I'm young and free, and suddenly it's spring

We've definitely shifted into full spring mode this week. Here are some sights of the season:

Silas enjoys the last the last beets and carrots from our root cellar

Tomato seedlings have been transplanted to their secondary containers

A delicious gift from one of Tres's growers

We're looking forward to our first salad tonight -

the volunteer arugula (closest plants in photo)

has gone gangbusters!

Tres and his pop are currently hard at work on this (more details once it's completed):

They're juicy and healthy and cute

sprinklers in action on the back "lawn"

Tres has been hard at work on our yard these past few weekends. Now, when I say yard, I should specify that up until this point we have done no landscaping, other than putting in the garden last year. After the house was finished, he put out some grass seed and we've had a lawn that's about the equivalent of an adolescent boy's facial hair  up until this point. Now that the weather's getting nice and it's a more appropriate growing season (and he actually has a spare moment), Tres is getting serious. For the past month, he has spent most of every weekend installing a sprinkler system, which will automatically water the lawn and plants around the house. It was  a pretty Sisyphean task (yay, digging in the sand!), complicated by the fact that he was working by himself, but he did a wonderful job and now we can get to the (mostly) fun part: adding plants! Our landscaping hopes/requirements are twofold: anything we put in should be easy to maintain and functional whenever possible.

 forsythia (up close to the house) and peach

Our first addition was one of my spring favorites, a forsythia bush. Aside from being just pretty to look at, I love that forsythia are one of the harbingers of spring, providing a burst of color just when you need it the most. They're also quite easy to maintain and do well in our climate. I've joked that buying our first plant from a nursery has made me officially feel like a grown up and (while I know that some of the other experiences of the past year  have been perhaps a bit more life-changing) I'm really only half kidding - there's something very adult feeling about planting things that will take years to mature and become useful.

 blackberries (look for the bright green tags)

 raspberries

Which brings us to our acquisitions of the past two weekends, fruit trees and berry bushes! Well, berry sticks, really, but, assuming all goes well, they should grow into bushes. These fit our requirements perhaps a bit better than the forsythia (although I would argue that improving aesthetics is useful too, so long as the plant is low maintenance) and we are really excited at their prospects. Of course, as I mentioned above, we will not be seeing the fruits of our labors (so to speak - heh) for a few years. We're looking forward to D'Anjou and Bartlett pears, Redhaven peaches, three varieties of cherry (Vans, Montmorencies, and Black Republicans - it's a  super neat grafted tree), blackberries, and raspberries someday.

 cherry

pears (D'Anjou on left, Bartlett on right)

Tres has done all of this work himself and it's been quite the job, made all the less pleasant by the fact that he'd much rather be working in the garden. I'm so admiring of his hard work and excited to do my part as harvester, preserver, and eater in the next few years.

Silas is excited too

I lost my poor meatball when somebody sneezed

From the Recipe Box

Meat sauce for pasta is one of the first things I learned how to cook and has been an oft-used recipe in my repetoire every since. It calls for basic ingredients that we pretty much always have on hand (onion, garlic, canned tomatoes, ground meat, spices), cooks up in 30 - 45 minutes, and it tastes good. When I came across this recipe the other day, though, I was intrigued by the sauce and thought I'd give it a try. The recipe below is what I ended up making - an amalgam of it and the meat sauce that I've always made. As usual, the changes are mostly due to my laziness (Clean the food processor? No thanks!)/limited by what I had on hand (drained tomatoes are close enough to tomato paste). The result is, I think, substantially more flavorful and intense than my former (ok, let's be honest, more delicious), without really much more work. The trick is just to start things early enough and to be available to check on the sauce periodically throughout its cooking period. I don't know if it will entirely replace my meat sauce of old (there's something to be said for being able to decide what to cook an hour before you eat it), but it really is in another league.

