Deciduous Coonifer

irretrievable

2010-08-15T11:50:00.003-04:00

Do you know that feeling of letting go of a balloon? The string leaves your hand, the balloon floats upward past your grasp, and you think, "It's free!" and then you think "Oh shit! It's free"

Uninspired

2010-07-10T20:38:00.003-04:00

There's been food, yes. Two CSA deliveries unremarked upon. There's been gardening, yes. A trellis built over a sandbox, and some dry-stacked stone walls erected. There has been cuteness and fun with the boys, and berry-picking with friends, and swimming and playing and reading and deep, deep thoughts.

But it's been too damn hot to care about cooking, or eating or writing. All I want is a cucumber salad and my friend Amy's pool. Oh, and some sun tea.

Once we procure a camera, and the heat breaks, and I relocate my joie de vivre, I'll be writing again. It won't take long: peaches will be ripe for picking in the next couple of weeks. There's nothing so uplifting as a bowl of sliced peaches and home-made yogurt eaten on the patio at 6:00 am while the rest of the house snoozes.

Until then, I leave you with this, the gaze of a boy who has just eaten his weight in strawberries, and wonders if there will be an ice cream chaser.

Usufructary rights

2010-06-25T21:09:00.002-04:00

A friend recently mentioned how cool it would be to make a map of local public fruit trees. You know, the cherry tree planted on public land, or the mulberry in the alley. I love this idea!

There is a huge mulberry tree in our alley. Thomas and I have been stopping by to nibble low-hanging berries. The day I stopped by with a pint container though, I found that the big branch was newly shorn off, likely by the power company. After yesterday's storm, I think I am glad. I know of a cherry tree planted in the strip between sidewalk and road, which gives abundant and tasty fruit. Thomas and I both have our eyes on a fig tree planted very close to the sidewalk. I'd really like to try to root a cutting from it, but I don't know if I am that brave. It's in front of a law office, after all. Today during our post-dinner, pre-bedtime romp around the park, we found that our "secret" blackberry patch is already producing. I'll be visiting it with a basket next week.

The blackberry patch is right at the edge of a public playground, yet no one seems to raid it, other than the birds and me. Last year, Thomas and I were there with a few friends. We found the blackberries and were happily picking and eating when a few other kids arrived with their grandmother. They wanted to join in on the fun, but the grandmother wouldn't let them. The oldest child, a girl going through that "helpful" phase in which she felt compelled to let us know what's what, let us know that there could be bugs on the berries. It's a dangerous world!

I wish I had a picture of Thomas picking berries, or of the fig tree, or pretty much anything, but the camera we got as a wedding present seven years ago has given up the ghost. We're saving for a new, better camera. Sad to think of all we are missing in the meantime.

Do you pick public fruit? Have any good spots to share?

The System

2010-06-21T12:37:00.004-04:00

We cook from scratch as much as possible in our house, for reasons of health and thrift. I love knowing what's in our food, but I'll admit, it isn't always easy. I can't just open a box and pop it in the microwave at the last minute (in fact, we don't actually have a microwave. Yes, I am one of those people!) There's nothing worse than having a hungry kid, and no idea what's for dinner. In order to avoid the dreaded pasta every night, I came up with a system for meal planning. It works really well, as long as I actually follow it.

We do
Pasta on Monday
Soup on Tuesday
Eggs on Wednesday
Rice on Thursday
Beans on Friday
Pizza on Saturday (my favorite, since Bob does the cooking!)
Leftovers on Sunday

So following that, and considering what we got in the CSA and what we already have in the house, I've come up with the following meal plan for the week:

Pasta with broccoli and a salad on Monday
Zucchini, romaine, chickpea and edamame salad (adapted from a Martha Stewart recipe) with green soup and/or cauliflower bisque on Tuesday
Potato and summer squash frittata with green beans on Wednesday (I'll likely have some friends over for a pot-luck dinner that night)
Wild rice with kale, almonds and raisins, and salad on Thursday (If I am feeling ambitious, and have the time, I'll make beet risotto instead.)
Cranberry beans and kale and sauteed zucchini with herbs on Friday

Even if I don't follow it exactly, I have a plan to fall back on. It's easier to make a grocery list, and not spend a ton of money on food we don't really need. For a while, we were making near daily trips to Trader Joe's or the co-op or the extremely expensive natural foods store, and spending a small fortune on food. When we stick to the plan, and are strict about weekly shopping trips, we eat better and save money.

June 14 CSA Delivery

2010-06-15T19:49:00.002-04:00

1 head broccoli – certified organic – Farmdale Organics
1 bunch red beets – certified organic – Farmdale Organics
1 box new red potatoes – certified organic – Green Valley Organics
1 head cauliflower – certified organic – Green Valley Organics and Healthy Harvest
2 pcs summer ball squash – certified organic – Hillside Organics
1 bunch French breakfast radishes – certified organic – Plum Hill Organics
1 bunch white garlic – certified organic – Friends Road Organics
1 bunch garlic scapes – certified organic – Life Enhancing Acres
1 bunch green kale – certified organic – Life enhancing Acres
1 head red Romaine lettuce – certified organic – Riverview Organics
1 head green Romaine lettuce – certified organic – Riverview Organics

I spent the morning blanching and freezing kale and cauliflower, and slicing and freezing those squash. Two people left their shares, so it is time to stock the freezer again. I'll be so happy to see that kale and squash when I want to make minestrone in December! A lot of people complain about having a CSA: "It's too much food!" And while I agree that it is a lot of work, it's really not too much food if you put some away for the lean months.

This afternoon I made cauliflower bisque from Love Soup. I didn't have celery, but it tasted fine nonetheless. It's a simple soup, but calls for herbs de province. I never buy herb mixtures, so was concerned I wouldn't be able to manage a decent substitution. Turns out I have everything expect the fennel growing in my garden. It was nice to gather thyme, rosemary, marjoram, basil, sage and lavender for the soup, and I must say, it was fantastic.

Breakfast was my own invention: Kale and quinoa with almonds and raisins. A friend had us over for dinner recently, and made red quinoa with almonds and golden raisins. It was very satisfying, and I've made it a few times for Thomas since. While I was cooking kale for my breakfast (what? you don't eat kale for breakfast?) I remembered that there was some of the leftover quinoa in the fridge, so I tossed it in. Delicious!

Coming up this week: salads, roasted potatoes and a broccoli frittata. How about you? What's for dinner?

June 7 CSA Delivery

2010-06-08T21:17:00.003-04:00

1 bunch radishes – certified organic – Friends Road Organics
1 bunch scallions – certified organic – Friends Road and Bellview Organics
1 bunch garlic scapes – certified organic – Friends Road Organics
1 head broccoli – certified organic – Farmdale Organics
1 head Romaine lettuce – certified organic – Riverview Organics
1 head red leaf lettuce – certified organic – Misty Meadow and Railroad Organics
1 bunch Chioggia beets – certified organic – Millwood Springs Organics
2 green zucchinis – certified organic – Autumn Blend Organics
1 bunch turnips – certified organic – Goshen View Organics
1 head endive – certified organic – Meadow Valley Organics
1 bag arugula – certified organic – Farmdale Organics - .5 lbs
1 bunch cilantro – certified organic – Noble Herbs

I'm thinking salad, salad and more salad. We (by which I mean the adults in the house) ate the broccoli tonight a la romana, along with quinoa with almonds and raisins and a big arugula salad.

Tomorrow, I'll make green soup with ginger, from Love Soup, and maybe some minestrone* too with those teeny-tiny zucchini, and the turnips, and for Thursday, I am planning on feeding friends a romaine salad with beets, walnuts and goat cheese. The cilantro is destined for a cilanto-pepita pesto which we will put inside and over some cheese flautas. So good, and since they are pan-fried, even Thomas will eat them. I'm not sure what to do with the garlic scapes.

*Ah crap, I just realized I might not be able to make minestrone until later this summer, when we get tomatoes from the farms. Until they are in season, I usually use a can of tomatoes in my minestrone, but I recently read about the amounts of bisphenol-A present in canned tomatoes, and I won't eat them or feed them to my loved ones anymore. I don't have a source for tomatoes in glass jars, and I ran out of the ones I canned last summer sometime in January. Yep, I am one of THOSE people. Years ago someone asked me if I heated my lunches in their plastic containers. "No way!" I said, horrified at the thought. "Yeah, I thought so," was the response, with the "you're one of THEM." left implied.

This dinner brought to you by the number one and the letter B.

2010-06-02T21:50:00.007-04:00

When Bob left for work this morning, he said "Please don't make too many dishes today; we don't have much dishsoap left." He was only half kidding.

So, dinner tonight was inspired by the challenge of using just one skillet -- well, that and my accidental purchase of extra ricotta. We got amazing stuff in our share, including some beautiful purple, leafy broccoli from the swap box. While I was cleaning out the fridge to make room for the influx of greens, I saw that we had somehow neglected to eat half of last week's asparagus. Yes, I know, how can anyone forget asparagus?

I decided to make savory ricotta pancakes with braised vegetables. Had I some white wine, I would have added a sauce for the veggies, and the result would have been more like the amazing meal I had at l'Etoile last year for our anniversary. It was still very tasty.

First, I chopped a shallot and a clove of garlic and sauteed them in olive oil. Then I added the scarlet turnips and seared them, adding some water, and putting on the lid once they took on a little color. When they were almost tender enough for me, I added the chopped asparagus.

Because Bob doesn't like mushrooms that much, I put the turnips and asparagus in a dish, and used the now empty skillet to cook the delicious shitake mushrooms in some butter. Once they were almost done, I tossed in a small handful of minced rosemary and sage from my garden. Again, the mushrooms went into a dish, and the skillet was free for the broccoli.

This time I crushed two cloves of garlic and put them in the still very hot skillet with a generous pour of olive oil. Then I added the chopped broccoli and their greens. Because it is a little tough, I once again tried braising: I added some water and put a lid on it. The broccoli was perfect: not too soft, and not too crunchy.

Finally, the skillet was free for cooking up my pancakes. I used this recipe from The Kitchn, minus the sugar and vanilla. I used whole wheat flour as well. Very tasty: tender, fluffy and a nice base for all those vegetables.

I succeeded in using just one skillet to cook the meal, but I did use three bowls to make the pancakes and thee serving dishes for the meal. I meant well, and from the sound of it Bob is managing the dishes without resorting to laundry detergent.

June 2 CSA Delivery

2010-06-02T21:45:00.002-04:00

We had a delayed pick up this week because of the Memorial Day holiday. It was worth waiting for!

1 bunch scallions – certified organic – Country Boy Organics
1 head broccoli – certified organic – Plum Hill Organics
1 bunch scarlet turnips – certified organic – Goshen View Organics
1 pkg mushrooms – certified organic – Mother Earth Organics
1 bag baby lettuce mix – certified organic – Farmdale Organics – 1 lb
1 head green leaf lettuce – certified organic – Back 40 Ranch
1 bunch dandelion greens – certified organic – Hillside Organics
1 bag young kale mix – certified organic – Elm Tree Organics - .75 lbs
1 bunch flat leaf parsley – certified organic – Back 40 Ranch

Down the Garden Path

2010-05-31T15:13:00.010-04:00

I adore gardens. Not just the back-yard kind, and not really the formal kind, but definitely the arboretum, botanical, or specialist variety. Nothing better than plants with labels if you ask me.

We have some good ones around here, several within a 20 minute drive, and at least a dozen if you don't mind an hour in the car.

Our local arboretum, Tyler Arboretum, is just a hop, skip and a jump away, and we visit nearly weekly. It's the right size for ample exploration, while still providing that sense of familiarity the pre-school set love so. I get a lot of new ideas for my own garden on our visits, especially now that they have a demonstration vegetable garden. But lately, we've been itching for some new adventures, and I have been hoping for fresh inspiration.

Thomas, carefully labeled at Bartram's Garden

Recently, we visited a new (to us) garden: Bartram's Garden, the 18th century home of the naturalist John Bartram. On the drive there, I kept thinking that I had bad directions: it's not in the best neighborhood, and it seems awfully urban to be the site of the oldest surviving botanical garden in the U.S. (The two previous statements are positively saturated with understatement.) It's not the sort of area you want your car to break down in late at night. Actually, you'd probably want to avoid breaking down at any time of day, but then again, who likes dropping her drive shaft anywhere? (I've done it, it's scary and I don't recommend it, even in the relative safety of a suburban office park.)

Once we got there, and recovered from the wrong turn into Bartram's Estates (a very, VERY different type of project from the one the 18th century Quaker had in mind) I discovered a true urban oasis. It seriously is like a secret garden. Only it is far too wonderful to be a secret. Really, Philly people, go visit and support this magical place.

