The Goodness of the Garden . . . All Year Round

Tasting Summer in January

2012-01-28T13:08:00.000-05:00

One of the beauties of preserving garden produce is that you have the opportunity to enjoy a bite of the season gone by even when your garden is resting. That’s what we did last night with a group of friends.

I decided it was time to start digging into the freezer to see what I had preserved to add some summer sunshine to a winter day. I found frozen yellow squash and pawpaw puree that I wanted to use. I also pulled a jar of our canned tomatoes from the shelf, garden carrots from the fridge, sweet potatoes from the basket and fresh parsley from under the grow light and went to work. Here’s the menu I came up with.

Italian Squash Soup
European Peasant Bread
French Lentil Salad
Sweet Potato Fries with Avocado Dip
Panko Crusted Salmon
Pawpaw Sour Cream Pie

I prepared the pie the night before so it could sit in the refrigerator for 24 hours before serving. The bread, which mixed white, whole wheat and rye flours, I put together during my Friday lunch break. Everything else I began preparing 2 ½ hours before I expected our guests.
The result? The smiles around the table and the requests for seconds told me the meal was a hit. Here are two of the recipes you can try.

Italian Squash Soup (adapted from Neal Brown’s recipe)
2-3 cloves fresh garlic
1 lb. cubed, frozen squash that is thawed
1 lb. cubed potato
1 small sliced carrot
1 jar tomatoes, crushed
16 oz. vegetable broth
¼ cup olive oil
1 tsp. sea salt
1 tsp. black pepper
1 tsp. dried parsley

Prepare potato and carrot. Heat olive oil. Add potato and carrot and sauté 5-10 minutes, until they begin to soften. Chop garlic and add to oil for one minute. Add remaining ingredients, cover and bring to boil. Reduce heat and simmer for 30 minutes.

Pawpaw Sour Cream Pie (adapted from Moosewood Cookbook, 1977)
Note: Most pawpaws are quite sweet so when cooking with them it’s important to taste them then decide if you should lessen the amount of sugar you add. This recipe has less sugar than the original. In addition, this pie is similar to cheesecake but not as firm; it’s very creamy.)

Crust:
1/3 lb. (1 package) crushed graham crackers
8 Tbs. melted butter
¾ tsp. cinnamon
dash of nutmeg
½ cup chopped, slivered almonds
Combine all ingredients and press into pie pan.

Filling:
¾ cup pawpaw pulp puree
12 oz. softened cream cheese
1/3 cup loosely packed brown sugar
t2 TBS fresh lemon juice
½ tsp. vanilla extract
¼ cup sour cream

Beat together well. Pour into crust. Cover and chill overnight.

Enjoy!

Don’t forget your beans!

2012-01-21T14:21:00.000-05:00

I oftentimes remember what one of my Latin American friends said about the beans and rice so common in the Latin diet—they make the perfect protein.

As someone who isn’t a big meat-eater, I’ve long explored the use of beans in my diet for their protein. They’re also tasty. So far this year, I’ve tried making and eating white bean and rosemary spread and white bean and turkey chili. Both were successful recipes. This week, Jim made his traditional pinto beans and I prepared the cornbread we must have to accompany that. A co-worker of mine said pinto beans and cornbread is one of his favorite meals so I ladled the beans into a jar, wrapped the cornbread in foil and presented them to him the next day. He was so excited about his meal that he polished it off before noon.

So beans were on my mind when I picked up the food section of the Lexington newspaper on Thursday and found an article about beans and their nutritional value. Their nutrition goes far beyond protein. Rather than write more about that, I’ll just refer you to the article.

If the information convinces you that this is your year to begin growing beans, I want to encourage you to include them in this year’s seed order. My experience tells me they are just about problem-free to plant and grow. If they are climbers, put up your trellis, plant, weed and let them grow. Check them as they grow in case you need to guide them up the trellis. Plant them early enough and you can get two crops from your beans. Let them dry on the vine before you pick them.

It takes a while to hull the beans but once you do you can store them in glass jars on your counter. Grow black, red, white and pintos and they’ll add some color to your kitchen. You’ll be surprised at how much more you enjoy eating your home-grown beans than what you buy in the store. They tend to be fresher so they don’t take quite as long to cook and the flavor will make you smile.
Get out that recipe book or that seed catalog and make your choices.

Turnips keep us thankful for the garden

2012-01-14T18:14:00.000-05:00

Until recently when winter finally came to Kentucky, we were still pulling fresh turnips and greens from the garden. My appreciation of this humble vegetable has deepened this winter as I’ve explored different ways to enjoy this gift from the garden.

As a child, I ate turnips raw with salt on them. That’s how my dad still prefers them. The bitterness that turns some people away from turnips is in the skin, so just peel that away and enjoy.

I now have lots of other favorite ways to prepare turnips: roasted with sweet potatoes and garlic, braised and paired with potatoes in turnip soup. I still want to try a turnip mash, which I’ve been told is fabulous.

I’ve also added turnip greens to my long list of favorite greens to sauté and serve with caramelized onions. I’ve even acquired a taste for the boiled greens my husband likes to make.

Besides tasting good, turnips also help to fulfill that important need for cruciferous vegetables in our diet. These are some of the best cancer-fighting vegetables and also add significant fiber and vitamins to a meal. For more information on cruciferous vegetables, read the article at World’s Healthiest Foods.

What are your favorite winter vegetables and how are you cooking them?

Mother Wind does me a favor

2012-01-05T14:53:00.001-05:00

One of the joys of having a greenhouse during winter is stepping inside to be enveloped by sun and warmth as I check on whatever is growing. I planted lettuce in two containers to grow this winter and dug up my flat leaf Italian parsley to repot and continue harvesting. My watering visits to the greenhouse were a highlight of a sunny afternoon.

Were. No longer. Yes, you read right. New Year’s Day brought 40 mile per hour winds that knocked down the green house and blew at the plastic, tearing holes in it. As you can imagine, my lettuce containers also toppled from the shelves, spreading black soil and baby plants all over the fallen greenhouse.

When I returned from church and saw the disaster, I quickly changed clothes and made my way out there to see what I could salvage. The wind continued to whip the fallen plastic around me as I scooped up soil and plants to carry inside. Somehow the parsley plant remained intact so I had to merely carry it indoors.

As for the lettuce, my goddaughter and I spent some of the afternoon carefully repotting it from the one oblong and one round container to three round containers that would fit on the counter under my grow light. Yes, you heard me right. I received a grow light from Santa this year. Since I had been planning to bring in one container of lettuce to grow in the heat and light of the kitchen, Mother Wind did me a little favor by pushing me to repot. The long, oblong container that I had photographed in the greenhouse earlier in the week wouldn’t fit under the two-foot light anyway.

I no longer have a test pot in the greenhouse to see how long it could stand up to the sheltered cold. However, I do have lettuce plants that have decided they want to continue growing. They aren’t quite as beautiful as they were all snug in the greenhouse, but they’re getting there. Perhaps in another month we’ll have fresh salad. In the meantime, I need to look into replacing or repairing the greenhouse cover so it will be ready for my spring seedlings.

Keep a wellness diary in 2012

2011-12-31T16:35:00.000-05:00

Every year, researchers who study the links between foods, lifestyle and wellness uncover additional interesting connections that intrigue us. As a result, we to try to add, for example, more blueberries, meditation or whole grains to our daily habits. Those are all positive lifestyle additions.

Although I’ve been on a path to increasing my wellness for many years, I still run into snags. So I’ve decided to do some research of my own. Beginning January 1, 2012, I’m going to keep a Wellness Diary for at least three months. I’m using a stenographer’s notebook (for those of you who haven’t used them, they’re 6”x9” and have a pink, vertical line down the middle) since it gives you lines to write on in two easy columns. I plan to use one page a day.

On the left, I will answer these questions:
How much time did I spend with God today? (For me, that typically means in prayer, journaling or meditation.)
What did I eat and drink today? (I’ll try to keep track of amounts and times as well.)
How many steps did I walk today? (I’ve been wearing a pedometer daily for three months so that’s easy to track.)
What else was significant in my day? (Maybe I’ll add gardening or other activities here.)

On the right column, I’ll answer these questions:
How was my mood today?
How was my energy level today?
How well did my digestive process work? (I’ve been having minor stomach issues so this is important to me.)
What else did I notice today about my wellness?

I anticipate modifying this process as needed. I also hope to evaluate what I’ve written weekly and monthly, noting patterns and connections between the two columns. At the end of three months, I’ll have a significant amount of data to use in drawing conclusions about what I should do to improve my wellness efforts. If I feel like I need help at that stage, I’ll call on holistic nurse Hunter Purdy (Seeds for Health Holistic Nursing Services, seedsforhealth@gmail.com) to assist.

Are you interested in joining me in this research? If so, let me know. The more people who participate, the more observations we’ll all have from which to draw conclusions about how to be healthier and happier throughout 2012.

Happy New Year to you!

Choosing a wise lifestyle

2011-12-14T11:22:00.000-05:00

At certain times of the year I’m reminded more frequently how hyper-vigilant I have become about my lifestyle. What I eat and what I expose myself to in my environment are both aspects of my lifestyle that I’ve modified since recovering from cancer five years ago.

My brother prompted me to think about this the other day when he told me about the easy way he’s been fixing eggs—in a plastic bag mix an egg with whatever you like to put in an omelet. Boil it for seven minutes. Eat.

My first thought? BPAs in the plastic. Many people who know me realize I don’t mix heat and plastics. If I mention it, some of them look at me like I’m a little crazy and they do it anyway.

I was talking about refined sugar to a co-worker recently. The study came out several years ago showing that as soon as you eat it, your body’s ability to protect itself plummets because your white blood cell count drops. But who wants to hear that, especially at this time of year when refined sugar is so readily available? Yes, it’s also cold and flu season so you need a thriving immune system, but that sugar is so good.

Then there’s the matter of artificial scents. Essential oils are great but synthetic scents, like you smell in so many candles (especially at this time of year) can be quite dangerous, especially to the respiratory system. Maybe I don’t notice them as much during the warm weather months because I’m outdoors so often. In the past month, however, I’ve been in situations every week that exposed me to these airborne chemicals for more than just a few minutes.

It’s not hard to do it another way.

I cook my eggs in a glass bowl in the oven.

I love sweets and I don’t deny myself. When I bake I cut down the sugar and almost always use agave nectar, honey or unrefined sugar as the sweetener instead of refined sugar. Are they less harmful? I don’t know. They weren’t included in the study. However, I tend to think that when something is less processed, it’s probably less dangerous. In those sweet treats I also throw in some whole wheat, dark chocolate, nuts and fruit, when appropriate, so I’m at least getting something that’s good, along with the delicious taste.

And as for scents, essential oils are wonderful but if I’m cooking or I put cinnamon into my hot tea, nothing else will smell as good anyway.

Am I too hyper-vigilant? I try to be reasonable and not make myself feel like I’m struggling under a burden of lifestyle rules. If I felt constrained, even living that way for a 100 year wouldn’t be fun. But I do want to be wise and enjoy every minute I have here.

I would love to hear what you have to say.

Turn the leftovers into a casserole

2011-12-06T15:46:00.000-05:00

There was a time when food companies created all sorts of casserole recipes using their products so they could sell more of their canned and boxed products. Many of those recipes have become family favorites for generations. But you don’t have to use canned cream of mushroom soup to make a casserole. You can do it with your leftovers and maybe one or two more additions.

Although we loved our roasted pumpkin stuffing for Thanksgiving, there was plenty of stuffing and pumpkin left afterward. Giving leftovers a new twist always makes them more attractive so that’s what I did with the stuffing and pumpkin.

First, I put it in a bowl and added more stuffing that I hadn’t yet baked. Next, I chopped our leftover turkey and stirred it in. You can use any amount of each of the three ingredients—stuffing, pumpkin and turkey—that you prefer or that you have left over.

Next, I shredded cheddar cheese. In our household, adding cheese to a dish is never a bad choice.

I chose a round casserole dish and put down a layer of the stuffing mixture. Next, I poured a little chicken broth over it to add moisture. Then I sprinkled a layer of shredded cheese. I followed the same procedure a second time and the rest of my stuffing filled the casserole dish to the top. Bake at 375 for 30 – 45 minutes, until the cheese is quite melted but not browned, and serve hot. It was delicious.

It’s not a magic mixture that good just for stuffing leftovers. Right now I have a leftover rice and greens mixture in the refrigerator that I’m thinking of adding beans, cheese and vegetable broth to for another casserole. It will be quick, easy and provides a warm dish on a chilly night.

Loving the humble pumpkin

2011-11-28T13:52:00.000-05:00

On television the other day I saw an advertisement for a show in which people throw pumpkins. Aack! Throw them and not eat them? Watch that beautiful flesh splatter across the ground instead of cooking with it? Oh my, all that Vitamin A going to waste.

I used our final fresh pumpkin of the season for Thanksgiving. I had heard someone on a more food-friendly television network talk about cooking Thanksgiving stuffing in a pumpkin so I decided to try it. It worked beautifully.

I don’t have a favorite stuffing recipe (it’s never been my most-beloved Thanksgiving dish) so I copied one out of a magazine and went to work. My pumpkin was a medium size that could easily sit on a dinner plate for serving. I cut off the “cap” and set it aside then proceeded to remove the stringy insides and the seeds. When it was clean, I filled it with stuffing. I still had stuffing left so I put it into a bowl to use later in the weekend.

With the oven set at 450 degrees for roasting, I put the pumpkin on a cookie sheet then placed it in the oven with the cap on. In 30 minutes, I checked it. The pumpkin was yet soft enough and the scent wasn’t strong enough for it to be done. I also took the opportunity to spoon out three tablespoons of turkey drippings to pour on the stuffing. Next, I returned the pumpkin to the oven, sans top, to cook for another 15 minutes.

That’s when it looked and smelled done. It turned out to be a picturesque addition to the Thanksgiving table. Plus, everyone liked the stuffing! This was so much fun that I might learn to love stuffing so I can roast a filled pumpkin more than once a year.

Next: stay tuned for what to do with that leftover stuffing and pumpkin.

Re-Purpose your leftovers

2011-11-14T17:33:00.002-05:00

Even though I found another handful of ripe raspberries today, it’s really pumpkin season. Last week I made one of my favorite pumpkin recipes—a cream cheese, pumpkin dip—to take to a party. The recipe makes far more dip that anyone would need for party of 50 or fewer people, but I forgot that when I put it together. So I came home with plenty left to snack on.

Leftovers often inspire creativity in our house and that was certainly the case with the pumpkin dip. It started out as a sweet dip for celery and carrots, although it’s also quite good as a fruit dip. The party-goers liked it.

Next it became an “icing” for shortbread. That provided a nice afternoon snack until the shortbread was gone.

I followed that with ginger crackers topped with pumpkin dip and fresh raspberries. That was an interesting combination, although I wouldn’t give it a 10.

Finally the dip became a “dressing” for a mint, fruit salad. I did add a little bit of yogurt to cut the sweetness and extend the “dressing” to make a larger salad. It was a hit—there wasn’t a bit of fruit salad or dip left after that final re-invention.

Don’t let leftovers bring you down with repetition. Plenty of folks these days are re-purposing clothing; now you can also re-purpose your leftovers.

Tonight another round of pumpkin begins with Liberian Pumpkin. I’ll let you know how it turns out.

Scavenging during orange season

2011-11-08T11:15:00.000-05:00

Every time I go into the garden these days I feel like a scavenger. I’m pushing aside the fallen leaves and parting the still-growing weeds to find the faithful growers who remain. I’ve gathered Swiss chard, kale, radishes and today, one green pepper and a handful of raspberries. They each seem precious in these waning days of the growing season. I still have turnips and beets to harvest when they’re a little bigger.

It’s especially nice to find these gems since so much of the other fresh produce we have right now is orange. When I told Jim the other day that it’s “orange season,” he asked if that was an official designation. It’s just my term for these days when we have freshly harvested pumpkins, carrots, butternut squash and sweet potatoes. What fun vegetables to cook with! Yet the winter squashes are often a mystery to folks, so here’s an easy recipe for the novice to try. You’ll feel like you’re eating candy when you taste it.

Baked Winter Squash

3 cups of cubed winter squash (Cushaw or butternut squash are good)
2 TBSP butter cut into 8 or so pieces
1/8 – 1/4 cup brown sugar
2TBSP maple syrup

Preheat oven to 400 degrees.

Place squash in small casserole dish that has a lid. Add other ingredients and mix together. Put on top and bake 30 minutes. Stir. Bake another 20 - 30 minutes until you can easily pierce the squash with a fork. Enjoy!

Prepare for springtime now

2011-11-01T09:26:00.000-04:00

Earlier this year when it came time for me to use the tomato cages and stakes in the garden, I had to unravel a mess. The stakes and their remaining strings were so tangled in a pile on the floor of the carport that I had to use the scissors to free some of them. The tomato cages weren’t quite so bad but they still weren’t neatly stored. So this year as I’ve begun to pull up the stakes and cages, I’ve been creating a more organized plan for storage.

Friends who know I’ve been freelancing as a writer and editor from a home office for 20 years might be shocked to learn that my gardening tools aren’t well organized. They see me as a disciplined, organized person. I strive to store things logically so I know where everything is. Sometimes, however, I get quite lazy. When in a hurry, I throw tools and pots into piles, behind closed doors and into boxes that I can deal with later.

I don’t want to do that this year with my garden.

For the past two weekends, I’ve been cleaning out and reorganizing the gardening items I store as well as putting the garden to bed for the season. I now have neatly bundled stakes and bamboo trellis pieces. I went through the small, plastic pots and discarded those that were cracked, unusable. I then stacked them neatly in the trays I’ve saved from my greenhouse trips. They provide a wonderful space for putting the pots when I’ve filled them with new soil and seeds. I want them easily accessible when that longing to feel the dirt returns.

I also used the boxes of flattened cardboard I carried home from a neighboring store as a cover on two of my garden spaces. I want to get more cardboard and continue with the process of topping it with manure and straw in preparation for experimenting next spring with some “no till” sections of garden. The idea is that it will all decompose before spring and I’ll be able to dig a hole for plants rather than disturbing all of the soil beneath.

The greenhouse is also full again. I’m experimenting with growing tomatoes inside and I have six plants that I potted at three different times so they’re all at a different stage of the growing process. Last week I harvested the first red tomato from the largest plant. Parsley and basil are also growing inside; I look forward to seeing how long they’ll survive.

The garden is slowly going to bed and the carport storage space looks good right now. Of course, my husband does home repair and renovation work and sometimes stores things in there, also. I’ll have to keep my eye out for the first hint of clutter, which I know will come again. But at least I can be assured that my gardening tools are neatly waiting for another year’s use.

Celebrate Food Day

2011-10-21T10:25:00.000-04:00

When I stumbled across information about Food Day online, my initial reaction was, “Good, but isn’t this a bit inane? We have so much wonderful food in this country, why do we have to encourage people to learn about and eat the good stuff?”

We’re lazy, that’s why. We want things to be quick, easy. We don’t want to bother thinking about something that draws us out of our comfort zone. We want to cruise through life. I can be guilty right along with everyone else.

For example, lunch on Wednesday. I didn’t have good leftovers in the refrigerator to take with me so I looked in the cabinet and found a “make it quick” soup bowl I had gotten with a free coupon from the local food coop, which I typically trust to provide good food. When my stomach began to tell me to prepare it, I ripped off the packaging and stared at a vacuum-packed rectangle of noodles, a hard pack of seasonings and a “flavor” pack. I had my doubts, but I didn’t panic.

I followed the instructions for softening the noodles then mixing in water and seasonings, all in the microwave. It was certainly easy enough although I didn’t use their plastic bowl because of health concerns related to heat and plastic. I used a mug. When it finished, I tasted. Bland, quite bland. I dumped in the flavor pack contents, which looked like soy sauce. There still wasn’t much to taste.

If it hadn’t been cold, windy and rainy, I would have gone for a walk to find something healthier. It’s not an easy thing to do in the neighborhood where I work with a nonprofit in one of the lowest-income neighborhoods of Lexington. Since the weather was bad, I ate the soup hoping it would at least fill me up. It did, temporarily, but it didn’t leave a good after taste.

I spent the rest of the afternoon longing for a good meal from the garden.

What did I learn? Don’t trust convenience foods, even from the local food coop. Plan ahead at home so you can be sure to have a decent lunch to take. Remember that food not only provides nutrition, but when does well it also feeds the soul.

