Thanksgiving, Food and the Garden

I have made the traditional cranberry relish..cranberry sauce...I never know exactly what to call it...with fresh cranberries, orange, orange zest, clove and a wee bit of cinnamon...and the house smells great. Just like the holidays have arrived! Which I suppose they have. How did that happen already?

I have also pre-cooked and mixed up the squash casserole with fresh yellow squash and fresh oregano from my garden. We are still enjoying going out to the garden for fresh herbs and some vegetables. Earlier this week we had roasted red peppers on homemade pizzas from the bell peppers that are now starting to turn red...and we have lots of them in various shades of green to red, still on the plants. We have several jalapenos ready to pick, lots of very green tomatoes that survived the cold nights a while back, and we picked two small eggplants several days ago. Wow! Eggplant and jalapenos in late November. My okra is huge, and still has blooms and little baby okra, but the growth of the okra has slowed down a lot in the cool weather, and it takes a long time (especially considering the usual growth rate of okra) for them to get big enough to pick. Even my basil is still surviving, which makes me very happy. I think that is what I miss the most through the winter and early spring...not being able to go outside and get fresh basil in just the amount I need.

Another dish I am making for Thanksgiving tomorrow is buttermilk pie. I have been a big fan and critic of buttermilk pie since we stopped at a small home cooking type restaurant in East Texas after berry and peach picking one summer about 6 years ago. Since then I have sampled and critiqued (right texture? creamy enough? too much nutmeg? no nutmeg? too dry?) many slices of pie from restaurants and cafes all over. But, I have never made a buttermilk pie myself. I know, it's funny, because I bake a lot...maybe I was a little intimidated. (Would I not live up to my own standards?) The recipe I am using we looked up on the internet a few years ago, is titled the "Best Ever" buttermilk pie. I recall that it was part of an article about buttermilk pie, and how a southern girl had to convince her friends where she was then living that the idea of buttermilk pie was not weird or gross but was in fact VERY good. Sounds great; however, this buttermilk pie recipe has no nutmeg...not the slight perfect amount, not any. So, of course I will be adapting that recipe and adding a hint of nutmeg with fresh whole nutmeg and the essential nutmeg grinder that my son Damon gave me.

The Garden in November

Happy Autumn

I just wanted to talk about my garden today, as we get close to the end of the season here in north Texas. Or more specifically, my potager or kitchen garden.

 

The okra plants are six feet high, a couple a little taller, and have been producing like crazy lately, since the scorching temps and drought eased a bit. Ignore them for a few days and all of a sudden I have huge okra, too big and tough to eat.

 

Late last week as a cold front was blowing in, I ran out to harvest okra, just before the rain hit. My plants were covered in buds, blooms and tiny baby okra.

I'm pleased to say the temperature only dropped to about 40 and they fared well.

 

I'm still hoping for all my green bell peppers to turn red before I have to pick them.

 

Today I have to pick yellow (so called "summer" ;-) squash and more okra. And since it will get down to 32 tonight, bring in the basil that's in pots and cover my peppers. Not sure what to do about all the still small green tomatoes. The heirloom plants are almost too big and sprawling to cover, but as we got almost no tomatoes during the harsh summer, I really hate to lose them.

Tonight may mark the end of some of the garden veggies, but even so, I think Fall gardening in Texas is the best.

Fall Gardening Season and Bountiful Produce at the Market.

We are really looking forward to the fall growing season. Our garden this summer was not so great, except for the herbs and peppers. It was an awful year for tomatoes. We tried growing two of our plants in the much praised upside down containers, and they produced nothing, nada. One problem may be that we already had our tomato plants before we got the hanging planters (and the directions), so we put the long gangly heirloom tomatoes, German Stripe and Cherokee Purple, in instead of the smaller bush type tomatoes that were recommended. Also, I think the water delivery system didn't work so well, and I have taken the water receptacle completely out of the planter with the worse dryness problem. Now that tomato is soaking up all our early fall rain directly.

