The Long Winter Ahead

Welp. It's the 26th of December, Christmas is over, and now it's time to settle in for Winter. I don't know where the time has gone and neither does anyone else it seems. Lately I've had many people comment on how they "can't believe it's Christmas already!" It's true, the time has just flown. Seems like it was just yesterday that I was watering tomatoes and picking pole beans. Now there's snow on the ground and my frost-hardy kale has finally kicked it and flopped over.

This next week we will be chilling out and recovering from the hectic holiday season and on New Year's Eve my fiancee and I will be enjoying some Tallgrass steaks. Yes, fiancee. He proposed on the 4th of December. We're planning on having our wedding August 22nd 2010 if all goes according to plan, so I'll likely be posting wedding updates here as well for a while. :)

January will be a month of preparation and planning. I've got to get that bedroom closet cleaned out first of all and make room for a grow-light setup. I then have to get some light housing and wire it since apparently hardware stores don't sell housing for 2 foot bulbs that actually have plugs on them. Also on the agenda is a timetable for when to start my seeds and get them outside. My seed catalogs should be arriving shortly. I plan on doing spinach, lettuce, and maybe some peas during the cold spring months, and then Roma tomatoes (for sauce!) and pickling cucumbers (for pickles!) during the hot part of the year. Since I love fresh pole beans so much I'll likely grow those too. I was considering doing 2 varieties of pickling cucumbers so I can decide which I like the best but I might not have room on the porch for that due to limited sunlight. Strawberries are out, they take up too much room for too little produce. I intend to make jam but I'll buy the berries at the farmer's market or go to a U-pick orchard. There's gonna be a lot of canning going on next summer. :)

Hopefully I'll have enough to keep myself occupied and the Winter blues won't affect me too much this year. I always have such a hard time during Winter. Perhaps this year will be different. I have some bread proofing right now so I'd better go attend to it. I'll likely be whining about that horrible closet in my next update. :)

Glorious Weather!

The weather has been fantastic recently; it's like those first glorious days of good Spring weather where you throw open all the windows, air out the house, and try to squeeze in both work and play before it inevitably turns back into freezing cold Spring weather. The leaves are all off the trees here in Wisconsin by now, but despite everything being gray the sun still cheers me up immensely.

I refilled all the birdfeeders and need to work on keeping them full. The birds need all they can get so they can prepare for the lean winter months. They're going to be my entertainment this winter so I need to keep them around. The plastic is up on the bedroom window (of course since it's been 70 degrees it's way too hot in there now) and the balcony has been cleared of all garden remains save for the empty pots and my winter greens and swept clean. It's hard to think that by the end of the month we'll probably have snow, but it's a near certainty. Time to start preparing for the holidays!

I'm making Jambalaya this week; here's the recipe I'm using (from Allrecipes):

Ingredients

• 1 pound skinless, boneless chicken breast halves - cut into 1 inch cubes
• 1 pound andouille sausage, sliced
• 1 (28 ounce) can diced tomatoes with juice
• 1 large onion, chopped
• 1 large green bell pepper, chopped
• 1 cup chopped celery
• 1 cup chicken broth
• 2 teaspoons dried oregano
• 2 teaspoons dried parsley
• 2 teaspoons Cajun seasoning
• 1 teaspoon cayenne pepper
• 1/2 teaspoon dried thyme
• 1 pound frozen cooked shrimp without tails

Directions

1. In a slow cooker, mix the chicken, sausage, tomatoes with juice, onion, green bell pepper, celery, and broth. Season with oregano, parsley, Cajun seasoning, cayenne pepper, and thyme.
2. Cover, and cook 7 to 8 hours on Low, or 3 to 4 hours on High. Stir in the shrimp during the last 30 minutes of cook time.

We'll see how it turns out. If it's good, it'll go into regular rotation. I have to get ready to leave for work now, so I'm gonna cut this short. Farewell!

Tomato soup, and changes to our eating habits

I've been reading Animal, Vegetable, Miracle (Which is today's recommended reading, by the way) and the more I read the more I want to change the way we eat. Not only because I don't want to financially support the terrible food industry in America any more than I have to, but also because I think eating local, in-season produce comes only second to actually growing all your own food as far as making you truly appreciate what's on your plate come mealtime. For example, you really start to appreciate summer's bounty when you're on a strict local-only diet and you've been eating potatoes, carrots, turnips, meat, and whatever you managed to preserve for 6 or 8 weeks and winter's only half-over. It's going to be a slow process, but I'm trying to reduce how much meat we eat while expanding our horizons as far as vegetables go. So far, I've eaten mushrooms (meaning I got over my aversion to consuming any sort of fungus whatsoever simply because it's fungus), asparagus, turnips, and acorn squash. Those are all things I either never liked before or simply hadn't had. I don't necessarily love them yet, but I have a feeling I will eventually. Still, this little project isn't without it's obstacles, the biggest one being my stupidly high metabolism and hypoglycemic tendencies. I need a lot of calories and protein and I cannot get through an 8 hour shift at work on nothing but salad and fruit. On top of that, I have lazy days where I don't feel like cooking and opening a can of Chef Boyardee ravioli sounds really good. I also have days where I get distracted and forget that I need to eat until it's too late to cook something before I have to leave for work, and due to the aforementioned hypoglycemia issues not eating before work is not an option for me. But I'm working on it. I'd like to eventually get to the point where we can just stock our freezer with free-range meat from local farmers once a year and get by on that. The only way that will be affordable is to reduce how much we eat. Same with milk. I drink way too much milk and if I want to buy all organic pastured stuff I'm going to have to cut my consumption. Getting Trevor on board with that idea is also something I'm working on.

