture flat and even across the pan.
5. Allow the pan to cool for about an hour and cut into 6 hearty-sized energy bars.

To store the bars, wrap them and store them in the refrigerator.  For long term storage, you can freeze the bars.

I brought these bars with me this past weekend on a trip to Yellowstone National Park.  They were the perfect snack when I needed a bit more energy and they filled the void left by not having any Clif Bars.  I did miss the variety I enjoy when I normally pack my bars, so I want to make some carrot cake, apricot, and an apple cinnamon bar to go along with this amazing almond/cherry recipe.  I will amend this post when I get around to making them.  I have a couple of things on my plate right now, so that will have to wait for an opening in my schedule.  Next up, photos of an amazing trip to Yellowstone.

I woke up this morning and decided to start a batch of mead. I am on the move a lot, so I decided to make a small batch that uses no specialized equipment and will be portable.  Thanks to Joe Mattioli at http://www.gotmead.com, I found the perfect recipe for my travels.

Mead is a wine that is brewed using honey and water, and fermenting with yeast. Mead is incredibly easy to make. All of the ingredients that I used in making my mead can be purchased at the local grocers. The total cost of my ingredients came to around $20.

You will need the following ingredients to make 1 gallon of wine:

• 1 gallon of spring water (room temperature, do not refrigerate).
• 3 lbs of unprocessed honey.
• 1 balloon, (large enough to stretch over the mouth of the spring water jug).
• 1 package of Fleishmann’s yeast.
• 25 raisins (get a small box).
• 1 orange.

To make room for your ingredients, pour half the spring water into a clean container. Slice your orange, so you can fit them through the mouth of the spring water. Add the orange slices, twenty-five raisins, yeast, and honey into the spring water container. If your honey is too solid to pour, place the honey container in a bath of warm water. This will soften the honey and allow for an easier time when pouring it into the spring water. Fill the container up with the remaining spring water, leaving a couple of inches from the top. Put the cap back on the mixture and shake the container vigorously for a few minutes.

When the mixture is evenly mixed, you take the cap off and place the balloon over the mouth of the container. Poke a small hole in the balloon. This will allow for the gases to slowly escape, while preventing foreign contaminants from entering your mixture. If the balloon does not feel tight enough, you may need to use rubber bands around the mouth of the container to keep it on tight.

Over the next twenty-four hours, your balloon will start to inflate. Watch carefully to make sure the balloon does not inflate so large that it pops off. If you feel there is too much stress on your balloon, you can poke another hole to allow more gases to escape. When you are comfortable that your balloon will hold, place your mixture in a cool, dry place like a closet or a kitchen cabinet. The fermentation process will last two to three weeks. At the end of this period, the balloon will go limp.

Patience is the name of the game at this point. For your batch of mead to get really tasty, you will need to let it sit for at least two and a half more months. During this time, you will notice that the cloudiness disappears as the wine slowly clarifies. If you can stand it, allow your mead to process for six months and your taste buds will love you for it.

I am hoping to consume this batch of mead with my friends and family at a Peace Corps send off party. There is no telling when that will be, I am still playing the waiting game. The wait has been rather painless, because I have been keeping myself busy with fun projects and new experiences.  Next on my immediate list is making kefir.

As a Peace Corps nominee, I have been nominated for service in Sub Saharan Africa in the Water and Sanitation Extension. I have been thinking about the type of work and the environmental conditions I may be working in while serving within the Peace Corps.

I became interested in making water filters while I was interning at the Strawbale Studio in Oxford, Michigan. While creating plasters for use on natural structures, I was excited to find out how easy it was to extract clay as a resource. I was intrigued by its possible uses. I began researching ways to purify water using resources that are readily available not only on the property at the Strawbale Studio, but also in most countries around the world. I found instructions on how to create filters by combining terra cotta and organic material to create a porous clay body, worthy of filtering water upon firing. I used spent coffee grounds as the organic material that I acquired free from Starbucks Grounds for your Garden program. The fine grains of the coffee grounds burn up in the firing process, leaving behind a small porous avenue for water to travel. The filters remove pathogens such as e-coli from the water by trapping them within the pores. Colloidal silver, microscopic particles of silver suspended in water, are than applied with a paint brush to the outside of the filter. This silver solution kills the bacteria that would otherwise grow within the pores, allowing the water filter to be used over and over again.

My process began by digging up a bunch of dirt near a building site in Oxford, Michigan. I separated the clay from the sand in a large tub, by adding the dirt and water to a 10 gallon storage container.  The sand sunk to the bottom, leaving the clay on top, making it easy to skim the clay slip off the top. I placed the clay slip on top of plaster slabs to absorb the moisture, allowing the clay to dry until it became more workable. I than added the spent coffee grounds at about a one to one ratio to the clay. The spent coffee grounds added more moisture to the clay and the syrup from the coffee made the clay harder to work with, so I allowed it to dry even longer.

When I was satisfied with the clay, I brought it to a ceramic artist I met at the Ohio University – School of Art, named Bryce Brisco. Bryce is known for his fascination with local indigenous clays and was quick to volunteer his help with my endeavor. He brought to my attention a group called Potters for Peace, that has been traveling the world since 1998, teaching people how to fabricate a low-cost water filter in order to bring clean, potable water to those who need it most.

Bryce worked with the clay on a potters wheel, forming the filters into small cylinders. He was able to create 3 small filters of various shapes and thicknesses, so that I would be able to test the flow rate of the filters on varying designs. I am extremely grateful to Bryce for his contribution to this project.  He has inspired me to learn how to throw on a potters wheel. When the filters became bone dry, I began digging the pit I fired them in. 

The following is photo documentation of the firing process:

One of the three filters broke during the process. I grabbed the final filter by the rim as I pulled it from the ashes and it cracked right off. Be extremely cautious when removing the filters from the fire!  After some preliminary tests, the filters are allowing water to flow through them.  I have yet to test the flow rate, nor the purity of the water produced, but it is rumoured that one filter will produce a liter of clean water in two hours.  More testing to come!