Hello, springtime!

I guess I’ve sort of had an unintentional hiatus here! I’ve still been baking and cooking, but more cooking than baking, and lots of old favorites instead of getting really experimental. There’s always a certain point of the winter (even a non-winter like the one we just had) that I get a bit stagnant, but now, with the arrival of spring, I am rejuvenated! 

If you follow me on Facebook, you know that I tried out one of those “artisan bread in five minutes a day” recipes. It was amazing, and probably one of the most successful bread attempts I’ve ever had. Posting about that is on my to-do list, and I bought a big jar of fresh yeast and I’ll hopefully come up with some great variations. 

I also am happy to report that I planted some vegetables today! I was considering not gardening at all this year because I’m scheduled for shoulder surgery next month. I’m going to be in a sling for quite a while, and I won’t be able to haul around my containers or sacks of soil or do anything really strenuous. But, I planted some small, manageable containers that I’ll be able to water with a watering can instead of a hose that I need to coil. 

I almost exclusively used seeds from the Hudson Valley Seed Library. I planted kale, a couple kinds of lettuce, the same peas & carrots as last year, spinach, green onions, and I started my sugar baby watermelons indoors. My littlest brother also told me that he suspects that the place he’s been growing pumpkins for the last few years is depleted in nutrients because they haven’t done crop rotation (they only grow pumpkins, and this revelation is undoubtedly because I bought him a copy of The Omnivore’s Dilemma for Kids), so we’re talking about planting some stuff over there to replenish the soil. 

I’ll be sure to post some pictures when my seedlings are up! 

Slow-Cooker Seitan Pot Roast

I don’t have the best picture of this because of low lighting, but it did come out pretty nice looking! Photo is of a vegetarian roast with a few slices taken out, surrounded by veggies.

I’ve been wanting to make Vegan Planet’s Slow-Cooker Seitan Pot Roast since the moment I heard about it, and that was ages ago. Over a year ago, for certain. It just sounds so delightful – pretty much, the part of Thanksgiving that’s been missing for me the past 15 or 17 odd years, namely, the turkey, but more importantly, the ridiculous sandwiches of turkey and cranberry sauce and whatever else you could cram between two pieces of lovely bread the next day.

Finally, finally, Bo and I took on this project. It really wasn’t hard to put together at all. In fact, the wheat gluten worked in quite magical ways, as one minute it was this powdery dry stuff, and the next, when you poured the liquid in and stirred maybe two or three times, it had become a solid-ish, bouncy sort of object. SCIENCE!

Anyway, I’ll be totally honest here. This seitan roast was not the seitan roast of my dreams. It came out pretty darn rubbery, and I can’t say whether we overmixed it in trying to get it to look sort of like a roast (or at least one contiguous blob) or if we left it in for too long or not long enough. Slow cookers are a little wonky as you’re never quite sure if yours is the same as the person’s who wrote the recipe, and times can vary quite a bit. There’s even a note to that effect in the recipe.

But hey. This blog is subtitled “recipes and experimentations,” right? I’ll give this another chance, and if that still doesn’t work out, I might try it in the alternate/oven method, especially since our veggies that roasted in the oven came out far superior to the ones in the slow cooker. But you know, we had a veg*n Thanksgiving roast, and we had leftover sandwiches (albeit rubbery ones) and that was pretty cool.

Note: Since we were roasting a whole tray of veggies separately, we did not put the full amount of veggies in.

Ingredients

1 yellow onion, peeled and coarsely chopped
1 pound carrots
1 pound small red-skinned potatoes, halved or quartered
Salt and freshly ground black pepper
1 cup vegetable stock
2 garlic cloves, crushed
1 teaspoon dried thyme
1 teaspoon dried marjoram
2 cups wheat gluten flour
1/2 teaspoon onion powder
1/2 teaspoon garlic powder
1 1/2 cup water or vegetable stock, or more as needed
3 tablespoons soy sauce
1 tablespoon ketchup or tomato sauce

Directions

Note: You may need to adjust your cooking time according to the quirks of your own crockpot. The one I used for this recipe cooks fast — if I had used one of my other slow cookers, it would have taken nearly twice as long.

Arrange the onion, carrots, and potatoes in the bottom of a lightly oiled slow cooker. Season the vegetables to taste with salt and pepper and add the stock, garlic, and 1/2 teaspoon each of the thyme and marjoram.

In a large bowl, combine the wheat gluten flour, onion powder, garlic powder, the remaining 1/2 teaspoon each of thyme and marjoram, 1/2 teaspoon of salt, and 1/4 teaspoon of black pepper. Add the water or stock, soy sauce, and ketchup. Mix well, adding a little more water if the mixture is too dry, then knead for 2 minutes until smooth. Shape the gluten to fit inside your cooker and place on top of the vegetables. (You can place it on top of a piece of aluminum foil or wrap it in cheesecloth, if desired, to keep its shape). Put the lid on the slow cooker and cook on LOW for 4 to 6 hours (or longer, depending on your slow cooker – we did about six), or until the seitan and vegetables are cooked.

To serve, remove the vegetables and seitan from the slow cooker. Cut the seitan into slices and arrange them on a serving platter. Surround with the vegetables and spoon the cooking liquid over all or transfer the cooking liquid to a saucepan and thicken into a gravy.

Serves 4, more when you’re making Thanksgiving dinner with lots of sides!

