Category: Kitchen Garden

Gardening, Farming, Cooking, Recipes, Local Food, Everything that goes into meal production.

Make Real Food

If a task or event is on the white board, it is likely to get some attention. Yesterday I wrote “make real food” on it.

I knew I would draw from the garden, ice box and pantry for the meal, but what I would make—had no clue.

It became is a sort of enchilada, but not really Mexican. The intent was to use Swiss chard and other summer vegetables. Here’s what I did:

Cook 6 raw tortillas in a dry pan. Set aside.
Make tomato sauce by draining a quart of diced tomatoes and processing them in the blender. (In retrospect, I should have seasoned the sauce, but left it just tomato puree).
Prepare 6-8 Swiss chard leaves by removing the veins. Chop the veins and stems into bits and the leaves into one inch ribbons.
Using olive oil, sautee one third onion, chard stalks and veins, quarter cup chopped celery seedlings, one third of a zucchini cut into quarter inch cubes, and season with sea salt.
When the veg is softened, add one 15 ounce can prepared black beans.
Add the Swiss chard leaves, a generous tablespoon of lemon juice, and stir gently until the leaves start to wilt. Remove from the heat and set aside.
Into a rectangular baking dish pour enough tomato sauce to cover the bottom.
Take a cooked tortilla and spoon the vegetable mixture on the middle. Sprinkle on a tablespoon of feta cheese, tightly roll the tortilla and place it in the baking dish on top of the sauce. Repeat until the dish is full.
Pour the remainder of the tomato sauce on top, cover with aluminum foil and bake for about an hour in a 360 degree oven.
Remove the casserole and place on a rack. Remove the foil and sprinkle more feta cheese on top. Let sit on the counter for 10-15 minutes to cool.
Serve with a favorite accompaniment, such as hot sauce, sour cream or chutney.

The result made four generous servings.

Tags cooking, homelife, Kitchen Garden, local food

Friday in the Bean Patch

Post author By Paul Deaton
Post date July 10, 2015

The first harvest of green beans is finished as humans enter a race with nature to get the best of what’s in the garden patch.

Rodents, slugs and insects all want a piece of the action. Today I’ll pull up the plants, harvest what remains that is edible and prep the soil for replanting.

Green beans are one of our favorites. We have about ten pounds in the ice box ready for cooking—not enough to preserve.

Yesterday I harvested Swiss Chard. While the preparation is a bit boring—slice leaves into ribbons, saute with onions and garlic—it is a tasty, seasonal side dish. With the kale and lettuce we have an abundance of leafy green vegetables.

The broccoli seedlings are coming along, and if there is time, I hope to prepare a plot for the planting today.

There is one other garden patch ready for second cropping, and it will likely be turnips and radishes. The weather has been very cool, and there may be a window to get them in before the traditional July 25. With the crazy weather, we press against preconceived notions about seasonality and try new things.

And we weed the garden, never catching up with the work as nature works incessantly to take over the plots again.

Tags homelife, Kitchen Garden, local food, Sustainability

Kitchen Garden Work Life

Cranking It Out

Post author By Paul Deaton
Post date July 8, 2015

In high summer, garden harvest is it. We eat a lot of fresh foods not available the rest of the year, and purchase less from outside suppliers.

Just having garden produce in the house means we eat more of it. Our plates are filled out with green beans, sauteed kale, and other dishes—our cooking is not fancy, but the results are often delicious.

Some mornings, all there is to do is harvest the day’s meals.

This week has been a challenge of work. When I began at the warehouse 18 months ago, accepting the work was partly predicated on shifts beginning at 10:30 a.m. to enable my writing.

Since our supervisor left employment about a month ago, two of us have been filling in while the corporation seeks a replacement. I don’t like the newer, 8:30 a.m. start because it pushes out creative time. It may be a temporary problem, so I’m cranking it out, writing as much as I can in the wee hours of morning before heading to the garden for the harvest.

