The only pretty ring time

We've been seeing signs of spring around here for the past couple of weeks now and it's been pretty glorious. The weather hasn't exactly been consistently pleasant, we've definitely been getting our March winds and some rain to boot, but we've been getting ourselves outside at every opportunity. Silas loves to be out, digging and dumping sand, gathering rocks, letting the chickens out, turning the water on and off, watering the garden, soaking himself, and generally having a good time.

Our earliest plants have started blooming and all of the fruit trees have buds. Tres started the first trays of seeds for the garden two weeks ago and he and Silas planted the first seeds in the ground yesterday. 

forsythia

lilac buds

The chickens are back up to nearly maximum output, laying 4-6 eggs per day. The jackrabbits are out and quickly multiplying. I've started hanging the wash outside again. One of our beehives is busily buzzing (the other didn't make it through the winter, more on that in a separate post). Our sweet spring baby is growing steadily and (despite photographic evidence to the contrary) spending more time awake and alert. Don't you love the promise that spring brings?

Greens, greens, and nothing but greens

Now that's a lot of kale!

I may have mentioned earlier that we've got a serious kale crop this year. Now, we're not in a super rush to use it all up or anything - barring a super intense snow/freeze, the kale will last here well into winter - but we will have to eat it quite consistently in order to get through it all this winter. While we really enjoy kale, it turns out that we don't actually have a lot of go-to recipes for its use. I've been doing some experimenting these past few weeks and have a few to share with you, some new and some we've used for awhile.

First up is a new one to us, from my perennial favorite. This was an especial winner, as it used some of our copious sweet potato harvest too. The only changes I made were, obviously, substituting kale for the chard, using cheddar (it's what I had), and leaving out the fancy herbs (which I didn't have). I blanched the kale before cooking it with the onions (I was worried it might be too chewy/crunchy, otherwise, but it may have been an unnecessary step).* I do recommend being a little skimpy with the first sauce application, as the top will get crunchy if you don't have enough to cover it. Oh, and it's totally delicious.

Next is a family recipe, from my Oma. We've typically eaten it as a side dish at Christmas time, but it's also makes a nice meal, with some potatoes (I especially like it on her dumplings).

Grünkohl
2-3 large bunches of curly kale
4 slices of bacon
1/2 large onion
2 tbsp. oatmeal
water or stock
bouillon (optional, see above)
salt and pepper

Strip kale leaves from stems and wash thoroughly. Blanche, by placing kale in boiling water, returning to a boil, and draining. Puree in food processor. Chop bacon and fry in a large pot. Set bacon aside and and cook onion in bacon fat until glassy. Add kale, water or stock to cover (I usually go the boullion route, since I don't know how much stock I'll need - you just add one cube, regardless of the amount of water you use), salt, and pepper to taste, and bring to a boil. Reduce to a simmer, add oatmeal (I know this sounds weird, but it's just a thickener), and cook for about an hour (add water if it dries out). Taste it - if it's bitter, cook it longer. This is best if it sits for a day before you eat it.

This is the closest I could come to a Silas-related

photo with kale, it's a year old and he's picking cabbage

This next one's from my sister and for all of you raw kale lovers out there (it made a believer out of me!).

Kale Slaw
Chop up a bunch of kale. Not teeny - more like potato-chip sized.
Put in a bowl.
Squeeze a whole lemon over the top of it.
Dump in a fair amount of sea salt.
Drizzle in a tablespoon of olive oil.
Drop in a cut-up avocado.
Knead thoroughly (a couple minutes - with your hands).

This soup is from another old standby in our house. It's quite adaptable to what you have on hand and seriously delicious - I won't lie, though, I can't think of a way to make a vegetarian version that's nearly as good. Thoughts?

