Cookin In The Kitchen of Love

It's been a long time since I rock and rolled

2012-02-18T13:33:00.000-08:00

and an even longer time since I blogged. But I actually started the 2012 garden today and for today at least, I feel compelled to keep track of it. I'm not making any promises to you or myself that I'll keep up with it, but for now here it is.
This week my tax refund came in, and not a minute too soon (before the direct deposit hit I was staring at $36.00 in my checking account) I did a literal dance of joy, because the arrival of the tax refund means I can finally send off the seed orders I had agonized over about a month ago. I started out with flights of fancy and whittled it down to the bare necessities (and a few flights of fancy...I mean, I can't NOT grow the Indigo Rose tomato!!!!) My stockpile of seed, including quite a few saved seeds from the previous harvest, was pretty substantial. I tried harder than usual to be realistic about what I could actually FIT, and what we would actually EAT. Now that I am committed to pickling and fermenting, I have expanded the cucumber, carrot, cabbage, radish and turnip populations. Now that rebby and I are both madly in love with kale chips, I am dedicating a whole raised bed to three or four varieties of kale. And now that I know I can grow decent garlic, a bed is dedicated to garlics too. I've got onion plants coming from Pinetree this year---I've grown from sets previously so I'm excited to see what happens with the plants. I started a few varieties too---which I'll interplant with some other things for integrated pest management. And then there's the leeks....I was so thrilled by my leek luck this past season that I have gone totally overboard with the leek love. Since most varieties need a long growing season, they will be tucked here and there amongst other plants as well. One thing I've learned is how to maximize space in my little plot.
So, today I started cabbages, leeks, onions, kales, and collards. The work of putting my seedling shelves back together and assembling the starter mat and grow lights and filling the slots with coconut grow pellets and watering them and watching them explode....it made me so very happy. Growing food really seems to be my calling. I love it.
In addition to getting the seedling nursery up and running today, I started on the major project of cleaning and organizing my office room. I don't even want to try to describe the state of things in there now but I got two bookshelves for $25 each from Construction Junction and started putting things on them and already I feel so much better about the world. Give me a month.

Showin Off

2010-07-20T09:50:00.000-07:00

The best time to take pictures in the garden is right after a good rain.

Here's our tiny Thai peppers

the squash vine in its glory

the red russian kale, luxurious as ever

a red hmong cuke in it's teenage stage(when it's super yellow)

last hurrah for the purslane---I think I'm going to rip it out later today

close up on an onion braid hanging under my patio umbrella to dry

staking the tomato jungle has helped the okra take off!

this is troubling...a baby melon growing through the fence!

jalapenos are finally coming along thanks to the serious kale pruning

here's all three bundles of onions drying under the patio umbrella!

a long shot of the farm featuring corn and potatoes

a long shot of the farm featuring tomatoes and amaranth

ancient dinosaur forest

here's an orient express cuke coming along! there are at least two more on the vine right now

CORN!!!!!!

my chinese cabbage...bitten up but still hanging on

chamomile growing in the cracks of the patio

my blue field corn is getting super tall!

a baby squash!

amaranth from the top. so pretty!

Harvest Catch Up

2010-07-18T15:47:00.000-07:00

Today was a very exciting day in the garden---our first tomatoes!

(guest starring in this photo are a couple of watermelon radishes I pulled out of the salad bed that I had forgotten were there.)
The two little tomatoes were twins on the same plant, and I have no clue what kind they are. However, they are extremely sweet and ever so TOMATO-Y. I know most of you have eaten a tomato right out of the garden before so you understand the quality of TOMATONESS that is really only possible with straight from the warm sun tomatoes. This afternoon we also went and got some big burly stakes because the volunteer tomato army has taken over the world. My poor okra and basil were getting choked out and tomatoes were actually joining together across the garden path. Madness. At the end of last year I promised myself that I would space the tomatoes out better this year, but obviously I broke that promise. After some serious stake work by rebby things are looking a lot more tidy.
Earlier in the day, I picked these:

the first two cucumbers I have ever harvested from my own garden! The long green one is an Orient Express and the orange one is a Red Hmong. The Red Hmong vine is extremely prolific---there are at least ten more of those guys in various stages of ripeness on the vine right now. The Orient Express, not so much. I hope I get at least one more. The Poona Khera don't seem to be doing much, sorry to say. Bummed.
So, what goes through my mind when I harvest cucumber and tomato? And then look out the back door and see a big beautiful stand of parsley next to some wild and out of control mint? That's right, it's tabouli time. Garden in your mouth. I didn't have any bulgur so I used couscous and that plus the lemon, olive oil, salt and pepper were the only things in the tabouli that did not come directly from the dirt outside my back door. Yes! I threw one of those watermelon radishes in there too, just for some interesting color and peppery bite. The last of the green garlic I pulled up a month or so ago (thanks to the largess of the Italians who used to own the place) and a small onion bulb went in too. It is the best tabouli ever, because I grew it.
We ate that awesome tabouli with some grilled salmon simply dressed with lemon and dill, and some roasted potatoes. Now, here's a story about the potatoes....
You may remember that I planted a bunch of yukon gold seed potatoes in early spring into trenches because I had read that they don't really respond to hilling and so it would be a waste of a good tire stack to put them in there. So, I planted four rows of seed potatoes alternating with yellow onion sets. Around mid June, the potato plants were looking so spindly and I had a big pile of dirt so I thought--it couldn't hurt to pile some more dirt on, right? So I did.
This was a stupid move.
Turns out that yukon golds really do only produce under the soil level of the roots, so to get to the potatoes just now I had to dig through all that dirt. Stupid. Also, the yield on the yukon golds was ridiculous---we ended up digging up the rest of the patch tonight and I'm gonna say it was an average of one good sized potato for each plant. I know that I might have gotten more if I had left them a bit longer but there comes a time in the garden (and that time is now) when you can't waste space on under producers.
HOWEVER.
The few yukon golds that we have eaten from the garden have been the most heavenly potatoes EVER. So creamy and buttery yellow and bursting with flavor. So, despite the disappointing yield and sprawling habit, I will probably grow them again next year. Unless one of the other varieties turns out to be more prolific and just as tasty.
I have learned some very important things this year in the garden. I am starting to figure out how to be a better grower of root vegetables. I now know that dragon purple carrots and bulls blood beets are the best for me. This is all part of the learning process.
Other than all that fun harvesting and staking, I baked rebby a blackberry pie from her blackberry bushes today! We have not cut into it yet, but I think it is going to be pretty awesome. I put an R on for Rebby:

Life is good around the ole homestead! The corn is starting to form ears and the beans are all up and the okra is leafing out and the artichokes are getting tall and I am pretty sure I will have the day off to plant squash and broccoli and cabbage and brussels sprouts on Tuesday. I will also need to spend part of the day processing because my fridge is full of kale again and I am going to need to harvest some MORE to keep the peppers from being shaded out. Over abundance is a nice problem to have.

Potato Berries and Bat Houses

2010-06-27T09:50:00.001-07:00

So, turns out that potato berries are actually the seed pods of potatoes, and that if you are truly DIY and punk rock you can grow potatoes from SEED you save yourself from these berries, as explained here. (also, OMG what an awesome blog! so glad I found her even if she stopped blogging last year)
I don't think I am that punk rock, but it's good to know.
Now, on to the dilemma of where to put my bat house. It has to be fourteen feet off the ground. I obviously want it near the garden (for pollination and mosquito control) but I don't want it to be too noticeable because our neighbors already think we're weird--don't want to have to explain why I am inviting bats to my homestead. Yes, I should relish the opportunity to demystify bats. But I have to admit I don't really relish it.
Anyhow, so it seems that erecting a pole specifically for the bat house would call too much attention to it. I'd nail it to the black walnut tree but right now it is covered in poison ivy and I am totally afraid of poison ivy. So, it should probably be attached to the house. I don't want it too near a window because as much as I LOVELOVELOVE bats, I don't want any accidentally flying in a window and having babies that can't get out until the spring. So, I was looking at the house today and for the first time ever noticed this:

I don't know what those pieces of wood are actually about but they seem to be the exact dimensions of the bat house and dang it, there goes that magical garden luck again. I'll report back when the bat house has arrived.

Fourteen Beans, a New Mystery, and a Brilliant Scheme

2010-06-27T09:13:00.001-07:00

This morning I planted FOURTEEN varieties of beans. Certainly I don't expect them all to be successful, but I kinda let my fancy take me when it came to placing bean orders and well, some of them were just so cute I couldn't pass them up. I've got some pole and runner varieties(which have all been planted around the corn stalks) and a bunch of bush varieties, both fresh eating and drying. Some are ok in both forms, so hopefully I can enjoy plenty of fresh beans in the late summer and then some dried beans in winter. I am most excited for the Mayflower Pole Bean, which is said to have come over on the Mayflower and been maintained in the Carolinas to the present day (and which shares a name with my street!) and the Calyso bush bean, which is the cutest bean ever. It looks like a cow! I'm also looking forward to some straight ahead snap beans---Bountiful stringless(an heirloom green), Cherokee Wax and Romano Gold (yellows)
I did not innoculate any of my beans so I am hoping for the best. Next year I am determined to get innoculant--in fact, I may just go ahead and order it with my winter seed order to make sure I have it on hand.
So, the planting of the beans corresponds to the ripping out of the peas. I plucked my final snap pea harvest today---it was sad, but the hot hot weather does not make for sweet peas. The bed looks totally different now:

More sun for the basils and okra. More room for the BROCCOLI and CAULIFLOWER OMG. I am going to try direct seeding them. I don't have super high hopes but we'll see. The garden this year has been all about incredible luck so maybe it will work out with the brassicas too.
On the incredible luck front, here's a sampling of the volunteer tomatoes:

Clearly, not all of them are going to be black cherry. Some of them definitely are, but I can see three distinct shapes to the baby tomatoes we have going so far. I am thrilled.
Here is something I don't remember seeing before:

These are some kind of fruits growing on my POTATO (specifically Yukon Gold) plants.
I will immediately google this to figure out what is going on, but I was kind of shocked to see them today. What could it mean? Besides this mystery, things in potato and onion world are looking hella good. I think it is going to be time to harvest the first potatoes REALLY soon. I cannot wait.
And now to my brilliant scheme. You may remember my enormous volunteer butternut squash from the last post. Here are a couple of shots now:

It's out of control and has completely taken over the small bed where I planned to plant some brussels sprouts. I had just decided to give in to it and let it have the box when I spied this:

I trashpicked this ladder a long time ago, thinking I would use it for something in the garden. Originally it was going to be for the peas, but then we forgot. Then it was going to be for the beans, but then it turned out that I got more bush varieties than climbing varieties, so I didn't need it. But how about this: I could plant the two ends firmly in the ground, tie it together at the top (in a triangle formation) and then DRAPE this enormous squash vine over it! All the squashes could rest on the ladder rungs. Dude would be up off the ground, giving me actual planting space back! I am so excited and proud of myself for having this idea, but there is no way I am going to try to execute it now in the 80 and climbing heat. But the idea is there, and I think it will work. Huzzah.
I leave you with a few other garden scenes for good measure:
Quickie, the fabulous hybrid corn-

Salad box finally taking off! That lettuce is looking so lucious-

The cucumber vines are starting to climb!

My asparagus is coming back, thanks to some love and compost tea from Rebby-

Two artichoke plants seem to be making it! So excited-

Early Sunday Garden Photos

2010-06-20T04:59:00.000-07:00

For some reason this morning I popped awake at 5:30am with "Doin the Butt" by EU in my head. It didn't seem like it was going to go away, so I thought I would get up and take advantage of the early morning hours. I love my garden at all sorts of times of the day, but early morning when the dew is on the leaves is a particularly magical time. I think I have farming in my blood, maybe.

You have no idea how much this means to me. In fact, after taking this picture I put these guys in a vase so I can admire them for the rest of the day.

Here's the yukon gold and white onion patch. The potatoes are flowering now which means very soon I will be digging them up and enjoying their yellow fleshed goodness.

The other potato varieties are growing like crazy and starting to flower too!

These gorgeous sunflowers came back in the wildflower box. They are flanked by some ornamental kale seed fronds. I don't know if you've ever let kale go to seed but it's a pretty incredible thing. Each of these fronds contains thousands of tiny seeds. Maybe I'll have a kale yard next year!

The snowpeas and shelling peas are about done, but the sugar snaps are just getting started. They are so delicious. Love.

I finally weeded the strawberry patch and tried to train some of the suckers to go in the direction I would like them to go. I have read a very Nancy Drew method is to stick them in the ground with bobby pins...I wonder if I still have any of those around?

Giant mystery squash takes over the world! Seriously, it is taking over the box where we had the spinach, and it is completely shading out some carrots that were planted in there too. I will let it do it's thing in hopes that it is indeed a butternut and I get several pounds of surprise butternut squash like I did last year.

It's flowering!

The salad mix is finally taking off in the salad box by the side of the house, but I planted some out in full sun too just to be sure.

Early Sunday Garden Photos, PT2

2010-06-20T04:30:00.001-07:00

Rhubarb! My dad asked for an apple-rhubarb pie for father's day. My rhubarb isn't ready yet (next year) but I am happy to know it's his favorite.

The radishes. These daikons are FINALLY making roots, but the weird heirloom radish mix I planted seem to all start forming roots and then pushing up out of the ground and growing sideways. I don't know what this means.

Here's a tiny pepper on one of the plants we bought from Garden Dreams. I'm not sure what kind it is.

The oregano and sage are totally going to seed already because of the early hot weather. I REALLY need to divide these plants because they are getting overcrowded in their box. Maybe I'll transplant some to the front of the lot.

