Playing with pickling

I'm still trying to get over my cold, but I couldn't take sitting still today. I decided that being outside and getting my vitamin D would be a good idea. I did some more work in my garden and ended up with a lot of little green cherry tomatoes that had fallen on the ground or were growing in spots where they ended up sitting in the dirt.

Yesterday I found a recipe for basic brine and I pinned it so that I would be able to find it when I needed it. I decided that I needed it today. I like something zippy with most of my meals, so we go through a lot of pickles. I'm determined to fill as much of that need from my own garden as possible, so it seemed like a good time to get started.

I didn't have the time, inclination or energy to can today, so I just played a little with some refrigerator pickles. The big jar of the green tomatoes is just brined. The smaller jar has brine and red pepper flakes. I discovered that I had twelve pounds of carrots and part of them were needing to be used, pronto. So I sliced up a pound of them and combined them with some sliced onion, garlic pepper, and red pepper flakes. The cukes are just in brine and garlic pepper. I did them mainly to see how they would turn out.

Tomorrow, if time permits, I am going to do some bread and butter pickles and a couple of small jars of squash pickles and beets.

I love taking the goodies that are coming from the garden now and doing tasty things with them to keep them for the winter.

Garden food

I'm hoping that by posting this here I will remember in the spring, when I don't feel like tilling and planting, and in the heat, when I don't feel like weeding and planting that second round, why I have a garden.

Tonight's dinner was yet another marvelous collection of garden goodness. We have had so much wonderful pesto this summer. We have had zucchini sauteed, in cookies, and--as it was tonight--in pasta. Tonight we added a red pepper from the garden and, garlic from the farmers' market, and some of last night's leftover chicken.

Last night we had roasted chicken accompanied by roasted beets, turnips, and carrots from the garden. We've had cukes on our salads, and tomorrow night we'll have a cucumber and yogurt salad with some korma. Early in the season we had many wonderful mixed green salads and hope to enjoy a second round this fall. In the meantime, we're about to get the first of what promises to be a flood of tomatoes.

It is so worth the work. So worth it.

Summer

Yes, I know. I know. I haven't been here in months. The old blog has been sorely neglected.

I promise to do better.

Maybe it's because I'm in the midst of so many creative or semi-creative projects right now, but I feel like writing. I'm getting to do my favorite kind of cooking right now: ad-libbing with what comes from the garden, digging up new recipes, or making it up as I go. We brought home 29 pounds of blueberries. We have frozen a nice chunk of them, made a batch of Boy Bait, taken a few to friends, and today is a little jam for Andrew. I would like some more berries, but Patrick started his new job this week, so he isn't available to drive the boys up to the patch. I guess I'll just need to be satisfied.

We've have a nice amount of zucchini, with more coming. The beets have been delicious, greens and all. I'll be roasting some turnips while Colin is gone, since he doesn't like them. Tomatoes are about ready and I think I'm going to have a lot this year. I hope so!

Two weeks ago we were in Nashville for the Higher Things Conference. Two weeks from today is the start of our family retreat at Redeemer, and we still have some work to do.  After that, I'm going to take a couple of weeks to focus on projects around here with an eye to having the house on the market by the end of August.

Second Nature

I read the book Second Nature by Michael Pollan and did a very rudimentary review of it, but here's a better review by my friend RPW.

Spring is just around the corner. Right? Please?

This is the time of year when the packed down, turned-to-ice snow is a major danger to someone as graceful (not) as I am. It is the time of year when I know, intellectually, that the amount of daylight is growing each day, but the cloud cover keeps me from believing it. And, this is the time of year that said cloud cover makes me long for just a few precious rays of sun.

However, thanks be to God, this is also the time of year that I can order from beautifully illustrated catalogs and tempting websites concrete reminders that Spring will come, followed by summer, bringing with it more sun, and in turn lettuces, beets, onions, tomatoes, and all kinds of vegetabley goodness. I have spent hours planning my beds, looking through catalogs, deciding exactly what I want to plant and plotting, too, how I can plant most efficiently to take things with me should we sell our house post-planting but pre-harvest. (Hey, I can dream, can't I.)

Where have I been?

Wow. I haven't blogged for five days. I'm not sure how that happened, except that I have been busy, and, for at least the past few days the weather has been fantastic!

I got more goodies planted today. We now have two kinds of lettuce, spinach, mesclun, green onions, carrots, beets, turnips, kohlrabi, peas, and cilantro planted. I also planted some viola seeds and poppy seeds where our tree used to be.