Maybe we all have to hit a wall before we’re willing to change our habits. And even though I changed my habits years ago, a reminder now and then helps me stay on track. So today I'm making Butternut Squash Chili. That will provide good leftovers for a few meals. I'm also hoping the tomato plants I put into my greenhouse this week will keep giving me fresh, red fruits for a couple of months. I want to eat from the goodness of the garden for as long as I can.

Maybe the need for a national Food Day isn’t so inane after all.

Eating the weeds, or are they herbs?

2011-10-14T09:27:00.000-04:00

I fear I’ve over-weeded my garden.

Yes, it’s an odd thing to say at this time of year but after visiting the Lexington Farmer’s Market, I began searching gardens and yards for purslane, which I had before considered a weed. I know my friends in Nature's Thyme Herb Club would scold me. My excuse is that I'm still learning.

I saw purslane in my dad’s tomato bed, next to the plants he had just cut down for the season. I pulled a leaf and tasted. It was meatier than most greens and somehow pleasant although I didn’t eat enough to further define it. I assumed I would find it once I returned home because I’ve certainly pulled plenty of it from the gardens when I didn't want it taking over.

Learning about edibles like this is one of the things I love about visiting the Farmer’s Market. When the farmers and food producers don’t have a crowd of customers, they’re happy to chat with visitors about their produce. When I saw purslane for sale, I had to ask. The farmer told me it has more beta-carotene than a carrot and is quite coveted by gourmet chefs in New York’s finer restaurants.

Of course, being a journalist I always want to verify the information I hear, especially when it comes from someone who seems reliable but is also trying to sell something (that no knock on the farmer; I love them all). Several websites I found claim it’s high in anti-inflammatory Omega-3 fatty acid, Vitamin C and Beta-Carotene. According to USDA statistics one cup of purslane provides 15 percent of the recommended daily allowance of Vitamin C and 11 percent for Vitamin A. The chart I looked at didn’t measure Beta-Carotene and Omega-3 so I’m still searching for a good source on those.

Other information I found suggested summer is the time to harvest it, so I won’t worry about that “over-weeding” until spring arrives. In the meantime, if you still have natural edibles growing in your garden, check our this article in The Herb Companion magazine for more information.

Exclaiming over pond-raised prawns

2011-10-07T10:36:00.002-04:00

“This is the best shrimp fettuccini alfredo I’ve ever had!” my husband, Jim, said as he ate his meal last night. He then went on to list the Italian restaurants where he had learned to love the dish, saying he couldn’t order it at any of those places again after being spoiled by the taste of what we made at home.

Although I would like to take credit for preparing an out-of-this-world alfredo sauce, the difference was in the shrimp.

Two weeks ago when a local farm, Kemper Lane Greenhouse, harvested their prawns (the name for freshwater shrimp), Jim was there to buy some. He even got down in the mud to get some of them. Then he removed their heads and pulled out the mud vein, put them on a tray in the freezer to flash freeze, then bagged them up. He had been asking for the fettuccini alfredo since then.

I obliged with a 15-minute recipe I’ve been using for years, preparing a salad with greens from Rolling Meadow Farm and a margherita pizza with tomatoes from our back yard. Since I’m not a fish eater beyond tuna and salmon, I roasted vegetables for my pasta while Jim boiled his shrimp and removed the shells. When we put it all together, he exclaimed about the flavor, realizing he had never eaten shrimp so fresh, sweet and all-together delicious.

I have heard stories regarding health concerns about farm-raised fish. I’ve also listened to explanations about why it isn’t an environmentally sound way to raise fish. My research on the topic yielded results that pointed to both the pro and con sides. I must say that knowing we supported a local farmer and hearing Jim exclaim over the meal make it hard for me to say anything against it, especially since Jim urged me to write about how good the shrimp was. So here it is, an opinion from one seafood lover. If prawn harvests in your area aren’t finished, you might want to check it out for yourself.

A Delicata Delicacy

2011-10-04T14:00:00.000-04:00

When the child eats barely a bit of most foods on the table but smiles after she tastes my squash, that’s enough for me to declare it a winner.

The other night we went to our friend Robbie’s house for good conversations and Sunday evening dinner. Robbie is a great cook so we never worry about walking away hungry. Of course, what’s fabulous to the adult palette isn’t necessarily so to the child’s taste. A child’s food preferences are often greatly influenced by what he or she eats on a daily basis. A table filled with unfamiliar foods can be more frightening that inviting.

When I offered to prepare a delicata squash side dish, I wasn’t thinking about pleasing a child, I just made it because Jim likes it so I thought everyone else would, too. The slightly sweet vegetable topped with bright raspberries is as pleasing to the eye as it is to the tongue. Here’s the easy recipe.

Delicata Squash with Raspberries

Cut squash in two lengthwise. Place cut side down in baking dish. Fill with about water about 1/3 the height of the squash. Cover tightly with aluminum foil and bake in 400 degree oven 30 minutes or until soft. Stand back when removing the foil so the hot steam doesn’t burn your skin.

When the squash is soft, turn it over and empty the water. Cut a few bits of butter and drop into the squash cavity. Sprinkle with salt then with brown sugar. Top with walnut or almond pieces and a few raspberries. Don’t overdo it with any of the toppings; the squash flavor is great itself and these toppings just help bring out the flavor. Bake another 10 -15 minutes until the filling is melted. If one squash boat is too much for one serving, cut it in half. Serve and enjoy!

Our friends, and their granddaughter, sure liked it. They’ve already decided to look for delicata squash seeds to plant in their garden next year.

Listen to another pawpaw story

2011-09-29T08:38:00.000-04:00

This is just a quick post to bring to your attention another pawpaw story, this one on the radio. Listen to it from today's Morning Edition show on National Public Radio. And let me know if you've tried a pawpaw and what you think about it.

Garden dreaming

2011-09-28T17:15:00.000-04:00

During my walk today I saw garden flags faded by the summer sun looking forlorn without the growing green abundance that embraced them just a month ago. Yes, fall is here and the warm, green days are slowly turning to autumn gold.

This is the time of year when I remember the garden dreaming I did during the past winter. I wanted to create a garden that would be like an exquisite collection of jewels, all neatly displayed and tenderly cared for throughout the season so I could show them off and feel proud of my work.

Reality always looks somewhat different.

There was that celery experiment that ended in lifeless plants.

My parsley came up later than usual and is just now producing nice-sized leaves.

I wanted to have a fall crop of greens. The first planting only grew weeds. I’m afraid my follow up is having the same result.

I’m still thinking about the “no till” method of gardening that begins in the fall when you layer cardboard, organic fertilizer (more commonly known as manure) and straw. If I get my act together and gather all of those items, I’ll try it on at least one third of my garden. If.

But I have had some successes, also.

The new greenhouse gave us healthy seedlings to plant.

The jicama, my new, successful crop, is still flourishing. I’ll let it grow until frost is nearer then I’ll dig and see what I have under the ground.

I’ve planted tomatoes in pots to try to grow in my green house after frost arrives. That will be a fun experiment.

And we still have tomatoes, peppers, beets, beans, carrots, raspberries and herbs to enjoy this month. Plus the turnips will be maturing.

Yes, there have been some successes. I’ll use the good energy that gives me to move some of my perennial flowers and herbs to new spots where they’ll do better next year then I’ll map them so I can remember where I put them.

Gardens thrive with planning, work and dreaming. Here’s to making a plan, with resolve, that can turn a dream into reality.

Plumbing tool helps with canning

2011-09-26T12:58:00.000-04:00

Weekends still equal canning time in our home as fall fruits are ripening. Yesterday we worked on the bucket of pears a friend of ours gave to us. As I read instructions for canning pears, Jim went out to his shop to create a “corer.” I didn’t understand what he was doing or why until I saw the magic happen.

As we all know, one of the time consuming tasks of preserving fruit is peeling and cutting. Jim’s idea was to make it easier by turning a ¾” piece of copper pipe into a corer. All he did was cut it to the correct length to core a pear then attach a joint piece of pipe to the top to use as a handle.

To core the pear, he sat it upright on a cutting board, placed it over the core then pushed down. When he showed me the perfectly round hole it made, leaving us with less cutting to do when we quartered the pears, it looked like a big of magic.

So now the pears are on the shelf and we’re looking forward to delicious fruit this winter. It pays to have a husband who’s in the home repair business. Who knows what tool he’ll put to work in the kitchen for our next time consuming task.

Closing thoughts about pawpaws

2011-09-19T16:30:00.000-04:00

Since I was attending a conference in Lexington on Saturday, I spent my lunch hour wandering around the farmer’s market downtown. Beautifully colored and shaped vegetables, along with some wonderful fall apples, pears and berries, filled table after table. And yes, I found a few pawpaws. They were small but ripening nicely and sure to be tasty very soon.

I was hoping to wrap up this pawpaw series with a recipe or two but I’m still perfecting them, so I’ll post them later. The smoothie I made last week was quite good, although a bit heavy. I need to adjust amounts of everything. The muffins were scrumptious but didn’t have quite as much pawpaw flavor as I had aimed for. So again, I’ll adjust, try again, then feel better about sharing those recipes.

However, I don’t want to leave the subject of pawpaws without pointing out their phenomenal nutritional benefits. Dr. Hideka Kobayashi, KSU, gave a presentation at the conference about the research he has done on the antioxidant capacity and anticancer properties of the North American pawpaw. He noted that pawpaws have more nutrients than bananas, apples and oranges. They are especially high in Vitamins A, C and niacin. Their phenolic content (which is related to their antioxidant capacity) is comparable to that of a superior strawberry, peach, orange or banana. And their antioxidant capacity is comparable to some varieties of blueberries. Dr. Kobayashi concluded that the fruit offers great potential for their antioxidant and anticancer properties.

You can find a nutritional comparison chart and a portion of daily needs chart comparing pawpaws to bananas, apples and oranges at the KSU website. So read it now then run out to purchase the last pawpaws of this season.

Plant your own pawpaw trees

2011-09-13T15:28:00.001-04:00

As I scooped out pawpaw flesh from the fruits last night and put it into my food processer to puree and freeze, I thought about all I had learned over the weekend about growing the trees this wonderful fruit comes from. There are many fine points to learn that experienced growers can share. I’ll give you the basics. For more information, be sure to visit the Kentucky State University pawpaw page.

Dr. Kirk Pomper, Principal Investigator of Horticulture at KSU, presented the session on growing pawpaw trees. Remember that growing conditions vary geographically (some attendees were from Romania, the Netherlands and Canada) but you can learn how to adjust tree care for your local climate and soil conditions.

1) You can save seed from the pawpaw you buy. Do not let it dry out. Store it in moist peat moss or in a plastic bag with a damp paper towel in the refrigerator for at least three months before planting.

2) There are a few nurseries that sell seedlings if you prefer to start that way. Growers sometimes raise seedlings to sell, also, so if you find someone to purchase the fruit from, ask about the fruit tree.

3) Look for an appropriate site for the trees. Although they are shade tolerant and grow naturally in the forest, without sun the tree will be less productive. Once you select an area for planting, begin eliminating the weeds. An organic way to do this is through “solarization” in which you cover the area with clear plastic for one year to let the sun kill the weeds. Follow that with an organic ground covering such as hay or a nitrogen-fixing plant.

4) Test the soil for a pH between 5.5 and 7.0. The site should also have good drainage.

5) Dr. Pomper recommends spacing trees 6.5 feet apart in rows 18 feet apart. If planting at home, remember to leave adequate space around the plant but also keep in mind that you’ll need to mow around them.

6) During the first year of growing, the plant needs to be shaded for protection. Growers seemed to have some disagreement with this recommendation but there are tree shelters you can use if it sounds like something you want to try. I didn’t hear any disagreement about the importance of irrigation during the first two years.

7) Another important factor—fertilization. Organic growers say there are organic fertilizers available that work well.

8) Pruning is important. The pawpaw tree is tough (stands up against ice storms) but delicate (the wind can blow off a limb filled with heavy fruit). To strengthen the tree, Dr. Pomper recommends pruning. Pruning might result in waiting for a longer time for the tree to produce fruit, but the results can be better.

9) These trees seem to be relatively unharmed by pests and diseases. Leaf and fruit spot have been the most common problem KSU had identified. One way to diminish its occurrence is to clear away any fruit that drops onto the ground and rots.

Before planting, take note: pawpaw seedlings begin producing fruit in seven to eight years; grafted trees produce in five to six. So while you wait for your trees to grow, don’t lose track of your local pawpaw grower.

Tasting the pawpaws

2011-09-12T10:16:00.000-04:00

Pawpaw Extravaganza Dinner
September 10, 2011
Kentucky State University
Appetizers: Kentucky Freshwater Prawn Tails with Pawpaw Cocktail Sauce and Pawpaw Smoothies
Meal: Curried Pawpaw‐Butternut Squash‐Sweet Potato Soup
Hearts of Romaine Salad with Pawpaw Vinaigrette
Pork Loin Medallions with Sweet Pawpaw Sauce
Baked Kentucky Tilapia with Fresh Pawpaw Salsa
Roasted New Potatoes
Mixed Fresh Kentucky Vegetables
Dessert: Pawpaw Crème Brulee ‐ Courtesy of Chef Robert Perry, University of Kentucky Sustainable Agriculture & Food Systems Working Group
Pawpaw Ice Cream and Cookies – Courtesy of Master Baker Gary Gottenbusch, Servatii Pastries, Cincinnati, OH

That was the menu Saturday evening at The 3rd International Pawpaw Conference at Kentucky State University in Frankfort. The conference brought together scientists, growers, preservationists and sustainable agriculture aficionados to share information about pawpaw growing and marketing. Of course, you can’t talk about those things without also doing plenty of pawpaw sampling. Saturday night’s closing conference dinner provided opportunities for that.

Because of its creamy texture, pawpaw cooking works best when the pulp is removed from the fruit then pureed. Then it can be used in numerous ways, always retaining at least some of its unique, sweet flavor. Dishes prepared with pawpaws generally have a faint yellowish to orange color, depending on the amount of pulp used and the other ingredients added.

I began the evening with the Pawpaw Smoothie. I’m a smoothie fan so I knew I would like this version that was slightly sweet with a subtle pawpaw flavor. When we heard from the cooks later in the evening, we discovered the pawpaw had been mixed with a couple of other fruits in the smoothie. So if you want to try this at home, choose your favorite fruits and see what you get.

Since I’m not a prawn fan, I relied on Jim to rate the Pawpaw cocktail sauce. It was too sweet for his taste. It likely didn’t stand out because it was prepared from a bottled cocktail sauce to which the cooks added pawpaw puree.

Next we moved on to the meal. As a soup fan, I looked forward to the Curried Pawpaw‐Butternut Squash‐Sweet Potato Soup. I enjoyed tasting a pawpaw dish that wasn’t so sweet, thanks to the curry spices. Rather than a silky, smooth soup, this was thick and slightly chunky. Although the appearance wasn’t the most attractive, it tasted good and was a favorite of one person at my table.

I moved on to try the Pork Loin Medallions with Sweet Pawpaw Sauce. I’m not a big pork fan but truly enjoyed this dish. The sauce was good without being too sweet. This was the favorite of the three men at the table. The chef generously shared the recipe with me (below).

The next item I tried had the most colorful pawpaw mixture— Baked Kentucky Tilapia with Fresh Pawpaw Salsa. This was my favorite pawpaw dish of the evening. The salsa had the typical ingredients—red peppers, jalapeno, cilantro, a very smooth pawpaw. The flavor was excellent with the fish and I would definitely try this at home. One cook at my table said it was similar to the mango salsa she had made.

In between the pawpaw dishes I gratefully ate the vegetables and bread to try a little palette cleansing before I tasted the next item. I left the salad for last and must say the pawpaw vinaigrette rivaled the salsa and someone at our table chose it as her favorite. It was pretty, tasty, and according to the chef (Sheri Crabtree of KSU), easy to make. She mixed it with white wine vinegar, olive oil, salt and pepper and created something unique that I’ll definitely try to imitate.

I must admit that by the time dessert came, I had just about had my fill of pawpaw. Earlier in the day, I had tasted a “Pawzel,” a pretzel made of pawpaw. It reminded me of a bagel and was good with cream cheese. I had also sampled various types of pawpaws and eaten a pawpaw cookie. So when dessert came, I had already had my “sweet” allotment for a week. Still, I never turn down dessert.

Typically, I don’t waste calories on dessert unless chocolate is included. There was no chocolate on the dessert plate, but it was still a nice ending to the evening. The Pawpaw Crème Brulee was really just Pawpaw Crème since it was served in plastic cups and couldn’t be torched. It had an odd, greenish cast to it (maybe because of the black cup) but it was silky, smooth, rich and good. I also enjoyed the ice cream with its mildly fruity flavor. The fried pie was a bonus thrown in by a KSU student who turned out to be a good cook. Just as he described, it was reminiscent of the fried pies you can find in various places in Kentucky, but this one had pawpaw in the middle of it.

Luckily, when I was in the hallway I met Eddie Reed, the Farm Manager who created the Sweet Pawpaw Sauce for the pork. He and Sheri Crabtree, KSU Co-Investigator of Horticulture, led the cooking crew for the evening. Here’s the recipe he shared.

Sweet Pawpaw Sauce
(This fed nearly 100 people, so adjust as necessary.)
8 cups pawpaw pulp
4 cups brown sugar
3 whole cayenne peppers
12 oz. peeled, roasted red peppers
4 tbsp. butter

Heat butter and sugar then add pawpaw pulp to warm. Add red peppers and boil. When boiling, split cayenne peppers and add. Simmer 1 hour then remove cayennes. Now you have sauce.
Eddie said he was hoping the sauce would have more bite to it, so you might need to adjust the cayenne usage if that’s what you’re hoping for.

On Tuesday, look for my post about how to grow pawpaws. And in the meantime, get your pawpaws now if you want to try cooking with them. In Kentucky they’ll be out of season in just a couple of weeks but you can scoop out the pulp, puree and freeze to experiment with one day this winter.

Pawpaw news is coming!

2011-09-08T17:34:00.000-04:00

I have just discovered the fruit of the gods—the pawpaw. Creamy, silky, sweet but not too much so. It is my new favorite fruit.

Since I met my husband, he has lamented that we don’t have pawpaw trees. Are you asking: pawpaws? What are they? I had never heard of them until I met Jim but they are so scrumptious that I want to learn. And it is pawpaw season!

A quick web search told me that they are native to the temperate woodlands of the eastern U.S. That includes Indiana, where I grew up, and Kentucky, where I now live. Another name for the pawpaw is the Hoosier Banana. It is the largest edible fruit native to America. Shaped liked a large egg, it can weigh five to 16 ounces. Its green skin turns black when ripe—much like an avocado which you peel the same way.

So what about the taste? I think it’s like a combination of a peach, mango and banana. This morning I was sucking off the pulp stuck to the large seeds because I couldn’t stand the thought of even a small bit of it going to waste.

During my web search, I discovered that Kentucky State University is hosting a pawpaw conference Sept. 9 and 10, concluding with a Pawpaw Extravaganza meal Saturday evening. Two days letter, I received an unexpected invitation to attend and cover it for this blog. You can bet I accepted that invitation. So look for a detailed report of what to prepare with pawpaws, along with photos, next week. In the meantime, see if you can find pawpaws where you live.

The woes of the dry weather

2011-09-02T12:06:00.002-04:00

When even the weeds in the garden are drooping, you know it’s bad.

I returned from a few days away to find most of the squash vines in the garden dried up. I’ve already harvested plenty so I’m not concerned about that but the tomatoes are just now starting to produce well, as are the peppers.

When I get concerned about feeding my garden, I do have a sprinkler to use. But I also use the method gardeners have employed for generations. Put a tub or bowl into the kitchen sink and save the wash and rinse water from the dishes. I have three large pitchers that I fill then out I go to find a faithful, growing friend to reward.

Another gardener who I know puts a bucket into her shower to catch water as well. It must sound crazy to the victims of Hurricane Irene along the East Coast, but yes, we’re searching for water while you’re dealing with its aftermath. I do send out prayers of support for the farmers who have lost acres and acres of crops to that storm.

Dry days also remind me of the benefit of mulching. Mulch in the garden helps the soil retain moisture rather than allowing the sun to suck it dry. So don’t forget your mulch. If a storm isn’t so severe that is carries it away, it can be a huge benefit.

Time to eat lunch, then wash the dishes, then water again.