There will be okra!!!!

Volunteer morning glory. I love this color.

Close up on one of the marigolds. They are humungous!

Behold kohlrabi! I can't wait to crunch into these fellers.

Here's the recently harvested red russian kale, and the sea of dragon carrot tops before I pulled them up. You might be able to just see how they are close to choking out some pepper plants.

Here's a wide shot of the greens post-harvest. Everything seems to be coming back!

My first real successful carrots. These are called Dragon Carrots and they are gorgeous red and very tasty.

Here's my wild and wooly dill patch, with some parsley and cilantro mixed in. I really need to reconfigure this bed because it is super hard to weed without stepping on stuff, especially where my artichokes and asparagus are at the back.

Cucumbers! From the righthand side: poona kheera, hmong red, and orient express, a fast growing pickling cuke. I am excited for them!

Here's a close up of my sweet corn---this is Quickie, a hybrid variety that I grew last year successfully. The corn is just about high enough now that I can start planting beans!

Here's a very closely sown patch of chinese cabbage. I am surprised at how row like it is because I don't normally sow greens in rows. Obviously I am going to have to do some serious thinning. I think I was sowing these seeds right before a rainstorm and going too fast.

Here is the new tire of Caribe purple potatoes I planted. I had so many seed potatoes left over I felt bad, so I started some new ones. I'm excited to see them.

This is what the chard looks like after last Sunday's massive harvesting. Chard will always come back, sometimes better than ever.

I am really excited to be growing some Hopi Blue Field Corn for grinding into flour. This number of corn stalks might make enough for one batch of tortillas, but it is an endangered species and I am happy to help it keep going. And next year if we have the lots for real I am going to grow SO MUCH CORN along the fence.

Blackberries! They're still red, but look how big and lucious they are!

Finally, arugula. I tried starting it two different times in the small salad box where it grew like crazy last year with no luck. Maybe the varieties I have this year need more sun? In any case, I am glad to finally have salad going gangbusters.

Another Productive Day In Paradise

2010-06-13T17:51:00.001-07:00

It's not really paradise....the TV room is still in a state of construction, the shower is leaking, the basement is damp, both toilets really need to be cleaned....but it was a super lovely day and we got a whole lot done. So it felt like paradise. And it's paradisical to have a weekend off together these days...doesn't happen too often anymore.
So, we got up and had some waffles for breakfast and made a plan for the day. Basically rebby worked outside and I worked inside. She mowed both lots and weedwacked and macheted ALL DAY LONG. Our weed situation was pretty out of control in the front of the house thanks to all the rain, but she took them all down. We had a huge weed wall along the front of the adjacent lot, and she took that down too. It was mighty impressive.
Inside, I tackled laundry, including washing all the flannel sheets to put in storage. I don't know I'll get them into storage today, but at least they're all clean. I also CLEANED OUT THE REFRIGERATOR. Like, not only did I take everything out and wash down all the parts, but I got rid of all the condiment bottles that had a quarter inch of stuff in the bottom, and I tossed a couple jars of fermented stuff that didn't pass the sniff test. (As long as the food is submerged in brine you can keep fermented foods in the fridge for a REALLY long time, but there were a couple jars of kimchi that seemed a little dry on top and didn't smell lovely. So out they went.) Then I took everything out of both freezers and inventoried them. We are usually pretty good about keeping track of what's in the freezers and what we use, but since we just got a whole bunch of new meats I thought it was worth doing a new list. And sure enough, we had forgotten to cross some things off the old list, so were laboring under the illusion that there were more pork chops than there actually were. But now it's all up to date.
Another indoor project today was blanching and freezing a bunch of those greens I harvested yesterday. I'd love to eat them all fresh, but there is just no way we'd get to them quick enough, and nothing makes me sadder than vegetables I GREW going bad in the fridge. So I blanched and froze some snow peas, shelled peas, kale, chard, and beet greens. I kept the spinach out for salads and one bag of beet greens for fresh stir frying. And there will be more peas of all stripes for sure...though it looks like the snow peas and shelling peas might be done pretty soon. I don't know if the chard will come back again or not, but I've got a whole new crop of red russian kale, and the kohlrabi leaves to contend with. And collards are starting to sprout too! Lordy.
Finishing off the uber productive day by making peppermint stick chocolate ice cream, and gravlax. It's been a really good day.

Some More Garden Pictures

2010-06-12T13:20:00.000-07:00

Our Farmlet!

2010-06-12T12:51:00.000-07:00

It's coming up on 4pm and like real farmers, rebby and I have put in a full day's work already. We anticipated a rainstorm (which hit about an hour ago) but wanted to do a lot of work in the garden beforehand. So after a really beautiful night at the Point listening to Kris Kristofferson sing like a prophet over the cell phones and innane conversations of stupid people all around us, we went to bed early and got up early and headed down to the Strip to replenish the protein coffers. I got a big wad of catering money this week, so it was a super happy coincidence that our favorite grassfed beef man (Patrick from Harmony Hill Farm in Evans City) and the chicken man (West Liberty Farms) and the Salmon People (Wild Alaskan Salmon Company) AND the lamb lady (Pucker Brush Farm)were all there. Our Pork People (Heilman's Hogwash Farm) were there too, but we are all set on pork. So we got a giant brisket, and two ny strip steaks, and a bag of ground beef. A whole chicken, two sockeye salmon filets (one of which is going to be gravlax in short order with garden dill!) and two pounds of ground lamb. It's a great feeling. I had to stop in Wholey's for butter (they stock the amish roll butter and unsalted butter in big chunks which keep nicely in the freezer) and they had wild caught Mahi Mahi on sale, so we got one of those as well. That will be tonight's dinner. After stocking up on tortillas and Reynas and a few other odds and ends at Stamoolis, we headed home. Unpacked the groceries and headed right back out to do recycling and get a load of garden soil. Most of the first load went to the potatoes---three of them (the Swedish Fingerlings, Red Clouds, and Buttes) got their third and final tire today, and I dumped a bunch of dirt on top of the Yukon Golds too. I had ground planted them because I read that they didn't really respond to hilling, but the plants were getting so tall I thought it couldn't hurt to give them some more soil. We'll see. The Caribes are lagging behind a little, but I'm sure they'll catch up soon. I started one more tire of Caribes today too, just because I had so many seed potatoes left and I felt bad for them. And there aint nothing wrong with having more potatoes, right?
So we dumped most of a truckload of dirt on the potatoes, and then rebby went to get another truckload while I started the girl chores of laundry and washing out all the accumulated plastic bags on the counter. There were a LOT of them. Now they are waving in the breeze on the clothesline (after taking another shower in the rainstorm.....hope the sun comes back out to dry them!) When rebby got back we unloaded the second load of dirt and I made a bunch more Three Sisters mounds. I am trying to grow blue hopi field corn as well as Lucious, Country Gentleman, Stowell's Evergreen, and Quickie. The first and last are hybrids, the middle two are heirlooms. I have high hopes but low expectations about my ability to grow corn. Last year we had a total of six ears, I think.....but I only planted six plants. This year each mound has six plants in it, so hopefully the yield will be better. I can't wait till the corn sprouts so I can start planting beans! I have, I kid you not, FOURTEEN varieties of beans. Some of them will go in the raised bed where the peas are when the peas are done, but most of them will grow in the Three Sisters mounds where they can climb up the corn stalks. Then once the beans sprout, I plant the squashes around them. Woo!
Besides the corn, I planted some bok choy and mustard greens today in the spots where I pulled up the early beets earlier this week. I got a nice looking beet crop! So pleased since last year I only got tiny roots and big bunches of leaves. This year the spring beets did a much better job of forming beets. We're going to eat some of them tonight, marinated in balsamic vinegar and grilled. With some goat cheese on top. Oh yes.
Afer all the planting, I harvested. The chard was out of control and the spinach was bolting already! So I cut a big laundry basket full of greens. Then picked through, washed, spun and bagged em. Three gallon bags of chard, one of dinosaur kale, one of spinach. Feels good. We are stocked up!

Let's Not Forget the Kales

2010-06-01T11:28:00.001-07:00

I am a champion grower of kale. Here is photographic evidence.

This is actually kohlrabi, but you can eat it's leaves like kale.

And this of course is actually chard, but again...kale like.

Here we go. We had our first red russian harvest last night, steamed with butter and salt. Delish.

I really love the dinosaurs. I've seen photos where the leaves are like 3 feet long, but I doubt mine will get there. It's just too yummy!

The whole gang.

Fixtures

2010-06-01T11:25:00.000-07:00

We've got two new fixtures in the garden that will add to our happiness.

Say hello to

GARDEN HAMMOCK!!!!!

and

Cucumber and melon headboard!
I trashpicked this thing a few months ago, figuring it would come in handy. This weekend rebby planted it firmly in a hill of dirt, and today I planted cucumbers and watermelons around it. Should be fun to watch the vining action!

Volunteers

2010-06-01T11:16:00.001-07:00

Ok, so I'm bummed about the fact that I don't get to grow all the heirloom tomatoes I planned on this year. However, Mother Nature has instead gifted me with the ultimate wait and see game.....at least TEN volunteer tomato plants, of various sizes. They all look pretty healthy and they appear to be a few different varieties judging from the leaves. As long as they are not ALL black cherries I'll be happy! FYI, none of them are from the box where we grew tomatoes last year--they're all from compost. And none of the blighted tomatoes went into the compost, so I feel pretty safe that these guys are highly adapted, disease free tomato plants that really want to grow in my garden. :)

We've also got what looks like hundreds of volunteer marigolds throughout the garden. Most of them are coming up at the side of the house where we had them planted last year, but some are definitely coming from compost. I am again going to trust nature that the marigolds are popping up in the spot they need to fill to protect my plants from bugs. I am a hippie gardener.

Some more of those volunteer tomatoes. The pea plants also have two volunteer POTATOES growing on either side of them! This seems surreal to me, but I went ahead and hilled them up today.

Let's Talk Salad

2010-06-01T10:58:00.000-07:00

Here's a close up of my lovely, succulent, delicious iron rich spinach. Most of it is Bloomsdale, with some Viroflav thrown in as well (I can't tell if the two varieties are distinct or not.)

This is the spinach bed, which also has a few bunching onions left from last year, a volunteer squash(probably/hopefully butternut), the chiogga beets, some flat of egypt beets, and some carrots.

So, here's what the salad box looks like at this stage of the game. I think it is a)getting regularly munched by the groundhog we didn't manage to trap(Oh! I have to tell that story too!) and b) not getting quite enough sun.

Do you know about purslane? It's considered a weed in North America, but it's a delicious one. It's also extrodinarily high in Omega 3 fatty acids which are very important and normally only found in fish. Anyhow, I'm growing it in my garden and it is gorgeous and succulent.

This is a new small bed we made by flipping the top off the old small bed(since we didn't fill it all the way with dirt) Since my salad greens aren't doing so well by the house, I planted a bunch of lettuces, salad mix, and arugula in here today. I also transplanted four volunteer tomato plants (more on those in a minute!) to this box.

Here's the state of daikon nation as of this afternoon. I planted a bunch of breakfast radishes here too, and they don't seem to be getting munched on yet.

The carrots are looking good! I've got three quadrants planted with carrots--some look stronger than others. I don't see any carrot shoulders forming yet but it might still be early for that.

Checkin In On the Peas

2010-06-01T10:52:00.000-07:00

these guys have the most beautiful flowers, and their pods are so snappy and delicious! I basically munch on them the whole time I'm in the garden. Judging from the flowers I'm going to have to do a stir fry pretty soon.

Here's some shelling peas starting to plump up. I can't wait to pull the first pod and look at the little critters!

Don't they look impressive?

Another view of the lovely lavender to pink snow pea blossoms.

More Good News

2010-06-01T10:35:00.000-07:00

Things in the world of beets are looking really good. I've got a "gourmet blend" of beets in one patch, flat of egypt beets in another, and Chiogga (the stripey ones) in another.

Here's a close up of a chiogga beet doing the damn thing!

And the chiogga beet greens, which closely resemble chard.

In the wonderful world of potatoes, we're going gangbusters. These beauties are, from left to right: Swedish Fingerlings, Caribe(purple), Butte(russets) and Red Cloud(red waxy) The russets are ready for their second tire already! But I don't feel up to hauling a bunch of wet dirt today. Hopefully this weekend.

Here you can see the yukon golds are ready for a hilling, and the white onion sets I planted out with them are bulking up. The next time I have a couple free hours when I am feeling good and there is no sign of rain I plan to get in some red onion sets and a few more rows of potatoes.

And Now the Good News!

2010-06-01T10:31:00.001-07:00

Daisies! They seem to have sprung up from the wildflower mix I sowed last year.
My pale pink roses continue to bloom.
This amarylis, which I thought I had killed, came back with a vengeance!