To change topics for a minute, I pulled up the garden several weeks ago, but due to the rather mild summer I had more green tomatoes than red on the vine when I went to compost the plant. I couldn't bear to just toss them, so I decided to put them in one of my cloth shopping bags and see what happened. Then I forgot about them.

Well, a day or so ago I suddenly remembered they were in there while I was at work, and a pang of guilt hit me. Surely they'd be rotten by now, and they'd all go to waste. Owing to my wonderful ADD, I again forgot about them until today. I'd skipped breakfast (coffee doesn't count) and for lunch I had a salad, some cheese and crackers, and a handful of apple wedges. Seemed I'd hit a vegetarian streak, and I decided to continue it. We went to Half-Price books, and then Target, and the whole while my stomach growled and I tried to figure out what I could have for dinner that'd still be vegetarian. Then I remembered the tomatoes.

I looked into the bag when we got home and wouldn't you know it, they were just about all perfectly ripe. I inspected them and found one that was going bad, and while chopping them up I had to toss maybe two more smaller ones that were too bruised and mushy. The rest of them went into a pot with some minced garlic sauteed in butter and are now gently simmering along with some spices, salt, and pepper. I'm going to add some rice, lentils, and barley too and it'll make a hearty meal. I only wish I had some dough I could pull out of the freezer like I did earlier in the week with my roast. Perhaps tomorrow I'll do some batches of bread and dinner roll dough so I can have hot crusty bread anytime I want.

Oh yeah, speaking of that wonderful roast: I put it on the table and sat down to eat and it hit me... this meal was entirely homemade. There wasn't a single pre-packaged thing in it save for the milk and block of cheese I served with it, and I told Trevor that if we had a cow those would have been homemade too. I was proud of myself then and I'm proud of myself now. Maybe this whole "Eat more vegetables, less meat, and try to stay in-season" thing won't be so hard after all.

Here's how I made my soup, by the way: (EDIT: So as not to surprise anyone who decides to make this, this is not traditional smooth tomato soup. It's chock full of the barley, lentils and rice with a little bit of broth left over. Rich, hearty, and delicious.)

1 large clove of garlic (or 2 smaller ones)
2 tablespoons of butter (what I had on hand, you could probably use less)
2-3 lbs of fresh tomatoes
onion powder, salt, pepper, oregano, basil, cloves, bay leaf, sugar
half-cup or so each of rice, lentils, and barley and some frozen corn if you want

Heat the butter in your pot, mince the garlic. Sautee the garlic in the butter and take off the heat while you chop your tomatoes. Now, I had a food mill so I just chopped them, added 2 cups of water to the pot with the garlic, and threw in the pieces. Without a food mill you're going to have to blanch the tomatoes and remove the skins and seeds. (Hint: Get a food mill.) Added the herbs and spices and let it all simmer 20-25 minutes. Ran the lot through the food mill, added sugar to taste, and then put it back on the heat to bring it to a boil. I put in the rice and lentils and waited a couple of minutes before adding the barley and corn since it cooks quicker. After that, I let it simmer for 12-15 minutes and stand uncovered. It went from thin and watery to thick and rich. I served it with garlic bread. :)

No more leaves

The news is saying that the Fall colors are just about at their peak, and when we get away from the apartment, they are. Right outside, though, the trees are already bare. We're getting a lot of sunlight in the apartment and on the balcony now, which is good for my mood and great for the little rubbermaid full of leafy greens. Those are probably going to be history by next week, because now that they've been exposed to a couple of frosts they should taste really good. It's a shame I never managed to get any spinach or peas planted.

Now that we're settling into the cold part of the year, I'm going to have to find other things to do with my time. I'm currently crocheting a blanket which will probably end up being a baby blanket for our first kid whenever he comes (surely I'll have it done by then. Right? ... Right?) I'll probably bake a lot more now that the extra heat is a good thing, and I certainly need to work on my pie crusts. I'm also trying to cut down on buying food at work because there are other things I want that I can spend all that money on. I've been taking a lunchbox full of stuff to munch on throughout the day, though it's hard to find time when you work in a busy deli to take off your gloves, go in back where the customers can't see you, grab a handful of trail mix, come back, put more gloves on, and then keep going. Repeat that process enough times in one shift and you can't get your routine done. I'll be glad when I don't have to worry about finding time to manage my blood sugar while working.

I'm also trying to be more dedicated to cooking good food and eliminating some of the processed stuff we eat because we're too lazy to slap something together for lunch or dinner. Trying to cut down on our meat consumption has been a huge challenge, and it's going to have to be a long term goal because we need to broaden our vegetarian horizons and find out what we like before we can start cooking more vegetarian meals.

This is just a quick update, I actually need to hurry up and eat so I can finish the dishes and get ready for work. For now, I'm out.

Always the Summers are slipping away

Well folks, the sun has set on the last day of Summer. Normally I'm in full squirrel-mode by this point (Well okay I still am even this year, more on this later), and pretty leaves and pumpkins are the only things on my mind. This summer, however, has been a very special one for me, and I'm sad to see it go.

