Kale got you down already? Skip the kale chips and use it for breakfast instead! There's a great breakfast casserole recipe here (thanks to my CSA for passing this along - it's a keeper!). I made it this weekend, and heated the leftovers up this morning, and it was still tasty. I highly recommend serving it with salsa.
And now for something completely different: Lemongrass Consomme with Pea Shoot and Mushroom Dumplings, from The Conscious Cook by Tal Ronnen. Don't ask me what I was thinking when I copied this recipe last year to try - I was probably so deliriously happy to find a recipe that used that mysterious bag of "pea shoots" that showed up in my CSA share that I didn't read the rest of the recipe (which someone was nice enough to post here). Yes, it calls for lots of ingredients, and it takes quite a bit of prep, and making the dumplings is fiddly work that really shouldn't be undertaken on an empty stomach. That being said, YUM. I subbed white button mushrooms for the ones specified in the recipe, and used some lime juice in place of the lime leaf, but it still turned out wonderfully. And you really couldn't taste the "pea-ness" (heh!) of the shoots in the dumplings, so if you wanted to sub another tender green for them when pea shoots were out of season, I don't think it would mess it up too much.
Monday, June 11, 2012
Wednesday, May 9, 2012
Before and after
Remember my experiment growing edible stuff in my front yard last year? I got a little carried away with it this year.
Before:
After:
Tuesday, April 24, 2012
Strike while the iron is hot
It occurred to me while eating dinner tonight that the recipe, which called for both ramps and morels, could really only be made during a two- or three-week timeframe each spring when the seasons for those two ephemeral foraging favorites coincide. Nothing like hanging onto a recipe that's essentially useless 50 weeks out of every year!
I made the recipe to use some of my CSA bag's prolific portion of ramps. But I don't particularly like morels, especially at $60 for a large paper plate full of them from the farmers' market, so I replaced them with some white oyster mushrooms ($10 a pound at the farmers' market). Other modifications to the recipe were based on laziness - I didn't have mascarpone cheese, so I left that out and subbed Parmesan for the Pecorino cheese called for in the recipe. And I didn't have orecchiette, either, so we used cheese ravioli from Ohio City Pasta. I think the creaminess from the ravioli filling helped make up for the lack of mascarpone ... or at least that's what I'm telling myself, that and "Hey, at least you didn't have to make a special trip to the grocery store on a weekend just for one container of cheese and a bag of pasta!"
One thing I learned while making this recipe is that the leaves of the ramps really are very mild in flavor. The recipe has you separate them from the bulbs, cook the bulbs as you would onions or garlic, and add the roughly chopped leaves at the end as you would spinach or other tender greens. The cooked leaves had a delicate onion/garlic flavor, much lighter and less in-your-face than that of the bulbs. I'll definitely keep that in mind, because this time of year it's nice to have some interesting greens to throw into soup or salads.
In other news, IT'S ASPARAGUS SEASON!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! I seriously have to stop typing so I have time to drive up to Avon to buy some local asparagus, which I will store in a vase of water at work until I can come home and totally eat an entire bunch myself because Jason isn't coming home for dinner tonight .... bwahahahahahahahaha!
I made the recipe to use some of my CSA bag's prolific portion of ramps. But I don't particularly like morels, especially at $60 for a large paper plate full of them from the farmers' market, so I replaced them with some white oyster mushrooms ($10 a pound at the farmers' market). Other modifications to the recipe were based on laziness - I didn't have mascarpone cheese, so I left that out and subbed Parmesan for the Pecorino cheese called for in the recipe. And I didn't have orecchiette, either, so we used cheese ravioli from Ohio City Pasta. I think the creaminess from the ravioli filling helped make up for the lack of mascarpone ... or at least that's what I'm telling myself, that and "Hey, at least you didn't have to make a special trip to the grocery store on a weekend just for one container of cheese and a bag of pasta!"
One thing I learned while making this recipe is that the leaves of the ramps really are very mild in flavor. The recipe has you separate them from the bulbs, cook the bulbs as you would onions or garlic, and add the roughly chopped leaves at the end as you would spinach or other tender greens. The cooked leaves had a delicate onion/garlic flavor, much lighter and less in-your-face than that of the bulbs. I'll definitely keep that in mind, because this time of year it's nice to have some interesting greens to throw into soup or salads.