A thoughtful friend had invited us to join her and her daughter for Little Explorers, an hour-long session the education department does for 3 to 4-year-olds. The program was perfect: the kids were taken out to the meadow to collect materials to create their own bird's nests. The teachers were great and made sure they gave each child some individual attention, without seeming pushy or irritatingly over-enthusiastic. Then there was a story, some animal crackers and the craft. After the craft, the kids trooped outside again to see some real bird's nests and have a little song and puppet show. Thomas was entranced and developed a crush on one of the teachers (the one who handed him delicious animal crackers, of course!) Once the program ended, we picnicked with our friends and explored the gardens a bit.

Notice the stacked stone wall. I wonder how long that one has been there.

A couple of days later, we made the trip out to Winterthur, my old book stomping grounds. No, it's not new to us, but for some reason, I was able to look at parts of it with fresh eyes. That could be due to the ambitious garden restorations they are undertaking, or perhaps the distance of two years since I resigned.

The children's garden at Winterthur, Enchanted Woods, is well worth a visit. However, it can be a bit of a hike up there with a three-year-old, especially if that three-year-old has a horrified fascination of the garden tram, a fascination which requires him to view it only from a safe distance. But there is plenty to see and do if you can't struggle all the way up the hill. On our last visit, we investigated the peony garden, recently restored to its former glory. They did a bang-up job of repairing the stone steps that a drunken reveler tried to take his car down after a big party. I don't think the Jag fared as well.

Thomas and a friend investigate the damage. Note the hellebore boarder. That would be awfully nice along my shady flower bed out front.

One of the nice things about visiting the less-well-traveled parts of the gardens with a child who doesn't need constant monitoring to ensure he won't fling himself off a wall, or stuff hellebores into his mouth, is the ability to notice the tiny things. I must have passed these planting house doors 800 times, but I never stopped to notice the numbers on them. Aren't the layers of peeling verdigris paint stunning? Watch, next time I visit, the doors will have been scraped clean, and made spic and span. Ah, I doubt it; Winterthur has a deep respect for the patina of age.

I could wander like this all day, thinking of meanders around Longwood, and planning trips to Chanticleer, the Barnes Foundation Arboretum, Awbury Arboretum, the gardens at the Brandywine River Museum, the Henry Botanic Garden, Jenkins Arboretum, Mount Cuba, Wyck and on and on.

May 24 CSA Delivery: The Season Begins!

2010-05-23T19:26:00.004-04:00

It was a wet winter and spring, so the farmers had to wait to put the crops in the ground. Our season is starting a week later than usual, but it's off to a great start. The full shares received:

1 package mixed microgreens – certified organic – Eastbrook Produce – 2 oz
1 head red leaf lettuce – certified organic – Farmdale Organics
1 bunch green or Lacinato kale – certified organic – Life Enhancing Acres and Autumn Blend Organics
2 small heads green leaf lettuce – certified organic – Back 40 Ranch
2 bunches scallions – certified organic – Friends Road, Plum Hill and Rolling Ridge Organics
1 bag Persian broadleaf cress – certified organic – Back 40 Ranch
1 bunch purple radishes – certified organic –Country Boy Organics
1 bunch Hakurei turnips – transitional – Autumn Blend Organics
2 heads castle franco radicchio – certified organic Autumn Blend Organics
1 bunch asparagus – certified organic – Farmdale Organics - .5 lbs

My salad days, When I was green in judgment: cold in blood.

I'm so pleased to have fresh and delicious produce in the house. I'm off to eat my favorite spring breakfast of scrambled eggs and turnip greens, and contemplate salad possibilities.

Rain garden progress

2010-04-29T17:06:00.005-04:00

I am so thrilled with the rain garden right now. It got a workout last week with two days of steady rain, the sump pump chugging away and the exterior french drain channeling the water away, away, away from the house. The bee balm is going great guns, and the blueberry bushes are developing wee, hard, green berries. In addition to the echinacea that is struggling forth despite being buried under seven feet of snow (no joke,) and then trampled repeatedly by neighbor children, my child, two masons and a carpenter, I see a cardinal flower bravely poking out of the mud.

Today I planted the turtlehead (hot lips!) and blue star I got at the Tyler Arboretum plant sale. I moved the iris I got from Lauren last year from the blasted slope back to the rain garden, and added a sedum from Marie at the dry edge. It's starting to take shape, and with any luck, I will score some more drought-tolerant perennials at the plant swap this Saturday. I hope to see butterflies, and maybe even last year's hummingbird enjoying the blossoms come July.

As you can see, I decided to go ahead with the pea gravel, and I think it looks dandy.

You might wonder how I got so much done today. My helper usually races to get his red shovel and fill any hole I might dig. This makes planting projects take twice as long as they reasonably should. Then he gets bored, and wants to move on to skateboarding. Skateboarding involves me walking next to the skateboard, holding his hand for balance, or admiring his feats of bravery from close proximity. Well, my glorious husband, who works so hard in the culture mines gave me a precious gift today. He took a personal day. Completely unplanned, spontaneous time off. Joy! Thank you sweetie!

The Printer's Urchin

2010-04-26T17:55:00.005-04:00

Another rainy day. Thomas was inspired. "I know Momma, we can make prints." Well, alrighty then. I got out a lino-block, and Thomas drew his design with a Sharpie. This was a big deal: he doesn't usually get to use the Sharpies, and they are coveted. Then I cut the design, while he picked out inks.

Thomas loves using the rollers, and really enjoyed inking the blocks. I used a clean roller and a spoon to burnish the image on the paper. It was a great way to pass some time on an otherwise gloomy day.

And here's what he did while I cooked dinner:

2010 CSA Season

2010-04-23T18:23:00.006-04:00

I've been ordering milk and eggs from Lancaster farmers through Lancaster Farm Fresh 4 Season Harvest. As the weather gets warmer, the eggs are getting bigger (this week we got 2 dozen JUMBO eggs, most with a double yolk) and there are more offerings, including micro-greens, mustard greens and to my delight, asparagus. Asparagus! Our vegetable shunning son will gladly chow down on asparagus spears, and loves to snap off the woody ends for me. While he may look just like his dad, he certainly has his mother's expensive tastes.

These little teases of delicious local produce are making me eager for spring. This year I was able to eat from our freezer until February, and have mostly eaten seasonally since then. I am tired of sweet potatoes and while I still love kale, we both need some space. This year I did not break down and buy piles of beautiful, conventionally-grown produce at still-very-dear-to-me Gentile's, but I came close.

Last weekend, Bob, Thomas and I packed a lunch, and headed out to Lancaster County for the Lancaster Farm Fresh site host orientation. There will be a few changes this year, and I think they'll be for the better. For one, both half shares and full shares will be delivered every week. Second, the shares will be boxed individually, rather than market style. I'll miss getting all those extra jalapenos and green peppers, but it should make set-up a lot easier. Finally, the season will last 28 weeks. Woah. That takes us right up to Thanksgiving. I can hardly wait.

What's your dirt doin' in my trench?

2010-04-20T12:32:00.004-04:00

Here it is. The outdoor french drain that I believe will carry the water spewed forth from my sump pump into the rain garden. Infiltrate, please, but do it at least twenty feet from my foundation.

What do you think? Should I disguise the trench with pea gravel, and plantings on either side? Should I try to heave a little dirt on top and see if grass will grow?

I'm looking for rain garden ideas. I need something that doesn't mind standing in water for a day or two, something that likes not quite full sun, and would really prefer something that looks pretty year 'round, so I don't have a big, sloppy mud puddle every winter and spring.

Zeitgeist-y

2010-04-14T19:10:00.008-04:00

I haven't been around much these days. Whenever I think of posting about something we've done, I see that someone else already has already written about it. Using cabbage and onions to dye Easter eggs? We all did it this year. The amazing Swedish teak dresser and cabinet I scored off Craigslist? The bloggers at Apartment Therapy roll their eyes in my direction. My garlic proudly sprouting in the garden? Yeah, yeah, yeah. The adorable sweater I knitted for a friend's soon-to-be-born baby? Tell it to Soulemama, lady.

I am in a slump, or maybe a swale. Considering my interest in stormwater management, I'd say it's a swale for sure. Speaking of swales, I am planning on digging one this weekend. My mason left me with a beautifully poured sill, a french drain and a quarter-ton of washed stone left over. I love him.

So yes, instead of writing about spring produce, adventures in parenting, or my crafty soul, I will tell you that what thrills me these days is the path that the water pouring from my sump pump takes through my very small back yard. When I am lying in bed, I lull myself with the image of my post-hole digger creating an ever widening hole in the gloppy clay that passes for soil in Delaware County, a hole that I will fill with the quarter-ton of washed stone and (be still my heart) a permeable pipe, wrapped in landscape fabric. Flights of fancy include images of me lugging a highbush cranberry home from the Tyler Arboretum plant sale to anchor what will become a blossoming rain garden. I'm putting down roots: deep, thirsty, drought-tolerant roots. And if every other over-educated, under-employed, artsy, organic-food-eating, alternative momma this side of the continental divide is obsessing about getting their stormwater to just infiltrate already, well, it's the zeitgeist, baby.

When Auntie Sylvia hands you lemons...

2010-03-02T20:11:00.007-05:00

Sylvia sent the box with no note, no letter, nothing but a few dozen Meyer lemons picked from her trees in Martinez. The smell instantly lifted my spirits and inspired me to make preserved lemons. I used the recipe from Mark Bittman's How to Cook Everything Vegetarian. They are delicious, salty slices of sunshine, and will brighten up any early spring produce I manage to scare up in the next two months.

Reading

2010-02-17T14:11:00.004-05:00

Inspired by my friend Dave, I picked up Eating Animals by Jonathan Safran Foer. I didn't want to like it because Foer is so hip, so facile and so much younger than me, but I have to admit that the man can write. He writes beautifully, even though this book concerns a truly ugly topic. Beyond the writing and the great book design, I was blown away by the extensive footnotes and (be still my bibliophilic heart) index. Yes, people, a book with a real live index! I believe that Foer's book is as important as The Jungle and I hope it proves to be as influential.

I ended up reading a lot of the book out loud to Bob. I'd be so moved by something, or so outraged that I simply had to share it. This is how my father ended up reading books to my mom every night in bed. She got sick of only getting bits of the narrative, and having her train of thought interrupted, so she threw up her hands (dodging as her own book went flying) and told him to just read the whole damn thing to her. It's a sweet habit they have, and one I admire. It's likely one of the factors that has kept their marriage going for nearly forty-five years.

After I finished the book, Bob strongly suggested I read something a little more cheerful. I am now rereading A Sand County Almanac by Aldo Leopold. Lovely, inspirational, but he sure eats a lot of animals. I read bits of this out loud to Thomas, who was crawling into bed with me when his stuffy nose kept him from sleeping comfortably. He enjoyed it, and has gotten excited about birds again. This lead me to check out one of those books that includes recordings of bird songs. It's hilarious to watch the cat freak out about the great horned owl calls. Poor kitty. That owl would like to eat some animals, too.

Leopold makes me think of our dear friend John Wilde, who died in 2006 at the age of 87. John would have gotten a big kick out of Thomas' love of birds and ability to identify robins, cardinals, mourning doves, goldfinches and grackles. John and his friend and fellow artist Silvia Fein are constant inspirations for me. At 90, Silvia is still tending to her olive orchard in Martinez, CA, where she has planted several hundred trees. She sometimes sends us boxes containing bottles of her olive oil, packing them in Meyer lemons. Just add a sprig of rose geranium, and I am back on the terrace off their guest bedroom, watching a finch flit around the pomegranate blooms.

How amazing that Aldo Leopold's essays about a farm in south-central Wisconsin evoke the California smells of citrus and herbs. Feeling better and getting healthier have enhanced my attention span, and I find I finish books within days, despite my limited free time. While that is all very nice, the return of those synesthetic moments is truly precious.

John Wilde In the Hand 1957 Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts

and who is Necessity's mother?

2010-02-16T11:22:00.005-05:00

They are ugly, they are not well-made, and they are weird, but I needed them and I love them. All this snow removal is cold, wet work, especially if you only have a pair of pink fleece gloves. I needed mittens.

During the power outage of the last blizzard, I got to work. I used a Big Knits pattern from Rowan, and some crazy slub yarn that I bought in Florence several years ago. I just happened to have the right size needles as well. It took me maybe two hours to knit and finish them. The seam is lumpy, they are not the same size, but they are very warm and have become my favorite (and only) mittens.

Sweet adaptation

2010-02-12T11:25:00.008-05:00

We've been cutting back on the refined sugars around here -- I've had to cut out sugar entirely, and I know that Thomas does much better without it. He still gets treats, for sure, but I'm trying to make them healthier. Today we made graham crackers, adapted from our friend Aili's recipe, who adapted it from this one.