I've learned a lot this past season. Not only about gardening, but also about myself. I've grown to care about things such as agricultural sustainability, homesteading, and the value of knowing how to just do things yourself. I've realized that I'm really, really good at picking up new skills on my own just by looking up a how-to page on the internet. I feel like I will one day be able to do a lot of things that most people would balk at. Hell, I already know how to bake bread all by myself without using a machine of any sort. Just the other day someone was surprised when I told them I baked bread often, but don't own a bread machine. Sometime in the near future I'll be doing my own electrical wiring (actually this coming spring I'll have to rig up some lighting for seed starting!) and minor home repairs, just because I want to prove to myself that I can. I'd fix the broken switch on the washing machine so we don't have to lift the lid to get the basket to spin, but that involves buying a replacement switch and Trevor won't let me because that's the management's responsibility. I agree with him there, so I think I'll just have the repairman show me how when he does it.

Before I go too far off on that tangent, I'd like to go ahead and go back to that whole squirrel-mode thing. I don't know what it is, but every single year around Autumn I get the urge to hoard food. And this isn't a recent thing, I did this as a very young child. I specifically remember making a list for a winter cache and raiding the kitchen so I could store stuff in my room. My mother was none too pleased to find a bunch of cereal and other foodstuffs stashed in my own cupboards instead of the kitchen's. This year, I have a canner. This year, I bought an entire bushel of apples. And this year, I have garden veggies to freeze and raided the Madison farmer's market for enough jam and honey to last through the coming winter. I still have a few apples to can, but let's just say I won't be hurting for applesauce or apple pie anytime soon.

This year, my ridiculous squirrel instincts have been (mostly) satisfied. It's... well, satisfying. The only thing that would make me happier is if I had an actual cellar with a huge wall of shelves full of jars. Maybe in a few years. I can't wait to see how bad this urge gets when I have children to care for, because my maternal instincts make me even more irrational than my squirrel instincts. Trevor will probably refuse to talk about it.

Oh yes, the garden! The last few pole beans are slowly coming in. I have several pods that I just left to completely ripen and dry out so I can save the seeds for next year. Got some good tomatoes (finally). Those went into vegetable soup. The anaheim peppers have blossom-end rot, so they're going to be a total loss unfortunately. Very frustrating, but at least now that my chili pepper is going wild with blossoms I can give it some milk so they don't end up like the first batch of tomatoes and the anaheims. I bought a string of peppers for drying at the farmer's market, so I won't go without. One little strawberry plant is hanging on like a champ, but I know I'm going to lose it to the same wilt that got the others so I'll probably yank it and use the pot for cold-weather crops. My basil is going nuts again, I'll probably trim it back soon.

As far as cold-weather stuff, I've already got kale, lettuce, and swiss chard planted. They're all leggy as hell since I started them from seeds and only have one puny light in there. I put them outside in the sun before any more damage could be done and picked the strongest ones when I thinned them, but they're still floppy. Ah well, they're still growing well. I plan to plant some spinach if I can just find some seeds. I may have to order some, since apparently none of the stores around here have heard of fall planting. I think I'm gonna do some garlic too, and when it gets too frosty for anything to grow I'll fire up the old Aerogarden.

The summer was a cool one, but it was still kind to me. I learned a lot of lessons and will have a bigger, better garden next year. Signing off for now. Fare thee well, Summer! Until next year.

Applesauce!

I bought a quarter peck of Lodi apples at the farmer's market yesterday, and since they're not that great for eating and seem too soft to put into a pie, I decided to make applesauce. I have two small jars in the canner right now, and just got done licking the bowl. I put maybe 3/4 cup sugar in there since they were tart apples, and a few shakes of cinnamon and pumpkin pie spice. It took on a reddish tint when I stirred it all up, and it's absolutely delicious. Can't wait until my dad gets here so we can do some more canning. I did learn one lesson today, though: Water bath canners take forever to boil, and even longer if you have an electric stove with small elements (the single large one on my stove doesn't work.) Next time I'll put the water on long before I start anything else.

I think I'll go ahead and bake some bread today too, since I'm already messing up my kitchen and doing heaps of dishes (I've probably done 3 sinkfuls already and will have 2 or 3 more by the time I'm done). The weather is rather mild today, so I won't be roasting here in the apartment.

Another Job

I found out yesterday that I'm being hired back at Sendik's, which is a higher-end grocery store here in the Milwaukee area. I'll be making $9 an hour, 4o hours a week. Yeah, big load off my mind. I've been watching our savings steadily decline while waitressing and was really starting to get worried. Crisis averted!

Anyhoo, I did my fall seed-starting. Well, some of it anyway. I found seeds for kale, lettuce, and swiss chard. I still need peas and spinach, plus some new containers and dirt (I didn't plan that out very well.) Here's hoping that we'll have some lovely fresh greens right up until the frost gets bad enough to kill them all off! In other news, my pole beans are flourishing. Every couple of days I go out there and pull off a good handful of deliciously snappy beans. I've been mostly eating them raw rather than cooking them. They're good in salads.

The tomatoes have been struck with blossom-end rot, unfortunately. I'll still have a few decent ones but all the biggest ones are rotting. This is another lesson learned: Forget relying on commercial feed. I've been using Miracle-Gro for them, but apparently they don't put enough (or any) calcium in it, which has led to a calcium deficiency in my plants which causes blossom-end rot. Next year I'm going to do some composting out on the porch and ditch the Miracle-Gro (it's owned by Monsanto anyway and they're not getting another dime of my money if I can help it.)

