Fessenden Farmstead

The seeds have arrived

2012-01-28T15:20:00.000-08:00

Today, Sean and I went to the Manassas National Battlefield Park and spent several hours walking the trail around the sites of the First Battle of Manassas (there was a second battle but that part of the park was on the other side). We have a book on hikes around DC/VA/MD and we are trying to be more active on the weekends. What does this have to do with seeds? I was commenting on the way home how this time of year was very calm. Normally, I am always thinking "I should be out in the garden" - either in my yard or vegetable garden. This time of year there is nothing to do but plan for the Spring. Although this year, the winter has been so mild, a couple of weeks ago I spent the day weeding the front yard. The Bittercress is taking over the front yard and back lawn. Luckily the roots are shallow and it's very easy to pull up in the wet soil.

Bittercress

Yesterday, I received in the mail a booklet called "Plant Invaders in the District of Columbia" put out by the Urban Gardening and Forestry Outreach Cooperative Extension Service - part of the University of the District of Columbia. Who knew such a group existed?! I had no idea. I will have to explore this group more thoroughly. The booklet lists 14 of the most common invasive plants of the city. I think most of them are growing in my next door neighbor's yard (the rental house next to me). Every summer it's a struggle to keep the honeysuckle, ivy and porcelain berry from taking over my yard from the neighbor's yard.

I have ordered some seeds and they have arrived. I didn't order too many this year because there are lots of seeds leftover from last year. My gardening neighbor and I go in together on seeds plus the local nursery was having a sale in Dec - 50% off seeds. So I didn't need to order too many this year. I get almost all my seeds and potatoes, garlic, sweet potatoes and shallots from Territorial Seeds in Oregon. I've used them for years and have been very happy.

I am going to try something new this year. I ordered cucumbers and zucchini that are especially bred for containers. I will try this in the front yard and see how it goes.

The end of Feb, I will start the tomato and pepper seeds and if this weather keeps up being warm, I should be able to start planting lettuce and greens the beginning of March.

Dark Days Challenge - Fussy Grits

2012-01-16T09:48:00.000-08:00

Sean went to NC for Christmas and came back with blue corn grits from Anson Mills. They are based in South Carolina but he found them at a farmer's type market in Charlotte. Since it was only a plastic bag of grits, we looked at the company's website for directions on how to cook them. I was a little put off by the statement that greets you

"Bottom line: Our products won't work with standard recipes. Standard recipes won't work with our products."

Well ok. The ingredient list starts out with this heading "Equipment Mise en Place" and requires spring or filtered water to cook these grits.

I'm thinking, these better be some damn good grits since they are also supposed to be soaked over night.

Drained after soaking in tap water. Don't tell anyone I used city water

These grits took an hour and 1/2 or so to cook. The recipe called for making it like risotto - cook them in some water but gradually add hot water in ladlefuls as it thickened. Top with lots and lots of butter. I also made some scrambled eggs - eggs from farmer's market, milk from the dairy and dried herbs from my own garden. Threw in some pork cracklings from last week's lard making.

These grits were good but way too fussy

Dark Days Challenge - I forget what week

2012-01-09T06:31:00.000-08:00

I've lost track of what week I am doing with the Dark Days Challenge. The organizers have come up with some mini challenges that I will try to tackle in the coming weeks. For now, the meal this week was a simple recipe of Buttermilk Blueberry muffins.

Emma and I love muffins - Brian's vow is to never let anything that isn't plain bread or 1 of 2 varieties of cookies to ever pass his lips. "you can't make me eat that slice of pie mom" or "I just don't like cooked fruit" - ok, honey here is your hunk of stale bread and some water to wash it down.

I found the recipe off the web but it's a simple dry mixture with eggs, buttermilk and melted butter.

Blueberries picked last summer at Butler's Orchard

Flour from Byrd Mill, buttermilk and butter from South Mountain Creamery, eggs from Farmer's Market.

They were delicious!

Making Lard

2012-01-01T13:11:00.000-08:00

Last year, when I ordered my side of pig, Farmer Allan asked me if I wanted the fat. I declined and when Sean and my friend Katherine said "what, you didn't want the fat" I knew I had made a mistake.

This year, I said yes indeed give me the fat. I thought it was going to come as lard but as Allan told me, it's not cost effective for the butcher to make lard. So what I got was a bag of frozen fat. Today I decided to try and make lard. It didn't look hard. I took the fat out of the freezer a couple of days ago.

Bag o fat

Cut into chunks

Put into Dutch Oven. Bake at 250 for several hours until mostly melted and bits of fat are brown

Take out all bits of brown fat. I put them back into a pot and melted again on top of the stove. Strain out fat again.

Lard - in process. Needs to cool and solidfy

And the brown fat bits? Called Cracklings and I can't stop eating them. Delicious

The final result

Dark Days Challenge - Week 5

2011-12-29T05:36:00.000-08:00

It's been so warm here that if this keeps up, I will start planting the spring garden in February. This is crazy. We need some below freezing weather to at least kill the nasty pests. It's time to start eating from the pantry and freezer. The local meal today was a throw together of what was in the fridge for breakfast.

I have a few eggs left from the farmer's market - they are not here this week and not sure I can last until next Sat with only 3 eggs before I buy Safeway brand. I scrambled the eggs with cream from the dairy and threw in chopped leftover bacon from my heritage hog. I had one Bosc pear leftover from the farmer's market and I sauteed it in dairy butter. Yum

Dark Days Challenge - Week 4

2011-12-23T15:18:00.000-08:00

The problem with trying to come up with meals that are purely local is that most of my meals have some local component to it everyday. Last night, Aunty Tess and Bea came over and the meal was totally local but I didn't want that to count since we had roast chicken - a repeat of week 1 I think. Roast chicken from the farmer's market, scalloped potatoes (potatoes from market, milk and cream from my local dairy), glazed carrots (from market) and sauteed spinach with garlic (market and my garden).

Earlier this week, I did make a lovely soup. Pears and carrots from the New Morning Farm market, parsnips from my garden and the last of the ginger from Farmer Allan.

Delicious although Mr Gourmet commented that I shouldn't use pear next time because the texture was grainy. Huh? He wouldn't have even noticed if I hadn't told him.

This is the same child that called me yesterday to say "mom, I'm making bread, where's the dough hook?"

Dark Days Challenge, Week 3

2011-12-12T17:29:00.000-08:00

Lentil Vegetable Soup

Almost all local

Ingredients:

Bacon grease - saved from the bacon from the Tamworth Hog I got last year
Onion - farmer's market
Carrots - farmer's market

Parsnips - my garden

Kale - farmer's market
Garlic - my garden
Canned tomatoes - my garden, preserved this summer.

Delicious Soup

Lentils - not local. In fact, where do lentils come from? This had me thinking. I have never seen lentils in any of my seed catalogs - where are they grown?

I spent some time while I was at the reference desk today researching lentils. They are in fact grown in the United States but primarily in Western Washington, Idaho, Montana and North Dakota. Apparently, the US exports about 70% of their crop. To whom? And where do we get our lentils then?

The US government is a wealth of information. The biggest importer of US lentils is India. The biggest exporter to the US and in fact, to anywhere in the world is Canada. We get our lentils from Canada and Turkey as well as several other countries.

There is a US Dry Pea, Lentil and Chickpea Council. Who knew?

There is also a Northern Crops Institute. What's interesting is that California has lost all of its lentil growers in the past 20 years, Washington and Idaho have also lost 1/2 of their growers while North Dakota has created a lentil industry. So did the farmers all move to ND? Why the change in locale over the years?

I went to the grocery store today and picked up a bag of store brand brown lentils. There was no information on where they were grown, only that they were distributed by a company in NH. I'm almost tempted to get the contact information of the distributor to ask where the lentils are grown. I'm fascinated by this lentil story.

Dark Days Challenge, Week 2

2011-12-05T16:45:00.000-08:00

Yesterday I made a list of possible Dark Days meal - parsnip leek soup, ham and potato gratin, roast chicken. Roast chicken it is.

There is a lovely little farmer's market right near my house that goes through the winter. It's called New Morning Farm and keeps me supplied with all the root vegetables I need. Currently there are still parsnips in the ground in my garden and all the sweet potatoes are in the basement. Otherwise, I need to buy at the market. Sean and I went on Saturday and bought potatoes, carrots, broccoli, an organic chicken, tat soi, apples, eggs.

This week's meal was roast chicken with roasted potatoes and steamed broccoli.

I butterflied the chicken and then made a rub of butter (from my dairy, South Mountain Creamery and dried thyme from my herb garden). I took the back and neck and simmered it for some minutes and then used the broth for the bottom of the pan. Roast at 400 for 45 min or so.

Chicken is from Lancaster County, PA

A nice pair of poultry shears makes it very easy to butterfly

Potatoes tossed with olive oil and more thyme. The broccoli was steamed and I cheated a little by putting some chopped preserved lemon on it. I did make the preserved lemons myself but the lemons are not from anywhere near DC

Rainchain with recycled materials

2011-12-03T15:04:00.000-08:00

Today, Sean and I went to Community Forklift to look for stuff. The glass in the storm window for the cold frame broke so I though we could just buy a new window. Who knew that all storm windows are not the same size. We were unable to find one with the measurements we needed so abandoned that idea for just stapling plastic over the current window.

Sean LOVES this place. A warehouse full of recycled building materials. I wish I was more handy because the website has lovely pictures of projects that customers made and I can't image tiling a patio, making a wrought iron fence or building a room with this stuff.

I can, however, do small projects. Last year for Christmas, I received this cool book from John, my kids' dad. The Revolutionary Yardscape by Matthew Levesque

The author is a landscaper and has created cool projects for his own house, using found/recycled materials. He has a few rainchains and I thought I could definitely do that. Last year we made a trip to Community Forklift and I bought these gaskets (at least that is what I think they are). Cost for them = $8.50

They've sat on the back porch all summer - it was time to create something. So today, I found some clamps that I thought would work. 9 clamps for $1.45 - not a bad deal.

It only took a few minutes to put together, Sean hauled the ladder out of the garage and Viola - a lovely rainchain. I hope it works.

Dark Days Challenge, Week 1

2011-12-01T17:18:00.001-08:00

A couple of years ago, I participated in the Dark Days Challenge and had a lot of fun doing it. Last year it started but the women in charge was overwhelmed and the challenge fizzled. This year it is back with more groups involved in organizing it. The idea is to eat one meal a week that is SOLE - Sustainable, Organic, Local and Ethical. Not really a problem for me since the freezer is full of local, organic vegetables and meat. The meal this week is pork from my CSA (I don't remember what breed this year), salad from my garden and pickled collard greens, from the local farmer's market.

Arugula from my garden. This year I tried a tip from a fellow gardener. I let my arugula go to seed this summer and more regrew. This stuff is good but potent.

Lettuce, mustard greens, mizuna from my garden. Also lettuce from Richard's garden - his plot is near mine and he offered me some.

Pork chop with fig jam, salad and jar of pickled collard greens. I bought 1/2 hog this year from farmer Allan. Raised on his farm. The fig jam I made last year with figs from the community garden. Salad from my garden. I was in Charleston, SC recently and tried pickled collards at a farmer's market so I decided to try and make themself. I bought the collards at a local farmer's market in the Palisades area of DC and soaked them in hot water and covered with a spicy brine.

The greens are delicious

Chop and figs

2011-11-27T12:34:00.001-08:00

This weekend was glorious. The last days of November and I think today made it to 70 degrees. It was time to put the house garden and vegetable garden to bed. Yesterday I worked in the yard and did the last of the winter pruning, weeding, tidying up, spreading leaves in the beds. Today I spent the morning at the vegetable garden raking the oak leaves to the street corner, weeding my bed and snipping arugula and lettuce from my gardening neighbor Richard (he said I could have some). I finished cleaning the porch at home of all gardening utensils and such. On my way home from my veg garden, I stopped at a neighbor's to take some free canna bulbs. They are now nestled in moss in the basement. I've never planted them so look forward to trying it next year. Here is what is left in bloom in the yard.