The beauty of simple food

2011-08-30T20:41:00.001-04:00

Since Sunday evening I’ve been staying at PenHouse Retreat Center in Frankfort, Kentucky for some peaceful time to reflect and write. The big, old house with porches on every side offers spacious rooms, generous light and the melody of birds and insects. Those charms do not surpass that of the warm host and hostess—David and Normandi—readily offering their garden meals along with lively conversation.

I’ve often thought I would like to have a place like this to offer to artists, but if I were cooking, I fear there would be little peace for me. I always feel a need to fill a table with options so if my guest doesn’t like one dish, another will suffice. It often means hours of preparation and lots of fussing to make the table look grand.

As I sit at some else’s table, I appreciate the simple goodness of a garden meal in which the natural flavors stand on their own. Cabbage slaw, Goose beans, corn on chicken, garden-fresh spaghetti sauce. Oh yes, I’ve been treated well. Rich flavors intertwine with funny stories and lessons from the journey others are taking in life.

The next time I welcome guests, I hope I can remember that the most enjoyable meal requires more than detailed preparation. It’s the simplest of foods and most genuine of conversations that create the best dining experiences.

Take a Danville restaurant tour

2011-08-26T17:14:00.000-04:00

One of the benefits and curses of chain restaurants is that you can travel throughout the United States and find the same menu, the same taste, often even the same dining room set-up. It’s reliable but can be boring and anonymous.

Adventuresome travelers more often seek out the locally owned eating establishments that provide fresh, unique flavors. Danville, Kentucky is full of them.

Last night I joined eight other Kentucky food bloggers to tour six of Danville’s finest eating and drinking establishments. Since I live just down the road from this small, college city, I was thrilled to visit some of the locations I hadn’t yet made it to on my own. Here’s a rundown of places we went that you should try the next time you’re driving through central Kentucky.

V the Market – This specialty liquor and food store carries unique items you won’t find at the average big box retailer. The owner stays informed about the products and has the knowledge to helps anyone who walks in asking for specifics as they look at the rows of bottles. I especially enjoyed the unique cheeses that can be a creative accompaniment to a meal.

Mermaids—This is a restaurant I’ve been wanting to try and now I’m even more determined to make a reservation and spend an evening there. Situated in a house that provides seating in a nicely decorated interior, screened porch or patio, the menu here was my favorite. This restaurant recently earned its Kentucky Proud title because it buys meat and produce locally. Hurray! That combines with a unique ambiance and menu filled with variety to make it a good choice for Danville dining.

303W—I’ve had two meals at this classy restaurant and always enjoyed the atmosphere. Last night we walked into a table of appetizing food to try: crudités, pretzel breadsticks with warm pimento cheese (delicious), barbecued chicken, chicken tortilla pizza and one more meat item I couldn’t quite identify. The menu at 303W is varied so anyone in the family should be able to find something to put a smile on their face.

Bluegrass Pizza and Pub—Onward we trekked to the downtown pizza place that has become a habit for many people. I must admit that I’m extra critical of pizza places. I like to make creative pizzas myself. I also still carry with me the memory of the spinach pizzas I so loved when I lived in New York (I haven’t yet found one to compare in Kentucky) and the Italian take on pizza I fell in love with in Florence. But this place pulled through with a uniquely-flavored Mediterranean pizza that wasn’t run-of-the mill.

Beer Engine—Anyone who likes brew pubs would love this small place with its variety of beers. Located off the Main Street and through a parking lot, it’s a bit difficult to find but when I told my husband about it, he immediately asked for directions. He’ll be stopping there on his way home from work to give the beers a try.

The Hub—We ended up at the restaurant that started the food revival in Danville. This coffee shop has long offered great sandwiches, salads and soups along with coffees, teas and scrumptious desserts. Our hosts (the folks from the Danville Boyle Co. Convention & Visitors Bureau) had done such a great job of gathering items for us to try from throughout the downtown district that we sat at The Hub enjoying cupcakes from the Twisted Sifter. Since the cupcake craze began I’ve been into a cupcake shop or two but never had anything that tasted as good as the two varieties they served us – pumpkin and champagne. Both were totally worth the calories. We also went home with gift bags from Burke’s Bakery and Karamel Kreations.

Are you tempted to try one of Danville’s local restaurants? They have plenty of fun activities coming up that you can check out at www.danvillekentucky.com for information on that, as well about the restaurants listed here. If you visit, be sure to support the local food establishments and enjoy the hospitality.

In the meantime, I’m checking my calendar to see when I can make it over there again.

De-bugging the garden

2011-08-23T13:28:00.000-04:00

As an organic gardener, my eyes and hands are two of my most important tools.

When I began gardening, I would go into my rows of green plants inspecting for bugs. When I saw something I had identified as a pest, not a beneficial visitor, I would pull a tissue out of my pocket and squeeze it. Sometimes the invader would squirm out before I had fully executed my maneuver.

Next I tried wearing gardening gloves. Again, without the keen feeling in my fingertips, the bug had a tendency to escape.

Now, I just squish them between forefinger and thumb and let them stink and ooze right onto my skin. Yes, it’s a little gross. But, it’s quick effective and soap really does clean up the mess.

I’ve been doing lots of de-bugging in recent days as I’ve been paying special attention to bugs that like squash plants. After one friend warned her winter squash has been ruined, I noticed that while one my pumpkins looked great on its top side, the bottom side was rotted with a bug infestation. So my own sharp eyes and pinchers went to work. Some of my peppers and tomatoes have suffered because of the shade of climbing winter squash vines. I didn’t want that to be for naught.

When I searched online for pictures of squash bugs to learn more about what I was finding, I discovered there is a different between squash bugs and stink bugs, although they both are gray and smell when smashed. All summer I've been trying to check the undersides of the leaves for the eggs they lay to head off the problem before it fully developed. I also discovered that late in the season they aren’t supposed to be harmful, but I’m not taking a chance. When I see them, I exterminate.

I haven’t yet located pictures of the other bugs I’ve found that don’t seem to kill the plants but do eat on the leaves. Nonetheless, until I find out they aren’t harmful, I’ll be squishing them, too.

Sure, I could buy some chemical spray and give it a whirl. I’m sure there’s an organically-made treatment, too. But I like being with my plants and providing protection as the Guardian of the Garden.

Sunday is garden feast day

2011-08-22T10:41:00.000-04:00

I know Sunday is supposed to be a day of rest but it’s especially hard for me to do that during gardening season. I don’t feel a big Sunday obligation to weed and harvest (that was yesterday; more about that in tomorrow’s post) but I so love to cook that it’s hard for me to stay out of the kitchen, especially when my husband presents me with freshly dug carrots, a beautiful head of cabbage and apples to go with the tomatoes I picked the day before.

I began the day with the apples. I wanted to make chutney to can but still had a few apples left. Those I turned into applesauce, one of the easiest things you can make. Simply chop the apples, almost cover them with water, bring to a boil then turn down to simmer until they are soft. Keep an eye on them in case you need to add more water. When they are soft, I mash them then season with sugar and cinnamon. This simple method yields a chunky applesauce that you know is homemade and if you begin with flavorful apples, it will be much more satisfying than jarred apples sauce from the store. If you prefer it to be smoother, put it into your blender or food processor to finish.

With apple chutney and applesauce complete, I turned to the chicken I purchased from Marksbury Farm Market. Jim and I both took a gardening break on Saturday to watch Lidia’s Italy on public television and saw an easy and appealing preparation for Chicken Catanzaro-Style. I went to work on the stuffing while Jim removed the necessary bones. I do want to point out that when we watched her prepare it, Lidia appeared to use more herbs than the recipe called for. In addition, she used wine for cooking liquid after she had browned the chicken on both sides.

Another of our favorite Saturday cooking shows is America’s Test Kitchen. I had a recipe from them for Roasted Smashed Potatoes so I started on them while Jim made cabbage wedges wrapped in bacon. Next, I began the Maple Roasted Carrots (recipe below). While those three items roasted in the oven and the chicken continued to cook on the stove, I prepared bread, tomatoes and cheese for Baked Caprese Salad.

I love arranging the food on a platter when I have so many pieces to play with! I saved the beautifully green carrot tops for a vegetable bed. (They taste like carrots so make a nice addition to a meal.) With everything on the table I decided I should also put out the Concord grapes I bought at the farmer’s market to round out our meal.

When Jim walked in and saw all the food, he wanted to know who else was coming to dinner. Although I love to have friends and family here, this week it was just the two of us enjoying the Sunday garden feast—an apt reward for the sweat we put into growing most of the food on the table.

Maple Roasted Carrots
(With apologies for my vague instructions—it’s how I often cook!)

Fresh carrots
Olive oil
Maple syrup
Salt

Chop off carrot tops. Remove skin. Cut into whatever shape and size you prefer. I made our carrots into sticks about ¾” wide.

Put into pan with nearly ½” water (don’t cover them completely). Cover pan with foil and roast 15 minutes at 450 degrees. Check carrots for doneness. When they are nearly as soft as you want them, drain any remaining water, drizzle with olive oil and maple syrup. Toss. The carrots should be coated but not swimming in the oil and syrup. Sprinkle with salt. Return to oven 10 – 15 minutes until you can easily pierce them with a fork. Serve on a bed of carrot tops.

Canning season opens at the Brown house

2011-08-15T17:17:00.000-04:00

The smells of warming apple pie filling and salsa mingled in my kitchen last night as I prepared for my first canning of the season. We have at least 12 pounds of apples from our church’s mini-orchard and as many tomatoes from our gardens so I was chopping, measuring, stirring, chopping some more. It’s quite a way to get in the good but hard sort of work that makes me sleep well!

I’m still using the salsa recipe I found a few years ago at www.cdkitchen.com. That’s one of the great sites where you can enter the numbers of servings you want to get from a recipe and it will re-calculate the amount of all the ingredients for you. Of course, some will come out with something like 2.491 cups, but I certainly don’t concern myself with being that precise.

Although our favorite preserved apple pie recipe calls for freezing in a plastic bag, you can also find recipes for canned apple pie filling. www.allrecipes.com is one site where you’ll locate a canned possibility. That site also has the scaling feature plus another option that changes the unit measurements to metric if you would like.

There are all sorts of tools online to help with your preservation efforts this season. If you find a good one to share, do post it in a comment so everyone can share.

Begin healthy in the morning

2011-08-12T17:14:00.000-04:00

This past Saturday I went to a wonderful event with good food, fabulous music and a fun group of people. Yet, I sat next one of my friends and trying to convince him to go home. Work stress had gotten the better of him and he looked like if he didn’t relax, he would need serious medical attention soon.

Thankfully, the chorus of voices urging him to go home eventually won out. He later told me that home was only the first stop. He ended up in the emergency room until 3 a.m. His blood pressure had sky rocketed and his was dehydrated.

I’m grateful that when I talked with him on Monday he said he needed to change his habits and he asked me to help him. So when we chatted, we talked a little bit about food. He rarely cooks and doesn’t eat leftovers. I see challenges ahead, but let’s start with a simple breakfast.

One of my favorite breakfasts, and one of the most filling, has become a warm bowl of some sort of grain with fresh fruit and toasted nuts. Here’s an easy way to prepare it.

Breakfast Bowl

Choose your grain—steel-cut oats, quinoa, etc. I also like Bob’s Red Mill 10-Grain Hot Cereal. Follow cooking directions.
As the cereal cooks, prepare some in-season fruit. This week I peeled and chopped a juicy peach for mine.

Choose a raw, unsalted nut or seed (pumpkin is goo) to toast on the stovetop over medium-low heat. How long it takes depends on your nut. For example, slivered almonds cook quickly; chopped walnuts take longer.

Put grain in breakfast bowl and add as much or as little milk as you like. Sprinkle a tad of salt and as much cinnamon as you prefer. Add fruit and stir. Taste for sweetness. If it needs more, add honey or organic maple syrup. Top with nuts.

Enjoy! It will keep you satisfied with no problem until lunch as it also gives you a good start on your portion of fiber for the day.

Peach Streusel Coffee Cake

2011-08-08T12:01:00.000-04:00

Over the weekend a friend of ours showed up at our door with a bowl-full of freshly picked peaches. The sign that they were truly ripe was quite obvious—they smelled heavenly!

It was good timing because we were supposed to provide coffee and donuts at church on Sunday morning. Although I do enjoy a good donut once in a while, my healthy eating style rarely allows me to provide “donuts” on Sundays. Instead I typically bake something with less sugar, more whole wheat flour and whatever fruit or vegetable is in season.

With the peaches on hand and one zucchini left in the refrigerator, I saw the challenge ahead of me. What could I make from both of those that would still leave us peaches to enjoy here at home? I decided on Zucchini Cake and Peach Streusel Coffee Cake. Here’s the easy recipe for the coffee cake that turned out to be moist and delicious.

Beth’s Peach Streusel Coffee Cake

Streusel Filling:
5 medium peaches, peeled and chopped
1/3 cup brown sugar
2 tbsp whole wheat flour
2 tbsp melted butter

Melt butter and mix all ingredients. Set aside.

Coffee Cake:
1 cup all-purpose flour
½ cup whole wheat flour
2 tsp baking powder
½ tsp salt
½ cup sugar
¼ cup softened butter
½ cup yogurt
2 tbsp vegetable oil
1 egg
1 tsp vanilla

Mix flours, baking powder and salt. Mix sugar and butter. Add egg and vanilla. Add yogurt and oil. Stir in flour mixture.

Pour half of mix into non-stick or oiled pan. Sprinkle on half of the streusel filling. Pour on the remainder of the coffee cake mix. Top with remainder of streusel. Bake at 350 for 30 minutes or until done.

When the winter squash is ready . . .

2011-08-05T12:54:00.002-04:00

I tell people that squash vines are taking over my garden and their typical response is: my squash didn’t last this long. Then I clarify that I’m not talking about yellow squash and zucchini. Rather, I’m growing winter squashes.

I fell in love with winter squash, especially butternut, a few years ago when I realized how versatile it is. Roast it, bake it, puree it. Cube it and add it to soup. This week I went to a luncheon that included a mashed squash dish that was delicious.

So I’ve expanded my winter squash attempts this gardening season. I’m growing pumpkins and have two that are a great size right now. Then there are butternut, acorn and delicata squashes. I fear the butternuts and delicata might have cross-pollinated in a couple of places because I have giant butternut shaped squash with stripes like the delicatas. Oh well, it will still taste like some sort of squash.

To test the ripeness of winter squash, push your fingernail into the skin. If the indentation disappears quickly, it’s almost ripe. Leave winter squash (except for acorn) in the garden or elsewhere in the sun for two weeks so it will cure. Then you’ll be able to store it for months and use it in the winter.

Although I’m contemplating digging a storage hole in the backyard (there are various methods for this there were introduced by native Americans), I’ve had success the past couple of years with curing the squash then leaving it on a side table in the dining room until we use it, which sometimes is four or five months after harvest. The dining room is the least-used, dimmest and coolest room in our house and it works well.

Maybe we’ll have squash to eat tonight.

Mornings make perfect gardening time

2011-07-27T16:40:00.000-04:00

I’ve started four of the past five days with an hour or more in the garden. In hot and mosquito-filled July, early mornings are the most comfortable time for me to work in the garden, spreading more mulch, harvesting ripe vegetables, pulling weeds, staking tomatoes, saving dried herb seeds and hoeing to prepare the soil for more planting.

Yes, it’s that time of year to start thinking about extending the gardening season. Since early spring I’ve been pulling beets when ripe then planting more. I love the greens as much as the beets themselves; what a winning vegetable! Earlier this week I did another planting of pinto beans. This morning I added to the kale and Swiss chard that are still growing with another planting of spinach and chard. In August, I’ll put out more lettuce.

I love to extend the gardening season. The fall will bring many more pleasant days for being in the garden and I want a reason to be there.

It’s re-stocking the freezer season

2011-07-21T08:49:00.002-04:00

I cleaned out our freezers last night—the one on our refrigerator and the small freezer chest we bought a few years ago so we could freeze the in-season local produce we cannot can. Like most people who have a freezer, I did find a handful of bags that I had to throw out. Browning cabbage labeled 2008 isn’t appetizing to even think about in 2011.

As soon as everything looked organized and ready to accept more food, I began filling the space. I had prepared yellow squash and greens to freeze. Today the task is to take the cucumbers that have been sitting in a water-vinegar-sugar solution since last night and bag them up. My preservation book says they make for a good winter salad so I followed the instructions and we’ll try it out when the leaves are dropping from the trees.

Although freezing produces different results than canning, it’s less time-consuming and an especially smart move for items you plan to later throw into a soup or stew. You’ll be softening and flavoring then anyway so if the vegetables have lost their crispness when they come out of the freezer, it won’t be a problem. So get the freezer bags ready and after you harvest your garden or bring home a load from the farmer’s market, decide within the first day what to eat and what to preserve. The sooner you preserve it, the more of its nutrients you’ll also save.

Renewing the enthusiasm to learn

2011-07-18T14:07:00.000-04:00

Now that I’m many years out of my formal schooling, I love finding opportunities to learn outside of a school classroom. That’s one of the things I treasured about attending the Field to Fork Festival on Saturday. There were wonderful workshops where I learned about things that interest me like cheese making (the presenter made it look simple) and permaculture. Susana Lein’s demonstration of how she has enriched the clay soil on her farm (clay is common in Kentucky) with this method, that requires no tilling or hoeing, inspired me like previously reading about it didn’t.

The idea is to cover the soil with organic matter that will enrich it. She uses brown cardboard, manure and lots of straw. Layer these three components on the garden in the fall, enriching the soil, and by spring they will be decomposed so that you can make a hole with your hands and plant vegetables. Susana didn’t promise it would totally eliminate weeds, but the validity of the method is evident at her Salamander Springs Farm, which is primarily known for its organic beans, but also produces other vegetables.After reading about a method similar to this in the winter, I thought I would try it out on the row paths between my vegetables this summer. Alas, winter gardening dreams never turn into a full reality for me. But if I can get cardboard, manure and straw, it’s not too late to start.

Since the festival put me into the learning spirit, I decided to read my gardening by the moon calendar to see what the moon phases recommend I do this week. Yesterday was a weeding day, so I did as much as I could. It’s a difficult task when the ground is so dry. But I will say I haven’t embraced gardening by the phases of the moon like I had envisioned when I was still wearing a sweater to walk to the library for that learning session. The moon and the weather gods don’t seem to collaborate on their scheduling to make it easy! If the ground is too wet or too dry for particular tasks, or I have too many deadlines, I cannot complete the recommended tasks. Yet, the calendar is still on my wall and I consult it weekly, wondering if it would be more possible to actually garden as it recommends in another year when the powers that be decide to talk with one another about scheduling.

Sometimes these lessons teach me what I cannot do. Sometimes I learn what I should try, whether today, next year or sometime in the future. Sometimes I learn what I definitely want to replicate every year. It’s all learning that keeps urging me to go into the garden for more study and practice as I grow right along with my plants.

Field to Fork Festival is Saturday

2011-07-14T17:16:00.000-04:00

Not far from where I live the Field to Fork Festival will be welcoming people from all over on Saturday. I’m excited about the day of sharing and learning that includes 24 workshops about gardening, cooking and other topics that can help people grow their own food or take advantage of what their neighbors grow. There will also be plenty of vendors and exhibitors to learn from. If you’re free, make your way to Paint Lick on Saturday for what’s sure to be a crowd full of friendly folks, ready to learn and to share.

One experiment disappears

2011-07-07T08:17:00.002-04:00

Remember the celery experiment I wrote about just a week ago? My ever helpful husband tilled under the part of the garden that we had harvested. It had since turned into weeds that I wanted to get rid of. “Stop at the yellow flower,” I told him, pointing to the marigolds and the celery that still grew next to them.

Oops—he forgot. Maybe I’ll try celery again next year. At least the weeds are gone. And I have my blog photo to remind me last year of how far I got.

Bounty, creation and variety thrive in the garden

2011-07-05T16:06:00.000-04:00

After a weekend of picnics that sent us home with leftovers, I thought we would eat something from the fridge tonight. However, I just went out to the garden for my morning break from the computer and found our first peppers and some perfect beets. This season does encourage me to cook!

For me, it’s so satisfying to create a good meal from the garden that I have difficulty understanding people who would rather drive through at a fast food restaurant. I realize, though, that part of my desire to cook comes from what I value—the bounty of God’s creation, a way to show those I love how much I care with something healthy and tasty, and time to create. Food is just one outlet for all of those things for me.

I also brought in from the garden a beautiful pink gladiola and two red roses. They remind me of our earth’s beauty and the variety in creation. God has given us marvelous examples of how to appreciate diversity. I see it as encouragement to keep striving to create something else that’s beautiful and lives in harmony with what grows around it.