First the Bad News

2010-06-01T10:19:00.001-07:00

It's been a long time since I've posted here, and that's mostly because gardening took a turn for the tragic and I just didn't feel up to talking about it. And then, once I had sort of gotten over it, May got busy with catering and a delicious weekend in Cleveland and another bout of allergies-turned-sinus infection-turned bronchitis.
But today, I am on the mend. I'm ready to come clean about the failures, celebrate the successes, and fully cop to the fact that you can plan a garden all you want, but in the end it's gonna be what it wants to be. And that's ok with me.
So....remember all those gorgeous photos of healthy little seedlings, and all those gorgeous photos of the tomatoes and peppers and eggplants and onions and broccolis and cabbages they were going to grow up to be? Well....they're dead. Every single one of them. It could have been the late cold snap, it could have been too much or too little water, too much or too little light, bad juju....I don't know. But one day everything was fine, and the next more than half of the babies were completely flat, yellow, and shriveled. I could have worked harder to save the remainder, I suppose---but once you've had a shock like that it is hard to recover. That represented a lot of time and attention and love and planning and hope and dreams down the toilet. I was pretty damn crestfallen.
I wish I had taken the bull by the horns and just started a whole new batch, but I didn't and now it is mostly too late. I can still start some fall crucifers in a few months, and that will be great. But my awesome variety of heirloom tomatoes and peppers and eggplants are just not going to be this year. Hopefully I can get a few of the varieties I wanted from Garden Dreams, but it may be too late for that too. I had to work all Memorial Day Weekend and missed their big seedling sale. Sigh.
So that's the bad news. Now we'll move on to the good news, and the life lesson....

It's Been a Long Time, Pittsburgh.....

2010-05-15T07:13:00.000-07:00

Gosh, my posting habits have been deteriorating. I apologize. Really soon things are going to be happening in the garden at a pretty speedy clip and I intend to do a decent job of documenting that. Also, I have been cooking and baking stuff (not so much recently as I've been sick and busy, but sometimes) that I have been failing to document. I'll try to get back up on that particular horse as well.
Today is a gorgeous day---one could not imagine a more perfect day for gardening. Unfortunately, it is one of the special few Saturdays when I have to go to work and miss all this loveliness. Unfortunately, Rebby was ragin in NYC last night so she won't be planting potatoes or whacking weeds or putting up the hammock. Maybe tomorrow. I have a staff meeting in the late afternoon but there will be gardening hours before that!
The big news is that we have been officially approved by the city of pittsburgh to purchase city property. It only took 3 years for that particular bit of red tape to get cut. Next, an entirely different branch of civic government needs to determine if the actual lots we want to purchase are eligible for sale. That might take a few more months, depending on the efficiency of this office. After that, we need to specifically apply to purchase those specific lots, which should take a lot less time...but again, different office, different set of logistics. Sigh.
While all this is going on, we are attempting to register our domestic partnership. The city does not make this easy either--in fact, I haven't been able to find any information on it on the city website at all. Once I conquer that, however, I can be eligible for health insurance through Rebby's work. And that will make a whole lot of people breathe easier.
Plus, we'll have a domestic partnership party and people will have to bring us stuff. ;)
Life is rolling on. We've got a lot of projects underway. We need to try to finish them one at a time. I just got a year at a glance wipe off calendar (100% ecofriendly! woo!) to help set some priorities and timelines. I'll keep ya posted.

Gardenpalooza Day Two

2010-04-21T17:13:00.000-07:00

Today I had very lofty goals to put in potatoes, onions, strawberries and rhubarb.
We stopped at the Home Depot to get a new rake and some more stakes for the garden fencing, and I impulsively bought onions sets and strawberry crowns. I would have preferred to get those things from a local/organic source, but sometimes I am tempted by the impulse buy. Oh well. I've got my precious little onion seedlings upstairs and I've got five organic strawberry plants, so the big box commercial items are supplemental. I'm not going to spray anything on them, so they will be organic ish by the time I'm done, right?
Anyway, I started out turning the soil in the perennial bed at the side of the house. According to the neighbor lady about 10 years ago the Italians had a rabbit run there, so I am pretty confident that the soil is good (it's where my salad and herbs have been blowin up since last year) The idea is to put all the perennials (strawberries, blackberries, perhaps some other berries, rhubarb, artichokes, and asparagus) there so they will be able to settle in undisturbed. The corner right next to the house that only gets sun part of the day will continue to be the salad bed, but hopefully I will be able to move the herbs over to herb boxes and use all the rest of the space for the perennials. So, I'm turning over this really amazing wonderful soil, humming along, thinking how awesome it is going to be to have all these berries and taters and onions planted, boy howdy, I can rest on my laurels for a week at least.....then I come across the first massive root. I struggle with it, finally get it pulled out, and then....another massive root. Ugh. There was a tree there that we had cut down last year, and although the arborists did a good job with the stump grinding, I guess they didn't really follow through with root removal. So basically, the rest of my afternoon was spent digging massive and not so massive roots out of my strawberry bed in the hot sun. After a couple hours, I did finally get all the strawberry plants and crowns in, as well as the rhubarb (though I think I am probably going to move it eventually.) Once that was done, though, there was no energy left for potatoes and onions. They can wait till the weekend. Sheesh.
So it really sucks to have to spend all afternoon digging up roots, BUT I have to say that the strawberry patch is consequently much better tilled than I would have done if the roots weren't there. So that's the positive. We got a ton of stuff accomplished the past two days, and the garden is starting to look really homestead-y. I like it.

I Celebrate 4/20 by PULLING Weed(s).....

2010-04-20T13:48:00.000-07:00

Ha ha ha. I crack myself up.
Actually, the weed pulling was more a side project. The big project of today was getting the first round of roots'n'leaves in the ground.
It was an absolutely gorgeous day for gardening---like 54 degrees, slightly breezy, clear sunny skies. Love. We started the day by unloading a truck bed full of scavanged bricks that Rebby brought home last night. We plan to make foot paths between the raised beds to keep down on grass and weeds, and while unloading I also came up with a plan to build a couple more herb boxes like the ones the mint and sage and oregano are in, and then move the rosemary and sorrel over there and do further sowings of annual herbs in them too. Basically, I need to make more room for artichokes, asparagus, and rhubarb in the perennial bed and I think that's going to have to involve moving the herbs. So that is perhaps a project for tomorrow(or the weekend.)
After unloading our brick cache we went to the strip to do a little shopping, and so Rebby could get some wine yeast for this year's batch of dandelion wine. Thankfully she saved the packet she used last time so getting the yeast from the lonely brew store man did not turn into a half hour ordeal (like it did the time she sent me to get some.) Meanwhile I stocked up on tortillas and green chile at Reynas and stopped a few other places. I was super bummed that none of the places I stopped seemed to have garlic that was not grown in China. Alas. Stopped at the Quizzle to drop off a few things and pick up the tropical flower one of the customers brought in for me (I am so not sure what it is...I'll take a picture later and try to identify it)
Then we got to work.
In today went:
Red Russian Kale

Rainbow Chard
Kohlrabi, Purple and Green
Rhubarb Chard
Strawberry Spinach
Bloomsdale Spinach
Black Palm Kale
Zefo Fina Fennel
Red Elephant Carrot
Jaune Du Doubs Carrot
Flat of Egypt Beets
Dragon Purple Carrot
Carnival Carrot Blend
Bull's Blood Beet
Gourmet Blend Beets
Chiogga Beets

Whew! Tomorrow just might be potato planting day. And I might get my strawberries and rhubarb in the ground too!

Our Tour of Lesbian Garden Centers

2010-04-17T19:27:00.000-07:00

Today was a dreary, rainy, COLD, gray day. However, it was also opening day for Garden Dreams and The Urban Gardener, so we were determined to think garden thoughts. First though, we had coffee in bed and watched about half of Brokeback Mountain on Bravo. We figured we would watch until it started to get sad and that would motivate us to get out and do stuff. Which sort of worked.
We loaded up the van (Rebby just drove back from a work trip to Virginia Beach last night---with a nice parcel of seafood, BTW) with recycling and shopping bags and headed out for a circular trip: Wilkinsburg, Point Breeze, North Side, home. We found Garden Dreams easily and I got over my enormous fangirl garden crush well enough to actually ask Mindy if the strawberries were June bearing or everbearing. Seriously, she is five thousand kinds of awesome and even though I have been in the same place as her more times than I can count now, it is always hard for me to talk to her because, well, I am totally crushed out. But I didn't act like a freak and instead acted like a person who was very interested in perennial food plants, which is what I am. I ended up getting four Sarian strawberry plants, four nice hearty asparagus starts(I can't remember their name right now, I'll look later), and a big lovely rhubarb. She grows all kinds of interesting tomatoes, eggplants and peppers, but I want to see what I can cultivate out of my seedling starts before I buy any plants. I will probably want to return later on in June to pick up a few of those guys.
From there we headed to the co-op, which was about as nightmarish as usual for a Saturday. I grabbed a big cart without thinking and then when I was waiting at the cafe bar for my juice drink I could not find a spot to put it that wasn't in someone's way. I am often frustrated by space issues at the co-op. But, we shopped efficiently and paid and got out of there and over to Construction Junction for recycling. Something was going on over there so that the spaces normally used for recycling were full of parked cars, and people were making really bad choices about trying to fit their SUVs in between cars and trucks where people were moving around recycling. It was a little traumatic, but we survived.
From Point Breeze we headed over to another garden center I had heard much about but never visited on the North Side. This one seems to be more ornamental than food oriented, and they didn't have much going on just yet, but the women who run it were so friendly and nice and the little shop itself is so beautiful that I definitely want to go back later on. I'm hoping that we can eventually add some more berry bushes to our perennial garden.
In other garden news, Rebby got one half yard of compost+topsoil into the newest raised bed, and she's off this week and plans to get at least two or perhaps three more loads (our little Ford F-150 can only handle a half yard at a time) to fill in the two other beds and have some in reserve for tire taters and three sisters plantings a little later on. Lots of pea shoots are poking out their little heads, lots of radish leaves and some arugula sprouts in the salad garden, and the volunteer cilantro is jumping off. I just picked a bunch tonight to put in a peanut noodle salad. I also picked some of my overwintered red veined sorrel for a green salad--it's a pretty grassy tasting herb, but it sure is gorgeous tossed with some spinach.
Up in the nursery, we've had some casualties from the weird weather extremes. I think all the Thompson broccoli seedlings bit the dust, as well as most of the kohlrabhis. A few other things seem to be having a rough time of it too. I thought for one very sad day that I had killed my okra sprouts but they have all come back after some water, extra grow light time, and love. Seriously, I had a couple days of serious allergy drama and didn't give them the attention they deserve, and it shows. Part of tomorrow will be dedicated to the nursery--I've got some more things to start, a few things to divide (gonna try to save all the strongest tomato plants) and if the weather is sunny at all, I might even put some dudes in the ground. Wish me luck!

The Overwintereds

2010-04-06T08:23:00.000-07:00

Rosemary
Sage
Red Veined Sorrel
Sweet Woodruff
Thyme
Peppermint
Oregano
Lemon Thyme
Lemon balm
Lavender
German Chamomile
Garlic Chives
Potted Chives

Herbs, So Far

2010-04-06T08:14:00.000-07:00

Chocolate Mint overwintered, I may have killed it and the Apple Mint by digging them up and dividing them. But they're mint, so probably not.
Apple Mint
Moss Curled Parsley I ADORE curled parsley. I direct seeded a bunch and I also started some plants upstairs, so I hope to have parsley like whoa.
Dill I also adore dill. I have a couple different varieties. Direct seeded a bunch and also have a few tiny little feathery friends coming up from last year's plants that went to seed.
Black Cumin, Nigella Sativa all sorts of health benefits, plus look how pretty, plus--growing my own cumin seeds!
Cilantro! I have the beginnings of a giant cilantro patch from last year's plants that went to seed. Cilantro burns out fast, so I have two more packets of seed to replace the ones that bolt (and the ones that turn into all summer long delicious salsa!)
Fenugreek! I grew some last year and saved my own seeds. The leaves are also mildly fenugreek-y in salads.
Rosemary over wintered.

And The Radishes, round one

2010-04-06T07:59:00.001-07:00

French Breakfast Radishes
Daikon
Watermelon Radish these things are gorgeous, and as big as a turnip!
White Icicle Radish special request from dad.

Easter Planting 2010, continued

2010-04-06T07:52:00.001-07:00

I also started up the salad beds over by the side of the house. Last year I planted late salad greens here and they BLEW UP, so I am hoping to repeat the performance all season long (and also too, the beds are small enough and shaped in such a way that I can throw a window on top of the bricks around them and make a cold frame in the winter!
Mizuna Mustard
Apollo Arugula
Rucola Selvatica (wild) Arugula
Endives
Crisp Mint Lettuce doesn't that look good? I want some NOW!
Marvel of Four Seasons Butterhead Lettuce
Drunken Woman Frizzyheaded Lettuce (I picked it for the name, of course, but I grew it last year and it is a beautiful, hardy, delicious lettuce!)

Easter Planting 2010

2010-04-06T07:48:00.000-07:00

The peas FINALLY went in on Easter morning. Rebby built a very pretty bamboo and twine trellis for them and I planted the first round. Once they sprout I plan to plant another round so we can have a longer harvest.
Schweizer Riesen Snow Pea
The Classic Lincoln Shelling Pea
Super Sugar Snap Pea

New Sprouters!

2010-04-06T07:24:00.000-07:00

Jersey Devil Tomato
Golden Treasure Sweet Pepper
Pingtung Long Eggplant
Gypsy Tsygan Tomato
Hatch Chile BTW, this Hatch Chile was started from seeds I shook out of the bottom of a bag of dried red chiles I bought in Hatch on our New Mexico travel adventure. Rock!
Italian Sweet Red Pepper
Pineapple Tomato

More Tomatoes! And Artichoke!