Japanese Anemone puffballs

Rosebud - there are lots of rosebuds on a particular plant

Lavender stalk

Oakleaf hydrangea flowers

Hellebores - the first to bloom in Feb and March

2011-11-13T18:40:00.001-08:00

It was a beautiful weekend so the kids and I did some yardwork - raking leaves for the compost and cutting back most of the perennials. Full disclosure: the kids were being paid for their work although I told them they were off the clock when their dad stopped by to chat and when the neighbor stopped to chat!

Here are a few things that are still in bloom or have lovely fall foliage.

Kouza Dogwood

Beautyberry

a new plant - Amsonia - blue flowers

Asters

The stems from the Guara plant

The last remaining Blanket Flower

A blurry flower on the rosemary

Dark Days Challenge

2011-11-09T06:09:00.000-08:00

I have been taking a break from blogging because I just couldn't face logging on to the computer every night and thinking of things to say.

Now that the Dark Days Challenge is back, that will get me motivated to start writing again

Hurricane preparations

2011-08-27T15:22:00.000-07:00

Guest blogging from the hurricane bunker today - Sean.
When the flood waters come, we'll need food and shelter. So we got a start on the food. Actually Brian got a start last night and had a Dutch Baby for dinner. Weird.

Stacey started the day by making tomato jam which may not be too good on toast because it's more of a thick ketchup.

Then we moved on to pizza dough for dinner tonight. The dough sits and rises for six hours at room temperature.

With pizza, we need roasted peppers.

Stacey dried basil.

And used the rest of the tomatoes to make tomato sauce. This is being canned as we speak.

The only thing left is to make sure our fluids stay topped off. Got that covered too.

How goes eating from the fridge?

2011-07-20T17:49:00.000-07:00

Pretty darn well

Day 3 - Monday
Cereal for breakfast - finished the raisin bran
Ate lunch out with a friend
Dinner - greens with garlic, salad, zucchini sauteed with tomatoes and leftover chicken curry. All vegetables were in fridge.

Day 4 - Tuesday
Scrambled eggs with chopped tomatoes
Lunch - leftover curry and zucchini
Dinner - more greens sauteed with garlic and sausage, mixed with pasta. Tomato and mozzarella salad.

Sean and I went to Costco Tuesday night. Hoo boy, I spent the most ever - stocking up on dry goods and food for the freezer.

Also tonight I took a couple pounds of green beans and blanched them and froze them. Grated the big zucchini and froze that.

Day 5 - Wed
Breakfast croissants from Costco, with homemade jam. Peach smoothie
Lunch - leftovers from fridge
Dinner - out with Sean and friend Patricia

Tonight I took a chicken that had been defrosted and boiled it up for a couple of hours. Strained out broth - tomorrow I will make chicken and dumplings

Stopped by the garden today with my friend Patricia and picked a few things.

Tomatoes!

Day 2 of beanie vacation

2011-07-17T14:24:00.000-07:00

Last night Sean and I went to a lovely 50th birthday dinner party. That meant no eating from the pantry although I did bring some garden vegetables to the hostess.

I have a long to-do list that mostly focuses on yard work while the kids are away. Sean and I went out to Homestead Farms to pick peaches and blackberries. Before we left, I made scrambled eggs with chopped tomatoes and chives and parsley plus some of the heritage pig sausage.

Blackberries - these will be frozen

Peaches - still hard but when ripe, I will freeze these too

Once back from picking peaches, we took a look at the worm compost. There is quite a bit of lovely compost but it's pretty wet and hard to sift out. There didn't seem a good way to separate out the little red worms from the compost so I added food in one corner and prepared another layer of bedding for the 2nd tier. Let's see if that will do the trick to separate the worms from their poop.

After that, it was two hours weeding and pruning in the front yard. It's supposed to get to 100 degrees later in the week so I'm going to hurry up and get the yard done in the next few days.

Lunch was leftover macaroni and cheese plus some lovely fuschia colored beet buttermilk soup.

I also made a batch of dill cucumber chips and used up all the cucumbers to date in the house. While doing the dishes, I stupidly put a glass baking pan atop other pans in the dishrack and yes, it fell and broke over all the kitchen floor - I reached out my hand to try and stop it and in return cut the joint between thumb and first finger. I think I will have a hard time typing tomorrow.

Beets - ready for the freezer

Dill cucumber pickles

Garden Harvest this week - July 16

2011-07-16T15:26:00.000-07:00

The vegetable garden needed some TLC so Sean and I spent 3 hours there this morning. He staked the tomatoes (they were staked but are heavy with fruit and many branches had fallen over) and I weeded my little flower garden. Then I tackled weeding the vegetable garden. Sean picked the edamame and decided he didn't like picking. So he watered and I picked the everything else that was ready.

The harvest! From lower left: red potatoes, edamame, zucchini, carrots, parsley, beets, shallots and onions, tomatoes and kolrahbi on the far right.

What to do with all this? The potatoes I stored. The zucchini and kolrahbi went into the fridge. The onions and shallots will stay outside to dry. The carrots were washed and stored. The beans and beets were also washed. I boiled the beets, skinned and vacuum sealed. I blanched some of the beans and froze on a tray. They will also be vacuum sealed. The parsley is being dehydrated. The edamame was boiled and then shelled and frozen. No wonder I'm tired.

Fresh Edamame. This is the first time I've grown it and it's a big success. This vegetable will be back next year.

Ready to be frozen

I weighed all the cucumbers and found there is enough for a batch of dill pickles with some cukes leftover. Tomorrow I'll make the dills but in the meantime, I made a batch of refrigerator pickles. Layer sliced cukes with chives, rosemary and sage. Boil cider vinegar and salt and then add cold water. Pour over cuke mixture.

Last week I pulled up all the garlic. These heads were a little squishy so I decided to roast them. I'll then squeeze them out and freeze the garlic paste. The rest of the garlic is in storage in basement

Tomorrow we are going to pick peaches so that means more preserving.

Day one of the Beanies vacation

2011-07-16T14:52:00.000-07:00

The Beanies left today on vacation and my to-do list is long while they are away. Tackling all the food in the refrigerator is top of the list. I decided that while they were away, I would only eat what is in my fridge/freezer and pantry. Sort of clean out before it's stocked again with the spoils of my garden. Going to the farmer's market doesn't count however as the peaches are ripe and delicious.

So for breakfast this morning I made waffles with all ingredients at hand. Beanie two used up the last of the maple syrup (on the list to buy when we are in Maine next month) so I heated up a little vanilla rhubarb jam with a little cranberry juice to make a sauce. Delicious.

Beanie One with her naan and smoothie

Waffles. This maker is over 20 years old - got as a gift many many years ago. The leg is broken, hence being propped up with cutting board.

Sean had his waffles with strawberry jam

Beanie two being difficult about having his picture taken

My waffles with rhubarb jam

Sean and I went to the garden today to weed, water and tidy up. For lunch, I dragged out lots of stuff from the fridge

Tomato, cherries, zucchini pickles, dilly beans, cheese

Potatoes and green beans already cooked. I dressed with lemon vinaigrette

Our sandwiches! tomatoes, cheddar cheese, lettuce, zucchini pickles and mustard

Musings on being green

2011-06-23T12:47:00.000-07:00

Sean thinks I'm crazy but what else is new?

I've read a couple of new books lately - the best thing about working in a library and especially an academic library is a service called Inter Library Loan. I can request pretty much any book I want and the fabulous people in ILL will find a library to loan it out. The times I can't get a book are usually the times that Emma has ordered a brand new book and only a few libraries own it. If we wait a few months, then we can get it.

Whenever I see a reference to a book in whatever it is I'm looking at, it takes only a minute to log on to the library's catalog and request it. So, I read this book

The urban homestead : your guide to self-sufficient living in the heart of the city /

Just to see if I was missing something. Nope, doing most of it and don't have the money to do the rest. I like to get new ideas though. From this book, I requested two more that is the reason Sean calls me crazy.

Create an oasis with greywater :choosing, building, and using greywater systems, includes branched drains

This is what I really want to do. Somehow create a system at my house to capture the kitchen sink, bathtub and washing machine water. There's a website too! So I just need to find a plumber who specializes in grey water capture, ignore the rules and regulation of the DC government and find the money to retro fit the house. In the meantime, I save the dishpan water and pour it out into the garden.

Then there was this book

The humanure handbook : a guide to composting human manure

This is what put Sean over the edge. Yes, we are talking composting toilets. I want one of these too. I think my kids would kick me out of the house too.

On the other hand, the low flow toilet? Love it. Except when it clogs, as it did the other evening. Thanks to my son who shall remain nameless. The solution was to pour some dishwashing liquid down the toilet and follow with boiling water. Worked like a charm.

What's in bloom for June 20, 2011

2011-06-19T18:38:00.000-07:00

Lots of things in bloom this week.

Russian Sage

Daylily - Sabra Salina

Agastache - Apricot Sunset

Coneflower

Lily

Butterfly weed - lots and lots of it

Bee balm

Ornamental grass with Blanket flower

Last Week'sCSA

2011-06-19T18:06:00.000-07:00

I'm a little late in describing last week's CSA. I picked it up on Tuesday and the rest of the week, Sean and I went out every night. That never happens, it just so happened we had events all week. So I didn't actually see what I had gotten until Saturday

In this week's bag was lettuce, Japanese White "salad" turnips, Spring Onions
Cabbage Greens, purple "new" Gourmet Potatoes and "Green Garlic"

I boiled up and fried the potatoes for breakfast before I was able to take a picture of them. I also used up the spring onions too - diced them and sauteed with black beans. Had this with scrambled eggs for breakfast with the fried potatoes.

There are radishes, greens, eggs, and turnips. I haven't used any of these yet but I will have a salad tomorrow with the lettuce, radishes and turnips.

These are beans from my garden. I made shrimp, pea and fava bean risotto for dinner and had the beans steamed with butter.

Risotto!

Garden Harvest this week - June 10

2011-06-14T05:57:00.000-07:00

Purple Kohlrabi! this is delicious, just peeled and sliced thin and eaten raw in salads

This is the dinner I made with layered potatoes, chard, chopped ham and fontina cheese. Bake until potatoes are done. Cut into slices. Chard from the garden

Chard, Ham, Cheese

Side dish of sauteed garlic scapes and fava beans - both from garden

Lots and lots of lettuce

Scapes from my garlic!

Favas - this is about it, I didn't plant that many and only a few pods grow on each plant.

What the garden looks like today

2011-06-11T19:51:00.000-07:00

I finally remembered to take the camera to the garden. My neighbor Edouard is away for the month so I am watering for two. Went out early this morning to water and pick a couple of things. The peas are ready to be pulled - I think I will just plant more green beans.

Beans in forefront, potatoes in upper right

Garlic with dill

Spent peas on left, tomatoes in back, squash to right

A new kind of bean for me this year - red! These should be ready in a couple of days

Kohlrabi - delicious, raw and sliced in salads.

Radish flowers. I let them go to seed because I think the flowers are so pretty

Sweet potatoes

Fava beans

Edaname - first try for these, there are flowers so I hope there will be soybeans

Preserving the harvest

2011-06-11T18:10:00.000-07:00

The snow peas this year were crazy. I planted too many of those and not enough of the regular shelling peas. The peas are done now, the plants will need to be pulled out pretty soon. Not sure what to plant in their place.

Snow peas - lots and lots of them

Blanched and ready to be frozen

Frozen first, then vacuumed sealed

Had the last batch of arugula from my garden (it's now gone to seed. I'm letting it go to seed with the hope that it will reseed and grow in the fall. I'm trying the same thing with the spinach). This is pesto made with the arugula.

Shelling peas. Right to the freezer

Fava beans!

Fruit picking

2011-06-08T12:03:00.000-07:00

Last week, Sean, the kids and I went fruit picking. The kids weren't too keen but I twisted their arm. We went to Homestead Farms for strawberries and sour cherries. With four people, the picking goes fast.

I think we ended up picking close to 20lbs of strawberries and maybe 10 lbs of sour cherries. The first thing I did was to clean several trays of berries and freeze them - once frozen, pop into bags. Emma likes them in her smoothies so this will last for the year. The next task was to make a batch of jam.