The tomatoes in the ground are looking great, all green and refreshed with the plentiful rain and full of little green tomatoes, especially the Goliath, another heirloom we picked up at a stand in a front yard in a little rural town, Comanche, TX, I think. Edward, R, my mom and I wandered around the small yard picking out lots of herbs and vegetable starts, then put our money in a box on the porch. I love small towns. Okra is reviving as well, and one branch of a yellow bell pepper plant broke from the weight of all the peppers.

The rain has been great, but it has wreaked havoc with the delicate seedlings of fall greens plantings, like spinach and arugula...have had to reseed a couple of times.

I saved seeds from a butternut squash we had for dinner a while back and the vines are hearty with blooms and little tiny green squashes. When I saw how well those seedlings were doing, I did the same with another grocery store veggie, an acorn squash, which is still small but healthy. I am just counting on our long Texas growing season to get it through to production before a freeze.

I'm not sure that we will be getting anything but a lot of pretty blooms, all male apparently, from the yellow squash I transplanted in mid August, but the bees are enjoying them. Last week, during a break in the thunderstorms, I watched a honey bee walk around inside one squash blossom, her head and half her body completely covered with pollen.

In the meantime, while we are waiting on our own Fall produce, we are enjoying lots and lots of locally grown veggies from the Cowtown Farmers Market.


Here is some of what is fresh and available this week this week:
Arugula
Baby Vegetables
Basil
Canteloupes
Chives: Garlic and Onion
Cucumbers: Picklers, Slicers
Eggplant
Figs
Herbs
Lima Beans
Melons: Crenshaw, Israel, Honeydew
Okra
Onions: Red, White and Yellow

Last week I got asparagus, pears and a basket with a mix of slender zucchini and yellow squash, the trip before, tomatoes, lovely Touch of Lavender eggplants (they have many varieties), and more of the little squash. This weekend I found a recipe in a Mediterranean cookbook for zucchini fritters that look wonderful.

The market is open on Wednesday and Saturday. On Saturday they also have fresh bread and baked goods from a local baker, locally roasted coffee, and goat cheese from two nearby dairy farms. "Everything sold is either grown, raised or produced within 150 miles of Fort Worth."

(Photo note: Due to computer or camera or cable glitches, I cannot load my own photos to the computer, so these came from elsewhere: the plant pics from usda.gov and the farmers market photo was borrowed from their website...I don't think they'll mind.)

Of Summer Rain, Fennel, Almost-Butterflies and Italian fried Sage

We had the most wonderful storm in the early morning. Any good rain in Texas in August is cause for celebration, and this was a full out thunderstorm with impressive crashing and lashing during the pre-dawn to dawn hours. I went outside an hour or more after the rain had stopped and smelled the anise-y, ouzo, almost-licorice scent of fennel.

I intended to gather seeds and pull up the remaining overgrown and spent fennel in my garden several days ago, but when I went out to do it, I found a plump little visitor.

Swallowtail caterpillar on fennel

At that moment he was munching on the dried seeds and not the fronds, but the next day he had moved on to the greenery. He is still on a branch today, and this afternoon I finally gathered some of the fennel seeds. We are hoping he makes his cocoon and transforms in our garden.

I now have a little baggy of fennel seeds and am thinking of the lentil and vegetable soup I made several times last summer, fragrant with cumin and fennel seed.

So many of the seeds have already dropped that we're sure to have a jungle of fennel seedlings this fall!


Tonight, though, I'm focusing on another herb in my garden: sage. I am going to make a maiden attempt at an Italian preparation of sage leaves, battered and fried...very simple. I have read about this in a number of books about Italy, and especially in cookbooks and books about food and Italian food festivals, but have never had it. The recipe I plan to use for reference is from Marlena de Blasi's memoir, A Thousand Days in Tuscany. Little more than flour, beer and sea salt, the batter can also be used for squash blossoms and other edilbe flowers and delicate vegetables. I have no idea what Italian beer is like, but Edward's fancy ale will have to do.