Portuguese Kale Soup (adapted from Marian Morash's The Victory Garden Cookbook)
1 pound kale
1 pound potatoes, peeled and chopped
1 pound smoked sausage (I love chorizo, she also recommends linguica), sliced
1 medium/large onion, chopped
2 carrots, chopped
2 cloves garlic, chopped
olive oil, if needed
2 quarts stock
1 quart tomatoes (she calls for 3 lb.)
1 1/2 cups cooked beans (I occasionally leave these out if I don't have any on hand, but it's better with them)
salt and pepper

Wash and strip the kale from its stems, then diagonally slice it in thick strips (you should end up with 6-8 cups). Fry sliced sausage in a large pot until lightly browned, then set aside. Warm sausage fat over medium heat (adding some olive oil, if needed). Add onion, carrots, and garlic and cook until softened, about 5-7 minutes. Add potatoes and stock, bring to a boil, then lower to a simmer for 15-20 minutes, until potatoes are cooked. Mash potatoes against the side of the pot, add tomatoes and beans, and simmer for 10-15 minutes. Add kale and sausage, cook for 5-10 minutes, and season to taste.

One last winner, which I won't repost in its entirety here, is to mix 3 large bunches of kale (blanched and pureed) into the sauce of our macaroni and cheese recipe. This was definitely Silas's favorite of the above and we liked it a lot too.

There you have it, 5 of our favorite kale recipes and plenty of kale left in the garden for further experimentation. Got any favorites you'd like to share?

*I made this again this past week and pureed the kale in the food processor after blanching, as Silas had a hard time eating the chopped pieces, and this worked well too.

You'll need no castles in Spain

Happy fall! I apologize, if anyone's actually still reading this, for the long hiatus. This summer, while not particularly busy per se, really knocked me out. I have a post started on some of our summer activities, but I'm so enjoying the season right now, that I decided I'd rather start here. We've been having a beautiful fall and Silas and I have really been enjoying spending time outside - walking through the garden, following the chickens, filling buckets with rocks, and generally having a good time. It's such a relief, after what felt like an unrelentingly hot summer, to be able to comfortably spend long stretches of time outside.

While we were down visiting our folks for Silas's birthday, my dad and Tres went searching for chanterelles and came back with quite a haul. We enjoyed a couple of really delicious mushroom-centric meals and then made the rest into duxelles to freeze  and enjoy throughout the winter.

Silas inspects the cleaned mushrooms

Fall is our busiest preservation time and also the end of preserving season. We've finished all of our jams (I made a few jars of plum two weekends ago and declared jam season finished), canned tomatoes, and made 60 pounds of pears into sauce and preserves, so apples and sauerkraut were our two remaining items. The weekend before last, we hit up the farmer's market for 20 heads of cabbage and a local orchard for 100 pounds of apples and got down to it. Silas was a very eager and involved helper. He mashed and stirred kraut for Tres and helped him peel the apples, while I heated and ground them up.

We've also been enjoying the fall "fruits" of our garden. We've had our first good year for brassicas and are really excited for all of the kale, sprouts, and cabbage we'll be eating over the next few months. The kale has been by far the most prolific and I have some recipes to share shortly, as I've been searching for new ways to use all of that goodness. We also have a few sweet potatoes (they filled the wheelbarrow, as you can see  below - we estimated that it's about 200 pounds. . . from 25 feet of plants!). Suffice it to say, I've been looking for sweet potato recipes too.

eating squash, with chopsticks (why not?)

I peeked in on the bees yesterday and things are looking pretty good in there, lots of honey and bees but significantly slower activity. After some internal debate, I decided not to harvest any honey this year, as I really have no idea how much they'll go through this winter. So, this will be a learning year and next year, we'll do some harvesting. I have a little beeswax, from the combs I broke last spring, so I'll still get to do a little experimenting with that this year.

All in all, it's been a wonderful fall thus far and we're hoping that we'll get to continue with the beautiful sunny days and subsequent sunny dispositions for a few more weeks.

