Now Norma Knits

Terrier Tuesday -- The Sashimi Edition

Dear Readers,

Alpha apologizes that the photo of me and my minion (which, by the way, look at how it is still holding up after all this time!) is out of focus. 

She was really just intent on making sure to get a good photo of the gigantic bowl of spinach she had just brought in from the garden:

She was pretty damned excited, because though she said she got pretty crappy germination of her spinach seeds, all the rainy weather has turned out a fabulous spinach crop. 

I guess we know what's important to her and what's not.

*pout*

But that's all right. Two can play this game. I've been eating pretty high off the hog, myself. You know how she's been trying to teach me to do the "roll over" trick, and how I have been refusing because it's just downright demeaning? (The nerve of her to even ask me!)

Well, last week she gave me raw salmon every time I rolled over like she asked. 

I guess I gave her what she wanted right quick. 

I have told her in no uncertain terms, I will not do it, even for steak tartare. Not top-shelf enough. But I do love me some sashimi. 

Love,

 

Mr. Jefferies

P.S. So yeah, roll over. Whatever. Just show me the money. 

P.P.S. Alpha says she saw a big fat rabbit over by the rose bushes at dusk last night. I didn't see it, or if I did, it would have been DINNER. I'm not kidding. But she's been moaning and groaning a little bit about that for a couple of reasons: Well, DUH, her garden, and also because she thinks it's rabbits and their leavings that have made me get coccidiosis every summer. She is not a happy camper about that rabbit hanging around. Personally, I think I oughta do something about that.

 

Spri-ing-tiiiiiiiiime, and the Eatin' is Easy......

Oh, how I love to cook and eat this time of year. The garden makes it so easy to be creative and healthful.

Yesterday morning there were scallions, and lots of them, ready. 

When I pulled them and brought them into the house, I really didn't have a plan for what I would do with them. But when lunchtime came around, the plan just went ahead and formulated itself. 

I brought out the George Foreman grill and a package of grass-fed local ground beef. I made a small patty and cooked it on the grill, making for a lean and tasty little burger.

Meanwhile, I sliced up the scallions (there are red and white ones in there, for extra color and goodness) and put them in a small bowl. I added a splash of balsamic vinegar, a splash of olive oil, and a sprinkle of both sea salt and crushed dried cayenne pepper. I stirred it up and let it marinate for the few minutes it took to finish cooking the burger, and savored the burger smothered in spring-oniony goodness. It was almost a salad, sort of a relish -- beautiful in its simplicity, and dead-on delicious.

Excuse me -- I must go out now and plant another row of onion sets. Rolling harvests are one of the keys to a good kitchen garden, after all.

Today the star of the fresh-pick show will be asparagus.

 

Monday Musings

1.  I finished the back of G'Day yesterday. I told you it was a fast knit! I am quite charmed by this pattern by Nora Gaughan.

Because this yarn has a halo, photos of it look a bit washed out. The colors are actually a touch more vibrant in real life. My knitting time is set to take quite a nose dive soon, so who knows when, even though it's a fast knit, I will finish this thing. Work has picked up exponentially, so I also have to keep in mind taking care of my forearms, wrists and elbows. 

2.  While I was blithely knitting along and/or when I was at the gym yesterday, someone had somehow stolen my credit card number and was buying things. Chase VISA did not fool around, though, and within a very short time, they called me to ask if those charges were mine. It was really only one charge, because the subsequent charges, for tiny amounts, were denied and the card was put on hold. The online charge was for $420, though. It must have been the teeny charges ($2.95 at a child care center and $1.00 at a drugstore) that were the red flags. Then again, without the actual physical card in hand, I don't know how those charges could be made. ... Hm... the mysteries and annoyances of modern living. But thank goodness for alert fraud detection divisions.

