Bread and Butter Pickles

I’ve been in a crazy pickling frenzy lately. I made enough jars of bread and Butter pickles to eat one quart a week for 17 weeks. We never get tired of them :)

Fall Flowers

The last month has been a busy time around here. I haven't found time for posting, so I have a lot to get caught up on. I've been busy harvesting and canning and putting in the winter garden. I was out enjoying the flowers still blooming in the garden and saw a monarch enjoying one of our zinnias. The zinnia flowers just popped up this year. I think they may have been part of a mix that I sprinkled out in the early spring. I will be saving some of the seeds to plant again next year. The Cosmos have been especially pretty this fall. I love plants and will be saving as many seeds as possible. I'm also going to be dividing huge clumps of irises, society garlic, shasta daisys, agapanthas, lambs ears, forth of july's, and cannas. There is so much to do in the garden, I could spend all day outside and never get everything done. Not to mention, I do have a full time job and amateur Roller Derby Career going on too. Please forgive my posting lapse, I'm back on track now :)

Harvesting the Pumpkin Patch

We had hoped to leave our pumpkin patch in place until a little later this month, but nature had different plans. Rain over the last week encouraged us to harvest our pumpkins and winter squash. The photo above is what we collected. A few of the smaller squash were moldy and got thrown in the compost bin. I will be trading some squash for figs and making a lot of pumpkin curry this winter. I absolutely love pumpkin! One of my favorite recipe’s in the world is Squash Lasagna, but instead of Butternut Squash, I like to use Pumpkin. I know it sounds a little strange, but I promise that it tastes fantastic!

This is a Wonderful Recipe from Weight Watchers that I make every winter.
4 cup all-purpose flour
2 1/2 cup fat-free evaporated milk
2 medium garlic clove(s), minced
1/3 cup grated Parmesan cheese
1/8 tsp table salt, or to taste
1/8 tsp black pepper, or to taste
10 oz dry lasagna noodles, cooked al dente (about 12 noodles)
10 oz cooked winter squash, thawed if frozen
1 cup part-skim mozzarella cheese, shredded
3/4 cup golden seedless raisins
2 Tbsp pine nuts, chopped
Preheat oven to 350°F.

Place flour in a small saucepan and very gradually whisk in milk and garlic. Warm over low heat, stirring constantly, until sauce simmers and is thickened, about 3 minutes. Remove from heat and stir in Parmesan cheese, salt and pepper.
Spread 1/4 cup of cheese sauce over bottom of a 9 X 13-inch glass or metal pan and cover with 3 lasagna noodles; top with 1/3 of squash and 1/2 cup of cheese sauce. Sprinkle with 1/2 cup of mozzarella cheese and 1/4 cup of raisins. Cover with 3 more lasagna noodles and spread with 1/3 of remaining squash and 1/2 cup of cheese sauce; sprinkle with 1/4 cup of raisins. Cover with 3 more lasagna noodles and top with remaining squash and raisins; cover with last 3 lasagna noodles, pressing sheets firmly down. Top with remaining cheese sauce; sprinkle with pine nuts and remaining mozzarella cheeseBake until lasagna bubbles around edges and is browned on top, about 30 minutes. Slice into 8 pieces and serve

This is soooo yummy!!!! My mouth is watering just typing it :)

Eating Local Beef

Mark and I went on a little adventure a few weeks ago that I am just now having time to write about. We drove up to Lake County to pick our ¼ of an all natural pasture raised/ grass feed steer for our freezer.
After reading Omnivore’s Dilemma this summer, I’ve been unable and unwilling to eat any beef without knowing exactly where it came from. I hate the idea of supporting feed lot practices in any way. This has seriously reduced the amount of beef that I’ve been eating to just about none. While perusing Craigslist, I came upon an ad for all natural grass fed beef and since Mark and I already own a chest freezer to store it in we thought it might be worth exploring further.
I called up the Rancher Eric and he told me that he would have a Steer ready to process in about 2-3 weeks. The grass fed steers are really lean and a lot smaller than grain fed. The cost was $3 per pound on the hoof and ¼ steer would be around 125 lbs. Mark and I decided we would give it a try, and a few weeks later Eric called back to see what cuts of meat we wanted. Since I have never ordered meat this way, I was not quite sure what to ask for. He kindly went over all of the different cuts with me and told me that it would dry age for 18 days and then he would be individually wrapping it and freezing it.

About 2 months after ordering it (slow food) we got a call that it was ready to pick up. The directions to Eric’s house involved miles of dirt road and I was excited to see where our steer had grown up. It was a beautiful drive about an hour from home. The area was once volcanic and there is obsidian rock scattered all over the road. We met Eric, his wife Nora and 4 of their 6 kids. They had quite the menagerie of animals, cats, dogs, chickens, running around their yard. I felt instantly at ease since it reminded me of my house. Eric told us a little about his history, he used to be a Sherriff, but had to retire after an injury. He had worked as a butcher as a teenager and decided to go into ranching. He took us down to the pasture where his grazing cattle live. The grass was starting to dry out, but I was surprised at how tall it was and how green some still was despite the hot weather. I asked where they get their water from and he explained that there is a stream running thru the pasture area. They actually have 1100 acres they can roam around on. We stopped by a farm stand on the way home and I bought a box of the most gorgeous Okra EVER to pickle (see Okra Pickles post). It was a great trip and Mark and I have enough meat to last all winter and spring. I’ve made some steaks and used some hamburger in meat sauce (we have over 20 lbs bags of it). So far so good. The meat is so lean that there is almost no fat in the pan when cooking. I am looking forward to coming up with some fun and creative recipes for all of it.

