Tag: Kitchen Garden

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Kitchen Garden Living in Society

Garden is In

Friday Harvest

It may seem late yet I declared the garden planted on Friday.

We’ve already had a bumper crop of vegetables and we’re not even started with tomatoes, eggplant, peppers, green beans and more. There will always be garden work to do but for now it’s planted.

Time to turn to other things.

What I mean is between now and Aug 4, when orchard work begins, there is writing, household repairs and cleaning, and loads of work to improve our home life. At some point I switched from being a consumer to a doer and that makes the difference in my mid-sixties. I just stay home and do.

Water Bottles

Politics plays a role in current affairs and it’s much different than it was. My focus is to understand the complex world in which we live and work to make a positive impact. My themes haven’t changed (environment, social justice, economic survival, good governance) although my understanding of what needs doing has. During the re-election of George W. Bush I re-activated in politics. Each succeeding campaign was both learning and engagement. After seven campaigns, I enter my eighth with a deeper understanding of the role social networks play in determining winners and losers. I’m not referring to Facebook, Instagram and Twitter here, but broader social movements and the momentum they bring to an election.

The first Obama campaign, with its demographics analysis and targeted voter lists seems like ancient history. What Obama did can’t be replicated, even if we wanted. To better understand the electorate, we must knock on every door, hear every voter, and determine how to fix the broken politics endemic to our lives. Creativity and networking are important. We don’t know if what’s broken can be fixed in a generation. If we don’t start now, it may never be fixed.

Flower at the Farm

Politics is not everything. After only three hours at yesterday’s garlic harvest at the farm I felt a bit dizzy, presumably because of hard work in the sun. It was a temperate day, nonetheless, I played it safe and called it early. My point is I’m not getting any younger. Working a six or eight hour shift in the sun doesn’t work as well as it did a few years ago. Working smart is replacing working harder.

The rest of the year goes something like this. July is a month to work at home: advance my writing projects, get space at home to be more livable, and work to get the yard into better shape. August through October is work at the orchard. This year I may be taking on additional responsibilities, but for sure I’ll be there weekends and on Friday Family nights. November and December will be focused on writing. While this is going on, I’ll continue to work at the home, farm and auto supply store two days a week. Every dime of income has a place to be used at this point.

Declarations like mine about the garden are ephemeral. What matters more is a process of continual improvement in which life goes on as best we can make it until the final curtain falls. In the meanwhile, we expect there will be garden vegetables to eat.

Categories
Home Life Kitchen Garden

Onslaught of the Mechanicals

First Carrots

Having time to garden is helping the results.

It is one thing to know what to do and another to execute according to that knowledge.

For the first time in I can’t remember when weeds did not get the better of me this summer. With plenty of grass clippings for mulch, and plastic to suppress weeds around the cucumbers and peppers, everything looks pretty good.

There is an abundant harvest already. I’m proud of the carrots in the photo, as this is the first year I’ve grown such big ones.

While gardening is going well, mechanical things around our 25-year old house are not.

I don’t know whether it was the dryer or the kitchen sink that had problems first. Then the washer went out… then the refrigerator. Yikes!

At this writing we hired repairmen to fix the washer, dryer and kitchen faucet, ordered a new refrigerator, and have a new freezer — all within eight days. Here’s hoping the onslaught of the mechanicals is finished.

Once the refrigerator arrives from the factory in a couple of weeks, we’ll get back to normal. In the meanwhile I just finished an ice run to town so I can refresh the four coolers in the morning. We’ll use our daughter’s college refrigerator and the coolers until a loaner arrives later this week.

Kate’s Garlic Rack

This morning I stopped at the two farms where I work to pick up final settlement checks. We’ll need those and more to pay for the mechanicals. There’s a lot of action at the farms. At Kate’s place the garlic is in the barn and looking great. At a CSA the farmer must grow enough for members plus an additional amount for seed in the fall. It is a big crop and the photo is only part of it.

I caught up with Carmen tilling a field and made arrangements to help with her garlic harvest on Saturday. She has an international crew of students helping us. I asked if there was any dill to make pickles. She said most of it bolted but I could glean what I could. There was plenty to make a gallon batch using yesterday’s cucumber harvest. Those pickles are already in a crock.

Recent days have been like an Indy 500 pit stop of getting things fixed and serviced. Now I’m ready to get back to the track.