I've tried a few variations, but this is the best one yet:
1/2 c flour
1 3/4 c whole wheat flour
1 t baking powder
1/2 t baking soda
1/2 salt
1/4 t cinnamon

1/2 c cold butter, diced
2 T honey
1/4 c molasses
2 T blackstrap molasses
1 t vanilla
water as needed

Mix the dry ingredients together then process with the butter until the mixture resembles cornmeal -- just a few pulses should do it. Mix together with the sweet stuff, adding just enough water to make a firm ball. Refrigerate dough about an hour then roll out and cut however you like. We used heart-shaped cookie cutters, of course. Bake 'em on a well greased cookie sheet 'til they are done.

I had half of one just to taste, and they are delicious. More like a molasses cracker than a graham cracker. They'd make a great pie crust too, not that I can eat pie anymore. Thomas' verdict? Well, he preferred them to the scary tube of "Go-gurt" that my next-door neighbor gave him, which packs 10 grams of sugar into 2.5 plastic-encased ounces.

North Wind

2010-02-11T19:49:00.001-05:00

Looks like we won't be hanging laundry on the line today.

February is the middle of winter

2010-02-08T21:28:00.004-05:00

Nearly two feet of snow last week, and another foot or so expected.

We're getting our farm delivery late this week due to the weather, so tomorrow I'll be in line with the chumps at the grocery store getting milk and eggs in advance of the storm.

2010-02-03T20:03:00.003-05:00

I've been spending a lot of time in doctor's waiting rooms lately --far more time than I'd like. It's given me a chance to catch up on old issues of Good Housekeeping (a fine magazine to read out loud to your phlebotomist as she relieves you of TEN vials of blood) and to observe some oddities of human behavior. There was the intensely cheery woman who wanted to be sure we were all included in the conversation she wanted to have, and was insistent about it to the point of making me feel rude for glancing at a magazine. Then there was the grandma who asked a random stranger (me, of course) to hold her grandchild while she went off for her lab work. I agreed -- what was I going to say? When I discovered that the baby was sitting in a soiled diaper, I was torn: should I have taken it upon myself to change her then and there? I nearly did, but grandma came back. When I mentioned it to her, she breezily said "oh yeah, she's been like that a while, but I figured I'd let her mommy deal with it". I did not ask this woman if she babysits on the side. But the guy who takes the prize is the one I encountered last week at my new doctor's office.

The new doctor has a sort of "inner sanctum" waiting area of just nine chairs in a small alcove. When I walked in, a tall older man in a suit was standing directly in front of the entrance to the alcove. I said "excuse me" and politely nodded toward the chairs. He looked at me as if he had no earthly idea that people actually waited in waiting rooms. He barely turned his body to allow me access to the seats. Once I was sitting, and I was sitting for quite a while, I noticed that the guy was kind of... dancing in place, but just with his legs, like an Irish step dancer on quaaludes. He kept half dancing, half pacing, getting ever closer, until he was just inches away. All this time he was murmuring to himself as if he needed to remember a complicated formula. When I moved my legs to avoid contact with him, he stared at the appendages, shocked that I continued to exist. I began to think evil thoughts about this man.

And then I gave myself a good talking to, I mean obviously the man was disabled. Perhaps he had a form of Tourette's Syndrome, or other neurological disorder. I should be compassionate. Maybe I will develop a similar tic, and wouldn't it be awful to be harshly judged? Feeling all kumbaya, I tried to accept the man's presence and move on. That's when a doctor (not mine) came out and greeted him. The man said something socially awkward like "huh, you're wearing a nice outfit today" (as opposed to that ugly one she wore last time?) and then launched into a pitch about how she could prescribe some medication for 26,498,729 different illnesses, pressing a brochure into her hands. This man was no patient, he was a pharmaceutical sales representative. One who had been partaking liberally in the free samples, it would seem.

Garden inspriation III

2010-01-17T19:14:00.012-05:00

Back in January, we had an unseasonably warm day. All the neighbors were out, doing yard work and finally removing their Christmas decorations (I was not sorry to see the last of the giant, inflatable, candy-cane wielding reindeer.) I did exciting things like clean out the downspouts and regrade around the foundation out front, but all the while I was dreaming of spring planting.

I came inside to find the new Seeds of Change catalog. Uh oh, plant porn. I'm going to be restrained though. I think I learned a few lessons from last year's garden. They are:

No more jalapenos. We get tons through the CSA, and people always leave them behind. I have three quart zip-loc bags of them in the freezer. Enough.
No more cherry tomatoes. Again the CSA gives us plenty. I have three and a half pints of oven-dried cherry tomatoes untouched in the pantry, and have given away two others.
Three Italian basil plants are not nearly enough. I'm thinking a dozen this year. I want the entire neighborhood to stink of basil. I want enough basil that my skin takes on a green sheen, and my freezer is packed with pesto. I'll also add lime basil, Thai basil, purple basil and holy basil.
Focus on herbs in general. I got a kick out of snipping thyme or rosemary just before dinner, and I loved my lemon balm tea. The CSA doesn't provide many herbs, so it's up to me and my little rock wall garden.
Chard, chard, chard. It freezes so well, and we eat it all the time. Likewise kale.

Try trellising. I'm thinking of building a bamboo frame "house" around the sandbox, and planting peas, beans and a mini-cantaloupe on it.
Grow edibles where you'd expect ornamentals. I'm having a pachysandra strawberry death-match out front. we'll see if sun or shade prevails. I hope the sun wins out, and I have a ground cover that produces tasty fruit.

Get it myself from a mountain stream

2010-01-08T19:14:00.003-05:00

Despite my ravings about stormwater run-off and my (still) flooding basement, I do love water. We've been without a water filter for a couple of months. Our Brita filter grew algae, much to my horror and fascination, so we pitched it. Then we tried the Pur filter that had been given to us ages ago. However, I couldn't reinstall it after I replaced our faucet during the 'tinky kitchen incident. Plus, I was not convinced that a faucet filter was really effective. I have a hard time believing that the small plastic filter with a little carbon cartridge could really remove all the trihalomethanes and volatile organic chemicals that surely exist in our municipal water. I didn't want to get another Brita; not only is the filter small, but the water then sits around in a plastic jug. Who knows what that leaches into it. I thought about adding one of those under-sink filters, since I am confident I could do it myself, but again, the system seems less than effective, and the products all use a lot of plastic.

Then I thought about the filter I had in India. It was a stainless-steel canister with large "candles" made of diatomaceous earth which filtered the nasty, filthy city water and rendered it potable, even tasty. If it could manage that water, surely such a filter would work on Schuykill Stew.

So I ordered a Big Berkey. I could, if pushed, drink water from Ridley Creek or even my own rain barrel with this filter. It doesn't use batteries, and has few plastic parts. Thus far, I adore it. The water clean and delicious. Thomas can reach it and work the spigot to get his own "drink of waters." Best of all, it has a certain survivalist chic.

A month or more

2010-01-04T19:40:00.005-05:00

We've been busy.

There was snow -- a lot -- both here and in Wisconsin during our visit. I got to shovel out from under more than 14 inches of the white stuff twice.

There was Christmas, and joy, and generosity, and kindness.

There has been, and continues to be music. Super rockin' music. When did he get to be so grown up?

November 30 CSA Delivery

2009-12-03T11:47:00.002-05:00

The extended season shares are wonderful. I am really enjoying the produce, and am looking forward to making some green soup this week.

2 Italian eggplants
1 head cheddar cauliflower
2 leeks
1 bag parsnips (added to my growing parsnip collection...)
1 head Romaine lettuce
2 heads radicchio
1 bunch broccoli raab
1 package microgreens
1 head bok choy
1 bunch mustard greens
1 bag spinach

Cha cha ch'i

2009-11-27T15:06:00.004-05:00

An update on my newly feng shui-ed bedroom: I am sleeping like I mean it. I am dreaming more, and even though the wriggly, trashing, nearly three-year-old still clambers into the bed most nights, I feel more rested than I have in ... well, nearly three years.*

I still have to get a doorknob for the bedroom door, and plane the side so it will close properly, but otherwise the bedroom is mostly done. It's also easier to keep it tidy.
Yippee!

*I am well aware that this could be a placebo effect, but I do not care. I am sleeping better! If I decided that my dirty refrigerator was keeping me from sleeping well, then by gum, I would have a clean fridge.

November 23 CSA Delivery

2009-11-24T20:44:00.002-05:00

Holy Cats. There was so much food, I couldn't fit it all in to my refrigerator. I had to put some of the roots and tubers in a box in the basement, awaiting a Thanksgiving feast and a few batches of soup. Why is soup the only thing I feel inspired to make these days?

1 bag Yukon gold potatoes
1 head cabbage
1 head white cauliflower
1 leek
2 bunches turnips
1 bunch red mustard greens
1 bunch tatsoi
1 bag parsnips
1 head Romanesco cauliflower
1 bag carrots
1 bag arugula
2 baby heads green leaf lettuce

Space and Energy

2009-11-21T11:23:00.012-05:00

Sometimes I wish I had studied architecture. I love thinking about space, how people move in it and how best to use it. While I am no New Ager, I definitely believe that how you use the space, what you put in it, and how you take care of it affects the energy within it. Mess and dirt affect my mood, and while my house is always filled with love, it certainly feels like a calmer, happier place just after we clean it.

But sometimes the matter lies deeper and no amount of cleaning will do the trick.

As an example, my kitchen is a little gloomy, despite being bright white. Lately, it had been seeming increasingly oppressive to me. Then it started smelling a little funky. I'd clean, put lemons in the garbage disposal, and boiling water down the drain, and still the funk lingered. Thomas began to refuse to go into the kitchen. "It's tinky," he'd say. Poor Bob often came home to my requests to "smell this."

I started investigating. The faucet had leaked for a long time --just around the stem -- and the water went into the sink and down the drain. Fixing it had been on my to-do list for ages, but it didn't seem pressing. I poked around under the sink. Tinky! And wet. Hmmm. Maybe it's just water dripping down the sprayer hose when it's not seated correctly? More investigation revealed a small hot water leak at the faucet. I went to close the shut-off valve -- righty-tighty -- and it just spun and spun and then ... AAAAARRRRRRRRRRGGGGGGGHHHHH! If I didn't have a leak before, I sure had one now! First I called Mom and cried, and then I called Dave.

Dave helped me replace the whole faucet and stop the leak. Ever since the leak was fixed, the kitchen is brighter, cheerier. Thomas wanders in and out. I still need to clean the place, but I am convinced that stopping the leak improved the energy in the room. My ch'i isn't heading down the drain! Plus, this latest water bill was $5 less than the previous one, and I see that we reduced our consumption by 14 gallons a day.

FOURTEEN GALLONS. Holy crap, that is a lot of water. That adds up to more than 5,000 gallons a year.

After that little adventure, I started thinking about the energy in this house, and how to keep things clearer. We've had to undertake a lot of home-improvement projects in the past year; it gets overwhelming, and sometimes I feel like I am doing battle with the house. It's exhausting. Rather than battling the house, I have decided to care for it. Having that intent behind my actions should improve the atmosphere in the house, or will at least make the process less onerous.

My first experiment is with the bedroom. Because I am an insomniac, it is important that my bedroom be calm, peaceful and restful. I did a little research on feng shui, and took a look at our room. Uh oh. The bed is in one of the least auspicious locations possible, with our backs to the door and our headboard sharing a wall with the bathroom. The radio alarm clock is right next to the bed, and we also have an ungrounded outlet right under our heads.

I changed it all around. The bed is now in the most auspicious possible location, facing the door, but not in line with it. It is as far from the bathroom wall as possible. The alarm clock is also far from our heads, which should be interesting come Monday morning. I improved the lighting -- both the amount and the quality -- and most importantly, I cleaned. Maybe it's not the bathtub drain behind my head that saps my energy; maybe it's going to bed and seeing the two baskets of unfolded laundry, or better yet, moving the pile of clothes from bed to chair each night, and chair to bed each morning. I vacuumed, I dusted, I mopped. The ch'i is just dancing in there now.

Next up, doorknob for the bedroom door, and then tackling the entry and livingroom.

The Evil Acorn Squash

2009-11-20T20:01:00.003-05:00

I threw those acorn squash away, guilt-free. Why? After some shareholders reported becoming ill after eating the squash, the Co-op tested samples and found cucurbitacin, a naturally occurring toxin. I feel awful for the members who ate the bad squash, and bad for those who were planning fancy squash dinners, but I was just as happy to toss the suckers.