In other news, IT'S ASPARAGUS SEASON!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! I seriously have to stop typing so I have time to drive up to Avon to buy some local asparagus, which I will store in a vase of water at work until I can come home and totally eat an entire bunch myself because Jason isn't coming home for dinner tonight .... bwahahahahahahahaha!
Sunday, April 15, 2012
Pricey
"The price of freedom is eternal vigilance." - Thomas Jefferson
"The price of freedom from broadleaf weed killers is eternal vigilance with a dandelion fork in your hand.". - Gretchen Woods
(I'm avoiding Round-Up and full-lawn herbicide applications for as long as I can this year, because i'm trying to be all sustainable and stuff ... plus, I don't want the chemicals to confuse my violets with weeds.)
"The price of freedom from broadleaf weed killers is eternal vigilance with a dandelion fork in your hand.". - Gretchen Woods
(I'm avoiding Round-Up and full-lawn herbicide applications for as long as I can this year, because i'm trying to be all sustainable and stuff ... plus, I don't want the chemicals to confuse my violets with weeds.)
Wednesday, August 31, 2011
PS - this is my project for this fall
http://www.motherearthnews.com/Organic-Gardening/1999-04-01/Lasagna-Gardening.aspx
I'm going to lasagna the heck out of my front yard :)
I'm going to lasagna the heck out of my front yard :)
Harvest day
Okay, so my "potato condo" is actually a collapsible yard waste bin from Target, and about four bags of potting soil ...
Who cares? I still grew potatoes!
Today is my daughter's first day of school, so I'm going to wait until she's home to harvest the rest. I can't wait to see how many we got in that little container!
And speaking of little containers, did you know you can grow awesome carrots in a deep flower pot in your front yard, and nobody will ever know (until you harvest them)?
Trufax.
Monday, June 13, 2011
Finding the brown in the season
This time of year it can be a challenge to get the right mix of "browns" and "greens" in a compost pile. At least half of the pile - and probably more like 75% - is supposed to be brown. But this time of year, all the stuff we want to add - kitchen scraps, weeds pulled from the garden, grass clippings - is "green," and the big influx of "brown" leaves won't happen until October. What's a gardener to do?
I've been working that out, and have come up with a few suggestions you may not have considered as sources for "brown" material for your garden:
1. Dried leaves and grass. Yes, it's true we won't have a ton of dead leaves until fall ... but the recent Hailpocalypse we had in Ohio brought down a lot of leaves and small branches in our yard. I left everything out to dry for a few days, then gathered a giant garbage can load of it into a pile next to my compost bin. I've been forking in a few scoops of the now-dried leaves every time I add kitchen scraps to the compost, and in only a few weeks I've used most of it up. The same thing works for grass clippings - leave them laying on the lawn for a day or two before you rake them up, then add the dried grass gradually as you add in the kitchen scraps. It won't win you any "lawn of the year" awards, but it does keep the stuff out of the landfill (and prevents it from going all matted and slimy in your pile).
2. Shredded paper. We started a bin for recyclable paper a month or two ago, and while Liza was in school I was taking it over to the fundraiser bins they have in the school parking lot. But I'm not going to drive all the way over there this summer, and the paper load was getting pretty large, so I hauled out the crosscut shredder and got to work. We shredded junk mail, and Liza's old school papers (with her permission), and even some paperboard boxes.
Some of it went into the pile immediately, while a fill grocery bag of the stuff is sitting by the back door, ready to be added to the pile with the kitchen scraps. I figure a good couple of handfuls of paper per load of kitchen scraps ought to help keep things in balance. Just remember that paper is really dry, and needs to be moistened when you add it. You can either spritz the paper down with water from a sprayer before you add it, or just use a hose to add some water to the pile as you mix it in.
3. Vacuum cleaner dust. Yes, I know, it's kind of gross ... and technically it's probably a "green" instead of a "brown," but it helps separate out the slimy green layers, and it's better than throwing it out, right? It will take a while to decompose the hair, but it's supposed to be a really great source of protein for the pile, so I'm all in favor of it.