Categories
Kitchen Garden

Kale and Garlic Scape Pesto

Garlic Scapes

Here’s a second recipe for kale and garlic scape pesto. The first uses walnuts and Parmesan cheese and can be found here.

Get out the food processor and place it on the counter.

Measure the following and place in the bowl of the food processor in the same order:

Two thirds cup raw pine nuts
One third cup thinly sliced garlic scapes
One and one half cups roughly chopped kale, packed
One third cup whole basil leaves, packed
One teaspoon sea salt
One half teaspoon freshly ground black pepper
Two tablespoons lemon juice. If fresh lemon, peel first and add the yellow rind
Two thirds cup extra virgin olive oil (reserved)

Turn on the processor and grind the mixture until it starts to break down.
Drizzle the olive oil into the mixture as the machine runs.

Scrape the bowl into a quart canning jar with a spatula.

Spread some immediately on a slice of sourdough bread toast for the cook and any kitchen visitors. Screw on the lid and refrigerate until ready to use.

Fresh pesto keeps only briefly without oxidation in the ice box. If you want to use it way later, put the jar in the freezer.

Categories
Kitchen Garden

Garden Garlic

Garlic Patch

Garlic growing happened in our home garden.

After randomly planting it in a plot where it propagated year after year without care, last October I planted cloves the way I learned from my friend and mentor Susan Jutz.

I harvested 20 head of garlic this morning.

What made this year different was devoting time to find every available opportunity for good growth. It was worth it.

Following are some photos of the harvest.

Garlic Scapes
First Head of Garlic
The Garlic Harvest
Makeshift Garlic Rack

Now that the harvest is in the garage, I’m heading to the kitchen to make some kale-garlic scape pesto for lunch.

Categories
Living in Society Writing

Pickling

Pickling Cucumbers

Beginning Monday, I’ll be covering the editor’s desk for Trish Nelson at Blog for Iowa for the month of July.

Everyone needs a vacation and Trish works harder and more persistently than most to get a progressive message up every weekday.

That means a lot of writing for me. It also means I get better with the work. I’m looking forward to the renewal.

With work at the farms finished and the home, farm and auto supply store down to two days per week, There is more time for writing.

For today, it’s home repairs, cleaning and making the first batch of dill pickles with this morning’s harvest. It is expected to be a full day and for that I’m thankful.

Categories
Kitchen Garden

Summer Harvest – 2018

Cart of Kale

It has already been a good year for our garden. We’re just getting started.

Yesterday I picked first broccoli, along with cucumbers and cilantro. The ice box is jammed with garlic scapes, greens, beets, turnips, lettuce, sugar snap peas, celery, herbs and much more.

Yet to come are pears, eggplant, tomatoes, peppers, carrots, zucchini, and lots more. The challenge becomes figuring out what to do with the abundance through cooking, preserving and giving it away. It’s a nice challenge to face.

For dinner I made a simple salad with oddly shaped cucumbers from the garden. The recipe is easy: peel and chop cucumbers from the garden, four small ones; one cup Greek yogurt; two teaspoons finely chopped fresh dill; salt and pepper to taste. Combine ingredients in a mixing bowl and gently stir until fully incorporated. Refrigerate until dinner time. Served with a simple pasta dish, the flavor was excellent, the meal satisfying — perfect summer fare.

Our news is we found a plumber who fixed our ailing kitchen faucet. After 25 years of normal use the brass ring where the lever hooks to the valve had worn out and we couldn’t draw water. I examined the problem in the morning and determined since the pipes were soldered together, fixing it was beyond my skill level. I made three calls before getting a live person on the telephone. The plumber arrived within a couple of hours.

“As long as there is indoor plumbing there will be work for plumbers like me,” he said.

Once the repair was completed, we admired the new faucet… for more than a little while. It’s small things like running water in the kitchen that make our lives better. A brief interruption in service brought with it an appreciation of things we take for granted.

It rained overnight, vindicating my decision not to water the garden last night. Rain nourishes the landscape and can wash away our problems if we’ll let it. Knowing how to go with the flow of rainfall can be a source of constant joy.

Categories
Kitchen Garden Reviews

Summer Begins

First Marketmore Cucumber

A letter from our rural medical clinic reached me early this morning. I read every word it had to say.