My helper

The beanies, picking cherries

Sean can reach the high branches

Cherries

More cherries

Strawberries

Mashing the berries

The jam!

For the rest of the strawberries, I made a mousse with pureed berries and whipped cream. Then I pureed up the rest of the berries with sugar, water and mint and froze in ice cube trays. Been having strawberry daiquiris!

For the cherries, I pitted them all and froze them. My colleague gave me a recipe for a chocolate cherry snack cake that I will try this weekend.

First CSA share

2011-06-07T18:32:00.000-07:00

I'm exhausted already just thinking about my garden and the CSA and what to do with everything. My first delivery of the season was today. A bag of vegetables plus eggs - thank goodness I share all this with my friend Kathryn, who also has a plot in my community garden. I'm going to try and blog every week about what I do with the vegetables in the share. This is the 4th or 5th season of getting a CSA from Fresh and Local, a farm in Shepherdstown, WV. To be known in future posts as Farmer Allan. All my chicken and pork also comes from Allan. Today I discussed with him how to tell if the fava beans are ready. He told me his field of Favas look wonderful so I can't wait.

here is what was in my bag today

Broccoli and eggs

From left to right: spring onions, turnips, lettuce, garlic scapes

Greens of some sort

What to do for dinner? I asked Brian to come into the kitchen and figure it out with me. I laid out everything on the counter, took a look in the fridge and put out some suggestions. Brian settled on a frittata with broccoli on the side. In the frittata, he asked if we could each have a section and I said of course. So my section had sauteed garlic scapes and cheddar cheese while he put chopped chicken and cheese in the section for him and Emma. Brian then got to work and pretty much made the whole frittata himself except for putting the pan under the broiler.

Scapes being sauteed. These are so delicious.

The master chef at work

This is a side dish for me. I picked chard from my garden on Sunday so there are more garlic scapes in here, plus chard and salt and pepper.

Dinner! Frittata with garlic scapes and cheese, broccoli and chard.

What's blooming May 29 2011

2011-05-29T18:21:00.000-07:00

Sean took a look at my camera today and readjusted it. No more dark background. It was hot today and will be even hotter tomorrow. Weeded the front yard today and then sat on the porch to enjoy the garden. Tomorrow we are going strawberry picking. Last week I had a fun time giving an interview for American University's newspaper - all about being a locavore.

Clematis

Dianthus

Bachelor's Button

Catmint

Pink Dianthus

Butterfly weed - about to burst forth

Rose Campion

Blanket Flowerm with Coneflower in the lower left corner and Hibiscus in the back

Gaura with red yarrow

Flower of a stonecrop

Clematis with rose

Thyme

View from the porch, left side

View from the porch, right side

The garden harvest

2011-05-26T17:54:00.000-07:00

Today it topped 90 degrees. The spinach and arugula are done and starting to go to seed. I had a chat with my gardening neighbor Marina and she gave me some tips on letting the greens go to seed and spreading the seeds around for fall sprouting. I will give it all a try.

In the meantime, only one broccoli plant of the 8 or so I planted survived and I cut the head today. The snowpeas are coming in like crazy - I will freeze a batch this weekend. Everything else is coming up very well - I planted the sweet potatoes last week and they have started to look normal now that the weather is hot. I will try to remember to take the camera to the garden this weekend and take pictures. In the meantime, you can see a shot of my plot in this story.

I stir fried the snowpeas, broccoli and tofu with black bean sauce - delicious.

The snowpeas

The one head of broccoli

Kale from a rogue plant that self seeded

Lettuce. My gardening neighbor Marina has a huge patch of the red lettuce - all that self seeded from last year. The red here is from that patch. I traded her snowpeas for lettuce.

Update on Brian's blanket

2011-05-16T18:19:00.000-07:00

My son is a pain - nag nag nag, mommy when will you finish my blanket? Sheesh, you think 150 squares will make themselves?!

I'm kidding of course but I did take a bit of a break there for awhile. Thank goodness for double header softball games, I can get a lot of crocheting done in those 4 hours.

15 rows of 10 squares in each row. 5 rows down, 10 to go. 30 min to make a square - I should be done by the time it snows again.

Row 5, ready to be attached

A riot of color

What's blooming May 15 2011

2011-05-15T08:26:00.000-07:00

The yellows are starting to bloom. Too bad I don't remember what these plants are! It's also May Garden Blooming Day

Iris

Peony. I need Emma to show me how to use my camera - this was taken seconds after the iris picture

More Iris

I have no idea what this is. It's a bulb. There's also purpley/pink ones. Any ideas?

Clematis, growing with the roses. Too bad I broke off the whole vine on the other clematis, growing on the other rose bush.

Daisies. I thought they were white when I bought them, turns out they are pink

Stone crop sedum

Blurry poppies

Vanilla Rhubarb Jam - wow!

2011-05-14T13:26:00.000-07:00

The rhubarb is ready and I am came across this recipe a few months ago. The Food in Jars blog has been a wonderful inspiration for all things canning. If only I was so ambitious. Today turned out to be a dreary raining day so what else to do but make jam.

Sugar with rhubarb and a tea bag. Tea bag? The recipe called for 1 cup of Earl Grey tea (or water) and I only had Irish Breakfast. My Irish children will thank me. The sugar has 1/2 cup of vanilla sugar mixed in.

Mix the rhubarb, tea and sugar in a pot and bring to a boil. Add lemon juice, salt and the insides of a vanilla bean (what to do with the pod? I could put it into more sugar but what else?). Boil for 10 min, add liquid pectin and boil until thick.

Put into jars and process in water bath for 10 min.

This jam is delicious! I'm very impressed with the taste, I just hope it sets up well.

here are a few new blooms in the yard

Poppy. These are growing rampant in my vegetable garden and I can't get it to grow in my yard. This is the lone poppy.

Baptisia. Looks nice with the Peony that is almost ready to flower.

Clemetis. These are really lovely

What's blooming May 10 2011

2011-05-10T14:07:00.000-07:00

Every time I walk outside, there is something new in bloom. This is the best time of year

My cozy nook on the porch

Little Bluestem grass

Knockout Roses

Geranium - Johnson's Blue

Tulips, still hanging on

I love these Clematis

Rock Iris

Bachelor Buttons

Smoke Bush flowers

Azaela

Knockout Rose

Geranium

Coral Bells - I don't know what I did with the camera as it was sunny out!

Harvest and First Batch of Pickles!

2011-05-09T18:23:00.000-07:00

I stopped at the garden on my way home tonight and realized that I now need to go every day or so. The greens are all ready to harvest, the peas and fava beans are in bloom, the radishes are getting big. All my beautiful broccoli has seemed to die except for a couple of plants. Don't know what happened with that but my gardening friend, Edouard has told me I can have his broccoli since he doesn't eat it! It's been so dry lately, it's time to water every day. I planted zucchini today and will probably plant more green beans tomorrow. Still waiting for the sweet potatoes to arrive.

This is lettuce from the cold frame although there is plenty of lettuce to pick in my garden.

Chard. Ate it tonight, sauteed with olive oil and garlic

Rhubarb! I am going to make Vanilla Rhubarb jam but there isn't quite enough here (will pick more tomorrow) and need to buy pectin and a vanilla bean. This will be the project for a night this week.

Beautiful radishes. There are tons of radishes - I plant them along with the carrot seeds - the radishes come up first and break the soil for the carrots. I usually let some of them grow large and flower as it it very pretty and attacts the bugs.

Arugula. Made pesto with it and ate it with penne.

What to do with all those radishes? I tried pickling them. These will just live in the fridge. Rice vineger, a little rice wine, water, ginger, garlic, sesame oil and sugar. Heat and pour over radishes. I hope they are good.

Maryland Sheep and Wool Festival 2011

2011-05-07T19:21:00.000-07:00

Today Sean and I went to the Maryland Sheep and Wool Festival. It was INSANE! There were so many people - mostly librarian types in sensible shoes. Library conferences seem to attract the same type of women as sheep and wool festivals. I say that lovingly of course.

The parking lot. Walking into the Howard County Fairgrounds

I'm ready to meet the sheep

The crowds

The usual fair food. Sean had lamb stew and lamb BBQ. Lots and lots of lamb to eat

This is the sheep shearing demonstration. The guy doing it used a blade (shears) as opposed to a machine. He was from MA and traveled all over the US to ply his trade.

The guy in blue was from South Dakota and was explaining the process.

Shearing the belly

All done

Fluffing out the fleece. This was one piece. It was amazing

Being prepped for show. The guy was blowing drying the sheep's legs!

The crowds

Sheep dog trials. This was a demonstration involving 5 sheep and several dogs.

Bah-ram-u

There were several barns with sheep breeds.

Baby

I have never seen so much wool and yarn in my life. It was overwhelming. Luckily, I'm the type of knitter who only buys yarn with a project in mind. I did end up buying a pattern for socks and some alpaca yarn. There were booths with goats, alpaca and rabbits - but on the perimeter as if they were lesser fibers. Very funny. I also bought some beautiful hand blown glass stitch markers.

I also chatted with a woman who runs a farm in Freeland Maryland She offers a Fiber CSA. It's brilliant and I've decided to sign up for a 6 month membership.

When we entered into the fairgrounds, Sean was teasing me about whether we would see anyone I knew. Well, we were looking at the vendors in one barn and I saw a booth advertising a knitting retreat at Camp Medomak. This is a family camp that the kids and I went to several years ago. We met 4 other families from a working mother's listserv that I have been on forever. I told Sean "I've been to that camp" and then walked over and started chatting with the director. I mentioned that I had been to the camp and who with and mentioned my friend Robin and lo and behold, Mr. Camp Director remembered her!

Sean and I had a very fun day and I'm already looking forward to going back next year.

What's blooming May 6 2011

2011-05-06T04:04:00.000-07:00

I love my garden this time of year. Every day there is something new blooming. This year I started tomato plants indoors and they all did well. That means I have too many so I'm trying to plant some in the front yard. Not too close to the street as I don't want my fellow man to be tempted.

Azaelas - I don't like them, especially in my neighborhood where the plants look like big pompoms in garish colors. I didn't plant this one but it looks right in the back yard.

Lungwort - these are lovely plants, along with the brunnera(notice the toad house, thank you Jennifer for the idea!)

Viburnum. Has recuperated somewhat from the squirrels eating it.

Irises! All the irises in the rest of the yard came from this bunch.

Lovely

Alyssum. An annual that reseeds

Creeping Jenny with Hakonechloa

Hosta

Mazus

Hosta - I used to not like Hostas until I discovered all the beautiful varieties

Knockout Rose

A weed! Star of Bethlehem. Needs to be dug out, it's all over the yard

Baptisia or False Indigo

I guess I like purple plants! Blooming chives

Tomato in front yard

Broccoli in backyard

May Harvest

2011-05-01T16:54:00.000-07:00

Today I went to the garden and planted tomatoes, cucumbers, green beans and chard. The tomatoes I started inside and while they were still little, I decided it was time. Especially since it's going to rain the next few days.

My first salad this weekend

Mint - to be made into mint limeade

Various lettuce and spinach

Variety of radishes

What's blooming April 25

2011-04-25T07:58:00.000-07:00

I've lost the desire to blog! The will is there, the energy is not.

I spent the whole weekend cleaning and weeding the home garden. Sean and I dug out the miscanthus plants from the median strip - they were out of control. I will plant something much tamer and smaller, like catmint. There's not too much else to plant other than the window boxes.

My redbud tree this year is glorious. It makes up for the sad shrub that is my virburnum, valiantly trying to recover from the squirrels eating the buds.

Fothergilla

Grape Hyacinth

Moss phlox

It's April!

2011-04-05T04:06:00.000-07:00

I would blog more often except my daughter, who happens to have her own laptop, prefers to use my computer to do work.

Yesterday I transplanted the spindly tomato plants - not sure how they will do. There were certainly enough of them and I ended up putting some into the cold frame too. Here are some pictures of the various blooming plants around my front and backyard garden.

Spindly tomatoes!

Transplanted into bigger pots. Now resting on the back porch

A cardinal on the garage roof

Lungwort

Another kind of lungwort

Leftover broccoli seedlings - I planted a bunch around the back yard.

