Harvest Monday: June 22, 2015

Left to right: peas, lacinato kale, beet greens, broccoli greens, broccoli heads, rainbow chard, onion tops.
This week was primarily still just greens but with the exciting new addition of peas and broccoli florets! They were delicious and went into a lentil pasta primavera along with the kale and beet greens. I love deciding what's for dinner from what needs picked. May it continue!

Now you see it................................................................................. now you don't!
When I was harvesting the broccoli I was expecting the stems to be tough enough to have to really snip hard with my shears. Nope, sliced like butter. And, oh man, what that broccoli sweet and tender! Not one trace of bitter. I am trying to figure out how I can get another bed in over at the barn garden so I can grow more broccoli as a fall crop as well as peas. About the peas, this spring was an experiment with intensive planting using pea brush. What I liked was it stayed well contained and it did seem to work well but I just don't think it's for me. I find picking like a scavenger hunt because of the density. Not a fan. So, I am going to find a spot to plant a fall crop of peas to put in the freezer for winter.

Unrelated to harvesting, we finally got the pole bean support up just in time for the plants to start sending up searching vines.



And there has been a mysterious death in the corn patch! As you can see below, it looks like someone snipped the plant off. No other plants were harmed and I saw no signs of insects. Strange. While I was a bit bummed, I took this opportunity to spy on root development...



Cool, huh? Those are some happy roots! Too bad the plant got shanked over night.


Well, have a good week fellow growers!



This post was shared on Harvest Monday at Daphne's Dandelions.

Harvest Monday: June 15, 2015

Lemon Balm and a few Stevia leaves.
This last week I found myself able to harvest a wider variety of things. I don't have pictures of everything but we enjoyed beet greens and lacinato kale that were sauteed and used as a calzone stuffing one night. Sunday night I threw together some pad thai with broccoli leaves and some lemon balm:

I sliced the broccoli greens, stems and all. They taste just like kale.

These are so tender they only take a few minutes to cook.

I added slow cooked moose that was leftover from making enchiladas.

I tossed in some thin sliced lemon balm at the end and garnished with peanuts and a squeeze of lime. Yum!
Later Sunday night while out I picked up some 80 proof clear rum and made a tincture with the remaining lemon balm and a couple stevia leaves for sweetness so the resulting tincture will be more palatable for my kids. I also chose rum instead of vodka because of the kids. I chopped the leaves fairly fine, filled a half pint jar about 2/3 full and then poured the rum over them until they were fully submerged (to the bottom of the jar threads as it happened). I capped it, gave it a little shake and made sure everything was still submerged then labeled it with the herb and date. This will steep for 6-8 weeks in the basement (cool, dark, dry). When time is up I will strain well and store in my cobalt blue tincture bottles I got off the internet. Lemon balm is a wonderful herb for calming nervousness and I will be anxious to see how it effects my oldest son (who has Autism) when he needs some help with his nervous habits while doing school work.

The chamomile is just beginning to bloom and I have begun collecting the flower heads that are fully open (petals stretched toward the ground). I will collect them in a small bowl covered lightly with a dry cloth so dust doesn't get on them. When they are completely dry I will store them in a jar for tea and make a batch of chamomile tincture too.

This coming week the Swiss chard should be ready to make some cuttings from and the peas should be ready for the first picking that weekend! Now the fun begins!

This post was shared at Harvest Monday hosted by Daphne's Dandelions.

Hot Weather Suppers: Lettuce Wraps to the Rescue!

I love Food Network and have watched cooks on there make lettuce wraps for years with a kind of annoyed curiosity. I mean, I get it. You put sandwich guts in lettuce, roll it up and eat it. Until I finally plunked down nearly $5 for a head of bibb butterhead lettuce, I did not appreciate this humble, healthful and quick meal option. I was hooked! It was good timing when I tried it because I had not placed my seed order yet. I chose Blush Butterhead Cos lettuce and have been so impressed by it's growth, flavor and versatility. The outer leaves are like a butterhead and great for wraps while the hearts are more cos or romaine like and are perfect for salads. It's flavor truly is a bit 'buttery' and not watery or bitter. LOVE IT.