Sweet relief for fall planting…

It has been damn hot in the NYC area this past week (well, from what I hear, it’s been hot in a lot of places), and it actually reached triple digits this past weekend. We had to shuffle locations around for the birthday party that I made Aunt Sassy Cake for so that we could be at a house with air conditioning in the common areas, not wanting our friends to wilt away in the backyard heat. (This worked out splendidly as the change of venue meant we got to play one of my favorite board games, Scattergories!)

Anyway, Tuesday, the heat broke, and it went from being 103*F on Friday to a practically chilly in comparison 82*F. I was up early Tuesday morning, too, due to the aforementioned trouble sleeping Monday night. I was out of bed at 8 a.m., which is fairly unusual for me unless I have someplace to be, but that meant that it was downright nice outside. I quickly got a chore or two out of the way so I could head out to the garden.

Most varieties of pumpkins (except for the reeeeallly huge ones) need 90-100 days til maturity, but that means that they need to be planted between July 23rd and August 2nd to be perfect for Halloween, and between July 23rd and August 2nd, it is damn hot. It’s been so hot, in fact, that I wondered if I’d even be able to get my pumpkins planted, besides the container of Jack-Be-Littles that I planted one cooled off evening.

This morning, however, was glorious. I even perhaps went a bit overboard. I planted Luminas, which have a ghostly white skin. I planted Long Island Cheese Pumpkins (which are really cool looking, google them if you’ve never seen one!). I transplanted some of the Jack-Be-Littles from the container to the ground because I had a higher germination rate than I’d expected. And, finally, just for hahahs, I planted Giant pumpkins. Last year I also planted multiple varieties of pumpkins (Giant, Sugar, and Lumina), but our pesky groundhog frenemy ate so much of them that there was absolutely no success. This year, we’ve barely seen him, so I’m hoping that he’s found someone else’s yard to enjoy and that I’ll get a whole mess of pumpkins.

After the furious pumpkin planting was complete, I started another round of broccoli and one little burgundy bean container. The burgundy and soy beans that I started earlier this year fell victim to another member of the household not looking at the markers carefully enough. I’ve been seeing the burgundy beans at farmers markets, and I’d just love to have some, even just a few! As for the broccoli, this will be my third try. Last time was almost successful, but still not quite. Perhaps this time I’ll get lucky!

Lettuce was re-sown on the 18th, and carrots were harvested and re-sown on the 20th. Look how beautiful they were! They’re a variety called Parisian carrots, which are a short variety very well suited for container growing, so yes, they’re meant to be that size/shape!

Next up: get some more containers prepared so I can get some kale started for the fall. Anyone else doing a fall garden?

This is probably the last chance I’ll have to remind you that you should enter to win a gift certificate to Measuring Spoons on Etsy, which has neat stuff like baking-related handmade cards and soon, some pretty delicious baking mixes. So, check it out!

In Solidarity with Julie, because Oak Park Hates Veggies

I’ve been meaning to post about my garden for several days now, but first, I want to talk about something important.

In my life, I’ve been pretty active in social justice, but this blog isn’t so much about that. Sure, there’s no way to completely separate “Life” and “Activist,” but for the most part, I don’t get super political on here.

Yesterday, though, I heard about something that really pissed me off, and I thought it was important enough to share with you all.

In Michigan, in a place called Oak Park, there’s a woman called Julie who has a lovely family and a lovely vegetable garden that she started with her husband and kids in her front yard after a tree (planted by the city, mind you) broke a sewer pipe and did a lot of damage to their yard. Instead of just planting grass, they decided to make the space useful, and planted veggies in some tidy raised beds.

The problem -gasp- is that this all transpired in the front yard!

Now, Julie and her family have been through all kinds of drama with the city, where a vague ordinance was cited… and, [SHAME ON YOU, OAK PARK!], the city is actually taking her to court over this matter.

That’s right. Instead of fighting violent crime or theft or spending the money on budgets that have already been cut (I know around here, and in many places around the country, libraries and education and sports programs and art&music programs are suffering, just to name a few), they are taking Julie to court, and she is facing 93 days in jail. OVER VEGETABLES IN HER FRONT YARD.

Now, historically, we know that in times of economic depression, the Grow-Your-Own Movement rises again. And, in the present, we know that kids and adults alike don’t get enough exercise, time outdoors, or vegetables. So why the hell is this such a big deal?

You can read more about it on Julie’s blog, Oak Park Hates Veggies, and I really encourage you to take a minute to write to the City of Oak Park Planner, Kevin Rulkowski, [Here's the contact info - go ahead and CC the Mayor, who is on that page, too]. If you only have two seconds, there’s a petition to sign, and if you happen to be flush, you can contribute to her Legal Defense Fund. Stand with me in solidarity of Julie and in defense of the Grow-Your-Own Movement.

———————————————————————

Onto news of my garden. I was going to go out today to plant my pumpkins, but dang, it’s hot! 98* today. Perhaps this evening it will be tolerable, but now, at 1pm, there’s no way I’m heading out there.

Our brussels sprouts are getting bigger by the day (they’ve even grown since this photo):

Our Tom Thumb Lettuce came up and was delicious! Some of it’s coming back, but I need to resow, also, since all lettuce bolts eventually.

We thought for a little while that our broccoli was going to work out, as it turned into broccoli:

…but then it flowered (which was pretty cool, though). What can I say? No luck with broccoli so far. I’m going to resow that, too, for the fall.

The carrots are turning into carrots…

They’re bigger than this now, much wider around… now they just need to grow longer.

Our corn is coming up, though it’s in a different place this year and I think it’s less sunny there, as it’s not quite as tall as it was last year and it’s tasseling already. Hopefully it still works out. Our eggplants and peppers are flowering, with one or two eggplants trying to start, but no serious fruit yet.

