Garden to Table Potato, Leek, and Celery Root Soup "The Movie"

I have not meant to ignore this blog. After school started again in January I have been busy with students and blogging on my Urban Farm page. Here is food from my winter garden just to keep me in the loop. I promise I am still studying my Hebraica and doing my devotions (do not know what else to call Bible study). Travel is history due to finances so I have less opportunity to blog about that. But I still cook and cooking is part of this blog. Thanks for watching!

Lavender-Sour Cherry Focaccia---The Movie

Scratching the gardening itch

January 1, 2011 At 7 AM in the Pacific Northwest it is still dark. First light has not penetrated the dark of this day of ones. Ray had to get up at 4 AM for work so we did not stay up to welcome the new year. I'm wide awake now and though I am trying to just chill, my head is filled with things I want to do today to celebrate the new year.

The Territorial Seed Catalog is almost committed to memory. My palate is ready to experience fresh greens, peas, spinach and bok-choi. There are at least 6 weeks until I can poke peas and radishes into the cold soil. To scratch my itch for growing things I plan to welcome the new year by making a half dozen paper pots to start lettuce and spinach in. Chris will be building a custom fit cloche for my square-foot-garden. His cloches will allow me to set out my salad starts when the peas go in.

The barbecue wok in the picture will be the home of micro-greens if all goes as planned. I love using the wok for grilled veggies in summer but it just sits in the cupboard taking up space for the rest of the year. I have been resisting using it for greens for a while but the urge to grow food is strong this year. The wok will be lined with a square of landscape fabric and mel's mix (hey, the wok is a square, so surly this counts as square foot gardening) before the seed is sprinkled thickly into soil mix. If the seed is still alive there should be a salad to harvest in two to three weeks.

The rest of Deb's New Year's Day plans

1. Make paper pots and start lettuce and spinach
2. Create and start a wok full of macro-greens
3. Inventory last years seed
4. Inventory another pantry self
5. Make pastry for Chris' apple pie (filling in the freezer)
6. Make clam dip for the guys
7. Make today's pantry food, "Black Bean Tostadas"
8. Maybe most important, work on finishing Luke 10 study
9. If there is any more time to the day, finish the grid for this years garden.

I'm sipping green tea today. One of the three gardening magazines Ray bought me yesterday claims that green tea leaves (or maybe it was the tea? humm) are super food for gardening. Cheer's! The sun is up and day one of 2011 looks to be beautiful.

Happy New Year to you and yours!

More more from the pantry in January

OK, I get that it isn't January yet. Last night (Monday, December 27) nearly everything about dinner came from the pantry or freezer. Chili and corn muffins. From the pantry, tomatoes and sauce, black beans, corn meal.
http://musicofrain.wordpress.com/2010/12/28/chili/

From the 2nd shelf of the pantry:

• Dry Yellow (Huro?) beans
• Dry Black beans (lots of black beans)
• about 1/3 of a 10lb bag of white wheat flour
• Dry Navy beans
• Tempura batter mix
• box of 7 grain pilaf mix
• box of mushroom and wild rice mix
• box of Zatarianes Jambalaya mix
• box of Falafel Mix
• Black Bean Soup mix
• Pad Thai mix

Then there was a few forgotten jars of "stuff"

• Costco size yellow mustard
• Costco size mayonnaise
• small bottle Ranch Dressing
• Dijon Mustard
• Country (coarse) Dijon Mustard

The original pantry post:

http://songs-of-coming-rain.blogspot.com/2010/12/january-is-eat-from-pantry-month.html

January is “Eat From The Pantry” month

In January I try to go through my pantry and freezers to feed my family for the month. I like to spend as little as possible, buying only fresh dairy, eggs and a few fresh vegetables for Ray's lunches.

My pantry is probably supposed to be a linen closet but I like to use it for a pantry. It is probably too hot in winter since the back wall is up against the fire place. Since we are talking about putting up more produce from the garden this coming year I will probably need to move the pantry to a cool, dry place. but for now I am only interested in using what is there.