If he stays away, old rocking chair is gonna get me

After a couple weeks of (uncharacteristicly) cool, rainy weather, we're having thunderstorms and highs around 100 today, continuing through the rest of the week's forecast. I suspect that we'll be spending a lot of time in the wading pool and eating popsicles. Let's see, what's been going since I last wrote? I made my first attempt at soap, using the recipe/technique I posted earlier and it seems to have gone quite well. I'll write more about it after the soap has cured and we get to try it out. No more jam yet (although it will be time for blueberries soon!), but lots of great stuff from the garden, including beets, carrots, turnips, kohlrabi, napa cabbage, and the last of the peas. Tres and I accidentally broke one of the honeycombs while checking on the hive last weekend and, while we weren't very happy about it in the moment, getting to taste the honey has been a delicious treat. About 3/4 of a comb (which the bees will be able to rebuild and refill) yielded over a pint of honey!

HAPPY WEEKEND!

The nest is empty now, but here are
the two little guys we had in there

Something delicious: We made this for my mom in the San Juans and it was quite tasty. It was surprisingly easy (despite not having the appropriate pan - a springform worked in a pinch, but I suspect that a pie pan would be better), yet it looks quite impressive.

Something neat: When I was 5 or 6, the neighbors made their own slip and slide and we went down over and over (often landing on the sidewalk - the logistics left a bit to be desired). Silas is a little young for this, I suspect (although maybe he'd just like laying/walking around on it), but it looks pretty fun.

Something to read: I finished this last week and it's definitely worth a read. The science behind processed food is depressing, but ultimately not that surprising (spoiler: they want to maximize the amount that you'll eat, so that you'll buy more). Even more interesting to me was the advertising and psychology behind how they get us to buy stuff. I'm sure most of us feel that we're pretty savvy and aware when we're shopping, but I think we'd be surprised by how easily we're manipulated by words like "natural" and "healthy," or where an item is located in the store. He brings every point back to the health implications of a diet based on processed foods, which is certainly the case for the majority of Americans, and it's pretty bleak. Even with books like this, it's hard to imagine people standing a chance against food juggernauts, with the finest scientific and psychological prowess that money can buy. Although he doesn't quite come out and say it, unless the food companies are willing to take some responsibility for the growing health concerns associated with their products, it seems unlikely that things will get much better.

Something to make: I really like her book and am excited to try some of the recipes that she shared here. I'm thinking that the blackberry honey yogurt pops might happen this weekend.

That's a good hat you got there, Opa

You know what I like

HAPPY WEEKEND!

That hen is totally drinking my tea

Something delicious: We're currently in that frustrating time of year when we're ready to be done with winter/preserved fare and we're still a few weeks away from any greens in the garden, which makes for a pretty uninspired dinner maker. This onion tart (with this crust (divide it in half if you're only making one pie) helps tide a person over to real pie season and, as you can see in the variation she posted, lends itself to lots of season-specific tinkering. We're eating it with just onions and cheese right now, with a beet vinaigrette salad on the side, but it's really nice with a bitter salad (arugula, anyone?) to balance out the rich saltiness or with some seasonal additions, once the veggies are coming up.

Something neat: These photos are a pretty amazing time capsule and the story is something too - the negatives were discovered when the locker in which they were stored was auctioned off to pay the photographer's debts;  no one close to her even knew they existed.

Something to read: A few weekends ago, my dad told me a story about measuring the amount of grain in a silo by riding up to the very top on a manlift (like this, if I understand correctly) and dropping his tape measure down to where the grain was, then calculating the amount of empty space, in order to help the company with its finances. To me, that seems more than a bit outside the purview of your typical accountant, but it becomes considerably more impressive when you consider the fact that heights are difficult for my father, particularly the idea that he could "fall down and break his neck." So, I was pretty amazed that he'd done it on more than one occasion and also amazed that I'd never heard the story before. That's an incredible thing about friends and family, though, no matter how well you know someone, there's always something that you've never heard about them before. On the other side of that coin, are the stories that become family lore and are repeated over and over again. I love both and was pretty fascinated by this story and the study it cites, that positively correlates children's emotional health and happiness with how well they know their family stories.

Something to make: As we've had some (teasing) warmer days here, I've been realizing how handy it would be to have a long skirt or two to wear most days. I know, I'm becoming more like a pioneer lady every day (can a sunbonnet be far behind?); I think mine would be knit instead of calico though, guys. This looks like a particularly helpful tutorial, although there are quite a number when you google "foldover maxi skirt tutorial."