3.  I defrosted a gigantic turkey over the weekend and roasted it yesterday, because it had been in my freezer for a while and I didn't want to see it go to waste due to freezer burn. But then once I roasted it, David and I looked at the monster in our roasting pan with some degree of mirth. That is one hell of a lot of meat for two people to eat. I offloaded some to my mother, and cut up and froze more of the cooked meat, and made turkey stock with the carcass. Perhaps I will not buy any more gigantic organic turkeys at local farms, and will keep it to smaller birds instead. Except at Thanksgiving, that is. It was very delicious, though.

4.  I'm making a concerted effort to eat up all the vegetables and berries that I froze from last year's garden, before this year's gardening season begins. I've still got TONS of them (or so it seems). While not quite as desirable as fresh and raw, I'm going to start using many more of the frozen veggies in my green drinks. I'm so glad I discovered unblanched freezing last year. The unblanched frozen veggies are much better to handle, taste much closer to fresh, and look one hell of a lot better. All except zucchini and summer squash. They are rubbery and unpleasant either way. In the future, I will only freeze SHREDDED (unblanched) zucchini, which I have done successfully in the past. That is really good for baked goods such as zucchini bread, muffins, and cake, but I almost never bake anymore. However, I can envision it being good in many other things like meatloaf, quiche, chili, omelets and spaghetti sauce, too. 

5.  On the reintroduction phase following the elimination diet/cleanse, I have learned that dairy foods are a big no-no for me. I MISS MY HOMEMADE GREEK YOGURTTTTTTTTTT *whine*!!!!  

Peanuts and soy, too. The peanuts I had a suspicion about, but this confirms the suspicion. I had absolutely no idea about the soy previously, but it is bad. WAHHHHH to both.

Red meat, pork, white potatoes, green peppers are no problem in terms of allergies or intolerances (yay!). Eggs and tomatoes also have a green light.

Wheat is problematic, as I already knew, but I can tolerate some. I'll try to restrict it to once or twice a week, and whole grain as often as possible.

And here is the next thing I had absolutely no idea about before: Alcohol. I have a pretty serious intolerance to alcohol that I was heretofore unaware of. Crap. Not that I'm a big drinker, but this explains a lot.  

We often eat or drink so many things at once that we don't know what is actually causing us problems, or even that/if foods are causing us problems. Many of us just think we feel crappy, or we're bloated for no explainable reason, or we get headaches for no explainable reason. The beauty of the elimination diet, and methodically adding in one thing at a time, is that you can almost immediately identify what the exact things are that are problems for you. 

I am so glad I've done (and continue to do) this. It helps to be aware, and I feel so much better. 

6.  Happy Valentine's Day to all my loves.  

Another Step in the Direction of Less Plastic

I stopped in at Grand Isle Artworks again yesterday, because I saw it announced in Facebook that Thursdays are Sylvie's days to be there. I recently met Sylvie at a farmer's market where she was selling her wares and bought several bars of soap. Sylvie is a delightful woman with a French accent -- she is originally from Montreal, she told me yesterday -- who makes beautiful soaps and lotions and body washes.

One exciting thing about her soaps is that she uses sunflower seed oil from the Roger and Claire Rainville farm in Alburgh that I mentioned a while back. There is a little post about their farm here. Talk about local! Her business is mere yards (only a very slight exaggeration) from the farm that produces the sunflower oil, and a half hour from me.

The reason I wanted to go in yesterday is because I wanted to try something I had seen on her website, her goat's milk face cream. In recent years I have gotten off track on my former adherence to as-natural-as-possible, with-as-few-ingredients-as-possible cosmetics. After having read Clean recently, I was reminded that the skin is the biggest organ of the body. My resolve to try to put nothing on my skin that I wouldn't eat [within reason, within REASON!] has returned. I've still been quite happily using Philosophy products, but they are way expensive, and my last two jars of Hope In A Jar turned rancid or something when they were only half gone, and sadly these products do contain parabens, which have been found in high concentrations in breast cancer tumors, so I'd really rather not put those things on my body, thankyouverymuch.