Not sure what's up with my big pepper, either. It's not getting any bigger and I assumed it just needed to ripen, so far it's still green but it's shriveling in the middle. Dunno if that's normal or not, I'll keep an eye on it. There are more tiny peppers starting to develop on there too, and still plenty of flower buds to open yet.

My strawberries... well, I think they're a bust too. They seem to have Verticillium Wilt. I've already lost two plants, and the others are showing signs of having it, even the little baby runners. I mowed the big ones down to ground level to interrupt the disease cycle, we'll see if they last much longer. Either way I think I might go ahead and yank them and dispose of the soil and bleach the hell out of the containers. At least then I can reuse them for my lettuce and stuff. I'm thinking strawberries might take up too much space for so little yield anyhow. I might ditch them in next year's garden and wait until I can put a big patch in the ground to grow them. Next year when it comes down to jam-making time I'll probably just hit up a U-pick farm.

I bought some new books, including one called "Almost Vegetarian". We're trying to cut back on the amount of red meat we eat, so the books I bought should help towards that goal. Tomorrow I'll go to the Farmer's Market and stock up, today I think I'll take whatever scraps I have left and make pork or chicken fried rice using this method. Maybe even shrimp, although I don't much care for shrimp.

Oh look, it's 10 AM! I Love Lucy is on. Toodles!

Stock!

I will be making a small batch of chicken stock today. I've got leftover chicken bones from our dinner the other night and I saved the giblets too (heart, liver, gizzard, no neck unfortunately). There is a wonderful tutorial on stock-making at http://www.goonswithspoons.com/Chicken_Stock. Trev has also requested a batch of banana bread, so I guess I'd better get on that. It's oppressively hot in Wisconsin today, up to 90 degrees and humid. Windy too, otherwise I'd go take some pictures of the garden to upload. When it calms down I'll try and get some. In other news, I had a job interview the other day. If I get it I'll be making over $10 per hour. The hours are random and that will suck, but I'll at least be able to start putting back money again. Oh yeah, it rained really hard yesterday morning so we had to put off the fair until Wednesday :(

Recommended reading today is the 1969 edition of Betty Crocker's Cookbook. I bought one off Amazon for my dad and have been looking through it, and there are so many good recipes in there it's not even funny. If you come across one, I'd suggest trying to get ahold of it. Right now they cost anywhere between $45 and $100 on Amazon.

Alright, I need to get my stock going and I'm gonna have to do some cleaning today, too. I hate to turn on the oven, but Trev wants his bread so I suppose he's going to get that as well. Toodles.

Bread!

Today I got up early so I could get a loaf of bread in the oven before it gets too hot. Nothing beats the smell and taste of fresh bread, and since I still have some strawberry jam left I'm in for a treat later today. I might stop by work later since I've promised my banana bread recipe (I actually got it from Trevor's mom), some green tomatoes, and whatever bread I made next to various co-workers.

I like to be generous at work. It seems like so many people are astounded by the fact that I like to cook and bake, and even more astounded when I tell them how simple it is. I try not to bore them with details about my garden and the finer points of bread-baking (mostly because once I get going it's hard to shut me up), but I do bring in some of my stuff to share. Generosity seems to have gone by the wayside with many folks today. Even Trevor sometimes snarls at me when I'm heading toward the door with half a batch of scones packed up for people at work. "Don't take those to work! They cost money to make! Let them get their own!" I try to gently remind him that we are blessed to have what we do have, and that brightening another person's day with something delicious to eat is never a waste. I fully believe that there is a reason that things tend to work out for us, and that if we ever start acting selfish and greedy that things will go sour. Besides, we're both constantly spending far more money on video games, books, and music than ever goes into what I bake. If we were really hurting for money, those luxuries ought to be first to go, not the occasional treat for friends and neighbors.

Having said that, it's looking like late summer will be a time of plenty as far as beans, peppers, and tomatoes go. I've been keeping an eye on those beans the past couple of days, and they've gone from no flowers at all to too many for me to count. I'm so glad that I didn't decide to prune them back. The tomatoes are still growing extremely well, although I did lose one to a nasty split (I overwatered. Whoops.) New flowers burst open on the anaheim every day. The weather has taken a turn for the warm as well, with it being in the 80's all week and the 90's for the weekend. It'll be miserably hot at the state fair but I don't care. We'll still have a blast.

I need to go check on my bread dough, it should be just about done with the first proof pretty soon. It'll be going into a pan for half an hour after that for the second proof, and then into the oven for half an hour. Then it's going into my mouth. Here's the recipe, for those interested:

Farmhouse White Bread

1 Package Active Dry Yeast
1 Cup Lukewarm Water
1 Tablespoon Sugar
2 3/4 to 3 Cups Bread Flour
2 Tbsp. Unsalted Butter, room temp
1 Tsp. Salt

1. Dissolve yeast in lukewarm water, add sugar, wait for bubbles.
2. Add 1 cup flour, butter, and salt, mix well. Then add the rest of the flour.
3. Turn the dough out and knead 10 minutes.
4. Put dough in bowl, cover, let rise for 45 minutes.
5. Preheat oven, oil bread pan.
6. Punch dough down, put in pan, cover. Let rise another 30 minutes.
7. Bake about 30 minutes.
8. Remove from oven, cool on wire rack.

Enjoy!