2010-03-30T08:59:00.000-07:00

Romanesco Artichoke
Schimmeig Creg Tomato
Sandul Moldovan Tomato

Catchin Up

2010-03-30T08:38:00.000-07:00

Well, wow, was I sick! I had a mysterious stomach thing that first instantly laid me out (as in, one minute I was putting on my overalls to go and plant peas and the next minute I was curled up in bed practically unable to move)and then morphed into this weird alien presence in the abdomen causing all sorts of intestinal distress as well as the most incredible churning and gurgling. I swear, it sounded like there was a creature living in there and trying to fight its way out. It was miserable and nasty, and it took almost 5 full days to feel completely rid of it. I feel pretty normal now, finally, thank the heavens. I don't want to go through anything like that any time soon. Ever.
So, while I was at death's door, upstairs plant babies were springing to life. We had massive gains in the onion and tomato world, and even the first two eggplants have showed their cute little green heads! I tried to take some pictures of the actual sprouts but my camera was dying and they came out really purple---I'll try again later. For now, meet:
Amish Paste Tomato
Bedfordshire Onion
Listada De Gandia Eggplant
Purplette Onion
Ringmaster Onion

and
Hillbilly Tomato
Hahnstown Yellow Tomato
Cherokee Purple Tomato
Cannibal Tomato Eggplant

and

Walla Walla Sweet Onion
Martino's Roma Tomato

But wait, there's more!

Live Seedling Blogging

2010-03-24T06:57:00.000-07:00

some times I find myself staring at them so intently and closely that I feel I must be embarrassing them.
But the few moments every morning and every evening that I spend with them make me feel immediately at peace.

An Exciting Development in the Tomato World

2010-03-24T06:33:00.000-07:00

Costoluto Genovese Tomato
Just look at that thing. I love its ruffled shape. It is apparently a very, very rich tasting Italian heirloom. I can't wait.

By the end of today I think I will have some more onion news, as well as possible parsley and perhaps more tomatoes. Still nothing on the eggplant and pepper front, but that's okay. They have time.
I am driving myself crazy trying to decide if I should start any of the vining guys (cukes, squash, melons) inside. All their seed packets say "not recommended", but I did start my squashes indoors last year. Also, I think maybe if I get them going indoors it will give me more time for succession planting the cukes. As in, the cukes will take over the vine spot where the peas are going in (TODAY!!!) on a trellis in the middle of the biggest raised bed. If I start the plants indoors, I can let my peas go longer before I need to pull them up to make room.....Thoughts?
I'm committed to planting the corn, beans and squash in Three Sisters formation in hills around the garden. (not in the raised beds) I am hoping to alternate them with potato tires for a kind of vegetative/rubber fence effect. I watched a video on three sisters planting just the other day in which the woman did it super intensively (like 4 corn plants, 4 bean plants and 4 squash plants per hill) in a raised bed. I am totally down with that, but I wonder how necessary it is to start corn, beans and squash inside? Like I said before, I could spend all day puzzling over these things. And I've got work to do.
Today is a beautiful high in the sixties day after a rainy dreary yesterday. I think it is the perfect time to get in some peas, radishes, spinach, and salad greens. Whoop whoop!

The Reds Come In To Their Own

2010-03-23T12:04:00.001-07:00

After an early start by the purple vegetables, today's sprouters are a couple of reds.

Red Burgundy Okra
and finally! the first onion!

Long Red Florence Onion. I am so psyched about this onion because the long shape of it makes sense to me as a cook.
Oh! Speaking of onions, we seem to have a few still in the garden from the sets I planted last year. I am tempted to buy some more sets and stick them all around so that there is a somewhat steady supply of onions. They also might help to keep the neighborhood cats from using the garden as a potty.

Ladies and Gentlemen, We Have Tomato

2010-03-23T05:15:00.001-07:00

I am in absolute awe of

Black Krim Tomato! Jumpin off after just three days! Way to go, bud!

Also making their first appearance today are the kohlrabis

I've got a mixed packet of purple and white kohlrabi seeds so hopefully I'll have both. The purple ones look SOOOOOOO freaky! Can't wait. What nice pickles you will make.....

More Purple Vegetables!

2010-03-22T03:43:00.001-07:00

Rubine Brussels Sprouts, and

Violetta di Chioggia Artichoke.

Welcome, little purple guys!

Today's Sprouters

2010-03-21T11:54:00.000-07:00

purple cape cauliflower. This is super exciting! I grew some really late in the season last year and just got a few florets. So VERY PURPLE!!!

christmas drumhead cabbage (I am not sure this is an accurate photo---some pictures showed it more cone shaped, but "drumhead" to me sounds more round. we'll just have to wait and see!)

blue curled scotch kale

Meet the Babies

2010-03-20T16:51:00.000-07:00

I spent part of today downloading pictures of all the varieties of vegetables I am growing, so I can introduce them as they sprout.
First up we have the broccolis:

This is supposedly the Calabrese variety of broccoli. I couldn't find a picture of Thompson's that looked any different, so I guess all my broccolis will look like this. Woo!
Today we also have escarole:

a bitter Italian salad green. I am learning to love it. I'm good with most of them except for frisee and raddicchio.
Three out of four kales have also sprouted as of today:

Dinosaur

Nero di toscana (Italian Black Kale) and

Red Russian Kale. There are also a couple sprouts of red russian kale hanging out in the garden that rebby noticed today when she was starting to weed the patch next to the house. Rock!
Also making an appearance are:

Long Island Improved Brussels Sprouts, which I grew very successfully last year, and

White Wallaby Cauliflower

So far so good guys! I'll try to keep up with the introductions as things sprout, but once the eggplants and peppers and tomatoes take off it's gonna be crazy up in here!

Welcome Spring!

2010-03-20T16:32:00.000-07:00

It's the equinox, and I celebrated by spending most of the day in the nursery with the babies. In fact, I started a whole bunch more babies! The peppers were on schedule to start today, but according to my chart tomatoes aren't due until April 2nd. But I figured a)everybody's doing it and b)I was up there anyway with potting mix all over me and c)it disturbed my sense of symmetry to have 5 trays instead of six. So I went for it. I hope they will appreciate the extra couple weeks to get started. I also hope they will not punish me with legginess. It's my worst fear.
Anyhow, starting heirloom tomato seeds feels like very important work. When you have an envelope of 10 tiny seeds, you have to be extra careful and make sure any extras go back in the envelope instead of all over the floor, like the kohlrabhi did. I am a little concerned that anything else I may start out of this potting mix will have a dose of kohlrabhi in with it. The seeds spilled out the bottom of the envelope onto the floor and into the potting mix bag. Murphy's Law style.
Aside from that little mishap, the day was delightful. I listened to Rhapsody's "Big Hair" radio while I planted, and I hope the babies appreciated the Motley Crue and Accept as much as I did.
After everybody was planted, I spent another half hour with the radio making a seed starting spreadsheet. Oh, excel. I used to know how to use all of it's features but now I pretty much just use it to make charts. But oh, the charts! Love it.

This photo captures not even HALF of the spreadsheet. I have thus far planted 56 varieties of vegetables. This is insanity for two people, but I plan to use a lot of the produce at the restaurant. So not sooooooo crazy. And, I am keeping in mind the reality that not everything will succeed. So having a few backup varieties is not a bad idea. Still. I feel a little nuts.
Here's how it's looking so far:

Everybody gets rotated between the grow lights and the sunny window. The early sprouters got first dibs on the spring sunshine today!

Tune in to the next post to meet them!

Some Undocumented Failures

2010-03-17T16:49:00.001-07:00

I know I only talked about one success, but I'll get to some more later.
Let's talk about failure.
First of all, remember how cocky I got about my yogurt? How it was just the easier thing ever? Well, it was----the first time. The second batch did not set up at all, and I am still not sure exactly what I did wrong. I think I might have just not been precise enough about the temperature or the measuring---I think what I must have done is put the yogurt culture in to the milk when it was too hot, thus killing all the beneficial guys. Whoops. I was totally humbled in a matter of minutes. I decided to try to salvage it by heating it up again, but at that point the milk totally separated.
So-----yogurt cheese! It's actually really delicious. I drained all the whey out to use in future fermentations and then rinsed the curds and put them in a container with some onion and dill. Real yummy. So although it was a total FAILURE of a yogurt, it was a resounding success of a yogurt cheese. Cool. Next time I get a gallon of milk I really want to make paneer. That seems to be a super simple cheese too.
The next failure I am sorry to report is my latest batch of saurkraut. I kind of had a feeling when I was cutting it that something was not working out right---in contrast to the juicy explosion of the previous batch, I had to WORK that cabbage to get any liquid out. I made sure that the liquid level covered the veg when I put the weight on top, but then I did not go back and check it regularly. Today I realized that there was some mold growing around the lip of the crock, and when I took the weight out the kraut was totally dry. It smelled fine, but I am paranoid enough to just put it on the compost pile and try again the next time I get my hands on a cabbage. So, kraut fail. Luckily I have some pickled radishes and carrots in the fridge if I need a fix. Which I just might tonight cuz my throat is feeling scratchy and I am a little run down. I always seem to crave fermented foods when I'm starting to get sick. Kombucha to the rescue!

The Thing About Gardening Is....

2010-03-17T15:37:00.001-07:00

there is just no right answer. Gardening is about trying, doing, failing, succeeding, making notes, making plans, trying something else, reading, talking to people, getting advice, applying it judiciously.
An example: way back when I first started looking at seed catalogs because they started coming in the mail (this was like October) I stumbled across this nice online planning calendar calculator where you plug in your last frost date and then it calculates for you when to start/plant various things. I thought this was super cool, and I filled it in and printed it out and stuck it on my wall. I entered a last frost date of May 15th as per various and sundry resources I found on the web. According to this planner, beginning of March is the time to start onions, cole crops and eggplants, and tomatoes and peppers shouldn't be started until mid April.
Then I come across this very interesting and informative site which basically tells me I've already missed the boat on my onions and in fact should have started them in JANUARY!
And, I've seen lots of people starting their tomatoes now. And, people are planting peas already! These are all people in my area. They are all doing different things which are contrary to the things I've read.
And you know what? That's fine.
The best way to learn is to try and the best way to improve is to try something different. If we all always waited until April to start the tomatoes, we might never know that they'll do fine going out a couple weeks earlier. If I was to throw in the towel on my onions now and go buy sets, I might never know if there is such a thing as later season onions. Maybe they'll be small, but I'm willing to give them a shot.
Some other things I've done WRONG: buried a bunch of parts cut out of sprouting potatoes from the cabinet in the middle of the garden bed, after reading a very quick Martha Stewart instructable about potato planting. I did not have high hopes, but despite the fact that I didn't do a great job of hilling up the dirt, and the sprouts were just pieces cut from taters that I otherwise used.....POTATOES HAPPENED. In abundance. Probably not the abundance that they would have had I used proper seed potatoes and hilled up the dirt correctly, but they happened. Same with corn: I planted only five corn plants, which every reference will tell you is not enough. Somehow all five of them managed to produce one cute little tasty ear. This year I plan to do better by my corn, and squash, and beans, by following a three sisters garden plan for them.
I had a bunch of failures last year too: strawberries(killed them in strawberry pots---this year I'm putting in a proper bed), root crops in general(soil too compacted--this year I am adding sand and trying to dig LESS as one of the workshops I went to at PASA suggested that double digging actually causes the soil to compact and stunt the roots!)kohlrabis I started way too late, pumpkins I totally forgot about, salad greens decimated by groundhogs, and everybody's favorite late season tomato blight.
BUT, each one of the failures taught me something important, and made me more dedicated to my garden. I don't think anything brings out my inner new age flake more powerfully than gardening. For me it's all about honoring the earth and honoring our ancestors and preserving biodiversity and improving the foodshed, and respecting the hell out of the tiny life that is in every plant. Even the damn weeds.
So here we are at the middle of March.

It's like being a painter with a blank canvas. I've got so many plans and schemes. I've got to figure out a way to trellis 14 different kinds of beans. Today when I was walking home past the church on the corner, I actually contemplated for a second how hard it would be to rip out a section of the cast iron fence. Really, they're not using it, and it would be perfect. About six months ago there were several sections of cast iron fence sitting outside of Construction Junction, getting cheaper and cheaper until someone with more forethought snapped them up. Oh well, I'll wait my turn. I've got to start gathering tires for potatoes! I've got to get some strawberry crowns, and some dirt! If I let it, gardening could take up every single waking moment of my day. I am starting to feel like I am becoming what I wanted to be when I grew up.

Some Undocumented Successes

2010-03-11T06:02:00.001-08:00

I've been making a lot of things in the kitchen lately and not photographing them.
Partially this is because I don't really like my camera phone picture quality, and partially just because I've been trying to spend less time nerding out in front of the computer and more time snuggled in bed with my honey watching RuPaul's Drag Race. Still, I do want to record these things for my own benefit at the very least.
First up, I made yogurt. I followed Sandor's instructions from Wild Fermentation, and it could not have been easier. Here's exactly what I did:
1)poured milk(hormone free, pasture raised non homogenized and "gently" pasturized, from the co-op---I am pretty sure it was Hartzler's) into a quart sized mason jar.
2)poured it from the jar into a copper bottom saucepan.
3)stuck the candy thermometer I got inherited from a friend's parents' divorce about 7 years ago into the pan.
4)heated the milk gently to 180.
5)when it reached 180, took it off the burner and let it cool to 110.
6)when it was almost 110, I rinsed out the mason jar and the playmate round beverage cooler I got for $2.75 at the thrift store last weekend with hot water.
7)added 1 tablespoon of plain whole milk brown cow yogurt to the hot milk and stirred it up.
8)poured the innoculated milk into the jar, screwed the top on, and dropped the jar into the cooler.
9)screwed the top on the cooler and set it on the stovetop above the pilot light for about 9 hours.
10)opened up the cooler, took out the jar, opened it up, and spooned out some creamy delicious yogurt!
It was that easy. I will say that my yogurt has a slightly weird viscosity, somewhere between honey and store bought yogurt. However I only noticed that when spooning it out---the 'mouthfeel" is fantastic. The fact that I made this yogurt myself makes me want to eat it 1000x more than the yogurt from the store that is always sitting in the fridge. Plus it looks so pretty in the mason jar. I am a convert.
Before I made the yogurt even, I made some granola to eat on top of it. I make granola all the time for the restaurant so it is pretty much intuitive for me now, but I did stumble upon the magical addition of just a little bit of molasses to the brown sugar and vegetable oil mix I usually use(don't use honey for the restaurant granola so it can be vegan.) The dark sweetness of the molasses seemed to help the oats toast even better and seriously upped the crunch. Love that crunch. To this home batch I added slivered almonds, cinnamon, ginger, and then after the oats and nuts toasted, some dried apricots and cranberries. I am making a serious effort to incorporate fruits and vegetables into my life. 5 a day? are you kidding me? Not in the winter. Not without some serious planning.
I've got more undocumented successes to share but right now I have to get ready to go to a Bioneers planning meeting! And then to a Local Foods Showcase! And maybe a trip to the Strip District! And bonus Walk In The Sunshine!