And did I mention about our surprise plants?

We had three tomato-like plants growing up where I’d spread the compost and was trying to grow kale. The tomato-like plants totally took over the kale, and although I wasn’t planning to grow tomatoes, they looked so darn healthy, that I figured, why not? I’ll grow tomatoes, or whatever.

Well, whatever, it was, because…

…they started fruiting this week, and they are clearly tomatillos! That means the seeds were from our CSA. I’m just tickled. Two out of the three are tomatillos, and one is a tomato of undetermined origin, so we’re just going to have to wait a little longer for that.

Anyone have a fabulous salsa recipe? I’m going to have a LOT of tomatillos.

CSA plant sale goodies!

Yesterday we went to the CSA plant sale to pick up some seedlings from Farmer Rich. I wrote a post last year about it, and about how I think it’s cool to buy from our local farmer instead of a big box store. It was nice to chat about what we’re growing, how the weather affects it, and just talk with the guy who grows the food I eat.

Mostly I like to get Farmer Rich’s herbs. I haven’t had the best luck with herbs, and his are so, so healthy. We do get herbs in our weekly share, but it’s usually just one herb, and I like to have the little herb garden so I can just walk outside and snip off whatever I need.

This is the variagated mint. Isn’t it beautiful the way the leaves change from green to yellowish and then back to green?

Here’s the mint potted in an old colander.

Here’s the herb garden in a new window box we picked up today…

In there we’ve got oregano, lemon basil (which smells so good that I got two, one to keep in the house), sage (not pictured, I put it in after this photo), thyme, rosemary, and parsley.

I also got eggplants again, and Tita Leonore asked for a pepper plant (we’ve both had serious woes with germination of peppers this year), so I got a golden pepper plant. And, when we got there, we had an impulse buy: brussels sprouts! They weren’t listed on the online order form, and I can’t wait to see them grow. They are so cool looking.

My peas are being actual peas! Despite the fact that I thought they were all going to die because they got so drowned in the storms, they are producing.

You can see that some of the plant got damaged from the overwatering, but if you look in the left half of the picture, you also see a peapod!

The carrots are also getting very serious. We are so tempted to pull one and see where they’re at. We’re going out of town this week, so that will alleviate some of the temptation for a bit, and I think when we get back it will be time to check one out.

There’s more work for me to do out there, but it was hot and I didn’t want to wear myself out. Next time…

Filipino Garlic Fried Rice

Fried rice is a great dish when you’re running low on food, you want to clean out the vegetable drawer, you’re broke, or you don’t want to do a lot of dishes. It’s not complicated and has pretty basic ingredients, but it’s really delicious. Tonight we had a little bit of the first and the last happening. We didn’t want to make anything super laborious, but we wanted a homecooked meal since we’ve been getting a lot of takeout due to Charlie’s hectic work schedule. I even got those green onions that I showed you that are growing in the garden.

Charlie tells me that his mom always used to make this when there was leftover rice in the fridge. It was often a meal made for breakfast, but sometimes for dinner. Tita* often made it after making something like pork chops, where there were lots of drippings left in the pan. This version is vegan, but if you feel like it, you can fry an overeasy egg and throw it on top, letting the yolk get all gooey in the dish. It can stand alone as a meal, as we had it tonight, or be served as a side dish.

This dish is a little healthier than your standard fried rice because we used brown rice and a TON of vegetables. When we make fried rice or stir fry, the vegetables to protein & starch ratio is pretty ridiculous. We probably had about 6-7 cups of veggies, a scant 3 cups of rice, and I don’t know what you’d call a package of tofu, 2 cups? Anyway, the important thing to note about this is that fried rice is like stir fry and stone soup. Almost any vegetable you have will do. I’ve written down what we used in what quantities so that you have an idea, but certainly, if you have 4 cups of broccoli and 2 cups of snow peas and no carrot and you have no idea what a kohlrabi is, just go with it. My advice on this matter is to try to cut everything to roughly the same size, unless you know that it cooks drastically differently, and to separate your vegetables into two bowls: Stuff That Cooks Slowly, and Stuff that Cooks Really Fast. It will be awesome, I promise.

*That’s what I call Charlie’s mom – it’s the Tagalog word for “aunt,” but it’s used as an affectionate term for female family friends or other ladies who are around your parents’ age.

Ingredients

5 (or more) garlic cloves, minced
1 small onion, chopped

Veggie Prep Bowl 1:
2-2 1/2 cups of broccoli, finely chopped (about 1 large floret)
1 1/2 cups of carrots finely chopped
1 medium kohlrabi, peeled and finely chopped

Veggie Prep Bowl 2:
1 cup of snow peas, cut in half
1/2 cup yellow squash or zucchini, chopped a little bigger than the other stuff since it’s softer (you could do more, but Charlie likes it less than I do)

Total Vegetables: about 6-7 cups, chopped into small pieces

2-4 cups cooled white or brown rice (day old rice is perfect for this)
1 block of extra firm tofu, drained, pressed, and cubed
a generous handful of green onions, snippped into pieces with scissors
soy sauce
salt & pepper to taste
garlic powder (optional)

Directions

Heat a large pan (nonstick is best) for a few minutes until it is hot, then add a few tablespoons of vegetable oil. Place the tofu cubes into the pan. Flip and stir frequently. Cook until the outside texture is crispy and brown. Remove the tofu from the pan and drain on a paper towel.