Quince, ready to flower

Mahonia berries

The last of the winter leeks, harvested on Saturday. Destined for leek and potato soup tonight

What's Blooming March 27 2011

2011-03-27T14:50:00.000-07:00

There's been a rabbit seen in the backyard for the past week. I've spotted him/her in the neighbor's yard as well and as long as he/she doesn't nibble my emerging plants, it's been fun to watch every afternoon.

Here are some blooms that were taken yesterday. The weather has taken a turn for the worse - it's been cold!

Tulips

Redbud blossoms - I love this tree

Chives

Anenome - I think

From this morning. Woke up to a dusting of snow

Frozen, snowy birdbath - St Fiacre looking on

My first Daring Baker's Challenge - Yeasted Meringue Coffee Cake

2011-03-27T07:11:00.000-07:00

My friend at Mommy's Porch is doing the Daring Cook challenge from the Daring Kitchen - I like to bake so I thought it would be fun to expand my horizons and I joined the challenge. Once a month, the challenge is issued and everyone who has signed up gets to blog about it on a certain date. The March 2011 Daring Baker’s Challenge was hosted by Ria of Ria’s Collection and Jamie of Life’s a Feast. Ria and Jamie challenged The Daring Bakers to bake a yeasted Meringue Coffee Cake.

I asked Sean to help me with this since he is a baker extraordinaire. The recipe made two cakes so we decided to make one with the suggested filling of chocolate and nuts and the other with a filling of sour cherries and chocolate.

It was basically a brioche dough, covered with meringue and then the filling. Roll up, slash and bake.

Beautiful dough

Meringue

Roll out 1/2 the dough, spread with 1/2 the meringue

I defrosted some sour cherries that were picked last summer. Sprinkle with cinnamon sugar, then cherries and chocolate chips

Roll into a ring, cut

2nd one has pecans and chocolate

Dust with powdered sugar

Eat!

This was a delicious coffee cake although it did become stale pretty quickly. Still tasted good if heated in the microwave.

FILLED MERINGUE COFFEE CAKE
Makes 2 round coffee cakes, each approximately 10 inches in diameter
The recipe can easily be halved to make one round coffee cake
Ingredients
For the yeast coffee cake dough:
4 cups (600 g / 1.5 lbs.) flour
¼ cup (55 g / 2 oz.) sugar
¾ teaspoon (5 g / ¼ oz.) salt
1 package (2 ¼ teaspoons / 7 g / less than an ounce) active dried yeast
¾ cup (180 ml / 6 fl. oz.) whole milk
¼ cup (60 ml / 2 fl. oz. water (doesn’t matter what temperature)
½ cup (135 g / 4.75 oz.) unsalted butter at room temperature
2 large eggs at room temperature
10 strands saffron for Ria’s version (Saffron might be hard to find and it’s expensive, so you can substitute with ½ - 1 teaspoon of ground cardamom or ground nutmeg. Or simply leave it plain like Jamie’s version)

For the meringue:
3 large egg whites at room temperature
¼ teaspoon salt
½ teaspoon vanilla
½ cup (110 g / 4 oz.) sugar

For the filling:
Jamie’s version:
1 cup (110 g / 4 oz.) chopped pecans or walnuts
2 Tablespoons (30 g / 1 oz.) granulated sugar
¼ teaspoon ground cinnamon
1 cup (170 g / 6 oz.) semisweet chocolate chips or coarsely chopped chocolate

Ria’s version:
1 cup (130 g / 5 oz.) chopped cashew nuts
2 Tablespoons (30 g / 1 oz.) granulated sugar
½ teaspoon garam masala (You can make it at home – recipe below - or buy from any Asian/Indian grocery store)
1 cup (170g / 6 oz.) semisweet chocolate chips ( I used Ghirardelli)

Egg wash: 1 beaten egg

Cocoa powder (optional) and confectioner’s sugar (powdered/icing sugar) for dusting cakes
**Garam (means “hot”) masala (means “mixture”) is a blend of ground spices and is used in most Indian savory dishes. It is used in limited quantities while cooking vegetables, meats & eggs. There is no “one” recipe for it as every household has a recipe of their own. Below, I am going to share the recipe which I follow.

4 or 5 sticks (25 g) Cinnamon Sticks (break a stick and open the scroll)
3 ½ tablespoons (25 g / less than an ounce) Cloves, whole
100 g. (3.5 oz.) Fennel seeds
4 tablespoons (25 g / less than an ounce) Cumin seeds
1 ½ tablespoons (10 g / less than half an ounce) Peppercorns
25 g (less than half an ounce) Green Cardamom pods
In a small pan on medium heat, roast each spice individually (it hardly takes a minute) until you get a nice aroma. Make sure you stir it throughout so that it doesn’t burn. As soon as each spice is roasted, transfer it to a bowl to cool slightly. Once they are all roasted, grind into a fine powder by using a coffee grinder, or pestle & mortar. Store in an airtight container and use as needed.

Directions:
Prepare the dough:
In a large mixing bowl, combine 1 ½ cups (230 g) of the flour, the sugar, salt and yeast.
In a saucepan, combine the milk, water and butter and heat over medium heat until warm and the butter is just melted. Ria’s version: add the 10 saffron threads to the warmed liquid and allow to steep off of the heat for 10 minutes. This will give the mixture a distinct aroma and flavor and a yellowish-orange hue.

With an electric mixer on low speed, gradually add the warm liquid to the flour/yeast mixture, beating until well blended. Increase mixer speed to medium and beat 2 minutes. Add the eggs and 1 cup (150 g) flour and beat for 2 more minutes.

Using a wooden spoon, stir in enough of the remaining flour to make a dough that holds together. Turn out onto a floured surface (use any of the 1 ½ cups of flour remaining) and knead the dough for 8 to 10 minutes until the dough is soft, smooth, sexy and elastic, keeping the work surface floured and adding extra flour as needed.

Place the dough in a lightly greased (I use vegetable oil) bowl, turning to coat all sides. Cover the bowl with plastic wrap and a kitchen towel and let rise until double in bulk, 45 – 60 minutes. The rising time will depend on the type of yeast you use.
Prepare your filling:In a small bowl, combine the cinnamon and sugar for the filling if using. You can add the chopped nuts to this if you like, but I find it easier to sprinkle on both the nuts and the chocolate separately.

Once the dough has doubled, make the meringue:
In a clean mixing bowl – ideally a plastic or metal bowl so the egg whites adhere to the side (they slip on glass) and you don’t end up with liquid remaining in the bottom – beat the egg whites with the salt, first on low speed for 30 seconds, then increase to high and continue beating until foamy and opaque. Add the vanilla then start adding the ½ cup sugar, a tablespoon at a time as you beat, until very stiff, glossy peaks form.

Assemble the Coffee Cakes:
Line 2 baking/cookie sheets with parchment paper.

Punch down the dough and divide in half. On a lightly floured surface, working one piece of the dough at a time (keep the other half of the dough wrapped in plastic), roll out the dough into a 20 x 10-inch (about 51 x 25 ½ cm) rectangle. Spread half of the meringue evenly over the rectangle up to about 1/2-inch (3/4 cm) from the edges. Sprinkle half of your filling of choice evenly over the meringue (ex: half of the cinnamon-sugar followed by half the chopped nuts and half of the chocolate chips/chopped chocolate).

Now, roll up the dough jellyroll style, from the long side. Pinch the seam closed to seal. Very carefully transfer the filled log to one of the lined cookie sheets, seam side down. Bring the ends of the log around and seal the ends together, forming a ring, tucking one end into the other and pinching to seal.
Using kitchen scissors or a sharp knife (although scissors are easier), make cuts along the outside edge at 1-inch (2 ½ cm) intervals. Make them as shallow or as deep as desired but don’t be afraid to cut deep into the ring.

Repeat with the remaining dough, meringue and fillings.
Cover the 2 coffee cakes with plastic wrap and allow them to rise again for 45 to 60 minutes.
Preheat the oven to 350°F (180°C).
Brush the tops of the coffee cakes with the egg wash. Bake in the preheated oven for 25 to 30 minutes until risen and golden brown. The dough should sound hollow when tapped.

Remove from the oven and slide the parchment paper off the cookie sheets onto the table. Very gently loosen the coffee cakes from the paper with a large spatula and carefully slide the cakes off onto cooling racks. Allow to cool.
Just before serving, dust the tops of the coffee cakes with confectioner’s sugar as well as cocoa powder if using chocolate in the filling. These are best eaten fresh, the same day or the next day.

What's Blooming March 19 2011

2011-03-19T17:12:00.000-07:00

The past couple of days have been gloriously sunny and warmer. Sean came over on Thurs and while he cleaned my bicycle, I did some more cleanup in the front yard. This morning I went to the vegetable garden and continued to tackle sifting and removing rocks from the beds. I can't do it for very long because my back starts to ache - so I weeded the little flower garden and spread the community compost in it. I'll go back tomorrow and pull all the leeks (the first harvest!) and cut some arugula and mustard that wintered over. Also starting the tomato and pepper seeds tomorrow inside the house.

Here is what is blooming in my front yard garden right now

Anise Hyssop

Lamb's Ear

Chives

Peony

Baptisia

Yarrow

Gaura

Sedum

Spring is here

2011-03-12T15:26:00.000-08:00

The sun was out today and the weather warmed up this afternoon. Tomorrow, I'm off to the vegetable garden to transplant my broccoli and direct seed some lettuce and spinach. In the meantime, my home garden is springing to life.

Look closely, what do you see?

There is a clothesline there! My neighbor has put up a clothesline!

Here's the cold frame. Broccoli in the back, spinach on the left, lettuce throughout.

Spinach

Broccoli

Hellebores

Viburnum bud

Daffodil

Sedum

Quince

Lungwort

Hydrangea bud

Mazus (groundcover)

Lamb's Ear

Winter Jasmine

Lavender that didn't make it. I've had it with lavender, it dies, I replant, it dies. Going to be replaced with Anise Hyssop

Rhubarb Grapefruit Marmalade

2011-03-04T18:08:00.000-08:00

Gardening season has begun. Last week, I planted peas, snow peas and fava beans. This weekend I will try to get to the garden to put in lettuce, spinach and other greens. The greens that were sown in my cold frame in Feb are sprouting and I'm crossing my fingers that the broccoli seeds I transplanted there will take. This all means it's time to take stock of what is in the freezer and make plans to use it all up.

There is a nice blog called Food in Jars that chronicles the world of canning. A couple of weeks ago, this recipe was featured from another Blog called laundry etc. It's for Rhubarb Grapefruit Marmalade and since I have rhubarb in the freezer and grapefruit in the fridge, this was a good candidate to make. Sean kept making faces since he doesn't like rhubarb but he agreed to try a taste.

I won't retype the recipe since it's at the link above but basically you take chopped rhubarb and pour copious amounts of sugar over it. Put some crushed cardamon pods in cheesecloth and push into the mixture. I didn't have enough pods so I sprinkled some ground cardamon over the mess. Let sit overnight. Take 3 grapefruits and zest the skin. Cut in half and squeeze out juice. Take grapefruit shells and put in cheesecloth, add to juice and zest. Simmer for 2 hours. Squeeze out juice from cheesecloth. Then combine juice, zest and rhubarb mixture and boil until candy thermometer reaches 220. Ladle into jars and process.

I've never made marmalade so I hope it comes out well.

Rhubarb steeping in sugar

Grapefruit peels

Boiling peels and zest

Cooked peels

Grapefruit juice

Rhubarb the next day

Cooking the whole mixture

Marmalade!

Seedlings and worms

2011-02-21T18:17:00.000-08:00

I tried starting broccoli seeds this year - inside and outside in the cold frame. I also planted lettuce and spinach in the cold frame. The broccoli from inside the house has sprouted although it's pretty leggy. The one goal I had for today was to replant the broccoli in a bigger pot but alas, I did not get to it. The plants in the cold frame have also sprouted. I'm going to try and plant tomatoes, peppers, cukes, squash and flowers in mid-March too. We'll see how it goes.