Harbingers of Spring: The Garden

A profusion of daffodils
I believe they have peaked.

I just had to share these pictures of the signs of spring in our yard. Nevermind that it was 28 degrees night before last, today we broke 80. Spring it is!

Hyacinths perfume the air by the front door.
It's hard to go by these without bending down for a closer sniff.

In the vegetable garden, the chard and two heads of romaine look vibrant and robust. The fennel is progressing, slowly but nicely. And the first several spinach seedlings have broken ground!! Arugula seedlings are plentiful but still very small. Edward's (many) onion sets have thickened and greened and look very healthy...I suspect he'll wait till they all are large and bulbous and roast them in the fire pit. (Love fire-roasted veggies; won't be eating those.)

By the way, happy Mardi Gras to all, but what a silly time to be giving up things, just when nature's bounty is starting to swell and remind us of how wonderful it is to be alive and be in the flesh!

Winter or not? Texas Gardening and an Essay on the Hose

This is a confusing time for gardeners in Texas. My mother said this week, I just want to get out and buy some seeds and plant some plants. Yes, it is the middle of January, but with all the nice weather, who can blame her. It will be 80 degrees again today....BUT, then the winter wind will kick in and it should drop to 37 tonight and only get up to 45 tomorrow (Great weather for R's soccer game! Brr.)

Rapid changes and temperature drops notwithstanding, there are still some things that are doing great in the garden through the winter. The fennel is still growing, and we have carrots in the ground that we go out and pull as needed. We have Swiss chard, a little romaine, a few tiny mixed lettuces whose seeds were evidently taking their own time to sprout and several herbs that are thriving through whatever January throws at them, even the ice storm. Earlier this week I planted arugula, and we won't have to wait long for the tender young greens to come up. Arugula is the most instant gratification a gardener can get.

The one unexpected gardening problem is that I have to water, in January. I believe this is the driest fall and winter I have ever encountered. But, on the subject of watering, while going through documents on the computer yesterday, I ran across this little essay R wrote last year:

My Favorite Garden Tool

Every day when I get home from school, I run to the end of the hose to turn on the presser. Then I dash to the other end and point it at the beautiful birdbath in the middle of the garden and fill it to the brim. Then I direct my tool towards section one filled with lettuce, spinach, and cauliflower. I spray until the vegetables and their roots are completely moist. When I stand back and marvel at the work I do every day, I am pleased with the marvelous outcome of my work every day.

It's kind of funny, but you know, she's right. If you garden in Texas, your hose or water barrel IS your most important tool.

Garden Clean-up, Winter Weather

We've been enjoying some of the most wonderful weather for the beginning of 2009.

On Friday, R and I went for a long walk, she in a little cotton skirt and I in sandals. About halfway through, R suggested we walk on the other side of the street...in the shade.

Saturday afternoon (82 degrees) Edward and I tackled the clearing of the garden, cutting down the big woody okra stalks and pulling up tomato vines, the eggplant and the poblano pepper, all of which had pulpy fruits that had been caught in an earlier freeze still hanging on them. We even found a few tiny red and green pear tomatoes protected under a cover of leaves.

Swiss chard, arugula, 2 small plants of romaine lettuce and fennel are growing in the garden, and we still have several carrots in the ground just waiting for when they are needed in the kitchen.

Edward and I worked in the garden until just after sundown, more than comfortable in t-shirts, and he in shorts, me in sandals.

So, obviously, it was time for a little sleet and freezing rain.

Monday afternoon, tiny iciles hung from every branch and twig.

Green leaves on the rosebush encased in ice

Poor little frosted fennel

R managed to get a perfect leaf imprint in ice

Yum...?

R went back to school today after 2 1/2 weeks of holiday madness, and I am hoping that I can get back to painting.