Drain some of the oil from the pan, leaving just a coating. Saute the garlic and the onion for 2-3 minutes or until the onion is soft. Add the broccoli, carrots, and kohlrabi. Do not add the squash and snow peas yet or they will get soggy. Cook for about 5 minutes or until tender, depending on the size of your pieces, stirring occasionally. Add the squash and snow peas, cooking for 2 minutes or until the snow peas are bright green and the squash is soft. Add the rice and cook for 2 minutes or until it is heated through. Add pepper and soy sauce to taste. If necessary, add salt and garlic powder to taste.

Garnish with the green onions.

A momentary pause from the rain.

It’s been nothing but rain here for quite a few days, and will be for quite a few more days to come. The garden needed the rain, but not this much! I’m just thankful that we’re not in an area where rising rivers are threatening our homes. Friends near the Mississippi, we’re thinking of you.

Speaking of the garden, some of the veggies are just getting more beautiful every day. We’re also probably only a few weeks away from getting deliveries from Farmer Rich, so that’s exciting, too.

Here’s the broccoli and peas in the bottom bin, and carrots in the top bin.

The peas are actually starting to get a couple of flowers on them!

The apple tree is getting more and more leafy each day…

The chives in the yard are beautiful and flowering a gorgeous lavender color.

I didn’t even realize it, but the green onions from last year got put in the ground, and they’re up again.

Here’s the first look at the burgundy beans…

And here’s a picture of my rogue tomatoes, if that’s what they are…

I sowed a whole bunch of corn, but it hasn’t come up yet, as well as the soybeans, but I’ll just try to wait patiently until the weather sorts itself out. Until then…

Gorgeous weather for gardening.

The weather in the tri-state area has been just gorgeous lately. We spent most of the weekend sitting outside on the back deck, enjoying the greenery that has finally decided to appear on the trees (as well as getting a nosefull of pollen!).

The container garden that I’ve started is mostly doing quite well. The kohlrabi can’t decide whether it wants to live or die. The lettuce and spinach did die while I was in New Orleans, but I resowed it and hopefully we’ll have that come up. All of the tiny tiny seedlings that were in the trays inside didn’t make it (due, it would seem, to someone in the house, I won’t name names, wanting to be helpful and watering a bit too much). But, just about everything did ok outside, so I haven’t had to replace much. The only thing I really had a hard time with was the peppers, and I’ve started them outside again this week.

The carrots are doing wonderfully. And take a look at the broccoli and peas! Can you believe it?

Also, in the short week that I was in New Orleans, my apple tree (that looked little more than a skinny stick in a bucket of dirt when I left) grew a whole bunch of leaves! Check it out!

It’s warming up enough here to start sowing some stuff directly into the ground. We’re still not sure what our plans are for moving, but since we live with my partner’s mom, who also likes gardening, we can always just leave her a yummy harvest if we find a great apartment mid-summer. So, Sunday, I put in a short row of soy beans and a short row of royal burgundy bush beans.

We started talking about plans for a triangular trellis for the sugar baby watermelons, which I started inside today. Another summer treat we’ll have is corn. Today, I sowed about a 3.5′x3.5′ patch (I know that Charlie is going to tell me that I’m way off in my estimate, since I’m terrible at them) of corn. I have space on either side of the patch to do more corn, too. One of the sections needs to be cleared of forget-me-nots and weeds, and the other is ready to go. I’m planning to plant the corn in succession so that we don’t have a glut all at once. So, in two or three weeks, I should be ready to plant the next patch of corn. I may also plant my pumpkins over there, both because there would be room for them to vine and because they give important nutrients to the corn. We’ll see – it’s early for that.

I actually planted a handful of flowers, too. Usually I stick to veggies, but I had a wildflower mix that I decided to toss in a window box, and I’d gotten some painted daisy seeds from the seed library. I was planning to plant them in a pair of old polka-dotted rain boots, but they’re MIA at the moment, so I started them in pots that would set just about properly in the boots, and I’ll look a little harder for the boots in the next few weeks.

One last funny note about the garden. As you might have read, we had some hoop houses to keep the kale warm when it was very chilly. Well, I uncovered the hoops when I got home from NOLA, and the kale was doing ok, but I had some really healthy looking tomato plants, perfectly spaced out! It was pretty funny. I used compost to get that area going, so there must have been a few seeds that snuck in that our wormies didn’t process. They look so healthy that I think I’ll let them grow! With any luck, they’re seeds from the heirloom tomatoes we get in our CSA share.

Carrot Cake with Bourbon Cream Cheese Frosting

Charlie’s birthday was last Sunday, but Sunday, we were at the tail end of a 30+ hour train ride from New Orleans back to New York. Our trip was delayed a bit because of the tornado in Alabama. We actually rode right through Tuscaloosa, AL, and the damage was just incredible. It was super sad and almost unbelievable to just see huge trees absolutely snapped in half. If you’d like to help the folks out in Alabama, one way you can do it is by texting FOOD to 27722 to donate $10 to the West Alabama Food Bank.

Now that we’re back in New York, and I’ve spend the week resting and doing laundry and other mundane stuff, it’s time to catch up on Charlie’s birthday. We had about four pounds of carrots from our last winter CSA delivery, so a carrot cake was certainly in order.

As usual, when making this recipe, I looked at a whole bunch of different carrot cake recipes and then mishmoshed them together, though I’d say the one that was the closest to what I was looking for was over at The Joy of Baking. I still made a bunch of changes, including reducing the amount of raisins and nuts and pineapple and making a spicier cake, since those are things that (if I recall correctly!) I’ve heard Charlie say he prefers in a carrot cake.

