Clutching forks and knives to eat their bacon

From the Recipe Box

I know I've been on a bit of a pea kick this year, but I've been especially consumed with love for them this year and did my best to eat as many as I could in their short season. I stumbled upon this recipe a few weeks ago and was instantly struck by its perfect affinity for peas. Unfortunately, our shell peas are not terrifically prolific (I imagine one would have to grow a tremendous number to actually have a lot of peas around and then there'd be all the shelling. . .), so since we'd just eaten some, I had to wait a little while for them to be replenished. It was totally worth it.

Pea and Bacon pasta (adapted from here)

Ingredients
one small onion, thinly sliced
6 slices bacon (ours are cut small - probably more like 4 slices regulation size, but bacon's hardly the place to skimp, now is it?)
1 pound tube pasta, I used penne
about 4 cups of stock
1/4 cup peas (that's all I had - add  more if you have 'em)
chevre
salt
pepper


Directions
Fry the bacon in a large skillet until crispy (I like to cut it into bits first, but you can crumble it later if you prefer). Put bacon aside and cook onion in bacon fat over medium heat, until soft and golden. Add pasta to the pan and stir it around to coat it in fat. Add 3 cups of stock and bring to a simmer, adjusting the heat to keep it simmering without boiling. Cook for 10 - 15 minutes, stirring every few minutes to incorporate the pasta that's above the liquid. There should always be liquid coating the bottom of the pan, add more stock if the bottom is drying out. Test frequently, starting at about 7 minutes, and remove from heat when pasta is al dente. Add your peas about a minute or two before your pasta is done. Pour the pasta into a bowl, add the bacon,  salt and pepper to taste, and stir it all up. Put a little chevre on your serving, mix it up, and eat it.

And I hope you like jammin' too

Just a quick post to say that we made this year's strawberry balsamic jam yesterday. I made a triple batch, with a few adaptations as I failed to make sure I had enough sugar and balsamic vinegar before getting started. . . heh. This year, I followed her directions and canned the berries and syrup separately, with the intention of having a thicker jam for toast and then using the syrup for anything else (waffles, pancakes, cake, ice cream . . . ). 

 We're going to need a bigger pot

We ended up with 5 half pints of jam and 9 of syrup - and our little samples while cooking were quite tasty. I'll post an update in the winter with our thoughts on this years changes. The recipe, in case you don't care to reread last year's post is from here. Hooray for the beginning of fruit season!

 A not great photo of the finished product (jam on the right)

My photo assistants

Papa oom mow mow

Incredibly, Tres and I have been at this parenting thing now for 8 months. I say incredibly because, like all parents, I can't believe how quickly the time has passed. As we close in on our first Father's Day since Silas was born, I've been reflecting on how much I appreciate and value Tres's partnership, both in our marriage and in parenthood. Look out, this is going to get squishy.

Tres and I have been together for 12 years and married for 6. A lot has happened over that time; the difference between 18 and 30 seems like light years. What strikes me, though, is how much is also the same. He is still absolutely the boy I fell in love with those 12 years ago - silly, serious, trustworthy, pragmatic, inscrutable, loving, loyal, and smart as hell (sorry, honey, it needed to be said) - and I'm so happy that he'll be passing on all of those traits to our son.

A prime example of what he brings to our parenting happened a few weeks ago, when he was feeding Silas. I had introduced Silas to solids about a month previously and been slowly trying out different foods, offering them on a spoon (not very popular, as it turns out) and later my finger (decidedly more appealing). I usually fed him during the day while Tres was at work, but that day I asked if he would feed him some hot cereal. After giving him a few bites with his finger and seeing his enthusiasm, Tres let him take some from the plate himself. This idea had never crossed my mind. I mean, I had just not even considered the possibility. Now, as you can see, not a lot of it got into Silas's mouth, but he was into it. He was excited about the food, enjoying the process of grabbing and feeling its texture, and I think, on some level, excited about the agency he had in getting to touch it himself. That moment did more for helping him to love food and eating (a value we hold pretty near and dear around here) than any of his previous month's eating. These are the kind of rich experiences he will get to have because Tres is his papa.

Happy Father's Day, honey - I'm so happy and lucky to be raising a family with you!

Look at these two, is Silas a chip off the old block, or what?

I eat my peas with honey

Not to be outdone in a photo essay by my husband, I present our son enjoying the fruits of aforementioned garden, specifically peas*:

Before you think something like: wow that's a lot of photos of the same thing, just know that I cut it down from 30. . . this is what being a parent does to you.

* For the sake of accuracy, I should note that he's not actually consuming any peas in these pictures, but gnawing on a pod from shell peas (which is too fibrous to be edible) - he did enjoy the insides later in the evening, though.

The weeds are all around us and they're growing; it will soon be too late for the knife

This is T. I've not been blogging this year, mostly so I could focus on getting things done around the property, like building fences and decks. Anyway, I seem to have lost some steam recently in the home-improvement department, so I thought I'd take some photos for a garden update.  

