Eighth of an Acre Bounty

With all of the cool and wet weather lately it seems we have a second spring going. Although it isn’t doing the tomatoes any favors, the rhubarb is loving it. I made a second harvest today of 7 1/2 pounds of cleaned and diced rhubarb. Some of this will go into the freezer for Blackberry Rhubarb cobbler later this winter. But with 12 cups of the rhubarb I am going to make Rhubarb juice concentrate and can it. I came across the recipe last winter while thumbing through my Ball book. I think it will be good for instant homemade soda, just combine with seltzer in equal proportions. And I’m betting I can come up with a cocktail or two out of it as well.

We made our first attempt at blackberry picking earlier this week. We had scoped our usual spot about two weeks ago and though they would just be starting to come in now. We hadn’t been out picking the meager amount of ripe berries for more than 30 minutes when a big thunderstorm rolled in, complete with lightening (rare in these parts) and started dropping big fat raindrops on us. We ended up with about 1 quart of berries for our hurried efforts and those went directly into the freezer. They were still a bit tart and will be best baked in something with added sugar.

I am contemplating attempting rhubarb wine, or perhaps (if we ever do get a blackberry harvest) starting a second batch of hard cider with some blackberries thrown in. I racked the first batch of cider off to the original apple juice one gallon containers. It had stopped fermenting after the third week or so.  It came out rather nice and I am sure it will improve with age. It is quite dry, none of the sweetness you get with store bought hard cider – but it still has a very appley undertaste to remind you of its roots. I could sweeten it if I wanted to, but I think I like it the way it is.I really should start saving the odd beer bottles round here instead of recycling, so I can put my cider in them and carbonate it.

Not a bad deal in all. The 5 gallons of apple juice cost me $22.72 and the supplies (fermenter, corn sugar and two packs of yeast) cost $24.07. This end product is almost 9 six packs worth of cider, which round here retail for $6.99 each on a good day (9x$6.99=62.91). So even adding the cost of the equipment and the second pack of yeast and remaining sugar I am still $16.12 ahead of the game. And the next batch will just cost the 22.72 for juice as I have everything else I need. We have plenty of get togethers here and it will come in useful to not have the big outlay of money for stocking up on beer  before a party. If people want something else then they can bring it!

Plant Something – No planting this past week but next week for sure.

Harvest Something – Our first tomato! I am a little concerned it will be our first and last with the weather lately. Tons of green beans. Yin Yang beans. Lemon cucumber and summer squash. Pulled out half of the chinese broccoli out of the tomato bed. It was pretty gnawed up so it went to the girls. I will pull the rest this weekend and may try canning some.

Preserve Something – I put up 14 quarts of black beans, 3 of which didn’t seal so we have been eating beans for dinner all week. Blanched and froze the whole harvest of yin yang beans.

Prep Something – Does repair count? The torrential rain and Skyway wind took down part of our bean trellis the other day so we spent a portion of the morning MacGyvering a solution to last through the remaining harvest. Need to find a more sturdy solution to trellising, I am thinking cattle panels. The rain also beat down the tomatoes something awful so I spent yesterday evening trying to resurrect the slumped vines and stake them so there is some sort of air circulation and sunlight actually reaches those green tomatoes waiting so patiently.

Cook Something – Steak, green beans and salad. Cherry clafoutis. Pasta with fresh ricotta, the second to last quart of canned tomatoes from last year and assorted garden veggies. Baked Dill Salmon, roasted golden beets, roasted fennel and onions and garden salad. Salmon patties with red onion and corn, garden salad, green and black beans.

Manage your Reserves – One quart of tomatoes left. Eating down the bread previously frozen (another batch proofing right now).