Edit to add: My but the birds are out today! American Goldfinches, mourning doves, chickadees, downy woodpeckers... all have been to my feeders this morning. I never get tired of hearing the birds flitting around the tree outside, chirping and singing between raids on my feeders.

An update!

Well now, it's been a while hasn't it? To be honest, nothing much has gone on, though there has been a little progress with the garden.

The tomatoes, for one, have exploded. I hung the basket up from the roof to catch the sun for a few days, and just left it alone, wondering when the tomatoes would start really developing. Well, a storm rolled in and I took it down out of the wind, and there were suddenly like 20 or 30 little tomatoes between the two plants! It's taking a lot of water to keep them from wilting now. I snipped the baby strawberry runner from the mother plant, we'll see how it fares. My anaheim has a lovely little pepper growing and new blossoms opening every day, and the chili plant has sprung back nicely even if there are no flowers yet. The beans, unfortunately, seem to have stopped producing. They're growing nicely, but after I picked those first beans no more blossoms have appeared. Next year I really need to watch how I fertilize my plants, because dumping fertilizer on nitrogen-fixing crops means lots of foliage but no produce. Lesson learned, I suppose.

I practiced my pie making the other day. I'm terrible, and need a lot of practice. I think most of it will be reserved for the winter, though, because even with though this has been a fairly cool summer so far with us being on the third floor and having poor airflow it gets unbearably hot in here sometimes with the oven on. That's alright, it'll give me something to do while I'm pining for the spring to come.

Oh yeah, Trev said we're going to the State Fair next Saturday. Can't wait! I'll be sure to take lots of pictures. It'll be good exercise stomping all over the fairgrounds for hours. Speaking of exercise, I'm trying to walk on our treadmill every day for a mile. I feel so much better when I do, I think a distinct lack of aerobic exercise might be part of why I feel so tired all the time and have low blood pressure. I'm so out of shape it's not even funny. Eventually I'd like to increase my endurance so I can flat-out run a mile. Right now, it takes forever to reach a mile even walking really fast and it's so boring I can hardly stand it. I try to read while walking but even so. I tried watching TV, too, but the stupid machine is too loud to hear the TV over. Today it's nice and cool again with a lovely breeze, so at least I won't roast half to death.

Oh! Before I forget, it's recommended reading time! We go to Half-Price Books a lot, and last time we went I found a book by John Seymour called The Self-Sufficient Life and How to Live It. It's a wealth of knowledge, and I'd suggest it to anyone who's interested in homesteading. If only I had the means to really put that knowledge to use! I don't think Trev will ever go for it, though. I also found The Gallery of Regrettable Food, which is a hilarious look at the terrible stuff they served back in the 50's and 60's. Hot dogs and beets in jello molds? You bet! My other good find was a book on preserving, which will come in quite handy this fall when we raid the apple orchards.

I'm going to head out now, I need to make the bed up, do some dishes, and get my walking and showering done. Toodles!

Harvest time!

Some of those beans are ready for harvest today. and my Anaheim finally had a single blossom burst open. The others should follow suit soon.

I made a blueberry crumble the other day. I was going to make a cobbler but I didn't feel like messing with pie pastry, so I just whipped up a crumble topping with a cup of flour, 6 tablespoons of butter, half a cup of brown sugar, and a few handfuls of granola and rolled oats. Tossed the thawed blueberries with some flour and more brown sugar and into the buttered baking dish they went, followed by the topping. I don't remember how long I had to bake it, I just checked it after a while and it was bubbling. Turned out to be quite delicious. I think I need to work on my pie pastry, so maybe tomorrow that's what I'll do since Saturday we'll be busy.

I'm off today, so we might go see Harry Potter sometime after Trev gets home from work. I think I'm going to make vegetable soup tonight, so I'll need to get a bag of my beef stock out of the freezer (I usually make this soup totally vegetarian by using vegetable stock, but there was none at the store. Only chicken and beef.) and should probably go throw together a loaf of bread and get it proofing. I don't think we have any block cheese, which is unfortunate because I always serve soup or stew with crusty bread and cheese for dipping. Blah, maybe we'll just have Salisbury steak and mashed potatoes with the green beans on the side, and I can whip up a bowl of salad. We'll see. :)

A garden update and the Moosecat

Before anything else I'd like to spare a word for my dearly departed kitty, who passed away a year ago yesterday from renal failure. Moose, you are and always will be missed. Hope there's always a patch of warm sunlight up there for you to roll in.

That said, I've got an update on the garden, and this time there are better pics. Those beans are even bigger now (I had no time to upload everything the day I took these and have been lazy since), as a matter of fact the biggest is already longer than my middle finger (which is my longest finger). Amazing how those things can develop in just one week. Bunch of ripe tomatoes on the vine too, and the basket strawberries have put out a runner. I'll probably go ahead and keep it to replace the one that died. Here are some pictures:

Zoo Pictures!

We don't know what's up with the sticker in the last pic, but we sure did laugh at it.

Well that was fast.

I just went outside to look at the plants, I try to go out once or twice a day and pick off aphids and see if any of them need water just yet. Also a good opportunity to see if any progress has been made as far as produce goes. Today is a productive day! My bean blossoms have already dropped, revealing a tiny half-inch bean pod within each. My dad said it'd only be maybe 2 or 3 weeks and I'd have me some 9 inch Kentucky Wonder beans to eat. Victory!