My tan is coming back.

Sounds like we'll get rain tomorrow.

Domestic duties

This is a day to get things done at home. I'm going to work on getting the downstairs cleaned. I'm going to plant the first seeds: spinach, lettuce, peas, beets, green onions, and turnips. Bethany needs a resume and cover letter, so I am helping her with those.

Later this afternoon I'm going to the store to get the fixings for Mexican food and margaritas for tonight when a couple of friends and their kids are coming over for dinner and games.

I'm hoping that next week we have the sun and the warmth to allow me to get the windows and screens clean. That would really brighten things up in here.

Back to food

After a few days of politics I need to clear my palate. Let's talk about food.

Anyone has been reading for a while knows that I've taken up reading about food and nutrition over the past few years. Last summer we planted a garden for the first time in over 10 years. We've started buying the majority of our meat--grass fed--from a local farmer. We're figuring in trips to the same farmer for eggs a couple of times a month. I've learned how to can and freeze.

There are still areas where I could improve, but I'm feeling better all the time about how and what we're eating. I still need to get to the bread baking. I need to learn to live without boneless, skinless chicken breasts, which have always been our main form of chicken. It doesn't mean I can't ever use them again, but finding them that are natural and truly free-range is very difficult. And expensive.

We're joining a local CSA for this winter. By next winter I plan to have made progress on the four season harvest. I'm reading Animal, Vegetable, Miracle, which I am enjoying, except for her snarky comments about those of us who don't believe in evolution. She seems not to understand that most of us are totally cognizant of micro-evolution with a species. We just don't see the species-to-species thing. Throwing out that little annoyance, it's an enjoyable book.

Beef, etc.

We picked up 156 lbs of grassfed beef from a local farmer today. We purchased pork from him last year and were really impressed. We've also enjoyed his chickens. There's something so satisfying about seeing the freezer fill up. At the end of the month Colin and the boys will bring fish from Canada and it can join the beef, pork, chickens and blueberries in the freezer. By there will probably be some chopped frozen green peppers, too, because we're getting a bunch all at once.

More zucchini for dinner tonight along with fresh tomatoes an pork side. Last night I made unstuffed green peppers over rice and it was wonderful. I need to write down what I did.

I'm planting some things for fall harvest now: more lettuce and spinach, turnips, beets, leeks, and kale. Next year I want to plant potatoes for fall harvest. Our tomatoes are not producing as well this year as we had hoped, so I probably won't have a lot to freeze. It looks like the biggest bunch of them will ripen next week while I'm gone.

One of the best things about the garden and buying our food in bulk and really stocking up when things like pasta, rice, bread, and beans are on sale is that our grocery expenditures are down. What a bonus when we're eating healthier, better tasting food!

Wild snappies

My snapdragons are wild. Really wild. I planted one yellow snapdragon about five years ago. From that we have gotten these:


As you can see in the center photo, they are coming up all over, even between the flagstones in the path.

An extra side note: Am I crazy that I can't pull the snappies that are coming up in the path and in the crevice between the patio and the house? Anything else would be treated as a weed, but these are soooo gorgeous!

This and that

I love a good Lutheran wedding. Each wedding I go to leaves me with a favorite moment. My favorite moment during this wedding was during the vows. All of the pastors looked so happy! Two of them were absolutely beaming! Also, I was extremely impressed with the caterer that did the reception. The food was excellent and you could tell he took pride in his work. So if you need a caterer in Fort Wayne, give Splendid Fare a call!

My summer is going too fast. My projects are all partially done. My house is a wreck. And it's coming up on canning time. We're going blueberry picking this week. In addition to making some blueberry jam and freezing LOTS of berries I'm going to make some blueberry syrup. We are getting a bumper crop of zucchini and we are going to have tons of acorn squash, so I probably will be pureeing and freezing some of that. I'm almost glad the tomatoes are running late! I planted some Romas this year for sauce, and another variety that is supposed to be good for juice. Then we have two volunteer cherry tomatoes and three bushes of heirloom slicing tomatoes.

Today I'm making some zucchini cookies to use up a couple of monster zukes that got away from us over the weekend. Last year we added some mini chocolate chips to them. Awesome!

And flowers

Garden update

It's looking like a garden! We're now trying to figure out how to keep the bunnies away.

I'm tired

But it's the good kind of tired. It's the kind that comes from a bit of gardening, followed by some housework, followed by some yard work, followed by a swim.