Work on local food systems – Found a pig! Well, half a pig. We will be ordering half a pig from Whistling Train Farm, a local farm south of us between the rail tracks. It was a bit pricier than other pastured local pork. But they are a 15 acre farm within 1/2 hour of us. I figure the extra money is worth it to support folks that are preserving farmland so close to the city, instead of selling off so another big box store or office park can be built. I am also considering switching our CSA to them this winter – but need to get a handle on whether we will be producing enough of our own fall crop to necessitate a CSA subscription. I have been generally pleased with our current CSA (Full Circle Farm) but do have a couple issues. They bring in a LOT of produce from other regions to use in the boxes. California and Mexico don’t really count as local in my book. And I know they are trying to deal with a rather urban market that wants everything whenever they want it, but strawberries in December or tomatoes in April just aren’t necessities (nor do they really taste all that good and they kind of defeat the point of a CSA subscription). My other gripe is the local food that they do include in the boxes. Full Circle is also pretty active in the local farmers markets, which we frequent regularly. I see thier stands at the market and they have all kinds of interesting asian greens and other unique produce – but these items never seem to make it into the CSA boxes. The boxes are usually a pretty standard array of produce. To be fair Full CIrcle does have a lot of positive and convenient aspects too. They have regular drop sites in the city which makes it really easy to pickup. They have a comprehensive website in which you can review the content of your next box and make substitutions. And they also bill on a per box basis, which ennabled us to go on a twice a month delivery schedule instead of every week (cause I still like to go to the farmers market). And they are very flexible and will suspend your delivery at request when you go out of town, have too much food already, etc. Whew, guess I have been spinning on that for a while, eh? All in all I think Full Circle is doing just fine (they are up to 260 acres and a part of the farmland trust) and I like the idea of supporting a family right close to home that is giving it a go.

So this has been going round the blogosphere lately and I figured I’d play along. Mostly to see exactly where I fall among a list of 100 food items not picked by me. The verdict? I do believe I am pretty low-rent all told. Items like Fugu, Michelin 3 star tasting menus and foie gras just don’t have a role in my everyday life (or even my not so everyday life). I have traveled quite a bit and been exposed to a lot of different cuisines (rarely passing up the opportunity to try something new). But overall a budget and in some cases my own food politics have limited my participation in the list below.

Going through this list caused me to get a bit more introspective on my own food history and philosphy. I love food and cooking, it is one of my biggest passions. But at base I realize I am more interested in food in its place rather then trying every newfangled product flown in from Timbuktu. A good example is Durian. I have read about it for years and wanted to try it. And here in the Pacific Northwest it isn’t very hard to find, usually prominently displayed at any number of Asian groceries, but I had never tried it until my trip to Cambodia this past Christmas where I went on a tasting spree of tropical fruits. And I am pretty convinced that my memory of walking through the open air market and picking out the perfect Durian, Mangosteen and passionfruit in Cambodia created a much better food memory and appreciation than if I had bought a 3 month old durian from a market here in Seattle. Food is so much about a sense of place and experience – to take everythign out of its ecological, social and contextual elements in some ways cheats the experience. Now to create my own list…

The rules:

1) Copy this list into your blog or journal, including these instructions.
2) Bold all the items you’ve eaten.
3) Cross out any items that you would never consider eating.
4) Optional extra: Post a comment at www.verygoodtaste.co.uk linking to your results.

MY OMNIVORE’S 100 (51 out of 100):

1. Venison

2. Nettle tea ( I really should try this, we have no shortage of nettles round here)

3. Huevos rancheros

4. Steak tartare

5. Crocodile

6. Black pudding

7. Cheese fondue

8. Carp

9. Borscht

10. Baba ghanoush

11. Calamari

12. Pho

13. PB&J sandwich

14. Aloo gobi

15. Hot dog from a street cart

16. Epoisses

17. Black truffle (I’d have a hard time paying for it, but if’n I found it in the woods…gobble)

18. Fruit wine made from something other than grapes

19. Steamed pork buns

20. Pistachio ice cream

21. Heirloom tomatoes

22. Fresh wild berries

23. Foie gras (I am torn on this, I have no doubt it is absolutely delicious. But at the same time the method of production and the elitist reputation and price turns me completely off.)