The holiday weekend reminds me that I am blessed to have the freedom to do that. And the garden reminds me there will be new vegetables every week to keep me interested in cooking and gardening.

Garden experiments succeed and go awry

2011-07-01T15:02:00.000-04:00

I recently checked photos in seed catalogs and online to see if my celery and jicama plants are following a traditional path. When I experiment with new vegetables and have no one familiar with them to consult with about their progress, I look elsewhere for resources to tell me if I’m hitting the mark or not. My observations tell me the jicama is doing well; the celery isn’t looking as promising.

My first problem with the celery was that although lots of it sprouted, not much of it lived to transplant time. I think I had six plants to put in the ground. Now, I have two. That number could diminish even further.

Celery leaves look sort of like parsley. The problem with my plant’s leaves is that they’re curling. I’ve organically fertilized and water but I fear that the dry 10 days we had in June might have sealed their fate. It was so uncomfortable outside that I didn’t water as often as I should have; perhaps they won’t recover.

On the other hand, the jicama is vining with lovely leaves just as every resource, and my gardener’s instincts, tells me they should. They’re in a part of the garden that gets the most sun and they seem to love it there. The small plants are now spreading so I assume that below the earth they are also growing. Oh if only there were a way I could take a peak! Instead, I’m trying to learn another lesson in patience, hoping I will be rewarded at the end of the season when I can enjoy that unique jicama crunch.

If I succeed with at least one new crop, I’ll still be a smiling gardener.

Climbing spinach adds earthiness to salad

2011-06-20T18:10:00.000-04:00

My friend Joan gave me a few seeds earlier in the spring for vegetables I had not planted

before, including a climbing spinach called Malabar. I love spinach and never seem to get enough to satisfy from my garden so I decided to plant this in a pot that I could keep on the step leading to my kitchen. I’ve been watching it grow for a couple of months and the pot is now filled with thick, shiny, green leaves with red stems. Some of the leaves have also turned a deep, greenish pink. It’s a beautiful vegetable that, if nothing else, is quite pleasing to the eye next to the flowers I put into another pot.

Today I decided to pick some of the leaves and add them to my lunch salad. Biting into them is satisfying because of their bulk and earthy flavor. So I searched for more information about this plant. It turns out that it’s tropical so it likes heat and should produce that wonderful flavor all summer. The nutritional value of this beautiful plant is also impressive. While being a low-calorie vegetable it is also high in Vitamin A with a good amount of Vitamin C, calcium and iron.

I just checked to see if I have more seeds. I might commandeer another pot and plant more. I don’t think I can go wrong with beauty, taste and nutrition all in one easy-to-grow plant.

Lentil Apple Potato Salad

2011-06-17T15:32:00.000-04:00

Sometimes I crave beans of any sort. I recently bought some pretty, orange lentils and decided they would make a refreshing salad. It would also be a good way to celebrate my freshly plucked green onions and just-dug new, red potatoes. The dish was easy and turned into a great side or main dish to take for lunch.

1 cup lentils
1 apple
1 ½ cups diced, boiled potatoes
3 green onions
¼ cup fresh parsley
1 lemon
Your favorite vinaigrette

Cook the potatoes until just done. Remove from water and immerse in ice water to stop cooking. Cook lentils in the same water until done (15 minutes or less).

Meanwhile, chop the apple and put into the salad bowl. Squirt fresh lemon juice onto the apple chunks and stir. Chop the onions, including some of the greens, and parsley and add to the bowl. When potatoes are cool, cut them into bite-size pieces and add. Rinse lentils in cool water then combine with other ingredients, plus salt and pepper to taste. Top with your favorite vinaigrette.

It’s easy to make your own vinaigrette. Just remember it’s three parts oil to one part vinegar. I used red wine vinegar and that worked well with this salad.
Jim rated it a winner when I sent it with him and his co-worker for lunch. If it helps two hungry men get through a hard-working day, then it has something going for it!

Live with nature

2011-06-14T14:48:00.000-04:00

As I sat writing on my porch this morning I noticed an insect with a hard-shell lying on his back and flailing to right himself. I was absorbed in the story I was writing and went back to it. A few paragraphs later I glanced down to see if his determination had paid off. He had rocked himself close to one of our old metal chairs and looked as if he were about to succeed to when a spider dropped from her home. At first, it was a battle as the larger insect continued to struggle and the spider slowly dropped closer. Then the spider reached the insect. He fell lifeless instantly. I assumed she ended it with her venom.

I couldn’t take my eyes off of the drama. She worked until she had him in the right spot then quickly pulled him up into her web, hungry for a meal I imagine because her belly was clearly filled with babies soon to be born. If someone comes to join me on the porch I’ll have to tell them not to sit in that chair for I will not be the one to destroy the home of such a resolute creature.

My recent interview with Jeannie Kirkhope of the Appalachian Catholic Worker Farm in West Virignia reminded me of how much more magical life is when we truly live with nature. It’s one thing to tend the garden but it’s quite another to remember to look for the same sort of life and death cycle on my front porch, my outside summer office.

Vegetarian night makes for colorful plates

2011-06-09T08:36:00.001-04:00

Everyone who pays attention to food these days is talking about the new food guidelines in the U.S. that trade in the visual image of a pyramid for a plate with proper proportions of each food group. When I look at a plate I’m less likely to see food groups and more likely to see colors. Eating a rainbow of foods means you’re getting an array of nutrients that your body needs.

My eye was quite pleased when we had vegetarian night, thanks to the bounty from the garden. On the menu: Roasted Vegetables with Penne and Spinach Crostata.

I had been wanting to try the Spinach Crostata recipe since I watched Lidia make it on Lidia’s Italy a few weeks ago. She makes cooking look so effortless! When I read the recipe it didn’t appear as quick and easy as it had seemed on television, but it still wasn’t difficult.
For the Roasted Vegetables with Penne I adapted a recipe from Giada de Laurentis. I tend to add more vegetables than some more traditional pasta recipes call for and since I’m cooking for only two of us, I almost always have to cut down the amounts. With credit to Giada for starting me off on this idea, here’s what I did.

Roasted Vegetables with Penne
4 cups seasonal vegetables
1 chopped and sautéed Portobello mushroom
½ pound whole wheat penne pasta
½ cup olive oil
1 cup Italian bread crumbs
1/3 cup rehydrated sun-dried tomatoes
1/3 cup chopped almonds

Cut the vegetables to bite-size, drizzle with olive oil and sprinkle on salt. Roast in 400 degree oven until tender. I used butternut squash (left from last season) and asparagus and they were ready in about 20 minutes. Be sure to stir them a couple of times so one side doesn’t burn. In the meantime, toast the chopped almonds, sautée the mushroom and re-hydrate the tomatoes.

Cook pasta in salted water. Remove pasta with large pasta dipper and place in warm bowl. Sprinkle with bread crumbs and mix. Mix in olive oil to coat the pasta with oil and crumbs. Toss in vegetables and almonds. Salt and pepper if needed. Enjoy!

Compost surprises

2011-06-06T11:18:00.002-04:00

As I walk through my garden looking for weeds and where I might need to water, I notice the squash plant beginning to reach out from beneath the green, potato leaves. Amidst the asparagus patch there are at least three tomato plants stretching for sun. And throughout the kale and spinach is cilantro, cilantro and more cilantro. What surprises a garden can offer!

This year we spread what had decomposed in our compost bin over much of the garden. It took me awhile to realize that must be where all of these volunteer plants came from. And if they were able to survive the heat of that jumble of persistently life-giving decay, who am I to pluck them out?

Volunteer plants that return from the previous garden season, regardless of how they arrived, seem to have such a strong will that I can rarely pull them up. They often turn out to be the best producers.

In the meantime I look at the growing beans that have also been diligent in their quest to greet me. After our monsoon-like spring rains we now haven’t had rain for 10 days or so but the beans don’t seem to mind. I love the way my garden not only nourishes my body but also provides me with lessons in tenacity that I can use every day.

Don’t miss out on salad season

2011-06-01T17:41:00.000-04:00

Spring is such a wonderful time for salads. Garden leaf lettuces are tender and sweet, an entirely different eating experience than the head lettuce I grew up eating. There are also plenty of other garden goodies to add to your salad. And if it’s a hot day, you can combine these ingredients for a wonderful meal without ever turning on the stove.

Here’s one way to think about creating a spring salad.

Step 1: Choose lettuce, spinach, arugula or a combination. If cutting from your own garden, remember it’s best to cut it in the morning. I sometimes water mine the day before cutting to add to its goodness. When the summer sun begins beating down on it, the lettuce will get bitter so cut it all or cover it.

Step 2: Choose a fruit. I’ve been adding strawberries since they’re in season. Later I’ll try blueberries, apples, peaches, whatever I can find.

Step 3: Add something acidic. I like throwing on Kalamata olives. You might also try capers.

Step 4: Add cheese. This can add another texture to tempt your tongue. I typically use cheddar, Parmesan, feta or goat cheese. I was thrilled to find the delicious Bluegrass Chevre at Marksbury Farm Market.

Step 5: Add more protein. The cheese will give you some protein and staying power, but you can also add tuna, chicken, bacon, whatever you like. I oftentimes only add walnuts or almonds to make it more filling.

Step 6: Top with croutons or another grain if you like. I often skip this step.

Step 7: Finish with your favorite dressing. You can easily make your own or squirt on something you already have.

For this salad, I used a variety of leaf lettuces, strawberries, Colby cheese, walnuts, Kalamata olives and Italian dressing. It was the perfect lunch for a warm day.

Squash islands and the land as our soul

2011-05-26T17:24:00.000-04:00

My squash hills look like islands in my garden at this moment. We’ve had nearly three times as much rain as usual this year. Yes, three times. The sweet peas are ready to pick, if you don’t mind walking through the mud.

People have brought up global climate change to me multiple times today. I’m trying to retrain myself to use that term rather than calling it global warming as that really is a misnomer. Some of the “change” seems to be resulting in more extreme weather patterns. This morning my husband wondered aloud if we in Kentucky are transforming into a tropical climate.

With that on my mind I interviewed someone today who started a solo Catholic Worker movement in West Virginia. She spoke about how she sees God in the land. She also shared the insights she’s gained in becoming part of the “family” that inhabits the holler where she lives. “The land is their soul,” she said, explaining that for generations their families have clung to that ancestral place regardless of the difficulties inherent in living in a rugged, somewhat isolated place.

That discussion connects with the work she does to raise awareness about the problem of mountaintop removal. Although a coal company owner would, no doubt, bristle as my use of the word “problem” (it is a solution to his quest to make his company profitable), I’ve heard too many stories about the polluted streams, the cracked foundations, the family graveyards that have been buried beneath what was formerly the top of a mountain. It’s all part of a quest for profit and for electricity. We all participate when we turn on our computer or read by the light of a lamp in the dark.

Perhaps my island squash hills are one result of how we’ve lost touch with the way we must care for the earth so it can continue to sustain us. As I make asparagus and goat cheese pasta for supper tonight, I’ll be thanking our little piece of earth for nourishing that asparagus. I’ll also be considering what my personal role is in ensuring that future generations have the same luxury.

Easy lunches from the garden

2011-05-24T22:24:00.001-04:00

This summer I’ll be doing a session at the Field to Fork Festival in July on packing a garden lunch. I’m beginning to experiment with recipes I can share and here is the first one I’m calling a success.
But first, to gather the main ingredient for my sandwich I took advantage of a dry, sunny morning to cut greens. All of the spring rain has made the spinach and kale grow especially well. I cut and cut, rejoicing in the seemingly endless sprigs of cilantro that willingly returned this year. It always such a fun surprise to see plants return from the previous year. And enjoying the sunshine on a perfect morning made everything even grander.

Amidst my joy I brought in a pile of greens to wash then went back to my computer. About an hour later I realized it felt like I had a piece of mud hanging on my neck so I instinctively reached up and pulled it off only to see a bloody tic in my hand. No, do not simply pull out a tick because you’re unlikely to get the entire beast. (You can burn them off or, I’m told, covering them with Vaseline will dislodge them.) Sure enough, I could see a small black spec still in my skin and I had to go to the doctor to have the rest scraped out. A reminder to all my gardening friends: after being in the garden, always check for tics. Especially in a year with abundant rain, as we’ve had, they seem to be prolific.
Nonetheless, I did have spinach to use for my lunch. Here’s the sandwich I enjoyed.

Spring Spinach Surprise

Ingredients:
Half a pita or a flat bread to fold in half
Spreadable blue cheese or goat cheese
Handful of spinach
Banana or strawberries sliced
Fruit chutney
Walnuts

Spread cheese on bread. Stuff pita with spinach. Top with sliced fruit. Top with walnuts and chutney. Enjoy!

Do you have an easy garden lunch that I could share during my session? Post it in the comment section so we can all read it or e-mail it to me.

When’s the last time you enjoyed a tea?

2011-05-19T07:34:00.001-04:00

I recently planned a Saturday tea for the women in my prayer group and my mom, who was visiting. What fun it was! Planning a tea gives me a chance to play with ideas for little bites of food prepared from seasonal food and served on pretty china. How could that not make for a grand afternoon?
This time around I planned easy-to-prepare foods that I could make on Saturday morning. I knew I had asparagus and rhubarb from the garden to take advantage of. Since my kale wasn’t quite ready, I also bought some locally-grown red kale to incorporate. And there was still a jar of last year’s apply chutney to add a fruity bite. I tossed around a variety of ideas for using those ingredients and this is what I decided on:
Prosciutto wrapped roasted asparagus
Kale and caramelized onion tartlets
Apple chutney open-faced sandwiches
Rhubarb cake
Oatmeal peanut butter chocolate chip cookies
Lady Grey Tea
Orange Spice Tea

For the tartlets, I found the kale (which I sautéed) a little bit bitter, even with the sweetness of the caramelized onions, so I added a little agave nectar to tame the taste. Other possibilities for adding dimensions to kale are to add hot pepper then top with roasted nuts and dried cranberries. The combination of textures is a good touch.
I also added soft, blue cheese in the bottom of the tartlets before filling with the kale mixture and popping them in the oven for five minutes. Although I heard no complaints about anything I served, these tartlets were the hit of the day.
When my resources transform to tomatoes, potatoes and raspberries, perhaps I’ll take on the challenge again.

Bluegrass Food Summit: When consumers meet producers

2011-05-17T15:10:00.000-04:00

After breakfast today I went out into the fresh spring morning to pick strawberries and cut asparagus. It feels like such a luxury to walk out the door and find these marvelous treats. Everyone, however, isn’t able (or sometimes interested) to do that.

For this last installment about the Bluegrass Food Summit, I think it’s important to consider how some people are working to bridge the divides among producers, marketers and consumers. When people raise wonderful food locally, we cooks need to be able to get it! Although I didn’t hear any definitive answers to the question about bridging this gap at the summit, lots of folks shared ideas from the podium and well as in conversations throughout the day.

It sounds like a simple problem to solve, but it’s not. If you grow it yourself or a neighbor offers it to you, it’s easy enough to come by but that’s often not the case. Even when farmers in my community raise food that I would like to have, it’s not always convenient to call them, see if they’re home and if they have what I want. Although my town doesn’t have a grocery store I can get to one in a neighboring community before I can get to some of the farms in my own county.

That’s why I like it when they sell at the farmer’s market, which has been one place for producers and consumers to meet for a number of years. Even towns that didn’t host farmer’s markets are beginning to rethink that. For the farmer, though, a day at the market is frustrating if they spend all of that time waiting for customers and sell very little. Any farmer can tell you there’s always work to be done so it’s not easy to be away from the farm for a day.

Businesses like Marksbury Farm Market in Garrard County and Good Foods Coop in Lexington make it easier for consumers to buy food produced locally. It’s in one place with multiple products the consumer might want or need. I shop at both places and although some of the prices are significantly higher than what I could pay at a large chain retailer, I think it’s worth it. As one speaker said, in general good food isn’t cheap and cheap food isn’t good. I also see it as a way of supporting the local economy.

In Louisville, the Farm to Table effort is working to connect consumers and farmers. That means farmers are getting help locating larger markets, like restaurants, and promoting their products. Sarah Fritscher spoke passionately about this effort, sharing some of its positive results. It looks like a model others could follow.

More and more, the food is being grown locally, especially in Kentucky where new ways of farming continue to replace the traditional tobacco-based economy. The results can surely benefit us all.

Bluegrass Food Summit shares non-profit food stories

2011-04-25T11:22:00.000-04:00

Nonprofit initiatives that have a mission to help people improve their lives cannot ignore the role of food in that equation. At the Bluegrass Food Summit several nonprofit leaders shared what they are doing to help people reach food sufficiency as well as to work toward wholeness in other ways.

One story came from David Cook of Berea College who is leading Grow Appalachia. This initiative began after John Paul DeJoria, founder of John Paul Mitchel Systems, contacted the college and offered money to help people in central Appalachia increase their food security. Cook identified four organizations that were willing to work with families who wanted to grow food to feed themselves. The idea was that if families received the tools, seeds and training to raise a garden, they could do it.

The first-year participants proved that to be true. This year, the project is expanding to include three additional sites. “We have hungry people in Central Appalachia in one of the richest biodiversity regions in the country,” Cook says, “This is the most direct approach to food security.”

For some families, food isn’t the only are of life in which they are insecure. Their very safety is at risk. These are the kinds of people the Bluegrass Domestic Violence Program (BDVP) serves. While helping women and their children heal from violence and gain independence, they’ve also launched a farm initiative on 40 acres.

Jessica Ballard is the farmer leading the effort. “The single most empowering thing in my life is my connection with the earth,” she says. As a violence survivor and an AmeriCorps volunteer, Ballard wants to help those at BDVP find that same connection. Although weeding is certainly part of having a farm, she wants them to discover that farm work isn’t only drudgery, there’s also joy in planting, watching something grow, nurturing it and then enjoying the harvest. These activities can provide avenues to nutrition, physical activity, serenity, learning and sharing while building self-confidence.

Chrysalis House, a program for women recovering from substance abuse, is also empowering women through food. Sheila Taluskie, director of God’s Closet, Inc., found it frustrating that she could help the women at Chrysalis House gain job skills but because of their criminal records and the current economy they couldn’t always find employment. Her answer? Create employment for them. That’s when Purple Lunch Box, a catering service, was born.

Dazurae Blankenship manages the program and worked with the Purple Lunch Box staff and local technical school students to prepare lunch for the summit from local foods. The Purple Lunchbox strives to use as much local food products as possible. The business accepts food donations from local sources and welcomes business that can help them grow.

Another nonprofit initiative is called Faith Feeds. Erica Horn spoke about this initiative which connects gardeners and farmers who have excess produce with organizations that can provide it to people in need. The “gleaning” happens at the Lexington Farmers Market, Reed Valley Orchard and through those who come forward to donate. This work has become so successful that Kentucky First Lady Jane Beshear has suggested it be used as a model for the entire state.

I’m involved with my own nonprofit effort at The Nest—Center for Women, Children & Families in Lexington where I’m the Communications Director. We have a child care center where families provide lunch, which is typically something like a can of ravioli. We provide fresh fruits and vegetables as a supplement, as well as a snack. Since most of the children will say their food comes from the store, we want to grow a garden with them so they can see what it means for food to come from the earth. We’re hoping for donations of gardening tools, seeds and plants for our small plot that we’ll be planting in May.

Nonprofits play a vital role in our society today. Perhaps these initiatives can inspire others to consider the role food can play in meeting their mission.

Bluegrass Local Food Summit considers how we feed ourselves

2011-04-22T11:03:00.000-04:00

“If the earth is sacred then every spot on the earth is sacred and that means Kentucky is sacred.”

So began Jim Embry as he introduced participants in the Bluegrass Local Food Summit to the subject of the day on Thursday, April 21. He talked about how in our Commonwealth we also need to create “common health.” That, he said, begins with what happens below the grass with the worms, nematodes, etc.

Embry pointed to our current food system in the United States as one factor in the poor health of the population. Because of the food we eat and the far-reaching influences of how that food is produced, the health of our people and our earth is in jeopardy.

Throughout the upcoming week I’ll share highlights from the conference. Today I want to begin with information from Michael Bomford of Kentucky State University who followed Embry. Bomford posed the question: What does it take to feed ourselves as we do now? He looked at a 2010 study called Energy Use in the U.S. Food System and demonstrated its findings without the scientific language that would lose someone like me.