My worms have arrived! I was going on and on about the worms and Sean exclaimed he was going to have to learn as much about worms as I did about professional cycling - and since I think I'm fairly knowledgeable about cycling these days, he has a lot of catching up to do.

A friend at work is a biology professor and in a passing conversation with him, he mentioned he tried vermicomposting and that it didn't work. I asked him about it and learned he had a Can o Worms system he was willing to give away. The contraption is now sitting in my basement and the worms came this week. I consulted my book "Worms Eat my Garbage" by Mary Appelhof for how to set up the wormbed. I shredded some newspapers and moistened them and put the whole mess on the bottom tray of the system. Then dumped the worms and dirt onto the newspapers. In an hour, I checked on the worms and they had all moved to inside the paper. Over the next couple of days I have been putting kitchen waste into the tray above the worms. The idea is the worms will migrate up to the tray above, leaving worm castings below.

Worms!

Cold frame seeds

Broccoli seeds

Bumbleberry Pie

2011-02-20T18:37:00.000-08:00

I don't do pie. I have a love/hate relationship with the crust. All my life, my mother was the expert pie baker. She taught me everything I know about cooking and baking and yet, I could never really master pie crust. Oh, I can make one and it's edible but I have angst. When I met Sean and discovered he was a pie baker extraordinaire. my angst increased. Emma says Sean and my mother need to have a pie bake-off with her being the judge. Because, of course, Brian does not eat pie. Or cake. Or any other kind of dessert expect vanilla ice cream and the occasional chocolate chip cookie. "you can't make me eat that piece of pie mommy". Ok honey, you don't have to eat that piece of pie. More for your sister.

Years ago I read a very nice little book about pie. Humble Pie, Musings on What Lies Beneath the Crust. The author, Anne Dimock, writes about how pie has been part of her life from the day she was born. She writes about New Englanders loving pie for breakfast (of course, that and baked beans). She writes about no matter what is going on in her life, there will always be pie.

Every summer, when we go to Maine, Emma and my mom make Blueberry Pie. Sometimes Bumbleberry pie. The berries in Bumbleberry are blueberries, raspberries and blackberries. The recipe comes from the King Arthur Baking Book.

Emma loves pie. Emma was also sick with a cold this weekend and I had the ingredients for the pie in the freezer. So I decided to make it. It came out pretty good and high praise from Emma when she said the crust was flaky. I'll bring Sean a piece tomorrow and get the ultimate opinion.

I used blueberries (picked from Butler's Orchard), Blackberries (picked from the community garden), Sour Cherries (picked from Homestead Farms) and Peaches (Farmer Allan). The pie is pretty tasty.

Fruit, with sugar, lemon juice and tapioca, ready to be cooked and thickened.

In the bottom crust

Top crust added

Yum, Bumbleberry Pie

What's blooming in February

2011-02-20T17:52:00.000-08:00

The weather was very warm for a couple of days and I noticed some blooms in the garden. Spring is soon to be here!

Someone was messing with my camera - I didn't realize it was on some funky setting until later. This is the first bloom of winter jasmine.

Some sort of cocoon, hanging from the winter jasmine stalk

Hellebores - also the first plants to bloom

My gorgeous orchid. This is best blooming since I've owned this plant

This week's cookbook

2011-02-15T17:20:00.000-08:00

I read a lot of cooking magazines and have a lot of cookbooks but meal planning is not something I do that often. Usually I just open the fridge and try to figure out what to make every night. During the summer it's easier since I come home with fresh vegetables every other day.

Tonight, I took out some fish fillets and then grabbed the cookbook The Six O'Clock Scramble. My friend Sherry gave this to me a number of years ago because her friend is the author. There is also a newsletter the Scramble

I used the Quick Tilapia with lemon, garlic and capers. Saute some chopped garlic in olive oil, add fish fillets. Salt and pepper to taste. Cook for 4 min, turn and season. Add a glug of lemon juice with a sprinkle of capers and cook for another 4 minutes. I served this with Israeli couscous and steamed carrots with butter. Very easy and tasty.

A new challenge!

2011-02-07T13:04:00.000-08:00

I think the Dark Days Challenge has died as there hasn't been any postings on the site since I think week 4 and we are now in week 11. So time for a new challenge! my friend Lynn, over at Mommy Porch found a couple of new challenges. While Sean has ordered the charcouterie book, I'm not so interested in that challenge. I did sign up to be a daring baker, at the Daring Kitchen site.

A secret recipe every month! Woo hoo!

Let the 2011 gardening season begin!

2011-02-06T17:25:00.000-08:00

Our last frost date in DC is usually mid-April. The time to plant broccoli transplants is mid-March. This year, I thought I would try and start seeds myself. So, if I was going to stick to the timeline for broccoli, this was the weekend to start.

Years ago, I bought this pot maker thingy from gardener's supply so today I unearthed it and made a few newspaper pots. I have a whole seed starting kit in the garage but that is more appropriate for the tomatoes and peppers.

I also took my friend Kathryn's advice and planted some broccoli seeds in the cold frame - also put some lettuce and spinach in the cold frame too.

Broccoli in paper pots. This is now sitting on top of the radiator, in the south facing window.

Cold frame, being prepped with more soil.

Seeds planted

Between my friend Edouard and myself, we really have almost all the seeds we need for the season. I still want to order a few more from Territorial Seeds and Seed Savers Exchange.

The robins were going crazy in the backyard today. Most of the snow has melted and in the fall, I raked most of the leaves under the viburnum. The robins love this leaf cover and go wild flinging leaves left and right. I also saw a male cardinal and a hairy woodpecker. A great day for viewing the yard.

The history of my granola recipe

2011-02-03T12:10:00.000-08:00

My granola recipe is dedicated to Jackrabbit Johannsen. Who? He's the man accredited with introducing cross-country skiing to Canada. He was also the grandfather of my friend and roommate in college, Chris.

How did I possible come by a recipe dedicated to this person. It's a long story!

I went to college at McGill University in Montreal. At the end of my second year in school, I was planning on moving off campus and was lining up people to live with. My friend Julie said yes and she suggested another woman who lived in her dorm, Rachel. Over the summer, Julie decided not to return to school so Rachel (who I barely knew) and I ended up living together, in an apartment not far from campus.

It was the perfect match! She was calm, easy going and loved to cook. How could we not be compatible. We spent a lot of time that year cooking as I had recently become a vegetarian and Rachel and I loved to procrastinate by baking bread. Although, we discovered that making bagels was really not worth it, given we lived in Montreal, home of fabulous bagels. I had a friend Pete, who would go out jogging and leave a bag of bagels on our doorknob (I found out later that he was trying to woo me with bagels but I was a little dense about that).

Anyway, Rachel and I decided we wanted to keep living together our senior year but we added another friend Beth to the mix. Beth decided that it was time to move out of Molson Hall (yes, you got that right) and asked if she could move in with us. We said yes and I had planned on going up to the city over the summer to find us a place to live. During out conversation about the living arrangements, I had asked Rachel if she wanted her boyfriend Chris to move in with us too and she said no. Well, during the summer, she called me and asked ever so nicely if Chris could indeed move in with us. (I have lots more stories about Beth - she is one of my best friends and we had many adventures over the years, before we were married and were traveling together. Ask me about the toe-sucking Moroccan on the train from Barcelona to Madrid)

So the four of us found a lovely apartment that was near St. Lawrence Street. As luck would have it, our other good friend Melissa lived around the corner from us on St. Louis Square. The five of us spent the year eating, laughing and hanging out a lot.

Kneeling: Stacey. Left to Right in back: Melissa, Beth, Chris and Rachel.

What does this all have to do with granola you ask? Chris grew up in Mont Tremblant so for that year, we all spent quite a bit of time visiting his parents there. One weekend we all went up to chop and split their wood. We did a lot of cross country skiing and hiking. I had my first experience with being in a sauna naked and then running out into the snow as Chris had a sauna in his house! Chris's mother was Norwegian and the daughter of Jackrabbit. She would cook LOTS of food for us when we would go up to visit and for breakfast, she would serve this wonderful granola. I asked for the recipe and she pulled out this community cookbook and showed me the recipe and how it was dedicated to her father. I don't remember much of the story but I don't think the recipe author actually knew Jackrabbit, only that the recipe had been developed in honor of someone who loved the outdoors. My recipe is now on a fading piece of paper that is 27 years old. That is ok, since I know it by heart.

As an aside, I bought a picture book years ago for my daughter and lo and behold, the dedication was to Jackrabbit Johannsen. The title is Race of the Birkebeiners by Lise Lunge-Larsen. This is a wonderful story and the illustrations are lovely.

oh, and Chris and Rachel were married a couple of years after we graduated and now have 4 lovely children and live in Seattle. Beth is married with two beautiful girls and lives in London.

Crunchy Granola

5 cups rolled oats

1 cup sesame seeds

1 cup sunflower seeds

1 cup wheat germ

1 cup powdered milk

1 cup vegetable oil

1 cup honey

1 cup coconut

1 cup raisins

1 cup nuts

Mix dry ingredients (first 5) and add oil. Mix well. Bake at 300 for 45 min, stirring every 15 min. Take out of oven and add honey and the rest of the ingredients. Bake for another 15 min. This makes a very sticky granola.

The only modification over the years is to cut back on the oil and honey. I use 1/2 to 3/4 cup of oil and honey. I usually use pepitos instead of sunflower and I add all sorts of dried fruit instead of raisins. I also don't measure the coconut, fruit and nuts but just put in handfuls of the stuff I want.

What to cook when there's no power?

2011-01-30T11:34:00.000-08:00

DC had a snowstorm on Wed. Lucky for me, I only live 1 mile from work. The Federal government let out workers 2 hours early on Wed and the local universities followed suit. I didn't actually leave work until 4pm and then stopped to get gas but was home by 5. Some of my poor colleagues were stuck for hours on the highway, trying to get home. Sean and I were just hanging out, looking outside as the heavy snow came fast and furious. The lights flickered, the power went on and off for about an hour and then poof, no power for good.

I have a gas stove and gas heat. Guess what? you need electricity to start the gas stove and the thermostat is electric. I couldn't do anything about the heat but I was able to gather candles and matches and light the stove with the matches.

What to eat when there's very little food that's not frozen? Risotto.

I belong to the food related listserv. In fact, joining it, 15 years ago was my first foray into learning about the internet. Several years ago, the members of the listserv published a cookbook called CyberFeasts and Foodstocks. A Foodstock is a gathering of people from the list and over years I have attended many foodstocks.

A second cookbook was published this year

and is dedicated to a member, Bob Pastorio, who died a few years ago. Bob was a big presence in the group and everyone still misses him today. He was generous with his time and advice and opinions on just about everything.

So, when I thought I would make risotto, I turned to Second Helpings because the first chapter is dedicated to The Pastorio Fundamentals and there is a basic recipe for risotto with variations.

So, I stood by the stove and lit each burner needed with matches. I cooked by lantern light. Risotto is very easy to make - melt butter and oil, saute minced shallots. Add rice, stir for a couple of minutes to coat rice. In the meantime, have hot chicken stock ready. Spend the next 25 min, adding ladlefuls of stock to pan. Stir until stock is absorbed, add more. I added a cup of frozen peas with the last ladle of stock. The variation I used was to diced up some asiago and mozzarella and put into a cup with some heated cream. When all the stock was used up, I added the cheese and cream and stir until cheese is melted.

This was delicious and we ate by candlelight in the living room. The rest of the evening, Sean and I perched flashlights on our shoulders and read our books. There was still no power the next morning when we left to walk to work but by the time we came home, the power had returned.

I did think of my friend Gwendolyn who has spent the last 6 months going without electric light and blogging about the experience. I figured she wouldn't even know if her power was off or not!

Dark Days Challenge 2010-2011 - Week 9

2011-01-29T14:02:00.000-08:00

This week's local meal for the Dark Days Challenge is blueberry buttermilk pancakes.

The recipe is from a wonderful cookbook (this can be my next cookbook post too!) called The Breakfast Book by Marion Cunningham. I've had this book for over 20 years and it shows. It's already been repaired once and now the pages are falling out again. Do I buy a new copy or just stick with this old one? I had actually bought this cookbook for an old boyfriend about 25 years ago - and somehow it ended up back with me.

