Fancy Pants Spaghetti

Sometimes I forget about the easiest dishes when it comes to deciding what's for dinner. Like spaghetti with marinara sauce.  I seriously almost ordered spaghetti with "veggie balls" from Pizza Luce last week when I already had all the ingredients to make my own at home.  Whoa.  Time to slow down and plan some meals, Liz.  

So tonight we sat down to some gluten free (Tinkyada brand) spaghetti with homemade marinara sauce.  The sauce included my usual recipe for canning, plus a giant handful of roasted & pickled red peppers, oil cured olives and spinach.

I wasn't planning on having tofu with the pasta, but I happened to find some tomato-y vinaigrette in the back of the fridge that told me it wanted to become tofu marinade.  [Want to know a secret?  That tomato vinaigrette happened because I accidentally poured twice as much vinegar into my salsa recipe when I was canning a couple weeks ago.  So I bailed out 1/2 the amount of tomato-y, onion-y vinegar and mixed it with olive oil to use as salad dressing.  A happy accident.]

I only had time to marinate the tofu for about 15 minutes, but I sprinkled it with nutritional yeast and salt while it was browning on my grill pan and that crusted up really nicely and helped seal in the bright, vinegary, tomato flavor.

We ate this by candlelight outside on the deck.  Faawwnnncy!

Too Many Cukes

I hate to say it, but I'm tired of cucumbers and green beans.  I'm not quite sick of tomatoes, but it's getting close.

The garden is overflowing and I can't keep up.  Even with salads and pickle-making, the amount of cucumbers coming in is ridiculous.

I'm getting a lot of tomatoes right now, but my plants aren't doing so hot- I'm guessing they'll be done by the end of the week, especially with frost headed our way.  So I'm still enjoying having lots of tomatoes.  I need to make tomato sauce this weekend, and  I'm excited to use my food mill this year and bypass all that tomato peeling!

I was happy to skip over the cucumbers, green beans and tomatoes tonight in favor of beets!  I'm so excited to have plenty of beets from the garden.  I'm the only beet fan in the house, but everyone ate them for dinner tonight and (I think) liked them pretty well.  I used a recipe from The Vegan Gourmet (by Susann Geiskopf-Hadler and Mindy Toomay) that is totally magical.  For some reason it sticks in my mind, and I often think of how crazy good this recipe was when my bud Morgen and I first made it.  It sounds almost too simple, but it's so satisfying.

It's simply brown rice, steamed beets, sauteed beet greens and a dressing of tahini, lemon juice, miso, garlic and cayenne.  I also threw some marinated tempeh on the grill that I had tucked in the freezer.

Vacation from Cooking

Usually, when I haven't blogged for a while, I'll start writing by promising that I've still been busy cooking and gardening even though I haven't written about it.  But this time that isn't true-  I think yesterday was the first time I cooked anything or made it into my garden in weeks!

The past two and a half weeks have been odd and things are just now starting to get back to normal.  First, I went to Texas to visit my family.  My grandfather had been very sick, and I really wanted to get to see him again before he passed.  I'm so thankful that I was able to get a trip planned and time off of work on such short notice [My grandpa passed away last night, so the memories from this trip are even more important to me now]. Also, I hadn't seen my little niece in nearly a year and she's been busy growing up.  I had a great time with my family and ate some really fantastic food!

Fried avocado lettuce wraps from Matt's Tex-Mex.  Yep, fried avocado!

Spinach and mushroom enchiladas with salsa verde (they made them special with no cheese!  Yay Matt's!) and the best drunken beans ever.

My mom's home cooking!  Fried okra, yellow squash with cornmeal, fresh tomatoes, corn on the cob, fresh lima beans and chow-chow (pickled veggies)

But after all this amazing food, visits with family and a road trip back to Minnesota with my mom, I was left with the most horrible stomach pain!  I didn't eat anything THAT unusual while on my trip (okay, maybe fried avocado...) and I've never had too much of an issue with heartburn before...But for 8 days after my trip I couldn't eat anything without unbearable burning pain in my abdomen.  Plus, I had a fever, lethargy and no appetite.  Needless to say, I wasn't cooking much last week!  It was basically just veg. broth, bananas and crackers for a while there.  