This week has been hot and I may have mentioned before how I feel about heat. We are not friends. Add in the humidity and I am a bear. When suppertime rolls around all I want to do it jump into the fridge when I open it to fish out something, anything that doesn't need to be cooked! Well, that lettuce is worth it's weight in gold this week and we are had egg salad lettuce wraps! Our first nearly exclusive homegrown meal ever! It would only have been better had there been a beautiful juicy red tomato to slice over it. Maybe in another month or so because...

I saw my first buds on an Amish Paste yesterday! Not open but there they were, little buds a growin'!


The Lord is certainly blessing the garden this year!

From Average to More Series: Meals

Sorry, again, for the infrequent posts. I guess that's why I have so few followers! But, nevertheless, I really blog for the self expression not for popularity. Not really my style anyway! This post is all about meals after our new little one is born. If you read *this post* you would know that this is a very important and somewhat touchy subject for me. Yes, it's just food, but food is what heals a recovery body, feeds a new baby through the mama and keeps the rest of the family happy. Three times a day I do not want to be stressing out while I would much rather be nursing a new babe or spending the little ones' nap time helping the oldest with school work. As for the grandparents and other family, I would like them to be able to just visit with the kids and not feel obligated to feed us. With a pregnancy that is not going quite how I had planned, this is one thing I can still tackle with in my activity limits!

So, this week I started stocking the freezer with meals and meal ingredients. Earlier this week I accomplished 4 meals of a delicious creamy macaroni and cheese and 5 dozen meatballs. Both I vacuum sealed because they need to last at least another four months. In order for a good number of meals to fit in the freezer that will be in our house I decided to put the macaroni and cheese straight into the bag after mixing and flattened it after sealing. This allows for me to either stack or stand each up without taking up a lot of room. I like an organized freezer! They also thin enough that a mere 60 minutes in a sink of cold water should thaw them completely so no worries if I forget to take one out the night before. There is a method to my madness...

My target amount of meals either complete or partially prepped is 50. Most will be dinner items but some will be quick breakfast items and things to make lunches with when there aren't any leftovers. Let's get to listing!

Fully assembled main dishes:

Creamy Macaroni and Cheese
Orange Chicken Kit
Crockpot Chicken Paprikash Kit
Crockpot Chicken Broccoli Alfrado Kit
Crockpot Chili Kit
Spinach Rice Cassarole
Chicken Olive Rice Cassarole
Crockpot Beef Stew Kit
BBQ Pulled Pork
Lasagnas, vegetable and meat

Cooked meal components:

Meatballs
Browned pub style steak
browned hamburger
Grilled chicken, sliced
Formed/raw burger patties

Breads:

Unbaked rolls
Pizza dough
Sandwich bread
Waffles
Hamburger and Hotdog rolls

Store bought items to have on hand:

Tortillas
Hotdogs
Tomato paste (for quick GF tomato soup!)
Cheeses
Snack foods (nuts, pretzels, raisins, etc.)
Tortilla chips
Salad makings

Baking mixes

Cornbread
Muffins
Pancakes

Amounts of each of these will greatly depend on space, budget and my energy level. I would like to get most of it done in the next couple months before it gets hot and I bigger. Yesterday marked the half way point at 20 weeks and I am excited to now be able to say I am more than half way there! Other than being forced to slow down because of contractions, this is a relatively easy pregnancy so far physically. Emotionally, I seem to be finding a time of digging around in the skeleton closet of my soul. Through my good friend who has been doing myofascial release on me for a few months now I spent the day yesterday at a wellness center and had a full two hour session of MFR with the owner. One hour was on the table and the other in the salt water pool (heaven!) Through letting myself unwind and surrendering to it I realized I am carrying years of hurts, worries, insecurities and physical pain in my not-so-old body. Slowly they have been distorting my body layer by layer. After the first unwinding I was considerably more comfortable! After 2 hours of therapy and a good nights sleep I woke up for the first time in over a month without my round ligaments (they support the uterus) screaming. I so look forward to continuing this exploration. And just to clarify... I realize to some of my fellow Christians this may sound 'spiritually dangerous'. To this I say, God made my body and the mysterious and awesome fascial system that surrounds every muscle and organ! He also designed it to tell us when we are hurt, stressed and sick as well as how to fix it. For me it takes nothing more than some strong hands to start a stretch and a clear prayerful mind to correct what needs to be. Just like yoga can be focused on Christ or Buddha, so too can this be done in His Glory or not. So don't be afraid because God is who is doing the real healing for me!

Tune in later for more of the series!

Til next time.