Curcurbitacin is fascinating -- it's a chemical that the plant produces to keep from being eaten (funny, because lots of plants make fruits and vegetables appealing in order TO be eaten, and thereby spread their seeds far and wide) and is the stuff that makes cucumber skin taste bitter. The parents of these squash must have been pollinated by some wild strain with plenty of curcurbitacin, resulting in some babies with high levels of the toxin.

Extended season! November 16 CSA Delivery

2009-11-18T16:41:00.003-05:00

This year LFFC decided to give an extended season a try. We'll have 6 more weeks of veggies to enjoy. More soup, I think.

Full shares got:

1 head white cauliflower
3 acorn squash
1 bag sweet potatoes
1 bunch beets
1 head curly endive
1 bunch broccoli raab (just the leaves)
1 head green leaf lettuce
1 head bok choy
1 bunch mixed turnips
1 head tatsoi
2 white onions
1 bag green peppers

It's a lot of food. I need to make soup, and probably something like sweet potato muffins. The beets look beautiful as do the turnips. Thomas was excited about the way to turnips looked (purple on top!) but when I suggested he taste some he balked. Oh well.

We had roasted acorn squash with butter and sage and pasta with broccoli raab and garlic for dinner. I don't like roasted acorn squash. It brings back memories of childhood dinners, staring down my squash wedge and wondering when I'd be released to go watch Colombo or the Mary Tyler Moore Show. God, I hated acorn squash. I have to try to sympathize with my childhood self when Thomas shuns the fresh, nutritious food I lovingly cook for him. Maybe I should call my mom and apologize?

I have 4 acorn squash left. Short of glazing them with brown sugar or maple syrup, what can I do with them? I'd prefer something that doesn't smell or taste like... squash.

November 2 CSA Delivery

2009-11-03T16:45:00.003-05:00

It's the last delivery of the regular season. As far as I know, I'll be hosting the extended season starting in two weeks, but I haven't heard for certain yet. I'll sorely miss the fresh produce if not!

1 bag sweet potatoes
3 acorn squash
1 bag "yummy" peppers
1 bunch Hakurai turnips
1 bunch radishes
2 heads green radicchio
1 green bell pepper
1 bunch tatsoi
1 head boc choy
1 head red romaine lettuce
1 bag lettuce mix
8 Ida red apples

I recently checked a great cookbook out of the library -- Love Soup, by Anna Thomas. I've been using it to make black bean and winter squash soup, as well as various green soups. Delicious. Sadly, I had to return it, but I am seriously considering breaking my book fast and buying my very own copy.

October 5 CSA Delivery

2009-10-09T20:15:00.003-04:00

1 bag sweet potatoes
1 bunch chiogga beets
4 small red onions
2 daikon radishes
1 yellow pepper
1 red bell pepper
1 bunch broccoli rabe
1 bag arugula
1 bag spinach
2 heads green romaine

Oh, I do love early fall produce! Broccoli rabe is a big favorite in our house -- with anyone over the age of 2.5 that is. I made a variation on our usual broccoli rabe with pasta recipe and it was delicious. I wish that we had had orecchiete instead of penne, but Thomas is fixated on penne these days, so that's what we had.

Broccoli rabe with pasta and beans:
a clove or two of garlic, smashed and diced
1 bunch broccoli rabe, chopped
1/4 t red pepper flakes
1 cup or so cooked (or canned) cannellini beans
a handful of "sun" dried cherry tomatoes
salt, pepper olive oil.

While the pasta is cooking, heat some olive oil and add the garlic. Don't let it brown, and add the chopped broccoli rabe. When it turns a brighter green and softens a bit, add the red pepper flakes and the beans. Let it cook a bit, adding some pasta water if it looks dry. When the pasta is done, add the dried cherry tomatoes to the broccoli rabe and them toss in the pasta too. Salt and pepper to taste (I do this as I cook, rather than all at the end.) Delicious!

My god, I must have 20 lbs of beets stored. I am not a big fan, and Bob really doesn't like them at all. Any ideas? Recipes? I'm thinking chocolate beet cupcakes.

Fear

2009-10-05T23:07:00.004-04:00

We have a cricket chirping away in our basement. I need to caulk some gaps around the garage door where they get in, but at least crickets are harmless. Noisy, but harmless.

I've noticed a bit more wildlife in our yard since the driveway went green, and the dry-stacked stone wall was raised. I had hoped for a chipmunk, but have to content myself with crickets for now. My neighbor, however, is completely freaked out by our suburban fauna.

Not long ago, she came home from work, stepped out of her car and was paralysed with fear. "Cate, Cate!" she hollered. I went around back to find out what the problem was, and couldn't see anything amiss. "The frog! Oh my god, there's a frog!" My response? "Cool!" She insisted I catch it and relocate it to my yard a few feet away. I chased the poor toad down, caught it, and asked the two ten-year-old boys -- her son and his friend -- if they wanted a look. They were very nervous about the creature. I let them know that the worst thing it would do was pee on me. "Eeeeeew!"

It got a new home under my stone bench by the clothesline. I've seen it twice since, and hope it is getting fat and happy on slugs.

Now I hear that she's putting in a floodlight out back, so that she never has to be in the dark. She's scared of the dark. This is an ok neighborhood. I don't hear gunshots, and I haven't heard of muggings or attacks in our alley. What is there to fear? Crickets?

More and more I notice people being afraid of nature. Now, I have a healthy fear of cougars, bears and so on, but there's little risk of encountering one of those in suburban Philadelphia. And I'll admit to a rather extreme concern about ticks. But for the most part, I feel awfully far removed from nature here. Nature is something we have to go to, or something we have to strive for on our property; it's no longer our environment.

(That's NOT a toad in the picture, but you can see the stone bench behind the running boy)

September 14 CSA Delivery

2009-09-18T20:24:00.003-04:00

I love this time of year. It's still beautiful most days, and the sky is an incredible blue, but the nights are cool and I can sleep with a blanket. Plus, we see the return of greens, and the beginnings of squash!
This week's share included:

1 red and 1 yellow onion
3 adorable "sweet dumpling" squash
1 bunch broccoli rabe
3 jalapeno peppers
2 yellow peppers
2 pints sungold cherry tomatoes
1 bunch tatsoi
1 bunch lettuce
1 watermelon

We've gotten a lot of cherry tomatoes. And I have had LOTS left over each week, so I started drying them in the oven. They are like sun-dried tomatoes without the sun, and the size of raisins. So tasty! Just slice them in half, put them on a cookie sheet and bake at low heat for I dunno, four or five hours? I bake my bread, turn off the oven and let it cool down, and then pop in the tomatoes before I go to bed. If they aren't dry enough in the morning, I turn the oven on low for an hour or so, which takes the chill off the delightfully cool kitchen.

And tatsoi? Oh my god, I don't know if I can eat bok choy again!

I can!

2009-09-11T17:21:00.008-04:00

Ah, late summer, time for tomatoes. Mine didn't fare so well. They were going great gangbusters, and just before my second harvest, they got some sort of blight, likely late blight. Stinky and sad. The first harvest was lovely though, and with the addition of several pounds of leftover slicers from the CSA, I had enough to put some up for winter.

My friend and neighbor Lauren and I decided to can tomatoes together. It's a job that's best done with good company, I think, since it provides ample opportunity for chit-chatting over a glass of wine. Plus, blanching and skinning that mountain of tomatoes goes a lot faster with four or more hands. Since Lauren was using at least one hand to hold an adorable baby, her mom helped out as well. Things went so smoothly and we had such a good time, we decided to do it again the following week with 20 pounds of tomatoes ordered from Lancaster Farm Fresh.

I am looking forward to popping one of these jars open come December, and smelling summer.

She's electric

2009-09-06T08:19:00.004-04:00

Bob mentioned that an outlet sparked when he plugged in his laptop. Our solution? Don't use it. But then I started thinking about how some outlets would suddenly stop working, and how others were so loose it was a little scary to unplug anything. My heart sank when I thought about calling an electrician - yet another contractor doing yet another project. So I did a little research in home improvement books and online. Changing an outlet didn't look hard at all. But dealing with electricity alarmed me. A mistake could mean a call for an ambulance.

Then I remembered my friend Jackie's brother-in-law Dave. Dave was a contractor for years, was a "master trainer" in the navy, and now has a business called Handi-Women. He teaches classes for women in home repair. I've mentioned that Bob and I aren't handy. Bob would much rather use the screwdriver and pliers for making experimental music than a home repair project. And who can blame him? He's a great musician.

Dave told me that the sparking outlet is really dangerous, and that we shouldn't use it until we examine it. Nice to hear we were already doing he right thing. He gave me an outlet tester, and told me to check out all the outlets in the house before he came over for our lesson in electricity.

That was an eye-opening exercise. Only one outlet in each room was wired properly. An outlet I had fixed a few months ago by a professional, licensed electrician was wired backwards - hot to neutral, and another done by a different electrician had an open ground and loose wires. Dave showed up right on time, and we got to work. We turned off the circuit in question and took apart the outlet receptacle together. Dave explained it all to me, and then we put it together properly. Then I replaced two receptacles while Dave watched. By the time he left, I had the confidence to replace three more on my own.

It doesn't sound like much, I suppose. Someone came over and showed me how to do a pretty simple repair. But to me, it was a ticket to freedom. I hate being dependent on others to take care of my home, and I hate being unsure of whether to trust the work that's been done. Being able to do it myself is liberating. As I told a friend, I'm tired of paying people to do shoddy work. I can do my own shoddy work, thank you!

August 31 CSA Delivery

2009-09-04T16:08:00.002-04:00

1 watermelon
1 bunch white beets
2 delicata squash
6 jalapeno peppers
1 cayenne pepper
2 red bell peppers
1 box sungold cherry tomatoes
1 box mixed cherry tomatoes
5 red slicing tomatoes

I'm finally excited about cooking again tonight. I'm making roasted potatoes, a tomato tart from Once Upon a Tart and roasted delicata squash rings.

Thomas' eating habits are a little wacky. He's not one of those kids who eats whatever is put in front of him. No, he prefers raw bread dough to almost anything. He does have a love of the chip though, and I suddenly realized that delicata squash sliced thin and roasted would make a good substitute for sweet potatoes (he loves sweet potato chips.) I was right. He ate an entire, albeit small, squash this afternoon. Whoo-hoo!

Completion

2009-08-30T21:57:00.009-04:00

It was becoming an obsession: stormwater run-off and how to deal with it. Not just how to deal with it, but how to deal with it in a responsible, thoughtful way. When we first moved into this house, we had a basement flood -- we thought it was a fluke. Freak rains for days culminated in a massive nor'easter that flooded everyone on the street. Our sump pump was no match for the volume of water. Then it happened a few more times but the sump pump did its thing. And again, with the sump pump failing, and the water rising, and then again after the basement was dried out... I dreaded thunderstorms, and watched the radar when it seemed like rain.

We looked into waterproofing the basement with french drains. While french drains sound kind of naughty and exciting, they are really just trenches and drainage pipes placed around the perimeter of the basement with a sump pump to get the collected water out. Actually, the contractor we spoke to suggested routing the drains into the household drain, which is against code for good reasons.

I decided that we needed to keep the water out, rather than deal with it inside the house. When water started coming in the basement, and I realized just how challenging the grading issues were in the back of the house, I seriously considered repaving it all, and adding an extra inch or three of asphalt. Let the water go somewhere else, wherever that may be. But asphalt is nasty stuff, full of toxins. I am trying to get away from using petroleum products; surrounding my home with them seemed counter-productive.

A couple of landscapers looked at the site and shook their heads. "That's not good." "Huh." "How long are you planning on living here?" I got opinions ranging from complex systems of drains and drywells (with paving on top) to a series of sump pumps, to repaving and making it higher than my neighbors. But I kept coming back to the idea that surface water wants to become ground water, and that our creeks and streams are toxic because we don't let the earth clean the water as it is meant to. This little patch of the world is my responsibility, so I should do the best I can with it, in my own small way. And when I'd describe my dream to the landscapers, they'd cock their heads, and say "hey, I think you could be on to something."

Hence the carefully excavated and graded green driveway. I got bids, and found an enthusiastic contractor in Brian, also known as "our hero." Brian and I worked together to design the driveway. He suggested using GrassPav2, rather than the eco-pavers or other products that you put in like tiles. We added a little patio for outdoor meals and playing. And then he got to work, sawing the asphalt and calling in the excavator.

There were a few set-backs. After Greg (another hero) excavated the driveway, removing at least three layers of driveways, and creating an eighteen-inch deep hole, we had a massive storm. I watched in horror as the giant hole filled with water. I was too depressed to take a picture of it. Brian and an assistant bailed us out twice. The second time they borrowed a sump pump, but even so, it was a lot of work. Due to Brian's hard work, the water never made it inside.