My garden, meanwhile, was growing out of control with the heat we've been having here.  I made it outside to water a couple of times, but, honestly, I barely recognized my garden!  Everything grew up while I was away and I didn't have any energy to weed or harvest!  

But, now, today, I've had 3 square meals, no stomach pain and no fever.  I'm feeling very normal again and I'm happy to be munching on some oven-baked kale chips as I type.  I'm hopeful that this bout with severe heartburn (?) is over. 

And now I can think about food again and get back to sharing it with you!

A Garden Tour

As promised: a tour of my garden.  Better late than never, right?

Mike added his own touch to the video (I'm pretty sure you'll know which parts are his)

Four Tips for Lazy/Cheap Gardening

I'm a big fan of finding little ways to save time and/or money in the garden.  With a little creativity (and lots of trial and error) I can usually get the job done with less.  Here are a few tips I've found:  

#1: You don't need a wheelbarrow if you have a sled.

Whether you're loading up logs or weeds or woodchips, a big ol' snow sled works great for hauling garden materials.  

I saved about 6 trips across the yard by hauling firewood on the sled instead of carrying it!

#2: You don't need to hire someone for money if your friends will work for cookies. 

We needed to cut up some firewood, but we don't have an axe.  Luckily, our friend Erik had a chainsaw and all I had to do was bake a batch of gluten free Mexican chocolate snickerdoodles (Ok, maybe I had to make 2 batches.  But only one was for Erik).  Now we're set for fires all summer!

#3: Just because you love your car doesn't mean you can't haul mulch.

I'm not about to dump bulk wood chips in the back of my sweet ride.  But I don't really want to pay for delivery either.  And it's SO much cheaper to buy mulch in bulk.  Solution?  Line the back of the car with the rain shield for an old tent that we got rid of last year.  Put one of our kiddie pools in the back of the car.  Load up the wood chips.  In case you use this method, you'll probably want to know that 40 five-gallon buckets of wood chips equals one cubic yard.  And you can fit about 10 five gallon buckets' worth in a small kiddie pool.  The other method I used was to buy 10 bags of mulch, then save the bags and refill them at the landscaping center.  I could fit 2 five-gallon buckets worth in each bag, so it just took 2 trips to get one cubic yard.  

#4: Take advantage of your cats

I'm not going to kill any little bunnies or birds eating out of my garden, but if my cats want to, I'll gladly reap the benefits.  In addition to Trouble Cat's cold-blooded murders, I have another anti-bunny tactic. I like to brush the cats, collect their fur and spread it around the garden beds.  I have absolutely no scientific evidence of this, but I hypothesize that the cat scent will deter rabbits and other little critters.  

What are your favorite gardening tricks that save money or prevent you from working too hard?

It's almost time!

It's almost time for my garden tour!  Since I have plenty of family and friends that can't make it to the garden tour this weekend, I decided that I'll do a garden tour on this blog so that you can virtually be here.  But you'll have to wait until this weekend, just like everyone else.  

I think I'm nearly ready.  After spending almost every weekend and most weekdays working on the yard, I've added new garden areas and made everything easier to care for (my favorite part of permaculture design!).  I'm excited to show it off, but it needs a good weeding first. 

Here's a few of my favorite things in the yard right now, though.  

 The berry patch!  I clipped the brambles down to the ground in late winter, and they're growing back nicely (and a much more manageable size).  And the strawberries are ripening quickly- already tasting better than anything I can buy (even at my beloved co-op).

I've joined the world of flower gardening.  We'll see how it goes.  I usually have a knack for killing any plants that aren't food plants...Mostly because I forget about them.  But I'm really digging this white echinacea that's just starting to bloom, so I'm going to try to not kill it.

I just think this is the coolest plant ever!  It's a black elderberry and the white/pink flowers against the purpley-black foliage makes this the most striking plant in the yard.  I will definitely be propagating this plant and spreading them all over the garden!

Permaculture Planning

I'm already pretty in love with my yard & garden, but I've been taking a permaculture garden design class through the Permaculture Research Institute that is filling me with plant envy.  This class is fantastic- I get to use giant graph paper and measure every single thing in the yard (seriously.  everything.) and then dream about how I could use the space more productively.  Is there anything I like better than graph paper and productivity?  I think not.