Just from the top shelf, up over my head and out of sight:

1. Two unopened packages of Splenda packets (how did that happen?)
2. about 1/2 cup brown and red rice mix
3. one 14.5 oz can coconut Milk (might just toss that, it has been there a LONG time.
4. 1/2 bag of stick pretzels
5. jar of dry garbanzo beans
6. jar of red lentils
7. small jar of adzuki beans
8. Package of Bakers Bittersweet Chocolate
9. about half a package of Bakers German Chocolate.
10. Open box of Whole grain Pancake mix
11. Open box of whole grain Baking Mix
12. Open box of Pumpkin Pancake mix
13. Open box of white elbow Marconi
14. Powder Milk and Gluten flour that I use with the bread machine
15. Bay leaves
16. Poppy Seeds
17. Dill Weed
18. Chopped dry onion
19. Cinnamon

This is just the top shelf. I am not sure if I will keep the boxes of pancake and baking mix. I bought the pumpkin mix last year and the baking mix last summer but I don't know when I bought the whole grain pancake mix. I'm thinking I should toss the pancake mixes, whole grain products do not stay nice in heat.

Does Splenda go bad?

It's beginning to smell a lot like Christmas

We do not have a tree this year. We talked about going to get a little Charlie Brown tree for $5 from a neglected farm in Machias (between Lake Stevens and Granite Falls on Highway 92) but sadly (or not) when we drove by the farm was closed. As far as I can tell, a Christmas tree is pure pagan so I'm not really broke up about it. I've read the doo-dah's about it being evergreen like Jesus or something like that. I am not convinced. It still seems as pagan as a yule log. None the less, it is one of the scents that I enjoy this time of year.

The view out my window is in shades of deep green and gray. There is a damp chill in the air that persists. Even so, I put a jacket on me and another on Rudy; tucked my garden gloves and clippers into a paper grocery bag and walked to the green area behind the house. As much as he likes to cuddle, Rudy is a terrier at heart and needed to run and hunt rodents even if he needed to wear a jacket in the field. After all he is part chihuahua and longs for warmer places than western Washington. We made one loop around the pond with a side trip to the creek and I had enough boughs without doing damage to any one tree or wild holly. I did make a stop in the front yard for Laurel leaves and Spanish lavender that should have been trimmed at summers end to complete the bundle. Add new ribbon to old glass jars and the effect becomes all that I hoped for.

The last of the Christmas Cookies went with Ray to Kimberly Clark last night. They were just a day ahead of stale. Two weeks with the Jr-high spoiled my Christmas Cookie Plans. Not to worry. I have more ribbon and jam to give away. There are a few more biscotti that are fresh, wild blackberry and strawberry jams and Ray plans to make his mother's Nutz and Boltz to stuff into little bags. That should be enough. And if it isn't, please know that in my heart I wanted to find something expensive and unique for you, but it isn't happening this year.

By the way, The idea for pretty jars of greens came from reading Northwest Nature Nut at http://www.naturenutnotes.com/2010/12/holiday-goodness.html

The Jam idea was stolen from Momma Pea of A Homegrown Journal at
http://ahomegrownjournal.blogspot.com/2010/12/dear-mama-pea.html

Surprise....

Surprise! My car was stolen early this morning. The only thing I saw on the security camera was tail-lights. That is such a unsetteling feeling. It isn't even the first time it was stolen, it isn't the 2nd time, this is the third time and it doesn't feel any better than the first time. It is an older Honda Civic that I only use for errands but it doesn't help. Hondas are beyond easy to take and start. I have a cyber friend in Thailand who put into words what I have been thinking, "What is God doing? Praise him before it becomes clear, this was no accident."
Surprise! After I settled down, a walk about the garden to see if anything was new seemed like a good idea. Raspberries are coloring out.

Surprise! Twelve tiny jars of wild blackberry jam. Now I need to make a little bit of bread or popovers. Like my mom used to do, I save the "foam" that gets skimmed off to use fresh on bread. This is so good. The hill is still covered with ruby berries that should be ripe just about the 4th of July.

This Calendula blossom wasn't really a surprise. I have been watching her slowly open for the last two days. Looking good today.

This is just the bouquet of the week with my squarefoot gardens (three of them anyway) in the background. Box 1 has three kinds of peas (snow, snap and shell or English), carrots, beets, chard, lettuces, a tomato and sweet peas. Box 2 holds more lettuce, broccoli, sweet purple torpedo onions, cippolini onions, shallots, leeks, more chard and snapdragons. Box 3 has tomatoes (3 paste and a yellow persimmon), three kinds of beans, basil, carrots (because carrots love tomatoes), and peppers. Seems like there is something else but I don't remember what. I am starting to love my back yard.... who really needs a car anyway?

Friday, July 2; overcast, showers likely most of the day, low-53 high so far (noon) 73

Still the one

Coffee and Lunch at Starbucks in Mill Creek

Yesterday (June 21) was our 35th anniversary! I have an old Orleans song rolling through my head....

"We've been together since way back when....

