Dang! What To Do With a Broken Blender

I broke the glass jar for my blender.
It was my grandmother's blender and I really like it.  Many years ago, a broken blender would have led me to mourn my grandmother's death all over again.  But things change.  My grandmother has been gone a long time and I no longer equate her blender with her.
But it's a really cool blender.  It's a mid-century classic, black and chrome, with Sputnik looking graphics and a font that says "party".  It has cool settings like "liquify" and "frappe".  It is weighty and reliable.  And it is broken.
But I couldn't bring myself to throw it away.  It was cool.  My grandmother used it to make grasshoppers for cocktail parties.  My kids have used it for shakes and smoothies for years.  It seemed like such a waste.  So it sat in the laundry room for a couple of weeks.  Everyone mourned its loss.
I looked at new blenders, but they were too expensive or too cheap.  I didn't buy one.  It didn't feel right.
In the meantime, my kids were asking for fresh strawberry smoothies and looking crestfallen when they realized that our family no longer had a functional blender.
Then I remembered that my mother-in-law bought a replacement for her favorite piece of Tupperware on ebay.  It seemed silly at the time, but she REALLY liked that bowl, she had lots of good memories attached to it, and it was a fraction of the price of a new bowl.  Maybe ebay could solve my blender problem.
Sure enough, I found PLENTY of jars replacements on ebay.  I watched a few jars and got a feel for what I could expect to spend.  If I was really desperate, I could "Buy It Now" for less than $20 with shipping.  So I watched a few jars, bid on, and won an auction.  My replacement jar cost less than $15 with shipping.
I could not get a comparable blender for that amount of money new.
And the whole experience pleased me in so many ways.
I didn't have to part with my grandmother's super cool blender.
I saved lots of money on a functioning blender.
I didn't have to feed the maw of consumerism and replace my great blender with a substandard one.
I saved space in the landfill for true junk.
I saved the money I would have spent on a new blender for something else.
Super cool.  My grandmother would be proud of me.

Planting Beans in the Demilitarized Zone

I planted my beans today, my second crop in the upper beds.  In forty five days, my beans will be fully mature and ready to harvest, provided the vermin don't get them first.
These upper beds are located rabbit steps from great cover and those little cretins make nightly forays into the vegetables for dinner.  My beets look as if they have been rolled over by a lawn mower.  I'll not take the same chances with the beans.  I don't think that I can get any more seed this late in the game.
It isn't pretty, but I surrounded each bed with a wall of chicken wire and secured the wall to the bed with landscape staples.  I'll add razor wire, gunner's turrets, and flood lights if necessary.
I am considering canning beans with a pressure cooker this year.  I've never tried it before.  I have a small one for meals, but I haven't tried canning.
Typically, I can using the water bath method, but this only works for more acidic foods, like tomatoes and fruits.  Beans must be canned at a higher temperature and only a pressure cooker will provide that.  Of course, freezing is also an option.  I blanched mine last year, froze them on cookie sheets, and then vacuum sealed them.  They were a little limp though.
I am getting a little ahead of myself.  My beans are just seeds in the ground and the rabbits may still eat them.  Or I could eat the rabbits with the surviving beans.
I let the dog into the garden the other day to sniff them out, leave her doggy scent about, scare up any potential suspects.  She dug holes.  I can't count on the dog.  I probably can't legally shoot rabbits and squirrels within city limits.  So I am relying on the chicken wire fencing to keep the vermin at bay.  We'll see how it works.

Picking Cherries, Or Not

My favorite fresh fruit pie is cherry.  But it’s been a pretty disappointing year for cherries.

First, the cherry trees that I planted three years ago still haven’t produced.  I’m not shocked; they are no bigger than me.  But I was hoping for at least one or two.  They blossomed.  But really, they need to be putting their tree energy into growing.  They are only toddlers in the tree world.

Second, my dad and I drove out to pick cherries from the tree of my childhood to find that it had been cut down!  This tree loomed large in my memory.  It was pretty big, taller than the cabin next to it.  We’d pull out the twelve foot ladders and stand on the top rungs to reach the highest cherries as my mother fretted on the ground below.  Imagine our shock to see this wonder tree reduced to a stump.  When my dad called his friend, he learned that the tree had died and had to be removed, another blow to our dreams of cherry pies.

Third, my neighbor’s tree didn’t produce much at all this year.  Usually, there are enough cherries to share, but not this year.  His tree is relatively young too, a replacement for a tree that kept the whole neighborhood supplied with cherries.  One sad Summer day, the tree split in half, all the way to the ground, right before our very eyes.  My younger son and niece both burst into tears.  The whole tree was infected with carpenter ants and no one had realized it.

So, it looks like I’ll not be picking cherries this year, which is really too bad.  I still have a couple bags in the freezer, but I’ll miss the picking as much as the fruit.  I love climbing ladders to reach for ripe cherries.  I love the look of big bowls of them in the lawn under the tree.  They truly are beautiful.  One year, my niece grabbed the camera to snap a picture.  I still have it in my cookbook, marking the pie recipe.  They look so beautiful, all those containers of freshly picked cherries in the green grass.  I love sitting on the front porch, pitting them and watching the neighborhood go about its business on a warm, Summer afternoon.  I could get a cherry pitter and crank them out in a fraction of the time, but then I’d miss sitting on the front stoop.  And I’ll miss the pies.  Cherry pie is so pretty.  Cherry pie made with fresh, tart cherries has a color that canned cherries tries, but fails, to imitate.