Stellar Day so Far....

2010-02-27T18:17:00.000-08:00

Wow, did I accomplish a lot today!
Started off getting up early to catch Nigella on Food Network. Now that I know she's on at 7:30am on Saturday, it makes my inability to sleep in past 7 no matter what something to be celebrated rather than reviled. While I watched Nigella make sticky toffee sauce for her late night ice cream (yes, it was as porntastic as it sounds) I mentally evaluated our egg and milk situation to determine if a walk through the newly frozen tundra to the farmer's market was in order. I determined it was not, so I poured myself another cup of coffee and settled in. After Nigella was done, I switched over to VH1Classic for the 80s nostalgia video hour, and Rebby got up and made breakfast. It was equally porntastic having bacon and eggs and homemade potato bread toast while watching Frankie Goes to Hollywood(though not the X rated version of Relax)
After breakfast, we each got to work on our chores: Rebby sanding and mudding the walls in the foyer, and me cleaning out and reorganizing the kitchen drawers and cabinets. I didn't even realize that was my chore for the day, but once I started with one I had to go and do them all. I can't begin to tell you how great I feel about it. Especially the loathed and feared JUNK DRAWER which I would only ever open to quickly toss in a rubber band or twist tie. I removed EVERYTHING from the drawer, tossed most of it, and organized what I kept into little plastic takeout containers. One for rubber bands, one for twist ties, one for miscellaneous hardware, one for corks and stoppers and beer growler lids. I also moved the keys and toothpicks there from the dishtowel drawer so now it can be ALL ABOUT THE DISHTOWELS. And potholders. I also designated one drawer exclusively for baking items, including the cake decorating tool set I bought five years ago and have yet to actually use. This is the year, my friends. I am going to learn how to pipe a damn icing rose.
After my cleaning and organizing frenzy, I dived headlong into the bread baking. Last week I sort of spur of the momently went trolling the internet for a potato bread recipe for three reasons: 1-I wanted to use up some sprouting potatoes; 2-I wanted to use up some souring milk; and 3-I wanted to have some bread that Rebby and I would want to eat jelly on. You see, for the second year in a row Rebby has received several jars of gorgeous home canned jams and jellies from relatives for Christmas, and we are just not jam and jelly people for the most part. I was feeling really bad about it and wanted to try to make an effort, so I thought a nice pillowy potato bread with butter and jam might be appealing. After checking out a few recipes, I settled on this one. It has the bonus feature of containing a small amount of lard, which I am absolutely convinced based on empirical study makes everything taste better. So I tried it last week and let me just say--it is beautiful, wonderful bread. I don't know what kind of loaf pan this woman has but there is in my opinion waaaaay too much dough for one loaf. The first batch I made two smallish loaves, and this time I made one largish one and six sandwich buns. It's fairly easy and the dough is nice and soft and a pleasure to knead, so I might just make this all the time. At least as long as I have some potatoes and a little bit of milk in the house.
Simultaneously while making the potato bread, I made some Swedish rye. I had a bee in my bonnet to make a Swedish rye because a)I bought that special loaf pan from IKEA and b)I bought some salmon to cure and I wanted to have an appropriate bread for it. Again I scoured the internet for a recipe--nothing looked right until I plugged DARK swedish rye into the google. Then I came up with this. I really like the fact that the recipe contains more rye flour than white, while most use the rye only as a flavoring. It seemed like an absurd quantity of bread, though, so I halved the recipe. And at that point I kinda fucked it up, because while I made a point of writing out all the halved measurements before hand, I didn't go through and adjust in the recipe so when it said to combine the liquid and yeast with 2 cups rye flour and 1 cup white, I ended up with a solid mass instead of anything that would ever get "foamy". I let it sit (can't really say rise) anyway and then worked in the remaining ingredients, kneaded it, shaped it into a long roll, chucked it in the pan, and hoped for the best. After the pan rise it didn't look much different, so I was pretty convinced I was going to end up with an inedible brick. Once it got in the oven, though, everything changed...it became light and almost a little airy, and oh so incredibly fragrant. It's a pretty sweet bread, but boy howdy is it good! I will have it with some jam for sure.
Another project I worked on today was going through my cookbook shelf and pulling out an entire file box of books to give away. I'll be posting a list sometime soon to offer to friends first...there are some real goodies in there that I just don't really ever refer to and would like to share with someone who might use them more often. Rest assured, I still have more cookbooks than will comfortably fit on a five shelf IKEA bookcase. But now I can at least get them all jammed in there. Might try for a second cull after I organize them into categories.
While the breads were baking, I cleaned out the fridge and then applied the cure to my salmon. I neglected to get any fresh dill, so instead I decided to keep it mega local and just use some seeds I harvested from the garden--dill, fennel, and coriander. So I crushed them up in the mortar and pestle and added them to the salt, sugar, and black pepper. Rubbed it all over the salmon, wrapped it up tight in plastic wrap, and set it in the fridge for 5 days or so of curing. So excited.
By this point Rebby was ready to call it a day, so she showered and we hopped in the truck to visit Home Depot for some potting soil. Apparently no one told the Home Depot Garden Center that it's seed starting time because all their big bags of potting mix were out in the uncovered, unheated garden center. Rebby had to dig through a small snow bank to pull out two bags, which were frozen solid. We brought them home and set them on a trash bag in the living room in front of the wall vent to thaw. We also brought home some kind of lambourghini of ladders....after being on my little apartment sized ladder mudding the ceiling all day, Rebby decided to invest in something more home ownery. This one can apparently telescope to 15 feet if you want. Wow.
The frozen potting soil sort of put a damper on my seedling enthusiasm, so I decided to give myself the rest of the night off to play around on the internet as long as I washed the dishes. Which I did. I also listened to this really awesome podcast interview with Sandor Katz the Wild Fermentation guy. His way of speaking is simultaneously soothing and exciting to me, and he's got what I would consider vital information. Listen to it if you have the chance.
I'm feeling really excited and inspired by life right now, despite all the kinda crappy weather and bad news in the world. Hope I can hang on to it!

Garden Dreamin

2010-02-11T18:34:00.001-08:00

There may be four feet of snow on top of my garden right now, but inside the house I have lots of things to remind me of the promise of spring.
This is our new compost turning fork, direct from the Black Forest:

It is such a gorgeous tool, and so well made. I am embarrassed to tell you how much I love this thing. I just wish that I could even SEE my compost bin right now, let alone go and flip toss the compost around. Soon, soon.
Here are my seed boxes, all organized:

There are ALOT of varieties of seeds in there. I have all their names in a spreadsheet organized by family. One of these days I'll take out my seed starting date chart and organize them by when they should be started and when they get to go in the ground.
I didn't take a picture of it, but Jennie got me one of these for Christmas. It is one of the best gifts I have ever received, I think. I have been saving all the newspaper and packing paper and brown paper bags that somehow accumulate in the house despite my best efforts to keep them out for a big pot making party sometime soon. Making plant pots out of trash! What could be better!

This is not even all my seed catalogs. These are only the ones I picked up at PASA. I really can't order too many more seeds, but I do need to get some herb seeds (how do I not have dill seeds? criminal!) and a few flowers. I am most excited about the Turtle Tree Seed Company. They're biodynamic and the turtle woodcut on the cover is so damn cute I can't resist.
I'm plowing through the Keep Chickens! book--it's very inspiring. And the Bushy Mountain Bee Farm catalog is a thrill too. Unfortunately, the city of Pittsburgh has just decided to pass a confusing and restrictive urban farming code that might prohibit me from getting chickens or bees. What?!? I am so going to that hearing. Luke ain't shuttin down my farm before I even start!

An Omelette and a Glass of Wine(or, bottle of beer)

2010-02-11T17:13:00.000-08:00

I'm really working on the eating what I have thing. Last night, I made myself a totally passable sloppy joe (well, the first pass was just ok, but once I looked on the internet for homemade manwich recipes I realized what I was missing was vinegar and brown sugar) using up some ground beef, half an onion, a few pieces of frozen diced hot pepper from the garden, and a jar of tomato paste. Not to mention a couple slices of the really good whole wheat bread I bought almost two weeks ago at the East Liberty Cooperative market that is still kicking on account of the fact that I have been keeping it in the fridge. (we don't eat bread fast enough in this house to use the bread box. that's why when I bake bread I make little loaves, and why this is perfect for us)
Tonight after putting in a herculean effort to wash ALL the dishes and clean all the counters, I wanted something easy that would not make a giant mess. A look in the fridge revealed I had some lettuce that really needed to be a salad ASAP and a dozen eggs. Further investigation revealed four sundried tomatoes and a half empty freezer container of arugula pesto from this summer's harvest. So, inspired by MFK Fisher, I set out to make an omelette dinner.
First, I chopped up the sundried tomatoes and soaked them in a little hot water to soften them up a bit.

Next, cracked three eggs into a bowl and whisked them really well with a little pepper and salt. That's the classical French way, but I guess you can add some dairy if you want.

I melted a nice chunk of bougie Euro butter in my thrift store Revere ware small skillet. It's a perfect omelette pan.

In the small cast iron skillet in the back, I tossed some bread chunks with a little olive oil, black pepper and garlic to make croutons for my salad. And use up some more bread.
Back to the omelette--there aren't any more pictures because you really have to pay attention and work smoothly when doing an omelette. Pour the well beaten eggs into the very hot melted butter and swirl it around the pan so that a thin skin forms quickly on the bottom. Using a spatula, lift up and tilt so that the liquid egg spreads underneath, puffing the omelette up. If you are brave or super confident, you can flip it. I don't go in for that. I just keep lifting and tilting until the surface is almost dry, then I slide it out and turn it VERY quickly to finish cooking on the other side. Then put your fillings in. I spread a nice layer of pesto and sprinkled on the tomatoes, then slid the omelette out while folding it over. It came out absolutely beautiful if I do say so myself.

Backing up: before I started melting the butter in the pan, I made a really simple really dairylicious dressing for my salad. Into a small mixing bowl, I put about one clove of crushed garlic (I just used the crushed garlic that stayed in the bowl after I tossed the croutons) about a tablespoon of mayonnaise, a teaspoon of dijon mustard, a teaspoon of vinegar, a tablespoon of buttermilk, a pinch of basil, and a nice grinding of black pepper. Then for kicks I grated in the last of a tiny piece of horseradish cheese from the farmer's market. Whisked it up good, tossed it with the lettuce and croutons, and I was good to go. MFK Fisher would call this a perfect dinner for dining alone, though she would have a glass of white wine while I had a Saranac India Pale Ale. Yum.
I enjoyed this dinner while listening to Moment of Forever by Willie Nelson. It seems to have gotten a lot of bad reviews, but I think it is a fantastic record. Check it out.

Chicken and Dumplings, That I Just Made Up

2010-02-07T15:04:00.000-08:00

So I walked down to the East Liberty Cooperative Farmer's Market this morning and ended up with a stewing chicken. For some reason chicken and dumplings was the thing that the stewing chicken brought to mind for me. So I started to look online and in all my go to books for a good recipe.
Apparently what I think of as chicken and dumplings is really something else, because I couldn't find any recipes close to what I was thinking about. I am gonna guess that the recipe that was in my mind was something perhaps off a Bisquick box? I feel like my mom might have made it, or maybe it's something I had in the cafeteria....in any case, in my mind it had peas and carrots and potatoes and drop biscuit sorts of things on top. With paprika.
Since I couldn't find a recipe that was like that, I just made one up. And I am eating it right now and OMG, it is so good. It is EXACTLY what I wanted. Here's what I did, so you can do it too if you want (or I can do it again later in any case)
First, I stewed the chicken.

I smeared some bacon grease left over from breakfast in the bottom of the dutch oven, cut/tore the chicken up into chunks, tossed it in to brown ever so slightly, then added some onion, garlic, parsley, sage, thyme, black peppercorns, salt and water. I simmered that gal for about five hours. It smelled delicious the whole time.
Eventually it was to the point where the meat was literally falling off the bones in shreds. At that point I pulled the chicken and stuff(most of which had pretty much disintegrated) into a bowl to cool. I removed about half the broth left in the pot, strained it, and, transferred it to another bowl.

When the chicken was cool enough to handle, I went through it BY HAND removing meat from bones. This was slightly gross but important. About half of the meat went back into the pot, and the other half into a storage container for some other use later.

Then I added the veggies--2 carrots, about four small ribs of celery with tops, four or so large mushrooms, three small potatoes, diced, a medium sized onion, and about half a cup of frozen peas.