4. Ashes from the fire pit. Seems like everyone has one of these nowadays, but I don't see many people adding the ashes to their compost piles. They're a great source of "brown" material, they don't smell bad, and they help aerate the pile (because some of them are in bigger pieces and/or have holes in them that trap air).
Just don't add any ashes from charcoal briquettes or those chemically-treated "fire logs" you can buy at the home stores ... I don't think any of us want the petroleum products they use to make those in our nice, healthy piles! And let the ashes cool completely before you add them - we want our pile to be hot, but not aflame!
5. Cardboard. It's strawberry season here in Ohio, which means that I'm bringing home lots of those pressed cardboard berry boxes from the farmers' market. They can't be reused much in the home as they get soggy really quickly, but if you pull them into smallish pieces, they make excellent compost material. You can do the same thing with egg cartons (but they're harder to pull apart) and even low quality cardboard boxes. You can also find compostable paper plates, which work well for parties and can be used in your pile afterward. Most cardboard we send out to be recycled, but if you're desperate for brown compost material, you may want to chop some up and throw it in your pile.
I've been working that out, and have come up with a few suggestions you may not have considered as sources for "brown" material for your garden:
1. Dried leaves and grass. Yes, it's true we won't have a ton of dead leaves until fall ... but the recent Hailpocalypse we had in Ohio brought down a lot of leaves and small branches in our yard. I left everything out to dry for a few days, then gathered a giant garbage can load of it into a pile next to my compost bin. I've been forking in a few scoops of the now-dried leaves every time I add kitchen scraps to the compost, and in only a few weeks I've used most of it up. The same thing works for grass clippings - leave them laying on the lawn for a day or two before you rake them up, then add the dried grass gradually as you add in the kitchen scraps. It won't win you any "lawn of the year" awards, but it does keep the stuff out of the landfill (and prevents it from going all matted and slimy in your pile).
2. Shredded paper. We started a bin for recyclable paper a month or two ago, and while Liza was in school I was taking it over to the fundraiser bins they have in the school parking lot. But I'm not going to drive all the way over there this summer, and the paper load was getting pretty large, so I hauled out the crosscut shredder and got to work. We shredded junk mail, and Liza's old school papers (with her permission), and even some paperboard boxes.
Some of it went into the pile immediately, while a fill grocery bag of the stuff is sitting by the back door, ready to be added to the pile with the kitchen scraps. I figure a good couple of handfuls of paper per load of kitchen scraps ought to help keep things in balance. Just remember that paper is really dry, and needs to be moistened when you add it. You can either spritz the paper down with water from a sprayer before you add it, or just use a hose to add some water to the pile as you mix it in.
3. Vacuum cleaner dust. Yes, I know, it's kind of gross ... and technically it's probably a "green" instead of a "brown," but it helps separate out the slimy green layers, and it's better than throwing it out, right? It will take a while to decompose the hair, but it's supposed to be a really great source of protein for the pile, so I'm all in favor of it.
4. Ashes from the fire pit. Seems like everyone has one of these nowadays, but I don't see many people adding the ashes to their compost piles. They're a great source of "brown" material, they don't smell bad, and they help aerate the pile (because some of them are in bigger pieces and/or have holes in them that trap air).
Just don't add any ashes from charcoal briquettes or those chemically-treated "fire logs" you can buy at the home stores ... I don't think any of us want the petroleum products they use to make those in our nice, healthy piles! And let the ashes cool completely before you add them - we want our pile to be hot, but not aflame!
5. Cardboard. It's strawberry season here in Ohio, which means that I'm bringing home lots of those pressed cardboard berry boxes from the farmers' market. They can't be reused much in the home as they get soggy really quickly, but if you pull them into smallish pieces, they make excellent compost material. You can do the same thing with egg cartons (but they're harder to pull apart) and even low quality cardboard boxes. You can also find compostable paper plates, which work well for parties and can be used in your pile afterward. Most cardboard we send out to be recycled, but if you're desperate for brown compost material, you may want to chop some up and throw it in your pile.
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