There are many recipes I use in this book but for sure, it is my source for pancakes and waffles. It has the easiest buttermilk pancake recipe.

1 cup buttermilk
1 egg
3 tablespoons melted butter
3/4 cup flour
1/2 tsp salt
1 tsp baking soda.

Mix dry ingredients, then add buttermilk, egg and melted butter. Mix until everything is moist.

Now, I used 1/2 cup flour and 1/4 cup cornmeal. Then added blueberries on top, while frying.

The flour and cornmeal were from Wade's Mill. Buttermilk, egg, butter were from South Mountain Creamery. Blueberries were picked last summer at Butler's Orchard and frozen.

What's blooming in January

2011-01-29T13:27:00.000-08:00

There's a lot of snow out there and I'm afraid of seeing my plants after all the snow melts. At least no branches broke off the trees in the yard. There are many many broken branches throughout my neighborhood.

There are some pretty plants blooming in the house.

Oh wait, he is pretty but not a plant. Here is Sean shoveling my steps during our recent snowstorm. He looks a little demonical.

Here are the the blooms

Crown of Thorns

Orchid. This was given to me by my neighbor, 8 years ago when I moved into my house. Talk about benign neglect. This plant faithfully blooms every year.

Another orchid with buds. This one will bloom white.

Orchid. I can't say who or where this came from. Let's just say a friend of mine, may or may not have been in Singapore recently. She (or he) might have visited the Botanical Gardens there and bought an orchid. This friend of mine may have come for dinner last week and brought me this orchid as a gift. Just don't tell the custom agents.

Dark Days Challenge 2010 - Week 8

2011-01-22T10:06:00.000-08:00

This week's Dark Days Challenge meal was roasted chicken with butternut squash gnocchi. The chicken is one from farmer Allan - well it's from an Amish farmer in PA but I bought it from farmer Allan. These chickens are the perfect size for my family as we get a couple of meals plus a nice amount of stock.

One of the gifts I received for Christmas was a yogurt maker and this week I made my first batch. I decided to marinate the chicken in a yogurt mixture. First the yogurt was drained a bit, then mixed with dry mustard, thyme, coriander, salt and pepper. Now that I have a nice pair of poultry shears, it's quick work to cut the chicken into pieces. Yogurt was smeared all over and I let it sit in the fridge for a couple of hours.

Cut up chicken

Yogurt draining

I have made butternut squash gnocchi several times with various degrees of success. Sometimes it's too heavy but the last recipe I used turned out nice and light. I used the same recipe this time but alas, they were a little too soggy - not enough flour.

Squash from my garden - thawed. It's not actually butternut but a kind called Amber Cup. I should have sauteed it for a little bit to get out a lot of the liquid. I think that was part of the problem.

The mixture. Spooned into boiling water and boiled until floating. I scooped them out and put in a dish and baked in oven with butter. The mixture has local eggs but I forgot to use my local flour.

Gnocchi and roast chicken. The gnocchi weren't bad but I decided to put them back into the oven and bake some more to see if they would firm up better.

Dark Days Challenge 2010 - Week 7

2011-01-18T05:22:00.000-08:00

The dark days challenge meal for this week was pork chops with zucchini pizza all washed down with beet/apple juice. I have taken stock of my freezer and seem to be rapidly running out of vegetables - plenty of pork and chicken and sweet potatoes and fruit. Looks like I will be visiting the farmer's market more this year than last.

Farmer's market purchases - golden beets, kale, chard, apples, mushrooms, celeriac, amish cheese

Zucchini defrosted from summer stash

Squeeze out all the liquid from zucchini, combine with eggs and flour and cheese and pesto. Put in pan. Bake for 25 min until puffy. Top with favorite pizza toppings - in my case sliced mushrooms and more cheese. Put back in the oven and bake until all heated through.

Eggs, cheese from farmer's market, flour from Wade's Mill, pesto homemade from summer.

Pan fried pork chops - from my heritage hog

Got out the juicer and juiced the beets and apples. Yum yum

Preserving in the winter

2011-01-15T16:47:00.000-08:00

It was time to do something about the two gallon bags of hot peppers in the freezer. That and my last jar of hot sauce was all gone so it was time to make Red Hot Sauce from the Ball Complete Book of Home Preserving. I made this same sauce last year and it came out pretty tasty.

I took out two bags of plum tomatoes from the freezer and thawed over night. Once they were chopped, it was apparent that there wasn't going to be enough tomatoes so I dug into the back of the freezer and found the last bag of plum tomatoes. In years past, farmer Allan has given me buckets of tomato seconds but this year he didn't have a very good crop of tomatoes - as a result, there are no more tomatoes in the freezer.

Mixed batch of hot peppers

Thawed tomatoes

The chopped seeded peppers and tomatoes (not seeded) were combined with white vinegar and simmered until soft. Puree with hand blender, then combined with spices and sugar and more vinegar, simmer for awhile until right consistency.

Ready to go into the canner

Next day - this sauce is HOT. There was some leftover that I just put into the fridge and hoo wee. It's hot.

There is still a bag of peppers left so I'm going to dehydrate the rest.

This morning I went to the local farmer's market and bought a couple of organic grapefruit from FL. I used the fruit in a salad and as I was about to put the rinds down the garbage disposal, I thought about candied peel. I've never done it but thought what the heck.

Chopped peel. It was boiled several times in water to remove the bitterness.

Make a sugar syrup, then add peel and boil until syrup is gone.

Drying on the rack. Once dry, the peel can be rolled in sugar or melted chocolate.

Aside from eating out of hand, what else can be done with candied peel?

Old Cookbooks

2011-01-14T14:00:00.000-08:00

My friend over at Mommy Porch received some nice new cookbooks for Christmas and wants to do a feature every month on one. She borrowed the idea from Taste and Tell and what's a good idea if not to share? I didn't get any cookbooks for the holidays (hello Beanies, cookbooks for your mother, a good gift idea) so I thought, hey there are a butt load of cookbooks on my shelves - maybe I should revisit some old ones.

The first one to be revisited is Laurel's Kitchen.

I don't remember where I got this book but it was the first cookbook along with A Diet for a Small Planet, that I received in college. When I was a sophomore I decided to become a vegetarian. When I was a junior, I was living off campus in Montreal with my friend Rachel (we went to McGill). We loved to cook and cook we did whenever we needed to procrastinate.

Paging through this cookbook this week my thoughts were "did we really use this book?" It's worn, the pages are dog-eared and there seem to be food stains all over. 30 years later, I just can't remember making any of these recipes. We did have some Moosewood cookbooks that we used too but today, I have no desire to make any of the recipes in this book!

For example, every single bread recipe calls for all whole wheat flour mixed with whatever grain required - rye, oatmeal, etc. Those loafs must have made great doorstops! Brewer's yeast, soy flour, cashew gravy, better butter made with soy - ugh. Thank you Deborah Madison for showing me the way to better tasting vegetarian fare. This book still hold sentimental value for me so for now, it's back on the shelf.

Dark Days Challenge 2010 - Week 6

2011-01-08T17:50:00.000-08:00

I've had several dark days meals this week. I took out a chicken from the freezer (1 down, still 5 left in there!) and roasted it for dinner. I always make chicken noodle soup with the leftovers but this time, I decided to mix things up a little and make chicken barley soup. My son said "barley?" in that suspicious tone of what is my mother trying to do to me.

Last week, we had a day or two of pretty mild weather so I ran over to the garden to see if the ground was soft enough to dig up some parsnips. It was, just barely. So the soup has some yummy parsnips in it.

I took all the meat off the bones and threw the bones into a pot with some water and simmered a couple of hours. After that, the soup was easy to put together.

Saute some shallots (from my garden) and roasted garlic (frozen, from garden). Add carrots and parsnips (garden) along with broth. I had cooked the barley (sadly, not local - seriously, where does barley come from?) ahead of time, so once the carrots and parsnips were soft, added cooked barley and chopped chicken. Heat, season with salt and pepper. I made popovers to go with them and almost all the ingredients were local for that. Milk, eggs, butter from South Mountain Creamery and flour from Wade's Mill.

The next morning was another local meal for breakfast. I had thawed some link sausage from my heritage hog and cooked it up and made scrambled eggs. The eggs and cream were from South Mountain Creamery.

Dear Kim

2011-01-08T17:25:00.000-08:00

My friend Kim died this week after a two year battle with pancreatic cancer.

I've never met Kim. How is it possible to call someone you have never met your friend?

When my daughter was 1 year old, I joined a listserv of working mothers. I came to this list in a roundabout way. I had initially found one of those pregnancy lists - you know, the one by month and date? So I was a member of the April 1997 pregnancy list. After Emma was born, I didn't last too long on that list since it seemed that most of the women were stay at home moms - I went back to work when Emma was 2 months old because her father was still in graduate school and I was the only one making some money. While back at work, I was also pumping breast milk every day and having a hard time of it so somehow I found a pumping list. From there, someone (Pip?) recommended this list for working mothers and I've never looked back.

For the first few years, it was toilet training, starting school, balancing work with all the kids activities, etc. Now our kids are older and the issues seem to be more serious. We've had spouses die, children die and parents die. We've had divorces, marital problems, remarriages, and kid problems. This was the first time one of our members died.

Over the years, I have met many of the women on the list. Either from my own travels or their visits to DC.

Two years ago, Kim wrote the list that something wasn't right. Her stomach hurt. After that, she made the decision to share with the list her struggle with what turned out to be pancreatic cancer.

She was a biology teacher so in the beginning, we all got very detailed descriptions of her diagnosis and treatment. After a year of radiation and chemotherapy, Kim's diagnosis was not good. For the past year, she has shared with the group her preparation for dying. She got all her ducks in order.

This summer, she organized a group of moms to come to her home in Long Island - a reunion of sorts. Unfortunately for me, the timing was bad and I wasn't able to attend. The moms who did attend related to the group the energy and joy they all felt for being there, being with Kim.

Kim and I corresponded privately about our families, our love of nature, our values. Even though I never met her, I considered her a close and dear friend.

We are a tight-knit group and we are all grieving the death of Kim.

Our friend Robin wrote a eulogy with help from group. Several of the moms from the NYC area and another who flew in, represented us at the memorial service. Here is what was read:

Thursday January 6, 2011

We come to you as representatives from the Internet. Fifteen years ago, in the Internet’s early days, Kim became a member of a fledgling email list of working mothers, called, cleverly, "Working Moms."

Kim was a central part of our little email list as it evolved from a mild-mannered support group of working moms to, fifteen years later, an unbelievably tight group of women from around the world -- the Internet equivalent of family. As we became increasingly immersed in each other’s lives -- supporting each other through serious marital difficulties, illnesses in family members, and every parenting and work challenge from toilet training to psychotic bosses, Kim was a hugely strong voice.

I’m sure it comes as no surprise to learn that Kim’s emails were always fiercely smart, straight-shooting, funny, deeply felt. She knew EVERYTHING but was totally matter-of-fact about it: she knew how to repair a Mac (oh, and had incidentally written a book on the subject), she knew how to run a web-based business (since copied by corporate America), she knew how to cook anything (and now all around the world wmoms bake her lemon poppyseed cake in her honor), she knew why some people could smell their own pee when they ate asparagus (it’s a one-gene simple dominant-recessive trait, of course!). She had astonishingly deep knowledge of an astonishing number of subjects and she shared it all.

She shared it all. She shared what it was like to be blindingly in love with your own son. She shared what it was like to burst with pride every time you look at your own daughter. She shared what it was like to keep a dead fox in the freezer (I still am not entirely sure why) and then to realize that Stu’s acceptance of that, ummmm, quirk meant that he was the guy for her. She shared her pain with business and family and political foibles; she shared her deep, fierce love of teaching (boy did she ever land in the right job or what?) and over and over she shared big chunks of her soul.