Speaking of eating. Right this very moment I have toast spread with butter and strawberry preserves on my plate. We went to the Dane County Farmers Market in Madison this past Saturday and I cannot begin to tell you how good the haul was. We came back with carrots, potatoes, some 6 year white cheddar, 16 ounce jars of strawberry and peach preserves, a quart of strawberries,2 sirloin steaks, and a 23 ounce jar of raw honey (ought to fuel my addiction for a while, eh?) plus some more that my dad took to my mom. The potatoes, half the carrots and strawberries, and the steaks are already gone and I'm hoping the strawberry preserves and honey lasts me until September, when my dad and I are planning another trip to stock back up and get a bunch of apples to can. It was really enjoyable having my dad up for a visit. He likes to do a lot of the stuff I like to do. We went to Half-Price Books on Sunday before Trevor got home and both of us found books to buy. I was especially happy to find a book detailing how to make delicious and intricately decorated pie crusts, not to mention a nice recipe binder. He found an old book on the Honeymooners and picked up a gardening book for my mom. He's back home now, having left yesterday morning.

Today is going to have to be a cleaning sort of day since we're having company tomorrow after we come home from the zoo. I have a sink full of dishes to do as well as several loads of laundry, and I also need to vacuum. I probably ought to get my butt up early tomorrow and bake some scones or something too, since putting these preserves on store-bought bread isn't as good and I'd almost consider it a waste considering how amazing the preserves are. The last batch of scones I baked (plain ones) didn't even last a day between me, my dad, Trevor, and the mounds of preserves and honey we smeared them with. We feasted like kings Sunday, let me tell you.

Well, chores are calling, so I'm out. :)

Bean blossoms!

My bean plants have a ton of little purple flowers popping up all over. Also, my anaheim has shot up a good 3 or 4 inches past the stake I tied it to and the chili plant is growing some fresh new leaves to replace all the wilty ones. It might make a comeback yet if it starts growing like the anaheim is. Still waiting on the flower buds on the anaheim to pop open. Tomatoes are doing well and the strawberries are looking good too, save for the little wilty runner. It died. :( I probably didn't let the roots go deep enough before I snipped it off the parent plant. Ah well, live and learn.

We're going to the Milwaukee Zoo on Wednesday. I'll post a trip report with pictures soon as we get back.

Scones!

I baked apple-cinnamon scones today. They just came out of the oven, and the apartment smells great. I did it differently than usual, instead of grating the apples and getting all that juice in the mix and having to add lots of flour to make up for all the liquid, I just diced them instead and tossed them into the Kitchenaid. Going to spread some raw honey (More on that later!) on them and try them just as soon as they cool, and if this way turns out to be better I'll take pictures of the process next time I make them. For now, here's the recipe I use, taken from Allrecipes.com and adapted for the apples:

• 2 cups all-purpose flour
• 1/3 cup sugar
• A few dashes of cinnamon, I'd say about a tablespoon (more if you like, though!)
  
• 1 teaspoon baking powder
• 1/4 teaspoon baking soda
• 1/2 teaspoon salt
• 8 tablespoons unsalted butter, chilled well or frozen
• 1 large cooking apple, like fuji or granny smith. If you really like apples, use 2 of them and mix the varieties.
  
• 1/2 cup sour cream
• 1 large egg

1. Preheat the oven to 400, or 375 if you've got an electric oven that runs hot like I do.

2. In a medium bowl (Or in the bowl of a stand mixer if you have one), mix flour, 1/3 cup sugar, cinnamon, baking powder, baking soda and salt. Now, the original recipe called for freezing the stick of butter and grating it, but I just slice it into fairly thin slices and then add them in. Work the butter in with your fingers or a fork, or just set your mixer to "stir" (or the lowest setting depending on what mixer you have) and let it do all the work. The end result should be a mixture that resembles breadcrumbs.

3. Now, you can go ahead and peel, core, and slice your apples. If you get one of those things with handles that cores and slices your apples all at once, so much the better! Go ahead and dice those babies up into fairly small chunks, and toss them in. After that comes the sour cream and egg. If you're doing the mixing by hand, you can beat the sour cream into the egg and mix it in at once if it's easier for you. Otherwise, just toss it into the mixer and set it on "stir". Don't overwork it, you want it to be just mixed.

4. At this point you can take the whole lot out of the bowl and slap it onto a floured surface. Form it into a round with your hands and pat it kind of flat, so it's a few inches thick. Slice it into 8 wedges with a sharp knife, and then gently transfer those wedges to a well-greased baking sheet (You can use parchment paper if you have some, but I don't.)

5. Brush milk onto the tops and sides, sprinkle with some more cinnamon and some sugar, and throw them into the oven for about 15-20 minutes. The tops will get a little browned, and when they're done they'll be slightly crumbly and a knife stuck in the middle should come out clean or with a crumb or two stuck to it. Let them cool a little while on a rack and enjoy!

Now, for a note on honey. I recommend these spread with raw honey. Not the crappy store bought kind! Get some good honey. My favorite is Gentle Breeze Honey, but you can only get it in Wisconsin since they have no online store. It's hard to describe how good this stuff tastes on scones or better yet, on cornbread. Think of how a field of the most beautiful flowers smell, and then imagine that smell as an explosion of taste in your mouth. That's raw, unfiltered honey. (I was going to put a fake disclaimer here claiming no responsibility for any addictions resulting from this advice, but you know what? I'll go ahead take full responsibility for it, because I'm doing you a favor. :P Go now. Buy some raw honey!)