Some day, my cherry trees will be producing.  My father has begun to replace his dying redbud trees with cherry trees to ensure his own cherry haul.  My neighbor’s tree will soon mature to feed the neighborhood cherries.  In the meantime, I met a lovely woman at the Farmer’s Market.  She says she’ll have cherries for sale this afternoon.  I may have to buy every cherry she brings.

Blueberry Time

Last week, my mother-in-law, younger son and five year old daughter and I all went blueberry picking, despite the killer heat.  We went early in the morning and enjoyed the ten degree cooler weather and brisk breeze out at the berry patch.  There may not be much shade, but it's always cooler twenty minutes north of town.
The blueberry picking was the best I'd ever experienced.  Between the four of us, we picked over twelve pounds of berries off only eight bushes.  each bush was loaded with berries and we just systematically worked our way down each the row, picking off both sides of the bushes.  We'll go back later this week for more.  Blueberry picking requires a couple of trips before we can get the needed pounds of berries. 
I made two batches of blueberry jam, experimented with a blueberry muffin recipe, made blueberry pancakes for breakfast a few mornings, and made a blueberry pie (my oldest son's favorite).
As soon as I came home, I dumped all the berries in the Tupperware Fridge Smart containers I pull up from the basement every Summer.  They are fabulous for storing berries.  They got my strawberries down to Zone 6 for the Fourth of July family reunion.  Blueberry storage is where those containers really shine.  I can keep blueberries in the fridge for up to eight weeks (as long as my kids don't know that they are there).
We gorge ourselves on blueberries all summer long.  I'll take as many trips to the blueberry patch as I can, inviting a different friend or visiting family member to come along with me each time.  It'swonderful to spend an hour or two in the morning with a friend, chatting and filling our buckets with the food that my family will be eating for many months to come.  We'll eat them by the handful for several weeks, then we'll eat the frozen remainder in muffins, pancakes, coffeecakes, and pies all winter long.  I freeze them the same way I do peas, on a cookie sheet, then vacuum sealed in single servings and put in the basement freezer.
Here is my standard blueberry pie recipe.  As I said, its my oldest son's favorite.

Fresh Blueberry Pie

• 4 c. fresh blueberries
• 1 c. sugar
• 1/4 c. tapioca
• 1T. lemon juice
• double crust pastry

1. Preheat oven to 375 degrees
2. Mix all ingredients and let the mixture set for 15 minutes.
3. After rolling the first crust into the pie pan, add the blueberries and dot with 1T. cold butter, cut in slivers.
4. Cover the blueberry mixture with the second crust and crimp the crust.  Slit the top crust.
5. Cover the pie with foil and bake for 30 minutes.
6. Remove the foil and brush the top of the crust with milk and sprinkle it with milk.
7. Bake for another 30 minutes, until the crust is golden brown and the filling is bubbling through the vents.

A Day to Catch Up and Finish

Today and yesterday, I spent my time catching up, cleaning up, and finishing.  After a week of brutal heat, I really enjoyed the chance to get outside and get some real work done in my garden. 
I cleaned out the pea beds, saving the remainder of the peas for seed, broke up the pea vines, and mulched the beds with them.  Once they have a couple of days rest, I'll plant beans and my crop rotation for those beds will be complete.  Beans follow peas.  One restores the soil for the other.  This fall, I'll mulch the same beds with bean plants for the peas to be planted next spring.
I reset the same bamboo stakes I had used to build teepees for the peas.  Once planted, I plan to put chicken wire around this bean crop to protect it from the rabbits that have been sneaking out to snack on the peas.   While clearing the overgrowth from around the fence, I found the hole in the fence where the rabbits have been coming to eat through everything I plant.  I'll attend to that when I put in my bean defense system.
My husband lent a hand while I set and leveled the trellises I built for the cucumbers and patty pan squash.  I tied those up so that they could finally take full advantage of the morning sun.
I was finally able to weed the walkway and I added two more buckets of green stuff to my compost bin.  I put down a couple more bins of wood chips on the other walkways.
It's amazing what a person can accomplish in cooler weather.  Finishing always feels good.  A neat garden was my reward.  No more things to build, weeds to pull, beetles to pluck... for now.  Tomorrow, a new week begins with a new list of chores to start and chores to complete.  For now, I can sit back and enjoy.  Everything looks great.

Keeping a Garden Journal

As I wrung my hands over the fate of my squash garden I was reminded of philosopher George Santayana’s quote, “Those who do not remember the past are condemned to repeat it.”
How could I forget that the last two squash crops I tried in this location failed? Amnesia?  Maybe the third time is the charm?
My Chersonskya squash don’t look too hot. It could be the variety.  But, come to think of it, the Luminas and the Queensland Blues I planted here last year didn’t do well either. The butternuts from the year before that were a little peckish too. This was a great place for pumpkins and squash once upon a time. Maybe it’s too shady now, or the soil needs amending, or the potatoes are planted too close to the squash. Who knows?
I’d know, had I kept a garden journal.
EVERY gardening class instructor recommends a journal to keep track of the breeds that do best, the methods that work, the most effective way to keep down pests… or not. I am so bad at it though. I could use a little self-improvement. My garden could benefit from some journaling too. Maybe then, I’d learn to try squash in a different spot.
So I resolve to write down what works and what doesn’t work in my garden, how I amend the soil, what spots are best for what crops, weather trends, and what keeps the vermin at bay. I’ll look for a better spot for next year’s squash crop and hope that the Chersonskya does well in Di’s garden.