Meat Sauce

olive oil

one medium onion, diced

2 carrots, diced

3 cloves garlic, crushed

1/4 teaspoon celery seed (the actual recipe calls for celery, which you can certainly use)

2 pounds ground pork (beef would be fine too, this is just what we have around)

2 quarts tomatoes, drained

1/2 cup red wine (I'm sure it would be great with the full 2 cups she suggests, I'm just stingy)

2 bay leaves

water

herbs of choice

salt

pepper

Heat about 3 tablespoons olive oil in heavy-bottomed pot over medium heat. Add onion, carrots, garlic, celery seed, and salt and pepper to taste. Cook until nicely browned, stirring often, about 10 minutes. Now, set the veggies aside and do the same thing with the pork (you could do this concurrently in 2 pots, if you'd like it to go faster; I preferred dirtying fewer pots). Mine started out frozen, so I can't really give a time estimate here. Once the pork is nice and brown, add the vegetables and tomatoes and cook about 4 more minutes. Add red wine and cook 5 more minutes. Add water (she says until it's an inch above the meat, but my meat, etc. floated, so just estimate - I think I added about 2 cups to start, but I didn't measure), bay leaves, and any herbs that you like in sauce and have on hand (I just put in some dried oregano), stir to combine, and bring to a low simmer. Simmer for the next 3 hours, adding 1-2 cups of water every time it cooks down. Taste for spices and adjust appropriately (mine needed more salt). Serve on pasta or polenta, with some parmesan/romano/hard, salty cheese grated on top.

I think I may double the recipe next time, as we'll only get about 2 meals out of the above (to be fair, they are pretty generous portions and it would go further if you served it with sides, of course).

People keep on learnin'

As we look forward to a new season in the garden, now seems like a good time to revisit our growing/preserving from last year, see how it's held up, and consider what we might do differently.

Spring on Tres's childhood farm, 1984

Canning
Let's go in order of seasonality. First up, strawberry balsamic jam. I stand by my opinion that this is a delicious recipe, but my earlier assertion that it ended up at all jam-like was really untrue. Choosing to deviate from the recipe and keep the syrup (rather than just canning the berries) meant that it was just that, thick syrup with berries. This year, I think I'll can the berries and syrup separately. The berries will be less messy for spreading on toast, etc. and the syrup could be used on pancakes, waffles, ice cream, yogurt, etc. 

Next up are the amaretto cherries. All in all, these remained quite delicious after canning. They did get a bit softer than they were originally, so I definitely think picking them a bit under-ripe was a good choice.  I also think I'll add a little more amaretto this year, as the flavor became a bit subtler with canning.

We made a variety of  pickled items last summer - cucumbers, tomatoes, and peppers in a traditional dill flavored brine and bread and butter pickled cucumbers. They all turned out quite well and have been a nice taste of summer in these root vegetable-heavy winter months. While the food processor was a nice time saver, it was hard to get the cucumbers uniformly sliced with it; I think that I might just quarter them all in spears this year, although that does make it difficult to wrangle them on a sandwich. . .

I'm really happy with how the peach butter came out this year. I think slow cooking it in the crock pot gave it an additional depth of flavor and, I won't lie, it also cut out my least favorite part of the process (standing around stirring the pot while it cooks down). I've surprised myself with how much I've enjoyed the canned peaches this winter too. I always think that I won't be that into them, but homemade really are so much better than store bought (although I will always have a soft spot for that favorite dessert of my youth, I'm not sure that I'd actively seek it out today) and a welcome treat when fruit is scarce to be had.

Ah, tomatoes. While we're not into fresh tomato season yet. I think I can fairly safely say  that (unless we go on a major binge in the next few months here) we finally canned enough tomatoes last year. Having a pretty much infinite supply (at least more than we could possibly eat ourselves) from the garden that stretched out over months definitely helped. That said, I'm not sure if we'll can as we go again this year or just do a couple of big batches. I suppose circumstances and the cooperative nature (or lack thereof) of a certain small someone will likely play a role.