24. Rice and beans

25. Brawn or head cheese

26. Raw Scotch Bonnet pepper

27. Dulce de leche

28. Oysters

29. Baklava

30. Bagna cauda

31. Wasabi peas

32. Clam chowder in a sourdough bowl

33. Salted lassi

34. Sauerkraut

35. Root beer float

36. Cognac with a fat cigar

37. Clotted Cream Tea (hmm, now I am curious…)

38. Vodka Jelly/Jell-O (I honestly can’t remember the experience :), but am sure at some point I have chewed jello shots)

39. Gumbo

40. Oxtail

41. Curried goat

42. Whole insects (well, not intentionally prepared anyways. I am sure I have consumed stowaways)

43. Phaal

44. Goat’s milk (Goats cheese, goat yoghurt, bring it on – I love it)

45. Malt whisky from a bottle worth $120 or more

46. Fugu

47. Chicken tikka masala

48. Eel

49. Krispy Kreme original glazed doughnut (not dying to do this again, I don’t get the big fuss)

50. Sea urchin

51. Prickly pear

52. Umeboshi

53. Abalone

54. Paneer

55. McDonald’s Big Mac Meal (see item 49)

56. Spaetzle (plans to make this in the coming winter)

57. Dirty gin martini

58. Beer above 8% ABV

59. Poutine

60. Carob chips

61. S’mores

62. Sweetbreads

63. kaolin (intentionally…really? I’ll admit I have probably consumed some in one of my once a decade self administerd spa days. Licking my lips with a facial mask applied. But really, am I totally missing something?)

64. Currywurst

65. Durian

66. Frogs’ legs

67. Beignets, churros, elephant ears or funnel cake

68. Haggis

69. Fried plantain

70. Chitterlings or andouillette

71. Gazpacho

72. Caviar and blini

73. Louche absinthe (in an underground bar in Prague, now there is a memory – stone walls and green liquor)

74. Gjetost or brunost (Ick, I have tried and tried and I really don’t like this stuff)

75. Roadkill

76. Baijiu

77. Hostess Fruit Pie

78. Snail

79. Lapsang Souchong

80. Bellini

81. Tom Yum

82. Eggs Benedict

83. Pocky

84. 3 Michelin Star Tasting Menu

85. Kobe beef

86. Hare (I’m guessing rabbit doesn’t count, too pedestrian?)

87. Goulash

88. Flowers

89. Horse (Horse and noodles in KZ, greasy – who knew Horses had so much fat?)

90. Criollo chocolate

91. Spam

92. Soft shell crab

93. Rose harissa

94. Catfish

95. Mole poblano

96. Bagel and lox

97. Lobster Thermidor

98. Polenta

99. Jamaican Blue Mountain coffee

100. Snake

To the person who drove into my parked car on Friday night:

Thanks for not bothering to stop or leave a note saying sorry. I just hate awkward conversations anyways.

Thanks for the (approaching 1k) repair bill I got stuck with for parking in front of my own house on one of the widest residential streets in the city.

Thanks for hitting and incapacitating the vehicle that we use most often for quick trips around town and fuel efficiency.

Thanks for giving me the excuse to finally buy a new side mirror, rim, tire, arm and knuckle for my drivers side front wheel. They were getting worn out and unstylish, weren’t they? And I do have all this money I just don’t know what to do with…

Thanks for the long scrape along the drivers side door. I think it makes me look tough too! And I think I will just leave it instead of paying another $500 to have it repainted.

And thank you for not hitting my boy, one of my neighbors or one of my animals. No doubt you were tanked, and had the opportunity presented itself you might have found it hard to pass up.

I still think you’re an asshole, but if this is the worst thing to happen to me this year- I will count myself lucky, take it and say thank you.

Must have been the rain that was coming, it has been pouring ALL day. Hard work being a dog around this joint eh?

I pulled the yin yang beans today. I didn’t plant nearly enough to make it worth leaving them on the plant to fully dry, not when garden space is at a premium around here. This is the first year I have grown these, and they are beautiful. The speckled surprise inside each pod almost makes the shelling fun. We ate some immature beans earlier in the year in a succotash and they were pretty tasty to boot.

Two short rows (maybe 6 feet long) yielded about a pound and a half of beans in various states of maturity. I will sort these to similar sizes and then blanch and freeze for winter. Although I think we have to eat some tonight, you know – just so I can be sure they are allright. Note that even the all green beans in the bowl above will make the black and white yin yang pattern evident when exposed to heat. So pretty.

