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marlingardener's Blog

Farm living and laughing


I'm Entitled!

Category: Vegetable gardens | Posted: Mon Apr 25, 2016 3:17 pm

It seems that more and more people feel they are "entitled". I just love the "I'm more important than you, so hop to it and get me what I want" attitude.

Last night, at 8:30 on a Sunday night, a woman pulled into our driveway. When we answered the door she said, "Don't get too close, I'm sick." Okay, but this isn't a clinic.
She wanted to buy some honey to put in her tea to soothe her sore throat. This sore throat just appeared suddenly? You couldn't make it to the grocery or Walmart earlier to get medicine? When informed that we didn't have any honey, and that if we did harvest honey it would be in late June, she replied, "But my throat is sore now!" Somehow we didn't feel all that sympathetic.

Then there was the guy that kept bugging us about our garden. "I drove by and them tomatoes looked awful good. I'd take a few of those." I informed him that if he wanted tomatoes he might plant a few himself. He got huffy, and informed me that because we had so many we ought to be "neighborly" and give him some. He isn't a neighbor; he's known all over town as a moocher; and any extra tomatoes were earmarked for the food pantry. He'll be back this year wanting something out of the garden. I should have planted the veggie gardens where they couldn't be seen!

We hosted a garden tour when we lived in town. The roses were blooming their heads off, the flower beds were all tidied, and we had iced tea for visitors. I was thoroughly enjoying talking about plants with folks. One lady asked, "Will those roses last for two days?". I told her that the Esperanza was a good rose, but tended to shatter after being fully open for a day or so. Then she asked, "What rose do you have that I can cut for my son to give his prom date as a corsage?" I couldn't believe the sheer nerve! I told her that a florist in town had lovely corsages, but charged for them. Sonny might want to get a job to earn some money!

We had a neighbor in town that called and asked if she could have a head of broccoli. We had plenty of broccoli, so I said she was most welcome to a head of broccoli. I went out to the garden later and she had clean-cut every broccoli head we had. When I asked her what she did with all that broccoli I had grown, she said she shared it with her family. There wasn't a garden among them. That was when I learned you never, never let anyone into your garden unsupervised.

And then there is the little, 90-ish lady at the food pantry that follows me down the aisle, asking if I have any of that yellow squash. She loves crookneck squash. If I do have some, she wants it, and she wants it right then, out of my basket. The squash has to be weighed before it's distributed because the pantry has to keep records on community donations. She stands right there and as soon as the squash is weighed, she points to the one she wants. That's fine with me - when you are 90-ish and enthused about fresh food, that's not entitlement, that's heart-warming!



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Using what you have--and harvested!

Category: Vegetable gardens | Posted: Wed Jun 12, 2013 7:44 pm

Summer Recipes

Once summer hits, I don't get much of a chance to spend a day in the kitchen. Mowing, weeding, planting and harvesting, making sure the hens are happy, all these take up most of my day. However, once in a while I get to have a day in the kitchen.
First, I go to the vegetable garden and pick what is ripe. Then, into the kitchen to wash, refrigerate, or prepare the harvest. One of my favorite things to fix early in the morning for that night's dinner is Green Bean/New Potato Salad.

Green Bean/New Potato Salad (serves four as a salad, two as a *lunch)

1 lb. new potatoes, red, yellow, whatever you have that are about as big around as a quarter, washed
¼ lb. green beans, bottoms and stem ends removed, and washed
1/8 c. mixed fresh herbs (parsley, thyme, oregano are my favorites, but use what you have)\
1 tblsp. extra-virgin olive oil, and a little extra
juice and zest of ½ lemon
fine sea salt and freshly ground black pepper

Simmer potatoes in salted water until fork-tender. Drain in colander. Cook beans in salted water over high heat until crisp-tender (they should break, not bend). Add to colander with potatoes and drain well.

In a large bowl, toss together the beans, potatoes, herbs, oil, and zest. Add sea salt and black pepper to taste. Add extra olive oil if needed. Refrigerate until an hour before serving. Remove from fridge and let come to room temperature, or slightly cooler. Toss well, and add a bit more fresh parsley, coarsely torn.

*If serving for lunch, you can add some thinly sliced ham or grilled chicken breast

I like to get my herbs picked early—when the dew is off, but before the heat of the day hits them. I take a flat basket out and cut basil, parsley, marjoram, oreganos (note this is plural, more explanation to come), and rosemary. The flat basket is so I can keep them separate (marjoram looks a lot like Greek oregano and I have been known to confuse the two!). If I'm going to use any of these herbs within the next two days, I just stick them in a glass of water in the refrigerator. If they won't be used that soon, I prepare them for storage. Basil and parsley get chopped fine, a bit of vegetable oil added to the basil and a bit of water to the parsley, then they are put in one tablespoon dabs on a piece of waxed paper, frozen, and then transferred to a freezer container. Both retain their flavor, and although the basil darkens a bit, it still is perfectly acceptable in any cooked dish. Marjoram is hung to dry along with the Greek oregano and the Mexican oregano in a spot out of direct light, but with good air circulation. Mexican oregano has the same taste as the Italian or Greek oregano, just a bit moreso. I like it because it is very hardy and can withstand our heat/humidity. The Italian oregano tends to die out, and the Greek loses its flavor when stressed.