Your still the one-- I want whispering in my ear;

Your still the one-- I want to talk to in bed,

Still the one that turns my head.

We're still having fun and your still the one."

We were completely without a plan for yesterday. We spent too much money on the new BBQ. Since we like to play with our new toys (and it was way too cold and wet to try out the new Kayak) we dressed for birding, tucked Rudy into the 'burb and drove north toward Mt Vernon to hit the Skaget County Co-op and do a little Fir Island bird walking. We did not get much and we did not see birds besides a sparrow or two. The ride was nice.

At the Mill Creek Central Market (yep, those are the kind or rides we take when we do not have a plan), right next to the 20 dollars a pound Copper River Salmon, we found a pile of bright, fresh Kodiak River Coho for 8 dollars a pound. The fish guy cut up our prize into 4 steaks and filleted the rest. Barbecue here we come! A few apple chips bundled under the flame, a glaze (sauce?) of butter and olive oil with fresh parsley, garlic and chives with a sprinkle of dill (my garden dill isn't ready yet and the fennel is too small) and I was in the Salmon business!

Ray ate peas for dinner. If you know Ray, you know he NEVER eats cooked peas. Even if English peas are raw he doesn't really want to eat them. He does like sugar snaps if I make a ranch style dip with lots of garlic, lemon and dill. But last night he gobbled up the Orange Saffron Butter Linguine with peas and shallots from the garden and asparagus, even had 2nds! I did notice a small pile of English peas on the side of my plate, but no snow peas left on either of our plates.

Recipe at "Music Of Rain" http://musicofrain.wordpress.com/2010/06/22/orange-saffron-butter-sauce-on-spring-vegetables-and-pasta/

Did I mention birding in Skaget and not seeing anything? So there I was, grilling salmon on the back deck. I kept hearing a bird that sounded like a kid blowing on a toy train whistle, sometimes it would change up and sound like a play-ground whistle (the kind with a small ball in it to make a twitter sound). I can only hear out of one ear, so it is difficult for me to tell where a sound is coming from. I called Ray who quickly found the sorce of the song. It was a somewhat largish yellow breasted bird in a pine tree just down the hill in the draw behind the house. We thought, warbler? because of the bright yellow and new song. Ray kept coming back to a rare bird called a Yellow Breasted Chat. He got a decent picture of him but his lens isn't powerful enough to really draw it in, and sent it off to "tweeters". It wasn't long before he got conformation that it was indeed a rare Yellow Breasted Chat. Right in our back yard! When I went out this morning it was sitting an a bush just outside of my back fence, singing away.

Picture at Music of Rain: http://musicofrain.wordpress.com/2010/06/21/yellow-breasted-chat/

Good start to another year! And.... it is actually sunny today.

You're still the on that makes me laugh,
Your still the one that's my better half,
We're still having fun and your still the one!

Lavender Brownies

Too cold out to play in the garden, so I made Lavender Brownies. Have to use up those buds before the new batch colors out.



Recipe at Music of the Rain:
http://musicofrain.wordpress.com/2010/06/09/lavender-brownies-with-dark-glaze/

Lavender Scones

Under the umbrella off my kitchen door it smells of summer in a lavender field; even as a late spring rain pounds the fabric and runs in rivulets to the wooden deck below. A cup of tea and lavender scones bring the essence of summer as if I sit in the eye of the storm. Peace for a moment, the essence of rainsong, and a moment to survey the work that came before.

Recipe posted at Music of the Rain

http://musicofrain.wordpress.com/2010/06/05/lavender-scones/

A Lettuce Tasting, spring 2010

There I sat on that cold, cold, wet, rainy day. Rudy and I could not go out to play. There we sat we too, until suddenly, I knew what we two could do....

Rather then wait for the cat-in-the-hat and his wild pals, thing 1 and thing 2, I decided to celebrate the last day of school with my first ever lettuce tasting.

http://musicofrain.wordpress.com/2010/06/03/debs-lettuce-tasting-2010/

I am actually on a quest to find a lettuce that will hold up to summer heat. But so far we have not had any summer heat in the Pacific North West.

What about Violet Jelly?

It sounds so romantic. Violet Jelly. I just realized I have violas, not violets. Drat! Maybe next year..... unless you have a source for me?

Garden Harvest and the First Farmers Market 2010

Hidcote Lavender and Thyme in the herb garden.