This is Blume, she’s little but she ain’t afraid to look you in the eye. Blume is by far the most social (toward humans) chicken of the three. We got the girls from a good friend  who has a much larger flock a couple of hours away and in the first few days of the move and reorganization, it seems Blume came out on the bottom of the new pecking order established in our backyard. No doubt in large part to her size, she is a Bantam and is about half the size of Cleary and Dahl (a Wyandott and Arucana respectively). Within her first week at her new home she had lost the majority of the feathers on her head due to Dahl pecking at her and generally bossing her around. Blood was never drawn (a blessing) but Blume had it pretty rough for a while there. We tried separating her from the other two to give her head a chance to heal, but she went crazy – pecking and lunging at the fence that contained her. So we put her back in the pen with the other two to see if they could work it out (I still attended to her head and cleaned it daily for about a week with hydrogen peroxide).

And now, two-and-a-half months after we first acquired our new residents, things are pretty well settled. No, Blume hasn’t staged a coup and risen to the top of the chicken kingdom. She is still the low woman on the totem pole, but she has more than made up for this by being fast. And I don’t just mean chicken chasing a bug fast, this little girl is awesome fast – if there were a chicken Olympics I’d enter her as a sprinter. Due to her new found speed and her ability to fly-jump to locations the other two heavier girls can’t get to,  Blume now has feathers growing back on her head and is generally the happiest chicken I’ve ever met.

Of course she has (dare I say it) taken on favorite status around here. We have big gaping soft spots for the underdogs, the wounded and the otherwise ill prepared animals of the world. She gets hand fed anytime scratch is scattered. And she regularly gets the choice beetles and bugs that Gary encounters while chasing morning glory. She has also taken to perching on an upturned stump in the pen as if to look down on the other girls and glory in the fact that she can make it up there and they can’t reach her.

She sat there yesterday for about an hour, monitoring the backyard and waiting for one of us humans to come over and give her a treat. Chickens are great.

Things are getting in full swing around here, the meager green bean harvest of last week (4 oz) turned into 1lb 8 oz just a few days later. We finally have a red tomato! It is still a bit hard, but I am counting on picking it this week. The winter squash are putting on some bulk. All of my previously planted seeds for fall are up (chard, beets, lima beans). My fall flower seeds are coming up too. We have had a hot spell the past couple days with the temp climbing up into the 90’s. I even have one silly little eggplant. I love summer.

Plant Something – This week I finally planted the spinach, arugula and rutabaga seeds.

Harvest Something – Green beans, buttercrunch lettuce, bunching onions, yin yang beans, summer squash, oregano, leeks, kale, fennel, kohlrabi.

Preserve Something – 7 half pints of peach habanero salsa. 5 quarts of vegi-spelt soup.

Prep Something – I pulled out the remaining kolrabi, fennel and most of the lettuce rows to make room for above mentioned seeds. Loosened the soil in the rows and weeded (much overdue).

Cook Something – Lemon Balm ice cream (yum), Oregano and Lemon roasted chicken. Succotash with farmers market corn, yin yang beans, leeks, green beans and summer squash. Roasted new potatoes. Smoked eggplant ravioli.2 loaves Skyway Sourdough.  Fridge stuffed squash. Peach ice cream (yeah, we have a lot of ice cream in the freezer right now, about 2.5 quarts). Roast chicken, tomato, onion and Baba Ganouj sandwiches with lemon garlic green beans. Another big salad with steak, onions, hard boiled eggs, kohlrabi. Made about a pound of whole milk ricotta.

Manage your reserves – Picked up a few 2 quart commercial grade plastic containers for storing the ice cream I seem to be obsessed with lately. I’d like to be able to make good use of the summer fruit and preserve some of it in ice cream. Tasty and a hell of a lot cheaper than the $4 pints of Ben and Jerry’s that we have been known to consume in one sitting.

Work on Local Food Systems – Farmers market purchases: new potatoes, tomatoes (yellow and red), peaches, eggplant, okra and onions.

And these are 12 inch tiles in the background!

Our neighbors just gave us two huge zucchini this morning as we were sitting outside drinking the first cup of coffee. We usually go through this exchange every year. They always plant zucchini, I never plant zucchini – I always plant tomatoes and they never do. So later in the season I can return the favor with a bag full of tomatoes over the fence. It works out nicely. Although I have to admit I think we are still getting the better end of the deal having them as neighbors. Throughout the year, whenever they have family over-or the mom goes on a cooking binge, she will send over one of the kids with still hot lumpia, or tostones. And let me tell you, if you have never tried Philippine corn nuts flavored with garlic, you have not lived!