Then the rains stopped, and the sand and gravel was delivered, and all was right with the world. Brian built up the threshold to the garage, where water used to come in, and did the same to the back door. He waterproofed like crazy, and then he put down sod. It's been so much work, but it is truly beautiful. Just last night, we had a torrential rainstorm, and a gloriously dry basement.

August 17 CSA Delivery

2009-08-17T20:33:00.003-04:00

1 seedless watermelon
1 bunch white beets
1 bitter melon
3 onions
3 green peppers
3 jalapeno peppers
1 pint heirloom cherry tomatoes
1 pint grape tomatoes
4 roma tomatoes
8 red and yellow slicing tomatoes
1 bunch dandelion greens
fruit share: 4 peaches and a 1/2 pint raspberries

People left a lot behind, including green peppers, jalapenos and the bitter melons.
(edited to change the date... is it really mid-August already?)

A little help from my friends

2009-08-11T15:32:00.003-04:00

If you want your dirt to stay in place, and you’d like your run-off to return to the ground, rather than flow into the municipal drain system (or into your basement, of course) you had better get planting. Rain will sink into your dirt, but is much better deflected, absorbed and retained by the leaves and root systems of plants. I regraded the yard on the side of our house with dirt left over from the rock wall project, but even after spending nearly $100 at a local nursery, I didn’t have enough plants to colonize the area. I turned to my friends for help.

Unless you know no-one in town, and have never spoken to your neighbors, you will probably never need to purchase a hosta. Everyone seems to have them, and everyone seems to want to get rid of some. They do tend to take over. I divided hostas at Lauren’s house. I thought I took a lot, but when I look at her flowerbeds, I can’t even see where I got them. And to think I was worried about leaving huge gaps in her plantings. While I am not crazy about hostas, they do drink up the water, and their big leaves protect the soil below from driving rain. They also grow quickly, and at this point, I just need to cover some ground.
I have purchased a few rudbekia (black-eyed susans) in the past, though I now wonder why. Not that I don’t love them – I do – but again, everyone seems to have them. They are easy to transplant, and grow in partial shade as well as full sun. I got some from Amy and some from Marie. They really perk up the yard, and make it look more like a garden than just way to deal with rain. I took a bunch of shasta daisies from Lauren. They are lounging around the top of my slope, but next year, I bet they’ll fill in enough to stand tall. They remind me of the garden we had when I was a kid; we had so many daisies that I could make garlands and bouquets to my heart’s content. I seem to recall grinding them up for some reason, too. One of those mysterious childhood potions, I guess.

Chara contributed some native grasses to the cause. They will spread between the islands of flowers on the slope, keeping it from eroding, and delighting the neighborhood birds with their seed heads. I am delighted that I don’t have to mow them. I’m on the lookout for more, and might break down and visit our local native plant nursery this fall to see what big, fancy native grasses she has to offer.

It’s satisfying to have things growing in my garden that came from people in my community. It reminds me to cultivate my friendships as well as my soil.

Phase I complete

2009-08-04T07:01:00.006-04:00

Phase I of the backyard landscaping and storm-water run-off mitigation project is complete. I wish I could say I am thrilled with it, but it is hard to see how it will look until the rest of the project is finished.

The wall itself is nice. I like the irregularity of it, and so far it seems pretty sturdy. I put permeable pipe behind it, and am glad I did, as our soil is so heavy and full of clay that it seems it will never dry out. I am planting, planting, planting to try to keep the dirt from sliding away every time it rains.

We ended up with a lot of dirt left over. Enough to regrade the entire side of the house, make a sizeable stash for future projects, take a Honda trunk-load to a friend, AND still have enough to give away on Freecycle. Some guy came and took away three pick-up truck loads. That's a lot of dirt!

Now we are just waiting for the 12th, when excavation starts on the green driveway. Of course, in the meantime, we've decided to have monsoon season here in Southeastern PA. I used to love thunderstorms. I'd sit on the porch and watch them roll through. Now, I obsessively watch the radar on weather.com and feel sick to my stomach as the red bands of heavy rain approach. We got water again in the basement again, of course. At least I know my brand-spanking new sump pump works!

I truly wish I had known more about surface water when we bought the house. Our flat roof is perfect for installing a green roof. Sadly, we had to have a new roof installed pretty much right away; unless I can convince some leprechaun to part with his pot of gold, we won't be doing a green roof any time soon. Then again, maybe a green roof is just the thing to attract a leprechaun.... hmmm...

Garden inspiration II

2009-08-01T14:14:00.003-04:00

One of my favorite front-yard gardens in the neighborhood.

July 27 CSA delivery

2009-07-29T06:42:00.003-04:00

This was a good week, I'd say.

1 head green cabbage
1 bunch detroit beets
3 mixed squash
3 candy onions
2 green peppers
1 white marrow squash
1 yellow scallop squash
1 grey zucchini
1 bag tomatillos
10 slicing tomatoes
1 bunch dandelion greens
1 bunch parsley

Monday night we ate sauteed zucchini with basil, sauteed dandelion greens with garlic, roasted potatoes (left from a couple of weeks ago when two people didn't pick up their taters) and left-over swiss chard polenta made with kale instead of chard.

Tuesday night was fun. I made black bean burritos with fresh tomato salsa and fresh tomatillo salsa. In addition to farm share veggies, I used jalepenos and roma tomatoes from the garden. Too bad I killed our cilantro - that's the only produce we had to buy.

This week people left behind beets, cabbages, green peppers, onions galore and tomatoes. What do other people eat? We go through lots of onions - 3 nice big ones a week sounds just about right to me. Happily, onions freeze well, so I am chopping extra every night to put in the freezer. Green peppers freeze well too, and will grace pizzas this winter. In January, I'll be glad I did this extra work.

Creative reuse

2009-07-27T07:07:00.004-04:00

Just to show that I am not completely obsessed with storm water run-off, I'd like to talk about picky toddlers* and single-use gadgets.

I was famous for being a picky eater. While I am an adventurous eater now (for a vegetarian, that is) decades ago I would completely melt down if an onion touched my burger, or god forbid, I could taste the green peppers in the pizza sauce. Several dozen people who attended the National Zoo in Washington DC one fine July day in 1976 likely still recall that there was mustard on my cheese sandwich, which rendered it completely inedible. I still feel a little betrayed about that one; I mean really, who puts mustard on a six-year-old's sandwich? Anyway, Thomas seems to have inherited this distrust of new food items -- you might recall his ideal menu.

Not long ago, he saw some big kids eating popsicles. He became obsessed. I thought back to my childhood, and remembered making popsicles in our freezer with orange juice, and decided this might be a good way to get some nutrition into the kid. I would simply freeze smoothies and let him eat as many as he likes. The only hitch? What to make them in. Ice cube trays are too small, and you don't get the fun of eating something on a stick. I tried paper cups with popsicle sticks, but the cups are too big, and the shape unwieldy. I thought about ordering popsicle molds, but I really hate the idea of bringing yet another plastic thing into the house, especially a gadget that can only has one use. While pawing through the kitchen, I found these from my pumping days. They're the perfect size and shape for popsicles, and I know that they are safe for food.

One of our favorite popsicle recipes:
1/2 c. soy or almond milk
1/2 c. yogurt
a scoop of whey protein powder
1/2 banana
blueberries
strawberries
(if Thomas isn't looking, I can stick a leaf or two of spinach in there too)

*Thomas has informed me that he is NOT a toddler anymore; he is a kid. The chorus is intoning "they grow up so fast."

Water, water, everywhere...

2009-07-24T21:20:00.001-04:00

We have a surface water problem. Our neighborhood consists of brick twins with garages in the ground-level basement (we're on a slope: the basement is ground-level in the back, but not the front.) Most people have asphalt driveways up to the house, and most people have paved their back alley as well. Many people have paved their garden areas in addition to the alley and driveway. All this paving results in a lot of surface water after a storm with nowhere to go. Nowhere to go, that is, until it finds my basement.

We are at the low point of our block; neighbors on both sides repaved not long before we moved in, and so their driveways are just a couple of inches higher than ours. That, coupled with the next door neighbor's faulty drainpipe means we get more than our fair share of run-off. What to do?

The first thing was adding extenders to the downspouts. Just 8 feet took the water past the point where it heads directly into my basement. However, during what my mom would call a "gully-washer" we'd still have a problem, and we are developing potholes in the alley from all the standing water.

We could just pave it; make it a few inches higher, and dump the water on some other poor chump. That doesn't seen very civic-minded and it doesn't help the environment much. While Thomas will probably like having a lot of pavement once he has a skateboard, I'm not sure my nerves can handle watching that.

I've thought about this a lot. I mean A LOT. After a substantial amount of research, I have decided that the answer is installing a green driveway. I got a quote from a landscaper to do permeable paving, but I don't like the way it looks, plus it's hard to walk on if you like high-heeled shoes. Instead, I am hoping to have Grasspave2 installed. I am very excited about this stuff because it looks just like grass (it IS grass, with a recycled plastic matrix beneath it) and it can take a lot of water. It can take my run-off as well as my neighbor's and then some. There are still many details to hammer out, but I think this is the way to go. Wish us luck; we need it!

Here's the before view: dismal, hot, not very useful, and a drainage nightmare.

I don't get it.

2009-07-20T21:20:00.003-04:00

One of the benefits of being the CSA site host is that I get to keep the food that others leave behind.* I will likely manage to fill my freezer with tasty and healthy food by the end of the season, as well as feeding many friends. Lately, I have been giving a cabbage to whomever comes over -- the electrician got two.

I don't understand why people leave behind so much food. This week, in addition to my share, I ended up with

4 bunches of beets
1 cabbage
1 bunch of kale
1 bag of onions
1 cucumber
30 tomatoes!
8 lbs of peaches!!!!!!

I can see leaving behind a cabbage or a bunch of beets. Lots of people don't like kale, but tomatoes? The first ones we got this season?? Peaches??!! Who on earth would leave behind even a single organically grown peach? I am baffled.

*I always call if someone forgets their share, and I do my best to save it for the next day.

July 20 CSA Delivery

2009-07-20T21:16:00.002-04:00

1 head green cabbage
1 bunch red beets
1 bunch chiogga beets
1 bag onions
3 cucumbers
1 lb green beans
5 slicing tomatoes
1 bunch kale

We're eating quick coleslaw and a tomato-cucumber-onion salad tonight. What on earth am I going to do with all those beets? I still have two bunches from last week (plus three extra bunches that were left behind) in addition to this week's share. Neither Bob nor Thomas will touch them.

Progress

2009-07-16T12:47:00.004-04:00

Incompletion

2009-07-14T21:12:00.003-04:00

Phase one of the grand project could be done, depending on how I decide to define it. I am a pretty ambitious person, so maybe it is not surprising that I did not meet my original (unrealistic?) goal. What is phase one? A dry stacked stone wall to adjust the slope of our side yard away from the back door, and out toward the (forthcoming) rain garden and back alley. Building a dry stone wall is complex in its own way, and now that I am getting in to it, I am enjoying it. I wish I had photographs to share, but I am wedging this work in between my paid work and taking care of Thomas, who is helping in the way that only a two and a half year old can, so I haven't paused to take pictures. I worked until dark tonight, and would have kept going by porch light, but the mosquitoes convinced me otherwise

This work is engaging in a way that word games are. It both focuses your attention and frees the mind. I think that it would be very good work for poets. It is also doing great things for my upper arms.

Forward in all directions

2009-07-09T14:56:00.002-04:00

I haven't been posting lately, and it's not because I have nothing to talk about. Rather, I have been working on everything, and getting nothing done. I have a major project in the works, and I think that Phase 1 should be finished by Sunday. This project has involved shopping in places with really cool tools, and having trucks come to the house -- Thomas loves it.

I got some estimates for work I need done in and around the house. It is a big drag not to be handy. Seriously. I can do all sorts of things: I can estimate the space needs of an academic library with 20 years growth and give it to you in linear feet; I can make delicious yogurt; I can identify an 18th century binding at 20 paces, but I am not so great with home repair. Part of it is my concern that the work be done right, and part of it is that I never have the right tool for the job. I don't want to buy the tool, because I am not very handy, so it seems like a waste... yes, it's a self-perpetuating cycle.

However, one of the estimates pushed me to think about doing the work myself. I asked a bunch of friends for advice, and what do you know, a few offered to help! $600 of materials later, and I am in neck-deep. Let's hope this works. Wish me luck.

June 29 CSA Delivery

2009-06-29T21:24:00.002-04:00

Ah, the summer harvest begins! In this week's share we got

1 quart new red potatoes
1 bunch Detroit red beets
1 bunch red Zebulon onions
2 heads radicchio
4 zucchini
1 head green leaf lettuce
2 heads green Nevada lettuce

And the fruit share was 1/2 lb cherries and 1/2 pint black raspberries. Thomas ate most of the raspberries while I was putting out the boxes of veggies on the porch.