Charlie’s mom was around when I was baking this cake, and I let her taste the batter. She made a noise of exclamation. “What did you put in this?” she demanded. “It’s going to smell so good,” she said. She went to the kitchen window and started to open the window, then looked back at me. “That way the neighbors can smell it and be jealous,” she smiled.

Usually when I bake, it’s all about the flavor and nothing about the presentation. Friday night, though, I took a nap while the cake was cooling, then got a second wind and baked a whole second cake! I decided to really spend some time decorating the carrot cake while the chocolate chip cake was in the oven. The decorating didn’t come out perfectly, since it got to be two in the morning, I was getting sleepy, and the sequence that I did certain things in was not necessarily the most efficient, but it came out pretty darn nice.

I almost never write on cakes [the last time I did was probably last year's super silly birthday cake for myself, when I couldn't even find the tip for writing] so I was really, really happy with how the script came out. I took a half dozen semesters of typography in college, so I would have been gutted if my cake lettering was awful.

I think I’m getting the hang of this baking thing. *wink*

Photo of the cake topped with drunk raisins, drunk pineapple, and drunk ginger.

Ingredients

1 1/2 cups oil
4 large eggs
3/4 cup granulated white sugar
3/4 cup brown sugar
1 tablespoon pure vanilla extract
1 pound carrots, shredded (about 3 1/2 cups shredded, or about a dozen small carrots)
1/3 cup walnuts, chopped
1/2 cup raisins
2 teaspoons chopped candied ginger
2 tablespoons finely chopped pineapple (optional)
a few tablespoons of flavorful bourbon (I used Woodford Reserve)
2 cups all-purpose flour
1 teaspoon baking soda
1 1/2 teaspoons baking powder
3/4 teaspoon salt
1 tablespoon ground cinnamon
1/2 teaspoon nutmeg
3/4 teaspoon cardamom

Ingredients: Cream Cheese Frosting
(sorry, I just kind of flung things into the mixer on this one!)

2 bricks of cream cheese
3/4 stick of butter
2 cups (or more, according to taste) confectioners sugar
2 tablespoons bourbon (I used Woodford Reserve)
2 teaspoons vanilla bean paste
toasted coconut (for garnish)

Directions

Carrot Cake: Several hours before beginning, make the “drunk raisins.” I learned this tip from a new friend when we were out in New Orleans – thanks, Darnell! Place the raisins and ginger (and pineapple, if desired) in a small bowl. Add a small amount of bourbon – enough so that the fruit is covered. Let it soak for at least an hour, preferably more. Reserve a few tablespoons of this mixture for the decorating step.

Preheat oven to 350 degrees F and place rack in center of oven. Spray two 9″ cake pans.

In a medium bowl, whisk together the flour, baking soda, baking powder, salt, ground cinnamon, nutmeg, and cardamom.

In bowl of a stand mixer mixer (or with a hand mixer), beat the eggs until frothy (about 1 minute). Gradually add the sugar and beat until the batter is thick and light colored (about 3 – 4 minutes). Add the oil in a steady stream and then beat in the vanilla extract. Add the flour mixture and beat just until incorporated. With a large rubber spatula fold in the grated carrots, drunk raisins (don’t forget to reserve some!), and chopped nuts. Evenly divide the batter between the two prepared pans and bake 25 to 30 minutes or until a toothpick inserted in the center comes out clean.

Remove from oven and let cool on a wire rack. After about 5 -10 minutes invert the cakes onto the wire rack and then cool completely before frosting.

To assemble: place one cake layer onto your serving plate. Spread with about half the frosting. Sprinkle nuts, ginger and raisins if desired. Gently place the other cake onto the frosting and spread the rest of the frosting over the top of the cake. If desired, garnish with toasted coconut around the sides of the cake. Cover and refrigerate any leftovers.

Note about decorating: If you’re like me, and you prefer a much less sweet frosting, your frosting won’t be as stiff. What I did was frost the cake with the thinner icing, then, for the remaining 1/3 or so of the frosting, I added an extra cup or two of confectioners’ sugar. That way, the frosting was stiff enough to pipe the letters and the edge, but the entire cake wasn’t sickeningly sweet.

Container Garden: Go!

I am completely exhausted, but my container garden is officially in action!

Today Charlie helped me drill holes in the bottoms of my rubbermaid-type bins for my container gardens (the vibrations from the drill made my sensory issues from fibromyalgia go a little wonky!). I know a lot of people go with the dollar store type of container, or whatever they have lying around the house or can find on freecycle, but I bought new ones for two reasons: 1.) folks who use the kind that the dollar store has report that they have to buy new ones each year because they don’t last, and I don’t want to throw away plastic every year, and 2.) I don’t want to grow organic veggies in bins that maybe had not-foodsafe stuff in them. Since I’ll probably have some kind of container garden going for many years, whether I have a backyard garden or not, I considered it an investment. I was able to get “value packs” of Lowe’s brand rubbermaid bins for reasonable prices, and I picked up (if I recall) four 14-gallon and three 18-gallon.

Last year, I used a Jiffy brand of organic soil, but I couldn’t get that this year, and I was stuck with the MiracleGro Container Organic stuff, so we’ll see how that goes. It was a lot mulchier than the Jiffy mix, so I added some vermiculite to lighten it up.

We made a trellis for one of the containers like I’d said I would in this earlier post about my containers. It’s made out of old chicken wire and some scrap wood. The variety of peas that I’m growing don’t really need a trellis, but I figured it couldn’t hurt. Also, it will help me see how it works and make any modifications before I get my soybeans and burgundy beans going in a few weeks.