 With the West End Garden Tour less than a month away, I have to be careful.  I'm tempted to go all extreme makeover on my yard, but I know that that's too much to handle when I'll have hundreds of people touring the garden so soon.  Plus, I don't have a crew of people working for me.  Slow and steady, Liz.

But even if I won't be doing a total overhaul, I've got to plan what I'll eventually to do make the yard more low maintenance, productive and beautiful.

So every single nice day, I've been outside working on the yard.  Every single rainy day, I've been working on my homework (a.k.a. the yard plan).

Here's my "base map".  This has every permanent structure on the property: house, garage, raised garden beds, sidewalks, trees, treehouse, etc.

The next step was to create a "bubble map" of areas by purpose or function.  Then, after finalizing the general areas of plantings, we mapped out each plant's size and shape.  On Monday we'll start choosing plants.

Except I cheated.  I didn't wait until Monday's lesson to choose plants.  I did the research early and I went to Leitner's and Linder's and bought all the fruit bearing shrubs and vines that I know I'll need for the landscape. I just couldn't help myself.  I figure there will be several phases to this project and getting in the bigger items can be the first step.  Now...where should I get 8 cubic yards of wood chips?

Shiitake Logs!!!

This past week I talked the whole family into helping me with a project.  The stars must have been aligned or something, because no one even complained.  This is especially remarkable because the project was setting up logs for growing shiitake mushrooms and I'm the only one in the family who likes them.  The kids won't even touch mushrooms.  

First, I marked the logs where I wanted the holes drilled- basically they just needed to be spaced apart in a diamond pattern.

Then Mike drilled the holes for me because he's the best partner ever.  They had to be 7/16 of an inch diameter and 1 inch deep to fit the little shiitake plugs.  

One of my sweet boys helped by pushing the plugs into the holes...until it was time to practice his instrument and play Wii! 

And now I just wait.  Once these are fully inoculated and start fruiting, they'll produce for at least 3 years.  Then the magical healing powers of the shiitakes will take over my body and I'll live forever!  Muahhhaaahhhaaa!

Note: I got the shiitake plugs from Field & Forest Products.  They were at The Organic Farming Conference teaching a workshop- How could I resist?    

Plans for Spring

It's time to start my garden planning!  While I know that it'll be at least a month and probably two before I can plant anything, I have to start planning my garden now for my sanity.  The snow was melty today and my sundresses were calling my name.  Even the cats are starting to consider going outside again (they change their minds when they see the snow, but they keep checking).

Part of my restlessness comes from recently attending the MOSES Organic Farming Conference a couple of weeks ago.   Being surrounded by farmers just makes me want to plant something!   While at the conference I picked up a couple of elderberry sticks.  These little twigs will sprout new elderberry bushes this year.  For now they're forming roots and shoots in a little mason jar in my kitchen.  Soon they'll be growing among the day lilies in the backyard!   Then I can make juice, jam and tinctures with them!

I picked up something else exciting at the conference: Shiitake mushroom plugs!  These thimble-shaped plugs will fit into holes drilled into fresh logs in the yard and produce shiitakes for about 3 years.  I might have gone a bit overboard by getting so many... especially considering that I'm the only person in my family who likes shiitakes.  Luckily, I have some friends who will soon have freshly cut logs for me and I'll supply them with some plugs.

Also new for the garden plan this year: hazelnuts, okra and asparagus (assuming it successfully comes back).  Oh, I can't wait for spring!

Wrap Up

Well, it's my last post of Vegan MoFo and I accomplished my goal of writing 5 days a week for the month.  Hooray!  I was surprised at how much easier it is to write 5 days a week vs. 7 (my goal in past years).  It wasn't too hard to manage.

I thought I'd wrap up Vegan MoFo with a wrap up of my garden for the year.  Really, I still have a bit of  collards and kale out there that I'm harvesting as needed.  But the garden's basically done for the year and I have my final tallies for the harvest!

The big winner for 2010?  Cucumbers!  I harvested 73 pounds of them!  Next up is tomatoes at 67 pounds and green beans at 28 pounds.  Total yield is 202.7 pounds!  That's a lot of food...

I'm pretty disappointed in my tomato harvest- it was about half of last year's yield because of the weird weather this year.  I had my hopes high with that early spring, but then the cold came early, too.  Luckily I was able to get a few cases from the farmers' market for my canning purposes.