I let them cook in the broth a while so the potatoes and carrots could start to get tender. I also squeezed half a lemon in, because I think lemon and chicken go really well together and I had half a lemon in the fridge. You don't need it.

Then I mixed up a simple drop biscuit dough:
2 cups all purpose flour
2 pinches salt (about 1/4 teaspoon)
2 teaspoons baking powder
2 tablespoons lard (you could use butter if you are not fortunate enough to have lard)
whisk the dry stuff all together and then rub in the fat with your fingers. When it is all mixed in and the flour feels kind of uniformly heavy, add two cups of buttermilk. Mix it with a wooden spoon and then drop by half cupfuls over the top of the stew.

Put the lid on the pot and continue to cook over medium heat while you preheat the oven to 450 degrees. When it is ready, put the pot in and bake for about 15 minutes, till the dumplings are firm and starting to brown. Then you sprinkle paprika on top.

It will be thick enough to eat with a fork, but you can use a spoon if you want to make sure not to miss anything. Enjoy.

Sauerkraut

2010-02-07T12:33:00.000-08:00

Happily, my first day back from PASA is a snowy day off. I'm taking advantage of my fervor to get some projects going that will help us eat better for the coming weeks and also help me fulfill my pledge to use what we have. Another thing that helps with that, of course, is the fact that getting to a grocery store this afternoon is out of the question. The more I can eat from our stores here at home the better off I'll be (and the less I'll have to navigate the tricky icy streets out in the world in SNOWMAGEDDEON2010) I hiked out this morning to the East Liberty Cooperative Market after reading a blog post that they were open this morning since they got snowed out yesterday. Turns out the egg lady, who I was hoping to see, didn't make it, but I came home with some coffee, some mushrooms, some garlic, a cabbage, a pound of ground beef, and a stewing chicken. The chicken has been simmering away in the dutch oven with some bacon fat, garlic, onion, parsley, sage, thyme, salt and peppercorns ever since, and the meat is just starting to fall off the bones. Later I'll shred it and strain the soup and add some veggies and top it with dumplings. Southern style. Also on the horizon is a batch of bread dough and pizza dough, and maybe even an apple pie if I am still feeling up for the challenge. I really gotta take the Christmas tree down though....
In the meantime, I put up a batch of sauerkraut to start working. Since I conceived this as a sort of recipe blog, I figure I should put a sort of recipe up once in a while. So here goes.
Lacto-fermented, Oh So Good For You Sauerkraut ala Sandor Katz:
1 head cabbage (for this batch I used a savoy, which I wouldn't normally. it juiced up real nice though!)

about 2 tablespoons of salt (I use this nice red Hawaiian sea salt because it has minerals in it. Sea salt is best, Kosher salt is OK, iodized table salt is BAD!)

Flavoring (you can use no flavoring, or caraway seeds, or juniper berries like I did for this batch, or apples, or garlic or ginger or hot peppers. whatever you use, put in less of it than you think you might want as the fermentation will intensify)
So. Grab a big bowl and shred the cabbage really, really fine. You can use some core as long as you can get it sliced thinly, but don't try to shred up the very thickest pieces in the middle. Those should go in the compost. Here's halfway through the usable parts of my savoy:

When you have shredded all the usable bits, add your flavoring(if you want any) and start squeezing away. You want to squeeze and squeeze and mix and squeeze until you have just about as much liquid as solid. The cabbage will start to feel and look like sauerkraut already.
The salty liquid that comes out is called brine.
Next, you want to pack your kraut very tightly into a clean crock or jar. I have these nice crocks I got a million years ago at Kaufmann's or something that at the time I thought I would use for flour and sugar and coffee. Now I use them for fermenting veggies, just like grandma would. Really punch it down so that the brine comes up over the level of the veg. This cabbage was so juicy that the brine spilled right over the crock before I really got to pack it in there. Thankfully I anticipated this and placed the crock in the bowl to pack it.

The last step is to weight the kraut down below the level of the brine. I use an old sauerkraut jar that just happens to fit exactly into the opening of my crocks. It's like synchronicity. If you are not so lucky, you can use a plate that fits into the opening of your kraut vessel, or a clean rock, or if you aren't too freaked out about plastic--a storage bag filled with water. The idea is to keep the kraut submerged under the level of the brine for about 5 days. I think I remember reading that Sandor sometimes just remembers to push it down a couple times a day and doesn't therefore need to weight it down, but you want to be safe the first couple times at least. So find something that will work for you.

Put your crock or jar in a warmish spot in the kitchen and check every day to make sure your cabbage is totally submerged. If it seems dry and pushing down on the weight doesn't work, you can add a little salt water, but try to avoid that if you can. If it's the summer time and you have bugs flying around, cover the whole apparatus with a cloth. In winter it's not much of a problem.
In five days you will have a delicious and extremely healthful condiment. You can pack it into a clean jar and store it in the fridge at this point, or let it ferment a bit longer if you like a sharper flavor. Temperature will affect the amount of time it takes for a good ferment, so if it's really cold you might want to let it go longer. Some people never even put it in the fridge and just eat it out of the crock on the counter if it's not too hot out---if you make a tiny amount like this it might be all gone before you need to worry about refrigerating it. People say you should eat some lacto fermented food with every meal to help keep your digestive system in check. I am going to try harder to follow this maxim starting today.

PASA Day Three

2010-02-07T10:45:00.000-08:00

Saturday we woke up and peeked out the windows at SNOWMAGEDDEON2010. The truck was barely visible under a mountain of snow. Hotel maintenance guys were making valiant attempts to shovel and plow so the guests could get around. I went to check out while rebby dug out the truck.
Lots of people were advocating just staying another night, and apparently that's what lots of people did. We had a dicey situation however because rebby was scheduled to fly to Atlanta out of Pittsburgh at 12:15 Sunday. So unless she got the OK from her boss to stay, we were headed home one way or another. Just about everyone we talked to or head or texted with had a different opinion. Our final call was to attend the morning workshops we wanted to attend, get our lunch, do some last minute shopping, and then head home on the highway. (adding about an hour to the trip but eliminating a lot of scary twisty mountain roads)
So we had our continental picnic and then headed to our first workshops of the day: beekeeping for me, and shiitake mushroom cultivation for rebby. I am absolutely convinced that beekeeping is the right thing to do and especially after the workshop, absolutely fascinated by the social organization of bees, but. SO paranoid about beestings. I am not allergic and honestly, the last bee sting I got I barely even felt. But still. Scary. The fellow that gave the talk was very encouraging though and I think I am really going to pursue it. I'll start with going to a Burgh Bees apiary visit and see what happens. Woo!
Rebby was all about the mushroom cultivation. We're going to have so much going on this year!
Our next workshops were directly across from each other, and coincidentally, pretty much diametrically opposed. I went to a talk by Lee Reich called "My Weedless Garden" and she went to a talk about year round backyard food production. My talk was extremely entertaining and pretty much everything he said made good sense to me. When rebby and I met up to compare notes, it turned out that the people talking to her advocated double digging while Lee advocated no tilling at all! Funny. It makes good sense to me that flip tossing the dirt around activates the weed seeds and if you disturb the earth as little as possible they will be less likely to germinate. I'm on his side.
His method is similar to Lasagna Gardening which is kinda what we did with our raised beds, so it's pretty much what we've been doing. He got me really excited about drip irrigation, though. That's a big project for this year.
Next was lunch time, and it was awesome and delicious. We ended up sitting at a table with a couple who have a few acres in Export, PA, where they have apple and chestnut trees. The woman had gone to a talk about biochar and told us some about that. Also at the table was a Mexican family who were farming in upstate NY, a PASA staffer from the Pittsburgh office, and a really awesome Mennonite man who told us some things about canning and recommended dwarf apple trees. Even over lunch we were learning!
I ran out of the lunch room to get my last minute purchases before the market closed, and then rebby and I packed up some snacks and hit the road.
I'm going to be thinking about this stuff for a long, long time. And definitely planning to go again next year!

PASA Day Two

2010-02-07T09:36:00.000-08:00

What I didn't mention about day one is that we had breakfast at the Blue Dog Diner attached to the Autoport Motel and Lounge where we stayed. They don't really have any info on their website about the diner, but let me tell you it was delicious. Homemade white bread toast, farmfresh eggs and bacon, and really good roasted potatoes. Rebby had oatmeal. When we got to the conference site though we discoved that there was a free continental breakfast so the next two days we opted for that. So Friday we rolled up and got some coffee and bread and yogurt and boiled eggs and cheese and fruit and picnicked in the hallway. (one big problem I would have to mention is the lack of available places to sit and eat for meals that weren't in the main hall. People were jocking for position against the wall) After finishing our breakfast we took our seats in the Presidents Hall for the opening remarks.
Everyone who spoke was very inspiring---the new Dean of the agriculture school at Penn State, the new head of the PA Dept of Agriculture, and the Board President and Executive Director of PASA. The main event for me and Rebby, though was Michael Reynolds, founder of Earthship Biotechture. He gave a wacky, entertaining and inspiring speech that was about a lot of things besides Earthships. Mostly about the fact that government regulations which are supposedly there to protect citizens generally keep citizens from doing what they want to do. I gotta say a lot of what I heard at the conference had something to do with "know the laws, but don't let them stop you from doing the right thing." If I had to pick one message to sum up the conference, that would be it.
Michael got people all riled up and then it was time to grab our bag lunches and head to the first set of workshops.
I went to a really, really informative talk on Biodynamics. I've been interested in it since I somehow stumbled upon this book way back in the late 80s. My first attempts at a garden at the original Melwood house were inspired by this book. Biodynamics has a lot of really intuitive components and some sort of out there components, but it was in general a fascinating introductory lecture. The main thing I took away from it was to think of the whole farm as an organism. Biodynamic farmers believe for instance that if you feed your animals(which could include worms eating scraps from vegetables produced on your land, or chickens and horses and cows and goats grazing it)from your land, they will poop out what is needed to fertilize the land. That's why you should not feed animals grain from somewhere else, and why you should use manure or compost produced on your farm. Fascinating. The whole burying dung in a cow horn for half the year thing is a little harder to follow, but apparently it works. And I really like the idea of paying attention to the spiritual needs of the garden.
While I was learning about Biodynamics, Rebby went to a talk on edible forest gardens. She was definitely convinced by what that man was saying and has a lot of ideas to incorporate in our garden once we officially get the deed to the land. I can't wait!
We opted out of the PASA awards banquet and instead headed off on our own for dinner to Otto's Pub and Brewery for dinner and some local brew. By the most magical of coincidences, my old Albuquerque roomie Sean was there having dinner with his family! Also magically, his parents are the owners of the restaurant. What?!? I totally picked it based on the fact that we wanted some local beer and local food. In chatting with Sean, we uncovered the fact that his college buddy Jeff designed the menu at Otto's, at the Autoport, and the original menu at the Quiet Storm back before I was involved. And, he is currently in the kitchen at the Penn Stater where the conference was being held. I couldn't make this stuff up. Anyhow, we had an awesome talk with Sean and some incredible food and beer. I drank the Schwarzbier at the restaurant with my steak frites and local mushroom and cheddar puff pastry appetizer, and then we brought home a couple bottles of Jolly Roger Imperial Stout. Holy moly is it good. Rebby had a brisket sandwich and a Red Mo which she then brought home a bottle of as well. Amazingly good times.
We made it back to the hotel before it got too snowy and turned in early.