So, the peas are started, as well as an entire 14 gallon container dedicated entirely to carrots. Last year, all of my seeds were bought at a Cost Cutters that was closing, and they were 20 packets of seeds for $1. This year, I got just about all of them from the Hudson Valley Seed Library, and I made really careful decisions about which varieties would be best for me. For example, when I chose my carrots, I got the Parisian Carrots that are shorter, fast growing, and well suited for containers. I made sure to add a little extra vermiculite to the bin, since carrots need a very loose soil.

I started some Broccoli in a bin as well as indoors in a tray. I also did this with my Purple Kohlrabi, Lettuce, and Spinach. I’m hoping that by starting some outside immediately and some indoors, I’ll be able to stagger things a bit. I’ll also be re-planting the veggies that can tolerate the heat ok, so that we have them as the summer continues. (Remind me to hold off on the lettuce, though! We have an overabundance of that once June hits.)

I also got a Radish mix for being a member of the seed library, but we don’t eat many radishes in our house, at least not so many that I need to plant them, since we get plenty from our CSA. My mom loves them, though, so I started a small container of them to bring over to her house.

I ended up planting one veggie in the ground and that was the Blue Curly Kale. We had a bunch of compost that we’d dumped into the main garden bed, and the soil just looked so awesome… As I mentioned in my other post, one of the reasons I’m doing a container garden is because we might be moving, but kale is a pretty fast growing plant, and I don’t think we’ll be moving by the time it’s harvestable, so I just went for it and planted that in the ground. Well, although the actual compost looked soft and workable, the ground was still pretty thick and heavy from the cold and the rain, so my muscles are going to be reeeeallly sore tomorrow. I did get two short rows of kale planted, though, and I can’t wait to see how it does. It’s still going to get pretty chilly at night for a while longer, so I might try to set up some sort of ground cover situation tomorrow for the kale. If I need to, the bins are manageable enough that they can be moved into the garage for a bit of extra protection.

That’s all for now… I’ll post more once the little buggers start to come up.

Getting excited for gardening.

I know that there’s approximately two feet of snow on the ground, but I’m getting excited for gardening already. And, quite honestly, if you’re in my area (zone 6) and you’re planning to grow some veggies that enjoy cooler weather, like kale, cabbage, broccoli, and brussels sprouts, it’s time to start ordering seeds! If you’ll be doing indoor starts like I am, it’s actually going to be time to begin those for the cool weather veggies very soon.

One thing that’s going to be different about the way I garden this year is that I’ll primarily be doing container gardening instead of planting things directly in the ground. This is because we’ll likely be moving sometime during the growing season, and I don’t want to give up gardening entirely. I’m not sure when we’ll be moving, or if the space we’ll be moving to will have a garden, or access to a community garden, or if I’ll just be able to have some containers, but having containers will be my bare minimum, so I figure I’ll be able to take them along.

Last year some of my big problems with my garden were timing (I started much too late) and pests, particularly a groundhog, and I think that will be alleviated a bit by planting in containers and keeping them in areas where he’s not comfortable going, like our deck. I need to get my hands on some containers, so if any of my buddies who read this have some that they’re not planning to use, I’d love it!

Here’s the design I came up with for my containers. (Yeah, I made a cute little sketch… sometimes I miss art school, ok?)

In case that’s illegible, or you’re a person with a visual impairment, it’s a picture of a rubbermaid container. I’ll be drilling holes in the bottom (or taking someone’s that they don’t want anymore because it has a crack in the bottom) so that it has drainage. The back side of it has chickenwire that is supported with simple wood poles on either end, and that will be my trellis for things like peas and beans! I’ll also have a thin pipe that will go to the bottom of the container that I’ll water the plants through, since from what I’ve read, if you water from the bottom, the roots are more likely to grow down instead of spreading out, which is really ideal for small spaces like container plants. Pretty neat, right? Is there anything I’m forgetting or that you can think of to improve about it?

I got my seeds this year from a really incredible local source. I joined the Hudson Valley Seed Library, and when you join, you get 10 free packs of seeds. I chose almost all things that can go in containers in case we move (one or two things can’t really, but I couldn’t resist).

Here’s a picture of all my seed packets laid out. Some of them are “garden packs” from responsible wholesalers, “art packs” that have beautiful designs by New York artists, and “library packs,” which have seeds grown right here in the Hudson Valley by small, sustainable farms. I can even send some seeds back that I’ve saved after my harvest this year!

Here’s what I got:

• Royal Burgandy Bush Beans

• Shirofumi Edamame Soybeans

• Di Ciccio Broccoli

• Parisian Carrots

• Forest Green Parsley

• Vates Blue Curled Kale

• Dinokale

• Tom Thumb Lettuce

• Sugar Ann Snap Pea

• Doe Hill Peppers

• Sugar Baby Watermelon

• Long Island Cheese Pumpkin (Google a picture of these, they’re cute)

I also have Bloomsdale Spinach and Purple Vienna Kohlrabi, and a Painted Daisy Art Pack that I already ordered from them, as well as the a beautiful variety Radish Art Pack that they sent to people who signed up for membership. :)

Cool weather growing starts sooner than you’d think! I’m also thinking of buying a fruit tree, like an apple tree, to keep in a container, but I’m working on finding the right orchard and the right variety (dwarf, self-pollinating, with apples that are versatile and/or store well). So, lots of research is going into that. I know that I won’t get fruit from it right away, but it’s a long-term investment that I’m happy to make. And if, for some reason, I were to move someplace that apples didn’t do well, or I absolutely couldn’t live someplace where I had space for a dwarf container tree on a balcony, it’s the type of thing that I’d be happy giving to a good home… I mean, wouldn’t you be delighted to get a tiny apple tree in a pot as a gift?