And then last summer she shared her home and her family with us, inviting all the working moms – many of whom had never physically met – to her house for one last, loud, heartbreakingly wonderful week-end. At first we argued with her – she had metastatic pancreatic cancer, for pity’s sake, why not let somebody else host it? But Kim fiercely, passionately wanted to share her life with us, and boy oh boy did she. We arrived at the home of a woman who had already outlived her prognosis and she had planned out (on the ever-present white board!) an entire week-end of menus, games, beds, food, tours, campfires, song-singing, beach-combing, and, get this: CRAFT PROJECTS. Yes, Kim the teacher, the astonishing organizer, motivator, leader, had created silk screens for t-shirts, and garden stones for her yard, and we played and laughed and talked and sang away one of the most memorable week-ends of our lives.

And for the last two years she shared her illness with us. For many of us, this was the first time we had confronted an ill contemporary or the inexplicable tragedy of a mother leaving behind her kids. She didn’t whitewash it, she never tried to assume a Lifetime Movie of the Week approach. When things were hard, she said they were hard. When things started to suck, she said they sucked.

She taught us so, so, so much about priorities. She wanted, in the worst way, to live. When it became apparent that she couldn’t, she shear-willed her way through Easter, to another vacation, to the AP bio test grading. And then, when it became clear that her body’s fierce hold on life was fading, her hugest priority – being there for her kids – became accompanied by her desire to die as well as possible, as true to herself as possible – to her grit and her grace and her fierceness and her family.

This disease has broken our hearts. Our hearts are broken for Stuart, and for Justin and for Emma – and we can only promise you that you have aunties all over the world and that we will never ever forget your mama; that we will hold her in our hearts always. And that we will never forget that in the end, after all the emails and the careers and the journeys, her family family family was her fiercest priority of them all.

Written by Robin Schoenthaler, read by Eileen Winrock, Jenny Hausler, Joanna Wissinger, and Wendy Schweigert, with contributions by wmoms from around the world.

"...Let me say before we part
So much of me
Is made of what I learned from you
You'll be with me
Like a handprint on my heart ...
And now whatever way our stories end
I know you have re-written mine
By being my friend...
Because I knew you...
I have been changed for good."
(Changed for Good, Wicked)

SEIZE THE DAY.

Dark Days Challenge 2010 - Week 5

2011-01-01T07:37:00.000-08:00

This week's Dark Days Challenge meal was cream of tomato soup with buttermilk rolls. Unfortunately, I didn't remember to take a picture of the soup when it was done!

The rolls are from a recipe from the November 2010 issue of Cooking Light. The soup I just threw together.

For the soup, sauteed shallots from my garden in butter from South Mountain Creamery. There was a bag of frozen tomatoes in the freezer that was marked "tomato puree" even though it looked like pasta sauce. Since I didn't remember making sauce, I took a chance that it really was puree. Added that to the pot along with some frozen plum tomatoes. Plum tomatoes are the easiest to freeze because you can just pop them in a ziplock bag and stick in the freezer. When you want to use them, run under water and the skins slip right off. I threw in the whole tomatoes and simmered the mess until cooked. Took the emersion stick blender and blended until smooth. I also added a frozen pesto cube to the soup. The final touch was to pour in a couple of glugs of whole cream, from South Mountain Creamery.

For the rolls, I broke out the flour from Wade's Mill When Sean and I went to NC a couple of weeks ago, we drove past the town of Raphine, VA where this mill is located. The buttermilk is from South Mountain Creamery - the yeast is not local nor was the orange that was zested!

Flour and buttermilk

Rolls, second rise

Finished rolls

Dark Days Challenge, 2010 - Week 4

2010-12-27T09:00:00.000-08:00

This week's challenge was a smoothie. I'm going to try to eat more fruit this year. I like fruit, I just don't eat that much of it. This smoothie had strawberries from Homestead Farms and peaches from Farmer Allan. Well, the peaches came from the orchard that is next to Farmer Allan's land. I added some of the rhubarb concentrate made a few days ago along with milk from South Mountain Creamery. I also put in a glob of honey from my mother's bees.

Hunk of peaches

Frozen berries

Mom's honey

Smoothie

2010 Book Reads

2010-12-26T10:33:00.000-08:00

2010 was filled with my usual themes: mysteries, baseball, young adult. Throw in lots of gardening, financial, getting into college, teen psychology and food related books that I didn't write down. That about sums it up. Here is what I read in chronological order for 2010. At least, this is what I wrote down in my little notebook. Checking my inter-library loan history shows I read many more books. (The * books were read for the mother/daughter book club)

January

Heat, Bill Buford
Wrinkle in Time, Madeleine L'Engle *
The Girl Who Played with Fire, Stieg Larsson

February

The Whatchamacallit, Danny Danziger
Chefs on the Farm, Shannon Borg
Dogtown, Elyssa East
Adventures and the Memoirs of Sherlock Holmes, Arthur Conan Doyle
The Rider, Tim Krabbe
The Girl Who Kicked the Hornet's Nest, Stieg Larsson

March

Less is more, embracing simplicity for a healthy planet, Wanda Urbanska

April

The Dead Beat, Marilyn Johnson
Emma, Jane Austen *
The Devil's Star, Jo Nesbo
Anatomy of Baseball, Lee Gutkind

May

Absolutely True Diary of a Part-Time Indian, Sherman Alexie *
Rapunzel's Revenge, Shannon Hale
The Redeemer, Jo Nesbo

June

The Monster of Florence, Magdalen Nabb
The Snowman, Jo Nesbo
Bury My Heart at Cooperstown: Salacious, Sad and Surreal Deaths in the History of Baseball, Frank Russo

July

The Case of the Man Who Died Laughing, Tarquin Hall
The Double Comfort Safari Club, Alexander McCall Smith
Maus, Art Spiegelman *
Calamity Jack, Dean Hale

August

A Tree Grows in Brooklyn, Betty Smith *
Cherry Cheesecake Murder, Joanne Fluke

September

Some Danger Involved, Will Thomas
The Yiddish Policemen's Union, Michael Chabon
Hunger Games, Suzanne Colllins *

October

The Corpse in the Koryo, James Church
Montmorency: Thief, Liar, Gentleman, Eleanor Updale
Montmorency on the Rocks, Eleanor Updale

November

The Princess Bride, William Goldman
A Northern Light, Jennfer Donnelly *
Montmorency and the Assassins, Eleanor Updale
Montmorency's Revenge, Eleanor Updale
Bryant and May off the Rails, Christopher Fowler

December

Mini-farming on a 1/4 acre, Brett Markham
Eyes Like Stars, Lisa Mantchev *
In the Woods, Tana French
Between Summer's Longing and Winter's End, Leig GW Persson

What's blooming Dec 23

2010-12-23T10:54:00.000-08:00

Not a whole heck of a lot! The only thing left is ornamental grass and even that, I chopped down this morning, in anticipation of the supposed snow storm coming this weekend.

My seed catalogs are coming so the next couple of months will be spent planning. This year I am going to try to start some seeds (tomatoes, broccoli and maybe some others). I'm also redesigning the median strip and getting rid of all the tall plants. My neighbors are tactful in telling me it's a pain to get out of their cars into the jungle.

Skimia

Miscanthus

The bottom two grasses were chopped down this morning.

Winter Jasmine. Hard to see the buds here but this will start to bloom in Jan with a couple of warmish days. It's the first to bloom.

Thyme

Dark Days Challenge, 2010 - Week 3

2010-12-23T10:47:00.000-08:00

This week's Dark Days Challenge wasn't a meal but more of an apertif. I dug out the bag of chopped rhubarb (from my garden) from the back of the freezer and decided to make a concentrate, to drink with seltzer. I made this at the beginning of the summer and thought it was delicious.

I put the chopped rhubarb in a pot with water and sugar. Brought to the boil and simmer until the fruit was soft. Strain through a sieve.

Resulting concentrate

Combined with seltzer (bottled in PA, I count that as local!)

Opened the fridge this morning to find a message from my son

How did my garden grow?

2010-12-16T12:03:00.000-08:00

My friend over at Nyack Backyard wrote a post back in the spring on grading her garden. Here's my attempt to remember what I planted and how they all did

Leeks, planted in the fall, harvested in the summer.
The leeks did okay. Most of them were pretty woody - lots of thick stem that needed to be cut out. My garden friend, Edouard, started leeks this summer and we transplanted them in September. I think I need to mound up the dirt more on them.

Peas. Dakota and Canoe

The peas did not do as well as last year. There were peas, but I think our spring was too hot too fast and they didn't produce as well as they have in the past. Also planted snow peas which again did not produce very well. Peas are cool weather plants so the hot weather so early did them in.

Radishes: Gourmet Rainbow Mix
Radishes always do well. I let many of them go to flower because they are pretty and the bugs love them.

Chard: Five Colored Silverbeet

Chard did ok and believe it or not, it's still growing. The bugs ate them alot.

Mustard: Kyoto Mizuna
I love Mizuna. It's grows very well. I replanted it in Sept and it does great in the cool weather.

Spinach: Bordeaux Red-Stemmed
This spinach was lovely but barely gave me a crop. Again, I think the hot weather in April did it in,

Spinach: Regal
I don't remember how this did but I did not get that much spinach this year.

Lettuce: London Springs Lettuce Mix

Lettuce: Yugoslavian Red
Lettuce did great. I always cut when small, like microgreens.

Arugula: Seeds bought at local Italian market
I didn't like this type of arugula. It was very bitter.

Broccoli Raab, Cima di Rapa

This was also done in by hot weather. It bolted pretty quickly and didn't really develop any little broccoli type shoots.

Broccoli, DiCicco

Disaster. I seeded these and did it too late. The broccoli plants grew large but no broccoli. This winter I will try starting them inside.

Beets, Chiogga.
         I love these beets. These did very well although I didn't really have enough to pickle.

Cucumbers, pickling and regular
         The cukes were the most successful plants in the garden this year. I must have gotten 100 lbs of cukes! I'm kidding but the cukes were stars.

Tomatoes
         My tomatoes didn't do much at all. I tried one of those upside down planters and it didn't work. The tomatoes were planted in the shadiest part of the garden this year and it showed. The cherry tomatoes did well but to be honest I don't remember buying cherries. These may have been volunteers.

Potatoes, Desiree and German Butterball
        Potatoes always do well and there were no exception. Tons of potatoes.

Fava
        I planted these last Oct because the packet said they would winter over in my zone 7. They did not, however, survive all the snow we got in Feb so I replanted in March. The yield was ok, not great. Favas are my new favorite legumes, so I will try these again this year

Green beans
    The green beans did very well. I planted the filet kind and put in multiple plantings so there were beans all summer. My gardening neighbor gave me some purple Italian pole beans that were delicious so this year I will try growing pole beans along my fence.

Carrots
    Carrots always do well and this year was not an exception. Had enough to pickle and vacuum seal.

Sweet potatoes
    Nothing could compare to last year's harvest. This year the harvest was good but not nearly as prolific as last year.

Winter squash - amber cup
I planted this squash a little later than usual because I was trying to stave off the bugs. The bugs still came but several squashes were harvested. Overall, this did well.

Summer squash, zucchini
This did very well. Plenty of zucchini.

Garlic
    Garlic is planted in Nov and harvested in June or July. It's now Dec and I'm still working on a great pile of garlic from the summer.

Fennel - did not sprout, seeds may have been old

Peppers
I think I'm going to give up on peppers. None of the plants did well, maybe because they were in the section of the garden that gets the least amount of sun. I don't like the run of the mill green peppers so I usually plant banana and a couple of other kinds of red peppers but nothing really did well.

Shallots
    Shallots did great. Lots and lots of them.

Tomatillos
    Also did great. I have a freezer full of them, waiting to be used.

Dark Days Challenge, 2010 - Week 2

2010-12-09T15:31:00.000-08:00

I know, I just posted on Monday my first meal and it's only 3 days later for week 2. The challenge started on Dec 1, a Wed - so by all accounts, I'm into week 2.

Chicken with broccoli and sunchokes

This fall, I purchased a chicken share from farmer Allan. This means, as of today, there are 6 whole chickens in the freezer. He gets them from an Amish farmer in PA who from what farmer Allan tells me, employs all the right methods in raising them. They are pretty tasty chickens. I took one out of the freezer a few days ago to thaw and roasted it last night.