And that’s where I’m heading as soon as I make this post.

Tags Kitchen Garden, Sustainability, worklife

Kitchen Garden

Mulching the Kale

Post author By Paul Deaton
Post date June 30, 2015

The kale is mulched and ready for a long season of production. I harvested a bushel today and most of it went to friends at the library. We already have more than enough in the ice box, and with so many plants this year, we can be picky about what we eat.

Underneath the grass clippings is a layer of newspaper. Once it is dampened down and moistened, weeds will have trouble poking through. It should be worth the extra effort because the way the plants are growing, with the pick leaves from the bottom strategy, we should be in kale through November.

Since rabbits got to my broccoli, I planted more seeds for a second crop. I put the starter tray outside and the seeds are germinating more normally than they did in the bedroom window. There is something to the idea that light is the key to growing broccoli and I’ll re-think how I do it next year.

Yesterday I got out the ladder, climbed on the roof and cleaned out the gutters. While up there I noticed how many pears were forming at the top of the tree. It is going to be a puzzle to harvest those when ready. They were growing higher than my head while standing on the roof.

There’s more to life than gardening, but the green beans for dinner last night, and the promise of carrots, kale and fresh tomatoes keeps me working at it steadily.

It’s all part of sustaining a life in a turbulent world.

Tags broccoli, kale, Kitchen Garden

Kitchen Garden

Garden Pivot Point

Post author By Paul Deaton
Post date June 24, 2015

This year’s garden work reached its summer pivot point neatly on the solstice. Main crops of tomatoes, peppers, beans, kale, carrots and cucumbers have been planted. There are some kitchen herbs, garlic, celery and a bumper crop of apples and pears. More planting will be done soon, as a couple of plots have space for a second crop. Of course July 25 is by tradition planting day for second crop turnips.

Good news is my car was parked inside the garage last night after being outside for two months. It is a sign summer is really here. I am halfway through my ritual read of The Great Gatsby by F. Scott Fitzgerald, arguably the best novel of summer. Before I get too deep in iced tea, new summer projects, and leisure, let me record some tomato experiences.

I planted tomato seeds the third week in March and it was too early for the garden. It would be better to time them as I expect to plant them, with one batch ready to go into the ground mid-May, and a second mid-June.

I also planted too many tomatoes indoors. I could reduce the quantity by two thirds. After consulting with a local farmer, I restricted myself to one plant per cage. Too, I double cropped with the early peas, so the seedlings got very big in too small a container before planting the last ones yesterday. For future reference, if I plant 1.5 times the number of seeds I expect to plant as seedlings, that should be more than enough for the season.

The Brandywine tomatoes have a distinctive leaf shape and texture, so I am looking forward to seeing how those turn out. Now comes the growing and I am off to the warehouse for a shift.

Tags Kitchen Garden, local food, tomatoes

Kitchen Garden

It’s Not Only About Food

Post author By Paul Deaton
Post date June 19, 2015

Yesterday was a garden work day.

I planted tomatoes where the peas grew, tilled the soil where the rabbits had dined on my broccoli to put in hot peppers, and spent time mulching, weeding and watering. I made a dent in the work.

Without the bartering agreement at the CSA this year, the garden must produce and so far, it has.

What’s currently growing best is green beans, kale, carrots, garlic, herbs, tomatoes, herbs and daikon radishes. A lot of crops have a way to go before producing.

The relationship between food, retailers, diet, health, wellness, exercise and tradition is complicated. Almost too complicated. Understanding it is embedded in our culture and often we trade off one value for another. There are no absolutes.

A vivid narrative about food’s role in society was written by William Kamkwambe in The Boy Who Harnessed the Wind. He described the relationship of his family to food in Malawi, recounting the seasonality of the maize harvest, the relationship between the weather and land, and the role governmental organizations play in the food economy. The picture Kamkwambe paints is simplistic, and that’s why it is so vivid. It is the definition of subsistence living.