Picking Berries and Beetles

These days, the Japanese Beetles are swarming.

I generally don’t mind Japanese Beetles.  In my yard, they usually stick to the raspberry canes, roses, and beans and never seem to do too much harm to any of them beyond chomping on their leaves.  But this year they arrived just as my crop of beans are coming up and I don’t want those beetles munching on the new leaves of my beans.  Last year, they reduced my edamame leaves to lacy bits, but it didn’t seem to affect bean production in the least, so I wasn’t concerned.  Those plants were well established.  These bean sprouts are just babies and I want rid of those beetles.

I devised a fun form of beetle control.  When I go out to pick raspberries, I also pick beetles.  They all seem to be congregating on the raspberry canes, having a big orgy, so they are easy picking.  Grab a mating pair and it’s a two for one!

I quickly pop them into an empty yogurt container with a tiny bit of water in it, slap on the top, and give it a shake to disorient the bugs.  I keep picking until I can find no more.  Then I take to yogurt container down to the chicken coop, give it one last shake, and toss the beetles in for the hens.  The girls know what to expect now and they make a mad dash for the dazed beetles.  One minute those beetles were having fun, making more beetles, the next minute they were meeting their maker in the chicken coop.  And it’s great entertainment for the kids.  What kid doesn’t like torturing bugs at some point in life?

I like the "circle of life" I have going here.  My raspberries end up on the breakfast table eventually.  The beetles that were munching on my raspberries today will end up in tomorrow's omelette.  It's bug control without chemicals, entertainment for the neighborhood kids, and extra food for the egg producers.
If you don't have a flock of your own, you could just leave the beetles in the yogurt container for the rest of the day with a little more water.  They won't last long in there, then you can dump them into the garbage can.  In the meantime, head to the library for a book on backyard flocks and look into getting some chickens of your own.  You already have a great free food source out in the garden.

Fresh Herbs, All Winter Long

The local greenhouse is closing out their annuals in anticipation of the arrival of their poinsettia crop.  Hard to imagine, but it’s true.

This is an ideal time to buy up some cheap 4-packs of herbs and pot them for the patio.  Come first frost, they should be well established and able to handle a winter indoors.

Fresh herbs in winter only require a little planning.  I plant mine mid-summer when I can buy them on sale, plant them in pots that can be brought indoors, fertilize them, and give them a chance to grow healthy and strong by first frost.

I bring thyme, bay, sage, rosemary, and oregano indoors and grow them in my back hallway, near an east window.  To economize on space, I plant thyme with the bay tree that I am training into a small topiary.  The rosemary is trimmed into a conical form to be a Christmas tabletop decoration.  All double as houseplants until they get too leggy to be attractive.  Then they return to the back hall to await warm weather and their return to the patio.

I’m spoiled.  I love being able to make salad dressing all winter long with fresh thyme.  I put fresh sage in Thanksgiving stuffing.  Pork roasts go into the oven dressed with fresh sprigs of rosemary.  A fresh bay leaf in chili beats a brittle, dried one any day.  All these take a little planning. 

Herb plants (if you can even FIND them) are very expensive midwinter.  But midsummer, a 4-pack of thyme will be less than two dollars and worth ten times that all winter long.

Growing Garlic

I decided to dig up my garlic to see if my experiment worked.  It really didn’t.

Two or three falls ago, I ordered and planted garlic seed.  I chose a bad spot for it, along a walkway that got covered over with woodchips.  The garlic fought hard to make it through the soil, newspapers, and thick coat of woodchips.  It was trampled and died back before I could harvest it.

The next Spring, it sprouted again, and was trampled.  Ditto for the following year.

Last Fall, I dug it up and planted it in a more purposeful place and vowed to make that spot my garlic patch.

Most of the bulbs sprouted in the Spring and did moderately well.  I dug them up this past week.  They hadn’t developed more than two cloves per head.  I was disappointed, but not surprised.

I planted garlic because I hate the stuff that is sold in the grocery store.  If it isn’t shriveled and sprouting when I buy it, it will be by the time I get to the last clove of the head.  Such was the case when I pulled out my garlic for spaghetti sauce.  Disgusted, I tried the stuff I’d pulled from the garden.

It was still sitting on the path where I left it a couple of days ago, looking pretty dejected.  But I brought it in and tried it.  It was wonderful!!!

When the beans that I planted in place of the garlic are finished, I’ll put in my garlic and try it again.  I did some more research and found a helpful website.  Hood River Garlic in Oregon has a great website with LOTS of information.  I found its FAQ page very informative.

This year, I think I’ll try ‘Susanville’.  I wanted to grow a softneck variety.  Softnecks are the type of garlic that can be braided and stored for months in the pantry, but hardneck varieties are better suited for cold climates.  ‘Susanville’ is one softneck variety that Hood River recommends for northern climates.  It suits my needs perfectly and I’m looking forward to giving it a try.  If a successful crop is anything better than my failed experiment, I won’t be disappointed.

Check out http://www.hoodrivergarlic.com/about.htm for more information on choosing and growing your own garlic.

Christmas in July

The time to start thinking about Christmas is really July.

I am not suggesting that one should begin shopping in July.  For me, that’s a bad idea.  I often forget where I hide my Christmas gifts or leave them out to be discovered accidentally by their intended recipient.  But it is a really good idea to start thinking about Christmas when the actual event is a good six months away and my head is somewhat clear.