I'm as restless as a willow in a windstorm

February is a month of anticipation around here, as the weather starts to get a little warmer and we start looking forward to spring. I know that stores have had the bathing suits out since New Year's, but I really don't think that I'm jumping the gun here when I say that we're getting close now. 

This gives you a good idea of their variation - the lady

on the right is the most mature and the left is the least

The chickens are fully grown (or nearly) and at varying stages of maturity, some have fairly substantial combs and have become quite red around the face. Eggs shouldn't be too long off now! Scratch that, we got our first egg yesterday!

Tiny first egg

The trees and shrubs are full of buds.

This forsythia is going to go off any day now

The seeds are organized and ready.

The garden is tilled and the drip line is laid.

Yep, it's definitely starting to look like (nearly) spring around here.

Plant a carrot, get a carrot, not a Brussels sprout

I once saw Brussels Sprouts at a market labeled as

"little green balls of death" and even though

that doesn't really reflect my opinion, I can't

help but think of it whenever I see some

Today, an ode to Brussels sprouts. I harvested these beauties from the garden last week and they were mighty fine. We didn't get a huge yield this year (what you see above is about half of our total), as we got them in a little late for our weather. We're still trying to work out the best time to plant them, so that they can grow into the winter, but also yield a maximum number of sprouts. The scarcity this year, though, has just made them all the more precious. I realize that they're not everyone's cup of tea, but I expect that's only because they haven't had good ones. Fresh, small sprouts, prepared well, are really one of life's treats. We typically just cut them in half and fry them in a little butter and salt until they're soft (they should still have a little crunch - the mushiness that comes from boiling them is often what people dislike about them), splashing on a little lemon juice at the end. Pairing them with bacon is often a popular choice and, obviously, delicious as is adding some salty cheese like parmesan. We tried this last week, using the wonderful preserved lemons my sister gave us for Christmas, and enjoyed it thoroughly. So go, seek out a winter farmer's market and find yourself some sprouts - you won't be disappointed! 

The beet goes on*

Deconstructed borscht (shredded beets,
canned tomatoes, bacon, and cabbage not shown)

Yesterday, we had our first borscht of the season, a bit later than usual, and I was struck again by how perfectly suited it is to this time of year. I know that I've written about it before, but I feel as though I rediscover its perfection every year. Aside from the obvious benefit of warming one up during cold weather, we also tend to have all of the ingredients on hand for most of the winter. Admittedly, this happens a bit by design (have I mentioned that I love borscht?), but it is also because they are all storable/able to grow during this time of year. While I tend to stick pretty closely to the recipe I posted earlier, it would be so easily adaptable to other wintry items you might have on hand. No potatoes? How about a few turnips? Or parsnips? Or rutabagas? No cabbage? How about shredded Brussels Sprouts? Or kale? There's something just so beautiful to me about a recipe that utilizes a number of fresh ingredients during a season that we tend to think of as not offering a lot. It doesn't hurt that it's pretty delicious too.

Silas is also a fan (and yes, eating borscht
is a shirtless activity)

* I am fully aware that that's the worst, punniest title ever, but sometimes I just can't help myself.

There's a patch of snow on the ground

As I headed out to the winter garden yesterday, I realized I'd better grab a few shots, as it will only be another month or so until it's time to till it up and get ready for this year's garden. Tres has been spending some quality time with his catalogues and the garden spreadsheet, happily working on what I'm pretty sure is his favorite part of gardening. While we dream about the coming year's tastiness, here are a couple of shots from yesterday's foraging (if you look closely, you may be able to see some of the pieces of ice that were still attached from the morning's dew - after an unseasonably warm December, it's definitely winter here now!).

tasty sprouts!

row of kale

yum

rutabaga

Breeze blows leaves of a musty-colored yellow

Ok, so leaves haven't exactly started falling (although I have seen some starting to change color this week), but we're definitely getting into the fall mindset around here . True, the weather has changed a bit (it's getting cooler at night and, while lovely, sunny, and warm during the day, it doesn't have the same baking heat we had last month), but I think our transition has more to do with our activities over the past couple of weeks. 