Hyperfocus to the rescue!

Now that I'm not working such a crappy job I find myself much happier and much more motivated to deal with household drudgery. Before, even doing the dishes was a monumental task, but lately I've been doing them every day. I still use the dishwasher sometimes, of course (why have it if you're not going to use it after all?), especially when I've been cooking or baking since it's easier to load all the utensils, baking pans, cookie sheets, and my kitchenaid bowl into the dishwasher than it is to leave it all sprawled out on the counter while I wash it in the tiny undivided sink we have.

I digress. Wasn't meaning to go into extreme details of my dishwashing routine. Anyway, having the entire morning to myself and not stressing about the next disaster I'm about to walk into at work really has taken a load off my mind. I think the onset of warm weather has contributed to this too, it seems like sunshine and a breeze through the open windows really does a lot to get me into housecleaning mode. The only thing I don't like about the job is that since I'm gone most evenings, I rarely cook dinner any more. I suppose it's a good opportunity for Trevor to learn some cooking skills himself. He has talent, but he doesn't have the drive that I do. When he gets a bug up his butt and has to cook something, it usually turns out pretty good if not downright delicious. I'm off today though, so tonight we're going to have lemon pepper chicken and spinach wraps with italian dressing and a few handfuls of grapes on the side.

I really ought to bake some bread, and I have a cast iron pan that needs seasoning. It's cool today, so perhaps I'll go ahead and season that pan. I might bake the bread today, or I may just wait for some other cool day. I'm not sure how long this "Do lots of stuff" hyperfocus thing is going to last. I sure love them when they come along, though. I just blitzed through the bathroom, cleaning the sink and counter and decluttering the cabinets both under and over the sink. I wiped down the mirrors, then I cleaned the tub, wiped off the grungy-looking rubbermaid drawers in there, and cleaned the toilet. I should have done the floors but meh. Ran out of steam, and got distracted by the wood polish (My kitchen table is dust-free and shiny now though!) Spending an hour and a half cleaning with no getting side-tracked is a huge thing for somebody with ADD, let me tell you. When these little whims pop up I've learned not to ignore them, it really is a huge opportunity wasted.

Well, I'm hungry and we have fixin's for turkey sandwiches that are beckoning to me from the fridge. Hopefully Trev didn't eat all the potato chips.

More balcony and garden

Here is the view from our balcony, taken today. We're on the third floor so it's pretty nice. It's usually very quiet out save for the occasional loud car or nearby construction, so I sit out here often to enjoy my breakfast or read a book. Lately we've had a problem with wasps, but I got rid of them. Normally I leave bugs alone, but paper wasps are aggressive and like to get into the house, and none of us want to be stung. I wish I'd taken pictures of the nest after killing the queen wasp, it had larvae and eggs in it, which is pretty cool if you like bugs (I do.)


This is the tree just outside. I love this tree, it provides me with plenty of birds and a place to hang my feeders. I put them out into the branches using a long pole, and bring them back in again when they need refilling. Currently the wooden feeder there is empty due to Red Winged Blackbirds raiding it nonstop. I've just taken to filling a tray and setting it on the edge of the balcony for now, so the seed isn't knocked onto the ground and wasted by these giant birds trying to land on it. I get mourning doves, cardinals, chickadees, american goldfinches, robins, and the occasional blue-jay here on the porch. In the winter there will be dark-eyed juncos, but you never see them in the summer here.

These are new berries starting to form. I'll get a few stragglers like this until fall, when the second bigger crop should come in. It won't be enough for preserves or anything, unfortunately. I think when we get a yard I'm going to plant a big patch of June-bearing varieties so I can have a bumper crop to make preserves out of. But that's a story for another day.






Look at all the flowers on these tomato plants! I can't wait to see this thing loaded down with fruit later on this summer. I've been trying to ensure pollination by shaking the branches, apparently that works well with tomatoes. I do get the occasional fat little bumblebee up here but not much else in the way of pollinators, so it's up to me. You can see my finch sock there too. There are almost always at least two birds hanging off that thing.




Here are more tomatoes. That red one still has a couple of days to ripen before I'll bring it inside for Trev to put on his sandwiches. This plant also has plenty of flowers and is growing well. A few sunburned leaves, but otherwise it's a healthy plant.








Pole beans! These are Kentucky Wonders. They absolutely flourished during the hot spell we just had, and are like twice the size they were a week and a half ago. I was planning to just let them grow up the little trellis I have staked there, but I'm considering letting them grow all over the railing on the balcony as well if they want to. The only problem there is if a storm comes I won't be able to move them back out of harm's way, so we'll see about that. I'll update when I see flowers on these.



This is an Anaheim pepper plant. It's doing pretty well and has a couple of tiny flower buds that still seem to be forming. Hopefully they'll bloom soon. I'm really hoping to get a good harvest from my peppers so I can dry them and make my own chili powder.








This is my chili pepper. This poor little thing was doing very well until some aphids decided to move in. Well, I wasn't about to have that, so I bought a squirt bottle and filled it with dishsoap and water. It didn't really deter the aphids completely and caused the poor plant to wilt and become stunted. Trev's grandmother kindly gave me some insecticide powder and I promptly came home and rained aphid death upon the plant, but it never really recovered. I'd have replaced it by now but Lowe's doesn't have any that look much better, unfortunately, and it's way too late to start one from seed.