We celebrate a mish mash of holidays (religious and pagan) in late December and Santa Claus does visit.  It is not an over-the-top event.  We bake special treats.  We share a great meal with friends and family.  We attend a church service to hear my middle child sing in the choir (remarkably, the church does not burst into flames when our party enters, even though it is predominantly an atheist crowd).  We host or attend a Solstice celebration.  Santa visits and brings all in attendance a stocking full of fun stuff.  The kids each get a gift from Santa too.

We agreed upon the Santa thing early in our parenthood.  At our house, Santa brings ONE GIFT… and a stocking full of cool things.  The one thing doesn’t have to be huge.  It’s sometimes the one thing that I didn’t want to buy for my children but they REALLY WANTED.  One year, I caved and bought them Deluxe G.I. Joe gift sets.  They nearly peed their pants.

The stockings can be a real problem if I put them off to the last minute.  If I am cruising the aisles of the outdoors outfitter, desperate for something small for my husband’s stocking, I can really blow the budget.  If I think about it in advance, I can plan it more carefully, get the things that he really needs, pick up some stuff the make him chuckle, and stay within budget.

While cleaning rooms with the boys, I noticed that neither had a full deck of cards, so I put cards on the list.  They both are fighting over the limited supply of water bottles, so I put Nalgenes on the list.  My daughter has been coveting the boys’ headlamps, so I put a headlamp on the list.  My husband finally got an ipod, so I put earbuds on the list.

I do buy some things early if they are incredibly cheap and too good to resist.  I got my daughter a mini paint set for a dollar.  I found a cat butt car air freshener for my brother.  Who can resist such treasures?  I’ll hide them in the same lame spot as I do every year and hopefully I’ll still remember where that spot is come December.

But, if I make a list in July, and add to the list as ideas materialize, Christmas shopping will be a breeze.  I don’t want it to be stressful or excess, this giving of gifts.  Beginning to imagine it in July helps to make it thoughtful.

Calling an End to Pea Seaon

The weather forecast is predicting highs in the 90s all week long, not typical for Zone 4, so I’m calling an end to pea season.  It’s official.  And it’s weird.  It’s the middle of July.  Peas should have been finished in June, but it was a weird Spring too.

When peas are done, they are done.  They have a pretty short vegetable lifespan, about 60 days.  And they don’t do well in heat.  That means that pea season is OVER.  More than half of the peas I picked today were tough and mealy, halfway to pea seeds.  That’s fine with me.

Saving pea seeds is easy and there are plenty of good reasons to do it.  First, seed saving also saves money.  Second, I really like my ‘Early Frosty’ peas.  By choosing the best pea plants and saving their seeds, next year’s crop will be even better.  Third, just in case the Apocalypse or Rapture or whatever, it might be nice to be able to plant some of my own food.  Okay, that last reason is crazy.  I am not a nutty survivalist, but I really do like to be able to be responsible for my own cheap food and I needed a third good reason to save seeds.

To save pea seeds, leave the pods on the vines until they have dried.  Once dried, pick the pods from the vines and remove the seed.  Let them cure further on a plate in a dry, safe place.  Remove the rest of the chaff from the seeds and store them in an envelope.  I used to keep my seeds in the laundry room, then I read that they should be kept in an airtight container in the refrigerator, so there they are now.   Next year, I won’t have to buy pea seeds.  Good thing, I need to plant more peas next year.  But I'm not saving any of those 'Oregon Trail' peas.  Not my favorites.

Pizza Night

My family loves pizza and my husband makes the best homemade pizza.  It's simple to make great dough for crust with a bread machine.  I haven't quite nailed down my own recipe for pizza sauce, but it isn't much more difficult than garlic, tomatoes, basil, oregano, sugar, and salt.  Jar sauce works just as well.
Thin crust pizza can be made on a pizza stone.  We make thick crust, Chicago-style pizza in a large cast iron skillet, no special tools or stones necessary.

Pizza Crust in the Bread Machine (enough for 2 large pizzas)

• 1 1/2 c. scalded milk, cooled to room temperature (so as not to kill the yeast)
• 1/3 c. melted butter
• 2/3 c. sugar
• 2 1/2 t. salt
• 1 t. + 3/4 t. yeast

1. Add ingredients to the bread machine pan in the above order.
2. Follow bread machine's instructions for Dough.

Top pizzas with everyone's favorite toppings and bake at 400 degrees for 15 to 20 minutes.