The overall harvest was only 9 pounds more than last year's, despite more intense planting.

My canning totals are down from last year, mostly because I was more planful about what I really needed and would use during the year.  I ended up with 134 pints of salsa, pickles, jam, peppers, green beans, tomatoes, soup, onions, okra, etc.  (not all in pint jars- some is actually in quarts and 1/2 pints, of course).

Why keep all these records?  If you have to ask, then you don't know me very well.  I like records for the sake of records.  But, seriously, I like to think that if I wanted to I could compare the price of my seeds and manure to the value of the veggies and fruit that I harvest and find out how much money I saved.  And I love trying to increase my garden yields and remember exactly how many jars of salsa it takes to last us through a year (the answer?  I don't know!  I've never made enough!).  For example, I found out last year that I don't really need 13 quarts of cucumber pickles.  So I made slightly less this year (it was tough to make less, though, because of the bumper crop of cukes!).

Another reason I love these records?  Years ago my friend Morgen shared an old canning cookbook with me that her mom used [Shout out to Sandy!].  In it her mother had recorded the quantities of canned goods she produced- I was in awe!  She had canned so much and kept such careful notes.  And it was so cool for Morgen (also an avid canner) to get to see her mother's notes and carry on her tradition.  I'm keeping notes now in hopes that some day my stepsons might have gardens of their own and crave the pickles that their mean ol' stepmother made.  We'll see...

Coconut Collards

Now's the time of year that we have to harvest all the greens from the garden for freezing and using all year.  It's one of the few things that I can grow enough of to last us nearly all year.  Green beans come close.

This year I grew lacinato kale, Scotch curly kale, collard greens and mustard greens.  We already have about 3 lbs of mustard greens and 8 pounds of curly kale washed, chopped and frozen in the chest freezer.  But all of the lacinato and collards are still out in the garden waiting to be processed!  Please don't freeze, please don't freeze...

Here's Mike all bundled up, harvesting the curly kale in our big cooler.  It makes a great kale transporter!

Until we can do another big harvest, wash, chop, freeze assembly line, I'm trying to eat as many fresh greens as I can.  Tonight we had some awesome coconut collards.  This is my favorite way to prepare collard greens- I thought I had posted the recipe already, but then couldn't find it.  So here's the recipe as I made it tonight.  It's a little different every time.

Coconut Collards
Serves 4-6


1 Tbsp. olive oil
1 yellow onion, diced
1 fat carrot, diced
1 lb. collard greens, thick stems removed and sliced into ribbons
1 large tomato, diced
1 can coconut milk
1 tsp. dried ground ginger (or use more fresh ginger)
Sea salt to taste

In a large saucepan, heat olive oil.  Add onion and carrot and cook until onion is transparent and beginning to lightly brown.  Add collard greens, tomato, coconut milk and ginger. Stir to combine and then put a lid on the pan.  Turn down the heat to medium-low.  Simmer the greens for 20 minutes or so.  You don't want to cook them into oblivion, but they should be tender and the coconut milk thickened.  Add salt to taste.

Tonight I served these greens with wild rice and roasted vegetables on the side (or all mixed together if you're Mike).  These greens are also really nice over basmati rice with some dal.  I really like to add some hot red pepper to the mix, but the kids would never stand for that.  They did, however, devour these collards!

A Strawberry MIracle

One of the best parts of the kids' birthday cake was the strawberries.  Strawberries are their favorite fruit (and all-around favorite food on some days), but their birthday is in October- not exactly prime season for these little berries.  

But thanks to the miracle of hoop houses, we have locally grown, organic strawberries in October.  Pretty amazing, but it makes sense.  We're got fantastic sunshine well into fall in Minnesota (okay, except today).  Adding even a little greenhouse/hoophouse/old window pane over a garden can dramatically raise the temperature and extend the growing season.  These strawberries tasted almost as good as the June berries from our garden!  I'm tempted to start construction on one now so I can be eating garden berries in April!

Now more about that cake:  Out of endless possibilities of flavor combinations, the boys chose chocolate peanut butter with strawberries on top.  They couldn't really decide between chocolate cake with peanut butter frosting or peanut butter cake with chocolate frosting.  So I did what any chocolate and peanut butter lover would do.  I made both!

oops- forgot to take an inside shot until now.  Just a few slices left!