These are my little runners from the strawberry pot. The wilty one on the right there is the newest one to be planted, once it gets established more it won't wilt during the heat of the day. The others are doing well, but I'm not putting them into full sunlight just yet. Once their root systems are better established into the soil, I'll start hardening them off to sunlight. Hopefully these babies will produce well next June.





This is spinach. Well, it was spinach. We ate it all. It was delicious. Unfortunately, it's now too hot for spinach, so we'll have to rely on store-bought until things cool down in the fall. Then I'll plant a whole bunch more and we can enjoy fresh spinach in every sandwich and salad again.








This is my monstrous basil plant. The aphids have also attacked this but they're unable to hurt it, apparently. It's just growing too fast. The bumblybees love the flowers, and we love the leaves. I'd be giving this away if I knew anyone who wanted any, since it's obviously growing way faster than we're using it. Once it gets too cold for basil I should see about making pesto.






I think that's it for today. I need to shower and eat something so I can be to work at 4 PM. I currently work as a waitress at a little restaurant within walking distance. As a matter of fact, the place is actually so close that if I go out onto the balcony in the morning the smell of bacon often wafts over from there. I don't make particularly good money ($40 or so on a good night, $15 on a bad one, in between any other time) but it's not a stressful job at least. It's something for now, and when it's time to move on something else will pop up. I'm trying to learn to drive by then, and Trevor might be moving from his deli job at store level to a graphic design/marketing sort of position at corporate. We're really crossing our fingers for that one, we need to start building up the spare cash for a down payment for a house. Anyway, I'm out. :)

In which I introduce my kitties, boyfriend, and garden.

These are my two cats. The one on top of the doors is Tarquin. Tarquin... likes to do dumb things. This is clearly demonstrated in this picture, where he has opened the closet, climbed through all the junk in the closet, and pulled himself onto the top of the doors. I don't know why Tarquin does these things, I just know that when he gets it in his mind to get into something he's probably going to do it whether we try to deter him or not. If we keep him from getting into the closet, he'll just go under the sink and get stuck, or behind the entertainment center. Or on top of the bathroom door. The little one on the floor there is Sebastian. Sebastian loves me very much, and rubs on my legs while I'm cooking and asks me to pick him up so he can purr and lick my arm. He bites Trevor. He bites any company we have. He bites my mother. He bites everyone else who tries to pet him. Hell, he even bites me sometimes. But I loves him anyway. :3

This is Trevor. He's my boyfriend, hopefully soon to be fiance, hopefully eventually to be husband. We've been together going on 3 years now. He works hard and puts up with a lot of crap from his girlfriend, who has ADD and random bouts of depression (not to mention horrible PMS.) I love him just because he's Trevor, but I especially love him because he praises my cooking, tells me how pretty I am, and no matter how clingy and pouty I'm being he'll always hug me until I get tired of it. Trevor loves video games. No, really, I mean he loves video games. If he's home from work, he's probably playing a game unless we've got company over. And even then they're probably playing something that has multiplayer.

And now, the garden. These are all early pictures, I'll post current ones in my next post. These here are Quinault strawberries, an everbearing variety. The little flowerheads I'm holding there eventually turned into fat little strawberries. They were a little bitter, which was disappointing, but these plants are only in their first year so they still need time to get established. Next year's first crop will probably be bigger, fatter, and more delicious.





More strawberries, this time in a hanging basket. I'm up to 7 strawberry plants now since the other pot put out 3 runners.











These are tomato plants that I foolishly thought would have enough room to grow in one of these little containers. They're actually doing okay now; the top one has lots of flowers and a tiny tomato and the bottom one at least has a few flowers. When these plants are done I'll reuse the container, but not for tomatoes I don't think.







These are tomatoes that were growing way back when I first bought the plant. This is one of those $10 container tomatoes from Lowe's. Trevor has since eaten some of these tomatoes and declared them to be good. I'm not a fan of raw tomatoes, unfortunately, so I'll have to take his word for it.








Ah, my poor peas. I overfertilized these, so they unfortunately never flowered. Too much nitrogen in the soil makes for lovely green foliage but you sort of need flowers for produce. I should have given them phosphorus. So, I had to pull them up to make room for my pole beans. These will be planted again in the fall since the summer heat is way too much for them. I actually had a couple spring back up from the pot I pulled them out of, and decided to let them grow along with the strawberry runners I had started there since they were such little troopers. Well, that was before the 93 degree three-day hot spell we had. Farewell, ye peas, we hardly knew ye.

I am late to the blog party.

But that's okay. I'm late to most things that get wildly popular because I want nothing to do with them while everyone's in the "Not going to shut up about this really cool thing" phase. Then I discover that, for example, the Harry Potter books were actually a pretty good read and a blog might just be a good way to document my little container garden out on my porch and the other Suzy Homemaker-type things I like to do.

I've been thinking about making one of these for a while, at first because I just wanted somewhere to post some pictures and keep track of how my plants are growing, and my learning process as I get better at the hobbies I've taken up. I could have used LiveJournal for that, since I already have one. But, if I'm going to be learning these things I think it'd be nice if other people could read this and learn them too. After all, baking a loaf of bread for the first time is one thing if you're just reading a recipe but another thing entirely if you're looking at a step-by-step guide complete with pictures (by the way, I recommend goonswithspoons.com for this as well.)

If anything I post helps, entertains, or brightens the day of even one person out there then I am happy.