When I got to the shop, I told Sylvie that this was my quest (to put nothing on my skin that I wouldn't eat). She proceeded to explain to me in detail the ingredients in the face cream, their derivation, their function, and why each one was desirable and necessary to make a nice face cream that isn't too greasy, that soaks in, that contains humectants. She spoke with convincing knowledge and authority, and said that yes, I could eat this (though I probably wouldn't want to). The price of the face cream is really reasonable, and so I bought some -- after I tried it first, of course. 

One thing I loved about her explanation is that she was so honest and forthright: She told me that yes, there are some preservatives in there, but they are weak ones. This is a new batch, and there is an expiration date of one year hence, but that this product will be best used up within about six months or so -- and not to let it sit in a cupboard somewhere for a long time before I use it, or it will go "off".

But before I left, somehow we got on the topic of another product she makes that, as it turns out, I am even more excited about:

Solid shampoo. It comes in a bar or cake like soap, it is covered in biodegradable plastic shrink wrap (realizing that is an oxymoron, but this is a little bit gentler to the earth and landfills, I suppose) -- no other wrapping, and best of all, no plastic bottle or cap. Most shampoos, she explained, come in plastic bottles that are mostly filled with water. There is very little real product in the shampoo bottle -- the first ingredient is water. This makes it heavy to ship, and you have one more plastic bottle to throw away.

(You know I don't really buy the whole "we are recycling it" thing, right? I've talked at length about this before, that I really doubt that most of the plastic stuff that we, with all best intentions, hope and think that we are recycling, actually gets recycled.) 

Once again, Sylvie explained each and every ingredient in the shampoo (which can also be used as a regular body bar) and why it's there. 

This is great for traveling, and it's also better for the environment and for the less-plastic lifestyle. I'm excited to try it and I'm really looking forward to my shower tomorrow morning!

And that's not all. There is also the solid conditioner:

While I was there, I bought some raffle tickets for Grand Isle Art Works' grand opening and fundraiser for additional lighting and other things that the new gallery needs, such as chairs for knit night (hint-hint) that is taking place this Saturday. You can buy raffle tickets, too, here.

THE REVIEW IS IN:  (added at 9:43 a.m. ET)  I just finished my first shower with the solid shampoo and conditioner. I'm very happy. A nice feel, easy to use (I was a bit concerned about that), and though the lather is not as "moussey" as a shampoo from a bottle -- or maybe it could be if you used more, but I was on minimalist mode this morning -- it is wonderful! I used the shampoo bar as a body bar, too, because I loved the smell so much. It's just the smell of milk and almonds, practically nonexistent, but just a hint. Lovely and purifying-feeling.  And the conditioner is brilliant! As Sylvie told me, you can feel it going on, and you can control how much you put on by how silky your hair starts to feel.  I'm a happy showerer, and I'm sold on all three products.  I used the face cream last night (it is really a night cream), and used it after my shower today on my arms.  Nice.  

Putting Food By.... The Lazy Way

Little by little, my freezer is getting FULL. I have not done any canning this year, and I know I will miss my canned tomatoes next winter, but I just don't have the time or the energy -- or the right frame of mind, or something. I still have time to make the pickled beets, and I shall -- I shall. I MUST! My extended family can't live without them, so it is my duty to oblige. I don't really have that many beets this year, though, so I may have to buy some at a farmer's market. 

It is such a great feeling to open the doors to my freezers (the little one on the top of the fridge, and the freestanding one in the garage) and see gallons of frozen berries picked from my garden earlier this summer, gallons of green and yellow zucchini, gallons of green beans, gallons of frozen tomatoes, jars of rose petal jam and quarts of broccoli and sliced cabbage and eggplant and green peppers. And in the kitchen, I see baskets and bowls of onions and garlic and shallots and long red chili peppers and habaneros. I still have many potatoes to dig, and there is still much more broccoli and chard and cabbage and beans and beets and tomatoes and peppers and kale and cucumbers to come.  