Here’s the recipe he used as he filled a container with enough oil to feed one person for a day:
2 1/4 cups of crude oil for what goes into the farming system—fertilizer, pesticides, running equipment, etc.
3 ¾ cups to process that food
1 cup for food packaging
2/3 cup for transporting that food to our stores
2 ¼ cups to operate the stores
2 cups to operate restaurants and food services
4 ½ cups for kitchen energy use in our homes

That comes to just over a gallon of crude oil to feed one person for one day.

There were two initial reactions I heard most commonly from audience members. The first was that we assumed it required much more energy to transport the food. The second was that we had no idea our kitchens used that much energy.

Of course, many individuals require less crude oil to eat daily. Anyone who who gardens, buys foods locally, rarely eats at restaurants, eats whole foods rather than extremely processed foods, buys in bulk and adopts other habits doesn’t have the same impact. Nonetheless, for those of us who think we’re doing well, it’s certainly challenging to consider how we can do better, especially when we realize that this energy use is only 15 percent or so of the total energy we use per capita in the U.S.

It’s quite sobering, yet on this Good Friday and Earth Day, it’s especially appropriate to consider what truly is sacred.

First harvests

2011-04-18T09:39:00.002-04:00

We’ve finally made it. We’ve gotten through the end of winter to welcome the schizophrenic days of early spring when we don’t know if we’ll wake up to sunshine, storms or a frosty lawn. What we do know, however, is that it’s time for rhubarb and asparagus.

We harvested our first rhubarb about 10 days ago. I made pie and fruit crisp with it and also experimented with a savory side dish for Saturday night’s supper. I chopped the rhubarb then sautéed it in butter with a little salt. It tasted lip-puckering tart so I sprinkled on just a small finger-full of brown sugar to tame it, but not so much that it tasted like dessert. The final product was easier to eat with a spoon than a fork and it proved to be a nice accompaniment to the meal.

Rhubarb provides vitamin C and calcium. In addition, this fruit contains ferulic acid, an important phytonutrient. Just as phytonutrients protect the plants they come from, they also help protect from disease those who consume them.

The rhubarb in our garden grows happily with little care. When I pass by the raised bed where it grows, I pull up the weeds that poke up through the mulch surrounding our two rhubarb plants. When seed pods appear at the top of a stalk, I pull off that stalk. And before bringing the rhubarb inside, I discard the leaves, which are unsafe to eat.

I foresee more rhubarb experimentation in the next month as the rhubarb flourishes while we wait for more asparagus to cut. We had our first steamed asparagus yesterday—just enough for the two of us. Here’s to hoping the asparagus grows happily this week so we have enough for Easter Sunday dinner.

Grow a cutting garden

2011-04-14T18:29:00.000-04:00

When we first moved into our house nearly 10 years ago, our friend Lucy was moving out of her home. That’s why she gave us several perennial plants. She had tended them so lovingly that she couldn’t bear to leave them behind. So we began our garden with:
Bee Balm
Coneflowers
Poppies
Crocosmia
Holly Hocks
Sedum
Clematis
Coral Bells

Although I had been raising an organic vegetable garden or a few years, flowers were new to me. So we dug up a circle in the front yard big enough for everything and I turned it into our Marian garden, a family tradition I wanted to continue. Before I planted I had to look up each plant to see how large it would grow and where I should put it.

Although the poppies and bee balm only lived one year, and Jim unknowingly cut the down the clematis so it’s likely gone, everything else thrived and spread. That’s one of the beauties of perennial flowers intended for your region.

However, all of these flowers aren’t ideal for cutting and one of my favorite things to do to get an outdoors break on a hard work day is to cut flowers and arrange them in a vase to place somewhere in the house. Luckily, other friends also shared flowers. Jim brought lilac bushes from his old house. His sisters gave us irises, day lilies, phlox and peonies. Another friend gave us Asiatic lilies (plus our raspberries that have proliferated). A co-worker passed on some columbines that now cover half of a front garden and my parents gave us daisies, lilies of the valley and a flowering cactus. All of these plants are still growing, although some better than others depending on how the light in our garden has shifted due to dying and growing trees.

In addition to all of that, we bought hostas for the shade garden, black-eyes Susans (like the coneflower, it's ideal in Kentucky) numerous herbs, six rose bushes and a few annuals. Depending on the time of the year, that usually gives me a choice of one to a few flowers to cut for an arrangement. I prefer to use flowers with a tall, strong stem. At this time of year, that makes lilacs ideal. Yesterday I mixed them with a few sprigs from a redbud tree.

When cutting flowers to bring inside, remember to cut on an angle and strip the stem of leaves that will be below the water line. Mix the height of the flowers and add sugar to the water. If the flowers can live inside for several days, take them out on day two or three, trim the bottoms and put in fresh water to prolong their life.

I’m still searching for more flowers that are good for cutting. Now my question is—when I find them, where will I put them?

What a difference a week makes

2011-04-09T12:16:00.000-04:00

You might feel overrun by work. You might be tired from caring for your family. Maybe you just feel like as everything in nature is blooming so is everything in your life and it’s hard to keep up. But don’t forget to go outside every day to see how the world is changing.

Spring is truly a time of wonder. Just a week ago I shot a few photos to put on the blog. Today I noticed the phlox in our Marian garden is in full bloom, with tulips in their full glory in front of them. The peas in the garden have really shot up. Three sprigs of asparagus are almost ready to cut. I will cut rhubarb today. And the pretty pink blooms on the peach tree have nearly been overtaken by baby-sized green leaves.

I went for an afternoon walk and passed a lilac bush in full bloom. I’m so thankful for the breeze that blew its sweet scent directly to me. Aah, the beauty!

It’s been such a hectic week that it would have been easy for me not to see all of this. My green house has been my savior. Because I need to go out and check the temperature in there to decide if I need to raise the flap, I have to walk through the yard. Just a few steps remind me that I need to be out there not only for practical reasons, but also because nature is so full of wonder that my life would be lacking if I didn’t allow myself the time to enjoy it.

Even if it’s raining, go outside today. What do you see? What do you smell? What is so tempting you that you have to touch it? Are the birds singing? The bees buzzing? I had to chase a bee out of my car yesterday, but I couldn’t get mad. We’re all in this in together and without the bees, we wouldn’t have honey.

Gardening by the moon

2011-04-08T17:09:00.000-04:00

Yesterday I went to a presentation about gardening by the moon. I’ve heard many people say the “old-timers” always used the signs of the moon to plant by but I didn’t know what it meant. It sounded sort of mystical and maybe superstitious. And I didn’t know if I had the time to garden by the moon since I work full time and make time to garden on sunny days when I don’t have an overwhelming number of deadlines. However, the presentation convinced me I need to give it a try.

Science has proven that the moon has a strong pull on the Earth’s water. So, during a full moon and a new moon, ocean tides rise. That, however, isn’t the only result of the moon’s pull. Water from deep in our soil also rises. That means that if you plant seeds during the full moon and new moon, you’ll see better germination. At least that’s the theory.

There are also specific gardening tasks to do during the other phases of the moon. I’m still studying all of this to more fully understand it. However, results are not the only reason to try this method. It sounds like a wonderful way to be more aware of what’s happening in the universe. Perhaps it will encourage me to look up into the skies more often.

Since I don’t have a Farmer’s Almanac I’m ordering a calendar from a www.gardeningbythemoon.com that the presenter referred to repeatedly. I’m so excited to get started that I asked for priority shipping.

Have you used the moon to dictate your gardening habits? If you’ve learned something, please comments and share. And I’ll be updating my adventure as I move along.

A tour through the yard garden

2011-04-02T11:07:00.001-04:00

I've been blog-lazy this week but I did manage to take my camera out into yesterday's alternately sunny and gray day to capture what's growing in our yard. Here's what I found.

The peach blossoms make me smile. I hope we don't get a hard freeze that could damage them.

The rhubarb looks promising.

The flowers in the Marian garden are beginning to bloom.

The herbs, including this oregano, are looking happy.

Aah, the garlic. It's so nice to see it return year after year.

And yes, the greenhouse. It's small but it's so nice to walk into its warmth on a cool day.

Lessons of the week

2011-03-25T17:13:00.000-04:00

Every week comes with a lesson for the observant. This week mine arrived as I considered different ways to grow things. When I went to Wonder of Life Farm to pick up eggs (I love the way their eggs are a variety of sizes and colors!) and saw they had a greenhouse similar to ours. Since I’m still learning about growing in a greenhouse, I asked Maria details about hers. She had no electric-powered heating or ventilation. Like me, she had purchased a thermometer to keep in the greenhouse.

When we stepped inside it felt like a little bit of plant-birthing heaven. Not only did her plants sprout from small pots, but she had opened a bag of soil and planted seeds directly into it. They grew as happily as all the rest.

Needless to say I went home, put together a tray of sample pots to try out in the greenhouse, labeled each one and moved on to the next stage of my own experiment.Last I checked, the jicama is finally sprouting.

Yesterday an article in the Lexington Herald-Leader newspaper gave me more ideas about growing containers. It talks not only about planting in bags of soil, but also about using tote bags, old planters, bushel baskets and leaky buckets. The point of the article is that even if you don’t have space for an in-ground or raised-bed garden, there are other options. Although I am blessed with space for both, I sometimes get so enthusiastic that I fill my space then search for more. I think I have a leaky water can that’s going to have a new life.

Soup season continues

2011-03-24T12:19:00.000-04:00

Although we had a few days of temperatures in the 70s, the cooler weather has returned and along with it a pot of soup. I took two chicken backs out of the freezer the other day and didn’t use them. What to do? They looked perfect for using as a soup base to which I could combine some of our preserved vegetables. Even though this soup has very little meat in it (a chicken back is mostly bone) Jim still gave it a 10. That’s saying a lot!

Beth’s Gumbo
2 chicken backs plus miscellaneous chicken bones
1 strip dried seaweed
1 can black beans, drained and rinsed
1 ½ c tomato juice
¾ c carrots
¾ c okra
1 onion, chopped
1 tbsp cumin
1 tsp pepper
1 tsp garlic powder
½ tsp oregano
½ tsp hot pepper
1 c barley (use less if you want more broth)

Put chicken in soup pot. Cover with water. Add seaweed and heat until boiling. Lower heat and simmer for an hour and a half.

Remove chicken from broth to cool. Add remaining ingredients and stir. When the chicken is cooled, remove the meat from the bone and add to the gumbo. Simmer for 30 minutes – 1 hour and taste for seasonings. This makes a thick soup so if you prefer more broth, adjust the ingredients.

The trial and error of spring

2011-03-21T11:50:00.000-04:00

This is the season when I have a very difficult time working at my desk on sunny mornings. The garden, the weeds, the flowers—they all call to me as a gentle breeze blows on this first day of spring. As Margaret Atwood said, at the end of a spring day we should smell like dirt.

I certainly did smell like dirt this weekend as I planted beets and mesclun mix, planted more tomato seeds to sprout inside, dug up weeds from a raised bed and put up a greenhouse. But I also spent some time researching information I need to know for this year’s garden. Besides being a time of outdoor activity, spring is also a time of trial and error for any gardener who likes, or needs, to shake things up a bit each year.

Our greenhouse is new and definitely in an experimental stage as I’ve never used one before. I bought a thermometer with humidity meter over the weekend so I can monitor the greenhouse temperature before trusting any of my tender plants to it. I checked out a few books from the library to learn about growing seedlings in a greenhouse and I’m still reading on the subject.

Besides seeking out information about greenhouses, I also searched for a solution to the crabgrass that invaded one of our raised beds last year. We started the season by digging it out and putting down black plastic in hopes of killing it. It didn’t work. One of the problems of gardening organically is that the solutions that others report don’t always translate to your garden patch. The crabgrass spread so thickly last year that it choked out a good number of strawberries. I think I’ve lost a couple of blueberry bushes, also, but I’m trying to be patient as I watch them for signs of life.

Thus far, I haven’t found an organic method for controlling the crabgrass. Most sources of organic information don’t even address it, at least not what I’ve found. I fear we might have to resort to some sort of herbicide if we want to save that raised bed and the plants that have weathered the invasion.

Another experiment this season is growing jicama. After about three weeks, it still hasn’t sprouted. It’s a slow-growing Mexican vegetable that I so enjoy that I decided to try growing it even though I’m not sure it will be happy in this climate. Rather than seeding directly in the garden as the package suggested, I put the seeds in small pots inside. I feared that if I put it in the ground, I wouldn’t be able to distinguish it from a weed. Perhaps patience will eventually pay off.

Yes, it’s a season of trial and error as well as dirt-caked fingernails and briar-scratched skin. I love it!

Compost this year

2011-03-17T11:32:00.002-04:00

It’s compost year in the Brown garden. We’ve been building a compost pile since we moved here nearly 10 years ago and every few years we find a pile of beautifully composted soil on the pile that we use enrich the garden. A few days ago I planted potatoes (St. Patrick’s Day is our marker for when to plan) and I put compost into the trench with the seed potatoes. As soon as the pile dries from the two days of rain we had, I’ll dig up more of it to put on top of the potato hill.

Composting is not difficult and it’s a great way to not only keep your garden soil healthy, but also to reduce the garbage you have. On Mondays, garbage day for our neighborhood, Jim nearly always comments on the bags of garbage and boxes of recycling he sees up and down our street. We have little of either. All of our food waste, except meat, goes into the compost pile. And although we recycle everything possible, we try to avoid buying things that are disposable which lessens our recycling and our remaining garbage.

I signed up for daily reminders during this Lenten season from the 2011 Ecumenical Lenten Carbon Fast. Today’s entry is about dealing with waste. They say the average U.S. household produces approximately 4.5 pounds of solid waste per day. When waste goes into a landfill, it generates greenhouse gasses; when it’s composted, it doesn’t produce carbon.

There are many reasons to compost. Perhaps it’s something you want to try this year.

Cooking with the young

2011-03-11T15:45:00.000-05:00

I’ve been cooking with young people this week. It started on Sunday when my favorite cooking partner—Anna Lei—came to my house after church so we could work on her 4-H demonstration. She wanted to demonstrate how to make the breakfast panini we created for the Farmer’s Market this summer.

Since her demonstration required a recipe, we had to write down what we had done. Here’s what we came up with for our recipe.

Annabeth Egg

Warm a skillet on medium. Add ½ pound sausage to the skillet to brown.

Drizzle olive oil in another skillet that you can also put in the oven. Turn on medium.

Chop ½ onion. Add to skillet and sauté. Chop other vegetables you like (spinach, green peppers, etc.) and add to skillet. If you like garlic, chop and add to vegetables.

While the vegetables soften, mix 3 eggs, salt, pepper, pinch of cream of tarter, 1/8 cup water and 1/8 cup milk. Pour into skillet with vegetables. As it cooks, run a spatula around the outside of the egg circle so the uncooked eggs can seep down and cook. Sprinkle your favorite cheese all over cooking eggs. When the bottom is cooked but the top is still runny, put the skillet under the broiler until the top is nicely browned.

Makes three or four sandwiches.

Breakfast Panini

Turn on panini maker to warm.

Take the Annabeth Egg out of the skillet and cut pieces to match the size of your bread. Spread Dijon mustard (or your favorite condiment) on the bread. Slice a tomato and add a tomato slice. Put egg on sandwich and top with a second piece of bread. Drizzle olive oil on the bread and spread with a pastry brush.

Put on panini maker with olive oil side down. Drizzle oil on the other side and spread with brush. Close panini maker, pressing down slightly. Cook three minutes then remove, slice and enjoy!

While Anna Lei was here, we didn’t actually make panini but gnocchi instead. Those little potato dumplings are so much fun to make and even more fun to eat. Jim agreed they were a 10.

My week of cooking with the young continued yesterday when I took on the challenge of cooking with 10 middle school girls. Since they asked to make pizzas and pasta but we had a limited amount of time, and even more limited cooking tools at the school, I tried to introduce them to healthy choices even though we couldn’t make everything from scratch. We used bagels, English muffins and flatbread for our pizza base. We discussed the difference between using whole wheat and white flour. While they seemed to understand the rationale for whole wheat, not one of them chose to use the whole wheat English muffins.

To top the pizzas we had marinara sauce, tomato paste and pesto to choose from. In addition, we caramelized onions, sautéed spinach and mushrooms and had Canadian bacon, chicken breast, kalamata olives (no one but me liked them), mozzarella cheese and parmesan cheese. For our pasta, we tried four cheese tortellini and chicken and prosciutto tortellini. Most of the girls happily tried both of them.

The choices I gave them were healthier than what they had asked to top the pizzas with (pepperoni and macaroni and cheese were two of their choices) and they liked most of what they tried. I think the next time around I’ll try cooking with them when we can choose from a basket of fresh fruits and vegetables from my garden. Then we could try making garden vegetable panini. Maybe Anna Lei and I will test out the recipe first!

Planning to learn and to share

2011-03-08T09:15:00.000-05:00

As I’ve been plotting my upcoming garden on paper I’ve also been adding events to my calendar that I want to be sure to attend. For those of you in Kentucky, you might be interested in attending. If you live elsewhere, check out the websites for information that you can use wherever you are.

The first event is the Bluegrass Local Food Summit which this year has the theme “Eating From Our Own Soil.” I attended the summit last year and left with ideas for stories that I later wrote, seeds that I planted in my garden and plenty of inspiration and information that I later put to use. This year the summit will be Thursday, April 21, 8 a.m. – 4:30 p.m. You’ll find information about the event on the Sustainable Lexington website.

On Saturday, July 16 we’ll be having an impressive event right here in Garrard County. The Field to Fork Festival will be held at Halcomb’s Knob Farm, Paint Lick, Kentucky from 9 a.m. to 6 p.m. Organizer DS Messenger is posting frequent updates on her blog about who will be teaching classes at the festival. I’ll be teaching a class called How to Pack a Garden Lunch that will explore the principles of eco-friendly eating while looking at ideas for delicious lunches.

If you learn something at an upcoming workshop that you would like to share, let us know!

Gardening saves money and requires time

2011-03-02T10:26:00.000-05:00

Although I’ve done no scientific study to prove it, I feel sure that gardening saves money. With garden foods on-hand year-round, I’m not making numerous trips to the grocery store, saving on groceries, gas and time. I am spending hours outside during the gardening season, a great thing for a writer who so often is seated in front of the computer to meet deadlines. Besides the exercise and fresh air, it’s also good for my soul to spend time with the worms and butterflies as I dig in the garden.

Novice gardeners do need to be aware, however, that there are costs involved in gardening. Here are a few costs to keep in mind as you plan this year’s garden.

Garden seed—saving some of your own seeds, which you can then swap with seed-saving friends, means you’ll need to buy fewer seeds.

Raising seedlings—growing some of your own plant starts instead of buying them can be fun and money-saving. On Sunday I started my plants for this spring by planting celery seeds in 12 small pots. You can plant seeds in old plastic pots you’ve washed out, or homemade newspaper pots. Check out this video for how to make them.

Potting soil—be sure you buy potting soil. Years ago as a novice gardener I tried using soil from my garden without realizing I would sprout weeds, also, and might not be able to tell the difference between the weed and the plant! Potting soil is worth the investment.

Fertilizer—Because I grow organically, I typically use fish or seaweed fertilizer. I also have helpers like blood meal, bone meal and kelp meal on-hand for nitrogen, phosphorus and potassium soil amendments. Organic Gardening magazine is a great source for information about soil deficiency problems and other gardening questions.

Some years I use all the seeds, soil and fertilizers I buy; other years I have some left over for the next year.

Each year, I seem to get a little bit smarter about gardening and spend less. That makes me feel smart and healthy, not a bad combination.

Eating on less than $3/day

2011-03-01T10:11:00.000-05:00

After hearing about my friend’s challenge to eat on less than $3/day, I decided to keep my grocery receipts in February and see exactly how much we spend to eat. As I spent extra on organic milk, meat, cheese and a few other items, I worried that my total would be more than I anticipated. But yesterday I totaled all of those receipts and here’s what I found: in February we ate on $2.82/day per person.

I would like to be able to say that proves what I’ve long suspected about eating a diet of whole foods rather than convenience foods. I’ve heard people say that fresh produce is too expensive and that’s why so many people go for the boxes, bags and cans of foods. Since we eat very few foods that would fall into that latter category, I don’t think it’s true. However, if I were being totally scientific in my study I’m sure I would need to take a different approach to truly prove my point.

I also realize that my February tally isn’t a totally accurate accounting of what we ate for a few reasons:
• We ate foods that we had purchased or grown previously and frozen or canned.
• We bought foods that we didn’t eat during February.
• To be more accurate we would need to figure in the cost of our garden inputs and divide that over 12 months.