In the West we have a different approach. Everywhere around us there is an abundance of food. Grocery stores are filled with tens of thousands of items. A host of local farmers crowd each local market making diverse, seasonal produce available for reasonable prices. While there are people who are food insecure—who don’t know where their next meal is coming from—the food is available in the retail supply chain. The problem is often inadequate funds to buy it.

Adding value to raw materials is what business and industry does and this applies to food. Taking scraggly-looking produce from the garden, an experienced cook can make something from it to feed both the body and soul. If retailers derive a margin from processing raw ingredients into meals and other food items, there is still an inexpensive opportunity for people to cook themselves, even if busy schedules are an excuse to buy prepackaged, precooked meals or dine out.

In the six years since leaving my transportation career, food has been about developing a sustainable culture. It involved producing and preparing local food, but also commerce. It’s about getting along in society–and garden work days.

Tags Kitchen Garden, local food, Sustainability

Kitchen Garden

Slow Food in Context

Post author By Paul Deaton
Post date June 17, 2015

Weeding kale produced a peck of leaves for the kitchen. The garden plants are healthy enough I sent 12 kale seedlings reserved as replacements into town for re-distribution. They found a suitable home as I spent a couple of hours in the kitchen preparing dinner.

Yesterday was the first day in a while where life produced time to work in the garden when weather was sunny and without rain. The ground was soaked, making weeding easier. I hardly made a dent in the work, however, a garden waits for no one and there was plenty to harvest. In addition to kale, there were carrots, sweet peas and turnips.

My editor assigned a new story in the morning, so I went to Iowa City to interview the subject. On the way home, I stopped at the grand opening of the new Hy-Vee on North Dodge Street.

It was different from the store where we had shopped for more than 20 years. Expecting the latest in supermarket merchandising I was prepared—for the most part.

My shopping list included one item: a six-pack of beer for a beverage with dinner. Using the latest tactics to resist over spending, I grabbed a hand-held basket instead of a cart. I picked up one extra item, some Iowa-grown Jolly Time popcorn, which is a pantry staple and was on sale.

The produce section and bakery were just inside the front door. I stopped and took it in. The space was crammed full of people and products. About eight people were serving food samples on toothpicks. Management staff was present in abundance. It took me a while to find the regular produce section, which had a misting tube above, giving the broccoli, peppers and other items a shiny appearance, but condemning them to a shorter shelf life. I thought about the scruffy look of the produce I had just picked, and longed for another carrot just pulled from the ground.

It took me a while to find the dairy aisle, which was, of course, furthest from the front door. In all, I spent less than 15 minutes inside, and look forward to returning to evaluate the tens of thousands of items inside when there aren’t so many people.

At home, I put the six-pack of LaBatt Blue in the ice box and brought the garden produce upstairs. I opened a beer.

The concept was a dinner made from locally produced kale, peas, carrots and eggs. I put rice on to cook and got to work cleaning the harvest. By the time I finished, almost three hours had elapsed.

Dinner was the process of preparation—including the trip to Iowa City—and a vision of the final plating.

There were four distinct dishes: peas and carrots; kale sauteed with onions and spring garlic; brown rice cooked in vegetable broth; and eggs over easy. I plated the kale, rice and peas and carrots as above, then topped it with two eggs, sprinkled with feta cheese and a tablespoon of home made bell pepper sauce.

I covered one plate without the eggs and left it on the counter for Jacque’s dinner after work. Mine was too much to eat, so there were leftovers to be made into a breakfast burrito later in the week.

This was slow cooking. More than that, it was a life. A day of retreat from low wage work, doing things that matter. We need a slow food day in the context of busy lives—more than we understand.

Tags cooking, Kitchen Garden, local food, Sustainability

Kitchen Garden

Favorite Places – My Garden

Post author By Paul Deaton
Post date June 1, 2015

Our garden is one of my favorite places.

