How goes eating from the fridge?

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

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

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

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

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

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

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!