He stayed up later than usual tonight, and I didn't insist on bedtime; he was chasing fireflies. I sat on the porch, enjoying a glass of white wine and watching him play with Bob while I ate the following salad, adapted from a recipe in a 2007 issue of Martha Stewart Living, I think.

Chickpea and Zucchini Salad
1 cup cooked chickpeas
1 head romaine
1 small head Napa cabbage
3 small zucchini
1 red onion
a handful of basil
some snips of lime thyme
crumbled parmesan cheese
lemon
salt and pepper

Somehow this tastes better when the lettuce and cabbage are chopped, rather than torn.

Garden inspiration

2009-06-27T18:32:00.004-04:00

Here's a picture from my parents' neighborhood in Madison, WI.

Now I just need to find some stones...

Monotypes

2009-06-23T13:43:00.006-04:00

It's been raining here a lot lately. After four days of rain and Daddy out of town, Thomas was really ready for a new, exciting project. We got a couple of huge packages in the mail, and all the packing material inspired me just as we were heading toward a meltdown. I decided to make monotypes.

It was a blast. Thomas really enjoyed using the roller, and he liked peeling the paper away from the printing "plane." We used sheets of styrofoam and bubble wrap as printing surfaces, and Thomas also inked up his hand (just the right one. He carefully made a picture with just handprints, and declared "this one is for Daddy.") We were both pleased with the results, but the process was the point. So thanks, Auntie Sylvia for the packages -- we love what was in them, but what they were wrapped in was pretty great, too!

June 22 CSA Delivery

2009-06-23T13:38:00.003-04:00

The fruit shares started this week. We got a pound of cherries. Joy!
In the veggie share we got:

1 head Napa cabbage
1 box new potatoes
1 bunch rainbow chard
1 bunch red bor kale
1 bunch chiogga beets
1 bunch garlic scapes
1 head green leaf lettuce
1 head butterhead lettuce

I'm thinking we'll have Swiss chard polenta, beet risotto and Tuscan beans with kale. Oh, and napa cabbage six ways since Sunday since several people left theirs behind. I have five cabbages in my fridge right now!

Garden inspiration

2009-06-20T12:45:00.007-04:00

I've always liked growing things, but I can't call myself a gardener: I just don't know enough. I'm trying to change that now, mostly out of necessity. I've mentioned our "back 40" before, but that's not the only place that needs work. There's the wet patch and the poorly-graded slope just out the back door, the sad weed-beds alongside the house where I removed the concrete edging and dug up some, but not all of the hideous red mulch, the front flower bed, the not-very-usable sweep of lawn, and finally, the blasted slope.

I know what the problems are, but I don't know how to fix them, so I go looking for inspiration. There are some books that have inspired me, including Food not lawns, Gaia's garden, and Front yard gardens. But my main sources of inspiration are other people's gardens.

Here's one of my all-time favorites: Mom and Dad's house. A crazy melange of the wild and the wonderful, with raspberries tucked in among lupines and lilies. Lots of paths to explore, stumps to climb, and wildlife to examine. I like that it's not too tidy, and that it feels private, despite being right on a busy bike path. While it looks mostly green now, it is full of color. I love the many textures of the varied foliage. Thomas adores this garden. He's fascinated by the tiny fountain and the many bird feeders, which Grampa Ernie lets him fill when we visit. And he is thrilled by finding raspberries, right there at toddler level, sweet and tasty mid summer and again in the fall.

My friend Astrid recently invited us out to Greensgrow, where she works when she is not making art or teaching. What a wonderland! Green roofs, a composting toilet and a small farm smack dab in the middle of working class Fishtown. It's the kind of place that makes me feel like I am not a wack-o for having a rain barrel and using a clothesline. It's also the kind of place where I want to buy every plant in sight! Luckily, I had Astrid as a guide, and she helped me select some shade-tolerant hardy perennials for my blasted slope. She also taught Thomas to help her pinch back the basil (he then held sprigs in both fists, and walked around taking bites of the leaves) and introduced him to farmer Patrick who gave him a carrot to go with the basil.

I hope I'll be able to write about my upcoming adventure in mitigating storm run-off (a fancy way of saying I want my supposedly dry basement to stay dry, even when it rains) With any luck, we'll be making the wet patch into a rain garden. Thomas sure seems to be taken with those water plants, and the turtle who lives among them.

Here's what I took home from Greensgrow:
Wood spurge
Snowdrop anemone
Lady's mantle
White wood aster
Creeping Jenny
St. John's wort

Madison

2009-06-17T19:57:00.005-04:00

I grew up canoeing in Door County and on Madison's lakes, so it was quite a thrill to take Thomas for his first canoe ride on Lake Wingra. Dad steered, Bob paddled and I rode in style with Thomas.

Chicago

2009-06-17T19:22:00.003-04:00

June 15 CSA Delivery

2009-06-15T21:34:00.003-04:00

I didn't post last week's list, since we were out of town. I'll be writing more about our trip to the glorious Midwest soon, until then, there are vegetables to be eaten!

This week's delivery included

1 head broccoli
1 napa cabbage
1 bunch red beets
1 bag snow peas
1 bunch "candy" onions
1 bunch Lacinato kale
2 heads green lettuce

I got kale in the swap box as well, a good thing because I discovered that the following recipe is very toddler-friendly:
Kale Chips
Heat oven to 350 or whatever. Cut kale into chip sized pieces and toss with olive oil. Roast 10 minutes or so until crisp. Add salt. Sit in amazement as your finicky child joyfully eats an adult sized serving of kale.

June 1 CSA Delivery

2009-06-03T13:15:00.002-04:00

'Tis the season for greens. Too bad Thomas doesn't eat lettuce.

1 head broccoli
1 bunch purple kohlrabi
2 bunches white scallions
1 bunch purple radishes
1 bunch tatsoi
1 bag lettuce mix
1 head red leaf lettuce
1 head butterhead lettuce

Several people left scallions -- either they didn't see the label on the box "take 2" or they were overwhelmed. I now have a large stash of sliced scallions in the freezer, a tip I learned from my dear friend and former roommate Lisa Vee. They will be tossed in soups and other dishes for the next several months. I also have a lot of extra lettuce. Again, people may have been alarmed at the prospect of chewing so much, or they were simply distracted and lost count of how many heads they had.

Monday dinner was grilled tofu with tatsoi (it's like bok choy, only slimmer and greener) and scallion cakes. The next few nights should feature salad, salad and more salad!

Weekend dining

2009-06-01T13:53:00.003-04:00

We managed to use all our veggies by Sunday, except for the romaine lettuce, which is keeping very nicely, and which I plan to eat in a big salad tonight. I found some new recipes, and brought out some old favorites as well. I feel great after having some sort of greens every day.

Friday
asparagus with walnut crema
Tuscan beans
sauteed mustard greens
blackberry ice cream

Saturday
grilled tofu with garlic turnip greens
turnips with soy and sugar (from Madhur Jaffrey's World vegetarian, but with half of the recommended sugar)
served with brown rice

Sunday
cheese soufflé
sauteed mustard greens
fresh whole wheat bread

Thomas liked the ice cream best of all. I used our raw milk, which I let sit to allow the cream to rise to the top. The top three cups were fairly creamy, but the resulting ice cream was lighter than what you get in the store. I used four tablespoons of sugar - a quarter of the recommended amount, and it was plenty sweet. With a less tart fruit, I would use even less sugar. While the soufflé was the most impressive dish, Saturday's dinner was the most satisfying. It was also easy, and I will likely repeat it as often as we get turnips.

Thursday night improv

2009-05-29T14:10:00.004-04:00

We had lots of turnip tops left in the swap box. I blanched and froze 12 ounces, but still have an abundance. By 6:30 last night I still didn't have any ideas for dinner, so I went into the kitchen, opened the fridge and waited for inspiration. It came.

Chickpea Pizza with Turnip Greens
2/3 c chickpea flour
1/4 c whole wheat flour
1/2 t sea salt
1/2 t cumin seeds
3 T olive oil
1 bunch turnip greens
1 clove garlic, crushed
1/2 T olive oil
1/4 t paprika
squeeze of fresh lemon juice
salt and pepper to taste

Heat your broiler.
Sift chickpea flour, whole wheat flour and salt together. Slowly add 1 cup of water while beating the batter. Get out all the lumps. Let sit for a half hour while you wash and chop the turnip tops.
Heat 1/2 T olive oil in a skillet and add the crushed garlic. After a few seconds, add the turnip greens. Let them wilt and cook for maybe 5 minutes? 10? add the paprika, lemon, salt and pepper.
By then you should be ready to deal with the "pizza" (it's more like a pancake.) Heat the 3 T olive oil, when hot add the cumin seeds. Give the batter a quick stir, and pour into the hot skillet. Let cook 5 minutes? 10? Until the batter pulls away from the sides, and things are looking a little set, though still a little liquid on top. Pop the skillet into the broiler for another 5 minutes, until the pizza starts to brown. Take it out, put the turnip greens on top, and pop it back in for a minute or two.

This was quite good. I have made chickpea pizzas before according to Madhur Jaffrey's recipe in World vegetarian but didn't like them that much. This one was crisper, due to the increased oil and added wheat flour, and tastier due to the cumin seeds. It went very well with the greens. I'd make it again!

CSA Delivery

2009-05-27T14:34:00.003-04:00

We got our delivery today rather than Monday due to Memorial Day. I was getting a little desperate! Here's what we have in our share this week:

1 bunch turnip tops (mine have nice bottoms, too)
8oz. crimini mushrooms
1 pint strawberries
1 bunch scallions
1 head red leaf lettuce
1 pound young mustard greens
1 head romaine (which I swapped for the asparagus in the swap box)

The strawberries are nearly gone already. They are amazing. Really, I thought those conventional strawberries tasted good, but now I realize it was like eating the shadow of a strawberry.

Last week I ended up making rhubarb muffins, chick peas and collard greens, and a whole wheat pasta with a creamy mushroom sauce. The sauce was good, not great, but the pasta was a disappointment. I should know better than to get Trader Joe's brand pasta -- it's gluey. If I can ever find a pasta attachment for my Kitchenaid mixer, I'll try making my own.

This week, I am thinking of making turnip soup (though I will need to break my own rule, and will have to buy a potato for it*) another pasta with mushrooms, but not cream-based this time, and some sort of beans with the mustard greens. Simple stuff.

*the rule is that I am not allowed to buy produce other than onions, garlic, bananas and Thomas' beloved frozen berries (until we start getting onions, garlic and berries from the farms, that is!)

In other news, my friend Suzanne called this morning, and we took a spur of the moment trip to her pal Mike's house to get peonies. Peonies are my favorites: I love the way they look like a blowzy woman in fancy lingerie, and that their perfume is sweet, but with enough spice to keep it from being cloying. I now have an extravagant bouquet of almost pink peonies prettying up my kitchen.

Toddler epicure

2009-05-25T14:18:00.004-04:00

The eating habits of toddlers are mystifying. I try not to worry too much. Bob and I were imagining Thomas' ideal meal -- here's the menu:

appetizer: Small delights (plantain chips, walnuts, and dried cranberries)
first course: Pasta nuda (radiatore pasta served without a trace of sauce)
main course: Impasta cruda (raw bread dough, "squished and squashed" by tiny hands)
sides: Caramelized sweet potato julienne (sweet potato fries roasted to the verge of becoming charcoal) Chips, di tutti i tipi (corn chips, corn chips and more corn chips)
cheese course: Artisan Parmesan served with Strawberry "noses"
dessert: Chocolate chips fa come vuoi (no-sugar granola cookies to be carefully pulled apart to reveal the chocolate chips within; chips eaten, and all other matter returned to the server with the comment "here you go, Momma.")

The Chef Himself

Monday dinner

2009-05-20T14:44:00.003-04:00

Tuscan cannellini beans with sauteed kale (adapted from How to cook everything vegetarian)
Sweet potato fries (really just oven roasted, but "fry" is a magic word in our house, as is "chip")
Romaine and radish salad with lime thyme vinaigrette

Really tasty. I wonder why I don't make cannellini beans this way (or any way) more often. They are easy and very satisfying. Thomas ate the sweet potato fries and shunned the rest.

Here's how I made the beans and kale:
Soak the beans whichever way you prefer (I did the quick soak method) drain and rinse. Cook with enough water (I dunno, an inch and a half deeper than the beans?) and 20 sage leaves at a medium temperature until the beans are to your liking. If you added too much water, drain the beans, but if you got it so there's a just a little bean-y water in the bottom, don't bother. Add 2 cloves of garlic, minced, and a sizable splash of olive oil. Salt, of course, and pepper.
Saute the kale in a little olive oil with a mashed clove of garlic. Drape the limp dark kale over the pale beans and enjoy -- how attractive!