The Fun Has Begun

The good times (and the garden grub) are rolling... into the freezer and the countertops and the kitchen table.  Now I know why my brother referred to his raspberry patch as his part time job.  I have been picking daily for a week and I think I have ten cups of raspberries in the freezer.
The drill is actually pretty simple.  Baby Bear and I go out each morning and pick the day's ripe raspberries and peas.  I bring out a cake pan or two and a bowl.  The raspberries freeze best if the are frozen individually, so I carefully spread mine out in their cake tins.  The cake tins fit easily into my kitchen freezer.  Bigger hauls go on cookie sheets in the basement freezer.  We also pick most of the ripe peas and bring them in to be shelled before they go into their own pie tins or cake plates in the freezer.
Peas don't tend to bunch up when they freeze as raspberries do, so I can throw the day's pickings into the pie tin of peas already collecting in the freezer.
Sooner or later, every pan, tin, and sheet is covered and they all need to be bagged and vacuum sealed.  Three years ago, I purchased a vacuum sealer.  My dad had one that he has used for freezing the fish and game he hunts.  A vacuum sealer greatly reduces freezer burn.  I use mine for everything, from freezing garden produce and meats to economizing on freezer space needed for chicken stock.
Vacuum sealers used to be the well kept secrets of hunters and fishermen.  Now they can be found at almost any big box store, along with replacement bags.  My dad is on his second sealer.  His first was a little temperamental and didn't consistently work.  Mine went through a similar stage, but I think it had something to do with the fact that I stored it locked.  The directions specifically state not to do so.  Maybe my inability to completely read directions is genetic.  I almost bit the bullet and bought a new one, but it seems fine now, working beautifully.
I researched mine carefully online, and bought the best one I could at the lowest price point.  I figured I wouldn't mind replacing it if was relatively cheap.  Price points can vary dramatically.
I buy replacement bags by the roll so I can customize my own size of bags.  Produce gets frozen in single servings and clearly marked (and dated!) and stored in the basement freezer.  I freeze everything from berries, pesto, soups, sauces, beans, peppers to tomatoes, carrots, cookie dough, and scraps for stock.  Because I can freeze many of the things flat, I don't waste freezer space.  My cherries used to grow a layer of freezer burn in the space between the fruit and the top of the container.  Now they come out of the freezer bag just as nice as they were when they went into the bag.
Last night I made my husband a batch of chili for his camping trip.  Today I will seal it in bags and freeze it.  It will fit better in the cooler and stay frozen longer than food frozen in a storage box.  Melting ice won't seep into it and spoil it.
This sealer will stay on my countertop for much of the rest of summer, putting away produce for winter.

The Compost Pile of My Dreams

I saw this design for a compost pile at the landscape arboretum and I was so envious. I have tried many different compost configurations in the past, both expensive and dirt cheap, with only moderate success.
I learned a great recipe for compost building at a biointensive gardening class that I took this Spring and I was eager to give it a try (See the 6/23/11 posting on Compost). Truly, I could just pile my clippings in a shady corner of the garden, but I liked the three bin composting area at the landscape arboretum and I was determined to do it cheaply.
I got eight two-inch landscape posts from the hardware store. They fit the cheap bill, $2 each, not cedar or treated. I know that they’ll rot, but not immediately. I pulled out my pallet wood collection. I’d been destructing pallets for sidewalls to contain and divide my three piles of decomposing garden stuffs.
My husband saw where I was going with this and intervened. As I have said before, this IS Green Acres and I am married to the male version of Eva Gabor. And Eva was having nothing to do with my pallet constructions in our yard.
According to the time-honored tradition in our marriage, he took over the project and finished it to meet his aesthetic requirements. Either partner reserves the right to modify another’s project, with the understanding that their contribution must involve at least as much sweat equity as opinion.
We compromised on the wood used in the walls and dividers of the compost construction. We saved my pallet wood for another project (a bonfire?)and used new wood from sale bin at the big box store.
I’d done the difficult (but ab building) work of digging the holes for the posts. All of the two foot deep holes involved some root removal. I carefully leveled all the posts so my piles wouldn’t lean. It didn’t matter that they were all different lengths. The chainsaw is a great equalizer.
My husband cut all the posts so that they were about three feet tall and screwed 1x4s between the posts to build walls and dividers for the posts. He trimmed the edges even with the chainsaw. He put 1x4s on the posts to make tops for the bins. He even filled up the first stall, using last year’s bagged leaves, this year’s weeds, and some soil leftover from my post hole digging. And he got it all done in the time between dinner and darkness. Eddie Albert never had it so good.
And everyone agrees that the end result is quite nice.

Three Loaves a Day

One day this week I made three loaves of bread in one day.  Teenage boys sure can eat.

My oldest has two practices a day, football and wrestling, twice a week.  On those days, he eats breakfast before and after football practice, lunch, dinner before and after evening wrestling practice, with snacks between meals.  And he is just one of my three kids.  My kitchen feels like one big all-you-can-eat buffet.  The second one is even bigger than his big brother and has been known to lick the pancake batter bowl clean after a three or four pancake.  Who can blame him?  He’ll burn off just as many calories as his brother at his job cutting and clearing brush.  Then there is Baby Bear, who is after the berries in the garden quicker than the birds, bunnies, and squirrels.  Good thing I have an Invisible Fence around the garden.  I discovered this week that the dog just loves peas.  She swiped them off the table when I went up to the garden to get more.  I swear, I can hear them all chewing in my sleep.  Some people start at the sound of thunder.  Mastication makes me jumpy.

So I was out of bed early this morning, heading to the store to buy more milk, gallons three and four of the week.  The checker asked me about those big boys of mine.  HOW MANY loaves of bread?  HOW MANY gallons of milk this week?  Her eyes grew round.  I could see her contemplating skipping the whole kid thing and buying a baby elephant.  It would probably be cheaper.  Elephants don’t go to college and they eat less.

Here’s a recipe for bread that doesn’t call for milk.  Good thing too, I am often out of it.

I save so much money with this bread maker!  I can have a loaf started in less time than it takes the coffee to brew.  That is often when I do it.

I got my bread maker from a friend.  I know that it won’t last too much longer.  A piece broker off of it and the loaves turn out looking more like parallelograms than rectangles.  But I have seen at least four of them in garage sales this summer.  I’ll start shopping for a replacement soon, and I won’t pay more than $25 for it.

Simple White Loaf for the Bread Machine

• 1 c. warm (room temperature) water
• 2 T. sugar
• 2 T. canola oil
• 1 ½ t. salt
• 3 c. flour
• 2 ¼ t. yeast

1. Add the above ingredients to the bread machine in order.
2. Follow bread machine’s instructions for a 1 ½# loaf.

In three hours, my family is eating freshly made bread for less than a dollar.