Looking at this bounty, I realize that this may indeed be the first year -- or at least one of the first -- that I really DID save money by gardening -- and lots of it. AND I know where my food is coming from and how it was grown. 

I am a major convert to the no-blanch freezing method. Everything that I have frozen this year has been without blanching. It could not be easier, and my stuff looks marvelous. I have eaten one bag of frozen zucchini to test it out, and it was wonderful. The stuff is not all frozen in a big ice hunk as it used to be when I blanched. It is individual frozen chunks or slices, so that I can use larger bags and pull out what I need as I need it. This makes it much more economical, both of money and plastic.

This summer I have repeatedly visited local farms and the farmer's market and have purchased pounds and pounds of organic pork, beef, chicken & a 25-pound turkey for Thanksgiving. I did not grow any winter squash or pumpkins this year, and I regret that. But the freezer is just about fully packed, and...

I'm a happy, fulfilled gardener.

A Humble Locavore Supper

Red Hen Baking Co. has developed the first all-Vermont-grown-wheat bread, the Cyrus Pringle loaf, and I had my first opportunity to try a loaf last night. Awesome! Much lighter and airier than my favorite of their loaves, Mad River Grain, but very exciting that it's made of all-Vermont wheat. We have a tough climate for growing wheat, and it's been a challenge for the farmers to get enough to supply a bakery.

For someone who watches how much wheat she eats, this is a once-a-week-only treat.

I bought some smoked mozzarella from Maplebrook Farm, and added some pesto I made with my own basil and arugula, Vermont sunflower oil and Vermont parmesan cheese and garlic. I served it all with tomatoes and cukes from the garden.

A simple feast that I rounded out with (very local, made in my town!) Ben & Jerry's vanilla ice cream topped with decidedly UNlocal (nobody's PERFECT) Yazi ginger vodka. Yummmm!

Holy Garden Explosion, Batman!

Eggplant Black Beauty; Solanum melongena

These are all from two -- count 'em, TWO -- plants! There will be plenty of ratatouille and eggplant parmesan in the freezer this year, which is fine by me.

When people ask me if I save money on vegetables by gardening, I am unsure how to answer. The object of gardening for me is more about knowing where my food comes from, and the labor of love, than saving any money. But in this instance, the answer is clear -- assuming I can find the time to cook and freeze all these, and assuming we eat them all -- there is no question that those two little eggplant seeds that I planted indoors this past spring, and then planted outside....yes, definitely....saved me money. I have already given some eggplants away and cooked several batches of roasted ratatouille to eat this summer, and now this. And there are still blossoms on the plants, but I don't know if there is enough summer left for more fruits to mature.

It's not only the aubergines that have exploded. The zucchini, for the first time ever in my garden, due to the fact that I thwarted the vine borers and the cucumber and squash beetles (can I hear a hallelujah?!); the green beans; the tomatoes; the peppers; the Savoy cabbages; the broccoli; the cucumbers; the everbearing strawberries; the Seckel pears....and on and on... all needed to be harvested and dealt with in some way yesterday.

Truth be told, I was overwhelmed. It's been go-go-go lately, and I'm tired. But according to some sources I found on the innernets (which must make it true, no?), blanching before freezing is soooooo last century. It is highly possible that the whole practice was just theoretical in nature and has no real benefits and is not even necessary. Probably a post-WWII misogynist invention to keep women in the kitchen or something. Wouldn't surprise me! (Can you tell I'm a '70s girl?)

Moving on...

In the past, I have not had the greatest success with blanching, anyway, and I hate doing it. Stuff seems overcooked by the time I cook it from frozen and eat it, and/or it's all stuck together in a disgusting-looking solid mass of ice and crystals. At best, I am able to camouflage it in some spaghetti sauce or throw it in a soup or simply choke it down because I knew I grew it and I think it's good for me.