I said, the letter reached me early this morning, I read every word it had to say.

Rural life ain’t nothing but the blues, how much longer can we live this way?

The physician I saw in April is moving his practice to Williamsburg — too far to drive for routine appointments. His replacement is an ARNP, which stands for advanced registered nurse practitioner. I read the definition but don’t understand what it means except we’re changing from two physicians to one… another nail in the coffin of rural health care.

We’re lucky to live close to the clinic’s hospital, and a large teaching hospital operates in the county seat. We won’t be deprived of care. I don’t look forward to changing physicians for the fourth time since leaving my transportation career.

I’ll try the new arrangement. What else is there to do?

This is the last weekend for soil blocking at the two CSA farms. After that, the farmers will make their own for the remaining fall share starts. I’m taking a break before returning to the orchard in August.

I finished reading The Shepherd’s Life: Modern Dispatches from an Ancient Landscape by James Rebanks before heading to the garden.

The shepherd went to Oxford, so it’s natural he would do something outside the normal range for a sheep herder. He’s been traveling and speaking to groups of farmers about his life in the Lake District of England. Last January in Ames, he spoke to members of Practical Farmers of Iowa at their annual convention. They made a YouTube of his speech. I haven’t viewed it yet.

What struck me about the book is the comparison with Iowa. Not necessarily what one might think.

On the one hand a well-settled place of William Wordsworth, Samuel Taylor Coleridge, Beatrix Potter and the Lake Poets. In front of us a landscape barely settled since the Black Hawk War of 1832. Any sense of ancient Iowa prairie is long gone and replaced with a grid of roads outlining row cropped fields and concentrated animal feeding operations. The long history of sheep herding in the Lake District served as a reminder most Iowa farmers are recent trespassers as agriculture and land use continue to evolve. There won’t always be soy and corn in what was once an ancient lake bed.

Rebanks informed my view of the annual cycle of sheep farmers. Now I know why some of my friends are so stressed during spring lambing. I’m sorry I missed the speech, and when spring farm work is done, I plan to spend the hour to watch it.

For the time being back to working on the garden to chase away these summertime blues.

Categories
Kitchen Garden

Heat Advisory Blues

Rest Area in Polk County, Iowa

It seems like spring was never here.

Big Grove is under a heat advisory until 7 p.m. today. That means hot temperatures and high humidity creating a risk of heat-related illnesses. It barely cooled overnight so the day gets a head start on being oppressive.

There is a three hour gardening window before temperatures rise back into the 80s. As soon as the sun rises, I plan to harvest what’s ready and plant bell peppers and basil seedlings. There’s a lot of gardening and yard work to do. I’ll keep at it as long as I can.

The rest of today I’ll work inside — at my desk, in the kitchen, and folding laundry — getting ready for another busy week.

My shirt was drenched with sweat on the drive home from Des Moines yesterday. I made a pit stop at a state run rest area and bought a 20-ounce cherry Coke to drink on the way home. I can’t recall the last time I had one but couldn’t bear the thought of buying bottled water. Regretfully, I forgot my refillable water bottle at home.

I finished making and canning spring vegetable broth after arriving home. Seven new jars are on the shelf with three and a half more in the ice box, about three gallons. My target is to have two dozen quarts on hand, so another batch of seven will do it. There are plenty of turnip and beet greens plus kale for the broth.

We have a functioning air conditioner and will run it to cool down the house. It takes the edge off the heat and humidity and that’s positive. I learned the oppression of high heat and humidity during the drought of 2012. It felt like there was no escape. Today reminds me of that summer.

Light peeks around the curtain on the east side of my study. It’s time to get out in the garden for a while. And to contemplate what is next.

Categories
Kitchen Garden

Farfalle with Arugula and Sugar Snap Peas

Dinner Ingredients

There is little point in growing a garden if one doesn’t use the produce.

Yesterday I made the first pick of arugula and sugar snap peas for a classic dish with farfalle.

Preparation is done while the pasta is cooking and the result makes the effort worth it.

Put six ounces of dry farfalle pasta on the boil for 12 minutes or until al dente.

While the pasta is cooking clean the sugar snap peas, removing the vein, and slice thinly. Next, roughly chop the arugula. Set both aside.