Now, applesauce on the other hand, is something I could definitely have done with more of this winter. We're technically not out yet, but I'm trying to ration the six jars I have left, as I can go through one in about 3 days. What can I say, I love the stuff and I hit a certain point every winter (say February or so?) where I want to eat fruit all of the time. It would be worth considering other fruits for preservation this year, so that we can have more next winter, especially since I'll have some competition from Silas by then. The McIntosh and Cameos really did make superior sauce to the Fujis; hopefully we can get our hands on some more of those this year.

As always, Tres's sauerkraut turned out wonderfully. We didn't blog about it this year, but he followed the same method as he has the past few years, to continued success. If you think you don't like sauerkraut, you should see if you can get your hands on some that's been homemade - it just might change your life (or at least your opinion on sauerkraut).

Freezing
Wow, freezing the blueberries in jars worked out really well. They take up more room in the freezer, which can be a bit of a pain, but they stayed really fresh. I mostly used them for baking, but also made a few sauces and even ate some straight out of the jar and not only was the flavor excellent, but the texture was great too. The berries were still juicy and the skin stayed firm (none of that leathery-ness I've experienced in the past). I will definitely be doing this again next year.

I was also really happy with the cucuzzi bread (pretty much zucchini bread, but with a slightly different squash) that we froze. As someone with a serious sweet tooth, it's been really nice to have something we can just pull out of the freezer, toast, and eat when a craving strikes, or when we've run out of bread and need something for breakfast. While not quite the same as when it's fresh, this comes about as close as anything on this list to maintaining its original deliciousness after freezing (I just pulled out one of the last loaves this week, about 6 months after it went in, and it's still great).


 While the frozen dinners we put away over the summer were really nice to have after Silas was born and lasted us a good while, they weren't very impressive. I suspect it's my technique that's lacking as much as anything, but the vegetables (tomatoes and squash in particular) got pretty watery and we lost a lot of the flavor from our spices in freezing. Were I to do it again, I think I'd add fresh garlic, onion, and spices when reheating (rather than freezing them along with the rest). I'm not sure what could be done about the wateriness, other than maybe cooking it down a bit more before freezing? My biggest change, though, would be to put in the extra few minutes and skin the tomatoes (dipping them in boiling water and peeling, like when we're canning). The skins get really chewy and unappealing once they've been frozen.

Well, despite my best intentions, I have yet to use any of the eggplant I froze. Somehow, after our extravaganza over the summer, I haven't had much of an urge to use more this winter. Who knows, though, there's still time!

I've roasted, pureed, and frozen pumpkin several times in the past, so I was pretty confident in my technique this time around, but I'm still happy to report that it served us well throughout  the winter. Despite our disappointment at our poor harvest, 5 pumpkins yielded plenty of pumpkin for us this year.

 I also froze some eggs (following these instructions), in anticipation of our hens slowing down their production to molt, but molting has come and gone and the slowdown has yet to take place. I'm curious to see how they kept, so I may just use them anyway (to be clear, I only plan to use them in cooking/baking - I can't imagine they'd be anything but disgustingly rubbery if you tried to eat them scrambled, fried, or in an omelet).


Etc.
The sundried tomatoes have been a delicious surprise. They're quite flavorful and have held up very well over the winter. My only complaint, if you can call it that, is that we haven't come up with much to do with them. Tres has made a delicious pasta topping (basically pesto, but with the tomatoes instead of basil and no nuts - I'll see if I can get a recipe for it up here in the next few weeks; it's awesome) and we've just eaten them plain, but that's about it. They're so great, definitely a different, more intense flavor than the canned tomatoes and relatively easy to process, that I'd like to find more uses for them; hopefully we'll get more creative here in the months before we have fresh tomatoes back on the scene.

Phew, this has turned into quite the epic. It's also a bit repetetive, I realize, as I revisited a lot of these activities in my earlier post about the past year. I hope it was at least a little interesting - it's definitely been helpful for me, in thinking about this year.