Dinner tonight was pasta primavera, with the first use of our basil. Tomorrow we'll have the first salad with mesclun from our garden. Patrick and Jonathan will be missing our first salads because they are leaving tomorrow after church to attend Christ Academy at the seminary. It's going to be a loooong two weeks without them.

For the beauty of the earth

On Memorial Day weekend, we finally got our garden in while we listened to the Indy 500 on the radio. It doesn't look like much yet, but it will. It is amazing how much good food can come out of this little plot of ground.


There will be tomatoes, red, green, & chocolate peppers. We'll have salads of buttercrunch, black-seeded simpson, bibb, spinach, and mesclun. This year we planted onions and garlic and sugar snap peas. We have cukes--mostly for pickles--and zucchini. Our strawberries are starting to bear. To season it all we have basil, parsley, rosemary, thyme, tarragon, mint, lavender, and catnip. (Gotta take care of the kitties!)

In another week I'm going to go out and plant a couple more rows of lettuce. Later this summer we'll plant some kale and cabbage.

Our garden isn't pretty, but the flowers are! The daisies were here when we bought the house, but we've added more beds. The columbine are from seeds from my grandma's house. Every year we have more interesting color combinations.

Accidental diet

I've lost six pounds in the last two weeks. I haven't even tried.

Here are the step-by-step instructions.

Buy stones to mark a 10x20 garden. Fill with good dirt. Plant four cherry tomato plants. And five other tomato plants. And some cukes. And some green pepper. And some basil.

Try to incorporate the above ingredients into every meal for two weeks. Especially the tomatoes.
Give some tomatoes away. Eat more of them. Give some more away. Eat more.

Weigh yourself.

Pickles!

We have pickles! Today I pickled two quarts and four pints of bread and butter pickles using my grandma's recipe and her jars. The cucumbers are from my garden.

I'm pretty excited. I watched people can when I was a girl, but I've never done it before. Now I have 8 jars of my own blueberry preserves, (I gave three away,) four jars of freezer preserves, and my lovely pickles.

My cucumbers are going crazy, so I'll be doing more pickles later this week. Tomorrow after I get my haircut and do a mystery shop we have class, so I won't get anything done tomorrow, but Wednesday has to be beets.

This is summer

We went out to the 4H fair tonight and walked around. It was a beautiful warm breezy evening. The dust was at a minimum because we've had some rain the past few days. We visited the livestock barns--always my favorite part of the fair--and the other exhibits. I thought about how cool it is that my friend took her turnips to her county fair.

We ate pork sandwiches and elephant ears and drank a lemon shake-up. We looked at antique tractors.

Tomorrow morning I am making my blueberry preserves and some refrigerator pickles. (I read that last line and had the thought that my blog has given me frequently lately. "Who is this person, and what has she done with Jane?")

I just need to remind myself that next week I get to do some shopping and the week after that I get to have a manicure and pedicure and go to my convention. (That's a relief. I'm still here somewhere under the sewing and gardening and cooking!)

My little garden

The amount of food that can be grown in one 200 square foot garden is amazing. These pictures are ten days old, so they really don't do it justice. The tomatoes are taller than Andrew now.

We have had salads coming out our ears and have given lettuce to friends and neighbors. We've had yummy roasted turnips and a big pan of zucchini.And there's more of everything to come.

Today we're shredding up two monstrous zucchinis that got away from us for zucchini bread and muffins. I'm going to feed my mom cucumber sandwiches made with my own cukes.

And most exciting so far, I'm going to pickle a couple of quarts of beets, which will give me great juice for pickling some eggs when the beets are gone!

If I don't end up on jury duty, we're going to go pick some blueberries next week and mom and I need to get a quantity of cukes so that we can make some bread and butter pickles from my grandma's recipe.

Today I need to bake pies for our chicken barbecue and ice cream social. I bought some fresh Michigan cherries when we went to the farmers market, so I'm going to make a cherry pie and a butterscotch pie. I also need to bake a cake, I'm just trying to figure out what kind.

Fresh food!

This is an exciting day around here. I weeded and thinned in the garden today and we have turnips! I am getting ready to fix a mess of turnip greens and some yummy creamed turnips. We also have a couple of kinds of lettuce ready to eat.

There are little tiny tomatoes, and sweet little zucchini that are promising future enjoyment, along with blossoms on the pepper, cucumber and squash plants. Just looking at my garden makes me hungry!

We will be planting our second bunch of turnips and beets next week, along with some kale. It's hard to believe that just a little over a month ago Andrew and I were watching for the baby plants and worrying that the cat would trample them. Now she's resting in their shade.