So how much does it cost to garden? I’ll look at that question tomorrow. In the meantime, I would love to hear about how much you think you spend on food per day.

Three easy meals in two days

2011-02-25T14:44:00.000-05:00

My schedule has been so packed with writing and editing assignments this month that it’s been difficult to find time to cook. So I was thrilled to look through my favorite recipes and a stack of ideas to try to find three meals that were quick and easy to prepare.

I often spend two hours in the kitchen preparing a meal. That’s because I enjoy it and because cooking from scratch rather than a box takes longer. I was able to put these meals together in 30 – 60 minutes, a record for me. I also noticed I had fewer dishes to wash after cooking. That’s never a bad result!

Here’s what I did.

Breakfast: Baked Egg

1 egg
1 TBSP Salsa
¼ cup unthawed spinach
1 TBSP cheese

Mix ingredients and put into a single-serving sized baking dish. Bake at 375 degrees for 20 minutes or so until firm.

Lunch: Tortilla Tomato Soup with Beans and Rice and Quesadillas

We like Ellie Krieger’s Tortilla Tomato Soup and it’s one of those easy-to-prepare soups that reminds us of why we put so much work into canning our tomatoes during the summer.

While the soup cooked, I put on a pot of white rice. We had leftover pinto beans and knowing that rice and beans together make the perfect protein encouraged me in that direction.

As the two pots simmered on the stove, I sliced half an onion and a green pepper from the refrigerator. After sautéing them I put them on half of a whole wheat tortilla in the skillet, sprinkled with cheese and made a quesadilla.

Yes, it was a big lunch. And it all tasted good!

Supper: Asian Salmon with Stir Fried Vegetables

Lunch was so filling that I waited to make this supper until the next day. It fit in perfectly to my easy to prepare plan.

For several years I’ve been making the Barefoot Contessa’s Asian Salmon. Again, it’s quick and pleasing to the taste buds. I often bake it in the oven instead of grilling, which was true this time.

To go with the salmon I pulled vegetables out of the freezer to stir fry and serve with soba noodles. I prefer vegetables with a little crunch and of course since these had been frozen I didn’t get that. However, the taste of the dish, that I topped with a handful of cashews, was very good.

The lunch and supper both gave us leftovers for the next day when I wouldn't have a minute to spend in the kitchen.

The gardening season begins

2011-02-21T15:08:00.000-05:00

Most of the garden seeds that I ordered arrived last week. I promptly organized them in my seed box in the order I’ll plant them, delighting in pulling out the ones I’ll put in the ground first—greens and beets. It was so warm and dry last week that Jim was even able to till the garden. Although I haven’t planted anything, I did have to put my hands in the dirt just to feel it on my palms.

I also went to the library last week for books about greenhouse growing. It’s time to put together the one we received for Christmas. I’m hoping to use it for my seedlings and since the only ones I’ve planted so far are pansies, I think the greenhouse can wait for a day when it’s not as windy as today.

Yesterday we drove out to our friend Joan’s farm to cut reeds. They're drying out on the picnic table by the garden until we need them in a couple of months. My garden plan this year includes using one-third to one-half of the rectangular plot for beans, primarily dry beans (pinto, kidney, black and cannellini). So we’re going to experiment with reeds slashed together like teepees that we can sink into the ground, providing a good climbing surface. I like the idea of using one of nature’s gifts that could be useful for a couple of years before we have to cut more. When they’ve deteriorated we can put them in the compost pile.

Next on the agenda will be getting some planting soil so I can start sprouting seedlings. Even if winter returns us to evenings by the fireplace, I’ll know that spring is on its way.

Bean week in the Brown house

2011-02-11T14:09:00.001-05:00

Winter is the season when I most enjoy eating beans and when I saw our home-grown kidney and pinto beans in jars on my kitchen counter, I knew this was the week.

I started on Sunday when I indulged in one of my favorite kinds of meals—Italian. I prepared spinach and cheese manicotti with tomato sauce, meatballs, roasted Cushaw and pasta e fagioli soup. The soup is a Giada de Laurentis recipe that I hadn’t tried and the combination of pasta and beans with our homegrown kidney beans was fabulous. Of course since it’s February I didn’t have fresh herbs, but it still turned out so well that Jim rated it a “10” without even being asked. We also had leftovers to carry us over into the week, one of the benefits of a big Sunday afternoon meal.

By the time Thursday arrived, we had exhausted our leftovers and other easy-to-prepare meals so Jim made pinto beans. Jim is the pinto bean king. I will admit I had never eaten pinto beans until I moved to Kentucky and I do love the protein-packed soup with corn bread. I tried a new corn bread recipe (from Hindman Settlement School in eastern Kentucky) and it proved to be moist and perfect to accompany the beans.

Now we’ve used all of the beans we grew last year. This year I’ll plant many more so the joy doesn’t end so early.

It was a food weekend

2011-01-31T16:44:00.000-05:00

Friday, 2:30
I took a break from work to drive up to the Marksbury Farm Market for eggs, milk, sweet potatoes and cheese. Marksbury is a new Kentucky business that processes locally raised pork, beef and chicken that is raised by the standards they set forth on their website. It’s a delightful place that makes getting locally raised products much easier in the winter when the farmer’s market isn’t open.

Saturday, 4:00
After a day of cleaning the house it was time to make supper. I had already unthawed a frozen chicken from St. Asaph Farm and made a Cushaw pie earlier in the day. To go with the roast turkey I prepared bread stuffing, blanched asparagus (from the freezer), baked sweet potatoes and roasted Cushaw. I experimented with an avocado sauce to go with the vegetables but it needs lots of perfecting before I share that recipe with anyone.

Sunday, 12:30
Sunday was seed ordering day! Yes, as the stocks of winter vegetables and canned goods begin to diminish I’m thinking about what I’ll plant this year. I’ve been enjoying perusing the catalogs and fantasizing about what this year’s garden will be. Before going crazy with a new order, I inventoried my leftover seeds and those I saved this year. That leaves me with only a few to order. I prepared one order for Seeds of Change then looked through other catalogs to discover how to take advantage of special discount offers. I’ll hold onto the Seeds of Change catalog to consult its agronomics information throughout the growing season. I’ll also keep the John Scheeper’s Kitchen Garden Seeds catalog because I like the illustrations that will help me identify plants if I have a hard time distinguishing them from weeds.

Sunday 4:30
After a weekend of good food, Jim and I went to the movies and indulged in a bucket of butter popcorn. I know it’s not so good for me but once in awhile everyone has to splurge!

A dearth of fruit

2011-01-27T08:16:00.000-05:00

This is the season when I begin to long for fresh fruit. That crisp apple, that juicy peach, those firm, sweet strawberries that I can pluck directly from the vine—where are they? At present the apples are dried and in a container in my cabinet, the strawberries are in a bag in the freezer and the peaches are nowhere since we didn’t can any this year.

Finding local fruit all year round only seems to be possible through serious and varied preservation, then it still isn’t enough to satisfy my desires. I love fresh oranges and I just don’t know that it’s possible to grow them anywhere in Kentucky. The same goes for avocados. I have considered trying a lemon tree that I could bring inside during the winter.

Rather than lamenting what I don’t have, however, let me consider what I do have in terms of fruit. Perhaps considering it now in the low, fresh food season will be good motivation for this year’s planting and preservation planning.

In my kitchen, I do have:
Dried apples
Apple and pear chutney
Frozen apple pie filling
Frozen strawberries, blueberries and blackberries
Berry jam

Most of these fruits I’ll eat with breakfast. The dried applies are great in any hot cereal as well as in muffins and coffee cakes. Although I understand chutney is good with meat, my favorite way to eat it is with cream cheese between two pieces of homemade bread on a sandwich I’ve made with my panini press. The frozen berries I warm in the microwave and use in plain yogurt with nuts, to top waffles or to use in a smoothie. The jam isn’t just good for toast; it’s a find topping for a crostata or ingredient in other desserts.

All of those options are good, but I would like to have more choices next winter. It’s time to look at those seed and nursery catalogs and see what I can plan.

One story leads to myriad learning

2011-01-21T10:23:00.001-05:00

Shortly after I began freelancing in 1991, I searched my new Kentucky home for articles to write. Because of my interest in simple living and the environment, I was drawn to writing about Appalachia Science in the Public Interest. That’s where I met its founder, Jesuit Father Al Fritsch.

It was a fortuitous meeting because as I interviewed Fr. Al and others involved with his organization, I picked up so many things to use in my own life. I learned to “audit” my time to see if I was using it wisely. I visited communities of religious women who made marvelous use of their lands while also improving the energy efficiency of their buildings. (Keep in mind this was long before the current national trend toward such movements.) I visited the ASPI office, which at the time was in a cordwood house, and realized I could actually afford to build a house like that some day. I began to explore natural ways of gardening that didn’t require chemicals. One meeting led to so much learning!

I received a note from Fr. Al the other day. He’s also an author and I’m reading his most recent book, Water Sounds, a book about North American missionary and naturalist Jacques Marquette. Fr. Al also pointed me to some wonderful resources on his website. Besides listing his many published works, some of them are available for free on his site, including 365 Soups in 2009. He followed that with 365 Salads in 2010. This year it’s 365 ways to make breakfast with oatmeal. His motivation? He wants to show that it is possible to vary your diet on a low budget. It also allows him to try to live on $3/day (the average food stamp benefit for low-income people in the United States) and still have some left to support an orphan in India.

That encouraged me to think about my own food budget. I realized I do often eat on $3/day and purchase luxury items now and then. But I can do that because of the food I raise, the food preservation we do and because I cook from whole foods. Just to be sure I'm on target, I'm going to record everything I spend on food in February. That might lead me to learn more about my food budget that I'm remembering at the moment!

AS you can see, I continue to listen and learn.

Almost Mom’s Peanut Butter Cookies

2011-01-17T16:48:00.002-05:00

I must admit that even though I try to live from the garden all year long, there are times when I cook something that continues absolutely nothing that I’ve grown myself. That’s what happened yesterday. The cold, gray day prompted me to long for a house filled with the sweet aroma of baking cookies. My mom is the cookies queen so, for me, making cookies is like taking a step back into the kitchen of my childhood.

I usually don’t waste calories on any dessert that lacks chocolate so when I came upon Mom’s recipe for peanut butter cookies, I decided to slightly alter it to add chocolate and make it a tiny bit healthier. You can do that with so many dessert recipes by altering the kind and amounts of flour, sugar and fat you use.

For the peanut butter cookies, I first substituted a combination of butter and coconut oil. Several years ago I heard a doctor praise the benefits of coconut oil; it is reportedly a healthier saturated fat made of medium-chain triglycerides that convert to energy rather than fat. Nonetheless, I’m not total sold on it so if you have another fat substitute that you like, try it. The coconut oil did work well in these cookies.

Next is the sugar. I used one-third of what the original recipe calls for. Sugar can almost always be cut by at least half in a recipe. Try it and see what you think. You can also experiment with sugar substitutes, like honey, organic maple syrup and agave nectar.

For the flour, I again used the one-third approach. No I didn’t only use one-third the amount of flour but I substituted one-third of the all-purpose flour with whole wheat. Again, there’s no discernible difference but you get more fiber.

Finally, I added dark chocolate chips. Dark chocolate is filled with antioxidants that fight cancer, so why not indulge once in awhile!

Find your favorite cookie recipe and experiment with adjusting it to a healthier alternative. And if you want to try Almost Mom’s Peanut Butter Cookies, here’s the recipe.

Cream ½ cup butter, ½ cup coconut oil, 1/3 cup sugar, 1/3 cup brown sugar and 1 tsp. vanilla. Stir in 1 cup peanut butter. Mix together 2 cups all-purpose flour, 1 cup whole wheat flour, 2 tsp. soda and a dash of salt. Stir into creamed mixture. Add 1 cup dark chocolate chips. Form small balls and put on cookie sheet. Press with fork on top to make a crisscross. Bake 10 minutes at 375 degrees. Enjoy with a glass of milk!

Revisiting the purpose of The Goodness of the Garden . . . All the Year Round

2011-01-13T10:58:00.000-05:00

Last week a friend who read my blog asked: Where do you get the vegetables during the winter?

From the jars on our shelf.
From our freezer.
From two small businesses that sell local produce.
Directly from area producers.

Fifteen months after I challenged myself to try to eat, as much as possible, from the garden throughout the year, I’ve identified a number of area sources for food that is produced within 100 miles rather than flown or otherwise shipped, sometimes thousands of miles. Yes, I like a banana once in awhile and they don’t grow in Kentucky so I don’t buy them very often. And finding the fruit that I want in the region is my biggest challenge, but that’s only because I haven’t fully transitioned to using locally produced grains. That is part of my challenge for this year. I often buy Weisenberger Mill flour but need to expand my search for additional regional producers.

I began this challenge because I thought it was important not only for the health of my family, but also for our world. We, in the United States, have largely forgotten when foods are in season. We take for granted that we can get whatever we want to eat whenever we want it. We don’t think about all of the energy that is used to transport, grow and package our foods. I think we need to consider those things not only for our individual health but also for the health of our planet.

Besides all of that, I find it highly enjoyable to grow, preserve and cook my own food. In fact, other than the writing I do (writing is as vital to me as breathing) it’s probably the most rewarding thing I do. It provides me with a creative outlet, a way to enjoy the outdoors, produce to share with people who are hungry and plenty of great meals at home.

I’m still learning to live from that wonderful Goodness of the Garden and I don’t anticipate the lessons will end any time soon. Have you learned some lessons about this along your journey? Please share them. We can all learn from one another.

Roasted root vegetables add flavor to party

2011-01-10T09:20:00.000-05:00

This past evening Jim and I went to a dinner party to celebrate two friends who are preparing to move to the Philippines. The meal was a feast—broccoli and cauliflower salad, roasted chicken, flank steak, spinach bread, potato and cabbage casserole, snowball cake and my contribution of roasted root vegetables.

Root vegetables (and winter squash) are easy to keep for the winter months. We still had beets, sweet potatoes and Irish potatoes from our garden to use in the recipe. I’ve never grown parsnips and had to buy them. It felt wonderful to be able to take a colorful dish filled with flavor and nutrition.

Typically when I roast vegetables I toss them in olive oil, salt and pepper, roast at 400 degrees until done then enjoy. The recipe I had from Kentucky Proud (a website with information about Kentucky products) called for making a dressing for the vegetables. Although I’m not a horseradish fan, I made the dressing with half the horseradish and drizzled it on the vegetables. The results? See the ratings for yourself.

Kathy: 9
Doug: 9 (Did you cut these all up so uniformly yourself? Maybe it should be 10!)
Jim: 9

If you don’t have your own root vegetables, check your area farmer’s market or the local coop. You’ll be happy with the results.

Fresh pumpkin – it’s easy to use

2011-01-03T17:13:00.000-05:00

Yesterday I was reading a gardening magazine that I quite enjoy when I came across an article about a farm family that is dedicated to growing organically. I scanned the article and photos then arrived at some of their recipes. Ah, pumpkin pie. Let me see how they make it I thought. I began to read the ingredient list. It began with canned pumpkin. What? A farm family dedicated to organics who makes their pie from a can? Please say it isn’t true.

I grew up not liking pumpkin pie because the only kind I ever saw came from a can. When I learned how easy pumpkins are to grow, and how much nutrition they contain, I tried making a pie from my homegrown pumpkin. Either my taste buds changed or the ingredients did it for me because I enjoyed the pie.

I’ve since discovered many ways to enjoy pumpkin. I’ve tried pumpkin filled ravioli, pumpkin pasta, pumpkin bread, pumpkin cookies, pumpkin cake and pumpkin coffee cake. (Check out that recipe at http://allrecipes.com//Recipe/pumpkin-coffee-cake/Detail.aspx. It’s easy and so moist. I substituted yogurt for most of the sour cream.)

I do understand the need some folks have for the convenience of a can and according to the Mayo Clinic (http://www.mayoclinic.com/health/pumpkin/AN01754), that’s not all bad. The nutritional Vitamin A, potassium and iron are comparable. They point out, however, that you should carefully examine the ingredients in the canned pumpkin to be sure you aren’t getting a lot of high-calorie additions.

How do you get pureed pumpkin to create with? It’s very easy.
1) Cut the pumpkin in half.
2) Use a spoon to remove the seeds. Save them for toasting in the oven if you like.
3) Find a pan large enough to hold both halves, or use two pans. Put ½ inch or so of water in the pan. Place pumpkin cut side down and cover with foil.
4) Bake at 400 degrees until the pumpkin is soft when you prick it with a fork. Large pumpkins might take an hour.
5) When cool enough to handle, use a spoon to remove the flesh. Place in food processor with a spoon full or two of water from the pan. Process until you get a smooth puree.
6) Now you can cook with it! If you don’t want to use it all immediately, measure it and freeze in plastic bags with the amount marked on the outside. Then you can enjoy pumpkin even when the season is past.

I promise that if you start with a good pumpkin, you won’t want to go back to canned filling the next time you make pumpkin pie.

Learning from the holiday season

2010-12-29T09:32:00.000-05:00

Last evening at my final Christmas party of the season the topic of conversation among us five women naturally turned to New Year’s Resolutions. Of course, food and health are always at the top of the list. Someone wants to lose weight. Someone wants to exercise more. Everyone wants to incorporate more healthy habits into their lifestyles. The timing of the conversation was good for me as I had been reading two magazines that afternoon about holistic health as I looked forward to today’s seasonal acupuncture treatment.

For the first time in years, my health took a strong winter downturn last week when the doctor told me I had the flu. Since I began getting seasonal acupuncture treatments I felt that had helped me ward it off. This year for some reason that I’ll have to ask the acupuncturist about, he didn’t want to do the winter treatment as early as usual. Thus, I got the flu. At least that’s how it stacks up in my mind whether the lack of a treatment can be blamed or not.

Not having an appetite around the holidays helped me adjust my own perspective on eating. I returned to three lessons I learned years ago that I hope I will more strongly ingrain into my eating habits in the new year.

First, eat only when hungry. For me that generally means eating small portions at meals and not taking seconds. Although I often taste something so delicious that I immediately want another helping, I find that if I allow my food to settle long enough for my stomach to send my brain the signal that I’m full (approximately 20 minutes) then I will no longer want that second helping. So I’m going into the new year trying to make that an eating habit that I will not lose at the first temptation.

Second, the holiday season also reminded me of the kinds of foods my body most craves—whole foods that are not weighed down with heavy sauces, cheeses, dressings, etc. Don’t get me wrong, I love a cheesy casserole now and then. There are sauces and dressings that truly enhance the taste of foods that I also enjoy. But at least in my family, the holidays seems to be a time for casseroles in which the vegetables play a secondary role to the cream of something soup, crackers and cheese. Now that the potlucks are nearly over, I’ll be returning to those naked vegetable dishes that let their natural colors and flavors set the tone. I can taste those roasted vegetables already!

Third, the holidays wouldn’t be such a special food time without the loads of candies and cookies that everyone associates with the season. Each family has a specialty, something dear that grandma always made or that Mom has perfected through the years. We still have three tins of those delights on our dining room table, along with a pie made from real pumpkin in the refrigerator. I’ve been generally avoiding most of it (notice I only said most, not all!) because as I’ve been recovering my health I’m reminded of how refined sugar can deplete the immune system. I would rather be healthy for the New Year instead of having my sweet tooth pacified.

As I look to 2011, my food challenges are to eat only when hungry, cherish naked vegetables and keep sweets in their place, which isn’t in my desk drawer. What are your food challenges for 2011?

Vegetables in winter provide inspiration for pasta variations

2010-12-18T13:08:00.000-05:00

The world outside my door has been white all week with a glistening armor of ice protecting its purity. Here and there the ice breaks up as we walk on it, pound it with shovels, throw down de-icer, but the icicles still hang from the garage roof and I continue to walk cautiously when I go out.

My previously green garden is so glaringly white that it’s hard to imagine how it looked just two months ago. But when I pick up the jars of re-hydrated vegetables on my kitchen counter some of that memory returns. I wanted a quick supper to prepare last night so I turned to a long-time favorite—pasta with a mock Alfredo sauce. It’s a 15-minute recipe made with cream cheese, butter and Parmesan (yes, full of fat although you can do as I did and use a lower-fat cream cheese like Neufchatel. I can use this dish to please myself and my husband even when we might have two different cravings.

Last night was no different. I wanted vegetables and found two of them in my jars of dried vegetables. I re-hydrated beets and tomatoes to toss in with the pasta and picked out a bag of locally-grown spinach from the refrigerator for a green addition. I tossed that all together with whole-wheat linguine then added the Alfredo sauce. It looked quite appetizing, but I wasn’t finished.