Fiddle-i-fee

2009-05-18T21:29:00.005-04:00

What does your sweetie bring you as a special treat? Chocolate? Flowers? How nice.

Bob brought home fiddlehead ferns from the Reading Terminal Market for me. They are such a fleeting sign of spring, such a strange delight. He saw them at the market and remembered a comment I made three years ago about how much I adored them. Needless to say, the sight of a wee bag of fiddleheads made my heart leap. I love this man!

I braised them, and then tossed them with a lemon-olive oil vinaigrette. I put them over pasta and drizzled it all with dilled yogurt. Yum. Really delicious. (Though honestly, they would have been just as tasty, maybe more so without the dilled yogurt... I felt the pasta needed something more.)

Why do I like them so much? Are they that much better than asparagus? It's not just the taste, which is like spring in the Northwoods of Wisconsin; no, it's more than that. The shape is so appealing and so unlike anything else I eat -- that's definitely a part of it. And they aren't cultivated. You won't find a fiddlehead farm. They are mostly foraged in the wild (or in the wild of someone's yard, like my parents did a couple of times.) It's their scarcity, their ephemeral nature that makes them delightful and delectable.

First CSA Delivery coming Monday

2009-05-15T19:21:00.002-04:00

Amy, who runs the CSA, sends out a list of what has been ordered for our shares on Friday. I love this, since I can spend the weekend looking for recipes, daydreaming, and picking up essentials at the grocery store. I can expect the following in my share on Monday:

1.25 lbs red rhubarb – transitional – Country View Produce
1 bunch Easter egg radishes – certified organic – Hillside Organics
1 bunch red radishes – certified organic – Farmdale Organics
12 oz. white mushrooms – certified organic – Mother Earth Mushrooms
1 bunch white scallions – certified organic – Country Boy Organics
6 oz young collards – certified organic – Maple Valley Berries
1 head red or flashy trout back Romaine – certified organic – Riverview Organics
¼ lb baby greens – certified organic – Elm Tree Organics

So far, I am thinking rhubarb muffins, mushroom risotto, salad, and radishes dipped in salt.

Bloom where you are planted, part II

2009-05-12T13:52:00.008-04:00

Our garden is across a narrow alley from the house -- we call it the back 40, though it's more like 400 square feet. When we moved in, it was a nasty weedpatch. Since then, we have dug out beds, added piles of compost to the soil, shored it up with re-purposed (ugly) cement borders, and generally made it a much better place. At the end of the summer, we put in a sandbox that someone gave us. A big sandbox. I ordered a ton of sand. No really, I ordered a TON of sand. That's a lot of sand, perhaps more than I really reckoned.

While the sandbox is great, I wanted to create another place for Thomas to play. I spent a lot of my childhood in our rather wild (my dad would say "native plant" and my mother would say "neglected") backyard, playing on stumps and logs, hiding among the bushes and plants, and making up my own worlds. I wanted to provide something like that for Thomas in my neighborhood of tightly-packed twin houses, with a postage-stamp backyard.

I put out a call for logs and rocks, and hauled a load of woodchips over from a friend's house (you can order them by the truckload, but I have learned my lesson!) I purchased two bags of pea gravel and planted zinnea, nasturtium and purple hyacinth vine seeds. Once I am allowed near a plant nursery again, I'll get some tough perennial herbs as well. While it looks bare now, I am thrilled with the result.

I got the idea from Places for Play, a cool exhibition about public playgrounds. This is the image that inspired me.

My salad days

2009-05-09T07:53:00.003-04:00

Here it is; our first salad from the garden. A little gritty despite repeated washings, definitely a little small, but so tasty.

Why didn't I think of this before?

2009-05-03T18:46:00.003-04:00

For the past couple of weeks, I have been making our yogurt. We eat a lot of yogurt -- Thomas won't drink cow's milk, but he'll drink yogurt or kefir smoothies, and loves to share my morning bowl of yogurt and berries (sharing to the point that I need to get a second bowl most days.) I am very picky about my yogurt. I can't stand the sweetened stuff, and the additives like pectin or guar gum that a lot of brands use as thickeners make me gag. The kind I like is from a great dairy in Chester County, PA, Seven Stars Farm.

Now, I love this stuff. It's not just organic, it's bio-dynamic. Steiner yogurt! Waldorf yogurt! Loved cows! What could be better? I eat one or two quarts a week. However, at $3.50 a quart, I am developing an expensive habit. Even though the yogurt comes in quarts, rather than individual cups, I still don't feel good about using all that plastic. I used to make my own yogurt eons ago when I lived in a warm climate, and I've made a few half-hearted attempts at trying over the past decade, but it never set. Making it myself has been in the back of my mind for a while now.

Recently, I messed up our dairy order from the Amish farm where I get raw milk. I ended up with an extra half gallon of milk that would get funky before we'd use it. I thought of making pudding (ick) or panne cotta, or some other fussy, time-consuming thing. As luck would have it, my friend Mia was making yogurt the day I dropped by to bring her family a pan of swiss chard polenta and meet her newborn baby. Oh ho! I decided to go home and give it a whirl with my extra milk. Now I know the secret to great yogurt: great milk. Raw milk!

It's so easy. Here's how I do it:
Pour a little less than a quart of milk into a clean, glass jar. Put the jar into a pot of water -- no need to have the water cover the jar, but you'll want it to come at least half-way up the side. Bring the water to a boil and heat the milk to 190 degrees or higher. Turn off the heat and let the milk cool to 110-120 degrees. Once your milk has cooled, add one or two tablespoons of good yogurt (must have active cultures, and I'd avoid additives of any kind) and keep the jar at 110-120 degrees. I just return it to the pot of water. When the water gets cool, I put the whole shebang into a warmed oven for four hours or so. Our pizza stone keeps the pot hot enough after I turn off the oven.

That's it. I doubt that I'll give up Seven Stars yogurt entirely, but I am pretty pleased with myself.

Green, green, the crabapple tree

2009-04-30T22:02:00.003-04:00

Well, we don't have a crabapple tree, but the tiny dogwood everyone said was a-goner is leafing out nicely. My echinacea came back up, and the tickseed and rudbeckia look dandy. I went a little crazy at the Tyler Arboretum plant sale. I meant to get a few things: another rudbeckia, shasta daisies, bee-balm, and maybe, just maybe a shrub for the irritating slope in front of the house.

Going to a plant sale is almost as bad as going to the SPCA for me. I want to save all those defenseless green growing things. Actually, I feel the same way about 1930s gowns in thrift stores. I have to liberate them; give them the love and care they deserve!

To top it off, I went and got three roma tomatoes and four basil plants at Gentile's. I don't think I am allowed to shop anymore.

Eat your vegetables

2009-04-23T21:59:00.004-04:00

I just got word that the first CSA delivery will be May 18. Very exciting!

After weeks of eating only frozen blueberries, pasta, and crackers, Thomas is suddenly hungry. He ate wild rice with curried walnuts, a carrot, pasta with watercress, diced pineapple, dried apricots, parmesan cheese, and a kefir-almond milk-strawberry-banana smoothie over the course of two dinners. That's two dinners TODAY.

I guess I have to pick something else to worry about now.

Indianapolis

2009-04-21T20:19:00.002-04:00

Thanks for being nice.

2009-04-21T19:59:00.002-04:00

I was sitting at the Northwest airlines check-in, knitting and waiting for Bob and Thomas to come from the "economy" parking lot ($11 a day is economical?) when an agitated woman made a bee-line for me. I know that I look non-threatening, and the pile of luggage including a kid's car seat must have made me seem even more approachable. "They charged me money to check my bag!" she blurted, with no pre-amble. "I had no idea! And they won't tell me anything. Do you think they will take away my nail clippers?" She was upset, and looked worn out already. I made chit-chat with her, found out she's 83 years old and was flying to Minneapolis to visit her grand-daughter. She had just gotten a prescription for eye-drops which made her vision blurry, and disoriented her, making her airport experience even more confusing. When her wheelchair came for her, she said "Thanks for being nice to me."

Isn't that awful? Thanks for being nice.

Makes me think of those lines from the Philip Larkin poem, The Mower:
...we should be careful/ Of each other, we should be kind/ While there is still time.

Bloom where you are planted

2009-04-14T14:44:00.003-04:00

This post really needs photos, but the camera has just gone on the fritz. I hope to add pictures soon, but am a little concerned that it will have to wait until we have researched and purchased a new camera. Sigh.

We've been in this house for just over two years. In that time the bloom has faded, and I sometimes long for a new, different, better house. Bob calls this my "grass is greener syndrome." Well, I decided to get over it, and am going to bloom where I am planted. To me, this means I will have to make this house my dream house, rather than pining for something I don't and can't have.

The first step in this process was putting up a pegboard pot-rack. I had been thinking about it for a while, and then saw this on Apartment Therapy. I love it. My kitchen looks so much more cheerful with my colorful cookware hanging on the wall. And I now have a great deal more cabinet space.

Asparagus

2009-04-12T15:02:00.003-04:00

A few years ago, Bob and I were invited to join the Art Party. It's a group of artsy types -- some professional artists, and some who do it on the side, some who have training, and some who are self-taught -- who meet every month(ish) to share a meal and their artwork. There's a theme every month, and we are encouraged (but not required) to make art around that theme. Fortunately, we are not required to make a project every month. Try as I might, I can't always find the time to finish (start?) a project every four weeks. Bob and I switch off on attending the Art Party. Last night was my turn. I didn't have art to show, but I was pleased with the dish I brought for potluck!

Asparagus with Walnut Crema (adapted from Orangette)
1 bunch asparagus
olive oil for roasting
sea salt
lemon
pepper

1 cup walnuts
4 or 5 medium shallots
olive oil (half-cup?)
sea salt

Heat the oven to 500. Place the asparagus on a foil-lined cookie sheet and oil well. Roast for 15 minutes or so -- until the spears are tender and just browning.

Meanwhile, put the walnuts in boiling water and cook until tender -- about 10 minutes. Drain and retain a cup or so of the cooking water. Put the shallots into a food processor and chop. Add the tender walnuts and process, adding some of the cooking water to keep things moist, but not runny. Continue to run the processor and add the olive oil and salt. The mixture should be thick and creamy.

Spread the crema in the bottom of your serving dish, and top with the roasted asparagus. Squeeze some lemon over the spears and add a few grindings of pepper. If you aren't serving this to a bunch of vegans, go ahead and add some hard, salty cheese. I didn't have peccorino, so I used parmesean. Deeee-licious!

Next month's theme? "It's the emptiness." I have an idea, so had better get cracking!

Hungry for spring

2009-04-08T14:06:00.006-04:00

So tired, tired, tired of bad produce. We usually buy local, organic fruits and vegetables, but by the time March rolls around, I end up making a trip to Gentile's, and I fill my grocery basket with gleaming red and orange peppers, deep green broccoli rabe, mottled purple beans, and bunch after bunch of asparagus. Most of the stuff comes from California, Mexico, or somewhere in South America. I draw the line at imports from New Zealand, though. My guilt is assuaged when the 15-year-old checker gives me the total: $25 for three huge bags spilling over with purples, reds, yellows and greens. I am greedy for color.

Thomas and I nearly lost it when we saw the towers of strawberries. Huge, shining red fruits, heart-shaped and heart-wrenching, promising sweet-tart delight. Conventionally grown in California. We bought three boxes and ate an entire quart together in one sitting. I wish I could say they were completely tasteless. I wish I could say that we were shamed by our gluttony.

They were good. Not nearly as good as the beauties that we will get from the farms in early June, no sir, but still tasty.

I did get some organic chard recently. For the money I spent on it, I probably could have gotten a whole shopping bag full of veggies at Gentile's, but that's the way it goes. Just like my renewed efforts to cut down on sugar, I am returning to my all-organic path after a month astray.

Swiss Chard Polenta
1 bunch swiss chard, chopped
2 bunches green onions, chopped (white and green parts included)
16 oz.ricotta cheese
1 cup milk
1 cup grated parmesean cheese
1 cup cornmeal
1 teaspoon fennel seeds, slightly crushed
olive oil
salt
pepper

Heat the oven to 350 and oil a 13x9 baking pan.
Heat the oil over medium-high heat, and add the crushed fennel and chopped onions. While the onions are wilting, mix the cheeses, milk and cornmeal in a separate bowl.

Add the chopped chard to the fennel and onions, stir and allow the chard to wilt, about 5 minutes or so. Once the chard is fully limp, add it to the cheese mixture, along with salt and pepper to taste.