Anyone else thinking about gardening yet? What zone are you in? What are you going to grow?

Apple Walnut Salad with Grilled Portabella

Just thought I’d share an incredibly amazing salad that I just threw together consisting of almost all local produce. In fact, I think the only veggie in here that isn’t local is the portabella mushroom.

I got a bunch of great salad-y things in the farm share today, and Charlie (not the biggest salad eater) won’t be home for dinner. I basically started throwing things in until this monster was born. It’s got protein (including a tiny little bug I just fished out… hmmm, guess I should wash the lettuce more thoroughly next time) and good fats and it tastes incredible.

leftover grilled portabella mushroom (in a soy sauce marinade)
red leaf lettuce
carrots
celery
sweet peppers
cutting celery (it’s a really green, almost herby thing)
small apple, chopped
couple tablespoons of walnuts
tablespoon or two of pepitas (shelled pumpkin seeds)

I’d originally thought about throwing some cheddar cheese in there, but it just didn’t need it. The smokiness of the mushroom, the sweetness of the apple, and the depth of the walnuts, and since my pepitas were salted, the saltiness of that… It was awesome! Highly recommend you try it… minus the tiny bug.

On another note, we went apple picking a week ago, and I have nearly a half bushel of apples still. I did make turnovers, and I did make two mini pies, but you see, that baking was done when our friends Ben & Emily came to visit after they were in the area apple picking. So, we really didn’t use many of our apples since they brought a ton with them, too.

My Harvest Fruit Crisp has been on my brain (I can almost taste it), but I’m definitely going to have apples left after that. If all else fails, I’ll make Overflow Apple Butter and give it away, since clearly, for me, it’s all about the actual experience of picking apples rather than the need to have nine million apples in my house. I’ve made it abundantly clear that I prefer pumpkin for my fall baking and cooking.

So what should I do with all these apples?

This is what we’re working with, here. You can see there’s even a few extra hidden back there in my bowl of squash. Do you have a favorite recipe that I should try? Or is there something you wish you knew how to make that you want me to experiment with?

Lentil Leftovers Hand Pies

Usually I try to post things that are my own brilliant ideas, creative creations, or invented recipes, but this week, I saw something someone else had made and I just had to make it and share it with everyone.

First, a confession: I am the worst person at making the most ridiculous, giant pots of soup on the planet. They come out delicious and wonderful, but… in obscene quantities. I put on some stock simmering, then chop up some of this vegetable, then decide that some of that vegetable could go in, then, OOH, I didn’t realize we had some of this left! and so on and so forth. And then the beans and the grains expand more than you thought they would, you have to transfer to a bigger pot, et cetera, et cetera. Even when I try to make a small batch of soup, we have leftovers for days.

And that’s what happened this week. It had been raining for days and the forecast said more rain. It was cold in our house. So I made a thick lentil stew with veggies from the farm share. (This is your recipe, if you’re wanting one…) An onion. Some garlic. A potato. A couple of carrots. Some miscellaneous greens (beet greens and something else that I’ve never been able to identify but tastes mildly cabbagey). Some barley. A giant, ripe heirloom tomato. Most of a cup of lentils. I threw it together with some bullion cubes and a few bay leaves, some parsley and thyme from the garden, and let it all cook down for a long while.

The soup was great, and incredibly filling, which is why there was way too much soup. Another contributing factor was that Charlie stopped by our favorite local bakery to pick up some hearty marbled rye bread to go with it. So, in our fridge there was a big container of leftovers.

And that day, The Cast-Iron Darling posted a recipe for Chili Hand Pies made with leftover chili.

Brilliant! Perfect! It’s a rare treat to find empanadas that are vegetarian, let alone hand pies. I thought about mixing in some cumin and making the lentils more like a taco filling, and I thought about putting some cheese in there, but in the end, I just left them alone. I made a pie crust from scratch using (you guessed it) Charlie’s Consistent Win Pie Crust, except I used half whole wheat flour and half all purpose flour. I would have tried out The Cast Iron Darling’s recipe, but it required eggs and we had zero, which is also why there is no eggwash on my hand pie.

I got about six out of Charlie’s recipe, though I still have lentil stew left and am thinking of making another round.

Charlie and I had them for dinner one night, and I also had one for a snack after I’d frozen them. I put it in the microwave for two minutes and it came out perfectly. The crust stayed crusty and everything.

Thanks, Cast-Iron Darling, for this awesome idea!

Season Wrap Up

I’ve pretty much thrown in the towel in terms of my garden for the fall. I got a lot busier than expected (which is great! I’m taking an art class and a yoga class!) and the weather has been really weird. It’s hot, then it’s cold, it’s dry, then it rains buckets. Sure, these are things that farmers have to contend with, but even the farmers I know have said that it’s been a rough season in some ways.

A few weeks ago it seemed like our groundhog friend was gone for the year. They tend to have a summer home (under our shed) and a winter home, and in September, ours wasn’t appearing in our yard multiple times a day. I thought again about planting some greens like spinach and kale, but being busy, then the weather, and then having a flare of my fibromyalgia decided for me that it would not be so.

Due to the groundhog’s frantic eating of everything, our pumpkins never really got anywhere. They’re still flowering (we’re thinking about eating the squash blossoms) but it’s obviously too late for them to make pumpkins.

Let me run down the other things I’ve planted and whether or not it was successful.