I knew I needed a little more protein but didn’t want meat so I toasted walnuts to top my dish. My husband, however, is a seafood lover so I unthawed shrimp to add to his, thus giving us each a variation to make us happy.

Pasta is an easy way to please just about anyone in the family. You can even set it up as a pasta bar if you like, allowing each person to choose what they’ll throw into their mix. Re-hydrated or unthawed and warmed vegetables plus whatever might be in season can provide several variations that you can offer with chicken, meatballs or seafood. It’s fun and it tastes good, especially when you need a reminder of those good vegetables you put so much time and energy into growing and preserving this year.

Soup season brings forward an old favorite

2010-12-03T16:50:00.000-05:00

Who doesn’t like vegetable soup? It’s so filled with flavors and textures that there should be something in it that appeals to everyone. And this is certainly the season to make it.

For the past month I’ve been making one pot of soup a week. It’s a great meal to store in the refrigerator and eat on all week. Pair it with your favorite bread (I made Parmesan Skillet Flatbread to go with ours) and you have a warming, healthy meal.

Even though I’ve published this vegetable soup recipe before, I thought it was worth bringing to the forefront again for new readers as well as those of you who have been around for awhile but forgot this was in your repertoire.

If you have a favorite soup recipe for these cold days, please post it as a comment so we can all enjoy it.

A few nutrition specifics:
Garlic contains allicin, which is a powerful anti-bacterial agent, that are released only when you crush or slice it, so always be sure to take that extra step. Studies have also shown that garlic consumption has reduced the risk of various cancers.
Kombu is seaweed that is dried, sold in sheets and used in many Asian dishes. It includes a lot of trace minerals and is high in potassium, iodine, calcium and vitamins A and C.
Quinoa is a high-energy protein that can ease digestion. It has more calcium than milk and is rich in minerals.

Ingredients:
½ cup quinoa
2 cups water
dash of salt
Combine and cook until quinoa is soft, about 15 minutes. You can also substitute another grain of your choice.
3 celeries
2 carrots
1 onion
2 TBSP olive oil
Chop into bite size pieces. Warm about olive oil in the soup pot. Add chopped veggies and sauté 5 – 7 minutes, until onions are nearly translucent.
½ cup chicken broth
1 pint tomato juice
2 cups water
1 small piece of dried kombu
Two cloves of garlic
Add liquids and kombu to pot. Smash and peel the garlic and throw them into the pot. Bring to boil then simmer lightly, covered, 10 minutes or so.
1 ½ cups frozen green beans
1 ½ cups frozen corn
2 cups frozen broccoli
1 ½ cups frozen greens
1 quart jar of tomatoes
Directions:
If any of the vegetables are frozen together in a glob, put them in the microwave for a minute or two to separate. If any of them are not chopped, chop into bite-size pieces. Add vegetables to the pot. You can substitute whatever vegetables you have in the freezer or that you prefer. Depending on how much broth you like (I prefer a more stew-like consistency with less broth), you might find that you need to add more liquid.
1 tsp black pepper
2 tbsp Italian seasonings – such as basil, parley, oregano
Season the pot and simmer, covered, until all vegetables are done. You can substitute your favorite seasonings. You might also need to add salt, depending on how much was in the liquids and tomatoes you used. The kombu does add some salt, so wait until that has been in the pot 30 minutes or so until tasting.
When vegetables are finished, remove the garlic cloves and kombu then add your grain. If the grain isn’t soft, continue cooking until it is. Enjoy!

Shop for a good deal that benefits everyone

2010-11-30T18:10:00.000-05:00

Twenty five years ago when I was living in New York City I didn’t like going to the grocery store. Like most people in the city, I didn’t have a car so I could only buy what I could carry. (I heard a number of people use that as an excuse for eating most of their meals out.)

The grocery nearest to my apartment was dingy and the gum-smacking teenage cashiers obviously would have preferred to be elsewhere. So when I could, I shopped at the fresh fruit and vegetable stand that I passed on my walk home from the subway. Maybe that should have clued me in to what would be in my future.

When I moved to Kentucky twenty years ago, I missed those stands but I discovered the joy of shopping in a well-lit, clean grocery store with clerks who offered a friendly a smile. I could redeem coupons, choose from a wide variety of items and easily take home three bags filled with food if I so chose. I truly began to enjoy grocery shopping, searching for healthy bargains as I perused the aisles.

My motivation for where I shop and what I buy has changed since then. I no longer look for the cheapest sales or the one store that will have everything I need. My shopping priorities revolve around good health, eating local foods, buying in bulk and getting a good deal.

Good health. I believe the best way to establish good health, at least for me, is to eat primarily whole foods. I still used canned goods sometimes but most of my vegetables come either from my garden, my freezer or shelf of preserved garden vegetables or the produce department. The fresher the food is the better it is for my health, not to mention ensuring the most flavor.

Eating local foods is also strongly tied to good health. I belong to Good Foods Coop in Lexington that buys what they can locally and in-season. The less distance a food has to travel, the fresher it is and the more nutrients it maintains. That means eating primarily what is in-season in our region. (It does limit my fruit choices and I’m still puzzling over that problem.) That diminished trip also means fewer fossil fuels are burned to get the food to me. I get a fresher meal and a cleaner environment all at the same time.

Buying in bulk. I began to consider this when someone I interviewed for an article about simple living pointed out how much energy and how many resources are wasted in packaging the food I was buying. So even though there are just two of us in the Brown household, I began buying in bulk when possible and looking for items with less packaging. That led me to the Amish grocery store that’s about 15 minutes from here. They buy everything in bulk and package it simply. I was amused not long ago when I went to the store to refill my supply of flour and sugar and checked out after an Amish man. There I was with my less packaged products to cook with from scratch. There he stood with boxes of manufactured cereal and snacks. So no, everything at this store isn’t healthy and environmentally friendly to the max, but they do better than many places. And since we don’t have a grocery store in my town, it’s the nearest source for baking basics.

Getting a good deal. I’ve come to understand that there’s more to getting a good deal than only saving money. No, I’m not overrun with piles of money that I can throw at organic and local choices. But luckily for us, what we save from gardening gives us a little bit extra to spend on the more expensive items. As I’ve gotten to know the stores available to me and the local farmers, I’ve found ways to save money while following my shopping priorities. If I can shop to make myself and the earth healthier at the same time than I think I’m getting a very good deal.

Seed saving season

2010-11-23T15:44:00.000-05:00

Every winter I receive at least a dozen seed catalogs that encourage me to think ahead to spring. And every fall I consider that if I would save my own seeds, I wouldn’t need to buy as many next year. This year, I’ve tried to do more than just think about seed saving.

Squash and bean seeds are easy enough to save. Squash seeds are large so I rinse them then put them in a bowl or on a paper towel to dry before storing them in a glass or hard plastic jar and labeling. Beans can be left on the vine until they dry then it’s simple to open the pod and pop them out for storage.

Then there are tomatoes. I’ve tried a few different methods but I think the one Jim showed me this year worked the best. It’s the method he used for years as a farmer and agriculture teacher, now adapted to our back yard garden. Here’s what I did.

1. Collect all frost-bitten (or too green to ripen) tomatoes from the vines. Put them in a bucket.

2. Let the rain cover them. If it doesn’t rain, use your water hose to add water. (The rainwater is my addition. Jim prefers the power of the garden hose to help separate the seed from the pulp.)

3. Put on your rubber gloves, crush the remaining tomato chunks with your hands, releasing the seeds into the water. Remove as much pulp and skin as you can.

4. Soak for a week or so to encourage seed separation from the rest of the pulp.

5. Place half of a large screen over another bucket. Pour out the water and seeds over the screen. The seeds and a few tomato bits will remain on the screen. Cover the seeds with another screen (to avoid feeding the birds)and put outside in the sun with the top screen securely in place. (We used bricks to hold it down.)

6. Let seeds dry. If the sun is out and you’ve removed most of the tomato bits, it shouldn’t take more than a day or two.

7. Use your hand and fingertips to loosen seeds from screen and pour into a storage jar. Label and keep for spring.

I collected my Constaluto Genovese and San Marzano seeds yesterday then reused those screens for two other types of tomatoes. I had hoped to collect the rest of the dried seeds today but Mother Nature delayed me with a morning rain. That’s okay because planting season is still months away and Mr. Sunshine is at work to dry for me.

Pay homage to your end-of-season tomatoes

2010-11-16T18:18:00.002-05:00

Thank you David Lebovitz.

This past weekend I was invited to a party and asked to bring something to eat. As is my habit, I first looked at what I had in the house before deciding what to cook. Across my blue kitchen windowsill sat a row of our final ripe tomatoes of the season—red and yellow. They were such a pretty sight and in need of using before they spoiled. I wanted to make a dish that would show them off.

Tomato quiche? I searched for a recipe but didn’t find any that I thought would pay adequate homage to the tomatoes.

Tomato tart? I don’t really know what defines a “tart” except that it is made with pastry dough. So I did an online search. That’s when I found David Lebovitz’s website. Lebovitz is a chef whose site is subtitled, Living the Sweet Life in Paris. He not only includes beautiful photos of dining in France, but he also has a simple recipe for a French tomato Tart.

I should have taken a photo of my creation because it truly was beautiful. And the taste? Exquisite. It was truly a fitting salute to the end of the 2010 tomato season.

Grind your own herbs and spices

2010-11-13T16:07:00.000-05:00

When was the last time you replaced the spices you rely on to add flavor to your dishes? I’ve been wanting to replace many of mine for several months. This is the time of the year when I can do just that with some of what I’ve been growing.

This morning, for example, I put the hot peppers I had dehydrated into my blender and pulverized them. Keep in mind that I dehydrated the peppers outside to avoid their strong scent taking over the house. Pulverizing them also emitted a strong odor that made me sneeze. I think, however, that the result is worth the temporary inconvenience. We now have a small jar of very aromatic hot pepper spice that will add zing to many dishes this winter.

Although spices don’t go bad, they do lose flavor and aroma. One good reason to grow herbs is that at the end of the season, you can easily dry them (either by hanging in a dry location or using a dehydrator), grind or crush them and replace your old spices. I find herbs easier to grow than vegetables since bugs don’t seem to bother them. (I will admit, thought, that a small animal did eat my borage earlier in the year. I wasn’t really sure what to do with it anyway!)

I like using herbs fresh when they are in season. Some plants hold up to the cold quite well, only giving up their productivity when the temperatures drop to an extreme. For example, my first rosemary plant lived outside through its first winter. The next year, however, we had an ice storm that decimated it. This year I covered my parsley wioth dried leaves before our first hard freeze and it still looks good.

Store your spices in a dry, dark place in a tightly sealed container. Although it’s convenient to keep them near the stove, the heat can quicken their demise.

Herbs and spices not only add flavor to your meals, but also nutrition. whfoods.com reports that Oregano has 23 percent of the daily recommended value of Vitamin K. Cayenne Pepper has 30 percent of the daily recommended value of Vitamin A.

If you didn’t grow spices yourself this year, check your farmers market. Now is the time to stock up for winter.

Pepper jelly utilizes end-of-season produce

2010-11-09T16:49:00.002-05:00

I’m preparing to pull up stakes and tomato cages from the yard since a frost finally decimated the remaining plants. That leaves me only with the freshness I have already harvested to use in my creating and exploring. I recently put the hot peppers to use in a jelly.

Jelly-making was new to me so, as I typically do when I try cooking something unfamiliar, I read several recipes to pick up tips then sort of pieced together the best parts of them for my jelly. It turns out that making jelly isn’t that difficult. This type of jelly can also yield a culinary as well as a slightly medicinal product.
Here are the basic steps I followed.

1. Wash and cut up peppers. I used one pound bell peppers and ½ pound hot peppers. You can vary the ratio but be forewarned that even that 2:1 ratio can yield a spicy product, depending on the types of peppers you use.
2. Cook peppers with 1 ½ cups white vinegar. Bring to boil then simmer for 30 minutes or so.
3. Strain mixture through cheesecloth, getting out as much liquid as possible. It will be approximately 2 cups of juice.
4. Return juice to pan. Combine with 2 ½ cups sugar. Bring to boil then add two packages powdered pectin. Boil hard for one minute then simmer 30 minutes or so until slightly thicker.
5. Fill four jelly jars and process in a hot water bath for five minutes.
6. When canning, always remember to sterilize your jars, lids and funnel.

Because I used a combination of green, red and orange peppers, our jelly is a pretty color. Some recipes recommend adding food coloring to your liking.

Jim loves the jelly on toast, saying if he adds butter also then it cuts the heat. I, on the other hand, found toast even with butter to be too hot for my mouth. Next I’ll try it with cream cheese on crackers, a combination I had once at a party. Until then, I know that if my head gets congested, I need only take a bite of pepper jelly to breath freely once again.

Preparing for frost

2010-11-02T17:34:00.000-04:00

Every time I hear a weather prediction of low evening temperatures, I scurry around the garden picking anything that’s ripe. I’m still finding five types of tomatoes. Yes, the kitchen windowsill is full again. They might be smaller than they were a month ago, but they are so precious at this late date.

Then there are the peppers—bells and hot peppers. I tried a pepper jelly recipe over the weekend that I’ll share soon. It turned out to be a good way to use that end-of-the-season abundance.

I’ve also been cutting many of the herbs. Herbs are simple to hang in your kitchen and dry. They can also be fun to add to flower arrangements (I mixed my last zinnias with lemon balm) or turn into wreaths. I crafted some rosemary wreaths (I love that smell!) that I shared with friends. Next I want to try winding lavender through them.

Speaking of flower arrangements, I also cut marigold and mum blooms to put into a piece of florist’s foam and turn into a nice fall arrangement for the living room.

Yes, the end of the season is an especially creative time in our household. I so value these last few days of beautiful living things in my yard that I want to put them all to good use. In the process, I remember the many blessings that have allowed me to enjoy this fruitful before-frost harvest.

Help refine this recipe . . . win a book

2010-10-28T15:11:00.001-04:00

Attending the food show on Sunday inspired me to draw on the knowledge I’ve been harvesting for years to create a new soup recipe. I bought three pounds of navy beans on sale several months ago and they were sitting on my counter tempting me to experiment with them. So I went to work, utilizing seasonal vegetables and freshly cut herbs from the garden.

The result? Jim and I both enjoyed it immensely. But, I’m guessing you could probably help me refine this recipe. In honor of Breast Cancer Awareness Month, I challenge you to try this recipe and add your own twist. Send your addition to the recipe to me at writerbeth@windstream.com. I’ll publish your ideas and draw one name for a copy of A Cup of Comfort for Breast Cancer Survivors, in which I have an essay. Deadline to send in your suggestion is midnight on Wednesday, November 3.

Here’s my recipe. Now let me see yours.

Fall Navy Bean Soup
1 1/4 cup navy beans
½ yellow onion
½ red onion
1 carrot
3 medium beets
1 small butternut squash
salt, pepper, garlic powder
baking soda
1 sprig fresh majoram
1 sprig fresh thyme
1/3 cup chopped parsely
2 sage leaves, chopped
1 ½ TBSP vegetable bouillon

Soak beans in salt water a few hours to soften. Rinse. Put in soup pot, cover with water, sprinkle in salt and baking soda then bring to hard boil for 10 minutes. (I'm told this makes them less gaseous.)

While beans cook, peel and chop onions, carrots and beets. Drain beans through colander and rinse. Return to pot and cover with about 2 inches of water. Add vegetables and bouillon plus salt, pepper and garlic powder. Cover and bring to boil then simmer 1- 1 ½ hours until beans are soft. Add squash and cook until soft (10 – 20 minutes depending on their size). Remove 2 cups soup and puree in blender. Return puree to soup pot with fresh herbs. You can puree more if you want to make the soup thicker without cooking it down. Stir and cook without lid until you like the soup’s taste and consistency. Enjoy!

Exploring the Incredible Food Show

2010-10-25T17:00:00.000-04:00

I had so much fun yesterday! I spent the afternoon in a corner of culinary heaven. The second annual Incredible Food Show took place in Lexington offering more than 80 vendors and more cooking demonstrations that one person could attend. I learned, I sampled and I left with a bounty of information and happy tummy.

Vendors nearly all offered samples of their products. There was everything from beer cheese to five meat Tuscan pasta to cheesecake brownie cake. Yes, the portions were small but with so many items to try I couldn’t have stomached larger samples.

These Kentucky-based producers demonstrated that right in the Commonwealth there all sorts of local food creators to choose from. Kentucky chefs, using Kentucky products, were also featured in cooking demonstrations. One series, called Sunday Suppers, hosted a chef each hour of the afternoon making one course of Sunday supper. I made it to three of the four demonstrations and, just as when I watch a cooking show on television, I picked up tips to use at home. The difference was that this time I actually got to taste the dishes on the spot.

Here are three quick tips I picked up from the chefs.

Chef Edward Lee of 610 Magnolia in Louisville made a creamy butternut squash soup without cream or butter. How did he do it? He made a stock from vegetables, roasted the squash then pureed it and added stock to it until it was the correct consistency. It was smooth, velvety and delicious!
Chef Ouita Michel of Holly Hill Inn in Midway created the main course—stuffed veal with apples and squash. I liked the trick she used for coring the apples. The cut them in two then used a melon baller to remove the core. Her entire creation was definitely a feast for the eyes, reminding me of the importance of presentation.
Chef Brigitte Nguyen made apple desserts. She credits Cook’s Illustrated with the pie dough recipe she uses. She also explained that the best pie crust is made with butter and shortening—butter to make it flaky and shortening to make it tender. I believe she used 1/12 cups of butter to ½ cup shortening.
When the next Incredible Food Show rolls around, I plan to be right there again.

The gift of gardening

2010-10-19T17:06:00.000-04:00

Yesterday I lost an earring and found a pair of glasses. It reminded me of the balance of life—things come to us and go away. Sometimes what comes to us is totally unanticipated. It might be something we never would have put on an “I need” list yet when it arrives we discover joy in the richness it has added to our lives. We realize it’s a true gift from God.

Gardening is like that for me. It wasn’t something I had written on my “To do before I die” list. I hadn’t thought that much about how I had become a gardener until recently when I was asked to give a talk to a group of high school students about how I, as a writer, brought green spaces into my life. I called it “Writing as a gardener . . . gardening as a writer.”

As I prepared the talk, I remembered the disillusionment I felt after a few years in the work world—going into a building to work before 8:30 every morning and not leaving until 5:00 or later. It seemed so unnatural to be that disconnected with nature when God had given us so much beauty and goodness. Writing requires substantial time sitting at a desk and putting down the words, but it seemed there should be a better way than doing this in an office cubbyhole every day.

Yet there were also times when, as a journalist working on an assignment, I learned about the benefit of planting beans with corn in Central America. I later interviewed Fr. Al Fritsch at Appalachia Science the Public Interest about living simply and making organic gardening and edible landscaping part of that lifestyle. I toured farms in Appalachia, met with farmers in Honduras and began to ask questions about the food I ate. Over the course of several years, my work as a journalist unearthed my desire to integrate gardening and more outdoor time into my life.

So I am blessed with the lifestyle I now have that allows me to write, most days from my home, and get up from my desk for a walk around the yard, a weeding break or time for harvesting the vegetables. Tonight I’ll eat chili made with our own tomatoes and roasted vegetable—all from the back yard garden. I’ll also be thankful, once again, that God dropped this wonderful gift into my life.

Fall Roasted Vegetables

Peel and cut into uniform pieces butternut squash, onions, peppers and potatoes. Cut beets into slightly smaller pieces because they take longer to roast. If you have okra to add, cut off the ends and leave this in slightly larger pieces. Experiment with the vegetable mixture you like.

Toss everything with olive oil, salt, pepper and garlic powder. Put on a baking sheet in a single layer. Roast in 400 degree oven for 30 – 45 minutes, stirring every 10 – 15 minutes. The length of time the vegetables take to cook will depend on the size you cut them. Enjoy vegetables alone or mixed with rice.

Creating breakfast paninis

2010-10-14T18:07:00.005-04:00

First thing this morning I was in the kitchen chopping onions and peppers to put into a frittata. I promised to cook breakfast paninis on Saturday at the Farmer’s Market before the Farm and Garden Tour so I thought I should try out my ideas. I experimented with an apple chutney and cream cheese panini a few weeks ago. (I love the recipe for pear or apple chutney in Simply in Season published by the Mennnonite Central Committee.) That’s a definite must as it’s a wonderful and healthy sweet treat for the person who likes sugar to start the day.