What I Learned

2010-02-07T08:40:00.000-08:00

So, we made it back from the PASA conference yesterday despite SNOWMAGEDDEON 2010.
I just have to say that even though State College and surrounding areas got almost 2 feet of snow, all the roads were completely clear all the way to Cranberry. Granted we were mostly on highways, but even the little roads through tiny farming communities on the way to I-80 were absolutely clear. Once we hit the "big city", it was like no efforts had been made whatsoever. That's all I'm gonna say about that. Except that despite the harsh weather and the fact that we were completely unable to get the truck anywhere near our street once we got home (we had to hike in with our bags, and then rebby took the truck over to Melwood and got dropped off by a friend)Rebby is getting on a plane to Atlanta in fifteen minutes. I on the other hand am stewing a chicken, making bread and pizza dough, making saurkraut, taking down the Christmas decorations, and writing to you.
I don't really know where to start. I think that the PASA conference was a game changer for me, and it isn't even all about the workshops or speeches. Just being around all those farmers who care about the earth and the future was inspiring in a way I can't really describe. Walking down the hallways past people selling seeds and tools, past Amish farmers and Mennonite women, past other urban squatters like us. I learned about a new Food Studies program at Chatham, and got a big bottle of liquid fish emulsion for free from a nice guy who got really excited about our future farm.
There were a lot of people there, and there were plenty of times when it seemed overwhelming. For the most part though, everyone was friendly and we met and talked with and learned about people doing similar and very different things with the land.
We ate amazing local foods, and got to bring home some lacto-fermented ginger carrots and daikon in a glass jar, and sprouted spelt pita chips with black bean hummus, and roasted tamari almonds and chocolate covered raisins, and perhaps the best cheese I have ever tasted (or at least it seemed like it at the time) from an Amish man who conveyed his love for his cows and dedication to making the world better wordlessly as he handed me a sample. I picked up an obscene number of seed catalogs (especially for someone who has already received two seed orders!) and we got a pile of informational booklets from the cooperative extension and others. We bought some books too---CheeseMaking and Chicken Keeping and Country Skills. I've got a lot of reading to do.
Our first day at the conference was an all day food preservation seminar, broken up into four parts. The first part was all about canning, and the woman who delivered the talk was so down to earth and excited about it that she really took away my last vestige of fear. We are gonna can the hell out of this garden next year, lemme tell ya! Next up was freezing and drying, with which we were largely familiar. Except this woman takes drying to a whole other level by making her own soup mixes and drying refried beans! Cool. She showed a very simple solar drying rack that rebby could build in an afternoon. She advocated the use of silpats, which thanks to Juli I now have two of, for drying herbs and fruit leathers and other small or liquidy items. Woo! I am excited.
The woman giving this part of the presentation as well as the next (on lacto-fermentaion) is a hard core Price-er, so some of what she was saying got slightly cult-y. I am generally pretty aligned with what they believe but I get a little creeped out by the way their eyes get when they are talking about bone broths and raw milk. Anyway, the next part of the talk after lunch was about lacto fermentation and we are already totally on board with that. I am a saurkraut master, though I haven't made any in a while (I'm changing that today!) I was pretty excited about her super easy instructions for making yogurt using raw milk and a thermos, though. I might try that today too. She shared with us some ferments she had done including a pineapple chutney and a ketchup which were interesting ideas. It got kind of awkward when she insisted that since it was a "hands on" workshop people had to come up and make saurkraut and salsa and chutney even though she had left behind some of the ingredients and most of the audience was clearly losing focus. Plus, it was wicked hot in that room. But we survived, and then came the session about curing meats. Justin Severino was supposed to give the talk but couldn't make it, so a really awesome young farmer named Brooks put it together and laid down some serious knowledge. He and his wife and son have a farm with a meat CSA, and they cure mostly pork but also some beef products. He made simple meat curing sound just as easy as the gravlax I made twice last year---and really it's the same thing. Meat, salt, spices, and time. I can't wait to give it a try!
The last session of the day was our old friend Don Kretschmann talking about root cellaring. He shared some really useful ideas and information, including the fact that most things (root vegetables, at least) do best with high moisture. I was convinced of the opposite! So basically we can put our root vegetables in the little room at the bottom of the storm cellar stairs and we should be fine. Crazy. We do still want to fix up the storage room at the front of the house under the porch at some point, though. It's got shelving in there already and (I think) a dirt floor which is apparently best for regulating humidity. He also suggested burying your roots in layers of dry leaves. Wow. It was all so exciting and applicable!
After all that learning we had an amazing local foods dinner and then we were pretty exhausted, so we went back to the hotel rather than staying for the band. A pretty sound sleep and then it was day two, featuring a keynote by Michael Reynolds. My Hero.

My Secret Shame

2010-01-26T05:03:00.000-08:00

Oh, the humanity.
I've made changes in my lifestyle to the point where I rarely buy food products. I do buy canned tomatoes and beans, Mideast coucous, all manner of condiments, and the occasional Trader Joe's flight of fancy. Rebby likes breakfast cereal a lot, so we buy that too, sometimes. For the most part, though, I deal in whole foods. (lower case) I accomplish this largely by staying out of places where food products are sold (namely the middle aisles of grocery stores)
On Saturday, though, I found myself in a Dollar General in McKeesport. We were there in pursuit of Orange hand cleaner. It would have been very easy for me to a)stay in the truck or b)follow Rebby through the store with blinders on, but instead I followed the siren song of the food products aisle. And there, my friends, was perhaps my ultimate nemesis: Underwood Chicken Spread. One Dollar Per Can.
The experience of opening a can of Underwood Chicken Spread is exactly like opening a can of Fancy Feast cat food. It probably IS the same. The label basically insinuates chicken parts (only white meat though!) mixed with fat and seasonings and, oh, you know CORN SYRUP SOLIDS. This is everything I think is wrong with food in America today. Christ, it even has a DEVIL on the label just in case you weren't sure.
But.
I. Can't. Stop.
There was a summer when I was living alone in Greenfield in an apartment designed for four people. I had moved to Pittsburgh from Ohio for college, and was just getting myself sorted out. I worked at Roy Rogers in the Cathedral of Learning basement in the daytime, but I spent a LOT of time alone. And started to go slightly batty.
The most obvious manifestations of the battiness were talking out loud to myself all the time, and adopting a very peculiar diet. I would go to the grocery store and buy the following items:
Underwood Chicken Spread
Generic Cream Cheese
Peppridge Farms Dijon Rye Bread
Generic BBQ Fritos
Fresca
Then I would eat the chicken and cream cheese sandwiches, BBQ fritos and fresca for every meal (not counting the ones I had at work, and thank the good lord I spent a lot of time at the salad bar) until one element was used up. Bizarre, yes? And why would I want to revisit this battiness in such a Proustian manner? I can't tell you.
All I can tell you is I scooped up all four cans of Underwood Chicken Spread for One Dollar they had on those shelves and I am eating two chicken spread and cream cheese sandwiches for breakfast. And I feel great.
To redeem myself later, I will be making beef stock and a tuna casserole for Rebby's dinner. And going for a snowy shopping trip to the Strip.

2010-01-22T06:27:00.000-08:00

Yesterday was my birthday. I turned 43. I've never been one to worry about age too much but I gotta say, my bones are getting WEARY. I took this not necessarily flattering photo in the morning (after coffee but not before trying to deal with the massive cowlick I've developed recently)in an effort to be honest about where I am at this point in my life. I am almost entirely HAPPY. But I am not really HEALTHY, and that has to change. As a birthday present from the gods, I got an email the day before about the new gym opening up three blocks from my house having an introductory special absurdly low membership fee. So I sent in my email. I'm on my way.
I think the key to getting myself in a better place this year is going to be yoga. At various points in my life I have been more or less into yoga and any time I am, I notice an almost immediate 200% improvement in the way I feel. Considering my job involves pretty much 10 hours of standing in one place moving my hands and arms, I figure I could use some limbering up in other areas. So I've got potential yoga dates lined up for the new year. And I'm also really going to take advantage of all that FIOS ON DEMAND has to offer in the fitness selection. And also---those bellydance workout DVDs I bought two years ago and watched from the comfort of my couch. I'll be rolling with those too. This all sounds very ambitious but I think I will make a sincere effort this year because I HAVE to. I feel more like a grown up this year than ever before and with that comes a certain amount of responsibility for my physical upkeep.
OK, stern words done with. My birthday was a beautiful, sunny day which I spent almost entirely by myself. I did a lot of reading both on the internet and in book form (Farm City which my friend Lisa loaned me sometime in the summer---another resolution has to be to make more time for reading because I have a huge stack of books and magazines I REALLY want to get to!) and then I got a call from my gal telling me that Richie Havens is playing at the Carnegie in Oakland on Saturday night and she wants to take me for my birthday. Woo! My love for Richie is so deep and profound and plus he shares my birthday so it's like we're spiritual twins. I went to see him once at Rosebud after finding out that afternoon that he was playing. It was one of the best evenings of my life, and I'm sure this one will be the same. I am totally given to hyperbole when describing my love for musicians and singers but you gotta believe me, Richie Havens has some kind of special power to instantly make me feel better about the world. His voice is soothing in a way that few other things are. Love.
I also had a little bit of frustrating email communication with the hotel we are staying at for the PASA conference coming up the first weekend of February. (I should talk about the PASA conference a little bit. I will, in a different post. This is already getting long winded.) I had made an email inquiry, and the response was to call for a reservation. So I did, and then I received a call telling me to call for a reservation. So I sent another email to confirm that my reservation was on the books, and they sent an email saying my reservation was on the books for thurs, fri, and sat feb 3rd, 4th, and 5th. So I sent another email saying thank you, but lets be clear that we are coming wed, thurs, and fri, feb 3rd, 4th, and 5th. And they replied that was correct. Unfortunately in the meantime I read some internet reviews of the place which cited more than one reservation screw up, so I was (and am) a little worried. I am not too concerned that the place got negative reviews, because I have learned from personal experience that people who post negative reviews normally have some kind of axe to grind. And plus, we're only going to be sleeping there, not hanging out. I'll post my own review once we return.
Anyhoo, the original plan for the evening was to go to Legume, which I have been wanting to check out forever. Unfortunately, even when Rebby is local her schedule is completely unreliable, so I was not too hopeful about making a reservation for a night when she was working in Aliquippa. So after she called to say things were not going according to plan (surprise!) I decided we would go to La Casa instead. Its close, doesn't require a reservation, consistently awesome, and has a bar. Problem solved. I made myself a tuna salad sandwich and got an Edmund Fitzgerald Porter and settled in to watch Julie and Julia on demand.
The movie is cute--Meryl Streep did a great job as Julia and Stanley Tucci was awesome as Paul. I found the Julie/Eric story to be completely true to the book, and as with the book, I was way more sympathetic to Eric than I was to Julie (and for this reason I don't think I am going to be able to read her next book....)
My favorite moment of the movie, though, came in the opening sequence when Julia and Paul are having dinner in France for the first time. Julia's reaction to her first bite of pan fried fish---her inability to articulate, her rush to share, the gamut of emotion that plays across her face as she savors it---it was absolutely perfect. That one moment conveyed what Julia Child was about more completely than really anything else in the entire film. And it conveyed my relationship to cooking and enjoying food better than any of the shows I've seen on the Food Network. (oh, that's a post for another day!) That moment made me really happy, and felt like a blessing on my birthday.
Rebby got home right around 6pm, and we got changed and drove over to Ellsworth (which we affectionately refer to as "little P-town") to Casa. I was a little surprised that there was only one other couple there, and more than a little disappointed that our favorite drag queen waiter Jamar was not working. Nadia was fantastic, though--she remembered us (or maybe she just says that to all the girls?) and treated us warmly, and flirtatiously, without being intrusive. It's a gorgeous little space inside and once you get some sangria in you it is impossible not to feel romantic. We ordered the charcuterie--serrano ham, dried chorizo, and little cornichons with delicious fresh baked bread and balsamic reduction for dipping; and a salad with hazelnuts, goat cheese and rosemary croutons, and a delicious savory balsamic dressing to start. The menu has changed a lot since the last time we were there---its really moving more toward Moroccan flavors and away from traditional Spanish, which is an ok thing for me. For our second round we had the amazing Patatas bravas, and tuna and salmon ceviche. I wouldn't really call it ceviche--more like tartare, I think---but man was it good. The tuna was done with a deep smoky sesame oil, and the salmon with capers and parsley and vinegar. So good. There were at least three other things on the menu I really wanted (can I really go to a tapas restaurant and not get shrimp in garlic? I guess I can!) but we were both stuffed. We moved on to profiteroles and Six Grapes Porto thanks to Nadia's suggestion. Luckily we were just finishing up our meal when a couple of dudes came in to sit at the bar and talk loudly about their problems...that was our cue to get out. We vowed to go to the liquor store this weekend and stock up on spanish wine and get some port for home. :)
Today I get another day off! And this evening I'm getting taken to Embury by my BFF. Birthday 2010 continues!

Haiti

2010-01-14T13:12:00.000-08:00

I, like most people I know, feel helpless.
It's hard to look on facebook and see people talking about mundane stuff when such an enormous tragedy is going on.
But look I have, all day long. Argh.
I happened quite by accident and out of character to be folding laundry with BBC International news on the TV on Tuesday evening when I found out about it. I almost didn't think it was real, especially when I turned over to local news programs and saw that there was little to no coverage. So back to the BBC I went.
Facebook has actually been a source of much encouragement, though---videos from the president, friends posting links for donations, and then this afternoon, a message from earthship biotecture that they are getting a team together to go and build new housing.
That coupled with the comments (people literally all over the world offering to go and help them!) made me cry a little bit.
For every twisted Pat Robertson saying shameful things in the name of Jesus, there are hundreds of Michael Reynolds doing work that actually brings to life what he taught.
Gives me some hope.

Warning!

2010-01-05T09:32:00.001-08:00

If you click on the picture in the previous post, it will be ENORMOUS.
Be ready to get very hungry. :)

New Year's Breakfast

2010-01-05T09:29:00.001-08:00

It wasn't actually New Year's day---it was the day that Rebby and I celebrated New Years Day. Eggs, bacon, fried mashed potatoes, the best biscuits I've made to date, and bacon gravy. Scandinavian Morning Blend coffee and fresh squeezed tangerine juice.
A good start to the new year!

From the Desk of Russell Brand

2009-12-24T10:48:00.000-08:00

"And in 33 years you're going to? Nail him to a what!? But we get chocolate eggs for that. I see. Where's my hammer I'll do it now."

Genius.

beautiful, ridiculous genius.