Spread the mixture in the baking pan and top with a tablespoon or so of olive oil. Bake for 25 minutes. Serve as is, or top with tomato sauce. I should really call this Cheesy Chard Bake or Green Hot Dish since it is firmer than stirred polenta. I like it better than traditional polenta, because it doesn't have that disturbing mushiness.

Monday, how I love thee

2009-04-06T22:53:00.003-04:00

Yes, I know, most people hate Mondays. I love them. They are my best day, and nearly always have been. I love the freshness of Monday; the week hasn't gotten grubby and used, and there are still lots of possibilities. I have to work away from home more over the weekend, so Thomas and I reconnect on Mondays. Usually, Mondays are good Momma days, when I have the energy and patience to be completely engaged with the imaginative and mercurial toddler, and I can rise to his challenges.

Cultural Tourism

2009-04-04T20:31:00.002-04:00

Today I went to Leola, PA in Lancaster County to attend the site host orientation for Lancaster Farm Fresh, our CSA. I'd been out that way before, to visit the Ephrata Cloister, but we hadn't toured around much. It was wonderful to be out in the country, and to feel the open space. The orientation included visits to two LFFC farms; first to the Zook's where Eli showed us the baby greens and the heirloom tomatoes, and then to White Swan Acres, where Daniel showed us the onion starts and tiny watermelon sprouts.

While I certainly loved seeing the tiny plants that will soon end up on my dinner table, I was truly moved by seeing the farms. There is so much respect and joy evident in the way the farms are kept; everything is tidy and well-thought-out, with the grass carefully edged, and the greenhouses free of debris. While of a different religious tradition, it made me think about the Shakers, and how they believe that god is within oneself, so one should strive for perfection in all one does. "Do your work as if you had a thousand years to live, and as if you were to die tomorrow."

We made a baby!

2009-03-30T21:12:00.005-04:00

A Dutch Baby, that is. So easy and eggy and tasty. I could have eaten the whole thing myself, but I shared, and am glad I did. Thomas likes Dutch Babies too, and it's a painless way to get some protein into the kid. The recipe is from A Handmade Life by Molly Wizenberg, which I burned through over the weekend (quick read, and at its best reminded me of M.F.K. Fisher) and the only adjustment I made is using 1/2 cup of raw milk instead of half-and-half. It was probably just as creamy, since the milk had been sitting all night, and was 2/3 full.

Growing

2009-03-28T17:06:00.002-04:00

It's so satisfying to see the tulips poking up in the front yard. Thomas is thrilled. He planted them back in the fall, and has been patiently waiting to see them bloom since November. We planted arugula and lettuces a few weeks back, and peas on St. Patrick's day. If the ground dries out a bit this week, we'll put in some fennel and broccoli rabe. The arugula and lettuces have sprouted, and I am eagerly anticipating simple salads with olive oil, vinegar (lemon for Bob,) salt and pepper.

Past projects

2009-03-08T20:16:00.004-04:00

It's been a wild few days; no naps, lots of toddler emotions, and daddy out of town. Needless to say, I haven't gotten much farther on my current project. I decided to knit my own place mats. I'm following a hand-towel pattern from Mason Dixon Knitting and should have a set of four by 2011 or so. In the meantime, here's a little something I whipped up this winter.

I became fixated on the idea of making Thomas a crown for his second birthday. I found the perfect pattern from Little Turtle Knits: the King of All Wild Things Crown . Of course, I am nuts, and always have to use a different yarn, and my gauge never matches the pattern (even when I DO use the recommended yarn, I swear!) But after lots of back-and-forth with the ever patient and helpful Theresa, I got to knitting just 30 hours before B-day.

It felted up beautifully. This is my first intentionally felted project, and I was very pleased with the result. I wish I could say that Thomas loves it; instead he tolerates it. Here he is gamely wearing the crown in order to get his birthday cupcake.

Keeping warm

2009-03-03T22:00:00.003-05:00

I love quick projects. These legwarmers from Oneskein knit up in just a couple of days. I think I even managed to make them the same length. They look great, and let me pretend that it's nearly spring, since they allow me to wear a skirt without freezing.

Ever since finishing Thomas' epic blanket, I seem to need projects with near-instant gratification. No seams, please.

In like a lion

2009-03-02T14:15:00.004-05:00

Ah, March! Good thing I finally finished Thomas' blanket. Minnie likes it, too.

Ready for spring.

2009-02-28T15:40:00.002-05:00

You know, it's hard to keep up with anything once you have kids. Gardens, friends, knitting projects, the dishes and the endless laundry; any one of these is being neglected in favor of an other. I am happy to say that I have kept my family happy and healthy. Sadly this means I have not paid attention to several projects, including this one.

Onward! No time to look back!

I was out in the garden today, spreading wood chips on the muddy path. It is starting to look less and less like a weed patch. We turned the compost and found some black gold on the bottom, as well as some undigested surprises. This has delighted the birds, who are hopping all over the patch, as well as the neighborhood cats, who are eagerly stalking the birds. Nature in action.

Winter or not, I'm planting arugula tomorrow.

Since I haven't been gardening or writing, I have had time to knit a few things, including this adorable sweater for Thomas' cousin, Lily.

June 5 Delivery

2008-06-28T09:25:00.003-04:00

1 bunch Santo cilantro

1 head green romaine lettuce

2 bunches white turnips

1 head broccoli

1 pound red Russian kale

1 head Chinese cabbage

Kolrabi

Some highlights

2008-06-05T10:25:00.004-04:00

I've been really tired, so haven't wanted to cook as much as usual. Despite that, we have had some good meals.

I made spinach gnudi from the February issue of Martha Stewart Living. SO good, especially with the sage butter sauce. I used sage from our garden for that. Having a little herb garden is a treat; everything is tastier with fresh herbs, and I have even been inspired to garnish some of our dishes.

I had some extra spinach from the swap box, so also made Spinach Quinoa Bake from some past issue of MSL. Thomas loved that. It's a good dish for getting protein from the quinoa and eggs as well as good dairy fat (cottage cheese.) I found blanching the spinach a little fussy but it turned out well.

Finally, Bob improvised a dish from Vegetarian Cooking for Everyone for curried kale with beans. He used the mustard greens and black beans. It was delicious! The greens and tomatoes were a little sweet, and the lime he added made the dish seem somewhat Caribbean. This was also a hit with Thomas, who loves black beans. He surprised us by licking the limes with great relish.

I think those were the only dishes worth commenting on; it goes without saying that we've had exquisite green salads every day.

May 29 Share

2008-06-05T10:21:00.002-04:00

Wow, am I ever behind with this blog. The last delivery was really nice. We got our first fruit share, a pint of strawberries, and they were flavorful. We are them just as they were.

3/4 lb. spinach

3/4 lb. baby lettuce mix

1 head romaine

12oz white mushrooms

6 oz portobellos (or portabellas)

1 bunch mustard greens

1/4 lb baby kale/baby mizuna mix

Again with the chickpeas

2008-05-27T19:13:00.003-04:00

Monday dinner was similar to the spinach and chickpea extravaganza, except that this time I used mustard greens and served it with quinoa. At this point, I think it goes without saying that we also had a salad of mixed lettuces, radishes and turnips. It's time to try something new with greens, I think.

Dried chickpeas are so much tastier than canned, and I like them best when they are soaked for about 8 hours prior to coking. While the "quick-soak" method is convenient, the texture and flavor suffers a little.

All that is left from this week's share is quite a bit of lettuce, a package of mushrooms, and some rhubarb, which has muffin written all over it.

Friday dinner: improv

2008-05-26T09:56:00.005-04:00

Farfalle with mustard greens and cannellini beans (improvised and delicious)

Green salad with lime-marinated radishes and turnips

Sauteed mushrooms for Cate

Rhubarb-strawberry cobbler from Joy of Cooking

This was a great Friday dinner. Thomas ate some of the cannellini beans, and it could be that a little bit of mustard greens made their way in too. He was asleep by the time we ate the cobbler. Oh boy, was that ever good! Tart and sweet. We served it with vanilla ice cream, which was a nice contrast to the crumbly biscuit. Bob looked at me like I was some sort of goddess when he took the first bite of cobbler. Awwwww.....

May 22 CSA Delivery

2008-05-26T09:54:00.003-04:00

1 bag rhubarb

1 bunch radishes

2 heads romaine

8 oz. cremini mushrooms

1 bunch turnips

1 pint strawberries

1 bag lettuce mix

1 bunch mustard greens

Spinach and chickpeas

2008-05-22T11:16:00.003-04:00

Who knew that babies LOVE chickpeas. At least, babies in my family do. I'd like Thomas to eat more veggies, but I don't want to be sneaky, so I paired his favorite legume with spinach. He thought that was just fine, and ate a nearly adult-sized portion of chickpeas with spinach and coucous. I adapted the recipe from Madhur Jaffrey's World vegetarian. I had to adjust the quantities to suit what I had on hand but it turned out really well. This recipe, called something like Spanish style spinach and chickpeas, is a great quick meal if you have soaked and cooked chickpeas all ready. You can use canned, and it's still really good, but not nearly AS good.

Rhubarb, my new friend

2008-05-22T11:09:00.002-04:00

What to do with rhubarb? Well, I froze a bunch of it. With the remainder, I made the rhubarb muffins from Simply in season. We had left-over buttermilk from mothers' day waffles, and I wanted to use it before it went bad. I was a little suspicious of the recipe, but the muffins were delicious. They were more like little coffee cakes than muffins. Bob really likes this recipe, so I think we'll make more this weekend. Thomas thought the cake part of the muffin was fine, but he carefully avoided the rhubarb. I don't like to give him too many sweets, so we'll probably bring the next batch to playgroup to share with others, or maybe Bob will take most of them to the museum.

Getting fancy

2008-05-22T11:05:00.003-04:00

Asparagus. Oh how I love thee, asparagus! I ate one bunch of our asparagus simply sauteed with butter. Yum. But for the second bunch, I thought I would get fancy. I made the dilled asparagus souffle from The Enchanted broccoli forest. It turned out very nicely, all puffy and pretty and eggy. I didn't have any fresh dill, so used dried, which wasn't as good, I think. Making a souffle wasn't that hard at all, though it did seem like I used every bowl in the kitchen.

Thomas' verdict? He ate a lot of it! Wow, was I surprised. He even ate the asparagus bits happily.

May 15 Delivery

2008-05-15T13:45:00.004-04:00

Asparagus

Rhubarb (what am I going to do with THAT?)

3/4 lb. spinach

2 heads romaine

1 bunch radishes

8oz. white mushrooms

3 portobello caps

Portobello? Portabella?

2008-05-14T16:20:00.001-04:00

I've seen both, and think that portobello is correct (yeah, I know, I wrote portabella in earlier posts, which isn't exactly wrong, but it's not right. What IS wrong is portObellA or portAbellO.)

The queen of hearts

2008-05-14T16:16:00.002-04:00

Or tarts...

I made a spinach mushroom tart with most of the spinach from this week's delivery, using the recipe in Once upon a tart. It was good, but I neglected one of the important rules of cooking: read the whole recipe before setting out... I had all the ingredients, but forgot to take note of how much time I'd need. I took the tart out at 9:45pm. Drag.

Oh, I'm the only one in the house who likes it. Bob won't try it (he doesn't like mushrooms) and Thomas tasted it, but let it fall off his tongue. That's the toddler's subtle message.

I'd make this recipe again, and even though I didn't use the crisco the recipe called for, my crust was flakey and tender (just like me!)

Salad Days

2008-05-12T17:37:00.003-04:00

Those lovely baby lettuce greens are delicate and will start to head south soon, so much of the weekend was spent eating salad. On Sunday, we went to an Unhappening, and at long last, I had something to toss on the grill. I cooked up the last three portabellas, thinking I would share. Piggy me ate 'em all.

Friday dinner: special-ness

2008-05-10T12:17:00.002-04:00

Channa masala (from Madhur Jaffrey)

Whole-wheat couscous with butter

Moroccan orange and radish salad (from Enchanted broccoli forest, but 1/2 recipe, and with fewer oranges)

Wow, was this ever satisfying!

T loved the channa masala and seemed to like the couscous. So glad he likes spicy food!

Friday lunch: I guess I DO like portabella caps

2008-05-10T12:14:00.002-04:00

I got really sick of mushroom caps years ago, since that tends to be the default vegetarian option in so many restaurants. However, I decided to grill a cap for lunch, and now understand how delightful they can be.

Mushroom cap grilled (on the stove) with olive oil, garlic, oregano and thyme (herbs from the back 40.) Followed advice from Vegetarian cooking for everyone.

Huge green salad with radishes and red onion

t-a-s-t-y!