Ever since Sean and I watched the show with Jacques and Julia deboning the turkey, I've been fascinated with cutting apart a chicken. Last spring, Sean and I took a knife skills class and the last part of the session was cutting apart a whole chicken. You tube is a fabulous source for videos on how to butterfly or spatchcock a chicken. I've done it a couple of times now and last night, I went a step further and cut the leg/thigh apart from the breast. My only problem is I only have kitchen shears for herbs and Sur la Table is having a problem re-stocking the poultry shears.

I took some butter (from South Mountain Creamery) and rub it with herbs (my garden) in and around the pieces. Roast at 450 for about an hour.

Last weekend I went to our neighborhood farmer's market - they come from PA - and bought some broccoli and sunchokes. Sunchokes are also called Jerusalem Artichokes and are really easy to prepare.

I cut the broccoli into pieces and steamed it lightly, Then sauteed in olive oil (not local) and added garlic (my garden) and lemon juice (not local - I've only seen citrus trees at the US Botanic garden here in DC). The sunchokes were coated in hazelnut oil (again, not local) and roasted for about 20 min.

Dark Days Challenge, 2010 - Week 1

2010-12-06T05:33:00.000-08:00

This morning was my first meal in the Dark Days Challenge. I am thawing a heritage chicken as I write for later in the week but since this morning is cold and blustery, I decided to make an old standby for the first meal.

Grits with butter and sausage.

The grits are from a place in Raphine, Virginia called Wade's Mill. A friend of mine recommended this place last year for the challenge when I was searching for a source of local flour. I did buy flour, grits and corn meal this year although the flour is mostly sourced from the midwest. Close enough. The grits are the best I have ever eaten, really creamy and tasty.

The bowl was topped off with some butter from my local dairy, South Mountain Creamery. I get a weekly delivery of milk along with butter, buttermilk, eggs, cider, cheese or whatever else looks good for the week.

The sausage comes from the 1/4 of a hog I bought from Farmer Allan. He runs the CSA I've participated in for several years. The tale of the hog delivery is in a previous post.

The breakfast was delicious if not exactly low fat and low calorie. Time to leave to walk to work!

Winter garden update

2010-11-28T15:11:00.000-08:00

We've had frost for a few days. I went to the garden yesterday to do a little work. Since the ground was frozen, I could not continue in my quest to rid the garden of all rocks - soil too hard to sift. So I spent the morning putting wood chips on various paths and raking leaves from the garden entryway into the street (for the leaf collectors). Picked greens for salad.

Last week, Sean put up some wire hoops and fabric row covers over the greens. We'll see how long the greens will last. The first snow and it's all over but it's almost Dec 1 and the greens look great.

Freshly dug parsnips and the last of the radishes. I was going to cook the parsnips for Thanksgiving but then didn't. I will make soup.

hoops and fabric

Sean and greens

worm bin. I cleaned it out last week and have found a place in the basement. I need to make bedding and then get worms.

The Deal goes down

2010-11-21T10:07:00.000-08:00

Yesterday was the day. The day the deal was done

Pork (91 lbs). Chicken (5 whole). Jerky (3 packages).

The pork was from a heritage hog, Tamworth, that my farmer Allan raised.

The chicken came from an Amish farmer in PA and this batch included some heritage ones, called Barred Silver Cockerel.

The Jerky came from somewhere! I didn't order it, Sean wanted to try it.

Kathryn and Sean, waiting for the dealer to show up

The dealer (Farmer Allan) and his son, Logan

The goods!

Brats

Link sausage

Bacon

Shoulder

Fresh ham steaks - how do I cook these?

The girls

The Jerky

The storage unit

The user and her stash

What's blooming Nov 14

2010-11-14T14:06:00.000-08:00

My life has been crazy busy. Traveling last week and an out of town guest this week. By the time I get home from work, I'm too tired to even look at the computer (and I spend all day on it anyway). The Dark Days Challenge will begin soon and I would like to go back and review what I planted in the spring and comment on how successful it was (thank you Nyack Backyard for the idea). A colleague on campus gave me his worm composter and one of my garden neighbors has extra red wiggler worms, so that is going to be a weekend project - maybe next week. Another friend recently sent a link to an article about women with gray hair and I keep meaning to write something about that topic (love gray hair, obviously since I have a head of it)

Foliage is in full swing here in DC. My yard has been a bit neglected since it's time to clean it up. I did some raking and a little pruning today and then noticed there were still some random flowers.

Kousa Dogwood

Roses still going strong

Strawflower

Black-eyed Susan next to faded Asters

Ornamental grass

Beautyberry

Cooking from the empty pantry

2010-11-06T17:20:00.000-07:00

I've been away for a few days to Charleston, SC. There is a conference there every year and this is the third time I've attended. It's a librarian conference, focused on collection development, acquisitions, electronic resources, technology among other topics. Sean came with me this year and let me tell you, we ate like kings. Sean's birthday was Wed night so our three friends joined us for dinner at Fig. Thursday night, several of us were treated to dinner at Poogan's Porch by one of our vendors. The last night there, we went to Jestine's I ate mac and cheese, collards and butter beans with a slice of coconut cream pie to end the evening. Needless to say, it's water and stale bread for me for awhile.

I got home this afternoon and decided to make something for the next few days. On the way home, I stopped at my garden and picked greens (mustard, lettuce, arugula, mizuna). I opened my fridge and realized there wasn't much there and there was no way I was going anywhere out of the house.

I dug out a lentil stew recipe and miracles of miracles, had all the ingredients (well, I made substitutions)

Shallots, garlic, potatoes and tomatoes, all from my garden

Mustard Greens picked earlier

Spices (coriander, curry and cumin) and brown lentils

Vegetable base for broth and cilantro lime sauce to add at the end

Lentil Vegetable Stew

2 tblsp olive oil

1 onion chopped

1 tblsp minced garlic and ginger

1 tblsp curry powder

1 tsp each cumin, coriander, salt

1/2 tsp cayenne

1 cup brown lentils

3/4 lb red potatoes diced

29 oz veg or chicken broth

1 10 oz bag of spinach

1 cup shredded carrots

1 tomato diced

1/2 cup chopped cilantro

Heat oil, saute onion and cook 4 min, Add spices and garlic and ginger and cook another minute. Stir in lentils, potatoes, broth. Bring to a boil and simmer for 30 min. Add rest of the ingredients and cook for a few minutes.

Dark Day Challenge #4 is here

2010-11-02T06:32:00.000-07:00

The challenge was been posted! I've signed up and it starts Dec 1. I need buy my flour and dry goods this month.

http://urbanhennery.com/2010/11/4th-annual-dark-days-challenge/

Sunday in the vegetable garden

2010-11-01T06:39:00.000-07:00

It was time to plant the garlic. I spent the morning in the vegetable garden planting, weeding and sifting.

This is a Brandywine tomato - my colleague gave me some plants that she had started and I planted them late. This one will ripen.

Lots and lots of greens

more greens!

Lettuce and radishes

There are so many rocks in my soil. This is a sifter I borrowed from my gardening neighbor. Sean claims he is going to make me one but I don't think he's serious about it. Honey, if you are reading this blog, I'm serious. I can use it now.

Garlic!

Random sweet potatoes, found

Cooking from the pantry

2010-10-31T16:58:00.000-07:00

As you all know, my freezer and pantry are full. Luckily, my pork delivery has been delayed a couple of weeks so there is still time to reduce the inventory of pork products. I decided that Sundays would be a good day to "cook from the pantry". I'm hoping the dark day challenge that I did last year will be hosted again this year - a perfect way to cook my way through all the food I preserved.

I defrosted a bag of sausage, a bag of tomato puree and several tomato cubes. The idea was to make a sauce to serve with Pasta.

Tomato puree with cubes

Sausage

I heated some olive oil and sauteed crushed garlic and shallots (both from my garden). Added about 2/3 of the bag of sausage and browned. Poured in thawed tomato puree and cubes. Seasoned with Penzy's Italian Herb mix and some salt. Simmered for several hours.

Went to the vegetable garden today and picked a nice assortment of greens

Served sauce over Penne (not homemade!)

What's blooming Oct 31

2010-10-31T16:50:00.000-07:00

I haven't worked in the yard in over a month. There is more work to be done in fall than any other time of the year. I spent several hours yesterday pruning and I didn't even make it to the backyard. Now is the time to cut back most of the plants and start thinking about what to do different next year. I planted the medium strip a couple of years ago with cuttings and divisions from my other plants and some of it is just not going to work. My neighbors have been kind to not complain about the difficulty of getting in and out of the cars but since we park on the street, I know I need smaller, lower growing plants.

The asters are in bloom

Shrub rose

Japanese Anenome with foliage of Fothergilla

Berries on the Skimia - I've lost all the skimia on the other side of the house.

Fuzzy bee on lavendar

Ornamental grass, flowering

Beautyberry

Freezer Woes

2010-10-24T08:32:00.000-07:00

It's that time of year again. Time to buy my 1/2 hog from Farmer Allan. Or in this case, this year it's only 1/4 hog. 1/4 hog this year is weighing in at 70lbs of meat and I still have pork leftover from last year.

There is no room in my freezer for 70 lbs of pork! Luckily, Sean is going to share with me and hopefully another friend will buy some pieces so maybe I'll have 30-40 lbs to store.

Sean helped to take inventory today. I need help thinking of menus to use this food over the next 6 months! If you read this blog, you MUST send me an idea or two. With all this food in the freezer, I'm also thinking I should invest in a small generator, just in case.

My freezer!

Freezer door

Counting

Inventory - this is just from the downstairs freezer. This doesn't count the upstairs freezer, nor the pickles, shallots, garlic, sweet potatoes, squash and potatoes I have in storage!

blackberries
peaches
bacon
chard
ham steaks
tomato puree
crushed tomatoes
plum tomatoes
rhubarb
shredded zucchini
green beans
beets
tomatillos
hot peppers
sliced apples
blueberries
mizuna
strawberries
carrots
4 whole chickens
sausage
pork chops
tilapia
pumpkin foccacia
naan
toffee bits
coffee
pecans
butter
bread flour
vegetable soup base
chicken soup base
roasted red pepper soup base
dried hot peppers

Knitting up a storm

2010-10-19T18:33:00.000-07:00

There is a baby boom going on in my library. Jessie is due first and I finished up a very cute sweater for her last week. It's called the Koko Kimono by Jil Eaton. It's from the book Minnies: Quick Knits for Babies and Toddlers.

I was looking through my knitting storage area and pulled out all the patterns I have because I was looking to see if I had any baby bootie patterns (I do, several in books that my mother used so they are from the early 60's) Anyway, I came across a photocopied pattern of this sweater and thought it was cute and I would try it. Once I started reading the pattern, I realized that I hadn't copied the page that gave the needle size or kind of yarn or even the name of the pattern book! A librarian's faux pas as we are always telling the students to make sure they have the citation information for their articles.

Anyway, I am a member of this online knitting group called Ravelry This is a place where one can keep track of projects and build a portfolio but it is also a place where you can search for a pattern and see how others have knitted it. So I looked up Koko Kimono and lo and behold, there it was with needle size and yarn and everything, all documented in several projects.

Kari is due next and I have been knitting for her but can't tell you all what I've made because she reads my blog! I'll post pictures after Dec 3 since that is her baby shower.

Next up is Rob, whose wife is due in March. I was so happy with this kimono, I think I'll make one for him.

In the meantime, Emma has asked for another hat and Sean has asked for a hat. I started Emma's last night with some yarn from my stash - it's a beret so I hope it comes out ok. For Sean, I want to buy the bulky yarn instead of using some I already have.

Brian has asked for another blanket! The one on his bed took me a year to make - it was from the Barbara Walker's Learn to Knit Afghan Book. Each square is a different pattern and it makes 60 squares. It was fun to do and I learned many new techniques but I don't have the energy to tackle another blanket! Not sure what Brian wants or even why he wants another blanket. Now this is the kid who is currently cuddling with his hot water bottle on his feet so he may want to be more warm and snuggly in his bed. He'll have to wait.