First time...

Another great blog: Dig this Chick has a place for Virgin Harvests. If you are planting something in your garden for the first time. Follow along on her page!

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Lots of rules

Insomnia has been broadening my reading palate. My latest read was Michael Pollan's "Food Rules". There are a lot of rules to follow in there, but I was minutely proud to find that we were already doing quite a few of them.

• No High Fructose Syrup
• No cereals that make your milk a funny color.
• Avoid foods that make health claims or say "lite" or "lowfat"
• There are no artificial sweetners in this house.
• No white bread.
• Eat food from your garden.

There are 64 rules. That is a lot of rules. Fortunately, one of the rules is to break the rules and that is a good thing. We love Stovetop Stuffing and Sweet Baby Ray's BBQ sauce. Both have HFC and are found in those darn center aisles. But, we don't eat them often and that is his point in Rule #60. My husband would NOT be throwin' the love out if I took those two items completely out of his diet. Once every other month, we are ok.

After I read the #60 loophole, I started to think, "We can do this!" So I am going to work, with my partner, into adding a rule to our house each week. Some of these will be a major leap for us and others are easier in the summer when we have veggies a plenty. Still, no excuses. 

So the rule we are adopting this week is to eat slowly. Doesn't that sound crazy? If you have kids or work 30 hours a day, it will. Stop and chew and savor.  Apparently, the true joy of any particular food all happens in the first couple of bites.  So we shall slow down to bite, chew and savor at the table starting this week. Buen Suerte. 

------side note----

Hail happens!! Strawberries, onions, garlic, lettuce, radishes, peas and spinach received a major dose of hail here last weekend. EGADS! Luckily, we made it through unscathed.

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Oh to love good food that comes from great produce

My garden is off to an incredible start. Well, nothing is growing in it yet, or even really planted, except for a  pea cover crop and transplanted onions and garlic. However, there is space and soil. And soil. And soil. 13 yards to be exact. I might be considered a wimp but, to my back and now injured shoulder, that is a lot of soil. We now have 3 raised beds (5x18, 5x12 and 4x8), an asparagus bed, a raspberry bed, an artichoke bed, 5 wine barrels, 15 containers and 3 potato boxes. I think that should do it for complete mental overload. We have seeds. Oh, glorious seeds that appear as little gifts in my mailbox as a result of pouring through catalogs for weeks. We have a garden journal and we are ready. Except for the challenge of keeping my almost 3 year old OUT of the garden beds. That is a story for another day. Back to pleasantries.


Last weekend, as I was lingering over the pages of the seed catalogs and dreaming of the fresh, crisp and flavorful produce to come, I realized that it was time for the Farmer's Market. So I rallied the little garden stomper complete with his boots and headed out to grab some tasty treats for the upcoming week. The usual carrots, parsnips, onions, shallots and rich mixes of greens quickly found their way into my bag and then I saw it. At the end of the first aisle, it stared right back at me and dared me to buy it. A 5 lb   flawless, pearly white cauliflower. This was one impressive specimen. So, I bought it and began considering what I could do with it. 


By the time I arrived home, I was wondering if I could pull multiple days of cauliflower off in my household and there the beauty sat in my refrigerator, occupying all of the space on my third shelf. After a glance through Bon Appetit and searching online, I came up with two incredible winners.


1) Cauliflower, Swiss Chard, and Chicken Soup from Epicurious
I added about 1 tablespoon of minced garlic to the onion and a touch of Garam Masala for a little kick. I thought it would last for a couple of days worth of lunches and then I could freeze the rest, but it was all consumed within 3 days. This was a two bowl soup for my dad. This is a pretty good marker since he isn't big on the vegetable scene. Did I mention that my 2 year old ate it for lunch 2 days in a row?

2) Country Captain with Cauliflower and Peas from Bon Appetit
This one was a serious crowd pleaser. We had guests over and everyone had at least two bowlfuls. I added half a can of coconut milk and a little bit o' curry. The spice portion of this requires a well-supplied spice cabinet or the ability to spend a little time in the bulk spices section. Completely worth the effort.


So when you see that perfect specimen of cauliflower that will take up an entire shelf of your fridge, do not pass it by. There is some seriously good food to follow.

Blissed out

Welcome to my blissed out world. My darling husband built me the raised garden boxes of my dreams for Valentine's Day. How did I get so lucky? My garden beds are now a collection of 5x8, 5x18, and 5x12 beds. I have top soil arriving on Wednesday. My seed list runneth over and I have about 2 dozen extra containers for tomatoes and squash.

PANIC! Now I have to make this work. If this garden doesn't produce like crazy, we are going to be one hungry family. So it will. Fingers crossed.

bliss.

Finding Words

I am not the writer who always finds the perfect words. Actually,  I don't think of myself of a writer.  Often I know my words do not come out the right way when they are spoken (and those of you who know me know there are a lot of words that come along with me), but if I can't sort out some of my ideas on "paper" then they seem to become more lucid.

So today I am baffled and I am trying to process how to do it all.  Clean the house. Feed the child. Clean the child. Keep the child happy. Ditto to all of these for the mama and papa. Look. All of that fits in less than two lines of text. If only it were that simple.

Sometimes it feels that when you are trying to simplify things, they only get more complicated.