2009-12-22T12:35:00.000-08:00

The Finish Line

2009-12-22T06:55:00.001-08:00

Today is my last day off before Christmas (well, I guess I do have Christmas Eve day too...which I will most likely spend wrapping presents and maybe making some scotch eggs to take to dad's place) and I am trying to make the most of it.
I got up at 6am thinking I would go in to work anyway to make sure things were running smoothly, but then after I shook off the sleep I said "F that!" and changed gears.
It was so slow yesterday that by the time I left the boys in the kitchen were ACTUALLY CLEANING THINGS. So today should be easy and they don't need me. Hopefully they'll clean some more things.
Instead I decided to make truffles at 7:30am. I had not had enough coffee to think to take pictures of the process, but really it's so simple that you can totally visualize. In fact, it's so simple that I can write down the recipe from memory:
8oz chocolate (chopped--I used 61% dark from Mon Amiee Chocolat) put it in a metal bowl
2T unsalted butter (put it in the bowl with the chocolate)
3/4c heavy cream (heat it to just barely bubbling in a heavy pan)
Pour the hot cream over the chocolate. Wait a few minutes and then whisk it to melt.
That's it! Then comes the fun part...deciding what flavors to put in.
I went out to the parlor and grabbed a bunch of liquor bottles. (oh--procedural note: I made 2x the recipe, and divided each batch into three, so I had six different small bowls of ganache) I ended up doing 1)cognac 2)bacon! 3)peppermint 4)cointreau 5)goldschlager 6)baileys. Now they need to firm up in the frige, and then I get to roll it into little balls and coat them in stuff. I have some things planned (cocoa for the cognac ones; raw sugar for the bacon; crushed candy canes for the peppermint; crushed red hots for the goldschlager) So I have to made a decision still on the baileys and the cointreau. I might just see if I can get some candied orange peel at the fancy market on Walnut street today for the cointreau ones, and then just do the baileys ones in powdered sugar. We'll see.
So yeah, today's adventure will be a trip to Walnut street to finish up the shopping. I am pretty certain I can get all the rest of the things I want to get there, and I am pretty sure I can do it without visiting any of the chain stores on Walnut street. I really only go to Walnut Street at Christmastime, and I get kind of a kick out of only shopping in the local stores. Might be tempted by Sephora though.
Aside from the shopping and then truffles, I plan to bake another batch of Cherry Bombs and get my holiday letter and cards done. Then when Rebby gets home we'll wrap presents and put up the tree and drink a ton of Pennsylvania Dutch Eggnog. I bought a big handle jug of it for $14.99 yesterday. Bliss.

Small Batch Artisanal Tortilla Chips

2009-12-20T10:26:00.000-08:00

Turns out kick off isn't till 4:15pm today (I thought it was at 1) so we've got a couple more pre game hours to get some things done. Rebby is shoveling the steps, and I decided to make these, to go with some chile cheese dip and the rest of the chili I made yesterday. Football food.
This process is a huge pain in the ass, let me be clear....but the results are so worth it. I don't know if you've ever had a tortilla chip fried in lard (I think most restaurants have switched to vegetable oil) but it's a completely different experience from "healthy" oil fried chips. And miles away from even the best thing you would get out of a bag.
I started by thawing out about 30 corn tortillas in the microwave. I keep big bags of tortillas from Reynas in the Strip in the freezer and peel off a stack when I need them. They thaw in the micro in about 2 minutes.
Then I melted some lard in my cast iron mini cauldron. It would certainly be less of a pain in the ass to use a larger pot, but I didn't want to go through too much lard at one time. That stuff is semi solid gold around here. That being said, it is probably wasteful of me to use my fine leaf lard for frying---I should really save it for pastry and render down some of the back fat I have in the freezer for frying. That will be next week's project.
Anyhow, While the lard was melting and the tortillas thawing, I turned on the exhaust fan and set our big kitchen king floor fan in the hallway. This is crucial because despite the fact that we have a (kinda lame) exhaust hood, just about any frying will set off the smoke alarm on the second floor. It drives me insane. But I've figured out that if I have the fan blowing into the kitchen it keeps the smoke from getting out of the room. Some day I'll have a ceiling fan in the kitchen and then hopefully it will be a non issue.
So, the arena is set. I snipped the tortillas into triangles with kitchen scissors:

and then scooped 4-5 at a time into the very hot fat. It is at this point that I always remember the nice big mesh skimmer I have actually is in the restaurant kitchen, not the home kitchen, and curse myself yet again. This happens more than I care to admit---thinking I have a tool in one place when it actually lives in a different place. So, I have to use a slotted spoon to fish them out.

The slotted spoon method is pretty wasteful because invariably a decent amount of fat ends up on the stove or the paper towels in transport. I need to remember to get me one of those skimmer things.
The chips fry for about 40 seconds---just till they start to get some color. They'll get darker as they cool. Skim them out and transfer to paper towels to drain slightly.
Then I toss them in a big bowl and sprinkle salt over every third or fourth batch.

The whole thing actually took me less than half an hour though it seemed like an eternity. Still, worth every second.

Sunday Sunday

2009-12-20T07:51:00.000-08:00

Rebby made it home at about 8am this morning. She is not sure how long they were stuck on the road (at least 4 hours before she passed out) but she ended up driving the last leg of the trip from Breezewood starting at about 5am. I can't even imagine what it must have been like to be stuck in snow on the road with no where to go and no idea how long you would be there. I have to not think too much about it because I get all kinds of claustrophobic. She's got some funny pee stories, at least, including one where her two bosses (both dudes) had to hold a blanket out so she could pee at the side of the van (after a rather tragic attempt to pee in a vitamin water bottle.) I'm relieved to have her home and safe and made biscuits and gravy to celebrate. Now she's chillin on the couch watching a BIO about Ron Howard. I'm cleaning up the cookie arena and getting ready to start wrapping presents!
We're gonna watch the Steelers game(pirates don't abandon a sinking ship!) and put up the tree and eat some chili and enjoy the beautiful snow from safe inside our warm house.
Starting to feel like happy holidays at last!

Ginger Snap Mountain

2009-12-19T18:28:00.001-08:00

These Dudes

2009-12-19T18:26:00.000-08:00

Salty Oat Cookies with Chocolate Chips, and Cherry Bombs.

Toffee Bars

2009-12-19T12:02:00.000-08:00

This is a recipe I got out of an old old Better Homes and Gardens Cookbook.
It's similar to this but instead of spreading the batter in an 8 inch pan, I was instructed to pat it into the bottom of a 15x10 inch jellyroll pan. I was very incredulous but man oh man--this is almost more candy than cookie. So good.

Back to the Cookies

2009-12-19T11:59:00.001-08:00

Here's my first major cookie fail:

My rosemary shortbread cookies were just TOO BUTTERY and spread together. I managed to salvage the last pan but this pan and the second one are probably going to break into crumbs when I try to take them off the pans. Oh well. Still incredibly yummy!

Getting Snowed In Chili

2009-12-19T09:02:00.000-08:00

We interrupt this cookie baking madness for the following chili recipe:

Butternut Squash Chili
1T vegetable oil
1 lb lean ground beef (or substitute soysage for vegetarian, or leave it out!)
2 onions finely chopped
4 cloves garlic minced
1T cumin seeds toasted and ground (or just use already ground cumin!)
2t dried oregano
1t salt
1/2t black pepper
1 cinnamon stick (or 2t ground cinnamon, but the cinnamon stick gives it a nice flavor)
1 28oz can diced tomatoes in juice
3 cups cubed butternut squash (peeled, one inch cubes)
2 cups canned kidney beans rinsed and drained
2 dried new mexico, ancho or guajillo chilies
2 cups boiling water
1/2 cup coarsely chopped cilantro

In a large skillet, heat oil over medium high heat. Add beef and onions and cook stirring until beef is no longer pink, about 5 minutes. Add garlic, cumin, oregano, salt, pepper and cinnamon stick and cook for 1 minute. Add diced tomatoes with juice and bring to a boil.
Place squash and beans in a 5 quart slow cooker and cover with sauce. Cover and cook on high 3 to 4 hours or low 6 to 8 hours, until squash is tender.
Half an hour before its done, soak dried chiles in boiling water for 30 minutes in a heatproof bowl. Drain, reserving 1/2 cup of the soaking liquid. Discard stems and chop the chiles coarsely. Add to slow cooker with cilantro and stir well. Cover and cook on high 30 more minutes until hot and bubbly.

I'm not following the recipe exactly today cuz I don't have all the ingredients and I certainly am not going shopping! It looks like we've got at least 4 inches already and it's still coming down! But as my journalism mentor Mrs Bigglestone told me: you have to know the rules to break them. I've made this recipe at least 4 times and it's consistently delicious. Try it!

Here goes:
First, we cut up some squash. I have a bunch in storage from the garden---butternuts which grew by themselves out of compost (score!) and sunshine kabocha squash which have developed REALLY hard skins over the last couple months. This is good news for long term storage, but bad news for my knives.

Here you can see the dark orange of the sunshine squash and the paler golden orange of the butternut. Orange vegetables are super good for you! Beta Carotene, baby.
Gather all the other ingredients:

I started with a couple tablespoons of olive oil in the dutch oven, then added the onions to wilt. Meanwhile, I thawed a pound of grassfed ground beef from Harmony Hill Farms in Evans City. Grassfed beef is a lot less fatty than factory beef so the extra oil is helpful. Plus, you don't need to drain anything off!

So I'm not normally a recipe person---I like to read them, but I rarely cook from them. As I said I've actually followed this recipe several times, and one thing I learned from it is to add the garlic AFTER the onions are nice and sweated. My years of vegetarian cooking conditioned me to add onions and garlic at the same time, and invariably the garlic would get crispy before the onions were nicely done. Now I follow this method and the burnt garlic is a thing of the past!
Anyway, while the beef browned, I toasted all of my spices together in a cast iron pan. Instead of using whole spices I used ground cumin, cinnamon, oregano and chimayo chile powder. This is a major deviation from the recipe in several steps but hey, I wanted this to come together quick and easy!

In goes the toasted spice mixture, and the squash and plenty of salt.

Then, drained and rinsed kidney beans, fire roasted diced tomatoes, and one tomato can worth of water.

You know about the tomato can of water, right? This is a frugal depression era grandma thing. Instead of ever measuring water for chili or soup or anything really with tomatoes, you just fill up the can. That way you don't miss any of the delicious tomato sauce from the sides. Plus, you've rinsed your can for recycling without wasting any water! I guarantee that just about any recipe you are adding canned tomatoes to you will be adding an equal amount of water.
So now it's just going to simmer on the stove for an hour or so. I'm doing it on the stove because there are way too many things on the counter from cookie production to drag out the crock pot (and because I am hungry NOW and didn't plan ahead for 5 hours of slow cooking!) but I can vouch for the crock pot method. I'll follow up later.
Oh! Let me just add that if you are shopping for ingredients for this chili, the cilantro really does take it over the top (unless of course you are a cilantro hater. I know you're out there. ;) I really need to plant some in a window so I have it available for chili making over the winter.
Once the squash is tender and everything is all blendy, I am going to serve this to myself with some sour cream and buttered tortillas. I can't wait.

Bizcochitos

2009-12-16T14:33:00.001-08:00

I made my bizcochitos star shaped because I was listening to Adam Glambert at the time, but I realized while I was dusting them with cinnamon sugar that if I had been listening to Mercyful Fate instead they could totally be pentagrams. You can see goathead in these, right?

Chocolate Love

2009-12-16T13:05:00.000-08:00

Chocolate Crinkle Cookies from a Hershey Cookbook.
I added chimayo chile powder and used Ghiradelli ground chocolate instead of Hersheys.
They are shatteringly crisp and incredibly delicious. The spice is very subtle and compliments the chocolate perfectly. Win!

It Begins

2009-12-16T09:45:00.001-08:00

I did a naughty thing....

2009-12-16T08:55:00.000-08:00

So, I'm in the midst of a Christmas cookie baking frenzy. Last night I mixed up dough for Chimayo Chile Chocolate Crinkle Cookies, (I used that recipe but added in some chile powder and substituted Ghiradelli ground chocolate for the Hersheys cuz I am a big pimp) Bizcochitos,(I resisted the urge to use lard and went with butter, but I was super psyched about the brandy!) and Salty Oat Cookies with Chocolate Chips(instead of cranberries. again, pimp.) Those are all chilling in the fridge to be baked today. Then I baked some Lemon Basil Cookies, but used actual flour and stuff instead of cake mix. And dried blueberries instead of coconut and nuts. And fresh basil instead of dried. They spread more than I would have liked, but are still delicious. I also baked a New Orleans Fruitcake in my new IKEA long skinny bread pan. I love that thing. I had bought a container of glace fruits for the fruitcake and then planned to use up all the bits of dried fruit I had in the pantry to round it out. (no nuts!) Turns out lots of my dried fruit in the pantry had evidence of grain moth visitation, so it's a bit less fruity than the recipe calls for. I managed to get some dates and figs and cranberries in there, though. Then after two hours in the oven I poured about a pint of Captain Morgan over it and wrapped it up in wax paper. Oh yes. I plan to unwrap it and pour some more over today. Can't be too rummy if you ask me.
This morning I got something of a bacon bee in my bonnet. As in, I wanted to make some chocolate covered bacon, but not a whole pound of it. So there's a bunch of bacon left over. What to do? I could just eat it, but since this year's Christmas baking theme at Cafe Mayflower is Salty and Sweet, I decided to put it in a cookie. I also needed to find something that would not be ruined with white whole wheat flour instead of white pastry flour, and dark brown sugar instead of regular sugar (cuz I am running low on both and it's still too cold to go out in the world for supplies)
I searched and found this Martha recipe. Basically, I took what was already a very sexy cookie and made it sexier with the addition of bacon, and earthier with the substitution of whole wheat flour and brown sugar. If I am not careful, I will seriously eat all of these before I start packing my cookie boxes. Right now I have them hidden across the room in a cake holder but I know when I stand up to get the laundry out of the dryer they are going to call to me. Martha give me strength!

welcome to the newness!

2009-12-16T08:32:00.000-08:00

So since the advent of facebook, I haven't been blogging. At all. And while on the one hand it has been somewhat freeing, on the other hand I kinda miss the opportunity to be long winded and self absorbed. And I have to admit that I have a hard time remembering what I did last week without a handy internet based record of my every move. Or at least the important ones.
However, I feel a bit like I am such a different person, with such different obsessions, from the person who started the blog, that I need to make a new start.
So here I am. This blog will hopefully focus mostly on cooking and gardening, with some home improvement thrown in (if all goes according to plan.) I am sure I will be unable to keep myself from gushing about Adam Lambert or posting cute pictures of my nephews and nieces, but I'm gonna make an effort to be focused and disciplined.
Ready to give it a shot?