Trip to Iowa Part 2: Snow and Kansas City Ethiopian

Rn or I had never been north before in the fall or winter. When you are bound to a school schedule, almost all your traveling takes place in the summer months. We were hoping for SNOW, a nice snowy, picturesque Iowa Thanksgiving, over the river and through the woods in the sleigh to grandma's house. Well, it was cold (we bought gloves and thermals in preparation for the trip) but sunny, very sunny, the whole time, until the morning we left.

An hour or two down the road we started getting drizzly rain, then suddenly we said, Hey, is that slushy frozen stuff in those little raindrops on the windshield. Just as we crossed into Missouri, it turned into full fledged snow with the flakes getting bigger and fluffier as we continued (strangely enough) south. Not long after crossing into Missouri, we had to pull off the highway and stop to see how the snow was falling. (Okay, I know a lot of people are thinking, Yeah, we had to put up with snow on Thanksgiving week, big deal, but we live in Texas, so snow always seems a little miraculous.)

So then, of course, we had to get out and run around in it, on this barren side street in northern Missouri.


And then it was necessary that a snowball fight ensue:




By the time we got to Kansas City, it was just a cold drizzle, and we had put off stopping for lunch to go to the Blue Nile for Ethiopian food. It was R's first experience with having big, flat bread as a plate and eating with no utensils. She enjoyed the injera and a few of the milder offerings, like the lentils and carrots with turmeric, on the double order of this vegetarian plate we had, with a sampling of all of these things:

1. Gomen - $8.95
Fresh collard greens cooked and seasoned with onion, ginger, and garlic.

2. Misir Watt - $8.95
A stew made from organic red lentils cooked with sautéed onion and berbere, then flavored with ginger, garlic, and cardamom.

3. Atiklett - $8.95
Cabbage mixed with chunks of potatoes and carrot cooked with yellow onion and flavored with ginger, garlic, and trmeric.

4. Yekik Watt - $7.95
Seasoned yellow split peas slowly cooked with ginger, turmeric and garlic.

5. Fosolia - $8.95
Fresh green beans and carrots cooked with onions, fresh garlic, turmeric and ginger.

6. Mushroom Shiro - $8.95
Roasted and powdered chickpeas and sliced mushroom simmered in spiced red sauce.

7. Dinich Watt - $7.95
Chunks of potatoes cooked with garlic seasoned in tomato and berbere sauce.

8. Shimbera Assa - $10.95
Baked and sliced ground, garbanzo bean dough, simmered in a medium spiced stew with onions, berbere, tomatoes, ginger, garlic and a touch of mustard and nutmeg..

9. Veggie Combination - $12.95
A platter featuring items #1 through #8.

It was all quite yummy, but what I think she enjoyed most was the attention and instruction from the super friendly young waitress who explained to her all about the traditional Ethiopian table and eating styles in the family and the Ethiopian alphabet. This young woman was absolutely adorable, as I whispered to Edward, and then when we went up to pay, and R was busily creating a personal note writing code for her, she whispered to us about R, She is adorable. So cute. It was a great eating experience.

About my garden in December: When we got back I really needed to water, but the plants looked pretty good. On Dec 2, I harvested a number of tomatoes and a beautiful orange pepper.

Mid-morning today it was a very temperate 65, but a little after noon it became very windy and grey and winter was blowing in. Now, a couple of hours after we left Edward's parents' they got the same winter storm that we ran into on the drive back and got 4-6 inches of that snow R and I had been hoping for. This evening in Texas, rain and sleet or snow and sleet are in the forecast. It won't stick, but it would be nice to see it fall. We've just got to get out and pick or cover all the little delicate things growing in our garden.

First November Tomato Harvest and Blog Interview

Saturday afternoon tomato harvest,
mostly San Marzanos

I love getting tomatoes into mid fall. At noon Saturday we were baking in the sun at the elementary school football game (I have a bright pink triangle of skin at my collar bone to prove it.) And I might wish for just a bit cooler, autumnal weather, but I am not in a hurry for a real frost to come along and kill off my tomatoes and herbs. In fact, we've been known to go out after dark with sheets and plastic tarps, and even heat lamps a time or two, to try and protect our plants and prolong the season as much as possible.