Tres harvested the sweet potatoes, potatoes, and squash from the garden and brought them up to the shop to cure and store. We've been dipping into them already and they're pretty great. Silas is a big fan of the sweet potatoes and has enjoyed all of the squash we've tried so far. Guess he's a fall boy.

A couple weekends ago, we hit up the farmer's market and came home with about 40 pounds of Bartlett pears. We haven't preserved any since we were in Seattle (which is over 2 years ago now - wowee) and I was really hankering for some. As you can see below, they were quite green and hard when we first purchased them. I was interested to learn that pears are one of the few fruits that should be allowed to ripen after they have been picked, as those that ripen on the tree become mealy and mushy. Who knew?

I started off trying out a recipe for preserves that seemed similar to some Tres longingly remembers from his childhood. That involved peeling and slicing the pears, then letting them sit overnight in some sugar, before cooking and canning the preserves the next day. I used this recipe (good name for a blog, huh - I swear that's not why Tres chose that recipe : ) ) and what I tasted was pretty darn nice. It's quite, quite sweet, so I suspect a little dab will do you, but it has a lovely intense pear flavor.

Next up was pear butter, my impetus for buying the pears in the first place. Tres made amazingly delicious pear butter the last year we lived in Seattle and I hoped to make something similar. So, more peeling and coring, then pureeing (I used the mixer's meat grinder attachment, just like when we make applesauce), and heating in the crock pot with spices overnight. It was this day that the prep started to weigh on me. Forty pounds hadn't sounded like that much when I started, but the vegetable peeler and I aren't really friends (you'd think we'd have come up with something easier/more efficient in this modern day and age) and it takes FOREVER. Despite my enthusiastic helper (see below) it was a slow, messy day. I was pretty happy with the result, when all was said and done, although I'm not it measures up to my memory of Tres's . . . we'll see how I feel with some distance from the process.

Now that I was really ready to be done with pears, I still had about 10 pounds left. I ground them up (after peeling them of course - ugh), added some spices, heated the puree, and canned them. I think they should go over big with Silas this winter. So, that's my saga. Pears are delicious and, ultimately, I'm glad I got them, but man, I wish there were a shortcut for dealing with them!

L to R: butter, preserves, and sauce (the lighting
is poor, but you get the general idea)

Just think, in a couple more weeks it will be time for applesauce (at least we have a corer/peeler for that)!

Yes, I can, yes, I can!

Ah summer, you're the busiest time of year and thus most blog-worthy (or at least full of the most fodder) and yet also, due to said busy-ness, leave so little time to actually write anything down. Case in point, I started composing this entry on August 9th and it is now, well. . . no longer August. It's been a good month and I'll do my best to talk about all that's gone on, although likely not give it quite the focus it could/should have. To begin, the garden has been a little slower this year than last, in that we've only been completely overwhelmed by tomatoes, eggplant, melons, and pumpkins for the last few weeks, rather than for the past two months. Tres is talking about downsizing a bit next year, as two years of trials have given us a pretty good idea about which varieties we like and do well here. Perhaps he'll want to talk a little bit more about that on here sometime this fall/winter.

A few minutes picking yielded a bowl full of tomatoes (my favorite, "Katja")

I tried to make and freeze cucuzzi bread again, but unfortunately was a bit behind on my harvesting. I got a biggie I was sure would yield lots of bread, unfortunately it was way too far gone. It was well on its way to gourd-dom, with skin so hard it was virtually impossible to cut and full of big seeds on the inside. As we're up to our eyeballs in pumpkins right now (or rather the garden is full, but it will be time to harvest them soon), perhaps I'll try to make and freeze some pumpkin bread instead. 

giant cucuzza, incredulous face

As the garden winds down, the pantry continues to fill.  Two Saturdays ago, Tres picked about 100 pounds of tomatoes for us to can. With Silas in the mix, we were definitely slower than in years past, but we finished by mid-afternoon and still had some time for other work and even a little relaxing at the end of the day. There are more tomatoes still ripening, so we will likely do one more batch in another week or two.