I need a savory version, also. Since I have to make a number of sandwiches, I decided cooking frittatas in advance would be the best approach.

Frittatas are simply oven omelets. You sauté the vegetables on top of the stove in an oven-proof skillet, mix the eggs with some milk, salt and pepper, then pour them into the skillet. You can also add cheese or meat if you like. When the eggs are done on the bottom but still a little runny on top, put the skillet in the oven under the broiler to finish cooking.

I tried it this morning making two versions—one sandwich I dressed with pesto and sun-dried tomatoes to go with the eggs. On the other, I put Dijon mustard and a sliced tomato. Voila, breakfast in a sandwich that I hope surpasses anything you might get at a drive through.

The Farm and Garden Tour begins at 8:30 a.m. at the Garrard County Farmers’ Market, 302 Stanford St. Participants will receive a goodie bag with samples of local products, a breakfast sandwich made with local produce and a guide to the farms and gardens that will be open for visitors. For more information, contact Maria Turner at 859-792-8923 or mria_r_turner@yahoo.com.

A Fall Trifecta

2010-10-09T12:53:00.000-04:00

I saw something in the Lexington newspaper about the unusual convergence of so many sporting events in the city at once this weekend. In my household, today’s trifecta has nothing to do with sports and everything to do with food.

This morning my prayer group came here for brunch. This afternoon I’ll be preparing treats for tomorrow morning’s coffee and donuts at church. This evening we’ll be having a guest for supper. It’s a good thing the garden is still handing over its gifts!

The brunch menu looked like this:
Stuffed roasted tomatoes
Corn and basil tart
Fruit salad
Cinnamon pecan rolls

I garnished the tomatoes with fresh parsley and the fruit salad with fresh mint. At this time of year when I’m very aware that a frost could mean the end of my herbs, I seem to more often remember to actually use them than during the rest of the year.

It certainly looked and smelled good when it was all ready. The only problem was with the stuffed tomatoes. At this time of year since we’ve had so little rain, the Roma and San Marzano tomatoes are less than plump. Nonetheless, I followed the recipe by cutting them in half, scooping out the seeds, marinating and roasting before stuffing. When I pulled them out of the oven, I saw that was a mistake. The tomatoes had flattened. I stuffed them, put them under the broiler and tasted. Everyone around the table agreed that even though they didn’t look beautiful, they definitely made the taste buds cheer. I’ll try them again for supper but I won’t roast them in advance.

Everything else was a hit so the group members more or less agreed on their rating. (Deb suggested upping the score simply because cinnamon rolls were on the menu.)

Deb, Martha and Patti’s rating: 9

I’ll take it!

Reminders for the change of season

2010-10-01T16:31:00.000-04:00

It’s seasonal acupuncture treatment time which means I got a “tune up” yesterday to deal with fall allergies along with a pep talk about diet from Doug McLaren, the acupuncturist. Although I eat a healthy diet I can always use a reminder from a professional about what I should and shouldn’t be putting into my body.

Today’s topic: caffeine and sugar. I’m not a huge consumer of caffeine. I like a cup of black or green tea when the mornings are chilly, as they’ve been recently. Sometimes I go for a second, or a glass of iced tea, in the afternoon for a little boost. Doug reminded me that caffeine can have a negative influence on the body. Allergies go along with inflammation. Caffeine, because it stresses the body, can exacerbate that inflammation.

Then there’s sugar. I learned a number of years ago that refined sugar can suppress the immune system, which also isn’t good if you’re fighting inflammation. Of course, knowing that and acting on it are not the same thing! I don’t have chocolate growing in my garden (if only!) but my chat with Doug reminded me that I do have butternut squash, which is wonderfully sweet, and it’s time to get to the orchard for some good apples.

The other reminder I heard today—it’s time to begin to slow down. Summer is a time of long, light-filled days and lots of energy. When fall begins to re-introduce itself, that’s a signal that we should be shifting our energies along with the season. All I need to do is look at my garden to see a reminder of that. Not much is growing anymore—tomatoes, peppers and greens. There are a few scraggly potato plants and the raspberries will continue until frost if we get some rain. That means I don’t have to spend as much time harvesting or preserving. What will I do instead? I think I’ll cut some herbs from the garden, make them into a nice cup of caffeine-free tea and, if I must have a sweet treat, I’ll try to make an apple my first choice.

Collaborating with a restaurant chef

2010-09-27T16:35:00.000-04:00

I’ve eaten out at restaurants far too often this month. My birthday was in the middle of the month and my September birthday friends all seemed to want to get together for a meal. Just when the birthday meals were concluding, there was a business luncheon then a weekend writing conference. Whew! I feel like I have to re-introduce myself to my own kitchen.

One thing I have learned about eating out is that I don’t have to consume everything put before me in one meal. Instead, I can collaborate with a restaurant chef right here in my own home.

Often, I bring home a box of leftovers. That’s what happened over the weekend when we ate at Amerigo in Nashville on Saturday evening. I wasn’t very hungry when we arrived so I ordered Cuattro Fromaggi pizza with pesto sour cream sauce drizzled on it. (That, by the way, was quite pretty and added a wonderful aroma.) I usually prefer pizza with some vegetables but I didn’t see any combinations that appealed to me. So, I stole veggies from Jim’s plate to top the four cheeses and the thin crust. Then I ate half of my plate of pizza.

The other half, I prepared for lunch today. I sautéed garden red peppers, Swish chard and tomatoes to top the leftovers. Yum! I had quite a satisfying lunch.

Try it yourself sometime. Take home the leftovers then dress them up with whatever you have from your garden. You’re sure to create a unique dish that will be a one-time wonder.

Advice for canning season

2010-09-17T15:13:00.000-04:00

I’m really big on not re-inventing the wheel. If someone else has already done it well, then I don’t need to make my own attempt unless I think I can truly improve upon it. I’m not yet a seasoned enough canner to offer much advice on canning. So yesterday when I heard the radio piece on Here and Now about canning, I thought, ‘That’s a great resource to list on my blog.’

I’m sure everything Kathy Gunst says about canning is absolutely true. But, I will say we’ve broken her rules on a couple of occasions. For example, we have successfully canned carrots. Yes, canning does require acid, salt or sugar, or some combination, and we did locate a recipe for canning carrots that worked in The Joy of Cooking.

Also, I’m sure it is preferable to store canned vegetables in a cool, dark place. But, we don’t have such a place in our home. We store our jars high on a shelf in the kitchen where they are exposed to light and, sometimes, to less-than-cool temperatures. Still, they’ve been preserved nicely and retain their good taste. The light, however, does oxidize the vegetables, which slightly darkens their color.

If you’re new to canning, follow directions and you should be fine. If you pick up one of your jars in December and find the lid popped up or that it smells bad, don’t take a chance. Throw it out. Otherwise, prepare to enjoy the goodness of your garden all the year long.

The garden revives

2010-09-10T08:55:00.000-04:00

This year, I was determined to have a nice fall garden. I kept the weeds down in the patches that will continue to produce until frost and I did some late plantings—four kinds of greens, cucumbers, Roma green beans, squash and potatoes. I was looking forward to spending time in the garden until Mother Nature told me to rest for the winter.

Then the heat arrived, the rain left, the weeds starting taking over, and, you can guess what happened to my determination. Only about three potato plants sprouted. The cucumbers and squash that began to grow died in the dry heat. Only a sprinkling of lettuce and another green came up (I can’t yet tell what it is). The beans, however, grew. Their vines got longer and longer, winding up the trellis then down the other side. If Jack were here, he certainly would have tried some climbing. They looked wonderfully healthy but I didn’t see any flowers, until last week.

Earlier this week, I went out to cut Swiss chard and stopped at the beans on my way. There, much to my surprise, was a small cluster of fully grown beans, next to some babies that were just forming. I picked a small bunch that I’ve now added to and will cook them this weekend, just as the rains return. I think I’ll be spending some of my fall in the garden after all.

Fruit for breakfast

2010-09-03T08:46:00.002-04:00

I love fruit, especially when I can get it outside of my door. We have a peach tree that we have to duck under when we walk from the carport to our kitchen door. It took root from a pit that Jim through on the ground several years ago. It grew so nicely that we didn’t dare to move it to a more convenient place. This is our third year to have peaches on it and although they’ve battled with the elements, they survived, holding the peaches in their green-leafed palms for us to pick as we go in and out of the house.

In the front of the house we have raspberry bushes, which benefited greatly from the big rains we had several weeks ago. I’ve been picking plump, ripe berries that never all make it into the house. It’s too easy to just pop them right into my mouth. The bushes are so unruly that if someone were to ask me why we let the weeds grow so tall in the front yard, it wouldn’t surprise me!

When time for breakfast arrives, I’m especially happy to have the peaches and raspberries. Besides mixing them with plain yogurt and a few nuts, I also cut them up to put on top of waffles or pancakes. It’s easy to make a simple syrup to serve with the fruit. Simply combine the fruit in a pan with equal parts water and sugar. Cook on medium to medium high until it begins to boil then turn it down to simmer until it thickens a bit. In the meantime, toast some pumpkin seeds or nuts to add crunch to the meal. We poured our syrup with peaches and raspberries over biscuits that Jim made. He declared it to be a delicious “Upside down cobbler.”

Don’t have fruit in your yard? No problem. Find your local orchard. It’s the season when, in many places, their fruit is abundant. Then you, too, can have fruit for breakfast.

When your garden is more generous than you can handle

2010-08-26T08:35:00.000-04:00

We have far more delicious food in our house these days than we can possibly eat. Last night I made beet greens with caramelized onions and sun-dried tomatoes, corn on the cob and salmon cakes (a recipe adapted from the Barefoot Contessa and made with our own red onions and green peppers.) Jim has also been on a cooking tear, making gumbo, green bean casserole, fried potatoes and one tomato sandwich after another.

So what do you do when the garden is so generous that you can’t possibly eat it all? Some weeks there isn’t even enough time to preserve it. Remember, there’s always someone who needs food. Especially these days when money is tight for so many, food pantries and other non-profits who provide food to people are in need of donations. Though food pantries used to accept only packaged foods, many have changed their policies and now accept home grown fruits and vegetables.

Two weeks ago I took green beans and okra to our local pantry. The director told me she was especially concerned for senior citizens who were coming to the pantry in increasing numbers. Her observation was that these seniors had fewer resources to draw on than younger folks in need.

So I did a little research to check into the state of senior hunger today. According to a 2010 report from Feeding America, 1.7 million households with seniors are food insecure. They also report that nearly 10 percent of the elderly in the U.S. live below the poverty line. Like children, the health of older people depends on good nutritional intake.

When the garden is generous, let it inspire you to be generous, too. Every community can use help in some way. Check with the local food bank, senior citizen program, health department. Someone will be able to point you in a direction that will allow you to share the fruits of your labor.

2010-08-14T13:50:00.002-04:00

August is the worst month for a gardener and cook (who also has a full time job) to blog about food. There are beans and tomatoes to can, the fall garden to plant, the meals to cook. I enjoy all of those things much more when the thermometer isn't stretching toward 100 degrees.

So I’m taking a shortcut this week and posting a recipe Neal gave me. It’s a great way to use your overabundance of squash. If you like the soup, cut up one pound of squash and put it in a freezer bag so you’ll be able to recapture the taste of summer this winter.

Italian Squash Soup

Ingredients:

2-3 cloves fresh garlic
1 lb. cubed squash
1 lb. cubed potato
1 small sliced carrot
1 can crushed tomato
2 cans vegetable broth
1/4 cup olive oil
1 tsp. sea salt
1 tsp. black pepper
1 tsp. dried parsley

Cooking:

Finely chop garlic. Heat olive oil just short of smoking and add garlic. Sauté until lightly browned and then add squash. Cook for ten minutes stirring frequently. Add the remaining ingredients and bring to a boil. Reduce heat and simmer for one-half hour.

Beth’s addition: throw in homemade noodles at the end (or any other kind of grain) to add a special touch.

Create a garden gift of beet pasta

2010-07-26T15:38:00.000-04:00

I enjoy giving friends gifts from my garden. Whether it’s something I’ve just picked, a jar of sun-dried tomatoes, a butter made special with fresh herbs or something else, it feels good to know I’ve put my care and affection into the gift twice—while raising it and while preparing it.

So I undertook an experiment this weekend. A few years ago I read an article in Martha Stewart Living about making pasta with vegetables. Since I always have more beets than I can use, and because the color of beets is so appealing to me, I decided to make beet pasta to take to our friends who we’ll be visiting in Montana. Keep in mind, I’ve made pasta before but always used it fresh or froze it. To transport it, I had to dry it, a first for me. And I’ve never made pasta with beets.

I read through the recipe and got started. Roast the beets and puree. That proved to be the first point of question when the beets didn’t puree smoothly. I added water and they pureed, sort of, but were a bit lumpy for my liking. Nonetheless, I forged ahead.

Mix in the eggs and salt. Add flour. This is when I discovered I had used all of my all-purpose white flour. I prefer to always use at least some whole-wheat flour, but would not have chosen to use all whole-wheat pastry flour except that it was the best thing I had on hand. Into the food processor it went.

Instead of getting a nice, silky-looking pasta dough, it was barely sticking together. Maybe my eggs weren’t large enough. The recipe had called for two eggs and one egg yolk. I added the extra white in anyway to moisten the mixture. That worked so I a little water then gathered it all into a ball to wrap in plastic and rest for awhile.

Finally, the fun part had arrived. I’ve had a pasta maker for several years—a manual, hand crank pasta maker that I feed the pasta through several times to continue to work the dough, then cut it and make fettuccine or tagliatelle, if I choose those options instead of something I can hand-cut like ravioli or lasagna. When I unwrapped the dough, it felt much more like the silky product it should be. Relief. Next I began to feed it through the machine. It looked beautiful—so reddish, pink just like the beets.

As I said earlier, I had never dried pasta. I also didn’t have a drying rack. I found as many narrow, wooden kitchen tools as I could and propped them between chairs in the dining room to hang the pasta on. (My cat had to stay outside; I’m sure she would have thought it was there for her to play with.) By this morning, it was perfectly dried. I bagged it and looked upon my creation with a smile.

Now if I can just get it into my bag without crushing it to bits.

Try this easy berry cobbler

2010-07-20T08:18:00.002-04:00

Berries are a wonderful source of nutrients to work into your meal. We grow raspberries, blueberries and strawberries that I love to eat fresh as well as freeze so I can enjoy their summer bursts of flavor throughout the year. In Kentucky, we’re now in blackberry season. Blackberries are a wonderful source of fiber, Vitamin C and Vitamin K.

My friend Pat asked for the blackberry cobbler recipe. This came from one of those scraps of newspaper that I ripped out of the food section so I have to credit Sharon Thompson, food writer for the Lexington Herald-Leader newspaper.

Easy cobbler
2 cups fresh blackberries
1 cup flour
1 cup sugar, divided
1 tsp. baking powder
1 stick butter, melted
½ cup milk
½ tsp vanilla
½ cup sugar
½ cup hot water

Place blackberries in the bottom of a 9 x 9 inch square pan. Combine flour, ½ cup sugar, baking powder, melted butter, milk and vanilla. Pour over fruit. Combine remaining ½ cup sugar and water, and pour over flour mixture. Bake in 350 degree oven about 45 minutes. Canned or frozen fruit may be used.

Satisfying a meat lover during vegetable season

2010-07-16T09:55:00.000-04:00

This is the time of year when I could be happily vegetarian. Give me that good squash, beets, greens, corn, tomatoes and beans and I can sauté, roast or grill my way to a wonderful meal.

But I live with a meat-lover—the kind of man who would be happy with a steak as big as his plate, a slice of bread and potatoes of any kind. That’s not my idea of an appealing or healthy meal. So, the past few weeks have been challenge time. Can I actually prepare dishes that are so good that they don’t leave Jim asking for that plate of steak?

He tells me I’ve been doing well. I’m even on a streak of preparing dishes he rates a “10.” So, here are a few of the things I’ve been cooking with our garden vegetables:
Broccoli and cheese soup—it’s an Emeril recipe that includes butter; you can’t go wrong on flavor with that.
Zucchini soup—a favorite I became familiar with in Mexico. You sauté, add broth and boil until soft, puree then add a little cream. It works with any vegetable.
Yellow squash casserole—I like the recipe from The Joy of Cooking. Jim even said it tastes like his grandmother’s.
Swiss chard and ricotta pie—adapted from The Moosewood Cookbook, I turned one of my favorites into one of Jim’s by adding leftover, shredded chicken.
Blackberry cobbler—made with wild berries, which Jim insists tastes better.

None of the recipes are complicated; the leftovers are good. None of them have unique ingredients. But I made them all with freshly harvested, locally grown vegetables and fruits. That adds flavor you can’t buy, flavor that will please even a meat and potatoes man.

A tour through the early July garden

2010-07-05T15:51:00.001-04:00

Welcome to a tour of my early July garden. It's been dry and hot, but so far, the plants and the gardener are surviving.

Last night Jim and I made a trellis of sticks and strings for the kidney and pinto bean plants. The package said they were bush beans. When they started putting out runners, I knew someone had gotten confused.

We picked our first ripe tomato on Sunday. This is one of our favorite heirloom varieties--Oxheart.

Jim set the racoon trap a couple of nights ago after I noticed some downed corn stalks. The ears aren't ready yet but perhaps the varmints are extra hungry this year. So far, they've evaded us although this trap and bate (a Honey Bunn) have worked in years past. Next to the corn are hot peppers, beets (I roasted some of those yesterday) and squash. We have four types of sqush in the garden, divided by rows so they won't cross fertilizer and come out with a vegetable we don't recognize. It has happened to me before!

Growing pumpkin.

Growing butternut squash.

This year I have zinnias, marigolds and geranimums planted in the garden to help ward off bugs. The nasturtiums haven't really surfaced and I miss their pretty flowers.

The Swiss chard will continue producing until frost. I love that crop. In the background is lettuce that is developing seed; I'm hoping to collect more seeds this year.

On the side of our house we turned a fertile patch of soil that previously housed a tall fir tree (downed by an ice storm) into another garden. It has tomatoes, bell peppers and basil.

If you have a favorite plant in your garden this year, comment with a photo so we can all share with you!

For the scent of basil

2010-06-29T12:47:00.000-04:00

This morning I cut some of the fresh, beautiful basil that is happily growing in my garden. It grew so generously from seed that I planted it with the vegetables as well as in two pots on the front sidewalk and still had some to give away. When I cut it, the aroma is so enticing that I want to use it immediately.

So that’s what I did, almost. I brought it inside, washed it, dried it and put half of it into a bag; the other half went into a container with chives. When my hunger awakened, it would be the centerpiece of my lunch for the day.

But oh, the garden had some other fresh goodies to add to the lunch, also. When it came time to prepare it, I chopped zucchini, sweet onion and garlic from the garden, along with part of a red pepper from the store. I sautéed them all in olive oil and butter, with a little salt, then tossed some al dente penne pasta with it, sprinkling on some parmesan cheese to stick to the veggies and pasta. It seemed a little dry, so I added a bit more olive oil and tossed again. I filled my pasta bowl then topped it with grated pecorino romano cheese.

Yes, I felt like I was in heaven. A good bowl of pasta can make me happy any day of the week. And it took less than 30 minutes to prepare and cook.

Just in case you’re growing basil, too, check out the piece from NPR about this year’s basil blight. If I see it coming my way, I’ll harvest as much as I can and bring one of the pots inside to see if it will continue to grow, free of blight. It will just depend on which way the wind blows.

Lime-scented quinoa salad

2010-06-23T08:04:00.000-04:00

Okay, you caught me. My friend Maria asked for the recipe to the salad I made last week. I sort of made it up as I went but I’m going to make an attempt here to put measurements to what I did. I hope it turns out well. If not, adjust it to your tastes!

Lime-scented quinoa salad

1 cup cooked lentils
1 ½ cups cooked quinoa
1 cup blanched asparagus
1 handful fresh cilantro
1 sprig of spicy oregano
1 lime, juiced

Mix together all ingredients with the lime juice. Add a little salt and pepper. Taste for seasonings. You might want more herbs or lime juice. Chill and serve cold. It’s quite refreshing!\

I’m thinking about adding some toasted pumpkin seeds next time; sometimes it’s nice to have that crunch.

If you ever try one of my recipes and discover a different measurement works better, please do share with me. I’m a recipe-writing novice so I appreciate every experience another cook wants to relay.