In general, things are going much better this year than last. The garden is the same size... about 1/5 acre of generously spaced vegetable beds. I could probably jam the same amount of vegetable production in about half of the space (with less weeding and fertilizer needed), but the garden would feel much more cramped. In any case, by this point in the year the weeding has decreased dramatically as the soil outside the beds has become dry and packed. 

For fertilizer this year I had a load of composted dairy manure delivered and spread with the help of my neighbors tractor and manure spreader. The manure of course carried some weed seed, but it is a good source of organic matter that I hope will improve some of the properties of my sandy and hydrophobic soil. 

As an additional improvment, I added valves to each of the drip lines in the garden so that I can control the water to particular crops (like the potatoes, so I can cut off the water when they mature). 

Here is some seed I'm growing of a red pointed-head cabbage called 'Kalibos'. I took the plants from a grower I work with  and put them in the garden to go to seed. Growing seed is interesting because it gives you a chance to see an essential phase of the vegetable life cycle that you don't normally see. I'll grow seed for varieties that require high seeding rates (arugula) or that I really like and will use for years ( like 'Esmerelda' lettuce). We had excellent bee activity for the pollination of this cabbage, which was a bit of a mystery to me until I discovered that the neighbors have a dozen hives today. I like watching the insects work.

Here is a crisphead lettuce called 'Summertime'. This was a volunteer in the garden from last summer, and I transplanted several of them into a bed. It's nice, if you like crisp lettuce. 'A' thinks that it is too crunchy. It is supposed to be heat tolerant.

Some Super Sugar Snap peas. Nice vigorous plants. Good production so far, but we'll see how they deal with the weather  when it heats up.  I don't like picking peas very much. It seems like I always miss lots of pods, even if I look through the patch multiple times. Tasty though. 

A blue-green cabbage, the seed of which I acquired through my work. That wonderful set of vegetables which are members of the Brassica oleracea species are kind of tough for me to grow, though I'm having more success this year than last. Brassicas typically prefer rich moist soils and moderate temperatures, neither of which we have in abundance here. Last year, to be honest, only the collards really worked, along with some kale and kohlrabi.  Generally, the more 'rustic' the plant type (like kale and collards), the easier it is to grow.  This year, I've had moderate success with broccoli and kohlrabi, and while the cabbage above has put on a bigger frame than I would think is ideal, I believe it will make a head eventually. Other crucifers we enjoy eating include turnip greens, mustard greens, turnips, radish (spring and especially winter), arugula, and a recent discovery... napa cabbage. Napa cabbage stalks are a delightful, crispy texture and a light flavor.. kind of like celery, and just a bit cabbage-y. They are pretty easy to grow, though I've had a bit of a problem with tip-burn on the inside of the heads.  

Ahhhh. Butterhead lettuce. This is a variety called 'Esmerelda'. I haven't trialed lettuces extensively, but I've several and this one wins hands-down. Trouble-free plants and an awesome, silky texture. 'A' and I both prefer butterhead types to all others.  

My edamame plants. The rabbits got every last one of these last year.... I was most disappointed. Edamame makes a great snack, and I hear they freeze well.

Quinoa is one of a few staple crops I'm growing this year (we also have some flour corn, potatoes and sweet potatoes, but who is counting). Last year was a disaster of disease and insects on my quinoa. This year I was given a variety at the Organic Seed Alliance conference that may be more adapted than the grocery store quinoa I sowed last year. 'A' and I both love quinoa; and I refuse to pay $3 per pound for a staple grain; so it is the garden or nothing. 

Beets. Better stand this year (too good in fact). I should have thinned them more.
You can see the leaf-miner damage. 

Here is something new this year. Yard-long beans; a kind of indeterminate cowpea popular as a green vegetable in asia. As you might guess, the pods can be very long. Unfortunately, I got excited when the weather got 'nice' and planted these too early. They love heat, and what you're looking at is cold damage. They'll probably grow out of it. 

We're looking forward to a healthy dose of parsnip this winter. Last year the stand was very poor. Parsnip seed has notoriously weak and slow germination, but I babied it up this year. Part of this comes from having a better understanding of how I need to water in my sandy soil.   

My big trials this year are in Cucurbita moschata winter squash  (row on left), melons (row on right, focused on charantais types) and tomatos , with 15+ varieties of each.  I'm growing the moschata squash because all of the Cucurbita maxima plants I grew last year succumbed to a mysterious disease, while the moschata made a few fruit. I'm looking for disease resistance; good yield; thick dry nutty-sweet flesh (not too sweet mind you) and good storage. I'm not quite sure why I'm growing all those melons; I usually can't get through a whole one without overdosing. Please come eat some in late August.  

We had a near miss with our tomato crop (and a few others). We had  temperatures in the low 30s as late as May 10 this year, which is quite unusual, and this damaged a number of my tomato plants. Some varieties were more sensitive than others. Luckily I had replacements in reserve for the most damaged, and the others have snapped out nicely. The photo above is what I like to see... a stocky upright plant with plenty of leaf cover, but not too rangy. I prune my indeterminate tomatos to a single leader (sometimes two) for as long as I can. I'll give an update on tomato varieties later in the season. 

The cats don't know it yet, but they are going to be  enjoying catnip for quite some time to come.