Peas

My peas are finally coming into season.  I have been waiting for a LONG time for these peas and done major war with the squirrels and rabbits for them.

When they first emerge, these peas can be steamed and eaten whole.  I like to shell mine when they get a little bigger and freeze the peas for winter.  All my kids love peas.

This is my third year planting “Early Frosty” peas and these plants are from seeds that I saved myself (EASY to do).  The plants grow only two and a half feet tall and were better suited for my lower beds in the garden.

I tried “Oregon Trail” peas.  They were all seed catalog hype.  They were supposed to produce great yields and require no staking.  Well, they are a mess, flopping all over the garden and shading the few beets that the rabbits missed.  A quarter of the pods I harvested held either undersized peas or misshapen ones.  Disappointed.

I have high hopes for the third variety I planted this year, “Mr. Big”.  If they produce good yields, I’ll use them next year in the upper beds.  They grow taller than “Early Frosty” and I can make better use of the pea supports I use in the upper beds.

I’m always afraid that I won’t have planted enough peas.  They make a great standby vegetable, requiring mere seconds in the microwave in a covered dish to be table ready and, as I said, my whole family loves them.  As I look critically at my mid summer garden, I am picking out more places that would make good spots for extra pea trellises.  Bamboo teepees between the pepper plants would be an ideal spot.  Those peppers won’t need the extra space until later in the summer and the peas will all be sleeping in the freezer by then.

To put away the extra peas for winter, I shell mine into pie plates and flash freeze them in the freezer.  When I’ve collected enough for a meal (about three cups), I pour them into a freezer bag, vacuum seal them, and throw them in the basement freezer.

When harvesting peas, leave a few on the most vigorous, best producing of the vines to “go to seed”.  Pea seeds are easily saved for next year’s planting and saving seeds can greatly cut the costs of “growing your own”.

To get started with your own peas, try http://www.territorialseed.com/

Baked Beans

Everyone loves baked beans.  Not many bean recipes start with just beans (the dried kind).  I’ve been looking, but winter is my favorite time to monkey with new recipes.  Until I find a better one, I’ll stick with my rendition of my friend’s mother’s recipe.

Sylvia’s Baked Beans

• 1 pound bacon
• 1 onion
• 1 28 oz. can baked beans
• 2 15 oz. cans of “other” beans, I like kidney and pinto beans, Sylvia likes kidney and butter beans
• ¾ c. brown sugar
• ½ c. ketchup
• 1 T. mustard
• 2 T. vinegar

1. Brown, drain, and crumble the bacon.
2. Dice the onion and fry it in the bacon drippings until it is translucent.  Drain.
3. Pour baked beans in a casserole.
4. Drain remaining cans of beans and add to casserole dish.
5. Add bacon and onions to the beans.
6. Stir in the sugar, ketchup, mustard, and vinegar.
7. Bake at 350 degrees for one to two hours.

This recipe can be made in advance if it is cooked an hour, refrigerated, and warmed in a crockpot to be served later.

Determinate and Indeterminate Tomatoes

I have long neglected the job of pruning and tying up the indeterminate tomatoes.  It is time to get down to business.  They were some of the first plants to go into the garden and they really need some attention.

Tomatoes fall into two general categories: determinate and indeterminate.

Determinate tomatoes are a bush variety tomato.  They usually grow to three or four feet tall and set their fruit all at once.  Most paste and canning type tomatoes are determinate by design.  Growers can expect most of the fruit to ripen at once, to be canned, frozen, or made into salsas, sauces, etc.  They require some support to keep the fruit off the ground.  I plant mine in the scrounged tomato cages that I keep in my garden year round.  (Scrounger's Note: Many people toss their tomato cages at the end of the season rather than store them.  Keep your eyes open for them for your own garden.  Skip the storage issue and keep them in the garden throughout the winter.)  Determinate tomatoes should not be pruned.  Smaller varieties of determinate tomatoes grow well in containers and make nice patio plants.  I picked up some hanging baskets and shepherd’s crooks at a garage sale earlier in hopes of hanging some smaller tomatoes around the patio for easy snacking.

Indeterminate tomatoes are a vine-type tomato that can grow to ten feet.  These varieties produce fruit all season and require much more staking and pruning.  Most heirloom varieties are of the indeterminate type.  In my garden, these plants give us our slicers and small snacking tomatoes.  I have several different varieties this year.  Indeterminate tomatoes make nice vertical gardening specimens.  Mine line the path through my middle vegetable bed and I often grow herbs or onions between the plants.

My neighbor introduced me to this method of staking my indeterminate tomatoes.  They had been overwhelming my tomato cages.  My husband sank two 1x1” eight foot stakes and connected the span with a ten foot length of light-weight electrical conduit.  I plant my tomatoes under the top support and train them up twine that is tied to the base of the tomato plant and to the conduit.  I pinch back suckers to encourage a strong, central vine and promote fruit production. Check out Mel Bartholomew's "Square Foot Gardening" for more tips on easy to build structures for vertically grown tomatoes.  Square Foot Gardening: A New Way to Garden in Less Space with Less Work

In training my plants this way, I can take advantage of limited soil space.  Companions can be planted amongst the tomato “tree trunks” to further economize on space.  Fruit grows more at eye level and is easy to spot and pick.  My children and I love to walk down a path of tomatoes, picking and eating our way through the garden.