A mature rabbit hangs out in the thicket next door. I see it in the garden often, usually minding its own business—being a rabbit—outside the fences. This year I’ve been pushing the limits of what can be unfenced and survive.

Today, the rabbit was sitting, next to the row of carrots chewing. Luckily, it was eating clover, not the unprotected carrot tops six inches away. My fear is it’s a she and undisciplined little rabbits will ravage the garden until getting picked off by the many predators who live nearby.

Later, the rabbit came back and was eating radish leaves planted between tomato cages. I picked a leaf and ate it—sweet and refreshing. No wonder rabbits eat them. I chased it away again. It ended up munching the clover in a neighbor’s yard, then disappeared in the midday heat.

This is the ecology of my life—living as best I can in the found environment. It’s not a natural place. The forests are long gone, and the weather is unpredictable. The ground is already parched, and nearer sundown I’ll water the young plants so they don’t perish before being mulched.

With a little management, the garden produces more food than we need, but not enough to make a business of it. The seasonality of spinach and inadequate freezer space makes gifts to friends and neighbors. The same will hold true when the kale matures, tomatoes come in, and the fall apple harvest arrives. All are parts of this ecology.

Here, I can forget about politics, society and culture—except maybe for agriculture. The symbiosis with this place is hard coded in me. Not coding like DNA or computer algorithms. More like a recipe made from scratch and varied with each iteration.

The truth is we all need something like this garden.

When we planned our move from Indiana we sought a place with enough of a lot to grow this large garden. We built everything on this piece of property to fit our lives. While it is not a perfect place, its lack of perfection is alluring. Suited respite from a society that does not appear to care much, if at all, about anything beyond circles of family and friends.

It is a place to gain strength for the next endeavor.

Tags environment, Favorite Places, Kitchen Garden, Sustainability

Kitchen Garden

Garden Fences

Post author By Paul Deaton
Post date May 20, 2015

Here’s what is surprising. The vegetables outside the garden fences are mostly untouched by rabbits, deer and other critters. Some behind fences are getting nibbled.

Who knew I could leave lettuce, turnips, carrots, radishes, spinach and other plants unfenced and the animals would stay away. Maybe I’m just lucky… or maybe someone knows an answer.

Next garden workday I’ll harvest and see how it goes the rest of the season.

Tags Kitchen Garden, lettuce, local food, spring

Home Life Kitchen Garden

Planting Broccoli

Post author By Paul Deaton
Post date May 15, 2015

Growing broccoli from seeds is tough without a germination shed and controlled environment. Miraculously, I made it from seeds to plants in the ground, with hope of a crop. I fenced them in before rain came yesterday.

This morning I inspected the plants and all survived. Each has the prospect of a head of broccoli, one of our favorite vegetables. We’ll see how they fare on the next step of the journey, but the hardest part is over.

I also planted several varieties of radishes, arugula and the first eight Amish Paste tomato plants before the rain. It felt as though I got some things done, but not nearly enough. Now the ground will have to dry out before I can get in the garden for the next round of planting.

Someone gave me a treatment to speed removal of mucus from my sinuses, which has been an ongoing problem for the last three weeks. I mixed up a quart of water with two teaspoons of salt and one teaspoon of baking soda and applied the liquid into my nostrils with a turkey baster. I mentioned the treatment to several people, and they all mentioned the neti pot, which was news to me.

I gained a better understanding of what’s going on in my noggin—I never understood it was open space in there. The treatments made me feel better for a while, but the mucus keeps coming. It’s a weird sickness where I feel much like normal, but cough to void the rheum of the mucus presumably gathering in response to an irritation or infection.

So today I am hunkered in with my neti pot substitute, saline solution and lemon water, hoping to get some writing done. Plus there’s the prospect of broccoli.

Life could be a lot worse.

Tags Kitchen Garden, local food