Broccoli: Total fail. I planted it in a spot that I thought would be sunny enough, and it was not sunny enough. They looked a bit like frankenstein broccoli because of all the twisting and turning they did to try to get to the sun.

Peas: Died in the ridiculous temperatures.

Honeydew: Made several melons, though we had a hard time figuring out what the right time to harvest them was.

Container Kale: Bolted.

Watermelon: SUCESS! We ate one of them on a camping trip. I couldn’t believe it.

(That’s my partner, Charlie, by the way… I’m not sure if he’s ever appeared in photos on here!)

Corn: It was majestic. But the squirrels ate most of it before we did. It was a sight to see.

Kohlrabi: Another winner. Tasted great! I already bought some seeds to try purple kohlrabi early next year.

Eggplant: As you might remember, these were not from seed, they were seedlings from Farmer Rich. They were awesome! They produced all summer (we might even get another one or two small ones out of it) and we’ve had some delicious dinners from them. I’ve got more in the freezer, too.

Carrots: The jury is still out on these. Not sure if they’re really doing what they’re supposed to underground. We’ll try them again next year if they don’t work out.

Herb garden: It was awesome! I’ve been drying bits of the herbs to save for the winter.

Scallions: Better late than never. They are beautiful – not quite as big as the ones Farmer Rich sends us, but still delicious.

And one final surprise…

I planted that winter squash a while back, and then we had a heat wave, and it was really dry, and it just looked dead. It was only about six inches tall, and it was just totally flopped over and looked un-saveable. I ignored it, thinking it was dead.

Last week, I looked out the window, and lo and behold… it was flowering!

I raced outside and not only was it flowering, but it was fruiting!!!

So, we’ll see how that turns out. Hopefully we’ll get some squash out of it!

Farmer Cat Update…

I have some great news to report on the garden. A few days ago I was starting to get discouraged, as I was really fatigued and hadn’t had a chance to plant a few things that I wanted to, and our little seedlings weren’t growing much, but they are finally starting to grow quite a lot! I also got to do some work in the garden a few mornings this week before it got very hot, so we’re in pretty good shape!

One of the things I’ve been meaning to plant is the carrots. The carrots will be Charlie’s responsibility, as I think I’ve mentioned, since I don’t want to be on my [arthritic] knees dealing with root veggies, but I was happy to plant them for him since he’s got a busy schedule with school and work. I got a big double row planted in between something that Charlie’s mom is growing (beans, maybe?) and another small empty plot I had.

In the empty space next to the carrots, I planted a few more giant pumpkins. I haven’t had any luck yet with the ones that I sowed in the three sisters plot. I actually put a few more in the three sister’s plot, hoping that that trio will be successful. I think that some of the seeds ended up getting washed away and then eaten, so I figure it’s worth trying again. Some of the methods actually recommend waiting until the corn is a week or two old to plant the peas and pumpkins anyway, so it’s not a terrible tragedy that they didn’t come up the first time. So, hopefully, between the pumpkins that are in the three sister’s plot and the pumpkins that are over on their own, we should have some huge pumpkins to carve! (If not, I’ll have to go steal some from my younger brother… he has been successful in growing pumpkins for the last several years!)

The giant pumpkins need a lot of time to grow since they’re so large (they can be over 100lbs!) but other pumpkin varieties don’t need as much time, so I’ll be sowing my sugar pumpkins (also called “pie pumpkins” since that’s what most people use them for) in a few weeks. I also planted just a couple of one more variety called Lumina Pumpkins, which are a gorgeous pumpkin with a white outer skin and an edible inner orange flesh!

Here’s a picture I found online:

So I hope we get a few of those, as they would be lovely decorations.

This morning I also got to sow some more shelling peas. You’re really supposed to do those pretty early in the spring, but they have a short growing season, so if they can withstand the heat, I’ll have some, no problem. If anything really bites the dust, I’ll pull it up and start over in a few weeks for a fall harvest. Time to start reading up on that!

Similar to the giant pumpkins, I sowed some with the peas in the three sisters mounds, but not many came up. I think I have two or three in one mound and one in another. I’d really like a bigger crop than that, so I replanted some in the mounds, and I also did a row of them in our main garden plot next to the three sisters. There’s a trellis there, so the peas will be able to climb up it.

And how are the rest of our crops doing?

So far, so good. We lost some seedlings when we went away for the weekend (some that had been in the ground already and some that were not yet planted). It seemed like some had been overwatered and some had been underwatered by the person taking care of our plants. Our main loss was in melons, and that seems to be from overwatering/damping-off disease, which I believe is fungus. Two of the honeydews we had in the ground already just shriveled up and died! It happened to three of the watermelon seedlings that were in the ground already, too, once we got home, but two of each plant are still going strong.

Honeydew	Watermelon

I’ve also got my row of broccoli doing well and my row of kohlrabi doing awesome, though the ones that are towards the front of the plot are definitely doing better as it seems that they’re getting more sun.

Broccoli	Kohlrabi

The corn is just amazing looking… (though I have some more weeding to do!)

And the eggplants that were quite tall seedlings when we got them from the farm share are doing well.

Our container plants are also doing well, but that’s going to have to be a post for another day. I’ll also probably have to write a whole post about pests later, but I think I should do a little research first (perhaps setting some traps) to see what kinds of little things are chomping on our veggies. Something was eating a bit of the broccoli last week, and now something ate a little of the honeydew, and now a bit of the eggplant… so it’s time to get serious about it. I haven’t done any pest control yet (besides fences) so I think we’ve done ok so far!