So yesterday I just washed everything, chopped or snipped stuff, threw it in freezer bags and tossed it in the freezer. If it works, great. If it doesn't, well, I wasn't going to get to eat the veggies anyway, and they would just have become compost, so at least this gives us a chance at having some of our own produce this winter.

Pears

This is the entire Summercrisp pear harvest, except for the one I ate to test if they were ready. I almost missed out on them. They are supposed to be eaten, as the name implies, when they are crisp, as they lose quality when truly ripe and do not keep well. Great! Good thing I don't have a basket the size of my garlic basket, eh? (P.S. Have I mentioned how much I love my straw-mulched pathways in my veg garden?)

The purchase of this tree, by the way, was out of ignorance. I did not know they have to be picked and eaten all at once until I got home with the tree and researched the variety. Oh, well. They're tasty enough, just not exactly what I had in mind when I bought the tree.

And because enough unsettling things have not already happened this week, when I was picking these, one fell and punked me right on the cheekbone. As I'm writing this, I'm waiting for the bruise to appear. That'll no doubt be a nice touch on the campaign trail.....

We Got Yer Garlic Right Heyah

WTFriday: All The Bad News That's Fit To Print

1. I made my first batch of mozzarella cheese yesterday. I'm very disappointed and whiny about the whole thing. I wasted a whole gallon of really good organic raw milk that I drove a good distance to acquire. The people who say cheesemaking is much easier than yogurt-making are wrong and they should have to write that on the chalkboard 110 times, RIGHT NOW. And the directions in the little booklet that came with the cheesemaking kit I sent for are terribly ambiguous. Worse, they are gleefully described on the package to be SO EASY A 7-YEAR-OLD can do it, exclaims one testimonial. 

Well, I suppose that's me and Sarah Palin: Not smarter than your average 7-year-old. I can never figure out what so-called universal symbols are supposed to mean, and I can't make mozzarella like any old 7-year-old should be able to do. Let me see if I can remember how to tie my shoes... hm. I'll have to get back to you on that.

(Take out a colander, it says, but then doesn't have an instruction in which you use a colander, for example.) (Add the dissolved rennet, stirring in an up-and-down motion. WTF does THAT mean?) (Drain the floating whey off the top. But if you try that, the curds go down the drain with it.) (Ladle the curds into a bowl. They had not said to take out a ladle, but a slotted spoon -- and chasing the little curds with the slotted spoon in all that whey is like trying to get guppies out of a 100-gallon murky fish tank using a salmon net.) I finally said $%#&* *^&%##% (come on; are you surprised?), and poured it into the colander that the instructions had TOLD me to take out, but without telling me what to do with it, to drain the whey off the curds. And when it comes to the addition of salt, the quantity specified (1 T.) MUST be wrong, because that cheese is so salty I can hardly eat it. VERDICT: Mozzarella-making is fiddly, MUCH more complicated than making yogurt, and though I will probably try it again someday, I will not jump to make it again tomorrow. I'll use my good milk for yogurt or ice cream and just buy my freakin' mozzarella. 

2. Yesterday was July 1, and Mr. Jefferies had had a haircut the day before. Poor l'il dude was shivering so much yesterday afternoon (high temp in the mid-60s F) that I had to put his alpaca sweater on him. That's just not RIGHT.

3.  It seems to me that it's been raining and grey pretty much nonstop, and yet yesterday afternoon when I went to check my garden, almost everything was BONE DRY. I had to water. I could die.

4. The strawberries I planted seem to have been asleep, sitting dormant, not doing anything, looking like they are not thriving, but just (barely) BEING. I felt it was probably a pH problem, and since my soil is often on the acid side (though this soil is the bagged MooDoo potting soil, so I really don't understand why it would have a pH imbalance, but there you go) last week I gave most of them a little feeding of lime.  They seem to have perked up a bit since then -- some of them, anyway. But they are still not bursting out with a joyful rendition of "I Feel Pretty!" as they should be.