This cake has peanut butter cake with peanut butter buttercream and then chocolate cake with chocolate ganache over the whole thing.  It was kind of like a giant, cakey peanut butter cup (no complaints here).  

The coolest part was that all the kids at their party were asking for more strawberries before they even finished their cake.  Hooray for fruit-loving kids!

So grown up! 

Nerves

 A few months ago I agreed to show my garden in St. Paul's  2011 West End garden tour.  Is it bad that I'm already getting nervous?

I'm not just nervous, of course.  I'm also really excited about getting to tell my garden's story and getting advice from all the other gardeners that will be visiting.  But there were some seriously amazing gardens on last year's tour (thousands of bonsai trees?!?!) and it's a bit intimidating.  

I show plenty of photos of my garden here, but that's a bit different.  I get to choose which parts to show you.  You've never seen the huge pile of logs in the corner of the lot that has vines growing over, through and around it.  Or the kids' play area that is a tangled mess of lilac bushes, battle weapons and forts.  You've never see me struggle to unleash my hair from the obstacle course that is the thorned berry patch.

I'm really hoping that this garden tour will help me see the garden with a new light and fix up a few areas that have been low on the priority list (like any part of the yard that isn't for food production...).  I'm getting started already- planning changes, making lists and mentally preparing myself to have hundreds of people in my backyard. I should be ready by summer, right?

The Big Apple

Sorry, New York.  I'm talking about an actual big apple here.  

We've been watching this apple for months.  You see, our apple tree produces fruit every other year and this year is NOT the year for it to make babies.  So when we saw this little apple starting to grow, we knew it was something special.

Normally we don't end up using our apples as eating apples- I make sauce or cider or butter, because our apples aren't usually the prettiest.  But somehow this apple was perfect!  You might look at it and see some spots or little blemishes, but it's by far the most beautiful apple we've grown.

I'm looking at our apple tree differently now-  I know what it is capable of and it just needs a little help to make all of its apples this beautiful.

Digging up Carrots

It's a weird time for the garden right now.  We're still right in the middle of September, but none of my tomatoes have ripened in the past 2 weeks.  It's October weather and I'm a bit scared that I'm going to have about 30 lbs. of green tomatoes to deal with soon.  Green tomatoes are yummy, but I don't want quite that many!  

Some plants are loving this weather, though.  The Fall green beans are flourishing and the carrots are huge, earthy and sweet.  I've always grown carrots, but they are usually a bit small and gnarled.  I tend to use my garden carrots more for soup and cooking than for eating plain.  But not this year!!!

This year I filled an entire 8' by 4' bed with carrots and it paid off.  Even though I usually rotate the crops in my beds each year, I might have to leave this the "carrot bed" because the soil and sunlight are so well suited to them.  Just look at this thing.  And it's not overgrown and tough- This carrot is sweet as candy and perfumes carrot-ness as soon as it's plucked from the soil!  I've been slicing these up in my lunchbox and actually skipping any dip for them (Never before done, folks.  I love my vegan ranch dip!).  

It's a little silly, but I could help but snap a few more photos with the carrot.  Just look at how Hannah Dog begs for them!

First with her tongue hanging out...

 

Then with her teeth and ears out!

News from Pickle Central

Out of all the things I can each year (23 quarter-pints, 62 half-pints, 71 pints, 25 quarts in 2009, just in case you were wondering), I love pickles the most.  Dill pickles, specifically.  Cucumber pickles, green bean pickles, okra pickles, carrot pickles- I love them all.

It's amazing how just a few simple ingredients can transform these vegetables into amazing salty-tart treats.  And this year I have a couple of new developments in my pickling process.  And so many cucumbers I can barely keep up.

1.  Parisian Pickling Cucumber plants (seeds from Seed Saver's Exchange)
If there's anything better than a gigantic super-tart pickle, it's a little teeny tiny pickle.  Cornichons definitely win the award for most adorable pickles and I'm really excited to be harvesting enough to can.  These are kind of weird looking, compared to regular pickling cucumbers- long and spindly with very dense spines that need to be rubbed off.

2.  Crazy amounts of dill
I might have gone a bit overboard with the dill planting this year, but last year I had to buy some dill because I ran out for pickling and didn't get to dry much either.  It's just silly to have a garden and buy dill.  Pure silliness.  So this year I have a field of dill.