Also, this weather just like it is makes it perfect for dining out on the deck - one of my favorite things.

Blog Interview: Fabric artist and doll-maker Donna has posted a very nice feature and interview with me and my art on her blog today. Stop by and check it out.

Here is one of Donna's fairy creations:

Fall Fairy fiber sculpted fantasy art doll

More Paintings and Mutant Peppers

I haven't yet titled this painting I did a couple of weeks ago, but I'm thinking about giving it the name of an imaginary city from a series of books. I wonder if that would be okay?

The painting is 8x10, small enough that I could lay it on the scanner and not have to deal with the issues of lighting, digital photography settings and learning the new camera. Unfortunately, I can't do that with every painting, and I think I am going be experimenting with taking pictures of a larger diptych later today.



Two posts ago, there was a picture of my jalapeno plant with little red and green peppers. The little peppers are shorter, smaller, more rounded than the usual jalapeno. That's because the plant is one of the hybrids developed by Texas A&M University that is supposed to have the same taste but half the heat of the traditional jalapeno. I planted one of these and one regular jalapeno, in large pots about 8 feet apart. Which was evidently too close. Both plants have little rounded hot peppers. The other day I came in from the yard and put these 2 peppers in Edward's hand. He came down the hall a few hours later with watering eyes to report on the heat of the "mild" pepper he had just taken a bite out of.

In the garden on Friday, I planted a row of mixed "Gourmet blend" beets, the picture on the seed packet is very pretty, and some more arugula. I noticed that several almost thread thin fennel seedlings had cropped up. I'm hoping the cats don't stroll across them until they are a bit sturdier.

The October Garden and the White House Lawn

Raindrops on Canna leaf

I love this time of the year. Everything is crisp and refreshed and greening back up again with a little autumn rain. The walk to school with my daughter is wonderful; every morning seems like a new beginning. Here in Texas October is a new growing season, when the garden comes back to life after the hot dry summer. Last night's wonderful rain has made the colors lush and the plants revive.

We have about 20 dark green poblanos on our one pepper plant.

Arugula seedlings

The baby greens are coming up from seed, little bitty Swiss chard, a few romaine seedlings and the arugula. I still have to plant some spinach and some more arugula which I mean to plant every few weeks for a while, so we will continue to have the young tender greens for salads.

We are still getting a couple of okra every day, but they have really slowed down, and I'm sure will bow out to the cool weather soon.

Our globe eggplant plant which gave us only one eggplant this summer now has half a dozen tennis ball sized fruits and more tiny ones forming under calyxes. The slender Japanese eggplant has one fruit and lots of blooms, but I doubt those will have time to do anything before the cold weather gets it.



We have harvested a few San Marzano tomatoes this month and have dozens of green ones all over this one plant that is sprawling all over the garden now. There are more green tomatoes on some of the other varieties of tomatoes, all tangled together with and under the San Marzano...pushy Sicilian!

Tiny tomatoes grown from heirloom seed

The peppers on the jalapeno plant look like red and green Christmas bulbs. We have been picking these constantly, more than we use, all summer and fall.


Speaking of kitchen gardens, the people at Kitchen Gardens International have been running a campaign to have part of the wide expanse of the White House lawn replaced with an organic vegetable garden. Historically the White House grounds have included a garden; Thomas Jefferson had a vegetable garden and Eleanor Roosevelt planted a Victory garden. Produce would go to feed the people at the White House, First family and staff eating local homegrown organic food, the excess to be donated to a local food bank.

Author Michael Pollan wrote a very thorough article, Farmer in Chief, addressed to the president-elect, in the Sunday New York Times that champions this idea.

KGI's campaign to plant healthy, edible landscapes in high-impact, high-visibility places is called Eat the View.