And because this one's too good not to share:

Conked out on St. Patrick's Day with his papa's cousin William

And he shows them pearly white

I started a long post on how our various preserved food items have lasted the winter way back on  the 28th but, as you can see, have not yet managed to complete it. It's not that things are so busy around here that I haven't had the time, per se. It's more that my attentions have been elsewhere, often day and night, for the past couple of weeks. A certain someone has been hard at work on his first two teeth (one has emerged and the other seems to be following quickly on its heels), so I'm hoping to be out of the fog shortly. In the meantime, a few sweet pictures of aforementioned munchkin and the news that the first seeds are in the garden (Tres couldn't resist taking advantage of the extra hour of sunlight when he came home from work yesterday)!

 The hat is just too much, isn't it?

 He certainly didn't inherit his post-sleep attitude from me

We had some really nice weather last weekend

He never drank water, he always drank wine

From the Recipe Box

This week's recipe is also of unknown provenance to me, although I suspect it was my Oma's and came from a friend or family member. It's another one we ate regularly growing up (what can I say, winter brings out the home-y instincts in me) and that I've adapted a bit to what we tend to have on hand.

Lentil Soup (it really comes out more like a stew)

4 strips of bacon

1 medium onion, chopped

3 carrots, chopped

1/2 teaspoon celery seed (the original calls for 1/2 cup celery, which you can certainly use instead)

1 quart tomatoes

1 cup lentils

1 pound ground pork (the original recipe calls for 1/4 pound sausage, which is also delicious), browned

2 1/2 cups water

1 teaspoon basil

1 teaspoon marjoram

1 tablespoon sugar

1 bay leaf

salt and pepper, to taste

Fry bacon and set aside. Cook onion, carrots and celery seed (or celery, if using) in bacon grease until tender. Add tomatoes, lentils, cooked meat/sausage, water, and spices and bring to a boil. Lower to a simmer and cook, covered, for about 1 hour (or until lentils are cooked).

This soup is delicious and I highly recommend it, but I will admit that it has come out a bit blah sometimes this winter. I think our tomatoes are a bit more watery this year and kind of diffused things. In the future, I might try adding stock instead of water and or adding some spices (fennel, cumin, etc.) to make it taste like I had added sausage instead of plain ground pork. On the other side of the spectrum, it's easily made vegetarian. You could make it as described (sans meat, obviously) or add potatoes to give it a little extra volume. I would recommend being a bit more adventurous in the spice department (garam masala? curry?), to make it a bit more exciting too.

Pictures of your mama, taken by your papa, a long time ago

This week, I've been working on a project for Tres and his sister, using her snazzy scanner to transfer and store all of the negatives from their childhood photos online. I'll admit that I've become a bit obsessive in working on this (in my defense, it's been too cold for me to want to take the baby out for our daily walk, so it's been a pretty quiet week), but it's been so fun to see these sweet photos. I see so many of their little expressions in Silas. It's really the first time that I've identified with the parents in these photos (or behind the camera, as the case may be) rather than the children; I'll admit that it feels a bit strange, but wonderful too. The cyclical nature of human experience has been striking me a lot lately. Anyway, enough about me, here's what you should really want to see:

LOVE this picture - look at her curious little face!

If there's anything in early resemblance,
there's little doubt as to who Silas will
grow up to look like . . . 

 He-e-e-ere's trouble

 His son makes this face all the time

We had these plates too!

What a sweetheart

If this one doesn't miss you long

for carefree childhood days. . .

little farmers

I totally want this sweater

pom pom hats!

I suspect that this won't be the last you see of this project - it's all I could do to keep myself from posting all of them (well, maybe not all - there are over 500 thus far and we're only up to January 1985 - but lots more). Gosh, they just make my heart squish. Of course, this guy does too.

Here's to March and hoping that spring is on the way!