Our sweet corn is ripe, and I'm trying to keep up with it. Other than freezing it, or serving it every other night as corn-on-the-cob, I've found that using it in Southwestern Eggrolls is a good way to use up the small amounts left from freezing.
(You will notice that amounts are not noted in this recipe. It's free-form in that you use what you have, add to your taste, and enjoy. I do recommend that for the timid of palate, you go easy on the jalapeño peppers).

Southwestern Eggrolls

Flour tortillas (buy them. Believe me, it isn't worth trying to make your own!)
hamburger
canned diced tomatoes, or fresh tomatoes, diced
corn, off the cob
whole pickled jalapeño peppers, with seeds removed
canned black beans (again, buy them canned!)
ground cumino
chili powder
salt and pepper

In a large skillet, brown the hamburger mixed with the cumino, chili powder and salt and pepper. Add the beans, tomatoes, and corn. Warm the tortillas briefly so they are flexible.
In the middle of each tortilla, place a generous tablespoonful of the hamburger mix, roll the tortilla once, fold the ends in, and finish rolling. Place in a greased shallow dish. When all the eggrolls are in the dish, place in a 350° oven for about 20 minutes. Remove, cool slightly, and serve with a salad of shredded lettuce, tomato, and red cabbage with a vinaigrette dressing.

Dessert is always a challenge. Texas doesn't provide a lot of fruits, and desserts tend to be on the heavy, sweet side. We like to have a mixed fruit (pear, fig, and blackberry) compote.

Mixed Fruit Compote

Whatever fruits you have that are fresh and seasonal, wash and drain. Put them in a bowl, add to a quart of fruit about ¼ cup of white sugar, and ½ tsp. vanilla extract. Mix gently so as not to puree the fruit, and refrigerate for at least an hour.
If you want to get adventuresome, add a bit of sweet white wine (Moscato) or about a tablespoon of orange juice concentrate, undiluted. The concentrate goes better with melons than with berries.
If you want to get really wild, take a small watermelon, cut four or five plugs, inject Tequila or Vodka into the plug holes, and serve small portions to those over 18 years of age.

Tonight we are having honey-glazed salmon, fresh baby carrots and red onions salad with a soy sauce/olive oil/black pepper marinade, baguette with roasted red pepper tapenade, and a very traditional strawberry shortcake for dessert. I had so much fun in the kitchen today!



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Vampires, beware!

Category: Vegetable gardens | Posted: Wed Jul 13, 2011 3:54 pm

There will be no vampires within five miles of Red Gate Farm! I have been cleaning garlic the past two mornings (I do it in the morning to let the aroma disperse before my husband gets home from work and faints).
We dedicated a bed to garlic this year, and I may have planted a tad too much. We hung it in the barn to dry, and now it's ready to have the outer paper removed and put into storage, one way or another. When half of the tops are falling over and yellowed, we pull the garlic; wash it off to get rid of the dirt in the roots; tie three or four heads together on each end of a long string; and hang the string over a rope stretched between the barn rafters. With our humidity we let the garlic hang about six weeks. The test for readiness is to take a clove and squeeze it between your thumb and forefinger. If your fingers are damp, wait. If the clove doesn't have enough juice to dampen your fingers, it's ready to be cleaned and stored.
I freeze garlic. My favorite, although labor intensive way, is to freeze garlic puree. Cloves are peeled, put into my mini-food processor and chopped fine (I could do this with a knife, but laziness prevails!) and enough vegetable oil is added to moisten the garlic. Then the garlic puree is put into freezer containers, labeled, and frozen. It will last up to two years if you don't have a garlic loving family. The puree can be scraped out, even while frozen. I never thaw the puree--just grab a spoon and dig out what I need.
Garlic cloves, peeled, can be frozen whole. It's really great to be able to pull out three or four cloves when you are in the middle of a recipe and realize you haven't prepared garlic for it.
Whole heads of garlic can be frozen, also. In this case the heads are not peeled--just remove the outer paper until you get down to the "clean" and put into freezer bags or containers (I prefer bags so I can squeeze out the air) and freeze.
We also roast garlic and make roasted garlic butter to sell at the winery down the road, and to our own valued customers (the ones who pay cash).
Roasting garlic is really easy. Take a head of garlic, cut off the top 1/4" or just enough to expose the ends of the cloves, place the heads in muffin pans or any shallow baking pan (8" cake pans do well, but don't plan on baking a cake in that pan anytime soon). Drizzle with olive oil, cover with aluminum foil, and bake at 400 degrees for 30-45 minutes (depends on the age of the garlic.)This is great squeezed on toasted French bread, added to oven-baked potatoes, or mixed with chopped tomatoes and spread on Foccaccia bread as an appetizer.
Even though the local vampires hate our garlic, we sure enjoy it!

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planting and watering

Category: Vegetable gardens | Posted: Fri Feb 18, 2011 3:24 pm

I just finished watering the seed beds in the vegetable gardens. So far only the spring spinach is poking its head up, but the seeds were only planted four days ago.
Thank heavens for our big water containers that collect rainwater off the barn roof. I don't have to lug water nearly as far as previously, and having it near to hand, I do a better and more generous job of watering!
This afternoon I'll be setting a plank between two sawhorses, cutting and sorting seed potatoes, and putting them out to heal over. I'll set the plank and sawhorses under the big hackberry tree so the potatoes will be shaded, but have great air circulation (winds are 10-15 mph today, which for Texas is a gentle breeze).
The hens will keep an eye on me while I'm working. I have six beady-eyed supervisors!

This blog entry has been viewed 427 times




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