For more information about tomato staking and pruning, check out this website.

http://www.finegardening.com/how-to/articles/pruning-tomatoes.aspx

German Potato Salad, Gluten Free

Baby Bear #2 is allergic to wheat.  My neighbor and good friend has Celiac Disease.  Its barbeque time and time to alter my Grandmother's recipe to accommodate two of my favorite people. 

German Potato Salad (Gluten Free!)

• 5 pounds red potatoes
• 1 pound bacon
• 1 pound yellow onions, diced into ¼ inch pieces

For the dressing:

• 1 c. water
• 1 c. vinegar
• 1 c. sugar
• 1 1/2 T. cornstarch

1. Boil the potatoes until they can be pierced with a fork
2. Drain and cool the potatoes.
3. While the potatoes are cooling, fry the bacon. Do not allow the bacon drippings to burn.
4. Remove the bacon from the pan and set it aside to cool.
5. Fry the onions in the bacon drippings until they are translucent.
6. Remove the onions from the bacon drippings.
7. Peel and dice the cooled potatoes into a large mixing bowl.
8. Crumble the bacon into the potatoes.
9. Add the onions into the mixture.
10. For the dressing:
11. Bring the water and vinegar to a boil in a medium size saucepan.
12. Carefully incorporate the cornstarch into the sugar. If the two are not completely mixed, the dressing will be lumpy. This is not a total disaster, I have strained my dressing in the past.
13. Slowly stir the cornstarch/sugar mixture into the boiling vinegar water. Boil the dressing, stirring constantly, until it is the consistency of cream.
14. Pour the hot dressing over the potatoes, bacon, and onions, using as much dressing as desired. I mix mine a little on the wet side if I am going to allow it to sit for a couple of days.
15. Salt and pepper the potato salad to taste. My mom used to add some of the onion flavored bacon drippings too.

Store the potato salad in an airtight until the morning of the picnic and serve it at room temperature.

Picking Raspberries, Beating the Bears

Thank goodness for public television.
My daughter missed it for a whole week, so I got a chance to pick the raspberries before she noticed them.
They were one of the first things I noted as we pulled into the drive from our extended vacation.  The raspberries were ripe and coming in like gangbusters.  The trick would be beating "the bears" to them.
My five year old and our neighbor's daughter have earned their nicknames.  They look like little brown bears out there, picking the blueberry and raspberry bushes clean.  When they finish with my garden, they wander over to my neighbor's garden and pick and eat, pick and eat.  Who can complain about a kid who snacks on berries?
Still, I do like to get some of those berries for winter.  I freeze them individually on cookie sheets.  Once they are completely frozen, I vacuum seal them in one cup servings for coffee cakes and scones.  Frozen raspberries are great in pancakes when the blueberries are all gone.  Red raspberry jam on waffles is one of my husband's favorite breakfast.  I'll need at least three cups of crushed berries for one batch of jam.
My raspberry canes came from my brother's house, up in Zone 3.  His patch has extended so far into his yard that raspberries could become a part time job for him.  The next time he comes down this way, I hope he will bring his favorite niece her own canes for her little garden patch.  Maybe then, the little bears will leave my raspberries be.

Sleepless, If I Could Only Weed at Night

My daughter woke me up for a glass of water and now I can't get back to sleep.  It was all about the glass, I didn't have one.  It broke before vacation.  Put it on the list of things to get at the big box store.  Write it on a sticky note.  Oh wait, I needed those too.  And I am nearly out of laundry detergent with all these vacation clothes to wash.  And stop saying "warsh", we are no longer in Zone 6.
Some of my husband's work friends and their families are coming over for dinner Saturday night and I am behind the game plan by two days because of our en route car troubles.  I had plans for churning some ice cream and creating a new baked bean recipe, but that will have to fall by the wayside.  Geez, I'll be lucky if I get the barbeque pork done in time with bottled sauce.  Forget that recipe I saw in the paper a few weeks ago for a sauce from scratch that was supposed to make even chalkboard erasers taste good.  That will have to wait.
It was bliss here for a bit.  I was so happy to be home, even if it was weedy.
The kitchen is a mess because I had to hunt for "that smell", the one my boys remarked upon in their two days home alone, but never really investigated.  The dead mouse scent had permeated all the drawers in the cabinet where I found it, so everything came out and went into the warshing machine or the dishwarsher.  The drawers were bleached and bleached again and I swear that I can STILL smell it even though my sinuses are still reeling from whatever was blooming down in Zone 6.
Then there is all the post wrestling camp laundry, on top of the vacation laundry, in addition to the dead mouse laundry.  My alarm is going off in two and a half hours.  Why bother going back to sleep?
I could go to the grocery store and start on Saturday's meal.  That would help.  Too bad the big box store is closed.  I could avoid taking the five year old.  Maybe I'll just start another load of laundry and get some bread going for breakfast.
The upside of all these chores keeping me awake tonight is that I'll be so exhausted by them all tomorrow night that I'll truly get a good night's sleep.  Until then, I am making lists of all the things that will have to wait for daybreak.  I'm sleepless, once again.