Side Yard Wisteria Walk

Along our front fence line we have a great purple wisteria plant that shades the south side of our house during the summer. It has not been cooperating with my plan for it to grow up over the top of the pergola that Mark built for me last year. Instead it is trying to take over the fence line and the rest of the neighborhood along with it. I keep trimming it back hard in the hopes that it will eventually cover the pergola like it is supposed to.

We have tons of Agapanthus growing all over our yard. I am a great believer in free plants and when Mark and I decided to landscape for our wedding we had very little money to cover a huge area. I learned how to devide and propogate plants very quickly. One huge Agapanthus I devided turned into over 50 1 gallon plants. The ones pictured above will be devided this fall. They are very hardy, drought tolerant and the cut flowers last for weeks. The one thing that I hate about them is that they are snail breeding grounds. the snails love to hide between the leaves. I have been picking them off and feeding them to my chickens. The hens just adore escargot.

In the far background of this picture you can just see the pond that we will be installing later this summer. It will be surrounded by plants and have a little seating area next to it so that we can relax and enjoy it.

That is one of the best shady areas in our garden and it is rarely used. Adding the pond and seating will create a new outdoor room for us to enjoy.

Grape Vines

Grape Vine Fence



Baby Grapes
Planted along the fence line that separates our yard into smaller sections are 10 grapevines with an assortment of different types of grapes (some wine some table). I was thrilled to see some nice little grape clusters formed. The grapevines do a nice job of disguising the wood and wire fence and make a very pretty green wall. We planted the grapes right before our wedding last June. They were a little stressed out last year and did not produce many edible grapes. I work for a big winery and have all of the wine I could ever drink, however I am considering trying to make some homemade wine this year and lots of grape jelly for PB&J's.

Heirloom Tomato Rows

I've added a nice rice straw mulch over the entire garden. I'm hoping it will work to keep the weeds down and some extra moisture in. The photo above is of 2 rows of heirloom tomatoes we have growing on a tomato fence. The plants are secured to a wire fence supported by T-posts. It seems to be working well so far. I waited longer than I should have to support the plants and they were pretty out of control when I finally got around to tying them to the fence.
I've realized that I have been way over watering the poor plants so I am trying to cut back to every 3rd day. The leaves were starting to yellow and get a little curly which is a bad sign. Under the tomato plants I've planted carrots and baby spinach as well as beans and beets.

July 30, 2008 Harvest

Here’s what Mark and I harvested out of our garden tonight: Beets, Chard, Armenian Cucumbrs, Squash, Nectarines, Radishes, Beans, Tomato, Broccoli

I also picked this 6 bouquets of Roses, Dahlias, Lavender, Bells of Ireland, Agapanthus, Liatris, Artemisia, Hydrangea and Butterfly Bush.

Grabbed some fresh eggs too:

Not a bad shopping trip to the backyard

Back Garden Tour

On the east side of our green house we have planted Corn, Squash, Melons, Okra, Cilantro, Basil, Lettuce, Radishes and more....

South of the green house we have Beans, Peppers, Eggplants, Beets, Chard, Black Basil, Tomatoes, Onions, Strawberries and Rhubarb
Everything is doing really well. There are volunteer Tomato's, Melon, Eggplant, Cilantro and Bells of Ireland coming up all over the garden. I've been digging them up and moving them around as best I can.
This weekend I started some Lettuce, Peas, Kale, Beets, Turnips, Radishes, Carrots, Chicory, Broccoli, Cabbage and Cauliflower in 6 packs and 4 inch pots. They should be ready to put in the ground in a few weeks. The weather has been strange. It is still smoky from the wild fires and has remained overcast long into the day. It has not been hot enough to ripen may tomatoes (I've only had 2 ripe ones). I did not plant any early varieties, instead I chose all crazy colorful heirlooms. I'm regretting not having planted a couple of early girls. I bought a tomato from the Farmers Market Saturday morning. It was the most beautiful Pineapple Tomato that I have ever seen. It weighed a full pound and was $4. worth every penny.

The Pumpkin Patch

Here's a shot of our little pumpkin patch. It is located to the west of our green house next to the chicken coop. Mark had to raise up the sprinkler on to a pole because everything grew tall very quickly. There are about 10 different kinds of winter squash and pumpkins planted here.

All of my favorites like Golden and Blue Hubbard, Cinderella Pumpkins, Butternut, Sweet Dumpling , Potimarron , Musquee de Provence, Galeux d'Eysines , Red Kuri, Jarrahdale and more (Mark refuses to eat squash of any kind). I have already spotted some giant Golden Hubbard squash growing in the corner. According to the seed packet they only get to be 12 lbs, but I estimate that they will be at least 20-30 lbs when ripe. They are enormouse already.

I'll be eating home grown squash all winter. I can hardly wait!!!