Cut ten grape tomatoes in half and set them aside. We get grape tomatoes from the warehouse club, although the first flowers are appearing on the tomato plants in the garden. It won’t be long before we have home grown cherry and grape tomatoes.

Remaining ingredients include a scant quarter cup of lemon juice, one cup Parmesan cheese, a generous tablespoon of granulated garlic, and 2 knobs of butter.

Cut the butter into small bits and place in a large bowl. Dump in the drained pasta and gently mix to melt the butter. Next add the lemon juice, peas and arugula and mix until incorporated. Finally, add the tomatoes, cheese and garlic mixture and mix together until the cheese coats all of the pasta. Salt and pepper to taste and serve. Makes 2-3 servings.

Seasonal side dishes include a lettuce salad with kohlrabi, spinach and kale or steamed asparagus.

I must be the worst food writer in the world as I neglected to take a photo of the finished dish. Suffice it to say it tasted like spring.

Categories
Kitchen Garden

Saturday Rain and a Lovely Day

Cucumber Plants

The garden and yard were excessively dry Saturday morning so I watered the vegetables. Couple of hours later it rained, then cleared up in time for a wedding at Wapsipinicon State Park.

It was a lovely day for a wedding, and for living in Iowa.

We could use more lovely days… and more rain.

I had a couple of food inspirations this week.

On Thursday I had meetings after my shift at the home, farm and auto supply store so I stopped at Estela’s Fresh Mex Mexican Restaurant on Burlington Street in the county seat. I ordered veggie tacos with the traditional mix. The line cook measured a portion of vegetables (corn, onion, peppers and other undetermined items) on the griddle and sauteed them. Next the mixture was distributed among three flour tortillas in a specialized stand and served with choice of toppings and sauce. The inspiration was more process than composition. Because I make breakfast tacos at home at least once a week, I found inspiration.

I use fresh uncooked flour tortillas from the warehouse club in our home kitchen. The typical filling is onion, bell or hot peppers according to what is available, fresh garlic, and recipe crumbles seasoned with home-blended spices. This mixture reminds me of tacos Mother used to make so I anticipate keeping it. What Estela’s traditional mix inspired is a second type of filling, a combination of sweet corn, black beans, onions, peppers and garlic that could be made fresh in a big batch and stored in the ice box. When I want tacos, I could portion out what’s needed and keep the rest — handy for breakfasts when time is short. I plan to work through some variations on this idea during coming weeks.

A second food inspiration was to begin making smoothies.

A smoothie is a use it up recipe based on what’s available. I start making them in spring as spinach and kale come in. It’s a good way to use some of the bounty. The base is home made almond milk.

The preparation for almond milk is to soak raw almonds for three days, changing the water at least once daily, and grinding them in a blender. I use two cups filtered water with one cup raw almonds. It makes enough for three or four servings. I use the entire blended mixture but if one wanted almond milk like what comes from the grocer, it could be strained with a cheesecloth. For breakfast smoothies I use everything… why not?

When I worked at the warehouse club they sent us to Chicago to be trained as demonstrators by Blendtec staff. The basic technique is to load the blender jar with liquids and soft ingredients on the bottom, then top with frozen and hard ingredients. Leafy greens can go before or after the hard ingredients. Using this technique eliminates any need to poke ingredients into a moving blade with a spatula.

A typical smoothie includes a cup of almond milk, a Cavendish banana, other fruit in the ice box, a quarter cup of Greek yogurt and a generous handful of greens. I’m also using up a home-mixed protein powder, but when that’s gone I won’t replace it. Protein comes from the yogurt and almonds.

I also made a spread from goat cheese and other ingredients in the ice box. This too is a use it up recipe, although I bought the goat cheese at the warehouse club intending to make a spread.

I put a log of goat cheese in the bowl of the food processor with two cloves of peeled garlic. Next, a generous cup of purchased New Mexico Hatch Chile mix. I’d use home-canned hot peppers if I hadn’t purchased the blend which included salt, garlic and lime juice. I added half a small jar of sun dried tomatoes from the ice box and processed everything until smooth. I added no seasoning, and after refrigeration a day or two garlic began to overpower the pepper flavor. If I did it again, I’d use only one clove of garlic and try other on-hand ingredients. The spread goes well on crackers and on toast.

Try any of these three ideas and I bet you will be on your way to a lovely day.