Home Again, Home Again

Finally, we're home in Zone 4 again.
On our way home from the annual family reunion in Zone 6, we had a major breakdown.  Our vehicle blew its transfer case.  Luckily, we broke down near a lovely college town in Zone 5.  Along with a beautiful couple of days spent on campus, we were especially lucky to arrive in major metropolitan area with plenty of parts.  The tow truck dropped us off at a gas station with great mechanics.
Aside from being REALLY expensive, it was a nice time spent with my husband and youngest.  The boys went home in a rental car with their uncle.  We did a campus tour on behalf of our absent teenagers.
My husband and I made a pit stop at the university book store to buy chargers for our phones and took a trip through the stacks of required reading.  With so many good books as required reading, it made me itch to go back to school.
But, sooner or later, we all must go home.
So here I am.  My pets are all still with us.  It rained sufficiently to keep my garden healthy and the window boxes and planters alive.  Our boys did great on their own.
It's weedy.  The grass is long.  But it's all still growing.

Strawberry Shortcake!

The best part about fresh strawberries is the dessert.

Strawberry Shortcake is everyone’s favorite in my family.  It tastes best with freshly picked strawberries.

Once rinsed, I slice the berries into a bowl and lightly sugar them.  When all the berries are sliced and sugared, I add a small amount of water to the bowl and cover it with plastic wrap and let the berries rest at room temperature.  The sugar, water, and strawberry juice will form into a strawberry syrup.  My husband likes his shortcake drizzled with it.

I make my shortcakes the way my mom did.  I use the recipe off the side of the Bisquick box with one alteration, I increase the sugar in the shortcake to 1/3 cup.  These biscuit-like cakes tend to burn on the bottoms, so I watch them carefully.

I learned long ago never to leave a jar of whipping cream in my refrigerator.  My boys will sneak squirts out of it all day long until it is empty by dinnertime.  Besides, I like freshly whipped cream best.  I stir in powdered sugar and vanilla to taste and whip it on high in my Kitchen-Aid.  My son learned the hard way to keep an eye on cream in a heavy-duty mixer.  Hoping to score a late night snack, he overwhipped the cream and ended up with butter.

When ready to serve, I slice the shortcakes and top them with strawberries and syrup.  Then I top the whole dessert with the freshly whipped cream.

This is a true summertime dessert and ample reward for pickers who spent the morning in the sun, backs bent, to bring home such a lovely treat.

Feeding the Soil: Crop Rotation

Nutrient rich soil grows nutrient rich food.  Keeping this in mind, remember to rotate crops.  In planning my gardens, I try to remember to NOT plant things in the same place every year.  Doing so would deplete the soil of the nutrients that crop needs to thrive.  By rotating the types of plants I plant, I can rebuild the soil’s nutrients.  Beans do well if planted after peas.  Corn and beans replace the nutrients removed from the soil by my garlic crop.

Remember, more than one crop can be planted in a bed in a single growing season.  I will plant bush beans in my pea beds once I have harvested all the peas.  Short growing crops, like beans, can be seeded after garlic is harvest.  Once frost ends their growing season, next year’s garlic crop can be planted to overwinter in the same spot I planted the garlic last fall.

I really enjoyed the book “Square Foot Gardening” by Mel Bartholomew.  I can’t apply his square foot philosophy easily to my oddly shaped world, but the book was full of good information about many things, including crop rotation.  I bought my father the newest edition of the book, but I honestly like the older one better.  I was able to buy it cheaply because it was used and the information is just as useful.  I especially appreciate the spacing guidelines, vertical growing tips, and soil preparation guides.  Along with “Carrots Love Tomatoes”, it is one of my favorite gardening books.

Bartholomew reminds the reader throughout the book to keep crop rotation in mind when planning a garden.  I tend to overlook it if I find a good place for something, especially lettuce.

Remember, if you are just getting started, don’t let yourself be overwhelmed.  Gardening is as much about process as product.  Incorporate new ideas as they arise and enjoy the process.  The food will continue to improve as the process improves and the rewards will be counted in increments beyond yield.

Feed the soil.  Feed the family.  Feed the soul.

Making Jams and Jellies

"Forty three jars of jam.  Are you sure it will be enough?"  A look of concern came over my son's face, then a grin.  He's not old enough to do sarcasm convincingly.
In my mind, there are three reasons to make jams and jellies.
The first reason is economical.  I started the day with what I considered to be an ample amount of three of the four ingredients I'd need to make strawberry jam-- water, sugar, and Sure-Jell (the fruit pectin that helps jams and jellies thicken).  By noon, I had way more strawberries than other ingredients.  Mid-process, I had to make a supply run to the grocery store.  While there, I did some comparison shopping.
My strawberry jam costs $1.35 in materials.  Jam produced with the same ingredients and a fancy label costs $4.59.  The cheapest jar of jam was $2.46 and contained the following ingredients: strawberries, high fructose corn syrup, corn syrup, sugar, fruit pectin, and citric acid.
This brings me to my second reason to make my own jam.  I want to know what is in the food that I feed to my children and I DON'T want any high fructose corn syrup in it.  I also would like some reassurance that the berries used in our jam are not soaked in pesticides and herbicides.  Picking my own guarantees that I get fruit that meets my standards.
My third reason for making me own jam is the satisfaction I get from doing it.  I honestly had a good time doing it, laughing long distance with a friend, singing Bob Marley tunes ("We're jammin'.  And I hope this jam is gonna last.").  Plus I get to entertain and impress my children.  My oldest takes jars of jam and loaves of homemade bread to wrestling matches for his friends' favorite PB&J sandwiches.  My youngest son gets to laugh at his crazy mom's strawberry jam stash and know that he picked most of those berries.  My five year old daughter took notes in her notebook and made a pictorial recipe for strawberry jam.
The jam that we use all year long is economical, ecologically friendly, HFCS-free, and full of happy memories and Bob Marley tunes.