Monkey Lobster

everything pumpkin

      

I had a great winter squash harvest this year, and now I totally get the pumpkins on the front steps thing.  Once I filled up the sunny front porch window with my favored squashes, leaser favored pumpkins got the outside steps. Although they are the pretties of the winter squash, they are the least flavorful, so they need to be a little spiced up. Straight out of the oven with a little pad of butter and a pinch of salt does not work well for the pretty pumpkin like it does for the delicata or the buttercup. So I'm on a mission to eat all of my harvested pumpkins, creatively. Everything pumpkins, and taking suggestions....

         Pumpkin Cookies (more like a little cake or muffin top hearty enough for breakfast)

•   1 stick butter
•   1 large egg
•   1/4 cup of granulated sugar
•   1/2 cup brown sugar
•   2 tablespoon molasses
•   3/4 cup cooked pumpkin
•   1 teaspoon of cinnamon
•   1/2 teaspoon nutmeg
•   1/4 teaspoon ground ginger
•   1/4 teaspoon cloves
•   1/4 teaspoon allspice
•   1/2 teaspoon of baking soda
•   1 teaspoon soda
•   ½ teaspoon of salt
•   2 1/4 cups whole wheat pastry flour (whole wheat pastry flour makes a HUGE difference, it has changed how I cook) 

Cream butter and sugar, add egg and mix.  Add pumpkin and molasses, mix.

Toss dry ingredients and then mix gently with wet. Let rest in fridge for 10 minutes to firm up a little so you can scoop them by tablespoon onto a cookie sheet.  Bake 10-12 minutes.

I can imagine them with a gingery cream cheese frosting and a little piece of candied ginger right on top.

Victorious Leeks

I don't know why I say victorious, it's not really such a victory. They are one of the easiest veggies to grow. They just seem so grand, and flavorful and unappreciated.

Every year I seem to over do it with something.  This year it's husk cherries, last year it was tomatillos, some many years ago it was leeks. I grew so many I just replaced them for onions, daily until mid January, at which point I was so sick of them I could not stand the thought of them for years. But I'm over it now and enjoying them very much (as leeks, not onions).

peck of purple peppers

This is my biggest pepper harvest yet. It's been so fun having so much variety this year. I'll now publicly admit that I don't really care for green bell peppers, I don't like how they smell and their taste is a little too bitter.  But jalapeno peppers, italian frying peppers, poblano peppers, and any pepper allowed to turn red are considered very special in our home. A few year ago I sampled red pepper jelly on a cheese platter and was inspired to buy a jar. Last summer I grew bell peppers that never turned red, so I bought some at the market and made this pepper jelly. This year I really researched red peppers that ripen early and put them in my sunniest spot. Peppers don't take up a lot of room, they like being crowed together, they like to "hold hands" I read somewhere. Well they ripened and we will be eating red pepper jelly all winter long this year.

With a frost warning I scrambled yesterday afternoon, harvesting as much as I could of what was left of summer, and I now have more like a few bushels of peppers. Our favorite pepper dish is grilled jalapeno peppers stuffed with cream cheese. Got any suggestions for my peppers? 

 

little bit of this, and a lot of that

 



We are savoring the last of our summer veggies around here.  Although it has been unseasonably wet and grey lately, the summers growing season has been good to me. A first for a BIG harvests of red peppers, and enough raspberries to to make me start to wondering where I will put all the jars of jam. Hmmmmm maybe in my new kitchen?

We are slowly welcoming some fall menu items like spinach pie and kale seasoned popped corn (I added a large bunch of chives, so that I call it herbed popped corn).  And I am slowly, for the first time discovering a few beers that I enjoy.

We've still got a long way to go, but I am beginning to get a feel for what my dream home will be like. 

harvest

I've been taking more pictures of my harvest than my children these days.

garden love

Can't ask for much more from my little patch of earth.

garden update

It's a sea of veggies here this summer. This is my fourth year in this here garden spot and I've had three years of insane pest problems and disease. I seem to have turned the corner this year. I've added ridiculous amounts of compost, grown a variety of cover crops and followed all of Eliot Coleman's advice. And it has finally payed off and I have learned that healthy soil takes time. I have no-till permanent garden beds and straw or wood chip mulched paths and I think that combinations has been very inviting to worms because their castings are EVERYWHERE! 

Oh, and did I mention the major construction going on right now?

best ever strawberry jam

Yes I know everybody is doing it these days. But this is really the best jam ever! The colour is so red and the flavor so intense, and not too sweet. I imagine warm winter morning by the fire (hint, hint BEN) eating creepes filled with this jam, that I now have 20 jars of.

After seeing the book Canning for a new Generation on Sew Liberated I knew I had to have it. I followed her high yield stawberry jam recipe and it did indeed deliver. The other recipes look pretty great as well.

The recipe used pomona's pectin, instead of boiling the berries down until it thickens. Leaving you with a lighter, more fresh tasting jam. 

unholy greens

I did it! I grew arugula without any holes in it. Early spring flea beetles are my #2 enemy after cutworm this time of year, and arugula one of my favorite greens.  When Elsa was around 2 years old she used to eat it out of the garden and call it "spicy dirt". Now she likes it triple washed with a balsamic vinaigrette.

So for the second spring I tried a row cover. This time I got the timing right. The first time I waited too long and covered the beetles right up under the cover and the second time I grew a giant patch of weeds. This time, I cultivated the area 1 week before planting to encourage any weed seeds to grow. They did grow and I killed them with my hoe (if I was a rapper I'd rap about growin' greens). One of my greatest dreams in life is to be in a hip hop band, if you know any looking for a singer, I promise to deliver.  But back to greens. Then I seeded my plot and covered them right away. My covers are stapled to two boards on the long sides and I put some rocks on the short sides to hold them down. I resisted peeking and weeded once about 3 weeks later, just a few little weeds. And now I'm harvesting PERFECT looking greens.

YAY ME! I had one of those moments in the garden the other day; where you get to a certain point in you learning and experience with something, just when you think you have mastered something, to realize that you have just only begun. It's actually an amazing accomplishment, to discover how little you really know. Well, this season I am there and thirsty to learn more.

strawberries in da house..............

It's always just so exciting. I don't know if it's because strawberries are just something special, or if it's because they are the first fresh fruit after a long winter.  

They start with just a few at a time and no one can really wait for a red one so we sample a few pink ones. And then there are enough to collect a few, even then they look so nice put together for a moment but never make it past the garden.

But today is the day that they made it into the house. Yes, I've been annoying my children by chanting "berries in da houuuuuuse!" all day, I've got some pretty good (or bad or sick or ill or whatever it's call this year) moves to go with it.

And there will be fresh picked strawberries in the house for about a month, and then gone for another year, with the exception of the little apline berries I planted this year.

So, soon we will start the daily pleasure of sharing, freezing, drying, and making jam and syrup that will remind us all winter long just how special strawberries are.

Here are the links for the container for the berries:

wooden berry boxes

ceramic berry box