Time to do the tomatoes

33 quarts of tomatoes

A few days later, we headed to the local orchard and picked about 45 pounds of peaches. We ate and baked with a number throughout the week and the following weekend, with the help of a visiting dear friend, we turned them into 17 half pints of peach butter and 8 quarts of peach halves in syrup. I managed not to take any photos of the peaches or, more importantly (and sadly), our visitor, but here's what the pantry's looking like these days and a current inventory:

So, from the left to right, we've got the aforementioned peach products, 11 half pints of amaretto cherries, 6 half pints of  blackberry/raspberry jam, 6 half pints of blackberry jam, 7 half pints of blueberry jam, a few quarts of last year's leftovers (including sun-dried tomatoes in the foreground), 14 half pints of strawberry balsamic syrup and jam, 13 half pints of nectarine jam, and, of course, the tomatoes up above. Toast is going to be exciting this winter!

Also, two giant squash and about 7 more down in the shop, not to

mention the many, many still waiting down in the garden.

Time to get roasting and pureeing!

Despite the above evidence to the contrary, we've been up to a bit more than cooking and preserving this month, but I think this is plenty long, so I'll write a bit about our visitors and visiting in another entry (and post it before another month goes by, I promise). In the meantime, even though the time has flown by, I find myself looking forward to fall and enjoying the feelings of change in the air.

We'll all be gone for the summer

Sorry again for the radio silence around here. I had really hoped to get a post up before we headed out to Montana for Tres's sister's wedding last week, but it just didn't happen. We're back and (mostly) recovered now, so I'll try to catch up. Since chronology hardly seems to matter at this point, I'll lead off with a few photos from the trip.

The photos above are from our visit to Yellowstone -

how sweet is that bison?

 Pig races!

 A little pre-wedding wiffle ball

This one's for AR: 

Proud Papa

 The happy couple, their officiant, and the ring dog

All duded up

Meeting other babies

My side of the family

Friendly competition?

Scotty tries to share

We have a dance

It was a beautiful, super fun wedding and a wonderful trip. 

A couple of weeks ago, my dad picked us a flat each of blackberries and raspberries and I did something I've been wanting to do for years now: made caneberry jam. I made a batch of blackberry and a batch of raspberry/blackberry. I adapted recipes from The Blue Chair Jam Book, which I've borrowed from the library, and I'm really happy with how they turned out. I may have to buy a copy for myself - while not all of the recipes are relevant to us (many include ingredients/seasonality specific to California), the ones I used were spot on and it's really a lovely book to look through and read. The few recipes I've tried have already taught me a lot, especially that making jam in small batches is much easier than trying to double or triple recipes. While this shouldn't be that surprising, I hadn't really considered how much longer the process (essentially cooking enough water out of the fruit for it to thicken) is made by increasing the amount of fruit. Following the method* Rachel Saunders describes made the whole process so easy and it turned out so well, that I think I am officially converted to a multiple small batches girl.

Ingredients heating

My trusty assistant

The weekend after that, we made our second annual trip to pick blueberries. It was shaping up to be another hot day, so we were glad we headed out early.

Silas was fairly content to play with the bucket and crawl around and then was happy in the carrier for awhile, but had had enough after 45 minutes or so. Luckily, we were most of the way there and I was able to entertain him while Tres filled up the last bucket (it helps to be married to a former pro blueberry picker). We picked a little over 20 pounds and it was more than enough to freeze 26 pint jars, make 7 half pints of jam (another winner from the book mentioned above!), and still have plenty for fresh eating.

I've got some nectarines macerating in the fridge now and once that jam is done, it will be time for peach butter and canned peaches, followed quickly by tomatoes (canning that is, not jam). The garden is going gangbusters - we're eating as many melons, tomatoes, and eggplants as we can manage and sharing plenty with the neighbors. These are delicious, exciting times, if a bit busy.

* I followed her directions explicitly in cooking the jam, but used a water bath to can, rather than her oven method, as I felt more confident with it.