3.  A Chinese pickling jar
I need another crock in my kitchen like I need a hole in the head, but I considered this different enough to justify clearing off some counter space.  My coworker found these online and we shared some shipping costs to get them- they're genius!  No more scum/mold/yeast/stuff on top of my pickles because the glass lid inverts on the top and sits in a rim of water- this keeps out the nasty microorganisms without sealing the air inside the jar...It escapes with a little burping sound!  The shape of the jar helps keep the pickles under the brine, too.  So I'm splitting my cukes between fermented pickling and vinegar pickling.

4.  A prickly cucumber rash
I think sticking my arms into a huge mess of cucumber vines every day is really irritating my skin!  I get really itchy for an hour or so after harvesting!  It's true that pickling cucumbers have really plentiful spines/hairs.  I guess they're just bothering me more this year.  I'm thinking about using long dishwashing gloves when I pick!
I'll spare you a photo of my itchy forehead from this afternoon's harvest.

Tomatoes! Okay...Tomato (singular)

A full 2 weeks earlier than last year, I have my first garden tomato!  The plants are growing like crazy right now and I'm thinking about transplanting some baby tomato plants that sprang up in the kale and carrot beds into a more spacious area.  That means even more tomatoes!  I'm greedy when it comes to tomatoes.

I always devote 2 beds to tomatoes and basil.

I'm a little embarrassed to admit that I didn't stop to take a photo of this first full sized tomato from the garden. I immediately ran inside, sliced it and made a tomato sandwich.  Layers of fresh bread, Veganaise, huge basil leaves, heirloom tomato, salt and freshly ground black pepper.  Is anything better?

In a Blanket

This is admittedly not the most aesthetically pleasing meal.  It even looks kinda dirty.  But it was all I wanted for dinner on Thursday night and I've thoroughly enjoyed the leftovers for breakfast.  

Pigs in a Blanket!!!

I just made a batch of my favorite biscuit dough and cut long triangles, a la Pillsbury crescent rolls.  Then I wrapped up some Smart Dogs.  I think I should have shaped them differently because they ended up with huge biscuits around a very small part of the dog.  I enjoyed mine dipped in Silver Spring horseradish mustard and homemade ketchup- Yum!!!

Also in blankets are my plants.  It's supposed to get down to freezing temperatures tonight and possibly (okay, probably.  Like 90% chance probably) snow.  So I have my strawberries, green beans, grapevine and lettuce under blankets, tarps, sheets and empty compost bags.  All of my newly purchased plants (from the Mississippi Market plant sale and Friends plant sale) are safely in the garage for the night.  I'm especially worried about my strawberries because they've already flowered and mostly fruited!  Please don't die!!!

I forgot to cover my baby apricot and pear trees.  Got to go...

Little Sprouts

It's terribly hard to resist planting seeds when it's been sunny and warm and will be warm for the next week.  My heart says, "Just plant!  Imagine how early your green beans could be!"  But my brain says, "No!  You know it's never safe to plant before Mother's Day in this climate!"

What to do, what to do?

For now, I'm enjoying the perennials that have have decided to start growing again, despite the ever-present risk of cold weather in April.  I have some newcomers to the garden this year and I'm proud to say that they survived the winter!

The Pear Tree is budding!

The Apricot Tree is budding!

I can't wait to see how these little trees grow this year.  I'm not expecting any fruit, but I'm hoping that next year I'll get a few pieces.  Our apple tree is leafing out nicely, too, but it won't produce fruit this year. That's okay because I still have 8 quarts of applesauce from last year's harvest!

Apple tree looking green and gorgeous

Here's the bay tree- It grew quite a bit indoors over the winter and shot up another couple inches this past month.  I'll have to prune it back next year to fit it in the house!

The chives are already looking happy

The garlic is popping up and I've stolen a few scapes to use in salads already

The rhubarb is just poking its leaves out of the ground now.  Rhubarb crisp is still a ways off...

This lemon thyme wins the heartiest plant of 2009 award.  I forgot to water it all the time and it just has a little box to grow in.  But as soon as the snow melted, it greened up and started sending lemony scent into the air.  The kids like to steal little leaves to chew on.  

So there's not too much to eat out of the garden yet, but there's potential...And I haven't even planted anything yet!  I love perennials!