We had fish tacos for dinner last night. Doesn't that sound boring? I have ordered fish tacos a few times and been disappointed almost without exception. The very first one I ever ordered was made with a thick slice of fresh mahi-mahi and was interesting. Ray actually loves good fish tacos but agrees that too many of them are made with less then fresh fish (what else is a chef to do with leftover fish except slather it in heat and hope we do not notice the after taste?). Dinner last night was from the Cookus Interuptus blog (link on sidebar of blog or you can link to my variation without the video at http://musicofrain.wordpress.com/2010/05/29/fish-tacos-with-creamy-cilantro-sauce/).

I believe I will start making my own fish tacos from now on! The fish is marinated and broiled instead of fried. That alone is a huge improvement! With the exception of cabbage (why didn't I put that in my garden??) the vegetables came from my Toy Box (link on sidebar of blog) or from the Snohomish farmers market. It is almost empowering to run to the toy box instead of the grocery. I snipped cilantro and large lettuce leaves and snatched a couple of carrots. The carrots could have used a few more days in the ground but I didn't care, they were from my garden and still had better taste than bag carrots. At the farmers market I bought a bunch of Walla Walla Sweet Onion thinnings. A small purple cabbage completed the veggie mix for the tacos. We had a feast!

Ray and Jason hiked somewhere on Snoqualmie. Every time they invite me and Rudy to come I tend to pass because; A) I have an incredible amount of school work to do and B) when they say they are hiking a trail to some Geo-Cache I always think they mean they are hiking on the Granite Falls side of the Mountain Loop Hwy. Since I have done most of those hikes, I reason to myself that I should get my school work done. But they keep coming home from somewhere else. Drat! Why didn't I go? The kids were not doing much work yesterday anyway (not that I would have known that when the guys left). I have got to get into the habit of saying, "Where are you going?" And when they give me some red-neck answer like, "To the ape cache" I should find out where the trail is, not the name of the cache. Ape cache sounds like it will be found in red-neck central (a.k.a. Robe Valley).

Ray and Bomber at the Ape Cache. Bomber LOVES to hunt and has picked up that Ray and Jason are hunting when they Geo-Cache. He is good at finding them. I think he may just know the scent of some of Jason's Geo buddies. He still surprises me. Geo-caching with Chris on Whidbey Island he found what we were looking for. The hint was something about checking the rock. The trail was covered with stones. The guys were busy turning them over. Bomber was interested in one he found trail side. When he flipped it with his paw Chris saw that it was one of those fake rocks for hiding keys, or in this case, a micro cache. Clever boy!

What should I do with all that Swiss chard?

My mother did not serve many "greens" when I was growing up. She does make a wonderful wilted spinach salad but as a child it was loved for the bacon, not the spinach. She also puts fresh spinach into different salads (my mother is an amazing salad person). I don't remember ever having Swiss chard at home.

My first experience was when a neighbor gave me a bundle of chard from her garden. We were walking partners that summer. At the end of a walk one evening she invited me to come see her pretty vegetable garden. After the tour she sent me home with a big handful of crisp Swiss chard. Once chopped, I mixed it with ricotta and cottage cheese for lasagna. I have used the same cheese mixture to stuff pasta, which makes it very much like lasagna, just looks a little different.

My Lasagna Recipe http://musicofrain.wordpress.com/2010/05/17/swiss-chard-in-lanagna/

I like Swiss chard julienned and dropped into soup just before serving. It will keep its bright green color briefly so serve it quick. Try it roughly chopped and mixed into your next quiche

Deborah Madison has a recipe in "The Greens Cook Book" that combines buckwheat linguine and French lentils with carrots and chard…. I'll let you know how that turns out. She, by the way, saves the stems for soup stock.

Annie Summerville, author of "Fields of Greens" considers chard a winter vegetable. My favorite recipe from her book is "Fettuccini with Chard, Currants, Walnuts, and Brown Butter" Since some believe that the Pacific northwest is in perpetual winter, I suppose that it is safe to serve Annie's chard creation in May.

The authors of "The New Laurel's Kitchen" (new was in 1986) suggest that young chard is good served over brown rice when added to sautéed onion with raisins. Sprinkle with toasted sunflower seeds. They also turned me on to adding chard to sautéed onion, garlic and a teaspoon of fresh ginger before tossing with a sprinkle of soy sauce and a chopped tomato. Serve it over potatoes (mashed, smashed or steamed and cubed) or rice. It is also good over pasta. Another New Laurel's Kitchen suggestion is to stuff it into Pita with cottage cheese or to stuff and bake the leaves. If requested I will give links to both of my adaptations.

Swiss chard is just too good to be covered in hot oil, wilted and dropped on a plate.