So in figuring dinner for tonight I had a main goal of trying to clear some space in the fridge. I need to pull the remaining kohlrabi, lettuce and fennel tomorrow so I can get some fall seeds in. I spied the arm sized zucchini and decided upon stuffing it for dinner. Now usually when squash get this big they are either tough or spongy and best suited for bread or other baking endeavors. But I have had pretty good luck with the zucchini from the neighbors, once you scoop out the almost-matured seeds, the flesh is still pretty dense and juicy.

I split one of the zucchini in half and cleared the seeds (those went to the girls, who were very grateful). I salted both halves and set in a colander for about an hour to get rid of some of the moisture. Meanwhile I fished around in the fridge to see what I could throw into the squash halves. I settled upon half an onion, half a large kohlrabi bulb, 4 cloves garlic, half a lemon (are you noticing a trend of halves here?) a half block of cream cheese (left over from a horribly sad birthday cheesecake disaster) one smallish eggplant and some bacon (because the boy gets a pooky face if there isn’t flesh on the table for dinner). I also unearthed a small bag of dried shitake mushrooms left over from Siu Mai (steamed pork and shrimp dumplings) when my brothers boyfriend was in town and graciously offered to cook some Chinese dishes with me. I broke these up into smallish chunks and set to soak in a cup of hot water.

I diced the onion, kohlrabi and eggplant and set to sweat in a pan with some olive oil. Meanwhile I took the remaining cream cheese and beat it about in a bowl to soften a bit. I added 1 clove crushed and diced garlic, thyme, marjoram, oregano and all of the lemon juice from the half lemon. Once the veggies in the pan had softened sufficiently I added the 3 remaining cloves of garlic (diced).

The cream cheese would act as a binder but I still needed a starch both to bulk up the stuffing and to fuel the boy (who must burn somewheres around 8,000 calories a day if one witnesses his eating habits and physique). I rinsed a cup and a half of quinoa while defrosting 3 cups of chicken broth. Then after dry toasting the quinoa in a heavy pot, I added the quinoa and set to simer for 20-25 minutes.

While the quinoa simmered/steamed. I rinsed the salted zucchini and placed on a baking tray, then popped them in the oven at 350 degrees. Once the quinoa had been taken off the heat and cooled a bit, I combined all the ingredients together in a bowl and mixed thoroughly,and seasoned to taste. I then pulled the zucchini out of the oven and stuffed the hollowed out cores liberally with the mixture, mounding it up above the zucchini halves.

I put the stuffed zucchini halves back in the oven, adjusted the temperature to 375 and baked for 35 minutes or so. And there was dinner.

I realize that a full scale narrative like this is hardly useful for someone looking for a recipe, but then a recipe would violate the purpose of the fridge clean-out. I suppose if someone (god forbid) were to actually use this as a recipe and I were to write measurements for everything it would look something like

• 1 Giant Zucchini
• 3 cups whatever mixed veggies/meats sound good together and you are trying to use up and clear out.
• 4-6 ounces soft cheese, or equavalent hard cheese with egg/milk added for moisture
• 2 cups cooked grain (rice, quinoa, bulghur, wheat berries, etc)
• Herbs and Spices
• Follow general direction indicated above, with the exception that the quinoa dried out a bit in the oven, next time I would probably either cover the roasting pan or sprinkle the top with cheese to retain moisture

This is the way most of the cooking goes around here, especially during summer when fridge space is at a high premium. I’d post an after picture, but in all reality it just wasn’t that pretty. A mixed up khaki stuffing just isn’t that photogenic, but it was pretty tasty.

Not a lot to say in this post, but I have been wanting to put up a number of pics taken with the macro setting on my camera. I get a bit wrapped up and can spend an hour in the garden squatting among the plants trying to get as close as possible. I received my current Camera (a Cannon Elf) as a gift from my parents – birthday before last, and now I think I have to invest in more disk space. I’ve gone a bit snap happy.

Chive Blossom

Alyssum

Flower Buds of Yin Yang Bean

Blueberries - we actually ate some this year!

Calendula

Purple Phlox

Green Envy Zinnia

Poppy Seed Head

Nasturtium

Monarda (Bee Balm)

Viola

and last but not least a profile of the workhorses that make it all happen.

Nasturtium has a visitor

Bee in the Rhody