Ditto for the peppers. JUST.SITTING.THERE. I thought I gave all of the peppers some lime and bone meal last week, but as of yesterday three have sort of taken off and three are still JUST.SITTING.THERE looking anemic and pathetic, like they are out on the frigid corner of a building in January for a smoke break, rather than sitting in the beautiful peninsula garden of expensive soil and sun I made JUST.FOR.THEM. Ungrateful snots. I guess I need to get out there and give them some lime, too. And perhaps some fertilizer. Maybe all the rain has leached out the nutrients from the soil; I don't know.

5. I've spotted my first Japanese beetles. Gardengeddon.

6. I have planted bush beans four times. It is not a good story.

If they deign to germinate, they either seem to rot at the base (or something is eating their roots) or get eaten by something when they are in the cotyledon stage. These are the few that are hanging on so far, but they don't look well.

I'm having my usual unimpressive results with pole beans. Sort of like the people who yelled that cheesemaking was EASY compared to yogurt (Yes, I'm bitter; why do you ask?), the people who shout out that pole beans are superior to bush beans because they produce all season are just plain WHACKED.

They just SIT there and SIT there. Slow growth, and I do mean S-L-O-W. This is always the case with me and pole beans. They just don't LIKE ME. I'm starting to get a complex. The gardening books say these things start producing right away and produce all season as they grow up the pole, and Jack will be climbing the beanstalk and bring me back the golden ticket from the chocolate factory. Wait. I think I'm mixing up my stories a little bit. But those people and their pole bean fairytales are JUST.SO.WRONG. Pfffffft.

7. I fear that I can see the telltale early signs of the squash vine borers, and I'm sick about it. Freaking moths. I'm hoping it's just my imagination and I'm holding my breath. What a shame if we managed to keep away the beetles and the bugs, and yet our squash still got ruined by the borers. Gahhhhhhhhhh.

8. My sinuses are taking a wee bit of umbrage with the level of dairy eating I've been doing. They are my own little "off" switch to stop me from overeating the ice cream, so I can't just sit and down those incredibly complex and delicious and adventurous flavors all day. 

But there is some good news!

1. Not one cucumber beetle has been seen, nor squash bug, except the one cucumber beetle I killed. The nasturtiums have worked WONDERS in that regard. 

2. Is there anything cuter than a baby cucumber in bloom?

These are those lonnnnng English cucumbers, and this is what they look like before they are pollinated. Can you believe that thing is going to be a foot long or longer when it's mature? 

3. We're eating delicious broccoli!

And beets and radishes and asparagus and lettuces and onions and black raspberries and Swiss chard. It's really more than two people can possibly eat. I've been giving some to my mom and the neighbors. Soon the many cabbages I planted are about to take center stage. I don't have any idea how we're going to eat them all. Please do not suggest kimchi or sauerkraut. I do.not.like either of those, even though I would love to love them. I love the idea of them, and I could totally see myself wasting days and weeks and months (or however long it takes to make that smelly crap) making it, only to throw it away because I can't tolerate it. So it'll be fresh or braised or cooked with root veggies and corned beef or something, and SHARED. A lot of it will be shared. 

4. See #8 above. The sinuses are keeping me from overindulging in all the most amazing flavors of ice cream I've been making. OK, it's only been two. I made two batches of orgasmic rose petal ice cream and one batch of orgasmic strawberry-basil. You want my honest assessment? ORGASMIC. But beyond that, the basil ice cream base BEFORE I put in the pureed strawberries, was OR-GASSSSSS-MIIIIIIIICCCCCCC. Next time, I'm going to forget about the strawberries and just make basil. I know it sounds strange, but you have to believe me: O. I'm not even kidding. 

But, thank goodness for my screaming sinuses. Otherwise I'd gain back all the weight I lost over the winter, and PLUS have to work out 13 hours a day. 

So see? It's all good, even the bad.